"WUHCA.*-.. TO PLEASE HIS WIFE BY THOMAS HARDY. A MEMORIAL SWIM I'.Y \Y. CLAUKI-: Kl'RSHLL. THE GHOST OF THE PAS BY MKS. E. LYNN LINTON. AND OTHER TALES With '-'."i Illustrations. YOL. I. LONDON : CEOOME & CO., 322, UPPER STREET, N. CONTENTS. W. E. NORRIS THE ROMANCE OF MADAME DE CHANTELOUP 1 W. CLARKE RUSSELL A MEMORABLE SWIM 50 THOMAS HARDY TO PLEASE HIS WIFE ... 99 MRS. E. LYNN LINTON THE GHOST OF THE PAST H6 JAMES PAYN REBECCA'S REMORSE 193 /. M. SARRIE IS IT A MAN? 236 MRS. OLIPHANT THE GOLDEN RULE 273 GRANT ALLEN GENERAL PASSAVANT'S WILL . 313 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE W. E. NOBRIS ... ... ... ... ... ... 1 " WELL," SAID SHE ; " AND OF COURSE YOU TOLD HIM ALL THAT THERE WAS TO BE TOLD" ... ... ... 14 " I WAS STROLLING DOWN THE CHAMPS ELYSEES ONE AFTERNOON, . . . WHEN A PAIR OF EQUESTRIANS CANTERED FAST ME, IN WHOM I RECOGNIZED THE FAIR COUNTESS AM) HER IMPOSSIBLE ADORER"... ... ... ... ... 20 " ALL THE DOORS WERE OPEN ; THE SERVANTS WEKE IN HER BEDROOM, SOBBING AND CHATTERING ; I THINK THEBE WAS A POLICEMAN THERE TOO; I SAW HER LYING ON THE BED, DEAD AND COLD" ... ... ... ... ... 43 W. CLARKE KOSSELL ... ... ... ... ... 50 " I CALLED TO HIM TO STOP ROWING, THAT I MIGHT COME UP TO HIM ; BUT HE DID NOT STOP ROWING " ... ... 72 " AND, PUTTING THE BLADE OF HIS LEFT OAR UPON MY BREAST, THRUST WITH IT WITH THE IDEA OF SUBMERGING ME" " IN THAT INSTANT I BOUNDED UPON HIM"... " HE LISTENED ATTENTIVELY, OCCASIONALLY GLANCING AT THE CONSTABLE, WHO STOOD BY LISTENING WITH HIS MOUTH SLIGHTLY OPEN" ... 94 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAOK THOMAS HARDY ... ... ... ... ... ... 99 "HE ADVANCED TO THEIR ELBOW, GENIALLY STOLE A GAZE AT THEM, AND SAID, ' EMILY, YOU DON'T KNOW ME?'" ... 104 " WHEN ON THE HILL BEHIND THE PORT, WHENCE A VIEW OP THE CHANNEL COULD BE OBTAINED, SHE FELT SURE THAT A LITTLE SPECK ON THE HORIZON WAS THE TRUCK OF THE JOANNA'S MAINMAST" ... ... ... ... 139 MRS. E. LYNN LINTON ... ... ... ... ... 146 " As SHE STOOPED HER HEAD . . . THE SUNLIGHT CAUGHT THE FRINGE AT THE BACK OF HER NECK" ... ... ... 151 "A BOAT DRIFTED NOISELESSLY ROUND THE HEADLAND, AND NAOMI AND GEOFFREY SPRANG ON SHORE" ... ... 186 JAMES PAYN ... ... ... ... ... ... 193 " WELL, EEBECCA, NOTHING GONE WRONG, I HOPE ? " ... 202 "HAVE YOU NOT ONE WORD, EVEN OF FAREWELL, LUCY ? " ... 222 LUCY LESTER'S GRAVE ... ... ... ... ... 234 J. M. BARBIE ... ... ... ... ... ... 236 'HE SAT UP EXCITEDLY IN HIS SEAT, RUBBED HIS HANDS NER- VOUSLY ON HIS TROUSERS, AND PEERED, NOT AT THE STAGE, BUT AT THE WlNGS"... ... ... ... ... 238 " I USED TO BE IN THE PROFESSION MYSELF," HE SAID, SIGHING. "I AM JOLLY LITTLE JIM!" ... ... ... ... 250 'On, PAPA! THE MOST WONDERFUL NEWS," EMILY SAID ... 281 "JACK" ... ... ... ... ... ... 310 GENERAL PASSAVANT ... ... ... ... ... 314 " MAUD SEATED HERSELF WITH GREAT DlGNlTY IN THE EASY CHAIR, FOLDED HER HANDS IN FRONT OF HER, AND STARED AT ME FIXEDLY" ... ... ... ... ... 328 ''THESE ARE CLEVER,' I SAID, LOOKING AT HIS SKETCHES"... 338 THE ROMANCE OF MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. BY W. E. NORRIS. I. I WELL, after all, I don't know that there was any- I thing so very romantic ^ about the poor woman's story ; not much more, at least, than there is in a score of other stories which have come to the knowledge of an old fellow who has lived, and still to some extent lives, in the world, who has kept his eyes and W. E. XORRIS. THE ROMANCE OF ears open, who is a bachelor, and who, for some reason or other, has been honoured by the confidence of numerous fortunate and unfortunate persons. When I come to think of it, I am constrained to admit, somewhat unwillingly, that the ensuing narrative is redeemed from being absolutely commonplace chiefly, if not solely, by the circumstance that Madame de Chanteloup's name so long as it is remembered at all will be remembered in connection with that of a reigning monarch. It was not on that account that I personally felt interested in her. In the course of a wandering existence it has been my lot to be brought into contact with many Royalties, and it is a long time since their presence ceased to inspire me with that thrill of awe and admi- ration which they are able to convey to the great majority of such among their fellow- beings as do not hate them on principle. In the city which for upwards of twenty years has been MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. my home it is customary to affirm that Les rois sen vont. I do not know whether this is true or not ; but if it be the case that the form of government which they represent is in a fair way towards being discarded by civilized nations, I really do believe that they will owe their downfall not so much to any sins of their own, or of those who act under them, as to their striking lack of individuality. Now, that is a defect which nobody could think of imputing to Madame de Chanteloup. Other shortcomings were, truly or falsely, laid to her charge ; but after the affair of early youth which brought her into notoriety, and to which I shall have occasion to refer more par- ticularly by-and-by, all who enjoyed the privi- lege of her acquaintance were compelled to admit that she was not la premiere venue. Her hastily-arranged marriage with that broken- down scamp the Comte de Chanteloup did not prove a happy one considering what the cir- THE ROMANCE OF cumstances and what his character and habits were, it could not possibly have turned out other- wise than as it did but she managed to make herself respected, she managed to rise above reach of the faintest breath of scandal (even Chante- loup himself, when in a melting mood after dinner, used to describe her, with tears in his eyes, as an angel in the disguise of a beautiful woman), and she accomplished a still more difficult feat than that, inasmuch as she con- trived to render her modest abode in the Fau- bourg Saint-Germain one of the most exclusive of Parisian houses. When her husband rid society of a singularly useless and disreputable member by breaking his neck over a fence at Vincennes, she preferred residirg all by herself in the land of her adoption to returning to her friends and relatives in England. Perhaps she had not a large number of friends or relatives left; perhaps, if she had, they did not solicit her company as warmly as they might have MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. done. Upon those points I cannot speak with certainty ; but, having been honoured by ad- mission into the small circle of her Parisian intimates, I can say that we should have been inconsolable had she thought fit to leave us. After a decent period of mourning, she began to entertain in a quiet way. Her dinners, though unpretending, were irreproachably served; the guests who gathered round her table were almost always notable from one cause or another, and it was seldom that there was not amongst them at least one who wore a scarlet, a violet, or a black cassock. She was excessively and rigidly pious more so, perhaps, in her actions than in her words ; although it was very well understood that the free style of conversation which has become so fashionable in the last years of this century must not be indulged in under her roof. To tell the truth, I think we were all a little bit afraid of her. It sounds rather absurd, no doubt, for a man of THE ROMANCE OF my years to talk about being afraid of a woman who might very well have been his grand- daughter ; but many people must have good reason to be aware that we do not, as a rule, grow braver as we grow older, and Madame de Chanteloup, with her tall figure, her clearly-cut features, her blue eyes, and a certain air of austerity which she knew very well how to assume, really was not a person with whom it would have been safe to take a liberty of any sort or kind. The mere fact of her youth had nothing to say to the matter. Other juveniles, however, are considerably less formidable, and I certainly felt that my grey hairs gave me a right to say anything that I might deem fitting to young Eyre Pome- roy when he looked me up, one morning, at my modest quarters in the Kue Tronchet just as I was finishing my mid-day breakfast. " Look here, Mr. Wortley," began this young gentleman, whose well-proportioned frame, MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. closely-cut black hair and grey eyes would have entitled him to be called handsome even if he had not possessed in other respects the tradi- tional beauty of his race, " I want you to tell me something. I want you to tell me what you know of the Comtesse de Chanteloup's history." " Oh, is that all ? " said I, handing him a cigarette. " Well, I know a good many things about a good many ladies which I don't quite see my way to imparting to an over-grown school-boy like you. Why should I gratify your curiosity with regard to bygone episodes, which Madame de Chanteloup probably would not wish me to allude to, in the presence of those who happen to be ignorant of them ? " " Only because I am going to marry her, I hope, and because she referred me to you," answered my young friend composedly. " The deuce you are ! and the deuce she did ! " I exclaimed ; for I was not a little taken aback by an announcement, which was scarcely THE ROMANCE OF less astonishing to me than it would have been to hear that Mr. Pomeroy was about to espouse the Empress Dowager of China. " Mercy upon us ! What can have persuaded either you or her to behave in such an unnatural way ? I thought you were barely acquainted with her." He explained that he was better acquainted with her than I imagined, that he had fallen in love with her at first sight (which, if surprising, was at all events not inconceivable), that he had seen her pretty constantly during the few weeks which he had spent in Paris, that he had ended by making her an offer of his hand and heart, and that she had not refused him. " She did," he added, by way of an after- thought, " make it a sine qua non that I should join the Church of Borne feeling so strongly as she does upon those subjects, one can't wonder at her having insisted upon that but I told her I had no objection." "Oh, indeed!" said I. "That, I suppose, MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. was a concession too trifling to be worth dis- puting about. And you live in Donegal, and your father is a prominent Orangeman. After- wards ? " " Oh, well, if you come to that," returned Mr. Pomeroy, "we're a branch of the Catholic Church at least, I've always understood that we claimed to be and, as she says, the whole question narrows itself to one of acknowledging the supreme authority of the Pope " " Your father," I interrupted, " doubtless joins once a year, with religious fervour, in the Orange battle-cry of ' To Hell with the Pope!'" " I don't believe he does anything so dis- graceful and uncharitable ; and I dare say the Pope is all right why shouldn't he be ? Well, then, afterwards ? Afterwards she told me that there were events connected with her past life which might make it impossible for her to marry me, and that I had better go and ask you 10 THE ROMANCE OF what they were. She said you were the sort of old chap who knew all about other people's business." Of course I was perfectly well aware that Madame de Chanteloup was incapable of having described me in such false and vulgar terms ; still it did seem probable that she had wished to cast upon me a task which she had found too painful to undertake on her own account, and the question was whether I was in any way bound to oblige her. Was I to rake up the cinders of a burnt-out scandal for the benefit of this ridiculous youth, who had brought an introduction to me from his father a few weeks before, and who would most undoubtedly be forbidden by his family to contract any such alliance as that upon which he had set his callow affections ? Was I to relate how in years gone by there had been what shall I call it? a rather pronounced flirtation between Madame de Chanteloup, then a mere slip of MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. u a girl, and the heir-apparent to a certain throne ; how there had heen a tremendous row about it ; how that unconscionable old mother of hers, Mrs. Wilbraham, had threatened to make revelations which could not possibly be permitted ; and how, finally, the Comte de Chanteloup had been induced to marry her by the payment of his debts and a large sum of ready money ? All things considered, I really did not conceive it to be my duty to do this, and I confined myself to vague refer- ences to current rumours, which my young gentleman indignantly scouted. " What vile lies ! " he cried. " I'm glad you don't state them as truths ; but if any man ever dares to say they are true before me well, I'll promise him a bad quarter of an hour. How can she have supposed that I should ever waste a second thought upon the calumnies of reptiles, who most likely have never seen her in their lives ? Why, no man with eyes in his head THE ROMANCE OF could look at her and doubt that she was as innocent as an infant." I shrugged my shoulders and held my tongue. I am old, and even when I was young T had no taste for unnecessary quarrels. Be- sides, what is the use of arguing with a man who is in love ? It was as certain % as anything could be that Pomeroy's father would never permit him to marry a Papist with a dubious record ; and, that being so, I naturally paid little heed to the rhapsodies with which the boy proceeded to favour me. I had heard that kind of thing so many, many times before ! What was really interesting and inexplicable was Madame de Chanteloup's conduct in the matter, and I will not deny that I went that evening to a party at which I thought it likely that she might be present for the express purpose of observing her and giving her a chance to enlighten me. I can't say whether or not she attended that 'WELL," SAID SHE; "AND OF COURSE YOU TOLD HIM ALL THAT THERE WAS TO BE TOLr." MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. party for the express purpose of meeting the reader's humble servant ; but she behaved very much as though that had been her motive, for no sooner had I shaken hands with my hostess than she sailed straight across the room to- wards me and beckoned me aside, with a certain imperious air which was habitual to her. She was always pale ; but I fancied that she looked rather whiter than usual that evening ; so I opened the conversation by saying : "I am afraid you have one of your neuralgic head- aches." " Yes," she answered ; " I am in great pain, and I have been in great pain all day. That is one reason why I could not see your friend Mr. Pomeroy when he called. He was with you this morning, I presume ? " I answered that he had been with me, and looked politely interrogative. " Well," said she ; " and of course you told him all that there was to be told." 1 5 THE ROMANCE OF 11 1 am not sure that it was in my power to do that," replied I. "I told him of certain rumours which, as you are aware, are le secret de Polichinelle, and I should not have informed him of them if I had not gathered that you wished me to do so." " Of course I wished you to do so. And what did he say ? " " Oh, he simply snapped his fingers at them. He attached no more importance to calumny than he did to such a trifle as changing his religion at your behest." A faint tinge of colour came into her cheeks and the slightly severe expression of her face relaxed for a moment. She resumed it, how- ever, in order to remark : " You are a sceptic " (this was quite untrue, hut no matter) ; " you believe a great deal more in politics than you do in religion, and I should never be able to persuade you that a man who adopts the only true faith is not what MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 17 you would call a turncoat. Perhaps it may have been my good fortune to do Mr. Pomeroy one very real service, although it may be im- possible forme to grant him all he asks me for." " Can you really be contemplating such an unscrupulous trick as that ? " I exclaimed ; " and can you imagine that it has the remotest chance of success ? " She did not deign to answer ; but indeed I required no answer. Her face told me plainly enough that she was actually in love with that impetuous youth, and that she wished, if she could, to accept him. I fancied also that she was not less grateful to me than he had been for merely mentioning as reports what I might almost have ventured, but for my cautious dis- position, to affirm as ascertained facts. She dismissed me presently with a friendly little motion of her head, and turned to speak to one of the men who had been hovering near her during our short colloquy. I don't mind c 18 THE ROMANCE OF acknowledging that I should have been glad if she had been a little more communicative ; still I was not altogether sorry that she had refrained from honouring me by asking my advice ; for, had she seen fit to do so, I could not, in common honesty and charity, have counselled her to do otherwise than refuse a suitor whom it would have been wiser to refuse in the first instance. She was one of the best and one of the most charming women in the world ; but well, the " buts " appeared to me to be of overwhelming cogency. Why had she not adopted that easy and obvious plan ? Nobody possessing the most elementary acquaintance with her sex would attempt to answer such a question ; but, as regards this particular case, I have a theory, which may or may not be correct. I think Madame de Chanteloup was a curiously con- scientious woman ; I think she would not, under any circumstances, have consented to tell r , "I WAS STROLLING DOWN THE CHAMPS ELYSEES ONE AFTERNOON, . . . WHEN A PAIR OF EQUESTRIANS CANTERED PAST ME, IN WHOM I RECOGNIZED THE FAIR COUNTESS AND HER IMPOSSIBLE ADORER." MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 21 a lie ; and I suspect that when young Pomeroy asked her point-blank whether she loved him or not, she felt unable to reply in the negative. Being thus situated, she had (or, at least, so I imagined) imposed a couple of trying tests upon him, half hoping, half fearing that they would prove a little too severe for him to face. Be that as it may, I neither saw nor heard any more of her or of him for a full week. At the expiration of that time I was strolling down the Champs Elysees one afternoon, on my way back from the Bois de Boulogne, where I had been breakfasting with a few friends, when a pair of equestrians cantered past me, in whom I recognized the fair Countess and her impossible adorer. I was sorry to see them together ; for, although I knew that Madame de Chanteloup was in the habit of riding every day, and that their meet- ing might have been purely accidental, I could not but be aware that she would never have 22 THE ROMANCE OF allowed the young fellow to join her if she had not contemplated granting him greater privileges than that ; and really, for her own sake, it would have been so very much better to grant him no privileges at all. That my forebodings were only too well founded was proved to me long ere I reached the Place de la Concorde. Young Pomeroy came galloping back, jumped off his horse, and, gripping me by the arm, said " Congratulate me, Mr. Wortley ! I know you're a true friend of hers, as well as of mine, and I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that it's all right." " Do you mean/' I inquired, " that you have obtained your father's consent to your marriage ? " " My father's consent ? good gracious me, no ! As if I had had any excuse to ask him for it ! But I have obtained hers, which is a good deal more to the purpose. She says she's MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 23 willing to trust me if I am willing to trust her; she says that if I will consent to be received into her Church, and if I will never allude again to that that infernal blasphemy (for I really can't call it by any other name) which you mentioned to me the other day " " And which, of course, you are prepared to treat with the contempt that it deserves," I interjected. " My dear sir, am I a born fool ? " I thought it extremely probable that he was ; but I was too polite to say so, and he went on " Is it likely that, knowing her as I do, I should believe there was even the remotest possibility of her ever having done anything of which she ought to be ashamed ? Is it likely that I should wish to insult her by prying into bygones which she would rather not talk about ? Do you suppose I should enjoy re- lating to her the whole history of my own past 24 THE ROMANCE OF life ? And what business have I to refuse her an indulgence which I claim for myself ? " He proceeded to point out, at great length, and in glowing language, how infinitely higher, nobler, and purer Madame de Chanteloup must needs be than himself. I was not concerned to contradict him ; I do not assert, and never have asserted, that the world's estimate of what is pardonable in a man and unpardonable in a woman is intrinsically just ; only, as we live in the world, we must take it as we find it ; and I confess that I was a little disappointed in Madame de Chanteloup, who, I thought, might have spared this youthful enthusiast the in- evitable shock which awaited him. However, as I said before, nobody who understands women, however imperfectly, at- tempts to account for their conduct, and I own that my heart became softened towards the woman who is the subject of this sketch when I met her, the next day, at the entrance of the MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. church of St. Germain 1'Auxerrois, where, I suppose, she had been saying her prayers. I was tolerably well acquainted with her features, for which, indeed, I had always had a very sincere and profound admiration ; but at that moment they wore an expression which was wholly unfamiliar to me, and which somehow made her look like what I imagined she must have looked like as a child. The poor woman was happy, in fact ; Heaven knows that her life had not hitherto been favoured with any too large a share of happiness ! I don't remember what I said to her some- thing congratulatory and commonplace, no doubt but it did not matter what I said, for she evidently was not listening to me. Only, as I was helping her into her brougham, she grasped my hand with unusual warmth, and exclaimed, " Ah, Mr. Wortley, the world is not so bad as we try. to make it out. There are noble and generous hearts even among men." 26 THE ROMANCE OF I was not aware of having ever maintained the contrary ; but I was sorely afraid that she would be driven into doing so before long ; for Eyre Pomeroy, however noble and generous he might be, was dependent upon his father, and it was hardly in the nature of things that his father's nobility and generosity should display themselves in the especial form of which she appeared to be thinking. Still, if my fullest sympathy and my best wishes could have done her any good, they would have been as much at her service as I myself was. Unhappily, neither I nor my sympathy could obliterate an episode of which every proof and detail was easily procurable. II. I NEED scarcely say that the news of the Comtesse de Chanteloup's betrothal to her young compatriot, and of the latter's impend- MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 27 ing admission into the bosom of the Holy Eoman Church, was very soon bruited abroad ; nor is it necessary for me to add that this unexpected piece of intelligence set many tongues in motion. I suppose Pomeroy told everybody ; probably the Countess herself was too proud to keep silence ; anyhow, all Paris was placed in possession of the fact, and very sorry I was that all Paris should thus be entitled to make observations which, had they been reported to the persons chiefly concerned, could hardly have failed to cause them pain. For my own part, I am not ashamed to ac- knowledge that I hoped the boy would stand to his guns, seeing that, if the worst came to the worst, and his family cast him adrift, his wife's fortune would suffice to keep him and her out of want. He was only a boy, after all, and no doubt, if I had been his father, I should have done my utmost to restrain him from rashly compromising his whole future career ; but I 28 THE ROMANCE OF was not his father ; I was both powerless and irresponsible, and I could not for the life of me help inwardly espousing the cause of poor Madame de Chanteloup. One afternoon an event for which I had been fully prepared took place. My servant brought me a card, which bore the name of Sir Francis Pomeroy, and announced that the gentleman was waiting to hear whether I would receive him. Of course I had to send out a request that he would do me the honour to come in. I did not know much about him ; I had met him perhaps half a dozen times in years gone by. I was intimate with some of his relations, and I had written a polite reply to the letter of introduction which had been delivered to me by his son. It seemed probable that he had now come to upbraid me for having led his son into a guet-apens. However, the tall, spare, grey-headed gentleman who was presently ushered into my presence proved as MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 29 reasonable in behaviour as he was courteous in manner. " I have taken the liberty of calling upon you before letting Eyre know of my arrival, Mr. Wortley," he began, " because it will make an unpleasant task somewhat easier for me if I can obtain beforehand from a disinterested source some account of this unfortunate entanglement of his. You will allow that it is an unfortunate entanglement ? " " I don't know that I should describe it as an entanglement," I replied. " I suppose I must call it unfortunate by reason of certain rumours which are tolerably notorious, and which may even have reached your ears." " They have not only reached my ears," said Sir Francis, composedly, " but I have taken pains to verify them. I have been at our Embassy to-day, and also at the Lega- tion " (for obvious reasons I suppress the nationality of the Legation that he mentioned), 30 THE ROMANCE OF " and the result is that I have been allowed to see documents which place the affair altogether out of the category of rumours. There it all is in black and white the private or semi- private instructions of the Prince's Govern- ment, the pressure brought to bear by our own people, the Comte de Chanteloup's demands, and his formal acknowledgment of the receipt of a sum of money for a specific purpose. I was not, it is true, allowed to take copies of these papers, and I was warned that they could never be made public ; but, of course, no- thing of that kind is necessary for my purpose. What I have seen amply justifies me in saying that I cannot permit my son to marry a woman with such a record as Madame de Chanteloup's. I won't speak of his proposed change of religion. It is a subject upon which I feel strongly ; but the point really doesn't arise, and need not be alluded to. My only wish is not to make myself more disagreeable to Eyre than I can MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 31 help ; so I should be glad if you wouldn't mind telling me whether he is ignorant of the cir- cumstances, and whether, in that event, you had any good reason for keeping him in ignor- ance of them." This was a little awkward, but I made out as good a case as I could for myself, and I tried also though I knew it would be useless to make out as good a case as I could for Madame de Chanteloup. Sir Francis listened to me with perfect politeness and good temper ; he even expressed sympathy with the unfortunate lady, who, he said, might very likely have been more sinned against than sinning. " Only, of course," he added, " it's out of the question for my son to marry her." " You mean," I could not help observing, " that you will forbid him to marry her. Isn't it possible, though, that he may insist upon marrying her, notwithstanding your pro- hibition ? " 32 THE ROMANCE OF " Such a thing is possible, but I cannot think it at all likely. You see, Mr. Wortley, both you and Madame de Chanteloup have well, I won't say you have deceived him ; but at all events you haven't enlightened him. It devolves upon me to do that, and, painful though the duty is, I should be inexcusable if I evaded it." I could not urge him to refrain from doing what any father would have done in his place ; but I did venture to remind him that he was not quite entitled to speak of Madame de Chanteloup as a woman of damaged reputation. " When all is said," I remarked, " there remains a doubt, and I think she might be allowed the benefit of it." " I have no wish to be uncharitable," answered Sir Francis, getting up ; " but what there cannot be the slightest doubt about is that the Comte de Chanteloup was paid to marry this lady, that the money was provided by the MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 33 father of the present king, and that Mrs. Wilbra- ham threatened to make damaging disclosures if the required sum was not forthcoming. From those undisputed facts most people would say that only one conclusion could be drawn." I was not under any illusion as to what most people would say, and in fact did say, about this melancholy business ; yet I felt pretty sure that Eyre Pomeroy would prove less amenable to reason than his father expected him to be. It is perhaps a mistake to be generous and unsuspicious, and I myself may be too old to be either the one or the other ; still I admire those qualities in my juniors, and although, as I have said, I had been a little disappointed in Madame de Chanteloup for accepting Eyre, I should have been still more disappointed in him if the revelation which he was about to hear had induced him to break with her. At the same time, it will be readily understood that I did not see my way to lending countenance or D 34 THE ROMANCE OF encouragement to filial rebellion ; so that when, some hours later, my young friend was an- nounced, I began at once by saying " If you have come here to ask me to inter- cede for you with your father, you have come upon a vain errand. I warned you from the first, remember, that you would have trouble with him, and now you must fight your own battle." " I haven't come upon any errand of that kind, Mr. Wortley," answered the young man gravely and sadly, " and there is no quarrel between me and the governor, who, I must say, has been as as considerate as it was possible to be. More considerate, perhaps, than some other people." His tone was so absolutely the reverse of what I had anticipated, that I was fairly taken aback, and, to tell the truth, rather angered into the bargain. " Meaning me ? " I inquired. " Well," answered the young man, seating MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 35 himself and I noticed that there was a drawn look about his face, while all the healthy colour had deserted it " I think you might have been more candid with me. I can't help saying that I think I might have been more candidly dealt with. If it had been a question of mere gossip, I should have had nothing to complain of; but I don't quite understand my having been allowed to remain in ignorance as to matters of fact." " Why, God bless my soul, sir ! " I exclaimed (for in the days of my youth I had a hasty temper, of which some traces still linger within me), " do you venture to rebuke me because I didn't poke my nose into the byways of diplomacy in order to blacken the fair fame of the very best woman with whom I have the honour to be acquainted ? Who are you, pray, that I should stab a friend in the back to save you from committing an act of folly upon which you were bent ? You intend, I 36 THE ROMANCE OF take it, to break faith with Madame de Chan- teloup. Very well ; only, if you are in any degree a gentleman, you will account for your abandonment of her by affirming what, I should think, was perfectly true that your father's stalwart Protestantism won't admit of a matri- monial alliance between his heir and a Romanist." The young fellow did not respond to my out- burst by any counter-demonstration. " There is no use in using strong language, Mr. Wortley," said he, in the same calm, despairing voice. " I am as unhappy as you could possibly wish me to be ; but I am not ashamed. If what my father has told me is true and I am afraid that is beyond question I can no more think of marrying the woman whom I love than I could think of disgracing myself and my family in any other way. Surely that must be obvious to you ! And I don't think it would be honest on my part to give her any MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. ?7 reason except the real one for what you call my abandonment of her." He was undeniably and exasperatingly in the right. " As you please," I returned. " I can only say to you, as I have said to your father, that there is a doubt, and that, in my opinion, Madame de Chanteloup ought to be allowed the benefit of it. However, it really doesn't signify ; because you don't mean to marry her and, for the matter of that, I never believed that you would. And now, as I have an engagement to keep, and as I presume that you have nothing more to say, I will ask you to be so kind as to excuse me." But it seemed that he had something more to say ; it seemed to put things coarsely that he was desirous of employing me as a go-between, and that he thought I might spare him some pain by taking a message from him to Madame de Chanteloup. I need scarcely add that I emphatically declined to be employed in any such capacity. 38 THE ROMANCE OF " You have ridden at a fence which you are afraid to take," said I ; " personally I don't care a straw whether you shirk it or break your neck over it. It is no business of mine to find you in courage, or to see you through difficulties." " I must write to her, then," he replied, meekly. " You may call me a coward if you like ; but I daren't trust myself to see her." So he went his way ; and J confess that, after he had departed, my conscience reproached me a little for the severity with which I had treated him. He was not really behaving so very badly ; he really had been deceived, and I suppose it was the case that he owed some sacrifice of his personal inclinations to ex- pediency and to the honour of the good old family whose name he bore. Still I could not forget my poor Countess's radiant face as I had seen it when she emerged from St. Germain MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 39 1'Auxerrois, and I could not for one instant believe that she had ever been a bad woman, though hard facts demonstrated that she had been what, to all worldly intents and purposes, is the same thing. On the following afternoon I called at her house. I can't exactly say what my object was in so doing, nor had I any expectation that I could be of the slightest use to her in her distress ; but, having heard nothing of or from young Pomeroy during the morning, and being by no means sure that he would not leave Paris without even bidding me good-bye, I yielded to the feeling of restless uneasiness which had oppressed me ever since the con- clusion of mv interview with him. If the / reader likes to assume that I was prompted by mere vulgar curiosity, I make the reader welcome to that assumption : it would not be the first time that such a charge has been brought against me. 40 THE ROMANCE OF Anyhow, my curiosity was not gratified, for I failed to obtain admission into Madame de Chanteloup's drawing-room. Madame la Comtesse, the servant informed me, was tres-souffrante ; she had had one of her bad neuralgic headaches all day, and had now gone to bed, giving orders that she was on no account to be disturbed until the evening. So I handed him my card, mentioned that I would return to make inquiries on the morrow, and went my way to the club, where I remained until the clock warned me that it was time to go home and dress for a dinner-party to which I had been bidden. A fiacre was turning away from my door just as I reached it, and when I was about half-way upstairs I overtook Eyre Porneroy, who was clinging to the banisters and who seemed scarcely able to put one foot before another. " What is the matter ? " I exclaimed, taking MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 41 him by the arm ; " what has happened ? " for I saw by his ghastly face that some catastrophe must have occurred. " What has happened ? " he repeated, in a strange thick voice. " Haven't you heard ? no, of course you haven't. She is dead, that's all yes, dead ! I don't know whether you can believe it or not ; / can't, though there isn't a doubt about its being true." To the best of my recollection, I did not believe it. I thought the lad must have been drinking, or that he was the victim of some hallucination. He was, at all events, incapable of expressing himself coherently. It was only after I had got him into an arm-chair and had made him swallow a couple of glasses of wine that he recovered the use of his tongue ; and even then he remained so painfully agitated that I had difficulty in understanding what he said. I gathered, however, that he had, on the previous evening, written such a letter to 42 THE ROMANCE OF Madame de Chanteloup as he had intimated his intention of writing. " I received her answer," he said, " an hour or perhaps it was two hours ago. Here it is; read it, and you will see you will see " His voice broke, and it was some seconds before he could resume : " Of course, I rushed at once to her house. There was a great dis- turbance there. I didn't understand what it was about ; but they tried to keep me back, and I forced my way in. All the doors were open ; the servants were in her bedroom, sobbing and chattering ; I think there was a policeman there too ; I saw her lying on the bed, dead and cold. She had been ill and had taken an over- dose of chloral, they said. I think I had better kill myself too; for you will see by her letter that she was innocent and that I murdered her ! " I quieted him as best I could ; but naturally ' ALL THE DOORS WEBE OPEN ; THE SERVANTS WERE IN HER BEDROOM, SOBBING AND CHATTERING ; I THINK THERE WAS A POLICEMAN THERE TOO ; I SAW HER LYI>G ON THE BED, DEAD AND COLD." MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 45 I myself was somewhat overcome, arid even if I had had all my wits about me I don't know that I could have said very much to comfort him. Presently he sank back in his chair and motioned to me to read the letter which he had placed in my hand. I need not quote the whole of it ; indeed, I am not sure that, had he been calmer, he would have cared to let me see the opening sentences, which conveyed an assurance of such passionate love as I should scarcely have sup- posed Madame de Chanteloup capable of pen- ning, and which, even at that sad moment, I could not help wondering at his having had the power to arouse. But, notwithstanding this or possibly on account of it the writer acquiesced without a murmur in the sentence which had been pronounced against her, ac- knowledging that it was inevitable, and only marvelling that she had ever imagined that it might be averted. 46 THE ROMANCE OF "Still," she added, "now that all is over between us, and since you cannot, I think, suspect me of any wish to bring you back to me, I should like you to know that the truth is not quite so bad as you have been led to believe. The Prince paid me great attentions, and my vanity was flattered by them ; I liked him very much, though I did not love him ; I was scarcely more than a child ; I knew nothing of the world, and when he used to talk about a morganatic marriage I saw no impossibility in such an arrangement. Indeed, so far as I had any voice in the matter, I had consented to this when, all of a sudden, I was told that he had gone away, that I should never see him again, that he had even been placed under a sort of arrest, and that I was to marry M. de Chanteloup. Of course I was very unhappy ; but I had always been com- pletely under the control of my mother, who told me this was not a case for argument, that MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 47 she had done the very best she could for ine, and that I must bow to necessity. It was not until after my marriage that I learnt from my husband by what infamous means the trans- action which handed me over to him had been brought about. I don't speak of my mother's share in it. She was ambitious ; in her eager- ness to make what she considered a magnificent alliance for me she probably committed herself to false statements which may afterwards have been used against her, and from which she could find no honourable way of escape. At any rate, my husband's revelation came far too late to save or serve me. If I had pro- claimed my true story from the house-tops, not one person in a thousand would have believed it. But you, I hope, will believe it, and forgive the wrong I was so nearly doing you, as I have forgiven those who have ruined my life." There was a good deal more ; but I could 48 THE ROMANCE OF only glance at the remainder of the letter ; for young Pomeroy had started up from his recumbent attitude, and his cold, trembling fingers were laid upon my wrist. " Well ? " said he, impatiently. " Speak out don't be afraid of hurting me. Do you think she did it ? " I was astonished at the question. " Why," I exclaimed, " you yourself told me just now that you were persuaded of her innocence, and I must confess " "No, no!" he interrupted, fretfully; "you don't understand me. As if I would let you dare to cast a doubt upon her innocence ! What I mean is, do you do you think she killed herself?" I could only say, as I had said in a previous instance, that I thought she should be allowed the benefit of the doubt. That is all that I can say or think now ; and although Eyre Pomeroy would have been better pleased, I suppose, MADAME DE CHANTELOUP. 49 if I could have given him the more positive assurance which he craved, he did not, pre- sumably, consider that the circumstances would justify him in fulfilling his own threat of self-destruction. Far from acting so foolishly and wickedly, he has lately gratified his family by making a highly satisfactory marriage, and I should not imagine that he has revisited Pere Lachaise since the dismal, rainy day when he followed poor Madame de Chanteloup's remains to their last resting-place in that dreariest of all burial grounds. A MEMORABLE SWIM. BY W. CLARKE RUSSELL. THE little sitting-room, at whose open window I was seated, was very hot; from the lodgings on either hand there broke into the quie- tude of the night a horrid, distracting noise of jingling pianos, accompanied by a squealing of female voices. The hour was about eleven. I filled my pipe afresh, left the house, and walked in the direction of the beach. The moon rode high; I had never before seen the orb so small and also so brilliantly piercing ; she diffused a wide haze of greenish W. OLAKKE KU6SELL. A MEMORABLE SWIM. 51 silver round about her in the heavens, in the skirts of which a few stars of magnitude shone sparely, though, clear of the sphere of this steam-like radiance, the sky trembled with brilliants, and went hovering to the sea-line, rich with prisms and crystals. In the heart of the silent ocean lay the fan-shaped wake of the moon, and the splendour of its hither extremity, so wide-reaching was it, seemed to melt in the lines of summer surf, which formed and dissolved upon the wet-darkened sand. It wanted about a quarter of an hour to the turn of the ebb. The sands were a broad, firm platform, and stretched before and behind me, whitened into the complexion of ivory by the moonbeams. The cliffs rose tall and dark on my left, a silent range of iron terraces, with the black sky-line of them showing out against the stars, and with nothing to break their continuity save here and there a gap, as of some ravine. The summer-night hush was 52 A MEMORABLE SWIM. exquisitely soothing. From afar came the thin, faint notes of a band of music playing in the town, past the huge shoulder of cliff, but the distance was too great to suffer the strains to vex the ear ; indeed, the silence was accen- tuated rather than disturbed by that far-off music. The creeping of the surf was like the voice of innumerable fountains. There was not a breath of air; the moon's reflections lay tremorless; and in the liquid dusk on the western edge of that motionless path of light floated the phantom shape of a ship, her hull as black as ink, and her sails stirlessly poised over her, like ice in shadow. I walked dreamily onwards, smoking my pipe, and listening to the innumerable babble of the waters upon the beach. I went perhaps a mile. There was plenty of time ; no hurry to go to bed on such a night, and there would be abundance of room for the walk home, long after the tide should have turned. A MEMORABLE SWIM. 53 I came abreast of a mass of black rock, table- shaped, and nearly awash ; that is to say, the water stood almost at the level of it, so that at flood it would be submerged and out of sight. I spied what I thought to be a gleam of light resting upon it ; but on looking again I was sure that that strange shining could not be moonlight, for the lustre was local, and it was not light either, but white, and its size was about that of a man's body ; and, indeed, it looked so much like a naked man that I drew close to examine it. There was dry sand to the rock; but the water brimmed very nearly around it, and there was water under where the white object lay. On drawing near, I observed that what I had thought to be a gleam of light was the body of a drowned man. I stood staring long enough to satisfy me that he was dead. It was a dismal and a dreadful object to light upon. The very silence of the night, the beauty of the stars, 54 A MEMORABLE SWIM. the high, peaceful, piercing moon somehow increased the horror of the thing. On a dark, stormy night, I do not know that such a spectacle would have so shocked and unnerved me as this now did. I peered to right and left, but not the shadow of mortal being stirred upon the white sweep of the sands. Then, casting my eyes up at the cliff, I recollected that a little distance further on there was a gully, at the head of which stood a coastguard's hut, and, knowing that there would be a man stationed on the look-out up there, I forthwith bent my steps in the direction of the gully, and ascended it, until I arrived at the hut. Here I found a coastguard. He eyed me fixedly as I approached him. I said, " Good night, coastguard." " Good night," he answered, attentively surveying me by the light of the moon. " I am somewhat breathless," said I ; " I have A MEMORABLE SWIM. 55 walked fast, and that gully is hard to climb. There is a dead body down on the beach." " Whereabouts, sir ? " he exclaimed with the instant promptitude of the seaman, and he advanced to the edge of the cliff. " It lies on that rock there," said I, pointing. " I see it, sir," said he. " D'ye mind coming along with me? My mate won't be here for a bit." Together we proceeded to the sands. The coastguard got upon the rock and stood view- ing the body. Then, catching hold of it by the arms, he dragged it gently on to the sand. " Ay," said he ; "I thought as much. This'll be the gent as was drowned whilst bathing out of a boat yesterday. Poor fellow ! he's left a wife and two children. There's been a reward of twenty pounds offered for his body. That'll be yourn, sir." " It will be yours," said I. " I do not stand in need of money earned in this fashion." 56 A MEMORABLE SWIM. The body was that of a man of about thirty. He had fair hair and a large moustache, and in life had doubtless been a handsome young fellow. " 'Tain't often as they comes ashore so per- fect," said the coastguard. " They're mostly all ate up so as to be unrecognizable." I recoiled, and said, " Why am I afraid of this body ? It cannot hurt me. It is but a dead man, and comely too. Why, as he lies there, coastguard, he might be formed of ivory, moulded by the fingers of the sea out of its own foam, and cast up thus. And yet," said I, looking round with a silly, chilly shiver running through me, " I believe it would go near to unsettling my wits were I forced to stand watch by this body all through the night here." "I see he's got his rings on," said the matter-of-fact coastguard, stooping to bring his eyes close to the fingers of the body. A MEMORABLE SWIM. 57 " What is now to be done ? " said I. " Which way might you be going, sir ? " " Home back to the town," I replied ; " I've walked enough by the sea-shore to-night." " Then," said the coastguard, " I'll ask you to report this here discovery to the first bobby ye meets with. Tell him that the body lies almost abreast of Dowton Gap ; and, if you don't mind giving me a hand, sir, to carry the corpse to the foot of the cliff, in case the bobby the tide ye see " "No," said I ; "you dragged it single- handed from the rock. You are able to drag it single-handed to the foot of the cliff. If I touched the poor thing well, good night, coastguard," and I walked off, leaving him to handle the dead body single-handed, for which I had no better excuse to make than that I was possessed at the time by strong feelings of horror, and perhaps fear, which the presence of the coastguard in no degree 58 A MEMORABLE SWIM. mitigated, and which were induced, as I can now believe, by the suddenness and violence of the obtrusion of an object of terror upon my mind at a moment when it had been rendered in a peculiar sense unprepared for any such experience by the enervating charm, the sweet relaxing magic of the soft and glorious night of moonshine and silence, and waters seething with the stealthy hiss of champagne. I stepped out briskly, and as I walked I seemed to behold many white bodies of drowned men floating shore wards on the summer feather- ing of the little breakers. When I arrived at the town I met a policeman, to whom I communicated the news, and I then returned to my lodgings and sat in the open window smoking a pipe, and as I lighted my pipe the clocks in the town struck the hour of mid- night. As I sat smoking thus, I surrendered my A MEMORABLE SWIM. 59 mind so wholly to contemplation of the dead white body I had suddenly fallen in with, that I might well have supposed the impression which the encounter would leave must be life- long. But next day I returned to London, and within a week the memory of the little incident had as good as perished from my mind. For a month I was very busy. My employment was exceedingly arduous, and often obliged me to work late into the night. Then, at the expiration of the month, feeling uncommonly fagged, I resolved to spend a week at the same seaside town where I had discovered the body on the rock. The name of this town I will not give. I do not wish to excite the anger of its boatmen. " Ho ! " they will say, should I name their town. " Ho ! " they will cry when they have arrived at the end of my story, " what a loy ! This here piece is put into the newspapers all along o' spite. The gent don't wish us 6o A MEMORABLE SWIM. well, and he's invented this here blooming yarn to scare folks from employing of us. He's agoing to start a pleasure yacht for taking o' people out at a shilling a head, and don't mean that us pore watermen shall get a living." Thus would you declaim, oh, ye sons of the beach ; and that you may in no wise suffer from any statements of mine, I withhold the name of your town, so that the reader may take his choice of any port or harbour on the coast of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, what I am about to relate is no " loy," but the truth itself absolute, memorable, living. I was again at the seaside. It was now the month of August, and the hottest August that I can remember. After the intolerable heat of London, and the fatigue of my work there, nothing, of course, could prove so beneficial, so bracing, in all senses so restoring, as sea- bathing. But for the bathing-machine sea-bath I had the strongest aversion. First, there was A MEMORABLE SWIM. 61 no depth of water for swimming. The necessary depth for true enjoyment was to be gained only when the limbs were well-nigh exhausted by the labour of striking out for it. Then I disliked to bathe in company. Again, I objected to the crowds who stood watching the bathers from the piers and sands. In fact, for an expert swimmer, such as I, there is but one method of bathing in the sea : he must take a boat, row out a mile or two where the brine sparkles foamless, where it is clear of the con- tamination of the set of the inshore tide, where the blue or green of it is darkly pure with depth. On the morning following the day of my arrival, somewhere about the hour of seven o'clock, I threw some towels over my arm and walked down to a part of the harbour where I knew I should find a boatman. Even at this early hour the bite of the sun was as fierce as though he stood at his meridian. The atmo- sphere was of a brilliant blue. There was a 62 A MEMORABLE SWIM. little air of wind that delicately rippled the sea. I beheld not a cloud in the sky no, not so much as a shred of vapour of the size of a man's hand. In the harbour the red canvas of smacks preparing to go to sea painted the water under them. The soft wind brought many wholesome odours of tar, of sea- weed, of sawn timber to the nostrils. .As I approached that part of the pier off which most of the wherries belonging to the town were congregated, a man who was leaning with his back to me over a stone post, gazing in the direction of the sands, turned his head, and, guessing at my intention, by observing the towels I carried, stood erect with alacrity, and called out " Boat, sir ? The werry morning for a swim, sir. A sheet calm, and the flood's only now agoing to make." Though I had from time to time visited the town, I had never spent more than three days at a time in it; and the boatmen, therefore, were strangers to rne. I said to this man : A MEMORABLE SWIM. 63 " Yes, it is the very morning for a swim. What sort of a boat is yours ? " " The best boat in the harbour, sir," he an- swered. " There she lies, sir a real beauty," and he pointed eagerly at a wherry painted blue, with raised tholepins, after the fashion of the boats of the Thames watermen. I looked at her and said, " Yes, she will do very well to take a header from. Bring her alongside." It was not until I was seated in the stern- sheets of the boat that I particularly noticed this waterman, who, having flung his oars over, was propelling his little craft through the water with a velocity that was warrant of an extra- ordinarily powerful arm. My eyes then resting upon his face, I found myself struck by his uncommon appearance. His skin was very dark, his hair jet-black, and his eyes were of a glassy brilliance, with pupils of jet. Coarse as his hair was, it curled in ringlets. He wore a pair of 64 A MEMORABLE SWIM. immensely thick whiskers, every fibre of which might have been plucked from a horse's tail. His nose was heavy and large, and the curve of the nostrils very deeply graven. In each ear was a thick gold hoop, and the covering of his head consisted of a cap fashioned out of a skin. Otherwise he was habited in the familiar garb of the British boatman in a blue jersey, large loose trousers, of a yellow stuff called " fear- naught;" top-boots under the trousers, which were turned up to reveal a portion of the leather. I observed that his gaze had an odd character of staring ; it was fixed, stern, yet with a sug- gestion of restlessness in it, as of temper. " Are you a Jew ? " said I. " No fear," he answered. " Do not suppose that I ask the question out of any disrespect to you. The Jews are a very intelligent, interesting people. It would cause me to wonder, however, to find a Jew a boat- man." A MEMORABLE SWIM. 65 " I ain't no Jew, sir," said he. " Perhaps you are what is called a Komany Chal?" " What's that ? " he cried, gazing at me with his staring eyes. " A gipsy, isn't it ? " He grinned, and answered, " Well, I believe I has some pikey blood in me." li What do you mean by pikey ? " " Gipsy," said he. " That must be a local term," said I, " pro- bably derived from the word ' turnpike,' as con- necting the gipsies with the road." He strained at his oars in silence ; but my questions appeared to have excited some curiosity in him as to myself, for I observed that he ran his eyes over me, dwelling with attention upon every part of my apparel, more especially, as it struck me, upon, the rings upon my fingers, and upon my watch chain. I stood up to look around. We were clear of F 66 A MEMORABLE SWIM. the harbour ; and the fine scene of the cliffs, the houses on top, with their flashing windows, the white lustrous line of sands, lay stretched before my sight. We were the only small boat upon the surface of the sea ; but near the pier were a number of bathing-machines, and several dark knots of heads like cocoanuts bobbed in the snow-bright lines of the surf. The horizon was broken by the outlines of a few vessels, and one large steamer gliding stately and resplen- dent, flashes of white fire, like exploding guns, breaking from the double line of her glazed portholes as her movements brought those windows to the sun, gleams of ruddy flame leaping from the polished brass furniture about her bridge, and a long line of water glancing astern of her, as though she towed from her sternpost some league-long length of shimmer- ing white satin. " What might be the correct time, sir ? M asked the boatman. A MEMORABLE SWIM. 67 I drew out my watch, a handsome gold repeater, and gave him the hour. He thanked me, and said, "I suppose you're a good swimmer, sir ? " " I am a very good swimmer," I answered. " Then the deeper the water, the better you'll be pleased, sir. I've been told that arter six fadom of water every furder fadom makes a man feel so much more buoyant that it's like strapping a fresh bladder on to him." " No doubt," said I. " What depths have you here?" " Oh, here," cried he, contemptuously glanc- ing over the side, " why, there ain't twelve foot of water here. We're right on top of a bank. Ye'll need to let me pull you about a mile and a half out to get the soundings you want for a first-class swim." " Well," said I, " there is no hurry. You know all about these waters, of course ? By the way, when I was here a month ago I 68 A MEMORABLE SWIM. found a drowned body on the sands down there." " Oh, was you the gent, then, as fell in with that body ? " said the man, regarding me with his peculiar gipsy stare. " There was a matter of twenty pound offered for that discovery. Wish Td had the finding of the poor fellow. Twenty pound. Only think. And it was all paid over to a coastguard." " That's right," said I. " I walked up that break in the cliffs yonder to the coastguard's hut there and gave notice. Who was the drowned man, do you know ? " " It came out in the cronner's 'quest, but I forget the name." " How was he drowned ? " " Why, by awading out of his depth, I allow." " The coastguard told me he was drowned by bathing from a boat." " He didn't know nothen about it," answered the boatman. " There never yet was a man A MEMORABLE SWIM. 69 drownded by bathing out of a boat in these parts. Didn't ye see the account of the 'quest in the newspapers ? " " No." " Well," said the man, " it was supposed he was took with cramp. There's too many drownding jobs of that sort going on along the coast. It don't do us watermen any good. It creates a prejudice agin the places where the accidents happen. What does a man want to go out of his depth for if he ain't no swimmer ? " We fell silent, and he continued to row with great energy, whilst I lay back in the stern- sheets enjoying the sweet cool freshness of the salt air breathing upon the face of the waters, and greatly enjoying the noble and brilliant spectacle of the sea shining under the sun, and of the coast, whose many colours, and whose many features of structure, of elbow, of cliff, of green slope, of down on top, every stroke 70 A MEMORABLE SWIM. of the oar was now making more tender, more delicate, more toy-like. After rowing for about twenty minutes, the gipsy- faced boatman rested upon his oars, and, taking a look round, and then gazing over the side into the water, he exclaimed, " This here'll be the spot, sir." I at once undressed, stood up in the stern- sheets, put my hands together, and went over- board into the cool, green, glass-clear profound. I came to the surface, and, with a shake of the head, cleared rny eyes, and perceived the boat- man very leisurely pulling his wherry still further out to sea. This was, perhaps, as it should be. He might, indeed, have headed his boat in for the land ; but, in any case, he .was right to keep her in motion as an invitation to me to swim after her. I swam with great enjoyment ; the embrace of the water pene- trated to my inmost being, and every pulse in me beat with a new vitality. I swam A MEMORABLE SWIM. 71 directly in the wake of the boat, past the rim of whose stern I could see the head of the boat- man. He held me in view, and he watched me intently, though from time to time he would direct his gaze to that part of the land where the town was situated, and sometimes he would turn his head and look behind him that is to say, over the bows of his boat, in the manner of one who cannot satisfy himself that something is not approaching. Presently, I thought I would catch hold of the boat by the gunwale to rest myself, and I called to him to stop rowing, that I might corne up with him ; but he did not stop rowing. When I called he turned his face from me, and continued to ply his oars. I called to him again, but he paid no attention to me. There was the sullen air of murder in his averted face, and in his whole manner of determination not to hear me. My heart beat furiously, and I felt faint, for now, with the velocity of A MEMORABLE SWIM. thought, I was linking the fate of the man whose dead body I had lighted upon with the gipsy ruffian ahead of me in the boat ; and I said to myself, he might have been drowned, and perhaps by that very demon there, as I "I CALLED TO HIM TO STOP BOWING, THAT I MIGHT COME IP TO HIM; BUT HE DID NOT STOP ROWING." am to be drowned ; left, as I am to be left, to swim until he sank from exhaustion, as I am to sink, that the boatman might possess him- self of his watch and chain and money, as my A MEMORABLE SWIM. 73 watch and chain and money are the objects for which I am to be obliged to struggle here until I perish. These thoughts swept with the speed of a dream through my head. I cried aloud in a voice of bitter despair as acutely realizing now the murderous villain's intention as though I had spent an hour in digesting it " For God's sake, do not leave me here to drown. Take what you want ; take all that I have. Have mercy upon me. Let me reach your boat and rest ! " He continued to row, with his face averted from me, and I was near enough to him to easily observe the villainous, diabolical ex- pression that now sat upon his dark counte- nance as he stared in silence towards the land. I turned upon my back to rest myself, and all the while my feverishly-beating heart seemed to be saying, " What is to be done ? Must you drown ? You are not two miles from the 74 A MEMORABLE SWIM. shore. Cannot you swim that distance ? Rest awhile on your back, and then strike out like a man. You have no other chance for your life. That demon yonder intends that you shall drown. He will secrete the booty he means to take out of your pockets, and will row ashore and put on a face of consternation, and report that when you were overboard you were seized with cramp, and sank on a sudden like a stone." Whilst I thus lay upon my back, besieged by the most dreadful thoughts, half mad with wrath and with despair, the boatman sculled back to me, and, putting the blade of his left oar upon my breast, thrust with it with the idea of submerging me. I grasped the oar, and held it with the tenacity of a dying man. He could not shake me off; his right oar slipped from his hand and went overboard ; the boat swayed dangerously. My desire, indeed, was to capsize it, because I should have the ruffian " AND, PUTTING THE BLADE OF HIS LEFT OAR UPON MY BREAST, THRUST WITH IT WITH THE IDEA OF SUBMERGING ME." A MEMORABLE SWIM. 77 at an advantage if I could get him into the water, heavily clad as he was, even though he should be as expert a swimmer as I ; and then there would be the boat to hold to, be- cause, being light and without ballast, even if she filled she would not sink; furthermore, there was the certainty of our situation being witnessed from the coast, and of help being despatched forthwith. It might have been that he feared the boat would capsize, and it might have been that he guessed we should be presently observed through some telescope levelled at us from the pier or cliff. He suddenly cried with a furious curse, " Get in, get in ! " and, letting go his oar, he dragged me into the boat, flinging me from him, so that I fell over an after thwart, and lay for a few moments breathless, and almost unconscious, in the bottom of the boat. He then threw his oar over and manoeuvred the wherry, so as to re- 78 A MEMORABLE SWIM. cover the other oar, which done, he adjusted himself on his seat and fell to rowing on a course parallel with the coast. I rose, trembling in every limb; the shock had been terrible; my rescue a miracle. I seemed to feel the hand of death cold upon my heart, even as I staggered on to my feet ; and still I was in dire peril alone with a powerful, muscular ruffian, who, having already attempted my life, might again, in self-defence, to silence my testimony against him, renew his murderous effort in another direction. With an exhausted hand I passed a towel over my body and then clothed myself. Meanwhile, not a word was uttered. The man eyed me with ferocity, and his under-lip moved as though he were rehears- ing some thoughts to himself in an impish jargon. We still continued to be the only boat upon the water. The great steamer had long since passed out of sight, and upon the horizon hung the few sails, scarcely impelled by the A MEMORABLE SWIM. 79 languid breath of the air that was slowly weakening as the sun gained in power. At last I said to the man, " Where are you going ? " " That's my business," he answered. " Where are you taking me to ? " I exclaimed. He fastened his staring, gleaming eyes upon me and answered, " I'm going to put ye ashore." " But you are not rowing the boat in the direction of the town." "I know I'm not," " I want you to set me ashore at the place where we started from." "Ye may want," he replied, pausing upon his oars to advance his head towards me as he spoke, as though, in another moment, he would leap upon me. By this time I had rallied my wits somewhat. The feeling of profound exhaustion was also passing. I was dressed, and the mere being 8o A MEMORABLE SWIM. dressed was in its way a help towards the composure of the mind. I was man to man with the ruffian, but not his match no, I had but to run my eye over his figure to understand that. I sat contemplating his villainous face and thinking. There was a boat-stretcher at my feet; but the man's fierce, keen eye was upon me; before I could grasp and employ the stretcher, the fellow would have guessed my intentions, and I must therefore either sit still and wait until I could understand what he meant to do, or fling myself upon him and take the chance of being hurled overboard. No purpose could be served by my capsizing the boat. I was now clothed, and my move- ments in the water would, therefore, be seriously hampered ; and then, again, if I en- gaged in a struggle, with the intention of capsizing the boat, and succeeded in doing so, it might be his fortune to regain her and to keep me off from her, and, apparelled and A MEMORABLE SWIM. 81 exhausted as I was, I should not long be able to remain afloat. He continued to row along a course that was still parallel with the coast. He rowed with a sort of sulky energy, and often directed a furious look at me, whilst his leather nether lip worked as though he were reciting some charm to himself. Presently I said to him, " Where are you taking me to ? Why will you not put me ashore where we started from ? You have tried to drown me, and your object can be nothing but plunder, for I have not offended you, I have done you no wrong, and, therefore, your only reason for attempting to drown me must be the jewellery upon me, and such money as you may hope I have in my pocket. Now, I will give you all that I possess my watch and chain, this ring, and the two or three pounds which I have in my pocket if you will set me ashore where I came from." He stared fiercely at me, but made no response. G 82 A MEMORABLE SWIM. " Do you fear I will charge you with the crime you have attempted ? " said I. " If you will set me ashore in safety I swear not to say a word upon what has happened." " I'm going 1 to set ye ashore," he exclaimed. " But where ? " He flung his villainous head backwards to- wards the sea over the bows of his boat and said, " You'll be finding out afore long." " Ah," thought I, " if I had but a revolver in my pocket, if I had but a knife, if I had but any sort of weapon that I could furtively draw forth and instantly employ ! " The line of coast ran away down on the left- hand side. The nearest town in the direction the boatman was taking would be some miles distant from the place in which I was staying. The cliffs gradually rose to an altitude of hard upon a hundred feet, with many indents and little coves ; but the face of them, as we advanced, grew more and yet more precipitous, A MEMORABLE SWIM. 83 and in places the rocks stood abrupt and clean as the side of a wall. When the harbour we had quitted was out of sight, and the final group of houses on our side was hidden by the bend of the cliffs, the boatman took a swift look over his shoulder, then slightly changed the course of his boat, making her head in for the coast to a sort of bight of it, as it seemed, formed by an angular projection of the huge, iron-faced sea-terrace, so that it looked as if the land ended where that point of coast stood, for the horizon went to it, and we were not far enough out to see the sweep of land beyond. That the boatman designed some diabolical act I did not doubt, but I could not imagine what form it was to take. He meant to set me ashore, he said. Did he intend to land and then murder me ; to land me in some lonely bight or cave, and there fall upon me, and slay me ? No, I did not believe that. If he in- 84 A MEMORABLE SWIM. tended to make away with me for the sake of my money and jewellery, it would be his busi- ness to provide that I should appear to have been drowned by accident. Otherwise, how would he account for my disappearance ? Or, if my body should be discovered, and marks of a devilish outrage were visible upon it, what answer would he be able to make to the charge of having murdered ine ? But what then did he mean to do ? To set me ashore ? In that case I should be able to walk home and report what had happened. Did he mean to return to the town that he belonged to ? That could not signify, for let him make for any port that he chose his capture was ultimately certain. He swept the boat in rapidly to the coast, heading her for a curvature in the land that might have passed for a miniature bay. The sea remained a blank, save for those dim and distant sails upon the horizon. The water A MEMORABLE SWIM. 85 washed to the foot of the coast ; but in the little bay, for which the villain was aiming, I could perceive, as the boat rose on the slight swell that was now running, the gleam of sand. Nothing stirred on the heights ; we were now within a quarter of a mile, but not a moving object was visible. He continued to row until the boat was in the embrace of the bay. The dark cliffs soared like a colossal rampart to high overhead, and at either extremity of the curve of the bay, at the point of either horn of it, there was a little play of surf. The man flung in his oars and stood up. " Give me that watch and chain of yourn ! " he shouted. I rose to my feet. " Give me that watch and chain," he roared again, and thrusting his great dark hand into his breeches pocket he whipped out a big clasp knife, which he opened. " No trouble," he exclaimed, " or I'll cut your throat." 86 A MEMORABLE SWIM. I placed the watch and chain down upon a thwart, and he pocketed them. " Now pull out all the money you have." This I did, and he took the coins and put them in his pocket. " Pull off that ring." This I also did. He eyed me all over, still grasping the knife. Then looking towards the beach, he said, " That's where I'm going to land ye. You're a good swimmer. Jump over- board." " If you land me there," said I, " I shall be drowned. The water is rising, and those rocks are not to be climbed." " Jump overboard ! " said he, with a menacing flourish of his knife. " It is a bit of a swim as yet," said I. "I am sick and without strength. For God's sake put me a little closer to the beach that I may have a chance ! " He hesitated a moment, then stooped to pick A MEMORABLE SWIM. 89 up an oar. In that instant I bounded upon him. Impelled by the incommunicable agony of mind I was in, by what I may truly call the terrific impulse of the despair that was .upon me, I leapt the thwart with the velocity of a wolf at full cry, and ere he could lift his eyes I had put my shoulder to his side, and hove him into the water. Shipping an oar, I pulled the boat's head round, shipped the other oar betwixt the thole-pins, and pulled out of the bay with all my might. Before the point of cliffs had shut out the bay, I caught sight of his head. The fellow was swimming, and swimming strongly, towards the curve of the sand at the foot of the cliff. I now understood the sort of fate he had intended for me. Having gained the sand, I should have been imprisoned by the water ; but the tide was making fast, and, when the flood was at its full, the sea-line stood some feet above the level of the sand. There was not 90 A MEMORABLE SWIM. an accessible piece of jutting rock nothing for the hand to grasp, nor for the foot to support itself by, upon the face of the perpendicular steep. Therefore I must inevitably have been drowned. And what story would the ruffian have invented to account for my disappearance ? I conceived this : that he would have leisurely rowed back to the harbour, moored his boat, and lounged upon the pier, as his custom was, without uttering a syllable about me, unless, indeed, he had been observed to row me out in his boat in the morning, and should be asked what had become of me. Supposing this ques- tion asked, he would answer that at my request he had set me ashore some two or three miles down the coast, as I desired to walk home by way of the cliffs. Who could have disproved this ? It must have been readily credited. It was a thing that was again and again happen- ing. And now imagine my body found upon the sands of the little bay where he had com- A MEMORABLE SWIM. 91 pelled me to swim ashore ! There would have been an inquest ; it would be ascertained that I was the gentleman whom the gipsy boatman had set ashore. What more probable, then, than that I should have changed my mind, have attempted to make my way home in my ignorance of the neighbourhood, by way of the beach, instead of by way of the cliffs, and so have perished ? These thoughts occupied my mind as I rowed the wherry in the direction of the harbour. I pulled at the oars with fury ; I was sensible of a horrid distraction of fear, as though it were in the power of the ruffian to pursue me, to arrest the boat, to enter her and cut my throat with the knife he had flourished. I entered the harbour, sculled to a landing stage, secured the painter of the boat to it, and stepped ashore. There were many people about ; the air resounded with the cries of boatmen inviting the passers-by to go out for a row or a sail. 92 A MEMORABLE SWIM. None of these men took any notice of me. Probably none of them knew that I had started in company with the gipsy boatman, and they would probably imagine that I had returned from a solitary pull out to sea. I walked a little way, and presently observed a harbour police- man. I approached him, and said " I want to inform against a ruffian who has just attempted my life." He looked me hard in the face, and was clearly impressed by my agitation and ap- pearance. " What's wrong ? " said he. " A boatman whom I went out with this morning has attempted to drown me," said I. " Step this way, sir," said the man ; and with that he conducted me to a brick-built house adjoining a row of warehouses, and in the window of this brick-built house was a large wire blind, on which was wrought in golden letters the words, " Harbour Police A MEMORABLE SWIM. 93 Office." The policeman lifted the latch of the door and entered, and I followed him. An immense man, with large, red whiskers, wear- ing a sort of naval cap with letters interwreathed over the peak of it, and a frock-coat, the breast of which was braided, sat upon a tall, three- legged stool reading a newspaper. He looked at me over his spectacles as I entered. " Here's a gent says that one of the boatmen's been a-trying to drown him," said the police- man ; and, addressing me, he added, " This is the superintendent." The superintendent put down his paper and took off his glasses, and asked me to tell him my business. I forthwith related my experi- ences to him. He listened attentively, occa- sionally glancing at the constable, who stood by listening with his mouth slightly open. " Describe the man, sir," said the superin- tendent. I did so. 94 A MEMORABLE SWIM. " It's Gipsy Bill," said the constable. "Yes, it's Gipsy Bill," said the superin- tendent " the same man as took out the party that was drowned last month." " And the same man," said the constable, "HE LISTENED ATTENTIVELY, OCCASIONALLY GLANCING AT THE CON- STABLE, WHO STOOD BY LISTENING WITH HIS MOUTH SLIGHTLY OPEN." " as took out the party that was drowned a year ago come next month." The superintendent thumped his leg. " I've been suspicious of that chap all through," said A MEMORABLE SWIM. 95 he. " Freeman, call Jones and Woodward, and take the boat and get the man. The flood'll not be at its height yet, and the man himself 11 be as prettily nailed as though we had him in the lock-up." I heard him pronounce these words, then a blood-red blaze of fire seemed to rush from my brain out through my eyes. I fell, and remember no more. When I recovered my consciousness I was in bed in my own lodgings. All necessary in- formation about me had been found in my pocket, in the shape of letters and cards. My sister had been telegraphed for, and she was at my bedside when I awoke, after three days of utter insensibility. When I was strong enough to listen and converse, I was told that the police-boat had pulled down to the little bay, found the man, and brought him to the town, where he was lying, locked up, charged with the attempt to murder me. Confirmatory proofs 96 A MEMORABLE SWIM. of his guilt, outside the story I had related to the superintendent, were found upon his person, for the demon, probably forgetting in his time of peril that he had pocketed my watch and chain, my ring, and my money, had omitted to conceal them or fling them away when the police-boat showed herself round the corner. But this was not all ; two visitors had lost their lives within a year. The body of one only was recovered, and this was the poor fellow whose remains I had stumbled upon during my lonely moonlight walk along the sands. It was believed that both these men had perished whilst bathing from a boat, and the coroner, during the inquest held upon the body that had been recovered, bad commented somewhat significantly upon the circumstance of both these disasters having occurred from the same boat, in charge of the same man. And now, whilst I had lain unconscious, the ' police had searched the little house, or room, A MEMORABLE SWIM. 97 occupied by the boatman named Gripsy Bill, and there they had discovered a gold pencil-case and a pair of gold pince-nez glasses and a watch- chain, of which articles the two former were claimed as belonging to the man who had been drowned in the previous year, whilst the watch- chain was sworn to by the widow of the gentle- man whose body I had discovered, the poor lady happening to be in the town whilst I lay unconscious. The upshot of it was that Gipsy Bill was sentenced to penal servitude for life. That he was guilty of two murders was certain, and therefore he ought to have been hanged. Nevertheless, the circumstantial evidence did not seem sufficiently strong to admit of the death penalty, for it could not certainly be proved that the fiend, when his victims had plunged overboard, had quietly continued to row, leaving the unhappy men to sink with exhaustion in his wake. It could not certainly be proved that the poor fellows had not been H A MEMORABLE SWIM. seized with cramp and suddenly sunk ; but, all the same, no one who heard the story ever doubted that this demon of a gipsy boatman had left them to perish, or, as he had at- tempted in my case, had hastened their end by a blow with his oar. TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. BY THOMAS HARDY. I. THE interior of St. James's Church, in Havenpool Town, was slowly darkening under the close clouds of a winter afternoon. It was Sunday : service had just ended, the face of the parson in the pulpit was buried in his hands, and the congregation, with a cheerful sigh of release, were rising from their knees to depart. For the moment the stillness was so complete THOMAS HAKDY. ioo TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. that the surging of the sea could be heard outside the harbour-bar. Then it was broken by the footsteps of the clerk going towards the west door to open it in the usual manner for the exit of the assembly. Before, however, he had reached the doorway, the latch was lifted from without, and the dark figure of a man in a sailor's garb appeared against the light. The clerk stepped aside, the sailor closed the door gently behind him, and advanced up the nave till he stood at the chancel step. The parson looked up from the private little prayer which, after so many for the parish, he quite fairly took for himself, rose to his. feet, and stared at the intruder. " I beg your pardon, sir," said the sailor r addressing the minister in a voice distinctly audible to all the congregation. " I have come here to offer thanks for rny narrow escape from shipwreck. I am given ta TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 101 understand that it is a proper thing to do, if you have no objection ? " The parson, after a moment's pause, said hesitatingly, "I have no objection; certainly. It is usual to mention any such wish before service, so that the proper words may be used in the General Thanksgiving. But, if you wish, we can read from the form for use after a storm at sea." " Ay, sure ; I ain't particular," said the sailor. The clerk thereupon directed the sailor to the page in the Prayer-book where the collect of thanksgiving would be found, and the rector began reading it, the sailor kneeling where he stood, and repeating it after him word by word in a distinct voice. The people, who had remained agape and motionless at the proceeding, mechanically knelt down like- wise ; but they continued to regard the isolated form of the sailor who, in the precise middle of the chancel step, remained fixed on his 102 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. knees, facing the east, his hat beside him, his hands joined, and he quite unconscious of his appearance in their regard. When his thanksgiving had come to an end, he arose ; the people arose also, and all went out of church together. As soon as the sailor emerged, so that the remaining daylight fell upon his face, old inhabitants began to recognize him as no other than Shadrach Jolliffe, a young man who had not been seen at Havenpool for several years. A son of the town, his parents had died when he was quite young, on which account he had early gone to sea, in the Newfoundland trade. He talked with this and that townsman as he walked, informing them that, since leaving his native place years before, he had become captain and owner of a small coasting-ketch, which had providentially been saved from the gale as well as himself. Presently he drew TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 103 near to two girls who were going out of the churchyard in front of him ; they had been sitting in the nave at his entry, and had watched his doings with deep interest, after- wards discussing him as they moved out of church together. One was a slight and gentle creature, the other a tall, large-framed, deliberative girl. Captain Jolliffe regarded the loose curls of their hair, their backs and shoulders, down to their heels, for some time. " Who may those two maids be ? " he whispered to his neighbour. " The little one is Emily Banning ; the tall one Joanna Phippard." " Ah ! I recollect 'em now, to be sure." He advanced to their elbow, and genially stole a gaze at them. " Emily, you don't know me ? " said the sailor, turning his beaming brown eyes on her. "I think I do, Mr. Jolliffe," said Emily, shyly. IO4 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. The other girl looked stra : ght at him with her dark eyes. "The face of Miss Joanna I don't call to P " HE ADVANCED TO THEIR ELBOW, GENIALLY STOLE A GAZE AT THEM) AND SAID, 'EMILY, YOU DON'T ENOW ME?'" mind so well," he continued. " But I know her beginnings and kindred." TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 105 They walked and talked together, Jolliffe narrating particulars of his late narrow escape, till they reached the corner of Sloop Lane, in which Emily Hanning dwelt, when, with a nod and smile, she left them. Soon the sailor parted also from Joanna, and, having no especial errand or appointment, turned back towards Emily's house. She lived with her father, who called himself an accountant, the daughter, however, keeping a little stationery shop as a supplemental provision for the gaps of his somewhat uncertain business. On entering Jolliffe found father and daughter about to begin tea. " Oh, I didn't know it was teatime," he said. " Ay, I'll have a cup with much pleasure." He remained to tea and long afterwards, telling more tales of his seafaring life. Several neighbours called to listen, and were asked to come in. Somehow Emily Hanning lost her heart to the sailor that Sunday nightj 106 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. and in the course of a week or two there was a tender understanding between them. One moonlight evening in the next month Shadrach was ascending out of the town by the long straight road eastward, to an elevated suburb where the more fashionable houses stood if anything near this ancient port could be called fashionable when he saw a figure before him whom, from her manner of glancing back, he took to be Emily. But, on coming up, he found she was Joanna Phippard. He gave a gallant greeting, and walked beside her. "Go along," she said, "or Emily will be jealous ! " He seemed not to like the suggestion, and remained. What was said and what was done on that walk never could be clearly recollected by Shadrach ; but in some way or other Joanna contrived to wean him away from her gentler and younger rival. From that week onwards, TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 107 Jolliffe was seen more and more in the wake of Joanna Phippard and less in the company of Emily ; and it was soon rumoured about the quay that old Jolliffe's son, who had come home from sea, was going to be married to the former young woman, to the great disap- pointment of the latter. Just after this report had gone about, Joanna dressed herself for a walk one morning, and started for Emily's house in the little cross street. Intelligence of the deep sorrow of her friend on account of the loss of Shadrach had reached her ears also, and her conscience reproached her for winning him away. Joanna was not altogether satisfied with the sailor. She liked his attentions, and she coveted the dignity of matrimony ; but she had never been deeply in love with Jolliffe. For one thing, she was ambitious, and socially his position was hardly so good as her own, while there was always the chance of an io8 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. attractive woman mating considerably above her. It had long been in her mind that she would not strongly object to give him back again to Emily if her friend felt so very badly about him. To this end she had penned a letter of renunciation to Shadrach, which letter she carried in her hand, intending to post it if personal observation of Emily con- vinced her that her friend was suffering. Joanna entered Sloop Lane and stepped down into the stationery shop, which was below the pavement level. Emily's father was never at home at this hour of the day, and it seemed as though Emily was not at home either, for the visitor could make nobody hear. Customers came so seldom hither that a five minutes' absence of the proprietor counted for little. Joanna waited in the little shop, where Emily had tastefully set out as women can articles in themselves of slight value, so as to obscure the meagreness of the stock-in-trade; till she TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 109 saw a figure pausing without the window apparently absorbed in the contemplation of the sixpenny books, packets of paper, and prints hung on a string. It was Captain Shadrach Jolliffe, peering in to ascertain if Emily was there alone. Moved by an impulse of reluctance to meet him in a spot which breathed of Emily, she slipped through the door that communicated with the parlour at the back. Joanna had frequently done so before, for in her friendship with Emily she had the freedom of the house without cere- mony. Jolliffe entered the shop. Through the thin blind which screened the glass partition she could see that he was disappointed at not finding Emily there. He was about to go out again, when her form darkened the doorway, hastening back from some errand. At sight of Jolliffe she started back as if she would have gone out again. TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. " Don't run away, Emily ; don't ! " said he. " What can make ye afraid ? " " I'm not afraid, Captain Jolliffe. Only only I saw you all of a sudden, and it made me jump." Her voice showed that her heart had jumped even more than the rest of her. " I just called as I was passing," he said. " For some paper ? " She hastened behind the counter. i 'No, no, Emily. Why do ye get behind there ? Why not stay by me ? You seem to hate me." " I don't hate you. How can I ? " "Then come out, so that we can talk like Christians." Emily obeyed with a fitful laugh, till she stood again beside him in the open part of the shop. " There's a dear," he said. " You mustn't say that, Captain Jolliffe ; because the words belong to somebody else." TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. in " Ah ! I know what you mean. But, Emily, upon my life I didn't know till this morning that you cared one bit about me, or I should not have done as I have done. I have the best of feelings for Joanna, but I know that from the beginning she hasn't cared for me more than in a friendly way ; and I see now the one I ought to have asked to be my wife. You know, Emily, when a man comes home from sea after a long voyage he's as blind as a bat he can't see who's who in women. They are all alike to him, beautiful creatures, and he takes the first that comes easy, without thinking if she loves him, or if he might not soon love another better than her. From the first I inclined to you most, but you were so backward and shy that I thought you didn't want me to bother 'ee, and so I went to Joanna." " Don't say any more, Mr. Jolliffe, don't ! " said she, choking. " You are going to marry 112 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. Joanna next month, and it is wrong to to " " Oh, Emily, my darling ! " he cried, and clasped her little figure in his arms before she was aware. Joanna, behind the curtain, turned pale, tried to withdraw her eyes, but could not. " It is only you I love as a man ought to love the woman he is going to marry ; and I know this from what Joanna has said, that she will willingly let me off. She wants to marry higher, I know, and only said ' Yes ' to me out of kindness. A fine, tall girl like her isn't the sort for a plain sailor's wife ; you be the best suited for that." He kissed her and kissed her again, her flexible form quivering in the agitation of his embrace. " I wonder are you sure Joanna is going to break off with you ? Oh, are you sure ? Because " TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 113 " I know she would not wish to make us miserable. She will release me." "Oh, I hope I hope she will! Don't stay any longer, Captain Jolliffe ! " He lingered, however, till a customer came for a penny stick of sealing-wax, and then he withdrew. Green envy had overspread Joanna at the scene. She looked about for a way of escape. To get out without Emily's knowledge of her visit was indispensable. She crept from the parlour into the passage, and thence to the front door of the house, where she let herself noiselessly into the street. The sight of that caress had reversed all her resolutions. She could not let Shadrach go. Eeaching home, she burnt the letter, and told her mother that if Captain Jolliffe called she was too unwell to see him. Shadrach, however, did not call. He sent her a note expressing in simple language the I ii 4 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. state of his feelings, and asking to be allowed to take advantage of the hints she had given him that her affection, too, was little more than friendly, by cancelling the engagement. Looking out upon the harbour and the island beyond he waited and waited in his lodgings for an answer that did not come. The suspense grew to be so intolerable that after dark he went up the High Street. He could not resist calling at Joanna's to learn his fate. Her mother said her daughter was too unwell to see him, and to his questioning admitted that it was in consequence of a letter received from himself, which had distressed her deeply. " You know what it was about, perhaps, Mrs. Phippard ? " he said. Mrs. Phippard owned that she did, adding that it put them in a very painful position. Thereupon Shadrach, fearing that he had been guilty of an enormity, explained that if his letter had pained Joanna it must be owing to TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 115 a misunderstanding, since he had thought it would be a relief to her. If otherwise, he would hold himself bound by his word, and she was to think of the letter as never having been written. Next morning he received an oral message from the young woman, asking him to fetch her home from a meeting that evening. This he did, and while walking from the Town Hall to her door, with her hand in his arm, she said " It is all the same as before between us, isn't it, Shadrach ? Your letter was sent in mistake ? " " It is all the same as before," he answered, '* if you say it must be." " I wish it to be," she murmured, with hard lineaments, as she thought of Emily. Shadrach was a religious and scrupulous man, who respected his word as his life. Shortly afterwards the wedding took place, Jolliffe n6 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. having *conveyed to Einily as gently as possible the error he had fallen into when estimating Joanna's mood as one of indifference. II. A MONTH after the marriage Joanna's mother died, and the couple were obliged to turn their attention to very practical matters. Now that she was left without a parent, Joanna could not bear the notion of her husband going to sea again, but the question was, What could he do at h'ome ? They finally decided to take on a grocer's shop in High Street, the goodwill and stock of which were waiting to be disposed of at that time. Shadrach knew nothing of shopkeeping, and Joanna very little, but they hoped to learn. To the management of this grocery business they now devoted all their energies, and con- tinued to conduct it for many succeeding years, TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 117 without great success. Two sons were born to them, whom their mother loved to idolatry, although she had never passionately loved her husband ; and she lavished upon them all her forethought and care. But the shop did not thrive, and the large dreams she had entertained of her sons' education and career became attenuated in the face of realities. Their schooling was of the plainest, but, being by the sea, they grew alert in all such nautical arts and enterprises as were attractive to their age. The great interest of the Jolliffes' married life, outside their own immediate household, had lain in the marriage of Emily. By one of those odd chances which lead those that lurk in unexpected corners to be discovered while the obvious are passed by, the gentle girl had been seen and loved by a thriving merchant of the town, a widower, some years older than herself, though still in the prime of life. At Ii8 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. first Emily had declared that she never, never could marry any one ; but Mr. Lester had quietly persevered, and had at last won her reluctant assent. Two children also were the fruits of this union, and, as they grew and prospered, Emily declared that she had never supposed she could live to be so happy. The worthy merchant's home, one of those large, substantial brick mansions frequently jammed up in old-fashioned towns, faced directly on the High Street, nearly opposite to the grocery shop of the Jolliffes, and it now became the pain of Joanna to behold the woman, whose place she had usurped out of pure covetousness, looking down from her position of comparative wealth upon the humble shop-window with its dusty sugar-loaves, heaps of raisins, and canisters of tea, over which it was her own lot to preside. The business having so dwindled, Joanna was obliged to serve in the shop herself, and it galled and mortified her that Emily TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 119 Lester, sitting in her large drawing-room over the way, could witness her own dancings up and down behind the counter at the beck and call of wretched twopenny customers, whose patronage she was driven to welcome gladly : persons to whom she was compelled to be civil in the street, while Emily was bounding along with her children and her governess, and conversing with the genteelest people of the town and neighbourhood. This was what she had gained by not letting Shad- rach Jolliffe, whom she had so faintly loved, % carry his affection elsewhere. Shadrach was a good and honest man, and he had been faithful to her in heart and in deed. Time had clipped the wings of his love for Emily in his devotion to the mother of his boys : he had quite lived down that impulsive earlier fancy, and Emily had become in his regard nothing more than a friend. It was the same with Emily's feelings for him. 120 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. Possibly, had she found the least cause for jealousy, Joanna would almost have been better satisfied. It was in the absolute acquiescence of Emily and Shadrach in the results she her- self had contrived that her discontent found nourishment. Shadrach was not endowed with the narrow shrewdness necessary for developing a retail business in the face of many competitors. Did a customer inquire if the grocer could really recommend the wondrous substitute for eggs which a persevering bagman had forced into his stock, he would answer that " when you did not put eggs into a pudding it was difficult to taste them there ; " and when he was asked if his " real Mocha coffee " was real Mocha, he would say grimly, " as understood in small One summer day, when the big brick house opposite was reflecting the oppressive sun's heat into the shop, and nobody was present TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 121 but husband and wife, Joanna looked across at Emily's door, where a carriage had drawn up. Traces of patronage had been visible in Emily's manner of late. " Shadrach, the truth is, you are not a business man," his wife sadly murmured. " You were not brought up to shopkeeping, and it is impossible for a man to make a fortune at an occupation he has jumped into, as you did into this." Jolliffe agreed with her, in this as in every- thing else. " Not that I care a rope's end about making a fortune," he said cheerfully. " I am happy enough, and we can rub on somehow." She looked again at the great house through the screen of bottled pickles. " Rub on yes," she said bitterly. " But see how well off Emmy Lester is, who used to be so poor ! Her boys will go to college, no doubt; and think of yours obliged to go to the National School ! " 122 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. Shadrach's thoughts had flown to Emily. "Nobody," he said, good-humouredly, "ever did Emily a better turn than you did, Joanna, when you warned her off me and put an end to that little simpering nonsense between us, so as to leave it in her power to say : ' Aye ' to Lester when he came along." This almost maddened her. " Don't speak of bygones ! " she implored, in stern sadness. " But think, for the boys' and my sake, if not for your own, what are we to do to get richer ? " " Well," he said, becoming serious, " to tell the truth, I have always felt myself unfit for this business, though I've never liked to say so. I seem to want more room for sprawling ; a more open space to strike out in than here among friends and neighbours. I could get rich as well as any man, if I tried my own way." " I wish you would ! What is your way ? " TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 123 " To go to sea again." She had been the very one to keep him at home, hating the semi-widowed existence of sailors' wives. But her ambition checked her instincts now, and she said "Do you think success really lies that way ? " " I am sure it lies in no other." " Do you want to go, Shadrach ? " " Not for the pleasure of it, I can tell 'ee. There's no such pleasure at sea, Joanna, as I can find in my back parlour here. To speak honest, I have no love for the brine. I never had much. But if it comes to a question of a fortune for you and the lads, it is another thing. That's the only way to it for one born and bred a seafarer as I." " Would it take long to earn ? " "Well, that depends ; perhaps not." The next morning Shadrach pulled from a chest of drawers the nautical jacket he had 124 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. worn during the first months of his return, brushed out the moths, donned it, and walked down to the quay. The port still did a fair business in the Newfoundland trade, though not so much as formerly. It was not long after this that he invested all he possessed in purchasing a part-ownership in a brig, of which he was appointed captain. A few months were passed in coast-trading, during which interval Shadrach wore off the land-rust that had accumulated upon him in his grocery phase ; and in the spring the brig sailed for Newfoundland. Joanna lived on at home with her sons, who were now growing up into strong lads, and occupying themselves in various ways about the harbour and quay. " Never mind, let them work a tittle," their fond mother said to herself. " Our necessities compel it now, but when Shadrach comes home they will be only seventeen and eighteen, and TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 125 they shall be removed from the port, and their education thoroughly taken in hand by a tutor; and with the money they'll have they will per- haps be as near to gentlemen as Emmy Lester's precious two, with their algebra and their Latin." The date for Shadrach's return drew near and arrived, and he did not appear. Joanna was assured that there was no cause for anxiety, sailing-ships being so uncertain in their coming ; which assurance proved to be well-grounded, for late one wet evening, about a month after the calculated time, the ship was announced as at hand, and presently the slip- slop step of Shadrach as the sailor sounded in the passage, and he entered. The boys had gone out and had missed him, and Joanna was sitting alone. As soon as the first emotion of reunion between the couple had passed, Jolliffe explained the delay as owing to a small speculative contract, which had produced good results. 126 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. "I was determined not to disappoint 'ee," he said ; " and I think you'll own that I haven't." With this he pulled out an enormous canvas bag, full and rotund as the money-bag of the giant whom Jack slew, untied it, and shook the contents out into her lap as she sat in her low chair by the fire. A mass of guineas (there were guineas on the earth in those days) fell into her lap with a sudden thud, weighing down her gown to the floor. " There ! " said Shadrach, complacently. " I told 'ee, dear, I'd do it ; and have I done it or r\ it no ? Somehow her face, after the first excitement of possession, did not retain its glory. " It is a lot of gold, indeed," she said. " And is this all f " " All ? Why, dear Joanna, do you know you can count to three hundred in that heap ? It is a fortune ! " TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 127 "Yes yes. A fortune judged by sea; but judged by land " However, she banished considerations of the money for the nonce. Soon the boys came in, and next Sunday Shadrach returned thanks this time by the more ordinary channel of the italics in the General Thanksgiving. But a few days after, when the question of investing the money arose, he remarked that she did not seem so satisfied as he had hoped. " Well, you see, Shadrach," she answered, " we count by hundreds ; they count by thousands " (nodding towards the other side of the street). " They have set up a carriage and pair since you left." " Oh ! have they ? " " My dear Shadrach, you don't know how the world moves. However, we'll do the betst we can with it. But they are rich, and we are poor still." The greater part of a year was desultorily 128 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. spent. She moved sadly about the house and shop, and the boys were still occupying themselves in and around the harbour. " Joanna," he said, one day, " I see by your movements that it is not enough." " It is not enough," said she. " My boys will have to live by steering the ships that the Lesters own, and I was once above her ! " Jolliffe was not an argumentative man, and he only murmured that he thought he would take another voyage. He meditated for several days, and coming home from the quay one afternoon, said suddenly " I could do it for 'ee, dear, in one more trip, for certain, if if " " Do what, Shadrach ? " " Enable 'ee to count by thousands instead of hundreds." "If what?" " If I might take the boys." She turned pale. TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 129 " Don't say that, Shadrach," she answered hastily. "Why?" " I don't like to hear it. There's danger at sea. I want them to be something genteel, and no danger to them. I couldn't let them risk their lives at sea. Oh, I couldn't ever, ever ! " " Very well, dear, it shan't be done." Next day, after "a silence, she asked a question " If they were to go with you it would make a great deal of difference, I suppose, to the profit?" " T would treble what I should get from the venture single-handed. Under my eye they would be as good as two more of myself." Later on she said, " Tell me more about this?" "Well, the boys are almost as clever as master-mariners in handling a craft, upon my K 130 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. life. There isn't a more cranky place in the South Seas than about the sandbanks of this harbour, and they've practised here from their infancy. And they are so steady. I couldn't get their steadiness and their trustworthiness in half a dozen men twice their age." " And is it very dangerous at sea ; now, too, there are rumours of war ? " she asked un- easily. " Oh, well, there be risks. Still- The idea grew and magnified, and the mother's heart was crushed and stifled by it. Emmy was growing too patronizing ; it could not be borne. Shadrach's wife could not help nagging him about their comparative poverty. The young men, amiable as their father, when spoken to on the subject of a voyage of enter- prise, were quite willing to embark ; and though they, like their father, had no great love for the sea, they became quite enthusiastic when the proposal was detailed. TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 131 Everything now hung upon their mother's assent. She withheld it long, but at last gave the word : the young men might accompany their father. Shadrach was unusually cheerful about it : Heaven had preserved him hitherto, and he had uttered his thanks. God would not forsake those who were faithful to Him. All that the Jolliffes possessed in the world was put into the enterprise. The grocery stock was pared down to the least that possibly could afford a bare sustenance to Joanna during the absence, which was to last through the usual Newf'nlarid spell." How she would endure the weary time she hardly knew, for the boys had been with her formerly ; but she nerved herself for the trial. The ship was laden with boots and shoes, ready-made clothing, fishing-tackle, butter, cheese, cordage, sailcloth, and many other com- modities ; and was to bring back oil, furs, skins, fish, cranberries, and what else came to 132 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. hand. But much trading to other ports was to be undertaken between the voyages out and homeward, and thereby much money made. III. THE brig sailed on a Monday morning in spring ; but Joanna did not witness its de- parture. She could not bear the sight that she had been the means of bringing about. Know- ing this, her husband told her overnight that they were to sail some time before noon next day ; hence when, awakening at five the next morning, she heard them bustling about down- stairs, she did not hasten to descend, but lay try- ing to nerve herself for the parting, imagining they would leave about nine, as her husband had done on his previous voyage. When she did descend she beheld words chalked upon the sloping face of the bureau ; but no TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 133 husband or sons. In the hastily scrawled lines Shadrach said they had gone off thus not to pain her by a leave-taking ; and the sons had chalked under, " G-ood-bye, mother." She rushed to the quay, and looked down the harbour towards the blue rim of the sea, but she could only see the masts and bulging sails of the Joanna ; no human figures. " Tis I have sent them ! " she said wildly, and burst into tears. In the house the chalked Good- byes nearly broke her heart. But when she had re-entered the front room, and looked across at Emily's, a gleam of triumph lit her thin face at her anticipated release from the thraldom of subservience. To do Emily Lester justice, her assumption of superiority was mainly a figment of Joanna's brain. That the circumstances of the mer- chant's wife were more luxurious than Joanna's, the former could not conceal ; though when- ever the two met, which was not very often 134 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. now, Emily endeavoured to subdue the differ- ence by every means in her power. The first summer lapsed away ; and Joanna meagrely maintained herself by the shop, which now consisted of little more than a window and a counter. Emily was, in truth, her only large customer ; and Mrs. Lester's kindly readi- ness to buy anything and everything without questioning the quality had a sting of bitter- ness in it, for it was the uncritical attitude of a patron, and almost of a donor. The long dreary winter moved on ; the face of the bureau had been turned to the wall to protect the chalked words of farewell, for she could never bring herself to rub them out ; and she often glanced at them with wet eyes. Emily's hand- some boys came home for the Christmas holi- days ; and still Joanna subsisted as it were with held breath, like a person submerged. Only one summer more, and the spell would end. Towards the end of the time Emily called on TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 135 her quondam friend. She had heard that Joanna began to feel anxious ; she had received no letter from husband or sons for some months. Emily's silks rustled arrogantly when, in re- sponse to Joanna's almost dumb invitation, she squeezed through the opening of the counter and into the parlour behind the shop. " You are all success, and I am all the other way ! " said Joanna. " But why do you think so ? " said Emily. " They are to bring back a fortune, I hear." " Ah, will they come ? The doubt is more than a woman can bear. All three in one ship think of that ! And I have not heard of them for months ! " " But the time is not up. You should not meet misfortune half-way." " Nothing will repay me for the grief of their absence ! " " Then why did you let them go ? You were doing fairly well." 136 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. " I made them go I " she said, turning vehe- mently upon Emily. " And I'll tell you why ! I could not bear that we should be only muddling on, and you so rich and thriving. Now I have told you, and you may hate me if you will ! " " I shall never hate you, Joanna." And she proved the truth of her words after- wards. The end of the autumn came, and the brig should have been in port ; but nothing like the Joanna appeared in the channel between the sands. It was now really time to be uneasy. Joanna Jolliffe sat by the fire, and every gust of wind caused her a cold thrill. She had always feared and detested the sea ; to her it was a treacherous, restless, slimy creature, glorying in the griefs of women. " Still," she said, " they must come ! " She recalled to her mind that Shadrach had said before starting that if they returned safe and sound, with success crowning their enter- TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 137 prise, he would go as he had gone after his shipwreck, and kneel with his sons in the church, and offer sincere thanks for their de- liverance. She went to church regularly morning and afternoon, and sat in the most forward pew, nearest the chancel-step. Her eyes were mostly fixed on that step, where Shadrach had knelt in the bloom of his young manhood : she knew to an inch the spot which his knees had pressed twenty winters before ; his outline as he had knelt, his hat on the step beside him. God was good. Surely her husband must kneel there again : a son on each side as he had said ; George just here, Jim just there. By long watching the spot as she worshipped, it became as if she saw the three returned ones there kneeling ; the two slim outlines of her boys, the more bulky form between them ; their hands clasped, their heads shaped against the eastern wall. The fancy grew almost to an hallucination ; she could 138 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. never turn her worn eyes to the step without seeing them there. Nevertheless they did not come. Heaven was merciful, but it was not yet pleased to relieve her soul. This was her purgation for the sin of making them the slaves of her ambition. But it became more than purgation soon, and her mood approached despair. Months had passed since the brig had been due, but it had not returned. Joanna was always hearing or seeing evi- dences of their arrival. When on the hill behind the port, whence a view of the open Channel could be obtained, she felt sure that a little speck on the horizon, breaking the eter- nally level waste of waters southward, was the truck of the Joannas mainmast. Or when indoors, a shout or excitement of any kind at the corner of the Town Cellar, where the High Street joined the Quay, caused her to spring to her feet and cry : " 'Tis they ! " WHEN ON THE HILL BEHIND THE PORT, WHENCE A VIEW OF THE CHANNEL COULD BE OBTAINED, SHE FELT SURE THAT A LITTLE SPECK ON THE HORIZON WAS THE TRUCK OF THE JOANNA'S MAINMAST." TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 141 But it was not. The visionary forms knelt every Sunday afternoon on the chancel step, but not the real. Her shop had, as it were, eaten itself hollow. In the apathy which had resulted from her loneliness and grief she had ceased to take in the smallest supplies, and thus had sent away her last customer. In this strait Emily Lester tried by every means in her power to aid the afflicted woman ; but she met with constant repulses. " I don't like you ! I can't bear to see you ! " Joanna would whisper hoarsely when Emily carue to her and made advances. " But I want to help and soothe you, Joanna," Emily would say. " You are a lady, with a rich husband and fine sons. What can you want with a bereaved crone like me ? " " Joanna, I want this : I want you to come and live in my house, and not stay alone in this dismal place any longer." 142 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. " And suppose they come and don't find me at home ? You wish to separate me and mine ! No, I'll stay here. I don't like you, and I can't thank you, whatever kindness you do me." However, as time went on, Joanna could not afford to pay the rent of the shop and house without an income. She was assured that all hope of the return of Shadrach and his sons was vain, and she reluctantly consented to accept the asylum of the Lesters' house. Here she was allotted a room of her own on the second floor, and went and came as she chose, without contact with the family. Her hair greyed and whitened, deep lines channelled her forehead, and her form grew gaunt and stoop- ing. But she still expected the lost ones, and when she met Emily on the staircase she would say morosely, " I know why you've got me here ! They'll come, and be disappointed at not finding me at home, and perhaps go away TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 143 again; and then you'll be revenged for my taking Shadrach away from 'ee." Emily Lester bore these reproaches from the grief-stricken soul. She was sure all the people of Havenpool were sure that Shadrach and his sons could not return. For years the vessel had been given up as lost. Nevertheless, when awakened at night by any noise, Joanna would rise from bed and glance at the shop opposite by the light from the flickering lamp, to make sure it was not they. It was a damp and dark December night, six years after the departure of the brig Joanna. The wind was from the sea, and brought up a fishy mist which mopped the face like moist flannel. Joanna had prayed her usual prayer for the absent ones with more fervour and con- fidence than she had felt for months, and had fallen asleep about eleven. It must have been between one and two when she suddenly started up. She had certainly heard steps in the 144 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. street, and the voices of Shadrach and her sons calling at the door of the grocery shop. She sprang out of bed, and, hardly knowing what clothing she dragged on herself, hastened down Emily's large and carpeted staircase, put the candle on the hall-table, unfastened the bolts and chain, and stepped into the street. The mist, blowing up the street from the Quay, hindered her seeing the shop, although it was so near ; but she had crossed to it in a moment. How was it ? Nobody stood there. The wretched woman walked wildly up and down with her bare feet there was not a soul. She returned and knocked with all her might at the door which had once been her own they might have been admitted for the night, unwilling to disturb her till the morning. It was not till several minutes had elapsed that the young man who now kept the shop looked out of an upper window, and saw the skeleton of some- thing human standing below half dressed. TO PLEASE HIS WIFE. 145 " Has anybody arrived ? " asked the form. " Oh, Mrs. Jolliffe, I didn't know it was you," said the young man, kindly, for he was aware how her baseless expectations moved her. " No ; nobody has come." THE GHOST OF THE PAST. BY MRS. E. LYNN LINTON. WE all have our times of | supremest bliss our days of intensest brilliancy. They may be as short-lived as a morning glory, or they may last as long as a summer garden, but there they are times when we are absolutely content when we see no clouds on the horizon and forget the storms that lie behind us days when the flaming sword is sheathed and the Gates of Eden stand open, and we walk through the meadows of asphodel and ama- MRS. E. LTXN LINTON. THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 147 ranth, believing in their everlasting beauty, peace, and fragrance. The glory of fulfilled ambition makes this time for some, and Honour clothes the sky with stars that dazzle as they shine ; but Love, dear Love, is the sun itself and gives us the sweetest and most exquisite of all our joys. Love, dear Love ! what can equal it for the soul's delight ! It combines in itself all the lustrous hues of life; it is the chord wherein sound all its loveliest harmonies. It transforms poverty to wealth ; and it builds that divine City of Enchantment where the queen is always fair and the prince is always young. It is the gladdest minister, if also the cruellest master of man. When we love and are beloved, we sit with the gods on the hill of Heaven ; when we love and are not beloved, through change, satiety, or death, we are cast down into hell with Lucifer and the fallen angels. Meantime, while we are young while the sun shines and the heart beats high and 148 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. kisses are still fresh to the lips while the roses are in bud and before the silver streaks the gold the gods are our friends and earth is our Paradise. We love and are beloved ; and there is no death nor sorrow in the world ! Had his sensations been put into form Hubert Gainsborough would have seen some- thing like this written on the sands over which the tide was swiftly flowing washing away those intertwined initials which he had just drawn on the level beach. He knew that this was their golden hour, and that he and Naomi would never be more blessed than they were now, no, not even when the final sacrament had separated them from the world and given them to each other for that wonderful moon which love makes of honey, and all that is not love turns to gall. Everything was in their favour, and their coming marriage was one in which the most critical, the most censorious, THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 149 could find no flaw. It was as smooth as satin and clear as crystal. Fortune, station, health, ages not a crooked straw was on their path not a leaf of nightshade presaged the coming of the deadly witch of misfortune. Naomi had had no other fancy by which to compare her lover to his disadvantage, and Hubert had buried out of sight all his. He had sown his wild oats and the sack was now empty. And yet the harvest ? Bitter enough at the time, was it really all stacked and garnered ? Might not some aftermath crop up again when least expected? The passover is vitiated for the pious Jew if but one measure of leaven remains. What of the passover of the Fates who pursue, of the Vengeance which strikes, if aught of that bitter harvest of youthful folly remains ? Why did the thought of her suddenly cross his mind at this moment ? Why did Naomi's bended neck make him slightly shiver as if a cold wind had passed over him, gorgeous, 150 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. burning summer time as it was ? As she stooped her head, looking into the little pool where the sea-flowers had spread out their coloured rays, the sunlight caught the fringe at the back of her neck, and the brown of her hair was brightened into gold. A sudden longing to kiss those feathery little curls flushed him like a fever ; and then a thought checked his impulse and made his blood run cold as if a wandering ghost had touched him as it passed. The last time he kissed a woman's neck, there at the back, he had been sitting, as now, on the sands of the seashore. But it had been in France at that glaring, garish Trouville not in a leafy little home-bay in Devonshire ; and, instead of Naomi Ponsonby, pledged to be his wife before the year was out, his companion had been the beautiful American, Mariquita Delrnare, with whom there had never been a question of marriage. For was not that burly, black- "AS SHE STOOPED HER HEAD . . . THE SUNLIGHT CAUGHT THE FRINGE AT THE BACK OF HER NECK." THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 153 bearded, crop-haired man who, once a week, came down to see her, and of whom she was evidently so much afraid, Auguste Delmare and her husband ? All the same, wife as she was or seemed to be Hubert had loved this woman with the intensity of a young man's first serious passion. And when his enlightenment came, nothing but the anger of contempt had saved him from the heartbreak of despair. But why should he think of her now ? As things had shaped themselves in his life it was a kind of sacrilege to remember her at all. To be actively reminded of her by Naomi was blasphemous. Naomi saw the change in her lover's face it was as if a cloud had come over the sun. Not being a woman of obtrusive sympathy nor of inquisitive affection, instead of speaking or asking why, she laid her hand on his with a caressing touch that told all she wished to say. 154 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. It was such a gentle, tender little touch ! so womanly in its sympathy, but yet so almost childish in its ignorance of the reason why ! It was to Hubert what the harp of David was to Saul. The cloud passed the wandering ghost vanished. Mariquita Delmare faded into the void of nothingness; and all that Hubert saw was Naomi Ponsonby sitting there in the sunlight beside him the angel whom the gods had given to bless and beautify his life the divine maiden so soon to become his dear wife ! He took her hand and kissed it. What a beautiful hand it was ! Those long taper fingers and that generous palm expressed her character in its mixture of idealistic morality and human tenderness. By the one she held a lofty standard and would be an inflexible judge ; by the other she opened her arms to the suffering, and banished from her heart no one whom that heart could succour. "The loveliest hand in the whole world!" THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 155 said Hubert, tracing the veins and outlining the fingers after he had kissed it as a saint might kiss a relic; but also as a lover kisses the hand of the beloved. " Said by the most unblushing flatterer in the whole world ! " laughed Naomi. " Love cannot flatter," he answered, looking at her with eyes as full of admiration as those roses at her throat were full of colour and perfume. " I think it does nothing else," she returned, still laughing. She was so happy that everything made her laugh. Like a child, the whole earth seemed to be one great throb of joy. " Then all you say to me is flattery, hey ? " said Hubert. " Ah, sweet, my sweet, you have put yourself into a cleft stick ! How will you get out of it ? " " But I never do flatter you as you flatter me," she said. " When did I tell you that this i $6 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. thing about you was so beautiful, and that so charming ? Never ! " " If you have not in so many words, you have twenty times by those great grey eyes of yours ! " he answered with mock self-com- placency. " I know you admire me immensely, and think me no end of a fine fellow ; so we are quits after all only I am the most candid." " I do not agree to that not the least in the world," she cried with commendable energy. Again Hubert's face changed. Why was he so sensitive to-day ? The fun passed out of it for pain to take its place. " What ! you do not love me as much as I love you?" he said in a disturbed voice. " You tell me that seriously, Naomi ? " She turned to him with a mocking little mouth and mischievous arched brows, meaning to carry on the play. Lovers find nothing too silly as the medium of verbal caressing ; and silly as was this little interlude, it served its THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 157 purpose. But her mocking smile and saucy answer died on her lips. There was something in her lover's face not to be met by a joke. " Love you, Hubert ? as much as you love me ? " she repeated. " Do you need to ask ? " Then with a sudden blush and the sweetest, loveliest air of self-surrender, she added both her hands now on one of his : " Yes, I do love you as much as you love me. If love could be weighed, as we weighed the honeycomb yester- day, perhaps mine would be the most ! " " That is impossible, Naomi," he answered gravely. " You might as well say you could add to infinity or lengthen eternity ! " He put his disengaged arm round her and drew her to him. " My darling, my own darling," he said, all his heart in his voice ; " I love you as I never loved living woman before." Naomi caught at the words. That black drop which we all have in our hearts under different names and shapes was in hers a 158 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. certain form of jealousy, the jealousy, the exactingness, of a pure and inexperienced woman demanding as much as she gave. " Then you have loved before ? " she said a little coldly, instinctively taking away her hands. " Not as I love you," he answered, trying to cover his mistake by extra fervour. " I love you as no man ever loved since the world began ! You do not know what I feel for you, Naomi. You are like God and heaven to me ! You are my good angel : and God gave you to me ! I love you, darling, almost more than a man should more than is well for my peace." His passion gained her. What woman could have resisted ? " Give me your peace, I will take care of it,'.' she said with infinite tenderness. " If we love each other, Hubert, no harm can come to us. Nothing but death can separate us, and even that will not divide us." THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 159 "Nothing but death? You swear that?" he said. " Only death will separate us, Naomi, and even that will not divide us ? " " Yes," she answered solemnly ; " I swear it." " Without reservation ? " "What reservation should I have?" she returned, with an incredulous little smile. " The only reservation would be if you had loved any one else as you love me, or had done anything wrong ; and that is too absurd to imagine ! " She looked at him with her soft grey eyes as full of womanly love as his had been of the man's stronger passion. He was right. Those eyes expressed her admiration of him as plainly as if her lips had uttered all that was in her heart of praise and hymn to his honour. To her he was the perfect man flawless, faultless and she was not ashamed to show what she would not have dared to say. 160 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. The remembrance of that past sin flowed like the salt waters of tears over his head. Like a spectre Mariquita Delmare again seemed to float before him, filling the whole air with her baleful beauty ; but for his best exorcism he looked again into Naomi's upturned face, and soothed himself with that futile anodyne : " She will never know ! " The tie between these two young people had in it something more than love, for Hubert, at the risk of his own life, had saved that of Geoffrey Ponsonby, Naomi's only brother ; and thus the acquaintance which then began was founded on the deepest feelings of our human nature. To the Ponsonbys Hubert was an incarnation of divine power to whom they owed anew that beloved life so nearly lost ; while to him they had the claim which con- ferring a benefit establishes on him who confers it. They gave him the devotion of gratitude, but he gave them the even stronger feeling of THE GHOST OF THE PAST, 161 responsibility. The life he had saved he felt in some measure belonged to him to care for ; and as he was eight years older than Geoffrey thirty to the younger man's two and twenty he took his obligation seriously, and was like the boy's elder brother, even before his engagement with Naomi gave him the additional right of future relationship. All things come to an end, and this lovely idyl had to end with the rest. The westering sun brought with its slanting rays the prosaic claims of dinner and domestic life generally ; and the young people had nothing for it but to go back to Ivy Lodge, and do the best they could with the verandah and the moonlight, against the background of the lighted room where gentle Mrs. Ponsonby played Patience by herself, and thought of the time when she too had sat out in the summer moonlight with her beloved, as happy as Naomi was now. As they came to the house they were met at 162 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. the door by Mrs. Ponsonby in a state of unusual excitement. " Wbat is it, mother ? " asked Naomi, who had that double sense which is given by keen perceptions. " I have had a letter from G-eoff," said Mrs. Ponsonby, a little breathlessly. " Well ? what ? what does he say ? " asked Hubert,. " Such a foolish boy ! so foolish and so wrong! He has engaged himself to a lady whom he confesses to be older than himself, and a widow too. It is madness ! " " Who is she ? " again asked Hubert. " An American," was the answer. " What American ? " he asked quickly. He shivered slightly, as once before to-day on the sands. " A Mrs. Marillier," was the answer. Hubert drew a deep breath, and the blood came back into his face. THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 163 " Geoffrey says she is wonderfully beautiful," the mother went on to say ; " and as good as she is lovely. She is very well connected belongs to an old Yirginian family and has money of her own, so that, as he says, she does not take him for his. At all events there it is ; and now what am I to do ? I cannot allow it to go on," she added, woman-like answering her own question ; " but what am I to do? " " Opposition to a thing of this kind does not do much good," said Hubert. " Men have to wear through their own experiences." " But he is not a man he is only a boy ! " cried Mrs. Ponsonby. " He has had no ex- perience of life, beyond that to be had at Cambridge, which cannot be much. He is not accustomed yet to the management of the estate and the idea of an engagement at his age, and with a widow older than himself, is preposterous ! It cannot be allowed. I will not allow it ! " 164 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. " If he loves her, my dear, he will not break with Tier, even though a mother disapproves," said Hubert. " Why should he ? That is the first thing he will say to himself. If he has committed himself and gained her affections he is so far bound to her by honour ; and if she has money and all that, and is of known rank and parentage, and there is nothing against her, why should he break with her because he is only twenty-two ? That is a fault which cures itself every day ! You see we must look at it from' his point of view, not only our own. To you and to us all it may be foolish and premature; but to him it is the sublimest wisdom and an honourable engagement." " Then do you advise me to countenance such criminal absurdity ? " said Mrs. Ponsonby, hotly. " For the present, in a fashion, sprinkling a little cold water judiciously, and not going in for a shower bath," he answered. " A boy of THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 165 Geoff's age wants more careful guidance than a man. He has to be led very gently very tenderly and the thread must be of silk and invisible ! " " That is so true ! " said Naomi, to whom Hubert was incarnate wisdom. She would have said the same, however, had he advocated strenuous opposition and parental coercion ; so that her opinion was not of much value. But Mrs. Ponsonby still fumed, and the only ray of comfort that she could find in the present distressful moment was when Hubert promised to write very seriously to her boy, and to begin that process of judicious sprinkling which he advised her to adopt. But, above all, he was to find out everything there was to know about this Mrs. Marillier this beautiful American with money this widow, a little older than the unmatured and well-endowed young man she had condescended to accept as THE GHOST OF THE PAST. her future husband. With which promise the poor woman was forced to be content ; though, indeed, there was not much content for any one for after this question of Geoffrey and his fascinating widow had been so far arranged, and Hubert had time to look at his own letters, he found one from his lawyer which cut short his stay at Ivy Lodge, and sent him back at once to Cumberland, where his place was. It was a letter which admitted of no denial, and of business which admitted of no delay. He must pack up to-night and be off by the first train to-morrow morning those sweet idyls on the sands rudely and roughly interrupted, and his beloved left to the cold keeping of resig- nation. All lovers' partings are sad, and their melan- choly forebodings are as universal as the tears which express, and the kisses which seem rather to confirm than to banish them. It was to Naomi, and to Hubert too, as if their sun THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 167 had set for ever. There was no more daylight for them, and no more summer. The chill of death had fallen on their happiness ; for at the best their letters would be only a kind of twilight only the autumn flush for the summer glory. But it had to be done, and he must go. The time of probation would soon be over now. This was August, and they would be married in October. Two months an eternity to the separated and impatient young, but to the more accurate reckoners of time a mere nothing. So they tried to comfort each other as with trem- bling voices and pale lips they bade each other farewell and said : " It will not be for long ! " Geoffrey's answer to the coldly cautious letter of his mother was characteristic of his boyish love. To her diplomacy he opposed the impetuosity of a first passion and the blindness of unlimited trust. His eyes were filled with 1 68 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. but the one light ; and like a newly-converted zealot he was anxious that she should share in the grace he had gained. Without giving time for denial, he announced his arrival with his future bride that very evening. To see her was to love her, he said ; and the best excuse he could offer for what might seem his rash- ness in engaging himself at his age was herself. Wherefore his mother and Naomi must expect them that evening ; and he knew that in this visit, hurried and unceremonious as it was, he had done the best thing for them and for her, and that they would congratulate him on his good fortune in securing the most beautiful and the noblest woman on the face of the earth. No answer could be given to this letter ; and to telegraph a refusal that should meet them midway and turn them back on their journey was not quite like gentle Mrs. Ponsonby, whose worst moods were merely fretfulness, never THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 169 rising into anger nor deepening into sullenness. Thus mother and sister had nothing for it but to make the best of things as they were, and to hope that this new woman was really the phoenix Geoffrey's love had painted her. So far he had calculated rightly. When Mrs. Ponsonby and Naomi came face to face with this fair marvel, they no longer wondered at the boyish infatuation which had staked so heavily on love and trust. She was so beauti- ful! She was so graceful in all her move- ments, so sweet and tender in her manner, and yet so bright in speech and intelligence ! She had the loveliest little ways that ever woman had ; she said the most charming things ; and she had the daintiest accent half French, half American that gave her voice, which was naturally harsh and grating, a kind of caressing intonation by which its native hardness was made as lovely as soft music. Her dress was a dream of art ; her face a poem of beauty. She i?o THE GHOST OF THE PAST. had bright golden hair very bright gold with dark eyebrows and dark lashes, and the loveliest complexion of milk and roses. Her eyes were like stars, quick, glancing, and of varying expression. Sometimes they were as holy as a saint's, and sometimes they were veiled as if with a substance, letting not a thought, not a feeling show through. But varied as their expression was, they were watchful eyes always watchful ; eyes that seemed to listen as well as see, like those of men accustomed to danger and dependent for salvation on their own quickness of apprehen- sion and clearness of prevision. And the lashes cast the most curious little rim of black- ness round the lids ; and the red of her lips was of the clearest and most sharply defined outline imaginable. No blurring here ; no mingling of red and white through the dis- figuring medium of tears, nor even through the blush-rose bruise of kisses ! Altogether she THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 171 was delightful splendidly delightful ; and the mother and daughter were fascinated, as Geoffrey knew they would be as, years ago, Christabel was fascinated by the Lady Geraldine. The small round table at the side was full of photographs. Side by side with Naomi Naomi following the mother and Geoffrey was the portrait of Hubert Gainsborough. Mrs. Marillier looking over the room as strangers do, came in due time to this table and the four photographs in one line. She caught her breath as one suddenly surprised, and the blood gathered round her heart though it did not leave her cheek nor lips paler than before ; but she had the undaunted spirit of one playing for high stakes, with the full consciousness of what she risked and what she might win, and it was a principle with her to face her dangers on the instant. " Is that another brother ? " she asked quite naturally, taking the photographs in her hand 172 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. as if to examine them critically. " How good they all are ! but I did not know you had an elder brother, Geoffrey. You never told me that. I do not see much likeness, however," she added smilingly to Mrs. Ponsonby. " He is not like you nor Naomi nor my boy." " I forgot to tell you about him," said Geoffrey. " I have forgotten everything of late ! No, that is not a brother yet ; though he is almost more than one. He is the dearest old fellow in the world Hubert Gainsborough and he is going to marry Naomi." " Oh ! " said Mrs. Marillier, with a soft smile, turning to her future sister-in-law. " How happy you must be ! If he is as lovely a man as mine, and you are as content as I am, you have nothing to complain of ! " "He is very nice, and I am quite happy," said Naomi. Then they all laughed ; and the rest of the evening passed as such evenings do, on velvet, THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 173 where the hours are wreathed with flowers and Time is shod in gold. But upstairs in her own room the woman who called herself Mariquita Marillier had to face a very different state of things. The ghost of her bad past had risen up before her when least expected and most unwelcome ; and she had to reason out her position, and calcu- late her chances of escape from the dangers threatening her like wild beasts prowling round an open arbour. " Can I dare it ? " she thought ; " or shall I give it all up ? Will he have the cruelty, the dishonour, to betray me ? No, he dare not ! His interests are as much at stake as mine. We are both in the same boat. If I am ship- wrecked he will be swamped too ; for such ignorant innocents as these will see no differ- ence between us. I can tell my own story, and it will go hard with me if I do not cut the ground from under his feet if he is brutal 174 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. enough to put a spoke in my wheel. I will brave it, and I will defy him. He used to be fond of me ; and men who have once loved a woman as he loved me have always a soft spot left. They are not like us, the fools and I will take my chance ! " " She is perfectly lovely, and fascinating to an extraordinary degree," Naomi wrote to her lover ; " but both mother and I like her so much better when we are with her than when we do not see her. I cannot explain why, nor can mother, but we feel when she is away from us that she is not quite so nice, and we both have to be conquered again. She always does conquer us ; that I must confess. It is very odd, but do you not understand what I mean ? But she is so clever, and she must be so good ! She talks a great deal about Grod and the Noble Life, and how people have to live for others not themselves, and to walk by the law of the spirit not of the mere intellect. She is, so she THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 175 says of herself, a mystic : and I, who am stupid, do not always understand her. But she is so sharp and clever ! She. knows everything all we think, and sometimes what we had not made clear to ourselves till she, as it were, interpreted our own thoughts. I think she sees that odd change of feeling in us, for she said yesterday to mother and me, when we were walking in the garden : ' The impression people make and the impression they leave are sometimes so different ! I have often felt that living charm of a personality, and then a certain coldness in absence. But I have always put the defect down to myself. I think it is my own failing in sympathy some note want- ing in my own chord of harmony not any want or failing in the person. When I am with these people whom I love in presence and fall off from in absence, their magnetism sup- plies my own deficiency and the full chord is sounded the notes wanting to me are given 176 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. by them.' So perhaps it is mother's and my own fault, as she seemed to hint ; and she is very charming. She says she is one year older than Geoff twenty-three ; and she does not look more, excepting at the end of the evening, when she gets tired. Then she looks thirty and more; and her face quite changes. If she were not such a pure-hearted noble creature both mother and I would think she painted ; but we do not like to even imagine it, because women who paint cannot possibly be nice and she is more than nice ! Her husband was a stockbroker in San Francisco ; and she has a pretty Spanish name Mariquita and I believe, but I am not quite sure, that her maiden name was Delmare." So now Hubert understood it all. What he had dimly feared was true, and the woman whom he knew to be unfit for the companion- ship of even the ordinarily frail was the affianced wife of Geoffrey Ponsonby the boy THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 177 for whose life he had made himself in a manner responsible the brother of his own future wife. Mariquita Marillier, the sister-in-law of Naomi Mariquita, the woman whom he had known as the wife of Auguste Del mare ! The ghost of the past had risen up against him the after crop was sprouting and the mills of God were grinding, not slowly now ! This marriage must be prevented if it broke Geoffrey's heart and his own. He knew Naomi's high standard of morality ; he knew, too, the strain of jealousy which lifted up her love from what else might have been something like the abjectness of devotion and gave it the dignity of self-respect. She was utterly ignorant of life as it is ; and she was of the school which makes no distinction between men and women. The little that she knew of vice all in the clouds as it was made the dereliction of the one as shameful as the abandonment of the other ; and it had not been N 178 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. Hubert's duty to enlighten her. He therefore knew how she would feel and where he should stand. It would be the overthrowing evidence, and perhaps her love would go with her ideal. She had often said that her love for him was so great because of her respect. Her perfect man as he was what would it be when she found out how imperfect he had been ? jealous as well as pure ; when she learned that he had loved so passionately and sinned so deeply, what would she do ? And if even she forgave him but she would not would not the bloom of her nature, of her very love, be gone ? Would it not be like the violation of her soul, and the acceptance of his sin because she had lost her virginal horror of evil ? Still it had to be done, come what would. He must be so far faithful to that higher law which sacrifices ease and happiness and love itself to duty and the right. It was impossible to go to Ivy Lodge for the THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 179 next day or two, but Hubert wrote to Geoffrey asking him what he knew of the fascinating widow, other than by her own report ? where he had met her ? who had vouched for her ? what he knew of her past history, her family, her money itself ? Had he had any corrobora- tion of her own story, or had he taken every- thing on trust ? The world was full of these desultory women, these quasi adventuresses who thought to efface in a foreign country the tainted record of their own. He must be quite sure who it was he was trusting, and who it was he proposed to give as a daughter to his mother and a sister to Naomi. The boy wrote back a fiery letter, as was to be expected. To have saved his life from drowning did not entitle Hubert to doubt his beloved one of the noblest, purest, most saintly women that ever lived. If he heard her talk as she did last night, he would know then what a priceless treasure he (Geoffrey) had found, i8o THE GHOST OF THE PAST. and would blush for his base suspicions. Besides, he (Geoffrey) was satisfied, arid he was the person most nearly concerned. His marriage was to take place now at once. There was nothing to wait for ; and his mother had consented. She saw the exquisite loveli- ness, the rare nobility of Mariquita's nature ; and Naomi too loved her. Yet, sweet good girl as Naomi was, she was not equal to Mariquita in sublimity of thought. Hubert would love her too. He must come now at once to Ivy Lodge and join the circle of wor- shippers. He could not resist ; no one could. The lad blew off the steam as he wrote, and by the time he ended had got through his anger, and was once more the old, joyous, irresponsible boy-lover who saw no dangers and no difficulties anywhere. He was so happy that he could afford to be magnanimous and to forgive the insult of the doubt. How well Hubert knew it all ! The false THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 181 modesties, the artificial refinement, the high poetic moralities said beneath the moon the lies, deceptions, devilries practised in the face of day ; the cleverness which made infamy look like purity overcome by love, and gave to the putrescent shimmer of corruption the glory of God's own sun ! He knew it all, and understood the net in which she had taken those dear ones in their quiet Devonshire home ; for had he not himself once been held fast even as the boy was held now as Naomi and her mother were held ? They met alone on the sands, where he had sat with Naomi on that blessed day of summer only so short a time ago by the passage of the days, but so long long as eternity by the dating of events. " I give you your choice," he said. " Leave the house as you like, secretly or openly take your own way of rupture but break the 1 82 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. engagement and set the boy free at any cost, or I will break it by telling all I know. In the former way you keep your fair fame here ; in the latter you lose it. This marriage has to be cancelled in either case." "By the first Mr. Hubert Gainsborough escapes scot-free ; by the second he suffers with me," said Mariquita, quietly. " That I know and am prepared for," was Hubert's answer. " And companionship in misfortune is plea- sant." she returned. " If you are really set on this absurd bit of Quixotism you shall smart for it, mon cher. I am not disposed to be made the scapegoat, and sent into the wilderness carrying your sins as well as my own. We will go together, Hubert." " I am ready," said Hubert, sternly. " To give up Naomi ? " " To give up Naomi that I may save Geoffrey." THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 183 She laughed in a mocking kind of way. " You were not such a tepid lover to me," she said. "I do not think you would have given up me for any such high-falutin morality ! At least I know that Mr. Delmare my husband then and the seventh commandment did not terrify you ! " " I did not give you up till I knew you," said Hubert. " While I believed in you I would have gone down into hell for you. To have died for you would have been easy." " And I for you," she said, suddenly changing her tone ; " for I loved you, Hubert loved you faithfully loved you as I never loved before nor have since. I had to deceive you. Bad as I was how could I tell my sad story to a man so young as you were then, with all your illusions unbroken ? It would have killed you. I loved you, my darling, and you loved me. Will not the memory of that love soften you ? I want only the opportunity to be good. I am 1 84 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. not bad at heart I never was. I have been the victim of a cruel fate and the sport of circumstances, but I was never really vicious. Help me to redeem myself and to make Geoffrey's life blessed, as I can and will make it. He will never know. I will be so good to him ! Help me, Hubert, for old times' sake ! " She spoke with inconceivable passion. Her words flowed like a stream of fiery lava; and as she uttered her last appeal she knelt on the sands at his feet and took his hand in both of hers, carrying it to her lips. Lovely in her passion, graceful in her self- abandonmerit, with the eloquence of despair in her voice and manner, with the wonderful magnetism of her nature shining in her eyes and drawing out the very heart of her hearer, she was at this moment as dangerous to Hubert's resolve as she had formerly been to his soul. Her appeal was one which touches every true man. To help her to be good ! to help her to THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 187 redeem herself! to lift her from the mire where, as she said, a cruel fate had cast her, and where he himself had helped to fling her, and set her cleansed among the shining ranks of the redeemed ! If he would not ! If for the shadowy idealism of exclusiveness he failed to do the real good laid before him to do ! Genuine tears came into her eyes; her painted lips quivered with a genuine emotion. Hubert put his hand over his eyes. He was trembling like a leaf, for the task was very hard. " It cannot be ! " he said with a sob. " For her sake and his, I must not ! " A boat drifted noiselessly round the head- land, and Naomi and Geoffrey sprang on shore. " God in Heaven, what does this mean ? ' cried Geoffrey, dashing up the beach, to seize Hubert by the throat. Naomi stood where she was, paralyzed and as if in a dream. i83 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. Mariquita started to her feet. She read her doom in Hubert's face, now stern and stiffened as if carved in stone, and she knew that the game was lost. " I was rehearsing an old play with my former lover, Hubert Gainsborough," she said in her hard, harsh, strident voice ; " the man who seduced me when I was Auguste Delmare's wife." Years had passed since this bolt fell from the blue and shattered the lives of all con- cerned. How often the summer had faded into the autumn, and the autumn had died into winter since then, and what tragedies had wrought out their course to the end ; Geoffrey's lifeless body cast up by the tide, how drowned, whether by accident or design, no one ever knew ; the beautiful woman by whom had been wrought all this woe, dead of misery and want, stranded like so much drift wood on THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 189 the shores of time and disease ; Naomi and her mother, like dim spectres of their former selves, wandering restlessly, aimlessly, joylessly through the world; Hubert banished like another Adam from the paradise where he had lived with Love and walked with God ; all the roses dead, ' all the sunlight gone ; what a term of isolation ! what a blank life was to the three remaining ! The two who had found their rest in the grave were happier than those who still lived beneath the sky. Sorrow, shame, futile despair and as futile repentance what an after- crop of that bitter harvest of youthful folly ! " Ought I to have pardoned him ? " said Naomi, often to herself; but Hubert never asked his heart : " Ought I to have concealed it ? " Cost all it had, it was better than a life of deception, the white-washing of infamy, and the association of Naomi and Geoffrey with the wife of Auguste Delmare the widow of Marillier, the stockbroker of San Francisco. 190 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. Long parted, they met again one winter moonlight night in the Coliseum at Eome. This place of death and ruin, filled with the memories of love, joy, glory, and martyrdom, all buried deep in the past, it was the fitting place for them to meet. And it was the fitting time night for day ; winter for summer ; the pale moon, which threw black fantastic shadows on a ruin, for the glorious sun which had touched all living nature with gold and colour. When they met it was almost as if they too were ghosts with the rest ; but that momentary hesitation of each passed like a cloud, and their hands clasped, one the other, too frankly for even the shadow of doubt. " Shall we never bury our dead, Naomi ? " he asked. "Will you never forgive me? never reinstate me ? " " Not while she lives. She stands between us," said Naomi ; but she spoke faintly, and as if with reluctance. THE GHOST OF THE PAST. 191 " She is dead," he answered ; " only the ghost of the past divides us. Is that asjstrong as the living present ? " " Can I ever trust or believe you again ? " she asked sadly. '* If the anguish of all these years gives assurance, yes," he returned. " Oh, Naomi, did you not swear to be always true to me ? always, always, and through everything ? " " I have been true/' she said. " I have never loved any one else, not for a moment." " But if you love me ? " She turned away her head. She did not wish the moonlight to shine on the tears that came into her eyes. He took her hands and drew them up to his breast, and she did not resist. " But if you love me ? " he said again, very gently. She hesitated ; her heart beating fast, her bosom palpitating. Then suddenly, with the 192 THE GHOST OF THE PAST. old sweet action of self-surrender, she turned to him looking at him with the same eyes of love as used to look at him in the summer-time so long ago. . " I have always loved you, Hubert," she said softly ; " and I have never ceased to pray for you. Perhaps God has heard me and has given us back to each other as an answer to my prayers for pardon pardon for myself as well as for you. Perhaps I was too hard will you accept my repentance ? " UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 961 255 7