Nº. 5*, sºlº Nº. ººlºº. 10 Cººl's-
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PAUL WARG AS, º
| |º.
º AND OTHER STORIES. Eſº
- º
º By HUGH CONWAY. | º
|
º
| º
ſº N.
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º - . º
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-- - - - -
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17. To












C O N T E N T S .
PAGE.
PAUL WARGAS . ſº * tº tº º tº ſº * 3
A DEAD MAN’S FACE . tº º tº e g , 26
JULIAN WANNECR te tº tº * e . 43 -
THE “BICHWA’” g e º e tº * º . 66
CHEWTON.—ABBOT . . º tº º . . . 85
PAUL VARGAS : A MYSTERY.
DURING the course of my professional career I have met
with many strange things. The strangest, the most in-
comprehensible of all, I am about to narrate.
Its effect upon me was such, that, without pausing for
investigation or inquiry, I turned and fled from the town
—even from the country in which I witnessed it. It was
only when I was some thousands of miles away that I re-
covered from my terror sufficiently to think calmly over
what had happened. Then I vowed a self-imposed vow
that for many years I would mention the matter to no one.
My reasons for secrecy were these:
In the first place, I was, as I am now, a doctor. Now I
am fairly well to do, and have little anxiety about the
future. Then I was struggling hard to make a living.
Such being the case, I argued that the telling of an incredi-
ble, monstrous tale—the truth of which, however. I
should be bound to uphold in spite of everything and
everybody—would do little toward enhancing my reputa-
tion for common-sense, or improving my professional
prospects.
In the second place I determined to wait, in the hope
that, some time or another, matters might be explained
to my satisfaction.
So it is that for twenty years I have kept my own coun-
sel. My first reason for silence no longer exists; while,
as to the second, I have now given up hoping for an elu-
cidation. The one person who might make things clear I
have never seen since.
Although nearly a third of a man’s allotted years has
passed, there need be no fear of my magnifying or mysti-
fying anything. The circumstances are still fresh in my
mind; moreover, in the fear that memory should play me
false, I wrote down at the time all that happened—wrote
| 482 il
4. * PAUL WARGAS.
it with a minuteness and technical detail which would be
out of place here.
My story concerns a man whom I saw but thrice in my
life-time; or I should rather say, saw during three brief
periods of my life-time. We were medical students to-
gether. His name—I do not change it——was Paul Vargas.
He was a tall, dark-haired, pale-faced young man, strik-
ingly handsome in his own peculiar style. His nose was
aquiline and well-formed: the broad forehead betokened
great intellectual power, and the mouth, chin, and strong
square jaw all spoke of strength of will and resolution.
But had all these features been irregular and unpleasing,
the eyes alone would have redeemed the face from plain-
ness. More luminous, eloquent, expressive eyes I have
never seen. Their dark beauty was enhanced by a disten-
tion of the pupil, seldom met with when the sight is per-
fect as was Wargas’s. They possessed in a remarkable de-
gree the power of reflecting the owner’s emotions. Bright-
as they always were, they sparkled with his mirth, they
glittered with his scorn, and when he seemed trying to
read the soul of the man he looked at, their concentrated
gaze was such as few could bear with perfect ease.
This is a description of Paul Vargas as I remember
him when first we met. I may add that in age he was
two years my senior; in intellect a hundred.
Of Vargas's family and antecedents his fellow-students
knew nothing. That he was of foreign extraction was
clearly shown by his name and general appearance. It
was supposed that Jewish blood ran in his veins, but this
Was pure conjecture; for the young man was as reticent
Concerning his religious opinions as he was about every-
thing else connected with his private history.
I can not say he was my friend. Indeed, I believe he
had no friends, and I think I may add, no enemies. He
was too polite and obliging to make foes; although there
was usually a calm air of superiority about all he said and
did, which at times rather nettled such an unlicked lot of
cubs as most of us were in those days.
Yet, if we were not bosom friends, for some months I
saw a great deal of Paul Vargas. He was an indefati-
gable student, and, as if the prescribed course of study
was not enough for him, was engaged during his leisure
hours on some original and delicate experiments, con-
2-
&
PAUL WARGAS. 5
ducted simply for his own pleasure. Wanting some one
to assist him, he was good enough to choose me. Why, I
never knew. I flattered myself it was because he thought
me cleverer than my fellows; but it may have been that he
thought me duller and less likely to anticipate or forestall
his discoveries.
Under this arrangement I found myself two or three
nights in every week at his rooms. From his lavish ex-
penditure in furniture and scientific apparatus, it was clear
that Vargas had means of his own. His surroundings
were very different from those with which the ordinary
medical student must be contented.
All our fraternity looked upon Paul Vargas as abnor-
mally clever; and when the closer intercourse began be-
tween us, I found at first no reason to differ from the
general opinion. He seemed to have all the works of
medical and surgical authorities at his finger-ends. He
acquired fresh knowledge without effort. He was an ac-
complished linguist. Let the book or pamphlet be En-
glish, French, or German, he read it with equal ease, and,
moreover, had the valuable knack of extracting the gist
of the matter, while throwing aside any worthless lumber
which surrounded it. From my average intellectual sta-
tion I could but admire and envy his rapid and brilliant
flights.
He made my visits to him pleasant ones. Our work
over for the evening, it was his custom to keep me for an
hour or two smoking and chatting; but our talk was not
the confidence between two friends. Indeed, it was little
more than scientific gossip, and the occasional airing of
certain theories; for Vargas, if silent about himself and
his private affairs, at least expressed his opinions on the
world in general openly and freely.
He had resolved to become a specialist. He poured out
the vials of his scorn on the ordinary general practitioner
—the marvelous being who, with equal confidence, is ready
to grapple with fever, gout, consumption, blindness, deaf-
ness, broken bones, and all the other ills and accidents
which afflict mankind.
“It is absurd!” he said. “As well expect the man
who made the lenses for that microscope to make the
brass work also—as well ask the author of this treatise to
print and bind it! I tell you one organ, one bit of the
6 PAUL WARGAS.
microcosm called man, demands a life's study before the
cleverest dare to say he understands it.” -
Certainly the organ selected by Vargas for his special
study was the most complex and unsatisfactory of all—
the brain. Any work, new or obsolete, which treated
upon it—anything which seemed to demonstrate the con-
nection between mind and body, he examined with in-
tense eagerness. The writings and speculations of the
veriest old charlatans were not beneath his notice. The
series of experiments we were conducting were to the
same end. I need not describe them, but something of
their nature may be guessed at, when I say it was long be-
forc the time when certain persons endeavored to persuade
the world that scientists were fiends in human shape, who
inflicted unheard-of tortures on the lower orders of ani-
mals, solely to gratify a lust for cruelty.
We had been engaged on our researches for some weeks
—Vargas's researches I should cal) them, as by this time
my conjectures as to what he aimed at had come to an end.
I grew tired of groping in the dark, and was making up
my mind to tell him he must enlighten me or seek other
assistance. Besides, I began to think that after all my
first estimate of his ability was not quite correct.
He certainly talked at times in the strangest and most
erratic way. Some of his speculations and theories were
enough, if true, to upset all the recognized canons of
science. So wild, indeed, that at times I wondered if,
like mally others, his genius was allied to madness.
At this time a wave of superstition crossed the country
—one of those periodical waves which, whether called
mesmerism, chairvoyance, electro-biology, spiritualism or
thought-reading, rise, culminate, and fall in precisely the
S8. In 16 in 8,111) ©l’.
Paul Vargas, although ridiculing the new craze, read
everything that touched upon it, even down to the penny-
a-liner's accounts of mysterious occurrences.
“The truth may be found anywhere,” he said; “if
there is a diamond in the ground the most ignorant boor
may, unwittingly, dig it out.”
One night I found him in a strange, preoccupied mood.
He did his work mechanically, and I could see that his
thoughts kept straying away. We finished earlier than
*
!
}
Å
i
wº 12 ATL WARGAS. y
usual, and for a while he sat opposite to me in silence.
Then he raised his eyes and asked me a question.
• What the question was 1 have never been able to re-
member. I have racked my brain again and again, but
have never recalled the purport of it. All I know is, it
was, from a scientific point of view, so supremely ridicu-
lous that I burst into a peal of laughter.
For a moment Paul Wargas's eyes positively flamed.
Feeling that our relations were not friendly enough to ex-
cuse the indiscretion on my part, I hastened to apologize.
He was himself again directly, and, with his calm, supe-
rior smile on his lips, he assured me I had done nothing
which demanded an apology. He then changed the con-
versation, and during the remainder of my stay talked as
rationally and instructively as the most methodical old
lecturer in the schools.
He bade me good-night with his usual politeness, and
sent me away glad that my ill-timed mirth had not of-
fended him. Yet the next morning I received a note
saying he had decided to discontinue that particular
series of researches in which I had given him such inval-
uable assistance.
I was somewhat pettled at this summary dismissal.
Wargas asked me to his rooms no more, and he was not
the man to call upon uninvited. So, except in the schools
and in the streets, I saw nothing more of him.
It was predicted by those who should know best that
Paul Vargas would be the scholar of the year. I alone
dared to doubt it. In spite of his great talents and capac-
ity for work, I fancied there was that in his nature which
would defeat these high hopes. There was something
wrong—something eccentric about him. In plain English,
I believed, if not mad now, Vargas would end his days in
a mad-house.
IHowever, he never went up for his last examination.
He had a surprise in store for us. Just before the final
trial in which he was to reap such laurels he vanished.
He went without a word of warning—went bag and bag-
gage. He left no debts behind him. He defrauded no
one. He simply, without giving any reason for his de-
parture, went away and left no trace behind him. Some
time afterward it was reported that he had come into a
8 PAUL WARGAS.
large fortune. This explanation of his conduct was a
plausible one, and was generally accepted as correct.
After the nine days’ wonder had died away, I, like
others, ceased to think about the missing man. The
years went by, I passed my examination creditably, and
was very proud and hopeful when duly authorized to
place M.D. after my name.
I have narrated how I first met Paul Vargas. I had no
expectation of again seeing him, nor any great wish to do
so. But we met a second time. It was in this wise.
When I took my medical degree I was far from being
the staid, sober man I now am. Having a little money of
- my own I resolved to see something of the world before I
settled down. I was not rich enough to be quite idle, so
I began by making one or two voyages as doctor to an
emigrant ship. I soon grew tired of this occupation, and
being in England, but not yet cured of roving, I cast
about for something professional to take me abroad. I
had not long to wait. Cholera was raging in the East.
A fund had been raised to send out a few English doctors:
I tendered my services, which were accepted.
At Constantinople I was detained several days waiting
instructions. One day, while idly strolling through the
streets, I came face to face with Paul Vargas.
Although he wore the fez and was in appearance more
Turkish than English, I knew him at once and accosted
him by his name. Surprised as he looked at my saluta-
tion, he had evidently no wish to deny his identity. As
Soon as he recognized me he greeted me cordially, and
having learned what brought me to Constantinople, in-
sisted that I should pay him a visit. I willingly consented
to do so. I was most curious to ascertain why he had
thrown up the profession so suddenly. The day being
. young I started then and there with him for his
1OIſle.
Naturally, almost my first question was why he left us
So mysteriously.
“I had my reasons,” he said.
“They must have been powerful ones.”
He turned his dark eyes full upon me.
“They were,” he said. “I grew sick of the life. After
all, what did it mean? Work, work, work, only to find
out how little one really knew or ever could know by
PAUL WARGAS. 9
study. Why, in one half hour I learned more by pure
chance than any one else has yet dreamed of.”
, I questioned him as to the meaning of his arrogant as-
sertion, but he evaded me with all his old adroitness;
then we reached his house, and I forgot all Save admira-
tion.
His house was just outside the city. House! it might
be called a small palace. Here he lived in true Oriental
luxury. Judging from the profusion which surrounded
him, and from the lavish scale on which his establishment
was conducted, I felt sure that the report of his having
inherited a fortune was quite correct. All that money
could buy, all that an intellectual Sybarite could desire,
seemed to be his. Books, paintings, statuary, costly fur-
niture, rich tapestries, the choicest dishes, and the rarest
wines. Only a man in the enjoyment of a princely income
could live in such style and splendor.
He led me from room to room, until he opened the
door to one more beautifully garnished than any of the
others. A girl was sitting at the window. As we en-
tered she sprung forward with a cry of joy, and threw her
arms round Vargas.
He returned her passionate embrace; kissed her, whis-
pered some words of love in a strange, musical language,
then gently disengaging himself, said—
“Myrrha, welcome an old friend of mine, an English-
man.” -
She turned toward me. Her beauty absolutely dazzled
me. She was tall and majestic: coil upon coil of jet black
hair crowned her well-poised, queenly head. Her cheek
had the clear brown tinge of the south. Her eyes were
glorious. Never before had I seen such a splendid creat-
ure. The perfection of her form, the look of splendid
health and glowing vitality would have been enough to
make her an object of the greatest interest to any one of
my own profession.
The bright colors of her rich dress well became her.
Although in years she was but a girl, the gold and jewels
which covered her hands, arms, and neck, seemed quite
in keeping with her beauty. As I looked at her I felt that
Paul Vargas's earthly paradise ought to be complete.
She came forward with unembarrassed grace, smiled a
bright Smile, and giving me her hand, bade me welcome
10 PAUL WARGAS.
in English, correct enough, although tempered by a slight
foreign accent.
After a little while Wargas suggested that I should walk
round the gardens with him. As we left the room, the
look that passed between him and the girl was quite
enough to show the complete love they bore each other.
“Your wife, I suppose?” I said when we were alone.
She is very beautiful.”
“My love, my life, my very soul!” he exclaimed, pas-
sionately. “But not my wife in your sense of the word.”
I said no more, feeling the subject was a delicate one
to handle. Who Myrrha was, or why she should live, un-
married, with him, was none of my business.
I had not been long in his society before I discovered
that Paul Vargas was, in some ways, much changed—I
may say improved. He seemed altogether a better sort of
fellow than the man I had known of old. No less polite,
but more natural. His invariably charming manners were
enhanced by the addition of something like friendliness.
In an hour’s time I felt that I had made more progress
with him than I had in the whole of our previous inter-
course. I attributed this change to the power of love,
for wife or no wife, it was plain that the man loved his
beautiful companion with all the force of his strong
nature. -
Yet it shocked me to discover that the old ambition was
dead. I mourned that such a highly gifted man could at
his age withdraw completely from the battle-field, and
Seem only to strive to make life as soft and sensuous as it
might be possible for wealth to make it. I spoke once or
twice to this effect, but the darkness of his brow and the
shortness of his answers told me I trod on forbidden
ground. For his own sake I hoped that the day would
come when he would weary of his voluptuous existence
and long for the bracing tonics of hard work and the
struggle for success. *
I was detained in Constantinople three days longer.
Vargas pressed me to take up my abode with him. It
Was not worth while to do this, as at any moment I might
be ordered away. But I spent several hours of each day
with him. He was always glad to see me. Perhaps the
Sweetness of his seclusion was already beginning to pall
*
2^
*.
PAUL VARGAS. 11
upon bim, and the occasional sight of a commonplace,
work-a-day face was a welcome one.
The route came at last. I bade my friend good-bye,
and sighed as I thought how grimly the scenes of death
and misery to which I was about to pass would contrast
with the Elysium I was quitting. Vargas accompanied
me to the steamer by which the first part of the journey
was to be made.
“Do you mean to live here all your life?” I asked.
“No, I shall grow weary of it—very soon, I expect.”
** And then P”
“Then I shall sell everything and try another land.”
“You must be rich to live as you do.”
“I was rich. I had sixty thousand pounds—-but in the
last year or two I have spent two-thirds of my fortune.”
“Two-thirds of your capital! What folly!”
He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled that old superior
smile. Then a deep gloom settled on his handsome face.
“I have plenty left—plenty to last my time,” he said.
“What nonsense you talk! What do you mean by your
time?”
He leaned toward me, placed his hand on my arm, and
looked at me with an expression in his eyes which thrilled
I]] G. *
“I mean this,” he said slowly, “I could, if I chose,
tell you the exact day, if not the exact hour, at which I
shall die. You see how I live, so can understand that if
I have money to last my time, that time is short.”
“My dear fellow,” I exclaimed, “ have you any com-
plaint—any secret malady?”
“None—I am hale and sound as you. Nevertheless, I
shall die as I have said.”
His absolute conviction impressed me more than I cared
to show. “A man must die of something specific,” I
said. “If you can predict your illness, can you not take
steps to prolong your life?”
“Prolong my life!” he echoed as one in a dream.
“Yes, I can prolong my life—but I will not.”
I could only conclude that Paul Vargas meditated self-
destruction. º
“Why should you not care to live?” I urged.
“Care to live!” he cried bitterly. “Man, I revel in
life! I have youth, strength, love—fame I could have if
12 PAUL WARGAS.
I wished for it. Yet it is because I may have fewer
temptations to prolong my life that I am squandering my
wealth—that I let ambition beckon in wain—that, when
the moment draws near, I shall forsake the woman I
love.”
It was as I had guessed years ago—Paul Wargas was
mad!
He sunk into moody silence, broken only when the mo-
ment of my departure came. Then he roused himself,
shook hands with me, and bade me good speed.
“We shall meet again some day,” I said cheerfully.
His dark eyes gleamed with all the old scorn they were
wont to express when any one whose words were not
worth listening to opposed him in argument.
“We shall meet no more,” he said, curtly and coldly,
turning away and retracing his steps.
He was wrong. We met again!
I worked through the cholera; saw many awful sights;
gained much experience, and a certain aniount of praise.
On my way home I inquired for Vargas, and found he
had disposed of his house and its entire contents, depart-
ing no one knew whither.
Two years went by. I was still unsettled—still holding
rowing commissions. I blush to say that I had been at-
tacked with the gold fever, and in my haste to grow rich
had lost in mining nearly all I possessed. I cured myself
before the disease grew chronic, but, ashamed to return
all but penniless to England, I sojourned for awhile in
one of those mushroom towns of America—towns which
Spring up almost in a night, wherever there is a chance
of making money.
I rather liked the life. It was rough, but full of inter-
est. The town held several thousand inhabitants, so there
was plenty of work for me and another doctor. If our
patients were in luck we were well paid for our services;
if, as was usually the case, they were out of luck, we re-
ceived nothing, and were not so foolish as to expect more.
Still, taking one with another, I found the healing art
paid me much better than mining. My studies of human
nature were certainly extended at New Durham. I met
with all sorts of characters, from the educated gentleman
who had come out to win wealth by the sweat of his brow
down to the lowest ruffian who lived by plundering his
PAUL WARGAS. 13
own kind, and my experiences were such that when I did
return to England I was competent to write as an authori-
ty on the proper treatment of gun-shot wounds.
One evening I met the other doctor. We were the best
of friends. As our community was at present constituted
there was no occasion for professional rivalry. Our hands
were always full of work. Indeed, if we maneuvered at
all against each other, it was with the view of shunting off
a troublesome patient.
“I wish you’d look in at Webber’s when you pass,”
said Dr. Jones. “There’s a patient of mine there. He's
going to die, but for the life of me I can’t tell what ails
him.”
I promised to call and give my opinion on the case.
Webber’s was a mixture of drinking-bar, gambling-hell,
and lodging-house. Its patrons were not of the most
select class, and the scuffles and rows that went on there
made the house a disgrace even to New Durham. By this
time I was too well known to fear insult even in the lowest
den of infamy, so I entered boldly and asked to be con-
ducted to Dr. Jones’s patient.
A blowsy, sodden-faced, vicious-looking woman led me
upstairs and turned the handle of a door.
“He ought to be dead by now,” she said. “If the
doctor can’t cure him, or he don’t die in two days, out he
bundles.
I walked into the room, taking no notice of the brutal
threat. There, on a wretched apology for a bed—with a
look of heartrending despair in his large dark eyes, lay
Paul Vargas!
I thought I must be dreaming. The man I had seen
little more than two years ago, lapped in absurd luxury—
spending money like water to gratify every taste, every
desire—now lying in this wretched den, and if Jones’s
view of the case was correct, dying like a dog! I shud-
dered with horror and hastened to his side. *-
He knew me. He was conscious. I could tell that
much by the light which leaped into his eyes as I ap-
proached.
“Wargas, my poor fellow,” I said, “what does this
mean?”
As I spoke, I remembered how he had predicted his own
death. He must have remembered it too, for although he
ºf **
14 f’AltJL WARGAS.
*s
made no reply, and lay still as a log, there was a look in
his eyes which might express the satisfaction felt by a suc-
cessful prophet, when one who has laughed at his forecast
is bound, at last, to realize its correctness.
I addressed him again and again. Not a word did he
answer; so at last I was compelled to think that his
power of speech was gone. Then I went to work to
thoroughly inspect him and ascertain the nature of his
complaint. *
I sounded him, tested every organ, exãmined every
limb; but like my colleague was utterly unable to find the
cause of his illness. Of course I labored under the great
disadvantage of being unable to get a word of description
of his pains from the patient himself. I satisfied myself
that he had absolutely lost the power of moving his limbs.
This utter helplessness made me fancy the spine might be
broken, but it was not so. Paralysis suggested itself, but
the obviously clear state of the mind as shown by those
eloquent eyes was sufficient to send this idea to the back-
ground. At last I gave up, fairly baffled. I could give
no name to his ailment—could fix no seat for it.
His bodily weakness was great; but weakness must be
caused by something. What was that something? So far
as my knowledge went there was no specific disease; yet
I was as certain as Dr. Jones that Paul Vargas, if not dy-
ing, was about to die. *
And underneath us was the din of drunken men and
unsexed women. Ribaldry and blasphemy, oaths and
shrieks, laughter and shouts, rose and penetrated the frail
planks which bounded the small, dirty room in which the
sufferer lay. At all cost he must be moved to more com-
fortable quarters.
I went down-stairs and questioned the Webbers as to
how he came there. All they knew was that late one night
the man entered the house and asked for a bed. He was
accommodated with one, and for two days no one troubled
about him. Then some one looked him up and found him
in his present deplorable state. One of the inmates who
had a grain of kindness left, fetched Dr. Jones. That
was all they knew of the affair.
I managed to secure the assistance of four strong and
almost sober men. ... I paid what reckoning was due at
Webber's, then set about removing the poor fellow. He
_PAUL WARGAS. lò
was carried carefully down-stairs, laid on an extemporized
stretcher, and borne to my house, which, fortunately, was
only a few hundred yards away. During the transit he
was perfectly conscious, but he spoke no word, nor, by any
act of his own, moved hand or foot. I saw him safely in-
stalled in my own bed, and having satisfied myself that no
immediate evil was likely to result from the removal, went
out to look for some one to nurse him.
I was obliged to seek extraneous aid, as my household
consisted of an old negro who came of a morning to cook
my breakfast and tidy up the place. Except for this I
was my own servant.
Decent women in a place like New Durham are few and
far between, but at last I found one to whom I thought I
might venture to intrust my patient, and who, for a
handsome consideration, consented to act as sick-nurse.
I took her back with me and instructed her to do what
seemed to me best for the poor fellow. She was to give
him, as often as he would take them, brandy and water
and some nourishing spoon meat.
Wargas was now lying with his eyes shut. Except that
he undoubtedly breathed he might be dead. I watched
him for more than an hour, yet found his state a greater
puzzle than ever. So utterly at sea I was that I dared
not prescribe for him, fearing I might do more harm than
ood.
g It was growing late. I had a long, hard day before me
on the morrow. I had to ride many miles, and doubted
whether I could get back the same day. Yet, late as it
was, I did not retire to rest before I had thoroughly ex-
amined the clothes and other personal matters which I
had brought from Webber's with the sick man. I hoped
to come across the name of some friend to whom I could
write and make his state known. Money or articles of
value I had little expectation of finding—such things
would soon disappear frow the person of any one who lay
dying at Webber’s!
The only scrap of writing I met with was a letter in a
woman’s hand. It was short, and although every word
showed passionate love, it ended in a manner which told
me that a separation had taken place.
“You may leave me,” it ran; “you may hide yourself
in the furthest corner of the world: yet when the moment
16 PAUL WARGAS,
you know of comes and you need me, I shall find you.
Till then farewell.” }
On the fly-leaf was penciled, in Wargas's peculiar hand-
writing: “If I can find the strength of will to leave her,
my beloved, surely I can die in Secret and in silence.”
There was no envelope, no date; no address; no signa-
ture to the letter. All it showed me was that Paul Vargas
still clung to his morbid prophecy—that he had made up
his mind he was to die, and it may be had been driven into
his present state by a strange monomania. The mystery
was—why should he leave the woman he loved and come
bere to die alone and uncared for? It was, of course, just
possible that in some way he had learned I was in New
Durham, and when illness overtook him was making his
way to me.
This could only be explained by the man himself, and
he was without power of speech.
After giving the nurse strict instructions to call me if
her charge's condition showed any change, I went to the
bed I had rigged up in my sitting-room, and in a minute
was fast asleep. After I had slept for about three hours
a knocking at my door aroused me. I opened it and
found the nurse standing outside. Her bonnet and cloak
were on, and by the light of the lamp she carried with a
tremulous hand I saw that her face was ghastly pale, but,
nevertheless, wearing a defiant, injured look.
“What’s the matter?” I asked
“I am going home,” she said, sullenly.
“Going home! Nonsense! Go back to the sick-room.
Is the man worse?”
“I wouldn’t go back for a hundred pounds—I’m going
home.”
Thinking some sudden whim had seized her, I expostu.
lated and commanded and entreated. She was inflexible.
Then I insisted upon knowing the meaning of such ex-
traordinary conduct. For a while she refused to give me
any explanation. At last, she said she had been fright-
ened to death. It was the man’s eyes, she added, with a
shiver. . He had opened them and stared at her. The
moment I heard this I ran to the room, fearing the worst.
I found nothing to excite alarm; Vargas was quiet, ap-
parently sleeping. So I returned to the stupid woman,
*
PAUL WARGAS. 17
“x.
rated her soundly, and bade her go back and resume her
duties.
Not shel Horses would not drag her into that room
again—money would not bribe her to re-enter it. The
man had looked at her with those fearful eyes of his until
she felt that in another moment she must go mad or die.
Why did she not move out of the range of his vision? She
had done so; but it was all the same, she knew he was
still looking at her—he was looking at her even now—
she would never get away from that look until she was out
of the house.
By this time the foolish creature was trembling like a
leaf, and, moreover, had worked herself up to a pitch
bordering on hysteria. Even if I could have convinced
her of her folly, she would have been useless for nursing
purposes, so I told her to get out of the house as soon as
she liked; then, sulkily drawing on my clothes, went to
spend the rest of the night by Vargas's bed.
His pulse still beat with feeble regularity. He seemed
in want of nothing; so I placed a low chair near the bed
and sat down. As I sat there my head was just on a
level with his pillow. I watched the pale, still face for
some time, when I fell into a doze. I woke, looked once
more at Vargas, then again closed my eyes, and this time
really slept; feeling sure that the slightest movement of
his head on the pillow would arouse me, I did not strug-
gle against drowsiness.
Presently I began to dream—a dream so incoherent
that I can give no clear description of it. Something or
some one was trying to overpower me, whether mentally
or physically I can not say. I was resisting to the best of
my ability, the final struggle for mastery was just immi-
nent, when, of course, I awoke—awoke to find Paul War-
gas’s luminous eyes, with strangely dilated pupils, gazing
fully into mine. The whole strength of his mind, his
very soul, seemed to be thrown into that fixed gaze,
-I seemed to shrivel up and grow small beneath it. .
Those dark, masterful eyes held me spellbound; fasci-
nated me; deprived me of volition or power of motion;
fettered me; forbade me even to blink an eyelid. With
a strong, steady stroke they pierced me through and
through, and I felt they meant to subjugate my mind
even as they had already subjugated my body, and as their
18 PAUL WARGAS.
-gaze grew more intense, I knew that in another moment
I must be their slave!
With this thought my own thoughts faded. For
awhile all seemed dim, misty and inexplicable, but even
through the mist I see those two points glowing with
dark, sustained fire. I can resist no longer, I am con-
quered, my will has quitted me and is another's.
Then thought came quickly enough. I am ill—dying
in a strange place. There is one I love. She is miles
and miles away; but not too far to reach me in time. A
burning desire to write to her comes over me. I must and
will write to her before it is too late! Yet I curse my-
self for the wish as in some dim way I know that some
fearful thing must happen if she finds me alive.
Then all consciousness leaves me except that I have the
impression I am out of doors and can feel the night air on
my brow. Suddenly I come to myself. I am standing,
bareheaded, close to the post-office, with a kind of idea
in my bewildered brain that I have just posted a letter.
I feel battered and shaken, large beads of perspiration are
on my forehead. In a dazed way I walk back to my
house, the door of which I find left wide open—an act of
trustfulness scarcely due to New Durham. I enter, throw
myself into a chair, and shudder at what has taken
lace.
p No—not at what has taken place, but what might have
taken place. For I know that Paul Vargas, although
speechless and more helpless than an infant, has by the
exercise of some strange, weird mental power so influ-
ended me that I have indentified myself with him, and
done as he would have done. His unspoken commands
may have worked no evil, but I shudder as I feel sure
that had he ordered me, while in that mesmeric state, to
murder my best friend, I should have done so.
It was only when annoyance and anger succeded fear,
I found myself able to return to him. I felt much morti-
ficd that I, in the full vigor of manhood, had been con-
quered and enslaved by the act of a stronger will than my
own. I went back to the sick-room, and found Wargas
lying with closed eyes. I laid my hand on his shoulder,
bent down to his ear and said—
“When you recover 1 will have a full explanation of
the jugglery you have practiced upon me.”
-- PAUL VARGAs. * 19
I resumed my seat, fearing his strange power no longer.
Now that I knew he wielded it I was armed against it. I
flattered myself that only by attacking me unawares could
he influence me in so mysterious a manner. When next
he opened his eyes I did not shun them. I might well
have done so—their expression was one of anguish and
horror—the expression one might imagine would lurk in
the eyes of a conscience-stricken man to whom had just
come the knowledge that he had committed some awful
crime. Every now and then they turned to me in wild,
beseeching terror, but they bore no trace of that strange
mesmeric power.
Paul Vargas, if he was to die, seemed doomed to die a
lingering death. For some ten days longer he lay in that
curious state—his symptoms, or rather absence of symp-
toms, driving Jones and myself to our wits' end. We
tried all we could think of without beneficial results.
Every day he grew a little weaker—every day his pulse
was rather feebler than on the preceding day. Such
stimulant and nutriment as I could force down his throat
seemed to do no good. Slowly—very slowly—his life was
ebbing away, but so surely that I was fain to come to the sad
conclusion that in spite of all our offorts he would slip
through our fingers. By this time he had grown fright-
fully emaciated, and although I am convinced he suffered
little or no bodily pain, the look of anguish in his staring
dark eyes was positively painful to encounter.
I had obtained the services of another nurse, and was
thankful to find that, to her, the dying man was not an
object of dread; although, after my own experiences, I
could not blame her predecessor.
Hour after hour, day after day, Paul Wargas lay unable
to move or speak, yet I felt sure in full possession of his
mental faculties. Several times I noticed, when the door
was opened, a look of dread came into his eyes. He
breathed freer when he saw the new-comer was either
the nurse or myself. This puzzled me, for if, as I sus-
pected, he had willed that I should write a letter and send
it to the proper place, his look should have been one of
hope and expectancy, instead of its displaying unmistak-
able signs of fear.
Although Vargas often gave me the impression that he
was trying to subject me again to that strange influence,
20 PAUL WARGAS.
it was only once more that he attained anything like suc-
cess. One day, growing bold at finding I had as yet
avoided a repetition of my thraldom, and, perhaps, egged
on by curiosity, I met his strange fixed gaze half-way and
defied him to conquer me. In a moment or two I found
I had miscalculated my powers, and—although I blush to
say it—I felt that in another second I must yield to him,
and, as before, do all he wished. At that critical moment
the nurse entered the room and spoke to me. Her voice
and presence broke the spell. Thank God, it was so;
Vargas was sending an impulse into my mind—urging me
in some way which I knew would be irresistible—to per-
form, not some harmless task, but to go to my medicine
chest and fetch a dose of laudanum heavy enough to send
him asleep forever. And I say, without hesitation, that
had the woman not entered the room at that very moment, .
I should have been forced to do the man’s bidding.
Yet I had no wish to cut his few last days short. If I
had given him that poison, it would have been suicide,
not murder.
Although he had predicted his own death, why was Paul
Vargas so anxious to die that he had endeavored to make
me kill him? Unless their tortures are unbearable, few
dying persons seek to precipitate matters; and this one, I
am sure, suffered little or no pain. His death was linger-
ing and tedious, but not painful.
After this fresh attempt to coerce me I was almost
afraid to leave him alone with the nurse. I even took
the precaution of being present when Dr. Jones, out of
professional curiosity, paid him an occasional visit.
The tension on my nerves grew unbearable. I prayed
fervently for the man’s recovery, or, if recovery was out
of the question, for his death. At last the time came
when the latter seemed to be drawing very, very near—
So near that Jones, whose interest in the case was un-
abated, said, as he left me in the evening—
“He will die to-night, or before to-morrow is over. I
believe he has only kept himself alive the last few days by
sheer force of will and determination not to die.”
I assented gloomily, wished my colleague good-night,
and went to rest.
Next morning, just after breakfast, I heard a rap at my
door. I opened it, and found myself face to face with a
*
--- PAUL WARGAS. 4, 21
woman. She was tall, and even the long black cloak she
wore did not hide the grace and symmetry of her figure.
A thick veil covered her face. Thinking she had come for
advice, I begged her to enter the house.
I led her to my sitting-room. She raised her veil and
looked at me. I knew her in a moment. She was the
lovely girl who had shared with Vargas that luxurious
eastern paradise—the girl whom he called Myrrha.
She looked pale and weary, but still very beautiful. Her
somber attire could not diminish her charms. My one
thought as I gazed at her was, how any man, of his own
free will, could tear himself from such a creature. Yet,
for some unknown reason, Paul Vargas had done so.
It was clear that I was entirely forgotten. No start of
recognition showed that my face was anything but that of
a stranger. I did not wonder at this; I was much changed,
bronzed and bearded—was, in fact, as rough-looking a
customer as many of my own patients.
For a moment she seemed unable to speak. Her eyes
looked at mine as though they would anticipate what I
had to tell her. Tſer lips trembled, but no words came
from them. {
At last she spoke. “There is a gentleman here—
dying.”
“Yes,” I replied, “Mr. Vargas is here.”
“Am I in time—is he still alive.”
“He is very, very ill, but still alive.”
A wretch reprieved on the scaffold could not have dis-
played more delight than did Myrrha when she heard my
words. A look of indescribable joy flashed into her face.
She clasped her hands in passionate thankfulness, and
tears of rapture filled her eyes. Poor girl, she had little
enough to rejoice at! She was in time—in time for what?
To see her lover die. That was all !
“Take me to him at once,” she said, moving toward
the door.
I suggested a little rest and refreshment first. She de-
clined both, peremptorily.
“Not a moment must be wasted. I have traveled night
and day since I received his letter. Quick, take me to
him, or it may be too late!”
I asked her to follow me. She threw off her long
cloak, and 1 saw that her dress beneath it was plain black.
--~- ~ *.*
22 PA UIL WA RG AS.
No ribbon, jewel, or ornament broke its sable lines. With
a look of ineffable joy on her face she followed me to War-
gas's room.
“Let me go first and prepare him,” I said, .
“No,” she replied, sternly. “Let me pass.”
She laid her hand on the door, opened it, and preceded
me into the room.
Paul Vargas's eyes were turned—as, indeed, they had
for the last few days been mostly turned—toward the
door; yet the look which leaped into them was not one of
joy and welcome. It was a look of woe—of Supreme
agony. A convulsive shudder ran across his face, and I
expected his next breath would be his last.
Why should the advent of his beautiful visitor so affect
him? Had he treated this woman so evilly that he dread-
ed lest she came to his death-bed to heap reproaches on
his head? Yet he himself had summoned her—brought
her from afar—by the letter which he had willed me to
write. *
Injured or not, Myrrha came to console, not reproach.
My doubts on this point were at once 'set at rest. With a
cry of passionate grief she threw herself on her knees be-
side the bed, clasped the poor wasted hand in iners, and
covered it with kisses. In a strainge tongue, one unknown
to me, she spoke words which I knew were words of fer-
vent love. The musical voice, the thrilling accent, the
gestures she used, were interpreters sufficient to make me
understand that she was rejoicing that death had spared
her lover long enough for her to see him once more.
A soft look, a look that echoed her own, came over the
Sufferer's face—a look of infinite tenderness and deathless
love. But it was transient. His eyes grew stern. I fan-
cled they tried to drive her away, then, as she heeded not
his commands, they besought and appealed to her. In
wain—the strange girl laughed joyfully as a bride who
welcomes her bride-groom. She kissed her lover again
and again. Then, with a weary sigh, Paul Vargas closed
his eyes—never, I thought, to re-open them. I went to
his side.
He was not dead, but he bore infallible signs of ap-
proaching dissolution. Practically, it was of little mo.
ment whether he died now or in an hour's time. Nothing
could save him. Still, the wish one always feels to pro-
PAUL WARGAS. * 23
long the faintest flicker of life prompted me to speak to
Myrrha.
* The excitement will kill him,” I whispered. -
She sprung to her feet as if stung. She threw at me a
glance so full of horror that I started. Then, bending
over Vargas, she satisfied herself that he still breathed.
“Go,” she whispered fiercely. “Leave me alone with
my love. Take that woman with you.”
I hesitated. I wanted to see the end. But I could not
dispute the sacred claims of love and grief, or help sym-
pathizing with the girl in her desire to be alone with the
dying man. My duties were ended. I had done all I
could, but death in his present mysterious garb had cor-
quered me. The man must die. How could he die better
than in the arms of the woman he loved?
I motioned to the nurse to leave the room. I followed
her through the door; then turned to take my last look
at Paul Wargas.
He was lying apparently unconscious. Myrrha had
thrown herself on the bed by his side. His poor pale face
was drawn close to her full, red lips. Her bosom beat
against his. Her arms were wreathed around him, hold-
ing him to her. The contrast between life and death—
between the rich, strong, glowing life of the young girl,
and that of the man now ebbed away to its last few sands,
was startling. I closed the door reverently. My eyes
filled with tears, and I sighed for the sorrow which was
about to fall on the devoted, passionate creature. How
would she bear it! Then I went about my duties, know-
ing that when I returned home I should have a patient
the less.
I rode a few miles into the country, to see a miner who
had met with an accident which would most likely prove
fatal. Just as I reached his cabin my horse fell suddenly
lame. I led him the rest of the way, and, having done
all I could for the injured man, started to return home.
There was nothing for it but to leave my horse to be
fetched the next day, and walk back to New Durham.
I strode on as briskly as the nature of the track would
allow. As I trudged along I thought of Myrrha and Paul
Vargas, and wondered if by any chance I should find him
alive on my return. I was so preoccupied with these
24 PAUL WARGAS.
*-*.
thoughts that not until I was close to him did I notice a
man lying on the side of the track. .
At first I thought it was one of the common sights of
the neighborhood, a man dead drunk; but as I stood over
him I found, for a wonder, it was not so. The iman’s
back was toward me; his face was buried in the herbage;
but I could hear him sobbing as if his heart was about to
burst. As he lay there he threw his arms out with wild
gestures of despair—he dug his fingers into the ground
and tore at it as one racked by an unbearable torture. He
was evidently a prey to some fearful bodily or mental dis-
tress. Whichever it might be, I could not pass without
proffering my assistance.
His agitation was so great that he had no idea of my
proximity. I spoke, but my words fell unheeded. Sob
after sob burst forth from him.
I stooped and placed my hand on his arm. “My poor
fellow,” I said, “what is the matter?” *
At my touch he sprung to his feet. God of Heaven!
shall I never forget that moment? Before me stood Paul
Vargas, well and strong as when we parted some years ago
at Constantinople!
What saved me from fainting I can not tell. The man
stood there before me—the very man I had left an hour or
two ago at his last gasp! He stood there and cast a
shadow. He did not fade away or disappear as a vision or
hallucination should do. There was life and strength in
every limb. His face was pale, but it was with the pallor
of grief; for even now the tears were running from his eyes,
and he was wringing his hands in agony.
Speak! I could not have fashioned a word. My tongue
cleaved to my palate. My lips were parched and dry. All
I could do was to stare at him, with chattering teeth,
bristling hair and ice-cold blood.
He came to my side. He grasped my arm. He was still
flesh and blood. Even in that supreme moment his strong,
convulsive clutch told me that. He spoke. His voice
was as the voice of a living man, yet as the voice of one
from whom all joy of life has departed.
“Go home!” he said. “Go home, and learn how the
strongest may tremble at death—at what a cost he will buy
life—how the selfish desire to live can conquer love. You
asked me once if I could not prolong life. You are an-
**
12A UIL WARGAS. .* 25 -
swered. You brought her to me—you yielded then, but
not the second time, when I would have undone the deed.
Go home, before I kill you.”
Something in his whole bearing struck me with deadly
terror—a natural, human terror. I turned and fled for
my life, until my limbs refused to bear me further. Then
I sunk on the ground, and, I believe, lost consciousness. .
When I recovered I made the best of my way home,
telling myself as I went along that overwork and want of
sleep were acting on me. I had dreamed an absurd, hor-
rible dream. Nevertheless I trembled in every limb as I
opened the door of the room in which I had left Paul
Vargas, dying in the arms of the woman who loved him.
Death had been there during my absence. I knew the
meaning of that long, shapeless form stretched out on the
bed, covered by the white sheet. Yet I trembled more
and more. The words I had heard in my supposed dream
came to me clear and distinct. It was some time before I
could summon courage enough to move the covering from
the dead face. I did so at last, and I believe, shrieked
aloud.
Lying there in her black funereal dress, her fair hands
crossed on her breast, her waxen face still bearing a smile,
lay º girl whom I only knew by the name of Myrrha—
dead.
--- A DEAD MAN'S FACE.
IMAGINATIVE beings who invent marvelous tales may
take what license they please, but a simple narrator is
nothing if not accurate; so, before beginning this, I
looked up old correspondences and various memoranda
made at the time when the following things occurred.
The first paper upon which I put my hand was a letter.
I may as well open with a copy of it:
“DEAR OLD BOY, -I have met her at last—my fate—the one
woman in the world for me. Nothing is settled as yet; but I
should not write this unless hope were a certainty. You must
wish me joy, aithough she is a widow and an American—two
qualifications which I know you will find fault with. No matter;
when you see her you will recant and be envious. Yours ever,
“CLAUD MORTON.”
The writer was my brother—I was going to say my
only brother, but I had another once, although the less
said about him the better. Nearly every family has its
black sheep. Ours had been a peculiarly sable one.
When he died, some years ago, I passed a sponge over
his long list of delinquencies, and tried to think of him
as kindly as possible. He died a disgraced man, far
away from home. ©
I call this black sheep, Stephen, my brother, no
Claud’s, the fact being that Claud can scarcely be said
to have known him. I stood in age midway between the .
two. Claud was sixteen years younger than Stephen, so
that when the latter was shipped off as irreclaimable, the
former was a little golden-haired fellow of seven.
The above letter made me feel both glad and sorry. I
was glad that the boy-–he was still the boy to me, al-
though his age was seven-and-twenty—was going to be
married; but I was sorry that his choice had not fallen
on one of his own countrywomen, and one who could have
(26) *
~ *
A DEAD MAN's FACE. 37
given him her first love. Still, all this was his own pecu-
liar business. No doubt he had made a suitable choice,
and the only thing left for me to do was to write him a
cheerful letter of congratulation, and hope that his love
affairs would soon be happily settled. --
A week went by; then came a long letter from him.
He had proposed in orthodox form, and had been duly
accepted. His letter lies before me at this moment, and
I feel sad as I read again the two pages covered with the
lover’s usual raptures.
I am not a mercenary man, but I own I felt somewhat
disappointed on learning that she was poor. Somehow
one associates wealth with an American widow who is
sojourning in England. But, so far as I could gather
from Claud’s letter, Mrs. Despard, or Judith, as he called
her, was not well off. He spoke of her as being all alone
in London, which fact, he added, would necessarily hasten
his marriage. It would take place, he hoped, in a week
or two. In conclusion he pressed me to run up to town
in order to make the acquaintance of my future sister-in-
law. --
I was very busy at the time—I may say, in passing,
that my business is to cure people's ailments, not to
tell stories—nevertheless I managed to pay a flying visit to
town, and was duly presented to Claud’s betrothed.
Yes, she was handsome—strikingly handsome. Her
whole appearance was much out of the common. She
was tall, superbly built, on a large scale, perhaps, yet
graceful as a panther in every movement. Her face gave
evidence of much character, power and determination,
and of passion also, I decided. Her rich, dark beauty
was at that time in full bloom, and although I saw at a
glance that she was some years older than my brother, I
was not at all inclined to blame Claud for his rapturous
expressions. So far as personal charms went, I could find
no fault with Judith Despard. For the rest it was easy
to see that she was passionately in love with Claud, and
for the sake of this I gladly overlooked all my fanciful
objections to his choice, and congratulated him heartily
on having won so beautiful a creature.
Yet, strange to say, in the midst of his new-found
happiness my brother seemed anything but his usual cheer-
ful self. He, the merriest and most talkative of men,
^.
28 A DEAD MAN's FACE.
seemed taciturn, moody and preoccupied. The curious
thing was that his changed manner struck me particularly
while we were in Mrs. Despard’s company. He spoke
and behaved in the most affectionate and lower-like way,
but there was in his general bearing something which
puzzled me altogether. It seemed to me that he might
perhaps be nervous as to what impression his fair friend
might make upon the elder brother whom he so reverenced
and respected.
This theory of mine was strengthened by the fact that
when, at night, we found ourselves alone, and I was able
to freely express my admiration of Mrs. Despard’s good
looks, he brightened up considerably, and we sat until a
very late hour, and talked over the past, the present, and
the future.
“When do you mean to be married?” I asked.
“In a fortnight or three weeks. There is nothing to
, wait for. Judith is living alone in lodgings. She has no
friends to consult, so we shall just walk to church some
morning and get it over.”
“Well, let me walk with you. I should like to see the
last of you.”
“All right, old fellow. But you’ll be the only one—
unless Mary likes to honor us.”
Mary was my wife; but as her time was just then fully
occupied by a very young baby, I did not think it at all
likely she would be able to make the long journey to
town.
“I shall fix the earliest day I can,” added Claud.
“The fact is, I have been feeling rather queer lately. I
want a change.”
Thereupon I questioned him as to what ailed him. So
far as I could ascertain, all that was the matter was his
having worked too hard, and being a little below par. I
prescribed a tonic, and quite agreed with him as to the
benefit which he would derive from change of air.
When I reached home my wife scolded me for my stu-
pidity. It seems that it was my duty to have found out
all about Mrs. Despard’s antecedents, relations, connec-
tions, circumstances, habits, and disposition, whereas all
I could say was that she was a beautiful widow with a
small income, and that she and Claud were devoted to
each other,
f
A DEAD MAN's FACE. 29
*
“Yes,” said Mrs. Morton, scornfully, “like all other
men, the moment you see a pretty face you inquire no
further. I quite tremble for Claud.”
When I reflected how little I really knew about Mrs.
Despard, I felt abashed and guilty. However, Claud was
a full-grown man, and no fraternal counsel was likely to
turn him aside from his desire.
In the course of a few days he wrote me that he was to
be married on the 5th of the next month. I made ar-
rangements which would enable me to go to the wedding;
but three days before the date named I heard again from
him. The wedding was postponed for a fortnight. He
gave no reason for the delay; but he said he was anxious
to see me, and to-morrow he should run down to my home.
He came as promised. I was aghast when I saw him.
He looked worn, haggard, wretched. My first thought
was that business had gone wrong with him. His looks
might well be those of a man on the brink of ruin. After
the first greeting I at once took him to my study in order
to be put out of suspense. Just as I was about to begin
my anxious questions, he turned to me.
“Frank, old fellow,” he said, imploringly, and with a
faint attempt at a smile, “don’t laugh at me.”
Laugh! That was the last thing that I was likely to
do. I pressed his hand in silence.
“You won’t believe me, I know,” he continued. “I
can’t believe it myself. Frank, I am haunted.”
“Haunted!” I was bound to smile, not from any dis-
position toward merriment, but in order to show the poor
boy the absurdity of his idea.
“Yes, haunted. The word sounds ridiculous, but I
can use no other. Haunted.”
“What haunts you?”
He came close to me and grasped my arm. His voice
sunk to a hoarse whisper.
“A horrible, ghastly, grewsome thing. It is killing
me. . It comes between me and my happiness. I have
fought and struggled against this phantom terror. I
have reasoned calmly with myself. I have laughed my
own folly to scorn. In vain—in vain. It goes, but it
comes again.”
“Overwork,” I said, “insomnia, too many cigars, late
hours; and had you been a drinking man I should add,
30 A DEAD MAN's FACE. .
**.
too much stimulant, too little food, anxiety, perhaps.
Have you anything on your mind—any special worry?”
“Of course I have,” he said, pettishly. “Did I not
tell you it is killing me?”
“What is killing you?”
He rose and paced the room excitedly; then suddenly
he stopped short, and once more clutched my arm.
“A face,” he said, wildly—“a man’s face; a fearful,
white face that comes to me; a horrible mask, with feat-
ures drawn as in agony—ghastly, pale, hideous! Death
or approaching death, violent death, written in every line.
Every feature distorted. Eyes starting from the head.
Every cord in the throat standing out, strained as by mor-
tal struggle. Long, dark hair lying flat and wet. Thin
lips moving and working—lips that are cursing, although
I hear no sound. Why should this come to me—why to
me? Who is this dead man whose face wrecks my life?
Frank, my brother, if this is disease or madness, cure me;
if not, let me die.”
His words, his gestures, sent a cold thrill through me.
He was worse, far worse, than I had feared.
“Claud,” I said, “you are talking nonsense. Cure
you! of course I mean to cure you. Now sit down, col-
lect yourself, and tell me how this hallucination comes.”
“Comes! How does it come? It gathers in corners of
the room; it forms and takes shape; it glares at me out of
the wall; it looks up at me from the floor. Ever the
same fearful white dying face, threatening, cursing, some-
times mocking. Why does it come?” *
I had already told the poor fellow why it came, but it.
was no use repeating my words. “Tell me when you see
it,” I asked; “at night—in darkness?”
He hesitated, and seemed troubled. “No, never at
night. In broad daylight only. That to me is the crown-
ing terror, the ghastliness of it. At night I could call it
a dream. Frank, believe me, I am no weak fool. For
weeks I have borne with this. At last it has conquered
me. Send it away, or I shall go mad!” -
“I’ll send it away, old boy, never fear. Telſ me: can
you see it now?”
“No; thank God, not now.”
- “Have you seen it to-day?”
“No; to-day I have been free from it.”
*
A DEAD MAN's FACE. 31
“Well, you’ll be free from it to-morrow, and the next
day, and the next. It will be gone forever before you
leave me. Now come and see Mary and the babies. I
- haven’t even asked you how Mrs. Despard is.”
A curious look crossed his face. “I think she grows
more beautiful every day,” he said. Then he seized my
hand. “Oh, Frank,” he exclaimed, “rid me of this hor-
ror, and I shall be the happiest man in the world.”
“All right,” I answered, perhaps with more confidence
than I felt.
Although I made light of it to my patient, his state
greatly alarmed me. I hastened to put him under the
strictest and most approved treatment. I inforced the
most rigid sumptuary laws, made him live on plain food,
and docked his consumption of tobacco unmercifully. In
a few days Iwas delighted to find that my diagnosis of the
case was correct. Claud was rapidly recovering tone. In
a week’s time he seemed restored to health.
The days went by. As yet Claud had said nothing about
leaving me; yet, unless the date was once more adjourned,
he was to be married on the nineteenth. I did not coun-
sel him to postpone the happy day. He was now so well
that I thought he could not do better than adhere to his
arrangement. A month’s holiday, spent in the society of
the woman he loved, would, I felt certain, complete his
cure, and banish forever that grizly intruder begotten, of
disorganized nerves.
From the monotonous regularity and voluminous nat-
ure of their correspondence it was evident, delay and
separation notwithstanding, that matters were going on
quite smoothly between Claud and Judith Despard.
Every day he received and wrote a long letter. Neverthe-
less it was not until the sixteenth of the month that I
knew exactly what he meant to do about his marriage.
“Frank,” he said, “you have been wonderfully kind
to me. Wºº. you have saved my life, or at least my
TeaSOI), ill you do something more for me?”
“Even unto half my kingdom,” I answered.
“Look here: I am ashamed of the feeling, but I abso-
lutely dread returning to town. At any rate I wish to
stay there no longer than is needſul. Thursday morning
I must, of course, be there to be married. You think me
cured, Frank?” he added, abruptly.
*.
32 A DEAD MAN's FACE.
* *
“Honestly, yes. If you take care of yourself you will
be troubled no more.”
“Yet why do I dread London so? Well, never mind.
I will go up by the night mail on Wednesday—then I
need only be there for a few hours. Will you do this for
me—go up on Wednesday morning, see Judith, and ex-
plain how it is that I shall not see her until we meet in
the church?”
“Certainly, if you wish it. But you had better write
as well.”
“Yes, I shall do that. There are several other little
things you must see to for me. The license I have, but
you must let the clergyman know. You had better go
and see my partners. They may think it strange if I
marry and go away without a word.”
Thinking it better that he should have his own way, I
promised to do as he wished. Upon my arrival in town
on Wednesday afternoon I went straight to Mrs. Despard’s.
I was not sorry to have this opportunity of seeing her
alone. I wished to urge upon her the necessity of being
careful that Claud did not again get into that highly
wrought nervous state from which my treatment had so
happily extricated him.
She was not looking so well as when last I saw her. At
times her manner was restless, and she seemed striving to
suppress agitation. She made no adverse comments on
her lover's strange whim of reaching town to-morrow only
in time for the ceremony. Her inquiries as to his health
were most solicitous, and when I told her that I no longer
feared anything on his account, her heart-felt sigh of re-
lief told me how deeply she loved him.
Presently she looked me full in the face. Her eyes
were half closed, but I could see an anxious, eager look
in them. “ He saw a face,” she said. “Has it left
him?”
“He told you of his queer hallucination, then?” ,
“No; but once or twice when sitting with me he sprüng
to his feet and muttered: ‘Oh, that face! that ghastly,
horrible face! I can bear it no longer!” Then he rushed
wildly from the room. What face did he see, Dr. Mor-
ton?”
To set her mind at rest, I gave her a little scientific dis-
course, which explained to her how such mental phenom-
A DEAD MAN's FACE. 33
ena were brought about. She listened attentively, and
seemed satisfied. Then I bade her adieu until to-mor-
I’OW.
The marriage was to be of the quiet kind. I found that
Mrs. Despard had made no arrangement for any friend
to accompany her; so, setting all rules of etiquette at de-
fiance, I suggested that, although the bride-groom’s broth-
er, I should call for her in the morning and conduct her
to the church. To this she readily consented.
Somehow that evening I did not carry away such a
pleasing impression of my brother's bride as I did when
first I met her. I can give no reason for this, except that
I was not forgetful of my wife’s accusation, that when
first I met Judith Despard I had been carried away by the
glamour of her beauty, and thought of nothing else. As I
walked to Claud’s rooms, which I occupied for the night,
I almost regretted that he had been so hasty—certainly I
wished that we knew more of his bride. But it was now
too late for regrets or wishes.
I called for Mrs. Despard at the appointed hour, and
found her quite ready to start. Her dress was plain and
simple—I can not describe it; but I saw that in spite of
her excessive pallor she looked very beautiful. In the
carriage on our way to the church she was very silent, an-
swering my remarks with monosyllables. I left her in
peace; supposing that at such a moment every woman
must be more or less agitated.
When the carriage drew up at the church door, the bride
laid her hand upon my arm. I could feel that she was
trembling. “Claud will be here?” she asked. “Nothing
will stop him?”
“Nothing. But I may as well step out and see that he
is waiting.”
Yes, Claud was in the church waiting for us. We ex-
changed greetings. The old sexton summoned the curate;
and Judith Despard, my brother, and myself walked up to
the altar rails.
Claud looked very well that morning; a little fagged
perhaps, but the long night journey would account for
that. He certainly looked proud and happy as he stood
on the altar step side by side with the woman who in a
few minutes would be his wife.
But before the curate had finished reading the opening
34 A DEAD MAN's FACE.
*-
address a great change came over him. From where I
was standing I could only see his side face, but that was
enough to show me that he was suffering from some agi–
tation—something far above the nervousness so often dis-
played by a bride-groom. A deadly pallor came over his
face, small beads of perspiration sprung to his brow, and I
noticed that those tell-tales of mental disturbance, the
hands, were so tightly clinched that the knuckles grew
white. It was evident that he was suffering anguish of
some kind, and for a moment I thought of stopping the
service. But the rite is but a short one, and from what-
ever cause Claud’s agitation might proceed, it was per-
haps better to trust to him to curb it for a few moments
than to make a scene. Nevertheless I watched him in-
- tently and anxiously.
Then came the charge to declare any impediment. As
the curate made the conventional pause, Claud, to my sur-
prise, glanced round in a startled way, as if fearing that
his marriage would at the last moment be forbidden. The
. look on his face was now one of actual terror.
Both bride and bride-groom said their “I will’s ” in such
low tones that I could scarcely hear their voices. Then,
in pursuance of my duty, I gave the woman to the priest.
He joined the hands of Claud and Judith.
After having played my little part, I had not moved
back to my former station. I was now close to the bride,
and as Claud turned to her, could see his face to ad-
vantage. It was positively distorted with suppressed
emotion of some kind. His mouth was set, and I could
see that his teeth were closed on his under lip. He did
not look at his fair bride. His gaze passed over her shoul-
der. In fact, he seemed almost oblivious to her presence.
I was dreadfully frightened.
The clergyman’s voice rang out: “I, Claud, take thee,
Judith, to be my wedded wife.” Then, hearing no echo
of his words, he paused.
“Repeat after me,” he prompted. Again he began,
“I, Claud—”
But his voice was drowned in a louder one, which rang
through the empty church. With a fierce cry, as of in-
expressible rage, Claud had thrown the bride's hand from
him, and was pointing and gesticulating toward the wall,
upon which his eyes had been riveted.
**.
* --
A DEAD MAN's FACE, 35
** Here—even here!” he almost shrieked. “That cursed,
white, wicked, dying face! Whose is it? Why does it
come between me and my love? Mad! Mad! I am go-
ing mad!” -
I heeded not the clergyman’s look of dismay, or the
bride's ery of distress. I thought of nothing but my un-
fortunate brother. Here, at the moment which should
be the happiest he had yet known, the grewsome halluci-
nation had come back to him. I threw my arm round
him and tried to calm him.
“It is fancy, dear boy,” I said. “In a moment it will
be gone.”
“Gone! Why does it come? What have I to do with
this dying man? Look, Frank, look! Something tells
me if you look you will see it. There! there! Look
there!”
His eyes were fixed on the same point. He grasped my
arm convulsively. I am ashamed to say that I yielded,
and looked in the direction of his gaze.
“There is nothing there,” I said soothingly.
“Look!” he exclaimed. “It will come to you as to
me.”
It may have been the hope of convincing Claud of the
illusionary nature of the sight which formented him, it
may have been some strange fascination wrought by his
words and manner, which made me for some moments
gaze at him. God of heaven! I saw gradually forming
out of nothing, gathering on the blank wall in front of
me, a face, or the resemblance of a face, white, ghastly,
horrible! Long, dank, wet-looking dark hair, eyes start-
ing from their sockets, lips working—the whole appear-
ance that of the face of a man who is struggling with death;
in every detail as Claud had described it. And yet to mé
that face was more terrible than ever it could be to Claud.
I gazed in horror. I felt my eyes growing riveted to
the sight as his own. I felt my whole frame trembling.
I knew that in another moment I should be raving as
wildly as he raved. Only his hoarse whisper recalled me
to my senses.
“You see?” he asked, or rather asserted.
Horror forced the truth from me. “I see, or fancy I
See,” I answered.
With a wild laugh Claud broke from me. He rushed
36 A DEAD MAN's FACE.
down the church and disappeared. As he left me, the
face, thank Heaven! faded from the wall, or from my im-
agination. *
I turned to my companions. Judith Despard was ly-
ing in a dead swoon on the altar steps; the curate with
trembling hands was loosening the throat of her dress. I
called for water. The sexton brought it. I bathed the
poor woman’s temples, and in a few minutes she sighed,
opened her eyes, and then shuddered. I took her in my
arms and staggered to the church. door. The curate re- .
moved his surplice and followed me. I placed my almost
Senseless burden in a carriage.
“For Heaven’s sake see her home,” I said to the
curate. “I must go and look after my brother. As
soon as I have seen him I will come round to Mrs. Des-
pard’s. Get her home quickly. The coachman knows
where to go.”
The brougham drove off. I threw myself into a cab,
and drove toward Claud’s room. I hoped he might have
gone straight there.
To my great relief, when I reached his house he was on
the door-step. We entered his room together; he sunk
wearily into a chair, and buried his face in his hands. I
was scarcely less agitated than himself, and my face, as I
caught its reflection in the mirror, was as white as his own.
I waited for him to speak.
Presently he raised his head. “Go to her,” he said.
“Ask her why that face comes between us. You saw it
—even you. It can be no fancy of mine. Tell her we
can meet no more.”
“I will wait until you are calmer before I go.”
“Calm! I am myself now. The thing has left me, as
it always does. Frank, I have hidden from you one pe-
culiarity of my state. That awful face never shows itself
to me unless I am in her company. Even at the altar it
came between us. Go to her; ask her why it comes.”
I left him, but did not quit the house for some time.
I went into an adjoining room and tried to collect my
thoughts; for, as I said, my mind was more troubled than
even Claud’s could be.
I am ashamed to reassert it; I am willing to own that
excitement, my brother's impressive manner, Superstition
which I did not know I possessed—anything that may
f
A DEAD MAN's FACE. * 3?
bear a natural explanation—may have raised that vision.
But why should that phantom, gathering and growing
from nothing until it attained to form, or at least sem-
blance, have been the face of one I had known? Why
should the features distorted in deadly agony have been
those of my brother Stephen? For his was the dreadful
face which Claud’s prompting or my own imagination had
raised. t
Almost like one in a dream I went to do Claud’s bid-
ding. I was thankful, upon reaching Mrs. Despard’s, to
find that she had gone to her room, and left word that
she could see no one to-day. This gave me time to con-
sider the position.
Acting on a sudden impulse, I went to the telegraph
office, and sent instructions to my wife to forward to me,
by passenger train, a small box in which I kept old letters
and papers. Then I went back to Claud, and after some
persuasion induced him to leave town at once. I told
him I would arrange everything on the morrow. He was
better away.
In the morning my box arrived. In it I found what I
wanted. After the calming effects of a night's rest I felt
ashamed of my weakness as I drew from old letters a pho-
tograph of my brother Stephen—one taken about two
years before the report of his death reached us. Never-
theless I put the portrait in my pocket, and about noon
went to Mrs. Despard’s.
I was at once admitted, and in a few minutes she came
to me. She looked worn and haggard, as if sleep had not
visited her for nights. Dark circles had formed round
her fine eyes; lines seemed to have deepened round her
firm passionate mouth. She advanced eagerly toward me
and held out her hand. I took it in silence. Indeed, I
Scarcely knew what to say or how to act.
“Where is Claud?” she asked, in a quick Voice, but
Scarcely above a whisper.
“He has left town for a few days.” --
She pressed her hand to her heart. “Does that mean
I shall see him no more?”
“I am afraid I must say it does. He thinks it better
you should part.”
She gave a sharp cry, and walked up and down the room
Wringing her hands. Her lips moved rapidly, and I knew
*
38 T A DEAD MAN's FACE. ^.
she was muttering many words, but in so low a key that I
could not catch their meaning. Suddenly she stopped,
and turned upon me fiercely. --- -
“Is this by your counsel and advice?” she demanded.
“ No. It is his own unbiassed decision.”
“Why?—tell me why? He loved me—I love him. Why
does he leave me?”
The passionate entreaty of her voice is indescribable.
What could I say to her? Words stuck in my throat. It
seemed the height of absurdity for a Sane man to give a sane
woman the true reason for Claud’s broken faith. I stam-
mered out something about his bad state of health.
“If he is ill, I will nurse him,” she cried. “I will wait
for years if he will give me hope. Dr. Morton, I love
Claud as I never before lowed a man.”
She clasped her hands and looked imploringly into my
face. In a mechanical way I drew the portrait of my dead
brother from my breast. She saw the action.
“His likeness!” she cried, joyfully. “He sends it to
me! Ah, he loves me!”
I handed her the photograph. “Mrs. Despard,” I
asked, “ do you know—”
I did not finish the question, yet it was fully answered.
Never, I believe, save then did a human face undergo such
a sudden, frightful change. The woman’s very lips grew
ashen, her eyes glared into mine, and I saw them full of
dread. She staggered—all but fell.
“Why is it here—who is it?” she gasped out.
I was a prey to the wildest excitement. To what revela-
tion was this tending? what awful thing had I to learn?
“Listen,” I said, sternly. “Woman, it is for you to
answer the question. It is the face of this man, this dying
face, that comes between you and your lover.”
“Tell me his name.” I read rather than heard the
words her dry lips formed.
“The name he was once known by was Stanley.”
A quick, sharp shudder ran through her. For a
moment I thought she was going to faint.
“He is dead,” she said. “Why does he come between
my love and me? Others have loved or said they loved
me since then. They saw no dead faces. Had I loved
them I might have married and been happy. Claud I
love. Why does the dead man trouble him?”
- A DEAD MAN's FACE. 39
“That man,” I replied, “ was my brother—Claud’s
brother.”
~ She threw out her arms with a gesture of utter despair.
“Your brother—Claud’s brother!” she repeated. Then
she fixed her eyes on mine as if she would read the Secrets
of my soul.
“You are lying,” she said.
“I am not. He was our eldest brother. He left Eng-
land years ago. He passed under a false name. He died.
When and how did he die?” -º-º-
She sunk, a dead weight, into a chair; but still she
looked at me like one under a spell. I seized her wrist.
“Tell me, woman,” I cried—“tell me what this man
was to you; why his dying face comes to us? The truth
—speak the truth.”
She seemed to cower beneath my words, but her eyes
were still on my face. “Speak!” I cried, fiercely, and
tightening my grasp upon her wrist. At last she found
words.
“He was my husband; I killed him,” she said in a
strange voice, low, yet perfectly distinct.
I recoiled in horror. This woman, the widow and self-
confessed murderess of one brother, within an ace of being
the wife of the other!
“You murdered him?” I said, turning to the woman.
“I murdered him. He made my life a hell upon earth.
He beat me, cursed me, ruined me. He was the foulest-
hearted fiend that ever lived. I killed him.”
No, remorse, no regret in her words. Quite overcome,
I leaned against the chimney-piece. Bad as I knew
Stephen Morton to have been, I could at that moment
only think of him as a gay, light-hearted school-boy, my
elder brother, and in those days a perfect hero in my
eyes. No wonder my heart was full of vengeance.
Yet even in the first flush of my rage I knew that I
could do nothing. No human justice could be meted out
to this woman. - There was nothing to prove the truth of
her Self-accusation. She would escape scot-free.
l Would that I could avenge his death!” I said, sul-
enly.
She sprung to her feet. Her dark eyes blazed.
“Avenged!” she cried. “Is it not doubly, trebly avenged?
I
r --
*~,
•ºr 4.
40 ' A DEAD MAN's FACE. **-
Has he not taken all I care for in life from me 2 Has he
not taken my love from my side? Coward in life, coward
in death. When I killed him I knew he would try to
come back to me. He has tried for years. Ah, I was too
strong for him. I could banish the face with which he
strove to haunt me. I could forget. I could love. I
could have been happy. Yet he has conquered at last.
Not me—he could not conquer me—but the one I love.
Oh, the coward is avenged!”
In spite of my feeling of abhorrence, I gazed on the
speaker in amazement. Her words were not those of one
who had committed a black crime, but of one who had
suffered wrong. The strange, fanciful idea that the dead
man had been trying to haunt her, but had been kept at
bay by her strong will, was in my experience unprece-
dented. As I saw the agony of mind under which she
was laboring, the thought came to me that perhaps her
words were true, that my brother's death was this day
avenged. I resolved to leave her. I could gain no good
by prolonging the painful scene.
She was still pacing the room in fierce passion. Sud-
denly she stopped short, and in thrilling accents began
to speak. . It seemed as if she had forgotten my pres-
€11C0,
“See,” she cried, “the river-bank—the dark, rushing
stream. Ah, we are all alone, side by side, far away from
every one. Fool! if you could read my heart, would you
walk so near to the giddy brink P Do you think the
memory of the old love will stay my hand when the
chance comes P Old love is dead: you beat it, cursed it
to death! How fast does the stream run? Can a strong
man swim against it? Oh, if 1 could be sure—sure that
one push would end it all and give me freedom! Once I
longed for love—your love. Now I long for death—your
death. Oh, brave, sweet tide, are you strong enough to
free me forever? Hark! I can hear the roar of the rapids
in the distance. There is a deep fall from the river cliff;
there are rocks. Fool! you stand at the very edge and
look down. The moment is come. Ah!”
With her last exclamation she used a violent gesture, as
if pushing something fiercely from her. She was, I knew,
in her excitement, reacting the tragedy.
*
h
A DEAD MAN's FACE. 41
“Free! free! free!” she cried with a delirious, almost
rapturous laugh and clasped her hands. “Hold him,
brave stream! Sweep him away. See! he swims; but
he dare not swim with you. You are hurrying down to
the rapids. He must face you, and wrestle with you for
his life. Bear him down, keep him from me. If he
masters you, he will land and kill me. Hold him fast,
brave stream! Ha! his strength fails. He is swept away;
he is under. No, I see him again. He turns his face to
me. He knows I did it. With his last breath he is curs-
ing me. His last breath! He has gone, gone forever!
I am free!”
The changes in her voice, ranging from dread to tear-
Jiul joy, her passionate words, her eloquent gestures, all
these combined to bring the very scene before my eyes. [
stood spell-bound, and even, as she described it, seemed
to see the unfortunate man battling for dear life in the
rushing stream, growing every moment weaker and weak-
er. As the woman’s last wild exclamation—“Gone for-
ever! I am free!”—rang through the room, I seemed to
hear the cry of despair drowned as the waves closed over
the wretched man’s head. I knew every detail of my
brother’s fate.
I turned to leave the room. I longed to get away, and
if possible to banish the events of the day from my mind.
It was not given to me to be Stephen Morton’s avenger.
My hand was on the door, when the woman sprung to
my side. She grasped my arm and drew me back into
the room.
“Look!” she whispered. “Do you see it! There!
The face—that awful face! It has come at last to me. .
The dead man has conquered. There! look! his eyes
glaring, his mouth mocking, Now it has once come, I
shall see it always—always. Look!”
No, I was not doomed again to see or to fancy I saw
that face. Its mission, as far as I was concerned, was at
an end. But the look of concentrated horror which
Judith Despard cast at the wall of the room beggars de-
Scription. Then with a piteous cry she fell at my feet,
and seemed to strive to make me shield her from some-
thing she dreaded. I raised her. She broke from my
grasp, and again fell upon the floor, this time in parox-
ysms of madness,
f * * y \
.* -
42 A DEAD MAN's FACE.
My tale is ended. That night she was removed to a
private lunatic asylum, where for three years she was kept
at my expense. She died raving mad, and from inquiries
I made I know that from that moment when it first ap--
peared to her to the hour of her death, the face of the -
man she had killed was ever with Judith Despard.
JULIAN VANNECK.
IT may be these things were but the result of pure
chance. It may be that a man’s strange idiosyncrasy and
superstition must bear the blame of what had happened.
It may be that my tale is one which must either be lightly
pooh-poohed, or classed with matters inexplicable.
If I myself have ever formed any decided opinion on the
subject, I reserve it, and am content to play the simple
part of a narrator. *.
On the 10th of December, 186—, I was at Maidstone. I
can fix the exact date, because on that day I defended a
man who was tried for murder. The case was one of the
last on the calendar—the last in which I had any part.
As soon as the verdict was given it was my intention to
return to town. The evidence told so fearfully against the
prisoner that long before the judge finished his summing
up I knew the wretched man was doomed. Indeed, it
was a matter of surprise to me that the jury were absent
more than five minutes. &
But they stayed away much longer than I expected.
Perhaps they did not like to send a fellow-creature to the
gallows without due time spent in deliberation, The last
solemn words spoken by the judge, the fainting convict
carried away, I gathered up my papers, and, glancing at
the clock, saw it was impossible for me to catch the train
by which I had intended to return to town.
I was sorry to have missed it. I had promised to dine
that evening with my friend Harley, and, from past ex-
perience, knew that a little dinner-party at his rooms
should be attended when attendance was possible. Besides,
after the painful scene I had just witnessed I felt that I
needed the distraction of pleasant society.
I made up my mind to telegraph, beg my friend not to
Wait for me, but to expect me somewhere about the mid-
(48)
&
44 JULIAN VANNECR.
dle of dinner. I could travel by the next train, and, by
dint of making a great rush, might manage to reach the
table at the same time, perhaps, as the fish.
Anxious as I was not to disappoint Harley, I was even
more anxious not to disappoint myself. There would cer-
tainly be good whist after dinner—a great attraction for
me. Moreover, I was anxious to meet one of the guests,
a man of whom Harley had of late talked a great deal.
Indeed, I understood that the dinner had been arranged
chiefly with a view of bringing Mr. Julian Wanneck and
myself together.
According to Robert Harley's account, this Wanneck
was a man well worth meeting. He was wonderfully
handsome and very wealthy. He could talk half a dozen
lauguages. He could paint, play and sing. His witty
Sayings were worthy of Talleyrand. His whist was up
to the form of Deschappelles or Cavendish. But then
Harley was young and apt to wax enthusiastic about the
merits of a new friend. Yet, taking due discount off his
praises, enough remained to make me wish to meet Julian
Vanneck. -
Harley had made his acquaintance at Homburg-, an
acquaintance which soon became intimacy. My friend
was so much taken with Vanneck that he made him
promise to visit him whenever he might chance to come
to London.
My train reached town punctual to the minute. I dashed
off in a cab to my own rooms, jumped into evening clothes,
and was at Harley's chambers in Jermyn Street just at the
time I had predicted.
“You sit on Mr. Harley's left, sir,” said the waiter, as
I slipped quietly into the room.
At first my advent seemed scarcely noticed. Every one
at the table seemed to be in an ecstasy of mirth. Harley,
as I took my seat, could hardly master his laughter suf-
ficiently to give me a suitable greeting. I felt quite gun-
comfortable. There is nothing more annoying that? to
hear people laughing at some jest which one has missed.
However, the merrinent promised well for a pleasant
evening. *
Still chuckling, Harley turned to me. “I wish you'd
come five minutes earlier, Vane.” *.
“I wish I had. What is it?” ! Af
JULIAN VANNECK. 45
“Something Wanneck told us. Oh, so good! Best
thing I ever heard. Ah, by the by—Vanneck.”
The man on his right looked up.
“Let me introduce you to my friend Vane. What the
deuce I shall do between the two of you I can’t think.
My sides will ache to-morrow.”
Rightly or wrongly, I, too, had a certain reputation for
wit and conversational powers. Under the present cir-
cumstances I felt I was about to be put upon my mettle.
No doubt our companions expected something from the
meeting between Vanneck and myself.
As Harley named me I bowed, and looked at my oppo-
site neighbor with much curiosity. He met my glance
with a pleasant smile, and said a few conventional words
expressive of his pleasure at meeting such an intimate
friend of Robert Harley's. Even while he spoke a won-
derful change came over his face.
A gradual, not a sudden change. The eyes were still
fixed on mine, but the smile died away, to be succeeded
by a sickly expression, which deepened into what, ab-
surd as it seems, I can only call a look of absolute terror.
His very lips grew pale. The man looked ten years older.
Seeing him so, the thought shot through me—it might
be that Julian Wanneck was a specious impostor, whom I
had somewhere met, and who dreaded lest I should rec-
ognize and expose him. Yet, so far as I knew, his feat-
ures were quite new to me. **
I thought our companions must notice his strange agi-
tation. Perhaps he also thought so. With a kind of
wrench he turned his eyes from me and lifted his glass to
his lips. It was full to the brim, and the trembling of
his hand spilled some of the wine. *
“Mr. Vane, did you say?” he asked our host.
“Yes; you two will just suit each other.”
He looked at me again. This time he did not display
such evident emotion, but his gaze was not such as is
usually bent on a new acquaintance. He seemed striving
to impress my every feature on his memory, or to call to
mind when and where he had previously met me.
“We have never met before, Mr. Wanneck?” I said in-
terrogatively.
“Never to my knowledge.” He spoke as if it were a
*.
46 JULIAN WANNECK.
matter beyond doubt. His voice was soft, and gave no
evidence that I had inspired him with a sudden aversion.
Just then a man on my left, a personal friend, asked
me some questions about my luck at the assizes, from
which I had just come. He kept me in conversation for
a few minutes, during which time I knew that Julian
Wanneck was ever and anon eying me. Harley had been
so decided as to the man’s being a perfect gentleman that
I was surprised to find him falling so far short of what
were my ideas of good breeding; the more so as Harley
was himself a gentleman, and well able to settle what
claim another had to that much-abused designation.
I am unable to say whether Mr. Vanneck’s reputation
for witty and original remarks was deserved or not.
During that dinner I only heard him open his mouth to
reply to direct questions, and even then his answers were
of the simplest and baldest description. Our host, who
had no doubt praised his friend to others besides me, tried
to lead him on to talk—to a continuation, perhaps, of that
strain which had been so productive of merriment before
I entered the room. It was no use. For any brilliant
Sallies, Wanneck might have been the most ordinary type
of man—and, although I am ashamed to say so, I was
little better. $
A blight seemed to fall upon my spirits and play havoc
With my conversation. Yet I believed I had come to the
ouse ripe for enjoyment and conviviality. Perhaps I had
made a mistake. The hard work of the day, the close
atmosphere of the court, the painful scene I had witnessed
—may have affected me more than I thought possible.
That evening, at any rate, I was an utter failure. The
good things H should have said did not occur to me until
their time was over. A tale I ventured upon fell as flat
as ditch water, solely, I know, on account of the way in
which I told it. In spite of the choice dishes, the fine
wincs, the friendly faces around the table, I began to feel
a depression of spirit which I tried in vain to shake off.
Moreover, I grew alternately hot and chilled, and feared
I must be on the high road to some illness. After one or
two attempts to become something like my usual self, I
gave up and sat as silent as the man opposite me. So far
as purposes of entertainment went, I was not worth
my dinner. -
* - aw
* * >. ~
JULIAN WANNECK. 4?
Although at the time I would not confess it to myself,
there is no doubt but Julian Wanneck was to a great ex-
tent answerable for my uneasiness. Whenever I looked in
his direction I met his eyes, or saw they had just quit
my face. I could think of no earthly reason why I should
so greatly excite a stranger’s interest. I was neither
famous nor foolish; neither foppish nor slovenly; neither
strikingly handsome nor strikingly ugly. I knew nothing
of this man—what could he know of me? Yet all dinner-
time he was looking at me in this strange, enigmatical
Way.
We were ten at table. A certain amount of gay talk
went on at the other end, but at our end matters were so
dull that the feast might have been a funeral one. My
conscience told me that Harley was justified in saying
almost pettishly, to his right and left hand supporters:
“What fellows you two are! I was selfish enough to
put you next me for the sake of your talk. Now neither
of you will say a word.” -
I made another effort to do my duty; but it failed and
languished. Wanneck made no sign at all. Harley
grumbled out another complaint.
“Perhaps they won’t show off before each other,” said
the man on my left.
“I don’t know what it is,” said Harley; then speaking
to his brother, who sat at the bottom of the table, “James,
tell the fellows around you to speak up so that I may hear
them. Vanneck and Vane are gone dumb.”
“And how much they look alike,” said James, laugh-
ing. “We have all been noticing the resemblance.”
We started, and, of course, looked at each other. Cu-
riously enough, now that the thing was suggested, I saw
we were not unlike. Although no one would have vent-
ured to put my looks on a par with those of Wanneck,
who was a remarkably handsome man, we were not un-
like. He was dark. I was fair—sandy, my detractors
said—yet there was a resemblance. Moreover, our ages
must have been about the same, and there was a great
similarity about our build. All Harley’s guests agreed
that a likeness existed. 3-
“Do you see it?” said Vanneck, turning to our host,
and speaking, I thought, nervously.
****
48 JULIAN WANNECK.
“Plainly. Give me that likeness on the mantel-piece,”
added Harley, speaking to one of the servants.
The man brought it to him. It was a photograph which,
I had given my friend some time ago. It was inclosed in
a morocco case. Harley opened it, and handed it to Wan-
neck.
“The difference of complexion dosen’t show so much
in a photograph,” he said.
Wanneck examined it eagerly, then returned it to Har-
ley, who passed it to me. After comparing the repre-
sentation of myself with the man opposite me, I agreed
with the general verdict.
“I wish I had seen that photograph before,” said Wan-
neck, like one thinking aloud.
“Why?” asked Harley, with a shade of surprise in his
WOICe.
Vanneck made no reply, and the matter passed by.
Tinner was over at last. The wines were placed on the
table, and the servants left the room. Rare though our
host’s vintages were, they had no salutary effect upon
those in his immediate neighborhood. Vanneck scarcely
spoke. I grew more and more depressed. Even Harley
caught the infection, which also seemed to be spreading
down the table. It is curious what an amount of evil can
be wrought by two unsociable men.
“I say,” exclaimed our host suddenly, “let us have the
things cleared away and get to whist. We can keep the
wine.”
This proposal gave universal satisfaction. The order
was issued. We rose from our chairs, and walked about
the room, admired the pictures and bric-d-brac. I was
looking at a little sea-piece of which Harley was justly
proud, when I heard a soft voice say—
“I must apologize if I gave you any offense during din-
ner, Mr. Vane.”
“I am sure you meant none, Mr. Wanneck,” I said, dis-
armed by his evidently sincere manner.
“I meant none. Yet I can not explain. You will ac-
cept my apology?”
“If an apology were needed I would; but none is.”
He continued to stand at my side, and said something
in praise of the picture. Then he asked me if I was of
Jºlemish extraction.-
--- ~,
t
;
JULIAN WANNECK. * 49
The question would have been absurd save for the fact
that there was a tradition in our family that many years
ago our ancestors came from the Low Countries. The
name Vane, of course, belied it; but the tradition existed
all the same.
Julian Vanneck appeared to wait my answer with great
eagerneSS. t
I told him all I knew about the matter, and was sur-
prised to see the same ashen look which I had at first
noticed steal over his face. What difference could it
make to him if my people came from Flanders or Tim-
buctoo? Still it was strange he should have asked the
question.
“I think it must be a mistake,” I continued; “Vane is
not a Flemish name.”
“ Names get mutilated, changed, Anglicized—Van
Eck, Wanneck, Wann, Vane.”
I laughed.
“You are trying to account for the likeness they talked
about?”
He made no reply. I began to wonder whether he
held any property which really belonged to another
branch of his family, of which he feared I was the repre-
sentative. But the idea was far-fetched, and would not
account for his agitation when first our eyes met.
Just then Harley clapped me on the shoulder.
“Come along, you pair of wet blankets,” he said, “the
tables are ready.”
Julian Wanneck told him he could not stop to play
whist. He began to bid the party farewell. f
But our friends would listen to no excuse. They sim-
ply said he should not go. Harley, although he did not
raise such vociferous objections as his merry guests,
looked greatly annoyed. Perhaps Wanneck noticed this.
Any way, he yielded and consented to stay.
. There were, as I have said, ten of us—a nice number
for two whist tables. Whist at that time was—I may as
well say it now—a passion of mine. Then I thought I
knew something of the game—a common error with
youngish men. The “call,” the “ echo,” the “ penulti-
mate ’’ were not at that time the property of every one;
so that, given an intelligent partner with modern views,
I believed I could hold my own against the best I
*~~a %.
* Sea.
50 JULIAN VANNECK.
might meet in general society. I responded readily
enough to Harley’s invitation, and hoped that in the
combinations of the noble game I might get rid of my
low spirits.
We started to sort ourselves at the tables, Wanneck and
I choosing different ones.
“Hullo!” cried Harley, “that won’t do. You two
clever ones must play in the same rubber.”
I made no objection, but Wanneck seemed to hesitate.
“Let us draw cards,” he said. “ The five highest at
One table, the lowest at the other.”
We did so. Wanneck and I each drew a two.
We must have played at least a dozen rubbers. The
Curious thing was that on every occasion when we were
in together, Vanneck and I cut as partners. Stranger
still, we lost every rubber we played together. Yet there
was no question as to the superiority of our play over
that of our antagonists. Although the stakes were nothing
ruinous, the run of ill-luck cost me quite as much as I
could afford to lose. I was not a gambler, and began to
think of stopping. Besides, our cards were so wretched
that I felt little pleasure in the game, and, moreover, my
fit of blue devils continued unchanged.
“You two are doomed to bring each other bad luck,”
Said one of our antagonists, with all the gayety of a
winner.
“Yes,” said Vanneck, with queer solemnity, “we will
play no more.”
I echoed this resolution, and the table was broken up.
The other table had suffered from desertions, and it
looked as if the party was coming to an end. But Harley
still seemed determined to pit Wanneck and myself against
each other.
“I should like to have seen you two play on opposite
sides,” he said.
“To find out which is the bringer of bad luck?” I
asked.
Julian Wanneck was sitting in a listless attitude. He
seemed to wake up at my words.
“Will you play double-dummy, Mr. Vane—or, better
still, piquet?”
I did not like to refuse. “Piquet,” I said.
. He began sorting out the cards with feverish rapidity.
.* -
**
sº
Aeº-
**
J (JLIAN WANNECK. 51
“Do we play evenly, Harley?” he asked.
“I should think as evenly as two men can play.”
“Very well. Let the luck be determined by piquet.
What shall we play for, Mr. Vane? Five, ten, twenty, a
hundred, or more?”
I told him that ten pounds was quite enough.
“Enough to make you play your best?” he asked, but
not offensively.
“Certainly. It is a large stake for me.”
“Then to insure your playing your very best I will lay
you thirty pounds to twenty.”
In spite of these absurd odds I declined to increase my
stake. We cut—the deal fell to me. Wanneck’s eyes
brightened at the first evidence of luck being against me.
Then we settled down to work,
The game was slow and tedious. Wanneck played his
cards with great care and deliberation, but it vexed me to
see the feverish way in which he picked up each fresh
hand, and the workings of his face when fortune seemed
at all inclined to lean toward me.
I grew sorry I had accepted his challenge, and I was
much mystified at the anxiety displayed by a man of such
reputed wealth to win what to him, although not to me,
must have been a paltry stake.
Our friends stood or sat around us, watching the play
and betting on the players. One of them offered to bet
with me.
Before I could answer, Wanneck laid his hand upon my
8TII),
“Please don’t,” he said, almost beseechingly. “Let
me entreat you to have no bet with an outsider. If you
wish the stakes increased I will accommodate you.”
But I did not want them raised; the game went on,
without pique or capote, so slowly that I thought it would
never end; but the time did at last come when the next
deal would settle the matter.
The deal—a disadvantage in itself—was with Vanneck:
but then he was some forty points ahead of me, and wanted
only five or six to win. He dealt the cards carefully, and
as the last two fell from his hands I caught his eyes, and
saw them full of wild delight and triumph.
Then, suddenly, a strange, unaccountable feeling seized
me. For the time it seemed as if every thing in this world
- - -- ~re
*
52 JUIIAN WANNECK.
and the next depended upon my winning this particular
game of cards—and, the score notwithstanding, I felt cer-
tain I should win it.
I sorted my cards. Wanneck watched me without touch-
ing his own. I made the discard with great care, and
upon refilling my hand, saw, with a joy I could not ex-
plain, that it would need something approaching a
miracle to stop me from running clean out. So I laid my
hand down and calmly awaited my antagonist's pleasure.
My face may have announced my impending victory.
Wanneck’s lips tightened. I saw the perspiration break
out on his brow.
Twice he laid his hand on his cards—twice removed it.
The men around us looked at him curiously. Harley's
face showed blank astonishment. He knew that no
trumpery loss would so affect his friend.
Then a queer accident occurred. The youngest of our
party—perhaps he had been too severe upon his host’s
wines—rose to light his cigar, stumbled, fell, caught at the
table, and pulled it over, cards and all. Wanneck’s hand,
my hand, and the spare cards were jumbled together, face
up, face down, and altogether higgledy-piggledy.
What was to be done? I knew my hand by heart, but
my opponent had not looked at his. By Harley's sugges- -
tion, the game was declared drawn. I was glad of it.
With the game absolutely in my hands, ready to read off,
I could not have agreed to a fresh deal, although I was
willing to call it a draw.
With this the card-playing came to an end. A few min-
utes afterward Vanneck drew near me. “Would you have
won?” he whispered.
“Now the matter is arranged, yes. I had an eight se-
quence and a quatorze of aces.”
He turned away and sunk into a chair. I felt sure it
was not for the money he had set his heart upon beating
IIlé,
Then cigars and pipes were lighted and preparations
made for departing. As we were standing together, some
of the youngsters, as youngsters will, began doing feats of
strength, picking chairs up by one leg, and other useful
accomplishments. Some one took up Harley's dumb-bells,
for Harley was an athlete, and kept dumb-bells in both
jtji,IAN WANNECK. 53
his bedroom and dining-room. Sundry astonishing things
were done with them.
“Wane can do better than that,” said our host. “Show
these boys, Vane.”
I took the two masses of metal, crossed the thin parts,
and held both in one hand. Perhaps I had grown weaker,
or lost the knack of the thing, but as, after raising them
slowly at arm’s length above my head, I swung them round
and round, one of the ponderous irons slipped from my
grasp, and, to my unspeakable horror, absolutely brushed
Julian Wanneck’s temple as it flew past him to fall on the
floor with a thud which shook the house. I felt quite
sick. A narrower escape from death I had never seen.
I pass over my abject apologies. Strange to say, Wan-
neck heard them without saying a word to aid me to ex-
cuse my own clumsiness. He looked at me like one in a
dream. I noticed that he trembled. Certainly he was
anything but a strong-nerved man.
In answer to a question of Harley's, I turned to explain
how the accident had happened. While I was speaking,
Julian Wanneck hastily quitted the room, without a word
of adieu to any one. Finding he did not return, we made
inquiries, and were informed by the servant that he had
left the house.
“I will call upon him in the morning,” I said, “ and re-
new my apologies.” *
I wrote down the name of his hotel; then, bidding my
friends good-night, went back to my own quarters.
But not as a sensible man should have done, to go at once
to bed. I sat for more than an hour thinking over the
events of the evening—my fit of blue-devils, Wanneck’s
emotion when I entered the room, the likeness which had
been discovered between us, his hint that we belonged to
the same family, our evil luck at cards, the unparalleled
excitement raised in my mind, and in his, by the last
game, the accident which so nearly brought about homi-
cide, his nervous fear and sudden flight—all these gave
me plenty of food for thought. No wonder, when at last
I sought my bed, I dreamed for the rest of the night of
Julian Wanneck; no wonder I awoke in the morning
thinking of him.
I resolved to call upon him as soon as possible. As I
was breakfasting a letter was brought. I opened it care-
54 JULIAN WANNECR,
lessly, and, the writing being strange, glanced at the sig-
nature. It was that of the man I proposed visiting. The
letter ran so:
“I do not attempt to explain the meaning of last night's events.
Suffice it to say that from the moment I set eyes upon you I knew
that we were destined to work each other ill through life. That
there is a probability of our having sprung from the same stock
strengthens my presentiment.
“You will call this madness, or superstition, but my madness is
Sane enough, my superstition strong enough, to make me wish to
put thousands of miles between us. Even as you read this I am on
my way to America. I will write you occasionally as to my where-
abouts, and as a favor beg that should anything lead you in my
Way, you will apprise me, so that I may be able to avoid all chance
of our meeting.” -
“The man is as mad as a hatter!” I exclaimed, as I
finished reading this extraordinary letter.
Mad or not, he had really left town. Harley told me
so the same day. Some feeling of delicacy or compassion
restrained me from showing him Julian Wanneck’s letter,
but I asked him if his friend’s wits were all they should
be.
“He’s an awfully clever fellow,” said Harley.
“Yes; so he may be. But there is something queer
about him!”
“Hang it, Vane! If you go and shy twenty-five pounds
of iron at a fellow’s head, he may well look queer.”
“I don’t mean that. Is he more superstitious than
others?”
“As you mention it, he is. Believes in unlucky days,
destiny, fortune-telling, ancestral curses, and rot of that
sort. I used to chaff him about it. But he’s no end of a
good fellow, and I hope we shall soon see him back.”
I asked no more questions. I pitied a man who could
let his superstition put him to so much inconvenience;
and after awhile I ceased to trouble about the matter.
I did not forget it. At least every three months it was
brought to my mind by the receipt of a letter from Wan-
neck. These communications came regularly for several
years. They came from New York, Boston, Washington,
Chicago, San Francisco, or wherever he had temporarily
pitched his tent. They were very short, simply stating
the length of time he proposed to stay in each place.
There was no reason why I should feel -any particular in-
*
**
JULIAN WANNECK. 55
terest in Julian Wanneck, but I did write him once or
twice, urging him not to let such an idiosyncrasy as his
to interfere with his life; or begging him, at least, to
give me some logical reason for his fears. Then, as he
did not reply to my letters, I left the matter alone. It
was too ridiculous to talk or trouble about!
Some five years after our meeting, a great change for
the better took place in my life. I took unto myself a
wife. I was now making a good income at the bar, so
could well afford such a luxury. As this is not a love tale,
I need not dilate upon the perfections of the girl whose
love I was fortunate enough to win. She was an Anglo-
American—that is, her father and mother were English
people who had emigrated many years ago, and had just
returned, with ample means, to their native land. My
wooing went on smoothly enough; but when our engage-
ment was a reality, and the fullest confidences were ex-
changed between Helen and myself, she told me she had
an unpleasant task to perform. Before she had left Amer-
ica she had promised to inform a gentleman whenever she
found herself in her present happy position. He had
pleaded hard for this favor, and as there was little else in
which she could gratify him—poor man!—she had at last
promised to grant it.
Naturally I grew inquisitive, perhaps rather jealous.
Helen confessed readily that the man in question had
wooed her unsuccessfully. He was young, rich, and
handsome, yet had been unable to win her love. He was
in some things a very strange character. He told her,
when he found his pleadings were vain, that he could
have made her love him had it not been for the existence
of a man who he feared was destined to win her—a man
she had not yet seen. He begged her, as soon as she
was betrothed, to humor his whim, and let him be one
of the first to hear the news.
“Why didn’t he tell you the name of your future hus-
band?” I asked.
“I did not ask him. How could I?”
“Well, what is your unfortunate friend's name? I can
pity him now, of course.”
“ Julian Wanneck.” t
I could not help my start of surprise. The coincidence
56 JULIAN WANNECK,
**.
was most extraordinary. Helen noticed my movement.
“Do you know him?” she asked. *
I told her I had met him, but I did not say anything
about the results of that meeting. I asked her many
questions about him, and learned that the estimate put on
him by those who knew him was much the same as Har-
ley’s. He was considered one of the most gifted, accom-
plished men that could be seen anywhere, and was un-
doubtedly very rich.
“How was it that you could not love such a perfect
creature?” I asked.
“How can I tell? I might perhaps have done so at
last had you not come. Just before we met I was begin-
ning to compare him with the men one sees about.”
“I hope I am the man he predicted would marry you.”
“Of course you are,” said Helen, delightfully confident
that nothing could prevent our union. *
Her confidence was justified. We were married shortly
afterward. On the eve of my wedding-day I received a
letter from Wanneck.
“Was I not right?” it ran. “The only woman I have ever loved
you win. There may yet be worse to come. God grant we may
never Umeet !”
Shall I be thought to have been infected by his peculiar
superstition if I felt almost inclined to echo his prayer?
Mothing particular occurred during the next two years.
Julian Vanneck wrote every three months. He seemed to
have finally settled down in one of the largest American
towns. My qualm of superstition had long since passed
away. I could only look at the affair from the ridiculous
side. It was no business of mine, but the idea of a man
keeping away from England, perhaps even from Europe,
because he dreaded to meet such a harmless being as my-
Self, was, to say the least, comical.
After having for so many years seen his letters with
American stamps in the corner, it was quite a surprise to
receive one with our Queen’s head upon it, and post-
marked Liverpool. It told me the writer had been Sud-
denly called to England. Nothing, it said, but a matter
of life and death would have brought him here. He knew
he had no claim on my indulgence, but if for the next
fortnight I would go on the Continent, his gratitude
*
JULIAN WANNECR. 57
would be unbounded. He knew also that my going with-
out due preparation must subject me to pecuniary loss.
Would I accept the inclosed as compensation? If he had
valued my time too low he would, upon hearing from me
to that effect, fully satisfy me.
The “inclosed ” was a check for five hundred pounds!
INo wonder I repeated my former ejaculation, “Mad as a
hatter.”
Of course, I could not accept his money, although, had
circumstances permitted, I might have complied with his
request; but at that moment compliance was a sheer im-
possibility. I was retained in a case so important, that
the deputing of my part to another might have damaged
me immensely. So I returned Julian Wanneck’s check,
and, while regretting my inability to oblige him, once
more ventured to remonstrate with him as to the absurd-
ity of his behavior. He did not reply to my letter.
I heard from my old friend Harley that he was in Lon-
don. Harley had met him by pure chance, and from his
manner fancied that matters had gone awry with him.
“He isn’t a bit the same splendid fellow,” he said;
“he’s as moody as an undertaker—won’t go out anywhere
—seems afraid to meet any one.”
“Remember,” I said, “I never saw him anything but
moody.”
“No. You only met him that night you tried to kill
him. Perhaps he’s afraid you’re waiting to chuck another
dumb-bell at his head.”
A few days after this conversation I had occasion to run
down to Oxford. I was alone in a first-class carriage, and
was searching my bag for some papers which I meant to
peruse on the journey. The train had just started when,
defiant of by-laws, a late passenger opened the carriage
door and jumped in. He closed the door behind him,
then turned toward me. It was Julian Wanneck!
Would he know me? Yes, at the first glance he recog-
nized me. A look of sheer terror sprung into his eyes.
Without a word he staggered back against the carriage
door. He could not have secured it properly. To my
horror it flew open, and the man disappeared. The train
was not going at full speed, but too fast for any one to
fall from it with impunity. I grew quite cold as I rushed
to the window and looked out. We had just cleared Pad-
58 JULIAN WANNECK.
dington. I saw Vanneck lying helpless on the network
of rails. I saw two or three men run toward him, lift
him, and bear him away, for all I knew, dead!
From the first station at which we stopped, I tele-
graphed. Although in no way to blame, I felt very mis-
erable until I received an answer. I was then much re-
lieved at hearing that the damage sustained amounted to
no more than a broken leg. So much, I was half inclined
to think, the man deserved for his folly.
Tpon my return to town I made inquiries respecting
him. He had been carried to the Great Western Hotel,
and was progressing favorably. Save for the fractured
limb he was uninjured.
Although, after this, I did not venture to make any
more inquiries in person, I heard of him from time toº
time through Harley, who, like a good fellow, ofter went
to keep him company. At last I learned he was quite
cured. Then I received a letter saying he was about to re-
turn to America. On his arrival he would write and let
me know where he had taken up his abode. After a
while his letters came with their usual monotonous regu-
larity.
In the course of the next year my wife's father died.
At his death he still held considerable property in Amer-
ica, in the realization of which troublesome complications
threatened to arise. It was thought necessary for some
one to go to the United States to look after the interests
of the widow and daughter. I was undoubtedly the most
fitting person to do so. The long vacation was at hand:
so I resolved to spend my holiday in America. Then I
thought of Julian Wanneck.
It was, to say the least, curious that circumstances
should at last compel me to visit the continent in which
he had taken refuge from what could only be the mal
occhio he believed I exercised over him. I did not trouble
much about the superstitious side of the matter. During
the short time I purposed being in the States it was a
most unlikely chance that we should meet. Nevertheless,
after the scores of letters he had written me, it was an act
of courtesy incumbent upon me to let him know that I
was about to cross the Atlantic. I wrote to him, in fact,
an outline of my intended travels, so that if he wished to
* **,
**
JTULIAN VANNECK. 59
do so he might fly to Baffin’s Bay or Cape Horn in order
to gratify his whim in keeping out of my way.
Yet, for myself, I should have been glad to have en-
countered the man, if only to once more strive to convince
him of his folly. I must confess that after the things
which had occurred, I felt a certain amount of interest
in Julian Wanneck. Any one must feel interested in a
man who would willingly fly to the ends of the earth to
avoid him!
So, a few days before I sailed, I wrote my letter. I pur-
posely left it as late as possible, because I was not certain
but what American matters might, after all, arrange them-
selves without the necessity of my intervention. I gave
this letter, with the rest of my general correspondence, to
my clerk, to copy and dispatch. I may here say that by
some fatality he directed it to an English town bearing the
same name as Julian Wanneck’s last place of abode. For
a week or two it kicked about in the post-office, eventu-
ally coming back through the dead-letter office. By the
time it returned to my chambers I was in New York.
My wife did not accompany me. She hated the sea,
and was not very fond of America. Still she would have
come had I wished it, but my journey was to be such a
busy, hurried affair that I thought she was much better
at home taking care of the children.
My late father-in-law had been a shrewd but a specula-
tive man. A great portion of his wealth had been ac-
quired by buying land near to what he judged would be
rapidly-growing towns. In many instances his judgment
had been at fault, but whenever it was right the immense
rise in price more than compensated for many other fail-
ures. His properties—valuable and worthless — were
much scattered about, and it was part of my plan to visit
each one, and, after taking the best local advice, to decide
whether it should be kept, or sold for what it would fetch
in open market. So it was my travels took me to several
towns seldom visited by the ordinary tourist.
Japhetstown was one of these. Here my father-in-law
had made a very bad investment. Some score of years
ago Japhetstown had sprung into life, and in a precocious
infancy had boasted of some day doing great things. But
it grew to a certain size, then grew no more; began, rather,
—-me
| ***** *
60 JULIAN WANNECK.
to dwindle. The particular branch of industry which
had called it into life did not ramify and increase, as it
should have done. Japhetstown had been given its chance,
and had failed. I quickly decided that the land about
here should be turned into cash as soon as possible.
The person to whom I had been recommended to apply
for information respecting this locality was a farmer. I
spent the best part of one day with him, going over the
ground and getting a general idea of the place. He was
a clever, hardheaded, and, I believe, honest old fellow.
He was hospitable, and insisted that I should partake of
his good cheer before we parted. His farm was close by
—not more than three miles from the town. I accepted
his hearty invitation, and early evening found me in his
house. -
Strange! The moment I crossed the threshold I was
attacked by low spirits. Yet I had nothing whatever to
trouble or annoy me. I was in splendid health. True, I
was almost famishing, but my hunger was a healthy
hunger. This sudden invasion of blue fiends called to
my mind my state when first I met Julian Wanneck.
The farmer opened the door of a sitting-room. He
asked me to step in; he would join me in a minute.
Through the open door I saw reflected in a mirror which
hung on one wall the figure of a man who was apparently
deeply engaged in the perusal of a book. I started back.
In spite of the precautions I had taken, Julian Wanneck
and I were under the same roof.
My first impulse was to leave the place unseen; but re-
flection told me that such a course would be simply child-
ish. Now that chance had brought us together, let me
seize the opportunity of setting the man’s mind at ease.
And another thought struck me. There was no reason
why he should recognize me. I now differed much in
appearance from the man he had seen on two previous
occasions. I was roughly clad, and tanned by the Sun
and wind. Last year, having suffered from a weakness
of the throat, my doctor had advised me to grow a beard.
I had done so, although, greatly to my disgust, it had
appeared streaked with gray, and so made me look old
enough to grace the bench, if fortune would but place
me there. What an admirable ending to all Wanneck’s
absurd fears if he spent a few hours in my company with-
*
\
JULIAN VANNECK. 61
out recognizing me! I closed the door, and turned to my
host.
“A gentleman is in there,” I said.
“He’s boarding a bit with me. Writin’ a book on
American scen’ry, and doing his own pictures. After
all, 'twould take a lot to beat the scen’ry round Japhets-
town.”
This was true; the country about here was unusually
picturesque.
“Kindly call me by some other name,” I said. “Mr.
Jones will do. 1 don’t want the object of my errand here
known to every one.”
The farmer gave me a knowing smile. Opening the
door once more, he accompanied me into the room, and
told the man inside I was Mr. Jones, from England.
Vanneck laid down his book, and bowed with great polite-
I}6SS.
I was delighted to find he showed no signs of recogni-
tion. He looked very well, and remarkably handsome.
There was something of the artist in his general appear-
ance. I disguised my voice as well as I could, and we car-
ried on an easy conversation. All seemed to promise well
for the success of my plot.
An ample meal was soon spread upon the table. I did
full justice to it. Wanneck, although heate nothing, still
kept up the talk. He asked me questions about England.
He spoke of painting, music, politics, literature. He was,
certainly, a well-read man, and I quite looked forward to
the morrow, when I meant him to know that he had un-
wittingly met and conversed with me. My low spirits in
a great measure vanished. I dare say the success of my
stratagem dispelled them. *—as
When dinner, supper, or whatever the meal may be
called, was over, Wanneck, with a corteous bow to me, left
the room.
For some time longer I sat talking to the farmer on
matters of business; then I begged that my horse might be
Saddled. It was night, but the moon made every thing
as light as day; so I firmly declined the offer of an escort
to the town. I felt sure I could find my own way. I
lingered a little while in the hope that Julian Vanneck
would again show himself. He did not do so, and, at
| ---
62. JULIAN WANNECE. ---
last, bidding my host a hearty adieu, I struck off in the
direction of Japhetstown.
Then happened to me what often happens to persons
who are convinced of their own powers of remembering a
road once trodden. I did not exactly lose my way, but
for awhile I stood uncertain at a fork in the track, won-
dering whether I should go to the right or to the left. I
Settled the matter by tossing up a dollar. After all, it
mattered but little. I could not be very far from the town,
and if I did go a mile or two out of my way, need only
retrace my steps and take the other path. So on I went'
as the coin told me to go. -8
But, before I had ridden very far, I knew I was astray.
I was just thinking of turning back when, on a small plot
of land to my right, I saw by the strong light of the
moon a man on horseback—horse and rider standing mo-
tionless as a bronze equestrian group.
I had no reason for thinking Japhetstown anything but
a peaceable, God-fearing place, but I must own the sight
Somewhat startled me. It looked unpleasantly like a
highwayman awaiting my arrival. However, a man must
be considered innocent until he is proved guilty, and the
Worst mistake I could make was to show fear. Moreover,
I wanted to make certain that I had strayed from my
right road.
So I trotted on, and reined up close to the motionless
figure. I confess it gave me a shock to find that the
horseman was Julian Vanneck.
His brows were knitted. His face, as I saw in the
white moonshine, was pale and stern. There was a strange
air of solemnity about him. He looked at me, and that
look gave me such a sensation that l wished I could sum-
mon up enough cowardice to turn and ride away. As it
was I accosted him cordially.
“You here, Mr. Wanneck! You can tell me if I am on
the right road.”
“You have broken your promise,” he said, in bitter
accents, and which at once dispelled my belief that I had
escaped recognition. e
I thought it better to accept the situation without any
further attempt at deception.
“What promise?” I asked.
“To let me know if ever you visited this country.
sº-
*
..ºf
**-
JULIAN WANNECK. 63
***
1Heaven knows I have done my share in keeping away
from you!”
“Did I promise? I think not. Anyway, I wrote you,
naming every place I intended visiting. I could do no
more.”
He seemed to shudder. “Fate!” I heard him whisper.
“Fate!” Then he turned to me fiercely—
“Why did you enter that house while I was there?”
“It was pure accident. I did not wish to annoy you.
May I not in my turn ask why you wait for me here?”
“I came here thinking to avoid all chance of meeting,
I did not know Whither you were going—east, west, north,
or south, but nothing I thought could bring you this
way, and yet you come.”
“I did not think you recognized me,” I said.
“Recognized you! I felt your presence before I saw
you.”
“Look here, Mr. Wanneck,” I said, with business-like
sharpness, “ now that we have met can you not talk like
a rational being—at least give me your reasons for your
strange avoidance of me, and explain why—”
‘: Explain!” he burst forth passionately. “How can I
explain in a way which would be intelligible to an unim-
aginative, skeptical man like yourself. If I told you that
from the moment my eyes fell upon you I knew that we
were destined to work each other evil through life—if I
told you this you would call it arrant superstition.”
“I should,” I said, bluntly. “But,” I continued.
‘‘ on a former occasion you seemed to hint that we are of
the same extraction and name.” .*
“Yes; and if I said that this fact strengthens my pre-
sentiment—if I were to go back and tell you of genera-
tions ago—tell you of a deed so dark that it is yet unex-
piated—that even now the descendants of the actors
concerned influence each other’s fates, would you believe
me?”
“Most certainly not.”
“Will you, then, on your side, explain how each time
we have met my life has been all but sacrificed? Will
you explain how, unknowingly, you won from me the
woman I loved? Will you explain why you took this
road to-night?”
He looked ghastly as he asked this question.
64; 2 JULIAN VANNECK.
*
“The toss of a coin made me come this way,” I said,
with an assumption of éasiness, thinking the more prosaic
my answers the more likely they were to bring him to his
SëIłSéS.
“That you would call chance,” he said, in a low voice.
‘‘ Chance—or fate?”
I saw the futility of arguing with him. His disease was
incurable.
“Well, Mr. Wanneck,” I said, “I am sorry for your own
sake you hold such strange ideas. I regret that I intruded
upon you. Now, I think, we had better separate.”
“Yes,” he said, “it is time that we separated.”
I was just about to wheel my horse round. Something
indefinable in Wanneck’s accent made me glance at him.
I was just in time. Even as the last word left his lips
I saw something gleam in the moonshine, and knew that
my strange companion was covering me with a revolver.
Without any clear idea of what was best to do, I drove my
spurs into my horse’s sides and pulled wildly at the rein.
The brute reared on high. Wanneck fired at that moment,
and I felt sure that his bullet passed close to my horse’s
neck. In another second I had thrown myself from my
saddle. •
The madman was preparing for another shot. In wild
desperation I rushed straight at him. My Sudden charge
may have disconcerted him. I saw the flash—heard the
report; yet I lived, and my arms were round his waist.
I put every pound of my strength into that clutch. I
tore him from the saddle and threw him heavily on the
ground; then—perhaps the best thing I could have done—
I fell on top of him.
We were both strong men in the prime of life, but my
hand was on his throat, my knee on his pistol arm, so he
was comparatively at my mercy. Yet I had no wish to
kill the man outright. Even with my own life at stake,
I did not consider him accountable for his actions.
Trivial things intrude themselves on moments the most
Supreme, and my old phrase, “Mad as a hatter,” came to
my lips; so I set to work to choke Wanneck into sub-
jection or insensibility.
He made fierce efforts to free his right hand, but my
knee was just on the elbow joint, and crushing it into the
earth. I felt certain I could, if needful, hold him for an
- ** JULIAN WANNECK. 65
$
hour like this. No doubt the sense of strangulation which
-I was effectually bringing about made the fingers of his
right hand convulsively pull the trigger of the pistol and
discharge another chamber.
The shot harmed me as little as the preceding ones;
but I heard a wild whinny of pain. Suddenly a dark
body seemed to hover for half a second over us. Some-
thing struck me on the shoulder and hurled me to a con-
siderable distance; but even as I was torn from my an-
tagonist I heard a horrible, sickening sound—a crunch—
a crash of bone. I heard one deep groan, and then—
silence.
I staggered to my feet. My arm hung helpless at my
side; the breath was completely beaten out of my body.
A renewal of the struggle would on my part have been a
sheer impossibility.
There was no need to rénew it. Julian Vanneck lay
on the ground still and dead, his skull shattered to pieces
by the hoof of the wounded brute which had leaped so
wildly over our struggling forms!
Was it chance? Was it fulfillment?
THE “BICHWA.”
(A CLERGYMAN’S TALE.)
CHAPTER I.
ALTHOUGH this tale is little more than the barest state-
ment of facts, believe me I hesitated long before I could
make up my mind to give it to the public. Writers of
pure fiction are often blamed if a distinct and beneficial
purpose does not underlie their imaginative efforts, so that
to one of my own calling the consciousness that he has
written anything which can do the reader no good, and
which by no ingenuity can be twisted to a moral aim,
should be, at least, a subject of self-reproach. Indeed, I
feel that the only excuse I can make to myself for yielding
to the temptation of playing a narrator’s part, is that
human nature compels a man to wish to retail to his fellows
any strange and out-of-the-common events which he may
have witnessed.
Nevertheless, I doubt if this excuse would have removed
my scruples had I not felt sure that nine readers out of
every ten would by the theory of coincidence, excited
sentiment, overwrought imagination, innate superstition,
or what not, be able to explain and account for occur-
rences which, I am almost ashamed to own, have ever
been to me more than mysterious.
If the exigencies of my story permitted, I would will-
ingly conceal my identity. Not from the dread of ridicule;
not that I am ashamed to confess that I am a clerk in holy
orders; but from the fear that I may be supposed to ex-
pect more credence for a clergyman’s word than for that
of another man. However, I who tell this tale am William
Denys, now and for many years rector of Bartfield, in the
County of Dorsetshire.
(66)
*-*. In the year 1860 I was a young curate with somewhat
unsettled views. My High Church friends called me Evan-
gelical; my Evangelical friends called me Ritualistic.
Which I eventually became is a matter only concerning
myself, my parishioners, and my bishop.
But besides my views, my future in 1860 was also
unsettled. I had been for some months out of employ-
ment. Perhaps, if the truth be told, I was, having a
small income of my own, rather fastidious as to what
curacy I accepted; and moreover, a few months’ holiday
was by no means a time of weariness to me. I had many
friends, and utilized my leisure by paying a series of pleas-
ant and long-promised visits.
Among those with whom I Sojourned was an old school
and 'varsity friend and rival, who was at that time hold-
ing a desirable scholastic appointment at Liverpool. One
night, when dining out at a men’s party, I found myself
seated by a man whose name I learned was Hood.
He must have been about fifty years of age; he was very
.* tall, and I particularly noticed the immense breadth of
his shoulders; his hands were large and Sunburned; his
face that of one who had endured much exposure and
roughing. In fact, such was his general appearance that
I was not surprised to learn that Mr. Hood was a great
traveler, whose foot had trod almost every portion of the
earth’s surface.
He was a most pleasant dinner neighbor, full of anec-
dote, yet not more egotistical than was agreeable. By
the end of the prolonged and rather too convivial meal we
Thad become excellent friends; so much so that he invited
me to dine with him the next day, and learning that I
was staying with a friend, extended the invitation to my
host.
At the last moment some engagement, I forget what,
prevented Lewis, my friend, from accompanying me; so
at seven o’clock I found myself dining alone with my
new and interesting acquaintance.
Mr. Hood lived some little way out of Liverpool. His
house, though not large, was yet larger than he needed,
S as he was a bachelor and lived alone. Our dinner was
simple, but well cooked and tastily served. The wines,
although I followed my host’s temperate example and
drank little, were beyond suspicion. By the time
-- THE “BIGHWA.” * 6? –
68 THE ‘‘ BICHWA.”
that cigars and coffee made their appearance, I congratu-
lated myself heartily that I had accepted Mr. Hood's im-
promptu invitation.
During dinner and afterward our conversation went on
without flagging. Gradually he drifted away from the
subject of travel and adventure, and we found ourselves
discussing moral problems, particularly the amount of
guilt attaching to hasty and violent acts of passion. We
took views so far opposed as to make the argument inter-
esting, and I have no doubt I displayed the fault common
to many young priests, of assuming that the ceremony of
ordination and the adoption of clerical garments in some
mysterious way make a man of twenty-five an authority
on ethics. Once or twice I detected an amused expression
on Mr. Hood's face; so perhaps it was as well that the
Conversation was at last taken from debatable ground by
my expressing a wish to examine some of the trophies of
travel which were scattered about the room.
“I have never been a great collector of general curiosi-
ties,” said Mr. Hood. “I have given my time and money
to one subject; would you like to see the result of my
hobby-riding?”
Naturally, such was my desire; so after instructing a
servant to light the lamps, my host led me to what he
called his museum.
“I must apologize,” he said, with a smile, “for show-
ing a man of peace such a sight.”
The room was a large one, apparently built on to the
house. The walls were lined with tall, glazed cases, and
a long show-case ran down the center. The lamps were
arranged so as to throw their light into the various cases.
That collection was an interesting if a painful sight.
There was not an article in it which was not devised either
for offensive or defensive purposes—to take the life of a
man or to prevent its being taken. There were complete
suits of exquisitely wrought Persian armor, each sur-
mounted by the inlaid round-topped helmet, from which
hung the finely wrought curtain—I forget the technical
name—of tiny interwoven links. There were the swords
of every eastern nation—cimeters, yataghans, headsman’s
swords, and a dozen other sorts. There were spears and
halberds; richly gilded state axes and maces; murderous-
looking cutch axes and spiked clubs. There were Bur-
THE ** BICHWA.” 69
*
mese dhas and treacherous curved Malay creeses. There
were hundreds of other strange weapons, the names and
nationalities of which have passed from my mind. But
the great feature of the collection was what I may, using
a generic term, call daggers. I was quite ready to be-
lieve Mr. Hood when he assured me that his assortment
was unique.
Thrusting daggers, stabbing daggers, cutting daggers,
daggers with which to strike up, down, or even one might
say round a corner. Long-bladed and short-bladed, broad-
bladed and narrow-bladed—even double, if not treble-
bladed. Straight, curved, even undulating from hilt to
needle-like point. Daggers So richly inlaid with gold that
a king or chief might have worn them—daggers plain and
serviceable, evidently meant for bloodshed, not show.
Handles of jade, ivory, and wood, plain, carved, or richly
jeweled. Sheaths of velvet mounted with precious metal
and stones, or simple sheaths meet for a simple blade.
Jamdhars, kanjhars, peshkubs—a man must be an author-
ity on such subjects to describe them rightly.
Every dagger was kept beautifully clean, and when a
bright steel, polished to its utmost brilliancy. Where the
weapon possessed a sheath, the sheath was placed beside
it. Under each specimen was written the name, date,
and description.
Lven at the risk of being thought a prig, I say again
that, in spite of the interest of the collection, the thought
that so much time, trouble, and ingenuity had been spent
in manufacturing articles whose sole end was bloodshed
and cruelty was to me a painful one.
Mr. Hood, who was very proud of his collection, opened
several of the cases, and drew my attention to the peculi-
arities and beauties of the different weapons. “Hold this
in your hand,” he said, giving me a long, bright dagger.
“Don’t you feel that you would like to stick it into some
One?”
“I am thankful to say I do not.”
“Any way, I can quite imagine that the first thought
of a Savage who had acquired such a treasure as this must
be to use it. I quite sympathize with the old warriors in
their affection for their pet swords. There may have
been some hidden virtue in those old dwarf-forged brands
of the vikings which drove the owners baresark.”
70 THE * BICHWA.”
“You are jesting, of course.”
“No, I am not. The old metal workers had secrets
of their own. They may have known how to make blades
the very sight of which threw a man into a fighting rage. '
Hence the peace strings which in quiet times bound the
blade to the scabbard.” ****.
Collectors are generally enthusiastic and full of theories
respecting their acquisitions, so I contented myself by ex-
pressing a simple difference of opinion. Mr. Hood looked
at me thoughtfully.
“I should like to try a little experiment,” he said; “I
wonder if I am much stronger than you.”
“You can try if you like,” I said, laughing. I was
rather proud of my strength. He came to my left side,
passed his right arm under my arm-pit, and grasped my
right forearm. He then placed his left hand on my left
arm. “Can you move?” he said, suddenly tightening his
grip.
I have already mentioned his height and breadth of
shoulder. I was not surprised to find him the stronger
man, but I was both surprised and nettled to find that I
was helpless as an infant in his iron grasp. Struggle as I
would, I could not free myself. He soon released me,
and I looked at him with that feeling of respect which a
muscular Christian feels toward a more muscular Chris-
tian.
Mr. Hood then opened one of his wall cases, and from
a corner took a small and curiously worked metal casket.
He opened this casket by touching a hidden spring, and
drew out a small sheathed dagger. Round the sheath was
wrapped a piece of paper, on which was written what I
supposed to be a description of the weapon. He unrolled
this, handed me the dagger, and told me to look well at
it, as it was very old and curious.
Had it been on view with its fellows I should have
passed it without notice. The handle was of plain dull
green jade, the only peculiarity being that it was cut into
octagonal shape, and that on the facets were inscribed
eastern characters. The blade I could not see, as it was
hidden by a plain sheath, which to my inexperienced eyes
seemed to be of modern if not European make. I tried
to unsheathe it, but found that a small chain, passing
*
*
THE “ BICHWA.” 71
round the handle and then secured to the sheath, pre-
vented my doing so. I turned inquiringly to Mr. Hood.
“It is a ‘Bich wa” or “scorpion sting,’” he said. “I -
showed you one or two others of the same shape. This
one is nearly a thousand years old.”
I looked at the little weapon with more reverence, and
turning it in my hand asked the meaning of the inscrip-
tion on the handle. Seven of the facets were inscribed,
the eighth was blank. -v-
“They are men's names,” said my host, “men of emi-
nence. I have taken immense pains to identify them.
This one, the first inscribed, carries us back to the time
of the house of Ghizni, which first established the Mahom-
medan rule in India. This one, the last, is comparatively
of to-day. It is the name of a high-placed English official,
whose cruelty and extortions made his name hateful
through the province he ruled.”
“There is a wide space between the two.”
“Yes; but the Brahmins lived before Mahmud, and
they live now. This dagger was one of their sacred treas-
ures. No matter how it came into my possession. There
it is, and now you shall examine it more fully.”
He took a small chisel and pried open one of the links
of the chain which went round the handle of the histori-
cal weapon. He handed it to me, and to my surprise
placed himself in the same position as when we tested our
respective strength; the only difference being that his fin-
gers rested Softly on my arms instead of grasping them.
“Now unsheathe it and look at the blade,” he said.
- With some curiosity I obeyed. The blade was about
five inches long, with a wave in it which gave it the ap-
pearance of a tapering flame. It was of dull-gray steel,'
and curious reddish-brown lines seemed to run longitudi-
nally from the heel to the point, where they blended, so
giving the point a sustained red hue. It was a significant,
diabolical little weapon.
Yet it had a fascination for me. I did not lay it down,
but turned it from side to side, looking at those red lines,
endeavoring to trace them one by one until they merged
into the cloud at the poiht. Whether they were in the
steel or simply on the surface I could not say, but pres-
ently I thought they began to grow brighter and more
wº wº-ºw--> --
72 THE “BICHWA.”
vivid. “What a curious fancy!” I murmured, and looked
closer and closer at the dagger. **
Presently a thrill—a glow—I scarcely know what to call
it, ran as it were, from the fingers which closed on the
handle, up my arm and through my whole body. For a
joment the Sensation was not a pleasing one; and then—
(I am ashamed to go on. My pen has been lying idle
for an hour or more as I try to make up my mind whether
to tear these sheets to pieces or to finish them. Once
'more I am weak enough to decide on the latter course.)
| In plain words, then, a sudden horrible feeling took
possession of me. It was more than an impulse—it was
an overpowering necessity. My fingers grasped the han-
dle of the dagger convulsively, and I felt that something
absolutely compelled me to bury that flame-shaped blade
in my heart. I felt no wish to destroy myself, but on the
other hand I felt no fear of death or horror at the crime
of Self-destruction. It simply seemed an unavoidable act.
I was not a free agent. The dagger seemed turning
slowly toward my breast, and something told me that when
it pointed there fully I should be bound to strike. At
that critical moment I felt Hood’s iron grip upon my arms.
From the instant I first became engrossed in the exami-
nation of the “Bichwa ” till now I had entirely forgotten
that I was not alone. In fact, I believe I had forgotten
where I was. But Hood's grasp, which brought back the
knowledge that he was with me, did not banish the jug-
glery, or whatever it was. It simply changed the work-
ing of the spell. The feeling that the dagger must be
used was as paramount as before, but now it must be
used on another. I made a frantic effort to free my
hands. I felt my companion’s bony fingers slide down
my arm and grasp my wrist with such immense force that
my fingers were compelled to unclose, and let the dagger
fall from them. As it left my hand the homicidal mania
—I can call it by no other name—-passed from me, and I
sunk on the nearest chair in a state of bewilderment and
abasement.
I noticed Mr. Hood, with his eyes turned away from the
accursed weapon, lift it and replace it in its sheath. Then
he came to my side.
“What jugglery, what horrible conjuring trick is this?”
I gasped out.
t
THE ** BICHWA.” 73
“Tell me what you felt?” he said.
I was silent.
“Did you feel,” he continued, “an irresistible desire to
take your own life with that dagger?”
“Yes,” I replied, sullenly. I was ashamed to add that
I also felt the desire to commit murder.
“Then you will not dispute the fact that the old metal
workers threw some occult influence into their art. Listen.
So far as I have been able to identify them, each man
whose name is engraved on the handle of that old dagger
slew himself.”
I shuddered. “For Heaven’s sake, destroy the diaboli-
cal thing,” I said. --
“It is too curious, too historical to destroy.”
“But if it should pass into other hands,” I urged.
“I have taken all precautions. A full description of its
virtues is attached to it. Now let us go back to the dining-
room.”
I followed him in silence. The thought that five minutes
ago I, a clergyman, was longing with a fierce longing to
kill myself or another was terrible to me. I felt I had been
the victim to some trick, but in what the trickery lay I
could not determine. Anyway, I no longer experienced
any pleasure in my host’s society, so, as soon as I could,
bade him a cold adieu.
I never saw him again. Sometime afterward I made
inquiries about him, and learned that he had left his
house near Liverpool and had gone no one knew where.
CHAPTER II.
IMUST now pass over twenty years, and begin what may
be called my story. Although the curious episode con-
nected with Mr. Hood and his collection of arms made at
the time a great, even painful, impression upon me, this
at last wore off, and as years passed, if I thought at all
about the matter, I was quite able to satisfy myself that
some strange mental freak would amply account for the
Sangulnary feeling which had taken possession of me.
Nevertheless, the incident was not one to be entirely for-
gotten, and I am sure that, although so many years have
*
74 - THE “BICHWA.” \ ,
.**
elapsed, my description of what occurred is strictly ac-
Curate.
In 1880 my health began to give way. Not only had I
for many years borne the strain of administering to the
wants of a large and poor parish, but a terrible bereave-
ment had rendered me all but incapable of fulfilling my
duties. I was no longer a young man, full of hope, work,
and energy, but a heartbroken and childless widower. So
prostrated I felt, that I am ashamed to say I contemplated
resigning my living. My kind friends and parishioners
would not hear of this. With a generosity and delicacy
too seldom exercised, they subscribed enough money to
pay a clergyman to take my place for a twelvemonth; then
bade me try what rest and change of scene would do to-
ward restoring me to health and peace of mind.
I went abroad for a while; then I returned and wandered
about England. At times I spent a few days with old
friends, at times I went where chance or inclination led
me, staying at one place or another until I grew tired and
willing to turn elsewhere.
My wanderings at last led me to the delightful, gray old
town of Winchester. One morning, thinking I should
like to explore the neighborhood, I hired a horse and
started off. I rode several miles out of the town and while
I was jogging along, deep in saddened thought, my horse
shied and threw me. A thousand stars flashed before my
eyes, and then all was darkness.
When consciousness returned, I seemed to be in a dream.
I knew I was lying on some kind of an improvised ambu-
lance, and that men were carrying me.
“Bring him to my house—it is the nearest,” I heard
some one say. Then I became once more unconscious.
I awoke, and found myself in a bedroom, and surround-
ed by every comfort, including a surgeon, who was spong-
ing my head and making preparations for sewing up the
nasty cut which had been the result of my own negligence
or my horse’s vice. The operation having been skillfully
performed, I soon felt well enough to inquire for and thank
the good Samaritan who had picked me up, a wounded
stranger, on the roadside.
Fortunately, the damage I have described was all I sus-
tained. After a couple of days’ rest I was well enough to
leave my room. I should, of course, at once have relieved
*-
3:
*J | THE “BICHwa.” 75
my charitable host of my presence, but he so courteously
insisted upon my remaining that I could not refuse.
He was a man of about five-and-thirty, tall, thin, and
of quiet, gentlemanly demeanor. He paid me every at-
tention, and during the whole time while I was confined
to my room frequently sat with me and talked on various
topics. The consequence was that when I was able to rise
from my bed and proclaim my convalescence, we were all
but friends, and he begged me to remain as his guest for
so long as I found it convenient.
His name was Fraser—Maurice Fraser. I gathered
that he was a man of some property. He was married,
but his wife was away at present on a visit. He expected
her back in the course of a few days, and said he looked
forward to the pleasure of making his new friend, myself,
known to her.
The house was a small, unostentatious country-house,
with a fine garden and shrubbery. It was situated in one
of the most charming parts of Hampshire, and its owner
and occupier should have been a happy, contented man.
The more I saw of my host the more I liked him. He
was well read and intelligent. . His tastes were studious
and literary. He was, for the time, alone in his house—
like myself, he had no children—so when I found his kind
invitation was really meant, I took him at his word and
stayed on.
Early in the next week Mrs. Fraser returned. I had
grown rather curious to see her—the more so as I had a
kind of fancy that Mr. and Mrs. Fraser were not a very
attached couple. To my rather old-fashioned notions it
seemed strange that a wife should leave her husband alone
while she paid protracted visits. But people tell me that
such separations between husband and wife are nowadays
by no means uncommon. If so, so much the worse for
domestic happiness.
Mrs. Fraser came back, and so far as I could see, the
greeting between the two was affectionate, if undemon-
strative. I was presented, and found the husband’s wel-
come to me indorsed by his wife with enough cordiality to
make me feel I was not an intruder.
I am no judge of beautiful women, but I believe I am
not wrong in saying that Mrs. Fraser was one of the fairest
creatures.that ever trod the earth. I have not the writer’s
76 THE “BICHwa.”
knack of describing face and figure. Let it suffice that
she was young, and very, very beautiful.
She arrived home just in time for dinner. Fraser and
I drove to the railway station to meet her. She talked to
me pleasantly during the drive to the house. Then she
vanished until she appeared, perfectly but simply dressed,
at the dinner-table.
Turing the progress of the meal she turned to her hus-
-band. “I met Ralph Brandon at the Baileys’,” she said.
“He promised to come to us for a few days.”
Fraser made no comment on this piece of news. He
merely asked when Brandon was coming. But I fancied
there was a change in his voice as he spoke.
“To-morrow or the day after, he said,” answered Mrs.
Fraser, carelessly; and then the conversation became
general.
The days passed pleasantly enough at the house in
Hampshire. The weather was glorious, and I found plenty
of time for that calm meditation which had by now become
almost a necessity to me. I have mentioned that Fraser
was a reading man. Nevertheless he did not use his li-
brary much. I soon found it was his custom to take the
book upon which he was engaged to a seat in a secluded
part of the shrubbery which, however, commanded a fine
view. Here, weather permitting, he sat for hours. As
soon as I discovered this habit of his, in spite of polite
protests, I left him to himself, and amused myself as best
I could. I dare say I was as fond of solitude as my host,
so the arrangement worked very well.
Of Mrs. Fraser I saw little, except at meal times and
in the evening. Somehow she secrued too young a com-
panion for me—too young, I sometimes thought, for her
quiet and studious husband. *
The expected guest, Mr. Brandon, arrived in due
course. A tall, well-dressed, and I suppose I must say,
handsome man. Curiously enough, before he had been
in the house five minutes I received the impression that
my presence there was by no means welcome to him. I
had no reason for this fancy, but I could not divest my-
self of it.
Although Maurice Fraser and his new guest appeared
to be on terms of easy intimacy, it was not a hard
matter to see that Brandon was Mrs. Fraser’s friend
* }
*:- ~
THE “BICHWA.” 77
far more than he was her husband’s. I can not stop now
to write of trivial details, or tell how my suspicions that
Brandon was wronging Fraser as cruelly as ever one man
wronged another were first aroused. Suffice it to say,
that before three days had gone by, I had damning evi-
dence that friendship did not describe the relationship
between Gabrielle Fraser and the man who, by her invita-
tion, was beneath her husband’s roof. It was to me a
painful discovery. This was how I made it:
One morning I was sitting in the conservatory, one
door of which opened into the drawing-room. I think I
was half asleep, or, at any rate, far away in thought.
Suddenly I heard voices in the drawing-room—heard
them plainly, for the glass door was half opened. I
heard Brandon say, in deep, stern accents, “Gabrielle,
the time has come to end all this.”
There was a pause and a sigh. “What can I do?” said
the woman, softly.
“Do! Fly with me at once. Leave the bookworm to
his musty books. He will forget you in a week.”
“I can not! I can not! I will not! Think what it
means—think of my future.”
“I thought you loved me,” said the man slowly and
distinctly.
“Love you! Ah, Heavens—you know I love you!”
I heard the sound of a kiss. I heard whispered words
of passion. Then I rose from my seat, and with a heart
aching for the man whom I now call my friend, passed
quietly out of the deor into the garden, and strove to de-
cide how I was called upon to act—what was the right
and the best thing to do.
Ought I to go to Fraser and tell him all I had learned?
I was the man’s guest. I had eaten his bread and salt. I
could not shut my eyes to what was passing beneath his
roof. Nevertheless, by communicating what I had unwit-
tingly heard to him, I should create a breach which might
never be closed. I might force a woman to take that des-
perate step from which I could not help hoping and think-
ing she recoiled. Still, I was bound to do something. I
could not help, for once in my life, wishing that I had
more worldly wisdom by which to shape my course. I
wanted to act in a way which would save my friend from
the grief which overhung him, and save his wife from the
78 THE “BICHWA.”
sin she was about to commit, and the attendant shame and
remorse. I did not, could not believe she had gone too
far to be saved.
So I resolved, rightly or wrongly, that before making
Fraser acquainted with the treachery, I would appeal to
his wife, and I would let Brandon know that his guilty se-
cret was mine. But the price of my keeping the secret
must be the man’s leaving the house at once. My task
was a painful one, but I dared not shrink from it. It
should be done at once.
However, I could not begin it until late that night,
Fraser joined me shortly after I had decided how to act.
He was with me all the afternoon, and there was company
at dinner in the evening. I waited until every one had re-
tired to rest, and then walked to Brandon’s room and
tapped at the door. I found the man half undressed, and
smoking a cigar. With a look of surprise he allowed me
to enter his room.
I wasted no time in appeals to his conscience. His, I
guessed, was not a nature to be guided by the great dictum
of right and wrong. I went straight to the point. I told
him I knew everything, and that unless he left the house
to-morrow morning Fraser should share my knowledge.
The man grew white to the lips. His dark eyes glit-
tered strangely. The thought struck me that, were we
two alone in a solitary place, my life would not be worth
much. He muttered between his teeth, and I knew he
was cursing me. Presently he looked at me with a sneer-
ing smile. “So you have been listening at key-holes,” he
said; “a fitting employment for a priest!”
“No matter what I have been doing. Will you go?”
He knitted his brows, and for some minutes remained
in sullen thought. I heard him grit his teeth. At last
he raised his head. “You have the whip hand of me,”
he said, calmly. “I suppose, for her sake, I must go—
but not to-morrow. I will go before the end of the week.”
** No. To-morrow.”
“I will go before the end of the week. If that does not
suit you, go and tell that fool Fraser all. I don’t care
much which way it is.”
I left him. After all, his going was not the greatest
point. My hope was that the appeal which I intended to
make to-morrow to the erring woman would be successful.
THE “BICHWA.” 79
Her I meant to exhort and entreat, not threaten. That
night before I went to rest I prayed long and earnestly
that my efforts might be successful.
The morning was a glorious one, but my sad thoughts
made the sunshine seem incongruous. I took a stroll
round the garden before breakfast, and, to my surprise, en-
countered Brandon. He was generally the last down. He
looked white and ill, and I was not sorry to think that his
night had been a troubled one. He gave me a curt nod,
and entered the house. Through the dining-room window
I saw him go to the spirit case which stood on the side-
board, pour out a glass of neat brandy, and drink it. I
waited in the garden a few minutes, fearing that Mrs. Fra-
ser was somewhere about and had taken this opportunity
of meeting the man who was working her ruin. But no,
she came down-stairs with her husband, and it was evident
this was her first appearance.
The breakfast was a dull affair, although Mrs. Fraser's
manner toward me showed me that as yet Brandon had
found no opportunity for letting her know that I had dis-
covered the Intrigue. Perhaps he had risen early in hopes
of doing so. Gabrielle looked very fair and beautiful in
her spotless white morning gown. Poor girl! she was but,
a girl, and my heart was sad for her as I looked at her and
thought how she was hovering on the brink of a precipice.
Breakfast over, we three men went outside the house
and sat on the garden-Seat. Brandon lighted one of his
large cigars. As he did so, I noticed that the hand hold-
ing the match trembled like that of a man with the palsy.
Maurice Fraser and I kept up a desultory conversation,
but Brandon smoked in gloomy silence. Fraser rallied
him on his unsociable behavior. Ah, he little knew to
what cause it was due!
I kept a sharp lookout for the chance of seeing Mrs.
Fraser alone. Presently I saw her in the conservatory,
cutting withered blooms from the plants. I rose from my
seat, entered the conservatory, and to insure against in-
terruption took the liberty of locking the garden door.
Gabrielle greeted me with a pleasant smile. “Have you
come to help me, Mr. Denys?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, taking her hand, “in God’s mercy I
have come to help you.”
My Solemn accents told her everything, A flood of
80 THE “BICHWA.”
crimson rushed to her face and neck. She strove to speak,
I checked her and led her into the drawing-room. From
the window I could see her husband sitting by his false
friend, and I could see a little blue line of smoke curling
up from the latter’s cigar.
What I said that day to Gabrielle Fraser has no place
in this story. Such powers of persuasion as I possess I
used to the best of my ability. Such help as I could give,
I gave. I take no credit to myself; but it is to me an un-
speakable consolation to think that ere we parted I had
a weeping, and I believe, truly penitent, woman at my side.
“If Maurice only lowed me,” she sobbed out at last,
“all might be well.”
“But he does love you—he must love you,” I said.
“He is cold to me—there is something, some cloud
between us. We have drifted away from each other.”
I took her hand. “Mrs. Fraser,” I said, “I believe
your husband loves you dearly and faithfully. If there is
any misunderstanding between you, a word from you
would remove it. Go to him, place your arms round his
neck, tell him you love him, and all will be sunshine, and
I shall not have spoken this morning in vain.”
We were standing in the middle of the room. Her eyes
were red with weeping. At that moment I saw Maurice
Fraser with a book under his arm, strolling across the
lawn toward the shrubbery. He was, I knew, going to
his favorite seat. .
“See, there he goes,” I said. “Follow him, and if
you can ask his pardou, ask it. Believe me, there is no
time like the present.”
I pleaded earnestly. She hesitated, and hung her head.
Then she turned away and went toward the door. “Yes,
I will go at once,” she said. I opened the door and saw
her go upstairs, no doubt to her room, to remove traces
of distress.
Then with a lighter heart I went into the garden and
sat down by the side of Brandon. I was determined he
should not interfere and wreck everything. He took little
or no notice of me. His face, I remarked, was very pale,
and his eyes were fixed on Maurice’s vanishing figure.
Long after it had disappeared in the shrubs, Brandon
gazed in that one direction, Presently he started to his
*
THE “BICHWA.” 81
feet. Gabrielle was crossing the lawn and making for the
entrance to the shrubbery.
“Where is she going?” he asked, hastily.
I could not resist the triumph of right over wrong.
“She is going,” I said, “to her husband, to endeavor to
undo such mischief as you have wrought. May Heaven go
with her.” *
He paid no heed to my words. “Mrs. Fraser, Ga-
brielle,” he cried, “stop! I want to speak to you.” -
She turned for a moment at the sound of his voice.
Then, shaking her head, went on toward the shrubbery,
and vanished from our sight. With a fierce oath Brandon
ran across the lawn after her.
My blood boiled. Here was this villain, in open daylight,
and without the faintest sense of shame, about to do his
utmost to undo the good work which I believed I had
effected. There was no time for verbal protest. Yet I
determined I would stop him. I sprung forward in pur-
suit, and in half a dozen strides I was beside him. Shall
I be blamed when I say that I swung round my right leg
and with one sweep hacked him over as years ago I had
hacked over many a good fellow when playing football at
Rugby. Men fall heavier than boys. Brandon went
down like a stone, and it seemed as if all the breath was
knocked out of his body. His eyes glared at me.
“After her, you fool,” he gasped out. “Stop her—
don’t let her see it. She will go mad.” He struggled to
his feet, but was for the while utterly unable to move.
He spoke in riddles, but there was that in his manner
which told me his desire to arrest Gabrielle’s steps arose
from more than the wish to prevent her from becoming
reconciled to her husband. I knew not what to fear, but,
nevertheless, I ran swiftly up to the winding path which
led to the broad walk, along the top of the little wooded
hill. There I paused. There seemed no earthly reason
why I should hurry.
The picture is before me now. I could see in the dis-
tance Maurice Fraser standing with his back toward me.
His shoulders were bent, and he seemed to be examining
something attentively. I could see Gabrielle walking
slowly toward him, and I rejoiced at the sight.
I saw her reach him, lay her hand softly on his shoulder.
I saw Maurice turn around suddenly as he felt her touch.
82 THE - “BICHWA.”
**
I saw him raise his hand. I saw something glitter in the
sunshine. I saw his hand fall, and in a moment, with a
shriek of pain, Gabrielle Fraser fell a dead heap at her
husband’s feet.
I heard another cry, and knew that Brandon was be-
hind me, and had seen all. I rushed forward. My first
glance was given at the fallen woman. Her life-blood
was streaming down her white dress. Even as she fell
she must have plucked the weapon from the wound. It
lay by her side, and in spite of the horror of that moment
I knew it. I knew the flame-shaped, tapering blade. I
knew the dull green jade handle with the inscribed facets.
It was the accursed “Bich wa”—the dagger which twenty
years ago I had handled with such strange results.
I was beside myself with grief and horror. Impulsively,
I seized the fatal weapon, and hurled it far away into the
wood. Then I kneeled down by the poor girl, and tried
to stanch the flow of blood.
It was no use. Her eyes were closing fast. I rose to
my feet, and after glancing at Fraser, who stood like a
statue or a man stupefied, I rushed to the house and gave
the alarm. When I returned to the fatal spot I found the
murderer standing just as I left him, but Brandon, re-
gardless of his presence, was on his knees and embracing
and kissing the poor dead creature. I tore him off; my
brain was in too great a whirl to work out the problem,
but I knew that in some way he was answerable for the
horrible deed.
And all the while Maurice Frazer stood as motionless as
his victim. Ever and anon I heard him mutter like a
man in a dream, “What have I done? Why did I do it?”
He followed me passively to the house, where he went off
into a dead faint.
As for Brandon, I never saw him after I tore him from
Gabrielle’s body. He went straight away, Heaven only
knows where. He was sought for, but never traced. His
absence gave rise to strange reports, and was freely com-
mented upon.
I can not bring myself to describe the inquest, and the
arrest and trial of Maurice Fraser. The whole case was,
so far as the public were concerned, wrapped in impene-
trable mystery. But the broad fact that Maurice Fraser .
had killed his wife was clear as daylight, Wrong as it
THE “ BICHWA.” 83
may have been to do so, I held my tongue about many
things. Had I, for instance, spoken of Brandon’s guilty
passion for Gabrielle, a motive for the murder might have
been established which would have ruined the plea of in-
sānity set up on behalf of the accused. I justified my
silence by the conviction I felt that Fraser knew nothing
of what I had learned, and so had really no motive for
the crime.
If ever a true plea of insanity was urged it was in this
case. The poor fellow seemed to have sunk into a mer-
ciful oblivion as to what had taken place. He was ac-
quitted, but ordered to be confined during her Majesty’s
pleasure.
The dagger was sought for, but never found. I was
severely censured for my thoughtless conduct in hurling
it away. Indeed, in summing up, the judge said the
case was one of the most unsatisfactory he had ever known.
Unsatisfactory indeed—wrapped in utter mystery to all
save me. And yet, had I stood up in court and stated
all that I knew, the mystery would have been greater, or
I should have been jeered at as a madman. *
Can I at the end of this story give any elucidation?
As to the central mystery—the occult diabolical power
proved to me beyond doubt as possessed by that old world
weapon—none. As to the way in which human hands
directed this power, I have the following scraps of evi-
dence.
TJpon making inquiries as to who Brandon was, I
found him to be a man of fortune, who had inherited his
wealth from a distant relative named Hood.
Poor Flaser died some months ago. I was with him at
the end. Just as life was quitting reason returned. He
grasped my hand, and, speaking a hoarse, strange whis-
per, said, “Who put that devil’s dagger on the seat for
me to find? Was it Brandon?” Before I could answer
him he was dead.
But I answer him here. I say that the man to whom
that dagger passed knew its powers. I say that on the
morning after I had threatened him with exposure, he
laid it where Fraser would see it and handle it. I say,
moreover, that my well-meant efforts to save her from sin
and shame sent Gabrielle Fraser to receive the blow which,
*. ** * Xr ^*.
-- .* *,
*.
*
84 THE “BICHWA.”
fallen a minute before, would have made her a widow and
free for her lover to wed.
And I say that the guilt of her death and of her hus-
band’s madness and miserable end lies on Ralph Brandon,
and will one day be requited to him.
There is my tale. A tale which I have been tempted
to tell, but which, I fear, I shall hereafter regret having
told.
CHEwton-ABBOT.
ſ CHAPTER I.
THE Abbots of Chewton-Abbot, Gloucestershire, were
county people, and, moreover, had always occupied that
coveted position. They dreaded not the researches of the
officious antiquary who pokes about in pedigrees, and
finds that, three or four generations ago, the founders of
certain families acquired their wealth by trade. They at
least were independent of money-earning. The fact that
Chewton began to be known as Chewton-Abbot so far back
as the fifteenth century, showed they were no up-starts.
Indeed, if not of the very first rank—that rank from which
knights of the shire are chosen—the Abbots, from the an-
tiquity of their family, and from the centuries that family
had owned the same estates, were entitled to dispute the
question of precedence with all save a few very great mag-
nates. They were undoubtedly people of importance.
The reigning Abbot, it need scarcely be said, was always
a county magistrate, and at some period of his life certain
to serve as sheriff. But for generations the family had
occupied exactly the same position, and exercised exactly
the same amount of influence in the land. The Abbots
seemed neither to rise nor fall. If they added nothing to
their estates, they alienated nothing. If they gave no
great statesmen, warriors, or geniuses to the world, they
produced, sparingly, highly respectable members of
society, who lived upon the family acres and spent their
revenues in a becoming manner.
The estates were unentailed; but as, so far, no Abbot
had incurred his father’s displeasure, the line of descent
from father to eldest son had been unbroken, and appeared
likely to continue so. True, it was whispered years ago,
that the custom was nearly changed when Mr. William
Abbot, the present owner of the estate, was leading a life
s - $85)
\
3 ºr sº
86 CHEWTON-AD BOT.
in London very different from the respectable traditions
of the family. But the reports were not authenticated;
and as, soon after his father’s death, he married a member
of an equally proud family, all such ill-natured gossip died
a natural death; and at the time this tale opens William
Abbot was leading the same quiet life his ancestors had
led before him.
It was one of the cherished Abbot traditions that the
family was not prolific. So long as the race was kept from
disappearing they were contented. In this respect the
present head of the family showed himself a true Abbot.
He had but one son, a young man who had just taken a
fair degree at Oxford, and who was now staying at Chew-
ton Hall, before departing on a round of polite travel,
which, according to old-world precedent, his parents con-
sidered necessary to crown the educational edifice.
Mr. and Mrs. Abbot were in the breakfast-room at
Chewton Hall. Mr. Abbot was alone at the table, lazily
discussing his breakfast. His wife and son, who were
early risers, had taken that meal nearly an hour before.
The young man being away on some out-door pursuit, the
husband and wife had the room to themselves. Mr.
Abbot had just poured out his second cup of tea, and, ac-
cording to his usual custom, commenced breaking the
seals of the letters which lay beside his plate. His wife
drew near to him. .
“I am afraid that infatuated boy has in some way en-
tangled himself with the young woman I told you of,”
she said. *
“What young woman?” asked Mr. Abbot, laying down
his letters.
“I told you last week he was always riding into Bristol
—so often that I felt sure there was some attraction
there.”
“You did, I remember. But I took little notice of it.
Boys will be boys, you know.”
“Yes; but it is time we interfered. I found him this
morning kissing a photograph and holding a lock of hair
in his hand. I taxed him with his folly.”
“My dear Helena,” said Mr. Abbot, with a shade of
contempt in his voice, “will you forgive my saying that
in matters of this kind it is best to leave young men
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 87
alone, and not see more than can be helped. Leave the
boy alone—that is my advice.”
“You don’t quite understand me,” replied Mrs. Ab-
bot. “He wants to marry her.”
“Wants to do what?” cried her husband, now fully
aware of the gravity of the situation.
“He told me this morning he had asked her to be his
wife. She would, he knew, consent, if we would welcome
her as a daughter.”
“How kind! IIow considerate!” said Mr. Abbot scorn-
fully. “Who may she be, and where did Frank meet
her?”
“He saved her from some incivility at the railway sta-
tion, and so made her acquaintance. Who she is, he
scarcely seems to know, except that her name is Millicent
Keene, and that she lives with an aunt somewhere in Clif-
ton. Frank gave me the address, and begged me to call
—assuring me that I should take her to my heart the mo-
ment I saw her.” º
“He must be mad!” exclaimed Mr. Abbot rising and
pacing the room. “Mad, utterly mad! Does he think
that we are going to let him—an Abbot—marry the first
nameless young woman who strikes his fancy? I will talk
to him, and soon bring him to his senses. The estates
are unentailed, thank goodness! so I have some hold over
him.”
Mrs. Abbot’s lip just curled with scorn, as she heard her
husband’s direct commonplace plan for restoring her son’s
wandering senses. She knew that such parental thun-
derbolts were apt to do more harm than good.
“I would not threaten just yet,” she said. “Frank is
very self-willed, and may give us trouble. For my part,
ºnd to drive into Clifton this morning and see the
gll'i. --
“What folly? To give the affair your apparent sanc-
tion?”
“No. To show her how absurd it is to fancy we shall
ever allow Frank to take a wife out of his proper sphere;
and to hint that if he marries against our will, her hus-
band will be a beggar. The fact of her withholding her
consent to marry him until we approve of her shows me
she is quite able to look after her own interests.”
Mr. Abbot, who knew his wife's skill in social diplo-
88 CEIFWTON-ABBOT.
macy, offered no valid objections; so the horses were or-
dered, and Mrs. Abbot drove to Clifton.
The mistress of Chewton Hall was a woman of about
fifty-five; tall and stately, noticeably but not attractively
handsome. Rising in intellect far above the level of the
family into which she had married, she had started by en-
'leavoring to mold her husband’s mind to the capacities
of her own. In the early days of their married life, she
had urged him unceasingly to strive for a higher position
in the World than that of a mere country gentleman. She
wished him to enter the political arena; to contest a bor-
ough; in fact, to change his way of living entirely. Iłut
she found the task a hopeless one. A docile husband in
most things, nothing could move William Abbot from
the easy groove in which his forefathers had always
placidly slidden. The husband and wife were of very
different natures. Perhaps the only common ground
between them was their family pride and the sense of
their importance. Yet while the gentleman was quite
contented with the latter as it now stood, and always had
stood, the lady was ambitious, and wished to augment it.
But her efforts were of no avail; so at last, with a feeling
touching dangerously near to contempt, she gave up at-
tempting to sway her husband in this direction, and cen-
tered all her hopes in her only son, on whom she flattered
herself she had bestowed some of her superior intellect.
He should play an important part in the world. At the
first opportunity he should enter parliament, become a
distinguished member of Society, and, so far as possible,
satisfy her ambition. Of course he must marry, but his
marriage should be ome to strengthen his hands both by
wealth and connections. Now that he was on the thresh-
old of man’s estate, she had turned her serious attention
to this subject, and had for some time been considering
what heiresses she knew who were worthy of picking up
the handkerchieſ which she meant to let fall on his be-
half. She had postponed her decision until his return
from the contemplated tour. Then she would broach the
subject of an advantageous matrimonial license to him.
By broaching this subject, Mrs. Abbot meant laying her
commands upon her son to wed the lady she had chosen
for him.
As she drove along the twelve miles of road to Clifton,
:-)
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 89
and reflected on all these things, is it any wonder that
her frame of mind was an unpleasant one; that her eyes
grew hard, and that she felt little disposed to be merciful to
the owner of the pretty face which threatened to come
between her and the cherished schemes of years?
The carriage stopped at the address given her by her
son—a quiet little house in a quiet little street, where
the arrival of so grand an equipage and so fine a pair of
horses was an event of sufficient rarity to make many
windows open, and maid-servants, even mistresses, crane
out and wonder what it meant. Mrs. Abbot, having as-
certained that Miss Keene was at home, and having made
known her wish to see her, was shown into a room plainly
bnt not untastefully furnished. A piano, an unfinished
drawing, some dainty embroidery, gave evidence of more
refinement than Mrs. Abbot expected, or, to tell the
truth, hoped to find in her enemy’s surroundings. A
bunch of flowers, artistically arranged, was in a glass
vase on the table; and the visitor felt more angry and
bitter than before, as she recognized many a choice orchid,
and knew by this token that the Chewton hot-houses had
been robbed for Miss Keene's sake. Mrs. Abbot tapped
her foot impatiently as she awaited the moment when her
youthful enemy should appear and be satisfactorily
crushed.
The mistress of Chewton-Abbot had somehow conceived
the idea that the girl who had won her son’s heart was of
dollish style of beauty. She may have jumped at this
conclusion from the memories of her young days, when she
found the heart of man was more susceptible to attractions
of this type than to those of her own severer charms.
Pretty enough, after a fashion, she expected to find the
girl, but quite crushable and pliant between her clever
and experienced hands. She had no reasons for this im-
pression. She had coldly declined to look at the portrait
which her son, that morning, had wished to show her.
Having formed her own ideal of her would-be successor
at Chewton-Abbot Hall, she regulated her actions accord-
ingly. Her plan was to begin by striking terror into the
foe. She wished no deception; the amenities of social
warfare might be dispensed with on this occasion. Know-
ing the advantage usually gained by a sudden and un-
expected attack, she had not revealed her name. She
90 CHEWTON-ABBOT.
simply desired the servant to announce a lady to Miss
Keene. &
Hearing a light step approaching the door, Mrs. Abbot
drew herself up to her full height and assumed the most
majestic attitude she could. It was as one may imagine
a fine three-decker of the old-days, turning her broadside,
with sixty guns run out and ready for action, upon some
puny foe, to show her that at a word she might be blown
out of the water. Or it was what is called nowadays a
demonstration in force.
The door opened, and Millicent Keene entered. Mrs.
Abbot bowed slightly; then, without speaking a word, in
a deliberate manner looked the new-comer up and down.
She did not for a moment attempt to conceal the object
of her visit. Her offensive scrutiny was an open declara-
tion of war, and the girl was welcome to construe it as
such.
But what did the great lady see as she cast that hos-
tile, but, in spite of herself, half-curious glance on the
girl who came forward to greet her unexpected visitor?
She saw a beautiful girl about nineteen; tall, and mak-
ing allowances for age, stately as herself. She saw a
figure as near perfection as a young girl’s may be. She
saw a sweet, calm face, with regular features, and pale,
pure complexion, yet with enough color to speak of
perfect health. She saw a pair of dark-brown, truthful
eyes—eyes made darker by the long lashes—a mass of
brown hair dressed exactly as it should be. She saw,
in fact, the exact opposite to the picture she had
drawn, and as Millicent Keene, with graceful carriage,
and a firm but light step, advanced toward her, Mrs.
Abbot’s heart sunk. She had entirely miscalculated the
strength of the enemy, and she felt that it would be
no easy matter to tear a woman such as this from a
young man’s heart.
The girl bore Mrs. Abbot’s offensive glance bravely.
She returned her bow, and, without embarrassment,
begged her to be seated. Then she waited for her vis-
itor to explain the object of her call.
“You do not know who I am, I suppose?” said Mrs.
Abbot, after a pause.
“I have the plessure of knowing Mrs. Abbot by sight,”
replied Millicent, in a perfectly calm tone.
-- CHEWTON.—ABBOT. - 91
“Then you know why I have called upon you?”
The girl made no reply.
, Mrs. Abbot continued, with unmistakable scorn in her
voice: “I have called to see the young lady whom my son
tells me he is resolved, against his parents’ wish, to make
his wife.”
“I am sorry, Mrs. Abbot, you should have thought it
needful to call and tell me this.” -
“How could you expect otherwise? Frank Abbot
bears one of the oldest names, and is heir to one of the
best estates in the county. When he marries, he must
marry a wife in his own position. What has Miss Keene
to offer in exchange for what he can bestow?”
The girl's pale face flushed; but her brave brown eyes
met those of her interrogator without flinching. “If I
thought you would understand me, Mrs. Abbot, I should
say that I have a woman’s true love to give him, and that
is enough. He sought me, and won that love. He asked
for it, and I gave it. I can say no more.”
“In these days,” said Mrs. Abbot, contemptuously,
“ persons in our station require more than love—that, a
young man like Frank can always have for the asking.
Of what family are you, Miss Keene?”
“Of mone. My father was a tradesman. He was un-
fortunate in his business and has been many years abroad
trying to redeem his fortunes. With the exception of an
education which, I fear, has cost my poor father many
privations, I have nothing to boast of. I live with an
aunt, who has a small income of her own. Now you
know my history.”
Mrs. Abbot had soon seen that crushing tactics failed to
meet the exigencies of the case. She put on an appear-
ance of frankness. “You are candid with me, Miss
Keene, and it appears to me you have plenty of common
sense. I put it to you: do you think that Mr. Abbot or
myself can lend our sanction to this ill-advised affair?”
The girl’s lip curled in a manner which was particularly
galling to Mrs. Abbot. A tradesman’s daughter, whose
proper place was behind a counter, had no right to be able
to assume such an expression! “That was for Frank, not
for me, to consider, Mrs. Abbot.”
“But surely you will not marry him against our
Wishes?”
! * U
* \sº.
92 CHEWTON.—ABBOT.
****.
amº-
The girl was silent for a minute. An answer to such a
question required consideration. “ Not yet,” she said.
“We are both too young. But if, in after years, Frank
Abbot wishes me to be his wife, I will share his lot, let it
be high or low.” She spoke proudly and decisively, as
one who felt that her love was well worth having, and
would make up for much that a man might be called on to
resign in order to enjoy it.
It was this independence, the value the tradesman’s
daughter set upon herself, that annoyed Mrs. Abbot, and
led her into the mistake of firing her last, and, as she
hoped, fatal shot. “You are not perhaps aware,” she
said, “ that the estate is unentailed.”
Millicent, who did not at once catch the drift of her
words, looked inquiringly.
“I mean,” explained Mrs. Abbot, “ that my husband
may leave it to whom he likes—that if you marry my
son, you will marry a beggar.”
The girl rose. With all her practice, Mrs. Abbot her-
self could not have spoken or looked more scornfully.
“How little you know me, niadam, to insult me like that!
Iſave you so poor an opinion of your son that you fancy I can
not love him for himself? Did you marry Mr. Abbot for
his wealth?”—Mrs. Abbot winced mentally at the ques-
tion.—“Do you think I wish to marry Francis Abbot only
for the position I shall gain? You are wrong—utterly
wrong!”
“Then,” said Mrs. Abbot, with the bitterness of de-
feat, “I suppose you will persist in this foolish engage-
ment, and the only chance I have is an appeal to my
Son.”
“I have promised to be his wife. He alone shall re-
lease me from that promise. But it may be long before
he can claim it, and so your anxiety may rest for some
time, Mrs. Abbot. I have this morning received a letter
from my father. He wishes me to join him in Australia.
Next month I shall sail, and it will be probably three or
four years before I return. Then, if Frank wishes me to
be his wife—if he says to me: ‘I will risk loss of lands
and love of parents for your sake,” I will bid him take me,
and carve out a way in the world for himself.”
A weight was lifted from Mrs. Abbot’s mind. She caught
the situation at once. Three or four years’ separation!
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 93
What might not happen! Although she strove to speak
calmly as a great lady should, she could not keep a certain
eagerness out of her voice. “But will you not correspond
during that time?”
This was another important question. Again Mellicent
paused, and considered her answer. “I will neither write
nor be written to. If, eventually, I marry your son—if
his love can stand the test of absence and silence—at least
you shall not say I did not give him every opportunity of
terminating our engagement.” *
Mrs. Abbot rose and assumed a pleasant manner—so
pleasant that, considering the respective positions of her-
self and Miss Keene, it should have been irresistible.
“I am compelled to say that such a decision is all I could
expect. You must forgive me if, with my views for my
son’s career, I have said anything hasty or unjust. I will
now wish you good-morning; and I am sure, had we met
under other circumstances, we might have been great
friends.”
Whatever of dignity and majesty Mrs. Abbot dropped
as she put on the appearance of friendliness was taken
up by the girl. She took no notice of her visitor’s out-
stretched hand. She rung the bell for the servant, and
bowed coldly and haughtily as Mrs. Abbot swept from the
l'OO II) •
But bravely as she had borne herself under the eyes of
her inquisitor, when the rumble of the carriage wheels
died away from the quiet street, Millicent Keene threw
herself on the sofa and burst into a flood of tears. “Oh,
my love!” she sobbed out. “It is hard; but it is right.
It will never be. I know! It is too long—too long to wait
and hope. Can you be true when everything is brought
to bear against me? Will you forget? Will the love of
to-day seem but a boy’s idle dream? Shall I ever forget?”
CHAPTER II.
MRS. ABBOT drove home in her stately carriage think-
ing deeply. Niler mind was tolerably easy. She knew
there was little chance of a young man’s love living
through years of absence and silence. Frank would go
into the great world, and gaze on many a fair face during
94 CHEWTON-ABBOT.
that time; till the beautiful face of Millicent Keene—for
even Mrs. Abbot could not gainsay the girl’s beauty—
would gradually fade from his thoughts. He would taste
the cup of ambition; he would see what power and station
meant in the world, and would soon laugh to Scorn his
boyish dream. He would very quickly realize the differ-
ence between Abbot of Chewton Hall and plain Frank
Abbot, who had to earn the bread to keep a wife, be she
ever so charming. In fact, the thoughts of Mrs. Abbot
in her carriage and Miss Keene on her sofa were almost
identical, although the words which expressed them dif-
fered.
Save for one thing, Mrs. Abbot’s reflections were very
comforting. The drawback was that she felt lowered in
her own eyes. She had made a mistake and had been
treated with contumely. The victory was hers, but she
had not won it herself. It was not her cleverness, but
the girl’s right-mindedness which would bring about the
separation. She blamed herself for having misread the
girl’s character, and found her honest indignation, at the
imputation that her love for Frank was influenced by his
possessions, mortifying to think of. Still, matters had
turned out well. She would have the satisfaction of tell-
ing her husband that all was, or would be, at an end—
that the hope of the Abbots would not marry nobody’s
daughter. So busy was she with these thoughts, that
she did not notice when some three miles outside of the
smokey town of Bristol, a horseman approaching. Upon
seeing him, her coachman gathered up the reins prepara-
tory to stopping his horses; but, as the rider made a
negative gesture, he simply touched his hat and drove on;
while Frank Abbot and his mother passed, neither appar-
ently noticing the other.
He was a handsome young fellow, and without a cent
to his name might have given many a wealthy competitor
long odds in the race for a girl’s heart. Tall and broad-
shouldered—clever face with deep-set eyes, large chin and
firm lips, he sat his horse gracefully, looking every inch
a gentleman and an Englishman. Not, one would say,
the man to win a woman’s love and throw.ºt aside at the
bidding of father or mother. Not the man to do a thing
hastily and repent the deed at his leisure. Rather, a man
who, when once engaged in a pursuit, would follow it
CHEWTON-A1BBOT. 95
steadfastly to the end, whatever that end might be. It
was scarcely right that Millicent Keene should allow fear
to mingle with her grief at the approaching long separa-
tion from her lover. She should have looked into that
handsome, powerful face and understood that years would
only mold the boy’s intention into the man’s determina-
tion.
Naturally, he was at the present moment rather down-
hearted. His mother, having learned his secret, had re-
fused him sympathy or aid. Too well he knew she was
to be swayed neither by entreaty nor argument. He was
now riding over to Clifton to reiterate his love to Millicent
and to consult as to future steps. As he passed the car.
riage he wondered what had brought his mother in that
direction. She had not mentioned her intention of going
to the town, nor had she asked for his escort as usual.
Could it be possible that she had driven over to visit Mil.
licent? If so, he knew it boded ill; so, pricking on as
fast as he could, he reached Clifton just as the girl had
grown more calm, and had washed away the traces of her
recent tears. -
Frank was terribly upset by her recital of the events of
the morning. Although she did not repeat the whole
conversation, he knew his mother well enough to be able
to supply what Millicent passed lightly over. The pro-
posed separation was a thunderstroke to him. In vain he
entreated the girl to reconsider her determination. The
promise was made, and her pride alone would insure her
keeping it. Of course Frank vowed, after the usual man-
ner of lowers, that love would grow stronger in absence;
and as he thoroughly believed what he vowed, his vows
were very consoling to the girl. He declared he also
would go to Australia, marry Millicent, and take to sheep-
farming, leaving the paternal acres to shift for themselves.
All this and many other wild things the young fellow
said; but the end was a sorrowful acquiescence in the
separation, tempered by the firm resolve of claiming her
in four years’ time in spite of any home opposition. Hav-
ing settled this, the heir of the Abbots rode home in a
state of open rebellion against his parents.
This they were quite prepared for, and had, like sensi-
ble people, made up their minds to endure his onslaught
passively. His mother made no reply to his reproaches;
*---, -
96 CHEWTON-ABBOT.
his father took no notice of his implied threats; but both
longed for the time to come when Miss Keene would sail
to distant shores and the work of supplanting her might
begin. \
About one thing Frank was firm, and Millicent perhaps
did not try to persuade him from it. Until they were
bound to part he would see her every day. Mr. and Mrs.
Abbot knew why his horse was ordered every morning,
and whence that horse bore him at eve; but they said
nothing.
The fatal day came soon enough. Frank went down to
Plymouth to see the very last of his love; and the mighty
steamship “Chimborazo’’ bore away across the deep seas
one of the sweetest and truest girls that ever won a man’s
heart. A week after she sailed Frank Abbot started on
his continental tour, -
“I don’t care much about it,” he said to himself, dole-
fully enough; “but it may help to make some of the time
pass quicker. Four years, my darling! How long it seems!”
“He will see the world,” said Mrs. Abbot, “ and learn
that a pretty face is not everything.”
“He will fall in and out of love with a dozen girls be-
fore he returns,” said Mr. Abbot, cynically.
It has been before stated that for many years there had
been little change in either the possessions or the position
of the Abbots of Chewton-Abbot; but, like other people,
they had occasional windfalls. Some years after Mr. Ab-
bot succeeded to the estate, a new branch of a large rail-
Way passed through an outlying part of his land, and he
who made it a boast of never selling or mortgaging a single
acre, was compelled by the demands of public convenience
and commerce to part with what the railway wanted. Of
course he obtained a good round sum as compensation.
This lay for a long time at his banker's, waiting for any
contiguous land which might come into the market. After
a while, as no fields which he wished to add to his own
were open to buyers, at his wife’s suggestion he sought for
another and more profitable investment, and in an evil
hour became the proprietor of fifty shares in a bank, whose
failure has now become historical. He bought these
shares at a premium; while he held them they went to a
much higher premium, but no doubt the same tenacity
which led him to cling to his acres made him keep to the
*.
- CHEWTON-ABBOT. 97
same investment. The high rate of interest also was very
useful, and kept another horse or two in the stables.
We can all remember the astonishment we felt that
black day when the news of the stoppage of that particu-
lar bank was flashed from end to end of the kingdom,
and how, afterward, the exposure of the reckless conduct
of its directors, and of the rotten state in which the con-
cern had been for years, sent a cold shudder down the
back of every holder of bank stock.
Mr. Abbot was not a man of business. He did not at
once realize what being the registered owner of these fifty
shares meant. He denounced the roguery of the direc-
tors, and vowed that if ever again he had money to spare,
into land it should go, nowhere else. He had an idea
that no more than the money which he had invested
would be lost; but when, after a few days, he gathered
from the newspapers the true meaning of unlimited lia-
bility, his heart grew sick within him. The rental of
his estate was about six thousand a year; so, when call
after call was made on the shareholders, William Abbot
knew that he was a ruined man, and lamented his folly
for not having entailed the estates. Lands, house, furni-
ture, plate all came to the hammer; and so far as county
people and landed gentry, the Abbots were extinct. Mrs.
Abbot had a jointure of some five hundred a year, on
which the unfortunate couple were fain to live as best
they could. They took a house at Weymouth, and in
that retired watering-place mourned their woes in genteel
obscurity.
So Frank Abbot came back from Switzerland to begin
the world on his own account, with nothing but a college
degree, a perfect constitution, and a few hundred pounds
scraped together by the sale of his personal effects. How
should he earn his living? He was sorely tempted to emi-
grate. He had the frame and muscles for hard work,
and out-door life would suit him. Yet he shrunk from the
idea of giving up as beaten in his native land. Other
men had made their way; why should not he? He felt a
consciousness of a certain ability which necessity might
force into full play. His mother suggested the church.
“A clergyman of good family can always marry a rich
wife, and that you are bound to do now.” Frank
shrugged his broad shoulders, and thought sadly of his
98 CHEWTON-ABBOT.
promised wife, so many thousands of miles away. Eventu-
ally, he decided to read for the bar. He knew it would
be slow work to win success there—that for many years
he must be prepared to endure penury; but a career
might be made. If a hundred fail, one succeeds—why
should he not be that one? -
Millicent must be told the bad news. He had no right
to keep a girl’s love during all the years which must
elapse before he could offer her a home. He must at least
release her from her vows. If–and as he believed it
would be—she refused to be released, they must wait and
hope. Now that the reality of marrying on nothing came
home to him, he saw what it meant—what misery it must
entail. Now that the earning his own living, of which
he had spoken so bravely when there was no need of his
doing so, was forced upon him, he became quite aware of
the sacrifices he must make. He was no desponding
coward, and indeed had little doubt as to his ultimate
success. He felt that he could bear hardship himself; but
he could not bear it if Millicent must also share it. At
any rate it was right she should know the change in his
fortunes. So he wrote a few words: “MY DARLING—
We are all ruined. I am going to try and make a living
as a barrister. Of course I must now release you from
every promise.” He signed his name; but before sealing
the letter could not help adding: “But I love you more
than ever.” Then he sent the letter to Millicent’s aunt,
and begged that it might be forwarded to her niece.
That letter never reached its destination. Whether it
was mislaid or misdirected—whether a mail-bag was lost
either on the voyage or on the long land journey—whether
Miss Keene's aunt, who had learned what reverses had
befallen the Abbots, simply threw it on the fire, will never
be known. All that can be said is, Millicent never received
it; and after months had passed Frank, who was looking
eagerly for the overdue answer, grew very miserable, and
began to doubt the love of woman.
Five long yºurs have passed by. Frank Abbot is now a
barrister of nearly three years’ standing. He works hard,
is frequently on circuit, and if, as yet, he has not achieved
any brilliant forensic triumph, he is neither briefless nor
without hope. Some small cases have been intrusted to
- him, and he finds the number of these slowly but surely
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 99
increasing, and knows that if the opportunity comes, and
if, when it does come, he may be able to seize it and make
the most of it, success may soon be his. Even now he
makes enough to supply the modest wants to which he has
tutored himself. But for some time after the last of his
little capital had vanished he had been hardly pressed.
Indeed, in order to live at all, he had been compelled to
accept some aid from his parents’ reduced means. They
gave this readily enough, as, with all their faults, they
loved their son. Even to this day Frank looks back with
a shudder upon one or two years of his life.
The five years have changed him from a boy to a man.
He is handsome as ever, but his look is more serious; his
features express even more character. He has given up
all dreams of the woolsack, but is conscious of possessing
fair abilities, a good address, a commanding presence, and
a great deal of ready self-confidence. He feels that in a
few years’ time he may have a home to share, if the
woman he loves is still willing to share it. He has not
again written to her. He has heard nothing from her,
although the time by which he promised to claim her has
long passed. He is, however, resolved that as soon as he
sees the future fairly promising, he will seek her, and
learn whether she is still true to him, or whether the
sweetest episode of his life must be linked with the
memory of a woman’s faithlessness and inconstancy. He
sighs as he thinks of the time which has elapsed since
she waved him that last farewell at Plymouth. “She
may be married, years ago,” he says, “ and have three or
four children by now.” Then he thinks of her steadfast
eyes, and knows that he wrongs her—blames himself for
his mistrust. To sum up, Frank Abbot’s constancy re-
mains firm; but he is obliged to do what thousands of
other men must do, hope for better days, working, mean-
while, with might and main to bring the dawn of those
better days near.
Does he regret the loss of his fortune much? Of course
he does, being neither a fool nor of a superhuman nat-
ure. Many a day, as he sits in a wig and gown in the
stifling court, listening to learned arguments on cases in
which he has not the remotest interest, his soul longs for
a day with the pheasants, a run with the duke's hounds,
or a ride round the home-farm; and he anathamatizes all:
*
tº e ©
*
• e © ...,
wº sº
100 CHEWTON-ABBOT,
*
joint-stock banks as roundly as his father may be supposed
to have done. But, nevertheless, Frank is not a soured
man. He is somewhat grave and self-contained, but
pleasant company enough to the few men whom he chooses
to call his friends.
He has not been near Chewton Hall since the family
downfall. It had been bought, with a great part of the
furniture, by a rich Tondon merchant, whose name, al-
though he had heard it at the time of the sale, had slipped
from his mind. Frank cared little who held it. He knew
it is only in romances that a ruined family regains posses-
sion of its kingdom. Some day he intended to run down
and have a look at the old place which he had loved so
well; although he feared the sight would not improve the
tenor of his mind, or make him less inclined to rail at
fortune.
Just about this time Frank made a new acquaintance.
It was long vacation. The lord chief justice was yacht-
ing; his brother judges, Queen’s Counsel, and learned
leaders, were recruiting their jaded energies as it best
pleased them; gay juniors had thrown their wigs into
their boxes, and were away on various holiday pursuits.
Frank, however, who had recently succeeded in getting
Some occasional work on a journal, and who hoped to get
more, was still in London. One morning, a gentleman,
who wished to see Mr. Abbot, was shown into his cham-
bers. The visitor was a tall, middle-aged man, strongly
built, well dressed, and with pleasant features. He looked
like one who had led a hard life, and lines on his brow
told of trouble. His hands were large and brown—it was
evident they had not been idle in their day. Not, per-
haps, quite a gentleman, as we conventionally use, or
abuse, that word, but a noticeable, out-of-the-common
mam. He gave Frank a sharp, quick glance, as if trying
to gauge his intellect and powers. Apparently satisfied,
he took the chair offered him, and explained his errand.
He had a lawsuit pending, and wished Mr. Abbot to con-
duct the case. Frank interposed smilingly, and told his
new client that it was etiquette for his instructions to come
through a solicitor. He explained that a barrister and the
nian whose cause he pleaded must communicate through
a third party. His visitor apologized for his ignorance
ghgūſ sligh-matters, and said he would see his solicitor,
§ – º & ©
º © &
•
*
‘y
-*
*:
*
CHEWTON-ABBOT, 101
However, after the apology was accepted, instead of bow-
ing himself out, Mr. John Jones—for by that name he
called himself—entered into a general kind of conversa-
tion with Frank. He spoke easily and pleasantly on a va-
riety of topics, and when at last he left the room, shook
hands most cordially with the young man, and hoped he
should meet him again soon.
“Wonder who be is?” said Frank, laughing over the
sudden friendliness this stranger had exhibited. “Any
Way, | hope he will make his solicitors send me that
brief.” *
However, no brief came; but for the next few days
Frank Abbot was always tumbling across Mr. John Jones.
He met him in the street as he went to and from his
chambers. Mr. Jones always stopped him, shook hands,
and as often as not, turned and walked beside him. Frank
began to like the man. He was very amusing, and seemed
to know every country under the sun. Indeed, he de-
clared he was a greater stranger to London than to any
other capital. He was a great Smoker; and as soon as he
found that Frank did not object to the smell of good
tobacco in his chambers, scarcely a day went by without
his paying him a visit and having a long chat over a cigar.
Frank was bound to think that Mr. John Jones had taken
a great liking to him. Perhaps the man wanted a friend.
As he said, he knew no one in London, and no one knew
him.
So young Abbot drifted into intimacy with this lonely
man, and soon quite looked forward to the sound of his
cheerful voice and the fragrance of those particularly good
cigars he smoked. He even, at Mr. Jones's urgent re-
quest, ran down to the sea-side for a couple of days with
him, and found the time pass very pleasantly in his so-
ciety.
Kūhough the young man was very reticent on the sub-
ject of his family’s misfortune, Mr. Jones had somehow
arrived at the conclusion that he was not rolling in wealth.
He made no secret of the fact that he himself was ab-
surdly rich. “I say, Abbot,” he remarked one day, “if
you want any money to push yourself up with, let me
know.” Perhaps Mr. Jones fancied that judgeships were
to be bought.
“I don’t want any,” said Frank shortly.
102 GHEWTON-ABBOT.
“Don’t take offense. I said, if you do. Your pride—
the worst part of you. It’s very hard a man can only
help a fellow like you by dying and leaving him money.
I don’t want to die just yet.”
Frank laughed. “I want no money left me. I
shouldn’t take yours if you left it to me.”
“Well, you’ll have to some day, you see.” Then Mr.
John Jones lighted another cigar from the stump of the
old one, and went his way; leaving Frank more puzzled
than ever with his new friend. -
But the next day an event occurred which drove Mr.
John Jones, money, and everything save one thing, out
º: his head: Millicent Keene was in England—in Lon-
on!
When he saw her letter lying on his table, Frank Abbot
feared it could not be real. It would fade away like a
fairy bank-note. No; before him lay a few lines in her
handwriting: “MY DEAR FRANK–I have returned at
last. I am at No. 4 Caxton Place.—Yours, MILLICENT
KEENE.”
Early as it was, he rushed out of his office, jumped into
a cab, and sped away to the address she gave him.
We may pass over the raptures, the embraces, the re-
newed vows, the general delicious character of that long-
deferred meeting. We may suppose the explanation of
the lost letter accounting for the girl’s silence; and we
may picture her sympathy with her lover’s misfortunes,
and her approval of the manly way in which he had gone
to work to retrieve them in some degree. Let us imagine
them very, very happy, sitting hand in hand in a room at
No. 4 Caxton Place; Millicent, by the bye, looking more
beautiful than ever, her charms not lessened by the look
of joy in her dark eyes.
Their first transports are over. They have descended
to mundane things. In fact, Frank is now telling her
that he believes he can count on so many hundreds a year.
What does his darling think? -w
Miss Keene purses up her pretty mouth and knits her
brows. To judge by appearances, she might be the most
mercenary young woman. Frank waits her reply anx-
iously.
“I think we may manage,” she says. “I have been
accustomed to poverty all my life, you know.”
* >
*.
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 103
Frank would have vowed to work his fingers to the
bones before she would want anything; but remembering
just in time that his profession worked with the tongue
instead of the hands, checked himself. He thanked her
with a kiss.
“When shall we be married?” he said.
She looked up at him shyly. “Would you think it
very dreadful if I said the sooner the better? In fact,
Frank, I have come from Australia to marry you. If you
had forgotten me, I should have gone straight back.”
“Next week?” asked Frank, scarcely believing his own
happiness. “Will next week be too soon? One advantage
of being poor and living in lodgings is, that we can be
married without any bother ‘about a house.’”
Millicent gave him to understand that next week would
do. She was staying with some distant relative. No one’s
consent had to be asked. She had told her father all.
The day Frank chose, she would be his wife.
“How is your father? I forgot to ask,” said Frank.
“Much the same as ever,” answered Millicent in a way
which inferred that Mr. Keene's struggles to redeem fort-
une were as great as before.
Then she dismissed Frank until to-morrow. He went
home walking on air, and, like a dutiful son, wrote to
Mrs. Abbot, telling her that Millicent had returned, and
next week would marry him. Mrs. Abbot’s reply may be
given here: *
“MY DEAR FRANK, -I Say nothing. I am too much horrified.
If any young man was ever called upon to marry money, and build
up the fallen fortunes of a family, it is you. My last hope is gone.
The obstimacy of your character I know too well. If I thought I
could turn you from your purpose, I would come and kneel at your
jeet. If I knew Miss Keene's address, I would make one last appeal
to her. She, I believe, was a sensible young woman.
“Your affectionate MOTHER.”
Frank laughed at the idea of Mrs. Abbot kneeling at his
feet, and had not the least intention of sending Millicent’s
address.
He saw little of any one for the next few days except
Millicent. His poor friend Mr. John Jones called several
times, but each time found him absent.
“Your master is neglecting his business,” he said,
sternly, to Frank’s small clerk.
*
104 CHEWTON-ABBOT.
“Got something pleasanter to attend to,” said the youth
—with a wink. He was a sharp lad, and able to form his
own opinions.
One day toward the end of the week, Mr. Jones did suc-
ceed in catching his young friend, and, moreover, in
smoking the whole of a long cigar in his society. “Look
here, Abbot,” he said, “what’s up with you? Are you
going to be married?”
“Yes,” said Frank; “I am.”
“Thought so,” said Mr. Jones. “When?”
“Next Tuesday,” answered Frank, as laeonically as his
strange friend.
“Girl got money?”
“No; poorer than I am.”
“That’s bad. Tell me all about it.”
Every man in Frank’s plight likes a friend to unburden
his heart to; so Mr. Jones had the whole history of his
love affair, from the moment his mother intervened down
to the present happy time. Frank waxed so eloquent,
that his friend’s eyes glistened, and when the history was
finished, he grasped the young man’s hand, and wished
him good wishes, which were certainly heartfelt.
“I have a favor to ask,” he said, in a very humble way,
quite different from his usual energetic style of talking.
“I haven’t known you so long, so it’s presumption on my
part. But I’ve grown very fond of you. May I come to
• the church and see you married?”
“You may be best-man, if you like; or you can give’
the bride away. It will save us having recourse to the
sexton. Only on one condition, though,” continued Frank,
struck by a sudden thought; “ that is, you don’t go making
absurd presents.”
“I must give you something.”
“Give me a box of cigars, then.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Jones. “But you’re disgustingly
proud.”
So it was settled. To Frank’s great relief—for he dis-
liked paining the man by refusing anything—Mr. Jones
brought him a box of his big cigars, and on the Tuesday
morning accompanied him to the quiet town church,
where in due time Millicent appeared, accompanied by her
distant relatives. Mr. John Jones acted in his twofold
capacity with great decorum. Frank had laughingly told
CHEWTON.—ABBOT, - 105
Millicent of the strange arrangement he had made. She
raised no objection. “What does it matter,” she said, “so
long as we are really married?” So, when the clergyman
asked who gave this woman, etc., Mr. Jones stepped for-
ward and performed the office. When the ceremony was
over, and the happy pair stepped into the carriage, think-
ing, no doubt, his services entitled him to some reward,
he kissed the bride on her forehead—a proceeding which
rather staggered Frank, although, as Millicent did not
seem annoyed, he said nothing.
“That old Jones is a strange fellow,” he said, as Milli-
cent and he were safely ensconced in the brougham.
“Yes; how long have you known him?”
“Only a week or two—quite a chance acquaintance.”
“Chance acquaintances are not to be depended upon,”
said Mrs. Frank Abbot, sententiously.
Then, as was but natural, they talked of other things,
and dismissed Mr. John Jones from their happy minds.
During the last week, they had held many debates as to
where they should spend the honey-moon. As yet, they
had only partially settled the important point. By Milli-
cent’s express wish, the first week was to be passed at Clif-
ton. “Dear old Clifton!” she said. “We met there first;
remember that, sir!” Frank did not particularly want to
go to Clifton, but he yielded without a murmur. Whether
it should be Switzerland, Italy, France, Scotland, or [re-
land afterward was to be decided at their leisure. So the
brougham drove to Paddington, and Mr. and Mrs. Frank
Abbot took the train for the west.
They spent five happy days at Clifton; although they
knew the scenery by heart, it looked more beautiful than
ever under the present auspices. Then Frank began to
talk about going elsewhere; but Millicent seemed in no
hurry to make a move. “I wonder, Frank,” she said, one
evening, “you don’t go over and have a look at your old
home.”
“I haven’t the heart to go,” sighed Frank. “I might
have gone by myself; but I can’t stand it with you. I
shall be thinking all the while how you would have
raced it.” •e
“Who lives there now?”
“A Mr. Tompkinson—a London merchant.”
106 CHEWTON-A.B.B.O.T.
“I should like to see the place, Frank! Do take me"
to-morrow.”
Frank, who in truth was longing to have a look at the
old place, consented. Thay decided to go the next day.
“We will have a carriage, and drive,” said Frank.
“What extravagance!” said Millicent.
“Never mind. I shall only be married once. When
our honey-moon is over, we will go in for strict economy.”
Millicent agreed to this. So a carriage was hired the
i. morning, and they started for Frank’s ancestral
* Il O II) e.
It was a lovely September morning; the air was fresh
and exhilarating. As soon as the dark, dusky city was left
behind, Millicent’s spirits rose to a mad pitch, which
Frank, with all his newly-married adoration, fancied was
not quite in keeping with what was to him at least a sort
of solemn pilgrimage. She caught hold of his hands and
Squeezed them, she laughed and talked, and, in fact, gen-
erally misconducted herself. Frank had never seen her
in such a mood before. He was fain to believe that she
was forcing her merriment, to show him how little she
cared for the loss of the wealth she would have shared.
Nevertheless, as each landmark came in sight, and at last
he knew that he was passing through the lands which
one day should have been his, he grew gloomy, moody,
and miserable. Millicent saw what passed through his
mind; she sunk into silence; an occasional pressure of the
hand only reminding him that at least he had her.
Presently he stopped the carriage. “You can get the
best view of the dear old house from here,” he said.
“Let us get out,” said his wife.
They alighted, and for some minutes stood looking at
the long gray house. Frank’s eyes were full of tears.
“Can’t we go over the house?” asked Millicent.
“By permission of Mr. Tompkinson, no doubt; but he
is a stranger to me, so I don’t care to ask it.”
“But I want to see the inside so much, Frank; you
have described it to me so often. Let us go up and ask
if we can go over it.”
The idea of asking leave to go over Chewton Hall was
more than Frank could bear. “I would much rather
not,” he said,
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 10?
“But I want to go, Frank,” said Millicent, pouting.
“No one will know us, so what does it matter?”
Frank still shook his head and raised objections. If
there was one thing above another he hated, it was asking
favors of strangers. Chewton Hall was not a show-place.
It boasted no specimens of interesting architecture; it
possessed no gallery of paintings. As likely as not, when
they reached the door and preferred their request, some
flunky of this fellow Tompkinson’s would order them off
the grounds. In short, sorry as he was to disappoint his
wife, Mr. Abbot firmly refused to ask leave to go over the
Hall. Thereupon he discovered that he had married a
young woman who had no intention of giving him abject
obedience.
“It’s very unkind of you,” she said. “I will go over
the place. If you won’t come, I shall go alone.” She
turned away, pushed the lodge gate open in a most un-
ceremonious way, and was twenty yards up the drive be-
fore her husband had recovered from his surprise. At
first, he resolved to leave her to her fate; but that seemed
an unkind thing to do. After all, she wanted to look
over his old home solely for love of him. He could not
let her go alone; besides, as he was hesitating, she turned
and beckoned to him. So he walked after her.
As soon as Millicent had satisfied herself that her hus-
band was following her, she quickened her pace to such
an extent, that, without actually running, he could not
overtake her. Arguing that a man’s running after a
woman up a stranger’s carriage-drive was not a dignified
preparation to asking a favor, Frank followed his wife at
a reasonable pace; and when he came up to her, found
her standing at the door of the Hall in conversation with
an elderly woman, who was evidently a housekeeper.
Frank thought this good woman eyed him very curiously
and suspiciously.
“It’s all right, Frank,” said Millicent, turning her
smiling face to him. “We may go over the Hall. Mr.
Tompkinson is not here at present.”
“Please walk in,” said the housekeeper, dropping a
courtesy. .
Millicent did so; and Frank followed her, sulkily. He
did not approve of the proceedings. As his wife had
forced him to the house, he had determined to send his
108 - CHEWTON-ABBOT.
-
card up to Mr. Tompkinson, trusting that his former con-
nection with the place would excuse the liberty he was
taking. But he did not like this going behind the man’s
back, and felt sure that Millicent had been smoothing
the way with a bribe.
“That’s the drawing-room—the dining-room—the li-
brary—billiard-room,” said the housekeeper, jerking her
finger at the doors in succession. “Please walk through
them; and ring when you’d like to go upstairs and see the
View.”
Therewith the woman vanished, after giving Millicent
a knowing look, which Frank felt sure spoke of wholesale
bribery. *
“I say, Millicent,” said Frank, “we can’t go walking
about a man’s house alone in this fashion.”
“My dear,” said Millicent, very seriously, “I pledged
my honor we would pocket nothing.” Then she broke
into an hysterical little laugh; and Frank wondered what
had come to his wife.
“Let us go to the drawing-room first,” she said, re-
covering her gravity, and opening the door pointed out by
the housekeeper.
Frank passed through the doorway, and for a moment
could think of nothing but how he should keep himself
from quite breaking down. The room looked almost the
Same as when he last entered it—the same as he had known
it from his earliest days. Every chair and table the same
or apparently so. Then he remembered that the purchaser
of the house had also bought nearly all the household fur-
niture. At the time he was glad to think the old place
would not be dismantled; now he regretted it had not
been. The presence of the well-remembered Lares and
Penates left the old home unchanged in all—save that it
was no longer his home. There was the very stool on
which as a boy he used to sit at his mother’s feet; there
was the wonderful Japanese cabinet, with dozens of little
lacquered drawers, which used to be opened now and again
as a great treat to him. And here was he standing in
the middle of these old household gods, by permission of
another man’s servant. He wished he had been firm, and
not yielded to Millicent’s whim.
His heart was too full for words. He turned away from
CHEWTON-ABBOT. 109
*
his wife, who was watching him earnestly, turned away,
not willing she should see how much he was affected. He
opened the door of the conservatory and passed out among
the flowers. Even the flowers looked the same. The red
stars of taxonia shone from the green clouds above as of
old. The large heliotrope against the wall was in full
blossom. The great center-tree palm was still there.
The fountain played as of old, and splashed down on the
gold-fish swimming in the basin. How well be remem-
bered when his great delight was to be lifted up to look
at those red and white carp! He could stand these mem-
ories no longer. Let him go away—out of the house—
never to come near it again. He went back to the room
to find Millicent. The room was untenanted. He sup-
posed his wife, taking advantage of the accorded permis-
sion, had extended her researches. He looked in the
dining-room. As the old family portraits had been bought
by his own people, this room did not appeal to him so
much. He glanced round; Millicent was not there. He
walked across the hall and opened the library door. He
did not notice whether this room was changed or not. He
had eyes for one thing only, and, perhaps, a more aston-
ishing sight was never seen by a six days’ bridegroom.
Here was Millicent, his wife, her hat and mantle thrown
off, absolutely sitting on the knee of a gentleman; more-
over, with her arms twined round his neck, her cheek
resting against his, and so concealing his features from
her outraged husband, who no doubt would have rushed
to immolate his supposed rival, had not Millicent, without
changing her position, looked at him with eyes so full of
love, tenderness, and triumph that Frank Abbot stood
rooted to the ground, and wondered why he should be
dreaming in broad daylight. Then he grew very pale, all
sorts of wild things rushing into his head. He managed
to take a step or two forward; and Millicent, jumping off
her human perch, rushed to meet him, threw her arms
round his neck, sobbed and laughed, and all the while
ejaculated: “My darling—my darling! My own love!
To think it should be through me! My own dear hus-
band!”
She kissed him and embraced him in so fervent a man-
ner, that his attention could scarcely be given elsewhere;
but the impression grew upon him that over her shoulder,
110- CHEWTON-Af{EOT, .*
sitting in the chair from which she had sprung, was his
chance acquaintance, Mr. John Jones.
“What—does—it all mean?” gasped Mr. Abbot, as his
wife subsided on his shoulder. “Mr. Jones, you here!
What does it mean?” -
Mr. Jones rose from his chair and held out his hand.
“Shake hands, Frank,” he said. “It means this. I told
you you’d have to take something from me, proud as you
were. You’ve taken my daughter, at any rate.”
& 4 But—”
“Yes; I know. I’m Keene, not Jones. That girl of
mine is a romantic, obstinate child. 1’m an old fool, and
ought to be ashamed of myself; but it did me good to find
she was going to marry a man who thought she hadn’t a
pennypiece to her name. Shake hands, Frank.”
“But—here!” ejaculated Frank.
“Yes, here. In my house; or rather, in yours and Mil-
licent’s. The truth is, when we landed in England, the
first paper Milly saw held an advertisement, saying this
place was for sale. She made me go the next day and buy
it, stock, lock, and barrel. Now you know all.”
“Oh, Frank!” interposed Millicent, “forgive me—I
had been in England four months before I wrote to you!
Do forgive me, Frank! They were very long months.”
As Frank gave her a passionate kiss, she supposed her-
self forgiven. Mr. Keene drew out his cigar-case.
“Now all’s settled,” he said, “I’ll send and tell your
carriage to go back. You can drive into Clifton this
evening and fetch your luggage.”
“Stop a moment!” said Frank. “Mr. Keene, I am
too bewildered to say all I want to; but it must be clearly
understood that I am not going to be a dependent on your
bounty.”
“I always told you you were absurdly proud,” growled
Mr. Keene.
“I will not. Had I known that you had purchased
my father’s estate, I could not have married Millicent. I
would not have let the world call me a fortune-hunter.”
Mrs. Frank Abbot glanced at her father. “I told you
what he was, papa,” she said. Then turning to Frank:
“Will you kindly look at me, sir, and tell me how I
have changed so greatly that people will think I am only
worth marrying for my money?”
CHEwton-ABBOT. 111
To this challenge Frank made no reply in words. Then
he took his wife’s hand. “Millicent,” he said, “shall it
be clearly understood that you are the wife of a poor man
—that you will be happy when I ask you to leave this,
and come to London with me, while I work at my profes-
sion as before?”
“Stuff and nonsense!” growled Mr. Keene. But Mil-
licent looked into her husband’s face and whispered, “My
darling love, your wishes shall be mine!”
Then Mr. Keene went out and sent the carriage away.
It is a great temptation to describe the meeting be-
tween Mrs. Abbot and her daughter-in-law. The elder
lady’s surprise and joy simply beggars description. Lov-
ing her son as she really did, the reversionary restoration
was as much a satisfaction to her as if her own husband
had been reinstated. The meeting between the two
ladies was embarrassing for both to look forward to; but
it went off to perfection. Mrs. Abbot, all smiles and
sweetness, embraced her daughter-in-law, and Said, “My
dear, I told you that under other circumstances we should
be great friends. We shall be so now—shall we not?”
It was a graceful, if not an unworldly, apology; and as
Millicent returned her kiss and begged her to forget what
had happened, Mrs. Abbot hung round the girl’s neck a
diamond cross, which being her own personal property,
had survived the wreck; and after this a peace was estab-
lished which as yet has not been broken.
Did Frank Abbot continue to work as hard at his pro-
fession as he had resolved to do? The events above re-
corded are of comparatively recent date. So I can say
with truth that he is still a working member of the bar,
and is supposed to be making a fair income. As Mr.
Keene had not the least intention of allowing his daughter
to go empty-handed to a husband, however quixotic he
might be, the young couple have always been far away
from ihe poverty which one of them was continually harp-
ing upon. The last I heard about them is that Mr.
Keene, who, since his daughter’s marriage, has spent
most of his time in London, told Frank roundly, that un-
less he would bring Millicent back to Chewton, throw his
pride to the winds, and live at the Hall as his forefathers
had lived—acting, if he liked, for conscience’ sake, as
bailiff or manager of the estate—he, Mr. Keene, would at
112 CHEWTON-ABBOTº
once sell the place, and invest the proceeds in something
more profitable than a large house in which he could not
live alone, or acres about which he cared nothing.
Millicent, who thinks Frank looking pale and fagged,
and is quite sure that London air does not suit the baby,
seconds her father's appeals with eloquent looks; and
Frank, who has formed an affectionate regard for Mr.
Keene, and who finds that, with such attractions at home;
circuit-going is dreary work, certainly wavers in his deter-
mination, so it is more than likely that one day the bar
will lose what might have been a distinguished ornament
to it, and that Chewton Hall will once more have a
proper master and mistress.
THE END.
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eray. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
166 Moonshine and Marguerites. By
“The Duchess”. ............. 10
167 Heart and Science. By Wilkie
Collins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
168 No Thoroughfare. By Charles
Dickens and Wilkie Collins... 10
169 The Haunted Man. By Charles
Dickens....................... 10
170 A Great Treason. By Mary 30
Hoppus...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
20 || 171 Fortune’s Wheel, and Other
Stories. By “The Duchess” 10
172 “Golden Girls.” By Alan Muir 20
173 Th; Foreigners. By Eleanor C.
29
174 Under a Ban. By Mrs. Lodge... 20
175 Love's Random Shot, and Other
Stories. By Wilkie Collins... 10
176 An April Day. By Philippa P.
Jephson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
177 Salem Chapel. By Mrs. Oliphant 20
178 More Leaves from the Journal
of a Life in the Highlands. By
Queen Victoria. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
179 Little Make-Believe. By B. L.
Farjeon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
180 Round the Galley Fire. By W.
Clark Russell............... tº &
181 The New Abelard. By Robert
Buch
tº e º e º º ºs e a tº
anald. . . . . . . . . .
182 The Millionaire. A Novel, .... 20.
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183 Old Contrairy, and Other Sto-
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184 Thirlby Hall. By W. E. Norris.
185 Dita. ... By Lady Margaret Ma-
& e º ºs º ºs e º 'º gº tº º ſº e º ºr e º e º º is tº º
10
20
* G tº & p & © tº tº º tº º tº ſº tº gº e º tº e º dº sº a tº º
tº a º 'º e º s º e s e a e º sº gº tº e s m e º 'º
188 Idonea. By Anne Beale..... ...
189 Valerie's Fate. Mrs. Alexander 5
190 Romance of a Black Veil. By
the author of “ Dora. Thorne ** 10
191 Hº. Lorrequer. By Charles 15
* * * * * * * * * * g e g º 'º e º e º is º º ºs e e
tº º is tº dº sº º tº º ºs º & tº e º 'º º e s = e º 'º
s tº sº gº tº ſº e º º e e º 'º º ºs ºs e º e ºs
e e º ºs º e s º ºs º is a tº º p e º 'º a sm º ºs ºn tº
David Christie Murra,
196 Hidden Perils. By Mary Cecil
* * e a º ºs º a s is sº e º e º 'º e s º e º e s tº ºn s e
Hay
197 For Her Dear Sake. By Mary
Cecil Hay......... . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
198 A. Husband's Story. . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
199 The Fisher Village. By Anne
Beale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
200 An Old Man's Love. By An-
thony Trollope............... 10
201 Tº Mºnastery. By Sir Walter
203 John Bull and His Island. By
Max O'Rell............ ...... 10
204 Vixen. By Miss M. E. Braddon 15
205 The Minister’s Wife. By Mrs.
Oliphant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
206 The Picture, and Jack of All
Trades. By Charles Reade... 10
207 Pretty Miss Neville. By B. M.
Croker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
208 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray,
and Other Stories. By Flor-
ence Marryat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
209 John Holdsworth, Chief Mate.
By W. Clark Russell.......... 10
210 Readiana : Comments on Cur-
rent Events. By Chas. Reade 10
211 The Octoroon. By Miss M. E. 10
* * * * * * * * u, º, º a we e º sº e º e º e &
goon. By Charles Lever.
First and Second half, each... 20
213 A ſºle Temptation. Chas. 15
NOuchette Care
216 Foul Play. By Charles Reade. 15
217 The Man She Cared For. By
F. W. Robinson. . . . . . . . . . . . 15
218 Agnes Sorel. By G. P. R. James 15
219 Lady Clare; or, The Master of
s • * * * * * * * * * *
the Forges. By Georges Ohnet 10 |
-*—
CE. I NO. PRICE.
220 Which Loved Him Best? B
the author of “ Dora Thorne 3, 18
221 Comin' Thro' the Rye. By
Helen B. Mathers............ 15
222 The Sun-Maid. By Miss Grant 15
223 A Sailor's Sweetheart. By W.
Clark Russell.................. 1
* * * is e ºs e º 'º º º ºs e s tº gº is as e º ºs e s e. e. e.
226 Friendship. By “Ouida’’.....
227 Nancy. By Rhoda Broughton. 15
228 Pºss Napraxine. By “Oui- £
8, 5
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * g e º 'º e º e s tº we
229 Maid, Wife, or Widow? By
Mrs. Alexander...............
230 Dorothy Forster. By Walter
Besant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
0 || 231 Griffith Gaunt. Charles Reade 15
232 Love and Money; or, A Perilous
Secret. By Charles Reade... 10
233 “I Say No.:” or, the Love-Letter
Answered. Wilkie Collins.... 15
234 Barbara; or, Splendid Misery.
Miss M. E. Braddon. . . . . . . . . . 15
235 “It is Never Too Late to
Mend.” By Charles Reade... 20
236 Wºº, Shall It Be? Mrs. Alex-
e s sº e º s e e º s is a s a º ºs º º sº e º sº º e is
8,0016I’
0 |237 Repented at Leisure. By the
author of “ Dora Thorne'?... 15
238 Pascarel. y “Ouida. "........ 20
239 Signa. By “Ouida "........... 20
240 Called Back. By Hugh Conway 10
241 The Baby's Grandmother. By
L. B. Walford.... ............ 10
242 The Two Orphans. By D'Ennery 10
243 Tom Burke of “OurS.” First,
half. By Charles Lever. ..... 20
243 Tom Burke of “Ours.” Second
half. By Charles Lever. . . . . 20
244 A. Great Mistake. By the author
Of “ His Wedded Wife. ". . . . . . 20
245 Miss Tommy, and In a House-
Boat, By Miss Mulock....... 10
246 A Fatal Dower. By the author
Of “ His Wedded Wife ". . . . . . 10
247 The Armourer’s Prentices.
Charlotte M. Yonge........... 10
248. The House on the Marsh. F.
Warden....................... 19
249 “Prince Charlie's Daughter.”
By author of “ Dora Thorne'' 10
250 Sunshine and Roses; or, Di-
ana's Discipline. By the au-
thor of “ Dora. Thorne ". . . . . . 1.
251 The Daughter of the Stars, and
Other Tales. By Hugh Con-
way, author of “Called Back” 16
252 A. Simless Secret. By “ Rita "... 10
253 The Amazon. By Carl Vosmaer 10
254 The Wife's Secret, and Fair but
False. By the author of
“ Dora Thorne ".............. 19
• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * e s ∈ º e e º is sº a
_By L. B. Walford... tº g g º º º º is e tº 1.
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257 Beyond Recall. By Adeline Ser-
gè8 DU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . gº º is tº
£58 Cousins. By L. B. Walford.... 20
259 The Bride of Monte-Cristo. (A
Sequel to “The Count of
Monte-Cristo.” By Alexander
unna S. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
260 Proper Pride. By B. M. Croker 10
261 A. Fair Maid. By F. W. Robinson 20
NO. PRICE,
285 The Gambler’s Wife. . . . . . . .
0 286 Deldee; or, The Iron Hand. By
F. Warden............. * * * * * * *
287. At War With Herself. By the
author of “ Dora Thorne *... 10
288 From Gloom to Sunlight. By
the author of “ Dora. Thorne * 10
289 John Bull's Neighbor in Her
True Light. By a “Brutal
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. Saxon '...... * * s is e º e s a dº e & .... 10
Part I By Alexander Dumas 20 290 Nora's Love Test. By Mary Cecil
262 The Count of Monte-Cristo. Hay......... & is tº e is a s = n < * * * * * * * 20
Part II. By Alexander Dumas 20 291 Love's Warfare. By the author
263 An Ishmaelite. By Miss M. E. of “ Dora. Thorne’’........... 10
Braddon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 292 A Golden Heart. By the author
264 Piédouche, A French Detective, of “ Dora Thorne '’.......... 10
By Fortuné Du Boisgobey.... 10 || 293 The Shadow of a Sin. By the
265 Judith Shakespeare: Her Love author of “Dora, Thorne "... 10
Affairs and Other Adventures. 294 Hilda. By the author of “Dora
By William Black... . . . . . . . . . 15 Thorne ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
266 The Water-Babies. A Fairy Tale 295 A Woman's War. By the author
for a Land-Baby. By the Rev. of “Dora. Thorne '’........... 10
Charles Kingsley............. 10 || 296 A. Rose in Thorns. By the au-
267 Laurel Vane; or, The Girls' thor of “Dora. Thorne’’...... 10
Conspiracy. By Mrs. Alex. 297 Hilary's Folly. By the author
• McVeigh Miller. ... .......... 20 of “ Dora Thorne "........... 10
268 Lady Gay's Pride; or, The 298 Mitchelhurst Place. By Marga-
Muser's Treasure. By Mrs. ret Veley. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Alex. McVeigh Miller........ 20 299 The Fatal Lilies, and A Bride
269 Lancaster's Choice. By Mrs. from the Sea. By the author
Alex. McVeigh Miller........ 20 of “Dora. Thorne '' .......... 10
270 The Wandering Jew. Part I 300 A Gilded Sin, and A Bridge of
By Eugene Sue............... 20 Love. By the author of “Dora,
270 The Wandering Jew. Part II. Thorne "... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 10
By Eugene Sue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 | 301 Dark Days. By Hugh Conway. 10
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part I. 302 The Blatchford Bequest. By
y Eugène SUle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hugh Conway................ 10
271 The Mysteries of Paris. Part II. 303 Ingledew House, and More Bit-
By Eugene Sue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 ter than Death. By the author
272 The Little Savage. By Captain of “ Dora. Thorne "........... I0
Marryat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 || 304 In Cupid's Net. By the author
273 Love and Mirage; or, The Wait- of “ Dora. Thorne ". . . . . . . . . . 10
ing on an Island. By M.
Betham Edwards.. .......... 10
274 Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse,
t Princess of Great Britain and
Ireland. Biographical Sketch
305 A Dead Heart, and Lady Gwen-
doline's Dream. By the au-
thor of “Dora. Thorne ". . . . . . 16
306 A Golden Dawn, and Love fora,
Day. By the author of “Dora
and Letters. ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Thorne ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
275 The Three Brides. Charlotte M. 307 Two Kisses, and Like No Other
Yonge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Love. By the author of “Dora,
276 Under the Lilies and Roses. By Thorne’’....... . . . . ſº tº º ºs º gº tº e º º 10
Florence Marryat (Mrs. Fran- 308 Beyond Pardon................. 20
cis Lean). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tº gº & 309 The Pathfinder. By J. Femi-
277 The Surgeon's Daughters. By more Cooper..... . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mrs. Henry Wood. A Man of 310 The Prairie. By J. Fenimore
His Word. By W. E. Norris. 10 §º. e g º e º sº as a dº e s m e º e s = º 4 is is sº e
278 For Life and Love. By Alison. 10 || 311 Two Years Before the Mast. By
279 Little Goldie. Mrs. Sumner Hay- R. H. Dana, Jr...... . . . . . . . . . .
den. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 0 || 312 A Week in Killarney. By “The
280 Omnia Vanitas. A Tale of So- Duchess”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
ciety. By Mrs. Forrester..... 10 || 313 The Lover's Creed. By Mrs.
881 The Squire's Legacy. By Mary Cashel Hoey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Cecil Hay ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314 Peril. By Jessie Fothergill.... 20
£82 Donal Grant. By George Mac- 815 The Mistletoe Bough. Edited
onald......... ......... .... 15 by Miss M. E. Braddon....... 20
£83 The Sin of a Lifetime. By the 316 Sworn to Silence; or, Aline Rod-
author of “Dora. Thorne "... 10
Q84 Doris. By “The Duchess”, , , 10
º,
ney's Secret. By Mrs. Alex.
McVeigh Miller, , , , , .......... 20
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817. By Mead and Stream. Charles 20
I Ons . . tº tº e º e º a g º e º 'º º e º is tº dº tº
818 The Pioneers; or, The Sources
of the Susquehanna. By J.
Fenimore Cooper..... . . . . . . 20
319 Face to Face: A Fact in Seven
Fables. By R. E. Francillon. 10
820 A Bit of Human Nature. By
David Christie Murray....... 10
321 The Prodigals: And Their In-
heritance. By Mrs. Oliphant 10
322 A Woman's Love-Story........ 10
823 A Willful Maid..... ........... 20
e e º ſº is sº e º e g º ºs e g º dº e º ºs tº * * *
donald. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
826 Phantastes. A Faerie Romance
for Men and Women. By
George Macdonald........... 1
'327 Raymond's Atonement. (From
the German of E. Werner.)
By Christina Tyrrell...... . . . . 20
828 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By
F. Du Boisgobey. First half. 20
828 Babiole, the Pretty Milliner. By
F. Du Boisgobey. Second half 20
829. The Polish Jew. By Erckmann-
Chabrian......... . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
830 May Blossom ; or, Between Two
Loves. By Margaret Lee. ... 20
831 Gerald. By Eleanor C. Price... 20
832 Judith Wynne. A Novel. . 20
833 Frank Fairlegh ; or, Scenes,
from the Life of a Private
Pupil. By Frank E. Smedley 20
534 A. Marriage of Convenience. By
Harriett Jay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 10
835 The White Witch. A Novel. . . . 20
836 Philistia. By Cecil Power ..... 20
837 Memoirs and Resolutions of
Adam Graeme of Mossgray,
Including Some Chronicles of
the Borough of Fendie. By
Mrs. Oliphant... . . . . . . . . e º ſº tº º tº
838. The Family Difficulty. By Sarah
Doudney. . . . . . . . . . . © e e º 'º º ... ... 10
839 Mrs. Vereker's Courier Maid.
By Mrs. Alexander... . . . . . . . . I
840 Under Which King? By Comp-
ton Reade. . . . . . . tº gº è e º ſº e e º a # * * 20
841 Madolin Rivers; or, The Little
Beauty of Red Oak Seminary.
By Laura Jean Libbey, ...... 20
842 The Baby, and One New Year's
Eve. By “The Duchess”. ... 10
843 The Talk By
James Payn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
844 “The Wearing of the Green.”
By Basil. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
845 Madam. By Mrs. Oliphant..... 20
846 Tºledown Farm. By Alan
• * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
of the Town,
tº º º ºs e º 'º º ºs e º 'º º q e º a tº s = º tº * is e
Romance, By Hawley Smart 20.
cºrºx --"
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y
0|370 Lucy Crofton. By Mrs. Qliphant
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350 Diana, of the Crossways. By
George Meredith. . . . . . . . sº e “
351 The House on the Moor. By
Mrs. Oliphant. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
352 At Any Cost. By Edward Gar- 10.
tt,
Tetb . . . . . . . . - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
853 The Black Dwarf, and A Leg-
end of Montrose. By Sir Wal-
ter Scott. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 29
354 The Lottery of Life. A Story
of New York Twenty Years
By John Brougham... 20
AgO.
0 355 That Terrible Man. By W. E.
Norris. The Princess Dago-
mar of Poland. By Heinrich
Felbermann... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
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357 John. A Love Story. By Mrs.
Oliphant..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
358 Within the Clasp. By J. Ber-
wick Harwood................ 20
359 The Water-Witch. By J. Feni-
more Cooper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
360 Ropes of Sand. By R. E. Fran-
cillon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
361 The Red Rover. A Tale of the
Sea. By J. Fenimore Cooper 20
362 The Bride of Lammermoor.
By Sir Walter Scott.......... 20
363 The Surgeon’s Daughter. By
Sir Walter Scott... . . . . . . . . . . . 10
364 Castle Dangerous.
By Sir Wal-
ter Scott. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
365 George Christy; or, The Fort-
unes of a Minstrel. By Tony
Pastor... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
366 The Mysterious Hunter; or,
The Man of Death. By Capt.
L. C. Carleton................. 20
367 Tie and Trick. By Hawley Smart 20
20 || 368 The Southern Star; or, The Dia-
mond Land. By Jules Verne 20,
369 Miss Bretherton. By Mrs. Hum-
phry Ward.................... 10:
10.
371 Margaret Maitland. By Mrs. Oli-
phant... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
372 Phyllis’ Probation. By the au-
thor of “ His Wedded Wife". 16.
373 Wing-and-Wing. J. Fenimore
Cooper. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
374 The Dead Man's Secret; or, The
Adventures of a Medical Stu-
dent. By Dr. Jupiter Paeon. 20
375 A Ride to Khiva. By Capt. Fred
Burnaby, of the Royal Horse
Guards... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . & e º is tº tº
376 The Crime of Christmas-Day.
By the author of “My Duc-
ats and My Daughter......... 10,
877 Magdalen Hepburn: A Story
of the Scottish Reformation.
By Mrs. Oliphant, • * * * * * * * * * *,” 2%
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878 Homeward Bound; or, The
Chase. J. Fenimore Cooper... 20
879 Home as Found. (Sequel - to
“Homeward Bound.”). By J.
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880 Wyandotte; or, The Hutted
oll. J. Fenimore Cooper... 20
881 The Red Cardinal. By Frances
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
a Highly Original Family.
By Elsa D'Esterre-Keeling... 10
383 Introduced to Society. By Ham-
ilton Aldé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
$84. On Horseback Through Asia
Minor. Capt. Fred Burnaby. 20
385 The Headsman; or, The Abbaye
des Vignerons. By J. Femi-
more Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
386 Led Astray; or, “La Petite Comt-
esse.” By Octave Feuillet... 10
887. The Secret of the Cliffs. By
Charlotte French... . . . . . . . . . . 20
888 Addie's Husband; or, Through
Clouds to Sunshine. By the
author of “I love or Lands?” 10
889 Ichabod. By Bertha Thomas... 10
390 Milº, Trevanion. By “The
uchess”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
391 The Heart of Mid-Lothian. By
Sir Walter Scott..............
892 Peveril of the Peak. By Sir Wal-
ter Scott...................... 2
893 The Pirate. By Sir Walter Scott 20
394 The Bravo. By J. Fenimore
e s a s a tº e º $ tº s is e is a s e e s tº a w s &
Cooper
895 The Archipelago on Fire. By
Jules Verne................... 10
896 Robert Ord's Atonement. By
Rosa Nouchette Carey. . . . . . . 20
897 Lionel Lincoln; or, The Leaguer
of Boston. By J. Fenimore
© tº $ tº e g is e & e º e s a tº º º & © tº
By Robert Buchamam .......
399 Miss Brown. By Vernon Lee. . 20
400 The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish.
y J. Fenimore Cooper.......
401 Waverley. By Sir Walter Scott 20
402 Lilliesleaf; or, Passages in the
Life of Mrs. Margaret Mait-
land of Sunnyside. By Mrs.
Oliphant......................
403 An English Squire. C. R. Cole-
ridge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
404 In Durance Vile, and Other
Stories. By “The Duchess”. 10
405 My Friends and I. Edited by
Julian Sturgis........ . . . . . . . 10
406 The Merchant's Clerk. By Sam-
uel Warren................... 10
407 Tylney Hall. By Thomas Hood 20
408 tº's Secret. By Mary Cecil
*y . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
409 Roy's Wife. By G. J. Whyte-
Melville... ........ tº & is a tº º ſº a s a tº
410 Old Lady Mary. By Mrs. Oli-
phan
• * * * * * * * > v e s e ere w w e o 'º e o e º e
NO, PRICE.
411 A Bitter Atonement. By Char-
lotte M. Braeme, author of
“ Dora Thorne''..... .........
412 Some One Else. By B. M. Croker 20
20 || 413 Afloat and Ashore. By J. Femi-
more Cooper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... 20
414 Miles Wallingford. (Sequel t
“Afloat and Ashore.”). By J.
Fenimore Cooper............. 20
415 The Ways of the Hour. By J.
Fenimore Cooper........ . . . . . 20
416 Jack Tier; or, The Florida. Reef.
By J. Fenimore Cooper....... 20
417 The Fair Maid of Perth; or, St.
Valentine's Day. By Širvai.
ter Scott. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
418 St. Ronan's Well. By Sir Wal-
ter Scott.............. . . . . . . . . 20
20 || 419 The Chainbearer; or, The Little-
§ Manuscripts. By J.
enimore Cooper.............
420 Satanstoe; or, The Littlepage
Manuscripts. By J. Fenimore
§º. * & e º ºs e e s tº e º ºs e º ºs e º e º se & s = &
421. The Redskins; or, Indian and
Injin. Being the conclusion
of The Littlepage Manu-
scripts. J. Fenimore Cooper 20
422 Precaution. J. Fenimore Cooper 20
423 The Sea-Lions; or, The Lost
Sealers. J. Fenimore Cooper 20
424 Mercedes of Castile; or, The
Voyage to Cathay. By J.
Fenimore Cooper.... . . . . . . . . . 20
425 The Oak Openings; or, The Bee-
Hunter. J. Fenimore Cooper. 20
426 Venus's Doves. By Ida Ash-
worth Taylor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
427 The Remarkable History of Sir
Thomas Upmore, Bart., M.P.,
formerly known as “Tommy
Upmore.” R. D. Blackmore. 20
0 || 428 zºº; A Story of Monte-Carlo.
Mrs. Campbell Praed...... 10
429 Boulderstone; or, New Men and
§. Populations. By Wiliam 10
y
author of “By Crooked Paths” 10
431 The Monikins. By J. Fenimore
& e º e º º tº º e º & g g º e º gº tº it tº dº tº º
Haggard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
433 My Sister Kate. By Charlotte
M. Braeme, author of “Dora
Thorne,” and A Rainy June.
Y “Quida’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
434 Wyllard's Weird. By Miss M.
E. Braddon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
435 Klytia : A Story of Heidelberg
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470 Evelyn's Folly. By Charlotte
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