AFTER DARK, ANO OTHER STORIES. IB IT NEOESSABY TO SAY IN WHAT LANGUAGE THE PBOOEED1NG6 WEBB OPENED? {.page 314. MIDWAY IN THE DA11K AMI LONELY 1'LAOK, TUB TWO BTOl'I'KD AJil> OON8ULTKH TOOETUKB UN Wlllbl-BUa. [JXI'JC 3tti, AFTER DARK AND OTHER STORIES BY WILKIE COLLINS AUTHOR OF " THK WOMAN IN WHITE " " THE DEAD SECRET " " ARMADALE " " THK MOONSTONE " " MAN AND WIFE " ETC., ETC. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 1 803 YA 2236001 CONTENTS. PAGK After Dark 9 Leaves from Leah's Diary : Prologue to the First Story 22 The Traveler's Story of a terribly Strange Bed 29 Prologue to the Second Story 44 The Lawyers Story of a Stolen Letter 48 Prologue to the Third Story... '. 63 The French Governess's Story of Sister Rose 69 Epilogue to the Third Story 148 Prologue to the Fourth Story 149 The Angler's Sts>rv of the Lady of Glenwith Grange 155 Prologue to the Fifth Story 173 The Nun's Story of GabrieFs Marriage 177 Prologue to the Sixth Story 211 The Professor's Story of the Yellow Mask 217 Last Leaves from Leah's Diary 297 Miss or Mrs.? 301 The Dead Alive 371 The Fatal Cradle, otherwise, the Heart-rending Story of Mr. Heavysides 420 " Blow up irith the Brig!" A Sailor's Story 437 The Frozen Deep 449 Fatal Fortune.... 521 AFTER DARK. PREFACE TO "AFTER DARK." I HAVE taken some pains to string together the various stories contained in this Volume on a single thread of inter- est, which, so far as I know, has at least the merit of not having been used before. The pages entitled " Leah's Diary " are, however, intend- ed to fulfill another purpose besides that of serving as the frame-work for my collection of tales. In this part of the book, and subsequently in the Prologues to the stories, it has been my object to give the reader one more glimpse at that artist-life which circumstances have afforded me pe- culiar opportunities of studying, and which I have already tried to represent, under another aspect, in my fiction, " Hide- and-seek." This time I wish to ask some sympathy for the joys and sorrows of a poor traveling portrait-painter presented from his wife's point of view in "Leah's Diary," and supposed to be briefly and simply narrated by himself in the Prologues to the stories. I have purposely kept these two portions of the book within certains limits; only giv- ing, in the one case, as much as the wife might naturally write in her diary at intervals of household leisure ; and, in the other, as much as a modest and sensible man would be likely to say about himself and about the characters he met with in his wanderings. If I have been so fortunate as to make my idea intelligible by this brief and simple mode of treatment, and if I have, at the same time, achieved the nec- essary object of gathering several separate stories together as neatly -fitting parts of one complete whole, I shall have succeeded in a design which I have for some time past been very anxious creditably to fulfill. 8 PREFACE. Of the tales themselves, taken individually, I have only to say, by way of necessary explanation, that " The Lady of Glenwith Grange" is now offered to the reader for the first time; and that the other stories have appeared in the col- umns of Household Words. My best thanks are due to Mr. Charles Dickens for his kindness in allowing me to set them in their present frame-work. I must also gratefully acknowledge an obligation of an- other kind to the accomplished artist, Mr. W. S. Herrick, to whom I am indebted for the curious and interesting facts on which the tales of "The Terribly Strange Bed" and " The Yellow Mask " are founded. Although the statement may appear somewhat superflu- ous to those who know me, it may not be out of place to add, in conclusion, that these stories are entirely of my own imagining, constructing, and writing. The fact that the events of some of my tales occur on foreign ground, and are acted out by foreign personages, appears to have suggested in some quarters the inference that the stories themselves might be of foreign origin. Let me, once for all, assure any readers who may honor me with their attention, that in this, and in all other cases, they may depend on the gen- uineness of my literary offspring. The little children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at walking on the stage of this great world ; but, at any rate, they are not borrowed children. The members of my own literary family are indeed increasing so fast as to render the very idea of borrowing quite out of the question, and to sug- gest serious apprehension that I may not have done adding to the large book-population, on my own sole responsibility, even yet. AFTER DARK, LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY. 18th February, 1827. The doctor has just called for the third time to examine my husband's eyes. Thank God, there is no fear at present of my poor William losing his sight, provided he can be prevailed on to attend rigidly to the medical instructions for pre- serving it. These instructions, which forbid him to exercise his profession for the next six months at least, are, in our case, very hard to follow. They will but too probably sentence us to poverty, perhaps to actual want ; but they must be borne resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband's forced cessation from work will save him from the dreadful affliction of loss of sight I think I can answer for my own cheerfulness and endurance, now that we know the worst. Can I answer for our children also? Surely I can, when there are only two of them. It is a sad confes- sion to make, but now, for the first time since my marriage, I feel thankful that we have no more. 17th. A dread rame over me last night, after I had comforted William as well as I could about the future, and had heard him fall off to sleep, that the doctor had not told us the worst. Medical men do sometimes deceive their patients, from what has always seemed to me to be misdirected kindness of heart. The mere sus- picion that I had been trifled with on the subject of my husband's illness, caused me such uneasiness, that I made an excuse to get out, and went in secret to the doctor. Fortunately, I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the object of my visit. He smiled, and said I might make myself easy : he had told us the worst. "And that worst," I said, to make certain, " is, that for the next six months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most per- fect repose ?" " Exactly," the doctor answered. " Mind, I don't say that he may not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at a time, as the inflammation gets subdued. But I do most positively 10 AFTER DARK. repeat that he must not employ his eyes. He must not touch a brush or pencil ; he must not think of taking another likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months. His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at the time when his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the bad symptoms that we have had to combat ever since. I warned him (if you remember, Mrs. Kerby ?) when he first came to practice in our neighborhood." " I know you did, sir," I replied. " But what was a poor travel- ing portrait-painter like my husband, who lives by taking likenesses first in one place and then in another, to do ? Our bread depended on his using his eyes, at the very time when you warned him to let them have a rest." "Have you no other resources? No money but the money Mr. Kerby can get by portrait-painting ?" asked the doctor. " None," I answered, with a sinking at my heart as I thought of his bill for medical attendance. " Will you pardon me ?" he said, coloring and looking a little un- easy, " or, rather, will you ascribe it to the friendly interest I feel in you, if I ask whether Mr. Kerby realizes a comfortable income by the practice of his profession ? Don't," he went on anxiously, be- fore I could reply "pray don't think I make this inquiry from a motive of impertinent curiosity!" I felt quite satisfied that he could have no improper motive for asking the question, and so answered it at once plainly and truly. " My husband makes but a small income," I said. " Famous London portrait - painters get great prices from their sitters; but poor unknown artists, who only travel about the country, are obliged to work hard and be contented with very small gains. After we have paid all that we owe here, I am afraid we shall have little enough left to retire on, when we take refuge in some cheaper place." " In that case," said the good doctor (I am so glad and proud to remember that I always liked him from the first !), " in that case, don't make yourself anxious about my bill when you are thinking of clearing off your debts here. I can afford to wait till Mr. Kerby's eyes are well again, and I shsll then ask him for a likeness of my little daughter. By that arrangement we are sure to be both quits, and both perfe ;tly satisfied." He considerately shook hands and bade me tarewell before I could say half the grateful words to him that were on my lips. Never, never shall I forget that he relieved me of my two heaviest anxieties at the most anxious time of my life. The merciful, warm- hearted man ! I could almost have knelt down and kissed his door- step, as I crossed it on my way home. 18th. If I had not resolved, after what happened yesterday, to LEAVES FROM LBAH's DIARY. 11 look only at the cheerful side of things for the future, the events of to-day -would have robbed me of all my courage, at the very outset of our troubles. First, then- was the casting up of our hills, and the discovery, when the amount of them was balanced against all the money we have saved up, that we shall only have between three and four pounds left in the cash-box, after we have got out of debt. Then there was the sad necessity of writing letters in my husband's name to the rich people who were ready to employ him, telling them of the affliction that had overtaken him, and of the impossi- bility of his executing their orders for portraits for the next six months to come. And, lastly, there was the heart-breaking busi- ness for me to go through of giving our landlord warning, just as we had got comfortably settled in our new abode. If William could only have gone on with his work, we might have stopped in this town, and in these clean, comfortable lodgings for at least three or four months. We have never had the use of a nice empty garret before, for the children to play in ; and I never met with any land- lady so pleasant to deal with in the kitchen as the landlady here. And now we must leave all this comfort and happiness, and go I hardly know where. William, in his bitterness, says to the work- house ; but that shall never be. if I have to go out to service to pre- vent it. The darkness is coming on, and we must save in candles, or I could write much more. Ah me ! what a day this has been. I have had but one pleasant moment since it began ; and that was in the morning, when I set my little Emily to work on a bead purse for the kind doctor's daughter. My child, young as she is, is won- derfully neat-handed at stringing beads; and even a poor little emp- ty purse as a token of our gratitude, is better than nothing at all. IQth. A visit from our best friend our only friend here the doctor. After he had examined William's eyes, and had reported that they were getting on as well as can be hoped at present, he asked where we thought of going to live ? I said in the cheap- est place we could find, and added that I was about to make in- quiries in the by-streets of the town that very day. " Put off those inquiries." he said, " till you hear from me again. I am going now to see a patient at a farm-house five miles off. (You needn't look at the children, Mrs. Kerly. it's nothing infectious only a clumsy lad, who has broken his collar-bone by a fall from a horse.) They receive lodgers occasionally at the farm-house, and I kn:>w no rea- son why they should not be willing to receive you. If you want to be well housed and well fed at a cheap rate, and if you like the society of honest, hearty people, the farm of Appletreewick is the very place for you. Don't thank me till you know whether I can get you these new lodgings or not. And in the mean time settle all your business affairs here, so as to be able to move at a moment's 12 AFTER DARK. notice." With those words the kind-hearted gentleman nodded and went out. Pray Heaven he may succeed at the farm-house! We may be sure of the children's health, at least, if we live in the coun- try. Talking of the children, I must not omit to record that Emily has nearly done one end of the bead purse already. ZQth. A note from the doctor, who is too busy to call. Such good news ! They will give us two bedrooms, and board us with the family at Appletreewick for seventeen shillings a week. By my calculations, we shall have three pounds sixteen shillings left, after paying what we owe here. That will be enough, at the outset, for four weeks' living at the farm-house, with eight shillings to spare besides. By embroidery-work I can easily make nine shillings more to put to that, and there is a fifth week provided for. Surely, in five weeks' time considering the number of things I can turn my hand to we may hit on some plan for getting a little money. This is what I am always telling my husband, and what, by dint of con- stantly repeating it, I am getting to believe myself. William, as is but natural, poor fellow, does not take so light-hearted a view of the future as I do. He says that the prospect of sitting idle and being kept by his wife for months to come, is something more wretched and hopeless than words can describe. I try to raise his spirits by reminding him of his years of honest hard work for me and the children, and of the doctor's assurance that his eyes will get the better, in good time, of their present helpless state. But he still sighs and murmurs being one of the most independent and high- spirited of men about living a burden on his wife. I can only an- swer, what in my heart of hearts I feel, that I took him for Better and for Worse ; that I have had many years of the Better, and that, even in our present trouble, the Worse shows no signs of coming yet ! The bead purse is getting on fast. Red and blue, in a pretty striped pattern. 21*. A busy day. We go to Appletreewick to-morrow. Pay- ing bills and packing up. All poor William's new canvases and painting-things huddled together into a packing-case. He looked so sad, sitting silent with his green shade on, while his old familiar working materials were disappearing around him, as if he and they were never to come together again, that the tears would start into my eyes, though I am sure I am not one of the crying sort. Luck- ily, the green shade kept him from seeing me ; and I took good care, though the effort nearly choked me, that he should not hear I was crying, at any rate. The bead purse is done. How are we to get the steel rings and tassels for it ? I am not justified now in spending sixpence unnec- essarily, even for the best of purposes. LEAVES FUOM LEAH*8 DIARY. 18 2&J. The Farm of Applttreewick. Too tired, after our move yes- terday, to write a word in my diary atx>ut our jouniry to this de- lightful place. Hut now that we are beginning to get settled, I can manage to make up for past omissions. My first occupation on the morning of the move had, oddly enough, nothing to do with our departure for the farm-house. The moment breakfast was over I began the day by making Emily as smart and nice-looking as I could, to go to the doctor's with the purse. She had her best silk frock on, showing the mending a little in some places, I am afraid, and her straw hat trimmed with my bon- net ribbon. Her father's neck-scarf, turned and joined so that nobody could see it, made a nice mantilla for her; and away she went to the doctor's, with her little, determined step, and the purse in her hand (such a pretty hand that it is hardly to be regretted I had no gloves for her). They were delighted with the purse which I ought to mention was finished with some white beads; we found them in rummaging among our boxes, and they made beautiful rings and tassels, contrasting charmingly with the blue and red of the rest of the purse. The doctor and his little girl were, as I have said, de- lighted with the present ; and they gave Emily, in return, a work- box for herself, and a box of sugar-plums for her baby sister. The child came back all flushed with the pleasure of the visit, and quite helped to keep up her father's spirits with talking to him about it. So much for the highly interesting history of the bead purse. Toward the afternoon the light cart from the farm-house came to fetch us and our things to Appletreewick. It was quite a warm spring day. and I had another pang to bear as I saw poor William helped into the cart, looking so sickly and sad, with his miserable green shade, in the cheerful sunlight. " God only knows, Leah, how this will succeed with us," he said, as we started ; then sighed, and fell silent again. Just outside the town the doctor met us. " Good luck go with you!" he cried, swinging his stick in his usual hasty way; "I shall come and see you as soon as you are all settled at the farm-house." "Good-bye, sir," says Emily, struggling up with all her might among the bundles in the bottom of the cart ; "good-bye, and thank you again for the work-box and the sugar-plums." That was my child all over ! she never wants telling. The doctor kissed his hand, and gave another flourish with his stick. So we parted. How I should have enjoyed the drive if William could only have looked, as I did, at the young firs on the heath bending beneath the steady breeze ; at the shadows flying over the smooth fields ; at the high white clouds moving on and on, in their grand airy procession over the gladsome blue sky ! It was a hilly road, and I begged the lad who drove us not to press the horse ; so we were nearly an hour, 14 AFTER DARK. at our slow rate of going, before we drew up at the gate of Apple- treewick. 24th February to 2d March. We have now been here long enough to know something of the place and the people. First, as to the place : Where the farm-house now is, there was once a famous pri- ory. The tower is still standing, and the great room where the monks ate and drank used at present as a granary. The house itself seems to have been tacked on to the ruins anyhow. No two rooms in it are on the same level. The children do nothing but tumble about the passages, because there always happens to be a step up or down, just at the darkest part of every one of them. As for staircases, there seems to me to be one for each bedroom. I do nothing but lose my way and the farmer says, drolling, that he must have sign-posts put up for me in every corner of the house from top to bottom. On the ground-floor, besides the usual domes- tic offices, we have the best parlor a dark, airless, expensively furnished solitude, never invaded by any body; the kitchen, and a kind of hall, with a fire-place as big as the drawing-room at our town lodgings. Here we live and take our meals; here the chil- dren can racket about to their hearts' content ; here the dogs come lumbering in, whenever they can get loose ; here wages are paid, vis- itors are received, bacon is cured, cheese is tasted, pipes are smoked, and naps are taken every evening by the male members of the fam- ily. Never was such a comfortable, friendly dwelling-place devised as this hall ; I feel already as if half my life had been passed in it. Out-of-doors, looking beyond the flower-garden, lawn, back yard*, pigeon-houses, and kitchen - gardens, we are surrounded by a net- work of smooth grazing-fields, each shut off from the other by its neat hedgerow and its sturdy gate. Beyond the fields the hills seem to flow away gently from us into the far blue distance, till they are lost in the bright softness of the sky. At one point, which we can see from our bedroom windows, they dip suddenly into the plain, and show, over the rich marshy flat, a strip of distant sea a strip sometimes blue, sometimes gray ; sometimes, when the sun sets, a streak of fire; sometimes, on showery days, a flash of silver light. The inhabitants of the farm-house have one great and rare merit they are people whom you can make friends with at once. Be- tween not knowing them at all, and knowing them well enough to shake hands at first sight, there is no ceremonious interval or form- al gradation whatever. They received us, on our arrival, exactly as if we were old friends returned from some long traveling expe- dition. Before we had been ten minutes in the hall, William had the easiest chair and the snuggest corner ; the children were eating bread-and-jam on the window-seat ; and I was talking to the farm- LEAVES FROM I.BAH*S DIARY. 10 er's wife, with the cat on nay lap, of the time when Emily had the measles. The family numbers seven, exclusive of the indoor servants, of course. First come the farmer an. I liis wife he a tall, sturdy, loud- voiced, active old man she the easiest, plumpest, and gayest woman of sixty I ever met with. They have three sons and two daughters. The two el. lest of the young men are employed on the farm; the third is a sailor, and is making holiday-time of it just now at Apple- treewick. The daughters are pictures of health and freshness. I have but one complaint to make against them they are beginning to spoil the children already. In this tnmquil place, and among these genial, natural people, how happily my time might l>e passed, were it not for the sadden- ing sight of William's affliction, and the wearing uncertainty of how we are to provide for future necessities! It is a hard thing for my husband and me, after having had the day made pleasant by kind words and friendly offices, to feel this one anxious thought al- ways forcing itself on us at night : Shall we have the means of stop- ping in our new home in a month's time ? 3d. A rainy day; the children difficult to manage; William mis. erably despondent. Perhaps he influenced me, or perhaps I felt my little troubles with the children more than usual; but, however it was, I have not been so heavy-hearted since the day when my husband first put on the green shade. A listless, hopeless sensation would steal over me ; but why write about it ? Better to try and forget it. There is always to-morrow to look to when to-day is at the worst. 4th. To-morrow has proved worthy of the faith I put in it. Sun- shine again out-of-doors ; and as clear and true a reflection of it in my own heart as I can hope to have just at this time. Oh ! that month, that one poor month of respite ! What are we to do at the end of the month ? 5th. I made my short entry for yesterday in the afternoon just before tea-time, little thinking of events destined to happen with the evening that would be really worth chronicling, for the sake of the excellent results to which they are sure to lead. My tendency is to be too sanguine about every thing, I know ; but I am, neverthe- less, firmly persuaded that I can see a new way out of our present difficulties a way of getting money enough to keep us all in com- fort at the farm-house until William's eyes are well again. The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties fw the next six months actually originated with me ! It has raised me many inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor only agrees with my view of the case when he comes to-morrow, William will allow himself to be persuaded, I know ; and then let them say what they please, I will answer for the rest. 16 AFTEK 1XA.BK. This is how the new idea first found its way into my head : We had just done tea. William, in much better,spirits than usual, was talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by the very ugly name of " Foul- weather Dick." The farmer and his two eldest sons were composing themselves on the oaken settles for their usual nap. The dame was knitting, the two girls were be- ginning to clear the tea-table, and I was darning the children's socks. To all appearance, this was not a very propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas, and yet my idea grew out of it for all that. Talking with my husband on various subjects con- nected with life in ships, tlie young sailor began giving us a descrip- tion of his hammock ; telling us how it was slung ; how it was im- possible to get into it any other way than " stern foremost " (what- ever that may mean) ; how the rolling of the ship made it rock like a cradle ; and how, on rough nights, it sometimes swayed to and fro at such a rate as to bump bodily against the ship's side and wake him up 'with the sensation of having just received a punch on the head from a remarkably hard fist. Hearing all this, I ventured to suggest that it must be an immense relief to him to sleep on shore in a good, motionless, solid four-post bed. But, to my surprise, he scoffed at the idea ; said he never slept comfortably out of his ham- mock ; declared that he quite missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship's side ; and ended by giving a most comical ac- count of all the uncomfortable sensations he felt when he slept in a four-post bed. The odd nature of one of the young sailor's objec- tions to sleeping on shore reminded my husband (as indeed it did me too) of the terrible story of a bed in a French gambling-house, which he once heard from a gentleman whose likeness he took. " You're laughing at me," says honest Foul-weather Dick, seeing William turn toward me and smile. " No, indeed," says my hus- band ; " that last objection of yours to the four-post beds on shore seems by no means ridiculous to me, at any rate. I once knew a gentleman, Dick, who practically realized your objection." "Excuse me, sir," says Dick, after a pause, and with an appear- ance of great bewilderment and curiosity ; " but could you put ' practically realized ' into plain English, so that a poor man like me might have a chance of understanding you?" "Certainly!" says my husband, mughing. " I mean that I once knew a gentleman who actually saw and felt what you say in jest you are afraid of seeing and feeling whenever you sleep in a four-post bed. Do you under- stand that ?" Foul-weather Dick understood it perfectly, and beg- ged with great eagerness to hear what the gentleman's adventure really was. The dame, who had been listening to our talk, backed her son's petition; the two girls sat down expectant at the half- cleared tea-table; even the farmer and his drowsy sons roused LEAVES FROM LEAIl's DIARY. 17 themselves lazily on the settle my husband saw that he stood fairly committed to the relation of the story, so he told it without more ado. I have often heard him relate that strange adventure (William is the best teller of a story I ever met with) to friends of all ranks in many different parts of England, and I never yet knew it fail of pro- ducing an effect. The farm-house audience were, I may almost say, petrified by it. I never before saw people look so long in the same direction, and sit so long in the same attitude, as they did. Even the servants stole away from their work in the kitchen, and, unre- buked by master or mistress, stood quite spell-bound in the door- way to listen. Observing all this in silence, while my husband was going on with his narrative, the thought suddenly flashed across me, " Why should William not get a wider audience for that story, as well as for others which he has heard from time to time from his sitters, and which he has hitherto only repeated in private among a few friends ? People tell stories in books and get money for them. What if we told our stories in a book ? and what if the book sold ? Why freedom, surely, from the one great anxiety that is now preying on us ! Money enough to stop at the farm-house till William's eyes are fit for work again !" I almost jumped up from my chair as my thought went on shaping itself in this manner. When great men make wonderful discoveries, do they feel sensations like mine, I won- der ? Was Sir Isaac Newton within an ace of skipping into the air when he first found out the law of gravitation ? Did Friar Bacon long to dance when he lit the match and heard the first charge of gunpowder in the world go off with a bang ? I had to put a strong constraint on myself, or I should have com- municated all that was passing in my mind to William before our friends at the farm-house. But I knew it was best to wait until we were alone, and I did wait. What a relief it was when we all got up at last to say good-night ! The moment we were in our own room, I could not stop to take so much as a pin out of my dress before I began. " My dear," said I, " I never heard you tell that gambling-house adventure so well before. What an effect it had upon our friends ! what an effect, in- deed, it always has wherever you tell it !" So far he did not seem to take much notice. He just nodded, and began to pour out some of the lotion in which he always bathes his poor eyes the last thing at night. u And as for that, William," I went on, "all your stories seem to interest people. What a number you have picked up, first and last, from different sitters, in the fifteen years of your practice as a por- trait-painter ! Have you any idea how many stories you really do know ?" I No : be could, not undertake to say how many just then. He gave this answer in a very indifferent tone, dabbing away all the time at his eyes with the sponge and lotion. He did it so awk- wardly and roughly, as it seemed to me, that I took the sponge from him and applied the lotion tenderly myself. "Do you think," said I, "if you turned over one of your stories carefully in your mind beforehand say the one you told to-night, for example that you could repeat it all to me so perfectly and deliberately that I should be able to take it down in writing from your lips ?" Yes : of course he could. But why ask that question ? " Because I should like to have all the stories that you have been in the habit of relating to our friends set down fairly in writing, by way of preserving them from ever being forgotten." Would I bathe his left eye now, because that felt the hottest to- night ? I began to forbode that his growing indifference to what I was saying would soon end in his fairly going to sleep before I had developed my new idea, unless I took some means forthwith of stim- ulating his curiosity, or, in other words, of waking him into a proper state of astonishment and attention. " William," said I, without an- other syllable of preface, " I have got a new plan for finding all the money we want for our expenses here." He jerked his head up directly, and looked at me. What plan ? " This : The state of your eyes prevents you for the present from following your profession as an artist, does it not ? Very well. What are you to do with your idle time, my dear ? Turn author ! And how are you to get the money we want? By publishing a book !" " Good gracious, Leah ! are you out of your senses ?" he exclaimed. I put my arm round his neck and sat down on his knee (the course I always take when I want to persuade him to any thing with as few words as possible). " Now, William, listen patiently to me," I said. "An artist lies under this great disadvantage in case of accidents his talents are of no service to him unless he can use his eyes and fingers. An author, on the other hand, can turn his talents to account just as well by means of other people's eyes and fingers as by means of his own. In your present situation, therefore, you have nothing for it, as I said before, but to turn author. Wait ! and hear me out. The book I want you to make is a book of all your stories. You shall repeat them^ and I will write them down from your dictation. Our manuscript shall be printed; we will sell the book to the pub- lic, and so support ourselves honorably in adversity, by doing the best we can to interest and amuse others." While I was saying all this I suppose in a very excitable manner LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY. Id my husband looked, as our young sailor- friend would phrase it, quite taken aback. " You were always quick at contriving, Leah," lie s;iid ; "hut how in the world came you to think of this plan ?" " I thought of it while you were telling them the gambling -house adventure down stairs," I answered. It is :in ingenious idea, and a liold ime <>f the results of my experience are curious in a moral point of view. For example, I have found women almost uniformly less delicate in asking me about my terms, and less generous in remu- nerating me for my services, than men. On the other hand, men, within my knowledge, are decidedly vainer of their personal at- tractions, and more \e\ationsly anxious to have them done full jus- tice to on canvas, than women. Taking both sexes together, I have found young people, for the most part, more gentle, more reasonable, and more considerate than old. And, summing up, in a general way. my experience of different ranks (which extends, let me premise, nil the way down from peers to publicans), I have met with most of my formal and ungracious receptions among rich people of uncertain social standing: the highest classes and the lowest among my em- ployers almost always contrive in widely different ways, of course, to make me feel at home as soon as I enter their houses. The one great obstacle that I have to contend against in the prac- tice of my profession is not, as some persons may imagine, the diffi- culty of making my sitters keep their heads still while I paint them, but the difficulty of getting them to preserve the natural look and the every-day peculiarities of dress and manner. People will assume an expression, will brush up their hair, will correct any little charac- teristic carelessness in their apparel will, in short, when they want to have their likenesses taken, look as if they were sitting for their pictures. If I paint them, under these artificial circumstances, I fail of course to present them in their habitual aspect; and my portrait, as a necessary consequence, disappoints every body, the sitter always included. When we wish to judge of a man's character by his handwriting, we want his customary scrawl dashed off with his common workaday pen. not his best small-text, traced laboriously with the finest procurable crow-quill point. So it is with portrait- painting, which is. after all. nothing but a right reading of the ex- ternals of character re< -o^ni/ably presented to the view of others. Experience, after repeated trials, has proved to me that the only way of getting sitters who persist in assuming a set look to resume their habitual expression, is to lead them into talking about some subject in which they are greatly interested. If I can only beguile them into speaking earnestly, no matter on what topic, I am sure of recovering their natural expression : sure of seeing all the little precious every-day peculiarities of the man or woman peep out. one after another, quite unawares. The long, maundering stories about nothing, the wearisome recitals of petty grievances, the local anec- dotes unrelieved by the faintest suspicion of any thing like general interest, which I have been condemned to hear, as a consequence of 24 AFTER DARK. thawing the ice off the features of formal sitters by the method just described, would fill hundreds of volumes, and promote the repose of thousands of readers. On the other hand, if I have suffered under the tediousness of the many, I have not been without my compen- sating gains from the wisdom and experience of the few. To some of my sitters I have been indebted for information which has en- larged my mind to some for advice which has lightened my heart to some for narratives of strange adventure which riveted my at- tention at the time, which have served to interest and amuse my fireside circle for many years past, and which are now, I would fain hope, destined to make kind friends for me among a wider audience than any that I have yet addressed. Singularly enough, almost all the best stories that I have heard from my sitters have been told by accident. I only remember two cases in which a story was volunteered to me ; and, although I have often tried the experiment, I can not call to mind even a single in- stance in which leading questions (as the lawyers call them) on my part, addressed to a sitter, ever produced any result worth record- ing. Over and over again, I have been disastrously successful in encouraging dull people to weary me. But the clever people who have something interesting to say, seem, so far as I have observed them, to acknowledge no other stimulant than chance. For every story which I purpose including in the present collection, except- ing one, I have been indebted, in the first instance, to the capricious influence of the same chance. Something my sitter has seen about me, something I have remarked in my sitter, or in the room in which I take the likeness, or in the neighborhood through which I pass on my way to work, has suggested the necessary association, or has started the right train of recollections, and then the story appeared to begin of its own accord. Occasionally, the most casual notice, on my part, of some very unpromising object has smoothed the way for the relation of a long and interesting narrative. I first heard one of the most dramatic of the stories that will be presented in this book, merely through being carelessly inquisitive to know the his- tory of a stuffed poodle-dog. It is thus not without reason that I lay some stress on the desira- bleness of prefacing each one of the following narratives by a brief account of the curious manner in which I became possessed of it. As to my capacity for repeating these stories correctly, I can answer for it that my memory may be trusted. I may claim it as a merit, because it is after all a mechanical one, that I forget nothing, and that I can call long-passed conversations and events as readily to my recollection as if they had happened but a few weeks ago. Of two things at least I feel tolerably certain beforehand, in meditating over the contents of this book : First, that I can repeat correctly all PROLOGUE TO T1JK FIRST STORY. 25 tliat I have heard; and, secondly, that I have never missed any tiling worth hearing when my sitters were addressing me on an in- teresting subject. Although I can not take the lead in talking while I am engaged in painting, I can listen while others speak, and work all the better for it. So much in the way of general preface to the pages for which I am about to ask the reader's attention. Let me now advance to particulars, and describe how I came to hear the first story in the present collection. I begin with it because it is the story that I have oftenest " rehearsed," to borrow a phrase from the stage. Wherever I go, I am sooner or later sure to tell it. Only last night, I was persuaded into repeating it once more by the inhabitants of the farm-house in which I am now staying. Not many years ago, on returning from a short holiday visit to a friend settled in Paris, I found professional letters awaiting me at my agent '> in London, which required my immediate presence in Liverpool. Without stopping to unpack, I proceeded by the first conveyance to my new destination ; and, calling at the pictuie- dealer's shop, where portrait-painting engagements were received for me, found to my great satisfaction that I had remunerative em- ployment in prospect, in and about Liverpool, for at least two months to come. I was putting up my letters in high spirits, and was just leaving the picture-dealer's shop to look out for comfortable lodg- ings, when I was met at the door by the landlord of one of the largest hotels in Liverpool an old acquaintance whom I had known as manager of a tavern in London in my student days. u Mr. Kerby !" he exclaimed, in great astonishment. " What an unexpected meeting! the last man in the world whom I expected to see, and yet the very man whose services I want to make use of!" " What, more work for me ?" said I ; " are all the people in Liv erpool going to have their portraits painted ?" "I only know of one," replied the landlord, "a gentleman staying at my hotel, who wants a chalk drawing done of him. I was on my way here to inquire for any artist whom our picture-dealing friend could recommend. How glad I am that I met you before I had committed myself to employing a stranger!" " Is this likeness wanted at once ?" I asked, thinking of the num- ber of engagements that I had already got in my pocket. " Immediately to-day this very hour, if possible," said the land- lord. " Mr. Faulkner, the gentleman I am speaking of, was to have sailed yesterday for the Brazils from this place; but the wind shift- ed last night to the wrong quarter, and he came ashore again this morning. He may of course be detained here for some time ; but he may also be called on board ship at half an hour's notice, if the 1* 26 AFTER DARK. wind shifts back again in the right direction. This uncertainty makes it a matter of importance that the likeness should be begun immediately. Undertake it if you possibly can, for Mr. Faulkner is a liberal gentleman, who is sure to give you your own terms." I reflected for a minute or two. The portrait was only wanted in chalk, and would not take long ; besides, I might finish it in the evening, if my other engagements pressed hard upon me in the day- time. Why not leave my luggage at the picture-dealer's, put off looking for lodgings till night, and secure the new commission boldly by going back at once with the landlord to the hotel ? I decided on following this course almost as soon as the idea oc- curred to me put my chalks in my pocket, and a sheet of drawing- paper in the first of my port-folios that came to hand and so pre- sented myself before Mr. Faulkner, ready to take his likeness, liter- ally at five minutes' notice. I found him a very pleasant, intelligent man, young and hand- some. He had been a great traveler; had visited all the wonders of the East ; and was now about to explore the wilds of the vast South American Continent. Thus much he told me good-humor- edly and unconstrainedly while I was preparing my drawing ma- terials. As soon as I had put him in the right light and position, and had seated myself opposite to him, he changed the subject of conversa- tion, and asked me, a little confusedly as I thought, if it was not a customary practice among portrait-painters to gloss over the faults in their sitters' faces, and to make as much as possible of any good points which their features might possess. " Certainly," I answered. " You have described the whole art and mystery of successful portrait-painting in a few words." " May I beg, then," said he, " that you will depart from the usual practice in my case, and draw me with all my defects, exactly as I am ? The fact is," he went on, after a moment's pause, " the like- ness you are now preparing to take is intended for my mother. My roving disposition makes me a great anxiety to her, and she parted from me this last time very sadly and unwillingly. I don't know how the idea came into my head, but it struck me this morning that I could not better employ the time, while I was delayed here on shore, than by getting my likeness done to send to her as a keep- sake. She has no portrait of me since I was a child, and she is sure to value a drawing of me more than any thing else I could send to her. I only trouble you with this explanation to prove that I am really sincere in my wish to be drawn unflatteringly, exactly as I am." Secretly respecting and admiring him for what he had just said, I promised that his directions should be implicitly followed, and PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST STORY. 27 l>egan to work iimm -diatoly. He fore I had pursued my occupation for ten minutes, the conversation began to Hag, ami the usual ob- stacle to my success with a sitter gradually set itself up between us. Quito uncon-ciously, of course, Mr. Faulkner stiffened his neck, shut his mouth, and contracted his eyebrows evidently under the im- pression that he \\a- facilitating the process of taking his portrait l>y making his face as like a lifeless mask as possible. All traces of his natural animated expression were fast disappearing, and he was beginning to change into a heavy and rather melancholy-looking man. This complete alteration was of no great consequence so long as I was only engaged in drawing the outline of his face and the gen- eral form of his features. I accordingly worked on doggedly for more than an hour then left off to point my chalks again, and to give my sitter a few minutes' rest. Thus far the likeness had not wittered through Mr. Faulkner's unfortunate notion of the right way of sitting for his portrait ; but the time of difficulty, as I well knew, wa^ to come. It was impossible for me to think of putting any ex- pn-ssion into the drawing unless I could contrive some means, when he resumed his chair, of making him look like himself again. M I will talk to him about foreign parts," thought I, "and try if I can't make him forget that he is sitting for his picture in that way." "While I was pointing my chalks, Mr. Faulkner was walking up and down the room. He chanced to see the port-folio I had brought with me leaning against the wall, and asked if there were any sketches in it. I told him thefe were a few which I had made dur- ing my recent stay in Paris. " In Paris ?" he repeated, with a look of interest ; " may I see them ?" I gave him the permission he asked as a matter of course. Sitting down, he took the port -folio on his knee, arid began to look through it. He turned over the first five sketches rapidly enough ; but when he came to the sixth, I saw his face flush directly, and ob- served that he took the drawing out of the port-folio, carried it to the window, and remained silently absorbed in the contemplation of it for full five minutes. After that, he turned round to me, and asked very anxiously if I had any objection to part with that sketch. It was the least interesting drawing of the collection merely a view in one of the streets running by the backs of the houses in the Palais Royal. Some four or five of these houses were comprised in the view, which was of no particular use to me in any way ; and which was too valueless, as a work of art, for me to think of selling it. I begged his acceptance of it at once. He thanked me quite warmly ; and then, seeing that I looked a little surprised at the odd selection he had made from my sketches, laughingly asked me if I 28 AFTER DARK. could guess why he had been so anxious to become possessed of the view which I had given him ? " Probably," I answered, " there is some remarkable historical as- sociation connected with that street at the back of the Palais Royal, of which I am ignorant." " No," said Mr. Faulkner ; " at least none that / know of. The only association connected with the place in my mind is a purely per- sonal association. Look at this house in your drawing the house with the water-pipe running down it from top to bottom. I once passed a night there a night I shall never forget to the day of my death. I have had some awkward traveling adventures in my time ; but that adventure ! Well, never mind, suppose we begin the sit- ting. I make but a bad return for your kindness in giving me the sketch by thus wasting your time in mere talk." " Come ! come !" thought I, as he went back to the sitter's chair, " I shall see your natural expression on your face if I can only get you to talk about that adventure." It was easy enough to lead him in the right direction. At the first hint from me, he returned to the subject of the house in the back street. Without, I hope, showing any undue curiosity, I contrived to let him see that I felt a deep in- terest in every thing he now said. After two or three preliminary hesitations, he at last, to my great joy, fairly started on the narrative of his adventure. In the interest of his subject he soon completely forgot that he was sitting for his portrait the very expression that I wanted came over his face and my drawing proceeded toward completion, in the right direction, and to the best purpose. At ev- ery fresh touch I felt more and more certain that I was now getting the better of my grand difficulty; and I enjoyed the additional gratification of having my work lightened by the recital of a true story, which possessed, in my estimation, all the excitement of the most exciting romance. This, as I recollect it, is how Mr. Faulkner told me his adventure : A TEBUIBLY STRANGK BBD. 29 THE TRAVELER'S STORY or A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED. SHOKTLY after my education at college was finished, I happened to be staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then, and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city of our sojourn. One night we were idling about the neighbor- hood of the Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betake ourselves. My friend proposed a visit to Frascati's; but his suggestion was not to my taste. I knew Frascati's, as the French saying is, by heart ; had lost and won plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely for amusement's sake, until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughly tired, in fact, of all the ghastly re- spectabilities of such a social anomaly as a respectable gambling- house. " For Heaven's sake," said I to my friend, " let us go some- where where we can see a little genuine, blackguard, poverty-strick- en gaming, witli no false gingerbread glitter thrown over it at all. Let us get away from fashionable Frascati's, to a house where they don't mind letting in a man with a ragged coat, or a man with no coat, ragged or otherwise." " Very well," said my friend, " we needn't go out of the Palais Royal to find the sort of company you want. Here's the place just l>efore us ; as blackguard a place, by all report, as you could possibly wish to see." In another minute we arrived at the door, and entered the house, the back of which you have drawn in your sketch. When we got up stairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the door-keeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did not find many people assembled there. But, few as the men were who looked up at us on our entrance, they were all types lamentably true types of their respective classes. We had come to see blackguards ; but these men were something worse. There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all black- guardism here there was nothing but tragedy mute, weird trag- edy. The quiet in the room was horrible. The thin, haggard, long- haired young man, whose sunken eyes fiercely watched the turning up of the cards, never spoke ; the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, who pricked his piece of pasteboard perse veringly, to register how 30 AFTER DARK. often black won, and how often red never spoke ; the dirty, wrin- kled old man, with the vulture eyes and the darned great-coat, who had lost his last sou, and still looked on desperately, after he could play no longer never spoke. Even the voice of the croupier sound- ed as if it were strangely dulled and thickened in the atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place to laugh, bat the spectacle before me was something to weep over. I soon found it necessary to take refuge in excitement from the depression of spirits which was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately I sought the nearest excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play. Still more unfortunate- ly, as the event will show, I won won prodigiously ; won incredi- bly ; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table crowd- ed round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious eyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going to break the bank. The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city in Europe, without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of Chances that philosopher's stone of all gamblers ! And a gam- bler, in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart- whole from the corroding passion for play. My gaining was a more idle amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew what it was to want money. I never practiced it so incessant- ly as to lose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I could coolly pocket without being thrown off my balance by my good luck. In short, I had hitherto frequented gambling-tablesjust us I frequented ball-rooms and opera-houses because they amused me, and because I had nothing better to do with my leisure hours. But on this occasion it was very different now, for the first time in my life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My success first bewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning of the word, intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that I only lost when I attempted to estimate chances, and played according to previous calculation. If I left every thing to luck, and staked without any care or consideration, I was sure to win to win in the face of every recognized probability in favor of the bank. At first some of the men present ventured their money safe- ly enough on my color ; but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk. One after another they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on at my game. Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. The excitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interrupted by a deep - muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in different languages, every time the gold was shoveled across to my side of the table even the imperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a (French) fury of astonishment at my success. A TEKKIHI.V STRANGE BED. 81 But one man present preserved his self- possession, and that man was my friend. He came to my side, and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place, satisfied with what I had already gained. I must do him the justice to say that he repeated his warnings and entreaties several times, and only left me and went away, after I had rejected his advice (I was to all intents and pur- poses gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for him to uddre>> me again that night. Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried, "Per- mit me, my dear sir permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleons which you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir ! I pledge you my word of honor, as an old soldier, in the course of my long experience in this sort of thing, I never saw such luck as yours never! Go on, sir Sacrt mitte bombes! Go on boldly, and break the bank !" I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveter- ate civility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout. If I had been in my senses, I should have considered him, person- ally, as being rather a suspicious specimen of an old soldier. He had goggling, blood-shot eyes, mangy mustaches, and a broken nose. Hi- voiee IK trayed a barrack -room intonation of the worst order, and he had the dirtiest pair of hands I ever saw even in France. These little personal peculiarities exercised, however, no repelling influence on me. In the mad excitement, the reckless triumph of that moment, I was ready to " fraternize " with any body who en- couraged me in my game. I accepted the old soldier's offered pinch of snuff; clapped him on the back, and swore he was the honestest fellow in the world the most glorious relic of the Grand Army that I had ever met with. " Go on !" cried my military friend, snap- ping his fingers in ecstasy " Go on, and win ! Break the bank Mill, t<>nnerrt! my gallant English comrade, break the bank !" And I did go on went on at such a rate, that in another quarter of an hour the croupier called out, ''Gentlemen, the bank has dis- continued for to-night/' All the notes, and all the gold in that "bank," now lay in a heap under my hands; the whole floating capital of the gambling-house was waiting to pour into my pockets! "Tie up the money in your pocket-handkerchief, my worthy sir," said the old soldier, as I wildly plunged my hands into my heap of gold. " Tie it up, as we used to tie up a bit of dinner in the Grand Army; your winnings are too heavy for any breeches-pockets that ever were sewed. There! that's it shovel them in. notes and all ! Credit! what luck! Stop! another napoleon on the floor! Ah! mcri petit polin>n ile Najwleon ! have I found thee at last ? Now then, sir two tight double knots each way with your honorable permission, and the money's safe. Feel it ! feel it, fortunate sir .' 32 AFTER DAKK. hard and round as a cannon-ball Ah, bah ! if they had only fired such cannon-balls at us at Austerlitz nom d>une pipe! if they only had ! And now, as an ancient grenadier, as an ex - brave of the French army, what remains for me to do ? I ask what? Simply this, to entreat my valued English friend to drink a bottle of Cham- pagne with me, and toast the goddess Fortune in foaming goblets before we part !" Excellent ex-brave ! Convivial ancient grenadier ! Champagne by all means ! An English cheer for an old soldier ! Hurra ! hur- ra ! Another English cheer for the goddess Fortune ! Hurra ! hurra ! hurra ! " Bravo ! the Englishman ; the amiable, gracious Englishman, in whose veins circulates the vivacious blood of France ! Another glass ? Ah, bah ! the bottle is empty ! Never mind ! Vive le mn ! I, the old soldier, order another bottle, and half a pound of frontons with it !" " No, no, ex-brave ; never ancient grenadier ! Tour bottle last time ; my bottle this ! Behold it ! Toast away ! The French Army ! the great Napoleon ! the present company ! the croupier ! the hon- est croupier's wife and daughters if he has any ! the Ladies gener- ally ! every body in the world !" By the time the second bottle of Champagne was emptied, I felt as if I had been drinking liquid fire my brain seemed all aflame. No excess in wine had ever had this effect on me before in my life. Was it the result of a stimulant acting upon my system when I was in a highly excited state ? Was my stomach in a par- ticularly disordered condition ? Or was the Champagne amazingly strong ? " Ex-brave of the French Army !" cried I, in a mad state of ex- hilaration, "/ am on fire ! how are you ? You have set me on fire ! Do you hear, my hero of Austerlitz ? Let us have a third bottle of Champagne to put the flame out !" The old soldier wagged his head, rolled his goggle-eyes, until I expected to see them slip out of their sockets ; placed his dirty fore- finger by the side of his broken nose ; solemnly ejaculated " Coffee !" and immediately ran off into an inner room. The word pronounced by the eccentric veteran seemed to have a magical effect on the rest of the company present. With one ac- cord they all rose to depart. Probably they had expected to profit by my intoxication ; but finding that my new friend was benevolent- ly bent on preventing me from getting dead drunk, had now aban- doned all hope of thriving pleasantly on my winnings. Whatever their motive might be, at any rate they went away in a body. When the old soldier returned, and sat down again opposite to me at the table, we had the room to ourselves. I could see the croupier, in a A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED. 33 sort of vestibule which opened out of it, eating his supper in soli- tude. The silence was now deeper than ever. A sudden change, too, had come over the "ex -brave." He as- sumed a portentously solemn look ; and when he spoke to me again, his speech was ornamented by no oaths, enforced by no fin- ger-snapping, enlivened by no apostrophes or exclamations. Listen, my dear sir," said he, in mysteriously confidential tones listen to an old soldier's advice. I have been to the mistress of the house (a very charming woman, with a genius for cookery !) to impress on her the necessity of making us some particularly strong and l William's narrative curious enough, and my husband agreed with me. But he says it is scarcely worth while to mention such a trifle in any thing so important as a book. I can not venture, after this, to do more than slip these lines in modestly at the end of the story. If the printer should notice my few last words, perhaps he may not mind the trouble of putting them into some out-of-the-way corner, in very smail type. L. K. 44 AFTER DABK. PROLOGUE TO THE SECOND STORY. THE beginning of an excellent connection which I succeeded in establishing in and around that respectable watering-place, Tidbury- on-the-Marsh, was an order for a life-size oil portrait of a great local celebrity one Mr. Boxsious, a solicitor, who was understood to do the most thriving business of any lawyer in the town. The portrait was intended as a testimonial " expressive (to use the language of the circular forwarded to me at the time) of the em- inent services of Mr. Boxsious in promoting and securing the pros- perity of the town." It had been subscribed for by the " Municipal Authorities and Resident Inhabitants " of Tidbury-on-the-Marsh ; and it was to be presented, when done, to Mrs. Boxsious, " as a slight but sincere token " and so forth. A timely recommendation from one of my kindest friends and patrons placed the commission for painting the likeness in my lucky hands ; and I was instructed to attend on a certain day at Mr. Boxsious's private residence, with all my materials ready for taking a first sitting. On arriving at the house, I was shown into a very prettily furnished morning-room. The bow-window looked out on a large inclosed meadow, which represented the principal square in Tidbury. On the opposite side of the meadow I could see the new hotel (with a wing lately added), and, close by, the old hotel obstinately un- changed since it had first been built. Then, farther down the street, the doctor's house, with a colored lamp and a small door-plate, and the banker's office, with a plain lamp and a big door-plate then some dreary private lodging-houses then, at right angles to these, a street of shops ; the cheese-monger's very small, the chemist's very smart, the pastry-cook's very dowdy, and the green - grocer's very dark, I was still looking out at the view thus presented, when I was suddenly apostrophized by a glib, disputatious voice behind me. "Now, then, Mr. Artist," cried the voice, "do you call that get- ting ready for work ? Where are your paints and brushes, and all the rest of it ? My name's Boxsious, and I'm here to sit for my picture." I turned round, and confronted a little man with his legs astrad- dle, and his hands in his pockets. He had light-gray eyes, red all round the lids, bristling pepper-colored hair, an unnaturally rosy complexion, and an eager, impudent, clever look. I made two dis- coveries in one glance at him : First, that he was a wretched subject PROLOGUE TO THE SECOND 8TOET. 46 for a portrait ; secondly, that, whatever he might do or say, it would not be of the least use for me to stand on my dignity with him. " I shall be ready directly, sir," said I. " Ready directly ?" repeated my new sitter. " What do you mean, Mr. Artist, by ready directly ? I'm ready twv). What was your con- tract with the Town Council, who have subscribed for this picture ? To paint the portrait. And what was my contract ? To sit for it. Here am I ready to sit, and there are you not ready to paint me. According to all the rules of law and logic, you are committing a breach of contract already. Stop ! let's have a look at your paints. Are they the best quality ? If not, I warn you, sir, there's a second breach of contract ! Brushes, too ? Why, they're old brushes, by the Lord Harry ! The Town Council pays you well, Mr. Artist ; why don't you work for them with new brushes ? What ? you work best with old ? I contend, sir, that you can't. Does my house-maid clean best with an old broom ? Do my clerks write best with old pens ? Don't color up, and don't look as if you were going to quar- rel with me ! You can't quarrel with me. If you were fifty times as irritable a man as you look, you couldn't quarrel with me. I'm not young, and I'm not touchy I'm Boxsious, the lawyer; the only man in the world who can't be insulted, try it how you like !" He chuckled as he said this, and walked away to the window. It was quite useless to take any thing he said seriously, so I finished preparing my palette for the morning's work with the utmost seren- ity of look and manner that I could possibly assume. " There !" he went on, looking out of the window ; " do you see that fat man slouching along the Parade, with a snuffy nose ? That's my favorite enemy, Dunball. He tried to quarrel with me ten years ago, and he has done nothing but bring out the hidden benevolence of my character ever since. Look at him ! look how he frowns as he turns this way. And now look at me ! I can smile and nod to him. I make a point of always smiling and nodding to him it keeps my hand in for other enemies. Good-morning! (I've cast him twice in heavy damages) good - morning, Mr. Dunball. He bears malice, you see ; he won't speak ; he's short in the neck, passionate, and four times as fat as he ought to be ; he has fought against my amiability for ten mortal years ; when he can't fight any longer, he'll die suddenly, and I shall be the innocent cause of it." Mr. Boxsious uttered this fatal prophecy with extraordinary com- placency, nodding and smiling out of the window all the time at the unfortunate man who had rashly tried to provoke him. When his favorite enemy was out of sight, he turned away, and indulged himself in a brisk turn or two up and down the room. Meanwhile I lifted my canvas on the easel, and was on the point of asking him to sit down, when he assailed me again. 46 AFTER DARK. "Now, Mr. Artist," he cried, quickening his walk impatiently, " in the interests of the Town Council, your employers, allow me to ask you for the last time when you are going to begin ?" "And allow me, Mr. Boxsious, in the interest of the Town Council also," said I, " to ask you if your notion of the proper way of sitting for your portrait is to walk about the room ?" "Aha! well put devilish well put!" returned Mr. Boxsious, " that's the only sensible thing you have said since you entered my house ; I begin to like you already." With these words he nodded at me approvingly, and jumped into the high chair that I had placed for him with the alacrity of a young man. "I say, Mr. Artist," he went on, when I had put him into the right position (he insisted on the front view of his face being taken, because the Town Council would get the most for their money in that way), " you don't have many such good jobs as this, do you ?" " Not many," I said. " I should not be a poor man if commis- sions for life-size portraits often fell in my way." " You poor !" exclaimed Mr. Boxsious, contemptuously. " I dis- pute that point with you at the outset. Why, you've got a good cloth coat, a clean shirt, and a smooth - shaved chin. You've got the sleek look of a man who has slept between sheets and had his breakfast. You can't humbug me about poverty, for I know what it is. Poverty means looking like a scarecrow, feeling like a scarecrow, and getting treated like a scarecrow. That was my luck, let me tell you, when I first thought of trying the law. Poverty, indeed ! Do you shake in your shoes, Mr. Artist, when you think what you were at twenty ? I do, I can promise you." He began to shift about so irritably in his chair, that, in the in- terests of my work, I was obliged to make an effort to calm him. " It must be a pleasant occupation for you in your present pros- perity," said I, "to look back sometimes at the gradual processes by which you passed from poverty to competence, and from that to the wealth you now enjoy." " Gradual, did you say ?" cried Mr. Boxsious ; " it wasn't gradual at all. I was sharp damned sharp, and I jumped at my first start in business slap into five hundred pounds in one day." " That was an extraordinary step in advance," I rejoined. " I suppose you contrived to make some profitable investment " " Not a bit of it ! I hadn't a spare sixpence to invest with. I won the money by my brains, my hands, and my pluck ; and, what's more, I'm proud of having done it. That was rather a curious case, Mr. Artist. Some men might be shy of mentioning it ; I never was shy in my life, and I mention it right and left everywhere the whole case, just as it happened, except the names. Catch me ever PROLOGUE TO TUB SECOND BTOET. 47 committing myself to mentioning names ! Mum's the word, sir, with yours to command, Thomas Boxsious." " As you mention ' the case ' everywhere," said I, " perhaps you would not be offended with me if I told you I should like to hear it '." - M:m alive! haven't I told you already that I can't be offended? And didn't I say a moment ago that I was proud of the case? I'll tell you, Mr. Artist but stop! I've got the interests of the Town Council to look after in this business. Can you paint as well when I'm talking as when I'm not? Don't sneer, sir; you're not wanted to sneer you're wanted to give an answer yes or no ?" " Yes, then,'' I replied, in his own sharp way. " I can always paint the better when I am hearing an interesting story." What do you mean by talking about a story ? I'm not going to tell you a story; I'm going to make a statement. A statement is a matter of fact, therefore the exact opposite of a story, which is a matter of fiction. What I am now going to tell you really happen- ed to me." I was glad to see that he settled himself quietly in his chair be- fore he began. His odd manners and language made such an im- pression on me at the time, that I think I can repeat his " statement " now, almost word for word as he addressed it to me. AFTER DARK. THE LAWYER'S STORY I SEKVED my time never mind in whose office and I started in business for myself in one of our English country towns, I decline stating which. I hadn't a farthing of capital, and my friends in the neighborhood were poor and useless enough, with one exception. That exception was Mr. Frank Gatliffe, son of Mr. Gatliffe, member for the county, the richest man and the proudest for many a mile round about our parts. Stop a bit, Mr. Artist, you needn't perk up and look knowing. You won't trace any particulars by the name of Gatliffe. I'm not bound to commit myself or any body else by mentioning names. I have given you the first that came into my head. Well, Mr. Frank was a staunch friend of mine, and ready to rec- ommend me whenever he got the chance. I had contrived to get him a little timely help for a consideration, of course in borrow- ing money at a fair rate of interest ; in fact, I had saved him from the Jews. The money was borrowed while Mr. Frank was at col- lege. He came back from college, and stopped at home a little while, and then there got spread about all our neighborhood a re- port that he had fallen in love, as the saying is, with his young sis- ter's governess, and that his mind was made up to marry her. What ! you're at it again, Mr. Artist ! You want to know her name, don't you ? What do you think of Smith ? Speaking as a lawyer, I consider report, in a general way, to be a fool and a liar. But in this case report turned out to be some- thing very different. Mr. Frank told me he was really in love, and said upon his honor (an absurd expression which young chaps of his age are always using) he was determined to marry Smith, the governess the sweet, darling girl, as he called her ; but I'm not sen- timental, and / call her Smith, the governess. Well, Mr. Frank's fa- ther, being as proud as Lucifer, said " No," as to marrying the gov- erness, when Mr. Frank wanted him to say " Yes." He was a man of business, was old Gatliffe, and he took the proper business course. He sent the governess away with a first-rate character and a spank- ing present, and then he looked about him to get something for Mr. Frank to do. While he was looking about, Mr. Frank bolted to A STOLEN LETTER. 49 London after the governess, who had nobody alive belonging to her to go to but an aunt her father's sister. The aunt refuses to let Mr. Frank in without the squire's permission. Mr. Frank writes to his father, and says he will marry the girl as soon as he is of age, or shoot himself. Up to town comes the squire and his wife and his daughter, and a lot of sentimentality, not in the slightest degree material to the present statement, takes place among them ; and the up.-hot of it is that old Gatliffe is forced into withdrawing the word No, and substituting the word Yes. I don't U-lieve he would ever have done it, though, but for one lucky peculiarity in the case. The governess's father was a man of good family pretty nigh as good as Gatliffe's own. He had been in the army ; had sold out ; set up as a wine-merchant failed died ; ditto his wife, as to the dying part of it. No relation, in fact, left for the squire to make inquiries about but the father's sister who had behaved, as old Gatliffe said, like a thorough-bred gentle- woman in shutting the door against Air. Frank in the first instance. So, to cut the matter short, things were at last made up pleasant enough. The time was **xed for the wedding, and an announce- ment a taut it Marriage in High Life and all that put into the county paper. There was a regular biography, besides, of the gov- ernr-^'s father, so as to stop people from talking a great flourish about his pedigree, and a long account of his services in the army ; but not a word, mind ye, of his having turned wine-merchant after- ward. Oh no not a word about that ! I knew it, though, for Mr. Frank told me. He hadn't a bit of pride about him. He introduced me to his future wife one day when I met him out walking, and asked me if I did not think he was a lucky fellow. I don't mind admitting that I did, and that I told him so. Ah ! but she was one of my sort, was that governess. Stood, to the best of my recollection, five foot four. Good lissom figure, that looked as if it had never been boxed up in a pair of stays. Eyes that made me feel as if I was under a pretty stiff cross- examination the moment she looked at me. Fine red, kiss-and- come-again sort of lips. Cheeks and complexion No, Mr. Artist, you wouldn't identify her by her cheeks and complexion, if I drew you a picture of them this very moment. She has had a family of children since the time I'm talking of; and her cheeks are a trifle fatter, and her complexion is a shade or two redder now, than when I first met her out walking with Mr. Frank. The marriage was to take place on a Wednesday. I decline men- tioning the year or the month. I had started as an attorney on my own account say six weeks, more or less, and was sitting alone in my office on the Monday morning before the wedding-day, trying to see my way clear before me and not succeeding particularly well, ?* 50 AFTER DARK. when Mr. Frank suddenly bursts in, as white as any ghost that ever was painted, and says he's got the most dreadful case for me to ad- vise on, and not an hour to lose in acting on my advice. " Is this in the way of business, Mr. Frank ?" says I, stopping him just as he was beginning to get sentimental. " Yes or no, Mr. Frank ?" rapping my new office paper-knife on the table, to pull him up short all the sooner. " My dear fellow " he was always familiar with me " it's in the way of business, certainly ; but friendship " I was obliged to pull him up short again, and regularly examine him as if he had been in the witness-box, or he would have kept me talking to no purpose half the day. " Now, Mr. Frank," says I, " I can't have any sentimentality mixed up with business matters. You please to stop talking, and let me ask questions. Answer in the fewest words you can use. Nod when nodding will do instead of words." I fixed him with my eye for about three seconds, as he sat groan- ing and wriggling in his chair. When I'd done fixing him, I gave another rap with my paper-knife on the table to startle him up a bit. Then I went on. " From what you have been stating up to the present time," says I, " I gather that you are in a scrape which is likely to interfere se- riously with your marriage on Wednesday ?" (He nodded, and I cut in again before he could say a word) : " The scrape affects your young lady, and goes back to the period of a transaction in which her late father was engaged, don't it ?" (He nods, and I cut in once more) : "There is a party, -who turned up after seeing the announcement of your marriage in the paper, who is cognizant of what he oughtn't to know, and who is prepared to use his knowledge of the same to the prejudice of the young lady and of your marriage, unless he re- ceives a sum of money to quiet him ? Very well. Now, first of all, Mr. Frank, state what you have been told by the young lady her- self about the transaction of her late father. How did you first come to have any knowledge of it ?" " She was talking to me about her father one day so tenderly and prettily, that she quite excited my interest about him," begins Mr. Frank ; " and I asked her, among other things, what had occasioned his death. She said she believed it was distress of mind in the first instance ; and added that this distress was connected with a shock- ing secret, which she and her mother had kept from every body, but which she could not keep from me, because she was determined to begin her married life by having no secrets from her husband." Here Mr. Frank began to get sentimental again, and I pulled him up short once more with the paper-knife. A STOLEN LETTEB. 51 " She told me," Mr. Frank went on, " that the great mistake of her father's life was his selling out of the army and taking to the wine trade. He had no talent for business; things went wrong with him from the first. His clerk, it was strongly suspected, cheated him " u Stop a bit," says I. " What was that suspected clerk's name ?" "Davager," says he. " Davager," says I, making a note of it. " Go on, Mr. Frank." " His affairs got more and more entangled," says Mr. Frank ; " he was pressed for money in all directions ; bankruptcy, and conse- quent dishonor (as he considered it), stared him in the face. His mind was so affected by his troubles that both his wife and daugh- ter, toward the last, considered him to be hardly responsible for his own acts. In this state of desperation and misery, he " Here Mr. Frank began to hesitate. We have two ways in the law of drawing evidence off nice and clear from an unwilling client or witness. We give him a fright, or we treat him to a joke. I treated Mr. Frank to a joke. " Ah !" says I, " I know what he did. He had a signature to write ; and, by the most natural mistake in the world, he wrote an- other gentleman's name instead of his own eh ?" " It was to a bill," says Mr. Frank, looking very crest-fallen, in- stead of taking the joke. "His principal creditor wouldn't wait till he could raise the money, or the greater part of it. But he was re- solved, if he sold off every thing, to get the amount and repay " Of course," says I, " drop that. The forgery was discovered. When '." "Befirre even the first attempt was made to negotiate the bill. He had done the whole thing in the most absurdly and innocently wrong way. The person whose name he had used was a staunch friend of his, and a relation of his wife's a good man as well as a rich one. He had influence with the chief creditor, and he used it nobly. He had a real affection for the unfortunate man's wife, and he proved it generously." Come to the point," says I. u What did he do? In a business way, what did he do ?" " He put the false bill into the fire, drew a bill of his own to re- place it, and then only then told my dear girl and her mother all that had happened. Can you imagine any thing nobler ?" asks Mr. Frank. " Speaking in my professional capacity, I can't imagine any thing greener?'' says I. " Where was the father ? Off, I suppose ?" " 111 in bed," says Mr. Frank, coloring. u But he mustered strength enough to write a contrite and grateful letter the same day, promising to prove himself worthy of the noble moderation 52 AFTER DARK. and forgiveness extended to him, by selling off every thing he pos- sessed to repay his money debt. He did sell off every thing, down to some old family pictures that were heir-looms ; down to the little plate he had ; down to the very tables and chairs that furnished his drawing-room. Every farthing of the debt was paid ; and he was left to begin the world again, with the kindest promises of help from the generous man who had forgiven him. It was too late. His crime of one rash moment atoned for though it had been preyed upon his mind. He became possessed with the idea that he had lowered himself forever in the estimation of his wife and daugh- ter, and " " He died," I cut in. " Yes, yes, we know that. Let's go back for a minute to the contrite and grateful letter that he wrote. My experience in the law, Mr. Frank, has convinced me that if every body burned every body else's letters, half the courts of justice in this country might shut up shop. Do you happen to know whether the letter we are now speaking of contained any thing like an avow- al or confession of the forgery ?" " Of course it ,did," says he. " Could the writer express his con- trition properly without making some such confession ?" " Quite easy, if he had been a lawyer," says I. " But never mind that ; I'm going to make a guess a desperate guess, mind. Should I be altogether in error if I thought that this letter had been stolen ; and that the fingers of Mr. Davager, of suspicious commercial celeb- rity, might possibly be the fingers which took it ?" " That is exactly what I wanted to make you understand," cried Mr. Frank. " How did he communicate the interesting fact of the theft to you ?" " He has not ventured into my presence. The scoundrel actually had the audacity " "Aha!" says I. "The young lady herself! Sharp practitioner, Mr. Davager." " Early this morning, when she was walking alone in the shrub- bery," Mr. Frank goes on, " he had the assurance to approach her, and to say that he had been watching his opportunity of getting a private interview for days past. He then showed her actually showed her her unfortunate father's letter ; put into her hands an- other letter directed to me^ bowed, and walked off; leaving her half dead with astonishment and terror. If I had only happened to be there at the time !" says Mr. Frank, shaking his fist murderous- ly in the air, by way of a finish. " It's the greatest luck in the world that you were not," says I. " Have you got that other letter ?" He handed it to me. It was so remarkably humorous and short, A STOLEN LETTER. 53 that I remember every word of it at this distance of time. It began in this way : To Francis Gatliffe, Esq., Jun. " SIR, I have an extremely curious autograph letter to sell. The price is a five-hundred-pound note. The young lady to whom you are to be married on Wednesday will inform you of the nature of the letter, and the genuineness of the autograph. If you refuse to deal, I shall send a copy to the local paper, and shall wait on your highly-respected father with the original curiosity, on the afternoon of Tuesday next. Having come down here on family business, I have put up at the family hotel being to be heard of at the Gat- liffe Arms. Your very obedient servant, ALFRED DAVAGER." "A clever fellow that," says I, putting the letter into my private drawer. "'Clever!" cries Mr. Frank, " he ought to be horsewhipped with- in an inch of his life. I would have don? it myself; but she made me promise, before she told me a word of the matter, to come straight to you." " That was one of the wisest promises you ever made," says I. " We can't afford to bully this fellow, whatever else we may do with him. Do you think I am saying any thing libelous against your excellent father's character when I assert that if he saw the letter he would certainly insist on your marriage being put off, at the very least ?" "Feeling as my father does about my marriage, he would insist on its being dropped altogether, if he saw this letter," says Mr. Frank, with a groan. " But even that is not the worst of it. The generous, noble girl herself says that if the letter appears in the paper, with all the unanswerable comments this scoundrel would be sure to add to it, she would rather die than hold me to my engage- ment, even if my father would let me keep it." . As he said this his eyes began to water. He was a weak young fellow, mid ridiculously fond of her. I brought him back to busi- ness with another rap of the paper-knife. " Hold up. Mr. Frank," says I. " I have a question or two more. Did you think of asking the young lady whether, to the best of her knowledge, this infernal letter was the only written evidence of the fonrcry now in existence? 1 ' " Yes, I did think directly of asking her that," says he ; " and she told me she was quite certain that there was no written evidence of the forgery except that one letter." " Will you give Mr. Davager his price for it ?" says I. " Yes," says Mr. Frank, quite peevish with me for asking him such 54 AFTEK DAKK. a question. He was an easy young chap in money matters, and talked of hundreds as most men talk of sixpences. " Mr. Frank," says I, " you came here to get my help and advice in this extremely ticklish business, and you are ready, as I know without asking, to remunerate me for all and any of my services at the usual professional rate. Now, I've made up my mind to act boldly desperately, if you like on the hit or miss, win all or lose all principle in dealing with this matter. Here is my proposal. I'm going to try if I can't do Mr. Davager out of his letter. If I don't succeed before to-morrow afternoon, you hand him the money, and I charge you nothing for professional services. If I do succeed, I hand you the letter instead of Mr. Davager, and you give me the money instead of giving it to him. It's a precious risk for me, but I'm ready to run it. You must pay your five hundred any way. What do you say to my plan ? Is it Yes, Mr. Frank, or No ?" " Hang your questions !" cries Mr. Frank, jumping up ; " you know it's Yes ten thousand times over. Only you earn the money and" "And you will be too glad to give it to me. Very good. Now go home. Comfort the young lady don't let Mr. Davager so much as set eyes on you keep quiet leave every thing to me and feel as certain as you please that all the letters in the world can't stop your being married on Wednesday." With these words I hustled him off out of the office, for I wanted to be left alone to make my mind up about what I should do. The first thing, of course, was to have a look at the enemy. I wrote to Mr. Davager, telling him that I was privately appointed to arrange the little business matter between himself and " another party " (no names !) on friendly terms ; and begging him to call on me at his earliest convenience. At the very beginning of the case, Mr. Davager bothered me. His answer was, that it would not be convenient to him to call till between six and seven in the evening. In this way, you see, he contrived to make me lose several precious hours, at a time when minutes almost were of importance. I had nothing for it but to be patient, and to give certain instructions, be- fore Mr. Davager came, to my boy Tom. There never was such a sharp boy of fourteen before, and there never will be again, as my boy Tom. A spy to look after Mr. Dav- ager was, of course, the first requisite in a case of this kind ; and Tom was the smallest, quickest, quietest, sharpest, stealthiest, little snake of a chap that ever dogged a gentleman's steps and kept cleverly out of range of a gentleman's eyes. I settled it with the boy that he was not to show at all when Mr. Davager came ; and that he was to wait to hear me ring the bell when Mr. Davager left. If I rang twice, he was to show the gentleman out. If I rang once, A STOLEN LETTER. 55 he was to keep out of the way, and follow the gentleman wherever he went till he got back to the inn. Those were the only prepara- tions I could make to begin with ; being obliged to wait, and let myself be guided by what turned up. About a quarter to seven my gentleman came. In the profession of the law we get somehow quite remarkably mixed up with ugly people, blackguard people, and dirty people. But far away the ugliest and dirtiest blackguard I ever saw in my life was Mr. Alfred Davager. He had greasy white hair and a mot- tled face. He was low in the forehead, fat in the stomach, hoarse in the voice, and weak in the legs. Both his eyes were blood-shot, and one was fixed in his head. He smelled of spirits, and carried a tooth-pick in his mouth. " How are you ? I've just done dinner," says he ; and he lights a cigar, sits down with his legs crossed, and winks at me. I tried at first to take the measure of him in a wheedling, confi- dential way ; but it was no good. I asked him, in a facetious, smil- ing manner, how he had got hold of the letter. He only told me in answer that he had been in the confidential employment of the writ- er of it, and that he had always been famous since infancy for a sharp eye to his own interests. I paid him some compliments ; but he was not to be flattered. I tried to make him lose his temper; but he kept it in spite of me. It ended in his driving me to my last re- source I made an attempt to frighten him. " Before we say a word about the money," I began, " let me put a case, Mr. Davager. The pull you have on Mr. Francis Gatliffe is, that you can hinder his marriage on Wednesday. Now, suppose I have got a magistrate's warrant to apprehend you in my pocket ? Suppose I have a constable to execute it in the next room ? Sup- pose I bring you up to-morrow the day before the marriage charge you only generally with an attempt to extort money, and ap- ply for a day's remand to complete the case ? Suppose, as a sus- picious stranger, you can't get bail in this town ? Suppose " " Stop a bit," says Mr. Davager. " Suppose I should not be the greenest fool that ever stood in shoes ? Suppose I should not carry the letter about me ? Suppose I should have given a certain en- velope to a certain friend of mine in a certain place in this town ? Suppose the letter should be inside that envelope, directed to old Gatliffe, side by side with a copy of the letter directed to the editor of the local paper ? Suppose my friend should be instructed to open the envelope, and take the letters to their right address, if I don't appear to claim them from him this evening ? In short, my dear sir, suppose you were born yesterday, and suppose I wasn't ?" says Mr. Davager, and winks at me again. He didn't take me by surprise, for I never expected that he had 56 AFTER DARK. the letter about him. I made a pretense of being very much taken aback, and of being quite ready to give in. We settled our business about delivering the letter, and handing over the nioney, in no time. I was to draw out a document, which he was to sign. He knew the document was stuff and nonsense, just as well as I did, and told me I was only proposing it to swell my client's bill. Sharp as he was, he was wrong there. The document was not to be drawn out to gain money from Mr. Frank, but to gain time from Mr. Davager. It served me as an excuse to put off the payment of the five hun- dred pounds till three o'clock on the Tuesday afternoon. The Tuesday morning Mr. Davager said he should devote to his amuse- ment, and asked me what sights were to be seen in the neighbor- hood of the town. When I had told him, he pitched his tooth-pick into my grate, yawned, and went out. I rang the bell once waited till he had passed the window and then looked after Tom. There was my jewel of a boy on the oppo- site side of the street, just setting his top going in the most playful manner possible ! Mr. Davager walked away up the street toward the market-place. Tom whipped his top up the street toward the market-place too. In a quarter of an hour he came back, with all his evidence col- lected in a beautifully clear and compact state. Mr. Davager had walked to a public-house just outside the town, in a lane leading to the high-road. On a beneh outside the public-house there sat a man smoking. He said " All right ?" and gave a letter to Mr. Dav- ager, who answered "All right!" and walked back to the inn. In the hall he ordered hot rum-and-water, cigars, slippers, and a fire to be lit in his room. After that he went up stairs, and Tom came away. I now saw my road clear before me not very far on, but still clear. I had housed the letter, in all probability for that night, at the Gatliffe Arms. After tipping Tom, I gave him directions to play about the door of the inn, and refresh himself when he was tired at the tart -shop opposite, eating as much as he pleased, on the understanding that he crammed all the time with his eye on the window. If Mr. Davager went out, or Mr. Davager's friend called on him, Tom was to let me know. He was also to take a little note from me to the head chamber-maid an old friend of mine asking her to step over to my office, on a private matter of business, as soon as her work was done for that night. After settling these little matters, having half an hour to spare, I turned to and did myself a bloater at the office fire, and had a drop of gin-and-water hot, and felt comparatively happy. When the head chamber-maid came, it turned out, as good luck would have it, that Mr, Davager had drawn her attention rather too A STOLEN LETTER. 57 closely to his ugliness, by offering her a testimony of his regard in the shape of a kiss. I no sooner mentioned him than she flew into a passion ; and when I added, by way of clinching the matter, that I was retained to defend the interests of a very beautiful and deserv- ing young lady (name not referred to, of course) against the most cruel underhand treachery on the part of Mr. Davager, the head chamber-maid was ready to go any lengths that she could safely to serve my cause. In a few words I discovered that Boots was to call Mr. Davager at eight the next morning, and was to take his clothes down stairs to brush as usual. If Mr. D had not emptied his own pockets overnight, we arranged that Boots was to forget to empty them for him, and was to bring the clothes down stairs just as he found them. If Mr. D 's pockets were emptied, then, of course, it would be necessary to transfer the searching process to Mr. D 's room. Under any circumstances, I was certain of the head chamber-maid; and under any circumstances also, the head chamber-maid was certain of Boots. I waited till Tom came home, looking very puffy and bilious about the face ; but as to his intellects, if any thing, rather sharper than ever. His report was uncommonly short and pleasant. The inn was shutting up ; Mr. Davager was going to bed in rather a drunken condition ; Mr. Davager's friend had never appeared. I sent Tom (properly instructed about keeping our man in view all the next morning) to his shake-down behind the office-desk, where I heard him hiccoughing half the night, as even the best boys will, when overexcited and too full of tarts. At half- past seven next morning, I slipped quietly into Boots's pantry. Down came the clothes. No pockets in trowsers. Waistcoat- pockets empty. Coat-pockets with something in them. First, handkerchief; secondly, bunch of keys ; thirdly, cigar-case ; fourth- ly, pocket-book. Of course I wasn't such a fool as to expect to find the letter there, but I opened the pocket-book with a certain curios- ity, notwithstanding. Nothing in the two pockets of the book but some old advertise- ments cut out of newspapers, a lock of hair tied round with a dirty bit of ribbon, a circular letter about a loan society, and some copies of verses not likely to suit any company that was not of an extreme- ly free and easy description. On the leaves of the pocket-book, people's addresses scrawled in pencil, and bets jotted down in red ink. On one leaf, by itself, this queer inscription : MKM. 5 ALONG. 4 ACROSS." I understood every thing but those words and figures, so of course I copied them out into my own book. Then I waited in the pantry till Boots had brushed the clothes, and had taken them up 58 AFTEE DARK. stairs. His report when he came down was, that Mr. D had asked if it was a fine morning. Being told that it was, he had or- dered breakfast at nine, and a saddle-horse to be at the door at ten, to take him to Grirnwith Abbey one of the sights in our neighbor- hood which I had told him of the evening before. " I'll be here, coming in by the back way, at half-past ten," says I to the head chamber-maid. " What for ?" says she. " To take the responsibility of making Mr. Davager's bed off your hands for this morning only," says I. " Any more orders ?" says she. " One more," says I. " I want to hire Sam for the morning. Put it down in the order-book that he's to be brought round to my office at ten." In case you should think Sam was a man, I'd better perhaps tell you he was a pony. I'd made up my mind that it would be bene- ficial to Tom's health, after the tarts, if he took a constitutional air- ing on a nice hard saddle in the direction of Grirnwith Abbey. "Any thing else ?" says the head chamber-maid. " Only one more favor," says I. " Would my boy Tom be very much in the way if he came, from now till ten, to help with the boots and shoes, and stood at his work close by this window which looks out on the staircase ?" " Not a bit," says the head chamber-maid. " Thank you," says I ; and stepped back to my office directly. When I had sent Torn off to help with the boots and shoes, I re- viewed the whole case exactly as it stood at that time. There were three things Mr. Davager might do with the letter. He might give it to his friend again before ten in which case Tom would most likely see the said friend on the stairs. He might take it to his friend, or to some other friend, after ten in which case Tom was ready to follow him on Sam the pony. And, lastly, he might leave it hidden somewhere in his room at the inn in which case I was all ready for him with a search-warrant of my own grant- ing, under favor always of my friend the head ch amber -rnaid. So far I had my business arrangements all gathered up nice and com- pact in my own hands. Only two things bothered me; the terrible shortness of the time at my disposal, in case I failed in my first ex- periments, for getting hold of the letter, and that queer inscription which I had copied out of the pocket-book, " MEM. 5 ALONG. 4 ACROSS." It was the measurement most likely of something, and he was afraid of forgetting it ; therefore it was something important. Query something about himself? Say "5" (inches) "along" he doesn't wear a wig. Say "5" (feet) "along" it can't be coat, A STOLEN LETTER. 59 waistcoat, trowsers, or under-clothing. Say " 5 " (yards) " along "- it can't be any thing about himself, unless he wears round his body the rope that he's sure to be hanged with one of these days. Then it is not something about himself. What do I know of that is im- portant to him besides ? I know of nothing but the Letter. Can the memorandum be connected with that ? Say, yes. What do " 5 along " and " 4 across " mean, then ? The measurement of some- thing he carries about with him? or the measurement of something in his room? I could get pretty satisfactorily to myself as far as that ; but I could get no further. Tom came back to the office, and reported him mounted for his ride. His friend had never appeared. I sent the boy off, with his proper instructions, on Sam's back wrote an encouraging letter to Mr. Frank to keep him quiet then slipped into the inn by the back way a little before half-past ten. The head chamber-maid gave me a signal when the landing was clear. I got into his room without a soul but her seeing me, and locked the door immediately. The case was, to a certain extent, simplified now. Either Mr. Davager had ridden out with the letter about him, or he had left it in some safe hiding-place in his room. I suspected it to be in his room, for a reason that will a little astonish you his trunk, his dressing -case, and all the drawers and cupboards, were left open. I knew my customer, and I thought this extraordinary carelessness on his part rather suspicious. Mr. Davager had taken one of the best bedrooms at the Gatliffe Anns. Floor carpeted all over, walls beautifully papered, four- poster, and general furniture first-rate. I searched, to begin with, on the usual plan, examining every thing in every possible way, and taking more than an hour about it. No discovery. Then I pulled out a caq>enter's rule which I had brought with me. Was there any thing in the room which either in inches, feet, or yards an- swered to " 5 along " and " 4 across ?" Nothing. I put the rule l>ack in my pocket measurement was no good, evidently. Was there any thing in the room that would count up to 5 one way and 4 another, seeing that nothing would measure up to it ? I had got obstinately persuaded by this time that the letter must be in the room principally because of the trouble I had had in looking after it. And persuading myself of that, I took it into my head next, just as obstinately, that "5 along" and "4 across" must be the right clue to find the letter by principally because I hadn't left myself, after all my searching and thinking, even so much as the ghost of another guide to go by. " 5 along " where could I count five along the room, in any part of it ? Not on the paper. The pattern there was pillars of trellis-work and flowers, inclosing a plain green ground only four pillars along 60 AFTER DARK. the wall and only two across. The furniture ? There were not five chairs or five separate pieces of any furniture in the room altogeth- er. The fringes that hung from the cornice of the bed ? Plenty of them, at any rate ! Up I jumped on the counterpane, with my pen- knife in my hand. Every way that " 5 along " and " 4 across " could be reckoned on those unlucky fringes I reckoned on them probed with my penknife scratched with my nails crunched with my fingers. No use ; not a sign of a letter ; and the time was getting on oh Lord! how the time did get on in Mr. Davager's room that morning. I jumped down from the bed, so desperate at my ill luck that I hardly cared whether any body heard me or not. Quite a little cloud of dust rose at my feet as they thumped on the carpet. "Hullo!" thought I, "my friend the head chamber-maid takes it easy here. Nice state for a carpet to be in, in one of the best bed- rooms at the Gatliffe Arms." Carpet ! I had been jumping up on the bed, and staring up at the walls, but I had never so much as given a glance down at the carpet. Think of me pretending to be a lawyer, and not knowing how to look low enough ! The carpet ! It had been a stout article in its time ; had evident- ly began in a drawing-room ; then descended to a coffee-room ; then gone up stairs altogether to a bedroom. The ground was brown, and the pattern was bunches of leaves and roses speckled over the ground at regular distances. I reckoned up the bunches. Ten along the room eight across it. When I had stepped out five one way and four the other, and was down on my knees on the centre bunch, as true as I sit on this chair I could hear my own heart beat- ing so loud that it quite frightened me. I looked narrowly all over the bunch, and I felt all over it with the ends of my fingers, and nothing came of that. Then I scraped it over slowly and gently with my nails. My second finger-nail stuck a little at one place. I parted the pile of the carpet over that place, and saw a thin slit which had been hidden by the pile being smoothed over it a slit about half an inch long, with a little end of brown thread, exactly the color of the carpet ground, sticking out about a quarter of an inch from the middle of it. Just as I laid hold of the thread gently, I heard a footstep outside the door. It was only the head chamber-maid. " Haven't you done yet ?" she whispers. " Give me two minutes," says I, " and don't let any body come near the door whatever you do, don't let any body startle me again by coming near the door." I took a little pull at the thread, and heard something rustle. I took a longer pull, and out came a piece of paper, rolled up tight A STOLEN LETTBB. 61 like those candle-lighters that the ladies make. I unrolled it and, by George ! there was the letter ! The original letter ! I knew it by the color of the ink. The let. trr that was worth five hundred pounds to me! It was all that I could do to keep myself at first from throwing my hat into the air, and hurraing like mad. I had to take a chair and sit quiet in it for a minute or two, before I could cool myself down to my proper business level. I knew that I was safely down again when I found myself pondering how to let Mr. Davager know that he had been done by the innocent country attorney after all. It was not long before a nice little irritating plan occurred to me. I tore a blank leaf out of my pocket-book, wrote on it with my pen- cil, "Change for a five-hundred-pound note/' folded up the paper, tit .1 the thread to it, poked it back into the hiding-place, smoothed over the pile of the carpet, and then bolted off to Mr. Frank. He in his turn bolted off to show the letter to the young lady, who first certified to its genuineness, then dropped it into the fire, and then took the initiative for the first time since her marriage engagement, by flinging her arms round his neck, kissing him with all her might, and going into hysterics in his arms. So at least Mr. Frank told me, but that's not evidence. It is evidence, however, that I saw them married with my own eyes on the Wednesday; and that while they went off in a carriage-and-four to spend the honey- moon, I went off on my own legs to open a credit at the Town and County Bank with a five-hundred-pound note in my pocket. As to Mr. Davager, I can tell you nothing more about him, except what is derived from hearsay evidence, which is always unsatisfac- tory evidence, even in a lawyer's mouth. My inestimable boy, Tom, although twice kicked off by Sam the pony, never lost hold of the bridle, and kept his man in sight from first to last. He had nothing particular to report, except that on the way out to the Abbey Mr. Davager had stopped at the public- house, had spoken a word or two to his friend of the night before, and had handed him what looked like a bit of paper. This was no doubt a clue to the thread that held the letter, to be used in case of accidents. In every other respect Mr. D. had ridden out and ridden in like an ordinary sight-seer. Tom reported him to me as having dismounted at the hotel about two. At half-past I locked my office door, nailed a card under the knocker with " not at home till to- morrow " written on it, and retired to a friend's house a mile or so out of the town for the rest of the day. Mr. Davager, I have been since given to understand, left the Gat- liffe Anns that same night with his best clothes on his back, and with all the valuable contents of his dressing-case in his pockets. I am not in a condition to state whether he ever went through the 62 AFTER DAKK. form of asking for his bill or not ; but I can positively testify that he never paid it, and that the effects left in his bedroom did not pay it either. When I add to these fragments of evidence that he and I have never met (luckily for me, you will say) since I jockeyed him out of his bank-note, I have about fulfilled my implied contract as maker of a statement with you, sir, as hearer of a statement. Ob- serve the expression, will you ? I said it was a Statement before I began ; and I say it's a Statement now I've done. I defy you to prove it's a Story ! How are you getting on with my portrait ? I like you very well, Mr. Artist ; but if you have been taking advan- tage of my talking to shirk your work, as sure as you're alive I'll split upon you to the Town Council ! I attended a great many times at my queer sitter's house before his likeness was completed. To the last he was dissatisfied with the progress I made. Fortunately for me, the Town Council ap- proved of the portrait when it was done. Mr. Boxsious, however, ob- jected to them as being much too easy to please. He did not dis- pute the fidelity of the likeness, but he asserted that I had not cov- ered the canvas with half paint enough for my money. To this day (for he is still alive), he describes me to all inquiring friends as " The Painter-Man who jockeyed the Town Council." PEOLOGUK TO THE THIRD STORY. 63 PROLOGUE TO THE THIRD STORY. IT was a sad day for me when Mr. Lanfray, of Rockleigh Place, discovering that his youngest daughter's health required a warm climate, removed from his English establishment to the South of France. Roving from place to place, as I am obliged to do, though I make many acquaintances, I keep but few friends. The nature of my calling is, I am quite aware, mainly answerable for this. Peo- ple can not be blamed for forgetting a man who, on leaving their houses, never can tell them for certain when he is likely to be in their neighborhood again. Mr. Lanfray was one of the few exceptional persons who always remembered me. I have proofs of his friendly interest in my wel- fare in the shape of letters which I treasure with grateful care. The last of these is an invitation to his house in the South of France. There is little chance at present of my being able to profit by his kindness ; but I like to read his invitation from time to time, for it makes me fancy, in my happier moments, that I may one day really be able to accept it. My introduction to this gentleman, in my capacity of portrait- painter, did not promise much for me in a professional point of view. I was invited to Rockleigh or to "The Place," as it was more frequently called among the people of the county to take a likeness in water-colors, on a small scale, of the French governess who lived with Mr. Lanfray's daughters. My first idea on hearing of this was, that the governess was about to leave her situation, and that her pupils wished to have a memorial of her in the shape of a portrait. Subsequent inquiry, however, informed me that I was in error. It was the eldest of Mr. Lanfray's daughters, who was on the point of leaving the house to accompany her husband to India ; and it was for her that the portrait had been ordered, as a home remem- brance of her best and dearest friend. Besides these particulars, I discovered that the governess, though still called "mademoiselle," was an old lady ; that Mr. Lanfray had been introduced to her many years since in France, after the death of his wife ; that she was ab- solute mistress in the house ; and that her three pupils had always looked up to her as a second mother, from the time when their fa- ther first placed them under her charge. These scraps of information made me rather anxious to see Made- moiselle Clairfait, the governess. 64 AFTER DARK. On the day appointed for my attendance at the comfortable country house of Rockleigh, I was detained on the road, and did not arrive at my destination until late in the evening. The wel- come accorded to me by Mr. Lanfray gave an earnest of the unvary- ing kindness that I was to experience at his hands in after-life. I was received at once on equal terms, as if I had been a friend of the family, and was presented the same evening to my host's daughters. They were not merely three elegant and attractive young women, but what means much more than that three admirable subjects for pictures, the bride particularly. Her young husband did not strike me much at first sight ; he seemed rather shy and silent. After I had been introduced to him, I looked round for Made- moiselle Clairfait, but she was not present ; and I was soon afterward informed by Mr. Lanfray that she always spent the latter part of the evening in her own room. At the breakfast-table the next morning, I again looked for my sitter, and once more in vain. " Mamma, as we call her," said one of the ladies, " is dressing expressly for her picture, Mr. Kerby. I hope you are not above painting silk, lace, and jewelry. The dear old lady, who is perfection in every thing else, is perfection also in dress, and is bent on being painted in all her splendor." This explanation prepared me for something extraordinary ; but I found that my anticipations had fallen far below the reality when Mademoiselle Clairfait at last made her appearance, and announced that she was ready to sit for her portrait. Never before or since have I seen such perfect dressing and such active old age in combination. " Mademoiselle " was short and thin ; her face was perfectly white all over, the skin being puckered up in an infinite variety of the smallest possible wrinkles. Her bright black eyes were perfect marvels of youthfulness and vivacity. They sparkled, and beamed, and ogled, and moved about over every body and every thing at such a rate, that the plain gray hair above them looked unnaturally venerable, and the wrinkles below an art- ful piece of masquerade to represent old age. As for her dress, I remember few harder pieces of work than the painting of it. She wore a silver-gray silk gown, that seemed always flashing out into some new light whenever she moved. It was as stiff as a board, and rustled like the wind. Her head, neck, and bosom were en- veloped in clouds of the airiest-looking lace I ever saw, disposed about each part of her with the most exquisite grace and propriety, and glistening at all sorts of unexpected places with little fairy-like toys in gold and precious stones. On her right wrist she wore three small bracelets, with the hair of her three pupils worked into them ; and on her left, one large bracelet with a miniature let in over the clasp. She had a dark crimson-and-gold scarf thrown coquettishly PROLOGUE TO THE THIRD STORY. 65 over her shoulders, and held a lovely little feather-fan in her hand. When she first presented herself before me in this costume, with a brisk courtesy and a bright smile, tilling the room with perfume, and gracefully flirting the feather-fan, I lost all confidence in my powers as a portrait-painter immediately. The brightest colors in my box looked dowdy and dim, and I myself felt like an unwashed, un- brushed, unpresentable sloven. " Tell me, my angels," said mademoiselle, apostrophizing her pu- pils in the prettiest foreign English, "am I the cream of all creams this morning? Do I carry my sixty years resplendently ? Will the savages in India, when my own love exhibits my picture among them, say, ' Ah ! smart ! smart ! this was a great dandy ?' And the gentleman, the skillful artist, whom it is even more an honor than a happiness to meet, does he approve of me for a model ? Does Ue find me pretty and paintable from top to toe ?" Here she dropped me another brisk courtesy, placed herself in a languishing position in the sitter's chair, and asked us all if she looked like a shepherd- ess in Dresden china. The young ladies burst out laughing, and mademoiselle, as gay as any of them and a great deal shriller, joined in the merriment. Never before had I contended with any sitter half as restless as that wonderful old lady. No sooner had I begun than she jumped out of the chair, and exclaiming, "Grand Dieu! I have forgotten to em- brace my angels this morning," ran up to her pupils, raised herself on tiptoe before them in quick succession, put the two first fingers of each hand under their ears, kissed them lightly on both cheeks, and was back again in the chair before an English governess could have said, " Good-morning, my dears, I hope you all slept well last night." I began again. Up jumped mademoiselle for the second time, and tripped across the room to a cheval-glass. " No!" I heard her say to herself, " I have not discomposed my head in kissing my an- gels. I may come back and pose for my picture." Back she came. I worked from her for five minutes at the most. " Stop !" cries mademoiselle, jumping up for the third time ; "I must see how this skillful artist is getting on. Grand Dieu ! why he has done nothing !" For the fourth time I began, and for the fourth time the old lady started out of her chair. " Now I must repose myself," said made- moiselle, walking lightly from end to end of the room, and hum- ming a French air, by way of taking a rest, I was at my wit's end, and the young ladies saw it. They all sur- rounded my unmanageable sitter, and appealed to her compassion for me. " Certainly !" said mademoiselle, expressing astonishment by flinging up both her hands with all the fingers spread out in the 3 66 AFTER DARK. air. " But why apostrophize me thus ? I am here, I am ready, I am at the service of this skillful artist. Why apostrophize me ?" A fortunate chance question of mine steadied her for some time. I inquired if I was expected to draw the whole of my sitter's figure as well as her face. Mademoiselle replied by a comic scream of in- dignation. If I was the brave and gifted man for whom she took me, I ought to be ready to perish rather than leave out an inch of her anywhere. Dress was her passion, and it would be an outrage on her sentiments if I did not do full justice to every thing she had on to her robe, to her lace, to her scarf, to her fan, to her rings, her jewels, and, above all, to her bracelets. I groaned in spirit at the task before me, but made my best bow of acquiescence. Made- moiselle was not to be satisfied by a mere bow ; she desired the pleasure of specially directing my attention, if I would be so amia- ble as to get up and approach her, to one of her bracelets in partic- ular the bracelet with the miniature, on her left wrist. It had been the gift of the dearest friend she ever had, and the miniature rep- resented that friend's beloved and beautiful face. Could I make a tiny, tiny copy of that likeness in my drawing ? Would I only be so obliging as to approach for one little moment, and see if such a thing were possible ? I obeyed unwillingly enough, expecting, from mademoiselle's ex pression, to see a commonplace portrait of some unfortunate admirer whom she had treated with unmerited severity in the days of her youth. To my astonishment, I found that the miniature, which was very beautifully painted, represented a woman's face a young wom- an with kind, sad eyes, pale, delicate cheeks, light hair, and such a pure, tender, lovely expression, that I thought of Raphael's Madon- nas the moment I looked at her portrait. The old lady observed the impression which the miniature pro- duced on me, and nodded her head in silence. " What a beautiful, innocent, pure face !" I said. Mademoiselle Clairfait gently brushed a particle of dust from the miniature with her handkerchief, and kissed' it. "I have three an- gels still left," she said, looking at her pupils. " They console me for the fourth, who has gone to heaven." She patted the face on the miniature gently with her little, with- ered, white fingers, as if it had been a living thing. "Sister Rose!" she sighed to herself; then, looking up again at me, said, "I should like it put into my portrait, sir, because I have always M 7 orn it since I was a young woman, for ' Sister Rose's ' sake." The sudden change in her manner, from the extreme of flighty gayety to the extreme of quiet sadness, would have looked theat- rical in a woman of any other nation. It seemed, however, perfectly natural and appropriate in her. I went back to my drawing, rather PROLOGUE TO THE THIRD STORY. 67 perplexed. Who was " Sister Rose ?" Not one of the Lanfray fam- ily, apparently. The composure of the young ladies when the name was mentioned showed plainly enough that the original of the min- iature had been no relation of theirs. I tried to stifle my curiosity on the subject of Sister Rose, by giv- ing myself entirely to my work. For a full half-hour Mademoiselle Clairfait sat quietly before me, with her hands crossed on her lap, and her eyes fixed on the bracelet. This happy alteration enabled inr to do something toward completing the outline of her face and figure. I might even, under fortunate circumstances, have van- quished the preliminary difficulties of my task at one effort ; but the fates were against me that day. While I was still working rap- idly and to my satisfaction, a servant knocked at the door to an- nounce luncheon, and mademoiselle lightly roused herself from her M TJI uis reflection, and her quiet position in a moment. " Ah me !" she said, turning the miniature round on her wrist till it was out of sight. " What animals we are, after all ! The spirit- ual part of us is at the mercy of the stomach. My heart is absorb- ed by tender thoughts, yet I am not the less ready for luncheon ! Come, my children and fellow-mortals. Allans cultiver notre jardin!" With this quotation from "Candide," plaintively delivered, the old lady led the way out of the room, and was followed by her younger pupils. The eldest sister remained behind for a moment, and reminded me that the lunch was ready. " I am afraid you have found the dear old soul rather an unruly sitter," she said, noticing the look of dissatisfaction with which I was regarding my drawing. "But she will improve as you go on. She has done better already for the last half-hour, has she not ?" " Much better," I answered. " My admiration of the miniature on the bracelet seemed I suppose, by calling up some old associations to have a strangely soothing effect on Mademoiselle Clairfait." . "Ah yes ! only remind her of the original of that portrait, and you change her directly, whatever she may have been saying or doing the moment before. Sometimes she talks of Sister Rose, and of all that she went through in the time of the French Revolution, by the hour together. It is wonderfully interesting at least we all think so.' 1 " I presume that the lady described as ' Sister Rose' was a relation of Mademoiselle Clairfait's ? M " No, only a very dear friend. Mademoiselle Clairfait is the daugh- ter of a silk -mercer, once established at Chalons-sur-Marne. Her father happened to give an asylum in his office to a lonely old man, to whom 'Sister Rose' and her brother had been greatly indebted in the revolutionary time; and out of a train of circumstances con- nected with that, the first acquaintance between mademoiselle and 68 AFTER DARK. the friend whose portrait she wears, arose. After the time of hef father's bankruptcy, and for many years before we were placed un- der her charge, our good old governess lived entirely with ' Sister Rose ' and her brother. She must then have heard all the interest- ing things that she has since often repeated to my sisters and my- self." " Might I suggest," said I, after an instant's consideration, " that the best way to give me a fair chance of studying Mademoiselle Clairfait's face at the next sitting, would be to lead her thoughts again to that quieting subject of the miniature, and to the events which the portrait recalls ? It is really the only plan, after what I have observed this morning, that I can think of for enabling me to do myself and my sitter justice." " I am delighted to hear you say so," replied the lady ; " for the execution of your plan, by me or by my sisters, will be the easiest thing in the world. A word from us at any time will set mademoi- selle thinking, and talking too, of the friend of her youthful days. Depend on our assistance so far.- And now let me show you the way to the luncheon-table." Two good results followed the ready rendering of the help I had asked from my host's daughters. I succeeded with my portrait of Mademoiselle Clairfait, and I heard the story which occupies the fol- lowing pages. In the case of the preceding narratives, I have repeated what was related to me, as nearly as possible in the very words of my sitters. In the case of this third story, it is impossible for me to proceed upon the same plan. The circumstances of " Sister Rose's " event- ful history were narrated to me at different times, and in the most fragmentary and discursive manner. Mademoiselle Clairfait char- acteristically mixed up with the direct interest of her story, not only references to places and people which had no recognizable connec- tion with it, but outbursts of passionate political declamation, on the extreme liberal side to say nothing of little tender apostrophes to her beloved friend, which sounded very prettily as she spoke them, but which would lose their effect altogether by being transferred to paper. Under these circumstances, I have thought it best to tell the story in my own way rigidly adhering to the events of it exactly as they were related ; and never interfering on my own responsibil- ity except to keep order in the march of the incidents, and to pre- sent them, to the best of my ability, variously as well as interesting- ly to the reader. &1STEB KOBE. 69 THE FRENCH GOVERNESS'S STORY or SISTER ROSE. PART FIRST. CHAPTER I. "WELL, Monsieur Guillaume, what is the news this evening ?" u None that I know of, Monsieur Justin, except that Mademoiselle Rose is to be married to-morrow." " Much obliged, my respectable old friend, for so interesting and unexpected a reply to my question. Considering that I am the val- et of .Monsieur Danville, who plays the distinguished part of bride- groom in the little wedding comedy to which you refer, I think I may assure you, without offense, that your news "is, so far as I am concerned, of the stalest possible kind. Take a pinch of snuff, Mon- sieur Guillaume, and excuse me if I inform you that my question re- ferred to public news, and not to the private affairs of the two fam- ilies whose household interests we have the pleasure of promoting." I don't understand what you mean by such a phrase as promot- ing household interests, Monsieur Justin. I am the servant of Mon- sieur Louis Trudaine, who lives here with his sister, Mademoiselle Rose. You are the servant of Monsieur Danville, whose excellent mother has made up the match for him with my young lady. As servants, both of us, the pleasantest news we can have any concern with is news that is connected with the happiness of our masters. I have nothing to do with public affairs; and, being one of the old school, I make it niy main object in life to mind my own business. If our homely domestic politics have no interests for you, allow me to express my regret, and to wish you a very good evening." Pardon me, my dear sir, I have not the slightest respect for the old school, or the least sympathy with people who only mind their own business. However, I accept your expressions of regret; I re- ciprocate your 'Good-evening;' and I trust to find you improved in temper, dress, manners, and appearance the next time I have the honor of meeting you. Adieu, Monsieur Guillaume, and Vive la lHJilt,Ul .'" These scraps of dialogue were interchanged on a lovely summer evening in the year seventeen hundred and eighty-nine, before the 70 AFTER DARK. back door of a small house which stood on the banks of the Seine, about three miles westward of the city of Rouen. The one speaker was lean, old, crabbed, and slovenly ; the other was plump, young, oily-mannered, and dressed in the most gorgeous livery costume of the period. The last days of genuine dandyism were then rapidly approaching all over the civilized world; and Monsieur Justin was, in his own way, dressed to perfection, as a living illustration of the expiring glories of his epoch. After the old servant had left him, he occupied himself for a few minutes in contemplating, superciliously enough, the back view of the little house before which he stood. Judging by the windows, it did not contain more than six or eight rooms in all. Instead of stables and outhouses, there was a conservatory attached to the building on one side, and a low, long room, built of wood, gayly painted, on the other. One of the windows of this room was left uncurtained, and through it could be seen, on a sort of dresser in- side, bottles filled with strangely - colored liquids, oddly - shaped utensils of brass and copper, one end of a large furnace, and other objects, which plainly proclaimed that the apartment was used as a chemical laboratory. "Think of our bride's brother amusing himself in such a place as that with cooking drugs in saucepans," muttered Monsieur Justin, peeping into the room. " I am the least particular man in the uni- verse, but I must say I wish we were not going to be connected by marriage with an amateur apothecary. Pah ! I can smell the place through the window." With these words Monsieur Justin turned his back on the labora- tory in disgust, and sauntered toward the cliffs overhanging the river. Leaving the garden attached to the house, he ascended some gently rising ground by a winding path. Arrived at the summit, the whole view of the Seine with its lovely green islands, its banks fringed with trees, its gliding boats, and little scattered water-side cottages, opened before him. Westward, where the level country appeared beyond the further bank of the river, the landscape was all aglow with the crimson of the setting sun. Eastward, the long shadows and mellow intervening lights, the red glory that quivered on the rippling water, the steady ruby fire glowing on cottage win- dows that reflected the level sunlight, led the eye onward and on- ward, along the windings of the Seine, until it rested upon the spires, towers, and broadly-massed houses of Rouen, with the wood- ed hills rising beyond them for background. Lovely to look on at any time, the view was almost supernaturally beautiful now under the gorgeous evening light that glowed up )n it. All its attrac- tions, however, were lost on the valet , he stood yawning with his SISTER ROSE. 71 hands in his pockets, looking neither to the right nor to the left, hut >taring straight before him at a lifetle hollow, beyond which the ground sloped away smoothly to the brink of the cliff. A bench wa placed here, and three persons an old lady, a gentleman, and a young girl were seated on it, watching the sunset, and by con- sequence turning their backs on Monsieur Justin. Near them stood two gentlemen, also looking toward the river and the distant view. These five figures attracted the valet's attention, to the exclusion of every other object around him. " There they are still," he said to himself, discontentedly. " Ma- dame Danville in the same place on the seat ; my master, the bride- groom, dutifully next to her ; Mademoiselle Rose, the bride, bashful- ly next to him ; Monsieur Trudaine, the amateur apothecary brother, affectionately next to her; and Monsieur Lomaque, our queer land- stewanl, officially in waiting on the whole party. There they all are indeed, incomprehensibly wasting their time still in looking at noth- ing ! Yes," continued Monsieur Justin, lifting his eyes wearily, and staring hard, first up the river at Rouen, then down the river at the setting sun; "yes, plague take them ! looking at nothing, absolute- ly and positively at nothing, all this while." Here Monsieur Justin yawned again, and, returning to the gar- den, 6at himself down in an arbor and resignedly went to sleep. If the valet had ventured near the five persons whom he had been apostrophizing from a distance, and if he had been possessed of some little refinement of observation, he could hardly have failed to remark that the bride and bridegroom of the morrow, and their companions on either side, were all, in a greater or less degree, under the influence of some secret restraint, which affected their conversa- tion, their gestures, and even the expression of their faces. Madame Danville a handsome, richly - dressed old lady, with very bright eyes, and a quick, suspicious manner looked composedly and happi- ly enough, as long as her attention was fixed on her son. But when she turned from him toward the bride, a hardly perceptible uneasi- ness passed over her face an uneasiness which only deepened to positive distrust and dissatisfaction whenever she looked toward Mademoiselle Trudaine's brother. In the same way, her son. who was all smiles and happiness while he was speaking with his future wife, altered visibly in manner and look exactly as his mother alter- ed, whenever the presence of Monsieur Trudaine specially impressed itself on his attention. Then, again, Lomaque, the land-steward quiet, sharp, skinny Lomaque, with the submissive manner, and the red rimmed eyes never looked up at his master's future brother-in- law without looking away again rather uneasily, and thoughtfully drilling holes in the grass with his long sharp-pointed cane. Even the l>ride herself the pretty, innocent girl, with her childish shy- 72 AFTER DARK. ness of manner seemed to be affected like the others. Doubt, if not distress, overshadowed her face from time to time, and the hand which her lover held trembled a little, and grew restless, when she accidentally caught her brother's eye. Strangely enough there was nothing to repel, but, on the con- trary, every thing to attract in the look and manner of the person whose mere presence seemed to exercise such a curiously constrain- ing influence over the wedding-party. Louis Trudaine was a re- markably handsome man. His expression was singularly kind and gentle ; his manner irresistibly winning in its frank, manly firmness and composure. His words, when he occasionally spoke, seemed as unlikely to give offense as his looks ; for he only opened his lips in courteous reply to questions directly addressed to him. Judging by a latent mournfulness in the tones of his voice, and by the sorrow- ful tenderness which clouded his kind, earnest eyes whenever they rested on his sister, his thoughts were certainly not of the happy or the hopeful kind. But he gave them no direct expression; he in- truded his secret sadness, whatever it might be, on no one of his companions. Nevertheless, modest and self -restrained as he was, there was evidently some reproving or saddening influence in his presence which affected the spirits of every one near him, and dark- ened the eve of the wedding to bride and bridegroom alike. As the sun slowly sank in the heavens, the conversation flagged more and more. After a long silence, the bridegroom was the first to start a new subject. " Rose, love," he said, " that magnificent sunset is a good omen for our marriage ; it promises another lovely day to-morrow." The bride laughed and blushed. " Do you really believe in omens, Charles ?" she said. " My dear," interposed the old lady, before her son could answer, " if Charles does believe in omens, it is nothing to laugh at. You will soon know better, when you are his wife, than to confound him, even in the slightest things, with the common herd of people. All his convictions are well founded so well, that if I thought he really did believe in omens, I should most assuredly make up my mind to believe in them too." " I beg your pardon, madame," Rose began, tremulously, " I only meant " My dear child, have you so little knowledge of the world as to suppose that I could be offended " " Let Rose speak," said the young man. He turned round petulantly, almost with the air of a spoiled child, to his mother, as he saiS those words. She had been look- ing fondly and proudly on him the moment before. Now her eyes wandered disconcertedly from his face; she hesitated an instant >!MKR ROSE. 73 with a sudden confusion which seemed quite foreign to her charac- ter, then whispered in his ear, " Am I to Manic. Charles, for trying to make her worthy of you ?" Her son took no notice of the question. He only reiterated sharply," Let Hose speak." " I really had nothing to say," faltered the young girl, growing more and more confused. " Oh, but you had !" There was such an ungracious sharpness in his voice, such an out- burst of petulance in his manner as he spoke, that his mother gave him a warning touch on the arm, and whispered " Hush !" Monsieur Lomaque, the land-steward, and Monsieur Trudaine, the brother, both glanced searchingly at the bride, as the words passed the bridegroom's lips. She seemed to be frightened and astonished, rather than irritated or hurt. A curious smile puckered up Lo- maqiie's lean face, as he looked demurely down on the ground, and began drilling a fresh hole in the turf with the sharp point of his cane. Trudaine turned aside quickly, and, sighing, walked away a few paces; then came back, and seemed about to speak, but Dan- ville interrupted him. " Pardon me, Rose," he said ; " I am so jealous of even the ap- pearance of any want of attention toward you, that I was nearly al- lowing myself to be irritated about nothing." He kissed her hand very gracefully and tenderly as he made his excuse ; but there was a latent expression in his eye which was at variance with the apparent spirit of his action. It was noticed by nobody but observant and submissive Monsieur Lomaque, who smiled to himself again, and drilled harder than ever at his hole in the grass. "I think Monsieur Trudaine was about to speak," said Madame Danville. " Perhaps he will have no objection to let us hear what he was going to say." " None, madame," replied Trudaine, politely. " I was about to take upon myself the blame of Rose's want of respect for believers in omens, by confessing that I have always encouraged her to laugh at superstitions of every kind." " You a ridiculer of superstitions ?" said Danville, turning quickly on him. " You, who have built a laboratory ; you, who are an am- ateur professor of the occult arts of chemistry a seeker after the Elixir of Life. On my word of honor, you astonish me !" There was an ironical politeness in his voice, look, and manner as he said this, which his mother and his land-steward, Monsieur Lomaque, evidently knew how to interpret. The first touched his arm again and whispered, " Be careful !" the second suddenly grew serious, and left off drilling his hole in the grass. Rose neither 8* 74 AFTER DARK. heard the warning of Madame Danville, nor noticed the alteration in Lomaque. She was looking round at her brother, and was wait- ing with a bright, affectionate smile to- hear his answer. He nod- ded, as if to re-assure her, before he spoke again to Danville. " You have rather romantic ideas about experiments in chemis- try," he said, quietly. " Mine have so little connection with what you call the occult arts, that all the world might see them, if all the world thought it worth while. The only Elixirs of Life that I know of are a quiet heart and a contented mind. Both those I found, years and years ago, when Rose and I first came to live together in the house yonder." He spoke with a quiet sadness in his voice, which meant far more to his sister than the simple words he uttered. Her eyes filled with tears; she turned for a moment from her lover, and took her broth- er's hand. " Don't talk, Louis, as if you thought you were going to lose your sister, because " Her lips began to tremble, and she stopped suddenly. " More jealous than ever of your taking her away from him !" whispered Madame Danville in her son's ear. " Hush ! don't, for God's sake, take any notice of it," she added, hurriedly, as he rose from the seat and faced Trudaine with undisguised irritation and impatience in his manner. Before he could speak, the old servant Guillaume made his appearance, and announced that coffee was ready. Madame Danville again said " Hush !" and quickly took one of his arms, while he offered the other to Rose. " Charles," said the young girl, amazedly, " how flushed your face is, and how your arm trembles !" He controlled himself in a moment, smiled, and said to her, " Can't you guess why, Rose ? I am thinking of to-morrow." While he was speaking, he passed close by the land-steward, on his way back to the house with the ladies. The smile returned to Monsieur Lomaque's lean face, and a curious light twinkled in his red-rim- med eyes, as he began a fresh hole in the grass. " Won't you go indoors, and take some coffee ?" asked Trudaine, touching the land-steward on the arm. Monsieur Lomaque started a little, and left his cane sticking in the ground. " A thousand thanks, monsieur," he said ; " may I be allowed to follow you ?" " I confess the beauty of the evening makes me a little unwilling to leave this place just yet." "Ah! the beauties of nature I feel them with you, Monsieur Trudaine ; I feel them here." Saying this, Lomaque laid one hand on his heart, and with the other pulled his stick out of the grass. He had looked as little at the landscape or the setting sun as Mon- sieur Justin himself. SISTER BOSK. 75 They sat down, side by side, on the empty bench ; and then there followed an awkward pause. Submissive Lomaque was too discreet to forget his place, and venture on starting a new topic. Trudaine was preoccupied, and disinclined to talk. It was necessary, how- ever, in common politeness, to say something. Hardly attending hiniM-lf t<> hi <>\VM words, he began with a commonplace phrase: "I regret. Monsieur Lomaque, that we have not had more opportuni- ties of bettering our acquaintance." "I feel deeply indebted," rejoined the land-steward, "to the ad- mirable Madame Danville for having chosen me as her escort hither from her son's estate near Lyons, and having thereby procured for me the honor of this introduction." Both Monsieur Lotnaque's red- rimmed eyes were seized with a sudden fit of winking, as he made this polite speech. His enemies were accustomed to say that, whenever he was particularly insincere, or particularly deceitful, he always took refuge in the weakness of his eyes, and so evaded the trying ordeal of being obliged to look steadily at the person whom hr was speaking with. " I was pleased to hear you mention my late father's name, at dinner, in terms of high respect," continued Trudaine, resolutely keeping up the conversation. " Did you know him ?" I am indirectly indebted to your excellent father," answered the land-steward, " for the very situation which I now hold. At a time when the good word of a man of substance and reputation was needed to save me from poverty and ruin, your father spoke that word. Since then I have, in my own very small way, succeeded in life, until I have risen to the honor of superintending the estate of Monsieur Danville." " Excuse me, but your way of speaking of your present situation rather surprises me. Your father, I believe, was a merchant, just as Danville's father was a merchant ; the only difference between them was. that one failed, and the other realized a large fortune. Why should you speak of yourself as honored by holding your present place ?" " Have you never heard ?" exclaimed Lomaque, with an appear- ance of great astonishment, " or can you have heard, and forgotten, that Madame Danville is descended from one of the noble houses of France ? Has she never told you, as she has often told me, that she condescended when she married her late husband ; and that her great object in life is to get the title of her family (years since ex- tinct in the male line) settled on her son ?" " Yes," replied Trudaine ; " I remember to have heard something of this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time, having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe. You have lived many years in Danville's service, Monsieur Lomaque; have *Z6 AFTER DAKK. you" he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the land- steward full in the face "have you found him a good and kind master?" Lomaque's thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the question, as if he were never going to speak again. He bowed Trudaine waited he only bowed again. Trudaine waited a third time. Lomaque looked at his host with perfect steadiness for an instant, then his eyes began to get weak again. " You seem to have some special interest," he quietly remarked, " if I may say so without of- fense, in asking me that question." " I deal frankly, at all hazards, with every one," returned Tru- daine ; " and stranger as you are, I will deal frankly with you. I acknowledge that I have an interest in asking that question the dearest, the tenderest of all interests." At those last words, his voice trembled for a moment, but he went on firmly ; " from the be- ginning of my sister's engagement with Danville, I made it my duty not to conceal my own feelings ; my conscience and my affection for Rose counseled me to be candid to the last, even though my can- dor should distress or offend others. When we first made the ac- quaintance of Madame Danville, and when I first discovered that her son's attentions to Rose were not unfavorably received, I felt astonished, and, though it cost me a hard effort, I did not conceal that astonishment from my sister Lomaque, who had hitherto been all attention, started here, and threw up his hands in amazement. "Astonished, did I hear you say ? Astonished, Monsieur Trudaine, that the attentions of a young gentleman, possessed of all the graces and accomplishments of a highly-bred Frenchman, should be favorably received by a young lady ! Astonished that such a dancer, such a singer, such a talker, such a notoriously fascinating ladies' man as Monsieur Danville, should, by dint of respectful assiduity, succeed in making some im- pression on the heart of Mademoiselle Rose ! Oh, Monsieur Tru- daine, venerated Monsieur Trudaine, this is almost too much to credit !" Lomaque's eyes grew weaker than ever, and winked in- cessantly, as he uttered this apostrophe. At the end, he threw up his hands again, and blinked inquiringly all round him, in mute ap- peal to universal nature. " When, in the course of time, matters were further advanced," continued Trudaine, without paying any attention to the interrup- tion ; " when the offer of marriage was made, and when I knew that Rose had in her own heart accepted it, I objected, and I did not conceal my objections " " Heavens !" interposed Lomaque again, clasping his hands this time with a look of bewilderment ; " what objections, what possible objections to a man young and well-bred, with an immense fortune SISTER ROSE. 77 and an uncompromised character ? I have heard of these objec- tions; I know they have made bad blood; and I ask myself again and again, what can they be ?" "God knows I have often tried to dismiss them from my mind as fanciful and absurd," said Trudaine, " and I have always failed. It is impossible, in your presence, that I can describe in detail what my own impressions have been, from the first, of the master whom you serve. Let it be enough if I confide to you that I can not, even now, persuade myself of the sincerity of his attachment to my sis- ter, and that I feel in spite of myself, in spite of my earnest desire to put the most implicit confidence in Rose's choice a distrust of his character and temper, which now, on the eve of the marriage, amounts to positive terror. Long secret suffering, doubt, and sus- pense, wring this confession from me, Monsieur Lomaque, almost un- awares, in defiance of caution, in defiance of all the conventionali- ties of society. You have lived for years under the same roof with this man ; you have seen him in his most unguarded and private moments. I tempt you to betray no confidence I only ask you if you can make me happy by telling me that I have been doing your master grievous injustice by my opinion of him ? I ask you to take my hand, and tell me if you can, in all honor, that my sister is not risking the happiness of her whole life by giving herself in mar- riage to Danville to-morrow !" He held out his hand while he spoke. By some strange chance, Lomaque happened just at that moment to be looking away toward those beauties of nature which he admired so greatly. "Really, Monsieur Trudaine, really such an appeal from you, at such a time, amazes me." Having got so far, he stopped and said no more. " When we first sat down together here. I had no thought of making this appeal, no idea of talking to you as I have talked," pursued the other. " My words have escaped me, as I told you, al- most unawares; you must make allowances for them and for me. I can not expect others, Monsieur Lomaque, to appreciate and un- derstand my feelings for Rose. We two have lived alone in the world together; father, mother, kindred, they all died years since, and left us. I am so much older than my sister, that I have learned to feel toward her more as a father than as a brother. All my life, all my dearest hopes, all my highest expectations, have centred in her. I was past the period of my boyhood when my mother put my little child-sister's hand in mine, and said to me on her death-bed, 'Louis, be all to her that I have been, for she has no one left to look to but you/ Since then the loves and ambitions of other men have not been my loves or my ambitions. Sister Rose as we all used to call her in those past days, as I love to call her still Sister Rose has been the one aim, the one happiness, the one precious trust, the 78 AFTER DARK. one treasured reward, of all my life. I have lived in this poor house, in this dull retirement, as in a paradise, because Sister Rose my innocent, happy, bright-faced Eve has lived here with me. Even if the husband of her choice had been the husband of mine, the necessity of parting with her would have been the hardest, the bit- terest of trials. As it is, thinking what I think, dreading what I dread, judge what my feelings must be on the eve of her marriage ; and know why, and with what object, I made the appeal which sur- prised you a moment since, but which can not surprise you now. Speak if you will I can say no more." He sighed bitterly; his head dropped on his breast, and the hand which he had extended to Lotnaque trembled as he withdrew it and let it fall at his side. The land-steward was not a man accustomed to hesitate, but he hesitated now. He was not usually at a loss for phrases in which to express himself, but he stammered at the very outset of his reply. " Suppose I answered, 1 ' he began, slowly ; " suppose I told you that you wronged him, would my testimony really be strong enough to shake opinions, or rather presumptions, which have been taking firmer and firmer hold of -you for months and months past ? Sup- pose, on the other hand, that my master had his little " (Lomaque hesitated before he pronounced the next word) " his little infir- mities, let me say ; but only hypothetically, mind that infirmities ; and suppose I had observed them, and was willing to confide them to you, what purpose would such a confidence answer now, at the eleventh hour, with Mademoiselle Rose's heart engaged, with the marriage fixed for to-morrow ? No ! no ! trust me " Trudaine looked up suddenly. " I thank you for reminding me, Monsieur Lomaque, that it is too late now to make inquiries, and by consequence too late also to trust in others. My sister has chosen ; and on the subject of that choice my lips shall be henceforth sealed. The events of the future are with God ; whatever they may be, I hope I am strong enough to bear my part in them with the patience and the courage of a man ! I apologize, Monsieur Lomaque, for having thoughtlessly embarrassed you by questions which I had no right to ask. Let us return to the house I will show you the way." Lomaque's lips opened, then closed again ; he bowed uneasily, and his sallow complexion whitened for a moment. Trudaine led the way in silence back to the house ; the land- steward following slowly at a distance of several paces, and talking in whispers to himself. " His father was the saving of me," mut- tered Lomaque ; " that is truth, and there is no getting over it ; his father was the saving of me ; and yet here am I no ! it's too late ! too late to speak too late to act too late to do any thing !" Close to the house they were met by the old servant. SISTER ROSE. 79 " My young lady has just sent me to call you in to coffee, mon- sieur," said Guillaume. She has kept a cup hot for you, and an- other c-iip for Monsieur Lomaque." The land-steward started this time with genuine astonishment. " For me !" he exclaimed. " Mademoiselle Rose has troubled her- self to keep a cup of coffee hot for me ?" The old servant stared ; Trudaine stopped and looked back. " What is there so very surprising," he asked, " in such an ordi- nary act of politeness on my sister's part ?" " Excuse me, Monsieur Trudaine," answered Lomaque ; " you have not passed such an existence as mine you are not a friendless old man you have a settled position in the world, and are used to be treated with consideration. I am not. This is the first occasion in my life on which I find myself an object for the attention of a young lady, and it takes me by surprise. I repeat iny excuses ; pray let us go in." Trudaine made no reply to this curious explanation. He won- dered at it a little, however, and he wondered still more when, on entering tin- drawing-room, he saw Lomaque walk straight up to his sister, and apparently not noticing that Danville was sitting at the harpsichord and singing at the time address her confusedly and earnestly with a set speech of thanks for his hot cup of coffee. Rose looked perplexed, and half inclined to laugh, as she listened to him. Madame Danville, who sat by her side, frowned, and tapped the land-steward contemptuously on the arm with her fan. ' Be so good as to keep silent until my sou has done singing," she said. Lomaque made a low bow, and retiring to a table in a corner, took up a newspaper lying on it. If Madame Danville had seen the expression that came over his face when he turned away from her, proud as she was, her aristocratic composure might possi- bly have been a little ruffled. Danville had finished his song, had quitted the harpsichord, and was talking in whispers to his bride ; Madame Danville was adding a word to the conversation every now and then ; Trudaine was seat- ed apart at the far end of the room, thoughtfully reading a letter which he had taken from his pocket, when an exclamation from Lomaque, who was still engaged with the newspaper, caused all the other occupants of the apartment to suspend their employments and look up. " What is it ?" asked Danville, impatiently. " Shall I be interrupting, if I explain ?" inquired Lomaque, getting very weak in the eyes again, as he deferentially addressed himself to Madame Danville. " You have already interrupted us," said the old lady, sharply ; " so you may now just as well explain." 80 AFTER DARK. " It is a passage from the Scientific Intelligence, which has given me great delight, and which will be joyful news for every one here." Saying this, Lomaque looked significantly at Trudaine, and then read from the newspaper these lines : " ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PARIS. The vacant sub-professorship of chemistry has been offered, we are rejoiced to hear, to a gentleman whose modesty has hitherto prevented his scientific merits from be- coming sufficiently prominent in the world. To the members of the academy he has been long since known as the originator of some of the most remarkable improvements in chemistry which have been made of late years improvements, the credit of which he has, with rare, and we were almost about to add, culpable moderation, allowed others to profit by with impunity. No man in any profession is more thoroughly entitled to have a position of trust and distinction con- ferred on him by the State than the gentleman to whom we refer M. Louis Trudaine." Before Lomaque could look up from the paper to observe the im- pression which his news produced, Rose had gained her brother's side, and was kissing him in a flutter of delight. " Dear Louis," she cried, clapping her hands, " let me be the first to congratulate you ! How proud and glad I am ! You accept the professorship, of course ?" Trudaine, who had hastily and confusedly put his letter back in his pocket the moment Lomaque began to read, seemed at a loss for an answer. He patted his sister's hand rather absently, and said, " I have not made up my mind ; don't ask me why, Rose at least not now, not just now." An expression of perplexity and distress came over his face, as he gently motioned her to resume her chair. " Pray, is a sub-professor of chemistry supposed to hold the rank of a gentleman ?" asked Madame Danville, without the slightest ap- pearance of any special interest in Lornaque's news. " Of course not," replied her son, with a sarcastic laugh ; " he is expected to work and make himself useful. What gentleman does that?" " Charles !" exclaimed the old lady, reddening with anger. " Bah !" cried Danville, turning his back on her, " enough of chem- istry. Lomaque, now you have begun reading the newspaper, try if you can't find something interesting to read about. What are the last accounts from Paris ? Any more symptoms of a general revolt ?" Lomaque turned to another part of the paper. " Bad, very bad prospects for the restoration of tranquillity," he said. " Necker, the people's minister, is dismissed. Placards against popular gatherings are posted all over Paris. The Swiss Guards have been ordered 10 SISTER EOSB. 81 the Champs Elyse"es, with four pieces of artillery. No more is yet known, but the worst is dreaded. The breach between the aris- tocracy and the people is widening fatally almost hour by hour." Mere he stopped and laid down the newspaper. Trudaine took it from him, and shook his head forebodingly as he looked over the paragraph which had just been read. " Bah !" cried Madame Danville. " The People, indeed ! Let those four pieces of artillery be properly loaded, let the Swiss Guards do their duty, and we shall hear no more of the People !" " I advise you not to be sure of that," said her son, carelessly ; " there are rather too many people in Paris for the Swiss Guards to shoot conveniently. Don't hold your head too aristocratically high, mother, till we are quite certain which way the wind really does blow. Who knows if I may not have to bow just as low one of these days to King Mob as ever you courtesied in your youth to King Louis the Fifteenth ?" He laughed complacently as he ended, and opened his snuff- box. His mother rose from her chair, her face crimson with indig- nation. "I won't hear you talk so it shocks, it horrifies me!" she ex- claimed, with vehement gesticulation. " No, no ! I decline to hear another word. I decline to sit by patiently while my son, whom I love, jests at the most sacred principles, and sneers at the memory of an anointed king. This is my reward, is it, for having yielded and having come here, against all the laws of etiquette, the night before the marriage ? I comply no longer ; I resume my own will and my own way. I order you, my son, to accompany me back to Rouen. We are the bridegroom's party, and we have no business overnight at the house of the bride. You meet no more till you meet at the church. Justin, my coach ! Lomaque, pick up my hood. Monsieur Trudaine, thanks for your hospitality ; I shall hope to return it with interest the first time you are in our neighborhood. Mademoiselle, put on your best looks to-morrow, along with your wedding finery; remember that my son's bride must do honor to my son's taste. Justin ! my coach drone, vagabond, idiot, where is my coach ?" "My mother looks handsome when she is in a passion, does she not, Rose ?" said Danville, quietly putting up his snuff-box as the old lady sailed out of the room. " Why, you seem quite frightened, love," he added, taking her hand with his easy, graceful air; 44 frightened, let me assure you, without the least cause. My mother has but that one prejudice, and that one weak point, Rose. You will find her a very dove for gentleness, as long as you do not wound her pride of caste. Come, come, on this night, of all others, you must not send me away with such a face as that." 82 AFTER DARK. He bent down and whispered to her a bridegroom's compliment, which brought the blood back to her cheek in an instant. "Ah, how she loves him how dearly she loves him!" thought her brother, watching her from his solitary corner of the room, and seeing the smile that brightened her blushing face when Danville kissed her hand at parting. Lomaque, who had remained imperturbably cool during the out- break of the old lady's anger Lomaque, whose observant eyes had watched sarcastically the effect of the scene between mother and son on Trudaine and his sister, was the last to take leave. After he had bowed to Rose with a certain gentleness in his manner, which con- trasted strangely with his wrinkled, haggard face, he held out his hand to her brother. " I did not take your hand when we sat to- gether on the bench," he said ; " may I take it now ?" Trudaine met his advance courteously, but in silence. " You may alter your opinion of me one of these days." Adding those words in a whisper, Monsieur Lomaque bowed once more to the bride and went out. For a few minutes after the door had closed, the brother and sis- ter kept silence. " Our last night together at home !" That was the thought which now filled the heart of each. Rose was the first to speak. Hesitating a little as she approached her brother, she said to him, anxiously, " I am sorry for what happened with Madame Danville, Louis. Does it make you think the worse of Charles ?" "I can make allowance for Madame Danville's anger," returned Trudaine, evasively, " because she spoke from honest conviction." " Honest ?" echoed Rose, sadly, " honest ? ah, Louis ! I know you are thinking disparagingly of Charles's convictions, when you speak so of his mother's." Trudaine smiled and shook his head ; but she took no notice of the gesture of denial only stood looking earnestly and wistfully into his face. Her eyes began to fill ; she suddenly threw her arms round his neck, and whispered to him, " Oh, Louis, Louis ! how I wish I could teach you to see Charles with my eyes !" He felt her tears on his cheek as she spoke, and tried to re- assure her. " You shall teach me, Rose you shall, indeed. Come, come, we must keep up our spirits, or how are you to look your best to- morrow ?" He unclasped her arms, and led her gently to a chair. At the same moment there was a knock at the door, and Rose's maid ap- peared, anxious to consult her mistress on some of the prepara- tions for the wedding ceremony. No interruption could have been more welcome just at that time. It obliged Rose to think of pres- SISTER ROSE. 83 ent trifles, and it gave her brother an excuse for retiring to his study. He sat down by his desk, doubting and heavy-hearted, and placed the letter from the Academy of Sciences open before him. Passing over all the complimentary expressions which it contain- ed, his eye rested only on these lines at the end : " During the first three years of your professorship, you will be required to reside in or near Paris nine months out of the year, for the purpose of de- livering lectures and superintending experiments from time to time in the laboratories." The letter in which these lines occurred offer- ed him such a position as in his modest self-distrust he had never dreamed of before ; the lines themselves contained the promise of such vast facilities for carrying on his favorite experiments as he could never hope to command in his own little study, with his own limited means; and yet, there he now sat doubting whether he should accept or reject the tempting honors and advantages that were offered to him doubting for his sister's sake ! " Nine months of the year in Paris," he said to himself, sadly ; 'and Rose is to pass her married life at Lyons. Oh, if I could clear my heart of its dread on her account if I could free my mind of its forebodings for her future how gladly I would answer this let- ter by accepting the trust it offers me !" He paused for a few minutes, and reflected. The thoughts that were in him marked their ominous course in the growing paleness of his cheek, in the dimness that stole over his eyes. " If this cleav- ing distrust from which I can not free myself should be in very truth the mute prophecy of evil to come to come, I know not when if it be so (which God forbid), how soon she may want a friend, a protector near at hand, a ready refuge in the time of her trouble ! Where shall she then find protection or refuge ? With that passion- ate woman ? With her husband's kindred and friends?" He shuddered as the thought crossed his mind, and, opening a blank sheet of paper, dipped his pen in the iuk. ''Be all to her, Louis, that I have been," he murmured to himself, repeating his mother's last words, and beginning the letter while he uttered them. It was soon completed. It expressed in the most respectful terms his gratitude for the offer made to him, and his inability to accept it, in consequence of domestic circumstances which it was needless to explain. The letter was directed, sealed; it only remained for him to place it in the post-bag, lying near at hand. At this last de- cisive act he hesitated. He had told Lomaque, and he had firmly believed himself, that he had conquered all ambitions for his sister's sake. He knew now, for the first time, that he had only lulled them to rest he knew that the letter from Paris had aroused them. His answer was written, his hand was on the post-bag, and at that mo- 84 AFTER DAKK. ment the whole struggle had to be risked over again risked when he was most unfit for it! He was not a man under any ordinary circumstances to procrastinate, but he procrastinated now. "Night brings counsel; I will wait till to-morrow," he said to himself, and put the letter of refusal in his pocket, and hastily quit- ted the laboratory. CHAPTER II. INEXORABLY the important morrow came : irretrievably, for good or for evil, the momentous marriage-vow was pronounced. Charles Danville and Rose Trudaine were now man and wife. The prophecy of the magnificent sunset overnight had not proved false. " It was a cloudless day on the marriage morning. The nuptial ceremonies had proceeded smoothly throughout, and had even satisfied Madame Danville. She returned with the wedding - party to Trudaine's house, all smiles and serenity. To the bride she was graciousness itself. " Good girl," said the old lady, following Rose into a corner, and patting her approvingly on the cheek with her fan; "good girl, you have looked well this morning you have done credit to my son's taste. Indeed, you have pleased me, child ! Now go up stairs, and get on your traveling -dress, and count on my maternal affection as long as you make Charles happy." It had been arranged that the bride and bridegroom should pass their honey-moon in Brittany, and then return to Danville's estate near Lyons. The parting was hurried over, as all such partings should be. The carriage had driven off; Trudaine, after lingering long to look after it, had returned hastily to the house ; the very dust of the whirling wheels had all dispersed ; there was absolutely noth- ing to see ; and yet there stood Monsieur Lomaque at the outer gate ; idly, as if he was an independent man calmly, as if no such re- sponsibilities as the calling of Madame Danville's coach, and the escorting of Madame Danville back to Lyons, could possibly rest on his shoulders. Idly and calmly, slowly rubbing his hands one over the other, slowly nodding his head in the direction by which the bride and bridegroom had departed, stood the eccentric land-steward at the outer gate. On a sudden the sound of footsteps approaching from the house seemed to arouse him. Once more he looked out into the road, as if he expected still to see the carriage of the newly-married couple. "Poor girl ! ah, poor girl !" said Monsieur Lomaque softly to himself, turning round to ascertain who was coming from the house. SISTER ROSE. 85 It was only the postman with a letter in his hand, and the bag crumpled up under his arm. Any fresh news from Paris, friend ?" asked Lomaque. Very bad, monsieur," answered the postman. "Camille Des- moulins has appealed to the people in the Palais Royal ; there are fears of a riot." " Only a riot !" repeated Lomaque, sarcastically. " Oh, what a brave Government not to be afraid of any thing worse ! Any let- ters?" he added, hastily dropping the subject. " None to the house," said the postman, " only one from it, given me by Monsieur Trudaine. Hardly worth while," he added, twirl- ing the letter in his hand, " to put it into the bag, is it?" Lomaque looked over his shoulder as he spoke, and saw that the letter was directed to the President of the Academy of Sciences, Paris. " I wonder whether he accepts the place or refuses it ?" thought the land-steward, nodding to the postman, and continuing on his way back to the house. At the door he met Trudaine, who said to him, rather hastily, " You are going back to Lyons with Madame Danville, I suppose ?" " This very day," answered Lomaque. " If you should hear of a convenient bachelor lodging at Lyons, or near it," continued the other, dropping his voice and speaking more rapidly than before, " you would be doing me a favor if you would let me know about it." Lomaque assented ; but before he could add a question which was on the tip of his tongue, Trudaine had vanished in the interior of the house. " A bachelor lodging !" repeated the land-steward, standing alone on the door-step. " At or near Lyons ! Aha ! Monsieur Trudaine, I put your bachelor lodging and your talk to me last night together, and I make out a sum total which is, I think, pretty near the mark. You have refused that Paris appointment, my friend ; and I fancy I can guess why." He paused thoughtfully, and shook his head with ominous frowns and bitings of his lips. "All clear enough in that sky," he continued, after a while, look- ing up at the lustrous midday heaven. "All clear enough there; but I think I see a little cloud rising in a certain household firma- ment already a little cloud which hides much, and which I for one suall watch carefully." 86 AFTER DARK. PART SECOND. CHAPTER I. FIVE years have elapsed since Monsieur Lomaque stood thought- fully at the gate of Trudaine's house, looking after the carriage of the bride and bridegroom, and seriously reflecting on the events of the future. Great changes have passed over that domestic firma- ment in which he prophetically discerned the little warning cloud. Greater changes have passed over the firmament of France. What was revolt five years ago is Revolution now revolution which has ingulfed thrones, and principalities, and powers; which has set up crownless, inhereditary kings and counselors of its own, and has bloodily torn them down again by dozens ; which has raged and raged on unrestrainedly in fierce earnest, until but one king can still govern and control it for a little while. That king is named Terror, and seventeen hundred and ninety-four is the year of his reign. Monsieur Lomaque, land - steward no longer, sits alone in an of- ficial-looking room in one of the official buildings of Paris. It is another July evening, as fine as that evening when he and Trudaine sat talking together on the bench .overlooking the Seine. The win- dow of the room is wide open, and a faint, pleasant breeze is begin- ning to flow through it. But Lomaque breathes uneasily, as if still oppressed by the sultry midday heat ; and there are signs of per- plexity and trouble in his face as he looks down absently now and then into the street. The times he lives in are enough of themselves to sadden any man's face. In the Reign of Terror no living being in all the city of Paris can rise in the morning and be certain of escaping the spy, the denunciation, the arrest, or the guillotine, before night. Such times are trying enough to oppress any man's spirits ; but Lomaque is not thinking of them or caring for them now. Out of a mass of papers which lie before him on his old writing - table, he has just taken up and read one, which has carried his thoughts back to the past, and to the changes which have taken place since he stood alone on the door -step of Trudaine's house, pondering on what might happen. More rapidly even than he had foreboded those changes had oc- curred. In less time even than he had anticipated, the sad emergen- cy for which Rose's brother had prepared, as for a barely possible calamity, overtook Trudaine, and called for all the patience, the courage, the self-sacrifice which he had to give for his sister's sake. SISTER ROSE. 87 By slow gradations downward, from bad to worse, her husband's character manifested itself less and less disguisedly almost day by day. Occasional slights, ending in habitual neglect; careless es- trangement, turning to cool enmity ; small insults, which ripened evilly to great injuries these were the pitiless signs which showed her that she had risked all and lost all while still a young woman t IK-SI- were the unmerited afflictions which found her helpless, and would have left her helpless, but for the ever-present comfort and support of her brother's self-denying love. From the first, Trudaine had devoted himself to meet such trials as now assailed him ; and like a man he met them, in defiance alike of persecution from the mother and of insult from the son. The hard task was only lightened when, as time advanced, public trouble began to mingle itself with private grief. Then absorbing political necessities came as a relief to domestic misery. Then it grew to be the one purpose and pursuit of Danville's life cunningly to shape his course so that he might move safely onward with the advancing revolutionary tide he cared not whither, as long as he kept his possessions safe and his life out of danger. His mother, inflexibly true to her Old-World convictions through all peril, might entreat and upbraid, might talk of honor, and courage, and sincerity he heeded her not, or heeded only to laugh. As he had taken the false way with his wife, so he was now bent on taking it with the world. The years passed on ; destroying changes swept hurricane - like over the old governing system of France ; and still Danville shifted successfully with the shifting times. The first days of the Terror approached ; in public and in private in high places and in low each man now suspected his brother. Crafty as Danville was, even he fell under suspicion at last, at head-quarters in Paris, principally on his mother's account. This was his first political failure ; and, in a moment of thoughtless rage and disappointment, he wreaked the irritation caused by it on Lomaque. Suspected himself, he in turn suspected the land-steward. His mother fomented the suspi- cion Lomaque was dismissed. In the old times the victim would have been ruined, in the new times he was simply rendered eligible for a political vocation in life. Lomaque was poor, quick-witted, secret, not scrupulous. He was a good patriot ; he had good patriot friends, plenty of ambition, a sub- tle, cat-like courage, nothing to dread and he went to Paris. There were plenty of small chances there for men of his calibre. He wait- ed for one of them. It came ; he made the most of it ; attracted fa- vorably the notice of the terrible Fouquier-Tinville ; and won his way to a place in the office of the Secret Police. Meanwhile, Danville's anger cooled down ; he recovered the use 88 AFTER DARK. of that cunning sense which had hitherto served him well, and sent to recall the discarded servant. It was too late. Lomaque was al- ready in a position to set him at defiance nay, to put his neck, per- haps, under the blade of the guillotine. Worse than this, anony- mous letters reached him, warning him to lose no time in proving his patriotism by some indisputable sacrifice, and in silencing his mother, whose imprudent sincerity was likely ere long to cost her her life. Danville knew her well enough to know that there was but one way of saving her, and thereby saving himself. She had always refused to emigrate; but he now insisted that she should seize the first opportunity he could procure for her of quitting France until calmer times arrived. Probably she would have risked her own life ten times over rath- er than have obeyed him ; but she had not the courage to risk her son's too; and she yielded for his sake. Partly by secret influ- ence, partly by unblushing fraud, Danville procured for her such papers and permits as would enable her to leave France by way of Marseilles. Even then she refused to depart, until she knew what her son's plans were for the future. He showed her a letter which he was about to dispatch to Robespierre himself, vindicating his suspected patriotism, and indignantly demanding to be allowed to prove it by filling some office, no matter how small, under the re- doubtable triumvirate which then governed^ or more properly terri- fied, France. The sight of this document re-assured Madame Dan- ville. She bade her son farewell, and departed at last, with one trusty servant, for Marseilles. Danville's intention, in sending his letter to Paris, had been sim- ply to save himself by patriotic bluster. He was thunderstruck at receiving a reply, taking him at his word, and summoning him to the capital to accept employment there under the then existing Government. There was no choice but to obey. So to Paris he journeyed ; taking his wife with him into the very jaws of danger. He was then at open enmity with Trudaine ; and the more anxious and alarmed he could make the brother feel on the sister's account, the better he was pleased. True to his trust and his love, through all dangers as through all persecutions, Trudaine followed them; and the street of their sojourn at Paris, in the perilous days of the Terror, was the street of his sojourn too. Danville had been astonished at the acceptance of his proffered services ; he was still more amazed when he found that the post se- lected for him was one of the superintendent's places in that very office of Secret Police in which Lomaque was employed as agent. Robespierre and his colleagues had taken the measure of their man he had money enough, and local importance enough to be worth studying. They knew where he was to be distrusted, and how he SISTER ROSS. 89 miirht be made useful. The affairs of the Secret Police were the sort of affairs which an unscrupulously cunning man was fitted to help on; and the faithful exercise of that cunning in the service of the State was insured by the presence of Lomaque in the office. The discarded servant was just the right sort of spy to watch the suspected master. Thus it happened that, in the office of the Se- en t Police at Paris, and under the Reign of Terror, Lomaque's old master was, nominally, his master still the superintendent to whom he was ceremonially accountable, in public the suspected man, whose slightest words and deeds he was officially set to watch, in private. Ever sadder and darker grew the face of Lomaque as he now pondered alone over the changes and misfortunes of the past five years. A neighboring church -clock striking the hour of seven aroused him from his meditations. He arranged the confused mass of papers before him looked toward the door, as if expecting some one to enter then, finding himself still alone, recurred to the one special paper which had first suggested his long train of gloomy thoughts. The few lines it contained were signed in cipher, and ran thus: " You are aware that your superintendent, Danville, obtained leave of absence last week to attend to some affairs of his at Lyons, and that he is not expected back just yet for a day or two. While he is away, push on the affair of Trudaine. Collect all the evidence, and hold yourself in readiness to act on it at a moment's notice. Don't leave the office till you have heard from me again. If you have a copy of the Private Instructions respecting Danville, which you wrote for me, send it to my house. I wish to refresh my mem- ory. Your original letter is burned." Here the note abruptly terminated. As he folded it up and put it in his pocket, Lomaque sighed. This was a very rare expression of feeling with him. He leaned back in his chair, and beat his nails impatiently on the table. Suddenly there was a faint little tap at the room door, and eight or ten men evidently familiars of the new French Inquisition quietly entered, and ranged themselves against the wall. Lomaque nodded to two of them. " Picard and Magloire, go and sit down at that desk. I shall want you after the rest are gone." Saying this, Lomaque handed certain sealed and docketed papers to the other men waiting in the room, who received them in silence, bowed, and went out. Innocent spectators might have thought them clerks taking bills of lading from a merchant. Who could have imagined that the giving and receiving of Denunciation^ Ar- 4 90 AFTER rest-orders, and Death-warrants the providing of its doomed hu- man meal for the all-devouring guillotine could have been man- aged so coolly and quietly, with such unruffled calmness of official routine ? " Now," said Lomaque, turning to the two men at the desk, as the door closed, "have you got those notes about you?" (They an- swered in the affirmative.) " Picard, you have the first particulars of this affair of Trudaine ; so you must begin reading. I have sent in the reports; but we may as well go over the evidence again from the commencement, to make sure that nothing has been left out. If any corrections are to be made, now is the time to make them. Read, Picard, and lose as little time as you possibly can." Thus admonished, Picard drew some long slips of paper from his pocket, and began reading from them as follows : " Minutes of evidence collected concerning Louis Trudaine, sus- pected, on the denunciation of Citizen Superintendent Danville, of hostility to the sacred cause of liberty, and of disaffection to the sovereignty of the people. (1.) The suspected person is placed un- der secret observation, and these facts are elicited : He is twice seen passing at night from his own house to a house in the Rue de Cle'ry. On the first night he carries with him money on the sec- ond, papers. He returns without either. These particulars have been obtained through a citizen engaged to help Trudaine in house- keeping (one of the sort called Servants in the days of the Tyrants). This man is a good patriot, who can be trusted to watch Trudaine's actions. (2.) The inmates of the house in the Rue de C16ry are nu- merous, and in some cases not so well known to the Government as could be wished. It is found difficult to gain certain information about the person or persons visited by Trudaine without having re- course to an arrest. (3.) An arrest is thought premature at this pre- liminary stage of the proceedings, being likely to stop the develop- ment of conspiracy, and give warning to the guilty to fly. Order thereupon given to watch and wait for the present. (4.) Citizen Superintendent Danville quits Paris for a short time. The office of watching Trudaine is then taken out of the hands of the under- signed, and is confided to his comrade, Magloire. Signed, PICARD. Countersigned, LOMAQUE." Having read so far, the police agent placed his papers on the writ- ing-table, waited a moment for orders, and, receiving none, went out. No change came over the sadness and perplexity of Lo- maque's face. He still beat his nails anxiously on the writing-table, and did not even look at the second agent as he ordered the man to read his report. Magloire produced some slips of paper precisely SISTER ROSE. dl similar to Picard's. and read from them in the same rapid, business- like, unmodulated tones : - A Hair of Trudaine. Minutes continued. Citizen Agent Magloire having been appointed to continue the surveillance of Trudaine, re- ports the discovery of additional facts of importance. (1.) Appear- ances make it probable that Trudaine meditates a third secret \ i-it to the house in the Rue de Cle"ry. The proper measures are taken for observing him closely, and the result is the implication of an- other person discovered to be connected with the supposed conspir- acy. This person is the sister of Trudaine, and the wife of Citizen Superintendent Danville." " Poor, lost creature ! ah, poor, lost creature !" muttered Lomaque to himself, sighing again, and shifting uneasily from side to side, in his mangy old leathern arm-chair. Apparently, Magloire was not accustomed to sighs, interruptions, and expressions of regret from the usually imperturbable chief agent. He looked up from his pa- pers with a stare of wonder. " Go on, Magloire !" cried Lomaque, with a sudden outburst of irritability. "Why the devil don't you go on ?" " All ready, citizen," returned Magloire, submissively, and proceeded : " (2.) It is at Trudaine's house that the woman Danville's con- nection with her brother's secret designs is ascertained, through the vigilance of the before-mentioned patriot citizen. The interview of the two suspected persons is private ; their conversation is carried on in whispers. Little can be overheard ; but that little suffices to prove that Trudaine's sister is perfectly aware of his intention to proceed for the third time to the house in the Rue de Clery. It is further discovered that she awnits his return, and that she then goes hack privately to her own house. (3.) Meanwhile the strictest measures are taken for watching the house in the Rue de Clery. It is discovered that Trudaine's visits are paid to a man and woman known to the landlord and lodgers by the name of Dubois. They live on the fourth floor. It is impossible, at the time of the discov- ery, to enter this room, or to see the citizen and citoyenne Dubois, without producing an undesirable disturbance in the house and neighborhood. A police agent is left to watch the place, while search and arrest orders are applied for. The granting of these is accidentally delayed. When they are ultimately obtained, it is dis- covered that the man and the woman are both missing. They have not hitherto been traced. (4.) The landlord of the house is imme- diately arrested, as well as the police agent appointed to watch the premises. The landlord protests that he knows nothing of his ten 92 AFTER DARK. ants. It is suspected, however, that he has been tampered with, as also that Trudaine's papers, delivered to the citizen and citoyenne Dubois, are forged passports. With these and with money, it may not be impossible that they have already succeeded in escaping from France. The proper measures have been taken for stopping them, if they have not yet passed the frontiers. No further report in relation to them has yet been received, (5.) Trudaine and his sister are under perpetual surveillance, and the undersigned holds himself ready for further orders. Signed, MAGLOIRE. Counter- signed, LOMAQUE." Having finished reading his notes, Magloire placed them on the writing-table. He was evidently a favored man in the office, and he presumed upon his position ; for he ventured to make a remark, instead of leaving the room in silence, like his predecessor Picard. " When Citizen Danville returns to Paris," he began, " he will be rather astonished to find that in denouncing his wife's brother he has also unconsciously denounced his wife." Lomaque looked up quickly, with that old weakness in his eyes which affected them in such a strangely irregular manner on certain occasions. Magloire knew what this symptom meant, and would have become, confused if he had not been a police agent. As it was, he quietly backed a step or two from the table, and held his tongue. " Friend Magloire," said Lomaque, winking mildly, " your last re- mark looks to me like a question in disguise. I put questions con- stantly to others; I never answer questions myself. You want to know, citizen, w T hat our superintendent's secret motive is for de- nouncing his wife's brother ? Suppose you try and find that out for yourself. It will be famous practice for you, friend Magloire famous practice after office hours." " Any further orders ?" inquired Magloire, sulkily. " None in relation to the reports," returned Lomaque. " I find nothing to alter or add on a revised hearing. But I shall have a little note ready for you immediately. Sit down at the other desk, friend Magloire ; I am very fond of you when you are not inquis- itive ; pray sit down." While addressing this polite invitation to the agent in his softest voice, Lomaque produced his pocket-book, and drew from it a little note, which he opened and read through attentively. It was head- ed, " Private Instructions relative to Superintendent Danville," and proceeded thus : " The undersigned can confidently assert, from long domestic ex- perience in Danville's household, that his motive for denouncing his wife's brother is purely a personal one, and is not in the most re- SISTER ROSE. 93 mote degree connected with politics. Briefly, the facts are these: Louis TrucluiiH', from the first, opposed his sister's marriage with Danville, distrusting the hitter's temper and disposition. The mar- riage, however, took place, and the brother resigned himself to await n-sults taking the precaution of living in the same neigh- borhood as his sister, to interpose, if need be, between the crimes which the husband might commit and the sufferings which the wife might endure. The results soon exceeded his worst anticipations, and called for the interposition for which he had prepared himself. He is a man of inflexible firmness, patience, and integrity, and he makes the protection and consolation of his sister the business of his life. He gives his brother-in-law no pretext for openly quarrel- ing with him. He is neither to be deceived, irritated, nor tired out, and he is Danville's superior every way in conduct, temper, and capacity. Under these circumstances, it is unnecessary to say that his brother-in-law's enmity toward him is of the most implacable kind, and equally unnecessary to hint at the perfectly plain motive of the denunciation. " As to the suspicious circumstances affecting not Trudaine only, but his sister as well, the undersigned regrets his inability, thus far, to offer either explanation or suggestion. At this preliminary stage, the affair seems involved in impenetrable mystery." Lomaque read these lines through, down to his own signature at the end. They were the duplicate Secret Instructions demanded from him in the paper which he had been looking over before the entrance of the two police agents. Slowly and, as it seemed, unwill- ingly, he folded the note up in a fresh sheet of paper, and was pre- paring to seal it when a tap at the door stopped him. " Come in," he cried, irritably ; and a man in traveling costume, covered with dust, entered, quietly whispered a word or two in his ear, and then went out. Lomaque started at the whisper, and, opening his note again, hastily wrote under his signature : " I have just heard that Danville has hastened his return to Paris, and may be expected back to-night." Having traced these lines, he closed, sealed, and directed the letter, and gave it to Magloire. The police agent look- ed at the address as he left the room; it was "To Citizen Robes- pierre, Rue Saint-Honor^." Left alone again, Lomaque rose, and walked restlessly backward and forward, luting his nails. "Danville comes back to-night," he said to himself, "and the cri- sis comes with him. Trudaine a conspirator! Bah ! conspiracy can hardly he the answer to the riddle this time. What is?" He took a turn or two in silence then stopped at the open win- dow, looking out on what little glimpse the street afforded him of the sunset sky. 94 AFTEK DARK. " This time five years," he said, " Tmdaine was talking to me on that bench overlooking the river; and Sister Rose was keeping poor hatchet-faced old Lomaque's cup of coffee hot for him ! Now I am officially bound to suspect them both ; perhaps to arrest them ; perhaps I wish this job had fallen into other hands. I don't want it I don't want it at any price !" He returned to the writing-table and sat down to his papers, with the dogged air of a man determined to drive away vexing thoughts by dint of sheer hard work. For more than an hour he labored on resolutely, munching a bit of dry bread from time to time. Then he paused a little, and began to think again. Gradually the summer twilight faded, and the room grew dark. " Perhaps we shall tide over to-night, after all who knows ?" said Lomaque, ringing his hand-bell for lights. They were brought in, and" with them ominously returned the police agent Magloire with a small sealed packet. It contained an arrest order and a tiny three-cornered note, looking more like a love-letter, or a lady's invi- tation to a party, than any thing else. Lomaque opened the note eagerly and read these lines, neatly written, and signed with Robes- pierre's initials M. R. formed elegantly in cipher : "Arrest Trudaine and his sister to-night. On second thoughts, I am not sure, if Danville comes back in time to be present, that it may not be all the better. He is unprepared for his wife's arrest. Watch him closely when it takes place, and report privately to me. I am afraid he is a vicious man ; and of all things I abhor Vice." " Any more work for me to-night ?" asked Magloire, with a yawn. " Only an arrest," replied Lomaque. " Collect our men ; and when you're ready get a coach at the door." " We were just going to supper," grumbled Magloire to himself, as he went out. " The devil seize the Aristocrats ! They're all in such a hurry to get to the guillotine, that they won't even give a man time to eat his victuals in peace !" " There's no choice now," muttered Lomaque, angrily thrusting the arrest order and the three-cornered note into his pocket. " His father was the saving of me; he himself welcomed me like an equal; his sister treated me like a gentleman, as the phrase went in those days ; and now " He stopped and wiped his forehead then unlocked his desk, pro- duced a bottle of brandy, and poured himself out a glass of the liq- uor, which he drank by sips, slowly. "I wonder whether other men get softer - hearted as they grow older ?" he said. " I seem to do so, at any rate. Courage ! cour- age! what must be, must. If I risked my head to do it, I couldn't stop this arrest. Not a man in the office but would be ready to ex- ecute it, if I wasn't," SISTER ROSE. 95 Here the rumble of carriage-wheels sounded outside. ' There's the coach !" exclaimed Lomaque, locking up the brandy- bottle, and taking his hat. "After all, as this arrest is to be made, it's as well for them that I should make it." Consoling himself as he best could with this reflection, Chief Po- lice Agent Lomaque blew out the candles, and quitted the room. CHAPTER IL IGNORANT of the change in her husband's plans, which was to bring him back to Paris a day before the time that had been fixed fur liis return, Sister Rose had left her solitary home to spend the evening with her brother. They had sat talking together long after sunset, and had let the darkness steal on them insensibly, as people will who are only occupied with quiet, familiar conversation. Thus it happened, by a curious coincidence, that just as Lomaque was blowing out his candles at the office Rose was lighting the reading- lamp at her brother's lodgings. Five years of disappointment and sorrow had sadly changed her to outward view. Her face looked thinner and longer; the once delicate red and white of her complexion was gone; her figure had wasted under the influence of some weakness, which had already made her stoop a little when she walked. Her manner had lost its maiden shyness, only to become unnaturally quiet and subdued. Of all the charms which had so fatally, yet so innocently, allured her heartless husband, but one remained the winning gentleness of her voice. It might be touched now and then with a note of sadness, but the soft attraction of its even, natural tone still remained. In the marring of all other harmonies, this one harmony had been preserved unchanged. Her brother, though his face was care-worn, and his manner sadder than of old, looked less altered from his for- mer self. It is the most fragile material which soonest shows the flaw. The world's idol, Beauty, holds its frailest tenure of existence in the one Temple where we most love to worship it. "And so you think, Louis, that our perilous undertaking has re- ally ended well by this time ?" said Rose, anxiously, as she lit the lamp and placed the glass shade over it. " What a relief it is only to hear you say you think we have succeeded at last !" " I said I hope, Rose," replied her brother. " Well, even hoped is a great word from you, Louis a great word from any one in this fearful city, and in these days of Terror." She stopped suddenly, seeing her brother raise his hand in warn- ing. They looked at each other in silence and listened. The sound 96 AFTER DARK. of footsteps going slowly past the house ceasing for a moment just beyond it then going on again came through the open window. There was nothing else, out-of-doors or in, to disturb the silence of the night the deadly silence of Terror which, for months past, had hung over Paris. It was a significant sign of the times, that even a passing footstep, sounding a little strangely at night, was subject for suspicion, both to brother and sister so common a subject, that they suspended their conversation as a matter of course, without ex- changing a word of explanation, until the tramp of the strange foot- steps had died away. " Louis," continued Rose, dropping her voice to a whisper, after nothing more was audible, " when may I trust our secret to my hus- band ?" " Not yet !" rejoined Trudaine, earnestly. " Not a word, not a hint of it, till I give you leave. Remember, Rose, you promised silence from the first. Every thing depends on your holding that promise sacred till I release you from it." " I will hold it sacred ; I will indeed, at all hazards, under all provocations," she answered. " That is quite enough to re-assure me and now, love, let us change the subject. Even these walls may have ears, and the closed door yonder may be no protection." He looked toward it uneasily while he spoke. " By-the-bye, I have come round to your way of thinking, Rose, about that new servant of mine there is something false in his face. I wish I had been as quick to detect it as you were." ^ Rose glanced at him affrightedly. " Has he done any thing sus- picious ? Have you caught him watching you ? Tell me the worst, Louis." " Hush ! hush ! my dear, not so loud. Don't alarm yourself; he has done nothing suspicious." " Turn him off pray, pray turn him off, before it is too late !" "And be denounced by him, in revenge, the first night he goes to his Section. You forget that servants and masters are equal now. I am not supposed to keep a servant at all. I have a citizen living with me who lays me under domestic obligations, for which I make a pecuniary acknowledgment. No ! no ! if I do any thing, I must try if I can't entrap him into giving me warning. But we have got to another unpleasant subject already suppose I change the topic again ? You will find a little book on that table there, in the cor- ner tell me what you think of it." The book was a copy of Corneille's Cid, prettily bound in blue morocco. Rose was enthusiastic in her praises. " I found it in a book-seller's shop, yesterday," said her brother, " and bought it as a present for you. Corneille is not an author to compromise any one, SISTER ROBE. 97 veil in these times. Don't you remember saying the other day that you felt asluiiiu'd of knowing but little of our greatest dramatist?" Hose rciiiriiilx Ted well, and smiled almost as happily as in the old times over her present. "There are some good engravings at the begin:! ing of each act," continued Trudaine, directing her attention rather earnestly to the illustrations, and then suddenly leaving her side when he saw that she became interested in looking at them. He went to the window listened then drew aside the curtain, and looked up and down the street. No living soul was in sight. " I must have been mistaken," he thought, returning hastily to his sister ; " but I certainly fancied I was followed in my walk to-day by a spy." I wonder," asked Rose, still busy over her book, "I wonder, Louis, whether my husband would let me go with you to see Le Cid the next time it is acted." " No !" cried a voice at the door ; " not if you went on your knees to ask him." Rose turned round with a scream. There stood her husband on the threshold, scowling at her, with his hat on, and his hands thrust doggedly into his pockets. Trudaine's servant announced him, with an insolent smile, during the pause that followed the discovery. Cit- i/en Superintendent Danville, to visit the citoyenne, his wife," said the fellow, making a mock bow to his master. Rose looked at her brother, then advanced a few paces toward the door. " This is a surprise," she said, faintly ; " has any thing hap- pened ? We we didn't expect you." Her voice failed her, as she saw her husband advancing, pale to his very lips with suppressed anger. "How dare you come here, after what I told you?" he asked, in quick, low tones. She shrank at his voice almost as if he had struck her. The blood flew into her brother's face as he noticed the action ; but he control- led himself, and, taking her hand, led her in silence to a chair. " I forbid you to sit down in his house," said Danville, advancing still ; " I order you to come back with me ! Do you hear? I order you." He was approaching nearer to her, when he caught Trudaine's eye fixed on him, and stopped. Rose started up, and placed herself be- tween them. "Oh, Charles, Charles!" she said to her husband, "be friends with Louis to-night, and be kind again to me. I have a claim to ask that mucli of you, though you may not think it!" He turned away from her, and laughed contemptuously. She tried to speak again, but Trudaine touched her on the arm, and gave her a warning look. 4* 98 AFTER DARK. " Signals !" exclaimed Danville ; " secret signals between you !" His eye, as he glanced suspiciously at his wife, fell on Trudaine's gift-book, which she still held unconsciously. " What book is that ?" he asked. " Only a play of Corneille's," answered Rose ; " Louis has just made me a present of it." At this avowal Danville's suppressed anger burst beyond all con- trol. " Give it him back !" he cried, in a voice of fury. " You shall take no presents from him ; the venom of the household spy soils every thing he touches. Give it him back !" She hesitated. " You won't ?" He tore the book from her with an oath, threw it on the floor, and set his foot on it. " Oh, Louis ! Louis ! for God's sake, remember !" Trudaine was stepping forward as the book fell to the floor. At the same moment his sister threw her arms round him. He stopped, turning from fiery red to ghastly pale. "No, no, Louis!" she said, clasping him closer; "not after five years' patience. "No no !" He gently detached her arms. " You are right, love. Don't be afraid ; it is all over now." Saying that, he put her from him, and in silence took up the book from the floor. " Won't that offend you even ?" said Danville, with an insolent smile. " You have a wonderful temper any other man would have called me out !" Trudaine looked back at him steadily ; and, taking out his hand- kerchief, passed it over the soiled cover of the book. " If I could wipe the stain of your blood off my conscience as easi- ly as I can wipe the stain of your boot off this book," he said quiet- ly, " you should not live another hour. Don't cry, Rose," he con- tinued, turning again to his sister; " I will take care of your book for you until you can keep it yourself." " Yrfu will do this ! you will do that !" cried Danville, growing more and more exasperated, and letting his anger get the better even of his cunning now. "Talk less confidently of the future you don't know what it has in store for you. Govern your tongue when you are in my presence ; a day may come when you will want my help my help ; do you hear that ?" Trudaine turned his face from his sister, as if he feared to let her see it when those words were spoken. " The man who followed me to-day was a spy Danville's spy !" That thought flashed across his mind, but he gave it no utterance. There was an instant's pause of silence ; and through it there came heavily on the still night air the rumbling of distant wheels. The SISTER ROSE. 99 sound advanced nearer and nearer advanced and ceased under the window. Danville hurried to it, and looked out eagerly. " I have not hastened my return without reason. I wouldn't have missed this arrest for any thing !" thought he, peering into the night. The stars were out, but there was no moon. He could not recog- nize either the coach or the persons who got out of it, and he turn- ed again into the interior of the room. His wife had sunk into a chair, her brother was locking up in a cabinet the book which he had promised to take care of for her. The dead silence made the noise of slowly ascending footsteps on the stairs painfully audible. At last the door opened softly. "Citizen Danville, health and fraternity!" said Lomaque, appear- ing in the door-way, followed by his agents. " Citizen Louis Tru- daine ?" he continued, beginning with the usual form. Rose started out of her chair; but her brother's hand was on her lips before she could speak'. " My name is Louis Trudaine," he answered. -Charles!" cried his sister, breaking from him and appealing to her husband, " who are these men ? What are they here for ?" He gave her no answer. " Louis Trudaine," said Lomaque, slowly drawing the order from his pocket, " in the name of the Republic, I arrest you." " Rose, come back," cried Trudaine. It was too late ; she had broken from him, and, in the recklessness of terror, had seized her husband by the arm. " Save him !" she cried. " Save him, by all you hold dearest in the world ! You are that man's superior, Charles order him from the room !" Danville roughly shook her hand off his arm. " Lomaque is doing his duty. Yes," he added, with a glance of malicious triumph at Trudaine, " yes, doing his duty. Look at me as you please your looks won't move me. I denounced you ! I admit it I glory in it! I have rid myself of an enemy, and the State of a bad citizen. Remember your secret visits to the house in the Rue de Clery !" His wife uttered a cry of horror. She seized his arm again with both hands frail, trembling hands that seemed suddenly nerved with all the strength of a man's. " Come here come here ! I must and will speak to you !" She dragged him by main force a few paces back, toward an un- occupied corner of the room. With deathly cheeks and wild eyes she raised herself on tiptoe, and put her lips to her husband's ear. At that instant Trudaine called to her: " Rose, if you speak I am lost !" 100 AFTER DARK. She stopped at the sound of his voice, dropped her hold on her husband's arm, and faced her brother, shuddering. " Rose," he continued, " you have promised, and your promise is sacred. If you prize your honor, if you love me, come here come here, and be silent." He held out his hand. She ran to him ; and, laying her head on his bosom, burst into a passion of tears. Danville turned uneasily toward the police agents. "Remove your prisoner," he said. " You have done your duty here." " Only half of it," retorted Lomaque, eying him attentively. " Rose Danville" " My wife !" exclaimed the other. " What about my wife ?" " Rose Danville," continued Lomaque, impassibly. " you are in- cluded in the arrest of Louis Trudaine." Rose raised her head quickly from her brother's breast. His firmness had deserted him he was trembling. She heard him whispering to himself, " Rose, too ! Oh, my God ! I was not pre- pared for that." She heard these words, and dashed the tears from her eyes, and kissed him, saying, " I am glad of it, Louis. We risked all together we shall now suffer together. I am glad of it !" Danville looked incredulously at Lomaque, after the first shock of astonishment was over. " Impossible !" he exclaimed. " I never denounced my wife. There is some mistake ; you have exceeded your orders." " Silence !" retorted Lomaque, imperiously. " Silence, citizen, and respect to a decree of the Republic !" " You blackguard ! show me the arrest order !" said Danville. " Who has dared to denounce my wife ?" " You have !" said Lomaque, turning on him with a grin of con- tempt. " You and ' blackguard ' back in your teeth ! You, in de- nouncing her brother ! Aha ! we work hard in our office ; we don't waste time in calling names we make discoveries. If Trudaine is guilty, your wife is implicated in his guilt. We know it ; and we arrest her." " I resist the arrest," cried Danville. " I am the authority here. Who opposes me ?" The impassible chief agent made no answer. Some new noise in the street struck his quick ear. He ran to the window and looked out eagerly. " Who opposes me ?" reiterated Danville. " Hark !" exclaimed Lomaque, raising his hand. " Silence, and listen !" The heavy, dull tramp of men marching together became audible as he spoke. Voices humming low and in unison the Marseillaise SISTER ROSE. 101 hymn, joined solemnly with the heavy, regular footfalls. Soon the flare of torch-light began to glimmer redder and redder under the dim, starlight sky. "Do you hear that? Do you see the advancing torch -light ?" cried Lomaque, pointing exultingly into the street. " Respect to the national hymn, and to the man who holds in the hollow of his hand the destinies of all France ! Hat off, Citizen Danville ! Robes- pierre is in the street. His body-guard, the Hard-hitters, are light- ing him on his way to the Jacobin Club ! Who shall oppose you, did you say ? Your master and mine ; the man whose signature is at the bottom of this order the man who with a scratch of his pen can send both our heads rolling together into the sack of the guillotine ! Shall I call to him as he passes the house ? Shall I tell him that Superintendent Danville resists me in making an arrest? Shall I? Shall I?" And in the immensity of his contempt, Lo- maque seemed absolutely to rise in stature, as he thrust the arrest order under Danville's ejes and pointed to the signature with the head of his stick. Rose looked round in terror, as Lomaque spoke his last words looked round, and saw her husband recoil before the signature on the arrest order, as if the guillotine itself had suddenly arisen before him. Her brother felt her shrinking back in his arms, and trembled for the preservation of her self-control if the terror and suspense of the arrest lasted any longer. " Courage, Rose, courage !" he said. " You have behaved nobly ; you must not fail now. No, no ! Not a word more. Not a word till I am able to think clearly again, and to decide what is best. Courage, love ; our lives depend on it. Citizen," he continued, ad- drffssing himself to Lomaque, "proceed with your duty we are ready." The heavy marching footsteps outside were striking louder and louder on the ground ; the chanting voices were every moment swelling in volume ; the dark street was flaming again with the brightening torch-light, as Lomaque, under pretext of giving Tru- daine his hat, came close to him. and. turning his back toward Dan- ville, whispered, " I have not forgotten the eve of the wedding and the bench on the river bank." Before Trudaine could answer, he had taken Rose's cloak and hood from one of his assistants, and was helping her on with it. Danville, still pale and trembling, advanced a step when he saw these preparations for departure, and addressed a word or two to his wife; but he spoke in low tones, and the fast-advancing march of feet and sullen low roar of singing outside drowned his voice. An oath burst from his lips, and he struck his fist, in impotent fury, on a table near him. 102 AFTER DARK. " The seals are set on every thing in this room and in the bed- room," said Magloire, approaching Lomaque, who nodded and sign- ed to him to bring up the other police agents at the door. " Ready," cried Magloire, coming forward immediately with his nlen, and raising his voice to make himself heard. "Where to?" Robespierre and his Hard -hitters were passing the house. The smoke of the torch-light was rolling in at the window ; the tramp- ing footsteps struck heavier and heavier on the ground ; the low sullen roar of the Marseillaise was swelling to its loudest, as Lomaque referred for a moment to his arrest order, and then answered, " To the prison of St. Lazare !" CHAPTER III. THE head jailer of St. Lazare stood in the outer hall of the prison, two days after the arrest at Trudaine's lodgings, smoking his morn- ing pipe. Looking toward the court-yard gate, he saw the wicket opened, and a privileged man let in, whom he soon recognized as the chief agent of the second section of Secret Police. " Why, friend Lomaque," cried the jailer, advancing toward the court-yard, " what brings you here this morning, business or pleasure ?" " Pleasure, this time, citizen. I have an idle hour or two to spare for a walk. I find myself passing the prison, and I can't resist call- ing in to see how my friend the head jailer is getting on." Lomaque spoke in a surprisingly brisk and airy manner. His eyes were suf- fering under a violent fit of weakness and winking; but he smiled, notwithstanding, with an air of the most inveterate cheerfulness. Those old enemies of his, who always distrusted him most when his eyes were most affected, would have certainly disbelieved every word of the friendly speech he had just made, and would have as- sumed it as a matter of fact that his visit to the head jailer had some specially underhand business at the bottom of it. '' How am I getting on ?" said the jailer, shaking his head. " Overworked, friend overworked. No idle hours in our depart- ment. Even the guillotine is getting too slow for us !" " Sent off your batch of prisoners for trial this morning ?" asked Lomaque, with an appearance of perfect unconcern. " No ; they're just going," answered the other. " Come and have a look at them." He spoke as if the prisoners were a collection of pictures on view, or a set of dresses just made up. Lomaque nodded his head, still with his air of happy, holiday carelessness. The jail- er led the way to an inner hall ; and, pointing lazily with his pipe- stem, said, " Our morning batch, citizen, just ready for the baking." BISTER ROSE. 103 In one corner of the hall were huddled together more than thirty men and women of all ranks and ages ; some staring round them with looks of blank despair; some laughing and gossiping reckless- ly. Near them lounged a guard of " Patriots," smoking, spitting, and swearing. Between the patriots and the prisoners sat, on a rickety stool, the second jailer a humpbacked man, with an im- mense red mustache finishing his breakfast of broad beans, which he scooped out of a basin with his knife, and washed down with copious draughts of wine from a bottle. Carelessly as Lomaque looked at the shocking scene before him, his quick eyes contrived to take note of every prisoner's face, and to descry in a few min- utes Trudaine and his sister standing together at the back of the group. " Now then, Apollo !" cried the head jailer, addressing his sub- ordinate by a facetious prison nickname, " don't be all day starting that trumpery batch of yours. And harkye, friend, I have leave of absence, on business, at my Section this afternoon. So it will be your duty to read the list for the guillotine, and chalk the prison- ers 1 doors before the cart comes to-morrow morning. 'Ware the bottle, Apollo, to-day; 'ware the bottle, for fear of accidents with the death-list to-morrow." " Thirsty July weather, this eh, citizen ?" said Lomaque, leaving the head jailer, and patting the hunchback in the friendliest man- ner on the shoulder. " Why, how you have got your batch huddled up together this morning! Shall I help you to shove them into marching order ? My time is quite at your disposal. This is a holi- day morning with me!" '' Ha, ha, ha 5 what a jolly dog he is on his holiday morning !" exclaimed the head jailer, as Lomaque apparently taking leave of his natural character altogether in the exhilaration of an hour's un- expected leisure began pushing and pulling the prisoners into rank, with humorous mock apologies, at which not the officials only, but many of^the victims themselves reckless victims of a reckless tyr- anny laughed heartily. Persevering to the last in his practical jest, Lomaque contrived to get close to Trudaine for a minute, and to give him one significant look before he seized him by the shoulders, like the rest. "Now, then, rear -guard," cried Lomaque, pushing Trudaine on, " close the line of march, and mind you keep step with your young woman there. Pluck up your spirits, citoyenne ! one gets used to every thing in this world, even to the guillotine !" While he was speaking and pushing at the same time, Trudaine felt a piece of paper slip quickly lift ween his neck and his cravat. " Courage '." he whispered, pressing his sister's hand, as he saw her shuddering under the assumed brutality of Lomaque's joke. Surrounded by the guard of " Patriots," the procession of prison- 104 AFTER DARK. ers moved slowly into the outer court-yard, on its way to the revo- lutionary tribunal, the humpbacked jailer bringing up the rear. Lomaque was about to follow at some little distance, but the head jailer hospitably expostulated. " What a hurry you're in !" said he. " Now that incorrigible drinker, my second in command, has gone off with his batch, I don't mind asking you to step in and have a drop of wine." "Thank you," answered Lomaque; "but I have rather a fancy for hearing the trial this morning. Suppose I come back after- ward ? What time do you go to your Section ? At two o'clock, eh ? Good ! I shall try if I can't get here soon after one." With these words he nodded and went out. The brilliant sunlight in the court-yard made him wink faster than ever. Had any of his old enemies been with him, they would have whispered within them- selves, " If you mean to come back at all, Citizen Lomaque, it will not be soon after one !" On his way through the streets, the chief agent met one or two police office friends, who delayed his progress ; so that when he ar- rived at the revolutionary tribunal the trials of the day were just about to begin. The principal article of furniture in the Hall of Justice was a long, clumsy, deal table, covered with green baize. At the head of this table sat the president and his court, with their hats on, backed by a heterogeneous collection of patriots officially connected in va- rious ways with the proceedings that were to take place. Below the front of the table, a railed-off space, with a gallery beyond, was appropriated to the general public mostly represented, as to the gallery, on this occasion, by women, all sitting together on forms, knitting, shirt-mending, and baby-linen-making, as coolly as if they were at home. Parallel with the side of the table farthest from the great door of entrance was a low platform railed off, on which the prisoners, surrounded by their guard, were now assembled to await their trial. The sun shone in brightly from a high window, and a hum of ceaseless talking pervaded the hall cheerfully as Lomaque entered it. He was a privileged man here, as at the prison ; and he made his way in by a private door, so as to pass to the prisoners' platform, and to walk round it, before he got to a place behind the president's chair. Trudaine, standing with his sister on the outer- most limits of the group, nodded significantly as Lomaque looked up at him for an instant. He had contrived, on his way to the tri- bunal, to get an opportunity of reading the paper which the chief agent had slipped into his cravat. It contained these lines : "I have just discovered who the citizen and citoyenne Dubois are. There is no chance for you but to confess every thing. By that means you may inculpate a certain citizen holding authority, SISTER ROSE. 105 and may make it his interest, if he loves his own life, to save yours and your sister's." Arrived at the back of the president's chair, Lomaque recognized his two trusty subordinates, Magloire and Picard, waiting among the assembled patriot officials, to give their evidence. Beyond thorn, leaning against the wall, addressed by no one, and speaking to no one, stood the superintendent, Danville. Doubt and suspense were written in every line of his face; the fretfulness of an uneasy mind expressed itself in his slightest gesture even in his manner of passing a handkerchief from time to time over his face, on which tin- perspiration was gathering thick and fast already. " Silence !" cried the usher of the court for the time being a hoarse-voiced man in top-boots, with a huge sabre buckled to his side, and a bludgeon in his hand. " Silence for the citizen presi- dent !" he reiterated, striking his bludgeon on the table. The president rose and proclaimed that the sitting for the day had begun ; then sat down again. The momentary silence which followed was interrupted by a sud- den confusion among the prisoners on the platform. Two of the guards sprang in among them. There was the thump of a heavy fall a scream of terror from some of the female prisoners then an- other dead silence, broken by one of the guards, who walked across the hall with a bloody knife in his hand, and laid it on the table. " Citizen President," he said, " I have to report that one of the pris- ' oners has just stabbed himself." There was a murmuring exclama- tion, " Is that all ?" among the women spectators, as they resumed their work. Suicide at the bar of justice was no uncommon occur- rence under the Reign of Terror. " Name ?" asked the president, quietly taking up his pen and opening a book. " Martign<5," answered the humpbacked jailer, coming forward to the table. " Description ?" " Ex-royalist coach-maker to the tyrant Capet" "Accusation?" " Conspiracy in prison." The president nodded, and entered in the book: "Martigne", coach-maker. Accused of conspiring in prison. Anticipated course of law by suicide. Action accepted as sufficient confession of guilt. Goods confiscated. 1st Thermidor, year two of the Republic." " Silence !" cried the man with the bludgeon, as the president dropped a little sand on the entry, and signing to the jailer that he might remove the dead body, closed the book. "Any special cases this morning?" resumed the president, look- ing round at the group behind him. 106 AFTER DARK. " There is one," said Lomaque, making his way to the back of the official chair. "Will it be convenient to you, citizen, to take the case of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville first ? Two of my men are detained here as witnesses, and their time is valuable to the Re- public." The president marked a list of names before him, and handed it to the crier or usher, placing the figures one and two against Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville. While Lomaque was backing again to his former place behind the chair, Danville approached and whispered to him, " There is a rumor that secret information has reached you about the citizen and cito- yenne Dubois. Is it true ? Do you know who they are ?" " Yes," answered Lomaque ; " but I have superior orders to keep the information to myself just at present." The eagerness with which Danville put his question, and the dis- appointment he showed on getting no satisfactory answer to it, were of a nature to satisfy the observant chief agent that his superintend- ent was really as ignorant as he appeared to be on the subject of the man and woman Dubois. That one mystery, at any rate, was still, for Danville, a mystery unrevealed. " Louis Trudaine ! Rose Danville !" shouted the crier, with another rap of his bludgeon. The two came forward, at the appeal, to the front railing of the platform. The first sight of her judges, the first shock on confront- ing the pitiless curiosity of the audience, seemed to overwhelm Rose. Bhe turned from deadly pale to crimson, then to pale again, and hid her face on her brother's shoulder. How fast she heard his heart throbbing ! How the tears filled her eyes as she felt that his fear was all for her ! "Now," said the president, writing down their names. "De- nounced by whom ?" Magloire and Picard stepped forward to the table. The first an- swered " By Citizen Superintendent Danville." The reply made a great stir and sensation among both prisoners and audience. " Accused of what ?" pursued the president. " The male prisoner, of conspiracy against the Republic ; the fe- male prisoner, of criminal knowledge of the same." " Produce your proofs in answer to this order." Picard and Magloire opened their minutes of evidence, and read to the president the same particulars which they had formerly read to Lomaque in the secret police office. " Good," said the president, when they had done ; " we need trouble ourselves with nothing more than the identifying of the citizen and citoyenne Dubois, which, of course, you are prepared for. Have you SISTER ROSE. 107 heard the evidence ?" he continued, turning to the prisoners ; while Picard and Magloire consulted together in whispers, looking per- plexedly toward the chief agent, who stood silent behind them. " Have you heard the evidence, prisoners ? Do you wish to say any thing ? If you do, remember that the time of this tribunal is pre- cious, and that you will not be suffered to waste it." " I demand permission to speak for myself and for my sister," an- swered Trudaine. " My object is to save the time of the tribunal by making a confession." The faint whispering, audible among the women spectators a mo- ment before, ceased instantaneously as he pronounced the word con- fession. In the breathless silence, his low, quiet tones penetrated to the remotest corners of the hall ; while, suppressing externally all evidences of the death-agony of hope within him, he continued his address in these words : " I confess my secret visits to the house in the Rue de C16ry. I confess that the persons whom I went to see are the persons pointed at in the evidence. And, lastly, I confess that my object in commu- nicating with them as I did was to supply them with the means of leaving France. If I had acted from political motives to the polit- ical prejudice of the existing government, I admit that I should be guilty of that conspiracy against the Republic with which I am charged. But no political purpose animated, no political necessity urged me, in performing the action which has brought me to the bar of this tribunal. The persons whom I aided in leaving France were without political influence or political connections. I acted solely from private motives of humanity toward them and toward others motives which a good republican may feel, and yet not turn traitor to the welfare of his country." "Are you ready to inform the court, next, who the man and wom- an Dubois really are?" inquired the president, impatiently. " I am ready," answered Trudaine. " But first I desire to say one word in reference to my sister, charged here at the bar*with me." His voice grew less steady, and, for the first time, his color began to change, as Rose lifted her face from his shoulder and looked up at him eagerly. "I implore the tribunal to consider my sister as inno- cent of all active participation in what is charged against me as a crime " He went on. " Having spoken with candor about my- self, I have some claim to be believed when I speak of her ; when I assert that she neither did help me nor could help me. If there be blame, it is mine only ; if punishment, it is I alone who should suf- fer." He stopped suddenly, and grew confused. It was easy to guard himself from the peril of looking at Rose, but he could not escape the hard trial to his self-possession of hearing her, if she spoke: 108 AFTER DARK. Just as he pronounced the last sentence, she raised her face again from his shoulder, and eagerly whispered to him, " No, no, Louis ! Not that sacrifice, after all the others not that, though you should force me into speaking to them myself!" She abruptly quitted her hold of him, and fronted the whole court in an instant. The railing in front of her shook with the quivering of her arms and hands as she held by it to support her- self! Her hair lay tangled on her shoulders; her face had assumed a strange fixedness ; her gentle blue eyes, so soft and tender at all other times, were lit up wildly. A low hum of murmured curiosity and admiration broke from the women of the audience. Some rose eagerly from the benches ; others cried, " Listen, listen ! she is going to speak !" She did speak. Silvery and pure the sweet voice, sweeter than ever in sadness, stole its way through the gross sounds through the coarse humming and the hissing whispers. " My lord the president," began the poor girl, firmly. Her next words were drowned in a volley of hisses from the women. "Ah ! aristocrat, aristocrat! None of your accursed titles here !" was their shrill cry at her. She fronted that cry, she fronted the fierce gestures which accompanied it, with the steady light still in her eyes, with the strange rigidity still fastened on her face. She would have spoken again through the uproar and execration, but her brother's voice overpowered her. " Citizen president," he cried, " I have not concluded. I demand leave to complete my confession. I implore the tribunal to attach no importance to what my sister says. The trouble and terror of this day have shaken her intellects. She is not responsible for her words I assert it solemnly, in the face of the whole court !" The blood flew up into his white face as he made the asseveration. Even at that supreme moment the great heart of the man reproached him for yielding himself to a deception, though the motive of it was to saA* his sister's life. " Let her speak ! let her speak !" exclaimed the women, as Rose, without moving, without looking at her brother, without seeming even to have heard what he said, made a second attempt to address her judges, in spite of Trudaine's interposition. " Silence !" snouted the man with the bludgeon. " Silence, you women ! the citizen president is going to speak." " The prisoner Trudaine has the ear of the court," said the presi- dent, " and may continue his confession. If the female prisoner wishes to speak, she may be heard afterward. I enjoin both the ac- cused persons to make short work of it with their addresses to me, or they will make their case worse instead of better. I command silence among the audience, and if I am not obeyed, I will clear the SISTER ROSE. 109 hall. Now, prisoner Trudaine, I invite you to proceed. No more altout your sister; let her speak for herself. Your business and ours is with the man and woman Dubois now. Are you, or are you not, ready to tell the court who they are?" " I repeat that I am ready," answered Trudaine. " The citizen Dubois is a servant. The woman Dubois is the mother of the man who denounces me Superintendent Danville." A low, murmuring, rushing sound of hundreds of exclaiming voices, all speaking, half suppressedly, at the same moment, followed the delivery of the answer. No officer of the court attempted to control the outburst of astonishment. The infection of it spread to the persons on the platform, to the crier himself, to the judges of the tribunal, lounging, but the moment before, so carelessly silent in their chairs. When the noise was at length quelled, it was subdued in the most instantaneous manner by one man, who shouted from the throng behind the president's chair, " Clear the way there ! Superintendent Danville is taken ill !" A vehement whispering and contending of many voices interrupt- ing each other, followed ; then a swaying among the assembly of ntlirial people; then a great stillness; then the sudden appearance of Danville, alone, at the table. The look of him, as he turned his ghastly face toward the au- dience, silenced and steadied them in an instant, just as they were on the point of falling into fresh confusion. Every one stretched forward eagerly to hear what he would say. His lips moved ; but the few words that fell from them were inaudible, except to the persons who happened to be close by him. Having spoken, he left the table supported by a police agent, who was seen to lead him to- ward the private door of the court, and, consequently, also toward the prisoner's platform. He stopped, however, half-way, quickly turned his face from the prisoners, and pointing toward the public door at the opposite side of the hall, caused himself to be led out into the air by that direction. When he had gone, the president, addressing himself partly to Trudaine and partly to the audience, said, " The Citizen Superintendent Danville has been overcome by the heat in the court. He has retired (by my desire, under the care of a police agent) to recover in the open air ; pledging himself to me to come back and throw a new light on the extraordinary and sus- picious statement which the prisoner has just made. Until the re- turn of Citizen Danville. I order the accused, Trudaine, to suspend any further acknowledgment of complicity which he may have to address to me. r ihis matter must be cleared up before other mat- ters are entered on. Meanwhile, in order that the time of the tri- bunal may not be wasted, I authorize the female prisoner to take 110 AFTER DARK. this opportunity of making any statement concerning herself which she may wish to address to the judges." " Silence him !" " Remove him out of court !" " Gag him !" " Guillotine him !" These cries rose from the audience the moment the president had done speaking. They were all directed at Tru- daine, who had made a last desperate effort to persuade his sister to keep silence, and had been detected in the attempt by the spectators. " If the prisoner speaks another word to his sister, remove him," said the president, addressing the guard round the platform. " Good ! we shall hear her at last. Silence ! silence !" exclaimed the women, settling themselves comfortably on their benches, and preparing to resume their work. " Rose Danville, the court is waiting to hear you," said the presi- dent, crossing his legs and leaning back luxuriously in his large arm-chair. Amidst all the noise and confusion of the last few minutes, Rose had stood ever in the same attitude, with that strangely fixed ex- pression never altering on her face but once. When her husband made his way to the side of the table, and stood there prominently alone, her lips trembled a little, and a faint shade of color passed swiftly over her cheeks. Even that slight change had vanished now she was paler, stiller, more widely altered from her former self than ever, as she faced the president and said these words : " I wish to follow my brother's example, and make my confession, as he has made his. I would rather he had spoken for. me; but he is too generous to say any words except such as he thinks may save me from sharing his punishment. I refuse to be saved, unless he is saved with me. Where he goes when he leaves this place, I will go; what he suffers, I will suffer; if he is to die, I believe God will grant me the strength to die resignedly with him !" She paused for a moment, and half turned toward Trudaine then checked herself instantly, and went on: ''This is what I now wish to say, as to my share in the offense charged against my brother. Some time ago, he told me one day that he had seen my husband's mother in Paris, disguised as a poor woman ; that he had spoken to her, and forced her to acknowledge herself. Up to this time we had all felt certain that she had left France, because she held old- fashioned opinions which it is dangerous for people to hold now had left France before we came to Paris. She told my brother that she had indeed gone (with an old tried servant of the family to help and protect her) as far as Marseilles ; and that, finding unforeseen difficulty there in getting farther, she had taken it as a warning from Providence not to desert her son, of whom she was very passionately fond, and from whom she had been most unwilling to depart. In- Btead of waiting in exile for quieter times, she determined to go and BISTER KOBE. Ill hide herself in Paris, knowing her son was going there too. She as- sumed the name of her old and faithful servant, who declined to the last to leave her unprotected ; and she proposed to live in the strict- est secrecy and retirement, watching, unknown, the career of her son, and ready at a moment's notice to disclose herself to him, when the settlement of public affairs might reunite her safely to her be- loved child. My brother thought this plan full of danger, both for herself, for her son, and for the honest old man who was risking his head for his mistress's sake. I thought so too ; and in an evil hour I said to Louis, 4 Will you try in secret to get my husband's mother away, and see that her faithful servant makes her really leave France this time ?' I wrongly asked my brother to do this for a selfish rea- son of my own a reason connected with my married life, which has not been a happy one. I had not succeeded in gaining my hus- band's affection, and was not treated kindly by him. My brother who has always loved me far more dearly, I am afraid, than I have ever deserved my brother increased his kindness to me, seeing me treated unkindly by my husband. This made ill -blood between them. My thought, when I asked my brother to do for me what I have said, was, that if we two in secret saved my husband's mother, without danger to him, from imperiling herself and her son, we should, when the time came for speaking of what we had done, ap- pear to my husband in a new and better light. I should have shown how well I deserved his love, and Louis would have shown how well he deserved his brother-in-law's gratitude; and so we should have made home happy at last, and all three have lived together af- fectionately. This was my thought; and when I told it to my brother, and asked him if there would be much risk, out of his kind- ness and indulgence toward me, he said ' No.' He had so used me to accept sacrifices for my happiness, that I let him endanger him- self to help me in my little household plan. I repent this bitterly now ; I ask his pardon with my whole heart. If he is acquitted, I will try to show myself worthier of his love. If he is found guilty, I, too, will go to the scaffold, and die with my brother, who risked his life for my sake." She ceased as quietly as she had begun, and turned once more to her brother. As she looked away from the court and looked at him, a few tears came into her eyes, and something of the old softness of form and gentleness of expression seemed to return to her face. He let her take his hand, but he seemed purposely to avoid meeting the anx- ious gaze she fixed on him. His head sunk on his breast ; he drew his breath heavily, his countenance darkened and grew distorted, as if he were suffering some sharp pang of physical pain. He bent down a little, and, leaning his elbow on the rail before him, covered 112 AFTER DARK. his face with his hand ; and so quelled the rising agony, so forced back the scalding teal's to his heart. The audience had heard Rose in silence, and they preserved the same tranquillity when she had done. This was a rare tribute to a prisoner from the people of the Reign of Terror. The president looked round at his colleagues, and shook his head suspiciously. "This statement of the female prisoner's complicates the matter very seriously," said he. " Is there any body in court," he added, looking at the persons behind his chair, " who knows where the mother of Superintendent Danville and the servant are now ?" Lomaque came forward at the appeal, and placed himself by the table. " Why, citizen agent !" continued the president, looking hard at him, " are you overcome by the heat too ?" " The fit seemed to take him, citizen president, when the female prisoner had made an end of her statement," exclaimed Magloire, pressing forward officiously. Lomaque gave his subordinate a look which sent the man back directly to the shelter of the official group ; then said, in lower tones than were customary with him, " I have received information relative to the mother of Superin- tendent Danville and the servant, and ana ready to answer any ques- tions that may be put to me." " Where are they now ?" asked the president. " She and the servant are known to have crossed the frontier, and are supposed to be on their way to Cologne. But, since they have entered Germany, their whereabouts is necessarily a matter of un- certainty to the republican authorities." " Have you any information relative to the conduct of the old servant while he was in Paris ?" " I have information enough to prove that he was not an object for political suspicion. He seems to have been simply anjmated by servile zeal for the woman's interests ; to have performed for her all the menial offices of a servant in private ; and to have misled the neighbors by affected equality with her in public." "Have you any reason to believe that Superintendent Danville was privy to his mother's first attempt at escaping from France ?" " I infer it from what the female prisoner has said, and for other reasons which it would be irregular to detail before the tribunal. The proofs can no doubt be obtained, if I am allowed time to com- municate with the authorities at Lyons and Marseilles." At this moment Danville re-entered the court ; and, advancing to the table, placed himself close by the chief agent's side. They look- ed each other steadily in the face for an instant. BISTER RO8K. 113 "He has recovered from the shock of Trudaine's answer," thought Loinaqiu', retiring. "His hand trembles, his face is pale, but I can see regained self-possession in his eye, and I dread the consequences already." " Citizen president," began Danville, "I demand to know if any thing has transpired affecting my honor and patriotism in my ab- sence ?" He spoke apparently with the most perfect calmness, but he look- ed nobody in the face. His eyes were fixed steadily on the green baize of the table beneath him. " The female prisoner has made a statement, referring principally to herself and her brother," answered the president, " but incident- ally mentioning a previous attempt on your mother's part to break existing laws by emigrating from France. This portion of the con- fession contains in it some elements of suspicion which seriously af- fect you " "They shall be suspicions no longer at my own peril I will change them to certainties !" exclaimed Danville, extending his arm theatrically, and looking up for the first time. " Citizen president, I avow it with the fearless frankness of a good patriot; I was privy to my mother's first attempt at escaping from France." Hisses and cries of execration followed this confession. He winced under them at first ; but recovered his self-possession before silence was restored. " Citizens, you have heard the confession of my fault," he re- sumed, turning with desperate assurance toward the audience; " now hear the atonement I have made for it at the altar of my country." He waited at the end of that sentence, until the secretary to the tribunal had done writing it down in the report book of the court " Transcribe faithfully to the letter !" cried Danville, pointing sol- emnly to the open page of the volume. " Life and death hang on my words." The secretary took a fresh dip of ink, and nodded to show that he was ready. Danville went on : "In these times of glory and trial for France," he proceeded, pitching his voice to a tone of deep emotion, "what are all good citizens most sacredly bound to do ? To immolate their dearest private affections and interests before their public duties ! On the first attempt of my mother to violate the laws against emigration, by escaping from France, I failed in making the heroic sacrifice which inexorable patriotism demanded of me. My situation was more terrible than the situation of Brutus sitting in judgment on his own sons. I had not the Roman fortitude to rise equal to it. I erred, citizens erred as Coriolanus did, when his august mother 5 114 AfcTER DARK. pleaded with him for the safety of Rome ! For that error I deserved to be purged out of the republican community ; but I escaped my merited punishment nay, I even rose to the honor of holding an office under the Government. Time passed ; and again my mother attempted an escape from France. Again, inevitable fate brought my civic virtue to the test. How did I meet this second supremest trial ? By an atonement for past weakness, terrible as the trial it- self. Citizens, you will shudder; but you will applaud while you tremble. Citizens, look ! and while you look, remember well the evidence given at the opening of this case. Yonder stands the en- emy of his country, who intrigued to help my mother to escape ; here stands the patriot son, whose voice was the first, the only voice, to denounce him for the crime !" As he spoke, he pointed to Trudaine, then struck himself on the breast, then folded his arms, and looked sternly at the benches occupied by the spectators. " Do you assert," exclaimed the president, " that at the time when you denounced Trudaine, you knew him to be intriguing to aid your mother's escape ?" " I assert it," answered Danville. The pen which the president held dropped from his hand at that reply ; his colleagues started, and looked at each other in blank silence. A murmur of "Monster ! monster!" began with the prisoners on the platform, and spread instantly to the audience, who echoed and echoed it again ; the fiercest woman-republican on the benches join- ed cause at last with the haughtiest woman-aristocrat on the plat- form. Even in that sphere of direst discords, in that age of sharp- est enmities, the one touch of nature preserved its old eternal virtue, and roused the mother-instinct which makes the whole world kin. Of the few persons in the court who at once foresaw the effect of Danville's answer on the proceedings of the tribunal, Lomaque was one. His sallow face whitened as he looked toward the prisoners' platform. " They are lost," he murmured to himself, moving out of the group in which he had hitherto stood. " Lost ! The lie which has saved that villain's head leaves them without the shadow of a hope. No need to stop for the sentence Danville's infamous presence of mind has given them up to the guillotine !" Pronouncing these words, he went out hurriedly by a door near the platform, which led to the prisoners' waiting-room. Rose's head sank again on her brother's shoulder. She shudder- ed, and leaned back faintly on the arm which he extended to sup- port her. One of the female prisoners tried to help Trudaine in speaking consolingly to her ; but the consummation of her hus- band's perfidy seemed to have paralyzed her at heart. She mur- SISTER ROSE. 115 mured once in her brother's ear, " Louis ! I am resigned to die nothing but death is left for me after the degradation of having loved that man." She said those words and closed her eyes weari- ly, and spoke no more. " One other question, and you may retire," resumed the president, addressing Danville. "Were you cognizant of your wife's connec- tion with her brother's conspiracy?" Danville reflected for a moment, remembered that there were wit- nesses in court who could speak to his language and behavior on the evening of his wife's arrest, and resolved this time to tell the truth. " I was not aware of it," he answered. " Testimony in my favor can be called which will prove that when my wife's complicity was discovered I was absent from Paris." Heartlessly self-possessed as he was, the public reception of his last reply had shaken his nerve. He now spoke in low tones, turn- ing his back on the spectators, and fixing his eyes again on the green baize of the table at which he stood. Prisoners, have you any objection to make, any evidence to call, invalidating the statement by which Citizen Danville has cleared himself of suspicion ?" inquired the president. " He has cleared himself by the most execrable of all falsehoods," answered Trudaine. " If his mother could be traced and brought here, her testimony would prove it." "Can you produce any other evidence in support of your allega- tion ?" asked the president. " I can not." "Citizen Superintendent Danville, you are at liberty to retire. Your statement will be laid before the authority to whom you are officially responsible. Either you merit a civic crown for more than Roman virtue, or ' Having got thus far, the president stopped abruptly, as if unwilling to commit himself too soon to an opinion, and merely repeated, " You may retire." Danville left the court immediately, going out again by the pub- lic door. He was followed by murmurs from the women's benches, which soon ceased, however, when the president was observed to close his note-book, and turn round toward his colleagues. "The sentence !" was the general whisper %ow. "Hush, hush the sen- tence !" After a consultation of a few minutes with the persons behind him, the president rose, and spoke the momentous words: Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, the revolutionary tribunal, having heard the charge against you, and having weighed the value of what you have said in answer to it, decides that you are both guilty, and condemns you to the penalty of death." AFTER DARK. Having delivered the sentence in those terms, he sat down again, and placed a mark against the two first condemned names on the list of prisoners. Immediately afterward the next case was called on, and the curiosity of the audience was stimulated by a new trial. CHAPTER IV. THE waiting-room of the revolutionary tribunal was a grim, bare place, with a dirty stone floor, and benches running round the walls. The windows were high and barred ; and at the outer door, leading into the street, two sentinels kept watch. On entering this comfort- less retreat from the court, Lomaque found it perfectly empty. Sol- itude was just then welcome to him. He remained in the waiting- room, walking slowly from end to end over the filthy pavement, talk- ing eagerly and incessantly to himself. After a while, the door communicating with the tribunal opened, and the humpbacked jailer made his appearance, leading in Tru- daine and Rose. " You will have to wait here," said the little man, " till the rest of them have been tried and sentenced ; and then you will all go back to prison in a lump. Ha, citizen," he continued, observing Lomaque at the other end of the hall, and bustling up to him. " Here still, eh ? If you were going to stop much longer, I should ask a favor of you." "I am in no hurry," said Lomaque, with a glance at the two pris- oners. " Good!" cried the humpback, drawing his hand across his mouth; " I am parched with thirst, and dying to moisten my throat at the wine-shop over the way. Just mind that man and woman while I'm gone, will you ? It's the merest form there's a guard outside, the windows are barred, the tribunal is within hail. Do you niiiid obliging me ?" " On the contrary, I am glad of the opportunity." " That's a good fellow and, remember, if I am asked for, you must say I was obliged to quit the court for a few minutes, and left you in charge." # With these words, the humpbacked jailer ran off to the wine- shop. He had scarcely disappeared before Trudaine crossed the room, and caught Lomaque by the arm. " Save her," he whispered ; " there is an opportunity save her !" His face was flushed his eyes wandered his breath on the chief agent's cheek, while he spoke, felt scorching hot. " Save her 1" he SISTER ROSE. 117 repeated, ahakhig Lomaque by the arm, and dragging him toward the door. "Remember all you owe to my father remember our talk on that bench by the river remember what you said to me yourself on tin- night of the arrest don't wait to think save her, and leave me without a word! If I die alone, I can die as a man should; if she goes to the scaffold by my side, my heart will fail me I shall die the death of a coward ! I have lived for her life let me die for it, and I die happy !" He tried to say more, but the violence of his agitation forbade it. He could only shake the arm he held again and again, and point to the bench on which Rose sat her hea'd sunk on her bosom, her hands crossed listlessly on her lap. " There are two armed sentinels outside the windows are barred y>n are without weapons and even if you had them, there is a guard-house within hail on one side of you, and the tribunal on the other. Escape from this room is impossible," answered Lomaque. "Impossible!'' repeated the other, furiously. "You traitor! you coward! can you look at her sitting there helpless, her very life ebbing away already with every minute that passes, and tell me cool- ly that escape is impossible ?" In the frenzy of his grief and despair, he lifted his disengaged hand threateningly while he spoke. Lomaque caught him by the \\ rNt. and drew him toward a window open at the top. You are not in your right senses," said the chief agent, firmly; "anxiety and apprehension on your sister's account have shaken your mind. Try to compose yourself, and listen to me. I have something important to say (Trudaine looked at him incredu- lously.) "Important," continued Lomaque, "as affecting your sis- ter's interests at this terrible crisis." That last appeal had an instantaneous effect. Trudaine's out- stretched hand dropped to his side, and a sudden change passed over his expression. " Give me a moment," he said, faintly ; and turning away, leaned against the wall, and pressed his burning forehead on the chill, damp stone. He did not raise his head again till he had mastered himself, and could say quietly, "Speak; I am fit to hear you, and sufficiently in my senses to ask your forgiveness for what I said just now." - \Vhen I left the tribunal and entered this room,'' Lomaque be- gan in a whisper, "there was no thought in my mind that could be turned i.o good account, either for your sister or for you. I was fit for nothing but to deplore the failure of the confession which I came to St. Lazare to suggest to you as your best plan of defense. Since then, an idea has struck me, which may be useful an idea so ^desperate, so uncertain involving a proposal so absolutely depend- 118 AFTER DARK. ent, as to its successful execution, on the merest chance, that I refuse to confide it to you except on one condition." " Mention the condition ! I submit to it beforehand." " Give me your word of honor that you will not mention what I am about to say to your sister until I grant you permission to speak. Promise me that when you see her shrinking before the terrors of death to-night, you will have self-restraint enough to abstain from breathing a word of hope to her. I ask this, because there are ten twenty fifty chances to one that there is no hope." " I have no choice but to promise," answered Trudaine. Lomaque produced his pocket-book and pencil before he spoke again. " I will enter into particulars as soon as I have asked a strange question of you," he said. " You have been a great experimenter in chemistry in your time is your mind calm enough, at such a try- ing moment as this, to answer a question which is connected with chemistry in a very humble way ? You seem astonished. Let me put the question at once. Is there any liquid, or powder, or combi- nation of more than one ingredient known, which will remove writ- ing from paper, and leave no stain behind ?" " Certainly ! But is that all the question ? Is there no greater difficulty ?" " None. Write the prescription, whatever it may be, on that leaf," said the other, giving him the pocket-book. " Write it down, with plain directions for use." Trudaine obeyed. " This is the first step," continued Lomaque, putting the book in his pocket, " toward the accomplishment of my purpose my uncertain purpose, remember ! Now listen ; I am going to put my own head in dan- ger for the chance of saving yours and your sister's by tampering with the death-list. Don't interrupt me ! If I can save one, I can save the other. Not a word about gratitude ! Wait till you know the extent of your obligation. I tell you plainly, at the outset, there is a motive of despair, as well as a motive of pity, at the bottom of the action in which I am now about to engage. Silence ! I insist on it. Our time is short ; it is for me to speak, and for you to list- en. The president of the tribunal has put the death-mark against your names on the prison list of to-day. That list, when the trials are over, and it is marked to the end, will be called in this room before you are taken to St. Lazare. It will then be sent to Robes- pierre, who will keep it, having a copy made of it the moment it is delivered, for circulation among his colleagues St. Just, and the rest. It is my business to make a duplicate of this copy in the first instance. The duplicate will be compared with the original, and possibly with the copy, too, either by Robespierre himself, or by ( some one in whom he can place implicit trust, and will then be senfl SISTER BO8E. 119 to St. Lazare without passing through my hands again. It will be read in public the moment it is received, at the grating of the pris- on, and will afterward be kept by the jailer, who will refer to it, as he goes round in the evening with a piece of chalk, to mark the celjl doors of the prisoners destined for the guillotine to-morrow. That duty happens, to-day, to fall to the hunchback whom you saw speaking to me. He is a confirmed drinker, and I mean to tempt him with such wine as he rarely tastes. If after the reading of the list in public, and before the marking of the cell doors I can get him to sit down to the bottle, I will answer for making him drunk, for getting the list out of his pocket, and for wiping your names out of it with the prescription you have just written for me. I shall write all the names, one under another, just irregularly enough in my duplicate to prevent the interval left by the erasure from being easily observed. If I succeed in this, your door will not be marked, and your names will not be called to-morrow morning when the tumbrils come for the guillotine. In the present con- fusion of prisoners pouring in every day for trial, and prisoners pouring out every day for execution, you will have the best possible chance of security against awkward inquiries, if you play your cards properly, for a good fortnight or ten days at least. In that time " " Well ! well !" cried Trudaine, eagerly. Lomaque looked toward the tribunal door, and lowered his voice to a fainter whisper before he continued, " In that time Robespierre's own head may fall into the sack ! France is beginning to sicken under the Reign of Terror. Frenchmen of the Moderate faction, who have lain hidden for months in cellars and lofts, are beginning to steal out and deliberate by twos and threes together, under cover of the night. Robespierre has not ventured for weeks past to face the Convention Committee. He only speaks among his own friends at the Jacobins. There are rumors of a terrible discovery made by Carnot, of a desperate resolution taken by Tallien. Men watching l>ehind the scenes sec that the last days of the Terror are at hand. If Robespierre is beaten in the approaching struggle, you are saved for the new reign must be a Reign of Mercy. If he conquers, I have only put off the date of your death and your sister's, and have laid my own neck under the axe. Those are your chances this is all I can do." He paused, and Trudaine again endeavored to speak such words as might show that he was not unworthy of the deadly risk which Lomaque was prepared to encounter. But once more the chief agent peremptorily and irritably interposed: I tell you, for the third time," he said, "I will listen to no ex- pressions of gratitude from you till I know when I deserve them. 120 AFTEK DARK. It is true that I recollect your father's timely kindness to me true that I have not forgotten what passed, five years since, at your house by the river-side. I remember every thing, down to what you would consider the veriest trifle that cup of coffee, for instance, which your sister kept hot for me. I told you then that you would think better of me some day. I know that you do now. But this is not all. You want to glorify me to my face for risking my life for you. I won't hear you, because my risk is of the paltriest kind. I am weary of my life. I can't look back to it with pleasure. I am too old to look forward to what is left of it with hope. There was something in that night at your house before the wedding some- thing in what you said, in what your sister did which altered me. I have had my days of gloom and self-reproach, from time to time, since then. I have sickened at my slavery, and subjection, and duplicity, and cringing, first under one master, then under another. I have longed to look back at my life, and comfort myself with the sight of some good action, just as a frugal man comforts himself with the sight of his little savings laid by in an old drawer. I can't do this, and I want to do it. The want takes me like a fit, at un- certain intervals suddenly, under the most incomprehensible in- fluences. A glance up at the blue sky starlight over the houses of this great city, when I look out at the night from my garret win- dow a child's voice coming suddenly, I don't know where from the piping of my neighbor's linnet in his little cage now one trifling thing, now another wakes up that want in me in a mo- ment. Rascal as I am, those few simple words your sister spoke to the judge went through and through me like a knife. Strange, in a man like me, isn't it ? I am amazed at it myself. My life ? Bah ! I've let it out for hire to be kicked about by rascals from one dirty place to another, like a foot-ball ! It's my whim to give it a last kick myself, and throw it away decently before it lodges on the dunghill forever. Your sister kept a good cup of coffee hot for me, and I give her a bad life in return for the compliment. You want to thank me for it What folly ! Thank me when I have done something useful. Don't thank me for that !" He snapped his fingers contemptuously as he spoke, and walked away to the outer door to receive the jailer, who returned at that moment. " Well," inquired the hunchback, " has any body asked for me ?" "No," answered Lomaque; "not a soul has entered the room. What sort of wine did you get ?" " So-so ! Good at a pinch, friend good at a pinch." "Ah ! you should go to my shop and try a certain cask, filled with a particular vintage." " What shop ? Which vintage ?" M-IT.B ROSE. I '21 " I can't stop to tell you now ; but we shall most likely meet again to -ihiy. I expect to be at the prison this afternoon. Shall I ask for you? Good ! I won't forget !" With those farewell words he went out, and never so niucli as looked back at the prisoners before he closed the door behind him. Trudaine returned to his sister, fearful lest his face should betray what had passed during the extraordinary interview between Lo- maque and himself. But, whatever change there might be in his expression, Rose did not seem to notice it. . She was still strangely inattentive to all outward things. That spirit of resignation, which is tin- courage of women in all great emergencies, seemed now to be the one animating spirit that fed the flame of life within her. When her brother sat down by her, she only took his hand gently and said, " Let us stop together like this, Louis, till the time comes. I am not afraid of it, for I have nothing but you to make me love life, and you, too, are going to die. Do you remember the time when I u-eil to grieve that I had never had a child to be some comfort to me ? I was thinking, a moment ago, how terrible it would have been now, if my wish had been granted. It is a blessing for me, in this great misery, that I am childless. Let us talk of old days, Louis, as long as we can not of my husband, or my marriage only of the old times, before I was a burden and a trouble to you." CHAPTER V. THE day wore on. By ones and twos and threes at a time, the condemned prisoners came from the tribunal, and collected in the waiting-room. At two o'clock all was ready for the calling over of the death-list. It was read and verified by an officer of the court ; and then the jailer took his prisoners back to St. Lazare. Kveniivt: came. The prisoners' meal had been served; the dupli- cate of the death-list had been read in public at the grate ; the cell doors were all locked. From the day of their arrest, Rose and her brother, partly through the influence of a bribe, partly through Lo- maque's intercession, had been confined together in one cell ; and to- gether they now awaited the dread event of the fnorrow. To Rose that event was death death, to the thought of which, at least, she was now resigned. To Trudaine the fast-nearing future was darkening hour by hour, with the uncertainty which is worse than death ; with the faint, fearful, unpartaken suspense, which keeps the mind ever on the rack, and wears away the heart slowly. Through the long unsolaced agony of that dreadful night, but one relief came to him. The tension of every nerve, the crushing weight 5* 122 AFTER DARK. of the one fatal oppression that clung to every thought, relaxed a little, when Rose's bodily powers began to sink under her mental exhaustion when her sad, dying talk of the happy times that were passed ceased softly, and she laid her head on his shoulder, and let the angel of slumber take her yet for a little while, even though she lay already under the shadow of the angel of death. The morning came, and the hot summer sunrise. What life was left in the terror-struck city awoke for the day faintly ; and still the suspense of the long night remained unlightened. It was draw- ing near the hour when the tumbrils were to come for the victims doomed on the day before. Trudaine's ear could detect even the faintest sound in the echoing prison region outside his cell. Soon, listening near the door, he heard voices disputing on the other side of it. Suddenly, the bolts were drawn back, the key turned in the lock, and lie found himself standing face to face with the hunch- back and one of the subordinate attendants on the prisoners. " Look !" muttered this last man, sulkily, " there they are, safe in their cell, just as I said ; but I tell you again they are not down in the list. What do you mean by bullying me about not chalking their door, last night, along with the rest ? Catch me doing your work for you again, when you're too drunk to do it yourself!" " Hold your tongue, and let me have another look at the list !" returned the hunchback, turning away from the cell door, and snatching a slip of paper from the other's hand. " The devil take me if I can make head or tail of it !" he exclaimed, scratching his head, after a careful examination of the list. " I could swear that I read over their names at the grate yesterday afternoon with my own lips ; and yet, look as long as I may, I certainly can't find them writ- ten down here. Give us a pinch, friend. Am I awake, or dreaming ? drunk or sober this morning ?" "Sober, I hope," said a quiet voice at his elbow. "I have just looked in to see how you are after yesterday." " How I am, Citizen Lomaque ? Petrified with astonishment. You yourself took charge of that man and woman for me, in the waiting- room, yesterday morning ; and as for myself, I could swear to having read their names at the grate yesterday afternoon. Yet this morn- ing here are no such things as these said names to be found in the list ! What do you think of that ?" "And what do you think," interrupted the aggrieved subordinate, " of his having the impudence to bully me for being careless in chalking the doors, when he was too drunk to do it himself? too drunk to know his right hand from his left ! If I wasn't the best- natured man in the world, I should report him to the head jailer." " Quite right of you to excuse him, and quite wrong of him to bully you," said Lomaque, persuasively. "Take my advice," he SISTER ROSE. 123 continued, confidentially, to the hunchback, "and don't trust too implicitly to that slippery memory of yours, after our little drink- in <; 1 10 nt yesterday. You could not really have read their names at tin- finite, you know, or of course they would be down on the list. As for the waiting-room at the tribunal, a word in your ear : chief agents of police know strange secrets. The president of the court condemns and pardons in public; but there is somebody tlse, with tin- power often thousand presidents, who now and then condemns and pardons in private. You can guess who. I say no more, ex- cept that I recommend you to keep your head on your shoulders, by troubling it about nothing but the list there in your hand. Stick to that literally, and nobody can blame you. Make a fuss about mysteries that don't concern you, and " Lomaque stopped, and holding his hand edgewise, let it drop sig- niticantly over the hunchback's head. That action and the hints which preceded it seemed to bewilder the little man more than ever. He stared perplexedly at Lomaque ; uttered a word or two of rough apology to his subordinate, and rolling his misshapen head portentously, walked away with the death-list crumpled up nervous- ly in his hand. I >hould like to have a sight of them, and see if they really are the same man and woman whom I looked after yesterday morning in the waiting-room," said Lomaque, putting his hand on the cell door, just as the deputy-jailer was about to close it again. " Look in, by all means," said the man. " No doubt you will find that drunken booby as wrong in what he told you about them as he is about every thing else." Lomaque made use of the privilege granted to him immediately. He saw Trudaine sitting with his sister in the corner of the cell farthest from the door, evidently for the purpose of preventing her from overhearing the conversation outside. There was an unsettled look, however, in her eyes, a slowly-heightening color in her cheeks, which showed her to be at least vaguely aware that something unu sual had been taking place in the corridor. Lomaque beckoned to Trudaine to leave her, and whispered to him, " The prescription has worked well. You are safe for to-day. Hreak the news to your sister as gently as you can. Danville He stopped and listened till he satisfied himself, by the sound of the deputy-jailer's footsteps, that the man was lounging toward the farther end of the corridor. " Danville," he resumed, " after hav- ing mixed with the people outside the grate yesterday, and having heard your names read, was arrested in the evening by secret order from Robespierre, and sent to the Temple. What charge will be laid to him, or when he will be brought to trial, it is impossible to say. I only know that he is arrested. Hush! don't talk now; my 124 AFTER DAEK. friend outside is coming back. Keep quiet hope every thing from the chances and changes of public affairs ; and comfort yourself with the thought that you are both safe for to-day." " And to-morrow ?" whispered Trudaine. " Don't think of to-morrow," returned Lomaque, turning away hurriedly to the door. " Let to-morrow take care of itself." PART THIRD. CHAPTER I. ON a spring morning, in the year seventeen hundred and ninety- eight, the public conveyance then running between Chalons-sur- Marne and Paris set down one of its outside passengers at the first post-station beyond Meaux. The traveler, an old man, after looking about him hesitatingly for a moment or two, betook himself to a little inn opposite the post-house, known by the sign of the Piebald Horse, and kept by the Widow Duval a woman who enjoyed and deserved the reputation of being the fastest talker and the best maker of gibelotte in the whole locality. Although the traveler was carelessly noticed by the village idlers, and received without ceremony by the Widow Duval, he was by no means so ordinary and uninteresting a stranger as the rustics of the place were pleased to consider him. The time had been when this quiet, elderly, unobtrusive applicant for refreshment at the Piebald Horse was trusted with the darkest secrets of the Reign of Terror, and was admitted at all times and seasons to speak face to face with Maximilien Robespierre himself. The Widow Duval and the hang- ers-on in front of the post-house would have been all astonished in- deed, if any well-informed personage from the metropolis had been present to tell them that the modest old traveler with the shabby little carpet-bag was an ex-chief agent of the secret police of Paris ! Between three and four years had elapsed since Lomaque had ex- ercised, for the last time, his official functions under the Reign of Terror. His shoulders had contracted an extra stoop, and his hair had all fallen off, except at the sides and back of his head. In some other respects, however, advancing age seemed to have improved rather than deteriorated him in personal appearance. His com- plexion looked healthier, his expression cheerfuller, his eyes bright- er than they had ever been of late years. He walked, too, with a brisker step than the step of old times in the police office ; and his dress, although it certainly did not look like the costume of a man in affluent circumstances, was cleaner and far more neatly worn than ever it had been in the past days of his political employment at Paris. SISTER KOSE. 125 He sat down alone in the inn parlor, and occupied the time, while his hostess had gone to fetch the half-bottle of wine that he order- ed, in examining a dirty old card which he extricated from a mass of papers in his pocket-book, and which bore, written on it, these lines : "When the troubles are over, do not forget those who remember you with eternal gratitude. Stop at the first post -station beyond Meaux, on the high-road to Paris, and ask at the inn for Citizen Maurice, whenever you wish to see us or to hear of us again." " Pray," inquired Lomaque, putting the card in his pocket when the Widow Duval brought in the wine, " can you inform me wheth- er a person named Maurice lives anywhere in this neighborhood?" " Can I inform you ?" repeated the voluble widow. ' Of course I can! Citizen Maurice, and the citoyenne, his amiable sister who is not to be passed over because you don't mention her, my honest man lives within ten minutes 1 walk of my house. A charming cot- tage, in a charming situation, inhabited by two charming people so quiet, so retiring, such excellent pay. I supply them with every thing fowls, eggs, bread, butter, vegetables (not that they eat much of any thing), wine (which they don't drink half enough of to do them good) ; in short, I victual the dear little hermitage, and love the two amiable recluses with all my heart. Ah ! they have- had their troubles, poor people, the sister especially, though they never talk about them. When they first came to live in our neighbor- hood" " I beg pardon, citoyenne, but if you would only be so kind as to direct me " "Which is three no, four no, three years and a half ago in short, just after the time when that Satan of a man, Robespierre, had his head cut off (and serve him right !), I said to my husband (who was on his last legs then, poor man !), 'She'll die' meaning the lady. She didn't, though. My fowls, eggs, bread, butter, vege- tables, and wine carried her through always in combination with the anxious care of Citizen Maurice. Yes, yes! let us be tenderly conscientious in giving credit where credit is due ; let us never for- get that the citizen Maurice contributed something to the cure of the interesting invalid, as well as the victuals and drink from the Piebald Horse. There she is now, the prettiest little woman in tin- prettiest little cottage "Where ? Will you be so obliging as to tell me where ?" "And in excellent health, except that she is subject now and then to nervous attacks; having evidently, as I believe, been struck with some dreadful fright most likely during that accursed time of the Terror; for they came from Paris you don't drink, honest man! Why don't you drink? Very, very pretty in a pale way; figure 126 AFTER DARK. perhaps too thin let me pour it out for you but an angel of gentle- ness, and attached in such a touching way to the citizen Maurice " Citizen hostess, will you, or will you not, tell me where they live ?" "You droll little man, why did you not ask me that before, if you wanted to know ? Finish your wine, and come to the door. There's your change, and thank you for your custom, though it isn't much. Come to the door, I say, and don't interrupt me! You're an old man can you see forty yards before you ? Yes, you can ! Don't be peevish that never did any body any good yet. Now look back, along the road where I am pointing. You see a large heap of stones ? Good. On the other side of the heap of stones there is a little path ; you can't see that, but you can remember what I tell you ? Good. You go down the path till you get to a stream ; down the stream till you get to a bridge; down the other bank of the stream (after crossing the bridge) till you get to an old water- mill a jewel of a water-mill, famous for miles round ; artists from the four quarters of the globe are always coming to sketch it. Ah ! what, you are getting peevish again ? You won't wait ? Impa- tient old man, what a life your wife must lead, if you have got one ! Remember the bridge. Ah ! your poor wife and children, I pity them; your daughters especially. Pst ! pst ! Remember the bridge peevish old man, remember the bridge !" Walking as fast as he could out of hearing of the Widow Duval's tongue, Lomaque took the path by the heap of stones which led out of the high-road, crossed the stream, and arrived at the old water- mill. Close by it stood a cottage a rough, simple building, with a strip of garden in front. Lomaque's observant eyes marked the graceful arrangement of the flower-beds, and the delicate whiteness of the curtains that hung behind the badly-glazed narrow windows. " This must be the place," he said to himself, as he knocked at the door with his stick. " I can see the traces of her hand before I cross the threshold." The door was opened. " Pray, does the citizen Maurice Lo- maque began, not seeing clearly, for the first moment, in the dark little passage. Before he could say any more his hand was grasped, his carpet- bag was taken from him, and a well-known voice cried, " Welcome ! a thousand thousand times welcome, at last ! Citizen Maurice is not at home; but Louis Trudaine takes his place, and is overjoyed to see once more the best and dearest of his friends !" " I hardly know you again. How you are altered for the better !" exclaimed Lomaque, as they entered the parlor of the cottage. " Remember that you see me after a long freedom from anxiety. Since I have lived here, I have gone to rest at night, and have not SISTER ROSE. 127 been afraid of the morning," replied Trudaine. He went out into the passage while he spoke, and called at the foot of the one flight of stairs which the cottage possessed, " Rose ! Rose ! come down ! The friend whom you most wished to see has arrived at last." She answered the summons immediately. The frank, friendly warmth of her greeting ; her resolute determination, after the first inquiries were over, to help the guest to take off his upper coat with her own hands, so confused and delighted Lomaque, that he hardly knew which way to turn, or what to say. " This is even more trying, in a pleasant way, to a lonely old fel- low like me," he was about to add, " than the unexpected civility of the hot cup of coffee years ago ;' r but remembering what recollections even that trifling circumstance might recall, he checked himself. "More trying than what?" asked Rose, leading him to a chair. "Ah! I forget. I am in my dotage already !" he answered, con- fusedly. "I have not got used just yet_to the pleasure of seeing your kind face again." It was indeed a pleasure to look at that face now, after Lomaque's last experience of it. Three years of repose, though they had not restored to Rose those youthful attractions which she had lost for- ever in the days of the Terror, had not passed without leaving kind- ly outward traces of their healing progress. Though the girlish roundness had not returned to her cheeks, or the girlish delicacy of color to her complexion, her eyes had recovered much of their old softness, and her expression all of its old winning charm. What was left of latent sadness in her fac"e, and of significant quietness in her manner, remained gently and harmlessly remained rather to show what had been once than what was now. When they were all seated, there was, however, something like a momentary return to the suspense and anxiety of past days in their faces, as Trudaine, looking earnestly at Lomaque, asked, " Do you bring any news from Paris ?" " None," he replied ; " but excellent news, instead, from Rouen. I have heard, accidentally, through the employer whom I have been serving since we parted, that your old house by the river-side is to let again." Rose started from her chair. " Oh, Louis, if we could only live there once more ! My flower-garden ?" she continued to Lomaque. " Cultivated throughout," he answered, " by the late proprietor." " And the laboratory ?" added her brother. " Left standing," said Lomaque. " Here is a letter with all the particulars. You may depend upon them, for the writer is the per- son charged with the letting of the house." Trudaine looked over the letter eagerly. " The price is not beyond our means," he said. " After our three 128 AFTEK DARK. years' economy here, we can afford to give something for a great pleasure." " Oh, what a day of happiness it will be when we go home again!" cried Rose. "Pray write to your friend at once," she add- ed, addressing Lomaque, " and say we take the house, before any one else is beforehand with us !" He nodded, and folding up the letter mechanically in the old of- ficial form, made a note on it in the old official manner. Trudaine observed the action, and felt its association with past times of trou- ble and terror. His face grew grave again as he said to Lomaque, " And is this good news really all the news of importance you have to tell us ?" Lomaque hesitated, and fidgeted in his chair. "What other news I have will bear keeping," he replied. " There are many questions I should like to ask first, about your sister and yourself. Do you mind allowing me to refer for a moment to the time when we last met ?" He addressed this inquiry to Rose, who answered in the nega- tive ; but her voice seemed to falter, even in saying the one word " No." She turned her head away when she spoke ; and Lomaque noticed that her hands trembled as she took up some work lying on a table near, and hurriedly occupied herself with it. " We speak as little about that time as possible," said Trudaine, looking significantly toward his sister ; " but we have some ques- tions to ask you in our turn ; so the allusion, for this once, is inev- itable. Your sudden disappearance at the very crisis of that time of danger has not yet been fully explained to us. The one short note which you left behind you helped us to guess at what had hap- pened rather than to understand it." " I can easily explain it now," answered Lomaque. " The sudden overthrow of the Reign of Terror, which was salvation to you, was destruction to me. The new republican reign was a reign of mercy, except for the tail of Robespierre, as the phrase ran then. Every man who had been so wicked or so unfortunate as to be involved, even in the meanest capacity, with the machinery of the government of Terror, was threatened, and justly, with the fate of Robespierre. I, among others, fell under this menace of death. I deserved to die, and should have resigned myself to the guillotine but for you. From the course taken by public events, I knew you would be saved ; and although your safety was the work of circumstances, still I had a hand in rendering it possible at the outset; and a yearning came over me to behold you both free again with my own eyes a selfish yearning to see in you a living, breathing, real result of the one good impulse of mv heart, which I could look back on with satisfaction. This desire gave me a new interest in life. I re- SISTER ROSE. 120 solved to escape death if it were possible. For ten days I lay hid- den in Paris. After that thanks to certain scraps of useful knowl- edge which my experience in the office of secret police had given me I succeeded in getting clear of Paris and in making my way safely to Switzerland. The rest of my story is so short, and so soon told, that I may as well get it over at once. The only relation I knew of in the world to apply to, was a cousin of mine (whom I had nev- er seen before), established as a silk-mercer at Berne. I threw my- self on this man's mercy. He discovered that I was likely, with my business habits, to be of some use to him, and he took me into his house. I worked for what he pleased to give me, traveled about for him in Switzerland, deserved his confidence, and won it. Till within the last few months I remained with him; and only left my employment to enter, by my master's own desire, the house of his brother, established also as a silk - mercer, at Chalons -sur-Marne. In the counting-house of this merchant I am corresponding clerk, and am only able to come and see you now by offering to under- take a special business mission for my employer at Paris. It is drudgery, at my time of life, after all I have gone through but my hard work is innocent work. I am not obliged to cringe for every crown-piece I put in my pocket not bound to denounce, deceive, and dog to death other men, before I can earn my bread, and scrape together money enough to bury me. I am ending a bad, base life harmlessly at last. It is a poor thing to do, but it is something done and even that contents a man at my age. In short, I am happier than I used to be, or at least less ashamed when I look peo- ple like you in the face." " Hush ! hush !" interrupted Rose, laying her hand on his arm. " I can not allow you to talk of yourself in that way, even in jest." "I was speaking in earnest," answered Lomaque, quietly ; "but I won't weary you with any more words about myself. My story is told." " All ?" asked Trudaine. He looked searchingly, almost suspi- ciously at Lomaque, as he put the question. " All ?" he repeated. " Yours is a short story, indeed, my good friend ! Perhaps you have forgotten some of it ?" Again Lomaque fidgeted and hesitated. " Is it not a little hard on an old man to be always asking ques- tions of him, and never answering one of his inquiries in return?" he said to Rose, very gayly as to manner, but rather uneasily as to look. " He will not speak out till we two are alone," thought Trudaine. " It is best to risk nothing, and to humor him." " Come, come," he said aloud, " no grumbling. I admit that it is your turn to hear our story now; and I will do my best to gratify 130 AFTER DARK. you. But before I begin," he added, turning to his sister, " let me suggest, Rose, that if you have any household matters to settle up stairs " " I know what you mean," she interrupted, hurriedly, taking up the work which, during the last few minutes, she had allowed to drop into her lap ; " but I am stronger than you think ; I can face the worst of our recollections composedly. Go on, Louis ; pray go on I am quite fit to stop and hear you." " You know what we suffered in the first days of our suspense, after the success of your stratagem," said Trudaine, turning to Lo- maque. " I think it was on the evening after we had seen you for the last time at St. Lazare that strange, confused rumors of an im- pending convulsion in Paris first penetrated within our prison walls. During the next few days the faces of our jailers were enough to show us that those rumors were true, and that the Reign of Terror was actually threatened with overthrow at the hands of the Mod- erate Party. We had hardly time to hope every thing from this blessed change before the tremendous news of Robespierre's at- tempted suicide, then of his condemnation and execution, reached us. The confusion produced in the prison was beyond all descrip- tion. The accused who had been tried and the accused who had not been tried got mingled together. From the day of Robespierre's arrest, no orders came to the authorities, no death-lists reached the prison. The jailers, terrified by rumors that the lowest accomplices of the tyrant would be held responsible, and be condemned with him, made no attempt to maintain order. Some of them that hunch- backed man among the rest deserted their duties altogether. The disorganization was so complete, that when the commissioners from the new Government came to St. Lazare, some of us were actu- ally half starving from want of the bare necessities of life. To in- quire separately into our cases was found to be impossible. Some- times the necessary papers were lost; sometimes what documents remained were incomprehensible to the new commissioners. They were obliged, at last, to make short work of it by calling us up be- fore them in dozens. Tried or not tried, we had all been arrested by the tyrant, had all been accused of conspiracy against him, and were all ready to hail the new Government as the salvation of France. In nine cases out of ten, our best claim to be discharged was derived from these circumstances. "We were trusted by Tallien and the men of the Ninth Thermidor, because we had been suspect- ed by Robespierre, Couthon, and St. Just. Arrested informally, we were now liberated informally. When it came to my sister's turn and mine, we were not under examination five minutes. No such thing as a searching question was asked of us ; I believe we might even have given our own names with perfect impunity. But I had SISTER ROSE. 131 previously instructed Rose that we were to assume our mother's maiden name Maurice. As the citizen and citoyenne Maurice, ac- cordingly, we passed out of prison under the same name we have lived ever since in hiding here. Our past repose has depended, our future happiness will depend, on our escape from death being kept the profouudest secret among us three. For one all-sufficient rea- son, which you can easily guess at, the brother and sister Maurice must still know nothing of Louis Trudaine and Rose Danville, ex- cept that they were two among the hundreds of victims guillotined during the Reign of Terror." He spoke the last sentence with a faint smile, and with the air of a man trying, in spite of himself, to treat a grave subject lightly. His face clouded again, however, in a moment, when he looked to- ward his sister, as he ceased. Her work had once more dropped on her lap, her face was turned away so that he could not see it ; but he knew by the trembling of her clasped hands, as they rested on her knee, and by the slight swelling of the veins on her neck which she could not hide from him, that her boasted strength of nerve had deserted her. Three years of repose had not yet enabled her to hear her marriage name uttered, or to be present when past times of deathly suffering and terror were referred to, without betraying the shock in her face and manner. Trudaine looked saddened, but in no way surprised by what he saw. Making a sign to Lomaque to say nothing, he rose and took up his sister's hood, which lay on a window-seat near him. " Come, Rose," he said, " the sun is shining, the sweet spring air is inviting us out. Let us have a quiet stroll along the banks of the stream. Why should we keep our good friend here cooped up in this narrow little room, when we have miles and miles of beautiful landscape to show him on the other side of the threshold ? Come, it is high treason to Queen Nature to remain indoors on such a morning as this." Without waiting for her to reply, he put on her hood, drew her arm through his, and led the way out Lomaque's face grew grave as he followed them. " I am glad I only showed the bright side of my budget of news in her presence," thought he. "She is not well at heart yet. I might have hurt her, poor thing ! I might have hurt her again sadly, if I had not held my tongue !" They walked for a little while down the banks of the stream, talking of indifferent matters; then returned to the cottage. By that time Rose had recovered her spirits, and could listen with in- trrrst and amusement to Lomaque's dryly-humorous description of his life as a clerk at Chalons-sur-Marne. They parted for a little while at the cottage door. Rose retired to the up stairs room from 132 AFTER DARK. which she had been summoned by her brother. Trudaine and Lo- maque returned to wander again along the banks of the stream. With one accord, and without a word passing between them, they left the neighborhood of the cottage hurriedly ; then stopped on a sudden, and attentively looked each other in the face looked in si- lence for an instant. Trudaine spoke first. " I thank you for having spared her," he began, abruptly. " She is not strong enough yet to bear hearing of a new misfortune, unless I break the tidings to her first." " You suspect me, then, of bringing bad news ?" said Lomaque. " I know you do. When I saw your first look at her, after we were all seated in the cottage parlor, I knew it. Speak without fear, without caution, without one useless word of preface. After three years of repose, if it pleases God to afflict us again, I can bear the trial calmly ; and, if need be, can strengthen her to bear it calm- ly too. I say again, Lomaque, speak at once, and speak out! I know your news is bad, for I know beforehand that it is news of Danville." " You are right ; my bad news is news of him." " He has discovered the secret of our escape from the guillotine ?" " No he has not a suspicion of it. He believes as his mother, as every one does that you were both executed the day after the Revolutionary Tribunal sentenced you to death." " Lomaque, you speak positively of that belief of his but you can not be certain of it." " I can, on the most indisputable, the most startling evidence on the authority of Danville's own act. You have asked me to speak out" " I ask you again I insist on it ! Your news, Lomaque your news, without another word of preface !" " You shall have it without another word of preface. Danville is on the point of being married." As the answer was given they both stopped by the bank of the stream, and again looked each other in the face. There was a min- ute of dead silence between them. During that minute, the water bubbling by happily over its bed of pebbles seemed strangely loud, the singing of birds in a little wood by the stream-side strangely near and shrill, in both their ears. The light breeze, for all its mid- day warmth, touched their cheeks coldly ; and the spring sunlight pouring on their faces felt as if it were glimmering on them through winter clouds. " Let us walk on," said Trudaiue, in a low voice. " I was pre- pared for bad news, yet not for that. Are you certain of what you have just told me ?" " As certain as that the stream here is flowing by our side. Hear BISTER ROSE. 133 h<>\\ I made the discovery, and you will doubt no longer. Before l.i-t uci k I knew nothing of Danville, except that his arrest on sus- picion ly Robespierre's order was, as events turned out, the saving of his life. He was imprisoned, as I told you, on the evening after he h:ul heard your names read from the death -list at the prison unite. He remained in confinement at the Temple, unnoticed in the political confusion out-of-doors, just as you remained unnoticed at St. Lazare, and he profited precisely in the same manner that you profited by the timely insurrection which overthrew the Reign of Terror. I knew this, and I knew that he walked out of prison in the character of a persecuted victim of Robespierre's and, for bet- ter than three years past, I knew no more. Now listen. Last week I hapi>ened to be waiting in the shop of my employer, Citizen Clair- fait, for some papers to take into the counting-house, when an old man enters with a sealed parcel, which he hands to one of the shop- men, saying : " ' Give that to Citizen Clairfait.' " ' Any name ?' says the shop-man. " ' The name is of no consequence,' answers the old man ; ' but if you please you can give mine. Say the parcel came from Citizen Dubois;' and then he goes out. His name, in connection with his elderly look, strikes me directly. Does that old fellow live at Chalons?' I ask. " ' No,' says the shop-man. ' He is here in attendance on a cus- tomer of ours an old ex-aristocrat named Danville. She is on a visit in our town.' "I leave you to imagine how that reply startles and amazes me. The shop-man can answer none of the other questions I put to him ; but the next day I am asked to dinner by my employer (who, for }\\> l>rother's sake, shows me the utmost civility). On entering the room, I find his daughter just putting away a lavender-colored silk scarf, on which she has been embroidering in silver what looks to me very like a crest and coat of arms. " ' I don't mind your seeing what I am about, Citizen Lomaque,' says she ; ' for I know my father can trust you. That scarf is sent back to us by the purchaser, an ex-emigrant lady of the old ariark turned toward the door. The agent softly placed the candle upon a small reading-table between the door and the bedside, softly drew down the bedclothes a little away from the sleeper's back, then took a pair of scissors from the toilet-table, and very gently and slowly began to cut away, first the loose folds, then the inter- vening strips of linen, from the part of Franval's night-gown that was over his shoulders. When the upper part of his back had been bared in this way, the agent took the candle and held it near the flesh. Miss Wehvyn heard him ejaculate some word under his breath, then saw him looking round to where she was standing, and beckoning to her to come in. Mechanically she obeyed ; mechanically she looked down where his finger was pointing. It was the convict Monbrun there, just visible under the bright light of the candle, were the fatal letters "T. F." branded on the villain's shoulder! Though she could neither move nor speak, the horror of this dis- covery did not deprive her of her consciousness. She saw the agent softly draw up the bedclothes again into their proper position, re- place the scissors on the toilet-table, and take from it a bottle of smelling-salts. She felt him removing her from the bedroom, and helping her quickly down stairs, giving her the salts to smell to by the way. When they were alone again, he said, with the first ap- pearance of agitation that he had yet exhibited, "Now, madam, for God's sake, collect all your courage, and be guided by me. You and your sister had better leave the house immediately. Have you any relatives in the neighborhood with whom you could take ref- uge ?" They had none. " What is the name of the nearest town where you could get good accommodation for the night ?" Harley- brook (he wrote the name down on his tablets). " How far off is it?" Twelve miles. "You had better have the carriage out at once, to go there with as little delay as possible, leaving me to pass the night here. I will communicate with you to-morrow at the principal hotel. Can you compose yourself sufficiently to be able to tell the head servant, if I ring for him, that he is to obey my orders till further notice ?" The servant was summoned, and received his instructions, the agent going out with him to see that the carriage was got ready quietly and quickly. Miss Welwyn went up stairs to her sister. How the fearful news was first broken to Rosamond, I can not re- late to you. Miss Welwyn has never confided to me, has never con- fided to any body, what happened at the interview between her sis- 7* 170 AFTER DARK. ter and herself that night. I can tell you nothing of the shock they both suffered, except that the younger and the weaker died under it; that the elder and the stronger has never recovered from it, and never will. They went away the same night, with one attendant, to Harley- brook, as the agent had advised. Before daybreak Rosamond was seized with the pains of premature labor. She died three days af- ter, unconscious of the horror of her situation, wandering in her mind about past times, and singing old tunes that Ida had taught her as she lay in her sister's arms. The child was born alive, and lives still. You saw her at the window as we came in at the back way to the Grange. I surprised you, I dare say, by asking you not to speak of her to Miss Welwyn. Perhaps you noticed something vacant in the little girl's expression. I am sorry to say that her mind is more vacant still. If " idiot " did not sound like a mocking word, however tenderly and pityingly one may wish to utter it, I should tell you that the poor thing had been an idiot from her birth. You will, doubtless, want to hear now what happened at Glen- with Grange after Miss Welwyn and her sister had left it. I have seen the letter which the police agent sent the next morning to Harleybrook ; and, speaking from my recollection of that, I shall be able to relate all you can desire to know. First, as to the past history of the scoundrel Monbrun, I need only tell you that he was identical with an escaped convict, who, for a long term of years, had successfully eluded the vigilance of the authorities all over Europe, and in America as well. In conjunction with two accomplices, he had succeeded in possessing himself of large sums of money by the most criminal means. He also acted secretly as the " banker " of his convict brethren, whose dishonest gains were all confided to his hands for safe-keeping. He would have been certainly captured, on venturing back to France, along with his two associates, but for the daring imposture in which he took refuge ; and which, if the true Baron Franval had really died abroad, as was reported, would, in all probability, never have been found out. Besides his extraordinary likeness to the baron, he had every other requisite for carrying on his deception successfully. Though his parents were not wealthy, he had received a good education. He was so notorious for his gentleman-like manners among the vil- lainous associates of his crimes and excesses, that they nicknamed him " the Prince." All his early life had been passed in the neigh- borhood of the Chateau Franval. He knew what were the circum- stances which had induced the baron to leave it. He had been in the country to which the baron had emigrated. He was able to re- THE LADY OF GLEN WITH GRANGE. 171 fer familiarly to persons and localities, at home and abroad, with which the baron was sure to l>e acquainted. And, lastly, he had an expatriation of fifteen years to plead for him as his all-sufficient ex- cuse, if he made any slight mistakes before the baron's sisters, in his assumed character of their long-absent brother. It will be, of course, hardly necessary for me to tell you, in relation to this part of the subject, that the true Franval was immediately and honorably rein- stated in the family rights of which the impostor had succeeded for a time in depriving him. According to Monbrun's own account, he had married poor Rosa- mond purely for love ; and the probabilities certainly are, that the pretty, innocent English girl had really struck the villain's fancy for tin- tinx- ; and that the easy, quiet life he was leading at the Grange pleased him, by contrast with his perilous and vagabond existence of former days. What might have happened if he had had time enough to grow wearied of his ill-fated wife and his English home, it is now useless to inquire. What really did happen on the morn- ing when lie awoke after the flight of Ida and her sister can be briefly told. As soon as his eyes opened they rested on the police agent, sit- ting quietly by the bedside, with a loaded pistol in his hand. Mon- brun knew immediately that he was discovered; but he never for an instant lost the self-possession for which he was famous. He said he wished to have five minutes allowed him to deliberate qui- etly in bed, whether he should resist the French authorities on En- glish ground, and so gain time by obliging the one Government to apply specially to have him delivered up by the other or whether he should accept the terms officially offered to him by the agent, if he quietly allowed himself to be captured. He chose the latter course it was suspected, because he wished to communicate per- sonally with some of his convict associates in France, whose fraud- ulent gains were in his keeping, and because he felt boastfully con- fident of being able to escape again, whenever he pleased. Be his secret motives, however, what they might, he allowed the agent to conduct him peaceably from the Grange ; first writing a farewell letter to poor Rosamond, full of heartless French sentiment and glib sophistries about Fate and Society. His own fate was not long in overtaking him. He attempted to escape again, as it had been ex- pected he would, and was shot by the sentinel on duty at the time. I remember hearing that the bullet entered his head and killed him on the spot. My story is done. It is ten years now since Rosamond was buried in the church-yard yonder; and it is ten years also since Misa Wel- wyn returned to be the lonely inhabitant of Glenwith Grange. She now lives but in the remembrances that it calls up before her of her 172 AFTER DAKK. happier existence of former days. There is hardly an object in the old house which does not tenderly and solemnly remind her of the mother, whose last wishes she lived to obey ; of the sister, whose happiness was once her dearest earthly care. Those prints that you noticed on the library walls Rosamond used to copy in the past time, when her pencil was often guided by Ida's hand. Those music-books that you were looking over, she and her mother have played from to- gether through many a long and quiet summer's evening. She has no ties now to bind her to the present but the poor child whose af- fliction it is her constant effort to lighten, and the little peasant pop- ulation around her, whose humble cares and wants and sorrows she is always ready to relieve. Far and near her modest charities have penetrated among us ; and far and near she is heartily beloved and blessed in many a laborer's household. There is no poor man's hearth, not in this village only, but for miles away from it as well, at which you would not be received with the welcome given to an old friend, if you only told the cottagers that you knew the Lady of Glenwith Grange ! PBOLOGUE TO THE FIFTH STOEY. 173 PROLOGUE TO THE FIFTH STORY. THE next piece of work which occupied my attention after tak- ing leave of Mr. Garthwaite, offered the strongest possible contrast to the task which had last engaged me. Fresh from painting a bull ;it a farm-house, I set forth to copy a Holy Family, by Correggio, at a convent of nuns. People who go to the Royal Academy Exhibi- tion, and see pictures by famous artists, painted year after year in the same marked style which first made them celebrated, would be amazed indeed if they knew what a Jack-of-all-trades a poor painter must become before he can gain his daily bread. The picture by Correggio which I was now commissioned to copy had been lent to the nuns by a Catholic gentleman of fortune, who prized it as the gem of his collection, and who had never be- fore trusted it out of his own hands. My copy, when completed, was to be placed over the high altar of the convent chapel ; and my work throughout its progress was to be pursued entirely in the par- lor of the nunnery, and always in the watchful presence of one or other of the inmates of the house. It was only on such conditions that the owner of the Correggio was willing to trust his treasure out of his own hands, and to suffer it to be copied by a stranger. The restrictions he imposed, which I thought sufficiently absurd, and perhaps offensively suspicious as well, were communicated to me politely enough before I was allowed to undertake the commis- sion. Unless I was inclined to submit to precautionary regulations which would affect any other artist exactly as they affected me, I was told not to think of offering to make the copy ; and the nuns would then address themselves to some other person in my profes- sion. After a day's consideration, I submitted to the restrictions, by my wife's advice, and saved the nuns the trouble of making ap- plication for a copier of Correggio in any other quarter. I found the convent was charmingly situated in a quiet little valley in the West of England. The parlor in which I was to paint was a large, well - lighted apartment ; and the village inn, about half a mile off, afforded me cheap and excellent quarters for the night. Thus far, therefore, there was nothing to complain of. As for the picture, which was the next object of interest to me, I was surprised to find that the copying of it would be by no means so difficult a task as I had anticipated. I am rather of a revolution- ary spirit in matters of art, and am bold enough to think that the 174 AFTER DARK. old masters have their faults as well as their beauties. I can give my opinion, therefore, on the Correggio at the convent independent- ly at least. Looked at technically, the picture was a fine specimen of coloring and execution ; but looked at for the higher merits of delicacy, elevation, and feeling for the subject, it deserved copying as little as the most commonplace work that any unlucky modern artist ever produced. The faces of the Holy Family not only failed to display the right purity and tenderness of expression, but abso- lutely failed to present any expression at all. It is flat heresy to say so, but the valuable Correggio was nevertheless emphatically, and, in so many words, a very uninteresting picture. So much for the convent and the work that I was to do in it. My next anxiety was to see how the restrictions imposed on me were to be carried out. The first day, the Mother Superior her- self mounted guard in the parlor a stern, silent, fanatical-looking woman, who seemed determined to awe me and make me uncom- fortable, and who succeeded thoroughly in the execution of her purpose. The second day she was relieved by the officiating priest of the convent a mild, melancholy, gentleman-like man, with whom I got on tolerably well. The third day, I had for overlooker the portress of the house a dirty, dismal, deaf, old woman, who did nothing but knit stockings and chew orris-root. The fourth day, a middle-aged nun, whom I heard addressed as Mother Martha, oc- cupied the post of guardian to the precious Correggio ; and with her the number of my overlookers terminated. She, and the portress, and the priest, and the Mother Superior, relieved each other with military regularity, until I had put the last touch to my copy. I found them ready for me every morning on entering the parlor, and I left them in the chair of observation every evening on quitting it. As for any young and beautiful nuns who might have been in the building, I never so much as set eyes on the ends of their veils. From the door to the parlor, and from the parlor to the door, com- prised the whole of my experience of the inside of the convent. The only one of my superintending companions with whom I established any thing like a familiar acquaintance was Mother Mar- tha. She had no outward attractions to recommend her ; but she was simple, good-humored, ready to gossip, and inquisitive to a per- fectly incredible degree. Her whole life had been passed in the nun- nery; she was thoroughly accustomed to her seclusion, thoroughly content with the monotonous round of her occupations ; not at all anxious to see the world for herself; but, on the other hand, insatia- bly curious to know all about it from others. There was no ques- tion connected with myself, my wife, my children, my friends, my profession, my income, my travels, my favorite amusements, and even my favorite sins, which a woman could ask a man, that Mother PROLOGUE TO THE FIFTH STOEY. 175 Martha did not, in the smallest and softest of voices, ask of me. Though an intelligent, well-informed person in all that related to her own special vocation, she was a perfect child in every thing else. I constantly caught myself talking to her, just as I should have talked at home to one of my own little girls. I hope no one will think that, in expressing myself thus, I am writing disparagingly of the poor nun. On two accounts, I shall always feel compassionately" and gratefully toward Mother Martha. She was the only person in the convent who seemed sincerely anx- ious to make her presence in the parlor as agreeable to me as possi- ble ; and she good-humoredly told me the story which it is my ob- ject in these pages to introduce to the reader. In both ways I am deeply indebted to her; and I hope always to remember the obligation. The circumstances under which the story came to be related to me may be told in very few words. The interior of a convent parlor being a complete novelty to me, I looked around with some interest on first entering my painting- room at the nunnery. There was but little in it to excite the cu- riosity of any one. The floor was covered with common matting, and the ceiling with plain whitewash. The furniture was of the simplest kind : a low chair with a praying-desk fixed to the back, and a finely carved oak book-case, studded all over with brass crosses, being the only useful objects that I could discern which had any conventual character about them. As for the ornaments of the room, they were entirely beyond my appreciation. I could, feel no interest in the colored prints of saints, with gold platters at the backs of their heads, that hung on the walls ; and I could see noth- ing particularly impressive in the two plain little alabaster pots for holy water, fastened, one near the door, the other over the chimney- piece. The only object, indeed, in the whole room which in the slightest degree attracted my curiosity was an old worm - eaten wooden cross, made in the rudest manner, hanging by itself on a slip of wall between two windows. It was so strangely rough and misshapen a thing to exhibit prominently in a neat room, that I sus- pected some history must be attached to it, and resolved to speak to my friend the nun about it at the earliest opportunity. " Mother Martha," said I, taking advantage of the first pause in the succession of quaintly innocent questions which she was as usual addressing to me, "I have been looking at that rough old cross hanging between the windows, and fancying that it must surely be some curiosity " Hush ! hush !" exclaimed the nun, " you must not speak of that as a ' curiosity ;' the Mother Superior calls it a Relic." " I beg your pardon," said I ; " I ought to have chosen my ex- pressions more carefully " 176 AFTER DARK. " Not," interposed Mother Martha, nodding to show me that my apology need not be finished " not that it is exactly a relic in the strict Catholic sense of the word ; but there were circumstances in the life of the person who made it " Here she stopped, and look- ed at me doubtfully. " Circumstances, perhaps, which it is not considered advisable to communicate to strangers," I suggested. " Oh no !" answered the nun, " I never heard that they were to be kept a secret. They were not told as a secret to me." " Then you know all about them ?" I asked. " Certainly. I could tell you the whole history of the wooden cross ; but it is all about Catholics, and you are a Protestant." "That, Mother Martha, does not make it at all less interesting to me." "Does it not, indeed?" exclaimed the nun, innocently. " What a strange man you are ! and what a remarkable religion yours must be ! What do your priests say about ours ? Are they learned men, your priests ?" I felt that my chance of hearing Mother Martha's story would be a poor one indeed, if I allowed her to begin a fresh string of ques- tions. Accordingly, I dismissed the inquiries about the clergy of the Established Church with the most irreverent briefness, and re- called her attention forthwith to the subject of the wooden cross. "Yes, yes," said the good-natured nun; "surely you shall hear all I can tell you about it ; but" she hesitated timidly, " but I must ask the Mother Superior's leave first." Saying these words, she summoned the portress, to my great amusement, to keep guard over the inestimable Correggio in her absence, and left the room. In less than five minutes she came back, looking quite happy and important in her innocent way. " The Mother Superior," she said, " has given me leave to tell all I know about the wooden eross. She says it may do you good, and improve your Protestant opinion of us Catholics." I expressed myself as being both willing and anxious to profit by what I heard ; and the nun began her narrative immediately. She related it in her own simple, earnest, minute way ; dwelling as long on small particulars as on important incidents ; and making moral reflections for my benefit at every place where it was possible to introduce them. In spite, however, of these drawbacks in the telling of it, the story interested and impressed me in no ordinary degree; and I now purpose putting the events of it together as skillfully and strikingly as I can, in the hope that this written ver- sion of the narrative may appeal as strongly to the reader's sympa- thies as the spoken version did to mine. GABRIEL'S MAERIAGK. 177 THE NUN'S STORY or GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. CHAPTER I. ONE night, during the period of the first French Revolution, the family of Francois Sarzeau, a fisherman of Brittany, were all waking and watching at a late hour in their cottage on the peninsula of Quiberon. Francois had gone out in his boat that evening, as usual, to fish. Shortly after his departure, the wind had risen, the clouds had gathered ; and the storm, which had been threatening at in- tervals throughout the whole day, burst forth furiously about nine o'clock. It was now eleven ; and the raging of the wind over the barren, heathy peninsula still seemed to increase with each fresh blast that tore its way out upon the open sea ; the crashing of the waves on the beach was awful to hear ; the dreary blackness of the sky terrible to behold. The longer they listened to the storm, the oftener they looked out at it, the fainter grew the hopes which the fisherman's family still strove to cherish for the safety of Fran- 5ois Sarzeau and of his younger son who had gone with him in the boat. There was something impressive in the simplicity of the scene that was now passing within the cottage. On one side of the great, rugged, black fire-place crouched two little girls; the younger half asleep, with her head in her sister's lap. These were the daughters of the fisherman; and opposite to them sat their eldest brother, Gabriel. His right arm had been bad- ly wounded in a recent encounter at the national game of the Soule, a sport resembling our English foot-ball ; but played on both sides in such savage earnest by the people of Brittany as to end always in bloodshed, often in mutilation, sometimes even in loss of life. On the same bench with Gabriel sat his betrothed wife a girl of eight- een clothed in the plain, almost monastic black-and-white costume of her native district. She was the daughter of a small farmer liv- ing at some little distance from the coast. Between the groups formed on either side of the fire-place, the vacant space was < - cupicd by the foot of a truckle-bed. In this bed lay a very old man, 178 AFTER DARK. the father of Francois Sarzeau. His haggard face was covered with deep wrinkles ; his long white hair flowed over the coarse lump of sacking which served him for a pillow, and his light gray eyes wan- dered incessantly, with a strange expression of terror and suspicion, from person to person, and from object to object, in all parts of the room. Whenever the wind and sea whistled and roared at their loudest, he muttered to himself and tossed his hands fretfully on his wretched coverlet. On these occasions his eyes always fixed themselves intently on a little delf image of the Virgin placed in a niche over the fire-place. Every time they saw him look in this di- rection Gabriel and the young girls shuddered and crossed them- selves ; and even the child, who still kept awake, imitated their example. There was one bond of feeling at least between the old man and his grandchildren, which connected his age and their youth unnaturally and closely together. This feeling was reverence for the superstitions which had been handed down to them by their ancestors from centuries and centuries back, as far even as the age of the Druids. The spirit warnings of disaster and death which the old man heard in the wailing of the wind, in the crashing of the waves, in the dreary, monotonous rattling of the casement, the young man and his affianced wife and the little child who cowered by the fireside heard too. All differences in sex, in temperament, in years, superstition was strong enough to strike down to its own dread level, in the fisherman's cottage, on that stormy night. Besides the benches by the fireside and the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room was a coarse wooden table, with a loaf of black bread, a knife, and a pitcher of cider placed on it. Old nets, coils of rope, tattered sails, hung about the walls and over the wood- en partition which separated the room into two compartments. Wisps of straw and ears of barley drooped down through the rotten rafters and gaping boards that made the floor of the granary above. . These different objects, and the persons in the cottage, who com- posed the only surviving members of the fisherman's family, were strangely and wildly lit up by the blaze of the fire and by the still brighter glare of a resin torch stuck into a block of wood in the chimney-corner. The red and yellow light played full on the weird face of the old man as he lay opposite to it, and glanced fitfully on the figures of the young girl, Gabriel, and the two children; the great, gloomy shadows rose and fell, and grew and lessened in bulk about the walls like visions of darkness, animated by a supernatural spectre-life, while the dense obscurity outside spreading before the ctirtainless window seemed as a wall of solid darkness that had closed in forever around the fisherman's house. The night scene within the cottage was almost as wild and as dreary to look upon as the night scene without. <. vi;i;>l T- MARRIAGE. 179 For a long time the different persons in the room sat together without speaking, even without looking at each other. At last the girl ttiriu'd and whispered something into Gabriel's ear. "Perrine, what were you saying to Gabriel ?" asked the child op- posite, seizing the first opportunity of breaking the desolate silence doubly desolate at her age which was preserved by all around her. " I was telling him," answered Perrine, simply, " that it was time to change the bandages on his arm ; and I also said to him, what I have often said before, that he must never play at that terrible game of the Soule again." The old man had been looking intently at Perrine and his grand- child as they spoke. His harsh, hollow voice mingled with the last soft tones of the young girl, repeating over and over again the same terrible words, "Drowned! drowned! Son and grandson, both drowned ! both drowned !" " Hush, grandfather," said Gabriel, " we must not lose all hope for them yet. God and the Blessed Virgin protect them!" He looked at the little delf image, and crossed himself; the others im- itated him, except the old man. He still tossed his hands over the coverlet, and still repeated, "Drowned! drowned!" " Oh, that accursed Soule /" groaned the young man. " But for this wound I should have been with my father. The poor boy's life might at least have been saved ; for we should then have left him here." " Silence !" exclaimed the harsh voice from the bed. " The wail of dying men rises louder than the loud sea ; the devil's psalm-sing- ing roars higher than the roaring wind! Be silent, and listen! Francois drowned ! Pierre drowned ! Hark ! Hark !" A terrific'blast of wind burst over the house as he spoke, shaking it to its centre, overpowering all other sounds, even to the deafen- ing crash of the waves. The slumbering child awoke, and uttered a scream of fear. Perrine, who had been kneeling before her lover binding the fresh bandages on his wounded arm, paused in her oc- cupation, trembling from head to foot. Gabriel looked toward the window ; his experience told him what must be the hurricane fury of that blast of wind out at sea, and he sighed bitterly as he mur- mured to himself, " God help them both man's help will be as nothing to them now !" " Gabriel !" cried the voice from the bed in altered tones very faint and trembling. He did not hear, or did not attend to the old man. He was try- ing to soothe and encourage the young girl at his feet. " Don't be frightened, love," he said, kissing her very gently and tenderly on the forehead. "You are as safe here as anywhere. 180 AFTER DARK. Waa I not right iu saying that it would be madness to attempt taking you back to the farm-house this evening ? You can sleep in that room, Perrine, when you are tired you can sleep with the two girls." " Gabriel ! brother Gabriel !" cried one of the children. " Oh, look at grandfather !" Gabriel ran to the bedside. The old man had raised himself into a sitting position; his eyes were dilated, his whole face was rigid with terror, his hands were stretched out convulsively toward his grandson, ''The White Women!" he screamed. ''The White Women ; the grave-diggers of the drowned are out on the sea !" The children, with cries of terror, flung themselves into Perrine's arms; even Gabriel uttered an exclamation of horror, and started back from the bedside. 'Still the old man reiterated, "The White Women! The White Women! Open the door, Gabriel ! look out westward, where the ebb-tide has left the sand dry. You'll see them bright as lightning in the darkness, mighty as the angels in stature, sweeping like the wind over the sea, in their long white garments, with their white hair trailing far behind them ! Open the door, Gabriel ! You'll see them stop and hover over the place where your father and your brother have been drowned ; you'll see them come on till they reach the sand; you'll see them dig in it with their naked feet, and beck- on awfully to the raging sea to give up its dead. Open the door, Gabriel or, though it should be the death of me, I will get up and open it myself!" Gabriel's face whitened even to his lips, but he made a sign that he would obey. It required the exertion of his whole strength to keep the door open against the wind while he looked out. " Do you see them, grandson Gabriel ? Speak the truth, and tell me if you see them," cried the old man. "I see nothing but darkness pitch darkness," answered Gabriel, letting the door close again. " Ah ! woe ! woe !" groaned his grandfather, sinking back ex- hausted on the pillow. "Darkness to you; but bright as lightning to the eyes that are allowed to see them. Drowned ! drowned ! Pray for their souls, Gabriel I see the White Women even where I lie, and dare not pray for them. Son and grandson drowned! both drowned !" The young man went back to Perrine and the children. " Grandfather is very ill to-night," he whispered. " You had bet- ter all go into the bedroom, and leave me alone to watch by him." They rose as he spoke, crossed themselves before the ima^ of the Virgin, kissed him one by one, and, without uttering a word, softly entered the little room on the other side of the partition. Gabriel GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 181 looked at his grandfather, and saw that he lay quiet now, with his eyes closed as if he were already dropping asleep. The young man then heaped some fresh logs on the fire, and sat down by it to watch till morning. Very dreary was the moaning of the night storm ; but it was not more dreary than the thoughts which now occupied him in his soli- tude thoughts darkened and distorted by the terrible superstitions of his country and his race. Ever since the period of his mother's death he had been oppressed by the conviction that some curse hung over the family. At first they had been prosperous, they had got money, a little legacy had been left them. But this good for- tune had availed only for a time ; disaster on disaster strangely and suddenly succeeded. Losses, misfortunes, poverty, want itself had overwhelmed them ; his father's temper had become so soured, that the oldest friends of Francois Sarzeau declared he was changed be- yond recognition. And now, all this past misfortune the steady, withering, household blight of many years had endd in the last, worst misery of all in death. The fate of his father and his broth- er admitted no longer of a doubt; he knew it, as he listened to the storm, as he reflected on his grandfather's words, as he called to mind his own experience of the perils of the sea. And this double bereavement had fallen on him just as the time was approaching for his marriage with Perrine ; just when misfortune was most ominous of evil, just when it was hardest to bear ! Forebodings, which he dared not realize, began now to mingle with the bitterness of his grief, whenever his thoughts wandered from the present to the fu- ture ; and as he sat by the lonely fireside, murmuring from time to time the Church prayer for the repose of the dead, he almost invol- untarily mingled with it another prayer, expressed only in his own simple words, for the safety of the living for the young girl whose love was his sole earthly treasure ; for the motherless children who must now look for protection to him alone. He had sat by the hearth a long, long time, absorbed in his thoughts, not once looking round toward the bed, when he was startled by hearing the sound of his grandfather's voice once more. " Gabriel," whispered the old man, trembling and shrinking fts he spoke, "Gabriel, do you hear a dripping of water now slow, now quick again on the floor at the foot of my bed ?" " I hear nothing, grandfather, but the crackling of the fire, and the roaring of the storm outside." " Drip, drip, drip ! Faster and faster; plainer and plainer. Take the torch, Gabriel ; look down on the floor look with all your eyes. Is the place wet there ? Is it the rain from heaven that is dropping through the roof?" Gabriel took the torch with trembling fingers, and knelt down 182 AFTER DARK. on the floor to examine it closely. He started back from the place, as he saw that it was quite dry the torch dropped upon the hearth he fell on his knees before the statue of the Virgin and hid his face. " Is the floor wet ? Answer me, I command you is the floor wet ?" asked the old man, quickly and breathlessly. Gabriel rose, went back to the bedside, and whispered to him that no drop of rain had fallen inside the cottage. As he spoke the words, he saw a change pass over his grandfather's face the sharp features seemed to wither up on a sudden; the eager expression to grow vacant and death-like in an instant. The voice, too, altered ; it was harsh and querulous no more ; its tones became strangely soft, slow, and solemn, when the old man spoke again. " I hear it still," he said, " drip ! drip ! faster and plainer than ever. That ghostly dropping of water is the last and the surest of the fatal signs which have told of your father's and your brother's deaths to-night, and I know from the place where I hear it the foot of the bed I lie on that it is a warning to me of my own ap- proaching end. I am called where my son and my grandson have gone before me ; my weary time in this world is over at last. Don't let Perrine and the children come in here, if they should awake they are too young to look at death." . Gabriel's blood curdled when he heard these words when he touched his grandfather's hand, and felt the chill that it struck to his own when he listened to the raging wind, and knew that all help was miles and miles away from the cottage. Still, in spite of the storm, the darkness, and the distance, he thought not for a moment of neglecting the duty that had been taught him from his childhood the duty of summoning the priest to the bedside of the dying. " I must call Perrine," he said, " to watch by you while I am away." " Stop !" cried the old man. " Stop, Gabriel ; I implore, I com- mand you not to leave me !" " The priest, grandfather your confession " " It must be made to you. In this darkness and this hurricane no man can keep the path across the heath. Gabriel, I am dying I should be dead before you got back. Gabriel, for the love of the Blessed Virgin, stop here with me till I die my time is short I have a terrible secret that I must tell to somebody before I draw my last breath ! Your ear to my mouth quick ! quick !" As he spoke the last words, a slight noise was audible on the oth- er side of the partition, the door half opened, and Perrine appeared at it, looking affrightedly into the room. The vigilant eyes of the old man suspicious even in death caught sight of her directly. " Go back !" he exclaimed faintly, before she could utter a word ; GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 183 "go back push her back, Gabriel, and nail down the latch in the door, if she won't shut it of herself!" Di-jir Pt-rrine! go in again," implored Gabriel. "Go in, and keep the children from disturbing us. You will only make him worse you can be of no use here !" She obeyed without speaking, and shut the door again. While the old man clutched him by the arm, and repeated, " Quick ! quick ! your ear close to my mouth," Gabriel heard her say to the children (who wore both awake), " Let us pray for grand- father." And as he knelt down by the bedside, there stole on his ear the sweet, childish tones of his little sisters, and the soft, sub- dued voice of the young girl who was teaching them the prayer, mingling divinely with the solemn wailing of wind and sea, rising in a still and awful purity over the hoarse, gasping whispers of the dying man. I took an oath not to tell it, Gabriel lean down closer! Pra weak, and they mustn't hear a word in that room I took an oath not to tell it; but death is a warrant to all men for breaking such an oath as that. Listen ; don't lose a word I'm saying ! Don't look away into the room : the stain of blood-guilt has defiled it forever ! Hush ! hush ! hush ! Let me .-pi-.-ik. Now your father's dead, I can't carry the horrid secret with me into the grave. Just remem- l)cr, (iabriel try if you can't remember the time before I was bed- ridden, ten years ago and more it was about six weeks, you know, before your mother's death ; you can remember it by that. You and all the children were in that room with your mother; you were asleep, I think ; it was night, not very late only nine o'clock. Your father and I were standing at the door, looking out at the heath in the moonlight. He was so poor at that time, he had been obliged to sell his own boat, and none of the neighbors would take him out fishing with them your father wasn't liked by any of the ncighl)ors. Well; we saw a stranger coming toward us; a very young man, with a knapsack on his back. He looked like a gentle- man, though he was but poorly dressed. He came up, and told us he was dead tired, and didn't think he could reach the town that night, and asked if we would give him shelter till morning. And your father said yes, if he would make no noise, because the wife was ill, and the children were asleep. So he said all he wanted was to go to sleep himself l>efore the fire. We had nothing to give him but black bread. He had better food with him than that, and undid his knapsack to get at it, and and Gabriel ! I'm sinking drink ! something to drink I'm parched with thirst." Silent and deadly pale, Gabriel poured some of the cider from the pitcher on the table into a drinking-cup, and gave it to the old man. Slight as the stimulant was, its effect on him was almost in- 184 AFTER DARK. stantaneous. His dull eyes brightened a little, and he went on in the same whispering tones as before : " He pulled the food out of his knapsack rather in a hurry, so that some of the other small things in it fell on the floor. Among these was a pocket-book, which your father picked up and gave him back; and he put it in his coat -pocket there was a tear in one (>f the sides of the book, and through the hole some bank-notes bulged out. I saw them, and so did your father (don't move away, Gabriel; keep close, there's nothing in me to shrink from). Well, he shared his food, like au honest fellow, with us ; and then put his hand in his pocket, and gave me four or five livres, and then lay down before the fire to go to sleep. As he shut his eyes, your father looked at me in a way I didn't like. He'd been behaving very bit- terly and desperately toward us for some time past, being soured about poverty, and your mother's illness, and the constant crying out of you children for more to eat. So when 'he told me to go and buy some wood, some bread, and some wine with money I had got, I didn't like, somehow, to leave him alone with the stranger ; and so made excuses, saying (which was true) that it was too late to buy things in the village that night. But lie told me in a rage to go and do as he bid me, and knock the people up if the shop was shut. So I went out, being dreadfully afraid of your father as indeed we all were at that time but I couldn't make up my mind to go far from the house ; I was afraid of something happening, though I didn't dare to think what. I don't know how it was, but I stole back in about ten minutes on tiptoe to the cottage ; I looked in at the window, and saw O God ! forgive him ! O God ! forgive me ! I saw I more to drink, Gabriel ! I can't speak again more to drink !" The voices in the next room had ceased ; but in the minute of silence which now ensued, Gabriel heard his sisters kissing Perrine, and wishing her good -night. They were all three trying to go asleep again. "Gabriel, pray yourself, and teach your children after you to pray, that your father may find forgiveness where he is now gone. I saw him as plainly as I now see you. kneeling with his knife in one hand over the sleeping man. He was taking the little book with the notes in it out of the stranger's pocket. He got the book into his possession, and held it quito still in his hand for an instant, thinking. I believe oh no ! no ! I'm sure he was repenting ; I'm sure he was going to put the book back ; but just at that moment the stranger moved, and raised one of his arms, as if he was waking up. Then the temptation of the devil grew too strong for your fa- ther I saw him lift the hand with the knife in it but saw noth- ing more. I couldn't look in at the window I couldn't move GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 185 away I couldn't cry <>ut ; I stood with my back turned toward tin- house, shivering all over, though it was a warm summer-time, and hearing no cries, no noises at aH, from the room behind me. I was loo frightened to know how long it was before the opening of the cottage door made me turn round; but when I did, I saw your fa- ther standing before me in the yellow moonlight, carrying in his arni^ the bleeding body of the poor lad who had shared his food with us and slept on our hearth. Hush ! hush ! Don't groan and sob in that way! Stifle it with the bedclothes. Hush ! you'll wake them in the next room !" "Gabriel Gabriel!" exclaimed a voice from behind the parti- tion. " What has happened ? Gabriel ! let me come out and be \sith you!" " No ! no !" cried the old man, collecting the last remains of his strength in the attempt to speak above the wind, which was just then howling at the loudest; "stay where you are don't speak, don't come out I command you ! Gabriel" (his voice dropped to a faint whisper), " raise me up in bed you must hear the whole of it now ; raise me ; I'm choking so that I can hardly speak. Keep close and listen I can't say much more. Where was I ? Ah, your lather! He threatened to kill me if I didn't swear to keep it secret ; and in terror of my life I swore. He made me help him to carry the body we took it all across the heath oh ! horrible, hor- rible, under the bright moon (lift me higher, Gabriel). You know the great stones yonder, set up by the heathens ; you know the hol- low place, under the stones they call ' The Merchant's Table;' we had plenty of room to lay him in that, and hide him so ; and then we ran back to the cottage. I never dared to go near the place tfterward; no, nor your father either! (Higher, Gabriel ! I'm chok- ing again.) We burned the pocket-book and the knapsack never knew his name we kept the money to spend. (You're not lifting uie ; you're not listening close enough !) Your father said it was a legacy, when you and your mother asked about the money. (You hurt me, you shake me to pieces, Gabriel, when you sob like that.) Tt brought a curse on us, the money; the curse has drowned your father and your brother; the curse is killing me ; but I've confessed tell the priest I confessed before I died. Stop her; stop Perrine! I hear her getting up. Take his bones away from the Merchant's Table, and bury them for the love of God ! and tell the priest (lift me higher, lift me till I am on my knees) if your father was alive, he'd murder me; but tell the priest because of my guilty soul to pray, and remember the Merchant's Table to bury, and to pray to pray always for As long as Perrine heard faintly the whispering of the old man, though no word that he said reached her ear, she shrank from open- i 186 AFTER DARK. ing the door in the partition. But, when the whispering sounds, which terrified her she knew not how or why, first faltered, then ceased altogether ; when she heard the sobs that followed them ; and when her heart told her who was weeping in the next room then, she began to be influenced by a uew feeling which was strong- er than the strongest fear, and she opened the door without hesita- tion, almost without trembling. The coverlet was drawn up over the old man ; Gabriel was kneel- ing by the bedside, with his face hidden. When she spoke to him, he neither answered nor looked at her. After a while the sobs that shook him ceased ; but still he never moved, except once when she touched him, and then he shuddered shuddered under her hand ! She called in his little sisters, and they spoke to him, and still he ut- tered no word in reply. They wept. One by one, often and often, they entreated him with loving words ; but the stupor of grief which held him speechless and motionless was beyond the power of human tears, stronger even than the strength of human love. It was near day - break, and the storm was lulling, but still no change occurred at the bedside. Once or twice, as Perrine knelt near Gabriel, still vainly endeavoring to arouse him to a sense of her presence, she thought she heard the old man breathing feebly, and stretched out her hand toward the coverlet ; but she could not sum- mon courage to touch him or to look at him. This was the first time she had ever been present at a death-bed ; the stillness in the room, the stupor of despair that had seized on Gabriel, so horrified her, that she was almost as helpless as the two children by her side. It was not till the dawn looked in at the cottage window so coldly, so drearily, and yet so re-assuringly that she began to recover her self-possession at all. Then she knew that her best resource would be to summon assistance immediately from the nearest house. While she was trying to persuade the two children to remain alone in the cottage with Gabriel during her temporary absence, she was startled by the sound of footsteps outside the door. It opened, and a man appeared on the threshold, standing still there for a moment in the dim, uncertain light. She looked closer looked intently at him. It was Francois Sar- zeau himself! CHAPTER II. THE fisherman was dripping with wet ; but his face, always pale and inflexible, seemed to be but little altered in expression by the perils through which he must have passed during the night. Young GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 187 Pierre lay almost insensible in his arms. In the astonishment and fright of the first moment, Perrine screamed as she recognized him. "There, there, there!" he said, peevishly, advancing straight to the hearth with his burden; "don't make a noise. You never ex- pected to see us alive again, I dare say. We gave ourselves up as lost, and only escaped after all by a miracle." He laid the boy down where he could get the full warmth of the fire ; and then, turning round, took a wicker-covered bottle from his pocket, and said, u If it hadn't been for the brandy He stopped suddenly started put down the bottle on the bench near him and advanced quickly to the bedside. Perrine looked after him as he went ; and saw Gabriel, who had risen when the door was opened, moving back from the bed as Fran- 9ois approached. The young man's face seemed to have been sud- denly struck to stone its blank, ghastly whiteness was awful to look at. He moved slowly backward and backward till he came to the cottage wall then stood quite still, staring on his father with wild, vacant eyes, moving his hands to and fro before him, mutter- ing. I >ut never pronouncing one audible word. Francois did not appear to notice his son ; he had the coverlet of the bed in his hand. " Any thing the matter here ?" he asked, as he drew it down. Still Gabriel could not speak. Perrine saw it, and answered for him. " Gabriel is afraid that his poor grandfather is dead," she whis- pered, nervously. " Dead !" There was no sorrow in the tone as he echoed the word. " Was he very bad in the night before his death happened ? Did he wander in his mind ? He has been rather light - headed lately." " He was very restless, and spoke of the ghostly warnings that we all know of; he said he saw and heard many things which told him from the other world that you and Pierre Gabriel !" she scream- ed, suddenly interrupting herself, " look at him ! Look at his face! Your grandfather is not dead !" At this moment, Francois was raising his father's head to look closely at him. A faint spasm had indeed passed over the deathly face; the lips quivered, the jaw dropped. Francois shuddered as he looked, and moved away hastily from the bed. At the same in- stant Gabriel started from the wall; his expression altered, his pale cheeks flushed suddenly, as he snatched up the wicker-cased bottle, and poured all the little brandy that was left in it down his grand- father's throat. The effect was nearly instantaneous ; the sinking vital forces ral- lied desperately. The old man's eyes opened again, wandered 188 A1TER DARK. round the room, then fixed themselves intently on Francois as he stood near the fire. Trying and terrible as his position was at that moment, Gabriel still retained self-possession enough to whisper a few words in Perrine's ear. " Go back again into the bedroom, and take the children with you," he said. " We may have something to speak about which you had better not hear." " Son Gabriel, your grandfather is trembling all over," said Fran- cois. " If he is dying at all, he is dying of cold ; help me to lift him, bed and all, to the hearth." " No, no ! don't let him touch me !" gasped the old man. " Don't let him look at me in that way ! Don't let him come near me, Ga- briel ! Is it his ghost ? or is it himself?" As Gabriel answered, he heard a knocking at the door. His fa- ther opened it, and disclosed to view some people from the neigh- boring fishing village, who had come more out of curiosity than sympathy to inquire whether Francois and the boy Pierre had sur- vived the night. Without asking any one to enter, the fisherman surlily and shortly answered the various questions addressed to him, standing in his own door-way. While he was thus engaged, Gabri- el heard his grandfather muttering vacantly to himself, " Last night how about last night, grandson ? What was I talking about last night ? Did I say your father was drowned ? Very foolish to say he was drowned, and then see him come back alive again ! But it wasn't that I'm so weak in my head, I can't remember. What was it, Gabriel? Something too horrible to speak of? Is that what you're whispering and trembling about ? I said nothing horrible. A crime ! Bloodshed ! I know nothing of any crime or bloodshed here I must have been frightened out of my wits to talk in that way ! The Merchant's Table ? Only a big heap of old stones ! What with the storm, and thinking I was going to die, and being afraid about your father, I must have been light-headed. Don't give another thought to that nonsense, Gabriel ! I'm better now. We shall all live to laugh at poor grandfather for talking nonsense about crime and bloodshed in his sleep. Ah, poor old man last night light-headed fancies and nonsense of an old man why don't you laugh at it? I'm laughing so light-headed, so light He stopped suddenly. A low cry, partly of terror and partly of pain, escaped him ; the look of pining anxiety and imbecile cunning which had distorted his face while he had been speaking faded from it forever. He shivered a little, breathed heavily once or twice, then became quite still. Had he died with a falsehood on his lips ? Gabriel looked round and saw that the cottage door was closed, and that his father was standing against it. How long he had oc- cupied that position, how many of the old man's last words he had GABRIEL'S MABRIAGE. 189 heard, it was impossible to conjecture, but there was a lowering sus- picion in his harsh face as he now looked away from the corpse to his son which made Gabriel shudder; and the first question that he asked, on once more approaching the bedside, was expressed in tones which, quiet as they were, had a fearful meaning in them. " What did your grandfather talk about last night ?" he asked. Gabriel did not answer. All that he had heard, all that he had sefcn, all the misery and horror that might yet be to come, had stun- ned his mind. The unspeakable dangers of his present position were too tremendous to be realized. He could only feel them vague- ly in the weary torpor that oppressed his heart ; while in every oth- er direction the use of his faculties, physical and mental, seemed to have suddenly and totally abandoned him. " Is your tongue wounded, son Gabriel, as well as your arm ?" his father went on, with a bitter laugh. " I come back to you, saved by a miracle ; and you never speak to me. Would you rather I had died than the old man there ? He can't hear you now why shouldn't you tell me what nonsense he was talking last night ? You won't ? I say you shall !" (He crossed the room and put his back to the door.) " Before either of us leave this place, you shall confess it ! You know that my duty to the Church bids me to go at once and tell the priest of your grandfather's death. If I leave that duty unfulfilled, remember it is through your fault! You keep me here for here I stop till I'm obeyed. Do you hear that, idiot? Speak ! Speak instantly, or you shall repent it to the day of your death ! I- ask again what did your grandfather say to you when he was wandering in his mind last night ?" " He spoke of a crime committed by another, and guiltily kept set-ret by him," answered Gabriel, slowly and sternly. "And this morning he denied his own words with his last living breath. But last night, if he spoke the truth " " The truth !" echoed Francois. " What truth ?" He stopped, his eyes fell, then turned toward the corpse. For a few minutes he stood steadily contemplating it; breathing quickly, antl drawing his hand several times across his forehead. Then he tared his son once more. In that short interval he had become in outward appearance a changed man : expression, voice, and manner, all were altered. M Heaven forgive me!" he went on, " but I could almost laugh at myself, at this solemn moment, for having spoken and acted just now so much like a fool ! Denied his words, did he ? Poor old man ! they say sense often comes back to light-headed people just ' efore death : and he is a proof of it. The fact is, Gabriel, my own wits must have been a little shaken and no wonder by what I Went through last night, and what I have come home to this morn- 190 AFTEE DARK. ing. As if you, or any body, could ever really give serious credit to the wandering speeches of a dying old man ! (Where is Perrine ? Why did you send her away ?) I don't wonder at your still looking a little startled, and feeling low in your mind, and all that for you've had a trying night of it, trying in every way. He must have been a good deal shaken in his wits last night, between fears about him- self and fears about me. (To think of my being angry with you, Gabriel, for being a little alarmed very naturally by an old man's queer fancies !) Come out, Perrine come out of the bedroom when- ever you are tired of it : you must learn sooner or later to look at death calmly. Shake hands, Gabriel ; and let us make it up, and say no more about what has passed. You won't ? Still angry with me for what I said to you just now ? Ah ! you'll think better about it by the time I return. Come out, Perrine ; we've no secrets here." " Where are you going to ?" asked Gabriel, as he saw his father hastily open the door. " To tell the priest that one of his congregation is dead, and to have the death registered," answered Francois. " These are my du- ties, and must be performed before I take any rest." He went out hurriedly as he said these words. Gabriel almost trembled at himself when he found that he breathed more freely, that he felt less horribly oppressed both in mind and body, the mo- ment his father's back was turned. Fearful as thought was now, it was still a change for the better to be capable of thinking at all. Was the behavior of his father compatible with innocence ? Could the old man's confused denial of his own words in the morning and in the presence of his son, be set for one instant against the circum- stantial confession that he had made during the night alone with his grandson ? These were the terrible questions which Gabriel now asked himself, and which he shrank involuntarily from answer- ing. And yet that doubt, the solution of which would, one way or the other, irrevocably affect the whole future of his life, must sooner or later be solved at any hazard ! Was there any way of setting it at rest ? Yes, one way to go instantly, while his father was absent, and examine the hollow place under the Merchant's Table. If his grandfather's confession had really been made while he was in possession of his senses, this place (which Gabriel knew to be covered in from wind and weather) had never been visited since the commission of the crime by the perpe- trator, or by his unwilling accomplice; though time had destroyed all besides, the hair and the bones of the victim would still be left to bear witness to the truth if truth had indeed been spoken. As this conviction grew on him, the young man's cheek paled ; and he stopped irresolute half-way between the hearth and the door. Then he looked down doubtfully at the corpse on the bed, and then there GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 191 came upon him suddenly a revulsion of feeling. A wild, feverish impatience t<> know the worst without another instant of delay pos- sc-M-d him. Only telling Perrine that he should be back soon, and tliat she must watch by the dead in his absence, he left the cottage at once, without waiting to hear her reply, even without looking back as he closed the door behind him. There were two tracks to the Merchant's Table. One, the longer of the two, by the coast cliffs ; the other across the heath. But this latcr path was also, for some little distance, the path which led to the village and the church. He was afraid of attracting his father's attention here, so he took the direction of the coast. At one spot the track trended inland, winding round some of the many Druid monuments .-cattered over the country. This place was on high ground, and commanded a view, at no great distance, of the path leading to the village, just wl ere it branched off from the heathy ridge which ran in the direction of the Merchant's Table. Here Gabriel descried the figure of a man standing with his back toward the coast. This figure was too far off to be identified with absolute certain- ty, but it looked like, and might well be, Francois Sarzeau. Who- ever he was, the man was evidently uncertain which way he should proceed. When he moved forward, it was first to advance several paces toward the Merchant's Table; then he went back again to- ward the distant cottages and the church. Twice he hesitated thus ; the second time pausing long before he appeared finally to take the way that led to the village. Leaving the post of observation among the stones, at which he had instinctively halted for some minutes past, Gabriel now pro- ceeded on his own path. Could this man really be his father? And if it were so, why did Francois Sarzeau only determine to go to the village where his business lay, after having twice vainly attempted to persevere in taking the exactly opposite direction of the Mer- chant's Table? Did he really desire to go there? Had he heard the name mentioned, when the old man referred to it in his dying words ? And had he failed to summon courage enough to make all -ate by removing This last question was too horrible to be pursued; Gabriel stifled it affrightedly in his own heart as he went on. He reached the great Druid monument without meeting a living soul on his way. The sun was rising, and the mighty storm-clouds of the night were parting asunder wildly over the whole eastward hori/on. The waves still leaped and foamed gloriously : but the gale had sunk to a keen, fresh breeze. As Gabriel looked up. and saw how brightly the promise of a lovely day was written in the heavens, he trembled as he thought of the search which he was now 192 AFTER DARK. about to make. The sight of the fair, fresh sunrise jarred horribly with the suspicions of committed murder that were rankling foully in his heart. But he knew that his errand must be performed, and he nerved himself to go through with it; for he dared not return to the cottage until the mystery had been cleared up at once and for- ever. The Merchant's Table was formed by two huge stones resting hor- izontally on three others. In the troubled times of more than half a century ago, regular tourists were unknown among the Druid monuments of Brittany ; and the entrance to the hollow place under the stones since often visited by strangers was at this time nearly choked up by brambles and weeds. Gabriel's first look at this tan- gled nook of briers convinced him that the place had not been en- tered, perhaps for years, by any living being. Without allowing himself to hesitate (for he felt that the slightest delay might be fa- tal to his resolution), he passed as gently as possible through the brambles, and knelt down at the low, dusky, irregular entrance of the hollow place under the stones. His heart throbbed violently, his breath almost failed him; but he forced himself to crawl a few feet into the cavity, and then groped with his hand on the ground about him. He touched something ! Something which it made his flesh creep to handle ; something which he would fain have dropped, but which he grasped tight in spite of himself. He drew back into the outer air and sunshine. Was it a human bone ? No ! he had been the dupe of his own morbid terror he had only taken up a fragment of dried wood ! Feeling shame at such self-deception as this, he was about to throw the wood from him before he re-entered the place, when an- other idea occurred to him. Though it was dimly lighted through one or two chinks in the stones, the far part of the interior of the cavity was still too dusky to admit of perfect examination by the eye, even on a bright sun- shiny morning. Observing this, he took out the tinder - box and matches, which, like the other inhabitants of the district, he always carried about with him for the purpose of lighting his pipe, deter- mining to use the piece of wood as a torch which might illuminate the darkest corner of the place when he next entered it. Fortunate- ly the wood had remained so long and had been preserved so dry in its sheltered position, that it caught fire almost as easily as a piece of paper. The moment it was fairly aflame Gabriel went into the cavity, penetrating at once this time to its farthest extremity. He remained among the stones long enough for the wood to burn down nearly to his hand. When he came out, and flung the burn- ing fragment from him, his face was flushed deeply, his eyes spark- GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 193 led. He leaped carelessly on to the heath, over the bushes through which he hud threaded his way so warily but a few minutes before, exclaiming, "I may marry Perrine with a clear conscience now; lam the son of as honest a man as there is in Brittany !" He had closely examined the cavity in every corner, and not the slightest sign that any dead body had ever been laid there was vis- ible in the hollow place under the Merchant's Table. CHAPTER III. " I MAY marry Perrine with a clear conscience now !" There are some parts of the world where it would be drawing no natural picture of human nature to represent a son as believing con- scientiously that an offense against life and the laws of hospitality, secretly committed by his father, rendered him, though innocent of all participation in it, unworthy to fulfill his engagement with his affianced wife. Among the simple inhabitants of Gabriel's province, however, such acuteness of conscientious sensibility as this was no extraordinary exception to all general rules. Ignorant and supersti- tious as they might be, the people of Brittany practiced the duties of hospitality as devoutly as they practiced the duties of the nation- al religion. The presence of the stranger-guest, rich or poor, was a sacred presence at their hearths. His safety was their especial charge, his property their especial responsibility. They might be half starved, but they were ready to share the last crust with him, nevertheless, as they would share it with their own children. Any outrage on the virtue of hospitality, thus born and bred in the people, was viewed by them with universal disgust, and pun- ished with universal execration. This ignominy was uppermost in Gabriel's thoughts by the side of his grandfather's bed; the dread of this worst dishonor, which there was no wiping out, held him speechless before Perrine, shamed and horrified him so that he felt unworthy to look her in the face: and when the result of his search at the Merchant's Table proved the absence there of all evidence of the crime spoken of by the old man, the blessed relief, the absorb- ing triumph of that discovery, was expressed entirely in the one thought which had prompted his first joyful words : He could mar- ry Perrine with a clear conscience, for he was the son of an honest man ! When he returned to the cottage, Francois had not come back. Perrine was astonished at the change in Gabriel's manner; even Pierre and the children remarked it. Rest and warmth had by this time so far recovered the younger brother, that he was able to give 8* 194 AFTER DARK. some account of the perilous adventures of the night at sea. They were still listening to the boy's narrative when Francois at last re- turned. It was now Gabriel who held out his hand, and made the first advances toward reconciliation. To his utter amazement, his father recoiled from him. The va- riable temper of Frangois had evidently changed completely during his absence at the village. A settled scowl of distrust darkened his face as he looked at his son. " I never shake hands with people who have once doubted me," he exclaimed, loudly and irritably ; " for I always doubt them for- ever after. You are a bad son ! You have suspected your father of some infamy that you dare not openly charge him with, on no other testimony than the rambling nonsense of a half-witted, dying old man. Don't speak to me ! I won't hear you ! An innocent man and a spy are bad company. Go and denounce me, you Judas in disguise ! I don't care for your secret or for you. What's that girl Perrine doing here still ? Why hasn't she gone home long ago ? The priest's coming ; we don't want strangers in the house of death. Take her back to the farm-house, and stop there with her, if you like ; nobody wants you here !" There was something in the manner and look of the speaker as he uttered these words, so strange, so sinister, so indescribably sug- gestive of his meaning much more than he said, that Gabriel felt his heart sink within him instantly ; and almost at the same mo- ment this fearful question forced itself irresistibly on his mind: might not his father have followed him to the Merchant's Table ? Even if he had been desired to speak, he could not have spoken now, while that question and the suspicion that it brought with it were utterly destroying all the re -assuring hopes and convictions of the morning. The mental suffering produced by -the sudden change from pleasure to pain in all his thoughts, reacted on him physically. He felt as if he were stifling in the air of the cottage, in the presence of his father; and when Perrine hurried on her walking attire, and with a face which alternately flushed and turn- ed pale with every moment, approached the door, he went out with her as hastily as if he had been flying from his home. Never had the fresh air and the free daylight felt like heavenly and guardian influences to him until now ! He could comfort Perrine under his father's harshness, he could assure her of his own affection, which no earthly influence could change, while they walked together toward the farm-house ; but he could do no more. He durst not confide to her the subject that was uppermost in his mind ; of all human beings she was the last to whom he could reveal the terrible secret that was festering at his heart. As soon as they got within sight of the farm-house, Gabriel GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 195 stopped ; and, promising to see her again soon, took leave of Perrine with a.-sumed ease in his manner and with real despair in his heart. Whatever the poor girl might think of it, he felt, at that moment, that lie had not courage to face her father, and hear him talk hap- pily and pleasantly, as his custom was, of Perrine's approaching marriage. Left to himself, Gabriel wandered hither and thither over the open heath, neither knowing nor caring in what direction he turned his steps. The doubts about his father's innocence which had been dissipated by his visit to the Merchant's Table, that fathers own language and manner had now revived had even confirmed, though he dared not yet acknowledge so much to himself. It was terrible enough to be obliged to admit that the result of his morning's search was, after all, not conclusive that the mystery was, in very truth, not yet cleared up. The violence of his father's last words of distrust; the extraordinary and indescribable changes in his fa- ther's manner while uttering them what did these things mean ? Guilt or innocence ? Again, was it any longer reasonable to doubt the death-bed confession made by his grandfather ? Was it not, on the contrary, far more probable that the old man's denial in the morning of his own words at night had been made under the in- fluence of a panic terror, when his moral consciousness was bewil- dered, and his intellectual faculties were sinking? The longer Ga- briel thought of these questions, the less competent possibly also the less willing he felt to answer them. Should he seek advice from others wiser than he ? No ; not while the thousandth part of a chance remained that his father was innocent. This thought was still in his mind, when he found himself once more in sight of his home. He was still hesitating near the door, when he saw it opened cautiously. His brother Pierre looked out, and then c^me running toward him. " Come in, Gabriel ; oh, do come in !" said the boy, earnestly. " We are afraid to be alone with father. He's been beating us for talking of you." Gabriel went iiR His father looked up from the hearth where he was sitting, muttered the word " Spy !" and made a gesture of con- tempt, but did not address a word directly to his son. The hours passed on in silence; afternoon waned into evening, and evening into night ; and still he never spoke to any of his children. Soon after it was dark, he went out, and took his net with him, saying that it was better to be alone on the sea than in the house with a spy. When he returned the next morning there was no change in him. Days passed weeks, months even elapsed, and still, though his man ner insensibly became what it used to be toward his other children, it never altered toward his eldest son. At the rare periods when. 196 AFTER DARK. they now met, except when absolutely obliged to speak, he pre- served total silence in his intercourse with Gabriel. He would never take Gabriel out with him in the boat ; he would never sit alone with Gabriel in the house ; he would never eat a meal with Gabriel ; he would never let the other children talk to him about Gabriel ; and lie would never hear a word in expostulation, a word in reference to any thing his dead father had said or done on the night of the storm, from Gabriel himself. The young man pined and changed, so that even Perrine hardly knew him again, under this cruel system of domestic excommunica- tion ; under the wearing influence of the one unchanging doubt which never left him ; and, more than all, under the incessant re- proaches of his own conscience, aroused by the sense that he was evading a responsibility which it was his solemn, his immediate duty to undertake. But no sting of conscience, no ill treatment at home, and no self-reproaches for failing in his duty of confession as a good Catholic, were powerful enough in their influence over Ga- briel to make him disclose the secret, under the oppression of which his very life was wasting away. He knew that if he once revealed it, whether his father was ultimately proved to be guilty or inno- cent, there would remain a slur and a suspicion on the family, and on Perrine besides, from her approaching connection with it, which in their time and in their generation could never be removed. The reproach of the world is terrible even in the crowded city, where many of the dwellers in our abiding-place are strangers to us but it is far more terrible in the country, where none near us are stran- gers, where all talk of us and know of us, where nothing intervenes between us and the tyranny of the evil tongue. Gabriel had not courage to face this, and dare the fearful chance of life-long igno- miny no, not even to serve the sacred interests of justice, of atone- ment, and of truth. CHAPTER IV. WHILE Gabriel still remained prostrated under the affliction that was wasting his energies of body and mind, Brittany was visited by a great public calamity, in which all private misfortunes were over- whelmed for a while. It was now the time when the ever-gathering storm of the French Revolution had risen to its hurricane climax. Those chiefs of the new republic were in power whose last, worst madness it was to decree the extinction of religion and the overthrow of every thing that outwardly symbolized it throughout the whole of the country GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 197 that they governed. Already this decree had been executed to the letter in and around Paris; and now the soldiers of the Republic were on their way to Brittany, headed by commanders whose com- mission was to root out the Christian religion in the last and the surest of the strongholds still left to it in France. These men began their work in a spirit worthy of the worst of their superiors who had sent them to do it. They gutted churches, *hey demolished chapels, they overthrew road-side crosses wherever they found them. The terrible guillotine devoured human lives in the villages of Brittany as it had devoured them in the streets of Paris ; the musket and the sword, in highway and by-way, wreaked havoc on the people ven on women and children kneeling in the act of prayer; the priests were tracked night and day from one hid- ing-place, where they still offered up worship, to another, and were killed as soon as overtaken every atrocity was committed in every district; but the Christian religion still spread wider than the widest bloodshed ; still sprang up with ever-renewed vitality from under the very feet of the men whose vain fury was powerless to trample it down. Everywhere the people remained true to their Faith; everywhere the priests stood firm by them in their sorest need. The executioners of the Republic had been sent to make Brittany a country of apostates; they did their worst, and left it a country of martyrs. One evening, while this frightful persecution was still raging, Ga- briel happened to be detained unusually late at the cottage of Per- riue's father. He had lately spent much of his time at the farm- house ; it was his only refuge now from that place of suffering, of silence, and of secret shame, which he had once called home! Just as he had taken leave of Perrine for the night, and was about to open the farm-house door, her father stopped him, and pointed to a chair in the chimney-corner. "Leave us alone, my dear," said tin- old man to his daughter; "I want to speak to Gabriel. You can go to your mother in the next room." The words which Pfcre Bonan as he was called by the neighbors had now to say in private were destined to lead to very unex- pected events. After referring to the alteration which had appeared of late in Gabriel's manner, the old man began by asking him, sor- rowfully but not suspiciously, whether he still preserved his old af- fection for Perrine. On receiving an eager answer in the affirmative, Pere Bonan then referred to the persecution still raging through the country, and to the consequent possibility that he, like others of his countrymen, might yet be called to suffer, and perhaps to die, for the cause of his religion. If this last act of self sacrifice were required of him, Perrine would be left unprotected, unless her af- fianced husband performed his promise to her, and assumed, with- 198 AFTER DARK. out delay, the position of her lawful guardian. " Let me know that you will do this," concluded the old man ; " I shall be resigned to all that may be required of me. if I can only know that I shall not die leaving Perrine unprotected." Gabriel gave the promise gave it with his whole heart. As he took leave of Pere Bonan, the old man said to him : "Come here to-morrow; I shall know more then than I know now I shall be able to fix with certainty the day for the fulfillment of your engagement with Perrine." Why did Gabriel hesitate at the farm-house door, looking back on Pere Bonan as though he would fain say something, and yet not speaking a word ? Why, after he had gone out and had walked onward several paces, did he suddenly stop, return quickly to the farm-house, stand irresolute before the gate, and then retrace his steps, sighing heavily as he went, but never pausing again on his homeward way? Because the torment of his horrible secret had grown harder to bear than ever, since he had given the promise that had been required of him. Because, while a strong impulse moved him frankly to lay bare his hidden dread and doubt to the father whose beloved daughter was soon to be his wife, there was a yet stronger passive influence which paralyzed on his lips the terri- ble confession that he knew not whether he was the son of an hon- est man, or the son of an assassin and a robber. Made desperate by his situation, he determined, while he hastened homeward, to risk the worst, and ask that fatal question of his father in plain words. But this supreme trial for parent and child was not to be. When he entered the cottage, Francois was absent. He had told the younger children that he should not be home again before noon on the next day. Early in the morning Gabriel repaired to the farm - house, as he had been bidden. Influenced by his love for Perrine, blindly con- fiding in the faint hope (which, in despite of heart and conscience, he still forced himself to cherish) that his father might be innocent, he now preserved the appearance at least of perfect calmness. " If I tell my secret to Perrine's father, I risk disturbing in him that con- fidence in the future safety of his child for which I am his present and only warrant." Something like this thought was in Gabriel's mind, as he took the hand of Pere Bonan, and waited anxiously to hear what was required of him on that day. "We have a short respite from danger, Gabriel," said the old man. " News has come to me that the spoilers of our churches and the murderers of our congregations have been stopped on their way hitherward by tidings which have reached them from another district. This interval of peace and safety will be a short one we must take advantage of it while it is yet ours. My name is among GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 199 the names on the list of the denounced. If the soldiers of the Re- public find me here but we will say nothing more of this ; it is of Perrine and of you that I must now speak. On this very evening your marriage may be solemnized with all the wonted rites of our holy religion, and the blessing may be pronounced over you by the lips of a priest. This evening, therefore, Gabriel, you must become the husband and the protector of Perrine. Listen to me attentively, and I will tell you how." This was the substance of what Gabriel now heard from Pere Bonan : Not very long before the persecutions broke out in Brittany, a priest, known generally by the name of Father Paul, was appointed to a curacy in one of the northern districts of the province. He fulfilled all the duties of his station in such a manner as to win the confidence and affection of every member of his congregation, and was often spoken of with respect, even in parts of the country dis- tant from the scene of his labors. It was not, however, until the troubles broke out, and the destruction and bloodshed began, that he became renowned far and wide, from one end of Brittany to an- other. From the date of the very first persecutions the name of Father Paul was a rallying- cry of the hunted peasantry; he was their great encouragement under oppression, their example in dan- ger, their last and only consoler in the hour of death. . Wherever havoc and ruin raged most fiercely, wherever the pursuit Was hottest and the slaughter most cruel, there the intrepid priest was sure to be seen pursuing his sacred duties in defiance of every peril. His hair-breadth escapes from death ; his extraordinary re-appearances in parts of the country where no one ever expected to see him again, were regarded by the poorer classes with superstitious awe. Wherever Father Paul appeared, with his black dress, his calm face, and the ivory crucifix which he always carried in his hand, the peo- ple reverenced him as more than mortal; and grew at last to be- lieve that, single-handed, he would successfully defend his religion against the armies of the Republic. But their simple confidence in his powers of resistance was soon destined to be shaken. Fresh re- enforcements arrived in Brittany, and overran the whole province from one end to the other. One morning, after celebrating service in a dismantled church, and after narrowly escaping with his life from those who pursued him, the priest disappeared. Secret in- quiries were made after him in all directions ; but he was heard of no more. Many weary days had passed, and the dispirited peasantry had already mourned him as dead, when some fishermen on the northern coast observed a ship of light burden in the offing, making signals to the shore. They put off to her in their boats ; and on reaching 200 AFTER DARK. the deck saw standing before them the well-remembered figure of Father Paul. The priest had returned to his congregations ; and had founded the new altar that they were to worship at on the deck of the ship ! Razed from the face of the earth, their church had not been destroy- ed for Father Paul and the priests who acted with him had given that church a refuge on the sea. Henceforth, their children could still be baptized, their sons and daughters could still be married, the burial of their dead could still be solemnized, under the sanction of the old religion for which, not vainly, they had suffered so pa- tiently and so long. Throughout the remaining time of trouble the services were un- interrupted on board the ship. A code of signals was established by which those on shore were always enabled to direct their brethren at sea toward such parts of the coast as happened to be uninfest- ed by the enemies of their worship. On the morning of Gabriel's visit to the farm-house these signals had shaped the course of the ship toward the extremity of the peninsula of Quiberon. The peo- ple of the district were all prepared to expect the appearance of the vessel some time in the evening, and had their boats ready at a mo- ment's notice to put off, and attend the service. At the conclusion of this service Pere Bonan had arranged that the marriage of his daughter and Gabriel was to take place. They waited for evening at the farm-house. A little before sunset the ship was signaled as in sight ; and then Pere 'Bonan and his wife, followed by Gabriel and Perrine, set forth over the heath to the beach. With the solitary exception of Francois Sarzeau, the whole population of the neighborhood was already assembled there, Gabriel's brother and sisters being among the number. It was the calmest evening that had been known for months. There was not a cloud in the lustrous sky not a ripple on the still surface of the sea. The smallest children were suffered by their mothers to stray down on the beach as they pleased ; for the waves of the great ocean slept as tenderly and noiselessly on their sandy bed as if they had been changed into the waters of an inland lake. Slow, almost imperceptible, was the approach of the ship there was hardly a breath of wind to carry her on she was just drifting gently with the landward set of the tide at that hour, while her sails hung idly against the masts. Long after the sun had gone down, the congregation still waited and watched on the beach. The moon and stars were arrayed in their glory of the night before the ship dropped anchor. Then the muffled tolling of a bell came solemnly across the quiet waters ; and then, from every creek along the shore, as far as the eye could reach, the black forms of the fishermen's boats shot out swift and stealthy into the shining sea. GABRIEI?S MABRIAGB. 201 By the time the boats had arrived alongside of the ship, the lamp hail been kindled before the altar, and its flame was gleaming red and dull in the radiant moonlight. Two of the priests on board were clothed in their robes of office, and were waiting in their ap- pointed places to begin the service. But there was a third, dressed only in the ordinary attire of his calling, who mingled with the con- gregation, and spoke a few words to each of the persons composing it, as, one by one, they mounted the sides of the ship. Those who had never seen him before knew by the famous ivory crucifix in his hand that the priest who received them was Father Paul. Gabriel looked at this man, whom he now beheld for the first time, with a mixture of astonishment and awe ; for he saw that the renowned chief of the Christians of Brittany was, to all appearance, but little older than himself. The expression on the pale, calm face of the priest was so gentle and kind, that children just able to walk tottered up to him, and held familiarly by the skirts of his black gown, whenever his clear blue eyes rested on theirs, while he beckoned them to his side. No one would ever have guessed from the countenance of Father Paul what deadly perils he had confronted, but for the scar of a sabre- wound, as yet hardly healed, which ran across his forehead. That wound had been dealt while lie was kneeling before the altar in the last church in Brittany which had escaped spoliation. He would have died where he knelt, but for the peasants who were praying with him, and*vlm. unarmed as they were, threw themselves like tigers on the soldiery, and at awful sacrifice of their own lives saved the life of their priest. There was not a man now on board the ship who would have hesitated, had the occasion called for it again, to have rescued him in the same way. The service began. Since the days when the primitive Christians worshiped amidst the caverns of the earth, can any service be im- agined nobler in itself, or sublimer in the circumstances surrounding it. than that which was now offered up ? Here was no artificial pomp, no gaudy profusion of ornament, no attendant grandeur of man's creation. All around this church spread the hushed and aw- ful majesty of the tranquil sea. The roof of this cathedral was the immeasurable heaven, the pure moon its one great light, the count- less glories of the stars its only adornment. Here were no hired singers or rich priest-princes ; no curious sight-seers, or careless lov- ers of sweet sounds. This congregation and they who had gathered it together, were all poor alike, all persecuted alike, all worshiping alike, to the overthrow of their worldly interests, and at the immi- nent peril of thc'ir lives. How brightly and tenderly the moonlight shone upon the altar and the people before it ! how solemnly and divinely the deep harmonies, as they chanted the penitential Psalms, 202 AFTER DARK. mingled with the hoarse singing of the freshening night-breeze in the rigging of the ship ! how sweetly the still rushing murmur of many voices, as they uttered the responses together, now died away, and now rose again softly into the mysterious night ! Of all the members of the congregation young or old there was but one over whom that impressive service exercised no influence of consolation or of peace ; that one was Gabriel. Often, through- out the day, his reproaching conscience had spoken within him again and again. Often, when he joined the little assembly on the beach, he turned away his face in secret shame and apprehension from Perrine and her father. Vainly, after gaining the deck of the ship, did he try to meet the eye of Father Paul as frankly, as readi- ly, and as affectionately as others met it. The burden of conceal- ment seemed too heavy to be borne in the presence of the priest and yet, torment as it was, he still bore it ! But when he knelt with the rest of the congregation and saw Perrine kneeling by his side when he felt the calmness of the solemn night and the still sea fill- ing his heart when the sounds of the first prayers spoke with a dread spiritual language of their own to his soul then the remem- brance of the confession which he had neglected, and the terror of receiving unprepared the sacrament which he knew would be of- fered to him grew too vivid to be endured : the sense that he mer- ited no longer, though once worthy of it, the confidence in his per- fect truth and candor placed in him by the woman with whom he was soon to stand before the altar, overwhelmed hfhi with shame : the mere act of kneeling among that congregation, the passive ac- complice by his silence and secrecy, for aught he knew to the con- trary, of a crime which it was his bounden duty to denounce, ap- palled him as if he had already committed sacrilege that could nev- er be forgiven. Tears flowed down his cheeks, though he strove to repress them : sobs burst from him, though he tried to stifle them. He knew tfiat others besides Perrine were looking at him in aston- ishment and alarm ; but he could neither control himself, nor move to leave his place, nor raise his eyes even until suddenly he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. That touch, slight as it was, ran through him instantly. He looked up, and saw Father Paul standing by his side. Beckoning him to follow, and signing to the congregation not to suspend their devotions, he led Gabriel out of the assembly then paused for a moment, reflecting then beckoning him again, took him into the cabin of the ship, and closed the door carefully. " You have something on your mind," he said, simply and quiet- ly, taking the young man by the hand. " I may be able to relieve you, if you tell me what it is." As Gabriel heard these gentle words, and saw, by the light of a GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 203 lamp which burned before a cross fixed against the wall, the sad kindness of expression with which the priest was regarding him, the oppression that had lain so long on his heart seemed to leave it in an instant. The haunting fear of ever divulging his fatal suspi- cions and his fatal secret had vanished, as it were, at the touch of Father Paul's hand. For the first time he now repeated to another ear the sounds of prayer and praise rising grandly the while from the congregation above his grandfather's death -bed confession, word for word almost, as he had heard it in the cottage on the night of the storm. Once, and once only, did Father Paul interrupt the narrative, which in whispers was addressed to him. Gabriel had hardly re- peated the first two or three sentences of his grandfather's confes- sion, when the priest, in quick, altered tones, abruptly asked him his name and place of abode. As the question was answered, Father Paul's calm face became suddenly agitated ; but the next moment, resolutely resuming his self-possession, he bowed his head, as a sign that Gabriel was to continue ; clasped his trembling hands, and raising them as if in si- lent prayer, fixed his eyes intently on the cross. He never looked away from it while the terrible narrative proceeded. But when Ga- briel described his search at the Merchant's Table ; and, referring to his father's behavior since that time, appealed to the priest to know whether he might, even yet, in defiance of appearances, be still fil- ially justified in doubting whether the crime had been really perpe- trated then Father Paul moved near to him once more, and spoke again. " Compose yourself, and look at me," he said, with his former sad kindness of voice and manner. " I can end your doubts forever. Gabriel, your father was guilty in intention and in act ; but the vic- tim of his crime still lives. I can prove it." Gabriel's heart beat wildly ; a deadly coldness crept over him as he saw Father Paul loosen the fastening of his cassock round the throat. At that instant the chanting of the congregation above ceased ; and then the sudden and awful stillness was deepened rather than interrupted by the faint sound of one voice praying. Slowly and with trembling fingers the priest removed the band round his neck paused a little sighed heavily and pointed to a scar which was now plainly visible on one side of his throat. He said something at the same time; but the bell above tolled while he spoke. It was the signal of the elevation of the Host. Gabriel felt an arm passed round him, guiding him to his knees, and sustaining him from sink- ing to the floor. For one moment longer he was conscious that the bell had stopped, that there was dead silence, that Father Paul was 20 \ AFTER DAEK. kneeling by him beneath the cross, with bowed head then all ob- jects around vanished ; and he saw and knew nothing more. When he recovered his senses, he was still in the cabin ; the man whose life his father had attempted was bending over him, and sprinkling water on his face ; and the clear voices of the women and children of the congregation were joining the voices of the men in singing the Agnus Dei. " Look up at me without fear, Gabriel," said the priest. " I de- sire not to avenge injuries: I visit not the sins of the father on the child. Look up, and listen! I have strange things to speak of; and I have a sacred mission to fulfill before the morning, in which you must be my guide." Gabriel attempted to kneel and kiss his hand, but Father Paul stopped him, and said, pointing to the cross : " Kneel to that not to me ; not to your fellow-mortal, and your friend for I will be your friend, Gabriel ; believing that God's mercy has ordered it so. And now listen to me," he proceeded, with a brotherly tenderness in his manner which went to Gabriel's heart. " The service is near- ly ended. What I have to tell you must be told at once ; the errand on which you will guide me must be performed before to-morrow dawns. Sit here near me, and attend to what I now say !" Gabriel obeyed ; Father Paul then proceeded thus : " I believe the confession made to you by your grandfather to have been true in every particular. On the evening to which he re- ferred you, I approached your cottage, as he said, for the purpose of asking shelter for the night. At that period I had been studying hard to qualify myself for the holy calling which I now pursue ; and, on the completion of my studies, had indulged in the recreation of a tour on foot through Brittany, by way of innocently and agreeably occupying the leisure time then at my disposal, before I entered the priesthood. When I accosted your father I had lost my way, had been walking for many hours, and was glad of any rest that I could get for the night. It is unnecessary to pain you now, by reference to the events which followed my entrance under your father's roof. I remember nothing that happened from the time when I lay down to sleep before the fire, until the time when I recovered my senses at the place which you call the Merchant's Table. My first sensa- tion was that of being moved into the cold air ; when I opened my eyes I saw the great Druid stones rising close above me, and two men on either side of me rifling my pockets. They found nothing valuable there, and were about to leave me where I lay, when 1 gathered strength enough to appeal to their mercy through their cupidity. Money was not scarce with me then, and I was able to offer them a rich reward (which they ultimately received as I had promised) if they would take me to any place where I could get GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 205 shelter and medical help. I supposed they inferred by my language and accent perhaps also by the linen I wore, which they exam- ined closely that I belonged to the higher ranks of the commu- nity, in spite of the plainness of my outer garments; and might, then- fore, be in a position to make good my promise to them. I heard one say to the other, ' Let us risk it ;' and then they took me in their arms, carried me down to a boat on the beach, and rowed to a vessel in the offing. The next day they disembarked me at Paimbceuf, where I got the assistance which I so much needed. I learned, through the confidence they were obliged to place in me in order to give me the means of sending them their promised re- ward, that these men were smugglers, and that they were in the luiliit of using the cavity in which I had been laid as a place of concealment for goods, and for letters of advice to their accomplices. This accounted for their finding me. As to my wound, I was in- formed by the surgeon who attended me that it had missed being inflicted in a mortal part by less than a quarter of an inch, and that, as it was, nothing but the action of the night air in coagulating the blood over the place had, in the first instance, saved my life. To be brief, I recovered after a long illness, returned to Paris, and was called to the priesthood. The will of my superiors obliged me to perform the first duties of my vocation in the great city ; but my own wish was to be appointed to a cure of souls in your province, Gabriel. Can you imagine why ?" The answer to this question was in Gabriel's heart ; but he was still too deeply awed and affected by what he had heard to give it utterance. " I must tell you, then, what my motive was," said Father Paul. " You must know first that I uniformly abstained from disclosing to any one where and by whom my life had been attempted. I kept this a secret from the men who rescued me from the surgeon from my own friends even. My reason for such a proceeding was, I would fain believe, a Christian reason. I hope I had always felt a sincere and humble desire to prove myself, by the help of God, worthy of the sacred vocation to which I was destined. But my miraculous escape from death made an impression on my mind, which gave me another and an infinitely higher view of this voca- tion the view which I have since striven, and shall always strive for the future, to maintain. As I lay, during the first days of my re- covery, examining my own heart, and considering in what manner it would be my duty to act toward your father when I was restored to health, a thought came into my mind which calmed, comforted, and resolved all my doubts. I said within myself, ' In a few months more I shall be called to be one of the chosen ministers of God. If I am worthy of my vocation, my first desire toward this man who 206 AFTER DARK. . has attempted to take my life should be, not to know that human justice has overtaken him, but to know that he has truly and relig- iously repented and made atonement for his guilt. To such repent- ance and atonement let it be my duty to call him ; if he reject that appeal, and be hardened only the more against me because I have forgiven him my injuries, then it will be time enough to denounce him for his crimes to his fellow-men. Surely it must be well for me, here and hereafter, if I begin my career in the holy priesthood by helping to save from hell the soul of the man who, of all others, has most cruelly wronged me.' It was for this reason, Gabriel it was because I desired to go straightway to your father's cottage, and re- claim him after he had believed me to be dead that I kept the secret and entreated of my superiors that I might be sent to Brit- tany. But this, as I have said, was not to be at first, and when my desire was granted, my place was assigned me in a far district. The persecution under which we still suffer broke out ; the designs of my life were changed; my own will became no longer mine to guide me. But, through sorrow and suffering, and danger and bloodshed, I am now led, after many days, to the execution of that first purpose which I formed on entering the priesthood. Gabriel, when the service is over, and the congregation are dispersed, you must guide me to the door of your father's cottage." He held up his hand, in sign of silence, as Gabriel was about to answer. Just then the officiating priests above were pronouncing the final benediction. When it was over, Father Paul opened the cabin door. As he ascended the steps, followed by Gabriel, Pere Bonan met them. The old man looked doubtfully and searchingly on his future son-in-law, as he respectfully whispered a few words in the ear of the priest. Father Paul listened attentively, answered in a whisper, and then turned to Gabriel, first begging the few peo- ple near them to withdraw a little. "I have been asked whether there is any impediment to your marriage," he said, " and have answered that there is none. What you have said to me has been said in confession, and is a secret be- tween us two. Remember that ; and forget not, at the same time, the service which I shall require of you to-night, after the marriage- ceremony is over. Where is Perrine Bonan ?" he added, aloud, looking round him. Perrine came forward. Father Paul took her hand, and placed it in Gabriel's. " Lead her to the altar steps," he said, " and wait there for me." It was more than an hour later; the boats had left the ship's side ; the congregation had dispersed over the face of the country but still the vessel remained at anchor. Those who were left in her watched the land more anxiously than usual ; for they knew that Father Paul had risked meeting the soldiers of the Republic by GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 207 trusting himself on shore. A boat was awaiting his return on the lu'ai -li; half of the crew, armed, being posted as scouts in various directions on the high land of the heath. They would have fol- lowed and guarded the priest to the place of his destination ; but he forbade it; and, leaving them abruptly, walked swiftly onward with one young man only for his companion. laliriel had committed his brother and his sisters to the charge of Perrine. They were to go to the farm-house that night with his newly-married wife and her father and mother. Father Paul had desired that this might be done. When Gabriel and he were left alone to follow the path which led to the fisherman's cottage, the priest never spoke while they walked on never looked aside either to the right or the left always held his ivory crucifix clasped to his breast. They arrived at the door. " Knock,'' whispered Father Paul to Gabriel, " and then wait here with me." The door was opened. On a lovely moonlight night Francois Sarzeau had stood on that threshold, years since, with a bleeding body in his arms. On a lovely moonlight night he now stood there again, confronting the very man whose life he had attempted, and knowing him not. Father Paul advanced a few paces, so that the moonlight fell fuller on his features, and removed his hat. Francois Sarzeau looked, started, moved one step back, then stood motionless and perfectly silent, while all traces of expression of any kind suddenly vanished from his face. Then the calm, clear tones of the priest stole gently on the dead silence. " I bring a message of peace and forgiveness from a guest of former years," he said ; and pointed, as he spoke, to the place where he had been wounded in the neck. For one moment, Gabriel saw his father trembling violently from head to foot then his limbs steadied again stiffened suddenly, as if struck by catalepsy. His lips parted, but without quivering; his eyes glared, but without moving in their orbits. The lovely moon- light itself looked ghastly and horrible, shining on the supernatural panic deformity of that face ! Gabriel turned away his head in ter- ror. He heard the voice of Father Paul saying to him : " Wait here till I come back." Then there was an instant of silence again then a low groaning sound that seemed to articulate the name of God ; a sound unlike his father's voice, unlike any human voice he had ever heard and then the noise of a closing door. He looked up, and saw that he was standing alone before the cottage. Once, after an interval, he approached the window. He just saw through it the hand of the priest holding on high th ivory crucifix ; but stopped not to see more, for he heard such words, 208 AFTER DARK. such sounds, as drove him back to his former place. There he staid, until the noise of something falling heavily within the cottage struck on his ear. Again he advanced toward the door; heard Father Paul praying; listened for several minutes; then heard a moaning voice, now joining itself to the voice of the priest, now choked in sobs and bitter wailing. Once more he went back out of hearing, and stirred not again from his place. He waited a long and a weary time there so long that one of the scouts on the lookout came toward him, evidently suspicious of the delay in the priest's return. He waved the man back, and then looked again toward the door. At last he saw it open saw Father Paul approach him, leading Fra^ois Sar- zeau by the hand. The fisherman never raised his downcast eyes to his son's face ; tears trickled silently over- his cheeks ; he followed the hand that led him, as a little child might have followed it, listening anxiously and humbly at the priest's side to every word that he spoke. " Gabriel," said Father Paul, in a voice which trembled a little for the first time that night " Gabriel, it has pleased God to grant the perfect fulfillment of the purpose which brought me to this place; I tell you this, as all that you need as all, I believe, that you would wish to know of what has passed while you have been left waiting for me here. Such words as I have now to speak to you are spoken by your father's earnest desire. It is his own wish that I should communicate to you his confession of having secretly followed you to the Merchant's Table, and of having discovered (as you discovered) that no evidence of his guilt remained there. This admission, he thinks, will be enough to account for his conduct to- ward yourself from that time to this. I have next to tell you (also at your father's desire) that he has promised in my presence, and now promises again in yours, sincerity of repentence in this man- ner: When the persecution of our religion has ceased as cease it will, and that speedily, be assured of it he solemnly pledges him- self henceforth to devote his life, his strength, and what worldly possessions he may have, or may acquire, to the task of re-erecting and restoring the road-side crosses which have been sacrilegiously overthrown and destroyed in his native province, and to doing good, go where he may. I have now said all that is required of me, and may bid you farewell bearing with me the happy remembrance that I have left a father and son reconciled and restored to each other. May God bless and prosper you, and those dear to you, Gabriel ! May God accept your father's repentance, and bless him also through- out his future life !" He took their hands, pressed them long and warmly, then turned and walked quickly down the path which led to the beach. Gabriel dared not trust himself yet to speak ; but he raised his arm, and put GABRIEL'S MARRIAGE. 209 it gently round his father's neck. The two stood together so, looking out dimly through the tears that filled their eyes to the sea. They saw the boat put off in the bright track of the moonlight, and reach the vessel's side ; they watched the spreading of the sails, and fol- lowed the slow course of the ship till she disappeared past a distant headland from sight. After that, they went into the cottage together. They knew it not then, but they had seen the last, in this world, of Father Paul. CHAPTER V. TIIK events foretold by the good priest happened sooner even than IK- had anticipated. A new government ruled the destinies of France, and the persecution ceased in Brittany. Among other propositions which were then submitted to the par- liament, was one advocating the restoration of the road-side crosses throughout the province. It was found, however, on inquiry, that these crosses were to be counted by thousands, and that the mere cost of wood required to re-erect them necessitated an expenditure of money which the bankrupt nation could ill afford to spare. While this project was under discussion, and before it was finally rejected, one man had undertaken the task which the Government shrank from attempting. When Gabriel left the cottage, taking his brother and sisters to live with his wife and himself at the farm- house. Fran9ois Sarzeau left it also, to perform in highway and by- way his promise to Father Paul. For months and months he la- bored without intermission at his task; still, always doing good, and rendering help and kindness and true charity to all whom he could serve. He walked many a weary mile, toiled through many a hard day's work, humbled himself even to beg of others, to get wood enough to restore a single cross. No one ever heard him complain, ever saw him impatient, ever detected him in faltering at his task. The shelter in an outhouse, the crust of bread and drink of water, which he could always get from the peasantry, seemed to suffice him. Among the people who watched his perseverance, a belief began to gain ground that his life would be miraculously pro- longed until he had completed his undertaking from one end of Brittany to the other. But this was not to be. lie was seen one cold autumn evening, silently and steadily at work as usual, setting up a new cross on the site of one which had been shattered to splinters in the troubled times. In the morning he was found lying dead beneath the sacred symbol which his own hands had completed and erected in its place during the night. 210 AFTER DARK. They buried him where he lay ; and the priest who consecrated the ground allowed Gabriel to engrave his father's epitaph in the wood of the cross. It was simply the initial letters of the dead man's name, followed by this inscription : " Pray for the repose of his soul : he died penitent, and the doer of good works." . . Once, and once only, did Gabriel hear any thing of Father Paul. The good priest showed, by writing to the farm-house, that he had not forgotten the family so largely indebted to him for their happi- ness. The letter was dated " Rome." Father Paul said that such services as he had been permitted to render to the Church in Brit- tany had obtained for him a new and a far more glorious trust than any he had yet held. He had been recalled from his curacy, and appointed to be at the head of a mission which was shortly to be dispatched to convert the inhabitants of a savage and far distant land to the Christian faith. He now wrote, as his brethren with him were writing, to take leave of all friends forever in this world, before setting out for it was well known to the chosen persons intrusted with the new mission, that they could only hope to ad- vance its object by cheerfully risking their own lives for the sake of their religion. He gave his blessing to Francois Sarzeau, to Gabriel, and to his family ; and bade them affectionately farewell for the last time. There was a postscript to the letter, which was addressed to Per- rine, and which she often read afterward with tearful eyes. The writer begged that, if she should have any children, she would show her friendly and Christian remembrance of him by teaching them to pray (as he hoped she herself would pray) that a blessing might attend Father Paul's labors in the distant land. The priest's loving petition was never forgotten. When Perrine taught its first prayer to her first child, the little creature was in- structed to end the few simple words pronounced at its mother's knees, with, " God bless Father Paul." In those words the nun concluded her narrative. After it was ended, she pointed to the old wooden cross, and said to me : " That was one of the many that he made. It was found, a few years since, to have suffered so much from exposure to the weather that it was unfit to remain any longer in its old place. A priest in Brittany gave it to one of the nuns in this convent. Do you won- der now that the Mother Superior always calls it a Relic ?" " No," I answered. " And I should have small respect indeed for the religious convictions of any one who could hear the story of that wooden cross, and not feel that the Mother Superior's name for it is the very best that could have been chosen." PEOLOGUK TO THE SIXTH STOEY. 211 PROLOGUE TO THE SIXTH STORY. ON the last occasion when I made a lengthened stay in London, my wife and I were surprised and amused one morning by the re- ceipt of the following note, addressed to me in a small, crabbed, foreign-looking handwriting : " Professor- Tizzi presents amiable compliments to Mr. Kerby, the artist, and is desirous of having his portrait done, to be engraved from, and placed at the beginning of the voluminous work on " The Vital Principle ; or, Invisible Essence of Life," which the Professor is now preparing for the press and posterity. " The Professor will give five pounds ; and will look upon his face with satisfaction, as an object perpetuated for public contem- plation at a reasonable rate, if Mr. Kerby will accept the sum just mentioned. " In regard to the Professor's ability to pay five pounds, as well as to offer them, if Mr. Kerby should, from ignorance, entertain in- jurious doubts, he is requested to apply to the Professor's honora- ble friend, Mr. Lanfray, of Rockleigh Place." But for the reference at the end of this strange note, I should cer- tainly have considered it as a mere trap set to make a fool of me by some mischievous friend. As it was, I rather doubted the propriety of taking any serious notice of Professor Tizzi's offer ; and I might probably have ended by putting the letter in the fire without fur- ther thought about it, but for the arrival by the next post of a note from Mr. Lanfray, which solved all my doubts, and sent me away at once to make the acquaintance of the learned discoverer of the Es- sence of Life. " Do not be surprised " (Mr. Lanfray wrote), " if you get a strange note from a very eccentric Italian, one Professor Tizzi, formerly of the University of Padua. I have known him for some years. Sci- entific inquiry is his monomania, and vanity his ruling passion. He has written a book on the principle of life, which nobody but himself will ever read ; but which he is determined to publish, with his own portrait for frontispiece. If it is worth your while to ac- cept the little he can offer you, take it by all means, for he is a char- acter worth knowing. He was exiled, I should tell you, years ago, for some absurd political rcason T and has lived in England ever since. All the money he inherits from his father, who was a mail contractor in the north of Italy, goes in books and experiments ; but 212 AFTER I think I can answer for his solvency, at any rate, for the large sum of five pounds. If you are not very much occupied just now, go and see him. He is sure to amuse you." Professor Tizzi lived in the northern suburb of London. On ap- proaching his house, I found it, so far as outward appearance went, excessively dirty and neglected, but in no other respect different from the " villas " in its neighborhood. The front garden door, af- ter I had rang twice, was opened by a yellow-faced, suspicious old foreigner, dressed in worn-out clothes, and completely and consist- ently dirty all over, from top to toe. On mentioning iny name and business, this old man led me across a weedy, neglected garden, and admitted me into the house. At the first step into the passage, I was surrounded by books. Closely packed in plain wooden shelves, they ran all along the wall on either side to the back of the house ; and when I looked up at the carpetless staircase, I saw nothing but books again, running all the way up the wall, as far as my eye could reach. " Here is the Artist Painter !" cried the old servant, throw- ing open one of the parlor doors, before I had half done looking at the books, and signing impatiently to me to walk into the room. Books again ! all round the walls, and all over the floor among them a plain deal t&ble, with leaves of manuscript piled high on ev- ery part of it among the leaves a head of long, elfish white hair covered with a black skull-cap, and bent down over a book above the head a sallow, withered hand shaking itself at me as a sign that I must not venture to speak just at that moment on the tops of the book-cases glass vases full of spirits of some kind, with horrible ob- jects floating in the liquid dirt on the window panes, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling, dust springing up in clouds under my in- truding feet. These were the things I observed on first entering the study of Professor Tizzi. After I had waited for a minute or so, the shaking hand stopped, descended with a smack on the nearest pile of manuscript, seized the book that the head had been bending over, and flung it con- temptuously to the other end of the room. "I've refuted you, at any rate !" said Professor Tizzi, looking with extreme complacency at the cloud of dust raised by the fall of the rejected volume. He turned next to me. What a grand face it was ! What a broad, white forehead what fiercely brilliant black eyes what perfect regularity and refinement in the other features ; with the long, ven- erable hair, framing them in, as it were, on either side ! Poor as I was, I felt that I could have painted his portrait for nothing. Ti- tian, Vandyke, Velasquez any of the three would have paid him to sit to them ! "Accept my humblest excuses, sir," said the old man, speaking English with a singularly pure accent for a foreigner. " That ab- PROLOGUE TO THB SIXTH STOBY. 213 surd book plunged me so deep down in the quagmires of sophistry and error, Mr. Kerby, that I really could not get to the surface at once when you came into the room. So you are willing to draw my likeness for such a small sum as five pounds ?" he continued, rising, and showing me that he wore a long black velvet gown, in- stead of the paltry and senseless costume of modern times. I informed him that five pounds was as much as I generally got for a drawing. "It seems little," said the Professor; "but if you want fame, I can make it up to you in that way. There is my great work " (he pointed to the piles of manuscript), " the portrait of my mind, and the mirror of my learning : put a likeness of my face on the first page, and posterity will then be thoroughly acquainted with me, outside and in. Your portrait will be engraved, Mr. Kerby, and your name shall be inscribed under the print. You shall be asso- ciated, sir, in that way with a work which will form an epoch in the history of human science. The Vital Principle or, in other words, the essence of that mysterious Something which we call Life, and which extends down from Man to the feeblest insect and the smallest plant has been an unguessed riddle from the beginning of the world to the present time. I alone have found the answer ; and here it is !" He fixed his dazzling eyes on me in triumph, and smacked the piles of manuscript fiercely with both his sallow hands. I saw that he was waiting for me to say something ; so I asked if his great work had not cost a vast expenditure of time and pains. " I am seventy, sir," said the Professor ; " and I began preparing myself for that book at twenty. After mature consideration, I have written it in English (having three other foreign languages at my fingers' ends), as a substantial proof of my gratitude to the nation that has given me an asylum. Perhaps you think the work looks rather long in its manuscript state ? It will occupy twelve volumes, sir, and it is not hSlf long enough, even then, for the subject. I take two volumes (and no man could do it in less) to examine the theo- ries of all the philosophers in the world, ancient and modern, on the Vital Principle. I take two more (and little enough) to scatter ev- ery one of the theories, seriatim, to the winds. I take two more (at the risk, for brevity's sake, of doing things by halves) to explain the exact stuff, or vital compound, of which the first man and woman in the world were made calling them Adam and Eve, out of def- erence to popular prejudices. I take two more but you are stand- ing all this time, Mr. Kerby ; and I am talking instead of sitting for my portrait. Pray take any books you want, anywhere off the floor, and make a seat of any height you please. Furniture would only lie in my way here, so I don't trouble myself with any thing of the kind." 214 AFTER DARK. I obediently followed the Professor's directions, and had just heaped up a pile of grimy quartos, when the old servant entered the room with a shabby little tray in his hand. In the middle of the tray I saw a crust of bread and a bit of garlic,, encircled by a glass of water, a knife, salt, pepper, a bottle of vinegar, and a flask of oil. " With your permission, I am going to breakfast," said Professor Tizzi, as the tray was set down before him on the part of his great work relating to the vital compound of Adam and Eve. As he spoke, he took up the piece of bread, and rubbed the crusty part of it with the bit of garlic, till it looked as polished as a new din- ing-table. That done, he turned the bread, crumb uppermost, and saturated it with oil, added a few drops of vinegar, sprinkled with pepper and salt, and, with a gleam of something very like greed- iness in his bright eyes, took up the knife to cut himself a first mouthful of the horrible mess that he had just concocted. " The best of breakfasts," said the Professor, seeing me look amazed. " Not a cannibal meal of chicken-life in embryo (vulgarly called an egg) ; not a dog's gorge of a dead animal's flesh, blood, and bones, warmed with fire (popularly known as a chop) ; not a breakfast, sir, that lions, tigers, Caribbees, and coster-mongers could all partake of alike ; but an innocent, nutritive, simple, vegetable meal ; a phi- losopher's refection ; a breakfast that a prize-fighter would turn from in disgust, and that a Plato would share with relish." I have no doubt that he was right, and that I was prejudiced ; but as I saw the first oily, vinegary, garlicky morsel slide noiselessly into his mouth, I began to feel rather sick. My hands were dirty with moving the books, and I asked if I could wash them before beginning to work at the likeness, as a good excuse for getting out of the room, while Professor Tizzi was unctuously disposing of his simple vegetable meal. The philosopher looked a little astonished at my request, as if the washing of hands at irregular times and seasons offered a compara- tively new subject of contemplation to him ; but he rang a hand-bell on his table immediately, and told the old servant to take me up into his bedroom. The interior of the parlor had astonished me ; but a sight of the bedroom was a new sensation not of the most agreeable kind. The couch on which the philosopher sought repose after his labors was a truckle-bed that would not have fetched half a crown at a sale. On one side of it dangled from the ceiling a complete male skeleton, looking like all that was left of a man who might have hung him- self about a century ago, and who had never been disturbed since the moment of his suicide. On the other side of the bed stood a long press, in which I observed hideous colored preparations of the PROLOGUE TO THE SIXTH STOBY. 215 muscular system, and bottles with curious, twining, thread-like sub- stanees inside them, which might have been remarkable worms or dissections of nerves, scattered amicably side by side with the Pro- fessor's hair- brush (three parts worn out), with remnants of his beard on hits of shaving-paper, with a broken shoe-horn, and with a traveling looking-glass of the sort usually sold at sixpence apiece. Repetitions of the litter of books in the parlor lay all about over the floor ; colored anatomical prints were nailed anyhow against the walls; rolled-up towels were scattered here, there, and everywhere in the wildest confusion, as if the room had been bombarded with them ; and last, but by no means least remarkable among the other extraordinary objects in the bed-chamber, the stuffed figure of a large unshaven poodle-dog, stood on an old card-table, keeping per- petual watch over a pair of the philosopher's black breeches twisted round his forepaws. I had started, on entering the room, at the skeleton, and I started once more at the dog. The old servant noticed me each time with a sardonic grin. " Don't be afraid," he said ; "one is as dead as the other." With these words, he left me to wash my hands. Finding little more than a pint of water at my disposal, and fail- ing altogether to discover where the soap was kept, I was not long in performing my ablutions. Before leaving the room, I looked again at the stuffed poodle. On the board to which he was fixed, I saw painted in faded letters the word " Scarammuccia," evidently the comic Italian name to which he had answered in his lifetime. There was no other inscription ; but I made up my mind that the dog must have been the Professor's pet, and that he kept the ani- mal stuffed in his bedroom as a remembrance of past times. "Who would have suspected so great a philosopher of having so much heart !" thought I, leaving the bedroom to go down stairs again. The Professor had done his breakfast, and was anxious to begin the sitting ; so I took out my chalks and paper, and set to work at once I seated on one pile of books and he on another. " Fine anatomical preparations in my room, are there not, Mr. Kerby ?" said the old gentleman. " Did you notice a very interest- ing and perfect arrangement of the intestinal ganglia ? They form, the subject of an important chapter in my great work." "I am afraid you will think me very ignorant," I replied. " But I really do not know the intestinal ganglia when I see them. The object I noticed with most curiosity in your room was something more on a level with my own small capacity." " And what was that ?" asked the Professor. " The figure of the stuffed poodle. I suppose he was a favorite of yours ?" " Of mine ? No, no ; a young woman's favorite, sir, before I was 216 AFTER DAKK. born ; and a very remarkable dog, too. The vital principle in that poodle, Mr. Kerby, must have been singularly intensified. He lived to a fabulous old age, and he was clever enough to play an impor- tant part of his own in what you English call a Romance of Real Life ! If I could only have dissected that poodle, I would have put him into my book ; he should have headed my chapter on the Vital Principle of Beasts." " Here is a story in prospect," thought I, " if I can only keep his attention up to the subject." " He should have figured in my great work, sir," the Professor went on. " Scarammuccia should have taken his place among the examples that prove my new theory ; but unfortunately he died be- fore I was born. His mistress gave him, stuffed, as you see up stairs, to my father to take care of for her, and he has descended as an heir- loom to me. Talking of dogs, Mr. Kerby, I have ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt, that the brachial plexus in people who die of hydrophobia but slop ! I had better show you how it is tha preparation is up stairs under my wash-hand stand." He left his seat as he spoke. In another minute he would have sent the servant to fetch the " preparation," and I should have lost the story. At the risk of his taking offense, I begged him not to move just then, unless he wished me to spoil his likeness. This alarmed, but fortunately did not irritate him. He returned to his seat, and I resumed the subject of the stuffed poodle, asking him boldly to tell me the story with which the dog was connected. The demand seemed to impress him with no very favorable opinion of my intellectual tastes ; but he complied with it, and related, not without many a wearisome digression to the subject of his great work, the narrative which I propose calling by the name of " The Yellow Mask." After the slight specimens that I have given of his char- acter and style of conversation, it will be almost unnecessary for me to premise that I tell this story as I have told the last, and " Sister Rose," in my own language, and according to my own plan in the disposition of the incidents adding nothing, of course, to the facts, but keeping them within the limits which my disposable space pre- scribes to me. I may perhaps be allowed to add in this place, that I have not yet seen or heard of my portrait in an engraved state. Professor Tizzi is still alive; but I look in vain through the publishers' lists for an announcement of his learned work on the Vital Principle. Possibly he may be adding a volume or two to the twelve already completed, by way of increasing the debt which a deeply obliged posterity is, sooner or later, sure of owing to him. THE YELLOW MASK. 217 THE PROFESSOR'S STORY OF THE YELLOW MASK. PART FIRST. CHAPTER I. ABOUT a century ago, there lived in the ancient city of Pisa a famous Italian milliner, who, by way of vindicating to all custom- ers her familiarity with Paris fashions, adopted a French title, and called herself the Demoiselle Grifoni. She was a wizen little wom- an, with a mischievous face, a quick tongue, a nimble foot, a talent for business, and an uncertain disposition. Rumor hinted that she was immensely rich, and scandal suggested that she would do any thing tor money. The one undeniable good quality which raised Demoiselle Grifoni above all her rivals in the trade was her inexhaustible fortitude. She was never known to yield an inch under any pressure of ad- verse circumstances. Thus the memorable occasion of her life on which she was threatened with ruin was also the occasion on which she most triumphantly asserted the energy and decision of her char- acter. At the height of the demoiselle's prosperity, her skilled fore- woman and cutter-out basely married and started in business as her rival. Such a calamity as this would have ruined an ordinary milli- ner; but the invincible Grifoni rose superior to it almost without an effort, and proved incontestably that it was impossible for hostile Fortune to catch her at the end of her resources. While the minor milliners were prophesying that she would shut up shop, she was quietly carrying on a private correspondence with an agent in Paris. Nobody knew what these letters were about until a few weeks had elapsed, and then circulars were received by all the ladies in Pisa, announcing that the best French fore-woman who could be got for money was engaged to superintend the great Grifoni establishment. This master-stroke decided the victory. All the demoiselle's cus- tomers declined giving orders elsewhere until the fore-woman from Paris had exhibited to the natives of Pisa the latest fashions from the metropolis of the world of dress. The Frenchwoman arrived punctual to the appointed day glib and curt, smiling and flippant, tight of face and supple of figure. 9* 218 AFTER DARK. Her name was Mademoiselle Virginie, and her family had inhuman- ly deserted her. She was set to work the moment she was inside the doors of the Grifoni establishment. A room was devoted to her own private use; magnificent materials in velvet, silk, and satin, with due accompaniment of muslins, laces, and ribbons were placed at her disposal; she was told to spare no expense, and to produce, in the shortest possible time, the finest and newest specimen dresses for exhibition in the show-room. Mademoiselle Virginie undertook to do every thing required of her, produced her port-folios of pat- terns and her book of colored designs, and asked for one .assistant who could speak French enough to interpret her orders to the Ital- ian girls in the work-room. "I have the very person you want," cried Demoiselle Grifoni. " A work-woman we call Brigida here the idlest slut in Pisa, but as sharp as a needle has been in France, and speaks the language like a native. I'll send her to you directly." Mademoiselle Virginie was not left long alone with her patterns and silks. A tall woman, with bold black eyes, a reckless manner, and a step as firm as a man's, stalked into the room with the gait of a tragedy-queen crossing the stage. The instant her eyes fell on the French fore-woman, she stopped, threw up her hands in aston- ishment, and exclaimed, " Finette !" " Teresa !" cried the Frenchwoman, casting her scissors on the table, and advancing a few steps. " Hush ! call me Brigida." " Hush ! call me Virginie." These two exclamations were uttered at the same moment, and then the two women scrutinized each other in silence. The swarthy cheeks of the Italian turned to a dull yellow, and the voice of the Frenchwoman trembled a little when she spoke again. " How, in the name of Heaven, have you dropped down in the world as low as this ?" she asked. " I thought you were provided for when " " Silence !" interrupted Brigida. " You see I was not provided for. I have had my misfortunes ; and you are the last woman alive who ought to refer to them." "Do you think I have not had my misfortunes, too, since we met ?" (Brigida's face brightened maliciously at those words.) " You have had your revenge," continued Mademoiselle Virginie, coldly, turning away to the table and taking up the scissors again. Brigida followed her, threw one arm roughly round her neck, and kissed her on the cheek. " Let us be friends again,' 1 she said. The Frenchwoman laughed. " Tell me how I have had my revenge," pursued the other, tightening her grasp. Mademoiselle Virginie signed to Brigida to stoop, and whispered rapidly in her ear. The THE YELLOW MASK. 219 Italian listened eagerly, with fierce, suspicious eyes fixed on the door. \Vhcn tin- \\ Inspiring ceased, she loosened her hold, and, with a sigh of relief, pushed back her heavy black hair from her t rm pies. " Now we are friends," she said, and sat down indolently in a chair placed by the work-table. " Friends," repeated Mademoiselle Virginie, with another laugh. " And now for business," she continued, getting a row of pins ready for use by putting them between her teeth. " I am here, I believe, for the purpose of ruining the late fore-woman, who has set up in opposition to us? Good! I will ruin her. Spread out the yellow brocaded silk, my dear, and pin that pattern on at your end, while I pin at mine. And what are your plans, Brigida? (Mind you don't forget that Finette is dead, and that Virginie has risen from her ashes.) You can't possibly intend to stop here all your life ? (Leave an inch outside the paper, all round.) You must have proj- ects ? What are they ?". " Look at my figure," said Brigida, placing herself in an attitude in the middle of the room. " Ah," rejoined the other, " it's not what it was. There's too much of it. You want diet, walking, and a French stay-maker," muttered Mademoiselle Virginie through her chevaux-de-frise of pins. "Did the goddess Minerva walk, and employ a French stay- maker ? I thought she rode upon clouds, and lived at a period before waists were invented." " What do you mean ?" " This that my present project is to try if I can't make my for- tune by sitting as a model for Minerva in the studio of the best sculptor in Pisa." " And who is he ? (Unwind me a yard or two of that black lace.)" " The master-sculptor, Luca Lomi an old family, once noble, but down in the world now. The master is obliged to make statues to get a living for his daughter and himself." More of the lace double it over the bosom of the dress. And how is sitting to this needy sculptor to make your fortune?" " Wait a minute. There are other sculptors besides him in the studio. There is, first, his brother, the priest Father Rocco, who passes all his spare time with the master. He is a good sculptor in his way has cast statues and made a font for his church a holy man. who devotes all his work in the studio to the cause of piety." "Ah, bah ! we should think him a droll priest in France. (More pins.) You don't expect him to put money in your pocket, surely ?" " Wait, I say again. There is a third sculptor in the studio act- ually a nobleman ! His name is Fabio d'Ascoli. He is rich, young, handsome, an only child, and little better than a fool. Fancy his working at sculpture, as if he had his bread to get by it and think- 220 AFTER DAKK. ing that an amusement ! Imagine a man belonging to one of the best families in Pisa mad enough to want to make a reputation as an artist ! Wait ! wait ! the best is to come. His father and moth- er are dead he has no near relations, in the world to exercise au- thority over him he is a bachelor, and his fortune is all at his own disposal ; going a-begging, my friend ; absolutely going a-begging for want of a clever woman to hold out her hand and take it from him." " Yes, yes now I understand. The goddess Minerva is a clever woman, and she will hold out her hand and take his fortune from him with the utmost docility." " The first thing is to get him to oifer it. I must tell you that I am not going to sit to him, but to his master, Luca Lomi, who is do- ing the statue of Minerva. The face is modeled from his daughter; and now he wants somebody to sit for the bust and arms. Maddar lena Lomi and I are as nearly as possible the same height, I hear the difference between us being that I have a good figure and she has a bad one. I have offered to sit, through a friend who is em- ployed in the studio. If the master accepts, I am sure of an intro- duction to our rich young gentleman ; and then leave it to my good looks, my various accomplishments, and my ready tongue, to do the rest." " Stop ! I won't have the lace doubled, on second thoughts. I'll have it single, and running all round the dress in curves so. Well, and who is this friend of yours employed in the studio ? A fourth sculptor ?" " No, no ; the strangest, simplest little creature " Just then a faint tap was audible at the door of the room. Brigida laid her finger on her lips, and called impatiently to the person outside to come in. The door opened gently, and a young girl, poorly but very neatly dressed, entered the room. She was rather thin, and under the av- erage height ; but her head and figure were in perfect proportion. Her hair was of that gorgeous auburn color, her eyes of that deep violet-blue, which the portraits of Giorgione and Titian have made famous as the type of Venetian beauty. Her features possessed the definiteness and regularity, the " good modeling " (to use an artist's term), which is the rarest of all womanly charms, in Italy as else- where. The one serious defect of her face was its paleness. Her cheeks, wanting nothing in form, wanted every thing in color. That look of health, which is the essential crowning-point of beauty, was the one attraction which her face did not possess. She came into the room with a sad and weary expression in her eyes, which changed, however, the moment she observed the mag- nificently-dressed French fore-woman, into a look of astonishment, THE YELLOW MASK. 221 and almost of awe. Her manner became shy and embarrassed ; and after an instant of hesitation, she turned back silently to the door. " Stop, stop, Nanina," said Brigida, in Italian. " Don't be afraid of that lady. She is our new fore-woman ; and she has it in her power to do all sorts of kind things for you. Look up, and tell us what you want. You were sixteen last birthday, Nanina, and you behave like a baby of two years old !" " I only came to know if there was any work for me to-day," said the girl, in a very sweet voice, that trembled a little as she tried to face the fashionable French fore-woman again. " No work, child, that is easy enough for you to do," said Brigida. "Are you going to the studio to-day?" Some of the color that Nanina's cheeks wanted began to steal over them as she answered " Yes." " Don't forget my message, darling. And if Master Luca Lomi asks where I live, answer that you are ready to deliver a letter to me ; but that you are forbidden to enter into any particulars at first about who I am, or where I live." " Why am I forbidden ?" inquired Nanina, innocently. " Don't ask questions, baby ! Do as you are told. Bring me back a nice note or message to-morrow from the studio, and I will inter- cede with this lady to get you some work. You are a foolish child to want it, when you might make more money here and at Florence, by sitting to painters and sculptors; though what they can see to paint or model in you I never could understand." "I like working at home better than going abroad to sit," said Nanina, looking very much abashed as she faltered out the answer, and escaping from the room with a terrified farewell obeisance, which was an eccentric compound of a start, a bow, and a court- esy. " That awkward child would be pretty," said Mademoiselle Vir- ginie, making rapid progress with the cutting-out of her dress, "if she knew how to give herself a complexion, and had a presentable f t lie art, without exacting so much as journeyman's wages ? Have I ever asked you for more than a few crowns to give away on feast- days among my parishioners ? Money ! money for a man who may be summoned to Rome to-morrow, who may be told to go at half an hour's notice on a foreign mission that may take him to the ends of the earth, and who would be ready to go the moment when he was called on ! Money to a man who has no wife, no children, no inter- ests outside the sacred circle of the church ! Brother, do you see the dust and dirt and shapeless marble chips lying around your statue there ? Cover that floor instead with gold, and, though the 230 AFTER DAKK. litter may have changed in color and form, in my eyes it would be litter still." " A very noble sentiment, I dare say, Rocco, but I can't echo it. Granting that you care nothing for money, will you explain to me why you are so anxious that Maddalena should marry Fabio ? She has had offers from poorer men you knew of them but you have never taken the least interest in her accepting or rejecting a pro- posal before." " I hinted the reason to you, months ago, when Fabio first entered the studio." " It was rather a vague hint, brother ; can't you be plainer to- day ?" " I think I can. In the first place, let me begin by assuring you that I have no objection to the young man himself. He may be a little capricious and undecided, but he has no incorrigible faults that I have discovered." " That is rather a cool way of praising him, Rocco." " I should speak of him warmly enough, if he were not the rep- resentative of an intolerable corruption, and a monstrous wrong. Whenever I think of him I think of an injury which his present ex- istence perpetuates ; and if I do speak of him coldly, it is only for that reason." Luca looked away quickly from his brother, and began kicking absently at the marble chips which were scattered over the floor around him. " I now remember," he said, " what that hint of yours pointed at. I know what you mean." " Then you know," answered the priest, " that while part of the wealth which Fabio d'Ascoli possesses is honestly and incontestably his own ; part, also, has been inherited by him from the spoilers and robbers of the Church " " Blame his ancestors for that ; don't blame him." " I blame him as long as the spoil is not restored." " How do you know that it was spoil, after all ?" " I have examined more carefully than most men the records of the civil wars in Italy; and I know that the ancestors of Fabio d'Ascoli wrung from the Church, in her hour of weakness, property which they dared to claim as their right. I know of titles to lands signed away, in those stormy times, under the influence of fear, or through false representations of which the law takes no account. I call the money thus obtained spoil, and I say that it ought to be restored, and shall be restored, to the Church from which it was taken." " And what does Fabio answer to that, brother ?" " I have not spoken to him on the subject." THE YELLOW MASK. 231 "Why not?" Because, 1 have, as yet, no influence over him. When he is mar- ried, his wife will have influence over him, and she shall speak." ' Muddalena, I suppose ? How do you know that she will speak ?" " Have I not educated her ? Does she not understand what her duties are toward the Church, in whose bosom she has been reared ?" Luca hesitated uneasily, and walked away a step or two before he spoke again. " Does this spoil, as you call it, amount to a large sum of money ?" he asked, in an anxious whisper. " I may answer that question, Luca, at some future time," said the priest. " For the present, let it be enough that you are acquainted \\itli all I undertook to inform you of when we began our conversa- tion. You now know that if I am anxious for this marriage to take place, it is from motives entirely unconnected with self-interest. If all the property which Fabio's ancestors wrongfully obtained from the Church were restored to the Church to-morrow, not one paulo of it would go into my pocket. I am a poor priest now, and to the end of my days shall remain so. You soldiers of the world, brother, fight for your pay ; I am a soldier of the Church, and I tight for my cause." Saying these words, he returned abruptly to the statuette ; and refused to speak, or leave his employment again, until he had taken the mould off, and had carefully put away the Various fragments of which it consisted. This done, he drew a writing-desk from the drawer of his working-table, and taking out a slip of paper, wrote these lines: " Come down to the studio to-morrow. Fabio will be with us, but Nanina will return no more." Without signing what he had written, he sealed it up, and direct- ed, it to " Donna Maddalena ;" then took his hat, and handed the note to his brother. " Oblige me by giving that to my niece," he said. "Tell me, Rocco," said Luca, turning the note round and round perplexedly between his finger and thumb ; "do you think Madda- lena will be lucky enough to get married to Fabio ?" " Still coarse in your expressions, brother !" "Never mind my expressions. Is it likely ?" "Yes, Luca, I think it is likely ?" With those words he waved his hand pleasantly to his brother, and went out. 232 AFTER DAKK. CHAPTER in. FROM the studio Father Rocco went straight to his own rooms, hard by the church to which he was attached. Opening a cabinet in his study, he took from one of its drawers a handful of small sil- ver money, consulted for a minute or so a slate on which several names and addresses were written, provided himself with a portable inkhorn and some strips of paper, and again went out. He directed his steps to the poorest part of the neighborhood ; and entering some very wretched houses, was greeted by the inhab- itants with great respect and affection. The women, especially, kissed his hands with more reverence than they would have shown to the highest crowned head in Europe. In return, he talked to them as easily and unconstrainedly as if they were his equals ; sat down cheerfully on dirty bedsides and rickety benches; and dis- tributed his little gifts of money with the air of a man who was pay- ing debts rather than bestowing charity. Where he encountered cases of illness, he pulled out his inkhorn and slips of paper, and wrote simple prescriptions to be made up from the medicine-chest of a neighboring convent, which served the same merciful purpose then that is answered by dispensaries in our days. When he had exhausted his money, and had got through his visits, he was escort- ed out of the poor quarter by a perfect train of enthusiastic follow- ers. The women kissed his hand again, and the men uncovered as he turned, and, with a friendly sign, bade them all farewell. As soon as he was alone again, he walked toward the Campo Santo, and, passing the house in which Nanina lived, sauntered up and down the street thoughtfully for some minutes. When he at length ascended the steep staircase that led to the room occupied by the sisters, he found the door ajar. Pushing it open gently, he saw La Biondella sitting with her pretty, fair profile turned toward him, eating her evening meal of bread and grapes. At the opposite end of the room, Scarammuccia was perched up on his hind-quar- ters in a corner, with his mouth wide open to catch the morsel of bread which he evidently expected the child to throw to him. What the elder sister was doing, the priest had not time to see ; for the dog barked the moment he presented himself, and Nanina hastened to the door to ascertain who the intruder might be. All that he couiu observe was that she was too confused, on catching sight of him, to be able to utter a word. La Biondella was the first to speak. "Thank you, Father Rocco," said the child, jumping up, with her THE YELLOW MASK. 233 bread in one hand and her grapes in the other " thank you for giving ine so much money tor my dinner-mats. There they are, tied up together in one little parcel, in the corner. Xanina said she was ashamed to think of your carrying them; and I said I knew where you lived, and I should like to ask you to let me take them home." " Do you think you can carry them all the way, my dear ?" asked the priest. " Look, Father Rocco, see if I can't carry them !" cried La Bion- della, cramming her bread into one of the pockets of her little apron, holding her bunch of grapes by the stalk in her mouth, and hoist- ing the packet of dinner-mats on her head in a moment. " See, I am strong enough to carry double," said the child, looking up proudly into the priest's face. " Can you trust her to take them home for me ?" asked Father Rocco, turning to Nanina. " I want to speak to you alone, and her absence will give me the opportunity. Can you trust her out by herself?" " Yes, Father Rocco, she often goes out alone." Nanina gave this answer in low, trembling tones, and looked down confusedly on the ground. " Go then, my dear," said Father Rocco, patting the child on the shoulder ; " and come back here to your sister, as soon as you have left the mats." La Biondella went out directly in great triumph, with Scaram- muccia walking by her side, and keeping his muzzle suspiciously close to the pocket in which she had put her bread. Father Rocco closed the door after them, and then, taking the one chair which the room possessed, motioned to Nanina to sit by him on the stool. " Do you believe that I am your friend, my child, and that I have always meant well toward you ?" he began. " The best and kindest of friends," answered Nanina. " Then you will hear what I have to say patiently, and you will believe that I am speaking for your good, even if my words should distress you ?" (Nanina turned away her head.) " Now, tell me ; should I be wrong, to begin with, if I said that my brother's pupil, the young nobleman whom we call ' Signor Fabio,' had been here to see you to-day ?" (Nanina started up affrightedly from her stool.) " Sit down again, my child ; I am not going to blame you. I am only going to tell you what you must do for the future." He took her hand ; it was cold, and it trembled violently in his. " I will not ask what he has been saying to you," continued the priest ; " for it might distress you to answer ; and I have, moreover, had means of knowing that your youth and beauty have made a strong impression on him. I will pass over, then, all reference to the words he may have been speaking to you ; and I will come at 10 234 once to what I have now to say, in my turn. Nanina, my child, arm yourself with all your courage, and promise me, before we part to- night, that you will see Signor Fabio no more." Nanina turned round suddenly, and fixed her eyes on him, with an expression of terrified incredulity. " No more ?" "You are very young, and very innocent," said Father Rocco; "but surely you must have thought before now of the difference between Signor Fabio and you. Surely you must have often re- membered that you are low down among the ranks of the poor, and that he is high up among the rich and the nobly born ?" Nanina's hands dropped on the priest's knees. She bent her head down on them, and began to weep bitterly. " Surely you must have thought of that ?" reiterated Father Rocco. " Oh, I have often, often thought of it !" murmured the girl. " I have mourned over it, and cried about it in secret for many nights past. He said I looked pale, and ill, and out of spirits to-day ; and I told him it was with thinking of that !" " And what did he say in return ?" There was no answer. Father Rocco looked down. Nanina raised her head directly from his knees, and tried to turn it away again. He took her hand and stopped her. " Come !" he said ; " speak frankly to me. Say what you ought to say to your father and your friend. What was his answer, my child, when you reminded him of the difference between you ?" " He said I was born to be a lady," faltered the girl, still strug- gling to turn her face away, " and that I might make myself one if I would learn and be patient. He said that if he had all the noble ladies in Pisa to choose from on one side, and only little Nanina on the other, he would hold out his hand to me, and tell them, ' This shall be my wife.' He said love knew no difference of rank ; and that if he was a nobleman and rich, it was all the more reason why he should please himself. He was so kind, that I thought my heart would burst while he was speaking; and my little sister liked him so, that she got upon his knee and kissed him. Even our dog, who growls at other strangers, stole to his side and licked his hand. Oh, Father Rocco ! Father Rocco !" The tears burst out afresh, and the lovely head dropped once more, wearily, on the priest's knee. Father Rocco smiled to himself, and waited -to speak again till she was calmer. " Supposing," he resumed, after some minutes of silence, " suppos- ing Signor Fabio really meant all he said to you" Nanina started up, and confronted the priest boldly for the first time since he had entered the room. "Supposing!" she exclaimed, her cheeks beginning to redden, THE YELLOW MASK. 235 and her dark blue eyes flashing suddenly through her tears. " Sup- posing ! Father Rocco, Fabio would never deceive me. I would die here at your feet, rather than doubt the least word he said to me!" The priest signed to her quietly to return to the stool. " I never suspected the child had so much spirit in her," he thought to him- self. " I would die," repeated Nanina, in a voice that began to falter now. " I would die rather than doubt him." "I will not ask you to doubt him," said Father Rocco, gently; " and I will believe in him myself as firmly as you do. Let us sup- pose, my child, that you have learned patiently all the many things of which you are now ignorant, and which it is necessary for a lady to know. Let us suppose that Signor Fabio has really violated all the laws that govern people in his high station, and has taken you to him publicly as his wife. You would be happy then, Nanina ; but would he ? He has no father or mother to control him, it is true ; but he has friends many friends and intimates in his own rank proud, heartless people, who know nothing of your worth and goodness ; who, hearing of your low birth, would look on you, and on your husband too, my child, with contempt. He has not your patience and fortitude. Think how bitter it would be for him to bear that contempt to see you shunned by proud women, and carelessly pitied or patronized by insolent men. Yet all this, and more, he would have to endure, or else to quit the world he has lived in from his boyhood the world he was born to live in. You love him, I know " Nanina's tears burst out afresh. " Oh, how dearly how dearly !" she murmured. " Yes, you love him dearly," continued the priest ; " but would all your love compensate him for every thing else that he must lose ? It might, at first; but there would come a time when the world would assert its influence over him again ; when he would feel a want which you could not supply a weariness which you could not solace. Think of his life then, and of yours. Think of the first day when the first secret doubt whether he had done rightly in marrying you would steal into his mind. We are not masters of all our impulses. The lightest spirits have their moments of irresistible ilrpivssion ; the bravest hearts are not always superior to doubt. My child, my child, the world is strong, the pride of rank is rooted deep, and the human will is frail at best ! Be warned ! For your own sake and for Fabio's, be warned in time." Nanina stretched out her hands toward the priest in despair. " Oh, Father Rocco ! Father Rocco !" she cried ; " why did you not tell me this before ?" 236 AFTER DARK. " Because, my child, I only knew of the necessity for telling you to-day. But it is not too late ; it is never too late to do a good action. You love Fabio, Nanina ? Will you prove that love by making a great sacrifice for his good ?" " I would die for his good !" " Will you nobly cure him of a passion which will be his ruin, if not yours, by leaving Pisa to-morrow ?" " Leave Pisa !" exclaimed Nanina. Her face grew deadly pale ; she rose and moved back a step or two from the priest. " Listen to me," pursued Father Rocco ; " I have heard you com- plain that you could not get regular employment at needle-work. You shall have that employment, if you will go with me you and your little sister too, of course to Florence to-morrow." " I promised Fabio to go to the studio," began Nanina, affrighted- ly. " I promised to go at ten o'clock. How can I " She stopped suddenly, as if her breath were failing her. " I myself will take you and your sister to Florence," said Father Eocco, without noticing the interruption. " I will place you under the care of a lady who will be as kind as a mother to you both. I will answer for your getting such work to do as will enable you to keep yourself honestly and independently ; and I will undertake, if you do not like your life at Florence, to bring you back to Pisa after a lapse of three months only. Three months, Nanina. It is not a long exile." " Fabio ! Fabio !" cried the girl, sinking again on the seat, and hiding her face. "It is for his good," said Father Rocco, calmly; "for Fabio's good, remember." " What would he think of me if I went away ? Oh, if I had but learned to write ! If I could only write Fabio a letter !" "Am I not to be depended on to explain to him all that he ought to know " " How can I go away from him ? Oh ! Father Rocco, how can you ask me to go away from him ?" "I will ask you to do nothing hastily. I will leave you till to- morrow morning to decide. At nine o'clock I shall be in the street ; and I will not even so much as enter this house, unless I know be- forehand that you have resolved to follow my advice. Give me a sign from your window. If I see you wave your white mantilla out of it, I shall know that you have taken the noble resolution to save Fabio and to save yourself. I will say no more, my child ; for, un- less I am grievously mistaken in you, I have already said enough." He went olit, leaving her still weeping bitterly. Not far from the house, he met La Biondella and the dog on their way back. The little girl stopped to report to him the safe delivery THE YELLOW MASK. 237 of her dinner -mats; but he passed on quickly with a nod and a smile. His interview with Nanina had left some influence behind it, which unfitted him just then for the occupation of talking to a child. Nearly half an hour before nine o'clock on the following morning, Father Rocco set forth for the street in which Nanina lived. On hi- way thither he overtook a dog walking lazily a few paces ahead in the roatl-way ; and saw, at the same time, an elegantly-dressed lady advancing toward him. The dog stopped suspiciously as she approached, and growled and showed his teeth when she passed him. The lady, on her side, uttered an exclamation of disgust, but did not seem to be either astonished or frightened by the animal's threatening attitude. Father Rocco looked after her with some curiosity as she walked by him. She was a handsome woman, and he admired her courage. " I know that growling brute well enough." lie -aid to himself, "but who can the lady be?" The dog was Scarammuccia, returning from one of his marauding expeditions. The lady was Brigida, on her way to Luca Lomi's studio. Some minutes before nine o'clock the priest took his post in the street, opposite Nanina's window. It was open ; but neither she nor her little sister appeared at it. He looked up anxiously as the church-clocks struck the hour ; but there was no sign for a minute or so after they were all silent. " Is she hesitating still ?" said Fa- ther Rocco to himself. .Iu-t as the words passed his lips, the white mantilla was waved out of the window. PART SECOND. CHAPTER I. EVEN the master-stroke of replacing the treacherous Italian fore- woman by a French dress-maker, engaged direct from Paris, did not at first avail to elevate the great Grifoni establishment above the reach of minor calamities. Mademoiselle Virginie had not occupied her new situation at Pisa quite a week before she fell ill. All sorts of reports were circulated as to the cause of this illness ; and the /Demoiselle Grifoni even went so far as to suggest that the health of the new fore-woman had fallen a sacrifice to some nefarious practices of the chemical sort, on the part of her rival in the trade. But, however the misfortune had been produced, it was a fact that Made- moiselle Virginie was certainly very ill, and another fact that the doctor insisted on her being sent to the baths of Lucca as soon as she could b o moved from her bed. 238 AFTER DARK. Fortunately for the Demoiselle Grifoni, the Frenchwoman had succeeded in producing three specimens of her art before her health broke down. They comprised the evening dress of yellow brocaded silk, to which she had devoted herself on the morning when she first assumed her duties at Pisa ; a black cloak and hood of an en- tirely new shape ; and an irresistibly fascinating dressing-gown, said to have been first brought into fashion by the princesses of the blood-royal of France. These articles of costume, on being exhibit- ed in the show-room, electrified the ladies of Pisa ; and orders from all sides flowed in immediately on the Grifoni establishment. They were, of course, easily executed by the inferior work-women, from the specimen designs of the French dress-maker. So that the ill- ness of Mademoiselle Virginia, though it might cause her mistress some temporary inconvenience, was, after all, productive of no ab- solute loss. Two months at the baths of Lucca restored the new fore-woman to health. She returned to Pisa, and resumed her place in the pri- vate work-room. Once re-established there, she discovered that an important change had taken place during her absence. Her friend and assistant, Brigida, had resigned her situation. All inquiries made of the Demoiselle Grifoni only elicited one answer : the miss- ing work-woman had abruptly left her place at five minutes' warn- ing, and had departed without confiding to any one what she thought of doing, or whither she intended to turn her steps. Months elapsed. The new year came ; but no explanatory letter arrived from Brigida. The spring season passed off, with all its ac- companiments of dress-making and dress-buying, but still there was no news of her. The first anniversary of Mademoiselle Virginie's engagement with the Demoiselle Grifoni came round ; and then at last a note arrived, stating that Brigida had returned to Pisa, and that if the French fore-woman would send an answer, mentioning where her private lodgings were, she would visit her old friend that evening after business hours. The information was gladly enough given; and, punctually to the appointed time, Brigida arrived in Mademoiselle Virginie's little sitting-room. Advancing with her usual indolent stateliness of gait, the Italian asked after her friend's health as coolly, and sat down in the nearest chair as carelessly, as if they had not been separated for more than a few days. Mademoiselle Virginie laughed in her liveliest manner, and raised her mobile French eyebrows in sprightly astonishment. "Well, Brigida!" she exclaimed, "they certainly did you no in- justice when they nicknamed you ' Care-for-Nothing,' in old Grifo- ni's work-room. Where have you been? Why have you never writ- ten to me ?" " I had nothing particular to write about ; and besides, I always THE YELLOW MASK. 239 Intended to come back to Pisa and see you," answered Brigida, leaning back luxuriously in her chair. " But where have you been for nearly a whole year past ? In Italy ?" " No ; at Paris. You know I can sing not very well ; but I have a voice, and most Frenchwomen (excuse the impertinence) have none. I met with a friend, and got introduced to a manager ; and I have been singing at the theatre not the great parts, only the second. Your amiable countrywomen could not screech me down on the stage, but they intrigued against me successfully be- hind the scenes. In short, I quarreled with our principal lady, quar- reled with the manager, quarreled with my friend ; and here I am back at Pisa, with a little money saved in my pocket, and no great notion what I am to do next." " Back at Pisa ! Why did you leave it ?" Brigida's eyes .began to lose their indolent expression. She sat up suddenly in her chair, and set one of her hands heavily on a lit- tle table by her side. " Why ?" she repeated. " Because when I find the game going against me, I prefer giving it up at once to waiting to be beaten." " Ah ! you refer to that last year's project of yours for making your fortune among the sculptors. I should like to hear how it was you failed with the wealthy young amateur. Remember that I fell ill before you had any news to give me. Your absence when I returned from Lucca, and, almost immediately afterward, the mar- riage of your intended conquest to the sculptor's daughter, proved to me, of course, that you must have failed. But I never heard how. I know nothing at this moment but the bare fact that Maddalena Lomi won the prize." " Tell me first, do she and her husband live together happily ?" " There are no stories of their disagreeing. She has dresses, horses, carriages, a negro page, the smallest lap-dog in Italy in short, all the luxuries that a woman can want; and a child, by-the- bye, into the bargain." "A child!" "Yes; a child, born little more than a week ago." "Not a boy, I hope?" "No; a girl." " I am glad of that. Those rich people always want the first-born fo be an heir. They will both be disappointed. I am glad of that." Mercy on us. Brigida, how fierce you look!" " Do I ? It's likely enough. I hate Fabio d'Ascoli and Madda- lena Lomi singly as man and woman, doubly as man and wife. Stop! I'll tell you what you want to know directly. Only answer me another question or two first. Have you heard any thing about her health ?" 240 AFTEK DAKK. " How should I hear ? Dress-makers can't inquire at the doors of the nobility." "True. Now one last question. That little simpleton, Nanina ?" " I have never seen or heard any thing of her. She can't be at Pisa, or she would have called at our place for work." "Ah ! I need not have asked about her if I had thought a mo- ment beforehand. Father Rocco would be sure to keep her out of Fabio's sight, for his niece's sake." " What, he really loved that ' thread-paper of a girl' as you called her ?" "Better than fifty such wives as he has got now! I was in the studio the morning he was told of her departure from Pisa. A let- ter was privately given to him, telling him that the girl had left the place out of a feeling of honor, and had hidden herself beyond the possibility of discovery, to prevent him from compromising himself with all his friends by marrying her. Naturally enough, he would not believe that this was her own doing; and, naturally enough also, when Father Rocco was sent for, and was not to be found, he suspected the priest of being at the bottom of the business. I never saw a man in such a fury of despair and rage before. He swore that he would have all Italy searched for the girl, that he would be the death of the priest, and that he would never enter Luca Lomi's stu- dio again " " And, as to .this last particular, of course, being a man, he failed to keep his word ?" " Of course. At that first visit of mine to the studio I discovered two things. The first, as I said, that Fabio was really in love with the girl the second, that Maddalena Lomi was really in love with him. You may suppose I looked at her attentively while the dis- turbance was going on, and while nobody's notice was directed on me. All women are vain, I know, but vanity never blinded my eyes. I saw directly that I had but one superiority over her my figure. She was my height, but not well made. She had hair as dark and as glossy as mine ; eyes as bright and as black as mine ; and the rest of her face better than mine. My nose is coarse, my lips are too thick, and my upper lip overhangs my under too far. She had none of those personal faults ; and, as for capacity, she managed the young fool in his passion as well as I could have man- aged him in her place." " How ?" " She stood silent, with downcast eyes and a distressed look, all the time he was raving up and down the studio. She must have hated the girl, and been rejoiced at her disappearance ; but she never showed it. ' You would be an awkward rival ' (I thought to myself), ' even to a handsomer woman than I am.' However, I de- THE YELLOW MASK. 241 termined not to despair too soon, and made up my mind to follow my plan just as if the accident of the girl's disappearance had never occurred. I smoothed down the master - sculptor easily enough fluttering him about his reputation, assuring him that the works of Luca Lomi had been the objects of my adoration since childhood, telling him that I had heard of his difficulty in finding a model to complete his Minerva from, and offering myself (if he thought me worthy) for the honor laying great stress on that word for the honor of sitting to him. I don't know whether he was altogether deceived by what I told him ; but he was sharp enough to see that I really could be of use, and he accepted my offer with a profusion of compliments. We parted, having arranged that I was to give him a first sitting in a week's time." " Why put it off so long ?" " To allow our young gentleman time to cool down and return to the studio, to be sure. What was the jise of my being there while he was away ?" " Yes, yes I forgot. And how long was it before he came back ?" " I had allowed him more time than enough. When I had given my first sitting I saw him in the studio, and heard it was his sec- ond visit there since the day of the girl's disappearance. Those very violent men are always changeable and irresolute." " Had he made no attempt, then, to discover Nanina ?" " Oh yes ! He had searched for her himself, and had set others searching for her, but to no purpose. Four days of perpetual disap- point mrnt had been enough to bring him to his senses. Luca Lomi had written him a peace-making letter, asking what harm he or his daughter had done, even supposing Father Rocco was to blame. Maddalena Lomi had met him in the street, and had looked resign- edly away from him, as if she expected him to pass her. In short, they had awakened his sense of justice and his good nature (you see, I can impartially give him his due), and they had got him back. He was silent and sentimental enough at first, and shockingly sulky and savage with the priest ' '' I wonder Father Rocco ventured within his reach." " Father Rocco is not a man to be daunted or defeated by any body, I can tell you. The same day on which Fabio came back to the studio, he returned to it. Beyond boldly declaring that he thought Nanina had done quite right, and had acted like a good and virtuous girl, he would say nothing about her or her disappear- ance. It was quite useless to ask him questions he denied that any one had a right to put them. Threatening, entreating, flatter- ing all modes of appeal were thrown away on him. Ah, my dear! depend upon it, the cleverest and politest man in Pisa, the most dangerous to an enemy and the most delightful to a friend, is Fa- 10* 242 AFTER DARK. ther Rocco. The rest of them, when I began to play my cards a little too openly, behaved with brutal rudeness to me. Father Roc- co, from first to last, treated me like a lady. Sincere or not, I don't care he treated me like a lady when the others treated me like " There ! there ! don't get hot about it now. Tell me instead how you made your first approaches to the young gentleman whom you talk of so contemptuously as Fabio." " As it turned out, in the worst possible way. First, of course, I made sure of interesting him in me by telling him that I had known Nanina. So far it was all well enough. My next object was to per- suade him that she could never have gone away if she had truly loved him alone ; and that he must have had some fortunate rival in her own rank of life, to whom she had sacrificed him, after grat- ifying her vanity for a time by bringing a young nobleman to her feet. I had, as you will easily imagine, difficulty enough in making him take this view of NanUia's flight. His pride and his love for the girl were both concerned in refusing to admit the truth of my suggestion. At last I succeeded. I brought him to that state of ruffled vanity and fretful self-assertion in which it is easiest to work on a man's feelings in which a man's own wounded pride makes the best pitfall to catch him in. I brought him, I say, to that state, and then sTie stepped in and profited by what I had done. Is it wonderful now that I rejoice in her disappointments that I should be glad to hear any ill thing of her that any one could tell me ?" " But how did she first get the advantage of you ?" " If I had found out, she would never have succeeded where I failed. All I know is, that she had more opportunities of seeing him than I, and that she used them cunningly enough even to de- ceive me. While I thought I was gaining ground with Fabio, I was actually losing it. My first suspicions were excited by a change in Luca Lomi's conduct toward me. He grew cold, neglectful at last absolutely rude. I was resolved not to see this ; but accident soon obliged me to open my eyes. One morning I heard Fabio and Mad- dalena talking of me when they imagined I had left the studio. I can't repeat their words, especially hers. The blood flies into my head, and the cold catches me at the heart, when I only think of them. It will be enough if I tell you that he laughed at me, and that she" "Hush! not so loud. There are other people lodging in the house. Never mind about telling me what you heard ; it only irri- tates you to no purpose. I can guess that they had discovered " " Through her remember, all through her !" " Yes, yes, I understand. They had discovered a great deal more than you ever intended them to know, and all through her." " But for the priest, Virginie, I should have been openly insulted THE YELLOW MASK. 243 and driven from their doors. He had insisted on their behaving with decent civility toward me. They said that he was afraid of me, ami laughed at the notion of his trying to make them afraid too. That was the last thing I heard. The fury I was in, and the necessity of keeping it down, almost suffocated me. I turned round to leave the place forever, when, who should I see, standing close behind me, but Father Rocco. He must have discovered in my face that I knew all, but he took no notice of it. He only asked, in his usual quiet, polite way, if I was looking for any thing I had lost, and if he could help me. I managed to thank him, and to get to the door. He opened it for me respectfully, and bowed he treated me like a lady to the last ! It was evening when I left the studio in that way. The next morning I threw up my situation, and turned my back on Pisa. Now you know every thing." " Did you hear of the marriage ? or did you only assume from what you knew that it would take place t" " I heard of it about six months ago. A man came to sing in the chorus at our theatre who had been employed some time before at the grand concert given on the occasion of the marriage. But let us drop the subject now. I am in a fever already with talking of it. You are in a bad situation here, my dear; I declare your room is almost stifling." " Shall I open the other window ?" "No; let us go out and get a breath of air by the river-side. Come ! take your hood and fan it is getting dark nobody will see us, and we can come back here, if you like, in half an hour." Mademoiselle Virginie acceded to her friend's wish rather reluc- tantly. They walked toward the river. The sun was down, and the sudden night of Italy was gathering fast. Although Brigida did not say another word on the subject of Fabio or his wife, she led the way to the bank of the Arno, on which the young nobleman's palace stood. Just as they got near the great door of entrance, a sedan-chair, approaching in the opposite direction, was set down before it ; and a footman, after a moment's conference with a lady inside the chair, advanced to the porter's lodge in the court -yard. Leaving her friend to go on, Brigida slipped in after the servant by the open wicket, and concealed herself in the shadow cast by the great closed gates. " The Marchesa Melani, to inquire how the Countess D'Ascoli and the infant are this evening," said the footman. " My mistress has not changed at all for the better since the morn- ing," answered the porter. u The child is doing quite well." The footman went back to the sedan-chair; then returned to the porter's lodge. 244 AFTER DARK. " The marchesa desires me to ask if fresh medical advice has been sent for," he said. "Another doctor has arrived from Florence to-day," replied the porter. Mademoiselle Virginie, missing her friend suddenly, turned back toward the palace to look after her, and was rather surprised to see Brigida slip out of the wicket -gate. There were two oil lamps burning on pillars outside the door-way, and their light glancing on the Italian's face, as she passed under them, showed that she was smiling. CHAPTER II. WHILE the Marchesa Melani was making inquiries at the gate of the palace, Fabio was sitting alone in the apartment which his wife usually occupied when she was in health. It was her favorite room, and had been prettily decorated, by her own desire, with hangings in yellow satin and furniture of the same color. Fabio was now waiting in it, to hear the report of the doctors after their evening visit. Although Maddalena Lomi had not been his first love, and al- though he had married her under circumstances which are general- ly and rightly considered to afford few chances of lasting happiness in wedded life, still they had lived together through the one year of their union tranquilly, if not fondly. She had moulded herself wisely to his peculiar humors, had made the most of his easy dis- position ; and, when her quick temper had got the better of her, had seldom hesitated in her cooler moments to acknowledge that she had been wrong. She had been extravagant, it is true, and had ir- ritated him by fits of unreasonable jealousy ; but these were faults not to be thought of now. He could only remember that she was the mother of his child, and that she lay ill but two rooms away from him dangerously ill, as the doctors had unwillingly confessed on that very day. The darkness was closing in upon him, and he took up the hand- bell to ring for lights. When the servant entered there was genuine sorrow in his face, genuine anxiety in his voice, as he inquired for news from the sick-room. The man only answered that his mistress was still asleep, and then withdrew, after first leaving a sealed letter on the table by his master's side. Fabio summoned him back into the room, and asked when the letter had arrived. He replied that it had been delivered at the palace two days since, and that he had observed it lying unopened on a desk in his master's study. Left alone again, Fabio remembered that the letter had arrived at THE YELLOW MASK. 245 a time when the first dangerous symptoms of his wife's illness had declared themselves, and that he had thrown it aside, after observ- ing the address to be in a handwriting unknown to him. In his present state of suspense, any occupation was better than sitting idle. So he took up the letter with a sigh, broke the seal, and turned inquiringly to the name signed at the end. It was " NANINA." He started, and changed color. " A letter from her," he whisper- ed to himself. " Why does it come at such a time as this ?" His face grew paler, and the letter trembled in his fingers. Those superstitious feelings which he had ascribed to the nursery influences of his childhood, when Father Rocco charged him with them in the studio, seemed to be overcoming him now. He hesitated, and listen- ed anxiously in the direction of his wife's room, before reading the letter. Was its arrival ominous of good or evil? That was the thought in his heart as he drew the lamp near to him, and looked at the first lines. "Am I wrong in writing to you?" (the letter began abruptly). " If I am, you have but to throw this little leaf of paper into the fire, and to think no more of it after it is burned up and gone. I can never reproach you for treating my letter in that way ; for we are never likely to meet again. " Why did I go away ? Only to save you from the consequences of marrying a poor girl who was not fit to become your wife. It almost broke my heart to leave you ; for I had nothing to keep up my courage but the remembrance that I was going away for your sake. I had to think of that, morning and night to think of it always, or I am afraid I should have faltered in my resolution, and have gone back to Pisa. I longed so much at first to see you once more only to tell you that Nanina was not heartless and ungrate- ful, and that you might pity her and think kindly of her, though you might love her no longer. " Only to tell you that ! If I had been a lady I might have told it to you in a letter ; but I had never learned to write, and I could not prevail on myself to get others to take the pen for me. All I could do was to learn secretly how to write with my own hand. It was long, long work ; but the uppermost thought in my heart was always the thought of justifying myself to you, and that made me patient and persevering. I learned, at last, to write so as not to be ashamed of myself, or to make you ashamed of me. I began a letter my first letter to you but I heard of your marriage before it was done, and then I had to tear the paper up, and put the pen down again. " I had no right to come between you and your wife, even with so little a thing as a letter ; I had no right to do any thing but hope 246 AFTER DARK. and pray for your happiness. Are you happy ? I am sure you ought to be ; for how can your wife help loving you ? " It is very hard for me to explain why I have ventured on writ- ing now, and yet I can't think that I am doing wrong. I heard a few days ago (for I have a friend at Pisa who keeps me informed, by my own desire, of all the pleasant changes in your life) I heard of your child being born; and I thought myself, after that, justified at last in writing to you. No letter from me, at such a time as this, can rob your child's mother of so much as a thought of yours that is due to her. Thus, at least, it seems to me. I wish so well to your child, that I can not surely be doing wrong in writing these lines. " I have said already what I wanted to say what I have been longing to say for a whole year past. I have told you why I left Pisa ; and have, perhaps, persuaded you that I have gone through some suffering, and borne some heart-aches for your sake. Have I more to write ? Only a word or two, to tell you that I am earning my bread, as I always wished to earn it, quietly at home at least, at what I must call home now. I am living with reputable people, and I want for nothing. La Biondella has grown very much ; she would hardly be obliged to get on your knee to kiss you now ; and she can plait her dinner-mats faster and more neatly than ever. Our old dog is with us, and has learned two new tricks ; but you can't be expected to remember him, although you were the only stranger I ever saw him take kindly to at first. " It is time I finished. If you have read this letter through to the end, I am sure you will excuse me if I have written it badly. There is no date to it, because I feel that it is safest and best for both of us that you should know nothing of where I am living. I bless you and pray for you, and bid you affectionately farewell. If you can think of me as a sister, think of me sometimes still." Fabio sighed bitterly while he read the letter. " Why," he whis- pered to himself, "why does it come at such a time as this, when I can not, dare not think of her ?" As he slowly folded the letter up the tears came into his eyes, and he half raised the paper to his lips. At the same moment, some one knocked at the door of the room. He started, and felt himself changing color guiltily as one of his servants entered. "My mistress is awake," the man said, with a very grave face, and a very constrained manner ; " and the gentlemen in attendance desire me to say " He was interrupted, before he could give his message, by one of the medical men, who had followed him into the room. " I wish I had better news to communicate," began the doctor, gently. THE YELLOW MASK. 247 " She is worse, then ?" said Fabio, sinking back into the chair from which he had risen the moment before. " She has awakened weaker instead of stronger after her sleep," returned the doctor, evasively. " I never like to give up all hope till the very last, but" " It is cruel not to be candid with him," interposed another voice the voice of the doctor from Florence, who had just entered the room. " Strengthen yourself to bear the worst," he continued, ad- dressing himself to Fabio. " She is dying. Can you compose your- self enough to go to her bedside ?" Pale and speechless, Fabio rose from his chair, and made a sign in the affirmative. He trembled so that the doctor who had first spoken was obliged to lead him out of the room. " Your mistress has some near relations in Pisa, has she not ?" said the doctor from Florence, appealing to the servant who waited near him. " Her father, sir, Signor Luca Lomi ; and her uncle, Father Roc- co," answered the man. "They were here all through the day, until my mistress fell asleep." " Do you know where to find them now ?" " Signor Luca told me he should be at his studio, and Father Rocco said I might find him at his lodgings." " Send for them both directly. Stay, who is your mistress's con- fessor ? He ought to be summoned without loss of time." " My mistress's confessor is Father Rocco, sir." " Very well send, or go yourself, at once. Even minutes may be of importance now." Saying this, the doctor turned away, and sat down to wait for any last demands on his services, in the chair which Fabio had just left. CHAPTER III. BEFORE the servant could get to the priest's lodgings a visitor had applied there for admission, and had been immediately received by Father Rocco himself. This favored guest was a little man, very sprucely and neatly dressed, and oppressively polite in his manner. He bowed when he first sat down, he bowed when he answered the usual inquiries about his health, and he bowed, for the third time, when Father Rocco asked what had brought him from Florence. " Rather an awkward business," replied the little man, recovering himself uneasily after his third bow. " The dress-maker, named Nanina, whom you placed under my wife's protection about a year ago " 248 AFTER DAKK. " What of her ?" inquired the priest, eagerly. "I regret to say she has left us, with her child-sister, and their very disagreeable dog, that growls at every body." " When did they go ?" " Only yesterday. I came here at once to tell you, as you were so very particular in recommending us to take care of her. It is not our fault that she has gone. My wife was kindness itself to her, and I always treated her like a duchess. I bought dinner-mats of her sister ; I even put up with the thieving and growling of the dis- agreeable dog " " Where have they gone to ? Have you found out that ?" " I have found out, by application at the passport-office, that they have not left Florence but what particular part of the city they have removed to, I have not yet had time to discover." " And pray why did they leave you, in the first place ? Nanina is not a girl to do any thing without a reason. She must have had some cause for going away. What was it ?" The little man hesitated, and made a fourth bow. " You remember your private instructions to my wife and myself, when you first brought Nanina to our house ?" he said, looking away rather uneasily while he spoke. " Yes ; you were to watch her, but to take care that she did not suspect you. It was just possible, at that time, that she might try to get back to Pisa without my knowing it ; and every thing de- pended on her remaining at Florence. I think, now, that I did wrong to distrust her; but it was of the last importance to provide against all possibilities, and to abstain from putting too much faith in my own good opinion of the girl. For these reasons, I certainly did instruct you to watch her privately. So far you are quite right ; and I have nothing to complain of. Go on." " You remember," resumed the little man, " that the first conse- quence of our following your instructions was a discovery (which we immediately communicated to you) that she was secretly learn- ing to write ?" " Yes ; and I also remember sending you word not to show that you knew what she was doing ; but to wait and see if she turned her knowledge of writing to account, and took or sent any letters to the post. You informed me, in your regular monthly report, that she never did any thing of the kind." " Never, until three days ago ; and then she was traced from her room in my house to the post-office with a letter, which she dropped into the box." "And the address of which you discovered before she took it from your house ?" "Unfortunately I did not," answered the little man, reddening THE YELLOW MASK. 249 and looking askance at the priest, as if he expected to receive a se- vere reprimand. But Father Rocco said nothing. He was thinking. Who could she have written to ? If to Fabio, why should she have waited for months and months, after she had learned how to use her pen, be- fore sending him a letter ? If not to Fabio, to what other person could she have written ? "I regret not discovering the address regret it most deeply," said the little man, with a low bow of apology. " It is too late for regret," said Father Rocco, coldly. " Tell me how she came to leave your house ; I have not heard that yet. Be as brief as you can. I expect to be called every moment to the bed- side of a near and dear relation, who is suffering from severe illness. You shall have all my attention ; but you must ask it for as short a time as possible." " I will be briefness itself. In the first place, you must know that I have or rather had an idle, unscrupulous rascal of an apprentice in my business." The priest pursed up his mouth contemptuously. " In the second place, this same good-for-nothing fellow had the impertinence to fall in love with Nanina." Father Rocco started, and listened eagerly. " But I must do the girl the justice to say that she never gave him the slightest encouragement ; and that, whenever he ventured to speak to her, she always quietly but very decidedly repelled him." "A good girl!" said Father Rocco. "I always said she was a good girl. It was a mistake on my part ever to have distrusted her." " Among the other offenses," continued the little man, " of which I now find my scoundrel of an apprentice to have been guilty, was the enormity of picking the lock of my desk, and prying into my private papers." " You ought not to have had any. Private papers should always be burned papers." " They shall be for the future; I will take good care of that." " Were any of my letters to you about Nanina among these pri- vate papers?" " Unfortunately they were. Pray, pray excuse my want of caution this time. It shall never happen again." " Go on. Such imprudence as yours can never be excused ; it can only be provided against for the future. I suppose the apprentice showed my letters to the girl ?" " I infer as much ; though why he should do so " " Simpleton ! Did you not say that he was in love with her (as you term it), and that he got no encouragement?" 250 AFTER DARK. " Yes ; I said that and I know it to be true." " Well ! Was it not his interest, being unable to make any im- pression on the girl's fancy, to establish some claim to her grati- tude ; and try if he could not win her that way ? By showing her my letters, he would make her indebted to him for knowing that she was watched in your house. But this is not the matter in ques- tion now. You say you infer that she had seen my letters. On what grounds ?" " On the strength of this bit of paper," answered the little man, ruefully producing a note from his pocket. " She must have had your letters shown to her soon after putting her own letter into the post. For, on the evening of the same day, when I went up into her room, I found that she and her sister and the disagreeable dog had all gone, and observed this note laid on the table." Father Rocco took the note, and read these lines : " I have just discovered that I have been watched and suspected ever since my stay under your roof. It is impossible that I can re- main another night in the house of a spy. I go with my sister. We owe you nothing, and we are free to live honestly where we please. If you see Father Rocco, tell him that I can forgive his distrust of me, but that I can never forget it. I, who had full faith in him, had a right to expect that he should have full faith in me. It was al- ways an encouragement to me to think of him as a father and a friend. I have lost that encouragement forever and it was the last I had left to me ! NANINA." The priest rose from his seat as he handed the note back, and the visitor immediately followed his example. " We must remedy this misfortune as we best may," he said, with a sigh. " Are you ready to go back to Florence to-morrow ?" The little man bowed again. * " Find out where she is, and ascertain if she wants for any thing, and if she is living in a safe place. Say nothing about me, and make no attempt to induce her to return to your house. Simply let me know what you discover. The poor child has a spirit that no ordinary people would suspect in her. She must be soothed and treated tenderly, and we shall manage her yet. No mistakes, mind, this time ! Do just what I tell you, and do no more. Have you any thing else to say to me ?" The little man shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. " Good-night, then," said the priest. " Good-night," said the little man, slipping through the door that was held open for him with the politest alacrity. " This is vexatious," said Father Rocco, taking a turn or two in THE YELLOW MASK. 251 the study after his visitor had gone. " It was bad to have done the child an injustice it is worse to have been found out. There is nothing for it now but to wait till I know where she is. I like her, and I like that note she left behind her. It is bravely, delicately, and honestly written a good girl a very good girl indeed !" He walked to the window, breathed the fresh air for a few mo- ments, and quietly dismissed the subject from his mind. When he returned to his table he had no thoughts for any one but his sick niece. " It seems strange," he said, " that I have had no message about her yet. Perhaps Luca has heard something. It may be well if I go to the studio at once to find out." He took up his hat and went to the door. Just as he opened it, Fabio's servant confronted him on the threshold. " I am sent to summon you to the palace," said the man. " The doctors have given up all hope." Father Rocco turned deadly pale, and drew back a step. " Have you told my brother of this ?" he asked. "I was just on my way to the studio," answered the servant. "I will go there instead of you, and break the bad news to him," said the priest. They descended the stairs in silence. Just as they were about to separate at the street door, Father Rocco stopped the servant. " How is the child ?" he asked, with such sudden eagerness and impatience, that the man looked quite startled as he answered that the child was perfectly well. " There is some consolation in that," said Father Rocco, walking away, and speaking partly to the servant, partly to himself. "My caution has misled me," he continued, pausing thoughtfully when he was left alone in the road- way. " I should have risked using the mother's influence sooner to procure the righteous restitution. All hope of compassing it now rests on the life of the child. Infant as she is, her father's ill-gotten wealth may yet be gathered back to the Church by her hands." He proceeded rapidly on his way to the studio, until he reached the river-side and drew close to the bridge which it was necessary to cross in order to get to his brother's house. Here he stopped abrupt- ly, as if struck by a sudden idea. The moon had just risen, and her light, streaming across the river, fell full upon his face as he stood by the parapet wall that led up to the bridge. He was so lost in thought that he did not hear the conversation of two ladies who were advancing along the pathway close behind him. As they brushed by him, the taller of the two turned round and looked back at his face. " Father Rocco '." exclaimed the lady, stopping. 252 AITEK DARK. " Donna Brigida !" cried the priest, looking surprised at first, but recovering himself directly, and bowing with his usual quiet polite- ness. " Pardon me if I thank you for honoring me by renewing our acquaintance, and then pass on to my brother's studio. A heavy af- fliction is likely to befall us, and I go to prepare him for it." " You refer to the dangerous illness of your niece ?" said Brigida. " I heard of it this evening. Let us hope that your fears are exag- gerated, and that we may yet meet under less distressing circum- stances. I have no present intention of leaving Pisa for some time, and I shall always be glad to thank Father Rocco for the politeness and consideration which he showed to me, under delicate circum- stances, a year ago." With these words she courtesied deferentially, and moved away to rejoin her friend. The priest observed that Mademoiselle Virginie lingered rather near, as if anxious to catch a few words of the con- versation between Brigida and himself. Seeing this, he, in his turn, listened as the two women slowly walked away together, and heard the Italian say to her companion : "Virginie, I will lay you the price of a new dress that Fabio d'Ascoli marries again." Father Rocco started when she said those words, as if he had ' trodden on fire. " My thought !" he whispered nervously to himself. " My thought at the moment when she spoke to me ! Marry again ? Another wife, over whom I should have no influence ! Other children, whose education would not be confided to me ! What would become, then, of the restitution that I have hoped for, wrought for, prayed for?" He stopped, and looked fixedly at the sky above him. The bridge was deserted. His black figure rose up erect, motionless, and spectral, with the white still light falling solemnly all around it. Standing so for some minutes, his first movement was to drop his hand angrily on the parapet of the bridge. He then turned round slowly in the direction by which the two women had walked away. "Donna Brigida," he said, "I will lay you the price of fifty new dresses that Fabio d'Ascoli never marries again !" He set his face once more toward the studio, and walked on with- out stopping until he arrived at the master-sculptor's door. "Marry again?" he thought to himself, as he rang the bell. " Donna Brigida, was your first failure not enough for you ? Are you going to try a second time ?" Luca Lomi himself opened the door. He drew Father Rocco hurriedly into the studio, toward a single lamp burning on a stand near the partition between the two rooms. THE YELLOW MASK. 253 If i\v you lifiinl any tiling of our poor child ?" he asked. "Tell me the truth ! tell me the truth at once!" -Hush ! compose yourself. I have heard," said Father Rocco, in low, mournful tones. Luca tightened his hold on the priest's arm, and looked into his face with breathless, speechless eagerness. " Compose yourself," repeated Father Rocco. " Compose yourself to hear the worst. My poor Luca, the doctors have given up all hope." Luca dropped his brother's arm with a groan of despair. " Oh, Maddalena ! my child my only child !" Reiterating these words again and again, he leaned his head against the partition and burst into tears. Sordid and coarse as his nature was, he really loved his daughter. All the heart he had was in his statues and in her. After the first burst of his grief was exhausted, he was recalled to himself by a sensation as if some change had taken place in the lighting of the studio. He looked up directly, and dimly dis- cerned the priest standing far down at the end of the room near- est the door, with the lamp in his hand, eagerly looking at some- thing. " Rocco !" he exclaimed, " Rocco, why have you taken the lamp away ? What are you doing there?" There was no movement and no answer. Luca advanced a step or two, and called again, " Rocco, what are you doing there ?" The priest heard this time, and came suddenly toward his brother, with the lamp in his hand so suddenly that Luca started. " What is it ?" he asked, in astonishment. u Gracious God, Rocco, how pale you are !" Still the priest never said a word. He put the lamp down on the nearest table. Luca observed that his hand shook. He had never seen his brother violently agitated before. When Rocco had an- nounced, but a few minutes ago, that Maddalena's life was despaired of, it was in a voice which, though sorrowful, was perfectly calm. What was the meaning of this sudden panic this strange, silent terror ?" The priest observed that his brother was looking at him earnest- ly. " Come !" he said in a faint whisper, " come to her bedside ; we have no time to lose. Get your hat, and leave it to me to put out the lamp." He hurriedly extinguished the light while he spoke. They went down the studio side by side toward the door. The moonlight streamed through the window full on the place where the priest had been standing alone with the lamp in his hand. As they 254 AFTER DARK. passed it, Luca felt his brother tremble, and saw him turn away his head. ******* Two hours later, Fabio d'Ascoli and his wife were separated in this world forever ; and the servants of the palace were anticipating in whispers the order of their mistress's funeral procession to the burial-ground of the Carnpo Santo. PART THIRD. CHAPTER I. ABOUT eight months after the Countess D'Ascoli had been laid in her grave in the Campo Santo, two reports were circulated through the gay world of Pisa, which excited curiosity and awakened ex- pectation everywhere. The first report announced that a grand masked ball was to be given at the Melani Palace, to celebrate the day on which the heir of the house attained his majority. All the friends of the family were delighted at the prospect of this festival ; for the old Marquis Melani had the reputation of being one of the most hospitable, and, at the same time, one of the most eccentric men in Pisa. Every one expected, therefore, that he would secure for the entertainment of his guests, if he really gave the ball, the most whimsical novel- ties in the way of masks, dances, and amusements generally, that had ever been seen. The second report was, that the rich widower, Fabio d'Ascoli, was on the point of returning to Pisa, after having improved his health and spirits by traveling in foreign countries; and that he might be expected to appear again in society, for the first time since the death of his wife, at the masked ball which was to be given in the Melani Palace. This announcement excited special interest among the young ladies of Pisa. Fabio had only reached his thir- tieth year ; and it was universally agreed that his return to society in his native city could indicate nothing more certainly than his desire to find a second mother for his infant child. All the single ladies would now have been ready to bet, as confidently as Brigida had offered to bet eight months before, that Fabio d'Ascoli would marry again. For once in a way, report turned out to be true, in both the cases just mentioned. Invitations were actually issued from the Melani Palace, and Fabio returned from abroad to his home on the Arno. In settling all the arrangements connected with his masked ball, the Marquis Melani showed that he was determined not only to de- serve, but to increase, his reputation for oddity. He invented the THE YELLOW MASK. 255 most extravagant disguises, to be worn by some of his more inti- mate friends ; he arranged grotesque dances, to be performed ft*, stated periods of the evening by professional buffoons, hired from Florence. He composed a toy symphony, which included solos on every noisy plaything at that time manufactured for children's use. And, not content with thus avoiding the beaten track in preparing the entertainments at the ball, he determined also to show decided originality, even in selecting the attendants who were to wait on the company. Other people in his rank of life were accustomed to em- ploy their own and hired footmen for this purpose ; the marquis re- solved that his attendants should be composed of young women only ; that two of his rooms should be fitted up as Arcadian bow- ers; and that all the prettiest girls in Pisa should be placed in them to preside over the refreshments, dressed, in accordance with the mock classical taste of the period, as shepherdesses of the time of Virgil. The only defect of this brilliantly new idea was the difficulty of executing it. The marquis had expressly ordered that not fewer than thirty shepherdesses were to be engaged fifteen for each bow- er. It would have been easy to find double this number in Pisa, if beauty had been the only quality required in the attendant damsels. But it was also absolutely necessary, for the security of the marquis's gold and silver plate, that the shepherdesses should possess, besides good looks, the very homely recommendation of a fair character. This last qualification proved, it is sad to say, to be the one small merit which the majority of the ladies willing to accept engage- ments at the palace did not possess. Day after day passed on ; and the marquis's steward only found more and more difficulty in ob- taining the appointed number of trustworthy beauties. At last his resources failed him altogether; and he appeared in his master's presence about a week before the night of the ball, to make the humiliating acknowledgment that he was entirely at his wits' end. The total number of fair shepherdesses with fair characters whom he had been able to engage amounted only to twenty-three. " Nonsense !" cried the marquis, irritably, as soon as the steward had made his confession. " I told you to get thirty girls, and thirty I mean to have. What's the use of shaking your head, when all their dresses are ordered? Thirty tunics, thirty wreaths, thirty pairs of sandals and silk stockings, thirty crooks, you scoundrel and you have the impudence to offer me only twenty-three hands to hold them. Not a word ! I won't hear a word ! Get me my thirty irirls, or lose your place." The marquis roared out this last terrible sentence at the top of his voice, and pointed peremptorily to the ^oor. The steward knew his master too well to remonstrate. He took his hat and cane, and went out. It was useless to look through the 256 AFTER DAKK. ranks of rejected volunteers again ; there was not the slightest hope in that quarter. The only chance left was to call on all his friends in Pisa who had daughters out at service, and to try what he could accomplish, by bribery and persuasion, that way. After a whole day occupied in solicitations, promises, and patient smoothing down of innumerable difficulties, the result of his efforts in the new direction was an accession of six more shepherdesses. This brought him on bravely from twenty-three to twenty-nine, and left him at last with only one anxiety where was he now to find shepherdess number thirty ? He mentally asked himself that important question, as he entered a shady by-street in the neighborhood of the Campo Santo, on his way back to the Melani Palace. Sauntering slowly along in the middle of the road, and fanning himself with his handkerchief after the oppressive exertions of the day, he passed a young girl who was standing at the street door of one of the houses, apparently waiting for somebody to join her before she entered the building. " Body of Bacchus !" exclaimed the steward (using one of those old Pagan ejaculations which survive in Italy even to the present day), "there stands the prettiest girl I have seen yet. If she would only be shepherdess number thirty, I should go home to supper with my mind at ease. I'll ask her, at any rate. Nothing can be lost by asking, and every thing may be gained. Stop, my dear," he continued, seeing the girl turn to go into the house as he approach- ed her. " Don't be afraid of me. I am steward to the Marquis Melani, and well known in Pisa as an eminently respectable man. I have something to say to you which may be greatly for your bene- fit. Don't look surprised ; I am coming to the point at once. Do you want to earn a little money ? honestly, of course. You don't look as if you were very rich, child." " I am very poor, and very much in want of some honest work to do," answered the girl, sadly. "Then we shall suit each other to a nicety; for I have work of the pleasantest kind to give you, and plenty of money to pay for it. But before we say any thing more about that, suppose you tell me first something about yourself who you are, and so forth. You know who I am already." "I am only a poor work-girl, and my name is Nanina. I have nothing more, sir, to say about myself than that." " Do you belong to Pisa ?" " Yes, sir at least, I did. But I have been away for some time. I was a year at Florence, employed in needle-work." "All by yourself?" " No, sir, with my little sister. I was waiting for her when you came up." THE YELLOW MASK. 257 " Have you never done any thing else but needle- work ? never been out at service ?" "Yes, sir. For the last eight months I have had a situation to wait on a lady at Florence, and my sister (who is turned eleven, sir, and can make herself very useful) was allowed to help in the nursery." " How came you to leave this situation ?" u The lady and her family were going to Rome, sir. They would have taken me with them, but they could not take my sister. We are alone in the world, and we never have been parted from each other, and never shall be so I was obliged to leave the situation." " And here you are, back at Pisa with nothing to do, I suppose ?" " Nothing yet, sir. We only came back yesterday." " Only yesterday 1 You are a lucky girl, let me tell you, to have met with me. I suppose you have somebody in the town who can speak to your character ?" - " The landlady of this house can, sir." " And who is she, pray ?" " Marta Angrisani, sir." " What ! the well - known sick - nurse ? You could not possibly have a better recommendation, child. I remember her being em- ployed at the Melani Palace at the time of the marquis's last attack of gout ; but I never knew that she kept a lodging-house." " She and her daughter, sir, have owned this house longer than I can recollect. My sister and I have lived in it since I was quite a little child, and I had hoped we might be able to live here again. But the top room we used to have is taken, and the room to let lower down is far more, I am afraid, than we can afford." " How much is it ?" Nanina mentioned the weekly rent of the room in fear and trem- bling. The steward burst out laughing. " Suppose I offered you money enough to be able to take that room for a whole year at once ?" he said. Nanina looked at him in speechless amazement. " Suppose I offered you that ?'' continued the steward. " And suppose I only ask you in return to put on a fine dress and serve re- freshments in a beautiful room to the company at the Marquis Me- lani's grand ball ? What should you say to that ?" Nanina said nothing. She drew back a step or two, and looked more bewildered than before. u You must have heard of the ball," said the steward, pompously ; " the poorest people in Pisa have heard of it. It is the talk of the whole city." Still Nanina made no answer. To have replied truthfully, she must have confessed that " the talk of the whole city " had now no U 258 AfrTER DARK. interest for her. The last news from Pisa that had appealed to her sympathies was the news of the Countess D'Ascoli's death, and of Fabio's departure to travel in foreign countries. Since then she had heard nothing more of him. She was as ignorant of his return to his native city as of all the reports connected with the marquis's ball. Something in her own heart some feeling which she had neither the desire nor the capacity to analyze had brought her back to Pisa and to the old home which now connected itself with her tenderest recollections. Believing that Fabio was still absent, she felt that no ill motive could now be attributed to her return; and she had not been able to resist the temptation of revisiting the scene that had been associated with the first great happiness as well as with the first great sorrow of her life. Among all the poor people of Pisa, she was perhaps the very last whose curiosity could be awakened, or whose attention could be attracted by the rumor of gayeties at the Melani Palace. But she could not confess all this ; she could only listen with great humility and no small surprise, while the steward, in compas- sion for her ignorance, and with the hope of tempting her into ac- cepting his offered engagement, described the arrangements of the approaching festival, and dwelt fondly on the magnificence of the Arcadian bowers, and the beauty of the shepherdesses' tunics. As soon as he had done, Nanina ventured on the confession that she should feel rather nervous in a grand dress that did not belong to her, and that she doubted very much her own capability of waiting properly on the great people at the ball. The steward, however, would hear of no objections, and called peremptorily for Marta Angrisani to make the necessary statement as to Nanina's character. While this formality was being complied with to the steward's per- fect satisfaction, La Biondella came in, unaccompanied on this oc- casion by the usual companion of all her walks, the learned poodle Scarammuccia. " This is Naniua's sister," said the good-natured sick -nurse, taking the first opportunity of introducing La Biondella to the great mar- quis's great man. "A very good, industrious little girl; and very clever at plaiting dinner-mats, in case his excellency should ever want any. What have you done with the dog, my dear?" " I couldn't get him past the pork butcher's, three streets off," re- plied La Biondella. " He would sit down and look at the sausages. I am more than half afraid he means to steal some of them." "A very pretty child," said the steward, patting La Biondella on the cheek. " We ought to have her at the ball. If his excellency should want a Cupid, or a youthful nymph, or any thing small and light in that way, I shall come back and let you know. In the mean time, Nanina, consider yourself Shepherdess Number Thirty, THE YELLOW IIASK. 259 and come to the housekeeper's room at the palace to try on your i In--- to-morrow. Nonsense! don't talk to me about being afraid and awkward. All you're wanted to do is to look pretty ; and your glass must have told you you could do that long ago. Remember the rent of the room, my dear, and don't stand in your light and your sister's. Does the little girl like sweetmeats ? Of course she does ! Well, I promise you a whole box of sugar - plums to take home for her, if you will come and wait at the ball." "Oh, go to the ball, Nanina; go to the ball !" cried La Biondella, clapping her hands. "Of course she will go to the ball," said the nurse. " She would be mad to throw away such an excellent chance." Nanina looked perplexed. She hesitated a little, then drew Mar- ta Angrisani away into a corner, and whispered this question to her: " Do you think there will be any priests at the palace where the marquis lives ?" " Heavens, child, what a thing to ask !" returned the nurse. " Priests at a masked ball ! You might as well expect to find Turks performing high mass in the cathedral. But supposing you did meet with priests at the palace, what then?" " Nothing," said Nanina, constrainedly. She turned pale, and walked away as she spoke. Her great dread, in returning to Pisa, \\as the dread of meeting with Father Rocco again. She had never forgotten her first discovery at Florence of his distrust of her. The bare thought of seeing him any more, after her faith in him had lieen shaken forever, made her feel faint and sick at heart. To-morrow, in the housekeeper's room," said the steward, put- ting on his hat, "you will find your new dress all ready for you." Nanina courtesied, and ventured on no more objections. The prospect of securing a home for a whole year to come among peo- ple whom she knew, reconciled her influenced as she was also by Mart a Angrisani's advice, and by her sister's anxiety for the prom- i-cil present to brave the trial of appearing at the ball. What a comfort to have it all settled at last," said the steward, as soon as he was out again in the street. "We shall see what the marquis says now. If he doesn't apologize for calling me a scoun- drel the moment he sets eyes on Number Thirty, he is the most un- grateful nobleman that ever existed." Arriving in front of the palace, the steward found workmen en- gaged in planning the external decorations and illuminations for the night of the ball. A little crowd had already assembled to see the ladders raised and the scaffoldings put up. He observed among them, standing near the outskirts of the throng, a lady who attract- ed his attention (he was an ardent admirer of the fair sex) by the beauty and symmetry of her figure. While he lingered for a uio- 260 AFTER DARK. ment to look at her, a shaggy poodle-dog (licking his chops, as if he had just had something to eat) trotted by, stopped suddenly close to the lady, sniffed suspiciously for an instant, and then began to growl at her without the slightest apparent provocation. The steward advancing politely with his stick to drive the dog away, saw the lady start, and heard her exclaim to herself amazedly, " You here, you beast ! Can Nanina have come back to Pisa ?" This last exclamation gave the steward, as a gallant man, an ex- cuse for speaking to the elegant stranger. " Excuse me, madam," he said, " but I heard you mention the name of Nanina. May I ask whether you mean a pretty little work- girl who lives near the Campo Santo ?" " The same," said the lady, looking very much surprised and in- terested immediately. " It may be a gratification to you, madam, to know that she has just returned to Pisa," continued the steward, politely ; " and, more- over, that she is in a fair way to rise in the world. I have just en- gaged her to wait at the marquis's grand ball, and I need hardly say, under those circumstances, that if she plays her cards properly her fortune is made." The lady bowed, looked at her informant very intently and thoughtfully for a moment, then suddenly walked away without uttering a word. "A curious woman," thought the steward, entering the palace. " I must ask Number Thirty about her to-morrow." CHAPTER II. \ THE death of Maddalena d'Ascoli produced a complete change in the lives of her father and her uncle. After the first shock of the bereavement was over, Luca Loini declared that it would be impos- sible for him to work in his studio again for some time to come at least after the death of the beloved daughter, with whom every corner of it was now so sadly and closely associated. He accord- ingly accepted an engagement to assist in restoring several newly discovered works of ancient sculpture at Naples, and set forth for that city, leaving the care of his work-rooms at Pisa entirely to his brother. On the master - sculptor's departure, Father Rocco caused the statues and busts to be carefully enveloped in linen cloths, locked the studio doors, and, to the astonishment of all who knew of his former industry and dexterity as a sculptor, never approached the place again. His clerical duties he performed with the same a*- THE YELLOW MASK. 261 siduity as ever; hut he went out less than had been his custom hitherto to the houses of his friends. His most regular visits were to the Aseoli Palace, to inquire at the porter's lodge after the health of Maddalcna's child, who was always reported to be thriving ad- mirably under the care of the best nurses that could be found in Pisa. As for any communications with his polite little friend from Florence, they had ceased months ago. The information speedily conveyed to him that Nanina was in the service of one of the most respectable ladies in the city seemed to relieve any anxieties which he might otherwise have felt on her account. He made no attempt to justify himself to her; and only required that his overcourteous little visitor of former days should let him know whenever the girl might happen to leave her new situation. The admirers of Father Rocco, seeing the alteration in his life, and the increased quietness of his manner, said that, as he was growing older, he was getting morn and more above the things of this world. His enemies (tor even Father Rocco had them) did not scruple to assert that the change in him was decidedly for the worse, and that he belonged to the order of men who are most to be distrusted when they become most subdued. The priest himself paid no attention either to his eulogists or his depreciators. Nothing disturbed the regularity and discipline of his daily habits ; and vigilant Scandal, though she sought often to surprise him, sought always in vain. Such was Father Rocco's life from the period of his niece's death to Fabio's return to Pisa. As a matter of course, the priest was one of the first to call at the palace and welcome the young nobleman back. What passed be- tween them at this interview never was precisely known; but it was surmised readily enough that some misunderstanding had taken place, for Father Rocco did not repeat his visit. He made no com- plaints of Fabio, but simply stated that he had said something, in- tended for the young man's good, which had not been received in a right spirit ; and that he thought it desirable to avoid the painful chance of any further collision by not presenting himself at the pal- ace again for some little time. People were rather amazed at this. They would have been still more surprised if the subject of the masked ball had not just then occupied all their attention, and pre- vented their noticing it, by another strange event in connection with the priest. Father Rocco, some weeks after the cessation of his in- tercourse with Fabio, returned one morning to his old way of life as a sculptor, and o|x>ned the long-closed doors of his brother's studio. Luca Lomi's former workmen, discovering this, applied to him immediately for employment; but wen; informed that their services would not be needed. Visitors called at the studio, but were al- ways sent away again by the disappointing announcement that 262 AFTER DARK. there was nothing new to show them. So the days passed on until Nanina left her situation and returned to Pisa. This circumstance was duly reported to Father Rocco by his correspondent at Flor- ence ; but, whether he was too much occupied among the statues, or whether it was one result of his cautious resolution never to ex- pose himself unnecessarily to so much as the breath of detraction, he made no attempt to see Nanina, or even to justify himself toward her by writing her a letter. All his mornings continued to be spent alone in the studio, and all his afternoons to be occupied by his clerical duties, until the day before the masked ball at the Melani Palace. Early on that day he covered over the statues, and locked the doors of the work-rooms once more ; then returned to his own lodg- ings, and did not go out again. One or two of his friends who wanted to see him were informed that he was not well enough to be able to receive them. If they had penetrated into his little study, and had seen him, they would have been easily satisfied that this was no mere excuse. They would have noticed that his face was startlingly pale, and that the ordinary composure of his manner was singularly disturbed. Toward evening this restlessness increased, and his old house- keeper, on pressing him to take some nourishment, was astonished to hear him answer her sharply and irritably, for the first time since she had been in his service. A little later her surprise was in- creased by his sending her with a note to the Ascoli Palace, and by the quick return of an answer, brought ceremoniously by one of Fabio's servants. " It is long since he has had any communication with that quarter. Are they going to be friends again ?" thought the housekeeper as she took the answer up stairs to her master. " I feel better to-night," he said as he read it ; " well enough in- deed to venture out. If any one inquires for me, tell them that I am gone to the Ascoli Palace." Saying this, he walked to the door ; then returned, and trying the lock of his cabinet, satisfied himself that it was properly secured ; then went out. He found Fabio in one of the large drawing-rooms of the palace, walking irritably backward and forward, with several little notes crumpled together in his hands, and a plain black domino dress for the masquerade of the ensuing night spread out on one of the tables. " I was just going to write to you," said the young man, abruptly, " when I received your letter. You offer me a renewal of our friend- ship, and I accept the offer. I have no doubt those references of yours, when we last met, to the subject of second marriages were well meant, but they irritated me ; and, speaking under that irrita- tion, I said words that I had better not have spoken. If I pained THE YELLOW MASK. 263 you, I am sorry for it. Wait ! pardon me for one moment. I have n<>t quite done yet. It seems that you are by no means the only in Pisa to whom the question of my possibly marrying again to have presented itself. Ever since it was known that I intended to renew my intercourse with society at the ball to-morrow night, I have been persecuted by anonymous letters infamous let- ters, written from some motive which it is impossible for me to un- derstand. I want your advice on the best means of discovering the writers ; and I have also a very important question to ask you. But read one of the letters first yourself; any one will do as a sample of the rest." Fixing his eyes searchingly on the priest, he handed him one of the notes. Still a little paler than usual, Father Rocco sat down by the nearest lamp, and, shading his eyes, read these lines : " COUNT FABIO, It is the common talk of Pisa that you are like- ly, as a young man left with a motherless child, to marry again. Your having accepted an invitation to the Melani Palace gives a color of truth to this report. Widowers who are true to the depart- ed do not go among all the handsomest single women in a city at a masked ball. Reconsider your determination, and remain at home. I know you, and I knew your wife, and I say to you solemnly, avoid temptation, for you must never marry again. Neglect my advice and you will repent it to the end of your life. I have reasons for what I say serious, fatal reasons, which I can not divulge. If you would let your wife lie easy in her grave, if you would avoid a ter- rible warning, go not to the masked ball !" " I ask you, and I ask any man, if that is not infamous ?" exclaim- ed Fabio, passionately, as the priest handed him back the letter. "An attempt to work on my fears through the memory of my poor dead wife ! An insolent assumption that I want to marry again, when I myself have not even so much as thought of the subject at all ! What is the secret object of this letter, and of the rest here that resemble it ? Whose interest is it to keep me away from the ball ? What is the meaning of such a phrase as, ' If you would let your wife lie easy in her grave ?' Have you no advice to give me no plan to propose for discovering the vile hand that traced these lines ? Speak to me ! Why, in Heaven's name, don't you speak ?" The priest leaned his head on his hand, and, turning his face from the light as if it dazzled his eyes, replied in his lowest and quietest tones : " I can not speak till I have had time to think. The mystery of that letter is not to be solved in a moment. There are things in it that are enough to perplex and amaze any man !" 264 AFTER DARK. "What things?" " It is impossible for me to go into details at least at the present moment." " You speak with a strange air of secrecy. Have you nothing definite to say no advice to give me ?" "I should advise you not to go to the ball." " You would ! Why ?" " If I gave you my reasons, I am afraid I should only be irritating you to no purpose." " Father Rocco, neither your words nor your manner satisfy me. You speak in riddles ; and you sit there in the dark with your face hidden from me The priest instantly started up and turned his face to the light. " I recommend you to control your temper, and to treat me with common courtesy," he said, in his quietest, firmest tones, looking at Fabio steadily while he spoke. " We will not prolong this interview," said the young man, calm- ing himself by an evident eflfort. " I have one question to ask you, and then no more to say." The priest bowed his head, in token that he was ready to listen. He still stood up, calm, pale, and firm, in the full light of the lamp. " It is just possible," continued Fabio, " that these letters may re- fer to some incautious words which my late wife might have spoken. I ask you as her spiritual director, and as a near relation who enjoy- ed her confidence, if you ever heard her express a wish, in the event of my surviving her, that I should abstain from marrying again ?" " Did she never express such a wish to you ?" "Never. But why do you evade my question by asking me an- other?" " It is impossible for me to reply to your question." " For what reason ?" " Because it is impossible for me to give answers which must re- ^r, whether they are affirmative or negative, to what I have heard in confession." " We have spoken enough," said Fabio, turning angrily from the priest. " I expected you to help me in clearing up these mysteries, and you do your best to thicken them. What your motives are, what your conduct means, it is impossible for me to know; but I say to you, what I would say in far other terms, if they were here, to the villains who have written these letters no menaces, no myste- ries, no conspiracies, will prevent me from being at the ball to-mor- row. I can listen to persuasion, but I scorn threats. There lies my dress for the masquerade ; no power on earth shall prevent me from wearing it to-morrow night !" He pointed, as he spoke, to the black domino and half-mask lying on the table. THE YELLOW MASK. 265 "No power on firth!" repeated Father Rocco, with a smile, and an emphasis on the last word. " Superstitious still, Count Fabio ! Do you suspect the powers of the other world of interfering with mortals at masquerades '." Fal>io started, and, turning from the table, fixed his eyes intently on the priest's face. " You suggested just now that we had better not prolong this interview," said Father Rocco, still smiling. " I think you were right : if we part at once, we may still part friends. You have had mj advice not to go to the ball, and you decline following it. I have nothing more to say. Good-night." Before Fabio could utter the angry rejoinder that rose to his lips, the door of the room had opened and closed again, and the priest was gone. CHAPTER III. THE next night, at the time of assembling specified in the invita- tions to the masked ball, Fabio was still lingering in his palace, and still allowing the black domino to lie untouched and unheeded on his dressing-table. This delay was not produced by any change in his resolution to go to the Melani Palace. His determination to be present at the ball remained unshaken ; and yet, at the last moment, he lingered ;iiitl lingered on, without knowing why. Some strange influence seemed to be keeping him within the walls of his lonely home. It was as if the great, empty, silent palace had almost re- covered on that night the charm which it had lost when its mistress died. He left his own apartment and went to the bedroom where his infant child lay asleep in her little crib. He sat watching her, and thinking quietly and tenderly of many past events in his life for a long time, then returned to his room. A sudden sense of loneliness came upon him after his visit to the child's bedside ; but he did not attempt to raise his spirits even then by going to the ball. He de- scended instead to his study, lit his reading-lamp, and then opening a bureau, took from one of the drawers in it the letter which Nanina hail written to him. This was not the first time that a sudden sense of his solitude had connected itself inexplicably with the remem- brance of the work-girl's letter. He read it through slowly, and when he had done, kept it open in his hand. " I have youth, titles, wealth," he thought to himself, sadly ; " every thing that is sought after in this world. And yet if I try to think of any human being who really and truly loves me, I can remember but one the poor, faithful girl who wrote these lines !" 11* 266 AFTER DARK. Old recollections of the first day when he met with Nanina, of the first sitting she had given him in Luca Lomi's studio, of the first visit to the neat little room in the by-street, began to rise more and more vividly in his mind. Entirely absorbed by them, he sat ab- sently drawing with pen and ink, on some sheets of letter-paper lying under his hand, lines and circles, and fragments of decora- tions, and vague remembrances of old ideas for statues, until the sudden sinking of the flame of his lamp awoke his attention abrupt- ly to present things. He looked at his watch. It was close on midnight. This discovery at last aroused him to the necessity of immediate departure. In a few minutes he had put on his domino and mask, and was on his way to the ball. Before he reached the Melani Palace the first part of the entertain- ment had come to an end. The " Toy Symphony " had been play- ed, the grotesque dance performed, amidst universal laughter ; and now the guests were, for the most part, fortifying themselves in the Arcadian bowers for new dances, in which all persons present were expected to take part. The Marquis Melani had, with characteris- tic oddity, divided his two classical refreshment-rooms into what he termed the Light and Heavy Departments. Fruit, pastry, sweet- meats, salads, and harmless drinks were included under the first head, and all the stimulating liquors and solid eatables under the last. The thirty shepherdesses had been, according to the marquis's order, equally divided at the outset of the evening between the two rooms. But as the company began to crowd more and more reso- lutely in the direction of the Heavy Department, ten of the shep- herdesses attached to the Light Department were told off to assist in attending on the hungry and thirsty majority of guests who were not to be appeased by pastry and lemonade. Among the five girls who were left behind in the room for the light refreshments was Nanina. The steward soon discovered that the novelty of her sit- uation made her really nervous, and he wisely concluded that if he trusted her where the crowd was greatest and the noise loudest, she would not only be utterly useless, but also very much in the way of her more confident and experienced companions. When Fabio arrived at the palace, the jovial uproar in the Heavy Department was at its height, and several gentlemen, fired by the classical costumes of the shepherdesses, were beginning to speak Latin to them with a thick utterance, and a valorous contempt for -all restrictions of gender, number, and case. As soon as he could escape from the congratulations on his return to his friends, which poured on him from all sides, Fabio withdrew to seek some quieter room. The heat, noise, and confusion had so bewildered him, after the tranquil life he had oeen leading for many months past, that it THE YELLOW MASK. 267 was quite a relief to stroll through the half deserted dancing-rooms, ti> the opposite extremity of the great suite of apartments, and there to find himself in a second Arcadian bower, which seemed peaceful enough to deserve its- name. A frw guests \\i-n- in this room when he first entered it, but the distant sound of some first notes of dance music drew them all away. After a careless look at the quaint decorations about him, lie sat down alone on a divan near the door, and beginning already to feel the heat and discomfort of his mask, took it off. He had not removed it more than a moment before he heard a faint cry in the direction of a long refreshment-table, behind which the five waiting- girls were standing. He started up directly, and could hardly believe his senses, when he found himself standing face to face with Nanina. Her chrrk- had turned perfectly colorless. Her astonishment at seeing the young nobleman appeared to have some sensation of ter- ror mingled 'with it. The waiting-woman who happened to stand by her side instinctively stretched out an arm to support her, ob- serving that she caught at the edge of the table as Fabio hurried round to get behind it and speak to her. When he drew near, her head drooped on her breast, and she said, faintly, "I never knew you were at Pisa ; I never thought you would be here. Oh, I am true to what I said in my letter, though I seem so false to it !" "I want to speak to you about the letter to tell you how care- fully I have kept it, how often I have read it," said Fabio. She turned away her head, and tried hard to repress the tears that would force their way into her eyes. "We should never have met," she said ; " never, never have met again !" Before Fabio could reply, the waiting-woman by Nanina's side interposed. " For Heaven's sake, don't stop speaking to her here !" she x- claimed, impatiently. "If the steward or one of the upper servants was to come in, you would get her into dreadful trouble. Wait till to-morrow, and find some fitter place than this." Fabio felt the justice of the reproof immediately. He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, and wrote on it, " I must tell you how I honor and thank you for that letter. To-morrow ten o'clock the wicket-gate at the back of the Ascoli gardens. Believe in my truth and honor, Nanina, for I believe implicitly in yours." Having writ- ten these lines, he took from among his bunch of watch-seals a little key, wrapped it up in the note, and pressed it into her hand. In spite of himself his fingers lingered round hers, and he was on the point of speaking to her again, when he saw the waiting-woman's hand, which was just raised to motion him away, suddenly drop. Her color changed at the same moment, and she looked fixedly across the table. 268 AFTER DARK. He turned round immediately, and saw a masked woman stand- ing alone in the room, dressed entirely in yellow from head to foot. She had a yellow hood, a yellow half-mask with deep fringe hang- ing down over her mouth, and a yellow domino, cut at the sleeves and edges into long flame-shaped points, which waved backward and forward tremulously in the light air wafted through the door- way. The woman's black eyes seemed to gleam with an evil bright- ness through the sight-holes of the mask, and the tawny fringe hang- ing before her mouth fluttered slowly with every breath she drew. Without a word or a gesture she stood before the table, and her gleaming black eyes fixed steadily on Fabio the instant he con- fronted her. A sudden chill struck through him, as he observed that the yellow of the stranger's domino and mask was of precisely the same shade as the yellow of the hangings and furniture which his wife had chosen after their marriage for the decoration of her favorite sitting-room. " The Yellow Mask !" whispered the waiting-girls nervously, crowd- ing together behind the table. " The Yellow Mask again !" " Make her speak !" " Ask her to have something !" " This gentleman will ask her. Speak to her, sir. Do speak to her ! She glides about in that fearful yellow dress like a ghost." Fabio looked around mechanically at the girl who was whisper- ing to him. He saw at the same time that Nanina still kept her head turned away, and that she had her handkerchief at her eyes. She was evidently struggling yet with the agitation produced by their unexpected meeting, and was, most probably for that reason, the only person in the room not conscious of the presence of the Yel- low Mask. u Speak to her, sir. Do speak to her !" whispered two of the waiting-girls together. Fabio turned again toward the table. The black eyes were still gleaming at him from behind the tawny yellow of the mask. He nodded to the girls who had just spoken, cast one farewell look at Nanina, and moved down the room to get round to the side of the table at which the Yellow Mask was standing. Step by step as he moved the bright eyes followed him. Steadily and more steadily their evil light seemed to shine through and through him, as he turned the corner of the table, and approached the still, spectral figure. He came close up to the woman, but she never moved ; her eyes never wavered for an instant. He stopped and tried to speak ; but the chill struck through him again. An overpowering dread, an unutterable loathing seized on him ; all sense of outer things the whispering of the waiting-girls behind the table, the gentle cadence THE YELLOW MASK. of the dance mnsic, the distant hum of joyous talk suddenly left him. He turned away shuddering, and quitted the room. Following the sound of the music, and desiring before all things now to join the crowd wherever it was largest, he was stopped in one of the smaller apartments by a gentleman who had just risen from the card-table, and who held out his hand with the cordiality of an old friend. " Welcome back to the world, Count Fabio !" he began gayly, then suddenly checked himself. " Why, you look pale, and your hand feels cold. Not ill, I hope ?" "No, no. I have been rather startled I can't say why by a very strangely dressed woman, who fairly stared me out of coun- tenance." " You don't mean the Yellow Mask ?" " Yes I do. Have you seen her ?" " Every body has seen her ; but nobody can make her unmask, or get her to speak. Our host has not the slightest notion who she is ; and our hostess is horribly frightened at her. For my part, I think she has given us quite enough of her mystery and her grim dress ; and if my name, instead of being nothing but plain Andrea d'Arbino, was Marquis Melani, I would say to her, ' Madam, we are here to laugh and amuse ourselves ; suppose you open your lips, and charm us by appearing in a prettier dress !' " During this conversation they had sat down together, with their backs toward the door, by the side of one of the card-tables. While D'Arbino was speaking, Fabio suddenly felt himself shuddering again, and became conscious of a sound of low breathing behind him. He turned round instantly, and there, standing between them, and peering down at them, was the Yellow Mask ! Fabio started up, and his friend followed his example. Again the gleaming black eyes rested steadily on the young nobleman's face, and again their look chilled him to the heart. " Yellow Lady, do you know my friend ?" exclaimed D'Arbino, with mock solemnity. There was no answer. The fatal eyes never moved from Fabio's face. " Yellow Lady," continued the other, " listen to the music. Will you dance with me ?" The eyes looked away, and the figure glided slowly from the room. " My dear count," said D'Arbino, " that woman seems to have quite an effect on you. I declare she has left you paler than ever. Come into the supper-room with me, and have some wine ; you really look as if you wanted it." 270 AFTER DARK. They went at once to the large refreshment-room. Nearly all the guests had by this time begun to dance flgain. They had the whole apartment, therefore, almost entirely to themselves. Among the decorations of the room, which were not strictly in accordance with genuine Arcadian simplicity, was a large looking- glass, placed over a well-furnished sideboard. D'Arbino led Fabio in this direction, exchanging greetings as he advanced with a gen- tleman who stood near the glass looking into it, and carelessly fan- ning himself with his mask. " My dear friend !" cried D'Arbino, " you are the very man to lead us straight to the best bottle of wine in the palace. Count Fabio, let me present to you my intimate and good friend, the Cavaliere Finello, with whose family I know you are well acquainted. Finel- lo, the count is a little out of spirits, and I have prescribed a good dose of wine. I see a whole row of bottles at your side, and I leave it to you to apply the remedy. Glasses there ! three glasses, n;y lovely shepherdess with the black eyes the three largest you have got." The glasses were brought ; the Cavaliere Finello chose a particu- lar bottle, and filled them. All three gentlemen turned round to the sideboard to use it as a table, and thus necessarily faced the looking-glass. " Now let us drink the toast of toasts," said D'Arbino. " Finello, Count Fabio the ladies of Pisa !" Fabio raised the wine to his lips, and was on the point of drink- ing it, when he saw reflected in the glass the figure of the Yellow Mask. The glittering eyes were again fixed on him, and the yellow- hooded head bowed slowly, as if in acknowledgment of the toast he was about to drink. For the third time the strange chill seized him, and he set down his glass of wine untasted. " What is the matter ?" asked D'Arbino. " Have you any dislike, count, to that particular wine ?" inquired the cavaliere. "The Yellow Mask!" whispered Fabio. "The Yellow Musk again !" They all three turned round directly toward the door. But it was too late the figure had disappeared. " Does any one know who this Yellow Mask is ?" asked Finello. " One may guess by the walk that the figure is a woman's. Perhaps it may be the strange color she has chosen for her dress, or perhaps her stealthy way of moving from room to room ; but there is certain- ly something mysterious and startling about her." " Startling enough, as the count would tell you," said D'Arbino. " The Yellow Mask has been responsible for his loss of spirits and change of complexion, and now she has prevented him even from drinking his wine." THE YELLOW MASK. 271 " I can't account for it," said Fabio, looking round him uneasily ; "but this is the third room into which she has followed me the third time she has seemed to fix her eyes on me alone. I suppose my nerves are hardly in a fit state yet for masked balls and adven- tures; the sif the weird figure in the yellow mask, which she had left standing alone with Fabio in the palace corridor. The morning light, however, suggested new thoughts. She now opened the note which the young nobleman had pressed into her hand, and read over and over again the hurried pencil lines scrawled on the 276 AFTER DARK. paper. Could there be any harm, any forgetfulnees of her own duty, in using the key inclosed in the note, and keeping her appointment in the Ascoli gardens at ten o'clock ? Surely not surely the last sentence he had written, " Believe in my truth and honor, Nanina, for I believe implicitly in yours," was enough to satisfy her this time that she could not be doing wrong in listening for once to the plead- ing of her own heart. And besides, there in her lap lay the key of the wicket-gate. It was absolutely necessary to use that, if only for the purpose of giving it back safely into the hand of its owner. As this last thought was passing through her mind, and plausibly overcoming any faint doubts and difficulties which she might still have left, she was startled by a sudden knocking at the street door; and, looking out of the window immediately, saw a man in livery standing in the street, anxiously peering up at the house to see if his knocking had aroused any body. " Does Marta Angrisani, the sick-nurse, live here ?" inquired the man, as soon as Nanina showed herself at the window. " Yes," she answered. " Must I call her up ? Is there some per- son ill ?" " Call her up directly," said the servant ; " she is wanted at the Ascoli Palace. My master, Count Fabio " Nanina waited to hear no more. She flew to the room in which the sick-nurse slept, and awoke her, almost roughly, in an instant. " He is ill !" she cried, breathlessly. " Oh, make haste, make haste ! He is ill, and he has sent for you !" Marta inquired who had sent for her, and on being informed, promised to lose no time. Nanina ran down stairs to tell the serv- ant that the sick-nurse was getting on her clothes. The man's se- rious expression, when she came close to him, terrified her. All her usual self- distrust vanished ; and she entreated him, without at- tempting to conceal her anxiety, to tell her particularly what his master's illness was, and how it had affected him so suddenly after the ball. " I know nothing about it," answered the man, noticing Nanina's manner as she put her question, with some surprise, " except that my master was brought home by two gentlemen, friends of his, about a couple of hours ago, in a very sad state; half out of his "mind, as it seemed to me. I gathered from what was said that he had got a dreadful shock from seeing some woman take off her mask, and show her face to him at the ball. How that could be I don't in the least understand; but I know that when the doctor was sent for, he looked very serious, and talked about fearing brain-fever." Here the servant stopped ; for, to his astonishment, he saw Nanina suddenly turn away from him, and then heard her crying bitterly as she went back into the house. THE YELLOW MASK. 277 Marta Angrisani had huddled on her clothes, and was looking at herself in the glass to see that she was sufficiently presentable to appear at the palace, when she felt two arms flung round her neck; and, before she could say a word, found Nanina sobbing on her bosom. "He is ill he is in danger!" cried the girl. "I must go with you to help him. You have always been kind to me, Marta be kinder than ever now. Take me with you take me with you to the palace !" " You, child !" exclaimed the nurse, gently unclasping her arms. " Yes yes ! if it is only for an hour," pleaded Nanina ; " if it is only for one little hour every day. You have only to say that I am your helper, and they would let me in. Marta ! I shall break my heart if I can't see him, and help him to get well again." The nurse still hesitated. Nanina clasped her round the neck once more, and laid her cheek burning hot now, though the tears had been streaming down it but an instant before close to the good woman's face. ""I love him, Marta ; great as he is, I love him with all my heart and soul and strength," she went on, in quick, eager, whispering tones ; " and he loves me. He would have married me, if I had not gone away to save him from it. I could keep my love for him a secret while he was well ; I could stifle it, and crush it down, and wither it up by absence. But now he is ill, it gets beyond me ; I can't master it. Oh, Marta ! don't break my heart by denying me ! I have suffered so much for his sake, that I have earned the right to nurse him !" Marta was not proof against this last appeal. She had one great and rare merit for a middle-aged woman she had not forgotten her own youth. u Come, child," said she, soothingly ; " I won't attempt to deny you. Dry your eyes, put on your mantilla; and, when we get face to face with the doctor, try to look as old and ugly as you can, if you want to be let into the sick-room along with me." The ordeal of medical scrutiny was passed more easily than Marta Angrisani had anticipated. It was of great importance, in the doc- tor's opinion, that the sick man should see familiar faces at his bed- side. Nanina had only, therefore, to state that he knew her well, and that she had sat to him as a model in the days when he was learning the art of sculpture, to be immediately accepted as Maria's privileged assistant in the sick-room. The worst apprehensions felt by the doctor for the patient were soon realized. The fever flew to his brain. For nearly six weeks he lay prostrate, at the mercy of death ; now raging with the wild strength of delirium, and now sunk in the speechless, motionless, 2V8 AFTER DARK. sleepless exhaustion which was his only repose. At last the blessed day came when he enjoyed his first sleep, and when the doctor be- gan, for the first time, to talk of the future with hope. Even then, however, the same terrible peculiarity marked his light dreams which had previously shown itself in his fierce delirium. From the faintly uttered, broken phrases which dropped from him when he slept, as from the wild words which burst from him when his senses were deranged, the one sad discovery inevitably resulted that his mind was still haunted, day and night, hour after hour, by the fig- ure in the yellow mask. As his bodily health improved, the doctor in attendance on him grew more and more anxious as to the state of his mind. There was no appearance of any positive derangement of intellect, but there was a mental depression an unaltering, invincible prostration, pro- duced by his absolute belief in the reality of the dreadful vision that he had seen at the masked ball whicli suggested to the phy- sician the gravest doubts about the case. He saw with dismay that the patient showed no anxiety, as he got stronger, except on one subject. He was eagerly desirous of seeing Nanina every day by his bedside ; but, as soon as he was assured that his wish should be faithfully complied with, he seemed to care for nothing more. Even when they proposed, in the hope of rousing him to an exhibition of something like pleasure, that the girl should read to him for an hour every day out of one of his favorite books, he only showed a languid satisfaction. Weeks passed away, and still, do what they would, they could not make him so much as smile. One day Nanina had begun to read to him as usual, but had not proceeded far before Marta Angrisani informed her that he had fall- en into a doze. She ceased with a sigh, and sat looking at him sadly, as he lay near her, faint and pale and mournful in his sleep miserably altered from what he was when she first knew him. It had been a hard trial to watch by his bedside in the terrible time of his delirium ; but it was a harder trial still to look at him now, and to feel less and less hopeful with each succeeding day. While her eyes and thoughts were still compassionately fixed on him, the door of the bedroom opened, and the doctor came in, fol- lowed by Andrea d'Arbino, whose share in the strange adventure with the Vellow Mask caused him to feel a special interest in Fabio's progress toward recovery. " Asleep, I see ; and sighing in his sleep," said the doctor, going to the bedside. "The grand difficulty with him," he continued, turning to D'Arbino, " remains precisely what it was. I have hard- ly left a single means untried of rousing him from that fatal depres- sion; yet, for the last fortnight, he has not advanced a single step. It is impossible to shake his conviction of the reality of that face THE YELLOW MASK. which he saw (or rather which he thinks he saw) when the yellow mask was removed ; and, as long as he persists in his own shocking view of the case, so long he will lie there, getting better, no doubt, as to his body, but worse as to his mind." " I suppose, poor fellow, he is not in a fit state to be reasoned with ?" "On the contrary, like all men with a fixed delusion, he has plenty of intelligence to appeal to on every point, except the one point on which he is wrong. I have argued with him vainly by the hour together. He possesses, unfortunately, an acute nervous sensi- bility and a vivid imagination ; and besides, he has, as I suspect, been superstitiously brought up as a child. It would be probably useless to argue rationally with him on certain spiritual subjects, even if his mind was in perfect health. He has a good deal of the mystic and the dreamer in his composition ; and science and logic are but broken reeds to depend upon with men of that kind." " Does he merely listen to you when you reason with him, or does he attempt to answer ?" " He has only one form of answer, and that is, unfortunately, the most difficult of all to dispose of. Whenever I try to convince him of his delusion, he invariably retorts by asking me for a rational explanation of what happened to him at the masked ball. Now, neither you nor I, though we believe firmly that he has been the dupe of some infamous conspiracy, have been able as yet to pene- trate thoroughly into this mystery of the Yellow Mask. Our com- mon sense tells us that he must be wrong in taking his view of it, and that we must be right in taking ours ; but if we can not give him actual, tangible proof of that if we can only theorize, when he asks us for an explanation it is but too plain, in his present condi- tion, that every time we remonstrate with him on the subject we only fix him in his delusion more and more firmly." " It is not for want of perseverance on my part," said D'Arbino, after a moment of silence, " that we are still left in the dark. Ever since the extraordinary statement of the coachman who drove the woman home, I have been inquiring and investigating. I have of- fered the reward of two hundred scudi for the discovery of her ; I have myself examined the servants at the palace, the night-watch- man at the Campo Santo, the police - books, the lists of keepers of hotels and lodging-houses, to hit on some trace of this woman ; and I have failed in all directions. If my poor friend's perfect recov- ery does indeed depend on his delusion being combated by actual proof, I fear we have but little chance of restoring him. So far as I am concerned, I confess myself at the end of my resources." "I hope we are not quite conquered yet," returned the doctor. " The proofs we want may turn up when we least expect them. It 280 AFTER DAKK. is certainly a miserable case," he continued, mechanically laying his fingers on the sleeping man's pulse. " There he lies, wanting noth- ing now but to recover the natural elasticity of his mind ; and here we stand at his bedside, unable to relieve him of the weight that is pressing his faculties down. I repeat it, Signor Andrea, nothing will rouse him from his delusion that he is the victim of a super- natural interposition, but the production of some startling, practical proof of his error. At present he is in the position of a man who has been imprisoned from his birth in a dark room, and who denies the existence of daylight. If we can not open the shutters, and show him the sky outside, we shall never convert him to a knowl- edge of the truth." Saying these words, the doctor turned to lead the way out of the room, and observed Nanina, who had moved from the bedside on his entrance, standing near the door. He stopped to look at her, shook his head good-humoredly, and called to Marta, who happen- ed to be occupied in an adjoining room. " Signora Marta," said the doctor, " I think you told me some time ago that your pretty and careful little assistant lives in your house. Pray, does she take much walking exercise ?" "Very little, Signor Dottore. She goes home to her sister when she leaves the palace. Very little walking exercise indeed." " I thought so ! Her pale cheeks and heavy eyes told me as much. Now, my dear," said the doctor, addressing Nanina, " you are a very good girl, and I am sure you will attend to what I tell you. Go out every morning before you come here, and take a walk in the fresh air. You are too young not to suffer by being shut up in close rooms every day, unless you get some regular exercise. Take a good long walk in the morning, or you will fall into my hands as a patient, and be quite unfit to continue your attendance here. Now, Signor Andrea, I am ready for you. Mind, my child, a walk every day in the open air outside the town, or you will fall ill, take my word for it !" Nanina promised compliance ; but she spoke rather absently, and seemed scarcely conscious of the kind familiarity which marked the doctor's manner. The truth was, that all her thoughts were oc- cupied with what he had been saying by Fabio's bedside. She had not lost one word of the conversation while the doctor was talking of his patient, and of the conditions on which his recovery depend- ed. " Oh, if that proof which would cure him could only be found !" she thought to herself, as she stole back anxiously to the bedside when the room was empty. On getting home that day she found a letter waiting for her, and was greatly surprised to see that it was written by no less a person than the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi. It was very short; simply THE YELLOW MASK. 281 informing her that he had just returned to Pisa, and that he was anxious t<> know when she could sit to him for a new bust a com- mi>-ii>n t'nuii a rich foreigner at Naples. Nanina debated with herself for a moment whether she should answer the Ictti-r in the hardest way, to her, by writing, or, in the easiest way, in person ; and decided on going to the studio and tell- ing tin- master-sculptor that it would be impossible for her to serve him us a model, at least for some time to come. It would have taken her a long hour to say this with due propriety on paper; it would only take her a few minutes to say it with her own lips. So she put on her mantilla again, and departed for the studio. On arriving at the gate and ringing the bell, a thought suddenly occurred to her, which she wondered had not struck her before. Was it not possible that she might meet Father Rocco in his broth- er's work-room ? It was too late to retreat now, but not too late to ask, before she entered, if the priest was in the studio. Accord- ingly, when one of the workmen opened the door to her, she in- quired first, very confusedly and anxiously, for Father Rocco. Hear- ing that he was not with his brother then, she went tranquilly enough to make her apologies to the master-sculptor. She did not think it necessary to tell him more than that she was now occupied every day by nursing duties in a sick-room, and that it was consequently out of her power to attend at the studio. Luca Lomi expressed, and evidently felt, great disappointment at her failing him as a model, and tried hard to persuade her that she might find time enough, if she chose, to sit to him, as well as to nurse the sick person. The more she resisted his arguments and entreaties, the more obstinately he reiterated them. He was dust- ing his favorite busts and statues, after his long absence, with a feather-brush when she came in ; and he continued this occupation all the while he was talking urging a fresh plea to induce Nanina to reconsider her refusal to sit at every fresh piece of sculpture he came to, and always receiving the same resolute apology from her as she slowly followed him down the studio toward the door. Arriving thus at the lower end of the room, Luca stopped with a fresh argument on his lips before his statue of Minerva. He had dusted it already, but he lovingly returned to dust it again. It was his favorite work the only good likeness (although it did as- sume to represent a classical subject) of his dead daughter that he possessed. He had refused to part with it for Maddalena's sake; and, as he now approached it with his brush for the second time, he absently ceased speaking, and mounted on a stool to look at the face near and blow some specks of dust off the forehead. Nanina thought this a good opportunity of escaping from further impor- tunities. She was on the point of slipping away to the door with 12 282 AFTER DAKK. a word of farewell, when a sudden exclamation from Luca Lomi arrested her. " Plaster 1" cried the master-sculptor, looking intently at that part of the hair of the statue which lay lowest on the forehead. " Plaster here !" He took out his penknife as he spoke, and removed a tiny morsel of some white substance from an interstice between two folds of the hair where it touched the face. " It is plaster !" he exclaimed, excitedly. " Somebody has been taking a cast from the face of my statue !" He jumped off the stool, and looked all round the studio with an expression of suspicious inquiry. " I must have this cleared up," he said. " My statues were left under Rocco's care, and he is answer- able if there has been any stealing of casts from any one of them. I must question him directly." Nanina seeing that he took no notice of her, felt that she might now easily effect her retreat. She opened the studio door, and re- peated, for the twentieth time at least, that she was sorry she could not sit to him. " I am sorry too, child," he said, irritably looking about for his hat. He found it apparently just as Nanina was going out ; for she heard him call to one of the workmen in the inner studio, and order the man to say, if any body wanted him, that he had gone to Father Rocco's lodgings. CHAPTER VL THE next morning, when Nanina arose, a bad attack of headache, and a sense of languor and depression, reminded her of the necessity of following the doctor's advice, and preserving her health by get- ting a little fresh air and exercise. She had more than two hours to spare before the usual time when her daily attendance began at the Ascoli Palace ; and she determined to employ the interval of leisure in taking a morning walk outside the town. La Biondella would have been glad enough to go too, but she had a large order for dinner-mats on hand, and was obliged, for that day, to stop in the house and work. Thus it happened that when Nanina set forth from home, the learned poodle, Scarammuccia, was her only com- panion. She took the nearest way out of the town ; the dog trotting along in his usual steady, observant way, close at her side, pushing his great rough muzzle, from time to time, affectionately into her hand, and trying hard to attract her attention at intervals by barking and capering in front of her. He got but little notice, however, for his pains, Nanina was thinking again of all that the physician had THE YELLOW MASK. 283 said the day before by Fabio's bedside, and these thoughts brought with them others, equally absorbing, that were connected with the mysterious story of the young nobleman's adventure with the Yel- low Mask. Thus preoccupied, she had little attention left for the gambols of the dog. Even the beauty of the morning appealed to her in vain. She felt the refreshment of the cool, fragrant air, but she hardly noticed the lovely blue of the sky, or the bright sun- shine that gave a gayety and an interest to the commonest objects around her. After walking nearly an hour, she began to feel tired, and looked about for a shady place to rest in. Beyond and behind her there was only the high-road and the flat country ; but by her side stood a little wooden building, half inn, hall' coffee-house, backed by a large, shady pleasure-garden, the gates of which stood invitingly open. Some workmen in the garden were putting up a stage for fire-works, but the place was otherwise quiet and lonely enough. It was only used at night as a sort of rustic Ranelagh, to which the citizens of Pisa resorted for pure air and amtiM-incnt after the fatigues of the day. Observing that there were no visitors in the grounds, Nanina ventured in, intending to take a quarter of an hour's rest in the coolest place she could find before returning to Pisa. She had passed the back of a wooden summer-house in a se- cluded part of the gardens, when she suddenly missed the dog from her side ; and, looking round after him, saw that he was standing behind the summer-house with his ears erect and his nose to the ground, having evidently that instant scented something that ex- cited his suspicion. Thinking it possible that he might be meditating an attack on some unfortunate cat, she turned to see what he was watching. The carpenters engaged on the fire-work stage were just then ham- mering at it violently. The noise prevented her from hearing that Srarannnuccia was growling, but she could feel that he was the moment she laid her hand on his back. Her curiosity was excited, and she stooped down close to him, to look through a crack in the boards before which he stood into the summer-house. She was startled at seeing a lady and gentleman sitting inside. The place she was looking through was not high enough up to en- able her to see their faces, but she recognized, or thought she recog- ni/ed. the pattern of the lady's dress as one which she had noticed in former days in the Demoiselle Grifoni's show-room. Rising quick- ly, her eye detected a hole in the boards about the level of her own height, caused by a knot having been forced out of the wood. She looked through it to ascertain, without being discovered, if the wearer of the familiar dress was the person she had taken her to 284 AFTER DARK. be; and saw, not Brigida only, as she had expected, but Father Rocco as well. At the same moment the carpenters left off ham- mering and began to saw. The new sound from the fire-work stage was regular and. not loud. The voices of the occupants of the sum- mer-house reached her through it, and she heard Brigida pronounce the name of Count Fabio. Instantly stooping down once more by the dog's side, she caught his muzzle firmly in both her hands. It was the only way to keep Scarammuccia from growling again, at a time when there was no din of hammering to prevent him from being heard. Those two words, " Count Fabio," in the mouth of another woman, excited a jealous anxiety in her. What could Brigida have to say in con- nection with that name ? She never came near the Ascoli Palace what right or reason could she have to talk of Fabio ? " Did you hear what I said ?" she heard Brigida ask, in her cool- est, hardest tone. " No," the priest answered. " At least, not all of it." " I will repeat it, then. I asked what had so suddenly determined you to give up all idea of making any future experiments on the superstitious fears of Count Fabio ?" " In the first place, the result of the experiment already tried has been so much more serious than I had anticipated, that I believe the end I had in view in making it has been answered already." " Well ; that is not your only reason ?" "Another shock to his mind might be fatal to him. I can use what I believe to be a justifiable fraud to prevent his marrying again ; but I can not burden myself with a crime." " That is your second reason ; but I believe you have another yet. The suddenness with which you sent to me last night to appoint a meeting in this lonely place; the emphatic manner in which you requested I may almost say ordered me to bring the wax mask here, suggest to my mind that something must have happened. What is it ? I am a woman, and . my curiosity must be satisfied. After the secrets you have trusted to me already, you need not hes- itate, I think, to trust me with one more." " Perhaps not. The secret this time is, moreover, of no great im- portance. You know that the wax mask you wore at the ball was made in a plaster mould taken off the face of my brother's statue ?" " Yes, I know that." " My brother has just returned to his studio ; has found a morsel of the plaster I used for the mould sticking in the hair of the statue ; and has asked me, as the person left in charge of his work-rooms, for an explanation. Such an explanation as I could offer has not satisfied him, and he talks of making further inquiries. Considering that it will be used no more, I think it safest to destroy the wax mask ; THE YELLOW MASK. 285 and I asked you to bring it here, that I might see it burned or broken ui> with my own eyes. Now you know all you wanted to know ; and now, therefore, it is my turn to remind you that I have not yet hud n direct answer to the first question I addressed to you when we met here. Have you brought the wax mask with you, or have you not ?" '' I have not." -And why?" Just as that question was put, Nanina felt the dog dragging him- self free of her grasp on his mouth. She had been listening hith- erto with such painful intensity, with such all-absorbing emotions of suspense, terror, and astonishment, that she had not noticed his efforts to get away, and had continued mechanically to hold his mouth shut. But now she was aroused by the violence of his strug- gles to the knowledge that, unless she hit upon some new means of quieting him, he would have his mouth free, and would betray her by a growl. In an agony of apprehension lest she should lose a word of the momentous conversation, she made a desperate attempt to appeal to the dog's fondness for her, by suddenly flinging both her arms round his neck, and kissing his rough, hairy cheek. The stratagem suc- ceeded. Scanunmuccia had, for many years past, never received any greater marks of his mistress's kindness for him than such as a pat on the head or a present of a lump of sugar might convey. His dog's nature was utterly confounded by the unexpected warmth of Nanina's earess, and he struggled up vigorously in her arms to try and return it by licking her face. She could easily prevent him from doing this, and could so gain a few minutes more to listen be- hind the summer-house without danger of discovery. She had lost Brigida's answer to Father Rocco's question; but she was in time to hear her next words. \Ve are alone here," said Brigida. "I am a woman, and I don't know that you may not have come armed. It is only the common- est precaution on my part not to give you a chance of getting at the wax mask till I have made my conditions." " You never said a word about conditions before." "True. I remember telling you that I wanted nothing but the novelty of going to the masquerade in the character of my dead en- emy, and the luxury of being able to terrify the man who had bru- tally ridiculed me in old days in the studio. That was the truth. But it is not the less the truth that our experiment on Count Fabio has detained me in this city much longer than I ever intended, that I am all but penniless, and that I deserve to be paid. In plaiq words, will you buy the mask of me for two hundred scudi ?" " I have not twenty scudi in the world, at my own free disposal." 286 AFTER DARK. " You must find two hundred if you want the wax mask. I don't wish to threaten -but money I must have. I mention the sum of two hundred scudi, because that is the exact amount offered in the public handbills by Count Fabio's friends for the discovery of the woman who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani's ball. What have I to do but to earn that money if I please, by going to the palace, taking the wax mask with me, and telling them that I am the woman. Suppose I confess in that way ; they can do noth- ing to hurt me, and I should be two hundred scudi the richer. You might be injured, to be sure, if they insisted on knowing who made the wax model, and who suggested the ghastly disguise " Wretch ! do you believe that my character could be injured on the unsupported evidence of any words from your lips ?" " Father Rocco, for the first time since I have enjoyed the pleas- ure of your acquaintance, I find you committing a breach of good manners. I shall leave you until you become more like yourself. If you wish to apologize for calling me a wretch, and if you want to secure the wax mask, honor me with a visit before four o'clock this afternoon, and bring two hundred scudi with you. Delay till after four, and it will be too late." An instant of silence followed ; and then Nanina judged that Brigida must be departing, for she heard the rustling of a dress on the lawn in front of the summer-house. Unfortunately, Scaram- muccia heard it too. He twisted himself round in her arms and growled. The noise disturbed Father Rocco. She heard him rise and leave the summer-house. There would have been time enough, perhaps, for her to conceal herself among some trees if she could have recov- ered her self-possession at once ; but she was incapable of making an effort to regain it. She could neither think nor move her breath seemed to die away on her lips as she saw the shadow of the priest stealing over the grass slowly from the front to the back of the sum- mer-house. In another moment they were face to face. He stopped a few paces from her, and eyed her steadily in dead silence. She still crouched against the summer-house, and still with one hand mechanically kept her hold of the dog. It was well for the priest that she did so. Scarammuccia's formidable teeth were in full view, his shaggy coat was bristling, his eyes were starting, his growl had changed from the surly to the savage note ; he was ready to tear down, not Father Rocco only, but all the clergy in Pisa, at a moment's notice. " You have been listening," said the priest, calmly. " I see it in your face. You have heard all." She could not answer a word ; she could not take her eyes from him. There was an unnatural stillness in his face, a steady, unre- THE YELLOW MASK. 287 pentant, unfathomable despair in his eyes that struck her with hor- ror. She would have given worlds to be able to rise to her feet and tly from his presence. " I once distrusted you and watched you in secret," he said, speak- ing after a short silence, thoughtfully, and with a strange, tranquil sadness in his voice. " And now, what I did by you, you do by me. You put the hope of your life once in my hands. Is it because they were not worthy of the trust that discovery and ruin overtake me, and that you are the instrument of the retribution ? Can this be the decree of Heaven or is it nothing but the blind justice of chance ?" He looked upward, doubtingly, to the lustrous sky above him, and sighed. Nanina's eyes still followed his mechanically. He seemed to feel their influence, for he suddenly looked down at her again. " What keeps you silent ? Why are you afraid ?" he said. " I can do you no harm, with your dog at your side, and the workmen yonder within call. I can do you no harm, and I wish to do you none. Go back to Pisa ; tell what you have heard, restore the man you love to himself, and ruin me. That is your work ; do it ! I was never your enemy, even when I distrusted you. I am not your ene- my now. It is no fault of yours that a fatality has been accomplish- ed through you no fault of yours that I am rejected as the instru- ment of securing a righteous restitution to the Church. Rise, child, and go your way, while I go mine, and prepare for what is to come. If we never meet again, remember that I parted from you without one hard saying or one harsh look parted from you so, knowing that the first words you speak in Pisa will be death to my charac- ter, and destruction to the great purpose of my life." Speaking these words, always with the same calmness which had marked his manner from the first, he looked fixedly at her for a lit- tle while, sighed again, and turned away. Just before he disap- peared among the trees, he said " Farewell," but so softly that she could barely hear it. Some strange confusion clouded her mind as she lost sight of him. Had she injured him, or had he injured her? His words bewildered and oppressed her simple heart. Vague doubts and fears, and a sudden antipathy to remaining any long- er near the summer-house, overcame her. She started to her feet, and, keeping the dog still at her side, hurried from the garden to the high-road. There, the wide glow of sunshine, the sight of the city lying before her, changed the current of her thoughts, and di- rected them all to Fabio and to the future. A burning impatience to be back in Pisa now possessed her. She hastened toward the city at her utmost speed. The doctor was re- ported to be in the palace when she passed the servants lounging in the court-yard. He saw, the moment she came into his presence, 288 AFTER DARK. that something had happened, and led her away from the sick-room into Fabio's empty study. There she told him all. " You have saved him," said the doctor, joyfully. " I will answer for his recovery. Only let that woman come here for the reward ; and leave me to deal with her as she deserves. In the mean time, my dear, don't go away from the palace on any account until I give you permission. I am going to send a message immediately to Sign- or Andrea d'Arbino to come and hear the extraordinary disclosure that you have made to me. Go back to read to the count, as usual, until I want you again ; but, remember, you must not drop a word to him yet of what you have said to me. He must be carefully pre- pared for all that we have to tell him ; and must be kept quite in the dark until those preparations are made." D'Arbino answered the doctor's summons in person ; and Nanina repeated her story to him. He and the doctor remained closeted together for some time after she had concluded her narrative and had retired. A little before four o'clock they sent for her again into the study. The doctor was sitting by the table with a bag of money before him, and D'Arbino was telling one of the servants that if a lady called at the palace on the subject of the handbill which he had circulated, she was to be admitted into the study immediately. As the clock struck four Nanina was requested to take possession of a window-seat, and to wait there until she was summoned. When she had obeyed, the doctor loosened one of the window-curtains, to hide her from the View of any one entering the room. About a quarter of an hour elapsed, and then the door was thrown open, and Brigida herself was shown into the study. The doctor bowed, and D'Arbino placed a chair for her. She was per- fectly collected, and thanked them for their politeness with her best grace. "I believe I am addressing confidential friends of Count Fabio d'Ascoli ?" Brigida began. " May I ask if you are authorized to act for the count, in relation to the reward which this handbill offers ?" The doctor, having examined the handbill, said that the lady was quite right, and pointed significantly to the bag of money. " You are prepared, then," pursued Brigida, smiling, " to give a reward of two hundred scudi to any one able to tell you who the woman is who wore the yellow mask at the Marquis Melani's ball, and how she contrived to personate the face and figure of the late Countess D'Ascoli ?" " Of course we are prepared," answered D'Arbino, a little irrita- bly. " As men of honor, we are not in the habit of promising any thing that we are not perfectly willing, under proper conditions, to perform." "Pardon me, my dear friend," said the doctor; "I think you THE YELLOW MASK. 289 sprak a little too warmly to the lady. She is quite right to take every precaution. We have the two hundred scudi here, madam," he continued, putting the money-bag; "and we are prepared to pay that sum for the information we want. But " (here the doctor sus- piciously moved the bag of scudi from the table to his lap) " we must have pre^fs *hat the person claiming the reward is really en- titled to it." Brigida's eyes followed the money-bag greedily. u Proofs !'' she exclaimed, taking a small flat box from under her cloak, and pushing it across to the doctor. " Proofs ! there you will find one proof that establishes my claim beyond the possibility of doubt" The doctor opened the box, and looked at the wax mask inside it ; then handed it to D'Arbino, and replaced the bag of scudi on the table. " The contents of that box seem certainly to explain a great deal," he said, pushing the bag gently toward Brigida, but always keeping his hand over it. " The woman who wore the yellow domino was, I presume, of the same height as the late countess ?" " Exactly," said Brigida. " Her eyes were also of the same color as the late countess's ; she wore yellow of the same shade as the hangings in the late countess's room, and she had on, under her yel- low mask, the colorless wax model of the late countess's face, now in your friend's hand. So much for that part of the secret. Noth- ing remains now to be cleared up but the mystery of who the lady was. Have the goodness, sir, to push that bag an inch or two near- er my way, and I shall be delighted to tell you." " Thank you, madam," said the doctor, with a very perceptible change in his manner. " We know who the lady was already." He moved the bag of scudi while he spoke back to his own side of the 'table. Brigida's cheeks reddened, and she rose from her seat. " Am I to understand, sir," she said, haughtily, " that you take advantage of my position here, as a defenseless woman, to cheat me out of the reward ?" " By no means, madam," rejoined the doctor. " We have cove- nanted to pay the reward to the person who could give us the in- formation we required." " Well, sir ! have I not given you part of it ? And am I not pre- pared to give you the whole ?" " Certainly ; but the misfortune is, that another person has been beforehand with you. We ascertained who the lady in the yellow domino was, and how she contrived to personate the face of the late Countess D'Ascoli, several hours ago, from another informant. That person has consequently the prior claim ; and, on every principle of 12* 290 AFTER DARK. justice, that person must also have the reward. Nanina, this bag belongs to you come and take it." Nanina appeared from the window-seat. Brigida, thunder-struck, looked at her in silence for a moment ; gasped out, " That girl !" then stopped again, breathless. " That girl was at the back of the summer-house this morning, while you and your accomplice were talking together," said the doctor. D'Arbino had been watching Brigida's face intently from the mo- ment of Nanina's appearance, and had quietly stolen close to her side. This was a fortunate movement; for the doctor's last words were hardly out of his mouth before Brigida seized a heavy ruler lying, with some writing materials, on the table. In another in- stant, if D'Arbino had not caught her arm, she would have hurled it at Nanina's head. " You may let go your hold, sir," she said, dropping the ruler, and turning toward D'Arbino with a smile on her white lips and a wicked calmness in her steady eyes. "I can wait for a better op- portunity." With those words she walked to the door; and, turning round there, regarded Nanina fixedly. " I wish I had been a moment quicker with the ruler," she said, and went out. " There !" exclaimed the doctor; " I told you I knew how to deal with her as she deserved. One thing I am certainly obliged to her for she has saved us the trouble of going to her house and forcing her to give up the mask. And now, my child," he continued, ad- dressing Nanina, " you can go home, and one of the men-servants shall see you safe to your own door, in case that woman should still be lurking about the palace. Stop ! you are leaving the bag of scudi behind you." " I can't take it, sir." "And why not?" "She would have taken money !" Saying those words, Nanina reddened, and looked toward the door. The doctor glanced approvingly at D'Arbino. " Well, well, we won't argue about that now," he said. " I will lock up the money with the mask for to-day. Come here to-morrow morning as usual, my dear. By that time I shall have made up my mind on the right means for breaking your discovery to Count Fabio. Only let us proceed slowly and cautiously, and I answer for success." THE YKJLLOW MASK. 291 CHAPTER VIL THE next morning, among the first visitors at the Ascoli Palace was the master -sculptor, Luca Lomi. He seemed, as the servants thought, agitated, and said he was especially desirous of seeing Count Fabio. On being informed that this was impossible, he re- flected a little, and then inquired if the medical attendant of the count was at the palace, and could be spoken with. Both questions were answered in the affirmative, and he was ushered into the doc- tor's presence. "I know not how to preface what I want to say," Luca began, looking about him confusedly. " May I ask you, in the first place,* if the work-girl named Nanina was here yesterday ?" " She was," said the doctor. " Did she speak in private with any one ?" ' " Yes ; with me." "Then you know every thing?" "Absolutely every thing." " I am glad at least to find that my object in wishing to see the count can be equally well answered by seeing you. My brother, I regret to say He stopped perplexedly, and drew from his pock- et a roll of papers. " You may speak of your brother in the plainest terms," said the doctor. " I know what share he has had in promoting the infamous conspiracy of the Yellow Mask." "My petition to you, and through you to the count, is, that your knowledge of what my brother hs done may go no further. If this scandal becomes public it will ruin me in my profession. And I make little enough by it already," said Luca, with his old sordid smile breaking out again faintly on his face. " Pray, do you come from your brother with this petition ?" in- quired the doctor. "No; I come solely on my own account. My brother seems careless what happens. He has made a full statement of his share in the matter from the first; has forwarded it to his ecclesiastical superior (who will send it to the archbishop), and is now awaiting whatever sentence they choose to pass on him. I have a copy of tlu- document, to prove that he has at least been candid, and that he does not shrink from consequences which he might have avoided by flight. The law can not touch him, but the Church can and to the Church he has confessed. All I ask is, that he may be spared a 292 AFTER DARK. public exposure. Such an exposure would do no good to the count, and it would do dreadful injury to me. Look over the papers your- self, and show them, whenever you think proper, to the master of this house. I have every confidence in his honor and kindness, and in yours." He laid the roll of papers open on the table, and then retired with great humility to the window. The doctor looked over them with some curiosity. The statement or confession began by boldly avowing the writer's conviction that part of the property which the Count Fabio d'Ascoli had inherited from his ancestors had been obtained by fraud and misrepresentation from the Church. The various authorities on which this assertion was based were then produced in due order; along with some curious particles of evidence culled from old man- uscripts, which it must have cost much trouble to collect and de- > cipher. The second section was devoted, at great length, to the reasons which induced the writer to think it his absolute duty, as an affec- tionate son and faithful servant of the Church, not to rest until he had restored to the successors of the apostles in his day the property which had been fraudulently taken from them in days gone by. The writer held himself justified, in the last resort, and in that only, in using any means for effecting this restoration, except such as might involve him in mortal sin. The third section described the priest's share in promoting the marriage of Maddalena Lomi with Fabio ; and the hopes he enter- tained of securing the restitution of the Church property through his influence over his niece, in the first place, and, when she had died, through his influence over her child, in the second. The necessary failure of all his projects, if Fabio married again, was next glanced at; and the time at which the first suspicion of the possible occurrence of this catastrophe occurred to his mind was noted with scrupulous accuracy.- The fourth section narrated the manner in which the conspiracy of the Yellow Mask had originated. The writer described himself as being in his brother's studio on the night of his niece's death, harassed by forebodings of the likelihood of Fabio's marrying again, and filled with the resolution to prevent any such disastrous second union at all hazards. He asserted that the idea of taking the wax mask from his brother's statue flashed upon him on a sud- den, and that he knew of nothing to lead to it, except, perhaps, that he had been thinking just before of the superstitious nature of the young man's character, as he had himself observed it in the studio. He further declared that the idea of the wax mask terrified him at first ; that he strove against it as against a temptation of the THE YELLOW MASK. 293 devil ; that, from fear of yielding to this temptation, he abstained even from entering the studio during his brother's absence at Na- ples, and that he first faltered in his good resolution when Fabio returned to Pisa, and when it was rumored, not only that the young nobleman was going to the ball, but that he would certainly marry for the second time. The fifth section related that the writer, upon this, yielded to temptation rather than forego the cherished purpose of his life by allowing Fabio a chance of marrying again that he made the wax mask- in a plaster mould taken from the face of his brother's statue and that he then had two separate interviews with a woman named Brigida (of whom he had some previous knowledge), who was ready and anxious, from motives of private malice, to personate the deceased countess at the masquerade. This woman had sug- gested that some anonymous letters to Fabio would pave the way in his mind for the approaching impersonation, and had written the letters herself. However, even when all the preparations were made, the writer declared that he shrank from proceeding to ex- tremities; and that he would have abandoned the whole project but for the woman Brigida informing him one day that a work-girl named Nanina was to be one of the attendants at the ball. He knew the count to have been in love with this girl, even to the point of wishing to marry her; he suspected that her engagement to wait at the ball was preconcerted ; and, in consequence, he au- thorized his female accomplice to perform her part in the con- spiracy. The sixth section detailed the proceedings at the masquerade, and contained the writer's confession that, on the night before it, he had written to the count proposing the reconciliation of a differ- ence that had taken place between them, solely for the purpose of guarding himself against suspicion. He next acknowledged that he had borrowed the key of the Campo Santo gate, keeping the au- thority to whom it was intrusted in perfect ignorance of the purpose for which he wanted it. That purpose was to carry out the ghast- ly delusion of the wax mask (in the very probable event of the wearer being followed and inquired after) by having the woman Brigida taken up and set down at the gate of the cemetery in which Fabio's wife had been buried. The seventh section solemnly averred that the sole object of the conspiracy was to prevent the young nobleman from marrying again, by working on his superstitious fears ; the writer repeating, after this avowal, that any such second marriage would necessarily destroy his project for promoting the ultimate restoration of the Church posses- sions, by diverting Count Fabio's property, in great part, from his first wife's child, over whom the priest would always have influence, 294 AFTER DARK. to another wife and probably other children, over whom he could hope to have none. The eighth and last section expressed the writer's contrition for having allowed his zeal for the Church to mislead him into actions liable to bring scandal on his cloth ; reiterated in the strongest lan- guage his conviction that, whatever might be thought of the means employed, the end he had proposed to himself was a most righteous one and concluded by asserting his resolution to suffer with humil- ity any penalties, however severe, which his ecclesiastical superiors might think fit to inflict on him. Having looked over this extraordinary statement, the doctor ad- dressed himself again to Luca Lomi. "I agree with you," he said, "that no useful end is to be gained now by mentioning your brother's conduct in public always pro- vided, however, that his ecclesiastical superiors do their duty. I shall show these papers to the count as soon as he is fit to peruse them, and I have no doubt that he will be ready to take my view of the matter." This assurance relieved Luca Lomi of a great weight of anxiety. He bowed and withdrew. The doctor placed the papers in the same cabinet in which he had secured the wax mask. Before he locked the doors again he took out the flat box, opened it, and looked thoughtfully for a few min- utes at the mask inside, then sent for Nanina. " Now, my child," he said, when she appeared, " I am going to try our first experiment with Count Fabio ; and I think it of great importance that you should be present while I speak to him." He took up the box with the mask in it, and beckoning to Nanina to follow him, led the way to Fabio's chamber. CHAPTER VIII. ABOUT six months after the events already related, Signer Andrea d'Arbino and the Cavaliere Finello happened to be staying with a friend, in a sea-side villa on the Castellamare shore of the bay of Naples. Most of their time was pleasantly occupied on the sea, in fishing and sailing. A boat was placed entirely at their disposal. Sometimes they loitered whole days along the shore; sometimes made trips to the lovely islands in the bay. One evening they were sailing near Sorrento, with a light wind. The beauty of the coast tempted them to keep the boat close in- shore. A short time before sunset, they rounded the most pictur- esque headland they had yet passed ; and a little bay, with a white- sand beach, opened on their view. They noticed first a villa sur- THE YELLOW MASK. rounded by orange and olive trees on the rocky heights inland; then a path in the cliff-side leading down to the sands ; then a lit- tle family party on the beach, enjoying the fragrant evening air. The elders of the group were a lady and gentleman, sitting to- grther on the sand. The lady had a guitar in her lap, and was playing a simple dance melody. Close at her side a young child was rolling on the beach in high glee ; in front of her a little girl was dancing to the music, with a very extraordinary partner in the shape of a dog, who was capering on his hind legs in the most gro- tesque manner. The merry laughter of the girl, and the lively notes of the guitar were heard distinctly across the still water. " Edge a little nearer inshore," said D'Arbino to his friend, who was steering ; " and keep as I do in the shadow of the sail. I want to see the faces of those persons on the beach without being seen by them." Finello obeyed. After approaching just near enough to see the countenances of the party on shore, and to be barked at lustily by the dog, they turned the boat's head again toward the offing. ' A pleasant voyage, gentlemen," cried the clear voice of the little girl. They waved their hats in return ; and then saw her run to the dog and take him by the fore legs. " Play, Nanina," they heard her say. " I have not half done with my partner yet." The guitar sounded once more, and the grotesque dog was on his hind legs in ;i moment. - 1 hud heard that he was well again, that he had married her lately, and that he was away with her and her sister, and his child by the first wife," said D'Arbino; "but I had no suspicion that their place of retirement was so near us. It is too soon to break in upon their happiness, or I should have felt inclined to run the boat on shore." " I never heard the end of that strange adventure of the Yellow Mask," said Finello. " There was a priest mixed up in it, was there not ?" " Yes ; but nobody seems to know exactly what has become of him. He was sent for to Rome, and has never been heard of since. One report is, that he has been condemned to some mysterious penal se- clusion by his ecclesiastical superiors another, that he has volun- teered, as a sort of Forlorn Hope, to accept a colonial curacy among rough people, and in a pestilential climate. I asked his brother, the sculptor, about him a little while ago, but he only shook his head, and said nothing." " And the woman who wore the yellow mask ?" " She, too, has ended mysteriously. At Pisa she was obliged to sell off every thing she possessed to pay her debts. Some friends of hers at a milliner's shop, to whom she applied for help, would 296 AFTER DARK. have nothing to do with her. She left the city, alone and penni- less." The boat had approached the next headland on the coast while they were talking. They looked back for a last glance at the beach. Still the notes of the guitar came gently across the quiet water; but there mingled with them now the sound of the lady's voice. She was singihg. The little girl and the dog were at her feet, and the gentleman was still in his old place close at her side. In a few minutes more the boat rounded the next headland, the beach vanished from view, and the music died away softly in the distance. LAST LEAVES FROM LEAil's DIABY. 297 LAST LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY. 3d of June. Our stories are ended : our pleasant work is done. It is a lovely summer afternoon. The great hall at the farm-house, after having been filled with people, is now quite deserted. I sit alone at my little work-table, with rather a crying sensation at my heart, ;ind with the pen trembling in my fingers, as if I was an old woman already. Our manuscript has been sealed up and taken away ; the one precious object of all our most anxious thoughts for months past our third child, as we have got to call it has gone out from us on this summer's day, to seek its fortune in the world. A little before twelve o'clock last night, my husband dictated to me the last words of " The Yellow Mask." I laid down the pen, and closed the paper thoughtfully. With that simple action the work that we had wrought at together so carefully and so long came to a close. We were both so silent and still, that the mur- muring of the trees in the night air sounded audibly and solemnly in our room. William's collection of stories has not, thus far, been half exhaust- ed yet ; but those who understand the public taste and the interests of book-selling better than we, think it advisable not to risk offer- ing too much to the reader at first. If individual opinions can be accepted as a fair test, our prospects of success seem hopeful. The doctor (but we must not forget that he is a friend) was so pleased with the two specimen stories we sent to him, that he took them at once to his friend, the editor of the newspaper, who showed his ap- preciation of what he read in a very gratifying manner. He pro- posed that William should publish in the newspaper, on very fair terms, any short anecdotes and curious experiences of his life as a portrait-painter, which might not be important enough to put into a book. The money which my husband has gained from time to time in this way has just sufficed to pay our expenses at the farm- house up to within the last month ; and now our excellent friends here say they will not hear any thing more from us on the subject of the rent until the book is sold and we have plenty of money. This is one great relief and happiness. Another, for which I feel even more grateful, is, that William's eyes have gained so much by their long rest, that even the doctor is surprised at the progress he has made. He only puts on his green shade now when he goes out into the sun, or when the candles are lit. His spirits are infinitely raised, and he is beginning to talk already of the time when he will 298 AFTER DAKK. unpack his palette and brushes, and take to his old portrait-painting occupations again. With all these reasons for being happy, it seems unreasonable and ungracious in me to be feeling sad, as I do just at this moment. I can only say, in my own justification, that it is a mournful ceremony to take leave of an old friend ; and I have taken leave twice over of the book that has been like an old friend to me once when I had written the last word in it, and once again when I saw it carried away to London. I packed the manuscript up with my own hands this morning, in thick brown paper, wasting a great deal of sealing-wax, I am afraid, in my anxiety to keep the parcel from bursting open in case it should be knocked about on its journey to town. Oh me, how cheap and common it looked, in its new form, as I carried it down stairs ! A dozen pairs of worsted stockings would have made a larger parcel ; and half a crown's worth of groceries would have weighed a great deal heavier. Just as we had done dinner the doctor and the editor came in. The first had called to fetch the parcel I mean the manuscript; the second had come out with him to Appletreewick for a walk. As soon as the farmer heard that the book was to be sent to Lon- don, he insisted that we should drink success to it all round. The children, in high glee, were mounted up on the table, with a glass of currant- wine apiece ; the rest of us had ale ; the farmer proposed the toast, and his sailor son led the cheers. We all joined in (the children included), except the editor who, being the only impor- tant person of the party, could not, I suppose, afford to compromise his dignity by making a noise. He was extremely polite, however, in a lofty way, to me, waving his hand and bowing magnificently every time he spoke. This discomposed me a little; and I was still more flurried when he said that he had written to the London publishers that very day, to prepare them for the arrival of our book. " Do you think they will print it, sir ?" I ventured to ask. " My dear madam, you may consider it settled," said the editor, confidently. " The letter is written the thing is done. Look upon the book as published already ; pray oblige me by looking upon the book as published already." " Then the only uncertainty now is about how the public will re- ceive it ?" said my husband, fidgeting in his chair, and looking nerv- ously at me. " Just so, my dear sir, just so," answered the editor. " Every thing depends upon the public every thing, I pledge you my word of honor." " Don't look doubtful, Mrs. Kerby ; there isn't a doubt about it," LAST LEAVES FROM LEAH'S DIARY. 299 whispered the kind doctor, giving the manuscript a confident smack as he passed by me with it on his way to the door. In another minute he and the editor, and the poor cheap-looking brown paper parcel, were gone. The others followed them out, and I was left in the hall alone. Oh, Public! Public ! it all depends now upon you ! The children are to have new clothes from top to toe ; I am to have a black silk gown ; William is to buy a beautiful traveling color-box ; the rent is to be paid ; all our kind friends at the farm-house are to have lit- tle presents, and our future way in this hard world is to be smooth- ed for us at the outset, if you will only accept a poor painter's sto- ries which his wife has written down for him After Dark ! MISS OR MRS.? MISS OR MRS.? PERSONS OF THE STORY. SIR JOSEPH GRATBROOKB (Knighf) RICHARD TURLINGTON (Of the Levant Trade) LAUNCELOT LINZIE (Of the College of Surgeons) JAMES DICAS (Of the Soil of Attorneys) THOMAS WILDFANG (Superannuated Seaman) Miss GRATBROOKE (Sir Joseph's Sister) NATALIE (Sir Joseph's Daughter) LADY WINWOOD (Sir Joseph's Niece) AMELIA \ SOPHIA > (Lady Wimoood's Stepdaughters) DOROTHEA ) Itorwd: THB PRESENT TIME. Place: ENGLAND. FIRST SCENE. AT SEA. THE night had come to an end. The new-born day waited for its quickening light in the silence that is never known on land the silence before sunrise, in a calm at sea. Not a breath came from the dead air. Not a ripple stirred on the motionless water. Nothing changed but the softly-growing light; nothing moved but the lazy mist, curling up to meet the sun, its master, on the eastward sea. By fine gradations, the airy veil of morning thinned in substance as it rose thinned, till there dawn- ed through it in the first rays of sunlight the tall white sails of a Schooner Yacht. From stem to stern silence possessed the vessel as silence pos- sessed the sea. But one living creature was on deck the man at the helm, dozing peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the light grew, and the heat grew with it ; and still the helmsman slumbered, the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleep- ing against the vessel's sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the water-line, when the first sound pierced its way through the morning silence. From far off over the shining white ocean, 302 MISS OR MRS.? the cry of a sea-bird reached the yacht on a sudden out of the last airy circles of the waning mist. The sleeper at the helm woke ; looked up at the idle sails, and yawned in sympathy with them; looked out at the sea on either side of him, and shook his head obstinately at the superior obsti- nacy of the calm. " Blow, my little breeze !" said the man, whistling the sailor's in- vocation to the wind softly between his teeth. " Blow, my little breeze !" " How's her head ?" cried a bold and brassy voice, hailing the deck from the cabin staircase. " Anywhere you like, master ; all round the compass." The voice was followed by the man. The owner of the yacht ap- peared on deck. Behold Richard Turlington, Esq., of the great Levant firm of Piz- zituti, Turlington, and Branca! Aged eight-and-thirty ; standing stiffly and sturdily at a height of not more than five feet six Mr. Turlington presented to the view of his fellow-creatures a face of the perpendicular order of human architecture. His forehead was a straight line, his upper lip was another, his chin was the straightest and the longest line of all. As he turned his swarthy countenance eastward, and shaded his light gray eyes from the sun, his knotty hand plainly revealed that it had got him his living by its own labor at one time or another in his life. Taken on the whole, this was a man whom it might be easy to respect, but whom it would be hard to love. Better company at the official desk than at the social table. Morally and physically if the expression may be permitted a man without a bend in him. " A calm yesterday," grumbled Richard Turlington, looking with stubborn deliberation all round him. "And a calm to-day. Ha! next season I'll have the vessel fitted with engines. I hate this !" " Think of the filthy coals, and the infernal vibration, and leave your beautiful schooner as she is. We are out for a holiday. Let the wind and the sea take a holiday too." Pronouncing those words of remonstrance, a slim, nimble, curly- headed young gentleman joined Richard Turlington on deck, with his clothes under his arm, his towels in his hand, and nothing on him but the night-gown in which he had stepped out of his bed. "Launcelot Linzie, you have been received on board my vessel in the capacity of medical attendant on Miss Natalie Graybrooke, at her father's request. Keep your place, if you please. When I want your advice, I'll ask you for it." Answering in those terms, the elder man fixed his colorless gray eyes on the younger with an expression which added plainly, "There won't be room enough in this schooner much longer for me and for you." MISS OR MBS. t 303 Launcelot Linzie had his reasons (apparently) for declining to let Lis host offend him on any terms whatever. " Thank you !" he rejoined, in a tone of satirical good humor. " It isn't easy to keep my place on board your vessel. I can't help pre- suming to enjoy myself as if I was the owner. The life is such a new one to me! It's so delightfully easy, for instance, to wash yourself here. On shore it's a complicated question of jugs and ba- sins and tubs ; one is always in danger of breaking something, or spoiling something. Here you have only to jump out of bed, to run up on deck, and to do this!" He turned, and scampered to the bows of the vessel. In one in- stant he was out of his night-gown, in another he was on the bul- wark, in a third he was gamboling luxuriously in sixty fathoms of salt-water. Turlington's eyes followed him with a reluctant, uneasy attention as he swam round the vessel, the only moving object in view. Tur- lington's mind, steady and slow in all its operations, set him a prob- lem to be solved, on given conditions, as follows : " Launcelot Linzie is fifteen years younger than I am. Add to that, Launcelot Linzie is Natalie Graybrooke's cousin. Given those two advantages Query : Has he taken Natalie's fancy ?" Turning that question slowly over and over in his mind, Richard Turlington seated himself in a corner at the stern of the vessel. He was still at work on the problem, when the young surgeon returned to his cabin to put the finishing touches to his toilet. He had not reached the solution when the steward appeared an hour later and said, " Breakfast is ready, sir !" They were a party of five round the cabin table. First, Sir Joseph Graybrooke. Inheritor of a handsome fortune made by his father and his grandfather in trade. Mayor, twice elected, of a thriving provincial town. Officially privileged, while holding that dignity, to hand a silver trowe} to a royal personage condescending to lay a first stone of a charitable edifice. Knighted, accordingly, in honor of the occasion. Worthy of the honor and worthy of the occasion. A type of his eminently respectable class. Possessed of an amiable, rosy face, and soft, sjlky white hair. Sound in his principles; tidy in his dress; blessed with moderate politics and a good digestion a harmless, healthy, spruce, speckless, weak- minded old man. Secondly, Miss Lavinia Graybrooke, Sir Joseph's maiden sister. Personally, Sir Joseph in petticoats. If you knew one you knew che other. Thirdly, Miss Natalie Graybrooke Sir Joseph's only child. She had inherited the personal appearance and the temperament of her mother dead many years since. There had been a mixture 13 364 MiSS OR MRS. ? of Negro blood and French blood in the late Lady Graybrooke's family, settled originally in Martinique. Natalie had her mother's warm dusky color, her mother's superb black hair, and her mother's melting, lazy, lovely brown eyes. At fifteen years of age (dating from her last birthday) she possessed the development of the bosom and limbs which in England is rarely attained before twenty. Every thing about the girl except her little rosy ears was on a grand Amazonian scale. Her shapely hand was long and large ; her sup- ple waist was the waist of a woman. The indolent grace of all her movements had its motive power in an almost masculine firmness of action, and profusion of physical resource. This remarkable bod- ily development was far from being accompanied by any corre- sponding development of character. Natalie's manner was the gen- tle, innocent manner of a young girl. She had her father's sweet temper ingrafted on her mother's variable Southern nature. She moved like a goddess, and she laughed like a child. Signs of ma- turing too rapidly of outgrowing her strength, as the phrase went had made their appearance in Sir Joseph's daughter during the spring. The family doctor had suggested a sea-voyage, as a wise manner of employing the fine summer months. Richard Turling- ton's yacht was placed at her disposal, with Richard Turlington himself included as one of the fixtures of the vessel. With her father and her aunt to keep up round her the atmosphere of home with Cousin Launcelot (more commonly known as " Launce ") to carry out, if necessary, the medical treatment prescribed by supe- rior authority on shore the lovely invalid embarked on her summer cruise, and sprang up into a new existence in the life-giving breezes of the sea. After two happy months of lazy coasting round the shores of England, all that remained of Natalie's illness was repre- sented by a delicious languor in her eyes, and an utter inability to devote herself to any thing which took the shape of a serious occu- pation. As she sat at the cabin breakfast -table that morning, in her quaintly-made sailing dress of old-fashioned nankeen her inbred childishness of manner contrasting delightfully with the blooming maturity of her form the man must have been trebly armed indeed in the modern philosophy who could have denied that the first of a woman's rights is the right of being beautiful; and the foiemost of a woman's merits, the merit of being young ! The other two persons present at the table were the two gentle- men who have already appeared on the deck of the yacht. " Not a breath of wind stirring !" said Richard Turlington. " The weather has got a grudge against us. We have drifted about four or five miles in the last eight-and-forty hours. You will never take another cruise with me you must be longing to get on shore." He addressed himself to Natalie ; plainly eager to make himself MTSS OR MRS.? 305 agreeable to the young lady and plainly unsuccessful in producing any impression on her. She made a civil answer; and looked at her tea-cup, instead of looking at Richard Turlington. " You might fancy yourself on shore at this moment," said Launce. " The vessel is as steady as a house, and the swing-table we are eat- ing our breakfast on is as .even as your dining-room table at home." He too addressed himself to Natalie, but without betraying the anxiety to please her which had been shown by the other. For all that, he diverted the girl's attention from her tea-cup ; and his idea instantly awakened a responsive idea in Natalie's mind. " It will be so strange on shore," she said, " to find myself in a room that never turns on one side, and to sit at a table that never tilts down to my knees at one time, or rises up to my chin at an- other. How I shall miss the wash of the water at my ear, and the ring of the bell on deck, when I am awake at night on land ! No interest there in how the wind blows, or how the sails are set. No asking your way of the sun, when you are lost, with a little brass in- strument and a morsel of pencil and paper. No delightful wander- ing wherever the wind takes you, without the worry of planning beforehand where you are to go. Oh how I shall miss the dear, changeable, inconstant sea ! And how sorry I am I'm not a man and a sailor !" This to the guest admitted on board on sufferance, and not one word of it addressed, even by chance, to the owner of the yacht ! Richard Turlington's heavy eyebrows contracted with an unmis- takable expression of pain. " If this calm weather holds," he went on, addressing himself to Sir Joseph, " I am afraid, Graybrooke, I shall not be able to bring you back to the port we sailed from by the end of the week." " Whenever you like, Richard," answered the old gentleman, re- signedly. " Any time will do for me." "Any time within reasonable limits, Joseph," said Miss Lavinia, evidently feeling that her brother was conceding too much. She spoke with Sir Joseph's amiable smile and Sir Joseph's softly-pitch- ed voice. Two twin babies could hardly have been more like one another. While these few words were being exchanged among the elders, a private communication was in course of progress between the two young people under the cabin table. Natalie's smartly-slippered foot felt its way cautiously inch by inch over the carpet till it touched Launce's boot. Launce, devouring his breakfast, instantly looked up from his plate, and then, at a second touch from Natalie, looked down again in a violent hurry. After pausing to make sure that she was not noticed, Natalie took up her knife. Under a per- fectly-acted pretense of toying with it absently, in the character of 306 MISS OH MRS.? a young lady absorbed in thought, she began 1 dividing a morsel of ham left on the edge of her plate, into six tiny pieces. Launce's eye looked in sidelong expectation at the divided and subdivided ham. He was evidently waiting to see the collection of morsels put to some telegraphic use, previously determined on between his neighbor and himself. In the mean while the talk proceeded among the other persons at the breakfast-table. Miss Lavinia addressed herself to Launce. " Do you know, you careless boy, you gave me a fright this morn- ing ? I was sleeping with my cabin window open, and I was awoke by an awful splash in the water. I called for the stewardess. I de- clare I thought somebody had fallen overboard !" Sir Joseph looked up briskly ; his sister had accidentally touched on an old association. " Talk of falling overboard," he began, " reminds me of an extraor- dinary adventure " There Launce broke in, making his apologies. " It sha'n't occur again, Miss Lavinia," he said. " To-morrow morning I'll oil myself all over, and slip into the water as silently as a seal." " Of an extraordinary adventure," persisted Sir Joseph, " which happened to me many years ago, when I was a young man. La- vinia ?" He stopped, and looked interrogatively at his sister. Miss Gray~ brooke nodded her head responsively, and settled herself in her chair, as if summoning her attention in anticipation of a coming de- mand on it. To persons well acquainted with the brother and sis- ter these proceedings were ominous of an impending narrative, pro- tracted to a formidable length. The two always told a story in couples, and always differed with each other about the facts, the sister politely contradicting the brother when it was Sir Joseph's story, and the brother politely contradicting the sister when it was Miss Lavinia's story. Separated one from the other, and thus re- lieved of their own habitual interchange of contradiction, neither of them had ever been known to attempt the relation of the sim- plest series of events without breaking down. " It was five years before I knew you, Richard," proceeded Sir Joseph. " Six years," said Miss Graybrooke. " Excuse me, Lavinia." " No, Joseph, I have it down in my diary." " Let us waive the point." (Sir Joseph invariably used this for- mula as a means of at once conciliating his sister, and getting a fresh start for his story.) " I was cruising off the Mersey in a Liver- pool pilot-boat. I had hired the boat in company with a friend of MISS OR MRS. ? 307 mine, formerly notorious in London society, under the nickname (derived from the peculiar brown color of his whiskers) of ' Mahog- any Dobbs.' " " The color of his liveries, Joseph, not the color of his whiskers." " My dear Lavinia, you are thinking of ' Seagreen Shaw,' so called from the extraordinary liveries he adopted for his servants in the year when he was sheriff." " I think not, Joseph." " I beg your pardon, Lavinia." Richard Turlington's knotty fingers drummed impatiently on the table. He looked toward Natalie. She was idly arranging her lit- tle morsels of ham in a pattern on her plate. Launcelot Linzie, still more idly, was looking at the pattern. Seeing what he saw now, Richard solved the problem which had puzzled him on deck. It was simply impossible that Natalie's fancy could be really taken by such an empty-headed fool as that ! Sir Joseph went on with his story : " We were some ten or a dozen miles off the mouth of the Mer- sey" " Nautical miles, Joseph." " It doesn't matter, Lavinia." " Excuse me, brother, the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things." " They were common miles, Lavinia." " They were nautical miles, Joseph." " Let us waive the point. Mahogany Dobbs and I happened to be below in the cabin, occupied " Here Sir Joseph paused (with his amiable smile) to consult his memory. Miss Lavinia waited (with her amiable smile) for the coming opportunity of setting her brother right. At the same mo- ment Natalie laid down her knife and softly touched Launce under the table. When she thus claimed his attention the six pieces of ham were arranged as follows in her plate : Two pieces were placed opposite each other, and four pieces were ranged perpendicularly under them. Launce looked, and twice touched Natalie under the table. Interpreted by the Code agreed on between the two, the sig- nal in the plate meant, " I must see you in private." And Launce's double touch answered, " After breakfast." Sir Joseph proceeded with his story. Natalie took up her knife again. Another signal coming ! " We were both down in the cabin, occupied in finishing our din- ner" " Just sitting down to lunch, Joseph." " My dear ! I ought to know." 308 MISS OR MRS. ? '* I only repeat what I heard, brother. The last time you told the story, you and your friend were sitting down to lunch." " We won't particularize, Lavinia. Suppose we say occupied over a meal ?" " If it is of no more importance than that, Joseph, it would be surely better to leave it out altogether." " Let us waive the point. Well, we were suddenly alarmed by a shout on deck, ' Man overboard !' We both rushed up the cabin stairs, naturally under the impression that one of our crew had fall- en into the sea : an impression shared, I ought to add, by the man at the helm, who had given the alarm." Sir Joseph paused again. He was approaching one of the great dramatic points in his story, and was naturally anxious to present it as impressively as possible. He considered with himself, with his head a little on one side. Miss Lavinia considered with herself, with Tier head a little on one side. Natalie laid down her knife again, and again touched Launce under the table. This time there were five pieces of ham ranged longitudinally on the plate, with one piece immediately under them at the centre of the line. Interpret- ed by the Code, this signal indicated two ominous words, " Bad news." Launce looked significantly at the owner of the yacht (meaning of the look, " Is he at the bottom of it ?"). Natalie frown- ed in reply (meaning of the frown, " Yes, he is "). Launce looked down again into the plate. Natalie instantly pushed all the pieces of ham together in a little heap (meaning of the heap, " No more to say"). " Well ?" said Richard Turlington, turning sharply on Sir Joseph. " Get on with your story. What next ?" Thus far he had not troubled himself to show even a decent pre- tense of interest in his old friend's perpetually-interrupted narrative. It was only when Sir Joseph had reached his last sentence intima- ting that the man overboard might turn out in course of time not to IDC a man of the pilot-boat's crew it was only then that Turling- ton sat up in his chair, and showed signs of suddenly feeling a strong interest in the progress of the story. Sir Joseph went on : " As soon as we got on deck, we saw the man in the water, astern. Our vessel was hove up in the wind, and the boat was lowered. The master and one of the men took the oars. All told, our crew were seven in number. Two away in the boat, a third at the helm, and, to my amazement, when I looked round, the other four behind me making our number complete. At the same moment Mahogany Dobbs, who was looking through a telescope, called out, ' Who the devil can he be ? The man is floating on a hen-coop, and we have got nothing of the sort on board this pilot-boat.' " MISS OR MBS.? 309 Tlic one person present who happened to notice Richard Turling- tnn's face when those words were pronounced was Launcelot Linzie. He and he alone saw the Levant trader's swarthy complexion fade slowly to a livid ashen gray ; his eyes the while fixing them- selves on Sir Joseph Graybrooke with a furtive glare in them like the glare in the eyes of a wild beast. Apparently conscious that Launce was looking at him though he never turned his head Launce's way he laid his elbow on the table, lifted his arm, and so rested his face on his hand, while the story went on, as to screen it I'tVt ctiiiilly from the young surgeon's view. " The man was brought on board," proceeded Sir Joseph, " sure enough, with a hen-coop on which he had been found floating. Tlic poor wretch was blue with terror and exposure in the water; he fainted when we lifted him on deck. When he came to himself he told us a horrible story. He was a sick and destitute foreign seaman, and he had hidden himself in the hold of an English vessel (bound to a port in his native country) which had sailed from Liv- erpool that morning. He had been discovered, and brought before the captain. The captain, a monster in human form, if ever there was one yet " Before the next word of the sentence could pass Sir Joseph's lips, Turlington startled the little party in the cabin by springing sud- denly to his feet. " The breeze !" he cried ; " the breeze at last !" As he spoke, he wheeled round to the cabin door so as to turn his back on his guests, and hailed the deck. " Which way is the wind ?" " There is not a breath of wind, sir." Not the slightest movement in the vessel had been perceptible in the cabin ; not a sound had been audible indicating the rising of the breeze. The owner of the yacht accustomed to the sea, capa- ble, if necessary, of sailing his own vessel had surely committed a strange mistake ! He turned again to his friends, and made bis apologies with an excess of polite regret far from characteristic of him at other times and under other circumstances. " Go on," he said to Sir Joseph, when he had got to the end of his excuses; "I never heard such an interesting story in my life. Pray go on !" The request was not an easy one to comply with. Sir Joseph's ideas had been thrown into confusion. Miss Lavinia's contradic- tions (held in reserve) had been scattered beyond recall. Both brother and sister were, moreover, additionally hindered in recover- ing the control of their own resources by the look and manner of their host. He alarmed, instead of encouraging the two harmless old people, by fronting them almost fiercely, with his elbows squared 310 MISS OB MBS. ? on the table, and his face expressive of a dogged resolution to sit there and listen, if need be, for the rest of his life. Launce was the person who set Sir Joseph going again. After first looking atten- tively at Richard, he took his uncle straight back to the story by means of a question, thus : "You don't mean to say that the captain of the ship threw the man overboard ?" " That is just what he did, Launce. The poor wretch was too ill to work his passage. The captain declared he would have no idle foreign vagabond in his ship to eat up the provisions of English- men who worked. With his own hands he cast the hen-coop into the water, and (assisted by one of his sailors) he threw the man after it, and told him to float back to Liverpool with the evening tide." " A lie !" cried Turlington, addressing himself, not to Sir Joseph, but to Launce. "Are you acquainted with the circumstances?" asked Launce, quietly. "I know nothing about the circumstances. I say, from my own experience, that foreign sailors are even greater blackguards than English sailors. The man had met with an accident, no doubt. The rest of his story was a lie, and the object of it was to open Sir Joseph's purse." Sir Joseph mildly shook his head. " No lie, Richard. Witnesses proved that the man had spoken the truth." " Witnesses ? Pdoh ! More liars, you mean." " I went to the owners of the vessel," pursued Sir Joseph. " I got from them the names of the officers and the crew, and I waited, leaving the case in the hands of the Liverpool police. The ship was wrecked at the mouth of the Amazon, but the crew and the cargo were saved. The men belonging to Liverpool came back. They were a bad set, I grant you. But they were examined sepa- rately about the treatment of the foreign sailor, and they all told the same story. They could give no account of their captain, nor of the sailor who had been his accomplice in the crime, except that they had not embarked in the ship which brought the rest of the crew to England. Whatever may have become of the captain since, he certainly never returned to Liverpool." " Did you find out his name ?" The question was asked by Turlington. Even Sir Joseph, the least observant of men, noticed that it was put with a perfectly un- accountable irritability of manner. " Don't be angry, Richard," said the old gentleman. " What is there to be angry about ?" MISS OR MRS.? 311 " I don't know what you mean. I'm not angry I'm only curious. Did you find out who he was ?" "I did. His name was Goward. He was well known at Liver- pool as a very clever and a very dangerous man. Quite young at the time I am speaking of, and a first-rate sailor ; famous for taking command of unseaworthy ships and vagabond crews. Report de- scribed him to me as having made considerable sums of money in that way, for a man in his position . serving firms, you know, with a bad name, and running all sorts of desperate risks. A sad ruffian, Richard ! More than once in trouble, on both sides of the Atlantic, for acts of violence and cruelty. Dead, I dare say, long since." " Or possibly," said Launce, " alive, under another name, and thriving in a new way of life, with more desperate risks in it, of some other sort." "Are you acquainted with the circumstances?" asked Turlington, retorting Launce's question on him, with a harsh ring of defiance in his brassy voice. "What became of the poor foreign sailor, papa?" said Natalie, purposely interrupting Launce before he could meet the question angrily asked of him, by an angry reply. " We made a subscription, and spoke to his consul, my dear. He went back to his country, poor fellow, comfortably enough." "And there is an end of Sir Joseph's story," said Turlington, rising noisily from his chair. " It's a pity we haven't got a literary man on board he would make a novel of it." He looked up at the sky-light as he got on his feet. " Here is the breeze, this time," he exclaimed, " and no mistake !" It was true. At last the breeze had come. The sails flapped, the main boom swung over with a thump, and the stagnant water, stir- red at last, bubbled merrily past the vessel's sides. " Come on deck, Natalie, and get some fresh air," said Miss La- vinia, leading the way to the cabin door. Natalie held up the skirt of her nankeen dress, and exhibited the purple trimming torn away over an extent of some yards. " Give me half an hour first, aunt, in my cabin," she said, " to mend this." Miss Lavinia elevated her venerable eyebrows in amazement " You have done nothing but tear your dresses, my dear, since you have been in Mr. Turlington's yacht. Most extraordinary ! I have torn none of mine during the whole cruise." Natalie's dark color deepened a shade. She laughed, a little un- easily. " I am so awkward on board ship," she replied, and turned away, and shut herself up in her cabin. Richard Turlington produced his case of cigars. 13* 312 MISS OR MKS. ? " Now is the time," he said to Sir Joseph, " for the best cigar oi the day the cigar after breakfast. Come on deck." "You will join us, Launce?" said Sir Joseph. " Give me half an hour first over my books," Launce replied. " I mustn't let my medical knowledge get musty at sea, and I might not feel inclined to study later in the day." " Quite right, my dear boy, quite right." Sir Joseph patted his nephew approvingly on the shoulder. Launce turned away on his side, and shut himself up in his cabin. The other three ascended together to the deck. SECOND SCENE. THE STORE-ROOM. PERSONS possessed of sluggish livers and tender hearts find two serious drawbacks to the enjoyment of a cruise at sea. It is exceed- ingly difficult to get enough walking exercise ; and it is next to im- possible (where secrecy is an object) to make love without being found out. Reverting for the moment to the latter difficulty only, life within the narrow and populous limits of a vessel may be de- fined as essentially life in public. From morning to night you are in your neighbor's way, or your neighbor is in your way. As a nec- essary result of these conditions, the rarest of existing men may be defined as the man who is capable of stealing a kiss at sea without discovery. An inbred capacity for stratagem of the finest sort ; in- exhaustible inventive resources ; patience which can flourish under superhuman trials ; presence of mind which can keep its balance victoriously under every possible stress of emergency these are some of the qualifications which must accompany Love on a cruise, when Love embarks in the character of a contraband commodity not duly entered on the papers of the ship. Having established a Code of Signals which enabled them to com- municate privately, while the eyes and ears of others were wide open on every side of them, Natalie and Launce were next confronted by the more serious difficulty of finding a means of meeting together at stolen interviews on board the yacht. Possessing none of those pre- cious moral qualifications already enumerated as the qualifications of an accomplished lover at sea, Launce had proved unequal to grapple with the obstacles in his way. Left to her own inventive resources, Natalie had first suggested the young surgeon's medical studies as Launce's unanswerable excuse for shutting himself up at intervals in the lower regions, and had then hit on the happy idea of tearing her trimmings, and condemning herself to repair her own MI8S OR MRS.? 313 carelessness, as the all-sufficient reason for similar acts of self-seclu- sion on her side. In this way the lovers contrived, while the inno- cent ruling authorities were on deck, to meet privately below them, on the neutral ground of the main cabin ; and there, by previous arrange- ment at the breakfast-table, they were about to meet privately now. Natalie's door was, as usual on these occasions, the first that opened; for this sound reason, that Natalie's quickness was the quickness to be depended on in case of accident. She looked up at the sky-light. There were the legs of the two gentlemen and the skirts of her aunt visible (and stationary) on the lee side of the deck. She advanced a few steps and listened. There was a pause in the murmur of the voices above. She looked up again. One pair of legs (not her father's) had disappeared. With- out an instant's hesitation, Natalie darted back to her own door, just in time to escape Richard Turlington descending the cabin stairs. All he did was to go to one of the drawers under the main- cabin book-case and to take out a map, ascending again immediate- ly to the deck. Natalie's guilty conscience rushed instantly, never- theless, to the conclusion that Richard suspected her. When she showed herself for the second time, instead of venturing into the cabin, she called across it in a whisper, " Launcc !" Launce appeared at his door. He was peremptorily checked be- fore he could cross the threshold. " Don't stir a step ! Richard has been down in the cabin ! Rich- ard suspects us !" " Nonsense ! Come out." " Nothing will induce me, unless you can find some other place than the cabin." Some other place ? How easy to find it on land ! How appar- ently impossible at sea ! There was the forecastle (full of men) at one end of the vessel. There was the sail-room (full of sails) at the other. There was the ladies' cabin (used as the ladies' dressing- room ; inaccessible, in that capacity, to every male human being on board). Was there any disposable inclosed space to be found amid- ships ? On one side there were the sleeping berths of the sailing- master and his mate (impossible to borrow them). On the other side was the steward's store-room. Launce considered for a moment. The steward's store-room was just the thing! " Where are you going ?'' asked Natalie, as her lover made straight for a closed door at the lower extremity of the main cabin. " To speak to the steward, darling. Wait one moment, and you will see me again." Launce opened the store-room door, and discovered, not the stew- ard, but his wife, who occupied the situation of stewardess on board 314 MISS OR MES. ? the vessel. The accident was, in this case, a lucky one. Having stolen several kisses at sea, and having been discovered (in every case) either by the steward or his wife, Launce felt no difficulty in prefacing his request to be allowed the use of the room by the plainest allusion to his relations with Natalie. He could count on the silence of the sympathizing authorities in this region of the vessel, having wisely secured them as accomplices by the usual persuasion of the pecuniary sort. Of the two, however, the stewardess, as a woman, was the more likely to lend a ready ear to Launce's entreaties in his present emergency. After a faint show of resistance, she consented, not only to leave the room, but to keep her husband out of it, on the understanding that it was not to be occupied for more than ten minutes. Launce made the signal to Natalie at one door, while the stewardess went out by the other. In a moment more the lovers were united in a private room. Is it necessary to say in what lan- guage the proceedings were opened ? Surely not ! There is an in- articulate language of the lips in use on these occasions in which we are all proficient, though we sometimes forget it in later life. Na- talie seated herself on a locker. The tea, sugar, and spices were at her back, a side of bacon swung over her head, and a net full of lemons dangled before her face. It might not be roomy, but it was snug and comfortable. " Suppose they call for the steward ?" she suggested. (" Don't, Launce !") " Never mind. We shall be safe enough if they do. The steward has only to show himself on deck, and they will suspect nothing." " Do be quiet, Launce ! I have got dreadful news to tell you. And, besides, my aunt will expect to see me with my braid sewn on again." She had brought her needle and thread with her. Whipping up the skirt of her dress on her knee, she bent forward over it, and set herself industriously to the repair of the torn trimming. In this position her lithe figure showed charmingly its firm yet easy line. The needle, in her dexterous brown fingers, flew through its work. The locker was a broad one ; Launce was able to seat himself par- tially behind her. In this position who could have resisted the temptation to lift up her great knot of broadly-plaited black hair, and to let the warm, dusky nape of her neck disclose itself to view ? Who, looking at it, could fail to revile the senseless modern fashion of dressing the hair, which hides the double beauty of form and color that nestles at the back of a woman's neck ? From time to time, as the interview proceeded, Launce's lips emphasized the more important words occurring in his share of the conversation on the soft, fragrant skin which the lifted hair let him see at intervals. In Launce's place, sir, you would have done it too. MISS OR MRS.? 315 " Now, Natalie, what is the news ?" " He has spoken to papa, Launce." " Richard Turlington ?" "Yes." " D n him !" Natalie started. A curse addressed to the back of your neck, in- stantly followed by a blessing in the shape of a kiss, is a little try- ing when you are not prepared for it. " Don't do that again, Launce ! It was while you were on deck smoking, and when I was supposed to be fast asleep. I opened the ventilator in my cabin door, dear, and I heard every word they said. He waited till my aunt was out of the way, and he had got papa all to himself, and then he began it in that horrible, downright voice of his ' Graybrooke ! how much longer am I to wait ?' " " Did he say that ?" " No more swearing, Launce ! Those were the words. Papa didn't understand them. He only said (poor dear !) ' Bless my soul, Richard, what do you want ?' Richard soon explained him- self. 'Who could he be waiting for but Me?' Papa said some- thing about my being so young. Richard stopped his mouth di- rectly. ' Girls were like fruit ; some ripened soon, and some ripened late. Some were women at twenty, and some were women at six- teen. It was impossible to look at me, and not see that I was like a new being after my two months at sea,' and so on and so on. Papa behaved like an angel. He still tried to put it off. ' Plenty of time, Richard, plenty of time.' ' Plenty of time for her ' (was the wretch's answer to that) ; ' but not for me. Think of all I have to offer her ' (as if I cared for his money !) ; ' think how long I have looked upon her as growing up to be my wife ' (growing up for him monstrous !), ' and don't keep me in a state of uncertainty, which it gets harder and harder for a man in my position to endure !' He was really quite eloquent. His voice trembled. There is no doubt, dear, that he is very, very fond of me." " And you feel flattered by it, of course ?" " Don't talk nonsense. I feel a little frightened at it, I can tell you." " Frightened ? Did you notice him this morning ?" "I? When?" " When your father was telling that story about the man over- board." " No. What did he do ? Tell me, Launce." " I'll tell you directly. How did it all end last night ? Did your father make any sort of promise ?" " You know Richard's way ; Richard left him no other choice. Papa had to promise before he was allowed to go to bed." 316 MISS OK MKS. ? " To let Turlington marry you ?" " Yes ; the week after my next birthday." " The week after next Christmas-day ?" " Yes. Papa is to speak to me as soon as we are at home again, and my married life is to begin with the New Year." " Are you in earnest, Natalie ? Do you really mean to say it has gone as far as that ?" " They have settled every thing. The splendid establishment we are to set up, the great income we are to have. I heard papa tell Richard that half his fortune should go to me on my wedding-day. It was sickening to hear how much they made of Money, and how little they thought of Love. What am I to do, Launce ?" " That's easily answered, my darling. In the first place, you are to make up your mind not to marry Richard Turlington " " Do talk reasonably. You know I have done all I could. I have told papa that I can think of Richard as a friend, but not as a hus- band. He only laughs at me, and says, ' Wait a little, and you will alter your opinion, my dear.' You see Richard is every thing to him ; Richard has always managed his affairs, and has saved him from losing by bad speculations ; Richard has known me from the time when I was a child ; Richard has a splendid business, and quantities of money. Papa can't even imagine that I can resist Richard. I have tried my aunt; I have told her he is too old for me. All she says is, ' Look at your father ; he was much older than your mother, and what a happy marriage theirs was.' Even if I said in so many words, ' I won't marry Richard,' what good would it do to us? Papa is the best and dearest old man in the world; but oh, he is so fond of money ! He believes in nothing else. He would be furious yes, kind as he is, he would be furious if I even hinted that I was fond of you. Any man who proposed to marry me if he couldn't match the fortune that I should bring him by a fortune of his own would be a lunatic in papa's eyes. He wouldn't think it necessary to answer him ; he would ring the bell, and have him shown out of the house. I am exaggerating nothing, Launce ; you know I am speaking the truth. There is no hope in the future that I can see for either of us." " Have you done, Natalie ? I have something to say on my side if you have." " What is it ?" " If things go on as they are going on now, shall I tell you how it will end ? It will end in your being Turlington's wife." " Never !" " So you say now ; but you don't know what may happen between this and Christmas-day. Natalie, there is only one way of making sure that you will never marry Richard. Marry me." MISS OB MBS.? 317 " Without papa's consent ?" " Without saying a word to any body till it's done." " Oh, Launce ! Launce !" " My darling, every word you have said proves there is no other way. Think of it, Natalie, think of it." There was a pause. Natalie dropped her needle and thread, and hid her face in her hands. ' If my poor mother was only alive," she said ; " if I only had an elder sister to advise me, and to take my part." She was evidently hesitating. Launce took a man's advantage of her indecision. He pressed her without mercy. " Do you love me ?" he whispered, with his lips close to her ear. " You know I do, dearly." " Put it out of Richard's power to part us, Natalie." " Part us ? We are cousins : we have known each other since we were both children. Even if he proposed parting us, papa wouldn't allow it." " Mark my words, he will propose it. As for your father, Richard has only to lift his finger and your father obeys him. My love, the happiness of both our lives is at stake." He wound his arm round her, and gently drew her head back on his bosom. " Other girls have done it, darling," he pleaded, " why shouldn't you ?" The effort to answer him was too much for her. She gave it up. A low sigh fluttered through her lips. She nestled closer to him, and faintly closed her eyes. The next instant she started up, trem- bling from head to foot, and looked at the sky-light. Richard Tur- lington's voice was suddenly audible on deck exactly above them. " Graybrooke. I want to say a word to you about Launcelot Linzie." Natalie's first impulse was to fly to the door. Hearing Launce's name on Richard's lips, she checked herself. Something in Rich- ard's tone roused in her the curiosity which suspends fear. She waited, with her hand in Launce's hand. " If you remember," the brassy voice went on, " I doubted the wisdom of taking him with us on this cruise. You didn't agree with me, and, at your express request, I gave way. I did wrong. Launcelot Linzie is a very presuming young man." Sir Joseph's answer was accompanied by Sir Joseph's mellow laugh. " My dear Richard ! Surely you are a little hard on Launce ?" " You are not an observant man, Graybrooke. I am. I see signs of his presuming with all of us, and especially with Natalie. I don't like the manner in which he speaks to her and looks at her. He is unduly familiar ; he is insolently confidential. There must be a stop put to it In my position, my feelings ought to be regarded. I request you to check the intimacy when we get on shore." 318 MISS OB MBS.? Sir Joseph's next words were spoken more seriously. He ex- pressed his surprise. "My dear Richard, they are cousins, they have been playmates from childhood. How can you think of attaching the slightest im- portance to any thing that is said or done by poor Launce ?" There was a good-humored contempt in Sir Joseph's reference to " poor Launce " which jarred on his daughter. He might almost have been alluding to some harmless domestic animal. Natalie's color deepened. Her hand pressed Launce's hand gently. Turlington still persisted. "I must once more request seriously request that you will check this growing intimacy. I don't object to your asking him to the house when you ask other friends. I only wish you (and expect you) to stop his ' dropping in,' as it is called, at any hour of the day or evening when he may have nothing to do. Is that understood between us ?" " If you make a point of it, Richard, of course it's understood between us." Launce looked at Natalie, as weak Sir Joseph consented in those words. " What did I tell you ?" he whispered. Natalie hung her head in silence. There was a pause in the con- versation on deck. The two gentlemen walked away slowly toward the forward part of the vessel. Launce pursued his advantage. " Your father leaves us no alternative," he said. " The door will be closed against me as soon as we get on shore. If I lose you, Natalie, I don't care what becomes of me. My profession may go to the devil. I have nothing left worth living for." " Hush! hush ! don't talk in that way!" Launce tried the soothing influence of persuasion once more. " Hundreds and hundreds of people in our situation have married privately and have been forgiven afterward," he went on. "I won't ask you to do any thing in a hurry. I will be guided entire- ly by your wishes. All I want to quiet my mind is to know that you are mine. Do, do, do make me feel sure that Richard Turling- ton can't take you away from me." " Don't press me, Launce." She dropped on the locker. " See !" she said. " It makes me tremble only to think of it !" " Who are you afraid of, darling ? Not your father, surely ?" " Poor papa ! I wonder whether he would be hard on me for the first time in his life ?" She stopped ; her moistening eyes looked up imploringly in Launce's face. " Don't press me !'' she repeated faintly. " You know it's wrong. We should have to confess it and then what would happen ?" She paused again. Her eyes wan- HISS OR MRS.? 319 dered nervously to the deck. Her voice dropped to its lowest tones. " Think of Richard !" she said, and shuddered at the terrors which that name conjured up. Before it was possible to say a quieting word to her, she was again on her feet. Richard's name had sud- denly recalled to her memory Launce's mysterious allusion, at the outset of the interview, to the owner of the yacht. " What was that you said about Richard just now ?" she asked. " You saw something (or heard something) strange while papa was telling his story. What was it ?" " I noticed Richard's face, Natalie, when your father told us that the man overboard was not one of the pilot-boat's crew. He turned ghastly pale. He looked guilty " "'Guilty? Of what?" " He was present I am certain of it when the sailor was thrown into the sea. For all I know, he may have been the man who did it." Natalie started back in horror. " Oh, Launcc ! Launce ! that is too bad. You may not like Rich- ard you may treat Richard as your enemy. But to say such a hor- rible thing of him as that It's not generous. It's not like you." " If you had seen him, you would have said it too. I mean to make inquiries in your father's interests as well as in ours. My brother knows one of the Commissioners of Police, and my brother can get it done for me. Turlington has not always been in the Levant trade I know that already." " For shame, Launce ! for shame !" The footsteps on deck were audible coming back. Natalie sprang to the door leading into the cabin. Launce stopped her, as she laid her hand on the lock. The footsteps went straight on toward the stern of the vessel. Launce clasped both arms round her. Natalie gave way. " Don't drive me to despair !" he said. " This is my last oppor- tunity. I don't ask you to say at once that you will marry me, I only ask you to think of it. My darling ! my angel ! will you think of it ?" As he put the question, they might have heard (if they had not been too completely engrossed in each other to listen) the footsteps returning one pair of footsteps only this time. Natalie's prolonged absence had begun to surprise her aunt, and had roused a certain vague distrust in Richard's mind. He walked back again along the deck by himself. He looked absently in the main cabin as he passed it. The store - room sky - light came next. In his present frame of mind, would he look absently into the store-room too ? " Let me go !" said Natalie. Launce only answered, " Say yes," and held her as if he would never let her go again. 320 MISS OE MRS.? At the same moment Miss Lavinia's voice rose shrill from the deck calling for Natalie. There was but one way of getting free from him. She said, " I'll think of it." Upon that, he kissed her and let her go. The door had barely closed on her when the lowering face of Richard Turlington appeared on a level with the side of the sky- light, looking down into the store-room at Launce. " Halloo !" he called out roughly. " What are you doing in the steward's room ?" Launce took up a box of matches on the dresser. " I'm getting a light," he answered readily. " I allow nobody below, forward of the main cabin, without my leave. The steward has permitted a breach of discipline on board my vessel. The steward will leave my service." " The steward is not to blame." " I am the judge of that. Not you." Launce opened his lips to reply. An outbreak between the two men appeared to be inevitable, when the sailing-master of the yacht joined his employer on deck, and directed Turlington's attention to a question which is never to be trifled with at sea, the question of wind and tide. The yacht was then in the Bristol Channel, at the entrance to Bideford Bay. The breeze, fast freshening, was also fast changing the direction from which it blew. The favorable tide had barely three hours more to run. " The wind's shifting, sir," said the sailing-master. " I'm afraid we sha'n't get round the point this tide, unless we lay her off on the other tack." Turlington shook his head. " There are letters waiting for me at Bideford," he said. " "We have lost two days in the calm. I must send ashore to the post- office, whether we lose the tide or not." The vessel held on her course. Off the port of Bideford, the boat was sent ashore to the post-office, the yacht standing off and on, waiting the appearance of the letters. In the shortest time in which it was possible to bring them on board the letters were in Turling- ton's hands. The men were hauling the boat up to the davits, the yacht was already heading off from the land, when Turlington startled every body by one peremptory word " Stop !" He had thrust all his letters but one into the pocket of his sailing- jacket, without reading them. The one letter which he had opened he held in his closed hand. Rage was in his staring eyes, consterna- tion was on his pale lips. " Lower the boat !" he shouted ; " I must get to London to-night." HISS OB MBS.? 321 He stopped Sir Joseph, approaching him with opened mouth. " There's no time for questions and answers. I must get back." He swung himself over the side of the yacht, and addressed the sailing-master from the boat. " Save the tide if you can ; if you can't, put them ashore to-morrow at Minehcad or Watchet wherever they like." He beckoned to Sir Joseph to lean over the bulwark, and hear something he had to say in private. " Remember vhat I told you about Launcelot Linzie !" he whispered fiercely. His part- ing look was for Natalie. He spoke to her with a strong constraint on himself, as gently as he could. " Don't be alarmed ; I shall see you in London." He seated himself in the boat and took the tiller. The last words they heard him say were words urging the men at the oars to lose no time. He was invariably brutal with the men. "Pull, you lazy beggars!" he exclaimed, with an oath. "Pull for your lives 1" THIRD SCENE. THE MONEY MARKET. LET us be serious. Business ! The new scene plunges us head foremost into the affairs of the Levant trading-house of Pizzituti, Turlington, and Branca. What on earth do we know about the Levant Trade ? Courage ! If we have ever known what it is to want money, we are perfectly famil- iar with the subject at starting. The Levant Trade does occasion- ally get into^difficulties. Turlington wanted money. The letter which had been handed to him on board the yacht was from his third partner, Mr. Branca, and was thus expressed : " A crisis in the trade. All right, so far except our business with the small foreign firms. Bills to meet from those quarters, (say) forty thousand pounds and, I fear, no remittances to cover them. Par- ticulars stated in another letter addressed to you at Post-office, Ilfra- coml>e. I am quite broken down with anxiety, and confined to my bed. Pizzituti is still detained at Smyrna. Come back at once." The same evening Turlington was at his office in Austin Friars, investigating the state of affairs, with his head clerk to help him. Stated briefly, the business of the firm was of the widely miscel- laneous sort. They plied a brisk trade in a vast variety of com- modities. Nothing came amiss to them, from Manchester cotton manufactures to Smyrna figs. They had branch houses at Alexan- dria and Odessa, and correspondents here, there, and everywhere, along the shores of the Mediterranean, and in the ports of the IPlrTt. These correspondents were the persons alluded to in Mr. Branca's letter as u small foreign firms ;" and they had produced the serious 322 MISS OB MBS.? financial crisis in the affairs of the great house in Austin Friars, which had hurried Turlington up to London. Every one of these minor firms claimed and received the priv- ilege of drawing bills on Pizzituti, Turlington, and Branca for amounts varying from four to six thousand pounds on no better security than a verbal understanding that the money to pay the bills should be forwarded before they fell due. Competition, it is needless to say, was at the bottom of this insanely reckless system of trading. The native firms laid it down as a rule that they would decline to transact business with any house in the trade which re- fused to grant them their privilege. In the case of Turlington's house, the foreign merchants had drawn their bills on him for sums large in the aggregate, if not large in themselves ; had long since turned those bills into cash in their own markets, for their own ne- cessities ; and had now left the money which their paper represent- ed to be paid by their London correspondents as it fell due. In some instances, they had sent nothing but promises and excuses. In others, they had forwarded drafts on firms which had failed al- ready, or which were about to fail, in the crisis. After first exhaust- ing his resources in ready money, Mr. Branca had provided for the more pressing necessities, by pledging the credit of the house, so far as he could pledge it without exciting suspicion of the truth. This done, there were actually left, between that time and Christmas, lia- bilities to be met to the extent of forty thousand pounds, without a farthing in hand to pay that formidable debt. After working through the night, this was the conclusion at which Richard Turlington arrived, when the rising sun looked in at him through the windows of his private room. The whole force of the blow had fallen on him. The share of his partners in the business was of the most trifling nature. The capi- tal was his, the risk was his-. Personally and privately, he had to find the money, or to confront the one other alternative ruin. How was the money to be found ? With his position in the City, he had only to go to the famous money-lending and discounting house of Bulpit Brothers reported to " turn over " millions in their business every year and to supply himself at once with the necessary funds. Forty thousand pounds was a trifling transaction to Bulpit Brothers. Having got the money, how, in the present state of his trade, was the loan to be paid back ? His thoughts reverted to his marriage with Natalie. " Curious !" he said to himself, recalling his conversation with Sir Joseph on board the yacht. " Graybrooke told me he would give his daughter half his fortune on her marriage. Half Graybrooke's fortune happens to be just forty thousand pounds !" He took a turn MISS OB MBS.? 323 In the room. No ! It was impossible to apply to Sir Joseph. Once shake Sir Joseph's conviction of his commercial solidity, and the marriage would be certainly deferred if not absolutely broken off. Sir Joseph's fortune could be made available, in the present emer- gency, in but one way he might use it to repay his debt. He had only to make the date at which the loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and there was his father-in-law's money at his disposal, or at his wife's disposal which meant the same thing. " It's well I pressed Graybrooke about the marriage when I did !" he thought. " I can borrow the money at a short date. In three months from this Natalie will be my wife." He drove to his club to get breakfast, with his mind cleared, for the time being, of all its anxieties but one. Knowing where he could procure the loan, he was by no means equally sure of being able to find the security on which he could borrow the money. Living up to his income; having no expecta- tions from any living creature ; possessing in landed property only some thirty or forty acres in Somersetshire, with a quaint little dwelling, half farm-house, half-cottage, attached he was incapable of providing the needful security from his own personal resources. To appeal to wealthy friends in the City would be to let those friends into the secret of his embarrassments, and to put his credit in peril. He finished his breakfast, and went back to Austin Friars failing entirely, so far, to see how he was to remove the last ob- stacle now left in his way. The doors were open to the public ; business had begun. He had not been ten minutes in his room before the shipping-clerk knocked at the door and interrupted him, still absorbed in his own anxious thoughts. " What is it ?" he asked, irritably. " Duplicate Bills of Lading, sir," answered the clerk, placing the documents on his master's table. Found ! There was the security on his writing-desk, staring him in the face ! He dismissed the clerk and examined the papers. They contained an account of goods shipped to the London house on board vessels sailing from Smyrna and Odessa, and they were signed by the masters of the ships, who thereby acknowledged the receipt of the goods, and undertook to deliver them safely to the persons owning them, as directed. First copies of these papers had already been placed in the possession of the London house. The du- plicates had now followed, in case of accident. Richard Turlington instantly determined to make the duplicates serve as his security, keeping the first copies privately under lock and key, to be used in obtaining possession of the goods at the customary time. The fraud was a fraud in appearance only. The security was a pure formality. 324 MISS OR MES. ? His marriage would supply him with the funds needed for repaying the money, and the profits of his business would provide, in course of time, for restoring the dowry of his wife. It was simply a ques- tion of preserving his credit by means which were legitimately at his disposal. Within the lax limits of mercantile morality, Richard Turlington had a conscience. He put on his hat and took his false security to the money-lenders, without feeling at all lowered in his own estimation as an honest man. Bulpit Brothers, long desirous of having such a name as his on their books, received him with open arms. The security (covering the amount borrowed) was accepted as a matter of course. The money was lent, for three months, with a stroke of the pen. Tur- lington stepped out again into the street, and confronted the City of London in the character of the noblest work of mercantile cre- ation a solvent man.* The Fallen Angel, walking invisibly behind, in Richard's shadow, flapped his crippled wings in triumph. From that moment the Fallen Angel had got him. FOURTH SCENE. MTJSWELL HILL. THE next day Turlington drove to the suburbs, on the chance of finding the Graybrookes at home again. Sir Joseph disliked Lon- don, and could not prevail on himself to live any nearer to the me- tropolis than Muswell Hill. When Natalie wanted a change, and languished for balls, theatres, flower-shows, and the like, she had a room especially reserved for her in the house of Sir Joseph's mar- ried sister, Mrs. Sancroft, living in that central deep of the fashion- able whirlpool known among mortals as Berkeley Square. On his way through the streets, Turlington encountered a plain proof that the Graybrookes must have returned. He was passed by Launce, driving, in company with a gentleman, in a cab. The gen- tleman was Launce's brother, and the two were on their way to the Commissioners of Police to make the necessary arrangements for instituting an inquiry into Turlington's early life. Arrived at the gate of the villa, the information received only par- tially fulfilled the visitor's expectations. The family had returned * Tt may not be amiss to remind the incredulous reader that a famous firm in the City accepted precisely the same security as that here accepted by Buipit Brothers, with the same sublime indifference to troubling them- selves by making any inquiry about it. MISS OR MRS.? 325 on the previous evening. Sir Joseph and his sister were at home, but Natalie was away again already. She had driven into town to lunch with her aunt. Turlington went into the house. " Have you lost any money ?" Those were the first words uttered by Sir Joseph when he and Richard met again, after the parting on board the yacht. " Not a farthing. I might have lost seriously, if I had not got back in time to set things straight. Stupidity on the part of my people left in charge nothing more. It's all right now." Sir Joseph lifted his eyes, with heartfelt devotion, to the ceiling. " Thank God, Richard !" he said, in tones of the deepest feeling. He rang the bell. " Tell Miss Graybrooke Mr. Turlington is here." He turned again to Richard. "Lavinia is like me Lavinia has been so anxious about you. We have both of us passed a sleepless night." Miss Lavinia came in. Sir Joseph hurried to meet her, and took her affectionately by both hands. " My dear ! the best of all good news, Richard has not lost a farthing." Miss Lavinia lift- ed her eyes to the ceiling with heartfelt devotion, and said, " Thank God, Richard !" like the echo of her brother's voice ; a little late, perhaps, for its reputation as an echo, but accurate to half a note in its perfect repetition of sound. Turlington asked the question which it had been his one object to put in paying his visit to Muswell Hill. " Have you spoken to Natalie ?" " This morning," replied Sir Joseph. " An opportunity offered itself after breakfast. I took advantage of it, Richard you shall hear how." He settled himself in his chair for one of his interminable stories ; he began his opening sentence and stopped, struck dumb at the first word. There was an unexpected obstacle in the way his sis- ter was not attending to him ; his sister had silenced him at start- ing. The story touching, this time, on the question of marriage, Miss Lavinia had her woman's interest in seeing full justice done to the subject. She seized on her brother's narrative as on property in her own right. " Joseph should have told you," she began, addressing herself to Turlington, " that our dear girl was unusually depressed in spirits this morning. Quite in the right frame of mind for a little serious talk about her future life. She ate nothing at breakfast, poor child, but a morsel of dry toast." "And marmalade," said Sir Joseph, striking in at the first cppor- tunity. The story, on this occasion, being Miss Lavinia's story, the polite contradictions necessary to its successful progress were natu- rally transferred from the sister to the brother, and became contra- dictions on Sir Joseph's side. 326 MISS OK MRS. ? " No," said Miss Lavinia, gently, " if you will have it, Joseph jam." " I beg your pardon," persisted Sir Joseph ; " marmalade." . " What does it matter, brother ?" " Sister ! the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things." " You will have your way, Joseph " (this was the formula an- swering to Sir Joseph's "Let us waive the point" which Miss Lavinia used, as a means of conciliating her brother, and getting a fresh start for her story). u Well, we took dear Natalie out between us, after breakfast, for a little walk in the grounds. My brother opened the subject with infinite delicacy and tact. ' Circumstances,' he said, ' into which it was not then necessary to enter, made it very desirable, young as she was, to begin to think of her establishment in life.' And then lie referred, Richard (so nicely), to your faithful and devoted attachment " "Excuse me, Lavinia. I began with Richard's attachment, and then I got on to her establishment in life." "Excuse me, Joseph. You managed it much more delicately than you suppose. You didn't drag Richard in by the head and shoul- ders in that way." " Lavinia ! I began with Richard." " Joseph ! your memory deceives you." Turlington's impatience broke through all restraint. " How did it end ?" he asked. " Did you propose to her that we should be married in the first week of the New Year ?" " Yes !" said Miss Lavinia. " No !" said Sir Joseph. The sister looked at the brother with an expression of affection- ate surprise. The brother looked at the sister with a fund of ami- able contradiction, expressed in a low bow. " Do you really mean to deny, Joseph, that you told Natalie we had decided on the first week in the New Year ?" " I deny the New Year, Lavinia. I said early in January." " You will have your way, Joseph ! We were walking in the shrubbery at the time. I had our dear girl's arm in mine, and I felt it tremble. She suddenly stopped. ' Oh,' she said, ' not so soon !' I said, ' My dear, consider Richard !' She turned to her fa- ther. She said, ' Don't, pray don't press it so soon, papa ! I re- spect Richard ; I like Richard as your true and faithful friend ; but I don't love him as I ought to love him if I am to be his wife.' Imagine her talking in that way ! What could she possibly know about it ? Of course we both laughed " " You laughed, Lavinia." "You laughed, Joseph." MISS OR MRS.? 327 " Get on, for God's sake !" cried Turlington, striking his hand passionately on the table by which he was sitting. " Don't mad- den me by contradict in-,' each other! Did she give way or not?" .Miss Laviniu turned to her brother. "Contradicting each other, Joseph !" she exclaimed, lifting her hands in blank amazement. 14 Contradicting each other !" repeated Sir Joseph, equally aston- ished on his side. " My dear Richard, what can you be thinking of? I contradict my sister ! We never disagreed in our lives." " I contradict my brother ! We have never had a cross word be- tween us from the time when we were children." Turlington internally cursed his own irritable temper. " I beg your pardon both of you," he said. " I didn't know what I was saying. Make some allowance for me. All my hopes in life are centred in Natalie; and you have just told me (in her own words, Miss Lavinia) that she doesn't love. You don't mean any harm, I dare say ; but you cut me to the heart." This confession, and the look that accompanied it, touched the ready sympathies of the two old people in the right place. The re- mainder of the story dropped between them by common consent. They vied with each other in saying the comforting words which would allay their dear Richard's anxiety. How little he knew of young girls. How could he be so foolish, poor fellow ! as to attach any serious importance to what Natalie had said ? As if a young creature in her teens knew the state of her own heart ! Protesta- tions and entreaties were matters of course, in such cases. Tears even might be confidently expected from a right-minded girl. It had all ended exactly as Richard would have wished it to end. Sir Joseph had said, " My child ! this is a matter of experience ; love will come when you are married." And Miss Lavinia had added, " Dear Natalie, if you remembered your poor mother -as I remember her, you would know that your fathers experience is to be relied on." In that way they had put it to her; and she had hung her head and had given all that maiden modesty could be expected to give a silent consent. " The wedding-day was fixed for the first week in the New Year." (" No, Joseph ; not January the New Year.") " And God bless you, Richard ! and may your married life be a long and happy one." So the average ignorance of human nature, and the average be- lief in conventional sentiment, complacently contemplated the sacri- fice of one more victim on the all-devouring altar of Marriage ! So Sir Joseph and his sister provided Launcelot Linzie with the one argument which he wanted to convince Natalie : " Choose between making the misery of your life by marrying him, and making the happiness of your life by marrying wie." 44 When shall I see her ?" asked Turlington, with Miss Lavinia (in 14 326 MISS OK MRS. t tears which did her credit) in possession of one of his hands, and Sir Joseph (in tears which did him credit) in possession of the other. " She will be back to dinner, dear Richard. Stay and dine." " Thank you. I must go into the City first. I will come back and dine." With that arrangement in prospect, he left them. An hour later a telegram arrived from Natalie. She had consent- ed to dine, as well as lunch, in Berkeley Square sleeping there that night, and returning the next morning. Her father instantly telegraphed back by the messenger, insisting on Natalie's return to Muswell Hill that evening, in time to meet Richard Turlington at dinner. " Quite right, Joseph," said Miss Lavinia, looking over her broth- er's shoulder, while he wrote the telegram. " She is showing a disposition to coquet with Richard," rejoined Sir Joseph, with the air of a man who knew female human nature in its remotest corners. " My telegram, Lavinia, will have its effect." Sir Joseph was quite right. His telegram had its effect. It not only brought his daughter back to dinner it produced another re- sult which his prophetic faculty had altogether failed to foresee. The message reached Berkeley Square at five o'clock in the after- noon. Let us follow the message. FIFTH SCENE. THE 8QUAEE. BETWEEN four and five in the afternoon when the women of the Western regions are in their carriages, and the men are at their clubs London presents few places more conveniently adapted for purposes of private talk than the solitary garden inclosure of a square. On the day when Richard Turlington paid his visit to Muswell Hill, two ladies (with a secret between them) unlocked the gate of the railed garden in Berkeley Square. They shut the gate after entering the inclosure, but carefully forbore to lock it as well, and carefully restricted their walk to the westward side of the garden. One of them was Natalie Graybrooke. The other was Mrs. San- croft's eldest daughter. A certain temporary interest attached, in the estimation of society, to this young lady. She had sold well in the marriage market. In other words, she had recently been raised to the position of Lord Winwood's second wife ; his lordship con- ferring on the bride not only the honors of the peerage, but the ad- ditional distinction of being stepmother to his three single daugh- MISS OR MRS.? 329 ters, all older than herself. In person, Lady Winwood was little and fair. In character, she was dashing and resolute a complete contrast to Natalie, and (on that very account) Natalie's bosom friend. " My dear, one ambitious marriage in the family is quite enough ! I have made up my mind that you shall marry the man you love. Don't tell me your courage is failing you the excuse is contempti- ble ; I decline to receive it. Natalie ! the men have a phrase which exactly describes your character. You want back-bone!" The bonnet of the lady who expressed herself in these perempto- ry terms barely reached the height of Natalie's shoulder. Natalie might have blown the little airy, light-haired, unsubstantial crea- ture over the railings of the garden if she had taken a good long breath and stooped low enough. But who ever met with a tall woman who had a will of her own ? Natalie's languid brown eyes looked softly down in submissive attention from an elevation of five feet seven. Lady Winwood's brisk blue eyes looked brightly up in despotic command from an elevation of four feet eleven (in her shoes). " You are trifling with Mr. Linzie, my dear. Mr. Linzie is a nice fellow. I like him. I won't have that." "Louisa!" " Mr. Turlington has nothing to recommend him. He is not a well-bred old gentleman of exalted rank. He is only an odious brute who happens to have made money. You shall not marry Mr. Turlington. And you sJutll marry Launcelot Linzie." " Will you let me speak, Louisa ?" "I will let you answer nothing more. Didn't you come cry- ing to me this morning ? Didn't you say, ' Louisa, they have pro- nounced sentence on me ! I am to be married in the first week of the New Year. Help me out of it, for Heaven's sake !' You said all that, and more. And what did I do when I heard your story?" " Oh, you were so kind Kind doesn't half express it. I have committed crimes on your account. I have deceived my husband and my mother. For your sake I <^ot mamma to ask Mr. Linzie to lunch (as my friend !). For your sake I have banished my unoffending husband, not an hour MINT, to his club. You wretched girl, who arranged a private con- ference in the library ? Who sent Mr. Linzie off to consult his friend in the Temple on the law of clandestine marriage ? Who suggested your telegraphing home, and stopping here for the night ? Who made an appointment to meet your young man privately in this detestable place in ten minutes' time ? I did I I did ! I did I All in your interests. All to prevent you from doing what I have done marrying to please your family instead of to please yourself. (I 330 MISS OR MRS. ? don't complain, mind, of Lord Winwood, or of his daughters. He is charming ; his daughters I shall tame in course of time. You are different. And Mr. Turlington, as I observed before, is a brute.) Very well. Now what do you owe me on your side ? You owe it to me at least to know your own mind. You don't know it. You coolly inform me that you daren't run the risk after all, and that you can't face the consequences on second thoughts. I'll tell you what ! You don't deserve that nice fellow, who worships the very ground you tread on. You are a bread-and-butter miss. I don't believe you are fond of him !" " Not fond of him !" Natalie stopped, and clasped her hands in despair of finding language strong enough for the occasion. At the same moment the sound of a closing gate caught her ear. She looked round. Launce had kept his appointment before his time. Launce was in the garden, rapidly approaching them. " Now for the Law of Clandestine Marriage !" said Lady Win- wood. " Mr. Linzie, we will take it sitting." She led the way to one of the benches in the garden, and placed Launce between Na- talie and herself. " Well, Chief Conspirator, have you got the Li- cense ? No ? Does it cost too much ? Can I lend you the money ?" "It costs perjury, Lady Winwood, in my case," said Launce. " Natalie is not of age. I can only get a License by taking my oath that I marry her with her father's consent." He turned pit- eously to Natalie. " I couldn't very well do that," he said, in the tone of a man who feels bound to make an apology, " could I ?" Natalie shuddered ; Lady Winwood shrugged her shoulders. "In your place a woman wouldn't have hesitated," her ladyship remarked. " But men are so selfish. Well ! I suppose there is some other way ?" " Yes, there is another way," said Launce. " But there is a hor- rid condition attached to it " " Something worse than perjury, Mr. Linzie ? Murder ?" " I'll tell you directly, Lady Winwood. The marriage comes first. The condition follows. There is only one chance for us. We must be married by banns." " Banns !" cried Natalie. " Why, banns are publicly proclaimed in church !" "They needn't be proclaimed in your church, you goose," said Lady Winwood. " And, even if they were, nobody would be the wiser. You may trust implicitly, my dear, in the elocution of an English clergyman !" " That's just what my friend said," cried Launce. " ' Take a lodg- ing near a large parish church, in a remote part of London ' (this is my friend's advice) ' go to the clerk, tell him you want to be married by banns, and say you belong to that parish. As for the MISS OR MBS.? 331 lady, in your place I should simplify it. I should say she belonged to the parish too. Give an address, and have some one there to answer questions. How is the clerk to know ? He isn't likely to be over-anxious about it his fee is eighteen-pence. The clerk makes his profit out of you, after you are married. The same rule applies to the parson. He will have your names supplied to him on a strip of paper, with do/ens of other names; and he will read them out all together in one inarticulate jumble in church. You will stand at the altar when your time comes, with Brown and Jones, Nokes and Styles, Jack and Gill. All that you will have to do is, to take i a iv that your young lady doesn't fall to Jack, and you to Gill, by mistake and there you are, married by banns.' My friend's opin- ion, stated in his own words." Natalie sighed, and wrung her hands in her lap. "We shall nev- er get through it," she said, despondingly. Lady Win wood took a more cheerful view. "I see nothing very formidable as yet, my dear. But we have still to hear the end of it. You mentioned a condition just now, Mr. Linzie." 44 1 am coming to the condition, Lady Winwood. You naturally suppose, as I did, that I put Natalie into a cab, and run away with her from the church door ?" " Certainly. And I throw an old shoe after you for luck, and go home again." Launce shook his head ominously. " Natalie must go home again as well as you !" Lady Winwood started. " Is that the condition you mentioned just now 2" she asked. ' That is the condition. I may marry her without any thing serious coming of it. But, if I run away with her afterward, and if you are there, aiding and abetting me, we are guilty of Abduction, and we may stand, side by side, at the bar of the Old Bailey to answer for it '." Natalie sprang to her feet in horror. Lady Winwood held up one finger warningly, signing to her to let Launce go on. " Natalie is not yet sixteen years old," Launce proceeded. " She must go straight back to her father's house from the church, and I must wait to run away with her till her next birthday. When she's turned sixteen, she's ripe for elopement not an hour before. There is the law of Abduction ! Despotism in a free country that's what I call it !" Natalie sat down again, with an air of relief. " It's a very comforting law, / think," she said. " It doesn't force one to take the dreadful step of running away from home all at once. It gives one time to consider, and plan, and make up one's 332 MISS OR MBS.? mind. I can tell you this, Launce, if I am to be persuaded into marrying you, the law of Abduction is the only thing that will in- duce me to do it. You ought to thank the law, instead of abusing it." Launce listened without conviction. " It's a pleasant prospect," he said, " to part at the church door, and to treat my own wife on the footing of a young lady who is en- gaged to marry another gentleman." " Is it any pleasanter for me" retorted Natalie, " to have Richard Turlington courting me, when I am all the time your wife ? I shall never be able to do it. I wish I was dead !" " Come ! come !" interposed Lady Winwood. " It's time to be serious. Natalie's birthday, Mr. Linzie, is next Christmas-day. She will be sixteen " " At seven in the morning," said Launce ; " I got that out of Sir Joseph. At one minute past seven, Greenwich mean time, we may be off together. I got that out of the lawyer." "And it isn't an eternity to wait from now till Christmas - day. You get that, by way of completing the list of your acquisitions, out of me. In the mean time, can you, or can you not, manage to meet the difficulties in the way of the marriage ?" " I have settled every thing," Launce answered, confidently. " There is not a single difficulty left." He turned to Natalie, listening to him in amazement, and ex- plained himself. It had struck him that he might appeal with his purse in his hand, of course to the interest felt in his affairs by the late stewardess of the yacht. That excellent woman had volun- teered to do all that she could to help him. Her husband had ob- tained situations for his wife and himself on board another yacht and they were both eager to assist in any conspiracy in which their late merciless master was destined to play the part of victim. When on shore, they lived in a populous London parish, far away from the fashionable district of Berkeley Square, and farther yet from the respectable suburb of Muswell*Hill. A room in the house could be nominally engaged for Natalie, in the assumed character of the stewardess's niece the stewardess undertaking to answer any pure- ly formal questions which might be put by the church authorities, and to be present at the marriage - ceremony. As for Launce, he would actually, as well as nominally, live in the district close by ; and the steward, if needful, would answer for Mm. Natalie might call at her parochial residence occasionally, under the wing of Lady Winwood ; gaining leave of absence from Muswell Hill, on the plea of paying one of her customary visits at her aunt's house. The con- spiracy, in brief, was arranged in all its details. Nothing was now wanting but the consent of the young lady; obtaining which, MISS OB MRS.? 333 Launcc would go to the parish church and give the necessary no- tice of a marriage by banns on the next day. There was the plot. What did the ladies think of it ? Lady Winwood thought it perfect Natalie was not so easily satisfied. " My father lias always been so kind to me !" she said. " The one thing I can't get over, Launce, is distressing papa. If he had been hard on me as some fathers are I shouldn't mind." She sud- denly brightened, as if she saw her position in a new light. " Why should you hurry me ?" she asked. " I am going to dine at my aunt's to-day, and you are coming in the evening. Give me time ! Wait till to-night." Launce instantly entered his protest against wasting a moment longer. Lady Winwood opened her lips to support him. They were both silenced at the same moment by the appearance of one of Mrs. Bancroft's servants, opening the gate of the square. Lady Winwood went forward to meet the man. A suspicion crossed her mind that he might be bringing bad news. " What do you want ?" she asked. " I beg your pardon, my lady the housekeeper said you were walking here with Miss Graybrooke. A telegram for Miss Gray- brooke." Lady Winwood took the telegram from the man's hand ; dismiss- ed him, and went back with it to Natalie. Natalie opened it nerv- ously. She read the message and instantly changed. Her cheeks flushed deep ; her eyes flashed with indignation. " Even papa can !>c hard on me, it seems, when Richard asks him!" she exclaimed. She handed the telegram to Launce. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. '"Ton love me," she said, gently and stopped. "Marry me !" she added, with a sudden burst of resolution. " I'll risk it 1" As she spoke those words, Lady Winwood read the telegram. It ran thus : "Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Muswell Hill. To Miss Natalie Gray- brooke, Berkeley Square. Come back immediately. You are en- gaged to dine here with Richard Turlington." Lady Winwood folded up the telegram with a malicious smile. " Well done, Sir Joseph !" thought her ladyship. " We might nevei have persuaded Natalie but for You !" 334 MISS OK MllS. ? SIXTH SCENE. THE CHURCH. THE time is morning; the date is early in the month of No- vember. The place is a church, in a poor and populous parish in the undiscovered regions of London, eastward of the Tower, and hard by the river-side. A marriage procession of five approaches the altar. The bride- groom is pale, and the bride is frightened. The bride's friend (a resolute-looking little lady) encourages her in whispers. The two respectable persons, apparently man and wife, who complete the procession, seem to be not quite clear as to the position which they occupy at the ceremony. The beadle, as he marshals them before the altar, sees something under the surface in this wedding-party. Marriages in the lower ranks of life are the only marriages celebra- ted here. Is this a runaway match ? The beadle anticipates some- thing out of the common in the shape of a fee. The clergyman (the junior curate) appears from the vestry in his robes. The clerk takes his place. The clergyman's eye rests with a sudden interest and curiosity on the bride and bridegroom, and on the bride's friend ; notices the absence of elderly relatives ; remarks, in the two ladies especially, evidences of refinement and breeding entirely unparalleled in his professional experience of brides and brides' friends standing before the altar of that church ; questions, silently and quickly, the eye of the clerk, occupied also in observing the strangers with interest. " Jeukinsou " (the clergyman's look asks), " is this all right ?" " Sir " (the clerk's look answers), " a mar- riage by banns ; all the formalities have been observed." The cler- gyman opens his book. The formalities have been observed; his duty lies plainly before him. Attention, Launcelot ! Courage, Na- talie ! The service begins. Launce casts a last furtive look round the church. Will Sir Jo- seph Graybrooke start up and stop it from one of the empty pews ? Is Richard Turlington lurking in the organ loft, and only waiting till the words of the service appeal to him to prohibit the marriage, or " else hereafter forever to hold his peace ?" No. The clergyman proceeds steadily, and nothing happens. Natalie's charming face grows paler and paler, Natalie's heart throbs faster and faster, as the time conies nearer for reading the words which unite them for life. Lady Winwood herself feels an unaccustomed fluttering in the re- gion of the bosom. Her ladyship's thoughts revert, not altogether MISS OR MRS.? 335 pleasantly, to her own marriage : " Ah me ! what was / thinking of when I was in this position '. Of the bride's beautiful dress, and of Lady Winwood'l coming presentation at court!" The service advances to the words in which they plight theil troth. Launce has put the ring on her finger. Launce has repeated the words after the clergyman. Launce has married her! Done! Conic what may of it, done ! The service ends. Bridegroom, bride, and witnesses go into the vestry to sign the book. The signing, like the service, is serious. No trifling with the truth is possible here. When it cornea to Lady Winwood's turn, Lady Win wood must write her name. She does it, but without her usual grace and decision. She drops her hand- kerchief. The clerk picks it up for her, and notices that a coronet is embroidered in one corner. The fees are paid. They leave the vestry. Other couples, when it is over, are talkative am! happy. These two are more silent and more embarrassed than ever. Stranger still, while other couples go off with relatives and friends, all socially united in honor of the oc- casion, these two and their friends part at the church door. The respectable man and his wife go their way on foot. The little lady \\ith the coronet on her handkerchief puts the bride into a cab, gets in herself, and directs the driver to close the door, while the bride- groom is standing on the church steps ! The bridegroom's face is clouded, as well it may be. He puts his head in at the window of i lie cab; he possesses himself of the bride's hand; he speaks in a whisper; he is apparently not to be shaken off. The little lady ex- erts her authority, separates the clasped hands, pushes the bride- groom away, and cries peremptorily to the driver to go on. The cab starts ; the deserted husband drifts desolately anyhow down the street. The clerk, who has seen it all, goes back to the vestry, and reports what has happened. The rector (with his wife on his arm) has just dropped into the vestry on business in passing. He and the curate are talking about the strange marriage. The rector, gravely bent on ascertaining that no blame rests with the church, interrogates, and is satisfied. The rector's wife is not so easy to deal with. She has looked at the sig- natures in the book. One of the names is familiar to her. She cross-examines the clerk as soon as her husband is done with him. When she hears of the coronet on the handkerchief she points to the signature of" Louisa Winwood," and says to the rector, " I know who it is! Lord Winwood's second wife. I went to school with his lordship's daughters by his first marriage. We occasionally meet at the Sacred Concerts (on the ' Ladies' Committee ') ; I shall find an opportunity of speaking to them. One moment, Mr. Jenkinson, I will write down the names before you put away the book. ' I*aunce- 14* 336 MISS OB MRS. ? lot Linzie,' ' Natalie Graybrooke.' Very pretty names ; quite roman- tic. I do delight in a romance. Good-morning." She gives the curate a parting smile, and the clerk a parting nod, and sails out of the vestry. Natalie, silently returning in Lady Win- wood's company to Muswell Hill ; and Launce, cursing the law of Abduction as he roams the streets little think that the ground is already mined under their feet. Richard Turlington may hear of it now, or may hear of it later. The discovery of the marriage depends entirely on a chance meeting between the lord's daughters and the rector's wife. SEVENTH SCENE. THE EVENING PAKTY. MB. TURLINGTON, LADY WINWOOD At Home. Wednesday, December 15th. Ten o'clock. " DEAREST NATALIE, As the brute insists, the brute must have the invitation which I inclose. Never mind, my child. You and Launce are coming to dinner, and I will see that you have your lit- tle private opportunities of retirement afterward. All I expect of you in return is, not to look (when you come back) as if your hus- band had been kissing you. You will certainly let out the secret of those stolen kisses, if you don't take care. At mamma's dinner yesterday, your color (when you came out of the conservatory) was a sight to see. Even your shoulders were red ! They are charming shoulders, I know, and men take the strangest fancies sometimes. But, my dear, suppose you wear a chemisette next time, if you haven't authority enough over him to prevent his doing it again ! " Your aifectionate LOUISA." The private history of the days that had passed since the marriage was written in that letter. An additional chapter of some impor- tance in its bearing on the future was contributed by the progress of events at Lady Winwood's party. By previous arrangement with Natalie, the Graybrookes (invited to dinner) arrived early. Leaving her husband and her stepdaugh- ters to entertain Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia, Lady Winwood took Natalie into her own boudoir, which communicated by a curtained opening with the drawing-room. MISS OR MBS.? 337 My dear, you are looking positively haggard this evening. Has .my tiling happened ?" " I am nearly worn out, Louisa. The life I am leading is so unen- durable that, if Launce pressed me, I believe I should consent to run away with him when we leave your house to-night." You will do nothing of the sort, if you please. Wait till you are sixteen. I delight in novelty, but the novelty of appearing at the Old Bailey is beyond my ambition. Is the brute coming to- night!" "Of course. He insists on following me wherever I go. He lunched at Muswell Hill to-day. More complaints of my incompre- hensible coldness to him. Another scolding from papa. A furious letter from Launce. If I let Richard kiss my hand again in his presence, Launce warns me he will knock him down. Oh, the meanness and the guiltiness of the life I am leading now ! I am in the falsest of all false positions, Louisa, and you encouraged me to do it. I believe Richard Turlington suspects us. The last two times Launce and I tried to get a minute together at my aunt's, he contrived to put himself in our way. There he was, my dear, with his scowling face, looking as if he longed to kill Launce. Can you do any thing for us to-night ? Not on my account. But Launce is so impatient. If he can't say two words to me alone this even- ing, he declares he will come to Muswell Hill, and catch me in the garden to-morrow." "Compose yourself, my dear; he shall say his two words to- night." " How ?" Lady Winwood pointed through the curtained entrance of the boudoir to the door of the drawing-room. Beyond the door was the staircase landing. And beyond the landing was a second draw- ing-room, the smallest of the two. " There are only three or four people coming to dinner," her lady- ship proceeded; "and a few more in the evening. Being a small party, the small drawing-room will do for us. This drawing-room will not be lit, and there will be only my reading-lamp here in the boudoir. I shall give the signal for leaving the dining-room earlier than usual. Launce will join us before the evening party begins. The moment he appears, send him in here boldly before your aunt and all of us." " For what ?" " For your fan. Leave it there under the sofa-cushion before we go down to dinner. You will sit next to Launce, and you will give him private instructions not to find the fan. You will get impatient you will go to find it yourself and there you are. Take care of your shoulders, Mrs. Linzie ! I have nothing more to say." 338 MISS OR MRS. ? The guests asked to dinner began to arrive. Lady Winwood was recalled to her duties as mistress of the house. It was a pleasant little dinner with one drawback. It began too late. The ladies only reached the small drawing-room at ten minutes to ten. Launce was only able to join them as the clock struck. " Too late !" whispered Natalie. " He will be here directly." "Nobody comes punctually to an evening party," said Launce. " Don't let us lose a moment. Send me for your fan." Natalie opened her lips to say the necessary words. Before she could speak, the servant announced " Mr. Turlington." He came in, with his stiffly-upright shirt collar and his loosely- fitting glossy black clothes. He made his sullen and clumsy bow to Lady Winwood. And then he did, what he had done dozens of times already he caught Natalie, with her eyes still bright and her face still animated (after talking to Launce) a striking contrast to the cold and unimpulsive young lady whom he was accustomed to see while Natalie was talking to him. Lord Winwood's daughters were persons of some celebrity in the world of amateur music. Noticing the look that Turlington cast at Launce, Lady Winwood whispered to Miss Lavinia who instantly asked the young ladies to sing. Launce, in obedience to a sign from Natalie, volunteered to find the music-books. It is needless to add that he pitched on the wrong volume at starting. As he lifted it from the piano to take it back to the stand, there dropped out from between the leaves a printed letter, looking like a circular. One of the young ladies took it up, and ran her eye over it, with a start. " The Sacred Concerts !" she exclaimed. Her two sisters, standing by, looked at each other guiltily : " What will the Committee say to us ? We entirely forgot the meeting last month." " Is there a meeting this month ?" They all looked anxiously at the printed letter. " Yes ! The twenty-third of December. Put it down in your book, Amelia." Amelia, then and there, put it down among the engagements for the latter end of the month. And Natalie's unac- knowledged husband placidly looked on. So did the merciless irony of circumstances make Launce the in- nocent means of exposing his own secret to discovery. Thanks to his success in laying his hand on the wrong music-book, there would now be a meeting two good days before the elopement could take place between the lord's daughters and the rector's wife ! The guests of the evening began to appear by twos and threes. The gentlemen below stairs left the dinner-table, and joined them. MISS OR MRS.? 330 The small drawing-room was pleasantly filled, and no more. b;r Joseph Graybrooke, taking Turlington's hand, led him eagerly to their host. The talk in the dining-room had turned on finance. Lord "Wimvood was not quite satisfied with some of his foreign in- vestments ; and Sir Joseph's " dear Richard " was the very man to give him a little sound advice. The three laid their heads together in a corner. Launce (watching them) slyly pressed Natalie's hand. A renowned " virtuoso " had arrived, and was thundering on the piano. The attention of the guests generally was absorbed in the performance. A fairer chance of sending Launce for the fan could not possibly have offered itself. While the financial discussion was still proceeding, the married lovers were ensconced together alone in the boudoir. Lady Winwood (privately observant of their absence) kept her eye on the corner, watching Richard Turlington. He was talking earnestly with his back toward the company. He neither moved nor looked round. It came to Lord Winwood's turn to speak. He preserved the same position, listening. Sir Jo- seph took up the conversation next. Then his attention wander- ed he knew beforehand what Sir Joseph would say. His eyes turned anxiously toward the place in which he had left Natalie. Lord- Winwood said a word. His head turned back again toward the corner. Sir Joseph put an objection. He glanced once more over his shoulder this time at the place in which Launce had been standing. The next moment his host recalled his attention, and made it impossible for him to continue his scrutiny of the room. At the same time, two among the evening guests, bound for another party, approached to take leave of the lady of the house. Lady Winwood was obliged to rise, and attend to them. They had some- thing to say to her before they left, and they said it at terrible length, standing so as to intercept her view of the proceedings of the enemy. When she had got rid of them at last, she looked and behold Lord Winwood and Sir Joseph were the only occupants of the corner! Delaying one moment, to set the "virtuoso" thundering once more, Lady Winwood slipped out of the room and crossed the land- ing. At the entrance to the empty drawing-room she heard Tur- lington's voice, low and threatening, in the boudoir. Jealousy has a Second Sight of its own. He had looked in the right place at starting and, oh heavens ! he had caught them. Her ladyship's courage was beyond dispute ; but she turned pale as she approached the entrance to the boudoir. There stood Natalie at once angry and afraid between the man to whom she was ostensibly engaged, and the man to whom she was actually married. Turlington's rugged face expressed a martyrdom of suppressed fury. Launce in the act of offering Na- 340 MISS OR MRS. ? talie l-.er fan smiled, with the cool superiority of a man who knew that he had won his advantage, and who triumphed in knowing it. " I forbid you to take your fan from that man's hands," said Tur- lington, speaking to Natalie, and pointing to Launce. " Isn't it rather too soon to begin ' forbidding ?' " asked Lady Win- woocl, good-humoredly. " Exactly what I say !" exclaimed Launce. " It seems necessary to remind Mr. Turlington that he is not married to Natalie yet !" Those last words were spoken in a tone which made both the women tremble inwardly for results. Lady Winwood took the fan from Launce with one hand, and took Natalie's arm with the other. " There is your fan, my dear," she said, in her easy off-hand man- ner. " Why do you allow these two barbarous men to keep you here while the great Bootmann is playing the Nightmare Sonata in the next room ? Launce ! Mr. Turlington ! follow me, and learn to be musical directly ! You have only to shut your eyes, and you will fancy you hear four modern German composers playing, instead of one, and not the ghost of a melody among all the four." She led the way out with Natalie, and whispered, " Did he catch you ?" Natalie whispered back, " I heard him in time. He only caught us looking for the fan." The two men waited behind to have two words together alone in the boudoir. " This doesn't end here, Mr. Linzie !" Launce smiled satirically. " For once I agree with you," he an- swered. " It doesn't end here, as you say." Lady Winwood stopped, and looked back at them from the draw- ing-room door. They were keeping her waiting they had no choice but to follow the mistress of the house. Arrived in the next room, both Turlington and Launce resumed their places among the guests with the same object in view. As a necessary result of the scene in the boudoir, each had his own special remonstrance to address to Sir Joseph. Even here, Launce was be- forehand with Turlington. He was the first to get possession of Sir Joseph's private ear. His complaint took the form of a protest against Turlington's jealousy, and an appeal for a reconsideration of the sentence which excluded him from Muswell Hill. Watching them from a distance, Turlington's suspicious eye detected the ap- pearance of something unduly confidential in the colloquy be- tween the two. Under cover of the company, he stole behind them and listened. The great Bootmann had arrived at that part of the Nightmare Sonata in which musical sound, produced principally with the left hand, is made to describe, beyond all possibility of mistake, the rising of the moon in a country church-yard and a dance of Vanx- MISS OK MRS. ? 341 pires round a maiden's grave. Sir Joseph, having no chance against the Vampires in a wliisper, was obliged to raise his voice to make himself audible in answering and comforting Launce. "I sincere- ly sympathize with you," Turlington heard him say; "and Natalie feels about it as I do. But Richard is an obstacle in our way. We must look to the consequences, my dear boy, supposing Richard found us out." He nodded kindly to his nephew ; and, declining to pursue the subject, moved away to another part of the room. Turlington's jealous distrust, wrought to the highest pitch of ir- ritability for weeks past, instantly associated the words he had just heard with the words spoken by Launce in the boudoir, which had reminded him that he was not married to Natalie yet. Was there treachery at work under the surface? and was the object to per- suade weak Sir Joseph to reconsider his daughter's contemplated marriage in a sense favorable to Launce ? Turlington's blind sus- picion overleaped at a bound all the manifest improbabilities which forbade such a conclusion as this. After an instant's considera- tion with himself, he decided on keeping his own counsel, and on putting Sir Joseph's good faith then and there to a test which he could rely on as certain to take Natalie's father by surprise. " Graybrooke !" Sir Joseph started at the sight of his future son-in law's face. My dear Richard, you are looking very strangely! Is the heat of the room too much for you ?" " Never mind the heat ! I have seen enough to-night to justify me in insisting that your daughter and Launcelot Linzie shall meet no more between this and the day of my marriage." Sir Joseph at- tempted to speak. Turlington declined to give him the opportu- nity. " Yes ! yes ! your opinion of Linzie isn't mine, I know. I saw you as thick as thieves together just now." Sir Joseph once more attempted to make himself heard. Wearied by Turlington's perpetual complaints of his daughter and his nephew, he was suffi- ciently irritated by this time to have reported what Launce had actually said to him if he had been allowed the chance. But Tur- lington persisted in going on. " I can not prevent Linzie from be- ing received in this house, and at your sister's," he said ; " but I can keep him out of my house in the country, and to the country let us go. I propose a change in the arrangements. Have you any en- gagement for the Christmas holidays ?" He paused, and fixed his eyes attentively on Sir Joseph. Sir Joseph, looking a little surprised, replied briefly that he had no en- gagraMnt. " In that case," resumed Turlington, " I invite you all to Somer- setshire, and I propose that the marriage shall take place from my house, and not from yours. Do you refuse ?" 342 MISS OR MRS. ? " It is contrary to the usual course of proceeding in such cases, Richard," Sir Joseph began. " Do you refuse ?" reiterated Turlington. " I tell you plainly, I shall place a construction of my own upon your motive if you do." " No, Richard," said Sir Joseph, quietly, " I accept." Turlington drew back a step in silence. Sir Joseph had turned the tables on him, and had taken him by surprise. " It will upset several plans, and be strongly objected to by the ladies," proceeded the old gentleman. " But if nothing less will satisfy you, I saj, Yes ! I shall have occasion, when we meet to- morrow at Muswell Hill, to appeal to your indulgence under cir cumstances which may greatly astonish you. The least I can do, iu the mean time, is to set an example of friendly sympathy and for- bearance on my side. No more now, Richard. Hush ! the music !" It was impossible to make him explain himself further that night. Turlington was left to interpret Sir Joseph's mysterious communica- tion with such doubtful aid to success as his own unassisted inge- nuity might afford. The meeting of the next day at Muswell Hill had for its object- as Turlington had already been informed the drawing of Natalie's marriage-settlement. Was the question of money at the bottom of Sir Joseph's contemplated appeal to his indulgence? He thought of his commercial position. The depression in the Levant trade still continued. Never had his business at any previous time re- quired such constant attention, and repaid that attention with so little profit. The Bills of Lading had been already used by the firm, in the ordinary course of trade, to obtain possession of the goods. The duplicates in the hands of Bulpit Brothers were liter- ally waste paper. Repayment of the loan of forty thousand pounds (with interest) was due in less than a month's time. There was his commercial position ! Was it possible that money-loving Sir Joseph had any modification to propose in the matter of his daughter's dowry ? The bare dread that it might be so struck him cold. He quitted the house and forgot to wish Natalie good-night. Meanwhile, Launce had left the evening party before him and Launce also found matter for serious reflection presented to his mind before he slept that night. In other words, he found, on reaching his lodgings, a letter from his brother, marked " private." Had the inquiry into the secrets of Turlington's early life now prolonged over some weeks led to positive results at last ? Launce eagerly opened the letter. It contained a Report and a Summary. He passed at once to the Summary, and read these words : "If you only want moral evidence to satisfy your own mind, your end is gained. There is, morally, no doubt that Turlington and the eea-captain who cast the foreign sailor overboard to drown are one MISS OR MKS. ? 343 and the same man. Loyally, the matter is beset by difficulties, Tur- lington having destroyed all provable connection between his pres- ent self and his past life. There is only one chance for us. A sailor on board the ship (who was in his master's secrets) is supposed to IK- still living (under his master's protection). All the black deeds of Turlington's early life are known to this man. He can prove the fuels, if we can find him, and make it worth his while to speak. Under what alias he is hidden we do not know. His own name is Thomas Wildfang. If we are to make the attempt to find him, not a moment is to be lost. The expenses may be serious. Let me know whether we are to go on, or whether enough has been done to attain the end you have in view." Enough had been done not only to satisfy Lauhce, but to pro- duce the right effect on Sir Joseph's mind if Sir Joseph proved ob- durate when the secret of the marriage was revealed. Launce wrote a line directing the stoppage of the proceedings at the point which they had now reached. "Here is a reason for her not marrying Turlington, 1 ' he said to himself, as he placed the papers under lock and key. " And if she doesn't marry Turlington," he added, with a lover's logic, " why shouldn't she marry Me ?" EIGHTH SCENE. THE LIBRARY. TITE next day Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Sir Joseph's lawyer, Mr. Dicas (highly respectable and immensely rich), and Richard Tur- lington were assembled in the library at Muswell Hill, to discuss the question of Natalie's marriage-settlement. After the usual preliminary phrases had been exchanged, Sir Jo- seph showed some hesitation in openly approaching the question which the little party of three had met to debate. He avoided" his lawyer's eye ; and lie looked at Turlington rather uneasily. ' Hie-hard," he l)egan at last, " when I spoke to you about your marriage, on board the yacht, I said I would give my daughter " Either his courage or his breath failed him at that point. He was obliged to wait a moment before he could go on. "I said I would give my daughter half my fortune on her mar- riage," he resumed. " Forgive me, Richard. I can't do it !" Mr. Dicas, waiting for his instructions, laid down his pen, and looked at Sir Joseph's son-in-law elect. What would Mr. Turling- ton say ? He said nothing. Sitting opposite the window, he rose when Sir Joseph spoke, and placed himself at the other side of the table, with his back to the light. 344 MISS OR MRS. ? " My eyes are weak this morning," he said, in an unnaturally low tone of voice. " The light hurts them." He could find no more plausible excuse than that for concealing his face in shadow from the scrutiny of the two men on either side of him. The continuous moral irritation of his unhappy courtship a courtship which had never advanced beyond the frigid famil- iarity of kissing Natalie's hand in the presence of others had phys- ically deteriorated him. Even his hardy nerves began to feel the long strain of suspicion that had been laid unremittingly on them for weeks past. His power of self-control he knew it himself was not to be relied on. He could hide bis face: he could no longer command it. " Did you hear what I said, Richard ?" "I heard. Goon." Sir Joseph proceeded, gathering confidence as he advanced. " Half my fortune !" he repeated. " It's parting with half my life ; it's saying good-bye forever to my dearest Mend ! My money has been such a comfort to me, Richard ; such a pleasant occupation for my mind. I know no reading so interesting and so instructive as the reading of one's Banker's Book. To watch the outgoings on one side," said Sir Joseph, with a gentle and pathetic solemnity, " and the incomings on the other the sad lessening of the balance at one time, and the cheering and delightful growth of it at another what absorbing reading! The best novel that ever was written isn't to be mentioned in a breath with it. I can not, Richard, I really can not, see my nice round balance shrink up to half the figure that I have been used to for a lifetime. It may be weak of me," proceeded Sir Joseph, evidently feeling that it was not weak of him at all, " but we all have our tender place, and my Banker's Book is mine. Besides, it isn't as if you wanted it. If you wanted it, of course but you don't want it. You are a rich man ; you are mar- rying my dear Natalie for love, not for money. You and she and my grandchildren will have it all at my death. It can make no difference to you to wait a few years till the old man's chair at the fireside is empty. Will you say the fourth part, Richard, instead of the half ? Twenty thousand," pleaded Sir Joseph, piteously. " I can bear twenty thousand off. For God's sake don't ask me for more !" The lips of the lawyer twisted themselves sourly into an ironical smile. He was quite as fond of his money as Sir Joseph. He ought to have felt for his client ; but rich men have no sympathy with one another. Mr. Dicas openly despised Sir Joseph. There was a pause. The robin-redbreasts in the shrubbery out- side must have had prodigious balances at their bankers ; they hop- ped up on the window-sill so fearlessly ; they looked in with so lit tie respect at the two rich men. MISS OB MRS.? 345 " Don't keep me in suspense, Richard," proceeded Sir Joseph. " Speak out. Is it yes or no ?" Turlington struck his hand excitedly on the table, and burst out on a sudden with the answer which had been so strangely delayed. " Twenty thousand with all my heart !" he said. " On this con- dition, Graybrooke, that every farthing of it is settled on Natalie, and on her children after her. Not a half-penny to me !" he cried magnanimously, in his brassiest tones. " Not a half-penny to me !" Let no man say the rich are heartless. Sir Joseph seized his son- in-law's hand in silence, and burst into tears. Mr. Dicas, habitually a silent man, uttered the first two words that had escaped him since the business began. " Highly credita- ble," he said, and took a note of his instructions on the spot. From that point the business of the settlement flowed smoothly on to its destined end. Sir Joseph explained his views at the full- est length, and the lawyer's pen kept pace with him. Turlington, remaining in his place at the table, restricted himself to a purely passive part in the proceedings. He answered briefly when it was absolutely necessary to speak, and he agreed with the two elders in every thing. A man has no attention to place at the disposal of other people when he stands at a crisis in his life. Turlington stood at that crisis, at the trying moment when Sir Joseph's unexpected proposal pressed instantly for a reply. Two merciless alternatives confronted him. Either lie must repay the borrowed forty thousand pounds on the day when repayment was due, or he must ask Bulpit Brothers to grant him an extension of time, and so inevitably pro- voke an examination into the fraudulent security deposited with the firm, which could end in but one way. His last, literally his last chance, after Sir Joseph had diminished the promised dowry by one half, was to adopt the high-minded tone which became his position, and to conceal the truth until he could reveal it to his father-in-law in the privileged character of Natalie's husband. " I owe forty thousand pounds, sir, in a fortnight's time, and I have not got a farthing of my own. Pay for me, or you will see your son-in- law's name in the Bankrupt's List." For his daughter's sake who could doubt it ? Sir Joseph would produce the money. The one thing needful was to be married in time. If either by accident or treachery Sir Joseph was led into deferring the appointed day, by so much as a fortnight only, the fatal " call " would come, and the firm of Pizzituti, Turlington, and Branca would appear in the Ga- zette. So he reasoned, standing on the brink of the terrible discovery which was soon to reveal to him that Natalie was the wife of an- other man. "Richard!" 346 MISS OE MRS.? " Mr. Turlington !" He started, and roused his attention to present things. Sir Jo- seph on one side, and the lawyer on the other, were both appealing to him, and both regarding him with looks of amazement. " Have you done with the settlement ?" he asked. "My dear Richard, we have done with it long since," replied Sir Joseph. " Have you really not heard what I have been saying for the last quarter of an hour to good Mr. Dicas here ? What can you have been thinking of?" Turlington did not attempt to answer the question. "Am I in- terested," he asked, " in what you have been saying to Mr. Dicas ?" " You shall judge for yourself," answered Sir Joseph, mysterious- ly ; "I have been giving Mr. Dicas his instructions for making my Will. I wish the Will and the Marriage-Settlement to be executed at the same time. Read the instructions, Mr. Dicas." Sir Joseph's contemplated Will proved to have two merits it was simple and it was short. Excepting one or two trifling legacies to distant relatives, he had no one to think of (Miss Lavinia being al- ready provided for) but his daughter and the children who might be born of her marriage. In its various provisions, made with these two main objects in view, the Will followed the precedents estab- lished in such cases. It differed in no important respect from the tens of thousands of other wills made under similar circumstances. Sir Joseph's motive in claiming special attention for it still remained unexplained, when Mr. Dicas reached the clause devoted to the ap- pointment of executors and trustees ; and announced that this por- tion of the document was left in blank. " Sir Joseph Graybrooke, are you prepared to name the persons whom you appoint?" asked the lawyer. Sir Joseph rose, apparently for the purpose of giving special im- portance to the terms in which he answered his lawyer's question. " I appoint," he said, " as sole executor and trustee Richard Tur- lington." It was no easy matter to astonish Mr. Dicas. Sir Joseph's reply absolutely confounded him. He looked across the table at his cli- ent and delivered himself on this special occasion of as many as three words. " Are you mad ?" he asked. Sir Joseph's healthy complexion slightly reddened. " I never was in more complete possession of myself, Mr. Dicas, than at this moment." Mr. Dicas was not to be silenced in that way. "Are you aware of what you do," persisted the lawyer, "if you ap- point Mr. Turlington as sole executor and trustee ? You put it in the power of your daughter's husband, sir, to make away with every farthing of your money after your death." MISS OR MRS.? 347 Turlington had hitherto listened with an appearance of interest in the 1 proceedings, which he assumed us an act of politeness. To his view, the future was limited to the date at which Bulpit Broth- ers had a right to claim the repayment of their loan. The Will was a matter of no earthly importance to him, by comparison with the infinitely superior interest of the Marriage. It was only when the lawyer's brutally plain language forced his attention to it that the question of his pecuniary interest in his father-in-law's death as- -uiii.-i i its fit position in his mind. His color rose ; and he too showed that he was offended by what Mr. Dicas had just said. " Not a word, Richard ! Let me speak for you as well as for my- self," said Sir Joseph. " For seven years past," he continued, turn- ing to the lawyer, " I have been accustomed to place the most un- limited trust in Richard Turlington. His disinterested advice has enabled me largely to increase my income, without placing a farthing of the principal in jeopardy. On more than one occasion, I have en- treated him to make use of my money in his business. He has inva- riably refused to do so. Even his bitterest enemies, sir, have been obliged to acknowledge that my interests were safe when committed to his care. Am I to begin distrusting him, now that I am about to give him my daughter in marriage ? Am I to leave it on record that I doubt him for the first time when my Will is opened after my death ? No ! I can confide the management of the fortune which my child will inherit after me to no more competent or more hon orable hands than the hands of the man who is to marry her. I maintain my appointment, Mr. Dicas! I persist in placing the whole responsibility under my Will in my son-in-law's care." Turlington attempted to speak. The lawyer attempted to speak. Sir Joseph with a certain simple dignity which had its effect on both of them declined" to hear a word on either side. " No, Rich- ard ! as long as I am alive this is my business, not yours. No, Mr. Dicas ! I understand that it is your business to protest profession- ally. You have protested. Fill in the blank space as I have told you. Or leave the instructions on the table, and I will send for the nearest solicitor to complete them in your place." Those words placed the lawyer's position plainly before him. He had no choice but to do as he was bid, or to lose a good client. He did as he was bid, and grimly left the room. Sir Joseph, with old-fashioned politeness, followed him as far as the hall. Returning to the library to say a few friendly words le- fore finally dismissing the subject of the Will, he found himself seized by the arm, and dragged without ceremony, in Turlington's powerful grasp, to the window. " Richard !" he exclaimed, " what does this mean?" 348 MISS OE MBS. ? "Look!" cried the other, pointing through the window to a grassy walk in the grounds, bounded on either side by shrubberies, and situated at a little distance from the house. "Who is that man ? quick ! before we lose sight of him the man crossing there from one shrubbery to the other ?" Sir Joseph failed to recognize the figure before it disappeared. Turlington whispered fiercely, close to his ear " Launcelot Linzie !" In perfect good faith Sir Joseph declared that the man could not possibly have been Launce. Turlington's frenzy of jealous suspicion was not to be so easily calmed. He asked significantly for Natalie. She was reported to be walking in the grounds. " I knew it !" he said, with an oath and hurried out into the grounds to discover the truth for himself. Some little time elapsed before he came back to the house. He had discovered Natalie alone. Not a sign of Launce had reward- ed his search. For the hundredth time he had offended Natalie. For the hundredth time he was compelled to appeal to the indul- gence of her father and her aunt. " It won't happen again," he said, sullenly penitent. " You will find me quite another man when I have got you all at my house in the country. Mind !" he burst out, with a furtive look, which expressed his inveterate distrust of Natalie and of every one about her. " Mind ! it's settled that you all come to me in Somersetshire, on Monday next." Sir Joseph an- swered rather dryly that it was settled. Turlington turned to leave the room and suddenly came back. " It's understood," he went on, addressing Miss Lavinia, " that the seventh of next month is the date fixed for the marriage. Not a day later !" Miss Lavinia re- plied, rather dryly on her side, " Of course, Richard ; not a day later." He muttered, "All right" and hurriedly left them. Half an hour afterward Natalie came in, looking a little confused. " Has he gone ?" she asked, whispering to her aunt. Relieved on this point, she made straight for the library a room which she rarely entered at that or any other period of the day. Miss Lavinia followed her, curious to know what it meant. Natalie hurried to the window, and waved her handkerchief evidently making a signal to some one outside. Miss Lavinia instantly joined her, and took her sharply by the hand. "Is it possible, Natalie?" she asked. "Has Launcelot Linzie really been here, unknown to your father or to me ?" " Where is the harm if he has ?" answered Natalie, with a sudden outbreak of temper. " Am I never to see my cousin again, because Mr. Turlington happens to be jealous of him ?" She suddenly turned away her head. The rich color flowed over her face and neck. Miss Lavinia, proceeding sternly with the ad- ministration of the necessary reproof, was silenced midway by a new MISS OR MBS.? 849 change in her niece's variable temper. Natalie burst into tears. Satisfied with this appearance of sincere contrition, the old lady consented to overlook what had happened ; and, for this occasion only, to keep her niece's secret. They would all be in Somerset- shire, she remarked, before any more breaches of discipline could be committed. Richard had fortunately made no discoveries ; and the matter might safely be trusted, all tilings considered, to rest where it was. Miss Lavinia might possibly have taken a less hopeful view of the circumstances, if she had known that one of the men-servants at Muswell Hill was in Richard Turlington's pay, and that this serv- ant had seen Launce leave the grounds by the back-garden gate. NINTH SCENE. THE DRAWING-ROOM. "AMELIA!" " Say something." "Ask him to sit down." Thus addressing one another in whispers, the three stepdaughters of Lady Winwood stood bewildered in their own drawing - room, helplessly confronting an object which appeared before them on the threshold of the door. The date was the 23d of December. The time was between two and three in the afternoon. The occasion was the return of the three sisters from the Committee meeting of the Sacred Concerts' Society. And the object was Richard Turlington. He stood hat in hand at the door, amazed by his reception. " I have come up this morning from Somersetshire," he said. " Haven't you heard I A matter of business at the office has forced me to leave my guests at my house in the country. I return to them to- morrow. When I say my guests, I mean the Graybrookes. Don't you know they are staying with me ? Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia and Natalie ?'' On the utterance of Natalie's name, the sisters roused themselves. They turned about and regarded each other with looks of dismay. Turlington's patience began to fail him. " Will you be so good as to tell me what all this means ?" he said, a little sharply. "Miss Lavinia asked me to call here when she heard I was coming to town. I was to take charge of a pattern for i dress, which she said you would give me. You ought to have re- csived a telegram explaining it all, hours since. Has the message not reached you ?" The leading spirit of the three sisters was Miss Amelia. She was 350 MISS OR MRS. ? the first who summoned presence of mind enough to give a plain answer to Turlington's plain question. " We received the telegram this morning," she said. " Something has happened since which has shocked and surprised us. We beg your pardon." She turned to one of her sisters. " Sophia, the pat- tern is ready in the drawer of that table behind you. Give it to Mr. Turlington." Sophia produced the packet. Before she handed it to the visitor, she looked at her sister. " Ought we to let Mr. Turlington go," she asked, " as if nothing had happened ?" Amelia considered silently with herself. Dorothea, the third sis- ter (who had not spoken yet), came forward with a suggestion. She proposed, before proceeding further, to inquire whether Lady Winwood was in the house. The idea was instantly adopted. So- phia rang the bell. Amelia put the questions when the servant ap- peared. Lady Winwood had left the house for a drive immediately after luncheon. Lord Winwood inquired for next had accompanied her ladyship. No message had been left indicating the hour of their return. The sisters looked at Turlington, uncertain what to say or do next. Miss Amelia addressed him as soon as the servant had left the room. " Is it possible for you to remain here until either my father or Lady Winwood return ?" she asked. " It is quite impossible. Minutes are of importance to me to-day." " Will you give us one of your minutes ? We want to consider something which we may have to say to you before you go." Turlington, wondering, took a chair. Miss Amelia put the case before her sisters from the sternly conscientious point of view, at the opposite end of the room. " We have not found out this abominable deception by any under- hand means," she said. " The discovery has been forced upon us, and we stand pledged to nobody to keep the secret. Knowing as we do how cruelly this gentleman has been used, it seems to me that we are bound in honor to open his eyes to the truth. If we re- main silent we make ourselves Lady Winwood's accomplices. I, for one I don't care what may come of it refuse to do that." Her sisters agreed with her. The first chance their clever step- mother had given them of asserting their importance against hers was now in their hands. Their jealous hatred of Lady Winwood assumed the mask of Duty duty toward an outraged and deceived fellow-creature. Could any earthly motive be purer than that ? " Tell him, Amelia I" cried the two young ladies, with the headlong recklessness of the sex which only stops to think when the time for reflection has gone by. MISS OR MRS.? 801 A vague sense of something wrong began to stir uneasily in Tur- lington's mind. ' Don't let me hurry you," he said, " but if you really have any tiling to tell me " Mi>s Amelia summoned her courage, and began. " We have something very dreadful to tell you," she said, inter- rupting him. " You have been presented in this house, Mr. Tur- lington, as a gentleman engaged to marry Lady Winwood's cousin, Miss Natalie Graybrooke." She paused there at the outset of the disclosure. A sudden change of expression passed over Turling- ton's face, which daunted her for the moment. " We have hitherto understood," she went on, u that you were to be married to that young lady early in next month." " Well ?" He could say that one word. Looking at their pale faces, and their eager eyes, he could say no more. " Take care !" whispered Dorothea, in her sister's ear. " Look at him, Amelia ! Not too soon." Amelia went on more carefully. " We have just returned from a musical meeting," she said. " One othe ladies there was an acquaintance, a former school-fellow of ours. She is the wife of the rector of St. Columb Major a large church, far from this at the East End of London." " I know nothing about the woman or the church," interposed Turlington, sternly. " I must beg you to wait a little. I can't tell you what I want to tell you unless I refer to the rector's wife. She knows Lady Win- wood by name. And she heard of Lady Winwood recently under very strange circumstances circumstances connected with a signa- ture in one of the books of the church." Turlington lost his self-control. " You have got something against my Natalie," he burst out ; '' I know it by your whispering, I see it in your looks 1 Say it at once in plain words." There was no trifling with him now. In plain words Amelia said it. ******* There was silence in the room. They could hear the sound of passing footsteps in the street. He stood perfectly still on the spot where they had striu-k him dumb by the disclosure, supporting him- self with his right hand laid on the head of a sofa near him. The sisters drew back horror-struck into the farthest corner of the room. His face turned them cold. Through the mute misery which it had expressed at first, there appeared, slowly forcing its way to view, a look of deadly vengeance which froze them to the soul. They whis- pered feverishly one to the other, without knowing what they were 15 352 MISS OB MfcB. ? talking of, without hearing their own voices. One of them said, " Ring the bell !" Another said, " Offer him something, he will faint." The third shuddered, and repeated, over and over again, " Why did we do it ? Why did we do it ?" He silenced them on the instant by speaking on his side. He came on slowly, by a step at a time, with the big drops of agony falling slowly over his rugged face. He said, in a hoarse whisper, " Write me down the name of the church there." He held out his open pocket-book to Amelia while he spoke. She steadied herself, and wrote the address. She tried to say a word to soften him. The word died on her lips. There was a light in his eyes as they looked at her, which transfigured his face to something superhuman and devilish. She turned away from him, shuddering. He put the book back in his pocket, and passed his handkerchief over his face. After a moment of indecision, he suddenly and swift- ly stole out of the room, as if he was afraid of their calling some- body in, and stopping him. At the door he turned round for a mo- ment, and said, " You will hear how this ends. I wish you good- morning." The door closed on him. Left by themselves, they began to real- ize it. They thought of the consequences when his back was turn- ed and it was too late. The Graybrookes ! Now he knew it, what would become of the Graybrookes ? What would he do when he got back ? Even at or- dinary times when he was on his best behavior he was a rough man. What would happen ? Oh, good God ! what would happen when he and Natalie next stood face to face? It was a lonely house Natalie had told them about it no neighbors near ; nobody by to interfere but the weak old father and the maiden aunt. Some- thing ought to be done. Some steps ought to be taken to warn them. Advice who could give advice ? Who was the first person who ought to be told of what had happened ? Lady Winwood ? No ! even at that crisis the sisters still shrank from their stepmother still hated her with the old hatred ! Not a word to her ! They owed no duty to Jier ! Who else could they appeal to ? To their father ? Yes ! There was the person to advise them. In the mean wliile, silence toward their stepmother silence toward every one till their father came back ! They waited and waited. One after another the precious hours, pregnant with the issues of life and death, followed each other on the dial. Lady Winwood returned alone. She had left her hus- band at the House of Lords. Dinner-time came, and brought with it a note from his lordship. There was a debate at the House. Lady Winwood and his daughters were not to wait dinner for him. MIMtt UU MUM. ? 358 TENTH SCENE. GREEN ANCHOR LANE. AN hour later than the time at which he had been expected, Richard Turlington appeared at his office in the city. He met beforehand all the inquiries- which the marked change in him must otherwise have provoked, by announcing that lie was ill. I5e fore lie proceeded to business, he asked if any body was waiting to see him. One of the servants from Muswell Hill was waiting with another pareel for Miss Lavinia, ordered by telegram from the country that morning. Turlington (after ascertaining the servant's name) received the man in his private room. He there heard, for the first time, that Launcelot Linzie had been lurking in the grounds (exactly as he had supposed) on the day when the lawyer took his instructions for the Settlement and the Will. In two hours more Turlington's work was completed. On leav- ing the office as soon as he was out of sight of the door he turn- ed eastward, instead of taking the way that led to his own house in town. Pursuing his course, he entered the labyrinth of streets which led, in that quarter of East London, to the unsavory neigh- borhood of the riverside. By this time his mind was made up. The forecast shadow of meditated crime traveled before him already, as he threaded his way among his fellow-men. He had been to the vestry of St. Columb Major, and had satisfied himself that he was misled by no false report. There was the en- try in the Marriage Register. The one unexplained mystery was the mystery of Launce's conduct in permitting his wife to return to her father's house. Utterly unable to account for this proceeding, Tur- lington could only accept facts as they were, and determine to make the most of his time, while the woman who had deceived him was still under his roof. A hideous expression crossed his face as he realized the idea that he had got her (unprotected by her husband) in his house. " When Launcelot Linzie does come to claim her," he said to himself, " he shall find I have been even with him." He looked at his watch. Was it possible to save the last train and get back that night ? No the last train had gone. Would she take advantage of his absence to escape ? He had little fear of it. She would never have allowed her aunt to send him to Lord Winwood's house, if she had felt the slightest suspicion of his discovering the 354 MISS OB MBS. ? truth in that quarter. Returning by the first train the next morn- ing, he might feel sure of getting back in time. Meanwhile, he had the hours of the night before him. He could give his mind to the serious question that must be settled before he left London the question of repaying the forty thousand pounds. There was but one way of getting the money now. Sir Joseph had executed his Will ; Sir Joseph's death would leave his sole executor and trustee (the lawyer had said it !) master of his fortune. Turlington deter- mined to be master of it in four-and-twenty hours striking the blow, without risk to himself, by means of another hand. In the face of the probabilities, in the face of the facts, he had now firm- ly persuaded himself that Sir Joseph was privy to the fraud that had been practiced on him. The Marriage-Settlement, the Will, the presence of the family at his country house all these he be- lieved to be so many stratagems invented to keep him deceived un- til the last moment. The truth was in those words which he had overheard between Sir Joseph and Launce and in Launce's pres- ence (privately encouraged, no doubt) at Muswell Hill. " Her fa- ther shall pay me for it doubly : with his purse and with his life." With that thought in his heart, Richard Turlington wound his way through the streets by the river-side, and stopped at a blind alley called Green Anchor Lane, infamous to this day as the chosen re- sort of the most abandoned wretches whom London can produce. The policeman at the corner cautioned him as he turned into the alley. "They won't hurt wie/" he answered, and walked on to a public-house at the bottom of the lane. The landlord at the door silently recognized him, and led the way in. They crossed a room filled with sailors of all nations drink- ing ; ascended a staircase at the back of the house, and stopped at the door of the room on the second floor. There the landlord spoke for the first time. " He has outrun his allowance, sir, as usual. You will find him with hardly a rag on his back. I doubt if he will last much longer. He had another fit of the horrors last night, and the doctor thinks badly of him." With that introduction he opened the door, and Turlington entered the room. On the miserable bed lay a gray-headed old man of gigantic stat- ure, with nothing on him but a ragged shirt and a pair of patched, filthy trowsers. At the side of the bed, with a bottle of gin on the rickety table between them, sat two hideous, leering, painted mon- sters, wearing the dress of women. The smell of opium was in the room, as well as the smell of spirits. At Turlington's appearance, the old man rose on the bed and welcomed him with greedy eyes and outstretched hand. " Money, master !" he called out hoarsely. " A crown piece in ad- vance, for the sake of old times !" MISS OR MRS.? 355 Turlington turned to the women without answering, purse in hand. " His clothes are at the pawnbroker's, of course. How much ?" "Thirty shillings." " Bring them here, and be quick about it. You will find it worth your while when you come buck." The women took the pawnbroker's tickets from the pockets of the man's trowsers and hurried out. Turlington closed the door, and seated himself by the bedside. He laid his hand familiarly on the giant's mighty shoulder, looked him full in the face, and said, in a whisper, " Thomas Wildfang !" The man started, and drew his huge hairy hand across his eyes, as if in doubt whether he was waking or sleeping. " It's better than ten years, master, since you called me by my name. If I am Thomas Wildfang. what are you?" " Your captain, once more." Thomas Wildfang sat up on the side of the bed, and spoke bia next words cautiously in Turlington's ear. ''Another man in the way?" " Yes." The giant shook his bald, bestial head dolefully. " Too late. I'm past the job. Look here." He held up his hand, and showed it trembling incessantly. " I'm an old man," he said, and let his hand drop heavily again on the bed beside him. Turlington looked at the door, and whispered back, " The man is as old as you are. And the money is worth having." " How much ?" U A hundred pounds." The eyes of Thomas Wildfang fastened greedily on Turlington's face. " Let's hear," he said. " Softly, captain. Let's hear." ******* When the women came back with the clothes, Turlington had left the room. Their promised reward lay waiting for them on the table, and Thomas Wildfang was eager to dress himself and be gone. They could get but one answer from him to every question they put. He had business in hand, which was not to be delayed. They would see him again in a day or two. with money in his purse. With that assurance he took his cudgel from the corner of the room, and stalked out swiftly by the back door of the house into the night. 356 MISS OR MRS.? ELEVENTH SCENE. OUTSIDE THE HOUSE. THE evening was chilly, but not cold for the time of yeai. There was no moon. The stars were out, and the wind was quiet. Upon the whole, the inhabitants of the little Somersetshire village of Bax- dale agreed that it was as fine a Christmas - eve as they could re- member for some years past. Toward eight in the evening the one small street of the village was empty, except at that part of it which was occupied by the public-house. For the most part, people gathered round their fire- sides, with an eye to their suppers, and watched the process of cook- ing comfortably indoors. The old bare, gray church, situated at some little distance from the village, looked a lonelier object than usual in the dim starlight. The vicarage, nestling close under the shadow of the church-tower, threw no illumination of fire-light or candle-light on the dreary scene. The clergyman's shutters fitted well, and the clergyman's curtains were closely drawn. The one ray of light that cheered the wintry darkness streamed from the un- guarded window of a lonely house, separated from the vicarage by the whole length of the church-yard. A man stood at the window, holding back the shutter, and looking out attentively over the dim void of the burial-ground. The man was Richard Turlington. The room in which he was watching was a room in his own house. A momentary spark of light flashed up, as from a kindled match, in the burial-ground. Turlington instantly left the empty room in which he had been watching. Passing down the back garden of the house, and crossing a narrow lane at the bottom of it, he open- ed a gate in a low stone wall beyond, and entered the church-yard. The shadowy figure of a man of great stature, lurking among the graves, advanced to meet him. Midway in the dark and lonely place the two stopped and consulted together in whispers. Tur- lington spoke first. "Have you taken up your quarters at the public-house in the village ?" " Yes, master." " Did you find your way, while the daylight lasted, to the desert- ed malt-house behind my orchard wall ?" " Yes, master." " Now listen we have no time to lose. Hide there, behind that MISS OR MRS.? 357 monument. Before nine o'clock to-night you will see me cross the church-yard, as tar as this place, with the man you are to wait for. He is going to spend an hour with the vicar, at the house yonder. I shall stop short here, and say to him, 'You can't miss your way in the dark now I will go back.' When I am tar enough away from him, I shall blow a call on my whistle. The moment you hear the call, follow the man, and drop him before he gets out of the church- van 1. Have you got your cudgel ?" Thomas Wild fang held up his cudgel. Turlington took him by the arm, and felt it suspiciously. " You have had an attack of the horrors already," he said. " What does this trembling mean ?" He took a spirit -flask from his pocket as he spoke. Thomas Wildfang snatched it out of his hand, and emptied it at a draught. ''All right now, master," he said. Turlington felt his arm once more. It was steadier already. Wildfang brandished his cudgel, and struck a heavy blow with it on one of the turf mounds near them. " Will that drop him, captain?" he asked. Turlington went on with his instructions. " Rob him when you have dropped him. Take his money and his jewelry. I want to have the killing of him attributed to rob- bery as the motive. Make sure before you leave him that he ia dead. Then go to the malt-house. There is no fear of your being seen ; all the people will be indoors, keeping Christmas-eve. You will find a change of clothes hidden in the malt-house, and an old caldron full of quicklime. Destroy the clothes you have got on, and dress yourself in the other clothes that you tind. Follow the cross-road, and when it brings you into the high-road, turn to the left; a four -mile walk will take you to the town of Harminster. Sleep there to-night, and travel to London by the train in the morn- ing. The next day go to my office, see the head clerk, and say, ' I have come to sign my receipt. 1 Sign it in your own name, and you will receive your hundred pounds. There are your instructions. Do you understand them?" Wildfang nodded his head in silent token that he understood, and disappeared again among the graves. Turlington went back to the house. He had advanced midway across the garden, when he was star- tled by the sound of footsteps in the lane at that part of it which skirted one of the corners of the house. Hastening forward, he placed himself behind a projection in the wall, so as to see the per- son pass across the stream of liirht from the uncovered window of the room that he had left. The stranger was walking rapidly. All Turlington could see as he crossed the field of light was, that his hat was pulled over his eyes, and that he had a thick beard and 358 MISS OE MRS. ? mustache. Describing the man to the servant on entering the house, he was informed that a stranger with a large beard had been seen about the neighborhood for some days past. The account he had given of himself stated that he was a surveyor, engaged in tak- ing measurements for a new map of that part of the country, shortly to be published. The guilty mind of Turlington was far from feeling satisfied with the meagre description of the stranger thus rendered. He could not be engaged in surveying in the dark. What could he want in the desolate neighborhood of the house and church-yard at that time of night ? The man wanted what the man found a little lower down the lane, hidden in a dismantled part of the church-yard wall a letter from a young lady. Read by the light of the pocket-lantern which he carried with him, the letter first congratulated this person on the complete success of his disguise and then promised that the writer would be ready at her bedroom window for flight the next morning, before the house was astir. The signature was " Natalie," and the person addressed was " Dearest Launce." In the mean while, Turlington barred the window shutters of the room, and looked at his watch. It wanted only a quarter to nine o'clock. He took his dog -whistle from the chimney-piece, and turned his steps at once in the direction of the drawing-room, in which his guests were passing the evening. TWELFTH SCENE. INSIDE THE HOUSE. THE scene in the drawing-room represented the ideal of domes- tic comfort. The fire of wood and coal mixed burned brightly ; the lamps shed a soft glow of light; the solid shutters and the thick red curtains kept the cold night air on the outer side of two long windows, which opened on the back garden. Snug arm-chairs were placed in every part of the room. In one of them Sir Joseph reclined, fast asleep ; in another, Miss Lavinia sat knitting ; a third chair, apart from the rest, near a round table in one corner of the room, was occupied by Natalie. Her head was resting on her hand, an unread book lay open on her lap. She looked pale and harassed ; anxiety and suspense had worn her down to the shadow of her for- mer self. On entering the room, Turlington purposely closed the door with a bang. Natalie started. Miss Lavinia looked up re- proachfully. The object was achieved Sir Joseph was roused from his sleep. MISS OR MRS. ? 359 " If you are going to the vicar's to-night, Graybrooke," said Tur- , " it's time you were off, isn't it?" Sir Joseph rubbed his eyes, and looked at the clock on the man- trl -|>i< ((. Yes. yes, Richard," he answered, drowsily, "I suppose I must go. Where is my hat ?" His sister and his daughter both joined in trying to persuade him to; send an excuse instead of groping his way to the vicarage in the dark. Sir Joseph hesitated, as usual. He and the vicar had run up a sudden friendship, on the strength of their common enthusiasm for the old-fashioned game of backgammon. Victorious over his opponent on the previous evening at Turlington's house, Sir Joseph had promised to pass that evening at the vicarage, and give the vicar his revenge. Observing his indecision, Turlington cunningly irritated him by affecting to believe that he was really unwilling to venture out in the dark. " I'll see you safe across the church-yard," he said ; " and the vicar's servant will see you safe back." The tone in which he spoke instantly roused Sir Joseph. "I am not in my second childhood yet, Richard," he replied, testily. " I can find my way by* myself." He kissed his daughter on the forehead. " No fear, Natalie. I shall be back in time for the mulled claret. No, Richard, I won't trouble you." He kissed his hand to his sister and went out into the hall for his hat ; Turlington following him with a rough apology, and asking as a favor to be permitted to accompany him part of the way only. The ladies, left behind in the drawing- room, heard the apology accepted by kind-hearted Sir Joseph. The two went out together. " Have you noticed Richard since his return ?" asked Miss La- vinia. " I fancy he must have heard bad news in London. He looks as if he had something on his mind." " I haven't remarked it, aunt." For the time, no more was said. Miss Lavinia went monotonous- ly on with her knitting. Natalie pursued her own anxious thoughts over the unread pages of the book in her lap. Suddenly the deep silence out of doors and in was broken by a shrill whistle, sounding from the direction of the church-yard. Natalie started with a faint cry of alarm. Miss Lavinia looked up from her knitting. " My dear child, your nerves must be sadly out of order. What is there to be frightened at ?" " I ain not very well, aunt. It is so still here at night, the slight- est noises startle me." There was another interval of silence. It was past nine o'clock when they heard the back door opened and closed again. Turling- ton came hurriedly into the drawing-room, as if he had some reason for wishing to rejoin the ladies as soon as possible. To the surprise of both of them, he sat down abruptly in the corner, with his face to 15* 360 MT88 OB AIRS.? the wall, and took up the newspaper, without casting a look at them or uttering a word. " Is Joseph safe at the vicarage ?" asked Miss Lavinia. "All right." He gave the answer in a short, surly tone, still with- out looking round. Miss Lavinia tried him again. " Did you hear a whistle while you were out? It quite startled Natalie in the stillness of this place." He turned half-way round. " My shepherd, I suppose," he said after a pause" whistling for his dog." He turned back again and immersed himself in his newspaper. Miss Lavinia beckoned to her niece and pointed significantly to Turlington. After one reluctant look at him, Natalie laid her head wearily on her aunt's shoulder. " Sleepy, my dear?" whispered the old lady. " Uneasy, aunt I don't know why," Natalie whispered back. " I would give the world to be in London, and to hear the carriages going by, and the people talking in the street." Turlington suddenly dropped his newspaper. " What's the secret between you two ?" he called out roughly. " What are you whisper- ing about?" "We wish not to disturb you over your reading, that is all," said Miss Lavinia, coldly. " Has any thing happened to vex you, Rich- ard ?" " What the devil makes you think that ?" The old lady was offended, and showed it by saying nothing more. Natalie nestled closer to her aunt. One after another the clock ticked off the minutes with painful distinctness in the still- ness of the room. Turlington suddenly threw aside the newspaper and left his corner. " Let's be good friends !" he burst out, with a clumsy assumption of gayety. "This isn't keeping Christmas-eve. Let's talk and be sociable. Dearest Natalie !" He threw his arm roughly round IVatalie, and drew her by main force, away from her aunt. She turned deadly pale, and struggled to release herself. "1 am suffering I am ill- -lot me go !" He was deaf to her entreaties. "What! your husband that is to be, treated in this way? Mustn't I have a kiss? I will!" He held her closer with one hand, and, seizing her head with the other, tried to turn her lips to him. She resisted with the inbred nervous strength which the weakest wom- an living has in reserve when she is outraged. Half indignant, half terrified, at Turlington's roughness, Miss Lavinia rose to interfere. In a moment more he would have had two women to overpower in- stead of one, when a noise outside the window suddenly suspended the ignoble struggle. There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel-walk which ran be- tween the house wall and the garden lawn. It was followed by a tap a single faint tap, no more on one of the panes of glass. MISS OR MRS. ? 361 They all three stood still. For a moment more nothing was au- dible. Then there was a heavy shock, as of something falling out- side. Then a groan, then another interval of silence a" long si- lence, interrupted no more. Turlington's arm dropped from Natalie. She drew back to her aunt. Looking ut him instinctively, in the natural expectation that lie would take the lead in penetrating the mystery of what had hap- pened outside the window, the two women were thunderstruck to see that lie was, to all appearance, even more startled and more helpless than they were. "Richard," said Miss Lavinia, pointing to the window, "there is something wrong out there. See what it is." IFe stood motionless, as if he had not heard her, his eyes fixed on the window, his face livid with terror. The silence outside was broken once more; this time by a call for help. A cry of horror burst from Natalie. The voice outside rising wildly, then suddenly dying away again was not entirely strange to her ears. She tore aside the curtain. With voice and hand she roused her aunt to help her. The two lifted the heavy bar from its socket ; they opened the shutters and the window. The cheerful light of the room flowed out over the body of a prostrate man, ly- ing on his face. They turned the man over. Natalie lifted his head. Her father ! His face was bedabbled with blood. A wound, a frightful wound, was visible on the side of his bare head, high above the ear. He looked at her, his eyes recognized her, before he fainted again in her arms. His hands and his clothes were covered with earth stains. He must have traversed some distance; in that dreadful condition he must have faltered and fallen more than once before he reached the house. His sister wiped the blood from his face. His daughter called on him frantically to forgive her before he died the harmless, gentle, kind-hearted father, who had never said a hard word to her ! The father whom she had deceived ! The terrified servants hurried into the room. Their appearance roused their master from the extraordinary stupor that had seized him. He was at the window before the footman could get there. The two lifted Sir Joseph into the room, and laid him on the sofa. Natalie knelt by him, supporting his head. Miss Lavinia stanched the flowing blood with her handkerchief. The women - servants brought linen and cold water. The man hurried away for the doc- tor, who lived on the other side of the village. Left alone again with Turlington, Natalie noticed that his eyes were fixed in im- movable scrutiny on her father's head. He never said a word. He looked, looked, looked at the wound. 362 MISS OR MRS. ? The doctor arrived. Before either the daughter or the sister of the injured man could put the question, Turlington put it " Will he live or 'die ?" The doctor's careful finger probed the wound. " Make your minds easy. A little lower down, or in front, the blow might have been serious. As it is, there is no harm done. Keep him quiet, and he will be all right again in two or three days." Hearing those welcome words, Natalie and her aunt sank on their knees in silent gratitude. After dressing the wound, the doctor looked round for the master of the house. Turlington, who had been so breathlessly eager but a few minutes since, seemed to have lost all interest in the case now. He stood apart, at the window, looking out toward the church -yard, thinking. The questions which it was the doctor's duty to ask were answered by the ladies. The servants assisted in examining the injured man's clothes : they discovered that his watch and purse were both missing. When it became necessary to carry him up stairs, it was the footman who assisted the doctor. The footman's master, without a word of ex- planation, walked out bare - headed into the back garden, on the search, as the doctor and the servants supposed, for some trace of the robber who had attempted Sir Joseph's life. His absence was hardly noticed at the time. The difficulty of conveying the wounded man to his room absorbed the attention of all the persons present. Sir Joseph partially recovered his senses while they were taking him up the steep and narrow stairs. Carefully as they carried the patient, the motion wrung a groan from him before they reached the top. The bedroom corridor, in the rambling, irregularly built house, rose and fell on different levels. At the door of the first bed- chamber the doctor asked a little anxiously if that was the room. No; there were three more stairs to go down, and a corner to turn, before they could reach it. The first room was Natalie's. She in- stantly offered it for her father's use. The doctor (seeing that it was the airiest as well as the nearest room) accepted the proposal. Sir Joseph had been laid comfortably in his daughter's bed ; the doctor had just left them, with renewed assurances that they need feel no anxiety, when they heard a heavy step below stairs. Tur- lington had re-entered the house. (He had been looking, as they had supposed, for the ruffian who had attacked Sir Joseph ; with a motive, however, for the search at which it was impossible for other persons to guess. His own safety was now bound up in the safety of Thomas Wildfang. As soon as he was out of sight in the darkness, he made straight for the malt- house. The change of clothes was there untouched ; not a trace of his accomplice was to be seen. Where else to look for him it was MISS OR MRS.? 863 impossible to toll. Turlington had no alternative hut to go hack to tin- house, and ascertain if suspicion had heen aroused in his ab- sence.) He had only to ascend the stairs, and to see, through the open door, that Sir Joseph had heen placed in his daughter's room. " What does this mean ?" he asked, roughly. Before it was possible to answer him the footman appeared with :i me-sige. The doctor had come back to the door to say that he would take on himself the necessary duty of informing the consta- ble of what had happened, on his return to the village. Turlington started, and changed color. If Wildfang was found by others, and (|iifsti(ined in his employer's absence, serious consequences might follow. " The constable is my business," said Turlington, hurriedly descending the stairs ; " I'll go with the doctor." They heard him open the door below, then close it again (as if some sudden thought had struck him), and call to the footman. The house was badly provided with servants' bedrooms. The women-servants only slept indoors. The footman occupied a room over the stables. Natalie and her aunt heard Turlington dismiss the man for the night, an hour earlier than usual at least. His next proceeding was stranger still. Looking cautiously over the stairs, Natalie saw him lock all the doors on the ground -floor and take out the keys. When he went away, she heard him lock the front door behind him. Incred- ible as it seemed, there could be no doubt of the fact the inmates of the house were imprisoned till he came back. What did it mean ? (It meant that Turlington's vengeance still remained to be wreak- ed on the woman who had deceived him. It meant that Sir Jo- seph's life still stood between the man who had compassed his death and the money which the man was resolved to have. It meant that Richard Turlington was driven to bay, and that the hor- ror and the peril of the night were not at an end yet.) Natalie and her aunt looked at each other across the bed on which Sir Joseph lay. He had fallen into a kind of doze ; no en- lightenment could come to them from him. They could only ask each other, with heating hearts and baffled minds, what Richard's conduct meant they could only feel instinctively that some dread- ful discovery was hanging over them. The aunt was the calmer of the two there was no secret weighing heavily on her conscience. She could feel the consolations of religion. " Our dear one is spared to us, my love," said the old lady, gently. " God has heen good to us. We are in his hands. If we know that, we know enough." As she spoke there was a loud ring at the door-bell. The women- servants crowded into the bedroom in alarm. Strong in numbers, and encouraged by Natalie who roused herself and led the way they confronted the risk of opening the window and of venturing 364 MISS OR MRS. ? out on the balcony which extended along that side of the house. A man was dimly visible below. He called to them in thick, un- steady accents. The servants recognized him : he was the telegraph- ic messenger from the railway. They went down to speak to him and returned with a telegram which had been pushed in under the door. The distance from the station was considerable ; the mes- senger had been " keeping Christmas " in more than one beer-shop on his way to the house ; and the delivery of the telegram had delayed for some hours. It was addressed to Natalie. She opened it looked at it dropped it and stood speechless ; her lips parted in horror, her eyes staring vacantly straight before her. Miss Lavinia took the telegram from the floor, and read these lines : "Lady Winwood, Hertford Street, London. To Natalie Gray- brooke, Church Meadows, Baxdale, Somersetshire. Dreadful news. R. T. has discovered your marriage to Launce. The truth has been kept from me till to-day (24th). Instant flight with your husband is your only chance. I would have communicated with Launce, but I do not know his address. You will receive this, I hope and be- lieve, before R. T. can return to Somersetshire. Telegraph back, I entreat you, to say that you are safe. I shall follow my message if I do not hear from you in reasonable tic s. ' Miss Lavinia lifted her gray head, and "loosed at her niece. " Is this true ?" she said and pointed to the venerable face laid back, white, on the white pillow of the bed. Natalie sank forward as her eyes met the eyes of her aunt. Miss Lavinia saved her from falling insensible on the floor. ******* The confession had been made. The words of penitence and the words of pardon had been spoken. The peaceful face of the father still lay hushed in rest. One by one the minutes succeeded each other uneventfully in the deep tranquillity of the night. It was al- most a relief when the silence was disturbed once more by another sound outside the house. A pebble was thrown up at the window, and a voice called out cautiously " Miss Lavinia !" They recognized the voice of the man-servant, and at once open- ed the window. He had something to say to the ladies in private. How could he say it ? A domestic circumstance which had been marked by Launce, as favorable to the contemplated elopement, was now no- ticed by the servant as lending itself readily to effecting the neces- sary communication with the ladies. The lock of the gardener's tool - house (in the shrubbery close by) was under repair ; and the gardener's ladder was accessible to any one who wanted it. At the short height of the balcony from the ground, the ladder was. more MISS OR MRS.? 365 than long enough for the purpose required. In a few minutes the M-rvant had mounted t<> the balcony, and could speak to Natalie and her aunt at the window. -I can't iv.-t quirt." said the man. "I'm off on the sly to see what's going on down in the village. It's hard on ladies like you to IK- locked in here. Is there any thing I can do for either of you ?" Natalie took up Lady Winwood's telegram. u Launce ought to see this," she said to her aunt. " He will be here at day-break," she added, in a whisper, " it' I don't tell him what has happened." Mi-s Lavinia turned pale. "If he and Richard meet " she be- iran. " Tell him !" she added, hurriedly " tell him before it is too late f Natalie wrote a few lines (addressed to Launce in his assumed name at his lodgings in the village) inclosing Lady Winwood's tele- gram, and entreating him to do nothing rash. When the servant had disappeared with the letter, there was one hope in her mind and in her aunt's mind, which each was ashamed to acknowledge to the other the hope that Launce would face the very danger that they dreaded for him, and come to the house. They had not been long alone again, when Sir Joseph drowsily opened his eyes and asked what they were doing in his room. They told him gently that he was ill. He put his hand up to his head, and said they were right, and so dropped off again into slumber. Worn out by the emotions through which they had passed, the two women silently waited for the march of events. The same stupor of resignation possessed them both. They had secured the door and the window. They had prayed together. They had kissed the quiet face on the pillow. They had said to each other, " We will live with him or die with him as God pleases." Miss Lavinia sat by the bedside. Natalie was on a stool at her feet with her eyes closed, and her head on her aunt's knee. Time went on. The clock in the hall had struck ten or eleven, they were not sure which when they heard the signal which warn- ed them of the servant's return from the village. He brought news, and more than news; he brought a letter from Launce. Natalie read these lines: "I shall be with you, dearest, almost as soon as you receive this. The bearer will tell you what has happened in the village your note throws a new light on it all. I only remain behind to go to the vicar (who is also the magistrate here), and declare myself your husband. All disguise must be at an end now. My place is with you and yours. It is even worse than your wor-t fears. Turlington was at the bottom of the attack on your father. .Judge if you have not need of your husband's protection after that! L." Natalie handed the letter to her aunt, and pointed to the sentence 366 MISS OB MRS.? which asserted Turlington's guilty knowledge of the attempt on Sir Joseph's life. In silent horror the two women looked at each other, recalling what had happened earlier in the evening, and understand- ing it now. The servant roused them to a sense of present things, by entering on the narrative of his discoveries in the village. The place was all astir when he reached it. An old man a stranger in Baxdale had been found lying in the road, close to the church, in a fit ; and the person who had discovered him had been no other than Launce himself. He had, literally, stumbled over the body of Thomas Wildfang in the dark, on his way back to his lodg- ings in the village. " The gentleman gave the alarm, miss," said the servant, describ- ing the event, as it had been related to him, " and the man a huge, big old man was carried to the inn. The landlord identified him ; he had taken lodgings at the inn that day, and the constable found valuable property on him a purse of money and a gold watch and chain. There was nothing to show who the money and the watch belonged to. It was only when my master and the doctor got to the inn that it was known whom he had robbed and tried to mur- der. All he let out in his wanderings before they came, was that some person hac 1 set him on to do it. He called the person ' Captain,' and sometimes ' Captain Goward.' It was thought if you could trust the ravings of a madman that the fit took him while he was putting his hand on Sir Joseph's heart to feel if it had stopped beat- ing. A sort of vision (as I understand it) must have overpowered him at the moment. They tell me he raved about the sea bursting into the church-yard, and a drowning sailor floating by on a hen- coop ; a sailor who dragged him down to hell by the hair of his head, and such like horrible nonsense, miss. He was still screeching, at the worst of the fit, when my master and the doctor came into the room. At sight of one or other of them it is thought of Mr. Tur- lington, seeing that he came first he held his peace on a sudden, and then fell back in convulsions in the arms of the men who were holding him. The doctor gave it a learned name, signifying drink- madness, and said the case was hopeless. However, he ordered the room to be cleared of the crowd to see what he could do. My mas- ter was reported to be still with the doctor, waiting to see whether the man lived or died, when I left the village, miss, with the gentle- man's answer to your note. I didn't dare stay to hear how it ended, for fear of Mr. Turlington's finding me out." Having reached the end of his narrative, the man looked round restlessly toward the window. It was impossible to say when his master might not return, and it might be as much as his life was worth to be caught in the house after he had been locked out of it. He begged permission to open the window, and make his escape MISS OR MRS.? 367 back to the stables while there was still time. Aa he unbarred the shutter they were startled by a voice hailing them from below. It was Launce's voice calling to Natalie. The servant disappeared, and Natalie was in Launce's arms before she could breathe again. For one delicious moment she let her head lie on his breast; then she suddenly pushed him away from her. " Why do you come here ? He will kill you if he finds you in the house. Where ia he ?" Launce knew even less of Turlington's movements than the serv- ant. '' Wherever he is, thank God, I am here before him !" That* was all the answer he could give. Natalie and her aunt heard him in silent dismay. Sir Joseph woke, and recognized Launce before a word more could be said. " Ah, my dear boy !" he murmured, faintly. " It's pleasant to see you again. How do you come here ?" He was quite satisfied with the first excuse that suggested itself. "We'll talk about it to-mor- row," he said, and composed himself to rest again. Natalie made a second attempt to persuade Launce to leave the house. " We don't know what may have happened," she said. " He may have followed you on your way here. He may have purposely let you enter his house. Leave us while you have the chance." Miss Lavinia added her persuasions. They were useless. Launce quietly closed the heavy window-shutters, lined with iron, and put up the bar. Natalie wrung her hands in despair. " Have you been to the magistrate ?" she asked. " Tell us, at least, are you here by his advice ? Is he coming to help us ?" Launce hesitated. If he had told the truth, he must have ac- knowledged that he was there in direct opposition to the magis- trate's advice. He answered evasively, " If the vicar doesn't come, the doctor will. I have told him Sir Joseph must be moved. Cheer up, Natalie ! The doctor will be here as soon as Turlington." As the name passed his lips without a sound outside to prepare them for what was coming the voice of Turlington himself sud- denly penetrated into the room, speaking close behind the window, on the outer side. " You have broken into my house in the night," said the voice. "And you don't escape thin way." Miss Lavinia sank on her knees. Natalie flew to her father. His eyes were wide open in terror ; he moaned, feebly recognizing the voice. The next sound that was heard was the sound made by the removal of the ladder from the balcony. Turlington, having de- scended by it, had taken it away. Natalie had but too accurately guessed what would happen. The deatli of the villain's accomplice had freed him from all apprehen>ion in that quarter. He had de- liberately dogged Launce's steps, and had deliberately allowed 368 MISS OR MBS.? to put himself in the wrong by effecting a secret entrance into the house. There was an interval a horrible interval and then they heard the front door opened. Without stoppkfg (judging by the absence of sound) to close it again, Turlington rapidly ascended the stairs and tried the locked door. " Come out, and give yourself up !" he called through the door. " I have got my revolver with me, and I have a right to fire on a man who has broken into my house. If the door isn't opened be- fore I count three, your blood be on your own head. One !" Launce was armed with nothing but his stick. He advanced, without an instant's hesitation, to give himself up. Natalie threw her arms round him and elapsed him fast before he could reach the door. " Two !" cried the voice outside, as Launce struggled to force her from him. At the same moment his eye turned toward the bed. It was exactly opposite the door it was straight in the line of fire ! Sir Joseph's life (as Turlington had deliberately calculated) was act- ually in greater danger than Launce's life. He tore himself free, rushed to the bed, and took the old man in his arms to lift him out. " Three !" The crash of the report sounded. The bullet came through the door, grazed Launce's left arm, and buried itself in the pillow, at the very place on which Sir Joseph's head had rested the moment before. Launce had saved his father-in-law's life. Turlington had fired his first shot for the money, and had not got it yet. They were safe in the corner of the room, on the same side as the door Sir Joseph, helpless as a child, in Launce's arms; the women pale, but admirably calm. They were safe for the moment, when the second bullet (fired at an angle) tore its way through the wall on their right hand. " I hear you," cried the voice of the miscreant on the other side of the door. " I'll have you yet through the wall." There was a pause. They heard his hand sounding the wall, to find out where there was solid wood in the material of which it was built, and where there was plaster only. At that dreadful moment Launce's composure never left him. He laid Sir Joseph softly on the floor, and signed to Natalie and her aunt to lie down by him in silence. Their lives depended now on neither their voices nor their movements telling the murderer where to fire. He chose his place. The barrel of the revolver grated as he laid it against the wall. He touched the hair-trigger. A faint click was the only sound that fol- lowed. The third barrel had missed fire. They heard him ask himself, with an oath, " What's wrong with it now ?" MISS OR MRS. ? 369 There was a pause of silence. Was he examining the weapon ? Before they could ask themselves the question, the report of the exploding charge burst on their ears. It was instantly followed by a heavy fall. They looked at the opposite wall of the room. No sign of a bullet there or anywhere. Launce signed to them not to move yet. They waited, and list- ened. Nothing stirred on the landing outside. Suddenly there was a disturbance of the silence in the lower re- gions a clamor of many voices at the open house door. Had the firing of the revolver l?en heard at the vicarage? Yes! They rec- ognized the vicar's voice among the others. A moment more, and they heard a general exclamation of horror on the stairs. Launce opened the door of the room. He instantly closed it again before Natalie could follow him. The dead body of Turlington lay on the landing outside. The charge in the fourth barrel of the revolver had exploded while he was looking at it. The bullet had entered his mouth and killed him on the spot. 370 MISS OE MRS.? DOCUMENTARY HINTS, IN CONCLUSION. FIRST HINT. (Derived from Lady WinwoocTs Card-Rack) " Sir Joseph Graybrooke and Miss Graybrooke request the honor of Lord and Lady Winwood's company to dinner, on Wednesday, February 10, at half -past seven o'clock. To meet Mr. and Mrs. Launcelot Linzie on their return." SECOND HINT. (Derived from a recent Money Article in a morning Newspaper.) "We are requested to give the fullest contradiction to unfavor- able rumors lately in circulation respecting the firm of Pizzituti, Turlington, and Branca. Some temporary derangement in the ma- chinery of the business was undoubtedly produced in consequence of the sudden death of the lamented managing partner, Mr. Turling- ton, by the accidental discharge of a revolver which he was examin- ing. Whatever temporary obstacles may have existed are now over- come. We are informed, on good authority, that the well - known house of Messrs. Bulpit Brothers has an interest in the business, and will carry it on until further notice." THE DEAD ALIVE. THE DEAD ALIVE. CHAPTER I. THE SICK MAN. " HEART all right," said the doctor. " Lungs all right. No or- ganic disease that I can discover. Philip Lefrank, don't alarm yimrsi'lf. You are not going to die yet. The disease you are suf- fering from is overwork. The remedy in your case is rest." So the doctor spoke, in my chambers in the Temple (London) ; having been sent for to see me about half an hour after I had alarmed my clerk by fainting at my desk. I have no wish to in- trude myself needlessly on the reader's attention ; but it may be necessary to add, in the way of explanation, that I am a "junior" barrister in good practice. I come from the Channel Island of Jer- sey. The French spelling of my name (Lefranc) was Anglicized generations since in the days when the letter " k " was still used in England at the end of words which now terminate in " c." We hold our heads high, nevertheless, as a Jersey family. It is to this day a trial to my father to hear his son described as a member of the English bar. " Rest !" I repeated, when my medical adviser had done. " My good friend, are you aware that it is term-time? The courts are sitting. Look at the briefs waiting for me on that table ! Rest means ruin in my case." "And work," added the doctor, quietly, "means death." I started. He was not trying to frighten me : he was plainly in earnest. " It is merely a question of time," he went on. " You have a fine constitution ; you are a young man ; but you can not deliberately overwork your brain, and derange your nervous system, much long- er. Go away at once. If you are a good sailor, take a sea-voyage. The ocean air is the best of all air to build you up again. No : I don't want to write a prescription. I decline to physic you. I have no more to say." With these words my medical friend left the room. I was obsti- nate : I went into court the same day. The senior counsel in the case on which I was engaged applied 872 THE DEAD ALIVE. to me for some information which it was my duty to give him. To my horror and amazement, I was perfectly unable to collect my ideas ; facts and dates all mingled together confusedly in my mind. I was led out of court thoroughly testified about myself. The next day my briefs went back to the attorneys; and I followed my doc- tor's advice by taking my passage for America in the first steamer that sailed for New York. I had chosen the voyage to America* in preference to any other trip by sea, with a special object in view. A relative of my mother's had emigrated to the United States many years since, and had thriv- en there as a farmer. He had given me a general invitation to visit him if I ever crossed the Atlantic. The long period of inaction, un- der the name of rest, to which the doctor's decision had condemned me, could hardly be more pleasantly occupied, as I thought, than by paying a visit to my relation, and seeing what I could of America in that way. After a brief sojourn at New York, I started by railway for the residence of my host Mr. Isaac Meadowcroft, of Morwick Farm. There are some of the grandest natural prospects on the face of creation in America. There is also to be found in certain States of the Union, by way of wholesome contrast, scenery as flat, as monot- onous, and as uninteresting to the traveler, as any that the earth can show. The pail of the country in which Mr. Meadowcroft's farm was situated fell within this latter category. I looked round me when I stepped out of the railway-carriage on the platform at Mor- wick Station ; and I said to myself, " If to be cured means, in my case, to be dull, I have accurately picked out the very place for the purpose." I look back at those words by the light of later events; and I pronounce them, as you will soon pronounce them, to be the words of an essentially rash man, whose hasty judgment never stopped to consider what surprises time and chance together might have in store for him. Mr. Meadowcroft's eldest son, Ambrose, was waiting at the station to drive me to the farm. There was no forewarning, in the appearance of Ambrose Meadow- croft, of the strange and terrible events that were to follow my ar- rival at Morwick. A healthy, handsome young fellow, one of thou- sands of other healthy, handsome young fellows, said, " How d'ye do, Mr. Lefrank ? Glad to see you, sir. Jump into the buggy ; the man will look after your portmanteau." With equally conventional po- liteness I answered, " Thank you. How are you all at home ?" So we started on the way to the farm. Our conversation on the drive began with the subjects of agri- culture and breeding. I displayed my total ignorance of crops and THE DEAD ALIVE. 3Y3 cattle l>efore we had traveled ten yards on our journey. Ambrose Mcadowcroft cast about for another topic, and failed to find it. Upon this I ca>t about on my side, and asked, at a venture, if I had chosen a convenient time for my visit. The young farmer's stolid brown face instantly brightened. I had evidently hit, hap-hazard, on an interesting subject. " You couldn't have chosen a better time," he said. " Our house has never been so cheerful as it is now." " Have you any visitors staying with you ?" " It's not exactly a visitor. It's a new member of the family who has come to live with us." " A new member of the family ! May I ask who it is ?" Ambrose Meadowcroft considered before he replied ; touched his horse with the whip; looked at me with a certain sheepish hesita- tion ; and suddenly burst out with the truth, in the plainest possi- ble words : "It's just the nicest girl, sir, you ever saw in your life." "Ay, ay ! A friend of your sister's, I suppose ?" " A friend ? Bless your heart ! it's our little American cousin, Naomi Colebrook." I vaguely remembered that a younger sister of Mr. Meadowcroft's had married an American merchant in the remote past, and had died many years since, leaving an only child. I was now further informed that the father also was dead. In his last moments he had committed his helpless daughter to the compassionate care of his wife's relations at Morwick. " He was always a speculating man," Ambrose went on. " Tried one thing after another, and failed in all. Died, sir, leaving barely enough to bury him. My father was a little doubtful, before she came here, how his American niece would turn out. We are English, you know ; and. though we do live in the United States, we stick fast to our English ways and habits. We don't much like American women in general, I can tell you ; but when Naomi made her appear- ance she conquered us all. Such a girl ! Took her place as one of the family directly. Learned to make herself useful in the dairy in a weeks time. I tell you this she hasn't been with us quite two months yet. and we wonder already how we ever got on without her !" Once started on the subject of Naomi Colebrook, Ambrose held to that one topic, and talked on it without intermission. It required no irreat gift of penetration to discover the impression which the American cousin had produced in this case. The young fellow's enthusiasm communicated itself, in a certain tepid degree, to me. I really felt a mild flutter of anticipation at the prospect of seeing Naomi, when we drew up, toward the close of evening, at the gates of Morwick Farm. 16 THE DEAD ALIVE. CHAPTER H. THE NEW FACES. IMMEDIATELY on my arrival, I was presented to Mr. Meadowcroft, the father. The old man had become a confirmed invalid, confined by chronic rheumatism to his chair. He received me kindly, and a little weari- ly as well. His only unmarried daughter (he had long since been left a widower) was in the room, in attendance on her father. She was a melancholy, middle-aged woman, without visible attractions of any sort one of those persons who appear to accept the obliga- tion of living under protest, as a burden which they would never have consented to bear if they had only been consulted first. We three had a dreary little interview in a parlor of bare walls ; and then I was permitted to go up stairs, and unpack my portmanteau in my own room. " Supper will be at nine o'clock, sir," said Miss Meadowcroft. She pronounced those words as if " supper " was a form of domes- tic offense, habitually committed by the men, and endured by the women. I followed the groom up to my room, not overwell pleased with my first experience of the farm. No Naomi, and no romance, thus far ! My room was clean oppressively clean. I quite longed to see a little dust somewhere. My library was limited to the Bible and the Prayer-book. My view from the window showed me a dead flat in a partial state of cultivation, fading sadly from view in the waning light. Above the head of my spruce white bed hung a scroll, bear- ing a damnatory quotation from Scripture in emblazoned letters of red and black. The dismal presence of Miss Meadowcroft had pass- ed over my bedroom, and had blighted it. My spirits sank as I looked round me. Supper-time was still an event in the future. I lit the candles, and took from my portmanteau what I firmly believe to have been the first French novel ever produced at Morwick Farm. It was one of the masterly and charming stories of Dumas the elder. In five minutes I was in a new world, and my melancholy room was full of the liveliest French company. The sound of an imperative and uncompromising bell recalled me in due time to the regions of reality. I looked at my watch. Nine o'clock. Ambrose met me at the bottom of the stairs, and showed me the way to the supper-room. Mr. Meadowcroft's invalid-chair had been wheeled to the head of THE DEAD ALIVE. 375 the table. On his right-hand side sat his sad and silent daughter. She signed to me, with a ghostly solemnity, to take the vacant place on the left of her father. Silas Meadowcroft came in at the same moment, and was presented to me by his brother. There was a strong family likeness between them, Ambrose being the taller and the handsomer man of the two. But there was no marked character in either face. I set them down as men with undeveloped qualities, waiting (the good and evil qualities alike) for time and circum- stances to bring them to their full growth. The door opened again while I was still studying the two broth- ers, without, I honestly confess, being very favorably impressed by either of them. A new member of the family circle, who instantly attracted my attention, entered the room. He was short, spare, and wiry ; singularly pale for a person whose life was passed in the country. The face was in other respects, be- sides this, a striking face to see. As to the lower part, it was cover- ed with a thick black beard and mustache, at a time when shaving was the rule, and beards the rare exception, in America. As to the upper part of the face, it was irradiated by a pair of wild, glittering brown eyes, the expression of which suggested to me that there was something not quite right with the man's mental balance. A per- fectly sane person in all his sayings and doings, so far as I could see, there was still something in those wild brown eyes which suggested to me that, under exceptionally trying circumstances, he might sur- prise his oldest friends by acting in some exceptionally violent or foolish way. " A little cracked " that in the popular phrase was my impression of the stranger who now made his appearance in the supper-room. Mr. Meadowcroft the elder, having not spoken one word thus far, himself introduced the new-comer to me, with a side-glance at his sons, which had something like defiance in it a glance which, as I was sorry to notice, was returned with the defiance on their side by the two young men. " Philip Lefrank, this is my overlooker, Mr. Jago," said the old man, formally presenting us. " John Jago, this is my young relative by marriage, Mr. Lefrank. He is not well : he has come over the ocean for rest, and change of scene. Mr. Jago is an American, Phil- ip. I hope you have no prejudice against Americans. Make ac- quaintance with Mr. Jago. Sit together." He cast another dark look at his sons; and the sons again returned it. They pointedly drew back from John Jago as he approached the empty chair next to me, and moved round to the opposite side of the table. It was plain that the man with the beard stood high in the father's favor, and that he was cordially disliked for that or for some other reason by the sons. 376 THE DEAD ALIVE. The door opened once more. A young lady quietly joined the party at the supper-table. Was the young lady Naomi Colebrook ? I looked at Ambrose, and saw the answer in his face. Naomi Colebrook at last ! A pretty girl, and, so far as I could judge by appearances, a good girl too. Describing her generally, I may say that she had a small head, well carried, and well set on her shoulders ; bright gray eyes, that looked at you honestly, and meant what they looked ; a trim, slight little figure too slight for our English notions of beauty ; a strong American accent ; and (a rare thing in America) a pleasantly toned voice, which made the accent agreeable to English ears. Our first impressions of people are, in nine cases out of ten, the right im- pressions. I liked Naomi Colebrook at first sight ; liked her pleas- ant smile ; liked her hearty shake of the hand when we were pre- sented to each other. " If I get on well with nobody else in this house," I thought to myself, " I shall certainly get on well with you." For once in a way, I proved a true prophet. In the atmosphere of smouldering enmities at Morwick Farm, the pretty American girl and I remained firm and true friends from first to last. Ambrose made room for Naomi to sit between his brother and himself. She changed color for a moment, and looked at him, with a pretty, reluctant tenderness, as she took her chair. I strongly sus- pected the young farmer of squeezing her hand privately, under cover of the table-cloth. The supper was not a merry one. The only cheerful conversation was the conversation across the table between Naomi and me. For some incomprehensible reason, John Jago seemed to be ill at ease in the presence of his young country-woman. He looked up at Naomi doubtingly from his plate, and looked down again slowly with a frown. When I addressed him, he answered constrainedly. Even when he spoke to Mr. Meadowcroft, he was still on his guard on his guard against the two young men, as I fancied by the di- rection which his eyes took on these occasions. When we began our meal, I had noticed for the first time that Silas Meaclowcroft's left hand was strapped up with surgical plaster ; and I now further observed that John Jago's wandering brown eyes, furtively looking at every body round the table in turn, looked with a curious, cynical scrutiny at the young man's injured hand. By way of making my first evening at the farm all the more em- barrassing to me as a stranger, I discovered before long that the father and sons were talking indirectly at each other, through Mr. Jago and through me. When old Mr. Meadowcroft spoke dispar- agingly to his overlooker of some past mistake made in the culti- vation of the arable land of the farm, old Mr. Meadowcroft's eyea THE DEAD ALIVE. 377 pointed the application of his hostile criticism straight in the direc- tion of his two sons. When the two sons seized a stray remark of mine about animals in general, and applied it satirically to the mis- management of sheep and oxen in particular, they looked at John Jago, while they talked to me. On occasions of this sort and they happened frequently Naomi struck in resolutely at the right mo- ment, and turned the talk to some harmless topic. Every time she took a prominent part in this way in keeping the peace, melancholy Miss Meadowcroft looked slowly round at her in stern and silent disparagement of her interference. A more dreary and more dis- united family party I never sat at the table with. Envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness are never so essentially detestable to my mind as when they are animated by a sense of propriety, and work under the surface. But for my interest in Naomi, and my other interest in the little love-looks which I now and then sur- prised passing between her and Ambrose, I should never have set through that supper. I should certainly have taken refuge in my French novel and my own room. At last the unendurably long meal, served with ostentatious pro- fusion, was at an end. Miss Meadowcroft rose with her ghostly solemnity; and granted me my dismissal in these words: " We are early people at the farm, Mr. Lefrank. I wish you good- night." She laid her bony hands on the back of Mr. Meadowcroft's inva- lid-chair, cut him short in his farewell salutation to me, and wheeled him out to his bed as if she were wheeling him out to his grave. " Do you go to your room immediately, sir ? If not, may I offer you a cigar provided the young gentlemen will permit it ?" So, picking his words with painful deliberation, and pointing his reference to " the young gentlemen " with one sardonic side-look at them, Mr. John Jago performed the duties of hospitality on his side. I excused myself from accepting the cigar. With studied polite- ness, the man of the glittering brown eyes wished me a good-night's rest, and left the room. Ambrose and Silas both approached me hospitably, with their open cigar-cases in their hands. " You were quite right to say ' No,' " Ambrose began. " Never smoke with John Jago. His cigars will poison you." "And never believe a word John Jago says to you," added Silas. " He is the greatest liar in America, let the other be whom he may." Naomi shook her forefinger reproachfully at them, a* if the two sturdy young farmers had been two children. " What will Mr. Lefrank think," she said, " if you talk in that way of a person whom your father respects and trusts ? Go and smoke. I am ashamed of both of you." 378 THE DEAD ALIVE. Silas slunk away without a word of protest. Ambrose stood his ground, evidently bent on making his peace with Naomi before he left her. Seeing that I was in the way, I walked aside toward a glass door at the lower end of the room. The door opened on the trim little farm-garden, bathed at that moment in lovely moonlight. I step- ped out to enjoy the scene, and found my way to a seat under an elm-tree. The grand repose of nature had never looked so unut- terably solemn and beautiful as it now appeared, after what I had seen and heard inside the house. I understood, or thought I under- stood, the sad despair of humanity which led men into monasteries in the old times. The misanthropical side of my nature (where is the sick man who is not conscious of that side of him ?) was fast getting the upper hand of me when I felt a light touch laid on my shoulder, and found myself reconciled to my species once more by Naomi Colebrook. CHAPTER III. THE MOONLIGHT MEETING. " I WANT to speak to you," Naomi began. " You don't think ill of me for following you out here ? We are not accustomed to stand much on ceremony in America." " You are quite right in America. Pray sit down." She seated herself by my side, looking at me frankly and fearless- ly by the light of the moon. " You are related to the family here," she resumed, " and I am related too. I guess I may say to you what I couldn't say to a stranger. I am right glad you have come here, Mr. Lefrank; and for a reason, sir, which you don't suspect." "Thank you for the compliment you pay me, Miss Colebrook, whatever the reason may be." She took no notice of my reply; she steadily pursued her own train of thought. "I guess you may do some good, sir, in this wretched house," the girl went on, with her eyes still earnestly fixed on my face. " There is no love, no trust, no peace, at Morwick Farm. They want some- body here, except Ambrose. Don't think ill of Ambrose ; he is only thoughtles?. I say, the rest of them want somebody here to make them ashamed of their hard hearts, and their horrid, false, envious ways. You are a gentleman ; you know more than they know ; they can't help themselves; they must look up to you. Try. Mr. Lefrank, when you have the opportunity pray try. sir, to make THE DEAD ALIVE. 379 among them. You heard what went on at supper-time; and you were disgusted with it. Oh yes, you were ! I saw you frown to yourself; and I know what that means in you Englishmen." There was no choice but to speak one's mind plainly to Naomi. I acknowledged the impression which had been produced on me at Mi]>piT-time just as plainly as I have acknowledged it in these pages. Naomi nodded her head in undisguised approval of my candor. " That will do ; that's speaking out," she said. " But oh my ! you put it a deal too mildly, sir, when you say the men don't seem to be on friendly terms together here. They hate each other. That's the word, Mr. Lefrank hate; bitter, bitter, bitter hate!" She clenched her little fists ; she shook them vehemently, by way of adding emphasis to her last words ; and then she suddenly remem- bered Ambrose. " Except Ambrose," she added, opening her hand again, and laying it very earnestly on my arm. "Don't go and mis- judge Ambrose, sir. There is no harm in poor Ambrose." The girl's innocent frankness was really irresistible. - Should I be altogether wrong," I asked, "if I guessed that you were a little partial to Ambrose ?" An Englishwoman would have felt, or would at least have as- sumed, some little hesitation at replying to my question. Naomi did not hesitate for an instant. "You are quite right, sir," she said with the most perfect com- posure. " If things go well, I mean to marry Ambrose." " If things go well," I repeated. " What does that mean ? Mon- ey?" She shook her head. " It means a fear that I have in my own mind," she answered" a fear, Mr. Lefrank, of matters taking a bad turn among the men here the wicked, hard-hearted, unfeeling men. I don't mean Ambrose, sir ; I mean his brother Silas, and John Jago. Did you notice Si- las's hand ? John Jago did that, sir, with a knife." " By accident ?" I asked. " On purpose," she answered. " In return for a blow." This plain revelation of the state of things at Morwick Farm rath- er staggered me blows and knives under the rich and respectable roof-tree of old Mr. Meadowcroft blows and knives, not among the laborers, but among the masters ! My first impression was like your first impression, no doubt. I could hardly believe it. "Are you sure of what you say ?" I inquired. " I have it from Ambrose. Ambrose would never deceive me. Ambrose knows all about it." My curiosity was powerfully excited. To what sort of household had I rashly voyaged across the ocean in search of rest and quiet ? " May I know all about it too ?" I said. 380 THE DEAD ALIVE. " "Well, I will try and tell you what Ambrose told me. But you must promise me one thing first, sir. Promise you won't go away and leave us when you know the whole truth. Shake hands on it, Mr. Lefrank ; come, shake hands on it." There was no resisting her fearless frankness. I shook hands on it. Naomi entered on her narrative the moment I had given her my pledge, without wasting a word by way of preface. " When you are shown over the farm here," she began, " you will see that it is really two farms in one. On this side of it, as we look from under this tree, they raise crops : on the other side on much the larger half of the land, mind they raise cattle. When Mr. Meadowcroft got too old and too sick to look after his farm him- self, the boys (I mean Ambrose and Silas) divided the work between them. Ambrose looked after the crops, and Silas after the cattle. Things didn't go well, somehow, under their management. I can't tell you why. I am only sure Ambrose was not in fault. The old man got more and more dissatisfied, especially about his beasts. His pride is in his beasts. Without saying a word to the boys, he looked about privately (/ think he was wrong in that, sir ; don't you ?) he looked about privately for help ; and, in an evil hour, he heard of John Jago. Do you like John Jago, Mr. Lefrank ?" " So far, no. I don't like him." " Just my sentiments, sir. But I don't know : it's likely we may be wrong. There's nothing against John Jago, except that he is so odd in his ways. They do say he wears all that nasty hair on his face (I hate hair on a man's face) on account of a vow he made when he lost his wife. Don't you think, Mr. Lefrank, a man must be a little mad who shows his grief at losing his wife by vowing that he will never shave himself again ? Well, that's what they do say John Jago vowed. Perhaps it's a lie. People are such liars here ! Anyway, it's truth (the boys themselves confess that), when John came to the farm, he came with a first-rate character. The old father here isn't easy to please ; and he pleased the old father. Yes, that's so. Mr. Meadowcroft don't like my countrymen in gen- eral. He's like his sons English, bitter English, to the marrow of his bones. Somehow, in spite of that, John Jago got round him ; maybe because John does certainly know his business. Oh yes ! Cattle and crops, John knows his business. Since he's been over- looker, things have prospered as they didn't prosper in the time of the boys. Ambrose owned as much to me himself. Still, sir, it's hard to be set aside for a stranger ; isn't it ? John gives the orders now. The boys do their work ; but they have no voice in it when John and the old man put their heads together over the business of the farm. I have been long in telling you of it, sir ; but now you know how the envy and the hatred grew among the men before my THE DEAD ALIVE. 381 time. Since I have been here, things seem to get worse and worse. There's hardly a day goes by that hard words don't pass between the boys and John, or the boys and their father. The old man has an aggravating way, Mr. Lefrank a nasty way, as we do call it of taking John Jago's part. Do speak to him about it when you get the chance. The main blame of the quarrel between Silas and John the other day lies at his door, as I think. I don't want to excuse Silas, either. It was brutal of him though he is Ambrose's brother to strike John, who is the smaller and weaker man of the two. But it was worse than brutal in John, sir, to out with his knife and try to stab Silas. Oh, he did it ! If Silas had not caught the knife in his hand (his hand's awfully cut, I can tell you ; I dressed it my- self), it might have ended, for any thing I know, in murder " She stopped as the word passed her lips, looked back over her shoulder, and started violently. I looked where my companion was looking. The dark figure of a man was standing, watching us, in the shadow of the elm-tree. I rose directly to approach him. Naomi recovered her self-possession, and checked me before I could interfere. " Who are you ?" she asked, turning sharply toward the stranger. " What do you want there ?" The man stepped out from the shadow into the moonlight, and stood revealed to us as John Jago. " I hope I am not intruding ?" he said, looking hard at me. " What do you want ?" Naomi repeated. " I don't wish to disturb you, or to disturb this gentleman," he proceeded. " When you are quite at leisure, Miss Naomi, you would be doing me a favor if you would permit me to say a few words to you in private." He spoke with the most scrupulous politeness ; trying, and trying vainly, to conceal some strong agitation which was in possession of him. His wild brown eyes wilder than ever in the moonlight rested entreatingly, with a strange underlying expression of despair, on Naomi's face. His hands, clasped lightly in front of him, trem- bled incessantly. Little as I liked the man, he did really impress me as a pitiable object at that moment. "Do you mean that you want to speak to me to-night?" Naomi asked in undisguised surprise. " Yes, miss, if you please, at your leisure and at Mr. Lefrank's," Naomi hesitated. "Won't it keep till to-morrow ?'* she said. " I shall be away on farm business to-morrow, miss, for the whole day. Please to give me a few minutes this evening." He advanced a step toward her; his voice faltered, and dropped timidly to a whisper. " I really have something to say to you, Miss Naomi. It 16* 382 THE DEAD ALIVE. would be a kindness on your part a very, very great kindness if you will let me say it before I rest to-night." I rose again to resign my place to him. Once more Naomi check- ed me. " No," she said. " Don't stir." She addressed John Jago very reluctantly : " If you are so much in earnest about it, Mr. John, I suppose it must be. I can't guess what you can possibly have to say to me which can not be said before a third person. However, it wouldn't be civil, I suppose, to say ' No ' in my place. You know it's my business to wind up the hall-clock at ten every night. If you choose to come and help me, the chances are that we shall have the hall to ourselves. Will that do ?" " Not in the hall, miss, if you will excuse me." " Not in the hall !" "And not in the house either, if I may make so bold." "What do you mean ?" She turned impatiently, and appealed to me. " Do you understand him ?" John Jago signed to me imploringly to let him answer for himself. " Bear with me, Miss Naomi," he said. " I think I can make you understand me. There are eyes on the watch, and ears on the watch, in the house; and there are some footsteps I won't say whose so soft, that no person can hear them." The last allusion evidently made itself understood. Naomi stop- ped him before he could say more. "Well, where is it to be ?" she asked, resignedly. "Will the gar- den do, Mr. John ?" " Thank you kindly, miss ; the garden will do." He pointed to a gravel-walk beyond us, bathed in the full flood of the moonlight. " There," he said, " where we can see all round us, and be sure that nobody is listening. At ten o'clock." He paused, and addressed himself to me. " I beg to apologize, sir, for intruding myself on your conversation. Please to excuse me." His eyes rested with a last anxious, pleading look on Naomi's face. He bowed to us, and melted away into the shadow of the tree. The distant sound of a door closed softly came to us through the stillness of the night. John Jago had re-entered the house. Now that he was out of hearing, Naomi spoke to me very ear- nestly : " Don't suppose, sir, I have any secrets with him" she said. " I know no more than you do what he wants with me. I have half a mind not to keep the appointment when ten o'clock comes. What would you do in my place ?" " Having made the appointment," I answered, " it seems to be due to yourself to keep it. If you feel the slightest alarm, I will wait in another part of the garden, so that I can hear if you call me." THE DEAD ALIVE. 383 She received my proposal with a saucy toss of the head, and a smile of pity for my ignorance. " You are a stranger, Mr. Lefrank, or you would never talk to me in that way. In America, we don't do the men the honor of letting them alarm us. In America, the women take care of themselves. He has got my promise to meet him, as you say ; and I must keep my promise. Only think," she added, speaking more to herself than to me, "of John Jago finding out Miss Meadowcroft's nasty, sly, underhand ways in the house ! Most men would never have noticed her." I was completely taken by Surprise. Sad and severe Miss Mead- owcroft a listener and a spy ! What next at Morwick Farm ? " Was that hint at the watchful eyes and ears, and the soft footsteps, really an allusion to Mr. Meadowcroft's daughter ?" I asked. " Of course it was. Ah ! she has imposed on you as she imposes on every body else. The false wretch ! She is secretly at the bot- tom of half the bad feeling among the men. I am certain of it she keeps Mr. Meadowcroft's mind bitter toward the boys. Old as she is, Mr. Lefrank, and ugly as she is, she wouldn't object (if she could only make him ask her) to be John Jago's second wife. No, sir; and she wouldn't break her heart if the boys were not left a stick or a stone on the farm when the father dies. I have watched her, and I know it. Ah ! I could tell you such things ! But there's no time now it's close on ten o'clock; we must say good-night. I am right glad I have spoken to you, sir. I say again, at parting, what I have said already : Use your influence, pray use your influ- ence, to soften them, and to make them ashamed of themselves, in this wicked house. We will have more talk about what you can do to-morrow, when you are shown over the farm. Say good-bye now. Hark ! there is ten striking ! And look ! here is John Jago stealing out again in the shadow of the tree ! Good-night, friend Lefrank ; and pleasant dreams." With one hand she took mine, and pressed it cordially ; with the other she pushed me away without ceremony in the direetion of the house. A charming girl an irresistible girl ! I was nearly as bad as the boys. I declare, / almost hated John Jago, too, as we crossed each other in the shadow of the tree. Arrived at the glass door, I stopped, and looked back at the grav- el-walk. They had met. I saw the two shadowy figures slowly pacing backward and forward in the moonlight, the woman a little in advance of the man. What was he saying to her? Why was he so anxious that not a word of it should lie heard? Our presenti- ments are sometimes, in certain rare cases, the faitLful prophecy ot 384 THE DEAD ALIVE. the future. A vague distrust of that moonlight meeting stealthily took a hold on my mind. " Will mischief come of it?" I asked my- self as I closed the door and entered the house. Mischief did come of it. You shall hear how. CHAPTER IV. THE BEECHEN STICK. PERSONS of sensitive, nervous temperament, sleeping for the first time in a strange house, and in a bed that is new to them, must make up their minds to pass a wakeful night. My first night at Morwick Farm was no exception to this rule. The little sleep I had was broken and disturbed by dreams. Toward six o'clock in the morning, my bed became unendurable to me. The sun was shining in brightly at the window. I determined to try the reviv- ing influence of a stroll in the fresh morning air. Just as I got out of bed, I heard footsteps and voices under my window. The footsteps stopped, and the voices became recognizable. I had passed the night with my window open; I was able, without exciting notice from below, to look out. The persons beneath me were Silas Meadowcroft, John Jago, and three strangers, whose dress and appearance indicated plainly enough that they were laborers on the farm. Silas was swinging a stout beechen stick in his hand, and was speaking to Jago, coarsely and insolently enough, of his moonlight meeting with Naomi on the previous night. " Next time you go courting a young lady in secret," said Silas, " make sure that the moon goes down first, or wait for a cloudy sky. You were seen in the garden, Master Jago ; and you may as well tell us the truth for once in a way. Did you find her open to persuasion, sir ? Did she say ' Yes ?' " John Jago kept his temper. "If you must have your joke, Mr. Silas," he said, quietly and firmly, "be pleased to joke on some other subject. You are quite wrong, sir, in what you suppose to have passed between the young lady and me." Silas turned about, and addressed himself ironically to the three laborers. " You hear him, boys ? He can't tell the truth, try him as you may. He wasn't making love to Naomi in the garden last night oh dear, no ! He has had one wife already ; and he knows better than to take the yoke on his shoulders for the second time !" THE DEAD ALTVB. 385 Greatly to my surprise, John Jago met this clumsy jesting with a formal and serious reply. " You are quite right, sir," he said. " I have no intention of mar- rying for the second time. What I was saying to Miss Naomi doesn't matter to you. It was not at all what you choose to sup- pose ; it was something of quite another kind, with which you have no concern. Be pleased to understand once for all, Mr. Silas, that not so much as the thought of making love to the young lady has ever entered my head. I respect her ; I admire her good qual- ities ; but if she was the only woman left in the world, and if I was a much younger man than I am, I should never think of asking her to be my wife." He burst out suddenly into a harsh, uneasy laugh. " No, no ! not my style, Mr. Silas not my style !" Something in those words, or in his manner of speaking them, appeared to exasperate Silas. He dropped his clumsy irony, and ad- dressed himself directly to John Jago in a tone of savage contempt. u Not your style ?" he repeated. " Upon my soul, that's a cool way of putting it, for a man in your place ! What do you mean by calling her ' not your style ?' You impudent beggar ! Naomi Cole- brook is meat for your master !" John Jago's temper began to give way at last. He approached defiantly a step or two nearer to Silas Meadowcroft. "Who is my master?" he asked. " Ambrose will show you, if you go to him," answered the other. "Naomi is his sweetheart, not mine. Keep out of his way, if you want to keep a whole skin on your bones." John Jago cast one of his sardonic side -looks at the farmer's wounded left hand. " Don't forget your own skin, Mr. Silas, when you threaten mine ! I have set my mark on you once, sir. Let me by on my business, or I may mark you for a second time." . Silas lifted his beechen stick. The laborers, roused to some rude sense of the serious turn which the quarrel was taking, got between the two men, and parted them. I had been hurriedly dressing my- self while the altercation was proceeding ; and I now ran down stairs to try what my influence could do toward keeping the peace at Morwick Farm. The war of angry words was still going on when I joined the men outside. " Be off with you on your business, you cowardly hound !" I heard Silas say. t% Be off with you to the town ! and take care you don't meet Ambrose on the way !" " Take you care you don't feel my knife again before I go 1" cried the other man. Silas made a desperate effort to break away from the laborers who were holding him. 386 THE DEAD ALIVE. " Last time you only felt my fist !" he shouted. " Next time you shall feel this T He lifted the stick as he spoke. I stepped up and snatched it out of his hand. " Mr. Silas," I said, " I am an invalid, and I am going out for a walk. Your stick will be useful to me. I beg leave to borrow it." The laborers burst out laughing. Silas fixed his eyes on me with a stare of angry surprise. John Jago, immediately recovering his self-possession, took off his hat, and made me a deferential bow. " I had no idea, Mr. Lefrank, that we were disturbing you," he said. "I am very much ashamed of myself, sir. I beg to apol- ogize." " I accept your apology, Mr. Jago," I answered, " on the under- standing that you, as the older man, will set the example of forbear- ance, if your temper is tried on any future occasion as it has been tried to-day. And I have further to request," I added, addressing myself to Silas, " that you will do me a favor, as your father's guest. The next time your good spirits lead you into making jokes at Mr. Jago's expense, don't carry them quite so far. I am sure you meant no harm, Mr. Silas. Will you gratify me by saying so yourself? I want to see you and Mr. Jago shake hands." John Jago instantly held out his hand, with an assumption of good feeling which was a little overacted, to my thinking. Silas Meadowcroft made no advance of the same friendly sort on his side. " Let him go about his business," said Silas. " I won't waste any more words on him, Mr. Lefrank, to please you. But (saving your presence) I'm d d if I take his hand !" Further persuasion was plainly useless, addressed to such a man as this. Silas gave me no further opportunity of remonstrating with him, even if I had been inclined to do so. He turned about in sulky silence, and, retracing his steps along the path, disappeared round the corner of the house. The laborers withdrew next, in different directions, to begin the day's work. John Jago and I were alone. I left it to the man of the wild brown eyes to speak first. " In half an hour's time, sir," he said, " I shall be going on busi- ness to Narrabee, our market-town here. Can I take any letters to the post for you ? or is there any thing else that I can do in the town ?" I thanked him, and declined both proposals. He made me an- other deferential bow, and withdrew into the house. I mechanic- ally followed the path in the direction which Silas had taken be- fore me. Turning the corner of the house, and walking on for a little way, I found myself at the entrance to the stables, and face to face with Silas Meadowcroft once more. He had his elbows on the gate of the yard, swinging it slowly backward and forward, and turning THE DEAD ALIVE. 387 and twisting a straw between his teeth. When he saw me ap- proaching him, he advanced a step from the gate, and made an ef- fort to excuse himself, with a very ill grace. " No offense, mister. Ask me what you will besides, and I'll do it for you. But don't ask me to shake hands with John Jago ; I hate him too badly for that. If I touched him with one hand, sir, I tell you this, I should throttle him with the other." " That's your feeling toward the man, Mr. Silas, is it ?" " That's my feeling, Mr. Lefrank ; and I'm not ashamed of it ei- ther." " Is there any such place as a church in your neighborhood, Mr. Silas?" " Of course there is." "And do you ever go to it ?" " Of course I do." " At long intervals, Mr. Silas ?" "Every Sunday, sir, without fail." Some third person behind me burst out laughing ; some third person had been listening to our talk. I turned round, and discov- ered Ambrose Meadowcroft. " I understand the drift of your catechism, sir, though my brother doesn't," he said. " Don't be hard on Silas, sir. He isn't the only Christian who leaves his Christianity in the pew when he goes out of church. You will never make us friends with John Jago, try as you may. Why, what have you got there, Mr. Lefrank ? May I die if it isn't my stick ! I have been looking for it everywhere !" The thick beechen stick had been feeling uncomfortably heavy in my invalid hand for some time past. There was no sort of need for my keeping it any longer. John Jago was going away to Narrabee, and Silas Meadowcroft 's savage temper was subdued to a sulky re- pose. I handed the stick back to Ambrose. He laughed as he took it from me. "You can't think how strange it feels, Mr. Lefrank, to be out without one's stick," he said. " A man gets used to his stick, sir ; doesn't he ? Are you ready for your breakfast ?" " Not just yet. I thought of taking a little walk first." "All right, sir. I wish I could go with you ; but I have got my work to do this morning, and Silas has his work too. If you go back by the way you came, you will find yourself in the garden. If you want to go farther, the wicket-gate at the end will lead you into the lane." Through sheer thoughtlessness, I did a very foolish thing. I turned back as I was told, and left the brothers together at the gate of the stable-yard. 388 THE DEAD ALIYB. CHAPTER V. THE NEWS FROM NARRABEE. ARRIVED at the garden, a thought struck me. The cheerful speech and easy manner of Ambrose plainly indicated that he was ignorant thus far of the quarrel which had taken place under my window. Silas might confess to having taken his brother's stick, and might mention whose head he had threatened with it. It was not only useless, but undesirable, that Ambrose should know of the quarrel. I retraced my steps to the stable-yard. Nobody was at the gate. I called alternately to Silas and to Ambrose. Nobody an- swered. The brothers had gone away to their work. Returning to the garden, I heard a pleasant voice wishing me " Good-morning." I looked round. Naomi Colebrook was stand- ing at one of the lower windows of the farm. She had her work- ing apron on, and she was industriously brightening the knives for the breakfast-table on an old-fashioned board. A sleek black cat balanced himself on her shoulder, watching the flashing motion of the knife as she passed it rapidly to and fro on the leather-covered surface of the board. " Come here," she said ; " I want to speak to you." I noticed, as I approached, that her pretty face was clouded and anxious. She pushed the cat irritably off her shoulder ; she welcomed me with only the faint reflection of her bright customary smile. "I have seen John Jago," she said. "He has been hinting at something which he says happened under your bedroom-window this morning. When I begged him to explain himself, he only an- swered, ' Ask Mr. Lefrank ; I must be off to Narrabee.' What does it mean ? Tell me right away, sir ! I'm out of temper, and I can't wait !" Except that I made the best instead of the worst of it, I told her what had happened under my window as plainly as I have told it here. She put down the knife that she was cleaning, and folded her hands before her, thinking. " I wish I had never given John Jago that meeting," she said. " When a man asks any thing of a woman, the woman, I find, most- ly repents it if she says ' Yes.' " She made that quaint reflection with a very troubled brow. The moonlight meeting had left some unwelcome remembrances in her mind. I saw that as plainly as I saw Naomi herself. THE DEAD ALIVE. 389 What had John Jago said to her ? I put the question with all needful delicacy, making my apologies beforehand. " I should like to tell you" she began, with a strong emphasis on the last word. There she stopped. She turned pale ; then suddenly flushed again to the deepest red. She took up the knife once more, and went on cleaning it as industriously as ever. " I mustn't tell you," she resumed, with her head down over the knife. " I have promised not to tell any body. That's the truth. Forget all about it, sir, as soon as you can. Hush ! here's the spy who saw us last night on the walk, and who told Silas !" Dreary Miss Meadowcroft opened the kitchen door. She carried an ostentatiously large Prayer-book ; and she looked at Naomi as only a jealous woman of middle age can look at a younger and prettier woman than herself. " Prayers, Miss Cclebrook," she said in her sourest manner. She paused, and noticed me standing under the window. " Prayers, Mr. Lefrank," she added, with a look of devout pity, directed exclusively to my address. " We will follow you directly, Miss Meadowcroft," said Naomi. " I have no desire to intrude on your secrets, Miss Colebrook." With that acrid answer, our priestess took herself and her Prayer- book out of the kitchen. I joined Naomi, entering the room by the garden door. She met me eagerly. " I am not quite easy about something," she said. " Did you tell me that you left Ambrose and Silas together ?" " Yes." " Suppose Silas tells Ambrose of what happened this morning ?" The same idea, as I have already mentioned, had occurred to my mind. I did my best to re-assure Naomi. " Mr. Jago is out of the way," I replied. " You and I can easily put things right in his absence." She took my arm. " Come in to prayers," she said. " Ambrose will be there, and I shall find an opportunity of speaking to him." Neither Ambrose nor Silas was in the breakfast-room when we entered it. After waiting vainly for ten minutes, Mr. Meadowcroft told his daughter to read the prayers. Miss Meadowcroft read, thereupon, in the tone of an injured woman taking the throne of mercy by storm, and insisting on her rights. Breakfast followed ; and still the brothers were absent. Miss Meadowcroft looked at her father, and said, "From bad to worse, sir. What did I tell you?" Naomi instantly applied the antidote : " The boys are no doubt detained over their work, uncle." She turned to me. " You want to see the farm, Mr. Lefrank. Come and help me to find the boys." 390 THE DEAD ALIVE. For more than an hour we visited one part of the farm after an- other, without discovering the missing 1 men. We found them at last near the outskirts of a small wood, sitting, talking together, on the trunk of a felled tree. Silas rose as we approached, and walked away, without a word of greeting or apology, into the wood. As he got on his feet, I no- ticed that his brother whispered something in his ear; and I heard him answer, "All right." "Ambrose, does that mean you have something to keep a secret fr^m us ?" asked Naomi, approaching her lover with a smile. " Is Silas ordered to hold his tongue ?" Ambrose kicked sulkily at the loose stones lying about him. I noticed, with a certain surprise, that his favorite stick was not in his hand, and was not lying near him. " Business," he said in answer to Naomi, not very graciously " business between Silas and me. That's what it means, if you must know." Naomi went on, woman-like, with her questions, heedless of the reception which they might meet with from an irritated man. "Why were you both away at prayers and breakfast-time?" she asked next. " We had too much to do," Ambrose gruffly replied, " and we were too far from the house." " Very odd," said Naomi. " This has never happened before since I have been at the farm." " Well, live and learn. It has happened now." The tone in which he spoke would have warned any man to let him alone. But warnings which speak by implication only are thrown away on women. The woman, having still something in her mind to say, said it. " Have you seen any thing of John Jago this morning ?" The smouldering ill temper of Ambrose burst suddenly why, it was impossible to guess into a flame. " How many more questions am I to answer ?" he broke out vio- lently. " Are you the parson putting me through my catechism ? I have seen nothing of John Jago, and I have got my work to go on with. Will that do for you ?" He turned with an oath, and followed his brother into the wood. Naomi's bright eyes looked up at me, flashing with indignation. " What does he mean, Mr. Lefrank, by speaking to me in that way ? Kude brute ! How dare he do it ?" She paused ; her voice, look, and manner suddenly changed. "This has never happened before, sir. Has any thing gone wrong? I declare, I shouldn't know Ambrose again, he is so changed. Say, how does it strike you ?" THE DEAD ALIVE. 391 I still made the best of a bad case. " Something has upset his temper," I said. " The merest trifle, Miss Colebrook, upsets a man's temper sometimes. I speak as a man, and I know it. Give him time, and he will make his excuses, and all will be well again." My presentation of the case entirely failed to re-assure my pretty companion. We went back to the house. Dinner-time came, and the brothers appeared. Their father spoke to them of their absence from morning prayers with needless severity, as I thought. They resented the reproof with needless indignation on their side, and left the room. A sour smile of satisfaction showed itself on Miss Meadowcroft's thin lips. She looked at her father ; then raised her eyes sadly to the ceiling, and said, " We can only pray for them, sir." Naomi disappeared after dinner. When I saw her again, she had some news for me. " I have been with Ambrose," she said, " and he has begged my pardon. We have made it up, Mr. Lefrank. Still still " Still what, Miss Naomi ?" " He is not like himself, sir. He denies it ; but I can't help think- ing he is hiding something from me." The day wore on ; the evening came. I returned to my French novel. But not even Dumas himself could keep my attention to the story. What else I was thinking of I can not say. Why I was out of spirits I am unable to explain. I wished myself back in England : I took a blind, unreasoning hatred to Morwick Farm. Nine o'clock struck ; and we all assembled again at supper, with the exception of John Jago. He was expected back to supper; and we waited for him a quarter of an hour, by Mr. Meadowcroft's own directions. John Jago never appeared. The night wore on, and still the absent man failed to return. Miss Meadowcroft volunteered to sit up for him. Naomi eyed her, a little maliciously I must own, as the two women parted for the night. I withdrew to my room; and again I was unable to sleep. When sunrise came, I went out, as before, to breathe the morning air. On the staircase I met Miss Meadowcroft ascending to her own room. Not a curl of her stiff gray hair was disarranged; nothing about the impenetrable woman betrayed that she had been watching through the night. " Has Mr. Jago not returned ?" I asked. Miss Meadowcroft slowly shook her head, and frowned at me. "We are in the hands of Providence, Mr. Lefrank. Mr. Jago must have l>een detained for the night at Narrabee." The daily routine of the meals resumed its unalterable course. Breakfast - time came, and dinner-time came, and no John Jago 392 THE DEAD ALIVE. darkened the doors of Morwick Farm. Mr. Meadowcroft and hia daughter consulted together, and determined to send in search of the missing man. One of the more intelligent of the laborers was dispatched to Narrabee to make inquiries. The man returned late in the evening, bringing startling news to the farm. He had visited all the inns, and all the places of business resort in Narrabee ; he had made endless inquiries in every direction, with this result no one had set eyes on John Jago. Every body declared that John Jago had not entered the town. We all looked at each other, excepting the two brothers, who were seated together in a dark corner of the room. The conclusion appeared to be inevitable. John Jago was a lost man. CHAPTER VI. THE LIMEKILN. MB. MEADOWCROFT was the first to speak. " Somebody must find John," he said. " Without losing a moment," added his daughter. Ambrose suddenly stepped out of the dark corner of the room. "/ will inquire," he said. Silas followed him. " I will go with you," he added. Mr. Meadowcroft interposed his authority. " One of you will be enough ; for the present, at least. Go you, Ambrose. Your brother may be wanted later. If any accident has happened (which God forbid !) we may have to inquire in more than one direction. Silas, you will stay at the farm." The brothers withdrew together; Ambrose to prepare for his journey, Silas to saddle one of the horses for him. Naomi slipped out after them. Left in company with Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter (both devoured by anxiety about the missing man, and both trying to conceal it under an assumption of devout resignation to circumstances), I need hardly add that I, too, retired, as soon as it was politely possible for me to leave the room. Ascending the stairs on my way to my own quarters, I discovered Naomi half hid- den by the recess formed by an old-fashioned window-seat on the first landing. My bright little friend was in sore trouble. Her apron was over her face, and she was crying bitterly. Ambrose had not taken his leave as tenderly as usual. She was more firmly per- suaded than ever that " Ambrose was hiding something from her." We all waited anxiously for the next day. The next day made the mystery deeper than ever. THE DEAD ALIVK. 393 The horse which had taken Ambrose to Narrabee was ridden back to the farm by a groom from the hotel. He delivered a writ- ten message from Ambrose which startled us. Further inquiries hiul positively proved that the missing man had never been near Narrabee. The only attainable tidings of his whereabouts were ti- dings derived from vague report. It was said that a man like John Jago had been seen the previous day in a railway car, traveling on the line to New York. Acting on this imperfect information, Am- brose had decided on verifying the truth of the report by extending his inquiries to New York. This extraordinary proceeding forced the suspicion on me that something had really gone wrong. I kept my doubts to myself; but I was prepared, from that moment, to see the disappearance of John Jago followed by very grave results. The same day the results declared themselves. Time enough had now elapsed for report to spread through the district the news of what had happened at the farm. Already aware of the bad feeling existing between the men, the neighbors had been now informed (no doubt by the laborers present) of the deplorable scene that had taken place under my bedroom window. Public opinion declares itself in America without the slightest reserve, or the slightest care for consequences. Public opinion declared on this occasion that the lost man was the victim of foul play, and held one or both of the brothers Meadowcroft responsible for his disappear- ance. Later in the day, the reasonableness of this serious view of the case was confirmed in the popular mind by a startling discov- ery. It was announced that a Methodist preacher lately settled at Morwick, and greatly respected throughout the district, had dream- ed of John Jago in the character of a murdered man, whose bones were hidden at Morwick Farm. Before night the cry was general for a verification of the preacher's dream. Not only in the imme- diate district, but in the town of Narrabee itself, the public voice insisted on the necessity of a search for the mortal remains of John Jago at Morwick Farm. In the terrible turn which matters had now taken, Mr. Meadow- croft the elder displayed a spirit and an energy for which I was not prepared. " My sons have their faults," he said, " serious faults ; and nobody knows it better than I do. My sons have behaved badly and un- gratefully toward John Jago ; I don't deny that, either. But Am- brose and Silas are not murderers. Make your search ! I ask for it ; no, I insist on it, after what has been said, in justice to my family and my name !" The neighbors took him at his word. The Morwick section of the American nation organized itself on the spot. The sovereign 394 THE DEAD ALIVE. people met in committee, made speeches, elected competent persons to represent the public interests, and began the search the next day. The whole proceeding, ridiculously informal from a legal point of view, was carried on by these extraordinary people with as stern and strict a sense of duty as if it had been sanctioned by the high- eet tribunal in the land. Naomi met the calamity that had fallen on the household as res- olutely as her uncle himself. The girl's courage rose with the call which was made on it. Her one anxiety was for Ambrose. " He ought to be here," she said to me. " The wretches in this neighborhood are wicked enough to say that his absence is a con- fession of his guilt." She was right. In the present temper of the popular mind, the absence of Ambrose was a suspicious circumstance in itself. " We might telegraph to New York," I suggested, " if you only knew where a message would be likely to find him." " I know the hotel which the Meadowcrofts use at New York," she replied. " I was sent there, after my father's death, to wait till Miss Meadowcroft could take me to Morwick." We decided on telegraphing to the hotel. I was writing the mes- sage, and Naomi was looking over my shoulder, when we were star- tled by a strange voice speaking close behind us. " Oh ! that's his address, is it ?" said the voice. " We wanted his address rather badly." The speaker was a stranger to me. Naomi recognized him as one of the neighbors. f " What do you want his address for ?" she asked, sharply. " I guess we've found the mortal remains of John Jago, miss," the man replied. " We have got Silas already, and we want Am- brose too, on suspicion of murder." " It's a lie !" cried Naomi, furiously " a wicked lie !" The man turned to me. " Take her into the next room, mister," he said, " and let her see for herself." We went together into the next room. In one corner, sitting by her father, and holding his hand, we saw stern and stony Miss Meadowcroft weeping silently. Opposite to them, crouched on the window-seat, his eyes wandering, his hands hanging helpless, we next discovered Silas Meadowcroft, plainly self- betrayed as a panic-stricken man. A few of the persons who had been engaged in the search were seated near, watching him. The mass of the strangers present stood congregated round a table in the middle of the room. They drew aside as I approached with Naomi, and al- lowed us to have a clear view of certain objects placed on the table. The centre object of the collection was a little heap of charred THE DEAD AI.IVK. 305 bones. Round this were ranged a knife, two metal buttons, and a ti( K partially burnrd. The knife was recognized by the laborers as the weapon John Jago habitually carried about with him the weapon \\itli which he had wounded Silas Meadowcroft's hand, The buttons Naomi herself declared to have a peculiar pattern on them, which had formerly attracted her attention to John Jago's coat. As for the stick, burned as it was, I had no difficulty in iden- tifying the quaintly-carved knob at the top. It was the heavy birchen stick which I had snatched out of Silas's hand, and which I had restored to Ambrose on his claiming it as his own. In re- ply to my inquiries, I was informed that the bones, the knife, the buttons, and the stick had all been found together in a limekiln then in use on the farm. " Is it serious ?" Naomi whispered to me as we drew back from the table. It would have been sheer cruelty to deceive her now. " Yes," I whispered back ; " it is serious." The search committee conducted its proceedings with the strict- est regularity. The proper applications were made forthwith to a justice of the peace, and the justice issued his warrant. That night Silas was committed to prison ; and an officer was dispatched to arrest Ambrose in New York. For my part, I did the little I could to make myself useful. With the silent sanction of Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter, I went to Narrabee, and secured the best legal assistance for the defense which the town could place at my disposal. This done, there was no choice but to wait for news of Ambrose, and for the examination before the magistrate which was to follow. I shall pass over the misery in the house during the interval of expectation ; no useful purpose could be served by describing it now. Let me only say that Naomi's conduct strengthened me in the conviction that she possessed a noble nature. I was unconscious of the state of my own feelings at the time ; but I am now disposed to think that this was the epoch at which I began to envy Ambrose the wife whom he had won. The telegraph brought us our first news of Ambrose. He had been arrested at the hotel, and be was on his way to Morwick. The next day he arrived, and followed his brother to prison. The two were confined in separate cells, and were forbidden all commu- nication with each other. Two days later, the preliminary examination took place. Am- brose and Silas Meadowcroft were charged before the magistrate with the willful murder of John Jago. I was cited to appear as one of the witnesses; and, at Naomi's own request, I took the poor girl into court, and sat by her during the proceedings. My THE DEAD ALIVE. host also was present in his invalid-chair, with his daughter by his side. Such was the result of my voyage across the ocean in search of rest and quiet; and thus did time and chance fulfill my first hasty forebodings of the dull life I was to lead at Morwick Farm ! CHAPTER VII. THE MATERIALS IN THE DEFENSE. ON our way to the chairs allotted to us in the magistrate's court, we passed the platform on which the prisoners were standing to- gether. Silas took no notice of us. Ambrose made a friendly sign of recognition, and then rested his hand on the " bar " in front of him. As she passed beneath him, Naomi was just tall enough to reach his hand on tiptoe. She took it. " I know you are innocent," she whispered, and gave him one look of loving encouragement as she followed me to her place. Ambrose never lost his self-control. I may have been wrong ; but I thought this a bad sign. The case, as stated for the prosecution, told strongly against the suspected men. Ambrose and Silas Meadowcroft were charged with the murder of John Jago (by means of the stick or by use of some other weap- on), and with the deliberate destruction of the body by throwing it into the quicklime. In proof of this latter assertion, the knife which the deceased habitually carried about him, and the metal buttons which were known to belong to his coat, were produced. It was argued that these indestructible substances, and some frag- ments of the larger bones, had alone escaped the action of the burn- ing lime. Having produced medical witnesses to support this theo- ry by declaring the bones to be human, and having thus circum- stantially asserted the discovery of the remains in the kiln, the pros- ecution next proceeded to prove that the missing man had been murdered by the two brothers, and had been by them thrown into the quicklime as a means of concealing their guilt. Witness after witness deposed to the inveterate enmity against the deceased displayed by Ambrose and Silas. The threatening language they habitually used toward him ; their violent quarrels with him, which had become a public scandal throughout the neigh- borhood, and which had ended (on one occasion at least) in a blow ; the disgraceful scene which had taken place under my window; and the restoration to Ambrose, on the morning of the fatal quarrel, of the very stick which had been found among the remains of the THE DEAD ALIVE. 397 dead man these facts and events, and a host of minor circum- stances besides, sworn to by witnesses whose credit was unimpeach- able, pointed with terrible directness to the conclusion at which the prosecution had arrived. I looked at the brothers as the weight of the evidence pressed more and more heavily against them. To outward view at least, Ambrose still maintained his self-possession. It was far otherwise with Silas. Abject terror showed itself in his ghastly face; in his great knotty hands, clinging convulsively to the bar at which he stood ; in his staring eyes, fixed in vacant horror on each witness who appeared. Public feeling judged him on the spot. There he stood, self-betrayed already, in the popular opinion, as a guilty man 1 The one point gained in cross-examination by the defense related to the charred bones. Pressed on this point, a majority of the medical witnesses admit- ted that their examination had been a hurried one ; and that it was just possible that the bones might yet prove to be the remains of an animal, and not of a man. The presiding magistrate decided upon this that a second examination should be made, and that the num- ber of the medical experts should be increased. Here the preliminary proceedings ended. The prisoners were re- manded for three days. The prostration of Silas, at the close of the inquiry, was so com- plete, that it was found necessary to have two men to support him on his leaving the court. Ambrose leaned over the bar to speak to Naomi before he followed the jailer out. " Wait," he whispered, confidently, " till they hear what I have to say !" Naomi kissed her hand to him affectionately, and turned to me with the bright tears in her eyes. " Why don't they hear what he has to say at once ?" she asked. " Any body can see that Ambrose is innocent. It's a crying shame, sir, to send him back to prison. Don't you think so yourself?" If I had confessed what I really thought, I should have said that Ambrose had proved nothing to my mind, except that he possessed rare powers of self-control. It was impossible to acknowledge this to my little friend. I diverted her mind from the question of her lover's innocence by proposing that we should get the necessary or- der, and visit him in his prison on the next day. Naomi dried her tears, and gave me a little grateful squeeze of the hand. "Oh my! what a good fellow you are!" cried the outspoken American girl. " When your time comes to be married, sir, I guess the woman won't repent saying yes to you /" Mr. Meadowcroft preserved unbroken silence as we walked back to the farm on either side of his invalid-chair. His last reserves of resolution seemed to have given way under the overwhelming strain 17 898 THE DEAD ALIVE. laid on them by the proceedings in court. His daughter, in stern indulgence to Naomi, mercifully permitted her opinion to glimmer on us only through the medium of quotation from Scripture texts. If the texts meant any thing, they meant that she had foreseen all that had happened ; and that the one sad aspect of the case, to her mind, was the death of John Jago, unprepared to meet his end. I obtained the order of admission to the prison the next morning. We found Ambrose still confident of the favorable result, for his brother and for himself, of the inquiry before the magistrate. He seemed to be almost as eager to tell, as Naomi was to hear, the true story of what had happened at the limekiln. The authorities of the prison present, of course, at the interview warned him to re- member that what he said might be taken down in writing, and produced against him in court. " Take it down, gentlemen, and welcome," Ambrose replied. " I have nothing to fear ; I am only telling the truth." With that he turned to Naomi, and began his narrative, as nearly as I can remember, in these words : " I may as well make a clean breast of it at starting, my girl. After Mr. Lefrank left us that morning, I asked Silas how he came by my stick. In telling me how, Silas also told me of the words that had passed between him and John Jago under Mr. Lefrank's window. I was angry and jealous; and I own it freely, Naomi, I thought the worst that could be thought about you and John." Here Naomi stopped him without ceremony. " Was that what made you speak to me as you spoke when we found you at the wood ?" she asked. "Yes." "And was that what made you leave me, when you went away to Narrabee, without giving me a kiss at parting ?" " It was." " Beg my pardon for it before you say a word more." " I beg your pardon." " Say you are ashamed of yourself." " I am ashamed of myself," Ambrose answered penitently. " Now you may go on," said Naomi. " Now I'm satisfied." Ambrose went on. " We were on our way to the clearing at the other side of the wood while Silas was talking to me ; and, as ill luck would have it, we took the path that led by the limekiln. Turning the corner, we met John Jago on his way to Narrabee. I was too angry, I tell you, to let him pass quietly. I gave him a bit of my mind. His blood was up too, I suppose ; and he spoke out, on his side, as free- ly as I did. I own I threatened him with the stick ; but I'll swear vo it J meant him no harm. You know after dressing Silas's hand THE DEAD ALIVE. 399 that John Jago is ready with his knife. He comes from out West, where they are always ready with one weapon or another handy in their pockets. It's likely enough he didn't mean to harm me, ei- t IK r ; but how could I be sure of that ? When he stepped up to me, and showed his weapon, I dropped the stick, and closed with him. With one hand I wrenched the knife away from him ; and with the other I caught him by the collar of his rotten old coat, and gave him a shaking that made his bones rattle in his skin. A big piece of the cloth came away in my hand. I shied it into the quicklime close by us, and I pitched the knife after the cloth; and, if Silas hadn't stopped me, I think it's likely I might have shied John Jago himself into the lime next. As it was, Silas kept hold of me. Silas shouted out to him, ' Be off with you ! and don't come back again, if you don't want to be burned in the kiln !' He stood looking at us fora minute, fetching his breath, and holding his torn coat round him. Then he spoke with a deadly-quiet voice and a deadly-quiet look : ' Many a true word, Mr. Silas,' he says, ' is spoken in jest. / xhall not come back again.'' He turned about, and left us. We stood staring at each other like a couple of fools. ' You don't think he means it ?' I says. ' Bosh !' says Silas. ' He's too sweet on Naomi not to come back.' What's the matter now, Naomi ?" I had noticed it too. She started and turned pale, when Am- brose repeated to her what Silas had said to him. " Nothing is the matter," Naomi answered. " Your brother has no right to take liberties with my name. Go on. Did Silas say any more while he was about it ?" " Yes ; he looked into the kiln ; and he says, ' What made you throw away the knife, Ambrose ?' ' How does a man know why he does any thing,' I says, 'when he does it in a passion?' 'It's a ripping good knife,' says Silas ; ' in your place, I should have kept it.' I picked up the stick off the ground. ' Who says I've lost it yet ?' I answered him ; and with that I got up on the side of the kiln, and began sounding for the knife, to bring it, you know, by means of the stick, within easy reach of a shovel, or some such thing. ' Give us your hand,' I says to Silas. ' Let me stretch out a bit, and I'll have it in no time.' Instead of finding the knife, I came nigh to falling myself into the burning lime. The vapor overpowered me, I suppose. All I know is, I turned giddy, and (IrnpjH'd the stick in the kiln. I should have followed the stick to a dead certainty, but for Silas pulling me back by the hand. ' Let it be,' says Silas. ' If I hadn't had hold of you, John Jago's knife would have been the death of you, after all 1' He led me away by the arm, and we went on together on the road to the wood. We stopped where you found us, and sat down on the fell- ed tree. We had a little more talk about John Jago. It ended in 400 THE DEAD ALIVE. our agreeing to wait and see what happened, and to keep our own counsel in the mean time. You and Mr. Lefrank came upon us, Na- omi, while we were still talking ; and you guessed right when you guessed that we had a secret from you. You know the secret now." There he stopped. I put a question to him the first that I had asked yet. " Had you or your brother any fear at that time of the charge which has since been brought against you ?" I said. "No such thought entered our heads, sir," Ambrose answered. " How could we foresee that the neighbors would search the kiln, and say what they have said of us ? All we feared was, that the old man might hear of the quarrel, and be bitterer against us than ever. I was the more anxious of the two to keep things secret, be- cause I had Naomi to consider as well as the old man. Put your- self in my place, and you will own, sir, that the prospect at home was not a pleasant one for me, if John Jago really kept away from the farm, and if it came out that it was all my doing." (This was certainly an explanation of his conduct; but it was not quite satisfactory to my mind.) "As you believe, then," I went on, "John Jago has carried out his threat of not returning to the farm ? According to you, he is now alive, and in hiding somewhere ?" " Certainly !" said Ambrose. " Certainly !" repeated Naomi. "Do you believe the report that he was seen traveling on the railway to New York ?" "I believe it firmly, sir; and, what is more, I believe I was on his track. I was only too anxious to find him ; and I say I could have found him if they would have let me stay in New York." I looked at Naomi. " I believe it too," she said. " John Jago is keeping away." " Do you suppose he is afraid of Ambrose and Silas ?" She hesitated. " He may be afraid of them," she replied, with a strong emphasis on the word " may." " But you ddn't think it likely ?" She hesitated again. I pressed her again. " Do you think there is any other motive for his absence ?" Her eyes dropped to the floor. She answered obstinately, almost doggedly, " I can't say." I addressed myself to Ambrose. " Have you any thing more to tell us ?" I asked. " No," he said. " I have told you all I know about it." I rose to speak to the lawyer whose services I had retained. He THE DEAD ALIVE. 401 had helped us to get the order of admission, and he had accompa- nied us to the prison. Seated apart, he had kept silence through- out, attentively watching the effect of Ambrose Meadowcroft's nar- rative mi the officers of the prison and on me. " Is this the defense ?" I inquired, in a whisper. " This is the defense, Mr. Lefrank. What do you think, between ourselves ?" " Between ourselves, I think the magistrate will commit them, for trial." "On the charge of murder?" " Yes, on the charge of murder." CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFESSION. MY replies to the lawyer accurately expressed the conviction in my mind. The narrative related by Ambrose had all the appear- ance, in my eyes, of a fabricated story, got up, and clumsily got up, to pervert the plain meaning of the circumstantial evidence pro- duced by the prosecution. I reached this conclusion reluctantly and regretfully, for Naomi's sake. I said all I could say to shake the absolute confidence which she felt in the discharge of the pris- oners at the next examination. The day of the adjourned inquiry arrived. Naomi and I again attended the court together. Mr. Meadow- croft was unable, on this occasion, to leave the house. His daugh- ter was present, walking to the court by herself, and occupying a seat by herself. On his second appearance at the " bar," Silas was more composed, and more like his brother. No new witnesses were called by the prosecution. We began the battle over the medical evidence rela- ting to the charred bones ; and, to some extent, we won the victory. In other words, we forced the doctors to acknowledge that they dif- fered widely in their opinions. Three confessed that they were not certain. Two went still further, and declared that the bones were the bones of an animal, not of a man. We made the most of this; and then we entered upon the defense, founded on Ambrose Mead- owcroft's story. Necessarily, no witnesses could be called on our side. Whether this circumstance discouraged him, or whether he privately shared my opinion of his client's statement, I can not say. It is only cer- tain that the lawyer spoke mechanically, doing his best, no doubt, but doing it without genuine conviction or earnestness on his own 402 THE DEAD ALIVE. pare, Naomi cast an anxious glance at me as he sat down. The girl's hand, as I took it, turned cold in mine. She saw plain signs of the failure of the defense in the look, and manner of the counsel for the prosecution ; but she waited resolutely until the presiding magistrate announced his decision. I had only too clearly foreseen what he would feel it to be his duty to do. Naomi's head dropped on my shoulder as he said the terrible words which committed Am- brose and Silas Meadowcroft to take their trial on the charge of murder. I led her out of the court into the air. As I passed the "bar," I saw Ambrose, deadly pale, looking after us as we left him : the magistrate's decision had evidently daunted him. His brother Silas had dropped in abject terror on the jailer's chair ; the miserable wretch shook and shuddered dumbly, like a cowed dog. Miss Meadowcroft returned with us to the farm, preserving un- broken silence on the way back. I could detect nothing in her bearing which suggested any compassionate feeling for the prison- ers in her stern and secret nature. On Naomi's withdrawal to her own room, we were left together for a few minutes ; and then, to my astonishment, the outwardly merciless woman showed me that she, too, was one of Eve's daughters, and could feel and suffer, in her own hard way, like the rest of us. She suddenly stepped close up to me, and laid her hand on my arm. " You are a lawyer, an't you ?" she asked. " Yes." " Have you had any experience in your profession ?" " Ten years' experience." " t)o you think " She stopped abruptly ; her hard face soften- ed; her eyes dropped to the ground. "Never mind," she said, con- fusedly. " I'm upset by all this misery, though I may not look like it. Don't notice me." She turned away. I waited, in the firm persuasion that the un- spoken question in her mind would sooner or later force its way to utterance by her lips. I was right. She came back to me unwill- ingly, like a woman acting under some influence which the utmost exertion of her will was powerless to resist. " Do you believe John Jago is still a living man ?" She put the question vehemently, desperately, as if the words rushed out of her mouth in spite of her. " I do not believe it," I answered. " Remember what John Jago has suffered at the hands of my brothers," she persisted. "Is it not in your experience that he should take a sudden resolution to leave the farm ?" I replied, as plainly as before, " It is not in my experience." THE DEAD ALIVE. 403 She stood looking at me for a moment with a face of blank de- spair ; then bowed her gray head in silence, and left me. As she crossed the room to the door, I saw her look upward ; and I heard her say to herself softly, between her teeth, " Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." It was the requiem of John Jago, pronounced by the woman who loved him. When I next saw her, her mask was on once more. Miss Meadow- croft was herself again. Miss Meadowcroft could sit by, impenetra- bly calm, while the lawyers discussed the terrible position of her brothers, with the scaffold in view as one of the possibilities of the " case." Left by myself, I began to feel uneasy about Naomi. I went up stairs, and, knocking softly at her door, made my inquiries from outside. The clear young voice answered me sadly, " I am trying to bear it : I won't distress you when we meet again." I descend- ed the stairs, feeling my first suspicion of the true nature of my in- terest in the American girl. Why had her answer brought the tears into my eyes ? I went out, walking alone, to think undisturbedly. Why did the tones of her voice dwell on my ear all the way ? Why did my hand still feel the last cold, faint pressure of her fingers when I led her out of court? I took a sudden resolution to go back to England. When I returned to the farm, it was evening. The lamp was not yet lit in the hall. Pausing to accustom my eyes to the obscurity indoors, I heard the voice of the lawyer whom we had employed for the defense speaking to some one very earnestly. " I'm not to blame," said the voice. 4< She snatched the paper out of my hand before I was aware of her." " Do you want it back ?" asked the voice of Miss Meadowcroft. " No ; it's only a copy. If keeping it will help to quiet her, let her keep it by all means. Good-evening." Saying these last words, the lawyer approached me on his way out of the house. I stopped him without ceremony ; I felt an un- governable curiosity to know more. " Who snatched the paper out of your hand ?" I asked, bluntly. The lawyer started. I had taken him by surprise. The instinct of professional reticence made him pause before he answered me. In the brief interval of silence, Miss Meadowcroft replied to my question from the other end of the hall. u Naomi Colebrook snatched the paper out of his hand." "What paper '." A door opened softly behind me. Naomi herself appeared on the threshold; Naomi herself answered my question. " I will tell you," she whispered. " Come in here." 404 THE DEAD ALIVE. One candle only was burning in the room. I looked at her by the dim light. My resolution to return to England instantly became one of the lost ideas of my life. " Good God !" I exclaimed, " what has happened now ?" She handed me the paper which she had taken from the lawyer's hand. The " copy " to which he had referred was a copy of the written confession of Silas Meadowcroft on his return to prison. He ac- cused his brother Ambrose of the murder of John Jago. He de- clared on his oath that he had seen his brother Ambrose commit the crime. In the popular phrase, I could " hardly believe my own eyes." I read the last sentences of the confession for the second time : " I heard their voices at the limekiln. They were having words about Cousin Naomi. I ran to the place to part them. I was not in time. I saw Ambrose strike the deceased a terrible blow on the head with his (Ambrose's) heavy stick. The deceased dropped without a cry. I put my hand on his heart. He was dead. I was horribly frightened. Ambrose threatened to kill me next if I said a word to any living soul. He took up the body and cast it into the quicklime, and threw the stick in after It. We went on together to the wood. We sat down on a felled tree out- side the wood. Ambrose made up the story that we were to tell if what he had done was found out. He made me repeat it after him, like a lesson. We were still at it when Cousin Naomi and Mr. Le- frank came up to us. They know the rest. This, on my oath, is a true confession. I make it of my own free-will, repenting me sin- cerely that I did not make it before. (Signed) " SILAS MEADOWCKOFT." I laid down the paper, and looked at Naomi once more. She spoke to me with a strange composure. Immovable determination was in her eye ; immovable determination was in her voice. " Silas has lied away his brother's life to save himself," she said. " I see cowardly falsehood and cowardly cruelty in every line on that paper. Ambrose is innocent, and the time has come to prove it." " You forget," I said, " that we have just failed to prove it." " John Jago is alive, in hiding from us and from all who know him," she went on. " Help me, friend Lefrank, to advertise for him in the newspapers." I drew back from her in speechless distress. I own I believed that the new misery which had fallen on her had affected her brain. " You don't believe it," she said. " Shut the door." THE DEAD ALIVE. 405 I obeyed her. She seated herself, and pointed to a chair near her. " Sit down," she proceeded. " I am going to do a wrong thing ; but there is no help for it. I am going to break a sacred promise. You remember that moonlight night when I met him on the gar- den-walk ?" " John Jago ?" " Yes. Now listen. I am going to tell you what passed between John Jago and me." CHAPTER IX. THE ADVERTISEMENT. I WAITED in silence for the disclosure that was now to come. Naomi began by asking me a question. " You remember when we went to see Ambrose in the prison ?" she said. 44 Perfectly." 44 Ambrose told us of something which his villain of a brother said of John Jago and me. Do you remember what it was ?" I remembered perfectly. Silas had said, '' John Jago is too sweet on Naomi not to come back." " That's so," Naomi remarked when I had repeated the words. 44 1 couldn't help starting when I heard what Silas had said ; and I thought you noticed me." 41 1 did notice you." 44 Did you wonder what it meant ?" " Yes." " I'll tell you. It meant this : What Silas Meadowcroft said to his brother of John Jago was what I myself was thinking of John Jago at that very moment. It startled me to find my own thought in a man's mind spoken for me by a man. I am the person, sir, who has driven John Jago away from Morwick Farm ; and I am the per- son who can and will bring him back again." There was something in her manner, more than in her words, which let the light in suddenly on my mind. "You have told me the secret," I said. "John Jago is in love with you." " Mad about me !" she rejoined, dropping her voice to a whisper. " Stark, staring mad ! that's the only word for him. After we had taken a few turns on the gravel-walk, he suddenly broke out like a man beside himself. He fell down on his knees ; he kissed my gown, he kissed my feet ; he sobbed and cried for love of me. I'm 17* 406 THE DEAD ALIVE. not badly off for courage, sir, considering I'm a woman. No man, that I can call to mind, ever really scared me before. But I own John Jago frightened me ; oh my ! he did frighten me ! My heart was in my mouth, and my knees shook under me. I begged and prayed of him to get up and go away. No; there he knelt, and held by the skirt of my gown. The words poured out from him like well, like nothing I can think of but water from a pump. His happiness and his life, and his hopes in earth and heaven, and Lord only knows what besides, all depended, he said, on a word from me. I plucked up spirit enough at that to remind him that I was promised to Ambrose. ' I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself,' I said, ' to own that you're wicked enough to love me when you know I am promised to another man !' When I spoke to him, he took a new turn ; he began abusing Ambrose. That straightened me up. I snatched my gown out of his hand, and I gave him my whole mind. ' I hate you !' I said. ' Even if I wasn't promised to Ambrose, I wouldn't marry you no ! not if there wasn't another man left in the world to ask me. I hate you, Mr. Jago ! I hate you!' He saw I was in earnest at last. He got up from my feet, and he settled down quiet again, all on a sudden. 'You have said enough ' (that was how he answered me). ' You have broken my life. I have no hopes and no prospects now. I had a pride in the farm, miss, and a pride in my work ; I bore with your brutish cousins' hatred of me ; I was faithful to Mr. Mead- owcroft's interests; all for your sake, Naomi Colebrook all for your sake ! I have done with it now; I have done with my life at the farm. You will never be troubled with me again. I am going away, as the dumb creatures go when they are sick, to hide myself in a corner, and die. Do me one last favor. Don't make me the laughing-stock of the whole neighborhood. I can't bear that ; it maddens me only to think of it. Give me your promise never to tell any living soul what I have said to you to-night your sacred promise to the man whose life you have broken !' I did as he bade me ; I gave him my sacred promise with the tears in my eyes. Yes, that is so. After telling him I hated him (and I did hate him), I cried over his misery ; I did ! Mercy, what fools women are ! What is the horrid perversity, sir, which makes us always ready to pity the men ? He held out his hand to me ; and he said, ' Good-bye forever !' and I pitied him. I said, ' I'll shake hands with you if you will give me your promise in exchange for mine. I beg of you not to leave the farm. What will my uncle do if you go away? Stay here, and be friends with me, and forget and forgive, Mr. John.' He gave me his promise (he can refuse me nothing) ; and he gave it again when I saw him again the next morning. Yes, I'll do him justice, though I do hate him ! I believe he honestly meant THE DEAD ALIVE. 407 to keep his word as long as my eye was on him. It was only when he was left to himself that the Devil tempted him to break his promise and leave the farm. I was brought up to believe in the Devil, Mr. Lefrank ; and I find it explains many things. It explains John Jago. Only let me find out where he has gone, and I'll en- gage he shall come back and clear Ambrose of the suspicion which his vile brother has cast on him. Here is the pen all ready for you. Advertise for him, friend Lefrank; and do it right away, for my sake !" I let her run on, without attempting to dispute her conclusions, until she could say no more. When she put the pen into my hand, I began the composition of the advertisement as obediently as if I, too, believed that John Jago was a living man. In the case of any one else, I should have openly acknowledged that my own convictions remained unshaken. If no quarrel had taken place at the limekiln, I should have been quite ready, as I viewed the case, to believe that John Jago's disappearance was referable to the terrible disappointment which Naomi had inflicted on him. The same morbid dread of ridicule which had led him to assert that he cared nothing for Naomi, when he and Silas had quarreled under my bedroom window, might also have impelled him to withdraw himself secretly and suddenly from the scene of his dis- comforture. But to ask me t6 belieye, after what had happened at the limekiln, that he was still living, was to ask me to take Ambrose Meadowcroffs statement for granted as a true statement of facts. I had refused to do this from the first; and I still persisted in taking that course. If I had been called upon to decide the balance of probability between the narrative related by Ambrose in his de- fense and the narrative related by Silas in his confession, I must have owned, no matter how unwillingly, that the confession was, to my mind, the least incredible story of the two. Could I say this to Naomi ? I would have written fifty advertise- ments inquiring for John Jago rather than say it ; and you would have done the same, if you had been as fond of her as I was. I drew out the advertisement, for insertion in The iforwick Mer- cury, in these terms : MURDER. Printers of newspapers throughout the United States are de- sired to publish that Ambrose Meadowcroft and Silas Meadoweroft, of Mor- wick Farm, Morwick County, are committed for trial on the charge of mur- dering John Jago, now missing from the farm and from the neighborhood. Any person who can give information of the existence of said Jago may save the lives of two wrongly-accused men by making immediate communica- tion. Jago is about five feet four inches high. He is spare and wiry; his complexion is extremely pale ; his eyes are dark, and v-ry bright and rest- less. The lower part of his face is concealed by a thick black beard and mustache. The whole appearance of the man is wild and flighty. 408 THE DEAD ALIVE. I added the date and the address. That evening a servant was sent on horseback to Narrabee to procure the insertion of the ad- vertisement in the next issue of the newspaper. When we parted that night, Naomi looked almost like her bright- er and happier self. Now that the advertisement was on its way to the printing-office, she was more than sanguine : she was certain of the result. " You don't know how you have comforted me," she said, in her frank, warm-hearted way, when we parted for the night. " All the newspapers will copy it, and we shall hear of John Jago before the week is out." She turned to go, and came back again to me. " I will never forgive Silas for writing that confession !" she whispered in my ear. " If he ever lives under the same roof with Ambrose again, I well, I believe I wouldn't marry Ambrose if he did! There !" She left me. Through the wakeful hours of the night my mind dwelt on her last words. That she should contemplate, under any circumstances, even the bare possibility of not marrying Ambrose, was, I am ashamed to say, a direct encouragement to certain hopes which I had already begun to form in secret. The next day's mail brought me a letter on business. My clerk wrote to inquire if there was any chance of my returning to England in time to appear in court at the opening of next law term. I answered, without hesita- tion, "It is still impossible for me to fix the date of my return." Naomi was in the room while I was writing. How would she have answered, I wonder, if I had told her the truth, and said, " You are responsible for this letter ?" CHAPTER X. THE SHERIFF AND THE GOVERNOR. THE question of time was now a serious question at Morwick Farm. In six weeks the court for the trial of criminal cases was to be opened at Narrabee. During this interval no new event of any importance occurred. Many idle letters reached us relating to the advertisement for John Jago; but no positive information was received. Not the slightest trace of the lost man turned up ; not the shadow of a doubt was cast on the assertion of the prosecution, that his body had been destroyed in the kiln. Silas Meadowcroft held firmly to the horrible confession that he had made. His brother Ambrose, with equal resolution, asserted his innocence, and reiterated the statement which he had already advanced. At regular periods I ac- THE DEAD ALIVE. 409 companied Naomi to visit him in the prison. As the day appoint- ed for the opening of the court approached, he seemed to falter a little in his resolution ; his manner became restless ; and he grew irritably suspicious about the merest trifles. This change did not necessarily imply the consciousness of guilt : it might merely have indicated natural nervoms agitation as the time for the trial drew near. Naomi noticed the alteration in her lover. It greatly in- creased her anxiety, though it never shook her confidence in Am- brose. Except at meal-times, I was left, during the period of which I am now writing, almost constantly alone with the charming Ameri- can girl. Miss Meadowcroft searched the newspapers for tidings of the living John Jago in the privacy of her own room. Mr. Mead- owcroft would see nobody but his daughter and his doctor, and oc- casionally one or two old friends. I have since had reason to be- lieve that Naomi, in these days of our intimate association, discover- ed the true nature of the feeling with which she had inspired me. But she kept her secret. Her manner toward me steadily remained the manner of a sister; she never overstepped by a hair -breadth the safe limits of the character that she had assumed. The sittings of the court began. After hearing the evidence, and examining the confession of Silas Mendowcroft, the grand jury found a true bill against both the prisoners. The day appointed for their trial was the first day in the new week. I had carefully prepared Naomi's mind for the decision of the grand jury. She bore the new blow bravely. " If you are not tired of it," she said, " come with me to the pris- on to-morrow. Ambrose will need a little comfort by that time." She paused, and looked at the day's letters lying on the table. " Still not a word about John Jago," she said. "And all the papers have copied the advertisement. I felt so sure we should hear of him long before this !" " Do you still feel sure that he is living ?" I ventured to ask. " I am as certain of it as ever," she replied, firmly. " He is some- where in hiding ; perhaps he is in disguise. Suppose we know no more of him than we know now when the trial begins ? Suppose the jury She stopped, shuddering. Death shameful death on the scaffold might be the terrible result of the consultation of the jury. "We have waited for news to come to us long enough," Na- omi resumed. " We must find the tracks of John Jago for our- selves. There is a week yet before the trial begins. Who will help me to make inquiries? Will you be the man, friend Lefrank '." It is needless to add (though I knew nothing would come of it) that I consented to be the man. We arranged to apply that day for the order of admission to the prison, and, having seen Ambrose, to devote ourselves immediately 410 THE DEAD ALIVE. to the contemplated search. How that search was to be conducted was more than I could tell, and more than Naomi could tell. We were to begin by applying to the police to help us to find John Jago, and we were then to be guided by circumstances. Was there ever a more hopeless programme than this ? " Circumstances " declared themselves against us at starting. I applied, as usual, for the order of admission to the prison, and the order was for the first time refused ; no reason being assigned by the persons in authority for taking this course. Inquire as I might, the only answer given was, " not to-day." At Naomi's suggestion, we went to the prison to seek the expla- nation which was refused to us at the office. The jailer on duty at the outer gate was one of Naomi's many admirers. He solved the mystery cautiously in a whisper. The sheriff and the governor of the prison were then speaking privately with Ambrose Meadow- croft in his cell ; they had expressly directed that no persons should be admitted to see the prisoner that day but themselves. What did it mean ? We returned, wondering, to the farm. There Naomi, speaking by chance to one of the female servants, made cer- tain discoveries. Early that morning the sheriff had been brought to Morwick by an old friend of the Meadowcrofts. A long interview had been held between Mr. Meadowcroft and his daughter and the official personage introduced by the friend. Leaving the farm, the sheriff had gone straight to the prison, and had proceeded with the gov- ernor to visit Ambrose in his cell. Was some potent influence be- irtg brought privately to bear on Ambrose ? Appearances certainly suggested that inquiry. Supposing the influence to have been real- ly exerted, the next question followed, What was the object in view ? We could only wait and see. Our patience was not severely tried. The event of the next day enlightened us in a very unexpected manner. Before noon, the neighbors brought startling news from the prison to the farm. Ambrose Meadowcroft had confessed himself to be the murderer of John Jago ! He had signed the confession in the presence of the sheriff and the governor on that very day ! I saw the document. It is needless to reproduce it here. In sub- stance, Ambrose confessed what Silas had confessed ; claiming, how- ever, to have only struck Jago under intolerable provocation, so as to reduce the nature of his offense against the law from murder to manslaughter. Was the confession really the true statement of what had taken place ? or Had the sheriff and the governor, acting in the interests of the family name, persuaded Ambrose to try this des- perate means of escaping the ignominy of death on the scaffold ? The sheriff and the governor preserved impenetrable silence until TUB DEAD ALIVE. 411 the pressure put on them judicially at the trial obliged them to speak. Who was to tell Naomi of this last and saddest of all the calam- ities which had fallen on her ? Knowing how I loved her in secret, I felt an invincible reluctance to be the person who revealed Am- brose MeadowcrofVs degradation to his betrothed wife. Had any other member of the family told her what had happened ? The law- yer was able to answer me ; Miss Meadowcroft had told her. I was shocked when I heard it. Miss Meadowcroft was the last person in the house to spare the poor girl ; Miss Meadowcroft would make the hard tidings doubly terrible to bear in the telling. I tried to find Naomi, without success. She had been always accessible at other times. Was she hiding herself from me now ? The idea oc- curred to me as I was descending the stairs after vainly knocking it the door of her room. I was determined to see her. I waited a few minutes, and then ascended the stairs again suddenly. On the landing I met her, just leaving her room. She tried to run back. I caught her by the arm, and detained her. With her free hand she held her handkerchief over her face so as to hide it from me. " You once told me I had comforted you," I said to her, gently. " Won't you let me comfort you now ?" 3he still struggled to get away, and still kept her head turned from me. " Don't you see that I am ashamed to look you in the face?" she siid. in low, broken tones. " Let me go." I still persisted in trying to soothe her. I drew her to the win- dow-seat. I eaid I would wait until she was able to speak to me. She dropped on the seat, and wrung her hands on her lap. Her downcast eyes still obstinately avoided meeting mine. " Oh !" he said to herself, " what madness possessed me ? Is it p<>-vil>le that I ever disgraced myself by loving Ambrose Meadow- rrott '"' She shuddered as the idea found its way to expression on her lips. The tears rolled slowly over her cheeks. " Don't despise inc. Mr. Lefrank !" she said, faintly. I tried, honestly tried, to put the confession before her in its least unfavorable light. " His resolution has given way," I said. " He has done this, de- spairing of proving his innocence, in terror of the scaffold." She rose, with an angry stamp of her foot. She turned her face on me with the deep-red flush of shame in it, and the big tears glis- tening in her eyes. " No more of him !" she said, sternly. " If he is not a murderer, what else is he ? A liar and a coward ! In which of his characters does he disgrace me most ? I have done with him forever 1 I will 412 THE DEAD ALIVE. never speak to him again!" She pushed me furiously away from her; advanced a few steps toward her own door; stopped, and came back to me. The generous nature of the girl spoke in her next words. " I am not ungrateful to you, friend Lefrank. A wom- an in my place is only a woman ; and, when she is shamed as I am, she feels it very bitterly. Give me your hand ! God bless you !" She put my hand to her lips before I was aware of her, and kissed it, and ran back into her room. I sat down on the place which she had occupied. She had look- ed at me for one moment when she kissed my hand. I forgot Am- brose and his confession ; I forgot the coming trial ; I forgot my professional duties and my English friends. There I sat, in a fool's elysium of my own making, with absolutely nothing in my mind but the picture of Naomi's face at the moment when she had last looked at me ! I have already mentioned that I was in love with her. I merely add this to satisfy you that I tell the truth. CHAPTER XL THE PEBBLE AND THE WINDOW. Miss MEADOWCROFT and I were the only representatives of the family at the farm who attended the trial. We went separately to Narrabee. Excepting the ordinary greetings at morning and night, Miss Meadowcroft had not said one word to me since the time when I had told her that I did not believe John Jago to be a living man. I have purposely abstained from encumbering my narrative with legal details. I now propose to state the nature of the defense in the briefest outline only. We insisted on making both the prisoners plead not guilty. This done, we took an objection to the legality of the proceedings at starting. We appealed to the old English law, that there should be no conviction for murder until the body of the murdered person was found, or proof of its destruction obtained beyond a doubt. We de- nied that sufficient proof had been obtained in the case now before the court. The judges consulted, and decided that the trial should go on. We took our next objection when the confessions were produced in evidence. We declared that they had been extorted by terror, or by undue influence ; and we pointed out certain minor particu- lars in which the two confessions failed to corroborate each other. For the rest, our defense on this occasion was, as to essentials, what our defense had been at the inquiry before the magistrate. Once THE DEAD ALIVE. 413 more the judges consulted, and once more they overruled our ob- jection. The confessions were admitted in evidence. On their side, the prosecution produced one new witness in sup- port of their case. It is needless to waste time in recapitulating his evidence. He contradicted himself gravely on cross-examination. We showed plainly, and after investigation proved, that he was not to be believed on his oath. The chief-justice summed up. He charged, in relation to the confessions, that no weight should be attached to a confession incited by hope or fear ; and he left it to the jury to determine whether the confessions in this case had been so influenced. In the course of the trial, it had been shown for the defense that the sheriff and the governor of the prison had told Ambrose, with his father's knowledge and sanction, that the case was clearly against him ; that the only chance of sparing his family the disgrace of his death by public execution lay in making a con- fession ; and that they would do their best, if he did confess, to have his sentence commuted to transportation for life. As for Silas, he was proved to have been beside himself with terror when he made his abominable charge against his brother. We had vainly trusted to the evidence on these two points to induce the court to reject the confessions ; and we were destined to be once more disappoint- ed in anticipating that the same evidence would influence the ver- dict of the jury on the side of mercy. After an absence of an hour, they returned into court with a verdict of " Guilty " against both the prisoners. Being asked in due form if they had any thing to say in mitiga- tion of their sentence, Ambrose and Silas solemnly declared their innocence, and publicly acknowledged that their respective confes- sions had been wrung from them by the hope of escaping the hang- man's hands. This statement was not noticed by the bench. The prisoners were both sentenced to death. On my return to the farm, I did not sec Naomi. Miss Meadow- croft informed her of the result of the trial. Half an hour later, one of the women-servants handed to me an envelope bearing my name on it in Naomi's handwriting. The envelope inclosed a letter, and with it a slip of paper on which Naomi had hurriedly written these words: "For God's sake, read the letter I send to you, and do something about it immedi- ately !" I looked at the letter. It assumed to be written by a gentleman in New York. Only the day before, he had, by the merest acci- dent, seen the advertisement for John Jago cut out of a newspaper and pasted into a book of "curiosities" kept by a friend. Upon this he wrote to Morwick Farm to say that he had seen a man ex- 414 THE DEAD ALIVB. actly answering to the description of John Jago, but bearing an- other name, working as a clerk in a merchant's office in Jersey City. Having time to spare before the mail went out, he had returned to the office to take another look at the man before he posted his let- ter. To his surprise, he was informed that the clerk had not ap- peared at his desk that day. His employer had sent to his lodg- ings, and had been informed that he had suddenly packed up his hand-bag after reading the newspaper at breakfast ; had paid his rent honestly, and had gone away, nobody knew where ! It was late in the evening when I read these lines. I had time for reflection before it would be necessary for me to act. Assuming the letter to be genuine, and adopting Naomi's expla- nation of the motive which had led John Jago to absent himself se- cretly from the farm, I reached the conclusion that the search for him might be usefully limited to Narrabee and to the surrounding neighborhood. The newspaper at his breakfast had no doubt given him his first information of the " finding " of the grand jury, and of the trial to follow. It was in my experience of human nature that he should venture back to Narrabee under these circumstances, and under the influence of his infatuation for Naomi. More than this, it was again in my experience, I am sorry to say, that he should attempt to make the critical position of Ambrose a means of extorting Naomi's con- sent to listen favorably to his suit. Cruel indifference to the injury and the suffering which his sudden absence might inflict on others was plainly implied in his secret withdrawal from the farm. The same cruel indifference, pushed to a further extreme, might well lead him to press his proposals privately on Naomi, and to fix her acceptance of them as the price to be paid for saving her cousin's life. To these conclusions I arrived after much thinking. I had de- termined, on Naomi's account, to clear the matter up ; but it is only candid to add, that my doubts of John Jago's existence remained unshaken by the letter. I believed it to be nothing more nor less than a heartless and stupid " hoax." The striking of the hall-clock roused me from my meditations. I counted the strokes midnight ! I rose to go up to my room. Every body else in the farm had retired to bed, as usual, more than an hour since. The stillness in the house was breathless. I walked softly, by instinct, as I crossed the room to look out at the night. A lovely moonlight met my view ; it was like the moonlight on the fatal evening when Naomi had met John Jago on the garden walk. My bedroom candle was on the side-table ; I had just lighted it. Till: DEAD Al.IVK. 415 I was just leaving the room, when the door suddenly opened, and Naomi herself stood before me ! Recovering the first shock of her sudden appearance, I saw in- stantly in her eager eyes, in her deadly-pale cheeks, that something serious had happened. A large cloak was thrown over her ; a white handkerchief was tied over her head. Her hair was in disorder; she had evidently just risen in fear and in haste from her bed. " What is it ?" I asked, advancing to meet her. She clung, trembling with agitation, to my arm. " John Jago !'' she whispered. You will think my obstinacy invincible. I could hardly believe it, even then ! " Where ?'' I asked. "In the back yard," she replied, "under my bedroom window !" The emergency was far too serious to allow of any consideration for the small proprieties of every-day life. " Let me see him !" I said. " I am here to fetch you," she answered, in her frank and fearless way. " Come up stairs with me." Her room was on the first floor of the house, and was the only bedroom which looked out on the back yard. On our way up the stairs she told me what had happened. " I was in bed," she said, " but not asleep, when I heard a peb- ble strike against the window-pane. I waited, wondering what it meant. Another pcb'ile was thrown against the glass. So far,' I was surprised, but not frightened. I got up, and ran to the window to look out. There was John Jago looking up at me in the moon- light !" " Did he see you ?" "Yes. He said, '-Come down and speak to me! I have some- thing serious to say to you !' " " Did you answer him ?" " As soon as I could fetch my breath, I said, ' Wait a little,' and ran down stairs to you. What shall I do ?" "Let me see him, and I will tell you." We entered her room. Keeping cautiously behind the window- curtain, I looked out. There he was! His beard and mustache were shaved off; his hair was close cut. But there was no disguising his wild, brown eyes, or the peculiar movement of his spare, wiry figure, as he walk- ed slowly to and fro in the moonlight waiting for Naomi. For the moment, my >\vn 'imitation almost overpowered me ; I had so firmly disbelieved that John Jago was a living man ! " What shall I do ?" Naomi repeated. " la the door of the dairy open ?" I asked. 416 THE DEAD ALIVE. "No; but the door of the tool -house, round the corner, is not locked." " Very good. Show yourself at the window, and say to him, ' I am coming directly.' " The brave girl obeyed me without a moment's hesitation. There had been no doubt about his eyes and his gait ; there was no doubt now about his voice, as he answered softly from below, "All right!" " Keep him talking to you where he is now," I said to Naomi, " until I have time to get round by the other way to the tool-house. Then pretend to be fearful of discovery at the dairy, and bring him round the corner, so that I can hear him behind the door." We left the house together, and separated silently. Naomi fol- lowed my instructions with a woman's quick intelligence where stratagems are concerned. I had hardly been a minute in the tool- house before I heard him speaking to Naomi on the other side of the door. The first words which I caught distinctly related to his motive for secretly leaving the farm. Mortified pride doubly mortified by Naomi's contemptuous refusal, and by the personal indignity offered to him by /jab.xse was at the bottom of his conduct in absenting himself from Morwick. He owned that he had seen the advertise- ment, and that it had actually encouraged him to keep in hiding ! "After being laughed at and insulted and denied, I was glad," said the miserable wretch, " to see that some of you had serious rea- son to wish me back again. It rests with you, Miss Naomi, to keep me here, and to persuade me to save Ambrose by showing myself and owning to my name." " What do you mean ?" I heard Naomi ask, sternly. He lowered his voice ; but I could still hear -him. " Promise you will marry me," he said, " and I will go before the magistrate to-morrow, and show him that I am a living man." " Suppose I refuse ?" " In that case you will lose me again, and none of you will find me till Ambrose is hanged." " Are you villain enough, John Jago, to mean what you say ?" asked the girl, raising her voice. " If you attempt to give the alarm," he answered, " as true as God's above us, you will feel my hand on your throat ! It's my turn now, miss ; and I am not to be trifled with. Will you have me for your husband yes or no ?" " No !" she answered, loudly and firmly. I burst open the door, and seized him as he lifted his hand on her. He had not suffered from the nervous derangement which had weakened me, and he was the stronger man of the two. Naomi THE DEAD ALIVE. 417 saved my life. She struck up his pistol as he pulled it out of his pocket with his free hand and presented it at my head. The bullet was fired into the air. I tripped up his heels at the same moment. The report of the pistol had alarmed the house. We two together kept him on the ground until help arrived. CHAPTER THE END OF IT. JOHN JAGO was brought before the magistrate, and John Jago was identified the next day. The lives of Ambrose and Silas were, of course, no longer in peril, so far as human justice was concerned. But there were legal delays to be encountered, and legal formalities to be observed, before the brothers could be released from prison in the characters of innocent men. During the interval which thus elapsed, certain events happened which may be briefly mentioned here before I close my narrative. Mr. Meadowcroft the elder, broken by the suffering which he had gone through, died suddenly of a rheumatic affection of the heart. A codicil attached to his will abundantly justified what Naomi had told me of Miss MeadowcrofVs influence over her father, and of the end she had in view in exercising it. A life income only was left to Mr. MeadowcrofVs sons. The freehold of the farm was bequeath- ed to his daughter, with the testator's recommendation added, that she should marry his " best and dearest friend, Mr. John Jago." Armed with the power of the will, the heiress of Morwick sent an insolent message to Naomi, requesting her no longer to consider herself one of the inmates at the farm. Miss Meadowcroft, it should be here added, positively refused to believe that John Jago had ever asked Naomi to be his wife, or had ever threatened her, as I had heard him threaten her, if she refused. She accused me, as she accused Naomi, of trying meanly to injure John Jago in her estima- tion, out of hatred toward " that much-injured man ;" and she sent to me, as she had sent to Naomi, a formal notice to leave the house. We two banished ones met the same day in the hall, with our traveling-bags in our hands. ' We are turned out together, friend Lefrank," said Naomi, with her quaintly-comical smile. " You will go back to England, I guess ; and I must make my own living in my own country. Women can get employment in the States if they have a friend to speak for them. Where shall I find somebody who can give me a place ?" I saw my way to saying the right word at the right moment. 418 THE DEAD ALIVE. " I have got a place to offer you," I replied. She suspected nothing, so far. " That's lucky, sir," was all she said. " Is it in a telegraph-office or in a dry-goods store ?" I astonished rny little American friend by taking her then and there in my arms, and giving her my first kiss. " The office is by my fireside," I said ; " the salary is any thing in reason you like to ask me for ; and the place, Naomi, if you have no objection to it, is the place of my wife," I have no more to say, except that years have passed since I spoke those words, and that I am as fond of Naomi as ever. Some months after our marriage, Mrs. Lefrank wrote to a friend at Narrabee for news of what was going on at the farm. The an- swer informed us that Ambrose and Silas had emigrated to New Zealand, and that Miss Meadowcroft was alone at Morwick Farm. John Jago had refused to marry her. John Jago had disappeared again, nobody knew where. NOTE IN CONCLUSION. The first idea of this little story was suggested to the author by a printed account of a trial which actually took place, early in the present century, in the United States. The published narrative of this strange case is entitled "The Trial, Confessions, and Conviction of Jesse and Stephen Boom for the Murder of Russell Colvin, and the Return of the Man supposed to have been murdered. By Hon. Leonard Sargeant, Ex -Lieutenant -Governor of Vermont. (Manchester, Vermont, Jmirnal Book and Job Office, 1873.)" It may not be amiss to add, for the benefit of incredulous readers, that all the "improbable events" in the story are matters of fact, taken from the printed narrative. Any thing which " looks like truth" is, in nine cases out often, the invention of the author. W. C. THE FATAL CRADLE THE FATAL CRADLE : OTHERWISE, THE HEART-RENDING STORY OF MR. HEAVYSIDES. THERE has never yet been discovered a man with a grievance who objected to mention it. I am no exception to this general 1m- 111:111 rule. I have got a grievance, and I don't object to mention it. ('impose your spirits to hear a pathetic story, and kindly picture me in your own mind as a baby five minutes old. Do I understand you to say that I am ^oo big and too heavy to lie pictured in any body's mind as a baby? Perhaps I may lx? but don't mention my weight again, if you please. My weight has been the grand misfortune of my life. It spoiled all my prospects (as you will presently hear) before I was two days old. My story begins thirty-one years ago, at eleven o'clock in the fore- noon, and starts with the great mistake of my first appearance in this world, at sea, on board the merchant ship Adventure, Captain (Jillop, five hundred tons burden, coppered, and carrying an experi- enced surgeon. In presenting myself to you (which I am now about to do) at that eventful period of my life when I was from five to ten minutes old. and in withdrawing myself again from your notice (so as not to trouble you with more than a short story) before the time when I cut my tirst tooth, I need not hesitate to admit that I speak on hear- -:iy knowledge only. It is knowledge, however, that may be relied on. tor all that. My information comes from Captain Gillop, com- mander of the Atlrtnture (who sent it to me in the form of a letter) ; I'roin Mr. Jolly, experienced surgeon of the Adventure (who wrote it for me most unfeelingly, as I think in the shape of a humorous narrative): and from Mrs. Drabble, stewardess of the Adventure (who told it me by word of mouth). Those three persons were, in various decrees, spectators - -I may say astonished spectators of the events which I have now to relate. The .\ilriutiin\\\\. the time I speak of. was bound out from London to Australia. I suppose you know without my telling you that thir- ty years ago was long before the time of the gold-finding and the 18 420 THE FATAL CRADLE. famous clipper ships. Building in the new colony and sheep-farm- ing far up inland were the two main employments of those days, and the passengers on board our vessel were consequently builders or sheep-farmers, almost to a man. A ship of five hundred tons, well loaded with cargo, doesn't offer first-rate accommodation to a large number of passengers. Not that the gentlefolks in the cabin had any great reason to complain. There the passage-money, which was a good round sum, kept them what you call select. One or two berths in this part of the ship were even empty and going a-begging, in consequence of there be- ing only four cabin passengers. These are their names and descrip- tions : Mr. Sims, a middle - aged man, going out on a building specula- tion ; Mr. Purling, a weakly young gentleman, sent on a long sea- voyage, for the benefit of his health ; and Mr. and Mrs. Smallchild, a young married couple, with a little independence, which Mr. Small- child proposed to make a large one by sheep-forming. This gentleman was reported to the captain as being very good company when on shore. But the sea altered him to a certain ex- tent. When Mr. Smallchild was not sick, he was eating and drink- ing ; and when he was not eating and drinking, he was fast asleep. He was perfectly patient and good-humored, and wonderfully nim- ble at running into his cabin when the qualms took him on a sud- den ; but, as for his being good company, nobody heard him say ten words together all through the voyage. And no wonder. A man can't talk in the qualms; a man can't talk while he is eating and drinking; and a man can't talk when he is asleep. And that was Mr. Smallchild's life. As for Mrs. Smallchild, she kept her cabin from first to last. But you will hear more of her presently. These four cabin passengers, as I have already remarked, were well enough off for their accommodation. But the miserable peo- ple in the steerage a poor place at the best of times on board the Adventure were all huddled together, men and women and chil- dren, higgledy-piggledy, like sheep in a pen, except that they hadn't got the same quantity of fine fresh air to blow over them. They were artisans and farm-laborers, who couldn't make it out in the Old Country. I have no information either of their exact numbers or of their names. It doesn't matter; there was only one family among them which need be mentioned particularly namely, the family of the Heavysides. To wit, Simon Heavysides, intelligent and well-educated, a carpenter by trade; Susan Heavysides, his wife ; and seven little Heavysides, their unfortunate offspring. My father and mother and brothers and sisters, did I understand you to eay ? Don't be in a hurry ! I recommend you to wait a little be- fore you make quite sure of that circumstance. THE FATAL CRADLE. 421 Though I myself had not, perhaps, strictly speaking, come on board when the vessel left London, my ill luck, as I firmly believe, had shipped in tin- A'/r, /,(>//> to wait for me and decided the na- ture of the voyage accordingly. Never was such a miserable time known. Stormy weather came down on us from all points of the compass, with intervals of light, baffling winds or dead calms. By the time the Adventure had been three months out, Captain Gillop's naturally sweet temper began to get soured. I leave you to say whether it was likely to be much improved by a piece of news which reached him from the region of the cabin on the morning of the ninety-first day. It had fallen to a dead calm again ; and the ship was rolling about helpless, with her head all round the compass, when Mr. Jolly (from whose facetious narrative I repeat all conversations exactly as they passed) came on deck to the captain, and addressed him in these words : " I have got some news that will rather surprise you," said Mr. Jolly, smiling and rubbing his hands. (Although the experienced surgeon has not shown much sympathy for my troubles, I won't deny that his disposition was as good as his name. To this day no amount of bad weather or hard work can upset Mr. Jolly's temper.) " If it's news of a fair wind coming," grumbled the captain, " that would surprise me on board this ship, I can promise you !" " It's not exactly a wind coming," said Mr. Jolly. " It's another cabin passenger." The captain looked round at the empty sea, with the land thou- sands of miles away, and with not a ship in sight turned sharply on the experienced surgeon eyed him hard changed color sud- denly and asked what he meant. " I mean there's a fifth cabin passenger coming on board," per- sisted Mr. Jolly, grinning from ear to ear "introduced by Mrs. Smallchild likely to join us, I should say, toward evening size, nothing to speak of sex, not known at present manners and cus- toms, probably squally." " Do you really mean it ?" asked the captain, backing away, and turning paler and paler. " Yes, I do," answered Mr. Jolly, nodding hard at him. " Then I'll tell you what," cried Captain Gillop. suddenly flying into a violent passion, " I won't have it ! the infernal weather has worried me out of my life and soul already and I won't have it ! Put it off, Jolly tell her there isn't room enough for that sort of thing on board my vessel. What does she mean by taking us all in in this way ? Shameful ! Shameful !" " No ! no !" remonstrated Mr. Jolly. " Don't look at it in that light. It's her first child, poor thing. How should she know ? Give her a little more experience, and I dare say " 422 THE FATAL CRADLE. " Where's her husband ?" broke in the captain, with a threatening look. " I'll speak my mind to her husband, at any rate." Mr. Jolly consulted his watch before he answered. " Half-past eleven," he said. " Let me consider a little. It's Mr. Smallchild's regular time just now for squaring accounts with the sea. He'll have done in a quarter of an hour. In five minutes more he'll be fast asleep. At one o'clock he'll eat a hearty lunch, and go to sleep again. At half-past two he'll square accounts as before and so on till night. You'll make nothing out of Mr. Smallchild, captain. Extraordinary man wastes tissue, and repairs it again perpetually, in the most astonishing manner. If we are another month at sea, I believe we shall bring him into port totally coma- tose. Halloo ! What do you want ?" The steward's mate had approached the quarter-deck while the doctor was speaking. Was it a curious coincidence ? This man also was grinning from ear to ear, exactly like Mr. Jolly. " You're wanted in the steerage, sir," said the steward's mate to the doctor. " A woman taken bad, name of Heavysides." "Nonsense!" cried Mr. Jolly. "Ha, ha, ha! You don't mean eh?" " That's it, sir, sure enough," said the steward's mate, in the most positive manner. Captain Gillop looked all around him in silent desperation ; lost his sea-legs for the first time these twenty years; staggered back till he was brought all standing by the side of his own vessel , dashed his fist on the bulwark, and found language to express himself in, at the same moment. "This ship is bewitched," said the captain, wildly. "Stop!" he called out, recovering himself a little as the doctor bustled away to the steerage. " Stop ! If it's true, Jolly, send her husband here aft to me. Damme, I'll have it out with one of the husbands !" said the captain, shaking his fist viciously at the empty air. Ten minutes passed ; and then there came staggering toward the captain, tottering this way and that with the rolling of the becalmed vessel, a long, lean, 'melancholy, light - haired man, with a Roman nose, a watery blue eye, and a complexion profusely spotted with large brown freckles. This was Simon Heavysides, the intelligent carpenter, with the wife and the family of seven small children on board. " Oh ! you're the Man, are you ?" said the captain. The ship lurched heavily ; and Simon Heavysides staggered away with a run to the opposite side of the deck, as if he preferred going straight overboard into the sea to answering the captain's question. "You're the man -are you?" repeated the captain, following him, seizing him by the collar, and pinning him up fiercely against the THE FATAL CRADLE. 4J ) bulwark. "It's your wife is it? You infernal rascal! what do you mean by turning my ship into a lying-in hospital? You have rommitteil an act of mutiny ; or, if it isn't mutiny, it's next door to it. I've put a inan in irons for less ! I've more than half a mind to put you in irons! Hold up, you slippery lubber! What do you mean by bringing passengers I don't bargain for on board my ves- sel? What have you got to say for yourself, before I clap the irons on you ?" "Nothing, sir," answered Simon Heavysides, accepting the cap- tain's strong language without a word of protest. "As for the pun- ishment you mentioned just now, sir," continued Simon, "I wish to say having seven children more than I know how to provide for, and an eighth coming to make things worse I respectfully wish to say, sir, that my mind is in irons already; and I don't know as it will make much difference if you put my body in irons along with it." The captain mechanically let go of the carpenter's collar; the mild despair of the man melted him in spite of himself. " Why did you come to sea ? Why didn't you wait ashore till it was all over ?" asked the captain, as sternly as he could. " It's no use waiting, sir," remarked Simon. " In our line of life, as soon as it's over it begins again. There's no end to it that I can see," said the miserable carpenter, after a moment's meek consider- ation " except the grave." " Who's talking about the grave ?" cried Mr. Jolly, coming up at that moment. " It's births we've got to do with on board this vessel not burials. Captain Gillop, this woman, Mrs. Heavysides, can't be left in your crowded steerage in her present condition. She must be moved off into one of the empty berths and the sooner the better, I can tell you !" The captain began to look savage again. A steerage passenger in one of his " state-rooms " was a nautical anomaly subversive of all discipline. He eyed the carpenter once more, as if he was mentally measuring him for a set of irons. " I'm very sorry, sir," Simon remarked, politely " very sorry that any inadvertence of mine or Mrs. Heavysides ' " Take your long carcass and your long tongue forward !" thun- dnvd the captain. " When talking will mend matters, I'll send for you arain. Give your own orders, Jolly," he went on, resignedly, as Simon staggered off. " Turn the ship into a nursery as soon as you like '." Five minutes later so expeditious was Mr. Jolly Mrs. Heavy- sides appeared horizontally on deck, shrouded in blankets, and sup- ported by three men. When this intcn >tinu r procession passed the captain, he shrank aside from it with as vivid an appearance of hor- 424 THE FATAL CKADLB. ror as if a wild bull was being carried by him instead of a British matron. The sleepingrberths below opened on either side out of the main cabin. On the left-hand side (looking toward the ship's bowsprit) was Mrs. Smallchild. On the right-hand side, opposite to her, the doctor established Mrs. Heavysides. A partition of canvas was next run up, entirely across the main cabin. The smaller of the two temporary rooms thus made lay nearest the stairs leading on deck, and was left free to the public. The larger was kept sacred to the doctor and his mysteries. When an old clothes-basket, emptied, cleaned, and comfortably lined with blankets (to serve for a make- shift cradle), had been in due course of time carried into the inner cabin, and had been placed midway between the two sleeping- berths, so as to be easily producible when wanted, the outward and visible preparations of Mr. Jolly were complete ; the male passengers had all taken refuge on deck; and the doctor and the stewardess were left in undisturbed possession of the lower regions. While it was still early in the afternoon the weather changed for the better. For once in a way, the wind came from a fair quarter, and the Adventure bowled along pleasantly before it almost on an even keel. Captain Gillop mixed with the little group of male pas- sengers on the quarter-deck, restored to his sweetest temper; and set them his customary example, after dinner, of smoking a cigar. " If this fine weather lasts, gentlemen," he said, " we shall make out very well with our meals up here, and we shall have our two small extra cabin passengers christened on dry land in a week's time, if their mothers approve of it. How do you feel in your mind, sir, about your good lady ?" Mr. Smallchild (to whom the inquiry was addressed) had his points of external personal resemblance to Simon Heavysides. He was neither so tall nor so lean, certainly but he, too, had a Roman nose, and light hair, and watery blue eyes. With careful reference to his peculiar habits at sea, he had been placed conveniently close to the bulwark, and had been raised on a heap of old sails and cushions, so that he could easily get his head over the ship's side when occasion required. The food and drink which assisted in "restoring his tissue," when he was not asleep and not "squaring accounts with the sea," lay close to his hand. It was then a little after three o'clock ; and the snore with which Mr. Smallchild an- swered the captain's inquiry showed that he had got round again, with the regularity of clock-work, to the period of the day when he recruited himself with sleep. " What an insensible blockhead that man is !" said Mr. Sims, the middle-aged passenger, looking across the deck contemptuously at Mr. Smallchild. THE FATAL CRADLE. 423 "If the sea had the same effect on you that it has on him," re- torted the invalid passenger, Mr. Purling, " you would just be as in- sensible yourself." Mr. Purling (who was a man of sentiment) disagreed with Mr. Sims (who was a man of business) on every conceivable subject, all through the voyage. Before, however, they could continue the dis- pute about Mr. Smallchild, the doctor surprised them by appearing from the cabin. " Any news from below, Jolly ?" asked the captain, anxiously. "None whatever," answered the doctor. "I've come to idle the afternoon away up here, along with the rest of you." As events turned out, Mr. Jolly idled away an hour and a half exactly. At the end of that time Mrs. Drabble, the stewardess, appeared with a face of mystery, and whispered, nervously, to the doctor, "Please to step below directly, sir." " Which of them is it ?" asked Mr. Jolly. " Both of them," answered Mrs. Drabble, emphatically. The doctor looked grave ; the stewardess looked frightened. The two immediately disappeared together. " I suppose, gentlemen," said Captain Gillop, addressing Mr. Pur- ling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, who had just joined the party "I suppose it's only fit and proper, in the turn things have taken, to shake up Mr. Smallchild ? And I don't doubt but what we ought to have the other husband handy, as a sort of polite atten- tion under the circumstances. Pass the word forward there, for Si- mon Heavysides. Mr. Smallchild, sir ! rouse up ! Here's your good lady Hang me, gentlemen, if I know exactly how to put it to him." " Yes. Thank you," said Mr. Smallchild, opening his eyes drow- sily. " Biscuit and cold bacon, as usual when I'm ready. I'm not ready yet. Thank you. Good-afternoon." Mr. Smallchild closed his eyes again, and became, in the doctor's phrase, " totally coma- tose." Before Captain Gillop could hit on any new plan for rousing this imperturbable passenger, Simon Heavysides once more approached the quarter-deck. "I spoke a little sharp to you, just now, my man," said the cap- tain, " being worried in my mind by what's going on on board this vessel. But I'll make it up to you, never fear. Here's your wife in what they call an interesting situation. It's only right you should l>r \\itliin easy hail of her. I look upon you, Heavysides, as a steer- age passenger in difficulties ; and I freely give you leave to stop here along with us till it's all over." " You are very good, sir," said Simon ; " and I am indeed thank- 426 THE FATAL CRADLE. ful to you and to these gentlemen. But please to remember, I have seven children already in the steerage and there's nobody left to mind 'em but me. My wife has got over it uncommonly well, sir, on seven previous occasions and I don't doubt but what she'll con- duct herself in a similar manner on the eighth. It will be a satis- faction to her mind, Captain Gillop and gentlemen, if she knows I'm out of the way, and minding the children. For which reason, I re- spectfully take my leave." With those words Simon made his bow, and returned to his family. " Well, gentlemen, these two husbands take it easy enough, at any rate !" said the captain. " One of them is used to it, to be sure ; and the other is ; " Here a banging of cabin doors below, and a hurrying of footsteps, startled the speaker and his audience into momentary silence and attention. " Ease her with the helm, Williamson !" said Captain Gillop, ad- dressing the man who was steering the vessel. " In my opinion, gentlemen, the less the ship pitches the better, in the turn things are taking now." The afternoon wore on into evening, and evening into night. Mr. Smallchild performed the daily ceremonies of his nautical existence as punctually as usual. He was aroused to a sense of Mrs. Smallchild's situation when he took his biscuit and bacon ; lost the sense again when the time came round for " squaring his accounts ;" recovered it in the interval which ensued before he went to sleep ; lost it again, as a matter of course, when his eyes closed once more and so on through the evening and early night. Simon Heavy- sides received messages occasionally (through the captain's care), telling him to keep his mind easy ; returned messages mentioning that his mind was easy, and that the children were pretty quiet, but never approached the deck in his own person. Mr. Jolly now and then showed himself; said "All right no news;" took a little light refreshment, and disappeared again as cheerful as ever. The fair breeze still held ; the captain's temper remained unruffled ; the man at the helm eased the vessel, from time to time, with the most anx- ious consideration. Ten o'clock came; the moon rose and shone superbly ; the nightly grog made its appearance on the quarter- deck ; the captain gave the passengers the benefit of his company ; and still nothing happened. Twenty minutes more of suspense slowly succeeded each other and then, at last, Mr. Jolly was seen suddenly to ascend the cabin stairs. To the amazement of the little group on the quarter-deck, the doctor held Mrs. Drabble, the stewardess, fast by the arm, and, with- out taking the slightest notice of the captain or the passengers, placed her on the nearest seat he could find. As he did this his THE FATAL CRADLE. 427 /.ice became visible in the moonlight, and displayed to the startled spectators an expression of blank consternation. Compose yourself, Mrs. Drabble," said the doctor, in tones of unmistakable alarm. ' Keep quiet, and let the air blow over you. Collect yourself, ma'am for Heaven's sake, collect yourself." Mr-. Drabble made no answer. She beat her hands vacantly on her knees, am! stared straight before her, like a woman panic- stricken. \V hat 's wrong ?" asked the captain, setting down his glass of grog in dismay. u Any thing amiss with those two unfortunate women ?" " Nothing," said the doctor. " Both doing admirably well." Any thing queer with their babies?" continued the captain. " Are there more than you bargained for, Jolly ? Twins, for in- stance ?" " No ! no !" replied Mr. Jolly, impatiently. " A baby apiece both boys both in first-rate condition. Judge for yourselves," add- ed the doctor, as the two uew cabin passengers tried their lungs be- low tor the first time, and found that they answered their purpose in the most satisfactory manner. What the devil's amiss, then, with you and Mrs. Drabble?" per- sisted the captain, beginning to lose his temper again. "Mrs. Drabble and I are two innocent people, and we have got into the most dreadful scrape that ever you heard of!" was Mr. Jol- ly's startling answer. The captain, followed by Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims, approach- ed the doctor with looks of horror. Even the man at the wheel stretched himself over it as far as he could to hear what was com- ing next. The only uninterested person present was Mr. Smallchild. His time had come round for going to sleep again, and he was snoring peacefully, with his biscuit and bacon close beside him. " Let's hear the worst of it at once, Jolly," said the captain, a lit- tle impatiently. The doctor paid no heed to his request. His whole attention was absorbed by Mrs. Drabble. "Are you better now, ma'am?" he ask- ed, anxiously. " No better in my mind," answered Mrs. Drabble, beginning to beat her knees again. " Worse, if any thin ir." " Listen to me," said Mr. Jolly, coaxingly. " I'll put the whole case over again to you, in a few plain questions. You'll find it all come back to your memory, if you only follow me attentively, and if you take time to think and collect yourself before you attempt to answer." Mrs. Drabble bowed her head in speechless submission and list- ened. Every body else on the quarter-deck listened, except the impenetrable Mr. Smallchild. 18* 428 THE FATAL CRADLE. " Now, ma'am !" said the doctor. " Our troubles began in Mrs. Heavysides's cabin, which is situated on the starboard side of the ship ?" " They did, sir," replied Mrs. Drabble. " Good ! We went backward and forward, an infinite number of times, between Mrs. Heavysides (starboard) and Mrs. Smallchild (lar- board) but we found that Mrs. Heavysides, having got the start, kept it and when I called out, ' Mrs. Drabble ! here's a chopping boy for you ; come and take him !' I called out starboard, didn't I ?" " Starboard, sir I'll take my oath of it," said Mrs. Drabble. " Good again ! ' Here's a chopping boy,' I said. ' Take him, ma'am, and make him comfortable in the cradle.' And you took him, and made him comfortable in the cradle, accordingly ? Now where was the cradle ?" " In the main cabin, sir," replied Mrs. Drabble. " Just so ! In the main cabin, because we hadn't got room for it in either of the sleeping- cabins. You put the starboard baby (oth- erwise Heavysides) in the clothes-basket cradle in the main cabin. Good once more. How was the cradle placed ?" .." Crosswise to the ship, sir," said Mrs. Drabble. " Crosswise to the ship ? That is to say, with one side longwise toward the stern of the vessel, and one side longwise toward the bows. Bear that in mind and now follow me a little furtl e* No! no ! don't say you can't, and your head's in a whirl; My next ques- tion will steady it. Carry your mind on half an hour, Mrs. Drabble. At the end of half an hour you heard my voice again ; and my voice called out, ' Mrs. Drabble ! here's another chopping boy for you ; come and take him !' and you came and took him larboard, didn't you ?" " Larboard, sir, I don't deny it," answered Mrs. Drabble. " Better and better ! ' Here is another chopping boy,' I said. ' Take him, ma'am, and make him comfortable in the cradle, along with number one.' And you took the larboard baby (otherwise Smallchild), and made him comfortable in the cradle along with the starboard baby (otherwise Heavysides), accordingly ? Now what happened after that ?" " Don't ask me, sir !" exclaimed Mrs. Drabble, losing her self-con- trol, and wringing her hands desperately. " Steady, ma'am ! I'll put it to you as plain as print. Steady ! and listen to me. Just as you had made the larboard baby com- fortable I had occasion to send you into the starboard (or Heavy- sides) cabin to fetch something which I wanted in the larboard (or Smallchild) cabin ; I kept you there a little while along with me ; I left you and went into the Heavysides cabin, and called to you to bring me something I wanted out of the Smallchild cabin, but be- 429 fore you got half-way across the main cabin I said, 'No; stop where you are, and I'll come to you ;' immediately after which Mrs. Small- child alarmed you, and you came across to me of your own accord ; and thereupon I stopped you in the main cabin, and said, ' Mrs. Drabble, your mind's Betting confused; sit down and collect your scattered intellects ;' and you sat down and tried to collect them " (And couldn't, sir." interposed Mrs. Drabble, parenthetically. " Oh, my head ! my head !") "And tried to collect your scattered intellects, and couldn't '." continued the doctor. "And the consequence was, when I came nut from the Smallchild cabin to see how you were getting on, I found you with the clothes-basket cradle hoisted up on the cabin table, staring down at the babies inside, with your mouth dropped open, and both your hands twisted in your hair ? And when I said, ' Any thing wrong with either of those two fine boys, Mrs. Drabble ?' you caught me by the coat collar, and whispered in my right ear these words, ' Lord save us and help us, Mr. Jolly, I've confused the two babies in my mind, and I don't know which is which !' " "And I don't know now !" cried Mrs. Drabble, hysterically. " Oh, my head ! my head ! I don't know now !" " Captain Gillop and gentlemen," said Mr. Jolly, wheeling round and addressing his audience with the composure of sheer despair, "that is the Scrape and, if you ever heard of a worse one, I'll trou- ble you to compose this miserable woman by mentioning it imme- diately." Captain Gillop looked at Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims. Mr. Purling and Mr. Sims looked at Captain Gillop. They were all three thun- derstruck and no wonder. "Can't you throw any light on it, Jolly?" inquired the captain, who was the first to recover himself. "If you knew what I have had to do below, you wouldn't ask me such a question as that," replied the doctor. " Remember that I have had the lives of two women and two children to answer for n-incinber that I have been cramped up in two small sleeping-cabins, with hardly room to turn round in, and just light enough from two miserable little lamps to see my hand before me ; remember the pro- fessional difficulties of the situation, the ship rolling about under me all the while, and the stewardess to compose into the bargain ; bear all that in mind, will you, and then tell me how much spare time I had on my hands for comparing two boys together inch by inch two boys born at night, within half an hour of each other, on board a ship at sea. Ha, ha! I only wonder the mothers and the boys and the doctor are all five of them alive to tell the story!" " No marks on one or other of them that happened to catch your eye ?" asked Mr. Sims. 430 THE FATAL CRADLE. " They must have been strongish marks to catch my eye in the light I had to work by, and in the professional difficulties I had to grapple with," said the doctor. " I saw they were both straight, well-formed children and that's all I saw." "Are their infant features sufficiently developed to indicate a family likeness ?" inquired Mr. Purling. " Should you say they took after their fathers or their mothers ?" " Both of them have light eyes, and light hair such as it is," re- plied Mr. Jolly, doggedly. " Judge for yourself." " Mr. Smallchild has light eyes and light hair," remarked Mr. Sims. " And Simon Heavysides has light eyes and light hair," rejoined Mr. Purling. " I should recommend waking Mr. Smallchild, and sending for Heavysides, and letting the two fathers toss up for it," suggested Mr. Sims. " The parental feeling is not to be trifled with in that heartless manner," retorted Mr. Purling. " I should recommend trying the Voice of Nature." "What may that be, sir?" inquired Captain Gillop, with great curiosity. " The maternal instinct," replied Mr. Purling. " The mother's in- tuitive knowledge of her own child." " Ay, ay !" said the captain. " Well thought of. What do you say, Jolly, to the Voice of Nature ?" The doctor held up his hand impatiently. He was engaged in resuming the effort to rouse Mrs. Brabble's memory by a system of amateur cross-examination, with the unsatisfactory result of confus- ing her more hopelessly than ever. Could she put the cradle back, in her own mind, into its original position ? No. Could she remember whether she laid the star- board baby (otherwise Heavysides) on the side of the cradle near- est the stern of the ship, or nearest the bows ? No. Could she remember any better about the larboard baby (otherwise Small- child) ? No. Why did she move the cradle on to the cabin table, and so bewilder herself additionally, when she was puzzled already ? Because it came over her, on a sudden, that she had forgotten, in the dreadful confusion of the time, which was which ; and of course she wanted to look closer at them, and see; and she couldn't see; and to her dying day she should never forgive herself; and let them throw her overboard, for a miserable wretch, if they liked and so on, till the persevering doctor was wearied out at last, and gave up Mrs. Drabble, and gave up, with her, the whole case. " I see nothing for it but the Voice of Nature," said the captain, hold- ing fast to Mr. Purling's idea. " Try it, Jolly you can but try it." THE FATAL CRADLE. 431 " Something must be done," said the doctor. " I can't leave the women alone any longer, and the moment I get below they will liotli a-k (<>r their babies. Wait here till you're fit to be seen, Mrs. Drabble, aiitl then follow me. Voice of Nature!" added Mr. Jolly, contemptuously. ;is lie descended the cabin stairs. "Oh yes, I'll try it much good the Voice of Nature will do us, gentlemen. You shall judge for yourselves." Favored by the night, Mr. Jolly cunningly turned down the dim lamps in the sleeping-cabins to a mere glimmer, on the pretext that the light was bad for his patients' eyes. He then took up the first of the two unlucky babies that came to hand, marked the clothes in which it was wrapped with a blot of ink, and carried it in to Mrs. Smallchild. choosing her cabin merely because he happened to be nearest to it. The second baby (distinguished by having no mark) was taken by Mrs. Drabble to Mrs. Heavysides. For a certain time the t\vo mothers and the two babies were left together. They were then separated again by medical order; and were afterward re- united, with the difference that the marked baby went on this oc- casion to Mrs. Heavysides, and the unmarked baby to Mrs. Small- child -the result, in the obscurity of the sleeping-cabins, proving to be that one baby did just as well as the other, and that the Voice of Nature was (as Mr. Jolly had predicted) totally incompetent to settle the existing difficulty. While night serves us, Captain Gillop, we shall do very well," said the doctor, after he had duly reported the failure of Mr. Pur- ling's suggested experiment. '' But when morning comes, and day- light shows the difference between the children, we must be pre- pared with a course of some kind. If the two mothers below get the slightest suspicion of the case as it stands, the nervous shock of the discovery may do dreadful mischief. They must be kept de- ceived, in the interests of their own health. We must choose a baby for each of them when to-morrow comes, and then hold to the choice, till the mothers are well and up again. The question is, who's to take the responsibility? I don't usually stick at trifles but I candidly admit that 7'm afraid of it." "I decline meddling in the matter, on the ground that I am a perfect stranger,'' said Mr. Sims. "And I object to interfere, from precisely similar motives," added Mr. Purling, agreeing for the first time with a proposition that ema- nated from his natural enemy all through the voyage. " Wait a minute, gentlemen," said Captain Gillop. "I've got this ditlicult matter, as I think, in its right bearings. We must make a (lean breast of it to the husbands, and let them take the responsi- bility." " I believe they won't accept it," observed Mr. Sims. 432 THE FATAL CKADLB. "And I believe they will," asserted Mr. Purling, relapsing into- his old habits. " If they won't," said the captain, firmly, " I'm master on board this ship and, as sure as my name is Thomas Gillop, /'ll take the responsibility !" This courageous declaration settled all difficulties for the time being ; and a council was held to decide on future proceedings. It was resolved to remain passive until the next morning, on the last faint chance that a few hours' sleep might compose Mrs. Drab- ble's bewildered memory. The babies were to be moved into the main cabin before the daylight grew bright or, in other words, before Mrs. Smallchild or Mrs. Heavysides could identify the infant who had passed the night with her. The doctor and the captain were to be assisted by Mr. Purling, Mr. Sims, and the first mate, in the capacity of witnesses; and the assembly so constituted was to meet, in consideration of the emergency of the case, at six o'clock in the morning, punctually. At six o'clock, accordingly, with the weather fine, and the wind still fair, the proceedings began. For the last time Mr. Jolly cross- examined Mrs. Drabble, assisted by the captain, and supervised by the witnesses. Nothing whatever was elicited from the unfortunate stewardess. The doctor pronounced her confusion to be chronic, and the captain and the witnesses unanimously agreed with him. The next experiment tried was the revelation of the true state of the case to the husbands. Mr. Smallchild happened, on this occasion, to be "squaring his accounts" for the morning; and the first articulate words which escaped him in reply to the disclosure were, " Deviled biscuit and anchovy paste." Further perseverance merely elicited an impatient request that they would " pitch him overboard at once, and the two babies along with him." Serious remonstrance was tried next, with no better effect. " Settle it how you like," said Mr. Smallchild, faintly. " Do you leave it to me, sir, as commander of this vessel ?" asked Captain Gillop. (No answer.) " Nod your head, sir, if you can't speak." Mr. Smallchild nodded his head roundwise on his pillow and fell asleep. " Does that count for leave to me to act ?" asked Captain Gillop of the witnesses. And the witnesses answered, decidedly, Yes. The ceremony was then repeated with Simon Heavysides, who responded, as became so intelligent a man, with a proposal of his own for solving the difficulty. " Captain Gillop and gentlemen," said the carpenter, with fluent and melancholy politeness, " I should wish to consider Mr. Small- child before myself in this matter. I am quite willing to part with my baby (whichever he is); and I respectfully propose that Mr. THE FATAL CRADLB. 433 Smallchild should take loth the children, and so make quite sure that he has really got possession of his own son." The only immediate objection to this ingenious proposition was started by the doctor, who sarcastically inquired of Simon, " what he thought Mrs. Heavysides would say to it ?" The carpenter con- fessed that this consideration had escaped him, and that Mrs. Heavy- sides was only too likely to be an irremovable obstacle in the way of the proposed arrangement. The witnesses all thought so too; and Heavysides and his idea were dismissed together, after Simon had first gratefully expressed his entire readiness to leave it all to the captain. " Very well, gentlemen," said Captain Gillop. " As commander on board, I reckon next after the husbands in the matter of respon- sibility. I have considered this difficulty in all its bearings, and I'm prepared to deal with it. The Voice of Nature (which you proposed, Mr. Purling) has been found to fail. The tossing up for it (which you proposed, Mr. Sims) doesn't square altogether with my notions of what's right in a very serious business. No, sir ! I've got my own plan ; and I'm now about to try it. Follow me below, gentlemen, to the steward's pantry." The witnesses looked round on one another in the profoundest astonishment and followed. " Pickerel," said the captain, addressing the steward, " bring out the scales." The scales were of the ordinary kitchen sort, with a tin tray on one side to hold the commodity to be weighed, and a stout iron slab on the other to support the weights. Pickerel placed these scales upon a neat little pantry table, fitted on the ball-and-socket principle, so as to save the breaking of crockery by swinging with the motion of the ship. " Put a clean duster in the tray," said the captain. ''Doctor," he continued, when this had been done, " shut the doors of the sleep- ing-berths (for fear of the women hearing any thing), and oblige me by bringing those two babies in here." "Oh, sir!" exclaimed Mrs. Drabble, who had been peeping guilt- ily into the pantry" oh, don't hurt the little dears ! If any body suffers, let it be me !" " Hold your tongue, if you please, ma'am," said the captain. "And keep the secret of these proceedings, if you wish to keep your place. If the ladies ask for their children, say they will have them in ten minutes' time." The doctor came in, and set down the clothes-basket cradle on the pantry floor. Captain Gillop immediately put on his spectacles, and closely examined the two unconscious innocents who lay be- neath him. 434 THE FATAL CRADLE. " Six of one and half a dozen of the other," said the captain. " I don't see any diiference between them. Wait a bit, though ! Yes, I do. One's a bald baby. Very good. We'll begin with that one. Doctor, strip the bald baby, and put him in the scales." The bald baby protested in his own language but in vain. In two minutes he was flat on his back in the tin tray, with the clean duster under him to take the chill off. " Weigh him accurately, Pickerel," continued the captain. " Weigh him, if necessary, to an eighth of an ounce. Gentlemen ! watch this proceeding closely; it's a very important one." While the steward was weighing and the witnesses were watch- ing, Captain Gillop asked his first mate for the log-book of the ship, and for pen and ink. "How much, Pickerel?" asked the captain, opening the book. " Seven pounds one ounce and a quarter," answered the steward. " Right, gentlemen ?" pursued the captain. " Quite right," said the witnesses. "Bald child distinguished as Number One weight, seven pounds one ounce and a quarter (avoirdupois)," repeated the cap- tain, writing down the entry in the log-book. " Very good. We'll put the bald baby back now, doctor, and try the hairy one next." The hairy one protested also in his own language and also in vain. " How much, Pickerel ?" asked the captain. " Six pounds fourteen ounces and three-quarters," replied the steward. " Right, gentlemen ?" inquired the captain. " Quite right," answered the witnesses. " Hairy child distinguished as Number Two weight, six pounds fourteen ounces and three-quarters (avoirdupois)," repeated and wrote the captain. "Much obliged to you, Jolly that will do. When you have got the other baby back in the -cradle, tell Mrs. Drabble neither of them must be taken out of it till further orders ; and then be so good as to join me and these gentlemen on deck. If any thing of a discussion rises up among us, we won't run the risk of being heard in the sleeping-berths." With these words ( ap- tain Gillop led the way on deck, and the first mate followed witli the log-book and the pen and ink. " Now, gentlemen," began the captain, when the doctor had join- ed the assembly, "my first mate will open these proceedings by reading from the log a statement which I have written myself, re- specting this business, from beginning to end. If you find it all equally correct with the statement of what the two children weigh, I'll trouble you to sign it, in your quality of witnesses, on the spot." The first mate read the narrative, and the witnesses signed it, as THE FATAL CRADLE. 435 perfectly correct. Captain Gillop then cleared his throat, and ad- T BLOW UP WITH THE BRIG!" 'BLOW UP WITH THE BRIG!" A SAILOR'S STORY. I HAVE got an alarming confession to make. I am haunted by a Ghost. If you were to guess for a hundred years, you would never guess what ray ghost is. I shall make you laugh to begin with and af- terward I shall make your flesh creep. My Ghost is the ghost of a Bedroom Candlestick. Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a flat candlestick and candle put it which way you like that is what haunts me. I wish it was something pleasanter and more out of the common way ; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and horses, and such like. But, being what it is, I must take it for what it is, and make the best of it ; and I shall thank you kindly if you will help me out by doing the same. I am not a scholar myself, but I make bold to believe that the haunting of any man with any thing under the sun begins with the frightening of him. At any rate, the haunting of me with a bed- room candlestick and candle began with the frightening of me with a bedroom candlestick and candle the frightening of me half out of my life ; and, for the time being, the frightening of me altogether out of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to confess before stating the particulars; but perhaps you will be the readier to be- lieve that I am not a downright coward, because you find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it already, to my own great disad- vantage so far. Here are the particulars, as well as I can put them : I was apprenticed to the sea when I was about as tall as my own walking stick ; and I made good enough use of my time to be fit tor a mate's berth at the age of twenty-five years. It was in the year eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain which, that I reached the before-mentioned age of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my memory not be- ing very good for date-, names, numbers, places, and such like. No fear, though, about the particulars I have undertaken to tell you of; 438 I have got them all ship-shape in my recollection ; I can see them, at this moment, as clear as noonday in my own mind. But there is a mist over what went before, and, for the matter of that, a mist likewise over much that came after and it's not very likely to lift at my time of life, is it ? "\Vell, in eighteen hundred and eighteen, or nineteen, when there was peace in our part of the world and not before it was wanted, you will say there was fighting, of a certain scampering, scram- bling kind, going on in that old battle-field which we sea-fariug men know by the name of the Spanish Main. The possessions that belonged to the Spaniards in South America had broken into open mutiny and declared for themselves years be- fore. There was plenty of bloodshed between the new Government and the old ; but the new had got the best of it, for the most part, under one General Bolivar a famous man in his time, though he seems to have dropped out of people's memories now. Englishmen and Irishmen with a turn for fighting, and nothing particular to do at home, joined the general as volunteers ; and some of our mer- chants here found it a good venture to send supplies across the ocean to the popular side. There was risk enough, of course, in do- ing this; but where one speculation of the kind succeeded, it made up for two, at the least, that failed. And that's the true principle of trade, wherever I have met with it, all the world over. Among the Englishmen who were concerned in this Spanish- American business, I, your humble servant, happened in a small way to be one. I was then mate of a brig belonging to a certain firm in the City, which drove a sort of general trade, mostly in queer out-of-the-way places, as far from home as possible ; and which freighted the brig, in the year I am speaking of, with a cargo of gunpowder for Gen- eral Bolivar and his volunteers. Nobody knew any thing about our instructions, when we sailed, except the captain ; and he didn't half seem to like them. I can't rightly say how many barrels of powder we had on board, or how much each barrel held I only know we had no other cargo. The name of the brig was the Good Intent a queer name enough, you will tell me, for a vessel laden with gun- powder, and sent to help a revolution. And as far as this particu- lar voyage was concerned, so it was. I mean that for a joke, and I hope you will encourage me by laughing at it. The Good Intent was the craziest old tub of a vessel I ever went to sea in, and the worst found in all respects. She was two hundred and thirty, or two hundred and eighty tons burden, I forget which ; and she had a crew of eight, all told nothing like as many as we ought by rights to have had to work the brig. However, we were well and honestly paid our wages ; and we had to set that against "BLOW VP WITH THE BRIG!" 439 the chance of foundering at sea, and, on this occasion, likewise the dinner of being blown tip into the bargain. In consideration of the nature of our cargo, we were harassed with new regulations, which we didn't at all like, relative to smok- ing our pipes and lighting our lanterns; and, as usual in such cases, thf captain, who made the regulations, preached what he didn't practice. Not a man of us was allowed to have a bit of lighted can- change and amusement for her. She won't listen to him. Except on rare occasions like this, she persists in remaining at home." Captain Helding brightened at the allusion to the doctor. Some- thing practical might be got out of the doctor. Scientific man. Sure to see this very obscure subject under a new light. "How does it strike the doctor now ?" said the captain. " Viewed simply as a Case, ma'am, how does it strike the doctor?" lie will give no positive opinion," Mrs. Crayford answered. " He told me that such cases as Clam's were by no means unfamiliar to medical practice. ' We know,' he told me, ' that certain disorder- ed conditions of the brain and the nervous system produce results 452 THE FROZEN DEEP. quite as extraordinary as any that you have described and there our knowledge ends. Neither my science nor any man's science can clear up the mystery in this case. It is an especially difficult case to deal with, because Miss Burnham's early associations dispose her to attach a superstitious importance to the malady the hysterical malady as some doctors would call it from which she suffers. I can give you instructions for preserving her general health ; and I can recommend you to try some change in her life provided you first relieve her mind of any secret anxieties that may possibly be preying on it.'" The captain smiled self-approvingly. The doctor had justified his anticipations. The doctor had suggested a practical solution of the difficulty. "Ay! ay! At last we have hit the nail on the head! Secret anxieties. Yes! yes! Plain enough now. A disappointment in love eh, Mrs. Crayford ?" " I don't know, Captain Helding; I am quite in the dark. Clara's confidence in me in other matters unbounded is, in this matter of her (supposed) anxieties, a confidence still withheld. In all else we are like sisters. I sometimes fear there may indeed be some trouble preying secretly on her mind. I sometimes feel a little hurt at her incomprehensible silence." Captain Helding was ready with his own practical remedy for this difficulty. " Encouragement is all she wants, ma'am. Take my word for it, this matter rests entirely with you. It's all in a nutshell. Encour- age her to confide in you and she will confide." "I am waiting to encourage her, captain, until she is left alone with me after you have all sailed for the Arctic seas. In the mean time, will you consider what I have said to you as intended for your ear only ? And will you forgive me, if I own that the turn the subject has taken does not tempt me to pursue it any farther ?" The captain took the hint. He instantly changed the subject; choosing, on this occasion, safe professional topics. He spoke of ships that were ordered on foreign service ; and, finding that these as subjects failed to interest Mrs. Crayford, he spoke next of ships that were ordered home again. This last experiment produced its effect an effect which the captain had not bargained for. " Do you know," he began, " that the Atalanta is expected back from the "West Coast of Africa, every day ? Have you any acquaint- ances among the officers of that ship ?" As it so happened, he put those questions to Mrs. Crayford while they were engaged in one of the figures of the dance which brought them within hearing of the opposite couple. At the same moment to the astonishment of her friends and admirers Miss Clara THE FROZEN DEEP. 453 Burnham threw the quadrille into confusion by making a mistake! Every body waited to see her set the mistake right. She made no attempt t<> set it right she turned deadly pale, and caught her partner by the arm. " The heat !" she said, faintly. " Take me away take me into the air I 1 ' Lieutenant Crayford instantly led her out of the dance, and took her into the cool and empty conservatory, at the end of the room. As a matter of course, Captain Helding and Mrs. Crayford left the quadrille at the same time. The captain saw his way to a joke. "Is this the trance coming on?" he whispered. "If it is, as commander of the Arctic expedition, I have a particular request to make. Will the Second Sight oblige me by seeing the shortest way to the North-west Passage, before we leave England ?" Mrs. Crayford declined to humor the joke. " If you will excuse my leaving you," she said quietly, " I will try and find out what is the matter with Miss Burnham." At the entrance to the conservatory, Mrs. Crayford encountered her husband. The lieutenant was of middle age, tall and comely. A man with a winning simplicity and gentleness in his manner, and an irresistible kindness in his brave blue eyes. In one word, a man whom every body loved including his wife. " Don't be alarmed," said the lieutenant. " The heat has over- come her that's all." Mrs. Crayford shook her head, and looked at her husband, half satirically, half fondly. " You dear old innocent !" she exclaimed, " that excuse may do for you. For my part, I don't believe a word of it. Go and get an- other partner, and leave Clara to me." She entered the conservatory and seated herself by Clara's side. CHAPTER II. "Now, my dear!" Mrs. Crayford began, "what does this mean?" " Nothing." " That won't do, Clara. Try again." " The heat of the room " " That won't do, either. Say that you choose to keep your own secrets, and I shall understand what you mean." Clara's sad, clear gray eyes looked up for the first time in Mrs. Crayford's face, and suddenly became dimmed with tears. "If I only daml tell you !" she murmured. "I hold so to your good opinion of me, Lucy and I am so afraid of losing it." 454 THE FROZEN DEEP. Mrs. Crayford's manner changed. Her eyes rested gravely and anxiously on Clara's face. " You know as well as I do that nothing can shake my affection for you," she said. "Do justice, my child, to your old friend. There is nobody here to listen to what we say. Open your heart, Clara. I see you are in trouble, and I want to comfort you." Clara began to yield. In other words, she began to make con- ditions. "Will you promise to keep what I tell you a secret from every living creature ?" she began. Mrs. Crayford met that question, by putting a question on her side. " Does ' every living creature ' include my husband ?" "Your husband more than any body ! I love him, I revere him. He is so noble ; he is so good ! If I told him what I am going to tell you, he would despise me. Own it plainly, Lucy, if I am asking too much in asking you to keep a secret from your husband." " Nonsense, child ! When you are married, you will know that the easiest of all secrets to keep is a secret from your husband. I give you my promise. Now begin !" Clara hesitated painfully. " I don't know how to begin !" she exclaimed, with a burst of de- spair. " The words won't come to me." " Then I must help you. Do you feel ill to-night ? Do you feel as you felt that day when you were with my sister and me in the garden?" " Oh no." " You are not ill, you are not really affected by the heat and yet you turn as pale as ashes, and you are obliged to leave the qua- drille ! There must be some reason for this." " There is a reason. Captain Helding " "Captain Helding! . What in the name of wonder has the cap- tain to do with it ?" " He told you something about the Atalanta. He said the Atalan- ta was expected back from Africa immediately." " Well, and what of that ? Is there any body in whom you are interested coming home in the ship ?" " Somebody whom I am afraid of is coming home in the ship." Mrs. Crayford's magnificent black eyes opened wide in amazement. " My dear Clara ! do you really mean what you say ?" " Wait a little, Lucy, and you shall judge for yourself. We must go back if I am to make you understand me to the year before we knew each other to the last year of my father's life. Did T ever tell you that my father moved southward, for the sake of his health, to a house in Kent that was lent to him by a friend ?" THE FROZEN DEEP. 455 " No, my dear ; I don't remember ever hearing of the house in Kent. Tell me about it." " There is nothing to tell, except this : the new house was near a fine country-seat standing in its own park. The owner of the place was a gentleman named Wardour. He, too, was one of my father's Kentish friends. He had an only son." She paused, and played nervously with her fan. Mrs. Crayford looked at her attentively. Clara's eyes remained fixed on her fan Clara said no more. " What was the son's name ?" asked Mrs. Crayford, quietly. " Richard." " Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour ad- mired you ?" The question produced its intended effect. The question helped Clara to go on. " I hardly knew at first," she said, " whether he admired me or not. He was very strange in his ways headstrong, terribly head- strong and passionate ; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of temper. Can you understand such a character ?" " Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of tem- per. I begin to like Richard already. Go on." " The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown very much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the truth." " And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course ?" "No. He was not unhappily for me he was not that sort of man. He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it. I couldn't help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never be any thing else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I can't say which." " ' Would not,' is the most likely, my dear. Go on." " It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had Inrn provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy ?" " Do ? You could have asked your father to end the difficulty for you." " Impossible ! You forget what I have just told you. My father was suffering at that time under the illness whiu'.< afterward caused his death. He was quite unfit to interfere." " Was there no one else who could help you ?" "No one." " No lady in whom you could confide 1" 456 THE FROZEN DEEP. " I Lad acquaintances among the ladies in the neighborhood. I had no friends." " What did you do, then ?" " Nothing. I hesitated ; I put off coming to an explanation with him, unfortunately, until it was too late." " What do you mean by too late ?" " You shall hear. I ought to have told you that Richard War- dour is in the navy " " Indeed ! I am more interested in him than ever. Well ?" " One spring day Richard came to our house to take leave of us before he joined his ship. I thought he was gone, and I went into the next room. It was my own sitting-room, and it opened on to the garden." " Yes ?" " Richard must have been watching me. He suddenly appeared in the garden. Without waiting for me .to invite him, he walked into the room. I was a little startled as well as surprised, but I managed to hide it. I said, ' What is it, Mr. Wardour ?' He stepped close up to me ; he said, in his quick, rough way : ' Clara ! I am go- ing to the African coast. If I live, I shall come back promoted; and we both know what will happen then.' He kissed me. I was half frightened, half angry. Before I could compose myself to say a word, he was out in the garden again he was gone ! I ought to have spoken, I know. It was not honorable, not kind toward him. You can't reproach me for my want of courage and frankness more bitterly than I reproach myself!" " My dear child, I don't reproach you. I only think you might have written to him." " I did write." " Plainly ?" " Yes. I told him in so many words that he was deceiving him- self, and that I could never marry him." " Plain enough, in all conscience ! Having said that, surely you are not to blame. What are you fretting about now ?" " Suppose my letter has never reached him ?" " Why should you suppose any thing of the sort ?" " What I wrote required an answer, Lucy asked for an answer. The answer has never come. What is the plain conclusion? My letter has never reached him. And the Atalanta is expected back ! Richard Wardour is returning to England Richard Wardour will claim me as his wife ! You wondered just now if I really meant what I said. Do you doubt it still ?" Mrs. Crayford leaned back absently in her chair. For the first time since the conversation had begun, she let a question pass with- out making a reply. The truth is, Mrs. Crayford was thinking. THE FROZEN DEEP. 457 She saw Clara's position plainly ; she understood the disturbing effect of it on the mind of a young girl. Still, making all allow- ances, she felt quite at a loss, so far, to account for Clara's excess- ive agitation. Her quick observing faculty had just detected that Clara's face showed no signs of relief, now that she had unburdened herself of her secret. There was something clearly under the sur- face here something of importance that still remained to be dis- covered. A shrewd doubt crossed Mrs. Crayford's mind, and in- spired the next words which she addressed to her young friend. " My dear," she said abruptly, " have you told me all ?" Clara started as if the question terrified her. Feeling sure that she now had the clue in her hand, Mrs. Crayford deliberately re- peated her question, in another form of words. Instead of answer- ing, Clara suddenly looked up. At the same moment a faint flush of color appeared in her face for the first time. Looking up instinctively on her side, Mrs. Crayford became aware of the presence, in the conservatory, of a young gentleman who was claiming Clara as his partner in the coming waltz. Mrs. Crayford fell into thinking once more. Had this young gentleman (she ask- ed herself) any thing to do with the untold end of the story? Was this the true secret of Clara Burnham's terror at the impending return of Richard Wardour? Mrs. Crayford decided on putting her doubts to the test. "A friend of yours, my dear ?" she asked, innocently. " Suppose you introduce us to each other." Clara confusedly introduced the young gentleman. " Mr. Francis Aldersley, Lucy. Mr. Aldersley belongs to the Arc- tic expedition." "Attached to the expedition ?" Mrs. Crayford repeated. " I am at- tached to the expedition too in my way. I had better introduce myself, Mr. Aldersley, as Clara seems to have forgotten to do it for me. I am Mrs. Crayford. My husband is Lieutenant Crayford, of the Wanderer. Do you belong to that ship ?" " I have not the honor, Mrs. Crayford. I belong to the Sea-mew." Mrs. Crayford's superb eyes looked shrewdly backward and for- ward betweeen Clara and Francis Aldersley, and saw the untold sequel to Clara's story. The young officer was a bright, handsome, gentleman-like lad. Just the person to seriously complicate the difficulty with Richard Wardour! There was no time for making any further inquiries. The band had begun the prelude to the wait/,, and r -aneis AMersley was waiting for his partner. With a word of apology to the young man, Mrs. Crayford drew Clara aside for a moment, and spoke to her in a whisper. "One word, my dear, before you return to the ball-room. It may sound conceited, after the little you have told me ; but I think I 458 THE FROZEN DEEP. understand your position now, better than you do yourself. Do you want to hear ray opinion ?" " I am longing to hear it, Lucy ! I want your opinion ; I want your advice." " You shall have both in the plainest and fewest words. First, my opinio i : You have no Choice but to come to an e: pi nation with Mr. Wardour as soon as he returns. Second, my advice : If you wish to make the explanation easy to both sides, take care that you make it in the character of a free woman." She laid a strong emphasis on the last three words, and looked pointedly at Francis Aldersley as she pronounced them. " I won't keep you from your partner any longer, Clara," she resumed, and led the way back to the ball-room. CHAPTER III. THE burden on Clara's mind weighs on it more heavily than ever, after what Mrs. Crayford has said to her. She is too unhappy to feel the inspiriting influence of the dance. After a turn round the room, she complains of fatigue. Mr. Francis Aldersley looks at the conservatory (still as invitingly cool and empty as ever) ; leads her back to it ; and places her on a seat among the shrubs. She tries very feebly to dismiss him. " Don't let me keep you from dancing, Mr. Aldersley." He seats himself by her side, and feasts his eyes on the lovely downcast face that dares not turn toward him. He whispers to her: " Call me Frank." She longs to call him Frank she loves him with all her heart. But Mrs. Crayford's warning words are still in her mind. She nev- er opens her lips. Her lover moves a little closer, and asks another favor. Men are all alike on these occasions. Silence invariably en- courages them to try again. " Clara ! have you forgotten what I said at the concert yesterday ? May I say it again ?" " No !" "We sail to-morrow for the Arctic seas. I may not return for years. Don't send me away without hope ! Think of the long, lonely time in the dark North ! Make it a happy time for me." Though he speaks with the fervor of a man, he is little more than a lad: he is only twenty years old, and he is going to risk his young life on the frozen deep ! Clara pities him as she never pitied any human creature before. He gently takes her hand. She tries to release it. THE FROZEN DEEP. 459 " What ! not even that little favor on the last night ?" Her faithful heart takes his part, in spite of her. Her hand re- mains in his, and feels its soft persuasive pressure. She is a lost woman. It is only a question of time now ! " Clara ! do you love me ?" There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at him she trembles with strange contradictory sensations of pleasure and pain. His arm steals round her ; he repeats his question in a whisper ; his lips almost touch her little rosy ear as he says it again : " Do you love me ?" She closes her eyes faintly she hears nothing but those words feels nothing but his arm round her forgets Mrs Crayford's warn- ing forgets Richard Wardour himself turns suddenly, with a lov- ing woman's desperate disregard of every thing .but her love nes- tles her head on his bosom, and answers him in that way, at last ! He lifts the beautiful drooping head their lips meet in their first kiss they are both in heaven : it is Clara who brings them back to earth again with a start it is Clara who says, "Oh! what have I done ?" as usual, when it is too late. Frank answers the question. " You have made me happy, my angel. Now, when I come back, I come back to make you my wife." She shudders. She remembers Richard Wardour again at those words. " Mind !" she says, " nobody is to know we are engaged till I per- mit you to mention it. Remember that !" He promises to remember it. His arm tries to wind round her once more. No ! She is mistress of herself; she can positively dis- miss him now after she has let him kiss her ! " Go !" she says. " I want to see Mrs. Crayford. Find her ! Say I am here, waiting to speak to her. Go at once, Frank for my sake !" There is no alternative but to obey her. His eyes drink a last draught of her beauty. He hurries away on his errand the hap- |iir>t man in the room. Five minutes since she was only his part- ner in the dance. He has spoken and she has pledged herself to be his partner for life ! CHAPTER IV. IT was not easy to find Mrs. Crayford in the crowd. Searching here, and searching there. Frank became conscious of a stranger, who appeared to be looking for somebody, on his side. He was a dark, heavy-browed, strongly-built man, dressed in a shabby old 460 THE FROZEN DEEP. naval officer's uniform. His manner strikingly resolute and self- contained was unmistakably the manner of a gentleman. He wound his way slowly through the crowd; stopping to look at every lady whom he passed, and then looking away again with a frown. Little by little he approached the conservatory entered it, after a moment's reflection detected the glimmer of a white dress in the distance, through the shrubs and flowers advanced to get a nearer view of the lady and burst into Clara's presence with a cry of delight. She sprang to her feet. She stood before him speechless, motion- less, struck to stone. All her life was in her eyes the eyes which told her she was looking at Richard Wardour. He was the first to speak. " I am sorry I startled you, my darling. I forgot every thing but the happiness of seeing you again. We only reached our moorings two hours since. I was some time inquiring after you, and some time getting my ticket when they told me you were at the ball. Wish me joy, Clara ! I am promoted. I have come back to make you my wife." A momentary change passed over the blank terror of her face. Her color rose faintly, her lips moved. She abruptly put a question to him. " Did you get my letter ?" He started. "A letter from you ? I never received it." The momentary animation died out of her face again. She drew back from him and dropped into a chair. He advanced toward her, astonished and alarmed. She shrank in the chair shrank, as if she was frightened of him. " Clara, you have not even shaken hands with me ! What does it mean ?" He paused ; waiting and watching her. She made no reply. A flash of the quick temper in him leaped up in his eyes. He repeated his last words in louder and sterner tones : " What does it mean ?" She replied this time. His tone had hurt her his tone had roused her sinking courage. " It means, Mr. Wardour, that you have been mistaken from the first." " How have I been mistaken ?" " You have been under a wrong impression, and you have given me no opportunity of setting you right." " In what way have I been wrong ?" " You have been too hasty and too confident about yourself and about me. You have entirely misunderstood me. I am grieved to distress you, but for your sake I must speak plainly. I am your friend always, Mr. Wardour, I can never be your wife." THE FROZEN DEEP. 463 He mechanically repeated the last words. He seemed to doubt whether he had heard her aright. You can never be my wife ?" -Never!" - Why ?" There was no answer. She was incapable of telling him a false- hood. She was ashamed to tell him the truth. He stooped over her, and suddenly possessed himself of her hand. Holding her hand firmly, he stooped a little lower; searching for the signs which might answer him in her face. His own face darkened slowly while he looked. He was beginning to suspect her ; and he acknowledged it inliis next words. " Something has changed you toward me, Clara. Somebody has influenced you against me. Is it you force me to ask the question is it some other man ?" " You have no right to ask me that." He went on without noticing what she had said to him. " Has that other man come between you and me ? I speak plain- ly on my side. Speak plainly on yours." " I have spoken. I have nothing more to say." There was a pause. She saw the warning light which told of the fire within him, growing brighter and brighter in his eyes. She felt his grasp strengthening on her hand. He appealed to her for the last tiim-. " Reflect," he said, " reflect before it is too late. Your silence will nut serve you. If you persist in not answering me, I shall take your silence as a confession. Do you hear me?" " I hear you." " Clara Burnham ! I tun not to be trifled with. Clara Burnham ! I insist on the truth. Are you false to me ?" She resented that searching question with a woman's keen sense of the insult that is implied in doubting her to her face. "Mr. Wardour! you forget yourself when you cull me to account in that way. I never encouraged you. I never gave you promise or pledge He passionately interrupted her before she could say more. ' You have engaged yourself in my absence. Your words own it ; your looks own it ! You have engaged yourself to another man !" " If I hate engaged myself, what right have you to complain of it ?" she answered firmly. " What right have you to control my actions ?" The next words died away on her lips. He suddenly dropped her hand. A marked change appeared in the expression of his eyes a change which told her of the terrible passions that she had let loose 464 . THE FROZEN DEEP. in him. She read, dimly read, something in his face which made her tremble not for herself, but for Frank. Little by little the dark color faded out of his face. His deep voice dropped suddenly to a low and quiet tone as he spoke the parting words. "Say no more, Miss Burnham you have said enough. I 'am an- swered; I am dismissed." He paused, and, stepping close up to her, laid his hand on her arm. "The time may come," he said, "when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met." He turned and left her. A few minutes later, Mrs. Crayford, entering the conservatory, was met by one of the attendants at the ball. The man stopped as if he wished to speak to her. " What do you want ?" she asked. " I beg your pardon, ma'am. Do you happen to have a smelling- bottle about you ? There is a young lady in the conservatory who is taken faint." CHAPTER V. THE morning of the next day the morning on which the ships were to sail came bright and breezy. Mrs. Crayford, having ar- ranged to follow her husband to the water-side, and see the last of him before he embarked, entered Clara's room on her way out of the house, anxious to hear how her young friend passed the night. To her astonishment she found Clara had risen, and was dressed, like herself, to go out. " What does this mean, my dear ? After what you suffered last night after the shock of seeing that man why don't you take my advice and rest in your bed ?" "I can't rest. I have not slept all night. Have you been out yet?" " No." " Have you seen or heard any thing of Richard Wardour ?" " What an extraordinary question !" "Answer my question ! Don't trifle with me !" " Compose yourself, Clara. I have neither seen nor heard any thing of Richard Wardour. Take my word for it, he is far enough away by this time." " No ! He is here ! He is near us ! All night long the presenti- ment has pursued me Frank and Richard Wardour will meet." THE FROZEN DEEP. 485 " My dear child ! what are you thinking of? They are total strangers to ouch other." "Something will happen to bring them together. I feel itl I know it! They will meet there will be a mortal quarrel between them and I shall be to blame. Oh, Lucy! why didn't I take your advice? Why was I mad enough to let Frank know that I loved him? Are you going to the landing-stage? I am all ready I must go with you." " You must not think of it, Clara. There will be crowding and confusion at the water-side. You are not strong enough to bear it. Wait I won't be long away wait till I come back." " I must and will go with you ! Crowd ? He will be among the crowd ! Confusion ? In that confusion he will find his way to Frank ! Don't ask me to wait. I shall go mad if I wait. I shall not know a moment's ease until I have seen Frank, with my own eyes, safe in the boat which takes him to his ship ! You have got your bonnet on ; what are we stopping here for ? Come ! or I shall go without you. Look at the clock ; we have not a moment to lose !" It was useless to contend with her. Mrs. Crayford yielded. The two women left the house together. The landing-stage, as Mrs. Crayford had predicted, was thronged with spectators. Not only the relatives and friends of the Arctic voyagers, but strangers as well, had assembled in large numbers to see the ships sail. Clara's eyes wandered affrightedly hither and thither among the strange faces in the crowd ; searching for the one face that she dreaded to see, and not finding it. So completely were her nerves unstrung, that she started with a cry of alarm on suddenly hearing Frank's voice behind her. " The 8ea-meir\<< boats are waiting," he said. " I must go, darling. How pale you are looking, Clara ! Are you ill ?" She never answered. She questioned him with wild eyes and trembling lips. " Has any thing happened to you, Frank ? any thing out of the common ?" Frank laughed at the strange question. " Any thing out of the common ?" he repeated. " Nothing that I know of, except sailing for the Arctic seas. That's out of the common, I suppose isn't it ?" " I las any body spoken to you since last night? Has any stranger followed you in the street ?" Frank turned in blank amazement to Mrs. Crayford. " What on earth does she mean ?" Mrs. Crayford's lively invention supplied her with an answer on the spur of the moment. 20 466 THE PBOZEN " Do you believe in dreams, Frank ? Of course you don't ! Clara has been dreaming about you ; and Clara is foolish enough to be- lieve in dreams. That's all it's not worth talking about. Hark ! they are calling you. Say good-bye, or you will be too late for the boat." Frank took Clara's hand. Long afterward in the dark Arctic days, in the dreary Arctic nights he remembered how coldly and how passively that hand lay in his. "Courage, Clara!" he said, gayly. "A sailor's sweetheart must accustom herself to partings. The time will soon pass. Good-bye, my darling ! Good-bye, my wife !" He kissed the cold hand ; he looked his last for many a long year, perhaps ! at the pale and beautiful face. " How she loves me !" he thought. " How the parting distresses her !" He still held her hand ; he would have lingered longer, if Mrs. Crayford had not wisely waived all ceremony and pushed him away. The two ladies followed him at a safe distance through the crowd, and saw him step into the boat. The oars struck the water ; Frank waved his cap to Clara. In a moment more a vessel at anchor hid the boat from view. They had seen the last of him on his way to the Frozen Deep ! "No Richard Wardour in the boat," said Mrs. Crayford. "No Richard Wardour on the shore. Let this be a lesson to you, my dear. Never be foolish enough to believe in presentiments again." Clara's eyes still wandered suspiciously to and fro among the crowd. " Are you not satisfied yet ?" asked Mrs. Crayford. " No," Clara answered, " I am not satisfied yet." " What ! still looking for him ? This is really too absurd. Here is my husband coming. I shall tell him to call a cab, and send you home." Clara drew back a few steps. " I won't be in the way, Lucy, while you are taking leave of your good husband," she said. " I will wait here." "Wait here! What for?" " For something which I may yet see ; or for something which I may still hear." " Richard Wardour ?" " Richard Wardour." Mrs. Crayford turned to her husband without another word. Clara's infatuation was beyond the reach of remonstrance. The boats of the Wanderer took the place at the landing - stage vacated by the boats of the Sea-mew. A burst of cheering among the outer ranks of the crowd announced the arrival of the com- mander of the expedition on the scene. Captain Helding appeared, THE FROZEN DEEP. 467 looking right and left for his first lieutenant. Finding Crayford with his wife, the-captain made his apologies for interfering, with his best grace. " Give him up to his professional duties for one minute, Mrs. Cray- ford, and you shall have him back again for half an hour. The Arctic expedition is to blame, my dear lady not the captain for parting man and wife. In Crayford's place, I should have left it to the bachelors to find the North-west Passage, and have stopped at home with you !" Excusing himself in those bluntly complimentary terms, Captain Helding drew the lieutenant aside a few steps, accidentally taking a direction that led the two officers close to the place at which Clara was standing. Both the captain and the lieutenant were too completely absorbed in their professional business to notice her. Neither the one nor the other had the faintest suspicion that she could and did hear every word of the talk that passed between them. " You received my note this morning ?" the captain began. " Certainly, Captain Helding, or I should have been on board the ship before this." " I am going on board myself at once," the captain proceeded, " but I must ask you to keep your boat waiting for half an hour more. You will lie all the longer with your wife, you know. I thought of that, Crayford." I am much obliged to you, Captain Helding. I suppose there is Mime other reason for inverting the customary order of things, and keeping the lieutenant on shore after the captain is on board?" " Quite true ! there is another reason. I want you to wait for a volunteer who has just joined us." "A volunteer!" " Yes. He has his outfit to get in a hurry, and he may be half an hour late." " It's rather a sudden appointment, isn't it ?" " No doubt. Very sudden." u And pardon me it's rather a long time (as we are situated) to keep the ships waiting for one man?" " Quite true, again. But a man who is worth having is worth waiting for. This man is worth having; this man is worth his weight in gold to such an expedition as ours. Seasoned to all cli- mates and all fatigues a strong fellow, a brave fellow, a clever t'dlow in short, an excellent officer. I know him well, or I should never have taken him. The country gets plenty of work out of my new volunteer, Crayford. He only returned yesterday from foreign service." " He only returned yesterday from foreign service ! And he vol- 468 THE FROZEN DEEP. unteers this morning to join the Arctic expedition ? You astonish me." " I dare say I do ! You can't be more astonished than I was, when he presented himself at my hotel and told me what he want- ed. 'Why, my good fellow, you ha^e just got home,' I said. 'Are you weary of your freedom, after only a few hours' experience of it ?' His answer rather startled me. He said, ' I am weary of my life, sir. I have come home and found a trouble to welcome me, which goes near to break my heart. If I don't take refuge in absence and hard work, I am a lost man. Will you give me a refuge ?' That's what he said, Crayford, word for word." " Did you ask him to explain himself further ?" " Not I ! I knew his value, and I took the poor devil on the spot, without pestering him with any more questions. No need to ask him to explain himself. The facts speak for themselves in these cases. The old story, my good friend ! There's a woman at the bottom of it, of course." Mrs. Crayford, waiting for the return of her husband as patiently as she could, was startled by feeling a hand suddenly laid on her shoulder. She looked round, and confronted Clara. Her first feel- ing of surprise changed instantly to alarm. Clara was trembling from head to foot. " What is the matter ? What has frightened you, my dear ?" " Lucy ! I have heard of him !" " Richard Wardour again ?" "Remember what I told you. I have heard every word of the conversation between Captain Helding and your husband. A man came to the captain this morning and volunteered to join the Wan- derer. The captain has" taken him. The man is Richard Wardour." "You don't mean it! Are you sure? Did you hear Captain Helding mention his name ?" "No." " Then how do you know it's Richard Wardour ?" " Don't ask me ! I am as certain of it, as that I am standing here ! They are going away together, Lucy away to the eternal ice and snow. My foreboding has come true ! The two will meet the man who is to marry me and the man whose heart I have broken !" " Your foreboding has not come true, Clara ! The men have not met here the men are not likely to meet elsewhere. They are ap- pointed to separate ships. Frank belongs to the Sea-mew, and Wardour to the Wanderer. See ! Captain Helding has done. My husband is coming this way. Let me make sure. Let me speak to him." THE FROZEN DEEF. 469 Lieutenant Crayford returned to his wife. She spoke to him in- stantly. " William ! you have got a new volunteer who joins the Wan- derer r " What ! you have been listening to the captain and me ?" " I want to know his ntime." " How in the world did you manage to hear what we said to each other?" " His name ? has the captain given you his name ?" " Don't excite yourself, my dear. Look ! you are positively alarm- ing Miss Burnham. The new volunteer is a perfect stranger to us. There is his name last on the ship's list. Mrs. Crayford snatched the list out of her husband's hand, and read the name : " RICHARD W ARDOUR." 470 THE FROZEN DEEP. SECOND SCENE. -THE HUT OF THE "SEA-MEW." CHAPTER VL GOOD-BYE to England ! Good-bye to inhabited and civilized regions of the earth ! Two years have passed since the voyagers sailed from their native shores. The enterprise has failed the Arctic expedition is lost and ice-locked in the Polar wastes. The good ships Wanderer and Sea- mew, entombed in ice, will never ride the buoyant waters more. Stripped of their lighter timbers, both vessels have been used for the construction of huts, erected on the nearest land. The largest of the two buildings which now shelter the lost men is occupied by the surviving officers and crew of the Sea-mew. On one side of the principal room are the sleeping berths and the fire- place. The other side discloses a broad door-way (closed by a can- vas screen), which serves as a means of communication with an in- ner apartment, devoted to the superior officers. A hammock is slung to the rough raftered roof of the main room, as an extra bed. A man, completely hidden by his bedclothes, is sleeping in the ham- mock. By the fireside there is a second man supposed to be on the watch fast asleep, poor wretch ! at the present moment. Be- hind the sleeper stands an old cask, which serves for a table. The objects at present on the table are, a pestle and mortar, and a sauce- panful of the dry bones of animals in plain words, the dinner for the day. By way of ornament to the dull brown walls, icicles appear in the crevices of the timber, gleaming at intervals in the red fire-light. No wind whistles outside the lonely dwelling no cry of bird or beast is heard. Indoors, and out-of-doors, the awful si- lence of the Polar desert reigns, for the moment, undisturbed. CHAPTER VII. THE first sound that broke the silence came from the inner apart- ment. An officer lifted the canvas screen in the hut of the Sea-mew, and entered the main room. Cold and privation had sadly thinned the ranks. The commander of the ship Captain Ebsworth was THE FROZEN DEEP. 471 dangerously ill. The first lieutenant was dead. An officer of the Wanderer filled their places for the time, with Captain Helding's permission. The officer so employed was Lieutenant Crayford. He approached the man at the fireside, and awakened him. " Jump up, Bateson ! It's your turn to be relieved." The relief appeared, rising from a heap of old sails at the back of the hut. Bateson vanished, yawning, to his bed. Lieutenant Cray- ford walked backward and forward briskly, trying what exercise would do toward warming his blood. The pestle and mortar on the cask attracted his attention. He stopped and looked up at the man in the hammock. " I must rouse the cook," he said to himself, with a smile. " That fellow little thinks how useful he is in keeping up my spirits. The most inveterate croaker and grumbler in the world and yet, ac- cording to his own account, the only cheerful man in the whole ship's company. John Want ! John Want ! Rouse up, there !" A head rose slowly out of the bedclothes, covered with a red night-cap. A melancholy nose rested itself on the edge of the ham- mock. A voice, worthy of the nose, expressed its opinion of the Arctic climate, in these words : " Lord ! Lord ! here's all my breath on my blanket. Icicles, if you please, sir, all round my mouth and all over my blanket. Every time I have snored, I've frozen something. When a man gets the cold into him to that extent that he ices his own bed, it can't last much longer. Never mind ! /don't grumble." Crayford tapped the saucepan of bones impatiently. John Want lowered himself to the floor grumbling all the way by a rope at- tached to the rafters at his bed head. Instead of approaching his superior officer and his saucepan, he hobbled, shivering, to the fire- place, and held his chin as close as he possibly 'could over the fire. Crayford looked after him. " Halloo ! what are you doing there?" "Thawing my beard, sir." "Come here directly, and set to work on these bones." John Want remained immovably attached to the fire-place, hold- ing something else over the fire. Crayford began to lose his tem- per. " What the devil are you about now ?" " Thawing my watch, sir. It's been under my pillow all night, and the cold has stopped it. Cheerful, wholesome, bracing sort of climate to live in ; isn't it, sir? Nevermind! / don't grumble." "No, we all know that. Look here! Are these bones pounded small enough '." John Want suddenly approached the lieutenant, and looked at him with an appearance of the deepest interest. 472 THE FROZEN DEEP. " You'll excuse me, sir," he said ; " how very hollow your voice sounds this morning !" " Never mind my voice. The bones ! the bones !" " Yes, sir the bones. They'll take a trifle more pounding. I'll do my best with them, sir, for your sake." " What do you mean ?" John Want shook his head, and looked at Crayford with a dreary smile. " I don't think I shall have the honor of making much more bone soup for you, sir. Do you think yourself you'll last long, sir ? I don't, saving your presence. I think about another week or ten days will do for us all. Never mind ! / don't grumble." He poured the bones into the mortar, and began to pound them under protest. At the same moment a sailor appeared, entering from the inner hut. " A message from Captain Ebsworth, sir." "Well?" " The captain is worse than ever with his freezing pains, sir. He wants to see you immediately." " I will go at once. Rouse the doctor." Answering in those terms, Crayford returned to the inner hut, followed by the sailor. John Want shook his head again, and smiled more drearily than ever. " Rouse the doctor ?" he repeated. " Suppose the doctor should be frozen ? He hadn't a ha'porth of warmth in him last night, and his voice sounded like a whisper in a speaking-trumpet. Will the bones do now ? Yes, the bones will do now. Into the saucepan with you," cried John Want, suiting the action to the word, " and flavor the hot water if you can ! When I remember that I was once an apprentice at a pastry-cook's when I think of the gallons of turtle-soup that this hand has stirred up in a jolly hot kitchen and when I find myself mixing bones and hot water for soup, and turning into ice as fast as I can ; if I wasn't of a cheerful disposi- tion I should feel inclined to grumble. John Want ! John Want ! whatever had you done with your natural senses, when you made up your mind to go to sea ?" A new voice hailed the cook, speaking from one of the bed-places in the side of the hut. It was the voice of Francis Aldersley. " Who's that croaking over the fire ?" " Croaking ?" repeated John Want, with the air of a man who considered himself the object of a gratuitous insult. " Croaking ? You don't find your own voice at all altered for the worse do you, Mr. Frank ? I don't give Aim," John proceeded, speaking confiden- tially to himself, " more than six hours to last. He's one of your grumblers." THE FROZEN DEEP. 473 " What are you doing there ?" asked Frank. " I'm making bone soup, sir, and wondering why I ever went to sea." "Well, and why did you go to sea?" " I'm not certain, Mr. Frank. Sometimes I think it was natural perversity; sometimes I think it was false pride at getting over sea- sickness ; sometimes I think it was reading ' Robinson Crusoe,' and books warning of me not to go to sea." Frank laughed. " You're an odd fellow. What do you mean by false pride at getting over sea-sickness? Did you get over sea-sick- ness in some new way ?" [John Want's dismal face brightened in spite of himself. Frank had recalled to the cook's memory one of the noteworthy passages in the cook's life.] " That's it, sir !" he said. " If ever a man cured sea-sickness in a IH \v way yet, I am that man I got over it, Mr. Frank, by dint of hard eating. I was a passenger on board a packet-boat, sir, when first I saw blue water. A nasty lopp of a sea came on at dinner- time, and I began to feel queer the moment the soup was put on the table. ' Sick ?' says the captain. ' Rather, sir,' says I. ' Will you try my cure?' says the captain. 'Certainly, sir,' says I. 'Is your heart in your mouth yet?' says the captain. 'Not quite, sir,' says I. 'Mock-turtle soup?' says the captain, and helps me. I swallow a couple of spoonfuls, and turn as white as a sheet. The captain cocks his eye at me. 'Go on deck, sir,' says he; 'get rid of the soup, and then come back to the cabin.' I got rid of the soup, and came back to the cabin. ' Cod's head-and-shoulders,' says the cap- tain, and helps me. ' I can't stand it, sir,' says I. ' You must,' says the captain, 'because it's the cure.' I crammed down a mouthful, and turned paler than ever. ' Go on deck,' says the captain. ' Get rid of the cod's head, and come back to the cabin.' Off I go, and back I come. 'Boiled leg of mutton and trimmings,' says the captain, and helps me. 'No fat, sir,' says I. 'Fat's the cure,' says the captain, and makes me eat it. ' Lean's the cure,' says the cap- tain, and makes me eat it. ' Steady ?' says the captain. ' Sick,' says I. ' Go on deck,' says the captain ; ' get rid of the boiled leg of mutton and trimmings, and come back to the cabin.' Off I go, staggering back I come, more dead than alive. ' Deviled kidneys,' says the captain. I shut my eyes, and got 'em down. ' Cure's be- ginning,' says the captain. ' Mutton-chop and pickles.' I shut my eyes, and got them down. ' Broiled ham and cayenne pepper,' says the captain. ' Glass of stout and cranberry tart. Want to go on deck again?' 'No, sir,' says I. 'Cure's done,' says the captain. ' Never you give in to your stomach, and your stomach will end in giving in to you? " 20* 474 THE FROZEN DEEP. Having stated the moral purpose of his story in those unansjver- able words, John Want took himself and his saucepan into the kitchen. A moment later, Crayford returned to the hut, and aston- ished Frank Aldersley by an unexpected question. " Have you any thing in your berth, Frank, that you set a value on?" Frank looked puzzled. " Nothing that I set the smallest value on when I am out of it," he replied. " What does your question mean ?" " We are almost as short of fuel as we are of provisions," Crayford proceeded. "Your berth will make good firing. I have directed Bateson to be here in ten minutes with his axe." " Very attentive and considerate on your part," said Frank. " What is to become of me, if you please, when Bateson has chop- ped my bed into fire-wood ?" " Can't you guess ?" " I suppose the cold has stupefied me. The riddle is beyond my reading. Suppose you give me a hint ?" " Certainly. There will be beds to spare soon there is to be a change at last in our wretched lives here. Do you see it now ?" Frank's eyes sparkled. He sprang out of his berth, and waved his fur cap in triumph. " See it ?" he exclaimed ; " of course I do ! The exploring party is to start at last. Do I go with the expedition ?" " It is not very long since you were in the doctor's hands, Frank," said Crayford, kindly. " I doubt if you are strong enough yet to make one of the exploring party." " Strong enough or not," returned Frank, " any risk is better than, pining and perishing here. Put me down, Crayford, among those who volunteer to go." "Volunteers will not be accepted, in this case," said Crayford. "Captain Helding and Captain Ebsworth see serious objections, as we are situated, to that method of proceeding." "Do they mean to keep the appointments in their own hands?" asked Frank. " I for one object to that." " Wait a little," said Crayford. " You were playing backgammon the other day with one of the officers. Does the board belong to him or to you ?" " It belongs to me. I have got it in my locker here. What do you want with it ?" "I want the dice and the box for casting lots. The captains have arranged most wisely, as I think that Chance shall decide among us who goes with the expedition and who stays behind in the huts. The officers and crew of the Wanderer will be here in a few minutes to cast the lots. Neither you nor any one can object to THE FROZEN DEEP. 475 that way of deciding among us. Officers and men alike take theif chance together. Nobody can grumble." " I am quite satisfied," said Frank. " But I know of one man among the officers who is sure to make objections." "Who is tin- 111:111 '." You know him well enough, too. The ' Bear of the Expedition,' Richard Ward our." " Frank ! Frank ! you have a bad habit of letting your tongue run away with you. Don't repeat that stupid nickname when you talk of my good friend, Richard Wardour." Your good friend ? Crayford ! your liking for that man amazes me." Crayford laid his hand kindly on Frank's shoulder. Of all the officers of the Sea-mew, Crayford's favorite was Frank. " Why should it amaze you ?" he asked. " What opportunities have you had of judging ? You and Wardour have always belonged to different ships. I have never seen you in Wardour's society for five minutes together. How can you form a fair estimate of his diameter '." " I take the general estimate of his character," Frank answered. " He has got his nickname because he is the most unpopular man in his ship. Nobody likes him there must be some reason for that." "There is only one reason for it," Crayford rejoined. "Nobody understands Richard Wardour. I am not talking at random. Re- member, I sailed from England with him in the Wanderer ; and I was only transferred to the Sea-mew long after we were locked up in the ice. I was Richard Wardour's companion on board ship for months, and I learned there to do him justice. Under all his out- ward defects, I tell you, there beats a great and generous heart. Suspend your opinion, my lad, until you know my friend as well as I do. No more of this now. Give me the dice and the box." Frank opened his locker. At the same moment the silence of the snowy waste outside was broken by a shouting of voices hailing the hut " Sea-mew, ahoy !" CHAPTER VHL THE sailor on watch opened the outer door. There, plodding over the ghastly white snow, were the officers of the Wanderer ap- proaching the hut. There, scattered under the merciless black sky, were the crew, with the dogs and the sledges, waiting the word which was to start them on their perilous and doubtful journey.. Captain Helding of the Wanderer, accompanied by his officers, 476 THE FROZEN DEEP. entered the hut, in high spirits at the prospect of a change. Be- hind them, lounging in slowly by himself, was a dark, sullen, heavy- browed man. He neither spoke, nor offered his hand to any body : he was the one person present who seemed to be perfectly indiffer- ent to the fate in store for him. This was the man whom his broth- er officers had nicknamed the Bear of the Expedition. In other words Richard Wardour. Crayford advanced to welcome Captain Helding. Frank, remem- bering the friendly reproof which he had just received, passed over the other officers of the Wanderer, and made a special effort to be civil to Crayford's friend. " Good-morning, Mr. "Wardour," he said. " We may congratulate each other on the chance of leaving this horrible place." ''You may think it horrible," Wardour retorted ; " I like it." " Like it ? Good heavens ! why ?" " Because there are no women here." Frank turned to his brother officers, without making any further advances in the direction of Richard Wardour. The Bear of the Expedition was more unapproachable than ever. In the mean time the hut had become thronged by the able-bodied officers and men of the two ships. Captain Helding, standing in the midst of them, with Crayford by his side, proceeded to explain the purpose of the contemplated expedition to the audience which sur- rounded him: He began in these words : " Brother officers and men of the Wanderer and Sea-mew, it is my duty to tell you, very briefly, the reasons which have decided Cap- tain Ebsworth and myself on dispatching an exploring party in search of help. Without recalling all the hardships we have suffer- ed for the last two years the destruction, first of one of our ships, then of the other ; the death of some of our bravest and best com- panions ; the vain battles we have been fighting with the ice and snow, and boundless desolation of these inhospitable regions with- out dwelling on these things, it is my duty to remind you that this, the last place in which we have taken refuge, is far beyond the track of any previous expedition, and that consequently our chance of being discovered by any rescuing parties .that may be sent to look after us is, to say the least of it, a chance of the most uncertain kind. You all agree with me, gentlemen, so far ?" The officers (with the exception of Wardour, who stood apart in sullen silence) all agreed, so far. The captain went on. " It is therefore urgently necessary that we should make another, and probably a last, effort to extricate ourselves. The winter is not far off, game is getting scarcer and scarcer, our stock of provisions THE FROZEX DEEP. 477 is running low, and the sick especially, I am sorry to say, the sick in the Wanderer's hut are increasing in number day by day. We must look to our own lives, and to the lives of those who are de- pendent on us ; and we have no time to lose." The officers echoed the words cheerfully. ' Right ! right ! No time to lose." Captain Holding resumed : "The plan proposed is, that a detachment of the able-bodied officers and men among us should set forth this very day, and make another effort to reach the nearest inhabited settlements, from which help and provisions may be dispatched to those who remain here. The new direction to be taken, and the various precautions to be adopted, are all drawn out ready. The only question now before us is, Who is to stop here, and who is to undertake the journey ?" The officers answered the question with one accord " Volun- teers !" The men echoed their officers. " Ay, ay, volunteers." Wardour still preserved his sullen silence. Crayford noticed him, standing apart from the rest, and appealed to him personally. " Do you say nothing ?" he asked. " Nothing," Wardour answered. " Go or stay, it's all one to me." " I hope you don't really mean that ?" said Crayford. "I do." " I am sorry to hear it, Wardour." Captain Helding answered the general suggestion in favor of vol- unteering by a question which instantly checked the rising enthusi- asm of the meeting. " Well," he said, " suppose we say volunteers. Who volunteers to stop in the huts ?" There was a dead silence. The officers and men looked at each other confusedly. The captain continued : " You see we can't settle it by volunteering. You all want to go. Every man among us who has the use of his limbs naturally wants to go. But what is to become of those who have not got the use of their limbs ? Some of us must stay here, and take care of the sick." Every body admitted that this was true. " So we get back again," said the captain, " to the old question Who among the able-bodied is to go ? and who is to stay ? Cap- tain Ebsworth says, and I say, let chance decide it. Here are dice. The numbers run as high as twelve double sixes. All who throw under six, stay; all who throw over six, go. Officers of the Wanderer und the Sai-m<'ir. do you agree to that way of meeting the difficulty?" All the officers agreed, with the one exception of Wardour, who still kept silence. 478 THE FROZEN DEEP. " Men of the Wanderer and Sea-mew, your officers agree to cast lots. Do you agree too ?" The men agreed without a dissentient voice. Crayford handed the box and the dice to Captain Helding. " You throw first, sir. Under six, ' Stay.' Over six, ' Go.' " Captain Helding cast the dice ; the top of the cask serving for a table. He threw seven. " Go," said Crayford. " I congratulate you, sir. Now for my own chance." He cast the dice in his turn. Three ! " Stay ! Ah, well ! well ! if I can do my duty, and be of use' to others, what does it matter whether I go or stay ? Wardour, you are next, in the ab- sence of your first lieutenant." Wardour prepared to cast, without shaking the dice. " Shake the box, man !" cried Crayford. " Give yourself a chance of luck !" Wardour persisted in letting the dice fall out carelessly, just as they lay in the box. "Not I!" he muttered to himself. "'I've done with luck." Say- ing those words, he threw down the empty box, and seated himself on the nearest chest, without looking to see how the dice had fallen. Crayford examined them. " Six !" he exclaimed. " There ! you have a second chance, in spite of yourself. You are neither under nor over you throw again." " Bah !" growled the Bear. " It's not worth the trouble of get- ting up for. Somebody else throw for me." He suddenly looked at Frank. " You ! you have got what the women call a lucky face." Frank appealed to Crayford. " Shall I ?" " Yes, if he wishes it," said Crayford. Frank cast the dice. " Two ! He stays ! Wardour, I am sorry I have thrown against you." " Go or stay," reiterated Wardour, " it's all one to me. You will be luckier, young one, when you cast for yourself." Frank cast for himself. " Eight. Hurra ! I go !" " What did I tell you ?" said Wardour. " The chance was yours. You have thriven on my ill luck." He rose, as he spoke, to leave the hut. Crayford stopped him. " Have you any thing particular to do, Richard ?" " What has any body to do here ?" " Wait a little, then. I want to speak to you when this business is over." " Are you going to give me any more good advice ?" " Don't look at me in that sour way, Richard. I am going to ask you a question about something which concerns yourself." * Wardour yielded without a word more. He returned to his THE FROZEN DEEP. 479 chest, and cynically composed himself to slumber. The casting of the lots went on rapidly among the officers and men. In another half-hour chance had decided the question of " Go " or " Stay " for all alike. The men left the hut. The officers entered the inner apartment for a last conference with the bed-ridden captain of the Sea-mew. Wardour and Crayford were left together, alone. CHAPTER IX. CRATFORD touched his friend on the shoulder to rouse him. Wardour looked up, impatiently, with a frown. " I was just asleep," he said. " Why do you wake me ?" " Look round you, Richard. We are alone." Well and what of that ?" ' I wish to speak to you privately ; and this is my opportunity. You have disappointed and surprised me to-day. Why did you say it was all one to you whether you went or staid ? Why are you the only man among us who seems to be perfectly indifferent whether we are rescued or not ?" " Can a man always give a reason for what is strange in his man- ner or his words ?" Wardour retorted. " He can try," said Crayford, quietly " when his friend asks him." Wardour's manner softened. " That's true," he said. " I will try. Do you remember the first night at sea when we sailed from England in the Wanderer /" "As well as if it was yesterday.' 1 "A calm, still night," the other went on, thoughtfully. "$o clouds, no stars. Nothing in the sky but the broad moon, and hard- ly a ripple to break the path of light she made in the quiet water. Mine was the middle watch that night. You came on deck, and found me alone " He stopped. Crayford took his hand, and finished the sentence for him. "Alone and in tears." " The last I shall ever shed," Wardour added, bitterly. " Don't say that ! There are times when a man is to be pitied in- deed, if he can shed no tears. Go on, Richard." Wardour proceeded still following the old recollections, still preserving his gentler tones. " I should have quarreled with any other man who had surprised me at that moment,'' he said. " There was something, I suppose, in your voice when you asked my pardon for disturbing me, that soft- ened my heart. I told you I had met with a disappointment which 480 THE FROZEN DEEP. had broken me for life. There was no need to explain further. The only hopeless wretchedness in this world is the wretchedness that women cause." " And the only unalloyed happiness," said Crayford, " the happi- ness that women bring." " That may be your experience of them," Wardour answered ; " mine is different. All the devotion, the patience, the humility, the worship that there is in man, I laid at the feet of a woman. She accepted the offering as women do accepted it, easily, graceful- ly, unfeelingly accepted it as a matter of course. I left England to win a high place in my profession, before I dared to win her. I braved danger, and faced death. I staked my life in the fever swamps of Africa, to gain the promotion that I only desired for her sake and gained it. I came back to give her all, and to ask noth- ing in return, but to rest my weary heart in the sunshine of her smile! And her own lips the lips I had kissed at parting told me that another man had robbed me of her. I spoke but few words when I heard that confession, and left her forever. ' The time may come,' I told her, ' when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.' Don't ask me who he was ! I have yet to discover him. The treachery had been kept secret ; nobody could tell me where to find him ; nobody could tell me who he was. What did it matter ? When I had lived out the first agony, I could rely on myself I could be patient, and bide my time." " Your time ? What time ?" " The time when I and that man shall meet face to face. I knew it then ; I know it now it was written on my heart then, it is writ- ten on my heart now we two shall meet and know each other ! With that conviction strong within me, I volunteered for this serv- ice, as I would have volunteered for any thing that set work and hardship and danger, like ramparts, between my misery and me. With that conviction strong within me still, I tell you it is no mat- ter whether I stay here with the sick, or go hence with the strong. I shall live till I have met that man ! There is a day of reckoning appointed between us. Here in the freezing cold, or away in the deadly heat ; in battle or in shipwreck ; in the face of starvation ; under the shadow of pestilence I, though hundreds are falling round me, I shall live ! live for the coming of one day! live for the meeting with one man !" He stopped, trembling, body and soul, under the hold that his own terrible superstition had fastened on him. Crayford drew back in silent horror. Wardour noticed the action he resented it he appealed, in defense of his one cherished conviction, to Crayford's own experience of him. THE FROZEN DEEP. 481 " Look at me !" he cried. " Look how I have lived and thriven, with the heart-ache gnawing at me at home, and the winds of the icy north whistling round me here ! I am the strongest man among you. Why ? I have fought through hardships that have laid the best-seasoned men of all our party on their backs. Why ? What li;i\r / done, that my life should throb as bravely through every vein in my body at this minute, and in this deadly place, as ever it did in the wholesome breezes of home ? What am I preserved for ? I tell you again, for the coming of one day for the meeting with one man." He paused once more. This time Crayford spoke. " Richard !" he said, " since we first met, I have believed in your l>etter nature, against all outward appearance. I have believed in you, firmly, truly, as your brother might. You are putting that be- lief to a hard test. If your enemy had told me that you had ever talked as you talk now, that you had ever looked as you look now, I would have turned my back on him as the utterer of a vile calum- ny against a just, a brave, an upright man. Oh ! my friend, my friend, if ever I have deserved well of you, put away these thoughts from your heart ! Fce me again, with the stainless look of a man who has trampled under his feet the bloody superstitions of revenge, ami knows them no more ! Never, never, let the time come when I can not offer you my hand as I offer it now, to the man I can still admire to the brother I can still love !" The heart that no other voice could touch felt that appeal. The fierce eyes, the hard voice, softened under Crayford's influence. Richard Wardour's head sank on his breast. "You are kinder to me than I deserve," he said. "Be kinder still, and forget what I have been talking about. No! no more about me ; I am not worth it. We'll change the subject, and never go back to it again. Let's do something. Work, Crayford that's the true elixir of our life ! Work, that stretches the muscles, and sets the blood a-glowing. Work, that tires the body and rests the mind. Is there nothing in hand that I can do? Nothing to cut? nothing to carry ?" The door opened as he put the question. Bateson appointed to chop Frank's bed-place into firing appeared punctually with his axe. Wardour, without a word of warning, snatched tbe axe out of the man's hand. " What was this wanted for ?" he asked. " To cut up Mr. Aldersley's berth there into firing, sir." " I'll do it for you ! I'll have it down in no time !" He turned to Crayford. "You needn't he afraid about me, old friend. I am going to do the right thing. I am going to tire my body, and rest my mind." 482 THE FROZEN DEEP. The evil spirit in him was plainly subdued for the time, at least. Crayford took his hand in silence ; and then (followed by Bateson) left him to his work. CHAPTER X. AXE in hand, Wardour approached Frank's bed-place. " If I could only cut the thoughts out of me," he said to himself, " as I am going to cut the billets out of this wood !" He attacked the bed-place with the axe, like a man who well knew the use of his instrument. " Oh me !" he thought, sadly, " if I had only been born a carpenter instead of a gentleman ! A good axe, Master Bateson I wonder where you got it? Something like a grip, my man, on this handle. Poor Crayford ! his words stick in my throat. A fine fellow ! a noble fellow ! No use thinking, no use regretting ; what is said, is said. Work ! work ! work !" Plank after plank fell out on the floor. He laughed over the easy task of destruction. "Aha ! young Aldersley ! It doesn't take much to demolish your bed - place. I'll have it down ! I would have the whole hut down, if they would only give me the chance of chopping at it !" A long strip of wood fell to his axe long enough to require cut- ting in two. He turned it, and stooped over it. Something caught his eye letters carved in the wood. He looked closer. The letters were very faintly and badly cut. He could only make out the first three of them ; and even of those he was not quite certain. They looked like C. L. A. if they looked like any thing. He threw down the strip of wood irritably. " D n the fellow (whoever he is) who cut this ! Why should he carve that name, of all the names in the world ?" He paused, considering then determined to go on again with his self-imposed labor. He was ashamed of his own outburst. He look- ed eagerly for the axe. " Work, work ! Nothing for it but work." He found the axe, and went on again. He cut out another plank. He stopped, and looked at it suspiciously. There was carving again, on this plank. The letters F. and A. appeared on it. He put down the axe. There were vague misgivings in him which he was not able to realize. The state of his own mind was fast becoming a puzzle to him. " More carving," he said to himself. " That's the way these young idlers employ their long hours. F. A. ? Those must be his I II K FROZEN DEEP. 483 initials Frank Aldersley. Who carved the letters on the other plank ? Frank Aldersley, too ?" He turned the piece of wood in his hand nearer to the light, and looked lower down it. More carving again, lower down ! Under the initials F. A. were two more letters C. B. " C. B. ?" he repeated to himself. " Ilis sweetheart's initials, I sup- pose ? Of course at his age his sweetheart's initials." He paused once more. A spasm of inner pain showed the shadow of its mysterious passage, outwardly on his face. " Her cipher is C. B.," he said, in low, broken tones. " C. B. Clara Burnham." He waited, with the plank in his hand ; repeating the name over and over again, as if it was a question he was putting to himself. " Clara Burnham ? Clara Burnham P He dropped the plank, and turned deadly pale in a moment. His eyes wandered furtively backward and forward between the strip of wood on the floor and the half- demolished berth. " Oh God ! what has come to me now ?" he said to himself, in a whisper. He snatched up the axe, with a strange cry something between rage and terror. He tried fiercely, desperately tried to go on with his work. No ! strong as he was, he could not use the axe. His hands were helpless ; they trembled incessantly. He went to the fire ; he held his hands over it. They still trembled incessantly; they infect- ed the rest of him. He shuddered all over. He knew fear. His own thoughts terrified him. " Crayford !" he cried out. " Crayford ! come here, and let's go hunting." No friendly voice answered him. No friendly face showed itself at the door. An interval passed; and there came over him another change. He recovered his self-possession almost as suddenly as he had lost it. A smile a horrid, deforming, unnatural smile spread slowly, stealthily, devilishly over his face. He left the fire; he put the axe away softly in a corner; he sat down in his old place, deliberately self-abandoned to a frenzy of vindictive joy. He had found the man ! There, at the end of the world there, at the last fight of the Arctic voyagers against starvation and death, he had found the man ! The minutes passed. He became conscious, on a sudden of a freezing stream of air pourvig irt. flu rovtc. He turned, and saw Crayford opening the door of the hut. A man was behind him. Wardour rose eagerly, and looked over Cray- ford's shoulder. Was it could it be the man who had carved the letters on the plank ? Yes ! Frank Aldersley ! 484 THE FROZEN DEEP. CHAPTER XI. " STILL at work !" Crayford exclaimed, looking at the half-demol- ished bed -place. "Give yourself a little rest, Richard. The ex- ploring party is ready to start. If you wish to take leave of your brother officers before they go, you have no time to lose." He checked himself there, looking Wardour full in the face. " Good heavens !" he cried, " how pale you are ! Has any thing happened ?" Frank searching in his locker for articles of clothing which he might require on the journey looked round. He was startled, as Crayford had been startled, by the sudden change in Wardour since they had last seen him. " Are you ill ?" he asked. " I hear you have been doing Bateson's work for him. Have you hurt yourself?" Wardour suddenly moved his head, so as to hide his face from both Crayford and Frank. He took out his handkerchief, and wound it clumsily round his left hand. " Yes," he said ; " I hurt myself with the axe. It's nothing. Never mind. Pain always has a curious effect on me. I tell you it's nothing ! Don't notice it !" He turned his face toward them again as suddenly as he had turned it away. He advanced a few steps, and addressed himself with an uneasy familiarity to Frank. " I didn't answer you civilly when you spoke to me some little time since. I mean when I first came in here along with the rest of them. I apologize. Shake hands ! How are you ? Ready for the march ?" Frank met the oddly abrupt advance which had been made to him with perfect good humor. " I am glad to be friends with you, Mr. Wardour. I wish I was as well seasoned to fatigue as you are." Wardour burst into a hard, joyless, unnatural laugh. " Not strong, eh ? You don't look it. The dice had better have sent me away, and kept you here. I never felt in better condition in my life." He paused and added, with his eye on Frank, and with a strong emphasis on the words : " We men of Kent are made of tough material." Frank advanced a step on his side, with a new interest in Rich- ard Wardour. THE FROZEN DEEP. 485 " You come from Kent ?" he said. " Yes. From East Kent." He waited a little once more, and looked hard at Frank. " Do you know that part of the country ?" he askr.l. " I ought to know something about East Kent," Frank answered. " Some dear friends of mine once lived there." Friends of yours ?" Wardour repeated. " One of the county families, I suppose?" As he put the question, he abruptly looked over his shoulder. He was standing between Crayford and Frank. Crayford, taking no part in the conversation, had been watching him, and listening to him more and more attentively as that conversation went on. Within the last moment or two Wardour had become instinctively conscious of this. He resented Crayford's conduct with needless irritability. " Why are you staring at me ?" he asked. "Why are you looking unlike yourself?" Crayford answered, quietly. Wardour made no reply. He renewed the conversation with Frank. " One of the county families ?" he resumed. " The Witherbys of Yew Grange, I dare say ?" " No," said Frank ; " but friends of the Witherbys, very likely. The Burnhams." Desperately as he struggled to maintain it, Wardour's self-control failed him. He started violently. The clumsily -wound handker- chief fell off his hand. Still looking at him attentively, Crayford picked it up. " There is your handkerchief, Richard," he said. " Strange !" -What is strange?" " You told us you had hurt yourself with the axe " " Well ?" " There is no blood on your handkerchief." Wardour snatched the handkerchief out of Crayford's hand, and, turning away, approached the outer door of the hut. " No blood on the handkerchief," he said to himself. ''There may be a stain or two when Crayford sees it again." He stopped within a few paces of the door, and spoke to Crayford. " You recommended me to take leave of my brother officers before it was too late," he said. "I am going to follow your advice." The door was opened from the outer side as he laid his hand on the lock. One of the quartermasters of the Wanderer entered the hut. " Is Captain Helding here, sir if" he asked, addressing himself to Wardour. 486 THE FROZEN DEEP. "Wardour pointed to Crayford. " The lieutenant will tell you," he said. Crayford advanced and questioned the quartermaster. " What do you want with Captain Helding ?" he asked. " I have a report to make, sir. There has been an accident on the ice." " To one of your men ?" " No, sir. To one of our officers." Wardour, on the point of going out, paused when the quarter- master made that reply. For a moment he considered with himself. Then he walked slowly back to the part of the room in which Frank was standing. Crayford, directing the quartermaster, point- ed to the arched door-way in the side of the hut. " I am sorry to hear of the accident," he said. " You will find Captain Helding in that room." For the second time, with singular persistency, Wardour renewed the conversation with Frank. " So you knew the Burnhams ?" he said. " What became of Clara when her father died ?" Frank's face flushed angrily on the instant. " Clara !" he repeated. " What authorizes you to speak of Miss Burnham in that familiar manner ?" Wardour seized the opportunity of quarreling with him. " What right have you to ask ?" he retorted, coarsely. Frank's blood was up. He forgot his promise to Clara to keep their engagement secret he forgot every thing but the unbridled insolence of Wardour's language and manner. "A right which I insist on your respecting," he answered. " The right of being engaged to marry her." Crayford's steady eyes were still on the watch, and Wardour felt them on him. A little more, and Crayford might openly interfere. Even Wardour recognized for once the necessity of controlling his temper, cost him what it might. He made his apologies, with over- strained politeness, to Frank. " Impossible to dispute such a right as yours," he said. " Perhaps you will excuse me when you know that I am one of Miss Burn- ham's old friends. My father and her father were neighbors. We have always met like brother and sis.ter Frank generously stopped the apology there. " Say no more," he interposed. " I was in the wrong I lost my temper. Pray forgive me." Wardour looked at him with a strange, reluctant interest while he was speaking. Wardour asked an extraordinary question when he had done. " Is she very fond of you ?" THE FROZEN DEEP. 4B7 Prank burst out laughing. " My dear fellow," he said, " come to our wedding, and judge for yourself." "Come to your wedding?" As he repeated the words Wardour stole one glance at Frank, which Frank (employed in buckling his knapsack) failed to see. Crayford noticed it, and Crayford's blood ran cold. Comparing the words which Wardour had spoken to him while they were alone together with the words that had just passed in his presence, he could draw but one conclusion. The woman whom Wardour had loved and lost was Clara Burnham. The man who had robbed him of her was Frank Aldersley. And Wardour had discovered it in the interval since they had last met. " Thank God !" thought Crayford, " the dice have parted them ! Frank goes with the expedition, and Wardour stays behind with me." The reflection had barely occurred to him Frank's thoughtless invitation to Wardour had just passed his lips when the canvas screen over the door-way was drawn aside. Captain Helding and the officers who were to leave with the exploring party returned to the main room on their way out. Seeing Crayford, Captain Helding stopped to speak to him. " I have a casualty to report," said the captain, " which dimin- ishes our numbers by one. My second lieutenant, who was to have joined the exploring party, has had a fall on the ice. Judging by what the quartermaster tells me, I am afraid the poor fellow has broken his leg." " I will supply his place," cried a voice at the other end of the hut. Every body looked round. The man who had spoken was Rich- ard Wardour. Crayford instantly interfered so vehemently as to astonish all who knew him. " No !" he said. " Not you, Richard ! not you !" " Why not ?" Wardour asked, sternly. " Why not, indeed ?" added Captain Helding. " Wardour is the very man to be useful on a long march. He is in perfect health, and he is the best shot among us. I was on the point of propos- ing him myself." Crayford failed to show his customary respect for his superior officer. He openly disputed the captain's conclusion. " Wardour has no right to volunteer," he rejoined. " It has been settled, Captain Hekling, that chance shall decide who is to go and who is to stay." "And chance has decided it," cried Wardour. "D^ you think \M- MIT ^"iii.y to f " s t the dice again, and give an officer of the Sea- 488 THE FROZEN DEEP. mew a chance of replacing an officer of the Wanderer ? There is a vacancy in our party, not in yours ; and we claim the right of filling it as we please. I volunteer, and my captain backs me. Whose authority is to keep rne here after that ?" " Gently, Wardour," said Captain Helding. " A man who is in the right can afford to speak with moderation." He turned to Crayford. " You must admit yourself," he continued, " that War- dour is right this time. The missing man belongs to my command, and in common justice one of my officers ought to supply his place." It was impossible to dispute the matter further. The dullest man present could see that the captain's reply was unanswerable. In sheer despair, Crayford took Frank's arm and led him aside a few steps. The last chance left of parting the two men was the chance of appealing to Prank. " My dear boy," he began, " I want to say one friendly word to you on the subject of your health. I have already, if you remember, expressed my doubts whether you are strong enough to make one of an exploring party. I feel those doubts more strongly than ever at this moment. Will you take the advice of a friend who wishes you well ?" Wardour had followed Crayford. Wardour roughly interposed before Frank could reply. " Let him alone !" Crayford paid no heed to the interruption. He was too earnestly bent on withdrawing Frank from the expedition to notice any thing that was said or done by the persons about him. " Don't, pray don't, risk hardships which you are unfit to bear !" he went on, entreatingly. " Your place can be easily filled. Change your mind, Frank. Stay here with me." Again Wardour interfered. Again he called out, "Leave him alone!" more roughly than ever. Still deaf and blind to every consideration but one, Crayford pressed his entreaties on Frank. "You owned yourself just now that you were not well seasoned to fatigue," he persisted. " You feel (you must feel) how weak that last illness has left you ? You know (I am sure you know) how unfit you are to brave exposure to cold, and long marches over the snow." Irritated beyond endurance by Crayford's obstinacy ; seeing, or thinking he saw, signs of yielding in Frank's face, Wardour so far forgot himself as to seize Crayford by the arm and attempt to drag him away from Frank. Crayford turned and looked at him. " Richard," he said, very quietly, " you are not yourself. I pity you. Drop your hand." Wardour relaxed his hold, with something of the sullen submis- sion of a wild animal to its keeper. The momentary silence which followed gave Frank an opportunity of speaking at last. THE FROZEN DEEP. 489 " I am gratefully sensible, Crayford," he began, " of the interest which you take in me ' " And you will follow my advice ?" Crayford interposed, eagerly. "My mind is made up, old friend," Frank answered, firmly and sadly. " Forgive me for disappointing you. I am appointed to the expedition. With the expedition I go." He moved nearer to War- dour. In his innocence of all suspicion he clapped Wardour heart- ily on the shoulder. "When I feel the fatigue," said poor simple Frank, " you will help me, comrade won't you ? Come alon# !" Wardour snatched his gun out of the hands of the sailor who was carrying it for him. His dark face became suddenly irradiated with a terrible joy. " Come !" he cried. " Over the snow and over the ice ! Come ! when- no human footsteps have ever trodden, and where no human trace is ever left.'' Blindly, instinctively, Crayford made an effort to part them. His brother officers, standing near, pulled him back. They looked at each other anxiously. The merciless cold, striking its victims in various ways, had struck in some instances at their reason first. Kvery I tody loved Crayford. Was he, too, going on the dark way that others had taken before him ? They forced him to seat him- self on one of the lockers. " Steady, old fellow !" they said kindly " steady !'' Crayford yielded, writhing inwardly under the sense of his own helplessness. What in God's name could he do ? Could he denounce Wardour to Captain Helding on bare suspicion with- out so much as the shadow of a proof to justify what he said ? The captain would decline to insult one of his officers by even mention- ing the monstrous accusation to him. The captain would conclude, as others had already concluded, that Crayford's mind was giving way under stress of cold and privation. No hope literally, no hope now, but in the numbers of the expedition. Officers and men, they all liked Frank. As long as they could stir hand or foot, they would help him on the way they would see that no harm came to him. The word of command was given ; the door was thrown open ; the hut emptied rapidly. Over the merciless white snow under the merciless Mack sky the exploring party began to move. The sick and helpless men, whose last hope of rescue centred in their de- parting messmates, cheered faintly. Some few whose days were numbered sobbed and cried like women. Frank's voice faltered as lit- turned back at the door to say his last words to the friend who had been a father to him. " God bless you, Crayford 1" Crayford broke away from the officers near him ; and, hurrying forward, seized Frank by both hands. Crayford held him as if he would never let him go, 81 490 THE FROZEN DEEP. " God preserve you, Frank ! I would give all I have in the world to be with you. Good-bye ! Good-bye !" Frank waved his hand dashed away the tears that were gather- ing in his eyes and hurried out. Crayford called after him, the last, the only warning that he could give : " While you can stand, keep with the main body, Frank !" Wardour, waiting till the last Wardour, following Frank through the snow-drift stopped, stepped back, and answered Crayford at the door: " While he can stand, he keeps with Me." 'J 111- M;"/.I..N DEEP. 401 THIRD SCENE. -THE ICEBERG. CHAPTER XII. ALONE ! alone on the Frozen Deep ! The Arctic sun is rising dimly in the dreary sky. The beams of the cold northern moon, mingling strangely with the dawning light, clothe the snowy plains in hues of livid gray. An ice-field on the far horizon is moving slowly southward in the spectral light. Near- er, a stream of open water rolls its slow black waves past the edges of the ice. Nearer still, following the drift, an iceberg rears its crags and pinnacles to the sky ; here, glittering in the moonbeams ; there, looming dim and ghost-like in the ashy light. Midway on the long sweep' of the lower slope of the iceberg, what objects rise, and break the desolate monotony of the scene ? In this awful solitude, can signs appear which tell of human life ? Yes 1 The black outline of a boat just shows itself, hauled up on the berg. In an ice-cavern behind the boat the last red embers of a dying fire flicker from time to time over the figures of two men. One is seated, resting his back against the side of the cavern. The other lies pros- trate, with his head on his comrade's knee. The first of these men is awake, and thinking. The second reclines, with his still white face turned up to the sky sleeping or dead. Days and days since, these two have fallen behind on the march of the expedition of re- lief. Days and days since, these two have been given up by their weary and failing companions as doomed and lost. He who sits thinking is Richard Wardour. He who lies sleeping or dead is Frank Aldersley. The iceberg drifts slowly, over the black water^ through the ashy light. Minute by minute the dying fire sinks. Minute by minute the deathly cold creeps nearer and nearer to the lost men. Richard Wardour rouses himself from his thoughts looks at the still white face beneath him and places his hand on Frank's heart. It still beats feebly. Give him his share of the food and fuel still stored in the boat, and Frank may live through it. Leave him neglected where he lies, and his death is a question of hours per- haps minutes; who knows? Richard Wardour lifts the sleeper's head and rests it against the cavern side. He goes to the boat, and returns with a billet of wood. 492 THE FROZEN DEEP. He stoops to place the wood on the fire and stops. Frank is dreaming, and murmuring in his dream. A woman's name passes his lips. Frank is in England again at the ball whispering to Clara the confession of his love. Over Richard Wardour's face there passes the shadow of a dead- ly thought. He rises from the fire ; he takes the wood back to the boat. His iron strength is shaken, but it still holds out. They are drifting nearer and nearer to the open sea. He can launch the boat without help ; he can take the food and the fuel with him. The sleeper on the iceberg is the man who has robbed him of Clara who has wrecked the hope and the happiness of his life. Leave the man in his sleep, and let him die ! So the tempter whispers. Richard Wardour tries his strength on the boat. It moves : he has got it under control. He stops, and looks round. Beyond him is the open sea. Beneath him is the man who has robbed him of Clara. The shadow of the deadly thought grows and darkens over his face. He waits with his hands on the boat waits and thinks. The iceberg drifts slowly over the black water; through the ashy light. Minute by minute, the dying tire sinks. Minute by minute, the deathly cold creeps nearer to the sleeping man. And still Richard Wardour waits waits and thinks. 'I 111: FROZEN DEEP. 493 FOURTH SCENE. -THE GARDEN. CHAPTER XIII. THE spring has come. The air of the April night just lifts the leaves of the sleeping flowers. The moon is queen in the cloudless and starless sky. The stillness of the midnight hour is abroad, over land and over sea. In a villa on tin- westward shore of the Isle of Wight, the glass doors which lead from the drawing room to the garden are yet open. The shaded lamp yet burns on the table. A lady sits by the lamp, reading. From time to time she looks out into the garden, and sees the white-robed figure of a young girl pacing slowly to and fro in the soft brightness of the moonlight on the lawn. Sorrow and sus- pense have set their murk on the lady. Not rivals only, but friends who formerly admired her, agree now that she looks worn and aged. The more merciful judgment of others remarks, with equal truth, that her eyes, her hair, her simple grace and grandeur of movement have lost but little of their olden charms. The truth lies, as usual, I pet ween the two extremes. In spite of sorrow and suffering, Mrs. Crayford is the beautiful Mrs. Cray ford still. The delicious silence of the hour is softly disturbed by the voice of the younger lady in the garden. " Go to the piano, Lucy. It is a night for music. Play something that is worthy of the night." Mrs. Crayford looks round at the clock on the mantel-piece. " My dear Clara, it is past twelve ! Remember what the doctor told you. You ought to have been in bed an hour ago." " Half an hour, Lucy give me half an hour more ! Look at the moonlight on the sea. Is it possible to go to bed on such a night as tliis '. Play something. Lucy something spiritual and divine." Kurnestly pleading with her friend, Clara advances toward the window. She too lias sum-red under the wasting influences of sus- pense. Her t'aee has lost its youthful freshness; no delicate flush of color rises on it when she speaks. The soft gray eyes which won Frank's heart in the by-gone time are sadly altered now. In repose, they have a dimmed and wearied look. In action, they are wild and restl'-ss, like eyes suddenly wakened from startling dreams. Robed in white her soft brown hair hanging loosely over hec shoulders 494 THE FROZEN DEEP. there is something weird and ghost-like in the girl, as she moves nearer and nearer to the window in the full light of the moon pleading for music that shall be worthy of the mystery and the beau- ty of the night. " Will you come in here if I play to you ?" Mrs. Crayford asks. " It is a risk, my love, to be out so long in the night air." " No ! no ! I like it. Play while I am out here looking at the sea. It quiets me ; it comforts me ; it does me good." She glides back, ghost-like, over the lawn. Mrs. Crayford rises, and puts down the volume that she has been reading. It is a record of explorations in the Arctic seas. The time has gone by when the two lonely women could take an interest in subjects not connected with their own anxieties. Now, when hope is fast failing them now, when their last news of the Wanderer and the Sea-mew is news that is more than two years old they can read of nothing, they can think of nothing, but dangers and discoveries, losses and rescues in the terrible Polar seas. Unwillingly, Mrs. Crayford puts her book aside, and opens the piano Mozart's "Air in A, with Variations," lies open on the instru- ment. One after another she plays the lovely melodies, so simply, so purely beautiful, of that unpretending and unrivaled work. At the close of the ninth Variation (Clara's favorite), she pauses, and turns toward the garden. " Shall I stop there ?" she asks. There is no answer. Has Clara wandered away out of hearing of the music that she loves the music that harmonizes so subtly with the tender beauty of the night ? Mrs. Crayford rises and advances to the window. No ! there is the white figure standing alone on the slope of the lawn the head turned away from the house ; the face looking out over the calm sea, whose gently rippling waters end in the dim line on the horizon which is the line of the Hampshire coast. Mrs. Crayford advances as far as the path before the window, and calls to her. "Clara!" Again there is no answer. The white figure still stands immova- bly in its place. With signs of distress in her face, but with no appearance of alarm, Mrs. Crayford returns to the room. Her own sad experience tells her what has happened. She summons the servants, and directs them to wait in the drawing-room until she calls to them. This done, she returns to the garden, and approaches the mysterious fig- ure on the lawn. Dead to the outer world, as if she lay already in her grave insen- sible to touch, insensible to sound, motionless as stone, cold as stone THE FROZEN DEEP. 495 Clara stands on the moonlit lawn, facing the seaward view. Sire. Crayfonl waits at her side, patiently watching for the change which >hc kno\\< is to come. " C:it;tlr|>sy," as some call it "hysteria," as others say this alone is certain, the same interval always passes; the samr change always appears. It ionics now. Not a change in her eyes; they still remain wide (i pen, fixed and glassy. The first movement is a movement of her hands. They rise slowly from her side, and waver in the air like the hands of a person groping in the dark. Another interval, and the movement spreads to her lips : they part and tremble. A few min- utes more, and words begin to drop, one by one, from those parted lips words spoken in a lost, vacant tone, as if she is talking in her sleep. Mrs. Crayford looks back at the house. Sad experience makes her suspicious of the servants' curiosity. Sad experience has long since warned her that the servants are not to be trusted within hear- ing of the wild words which Clara speaks in the trance. Has any one of them ventured into the garden ? No. They are out of hear- ing at the window, waiting for the signal which tella them that their help is needed. Turning toward Clara once more, Mrs. Crayford hears the vacant- ly uttered words, falling faster and faster from her lips. "Frank! Frank! Frank! Don't drop behind don't trust Richard Wardour. While you can stand, keep with the other men, Frank '." (The farewell warning of Crayford in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep, repeated by Clara in the garden of her English home !) A moment of silence follows ; and, in that moment, the vision has changed. She sees him on the iceberg now, at the mercy of the bitterest enemy he has on earth. She sees him drifting over the black water, through the ashy light. Wake, Frank ! wake and defend yourself! Richard Wardour knows that I love you Richard Wardour's vengeance will take your life ! Wake, Frank wake ! You are drifting to your death !'' A low groan of horror burst from her, sinister and terrible to hear. "Drifting! drifting !" she whispers to herself "drifting to his deatli !" Her glassy eyes suddenly soften then close. A long shudder runs through her. A faint flush shows itself on the deadly pallor of her face, and fades again. Her limbs fail her. She sinks into Mrs. Crayford's anus. The servants, answering the call for help, carry her into the house. They lay her insensible mi her bed. After half an hour or more, her eyes open again this time with the light of life in them open, and rest languidly on the friend sitting by the bedside. 496 THE FKOZEN DEEP. " I have had a dreadful dream," she murmurs, faintly. " Am I ill, Lucy ? I feel so weak." Even as she says the words, sleep, gentle, natural sleep, takes her suddenly, as it takes young children weary with their play. Though it is all over now, though no further watching is required, Mrs. Crayford still keeps her place by the bedside, too anxious and too wakeful to retire to her own room. On other occasions, she is accustomed to dismiss from her mind the words which drop from Clara in the trance. This time the ef- fort to dismiss them is beyond her power. The words haunt her. Vainly she recalls to memory all that the doctors have said to her, in speaking of Clara in the state of trance. " What she vaguely dreads for the lost man whom she loves is mingled in her mind with what she is constantly reading, of trials, dangers, and escapes in the Arctic seas. The most startling things that she may say or do are all attributable to this cause, and may all be explained in this way." So the doctors have spoken ; and, thus far, Mrs. Crayford has shared their view. It is only to-night that the girl's words ring in her ear, with a strange prophetic sound in them. It is only to- night that she asks herself: " Is Clara present, in the spirit, with our loved and lost ones in the lonely North? Can mortal vision see the dead and living in the solitudes of the Frozen Deep ?" CHAPTER XIV. THE night had passed. Far and near the garden view looked its gayest and brightest in the light of the noonday sun. The cheering sounds w y hich tell of life and action were audible all round the villa. From the garden of the nearest house rose the voices of children at play. Along the road at the back sounded the roll of wheels, as carts and carriages passed at intervals. Out on the blue sea, the distant splash of the paddles, the distant thump of the engines, told from time to time of the passage of steamers, entering or leaving the strait between the island and the main-land. In the trees, the birds sang gayly among the rustling leaves. In the house, the women-servants were laugh- ing over some jest or story that cheered them at their work. It was a lively and pleasant time a bright, enjoyable day. The two ladies were out together ; resting on a garden seat, after a walk round the grounds. They exchanged a few trivial words relating to the beauty of the day, and then said no more. Possessing the same consciousness of what she had seen in the Trance, which persons in general possess NIK FROZEN DEEP. 497 of what they have seen in a dream believing in the vision as a su- pernatural revelation Clara's worst forebodings were now, to her mind, realized as truths. Her last faint hope of ever seeing Frank again was now at an end. Intimate experience of her told Mrs. Crawford what was passing in Clara's mind, and warned her that the attempt to reason and remon-trate would be little better than a vol- untary waste of words and time. The disposition which she had In-r-elf felt on the previous night, to attach a superstitious impor- tanee to the words that Clara had spoken in the Trance, had van- ished with the return of the morning. Rest and reflection had quieted her mind, and had restored the composing influence of her sober sen>e. Sympathizing with Clara in all besides, she had no sympathy, a> they sat together in the pleasant sunshine, with Clara's gloomy despair of the future. She, who could still hope, had noth- ing to say to the sad eompanion who had done with hope. So the i|niet minutes succeeded each other, and the two friends sat side by side in silence. An hour passed, and the gate-bell of the villa rang. They both started they both knew the ring. It was the hour when the postman brought their newspapers from London. In past days, what hundreds oil hundreds of times they had torn off the cover which inclosed the newspaper, and looked at the same col- umn with the same weary mingling of hope and despair ! There to-day as it was yesterday; as it would be, if they lived, to-morrow there was the servant with Lucy's newspaper and Clara's newspa- per in his hand ! Would both of them do again to-day what both had done so often in the days that were gone ? No ! Mrs. Crayford removed the cover from her newspaper as usual. Clara laid her newspaper aside, unopened, on the garden seat. In silence, Mrs. Crayford looked, where she always looked, at the column devoted to the Latest Intelligence from foreign parts. The in>tant tier eye fell on the page, she started with a loud cry of joy. The newspaper fell from her trembling hand. She caught Clara in her arms. " Oh, my darling ! my darling ! news of them at last." Without answering, without the slightest change in look or man- ner. ( 'lara took the newspaper from the ground, and read the top line in the column, printed in capital letters: THE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. She waited, and looked at Mrs. Crayford. ('an you bear to hear it, Lucy," she asked, "if I read it aloud?" Mr-. Crayford was too agitated to answer in words. She signed impatiently to Clara to go on. Clara read the news which followed the heading in capital letters. Thus it ran : " The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has 21* 498 THE FROZEN DEEP. reached us for publication. The whaling-vessel Blythewood is re- ported to have met with the surviving officers and men of the Expe- dition in Davis Strait. Many are stated to be dead, and some are supposed to be missing. The list of the saved, as collected by the people of the whaler, is not vouched for as being absolutely correct, the circumstances having been adverse to investigation. The vessel was pressed for time ; and the members of the Expedition, all more or less suifering from exhaustion, were not in a position to give the necessary assistance to inquiry. Further particulars may be looked for by the next mail." The list of the survivors followed, beginning with the officers in the order of their rank. They both read the list together. The first name was Captain Helding; the second was Lieutenant Cray- ford. There the wife's joy overpowered her. After a pause, she put her arm around Clara's waist, and spoke to her. " Oh, my love !" she murmured, " are you as happy as I am ? Is Frank's name there too ? The tears are in my eyes. Read for me I can't read for myself." The answer came, in still, sad tones : " I have read as far as your husband's name. I have no need to read farther." Mrs. Crayford dashed the tears from her eyes steadied herself and looked at the newspaper. On the list of the survivors, the search was vain. Frank's name was not among them. On a second list, headed " Dead or Missing," the first two names that appeared were : FRANCIS ALDEBSLEY. - RICHARD W ARDOUR. In speechless distress and dismay, Mrs. Crayford looked at Clara. Had she force enough in her feeble health to sustain the shock that had fallen on her ? Yes ! she bore it with a strange unnatural res- ignation she looked, she spoke, with the sad self-possession of despair. " I was prepared for it," she said. " I saw them in the spirit last night. Richard Wardour has discovered the truth ; and Frank has paid the penalty with his life and I, I alone, am to blame." She shuddered, and put her hand on her heart. " We shall not be long parted, Lucy. I shall go to him. He will not return to me." Those words were spoken with a calm certainty of conviction that was terrible to hear. " I have no more to say," she added, after a moment, and rose to return to the house. Mrs. Crayford caught her by the hand, and forced her to take her seat again. " Don't look at me, don't speak to me, in that horrible manner !" she exclaimed. " Clara ! it is unworthy of a reasonable being, it is THE FKOZEN DEKF. 499 doubting the mercy of God, to say what you have just said. Look at the newspaper again. See ! They tell you plainly that their in- formal i !" said Mrs. Crayford. " For once in a way they may have been fulfilled, by chance and you notice it, and remember it, and pin your faith on it. Come, Clara, be honest ! What about the oc- casions when the chance has been against you, and your dreams have not been fulfilled ? You superstitious people are all alike. You conveniently forget when your dreams and your presentiments prove false. For my sake, dear, if not for your own," she continued, in gentler and tenderer tones, " try to be more reasonable and more hopeful. Don't lose your trust in the future, and your trust in God. God, who has saved my husband, can save Frank. While there is doubt, there is hope. Don't imbitter my happiness, Clara ! Try to think as I think if it is only to show that you love me." She put her arm round the girl's neck, and kissed her. Clam re- turned the kiss ; Clara answered, sadly and submissively, "I do love you, Lucy. I trill try." Having answered in those terms, she sighed to herself, and said no more. It would have been plain, only too plain, to far less observant eyes than Mrs. Crayford's that no salutary impression had been pro- duced on her. She had ceased to defend her own way of thinking, 500 THE FROZEN DEEP. she spoke of it no more but there was the terrible conviction of Frank's death at Wardour's hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind ! Discouraged and distressed, Mrs. Crayford left her, and walked back toward the house. CHAPTER XV. AT the drawing-room window of the villa there appeared a polite little man, with bright intelligent eyes, and cheerful sociable man- ners. Neatly dressed in professional black, he stood, self-proclaim- ed, a prosperous country doctor successful and popular in a wide circle of patients and friends. As Mrs. Crayford approached him, he stepped out briskly to meet her on the lawn, with both hands extended in courteous and cordial greeting. " My dear madam, accept my heartfelt congratulations !" cried the doctor. "I have seen the good news in the paper; and I could hardly feel more rejoiced than I do now if I had the honor of know- ing Lieutenant Crayford personally. We mean to celebrate the oc- casion at home. I said to my wife before I came out, ' A bottle of the old Maderia at dinner to-day, mind ! to drink the lieutenant's health ; God bless him !' And how is our interesting patient ? The news is not altogether what we could wish, so far as she is concern- ed. I felt a little anxious, to tell you the truth, about the effect of it ; and I have paid my visit to-day before my usual time. Not that I take a gloomy view of the news myself. No ! There is clearly a doubt about the correctness of the information, so far as Mr. Alders- ley is concerned and that is a point, a great point in Mr. Alders- ley's favor. I give him the benefit of the doubt, as the lawyers say. Does Miss Burnham give him the benefit of the doubt too ? I hardly dare hope it, I confess." " Miss Burnham has grieved and alarmed me," Mrs. Crayford an- swered. " I was just thinking of sending for you, when we met here." With those introductory words, she told the doctor exactly what had happened ; repeating not only the conversation of that morning between Clara and herself, but also the words which had fallen from Clara, in the trance of the past night. The doctor listened attentively. Little by little its easy smiling composure vanished from his face, as Mrs. Crayford went on, and left him completely transformed into a grave and thoughtful man. " Let us go and look at her," he said. He seated himself by Clara's side, and carefully studied her face, with his hand on her pulse. There was no sympathy here between THE FROZEN DEEP. 501 the dreamy mystical temperament of the patient and the downright practical character of the doctor. Clara secretly disliked her medical attendant. She submitted impatiently to the close investigation of which lie made her the object. lie questioned her and she answer- ed irritably. Advancing a step farther (the doctor was not easily discouraged) he adverted to the news of the Expedition, and took up the tone of remonstrance which had been already adopted by Mrs. Crayford. Clara declined to discuss the question. She rose with formal politeness, and requested permission to return to the house. The doctor attempted no further resistance. "By all means, Miss Burnham," he answered, resignedly having first cast a look at Mrs. Crayford which said plainly, " Stay here with me." Clara bow- ed her acknowledgments in cold silence, and left them together. The doctor's bright eyes followed the girl's wasted, yet still graceful figure as it slowly receded from view, with an expression of grave anxiety which Mrs. Crayford noticed with grave misgiving on her side. He said nothing, until Clara had disappeared under the ve- randa which ran round the garden-side of the house'. " I think you told ine, n he began, u that Miss Burnham has neither father nor mother living ?" " Yes. Miss Burnham is an orphan." 1 las she any near relatives ?" " No. You may speak to me as her guardian and her friend. Are you alarmed about her?" " I am seriously alarmed. It is only two days since I called here la-t. and I see a marked change in her for the worse physic- ally and morally, a change for the worse. Don't needlessly alarm yourself! The case is not, I trust, entirely beyond the reach of remedy. The great hope for us is the hope that Mr. Alders- ley may still be living. In that event, I should feel no misgiv- ings about the future. Her marriage would make a healthy and a happy woman of her. But as tilings are-, I own I dread that settled conviction in her mind that Mr. Aldersley is dead, and that her own death is soon to follow. In her present state of health this idea (haunting her as it certainly will night and day) will have its in- fluence on her body as well as on her mind. Unless we can check the mischief, her last reserves of strength will give way. If you wish for other advice, by all means send for it. You have my opinion." " I am quite satisfied with your opinion," Mrs. Crayford replied. " For God's sake, tell me, what can we do ?" " We can try a complete change," said the doctor. " We can re- move her at once from this place." " She will refuse to leave it," Mrs. Crayford rejoined. " I have more than once proposed a change to her and she always says No." 502 THE FROZEN DEEP. The doctor paused for a moment, like a man collecting his thoughts. " I heard something on my way here," he proceeded, " which sug- gests to my mind a method of meeting the difficulty that you have just mentioned. Unless I am entirely mistaken, Miss Burnham will not say No to the change that I have in view for her." " What is it ?" asked Mrs. Crayford, eagerly. " Pardon me if I ask you a question, on my part, before I reply," said the doctor. " Are you fortunate enough to possess any interest at the Admiralty ?" " Certainly. My father is in the Secretary's office ; and two of the Lords of the Admiralty are friends of his." " Excellent ! Now I can speak out plainly with little fear of dis- appointing you. After what I have said, you will agree with me, that the only change in Miss Burnham's life which will be of any use to her is a change that will alter the present tone of her mind on the subject of Mr. Aldersley. Place her in a position to discover not by reference to her own distempered fancies and visions, but by reference to actual evidence and actual fact whether Mr. Al- dersley is, or is not, a living man ; and there will be an end of the hysterical delusions which now threaten to fatally undermine her health. Even taking matters at their worst even assuming that Mr. Aldersley has died in the Arctic seas it will be less injurious to her to discover this positively, than to leave her mind to feed on its own morbid superstitions and speculations, for weeks and weeks together, while the next news from the Expedition is on its way to England. In one word, I want you to be in a position, before the week is out, to put Miss Burnham's present conviction to a practical test. Suppose you could say to her, 'We differ, my dear, about Mr. Francis Aldersley. You declare, without the shadow of a reason for it, that he is certainly dead, and, worse still, that he has died by the act of one of his brother officers. I assert, on the authority of the newspaper, that nothing of the sort has happened, and that the chances are all in favor of his being still a living man. What do you say to crossing the Atlantic, and deciding which of us is right- you or I ?' Do you think Miss Burnham will say No to that, Mrs. Cray- ford ? If I know any thing of human nature, she will seize the oppor- tunity as a means of converting you to a belief in the Second Sight." " Good heavens, doctor ! do you mean to tell me that we are to go to sea and meet the Arctic Expedition on its way home?" "Admirably guessed, Mrs. Crayford! That is exactly what I mean." " But how is it to be done ?" "I will tell you immediately. I mentioned didn't I? that I had heard something on my road to this house." T11K FUUZEN DEEP. 503 "Yes." " Well, I ruet an old friend at my own gate, who walked with me a part of the way here. Last night my friend dined with the admi- ral at Portsmouth. Among the guests there was a meml>er of the Ministry who had brought the news about the Expedition with him from London. This gentleman told the company there was very little doubt that the Admiralty would immediately send out a steam- Yi->scl, to meet the rescued men on the shores of America, and bring them home. Wait a little, Mrs. Crayford ! Nobody knows, as yet, under what rules and regulations the vessel will sail. Under some- what similar circumstances, privileged people hace been received as passengers, or rather as guests, in her majesty's ships and what has been conceded on former occasions may, by bare possibility, be con- crdi'd now. I can say no more. If you are not afraid of the voy- age for yourself, I am not afraid of it (nay, I am all in favor of it on medical grounds) for my patient. What do you say ? Will you write to your father, and ask him to try what his interest will do with his friends at the Admiralty ?" Mrs. Crayford rose excitedly to her feet. " Write !" she exclaimed. " I will do better than write. The journey to London is no great matter and my housekeeper here is to be trusted to take care of Clara in my absence. I will see my father to-night ! He shall make good use of his interest at the Ad- miralty you may rely on that. Oh, my dear doctor, what a pros- pect it is ! My husband ! Clara ! What a discovery you have made what a treasure you are ! How can I thank you ?" "Compose yourself, my dear madam. Don't make too sure of success. We may consider Miss Burnham's objections as disposed of beforehand. But suppose the Lords of the Admiralty say No ?" ' In that case, I shall be in London, doctor ; and I shall go to them myself. Lords are only men ; and men are not in the habit of saying No to me" So they parted. In a week from that day, her majesty's ship Amazon sailed for North America. Certain privileged persons, specially interested in the Arctic voyagers, were permitted to occupy the empty state-rooms on board. On the list of these favored guests of the ship were the names of two ladies Mrs. Crayford and Miss Burnham. 504 THE FROZEN DEEP. FIFTH SCENE.-THE BOAT-HOUSE. CHAPTER XVI. ONCE more the open sea the sea whose waters break on the shores of Newfoundland ! An English steamship lies at anchor in the offing. The vessel is plainly visible through the open door-way of a large boat-house on the shore one of the buildings attached to a fishing-station on the coast of the island. The only person in the boat-house at this moment is a man in the dress of a sailor. He is seated on a chest, with a piece of cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea. On the rough carpenter's ta- ble near him lies a strange object to be left in such a place a wom- an's veil. What is the vessel lying at anchor in the offing? The vessel is the Amazon dispatched from England to receive the surviving officers and men of the Arctic Expedition. The meet- ing has been successfully effected, on the shores of North America, three days since. But the homeward voyage has been delayed by a storm which has driven the ship out of her course. Taking advan- tage, on the third day, of the first returning calm, the commander of the Amazon has anchored off the coast of Newfoundland, and has sent ashore to increase his supplies of water before he sails for En- gland. The weary passengers have landed for a few hours, to re- fresh themselves after the discomforts of the tempest. Among them are the two ladies. The veil left on the table in the boat-house is Clara's veil. And who is the man sitting on the chest, with the cord in his hand, looking out idly at the sea ? The man is the only cheerful person in the ship's company. In other words John Want. Still reposing on the chest, our friend, who never grumbles, is sur- prised by the sudden appearance of a sailor at the boat-house door. " Look sharp with your work there, John Want !" says the sailor. " Lieutenant Crayford is just coming in to look after you." With this warning the messenger disappears again. John Want rises with a groan, turns the chest up on one end, and begins to fasten the cord round it. The ship's cook is not a man to look back on his rescue with the feeling of unmitigated satisfaction which an- THE FROZEN DEEP. 505 imates his companions in trouble? On the contrary, he is ungrate- fully disposed to regret the North Pole. " If I had only known " thus runs the train of thought in the mind of John Want " if I had only known, before I was rescued, that I was to be brought to this place, I believe I should have pre- ferred staying at the North Pole. I was very happy keeping up ev- ery body's spirits at the North Pole. Taking one tiling with anoth- er, I think I must have been very comfortable at the North Pole if I had only known it. Another man in my place might be in- clined to say that this Newfoundland boat-house was rather a slop- py, slimy, draughty, fishy sort of a habitation to take shelter in. Another man might object to perpetual Newfoundland fogs, perpet- ual Newfoundland cod-fish, and perpetual Newfoundland dogs. We had some very nice bears at the North Pole. Never mind! it's all one to me / don't grumble." "Have you done cording that box ?" This time the voice is a voice of authority the man at the door- way is Lieutenant Crayford himself. John Want answers his officer in his own cheerful way. "I've done it as well as I can, sir but the damp of this place is beginning to tell upon our very ropes. I say nothing about our lungs I only say our ropes." Crayford answers sharply. He seems to have lost his former rel- ish for the humor of John Want. "Pooh ! To look at your wry face, one would think that our res- cue from the Arctic regions was a downright misfortune. You de- serve to be sent back again." "I could be just as cheerful as ever, sir, if I was sent back again. I hope I'm thankful; but I don't like to hear the North Pole run down in such a fishy place as this. It was very clean and snowy at the North Pole and it's very damp and sandy here. Do you never mi>s your bone-soup, sir? /do. It mightn't have been strong ; but it was very hot; and the cold seemed to give it a kind of a meaty flavor as it went down. Was it you that was a-coughing so long last night, sir ( I don't presume to say any thing against the air of these latitudes; but I should be glad to know it wasn't you that was a-coughing so hollow. Would you be so obliging as just to feel the state of these ropes with the ends of your fingers, sir ? You can dry them afterward on the back of my jacket." " You ought to have a stick laid on the back of your jacket. Take that box down to the boat directly. You croaking vagabond ! You would have grumbled in the Garden of Eden." The philosopher of the Expedition was not a man to be silenced by referring him to the Garden of Eden. Paradise itself was not perfect to John Want. 506 THE FROZEN DEEP. " I hope I could be cheerful anywhere, sir," said the ship's cook. " But you mark my words there must have been a deal of trouble- some work with the flower-beds in the Garden of Eden." Having entered that unanswerable protest, John Want shouldered the box, and drifted drearily out of the boat-house. Left by himself, Crayford looked at his watch, and called to a sailor outside. " Where are the ladies ?" he asked. " Mrs. Crayford is coming this way, sir. She was just behind you when you came in." " Is Miss Burnham with her ?" " No, sir ; Miss Burnham is down on the beach with the passen- gers. I heard the young lady asking after you, sir." " Asking after me ?" Crayford considered with himself as he re- peated the words. He added, in lower and graver tones, " You had better tell Miss Burnham you have seen me here." The man made his salute and went out. Crayford took a turn in the boat-house. Rescued from death in the Arctic wastes, and reunited to a beau- tiful wife, the lieutenant looked, nevertheless, unaccountably anxious and depressed. What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Clara. On the first day when the rescued men were received on board the Amazon, Clara had embarrassed and distressed, not Crayford only, but the other officers of the Expedition as well, by the manner in which she questioned them on the subject of Francis Aldersley and Richard Wardour. She had shown no signs of dismay or despair when she heard that no news had been received of the two missing men. She had even smiled sadly to herself, when Crayford (out of compassionate regard for her) declared that he and his comrades had not given up the hope of seeing Frank and Wardour yet. It was only when the lieutenant had expressed himself in those terms and when it was hoped that the painful subject had been dismissed that Clara had startled every one present by announcing that she had something still to say in relation to Frank and Wardour, which had not been said yet. Though she spoke guardedly, her next words revealed suspicions of foul play lurking in her mind exactly reflect- ing similar suspicions lurking in Crayford's mind which so distress- ed the lieutenant, and so surprised his comrades, as to render them quite incapable of answering her. The warnings of the storm which shortly afterward broke over the vessel were then visible in sea and sky. Crayford made them his excuse for abruptly leaving the cabin in which the conversation had taken place. His brother officers, profiting by his example, pleaded their duties on deck, and followed him out. THE FROZEN DEEP. 507 On the next day, and the next, the tempest still raged and the passengers were not able to leave their state-rooms. But now, when the weather had moderated and the ship had anchored now, when officers and passengers alike were on shore, with leisure time at their disposal CM lira had opportunities of returning to the subject of the lost men, and of asking questions in relation to them which would make it impossible for Crayford to plead an excuse for not answer- ing her. How was he to meet those questions ? How could he still krrp IHT in ignorance of the truth? Tin se were the reflections which now troubled Crayford, and which presented him, after his rescue, in the strangely inappropriate character of a depressed and anxious man. His brother officers, as he well knew, looked to him to take the chief responsibility. If he declined to accept it, he would instantly confirm the horrible sus- picion in Clara's mind. The emergency must be met; but how to meet it at once honorably and mercifully was more than Cray- ford could tell. He was still lost in his own gloomy thoughts when his wife entered the boat-house. Turning to look at her, he saw his own perturbations and anxieties plainly reflected in Mrs. Crayford's face. " Have you seen any thing of Clara ?" he asked. " Is she still on the beach ?" " She is following me to this place," Mrs. Crayford replied. " I have been speaking to her this morning. She is just as resolute as ever to insist on your telling her of the circumstances under which Frank is missing. As things are, you have no alternative but to answer her." " Help me to answer her, Lucy. Tell me, before she comes in, how this dreadful suspicion first took possession of her. All she could possibly have known when we left England was that the two men were appointed to separate ships. What could have led her to sus- pect that they had come together?" " She was firmly persuaded, William, that they would come to- gether when the Expedition left England. And she had read in books of Arctic travel, of men left behind by their comrades on the march, and of men adrift on icebergs. With her mind full of these images and forelwdings, she saw Frank and Wardour (or dreamed of them) in one of her attacks of trance. I was by her side ; I heard what she said at the time. She warned Frank that Wardour had discovered the truth. She called out to him, ' While you. can stand, keep with the other men, Frank !' " "Good God !" cried Crayford; " I warned him myself, almost in those very words, the last time I saw him!" "Don't acknowledge it, William! Keep her in ignorance of what you have just told me. She will not take it for what it is a 508 THE FROZEN DEEP. startling coincidence, and nothing more. She will accept it as pos- itive confirmation of the faith, the miserable superstitious faith, that is in her. So long as you don't actually know that Frank is dead, and that he has died by Wardour's hand, deny what she says mislead her for her own sake dispute all her conclusions as I dis- pute them. Help me to raise her to the better and nobler belief in the mercy of God !" She stopped, and looked round nervously at the door-way. " Hush !" she whispered. " Do as I have told you. Clara is here." CHAPTER XVII. CLARA stopped at the door-way, looking backward and forward distrustfully between the husband and wife. Entering the boat- house, and approaching Cray ford, she took his arm, and led him away a few steps from the place in which Mrs. Crayford was standing. " There is no storm now, and these are no duties to be done on board the ship," she said, with the faint, sad smile which it wrung Crayford's heart to see. " You are Lucy's husband, and you have an interest in me for Lucy's sake. Don't shrink on that account from giving me pain : I can bear pain. Friend and brother ! will you believe that I have courage enough to hear the worst? Will you promise not to deceive me about Frank ?" The gentle resignation in her voice, the sad pleading in her look, shook Crayford's self-possession at the outset. He answered her in the worst possible manner ; he answered evasively. " My dear Clara," he said, " what have I done that you should suspect me of deceiving you ?" She looked him searchingly in the face, then glanced with re- newed distrust at Mrs. Crayford. There was a moment of silence. Before any of the three could speak again, they were interrupted by the appearance of one of Crayford's brother officers, followed by two sailors carrying a hamper between them. Crayford instantly dropped Clara's arm, and seized the welcome opportunity of speak- ing of other things. "Any instructions from the ship, Steventon ?" he asked, approach- ing the officer. "Verbal instructions only," Steventon replied. "The ship will sail with the flood-tide. We shall fire a gun to collect the people, and send another boat ashore. In the mean time here are some re- freshments for the passengers. The ship is in a state of confusion ; the ladies will eat their luncheon more comfortably here." Hearing this, Mrs. Crayford took her opportunity of silencing Clara next. THE FROZEN DEEP. 509 " Come, my dear," she said. " Let us lay the cloth before the gentlemen come in." Clara was too seriously bent on attaining the object which she had in view to be silenced in that way. " I will help you directly," she answered then crossed the room and addressed herself to the officer, whose name was Steventon. " Can you spare me a few minutes ?" she asked. " I have some- thing to say to you." " I am entirely at your service, Miss Burnham." Answering in those words, Steventon dismissed the two sailors. Mrs. Crayford looked anxiously at her husband. Crayford whisper- ed to her, " Don't be alarmed about Steventon. I have cautioned him ; his discretion is to be depended on." Clara beckoned to Crayford to return to her.. " I will not keep you long," she said. " I will promise not to dis- tress Mr. Steventon. Young as I am, you shall both find that I am capable of self-control. I won't ask you to go back to the story of your past sufferings; I only want to be sure that I am right about one thing I mean about what happened at the time when the ex- ploring party was dispatched in search of help. As I understand it, you cast lots among yourselves who was to go with the party, and who was to remain behind. Frank cast the lot to go." She paused, shuddering. "And Richard Wardour," she went on, " cast the lot to remain behind. On your honor, as officers and gentle- men, is this the truth ?" " On my honor," Crayford answered, " it is the truth." " On my honor," Steventon repeated, " it is the truth." She looked at them, carefully considering her next words, before she spoke again. " You both drew the lot to stay in the huts," she said, addressing Crayford and Steventon. "And you are both here. Richard War- dour drew the lot to stay, and Richard Wardour is not here. How does his name come to be with Frank's on the list of the missing?" The question was a dangerous one to answer. Steventon left it to Crayford to reply. Once again he answered evasively. " It doesn't follow, my dear," he said, " that the two men were missing together because their names happen to come together on the list." Clara instantly drew the inevitable conclusion from that ill-con- sidered reply. " Frank is missing from the party of relief," she said. "Am I to understand that Wardour is missing from the huts ?" Both Crayford and Steventon hesitated. Mrs. Crayford cast one indignant look at them, and told the necessary lie, without a mo- ment's hesitation ! 510 THE FROZEN DEEP. " Yes !" she said. " Wardour is missing from the huts." Quickly as she had spoken, she had still spoken too late. Clara had noticed the momentary hesitation on the part of the two offi- cers. She turned to Steventon. " I trust to your honor," she said, quietly. "Am I right, or wrong, in believing that Mrs. Crayford is mistaken ?" She had addressed herself to the right man of the two. Steven- ton had no wife present to exercise authority over him. Steven- ton, put on his honor, and fairly forced to say something, owned the truth. Wardour had replaced an officer whom accident had disabled from accompanying the party of relief, and Wardour and Frank were missing together. Clara looked at Mrs. Crayford. " You hear ?" she^ said. " It is you who are mistaken, not I. What you call 'Accident,' what I call ' Fate,' brought Richard War- dour and Frank together as members of the same Expedition, after all." Without waiting for a reply, she again turned to Steventon, and surprised him by changing the painful subject of the conversa- tion of her own accord. " Have you been in the Highlands of Scotland ?" she asked. " I have never been in the Highlands," the lieutenant replied. " Have you ever read, in books about the Highlands, of such a thing as ' The Second Sight ?' " " Yes." " Do you believe in the Second Sight ?" Steventon politely declined to commit himself to a direct reply. " I don't know what I might have done, if I had ever been in the Highlands," he said. "As it is, I have had no opportunities of giv- ing the subject any serious consideration." " I won't put your credulity to the test," Clara proceeded. " I won't ask you to believe any thing more extraordinary than that I had a strange dream in England not very long since. My dream showed me what you have just acknowledged and more than that. How did the two missing men come to be parted from their com- panions ? Were they lost by pure accident, or were they deliberate- ly left behind on the march ?" Crayford made a last vain effort to check her inquiries at the point which they had now reached. "Neither Steventon nor I were members of the party of relief," he said. " How are we to answer you ?" " Your brother officers who were members of the party must have told you what happened," Clara rejoined. " I only ask you and Mr. Steventon to tell me what they told you." Mrs. Crayford interposed again, with a practical suggestion this time. TlIK KKo/K.V DEEP. 511 -Tin' luncheon is not unpacked yd." she said. "Come, Clara! this is our business, inul the time is passing." -The luncheon can wait a few minutes longer," Clara answered. Bear with my obstinacy," she went on, laying her hand caressing- ly on Crayford' s shoulder. " Tell me how those two came to be sep- arated from the rest. You have always l>een the kindest of friends don't begin to be cruel to me now !" The tone in which she made her entreaty to Crayford went straight to the sailor's heart. He gave up the hopeless struggle : he let her see a glimpse of the truth. "On the third day out," he said, "Frank's strength failed him. lie fell behind the rest from fatigue." " Surely they waited for him ?" " It was a serious risk to wait for him, my child. Their lives (and the lives of the men they had left in the huts) depended, in that dreadful climate, on their pushing on. But Frank was a. favorite. They waited half a day to give Frank the chance of recovering his strength." There he stopped. There the imprudence into which his fond- ness tor Clara had led him showed itself plainly, and closed his lips. It was too late to take refuge in silence. Clara was determined on hearing more. She questioned Steventon next. " Did Frank go on again after the halt-day's rest ?" she asked. He tried to <he said to Crayford. " Did he do it out of friendship for Frank ? Surely you can tell me that ? Carry your memory back 512 THE FROZEN DEEP. to the days when you were all living in the huts. Were Frank and Wardour friends at that time ? Did you never hear any angry words pass between them ?" There Mrs. Crayford saw her opportunity of giving her husband a timely hint. " My dear child !" she said ; " how can you expect him to remem- ber that? There must have been plenty of quarrels among the men, all shut up together, and all weary of each other's company, no doubt." " Plenty of quarrels !" Crayford repeated ; " and every one of them made up again." "And every one of them made up again," Mrs. Crayford reiterated, in her turn. " There ! a plainer answer than that you can't wish to have. Now are you satisfied ? Mr. Steventon, come and lend a hand (as you say at sea) with the hamper Clara won't help me. William, don't stand there doing nothing. This hamper holds a great deal ; we must have a division of labor. Your division shall be laying the table-cloth. Don't handle it in that clumsy way! You unfold a table-cloth as if you were unfurling a sail. Put the knives on the right, and the forks on the left, and the napkin and the bread between them. Clara, if you are not hungry in this fine air, you ought to be. Come and do your duty ; come and have some lunch 1" She looked up as she spoke. Clara appeared to have yielded at last to the conspiracy to keep her in the dark. She had returned slowly to the boat-house door-way, and she was standing alone on the threshold, looking out. Approaching her to lead her to the luncheon-table, Mrs. Crayford could hear that she was speaking soft- ly to herself. She was repeating the farewell words which Richard Wardour had spoken to her at the ball. " ' A time may come when I shall forgive you. But the man who has robbed me of you shall rue the day when you and he first met.' O, Frank ! Frank ! does Richard still live, with your blood on his conscience, and my image in his heart ?" Her lips suddenly closed. She started, and drew back from the door-way, trembling violently. Mrs. Crayford looked out at the quiet seaward view. "Any thing there that frightens you, my dear?" she asked. "I can see nothing, except the boats drawn up on the beach." " I can see nothing either, Lucy." "And yet you are trembling as if there was something dreadful in the view from this door." " There is something dreadful ! I feel it, though I see nothing. I feel it, nearer and nearer in the empty air, darker and darker in the sunny light. I don't know what it is. Take me away ! No. Not THE FROZEN DEEP. 813 out on the beach. I can't pass the door. Somewhere else 1 some- where else !" Mrs. Crayforcl looked round her, and noticed a second door at the inner end of the boat-house. She spoke to her husband. " See where that door leads to, William." Crayford opened the door. It led into a desolate inclosure, half garden, half yard. Some nets stretched on poles were hanging ,up to diy. No other objects were visible not a living creature appear- ed in the place. "It doesn't look very inviting, my dear," said Mrs. Crayford. " I am at your service, however. What do you say ?" She offered her arm to Clara as she spoke. Clara refused it. She took Crayford's arm, and clung to him. " I'm frightened, dreadfully frightened !" she said to him, faintly. ' yn kci'p with me a woman is no protection; I want to be with //""." She looked round again at the boat-house door-way. " Oh!" >hc whispered, " I'm cold all over I'm frozen with fear of this place. Come into the yard ! Come into the yard !" " Leave her to me," said Crayford to his wife. " I will call you, if she doesn't get better in the open air." He took her out at once, and closed the yard door behind them. " Mr. Steventon, do you understand this ?" asked Mrs. Crayford. " What can she possibly be frightened of?" She put the question, still looking mechanically at the door by which her husband and Clara had gone out. Receiving no reply, she glanced round at Steventon. He was standing on the opposite side of the luncheon-table, with his eyes fixed attentively on the view from the main door -way of the boat-house. Mrs. Crayford looked where Steventon was looking. This time there was some- thing visible. She saw the shadow of a human figure projected on the stretch of smooth yellow sand in front of the boat-house. In a moment more the figure appeared. A man came slowly into view, and stopped on the threshold of the door. CHAPTER XVm. THE man was a sinister and terrible object to look at. His eyes glared like the eyes of a wild anim%2 ; his head was bare ; his long may hair was torn and tangled ; his miserable garments hung about him in rags. He stood in the door-way, a speechless figure of misery and want, staring at the well-spread table like a hungry dog. Steventon spoke to him. " Who are you ?" He answered, in a hoarse, hollow voice, 22 514 THE FROZE:; DEEP. "A starving man." He advanced a few steps, slowly and painfully, as if he were sink- ing under fatigue. " Throw me some bones from the table," he said. " Give me my share along with the dogs." There was madness as well as hunger in his eyes while he spoke those words. Steventon placed Mrs. Crayford behind him, so that he might be easily able to protect her in case of need, and beckoned to two sailors who were passing the door of the boat-house at the time. " Give the man some bread and meat," he said, " and wait near him." The outcast seized on the bread and meat with lean, long-nailed hands that looked like claws. After his first mouthful of the food, he stopped, considered vacantly with himself, and broke the bread and meat into two portions. One portion he put into an old canvas wallet that hung over his shoulder ; the other he devoured vora- ciously. Steventon questioned him. " Where do you come from ?" " From the sea." " Wrecked ?" " Yes." Steventon turned to Mrs Crayford. " There may be some truth in the poor wretch's story," he said. " I heard something of a strange boat having been cast on the beach thirty or forty miles higher up the coast. When were you wrecked, my man ?" The starving creature looked up from his food, and made an ef- fort to collect his thoughts to exert his memory. It was not to be done. He gave up the attempt in despair. His language, when he spoke, was as wild as his looks. " I can't tell you," he said. " I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. I can't get the shining stars all night, and the burning sun all day, out of my brain. When was I wrecked ? When was I first adrift in the boat ? When did I get the tiller in my hand and fight against hunger and sleep? When did the gnawing in my breast, and the burning in my head, first begin ? I have lost all reckoning of it. I can't think; I can't sleep; I can't get the wash of the sea out of my ears. What are you baiting me with questions for ? Let me eat !" Even the sailors pitied him. The sailors asked leave of their offi- cer to add a little drink to his meal. " We've got a drop of grog with us, sir, in a bottle. May we give it to him ?" "Certainly!" THE FROZEN DEEP. 515 He took the bottle fiercely, as lie had taken the food, drank a lit- tle, stopped, ami considered with himself again. He held up the bottle to the light, and, marking how much liquor it contained, care- fully drank half of it only. This done, he put the bottle in his wal- let along with the food. " Are you saving it up for another time ?" said Steventon. " I'm saving it up," the man answered. " Never mind what for. That's my secret." He looked round the boat-house as he made that reply, and no- ticed Mrs. Crayford for the first time. "A woman among you!" he said. "Is she English? la she young ? Let me look closer at her." He advanced a few steps toward the table. " Don't be afraid, Mrs. Crayford," said Steventon. " I am not afraid," Mrs. Crayford replied. " He frightened me at first he interests me now. Let him apeak to me if he wishes it !" He never spoke. He stood, in dead silence, looking long and anxiously at the beautiful Englishwoman. " Well ?" said Steventon. He shook his head sadly, and drew back again with a heavy sigh. " No !" he said to himself, " that's not fter face. No ! not found yet." Mrs. Crayford's interest was strongly excited. She ventured to speak to him. " Who is it you want to find ?" she asked. " Your wife ?" He shook his head again. " Who, then ? What is she like ?" He answered that question in words. His hoarse, hollow voice softened, little by little, into sorrowful and gentle tones. " Young," he said ; " with a fair, sad face with kind, tender eyea with a soft, clear voice. Young and loving and merciful. I keep her face in my mind, though I can keep nothing else. I must wan- der, wander, wander restless, sleepless, homeless till I find Tier! Over the ice and over the snow ; tossing on the sea, tramping over the land ; awake all night, awake all day ; wander, wander, wander, till I find fur!" He waved his hand with a gesture of farewell, and turned weari- ly to go out. At the same moment fray ford opened the yard door. " I think you had better come to Clara," he began, and checked himself, noticing the stranger. "Who is that '." The shipwrecked man. hearing another voice in the room, looked round slowly over his shoulder. Struck by his appearance, Cray- ford advanced a little nearer to him. Mrs. Crayford spoke to her husband as he passed her. 51C THE FROZEN DEEP,. " It's only a poor, mad creature, William," she whispered " ship- Wrecked and starving." " Mad ?" Crayford repeated, approaching nearer and nearer to the man. " Am I in my right senses ?" He suddenly sprang on the outcast, and seized him by the throat. " Richard Wardour !" he cried, in a voice of fury. "Alive ! alive, to answer for Frank !" The man struggled. Crayford held him. " Where is Frank ?" he said. " You villain, where is Frank ?" The man resisted no longer. He repeated vacantly, " Villain ? and where is Frank ?" As the name escaped his lips, Clara appeared at the open yard door, and hurried into the room. "I heard Richard's name!" she said. "I heard Frank's name! What does it mean ?" At the sound of her voice the outcast renewed the struggle to free himself, with a sudden frenzy of strength which Crayford was not able to resist. He broke away before the sailors could come to their officer's assistance. Half-way down the length of the room he and Clara met one another face to face. A new light sparkled in the poor wretch's eyes ; a cry of recognition burst from his lips. He flung one hand up wildly in the air. " Found !" he shouted, and rushed out to the beach before any of the men present could stop him. Mrs. Crayford put her arms round Clara and held her up. She had not made a movement : she had not spoken a word. The sight of Wardour's face had petrified her. The minutes passed, and there rose a sudden burst of cheering from the sailors on the beach, near the spot where the fishermen's boats were drawn up. Every man left his work. Every man waved his cap in the air. The passengers, near at hand, caught the infec- tion of enthusiasm, and joined the crew. A moment more, and Richard Wardour appeared again in the door-way, carrying a man in his arms. He staggered, breathless with the effort that he was making, to the place ^here Clara stood, held up in Mrs. Crayford's arms. " Saved, Clara !" he cried. " Saved for you /" He released the man, and placed him in Clara's arms. Frank ! foot-sore and weary but living saved ; saved for her. " Now, Clara !" cried Mrs. Crayford, " which of us is right ? I who believed in the mercy of God ? or you who believed in a dream?" She never answered; she clung to Frank in speechless ecstasy. She never even looked at the man who had preserved him, in the first absorbing joy of seeing Frank alive. Step by step, slower and slower, Richard Wardour drew back, and left them by them- selves. THE FROZEN DEEP. 517 " I may rest now," he said, faintly. " I may sleep at last. The task is done. The struggle is over." His last reserves of strength had been given to Frank. He stop- ped he staggered his hands waved feebly in search of support. But for one faithful friend he would have fallen. Crayford caught him. Crayford laid his old comrade gently on some sails strewn in a corner, and pillowed Wardour's weary head on his own bosom. The tears streamed over his face. " Richard ! dear Richard !" he said. " Remember and forgive me." Richard neither heeded nor heard him. His dim eyes still looked across the room at Clara and Frank. " I have made her happy !" he murmured. " I may lay down my weary head now on the mother earth that hushes all her children to rest at last. Sink, heart ! sink, sink to rest ! Oh, look at them !" he said to Crayford, with a burst of grief. " They have forgotten me already." It was true ! The interest was all with the two lovers. Frank was young and handsome and popular. Officers, passengers, and sailors, they all crowded round Frank. They all forgot the martyr- ed man who had saved him the man who was dying in Crayford's arms. Crayford tried once more to attract his attention to win his rec- ognition while there was yet time. " Richard, speak to me ! Speak to your old friend !" He looked round ; he vacantly repeated Crayford's last word. " Friend ?'' he said. " My eyes are dim, friend my mind is dull. I have lost all memories but the memory of her. Dead thoughts all dead thoughts but that one 1 And yet you look at me kindly ! Why has your face gone down with the wreck of all the rest ?" He paused ; his face changed ; his thoughts drifted back from present to past ; he looked at Crayford vacantly, lost in the terrible remembrances that were rising in him, as the shadows rise with the coming night. " Hark ye, friend," he whispered. " Never let Frank know it. There was a time when the fiend within me hungered for his life. I had my hands on the boat. I heard the voice of the Tempter speaking to me: Launch it, and leave him to die! I waited with my hands on the boat, and my eyes on the place where he slept. 'Leave him! leave him! 1 the voice whispered. 'Love him P the lad's voice answered, moaning and murmuring in his sleep. 'Love him, Clara, for helping me!" I heard the morning wind come up in the silence over the great deep. Far and near, I heard the groan- ing of the floating ice; floating, floating to the clear water and the balmy air. And the wicked Voice floated away with it away. 513 THE FBOZEN DEEP. away, away forever ? ' Love him ! love him, Clara, for helping me. J No wiud could float that away ! 'Love him, Clara ' " His voice sank into silence ; his head dropped on Crayford's breast. Frank saw it. Frank struggled up on his bleeding feet, and parted the friendly throng round him. Frank had not forgotten the man who had saved him. "Let me go to him!" he cried. "I must and will go to him! Clara, come with me." Clara and Steventon supported him between them. He fell on his knees at Wardour's side ; he put his hand on Wardour's bosom. " Richard !" The weary eyes opened again. The sinking voice was heard feebly once more. "Ah ! poor Frank. I didn't forget you, Frank, when I came here to beg. I remembered you lying down outside in the shadow of the boats. I saved you your share of the food and drink. Too weak to get at it now ! A little rest, Frank ! I shall soon be strong enough to carry you down to the ship." The end was near. They all saw it now. The men reverently uncovered their heads in the presence of Death. In an agony of despair, Frank appealed to the friends round him. " Get something to strengthen him, for God's sake ! Oh, men ! men ! I should never have been here but for him ! He has given all his strength to my weakness ; and now, see how strong / am, and how weak he is I Clara, I held by his arm all over the ice and snow. He kept watch when I was senseless in the open boat. His hand dragged me out of the waves when we were wrecked. Speak to him, Clara ! speak to him !" His voice failed him, and his head dropped on Wardour's breast. She spoke, as well as her tears would let her. " Richard, have you forgotten me ?" He rallied at the sound of that beloved voice. He looked up at her as she knelt at his head. " Forgotten you ?" Still looking at her, he lifted his hand with an effort, and laid it on Frank. " Should I have been strong enough to save him, if I could have forgotten you . ? " He waited a moment, and turned his face feebly toward Crayford. " Stay !" he said. " Some one was here and spoke to me." A faint light of recogni- tion glimmered in his eyes. "Ah, Crayford! I recollect now. Dear Crayford ! come nearer ! My mind clears, but my eyes grow dim. You will remember me kindly for Frank's sake? Poor Frank ! why does he hide his face ? Is he crying ? Nearer, Clara I want to look my last at you. My sister, Clara ! Kiss me, sister, kiss me before I die !" She stooped and kissed his forehead. A faint smile trembled on TUB FROZEN DEEP. 519 his lips. It passed away ; and stillness possessed the face the still- ness of Death. Crayford's voice was heard in the silence. " The loss is ours," he said. " The gain is his. He has won the greatest of all conquests the conquest of himself. And he has died in tin- moment of victory. Not one of us here but may live to envy hi glorious death." The distant report of a gun came from the ship in the offing, and signaled the return to England and to home. END OP " THE FROZEN DEEP." FATAL FORTUNE. A STORY IN TWO PARTS. PART THE FIRST. ONE fine morning more than three months since, you were riding with your brother, Miss Anstell, in Hyde Park. It was a hot day, and you had allowed your horses to fall into a walking pace. As you passed the railing on the right-hand side, near the eastern ex- tremity of the lake in the park, neither you nor your brother noticed a solitary woman loitering on the footpath to look at the riders as they went by. The solitary woman was my old nurse, Nancy Connell. And these were the words she heard exchanged between you and your brother, as you slowly passed her: Your brother said, u ls it true that Mary Brading and her husband have gone to America ?" You laughed, as if the question amused you, and answered, " Quite true." " How long will they be away ?" your brother asked next. " As long as they live," you answered, with another laugh. By this time you had passed beyond Nancy Council's hearing. She owns to having followed your horses a few steps to hear what was said next. She looked particularly at your brother. He took your reply seriously ; he seemed to be quite astonished by it. " Leave Bngiand and settle in America !" he exclaimed. " Why should they do that?" " Who can tell why ?" you answered. " Mary Brading's husband is mail, and Mary Brading herself is not much better." You touched your horse with the whip, and in a moment more you and your brother were out of my old nurse's hearing. She wrote and told me what I here tell you, by a recent mail. I have been thinking of those last words of yours, in my leisure hours, more seriously than you would suppose. The end of it is that I take up my pen, on behalf of my husband and myself, to tell you the story 522 FATAL FORTUNE. of our marriage, and the reason for our emigration to the United States of America. It matters little or nothing to him or to me whether our friends in England think us both mad or not. Their opinions, hostile or favorable, are of no sort of importance to us. But you are an excep- tion to the rule. In by-gone days at school we were fast and firm friends ; and what weighs with me even more than this you were heartily loved and admired by my dear mother. She spoke of you tenderly on her death-bed. Events have separated us of late years. But I can not forget the old times ; and I can not feel indifferent to your opinion of me and of my husband, though an ocean does separate us, and though we are never likely to look on one another again. It is very foolish of me, I dare say, to take seriously to heart what you said in one of your thoughtless moments. I can only plead in excuse that I have gone through a great deal of suffering, and that I was always (as you may remember) a person of sensitive tem- perament, easily excited and easily depressed. Enough of this. Do me the last favor I shall ever ask of you. Read what follows, and judge for yourself whether my husband and I are quite so mad as you were disposed to think us when Nancy Connell heard you talking to your brother in Hyde Park. II. IT is now more than a year since I went to Eastbourne, on the coast of Sussex, with my father and my brother James. My brother had then, as we hoped, recovered from the effects of a fall in the hunting-field. He complained, however, at times of pain in his head ; and the doctors advised us to try the sea-air. We re- moved to Eastbourne, without a suspicion of the serious nature of the injury that he had received. For a few days all went well. "We liked the place ; the air agreed with us ; and we determined to pro- long our residence for some weeks to come. On our sixth day at the sea-side a memorable day to me, for rea- sons which you have still to hear my brother complained again of the old pain in his head. He and I went out together to try what exercise would do toward relieving him. We walked through the town to the fort at one end of it, and then followed a footpath run- ning by the side of the sea, over a dreary waste of shingle, bounded at its inland extremity by the road to Hastings and by the marshy country beyond. We had left the fort at some little distance behind us. I was walking in front, and James was following me. He was talking as quietly as usual, when he suddenly stopped in the middle of a sen- tence. I turned round in surprise, and discovered my brother pros- trate on the path, in convulsions terrible to see. FATAL FORTUNE. 523 It was tin- first epileptic fit I had ever witnessed. My presence of mind entirely deserted me. I could only wring uiy hands in horror, and scream for help. No one appeared either from the direction of the fort or of the high-road. I was too far off, I suppose, to make myself heard. Looking ahead of me along the path, I discovered, to my infinite relief, the figure of a man running toward me. As he came nearer, I saw that he was unmistakably a gentleman young, and eager to be of service to me. " Pray compose yourself," he said, after a look at my brother. " It is very dreadful to see, but it is not dangerous. We must wait until the convulsions are over, and then I can help you." He seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might be a medical man. I put the question to him plainly. He colored, and looked a little confused. " I am not a doctor," he said. " I happen to have seen persons afflicted with epilepsy ; and I have heard medical men say that it is useless to interfere un.til the lit is over. See !" he added. " Your brut her \3 quieter already. He will soon feel a sense of relief which will more than compensate him for what he has suffered. I will help him to get to the fort, and, once there, we can send for a car- riage to take him home." In five minutes more we were on our way to the fort; the stranger supporting my brother as attentively and tenderly as if he had been an old friend. When the carriage had been obtained, he insisted on Accompanying us to our own door, on the chance that his serv- ices mitrlit still be of some use. He left us, asking permission to call and inquire after James's health the next day. A more modest, gentle, and unassuming person I never met with. He not only ex- cited my warmest gratitude ; he interested me at my first meeting with him. I lay some stress on the impression which this young man pro- duced on me why, you will soon find out. The next day the stranger paid his promised visit of inquiry. His card, which he sent up stairs, informed us that his name was Roland Cameron. My father who is not easily pleased took a liking to him at once. His visit was prolonged, at our request. He said just enough about himself to satisfy us that we were receiving a person who was at least of equal rank with ourselves. Born in England, of a Scotch family, he had lost both his parents. Not long since, he had inherited a fortune from one of his uncles. It struck us as a little strange that he spoke of this fortune, with a marked change to melancholy in his voice and his manner. The subject was, tor some inconceivable reason, evidently distasteful to him. Rich as he was, he acknowledged that he led u simple and solitary life. He had little taste for society, and no sympathies in common with the 24 FATAL FORTUNE. average young men of his age. But he had his own harmless pleasures and occupations; and past sorrow and suffering had taught him not to expect too much from life. All this was said modestly, with a winning charm of look and voice which indescriba- bly attracted me. His personal appearance aided the favorable im- pression which his manner and his conversation produced. He was of the middle height, lightly and firmly built ; his complexion pale; his hands and feet small, and finely shaped; his brown hair curling naturally ; his eyes large and dark, with an occasional indecision in their expression which was far from being an objection to them, to my taste. It seemed to harmonize with an occasional indecision in his talk ; proceeding, as I was inclined to think, from some passing confusion in his thoughts which it always cost him a little effort to discipline and overcome. Does it surprise you to find how closely I observed a man who was only a chance acquaintance, at my first interview with him ? or do your suspicions enlighten you, and do you say to yourself, She has fallen in love with Mr. Roland Cameron at first sight ? I may plead in my own defense, that I was not quite romantic enough to go that length. But I own I waited for his next visit with an impatience which was new to me in my experience of my sober self. And, worse still, when the day came, I changed my dress three times before my newly - developed vanity was satisfied with the picture which the looking-glass presented to me of myself. In a fortnight more, my father and my brother began to look on the daily companionship of our new friend as one of the settled in- stitutions of their lives. In a fortnight more, Mr. Roland Cameron and I though we neither of us ventured to acknowledge it were as devotedly in love with each other as two young people could well be. Ah, what a delightful time it was ! and how cruelly soon our happiness came to an end ! During the brief interval which I have just described, I observed certain peculiarities in Roland Cameron's conduct, which perplexed and troubled me when my mind was busy with him in my lonely moments. For instance, he was subject to the strangest lapses into silence, when he and I were talking together. At these times his eyes as- sumed a weary, absent look, and his mind seemed to wander away far from the conversation, and far from me. He was perfectly un- aware of his own infirmity ; he fell into it unconsciously, and camo out of it unconsciously. If I noticed that he had not been attend- ing to me, or if I asked why he had been silent, he was completely at a loss to comprehend what I meant: I puzzled and distressed him. What he was thinking of in these pauses of silence, it was impossible to guess. His face, at other times singularly mobile and expressive, became almost a perfect blank. Had he suffered some FATAL FORTUNE. 525 terrible shock at some past period of his life? and had his mind iirvrr quite recovered it? I longed to ask him the question, and yet I shrank from doing it, I was so sadly afraid of distressing him; or, to put it in plainer words, I was so truly and so tenderly fond of him. Thru, again, though he was ordinarily, I sincerely believe, the most gentle and most lovable of men, there were occasions when he would surprise me by violent outbreaks of temper, excited by the merest trifles. A dog barking suddenly at his heels, or a boy throwing stones in the road, or an importunate shop-keeper trying to make him purchase something that he did not want, would throw him into a frenzy of rage which was, without exaggeration, really frightful to see. He always apologized for these outbreaks, in terms which showed that he was sincerely ashamed of his own violence. But he could never succeed in controlling himself. The lapses into passion, like the lapses into silence, took him into their own possession, and did with him, for the time being, just what they pleased. One more example of Roland's peculiarities, and I have done. The strangeness of his conduct in this case was noticed by my fa- ther and my brother, as well as by me. When Roland was with us in the evening, whether he came to (1 inner or to tea, he invariably left us exactly at nine o'clock. Try as we might to persuade him to stay longer, he always politely but poMtively refused. Even I had no influence over him in this mat- ter. When I pressed him to remain, though it cost him an effort, he still retired exactly as the clock struck nine. He gave no reason for this strange proceeding; he only said that it was a habit of his, and begged us to indulge him in it without asking for an explana- tion. My father and my brother (being men) succeeded in .control- ling their curiosity. For my part (being a woman) every day that pa rd only made me more and more eager to penetrate the mys- tery. I privately resolved to choose my time, when Roland was in a partieularly accessible humor, and then to appeal to him for the ex- planation which he had hitherto refused as a special favor to myself. In two days more I found my opportunity. Some friends of ours, who had joined us at Eastbourne, proposed a picnic party to the famous neighboring cliff called Beachey Head. We accepted the invitation. The day was lovely, and the gyjy dinner was, as usual, infinitely preferable (for once in a wayi to a formal dinner indoors. Toward evening, our little assembly sepa- rated into parties of twos and threes to explore the neighborhood. Roland and I found ourselves together, as a matter of course. We were happy, and we were alone. Was it the right or the wrong time to ask the fatal question ? I am not able to decide ; I only know that I asked it. 526 FATAL FOKTUNB. III. " MB. CAMERON," I said, " will you make allowances for a weak woman ? And will you tell me something that I am dying to know ?" He walked straight into the trap, with that entire absence of ready wit, or small suspicion (I leave you to choose the right phrase), which is so much like men, and so little like women. " Of course I will," he answered. " Then tell me," I asked, " why you always insist on leaving us at nine o'clock ?" He started, and looked at me so sadly, so reproachfully, that I would have given every thing I possessed to recall the rash words that had just passed my lips. " If I consent to tell you," he replied, after a momentary struggle with himself, " will you let me put a question to you first, and will you promise to answer it ?" I gave him my promise, and waited eagerly for what was coming next. " Miss Brading," he said, " tell me honestly, do you think I am mad ?" It was impossible to laugh at him : he spoke those strange words seriously sternly, I might almost say. " No such thought ever entered my head," I answered. He looked at me very earnestly. " You say that on your word of honor ?" " On my word of honor." I answered with perfect sincerity, and I evidently satisfied him that I had spoken the truth. He took niy hand, and lifted it grate- fully to his lips. " Thank you," he said, simply. " You encourage me to tell you a very sad story." "Your own story ?" I asked. "My own story. Let me begin by telling you why I persist in leaving your house always at the same early hour. Whenever I go out, I am bound by a promise to the person with whom I am living at Eastbourne, to return at a quarter-past nine o'clock." " The person with whom you are living ?" I repeated. " You are living at a boarding-house, are you not ?" " I am living, Miss Brading, under the care of a doctor who keeps an asylum for the insane. He has taken a house for some of his wealthier patients at the sea-side ; and he allows me my liberty in the day-time, on condition that I faithfully perform my promise at night. It is a quarter of an hour's walk from your house to the doc- tor's, and it is a rule that the patients retire at half-past nine o'clock." FATAL FORTUNE. 527 Here was the mystery which had so sorely perplexed me reveal- ed at last ! The disclosure literally struck me speechless. Uncon- sciously and instinctively I drew back from him a few steps. He fixed his sad eyes on me with a touching look of entreaty. " Don't shrink away from me," he said. " You don't think I am mad." I was too confused and distressed to know what to say, and, at the same time, I was too fond of him not to answer that appeal. I took his hand and pressed it in silence. He turned his head aside for a moment. I thought I saw a tear on his cheek. I felt his hand close tremblingly on mine. He mastered himself with surprising resolution ; he spoke with perfect composure when he looked at me gain. " Do you care to know my story," he asked, " after what I have just told you ?" " I am eager to hear it," I answered. " You don't know how I feel for you. I am too distressed to be able to express myself in words." " You are the kindest and dearest of women !" he said, with the utmost fervor, and at the same time with the utmost respect. We sat down together in a grassy hollow of the cliff, with our faces toward the grand gray sea. The daylight was beginning to fade as I heard the story which made me Roland Cameron's wife. IV. " MY mother died when I was an infant in arms," he began. " My father, from my earliest to my latest recollections, was always hard toward me. I have been told that I was an odd child, with strange ways of my own. My father detested any thing that was strongly marked, any thing out of the ordinary way, in the characters and habits of the persons about him. He himself lived (as the phrase is) by line and rule ; and he determined to make his son follow his example. I was subjected to severe discipline at school, and I was carefully watched afterward at college. Looking back on my early life, I can see no traces of happiness, I can find no tokens of sympa- thy. Sad submission to a hard destiny, weary wayfaring over un- friendly roads such is the story of my life, from ten years old to twenty. "I passed one autumn vacation at the Cumberland lakes; and there I met by accident witli a young French lady. The result of that meeting decided my whole after-life. " She filled the position of nursery governess in the house of a wealthy Englishman. I had frequent opportunities of seeing her. "\Ve took an innocent pleasure in each other's society. Her littlr experience of life was strangely like inuie. There was a perfect 528 FATAL FORTUNE. sympathy of thought and feeling between us. We loved, or thought we loved. I was not twenty-one, and she was not eighteen, when I asked her to be my wife. " I can understand my folly now, and can laugh at it, or lament over it, as the humor moves me. And yet I can't help pitying my- self when I look back at myself at that time I was so young, so hungry for a little sympathy, so weary of my empty, Men iless life. Well ! every thing is comparative in this world. I was soon to re- gret, bitterly to regret, that friendless life wretched as it was. " The poor girl's employer discovered our attachment, through his wife. He at once communicated with my father. "My father had but one word to say he insisted on my going abroad, and leaving it to him to release me from my absurd engage- ment in my absence. I answered him that I should be of age in a few months, and that I was determined to marry the girl. He gave me three days to reconsider that resolution. I held to my resolu- tion. In a week afterward I was declared insane by two medical men ; and I was placed by my father in a lunatic asylum. " Was it an act of insanity for the son of a gentleman, with great expectations before him, to propose marriage to a nursery governess? I declare, as Heaven is my witness, I know of no other act of mine which could justify my father, and justify the doctors, in placing me under restraint. " I was three years in that asylum. It was officially reported that the air did not agree with me. I was removed, for two years more, to another asylum in a remote part of England. For the live best years of my life I have been herded with madmen and my reason has survived it. The impression I produce on you, on your father, on your brother, on all our friends at this picnic, is that I am as reasonable as the rest of my fellow-creatures. Am I rushing to a hasty conclusion when I assert myself to be now, and always to have been, a sane man ? " At the end of my five years of arbitrary imprisonment in a free country, happily for me I am ashamed to say it, but I must speak the truth happily for me, my merciless father died. His trustees, to whom I was now consigned, felt some pity for me. They could not take the responsibility of granting me my freedom. But they placed me under the care of a surgeon, who received me into his private residence, and who allowed me free exercise in the open air. " A year's trial of this new mode of life satisfied the surgeon, and satisfied every one else who took the smallest interest in me, that I was perfectly fit to enjoy my liberty. I was freed from all restraint, and was permitted to reside with a near relative of mine, in that very Lake country which had been the scene of my fatal meeting with the French girl, six years before." FATAL FOBTUNE. PART THE SECOND, v. " I LIVED happily in the house of my relative, satisfied with the ordinary pursuits of a country gentleman. Time had long since cured me of my boyish infatuation for the nursery governess. I could revisit with perfect composure the paths albng which we had walked, the lake on which we had sailed together. Hearing by chance that she was married in her own country, I could wish her all possible happiness, with the sober kindness of a disinterested friend. What a strange thread of irony runs through the texture of the simplest human life ! The early love for which I had sacri- ficed and suffered so much, was now revealed to me in its true col- ors, as a boy's passing fancy nothing more ! " Three years of peaceful freedom passed ; freedom which, on the uncontradicted testimony of respectable witnesses, I never abused. Well, that long and happy interval, like all intervals, came to its end and then the great misfortune of my life fell upon me. One of my uncles died, and left me inheritor of his whole fortune. I alone, to the exclusion of the other heirs, now received, not only the large income derived from the estates, but seventy thousand pounds in ready money as well. "The vile calumny which had asserted me to be mad was now revived by the wretches who were interested in stepping between me and my inheritance. A year ago, I was sent back to the asylum in which I had been last imprisoned. The pretense for confining me was found in an ' act of violence ' (as it was called), which I had committed in a momentary outbreak of anger, and which it was ac- knowledged had led to no serious results. Having got me into the asylum, the conspirators proceeded to complete their work. A Com- mission in Lunacy was issued against me. It was held by one Com- missioner, without a jury, and without the presence of a lawyer to assert my interests. By one man's decision I was declared to be of unsound mind. The custody of my person, as well as the manage- ment of my estates, was confided to men chosen from among the conspirators who had declared me to IK; mad. I am here through the favor of the proprietor of the asylum, who has given me my hol- iday at the sea-side, and who humanely trusts me with my liberty, as you see. At barely thirty years old, I am refused the free use of my money and the free management of my affairs. At barely thirty years old, I am officially declared to be a lunatic for life I" 530 FATAL FORTUNE. VI. HE paused ; his head sank on his breast; his story was told. I have repeated his words as nearly as I can remember them ; but I c.m give no idea of the modest and touching resignation with which he spoke. To say that I pitied him with my whole heart, is to say nothing. I loved him with my whole heart and I may ac- knowledge it now ! " Oh, Mr. Cameron," I said, as soon as I could trust myself to speak, " can nothing be done to help you ? Is there no hope ?" " There is always hope," he answered, without raising his head. " I have to thank you, Miss Brading, for teaching me that." " To thank me ?" I repeated. " How have I taught you to hope ?" "You have brightened my dreary life. When I am with you, all my bitter remembrances leave me. I am a happy man again ; and a happy man can always hope. I dream now of finding what I have never yet had a dear and devoted friend, who will rouse the en- ergy that has sunk in me under the martyrdom that I have endured. Why do I submit to the loss of my rights and my liberty, without an effort to recover them? I was alone in the world until I met with you. I had no kind hand to raise me, no kind voice to en- courage me. Shall I ever find the hand ? Shall I ever hear the voice ? When I am with you, the hope that you have taught me answers Yes. When I am by myself, the old despair comes back, and says No." He lifted his head for the first time. If I had not understood what his words meant, his look would have enlightened me. The tears came into my eyes; my heart heaved and fluttered wildly; my hands mechanically tore up and scattered the grass round me. The silence became unendurable. I spoke, hardly knowing what I was saying ; tearing faster and faster at the poor harmless grass, as if my whole business in life was to pull up the greatest quantity in the shortest possible space of time ! " We have only known each other a little while," I said ; " and a woman is but a weak ally in such a terrible position as yours. But useless as I may be, count on me, now and always, as your friend He moved close to me before I could say more, and took my hand. He murmured in my ear, "May I count on you one day as the nearest and dearest friend of all ? Will you forgive me, Mary, if I own that I love you ? You have taught me to love, as you have taught me to hope. It is in your power to lighten my hard lot. You can recompense me for all that I have suffered ; you can rouse me to struggle for my freedom and my rights. Be the good angel of my life ! Forgive me, love me, rescue me be my w r ife !" FATAL FORTUNE. 531 I don't know how it happened. I found myself in his arms and I ati-wered him in a kiss. Taking all the circumstances into con- sideration, I dare say I was guilty, in accepting him, of the rashest act that ever a woman committed. Very good. I didn't care then I don't care now. I was then, and I am now, the happiest wom- an living. VII. IT was necessary that either he or I should tell my father of what had passed ln-t wren us. On reflection, I thought it best that I should make the disclosure. The day after the picnic, I repeated to my father Roland's melancholy narrative, as ".necessary preface to the announcement that I had promised to be Roland's wife. My father saw the obvious objections to the marriage. He warn- ed me of the imprudence which I had contemplated committing in the .strongest terms. Our prospect of happiness, if we married, would depend entirely on our capacity to legally supersede the pro- ceedings of the Lunacy Commission. Success in this arduous under- taking was, to say the least of it, uncertain. The commonest pru- dence pointed to the propriety of delaying our marriage until the doubtful experiment had been put to the proof. This reasoning was unanswerable. It was, nevertheless, com- pletely thrown away upon me. When did a woman in love ever listen to reason ? I believe there is no instance of it on record. My father's wise words of caution had no chance against Roland's fervent entreaties. The days of his residence at Eastbourne were drawing to a close. If I let him re- turn to the asylum an unmarried man, months, years perhaps, might pass before our union could take place. Could I expect him, could I expect any man, to endure that cruel separation, that unrelieved suspense? His mind had been sorely tried already; his mind might give way under it. These were the arguments that carried weight with them, in my judgment ! I was of age, and free to act as I pleased. You are welcome, if you like, to consider me the most foolish and the most obstinate of women. In sixteen days from the date of the picnic Roland and I were privately married at East- Ixmrne. My father more grieved than angry, poor man declined to be present at the ceremony ; in justice to himself. My brother gave me away at the altar. Roland and I spent the afternoon of the wedding-day and the earli- er part of the evening together. At nine o'clock he returned to the doctor's house, exactly as usual ; having previously explained to me that he was in the power of the Court of Chancery, and that until We succeeded in setting aside the proceedings of the Lunacy Com- 532 FATAL FORTUNE. mission there was a serious necessity for keeping the marriage strict- ly secret. My husband and I kissed, and said good-bye till to-mor- row, as the clock struck the hour. I little thought, while I looked after him from the street-door, that months on months were to pass before I saw Roland again. A hurried note from my husband reached me the next morning. Our marriage had been discovered (we never could tell by whom), and we had been betrayed to the doctor. Roland was then on his way back to the asylum. He had been warned that force would be used if he resisted. Knowing that resistance would be interpreted, in his case, as a new outbreak of madness, he had wisely submitted. " I have made the sacrifice," the letter concluded ; " it is now for you to help me. Attack the Commission in Lunacy, and be quick about it !" We lost no time in preparing for the attack. On the day when I received the news of our misfortune we left Eastbourne for London, and at once took measures to obtain the best legal advice. My dear father though I was far from deserving his kindness entered into the matter heart and soul. In due course of time, we presented a petition to the Lord Chancellor, praying that the de- cision of the Lunacy Commission might be set aside. We supported our petition by qubting the evidence of Roland's friends and neighbors, during his three years' residence in the Lake country, as a free man. These worthy people (being summoned be- fore the Lunacy Commission) had one and all agreed that he was, as to their judgment and experience, perfectly quiet, harmless, and sane. Many of them had gone out shooting with him. Others had often accompanied him in sailing excursions on the lake. Do peo- ple trust a madman with a gun, and with the management of a boat ? As to the " act of violence," which the heirs at law and the next of kin had made the means of imprisoning Roland in the mad-house, it amounted to this : he had lost his temper, and had knocked a man down who had offended him. Very wrong, no doubt; but if that is a proof of madness, what thousands of lunatics are still at large ! Another instance produced to prove his insanity was still more absurd. It was solemnly declared that he put an im- age of the Virgin Mary in his boat, when he went out on his sailing excursions ! I have seen the image it was a very beautiful work of art. Was Roland mad to admire it, and take it with him ? His religious convictions leaned toward Catholicism. If he betrayed in- sanity in adorning his boat with an image of the Virgin Mary, what is the mental condition of most of the ladies in Christendom who wear the Cross as an ornament round their necks ? We advanced these arguments in our petition, after quoting the evidence of the witnesses. And more than this, we even went the length of admit- FATAL FORTUNE. 533 ting, as an act of respect toward the Court, that my poor husband might be eccentric in some of his opinions and habits. But we put it to the authorities, whether better results might not be expected from placing him under the care of a wife who loved him, and whom he loved, than from shutting him up in an asylum, among incurable madmen as his companions for life. Such was our petition. ><> tar as I am able to describe it. The decision rested with the Lords Justices. They decided against us. Turning a deaf ear to our witnesses and our arguments, these mer- eiles< lawyers declared that the doctor's individual assertion of my lm>l (ami's insanity was enough for them. They considered Roland's comfort to be sufficiently provided for in the asylum, with an allow- ance of seven hundred pounds a year and to the asylum they con- signed him for the rest of his days. So far as I was concerned, the result of this infamous judgment was to deprive me of the position of Roland's wife ; no lunatic be- ing capable of contracting marriage by law. So far as my husband was concerned, the result may be best stated in the language of a popular newspaper, which published an article on the case. "It is possible " (said the article I wish I could personally thank the man who wrote it '.; for the Court of Chancery to take a man who has a large fortune, and is in the prime of life, but is a little touched in the head, and make a monk of him, and then report to itself that the comfort and happiness of the lunatic have been effectually pro- vided for at the expenditure of seven hundred pounds a year." Roland was determined, however, that they should not make a monk of him and, you may rely upon it, so was I! But one alternative was left to us. The authority of the Court of Chancery (within its jurisdiction) is the most despotic authority on the face of the earth. Our one hope was in taking to flight. The price of our liberty, as citizens of England, was exile from our na- tive country, and the entire abandonment of Roland's fortune. We accepted those hard conditions. Hospitable America offered us a refuge, beyond the reach of mad-doctors and Lords Justices. To hospitable America our hearts turned, as to our second country. The serious question was. How were we to get there ? We had attempted to correspond, and had failed. Our letters had l>een discovered and seized by the proprietor of the asylum. For- tunately we had taken the precaution of writing in a "cipher" of Roland's invention, which he had taught me before our marriage. Though our letters were illegible, our purpose was suspected, as a matter of course ; and a watch was kept on my husband night and day. Foiled in our first effort at making arrangements secretly for our 534 FATAL FORTUNE. flight, we continued our correspondence (still in cipher) by means of advertisement in the newspapers. This second attempt was dis- covered in its turn. Roland was refused permission to subscribe to the newspapers, and was forbidden to enter the reading-room at the asylum. These tyrannical prohibitions came too late. Our plans had already been communicated ; we understood each other, and we had now only to bide our time. We had arranged that my brother and a friend of his, on whose discretion we could thoroughly rely, should take it in turns to watch every evening, for a given time, at an appointed meeting-place, three miles distant from the asylum. The spot had been carefully chosen. It was on the bank of a lone- ly stream, and close to the outskirts of a thick wood. A water-proof knapsack, containing a change of clothes, a false beard and wig, and some biscuits and preserved meat, was hidden in a hollow tree. My brother and his friend always took their fishing-rods with them, and presented themselves, as engaged in the innocent occupation of angling, to any chance strangers who might pass within sight of them. On one occasion the proprietor of the asylum himself rode by my brother, on the opposite bank of the stream, and asked polite- ly if he had had good sport ! For a fortnight these staunch allies of ours iclieved each other regularly on their watch and no signs of the fugitive appeared. On the fifteenth evening, just as the twilight was changing into night, and just as my brother (whose turn it was) had decided on leaving the place, Roland suddenly joined him on the bank of the stream. Without wasting a moment in words, the two at once entered the wood, and took the knapsack from its place of shelter in the hol- low tree. In ten minutes more my husband was dressed in a suit of workman's clothes, and was further disguised in the wig and beard. The two then set forth down the course of the stream, keeping in the shadow of the wood until the night had fallen and the darkness hid them. The night was cloudy ; there was no moon. After walk- ing two miles or a little more, they altered their course, and made for the high - road to Manchester, entering on it at a point some thirty miles distant from the city. On their way from the wood, Roland described the manner in which he had effected his escape. The story was simple enough. He had assumed to be suffering from nervous illness, and had requested to have his meals in his own room. For the first fortnight, the two men appointed to wait upon him in succession, week by week, were both more than his match in strength. The third man employed, at the beginning of the third week, was physically a less formidable person than his predecessors. Seeing this, Roland decided, when evening came, on FATAL FORTUNE. 535 committing another "act of violence." In plain words, he sprang upon tin- keeper waiting on him in his room, and gagged and bound the man. This done, he laid the unlucky keeper, face to the wall, on his o\\n bed, covered with his own cloak, so that any one entering the room might suppose he was lying down to rest. He had previous- ly taken the precaution to remove the sheets from the bed, and he had now only to tie them together to escape by the window of his room, situated on the upper floor of the house. The sun was set- ting, and the inmates of the asylum were then at tea. After nar- rowly missing discovery by one of the laborers employed in the grounds, lie had climbed the garden inclosure, and had dropped on the other side a free man! Arrived on the high-road to Manchester, my husband and my brother parted. Roland, who was an excellent walker, set forth on his way to Manchester on foot. He had food in his knapsack, and he proposed to walk some twelve or fifteen miles on the road to the city before he stopped at any town or village to rest. My brother, who was physically unable to accompany him, returned to the place in which I was then residing, to tell me the good news. By the tirst train the next morning I traveled to Manchester, and took a lodging in a suburb of the city known to my husband as well as to me. A prim, smoky little square was situated in the im- mediate neighborhood ; and we had arranged that whichever of us tirst arrived in Manchester should walk round that square, be- tween twelve and one in the afternoon, and between six and seven in the evening. In the evening I kept my appointment. A dusty, foot-sore man. in shabby clothes, with a hideous beard, and a knap- sack on his back, met me at my first walk round. He smiled as I looked at him. Ah! I knew that smile through all disguises. In spite of the Court of Chancery and the Lords Justices, I was in my husband's arms once more. We lived quietly in our retreat for a month. During that time (as I heard by letters from my brother) nothing that money and cunning could do toward discovering Roland was left untried by the proprietor of the asylum, and by the persons acting with him. But where is the cunning which can trace a man who, escaping at night in disguise, has not trusted himself to a railway or a carriage, and who takes refuge in a great city in which he has no friends ? At the end of our month in Manchester we traveled northward, crossed the Channel to Ireland, and passed a pleasant fortnight in Dublin. Leaving this again, we made our way to Cork and Queens- town, and embarked from that latter place (among a crowd of steer- age passengers) in a steamship for America. 536 FATAL FORTUNE. My story is told. I am writing these lines from a farm in the west of the United States. Our neighbors may be homely enough ; but the roughest of them is kinder to us than a mad-doctor or a Lord Justice. Roland is happy in those agricultural pursuits which have always been favorite pursuits with him ; and I am happy .with Roland. Our sole resources consist of my humble little fortune, in- herited from my dear mother. After deducting our traveling ex- penses, the sum total amounts to between seven and eight hundred pounds ; and this, as we find, is amply sufficient to start us well in the new life that we have chosen. We expect my father and my brother to pay us a visit next summer ; and I think it is just possi- ble that they may find our family circle increased by the presence of a new member in long clothes. Are there no compensations here for exile from England and the loss of a fortune ? We think there are ! But then, my dear Miss Anstell, " Mary Brading's husband is mad, and Mary Brading herself is not much better." If you feel inclined to alter this opinion, and if you remember our old days at school as tenderly as I remember them, write and tell me so. Your letter will be forwarded, if you send it to the inclosed address at New York. In the mean time, the moral of our story seems to be worth serious consideration. A certain Englishman legally inherits a large for- tune. At the time of his inheritance, he has been living as a free man for three years without once abusing his freedom, and with the express sanction of the niedical superintendent who has had ex- perience and charge of him. His next of kin and his heirs at law (who are left out of the fortune) look with covetous eyes at the money, and determine to get the management and the ultimate pos- session of it. Assisted by a doctor, whose honesty and rapacity must be taken on trust, these interested persons, in this nineteenth century of progress, can lawfully imprison their relative for life, in a country which calls itself free, and which declares that its justice is equally administered to all alike. NOTE. The reader is informed that this story is founded, in all essential particulars, on a case which actually occurred in England, eight years since. W.C. END OF "FATAL FORTUNE.' University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. -L.