BAG AND BAGGAGE
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 JESSIE BAZLEY 
 
 Truth says: "Dignified, passion- 
 ate, and full of insight." 
 
 " Told with all the cunning of a fine 
 artist." Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " Compels attention. " Morn ing 
 Post. 
 
 ' ' The book undoubtedly will satisfy 
 many readers." Globe. 
 
 "A very powerful and interesting 
 work. " Scotsman.
 
 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 BERNARD CAPES 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "LOAVES AND FISHES," "PLOTS," 
 "FROM DOOR TO DOOR," "AT A WINTER'S FIRE' 
 
 ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD. 
 
 1913
 
 A NUMBER of these stories first appeared in the 
 following magazines: the London, the Lady's 
 Realm, the Windsor, the Pall Matt, Cassell's, 
 the Illustrated London News, to whose editors 
 the author's best acknowledgments are here 
 rendered.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FROM GRAVE 
 
 PAGE 
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" . 3 
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" . . . . 41 
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT . . . 119 
 
 THE KING'S STAR . . ... 141 
 
 TONY'S DRUM . . . . . . 170 
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN . . . . 189 
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE . . ... 207 
 
 THE HAMADRYAD . . . . 227 
 
 THE VOICE . . . ... 238 
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE . . ... 245 
 
 CAMILLA .... 259 
 
 TO GAY 
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER . . ... 279 
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER . . ... 298 
 
 BULLET-PROOF . . . ... 313 
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN . . ... 320 
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED Too WELL . . .331
 
 FROM GRAVE
 
 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 
 
 PAPA was immensely proud of Ellen ; and 
 Ellen appeared a thing to merit papa's pride 
 in her. Though but turned nineteen, she possessed 
 the wit and accomplishments of bright maturity. 
 She played with precocious brilliancy, she was an in- 
 spired needlewoman, the light of her young vivacious 
 intellect made glad the conventional dreariness of a 
 commonplace house in a second-rate London Square 
 St. Charles's, Ladbroke Grove Road, to wit. And 
 Ellen was pretty and Ellen was good. She a little 
 suggested a Botticelli Madonna. Though her smooth 
 heavy hair was of a dim golden tint, an impression as 
 of delicate silveriness, very frail and pure, was what 
 one carried away from her. There was something there 
 ethereal ; her complexion made one think of a pure 
 cloud ever so faintly rosed by morning ; her blue eyes 
 smiled half-misted. The one definite note of colour 
 on her face's comeliness lay in its brows, which were 
 comparatively dark and beautifully modelled. Un- 
 affected, admirable, blithe, Ellen was widowed papa's 
 one treasure, his passion and solace. Day by day 
 she was never out of his mind ; the fair spirit of her 
 
 3
 
 4 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 irradiated each page of the ledgers he turned, and 
 made Jacob's ladders of their columns of figures ; it 
 illumined the stiffest City fog, and accompanied him 
 all the way home from work, like a tiny fairy link, 
 glowing ardent as he approached his own door. 
 
 Papa, Mr. Vosper by name, was an accountant, 
 not in a large way, and the hieroglyphics of a life of 
 calculations, not wholly professional, lay scrawled 
 pretty intricately over his face. In person he was 
 a spare nervous man, with a habit of stiffness, which 
 was only, like the simulation of death in certain in- 
 sects, the instinctive self-protective attitude of a 
 shy nature. In all his days he had never got really 
 accustomed to life, or ceased to apprehend from it 
 some shocking discovery. Only when at home with 
 his girl had he the feeling of a sure sanctuary gained 
 from the unexpected. He was like a free man there, 
 understood, un-shadowed, cheerily secure within a 
 bodyguard of domestic sympathies. He expanded ; 
 he enjoyed ; he relished, the last thing at night, his 
 pipe and his toddy. It was only abroad, in the thick 
 of his fellow-men, that he felt nervously isolated. 
 
 Trusted Ellen was his housekeeper. She jingled the 
 keys and cheapened the mutton. He never asked an 
 account of her ; his implicit faith would have shrunk 
 from such an innuendo. Nor had he ever the least 
 reason to question it. They did very well on a small 
 income, and a household strictly limited to themselves 
 and one general servant. Ellen was as thrifty in her 
 management as she was priceless in herself. 
 
 Curiously, for all her delicate attractions, the girl 
 had never been asked in marriage. There must have 
 been some reason for this other than her youth and 
 her father's straitened circumstances. Sweet and
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN' 1 5 
 
 comely paragons are not to be found a' begging, as 
 a rule, in a world of amorous susceptibilities. Her 
 verbal readiness, that little smart accent on perfec- 
 tion, may possibly have accounted for philandering 
 youth's remissness. Feminine wit is like a pin in the 
 waist of decorum, a trap and a warning to the adven- 
 turous. Once pricked by, it is twice shy. Or the 
 remissness may have been due to something deeper 
 an instinctive recoiling of subconsciousness from sub- 
 consciousness in the face of a discovered secret, 
 unguessed at on the surface of things, where all ap- 
 peared so seductive and so fair. 
 
 I cannot tell how that may be ; only, it seemed, 
 men admired and would not be committed. Perhaps 
 Ellen minded, and perhaps she did not. In any case 
 she bore her young virginity serenely. It had its 
 own compensations and absorptions, and she found 
 in them as yet a sufficient antidote to the loneliness of 
 life. 
 
 Ellen's blue eyes were, as I have said, misted waters. 
 Their pupils, normally small as the little patches which 
 are used to emphasise beauty, in times of excitement 
 dilated to an extent which quite altered the character 
 of her face. It was then as if the patches, vulgarly 
 enlarged, were throwing the surrounding soft tints out 
 of tone. A hotness came about the lids and sockets ; 
 her lips and bosom appeared to swell ; the secret, 
 whatever it was, seemed throbbing to reveal itself. 
 And this condition occurred more and more frequently 
 as the girl approached womanhood. Her father, not 
 failing to notice the phenomenon, dreaded to put it 
 down to ripening adolescence. It really affected him 
 poignantly in its bearing upon the question of the 
 forced separation which matrimony would entail upon
 
 6 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 them both. If it signified a state of feeling, an un- 
 conscious exigency, then it might be that his prospect 
 was a melancholy one. But he hoped it meant no 
 such definite development. The thought of existence 
 without his Ellen was unsupportable. She mothered 
 him, she petted him, she amused him. What should 
 he do lacking her devotion, her home virtues, the 
 little dinners she saw cooked for him, the fond hand 
 that replenished his toddy-glass ? He thought there 
 would be nothing for him, did she desert him, but to 
 kill himself ; that some day perhaps he would tell her 
 so, and leave the conclusion to her. 
 
 It agitated him vaguely in this connexion to notice 
 how, on occasions, these hot-eyed moods of the girl 
 seemed to carry with them an exaggerated fondness 
 for himself. Whimsically sedate, Ellen was not 
 exceptionally given, as a rule, to exaggerated demon- 
 strativeness. Wherefore the apparently increasing 
 demand of her emotions for some approximate vehicle 
 through which to express themselves struck him as 
 distressfully ominous of the change he dreaded. Yet 
 he had no will but to respond, since, for the time being 
 at least, it meant more endearing happiness for him- 
 self. 
 
 This peculiar, one might have said impassioned 
 mood met him one evening unexpectedly. It was 
 long after dinner, and Ellen had just left the drawing- 
 room on some errand. She had been, for her, a trifle 
 dull, unresponsive and disinclined to talk, and Vosper 
 was sitting alone, pondering a little anxiously, and 
 always in its relation to that haunting dread, the 
 problem of the young lady's silence. An impression 
 as of porcelain in silver filigree, of a white embroidered 
 frock, pale limbs, and slender neck holding at staid
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 7 
 
 poise the graceful head above, remained fondly in his 
 mind, and he was seeking in himself reassurance from 
 that quietly normal vision, when the girl returned to 
 the room transformed. The interval had wrought 
 in her that now recurrent change, and her eyes were 
 glowing. She went to the piano, played off, by heart 
 and with rapid brilliancy, de Bussy's " Jardins sous 
 la pluie," collapsed towards the end in a crash of dis- 
 cords, and, crying with a laugh, " My memory has 
 broken all to pieces ! Did you hear it ? " jumped 
 up and stood humming and vaguely fingering a pile 
 of music on the instrument. 
 
 " Papa," she said suddenly ; "I will fetch you your 
 grog now, and it will loosen your little tongue and you 
 shall talk." 
 
 She went, and returning in a few minutes with 
 decanter, syphon and tumbler on a tray, mixed the 
 paternal drink, and, placing it on a table handy, 
 sat herself on the floor by her father's chair, and leaned 
 caressingly against his knees. 
 
 Vosper smiled gladly over the rather premature 
 indulgence, and, taking an enjoying gulp of the 
 whisky and soda, settled himself for an hour of 
 gossip and cosiness. 
 
 " How you can like it ! " she said. " The very 
 smell makes me shudder." 
 
 Vosper, pulling bright-eyed at his pipe, smiled 
 luminously. 
 
 " From childhood we like what is kind to us," he 
 said. " An aunt of mine, the ugliest that boy ever 
 had, I thought beautiful. That was because she gave 
 me pleasure, like nasty grog." 
 
 " Does it give you pleasure ? What does it feel 
 like ? "
 
 8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " It feels like, after a day of depression, getting a 
 big cheque." 
 
 Ellen laughed. At the sound, Sultan, the mon- 
 strous black Persian, who was lying asleep on the 
 hearth-rug, raised a lazy head, and, regarding his 
 mistress a moment with narrowed eyes, got suddenly 
 to his feet, and, running to her, fawned and rolled 
 himself beside, inviting her caresses. With her fingers 
 buried in his thick fur, Ellen spoke on dreamily : 
 
 " Poor little man ! Does it take so little to make the 
 world rosy to you ? " 
 
 " Yes, so little, Nell ; and in spite of reason, which 
 tells me, even while I sip, that the vision is but an 
 illusion of the moment." 
 
 " Why aren't you sipping all day, then ? " 
 
 " My dear ! What an immoral suggestion. Besides, 
 the more one sips the faster the vision fades. It is 
 a mere cobweb thing, the structure of a psychologic 
 moment." 
 
 " Like gossamer, with the dew on it. And when 
 the sun dries the dew, the thing seems gone. But it 
 must be there all the time, you know, although you 
 can't see it." 
 
 " O ! I dare say the world's tapestried with dreams ; 
 but what's the good to one, when they are mostly 
 invisible ? " 
 
 " And this this stuff, just gives you the eyes to 
 see for a little ? What do you see ? Let me look into 
 them." 
 
 She put up her arms, drew his head towards her, 
 rosily smiled as she regarded it upside down, and, 
 pressing her lips to his in that inverted position, 
 released her prisoner and subsided into her former 
 attitude.
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 9 
 
 " Go on," she said. " What do you see ? What 
 are you seeing now ? " 
 
 " O ! I can't explain," answered the father. " You 
 know me, I dare say, better than I know myself. Just 
 try to imagine." 
 
 ' Very well, sir, I will. You see this shabby 
 room it is a little shabby, dear, isn't it ? like an 
 Arabian boudoir. Its common paper is a mosaic of 
 creamy marbles ; its curtains hang in heavy folds, 
 as soft and rich as sleep ; there are great drowsy rugs 
 on the paved floor, and on the chairs and sofas. Little 
 splintered stars of light, of a hundred colours and all 
 melting into one another, come glowing through the 
 windows. The sound of the world outside is like the 
 far-off murmur in a shell. You lie lapped in a half- 
 waking dream, that is always palpitating on the verge 
 of some delirious discovery ; the anxieties, the heart- 
 breaking struggles of existence, its nervous horrors 
 and cruel rebuffs they have all passed away and 
 become as nothing. Anything lovely and ecstatic 
 seems possible a scent of incense creeps in at the 
 curtains and then they part noiselessly, and a 
 naked foot " 
 
 She cried out ; the cat hissed and sprang away, 
 bristling its fur and swearing ; Ellen nursed her left 
 hand, flushed and whimpering a little. 
 
 " The wretch ! " she said : "he bit my arm. 
 Look ! he has actually made it bleed." 
 
 Vosper got up, and knocked the ashes of his pipe out 
 on the grate. He seemed a little unsteady on his 
 feet. 
 
 " O ! your imagination runs away with you," 
 he said, as he came back. " Bitten you, has he ? 
 You had better suck it. I'm afraid I'm not capable
 
 io BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 of such exalted flights, my dear. If I were to try and 
 explain what I really felt, I should say no more than 
 a blissful nothingness. There's a virtue in rosy 
 oblivion, isn't there ? and it's all, I think, I'm con- 
 scious of." He refilled his pipe as he spoke. " You 
 had better bathe it, hadn't you ? " he said. " Ring 
 up Annie for some warm water. By the by, when 
 does she go ? The sooner the better. You haven't 
 heard of another yet, I suppose ? " 
 
 Ellen sat on the floor, binding her handkerchief 
 about her arm. The flush had gone from her face, 
 leaving it unusually pale. But she could laugh again, 
 upbraiding her assailant. 
 
 " No, don't bother : it's only a scratch. O, you 
 naughty vicious fellow ! Nobody shall love you any 
 more. Did I pinch him ? Well, it was an accident. 
 Annie goes on Tuesday, papa." 
 
 Vosper had his second glass of toddy after Ellen 
 had gone to bed. It failed to renew the glamour of 
 the first. Perplexity had once more possessed the 
 man, never abnormis sapiens. The eternal puzzle of 
 things returned to darken his reflections. He won- 
 dered why so unexacting a man, one who asked no 
 more than to be left by Fate to the simple enjoyment 
 of habit and his harmless comforts, should be singled 
 out, as it seemed to him, for the perpetual resolving 
 of distracting problems. There was this Annie, a good 
 girl and a personable, worse luck. She had elected 
 to give notice quite suddenly and unexpectedly, and 
 in very enigmatic terms. She had better go, she had 
 said to Ellen, before she was suspected. That had 
 sounded suggestive enough to the master to make him 
 anxious to get rid of a possible embarrassment ; and 
 so, in so far as she could understand or be enlightened,
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" n 
 
 had thought the young mistress. But the girl was an 
 accommodating girl and a capable cook, and now the 
 discomforts, possibly the disasters, of a new regime 
 were to be gone through with again. 
 
 And then these odd moods in his girl, and the more 
 ruinous change they portended ! Great as was his love 
 for his Ellen, he could sometimes have felt as if his 
 proper destiny lay in the peaceful shelter and self- 
 abnegation of a monastery. 
 
 II 
 
 ELLEN, her domestic duties over, often on fine morn- 
 ings used to go and sit in the Long Walk in Kensington 
 Gardens, taking a book with her. So we find her 
 on the day succeeding that night of Sultan's mis- 
 behaviour. 
 
 Her slender forefinger marked the place in Maeter- 
 linck's Life of the Bee, Chapter V, at which she had 
 stopped reading. The book lay in her lap, and she 
 sat on in a mood of pleasurable languor, conscious of 
 little but the sun's warmth and the pleasant smell of 
 grass and greening trees. Emotion was inactive 
 within her ; the pretty picture she made was inno- 
 cent of the least self-consciousness ; she was content 
 just to sit and to vegetate. 
 
 Of a sudden she was aware that a figure, definitely 
 detaching itself from the other moving shapes in the 
 camera obscura of her dreaming mind, had paused 
 to regard her. She started slightly and looked up. 
 
 She had a misty impression of having seen the 
 woman before, here, in this very place ; of having 
 encountered such eyes fixedly regarding her, coming, 
 and going, and returning, with an expression in them
 
 12 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 as of some haunting desire to challenge or be chal- 
 lenged. It was like the sense of a dream already 
 dreamt, of a shadow associated with a past shadow, but 
 whether also of a dream or of some forgotten reality 
 she could not decide. Seeing herself observed, the 
 woman hesitated, passed on, stopped, and suddenly 
 returned with a resolute air. 
 
 " Forgive me," she said. " I fancied that I knew 
 you. Would you mind telling me your name ? " 
 
 She was not prepossessing in appearance, or of 
 scrupulous cleanliness as to her dress and linen. She 
 had a drawn discoloured face, and, in overblown con- 
 trast with it, an hypertrophied neck and bust, too 
 full for their supporting frame. A modish hat was 
 set at an angle upon her head ; but its folds were 
 thick with dust, and the hair beneath looked staring 
 and uncombed. ' Style ' clung to her like a thread- 
 bare habit, running down into a couple of once showy 
 trodden-over shoes with paste buckles. For the 
 rest, the incessant flurried movement of the flexuous 
 lips, the little spasmodic cough, the mucid vacancy of 
 the shell-fish-like eyes with their inflamed rims, 
 pointed, significantly enough to discrimination, to 
 one clear explanation of her aspect and condition. 
 
 Ellen, surprised out of her reverie, sat up, and, in 
 a little flutter, gave the information asked. A spasm 
 caught the woman's face, so ugly and convulsive that 
 the girl started to her feet in fear. 
 
 " Let me call someone a Keeper," she said. " You 
 are feeling ill you " 
 
 The other stopped her, gasping, entreating : 
 
 " No, for God's sake ! It is nothing. Don't be 
 frightened. I am taken this way sometimes. If I 
 might sit by you a moment "
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 13 
 
 She was so obviously distressed, so patently clutch- 
 ing for a straw of human sympathy, that a sudden 
 rush of compassion overswept the girl's first panic, 
 and she recovered herself with a rather tremulous 
 smile. 
 
 " Yes, please do," she said. " The bench is yours 
 as much as mine. There. Will it distress you to talk ? 
 You thought you knew me, you say ? " 
 
 The woman panted, as if fighting down a tendency 
 to collapse. 
 
 " It was a mistake," she whispered " of course 
 what else could it be ? " 
 
 " I don't know," said Ellen. " I fancy it occurs 
 to me haven't you already, at other times, seen me 
 here, and " 
 
 She paused for some response ; but none came. 
 Suddenly the stranger half-turned, facing full upon her. 
 
 "Do you know what brought me to this ? " she 
 said, breathing quickly, her hand upon her bosom. 
 
 Ellen, palpitating a little, shook her head. 
 
 " Drink," said the stranger. " I'm a drunkard. 
 Can you realize what that means ? Most of my life 
 I've been one. It was in my blood ; it may be in 
 anyone's ; but I knew it, and yet I courted tempta- 
 tion. The depression and then the glow, the heavenly 
 moment that was it and, after all, damnation. It 
 may be in anyone's, I say. A thousand million times 
 better not to invite the risk." She was putting evident 
 restraint upon herself to speak quietly, though the 
 agitation of her nerves still showed in her voice. Her 
 accent and intonation, Ellen could not but help 
 noticing through all her perturbation, were those of 
 an educated woman. " A thousand million times," 
 she repeated.
 
 14 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Was there never anyone to help you to point it 
 out ? " said the girl gently. 
 
 " Never anyone in the right way," answered the 
 stranger. " If there had been, I might, who knows, 
 have been saved. But righteousness touches no heart 
 to shame. It needs pity and wise forbearance to do 
 that." 
 
 " Is it too late, even now ? " 
 
 The woman, not answering for a little, seemed as if 
 pondering the inexplicable question. 
 
 "Is it ? " she said presently. " God knows ! If 
 one were strong enough as a warning and example 
 to find some resolute purpose, and prevail through it. 
 To be a use in life a saviour where one had been a 
 slave not despised and tolerated, but welcomed as 
 a power. God knows, I say ! I think I would accept 
 any service, however humble, that promised me that 
 position. Experience teaches, they say. Why should 
 not mine ? If I were accepted for it, looked up to for 
 it, I think I might, even now, take my stand upon a 
 rock and rule the very devil that had enslaved me." 
 
 Her voice had gathered strength from repressed 
 emotion as she ended. But through all the incoherence 
 of its utterance the dim clue it followed was plain 
 enough to the perceptions of the child who sat beside. 
 And within those young perceptions was already 
 forming, half unconsciously at first, a response, im- 
 pulsive, beautiful, to the cry of a smitten sister. 
 
 Ellen's was a peculiar mind ; mature beyond its 
 years, perspicacious, original, self-reliant. The girl, 
 after her first fright, was not shocked in her near 
 neighbourhood to this fulsome sinner so startlingly 
 imposed upon her. Rather she found her case attrac- 
 tive, in a way no man could understand. The woman
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 15 
 
 had nothing but her vice to recommend her, and it 
 was the one thing that did. She would likely have 
 been mean and small without it, a thing of conven- 
 tional observances, of orthodox respectabilities a 
 standard example of the unsubmerged nine-tenths. 
 But her vice, in degrading, had exalted her above 
 herself ; it had brought her into line with the essential 
 tragedy of life the curse of predisposition. God 
 made the leper before he called our pity to him. 
 Disease and ugliness had to be created to be cured. 
 It seemed a paradox of divinity that man should have 
 to straighten God's deformities. Ellen did not like 
 this trait in the Almighty, though she would not have 
 said so ; but she was always ready to rebuke it by 
 example. 
 
 Women are called illogical ; yet, for all their pro- 
 fessed religionism, their instinct, more than man's, 
 revolts in practice against such divine irrationalism. 
 That is why their sympathies can embrace the un- 
 loveliness which to the masculine perception is simply 
 repulsive ; why, in moments even of unconscious 
 ecstatic mutiny against the bullying of Providence, 
 they can suck the poison from the wounds inflicted by 
 it. They speak devotion of their fervour, but they 
 mean rebellion. We have heard of and shuddered at 
 such acts ; but in their spiritual essence they are of 
 regular occurrence. Women are not nauseated, as 
 men are, by the visible tokens of misery and disease. 
 The cruel illogic of such human sores appeals to them 
 above their foulness. 
 
 To cure even here ! What if Providence had 
 capriciously appointed her to physic this one of its 
 own created monstrosities had thrown them to- 
 gether for the purpose ? She took no credit for the
 
 16 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 thought. It came on the most natural of womanly 
 impulses. And perhaps, after all, it proceeded from 
 an utterly mistaken conception. But, as to that, she 
 must speak what her sex urged, giving herself no 
 time for reflection. She put out a caressing hand ; 
 her eyes were shining, her voice full. 
 
 " I am so sorry for you," she said. " I am so sorry. 
 If I could help you in the way you suggest, I should 
 be glad and thankful." 
 
 " Help me," said the woman " you ? " She looked 
 into the hot young face, bending ravenously towards 
 it. " How could you help me ? " she said. 
 
 Ellen blurted out. " If you meant what you 
 said ? " 
 
 " Meant ? " cried the woman : " Meant ? My 
 God ! " 
 
 " You must not mind," said the girl, in a soft voice, 
 " if I take you at your word. When you talked about 
 accepting any service, however humble, were you 
 speaking ? " 
 
 " I was speaking from my soul," interrupted the 
 other. " Why, what am I to hold my head up ? 
 I would be a charwoman, a kitchenmaid, and thank- 
 fully, on such terms of welcome. But who would 
 take me on any terms ? " 
 
 " I would, and I will," said Ellen, looking up, " if 
 you will let me." 
 
 Her fearless eyes challenged the sodden face. 
 
 " You ! " repeated the woman, lost in thick amaze- 
 ment. " How ? " 
 
 " We want a servant," said Ellen " our present 
 one is going she is going next Tuesday. I live alone 
 with my father, and our life is a very simple one. I 
 do not like to suggest it. I would never have dared
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 17 
 
 but for your for what you said. But if you would 
 not think it degrading, I should so like to have you 
 on that understanding, I mean that you should be 
 looked up to for what you had gone through. If it 
 helped you to regain your strength of will, your self- 
 respect the obligation would all be mine it would 
 indeed ; it would make me so glad and happy. Will 
 you come ? Will you give yourself that chance ? 
 I am sure, for my sake, you would not betray the trust 
 I put in you." 
 
 " For your sake ! " The woman looked stupidly 
 on the ground. Her face worked, then suddenly un- 
 lovely tears were rolling down her cheeks. 
 
 " There are plenty of lady-helps in these days," said 
 Ellen. 
 
 " Well, let me be called so," muttered the other ; 
 " but not out of pride, God knows." Presently, 
 wiping her eyes with a soiled handkerchief, she spoke 
 spasmodically, gaspingly, from behind its folds. " I 
 don't know what to say. If the effort, after all, were 
 beyond my strength. Do you realize what you under- 
 take ? If I dared O, if I dared ! Rash and impul- 
 sive, like but you mean it ; I can see it in your 
 beautiful eyes. Only there is so much to consider 
 such nerve to find and I haven't got it now. But 
 perhaps where do you live ? Will you tell me that ? " 
 
 Ellen gave her address. The woman rose to her feet, 
 still quivering and sobbing, a pitiful repellent sight. 
 
 " Give me a little time," she said ; " and then if 
 I come at all, I will come not like this. I never 
 thought, in approaching you, that my purpose but 
 there may be a God after all. Would you get to hate 
 me or love me ? You mean so sweetly dear love, 
 you mean so well ; but I know ; I can foresee. Will
 
 i8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 you let me come if I can, and not hold me ungrateful 
 if I fail." 
 
 " I shall expect you," said Ellen, also risen to her 
 feet, and smiling brightly. " On Tuesday I shall expect 
 you. You won't disappoint me, I am sure." 
 
 The woman gazed at her a moment in silence, with 
 eyes half inspired, half horrified ; then, muttering what 
 sounded like a blessing, turned, and, with jerky un- 
 steady steps, went off through the Park. 
 
 Ellen also turned, and made her way home. She 
 felt in an odd state of exaltation, which, for the time 
 at least, blinded her to the mad irrationality of the 
 step she had taken. To have burdened herself, on a 
 momentary impulse of charity, with a responsibility 
 so tremendous ! To be introducing into her father's 
 house, that ark of domestic security, a potential wild 
 beast, about whose antecedents she knew less than 
 nothing ! Yet the thought somehow did not trouble 
 her. She felt, in some strange way, that she was 
 about to make for herself such a friend as she had 
 never yet known. 
 
 She hoped she had secured a servant to take Annie's 
 place, she told her father that night. It was to be a 
 lady-help, an experiment, and he was to remember to 
 comport himself accordingly. He asked for no par- 
 ticulars. He was content to leave to her independent 
 judgment all such domestic transactions. It would 
 only have worried him to be consulted and made 
 responsible in such matters. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ON the Tuesday evening, by an accident, whether 
 diabolic or providential remains an open question,
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 19 
 
 Vosper returned home earlier than usual to find his 
 daughter absent. He let himself in with his latch- 
 key, and was hanging up his coat and hat in the hall, 
 when he staggered slightly, and put a hand to his 
 forehead. The vision of a woman, seen through the 
 open door of the dining-room, moving softly here and 
 there as she laid the table with glass and cutlery, 
 caught like a cold hand at his heart. His face turned 
 as pale as wax ; he swayed, and clawed at the wall an 
 instant. As he stood, the woman came out quickly 
 and accosted him. 
 
 " Hush ! " she said : "I had dreaded but hoped 
 against this. Come in here, before she returns." 
 
 She took his sleeve, and he obeyed her, stumbling 
 in a physical vertigo. 
 
 " Take something," she urged. " Quick ! you must 
 recover yourself." 
 
 She moved, as if towards the whisky decanter 
 which stood on the sideboard. He stayed her with a 
 feeble gesture ; his tongue clacked inarticulate against 
 his dry palate. 
 
 " You need not fear," she said. " I should not be 
 here if you had need to." 
 
 " You the lady-help ? " 
 
 He spoke at last, small and thick, like a man re- 
 covering from a stroke. 
 
 ' Yes," she said. " Listen to me." 
 
 " You have given it up ? Is that what you mean ? " 
 
 " For the last week," she answered ; " and, God 
 help me, for ever." 
 
 A little guttural laugh, or sneer, came from 
 him ; and then he cried out, like one half mad, 
 " Clara ! " 
 
 " Yes, you hoped I was dead," she said. " You
 
 20 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 never hoped it as I did myself. But not now. I have 
 a purpose in living." 
 
 " Have you ? My God ! how did you find me out 
 find your way here ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose I ever sought you ? You might 
 have known me better, if it had been in you to see and 
 understand. When I left you, it was by my own act, 
 and never to return." 
 
 " And yet " He made a frantic gesture with 
 
 his hands. 
 
 " The purpose drew me," she said ; "I had no 
 choice. I had come upon her in the Park our child 
 my child and I had to speak. How many years ago 
 was it ? and I knew her I knew her would to 
 Christ I had not. What have you told her about me ? " 
 
 " Nothing to your shame. We never speak of you ; 
 she believes you dead ; and she was too young to 
 remember. Some instinct in her, I think, keeps her 
 away from the subject. Perhaps she thought you 
 wicked." 
 
 " And you let her ? " 
 
 " I never said so. I have sought all these years 
 only peace from the past ; and now O, my ruined 
 dream this thunderbolt no rest or comfort any 
 more ! My child and I had better be dead." 
 
 " Listen do you hear ? Your comfort shall not 
 suffer for me. You have only to be silent and let 
 things take their course. Look at me." 
 
 He raised his drooping head ; his glassy eyes obeyed 
 the summons, mutinously but irresistibly, from under 
 their fallen lids. 
 
 " When I first spoke to her," said the woman, " I 
 was at my worst. You had never known it, could 
 never picture it you, whose loathing had already
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 21 
 
 found in the thing I was a beast beyond redemption. 
 But there were lower depths ; through all this waste 
 of years I have descended to them. You would have 
 shuddered to see the result aghast hating and 
 cowering. But she my child, mine could smile on 
 me, the hundredfold debased, and put out her pretty 
 hand, and bid me have courage and come to her and 
 be healed. I could have fallen at her feet her own 
 mother think of it ; and I promised I promised to 
 make the effort. She knew nothing of me she need 
 never learn that truth. Nor would you have known 
 me again your wife so battered out of recognition. 
 Yet you knew me now you never doubted for one 
 instant ; and I ask you, shall not that change speak 
 for my resolution ? Even in these few days I have 
 done something to qualify myself for the task I have 
 undertaken. Yet I hoped against hope that you 
 would not know me, so that I could have served her, 
 unwatched, unsuspected, in the passion of my secret. 
 Well, you will have to share it." 
 
 She was changed, as she had said. No term of 
 purer life could now undo the ravages of the years ; 
 yet, that rankling thorn once removed, the intumes- 
 cence, the delirium caused by its poison had subsided, 
 leaving her sane and in a measure mistress of herself. 
 She was ghastly pale, like one who had been bled 
 almost to death, but it was the pallor of a convalescence 
 from once disfiguring disease. A spectre of her old 
 self, she had returned to recognition, and to the re- 
 newed haunting of the unhappy soul who had fondly 
 believed her to be laid for ever. 
 
 The inhuman tyranny of this revisitation awakened 
 in Vosper a fury of which he was normally incapable. 
 Its cruelty seemed on a par with that which tenderly
 
 22 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 nurses a murderer and would-be suicide back to life in 
 order to make him fit for the gallows. His little fancy 
 home, which he had so laboriously built up stone by 
 stone from the ruins of former days, had crashed in 
 a moment about his ears. That fool's paradise, into 
 whose securer fastnesses he had imagined himself to 
 be surely penetrating, had, like the dreamy perspec- 
 tives of a stage landscape, brought him up with a 
 shock against a brick wall. It was an unheard of, a 
 monstrous persecution. Even Job had been allowed 
 to rebuild permanently on the ghastly wreckage of 
 his house. 
 
 " Never, before God ! " he broke out, with hysteri- 
 cal violence. " I will not endure the thought of such 
 a conspiracy between us, or suffer your presence here 
 on any terms whatever. You must go as you came, 
 now, this instant, before she returns." 
 
 " And what would she think of me ? " 
 
 " What does it matter what she thinks ? You are 
 nothing to her, I conclude, but a ' case ' an abstrac- 
 tion of a vice she does not understand, but which I 
 know to be ineradicable." 
 
 " It is like old times to hear you say so," responded 
 his wife stonily. 
 
 "Is it not true ? " he burst out. " Do you not 
 illustrate its truth in every line of your face ? Do 
 I not know what would certainly follow, were I mad 
 enough to listen to your plea ? To serve her, my un- 
 sophisticated girl psha ! There is only one way, were 
 that really your desire, and you know it to keep your- 
 self eternally out of her life." 
 
 " It was for the child's sake I left you ; I tell you 
 it is for the child's sake I return." 
 
 " For her sake, great God ! Are you the one to under-
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 23 
 
 stand and advise her or I, her father, who have 
 watched over and cherished her welfare all these long 
 years ? " 
 
 " It is I, I think." 
 
 ' You may think it ; but not here." 
 
 ' Yes, here, Henry. I am resolved." 
 
 He read it in her face, and before that inexorable 
 sentence felt the will in himself already beginning 
 to sweat, to yield its first fury, to turn whimperingly 
 to a thought of compromise. With tears of self- 
 pity in his eyes, he essayed an appeal to her better 
 feelings. 
 
 " Cannot you be satisfied, Clara," he said, " with 
 having wrecked my life once already ? You owe me 
 something remember that. Have you ever con- 
 sidered, for one thing, what it meant to me, financially, 
 when you left ? I never questioned your right to your 
 own small estate, though its withdrawal left me 
 miserably provided against the hard problems of 
 existence. But I faced them, and I conquered ; and 
 I have met the burden of the years as a man should 
 a stiff struggle ; yet, I had hoped, earning its late 
 reward in some measure of peace and security. And 
 now you would prove my efforts all in vain ! " 
 
 ' You can have it, what is left of it, for your own 
 again." 
 
 Her forced impassivity goaded him once more to 
 madness. 
 
 " I do not want it," he cried " the price of blood ! 
 You shall not stay, and ruin all I have done." 
 
 ' Very well," she answered ; "if you are resolved, 
 I will confess myself to my daughter, and leave the 
 issue to her." 
 
 He flung his hands to his temples, and, holding
 
 24 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 them so pressed, went to and fro distracted. He 
 knew, surely enough, what that issue would be. 
 
 " What do you propose to do, if you remain ? " he 
 said, stopping and facing her wildly. " Tell me 
 that." 
 
 " What I should have proposed," she answered, 
 " had you not recognised me my duty to my service. 
 I am your lady-help, Henry ; you need never consider 
 me in any other light. I will never betray you or my- 
 self : have no least fear of it. You need not allude 
 to me, speak to me, recognise my existence, if you 
 will. A very little custom will make it all quite easy. 
 I have no friends ; I go under an assumed name ; there 
 is not the least chance of anybody discovering the 
 truth. If there were, this change in me would be 
 my sure disguise. But there is not. You may live 
 the life of peace and comfort you desire. I will not 
 disturb it. I will not, if you will accept my solemn 
 word, drink one drop of anything but water so long 
 as I am here." 
 
 He stood staring gloomily at her while she spoke. 
 
 " Will you not ? " he said at last. " But I think 
 I know better. I think I know what it will be. And 
 God help us all, I say." He walked to the door, 
 turned " Tell her, when she comes in," he said, 
 " that I am busy in my study, do not want to be 
 disturbed until dinner. I must dress my wits some- 
 how to face this ghastly masquerade " and he left 
 
 the room. 
 
 IV 
 
 ELLEN, for some reason best known to herself, said 
 nothing to her father about the interview in the
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 25 
 
 gardens, nor did she make any mention of the weak- 
 ness to which their new acquisition was, or had been, 
 subject. Possibly, on reflection, she had come to 
 realise, a little guiltily, the rashness of her impulsive 
 act, and was shy of inviting any criticism of it. Or 
 some reluctance to betray the confidence reposed in 
 her may have acted as a deterrent. She was well 
 acquainted, of course, with her father's constitu- 
 tional sensitiveness to domestic worries, and knew 
 that any imposition of such upon his tranquillity would 
 only make him irritable without help to herself. For 
 any or none of these reasons, therefore, she kept silent, 
 abiding, with a little trepidation, perhaps, the vindica- 
 tion, or otherwise, of her bold experiment. 
 
 In the meanwhile he, for his part, remained as 
 necessarily tongue-tied ; though the strain of secrecy 
 superimposed on anxiety wrought in him a state of 
 ' nerves ' which seemed sometimes almost to verge 
 on hysteria. Ellen thought him in these days in a 
 very upturned frame of mind, moody, unreasonable, 
 or subject to odd ebullitions of excitement. He did 
 not seem to favour the new menage, if one were to judge 
 from the difficulty he appeared to experience, from the 
 very first night, in accepting with any sort of accommo- 
 dating grace the lady-help's ministrations. He was 
 embarrassed in the woman's presence, and suspicious 
 in her absence. He betrayed his feelings towards her 
 in constant complaints and innuendoes to the girl, 
 not in any way specific, but coloured by an intolerable 
 fretfulness. He was a man indeed who could neither 
 submit nor revolt with courage. His daughter, almost 
 wearied by him at last, became more confirmed than 
 ever in her policy of silence. She was endowed, 
 morally, with a will the antithesis of his.
 
 26 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Poor wretch ; he had, it must be admitted, some 
 justification for his attitude. Dogmatic in the few 
 beliefs he could comprehend, he was persuaded, and 
 had always been persuaded, that no redemption was 
 possible in the case of congenital drunkards. The 
 psychology of such minds betrays invariably a strong 
 self -cosseting instinct, and their creeds will always 
 be found to embrace the least worry or agitation for 
 themselves. Vosper could not sleep, or eat, or enjoy 
 life adequately under the perpetual sense of impending 
 disaster which haunted him. He was convinced that 
 that disaster was only a question of time ; that there 
 would come a day when all the horror of his earlier 
 experience would be renewed in an intensified form. It 
 was impossible to be himself under the circumstances ; 
 and he made little attempt. He lived his days in the 
 spirit of an imprisoned martyr to some preposterous 
 cause, nervous misery underneath, at the best a false 
 gaiety on the surface. The thing could not go on so, 
 and fail to end in some hideous catastrophe. 
 
 Yet it went on, as the troubles of irresolute men 
 will ; and even in time assumed the guise, or the dis- 
 guise, of a just endurable habit. The first dislocating 
 tension of the secret relaxed, as day followed day and 
 no evil ensued, and gradually a weak spirit of resigna- 
 tion began to possess the man. Truly, the situation, 
 child hiding from father and father from child, was 
 a grotesquely artificial one ; yet for a drama's length 
 it managed to carry conviction. 
 
 One ameliorating influence lay in Ellen herself. 
 The girl, after the coming of the woman, seemed for 
 a time much less subject than she had been to those 
 fits of emotional excitement which had latterly affected 
 her. She was even abnormally quiet in her conduct
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 27 
 
 more like the sweet child of old whom she had been 
 seeming to repudiate. The father, in his new mood of 
 tremulous reassurance, thought that he detected in 
 this recovery a probable explanation of the state 
 which had preceded it. The girl was of an age when 
 the natural fondness in her was beginning to crave 
 a more liberal outlet than the monotony and solitari- 
 ness of her life could supply. The feeling, he admitted, 
 was unconscious and perfectly wholesome, and, in the 
 case of a sweet disposition like hers, could easily be 
 directed into pure channels, and find therein a complete 
 satisfaction for its desires. So it was that this affec- 
 tion, seeking itself a vent, and finding an insufficient 
 one for its volume, had resulted in a sort of moral 
 congestion producing moodiness and excitement, 
 until, in the relief of discovering a new subject for its 
 exercise, it had again begun to flow readily, and to 
 resume its ancient sedateness. Ellen's accumulating 
 amiability, in fact, had found in this work of redemp- 
 tion a way of escape for itself. 
 
 The child was mothering the mother, and finding 
 emotional easement in the process so decided the 
 father. Was it even conceivable that, in the end, she 
 would prevail with her ? Despite his obstinate con- 
 victions, the self-indulgence in the man began gradu- 
 ally to pet a weakly optimistic fancy, not for the 
 woman's sake, but because its realization would re- 
 lieve his own mind of a load of apprehension. For 
 that reason he could have lusted to find his dogmatism 
 falsified. He began to glow a little over the picture 
 of his girl, serene, endearing, persuasive, fighting his 
 battles for him, while he himself lay secure, gathering 
 a thread of hope even from his own undisturbed 
 tranquillity. He never ventured so far as to face in
 
 28 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 his mind the consequences of a possible cure. It 
 was always enough for the moment that he was left 
 to enjoy it in peace. Whenever he saw his wife, her 
 appearance seemed to be vindicating her promise. 
 For the rest, she adhered strictly to the letter of her 
 undertaking, and never voluntarily approached or 
 addressed him. 
 
 And then, quite swiftly and unaccountably, it ap- 
 peared, came a change. 
 
 That spring was marked by very hot and oppres- 
 sive weather. In our temperate climate any reasonable 
 accession of warmth is always whatever the com- 
 plaints over the preceding cold and wet speedily 
 resented as an affliction, especially by women. The 
 lovely ardour of an April sunshine produces amongst 
 them more complaint than gratitude. Ellen was a 
 true child of her climate ; she loved, like a cuckoo 
 flower, to feel the sun only so long as a cool wind blew 
 and her roots rested in moisture ; she loved, like 
 a primrose, to drink in the glow from the tempering 
 ambush of a copse. But when human duties and 
 errands had to be faced, her petals wilted in the heat 
 and she became sapless. 
 
 It may have been on this account that she seemed 
 presently to fall flaccid, and gradually more and more 
 so as the heat intensified, until her mood settled into 
 one of almost habitual nervous depression. She 
 became silent and absent-minded ; she appeared 
 unable to rally her spirits at all ; and, in proportion 
 as she drooped, so did her father's apprehensions re- 
 turn upon him with redoubled sickness. What was to 
 account for her state ? Did it derive from the con-
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 29 
 
 scious failure of her attempt to redeem a lost soul ? 
 All his earlier alarms revived in the thought ; a tetchy 
 anger returned to possess his mind ; he began already 
 to feel wickedly abused in his trust and indulgence. 
 One night, when she was sitting with him in this mood 
 of silent dejection, the burden of his wrongs seemed 
 to become to him in a moment unendurable. He strode 
 to the grate, knocked out the ashes of his pipe on the 
 bars, and faced upon the girl in a passion of aggrieved 
 protest. 
 
 " What is the matter with you ? " he said. 
 
 She looked up exhaustedly, a little surprised. 
 " Nothing, papa," she said. 
 
 " Nothing ! " he snapped. " Then what has put 
 you into this state of mind ? Don't pretend, or ask 
 for an explanation. You know perfectly well what 
 I mean. Has anything happened to depress or dis- 
 appoint you ? " 
 
 " No, nothing whatever, papa." 
 
 " Good God ! " he burst out. " Is nothing owing 
 to me ? Must I always be the one to find cheerfulness 
 and sympathy, as well as food and clothes, for my 
 family? To come home night after night from the 
 killing wear and tear of business, and find this more 
 killing atmosphere waiting to receive me ! Are you 
 unhappy ? Do you want anything ? Whatever it 
 is I will not have it conveyed in this spirit. Do you 
 understand ? I say I will not have it. Have I not 
 worries and anxieties enough already, without your 
 adding to them tenfold by your behaviour ? It must 
 end, I say." 
 
 " It shall end," she answered. She had risen to her 
 feet ; her eyes were bright, her face a little flushed. 
 " I can't answer for myself, papa ; but I do know what
 
 30 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 you mean, and it is hard on you. It shan't happen any 
 more. There, I am good again." 
 
 There was a wink of moisture on her lashes, as she 
 ran out of the room ; but all was sparkle and merri- 
 ment when she returned presently with the tray of 
 grog and tumblers, to mix her father his nightcap. 
 Seeing her so transformed, his anger and agitation were 
 assuaged in a moment. 
 
 " I didn't mean, my darling," he began but she 
 stopped him, a hot little palm on his lips. 
 
 " No, not another word," she said. " Don't I 
 know, goose ? It was a shame, and I am never going 
 to be naughty any more." 
 
 She went to the piano, and rattled off piece after 
 piece till the glasses rang. Vosper was quite com- 
 forted and reassured. It would have been too cruel at 
 this pass to have his dream of new-dared contentment 
 shattered. 
 
 From that night Ellen was herself again ; and 
 more, the fits of depression were succeeded by an 
 even exaggerated recurrence of those earlier moods 
 of emotion and excitement. Vosper observed, and 
 was not yet satisfied. A haunting sense as of some- 
 thing unnatural in his neighbourhood kept him at 
 a perpetual tension of uneasiness. Things were not 
 as they should be ; and still his mind harped on the 
 only solution of the riddle comprehensible to it. One 
 morning, at breakfast, looking across at the sideboard, 
 a thing struck him. The whisky decanter was always 
 left exposed there, and his glance had fallen on it. 
 Surely, he thought, his last night's peg or two had not 
 so reduced the quantity it had held. He seemed to 
 remember that the bottle had been quite full at first ; 
 now it was half empty. He was conscious sometimes
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 31 
 
 of his indulging a little beyond what health or wisdom 
 dictated ; but surely not to this extent. 
 
 A shock of half enlightenment, followed by a shiver 
 of vindictive terror, shook his heart. When his wife 
 came in presently on some duty, he regarded her hate- 
 fully from under covert lids. She was very pale, with 
 a grim set look about the lips ; but her actions be- 
 trayed no sign of conscious guilt. He would know 
 presently, he told himself, and there for the moment 
 he left it. 
 
 That night, at dinner, he asked Ellen, in as guarded, 
 as natural a manner as he could assume, if she was 
 satisfied with her new experiment. She answered, 
 ' yes, quite.' Had she discovered, he said, no draw- 
 backs, no weaknesses, no habits. He had thought it 
 just possible that there might have been some such 
 explanation of the woman's willingness to accept a 
 service so comparatively unprofitable as theirs. There 
 frequently was in these cases. Ellen knew of none. She 
 did not favour the bottle, for instance, he asked. 
 Ellen had no reason to suppose so. 
 
 The guileless unsophisticated child ! Before he 
 went up to the drawing-room, Vosper most carefully 
 measured the quantity of liquor in the decanter, 
 making an exact mental note of the point in the 
 cut-glass to which it reached. Later, when the girl 
 brought up his grog, he looked to verify his cal- 
 culation. The whisky stood lower by a couple 
 of finger breadths than he had left it an hour 
 ago. 
 
 His hand trembled a little as he lifted his glass. 
 His face had gone white ; there was a sick feeling at 
 his heart. But he managed to conceal his state from 
 Ellen while she played. The girl, saying she had a
 
 32 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 headache, went to bed early ; and a little later Vosper 
 rose. 
 
 He was shivering all over ; he poured out and 
 swallowed a wineglassful of the raw spirit ; then 
 opened the door, and went very softly, swaying a 
 little, downstairs. In the kitchen, he shut himself in 
 with the woman and faced her. 
 
 " Liar ! " he said : " liar ! " 
 
 His voice was hoarse ; he swallowed with difficulty. 
 She stood before him motionless, her eyes staring into 
 his. 
 
 " So, you have found out ? " she said. 
 
 He could have struck her in his fury. 
 
 " You devil ! " he breathed. " Was I not right ? 
 Did I not know ? And this is all you have to answer 
 for your broken promise ? " 
 
 She seemed to try to speak and to fail. Her failure, 
 as implying fear and conscience-guiltiness, stimulated 
 his own shaking nerves, and lent him courage. 
 
 " I have watched the spirit decanter of late," he 
 said " you won't ask me to say more. To bring the 
 curse back upon me like this no truth, no shame, in 
 the presence of your own child to abuse her trust in 
 you ; to make beastly capital out of her innocence, 
 her pity, her inexperience ! Now you know what I 
 have to say. To-night, as it is late, I will not turn you 
 out. But to-morrow be gone before I return, and 
 darken my life no more." 
 
 She inclined her head : "I will be gone to-morrow," 
 she said, her lips just moving ; and, hesitating a 
 moment, he turned and left her without another word. 
 
 It was over, and more easily than he had dared to 
 hope. He went back to the drawing-room, gulped 
 down a final glass of spirit, and, for safety's sake,
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 33 
 
 carried the decanter with him to his bedroom, where, 
 the racing of his heart presently subsiding, he fell into 
 an exhausted sleep. 
 
 ELLEN came down to breakfast late. She felt very 
 languid and inert. Her lips were dry ; her eyes had 
 blue rims round them and little thready red veins in 
 their corners. There was something very wistful about 
 her appearance. Sickness, headache, even a cold, 
 borrow a certain pathos for themselves from youthful 
 prettiness. They can awaken a sympathy in the male 
 observer which no adult domestic ailment is able to 
 reach. He finds somehow in them a tender appeal to 
 his pity, his emotions ; his instinct leans caressingly, 
 maybe, towards the fever which is at once a danger 
 and an opportunity. Perhaps that is it, or perhaps 
 it is that personable youth can idealise the disfigure- 
 ments which make such unattractive prose of its 
 elders. Not presence, or dignity, but only sweet im- 
 maturity may achieve poetry in a sneeze or a snuffle. 
 Ellen had Sultan, the great Persian, in her arms 
 when the lady-help came in with her coffee. Her hot 
 face was buried in the creature's fur ; she nuzzled and 
 fondled it. As the woman put down the tray on the 
 table, the cat sprang from its mistress's embraces to 
 the floor, where it stood arching its back and moaning. 
 Ellen, her eyes alight with a sudden fire, put out an 
 inviting hand. The cat started from it and spat. 
 Ellen, half-rising, spat back, venomously, uncon- 
 trollably. In the act, she saw the woman, subsided 
 into her chair, and sat regarding the other from 
 under heavy lids, smiling, defiant. The woman stood
 
 34 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 motionless, leaning her hands on the tray as she had 
 deposited it. 
 
 " Is papa not down yet ? " said Ellen. 
 
 " He is down and already gone," answered the 
 other in a low voice. " You are late ; but even so he 
 left unusually early." 
 
 " Did he ? Well, I think I am glad." 
 
 " And I," said the woman. 
 
 She gave a heavy sigh, released her hold of the tray, 
 and, coming round, stood above the girl. 
 
 " Beastly," she said. " Was it not ? " 
 
 " He made me furious," said Ellen. " I couldn't 
 help it." 
 
 " No, I know, I know. What shall we do, dear ? " 
 
 There was a sudden intense grief in her voice. 
 
 " Nothing," said Ellen. " It is no good. You can 
 do nothing for me." 
 
 " No, never again. He has noticed at last, and I 
 am to go. He thinks, of course, it is I, and I did not 
 undeceive him. We had a scene last night, after you 
 were in bed, and I am to be gone before he returns." 
 
 " Why did he think it was you ? I had told him 
 nothing." 
 
 " But he knows, nevertheless enough, a million 
 times, to make him suspect. Leave that, dear, for the 
 moment. What will you do without me ? " 
 
 " What I should do with you, I suppose." The 
 girl was crouching in her place, her forehead leaned 
 upon her hand. " It is no good, I tell you. It might 
 be, if I wanted to stop ; but I don't. I am horrible, a 
 hypocritical devil I see that ; and yet I don't want 
 to be cured. It is quite useless." 
 
 " He must find out when I am gone." 
 
 " Yes."
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 35 
 
 " And you don't care ? " 
 
 " No. I must have it or die." 
 
 " Better die, then." 
 
 " So I often think." 
 
 The woman put her hand to her face a moment, 
 made a gesture of wildly forlorn renunciation, then 
 bent lower over the sullen figure. 
 
 " Ellen," she said ; " you questioned why he should 
 suspect me. Because I am his wife, dear, and you are 
 my child." 
 
 In the tense silence that ensued, the voice of a 
 hawker, crying some squalid murder and suicide, passed 
 outside the window and drifted away down the square. 
 
 " The curse was on me already," said the woman, 
 " when we were married. It divided us at last when 
 you were a little thing. He let you suppose I was 
 dead : would to God I had been. And then the years 
 went on, and I was carried helpless and hopeless with 
 them. When I first came upon you in the Park, I 
 I knew you, Ellen I was sure ; and as surely I saw 
 that the curse had been transmitted, that you too had 
 been marked down for destruction. I had that upon 
 me at the time to end, swiftly and surely, my miserable 
 life : I have it upon me still. But in the sudden 
 prospect you opened out to me, not of hope for myself, 
 but of help and warning for my child, I saw at least 
 a respite. If I could do for her sake what I had failed 
 in so utterly for my own, I might yet win, I thought, 
 salvation for us both. Your father was the one diffi- 
 culty, the one terror ; but in the end I dared to face 
 him, claiming mercy because of my resolve to win 
 redemption. We met when you were out it was a 
 fearful moment and he would not believe me ; he 
 would have refused my prayer and driven me from the
 
 36 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 house. But in my desperation I threatened to reveal 
 the truth to you ; and then he gave way at last. And 
 I stopped on, hoping and fearing, Ellen, and O, my 
 God ! you know, you know." 
 
 The girl rose from her chair, steadying herself by the 
 back. She was white to the eyes her lips looked 
 stiff and grey. She whispered something. 
 
 " What is it, darling ? I can't hear." 
 
 " I said O, poor papa ! " 
 
 " Yes. What will you do ? " 
 
 The poor thing put out her hand. 
 
 " You know. Give it me." 
 
 The woman felt in her bosom, and their fingers 
 met. 
 
 " Only a few drops," she said " nine or ten. 
 Leave the bottle there. I shall follow you presently." 
 
 She cried out, as her daughter turned from her. 
 
 " Your mother, Ellen ! " 
 
 The girl paused a moment. 
 
 " Yes," she said " I hear. But why are you ? 
 We shall know both of us by and by. It is he I 
 am thinking of. I could never understand why it was 
 I wanted so to be good and it would end by driving 
 him mad. There is no other way in all the world. It 
 is not the first time I have thought it ; and now I 
 am sure." 
 
 Not once the word on her lips no response, no 
 solace to that mute agony. The mother held out 
 her arms, and closed them on eternal vacancy ; she 
 heard the steps go up the stairs, the bedroom door 
 close softly ; and then all was silent. 
 
 " She has done it," she whispered. " It was the 
 only way to save her not to become like me 
 not "
 
 'THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 37 
 
 She broke into a sudden whining laugh, and threw 
 herself face downwards on the table. 
 
 Vosper hardly dared to return home that night. 
 The sick misgiving of an unforceful nature was upon 
 him ; he dreaded to find his will defied and the woman 
 still in evidence. 
 
 The house seemed very quiet when he entered it. 
 It was a still, oppressive evening. Somewhere in the 
 square a belated barrel-organ was droning a popular 
 waltz. The commonplace sound was somehow tonic 
 in its effect upon him, and, in an access of resolution, 
 he closed the door and hung up his hat. 
 
 " Ellen ! " he called, half-fearfully : " Ellen ! " 
 
 " Up here," answered a voice. 
 
 His heart seemed to stop ; for a moment he had 
 a mad impulse to open the door and fly ; then a revul- 
 sion of feeling seized him after all he was master 
 here and he ascended the stairs quickly, peremp- 
 torily, his pulses hammering, desperation giving him 
 strength. On the landing stood the figure of his wife. 
 
 " Why are you here still ? " he panted. " Where 
 is Ellen ? " 
 
 " I will show you," she said, softly. " She looks so 
 pretty and so peaceful." 
 
 Something horrible seemed to catch in his throat. 
 He staggered, and she caught his arm. The next 
 moment they were in the bedroom together. 
 
 " Look," she said" how at last she lies at rest. 
 She killed herself, Henry. I gave her the means. I 
 was only waiting for you to tell you. Was it not well 
 done ? ' ' 
 
 He swayed back and sank into a chair against the
 
 38 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 wall. His head dropped forward, his whole body 
 sagged ; speech and motion were paralysed in him 
 at a blow. 
 
 The woman had crossed to the farther side of the 
 bed, on which lay the strange white thing, the little 
 silvery madonna vindicated at last. The mother's 
 face was bent over the sleeping picture with infinite 
 tenderness. She spoke on, low and thrilling, excul- 
 pating, pleading, denouncing, to the shadows, to 
 herself and to him : 
 
 " If we have got somehow into the wrong world, 
 the best thing is to leave it. I have thought, that our 
 vice, perhaps, Ellen's and mine, might be no vice, 
 elsewhere the thing, the normal thing, in some other 
 place not eccentric, not beastly, fitting into the order 
 and a part with it only wrong here. And we don't 
 mean it we don't mean it at all. We try to adapt 
 ourselves ; but our nature comes from somewhere 
 else we have strayed we don't remember. They 
 say one man's food is another man's poison. Why 
 not one's world our world's Ellen's and mine ? 
 We intended no harm we tried so dreadfully and 
 we couldn't without help." She bent lower, and went 
 on, in a soothing moaning voice : " He was not 
 strong enough for us, this man, dearie. There is no 
 cure in hate and disgust. And he would not be denied 
 his own it comforted him he had not the strength 
 to resist, the unselfishness to forbear. With that 
 warning before him he should have kept it away from 
 you its very shadow its fumes the visible token 
 of what it means to him. But he would have thought 
 that hard, unjust such a little matter, yet so much 
 to him, who never felt, never knew. And so all the 
 time he failed to see, to understand, what one look had
 
 "THE SOFT SERAPHIC SCREEN" 39 
 
 been enough for me to read. Someone will tell him 
 how I tried with you how I tried and prayed 
 strong at last, where he could not be strong loyal 
 to my promise shielding you until the end was plain 
 not to be evaded the damning hopeless end. My 
 own, my child ; my own, my child ! You knew what 
 it meant to me, to see it, smell it there, always within 
 my grasp, and never to touch it. There was only one 
 way at last let him know that and we took it. 
 All else was despair no prospect but hell ; and so 
 I spoke the truth, and you turned to it. Your own 
 mother, my baby, that gave you life ah, from the 
 breast that so pretty, so quiet lying there. All 
 day I have sat here watching you, by your little 
 cradle, and you have never stirred. But always the 
 smile the smile that waits for me alone when you 
 wake." 
 
 The voice tailed off into unintelligible murmurs, 
 which, to the mute terrific soul of the figure opposite, 
 became merged in the low thunder of the distant 
 traffic, of far inarticulate cries, of obscene laughter 
 rising from deep vaults of death. He sat listening in 
 an enormous trance, a prey to the supremity of fear, 
 like a man walled in, swathed in stone, yet conscious of 
 hideous whispers obscurely penetrating to him. How 
 long this state lasted he never knew. It was punctuated 
 presently by other sounds, nearer, more definite 
 sounds like the thin wail of wind, the sobbing of rain, 
 the tapping .of small nails into coffin wood. The dis- 
 cordance increased whirled into a universal crepita- 
 tion, in which all its parts were mingled and confounded 
 ran suddenly to attenuation and an end and was 
 nothing but the whine of a barrel-organ, fulsome, 
 importunate, like the voice of a persistent beggar.
 
 40 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Vosper, uttering a horrible scream, staggered from 
 his chair, staggered round the bed and saw her. She 
 was prone on the floor, shapeless, inanimate ; but 
 her limbs still twitched, and out of the huddled 
 shadows stood a white hand, as if mockingly inviting, 
 the fingers yet crooked about a tiny bottle. 
 
 Fear in that extremity forgot itself. There was only 
 one thing for him to do. He wrenched the bottle from 
 the convulsed hold, and, clutching it with both hands 
 to his throat, reeled from the room. Twice, thrice, in 
 his stumbling rush downstairs, he approached the 
 thing to his lips, and as often, shuddering from the 
 deadly odour of almonds that reached his brain, put 
 it away again. In the hall at last, he glared about him 
 frenziedly, saw the open door of the dining-room, 
 hurried in, turned to the whisky decanter on the side- 
 board, seized it, and, putting it to his mouth, gulped 
 down the raw spirit as if it were water. Pausing at last, 
 he gave a long shuddering sigh, stood swaying a few 
 moments ; then, raising his hand as if to send the 
 poison crashing into the grate, recollected himself, 
 and, placing the little bottle gingerly on the side- 
 board, turned, ran to the front door, and, opening it, 
 tore from the house on his way to the police-station.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FROZEN POND 
 
 THROUGHOUT my early artistic develop- 
 ment," once wrote Laurence Derrick to a very 
 intimate friend, " I suffered from a peculiar difficulty 
 an inability to see things as all others appeared to 
 see them. I had always to force myself into line, as 
 it were, with alien perceptions in order to be under- 
 stood ; to distinguish between the positive and the 
 adventitious in recognised forms ; to define for myself 
 the limits of the actual as patent to the common 
 view. This difficulty ceased in me with the cessation 
 of celibacy ; but while it lasted it was a very definite 
 one, bewildering and distressing at times, though 
 blessed with some rare compensations. Thus, to my 
 abnormal vision, every human being was possessed 
 of an aura, a luminous emanation, varying in its 
 density, and eloquent somehow of the nature it en- 
 shrined ; and every beast was likewise adorned, 
 though in a lesser and duller degree. Moreover, I 
 seemed ever conscious of a spiritual environment, 
 now perilous, now sympathetic, but generally emo- 
 tional, whose invisibility found me entirely without 
 the scepticism common to those who believe in no 
 evidence but such as their senses afford them. And, 
 again, I could hear things inaudible to most. 
 
 41
 
 42 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 "Now, the capacity for hearing, as for utterance, does 
 not cease arbitrarily on a given note that must be 
 patent. Then where need it cease, for those who 
 have, literally, ears to hear ? Are there such ? I sup- 
 pose that, for the ' general,' attenuated sound, like at- 
 tenuated atmosphere, means, beyond a certain point, 
 death. Nevertheless, when I tell you that I could once 
 distinguish the low intercourse of the spirits of the 
 dead, you will most certainly question my sanity. 
 
 " But, question it as you will, you must understand 
 in what manner my constitution affected my art, and 
 with what infinite caution I had to realise and prune 
 that art's early exuberances. All that was not to be 
 done in a day, or in a year, or in many years ; and 
 no doubt it was the gradual process of elimination 
 which gave my etchings their characteristic quality, 
 since I could not at once learn to see ' sanely ' with 
 other men's eyes. I am married now ; I have ex- 
 changed the vision for the reality ; my art, I hope, is 
 sounder and stronger for its loss ; yet there come 
 times when I could regret the older faculty, and, for 
 the sake of that seer's atmosphere, could barter much 
 present rationality. And so, what then ? Why, the 
 dolemllest void where is now the essential presence." 
 
 The change to which the letter refers occurred at 
 an acute crisis of Derrick's life, and physiologists, for 
 their part, found a sufficient explanation for it. It is 
 quite unnecessary to attempt to trace here its anterior 
 evolutions. Up to a certain date the man was a brilliant 
 Fantastic ; after that date he was a brilliant Rationalist 
 no more needs to be said. We all remember how 
 he was called the Meryon of London, and what prices 
 we were willing to give for good examples of his 
 earlier period. He was, indeed, the very genius of
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 43 
 
 etching, to which he brought a soul nearly akin to 
 that of the wild French visionary. Only Derrick's 
 visions found something beyond gloom and terror in 
 his ' City of Dreadful Night.' His Saxon blood 
 saved him. 
 
 This is by way of a prelude to a strange episode in 
 the artist's career here recorded. 
 
 On a certain still afternoon in mid-winter a man 
 loitered along the " Mud-cliffs " of Norfolk, at about 
 the point where the coast-line bends definitely to 
 sweep westwards under the Lynn Deeps and Cross- 
 Keys Wash. Land and sea, it was all a desolate 
 prospect attuned to a desolate soul. During the whole 
 twenty-five years of his young life Laurence Derrick 
 never remembered a time when he had held other than 
 aloof, in all that stood for instinctive comradeship, 
 from his fellow-creatures. He was born to loneliness 
 and self-sufficiency a virile, potent spirit, neverthe- 
 less, and no truckler to Destiny. Already at this early 
 age he was famous, and without a shadow of arrogance. 
 Socially a shy man, in all that pertained to his art he 
 was the embodiment of independence and individu- 
 ality. You seemed to read it in his large absorbed 
 eyes, which were the fine feature of a face otherwise 
 lean, hollow-chapped, and somewhat breathless in 
 suggestion. In figure he was tall, gaunt, strong- 
 shouldered, and in habit inclined to slouch. His 
 " London Visions " had at this date won him the very 
 first of reputations as an etcher. 
 
 He had never as yet worked but in black and white. 
 There had been no reason and little opportunity for 
 his doing so. This wandering tour, in fact, marked
 
 44 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 the beginning of his departure from a hitherto un- 
 broken rule. For the first time he was essaying to 
 express his visions in water-colour. Something in the 
 aspect of his surroundings had won him to the attempt 
 the grey tones, the little-defined contrasts, the still 
 predominance of white and shadow in the picture. 
 If a man sought to emerge from the thraldom of ink 
 and paper, he could not do it by more cautious and 
 gradual means. He was feeling his way. 
 
 Presently he paused on the edge of the cliff and 
 looked about him. His ' tools ' were slung in a case 
 over his shoulder ; his hands, a good stick gripped in 
 one of them, were bare ; he was not the man to 
 concede a point to the rigours of frost and fog. There 
 was little to cherish in all the view but a sense of stark 
 isolation. Melancholy is the reigning spirit of all that 
 haunted, crumbling coast. Old solitary churches, old 
 ruined memories of an age-long-foundered life possess 
 its league-wide desolations. It is thick with dreary 
 ghosts, whose shrouds come washing inwards on the 
 curl of the tides. One may stroll for miles on the cold 
 sands or the harsh over-cliffs and never meet a soul. 
 
 All this was congenial to the solitary man. He liked 
 loneliness, he liked desolation. The mystery of a grey- 
 green sea flowing from under a curtain of mist absorbed 
 his fancy ; the scream of sweeping gulls stimulated it ; 
 he looked abroad over a dim frost-locked landscape, 
 and marked without a shiver the fleece of snow that 
 carpeted it. Then he turned southwards and went on. 
 
 Suddenly, in the growing mist, he came upon a 
 railed-in track which crossed his path. The fence was 
 of the slightest and rudest, but it appeared to betoken 
 a private way from a point above the shore to some 
 place inland. Moved by a perverse impulse, the
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 45 
 
 artist entered and took the track, leaving the coast 
 behind him. 
 
 As he proceeded, a sense as of some undefined 
 exclusiveness in the spot increased upon him. The 
 track narrowed, and became a cutting between low 
 banks, became a lane, became a gorge. Stunted 
 bushes appeared on its banks, and presently trees, 
 ever increasing in density. And then in a moment, 
 as he turned a corner, a wooden gate barred his way. 
 
 The thing was a mouldering ruin, a mere pretence, 
 its statement of privacy a scarce decipherable legend. 
 Derrick, scorning to construe, pushed by and con- 
 tinued his exploration. This was the back entrance, 
 he convinced himself, to some long-deserted estate, 
 and likely no one would interfere with him. 
 
 The trees thickened as he advanced, and massed 
 themselves in a loftier tangle of sprays. The track of 
 melancholy sky between their tops seemed contracted 
 to a width no greater than that of the melancholy path 
 he trod. On all sides reigned a profound sad silence ; 
 he seemed to be entering into the dead recesses of 
 something long excommunicate ; the biting crunch of 
 his footsteps in the snow smote upon his nerves like a 
 desecration. Still he pressed forward. 
 
 Now the very murmur of his spirit environment 
 seemed hushed, as if his progress were being breath- 
 lessly watched and followed. Suddenly the lane of 
 thronged trunks distended, opening out into a wide 
 circular gulf among the trees ; and in the midst lay a 
 broad pond or mere, hard-frozen and set with withered 
 clumps of rushes. 
 
 It was winter manifest a voiceless unpeopled 
 solitude locked in ice. Derrick walked yet a score 
 paces, and on the instant stopped. He had reached
 
 46 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 unexpectedly the opening to a second track or avenue, 
 which entered the close amphitheatre at right angles 
 to the other ; and, looking up this new approach, he 
 saw a house at its farther end. The building was 
 not so far away but that he could distinguish, or 
 thought he could distinguish, its forlorn and abandoned 
 character. No smoke rose from its chimneys ; no 
 sign of life was visible about it anywhere. Decided as 
 to its tenantless condition, yet willing to compromise 
 with appearances, he stepped back out of sight of its 
 windows, and quickly became absorbed in the prospect 
 before him. 
 
 It was the pond that held and fascinated him the 
 ' composition ' to be wrought out of that lifeless 
 material, as a sculptor hews form out of marble. If 
 he could realise the dream of fast-locked silence it 
 evoked the grave, the mausoleum of buried water ! 
 The surrounding woods and thickets offered enough 
 contributory colour to suit his new-born purpose. For 
 the foreground a blackened sluice, controlling some 
 subterranean rivulet, stood up in effective position. 
 A convenient log presented itself hard by. Derrick 
 seated himself on it, and was quickly at work, oblivious 
 of everything but his subject. 
 
 The short noon closed about him as he painted. He 
 was eager only to forestall the approaching twilight. 
 He may have been engaged for an hour, when a 
 consciousness of some neighbouring presence seized 
 him in a moment. Simultaneously with the thought, 
 a low deep growl sounded in his ears, and he started 
 and turned his head. 
 
 A man, holding a great hound in a leash, was stand- 
 ing close behind him so close, that for the instant 
 Derrick's heart leapt as in the shock of a betrayal.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 47 
 
 Then he laughed, lowered his block, and slewed round 
 upon his seat. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he said. 
 
 The man backed immediately, dragging the hound 
 with him, and stood staring. He was a sullen-looking, 
 thickset young fellow, in gaiters and corduroys some 
 sort of a Keeper in suggestion. His face was ruddy by 
 nature, but impressed, so Derrick could have thought, 
 with the yellow patches, like finger-marks, which 
 betoken fear. He relieved his mood, whatever it was, 
 by kicking the mastiff, which still grumbled ominously. 
 
 " I'm trespassing, I suppose," said the young man. 
 " Does it matter ? " 
 
 The Keeper passed the back of his hand across his 
 mouth, and made, it would seem, some obvious effort 
 at self-mastery. 
 
 " Aye, it does," he answered low, and immediately 
 cursed the threatening beast, as if to regain control 
 over his own voice. " Who may ye be, by your 
 leave ? " he said, looking up. 
 
 " An artist." 
 
 " And how came ye here ? " 
 
 " By the lane from the sea." 
 
 " The lane ? " 
 
 The man moved slightly, as if to consult the betray- 
 ing footprints, and then returned to his former 
 position, from which he looked down stupidly on his 
 own approaching tracks, appearing to compare the 
 two. He was so long, and apparently so dense over 
 the business, that Derrick lost patience. 
 
 " There was nothing to mark it private, you know," 
 he said. 
 
 " That's a lie. There was the gate." 
 
 " Rotten."
 
 48 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " So you seen it, anyhow. Belike you'd been 
 before." 
 
 " No." 
 
 " That may be true or it mayn't. What's your 
 name ? " 
 
 Derrick told him, unperturbed. "I'm staying in 
 the village Wanborough," he added, " at the Dark 
 Horse Inn. You can test my veracity, if you please." 
 
 The man shrugged his shoulders. Somehow the 
 scared look had not left his eyes. 
 
 " What were ye sitting painting here, of all 
 places ? " he demanded, hoarsely for all his effort. 
 
 " The place appealed to me," said Derrick with cool 
 surprise. " You would know why, if you were an 
 artist." 
 
 " If I " the word seemed to stick in the man's 
 
 throat. 
 
 " Come," said Derrick, rising. " The offence is no 
 great one. If I've made a mistake it's soon put right 
 by my going." 
 
 " Ah ! " The man stirred on the instant, and 
 blocked his way. " No, you don't. You'd best be 
 warned, between me and the dog. Where you come 
 you'll bide, bating Miss Bruna's leave." 
 
 Derrick paused, between dudgeon and astonishment. 
 " O ! shall I ? " he said. " And who is Miss Bruna 
 your mistress ? " 
 
 " Aye, she be," said the man doggedly " and the 
 mistress of ' Coldshot,' though you may come to 
 question it." 
 
 " Question it ? Why, in the devil's name ? Is this 
 ' Coldshot ' ? " 
 
 " Don't you know it is ? " 
 
 Was the fellow crazed ? " Well," said Derrick, with
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 49 
 
 a grunt of resignation, " take me to your mistress, and 
 I'll apologise in person." 
 
 The Keeper nodded grimly. " Go you before," he 
 said, " and I'll follow." 
 
 " Which way ? Towards the house, I suppose. 
 Very well." 
 
 He set off, and the other shadowed him. There was 
 no disputing a madman, and so accompanied, he 
 thought. But the situation struck the young man as 
 odd in the extreme. He could only conjecture that 
 this forlorn-looking wilderness was the stronghold of 
 some jealous eccentric, impoverished, or perhaps a 
 miser. Such spirits were wont, traditionally, to be 
 suspiciously resentful of intruders. 
 
 He tramped on, provoked yet queerly interested. 
 There was something in the adventure, in the ghostly 
 solitude of the place, in its remoteness and neglect, 
 which touched his phantasmal nerve, and kept it 
 agitated and expectant. As he approached the house, 
 he found reason to qualify his first conviction as to its 
 abandonment but only to qualify, no more. That it 
 was in some sort inhabited showed in at least one 
 quarter, where there were blinds and curtains to the 
 windows and other signs of occupancy. Yet for the 
 most part the air of sad desertion which characterised 
 the grounds dwelt and brooded hereover. 
 
 It was a fair large structure in itself, oblong in form 
 and built of antique red brick. A stone coping with 
 balusters and a shallow parapet ran the length of the 
 roof ; a double stairway, stained and green, descended 
 from a doorway on the first floor to the disordered 
 garden. It was with a little jerk of the pulses that 
 Derrick suddenly perceived a couple of figures coming 
 down these steps.
 
 50 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He did not hesitate, nevertheless, but walked 
 straight on until he encountered the advancing pair, 
 who were obviously crossing the garden to meet him. 
 They stopped at the ridge of a low terrace, and he stood 
 a foot or two beneath, looking up at them. One of 
 the two was a woman she might have been some 
 three or four years older than himself ; the other 
 by his garb appeared a Catholic priest a fat, 
 genial-looking body, with a hint and perfume of 
 snuff about his rounded habit. Derrick, prompt 
 and decisive, raised his hat, and addressed the 
 former : 
 
 " I have been caught trespassing unwittingly, 
 believe me. Pray accept my apologies, and at the 
 same time my congratulations on your possession of a 
 very efficient watchdog." 
 
 His voice faltered on its note of hardly concealed 
 irony, as he stood, his face raised. The eyes, suddenly 
 bent down to encounter his, had made an easy and 
 imperious capture of him on the instant. Cold as grey 
 agates, the lashes that rayed from them were never- 
 theless ink-black a wonderful contrast. The woman 
 was lithe and tall in figure ; her face was of an even 
 pallor, like cut ivory ; passion and mere prettiness 
 seemed blended in it the mingling of the Latin with 
 the Saxon. But there was something more a sense 
 of indescribable sorrow, of emotion fettered and im- 
 prisoned, which affected this man of abnormal sympa- 
 thies like poignant music. He stood without another 
 word, awaiting her response. 
 
 None followed ; but, her eyes instantly travelling 
 from him to the block he held exposed in his hand, she 
 gave a quite perceptible start, and glanced, wide-lidded, 
 at the Keeper.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 51 
 
 " Aye," said the man, " an artist. He was sitting 
 there, when I come upon him." 
 
 She seemed to breathe an inaudible word or two ; 
 and then her gaze, intense, haunting, re-sought the 
 intruder. Suddenly she put out a hand. The action 
 releasing the cloak she had clutched about her throat, 
 its hood fell back, revealing a night of winged hair. 
 
 " Let me see," she said. " The pond ? " 
 
 Derrick, thrilling throughout, placed the sketch in 
 her hand. She stared at it, eagerly, hungrily, then 
 made a motion towards the priest. He came and 
 glanced over her shoulder, smiled, shrugged, and said 
 something in a low voice. Then once more she fixed 
 the artist with that strange concentrated look. 
 
 " You were sitting there ? " she whispered. " Who 
 are you ? " 
 
 He was less taken aback, perhaps, than most men 
 might have been under the circumstances. 
 
 " My name is Laurence Derrick," he said. " I am 
 sorry to have offended ; but I took the place to be 
 deserted." 
 
 " Do you want to go ? " 
 
 " Want ! " His eyes might have expressed his 
 astonishment. " I am putting up in the neighbour- 
 hood," he said, " at the ' Dark Horse.' I should be 
 back there before nightfall." 
 
 " Go, then, if you will." 
 
 He was too amazed to answer ; he bowed and turned. 
 
 " No, not that way again," she cried quickly. 
 
 The Keeper interposed. " Here, master," he said, 
 " I'll show you out." 
 
 He motioned the intruder to follow him by way of a 
 side path which, penetrating the thickets, brought 
 them round to the front of the house, and thence,
 
 52 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 through darkling shrubberies, to the rusted gates of the 
 estate and so into a lonely by-road. 
 
 " Follow that," he said surlily, " and ye'll make 
 Wanborough." 
 
 " Good night," said Derrick. The man did not 
 answer ; and he went wondering on his way. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A WEIRD DISAPPEARANCE 
 
 NOT many visitors favour Wanborough in the best of 
 the season ; in winter, but a wandering castaway or 
 two. It is a salt, remote, wind-blown little place, one 
 of the many, remnants of a once-swarming life, that 
 dot at long intervals that stretch of eroded coast. 
 Loneliness, quietude, grey antiquity are its settled 
 features ; it is dominated by one old, old church 
 tower, ashen and lofty ; and its lanes, its cliffs, its 
 wastes of sand, are sown with ghostly secrets. In the 
 houses there are noises at night, not to be accounted 
 to rats or gusty chinmeys ; in twilit rooms presences 
 are felt, and the touch of soft cold fingers ; in the 
 deep troughs of the waves outside gleam shadows of 
 ruins and sudden deriding eyes. The dead scream in 
 stormy weather on the buried ramparts of the old 
 towns for miles away. They lie where they fell when 
 the sea caught and overwhelmed them, lapping up a 
 principality in a night. 
 
 From the first Derrick had been fascinated by the 
 place. Its haunted solitude had no fears for him. 
 His soul could not, for its own ease, reach too far 
 beyond the pale of the conventional vulgarities and 
 the conventual securities. He felt freest in isolation
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 53 
 
 he was an unusual man. This atmosphere, barren to 
 others, fruitful to his peculiar art, seemed to him full 
 of strange potentialities, one of which had now been 
 surely realised. In what other place known to his 
 memory could he have alighted on so odd an adventure ? 
 
 The thought of it dwelt with him continually. He 
 was for ever standing in spirit and looking up into a 
 pair of cold fathomless eyes, and pondering on their 
 secret. What was it ? He was to learn in a little. 
 The knowledge was to come to him in the most 
 commonplace way possible. 
 
 He was sitting that night in the bar-parlour of the 
 ' Dark Horse,' a very old-time hostelry, whose eastern 
 wall abutted on the churchyard, where the tower was 
 and the dead. Amongst these last was numbered one 
 Jonathan Ball, a wife-poisoner, who lay age-long 
 buried in the shadows, a piece of cake in one hand, a 
 poker in the other, symbolic of his crimes and of the 
 destination they assured him. The frost lay hard and 
 sparkling in the moonlight above his grave and the 
 other stalagmite headstones. It was bitter cold out- 
 side, and Derrick, though commonly unsociable, could 
 appreciate the contrastive comfort of an inn snuggery. 
 He smoked, sipped at his glass, and from time to time 
 addressed a word or two to the crinkle-faced landlord, 
 who suggested nothing so much as a dried Norfolk 
 biffin. Once he suddenly asked a question that had 
 long hovered on his lips : 
 
 " Is there any story connected with the place called 
 ' Coldshot ' ? " 
 
 The landlord stood at the moment half in and half 
 out of the parlour door, and Derrick had supposed him 
 to be alone, until his question evoked an answer, not 
 from him, but from an unsuspected stranger who, it
 
 54 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 seemed now, had come briskly into the shadows of the 
 tap beyond. This person put his head suddenly round 
 and into the opening, and replied for the other : 
 
 " Yes, there is. Good evening to you, sir." 
 
 He looked an educated quidnunc of a fellow, and was 
 in fact the bailiff or steward to some neighbouring 
 estate. He had a sharp face, with restless lips and 
 eyes, and a muffler about his throat ; and his lean form 
 was buttoned into a thick tight- waisted overcoat. 
 
 " O ! " said Derrick. " Good evening. I wonder if 
 I might hear it ? " 
 
 " No objection in the world," said the stranger. His 
 speech was dry and staccato ; he put his hand over 
 the counter, and, unbuttoning the bar door, walked in. 
 " Ah ! " he said ; " it's like slipping into bed out of the 
 cold. Been sketching, sir ? " 
 
 Derrick was not aware of having seen the stranger 
 before, but the stranger knew all about him. The 
 young man nodded. " At the place itself," he an- 
 swered ; " but it seemed I was trespassing." 
 
 " Caught at it, eh ? You got in through Haggart's 
 Lane, I suppose." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " From down by the coast ? " 
 
 " O, yes ! I supposed the place, from its appearance, 
 to be deserted." 
 
 " You would " the stranger peered at him, quick 
 and curious " and it might as well be, for all the care 
 she takes of it." 
 
 " Who's ' she ' ? " 
 
 " Miss Salvetti ; Bruna her name is queer name, 
 isn't it ? The place belongs to her, I suppose." 
 
 " Why do you suppose ? " 
 
 " Ah ! There's the story. She had a brother once
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 55 
 
 Lotto queer name again a boy of fourteen. He 
 was the heir-at-law ; but he disappeared." 
 
 " Disappeared ? How ? " 
 
 The stranger shut his lips like a trap. He reopened 
 a corner of them to say, " Wish you could explain," 
 and closed all tight again. 
 
 " Well, give me the chance," said Derrick. He 
 glanced significantly from the well-conditioned 
 stranger to his own glass and back again. 
 
 " Don't mind if I do," said the bailiff. " Rum, by 
 your leave. Nothing for something's a bad principle." 
 
 " Join us, landlord," said Derrick, relieved, and in a 
 minute fragrant harmony prevailed. 
 
 The stranger did not smoke ; but he took snuff, and 
 he rolled his liquor approvingly round in his mouth 
 while he revolved his subject. 
 
 " Where were you caught ? " he said at last. 
 
 " I was seated on a stump, sketching the pond." 
 
 " Ah ! the very place ! " He cogitated yet a little ; 
 then opened out, speaking in quick, abrupt sentences : 
 "It was ten years ago, I should say, pretty well to a 
 day. Those people had only been there a year or two 
 the girl, her mother and the boy. I don't know 
 where they came from ; but ' Coldshot ' was the 
 mother's property. She was Anglo-Irish ; but the 
 father, deceased, was Italian, as you might guess. The 
 mother died, too, first year of their coming, and the 
 orphans were left in possession. They weren't much 
 liked in the neighbourhood strange people, and 
 papists at that. There was thought something uncanny 
 about them ; and devils of tempers the two had. They 
 were left alone mostly ; and there they lived. But I 
 get to know things ; and what I learnt of them was 
 nothing to their discredit. Ever studied the wars of
 
 56 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Italian independence the late sixties and there- 
 abouts ? " 
 
 " Not much, I must confess," said Derrick. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the stranger. " They happened inside 
 my time, and I have a curiosity about most things. 
 The end for the Pope came in '70, when the national 
 troops entered Rome, and the foreigners and all 
 marched out with the honours of war. But there had 
 been a bit of a scrimmage first, and a few were ac- 
 counted for on both sides. Grandfather Salvetti was 
 one of them a papal Zouave ; and ever after his 
 memory was revered in the family as that of a martyr. 
 The girl, Bruna, though an after product, held it in the 
 most passionate regard. She was a real fanatic due 
 to her convent-training, no doubt ; and she never 
 ceased to look for the time when Italy should return to 
 its senses and its allegiance, as she considered it, and 
 restore to the chair of Peter its temporal sovereignty. 
 A queer obsession, eh and in these times ? But she 
 stuck to it, and Lotto, her brother, was destined by 
 her to his share in the glorious restitution. She 
 dedicated him to the Vatican and its service to be a 
 soldier of God ; and it was his refusal to be so disposed 
 of that affected their mutual relations that was 
 responsible for some almighty rows between them, 
 in fact. It was said she got to hate him ; but I don't 
 believe that." 
 
 The stranger paused, to roll another relished sip 
 round his tongue. 
 
 " The boy was a queer uncanny creature," he went 
 on, " rather an unholy gowk to look at, and an artist 
 like yourself. He saw things and painted things, it 
 was said, that no one else this side of reason ever 
 imagined. But, whatever was his capacity, or want of
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 57 
 
 it, the sister held the whole business in furious scorn. 
 She wanted him to be a soldier, like his father and 
 grandfather, and when he wouldn't she just made his 
 life a burden. And at last it came to the final rumpus 
 between them and then something happened." 
 
 ' Yes," said Derrick, impatient of the repeated 
 parentheses. 
 
 "It was on an evening like this," said the narrator ; 
 " only the snow was thicker on the ground. The boy 
 had gone down to that pond to sketch ; and he was 
 never seen again." 
 
 " Never seen ? " 
 
 ' That warn't all," put in the landlord shrewdly. 
 ' There were summut odder." 
 
 ' You dry up, Coombes," said the bailiff sharply, 
 " and leave me alone to tell my story." He touched 
 Derrick's knee with long impressive fingers. " His 
 footsteps, sir, were traced in the snow from the house 
 to the stump on which he sat, and there they ceased. 
 They neither branched off in any direction, nor did 
 they return the way they had come. But a second 
 track there was the girl's. And her footsteps were 
 traced from the house to the stump and back again." 
 
 He drew up his shoulders, took snuff, and challenged 
 comment with a look. 
 
 " It had snowed," began Derrick ; but the other 
 stopped him : 
 
 " Here, but not there ? No, sir, there was no snow 
 after none. There were the footsteps and there 
 they ended. Bruna never denied her part. She ad- 
 mitted they had quarrelled ; that, further maddened 
 by his persistence in going to paint after the row, she 
 had followed him in the twilight ; that there had been 
 a second furious scene between them, and that then she
 
 58 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 had left him and flung back to the house. She said 
 all that to explain how she was no murderess." 
 
 " Good God ! " 
 
 " Why, there had to be some sort of enquiry, of 
 course ; and naturally suspicion fell on her. But 
 nothing was discovered, and to this day no trace of 
 the boy has been found. He just went so far, and 
 disappeared. There lay the track of his footsteps and 
 hers as far as the stump, and beyond and around that 
 just virgin snow not a trace, not a sign of him any- 
 where. He had melted into the air, it seemed." 
 
 Derrick sat frowning awhile. 
 
 " She was seen to return to the house alone ? " he 
 asked presently. 
 
 " That was so," answered the stranger. 
 
 " And yet she was believed to have killed him ? " 
 
 " The thing, you see, had to be accounted for some- 
 how." 
 
 " How could she have disposed of the body by the 
 way, and never betrayed a sign ? " 
 
 " God knows. She didn't dispose of it, of course. 
 There was no body to dispose of. The boy hadn't 
 been murdered. He had vanished inscrutably before 
 her arrival on the spot, and her story of an alterca- 
 tion between them was fiction. Assume all that, if 
 you like. Does it make the mystery less inexplicable ? " 
 
 " It is monstrous." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " That she should have been allowed to suffer on such 
 evidence under such an imputation." 
 
 " Well, you asked for a chance to explain ; and 
 there are the facts." 
 
 ' Viewed through the mists and exaggerations of ten 
 years, remember."
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 59 
 
 The stranger made a dry sound. " I accept the 
 implication," he said, " on behalf of myself and fellow- 
 asses." 
 
 " Surely you were not convinced of her guilt at the 
 time ? " 
 
 " I have stated the case plainly, sir. I am no believer 
 in the supernatural There was the testimony of the 
 quarrel, of the tell-tale footprints, of the boy's dis- 
 appearance. I don't pretend to go beyond them." 
 
 "And they are sufficient, in your opinion, to justify 
 the social ostracism to which the unhappy woman has 
 been condemned for I take it that that is the true 
 meaning of the strange household, of the banned and 
 neglected estate." 
 
 ' The ' unhappy woman,' bear in mind, stood to 
 profit by the lad's decease. She became sole inheritress 
 of the property. Yet one must admit she doesn't seem 
 to have taken much advantage of her opportunity. 
 She's nursing the place belike against her brother's 
 return some day. Think what you please. In any 
 case she had the temper to stand to her guns, and I 
 admire her for it ; but it's hardly to be supposed that 
 the mystery tended to an improvement of her already 
 bad relations with her neighbours. She was virtually 
 proscribed, in fact, and she's lived apart and alone 
 ever since." 
 
 " Alone ? " 
 
 " There's Blackadder and his mother a hard-fisted 
 couple who stuck to the girl throughout ; and there's 
 Father Appleyard not much to recommend in any one 
 of them." 
 
 " Not in the priest ? " 
 
 " O ! there's no harm in him a sort of comfortable 
 lay cleric, a family chaplain of the old order. He
 
 60 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 knows which side his bread's buttered, and he doesn't 
 quarrel with it. They all hive together in a wing of 
 the old house." 
 
 The stranger finished his rum, added a fortifying 
 pinch of snuff, and rose. 
 
 " There's the story, sir," he said, " and resolve it if 
 you can. We shall be curious hereabouts to have your 
 explanation. In the meantime " 
 
 " In the meantime," said Derrick, " you damn a 
 poor soul by default. Why not start on the other 
 assumption ? " 
 
 " What assumption ? " 
 
 " That she's innocent." 
 
 " Of course she is. Only, where's the boy ? " 
 
 " Must a wrongfully accused man produce the real 
 criminal in order to save his own neck ? " 
 
 " Had to once, you know. Ever seen the ' Lyons 
 Mail ' ? I don't say it's right ; but Society's more 
 conservative than the law, and every bit as irrational. 
 Good night to you." 
 
 Derrick went to bed and to sleep, and hunted all 
 night about the margin of a frozen pond, close by 
 whose icy levels the waters of a blackened sluice, re- 
 mote, deep-sunken, kept up a perpetual low thunder. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A SURPRISE INVITATION 
 
 ' His footsteps were traced from the house to the 
 stump and there ceased ' hers went forth and back. 
 There was the strange problem which was to haunt 
 this strange man for many a day to come. 
 Why should it haunt him ? What concern was it
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 61 
 
 of his ? An ancient story now, so put away, so staled 
 under the dust of a whole decade, that anyone seeking 
 to disinter and restore it to its once significance must 
 needs start at a great disadvantage. Perhaps it was 
 a natural predilection for old things, for their mellow- 
 ness and their mystery, for the tone which past deeds 
 no less than past materials acquire from long keeping, 
 which was in some sort responsible for Laurence 
 Derrick's feeling ; his constitutional solitariness would 
 certainly have assumed for itself no more than an 
 abstract interest in the chief person of the drama. If 
 for the moment she possessed his soul, it was because 
 of her prominent place in the picture. 
 
 So he supposed ; and what was the value of his 
 supposition ? Legend and fact have too often de- 
 clined to distinguish the possession of an artist's soul 
 by his subject from material passion. Pygmalion, no 
 doubt, felt at first no more than an abstract interest 
 in the figure he foresaw embedded in the ivory. It 
 was when he began to shape substance out of the 
 shadow that he began to realise that his model was 
 his own transcendent desire. So Laurence uncon- 
 sciously entertained the image that was to come to 
 possess his soul with the passion of its loveliness. 
 
 Yet, at the outset, its beauty did not so much 
 affect him as its mystery. Was this woman sinned 
 against or sinning ? He did not much care. The hot 
 blood already kindled in him could have found equal 
 satisfaction in either conclusion. He did not recognise 
 his own mood, of course ; it represented to him no 
 more than the fascination of his imagination by a 
 subject ; but he was possessed by an odd determination 
 to claim that subject as his right. The very sympathies 
 of shyness and social ostracism theirs in common,
 
 62 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 though for a different reason appeared to justify 
 him. And for this reason the comparative remoteness 
 of the tragedy only the more thrilled his veins. It 
 invited his intent into an atmosphere of privacy and 
 mystery long secluded from the outer respectabilities. 
 
 Now, for some inexplicable reason he was so con- 
 fident of this moral right of his to penetrate, and again 
 penetrate the forbidden, that not only was he un- 
 disturbed by any qualms as to how to effect his pur- 
 pose, but, the way to it being suddenly offered to him 
 unasked, he accepted the concession with an air that 
 implied that that concession was immaterial, though 
 welcome as a formal courtesy. And yet the offer 
 came to him in a surprising enough manner. 
 
 The day after his adventure opened with no abate- 
 ment in the quiet rigour of the frost. Derrick, having 
 breakfasted, was preparing himself for a day-long 
 tramp over the snowy wastes, when a message was 
 brought in that Father Appleyard begged a word with 
 him at the door. Perhaps his heart was conscious 
 of a momentary jerk and heat. They passed as in- 
 stantly, and he went out leisurely to answer his 
 visitor. 
 
 The priest, looming large in the mist in a great 
 frieze overcoat, and with a round clerical hat of dark 
 felt put back from his head like an extinguished halo, 
 greeted the artist with an ineffable enlargement of 
 the smile that was habitual to his round impassive 
 face. His eyes were half-buried in jocund wrinkles, 
 his nose was small, his little juicy mouth seemed to 
 eject phrases, like cherry-stones, with a delicate relish. 
 He put out a plump gloved hand, and touched Derrick 
 on the arm. 
 
 " Pardon me," he said ; " an artist ? The artist ? "
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 63 
 
 Derrick nodded. " We met yesterday," he said. 
 
 " Exactly," answered the stranger. His smile posi- 
 tively shone. " You are coming again ? " 
 
 " My reception was hardly encouraging," said 
 Derrick ; " but, if this is an invitation, thank you, 
 and yes." 
 
 " You will find excuses, I know," said the priest, 
 " for the faithful stew-ard. You were interested in 
 the place ? " 
 
 " Very much so." For some reason the young man 
 was not moved to expansion. 
 
 " You are already acquainted with it, perhaps ? " 
 suggested the other smoothly. 
 
 Derrick glanced at him, and marked with surprise 
 an expression on his face which he would have read 
 as one of sly innuendo. 
 
 " If I was," he replied, " it must have been in 
 dreams alone." 
 
 Something impelled him to the answer ; and, even 
 as he made it, a startled sense of its truth, of his 
 already unconscious recognition of its truth, passed 
 through him. The place, now he came to analyse its 
 impressions, had appeared vaguely, mystically familiar 
 an instance, no doubt, of that illusion commonly 
 attributed to a lost beat in one of the twin brain hemi- 
 spheres. 
 
 Father Appleyard, his eyes almost closed, tapped 
 him again, and indulgently, on the arm. 
 
 " There are dreams, my de-ai," he said cryptically, 
 " that constitute a tru-ar evidence than fact your 
 own artistic conceptions, for example. You observed 
 the manner of your dismissal yesterday ? " 
 
 " How could I fail to ? " 
 
 " But misread it, doubtless. Was it not conditional
 
 64 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 on your own wishes ? The lady would have been 
 proud to have you stay to come, to go, at your 
 enti-ar convenience. I bring that message from her. 
 Believe me that ' remote, unfriended, melancholy, 
 slow ' though we be, we are not, even in ' Coldshot/ 
 so unenlightened as to be ignorant of the reputation of 
 Mr. Laurence Derrick." 
 
 The young man bowed curtly. Compliment made 
 him impatient and uncomfortable ; for what had 
 searching self-criticism, the only one that he valued, 
 to do with flattering phrases ? Yet there seemed to 
 him here some significant relation between the idle 
 blandishment and the message it adorned. For some 
 mysterious reason it was designed to induce him to 
 return ; he felt the strong purpose behind the ap- 
 parent casualness ; and to what did he owe the 
 unaccustomed grace ? 
 
 He could not guess. It was all an unfathomable 
 riddle. And yet the purpose pulled with his own, 
 which was as incomprehensible and as equally com- 
 pelling. He had intended to return, with or without 
 leave, and he welcomed the invitation merely as a 
 happy solution of a difficulty. A spirit of cool assur- 
 ance in this matter had unaccountably mastered him. 
 
 " Then you know of his moods and eccentricities," 
 he said unceremoniously, " and can comprehend some- 
 thing of the appeal that this sad wilderness of a place, 
 with its haunted atmosphere, must have for them. 
 Yet I must not respond to a permission so liberal, if 
 given, perhaps, under a mistaken assumption. I am 
 a stranger here, sir, but accident has made me ac- 
 quainted with the story of ' Coldshot.' " 
 
 The fat priest quite closed his eyes, and nodded 
 serenely once or twice.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS " 65 
 
 " The admission," he said, " does you infinite credit, 
 but without the least prejudice to our understanding. 
 You are welcome to the lun of the grounds." 
 
 " Then, in that case," said Derrick, " the sooner 
 I revisit them the more profit to me." 
 
 " We will walk back together, by your leave," said 
 Father Appleyard, " if your young impatience can 
 accommodate itself to my slowness." 
 
 Derrick laughed slightly, and the pair set forth to 
 cover the two or three waste miles which separated 
 them from Haggart's Lane. They returned in the 
 tracks of the heavy clerical footprints a fact so sug- 
 gestive in the light of a recent admission, that the 
 artist could not refrain from an occasional conscious 
 glance at his companion, who for his part would 
 respond with as conscious a smile. Yet no word 
 reminiscent of the tragedy was suffered to pass between 
 them, and they talked, when they did, on indifferent 
 subjects. 
 
 Derrick had no reason to suspect a studied subtlety 
 in the good Father's attitude. If it had not been for 
 that suspicion of a deep purpose underlying the 
 courtesy, he would have judged the man frankly on 
 his undisguised candour, would have believed him 
 to be what he seemed, a complaisant, comfortable 
 ecclesiastic, long mellowed in an easy and prosperous 
 sinecure. Father Appleyard was quite open about 
 his position which he had held, it seemed, for some 
 six years only ; a significant fact and about the 
 Christian sympathies which had maintained him in it 
 through much sorrow and misrepresentation. He 
 went no nearer the tragedy than that ; but he ex- 
 patiated prettily on the errors of heresy, and on the 
 passion of the Good Shepherd to recover strayed
 
 66 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 sheep to the fold. The subject bored Derrick after 
 a time, and perhaps too palpably, for a silence had 
 fallen between the two as they passed by the ruined 
 gate, and entered into the frozen recesses of the woods 
 beyond. Nor was it broken until they came out into 
 view of the lonely mere and the stump where the 
 artist had erstwhile sat. And there Derrick stopped. 
 
 " I have not exhausted the subject," he said. " I 
 will remain here, by your leave." 
 
 The priest bowed. A strange look, or so Derrick 
 thought it, had returned to his eyes. 
 
 " You are to please yourself, my de-ar," he said. 
 " Orders have been given, and you need fe-ar no 
 interruption." 
 
 He commented briefly on the suggestive melan- 
 choly of the scene, recommended the artist to peace 
 and felicity, and, with one lingering odd scrutiny of 
 him and of his surroundings, went off through the 
 trees. Derrick sat down to work. 
 
 He worked long and absorbedly, losing himself, as 
 was his wont, in his subject. Perhaps something of 
 the mysterious tragedy associated with that white 
 and brooding solitude may have affected his con- 
 ception of things. He wrought again in colour, and 
 in colour so weird and startling in its unusualness, 
 that many might have convicted him of a deliberate 
 desire to impress by wilful distortion and perversity. 
 But he never conceived like other men. He saw what 
 was unrevealed to most. 
 
 The mist, where it shrouded the sheeted ice and 
 obscured the farther banks of trees, thinned after 
 a time, letting through little splinters of gold and 
 emerald. He caught and recorded the fairy change, 
 but in a fashion all his own ; and, as a thing of his
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 67 
 
 own, he stood up presently to regard his work, placing 
 the block against a stone. As he stooped and re- 
 covered himself, the sensitive mechanism of his nerves 
 announced a neighbouring presence something 
 utterly motionless and silent. He turned and saw 
 the woman. 
 
 She had come upon him unheard over the snow. 
 A grey hood, as before, was clasped by one hand about 
 her throat. Her eyes stared from its shadows like un- 
 earthly stones. But she was beautiful he under- 
 stood that now. The slender contours, the ivory 
 complexion of her face had been moulded in the 
 creative heat of passion. Derrick, with that strange 
 feeling of mastery and possession still affecting him, 
 walked straight up to the apparition. 
 
 " Would you care to examine my work ? " he said. 
 "It owes to you, you know." 
 
 Her eyes engrossed him. Their gaze still fixed on 
 his, she just stirred, and her lips moved. He under- 
 stood her to answer " yes." 
 
 " Come, then," he said, " and tell me how it affects 
 you." 
 
 He moved, and she followed mechanically, walking 
 like one in a dream. She seemed to stumble slightly 
 as he stayed her at the requisite point of view. 
 
 " It stands down there," he said, " against the 
 stone." 
 
 Then for the first time her gaze passed, with an 
 obvious effort, from the artist to his work. She stared 
 long at the latter, her breast rising and falling. Some 
 strong emotion seemed repressed in her when presently 
 she looked up ; some inscrutable appeal seemed 
 shadowed in her eyes. 
 
 " It is," she began in a low voice ; then hesitated,
 
 68 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 and went on " I think I understand : I am sure I 
 understand at last." 
 
 Strange enigmatic words ; but meet to this strange 
 adventure. Derrick was conscious of queer little thrills 
 in his veins as he listened. There was a low music 
 in her voice that impressed him like some old haunt- 
 ing. But he felt little faith, nevertheless, in her 
 professed appreciation. He laughed slightly, and 
 moved to recover his block. 
 
 " There," he said, " I mustn't tax your courtesy, 
 or risk depriving myself in your eyes of a fair reason for 
 my intrusion. It was rash of me to invite comment." 
 
 In the very act of stooping, it gave him a start of 
 surprise to feel her hand upon his arm, quick, im- 
 pulsive. 
 
 " No, no," she said hurriedly. " Leave it a little. It 
 will come to me I shall understand. How can you 
 expect the teaching of genius to prevail all at once 
 with lesser souls ? But I can feel in myself the birth 
 of the larger knowledge I long for it it is awake, 
 only O, have patience, please ! " 
 
 She had backed from him again. There was dis- 
 tress in her eyes, in her voice. What mystery it all 
 was ; and she its most haunting protagonist the 
 dark angel of these white-locked deeps ! But into 
 that impersonal view was already sinking a seed 
 of human emotion, that should presently germinate 
 and absorb the soul of that it possessed. 
 
 " Look, then," said Derrick, his whole body sud- 
 denly flushing ; " devour ; absorb ; it is part of 
 myself let it become part of you." 
 
 He spoke as if some brain intoxication had seized 
 him on the instant. Her gaze passed to his face again, 
 and dwelt there.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 69 
 
 " I have learnt to learn," she said low. " Suffering 
 has been my master. Will you come again ? 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Many times ? " 
 
 " Yes. Day by day, until you dismiss me." 
 
 " I will be very quiet. I will not disturb you. May 
 I come and watch ? " 
 
 "If you will be true to your word if you will keep 
 aloof. I shall not know you are there when once I am 
 at work." 
 
 He was the master, she the servant. With one 
 low-spoken word of thanks no more she turned 
 and left him. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 DREAMLAND 
 
 To the unnamed friend of an earlier chapter Derrick 
 once came to deliver his soul in writing. The section 
 of the narrative which follows is given in his own 
 words. It suffices to say, without enlarging on the 
 reason, that no misuse of confidence is entailed in their 
 publication : 
 
 " And so began this strange episode. I was made 
 free of the haunted estate ; I became one of its grave 
 and wandering familiars. Day after day I entered 
 upon my silent task there, and for so many in succes- 
 sion that the weather changed and rechanged while 
 I wrought from frost to thaw, from cloud to sunshine 
 and again to chill and I was able to realise its soli- 
 tude under innumerable aspects. The place was of no 
 extravagant extent ; but such as it was it was an 
 epitome of all loneliness and isolation. Its voices were
 
 70 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 the voices of a primeval freedom ; no act of man came 
 to alarm their age-long security ; the wild-fowl winged, 
 the rabbits loped in unhurrying, half-inquisitive 
 fashion from any chance disturbance. And between 
 myself and this bewildered corner of nature grew 
 such a charm of intimacy that I came to feel as if to 
 withdraw myself from it would be like the tearing 
 of a mandrake up by its roots. 
 
 " But it was the pond that most enthralled my 
 imagination, and thereby I oftenest sat to sketch. 
 Perhaps it was the ghostly associations of a particular 
 spot that quickened my best inspirations. Anyhow 
 it was to the familiar stump that I chiefly resorted ; 
 and thereon worked and dreamed yes, dreamed. 
 
 " Many thoughts came to me meanwhile ; many 
 problems first of all the problem of my welcome ; 
 but that was unanswerable. The riddle of the dead 
 tragedy was most constant to my mind. Much I 
 pondered it, and, unobtrusively, the nature of the 
 ground about. The black sluice, when the thaw un- 
 locked and the spring of swelling waters flushed it, 
 gave no answer. It stood yards away from the spot 
 where the footprints had ceased. In fresh weather a 
 draught of salt air would flow up the valley, by which 
 I had entered, from the sea, and, owing to some dis- 
 position of the ground, take a wide curve and blow 
 across the pond. I wondered if such a draught, but 
 of phenomenal proportions, had by chance caught up 
 the boy and whirled him from his place on to the 'ice, 
 through which he had crashed and sunk. It seemed 
 a preposterous solution ; but it was my only one ; 
 and the persistent course of the air-current gave it at 
 least a colour. 
 
 "It was certainly the oddest situation imaginable,
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 71 
 
 this of mine. I never went, was never invited, into 
 the house ; but my attendance without its precincts 
 was regular. 
 
 " Now and then, but with a certain air of guilt, as 
 if he were infringing regulations, Father Appleyard 
 would come and stand by me awhile, and discuss 
 theology in that rosy complaisant way of his with the 
 affected intonation. He gave me the impression al- 
 ways of seeking to reclaim a strayed child through 
 the easiest of platitudes ; but he was alert all the 
 while, and on the least hint of discovery would vanish 
 with a speed incommensurate with his bulk. 
 
 " Once or twice, but at a distance, I saw the Keeper 
 Blackadder and his dog ; and, on a single occasion, 
 a hard-featured woman with him whom I took to be 
 his mother. The two were conning me furtively from 
 cover ; but they ventured no nearer, and never once 
 was I approached by either. Truly the oddest situa- 
 tion, was it not ? 
 
 " And now, my friend, like the suitor who discusses 
 commonplaces, circling ever nearer and nearer the 
 poignant essay, I poise and strike. 
 
 " She kept to her word but what profit was that 
 to me ! Though my soul were rapt in its creations, 
 though my hand moved mechanically to give them 
 shape, I felt, and always felt, her presence the moment 
 it was there. However light her footfall, however 
 stealing her approach, the instant was recorded in 
 every nerve of my being, and thenceforth I wrought 
 consciously and haltingly. I had utterly misjudged 
 my strength when I gave her leave to watch ; the 
 thing could not go on, it was impossible. What pre- 
 destination, I thought, was in this sympathy ; what 
 threat, what demoralisation ?
 
 72 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " And one day, moved beyond endurance, almost 
 to despair, I leaped from my seat and turned upon her. 
 
 " ' You are usurping my rights,' I cried. ' I will be 
 master here or nothing ! ' 
 
 " She stood away a little ; her face was quite white ; 
 her hand went to her bosom. 
 
 " ' You are master ! ' she whispered ; ' I know it.' 
 
 " Her beauty took me with a sudden shock. I 
 caught my breath like one who realises for the first 
 time the presence of an apparition. Then I laughed 
 and threw down my brushes. 
 
 " ' Artists/ I cried, ' are unmannerly reptiles I 
 bite the hand that warmed me. It is my nature ; I 
 have no other excuse. But for the future you must 
 not be silent. I would rather hear the words from your 
 mouth than lose my soul in its converse with yours. 
 Do you understand ? ' 
 
 " ' I have been very blind,' she said. 
 
 " ' Then/ I answered, ' come with me, and perhaps 
 I will open your eyes. Let us walk together, and I will 
 teach you all I know by precept rather than example/ 
 
 " And so began our real intimacy. It was an in- 
 timacy of woods and skies, of wildernesses and secret 
 places. This woman, once eased of her shyness, im- 
 pressed me as a vivid personality, imbued with a 
 strong native force of character which circumstances 
 had humbled and time subdued. Often I fancied that 
 she had to exercise great self-control in the sub- 
 ordinating of her views, especially her religious views, 
 to another's ; but the conquest invariably came, and in 
 a manner touching to one who could understand. She 
 deferred against her beliefs ; in general I seemed to 
 construe in her a pathetic invitation to confidences I 
 could not fathom, a wistful implication of apology, of
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 73 
 
 entreaty for forgiveness, as if she were indirectly 
 seeking to atone for some earlier misconception as to 
 my personal art and its aims and significances. 
 
 " Why need I continue, to you who know the 
 truth ? This woman, I called her love forgive me ! 
 What formal phrases, what cold analysis, to disguise 
 the passion which had swept riotously into my soul 
 it seemed to me all in a moment. O . . . there is 
 something indescribably moving in the moral and 
 physical submission of a woman to a man younger 
 than herself. Bruna was my senior by some four 
 years, and my comparative immaturity lusted for 
 that riper fruit. 
 
 " I thought I had reason to believe that it need not 
 lust in vain ; but ever and ever I postponed the lovely 
 proof. I guarded even against hinting at my own 
 feelings ; I was wilful and despotic. How Destiny 
 sought to fool me through my own masquerading, 
 which served no more than, by prolonging my self- 
 confidence, to double-edge the blow when it fell ! 
 I told myself, strong in my assurance, that I must 
 learn the truth as to her innocence or guilt, and from 
 her lips, before I spoke. The knowledge of it was not 
 to influence the fact of my passion, but only its charac- 
 ter ; yet the first overtures for a complete under- 
 standing must come from her. She could not in 
 reason though the subject had never been touched 
 upon between us suppose me ignorant of the scandal 
 which had made of her locally an outcast. 
 
 " And so, like a tyrant, I bided the ecstatic mo- 
 ment, foretasting it a thousand times in thought. 
 Guilty or guiltless, this woman existed body and soul 
 for me. I was already drunk with the transport of her 
 possession. When I put out my hand she would come."
 
 74 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE THUNDERBOLT 
 
 ONE day Derrick made a little water-colour sketch of 
 Father Appleyard. It was the oddest thing, full of 
 subtle modelling and strength, but seen by him as no 
 other man would have seen it. In this picture the good 
 Father's roses became tawny petals, and his lips and 
 cheeks pale green. He might have been some jolly 
 Triton of the Mere, and he looked dismayed on his 
 own presentment. 
 
 " Is this really how you see me, my de-ar ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Derrick laughed. He had been early inured to the 
 mockery of the Philistine, had had to run his full 
 gauntlet of everyday criticism before the irresistible 
 force of his imagination had wholly captured his public, 
 and this essay in a new medium had merely, he con- 
 cluded, brought the battle upon him again. He 
 would prevail, no doubt, as he had already prevailed 
 in another field, and in the meantime any untutored 
 criticism was instructive. 
 
 " Does it look so strange to you ? " he said. " Well, 
 I suppose no two men's visions are alike." 
 
 The priest, absorbed in contemplation, did not 
 answer him for a little. 
 
 " No," he said at last. " No. This vision, at least, 
 must be wholly singu-lar. I have only, in my ex- 
 perience, encountared one other example of it." 
 
 " Then it isn't singular," said Derrick. " What 
 other example ? " 
 
 Father Appleyard looked at him queerly. Once
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 75 
 
 more there was that suggestion in his expression of 
 a sly innuendo. 
 
 " If you don't know, I don't," he answered, with 
 an odd chuckle. " Is it finished ? " 
 
 " As far as I propose to go." 
 
 ' Then may I show it to Miss Salvetti ? " 
 
 ' Why not ? " 
 
 ' You invited it, did you not ? My daughtar can- 
 not accuse me of intruding upon your privacy un- 
 asked." 
 
 ' You can assure her as to that." 
 
 The chaplain, securing the sketch delicately, nodded 
 and walked away. 
 
 Derrick, left alone, sat down again, but not to work. 
 The air was very still, with a moist exhausted quality 
 in it that seemed enervating. But he was not one to 
 succumb to climatic changes ; his listlessness was due 
 to a moral paralysis which appeared to stultify all 
 further artistic effort in him. It had been creeping 
 about his nerves for days ; he had proposed the por- 
 trait, indeed, as a desperate means of escape from its 
 insidiousness ; and now, it seemed, it could no longer 
 be ignored. How was he going to force the crisis ? 
 that was the insistent problem that had risen to haunt 
 him. 
 
 He had said to himself that she should be the first 
 to speak ; and yet she showed no sign. She was 
 sweet, humble, deprecating to him as ever ; she 
 treated him as the master and tyrant of her destiny ; 
 but still their dear converse remained impersonal. No 
 word of passion had been spoken between them ; for 
 all her lovely lowliness she seemed obstinately bent 
 on denying him the invitation his heart so glut- 
 tonously craved. She would not let him into her past,
 
 76 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 however blissful she made the present for him, and 
 he wanted that past for his own, with all its poten- 
 tialities for emotion. How was he to capture it, to 
 bring it to a voluntary surrender ? The days were 
 flying, this life could not go on for ever. 
 
 And even as he pondered, between tenacity and 
 irresolution, he saw her form among the trees. She 
 was waiting there, dutifully, on his will, and his will 
 rose and acknowledged its slave, fiercely, exultantly. 
 
 Then he noticed for the first time a strange emotion 
 in her face. It was like the dawn of some coming 
 revelation ; it affected him like the promise of rain 
 and flowers in springtime ; his soul rose in him to 
 meet and answer to it. There was an early bird 
 singing in the still copses. In a hush of rapture he 
 stopped her to listen to it. 
 
 " It speaks what I cannot explain to you," he said 
 presently. 
 
 " Will you try to ? " she answered, hardly above her 
 breath. 
 
 " This antiquity," he said, " this meeting in its 
 midst. It has all happened before ; but when, when ? 
 It cannot have been, I know ; and yet it was. I felt 
 it the first day I entered that it was all somehow 
 known to me and very dear." 
 
 She put a sudden hand upon his arm ; she was 
 looking at him with wide-opened questioning eyes ; 
 her bosom rose and fell in quick-drawn spasms. 
 
 " No dream," she whispered. " Believe it, whatever 
 strange shadow may have fallen between your present 
 and its memories. I have seen the portrait you painted 
 to-day yes, I have seen it. Will you come with me ? 
 I want to show you something something very 
 particular and secret. It may remind you ; it "
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 77 
 
 She was agitated all at once. An intense entreaty 
 spoke in her every word and movement. " You will 
 come with me, will you not ? " she repeated, with a 
 little half -uttered sob. 
 
 " Yes," he muttered, all amazed. " I will come." 
 
 He stumbled. His heart was throbbing fire, his brain 
 reeled and danced. She gripped his hand in her hot 
 wet palm and led him on out of the wood, towards 
 the house. It stood large in the grey mist, a silent 
 shrouded phantom. A feeling of the unreality of all 
 things stole into Derrick's being ; he seemed to mount 
 on air. Then came vacancy and shadow. 
 
 They were in the house, and alone. No sound or 
 sign of other human being reached them from any- 
 where. 
 
 " We are alone," she whispered. " Not many are 
 needed to take care of this little corner in which I live ; 
 and those few are absent. I sent them away that we 
 two might be together. But you shall see. I have kept 
 it all unchanged shut away but unchanged, and you 
 are the master of it." 
 
 There was a thrill of feverish triumph in her voice. 
 " Come with me, come," she said, " and I will show 
 you." 
 
 He had no vision for his surroundings ; he knew only 
 that he was following her up a dusky stairway, that 
 thick pulse still hammering in his heart and brain, and 
 that suddenly they were in a little white bedroom 
 her own. There were soft curtains there and flowers 
 and fragrance. The sweet atmosphere stole into his 
 senses and intoxicated them ; his blood raced in his 
 veins and half blinded his sight. He saw her dimly 
 she was down on her knees by an opened drawer and 
 the madness in him was moving to leap and claim her
 
 78 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 thus, when she rose to her feet. Her eyes were 
 strangely shining ; she held a square of paper in her 
 hand : " Look," she said, in a voice that was scarcely 
 audible. 
 
 He took the thing from her : it was a portrait of her 
 younger self in water-colour, very singular, very clever, 
 showing much in common with his own method of work, 
 yet as wholly individual. He looked up from the 
 image to the original. 
 
 " Does it not recall," she began and seemed to stop 
 perforce from the beating of her heart. 
 
 " It is an inspiration," he said, " as instinct with 
 life and truth as most portraits, unaccountably to me, 
 miss them." 
 
 But " 
 
 He laid the sketch softly on the table : " But," he 
 echoed her, " what is this to do with the dream that 
 was to find here its fulfilment ? " 
 
 She was dumb all in a moment. The dawn of some 
 mortal fear, as yet but in its inception, was slowly 
 chilling her gaze as it encountered his. His ardour 
 seemed to be burning hers to ashes, which spread white 
 on her cheeks. A silence like death had fallen between 
 them. Suddenly, and in an instant, she cried out. It 
 was the uncontrollable shriek of the soft thing that 
 brings the crouching beast upon her. She writhed one 
 moment in Derrick's arms, then ceased to struggle. 
 
 " No, no," she said hoarsely, " I did not mean 
 it ; no more did you. Could any hand but one have 
 painted those two portraits, mine and the priest's ? 
 There are things in them it is impossible not to 
 believe it you are only pretending only punishing 
 me. Say it, say it. I have suffered ; I have learnt ; 
 be merciful with me in your triumph."
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 79 
 
 He felt the entreaty, enigmatic as it was, like fresh 
 fire. His clasp hardened about her. 
 
 " Riddles," he said. " Whoever painted this 
 portrait of you, it was not I. But what does that 
 matter ? It is the original I claim for my own her 
 past, her present, her future. The two last I hold in 
 tiust ; the first still waits to be mine. I want your 
 past do you understand ? I want your past, Bruna, 
 that we may be wholly one in passion and sympathy." 
 
 And, even as he spoke, looking into those horror- 
 stricken eyes, the truth, supreme and amazing, burst 
 upon him like a thunderclap. The uncouth boy, with 
 his odd and uncanny art that no one, his sister least of 
 all, had been able to comprehend ; the vanishing ; 
 the unbroken silence of the ensuing interval ! A 
 hundred little disregarded clues were gathered all at 
 once into his hand ; a hundred little cryptic utter- 
 ances became clear in the flash of that revelation. He 
 felt stunned, as in a lightning shock. Very slowly his 
 grasp relaxed, like that of a drowning man, and he let 
 his pale burden slip from him upon the bed. Then he 
 stood back, his arms crossed, his brow bent in a 
 mocking and dreary frown. 
 
 " Tell me," he said, still incredulous, " who painted 
 that portrait of you." 
 
 " My brother Lotto," she answered. 
 
 He gave a little sighing laugh. 
 
 " And you took me all this time you have taken 
 me for that portrait's painter ? " 
 
 She crouched away from him on the little white bed. 
 Her eyes were full of horror and resentment yes, 
 resentment. That cut him to the soul. 
 
 " You must go away," she said. " Cannot you un- 
 derstand ? If you are not Lotto, you must go away."
 
 80 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " I shall not go," he answered sternly, " until you 
 have explained until you have expiated, maybe. You 
 have brought this upon yourself ; you have fooled me 
 quite wantonly and unjustifiably. How are you going 
 to atone ? " 
 
 She was silent, hiding her face from him. 
 
 " I know now," he went on, " that you were 
 suspected cruelly and unjustly ; but, guilty or 
 innocent, my passion had been prepared to accept you, 
 my whole being to mingle its essence with yours. Do 
 you understand the irredeemable thing you have done 
 to have diverted the blood of my life into your own 
 veins, and now to have severed us apart and disowned 
 me ? What right had you ever to think me other than I 
 called myself ? " 
 
 She answered, half turning her head. There were 
 tears and rebellion in her voice at once : " Why did 
 you imply you were master here ? " 
 
 " Because you implied it." 
 
 " You spoke of an old-felt familiarity with the 
 place." 
 
 " Such fancies often come to us to me, at least." 
 
 " How was I to know ? And besides, there were 
 many things your way of painting " 
 
 " You knew my name, by your own admission." 
 
 " Your name yes but, ten years ago ! and I 
 thought, if he had wanted to conceal himself, the 
 disguise was only natural ! It was just so he had 
 worked like you. My heart seemed to stop when 
 first I saw the similarity. And then the place there 
 by the pond and your age your appearance even ! 
 I thought he had come back ; that he had forgiven me ; 
 that all would be explained at last, and that my long 
 bitter punishment for a pride so soon repented must
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 81 
 
 be near its end. And when you did not seem to 
 understand, I thought perhaps that memory had 
 really died in you, as it will in some, that you had 
 returned to the dreadful spot by a sort of instinct, and 
 that perhaps the portrait would somehow restore to 
 you the broken thread of things. Lotto was always 
 so strange, so unlike other people, and I had never 
 ceased to hope that some day, by his unlikeness, I 
 should be able to trace him and learn the truth. And 
 to me to all of us it seemed that you must be he 
 come back at last the very spot ; the strange way 
 of seeing things ; and, in the end, the portrait. I 
 never doubted after that." 
 
 He stood listening to her gasping, broken utterances. 
 He understood everything now ; yet, through all 
 his bitter disillusionment, a wonder over that quality 
 in his own work which seemed to strike others as so 
 markedly singular that even the uninitiated could not 
 mistake it made itself felt. Well, whatever it was, it 
 had served him here to tragic purpose. 
 
 " Look at me," he said ; but she kept her head 
 averted. 
 
 " Look at me," he said again. " What, are you 
 afraid to face your victim ? " 
 
 Half-blind, shading her eyes with her hand as she 
 crouched, she obeyed trembling. 
 
 " What is all this explanation to me !" he said. " I 
 made no pretence ; I never masqueraded. Give me 
 back myself." She did not answer. " Does it concern 
 me for you," he said, " that you have stolen my soul 
 under a misapprehension. I want it back. Give it 
 me." Still she did not speak. " It is a dire responsi- 
 bility," he continued, " that you have incurred. The 
 debt I have owed and constantly paid to my art will
 
 82 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 you undertake it for me ? Or will you give me your- 
 self in atonement ? " 
 
 " No, no," she whispered. " You are not Lotto. 
 You must go away." 
 
 " I could say, I will not leave you for the very 
 reason that I am not Lotto. He had no rights like 
 mine. Do you dare to rob me of my soul, of my art 
 that is my soul, and refuse me all restitution ? You 
 dare because, with the ineffable meanness of your sex, 
 you know that you can trust to my honour as a gentle- 
 man not to enforce a return. But no such scruples 
 need stand in the way of my cursing you for what you 
 have done." 
 
 She sat upright ; she was white to the lips. 
 
 " You will not ! " she said. " Have mercy. You 
 can have me if you will." 
 
 He dwelt one moment on her ashen face. 
 
 " No," he said ; " I refuse you ; " and he turned and 
 left the room and the house. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MISS DOLLY PATTERSON 
 
 Miss DOLLY PATTERSON was a very pretty, large- 
 eyed, kissable-mouthed slip of a girl one of the kind 
 of whom the variety stage seems able to produce an 
 endless supply. She was reasonably educated, 
 naturally tasteful and affectionate ; she satisfied the 
 smaller aesthetics in a man, and her present distinction 
 lay in her being engaged to be married to the famous 
 but retiring young artist, Mr. Laurence Derrick. She 
 had had other distinctions in her short time : her face
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 83 
 
 had blossomed out of more than one academic canvas, 
 had smiled in the pages of popular weeklies, had 
 figured on postcards. She had only needed a voice, 
 indeed, to make her completely irresistible ; but there 
 unfortunately she was wanting in everything but 
 the tact to conceal her deficiency. So long as she did 
 not uplift her tones she was more than endurable. 
 
 Laurence had already known the girl as a pro- 
 fessional model, and had now re-alighted on her at a 
 psychologic moment. Her softness, her prettiness, 
 her irreproachable ordinariness in fact, had appealed 
 like balm to his exacerbated emotions, and he had 
 straightway fluttered and flattered her by an impulsive 
 proposal. Offended pride had its part, no doubt, in 
 the impossible contract ; but the hunger newly 
 created in his being was principally responsible for it. 
 Passion is a prolific weed when once sown in virgin 
 soil, and, though it may never flower, assumes thence- 
 forth and for ever the biologic cast. The hopeless 
 necessity of the feminine had intruded itself into 
 Laurence's philosophy. 
 
 It was a tempered philosophy nevertheless as yet, 
 at least. It sought to borrow in a normal courtship no 
 more than a sense of rest from recent storms. There 
 was no temptation here to the unconventional or the 
 tragic. He was famous, well-to-do, and quite per- 
 suasive of tongue where he chose to be, and he might 
 easily have made of the affair either or both. But it 
 really was not worth the while. The commonplace 
 remains always its own best protector ; it becomes so 
 unspeakably vulgar in intrigue. Dolly, indeed, was 
 wholly safe in her gentleman lover's keeping. To 
 cultivate her nymph-like prettiness like a flower was 
 his easy interest. He hardly thought of her but in the
 
 84 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 abstract, as one thinks in midwinter or the dog-days 
 of the time of daffodils and primroses. He wore her 
 gratefully in his buttonhole, and her small cool 
 fragrance never reached his inner senses. Those he had 
 shut angrily away ; he congratulated himself mock- 
 ingly on his present bondage as a positive relief from 
 the heroic strain ; and, as to the future, he ignored it. 
 For the rest, his engagement had excited only a 
 minimum of interest in the outer world. Solitary, 
 uncommunicative, unsocial, he followed no schools and 
 belonged to no cliques. He was always a law unto 
 himself, and he still persisted in ordering his life 
 entirely after his own pleasure and convenience. He 
 had not foreseen, of course, love's novice as he was, 
 the small exactions and tyrannies to which his sur- 
 render to the feminine would subject him. 
 
 These were perfectly reasonable, nevertheless. Dolly 
 was already something of a popular favourite, she had 
 scored a triumph in her engagement, and she mutinied 
 against the constraint which would have deprived her 
 of the glittering fruits of it. She wanted all the world 
 to know of her selection by so distinguished a lover ; 
 the compliment gave her caste, and though she 
 would never have confessed to or even recognised this 
 sentiment publicity seemed to assure her a sort of 
 protection against something that was dark and in- 
 explicable in that lover himself. Derrick often puzzled, 
 and sometimes frightened, his little butterfly model. 
 Naturally. The contract was an utterly ludicrous one, 
 and he had no right whatever to propose it. 
 
 He had enjoyed the petting, the coquetry, the 
 fragrance at first ; he had not tired of them yet ; but 
 his subconsciousness already uneasily foreshadowed a 
 time when, a certain labour to which they had won
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 85 
 
 him being accomplished, their appeal might appear to 
 have served its purpose, and those drained and flaccid 
 blossoms might display no longer the power to charm 
 him. In this task one to which he had been coaxed 
 only after considerable pressure had consisted, per- 
 haps, his faith's temporary support. Would his faith 
 and the task end together ? He was painting Dolly's 
 portrait, in short. 
 
 The concession had been made against his own 
 inclination, and with some natural concern for his 
 reputation, to appealing blue eyes and seductive lips. 
 Some Art Society was organising a portrait show of 
 beautiful women on a distinguished scale, and Miss 
 Dolly would give her little boots to figure therein a 
 vanity quite harmless, since its purpose was to exalt 
 her lover, she told him. And after a while, with a laugh 
 of resignation he had consented ; and now in this early 
 autumn of the year the portrait was nearly finished. 
 
 Dolly had not been allowed to see it not once. 
 That had been made an inflexible condition of the 
 agreement. She came and she sat in her professional 
 off-hours, but of what was going on on the positive side 
 of the canvas she was wholly and deliciously ignorant. 
 She dreamed of bewitching things, of course ; she had 
 just sufficient imagination to ' visualize ' a long room, 
 and a rapt group of visitors concentrated about a 
 particular point on its walls. Love and Genius in 
 combination must surely be producing something to 
 justify such a vision, and she indulged it to its full. 
 She was going to be made famous as she had never 
 been yet as a lady as well as a beauty, the chosen of 
 an inspired gentleman- artist. 
 
 Derrick knew nothing about the girl's relations ; 
 never troubled himself with a thought of them ; just
 
 86 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 dreamed and drifted. But, in deference to imaginary 
 respectabilities, he always insisted upon Dolly's being 
 accompanied during the sittings by an adoring pro- 
 fessional friend, Miss Vickers. His house and studio 
 were near Queen Anne's Gate an antique quiet 
 locality, and remote for all its environment and there 
 he buried himself and was mostly to be found if 
 wanted. And there one afternoon he laid down his 
 brushes and breathed Amen to his task. 
 
 Dolly jumped up, and Miss Vickers gave a half- 
 hysteric giggle. 
 
 " Finished ? " cried the former, " really and truly at 
 last ? " 
 
 Derrick wheeled the easel, promptly, with its face 
 to the wall. 
 
 " Just one more brush over to-morrow morning," 
 he said, " and in the afternoon you shall see it." 
 
 Dolly's mouth fell. 
 
 " I can't come to-morrow, Laurence," she said. 
 
 " Then the next day." 
 
 " Won't you show it me now ? I have been very 
 good, haven't I ? " 
 
 " You will have to be gooder. You know that what 
 I say, I say." 
 
 He looked at the rebellious pouting face. Had some 
 change really overtaken it with the completion of his 
 labours ? Certainly it looked fretful over the dis- 
 appointment, but was that wholly enough to account 
 for the change ? 
 
 " You look funny, child," he said, with a little odd 
 laugh. " What has happened to all your artless 
 prettiness and sweetness ? I wonder if I have worked 
 the soul of them into my picture, and left only the 
 ugly bones and ribs of temper behind ? "
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 87 
 
 " I wonder," she said, then turned on him Miss 
 Vickers was helping her on with her jacket and 
 stamped her little foot. " I wish you wouldn't say 
 such things. If you won't let me see it, you needn't 
 take a pleasure in frightening me." 
 
 " I was only trying to account for the alteration. 
 You can easily put me in the wrong by smiling." 
 
 But Dolly could not smile. Her plumes were 
 ruffled. She was often doubtful in her small heart of 
 her capacity for understanding, and assimilating her 
 own nature to this strange mysterious spirit whom her 
 young beauty had captivated. And irony, however 
 playful, is always alarming to little minds. She got 
 into her things, and departed with the briefest of 
 adieux. 
 
 " Poor little elf," said Derrick to himself, when she 
 was gone. " There will be a note from her to-night, 
 all ill-spelt penitence and supplication." 
 
 In the dulling light he wheeled the easel round 
 again from the wall, and looked long and intently into 
 the painted face. Had there been after all some 
 fantastic truth in his mockery ? It seemed to him 
 suddenly that all that there was of spiritual beauty 
 and significance in Dolly's aspect he had stolen and 
 adapted here to an ideal impossible of association with 
 the little pretty empty-headed creature. Like the 
 lyrical rhapsodists of past days he had borrowed from 
 Nature rose-petals, and violets, and scraps of coral 
 and crystal, in order to materialise an inexpressible 
 figure of his own imagination. And whence he had 
 ravished were there only flowerless stalks remaining ? 
 Poor Dolly, to be so abused ! 
 
 He wondered if it were really so ; if, after all, this 
 were not Dolly Patterson, but something as infinitely
 
 88 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 remote from her, though dressed in her roses and 
 moulded to her girlish grace, as his own soul. To him 
 the thing was beautiful in a haunting way ; he 
 worshipped, impersonally, his own creation, he was 
 proud of his success ; but was it Dolly ? For the first 
 time he rather wished for an outside opinion, since no 
 other than himself had as yet seen the portrait. It 
 was always his odd way to keep his studio shut to 
 friends and foes alike. 
 
 And then his thoughts swerved, as they often would 
 swerve against his will, to a past poignant experience. 
 He had never again, from that day, more than half a 
 year ago, until now, experimented in colour its use was 
 too directly associated with a grievous memory. It 
 was Dolly, with her little persistent coaxing vanities, 
 who had induced him to break his resolve, and this 
 picture, the first of its kind he had ever attempted, 
 was fair fruit of the concession. Was it destined to 
 prove that his art, as he had once declared in his 
 wrath, had been consigned with his soul to another's 
 keeping ? Passion's hyperbole : he was angered to 
 recall it ; but the memory necessarily entailed another. 
 Would there still be evident in his painted work those 
 qualities which had before appeared so singularly 
 patent to the initiated and the uninitiated alike ? 
 He marvelled what those qualities were. For himself 
 he could form no conception. They must represent 
 something altogether apart from any individuality 
 that his black and white productions might exhibit, 
 since, to the vulgar, those productions were hardly to 
 be differentiated from any other man's. But what 
 were the mysterious qualities ? Spiritualised, idealised, 
 though it might be, this face before him was yet, in 
 its material aspects, the face of an ordinary woman,
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 89 
 
 rendered as it would be natural to him to render any 
 other human face. 
 
 In a little he abandoned the problem, and lost him- 
 self in darker reflections. 
 
 But so Destiny ordered things that, happening that 
 same night to chance, when in a very restless and 
 dissatisfied frame of mind, upon a hall where one of a 
 series of popular discourses on science was in the act of 
 being delivered, Laurence Derrick was moved, by 
 some impulse towards self-forgetfulness, to enter the 
 place and take a seat, having done which he was 
 incontinently caught spell-bound by the subject which 
 the lecturer was at that moment in process of intro- 
 ducing. The very first words the newcomer heard 
 uttered riveted his attention. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LECTURE 
 
 ' THE difficulty," the lecturer was saying, " in identi- 
 fying cases of colour-blindness consists primarily in 
 the difficulty of convincing its victims that they are 
 mistaken in anything but the accepted classification 
 of terms. They are disposed to imagine that an in- 
 comprehensible fuss is made about certain distinctions 
 of tone, which distinctions are to them so nearly 
 imperceptible as to deserve no more than the faintest 
 shadow of a title to the name. Thus, to the colour- 
 blind person many shades of dark blue, dark red, 
 dark green and brown are to be grouped indiscrimi- 
 nately among the blacks. The pure blues and pure 
 yellows they see as we see them ; it is the reds, and the 
 combinations of colour into which the reds enter, to
 
 go BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 which they appear wholly insensible, or insensitive. 
 The reason, though not the explanation, of this short- 
 coming is readily demonstrable by way of the prism. 
 Let us seek it there. 
 
 " Now we know that of the rays proceeding from the 
 sun, some produce heat, some light, and some a 
 peculiar chemical action as demonstrated in photo- 
 graphy. Of all, about a fifth part is lost in absorption 
 by the atmosphere or we believe that it is so lost. 
 It is possible that here and there one of us might, if 
 he could realise his own distinction, tell a different tale. 
 There are always among us examples of what we should 
 call abnormality natures, that is to say, which in one 
 way or the other do not seem to conform to the pre- 
 scriptive rule of things. We can refer the strangeness 
 of such, if we like, to their chance unconscious appre- 
 ciation of, and sensitiveness to, the supposed lost solar 
 rays. They may see things which we cannot see, have 
 a sixth sense which we do not possess or perhaps be 
 deficient in one which we do possess. It is impossible 
 to test the truth, since, all life being a compromise 
 with terms, we can each of us have no true idea of the 
 value which any other of us attaches to terms. We 
 can only, for general purposes, measure our fellow- 
 beings by our individual standard, and judge their 
 visions and sensations by our own. You and I may 
 use the same term to signify a very differing im- 
 pression, and to the end of time never suspect, or find 
 it possible to suspect, the fact. Language, it is said, 
 obscures the truth : perhaps we were encouraged in it 
 for that very purpose, that we might of ourselves weave 
 before the jealous face of the unknown that veil whose 
 texture only thickens the more words we make about 
 it. Certainly much talk has not made God clearer to us ;
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 91 
 
 certainly some dumb animals see what we cannot see. 
 It is conceivable, at least, that a little supernatural 
 insight might yield some startling results to most of us. 
 Do I see you, for instance, as my neighbour sees you, 
 or again, as you see yourself in the glass ? It is 
 impossible to tell, and the speculation is an idle one ; 
 but there it is. 
 
 " In one direction, however, science, though at a 
 late day, has been able to penetrate the compromise, 
 and to adjust the balance of terms between differing 
 conceptions. We know at length the pathology, so to 
 speak, of colour-blindness, and its bearing upon the 
 solar light rays. It is a very simple matter, and easy 
 of exposition. Here it is : 
 
 " A ray or pencil of white light, as transmitted from 
 the sun, is found, on its decomposition through a 
 prism, to have consisted of an admixture of coloured 
 components, themselves only more or less pure in the 
 primitive sense. Now the primitive, or primary, 
 colours, are, according to the accepted formula, red, 
 yellow and blue, which, being mixed in the relative 
 proportions of three, five and eight, represent white or 
 solar light. Pass this ray of light, now, through a 
 crystal prism that is to say a transparent medium of 
 a greater density than the atmosphere and it will be 
 seen to fray, like the fringed edge of a woven fabric, 
 into its constituent parts, each of which parts has, 
 however seemingly accidental its position and juxta- 
 position, its inflexible relation to the common design. 
 Thus, the disintegrated ray, being interrupted, after 
 its passage through the glass, by a screen, will be found 
 to exhibit that invariable order of hues which consti- 
 tutes the solar spectrum, or rainbow, the sequence of 
 which descends from the red or uppermost edge, by
 
 92 
 
 way of orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo, to the 
 lowest, which is violet. 
 
 " So far, so plain. But, now, how are we to account 
 for the fact that this violet, which should consist of an 
 admixture of the blue with the red, figures at a point 
 remotest from the latter ? The explanation lies in one 
 of our compromises. There are, in fact, no actually 
 pure or primitive colours in the spectrum, and for this 
 reason. The ray has not been wholly, but only 
 partly decomposed in its passage through the prism, 
 and there remains a residuum of both white and 
 coloured light which affects every part of the spectrum. 
 In that the three primary colours will still most 
 vividly assert themselves ; yet it will be understood 
 that at their best they are all faintly diluted ; while 
 the secondary and tertiary colours are either combina- 
 tions of the primary with one another or combinations 
 with combinations. 
 
 " Very well. Now, from the three primary colours 
 subtract one, and consider the result so far as human 
 vision is concerned. Its absence must influence all the 
 rest, must it not and not only in the direct admixtures 
 but in the compound admixtures. Robbed of the very 
 essence of its trinity in unity, the spectrum becomes 
 an indeterminate affair, lacking, so to speak, its 
 hypostatic union. And that is exactly what it does 
 lack to the colour-blind person. 
 
 " I have intimated already that it is the red rays to 
 which this person is insensitive ; and that is invariably 
 the case. Other undiscovered instances there may 
 possibly be of a blindness to blue or yellow ; investiga- 
 tion has so far not revealed any. It is an incapacity 
 for distinguishing the red rays which marks the 
 colour-blind subject as we know him. Their place is
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 93 
 
 taken for him by a neutral tint, which may be de- 
 scribed as a visible nothingness. Consider what the 
 lack, in all its bearings, must signify to a person so 
 constituted ; and yet he is unconscious of his want. 
 Owing to that aforesaid compromise with terms, he 
 has learnt to adapt his understanding to the accepted 
 classification of tones and colours, while secretly in his 
 heart, perhaps, marvelling over the minute, hardly 
 discernible differentiation ; but he does not know 
 that anyone else sees other than himself. Yet what, 
 according to our vision, must the world mean to him, 
 what a melancholy wan affair of soft cool half-tones 
 at its best, perhaps, but bloodless, and always smeared 
 and stained with brown, like the streaks of decomposed 
 sunset in a Japanese print. Still, his vision may have 
 compensations unknown to the rest of us. Let us 
 fervently hope that such is the case." 
 
 The lecturer then went on to discuss notable 
 instances of people afflicted with the blindness, and 
 the means and accidents which had led to an analysis 
 of their cases. The matter was absorbing, and was 
 developed at much greater length than any epitome 
 of it could here satisfy. One particular case out of 
 many impressed itself singularly on Derrick's mind : 
 it was that of a lad who, on being shown a portrait 
 face in which the lips and cheeks had been intentionally 
 painted green and the rest of the flesh brown, had 
 discovered nothing out of the common in the repre- 
 sentation beyond the evident heat of its subject, who, 
 he remarked, had obviously walked himself into a rare 
 glow before he sat. 
 
 Derrick laughed, with the rest of the audience, over 
 the instance, accepting, as each did, his own sense of 
 its ludicrousness as evidencing his personal normality.
 
 94 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 But later, on his way home, he stopped suddenly, as if 
 in the shock of some stupendous revelation, and stood 
 a moment staring before him and gnawing his fore- 
 finger. 
 
 That ' Compromise with terms/ The possible 
 ' compensation ' to one so afflicted. ' They may see 
 things which we cannot see.' The strange qualities in 
 his own painted art, so plain to others, so indecipher- 
 able by himself ! 
 
 Did he see visions ? He had sometimes wondered 
 over the inexplicable blindness of chance associates to 
 effects manifest enough to him ; he had always on 
 such occasions attributed it to a sort of robust 
 Philistinism an insular shyness of the poetic and 
 the emotional. But supposing they had really failed 
 to see what he saw had lacked the essential faculty ? 
 Did it follow in that case that he was colour-blind ? 
 
 For an instant he positively staggered ; then he 
 pulled himself together and went on his way. It was 
 absurd, impossible ! He knew what red was ; he 
 knew what a sunset was ; he had never found much 
 difficulty in differentiating between tints and tones 
 however delicately anaemic. It was preposterous to 
 suppose that he did not see the world as it was and 
 people as they were to the common view. He had 
 never dreamed of such an amazing condition in him- 
 self. Nor could it be there ; he must have discovered 
 the truth before now. 
 
 He uttered a sigh of incredulous, trembling derision 
 as he opened his door and turned into his own dark 
 house. His footsteps instinctively made for the 
 studio for the portrait. And then he stopped and 
 set his teeth. 
 
 " No," he thought, " I will not look at it again
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 95 
 
 until she does. Dolly shall decide the question for 
 me." 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PENDING THE VERDICT 
 
 DURING the whole of the following day Derrick moved 
 and felt like an accused man, who, remanded and 
 released on bail, tries to gather from that concession 
 a sense of hope and reassurance, and is yet, while 
 assuming an air of nonchalance, conscious all the time 
 of a sick underlying apprehension. Perpetually he told 
 himself, as the other might have done, that his 
 sentence, even at the worst, would not be morally a 
 capital one ; that he could survive its shock ; that his 
 constitution would not even be materially affected by 
 it. Where would it leave him ? Why, exactly where 
 he was now, with the sole difference that others would 
 have learned of a defect in him of which he himself 
 would still exist unaware. Was that any great matter ? 
 His was always an independent self-sufficient nature ; 
 he was wont to go his own way, giving little heed to 
 criticism and comment ; such as he was, normal or 
 abnormal, he had made his name, and could continue, 
 on the same lines, to add to it. WTiat difference would 
 it make to him if he were proved colour-blind ? 
 
 So he would argue, and brighten, and think he had 
 dismissed the subject ; so might the bailed one have 
 cocked his hat and strutted. Yet regularly the hot 
 mood would be succeeded by the cold one, and the 
 depression and the apprehensions would all have to be 
 fought with again. 
 
 What did it matter to him, then, when the truth was 
 faced ? \Vhy, surely this : that, if so convicted of such
 
 96 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 an affliction, he, an artist to the depths of his being, 
 would know himself for the first time defrauded of his 
 full birthright of beauty ; would for ever be straining 
 his soul to attain the light which to all others was a 
 simple condition of their existence. Ignorance is only 
 blissful so long as it is unconscious of its own limita- 
 tions ; but here would be a limitation which, did it 
 exist, must be accepted as final. He had understood 
 so much from the lecturer. The thing was incurable. 
 
 And so, all of a sudden, he would recall " Clever 
 Alice," and her lamentations over the axe stuck into 
 the ceiling of the beer-cellar, " O, if I marry Hans, and 
 we have a child, and he grows up, and we send him into 
 the cellar to draw beer, the hatchet may fall upon his 
 head and kill him ! " May may ! He had not been 
 proved colour-blind yet. He had allowed himself to 
 imagine a most preposterous bogey out of a turnip and a 
 candle. His fears for the time being were dissolved in 
 gigantic laughter. 
 
 Still, he was restless and purposeless. He wished 
 to-morrow and Dolly were come. He could not bring 
 himself to believe in the incredible thing, and yet all 
 day its shadow pursued and worried him. There was 
 some imperial function in process, and the streets were 
 full of soldiers, National and Colonial. The sight, 
 while it lasted, distracted his thoughts and helped him 
 to forget himself. At evening he turned into a theatre, 
 and, burying himself in a dusk corner, watched his 
 little sprightly fiancee disporting herself on the stage. 
 She was very happy, very pretty, very commonplace. 
 It seemed a monstrous tyranny to wed her away from 
 all that gay froth and sparkle, to wean her to a life of 
 purpose. Her cheeks were flushed with triumph. 
 Flushed ? Had he not loved and appreciated every
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 97 
 
 shade of that mantling rose ? Colour-blind, indeed ! 
 For the moment she was the best of the best she had 
 ever been to him. He forgot the portrait his art its 
 cruel exactions. And then she looked across and saw 
 him, and her face appeared to change. It yielded him 
 again what was already his, what he had taken from it, 
 and the residue seemed but poor cheap stuff. He 
 lowered his eyes and would not look more. 
 
 At the end of the act he left the theatre, and 
 sauntered aimlessly abroad. Chance bore him at a 
 late hour in the direction of Piccadilly, and invited his 
 thoughts to a certain Bohemian sketching club of 
 which he was a very casual member which was 
 situated in a street not a hundred yards away from 
 Burlington House. A visit to the place might help 
 him to kill time ; there were some lively spirits among 
 its habitues. He entered, and found one of the weekly 
 suppers just tailing to its end in an atmosphere of stale 
 smoke and exhausted ribaldry. Most of the company 
 were gone ; a few lingered, red-eyed and inclined to 
 incoherence, amongst the ruins of the feast. These 
 symposiums were famous among a certain set. The 
 majority of the members attracted to them were 
 brilliant resourceful young artists, all more or less 
 connected with journalism. Talent coruscated in their 
 ranks, and was not allowed to hide itself under a 
 bushel. A competition of some sort was organised for 
 each supper, and an inflexible condition of attendance 
 lay in contributing to it. Any refusal entailed appalling 
 penalties ; but the general cleverness was such that 
 refusals were unknown. Inability was the only peril ; 
 one having full license to say what one liked and drink 
 what one liked, the brain could not always command 
 the hand. But impudence generally prevailed somehow.
 
 g8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Derrick was greeted with cheers on his appearance, 
 in homage to his distinction. He had condescended 
 once or twice to join the jolly uproarious crew, and his 
 contributions to the order were still remembered and 
 reverently cherished. He went round the table now, 
 examining the work of the evening, while one or two 
 of the few gay spirits, left hovered unsteadily in his 
 wake. 
 
 " Candle-smoke again ? " he said. " I see, I see." 
 
 It was one of their humours. Supper finished, each, 
 at a given signal, would smoke the upper or the under 
 surface of his plate over a candle flame, and draw 
 thereon, with any instrument he chose, a time picture 
 on a stated subject. The results were often astonish- 
 ing. The souls of these young fellows lay in their 
 finger-tips, delicate as antennae. They would produce 
 exquisite effects with them while their lips above were 
 exchanging, perhaps, quite unsavoury badinage. 
 
 " The subject was soldiers, it seems," said Derrick ; 
 " suggested, I suppose, by the events of to-day." 
 
 " Mod'n they had to be mod'n, you dow," said one 
 of his satellites nosily. 
 
 " O, had they ? That's modern enough, anyhow 
 and that. Wilson, isn't it ? One can't mistake his 
 hand. I say, that's pretty strong. Pity to waste such 
 talent on such a subject. This is Vigors, of course. 
 What a touch the fellow has ! And this by Jove, 
 here's the cleverest thing I've seen ! It's positively an 
 inspiration." 
 
 " It ought to be good. It's Eric Norman's." 
 
 " Norman's, is it ? He tops the show, then. But 
 where's the modernity in it, anyway ? " 
 
 " That's all ride." 
 
 " O ! Is it ? "
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 99 
 
 Laurence knew the man's work, as it was im- 
 possible that he should not, though he had never met 
 the man himself. Norman was in the way to be one 
 of the most brilliant black and white young artists of 
 his generation. He had come to the front latterly with 
 a bound, after, it was said, years of struggling obscurity. 
 There was always something rather fantastic and cruel 
 in his work, despite its humour. He had that odd 
 uncanny twist in his brain which, as in the case of 
 Hood, could find fun in a street-accident and nothing 
 unsavoury in the juxtaposition of skulls and roses. 
 
 The figure which Derrick regarded appeared to be 
 that of a sort of Jacobean halberdier ; it certainly 
 suggested nothing modern ; but whatever it was it 
 was sketched in in a masterly manner. 
 
 " How's it all right ? " he said. 
 
 " It's wud of the Swiss guard at the Vatican," 
 answered his informant " so Norman declared. We 
 had to take the thig on trust. Norman said he ought 
 to dow anyhow, as he'd been destined to join the corps 
 himself at wud time. Probably he was gassing drunk. 
 But it's good, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Yes, it's good." 
 
 Derrick felt suddenly giddy. Some wandering 
 vagary had got into his brain like a whiff of chloroform. 
 He put down the plate and turned abruptly. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he said : " I didn't know it was so late. 
 I must be off." 
 
 He wanted to get out into the air again, and to be 
 by himself. A sensation as if some ghostly ' shadow- 
 ing,' suspected all day, were about to declare itself in a 
 staggering fashion had seized upon his nerves. He 
 felt as if, were he to miss his chance of escape, he 
 would in a moment be hemmed in and caught power-
 
 ioo BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 less. There were strange things going on around him 
 plots brewing- weird surprises hatching. Outside, 
 he took in draughts of the night as if it were fresh cold 
 water. 
 
 " That's better/' he whispered ; " that's much 
 better." 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE VERDICT 
 
 IT is astonishing how women will succeed, by per- 
 sistence, in gaining the male suffrage for fashions 
 loathed and ridiculed of masculinity in the first stages 
 of their introduction. Nor are artists always amongst 
 the most irreconcilable of their critics. Glancing back 
 over a generation or two, one can recall some of the 
 extravagances which were greeted on their first appear- 
 ance by a storm of derision, and yet survived to 
 conquer the most virulent of their lampooners and 
 caricaturists. The truth is, of course, that, in our 
 monstrously developed civilisation, custom can recon- 
 cile us to anything but Nature. She was a fashion 
 that went out with Eve, and is the only one that has no 
 more chance of resuscitation than the first innocence. 
 Remoteness from her is, indeed, the keynote of 
 ' style.' 
 
 Given, then, his contemporary thesis in the shape of 
 some chaotic enormity, it becomes the business of the 
 artist to extract from it a figure of grace, his more or 
 less success in doing which, through earning him the 
 applause and the sincerest flattery of fashion, induces 
 in him an attachment to his own creations, so that 
 what he began by deriding he ends by admiring. 
 
 So it was with the preposterous hats and the scant
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 101 
 
 habiliments of our present era ; and I for one confess 
 that, so far as they are concerned, I have learnt to 
 exchange my scorn for respect qualified, of course, as 
 all good taste should be. Dolly wore them, and wore 
 them, under Laurence's tuition, to a monstrous pretty 
 effect. He thought she never looked so well as when her 
 shapely young figure was dressed for walking. There 
 was an angle to her hat which, in its relation to the 
 slim frock beneath both designed by himself 
 reminded him of Kiyonaga. He never desired to kiss 
 her so much as when out-of-doors. 
 
 This feeling penetrated him to quite poignant effect 
 on that afternoon chosen for the girl's first view of her 
 own portrait. As she came in, stylish, endimanchee, 
 with her friend, a pang like remorse smote into the 
 man's heart. What were the next few moments to 
 reveal ? How was he going to be paid for his use or 
 abuse of this confiding daintiness, which he had toyed 
 and played with for his own purposes, conventionally 
 honourable though those might have been ? All the 
 morning he had been wandering restless, unsettled, 
 unhappy and unhappy because of whom ? Why, for 
 himself alone. He dreaded, for all his philosophy, the 
 hovering verdict not as it might affect his little un- 
 sophisticated judge, but solely as it might bear upon 
 his own disillusionment or reassurance. He felt that 
 he had sacrificed this pretty innocent, and perhaps 
 cruelly and vainly, on the altar of his art. He only 
 really valued her as a ' property.' It was a base 
 aestheticism which could so convert living flesh and 
 blood to its own selfish profit. 
 
 For an instant he was almost impelled, in a rush of 
 emotion, to leap and grip the little fairy figure in his 
 arms ; to lavish upon it the heat of passion which he
 
 102 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 felt to be its due ; to kiss the honest eyes, and breathe 
 into the pink ears the tale of his penitence, of his 
 remorse, and of his assurance that he valued Dolly 
 for herself, and not merely because hei youth and 
 beauty were at once a salve to his wounds and an 
 inspiration to his art. But the moment passed, and 
 for ever. 
 
 " Well, Laurence," she said ; " here we are. Are 
 you going to ring up the curtain at last ? I feel just as 
 nervous as if it were a first night." 
 
 She looked it, indeed. Her face was quite pale ; and 
 she turned away after speaking. Some barrier, 
 shadowy, inexplicable, had risen between them, and 
 she could no more surmount it than he could. Never 
 affinities, they were estranged already without know- 
 ing it. His ironical reflection on that last day of the 
 sitting still dwelt like a shadow in her mind. 
 
 " Then the sooner the ordeal is over the better," 
 he said. 
 
 He led the way to the studio and they followed. 
 The picture stood draped on an easel. He placed 
 himself by it, and just uttered a warning : 
 
 " Before you pronounce, think first of the affection 
 that has gone into it, and of the art second. My point 
 of view may seem an odd one to you, Dolly ; but, such 
 as it is, believe wholly in the love that guided its 
 choice." 
 
 Then he pulled away the cloth, and stood, with eyes, 
 that he dared not lift, looking down. A long silence 
 ensued. 
 
 " Well ? " he said at length. 
 
 " I think " 
 
 The voice was the girl's but so utterly strange and 
 little. A spasm seemed to grip his heart. There
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 103 
 
 followed a pause, a quick rustle, and then a sound, 
 ominous, devastating. He looked up. 
 
 She had turned away from the picture turned 
 towards Miss Vickers, in whose amazed indignant eyes 
 was reflected the sentence patent in her own. It had 
 come. The incredible thing had actually happened, 
 and he was convicted and condemned. 
 
 And the next moment Dolly had thrown herself 
 into the friend's sympathetic arms, and was weeping 
 convulsively. 
 
 Laurence took a single step forward, and stopped. 
 Every emotion in him seemed suddenly frozen stark ; his 
 voice when he spoke was as cold and hard as a devil's. 
 
 " It's all right," he said. " You needn't be so over- 
 come. You don't like it, do you ? " 
 
 He addressed the honest friend's eyes, the only 
 lively feature he could see over Dolly's shoulder. Miss 
 Vickers shook her head. 
 
 " What do you think ! " she answered. And then 
 her sympathetic wrath overflowed. " It's a beastly 
 shame. To have kept us on tenterhooks all this time, 
 expecting something that was going to make us the 
 talk and envy of the town, and then to show us this 
 caricature ! I didn't think it of you, Mr. Derrick." 
 
 Laurence laughed. 
 
 " Does it really strike you as so awful ? " 
 
 Miss Vickers jerked her head in mute scorn of the 
 cruel impertinence of such a question. " Come, 
 darling," she said. " We had better leave Mr. Derrick 
 to the enjoyment of his practical joke. The love that 
 guided his choice, indeed ! If that is how his love sees 
 you, the less you have to do with it the better." 
 
 She was a loyal Vickers ; once opened out she gave 
 her tongue full license. Caressing and comforting the
 
 104 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 victim, she led her by degrees to the door. And Dolly 
 made no resistance, nor did Derrick move a finger or 
 speak a word to detain her. Once, before she left, she 
 half turned her eyes, blinded with tears, as if, in the 
 kindness of her little heart, to essay some apology or 
 explanation ; but the effort was too much for her, and 
 she disappeared with her friend. Laurence, waiting 
 like a figure of stone, presently heard the hall-door 
 boom upon them, slammed by the indignant Vickers. 
 Then he turned, and stood for an hour staring at the 
 portrait. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DECISION 
 
 IN strange contrast to that stormy exit, Miss Vickers 's 
 face next morning suggested nothing so much as the 
 countenance of the rosy Eos. Risen flushed from its 
 virgin bed, it regarded Derrick with an expression that 
 was at once authoritative and propitiatory an 
 aspect indicative of the mission that had brought the 
 loyal little lady early and hot-foot to the artist's door. 
 She came as outraged beauty's representative, a sort 
 of ex-official solicitress, to expostulate and finesse, 
 and she obviously strove her very best to be diplomatic. 
 Laurence, whom she encountered, fortunately, in the 
 act of going out, was not, it seemed, surprised at her 
 appearance, nor disposed to quarrel with her on any 
 point whatever. His manner was serenely friendly, 
 accommodating savouring, even, of the patiently 
 polite, not to say the abstracted and the apathetic. 
 
 " Tell me frankly the purpose of your visit," he 
 said by and by. " It will save time." 
 
 The little deputy, thus adjured, gathered courage.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 105 
 
 " Dolly feels that it can't go on," she said ; " at 
 least not on existing terms." 
 
 " She wishes to put an end to our engagement is 
 that it ? " said Derrick. 
 
 "It is the prospect of the beauty-show first and 
 foremost," said Miss Vickers, hesitating a little. 
 
 " The thought of figuring in it as that, you know " 
 
 she gasped and stopped. 
 
 " Come, my dear," said Derrick, smiling ; " out 
 with it, plump and square ! As what ? " 
 
 "It reminded me of nothing so much," said the 
 friend, in a burst of desperate candour, " as a decom- 
 posed mermaid." 
 
 Derrick laughed outright. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I'm not going to send it to the 
 show. Will that do ? " 
 
 " It's something," said Miss Vickers, obviously re- 
 lieved. " But is it really, Mr. Derrick, as you see Dolly ? " 
 
 " Yes, really." 
 
 " That makes things difficult I'm afraid. It can't 
 be very pleasant, now can it, to picture oneself as 
 looking like that in one's own lover's eyes." 
 ' Well, I suppose not as you describe it." 
 ' You wouldn't like, I suppose ? " 
 
 "I'm ready to accept my dismissal." 
 
 " O ! But wouldn't you rather the initiative came 
 from you ? It would save your face, wouldn't it ? 
 And if you were to return by me her letters " 
 
 " I see, I see. Pardon my obtuseness. The risk 
 of my bringing an action just so. Certainly, my 
 dear, you shall have the letters ; and you can tell 
 Miss Patterson, formally, from me, that I release her 
 unconditionally from her engagement ? " 
 
 He rose, and the little deputy rose.
 
 106 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " You are a real gentleman," she said gratefully. 
 " I dare say it's only our innocence in matters of 
 art, but " 
 
 " Not in the least," said Derrick. " It's my ignor- 
 ance I confess it with the utmost humility. Assure 
 Miss Patterson that not only shall the portrait be 
 withheld from the exhibition, but that it shall not be 
 shown, if to anybody, as a portrait of her. No one 
 would ever guess, if I did not tell them ; and, more 
 than that, I shall probably destroy the thing before 
 another day is past." 
 
 He procured the compromising letters, dropping a 
 kiss on the little odd illiterate bundle before he de- 
 livered it, and dismissed the deputy, grateful and 
 elate. And then he sank into a chair and went into a 
 fit of laughter, mirthless, sardonic, which seemed to 
 jar his soul to its depths. 
 
 " Well," he said, " thereby ends that pretty, fan- 
 tastic, moving and utterly impossible little idyll. And 
 now for the real tragedy to which it was a prelude." 
 
 He got up, pulled himself together, and went out 
 into the street. He had a purpose to find and crave 
 an interview with the scientific gentleman who had 
 first opened his eyes to the possibility of their own in- 
 clusion among the abnormal visions of mankind. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE SENTENCE 
 
 " I AM afraid there is little doubt about it, Mr. Derrick. 
 The spectrum lacks for you in a most essential respect. 
 I wish we could believe otherwise." 
 Cold, courteous, dispassionate, a polished scientific
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 107 
 
 formula from his clear unwinking eyes to his thin 
 deliberate hands, the judge pronounced sentence. 
 
 The shutters were so closed as to admit of a single 
 ray of sunlight falling upon a prism placed aptly to 
 receive it, and to bend thence its segregated parts 
 upon the surface of a white screen hung opposite. 
 Half shadowed, half revealed in the twilight thus 
 formed loomed a confusion of books and instruments 
 and vessels of gleaming glass. Upon a table near by 
 was disposed an array of coloured wools. They had 
 been used in the test experiment, and to destructive 
 effect. Broadly speaking Derrick had failed to iden- 
 tify, according to the accepted understanding, any of 
 the hues into which the quality of red entered directly 
 or indirectly. The blues, yellows and greens had 
 been rightly named by him, but classified according 
 to an order strangely differing from the orthodox. 
 Other tests had produced a like result. 
 
 He took his sentence standing, and like a man. 
 
 " This defect, this lacuna," he said quietly, " bears 
 no relation, you tell me, to the ordinary qualities of 
 human vision ? " 
 
 " None whatever. It occurs among the longest and 
 the shortest sighted people." 
 
 " It is marvellous, is it not, how one can live to the 
 age of twenty-five, and never so much as suspect one's 
 own shortcoming ? " 
 
 " Hardly, I think, when you consider the com- 
 promise we have to make with existence. That alone 
 is the common factor, to which all widely differing 
 intelligences have to adapt themselves. Dalton, the 
 propounder of the atomic theory, was no younger 
 than yourself when he first became aware of his 
 defective colour sense ; Pole, a well-known engineer,
 
 io8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 was nearer thirty when he made a like discovery. 
 Thousands, no doubt, have lived and died in complete 
 ignorance of their misfortune if so we must regard it. 
 But need we ? In such a case as yours, for instance, 
 Mr. Derrick ? You have shown us that the condition 
 is not detrimental to the possession and development 
 of the most sensitive and delicate of artistic faculties. 
 You will be unwise if you let a consciousness of that 
 condition affect your work." 
 
 " You suggested the other night some imaginary 
 compensation to persons so afflicted a sort of sixth 
 sense." 
 
 " Imaginary yes." 
 
 " I have just finished the head of a girl in colour, 
 a departure for me. If you can make the time to come 
 and criticise it from this point of view, that is you 
 will be doing me a real service." 
 
 " I will come certainly. It will interest me im- 
 mensely in the connexion." 
 
 Half an hour later the two stood together in Der- 
 rick's studio. The man of science dwelt a long time 
 before the portrait, profoundly abstracted and ab- 
 sorbed. Presently he turned round, a light in his eyes. 
 
 "It is curious," he said ; "a most striking simi- 
 larity. This is the work of a colour-blind person, 
 but possessed of a vision beyond the common under- 
 standing. No technical knowledge is needed to 
 recognise the fact. It impresses at once, as something 
 quite unusual, yet obviously the actual presentment 
 of a thing penetrated and seen by him, invisible, or 
 at best greatly obscured to us. I have only once 
 before in my experience come across a parallel case 
 that of an artist, and a very original and inspired 
 artist like yourself ; of about your own age, too. He
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 109 
 
 was colour-blind, and being somehow led to suspect the 
 fact, showed me some of his paintings. They ex- 
 hibited all the qualities and the spiritual insight, if 
 I may so express it, of yours ; and all the typical 
 shortcomings the green complexions, the absence of 
 light, as we regard it. The resemblance is most singu- 
 lar and striking. He abandoned colour from that 
 time- it would have been vain for him, indeed, to 
 persist in seeking to convince through it and took 
 to black and white work, in which he has since come 
 to excel. You must know his name. He is at this day 
 one of our most famous draughtsmen." 
 
 "Of whom do you speak ? " 
 
 " Of Mr. Eric Norman. He is anything the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " No, nothing whatever. Only I think I had 
 already suspected him of being the man. How long 
 ago was that when he first came to you, I mean ? " 
 
 " O ! a considerable number of years some eight 
 or nine, perhaps. He was a mere boy at the time, but 
 even then extraordinarily gifted. I have traced his 
 career at intervals since, through the public prints, 
 and only wondered that he did not sooner attain his 
 present position. But the light of certain stars is long 
 in reaching to the earth." 
 
 Derrick did not answer ; and his visitor turned 
 again to the picture. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A VISIT AND A REVELATION 
 
 IN an upper room of a terrace at Hammersmith 
 overlooking the river a young man sat drawing.
 
 no BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 It was night, and an incandescent lamp, shrouded by 
 a green shade, burned steadily on the table. A green 
 shade, moreover, was pulled low down over the 
 draughtsman's eyes, and those, and the light of the 
 lamp, were concentrated upon a block of consider- 
 able size tilted at a slight angle in front of him. The 
 young man worked on the block with a rapid un- 
 faltering hand. Every line he added to his composition 
 had the force and value of a personal signature ; one 
 might have declared that, put to a draft, it could not 
 fail to be honoured across the drawer's own bank 
 counter. He built up his picture like an inspired 
 mason ; he never paused to alter or erase. The thing 
 just came out, beneath the heat of his genius, like 
 a design already deposited there in invisible ink. And 
 yet, whenever he lifted his face, it appeared the face 
 of a sawney, large in the nose, shallow in the chin, and 
 with a suggestion of viciousness in its weakness. 
 
 The subject at which the artist worked represented a 
 feast in Mediaeval Italy. Men, risen from their seats, 
 were portrayed in various attitudes of horror, anger, 
 or obscene curiosity. One, the noble giver of the 
 feast, sat slinking and sweating at table, peering up, 
 with a furtive grin, at the figure of his chief guest, who, 
 standing in the foreground, held aloft in his hand a 
 poisoned cup, which he displayed menacingly to his 
 host. On the same arm of this figure, and chained 
 to its wrist, writhed a pet monkey, convulsed and 
 dying from having dipped a piece of bread in the cup 
 and eaten of it, so timely warning his master. The 
 few partisans of the intended victim were shown 
 pushing forward to rally about their lord. 
 
 " It tells its own story," said a voice over the 
 worker's shoulder.
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" in 
 
 Eric Norman hardly started. His room was free 
 to his associates, and he was habituated to sudden 
 interruptions. He was one of those who can keep 
 their hands and tongues going at the same time. 
 
 " Wonderful ! " he answered jeeringly, without look- 
 ing round. " That's just what it's meant to do." 
 
 "It is destined for that competition I read about 
 in an illustrated weekly, I suppose ? " surmised the 
 voice. " I saw an advertisement of it. Every picture 
 was to be a sort of lied ohne wSrle, wasn't it, and prizes 
 were to be offered to readers for the best rendering in 
 words of the scene depicted ? " 
 
 Attracted by something unfamiliar in the tone, 
 the worker glanced round, started, and instantly 
 pushed his chair about so as to command the 
 speaker. 
 
 " Hullo ! " he said. " Who the devil are you ? " 
 
 " My name's Laurence Derrick," answered the 
 intruder. " Do you mind my introducing myself ? 
 I found your address and looked you up. I was shown 
 in by someone, but I suppose you didn't hear ? 
 There was a waggon passing at the time." 
 
 The other had thrust the shade up from his fore- 
 head to grotesque effect, revealing beneath a couple 
 of colourless eyes in slightly inflamed sockets. He 
 saw before him a man of about his own age, but of 
 very different moral and physical calibre ; and the 
 laxity in himself took instinctive umbrage at the 
 sight. 
 
 " No, I didn't," he said drawlingly. " Honoured, 
 I'm sure, Mr. Laurence Derrick. But you won't mind 
 my saying I'm infernally busy." 
 
 The creature had no savoir-faire, it was evident. 
 He exhibited all the insolence of a favoured freak.
 
 H2 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He countered, with a stupid boorish laugh, the fixed 
 interest with which the stranger was regarding him. 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Derrick ; " but I come on busi- 
 ness after a kind." 
 
 " O ! in that case," said Mr. Norman, throwing 
 down his pencil with a very ill grace, " take a seat, 
 will you ? " 
 
 Derrick, his eyes never leaving the weak petulant 
 face, acquiesced. He sat by the table, leaning his 
 arms on it, so that he could command the full under- 
 range of the lamplight. 
 
 " This," he said he just signified with his hand 
 the picture on the block " is a good popular idea 
 for those who are satisfied to contribute to it. But 
 even genius must live, mustn't it ? What made you 
 sketch that Swiss Guard at the Club the other night, 
 now ? " 
 
 The sudden transition, the sharp irrelevancy of the 
 question, appeared to have an instantly stupefying 
 effect on the man addressed. He sat gaping after his 
 way and breathing nosily, like one under a narcotic. 
 He suggested a person suddenly alive to the fact that 
 he was being stealthily drugged for purposes of robbery, 
 yet unable to rally his nerves or his courage to fight 
 the insidious thing. 
 
 " Was it really inspired, as I was told," continued 
 Derrick, in a cool measured voice, " by a one-time 
 dedication of yourself to the Papal service ? " 
 
 Mr. Norman found his speech in a gasp : 
 
 " Upon my word I don't see what that's got to do 
 with you ! " 
 
 " We'll come to that," said Derrick. " It has its 
 bearing on my ' business,' equally with a sympathy 
 I should like to claim from and extend to a fellow-
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 113 
 
 sufferer. I learned certainly to-day, for the first time, 
 Mr. Norman, that I am colour-blind as you are." 
 
 " How do you know I am ? " The man sat all 
 amazed as, indeed, he well might be. 
 
 " I want to propose something to you," said Der- 
 rick, ignoring the question, leaning well forward, and 
 speaking in a low impressive tone. " It is suggested by 
 this picture of yours. A good subject would, I think, 
 be weird disappearances. Supposing we worked at it 
 together ? What do you say ? " 
 
 " I don't say anything." 
 
 " I dare say you know my name." 
 
 " I dare say I do." 
 
 " Very well. Here is a situation that occurs to me 
 as apt for illustration and speculation. An artist 
 (he happens to be a colour-blind artist, by the way f 
 and also, strangely enough, to have been destined for 
 the Papal Guard) is seated sketching by a lonely mere. 
 It is winter ; there is snow upon the ground, and, 
 printed in the snow, the track of the artist's footsteps 
 leading from an adjacent house to the stump on which 
 he sits. Presently come other footsteps, those of a 
 woman, which take the same course, stop at the stump, 
 and thence return to the house. But the artist's foot- 
 prints do not return. They cease at the stump ; there 
 is no sign of them elsewhere in any direction ; but the 
 artist himself, when sought for, cannot be found. He 
 has disappeared utterly and mysteriously disap- 
 peared and the woman, illogically enough, but since 
 she was the last one known to be with him alive, is 
 suspected of his murder. What is the matter, Mr. 
 Eric Norman ? " 
 
 The other was on his feet, pale as death, gasping 
 like a man winded.
 
 H4 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Murder ? " he whispered hoarsely. 
 
 Derrick rose and confronted the agitated figure, his 
 lips set, a stern light in his eyes. The clue which had 
 come to him so strangely, which he had followed so 
 thrillingly, with such a heat of daring hope, had really 
 and actually led him to the truth. He was certain of 
 it at the last. 
 
 " Murder," he repeated. " That possibility never 
 occurred to you, I suppose, Mr. Lotto Salvetti, when 
 you elected to disappear from ' Coldshot ' and leave 
 no sign." 
 
 The creature wreathed and unwreathed his fingers, 
 looking furtively up and down. 
 
 " No," he said. " The impulse came to me in a 
 moment. As you seem to have heard of it, I'll tell 
 you the truth. We had been quarrelling we were 
 always quarrelling. She hated me she did not under- 
 stand me we were leagues apart. I wanted to get 
 away to end it all to live my own life. And just 
 then came a strange thing. It came floating in the 
 dusk up the valley from the sea a huge grey bubble 
 and in a moment I saw that it was a derelict balloon. 
 It came blown in on the current that always sweeps 
 up that valley blown in from the sea, where its 
 occupants had been lost. Weeks afterwards its remains 
 were found, miles away, floating in the water ; I read 
 all about it in the newspapers. But even when it 
 drove upon me I saw that its car was wrecked, hanging 
 loose ; and it came right over my head. There was 
 a rope with a little anchor dangling from it ; I was 
 very light and strong, and just then, as it hung in the 
 turn of the air-current, I made a jump at the rope, 
 hardly knowing what I did, and caught it and pulled 
 myself up, resting my feet in the anchor. Then the
 
 " BENEATH DARK WINGS " 115 
 
 thing dipped for an instant, but immediately it rose 
 again, and carried me away across the ice. I was 
 horribly frightened, and I clung on. The wind lifted 
 it still more, and we passed over the trees, making for 
 the sea again. I thought I was lost ; but right down 
 on the shore it dropped enough for me to let go and 
 fall into the sand. I saw the balloon bound up and 
 vanish away into the darkness. For a long time I 
 lay where I was ; then presently a thought came to 
 me. I had disappeared without leaving any clue to 
 my whereabouts. Why not seize the chance to sever 
 myself for once and for all from the life and the voca- 
 tion I hated ? I got up and walked for miles along the 
 shore, always near enough the sea for the tide to wash 
 away any trace of my footprints. All night I walked ; 
 and at dawn, coming inland a little, I got a stupid 
 countryman to give me a lift in his cart to Cromer, 
 where I took the first train to London. How do you 
 know about it ? How have you traced me ? Who 
 told you my real name ? I have made my own life 
 since, my own reputation. It has been a long, cruel 
 business ; but I have got through with it, I have not 
 complained, and I have nothing to be ashamed of." 
 
 " And her life ? " 
 
 Derrick blazed upon him, so that he shrunk. 
 
 " I never dreamt of such a thing. Murder ! It's 
 too ridiculous. Why, where was the body ? " 
 
 " Is there anything too illogical, too extravagant, 
 for calumny to fasten on ? I know your sister 
 never mind how. Never mind at this stage by what 
 fantastic processes I have come into your history, and 
 been conducted to this goal. She has suffered ; 
 through ten years she has not ceased to suffer for 
 your act ; has not ceased to agonise for your return,
 
 n6 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 some day and somehow to crave your forgiveness. 
 Your forgiveness, good God ! Do you understand ? 
 It is you who must end her long martyrdom." 
 
 The young man whined : " Her martyrdom ? 
 You pitch it pretty strong. It had its compensations, 
 didn't it ? I left her everything for herself ; I never 
 asked for a penny ; only to be left alone to go my own 
 way and a jolly hard one at that. I think, perhaps, 
 she got the best of the bargain." 
 
 " Think what you like I think of her, and she of 
 you alone. She has touched all these years no more 
 than just her needs. The rest she nurses and hoards 
 against your possible return. Now listen to me. You 
 will go down, and reveal yourself, and confess the 
 truth. What ensues is no affair of mine, but that you 
 shall do." 
 
 " O ! shall I ? " 
 
 " Or else mark me I will go and bring her to you. 
 You shall be brought to bay, and exposed, for what 
 you are and have done, before all your world." 
 
 " Very well. You needn't get so excited. If I 
 must go, I must, I suppose." 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 AFTER THE RAIN 
 
 " MY de-ar," said Father Appleyard, " all religion is 
 safe in the hands of a good man. We may trust our 
 souls to the honest heretic, so long as he be no heretic 
 from love." 
 
 " I am none at least," said Derrick. " Driven from 
 its substance, I sought its shadow, and even rested 
 in it for a time. I will confess, Father."
 
 "BENEATH DARK WINGS" 117 
 
 " Absolvo te," said the priest. " Thou hast atoned 
 and art forgiven. She is at peace, my son." 
 
 " So am I not. He has come ? " 
 
 " And gone. All is well between them." 
 
 " And for me, who was guilty of the crime of inno- 
 cently appearing what I was not ? " 
 
 He waited long for an answer, but none came. Before 
 him slept the mere, placid and golden in the noon sun- 
 shine. He had reached it by the familiar track, to 
 find the good Father patiently anticipating his arrival 
 in the old place. It was all so still, so glowing, so peace- 
 ful, that it seemed as if the grass and sedges of to-day 
 were but the seasonable flowering of the frost of near 
 a year earlier. It was so silence grew and blossomed 
 without a movement in this haunted place. Some 
 emotion, some quick consciousness startled him, and 
 he looked round. 
 
 The priest was gone had vanished in a moment 
 like a shadow. But in his place there stood another 
 shadow ineffably wistful and pathetic. Derrick 
 raised his hand and beckoned, and the shadow came 
 to him. 
 
 " What is it ? " he said. " You have something 
 to ask of me ? " 
 
 She lifted her face and hands, praying to him : 
 
 " You seemed to me what I had dreamed he might 
 become. O, it was a dream ! Let me keep my 
 dream." 
 
 He caught her hands in his. " You sent for me : I 
 have come : for what ? " 
 
 " Take off your curse ! " 
 
 " I never cursed you." 
 
 " Unsay what you said. Is not this shame enough 
 to plead for me, to satisfy you ? "
 
 u8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 One intense moment he lingered, then took her to 
 his heart. 
 
 " What is my vision of you ? " he said. " Answer 
 first. Do you realise it ? " 
 
 " It is the vision of love," she whispered. " What 
 else matters ? Take me, forgive me, for that alone." 
 
 " The change," wrote Derrick, to the friend first 
 mentioned, " was slow, imperceptible in its process, 
 but definite. It began with the first dawn of my 
 honeymoon. There was something in the sky I had 
 acquired a new sense but it was long, long in develop- 
 ing, long in maturing. And it seemed not so much a 
 sense, after all, as an enlarged appreciation of beauty. 
 Incurable ? Well, so it may be for those, who, unlike 
 me, have never drunk of the deep waters of a woman's 
 love." 
 
 And there we leave him.
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 
 
 A MAN of thirty and a young woman of eighteen, 
 depressed from a rather aimless saunter in the 
 wet, had paused, as by common consent, at a point 
 where a field-path gave upon a stile, and thence upon 
 rain-drowned flats. Behind them, half reluctantly 
 abandoned, stood the comparative covert of hedge- 
 rows and a small coppice or two, rising blurred and 
 phantasmic in the twilight ; and in front yawned the 
 desolation of a wild and shelterless marshland. Per- 
 haps the contrast touched a dread sympathetic nerve 
 in the girl. She appeared to shrink back from that 
 sodden pool of blackness before her, in a panic some- 
 thing like a sleep-walker's, who wakes from warm 
 sheets to find herself bewildered in the open night. 
 Her vision was strained, looking out into it. She saw 
 vague and indeterminate monsters there, writhing up 
 and dissipating like smoke hi the rain, and her heart 
 was sick with alarm. 
 
 She sat on the stile, her skirt rolled up over her 
 petticoat, her feet tucked under it. She was a fresh 
 wholesome young body, inclining to plumpness, with 
 pretty hair and blue honest eyes ; but she was of a 
 social grade obviously lower than her companion's 
 a farmer's daughter, in fact and that may have 
 accounted for the trouble. He leaned against the 
 stile-post, preoccupied, holding an umbrella over her 
 
 119
 
 120 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 head. There was positively nothing of the rascal 
 about him. As a matter of fact he was a very good 
 fellow indeed even particularly good and particu- 
 larly soft-hearted. But he was of an affectionate 
 nature and impulsive, was this John Darling one 
 might guess it from his mobile thin face and flying 
 colour and apt sometimes on a quick call of the 
 blood to disregard the laws of moral property. Pro- 
 fessionally he was a school-proprietor. 
 
 The girl suddenly spoke and emotionally : "I wish 
 I had gone out with mother last night, as she 
 wanted me." 
 
 He glanced at her and away ; but there was nothing 
 to answer. 
 
 " You've made me a woman, John, and a sad one," 
 she said. 
 
 Her under lip trembled ; she couldn't fight it off : 
 " Won't you marry me, dear, dear John ? " she cried, 
 and broke into tears. 
 
 Fiddle-de-dee ! There was never anything ques- 
 tionable but a trifle too much confidence between 
 these two. He laughed, if rather drearily, as, holding 
 the umbrella with his left hand, he hugged his right 
 hard about the sweet and homely waist. 
 
 " What is all this foolish talk, Peggy Pretty ? " he 
 said. " To-night if you like ; to-morrow if you like ; 
 any time you like, and you know it." 
 
 Of course she did. It was her sin to have wronged 
 him by a thought her staunch, upright, unchange- 
 able true love. It was those menacing spectres out 
 in the mist that had frightened her. Her sobs were 
 jerked out of her in spasms, as she pressed him and 
 pressed him to her heart. And presently she was re- 
 leasing him rosily.
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 121 
 
 " Indeed, to-morrow wouldn't be too soon for me," 
 she said ; and hung her pretty head. 
 
 " Well, so we've got to talk," he answered ; and 
 wrapped her about with his love under the umbrella. 
 As they sat together on the stile, they were a pair of 
 as inseparable sweethearts as the world might boast. 
 There could be no sin between these two, unless a 
 very exacting devil should quote a mutual excess of 
 good-nature for one. John Darling, for all his social 
 and mental superiority, loved and had long loved 
 his Peggy with a constant confidence in himself and 
 her. Neither of them could conceive such a thing as 
 a real misunderstanding with the other. The question 
 was the slip and at a very ruinous crisis, too. 
 
 That was the matter, the crisis. God knows (and 
 John Darling) how many forlorn and neglected love- 
 children (save the word), and disliked step-children, 
 and other such encumbrances there be in a single 
 county of the land ! Mr. Squeers provided in his own 
 way for some of these ; John Darling provided in his, 
 which was quite another a kindly school and shelter 
 for the poor waifs of fortune. But John lived at a 
 later date than Wackford, and had the advantage 
 of that gentleman's history to instruct him in how not 
 to take advantage of other people's slips. And yet, 
 at the last, he had made a slip of his own. 
 
 It seemed the moral of all his ill-founded philan- 
 thropy. He was not really fit to be the guide and 
 mentor of youth. And heaven, through a long series 
 of warnings, had appeared to imply the same. His 
 establishment, fairly prosperous at first, had slowly 
 and gradually decayed. Children died, or were with- 
 drawn from his care ; others did not come, or only 
 in ever diminishing number, to replace the departed.
 
 122 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 His school dwindled, and his receipts. At last he 
 was left with but a couple of forlorn hopes, and those 
 took diphtheria. Farmer Pretty (that was Peggy's 
 mother) began to look askance at him a gentleman 
 was a gentleman, but blood manured no crops and it 
 was at this pass that he had gone to Peggy to re- 
 lease her, and had bound her indissolubly to himself 
 instead. 
 
 " I am just ruined, Peggy," he groaned. " I have 
 got ten pounds in the bank hardly enough to pay 
 the nurse ; no prospect of remittances, if these poor 
 things escape my hands ; brokers waiting round the 
 corner. I shall have to close the school, unless " 
 
 " Unless what, John ? " 
 
 " Never mind. I'm not every way a villain yet." 
 
 " But you're going to marry me you promised." 
 
 " What a daft leveling ! Do you want me now, a 
 beggar ? Will your mother want me ? " 
 
 " Yes 0, yes ! if she knew." 
 
 " But don't you see you must marry me without 
 her knowing bind yourself without her knowledge to 
 a beggar ? " 
 
 " I'm ready, when it's John." 
 
 " Dear illogician ! I wonder if ever a woman yet, 
 even on her death-bed, allowed illogic to her sex. 
 But, if she did, you may be sure she recovered, to 
 refute her own concession before too late. Very well, 
 we'll go and be married to-morrow three weeks, at 
 the Registry Office." 
 
 " I wish it might be the church ; but it can't be 
 helped, I suppose." 
 
 " And then we'll go and sing along the streets for 
 our wedding breakfast." 
 
 " I'll sing for you blithely, and dance for you, John.
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 123 
 
 My heart's dancing already. If we've done a wrong, it's 
 the sweet way to mend it, my true, true lover." 
 
 And they parted on that. But the man's heait, 
 as it bore him back to his lonely ruin of a home, beat 
 heavily and fiercely in one. Fate had been ungenerous 
 to him, pelting him to the very ground with his own 
 excess of kindness. 
 
 The house stood lonely on the edge of a wet and 
 weedy tract of common. Clear and near, it seemed, 
 the lights of the town, half a mile away, twinkled 
 and stretched themselves. It was a fairly large build- 
 ing, with a shrubbery about it ; but rents were moder- 
 ate in that remote place. The rain splashed in the 
 porch ; there was only one light in a window high up. 
 Darling let himself in with a latchkey, and, pausing a 
 moment in the deserted hall, struck a match and 
 kindled a lamp. The worn carpet on the stairs, going 
 up before him into darkness, spoke of many little feet 
 which had learned to romp lightly there under his 
 kind and merciful regime. It was all very bitter. 
 
 A decent woman came down the stairs and accosted 
 him. There was warning in her face. 
 
 " Well ? " he said. 
 
 " One's dead, sir," she answered. 
 ' Which one ? " 
 
 " It's little Claude Destrelle, sir." 
 
 He shrunk back. He had loved this boy above 
 others loved him the more for his late utter repudia- 
 tion, it would appear, by one who had formerly held 
 herself responsible for his keep and welfare. The 
 pittance miserly withheld had only served to sub- 
 stantiate the child's forlorn claim on his own rich 
 heart. It was a minute before he could speak. 
 
 " And the other ? "
 
 124 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " He's bad ; but he holds on. He'll do, I think." 
 
 The last of all ! "I must make an attempt to reach 
 poor Claude's kindred," he said, and turned into his 
 study. Yet, once there, he did not write, but sat 
 vacantly brooding in the lamplight. " What a child ! " 
 he thought. " What a child ! no understanding in 
 her but through love. Shall I kill myself and aban- 
 don her to the worst, damned coward that I should 
 be?" 
 
 Quickly, impulsively, he turned a key in his desk, 
 and took out a letter. It had reached him that morn- 
 ing the sequel to an earlier one, briefly acknowledged 
 by him. It was dated from a London square ; but was 
 penned in a thin rather foreign-looking hand. He had 
 received in his time many such queer communications 
 from secret correspondents peremptory, or illiterate, 
 or insidious, or all together, but suggesting without 
 exception a common moral of guilt seeking to evade its 
 own consequences. It was part of his business, and a 
 necessary penalty of it. 
 
 But this letter was peculiar, inasmuch as it ap- 
 peared to run on lines of repentance, or restitution. 
 
 " I refer myself again," it said, " to the boy regis- 
 tered at your school under a name and circumstances, 
 of which you write to decline the decoverture, unless 
 proof of my further claim to know. Very well these 
 facts only lately reach me after a person's death, and 
 I am ask to mend a wrong the way after all the most 
 natural to me. I am ready, then. It shall be very 
 plain. It was my wife place the child at your school, 
 unknown to me ; and now she repent and die, after 
 telling me your address and that was all. Then the con- 
 vulsion seize her. I sign you my name down at foot ; 
 and hers of the unmarried was Destrelle. She may
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 125 
 
 have name the child one or the other, or no name at 
 all at your choice. That is for you ; but she will have 
 name herself, and that is enough. Now I desire in 
 particular only to give the effect to her wish ; and I 
 desire also to remove the child from your so ex- 
 cellent care. It shall be well acknowledge." 
 
 John Darling's left hand rested on the letter after 
 he had re-read it. His right supported his forehead, 
 the elbow crooked on his desk, while he pondered. A 
 fat-bodied, spider-legged clock on the mantelpiece 
 struck eight. 
 
 "It shall be well acknowledge " an empty claim 
 to advance in the light of what had happened at the 
 intense psychologic moment. That was his demon 
 luck the last scurvy spite of fate. And yet he had 
 had a peculiar fondness for this abandoned waif ; 
 had always lavished upon him a plenitude of the kind- 
 ness with which his heart was stored. Would that 
 count for anything ? He looked round the sorry room ; 
 he thought of the mean and tattered appointments of 
 the dormitory upstairs in which the little quiet body 
 lay no subject for barter any longer. What was in all 
 this to vouch for any especial tenderness or considera- 
 tion ? At the last his moral evidences were no better 
 than Mr. Squeers's. 
 
 There was no definite guile in him at the moment. 
 If one had asked him, as Peggy Pretty had asked 
 earlier, what he had meant by his reservation on the 
 question of closing the school at once, he would have 
 answered, and quite truthfully to himself : " I don't 
 know. I don't know in the least what was in my 
 mind." And he didn't know. The " slip " was all 
 paramount in him. He must save his honest love the 
 consequences of it, at whatever cost to himself that
 
 126 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 necessity obscured all other issues. But it also which 
 he did not recognise made him desperate ; and 
 desperation is the devil's opportunity. 
 
 A sharp quick ring at the bell startled Darling from 
 his reverie. He heard the little maid plod up from 
 the basement, shuffle along the hall, and let someone 
 in. The next moment his door opened. " Mister 
 Fairmon," announced the girl, and shut in a stranger 
 with him. 
 
 Darling rose. He saw before him a middle-aged 
 spare gentleman, obviously late from the road, for his 
 slim boots were thickly muddied, and his soft felt hat. 
 which he held in his hand, was sparkling with rain- 
 drops. There was something essentially foreign in his 
 appearance in his vivid eyes, in his bottle-brush of a 
 head, in his black small beard, pointing in an outward 
 curve, like a scorpion's sting. He bowed, with a sweep 
 of his hat to his breast, and drew his heels together. 
 
 " Mr. Darling ? " he said, in a soft very caressing 
 voice, as if the hope of his life were realised ; and his 
 teeth, white and flawless, emphasised his gratification. 
 " I am too happy." 
 
 John Darling had a surpiised intuition. Here, with- 
 out doubt, was his unknown correspondent arrived in 
 person. 
 
 " M. de Vermond ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 " The same," answered the stranger. " Ah, forgive 
 me the impatience of the agent of restitution ! I 
 could not wait, I could not rest even, till I back my 
 enquiry in the self-person. The boy he is with you 
 here ? " 
 
 The schoolmaster, looking down, fumbled some 
 papers with the tips of his fingers. 
 
 " It is unfortunate, sir," he said ; " it is grievously
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 127 
 
 unfortunate, admitting the justice of your claim, that 
 you come to consult me at a terrible crisis. The boy 
 is here ; but but he is dangerously ill." 
 
 Why did he temporise with beg the question ? 
 Perhaps he could not have told you, of his own know- 
 ledge, even then. M. de Vermond started and stared. 
 The veneer, even in a moment, was warping. 
 
 " 111 ! " he exclaimed angrily. " But you never " 
 
 " You had to justify your right to know, sir," said 
 Darling stoutly. 
 
 The stranger pondered his face a moment darkly. 
 
 " Well," he then rapped out, with impatience. " I 
 am waiting." 
 
 " Assuming your right," said John, "it is my un- 
 happiness to inform you that diphtheria has broken out 
 in the school. Luckily, prompt isolation, and and 
 removal, have limited the seizure to two cases, of 
 which one, I regret to say, has ended fatally. The 
 
 other " 
 
 ' The other, sir," interrupted the stranger, " the 
 other, it is so, then, is the subject of my visit ? " 
 
 John Darling did not answer he could not, in 
 fact ; something was choking him. The voice he 
 already hated it, as if it were the devil's pursued and 
 penetrated him remorselessly. 
 
 " Will he recover ? " 
 
 " How can I tell ? " 
 
 " Is there at least one chance ? " 
 
 " One in ten, or fifty, or a hundred. How can I tell, 
 I say? " 
 
 In an instant, to his shocked amazement, he felt 
 his hand seized in a vehement grip. The soul of the 
 man was looking down on him out of fiery windows. 
 
 " Seize that chance ! " cried M. de Vermond. " It
 
 128 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 can be done yes. Throw yourself you, I say your 
 courage, your conscience into the pool, and win that 
 life for me. I tell you, sir, on the day you surrender 
 it into my hands, sound and well, I give you money, 
 one thousand pounds, straight in your pocket. That 
 is for a bargain. What is the stuff to me ? pouf ! But 
 this child, he is much. I say it, and I mean it." 
 
 The monstrous thing had come ; it faced him naked 
 and terrific the temptation which he had not had the 
 moral force to strangle in its birth. He knew himself 
 now knew not only his own heart's bitterness, but 
 its corruption. From the moment when the nurse had 
 said to him about that other, " He'll do, I think," he 
 had been really lost he recognised it. He tried to 
 assert himself ; to repudiate the implied insult of a 
 bribe ; to express his indignation somehow. He could 
 only gasp and blink in the blaze of a stupendous 
 prospect. Where had been a blasted heath was a 
 smiling pasture. An old song he was fond of ran 
 perversely in his head. Music has a way of haunting 
 troubled minds with a phrase of itself repeated over 
 and over again. " At her cottage door Mary stood 
 and listened," it went. Poor Mary ! she was waiting 
 for William to come back and reassure her which 
 William, honest lad, elected to do. What a tranquil 
 pretty scene the sequel conjured up ! 
 
 Darling could not speak a word, while every second's 
 tick of the spidery clock on the mantelpiece seemed 
 to be knitting an impenetrable web about his moral 
 sense, and securing it from escape. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the stranger, releasing his hand at 
 last, " you accept the challenge that is good. Now 
 take me to see this boy." 
 
 John tried to murmur something about danger, in-
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 129 
 
 fection, and the like. The other pushed him im- 
 patiently towards the door. 
 
 Up in the ghostly dormitory they found the little 
 flushed life at its battle. A screen hid the dead. 
 The nurse, sewing at some linen, rose and stood, still 
 busy, by the bed. 
 
 The stranger stared greedily at the face on the 
 pillow. 
 
 " How, then, do you call him ? " he whispered to 
 Darling. 
 
 The schoolmaster silently entreated silence, and 
 withdrawing when the other would follow him, re- 
 turned softly to the hall. There he turned desperately 
 at bay. 
 
 " Charles Smith," he said. 
 
 M. de Vermond's brow went up cynically. 
 
 " He was register so ? " he asked. " By Madame 
 de Vermond ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ah ! " he shrugged his shoulders hopelessly. " A 
 characteristic selection, juste del ! But she lack, ever 
 and always, the imagination." 
 
 John Darling clutched suddenly and passionately at 
 a floating straw of self-justification. 
 
 " You will not object to tell me, sir," he said. 
 " Your wife possibly in some fit of anger, of some 
 insane jealousy or revenge did this thing, deprived 
 you of your own, during your absence from her ? " 
 
 M. de Vermond nodded gravely. 
 
 " I never saw it. I was away, yes, when it was born. 
 She will not let me know, or confess but at this last. 
 Now, by your good office, it shall be mine for the first 
 time." 
 
 " Shall it ? But if it comes to pass indeed, you 
 
 K
 
 130 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 will be good to it ? Yet how can you be so 
 certain ? " 
 
 " He will recover, yes, through you. I know she 
 shall not have the fruits of her deed to follow and con- 
 sole her. That would be reversion of the divine justice. 
 Remember the thousand pounds." 
 
 He was gone with the words. Mounting the stairs, 
 only half consciously, Darling returned to the dormi- 
 tory. 
 
 " Nurse," he said, " you can rest for the night. I 
 am going to battle out this case myself. That gentle- 
 man you saw was Charlie Smith's father, and I have 
 made myself responsible to him for the boy's life." 
 
 She protested ; he insisted. In a little he was alone 
 with the sick. He was prepared for any manifestation 
 of the powers of terror and disease. Charlie Smith's 
 life against his own. 
 
 Now, in the murmuring watches of the night, he 
 would often find his voice rising softly with the wind, 
 clothing itself in its moanings to apostrophise the in- 
 sensible figure on the bed : 
 
 " Charlie, Charlie," it appealed ; " you are going 
 to a beautiful house and someone's loving care, 
 Charlie Smith. You will have money and fine clothes, 
 and you will come to call him father you upon whose 
 poor little lips the gracious word has never learned to 
 shape itself. It is sad for me, Charlie ; but you know, 
 if I had not agreed, if I had not pretended you were 
 the other, ruin would have fallen on me, and you would 
 have been transplanted elsewhere, perhaps into a hard 
 and cruel soil. For she does not care, Charlie, the 
 unnatural authoress of your poor little being. And 
 now, when I write and tell her you are dead (as I shall 
 do, though, for both our sakes, you must get well,
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 131 
 
 Charlie) when I write and tell her (and she does not 
 even know by what name I have called you), she will 
 give a sigh of relief, and answer that you are best put 
 under the merciful ground without delay, but that 
 she must not challenge scandal or discovery by being 
 present. I am so certain of it, that the possibility of 
 her arriving, and refusing to identify little Destrelle 
 as her son, gives me no alarm whatever. Sleep and 
 get well, Charlie boy." 
 
 And Charlie slept, and Charlie recovered, and 
 Charlie's guilty mother answered exactly as John 
 Darling had foretold. And one day Charlie was taken 
 and left at the big house in the London square with 
 the man who was not, and could not be, and yet 
 assumed that he was, John Darling concluded, the 
 boy's father. But, as for John, though he parted from 
 his charge with tears in his eyes, he had also, be it 
 remembered, a cheque for a thousand pounds in his 
 pocket. 
 
 II 
 
 Is there not something aggravating to Providence in a 
 too-uncompromising probity ? Possibly, since human 
 nature is said to reflect it, to be built after its likeness, 
 there may be. Anyhow, an aphorism despite, scrupu- 
 lous honesty, which the world has kept poor, begins 
 often to prosper from the date of its first lapse from 
 perfection. 
 
 It was certainly the case with John Darling. That 
 thousand pounds launched him on a full tide of success 
 and through no signal capacities of his own, more- 
 over. In fact, he invested it rather rashly ; but every- 
 thing turned up trumps. In a year he was floating on 
 a steady keel.
 
 132 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He had heard nothing in the interval, had perhaps 
 shrunk from hearing anything, about Charlie Smith. 
 He hoped and trusted that the boy was living to 
 justify the sacrifice of conscience he had made on his 
 behalf. As to M. de Vermond, the class of client he 
 represented owed, as a body, after all, a large measure 
 of atonement to that small submerged tenth, a frac- 
 tion of which he, John Darling, had devoted his past 
 life to reclaiming. If the bereaved, and possibly not 
 guiltless parent, was only doing late justice indirectly, 
 he was still fulfilling a moral obligation. Charles Smith 
 might have no direct blood-claim on him ; yet the ties 
 of brotherhood, and fatherhood and motherhood, 
 dated from our first parents, of whom was original sin. 
 In accepting him, the man had only accepted a prin- 
 ciple which he had too long evaded. He, John, himself 
 had been justified, through Providence, in affording 
 him this means to redemption. 
 
 So he salved his conscience, and prepared himself 
 yes, himself for the liberal duties of parentage. 
 Would he have been content to compromise with 
 Fortune for a changeling ? No ; he yearned with all 
 his heart for his dear Peggy's blood-pledge of affec- 
 tion ; was jealous of the very dreams which filled 
 her waiting-mother's eyes with a joy of things beyond 
 him ; hated himself for the secret which barred all 
 real confidence between them, and blackened the 
 prospect of the innocent trust to come. As the time 
 approached, he grew very disturbed and unhappy. 
 
 He had engaged for the occasion the nurse who had 
 formerly served him. She came one night, when he 
 was sitting miserably alone. He had some supper 
 ready for her ; but she could hardly touch it at first 
 for a story she had to tell him.
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 133 
 
 " O, Mr. Darling ! " she broke out ; " to think how 
 you were mistaken in the case of that poor little 
 Charlie Smith ! " 
 
 His heart seemed to stop for a moment. Then, 
 " What about him ? " he forced himself to demand. 
 
 " There ! " said the good woman ; " don't take on, 
 sir. I know the kindness of your heart, and the good- 
 ness of your intentions." 
 
 " My intentions ! " he repeated dully. He believed 
 she had discovered. 
 
 " To hand the poor mite over to a loving father," 
 she went on. " O ! a pretty father ! He starves and 
 frights and tortures the child revenges on him his 
 hate to the dead mother, who bore him, against the 
 bonds of wedlock, to a better man, and then hid him 
 away, lest her guilt should bring disgrace upon her 
 lover. But she confessed on her death-bed, and begged 
 her lawful husband to care for the child ! and he under- 
 took it, the devil. O, the dog ! the black heart ! 
 Charlie's grown a little ghost of terror, they do say 
 those that have chanced to get a glimpse of him. 
 It was a friend of mine told me, Mrs. Barker, that nurses 
 in the next house." 
 
 " Why don't they set the law on him ? " He hardly 
 knew his own voice. 
 
 " He defies them to prove anything. And the child 
 denies he's hurt," said the woman ; " a lamb, under 
 that wolf's teeth." 
 
 " Well, I will save him," said John Darling, and he 
 rose to his feet. 
 
 " God bless you ! " she cried. " I knew you'd never 
 rest, hearing it." 
 
 No, never again, until he had righted this monstrous 
 wickedness his own. His sudden staggering sense
 
 134 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 of responsibility to it made him feel physically sick. 
 He reeled a little before he could recollect himself ; 
 and then he recovered his nerve, and more than his 
 normal nerve, with a shiver. The spur to instant im- 
 pulse was praiseworthy here. He must admit the fraud 
 to M. de Vermond, restore him his thousand pounds, 
 and abide by whatever consequences might ensue. 
 Peggy would insist on that restitution, if she knew 
 no doubt about that. No doubt, moreover, that he 
 could never look his own child in the face until he had 
 made it. 
 
 Straight upstairs he went, and stood over his pretty 
 wife where she rested in a chair. He must not kill her 
 heart before the coming ordeal. He must not seek for 
 any relief of his anguish through confession and absolu- 
 tion. Time enough for that when she was strong to 
 hear him strong in a divided love. His task was a 
 one-man's task the utmost for endurance. He 
 opened upon it with a loving smile. 
 
 " Peggy," he said, " don't be disturbed ; I must 
 go to London immediately. A former pupil of mine is 
 in need of me. But you won't be alone ; nurse has 
 come." 
 
 Her eyes took a momentary startled light ; but 
 relapsed almost instantly upon tenderness. 
 
 " I understand," she said. " Well, you are better 
 out of the way." 
 
 He must not, even at that, disabuse her, protest 
 at her mistake. He must not appeal to her, as his 
 whole emotional soul yearned to do, not to misjudge 
 him, but to bear him, his faults and weaknesses, 
 always gently in mind, if anything should occur to 
 make their separation a long, or even a final one. 
 Though his heart bled to evoke this scene, his love
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 135 
 
 was strong to reject it. His atonement must be single 
 and complete. He parted from her as though he were 
 going on a pleasant journey. 
 
 There was a suggestion of something stark and 
 deadly about the atmosphere of the house in the 
 square ; but not until John Darling had noticed the 
 attraction its windows seemed to possess for the eyes 
 of casual loafers and lingering errand-boys, did he 
 gather the reason. The blinds were down ; the house 
 was a house of mourning. 
 
 Not for the boy ! that were an incredible spite 
 of Fate ; but his heart was half-suffocating him 
 as he mounted the steps to the door. A little 
 newsvendor stopped breathless to watch, and envy 
 him. 
 
 It was opened to his ring, and to his instant con- 
 fusion, by a policeman. The man accepted him with 
 the stolid, unself-committing suspicion of his office. 
 Every citizen, in the constabulary eye, is guilty of 
 something, even if it be of nothing more than his not 
 being a policeman. 
 
 " M. de Vermond," said Darling, finding his voice ; 
 " I have come to see him, on business." 
 
 " No good," said the officer. 
 
 ' The business is of the last importance," urged 
 John. 
 
 " He couldn't attend to it, not if you was the First 
 Commissioner," said the policeman. " He fell down 
 and killed himself yesterday morning." 
 
 John reeled. The policeman first-aid graduate 
 put an arm like a stove-pipe about him, hooked him 
 into the hall, and shut the door.
 
 136 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " What made you do that ? " he said. " What's 
 your name and business ? Come, now ! " 
 
 John gulped out both. He had been schoolmaster, 
 until a year ago, he said, to the little boy Charlie 
 Smith. 
 
 The admission obviously reassured the officer. He 
 had even heard about him, in a manner, it appeared, 
 from the child. 
 
 " Doctor's the man for you, sir," he said. " It's 
 him's got charge of the boy." 
 
 He gave the name and address of the gentleman 
 who had been M. de Vermond's professional adviser. 
 As he spoke, he had his eye on John, and on John's 
 own wandering vision. 
 
 " Ah ! " he said ; " a queer lot, ain't it ? " 
 
 Darling acquiesced mutely. The hall in which he 
 stood was empty and carpetless. So he had found it 
 on the occasion of his former visit, when he had been 
 shown, by a snuffling and moist-eyed old harpy, down 
 its echoing length, with the blind doors on either side, 
 into a little study at the back, where M. de Vermond, 
 eager and gloating, had received him and his charge. 
 Now, however, the door nearest him was open, and 
 through the opening he caught glimpse of pictureless 
 walls, dusty boards, and, thronged upon the latter, a 
 confused gathering of motionless forms, some bronze, 
 some marble, a few sheeted ; but all seeming to ex- 
 press, in their cold and inhuman scrutiny, the haunting 
 of a demented mind. 
 
 " Was what they call a collector," said the police- 
 man. " Gave his whole fortun' to it, it's said. The 
 house is full of nothing but them figures and busteses 
 not a washun-stand that'll stand. Drove him off 
 of his head in the end ; and no wonder. Was sup-
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 137 
 
 posed he'd put himself under one of them sheets on 
 a pedestal, to frighten the boy in the dark, and that 
 he'd frightened himself to death instead, a' doing of 
 it. Anyhow, he were found lying there with his neck 
 broken, and the door locked on the inside, and the 
 key in it." 
 
 He took off his helmet, looked into it for under- 
 standing, and put it on again without having found 
 any. 
 
 " A queer thing," he said. " I've examined a' many 
 dead eyes, but none equal to his. What they must a' 
 seen before he went down like that, eh ? You'll find 
 the boy at the doctor's. You'd better go there." 
 
 John stood the poor little man at his knee. 
 
 " You shall find father, and mother, and a brother, 
 too," he said ; "or " he corrected himself " a 
 sister. Come with me, my child." 
 
 " He made me sleep among them, locked in alone," 
 wept Charlie ; " and and they made faces at me, 
 sir." 
 
 The fearful deadly frost had melted in him was 
 yielding to the unforgotten glow of his old kind 
 master's understanding and sympathy. 
 
 " Yes, yes," said John pitifully. " But it's all over, 
 Charlie, and you're coming home with me." 
 
 "It is the best way," said the doctor. " The old 
 life ; the old influences. You must hold yourself 
 accountable for him, that's all, in event of his being 
 wanted at any time. A very pitiful case, upon my 
 word. The man was mad on a grievance ; but I 
 never guessed it had gone to those lengths. He was 
 plausible enough, when questioned. And so this is
 
 138 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 poor madam's wastrel ? dear, dear ! And he was 
 exacting retribution of him. It's always the innocent 
 ones that have to pay for the guilty in this suffering 
 world. Well, I can see no objection to your taking 
 the boy ; and the sooner and farther the better." 
 
 " Come, Charlie ! " said John Darling ; and to- 
 gether they went out into the night the little sobbing 
 fellow and the remorseful man. 
 
 They were going to tell Peggy and the baby all 
 about it to confess and ask forgiveness for one of 
 them. 
 
 " Now, I'll own to you, Charlie," said John. " He 
 was not your father at all, and you were not his son. 
 And, worse than that, I knew it before I sold you to 
 him. But I thought he would be kind to you, Charlie ; 
 I never dreamt of anything else." 
 
 " I want to be your child again," said the boy. 
 
 " And so you shall," cried John ; " first heir, from 
 this moment, to my love and my luck. I owe it all to 
 you, Charlie Smith." 
 
 He felt momentarily elated, as in a glow of success 
 the boy restored to him, that terrible confession 
 uncalled for. His possession of the bribe wronged 
 no one, unless a bloated treasury. The madman, he 
 had learned, had died kinless and intestate ; his col- 
 lection was to count among the national windfalls of 
 the year. 
 
 Yet, in the midst of his vainglory, a phrase, breath- 
 ing from somewhere very faint and hollow, seemed 
 always pursuing to overtake him. It followed like 
 a funeral dirge ; it mourned in lapses of the wind ; 
 it was here, there, nowhere and suddenly it was 
 singing, shrilly articulate, in his brain, " The innocent 
 who pay for the guilty."
 
 JOHN DARLING'S ATONEMENT 139 
 
 The doctor's words. It came to haunt him through- 
 out the long journey ; it was shrieking itself in his 
 ears, more raucously emphatic than ever, as, holding 
 the little boy by the hand, he stole up like a thief to his 
 own front door. 
 
 " One's dead, sir." 
 
 The old dreary formula. Had he asked, as before, 
 and received the inevitable reply ? Diphtheria was 
 it ; or what ? The wind, and the voices, and the roar 
 of the train had got into his head. 
 
 " Which one ? " 
 
 He believed that he had put the question old and 
 monstrous and monotonous, it seemed. And yet, as 
 a fact, not he nor anyone had spoken at all. Only the 
 nurse, with that eternal face of warning, stood conning 
 him in the dim-lit hall. 
 
 " And the other ? " 
 
 Again the mute enquiry. 
 
 " She holds on. She'll do, I think." 
 
 She ? who ? The words were real enough this 
 time unmistakable jarring him from his trance. He 
 almost screamed his question : 
 
 "Who'll do? My wife?" 
 
 The nurse nodded. 
 
 " She fights to win. It were born dead, sir the 
 poor blessed mite ! " 
 
 The man knelt down on the hard floor of the hall, 
 and wrapped his arms convulsively about Charlie 
 Smith, and dropped his head on the boy's shoulder. 
 
 " Neither brother nor sister at last," he said 
 brokenly, " but, God help me, a mother yet, and my 
 Peggy, my Peggy, a son. O, pray for me, pray for 
 me little man wronged so much. He will listen to 
 you a child having that the innocent hostage in
 
 140 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 His hands. Only once O, my God ! O, Charlie ! ask 
 for a mother just when you need her fill the empty 
 place. For your sake for hers not mine. Don't 
 speak of me for yourself, Charlie He'll listen then. 
 Stay here pray O, pray, little boy, pray while I 
 creep into the dark there " 
 
 And in the dark the little emissary of mercy found 
 him by and by, and, being commissioned, brought 
 him his Peggy's message to come to her to forgive 
 her, because she had failed him, and answered his 
 great longing with a gift of death. 
 
 But it was life for them all from that moment.
 
 THE KING'S STAR 
 
 MAITRE JEAN BICHE stood, with a very black 
 and evil expression of countenance, looking 
 over the parapet of Notre Dame Bridge. He was in 
 that mood when violence of some sort seems the only 
 redress for an outraged self-esteem. It was just a 
 question with him whether he should kill himself or 
 another deprive the insensate world of an inspired 
 poet, or of an uninspired patron of poetasters. So 
 he put it, there being no such merciless critic of his 
 fellow-minors as an unappreciated rhymester. 
 
 And yet he might have solaced himself with the 
 reflection that the approval of an insensate world 
 would be the reverse from reassuring to a conscious 
 genius. But there is no reasoning with an insulted 
 poet. 
 
 It must be understood that Maitre Jean, sensualist, 
 decadent, and, at this last, by right maturation of a 
 diseased egoism, a homicidal maniac, was quite earnest 
 in his sense of injury, and quite deadly in his resolve 
 to come to some kind of terms with Fate upon it. 
 Notoriety was really the thing he craved he called 
 it appreciation. Tuneful from the first, his composi- 
 tions, when only a poor sizar at the ' College des trois 
 langues/ had instinctively assumed a metrical cast, 
 and had merely awaited the authority of a Mastership 
 
 141
 
 142 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 of the Arts to expand into the full-blown song. And 
 he had gained his degree, and thereafter had indulged 
 his bent, seeking a living and a living fame in one ; 
 but with singular ill-success. Though he sang high 
 and low, no one would employ him above a trumpery 
 figure ; and here, at thirty years of age, he was sunk 
 into a mere tavern-strummer, begging his bread, like 
 Homer, from door to door. Odes, hymns, eclogues, 
 rondels, pasquinades they all came within his scope 
 or so he thought and he must exchange the best 
 of them for a mug of wine and a bed in the midden. 
 It was an unexampled infamy ; but it had to be 
 endured. And then one day there had appeared, 
 unexpectedly, a potential patron, and his embittered 
 soul had been exalted at a bound to unstable heights. 
 
 It was just a stranger in a tavern, a magnificent 
 dandiprat, who had clapped him on the shoulder 
 over some neatly-turned epigram, and had sworn by 
 his beard that Father Ronsard must and should hear 
 of him ; that the King himself must hear ; that at 
 a turn of the wheel he should find himself enrolled 
 among that select company of Court songsters which 
 wove a maze of melody about the branching corridors 
 of the Louvre. 
 
 Jean Biche had listened petrified. Ronsard ! the 
 incomparable Ronsard, whom for years he had hated 
 and envied and depreciated with all a poor man's 
 spite of the successful ! In a moment he found this 
 great rival just and noble ; in a moment he saw him- 
 self recognised, applauded nay, lifted to pre-eminence. 
 If, he reflected, in a glow of condescension, the Court 
 emoluments were something less than princely, they 
 would compare at least favourably with his present 
 takings. Charles IX was credited with keeping his
 
 THE KING'S STAR 143 
 
 poets, like horses, on moderate oats, lest they should 
 become over-blown and unfit for service. What of 
 that, to one who had often drummed an accompani- 
 ment to his own couplets on his own empty stomach ? 
 He inflated his starved chest, he flushed and simpered ; 
 when the stranger insisted upon seeing such specimens 
 of his art as he had about him, he protested, with an 
 affectation of lowliness that was already vanity spurred 
 and mounted. The two parted, after an appointment 
 made at The Mewing Cat, the nobleman vowing, in 
 a heat of tearful sentiment, that he would consider 
 it the deed of his life to set those broken shoes of 
 Maitre Jean on the first rung of the ladder of fame. 
 And after that, being, in truth, gloriously drunk, he 
 had gone away and forgotten all about it. 
 
 Jean Biche living meanwhile in the clouds, and 
 feeding almost exclusively on wind kept the appoint- 
 ment with punctuality, and found no impulsive patron 
 awaiting him at The Mewing Cat, which was just a jolly 
 tavern in the Rue de la Juiverie on the City Island. 
 Nor did any ' come to arrive/ and in the end he had to 
 sing for his supper. Thereafter he haunted The Mew- 
 ing Cat, and always in vain ; but, still living on the 
 glamour of that meeting, and finding for himself a 
 hundred reasons why its renewal was unavoidably 
 postponed, he presently, in his new glorified self-con- 
 fidence, began to conceive the possibility of touting 
 for favour at the fountain-head on his own account. 
 Why should he not submit his goods, so highly recom- 
 mended, to the Sieur Ronsard himself, and so dispose 
 of the encumbrance of a " middle-man " ? 
 
 And he actually did it in the end, with a rhymed 
 petition to the Prince of Poets, subject, younger- 
 brotherly, adulatory, craving his interest to find him
 
 144 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 a Court patron, and even intimating the highest. 
 After all, when it came to a question of asking, the 
 King could give most. And then, in trepidation, but 
 still uplifted, he awaited his answer. 
 
 None was vouchsafed him. He wrote again, and 
 yet again. Finally, he addressed the fountain-head 
 itself, the royal Castalia. And last of all he became 
 importunate. 
 
 Then of a sudden one day a palace minion appeared 
 in The Mewing Cat, and, enquiring for M. Biche, as 
 the poet rose white and breathless staggered him with 
 a boisterous blow on the back, and, throwing a packet 
 on the table, roared out with a laugh, which all might 
 hear : 
 
 " Is it, my faith, the grasshopper ? ' Poor songster ' 
 thou namest thyself, and the King is in no mind to 
 contradict thee. But call not any more under his 
 windows, M. Biche, thy stinking sprats, or by his 
 honour, he swears, he will have thee and thy burden 
 cast into the Seine." 
 
 That, to be sure, was a rude way of rejecting a 
 manuscript ; but, in the sixteenth century, contri- 
 butions, even, so to speak, to the Magasin du Louvre, 
 were not returned accompanied by a printed form, or by 
 a polite intimation that they were found unsuitable to 
 their purpose. The unlucky poet, thus publicly gib- 
 beted, gave one gasp, rigidly sat out the ensuing 
 raillery, and presently crept forth, a soul wounded 
 beyond endurance or extenuation. 
 
 Now men who have learned to live without hope 
 will sometimes lose their reason in the reaction from 
 a brief draught of it. Maitre Jean could have borne 
 the persistent neglect of Fortune ; he could not bear 
 her meteoric favour a glimpse of glory shown only
 
 THE KING'S STAR 145 
 
 to be withdrawn. As he stole on, there was murder 
 in his heart. He must take some life, if it were a life 
 no less abject than his own. His nerves twitched to 
 kill. It was falling dark, as he threaded his way 
 amidst the huddle of low tenements and brawling 
 alleys which covered the island, his hands plucking 
 together behind his back, his eyes perpetually on the 
 ground. He saw a red stream from some dyer's 
 vat pour into the kennel, and he lolled his jaw at it, 
 hanging out his tongue as if to lap. On the Pont 
 Notre Dame he paused, and looked over the parapet 
 into the water. Its gloomy rushing fascinated him, 
 and he bent lower. 
 
 To plunge, and be swept whither ? He dragged at 
 his jaw hungrily a moment. It was soft and pursy, 
 for all his half-starved condition ; it dropped heavily 
 from a weak mouth and vealy cheeks spotted with 
 dissipation. His forehead looked low by contrast, 
 and the hair brushed back from it, and sleeked at his 
 neck into meagre drakes-tails, was of an indeterminate 
 ginger colour. Hugging his mangy black mantlet 
 about his shoulders, he bent so low as to imperil his 
 balance. 
 
 A soft hand fell upon his shoulder, and he glanced 
 about, momentarily startled, to find himself hemmed 
 in by a little band of cut-purses. There was no mis- 
 taking them, Thrasonic, determined-looking fellows, 
 with a light of mischief in their eyes. He rose erect, 
 laughing drearily and ironically. 
 
 " Messires les Enfants de la Malte," he said, " I 
 recognise you very well. Behold in me, your pur- 
 posed victim, a wretched poet, driven by hunger to 
 emigrate to the unknown shore, and awaiting only 
 the appearance of M. Charon's ferry-boat in the stream
 
 146 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 below to depart. Can anyone oblige me with a denier 
 for the passage ? That given, he can cut my throat, 
 with infinite pleasure, and so, having relieved my 
 conscience of the single scruple which yet hampers it, 
 step into so much of my shoes as the stones of Par- 
 nassus have left me." 
 
 They chuckled loudly ; and one swaggered for- 
 ward. He was a sickly-looking, weedy young man, 
 with a silly intolerant face, and a rudimentary beard. 
 
 " I know this M. Biche," he said. " A wretched 
 poet, i' faith he speaks it. If any man obliges him, 
 he is my enemy the enemy of Bras-de-Ferule. Hell 
 will be penalty enough without his rhyming. Live, 
 good Mr. Biche, live and prosper, we entreat thee, and 
 presently carry thy lyre to heaven where the peacocks 
 sing." 
 
 The band went on its way, Bras-de-Ferule leading ; 
 and Jean Biche, with a taste of bile in his mouth, bent 
 again to the river. 
 
 That miserable jest, twice uttered within the hour ! 
 Was there truth at the bottom of it ? The self-con- 
 scious genius in him disdained an answer. Left to be 
 its own solitary judge at the last, his soul swept away 
 all bounds of moderation, and pronounced itself single, 
 majestic, inscrutable. He was great the greatest 
 poet of his own or any time. He retracted his every 
 obsequious compliment to the lesser, but more fortu- 
 nate men. Fortunate ? Of course. They spoke the 
 common thought to common minds. It was all a vast 
 conspiracy of the vulgar to keep the world for them- 
 selves, and the worthy from recognition. The golden 
 age was ended, the gods were withdrawn ; and he, 
 comparable with Astraea, must no longer linger out 
 a starved exile among a soulless people. But, for all
 
 THE KING'S STAR 147 
 
 that renunciatory heroism, his heart burned with 
 hatred, and the gangrene of vanity was eating up his 
 reason. He stooped over the parapet. 
 
 To plunge, and be swept whither ? To be dragged, 
 like a dead fish, distended, blind-eyed, from the in- 
 different water, and be cast for carrion into a nameless 
 grave ! For all his merit after all his dreams and 
 ambitions ! The thought was fuel to his madness. 
 Could he not achieve something first, something in 
 any way remote from his calling, which should set him 
 apart from his fellows, if only by the measure of a 
 giant infamy ? 
 
 A star of gas seemed to burst in his brain. He 
 raised his head quickly. In the near distance he could 
 see twinkling the long lights of the Louvre skirting 
 the quay and shortened in perspective to a fiery arrow. 
 He raised himself, his teeth showing, and shook a 
 sardonic fist across the water. 
 
 " Fame ! " he muttered ravenously, " fame ! The 
 King might provide it me yet, if I were to kill him 
 for it ! " 
 
 " My faith ! but that is a very good reservation ! " 
 said a low voice at his elbow. 
 
 He turned, with a mortal start. There were two 
 men, cloaked and mysterious, standing as close to him 
 as confessors. In his absorption he had let them come 
 upon him without a sound. The slighter of them had 
 spoken, and he spoke again in a cultivated voice : 
 
 " I say, Maitre Biche, that is a very good reserva- 
 tion." 
 
 " Messires ! " gasped the poet. " Messires ! You 
 know me ? " 
 
 " Surely," said the gentlemen. " Who does not 
 know Maitre Biche ? "
 
 148 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 The singer made a comprehensive gesture with his 
 arms, emotional, piteous. ' All Paris ! ' it expressed. 
 
 " Alas ! What is one to expect, with such a pre- 
 centor to set the tune ? " said the stranger. 
 
 " Yes, that is true," muttered Jean Biche. 
 
 " Incontrovertible," purred the other. " The Louvre 
 is an indulgent parent to mediocrity. I prefer St. Ger- 
 main, for my part. But doubtless, Messire, I speak 
 to you in enigmas." 
 
 Jean Biche strove to answer, but could not. The 
 gentleman touched him softly on the chest. " Listen, 
 then," he said low. " I am in the service of Messire 
 the King's youngest brother. I know the esteem in 
 which he holds you ' As Apollo to Marsyas, so is 
 Jean Biche to the Abb6 Ronsard ; so is natural music 
 to acquired.' Those were his words. ' Were I King,' 
 saith he, ' I should know whom to crown.' ' 
 
 He stepped back a pace, and again approached, 
 speaking in the same soft tone : 
 
 " Messire, as it chanced, I was with His Majesty 
 to-day, when he sent his lackey to insult you. ' Carry 
 this to the swollen frog/ he said, ' and bid him take 
 warning lest he burst emulating the bull.' Ah ! that 
 stings ; but no wonder. I heard ; I followed with 
 a friend ; we were concealed witnesses of the result ; 
 we guessed the effect on a wronged and sensitive mind ; 
 as soon as we could escape observation, we pursued, 
 we tracked you, we are here ! " He broke off with 
 a dramatic gesture, and added almost immediately, 
 sighing profoundly : " Ah, Messire ! if only the Due 
 d'Alenc.on were King ! " 
 
 " Messires," said the poet hoarsely. " I am a 
 desperate man. What do you want of me ? " 
 
 " A poet-laureate of the truest," said the stranger.
 
 THE KING'S STAR 149 
 
 Jean Biche laughed with dismal derision. 
 
 " A laureate of the dead ? It happens to fall in 
 with my humour with my complaint. Your recipe 
 for Fame, then ? You want me to kill the King." 
 
 The stranger looked round hastily. There was no 
 one within hearing. 
 
 " A laureate, on my honour," he said, " and of the 
 living. It were a stroke that would let loose a swarm 
 a hornet's nest of partisans. Once delivered, you 
 would lack no seconders. It were to win your place, 
 had you the courage to dare it." 
 
 " And, if I refuse ? " 
 
 The gentleman seemed to smile ; he shrugged his 
 shoulders. " Then very clearly," his manner inti- 
 mated, " we are two bloods to one poor devil, we have 
 given you our confidence, and the river is down 
 there." 
 
 Jean Biche sneered bitterly. 
 
 " I hate all the world," he said, " and most, natur- 
 ally enough, him who stands for the crowning expres- 
 sion of its insolence and inhumanity. This alternative 
 to suicide I had myself contemplated. Your sugges- 
 tion, at least, gives it a new perspective. Do with me 
 what you will, gentlemen. I await only my instruc- 
 tions." 
 
 Those, however, did not, for the moment much 
 interest him. The absorbing thing was that he was com- 
 mitted finally to that lesser apotheosis of infamy. He 
 did not pretend to guess on what pretext. These Valois 
 were always plotting, in brotherhood together, or 
 against one another. Some rumours had reached him, 
 as they were wont to filter through, much attenuated, 
 to the canaille. D'Anjou, the heir-apparent, being 
 disposed of temporarily in Poland, it would have been
 
 150 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 beyond reason to suppose that d'Alencon, the youngest 
 and most restless of the three, would not take some 
 advantage of his absence. And, in fact, it was whis- 
 pered that the boy Duke boy in all but seasoned 
 villainy and dissimulation was suspected of a leaning 
 towards the Huguenots and the Politiqucs, as towards 
 the party most to be relied on in a contingency. This 
 shadowed-out conspiracy, no doubt, confirmed in 
 some way the justice of that rumour. He did not 
 know, or care to know how. These things were always 
 going on, and were only regarded by the proletariat 
 according as they affected the prices of bread and salt. 
 There were only two classes in France, the task- 
 masters and the tasked. A third, which had laboured 
 to evolve itself the class of reputable traders had 
 recently been annihilated. 
 
 A sort of mad exaltation had seized Jean Biche. 
 He was going to be great beyond his wildest dreams. 
 He saw red in the early stars, in the lights beginning 
 to twinkle through the steaming murk of the river. 
 He wanted to put his head into the Mewing Cat, and 
 shout that the Angel of Destruction was close at hand. 
 In truth, what with hunger, vanity and despair, his 
 reason was gone by the board. Only a madman's 
 secrecy kept his lips closed, and his smiling eyes from 
 betraying the vision that filled them. He committed 
 himself to his destiny, blindly, indifferent as to whither 
 it carried or where deposited him. 
 
 At the end of the bridge were a couple of horses 
 tethered to the rails. Doubtless their owners had 
 awaited the passage of the Children of Malta before they 
 trusted them there. One, a heavy bay roan, the larger 
 cavalier mounted, and bade Maitre Jean in a sup- 
 pressed voice follow him en croupe. In another
 
 THE KING'S STAR 151 
 
 moment they were off, pounding, by way of a score 
 of tortuous lanes and noisome alleys, towards the 
 open country to the north-west of the city. They 
 rode in silence, hurriedly, like men too profoundly 
 moved for speech. Five miles from the walls, at a 
 turn of the road, the lights of a little tavern suddenly 
 twinkled upon them from a lonely covert. And here, 
 at a low word from the other, the bigger horseman 
 wheeled to a stop, and intimated to his fellow-rider 
 that they had reached their quarters for the night. 
 Jean Biche acquiesced, with a shrug and an inane 
 chuckle, and descended ; while the first cavalier, 
 uttering a single " Bonne chance ! " continued his 
 road to the Chateau de St. Germain-en-Laye, stand- 
 ing yet nine miles distant on its Montagne-du-Bon-Air, 
 as the Revolutionists came to call it. 
 
 II 
 
 His MAJESTY was at the Louvre, his brother of Anjou 
 in Poland, playing sulkily at sovereignty, the Due 
 d'Alencon was in the Chateau of St. Germain, plotting 
 against things in general, and against his absent 
 brother in particular. The King of France showed 
 signs of breaking ; he had never been himself since 
 that little affair a year ago with the class of " reputable 
 traders " on St. Bartholomew's day. What an odd 
 thing it would be, were he to die unexpectedly and 
 Anjou well out of the way ! 
 
 Messire le Due d'Alencon's little eyes twinkled over 
 the prospect sometimes. He had taken some pleasure 
 in managing his own small Court, with its serious and 
 gay, its alchemists and its adventurers ; yet he had 
 always felt his capacities meet for the higher task.
 
 Supposing, only supposing, he should happen to have 
 thrown in his lot with the stronger party (which at 
 the moment seemed the Huguenot) at the date of the 
 King's death ? The difficulty was merely one of 
 coincidence. What a pity one could not procure 
 coincidence. 
 
 " It is possible, even that, Messire," said the Comte 
 de la Mole, who had been closeted with His Highness 
 for some minutes. 
 
 He was just off the road, and still booted and 
 spurred. His handsome evil young face had a smiling 
 leer on it, as, with one hand on hip, he pulled with the 
 other at the point of his little ' stiletto ' beard. The 
 Duke looked at him without speaking. 
 
 The Chateau was very silent. It seemed to sleep 
 among its woods and terraces without a thought of 
 change or disturbance. Most quiet of all was this little 
 chamber set in its heart, this muffled closet with its 
 queer jumble of retorts and alembics and astrolabes, 
 set staidly amid a litter of arms, and dishes of sweet- 
 meats, and books both lewd and learned. D'Alencon 
 was the original one of the brothers the most daring, 
 the most fearful, and again the most mischievous. He 
 was only eighteen one of the handful of boys which 
 controlled the destinies of his time. Self-interest, 
 convictions such as he had, inclined him to the Protes- 
 tant side. M. le Comte, on the other hand, was at 
 heart a religious Huguenot. The balance of events at 
 the moment appeared to favour the Protestant cause. 
 If only a leader, a princely leader, could be found to 
 take advantage of that moment ! 
 
 " It is possible, Messire," said de la Mole, " even to 
 procure coincidence." 
 
 The Prince, sitting in a great chair, with his hands
 
 THE KING'S STAR 153 
 
 clasped, thrust out his feet and looked down at them. 
 He was a little strong square man, very sallow and 
 pitted with smallpox. His short wiry black hair, 
 brushed violently back from his forehead and temples, 
 his white teeth and set inscrutable smile, proclaimed 
 the Italian in him. His doublet and breeches were of 
 black velvet slashed with crimson, and the ruff at his 
 neck might have been cleaner. 
 
 " I must accept your word for it, my dear Joseph," 
 he murmured. " And what is Coincidence doing at 
 this moment ? " 
 
 " Coincidence, Messire," answered the cavalier, " is 
 at this moment, I trust, drinking away the last of his 
 reason under the care of my friend Lavolle." 
 
 The Prince just raised his eyes, and lowered them. 
 
 " Should I know Coincidence ? " he asked. 
 
 " Hardly," said M. le Comte, " though I took pains 
 to assure him otherwise. No more, in fact, than I 
 knew him myself. Coincidence, naturally, assumes 
 many disguises. In this case it was that of a strolling 
 poet, who had apparently been petitioning royalty, 
 and had met with a rebuff. The result came to hand 
 in a certain cabaret, where I happened to be having 
 a draught. I fancied I recognised Coincidence at 
 once ; but, to make sure, I followed him, when he went 
 out, after a discreet interval and after having pro- 
 cured his pseudonym from the landlord. I found 
 Coincidence deliberating between self-destruction and 
 regicide, and so I was confirmed in my suspicion. I 
 offered him, by your favour, Messire, the position of 
 Court-poet." 
 
 " I do not wish to know his pseudonym," said the 
 Prince suddenly. 
 
 " There is no need," answered de la Mole with per-
 
 154 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 feet coolness. " I should prefer not to know it myself ; 
 but that cannot be helped. The essential point is, 
 would you, sir, Coincidence serving, be prepared to 
 slip out of St. Germain, and place yourself under the 
 protection of M. Guitry and those assembled with 
 him ? " 
 
 The prince rose, much agitated. 
 
 " When, my dear Joseph," he said ; " when ? " 
 
 " To-morrow night, Messire, on the instant receipt 
 of a message from me ? " 
 
 " To-morrow so soon ? " His breath came quick. 
 " To-morrow ? " 
 
 " To-morrow, Messire," said the Count quietly, " is 
 a Court ball. His Majesty, in a recrudescence of that 
 whimsicality which he exhibited of old, is designing 
 to play a trick upon the company. Thou hast heard 
 speak of the Children of Malta, that notorious band 
 of rogues and pickpockets ? Well, so hath His Majesty, 
 it seems ; but he is not content with hearing. He must 
 see them, speak with them, learn of their arts and 
 methods at first hand. You know his humour. La 
 Chambre is deputed to procure a representative half 
 score of the gentlemen, who will be let loose unknown 
 among the throng to exercise their trade, His Majesty 
 pledging his word to confirm them their spoil, and to 
 lead them away, at a given signal, to his private apart- 
 ments. I have secret information of the trick, Messire." 
 
 D'Alengon stood, yellow- white, his tongue secretly 
 moistening his lips, his eyes on the ground. 
 
 " Well ? " he whispered. 
 
 " I say, Messire," continued the Count, " it would 
 be reasonable to suppose that Coincidence would seize 
 so promising an opportunity to vindicate his title to 
 fame."
 
 THE KING'S STAR 155 
 
 " His title, first, to admission," muttered the Prince. 
 
 De la Mole shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Of course," he said ; " but, where Destiny con- 
 trives ! I can only guess ; but let us imagine, say, 
 that Coincidence has conceived the idea of entering 
 with the band of cut-purses itself ; that he has been 
 instructed how to identify the King by the diamond 
 star on his cloak ; that he follows among them, when 
 all withdraw, supposing his comrades to be, not the 
 thieves they are, but fellow-conspirators, prepared to 
 rally about him when he does that which shall raise 
 him at a stroke to the topmost pinnacle of fame ? " 
 
 He paused, and for a terrific moment silence held. 
 Then the Count, himself looking down, murmured in- 
 effably : 
 
 ' The poor Coincidence ! Likely he will not live 
 to suffer for his mistake. It were best, indeed, he 
 should not. He is a crazy fellow, Messire a fatalist, 
 like the proper child of Destiny. And in the meantime ' ' 
 he shrugged his shoulders again, with an inex- 
 pressible meaning " I have thought it best to isolate 
 Coincidence, lest, like the smallpox, he should mark 
 some of us with his disease." 
 
 D'Alencon glanced up, with haggard eyes. 
 
 " I do not want to know where. You have said too 
 much already. Why did you dare to bring in my 
 name ? " 
 
 " As a guarantee, no more, Messire," said the Count 
 imperturbably ; " and since the promise it implied 
 was an incentive. But it would carry no conviction 
 uttered by his lips granted that they were not 
 silenced at once, which is improbable. Any murderer 
 can cite Inducement ; but that is not to say Induce- 
 ment is guilty of the deed done in his name. Else,
 
 156 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 when we swore by God we should make the Almighty 
 an accessory to our sins. Be tranquil ; we have sup- 
 plied no links here to connect his name with yours." 
 
 The Duke, listening very intently, protested with 
 a pallid face. 
 
 " He will be supposed one of them one of the 
 thieves. The King will suppose it." 
 
 " The King will suppose nothing, Messire." 
 
 " That is all one. They will be all one in the retribu- 
 tion exacted." 
 
 " A parcel of rogues, sir the better for everybody. 
 There is no confessional-box so inviolable as Mont- 
 faucon." 
 
 The Prince whined pitifully : " I do not like it." 
 
 " Nor I," said de la Mole. " It is purely a matter for 
 Coincidence that is the difficulty ; insuperable, I 
 fear. Those who consort with rogues must take the 
 risk of their company. For myself, I venture to 
 prophesy no more." 
 
 He spoke very smoothly ; he was furtively weigh- 
 ing his confederate all the time. Suddenly the Duke 
 came to him. His eyes were staring, the palms of his 
 hands were wet. " Joseph, my friend," he said, like 
 one about to choke, " tell me, in the name of God 
 you believe my brother to be a dying man ? " 
 
 De la Mole was silent a moment. 
 
 " Guitry is at hand and prepared. It is of Coinci- 
 dence we speak, Messire," he then said coldly. 
 
 " But, he could not, in any case, live long ? " 
 
 " Long is a relative term, Messire, like short and 
 tall. The day is our only metre for measuring time." 
 
 " It were a small sin, Joseph, to forestall the in- 
 evitable by a metre or so a mercy, even, to cut short 
 the tale of miserable days to come ? "
 
 THE KING'S STAR 157 
 
 " Coincidence, Messire, is only another term for 
 Providence." 
 
 The young Prince clapped both his hands to his 
 ears ; then, turning in a desperate way, made with 
 his right a gesture of dismissal. De la Mole understood 
 it, and, without another word, silently left the room. 
 
 The moment he was gone, d'Alen9on fell upon his 
 knees at a prie-Dieu, and broke into a soft hysteric 
 babble of prayer, hardly to be distinguished from 
 blasphemy. He acted for the best ; France was in 
 danger ; the reformed religion alone promised her 
 tranquillity ; he had no part in this ; he did not want 
 to reign ; it was Providence in the guise of Coincidence 
 that used him for its helpless instrument ; he preferred 
 peace and the pursuit of his hobbies to all the lustre 
 of a kingly apanage ; he would go into a monastery. 
 
 In the midst he paused, sobbing, and looked up. 
 
 " I wonder if Guitry is to be trusted ? " he muttered, 
 with a catch in his breath. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE young Charles IX of France was not only a poet 
 in himself, but the cause that poetry was in other men. 
 That should have made him a proud king, yet there 
 must have been times when the sycophantic swarm of 
 grasshoppers drove him to regret his own gift. He 
 could discriminate very clearly between the real and 
 the pretentious, and he did ; yet it is doubtful if in 
 earlier days he would have put his foot so savagely on 
 the poor charlatan, Jean Biche. The truth was that 
 conceits once amusing to him had become intolerable. 
 His whole nature had been warped in a day. 
 
 Yet he was always at heart a poet and romantic.
 
 158 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 The fact accounted for much that seemed contra- 
 dictory in his character love and cruelty, sincerity 
 and dissimulation. He was for ever enacting a story 
 within himself, and in the glow of it was easily moved, 
 easily inflamed. It could become such an intense 
 reality to him as even to affect his health. When he 
 fired an arquebus from Louvre windows, he was play- 
 ing a part into which his imagination had entered. He 
 awoke to find his chimera actuality as a sleepwalker 
 might who, dreaming of wings, casts himself to the 
 floor and the shock of the discovery killed him. 
 
 Policy had found this imagination of his a sensitive 
 instrument on which to play, and had tortured it un- 
 scrupulously. Left to himself, he might have been for 
 his circumstances a good king, just and reasonable ; 
 but his bad friends, finding that strain of fantasy in 
 him, worked upon it to their own ends and to his 
 madness. Terror of the Spaniard, abject conciliation 
 of the Spaniard, was the keynote of the devil's music 
 which, throughout most of his reign, piped through 
 the corridors of France. It was a strain mystic and 
 elusive, but it found the bulk of the kingdom dancing 
 and following to it. Uncursed of its infernal provoca- 
 tion, that carnage which choked the gutters of Paris 
 had, perhaps, never occurred. Most certainly it would 
 never have occurred to Charles the poet to sanction 
 the deeds of Charles the madman. But Charles the 
 poet was the last person allowed a voice in the 
 matter. 
 
 The young king was a bard of the right succession. 
 He had once written and dedicated to the Sieur 
 Ronsard whom he cherished, and had presented with 
 an Abbacy among other gifts some lines, of which 
 the following may poorly serve for a rendering :
 
 THE KING'S STAR 159 
 
 " Though we be kings, I may not set, as thou, 
 My anointed crown upon another's brow ; 
 May never, like the sweet birds, hope to win 
 One soul. My powers end where thine begin. 
 Beauty and passion live upon thy sigh. 
 Death I can give ; thou, immortality." 
 
 But that was long ago, and in happier times times 
 when he could hunt, himself unbounded of that pur- 
 suing conscience, and write of the greensward with 
 a woodman's love. In those days his restless spirit 
 had had its purely boyish side, a turn for adventure, 
 a fondness for ' larks ' and practical jokes ; in these 
 days well, he remembered, maybe, how when they 
 had gone to kill his dear friend the Due de la Roche- 
 foucauld in his bed, the victim had kicked out, laugh- 
 ing at his assailants, taking them, even as they stabbed 
 him, for a disguised party from the palace, bent on 
 one of those midnight frolics His Majesty loved. That 
 might well have seemed to sound the knell of thought- 
 less hours, sickening him from all such jests in the 
 future. He was no longer, said one, " the gentle 
 king, benign and gracious. He is utterly changed. 
 And there is nowadays a malignance in his face where 
 once dwelt charity." His reason was a poisoned thing, 
 in fact, and conscious of but few unsuffering moments. 
 But in one of these, moved, perhaps, by some ancient 
 strain of curiosity or adventure, he had devised the 
 trick already mentioned to be played upon his com- 
 pany. It was a flash of the old espieglerie, a lucid 
 thought recovered, a hundred years forgotten ; and 
 it lasted out its purpose. 
 
 La Chambre had succeeded in gathering his half- 
 score of rogues, and His Majesty received the band in
 
 i6o BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 private audience. There were Bras-de-Ferule, Perignon 
 of the webbed fingers, called the Duck, Mazas the 
 Pounder, and seven others. There was an air of con- 
 fident swagger about them all, which, under the royal 
 safe-conduct, was not subdued. The King was im- 
 mensely interested. 
 
 " You are welcome, gentlemen of industry," he 
 said. " I give you the term with apologies." 
 
 " N'importe ! " said Mazas, who was a good- 
 humoured red tun of a man. " It is something to be 
 given anything. In these hard times we must take 
 what we can get." 
 
 " Well, it is no more than you deserve. Yet, do not 
 abuse the times ; you seem to have done very well out 
 of them." 
 
 " Pardi," said the Pounder ; "we have a large 
 family to maintain." 
 
 " That is true," answered the King ; " and la 
 Chambre there has none. Pick his pocket for him." 
 
 " You speak too late, Messire ; it is already done," 
 said Perignon with an air of dignity ; and, to Charles's 
 huge delight and the Captain's mortification, he pro- 
 duced the latter 's purse from his bosom. La Chambre 
 wanted to reclaim it. 
 
 " No," said the King. " If you will keep such fine 
 company, you must pay your footing." He addressed 
 Bras-de-Ferule, who appeared to be the leader. 
 " This is all very well, but I doubt your capacity for 
 the finer task." 
 
 " And what is that, Messire ? " asked the young 
 man. He caressed his scrap of beard, impudently, 
 after the King's manner ; and indeed, he was not un- 
 like the King, only he was much more conceited. 
 
 " To pass muster among gentlemen," said Charles.
 
 THE KING'S STAR 161 
 
 " Indeed, Messire," answered the other, " if they 
 do not take us for their betters, call me a sot and 
 depose me. Your fine fowl respect none so much as 
 him that plucks them cleverly. The King should 
 know it." 
 
 La Chambre looked aghast ; but Charles only 
 sniggered. 
 
 " Well," he said, " arrive in a body, and the porter 
 at the wicket will have orders to admit you. You will 
 see me in the room, and at the proper time will be 
 given the signal to follow. En attendant, Messires ! " 
 
 He rose, when he was alone again, and the transient 
 excitement left his face, and left it haunted and hag- 
 gard. He went up and down, stooping, coughing a 
 little, and involuntarily his hand sought his throat, in 
 the way Bras-de-Ferule had mimicked. Once he 
 paused at a mirror, and looked in it a moment. It 
 showed him the very figure of exhausted self-repres- 
 sion, worn, tragic, pitiful. The wistful eyes, the lips 
 compressed on too much pain, the thin straggle of hair, 
 born of an arid soil, the deadly nausea of life. " God ! " 
 he whispered ; " to be cursed at twenty-four with the 
 wrinkles of sixty ! " He had withered where he stood, 
 in the struggle to be himself, to maintain himself, in 
 the spell of the evil arts which were transforming him. 
 He may have been as yellow as he was painted, but 
 he was, no more than Malvolio, as black in his natural 
 mind. 
 
 IV 
 
 IT was significant of Jean Biche's condition that the 
 exalted madman in him never once sought to penetrate 
 the anonymity of either of his tempters. From the 
 moment when he had surrendered his soul to them, he 
 
 M
 
 162 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 felt himself as if carried along on a wild wind of 
 Destiny. When he left the tavern, he had truly meant 
 to kill himself ; it had needed very little to divert 
 his murderous hand to another. Self-destruction is the 
 last resource of the egoist, because it appears the most 
 complete means left to him of wreaking his vengeance 
 on a world which refuses to take him at his own valua- 
 tion. He wants to kill, and, in his monstrous vanity, 
 himself seems the most irreparable loss he can inflict 
 on his fellows. But, his mood being homicidal, it is 
 well for others to interpose no alternative. It is often 
 only accident which makes the suicide instead of the 
 assassin. 
 
 M. Lavolle was careful to apply no febrifuge to this 
 fever of egoism. He put fuel to it, rather material, 
 at discretion ; moral, without stint. He did not want 
 collapsed nerves at the last ; so, whenever he thought 
 he saw a sign of physical exhaustion he prescribed 
 stimulant, and of mental, flattery. All the time he kept 
 himself and his victim apart and incognito, in a little 
 room of The Crowing Cock ; and, before dusk had 
 fallen, on the evening succeeding that of their arrival, 
 he had reason to congratulate himself on the success 
 of his treatment. For by then the last rag of reason 
 had been removed from his victim, and Jean Biche 
 stood dressed up to play his part of Coincidence. 
 
 He never thought or cared to know whence his 
 clothes had come. They had reached the tavern mys- 
 teriously, and they appeared of a quality meet for his 
 essay. They were rich, but unobtrusive purple and 
 black and gold and there was the mask for his face, 
 and the little deadly poignard to be hidden in his 
 bosom, since arms were not allowed to be carried at 
 the Court festivities. He swelled like a turkey, thus
 
 THE KING'S STAR 163 
 
 arrayed. There was a fire in his brain and in his eyes. 
 ' The King, Messire," he said, " once writ a poem to 
 the rogue Ronsard, in which he claimed the command 
 of Death." He struck his breast. " 7 am already 
 greater than the King." 
 
 He believed it, poor wretch. He strutted, and ogled 
 himself in a scrap of glass. What if, after the deed, 
 they were to recognise it, and make him King ? He 
 had an idea already he was striking for his crown. 
 
 Presently, mysteriously as the clothes had come, 
 there were horses waiting at the door, and they 
 mounted and rode off for Paris. Dismissing their 
 steeds in the Rue St. Honore, to one who had sprung up 
 oddly to receive them, they descended, and proceeded 
 on foot, by way of the Rues des Poulies and Petit 
 Bourbon, to the Louvre Quay, where, at the gates of 
 the courtyard, Lavolle halted his companion in good 
 time, just as the links were being lit. He was not 
 for the ball himself, but he had an observation to 
 make, and a direction to give. Very soon the com- 
 pany began to arrive, and it was not long before a 
 group of ten men, all compact, presented itself at the 
 wicket among the crowd. 
 
 "It is they," he whispered, " thy confederates. 
 Secure thine entrance, appearing to be one of them, 
 and afterwards make no sign till the moment comes. 
 Follow, and mark well, and luck go with thee," and 
 he vanished. 
 
 There was a momentary block ; a word and a sign 
 were exchanged, and the next instant, treading on the 
 heels of the Children of Malta, Jean Biche found 
 himself, confident, triumphant, crossing the stones of 
 that yard which, a year before, had swum in the blood 
 of the massacre.
 
 164 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Thence his progress was all an intoxicated dream 
 of shining corridors, jewels and white bosoms, satin 
 that whispered as it flowed, perfumes that stole the 
 senses. And lo ! he was in a great marble chamber 
 whose ceiling, crusted with gold, was upheld by giant 
 women, and whose spaces, lit by a thousand tapers, 
 formed the reservoir into which all this river of 
 splendour was discharging itself. The Salle des 
 Cariatides ! For a moment the assassin's brain reeled, 
 not in any relenting of his purpose, but in terror lest 
 a scene so gorgeous and unfamiliar should bewilder him 
 and paralyse his arm from action. 
 
 They danced the pavane that night, a very stately 
 measure derived from the peacock ; and the Queen- 
 mother, a magnificent old nourrice of a dame, sharp- 
 eyed, firm-mouthed, as upright as a penguin, came to 
 look on. She stood up on the da'is, immensely solid 
 and immovable, clapping her hands- in benevolent 
 condescension, and approving in a full superior voice 
 every more felicitous pose among the performers. 
 But she withdrew early, and then the King, who had 
 been seated apathetic in his chair of State, came 
 down and mingled with his company. He was masked, 
 as all were, and constantly moved among a little cloud 
 of courtiers. His habit was of white satin, and the 
 short cloak dangling from his shoulder was of ivory 
 velvet, and conspicuous for the single diamond star 
 fastened on it. Jean Biche, catching sight of the token 
 for the first time, felt a sudden stab of ice in his heart. 
 It passed, and, in the reaction, he became tenfold in- 
 toxicated with self-importance. The rising tumult 
 of voices, the licence which grew with the hour, found
 
 THE KING'S STAR 165 
 
 their exaggerated response in his brain. As a parrot 
 squawks or a canary sings the louder the more the 
 human uproar swells about it, so, conscious of the 
 growing excitement, his own rose to a delirious pitch. 
 He swaggered until he capered ; he played the gallant 
 in such ridiculous caricatura as to attract the notice 
 and the laughter of those near him. He thought he 
 was making an impression, and so he was ; he thought 
 he was showing his natural fitness for a part soon to 
 be a part of his common experience. He was amply 
 humoured, because, at a masque, antic often hid a 
 meaning. Maybe, too, some rumour had got about 
 of strange company in the hall. Once in his gambols 
 he backed into a young lady somewhat violently, and 
 received for his pains a suspicion of a kick from her 
 attendant cavalier. He turned, mad on the instant, 
 to resent the insult, and saw a plump merry young 
 woman wincing from him. " Beware," whispered a 
 friendly voice in his ear ; " it is the Queen Margot." 
 
 He stood like an angry gawk. 
 
 " Messire," she said saucily, " appears to fancy 
 himself at tennis because there is a ball." 
 
 A burst of laughter greeted her sally, and she 
 moved on. But from that instant his mood changed 
 to one of black and vengeful hatred. He would come 
 to prove to these arrogant coxcombs his title to a 
 better respect. This insolence should be brought 
 prostrate before him. 
 
 Thereafter his fury of excitement burned like a 
 banked-in fire, the hotter and more ominous for its 
 repression. He moved darkly from group to group, 
 sinister, watchful, unclean. A thousand fantastic 
 grievances haunted his wild and wandering fancy, or 
 were gone in an instant to give place to that crowning
 
 166 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 exultation. But, whatever his mood, he never forgot 
 to follow the movements of his victim, or to hold 
 himself prepared for his cue. In these stealthy obser- 
 vations, he noticed a peculiar trick the King had of 
 lifting his hand to his throat, as if it troubled him ; 
 and presently he fell to imitating him in this, with the 
 confused fancy that it might help others to interpret 
 the natural royalty in himself. 
 
 During all this time he instinctively avoided con- 
 tact with his fellow-conspirators. It was his policy, 
 he believed ; and, whenever he identified one or other 
 of the forms he had pursued on his entrance, he would 
 look another way, with even an elaborate affectation 
 of uninterest. 
 
 And it was this fantastic delicacy which, in the end, 
 almost defeated his purpose ; for, happening to turn 
 from a buily, hot-faced cavalier, upon whose heels he 
 had literally trodden at the wicket, he failed to observe 
 that the moment had come, and that the man was 
 actually then on his way to the assignation. 
 
 He gave a mortal start. The great doors at the south 
 end of the hall stood open ; the King had already 
 passed through ; a little group of men was in the act 
 of following. A spiral of fire seemed to spring from 
 Jean Biche's soles and to go roaring up to his head. 
 With his eyes full of blood, going half-blindly, he 
 pushed his way, furiously, impatiently, through the 
 intervening throng. 
 
 " Let me pass ! " he panted. " I belong to that 
 company ! I must follow ! " 
 
 It was a little before the removal of the masks. A 
 pause had occurred in the festivities ; and from here 
 and there about the room small wails and cries were 
 audible.
 
 THE KING'S STAR 167 
 
 " My belt ! " " My collet ! " " My silk cloak ! " 
 All made way for the rude fellow, less interested in 
 him than in the sudden disturbance. But even so he did 
 not gain the door until the last of the conspirators had 
 disappeared through it. The guard, on his applica- 
 tion, passed him by, believing him to be one of the 
 privileged ; the doors closed behind him. He saw a 
 wide and noble stairway rise before him, and already 
 high on it the last of the company he pursued. He 
 did not ask himself on what pretext so many con- 
 spirators had gained admission to the King's private 
 quarters. He was ignorant of the ways of palaces, 
 and it was enough for him that everything corre- 
 sponded with the information given him by Lavolle. 
 Pausing only one moment to gather breath, and 
 secure his poignard in position, he stole catlike up the 
 great staircase in pursuit of his prey. There was no 
 one for the moment in sight. Majesty, with its usher- 
 ing lackeys, Intrigue with its padded footfall, had 
 turned the corner and vanished. Jean Biche followed. 
 He could hardly control the gasp forced from him. 
 For there, standing alone in the short dim-lit length 
 of corridor before his eyes, was the King himself. 
 There was no mistaking the figure, stooping, hectic, 
 with the hand at his throat, and, over its shoulder, 
 the white velvet cloak with the diamond star. Slipping 
 out his blade, Jean Biche took soft steps, one, two, and 
 sprang. 
 
 Charles was delighted with the success of his practi- 
 cal joke. The skill of the Children of Malta, the eclat 
 with which they played their role of fine gentlemen, 
 the magnificence of their ' get-up,' justified their most 
 arrogant boast. Being in the secret, he could follow
 
 168 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 to a certain degree their tactics, and was witness of 
 more than one dexterous " pass." Above anything it 
 astonished him, and sent him into fits of laughter, to 
 observe some mortified exquisites mulcted of their 
 beautiful satin mantlets, and going disconsolately " in 
 their waistcoats like lackeys." He could not under- 
 stand how it was done, or whither the filched property 
 vanished ; and, when at length he had given the signal, 
 and withdrawn his confederates away to his private 
 closet, a question as to this method of theirs was 
 the first on his lips. Perignon, the serenely fastidious, 
 answered him, while his comrades were emptying their 
 sleeves, pockets, and other receptacles of some three 
 thousand crowns' worth of ' swag ' in money and 
 jewels. 
 
 " It is easy, Messire." 
 
 " I know," said Charles. " Un fou avise bien un 
 sage ; but, for myself, I do not see how it is possible so 
 to rob a shrewd man, without his knowing." 
 
 With the word, conscious of a look, he clapped his 
 hand to his shoulder, and burst into a neigh of laughter. 
 His own cloak, diamond star and all, was gone. 
 
 Perignon stepped back a pace, and said, with un- 
 exampled impudence, while he raised his voice : 
 
 " The fool sits here. Behold the King enter ! " 
 
 A scream from without answered him on the in- 
 stant a cry piercing, sudden, mortal. The whole 
 company, thieves and monarch, started, listened a 
 moment, then rushed forth pell-mell. There, on the 
 matting of the corridor, lay Bras-de-Ferule, writhing 
 in the agonies of death, the King's mantlet on his 
 shoulders, a poignard pinning it fast between the 
 blades. And over him stood a masked figure, frantic, 
 exultant, the light of madness in its eyes.
 
 THE KING'S STAR 169 
 
 " I have killed the King ! " shouted Jean Biche. 
 " Long live the King ! " 
 
 His voice wavered even in its utterance. His vision 
 had encountered the living monarch. In that instant 
 his reason returned to him, conscious, overwhelming. 
 He threw up his arms, with a piteous bleat. 
 
 " Poet," he cried, " save thy brother ! " 
 
 With an oath, Mazas the Pounder took a single step 
 forward and struck him full in the face. 
 
 He dropped, never to rise again.
 
 TONY'S DRUM 
 
 SOMEWHERE on the heights of Malplaquet a bugle 
 sang out in the dead exhausted evening. Sergeant 
 Garrow, kneeling in the brushwood below, cursed the 
 whine of it with picturesque vehemence : 
 
 " Why don't ye come and give us a haul, ye bray- 
 ing jackass," he panted, " instead of standing up there 
 and boasting of your wind ? " 
 
 The wail, in its passing, seemed to release the babel 
 of mournful sounds it had for the moment subdued 
 sobbing of wounded horses, crying of wounded men, 
 all flowing over the lip of the plateau above, and 
 mingling confusedly with the wind in the leaves and 
 the rush of a little river, vocal in the thickets deep 
 below. 
 
 It was the evening following that day of dread- 
 ful battle which had cost us twenty thousand lives for 
 the gain of a position not worth negotiating. Our 
 troops could boast that they had won his camp from 
 the enemy for the sake of a night's lodging ; and there 
 they lay in it, their fires spotting the heath, their 
 anguish testifying to their gain. The woods of Laniere 
 and Taisniere under the hill were spilled full of dead 
 men, and sentries almost as torpid watched the cap- 
 tured entrenchments. 
 
 Sergeant Garrow, staggering up the ravine-side with 
 
 170
 
 TONY'S DRUM 171 
 
 a little smitten drummer-boy in his arms, had fought 
 to within hail of the plateau of Malplaquet, when he 
 found that his endurance had reached its limit. He 
 put his burden gently down against a tree, and, half 
 falling beside it, squatted haggardly, his chest labour- 
 ing. 
 
 " Lad," he whispered presently, "I'm spent. I can 
 carry thee no farther, lad ! " 
 
 The boy was beyond answering. He lay huddled 
 among the roots, his drum still slung at his side, his 
 wounded chest exposed. It had been smashed by a 
 round-shot, and his friend's rough surgery had been 
 able to make nothing of the injury. But the doctors 
 were all at work above. 
 
 The sergeant panted as if he would never get his 
 heart again. He could only squat and gasp, praying 
 for help. Presently there came up through the wood 
 an officer, taking the steeps in his torn galligaskins 
 as vigorously as if he had never fought all day. It 
 was Captain Hugomort of the 4th King's Own, a 
 soldier who had the reputation for possessing the 
 toughest rind and the softest heart in all Her Majesty's 
 army. His strength was as prodigious as his humanity, 
 and his cheery ugliness as prepossessing as either. He 
 stopped, leaning one hand against a tree, and breathed 
 himself. The sergeant rubbed his fingers in the grass 
 before saluting. 
 
 " Only a woundy drummer-boy, sir," he said apolo- 
 getically, in answer to the unspoken query. " A bit 
 of a thing ; but beyont me." 
 
 The other nodded comprehendingly. 
 
 " What is he doing on this bloody hill-side of 
 Flanders ? He should have been in bed by rights, miles 
 away in old England."
 
 172 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He stooped, and peered into the lad's white face ; 
 then, as gently as a mother, lifted the little broken 
 body in his arms, and carried it up to the plateau. It 
 was cold September weather, and the camp-fires, after 
 the false heat of the day, were welcome. Hugomort, 
 motioning for room, laid the child down in the heather 
 by one, and bent over him. The sergeant, wearily 
 following, came and stood beside. 
 
 " Dying ! " he said. " No need for a doctor, sir." 
 
 " Who is it ? " 
 
 " Truelove, sir. A main spirited lad." 
 
 Again, far away over the heath, a bugle sounded 
 ineffably mournful the Last Post. The drummer- 
 boy's eyes opened ; his lips moved. Hugomort put 
 out his hand, commanding silence. 
 
 " What is it, my child ? " 
 
 " The drum give it to daddy." 
 
 He could hardly hear the bodiless whisper. There 
 was not a moment to lose. He stooped low, and spoke 
 his faithful promise : 
 
 " Before God I will, manny and with my own 
 hands, if God wills." 
 
 A smile, like a faintest ripple, crossed the boy's 
 face ; his shattered chest rose once, and fell ; his eyes 
 rolled back, and Hugomort got to his feet. 
 
 " Unbuckle it, sergeant," he said, in a subdued 
 voice. " He's gone." 
 
 II 
 
 THE Hugomorts were a race of strong men, but this 
 Captain Roger was an Anak among the Anakim. 
 He was so huge and gristly, it was said, that bullets 
 rebounded from him like peas, and bayonets pricked 
 him no more than thorns. He fought through the
 
 TONY'S DRUM 173 
 
 Marlborough wars, receiving many wounds of a kind, 
 and, after the capture of Douay, accompanied his 
 chief back to England, where, standing enrolled of the 
 heroes, he had to suffer a siege on his own account, the 
 missiles being feminine and multifarious. In the end, 
 to the scandal of his name and of society, he made a 
 ruinous mesalliance ; but that offence, so far as it 
 affects posterity, has long mellowed into the distinc- 
 tion conferred by dead and gone romance. Disgraces, 
 once poignant, become in their remoteness the pride 
 of race, and Mrs. Roger's portrait owns at this day 
 a distinguished position to itself on the walls of the 
 great gallery at Hugomort. It is in an oval frame, 
 and exhibits, at half-length, the figure of a very fresh 
 and blooming young woman, having the brown curls 
 and humid artless eyes of the Kneller convention. 
 She wears loosely on her head a little stone-blue hood 
 surmounted by a straw paysanne, a trifle ' raked,' 
 which sports a primrose-coloured ribbon ; and her 
 right hand presses a bunch of lavender to her bosom, 
 as to the white and fragrant shrine of innocence. Her 
 darker blue bodice is laced and square-cut, showing a 
 frill of smock, and there is a suggestion of pretty wist- 
 fulness about the whole picture which is curiously 
 winning. 
 
 Well, that is the portrait of Betty Truelove, the 
 lavender-girl, who was married to the Captain, when 
 being only a younger son of the younger branch of 
 Hugomort he had little more than his commission 
 to justify his folly. But of that he never repented, 
 claiming, even, a sort of supernatural sanction for the 
 happiness that came to him with the love of his beauti- 
 ful wife. And this is how the thing happened. 
 
 After his return, the Captain, as may be supposed,
 
 174 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 was too much occupied for a long time to think of 
 discharging his commission to the dead drummer-boy's 
 father. But he had by no means forgotten his promise ; 
 and so it chanced that he started at length to vindicate 
 it within a few days of the anniversary of the battle of 
 Malplaquet. He had already ascertained, from the 
 regimental rolls, the address of the home he sought ; 
 and he now rode forth from London, with the drum 
 in a bag at his saddle-bow, bound for the little village of 
 Mitcham in Surrey where the Trueloves lived. He 
 had dressed himself soberly, as befitted the sad occa- 
 sion ; but indeed it wanted more than the dark blue 
 riding-coat, with its deep cuffs and skirts turned back 
 with buff, than the little plain hat and heavy military 
 jackboots which he wore, more, even, than his strong 
 companionable face, to mislead the world as to his 
 natural distinction. He looked the fine gentleman, 
 and was not to be mistaken for a lesser because he was 
 riding with a drum at his knee to fulfil a big man's 
 vow to a trumpery little soldier-thing. 
 
 His way took him by fields, and long rolls of common 
 haunted by Egyptians, and again by fields, to the 
 pleasant village of Tooting, five miles south-west of 
 the City ; and thence a branch road to Reigate brought 
 him at the end of a couple more miles to the place 
 he sought. 
 
 It was a mellow and a glowing day, and Hugomort's 
 soul felt one with the quiet sunshine. How, in the 
 Low Countries, had not these characteristic English 
 sights and sounds haunted him ! the deep pastures, 
 the sweet-breathed cattle, the maidens with skins 
 like apple-blossom and soft merry voices. He drank 
 in the scene as if it were fresh warm milk ; he ex- 
 panded his huge chest, and took enjoying draughts
 
 TONY'S DRUM 175 
 
 of the air, which was as fragrant as if the very pillowy 
 clouds had been stored in lavender. Lavender ! The 
 whole place smelt of it. He remembered now that 
 Mitcham was the lavender-garden of England. Destiny 
 could not have allured him to a sweeter spot. 
 
 At a reputable inn, The Old House at Home, 
 standing about midway in the single long street, he 
 dismounted, and, dismissing his horse to the ostler, 
 entered, carrying his bag with the drum in it, to be- 
 speak a meal and make an enquiry or so. He found 
 the landlord properly communicative, and, over a 
 good rib of beef, asked his simple question as to the 
 habitat of the Truelove family. The answer sounded 
 the first note of a complication. He looked up ex- 
 planatory : 
 
 " I speak of the drummer-boy's father." 
 
 The landlord nodded his head. Every particular 
 of village sayings and doings was docketed and pigeon- 
 holed in that enormous knowledge-box. Even the 
 way he held his hands clasped under his apron sug- 
 gested his possession of secret evidences. 
 
 " Of Tony the drummer-boy's father," he repeated. 
 " It was Tony, the naughty lad, that broke his daddy's 
 heart a'running away to the wars." 
 
 Hugomort's eyes opened. 
 
 " Dead ? " 
 
 " Strook dead," said the landlord. " He never 
 rightly got over it." 
 
 The Captain paused in his eating, and sat back. 
 
 " Let us be clear on that point," he said. " The 
 father Truelove is dead ? " 
 
 " Six months gone," said the landlord. 
 
 " Tony the drummer-boy's father ? " 
 
 ' Tony the drummer-boy's father."
 
 176 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " He died of grief ?" 
 
 " Of grief, sir. A wild boy was Tony, but dear to 
 his daddy's heart. He run away and joined the red- 
 coats. But, a month before they Marlborough wars 
 begun, back he comes, with his fine laced frock and 
 his drum, to say good-bye to his daddy and his sister 
 Betty." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " His daddy was away, sir, over to the great sheep- 
 fair at Dorking, and he never saw him. But that Tony 
 filled out his furlough as befitted him. How he kep' 
 us alive, to be sure a young spark ! I call to mind," 
 said the landlord, looking out of the window, with a 
 glassy contemplative eye, " his thrashing young Jakes, 
 twice his size, to within an inch of his reason, for 
 breaking in his drumhead with an ash stick. Lord, 
 what a boy ! " 
 
 The Captain had resumed his eating. 
 
 " He was killed at Malplaquet," he said. " And his 
 father died of the news ? " 
 
 " It finished him," said the landlord. " He'd been 
 ailing sore, ever since he'd learnt how the boy had 
 come and gone without his seeing him." 
 
 Hugomort cut another slice of beef. 
 
 " Well," he said ; "is there anyone to represent 
 the family at this day ? " 
 
 The landlord gave a snort, sudden and alarming. 
 
 " Charles Truelove, the eldest," he said shortly. 
 
 The guest glanced up, surprised. 
 
 " Why do you speak of him in that tone ? " 
 
 " A devil," said the landlord briefly. 
 
 Hugomort asked for information. He learned, to 
 his interest, the following facts : that the father True- 
 love, early left a widower, had been a prosperous wool-
 
 TONY'S DRUM 177 
 
 stapler in the village, and that, of his three children, 
 Charles, Betty and Tony, the eldest had turned out 
 reprobate, a gambler and falsifier of books, while the 
 youngest, a born adventurer, had slipped from the 
 parental control to follow a recruiting sergeant. Now, 
 it appeared that, the moment the woolstapler was dead, 
 his banished first-born had turned up from nowhere, 
 dropping from the sky like a vulture, to claim his 
 share of the spoil (which was considerable), and that, 
 to the astonishment of everybody, a will had been 
 found, dated before Tony's birth, which, barring a 
 trifling provision for the daughter, left everything, all 
 the profits of which the testator might die possessed, 
 to the black sheep. It was a stunning fact, but indis- 
 putable, and Charles, whom all had supposed disin- 
 herited by a later Will, was in possession of the property. 
 Nor was that the worst. 
 
 " The daughter ? " said Captain Hugomort. 
 
 " Was offered a provision by her brother," said the 
 landlord indignantly, " on terms that would have dis- 
 graced a poplolly ; but she preferred her independence 
 with poverty, and none to blame her. She bides with 
 a cook-maid, once her father's servant, in a cottage 
 nigh to the common, and they eke out a hard living 
 with selling of lavender brooms and sweet water to the 
 travelling folk." 
 
 The Captain, a satisfied man, put down his knife 
 and fork. 
 
 " I fancy she is the one for my money," he said. 
 
 " Anan ? " quoth the landlord. 
 
 " Never mind," said Hugomort. " Bring me a pipe, 
 and a glass of right Nantes." 
 
 He pondered over the story, lazily, while he smoked. 
 It appeared to him that his commission, defeated in 
 
 N
 
 178 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 the male direction, could not be better discharged 
 than in the feminine. Betty should have the 
 drum. 
 
 He was in a curiously impressionable mood, full of 
 fancies sweet and warm. Perhaps the good beef and 
 brandy had something to do with it ; but in addition, 
 it seemed, the spirit of the lavender had got into his 
 senses, and was throbbing there towards some emo- 
 tional expression or demonstration. His brain was 
 steeped, his heart muffled in lavender ; some fragrant 
 personification of the flower appeared to hover on the 
 threshold of his soul, like a little butterfly Psyche with 
 trembling wings. And then suddenly he looked up, 
 and there outside the window stood the very substance 
 of his vision. 
 
 There was a great waggon halted there one of 
 those tilted huge-tyred farm-carts, drawn by six 
 horses, with bell-hung yokes to the hames of their 
 collars, which catered for the humbler class of travel- 
 lers and, pleading softly hither and thither among 
 the alighted passengers, was a young girl, with a 
 basket on her arm and a little phial of sweet water 
 in her hand. She was dressed even as in the picture, 
 and her face was a garden of pinks and roses, a par- 
 terre which seemed to astonish into sudden violence 
 a big semi-military ruffian, in enormous boots, and 
 with a sword hanging from a greasy shoulder-strap, 
 who had alighted with the rest. 
 
 " Curse me pretty," cried this fellow, " if I ever 
 saw a kiss more sweetly invited ! " 
 
 Hugomort did not hear the words ; but he under- 
 stood their import through the little panic scuffle 
 that followed, and hurried out just as the bully had 
 got his arm about the child's waist. He caught the
 
 TONY'S DRUM 179 
 
 fellow by the neck, as a dog catches a rat, and flung 
 him to the ground. 
 
 The swaggerer, half-stunned for the moment, rose 
 the next, with a howl of fury, and felt for his sword- 
 hilt. But the Captain, forestalling him, wrenched 
 away the blade, and, snapping it across his knee, took 
 the ruffian fairly by his scruff and breeches, and lifting 
 him high, rolled him into the waggon, and bade him, 
 on pain of being broke, dare again to lift his hand to 
 an officer and gentleman. Then, leaving the man quite 
 cowed and whimpering, he strode back through the 
 obsequious admiring throng, and, lifting his hat, with 
 the grand air, to the subject of his protection, says he : 
 ' You are upset, my child, and no wonder. Pray 
 accept of Captain Hugomort's escort to your home." 
 
 And she looked up into his strong ugly face, with 
 her wet eyes blinking, and hung her pretty head and 
 went with him. 
 
 Ill 
 
 AND that was how Captain Hugomort found his wife ; 
 but not all at once. At the sweet beginning of things 
 he imposed himself as a lodger on the two women, 
 Betty and cook-maid Hunston, with the professed view 
 of showing them a new way to self-help. They lived 
 in a little old cottage on the skirt of the common 
 where the turn of the road took it, and spent all their 
 working-time in expressing oil from lavandula vera, 
 and distilling it, and treating it with spirits of wine until 
 it sparkled into crystal perfume. Also they made 
 brooms in season of the blossoming heads, and, a little 
 later, sachets of the dried ones ; and out of these, 
 when all was done, they squeezed a margin of profit, suf- 
 ficient, with Betty's small provision, to keep them going.
 
 i8o BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 This was, in fact, an idyll of lavender, having, for 
 its central figure, it seemed, the very Chloris of sweet 
 flowers. So she appeared to Hugomort, all fragrant, 
 all soft, all endearing. He lived in an atmosphere of 
 lavender and loving witchery. But she meant no 
 arts, and was in truth at his mercy. It was a perilous 
 time for her. This god who had come to her in her 
 need ! she might have resisted his noble condescen- 
 sion ; it was his Herculean strength that took her, 
 and at once, by storm. She never thought for a mo- 
 ment of questioning his assumption of a right to protect 
 her. Fortunately for her romance's happy consumma- 
 tion, nobility, drugged and drowned as it was in sweet 
 sensuousness, kept its instinct for cleanness. Maybe, 
 also, superstition helped to support it through a temp- 
 tation or so. 
 
 Well, the Captain, as I say, took a lodging with the 
 two women, and from that moment some curious things 
 began to happen. He did not on the first day mention 
 anything as to the object of his visit ; but he hung the 
 drum in its bag from a nail on the wall of the tiny room 
 allotted him, and slept that night in lavender-scented 
 sheets, and dreamed of lavender eyes, and of lavender- 
 shadowed arms coming about him. And in the morn- 
 ing he woke up, and saw the drum on a chair at his 
 bed-foot. 
 
 He was surprised, of course. He was as sure as 
 sure could be that the thing had been ensconced in 
 its bag when he went to bed. Someone must have 
 entered his room unheard during the night, and re- 
 moved it. But, why ? It seemed a senseless act. 
 He dismissed, however, for the moment the subject 
 from his mind, and got up and dressed. His tiny 
 quarters delighted him, seen in the fresh morning.
 
 TONY'S DRUM 181 
 
 They looked over a little garden, lush with dewy 
 flowers ; and thence flowed the common in grassy 
 billows. And even sweeter and more lovely than 
 remembered dreams appeared his nymph, velvety from 
 slumber. His soul began to throb to her with a 
 sensation it had never yet experienced. 
 
 That day he entered himself into the confidence of 
 both these girls there was something in him that 
 invited women's trust and presently he went out 
 and returned with the drum. 
 
 " What is there about this to invite curiosity ? " 
 he said, holding it forth with a smile. 
 
 They shook their heads guilelessly. 
 
 " Has either of you seen it before ? " 
 
 They looked one at the other enquiringly, and 
 answered, " No," with obvious bewilderment. He 
 was convinced, but puzzled. And then his eyes 
 softened, and his voice, as he approached Betty 
 Truelove. 
 
 " Nay, little mistress," he said ; " but your heart 
 must rally itself to the pain it is my hard fate to inflict. 
 You have seen it, indeed, for it was your brother's." 
 
 She did not move ; but her face flushed, and her 
 throat swelled. Perhaps she had already half antici- 
 pated the truth. " Little Tony," she whispered, and 
 that was all. 
 
 In gentle vein, then, he told them of the battle, of 
 its fortunes and its heroisms, among which he counted 
 very kindly the little drummer-boy's uncomplaining 
 death. " He thought only of his daddy," he said, 
 " and of his sorrowful pride in receiving this last token 
 of his boy's patriotism and affection. Alas ! it was 
 not destined that I should vindicate my promise to the 
 letter ; but to thee, my child, as to love's trustee, do
 
 182 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 I make over its reversion. Take the drum, and 
 cherish it." 
 
 She received the soldierly toy from his hands, like 
 one half blind ; and, as she so held it, he left her. 
 
 Later in the day, confident in his own true sympathy, 
 he ventured to touch upon the subject again, and she 
 opened her heart to him, like a flower to the sun. 
 
 " He was ever his father's love," she said. " He 
 could dare with him as might none else. It was a 
 bitter thing they might not meet when he came to say 
 good-bye bitterest for the elder. The child, like 
 children, was thoughtless, and gloried, as well he 
 might, in his importance. He was always a fighting 
 nature, and resourceful as he was bold. Well I re- 
 member how, the day before he left, he had his drum 
 broke in some quarrel ; but he found means to restore 
 it, the wild clever child. He was a little thing to be 
 killed." 
 
 Hugomort dared to enclose the young scented 
 hand in his. She shook slightly, but submitted. 
 
 " I marvel," he said, like one pondering. " I 
 marvel." 
 
 " At what ? " she whispered. 
 
 " How one," he said, " so infatuated as your father, 
 could so have sinned against the darling of his heart ? " 
 
 She understood him, and hung her head. 
 
 " O ! not sinned," she pleaded. " He must have 
 meant the best. Who could have foreseen the cruel 
 stroke that bereft us in an hour ? " 
 
 " Himself," he answered sternly, and looked at her. 
 " Tell me ; did you never hear talk of a later Will ? " 
 
 She shook her head ; and he passed to other subjects. 
 
 That night he went to bed in love. His passion was 
 like a fever, and kept him awake and tossing. He
 
 TONY'S DRUM 183 
 
 knew that he had discharged his task, and that no 
 reason remained to him to stop. Yet the very thought 
 of going was a torture. She slept, he knew, in the little 
 room against his. O, that the frail wall would mist 
 away and reveal her to his arms ! Yet he cherished 
 her sweet innocence too well to wish it his at any 
 price but the lawful. And what had he to offer her 
 there ? Just his own ugly self and his commission, 
 supplemented by a sorry small allowance. But he 
 must have her somehow he must, or die. 
 
 He hardly slept all night ; not a thing stirred in the 
 little quiet house ; and when the morning stole into 
 his hot eyes, there was the drum standing on the chair 
 at his bed- foot. 
 
 He uttered an ejaculation ; he leapt to the floor 
 and stood staring. Then he went and touched the 
 thing gingerly. Tony's drum not a doubt about it. 
 
 Presently, while he was dressing as in a dream, he 
 heard voices in the garden, mingled of angry and 
 pleading. He looked from the window, and saw his 
 soft goddess bending before the wrath of a lowering, 
 dissipated - looking young man, who reviled and 
 threatened her. His heart flamed ; but, guessing 
 the truth, he forbore for the moment to interfere. 
 But by and by, making an opportunity, he ques- 
 tioned cook-maid Hunston as to the brother. He 
 learned enough to fire his soul with indignation too 
 much and too offending to be set down here in detail. 
 But, briefly, it seemed, the provision originally offered 
 by young Truelove to his sister had been made con- 
 ditional on her becoming the price of silence to a 
 brother-blackleg, who knew enough of Master Charles's 
 past to make his tenure of the present particularly 
 insecure. So it was rumoured, and so believed ; and
 
 184 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 now, it appeared, the persecution was acquiring a 
 fresh virulence through the entry of the Captain him- 
 self upon the scene, and the girl had been taunted 
 and insulted on the score of her supposed protector. 
 Indeed, Mrs. Hunston, with weeping eyes, begged 
 him to spare her mistress by going. 
 
 " I shall do nothing of the sort," he said. " I am 
 going to marry your mistress myself." 
 
 " Dear heart alive ! " cried the girl, and sat down 
 plump upon a chair. 
 
 He saw Betty, who had been avoiding him hitherto, 
 in the garden, and ran out to her. She was making 
 a show of unconcern ; but her lids were swollen with 
 weeping. Yet his first thought was a diversion. 
 
 " What of the drum ? " he said. 
 
 She glanced up at him, astonished, and so away. 
 
 " Was it you brought it to my room last night ? " 
 he demanded. 
 
 She stared at him again, going as pale as a lily, then 
 suddenly began to run. He followed and caught her. 
 
 " It was there this morning," he said. 
 
 " I never put it." 
 
 " Didn't you ? " 
 
 " O ! how could you believe it of me ? " 
 
 " It must have been your friend, then ? " 
 
 " She slept with me. She never moved. I know." 
 
 " What ! were you awake too ? " 
 
 " Let me go. I cannot keep from crying." 
 
 He lifted her in his arms, making nothing and 
 everything of her in a breath, and carried her into the 
 cottage parlour. And there he sat down with her, 
 holding her close. 
 
 " Child, isn't this sudden this love of yours and 
 mine ? "
 
 TONY'S DRUM 185 
 
 She wept, and whispered without coquetry : 
 
 " You give me no chance." 
 
 " You shall be taken away from here, Betty, from 
 the struggle and the shame." 
 
 " Alack ! " she said ; " the shame will go with me." 
 ' You think it shame, then, to be my wife ? " 
 
 She stopped her breath, listening, all at once. 
 ' That was settled," he said, " the moment I saw 
 you in the street. You threw lavender in my eyes, 
 child. It is all a pastoral of lavender, and I have gone 
 into the sweetest garden in all the world for my flower- 
 wife. 
 
 " We have forgotten the drum," he said presently. 
 " It is a strange thing." 
 
 She looked up at him, trembling. 
 
 " You are sure you did not come and fetch it your- 
 self ? " 
 
 " Betty, Mistress ! " 
 
 " In your sleep, I mean ? " 
 
 " Even in my sleep if I had come I could not have 
 gone. Make it sure to-night, at least." 
 
 " If I could be sure it was not you." 
 
 " I have said what I have said. Put it in its bag 
 and sleep safe." 
 
 IV 
 
 INTO the warm ecstasy of Hugomort's dreams crept 
 a strange sound, the far-distant roll of a drum. It 
 seemed to come from a vast remoteness, to swell 
 gradually into a low thunder, and so to fade out and 
 cease. Now, sleeping as he was, it came to him sud- 
 denly that this very night was the anniversary of that
 
 186 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 on which, a year before, he had climbed the hill of 
 Malplaquet to find a little dying drummer-boy stretched 
 among the trees. And the scene rose so vividly before 
 him that in a moment he was there again, toiling up 
 and up, making for the plateau. And even as he 
 reached it, he saw that its heath, far and near, was 
 all sown with blossoms of fire, thick and melancholy 
 as corpse-candles. But not a solitary form of all the 
 wounded and dying remained on the plateau. The 
 place was one vast sepulchral emptiness ; the souls 
 of the fallen were fled ; only the sound of the flames, 
 flapping and reverberating, broke the desolate silences. 
 But, little by little as he gazed, another sound crept 
 into his brain, at first hardly to be distinguished from 
 the fluttering of the fires a throb, a mere pulse beat- 
 ing in the deep heart of stillness. It waxed and grew ; 
 its hurried tremor was resolved into a definite crepi- 
 tation ; it swelled out of the black distances nearer 
 and louder the roll of a drum. For the second time ! 
 Whence and with what purpose was it making towards 
 him ? The fires had died down. Standing in that 
 blind oblivion, a fear, such as he had never yet felt, 
 stole into his heart. The drum came on. Its voice by 
 now was overmastering, hollow and resonant as if 
 sounded in an empty room. 
 
 A room ! With a shock he leapt to instant realisa- 
 tion of the truth. It was a room. He was lying in the 
 cottage all the time, and the sound was in the house 
 in the adjoining chamber outside his door, furious, 
 triumphant, deafening ! God in heaven ! How could 
 they be sleeping through that appalling racket ? It 
 seemed to shake the building ; it increased in volume ; 
 yet he lay as if spellbound, unable to move limb or 
 lid. It came on it was upon him with a final
 
 TONY'S DRUM 187 
 
 thundering crash it passed into his room and at once 
 ceased in a flurry of soaring vibrations. 
 
 In that instant light seemed to flash into the sleeper's 
 eyes, and, with a cry, he broke the spell that held him, 
 and leapt into consciousness. Bright dawn was steal- 
 ing through the window, and there on the chair stood 
 the drum. 
 
 Wild-eyed, his skin still wet with the terror of his 
 dream, Hugomort leapt from his bed, and approached 
 the thing. Its batter-head appeared as if still palpi- 
 tating from the blows rained upon it it seemed to 
 heave and writhe with pain. Merciful Christ ! was 
 something imprisoned within ? In an access of horror, 
 touched with fury, the waker seized his sword, and, 
 severing the straps and cords, wrenched off at a blow 
 the upper hoop, and let it drop to the floor. The 
 drum was empty ; but on the under side of the head 
 revealed ran lines of legal script, footed by a signature. 
 Hugomort dropped on his knees to read. A Will ! 
 
 A Will, drawn, signed and attested in London, 
 revoking all former Wills and codicils, and leaving 
 everything of which the testator might die possessed, 
 conjointly, and with sole reversion to the survivor 
 should either child die unwedded, to Elizabeth and 
 Anthony Truelove, the testator's beloved only daughter 
 and his youngest son. 
 
 And so Tony the marplot made restitution. Fishing 
 among his father's papers, he had found and appro- 
 priated the opportune parchment, to replace that 
 burst by Master Jakes. He knew quite well what 
 he had done ; hence his dying concern to have the 
 document returned.
 
 i88 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 The sequel is to be found in the Hugomort Memoirs. 
 Mrs. Roger, it is related, made a handsomer provision 
 for her scoundrel brother than he had ever designed 
 for her ; but luckily he did not live long to enjoy it. 
 As to the drum, I have told the story as the Captain 
 authenticated it ; but the supernatural business was, 
 of course, discredited by his relations, who attributed 
 the discovery of the Will simply and solely to their 
 kinsman's native shrewdness. In the marriage which 
 followed, he was considered, as inevitably, to have 
 disgraced himself ; but he outlived all that, and 
 quadrupled the small fortune his wife brought him, 
 and made otherwise a big name for himself. But, 
 from first to last, he never, to his renown, addressed 
 his wife on paper but as his sweetest fondest lavender- 
 girl. He had her painted by Sir Godfrey in the dress 
 she had worn outside The Old House at Home, and 
 to this day a bunch of lavender figures in the family 
 crest.
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 
 
 TOHN FIELD'S father had been a man of consider- 
 J able business acumen, a forceful, wide-grasping 
 figure, one of the most noticeable of his time in Capel 
 Court. It will be admitted, I suppose, that luck is a 
 foremost factor in the success of a stockbroker ; but 
 why do some men habitually command it and others 
 fail to ? Putting aside the Buddhistic theory of pre- 
 existence, with its demised rewards and atonements, 
 it would seem as if luck were no other than the definite 
 sum in certain human entities of a multitude of in- 
 herited qualities. One is not lucky because one is 
 virtuous, or has been virtuous in a former life, but 
 because there happens to have come together in one 
 a cluster of ancestral propensities, each congenial to 
 each, and all together forming the character most apt 
 to command luck. 
 
 It is not for me or for anyone to analyse these 
 constituents ; yet somehow, I think, we are instinc- 
 tively conscious of the lucky man when we meet him. 
 Maybe it is that same instinctive recognition which 
 partly makes for the lucky man's luck, inasmuch 
 as we are naturally inclined to invest our trust in 
 such a child of Fortune ; so that after all, perhaps, 
 it is not so much his definite qualities that we are to 
 search for the reason of his success as our own con- 
 fident sympathies towards that in him which virtually 
 ensures success. 
 
 189
 
 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Anyhow, John Field the elder did possess the in- 
 definable something, and he prospered greatly on the 
 strength of it. He was physically big and strong enough 
 to have illustrated the Spanish proverb that ' Good luck 
 gets on by elbowing ' ; but indeed, though a certain 
 genial arrogance characterised his operations, his 
 effective strength lay much more in an infinite fore- 
 sight and grasp of opportunity. 
 
 He lived well and long and died without fuss, 
 leaving his fortune and his business to his only son 
 and partner, John Field the younger. 
 
 Now this John was a man of a very different con- 
 stitution. With no congenital equipment like his 
 father's, he was yet not so much a fool as a failure. 
 While existing and surviving within that protective 
 shadow, he had had no particular reason to suspect 
 the fact ; it was only when he succeeded to his inheri- 
 tance that certain doubts in him grew gradually from 
 misgiving to conviction. 
 
 He was already a man of forty-seven when left alone 
 in the world, by temperament a sybarite and a con- 
 firmed bachelor. He was rather a retiring soul, home- 
 loving, and inclined to the solitary discussion of 
 costly wines and meats. Gastronomy, indeed, may 
 have been called his favourite study, though he in- 
 dulged it with the secrecy of a shy man. So long as 
 his father lived he had accepted unquestioningly, or 
 without apparent criticism, the provisions oif an 
 abounding table ; when committed to his own re- 
 sources, he began to experiment, tentatively and 
 timidly at first, on the fruits of his private observa- 
 tion. He had unobtrusively accumulated in his time 
 quite a little Epicurean library, from The Cook's 
 Oracle of Dr. Kitchener to the Please'm the Butcher
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 191 
 
 of our own day, and this he now disinterred from its 
 omnigenous lurking-holes, and allotted the dusk end 
 of a shelf in the dining-room bookcase. With some 
 nervous diffidence, also, he effected a reform in his 
 menage, and substituted for the capable cook of his 
 father's reign a veritable chef de cuisine an artist 
 trained in the dietetic studios, so to speak, of Voisin's 
 and the Bceuf a la Mode. These temples of gastronomy, 
 with others of their distinguished kind, had always 
 been among John junior's most quietly favoured re- 
 sorts during his rare trips abroad. 
 
 John Field had been well educated. Perhaps, after 
 all, since some sort of mental employment is almost 
 imposea upon one who has been, he simply developed, 
 in cultivating the art of the palate, along his line of 
 least resistance. Education makes us aspire, but it 
 fails in teaching us to what. That, in order to the 
 satisfaction of a vague intellectual hunger, we must 
 find out for ourselves. Some resolve the problem 
 through the eyes, and collect pictures ; sorne through 
 the ears, and study Wagner ; others through the nose, 
 and grow carnations. There is food for taste in each 
 of these, and surely there is also food for taste in a 
 taste for food. Indeed, epicurism may be said to com- 
 mand all tastes, since a good dinner enhances the 
 aesthetic values of all art, whether musical, spectacu- 
 lar, or literary. In the respect of his hobby, therefore, 
 John Field might have claimed distinction as a vir- 
 tuoso. He had as fine a collection of cooking recipes 
 as anyone in the kingdom. 
 
 In person, Mr. Field was a short meagre man, one 
 of those starveling figures whose dimensions of capacity 
 seem hopelessly inadequate to the strain put upon 
 them, and who yet can absorb a Gargantuan repast
 
 192 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 without a sign, moral or physical, of inconvenience. 
 Such paradoxes, however, have their exact antitheses 
 in the minute appetites that amass flesh ; and both, 
 I suppose, turn upon constitution. It takes more 
 dressing to recruit a poor soil than a rich one. In 
 any case, there is nothing more certain than that a 
 glutton is not to be known by his waist. 
 
 Small side-whiskers, large blind-looking blue eyes, 
 an habitual smile, more wistful in suggestion than 
 humorous, a shrinking manner such in John Field 
 comprised the negative features of an uneventful 
 personality. He could not look people in the face, 
 he seemed nervous, timid, and as if always groping 
 among problems whose solution eluded him. Yet, 
 underneath all the shy commonplace and reserve 
 there was something some little blot on the man's 
 soul, a rather appalling little thing it was of whose 
 existence no one even guessed. 
 
 John Field was forty-seven, I say, when he suc- 
 ceeded to his father's coffers and business ; and, 
 despite the fact that he had been for long years a 
 partner in the firm, the latter statement is made 
 advisedly. He had been a partner, indeed ; but for 
 all practical purposes no more than a sleeping one. 
 Within the protecting shadow of that vast personality 
 he had played at speculation, rather, in truth, as 
 children used to play at the game with cards and 
 counters. But, during the whole period of the asso- 
 ciation, he had never once originated, or dreamed of 
 originating, or been invited to originate a move of his 
 own. He had been just the passive instrument in a 
 despotic hand. 
 
 He had been hardly aware, even, of his subservience. 
 Those who are bred in the shadow of power assume,
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 193 
 
 naturally, something of its hue. It was only when 
 stripped of his borrowed covering that he realised his 
 own anaemic nakedness. That he himself, and no 
 other, was John Field and Son came upon him with 
 something the shock of a sleep-walker's sudden 
 awakening to a consciousness of his own lost isolation. 
 
 A friend once told me of an experience he had had. 
 It was on the roof of a crawling omnibus, and the 
 night was dense with fog. Suddenly there was a 
 swerve, a crash, a desperate reining-in. The driver, 
 utterly bemused, had taken the footpath for the road, 
 and had pulled up only timely against a wall of shadowy 
 brick. My friend, thinking it his best policy to alight, 
 descended, and stood a moment to consider his way in 
 the obscurity. During that moment, the driver, re- 
 covering his course, drove off, leaving my friend 
 stranded at what, it occurred to him, was a curious 
 elevation. And then he discovered the reason. He 
 was standing on the parapet of a bridge which crossed 
 some railway at a giddy height. A single step back- 
 wards, and he had gone crashing into eternity. 
 
 Now something of the shock and horror of that 
 experience was John Field's, when the jog of his life's 
 easy routine was exchanged in a moment for a con- 
 sciousness of terrific poising on the verge of an un- 
 guessed-at abyss. He got off the parapet, so to speak ; 
 but his wits from that hour were never perhaps wholly 
 at his command. A constitutional inability in him to 
 think things out increased, until, from dread of itself, 
 it became quite morbid in its character. This, how- 
 ever, was only the case as regarded his official re- 
 sponsibilities. Privately, he remained quite rational 
 in the pursuit of his hobby. 
 
 Unfortunately the two could not be entirely dis-
 
 194 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 sociated, since the official had to supply the substance 
 of the domestic. The firm of John Field and Son had 
 never identified itself with the gilt-edged method of 
 business. It took huge risks and built on huge profits. 
 Wars, loans, taxes, monetary abundance or monetary 
 scarcity, the fluctuations occurring in all human 
 affairs from the fall of a ministry to the rise of a Mahdi 
 where safer firms cautiously exploited the legitimate 
 accidents of such, Fields plunged and won through, as 
 through the waters of Pactolus, breathless but dripping 
 with gold. It was just a question of the Head's 
 genius or of his constitutional luck. He had an 
 inspired way with him which carried daring to a 
 triumphant finish. The thing was personal and not 
 transmissible ; that was its fatal flaw. Its genius once 
 departed, the House remained committed to a policy 
 of brilliancy which it had no exceptional light left 
 to supply ; and in consequence it fell, and swiftly, 
 upon dark times. By quick and quicker process the 
 luck that had habitually characterised its ventures 
 under the old regime came to be not so much diluted, 
 or even ended, as reversed. The fortunes of Fields 
 began steadily to decline, to roll down presently to 
 the accompaniment of a heavy crash or two. And, 
 suddenly, John Field the younger found himself 
 staring aghast at the prospect of ruin. He only, 
 perhaps, began fully to realise his own inadequacy 
 when he realised that amazing fact. He had had so 
 little need hitherto to think for himself that he had 
 failed utterly to grasp his incapacity for effective 
 thought of any sort. 
 
 One morning he sat at his office table, his right hand 
 supporting his chin, his left toying with a pen, his 
 round eyes vaguely contemplating a vision of the
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 195 
 
 things he ought to have done to have reversed the 
 disastrous order of a late settlement. Already he saw 
 himself in imagination "posted" in the great hall, a 
 " lame duck." And then his mind wandered away to 
 a recipe he had just secured for the Docce Piccante of 
 Florence a peculiarly delectable dish which he had 
 long coveted. Had he any right at last to indulge him- 
 self in these ruinous extravagances ? The thought was 
 prostration. He had no more power to forgo his 
 hobby than a drunkard his whisky, a millionaire 
 his free libraries, a magistrate his joke, though he had 
 to pawn his hat to achieve his desire. As he sat, he 
 spoke wistfully, without raising his eyes, to Harding, 
 his chief clerk, who stood near by silently regarding 
 him. 
 
 " This is very bad, Harding. Everything seems 
 to go wrong with us since my father's death. And yet 
 the character of the business remains unaltered." 
 
 The clerk uttered a sound that might have signified 
 protest or assent. In point of fact he could have 
 qualified the statement by a reminder that, though 
 the business remained the same, the Head was different. 
 A fleeting impulse, also, to cite an instance, from 
 sEsop's Fables, of the injury that might be caused to 
 certain members through a disagreement with their 
 principal, he abandoned as too suggestively personal. 
 And yet it would have been a telling illustration. They, 
 the establishment to wit, were being threatened with 
 a loss of livelihood through the gastronomic obses- 
 sions of this well, one of the many names that Prince 
 Hal called Falstaff. 
 
 Harding, a man of mature age and solid conservative 
 principles, had risen to his position more through 
 worth than brilliancy. John Field senior had not
 
 196 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 desired brilliancy in his employes ; he had provided 
 that in himself ; it was the solid reliable qualities he 
 had sought. This chief clerk was, as regarded specu- 
 lative business, almost as incompetent as his present 
 master himself to take the initiative only with a 
 difference. He could not advise where to venture ; 
 but he could tell where not to. That, however, was 
 only a negative instinct, and little in request. While 
 being as much in the confidence of John Field as was 
 possible with so shy a man, he neither imposed nor 
 was asked his opinion on momentous matters. But 
 he saw, had for long seen, how things were going, and, 
 in anticipation of the end, he was putting out cautious 
 feelers towards problematic berths. He did this, to 
 give him his just dues, with no unkind motive. He had 
 a liking for his thewless employer even a respect, 
 though tempered with the business man's contempt 
 for a visionary ; but he felt no conscious capacity in 
 himself for setting the wrong right, and he had the 
 interests of a growing family to consult. There was 
 never any invitation to human sympathy, moreover, 
 on the part of this dull reserve. It was impossible 
 to fathom it, whether for depth or shallowness. 
 
 " Does it not ? " continued John Field, " or does 
 anything strike you as different ? " 
 
 " Only the driving force behind the machinery, 
 sir," said Harding impulsively. The words were out 
 before he could temper them. 
 
 John Field glanced up and down an instant of 
 startled intelligence ; then resumed, more busily than 
 ever, that idle scratching with his pen. 
 
 " O ! " he murmured ; " yes. I think I know what 
 you mean. And yet the rules of heredity, Harding. 
 It ought to be in me somewhere."
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 197 
 
 The clerk was silent, and the restless fingers scratched 
 on, ' blind tooling ' with an inkless pen on blotting- 
 paper, the empty hieroglyphics of an expressionless 
 soul. Presently he began to murmur again, as if in 
 self-communion : 
 
 " Perhaps I have been trying all this time to 
 keep something from myself the fact that others 
 guessed the secret which I trusted to luck to hold 
 inviolate. But where is luck what has become of 
 it ? that is just the question. I know it at home 
 sometimes but not here. Not mental incompetency, 
 but mental limitations yes, that is it, mental limita- 
 tions. And why ? " His head bowed lower, as if in 
 conscious incoherence, and his lips whispered on : 
 " I don't understand ; yet I foresee ; I follow ; but 
 always on the threshold the footsteps die away. You 
 don't guess what it is to hunt eternal chimeras, and 
 then to find something tangible, gross, on which one's 
 intellect can fasten tooth and nail a certainty yes, 
 literally, tooth and nail." 
 
 He ceased, and not knowing where else to look, 
 the clerk's eyes sought the floor. He was taken com- 
 pletely by surprise in the shock of this unwonted, this 
 unexpected self-revelation. There was something 
 wrong here, he thought ; some congenital aberration 
 hitherto unsuspected by him, and which might account 
 for much. 
 
 And, as he stood, he heard a sudden violent sound, 
 and started to the vision of his employer transformed, 
 translated a little suffering agitated figure, sprung 
 upon its feet and apostrophising Destiny in a torrent 
 of emotion : 
 
 " Why is it not in me, my father's genius ? But 
 I say it is, it is, only plugged in stifled behind some
 
 ig8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 monstrous obstruction. I feel it struggling for vent 
 bursting to rend the darkness ; only the barrier is too 
 dense. If I could once force it, once tear a way, my 
 mind would be free to follow its own clues to ends as 
 triumphant as his. They are there, those clues I see 
 them, touch them and they lead me always, always 
 up to the impenetrable wall and there stop. Why will 
 it refuse to be pierced why will it not let me through 
 to the things I follow Harding, why will it not ? 
 It keeps my intellect a prisoner, and doomed eternally 
 to feed on the husks it can gather for its hunger ? 
 Harding ! " 
 
 His vacant eyes were alight, his lean chest heaved, 
 his voice was broken with emotion. It was like the 
 bursting of some immured mental reservoir, never 
 suspected until overflowing. Greatly shocked and 
 concerned, the chief clerk took a step towards him. 
 
 " There, Mr. Field, sir," he said. " Come, come. 
 You are overwrought ; you imagine things ; we shall 
 see our way to an improvement by and by. We have 
 a great deal of prestige to build upon, and we will 
 be more circumspect in the future. Try to command 
 yourself, sir." 
 
 His words, a long habit of self-obliteration, wrought 
 their effect upon the sufferer. Gradually his voluble 
 distress subsided, and he came to speak in a calmer 
 tone. 
 
 " Yes, yes, Harding. I think I am unduly upset, 
 perhaps. Only I understand what no one else does. 
 It is here, all the time " (he put a hand to his forehead) ; 
 " but something intervenes and closes the outlet. If 
 I could only break a way through ; if I could only 
 gather how to do it " 
 
 The other interrupted him : " What you want,
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 199 
 
 sir, is a complete rest for your brain. It is bad for that 
 to force conclusions. Let it vegetate, and they will 
 come of themselves. The green shoot, you know, if 
 watered and not disturbed, will make its way up 
 through the hardest ground." 
 
 " That is very true, Harding very comfortingly put. 
 What shall I do ? " 
 
 "If you take my advice, sir, you will cut the office 
 for a week or two. We can manage without you. Go 
 away to some quiet restorative place, and leave no 
 address with anyone. No correspondence, no worry 
 of any sort." 
 
 " I think I will do as you say. If I do not turn up 
 to-morrow, you will understand I have taken your 
 advice. God bless you, Harding." 
 
 The clerk, leaving the room, shut himself into his 
 own, sat down, and shook his head. " Mad," he 
 thought. " Not totally unexpected, either ; but its 
 suddenness took me off my feet. I must accept this 
 breathing-space to look round me. I'm sorry ; but, 
 whatever the block in his brain, it's likely to stick 
 there. We shall go from bad to worse If I had dared 
 to let him know, there's another crash imminent 
 those B Annuities smoke and ashes. He'll be best 
 away from it all." He hummed awhile, softly tapping 
 his fingers on the table as he pondered. " What can 
 be the psychologic explanation ? That starting on 
 a clue to nothing ; and yet the feeling of a goal ? 
 I wonder if it's true ; I wonder if he really inherits so 
 much of his father as to get on the track of great things 
 that he's unable to develop ? And then his mental 
 refuge if I read him right the intellectual occupation 
 of the table, good Lord ! To ' epicurise ' oneself into 
 oblivion of one's abortive aspirations ! It seems an
 
 200 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 odd way ; but every man knows his own resources 
 best, I suppose." 
 
 It will be observed that, for all his retiring dis- 
 position, John Field had not succeeded in hiding his 
 foible from the world. But Harding was really dis- 
 tressed and perplexed. He foresaw fresh disaster, 
 without having a conception of any means possible 
 to avert it ; and he prayed only that his employer, 
 did he decide to take his advice and a holiday, would 
 read of his loss in the papers, and so spare him, Hard- 
 ing, the pain of having to announce it to him. 
 
 Well, at least, it appeared, John Field had adopted 
 his recommendation and withdrawn into some pas- 
 toral obscurity ; for, for the next week, his place at 
 the office did not know him, nor did he vouchsafe any 
 message or communication whatsoever to give a clue 
 to his whereabouts. And then came the expected 
 debacle. A mortgage bank, largely propped by 
 speculative financiers, stopped payment, and the 
 house of Field was shaken to its foundations. 
 
 Harding steered through the mad waters as well as 
 he was able, but he knew it was only a temporary 
 escape, and that they must end on the rocks. He felt 
 exhausted, hopeless, and he longed for some strong 
 capable hand to take the tiller and the responsibility 
 out of his own. On the morning of the ninth day of 
 his chief's absence, on going into the latter's room for 
 some papers, he saw John Field sitting in his accus- 
 tomed chair. 
 
 To say that he was startled would express in- 
 differently the shock that this unexpected apparition 
 gave him. He had heard nothing of his employer's 
 arrival ; had neither expected him nor been warned 
 by him of his intended return. And then the thought
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 201 
 
 of the inevitable discussion between them made his 
 heart turn suddenly sick. 
 
 " God bless me, sir ! " he exclaimed, falling back 
 a step. " This is a surprise they never told me. 
 Are you better recovered ? " 
 
 " Yes well." 
 
 There was a tone in the voice which answered that 
 Harding had never heard before. It suggested some- 
 how the clearer cleaner enunciation which an operation 
 for adenoids might have induced. And then suddenly 
 John Field turned round in his chair, with a gesture 
 as quick and peremptory as it was unusual. He 
 looked pale ; but the habitual vagueness of his blue 
 eyes was replaced by an odd alertness, which seemed 
 positively to scintillate as if in the glow of some inner 
 fire. 
 
 " Shut the door," he said ; " shut the door, and 
 lock it." 
 
 Harding obeyed mechanically. He felt himself 
 somehow on the threshold of a stupendous revelation. 
 
 " Something has happened," said John Field, as 
 the chief clerk turned to face him again. " I am 
 through, Harding I am through with it." 
 
 " Through, sir ? " 
 
 " The obstruction you know what it is gone." 
 
 " Gone ? But how " 
 
 " It was organic, as I always supposed it to be. 
 Never mind the process more successful than I ever 
 dared to hope. The question now is one of time. We 
 must hurry, hurry, Harding." 
 
 " Demented, at last and completely," thought the 
 clerk. "I understand." Then he pressed out with 
 his hand the trembling of his lips. " Mr. Field," he 
 said, " I must say it, I am afraid. No hurry will ever
 
 202 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 overtake what is gone beyond redemption. Have you 
 not heard ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course, I saw it in the papers. But you 
 talk foolishly when you speak of ' beyond redemp- 
 tion.' Nature, Harding, abhors a vacuum. We cannot 
 lose but she compensates often with disproportionate 
 riches. Cut out the killing canker, and earn life of her 
 tenfold renewed. I have been with her and studied 
 her methods. Let the bank go with the rest. They 
 were the buds sacrificed to divert all growth into the 
 perfect blossom. I have a hundred schemes, under- 
 stood at last, to bring us gold. Only the time is short 
 or may be. We must hurry if we want to reap the 
 harvest. There are plans to formulate arrears of 
 long months to make up. Come here to me." 
 
 All amazed, yet conscious of some compelling force, 
 or atmosphere, the chief clerk obeyed. He still be- 
 lieved his master mad, yet he had no power to resist 
 his will. As he approached, John Field, already bent 
 over his desk, looked up. 
 
 " They never told you," he said, " that I had re- 
 turned. I wished to enter unobserved. I desire the 
 knowledge of my presence to be withheld from all but 
 yourself. These enterprises I have in view they are 
 vast and absorbing, and they need the utmost concen- 
 tration of my mind upon them. I appoint you my 
 instrument and mouthpiece in them all. Say nothing 
 of my initiative ; say nothing of my return ; but be 
 secret and trustworthy. When you seek me I shall be 
 here locked in and alone. Wait upon me quietly, and 
 never concern yourself as to my coming and going. 
 Ruin will ensue upon any failure of yours to respect 
 my confidence. Be faithful, and golden days are in 
 store for us all."
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 203 
 
 Harding, scarcely able to articulate, murmured his 
 assent to the compact. His brain felt giddy. Surely, 
 if here was a confirmation of his suspicion, madness 
 expressed itself in a lucidity, a force of decision, which 
 had never characterised the normal being. Moreover, 
 being but human, that confident promise of wealth 
 rang in his head like a golden clarion. How could he 
 believe it other than a sane promise ? So are we con- 
 stituted. In the light of potential gain, all extrava- 
 gance becomes reason to us. Like one in a dream, he 
 bent above the sitting figure. 
 
 An hour later he issued from the room, closed the 
 door softly, gave a little stagger, and made crookedly 
 on tiptoe for his own sanctum, into which he shut 
 and locked himself. He then deposited a sheaf of 
 papers he carried upon his desk, and sank giddily into 
 a chair. 
 
 " Who could have believed it possible ? " so his 
 thoughts careered. " It has happened it has actually 
 happened and here is the genius of the old man 
 returned upon the house. What did it : what brought 
 it about the bursting of some mental ligature ; some 
 internal explosion, like the purging of a foul tobacco- 
 pipe with fusees ; or some operation was it ? Will 
 he ever tell me ; shall I ever know ? Only it has come 
 to pass that is the astounding thing. These schemes " 
 he put a hand, fondly, tremulously, upon the papers 
 " there is wealth in every one of them foresight, 
 certain calculation, brilliancy. They restore the odour 
 of the past ; they are the John Field and Son of my 
 first knowledge." 
 
 Presently he rose and went about his business. 
 For a week he went about it, and always like a man 
 in a dream. In the markets, while the schemes ma-
 
 204 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 tured, he trod, confident and victorious, the pavements 
 of a golden past ; back in the office he was like one 
 entering the portals of some hushed terrific temple. 
 It felt so to him, he could not have explained why. 
 There seemed always a tremendous atmosphere brood- 
 ing within the familiar place an atmosphere which 
 transformed all things into unreality, and weighed 
 upon the spirits of the most flippant clerks. And 
 during the whole time John Field remained shut up 
 in his room, accessible to him alone, going and coming 
 if, indeed, he ever went unguessed at and un- 
 observed, directing operations, and planning out the 
 harvest for his reaping. 
 
 One day it was the day of all others to witness the 
 first garnering of the ripened crop Harding, coming 
 out from a whispered consultation with his chief, and 
 hearing the door, as usual, locked softly behind him, 
 was aware, as he stood with his fingers yet on the 
 handle, of a clerk advancing hastily towards him 
 down the corridor with a newspaper in his hand. 
 There was a look of terror in the boy's eyes, a scared 
 pallor on his face that arrested the other instantly. 
 
 " What is it, Jessel ? " he said, as the intruder 
 came near. " Good God ! why do you look like 
 that ? " 
 
 " Read, Mr. Harding. See, there, sir." 
 
 He held out the paper, an early evening edition ; 
 his voice shook ; he cleared his throat nervously. 
 Harding, conscious of a vague panic at his heart, took 
 the paper from his hand, glanced at the heading 
 signified, and stood suddenly rigid. 
 
 " Half-way down the last column, sir," whispered 
 the boy ; and Harding, clinching himself to the effort, 
 read :
 
 JOHN FIELD'S RETURN 205 
 
 " Tragic end of a well-known stockbroker. Early this 
 morning a gamekeeper, while making his round of 
 Lord Pamplin's Stanbury estate, discovered the body 
 of a well-dressed man lying in a copse within a few 
 hundred yards of the main road. A revolver was 
 grasped in the deceased's right hand, and every evi- 
 dence pointed to its being a case of suicide. The body 
 had evidently lain where it was found a considerable 
 time, probably a week or longer. At present it remains 
 unidentified. 
 
 " Later : The body has been identified, from papers 
 discovered upon it, as that of a Mr. John Field, a well- 
 known stockbroker in the City. Mr. Field had latterly 
 been staying at the Clayton Arms in Stanbury, from 
 which hostelry he disappeared, without giving notice, 
 some eight or nine days ago. It is believed that 
 financial difficulties were responsible for the unfortu- 
 nate gentleman's rash act, to which he was driven 
 on the receipt of newspaper information as to the 
 failure of certain gigantic operations on the Stock 
 Exchange. Mr. Field is supposed to have gone straight 
 from the inn to the spot where the corpse was dis- 
 covered, and there to have shot himself through the 
 head. Jewellery and money were found intact upon 
 the body, which, according to medical testimony, must 
 have lain undisturbed where it had fallen for at least 
 a week. The inquest is fixed for to-morrow." 
 
 The paper rustled and fell from Harding's hand. 
 
 " That's non," he said thickly ; " lookle, you Jes 
 loo " like a man with incipient lockjaw. And then, 
 clutching first at his throat, he threw himself on the 
 door with a thin scream. 
 
 " Mr. Harding," cried the boy aghast. " What are 
 you doing ? It's fastened. He can't be in there."
 
 206 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Harding snarled round. 
 
 " Did I say he was, you fool ? What have you 
 felt it too ? Are you suggesting ? What if I heard 
 something. I must get in here Jessel, I must. Come 
 and put your shoulder to it." 
 
 Scared, the youngster obeyed. But first he turned 
 the handle. 
 
 " Why, it's not locked ! " he gasped, and opened the 
 door. 
 
 Harding staggered, and came erect. He looked 
 round the room. His face was like chalk, his eyes like 
 grey flints in it. 
 
 " No, it's empty," he said, in a crowing whisper. 
 " Of course it is. It was jus' my fancy jus' my 
 fance "
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 
 
 SOME three years ago two men, both preoccupied 
 in thought, went by one another on Vauxhall 
 Bridge. The next instant, the one making for the 
 Surrey side halted on a subconscious recognition, 
 wheeled about, and, returning hurriedly on his tracks, 
 accosted the back of the retreating figure : 
 
 " Is that you, Gethin ? " 
 
 The other started, turned round, and uttered a 
 pleased exclamation : 
 
 " O, Acheson ! I didn't see you. What good 
 luck ! " 
 
 " Eh ? O, yes, of course ! " 
 
 " I'm on my way to look for lodgings. You can 
 come and advise me." 
 
 The first speaker hesitated, glanced at his watch, 
 and raised a lean anxious face, the lenses of whose 
 spectacles, catching the just kindled lamplight at an 
 angle, looked suddenly like dead, upturned eyes. 
 
 It was a dripping, sodden November evening. Rain 
 fell drearily ; every buttress and lamp-post had its 
 fibrous reflection underfoot, as if the pavement had 
 grown transparent, revealing the deep roots of the 
 things embedded in it. The heavy air floated with 
 umbrellas, like a last swarming of antediluvian bats ; 
 labouring omnibuses were packed to suffocation ; to 
 anyone looking over the parapet, the barges slowly 
 forging through the arches below appeared like sub- 
 
 207
 
 208 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 marines crawling dim and phantom-like in abysmal 
 waters. A dull depressing squalor characterised every- 
 thing the faces of passers-by, the sordid brick of the 
 houses, the streaming windows of the cheap shop- 
 fronts. In the dropping mist of the rain one could see 
 myriads of blacks being slowly precipitated to the 
 pavement. It seemed impossible that a feeling of 
 solidity could ever be restored to the texture of things. 
 
 Acheson looked at his watch again before he returned 
 it to his pocket. 
 
 " Why, the fact is," he said, " I I was going home 
 to tea." 
 
 He was a small spare man, more callow than clean- 
 shaved, with a sensitive neurotic face and a hungry 
 expression. He looked older than his friend, though, 
 as a matter of fact, the two were much of an age, young 
 men of twenty-five or thereabouts. He was as bone- 
 less as the other was compact and strong-ribbed. 
 Friendship could not have offered a greater physical 
 contrast. The handbag which Gethin carried with 
 ease would have weighed Acheson to the earth. Hold- 
 ing that in one hand, and his umbrella in the other, 
 the former had nothing but a foot to kick out in invita- 
 tion. 
 
 " Come and have tea with me ? " he said. " You 
 won't abandon an ancient chum, unassisted, to these 
 wildernesses ? " 
 
 A vision of a cosy fireside in the Wandsworth 
 Road, of a singing kettle, and a dish of hot poached 
 eggs, to be discussed over a volume of Myers's Human 
 Personality, passed wistfully for one moment before 
 Acheson's consciousness. He yielded it, the next, with 
 a sigh. Curiosity, after all, was a dominant factor 
 in his being ; and he wanted to hear what had brought
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 209 
 
 Gethin so unexpectedly from his native Woking to seek 
 lodgings in this unattractive quarter of London. He 
 succumbed, with a feeble grace. 
 
 " O, certainly ! " he said. " Where shall we go ? " 
 
 The other shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 ' Where ? " he said. " I am a stranger a country 
 cousin. I leave myself in your hands." 
 
 Crossing to the Middlesex shore, and chatting some- 
 what spasmodically under the general weight of things, 
 they soon found a humble caravanserai, which was at 
 least good enough to offer them warmth, dryness, and 
 a sufficiency of creature comfort. But they were both 
 men of small means, and accustomed to accept the 
 amenities of existence as they could afford them. 
 
 It had been in the mind of each, perhaps, to post- 
 pone all intimate discussion until they were thus snugly 
 ensconced and isolated ; but, now that the moment was 
 come, a mutual consciousness of something difficult 
 and rather barren in the situation stepped between. 
 They talked, after the first brief exchange of en- 
 thusiasms, in that rather forced galvanic way which 
 often characterises the re-meetings of once intimate 
 friends, whose interests and sympathies have long 
 ceased to be one. Goodwill could not quite restore a 
 confidence which had been largely due to circumstance 
 and environment ; nor could the fire of an ancient 
 devotion penetrate through this distance of time with 
 more than a very qualified warmth. As they secretly 
 recognised the shadow, Gethin and Acheson yielded 
 themselves a little sarcastically to its chill. 
 
 They had once been fellow-draughtsmen in a local 
 
 architect's office, and Acheson had been the first to 
 
 break away. That was some five years since, when a 
 
 measure of interest, together with his own personal 
 
 p
 
 210 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 tastes and qualifications, had procured him the post 
 of free-librarian in an important London centre. That 
 was the best he had coveted, or ever intended to covet. 
 He had no ambitions, but a vast psychologic curiosity, 
 and the post assured him a perpetual sufficiency of the 
 means to feed his intellect, and keep his body going. 
 Years of study had not tended, perhaps, to qualify 
 him for the continued friendship of the athletic, some- 
 what grim young giant by his side. He was painfully 
 conscious of the fact as he glanced furtively from time 
 to time at Gethin's face, and calculated the effect upon 
 it should he suddenly rise and declare the necessity of 
 his getting on homewards. 
 
 " You haven't told me yet," he said presently, in 
 his high, rather strained voice, " what has brought 
 you from home, looking for lodgings in this particular 
 part of London ? " 
 
 " Why not this as well as any other, Acheson ? " 
 
 " O, well, if you put it that way, really I don't 
 know." 
 
 Gethin laughed. 
 
 " As far as I know my London geography, it's handy 
 for me." 
 
 " ! " said Acheson. " Why is it ? " 
 
 Gethin laughed again annoyingly. He was rather 
 inclined to that form of humour which sees fun in per- 
 fectly natural ignorances. 
 
 " Isn't Victoria Street in this neighbourhood ? " he 
 said. 
 
 "Yes; but " 
 
 " And isn't Wrexham's in Victoria Street ? That's 
 to be my office for the future I hope." 
 
 " Architects ? " 
 
 " Yes, architects."
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 211 
 
 ' You've left Pettigrews, then ? " 
 ' Yes, I've left them. What was there to keep me, 
 when a better berth offered ? I've had to wait longer 
 for one than you." 
 
 " Well, I can only hope it's as satisfactory, now it's 
 come." 
 
 " O, as to that, old man, my ambitions always widen 
 with my prospects ! But I'm only on probation for 
 the moment. It's an opportunity, and well, I've got 
 to find lodgings for a month." 
 
 " If you want an inexpensive quarter " 
 
 " I do." 
 ' Then this is certainly as good as any." 
 
 " So I supposed. But there was just one other 
 reason ridiculous, but enough to influence me." 
 
 " What was that ? " 
 
 Gethin leaned over the table, his arms crossed, a 
 curious smile on his face. 
 
 " Acheson," said he, " do you still make a hobby 
 of all that supernatural business ? " 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by a hobby. I 
 assume the necessary interest of the subject to any 
 intelligent mind." 
 
 "I see. You are still a corresponding member of 
 the Psychical Research Society ? " 
 
 " O, yes ! " 
 
 " Well, do you know you gave me quite a turn, 
 meeting me on the bridge like that." 
 
 " Did I ? Why ? " 
 
 " Because, as it happens, a friend and neighbour 
 was the last person who met my father before he dis- 
 appeared for ever and it was on Vauxhall Bridge." 
 
 Acheson nodded surprisedly, but he was patently 
 not much impressed by the coincidence.
 
 212 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " O, I don't say there's anything in it," said Gethin ; 
 " only it struck me. It was the memory of that first 
 meeting, in point of fact, which led me, absurdly 
 enough, perhaps, to seek this way round to my im- 
 proved fortunes. He was going to look for work, too. 
 I dare say you remember something of the story." 
 
 " Something. Tell it me again." 
 
 " There's not much to tell. It's fifteen years ago, 
 and I was a boy at the time a boy at school. We 
 had been in fair circumstances, and then it all stopped 
 suddenly. Canstons, the big Army contractors, 
 smashed up, and my father was in it, and his savings 
 were in it. We were near ruined, in fact, and I don't 
 think my mother took it very well. Between our- 
 selves, there were scenes at home. He left that, at 
 last, on the chance or offer of work in London went 
 off one day after tiffin, and never turned up again. 
 From that moment to this we have never set eyes on 
 him, or gathered by so much as a word a clue to 
 his whereabouts. He just disappeared from mortal 
 ken." 
 
 He paused, and there followed a short silence. 
 
 " They vanish sometimes," said Acheson presently. 
 " There have been authentic cases." 
 
 " Relations came forward," continued Gethin, as if 
 he had not heard him ; "I had to put my young 
 shoulder to the wheel, and we scraped along. But it 
 was funny." 
 
 " Was he have you any reason " began the 
 
 librarian ; but the other took him up. 
 
 " The last man in the world to commit suicide a 
 cheery soul, like his son ; indomitable, I might call 
 him, without conceit. Besides, the neighbour who 
 saw him, who met him on that bridge, testified to his
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 213 
 
 buoyant, hopeful mood. He was on his way then, like 
 myself, to look for lodgings. Acheson " he bent for- 
 ward very earnestly, and touched his friend on the 
 arm " it was a wet November evening, like this." 
 
 He waited for the inevitable comment, a little sur- 
 prised that his friend did not immediately respond, 
 as expected. Acheson chewed the offered coincidence 
 again, reflective ; and his verdict once more was that 
 it was untenable. 
 
 " If my studies teach me anything," he said, " it is 
 the folly of jumping in such matters to hasty conclu- 
 sions. A tempered scepticism is the first equipment 
 of your rational psychist. Coming from Woking, 
 if you don't go on to Waterloo, you must get out at 
 Vauxhall. In electing deliberately to do so, you made 
 your own coincidence." 
 
 " But the date and the^weather, man ? " 
 
 " Both suggested that course to you. Now, if some 
 accident had turned you out at " 
 
 " And the meeting on the bridge ? " 
 
 " No analogy whatever. You have asked me to 
 help you to find lodgings, you see ; and, if you are 
 serious " 
 
 " You bet I am. / don't want to vanish, like the 
 baseless fabric of a what-d'ye-call-it." 
 
 " You see ? localised from the outset. No ; depend 
 upon it, Gethin you'll forgive my saying it there 
 was some perfectly human and natural explanation 
 of your father's conduct." 
 
 " O, of course, you mean some discreditable attach- 
 ment. I shouldn't have believed it of him, but I con- 
 fess that that's the view my mother took." 
 
 " H'm, I take it for granted that every enquiry " 
 
 ' Yes, yes. 0, yes ; of course ! "
 
 214 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He answered a little impatiently, and sat frowning, 
 and drumming his fingers on the table. 
 
 " Well, if you are ready," he said suddenly, look- 
 ing up. 
 
 " Quite ready," said Acheson, with a sigh of relief, 
 and got to his feet. 
 
 Gethin paid the reckoning, lifted his bag thought- 
 fully, and they passed out into the street together. 
 Swift darkness had descended while they loitered, and 
 the rain was falling more hopelessly than ever. There 
 was no wind, but the air was opaque with a very fog 
 of water, through which the flare of the shops and the 
 jets of the lamps burned with a dull miasmatic glow, 
 which, hi the light of passing vehicles, seemed to be 
 constantly throwing off from itself a multitude of little 
 travelling globes, which sped on like fen-candles into 
 the murk, and were one by one extinguished. The 
 houses looked gigantically tall and unreal ; there was 
 little human in suggestion about the shapes of the 
 few foot-passengers, as they hurried past them, muffled, 
 grey and dripping, into their dreary selves. Gethin 
 gave a gasp of disgust. 
 
 " Look here," he said ; " I'm lost. I hold by you 
 to convoy me into some harbour of refuge." 
 
 Acheson considered a moment. 
 
 " There are plenty enough of every sort," he said, 
 " both right and left. It's a heterogeneous quarter. 
 Mansions rub shoulders with dosshouses hereabouts. 
 But we must strike a line and take our chance. Your 
 first point is a lodging for the night. If it doesn't 
 suit, you can look again to-morrow. Supposing we 
 turn down here for an experiment. It's sure, by its 
 looks, to reveal a harvest of lodging-cards as thick as 
 blackberries. Shall we go ? "
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 215 
 
 " 0, anywhere ! " said Gethin, in a depressed voice. 
 
 They turned into a blank little street, making in the 
 Horseferry Road direction. Quiet and dismality 
 swallowed them almost on the instant. The sound of 
 traffic died down behind them ; their own footsteps 
 spoke louder ; the rain and the fog claimed them to 
 complete isolation. Not a creature seemed to be 
 abroad here ; and the squalid ranks of houses they 
 passed were, for the most part, lightless and lifeless 
 in suggestion. They plodded along, painstakingly 
 scrutinising the fronts. The crop of cards, if it had 
 ever existed, was gathered or rotted away. Not a 
 casual invitation greeted their groping eyes ; but, 
 one by one, as they advanced, the recurrent lamps 
 brightened to a nucleus, made dismally emphatic the 
 meanness of their surroundings, and drowsed and 
 dulled again as they fell behind. They turned off at 
 an inviting angle, and again turned, and yet once 
 more. 
 
 " Where are we ? " said Gethin suddenly. 
 
 His companion stopped. 
 
 " Why, that's the funny part of it," he said, in a 
 most unhumorous voice. 
 
 " You don't know ? " 
 
 " The rain and this obscurity are so very confusing," 
 pleaded Acheson. " If we could only find a policeman, 
 now " 
 
 They stood, as he spoke, at the corner opening of a 
 frowsy, melancholy little square, with a patch of 
 degraded garden in its midst at least, so it looked. 
 Opposite them was the blank side-wall of a house 
 the first, it seemed, of a terrace. A street-lamp diffused 
 its melancholy halo at the kerb of the pavement 
 hard by.
 
 216 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Perhaps the name's written up there," said Gethin. 
 " I'll go and look." 
 
 He crossed the splashy road, and went round to the 
 front of the house. 
 
 " Here we are," he called across to Acheson. " Come 
 over. A chance, anyway." 
 
 Acheson followed and stood beside him. 
 
 " Where ? " he said. 
 
 The light from the lamp fell full upon the corner 
 house. It was one of a four-square terrace, as they 
 had supposed. A shallow flight of steps led up to its 
 door ; the sill of its ground-floor window stood about 
 level with the tops of the area-railings in front. 
 
 " ' Lodgings for a single gentleman,' " said Gethin, 
 " and a reassuring light behind the blind. It doesn't 
 look too pretentious. Shall I try ? " 
 
 " Lodgings ! " said Acheson stupidly. " There ? " 
 
 " Can't you see it ?" answered Gethin impatiently. 
 " Shall I try, I say ? " 
 
 " O, there's no harm in trying," said Acheson. His 
 voice sounded quite strange to himself. 
 
 With something of a flounce, Gethin ran up the 
 steps. As he did so, Acheson backed to the lamp-post, 
 and put an arm involuntarily about it. Standing thus, 
 the falling curtain of light dazzled his eyes, and blinded 
 them for the moment to what followed. He was 
 aroused by hearing his friend speak close beside him. 
 
 " It's all right. She can* take me in provisionally, 
 anyhow. I'm about done, and I shall chance it. 
 What's the matter with you ? Has the tea got into 
 your head ? " 
 
 Acheson came away from his support, reeling a little. 
 
 " No, no," he said. " I'm glad I won't detain you." 
 And he fairly bolted away into the darkness.
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 217 
 
 Gethin looked after him a moment ; then shrugged 
 his shoulders, and turned to his new quarters. " Poor 
 old Peter," he muttered. " What's come to him ? I 
 don't believe he's quite all there." 
 
 His landlady was waiting for him at the door. She 
 was a little lean woman, haggard to deathliness. The 
 wolf of hunger, it was evident, had gnawed her ribs 
 and nozzled in the blue places of her eyes. She was 
 all spoiled and drawn in appearance, and her voice 
 was as lifeless as her face. She motioned him into the 
 hall, coughing in a small distant way. 
 
 He entered, with a cheery stamp. Half-perished 
 oilcloth was on the floor, and a cheap paraffin-lamp 
 burned sickly on the wall. 
 
 " A beastly night," he said. " Which way, Mrs. 
 Quennel ? " 
 
 She took the lamp from the wall, and, holding it 
 high, revealed the foot of a squalid stairway going up 
 into darkness. 
 
 " On the first floor, Mr. Gethin," she said, holding 
 her other hand before her mouth to cough. 
 
 He followed her up, commanding his nerves with 
 an effort. Fatality had evidently appropriated to 
 him a refuge in the last stage of decline. But it was 
 a refuge, and cheap. 
 
 He was satisfied so far. The room was poor, and 
 its appointments refined to attenuation. But the 
 linen on the little iron bedstead was fresh, and the 
 small grained washing-stand scrubbed to barrenness. 
 There were a cane-bottomed chair or two, and some 
 dingy lithographs on the walls. 
 
 " A sittin'-room ? " said the landlady weakly, 
 behind her hand. 
 
 " We'll discuss that to-morrow," answered Gethin.
 
 2i8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Meals ? " 
 
 " Not now," said the lodger. " I'm going to turn 
 in and go to sleep, early as it is. I've had a tiring 
 day." 
 
 She went to strike a light and kindle a candle on 
 the little dressing-table. Her movements were as 
 bodiless as her voice. Gethin, watching her blankly, 
 was urged to ask a question : 
 
 " Any other lodgers ? " 
 
 She turned, with the lamp again in her hand. Her 
 fragment of a face appeared, in its glow, to jerk and 
 waver in the oddest way. 
 
 " One, Mr. Gethin," she said. " But he keeps to 
 his room when he's at home, and locks it when he goes 
 out. You won't be troubled by him." 
 
 He was about to disclaim any arriere pensee in his 
 enquiry, but desisted in sheer depression. He wanted 
 somehow to get rid of her, and be alone. She chilled him . 
 
 And, almost before he realised it, she was gone, 
 and the door shut. 
 
 He undressed wearily, extracted his nightshirt from 
 the bag, and dived under the sheets. They were thin 
 but innocuous. Then, leaving, for some unconfessed 
 reason, his candle burning by his side, he settled him- 
 self to sleep, and opened his eyes again suddenly, with 
 a start. 
 
 " She called me by my name," he whispered, " and 
 I'll swear I never told it her ! " 
 
 In the discussion of that amazing problem, his mind 
 swayed, flickered, and suddenly went out. Health 
 and bodily fatigue were on his side, and he sank into 
 a profound sleep. 
 
 He was awakened suddenly it might have been 
 after many hours by a consciousness of voices mur-
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 2iy 
 
 muring in his neighbourhood. Alert on the instant, 
 he sat up, in immediate possession of his full faculties, 
 and waited, listening. Two people, he was convinced, 
 were talking just outside his room door one, his 
 landlady ; the second, by his full hoarse intonation, 
 a man. Gethin held his breath. 
 
 " My God," the deep voice was saying, as he first 
 realised it, " I daren't do it ! " 
 
 "Be a man ! " answered the other, shrill and 
 sibilant, fearful in its tenseness. " Break it in before 
 it's too late, and save us from death and ruin ! " 
 
 " I daren't," repeated the former speaker. " It 
 might happen on the moment. I'll go for the police. 
 Come away, Martha, in God's name ! " 
 
 " And leave the new lodger ? " 
 
 " I'll wake him first." 
 
 Gethin sprang out of bed, as the door was flung 
 wide ; and there was the figure of a great, white- 
 faced, shadowy man standing in the opening. Wild 
 fear was in his eyes, entreaty in his shaking hands. The 
 lodger had only time to notice that he was bulky in his 
 build, in suggestion something like a respectable ex- 
 butler, and that he was in hat and overcoat, when the 
 figure had withdrawn, and was appealing to him from 
 the outer darkness. 
 
 " Come along, sir, in God's name, and run for it ! " 
 
 On the instant Gethin was out, and in the passage. 
 Breathing, sobbing, palpitating forms seemed to urge 
 and shoulder him this way and that. 
 
 " What is it ? " he cried. " What's the matter ? 
 I don't know where I am I don't know what you are 
 talking about ! " 
 
 ' You'll soon know unless you hurry up," said the 
 man's quavering voice in the darkness.
 
 220 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Gethin, groping out, felt the wall, and put his back 
 against it. 
 
 " I'll not move," he said loudly, " until I know what 
 all this means ! " 
 
 The woman's thin hurried voice took up the tale, 
 small and toneless, as if she were speaking the other 
 side of glass : 
 
 " It's Danby, the lodger, sir. He's one of those 
 dynamiters, it seems. We never knew or guessed he 
 kept himself so secret in his room, and locked it when 
 he went out. He was arrested this very evening, with 
 an infernal machine in his possession. George, my 
 husband here, saw him taken with his own eyes." 
 
 The wall felt suddenly cold against Gethin's back. 
 
 " What dynamiters ? " he said. " I didn't know 
 there were any of them about now." He set his teeth. 
 " But in any case," he added, " if he's taken, he's 
 taken, and there's an end of him." 
 
 The woman trembled on : 
 
 " The thing, it seems, sir, went by clockwork 
 and there's a ticking going on in his room now. You 
 can hear it quite plain if you put your ear to the 
 door." 
 
 Gethin laughed on a rather hollow note. 
 
 " Is that all ? Why, you don't suppose, even if it 
 was true, that he would go out and leave one of those 
 things maturing in his absence ? " 
 
 " Some accident may have started it, sir a rat or 
 a mouse. There's plenty hereabouts." 
 
 "Come," said Gethin decidedly; " we'll break in. 
 That's nonsense, you know. If he was such a fool 
 
 " They're all fools, sir." 
 
 " We'll break in, I say. Where's that big husband 
 of yours ? Now, Mr. Quennel ? "
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 221 
 
 " I won't go near it ! " said the hoarse frightened 
 voice from the stairhead. 
 
 ' Then, here goes," said Gethin. " Where's the 
 room ? " 
 
 He came away from the wall felt himself quickly 
 and softly induced, rather than directed, towards a 
 door. Touching it, he bent his ear, and listened. Sure 
 enough, a little sharp regular pulsation came from 
 within, indefinite in quality, but quite appreciable hi 
 that still fog-ridden house. 
 
 " It's inconceivable," he whispered, " but we'll soon 
 solve the mystery." 
 
 The lock was a cheap affair ; the door, which 
 opened inwards, of the flimsiest ; the lodger muscular. 
 He put his broad shoulder to the essay, and, getting 
 purchase with his bare feet, bore on the wood with 
 one mighty heave. There followed a crack, a ripping 
 sound, and, to Gethin, a sudden wink of light and a 
 jerk nothing more. But the sensation was so instant, 
 and so physically and mentally disintegrating, that, 
 for the moment, he could conceive no thought of him- 
 self but as a sort of pyrotechnic bomb, which had been 
 shot into mid-air, had burst, and was slowly dropping 
 a multitude of coloured stars. These, as they fell, 
 went out one by one, and, with the quenching of the 
 last, consciousness in him ceased altogether. 
 
 Somebody was speaking to him ; some application, 
 distinctly physical in its nature, was being made to 
 his body. It felt like a boot. He opened his eyes lan- 
 guidly, and encountered the vision of a face bent above 
 him. It was an official face, and mature, surmounted
 
 222 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 by a blue helmet, and the expression on it was un- 
 sympathetic, not to say threatening. 
 
 " Come, sir, what are you doing here ? " said the 
 police sergeant. " You must get up, please, and give 
 an account of yourself." 
 
 Gethin, accepting the offer of a proffered arm like 
 a bolster, scrambled to his feet in a hurry. He under- 
 stood on the instant what had happened. The bomb 
 had actually exploded as he broke in the door, and he 
 had been knocked insensible. A mercy, at least, that 
 it was no worse. He clung on to his support a little, 
 feeling somewhat dazed and shocked. It occurred to 
 him, then, with a thrill of gratification, that he must 
 have the constitution of a cat, not only to have sur- 
 vived that appalling experience, but to be standing, 
 as he was, in his normal condition of body. And then 
 something tickled him suddenly, and he lapsed into 
 a shaking giggle. To have been asked to give an 
 account of himself sounded so inexpressibly funny 
 under the circumstances. It was as if he had manu- 
 factured the bomb. But, in the midst, the element of 
 tragedy in the business struck and sobered him. He 
 backed, and shook himself into reason. 
 
 " What about the other two ? " he said. " Are 
 they hurt ? " 
 
 " Eh ? " said the officer blankly. 
 
 " The others," persisted Gethin " the landlord and 
 his wife, who were with me when I broke open the 
 door ? Are they maimed mutilated ? Good God, 
 man ! they aren't killed ? " 
 
 The sergeant, curiously contemplative of the speaker, 
 stood, one thumb hooked into his belt, the other 
 hand slowly fondling his chin. 
 
 " If I was you," he said at length, thoughtfully
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 223 
 
 and oddly irrelevantly, "I'd take a red-herring and 
 soda-water for my breakfast." 
 
 Gethin stared, flushed, and put the question a second 
 time : 
 
 " I ask you, are they killed ? " 
 
 " O, yes ! They're dead all right dead and buried, 
 too." 
 
 " Buried ! " 
 
 Gethin clapped a hand to his head. Had he been 
 insensible longer than he supposed ? But, in that 
 
 " When ? " he asked faintly. 
 
 "It will have been in '85," said the officer, watchful 
 of him. 
 
 Gethin's brain seemed to stagger, and recover itself 
 with a crick. For the first time a sense of something 
 unspeakable in his surroundings was beginning to pene- 
 trate it. Weak dawn, while he lay, had come into the 
 house, revealing its structure. Now, in a moment, he 
 understood that there was more of that visible than 
 was compatible with decency or reason. The whole 
 interior of the building, seen from his place in the 
 passage, seemed a shattered ruin. Walls were broken, 
 ceilings torn, doors sprawling dismembered, lights 
 blown out of windows, stair-rails snapped, black 
 abysses formed in the flooring. All that, in itself, was 
 comprehensible. The odd thing was that an inde- 
 scribable air of antiquity seemed to characterise the 
 wholesale dilapidations. 
 
 " This house was blown to pieces," was all he could 
 think of saying. 
 
 " Blown to pieces," echoed the sergeant ; and added 
 remonstrantly : " Come now, sir, pull your wits 
 together ! "
 
 224 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " When ? " said Gethin. 
 
 " Fifteen years ago, to a day." 
 
 " To a day ? " 
 
 " To a day. I ought to remember. I was on duty 
 hard by at the time." 
 
 Gethin felt suddenly sick. He leaned back against 
 the wall. 
 
 " I suppose I got muddled up in the fog," he said 
 faintly, " and took refuge in this house, and went to 
 sleep and had a dream." 
 
 " That was it, sir, no doubt," said the sergeant en- 
 couragingly. 
 
 " Untenanted, eh ? " said Gethin. 
 
 " Avoided like," said the sergeant. " It's never got 
 cured of its bad name." 
 
 " For fifteen years ? Great God ! " 
 
 He came away from the wall. 
 
 " I think I should like to get out of it into the air," 
 he said. 
 
 " There's your bag and umbrella," said the officer, 
 " at the door of that room. Ain't you going to take 
 them ? " 
 
 He accompanied Gethin down the stairs. In the 
 lower quarters, age-long dust and grime showed visible 
 on all sides. The very edges of the shattered panes 
 were green with decay ; canopies of cobweb festooned 
 the ceilings. Gethin breathed out a volume of relief as 
 he found himself in the square, looking up awestruck 
 at the blackened deserted building. 
 
 " How did you suspect me ? " he asked the ser- 
 geant. 
 
 " Saw the front door ajar, and muddy footsteps 
 going through the hall and up the stairs." 
 
 " You think I was drunk, don't you ? "
 
 THE CORNER HOUSE 225 
 
 " We'll call it a bit taken, sir." 
 
 " A small offence ? " 
 
 " Very like," said the officer drily. " I hope you 
 enjoyed yourself." 
 
 Gethin, biting his lip, looked at him a little pallidly. 
 
 " I wish you'd tell me," he said. " Who was it blew 
 that up ? " 
 
 " Name of Danby," said the sergeant promptly, re- 
 lieving his throat and coming erect again : "a dyna- 
 miter, one of the 'eighties lot. He was the cause of it, 
 anyway left a charged machine working in his room 
 there, while he went out to deposit another, a blind 
 one, which he'd picked up by mistake. They arrested 
 him with it on him." 
 
 Gethin found a momentary difficulty in asking his 
 next question : 
 
 " Any lives lost here, I mean ? " 
 ' They accounted for three," said the sergeant ; 
 " those two Quennels that you spoke of, and a third, 
 unidentified. He was supposed a chance lodger ; 
 but he was mutilated beyond recognition, and none 
 ever claimed him. They say you can see the marks of 
 his blood on the wall now. I don't know ; I never had 
 the curiosity to look." 
 
 " Thanks," said Gethin. He turned away, quite 
 white. " I don't know where I am," he said. " I sup- 
 pose you won't mind taking half a crown to put me on 
 my way, and in recognition of your services ? " 
 
 Weeks later, Gethin ran across Acheson in Victoria 
 Street, and accosted him. Acheson had a queer look 
 to greet him with, guilty and anxious in one. 
 
 " Probation satisfactorily over ? " he asked. 
 Q
 
 226 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " That's all right," said Gethin. " I stopped you 
 to tell you something, and to ask a question. I've 
 found out what became of my father." 
 
 Acheson gasped, and murmured something in- 
 articulate. 
 
 " Acheson," said his friend, " what was the matter 
 with that corner house the other night ? " 
 
 The large spectacles seemed to disc as Acheson 
 looked up. 
 
 " Don't you know, Gethin ? " 
 
 " What did you see in it, I say ? " 
 
 " Why why, I didn't see what you saw, that's all." 
 
 " Not the lights and the bill ? Well, good-bye, 
 Acheson." 
 
 The librarian ran after him. 
 
 " Gethin ! Would you mind telling me ? The 
 P.R.S. I'm a corresponding member I 
 
 Gethin shook him off good-humouredly : 
 
 " Not a bit of it, my friend. You lost a rare chance 
 of securing evidence at first-hand when you deserted 
 me so basely that time. You're not a practical psy- 
 chist, Acheson too much of the tea-and-crumpet 
 ghost-seer about you. You prefer to take your spirits 
 on trust. Besides, you libelled my father. Good- 
 bye ! "
 
 THE HAMADRYAD 
 
 JUST outside Winton in Hampshire, if you leave 
 the town due west, you come, climbing all the 
 way, to a scarce noticeable bifurcation of the road, 
 the right prong of which is nothing less than the 
 original Roman thoroughfare to old Sarum. Making 
 straight, after its kind, for its destination, this antique 
 track (for it is little more at this date) conducts you 
 from the outset into an immense solitude of downs, 
 over which it passes in a long series of dips and rises, 
 now by grass, now by hedgerows, until, at some three 
 miles distant, it runs into timber very quiet and re- 
 mote. Here is the wood of Lament, notable for its 
 strange flowers and insects, for its grassy glades and 
 tangled coverts. These are nowadays jealously ' pre- 
 served ' ; but in the time of which I write which 
 was many years ago a kindly tolerance admitted 
 to their peaceable enjoyment all who were indisposed 
 to abuse the privilege accorded them. But, even then, 
 the place was so removed, and so devoid of attraction 
 to the commonplace wayfarer, that few came to take 
 advantage of its liberties, and those few mostly 
 botanists or entomologists. 
 
 One September evening, in a year long past, a 
 young man an aurelian, to use the older and prettier 
 term came trudging over the downs to spend a 
 ghostly vigil in Lamont. He carried in his pockets a 
 
 227
 
 228 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 dark lantern, a bottle of beer and sugar mixed, a 
 brush, a nest of specimen boxes, and a little phial of 
 chloroform, with a square or two of blotting-paper 
 to finish. Such was the necessary paraphernalia of 
 a moth-trapper by night, when the rarest and most 
 beautiful species are to be secured. Young Mirvan 
 had no other equipment about him but a hazel stick, 
 which he swung regularly as he strode along. 
 
 It was a still and lovely night, with an autumnal 
 keenness in the air which was both sweet and bracing. 
 Low in the sky hung a full moon, so radiant and so 
 large in seeming, that it appeared like the glowing 
 sail of some fairy craft, just risen above the horizon 
 of billowing hills, and reflected in their milky green- 
 ness as in water. Nearer, the undulating spaces were 
 all sown with shadowy furrows and dense clumps of 
 gloom, with here and there the spark of some distant 
 homestead starring the slopes. No sound, but the 
 occasional short bay of a dog, faint and far, broke the 
 stillness. The lonely road and the lonely moon- 
 drowned country possessed, and were possessed by, 
 the solitary walker. 
 
 So detached from the world, his heart should have 
 beat with a corresponding serenity. He was engaged 
 in a pursuit which he loved, both for its environments 
 and its curious interests. He had already one of 
 the finest collections of lepidoptera in the county, and 
 he asked nothing better than to be left in peaceable 
 enjoyment of his hobby. But, alas ! that was no 
 longer to be. For family reasons he was to make, in 
 a few days' time, a manage de convenance with a 
 cousin whom he did not love, and who regarded him 
 merely as a necessary step to affluence and a position. 
 Between the young mystic, the half-recluse and self-
 
 THE HAMADRYAD 229 
 
 sufficer, and the near soulless girl of the world there 
 could never be anything in common, and Mirvan felt 
 that his days of irresponsible dreaming were num- 
 bered. This was to be his last night- visit, he felt, 
 to the ghostly woods of Lament, and, so far as that 
 side of him was concerned, the thought was like a 
 death-bed sorrow. The mystery and the loneliness of 
 things had never before appeared to him so beautiful. 
 
 At the bottom of a long slope, so filled with misty 
 greenness that it seemed to him as if he were walking 
 into the sea, he turned into a close lane, which, at a 
 few hundred yards' distance, brought him to the skirts 
 of the wood, into which he passed with a sure know- 
 ledge, and was soon fathoms deep in foliage. Finding 
 and traversing a silent glade or two, he presently, 
 always easily ascending, came out into a clear grassy 
 space, beyond which stretched the high woods all 
 bathed in moonlight. And here, conscious even in 
 his depression of some return of the accustomed 
 glow, he felt for his brush and bottle, and stole in 
 among the broken shadows. Selecting some likely 
 trees, he painted their trunks here and there with 
 patches of his mixture, and afterwards, having so 
 treated as many as his memory might retain, with- 
 drew to a neighbouring oak, and, seating himself 
 among its roots, gave himself over, while he waited, 
 to wistful meditation. 
 
 He was in a singularly emotional mood. His isola- 
 tion in this world of leaf and moonlight ; his passionate 
 sense of strange delights, half hidden, half recognised, 
 to be forgone ; his dread of the bondage to come, 
 all wrought upon him to a moving degree. He had 
 never before so felt the haunting mystery of trees 
 their high- whispered secrets, the strange things they
 
 230 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 harboured, the way they disposed themselves to screen 
 from mortal eyes the movements of things still stranger. 
 He could have imagined the woods, for some reason, 
 busy with unseen life ; have imagined that an in- 
 articulate giggle of voices, now hushed, now faintly 
 audible, was whispering somewhere in their recesses. 
 A silent white thing rushed past him, and it was only 
 when it stooped, and rose again, that he recognised 
 it, or thought he recognised it, for an owl. Once his 
 eyes, unconsciously fixed upon a curious luminous 
 halo in the grass a little distance away, were astonished 
 into a belief that the thing undulated was in move- 
 ment. He was startled into rising and seeking the 
 place ; but discovered for his pains no more than 
 a ring of white funguses, on whose surface the moon- 
 beams seemed to boil and quiver. As he returned 
 to his seat, tiny travelling sparks appeared to run 
 from him in all directions, like glow-worms suddenly 
 galvanised into activity. He rubbed his eyes, be- 
 wildered and a little agitated. 
 
 " I am a bit overstrung," he thought, " and my 
 fancy is playing tricks with me. I must rouse myself 
 and do something. It is time I examined the trees." 
 
 Taking his nerves resolutely in hand, he lit his 
 dark-lantern, and, directing the light in front of him, 
 advanced towards the trunk most nearly in his path. 
 As he approached it, a drift of floating gossamer 
 seemed to interpose itself within the glow, and, wreath- 
 ing fantastically a moment, display a little shadowy 
 face and disappear. To say that he was not conscious 
 of a shock and thrill would be to underrate his sensi- 
 bility ; but, though, in the sudden start he gave, he 
 nearly dropped the lantern, his feeling was one of 
 astonishment rather than of fear. And, in the same
 
 THE HAMADRYAD 231 
 
 instant, all supernatural tremors were lost in the 
 excitement of the collector, for the light of the bull's- 
 eye had fallen full upon a great moth resting drunk 
 and stupefied upon the wet bark of the tree. 
 
 It was a rare specimen of the rarest of all moths, 
 the Clifden Nonpareil, which covers with fore-wings of 
 marbled silver-grey the most beautiful under-wings 
 of banded black and violet. The prize was a splendid 
 one for a lepidopterist, and, as Mirvan dropped softly 
 to his knees to make ready his box with a fragment of 
 chloroformed blotting-paper, his heart was thumping 
 as if it would suffocate him. He was hardly breathing, 
 indeed, as he rose again prepared, and saw the big 
 moth still motionlessly awaiting its capture. Holding 
 the light steadily focussed on his prey, he advanced 
 his right hand with the box in it and instantly an- 
 other little hand slipped in between. 
 
 It was like a flower, as soft, as semi-transparent 
 hardly more than a child's in size, but moulded to a 
 ripe perfection. As Mirvan advanced the lantern, it 
 disappeared. 
 
 He stood for some moments quite motionless ; then, 
 with a sigh, softly closed the shutter, and let the sense 
 of moonlight regather about him. Even now he was 
 so far from panic-struck that he could think with some 
 vexation of his arrested deed. With the quenching 
 of the light the silver moth had become one with the 
 silver bark on which it lay. 
 
 And then, suddenly again, came the web of gossamer, 
 drifting between with its fantastic convolutions, until it 
 seemed to catch and wind itself about the tree. And, 
 in the same instant, Mirvan was aware of the shadowy 
 shape of a girl, standing by the trunk, and clinging to 
 it as she regarded him.
 
 232 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 At the first, he could separate her no more than the 
 moth from the bark against which she rested ; but 
 presently the sense of a bewitching child-face, half shy, 
 half alluring, of a faint glow-worm mist of hair, of limbs 
 like rounded stones gleaming through dark water, 
 grew upon him from doubt to certainty and from cer- 
 tainty to rapture. His inquietude from the outset had 
 never approached fear nearer than its boundaries in 
 a fearful joy. Now, at a leap, it had become an over- 
 mastering emotion of desire, a passion to absorb and 
 possess. He forgot himself ; or, rather, himself was 
 gone the thing of prescriptive conduct and staid 
 conventions. All sorts of primitive impulses raced in 
 his veins ; long-buried impressions of hills and wood- 
 lands, of sweet midnight pursuits and thymy con- 
 tacts glimmered in his brain. Melodious voices seemed 
 to whisper from the thickets, only to become, when 
 he turned to answer them, the murmur of far-running 
 waters, or the rapture of bird song in some distant 
 copse. He knew it, he thought. This was life in its 
 heyday of joy and mystery. His heart throbbed with 
 a delirious ecstasy ; and in the midst he heard her speak. 
 
 " Spare my pretty moth ! " 
 
 Was it a voice, a dream, a breath of music on the 
 night ? Quite overcome, he extinguished his lantern, 
 and, throwing it on the grass, leaned towards the 
 vision. 
 
 " It is the spoil of my life," he whispered. " At 
 what price, you lovely thing ? " 
 
 She seemed to laugh, putting her finger to her lips. 
 Burning all through, Mirvan advanced a step. As 
 he did so, the shape, winding its pale arms about the 
 tree, as if it appealed to it for protection, appeared 
 to dissolve and vanish where it stood.
 
 THE HAMADRYAD 233 
 
 He uttered a little despairing cry. What had 
 become of her ? In the agony of that impossible 
 loss, he leapt and ran round the tree. He trod upon 
 his lantern, and, stumbling, caught at the trunk. It 
 seemed soft to his hand, warm and palpitating. In 
 an access of emotion, he threw himself upon it, gripping 
 and striving as if he would bear it down. " Your 
 secret ! " he panted ; " yield it ! " 
 
 And suddenly it seemed to melt beneath him ; soft 
 arms came about his neck ; a voice sighed in his ear : 
 " Captured ! O, captured ! A moth for a moth, you 
 dearest ! " 
 
 Intoxicated with bliss, he set his lips in the darkness 
 to lips as sweet as wine. 
 
 From that dream, as from a deep swoon, Mirvan 
 awoke to find himself lying on the grass in the grey 
 dawn. The wood was all about him, quiet as death. 
 Not a whisper broke its silences, not a thing seemed 
 stirring in its thickets. He got to his feet, and stood 
 in a dazed way, thinking it was time for him to be 
 turning homewards. Once he started, and paused 
 and came back. And a second time he started, and 
 checked himself, and returned to the oak, and stood 
 looking at it with glazed eyes. 
 
 " Was it all a moonstruck dream ? " he murmured. 
 " For your part in it, thanks, anyhow, dear oak." 
 
 But the oak did not respond by so much as a quiver- 
 ing leaf. 
 
 II 
 
 MIRVAN dutifully married, and kept to his marriage 
 bond, found no more joy in his state than he had
 
 234 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 anticipated. His wife's was a small nature, dull and 
 exacting, incapable of passion, save in its squalidest 
 aspect of jealousy. The secrets of his soul were 
 locked from her ; and, though she could never have 
 sympathised with them revealed, the thought of 
 something withheld filled her with a perpetual sense 
 of injury. She seemed always seeking for a proof of 
 his hidden depravity of heart and mind. 
 
 At the end of a year a girl baby was born to them. 
 Mirvan, after the first natural interest evoked by the 
 knowledge of his being a father, took little notice of 
 it. It appeared an ordinary unexciting child, and, 
 though pretty, the farthest from precocious. When 
 two years had passed it was still as speechless as on 
 the day of its birth in actual vociferation even less 
 emphatic. He began to wonder, with only a faint 
 stirring of curiosity rather than of concern, if it would 
 ever come to articulate. 
 
 But on the morrow of the child's second birthday 
 a curious change was announced. That night Mirvan 
 had passed in a strange mood of agitation. He could 
 not sleep ; it had seemed to him that something was 
 in the house something not belonging to it. It was 
 only at dawn that he had lost consciousness, under, 
 as it appeared to him, the whispering branches of an 
 oak tree. The nurse coming into the room, pale and 
 startled, was the first to awake him to a sense of 
 realities. She showed a disposition to cry. Would 
 her master and mistress come at once, she said. Baby 
 was sitting up in her cradle and talking. 
 
 They rose, and followed her out. That sense of 
 estrangement between them made the mother hasten to 
 claim the first right to her child. The best her narrow 
 nature could exhibit was all devoted to this possession.
 
 THE HAMADRYAD 235 
 
 She stopped, with a gasp, when she entered the night- 
 nursery. The tiny being was seated up on her pillow, 
 taking voluble stock of all the wonderful things about 
 her. Her speech was ludicrously pretty, but compre- 
 hensible only in fragments. It was the look of sudden 
 intelligence in her eyes that was the oddest part. 
 It was baby, but indescribably developed between a 
 single sleeping and waking. 
 
 Mirvan stole a look at his wife. A certain revulsion 
 of feeling in her was patent to his soul. He, on the 
 contrary, felt such an attraction to the child as he had 
 never known before. From that day she was his con- 
 stant delight and companion ; and from that day, as 
 he was aware, his wife hated him. 
 
 The nurse could not be induced to stay, and another 
 was procured. But, indeed, her post was a sinecure. 
 The child was always with her father ; her elfish 
 prattle followed his footsteps all day long. When 
 she came near her mother, it was to be coldly repulsed, 
 and often to answer pertly, " Baby not love you " ; 
 to which the woman would reply : " I don't want 
 your love. You are no child of mine." 
 
 And thus another six months passed by ; and every 
 day of it added to the infant's precocity and strange 
 beauty. 
 
 One evening Mirvan, thinking to interest his little 
 daughter, took her into his study to show her his 
 collection of moths and butterflies. But the sight of 
 the first drawer of specimens, as he pulled it out and 
 lowered it for her inspection, had a startlingly oppo- 
 site effect to that which he had anticipated. She 
 turned pale, shrinking back a little. 
 
 " How are they made to settle so still behind the 
 little window ? " she whispered.
 
 236 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " They do not settle ; they are dead, baby," he 
 answered, amused. 
 
 " Dead ! " her face was going white. " Who 
 killed them ? " 
 
 " Why, I did," he said. " I caught, and drugged 
 them to death, then put pins through their bodies, and 
 stretched out their wings, and left them to dry." 
 
 She gave a single gasp ; and then her infant fury 
 broke. She screamed at and reviled him ; she beat 
 him with her little hands. She cried that he was cruel, 
 cruel that he was worse than the fox and stoat, 
 that only slew for food that she would never, never 
 love him or speak to him again. Finally, she ran from 
 the room in a storm of tears, and he heard her stamp- 
 ing up to her nursery. 
 
 Mirvan was utterly amazed, and more than a little 
 distressed and troubled. All that evening he was 
 haunted with a sense of guilt ; and by and by, unable 
 to sit out his depression, he stole upstairs to visit 
 his rebellious little girl in her cot. She was lying to all 
 appearance fast asleep, the sheet covering her face to 
 the hair, and, unwilling to disturb her, he just dropped 
 a remorseful pat on the counterpane, and left the 
 room. 
 
 It thundered all night ; and the next morning he was 
 awakened, as once before, to find the nurse in his 
 room. 
 
 " Please, ma'am," the girl was saying, " I think 
 there's something wrong with baby. She won't 
 speak, and I can't seem to make her understand." 
 
 He was up before his wife this time, and out and 
 in the nursery. As he stood staring, with a dead feel- 
 ing at his heart, his wife brushed past him, and fell 
 on her knees beside the cot.
 
 THE HAMADRYAD 237 
 
 " Baby ! " she whispered in a voice of rapture. 
 " It is mother's own darling come back again." 
 
 " She don't seem to hear or understand," said the 
 girl ; " and there's something odd-looking about 
 her." 
 
 The mother had the child in her arms, kissing and 
 fondling her. She looked round fiercely at the speaker. 
 
 " You are a fool," she said. " You can go." 
 
 But, indeed, from that moment the child never 
 spoke or heard or saw again ; and from that moment 
 Mirvan gave himself up, wholly, patiently, remorse- 
 fully, to her care. He knew that those who have 
 been once borrowed and returned by the fairies must 
 never be allowed to reveal their experiences or to 
 recognise their playfellows in all their time to come.
 
 THE VOICE 
 
 THE day had been wet and mellow after a longish 
 drought. The soil sucked at the warm flood, as 
 a thirsty horse swills at a trough, drawing in its satis- 
 faction quietly and intently ; the cottage windows 
 twinkled under their brows of dripping thatch ; the 
 hills, misty and phantasmic, seemed to roll like levia- 
 thans in a fog of descending water. And it was under 
 such circumstances of weather that I first saw Balm- 
 worth. 
 
 One could not conceive a village more faithful to its 
 etymology. It saunters down a gentle slope, half a 
 mile long, from the hills to the sea ; slips without a 
 stumble into a tiny cove landlocked for nine-tenths 
 of its circumference, and green as an aquamarine set 
 in a loop of silver chalk and elsewhere and on all 
 sides is made comfortable in its place with cushions 
 of velvet down. Coming from the little station- 
 village of Flock itself a drowsy portal to the hills 
 one ascends a three-mile rise, traverses a short table- 
 land, and goes straight down, smiling, into the har- 
 bourage of the tranquil valley. What does it concern 
 one that those slumberous green pillows which contain 
 it are neighboured on either side by populous and 
 popular " seaside resorts " ? The hills are ramparts 
 as well as boundaries, and the vulgar, confined to 
 char-a-bancs and high roads, essay to storm them but 
 fitfully. Their flying visits but serve, in fact, to accent 
 
 238
 
 THE VOICE 239 
 
 the peace, as the casual rush of a motor-car outside 
 lonely windows leaves a profounder silence in its wake. 
 
 And the inhabitants are all in keeping. Here are 
 no sharks of landladies, hungering to feed on the in- 
 experienced adventurer ; no maximum of cost for a 
 minimum of service ; no cracked pianos at a shilling 
 a thump ; no castors estimated in the weekly bill at 
 a figure which would keep a furrier in pepper for a 
 year ; no priceless china, cheapened from the nearest 
 crockery store, and put up on brackets to be accident- 
 ally broken, and paid for ; no charge for the attend- 
 ance which is ever lacking ; no suffering protests, no 
 extortion, no inflated prices whatever. No fleas, I 
 would fain add ; but that would not be true. Yet 
 even they feed delicately, with ever a gentle consider- 
 ation for the provision of the only man in the place 
 who sells Keating. 
 
 Balmworth, to be sure, lets lodgings (indeed, in the 
 " season " it is so greatly affected by those who love 
 not the swarming warrens of August that it is difficult 
 to secure a bed there), but on an artless Arcadian plan. 
 It is as ready to take in the houseless traveller as it 
 would be to be taken in by him. Any Jeremy Diddler 
 so inclined might steal his dirty week's toll of its 
 hospitality. Its landladies tot up their bills, all 
 wrong, with infinite travail, and finally beg the good 
 graces of their lodgers to help them to screw and 
 pummel the items into some correspondence with the 
 totals. They smile ; they confide ; they are on plea- 
 sant personal, but not in the least self-obtrusive terms 
 with you from the outset. Supercilious or baronial- 
 nosed people discomfort them. Sometimes they en- 
 treat your acceptance of a basket of blackberries or 
 rosy apples. They are mostly the wives and mothers
 
 240 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 of the boatmen, to whom appertaineth the conduct of 
 the Cove, sailing and fishing, the letting out of craft, 
 the exploiting, in short, of little Balmworth as a sea 
 pleasure-garden . 
 
 It is a very quaint and pretty basin among the 
 cliffs, is this Cove something like Mother Carey's 
 Peace-pool. It is just a mile in circumference ; and 
 the land's fond arms, not quite meeting round it, leave 
 open a narrow water-way, through which pleasuring 
 steamers can creep in in all but stormy weather. They 
 do not trouble one much. The life of the Cove congre- 
 gates all the morning about the eastern side, to which 
 they do not come, and where cluster the little white 
 bathing-huts which are the real lodgings of Balmworth. 
 For this pool of translucent water, on whose floor six- 
 teen feet down one may see the weeds swaying pale as 
 if in moonlight, is very grateful to the bather ; and 
 there be those who will camp all day among the little 
 huts, that they may undress and plunge at pleasure. 
 
 Opposite the water-way above mentioned sweeps up 
 a mighty forehead of chalk, mottled like old ivory, 
 which, descending gradually as it curves either way 
 about the Cove, ends at the entrance in horns of 
 stratified rock. In the western arm of this curve is 
 gathered the business material of the place boats, 
 nets, lobster-pots, prawn-chests, lugworms and lumber. 
 It is significant that never a life-belt is to be seen there, 
 unless in the shed where the men of the coastguard 
 keep their trim black boats with the brass fittings. 
 Balmworth pays no tax to the white-horsed farmers 
 of the sea, and that for a simple reason. When the 
 wind blows enough to imperil small craft, no sailing- 
 boat can make the outward passage of the water- 
 way. Even in calm weather so narrow is it that the
 
 THE VOICE 241 
 
 tripper-steamers have to slip in with caution. Meet 
 that such a place, so secure, so unvexed, so child-like 
 in its character, should be haunted, if at all, by a 
 child's voice. 
 
 Perhaps it was the cluck of choked gutters, or the 
 soft trample of the rain on the road, or some small, 
 inarticulate converse of unseen talkers that deceived 
 my hearing ; but, as I walked, while the hills sunk 
 fading about me into night and water, I could have 
 thought, and more than once, that something ran be- 
 side me, a little thing that begged in a little voice, as 
 a small trained mendicant might do, and sobbed and 
 sniffed to rouse my unresponsive sympathy. The im- 
 pression was so faint, so unreal, that my only wonder 
 lay in its imposing itself on me so persistently. I 
 sought to associate the fancy with the sights and 
 sounds about me ; but it would not so be put away. 
 It ran and babbled, sometimes in front of me, some- 
 times at my side not words, but their shadow ; no 
 face, but the uplifted glimmering blotch of one, which, 
 when I bent to canvass it, was always a stone in the 
 road. 
 
 I felt no distress, but a certain curiosity. That the 
 delusion was a delusion I never had a doubt. The key 
 to the enigma was all that lacked. But I was confident 
 that I should find it sooner or later. 
 
 I went on placidly, descending to the Cove. The 
 lights of an inn, of cottages, met me right and left. And 
 then I was going down a narrow gully ; and then came 
 a pool of ashy water. 
 
 It lapped out of the mists, reaching vainly for the 
 rank of little boats which lay thereby, drawn up on 
 the shingle. Grey wet and desolation held all this 
 quarter of the Cove. Not a light twinkled from the
 
 242 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 coastguard station, perched high aloft on the butt of 
 the western horn. It was just a minute section of 
 beach and sea, half veiled, half disclosed in the drown- 
 ing fog. Not a sign of life was in evidence but the 
 figure of a solitary boatman, roping up his craft for 
 the night. 
 
 And then, all of a sudden, the voice had become 
 articulate, and I saw the dark form of a little girl go 
 bounding down the stones to the lonely figure. 
 
 " Bill, Bill ! " she cried, " do let me pull ! O, Bill, 
 do let me pull ! " 
 
 The tone pierced as shrill, as hollowly treble through 
 that sodden desolation as the cry of a hawking seagull. 
 Yet the figure among the boats took no notice of it 
 whatever. 
 
 " Bill ! " wailed the child ; " do let me pull ! " 
 
 The figure worked on stolidly. " Is he stone deaf ? 
 I thought. 
 
 She danced round him, crying and entreating 
 always in that piercing young voice. He could not 
 fail to see, even if he had not heard her. Suddenly he 
 rose to his height, his task finished, and came clump- 
 ing up the shingle towards me. In the same moment 
 the figure of the child seemed to go down into the 
 waters and disappear. I uttered a shout and pounded 
 to the spot. Not a bubble, not a ripple betrayed the 
 place of that noiseless plunge. The tide came in, 
 wrinkle over wrinkle, without a break. I beat back 
 and forth, peering, calling, but with no avail. Finally 
 I desisted, and went up the beach to the man. He, 
 at least, though I had questioned it at first, was no 
 ghost. I felt that I was shaking through and through 
 as I approached him. No doubt he thought me de- 
 mented.
 
 THE VOICE 243 
 
 But, if he did, he made a successful pretence of un- 
 concern, as he stood soberly lighting his pipe. His 
 face in the act was revealed to me, glowing and shadow- 
 ing, as he pulled at the match. It was the face, in- 
 disputably, of a kindly, rugged soul, humane, earnest, 
 unguileful an expression of that spirit of simple 
 gravity which comes of long association with the awe 
 and mystery of the sea. 
 
 " I thought I heard a child calling down there," I 
 said, commanding my voice with difficulty. " But 
 there wasn't one, of course ? " 
 
 " Bless you, see," he said, in a curiously small, in- 
 drawn way for such a bushy man, " this isn't no night 
 for children." 
 
 " No," I replied, " a black night no sort of weather 
 for one's first visit to your Cove." 
 
 " I've never known the like," he answered, looking 
 up at the sky. (They never have.) 
 
 His atmosphere invited frankness. 
 
 " What's your name ? " I asked. He told me. 
 " And your Christian name ? " 
 
 " Bill, see," he said. So he pronounced " Sir," quite 
 mincingly. 
 
 He was going up the village, and I was suddenly 
 anxious for his company. I refrained, even, from look- 
 ing over my shoulder as we left the boats and the 
 whispering crescent of beach. 
 
 " Ah ! " I said ; " that was the name I thought I 
 heard the child call Bill." 
 
 " Yes, see," he responded heartily. 
 
 " ' Bill/ I thought I heard her say, ' do let me pull, 
 Bill.' " 
 
 " Ah ! " he said ; " that'll be little Miss Vera." 
 
 " Little Miss but you said you didn't hear her ? "
 
 244 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " No, see," he answered simply. " I can't do it ; 
 but others can. She visits us time and again by their 
 showing the little drownded sperit of her." 
 
 " How was she drowned ? " My voice seemed some- 
 thing apart from me. 
 
 " Had set her heart," he said soberly, " on pulling 
 of a boat all by herself was always a-crying on me to 
 let her. But I had my orders. She was a bit what 
 you'd call wilful, see ; and one evening it might 
 have been like this " (he had forgotten his former 
 statement) " she give her lady mother the slip, and 
 run down to the boats, and had one out, all with her 
 own hands, before a soul knew she was gone." He 
 stopped a moment, blowing at his pipe till ^scattered 
 a very shower of sparks into the wet. " I picked up 
 her little body myself," he said. " There it was in 
 the water, as quiet as sleep. She'd just run the boat 
 off of the beach, and herself with it. So she'd never 
 had her pull after all. God rest her pretty sperit ! " 
 
 I saw him later, in the tap of The Pure Drop. 
 He was having his temperate pot and pipe before 
 turning in, and was taking his earnest share in a 
 political discussion. The visitation lay, if it lay at all, 
 quite simply and unharmfully on his mind. Surely 
 that was the right unsophisticated way to accept it. 
 The responsibility for haunting lies with the haunter. 
 As for myself, I have not learned to appreciate Balm- 
 worth at a figure less than its due because of that in- 
 finite weirdness of my introduction to it. It is a rare 
 haven on a noisy coast ; its voices murmur either out 
 of sleep or death. But that one shrill small voice I 
 have never heard again.
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 
 
 S well look for green peas in March as for 
 sentiment in a Government analyst," says 
 Sergeant Dyce in his autobiography ; yet that that 
 phenomenon may occur is proved in the personal 
 reminiscences of the late Professor Ganthony, some 
 extracts only from which have appeared in the public 
 prints. From what remains we are free to select the 
 following passages, in irrefutable testimony to the 
 existence of that verdant spot in the constitution of 
 the great pathologist ; and it is with the purpose 
 rather to vindicate their narrator's memory from a 
 charge of moral insensibility, than to recapitulate the 
 evidences in a pretty recent cause celebre, that the 
 choice is made. The allusion is to what the reader will 
 remember as the Footover Poison-bottle case. 
 
 As curious and touching a case as any in my ex- 
 perience, says the Professor, was that of young 
 Langdon. I refer to it particularly, because circum- 
 stances brought me into unwonted association with 
 some parties to the affair, and to the knowledge, con- 
 nected with it, of as strange an instance of youthful 
 clairvoyance as might be related. 
 
 Young Harry Langdon was the heir presumptive to 
 the Langdon baronetcy and estates, at that time en- 
 joyed save the irony of the term by his great- 
 uncle Sir Hugh Langdon, who was a childless widower 
 and paralytic. The boy was, I understand, a particu- 
 
 245
 
 246 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 larly bright intelligent youngster of fourteen at the 
 time of his death, which was due to poisoning by 
 cyanide of potassium. I received officially here 
 follow some details which may be omitted and 
 attended the inquest in due course, to give my evi- 
 dence. It was plain enough, for all my concern in the 
 matter ; painfully plain, moreover, it appeared, from 
 the ex-professional point of view. The boy, with his 
 little sister Marjory, had been on a visit to Langdon 
 Court, South Hampshire, a county famous for its 
 lepidoptera. Naturally he had started to make a col- 
 lection of butterflies bug-hunting, in the modern 
 vernacular ; and had secured for his lethal purposes 
 one of those squat wide-mouthed bottles containing 
 a deposit, to about a tenth of their depth, of inspissated 
 cyanide of potassium which are used by collectors to 
 kill their insects when netted. This bottle had been 
 found upon the poor young fellow's dressing-table, 
 incident upon the discovery of its owner's body lying 
 dead in an arm-chair near the fire-place. The cork was 
 out ; the stuff at the bottom showed unmistakable 
 signs of having been prodded and raked at, and the 
 boy's own penknife, smeared with the poison, lay be- 
 side. Circumstantially the case was clear. Moved by 
 one of those reckless explorative appetites to which 
 youth is subject, attracted, no doubt, by the sweet 
 almondy or peach-stony savour of the stuff, he had 
 dared to taste, and had paid with his life for his mad 
 temerity. The supposition was quite plausible. In- 
 deed it is a frequent matter for wonder with me that 
 unconsidering youth does not more often than happens 
 fall a victim to the thousand temptations, in the way 
 of insidious foods and drinks, which assail it. 
 My evidence, I say, was clear and unequivocal. The
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 247 
 
 only other, of local importance, was contributed by 
 William Brash, Sir Hugh's butler. It is necessary, 
 before detailing this man's sworn testimony, to say 
 a word as to the circumstances surrounding the case. 
 
 These two children, Harry and Marjory, were, it 
 appeared, the only offspring of a widowed lady of 
 adequate but not considerable means. The boy had 
 been educated in virtual ignorance of his presumptive 
 title to the baronetcy, and his fateful visit, with his 
 little sister, to the Court, had been his first and last. 
 It seemed that Sir Hugh, with the perversity of a sick- 
 grained valetudinarian, had fought, until nearing his 
 end, against the acknowledgment of his heir in the 
 person of a remoter scion, and had only succumbed to 
 the inevitable when that became obvious. Then, with 
 what grace he could recover, he had sent for the chil- 
 dren to visit him, and, from making a virtue of neces- 
 sity, had come to take a delight in the bright fearless 
 boy. The end had been at least as great a shock to 
 him as to his household at large ; to the mother it had 
 come, of course, as a potential death-blow. 
 
 Langdon Court lies pretty sunk and secluded among 
 the heathy environs of the New Forest. Its owner, at 
 the period of the calamity, was living in a considerably 
 self-restricted state, and much of the house was shut 
 up. Visitors, the few. who came, were accommodated 
 in a wing of the building remote from the neighbour- 
 hood of the nervous and suffering invalid, and but few 
 servants were kept. Of these few, William Brash was 
 the principal. He had been in Sir Hugh's service some 
 two years when I saw him. He was a slow, large man, 
 reserved of speech and with a very quiet manner. 
 His face was round and impassive, with close black 
 eyebrows, and a projecting lower lip. He had extra-
 
 248 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 ordinarily thick hands ; and, when he turned, one saw 
 a regular tonsure, like a monk's, sunk in the crown of 
 a very thicket of hair. It was due to an old scurvy, I 
 believe, and not to natural baldness. It is his evidence 
 to which I now come. 
 
 William Brash deposed to his pleasant intimacy 
 with the deceased, who, he declared, with some 
 hesitancy of emotion, was as handsome-spoken a young 
 gentleman as one might wish to serve. The visit of 
 the young lady and gentleman had extended to a 
 fortnight when the disaster happened. During the 
 last week of this fortnight Master Harry had developed 
 an extraordinary interest in butterfly hunting, and, 
 latterly, had got him, Brash, to procure him a poison- 
 bottle, the one in question, from the local chemist in 
 Footover. He had obtained it to command, had duly 
 signed the book, and had handed over his purchase to the 
 young gentleman on the evening preceding that morn- 
 ing of the fatal discovery. He was perfectly sure of the 
 circumstances in their every detail. He had returned 
 rather late, and had gone straight, by direction, to 
 Master Harry's bedroom, where he found the boy busy 
 in writing letters. He had placed the bottle on the 
 dressing-table, and was about to withdraw, when 
 Master Harry had detained him with a request for 
 stamps, having none of his own, and it being too late 
 to disturb his uncle. He had gone and procured the 
 stamps desired from his own room, had returned with 
 them to the young gentleman, and had seen him place 
 them on his letters, which he had handed over to him, 
 Brash, there and then, to put with the night post. 
 They had been five in number, and had been addressed, 
 one to his mother, and the other four, he thought, to 
 provincial dealers in insects, of whom Master Harry,
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 249 
 
 by his uncle's sanction, had more than once already 
 bought specimens. He had then bidden the young 
 gentleman good night, and had retired to his own part 
 of the house, which was comparatively distant. The 
 boy had been placed by himself, rather remote, in the 
 west wing of the building. It was a housemaid who, 
 coming with the hot water the next morning, had 
 made the dreadful discovery. And so the matter 
 ended. Incidentally it was demonstrated that the 
 bottle still held its poison-label firmly attached, though 
 some reference, unjustifiable, I think, was made to the 
 inconspicuous position of the warning. The remainder 
 of the evidence was of a piece with that quoted, and in 
 the end the jury gave in their verdict of death by mis- 
 adventure. 
 
 But before this happened, there had occurred one 
 most curious little scene. 
 
 I suppose the minutest enquiry into cases of sudden 
 and violent death, even where the face of the circum- 
 stances surrounding them appears plain as day, is 
 persistently to be advocated ; elsewise any suspicion 
 of laxity in this respect would surely encourage the 
 wrongdoer. Instances have occurred within my 
 knowledge where a scrap of purely formal testimony, 
 so regarded, has put an entirely new complexion upon 
 hitherto accepted facts ; and I have known more than 
 one conviction result upon a chance insinuation offered 
 at the eleventh hour. Nevertheless, it was, I confess, 
 with a certain qualm that I heard the deceased's little 
 sister called upon to give her atom of formal evidence, 
 and a word of protesting pity was near coming to my 
 lips when I saw the child brought forward by a servant. 
 She stood up there before us all in her black frock, the 
 most pathetically attractive little body one could
 
 250 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 imagine, with her solemn round face, full of fear and 
 trouble, and the plentiful brown hair rolling down to 
 her shoulders. The coroner, of course, designed to be 
 very brief and gentle with her. His questions merely 
 touched upon her knowledge of her brother's propen- 
 sities in the matter of reckless experiments with for- 
 bidden things, and of any possible previous instance she 
 might recall in which he had made himself ill by a 
 venture of the like sort. Her answer, soft and in- 
 fantine, took the court like a shock of electricity. Hal 
 wasn't like that, she said ; Hal didn't kill himself ; it 
 was Cousin Francis killed Hal. 
 
 I think for a minute a bluebottle in the pane had the 
 silence all to himself. Then the coroner bent forward 
 very quiet and serious. 
 
 " My dear," he said, " aren't you talking wildly ? 
 You must tell me who is Uncle Francis." 
 
 The little girl's lip came out and her lids down. She 
 twined her fingers together. The attendant maid bent 
 to catch her faltering whisper, and answered for her : 
 
 " She says she saw him look into her room that 
 night when she was asleep, sir ; and he had a bottle 
 in his hand, which he shook at her, and then went on 
 with it to Master Harry's room." 
 
 " When she was asleep ? " 
 
 " I expect it was just a bad dream, sir not that 
 night, but since." 
 
 " I expect so too. Who is this Uncle Francis ? " 
 
 But, before answering that question, the maid had to 
 be sworn in. 
 
 So I describe her ; but I had erred, it seemed, in my 
 estimate. Miss Roper was, in fact, a sort of governess- 
 companion in the Langdon, the visiting Langdon, house- 
 hold. She had not accompanied her charges at the
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 251 
 
 first ; but had arrived a day or two before that which 
 was to terminate their visit, and had remained to repre- 
 sent the bereaved mother, hopelessly stricken down in 
 her home, at the inquest. She presented the appearance 
 of a sallow, dull-faced young woman, with hard steady 
 brown eyes gleaming over dusky crescents, and with 
 small-boned limbs. She was so austerely dressed, in a 
 habit approaching that of a hospital nurse's, that my 
 mistake was natural. Her accent was refined, but her 
 speech reserved almost to lifelessness. 
 
 Her evidence amounted to little; but it was con- 
 clusive. Uncle Francis was her employer's deceased 
 husband's half-brother. She knew little of him cer- 
 tainly little to his credit ; but his character, for good 
 or bad, could be nothing to the point, inasmuch as 
 he had emigrated to America some eighteen months 
 before, and, to her sure knowledge, was there still. 
 Once, on the eve of his departure, he had visited the 
 Langdons for a few days, when, it was true, the little 
 girl had developed against him one of those instinctive 
 antipathies to which children are wont ; and she sup- 
 posed that this haunting impression was to account in 
 the child's mind for the fancy which had overcome it 
 under abnormal conditions of terror. 
 
 So we all thought ; and there the matter ended. The 
 verdict was delivered, with all the appropriate expres- 
 sions of sympathy, the poor small body put to sleep 
 in the family vault ; and, a day or two later, the little 
 girl was taken home by her governess. vf 
 
 Now circumstances, which are neither here nor there, 
 had detained me in Footover ; and, so it chanced, my 
 arrival on the platform was coincident with that of 
 the two travellers. I observed that the woman recog- 
 nised me ; but I had no thought of her taking any
 
 252 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 further interest in my presence until we entered the 
 Basingstoke train, when I found her deliberately follow- 
 ing me into the compartment, an empty one, which I 
 had selected. She acknowledged my formal bow with 
 a salutation as grave, but showed no intention to speak, 
 until, presently, the little girl fell asleep in her arms. 
 And then, all in a moment, she seemed to flash into an 
 intensity of being, and, looking across, addressed me 
 in a low hurried tone. 
 
 " Please to pardon me ; the time is so short, but, to 
 me, so opportune. I want to know so much. He died 
 of that poison ? There is no doubt whatever about 
 that, is there ? " 
 
 Professionally I am insusceptible to surprise 
 habitually on my guard against it. My pulses just 
 gave a little surge and regulated themselves. 
 
 " You heard the verdict given," I answered quietly. 
 " In my opinion it was a just one." 
 
 She seemed to gulp, putting a hand to her bonnet- 
 strings as if to adjust them. My demeanour, I am 
 sure, gave no token of the wonder within. 
 
 " We shall see," she said. " If there is a God of 
 Vengeance not too jealous to make a woman His instru- 
 ment, we shall see, perhaps." 
 
 I did not answer, while she struggled to control her- 
 self. Presently she tightened her arm, inexpressibly 
 fond, about the sleeping child. 
 
 " As I love this stricken one," she said, much more 
 quietly now, "so by many degrees of priority did I 
 love the other. So frank, so brave, so sensible, and to 
 commit the act of a gluttonous lunatic ! Did I know 
 him or not ? He never took the poison of his own free 
 will." 
 
 I was startled from my reserve.
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 253 
 
 ' You must hold your tongue," I said sternly. 
 ' You are suggesting nothing less than murder." 
 
 " Nothing less," she answered. 
 
 ' Then," I said, " I refuse to listen to you. If you 
 have knowingly withheld any evidence 
 
 " None," she broke in. " But why did this child 
 have her dream ? " 
 
 At that I was as much relieved as disturbed. I 
 believed that the poor woman's mind was unhinged 
 by the catastrophe. I sought to humour, to mollify 
 her. 
 
 " You yourself supplied the reason, a very plausible 
 one, I think," I answered. 
 
 " I ! " she said scornfully. " Was it my policy, do 
 you suppose, to speak my suspicions ? There are 
 wicked powers that can be exerted from a distance 
 even half across the world. It has never occurred to 
 you, I am sure, that by the removal of our darling, this 
 man, this Uncle Francis, becomes the heir presumptive 
 to the title and estates ? " 
 
 I stopped her peremptorily. 
 
 " I will listen to no more. Lunatic nonsense you 
 must forgive me. I " 
 
 The train began to slow down. She leaned forward 
 a little. 
 
 " If," she repeated low, " He will condescend to 
 make a woman His instrument. Mad I may be such 
 grief could not keep its reason but the mad can hate. 
 Look hi the papers." 
 
 I protested ; she hushed me down, ineffably sweet 
 and tender in a moment with her waking charge. At 
 the last, as she left the carriage, she turned her head. 
 
 " Look in the papers," she repeated, " and perhaps, 
 presently, you will come to see."
 
 254 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 I did, and to recognise the truth that it is better 
 for the wrongdoer to have a score of blood-hounds on 
 his track than one vengeful woman. 
 
 Some months had passed, and the case in question 
 was long dismissed from my mind, when, taking up 
 my paper one morning, my eyes were confronted with 
 the announcement, " Footover Poison-bottle Case : 
 Starling Sequel : Arrest on a charge of murder," in 
 thundering headlines. I stood open-mouthed a mo- 
 ment, then settled myself to peruse. Before I had read 
 a dozen lines I was already profoundly absorbed ; at 
 the finish of the first paragraph I was murmuring to 
 myself, " This is to be my case again " ; and, in fact, 
 a communication from the police reached me within 
 the hour. 
 
 The contemporary public knows the end ; to the 
 new generation, for which I write, a precis of the pro- 
 cesses by which that end was reached may be not 
 without interest. The inquest had excited consider- 
 able comment, and a plentitude of moralising on the 
 inefficiency of the by-laws affecting the sale of poisons. 
 That was all beside the mark, as the following 
 explanation will show. It was elicited, at length, 
 before the magistrate, under examination and cross- 
 examination ; but, for the sake of brevity, I condense 
 it into narrative form a simple matter in reality, since 
 the evidence of the witness-in-chief, Miss Roper, was 
 all that counted in the first degree. It was given with 
 a curious deadly precision the matter of which I 
 can reproduce, but hardly the manner and is to be 
 summed up as follows : 
 
 " William Brash, arraigned before Mr. . . . on a charge 
 of procuring the death of Henry Langdon by poison, Bar- 
 bara Roper, witness for the prosecution, gave evidence :
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 255 
 
 "In the horror of the discovery we had all come 
 into the room, the butler, the other servants and my- 
 self. After the first paralysing shock was overcome, I 
 began quietly to take notes. The uncorked bottle 
 stood on the dressing-table, and I looked into it. A 
 faint odour, like almond or peach-kernels, rose to my 
 nostrils. It occurred to me that the marks in the stuff 
 did not tally with the shape of the penknife-blade, 
 opened ostentatiously beside. They had a distinct, 
 though irregular, elliptical form to my eyes, as though 
 produced by the point of a very small scoop or spoon, 
 and afterwards roughly effaced by a sharper instru- 
 ment. I said nothing about this at the time, but was 
 resolved to go unobtrusively about my observations. 
 I started with two equipments for my task an utter 
 incredulity as to the deceased's inclination to so insane 
 a deed ; an instinctive prejudice or antipathy against 
 the butler. They should have disqualified me, you 
 will say. That is for the defence to prove. 
 
 "It was very shortly after no farther than the 
 next day that I got upon my clue. I had occasion 
 to go into the butler's pantry, and found William Brash 
 there, smoking. He was to go to his master, and I re- 
 mained behind. A coat of his, which I had seen him 
 wear after hours, was hanging behind the door. I felt 
 in its pockets and discovered in one of them a curious 
 little instrument, a sort of smoker's combination tool, 
 which consisted of a pipe-stopper, pick and cleaner, 
 the three fastened together by a single pin or swivel. 
 The last was in the form of a miniature spoon, and I 
 put it to my nostrils. Barely, but just distinguishable, 
 the same odour was thereto be recognised the odour 
 of peach-stones. From that moment I knew that 
 William Brash had murdered Harry Langdon.
 
 256 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " There remained the method and the motive. I 
 had my suspicions about the latter ; the former, in 
 the meantime, was to be my practical concern. It was 
 quite incredible to me, at least that the boy would 
 have allowed the butler to persuade him into tasting 
 a spoonful of the stuff ; how, then, and how insidi- 
 ously, had it been administered ? I thought over all 
 the points of the butler's sworn testimony, and decided 
 that it was unlikely that so finished a scoundrel 
 granting that my theory was correct would have lied 
 on questions of evidence open to easy proof or dis- 
 proof. No, he had told the truth, in all its essential 
 details, and to the truth I must look for a revelation of 
 the truth. What was negotiable therein ? ' He had 
 found the boy busy in writing letters.' As in a flash of 
 diabolic light, the heart of the mystery was revealed 
 to me. 
 
 " He had written five letters, had borrowed stamps 
 for them, and had had them posted. Within a day or 
 two, in fact, answers to four were returned. I secured, 
 privately, the addresses of the senders ; and when, 
 having left the court, I was free to act, I visited those 
 addresses. Not one of the senders, as I feared, had 
 preserved the envelope containing his original com- 
 munication. That was unfortunate ; still, my case 
 was clear without such confirmatory evidence. The 
 fifth letter had been written to the boy's mother, and 
 I knew that my employer, Mrs. Langdon, never will- 
 ingly parted with a scrap of her son's writing. In that 
 one instance the envelope had been preserved, and its 
 testimony was sufficient. As I held it before me, in 
 the privacy of my room, I knew that my theory was 
 justified, and that I had hit upon the truth. The stamp 
 was much discoloured, and it still emitted a faint scent
 
 THE POISON BOTTLE 257 
 
 of peach-stones. I maintain that William Brash never 
 delivered the bottle at all to Henry Langdon living ; 
 that he probably put the boy off with some excuse of his 
 inability to procure it, and, afterwards, going to his 
 own room for the stamps, smeared their backs with 
 the mixture, and, returning, handed the poisoned paper 
 to his victim, who, passing it over his tongue, was led 
 to encompass his own death. I maintain that the 
 knife and bottle were placed in the position in which 
 they were found after the consummation of the deed, 
 that the remoteness of the room lent itself to the act, 
 and that, according to the medical testimony, the 
 nature of the poison, rapid and deadly in its effects, 
 rendered the perpetration of such a horror practicable. 
 And I maintain, finally, my firm belief that this murder 
 was committed by William Brash not on his own 
 initiative, but at the instance and instigation of another 
 who shall be nameless." 
 
 It was the case, exactly as she had said it. Such 
 intuition and deadly persistence struck every one of 
 her hearers, I think, appalled not least the man 
 in the dock, who collapsed before the terrific figure of 
 the vengeance he had evoked. There was a tremendous 
 scene in court. Pressed as to her last statement, the 
 witness referred to the little girl's vision. " She dreamt 
 it," she said, " on the very night of the occurrence. 
 I implied otherwise at the inquest ; but that was for 
 a purpose. I designed to lead those interested off the 
 scent I was following." Cross-examined, she admitted 
 that her antipathy to Uncle Francis, born into exist- 
 ence on the one and only occasion when they had met, 
 was inexplicable according to natural laws. He had 
 been quite debonair and courteous. She was willing 
 s
 
 258 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 to acknowledge that the association of the child's 
 nightmare with the fact of her having ascertained that 
 the person in question had been seen in William 
 Brash's company, on the occasion of his final visit to 
 the Court before emigrating, might have served to 
 antedate her prejudice, at least in the measure of its 
 virulence. But as to his somehow complicity in the 
 deed she declined to alter her opinion. 
 
 And she was right again. The denouement which 
 was for psychologists rather than for sober analytical 
 chemists was a- tremendous business. William Brash, 
 in the hope, the mistaken hope, of his being accepted 
 for King's evidence, made a full confession while await- 
 ing his trial in prison after the magistrate's commit- 
 ment. It was a very cruel plot he revealed a plot of 
 calculated and quite inhuman treachery. The murder 
 and the method of it had been circumstantially planned 
 between him and Uncle Francis, now the actual next 
 of kin, fully eighteen months before, the early doom of 
 the paralytic, and the probability of his having his 
 great-nephew over to visit him, having been clearly 
 foreseen. It was William Brash who had first persuaded 
 the boy into starting his collection of insects. His 
 reward for the deed was to have been more than sub- 
 stantial. I never took greater pleasure in helping to 
 hang a man than I did in knotting the noose about 
 that gross criminal neck. 
 
 Uncle Francis disappeared absorbed into the wilds 
 of his adopted country. I once saw a tinted photo- 
 graph of him, and that was all. It showed a small, 
 neat, red-haired man in a white waistcoat ; and if ever 
 one might imagine a weasel in human shape there was 
 the picture of him.
 
 THE village of Gorseley lay among the South 
 Downs five or six miles distant from the Hamp- 
 shire capital. Camilla, coming over the hills towards 
 it, met, one after the other, two horsemen, each of 
 whom stopped to put to her the same question : 
 
 " How is Mrs. Brodhurst ? " 
 
 " O ! ever so much better, thank you. She seems 
 quite herself again." 
 
 The first speaker, the young local doctor, Mr. Marks, 
 nodded cheerily, with a " That's capital," and passed 
 on his busy way ; the second, Mr. Robert Spurling, 
 Vicar of St. Woolnoth's, dismounted and walked beside 
 the young lady. 
 
 " She has not asked for me, I suppose ? " he said. 
 
 He was an ascetic young man, tall, dark, eagle- 
 featured, much under the neighbouring Keble in- 
 fluence, and intensely in earnest. He had the passions 
 of a dogmatist, a perilous equipment, and not a vestige 
 of a sense of humour. 
 
 Camilla shook her head, shook her chestnut ringlets 
 momentarily over her face ; for this was the era of 
 neat partings, and dropping curls, and little cosy 
 bonnets of a Quaker cast. She had rolls of fur round 
 her neck and round the hems of her plain brown dress 
 and long-skirted jacket ; and at her throat snuggled 
 a bow of ribbon as blue as her eyes. 
 
 259
 
 260 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 Mr. Spurling walked on for some moments in silence, 
 with compressed lips. He was a bachelor, contemplat- 
 ing matrimony, and ardently attracted to this fair 
 neighbour, who had not been so long in his parish as 
 to stale of her romantic novelty. But there were ob- 
 jections. The mother was little better than a heathen, 
 and obstinately deaf to the call. There were associates, 
 moreover or, to speak correctly, one associate of a 
 particularly undesirable character. He felt that, even 
 if accepted, he would be at an ungodly discount in 
 such a household soiled through his connexion. Only 
 the girl herself (she was twenty-seven, by the way) 
 was elect a sweet rose to have blossomed from such 
 a stem. She seemed in all things dutiful, submissive, 
 a lovely tranquil mind, a pastoral saint. He pictured 
 her the very shepherdess of quiet thoughts ; he dreamt 
 of the lambs she might sanctify to him. He could riot 
 in imagery, like all passionate zealots, and that was his 
 danger. 
 
 They walked on together, without a word spoken 
 between them, until they topped the hill and descended 
 towards a copse beside which stood the sailless black- 
 ened hulk of a windmill, burnt out in some forgotten 
 night of long ago. It was a February day of noisy 
 winds and hammering showers soon spent. The 
 branches of the trees were strung with drops like rain- 
 bow buds ; in the little wood the leafless shafts of the 
 birches stood up like silver scaffolding poles, raised 
 ready for the building of the coming spring. All the 
 world was bright with joy and promise ; only the wind- 
 mill blotted the green and blue, a memento mori, the 
 skeleton at the feast. It hung, a cindery anomaly, in 
 the vicar's vision ; how could he wed a woman 
 whose loved mother was doomed to eternal perdition ?
 
 CAMILLA 261 
 
 " I am deeply sorry," he said suddenly. " I had 
 hoped to entreat a claim upon her consideration other 
 than that proper to my office ; but so long as she re- 
 mains obdurate and deaf to the appeals of religion my 
 lips are closed. I bid you a very good day, Miss Brod- 
 hurst." 
 
 The implication was unmistakable. He had spoken 
 with the prescriptive assurance of his cloth as a 
 vicar, contemplating wedlock, to a penniless parish- 
 ioner. These people were poor, but they baffled him 
 the mother so independent, the girl so orthodox. And 
 yet she, the latter, never seemed distressed in her 
 mind. He supposed she had very little. She had 
 actually smiled on him as he remounted to leave her. 
 
 Truth to tell Camilla would have married him if 
 desired. Filially, she did most things that she was 
 told. Nevertheless there were some idiosyncrasies in 
 her that he never suspected an odd vein of resolution 
 for one ; for another, a sense of what he wholly lacked 
 humour. 
 
 She went past the copse, past the windmill, and down 
 the hill to the main road, striking which at a half-mile 
 from the village, she came to the Dingle-nook, her 
 cottage home. 
 
 A fat unclean Frenchman of middle age, heavy of 
 jaw, fierce of eye, with close-clipped scalp and a smudge 
 of black hair on his upper lip, met her at the door. He 
 was in a baggy suit of brown ' dittoes,' so called, 
 soiled and large of check, and a limp full collar, innocent 
 of stock or tie, embraced his wattle-like neck. 
 
 "A la bonne heure ! " he said, in his vibrant over- 
 bearing voice : " She is well, the little mother ; she 
 has never been so well. Come in and see." 
 
 She was well, the worn-out invalid, in the sense that
 
 262 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 suffering is well over. It was the leap of the guttering 
 candle-flame. That night an express reached Dr. 
 Marks, who lived in a farther suburban village, sum- 
 moning him to the cottage. Camilla came from the 
 death-room as he hurried up the stairs. Her eyes were 
 tearless ; there was a lost amazed look in them. 
 
 " Too late ? " he whispered. 
 
 Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. 
 
 He took her hand and led her to the little room below, 
 where the Frenchman, white and agitated, paced the 
 carpet. There Camilla sank into a chair, her pathetic 
 eyes fixed upon the ungainly figure. The doctor left 
 them together while he went upstairs again. 
 
 II 
 
 IT was February of the year 1859 when Camilla was 
 thus orphaned. The Brodhursts, mother and daughter, 
 had come to settle in Gorseley towards the latter part 
 of 1857. The mother, an incurable invalid, had been 
 medically ordered, it was understood, complete rest 
 and seclusion ; hence their arrival in the remote village, 
 casually recommended to them. 
 
 The sentence, to one of Mrs. Brodhurst's constitu- 
 tion, had been virtually a sentence of death. She had 
 known herself from the first incapable of supporting 
 the ennui of an existence so " stale, flat, and unprofit- 
 able " ; yet life, or the residue of it which remained to 
 her, had not seemed worth economising. It was merely 
 to prolong a pain which, like an unassuageable tooth- 
 ache, could be ended at a single wrench. And she re- 
 garded her certain doom unemotionally. She was not, 
 she said, going to complain of her ejectionTfrom an 
 entertainment into which she had been dragged, kick-
 
 CAMILLA 263 
 
 ing and squealing. She had cried when she was born ; 
 it would be the highest inconsistence to snivel over her 
 departure. Moreover, Camilla, perhaps for the first 
 time in her life, was realising her natural habitat. 
 
 That last pretext, given with some good-humoured 
 contempt, may have come the nearest to the truth. 
 The mother and daughter were, in all essential char- 
 acteristics, poles apart, the one nervous, brilliant, 
 spirituelle ; the other simple, placid, unassuming. 
 Camilla, in her mother's philosophy, had always 
 figured as a rather negligible prude, oddly lacking in 
 originality. The girl amused her, but for her negative 
 rather than her positive qualities. She appreciated her 
 sweetness, of course ; she loved her prettiness ; but 
 the two were never comrades in the intimate sense, 
 and they lived their lives together rather as employer 
 and " companion " than as parent and child. 
 
 But the asperities of conscious wit are wont to soften 
 with age, and the mother had come, perhaps in the 
 prospect of the wider light, to recognise dimly in 
 Camilla certain qualities of uncomplaining self- 
 sacrifice and self-effacement to which she had hitherto 
 been blind. The girl, the woman, had endured long in 
 her service, trusted but unconfided-in, hating in her 
 heart, she suspected now, the life of social restlessness 
 and cabal to which she had condemned her, longing 
 for the quiet of uneventful places. Possibly, had 
 Camilla been suffered her bent earlier, she would have 
 realised herself, would have married. It might not be 
 too late yet ; she might discover, in the atmosphere 
 of rural orthodoxy, that soul's affinity which all the 
 crowded life of cities had been unable to produce for 
 her poor and unrecommended as she was. It would 
 be right to make a virtue of necessity by giving her the
 
 264 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 chance. And so the two had arrived at Gorseley ; and 
 almost immediately Mr. Spurling had come into evi- 
 dence. 
 
 Mrs. Brodhurst had laughed, rallying her droll 
 Camilla on her conquest. But she was disposed to do 
 little more, least of all to concede another point to her 
 own sacrifice. She had done all that could be expected 
 of her in this pastoral self-immurement ; she was not 
 going to cease to be herself for all the orthodox divines 
 in the world. She should have left herself behind, in- 
 deed, had she wished her magnanimity to bear fruit. 
 As it was, she shocked the vicar infinitely more by her 
 heterodoxy and neglect of spiritual observances than 
 ever Camilla gratified him by her pious dutifulness. 
 
 But indeed the world had always stood paramount in 
 the good lady's interests. Born St. Marie, the daughter 
 of Bourbonist refugees long settled in England, she 
 had married in 1830 Commander Brodhurst, who, ten 
 years later, had been killed at the bombardment of 
 Acre. Left a widow then, with a little daughter of 
 nine and a quite inadequate pension supplemented by 
 some scant private means, she had forthwith plunged 
 into political intrigue, as a means of relief from that 
 tcedium mice which is imposed upon the necessitous. 
 The little house in London, towards which she had 
 finally gravitated, had become a petty centre of con- 
 spiracy mostly talk and innocuous which made 
 some bright spirits, madam herself among the rest, a 
 whetstone for their wits. It had amounted to a pocket 
 salon, in fact, of a political complexion, and there were 
 hatched, for plots, whole nests of wind-eggs. No 
 wonder that in such an atmosphere Camilla, right 
 daughter of her father, the plain seaman and Church- 
 man, had found herself out of her element. And yet
 
 CAMILLA 265 
 
 her simple nature had halted between sorrow and glad- 
 ness when the decree, banishing her mother by then 
 a hopeless invalid from active life was issued ; and 
 she had found infinitely pathetic that adaptation of the 
 inevitable to her own late-considered interests. Be- 
 neath her quiet exterior was always a most wistful 
 filial worship. 
 
 Pathetic, in its conception, indeed, might have been 
 the mother's resolve ; unfortunately Mrs. Brodhurst 
 had not the nerve to maintain the self -sacrificial pose. 
 She might make a virtue of necessity ; she could not 
 make a grace. Shrewd, caustic, witty, a woman of the 
 world having infinite interests and vivacity, the 
 atmosphere to which she had committed herself proved 
 sterilising beyond her worst expectations. Mr. Spur- 
 ling in himself was an epitome of its solemn dullness, 
 its narrow respectability, the capacity of its insignifi- 
 cant minds for bearing monolithic prejudice, social 
 and spiritual. She had come here to die, but not to 
 be tortured to death ; and she was very soon crying 
 out on, and " crying-off," her own martyrdom. It was 
 the Chevalier du Garde alone, who saved her to reason 
 and to resignation. 
 
 He was there, in the cottage, one day, and thence- 
 forth he remained a rather gross unparticular gaillard, 
 with black eyebrows that met, a fund of anecdote, and 
 an excited witty tongue. Camilla, coming home from 
 a walk, had found him already established as a guest. 
 Recovering from her first amazement, she had been 
 given to understand that the Chevalier, a friend of her 
 mother's but unknown to herself, had heard of their 
 retirement, had come to call and was now to remain, 
 on Mrs. Brodhurst's invitation, indefinitely. The two, 
 it appeared, had been acquainted in London, and sufn-
 
 266 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 ciently intimately for the stranger to have ventured to 
 bring with him a big decayed old valise, containing as 
 much wardrobe as might serve for a week-end visit. 
 But the visit had been prolonged, without any addition 
 to the wardrobe, and, at the date of Mrs. Brodhurst's 
 death, had already extended to over a year. 
 
 This odd intrusion had seemed to justify itself, 
 Camilla thankfully admitted, in its effects. It had 
 reconciled Mrs. Brodhurst to her fate, had restored 
 to her some interest in an existence doomed, as it 
 appeared, to an early and dreary extinction. The two 
 cronies played piquet together, talked incessantly, dis- 
 sected characters and anathematised existing Govern- 
 ments. They were at one, it seemed, in their criticism 
 of all social, political and religious institutions ; their 
 human sympathies ran parallel so much so that, in 
 the opinion of Mr. Spurling, the coincidence of their 
 principles, or want of them, amounted to no better 
 than an exchange of heterodoxy from single harness 
 into double. He had been gravely concerned before ; 
 he was now scandalised ; and he made Camilla the 
 scapegoat of his indignation. 
 
 And Camilla herself poor Camilla ? It was wrong, 
 perverse, unmaidenly, she knew ; yet in some naughty 
 corner of her heart she had got to like the Chevalier. 
 He was an unscrupulous, derisive creature, apt at in- 
 nuendo none too refined ; but his detractions, while 
 she disapproved them, made her laugh, and somehow, 
 she could not tell how, he seemed, after the manner 
 of his countrymen, to understand women. Thus the 
 most feminine of Camilla's sex, even to the saintly, 
 betray themselves in their relish of a little sly back- 
 biting. He had shocked and frightened her at first ; 
 he appeared, indeed, to take a mischievous pleasure
 
 CAMILLA 267 
 
 in bringing the blush to her cheek, in holding her native 
 prudery up to ridicule ; but she always felt that in- 
 herent sympathy under his ribald banter. Even his 
 slovenliness, his uncleanness, his disregard of conven- 
 tions had ceased to offend her after a time, no less than 
 his tolerant contempt for herself, from which, however, 
 there grew a real tolerant affection. She amused him, 
 as she did her mother ; and perhaps, better than the 
 parent, he recognised in her that underlying vein of 
 humour which could find expression on occasion. He 
 had never forgotten a certain retort of hers upon some 
 sly pleasantry uttered by himself : "I would rather, 
 for my part, that people should ask why a man had 
 not married me than why he had." 
 
 " Rein! But that is famous ! " he had cried in his 
 harsh, jeering voice ; and from that moment he had 
 loved her. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE funeral was a week over, and Camilla and the 
 Chevalier remained on at the Dingle-nook. One 
 morning Mr. Spurling was announced. The girl, white, 
 large-eyed, came down in her black frock to greet him 
 in the little parlour. He faced her with the orthodox 
 expression of commiseration, but strangely penetrated 
 by some subtler emotion. 
 
 ' You are comforted, resigned to the Eternal Will ? " 
 he asked her. 
 
 " I shall never be resigned to my mother's loss," she 
 answered low. 
 
 " God," he said, " may even constitute that your 
 gain." His eyes burned upon her ; his lips were dry ; 
 but he put force upon himself to control his passion 
 for it amounted to no less. " Conceive," he said, " that
 
 268 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 clearer, holier understanding in whose light the re- 
 pentant sinner beholds the actions of her past. Would 
 she not rejoice to recognise the fulfilment of your 
 happiness in her loss ? I think so ; I think she sees 
 at last and comprehends." 
 
 Camilla made no answer ; and he went on : " But, in 
 duty to the enlightened dead, a task still remains to 
 our hands. There are tares to be gathered in and burnt, 
 obstacles to be removed. There I may help you 
 more, I am commanded. And first as to your material 
 circumstances. The pension ceases, I presume ? " 
 
 " Yes, it ceases," said Camilla. 
 
 " I venture to ask," said the Vicar, " on the strength 
 of information voluntarily offered. It was not your 
 mother's way to make a secret of anything. To do 
 her justice, she was as perfectly outspoken about her 
 worldly as about her spiritual affairs as about her 
 principles, if one may call them so, religious, social 
 and political. A Legitimist, I think, and true child by 
 temperament of her wild nation. And what beyond 
 the pension ? " 
 
 " Very little, I fear," said Camilla. " But I hope, 
 between us, we shall have enough to live on." 
 
 Spurling breathed out a soft echo of astonishment, 
 " We shall have ? " 
 
 " The Chevalier du Garde and I," explained the young 
 woman. 
 
 " You propose living together ? " 
 
 " It was my mother's wish," said Camilla. " I 
 promised her, when when she was dying." 
 
 " It cannot possibly be. It must not be, I say." 
 He had come even prepared for some such thunder- 
 clap ; yet the directness of it took his breath away. 
 " Do you understand what you are suggesting ? It is
 
 CAMILLA 269 
 
 incredible that the man should have so lingered on 
 under the circumstances. But he must go now or 
 you must go." 
 
 " My mother," whispered the girl ; but he inter- 
 rupted her. 
 
 ' Your mother was not the fittest judge you oblige 
 me to say it. I have the reputation of my parish to 
 consider the welfare of my flock. Where is this man ? 
 I had better see him himself." 
 
 She barred his way. There was a look in her eyes, if 
 he had only understood it. 
 
 " Mr. Spurling, I promised. I will not break my 
 promise. You might kill him, for I will tell you the 
 truth he suffers from advanced heart disease, and the 
 shock of my mother's death has already terribly affected 
 him. And there is something more which I will take 
 upon myself to confide to your honour. The Chevalier 
 is a political refugee." 
 
 " From what-? " 
 
 " I do not know." 
 
 The Vicar shook his head. 
 
 " I do not suppose you do ; but it all makes no 
 difference. I can hardly characterise as I should desire 
 the moral insensibility which could impose such a task 
 on you. The man must go." He stopped, gathering 
 at last some faint understanding of the emotion in her 
 face. " If only for my sake," he said, in a changed 
 hoarse voice, " you will not re-erect a fallen barrier 
 between us. Need I speak more plainly ? " 
 
 " I shall never leave the Chevalier till he dies," 
 answered the girl dully, steadily. " I pledged my word 
 to my mother that I would not." 
 
 He was greatly angered. He had fancied that last 
 plea irresistible, and his personal vanity was offended.
 
 270 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He was really very much in love with this beautiful 
 creature who had come so overwhelmingly into his 
 life, and the surprise of opposition where he had looked, 
 the great obstacle being removed, for submissive de- 
 pendence, added fuel to his fire. 
 
 " You will not ? " he said. " We shall see. In the 
 meantime, as pastor of my flock, and accountable to 
 heaven for its incorruption, I must not appear even to 
 condone by silence a situation so scandalous. I warn 
 you from my fold ; my Church declines you ; should 
 you persist in attending it, it will be at the risk of a 
 public denunciation." 
 
 " I may not come to celebration ? " she asked, her 
 voice trembling a little. 
 
 " No," he said ; "I speak for the Divinity you 
 affront," and, taking up his hat, he left the cottage. 
 
 IV 
 
 THE man who speaks too confidently for God, at heart 
 implies his own omniscience. Dogmatism is arrogance ; 
 it is Humility that can hold all good human faiths in 
 her arms. Spurling's passion, like his belief, was dog- 
 matic. Its narrow self-sufficiency could conceive no 
 legitimate worship but its own. He loved in the one 
 right way, and his love was not to be questioned or its 
 way disputed. His passion, being controverted, could 
 have burnt this obstinate heretic in its own fierce 
 miserable fires. Condemned to feed upon itself, it 
 waxed gross, abnormal. From the morning of his 
 interview with Camilla he never knew a happy moment. 
 It was, if he had known, the affront to his " pro- 
 fessional " vanity which most poisoned. The con- 
 descending minister in him had been flouted, and by a
 
 CAMILLA 271 
 
 comparative stranger. It was not thus the elect of 
 his cloth were wont to suffer rebuffs least of all in 
 the homes of incense-proffering virgins. For the mo- 
 ment he believed he hated the girl, with a purely 
 righteous hatred. 
 
 Unhappy sophistry. How could one righteously 
 hate what one so passionately desired ? The fate of 
 the man exorcised of the single unclean spirit was com- 
 ing to be his. It maddened him presently to find how 
 literally the girl accepted her sentence. She kept 
 away from the church ; she avoided all contact with 
 himself. Yet she remained impenitent, faithful to 
 her dishonourable undertaking. So he decreed it, and 
 so, presently, in his most torturing possession, he 
 believed it. She was true to her trust. Why, when 
 the Church by which she held had pronounced against 
 its inviolability ? 
 
 Presently it ceased to be with him a moral question 
 at all ; it became solely a question of his will against 
 hers a combat merely animal in its temper. He 
 lusted for conquest and possession. He must have her 
 or perish. 
 
 All this time he had refrained from giving effect to 
 his threat of denunciation. More, he had used his 
 authority, indirectly, to excuse, to defend her position. 
 It was the fruit, he implied, of a promise thoughtlessly 
 exacted ; it would end with the recovery and departure 
 of the foreigner. 
 
 And then one day he learned casually that Camilla 
 and her charge had given notice to quit possession of 
 the cottage, and that in a month they would be gone 
 together. 
 
 The news quite crushed him for the instant. She 
 would go she could go, retorting thus effectively upon
 
 272 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 his interference ? Well, he had brought it upon him- 
 self, and the conquest of will was to her, the creature 
 all apparent gentleness and submission. 
 
 That night he was more like a wild animal than an 
 orthodox divine. The one evil spirit was replaced by 
 the seven, and he knew himself for what he was, a 
 soul rent and demented by jealousy. Yes, jealousy 
 jealousy of the gross ungainly creature, who had come 
 to illustrate in himself the penchant of the softer sex 
 the softer sex ! for grotesqueness and abnormality. 
 A witty tongue, a flattering imagination had counted 
 with Camilla above all the claims of moral excellence. 
 He even bethought himself that there might have been 
 a double entente in that plea of heart disease, that it 
 had expressed a heart affection of another and cor- 
 rupter order. To what was this travesty of devotion 
 due to the girl's up-bringing ; to her misdirected 
 enthusiasms ? 
 
 He fell suddenly and mortally calm. A thought had 
 crossed his mind, so new, so startling and yet so in- 
 evitable, that he was amazed it had not occurred to 
 him before. The Chevalier was a political refugee. 
 Very well : he, Spurling, had not abused the trust 
 which had informed him of the fact. But would it be 
 abusing any trust to enlarge, for his own purposes (of 
 retaliation, in fact) on that restricted confidence ? 
 He declared not, his eyes glowing with fanatic vindic- 
 tiveness. He got out certain references papers and 
 periodicals, which had survived from last year's litter. 
 
 The Orsini plot that was what he wanted ; the 
 plot which had closed abortively, in the month of 
 January, in the attempted assassination of the Emperor 
 Napoleon in Paris. Three bombs had been thrown, 
 killing or mutilating a number of people ; but the
 
 CAMILLA 273 
 
 Emperor himself had escaped. Most of the principals 
 and their tools, all Italian malcontents, had been seized 
 and dealt with at the time ; a few, it was believed, had 
 got away. The plot had been devised in London, 
 and matured there about the date of Mrs. Brodhurst's 
 flight to the country. That lady, no doubt, was not to 
 be suspected of participation in it ; but, as to her 
 sympathies that was another matter. She had in- 
 trigued ; she was a violent Bourbonist ; what more 
 probable than that she would have been willing to 
 give asylum to one implicated in the affair, and flying 
 from its consequences ? And the Chevalier had ap- 
 peared in Gorseley coincidently with the hue and cry. 
 
 Mr. Spurling took a sheet of note-paper, and^wrote 
 a brief letter to the head of the detective force in London. 
 
 " There may be something or nothing in it," he 
 muttered, his face very white. " At least there is no 
 harm in trying. She does not know the worst. It may 
 open her eyes to the man's true character. I owe 
 it to myself, to her, to end, if possible, this scandal." 
 
 So his passion and his conscience were reconciled. 
 
 CAMILLA came down to the little parlour, to find two 
 men, the Vicar and a stranger, awaiting her. The 
 former, biting his lower lip, bowed stiffly, gloomily. 
 
 " I am sorry," he said, " to hear of this sudden 
 attack ; sorry in the necessity of calling you from your 
 self-imposed duties." 
 
 ' The doctor is there," she answered, and no more. 
 But there was an alert look in her quiet eyes, a spot of 
 colour on her cheek that he found it difficult to inter- 
 pret. 
 T
 
 274 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Nevertheless," he said, " I cannot regard our visit 
 as inopportune, seeing the issues that hang upon it. 
 This gentleman " he signified the stranger " is a 
 detective officer from Scotland Yard. He has been 
 making some enquiries lately in the neighbourhood 
 with what result I give you my honour that I do not 
 know." 
 
 " Yes," she said, in the same even tone : " We sus- 
 pected as much. The heart attack was directly due 
 to that apprehension that fear." 
 
 " I would not," he said, " have had that so. Yet 
 the admission, in a way, implying, as it does, some sug- 
 gestion of knowledge, makes my task easier. Have you 
 any suspicion, Miss Brodhurst, as to who it may be 
 that you have been harbouring in your house these 
 long months ? " 
 
 " I do not suspect. I know." 
 "You do? Andwho- 
 
 " It is Francesca Villani. She was implicated in the 
 Orsini plot." 
 
 The detective uttered a sound as of a man happily 
 vindicated in a theory. But Spurling uttered no sound 
 no word. He stood completely dumb-stricken. 
 
 At length, drawing a deep breath, he spoke, with 
 difficulty : 
 
 " Francesca, did you say did I understand ? " 
 " That is so, sir," put in the detective. " Francesca 
 Villani an Italian, safe enough. I have a warrant 
 here for her arrest. I had to keep close, you see, about 
 my suspicions, until confirmed. She was supposed to 
 have taken up some sort of male disguise, and your 
 letter gave us the clue." 
 
 Spurling made an impatient gesture, as if to silence 
 him.
 
 CAMILLA 275 
 
 " A woman ? " He said it with a little groaning 
 sigh, never taking his haunted eyes off the girl's face. 
 And she regarded him as steadily. 
 ' Yes, a woman," she answered. 
 
 " How could I know ? " 
 
 ' You could not. I myself only learned the truth 
 the night my mother died." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me ? " 
 
 " I had no right. I had vowed to her. It was not to 
 be for long, she said, since Francesca was already 
 doomed. The wonder was she lived on at all. O, it 
 
 was pathetic those two ; and " her voice quivered 
 
 a little ; but she fought down her emotion. " So 
 brave, so bright, so stricken ; but one gone the other 
 could not stay long and she died an hour ago." 
 
 " Died ! " He almost cried it. The detective 
 checked himself in a hurried movement, and stood 
 aghast. 
 
 " Did you think," said Camilla, " that I should have 
 confessed otherwise ? I have not broken my trust. 
 You may know at last, since it no longer matters. 
 You may know everything if you will just as I received 
 it from Francesca's dying lips. She had lived in Paris 
 a great deal, but she was in London when the horrible 
 attempt was made. She had taken no part in it, and 
 the knowledge of her name being implicated almost 
 killed her. It was Italian independence for which she 
 plotted ; she knew that no good cause was ever won 
 by crime. Is there anything more you would like to 
 be told, Mr. Spurling ? " 
 
 He took a step towards her, his hands entreating, 
 his chest heaving. 
 
 " I only did what my duty demanded," he said. 
 His voice was quite broken. " Camilla ! "
 
 276 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 The girl, her eyebrows raised, looked from him to 
 the detective, and back again. 
 
 " I am sure of it," she answered ; " and that you 
 may have thought you were justified in your estimate 
 of what I was capable of. You did quite right, holding 
 such an opinion of me, and quite right in sending for 
 the police to help you in resolving a moral difficulty. 
 And I dare say, anyhow, that poor Francesca would 
 not have lived another week." 
 
 All her forced composure seemed to go out of her 
 with the word, and she turned with a little cry to en- 
 counter the figure of the doctor who at that moment 
 entered the room. Marks seized her hands into his, 
 bade her instantly to be seated, and stood, his light 
 arm over her shoulders, while she leaned her head, 
 with closed eyes, against him. 
 
 " Sorry, Spurling," he said. " But you must say 
 whatever else you've got to say to me. I know all 
 about it, necessarily, you see have known for a day 
 or two. Well, the poor woman is dead, and beyond our 
 righteous machinations. But for the question of this 
 lady's disinterested devotion to a trust, I hold myself 
 answerable. Miss Brodhurst has been terribly over- 
 taxed of late, and I say that the thing must end. You 
 will understand, I'm sure, when I tell you that she and 
 I are to be married."
 
 TO GAY
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 
 
 MISS MARY WATCHETT, a young Colonial 
 heiress, had written from Westminster to 
 Lord Riversdale, at Kensington, asking him to recom- 
 mend to her, if he could and would, a capable man 
 secretary. Miss Watchett was new to London and, 
 comparatively, to moneyed independence. She felt a 
 little deafened and confused amid the roar of harpies 
 that enveloped her ; she walked, like Tennyson's 
 youthful sceptic, but far less rancorously, with her 
 head " in a cloud of poisonous flies," and it taxed 
 all the resources of that staid young cerebrum to 
 preserve to itself a rational regard of things in the 
 thick of the tumultuous swarm. 
 
 Miss Watchett, clear-eyed and constitutionally 
 sedate, had applied to the Viscount in this matter of 
 a secretary because her father, Jack Watchett, of 
 Sydney, had once advised her, when in any difficulty 
 of the sort, to do so. He and his lordship were past 
 school-fellows, and chums in the pre-colonial days, 
 and Jack, himself a hard-headed man of business, 
 had always retained the profoundest admiration for 
 the other's practical abilities. Wherefore, foreseeing 
 the inevitable home-sickness that would overtake his 
 Mary when left alone, he had instructed her as to her 
 best friends, as he regarded them, in England, amongst 
 
 279
 
 28o BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 which best he had put foremost the shrewd unemotional 
 man of the world who had once been his inseparable 
 ally. 
 
 But that was long ago. A faith in race kinship 
 dwells warmer in the Colonial than in the insular 
 breast, and many figures had supplanted Jack's 
 in the affections of his lordship since their separa- 
 tion. Riversdale's reception of the girl's letter was 
 significant of the different point of view ; it ex- 
 pressed the faint boredom of the aristocrat over the 
 injudicious resurrection of dead intimacies long laid 
 and quite pleasantly forgotten. He tossed the epistle 
 over with a snort to his eldest hope, Lord Kilmeston. 
 It was true that he was ill with an aggravated form of 
 gout at the time. 
 
 " Answer that for me," he said, " and do your best 
 for the girl. She is the daughter and heiress of a one- 
 time friend of mine deceased, it seems. She had much 
 better have remained at home ; but, since she's 
 elected to come to England, we must be civil to her, 
 I suppose. Only I'm not going to be called upon to 
 father her interests. Watchett was a good fellow, but 
 rough, and his progeny have scant attractions for me." 
 
 The young gentleman read the letter. 
 
 " Who the deuce am I to recommend ? " he de- 
 manded. 
 
 " Recommend the don't worry me, sir," roared 
 his father. " Keep her away, that's all ; I won't 
 have her here. You might apply yourself for the 
 post, you idle young rip. It would put your hands 
 to something useful for the first time in their exist- 
 ence." 
 
 The heir rose, a light in his eyes. " By Jove," he 
 said, " a good idea. An heiress, and with that intimate
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 281 
 
 opportunity to examine my ground before committing 
 myself ! I believe I'll do it." 
 
 His father called furiously after him, but he was 
 gone. 
 
 II 
 
 Miss WATCHETT sat curiously conning an anonymous 
 letter which had reached her by the second morning 
 post. She was alone in her boudoir a cosy room, one 
 of a commodious suite which she had taken on the 
 second floor of Queen Anne's Mansions, St. James's 
 Park. There were advantages about these Mansions 
 to a much-pestered and solicited moneyed maiden, the 
 greatest being that all visitors had to run the gauntlet 
 of the hall porter's extensive bureau on the ground 
 floor. Others comprised an excellent restaurant, a 
 staff common to all inmates of the huge pile, privacy 
 as much as one liked and security unruffled. You 
 might keep your own servants, or none at all ; you 
 might take your meals in public or have them served 
 to you in your rooms ; there were no rules, no ' hours ', 
 no obligations of any sort. And all this suited Miss 
 Watchett, who had enjoyed her fortune long enough to 
 appreciate its penalties. She kept a companion, for 
 companionship's sake; otherwise the conduct of her 
 domestic affairs lay to the staff, who came and went 
 softly, dusted, made the beds, ordered all things com- 
 fortably, and for nine-tenths of her time, if she chose, 
 left her in undisturbed seclusion. The only ' rift 
 within the lute ' jarring on so much harmony lay in 
 the applicants, the supplicants, the beggars and im- 
 postors who, in spite of all precautions, managed to 
 win through to the front-door knocker, which they 
 kept in a pretty constant state of agitation. It was
 
 282 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 principally on their account that the young lady 
 had come to desire the services of a capable male 
 secretary. 
 
 Miss Watchett sat thoughtfully conning her letter. 
 It was not, of course, the first received by her of the 
 anonymous kind ; the point was that it touched, and 
 humorously, upon a definite problem. She read it 
 through for a third time : 
 
 ' Your application to Lord Riversdale re a male 
 secretary has been received. His Lordship, being ill 
 at the time, handed it over to his son, Lord Kilmeston, 
 to answer. Lord K. will recommend the bearer 
 of his reply to you for the post in question. But, take 
 warning : the bearer will be no other than Lord Kil- 
 meston himself, passing under an assumed name that 
 of Mr. Charles Lorry. He, Lord K., has devised 
 this intimate means of satisfying himself as to the 
 possible desirableness of an heiress. Beware the snake 
 in the grass. A well-wisher." 
 
 Miss Watchett replaced the letter in her lap. 
 
 " 0, indeed ! " she said. 
 
 Ill 
 
 MR. CHARLES LORRY, humming a confident little air, 
 knocked smartly at the door of the flat. It was 
 opened to him by a neat young woman, having on a 
 tucker and apron of blue cotton. 
 
 " Can I see Miss Watchett ? " he demanded. 
 
 She replied, in a soft composed voice, by asking 
 him his name. He gave it freely, adding that he 
 brought a letter of introduction. At that, bidding him 
 enter, she shut the door, and put out her hand. 
 
 " Yes ? " he asked.
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 283 
 
 ' The letter," she replied. 
 
 " I'll give it myself." 
 
 " O, no ! You must let her decide if she will see 
 you ! We have a number of impostors to guard 
 against." 
 
 He flushed up to the roots of his hair. He was tall, 
 well-built, patently an aristocrat a fact which the 
 companion noted with some secret curiosity. There 
 was an air about him of that prescriptive self-confi- 
 dence which can take liberties with the most charming 
 grace in the world and resent them, with an equally 
 compelling savoir-faire. 
 
 ' Take it to her, if you will be so good," he re- 
 sponded frigidly, and she tripped away, perfectly un- 
 concerned, leaving him standing on the mat. In a 
 few moments she returned. 
 
 ' Yes, she will see you," she said. " Please to wipe 
 your boots first." 
 
 He scraped the soles for quite two minutes, while 
 she stood by. 
 
 ' Thanks for reminding me," he said. " Do you 
 think that will do ; or had I better take them off, and 
 walk in my socks ? " 
 
 " The carpets are new," she said. " Follow me, 
 please." 
 
 He obeyed, positively shaking his fist at the serenely 
 unconscious little thing. She conducted him into a 
 pleasant well-furnished room, where at a littered table 
 sat a lady writing. 
 
 " Here is the person, Miss Watchett," said the 
 companion, and, without another word, went out and 
 shut the door. 
 
 Mr. Lorry stood for some moments speechless and 
 unregarded while the heiress finished her letter. He
 
 284 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 felt in himself a curious tingling emotion associated 
 somehow with a long-forgotten experience of a certain 
 study, not uncomfortable, a head master, and a sensa- 
 tion of guilt shortly to be exchanged for another and 
 a worse. When the lady looked up at last, he in- 
 stinctively shivered. She held his letter in her hand 
 a shapely but large white hand, he observed, capable 
 of wielding a rod effectively. 
 
 " From Lord Kilmeston ? " she said. ' You are 
 acquainted with his Lordship, perhaps ? " 
 
 " Intimately," said the applicant, with a little con- 
 scious smile and flush, which the other did not fail 
 to notice. She was a rather spacious young woman of 
 a golden aspect. Her hair, her eyes, her pince-nez were 
 all of the precious colour, tone contrasting with tone. 
 Even her nice plain frock was of a warm citron hue. 
 For the rest her complexion was of a serene pallor, her 
 manner self-possessed, her brow severely calm 
 decidedly, all in all, an imposing figure ; but attrac- 
 tive. 
 
 " His Lordship " she referred to the letter " act- 
 ing for his father " (" He is ill," interpolated the 
 visitor murmuringly), " warmly recommends the 
 bearer of this note, Mr. Charles Lorry " (" Myself," 
 intimated the visitor, ingratiatory), " for the post of 
 secretary to Miss Watchett. She will find him sober, 
 ingenious, and the best of good fellows." 
 
 The lady replaced the letter on the table leisurely, 
 and looked up suddenly. Mr. Lorry was biting the 
 rim of his hat, and grinning over it. His expression 
 sobered instantly. 
 
 " The best of qualifications, no doubt," she said, 
 steadily regarding the abashed face, " particularly as 
 franked, indirectly, by my father's old friend, Lord
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 285 
 
 Riversdale, to whom I had applied in my difficulty. 
 He would be the last to misunderstand me, would he 
 not ? " 
 
 " Of course," answered the young gentleman, feeling 
 a little hot. " Why should he ? " 
 
 " O, I don't know ! " said the heiress. " Only in 
 Australia one's recommendations to a post commonly 
 consist in one's capacities for it. These are rather 
 abstract virtues, are they not ? but no doubt it is 
 different in England. Can you spell ? " 
 
 The abruptness of the demand made him jump. 
 
 "Madam," he said, with dignity, "I have had a 
 public-school education ; I have been at a Uni- 
 versity." 
 
 "Can you use a typewriter ? " 
 
 " I would scorn to say no." 
 
 " Are you proficient in languages ? " 
 
 " I will confess I have an insular shyness of blowing 
 my own trumpet. But I know some out-of-the-way 
 words." 
 
 She rubbed her lips delicately with a snowy wisp 
 of a handkerchief. 
 
 " You see, it is this way," she said. " I have a 
 large correspondence. It is one, perhaps the greatest, 
 of the penalties of wealth." 
 
 " I feel that, for my part, I could suffer a worse," 
 said Mr. Lorry, with some emotion, " for half the 
 consideration." 
 
 " It reaches me from everywhere," continued Miss 
 Watchett ; " and it has to be answered mostly un- 
 kindly. But you understand ? " 
 
 " Fully." 
 
 " You would have to undertake the bulk of it for 
 me. Then there are the personal applications '
 
 286 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Leave those to me," decided the visitor firmly. 
 " There I should be upon my own ground." 
 
 " They are really the first consideration," said the 
 heiress. " They interfere intolerably with the repose 
 and retirement I desire for myself, and to command 
 which I have arranged to dispense with all service 
 here save that which is absolutely necessary. The 
 Mansion servants do their daily work in the rooms 
 and then go. For the rest of the time I, and my paid 
 companion, Miss Clare Normanby, are alone here to- 
 gether. She is a valuable auxiliary ; but what with 
 the correspondence, the unwelcome calls, and the 
 vigilant attendance on personal and household duties 
 expected of her by her employer, her engagement is 
 overtaxing her resources, and I have been reluctantly 
 compelled to consider the necessity of an addition to 
 our menage." 
 
 The gentleman bowed, but a little coldly. There was 
 already something illuminating, he felt, in this speech. 
 That " paid," purse-proud and insolent, stuck in his 
 gorge. A first faint flicker of commiseration for the 
 staid little figure that had let him in stirred somewhere 
 in his depths. 
 
 " The wages I could offer you," said Miss Watchett, 
 " would be fifteen shillings a week. Hours ten to 
 four." 
 
 He stared and gasped. Then recollected himself. 
 
 " I should call that munificent," he said joyfully. 
 " If it were only for the delight of serving you, I 
 
 She interrupted him, holding up her hand : 
 
 " There is one of them at the door now if you like 
 to go and prove your ability." 
 
 He hurried out, and into the hall. Miss Normanby 
 was in altercation at the front door with a stranger
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 287 
 
 who refused to be dismissed. The girl looked doubt- 
 ful and a little distressed. 
 
 " Surely, young woman, she will not decline to see 
 me," the visitor was protesting ; "to refuse of her 
 abundance a stiver to the necessitous ? " 
 
 He was attired like a mouldy clergyman, and his 
 nose was red. 
 
 " Allow me," said Lorry, and very gently he inter- 
 posed. 
 
 " Who's necessitous ? " said he. 
 
 " Sir," said the stranger sourly, " I collect for the 
 Novelists' Evangelical Mission." 
 
 " I know you do," said the young gentleman ; 
 " and that you do nothing else. I have seen you 
 before, and introduced you to your own name in a 
 certain Cautionary List." 
 
 That was a shot in the dark ; but master Charles 
 was a knowing man of the world. It went home, and 
 the clergyman vanished, softly and instantly, as if 
 he had seen a Boojum. 
 
 " Thank you," said the companion. " I suspected, 
 but I couldn't be sure." 
 
 Charles returned to the heiress. 
 
 " I foresee I can be of some use to you," he said. 
 
 " Do you wish to accept the post ? " 
 
 " By all means." 
 
 IV 
 
 " WERE you the sole amanuensis and chucker-out, 
 really, before I came ? " asked Mr. Lorry of the com- 
 panion one morning. He had been at his task a 
 fortnight now, and was enjoying it immensely on 
 the whole. There was an originality about vigorous 
 occupation which was an increasing charm to him.
 
 288 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He looked up from his table, and from voluminous 
 correspondence, to canvass Miss Normanby, who was 
 busy arranging flowers about the room. 
 
 " Why should you doubt it ? " answered the lady. 
 " You were introduced to me in the act." 
 
 " I have a picture, by Du Maurier, in my mind's 
 eye, that's all," he said. " It is of a very little foot- 
 man, a three-foot-six child, waiting to escort his 
 mistress, a young lady of magnificent proportions, 
 home from a party. I hope Miss Watchett is careful 
 not to tread on you, at least." 
 
 She glanced at him swiftly, and away again. He 
 detected a tiny flush on her cheek, and it gave him 
 an odd wilful pleasure to believe it a flower of his 
 growing. They had come to be on quite familiar terms, 
 and he delighted in, while he patronised, the little 
 desirable soul. She exhaled a sort of quiet purity, and 
 though she was no more than bluntly passable in 
 looks, a certain fragrance of mind and little body, 
 coupled with a sweet complexion, atoned in her for 
 most defects. 
 
 " Did you intend a double-meaning in saying 
 that ? " she asked him. 
 
 " Please don't interrupt me. How do you spell 
 eligible ? " 
 
 " How do you ? " 
 
 " O ! that's weak." 
 
 " Well, how do public schools and universities spell 
 it, then ? " 
 
 " I am not allowed to say. They don't like these 
 things talked about. Do tell me." 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " I mean two 1's or one ? " 
 
 " Put two and make a blot."
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 289 
 
 " Impostor ! " 
 
 " Isn't that rather the pot calling the kettle black ? " 
 
 " Eh ? " He looked up, a sudden startled light in 
 his eyes. " What do you mean, madam ? " 
 
 She was busy at her task, with her back presented 
 to him. 
 
 " Why, are you not one ? " she asked, quite inno- 
 cently, without turning round. 
 
 " This," he said, " must not stop here. Give the 
 charge a name." 
 
 " Did not you tell Miss Watchett," she said, " that 
 you could use a typewriter ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " That you were master of several languages ? " 
 
 " Words, madam, I said words not in common 
 use." 
 
 " And you cannot even spell." 
 
 " How do you know, when you confess you can't 
 yourself ? " 
 
 " But that is not the worst. I suppose it has never 
 occurred to you that Miss Watchett might all this 
 time be perfectly well aware of the trick you are 
 playing on her ? " 
 
 He rose in very real perturbation. 
 
 " Trick ! " he cried. The shock was quite unex- 
 pected. 
 
 She whipped round on him, produced a letter from 
 her pocket, and presented it : 
 
 " Would you like to read that ? It may enlighten 
 you." 
 
 He took it from her hand, read it through with an 
 amazed face, and gave a little gasp. It was the 
 anonymous missive. 
 
 " I knew nothing about this," he said stupidly, 
 u
 
 290 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Who," she answered ; " supposed you did ? Do 
 you guess who wrote it ? " 
 
 " Yes, very well." 
 
 " And his, or her purpose ? " 
 
 " I'll ask him by and by. Just mischief, I expect." 
 He expelled a huge accumulated sigh, and gave his 
 chest a thwack. " Ouf! " he said. " A staggerer ! 
 Did she, Miss Watchett, authorise you to show it me ? " 
 
 " O, no ! " 
 
 " Then, why " 
 
 " It seemed cruel to me somehow to leave you 
 in the dark, fancying yourself such a wag." 
 
 " O, you overcome me with gratitude ! Will you 
 tell her now how you have opened my eyes ? " 
 
 " I should never dare. I don't know how she would 
 take it. I had no business to touch the letter ; but 
 the temptation came suddenly." 
 
 " You were in her confidence in the matter ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but she never actually prohibited me. This 
 is a secret between you and me. She must take her 
 own course ; and, anyhow, I'm not going to spoil sport, 
 Lord Kilmeston." 
 
 Even as she spoke, Miss Watchett herself came into 
 the room. She glanced from one conscious face to the 
 other, and her lips tightened. 
 
 " I could wish, Miss Normanby," she said, " that 
 you would interrupt Mr. Lorry less frequently at his 
 work. And do, pray, hurry up with those flowers. 
 You have a dozen things of more importance to 
 attend to." 
 
 V 
 
 MR. CHARLES LORRY had been getting on so far as 
 his main purpose, a critical appreciation of the heiress,
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 291 
 
 was concerned very well, better than he had ventured, 
 for all his assurance, to expect. He was a handsome 
 and attractive young man, possessed of a consider- 
 able fund of the calm impudence associated with that 
 class of beings, fruges consumere nati, who unite in 
 their agreeable selves the sense of untroubled appro- 
 priation and Quixotic honesty. He had from the first 
 regarded the outcome of this business as a foregone 
 conclusion. He would succeed in prevailing with the 
 heiress, did she prove worthy of his regard ; about 
 that he had never allowed himself a doubt. On the 
 other hand, it would be the simplest matter to chuck 
 up his engagement at short notice, leaving things 
 exactly as he had found them. He certainly wanted 
 a rich wife ; but, to do him the right justice, money 
 without respect and affection had no appeal to him. 
 It disturbed him now, only in degree, that he must 
 play his game self-consciously. 
 
 His opportunities for an intimate study of Miss 
 Watchett had given him plentiful food for reflection. 
 It had been satisfying, at least, to find Jack's daughter 
 an indubitable lady, cultivated, clever and accom- 
 plished. She talked well, played well, looked well, and 
 her bearing was beyond reproach. As against those 
 recommendations there were some apparently in- 
 herent qualities which repelled him. She had no sense 
 of humour, for one thing ; but that was not the worst. 
 She was intolerant and hard so hard in her judgments 
 that he often wondered over his own secretarial in- 
 dispensability, inasmuch as the nine-tenths of her 
 correspondence which turned upon appeals she ruled 
 inexorably into the waste-paper basket. He always 
 hoped that she might, on reconsideration, disinter a 
 selection, but she never did in his presence, at least ;
 
 292 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 and anyhow, the wholesale immolation simplified 
 matters. 
 
 She had begun by treating him personally with an 
 abrupt hauteur which had seemed designed for his 
 humiliation ; but it had not been very long before his 
 persistent charms had begun to win their way with 
 her. He had become conscious of a softening in their 
 relations, at first hardly perceptible, but presently 
 confessing itself in a regard which he could not mis- 
 take. It was the swift and swifter melting of virgin 
 snow in the beams of an ardent Spring. And at last 
 she was patently making love to him. 
 
 He accepted that fruition of his scheme as yet with 
 philosophy, since he had by no means made up his 
 own mind in the matter. It distressed him keenly, for 
 one thing, to observe how, correspondingly with the 
 heiress's hardly-veiled approaches to himself, her 
 manner towards the companion became more and 
 more disagreeably distant. She had always been the 
 most exacting, the most inconsiderate of employers 
 towards this kind devoted little helpmate ; she now 
 seemed to take pleasure in finding fault with her, 
 while she heaped the most intolerable burden of duties 
 on the young shoulders. The thing came to amount 
 to a positive persecution, which could have only one 
 end, apparently designed the dismissal of a hated 
 incubus. 
 
 Did the child figure as such, indeed ? Jealousy, 
 supposed master Charles, was not excluded from com- 
 manding white presences and majestic bosoms ; and 
 he was attached to the little creature ; he sympathised 
 with and pitied her. Still, not to be over-conceited, 
 he was no more than madam's munificently paid 
 secretary ; and he might be mistaken.
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 293 
 
 And then came the revelation about the anonymous 
 letter, and in its light things which had been obscure 
 appeared plain. Miss Watchett had known all along ; 
 Miss Watchett had been melting, perchance, in the 
 golden sun, not of love but of a coronet. He did not 
 know whether to thank or to curse that rather vicious 
 young scatterbrain, Mr. Vivian Plunkett, who had 
 been present when the little plot was hatched, and who 
 had written (of that he was certain ; he could not mis- 
 take the rascal's handwriting) the anonymous letter 
 in question. Certainly he himself held no brief for 
 Miss Clare Normanby ; and certainly Miss Mary 
 Watchett was, in many respects, quite a seductive 
 young parti. He stood at the fork of the road. Which 
 way was he to take ? The question was decided for 
 him quite abruptly. 
 
 VI 
 
 THERE had been a painful scene, ending, as antici- 
 pated, in a notice to leave being given to the com- 
 panion. Miss Watchett, after delivering her fiat, 
 stood panting a little, as if overcome by, or ashamed 
 of, her own vehemence ; Miss Normanby, who had 
 said little in her personal defence, remained pale but 
 composed. It was the man whose heart was blazing 
 in a fume of indignation. 
 
 Now there are within us certain germs which, 
 though living, only awaken and become active in the 
 shock of unforeseen accident. In the same way an 
 emotion, failing its particular provocation, may lie 
 dormant in us for years or for ever. So it happened 
 with master Charles. The blow, though half ex- 
 pected, dislodged and quickened in him the germ of 
 something so amazing and unexpected that it posi-
 
 294 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 lively took his breath away. He felt as if a mist had 
 been swept from his eyes, leaving his choice of a road 
 quite startlingly clear so inevitable, indeed, that it 
 seemed impossible he could ever have doubted it. He 
 faced the heiress quietly, but his eyes looked curiously 
 large and his lips oddly red. 
 
 " Miss Normanby is to go to-morrow, then," he 
 said. " From to-morrow you will please, also, to 
 employ another secretary." 
 
 He heard her exclaim and gasp as he turned his 
 back on her. He took no notice, but walked stiffly up 
 to Clare Normanby and stood before her. 
 
 " I had not understood up to now," he said, " what 
 had come to move me so intensely in the sight of my 
 fellow-bondslave subjected to her daily martyrdom. 
 I know at last. I had come here to prevail with the 
 employer : I end by being vanquished by the em- 
 ployed. In the prospect of her loss I realise my own. 
 My dear, I wasn't aware, but you have become in- 
 dispensable to me. This fortnight has finished my 
 education. I am not worth much in any way ; but 
 I can keep a wife, and I ask you to give yourself to me. 
 You are worth a thousand heiresses, and I will try 
 to make you as happy as your sweetness and virtue 
 deserve." 
 
 He was conscious in himself, while speaking, of a 
 sort of delirious self-abandonment, like that of an 
 unharnessed horse let loose to roll and flounder in a 
 meadow of spring flowers. A sudden astonished voice 
 recalled him to his senses. 
 
 " You came here, Mr. Lorry, to prevail with the 
 employer ! " 
 
 He faced about, triumphantly regarding the injured 
 goddess.
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 295 
 
 ' You know, madam, you know," he said ; " and 
 I know that you know. I have seen the letter, whose 
 writer, believe me, I shall be careful to call to account 
 for his abominable abuse of a trust. Yet I have 
 to thank him in one way for opening my eyes to a 
 double truth, to which, without his interference, I 
 might have remained for ever blind the impotence 
 of wealth without a heart to recommend itself ; the 
 inestimable value, above all material advantages, of 
 a lovable goodness. And now to confess. I am not, 
 Miss Watchett, what you think me." 
 
 " Do you not mean, Lord Kilmeston, what, without 
 the letter, I should have thought you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Even as he spoke something happened something 
 so morally dislocating that for the moment his brain 
 reeled in the shock of it. Miss Clare Normanby, with 
 a tiny rippling laugh, ran past him and threw herself 
 upon the shoulder of Miss Mary Watchett. In the 
 same instant the oddest expression made itself seen on 
 the heiress's face. It was like nothing so much as 
 suppressed merriment. 
 
 " Explain yourself, please," she said with difficulty. 
 
 " I am not Lord Kilmeston." 
 
 " Well, I am not Miss Mary Watchett." 
 
 A silence followed brief, but too enormous for 
 measurement. Then, out of a mist and thunder of 
 stupefaction, Mr. Charles Lorry became conscious that 
 two faces were curiously regarding him. He laughed 
 ruefully. 
 
 " Hoist with my own petard," he said, and fell 
 dumb. 
 
 " O ! " said the golden lady, shaking a severe finger 
 at him ; " are you not ashamed of yourself for playing
 
 296 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 such a trick upon two unsuspecting women ? And it 
 might have succeeded, had it not been for the letter, 
 and an adventurer spared his deserts. Be quiet, Mary, 
 I will say it. Yes, sir, this is Miss Watchett, and I am 
 the companion. The daring insolence of the imposture ! 
 But, being forewarned, we were equal to it, and we just 
 exchanged parts. / would have punished you for the 
 fraud far more drastically than I was allowed ; but 
 I trust, anyhow, you have had your sufficient lesson. 
 Now please to tell us who you are, and why it is that 
 Lord Riversdale deigned to lend himself to so gross 
 an abuse of confidence ? " 
 
 " He didn't. Don't torture the trodden worm," 
 cried the suffering youth. " I don't defend myself, 
 but it was not quite so bad as you suppose. Kilmeston 
 came and told me about his idea in the presence of 
 Vivian Plunkett ; but he wasn't really serious, and 
 he offered to turn the business over to me if I cared to 
 apply. I'm not over-blessed with worldly goods, and 
 I jumped at the thing mostly for the fun and adven- 
 ture of it. I trusted to my own rotten attractions, you 
 see ; and, of course, I knew nothing about the letter, 
 for which I'll wring that beast's nose when I see him. 
 I'm really Charles Lorry, and and now I'd better go." 
 
 He turned and moved, rather reluctantly, towards 
 the door. 
 
 " And you had the assurance the assurance," 
 breathed Miss Normanby, " to regard yourself as an 
 eligible suitor ? " 
 
 " Well, I changed my mind I couldn't help it." 
 
 " Mr. Lorry ! " 
 
 Charles came about again. It was Miss Watchett, 
 the real Miss Watchett, who had spoken. Her eyes 
 were shining, her face was a little flushed.
 
 AN ANONYMOUS LETTER 297 
 
 " Perhaps," she said, " your explanation it's not 
 so bad it's not bad at all. And and after testing 
 you to see if you were base enough to aspire where 
 you couldn't respect, and then I think, after all, our 
 trick was the meanest, and you come out of it all 
 best. I only want to say that we shall be dining alone 
 here to-morrow, and that we shall be glad to see you. 
 And and there are two 1's, I think, in eligible."
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 
 
 FULWOOD'S RENTS " was, in 1750, a quite self- 
 important little Court, and notable above the 
 most of those which neighboured on the fashionable 
 seclusion of Gray's Inn Gardens. It possessed two 
 very opposite claims to distinction conviviality and 
 exclusiveness. The first illustrated itself in a number 
 of reputable houses of entertainment, which included, 
 among others, the Castle and Golden Griffin Taverns, 
 John's and Squire's Coffee-houses, and the punch-shop 
 once kept by Ned Ward of the " Spy," who had figured 
 in the " Dunciad." The second was vested primarily in 
 Miss Arabella Pitcher's Finishing School for young ladies. 
 How this last establishment had ever come to leaven 
 the sociality of Fulwood's was an unrelated chapter in 
 the story of the Court. A strange lock of secrecy 
 seemed to hold its walls curiously rigid and its wire- 
 blinded windows curiously vacant. Its conventual 
 mystery was even supposed a veil to something un- 
 conformable and subversive, though nobody knew 
 exactly of what. Certainly the vision of its half -score 
 little Misses issuing for their daily promenade in the 
 gardens (to which an upper passage gave them access, 
 without need to traverse the Court), and pairing away 
 demurely under the shepherding of Miss Nancy Bell, 
 painted with no colours but of eyebrights and rose- 
 buds the supposed dark enigma. But, then, have
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 299 
 
 flowers no other significance than as the frank emblems 
 of innocence ? Mr. Turpin, accepting a nosegay of 
 pinks at St. Sepulchre's on his way to Tyburn, suggests 
 quite another character for them. 
 
 Well, there is no smoke without fire ; and let it be 
 conceded at once that the burning heart of Miss 
 Pitcher was really responsible for the haze which en- 
 veloped her dwelling. That stood, strait-laced and 
 aloof, on the upper east side of the Court, in " a hand- 
 some open place, with a freestone pavement," and, 
 as a matter of fact, was a gift to her from a deceased 
 lawyer uncle, who had retired thither from the Inn 
 hard by, when his association with the defence of 
 Kilmarnock, and the other rebel lords of '47, had 
 brought his legal career, and finally his life, to an 
 apoplectic end. But very loyally his niece had shared, 
 and succeeded to, his political views ; whence the ardent 
 heart, and the mystery-exhaling atmosphere thereof. 
 
 Miss Pitcher, in short, was a fanatical Tory, a white 
 rose of the whitest ; and her house was an asylum, 
 rather than a school, for the daughters of a few of those 
 aristocratic exiles, from the Cause, who could afford 
 remittances sufficient for the meet education of their 
 abandoned olive-branches. She was own foster-mother 
 to Jacobitism, and suckled her charges, so to speak, 
 bn the rose- white milk of it. She enjoyed all the de- 
 lights of conspiracy by proxy, and loved to think her- 
 self an object of secret uneasiness to the Government, 
 while she shut her eyes resolutely to the growing in- 
 difference, on the part of the public, to the so-called 
 " Pretence." All the little by-plays and innuendoes 
 of Jacobitism were religiously practised in her house. 
 They drank (in orgeat, which was a syrup of almonds 
 and sugar) the King across the water-bottle ; they
 
 300 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 besprigged themselves fitly on Oak-apple Day ; they 
 mourned, in white favours, on Execution. It would 
 have been all very harmless and amusing had not the 
 desperation of the cause at that time attached a con- 
 tributory value even to such frothy ebullitions ; and so 
 far, at least, Miss Pitcher's neighbours were justified 
 in their suspicion of her Finishing School. 
 
 Now there was, I regret to say, one traitor in the 
 Pitcher camp, and that was Miss Nancy Bell. Nancy 
 and her brother had been orphan wards of the late 
 Sergeant Pitcher, and whether it was due to his 
 ruinous conduct of their small estate, or to resentment 
 of his overbearing personality, or to principle, or to 
 all together, the two detested both Pretenders, old and 
 young. Mr. Thomas Bell, indeed, having completed 
 his Chancery term as law student, and been promoted 
 to the Inns of Court, could afford a political self- 
 indulgence which was denied to his sister, who was 
 utterly dependent on Miss Arabella, and treated, 
 moreover, with a contempt and arrogance not infre- 
 quently shown to the victims of injustice by their 
 wrongers. She was expected to respond, in short, 
 body and soul, to the charity which fed her with the 
 crumbs from her own dissipated estate. Her employer 
 never even thought to question her loyalty to herself, 
 or to picture her as a possible viper on her Jacobitish 
 hearth. But there she went astray. The young lady 
 was possessed of a tooth quite virulently venomous, 
 although, like a viper's, it was laid back, until wanted, 
 against the little pink roof of her mouth. She held it 
 so, pending the arrival of that retributive day when all 
 the wrong of which her fiery little brain and bursting 
 heart was conscious should find its opportunity to 
 retaliate upon her hard task-mistress. And in the
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 301 
 
 meanwhile she " under-nursed " the boarders (she was 
 scarcely older than the eldest of them), and took their 
 aristocratic scorns and condescensions in silence. 
 
 It must be admitted, in some defence of Miss Pitcher's 
 treatment of her, that Miss Nancy was quite repre- 
 hensibly pretty pretty in a way which, to a certain 
 acid order of intelligence, is a necessary moral dis- 
 qualification. For it is a feminine instinct to associate 
 ugliness with respectability, and to be suspicious of 
 " looks," which are never other than " mere " in Mrs. 
 Grundy's category of the graces. Hence, with women, 
 the grotesque fashions most prevail, while the becom- 
 ing are soon discarded. Nancy, in consequence, being 
 possessed of a loveliness which was quite independent 
 of adornments, was a perpetual provocation to the 
 " dressings " of righteousness. But her bloom sur- 
 vived, despite Miss Pitcher's efforts to depreciate it ; 
 it survived in china complexion, seal-like eyes, and 
 gold-umber tresses, of which no spite could discrown 
 her by reason, perhaps, of a spirit which was as much 
 its inspiration as its defence. Nancy, in short, was as 
 fearless as she was pretty, and as wideawake as she 
 was patient. 
 
 It was this young lady's duty to chaperon the boarders 
 (implying thereby her " plain " fitness for the task) in 
 their daily ordered perambulations about the Gardens ; 
 but when the weather was cold or ungenial she was 
 permitted to take her constitutional alone. Perhaps 
 who knows ? Miss Pitcher secretly looked to scandal- 
 ous circumstance to rid her of a conscience-chafing 
 incubus on some such occasion. I would not wrong 
 her ; but certainly the Gardens what with pick- 
 pockets, ring-droppers, and other expert folk of a 
 shady caste were become of late years no safe place
 
 302 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 of resort for unprotected young women. Nancy, how- 
 ever, by reason of her strong will of innocence, moved 
 as safe among the beasts as Bonny Kilmeny ; and 
 mostly her hours of freedom were spent with her brother 
 the law-student, who had modest chambers in the Inn, 
 and whose sympathy and encouragement were a never- 
 failing tonic to her depression, while his optimism built 
 such real-looking castles in the air that the moment of 
 their possession by him and her, grown independent 
 and prosperous, seemed never far distant. And, in 
 the meanwhile, discussion of impossible methods for 
 " rounding on " Miss Pitcher were a perpetual comfort 
 to the two, until lo and behold ! on one desperate 
 day the opportunity, which they had so long and so 
 wrongly prefigured, showed itself to them in fearsome 
 guise, and they closed with it. 
 
 It was a chill dingy noon in September of the year 
 1750, and Miss Nancy was out in the Gardens by her- 
 self, hurrying for Mr. Thomas's chambers. There were 
 a good many people about, including rather a super- 
 fluity of the sinister-respectable ; and whether it were 
 that lawlessness felt in its veins some rumour of political 
 infection, or because the little beauty unusually 
 charmed the bilious atmosphere, she found herself 
 seriously molested for the first time in her experience. 
 It happened in a moment, inexplicably and confusingly. 
 Without a note of warning, there she was the centre 
 and cynosure of a malapert, derisory group, being 
 complimented and hustled. In the midst, she felt her 
 purse go (a poor little starved account of steel beads 
 and threepenny pieces), and a scream, half terror, half 
 fury, burst from her lips. It had the instant effect to 
 bring an outer circle of spectators about the inner, 
 hemming the wheel within the wheel.
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 303 
 
 " My purse has been stole from me ! " wailed Miss 
 Nancy. 
 
 " Has it, though, has it ? " said a tall fair-headed 
 young gentleman, pushing his way through the crowd. 
 He had a rather large pleasant face, big-nosed and 
 under- jawed not a bit, in its suggestion of massive 
 humour, of the femininely romantic order. He wore 
 the uniform, only lately established, of a naval officer 
 blue coat with white facings, hat turned up with a 
 gold cockade, and the sword, of course. Miss Nancy 
 received him breathless. If this was to be a cutting- 
 out expedition, how was to end the moral for her ? 
 But somehow his appearance gave her confidence. 
 
 He shook his finger at the crowd, in shrewd good- 
 humour. 
 
 " A purse has changed hands," he said. " Tisn't 
 in nature, is it, to expect anyone to confess to the when 
 and how ? But I know some things out of nature. 
 I've travelled the seas, as you'll observe, and I've kept 
 my eyes open. In the West Indies they practise 
 bugaboo. I learned a little there for instance, how 
 to detect a thief by it. Tis very simple, when he hap- 
 pens to be present. I merely raise my hand, like this ; 
 I cry ' Mumbo- jumbo ! ' loud, as I cry it now, and, 
 within a few seconds, as you'll notice, his nose will 
 begin to swell up like a blood-blister." 
 
 He had scarcely uttered the word when a fellow in 
 the crowd clapped his hand to his snout, recognised 
 on the instant his mistake, threw down the purse, 
 burst through the intervening press, and bolted for his 
 life. The rest, to a storm of laughter, gave chase, and 
 Nancy and her deliverer were left alone. 
 
 He recovered the purse and presented it to her, 
 encountering her for the first time face to face. The
 
 304 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 spirit of humour left his own. He suddenly winced in 
 his breath, as if shot ; and indeed a little gilded bolt 
 had struck him under the fifth rib. 
 
 Now, this is not a love-story, or I could fashion a very 
 pretty idyll out of the meetings of the next three days. 
 Fewer, in the times of the Fleet and Gretna Green, had 
 often sufficed for a whole fairy-tale of courtship and 
 matrimony. 
 
 " Madam," says the stranger, quite gravely, by and 
 by, " the debt is flagrantly mine. 'Twere ecstasy if 
 the devotion of a lifetime might be held to liquidate it 
 in part." 
 
 That was to begin, one might say, almost at the end ; 
 and Nancy, no doubt, felt the peril of such foreclosings. 
 She was deeply engaged to her hero ; but, just as yet, 
 knowledge had not come to leaven her suspicion of his 
 unromantic cast of countenance. 
 
 " If they capture the pickpocket," he said, " you 
 will have to appear against him, and likely be put to 
 some distress and impertinence. I think you would 
 be wise to let me escort you from the scene. ' Posses- 
 sion is eleven points in the law.' ' 
 
 She thanked him very sincerely ; and suggested that 
 her brother's chambers were hard by. 
 
 " And I'm sure, sir," said she, " that his gratitude, 
 joined to mine, will leave you in no doubt as to which 
 way the obligation lies." 
 
 He protested rapturously ; but honest Tom, when 
 they had sought and found him, completely justified 
 her insistence. 
 
 The next three days were all a lyric, of love cres- 
 cendo, to Nancy and her knight. The weather, being 
 bad, contributed to the Lydian measure. She learned 
 of him that his name was Charles Edward Prince :
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 305 
 
 that he was a sea-officer to His Majesty, but at present 
 uncommissioned ; that he loved her, in and out of 
 reason. He learned of her that she was a pensioner 
 on someone's bounty ; that she was poor and unhappy ; 
 that she was a determined Whig (at which he laughed) ; 
 that conditionally, and in reason only she returned 
 his regard. That was enough. They would not ruin 
 their idyll by offensive details. 
 
 Only once he frightened her ; and that was by pro- 
 posing a Fleet marriage. When he saw her distress, he 
 explained thus far : 
 
 ' The back-door to happiness is the one for poor 
 dependents, like you and me. If we sought the front, 
 it would be shut in our faces." 
 
 She rejoiced to learn, by that, that he was in some- 
 thing her own case of servitude. But she would have 
 none of his way to emancipation. 
 
 " I am a free-born Briton," she said. " If I am to 
 marry you at all, it shall be in a church." 
 
 That morning, on a backstair in the Inn, he won his 
 first kiss of her. Tom was very busy above, singing and 
 shuffling papers. 
 
 Nancy returned to Fulwood's Rents in a dream. She 
 was awakened from it, all in a moment, to a sense of 
 startling realities. 
 
 Miss Pitcher was the cause. She rose in her place, 
 after the midday meal, to make a hushed and rapturous 
 announcement. 
 
 " Ladies," she said, " a transcendent experience is 
 to be ours. It has been conveyed to my knowledge 
 that a certain August Personage, not unconnected in 
 the first instance with the events of '45, is at the mo- 
 ment risking his illustrious life in a visit to the first 
 Capital of his inheritance ; and, desiring to assure us
 
 306 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 in person, and as the representative of his saintly 
 parent, of his sense of our loyal attachment to his 
 House, is deigning to contemplate a call upon us to- 
 morrow at midday, when he will distribute among us 
 some treasurable mementoes of his condescension. 
 Ladies, let us respond, with a full heart of gratitude, 
 and a full sense of the responsibility which the occasion 
 imposes on us, to this sweetest of affabilities on the 
 part of our adored young Prince." 
 
 Nancy listened in dumbfoundered silence. But she 
 had the hypocrisy presently to smile and applaud. 
 Afterwards she set to thinking. 
 
 The fruits of her thought appeared in a hurried visit 
 to her brother early on the following morning. She 
 risked some Pitcherian indignation and rebuke to ob- 
 tain it. But the risk was worth. 
 
 The two put their thrilling, tingling heads together. 
 The sum of their hurried discussion amounted to this : 
 An information to be laid by Mr. Thomas, instantly 
 and privately, before the proper authorities ; an 
 organised descent of the law at the psychologic moment 
 on Fulwood's Rents ; arrest of the young Pretender ; 
 consequent claiming of the reward (it might amount to 
 anything up to forty thousand pounds) ; and, result- 
 triumph, retaliation, independence, and a bridal dowry. 
 
 Miss Nancy went home, hugging, in prospect, her 
 thirty pieces of silver. She was a traitor ; but injured 
 women, especially if in love, are subject to no laws of 
 honour. 
 
 II 
 
 Two very opposite sentiments awaited, in Fulwood's 
 Rents, the approach of the stupendous hour. On the 
 one side was a sort of congregated intoxication of eleven
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 307 
 
 enraptured brains stored and smouldering censers 
 awaiting their divinity ; on the other, in splendid 
 isolation, the single arch-traitor. 
 
 Nancy did not once repent her part during that long 
 agitated morning. She was one of those exquisitely 
 human natures, whose moral cuticles are as abnormally 
 sensitive to wrong as the skins of some people are to 
 physical pain. Her hatred of tyranny in any form took 
 no especial count of the fact that it was of her own 
 oppression that she had been an enforced and helpless 
 spectator. She would have conspired quite as heartily 
 in any impersonal case to counterplot coercion. Her 
 hot young soul struck for the true principle of liberty, 
 which is the recognition of one's right to live one's own 
 life unvexed of privilege under whatever guise or dis- 
 guise, and to subscribe to no laws which are not de- 
 signed to secure that end. Her motto was simply the 
 vive ut vivas. She would have abhorred the democracy 
 and socialism of our own day, as she would have de- 
 tested its Conservatism. 
 
 She regarded with a secret sardonic amusement the 
 pious preparations for the great event' the dais im- 
 provised out of boards supported on footstools, and 
 covered with a piece of spare carpet, the selvage out- 
 ward ; the theatrical gilded chair, hired of a costumier 
 in Covent Garden ; the bouquet of yellow (they called 
 it yaller, then) golden-rod. What a cataclysm, she 
 thought, was threatening all this shoddy play-acting ! 
 and hers was to be the hand to launch the flood ! The 
 Pitcher and the Bell, the brass and the earthenware 
 vessels, were to come to conclusions at last ! 
 
 As the clock neared the fatal hour, the stress of 
 expectancy waxed acute. One or two of the boarders 
 giggled along the road to hysterics. Miss Pitcher her-
 
 3o8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 self grew tremulous and flabby, and uncertain in her 
 grasp of the situation. Only the nerves of the hardened 
 conspirator kept their tension nay, tightened it by a 
 turn or two of the screws. Such is the perversity of 
 wickedness. The innocent trembles to a false charge : 
 the guilty stiffens to a true one. 
 
 Midday struck no Prince. Five, ten, fifteen minutes 
 passed, and the suspense grew intolerable. Then did 
 Miss Pitcher, verging on tears, admit how she had 
 always had her doubts of the reliability of Doctor King, 
 in whose house, in Red Lyon Square hard by, the 
 exalted visitor, as she now confessed, was sojourning. 
 Miss Nancy, making a furious mental note of the fact, 
 wondered only if she had somehow been betrayed to 
 this man. If so 
 
 A loud rap-rap at the door ! 
 
 He was ushered in, quite alone and unattended a 
 tall, fair-haired gentleman-citizen in garb and appear- 
 ance ; but his features ! how familiar to the devoted 
 conners of their royal profile engraved on lockets and 
 watchcases ! He looked, for his part, a little warm 
 and shamefaced, and even received with obvious em- 
 barrassment the genuflections of the company, as it 
 fell on its knees to him in rustling adoration. 
 
 " We are to apologise " (O, the rapture of that 
 " we ") "for this unpunctuality," he said ; "it was 
 unavoidable." 
 
 And then his eye glanced to a solitary figure in the 
 background, which alone of them all remained erect 
 and he saw before him, white, rigid and stricken, the face 
 of her to whom he had pledged his eternal faith only 
 yesterday in the Gardens.
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 309 
 
 The shock was an astounding one ; but he mastered 
 it. He even managed to play hisTpart admirably. 
 Majesty is wont to such contretemps, and trained to 
 carry the worst situations with a smile. His conde- 
 scension was intoxicating. He made a pretty little 
 speech to the children ; he accepted the bouquet with 
 a kiss to its blushing bearer; he produced and dis- 
 tributed among the boarders a number of little tawdry 
 trinkets, rings and seals and so forth, just to keep his 
 memory green with them, he said. 
 
 Miss Pitcher corrected him daringly. " White, your 
 royal Highness," she whispered " the hue of your 
 angel race." 
 
 One little miss craved his signature for her album. 
 He hesitated a moment at that, but consented in the 
 end. While he was writing it, a young lady advanced 
 suddenly from the back and overlooked him (Charles 
 Edward P., she saw him trace), and was smartly re- 
 buked by the mistress for her impertinence. She 
 neither heard nor was interested to hear. Her mind, 
 her soul were all one swirl of agony. That she had un- 
 wittingly betrayed her love ; that her love was re- 
 vealed this man, a love impossible to her ; that she 
 could do nothing at last to stay, to warn him from, 
 the consequences of her own treason ! the madness 
 sickened her brain. Bitterly, bitterly had her bolt re- 
 coiled upon her own head. In the midst of her stunned 
 despair, she was conscious of a second knocking at the 
 door. " Judas ! Judas ! Judas ! " she cried aloud, 
 and struck herself insanely on the breast. A score of 
 eyes, wild and startled, were turned upon her. She 
 flung herself into a chair and hid her face. 
 
 Thus lying, she was aware of hurried footsteps, of 
 agitated shrieks, of a babble of voices, of oaths and a
 
 310 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 dreadful silence. Wrought beyond endurance, she 
 pushed the hair from her eyes and looked up. 
 
 Huddled, gasping and hysterical, to one side of the 
 room were Miss Pitcher and the boarders : standing 
 facing them on the other were her brother, a gross 
 peppery old gentleman in a great peruke, and a couple 
 of stolid Bow Street runners ; and between, quite 
 passive and with folded arms, was the subject of all 
 the hubbub. 
 
 The Magistrate for such was the old fellow had 
 been speaking ; and he spoke again. 
 
 " As to you, ma'am, I congratulate ye on your enter- 
 tainment of an impostor, since it's saved ye conse- 
 quences. But I'd make sure another time, if I was you, 
 to have me rook identified before I gave him the name 
 of treason." 
 
 Miss Pitcher could only gasp : " You say it is not 
 the Prince ? " 
 
 " I say it, ma'am," said the Magistrate coolly. Then 
 he roared : " What ! ye fond old Tory ! Wasn't I 
 familiar with his face and person as the palm of me 
 hand ('twas in Paris in '48, when our fine new friend 
 the King o' France was plotting to rid himself of Charlie) 
 and then to see pointed out for'm this long-nosed 
 skittle-sharper, whom I'm not sure yet but it isn't 
 me duty to lay by the heels in His Majesty's pound. 
 Take'm for Charlie, indeed ! " 
 
 Miss Pitcher screeched, with a little rally to fury. 
 
 " Not ? " she cried. " Then what ! " 
 
 Reference to the trinkets, to the signature, was on 
 her lips ; but discretion choked it back timely. She 
 was enmeshed indeed held by every limb, and stifled 
 from utterance. She could only look and claw in 
 venomous silence at the discredited royalty.
 
 A DOUBLE PRETENDER 311 
 
 Nancy, white as paper, had risen to her feet ; the 
 stranger laughed. 
 
 " Well, I confess I'm not the Prince," he said. 
 
 Again Miss Pitcher screamed ; but this time not 
 half so loud as Miss Nancy. 
 
 " O, thank God, thank God ! " cried the latter, and 
 ran and threw herself into the young gentleman's arms. 
 
 A I'oeuvre on connait I'ouvrier. Miss Pitcher, scan- 
 dalised, outraged, infuriated, yet, oddly, a little relieved, 
 had an instant vision of the truth. A short terrible 
 scene followed its main points impossible of elucida- 
 tion in the presence of the law and Nancy was ordered 
 to leave the house instanter with her but we will not 
 sully the record, even if a vixen thought fit to. The 
 Magistrate let them go, with only a dry comment on 
 the situation : " Jusq'au revoir ! " Then he turned to 
 Mr. Thomas. " I'd go back to me occupation of sitting 
 on wind-eggs, if I was you, sir," says he. ' You may 
 hatch out another rook or so, and more profitable to 
 ye, if ye're lucky." 
 
 Nancy and her lover walked across the Gardens, 
 together but apart. Crestfallen, Tom slunk in their 
 rear, his tail between his legs. They all made, as if by 
 instinct, for the law-student's rooms. Not a single 
 word was spoken amongst them until they were closeted 
 together. Then the " sea-officer " placed Miss Nancy 
 in one chair, invited her brother to another by her side, 
 and so, standing and facing the two, delivered himself. 
 
 " You have heard me denounced for an impostor : 
 I am one in a sense. My name is truly, nevertheless, 
 Charles Edward Prince. If I abbreviate it to Charles 
 Edward P., I am guilty of a vulgarism, perhaps, but 
 no fraud. My father is General Prince, who fought at 
 Culloden, and after found asylum in France. I serve
 
 312 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 King George ; but my sympathies are well, with a 
 frolic at all times. The old gentleman advised me, 
 being on furlough, that a certain visitor might be ex- 
 pected at the house of our kinsman Dr. King, and im- 
 plored me, by my filial duty, to help to see him through. 
 I scented an adventure, and agreed. It is perfectly 
 true (I confide it to your honour) that the Prince is at 
 this moment ensconced in the house of my kinsman in 
 Red Lyon Square. 
 
 " Miss Pitcher (you never revealed the name of your 
 employer to me, Nancy, you know) was a Jacobite to 
 be shown consideration. A visit to her house was on 
 the programme. We set out this morning to accom- 
 plish it. Our way lay through Fulwood's Rents, a 
 very congeries of Taverns. Perhaps you know, or 
 perhaps you don't know, the young gentleman's weak- 
 ness. He insisted anyhow on a temporary adjourn- 
 ment, became enamoured of a particular bin, and was 
 soon helpless. We were at our wits' end. Miss Pitcher 
 was not to be denied. At length it was decided that I, 
 carrying the tokens, and bearing some loose likeness 
 to the exalted principal, should go on and personate 
 him, while my companion remained behind to accom- 
 modate matters as he could. You know the rest all 
 but the name of the traitor." 
 
 " Nancy Bell," cried the young lady ; and rose and 
 threw herself at his feet, sobbing. 
 
 He stared ; then burst into a great laugh. 
 
 " Why, I had that notion," he said. " But, if Mr. 
 Thomas will lend his countenance, we'll even now 
 make a shift to round off this conspiracy in the Fleet, 
 and afterwards Mrs. Prince shall tell us her story."
 
 BULLET-PROOF 
 
 SO far as I know, the true story of the Bugsley 
 Vacuum Jacket has never yet been made public. 
 Now the death of the distinguished officer, who was 
 associated with the patentee in the production of what 
 has virtually revolutionised modern warfare, has 
 removed what polite embargo lay upon the tongues of 
 the informed, and there can be no indiscretion or ill- 
 taste in admitting the " general " to the humours of 
 an anecdote, which the " particular " was wont often 
 to relate in private, with a keen sense of the nature of 
 the laugh which it raised against himself. 
 
 The circumstances which, many years ago, led to 
 the resignation, by Major Cheverel Manton, of his 
 official position in Pall Mall will be still within the 
 recollection of many. The gallant officer had pledged 
 himself and his credit to the impenetrability of a 
 certain bullet-proof coat designed by a Mr. Bugsley, 
 and his strength of faith in the invention had lacked 
 only the force to convince the superior impenetrability 
 of his department. His demand for a trial being per- 
 sistently ignored, he took, finally, the extreme step of 
 resigning his commission, as the most practical form 
 of protest possible against, as he considered it, the 
 ruinous supineness of the War Office. That the result 
 came to justify this step served the enlightened public, 
 of course, for a delirious scandal by and by ; yet, no 
 doubt, the War Office had had its excuse, and one 
 
 313
 
 314 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 even as Major Manton himself was moved presently 
 to admit of a more than commonly reasonable com- 
 plexion. For the fact had been that, while Mr. Bugsley 
 was a notorious patenter of chimeras, his backer 
 always a " cranky," hot-tempered man had only 
 recently at the time recovered from a severe influenza, 
 and was supposed still subject to hallucinations. 
 
 Whatever the official rendering of the case, how- 
 ever, the evolution of the famous service jacket, from 
 its first practical test in the Borstall explorative ex- 
 pedition to its ultimate adoption by the Government 
 authorities, is a certain matter of history ; and as- 
 suredly the late Major Manton never had reason to 
 regret his firm confidence in the virtues of an inven- 
 tion, which compensated him with a fortune for the 
 position he sacrificed to uphold it. 
 
 The story, as related by the Major, ran as follows : 
 " I was one of the officials of the Ordnance. It was 
 part of my duties to interview cranks. Do you realise 
 what that means the ineffable weariness of flesh and 
 waste of time ? I dare say you have no conception of 
 the number of people in the world who are busily 
 engaged in trying to extract sunbeams out of cucum- 
 bers. A single day spent at the War Office would 
 enlighten you, perhaps. I suppose that, as human 
 nature swings at the eternal balance between offence 
 and defence, it is natural that a disproportion of in- 
 ventive genius should flow Pall-Mallwards. There is 
 no such fruitful inspiration, of the right sort, as that 
 which points to the most economic method of destroy- 
 ing one's enemies. Of all creative cranks, the man 
 who invented or adapted the guillotine stands, in my 
 opinion, at the head of the poll. Bugsley, for all his 
 versatility, couldn't touch him.
 
 BULLET-PROOF 315 
 
 " That man had haunted me for years a suave 
 apparition. You never saw him ? He couldn't sur- 
 vive his only success, and was found sitting at his 
 desk dead and smiling over the post which had brought 
 him Borstall's testimonial to the efficacy of the jacket. 
 'The first time I saw him was on an afternoon in 
 the late nineties. I had been pestered out of reason 
 that day, I remember, and was in a bad mood for 
 considering any further Colney Hatch patents sights 
 that would enable a man to kill with his eyes shut, 
 powders that would explode automatically on the 
 least little international friction, plugs for compressed 
 rations to be carried in a rifle-barrel, and buttons each 
 a receptacle for a condensed meat lozenge. I had 
 been harassed, I say, and my temper was no doubt a 
 bit short when Bugsley was shown in to me. There 
 was nothing repugnant about the man ; but I de- 
 veloped an instinctive antagonism to him on the spot. 
 He was very short and thick and ungainly, with an 
 enormous smiling face and knock knees. As he stood 
 rattling the pence in his trouser-pockets, with his feet 
 finned out, his little fat thighs pressed together, and 
 his great beaked nose tilted up at an angle, he re- 
 minded me of nothing so much as the aldermanic 
 turtle. I saw a calm and unctuous assurance in his 
 smile, and snapped out at him instanter : 
 
 " ' State your business, if you please. I've no time 
 to spare. A word will do.' 
 
 " He answered at once, looking sideways at the 
 ceiling, ' I have a little fancy Vacuums. There's a 
 fortune in it.' 
 
 " That was his obsession and he never looked 
 away from the ceiling, but casually, in expressing it. 
 Vacuums, vacancy, vacuity the man's mind was
 
 3i6 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 gone on the craze. I don't know how to put it fairly. 
 There is the jacket to speak for him ; but, before that, 
 there were certainly other things. His single idea was 
 that where nothing was, nothing could happen that 
 all strategy in warfare should be directed to enticing 
 the enemy to waste his energies and his ammunition 
 upon emptiness. 
 
 "In this first case it was a design for a gun he 
 brought. The weapon was to fire smokeless powder ; 
 but there was an arrangement in the breech for 
 ejecting laterally, and simultaneously with the dis- 
 charge, a miniature blank shell, filled with black 
 powder, which, bursting at a point some two or three 
 hundred yards distant, should mislead the enemy as 
 to the position of your piece, and draw their fire upon 
 nothing. 
 
 " I explained, briefly, some technical difficulties, 
 and got rid of the man as I thought. But not a bit 
 of it. A month later he turned up again, smiling at 
 the ceiling, and offered me a plan for a refracting 
 instrument, which was to project the apparition of 
 bodies of men moving upon the enemy from as many 
 points as you liked, while the living troops which 
 produced them were to be all confounded in the most 
 diabolical and confusing way with the illusions. If I 
 had hesitated over the first suggestion, as sincere in 
 its way, I saw at once now the true character of the 
 eccentric, and dismissed him without ceremony. A 
 month later he called again, and took the ceiling into 
 his confidence, with that eternal and imperturbable 
 catch-phrase of his, ' I have a little fancy. There's a 
 fortune in it.' This time it was a sort of compound 
 heliograph, for dazzling the eyes of a whole troop of 
 the enemy's horse when either making or resisting a
 
 BULLET-PROOF 317 
 
 cavalry-charge. I told him to go, and he went. I 
 gave orders that he was not to be admitted again, and 
 he was not admitted. Did that save me ? Nothing of 
 the sort. A few weeks later I was leaving the office, 
 when a shadow emerged from a doorway, and an oily 
 voice whispered in my ear, ' I have a little fancy, 
 Major. There's a fortune in it.' It was for a sort of 
 captive balloon, it appeared, to be floated, a tempting 
 mark, over the enemy's lines, with two dummy aero- 
 nauts in the car stuffed with high explosives, and 
 designed to spread destruction around the moment 
 the thing should be brought down. I faced the 
 creature decisive. 
 
 " ' Mr. Bugsley,' I said ; ' I have heard many of 
 your inventions now, and this is really the last I wish 
 to be told about, You mustn't approach me again, 
 and I must tell you that your genius is wasted in these 
 directions. Your province, if you will believe me, is 
 in the large domain of pantomime, and I should re- 
 commend you to apply at Drury Lane.' 
 
 " He smiled, murmured ' Vacuums,' and fell back. 
 But I was mistaken in supposing I had laid the ap- 
 parition of him. He took to haunting me by post, in 
 typewritten copy ; his large placid face mooned at 
 me round street corners, or was pressed against the 
 glass of shop-fronts while I trafficked within ; he put 
 advertisements in the papers, addressed to Major 
 C. M., and relating, in a sort of loose cypher, the 
 details of new lunacies. I found myself studying 
 these against my will ; I developed a sickening sub- 
 consciousness of his presence in my neighbourhood ; 
 I thought about him constantly. Bit by bit he seemed 
 to weave his insane personality into the very fibre of 
 my being, and I grew to loathe the imposition, as it
 
 3i8 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 were, of a dual personality thrust upon me only my 
 Mr. Hyde was horribly benevolent, and the murderous 
 moiety was myself. My dreams grew disturbed be- 
 cause of him, and my temperature constantly stood 
 at a perilous figure. This state of things may have 
 continued, in varying moods, for a year or two, when 
 I got my big dose of influenza which pretty well laid 
 me flat. I had to chuck everything, and rusticate. 
 The demon of the complaint must be my apology for 
 what followed. 
 
 " You know how it takes some people, even the 
 sanest ? That is the devil of what they call its con- 
 valescence. One can endure the fever and the pain 
 and the nausea ; but the suicidal depression during 
 recovery ! One looks out on the world through warped 
 spectacles. Everything seems to have gone irredeem- 
 ably crooked, ugly ; everything presents a baffling 
 front, and nothing, it appears, can by any hope shake 
 itself straight again. I was in a foul bad way ; and 
 one day I sat, muffled in my dressing-gown, brooding 
 my ruin, moral and material, and eyeing a revolver, 
 army-service pattern, which lay on a table beside me. 
 It was loaded in all its seven chambers, and I waited 
 only the word of the demon to take it up. 
 
 " ' I have a little fancy,' said a voice ; and there 
 he stood before me. Bugsley, and no other ! That 
 was in my bungalow down in Buckinghamshire, and 
 how he had tracked me there the Lord only knows. 
 But it didn't matter. The vision had had to materialise 
 for me, and here was its most appropriate form. I 
 took up the revolver and arose, grinning like a lynx. 
 There were seven chambers four for him and three 
 for me. 
 
 " He had not altered by a crease, save that he
 
 BULLET-PROOF 319 
 
 looked even stouter and stumpier than his wont. His 
 short frock-coat was buttoned almost to bursting 
 across his chest ; his gills were swollen and his eyes 
 projecting. He gave his bow- window a resounding 
 thwack. 
 
 ' Don't do that/ I said, ' or you'll break the glass.' 
 
 " He smiled like one in a beatitude. 
 
 " ' No fear, Major,' he said. ' This time, I have 
 done it.' 
 
 " ' You have,' I said sternly. ' On your head be it ! ' 
 
 " It was his stomach I fired at, however. I couldn't 
 help it ; the mark was so sure and obtrusive. 
 
 " I waited a panic moment for the smoke to clear 
 and then I saw him. He was standing with his little 
 legs straddled, his hands behind his back, and that 
 ineffable smile on his face. 
 
 " ' Don't mind me,' he said. ' Try again.' 
 
 " A sort of dementia seized me. One after the 
 other I emptied the remaining six chambers at the 
 impervious figure, and then threw down the weapon 
 and reeled to a chair, at the moment that my servant, 
 rushing from a distance, broke into the room. The 
 man stood appalled before the apparition of the 
 chuckling stranger, the reeking room, and my own 
 livid face ; and in that instant the intruder had 
 thrown open his coat, and revealed underneath what 
 you all know now. 
 
 " ' Behold,' said he, ' the Bugsley Vacuum jacket 
 bullet-proof, Major, as you must have convinced your- 
 self. There's a fortune in it.' 
 
 " That was the way he excused me. It all passed 
 for an experiment. He was a good soul, and he hadn't 
 left me a cartridge for my own affairs. 
 
 " There's the story."
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN 
 
 " And the long carpet rose along the gusty floor." 
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN came on a windy evening 
 and left on a windy morning. All night I heard 
 the gale flapping in my blind, and dreamed of flying 
 skirts, and at breakfast Priscilla was gone. There 
 was no lamp alight, as usual, under an empty kettle ; 
 no stove-brush on my chair ; no toast-rack at all 
 (Priscilla would occasionally put my letters in it and 
 post the toast under my bedroom door). Priscilla 
 Pipkin, in short, had disappeared, like the baseless 
 fabric of a vision, and left not a rack behind her. 
 
 Mrs. Hoskins, my landlady, when I rang her up to 
 explain, explained. She had always mistrusted the 
 girl, she said ; she wore such small boots. There was 
 an artful hussy hid somewhere behind that print 
 apron. Priscilla, it appeared, had come straight 
 down from her attic that morning and give her notice 
 not a month's, or a week's, or a day's, if you please ; 
 but had just up'd with her nose like a silk pairasole, and 
 walked out of the house as grand as my lady. It was 
 possible, Mrs. Hoskins thought, that a letter she had 
 received by the early post had inspired her to this 
 astonishing decision. But, whatever the case, Pris- 
 cilla Pipkin, forgoing a month's wages and the 
 possibility of a tip from the lodger, was gone on the 
 wings of the wind. 
 
 " She'd neither stop nor explain," said Mrs. Hoskins 
 
 320
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN 321 
 
 bitterly ; " but carried off her things, as she'd brought 
 'em, in a newspaper parcel as big as a target, and 
 pinned down at the corners ; and what I may come to 
 think of it all, the Lord deny me." 
 
 I begged that for the moment she would think of it 
 in connection with my breakfast, and asked if there 
 were any letters for me. 
 
 " No, sir," said Mrs. Hoskins ; " though the post- 
 man come ; I hear him. But I suppose Priscilla's was 
 the only one." 
 
 Here was an additional aggravation. I had looked 
 with a confidence justified by nothing but inex- 
 perience for a letter that morning from a certain 
 " trustee," whose duty it should have been to pay me 
 the first fourth of a yearly allowance of five hundred 
 pounds on this, the first day of May. He had not 
 done so I supposed to impress me with the insignifi- 
 cance of my claim on his attention. He was a beast, 
 and beastly rich a great sweltering Croesus, with 
 thin yellow hair streaking his head like soap, swollen 
 eyes, and an ill-tempered mouth, with a purse of chin 
 hanging from it as if he kept his gold there. In his 
 view, I knew, I was a young ass, lately estated, whom 
 it was his grudging responsibility to supply with the 
 means to fresh wasteful imbecilities ; and that, while 
 I was as certain of my own young old-worldliness, of 
 my inherent precaution and moderation, as I was of 
 his detestable cynicism. " But I will convince him of 
 my business capacities," I fumed, " if I have to do it 
 by quoting to his face his own lack of 'em. Just a 
 day or two's grace first ! " 
 
 The day or two ran into a week ; and then, des- 
 perate, I took cab to the City. To my astonishment 
 Croesus received me with affability.
 
 322 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " You should have acknowledged that cheque, my 
 boy," he said. " You aren't come, I suppose, to ask 
 for an advance on the next ? No, no ; that would 
 never do. I can't possibly entertain such a proposal." 
 
 " I haven't made it, sir," I said coldly. " I haven't 
 received any cheque from you, that's all." 
 
 " Not ? " 
 
 He sat back in his chair, one arm out on the desk, 
 fiddling with a pen, and squinted at me, with his left 
 eye closed, intolerably. 
 
 " O ! that's it, is it ? " he said quietly. " Well, 
 you're beginning early." 
 
 " Don't you believe me ? " 
 
 " Of course I do. But the cheque was sent." 
 
 " I never received it, I say." 
 
 He touched a bell ; sent a clerk for the book ; 
 showed me the counterfoil thirtieth of April, a 
 hundred and twenty-five pounds, pay to the order of, 
 etc. and threw the book, with an air of insolent 
 finality, on the desk. 
 
 " There it is," he said. 
 
 " It did not reach me." 
 
 " Well, I can't help that." 
 
 " Can't help it, sir ? Am I to go without my money, 
 because because it was lost in the post ? " 
 
 " You can sue me, if you like. The thing's been 
 done before ; and ended, I believe, in favour of the 
 drawer. But it's an open question. The cheque was 
 posted there'll be my letter-book to prove it and 
 with that I wash my hands of the matter. I dare say 
 one of your one of your friends will be opening an 
 account with it by and by. Good morning ! " 
 
 What was the beast implying ? That I was man- 
 oeuvring to obtain a further advance on the strength
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN 323 
 
 of an understanding with an accomplice ? My blood 
 boiled. 
 
 ' You'll be sorry for this," I said, rising. 
 
 " All right," he said. "I'll be prepared with the 
 sackcloth when my time comes." 
 
 I left him without another word. Outside, a paper- 
 boy was announcing in a shrill voice : " Romance in 
 'igh life. Lady of quality steals a letter addressed to 
 her 'ostess." 
 
 Like a smack, the words smote the blood to my 
 cheek. Priscilla Pipkin ! 
 
 It was she, of course. The letter, the circumstances, 
 the informal " bolt." How could I have doubted it 
 for a moment ! Priscilla was the culprit. 
 
 I did not pause to consider in what way it would be 
 possible for the girl to avail herself of that unnegotiable 
 plunder. The thought of the sight, of the temptation, 
 was enough. The draft was a potential treasure, at 
 least. Priscilla had got it perhaps hi her pocket ; 
 perhaps enclosed in the newspaper parcel which was 
 like a target. En avant for Priscilla Pipkin. 
 
 I consulted a friend of mine, Charlie Glossop. He 
 was dead against my approaching Scotland Yard. 
 
 " Police go for the criminal ; swag's a secondary 
 consideration with 'em," he said. ' You take my 
 advice, and employ a private enquiry agent. Find 
 out what's become of the cheque, and settle the girl 
 after. I know a chap who's the very moral of what 
 you want Hawkesby's his name, Long Acre." 
 
 Mr. Hawkesby, on Glossop's initiative, came to 
 visit me. I told him that it would be as well to keep 
 the affair very private. 
 
 " Else why apply to Hawkesby, sir ? " he said. 
 " A fair field and no favour's all that he asks."
 
 324 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 He was elaborately designed to fit the part of the 
 stage detective an astute, quiet person, with side- 
 whiskers (removable) ; a respectable top-hat, rather 
 narrow in the brim ; a frock-coat, somewhat short, 
 and buttoned tightly about an upright, fairly portly 
 figure ; very black brows and blue eyes underneath, 
 impenetrable but observant. His mind was obviously 
 scored with information about all those things which 
 a population of four millions particularly desires shall 
 not be known about itself. Add to this a superhuman 
 capacity for detecting motives, a condemning guile, a 
 power of fascinating like the serpent's, and you have 
 Mr. Hawkesby at least according to the portrait of 
 himself which he sketched for me. He gave me a 
 feeling of fearful confidence at once. 
 
 He asked me for the outlines of the case. They 
 appeared simple to absurdity to my unsophisticated 
 mind ; but Hawkesby thought otherwise. 
 
 " Here's what I like," he said, " a provocation to 
 the best in me." 
 
 " It don't seem very difficult," I protested. 
 
 " Ah ! " he answered. " That's the amateur mind. 
 You wouldn't say it if you'd had my experience. 
 Beware most when all seems plain sailing." (Sher- 
 lock Holmes.) " I've built my reputation and made 
 my little pile on that understanding, sir. What about 
 Mrs. Hoskins, now, and her point of view ? " 
 
 " Why, I questioned her very cautiously, of 
 course," I answered deprecatingly ; " and she told me 
 that she knew nothing whatever about the girl had 
 taken her on at a moment's notice and without a 
 character." 
 
 " Of course she'd say that," said Hawkesby triumph- 
 antly. He rubbed his chin, conning me shrewdly.
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN 325 
 
 " What would you think, now," he pondered, " of the 
 two being all this time in collusion ? " 
 
 The suggestion struck me dumb. Mrs. Hoskins, 
 the garrulous, the fussy, but the immaculate ! No ; 
 I could not, I would not believe it. Yet, from that 
 moment, the horrible insinuation began to poison my 
 very fount of trustfulness in human nature. Hence- 
 forth all appearances were to be estimated by their 
 speciousness. Hawkesby had emancipated me. 
 
 " Well," he said, " you leave her to me. I'll turn 
 her inside out in no time." And he left me. 
 
 The next day an old lady called upon Mrs. Hoskins 
 (I saw her come and go from my sitting-room window) 
 a tottery, whining old body, in a respirator and blue 
 spectacles. Later, Mrs. Hoskins enlightened me, 
 voluntarily, as to the old lady's mission. She had 
 come about " that Pipkin," it appeared. The girl 
 had applied to her for " tweenie's " place, and had 
 referred her to Mrs. Hoskins for a character. " And I 
 give her a rare one, my eye," said the landlady. 
 
 " Didn't you ask her what was the girl's present 
 address ? " I demanded in great excitement. 
 
 " No, to be sure," she answered. " What should I 
 want with it ? " 
 
 " Nor her own ? " 
 
 " No, sir. It didn't matter to me." 
 
 Was this a criminal admission ? I tried to think it out. 
 
 That evening Hawkesby paid me a visit. 
 
 " I've got some news for you," I began at once. 
 He winked. Some subtle quality in the act con- 
 founded and silenced me. 
 
 " I dare say," he said. " Mrs. H. hasn't been letting 
 on to you about her visitor to-day, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes, she has."
 
 326 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " And didn't you twig ? " 
 
 " Twig what ? " 
 
 " The old lady." 
 
 " What about her ? " 
 
 " She was me, that's all." 
 
 I began to comprehend his methods. 
 
 " Well," I said ; " did you find out anything ? " 
 
 " Something," he answered ; " but this Rome isn't 
 going to be built in a day. We're getting on ; that's 
 enough." 
 
 I saw him constantly after this was always either 
 entertaining or running up against him, in fact. I 
 acquired an infernal shrewdness in identifying him 
 under his innumerable disguises. Sometimes it would 
 be a bricklayer, shouldering a hod to nowhere ; some- 
 times an evangelical person, after the Stiggins type, 
 distributing tracts ; sometimes an itinerant and 
 snuffling tradesman hawking boot laces along the 
 kerb. Once, I am sure, I recognised him under the 
 helmet of a policeman ; and he was certainly the 
 traveller who endeavoured to persuade Mrs. Hoskins 
 to put her name down for a sewing machine on the 
 hire system. The provincial and rather over-fatuous 
 looking curate, too, whom I saw looking in upon me 
 one day, his nose pressed against the glass of my 
 window, was Hawkesby without a doubt, yearning to 
 convince me of his fertility of invention. 
 
 He generally, after each of these essays, paid me a 
 visit, bringing the comforting assurance that we were 
 " beginning to move now." Then he would sound me, 
 cunningly, on the subject of my penetration of his 
 latest disguise, and appear pleased with my confession 
 of recognition, though, one might have thought, it 
 could be held rather to discount the cleverness of his
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN 327 
 
 " make-up." But he took a childish delight in the 
 parts he played, and so it seemed to me was quite 
 satisfied with their utter irrelevance and inanity, so 
 long as I was an appreciative observer. 
 
 ' You see, you're in the know, sir," he would con- 
 fess jocundly ; " but the public isn't, and takes me at 
 my own valuation. Bless you ! I can wind 'em 
 round my little finger. I made seventy-five per cent 
 profit on those bootlaces." 
 
 I began to see deeper than ever into his methods 
 and his " pile." Detectiveness, if I may use the word, 
 embraces a multitude of " pickings." 
 
 And then, suddenly convinced, perhaps, of my 
 thorough mastery of his modus operandi, he disap- 
 peared or, at least, I saw him no more for quite a 
 long time. 
 
 The respite, I admit, was a complete relief to me. 
 I had come to think any atmosphere would be better 
 than that atmosphere of exotic and luxuriant sus- 
 picion in which my scepticism of all human motives 
 had been forced of late into a preposterous growth. I 
 wanted to be my young credulous self again ; I was 
 ready even to waive the question of the cheque, if 
 only Hawkesby would leave me alone to skimp and 
 deny myself, and recover lost ground thereby. And 
 when I thought of the bill he might be running up 
 against me, I shivered. 
 
 But the respite was only a respite by no means a 
 reprieve. All too soon I was in his thrall again. 
 
 His manner had taken on a new seriousness ; the 
 weight of fresh problems and responsibilities had 
 scored his brow with thunder. The range of his en- 
 quiries, he told me, was widening and ever widening. 
 He left me almost in tears.
 
 328 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 At length the end came. One day he suddenly ap- 
 peared before me, his face suffused with a light of 
 sombre triumph. The eccentric course of his en- 
 quiries, he said, had whirled him inevitably at last to 
 the seashore. He had certain information that Pris- 
 cilla Pipkin had gone to America. 
 
 And then Mrs. Hoskins came in. 
 
 She apologised ; didn't know I was engaged, and so 
 on. But the fact was that she had done a body wrong 
 by her insiniations, and, being an honest woman, 
 couldn't abide to rest till she had made the truth 
 known. She thought, in brief, the explanation due to 
 me that Priscilla Pipkin had had her reasons for de- 
 parting suddenly as she had that morning, having 
 received by the post an invitation, or an order, rather, 
 from her young man (recently promoted) to come and 
 marry him at once on that first of May, parsons 
 obliging, or for ever hold her peace. To which peremp- 
 tory citation Priscilla Pipkin had incontinently suc- 
 cumbed, and was now in Mrs. Hoskins's kitchen, on a 
 visit to her former mistress, the proud possessor of 
 the surname and affections of Mr. Bertie Birdekin. 
 
 " And very modest she bears it, that I will say," 
 said Mrs. Hoskins. 
 
 I looked at Hawkesby. He was equal to the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 " A double," he whispered. " I shouldn't have 
 thought her up to it." 
 
 Then he addressed Mrs. Hoskins affably. 
 
 " And where's this Mrs. Birdekin been living since 
 her marriage ? " he said. 
 
 " Why, that's the queer part of it," answered my 
 landlady. " No farther away than the next street, 
 sir, if you'll believe me."
 
 PRISCILLA PIPKIN 329 
 
 " I believe you, of course, ma'am," he said, with a 
 knowing emphasis on the pronoun, and a wink to me 
 to imply : " We haven't travelled where we have to 
 be made Mrs. Birdekin's gulls ! " Then he continued 
 aloud : " And now, ma'am, with your permission, we 
 will wait upon this young woman." 
 
 Mrs. Hoskins looked surprised ; but preceded us to 
 the kitchen. There, sure enough, was Priscilla, in a 
 hat with a whole cherry-orchard in it. She blushed 
 and giggled as she rose to greet me. 
 
 " A moment," said Hawkesby, as I stuck undecided. 
 ' We my friend here and me have been wanting to 
 see you, Mrs. Birdekin ; very much we have." 
 
 Priscilla gaped, dumbfoundered. 
 
 " Quite a romance," said Hawkesby, " upon my 
 word your being hooked like that, I mean, by a 
 letter and the only one, too, that came by that post, 
 I understand." 
 
 " No," said Priscilla ; " there were another." 
 
 " O, indeed ! " said Hawkesby. " For whom ? " 
 
 " For the lodger, sir." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! how very strange. Would you be 
 surprised to hear, now, that he never received it ? " 
 
 " I put it under his door, sir," said Priscilla, breath- 
 ing a little hard. 
 
 " Would you mind showing us, now, exactly where ? " 
 
 Somehow, then, we were all trooping upstairs. I 
 felt horribly mean and treacherous shaken, moreover, 
 with a premonition of scenes unthinkable to follow. 
 It was Priscilla who threw open the door, and who 
 scanned the room with a lost air, as if baffled in the 
 hope that the letter, unaccountably overlooked by us, 
 might be lying there on the threshold all the time. 
 
 " I shot it in for certain," she said, half weeping.
 
 330 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 "It were a windy morning ; perhaps it went under 
 the carpet." 
 
 Hawkesby, with a smile of ineffable toleration, lifted 
 the hem of the thing and there was the letter. 
 
 A dead silence ensued. Then I looked for Hawkesby. 
 He was nowhere to be seen. He had folded his tent 
 like the Arab, and as silently stolen away. I began 
 giggling like a maniac ; and then checked myself with 
 a gasp. 
 
 " O ! that's all right," I said. " I couldn't make it 
 out, and wanted you to tell me, that was all ; but 
 but you were gone. It was unwise of you to leave us 
 in that way, Priscilla ; but, never mind my wedding 
 present shall carry interest with it, now I know where 
 to send it." 
 
 ' You're very good, sir," she said, drying her eyes. 
 " Bert's badly in need of an accordion."
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED 
 TOO WELL 
 
 IT down, Mr. Archibald Dairy mple," said the 
 tea-broker, with a sarcastic emphasis on the 
 name, as if its distinction were a mere aristocratic 
 pretence. " Sit down, sir." 
 
 He noticed with disfavour how the young man, 
 despite his agitation, slightly pulled up the knees of 
 his irreproachable trousers as he obeyed. The act 
 brought into prominence a couple of long thin feet in 
 varnished boots, at the vision of which Mr. Huggins 
 sniffed audibly. He was too extreme a Tory not to be 
 sensible of his own shortcomings, literally, in the leg 
 and foot department. A bluff insistence on the 
 proverbial inadequacy of clothes to prove the gentle- 
 man was his solitary refuge from a self-consciousness 
 of his own thick inelegance, and the general incom- 
 petency of tailors to better it. It was certainly hard 
 that this whipper-snapper, on a hundred and nothing 
 a year, should possess, on no warrant but that of his 
 birth, what he with all his thousands was denied 
 the personality of a gentleman. Therefore he was 
 sarcastic at the expense of his visitor's name and 
 boots, and insulting in his use of the only counter- 
 check at his command to all which they implied. 
 Impecuniosity, the young man must learn, was not 
 the less subject, because patrician, to the dictatorial- 
 ness of wealth. 
 
 33i
 
 332 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " It's a dirty day," he said ; " and I suppose you 
 never thought of doing anything but walk ? " 
 
 The interview, by the way, was in his own drawing- 
 room ; the hour, midday on a Sabbath. 
 
 " I hope, sir," said Mr. Dalrymple, with an ingra- 
 tiatory smile, " that you've no fault to find with that 
 sort of providence ? " 
 
 He was tall and slender, with a pale not very wise 
 face ; but, like many aristocratic unintelligences, he 
 seemed capable of a certain fixity of purpose. 
 
 " That depends," said the tea-broker, " on what's 
 behind it. The more you're justified in cabs and 
 such-like ostentations, the better you'll be advised to 
 chuck 'em." 
 
 " Honestly, I'm not justified in any ostentation," 
 said the young man. 
 
 " Exactly," said the tea-broker ; " and you've 
 come, I understand, to ask me for the hand of my 
 daughter, who is. Now, how you're going to reconcile 
 me, as a plain man of business, to that, is the question." 
 
 " My prospects," began the suitor. 
 
 " Are without end, sir," interrupted the tea-broker. 
 " It's the case with all of us. But they aren't the sort 
 of asset I favour in a marriage contract. Real estate, 
 sir ; a balance at your bankers ; a profitable occupa- 
 tion those are the telling arguments." 
 
 He bent his heavy eyebrows on the visitor, who sat 
 looking down and nervously roping his gloves to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Young gentleman," he said, " you'll do me the 
 justice of assuming that my daughter Kate is at least 
 as dear to me as she is to you. Only I've got a more 
 intimate experience of her worth. Put it on the 
 practical footing, then, that I'm not going to sell
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED TOO WELL 333 
 
 precious goods cheap. I want my equivalent for value 
 received my equivalent, you'll understand, which is 
 nothing less than a guarantee of her happiness at the 
 hands of a possible vendee. Do I see that in your 
 offer ? which, of course, at the same time, I acknow- 
 ledge with all politeness. I ask you, as a mere question 
 of business, Would you pledge the best of your credit 
 with a bankrupt ? " 
 
 ' You're too hard on me, sir. You spoke of a profit- 
 able occupation. Surely the Bar is that ? " 
 
 " Surely it may be to a publican. As to your tale 
 of briefs, now ? " 
 
 The suitor blushed. 
 
 " I've some, what you may call, good connexions, sir." 
 
 " I don't dispute it." 
 
 Consciously or unconsciously, the tea-broker seemed 
 to glance at the varnished boots again. Anyhow, he 
 sniffed. 
 
 ' Your family's all right," he said. " I don't dis- 
 pute it, I say." 
 
 " With influence, moneyed influence, to back me," 
 began the suitor, momentarily deluded into eagerness ; 
 but the other checked him. 
 
 " So, young gentleman," he said, " I'm to be your 
 bribe to Fortune ? I'm to accept you first and make 
 you afterwards ? Why, any beggar at the gate could 
 equal that guarantee." 
 
 The suitor's hopes, bitterly abashed, fell to zero. 
 
 " I didn't quite mean it," he murmured. " You 
 you spoke of Kate's Miss Huggins's happiness. I 
 don't with respect, sir, I don't yield to you in that 
 matter. However unworthy I may be, she, at least, 
 believes it to be bound up in mine. But, perhaps, she 
 hasn't you don't "
 
 334 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " Make your mind easy. She's taken me into her 
 confidence. I've been treated to a deal of the sort of 
 stuff they call fairy gold precious glittering stuff, 
 too, in the light of gas-lamps and romance, but dust, 
 sir, dust in the light of day and commonsense. I 
 know in what her happiness has laid up to now, and / 
 know, as a practical man, that it's not going to accom- 
 modate itself all of a sudden to buses and third-class 
 fares." 
 
 " Really, sir, you exaggerate." 
 
 " Do I ? " 
 
 " I've a small independent income." 
 
 " What return you'll excuse me do you make on 
 it to the assessors ? " 
 
 " None ; I'm exempt that is moreover, I earn a 
 little by literature." 
 
 " By what ? " 
 
 " Literature articles, and so on, in the papers." 
 
 " O, indeed ! What's the most you've ever made 
 out of it, out of anything, in a day ? " 
 
 " In a single day ? " 
 
 " There's no need to waste words." 
 
 " O ! I couldn't tell, really." 
 
 " A hundred pounds ? " 
 
 "I'm afraid not." 
 
 " Fifty ? " 
 
 " I can't say as much." 
 
 " Ten ? " 
 
 " No, not even that." 
 
 " What, then ? " 
 
 " I once got a cheque for two-five for a short story 
 in The United Family." 
 
 The tea-broker rose, the other with him. 
 
 " Good day," said the former.
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED TOO WELL 335 
 
 ' You will give me us no hope whatever ? " 
 pleaded the suitor desperately. 
 
 ' Young man," said Mr. Huggins grimly, " you may 
 have heard, or you may not have heard, of a neighbour 
 of mine called Matcham. But I won't be hard on you. 
 Come to me at any time with the assurance that you've 
 earned by your wits as much as a hundred pounds in a 
 single day, and I'll reconsider your case." 
 
 " Do you give your word on that ? " asked the 
 suitor dolefully. 
 
 " I give my business word," answered the tea-broker, 
 with a sardonic chuckle. " Only, mind, I guarantee 
 nothing hi the interval." 
 
 Mr. Dalrymple gazed at him a moment, wrung his 
 hand fervently but respectfully, and departed in the 
 greatest depression. 
 
 " He's not a bad chap, and well connected, too," 
 mused Mr. Huggins, standing in the middle of the 
 room when the door was shut ; " but all that pre- 
 tence, boots and things, on nothing and then to go 
 and plead Matcham ! " 
 
 He pursed his lips, shook his head, and subsided 
 into thought. 
 
 In the meanwhile a tragic issue was enacting in a 
 little room off the hall. 
 
 " Yes, my dearest girl," said Archibald, " he refuses 
 to hear another word until I can bring proof that I've 
 scored, off my own bat, as much as a hundred pounds 
 in a single day." 
 
 " Why," said Kate, looking up through her tears ; 
 " that shouldn't be so very difficult. Did he limit you 
 to the means ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Borrow it of me, then."
 
 336 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " My dear, is that moral ? Besides, it wouldn't be 
 making it." 
 
 " I don't know. There's nothing I wouldn't value 
 one of your precious letters at." 
 
 " Yes, my Kate. But don't you see how for you to 
 give me a hundred pounds for one, would be sort of 
 robbing Peter to pay Paul ? " 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Why ? I should borrow from you to give to you. 
 We might as well take in one another's washing." 
 
 " Really, Archie ! " 
 
 "It's a proverb, my dear, about the wives of 
 Scilly." 
 
 " Well, I'm sure it's silly enough for anything. But 
 I'd rather you'd waited till I was your wife." 
 
 " Now I've offended you. Good God ! and I've 
 already, I'm afraid, put my foot in it with your father. 
 I'm a failure all round." 
 
 " Hush ! It was thoughtless ; but don't be agitated. 
 What did you say to him ? " 
 
 " He asked me how much I'd ever earned in 
 a day ; and I blurted out, quite forgetting, the sum 
 I'd received from The United Family for ' Love's 
 Nursling.' ' 
 
 " Mr. Matcham's paper ? " 
 
 She looked at him aghast. 
 
 " That was unwise but " 
 
 She dwelt a little, pondering on his eyes. Kate 
 certainly covered a multitude of paternal sins. She 
 was a very sweet homely girl, with just a fragrant 
 genius for domesticity. Her surname was her least 
 lovable possession, and even that greeted one with a 
 hug. While she gazes in silence, we will slip in a 
 parenthesis. 
 
 '
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED TOO WELL 337 
 
 Mr. Huggins and Mr. Matcham the latter pro- 
 prietor-editor of The United Family magazine were 
 brother masons, near neighbours on Brixted Common, 
 and deadly enemies in spite of everything. Their 
 mutual hostility turned upon a question of land- 
 grabbing. Mr. Huggins had arrogantly enclosed 
 within posts and rails a strip of public green, situated 
 beyond the haw-haw which terminated his front lawn 
 on the Common side, and Mr. Matcham.. a furious 
 democrat, had called him a thief in consequence. 
 That had been sufficiently offensive ; but the word 
 had carried, and had been intended to carry, a bifur- 
 cated sting, the second point of which touched upon 
 an unfortunate occurrence which had lately further 
 complicated the relations of the two. Mr. Huggins, 
 present master of the local masonic lodge to which 
 they both belonged, had, about a week before the 
 date of this narrative, been entrusted with the care of 
 some official badges (antiques, and of very consider- 
 able value), which he had promptly gone and lost. 
 He had carried them home in a cab, from which he 
 had duly conveyed them into his house (of that he was 
 certain) ; and thereafter they were not. Such was his 
 story, and such was nobody else's belief. The loss was 
 serious, the scandal grave. There were whispers of 
 unhallowed merriment at the dinner which preceded 
 this catastrophe. There were whispers of a man who 
 had dined too well. The cabman who had conveyed 
 this man Mr. Huggins, to be frank home, was 
 found and cross-examined to no purpose by the 
 defaulter himself, that is to say. But to others he 
 told, in self-defence, a dark and, paradoxically, an 
 illuminating tale of an inebriated fare who, deposited 
 at the gates of his own drive, wrestled for some time
 
 338 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 unavailingly with the simple latch of a swing gate, and 
 finally, having mastered it, tacked his way housewards 
 by a series of cannons from tree to tree. Then ap- 
 peared an advertisement, offering a reward of two 
 hundred pounds for the recovery of the jewels, and no 
 questions asked. No questions asked ! Scandal should 
 think not, indeed ! A disgraceful business altogether. 
 He had never conveyed the packet into his house at 
 all. Probably he had dropped it, getting into or out 
 of the cab, and it had been snatched by some prowling 
 loafer. Possibly the cabman knew more about it than 
 he would tell ; possibly, even, tea-broker and cabby 
 were in collusion. The jewels were worth an astonish- 
 ing sum, which grew in immensity from day to day. 
 Ugly, and quite unjustified, slanders pierced to Mr. 
 Huggins's ears, and he recognised, or believed he 
 recognised, in their propagator his injurious neigh- 
 bour. Judge if Mr. Dalrymple's ingenuous confession 
 predisposed him in favour of that suitor. 
 
 Kate smiled into her lover's eyes. She was already 
 a beautiful rebel. Unknown to her father, she had 
 regularly and loyally taken in The United Family ever 
 since the appearance of " Love's Nursling " in its 
 pages. She referred to it now. 
 
 " Do you know," she said, " that there is a treasure- 
 disc story running through it at this very moment ? " 
 
 " No," said Archibald. 
 
 " But there is, dear ; and a hundred pounds (isn't 
 it strange ?) hidden somewhere for anybody who can 
 find the clue. Archie, it's a providence ! Find the 
 hundred pounds, and I am yours ! Pa never goes 
 back on his word." 
 
 Pa, having, in a fit of profound abstraction, forgotten 
 the two, now suddenly awoke to his remissness, and
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED TOO WELL 339 
 
 was heard noisily approaching. The young man 
 stared between joy and bewilderment. 
 
 ' To wring it out of Matcham ! " he whispered 
 ecstatically. " It would be a double triumph ! I'll 
 do it, Kate; I'll find it, if I have to turn grave- 
 digger ! " 
 
 He bolted before a portentous cough, tip-toeing 
 away on winged though varnished feet. 
 
 That night he set to studying those current and 
 back numbers of The United Family, which enshrined 
 the clue so far as it had got. Before another fortnight 
 was passed, he had mastered, with the final number of 
 the story, the momentous problem. He seemed sure 
 of the fact. He rose from his last perusal with a sort 
 of choking gasp. The scent appeared to lie in so 
 ridiculously obvious a direction, that he could not but 
 plume himself on his own facile perspicacity in detect- 
 ing it. He was cleverer, after all, than he had dared 
 to suppose himself, than any other had seemed to 
 suppose him to be. But, at the same time, he stood 
 aghast before a revelation his discovery embodied. 
 For it was patent, to him at least, that the disc-voucher 
 for the hundred pounds was hid somewhere in Mr. 
 Huggins's illegal enclosure on Brixted Common ! In a 
 flash he understood all the fiendish ingenuity of the 
 plan. The deadly Matcham had designed this way of 
 testing the right of his enemy to exclude the public 
 from the plot in question ! 
 
 It complicated matters ; but it must be gone 
 through with now, since Kate was the priceless guerdon 
 of success. So, armed with a long-handled spud, art- 
 fully concealed in a wrapping of brown paper, he took 
 train the next morning for Brixted, and, fervently 
 praying that the tea-broker might already have de-
 
 340 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 parted for town, made his way, tingling, across the 
 Common, uncovering his weapon as he went. 
 
 He was rather astonished to find its lonely acres 
 unusually populated at that early hour. A scattered 
 concourse of pedestrians streamed to a focus from 
 every direction. They were mostly of the common 
 sort, hurried and rude in action ; and every one was 
 furtively armed with a trowel, hoe, or other imple- 
 ment. Some, even, carried no more than fragments 
 of old iron a horseshoe for luck, the rusty blade of a 
 table-knife, a two-pronged fork. One woman, with 
 bibulous glazed eyes, held a shawl to her shaking 
 mouth and an iron spoon half-concealed in the folds 
 of it. She was a melancholy illustration of the cater- 
 ing to a hunger which knows no decency. One and 
 all they moved on with a set eager purpose, spectres 
 of a famished lust, hating each his neighbour in the 
 race for gain a sordid crew. 
 
 And then, in a moment, Archie gathered the clue to 
 all this fevered rush, and stopped with a shock. The 
 railed enclosure was black with swarming figures, 
 which stooped and dug like rooks upon a new-ploughed 
 field. He was not the first, it appeared, by a couple 
 of hundred, to strike the obvious trail ! 
 
 In the same instant he was aware of a sudden dis- 
 turbance in the group. A stout and furious figure, 
 flourishing a hunting-crop, had sprung into its midst, 
 and, with maddened gesticulations, was scattering it 
 in all directions. But it fled only to reform and hem 
 in its devastator. The situation, literally at a blow, 
 had become menacing. 
 
 Mr. Dalrymple's first impulse, in the immediate 
 destruction of all his hopes and plans, was to turn and 
 sneak away. Then a wiser and more generous policy
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED TOO WELL 341 
 
 prevailed. Here was his desired father-in-law in peril. 
 He must go to the rescue of the old man. Besides, if 
 he could help to clear Tom-Tiddler's ground ! 
 
 In his agitation, becoming suddenly conscious of 
 his incriminating spud, he thrust the thing in a panic 
 up the right leg of his trousers, and stuck the end into 
 his sock. Thus besplintered, he made anyhow for the 
 enclosure, and, crossing the chain like a man on stilts, 
 danced up to connect himself with the defence. That, 
 gasping red anathema, was already, it seemed, on the 
 verge of apoplexy. 
 
 " Ha, Dairy mple ! " shouted Huggins ; "I know 
 who's work this is ! What the devil, man ! Are you 
 a recruit to his ranks ? " 
 
 The newcomer ranged himself alongside and panted : 
 
 " Premonition, sir couldn't keep away dreamt 
 you were in danger and Miss Huggins come to give 
 a hand." 
 
 " To give a hand ? What's the matter with your 
 trousers ? Damned bad fit, 7 call 'em ! Hoop there ! " 
 
 He swung his crop, clearing a circle. He was 
 evidently half off his head with fury and excitement. 
 The mob came on. 
 
 " Clear out of this, you dashed old hass ! " shouted 
 a ringleader. 
 
 " Clear out of it ? Clear out of my own ? " bellowed 
 Huggins. " It's private property, you dogs ! I'll have 
 every man jack of you impounded for trespass ! I'll 
 ruin you every one ! " 
 
 " Don't listen to him ! " cried a voice on the out- 
 skirts. " He'd no right to enclose it ; it's common 
 land." 
 
 Vicious, glaring, spectacled, combative as a French 
 poodle's, the face of Matcham showed through the
 
 342 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 press ; and the next moment Matcham himself 
 skipped up. 
 
 " You hound," roared the tea-broker. " This is 
 your doing ! " 
 
 Matcham folded his arms. 
 
 " It's an honester way to make money than some 
 I've heard of," said he. 
 
 " Corrupting the poor ! " snarled Huggins. 
 
 " Better than compounding a felony," said Matcham. 
 
 Mr. Huggins gasped. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 " Two hundred pounds reward to catch a thief," 
 cried Matcham. " 7 say, Charity begins at home." 
 
 With the word, the two respectable men were at 
 deadly grips, while the crowd hooted and laughed. 
 Shocked and horrified, Archie drove between, with 
 such force as to separate them. The next instant 
 how, he could never tell he himself and Matcham 
 were reeling and wrestling together, the furious 
 poodle face of the editor breathing fire into his own. 
 Round they went in a sort of Walpurgis dance, the 
 shrieking voice of the crowd their accompaniment ; 
 and then somehow the strength of the little monster 
 was amazing they were by the gates of the drive, on 
 the brink of the haw-haw where it ended, and he was 
 flung over and down. The spud cracked as he fell, 
 lacerating his calf. He bowled like a tumbler to the 
 deep bottom of the ditch, where, amongst the ferns 
 and little gorse bushes, he subsided half stunned. 
 Presently he gathered his senses and looked about 
 him. 
 
 When, later, he was helped out, by the butler and 
 Mr. Huggins himself, he rose to a consciousness of a 
 cordon of gardeners and policemen ringing the empty
 
 THE MAN WHO HAD DINED TOO WELL 343 
 
 enclosure, and of an excluded mob beyond sullenly 
 dispersing or lingering in baffled groups. Mr. Matcham 's 
 name had been " taken " ; the field, anyhow for the 
 time being, was won. Silently hobbling, he was as- 
 sisted into the house, and deposited on a chair in the 
 library. Mr. Huggins, near as dishevelled as himself, 
 and infinitely redder, suddenly stood before him, his 
 hands behind his back. 
 
 ' You've caught it," he said. " Good Lord, man, 
 nobody would take you for a gentleman to see you 
 now. Well, I'm obliged to you, and to this evidence 
 of what you came for." 
 
 With a quick action he brought the broken pieces 
 of the spud from behind his back. 
 
 " You didn't find the disc ? " he said, with a grin. 
 
 Archie shook his head. 
 
 " No," went on the tea-broker ; " and so you're as 
 far as ever, you see, from earning your hundred pounds 
 in a day. O ! I understand, and I say I'm obliged to 
 you, for all you came with a different intention. But 
 trust me to take care you don't get the chance again." 
 
 Archie rose. He saw suddenly the sweet unbidden 
 face of his love at the door. It was all clouded with 
 trouble and concern. He lifted his hand, and she fled 
 to him, in the uncontrollable impulse to claim and 
 console. 
 
 " Hey ! " roared her father, starting back. " \Vhat 
 the devil's the meaning of this, miss ? " 
 
 Archie looked firmly over the head bowed upon his 
 breast. 
 
 " Never mind the disc, sir," he said. " / claim the 
 two hundred pounds reward." 
 
 Kate trembled in his arms ; but he held her close 
 
 " The What do you ? " gasped the father.
 
 344 BAG AND BAGGAGE 
 
 " For the lost badges, sir." 
 
 " Where are they ? " 
 
 Groping in his inner breast-pocket, the young man 
 produced a small brown-paper parcel, torn and sodden. 
 The tea-broker, as in a dream, held out his hand for it. 
 
 " I don't understand, "'he began stupidly. " Where 
 
 did you find ? ." 
 
 "In the haw-haw at the end, under the gate. 
 There's two hundred pounds to me, made in a day. I 
 shall have to ask you to reconsider my case, sir." 
 
 A thrilling pause succeeded. 
 
 " I don't remember " began the man who had 
 
 dined too well ; then stopped suddenly, seemed to 
 realise in a moment all that it meant to him both of 
 shame and triumph, gave quite a foolish little laugh, 
 flushed distinctly through his earlier red, and, turning, 
 softly tip-toed from the room, leaving the two to- 
 gether. 
 
 Now, ultimately, adds history, Mr. Dalrymple, the 
 public being excluded from the enclosure, rooted up 
 the treasure-disc at his comparative leisure, which so 
 delighted Huggins, for the final means it gave him to 
 retort on Matcham, that he consented without further 
 demur to a union which had never really been very 
 remote from his wishes. 
 
 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. 
 PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
 
 A 000670 114