L*sy -fj&c 
 
 rtiJn\ ' . #**% 
 
 GOD'S 
 FOUNDLING
 
 Hppletons' 
 
 Uovvn an& Country 
 
 Xibrarg 
 
 No. 228 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING 
 
 BY 
 
 A. J. DAWSON 
 
 AUTHOR OF MERE SENTIMENT, MIDDLE GREYNESS, 
 IN THE BIGHT OF BENIN, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1897
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1897, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE MASTER i 
 
 II. THE MAN 6 
 
 III. " To MEET MR. BARNARD'S FRIEND " . . .18 
 
 IV. MR. MORLEY FENTON'S PROTEGE .... 26 
 
 V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA . . 34 
 
 VI. MORNING SUNSHINE AND FRUIT .... 48 
 
 VII. A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE . . 52 
 
 VIII. MR. MORLEY FENTON'S DECISION. ... 62 
 IX. CROSS-CURRENTS AND CARISSIMA .... 68 
 X. FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE . . . .76 
 XI. SOME REMINISCENCES, AND A BIG MAN CALLED 
 
 CARROLL 88 
 
 XII. AFTERNOON TEA AND SCANDAL QQ 
 
 XIII. TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP . . . log 
 
 XIV. IN THE MATTER OF A STRAIGHT LINE . . . I2O 
 
 XV. " UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY " . .126 
 
 XVI. MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY 134 
 
 XVII. PROVIDENCE AND MR. MORLEY FENTON . . 145 
 XVIII. THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER . . . 153 
 
 XIX. HOUSE 168 
 
 XX. COLD SUPPER, AND A BREATHING SPACE . .17? 
 XXI. ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE . . . . . . 1 86 
 
 XXII. A QUESTION OF DIAGNOSIS IQ9 
 
 XXIII. INTERVENTION . ... . . . 204 
 
 XXIV. REACTION . 213 
 
 XXV. PHASES 225 
 
 XXVI. AFTER MANY DAYS 236 
 
 v 
 
 2135380
 
 vi GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXVII. BETWEEN TWO WORLDS 247 
 
 XXVIII. MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING .... 255 
 
 XXIX. HAROLD FOSTER LOSES HIS WAY .... 2y 
 
 XXX. HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY .... 278 
 
 CONSEQUENCES : 
 
 PART I. THE PASSAGE OF TIME 
 
 " II. THE TRIUMPH OF TIME .
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE MASTER. 
 
 " You saw go up and down Valladolid, 
 A man of mark to know next time you saw." 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 THE 4.30 train from Waterloo was a little late. 
 When it did draw up beside the down platform at 
 Sunbury the stationmaster had been standing waiting 
 for it for quite five minutes. Consequently, when he 
 opened the door of a first-class smoking carriage, and 
 touched his hat to Mr. Morley Fenton, his expression 
 suggested apologetic regret. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Fenton. Little late this even- 
 ing, sir. It's those race-trains again." 
 
 " Good-evening, Johnson. Yes, we are a little late, 
 I think." 
 
 And Mr. Morley Fenton, slim, erect, precise, passed 
 down the narrow platform on his way home. 
 
 This little scene was one of the standing, the out- 
 standing, features of the stationmaster's daily life, and 
 one into which the only variation that ever crept was 
 caused by the punctuality, or otherwise, of the 4.30 
 train from Waterloo. He did not make a point of 
 opening carriage doors for other passengers, not even 
 for Sir Graham Willoughby or Lord Lesby, who were
 
 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 both fairly regular in their comings and their goings. 
 And he would have found it hard to have given any 
 valid reason for his unvarying daily tribute of respect 
 to Mr. Morley Fenton. He simply paid it as a matter 
 of course, and would no more have thought of omit- 
 ting the small attention than would the man at the 
 station-gate of asking to see Mr. Fenton's ticket, when 
 that gentleman passed out with his usual slight in- 
 clination of the head. 
 
 On this particular evening Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 face wore a somewhat more serious and abstracted 
 expression than was usual. Midway between the sta- 
 tion and his riverside home Mr. Fenton paused, raising 
 his head with the air of a man recalling some half-for- 
 gotten circumstance. Then, turning sharp round, he 
 walked back some twenty paces in the direction of the 
 station. A strip of banana peel lay on the curb. Hav- 
 ing flicked it into the roadway with the point of his 
 neatly-rolled umbrella, Mr. Fenton turned once more 
 and resumed his walk towards Weir Lodge. 
 
 The evening was one beautifully typical of the soft 
 radiance of summer in the Thames Valley. Air and 
 sky and gently rustling leaves were unusually full of 
 lusty summer's glory. Mr. Morley Fenton was a man 
 upon whom, as a rule, one's eyes fell as upon a piece 
 of one's surroundings. He looked as much an ex- 
 pected section of his environment as the figure in a 
 portrait seems of its canvas. On this radiant evening 
 Mr. Fenton's appearance might have suggested to a 
 close observer some fleeting thought of coming 
 autumn, or, more probably, of a previous summer's 
 ending. 
 
 When he reached the garden-gate of the quaintly 
 
 :tty, rambling white house called Weir Lodge, Mr. 
 
 Fenton paused a moment to throw away the end of a 
 
 Tnchmopoly cheroot, which he had lighted, as his cus-
 
 THE MASTER. 3 
 
 torn was, when leaving his office in Lombard Street. 
 Then he walked, more briskly than before, along the 
 trim gravel drive to the porch of the white house. The 
 swinging glass doors in the lobby stood open, and as 
 the master of the house entered a maidservant came 
 forward to take his umbrella. Mr. Fenton handed 
 the girl a compact little grass-mat bag which he had 
 been carrying. 
 
 " Here is some fish which you might take to the 
 kitchen, Mary. And, Mary, tell your mistress, will 
 you, that I am expecting Mr. George Barnard to 
 dinner." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the maid, as she retired kitchen- 
 wards with the salmon, repeating to herself for the 
 hundredth time at least that she had quite the nicest 
 master in England. 
 
 " He's a real gentleman, he is," was the opinion 
 held and expressed by most people of Mary's class who 
 were brought into contact with Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 
 Having divested himself of a neutral-hued, extreme- 
 ly light top-coat, and deposited the same in an oak cabi- 
 net, Mr. Fenton walked quietly across the hall for a 
 house of its modest dimensions Weir Lodge possessed 
 a remarkably fine hall holding in one hand his silk 
 hat, and in the other an evening paper, which latter 
 had apparently not yet been opened. Arrived in his 
 study, a small, pretty room overlooking the lawn and 
 the bend of the river towards which this lawn sloped, 
 Mr. Fenton laid his hat carefully in a case left open 
 for its reception. Then he placed his evening paper 
 on the centre of the writing-table, and, turning 
 again, closed the door by which he had entered the 
 room. 
 
 As the master of the house regained the centre of 
 his study, and paused there, gazing out through one of 
 its low windows, he sighed languidly, and murmured
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 4 
 
 a word which seemed to be merely the articulation of 
 the sigh. The lines of his fine face seemed in a way to 
 droop inward, his lower lip to recede from its sweeping 
 covering of silver-pointed brown moustache, and his 
 eyes to be half-closed. His sigh had framed itself into 
 the word " Sanctuary! " An odd word this, from such 
 a man, at such a time. 
 
 Then Mr. Fenton coughed, and, passing two well- 
 kept hands slowly over his face, as though to restore 
 its usual impassivity, sat down restfully in a low wicker 
 chair. 
 
 " After all," he murmured. And then the relaxa- 
 tion which his two hands seemed to have pressed out 
 of his face crept over it again. He drew a slim Russia- 
 leather letter-case' from an inner pocket, and took out 
 of it a letter on the top of which was printed, " St. 
 Ann's Vicarage, Norwood." He read the letter care- 
 fully, and then, allowing it to fall on to his knees, he 
 raised both hands, resting the finger-tips of each on 
 those of the other, as a lawyer who listens, or a child 
 who prays. 
 
 "Flesh and blood, and mother's milk: they are 
 stronger than teaching and environment," he mur- 
 mured slowly. " Or but then, the teaching and en- 
 vironment must be strengthened. That is all. Yes, 
 yes. They must be made the strongest. Yes, and 
 penitence is at best a poor thing. The only atonement 
 is living, breathing, creative atonement that is, re- 
 making, evil-effacing. Yes, yes." 
 
 Almost an hour passed, while Mr. Fenton sat per- 
 fectly still in the wicker chair, his hands resting one 
 against the other, his eyes on the golden glamour of 
 the strip of western sky, which seemed to run right 
 down to the dappled surface of the river wherein its 
 ory was reflected. And as he sat there the man's 
 face regained all its habitual smooth serenity, and with
 
 THE MASTER. 5 
 
 it there seemed a light of added strength and fixity of 
 purpose. 
 
 Then a tap on the door of the study elicited a quiet 
 "Come in!" from the master of the house, and Mr. 
 Fenton replaced the letter he had been reading in the 
 case from which he had drawn it. The case he slipped 
 into his coat-pocket as he rose and stood facing the 
 door. 
 
 " Mr. George Barnard, sir, to see you." 
 
 The speaker was Mary, and as she drew back from 
 the door its opening seemed to be filled, dominated, by 
 the presence of a big fair man with a flowing russet 
 beard, and wide blue eyes which in their expression 
 were like those that in a horse are called " kind." He 
 carried a dark-blue cloth crush hat in one hand, and a 
 short briar pipe in the other. 
 
 " Ah, Fenton, old chap, how are you? I made sure 
 I should find you in the garden." 
 
 The man's voice, like his presence, was big and 
 sweet and clean in its suggestion. Delivered in such 
 a voice, even the words with which he addressed Mr. 
 Morley Fenton did not seem strikingly ill-suited to 
 the subject of them. 
 
 " Come in, George come in. I'm glad to see you, 
 and it was good of you to come."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAN. 
 
 " Ask, ere the youngster be rated and chidden, 
 What did he carry, and how was he ridden ? 
 Maybe they used him too much at the start ; 
 Maybe Fate's weight-cloths are breaking his heart." 
 
 Life's Handicap. 
 
 GEORGE BARNARD was a briefless young barrister, 
 aged forty-five. He lived, and assisted sundry other 
 persons to achieve the same laudable end, on a private 
 income of some hundred and forty odd pounds per 
 annum, and the casual earnings of an uncertain, but 
 cleverly-wielded pen. He had his headquarters in a 
 roomy, shadowy, untidy set of chambers in Furnival's 
 Inn. The shabby saddle-bag chairs in these rooms 
 had for the most part served different occupants at 
 different times as beds. 
 
 Some twenty years before this summer evening on 
 which Mr. Morley Fenton welcomed George Barnard 
 in the study at Weir Lodge, he had occupied a portion 
 of the same set of shabby chambers in which his friend, 
 . the big-bodied, big-hearted barrister, had lived ever 
 since. The two men had purchased their wigs and 
 gowns together, and at one and the same time had 
 been called to the Bar, and earned the right to accept 
 the briefs which never came to either. 
 
 Then there had been happenings, and Mr. Morley 
 Fenton had subsequently entered his father's counting- 
 house, and become one of the well-known banking and 
 
 6
 
 THE MAN. 7 
 
 financial house of Morley Fenton, Son and Co. So 
 George Barnard, his friend's senior by a year or so, 
 had remained the sole tenant, nominally at all events, 
 of the Furnival's Inn chambers. And this was by no 
 means the only tie between the owner of Weir Lodge 
 and his lion-headed guest, who, by the way, looked a 
 good deal younger than his host. 
 
 George Barnard was the only man in England who, 
 having known Mr. Fenton in his early barrister days, 
 had met him subsequently as a member of the Lom- 
 bard Street firm, and a householder. He was one of 
 the very few who were aware that the owner of Weir 
 Lodge ever had been called to the Bar. He was the 
 sole connecting link between young Morley Fenton 
 who was " sent down " from Oxford and matured Mr. 
 Morley Fenton upon whose opinion in matters com- 
 mercial many leading lights in London financial cir- 
 cles were always prepared to risk money. And there 
 were other bonds of union between the two widely- 
 differing men. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton mixed his friend a glass of 
 sherry and bitters; and then, after a carefully-worded 
 apology, left the room for the purpose of making some 
 change in his dress before dinner. Later on, he led 
 George Barnard into the long drawing-room where his 
 wife, his two daughters, and Norah, his niece, were 
 discussing the forthcoming Molesey Regatta. 
 
 Mrs. Fenton, tall and stately, with miniature head, 
 and the bird-like, winsome face of a petite woman, rose 
 to greet her husband's friend, whom she had known 
 during all her married life. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you again, Mr. Barnard," she 
 said, in the trilling small voice which, whilst in admi- 
 rable accord with her flower-like face, seemed always 
 out of keeping with her queenly figure. " It is posi- 
 tively a whole year since you last honoured us."
 
 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " It is it is, Mrs. Fenton, a whole year since I in- 
 dulged myself. But, as you know, I have been a good 
 deal out of England, and really er 
 
 His hostess took advantage of George Barnard's 
 pause to bring forward Norah, whom the barrister 
 had never met. 
 
 " This is dear Norah, Mr. Barnard. Our daughter 
 now, you know, since- 
 
 And this time it was the guest's turn to fill a pause. 
 He did so with a certain manly grace, made half ten- 
 der by reason of his noticing, as he bowed over the 
 girl's hand, that she was dressed in black. He remem- 
 bered then that, some six or eight months before, his 
 friend's elder brother had died in rather poor circum- 
 stances, leaving a pretty and wholly insignificant wife, 
 and a seventeen-year-old daughter. Norah he now 
 rightly assumed to be the daughter, and he noticed, 
 with Bohemian quickness of perception in such mat- 
 ters, that the girl's pale face was a very charming one. 
 His recollection of his one meeting with Norah's 
 mother made him sum the situation up in his mind 
 by a thought which, if put into words, would have 
 been: 
 
 " Charming girl, with an encumbrance her 
 mother." 
 
 He did not know the facts of the case, or he would 
 have been aware that Norah had no encumbrances, 
 and, to all intent^ and purposes, no mother. Her dead 
 father's widow, whom Barnard would have called, " a 
 thread-paper creature," had eagerly accepted Mrs. 
 Morley Fenton's offer to adopt Norah, and herself had 
 left England to travel as companion to a wealthy spin- 
 ster relative. 
 
 George Barnard shook hands warmly with Maud 
 and Lucy Fenton, two graceful girls, very much their 
 mother's daughters, with whom the barrister was a
 
 THE MAN. 
 
 prime favourite. A few minutes later the small party 
 adjourned to the dining-room. 
 
 Just as everything else about Weir Lodge was the 
 best which English orthodoxy provides and suggests, 
 so the dinner that evening was thoroughly and con- 
 ventionally good and patriotically British, from its 
 healthy infancy of thick ox-tail to its sturdy final 
 stages of jellies, Cheddar, and wall-fruit. The hock 
 was poor, the claret was good, the port was perfection, 
 and the coffee was infamous. Mr. Fenton was serious 
 and a little abstracted, whilst never ceasing to be an 
 attentive host. Mrs. Fenton was charming, and full 
 of the most sympathetic of small talk. Norah was sub- 
 dued, but in occasional flashes struck the barrister as 
 being very interesting. Maud and Lucy unaffectedly 
 demanded to be amused; and George Barnard com- 
 plied with these demands to perfection, whilst men- 
 tally flagellating himself at intervals for being lacking 
 in any of the topics of conventional small talk. 
 
 " If only one could talk to 'em about the affairs of 
 our kinds of lives! " Barnard had been known to say to 
 a journalistic chum, whilst speaking of ladies and of 
 the rare occasions upon which he felt called upon to 
 show himself in the society whose members call the 
 circle of their acquaintance collectively by that name. 
 As a matter of fact, he always did talk of the affairs of 
 Bohemia, though he was never conscious of so doing. 
 And in this way George Barnard rarely failed to 
 amuse, even where he could not interest. And the 
 most rigidly orthodox hostesses had found it absolutely 
 impossible, when their gaze had met his great, sailor- 
 child-like blue eyes, to be displeased with one whose 
 devotion to their sex was always apparent, even to 
 smart folk. 
 
 " You'll excuse my selfishness in not letting George 
 join you, dear? We have a matter of business to dis-
 
 , GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 cuss," said Mr. Fenton to his wife, as the ladies were 
 leaving the table. 
 
 " Well, I don't know. We shall expect to see you 
 for a little while, anyhow, Mr. Barnard." 
 
 " Yes, do come," added Mrs. Fenton's younger 
 daughter.' " And I will have that awful drinking-song 
 ready for you to sing." 
 
 Mr Fenton did not resume his seat, but, having 
 handed his old friend a cigar, proposed an adjournment 
 to his study. This was acted upon, and when George 
 Barnard had made himself comfortable before one of 
 the open French windows, Mr. Fenton made some 
 very good coffee, using for the purpose a special ap- 
 paratus which stood on a side table. 
 
 " Ah, Morley, your hand's lost none of its cunning, 
 I see," said the big man, tasting his Mocha, as his friend 
 sat down in a low chair before him. 
 
 " It's fairly good coffee, is it not? Fairly good, I 
 think." 
 
 A little twinkle of responsive appreciation of Bar- 
 nard's compliment had lighted up the City man's eyes, 
 and shown all sorts of new possibilities in his face. 
 It was only a faint gleam, and a fleeting, but in pass- 
 ing it revealed more of Morley Fenton, the man, than 
 had been shown since his arrival at Weir Lodge that 
 evening. So a stray quotation wakes to ecstasy a 
 renegade scholar, or a sunset glow an apostate artist. 
 And the cause in this case was a careless comment on 
 a man's ability as a maker of coffee. 
 
 " And now you've something special to tell me, 
 haven't you?" asked Barnard, stroking his brown 
 beard as he spoke, with the luxurious air of a man 
 possessing to the full that rare faculty of seizing and 
 appreciating comfort. " Gad! it's quite like old times, 
 your wanting a yarn with me. I was very glad to get 
 your wire."
 
 THE MAN. H 
 
 " Yes " the younger man looked distinctly the 
 senior now. " Yes, I particularly wanted to see you, 
 George. How long is it since you had a talk with 
 Harold Foster? " 
 
 The barrister looked up sharply through the cloud 
 of blue smoke which hung round his head in the still 
 night air. 
 
 " Eh Harold? He was with me on Saturday; he 
 always lunches with me on Saturdays, you know. Then 
 we generally go to a matinee, and I dine him some- 
 where, and yarn till it's time to see him off to Nor- 
 wood. As a matter of fact, I'm ashamed to say it was 
 my breakfast last Saturday, not lunch. I was in my 
 tub when the boy came. But why?" 
 
 " Did you did he seem changed in any way, 
 George? " 
 
 " Why, no! Changed? No; I didn't notice any 
 difference in him. He talked a good deal about the 
 sex, bless 'em! but that's only natural. If I remember 
 rightly, I'd had at least half a dozen serious affairs 
 before I was his age. True, I wasn't brought up in a 
 parsonage, but by Gad! yes I might have had a 
 dozen if I had. Dangerous places very. But why 
 do you ask, old man?" 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton drew his letter-case from his 
 pocket, and handed Barnard the letter which he had 
 read on first entering his study that evening. 
 
 " Read that, George." 
 
 " I wish you'd read it to me, old man; you're close 
 to the light." 
 
 " Well, it is from the Reverend Winthrop at Nor- 
 wood, and he says : ' I feel it my duty to tell you that 
 your protege has of late been causing me a good deal 
 of anxiety. Of course, I have no means of judging 
 of his conduct during the day, when he is presumably 
 occupied in his studies at the hospital. Latterly, how-
 
 I2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ever, he has fallen into a habit of reaching home con- 
 siderably later in the evening than was the case when 
 he first took up his abode with me. His tone and atti- 
 tude towards myself and the family seem changed. He 
 frequently absents himself from the ordinary church 
 services, and is at no pains to excuse this. His corre- 
 spondence, too, has increased of late, and he shows 
 some contempt for the simple pleasures and relaxations 
 in which I have always encouraged the members of 
 my household. As you know, my dear Mr. Fenton, 
 your protege has attained the years, if not the discre- 
 tion, of manhood, and it is therefore impossible for 
 me to enforce any rules for the guidance of his daily 
 life. Only, as a matter of conscience, I feel bound to 
 inform you of the impression which my careful study 
 of young Mr. Foster gives me, and that unfortunately 
 is, that some change, by no means toward his worldly 
 or spiritual welfare, is at work in him.' " 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton replaced the letter in his case, 
 and sighed as he said: 
 
 " That is the reason, George, of my asking you, 
 who know everything er all that Mr. Winthrop 
 does not know whether you have noticed any change 
 in Harold Foster." 
 
 " My dear Fenton, I think, as I thought and told 
 you when Harold first went to Norwood, that, with all 
 respect to Mr. Winthrop, a parsonage is no place for a 
 medical student, least of all for for a lad like Hal." 
 
 " He is under very careful, watchful eyes there, and 
 in the atmosphere of thoroughly good family life." 
 
 So well watched that I expect it's getting on his 
 nerves, old man. Such an infernally good atmosphere 
 that I expect it makes him choky. I thought he 
 seemed a little stale and flat on Saturday, now I come 
 to think of it." 
 
 " Old friend, you know my hopes for Harold Fos-
 
 THE MAN. 13 
 
 ter, and you know the fears that live with me. You 
 know all I want to shield him from." 
 
 " My dear Fenton, believe me, you can't put old 
 heads on young shoulders. This home-shelter busi- 
 ness is the worst kind of foolishness. Fancy how we 
 should have felt at his age if we'd been the subjects 
 of a parson's careful study and he's a medical student ! 
 You know how medicals talk. My dear fellow, the 
 world you want him to be a man in is not a Norwood 
 vicarage not much! and who knows that better than 
 you? Let him learn the world he has to live in." 
 
 " And come unassisted into contact with with all 
 things that bring ruin. George, I have the two lives 
 always before me his and mine. God knows there's 
 been enough similarity. You know how his college 
 days came to an end." 
 
 " And yet you put him now, at three-and-twenty, 
 practically in the position of a school-boy. My dear 
 old man, let the lad live as the young fellows around 
 him live, more or less in Bohemia. Let him live with 
 me, if you like. Good heavens! if there's no open 
 devilment in a young man's life, there's sure to be 
 something a deuced lot worse. It isn't healthy for a 
 youngster to have no appreciation of wickedness: it 
 makes him cultivate nastiness. Let him live a worker's 
 life among workers, and find out that green apples 
 make a man's stomach ache; and if he drinks a glass 
 of wine too many, and has a head in the morning, do 
 you mean to say it's not cleaner than listening to talk 
 of such things and wishing for them, or getting them 
 in secret, and lying to a parson's wife about the morn- 
 ing's head? It is such rot, this cant about pure lives! 
 Why, hang it, Fenton, you know it is no man 
 better! " 
 
 The barrister's ardour made the other man cold 
 and calm.
 
 14 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " There are some matters, George, upon which in- 
 dividual opinions must necessarily differ. What seems 
 cant to one man may be a thoroughly wholesome and 
 genuine belief to another. And a third man, again, 
 may neither believe nor disbelieve, and yet be wise 
 enough to uphold certain standards because in the 
 end they are the best policy." 
 
 " H'm! Well, of course, I long ago gave up try- 
 ing to understand you, Fenton. I just accept you as 
 a marvel, a very fine one, and my old friend. But I 
 don't ask a youngster to be a marvel. I just ask him 
 to be white, and to grow up a clean, strong man. Gad, 
 Fenton! Think what young blood is. Let him live a 
 complete life. There's not enough oxygen for a young- 
 ster in the odour of sanctity and week-night services. 
 Why, why think of our young days, you know! " 
 
 " I am thinking of them, George. In connection 
 with Harold Foster, I never cease thinking of them." 
 If the stationmaster at Sunbury could have seen 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's face now, as the light from the 
 green-shaded lamp fell upon the veins which throbbed 
 on each side of the high forehead with its fringe of 
 grey-shot hair, want of recognition might have led 
 to the omission of his usual deferential greeting. In 
 dealing with some one feature of their lives the inward- 
 ness of most men comes to the surface at least, more 
 so than at other times. In its vibralile force and ful- 
 ness, Mr. Morley Fenton's voice as he continued speak- 
 ing was a revelation of a man not known to Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's circle of acquaintance. 
 
 " When you talk of my letting Harold Foster live 
 in Bohemia, George, you forget much that I remem- 
 ber. If I speak now as a narrow-living man of con- 
 ventions and orthodoxy let me speak as such. I, at 
 all events, see some things clearly, and I remember. 
 I do not think of Harold Foster simply as Harold
 
 THE MAN. I5 
 
 Foster, a young man in the doorway of his life. I 
 think of him in the light of the past, which is stronger, 
 if not brighter, than the light of the present, or of 
 Bohemia. A young man is first a child, and draws in 
 God knows what a child draws from its mother's 
 milk, and and its father's loins. We do not all start 
 fair, George, and those who have been responsible 
 for the overweighting may at least try to lessen its 
 effects." 
 
 The barrister stretched out one hand; but, as 
 though to check any words which might accompany 
 the gesture, Mr. Morley Fenton leaned forward in his 
 chair, and continued speaking more rapidly than be- 
 fore. 
 
 " Your wide tolerance, George, is a far more in- 
 tolerant thing than what you regard as my narrow 
 conventionality. Prague is not a walled city. Byzan- 
 tium spreads its colour for all beholders. Bohemia is 
 open to all comers; but all men are not Bohemians, 
 George. Let your thoughts run back to where some- 
 thing holds mine fixed, so far as Harold Foster is 
 concerned. Bohemia was never to me the land it was 
 and is to you. To you it is a living-room a working, 
 playing, feasting, starving place, but, first of all, a 
 working place. Was it ever that to me? It is clean, 
 breezy moorland workshop camaraderie to you, 
 your life's oxygen. It was abandon, dancing exhilara- 
 tion, or drowsy narcoticism, life's wine, the world's 
 luridity, to me, and straying along its paths brought 
 me But there! this is mere reminiscence to you. 
 Forgive my my unnecessary warmth; but you fol- 
 low the line of my judgment. No, Harold Foster 
 must not be helped into Bohemia." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton leaned far back in his chair, 
 and the light from the green-shaded lamp, playing 
 about his head, made fantastic livid hollows, as irre-
 
 !6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 sponsible lamplight will, where smooth reposeful lines 
 were wont to be. Both men were silent for a full min- 
 ute, and then George Barnard said : 
 
 " Yes, I suppose you're right, old man. Anyhow, 
 I understand ; but you want to make a change of some 
 sort. You must introduce some interest in his life 
 something in the way of a condiment, to take with 
 the week-night services, eh? " 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton smiled slightly. It was the 
 faintest, most tentative glimmering of a smile. Then 
 both men were silent till George Barnard leaned for- 
 ward to throw away his cigar end. 
 
 " Yes, there must be a change," said Barnard's host 
 slowly. " An added interest, to give the quiet life's 
 white light shade and colour. George, the boy must 
 visit some comfortable homes, and mix with people 
 who find happiness in a kind of life you rather despise. 
 And for a beginning for a beginning, why shouldn't 
 he visit here?" 
 
 "Why indeed? I have often wondered. Why 
 shouldn't a young man in whose life you take an inter- 
 est visit your house? And then it will give you the 
 opportunities you have found it so difficult to make of 
 seeing him in a perfectly natural way." 
 
 " Yes. That is undoubtedly the thing to be done. 
 It might have been done before, but I However, 
 it can be done now. Look here, George! Bring him 
 down to dinner next Saturday, and stay till Monday. 
 That will break the ice. Will you?" 
 
 " Delighted, old man! Of course I will. I'll write 
 him to-morrow. And now I think I must be get- 
 ting down TO the station. Will you walk down with 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes, certainly. And er my wife " 
 
 " Will you make my excuses afterwards, and bid 
 the ladies good-night for me? "
 
 THE MAN. I7 
 
 " Well, perhaps it would be simpler yes. Thanks, 
 George ! Then we'll go through the garden. Your hat 
 is here, you know." 
 
 So the .two walked out together into the scented 
 summer night.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " TO MEET MR. BARNARD'S FRIEND." 
 
 " Evil or good may be better or worse 
 In the human heart, but the mixture of each 
 Is a marvel and a curse." 
 
 Gold Hair. 
 
 As Mr. Morley Fenton lowered his first cup of 
 breakfast coffee from his lips on the morning follow- 
 ing his talk with George Barnard, he said quietly, ad- 
 dressing his wife: 
 
 " Oh, by the way, my dear, George Barnard is 
 coming down again on Saturday, to stay till Monday, 
 so perhaps I may be forgiven for monopolizing him 
 last night." 
 
 " And I shall make him sing that drinking-song, 
 though there really isn't a note in the piano deep 
 enough." 
 
 Maud Fenton looked up from a letter, the con- 
 tents of which she was imbibing with toast and water- 
 cress. 
 
 " But, father," interposed the elder sister, " Satur- 
 day is Molesey Regatta day. You must ask Mr. Bar- 
 nard to lunch. We're having lunch at half-past twelve, 
 and then he can go down with us in the gondola. He 
 would look perfectly lovely in the bow, if he would 
 only wear brown velveteen." 
 
 "You absurd child!" trilled the mistress of the 
 house, raising her chin from the foamy neck of a morn- 
 ing gown. " As though Mr. Barnard dressed to suit 
 
 18
 
 "TO MEET MR. BARNARD'S FRIEND." 19 
 
 your boats. Besides, I don't suppose he would care 
 for such frivole as a regatta. You children " 
 
 " Now, little mother " the incongruity of her fa- 
 vourite appellation never struck Maud Fenton " if 
 you want to play at being middle-aged, you really 
 mustn't wear that skittish wrapper with the chiffon." 
 
 " Well, I don't know," said Mr. Morley Fenton, 
 who had been making steady, though not very vigor- 
 ous, progress with his kidneys and toast. 
 
 " Why, father? " Maud still dwelt mentally on her 
 mother's chiffon. 
 
 " Eh? Well, I was going to say that I think the 
 regatta would suit George very well. The fact is, I 
 have told him to bring down a friend of his, a young 
 fellow named Foster Harold Foster a medical stu- 
 dent, in whom I am rather interested. I think you 
 heard me speak of him, my dear, some time ago, when 
 he left college. He had a rather severe illness, and Mr. 
 Barnard very kindly took him to the Riviera. I I 
 should like you all to be kind to him, you know, and 
 er he will stay till Monday, too." 
 
 Mrs. Fenton raised her pretty eyebrows slightly. 
 This was quite a new departure for her husband. He 
 was not given to bringing friends to Weir Lodge. 
 
 " Of course, dear," she said, " we will do the best 
 we can. Will Mr. Barnard and his friend come to 
 lunch?" 
 
 " Oh yes, please, father, else we shall be out! " 
 
 "Yes, yes, certainly; I will ask George to come 
 down with me. You needn't worry about room in the 
 gondola; I shall have some letters to write, and shall 
 leave our friends to you." 
 
 " But there's heaps of room, father. Mossop has 
 put the new seat in now, you know." 
 
 " Yes, there is plenty of room," added Mrs. Fenton. 
 " I was just going to ask you girls who we could in-
 
 20 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 vite to meet Mr. Barnard's friend. There really ought 
 to be another man, you know." 
 
 "H'm! How about the Colonel?" suggested Mr. 
 Morley Fenton, as he rose to leave the room. 
 
 " Father, de-ear," protested Lucy " a single eye- 
 glass in a gondola is too dreadful! " 
 
 "Oh, as you like; but, in spite of the glass, the 
 Colonel's a very fine fellow." 
 
 " Don't you think, girls, that that delightfully 
 wicked Mr. Tarne would be interesting? It's true he 
 is dreadfully clever, but I thought him very good 
 company at Sir Graham's on Tuesday. He has taken 
 that funny little pagoda place, you know, for the rest 
 of the season." 
 
 " Yes, little mother, he's splendid ; he told me how 
 people wrote novels and things. Do ask him." 
 
 "Tarne, Tarne?" queried the head of the house. 
 "Do I know him?" 
 
 " No, dear, I don't think you do. He is a literary 
 man, and quite a young lion, I believe." 
 
 " Oh, of course Tarne. It must be Leo Tarne, 
 the man who wrote that er My dear, is he " 
 
 " Oh perfectly, Morley a charming man, really ; 
 and Lady Graham said some very nice things about 
 him." 
 
 'Ah! Well, of course you know, and if you like 
 him, by all means invite him, my dear. I think you 
 will all like young Foster. I must really run away. 
 Is there anything I can bring you from town? No? 
 Good-bye, then; good-bye, girls. You're looking pale 
 this morning, Norah; you must spend plenty of time 
 on the river this weather, you know. Good-bye, dear." 
 
 And a minute afterwards the feminine portion of 
 the household saw Mr. Morley Fenton walk past the 
 window of the breakfast-room, and down the winding 
 drive to the garden-gate. A moment later a thin curl
 
 "TO MEET MR. BARNARD'S FRIEND." 2 I 
 
 of blue smoke floated in through the open window, as 
 though to announce that his business day had begun 
 for the head of the house, his Trichinopoly, that perma- 
 nent herald of Mr. Fenton's home-comings and out- 
 goings, being lighted. 
 
 " Isn't he a dear? " inquired Maud of Norah. Her 
 audience nodded unqualified assent. " And," contin- 
 ued Maud, with fine feminine irrelevancy, "the gondola 
 will really be pretty full if we are going to have tea 
 in it." 
 
 " Well, you know," said Norah tentatively, " it 
 wouldn't be so very bad for me to miss it, because I 
 hardly know any of the people, and Don't you 
 think so? Then there would be three gentlemen and 
 three ladies, you know." 
 
 " My dear, I shouldn't think 
 
 " Oh yes a delightful idea! " 
 
 Maud was given to interruptions. 
 
 "Yes, you wicked, deceitful Norah dear! We'll 
 leave her at home, little mother, won't we? and lock 
 her in her bedroom." 
 
 " Nonsense, children! I am sure there will be lots 
 of room if we leave Gyp at home and sit up properly, 
 Maud, instead of sprawling over four cushions." 
 
 " Three, little mother three, and then only when 
 it was almost dark." 
 
 " Ah well, we shall see. I dare say it will be very 
 nice. And I hope Mr. Foster is not scientific, or any- 
 thing, because I am sure that Mr. Tarne will make 
 fun of him if he is. Mr. Tarne is dreadful. He said 
 dear Lady Graham suggested a retired Joan of Arc 
 addressing an advanced Mothers' Meeting. I don't 
 in the least know what he meant; but she is a little 
 pronounced in that drab costume the tailor-made one 
 isn't she?" 
 
 And then the autocrat of Weir Lodge Mrs. Fen-
 
 22 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ton's latest discovery in cooks demanded, through 
 Mary, the housemaid, her mistress's immediate attend- 
 ance in the hall. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of this same day, as Mr. Leo 
 Tame novelist, and, some said, poet was lying in a 
 hammock on the verandah of the pretty bungalow of 
 which he had recently become the tenant, he received 
 from the hands of Carlos, his invaluable Spanish serv- 
 ant, a note addressed to him in the writing of Mrs. 
 Morley Fenton. 
 
 " Pardon me a moment, Tritton," he said to a pale, 
 somewhat puffy-looking young man, who sat beside 
 the hammock in a crimson-lined wicker chair. 
 
 The young man nodded languidly. His own speech 
 was to Tritton one of the few things in life which justi- 
 fied economy as a habit. There were people who re- 
 garded this feeling of Tritton's as the most commend- 
 able trait in his character. Tritton was a minor poet, 
 who led a life of child-like guilelessness, and wrote 
 luridly decadent verses at a low rate of remuneration. 
 Originally of a peaceful, even happy, disposition, a 
 shadow had been cast over Tritton's life by the per- 
 sistent refusal of his friends to regard him as other than 
 a thoroughly respectable young man. 
 
 " Xow, here," said Leo Tarne, as he allowed Mrs. 
 Fenton's note to fall on the boards of the verandah 
 beneath him, " is a vivid example of the inexorable 
 brutality of our what-d'ye-may-call-it what is the 
 expression, Tritton?" 
 
 " Commercial classes? " suggested the younger 
 man bitterly. He had not glanced at the envelope in 
 which his friend's letter came. And Tritton had found 
 tradesmen's bills a serious item in a poet's life. 
 
 ' Xo, no; it's a lady." 
 
 " What? The expression? " 
 ' No, ' social system ' that's it, ' social system.'
 
 "TO MEET MR. BARNARD'S FRIEND." 23 
 
 As I was saying, your unselfish and agreeable man's 
 Nemesis is certain and pitiless. Here is a woman who 
 is not even ugly. So far as I know, she is more wholly 
 lacking in interest than than the novels of writers 
 who have not yet imitated me. Yet because in my 
 fatal good-nature I paid her preposterous compliments 
 at that garden-party the other day, and slandered our 
 hostess the only woman there of whom she was at 
 all jealous because of that, here comes my man to- 
 day, like a what's-his-name, you know, from Scotland 
 Yard, and forces a pale-blue writ on me to secure my 
 appearance in a boatful of girls and collie dogs at 
 Molesey Regatta. Tritton, believe me, if it were not 
 for the horrible inconvenience and exertion it would 
 involve, I would give up unselfishness and being agree- 
 able I would really and study myself." 
 
 " You needn't go." 
 
 There was recklessness in the younger man's tone. 
 For an entire week now he had hovered about the 
 Thames Valley without securing a single invitation. 
 The summer wore on apace, and Tritton found river 
 lodgings expensive. 
 
 " Exactly. There speaks the man-about-town. Ah, 
 Tritton, how I envy you your finished worldliness! 
 To you life contains practically no conscience-born 
 bugbears, no gruesome episodes born of duty by bore- 
 dom." 
 
 Tritton's face lighted up. 
 
 "You needn't be so oilily self-satisfied," he said. 
 
 " No, I assure you I bitterly regret my verdancy. 
 However yes, I shall go to their massive lunch- 
 shortly after daybreak, I think it is. It smacks of 
 ploughed fields and bacon, does it not? And I shall 
 afterwards make myself useful among the girls and 
 collies and shin-breaking seats of the hearse they call a 
 gondola. Shades of the Grand Canal! I suppose the
 
 24 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 young men's institutes and ' conducted tours ' are re- 
 sponsible for that. I shall burn my fingers at an evil- 
 smelling spirit-lamp, drink cold tea and eat cake 
 cake, Tritton! and hand things about, and very possi- 
 bly fall into the river. And all this, mark you, Tritton 
 mio, in penance for ten minutes' good-natured un- 
 selfishness the other afternoon, and because of my fatal 
 want of callousness. Oh, I am made to suffer! You, 
 I know, would treat the pale-blue writ of Nemesis with 
 silent and scornful indifference. But I And there 
 is a rather charming girl in that Fenton family. I 
 can't make out whether she is a parentless heiress or 
 a poor relation. Heigho! would that I could slough 
 that's an extraordinarily ugly word, is it not? some 
 of my boyish chivalry, and pay a little more attention 
 to my own comfort. How do you manage it, Tritton 
 eh? Are you really going already? So good of 
 you to look me up, my dear Tritton! You'll forward 
 me a copy of your ' Sins that are Scarlet,' won't you? 
 Send Carlos along if you see him. Good-bye, my dear 
 fellow." 
 
 Leo Tarne turned in his hammock as the minor 
 poet disappeared and Carlos stepped on to the ve- 
 randah. 
 
 " I should have thought, Carlos, that under the 
 circumstances you might have perceived that I was not 
 at home. I am afraid this same thing occurred once 
 before, when we were in town. I don't wish to be se- 
 vere, but I beg you will use more discrimination in 
 uture. A By the way, bring me something to 
 drink, please, Carlos something yellow with ice in 
 it, and straws." 
 
 Leo Tarne moved again in his hammock and 
 yawned slightly as his rebuked servant withdrew. The 
 ervant felt penitent and very much to blame for some- 
 He was not quite clear as to the exact nature
 
 "TO MEET MR. BARNARD'S FRIEND." 25 
 
 of his wrong-doing. But he felt that he had done 
 wrong, and that thereby his master had suffered. This 
 was very typical of Leo Tarne's attitude toward 
 the world, and of the world's attitude toward Leo 
 Tarne.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON's PROTEGE. 
 
 " I see the coming light, 
 I see the scattered gleams. 
 Aloft, beneath, on left and right, 
 The stars own ether beams ; 
 These are but seeds of days, 
 Not yet a steadfast morn, 
 An intermittent blaze, 
 An embryo god unborn." 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 " I REGARD this as a clear gain to us of two shil- 
 lings, Harold." 
 
 "Regard what?" 
 
 " Why, this going to Lombard Street on a penny 
 bus. Gain of one and tenpence, anyhow. We'll tack 
 it on to next Saturday's dissipation, Hal that's what 
 we'll do, and have a most prodigious splash. Anyone 
 else, you know, would have taken a hansom, which 
 wouldn't have been half so airy. There's no doubt 
 it's a clear profit of one and ten. You'll see now, Mr. 
 Fenton will take a cab to Waterloo. True, he's more 
 or less of a bloated capitalist, but still 
 
 " Yes, I suppose Mr. Fenton is rich. I've often 
 thought, you know, that he must probably stand a 
 good deal of my expenses himself. My father didn't 
 leave very much, did he? It's a funny thing, you 
 know, the way in which I have always accepted it as 
 a matter of course that you and he should provide me 
 with everything. Yet I don't know in the least how I 
 stand." 
 
 26
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S PROTEGE. 2 / 
 
 " H'm ! yes.. Well, you see, Mr. Morley Fenton 
 was your father's closest friend, so I expect he feels he 
 has a right in the matter. As a fact, I don't think your 
 father did have anything much; and goodness knows, 
 I've never been able, even if it were necessary, to do 
 anything for you in that way. But you can rest as- 
 sured that in everything a real father could do for a 
 son you have the best of fathers, and one who will 
 never change, in Mr. Fenton." 
 
 " Yes, in everything a father can do for a son 
 in everything." 
 
 " By Gad, it's true! I don't believe there's anything 
 he wouldn't do for you." 
 
 " And I'm sure there's nothing you wouldn't do." 
 
 " H'm ! little enough little enough I can. By the 
 way, Hal, you have never been to Weir Lodge, have 
 you?" 
 
 " No, I don't think so." 
 
 " Because I know Mr. Fenton wants to see more 
 of you than he has done. This is only a beginning. 
 He means to get you the entree of several comfortable 
 sort of houses, you know, as well as his own." 
 
 " He is good. By Jove! if you and he knew some 
 of the things I ' 
 
 " We must get down here, Harold, and turn up 
 Lombard Street. Steady! Your coat's caught in the 
 rail. W T hat was it you were saying? " 
 
 " Saying? I forget now. Nothing of any impor- 
 tance. By Jove! we're ten minutes late over that one- 
 and-tenpenny find of ours." 
 
 " H'm! yes, so we are. And, of course, there's Mr. 
 Fenton waiting on the doormat. His one vice, I think, 
 is punctuality. How are you, old man? We came 
 down by bus for the sake of the moral effect, and as a 
 consequence I'm afraid we're a little late." 
 
 " Glad to see you, George. Harold, how are you? 
 3
 
 2 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 A little unfair to morality, George, to expect it to make 
 up in Cheapside for a late start. However, I think we 
 have plenty of time for our train. Can we all three 
 get into a hansom? I am afraid we must abstain from 
 the moral luxury of the omnibus this time, to avoid 
 the demoralization of missing a train." And the two 
 older men giving each a knee towards the support of 
 Harold Foster, the three started in a hansom for 
 Waterloo. 
 
 Harold Foster, a handsome, very fair young Saxon, 
 the weakness of whose mouth by no means overshad- 
 owed the strength of his high, wide forehead, had 
 reached Furnival's Inn from Norwood that day in time 
 to find George Barnard at a critical stage of his morn- 
 ing shaving operations. The barrister, who jovially 
 boasted that all his life he had abstained from, at all 
 events, one evil habit early rising had then pro- 
 ceeded to dress and breakfast in haste. He had cut 
 himself twice whilst shaving. He had with extraor- 
 dinary ingenuity contrived to mislay every small arti- 
 cle pertaining to his toilet, and finally, by a crowning 
 inspiration of brilliancy, had tilted a poached egg into 
 the small bag which contained his boating clothes and 
 other matters of detail connected with his week-end 
 visit to Sunbury. 
 
 Then, in that fine frenzy which accompanies the 
 desire to make up for lost time, or any other striving 
 after the unattainable, Barnard had crammed such 
 necessities as he could call to mind, and hand, into 
 Harold Foster's bag, and by the time the pair reached 
 the street on their way Citywards, had been brimming 
 over with the blithest of good spirits. And, with the 
 moral triumph of the omnibus thrown in, the barrister 
 had been more nearly punctual in the meeting with 
 Mr. Morley Fenton than his habit was in engagements 
 with others among his friends.
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S PROTEGE. 29 
 
 Harold Foster was transparently less at ease in the 
 presence of Mr. Morley Fenton than when alone with 
 George Barnard, though his admiring respect for the 
 former gentleman was an even deeper-rooted senti- 
 ment than was his affection for the big-hearted Bo- 
 hemian; or, perhaps, because of this. In the train 
 between Waterloo and Sunbury, George Barnard oc- 
 cupied a corner, and gazed steadily out through the 
 carriage window, his feet crossed on the seat opposite 
 him and his briar pipe slanting slightly upwards from 
 the white teeth which gripped it. Occasionally he 
 interpolated a brief remark, which was always breezy 
 and seldom germane to anything under heaven, out- 
 side the speaker's clean fancy. 
 
 In the middle seat, on the same side of the carriage, 
 his long fingers clasped over one raised knee, his un- 
 covered head pressed against the dark blue of the 
 cushions behind him there was a Scandinavian glint 
 in the fine lines of Harold Foster's hair sat the man 
 of a younger generation. His eyes were fixed on the 
 seat facing him; his red lips, sensitive as an ^Eolian 
 harp's strings, reflected every fleeting thought which 
 crossed his mind, and seemed to tinge with hesitancy's 
 greyness the vivid pertinence of much that he said. 
 In the light of the high, white forehead, round the 
 edges of which his hair clung in this summer noon- 
 day, like damp gold floss, his answers to Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's questions were as full of meaning and un- 
 derstanding as a man might desire, and were en- 
 riched sometimes by nervously thrown out dramatic 
 colour. 
 
 In the corner seat, on Harold Foster's right, was 
 Mr. Morley Fenton. The two flaps of his dust-coat 
 faced one another in geometrical alignment on his 
 thin knees. The ash on the end of his half-smoked 
 Trichinopoly was an inch and a half in length. No
 
 30 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 single hair among the many grey and the few brown 
 under his glistening hat's brim had changed its posi- 
 tion since Mr. Fenton had stood waiting on the door- 
 mat in Lombard Street. But where this hat's brim's 
 little shadow fell across either side of Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's forehead, thin, knotted, pale veins were throb- 
 bing and writhing, like baby snakes in the sun-warmed 
 hollow of a fallen tree. Such things mean often noth- 
 ing, and Mr. Morley Fenton never turned his head to 
 look at Harold Foster. Yet his eyes, in sidelong see- 
 ingness, seemed never to leave the young man, who 
 gazed at the seat facing him, and Mr. Fenton was con- 
 scious not only, of every movement, but of every 
 change of expression in Harold Foster's face and of 
 every separate shade and tone in his dress. 
 
 The compartment had only one other occupant, 
 and he wore a conspicuous amount of massive jewel- 
 lery, and was immersed in the columns of a stock and 
 share journal. But to anyone interested in human 
 habits and idiosyncrasies, as keys to human complexi- 
 ties, these three men, their attitudes and bearing, would 
 have afforded a study of rare interest. The station- 
 master at Sunbury, for instance, had he been more 
 analytically and less intuitively a student of humanity, 
 would have keenly appreciated the opportunity. 
 
 " How do you get on now, at Mr. Winthrop's, 
 Harold?" asked Mr. Morley Fenton, carefully tilting 
 the ash of his cheroot through the open carriage win- 
 , dow ; gazing at the cheroot, yet seeing only Harold 
 Foster, as one gazes at the top of one's paper, whilst 
 seeing only a face opposite one. 
 
 " Oh, fairly well, I think, thanks. I can't take quite 
 the absorbing interest in affairs of the vicarage which 
 I fancy Mr. Winthrop expects me to take. They in- 
 terest me so much less than than other people's af- 
 fairs."
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S PROTEGE. 3I 
 
 "Ah! yes, I expect the home life there is a little 
 confined. Very quiet, very quiet, I expect." 
 
 " No, it really is not quiet. On the contrary, there's 
 always a host of little movements; but they are very 
 little, as compared to the movements of places outside. 
 They seem like the affairs of the students at Bart's, by 
 the side of the affairs of the hospital." 
 
 Illness and other causes had carried Harold Fos- 
 ter's medical-student days into years somewhat more 
 advanced than those of most of his contemporaries 
 at the hospital. 
 
 " Yes. I was really thinking of the possible mo- 
 notony of the Norwood life, when I asked George to 
 persuade you to join us at Sunbury to-day. The life 
 there is quiet enough, you know, but it will be a 
 change, and if you have one or two different places 
 to visit now and again, it may make the vicarage life 
 more interesting. They are all really warmly interested 
 in you there, you know, and the Winthrops are very 
 excellent people." 
 
 " Very very. Please don't think I blame them 
 for any want of interest I may have in their home-life ; 
 but you asked me." 
 
 " Yes, yes, exactly. I quite understand. But there 
 is no excitement in their life, and you naturally look 
 for incident and movement. But, believe me, Harold, 
 I am speaking from a life's conviction when I say that 
 the most beautiful thing in this world is simplicity, 
 the most admirable state and the strongest is a re- 
 poseful one, and the happiest, never far from the do- 
 mestic circle, with its innumerable inner wheels. Out- 
 side is a great deal of froth and bubble, some colour, 
 and a lot of pain. Inside is responsibility, absolutely 
 the only foundation of that happiness or content which 
 lives. Outside is irresponsibility, a double-edged thing, 
 which, if it gleams and laughs for an hour, wounds
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 5* 
 
 meanwhile for a life-time wounds for a life-time, 
 Harold, and wounds its lovers more deeply than its 
 mere casual friends." 
 
 The big Bohemian in the farther corner of the car- 
 riage moved uneasily in his seat, drummed his fingers 
 on the window-ledge, and remarked that the trail of 
 the jerry-builder had fallen like a plague upon the 
 Thames Valley. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton assented mechanically, and 
 asked Harold Foster if he had made many friends at 
 Bartholomew's. 
 
 " I don't think I have made any," said the young 
 man, with some hesitation. " They seem to me rather 
 like school well, anyhow, I don't think I have made 
 any friends. Do you know, I don't think I am very 
 good at making friends." 
 
 " Ah! well, it is not a thing to do carelessly; but it 
 is worth doing occasionally well. This is our sta- 
 tion." 
 
 The Sunbury stationmaster, not quite understand- 
 ing Mr. Morley Fenton's appearance at 12.25 instead 
 of at 1.48, was hurrying towards the carriage door, 
 as the owner of Weir Lodge, with his friends, stepped 
 on to the platform. 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards, the three, followed by one 
 of the Weir Lodge gardeners who had met them at the 
 station and was carrying the guests' joint belongings, 
 were met on the verandah of the white house by Mrs. 
 Fenton, the three girls, and Mr. Leo Tarne. 
 
 George Barnard nodded very stiffly over his pres- 
 entation to Leo Tarne, and muttered something in an 
 impossibly bass key about " Pleasure before, I think." 
 
 Leo Tarne responded in a musical baritone to the 
 effect that to him tried pleasures were quite the most 
 delightful things in the world, because, unlike new 
 ones, they were so full of illusions.
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S PROTEGE. 33 
 
 Harold Foster shook hands with the writer. He 
 found instant interest in Leo Tarne's voice, his appear- 
 ance, and the courtesy-cloaked insolence which his 
 words suggested. On the very surface of things, Leo 
 Tarne seemed the embodied antithesis of all that Har- 
 old Foster had, more of late than ever, found it diffi- 
 cult to interest himself in. 
 
 " Well, I hope you gentlemen will not find it very 
 painful to lunch at half-past twelve. You see it takes 
 some time to get down to Molesey in the gondola," 
 said Mrs. Fenton. 
 
 " And really, what has time to do with meals, save 
 to be focussed by them? " Leo Tarne appealed frankly 
 to the summer air and sky. " Lunch creates the lunch- 
 eon hour, don't you think; whereas the luncheon hour 
 never creates lunch, does it?" 
 
 " And I know poor Mr. Barnard always break- 
 fasts dreadfully early," suggested Maud, from over her 
 mother's shoulder. " You can't possibly have tea be- 
 fore four, you know, on the river." 
 
 The barrister's smile was beautiful to see. 
 
 " Yes," he said, as the party filed into the house. 
 "By Jove, Harold! you must tell Maud about that 
 poached egg." 
 
 But Harold was speaking to Leo Tarne, and Leo 
 Tarne was whispering to Norah, and Norah was ex- 
 amining Harold Foster with feminine subtlety of 
 vision.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 
 
 " Soft and softlier hold me, friends ! 
 Thanks if your genial care 
 Unbind and give me to the air. 
 Keep your lips and finger-tips 
 For flute or spinet's dancing chips ; 
 I await a tenderer touch, 
 I ask more or not so much : 
 Give me to the atmosphere." 
 
 Maiden Speech of the ^Eolian Harp. 
 
 GEORGE BARNARD did not gratify Lucy Fenton's 
 aesthetic desires in the matter of boat furniture to the 
 extent of appearing in brown velveteen; but he sat in 
 the bows of the gondola, and, in a snowy duck-suit 
 with flowing crimson sash, his blue cloth hat riding far 
 back on his tawny head, and his great arms raised to 
 serve, should occasion demand it, as fenders, the bar- 
 rister was a strikingly picturesque figure in that som- 
 bre-looking craft. His knees, too, so Maud said, when 
 covered by a cushion, formed a useful and reliable 
 back-rest. Harold Foster and Mrs. Morley Fenton 
 occupied the principal stern seat; Lucy Fenton and 
 Norah sat facing them ; and Leo Tarne, his blue-black 
 hair and olive skin set off to perfection by a dark- 
 green boating jacket, lounged on a couple of cushions 
 between the two seats. 
 
 The gondola was fast jammed now in an inter- 
 locked flotilla of river craft of every shape and size, 
 near the island opposite Garrick Villa. One of George 
 Barnard's strong hands rested defensively on the gun- 
 
 34
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 
 
 35 
 
 wale of Lord Arthur Rendlesom's electric launch, the 
 other on the stern of a rough punt, in which two taste- 
 fully attired and masked girls, with one good-looking 
 cavalier, were singing songs from a popular comic 
 opera, and accompanying themselves on different in- 
 struments. Later on, the boy who navigated their 
 punt passed round an old banjo, in which a goodly 
 collection of silver coins was taken. A little farther 
 on, a low-caste conjurer made money by the antics 
 of a dispirited guinea-pig, two white rats, and a black- 
 guard monkey. On a well-kept lawn opposite the 
 island a military band was playing a beautiful, if hack- 
 neyed, selection from a master's operatic work. 
 
 The air was full of that warm insidiousness which 
 seems peculiar to the lower Thames, and which enables 
 one to temporarily forget the pitiless bitterness of one 
 half the northern year, and the flaunting insincerity of 
 the other half. One could not see them, but one knew 
 that midsummer roses and climbing yellow glories 
 hung in heavy festoons about cottages near at hand. 
 The whole world seemed drunk from the ripeness of 
 things ablaze with the passion of summer. 
 
 Where one could see the river's surface, it had ab- 
 sorbed the sky's beauty, and, rich in its wealth of blue, 
 laughed back at the fathomless heavens. British fear 
 of colour seems forgotten wholly on the river, and in 
 all the densely-massed craft at this regatta were fair 
 women and sunny-eyed maidens, decked in gauzy 
 bravery, the very beauty of which would have fright- 
 ened its wearers if seen elsewhere than in that bright 
 carnival place of orthodox heterodoxy the Thames 
 in summer. 
 
 " I think Molesey is perfectly delicious," mur- 
 mured Leo Tarne, addressing Norah. " It is so unlike 
 Henley." 
 
 " But I think Henley delightful," replied the girl,
 
 3 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 colouring slightly, from what cause it would have been 
 hard to say. 
 
 " Do you really?" This was the class of question 
 or remark into which Leo Tarne always seemed to put 
 serious thought. Even the tone of his question, his 
 differing from Norah, was made to sound in some way 
 like a delicate compliment to the girl. Or, at least, 
 Harold Foster thought so, as he sat listening in the 
 stern of the gondola. 
 
 " But surely Henley is so big, so like the Derby, or 
 a Drury Lane pantomime," continued Tarne. " It 
 always strikes me in that way. Henley seems to take 
 itself seriously " he waved one graceful hand in the 
 direction of the conjurer's boat, and the mass of varied 
 colour beyond it " whereas Molesey is so charmingly 
 irresponsible." 
 
 Harold Foster leaned forward suddenly. Floating 
 through his mind, as from quite a distant past, came 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's words of that morning: " Irre- 
 sponsibility, a double-edged thing, which if it gleams 
 and laughs for an hour, wounds, meanwhile, for a life- 
 time." 
 
 ' And is that really an advantage?" he asked, sur- 
 prised and half ashamed at his own seriousness. 
 
 "Oh, surely!" replied Tarne, without turning his 
 head from Xorah. 
 
 "Even apart from regattas?" 
 
 Harold had hardly intended to give utterance to 
 this. Perhaps something in the medical student's tone, 
 or in his attitude when they first met, had roused inter- 
 est in Leo Tarne. At all events, he moved slightly on 
 his cushions now, and his dark eyes lighted up with 
 half-amused surprise, as, looking into the younger 
 man's eager face, he said : 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Foster. Nothing is enjoyable with- 
 out irresponsibility; just as, I take it, life holds no
 
 THE PHJLOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 37 
 
 other responsibility worth recognising than the finding 
 out and enjoying of the enjoyable. That seems to me 
 fundamental and surely elementary." 
 
 " But would you take nothing seriously? " 
 
 " Nothing but the avoidance of the serious." 
 
 "And duty?" 
 
 " Is enjoyment; and knowing that, is life; and life 
 is delightful, unless one is misguided enough to fall 
 into bad habits, and find seriousness, as the men who 
 wear red jerseys ' find ' religion." 
 
 " But, Mr. Tarne " again Norah coloured when 
 she heard her own voice " if no one took anything 
 seriously, nothing would ever be done." 
 
 " Then people would have time to live, instead of 
 doing things. It is because so many people insist on 
 doing things, Miss Fenton, that so few people, com- 
 paratively, have any happiness nowadays." 
 
 " Well, but I'm sure that cannot be right, Mr. 
 Tarne. For instance, we should not have this. There 
 would be no judges and umpires and secretaries and 
 things." 
 
 " Then we should have none of these stupid races 
 to interrupt the regatta." 
 
 " But they are the regatta." 
 
 " Hardly. Surely the colour, and the music, and 
 the river, and the sunshine you and I and the sum- 
 mer, together, are the regatta." 
 
 " That is true," said Mrs. Morley Fenton ; " be- 
 cause you know, nobody takes any notice of the races. 
 But your doctrine is false, Mr. Tarne, delightfully un- 
 true. You know it is. He is not in the least serious, 
 Norah dear." 
 
 " Heaven and the summer forfend, my dear Mrs. 
 Fenton! That would be the basest kind of apostasy, 
 and at Molesey sacrilege. Mr. Foster is serious at 
 this moment; but that is unavoidable, a catastrophe.
 
 3 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Mr. Foster is listening to the man in burnt cork, who 
 is making jokes. The burnt cork men who make 
 jokes! There you have the real criminal class; the 
 men who throw a shadow of gloom over the life of a 
 comparatively innocent community. Such men should 
 be placed under restraint, or in the House of Com- 
 mons." 
 
 " Mrs. Fenton! " George Barnard's big voice came 
 booming breezily along from the gondola's bows. 
 " If you don't let me have some tea or some lemon- 
 ade or some other gentle stimulant, I shall throw up 
 my position as chief fender, and come down there on 
 a filibustering expedition." 
 
 " Mr. Barnard, you are not to move. If you do, 
 you will knock my hat off, and our friendship will be 
 ended. Little mother, for the sake of peace, and my 
 hat, send some lemonade along, please." 
 
 " I will, Maud dear, I will. Lucy, protect your sis- 
 ter and her hat. Mr. Barnard, I think you take a very 
 unfair advantage of your indispensable position." 
 
 Waking suddenly from the fit of abstraction into 
 which he had been thrown by the suggestive influence 
 of Leo Tarne's personality, and his carelessly ex- 
 pounded mock philosophy, Harold Foster came to the 
 conclusion that he was neglecting people in general, 
 and his hostess in particular. So he began to bestir 
 himself in finding lemonade for the barrister, in spas- 
 modically interesting conversational efforts, and in 
 preparations for tea. Hence it was that in the course 
 of the next half-hour Mrs. Morley Fenton arrived at 
 the conclusion that Mr. Barnard's friend was really 
 a most excellent young man, when once his shyness 
 had been penetrated by her tactful diplomacy. Lucy 
 Fenton formed the same opinion, giving to her own 
 tact the credit of having broken through the young 
 man's reserve. Norah had, from a much earlier pe-
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 39 
 
 riod, shared the first half of Mrs. Fenton's conclu- 
 sion. 
 
 Leo Tarne, being considerably vainer and more 
 centred on himself than anyone else in the party, came 
 very much nearer to discerning the true cause of Har- 
 old Foster's sudden opening out, and felt a thrill of 
 pleasure and gratification in connection therewith. He 
 felt that in some only half-understood way he was ex- 
 erting the first great personal influence which had 
 entered into the life of this young man with the viking- 
 like head and the femininely beautiful mouth. And 
 Leo Tarne was right in his conclusion. He generally 
 was right in his unspoken opinions, just as he was 
 wrong in almost all those thoughts to which he gave 
 utterance. It was Leo Tarne's habit to put most of 
 his thoughts into words, though perhaps the man him- 
 self seldom believed anything that he said. 
 
 Now, his decision in this matter was an interesting 
 and pleasing discovery to Leo Tarne, for it was an 
 axiom of his that " all interesting people lead illustrated 
 lives," and here to his hand was the possibility of ap- 
 pearing in a creative role. But yet he was interested 
 in Norah and her pale budding womanhood; in the 
 dark wonder of her eyes, set in the goldleaf frame of 
 her nineteen-year-old dainty freshness. And then, he 
 told himself, Harold Foster with his tense eagerness 
 for revelation Harold Foster would come to him. 
 Norah could only allow him to come to her. 
 
 So Leo Tarne, thinking of his illustrated life, talked 
 for the most part to Norah, though to some extent 
 for Harold Foster. And Harold conversed nervously, 
 yet far better than was his wont, with Mrs. Morley 
 Fenton and with Lucy ; only occasionally throwing, as 
 from sheer necessity, a sentence, a suggestion, or a 
 question, into the current between Leo Tarne and 
 Norah; a current in which brilliant, soulless banter
 
 40 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 carried earnest, girlish wonder along its glistening 
 surface into whirlpools of mazed perplexity, where 
 vivid lights baffled resistance. And in return for these 
 outthrown interpolations grateful looks were shot at 
 him from Norah's soft eyes; looks which never reached 
 Harold because he saw only Leo Tarne's inscrutable 
 smiles, and heard only Leo Tarne's unanswerable 
 cynicism, which seemed to mock reason, and to laugh 
 behind a veil at itself. 
 
 At last the late summer's evening, having passed 
 through night's purple-draped ante-chamber, merged 
 into blue darkness. Some few of the illuminations the 
 Weir Lodge party waited to see, Mrs. Fenton having 
 purposely ordered dinner that evening to be at half- 
 past nine. Then came the slow passage up stream, 
 past the places where a hundred lights multiplied them- 
 selves in the river's glamour to a thousand ropes of 
 rippling, ever-changing colour; past the camping- 
 ground, where singing and playing were made musical 
 by distance and the night's soft harmony; on past the 
 range of scattered, twinkling lights into the hushed, 
 billowy blackness of the backwater below Sunbury, 
 where the lisping stream kissed the hidden feet of the 
 trees, and the trees rocked and sighed out their mur- 
 murings of love to the night which clung around 
 them. 
 
 Immeasurably the superior of Tritton, the minor 
 poet who practised silence from economical motives, 
 Leo Tarne was generally made intuitively aware of 
 those moments in which silence is golden in an artistic 
 sense. He did not allow the light of this sweet dark- 
 ness to make naked the source from which his whimsi- 
 calities were drawn. Among his sins the making of 
 discords had no place. 
 
 When dinner was over that evening, the men of the 
 party elected to take their coffee with tobacco on the
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 4I 
 
 verandah which skirted the front and one side of Weir 
 Lodge. The ladies gathered about the open windows 
 of the drawing-room, where Norah, a born musician 
 and by education a most accomplished pianist, played 
 dreamy music by the light of one crimson taper. The 
 day had been one full of interest and of new impres- 
 sions to pale, dark-eyed Norah. 
 
 On the verandah it seemed natural that Mr. Morley 
 Fenton and George Barnard should enjoy their che- 
 roots in the two great hammock-chairs which stood 
 near the porch, and as natural that the two younger 
 men should loungingly betake themselves and their 
 cigarettes to the farther end of the verandah, where 
 the moon, lately risen, poured broad streams of glis- 
 tening tenderness over bloom-fragrant trellis work 
 and climbing rose-trees. 
 
 " It is very beautiful, very clean-smelling; and 
 this Thames is a wonderful place." 
 
 Harold Foster was just then too saturated by all 
 the night's beauty to be very lucid in speaking of it. 
 
 "It is, is it not?" assented the writer, who was 
 perfectly cool and at peace with himself. " And is it 
 all new to you, Mr. Foster? " 
 
 " Perfectly new. Oh yes, it is quite new to me. I 
 don't know why. I have often been on the Thames 
 before, but yet it is all quite new to me to-day." 
 
 Leo Tarne smiled slightly as he took his cigarette 
 from his lips. Apparently, then, he had not only been 
 revealing Harold Foster to Harold Foster. He had 
 unintentionally revealed much else beside. The pro- 
 cess was extremely interesting, he thought. And his 
 thinking that he had done these things was. not mere 
 vanity but truth, though the fact that he, Leo Tarne, 
 and no other, had done them was possibly merely an 
 accident of circumstance. But, as Leo Tarne would 
 have said, the very existence of the young man was
 
 42 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 no more than that. He was very much older, apart 
 from years, than Harold Foster, and knew very much 
 more,' though the limits of his understanding's possi- 
 bilities may have been far narrower. 
 
 " And you are glad you came down here to-day, 
 Mr. Foster, are you not?" 
 
 " Very glad." 
 
 " You have seen and felt more than you would if 
 you had spent the day at the hospital." 
 
 "Oh, the hospital! I see nothing there but reali- 
 ties, and feel nothing but facts." 
 
 " And reality does not interest you? " 
 
 " Because those realities seem to me so small. They 
 make me feel that there must be far more reality and 
 beauty in what are called fancies and trifles, outside." 
 
 " There are no realities, Mr. Foster, and there is 
 certainly no beauty, save in what the average man 
 either does not see at all, or brushes aside as trifles, 
 or rigidly abstains from as improper, because fascinat- 
 ing. The average man takes seriously nothing that 
 he cannot understand, and understands nothing which 
 is beautiful. That is why ugliness is so respectable, 
 and the lives of respectable folk so ugly. On the other 
 hand, the classes we consider not respectable have no 
 understanding at all, and are simply ugly by instinct." 
 
 " But according to that there is no beauty left in 
 the world at all." 
 
 " Oh, the world! I think it has just as much beauty 
 as it ever had; but the really beautiful, like the essen- 
 tially ugly, exists in the mind of the man who feels 
 and sees it. That is the basis of society's morality, Mr. 
 Foster. An individual with ugliness in his mind looks 
 upon a certain thing, and sees in it, of course, only 
 ugliness; you look at the same thing, your mind being 
 free from ugliness, and see in it only beauty. Conse- 
 quently, you desire to enjoy it. But the other man,
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 
 
 43 
 
 representing, unfortunately, the majority, having 
 looked at the thing through the curtain of his soul's 
 ugliness, has labelled it immoral, or absurd, or bad 
 form, as the case may be. Therefore, the thing is not 
 to you a new delight, but a temptation to be resisted. 
 If you resist it, you sicken with desire for it that 
 makes it a really immoral and unnatural thing to you; 
 if you yield to it, you do so in the face of the label, and 
 forthwith the thing we call conscience tells you plainly 
 that you are immoral, or absurd, or guilty of bad 
 form. So a system of morality is built." 
 
 " Do only those ostracized by society enjoy life's 
 beauties, then? " 
 
 "No; but only those who themselves ostracize 
 society from their inner lives have any conception of 
 life's chiefest beauties." 
 
 " But how can a man do this?" 
 
 "Ah! that is a question for a man's individual 
 senses to answer. I should say he would achieve it by 
 never speaking as he thought, and never acting in 
 opposition to a thought. You see, the average man 
 says what he thinks, and acts as society tells him to. 
 Consequently, his inner self lives hungry and dies 
 starved, and beauty does not enter into his life. But 
 there is colour a wealth of colour and life, and 
 tremulous, vivid beauty, in a world some men discover, 
 and their discovery of it entails what I mean by a man's 
 ostracizing society from his inner life. And if society 
 should ostracize him from itself, so much the worse 
 for society, for the very casual outward contact into 
 which conventional men and women may be brought 
 with him affords humanity a fresh impetus, and gives 
 to the cramped world of tired-out orthodoxy little 
 flash glimpses into unknown worlds of colour, sound, 
 and beauty; little suggested whiffs of freer air, which 
 fill men's veins like wine, and tinge with faint rose- 
 4
 
 44 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 light the bloodless drab of their existence. Oh, be- 
 lieve me, there is beauty, warmth, and poetry not de- 
 picted in dead imagery, but in the living, in the red, 
 throbbing life, of sound, and touch, and sight for 
 him who, having beauty, can beauty see ! " 
 
 The man who said these things raised one cool 
 hand to his lips, and puffed delicately at his cigarette, 
 pouring out then into the sheen of the moonlight a 
 cloud of yellow, aroma-cloyed smoke. The man who 
 listened dropped his cigarette from between damp, 
 nerveless fingers, which he raised and passed quickly 
 across his forehead. He felt all the other man had 
 said, and felt it the more intensely because it seemed 
 to him not an expression of Leo Tarne's opinions, but 
 the shaping, the voicing, of all his own most deeply- 
 felt thoughts, and vaguest hot longings. But the ex- 
 pression, the shaping, the voicing, were those of one 
 who had achieved all that he, Harold Foster, had 
 dreamed and thought. This dark, handsome man at 
 his side, with his low, mellow voice, and his deep-set, 
 impenetrable eyes, had revealed to Harold Foster many 
 of the hidden, cloudy possibilities of his nature, and 
 this by mere suggestion. That is because he has lived 
 these possibilities, thought Harold. And he felt full 
 of gratitude to the young man lounging beside him, 
 and of desire to know more of him and of his life. 
 
 " Mr. Tarne," he began, " you have shown me 
 much to-day and suggested more, but will you 
 
 " Harold! Mr. Tarne! If you can tear yourselves 
 away from your moon-worship, the ladies want us to 
 go and hear some music." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton was speaking from the porch 
 at the other end of the verandah. 
 
 " The moon's attractions grow misty and fade, Mr. 
 Fenton, in the light of those you offer," said Leo 
 Tarne. And then, as they strolled down the verandah,
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 
 
 45 
 
 he added in a whisper to Harold Foster: "We have 
 enjoyed some beauty out here, where the moon drapes 
 all things, let us go and find more now, of another 
 kind, in the drawing-room. It is there, I am sure, and 
 in addition to what came out to us through the win- 
 dow. And, thank Heaven! the vulgarity of constancy 
 never appealed to me. Fidelity is the unoriginal man's 
 excuse for his inability to discover." 
 
 " Then I am glad you have no fidelity," returned 
 the younger man. 
 
 " That is, you are not sorry we met." 
 
 " That is, I am very thankful we met, and that 
 you have no need of the excuse you mentioned." 
 
 " You must come and see me at the little place 
 above the weir; I shall be back in town in a month or 
 six weeks." 
 
 And then they entered the drawing-room behind 
 Mr. Morley Fenton, and Leo Tarne, with a little smile 
 as of understanding, left Harold by Mrs. Fenton's side, 
 and himself took a place close to where Norah sat at 
 the piano. 
 
 Later on, when George Barnard was finishing a 
 final smoke in his host's study, Mr. Fenton said to him : 
 
 " By the way, George, what do you think of young 
 Tarne? Clever fellow, isn't he?" 
 
 " Ye-es, I should think so very. Of course, every 
 man lives and works according to his lights, and Leo 
 Tarne's may be truer and better than mine. Person- 
 ally I don't like 'em. I can't tell you why, but they 
 don't seem to me the thing. Leo Tarne and his work 
 represent what I call ' elimination,' which perhaps con- 
 veys nothing to you. But, as I say, every man lives 
 and works according to his lights. He wrote ' Where 
 Wings are Singed,' you know." 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know; but my wife assures me he 
 is really a most excellent young fellow. I know he
 
 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 comes of very good people in the accepted sense, I 
 
 mean." 
 
 "Quite so. Please don't let me prejudice you 
 against him. That would be very absurd, coming from 
 me. But I confess I don't like him. To me he is like 
 the cigarettes he smokes medicated Egyptian, I sup- , 
 
 pose." 
 
 " H'm! I think Harold enjoyed his day. Do you 
 think he did, George?" 
 
 "Very much, I should imagine; and, at all events, 
 there's no doubt Mr. Leo Tarne pleased him." 
 
 " Upon my word, George, I believe you are jealous 
 of the writer." 
 
 " Say of the man," replied the barrister with an 
 abrupt laugh. " I don't admire his writings." 
 
 While these two talked in the study, Leo Tarne was 
 strolling idly along in the moonlight, cigarette in hand, 
 towards his bungalow. 
 
 " I must cultivate Harold Foster," he murmured 
 to himself. " He is like some rare old wine, new-dis- 
 covered like a beautiful stringed thing with a thou- 
 sand new chords and strange melodies, lying waiting 
 for my fingers to play on. He is as responsive as the 
 trees to the wind, and as sensitive as a thought un- 
 born, a poem half conceived. And then there's that 
 girl, with her Botticelli head and her dainty face. Such 
 eyes, too! Heigho! it's a charming world, if one 
 could only remain long enough in it without being 
 bored." 
 
 At the bedroom window immediately above Mr. 
 Morley Fenton's study, Harold Foster was standing. 
 He was looking out into the beautiful night, to where 
 the river curled like a silver snake past the knoll, above 
 which was visible the quaint Oriental turret of Leo 
 Tarne's bungalow. 
 
 " He will show me that life he has found, where
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MOLESEY REGATTA. 
 
 47 
 
 the colour is and the beauty. I almost grudge that 
 girl the time he devotes to her, because and she's a 
 charming girl, too. She is a charming girl." 
 
 " It's been a beautiful day," said Norah in parting 
 from Maud Fenton that night; "it's been a delicious 
 day. But do you know, Maud, I think that Mr. Tarne 
 would have left a sort of nasty taste in my mouth if 
 if it hadn't been for Mr. Foster."
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE AND FRUIT. 
 
 "I saw where the sun's hand pointed, 
 I knew what the bird's note said ; 
 By the dawn and the dewfall anointed, 
 
 You were queen by the gold on your head." 
 
 An Interlude. 
 
 BY her last speech to Maud Fenton on the night 
 of the Molesey Regatta, Norah frankly implied that 
 Harold Foster had produced a favourable impression 
 upon her. It was not a daring implication, and almost 
 any girl might have ventured as much; yet, on the 
 morning following this same night, wild horses, whose 
 persuasive powers, as every mere phrase-vendor is 
 aware, are practically irresistible, could not have drawn 
 from Norah the admission that Harold Foster had im- 
 pressed her in any way whatsoever. She faced the 
 world on that Sunday morning, bearing conspicuously 
 about her shapely person announcements as to her 
 absolute ignorance of even the existence of this same 
 Harold Foster. 
 
 Between the evening of Molesey Regatta and the 
 bright, sweet-smelling morning of Sunday, a whole 
 peaceful night had passed. And if in a single night a 
 baby mushroom may reach maturity, or a man travel 
 from England to France, surely in the same period 
 there may be such happenings in the closely-allied 
 mind and heart of an English girl in her twentieth 
 year as will produce almost any development from the 
 previous day's condition. 
 
 48
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE AND FRUIT. 49 
 
 But such transitions lend themselves not to man's 
 coarse analysis less still, perhaps, to that of woman. 
 Words record them, and, being themselves clumsy 
 things, may be made to set off the delicacy of these 
 fairy growths. But words do not describe or explain 
 them. 
 
 Having parted from Maud Fenton on Saturday 
 night, Norah had seated herself at the window of her 
 own room, and gazed out over the quiet river to the 
 sleeping country beyond. For a long while she had 
 sat there, thinking of things and people that had come 
 into her life during the day. And when every other 
 thing and everybody beside had faded away from her 
 mind into the soft, black night, Harold Foster had re- 
 mained. Long afterwards, when one side of her face 
 was pillowed on her rounded right arm, like brown 
 cream on snow, when her great eyes slowly closed 
 and she drifted into light sleep, the last milestone 
 of consciousness which her mind passed had indi- 
 cated that Harold Foster would be reached next 
 morning. 
 
 When morning came, Norah, the warm flush of 
 sleep still in her cheeks, spied George Barnard's friend 
 walking in the garden. It was Norah's invariable cus- 
 tom to gather flowers in the garden before breakfast. 
 Now she might have done so in the company of a 
 young man who, according to her own words of the 
 previous night, had impressed her favourably. Yet 
 so marked had been the developments of the night 
 that Norah chose rather to altogether forego her morn- 
 ing outing. She made her first appearance in the 
 breakfast-room, and only a few minutes before the 
 family sat down to breakfast. Doubtless with the idea 
 of in some way occupying the time she usually spent 
 in the garden, she had dressed her rippling hair no 
 less than three times that morning, and had tentatively
 
 50 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 exhausted the resources of her wardrobe before de- 
 ciding upon a costume for the day. 
 
 And yet the management of her toilette showed 
 signs of extreme carelessness signs made clear by 
 what happened when, on entering the breakfast-room, 
 Norah found its sole occupant to be Harold Foster, 
 who stood loungingly in one of the open French win- 
 dows. 
 
 The morning had so far been to Harold Foster 
 golden and joyous as the bird's song which, floating 
 in at his open bedroom window, had waked him to the 
 consciousness of life and sunshine. For an hour he 
 had strolled about in sunlight, drinking in the scented 
 sweetness of the breath of flowers, newly waked and 
 glistening from their baths of dew. He had stolen 
 from the basket of a passing gardener a bunch of hot- 
 house grapes, heavy with purple-gray bloom. These 
 he had eaten with childish delight, strolling under 
 leafy trellises the while, like Alkibiades in Sokrates' 
 garden. 
 
 Now he stood leaning on one side of the breakfast- 
 room'window, which opened on to the verandah. The 
 fragrance of summer morning was in his nostrils, the 
 silky wine of the great purple grapes clung still to his 
 palate, and his mind was a-tremble with imaginings of 
 beauty to be discovered, joy to be found, and mysteries 
 to be unfolded to him. No spurious glitter had been 
 apparent to him in Leo Tarne or in Leo Tarne's words; 
 and, in this morning sunlight, at all events, the self- 
 revelation inspired by the young writer meant to Har- 
 old Foster nothing save beauty and delight. Hence- 
 forth his life was to be one of tasting, thrilling the 
 drinking in of colour and music, the discovering and 
 feasting upon hitherto hidden beauty. 
 
 He raised his head, his lips being parted smilingly, 
 and he saw Norah. It seemed to him rather that some
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE AND FRUIT. 51 
 
 soft, creamy material floated round her, than that she 
 was dressed in any particular way. And her face its 
 perfect Tuscan oval had light and colour in it which 
 on the previous day had not been there. Where her 
 hair dipped into a little valley there flamed a single 
 poppy, vivid as the season which gave it birth. Her 
 lips, too, were parted. Harold Foster sighed from 
 pure pleasure. She was simply the crown and soul and 
 emblem of his morning-time imaginings; the sun and 
 stars and spirit-light of his new life that was to be. 
 His parted lips set themselves involuntarily to articu- 
 late his wonder and delight: 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 He made no further sound, and, in any case, an- 
 other moment must have brought a wave of reality to 
 drench him with confusion. But the girl was the first 
 to waken, the feminine mind being, perhaps, more 
 accessible to reality than is that of the man. Norah 
 did not wait to hear more. The young man's exclama- 
 tion had been sufficiently luminous. 
 
 "There! I have come down without a handker- 
 chief. Good-morning, Mr. Foster!" 
 
 And the girl passed out of the man's range of vis- 
 ion as swiftly as she had flashed into it. Harold Foster 
 blushed crimson to the roots of his yellow hair, and, 
 turning, walked quickly into the garden, as Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton entered the breakfast-room.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE. 
 
 " The beggar begs by God's command, 
 
 And gifts awake when givers sleep ; 
 Swords cannot cut the giving hand 
 Nor stab the love that orphans keep." 
 
 Life, 
 
 DURING the three weeks which followed that queer 
 Sunday morning meeting of Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 protege and his adopted daughter, Harold Foster paid 
 six separate visits to Weir Lodge, and of these, two 
 were stays over the week-end. True, in the case of the 
 other four the medical student went down to Sunbury 
 as the guest of Leo Tarne, and appeared with his host 
 at the white house where Norah was. True was it 
 also, and a little strange, that whether these visits to 
 Weir Lodge led to boating, or lounging in the pretty 
 garden, or chatting and listening to music in the many- 
 windowed drawing-room whatever the circumstances 
 under which the two young men met Norah Fenton 
 chanced to be, it was Leo Tarne who held the girl in 
 conversation, and Harold Foster who occupied her 
 thoughts and gave direction to her glances. 
 
 To Norah, Leo Tarne was an accident and a useful 
 background, the environment in which she met Harold 
 Foster. 
 
 To Leo Tarne, so far as his attitude to Norah was 
 concerned, Harold Foster, despite his interest outside 
 Weir Lodge as a study and a cultivation, was the 
 veriest accident, and a piece of machinery the exist- 
 
 52
 
 A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE. 53 
 
 ence of which made more natural and easy than it 
 might otherwise have been his Tarne's access to 
 the girl whose eyes were like smooth-surfaced water in 
 twin moorland pools. 
 
 And to Harold Foster, in the first flush of all the 
 lately-revealed possibilities within him, Leo Tarne was 
 the light and guide by whose aid he obtained vistas of 
 his new life; and Norah was the emblem and embodi- 
 ment of that new life's beauty. The neophyte is not at 
 first jealous, perhaps not even envious, of his devout 
 superior's advanced position in the path of flesh-sub- 
 duing spirituality. And one may imagine circum- 
 stances under which the veteran superior's religious 
 vanity might debar him from recognition of greater 
 spiritual strength in the wondering-eyed neophyte than 
 he, with his zeal grown hoary, had attained. 
 
 Harold Foster was by no means at this time in love 
 with Norah Fenton. He was merely in love with his 
 new life, or with his new conception of what his life 
 might be. But if at that time Norah had disappeared 
 from within the limits of his mind's horizon, as she 
 had disappeared from out his range of wondering 
 vision on the morning following Molesey Regat- 
 ta, then the summit and the crown of things would 
 have been lacking in the beauty vistas before 
 him. 
 
 One of the few remarks which, coming from Leo 
 Tarne, had crossed Harold Foster's tight-strung un- 
 derstanding, as crosses a ship's rigging one of those 
 sudden gusts of chill wind near the Equator herald in 
 the balmiest atmosphere the approach of a squall 
 one of the few things the writer had said which had 
 caused a shiver, transient as thought itself, to pass 
 through the younger man, was: " I make a point of 
 never falling in love. It is so far to fall; so much 
 trouble to get up again. And it is demoralizing, with-
 
 - 4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 out the excuse of being immoral according to Soci- 
 ety's standards. So I confine myself to being either 
 charmed or bored by people. That involves no nar- 
 rowing of vision, and has the advantage of leaving one 
 unsatisfied. The other merely dissatisfies." 
 
 Thus the two men in this curiously-situated trio. 
 And Norah? But who shall venture, or desire, to 
 probe into and analyze, on paper, that thing whose 
 dainty, world-untouched simplicity is more complex 
 than is the beauty of a daisy, dew-jewelled and bloom- 
 ing in a morning-sun-kissed meadow? Who would 
 seek to pry into the heart of a maiden of nineteen? 
 Norah, breathing soft happiness behind her white veil 
 of only half-realized womanhood, was ready to stretch 
 out a helping hand to Harold Foster, should he fall. 
 And Harold Foster was drinking in deep draughts 
 of new insight into new worlds. And Leo Tarne, in 
 writing to one in London whom he addressed as 
 " Carissima," spoke of being dominated by a " grow- 
 ing desire to carry a shepherd's crook and take lessons 
 in playing upon a reed." 
 
 Then a thing happened. 
 
 Mrs. Fenton and the three girls were chatting, and 
 drawing out the anti-climax of the family reunion at 
 the breakfast-table. The lighting of Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton's cheroot was invariably the climax of the morning 
 gatherings. Maud was in unusually high spirits even 
 for her. In conversationally trotting about the uni- 
 verse she had happened across Leo Tarne and her 
 father's protege. 
 
 ' Not that I know anything about them, of course, 
 but I've met them casually when you have been other- 
 wise occupied for a moment, my dear." This to Norah, 
 over whose creamy face blushes scudded, like torn 
 cloudlets in an October sky. 
 
 "Maud! How absurd!"
 
 A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE. 55 
 
 " Oh! I think it's worse it's wicked. Poor things! 
 They don't know which is which." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " But I wouldn't so much mind your enslaving Mr. 
 Tarne, though the poor man is dying to keep his 
 promise about telling me how people write books, if 
 you would only let Mr. Foster off." 
 
 "Maud please!" 
 
 Mrs. Morley Fenton looked up quickly, like a bird, 
 from a letter she was skimming, and saw the blushes 
 die suddenly, leaving pallor behind them, in Norah's 
 face. 
 
 " Because he's much more interesting," continued 
 Maud mercilessly, " and much less enslaved." 
 
 " Don't be foolish, Maud dear," said her mother, 
 with wakening thoughtfulness. 
 
 " He is, little mother much more interesting. In 
 fact, he's perfectly insane in some things." 
 
 Again Mrs. Fenton's eyes turned, bird-like, towards 
 Norah. Norah's eyes flashed ominously, while her 
 colour returned quickly. 
 
 " But even then," concluded Maud, with a little 
 moue expressive of resignation, " I don't mind very 
 much, as long as you leave me my dear Mr. Barnard." 
 
 This was the thing that happened, and it only oc- 
 cupied a few seconds; but its results were considerable. 
 With Maud's last word came back to her Norah's 
 momentarily-lost girlish diplomacy, and she laughed 
 lightly, rallying Maud upon her devotion to the big 
 barrister. 
 
 But her mother was wiser than Maud, or, at least, 
 knew more. Leo Tarne and Harold Foster had prom- 
 ised to dine at Weir Lodge that evening. They did 
 so, and when they left, after an hour or two spent in 
 the drawing-room and in the conservatory opening out 
 of it, Mrs. Fenton knew even more. Armed with her
 
 5 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 knowledge gained that day, and her impressions as to 
 the tendencies of the last few weeks, Mrs. Fenton sat 
 down to chat with her husband, after the girls had re^ 
 tired for the night. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton was a little worried that even- 
 ing. But he was not given to showing his worries 
 to his wife, nor often to anyone else. He had looked 
 in at Bartholomew's during the day, but had not found 
 Harold Foster there. Meeting the resident surgeon, 
 whom he knew well, as he was leaving the building, 
 he had been told that during the last few weeks young 
 Foster's place he was " clerking " at the time had 
 had to be filled by another student. 
 
 " Pity, you know," said the surgeon, " because this 
 is an important time to him. He has been getting 
 frightfully irregular in his attendance here lately. I 
 expect he's reading too much, you know, and missing 
 practice for theory. Great mistake great mistake, be- 
 cause he's a very clever fellow, when he likes." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton had assented, with apparent 
 unconcern, and walked away. He did not share the 
 surgeon's inference about Harold Foster's devotion 
 to reading. He was wiser than the surgeon, and knew 
 more; just as his wife knew more of certain other 
 matters than did Maud. 
 
 " My dear," began Mrs. Fenton, " what is the exact 
 nature of your relation to young Mr. Foster? " 
 
 It was not in the nature of things that Mr. Morley 
 Fenton, with all his restraint and impassive self-con- 
 trol, should have been able to avoid some slight token 
 of the shock with which this question came to him. 
 A very slight tremor passed over his spare frame. The 
 muscles of his face contracted ever so little, and the 
 skin over his high cheek-bones whitened. 
 
 " I don't quite follow you, dear," he said, with quiet 
 precision, and after a luminously comprehensive pause.
 
 A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE. 57 
 
 " I mean, I don't know anything about his posi- 
 tion. He is an orphan, I think you said, and I am in 
 doubt as to how far your interest in him would carry 
 you in a matter bearing upon one of ourselves." 
 
 " I am afraid my density leaves me still in the 
 dark." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton was feeling his way cautiously 
 as behoves a man in the dark. 
 
 " Well, Morley, there is, of course, no very serious 
 question involved at present. But there is a very 
 distinct inclination on Mr. Foster's part to develop 
 love-making tendencies where our Norah is concerned, 
 and well, as a matter of fact, there is a stronger tend- 
 ency on Norah's side to invite them. That is really 
 what makes the situation pronounced, and were it not 
 for that I should scarcely anticipate any result, because 
 there are two of the young men. Mr. Tarne pays her 
 pointed attentions. But I am sure I am not mistaken 
 in thinking that she is absolutely indifferent to them, 
 because of her inclination towards Mr. Foster." 
 
 " This is very unfortunate, and very surprising." 
 
 " Hardly surprising, my dear. It is a way young 
 men and young women have. Of course, as I think 
 I said, there is no serious question involved at present; 
 but I am quite sure that you should decide at once 
 whether or no you would care for it to become serious. 
 That is why I wanted to know how far your interest 
 in this young man went." 
 
 " You are sure the impression you have formed 
 is correct, I suppose? " queried Mr. Morley Fenton, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Quite, dear. You see, we women learn to know 
 something of the stages in such matters though, to 
 be frank, I must confess that my eyes were consider- 
 ably opened by some joking of Maud's this morn- 
 ing."
 
 -g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 "Oh! it has gone so far?" 
 
 " Well, yes; but Maud took quite a mistaken view, 
 and did not for a moment regard the thing seriously. 
 She had been more impressed by Mr. Tarne's atten- 
 tions to Norah." 
 
 " H'm! Perhaps it is fortunate Mr. Tame has been 
 here so much lately." 
 
 "Yes; he is a charming man." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton rose slowly from his chair, and 
 said he had a couple of letters to write in his study 
 before going to bed. 
 
 "You had better not wait, my dear; and don't 
 let this matter worry you. You are not expecting 
 Harold Foster to-morrow, are you?" 
 
 " No! If he comes it can be only to call. He has 
 not been asked." 
 
 " Yes! Good-night, dear. I shall not stay up late." 
 
 So the head of the house left the room slowly, and, 
 with head erect and face impassive, walked across the 
 hall, pausing to lower one of the lamps at the foot of 
 the stairs, and stepping quietly then into his private 
 room. Years had passed since the days in which Mr. 
 Morley Fenton had been wont to decide impulsively, 
 and at once, upon a course of action relating to any 
 one set of circumstances. His wife could not remem- 
 ber those days, and may possibly have never known 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Fenton wrote his two letters even in the mat- 
 ter of excuses, he preferred always that his remarks 
 should have a foundation of truth and very able, 
 lucid business letters they were. He did this in the 
 way, and with the motives, which induce some men to 
 cough, or to brush their hair, or to mix themselves 
 glasses of brandy and soda-water, under similar cir- 
 cumstances. Then he leaned back in his chair to think
 
 A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE. 59 
 
 calmly, clearly, and with perfect freedom from emo- 
 tional bias. 
 
 Next morning, when Mr. Fenton was shaving, his 
 wife asked him naively if he had been late in coming 
 upstairs on the previous night. 
 
 " No, dear; not very, I think." 
 
 But the Sunbury stationmaster thought Mr. Morley 
 Fenton looked a little weary and over-worked that 
 morning. And on the strength of it the good man 
 told his wife that the Liberal Government was making 
 " times worse and worse for people of position." The 
 stationmaster was regarded by his own circle as being 
 a warm man, whose fingers were more or less always 
 on the great financial pulse of England. On the 
 evening of this same day, the stationmaster's worst 
 fears were borne out by the arrival of the 4.30 from 
 Waterloo without Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 
 " Like as not there's been a run on some of the 
 banks to-day," he said to Mrs. Johnson, as he sat down 
 to drink a cup of tea before the arrival of the " forty- 
 seven up." 
 
 At a quarter to four that afternoon Mr. Morley 
 Fenton knocked at the outer door of George Barnard's 
 chambers. He had only twice entered these chambers 
 during the years which had elapsed since his days of 
 part-proprietorship of them. 
 
 "Come!" shouted the barrister. "Door's ajar, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton entered the ^dark little lobby, 
 closed the outer door behind him, and stepped for- 
 ward into the barrister's working den. 
 
 He was welcomed at the outset by a curly brown 
 dog, whose expression and general air of chuckling 
 confidence suggested that he was on the verge of tell- 
 ing a ludicrously funny story. With a transparent 
 pretence at recollection of having met Mr. Fenton on 
 5
 
 go GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 a previous occasion, this utterly undignified animal 
 rolled leeringly on its back at the feet of the new- 
 comer, declining altogether to consider the possibility 
 of being trodden upon by any friend of its master. 
 
 The room was so consistently and excessively un- 
 tidy as to produce at first an impression of careful 
 arrangement. It seemed, for example, impossible to 
 Mr. Morley Fenton that a man could reach without 
 forethought that inspired contrariety which would lead 
 to the hanging of hats on picture-brackets, whilst pic- 
 tures stood leaning against the wainscoting, and a hat- 
 rack supported an array of fishing-rods and tackle, 
 surmounted by a pile of dust-coated magazines. 
 
 This was merely one slight example, however, of 
 the curious " looking-glass land " effects which con- 
 fronted one at every turn in George Barnard's cham- 
 bers. The curly brown dog, the preposterous familiar- 
 ity of whose welcome to Mr. Morley Fenton had al- 
 most disconcerted that gentleman, slept every night 
 on an elaborate plush foot-warmer, which a maiden 
 relative had designed and constructed as a receptacle 
 for George Barnard's feet when he sat writing at night. 
 The floor of the working den was somewhat draughty, 
 and so beside the plush foot-warmer lay an open and 
 dilapidated Gladstone bag, in which, on chilly nights, 
 George Barnard was wont to rest his feet. 
 
 " Good-evening, George! " 
 
 " Hullo, old man! By Jove! is it really you? Well, 
 I am glad to see you in the old room." 
 
 "Thank you,* George. I looked in on my way 
 home because I wanted to have a chat with you. Could 
 you come down and sleep at Sunbury to-night?" 
 
 " I'm sorry, but I couldn't possibly this evening. 
 
 have to take some work to the Budget folk before 
 
 eleven. They go to press in the morning, you know. 
 
 But sit down, old man. Half a second! Not that
 
 A MATTER FOR MR. FENTON TO DECIDE. 6l 
 
 chair. Would you mind taking the couch? Yes, the 
 same old couch. I'm going to buy another er 
 shortly. Will you have some coffee, or or some 
 whisky? My housekeeper is out. You know her 
 way. No, not dear old Mrs. Mugby. Quite a young 
 thing with a hare-lip and spasms." 
 
 Mr. Fenton deposited his hat, with some hesitation, 
 on the couch beside him. 
 
 " That's a curious dog, George." 
 
 " Yes, poor thing, she is peculiar. She was being 
 drowned when I first met her, and the man wanted to 
 go on drowning her, so I gave him sixpence and a 
 cigar I thought of punching his head at first and 
 brought her home here. I think it rather affected her 
 brain, you know the drowning, I mean but she's 
 quite harmless, and very affectionate." 
 
 " Yes, it seems affectionate. A But I ought 
 
 not to interrupt you." 
 
 " Oh, it's all right, my dear fellow, only I can't 
 come down to Sunbury, that's all. Let's have a chat 
 now. I can spare any amount of time, you know, and 
 perhaps Mrs. Greet will come in by-and-by and give 
 us some tea. What's the nature of the case?" 
 
 The briefless barrister's lips curled smilingly over 
 the mouthpiece of the pipe he had lighted. He was 
 all attention. 
 
 " Well, the fact is, George, I have some grounds 
 for believing that there is a likelihood of Harold Foster 
 and my adopted daughter, Norah, falling in love with 
 each other." 
 
 The barrister smiled again at the end of a long 
 puff of cool smoke. 
 
 " Well, Morley, and why shouldn't they fall in love 
 with each other? " he said. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton stroked his moustache gently, 
 and sighed.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON's DECISION. 
 
 " When a man, aping Providence, fingers the reins of Destiny, 
 then Heaven echoes the sighs of angels, God's frown makes darkness, 
 and Hell is filled with the sound of mocking laughter." CLUNY'S 
 Refections. 
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON did not make any verbal 
 reply to George Barnard's question. Perhaps the bar- 
 rister expected none. At all events, when his friend 
 had sighed a second time, George Barnard continued 
 speaking as though his first question had met with its 
 answer, an answer which required parrying. 
 
 " Exactly," he said. " I have not forgotten all 
 that. But, my friend, people are not such hide- 
 bound blockheads nowadays in some matters as 
 they were. Hal is simply Harold Foster, a young man 
 without family or relatives, but with a guardian whose 
 well, Morley Fenton is not a bad name to-day, is it? 
 A pretty good name, in the most pharisaical circles, I 
 think." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's firmly-set lips, richly suggest- 
 ive of that strength in a man which goes to place his 
 name on an unassailable pinnacle these firm, reten- 
 tive lips gave no sign of acquiescence or dissent. Yet, 
 between these two men, their strangely-linked lives 
 and widely-divided positions and personalities, the 
 compliment implied was a high one. Mr. Fenton's lips 
 parted abruptly. 
 
 ' And at any moment some unforeseen chance 
 
 might fling in his teeth " 
 
 62
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S DECISION. 63 
 
 " The fact that by an unfortunate train of circum- 
 stances, his mother died before his father was able 
 to become her legal husband." 
 
 The little veins in Mr. Morley Fenton's temples 
 throbbed and writhed. He crossed his legs with a 
 movement peculiarly spasmodic in a man so precise 
 and deft. 
 
 " My dear fellow," continued the barrister, " that 
 is just what I referred to a moment ago. People are 
 not such hide-bound idiots to-day, in some respects, 
 as they were in our younger days. A man is judged 
 and esteemed by his own manhood." 
 
 " And a gentleman, to a large extent, now, as ever, 
 by his birth, and his ' people.' " The owner of Weir 
 Lodge spoke with quiet bitterness. " No, George. 
 You judge the world the section of it which I live 
 in as you always did, by the standards of your work- 
 a-day Bohemia. I spent last night I spent a consid- 
 erable time last night in thinking this matter out. 
 In the world I want Harold Foster to live in, the only 
 world it is safe for him to live in, I know what such 
 a discovery would mean. It would mean a slur being 
 cast on an innocent man, and, if he had a wife, on an 
 innocent woman, and later, on innocent children. That 
 slur could never be lived down unless by a very strong 
 man in a life containing no mistake, no slightest devia- 
 tion. And, George, the girl is my dead brother's 
 child." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. But, believe me, you are over- 
 sensitive in the matter. You exaggerate the view 
 which people take of such things you do indeed. 
 And then you know, old man, he well, you may be 
 sure Hal will marry someone." 
 
 " But not necessarily my adopted daughter, for 
 whose life I am responsible. No. And that is not all, 
 George. Here are two young lives, both of which I
 
 6 4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 know. My care of Norah must needs be even more 
 watchful than if she were my own daughter. Would it 
 be just or fair in me to leave her to judge and form 
 her decision in a matter affecting her whole life, when 
 she really knows nothing of the possibilities involved? 
 I know all the possibilities, everything that can be 
 known from birth to manhood, about the young man 
 who, to her, is simply Harold Foster, your friend, and 
 one in whom I am interested." 
 
 " Well " George Barnard's blue eyes widened 
 " that is the same old question which we spoke of be- 
 fore, and the importance of which your over-scrupu- 
 lous sense of honour, as I think, makes you exag- 
 gerate." 
 
 " Can you see nothing further in it than that same 
 question, George? I thought there would have been 
 no need for me to explain further. It the subject is 
 not a pleasant one to me, as you may guess." 
 
 " My dear old chap, don't tell me anything that 
 hurts you in the telling." 
 
 " It is nothing you don't know well enough al- 
 ready, George. I said that, to Norah, he is simply 
 Harold Foster, your friend and mine, a young medical 
 student in whom we both show unusual interest. To 
 me, to you, putting aside that first question which the 
 world would never forget or put aside, Harold Foster 
 is far more, far less, than that. We know that phrase 
 of life of which the culminating point was Harold Fos- 
 ter's birth into the world. His birth born of beauty 
 and weakness, by selfish recklessness and lurid aban- 
 don, child of a wave of yielding to an all-absorbing 
 hunger, by a storm of gratified passion, a gust of de- 
 sire, dishonour, greed of lust." 
 
 ' No, no; you slander a " 
 
 " Dead man, George. His memory is dead except 
 to us: its very foulness killed it."
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S DECISION. 65 
 
 The barrister had risen to his feet, and now 
 stretched out one hand toward his old friend. 
 
 " You are over-just to others," he said. 
 
 " And this dead, dishonoured man, George, I knew 
 him better than anyone else did. Where another 
 human life has been influenced, reparation is impossi- 
 ble, atonement only a comparative thing. But, know- 
 ing all I know, George, the little reflections of the 
 turgid storm in which he was born which have shown 
 in Harold Foster's life, the growth of which you, in 
 your goodness, stand beside me in the endeavour to 
 stem and choke knowing of all these things, can I 
 let my dead brother's child link her life to his? Can 
 I allow her to innocently risk God, George! think 
 of the risk." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton paused, recognising, perhaps, 
 how strangely unlike himself, his usual sober calm, 
 his words and tone had become. The man's self may 
 have looked with cold disapproval at the man. His 
 hand rose firmly to the silver-pointed brown mous- 
 tache, his lips and limbs reset themselves, and with 
 lowered and expressionless voice he continued: 
 
 " No, that must not be countenanced, at all events. 
 Remember, nothing has happened so far. A tendency 
 has been inspired by chance access. That chance ac- 
 cess removed, the tendency will disappear. There is 
 no question here of undoing, but only of refraining 
 from encouraging." 
 
 "You mean that you will close your doors to 
 Harold?" 
 
 " I mean that I will not for the present ask him to 
 open my doors. When he makes any casual calls, I 
 shall look to my wife to see that Norah is engaged in 
 some way. The weather of this week has practically 
 brought the summer, as far as the river is concerned, 
 to an end. Mrs. Fenton will be going down to Vent-
 
 66 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 nor for three weeks or a month in a few days. The 
 girls will go with her. That will help to bring the 
 visits to a natural end. For the rest er 
 
 " And yourself your attitude to Harold?" 
 
 " That is where I rely on your help, George. I 
 want you, without even hinting at the real state of 
 affairs, to smooth over this the ending of the visits to 
 Weir Lodge. It was indiscreet of me, no doubt, to 
 begin them. Of course, I want to see Harold Foster 
 when possible, and to continue in every way I can the 
 influence which I hoped visiting at Weir Lodge would 
 have had, of adding interest to his life, or enabling 
 him to find interest in the kind of life he must lead." 
 
 " H'm! Well, of course you could meet him here." 
 
 " Yes ; that is good of you. Or we could arrange 
 to lunch together on Saturdays at my club." 
 
 " At the Constitutional? H'm! yes. Harold is see- 
 ing a great deal of Mr. Leo Tarne just now, you 
 know." 
 
 " Ah, well, he has made few friends enough. But 
 I forgot, you don't like Mr. Tarne." 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't matter about my not liking him, 
 so long as he does Hal no harm." 
 
 " Well but, my dear George, have you any rea- 
 son for thinking that his influence would harm Har- 
 old?" 
 
 " H'm ! No, I suppose I haven't any reason." 
 
 " But ' I do not like thee, Dr. Fell,' eh? " 
 
 " Ye-es yes, I suppose that's it. However, I'll 
 try and smooth over the finish-up of Harold's visits 
 to Weir Lodge, as you say; but well, I can't help 
 feeling that it is a mistake. You will lose a great deal 
 of close touch, and he will lose yes, he will lose." 
 
 The set serenity of Mr. Morley Fenton's face re- 
 laxed momentarily, distress showing itself in twitches. 
 
 " My dear George, how can vou think that remark
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON'S DECISION. 67 
 
 necessary to. me? Do you suppose I act on inclina- 
 tion now?" 
 
 " Forgive me, old man. I'm a brute, I know, but I 
 wish you I wish you were less of a marvel." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton rose and picked up his hat. 
 The curly brown dog rose, too, her expression and 
 attitude saying clearly, and with ridiculous effusive- 
 ness: "What! going already? Well, be sure and look 
 in again soon." 
 
 " Good-bye, George," said Mr. Fenton. " I shall 
 expect you both at the club at two o'clock on Satur- 
 day." 
 
 " Good-bye, old man good-bye! I'll let you know 
 if there's any news between this and then. Sorry Mrs. 
 Greet didn't turn up. My kind regards to all at Sun- 
 bury. Good-bye." 
 
 And Mr. Morley Fenton walked slowly down the 
 narrow, sharply-turning staircase, which, a score and 
 more of years before, had been so familiar to young 
 Morley Fenton, the law student. 
 
 And when, a full hour behind his time, Mr. Morley 
 Fenton stepped on to the platform of Sunbury station, 
 the worthy stationmaster told himself definitely that at 
 least one bank must have closed that day. 
 
 " Looked just like I felt on the morning after the 
 Hampton collision," said Johnson to his wife some 
 time afterwards.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 CROSS-CURRENTS AND CARISSIMA. 
 
 " ' Which things must -why be ? ' 
 
 Vain our endeavour : 
 So shall things aye be 
 As they were ever. 
 ' Such things should so be ! ' 
 
 Sage our desistance ! 
 Rough smooth let globe be, 
 Mixed man's existence ! " 
 
 Pisgah-Sights. 
 
 GEORGE BARNARD had not overstated the case 
 when he said that Harold Foster was seeing a great 
 deal of Mr. Leo Tarne. He might even have said that 
 Harold Foster was practically seeing with Leo Tarne's 
 eyes, and living in the life of the man whose creed was 
 to never say what he thought, and to never act in 
 opposition to a thought. 
 
 That this was no more than a phase in young Fos- 
 ter's life, was made clear to Tarne by the fact that in 
 conversation he was sometimes checkmated and over- 
 whelmed by the superior weight of the younger man's 
 mental strength strength artistic, intuitive, and rea- 
 soning. That he, Tarne, must exercise considerable 
 diplomacy if the phase were to be prolonged was 
 shown him clearly when, on more than one occasion, 
 a light of something like horror woke in Harold's eyes, 
 a flicker suggesting revulsion passed over his sensitive 
 lips, and he ended a dissertation of the writer's by say- 
 ing: 
 
 "Hush, Tarne! Your cynicism positively fright- 
 68
 
 CROSS-CURRENTS AND CARISSIMA. 69 
 
 ens me, though I know you don't mean it. Why 
 should you, who sees so much of the world's beauty, 
 say bitter things?" 
 
 " The man who sees little beauty, my dear fellow, 
 feels no ugliness, and has nothing to be bitter about." 
 
 Once, in quite the early days of the writer's influ- 
 ence over the medical student, he was mistaken enough 
 to make a slurring remark anent the " Stock Exchange 
 nonconformity of the Weir Lodge man." 
 
 Harold Foster's face had flushed to the edges of 
 his white forehead. 
 
 " For God's sake, don't ever say anything like that 
 again!" he had said, more pleadingly than in anger, 
 " or I shall lose you. You had forgotten I owe 
 almost everything to Mr. Fenton." 
 
 Leo Tarne had allowed the raw edge of the atmos- 
 pheric tension between them to wear off while he 
 thought for a few moments. Then, with tactful wis- 
 dom, worthy a better cause, he had replied lightly: 
 
 " My dear boy, I am very sorry if I jarred on your 
 nerves; but really, you know, I did not contract any 
 of your debts to Mr. Morley Fenton, and I don't know 
 that they can reasonably be expected to seal my lips 
 against any expression of such casual thought about 
 the gentleman as may happen to enter my head. All 
 my own male relatives, with the single exception, I 
 think, of Lord Crossley, who is a coal-heaver, or a 
 coal-miner, or something, are outstanding corner- 
 stones of city and suburban ten-to-four noncon- 
 formity." 
 
 " Well, he is my friend, and I have intense respect 
 for him. Let that seal your lips, Tarne, for my sake." 
 
 " Ah, that is another matter. For your sake, 
 amigo, I will exercise a soul-rotting discretion, and 
 be as dumb as as Mr. Morley Fenton himself gen- 
 erally is."
 
 70 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 On the afternoon following that of Mr. Fenton's 
 talk with George Barnard in the latter's chambers, 
 Leo Tarne and Harold Foster strolled down the wind- 
 ing drive which led to the porch of Weir Lodge, to 
 call on their friends there. Mrs. Fenton, with her girl- 
 ish face and queenly figure, looking fresh and bird- 
 like as ever, welcomed the young men in the drawing- 
 room which had become familiar to them both. She 
 volunteered trilling little remarks about the prema- 
 turely dying summer; made tea for her guests with 
 dainty hospitality; heard, with expressions of regret, 
 Leo Tarne's announcement of his intention to vacate 
 the pagoda and return to town almost immediately; 
 deftly manipulated the inevitable pause which led to 
 the young men's rising to take their leave; and was 
 in every way as charming as callers were accustomed 
 to find the hostess of Weir Lodge. 
 
 Then, as she followed her husband's protege and 
 his friend across the hall, she suddenly bethought her- 
 self of a matter which had obviously escaped her recol- 
 lection. 
 
 " Oh, I quite forgot to make the girls' excuses. 
 But I know you will forgive them. We are packing, 
 you know, and but for my incorrigible laziness I 
 should not have been visible myself. Yes, one must 
 go somewhere, and we all like the Isle of Wight. No, 
 not more than a month, I think; and then, of course, 
 Sunbury is a wilderness till summer comes again. So 
 kind of you to call. And you will excuse the girls, 
 will you not? Good-bye, Mr. Foster! Good-bye, Mr. 
 Tarne!" 
 
 Leo Tarne whistled softly as the two reached the 
 garden-gate. 
 
 " How sharper than a what's-his-name it is to 
 and then you revile me for a cynic. By Jove! but it 
 was frigid, and a trifle sudden, was it not? "
 
 CROSS-CURRENTS AND CARISSIMA. 7I 
 
 " She was a little odd," admitted Harold Foster. 
 
 " ' A little odd, quotha! ' Ye gods and little iron'es! 
 And I saw someone suspiciously like Norah Fenton 
 looking over the banisters as we crossed the hall. By 
 gad! of course; that's it, depend upon it." 
 
 " What is which? " 
 
 " Why, our ejection just now by the swan with 
 the jenny-wren's voice." 
 
 "I say, steady, Leo. And, 'ejection'! Non- 
 sense! " 
 
 " Eh? Well, a lady can't throw one out, you know. 
 And, depend upon it, it's something to do with dark- 
 eyed Norah. They don't like my innocent attentions, 
 or your dangerous fascination, or something." 
 
 " Nonsense, Leo! What quaint ideas you do have! 
 And I wish you wouldn't talk about Nor about Mrs. 
 Fenton and the others as though they were the merest 
 casual acquaintances." 
 
 Harold Foster had coloured violently, and his face 
 was full of resentment, but of another kind to that 
 which it had shown on the occasion of Tarne's sneer- 
 ing remark about Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 
 " Casual acquaintances, my dear fellow, represent 
 the one class about whom I speak with unvarying re- 
 spect. One lives in hopes of finding respectable ene- 
 mies among them. Satire I reserve for people whose 
 houses I visit. And my friends I allow to criticise me, 
 and inflict explanations upon, if I am very fond of 
 them." 
 
 " Yes, I know, it is like my impudence to lecture 
 you." 
 
 " On the contrary, it's like my sublime cheek to 
 force you on to the plane of those I allow to criticise 
 me. But look here, my dear fellow, the weather is too 
 autumnal to permit of our spending the evening in 
 Sunbury after so Arctic an afternoon. I will wire to
 
 72 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 the Carissima that is, to Lise Vecci and we'll dine 
 together in town, and go somewhere." 
 
 " But who is 
 
 " Lise Vecci? Is it possible that you have known 
 me through all these countless weeks and have not 
 yet come within the circle of the Carissima's fascina- 
 tions? How I envy you what is to come! By Jove! 
 it's as though one had never tasted caviare or fallen 
 in love." 
 
 " And supposing I had never done either? " 
 
 " Away, base deceiver! Where is the nearest place 
 to send telegrams from? Lise Vecci Well, real- 
 ly, I cannot attempt to describe Lise Vecci." 
 
 " Is she beautiful?" 
 
 " She is not Greek. She is Byzantine, and ravish- 
 ing. She is less beautiful than charming, less charm- 
 ing than adorable, less adorable than fascinating. She 
 is simply the Carissima an incarnate temptation, a sin 
 set to the music of a can-can movement. She is Para- 
 dise and the other place, Paris, Florence, Monte Carlo, 
 Naples, Brussels, and the Orient, condensed into five 
 feet of femininity; the 'seven deadly sins and all the 
 cardinal virtues, with others; the voice of an angel, 
 the only really purple head of hair in the universe, 
 and a lisp with which she might govern Europe 
 all that, and more, set in a bewildering maze of frou- 
 frou, and christened Lise Vecci for lack of a name. 
 But come, let us find this telegraph-place, for the 
 Carissima is a creature who makes countless engage- 
 ments, and affects a method in the order in which she 
 breaks them." 
 
 Harold Foster's lips moved responsively, and his 
 face lighted up a good deal, while he listened to Leo 
 Tarne's lavishly-thrown-out word-colouring; for this 
 personality, thought he, must be the embodiment of 
 a new kind of beauty. And he was to meet this won-
 
 CROSS-CURRENTS AND CARISSIMA. 73 
 
 derful Carissima! That was part of his new life 
 
 the discovering and admiring of fresh beauty, of colour 
 hitherto unseen. So his fair face, with its weak mouth 
 the key to the senses and its strong, bold forehead 
 finger-post to the mind lighted up and brightened, 
 as he walked beside his friend to the little telegraph- 
 office. But this added light in his face shone through, 
 rather than took the place of, the cloud which had set- 
 tled there after the visit to Weir Lodare. 
 
 o 
 
 In leaving Weir Lodge a sense of loneliness had 
 oppressed Harold Foster, and the construction placed 
 by Leo Tarne upon their ejection had made this feel- 
 ing of loneliness and isolation acute. He had felt 
 suddenly deprived of something the very existence of 
 which would never have been recognised by George 
 Barnard, in his breezy, incorrigible bachelordom, or 
 by Leo Tarne, with his undisguised selfishness, his 
 wordy cynicism, and his genuinely anti-domestic tastes 
 and ideals. 
 
 In Weir Lodge George Barnard had been appealed 
 to by Maud's comrade-like banter, and by the tobacco 
 and tete-a-tcte comfort of Mr. Morley Fenton's study. 
 Leo Tarne had been interested in " dark-eyed Norah." 
 Harold Foster had been strongly drawn towards Weir 
 Lodge as a home. Norah's personality had charmed 
 him; but apart from that, a tenderness had been in- 
 spired in him towards the inner life, the family circle 
 of the house. The expression, " Mr. Foster's place," 
 used by Maud Fenton in reference to the dinner-table, 
 had caused smiles of pleasure to chase one another 
 over his lips. The general air of suggestion that he 
 had his corner in that home circle had afforded him 
 food for soothing, pleasing reflection, which had ex- 
 tended over hours of time. The softening, refining 
 influences of home, and the womenkind of home, had 
 heretofore had little or no place in his life.
 
 74 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 And now, suddenly, he had been made to feel that, 
 after all, this was no home of his. He was merely a 
 casual visitor there, to be received or denied admis- 
 sion, like any other chance caller, according to circum- 
 stances. And in all the world was no place where he, 
 Harold Foster, had his own niche in one of these 
 invisibly-walled magic circles of light and tenderness 
 called homes. He told himself, a little bitterly, that he 
 had been a fool, who had mistaken hospitality for af- 
 fection, and girlish politeness for a warmer interest. 
 Men friends were the best the world had to offer him, 
 after all ; and he ought to be very thankful for a friend 
 like Leo Tarne. 
 
 So he eagerly accepted the writer's invitation, and 
 surprised Tarne by a sudden access of interest and 
 devotion. When he met the Carissima he was flushed 
 and handsomer than usual; and during the evening, 
 and over the late supper in Leo Tarne's Kensington 
 flat, he displayed a conversational readiness, and even 
 brilliancy, at which his friend smiled approvingly, as 
 a new development. And the cloud which had set- 
 tled on his face after the Weir Lodge visit was not 
 visible whilst he was in the presence of the Carissima 
 in touch with her dazzling vivacity, her daring esprit. 
 He had quite lost his aching feeling of isolation, that 
 dull longing for the soft lights and dainty fellowship 
 of the inner home circle. 
 
 But alone, in the bedroom which Leo Tarne as- 
 signed to him, and when the small hours were dying 
 into the hush of the day's awakening, the cloud of 
 empty loneliness crept over his handsome face again, 
 and the corners of young Foster's sensitive mouth 
 drooped almost childishly. 
 
 "Oh, d n!" he muttered wearily. And then 
 
 he sank on to his knees beside the bed and prayed. 
 The man was a curious mixture at this period. His
 
 CROSS-CURRENTS AND CARISSIMA. 
 
 75 
 
 early training, though far too isolating in its tenden- 
 cies, too lonely in itself to have been wholesome, had 
 been devout and careful; and now he was living and 
 moving in a maze of conflicting influences, half- 
 formed tastes, and rudimentary theories. 
 
 " But I don't want the outside, wastrel life," he 
 murmured to himself, as he lay down and closed his 
 eyes; " and I won't have it! I'll win the other, where 
 the responsibility is, and I'll hold it; for that's where 
 there's love it must be. And I'll have beauty, too. 
 I yes, I'll go down to the hospital in the morning, 
 and I'll go and see George Barnard. He's not in the 
 drifting life, yet he is not I don't know! I'll go and 
 see him, though, and 
 
 A good deal had happened him that day. Harold 
 Foster fell asleep; then a very clean, and, in a way, 
 noble expression crept over his face, with its fringe of 
 gold-gloss hair, its effeminately perfect chin, and its 
 heroic upper half. And he did not dream of the Caris- 
 sima, nor yet of Leo Tarne.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. 
 
 " The burden of much gladness. Life and lust 
 
 Forsake thee, and the face of thy delight ; 
 And underfoot the heavy hour strews dust, 
 
 And overhead strange weathers burn and bite ; 
 And where the red was, lo the bloodless white, 
 And where truth was, the likeness of a liar, 
 
 And where day was, the likeness of the night 
 This is the end of every man's desire." 
 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
 " HULLO, Harold, my son ! You are the very man 
 I wanted to see. Come back here, you idiot dog! Sit 
 down, Hal. I was just writing to you, and you know 
 how I hate writing letters." 
 
 " What were you writing to me about, George? " 
 
 " Well, I've a surprise for you for Saturday. In 
 place of our plebeian chop and beer, I want you to 
 partake of lunch in gilded splendour 
 
 " I thought your phrase was ' gilded misery,' 
 George." 
 
 " Don't interrupt. Well, in palatial grandeur, at 
 a terra-cotta club, where we shall probably hob-nob 
 with several Prime Ministers and small gentry of that 
 sort. Air. Fenton wants us to lunch with him at his 
 club." 
 
 " Oh! it's awfully kind of him. We shall miss our 
 matinee, George." 
 
 "Ungrateful toad! Think of the magnificence 
 and, I say, mind those screeds on your left, Hal.
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. 77 
 
 They'll be sat on sufficiently by envious editors, 
 without being disciplined into it at this early 
 stage." 
 
 " H'm! I called at Weir Lodge yesterday, George, 
 with Leo Tarne. But we only saw Mrs. Fenton." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " And well, she didn't seem very glad we had 
 come." 
 
 " Nonsense, Hal! That's your fancy, man. I'm 
 always telling you you're far more sensitive than a 
 medical student has any right to be. Wait till you're 
 a leading light in Harley Street." 
 
 " But really, George. And Leo Tarne noticed the 
 same thing." 
 
 " Oh, Leo Tarne! Fashionable novelists have the 
 privilege of being faddy and fanciful like swell doc- 
 tors. Of course, people don't always want you potter- 
 ing about their places. And you have been there a 
 good bit lately, haven't you? A good deal more often 
 than you've been here, for instance, eh? " 
 
 "Yes; I suppose I have. But still 
 
 " And the women-folk there are going away, too, I 
 believe; a condition of things which makes women- 
 kind as busy as coming home makes us." 
 
 "Yes; I gathered that. And perhaps you are 
 right. Anyhow, I suppose it doesn't matter. Perhaps 
 I wore my welcome a bit thin." 
 
 " Well, that's always a mistake, you know. Not 
 
 that I suppose you did it; but Well, you have 
 
 had a pretty fair share of Sunbury hospitality since 
 Molesey Regatta day, have you not? " 
 
 " Yes. I say, George, I want to talk to you." 
 
 " Our present conversation being deemed mere 
 frivole, eh? Well, go ahead!" 
 
 " I want to leave the Vicarage at Norwood." 
 
 "A-ha!"
 
 78 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " And have lodgings somewhere near the hospital 
 well, somewhere in town, anyhow." 
 
 " And " George Barnard struck a match, and 
 purled vigorously at his almost smoked-out briar 
 " might I ask why? " 
 
 " Well, it's so awkward getting in and out at night, 
 you know, for one thing. They are always wanting to 
 know where I've been, and why I went there." 
 
 " That's reasonable enough." 
 
 " Do you think so? And they expect me to take 
 the same minute interest in them and in their doings, 
 and they are so uninteresting." 
 
 " The Winthrops are very good people, you know, 
 Hal," protested the barrister feebly. He was quoting 
 Mr. Morley Fenton, without that gentleman's convic- 
 tion or power to convince. " They are interested in 
 you and your welfare, of coftrse, and theirs is the 
 best kind of home life, you know." 
 
 " No, no, George, don't say that, even if you think 
 it! You will destroy my most cherished illusions; 
 and, as Leo Tarne says, excepting our bad habits, 
 our illusions are the only things we have worth re- 
 specting." 
 
 " Pooh! that's a quote from one of his own bone- 
 less stories. You take my word for it, Hal, you'd 
 much better stay where you are. It's er you will 
 be better looked after there, you know; and I know 
 Mr. Fenton wants you to be there." 
 
 " George, I don't believe you are saying what you 
 think a bit. Oh, I wish you would try to understand! 
 But you can't, you don't, living here as you do " 
 Harold looked round at the shapeless disorder of the 
 barrister's den " in Bohemia. You cannot conceive 
 of the ineffable dulness of a household like the Vicar- 
 age. Yes, yes, I know; they are most estimable peo- 
 ple, and I'm an unappreciative beast! But oh, George,
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. 
 
 79 
 
 the deadly evenness of it, the chilly sameness, the 
 hushed sanctity, the suffocating earnestness of that 
 atmosphere! The whole family was upset and the 
 house in confusion the other night, because I smoked 
 a cigarette in my bedroom." 
 
 "H'm! deuced bad practice! Doesn't the par 
 Mr. Winthrop smoke in his room?" 
 
 " Heavens, no ! He doesn't smoke anywhere. The 
 smell of smoke's a red rag to Mrs. Winthrop, and 
 the girls have noses like like pointers. But it isn't 
 that, George; that's only an indication. But after I've 
 spent an evening anywhere else, an evening there puts 
 me in a cold sweat of repressed irritation; it makes me 
 vicious, George. The air of their drawing-room makes 
 me want to howl and use beastly language; their 
 conversation makes me want to sing low songs; their 
 awful games and puzzles produce mania in me, and 
 fill me with a lust to smash the ornaments on the 
 mantleshelf. And then they read aloud. They've 
 been reading for months now, about an exasperating 
 girl with red hair who has religious difficulties, and 
 brags of 'em, and a curate who thrashes out her diffi- 
 culties in an Aberdeen dialect. And that makes me 
 lie about headaches, and go to bed when I'm not 
 sleepy, and get up when I am tired out." 
 
 "H-m! ye-es; I'm afraid you're rather far gone." 
 
 " Oh, I can't stay there any longer, George; it's 
 giving me G. P. I." 
 
 " What in the world's that? " 
 
 " General paralysis of the insane." 
 
 "Great Scott!" 
 
 " Other fellows don't do it, George. Nearly all 
 the men at the hospital live in lodgings." 
 
 " And are probably horribly uncomfortable and 
 uncared for. Look at me ! " 
 
 Harold Foster looked, and the barrister, lying back
 
 go GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 in his swing-chair, pipe in mouth, was such a picture 
 of healthy, good-natured content, that the humour of 
 his self-commiseration struck through the younger 
 man's seriousness, and the two shouted with laughter. 
 The curly brown dog, fearful of missing some good 
 thing, rose on its hind-legs, and, resting its front paws 
 on Barnard's waistband, laughed as heartily and dis- 
 tinctly as a dog may. 
 
 " Idiot thing! " exclaimed the barrister explosive- 
 ly. And the dog grovelled indecently on its back be- 
 tween the two men. " I haven't the remotest idea 
 what you are laughing at." The barrister wiped his 
 eyes, and addressed Harold. 
 
 " Nor I. Oh, if only Mrs. Greet could have heard 
 you!" 
 
 "H'm! Well, it's all very fine, but if I ever do 
 have a meal here, I invariably have to sneak out to 
 a restaurant and have another immediately afterwards. 
 And hush! she's in the kitchen now even that im- 
 becile dog can't eat the steak she cooks; she pretends 
 to think its meant to lie on. But, however, there's no 
 teacher like experience. I'll see what can be done, 
 and I'll write to Mr. Fenton to pave your way with 
 him in the matter before Saturday." 
 
 "Thank you, George; but 
 
 "Well?"' 
 
 " Well, it will be much more difficult to explain to 
 him, you know. I mean the Winthrops are very good 
 and kind, of course, and Mr. Fenton will think I'm 
 horribly ungrateful." 
 
 " ( Eh? Oh no! Anyhow, I'll explain to him." 
 
 "You are a brick, George. I say, you know. 
 Leo Tarne has asked me to live with him. I wouldn't 
 mind that a bit, or lodgings alone, whichever you 
 thought best." 
 
 " H'm! I should advise the lodgings. You're not
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. gl 
 
 through your final at the hospital yet, you know, and 
 I should not think er Leo Tame was conducive to 
 reading much, is he?" 
 
 " Perhaps not. But he's an awfully good fellow 
 in some ways, George. I mean he's so interesting, and 
 he knows such a lot of interesting people. He has 
 suggested a tremendous deal to me. He sees such a 
 lot in the world that ordinary people don't seem to 
 see, and I don't want to miss the beauty and the colour 
 of life, George, wherever I may live. He has realized 
 such a lot of the things I have always longed for and 
 never been able to explain, and he he always seems 
 able to understand me." 
 
 "H'm!" 
 
 " Yes, I know. I wish you did like him. I'm sure 
 you would if you knew him as I do, George. I have 
 often heard you say you don't get on well with con- 
 ventional people. Well, no one could say Leo Tarne 
 was conventional, could they?" 
 
 " No, no, I don't suppose anybody would accuse 
 him of being conventional. But because I don't get 
 on with conventional folk, that doesn't mean that I 
 always admire unconventional people. However, I 
 haven't said anything against Leo Tarne; only don't 
 let him influence you too much, Harold. I don't be- 
 lieve it's a good thing to be very strongly influenced 
 by anyone. I would rather see you lead your own 
 life, subject to advice, you know, of course Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton's, for instance." 
 
 " Yes. That's a curious thing about Leo Tarne. 
 He always seems to me to be showing me myself and 
 my own life, rather than anything from outside." 
 
 "Ah hullo! By Jove! do "you know it is after 
 five o'clock, Hal? I must do some work." 
 
 A few minutes later the two had parted, and Har- 
 old Foster was making his way towards Victoria.
 
 8 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 And when the question of living in town was brought 
 up in the smoking-room of Mr. Morley Fenton's club, 
 after the Saturday luncheon, the young man was de- 
 lighted to find that very little opposition was raised 
 to the carrying out of his plan. Mr. Fenton had talked 
 the matter over on the previous evening with the bar- 
 rister, and had arrived at the conclusion that the 
 change was inevitable. 
 
 " You had better choose a pretty good place while 
 you are about it," said the owner of Weir Lodge. He 
 had a vague desire to make up in some way for hav- 
 ing closed the doors of his own house to the young 
 man. ." George, will you try to spare a day to go round 
 and buy furniture with Harold?" 
 
 " Certainly ; yes. I'm free on Tuesday. I don't 
 know how I stand after that." 
 
 " But that would do splendidly," said Harold. " I 
 can find a place on Monday; in fact well, I know 
 a place now, in Kensington, and we could have the 
 furniture sent straight there." 
 
 "H'm! Kensington? Let's see, where does Mr. 
 Tarne live? " 
 
 Harold coloured slightly under the barrister's 
 scrutiny, and was annoyed to find it was so. 
 
 "Yes; he lives in West Kensington." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " Well, it will be just as well, perhaps, to live near 
 someone you know." 
 
 Harold looked gratefully at Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 The barrister shrugged his shoulders. It seemed to 
 him that Mr. Fenton and himself were rather chang- 
 ing places in their relation to Harold, and he did not 
 realize how entirely unconscious of this his old friend 
 must necessarily have been. 
 
 Mr. Leo Tarne lounged into Harold Foster's new 
 quarters in Kensington while the younger man was
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. 83 
 
 in the throes of furnishing. Harold was intent upon 
 the adjustment of a workman-like little devolving 
 bookcase, in order that it might be within easy reach 
 of his reading and writing-desk. A man dressed in 
 well-worn corduroy clothing was engaged in taking 
 measurements for the insertion of gas fixtures. Be- 
 side him, Leo Tarne looked like some rare and bril- , 
 liant exotic. There were tiny beads of moisture on 
 the orchid which drooped its curious head from Tarne's 
 buttonhole. There were larger beads of moisture on 
 Harold Foster's forehead. The stand of the book- 
 case had not lent itself readily to the young man's 
 desire. A cloud of Tarne's yellow cigarette-smoke 
 preceded him. 
 
 " Ah, my poor fellow! " he said with a smile, " I 
 see you are in the hands of the Ishmaelites " he 
 looked round at the new correctness of the room, and 
 at the unfitted gas brackets " and of the Philistines. 
 H'm! I fear me, Harold mio, you will yet live in the 
 odour of success and die in the sanctity of Harley 
 Street." The gas man drew back to allow the gentle- 
 man with the orchid to pass him. " Pray don't let 
 me disturb you," said Tarne with a bow. And he 
 crossed the room to where Harold stood. 
 
 Harold laughed. He had seen more of late of 
 George Barnard than of Leo Tarne, and had been 
 more busy than usual. 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow, success would surely be 
 nicer than failure, and if one's to be a doctor, why 
 not a Harley Street man or even a Grosvenor Square 
 man?" 
 
 "Ah, you are indeed in the hands of Philistia. 
 But why, in the preliminary steps to the gaining of 
 conventionality's hall-mark, need there be excessive 
 ugliness? You are not in Harley Street yet, at all 
 events."
 
 8 4 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Why, Leo, I thought you'd like the place. What 
 is there that jars on you? " 
 
 Leo Tarne was gazing with pained, sorrowful fix- 
 ity at the walls of the room which was to serve his friend 
 as living place and study. Folding doors divided it 
 from the bedroom. The wall-paper was of a cheerful, 
 harmless pattern, consisting of sprays of hitherto un- 
 discovered flowers, on a background which Tarne 
 subsequently described as being " the colour of a 
 Dorcas Society." 
 
 " Oh, I don't know of any particular thing that 
 jars on me, Harold, unless, possibly, your apparent 
 intentions in the matter of illumination. I was look- 
 ing round with a view to discovering something which 
 produced an impression of any kind upon me. The 
 er flowers in your wall-paper almost roused me, 
 but their background has an absorbent tendency, 
 a peculiarly colour-covering property, don't you 
 think? " 
 
 " You are a merciless critic, Leo." 
 
 "A critic? You flatter me, Harold. I am only a 
 writer. A critic is a man who has never sunk low 
 enough to be a writer, and has not been gifted by 
 nature with the ability to read. So he criticises." 
 
 " But, regarding the room? " 
 
 "The room? Yes. Why this severely patriotic 
 absence of colour, Harold. I had no idea you prided 
 yourself so much on your nationality. The true Eng- 
 lishman loves, I know, to treat colour as he regards 
 wine and fruit, or beauty of any kind as a powerful 
 liqueur, to be sipped in tiny doses, and with self-deny- 
 ing circumspection. Why not colour the lower part 
 of those walls in warm terra-cotta, and fresco the 
 upper part in something pale? Why place that writ- 
 ing-table and chair like a T-square on an architect's 
 drawing-board? Why not make it a thing of beauty
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. 85 
 
 set slanting-wise, on a square of brick-coloured felt 
 which should be a joy for ever? Why an almanack 
 to face you, when days and months are inevitable and 
 never interesting, and Paris prints are irresponsible 
 and sometimes charming? Yes, that is it. It is the 
 inevitability of this room which numbs one's senses, 
 Harold. I am thinking only of your health, you know. 
 Who knows but this may lead with the projected 
 scheme of illumination" Tarne glanced at the gas- 
 fittings " to colour blindness, and er moral de- 
 cay?" 
 
 Harold Foster forsook the bookcase, and went out 
 to lunch with Leo Tarne. Tarne said he objected on 
 principle to breaking anything, particularly anything 
 so personal as his fast. So he ate fruit in bed with his 
 letters at a comparatively early hour, and lunched 
 shortly after noon. 
 
 Harold subsequently altered his mind about the 
 lighting of his new rooms, and compromised with the 
 gasfitter by having a gas lamp in the passage outside, 
 contenting himself with lamps, covered by deliriously- 
 coloured shades, in his two rooms. He devoted more 
 time, too, than he had intended, to the fitting-up of his 
 working-room. He changed its wall-coverings, and 
 revolutionized the adjustment of his furniture. The 
 almanack he hung in his bedroom, in order that when 
 he retired for the night he might always be sure of 
 the date, and time of year. 
 
 Then Harold Foster began to work hard in his new 
 quarters, and at the hospital. Mr. Morley Fenton 
 took him to visit some very pleasant people who lived 
 at Queen's Gate. Leo Tarne was in Paris. For almost 
 three weeks Harold Foster was the most hard-work- 
 ing student at St. Bartholomew's. And during that 
 time there floated constantly before him visions of 
 ideal life in ideal home circles, where was music, and
 
 g6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 simple, flowing draperies, soft lights and innocent 
 camaraderie. 
 
 Then, one afternoon, he heard that Leo Tarne 
 had been in London for three days. Carlos, the Span- 
 ish servant, delivered a little note at the hospital, in 
 which the writer said: "Have I in a moment of in- 
 advertence given you good advice, or is thy friend a 
 relative, that he should be shunned in this way? Don't 
 leave Carlos to find his way back to me alone from 
 Bartholomew's. He is young, and may be led astray, 
 or anywhere else in a light like this." 
 
 The day was a dull one, and sky and air in Lon- 
 don mingled in a sad greyness. Harold Foster ex- 
 cused himself at the hospital his work at the time 
 was very uninteresting and drove in a hansom, with 
 Rembrandt-faced Carlos, to Leo Tarne's flat. 
 
 The writer had just finished his work on a story. 
 He had been at his table all night. His room was 
 cloudy with opium-tainted tobacco smoke. The view 
 from its windows was unmitigated greyness. Two or 
 three letters in feminine handwriting lay beside his 
 manuscript on the table. Tarne was in his dressing- 
 gown, and a tall glass of yellow wine stood beside him 
 on a little Turkish stool. He was turning over a folio 
 of daringly-coloured French prints, and as Harold 
 entered the room he said: 
 
 " I knew you would come, mon ami. Isn't this 
 weather demoralizing? I have been up all night. You 
 must excuse my frowsy appearance. Come over here, 
 where there's a pretence of light, and look at these 
 sunny little silhouettes of Trouville. Look at this of 
 the Casino at eleven o'clock. That one is the supper 
 hall after midnight. See; here's the sands at mid-day, 
 and Yes, that's one of the cercles mostly bac- 
 carat, you know." 
 
 Harold Foster admired the prints, and tasted some
 
 FROM NORWOOD TO TROUVILLE. 87 
 
 of Tarne's Riidesheimer. The influence of Leo Tarne's 
 particular atmosphere was filtering into him. 
 
 " Yes," he said, his hand resting on a brilliant little 
 picture of the promenade and its open cafes; " it sug- 
 gests something rather different to that, does it not?" 
 
 Harold nodded in the direction of the window, 
 and the misty colourlessness beyond. 
 
 " It does." Tarne shivered as he glanced at the 
 window. " Do you know Trouville, Harold? " 
 
 " No ; I have never been there." 
 
 ''What's to-day? Wednesday. Look here! Let 
 us go to Trouville to-night, Harold; there's plenty of 
 time to put things in a bag and catch the Southampton 
 boat to Havre. We will .spend the rest' of the week 
 there, and you shall be back at the hospital on Mon- 
 day. I will just send a wire to the Carissima, she was 
 to have dined with me to-night. What do you say, 
 Harold? Get a hansom, Carlos " Tarne had touched 
 a bell beside him. " Run round in the cab and put 
 some things together, Harold Carlos will fetch them ; 
 and then come back here; we'll dine together. You 
 will come, won't you?" 
 
 Harold sighed and glanced towards the window. 
 Then he looked at the folio of prints. 
 
 " Oh yes; we might as well," he said. And then 
 he followed Carlos out of the room.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 SOME REMINISCENCES, AND A BIG MAN CALLED 
 CARROLL. 
 
 " As afternoon forgets the dew, 
 As time in time forgets all men, 
 As our old plare forgets us two, 
 Who might have turned to one thing then, 
 But not again." 
 
 Felise. 
 
 " WELL, sir, as I was sayin' It was Saturday 
 
 morning in Furnival's Inn and other places, and the 
 arrival of the mid-day post had interrupted Mrs. Greet, 
 and provided welcome subject-matter for George Bar- 
 nard's attention. " As I was sayin', sir, if you will let 
 me speak just a word, I hev no desire to afflict myself 
 where I'm not wanted, Mr. Barnard." 
 
 Mrs. Greet's bony hands rested on either side of 
 that angular portion of her virtuous frame which the 
 lamented Mr. Greet of pious memory must, at some 
 period of his overshadowed life, have regarded as a 
 waist. She glared, with reproach in the corners of 
 her eyes, at the letters which George Barnard was sur- 
 reptitiously opening, and, in a stealthy and deprecating 
 manner, reading. 
 
 " But, in leaving your service, sir, where I defy the 
 world, Mr. Barnard, to say I have not done my duty, 
 even you, sir, while you're findin' fault and and un- 
 braiclin' me, Mr. Barnard, must allow me to say a 
 word in defence of my own character and good name, 
 an' me a woman, sir, who has been doin' for gents in 
 chambers for nigh on twenty year now, since my poor
 
 SOME REMINISCENCES. 
 
 89 
 
 'usband passed away, an' 'as never had a word said 
 against me till I came to you, Mr. Barnard, though 
 there was Mr. Thurlow who was a lord's son, an' my 
 cookin' pleased 'im; but of course, as I says, every 
 person 'as his own tastes, an' what's one gent's meat 
 is another gent's poison; though if the steak did 'ap- 
 pen me bem' ill at th' time an' worried 'alf out o' my 
 life wi' work to be a little overdone, sir, there is gents, 
 Mr. Barnard, what would scorn to throw good meat 
 to to a mad dog, sir, askin' your pardon, an' slam out 
 of th' 'ouse like like a whirlpool, sir, to go to a com- 
 mon resterong. But I'm not a woman to afflict myself, 
 Mr. Barnard, where I where a person 
 
 "Trouville! Why confound it! and with Leo 
 Tarne! That is quite so, Mrs. Greet; and I'm very 
 sorry indeed that you should have been given trouble 
 by my upsetting the coal." 
 
 " Oh, please don*t demiliate yourself by apologiz- 
 ing to me, sir. I can't expect you to leave a letter for 
 a minute to 'ear a word from me, I'm sure; and per- 
 haps when I'm gone, you'll find a better 'ousekeeper, 
 who 'asn't done cookin' for persons with dif rent tastes. 
 I'm sure I hopes you will, sir, for, as I says 
 
 " Yes ; I had forgotten for a moment, Mrs. Greet. 
 I have some rather important letters here. Believe 
 me, I didn't mean to be rude at all about the steak. 
 In fact er it was really a very superior steak; but 
 I was obliged er to go out in a hurry, and rather 
 than waste a good steak, I that is, as you say, I gave 
 it to the dog. But I think you might try things a little 
 longer, Mrs. Greet. It seems a pity for us to part now. 
 Just think it over, will you? And er I am very 
 busy just now, Mrs. Greet. If you er 
 
 " Oh, I won't obtain you, sir. Don't let me disturb 
 you, Mr. Barnard. And I hope you'll look out for 
 some person, sir, as can cook, an' I'm sure I "
 
 po GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 "That's all right then, Mrs. Greet. I knew we 
 shouldn't quarrel. Yes, thank you. And you must 
 have some medicine for those spasms, Mrs. Greet. 
 Perhaps you could get something with that half-crown 
 change from the money for the gas. And I sha'n't be 
 wanting anything before this afternoon, thank you. 
 Oh Lord! she gets more trying every month, and her 
 steaks get worse with the spasms." 
 
 George Barnard had at last succeeded in bowing 
 his irate housekeeper out of the room, as the curtain 
 to her usual monthly performance of the giving notice 
 tragedy. And now the barrister sat down to read 
 again the short note headed, " Hotel de Casino, Trou- 
 ville," in which Harold Foster explained the cause of 
 his inability to spend that Saturday afternoon, as his 
 custom was, with George Barnard in London. The 
 letter was very brief, and said that Harold would be 
 back at his work on Monday. It was dated " Thurs- 
 day night," but, having been written at four o'clock 
 on Friday morning, and posted towards noon of the 
 same day, it had not reached the barrister until that 
 hour on Saturday at which its writer was accustomed 
 to make his appearance in the Furnival's Inn cham- 
 bers. 
 
 " I'm sorry he went there," muttered the barrister, 
 as he mechanically allowed the note to fall on the floor 
 beside his waste-paper basket. George Barnard gen- 
 erally deposited his rubbish round about the sides of 
 this basket, or, as Mrs. Greet had more than once 
 remarked, "anywhere but in it." "Yes, I'm sorry; 
 and I'm sorry he ever met Leo Tarne. I wonder what 
 Fenton will say. H'm! And I thought Hal had got 
 into a good working vein, too. Gad! I'd never say 
 as much to Morley Fenton, but the youngster is weird- 
 ly reminiscent in some ways of his mother. And 
 yes, more reminiscent of his father in that mad phase
 
 SOME REMINISCENCES. 9 ! 
 
 of Heigho! It seems for some there is no path 
 
 between. It must be rigid Methodism and the con- 
 ventional fireside, or else ah! and yet I don't know 
 but what they have the best of it. Those firesides, 
 they But then, there's the eternal meeting over 
 the coffee-pot, and Come in! Drat the woman! " 
 
 The barrister bent low over his papers whilst 
 breathing out his last exclamation, in the hope that 
 Mrs. Greet might be touched by his air of absorption 
 in business. The worthy housekeeper, however, hav- 
 ing invested the change from the gas account in a 
 flat bottle of medicine, which she had purchased at a 
 grocer's in Holborn, was at that moment engaged 
 in discussing her employer, and various other afflic- 
 tions, with a spinster friend in Pump Court. 
 
 " Do you want to see me, Mrs. Greet? " The bar- 
 rister lingeringly raised his head, and looking round 
 saw Mr. Morley Fenton in the act of softly closing 
 the outer door of the den. " I beg your pardon, old 
 chap! " said Barnard, rising to greet his friend. " Come 
 in and sit down. The fact is, Mrs. Greet has been 
 handling me rather severely this morning, and I 
 
 thought But how are you, Morley? You seem 
 
 to me to be growing thinner. You really look quite 
 run down. Ought to take a holiday, you know eh? " 
 
 " Oh, I think I am all right, George, thanks. We 
 business men cannot keep quite so fresh as you, you 
 know. It is a wearing place, the City. I see you 
 haven't Harold with you. I half expected to find you 
 together, and thought you might come and lunch 
 with me. I am not expected at Sunbury before this 
 evening." 
 
 "Ah, well, I'm a poor substitute for Hal, but I 
 shall be most happy to join you, if you won't mind 
 giving me about ten minutes to write two or three 
 notes in. I want to have a chat about Hal, too." 
 7
 
 02 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 The barrister felt quite nervous about telling his 
 friend of Harold Foster's absence. His reflections had 
 been so curiously broken in upon by the arrival of the 
 subject of them. Mr. Morley Fenton sat down and 
 opened a newspaper. George Barnard scribbled a few 
 short notes, and then, having made some slight change 
 in his attire, went out with his friend. 
 
 The barrister, having claimed the position of host 
 on this occasion, led Mr. Morley Fenton to the din- 
 ing-room of a somewhat famous hostelry in Fleet 
 Street. 
 
 " By the way," he said, as they took their seats 
 in this establishment, " I don't know why I have not 
 mentioned it before, but the reason you did not find 
 Harold with me is that he has gone over to Trouville 
 for a few days with Mr. Leo Tarne." 
 
 " To Trouville? Really! I had no idea of that." 
 
 " Yes, I had a letter from him this morning, writ- 
 ten there, and saying that he would be back at work 
 again on Monday." 
 
 " H'm! Trouville. I am sorry." 
 
 " Yes, I knew it would be unpleasant, by associa- 
 tion, to you. But, after all, he knows nothing of the 
 happenings of five-and-twenty years ago; and as far 
 as Trouville itself is concerned " 
 
 " Yes, of course, we mustn't grudge him a holiday. 
 But However, it is absurd of me to be preju- 
 diced against any particular place. Atmosphere is 
 the product of action, rather than action of atmosphere 
 eh, George? " 
 
 " There's no doubt about that." 
 
 The barrister's confirmation was as emphatic as 
 though it had been a denial; it was spoken with the 
 assurance of a man who has no belief in what he says. 
 
 " How do you think he has been getting on since 
 leaving the Vicarage, George? "
 
 SOME REMINISCENCES. 03 
 
 " Oh, very well, very well. He has been working 
 very hard during the last few weeks." 
 
 " That is good. This trip to er it is not a re- 
 action, I hope. He is not growing spasmodic? " 
 
 " No; oh no, I think not. Why?" 
 
 " I only asked, because I think the life of phases 
 a fearfully dangerous one for for Harold Foster; that 
 is all." 
 
 " Yes; perhaps it is. I regard Mr. Leo Tarne as a 
 phase in Hal's life, you know. But Hal has a great 
 deal more strength than Tarne." 
 
 "Ah! well, he must have friends, you know. I 
 often feel doubtful as to whether it was wise or kind 
 to have practically brought his visits to my house to 
 an end. But you know the feeling I had in the 
 matter." 
 
 The barrister nodded, and the business of lunch 
 was proceeded with, when Mr. Morley Fenton had 
 remarked casually that he had not, until that after- 
 noon, entered the room they sat in since the old days 
 when the friends had together rioted and studied, 
 feasted and starved, in the Furnival's Inn chambers. 
 
 " Ah," said Barnard, " the glory of this place has 
 departed since then. I very seldom see any of the 
 old faces now." 
 
 " Selfishly speaking, I am not altogether sorry for 
 that, George, since you since I have come here with 
 you." 
 
 "H'm! That's one of your fathomless speeches, 
 old man one of the things that make you a marvel. 
 I wish, sometimes, you wouldn't be quite so rigid." 
 
 " Do you, George? But perhaps I am not strong 
 enough to be less than rigid. Only giants and George 
 Barnards can with safety walk the hair-line between 
 ways." 
 
 Whilst Mr. Morley Fenton was speaking, two men
 
 94 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 entered the room by the door facing him, and took 
 seats in a position which left both visible to the owner 
 of Weir. Lodge, though hidden by a Japanese screen 
 from George Barnard. These men took no notice 
 of the barrister or his friend, but as Mr. Fenton's eyes 
 fell upon the foremost of them a little muscular shiver 
 passed over his face, its lines seemed to deepen sharply, 
 and the curious network of veins in his temples stood 
 out and made visible their movements. He continued 
 speaking, however, in low, even tones, to George Bar- 
 nard. 
 
 The two new-comers were of that class whose dis- 
 appearance from the restaurant the barrister had re- 
 ferred to in speaking of its departed glories. One of 
 them was an old actor, who, whilst Bohemian to the 
 backbone, had never over-stepped that curious, inde- 
 finable yet inflexible limit, which separates society 
 generally from society's outcasts that pale which is 
 bounded on one side by the world, and on the other 
 by the world's beaches. Then, too, he had been suc- 
 cessful in his profession, and was possessed of a pri- 
 vate income that sheet-anchor to the shore of re- 
 spectability. 
 
 The other man was one of London's characters, and 
 one of the best known. He was a g : ant among vaga- 
 bonds, a prince of outlaws, and a Bohemian ostracized 
 from Prague itself. Originally a brilliant younger 
 member of the profession which gave George Bar- 
 nard the right to wear wig and gown, if he so chose, 
 Carroll, who was never spoken of save by this one 
 name, had for years been regarded as a privileged 
 rioter, an accepted drifter about the sea of London 
 cosmopolitanism. It was said that no man knew 
 where Carroll lived certainly no man knew how he 
 lived. But Carroll knew and was known by most 
 professional men who had attained middle age in the
 
 SOME REMINISCENCES. 
 
 95 
 
 capital. He had been found sleeping on the Covent 
 Garden piazza, and given shelter in artistic club- 
 houses. He had been bailed out, at West Ead police- 
 stations, by men he had never seen, but whom tradi- 
 tion had taught to know him. In appearance Carroll 
 suggested a very fine but decaying elm, or a lightning- 
 blasted oak a magnificent-looking man, upon whose 
 noble features dissipation's hot fingers had been 
 pressed till they had seared him to the bone, honey- 
 combing and networking a face which might have 
 been heroic, and was ruggedly fine. 
 
 Carroll reeled slightly as he sat down in the grey 
 light which filtered through a grimy ceiling-window, 
 and at that early hour his eyes were glazed, and his 
 lips tremuolus, as the immediate result of heavy drink- 
 ing. The other man called for " a long soda, with a 
 very little dash," for Carroll, and immediately began 
 to speak of a certain very Bohemian reunion fixed 
 for that evening. Carroll had promised to accom- 
 pany him, as his guest, to this function. Mr. Morley 
 Fenton, whose eyes were fixed on his plate, heard 
 every word which passed between these two, whilst 
 himself talking to George Barnard. George Barnard, 
 whose eyes wandered from his friend's face over all 
 the room, heard only Mr. Morley Fenton's words, 
 and answered them as occasion required. 
 
 Suddenly Carroll's friend, looking round sharply, 
 saw and recognised the owner of Weir Lodge. He 
 leaned across to Carroll, who was staring fixedly at 
 Mr. Fenton, and whispered: 
 
 " I say, Carroll, there's Morley Fenton. You re- 
 member Morley Fenton, don't you? 'Sent down' 
 from Oxford. Had a flare up of some sort." 
 
 " Ah! " A light of understanding flashed through 
 the filmy coating of the older man's eyes. " Morley 
 Fenton? of course! I couldn't think who it was. H'm!
 
 o6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Morley Fenton, Furnival's Inn; disappeared found 
 religion, or a wife with money, or both or something. 
 Ah, well!" 
 
 "Ssh!" murmured Carroll's friend. "He'll hear. 
 Look here, I'll go and speak to him, and ask him to 
 come to the W - with us to-night." 
 
 At that moment the stem of Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 claret-glass shivered and snapped between his thumb 
 and finger, so that the bowl of the glass rolled without 
 noise on to the back of his hand, and rested against 
 his cuff. The glass was empty. When Carroll's friend 
 had first whispered his name, every vestige of colour 
 had left Mr. Fenton's face, and a spot of blood had 
 risen through the skin of his lower lip, the while he 
 paused with apparent deliberation in an expression of 
 opinion regarding a bye-election then being decided 
 in Lancashire. 
 
 " Hullo! " said the barrister, " you've broken your 
 glass, old man." 
 
 " So I have. Waiter! Thank you! And bring 
 me another, please." Mr. Morley Fenton spoke almost 
 languidly, looking the while at George Barnard, and 
 yet watching, with that curious tensity and breadth 
 of vision which comes to a man at times, the faces 
 of Carroll, and Carroll's friend. George Barnard had 
 plunged with enthusiasm into the subject which he 
 believed to be of absorbing interest to Mr. Fenton 
 the bye-election in the North. He even endeavoured 
 to make clear his contentions by the aid of diagrams 
 in breadcrumbs on the table-cloth. Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton's most attentive and most inscrutable smile hung 
 over the firm lines of his mouth. His eyes, blind 
 to that^which was near, saw only the two men, who 
 were hidden by the Japanese screen from the bar- 
 rister. The expression in these eyes, however, was 
 one of listening repose. The little veins above
 
 SOME REMINISCENCES. 97 
 
 his white-skinned cheek-bones throbbed and quiv- 
 ered. 
 
 The actor behind the screen rose to his feet to 
 carry out his promise to speak to Mr. Fenton. At the 
 same time Carroll rose unsteadily, looking Mr. Fenton 
 full in the face. The vagabond's eyes seemed to be 
 gazing through George Barnard's friend, down the 
 many coloured vista of his own curious past; piec- 
 ing together disconnected links, and filling up long- 
 forgotten gaps; seeing with the understanding which 
 is picked up in the by-ways of outlying Bohemia, and 
 of which nothing ever altogether robs the man who 
 has found it. 
 
 " Excuse me a moment, George." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton had risen to his feet, his back 
 to his friend, and between his friend and the Japanese 
 screen. So, for a moment of time, Carroll, conven- 
 tionality's outcast, and Morley Fenton, a pillar of con- 
 ventionality, the man whose orthodoxy admitted of 
 no question, stood looking into each other's souls, 
 seeing and knowing. 
 
 Then into Carroll's eyes came a light which said: 
 " All's well." He had apparently found that in search 
 of which he had been mistily reviewing his past. Per- 
 haps Mr. Morley Fenton's eyes had given it to his 
 eyes. Perhaps the veriest vagabond may have in him, 
 somewhere, a vein of sterling goodness. The actor 
 had taken one step from his seat towards the carrying 
 out of his expressed intention. Carroll's tremulous 
 right hand gripped him almost fiercely by the shoulder. 
 
 " Sit down," whispered the vagabond hoarsely. 
 And then he added: " No; we won't ask Morley Fen- 
 ton. I I don't want to meet him." 
 
 The whole thing had occupied no more than a few 
 seconds, and as Mr. Morley Fenton, calm and impas- 
 sive as ever, resumed his seat there had been no ap-
 
 9 8 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 peal in his eyes when he had looked into Carroll's, 
 but only understanding and self-revelation George 
 Barnard said carelessly : " What's the attraction, old 
 man?" 
 
 " Nothing, George," replied Mr. Fenton, sipping 
 his wine. " I thought for a moment I had recognised 
 someone that is all. You were speaking, when I 
 interrupted you, of the split in the Liberal vote which 
 J. C. Menzie's candidature would cause." 
 
 And a few minutes afterwards, having settled their 
 bill, the barrister and his friend walked out of the 
 room. Mr. Morley Fenton carried his hat in his hand 
 as he passed the Japanese screen. His shoulders were 
 set squarely; his figure was, even for him, unusually 
 erect; and he did not turn his head as he reached the 
 door, but stepped quickly into the street.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 AFTERNOON TEA AND SCANDAL. 
 
 " But you don't know music ! Wherefore 
 
 Keep on casting pearls 
 To a poet ! All I care for 
 Is to tell him that a girl's 
 ' Love ' comes aptly in when gruff 
 Grows his singing. (There, enough !) " 
 
 A Tale. 
 
 THKRE could be no doubt that from Mrs. Fenton's 
 point of view, and in the light of what her husband 
 subsequently conceived to be his duty, the time for 
 making an end of Harold Foster's visits to Weir 
 Lodge had been well chosen. Also, so far as Harold 
 was concerned, the break had entailed no great sense 
 of loss, beyond the feeling of being cut off from the 
 softening influences of that home atmosphere, the 
 beauty of which he had only so recently begun to 
 realize. Norah he had hardly thought of as an indi- 
 viduality, but rather as the embodied type of this pas- 
 sive beauty. 
 
 Like many another young man whose own fleeting 
 experiences of home life have been inharmonious, over 
 the threshold of whose life circumstances have ad- 
 mitted but little tenderness, Harold Foster's instinctive 
 appreciation of the ideal and beautiful in domesticity, 
 was strong and keen; far stronger and keener than 
 he himself would ever guess. Harold's contact with 
 Norah had been too much diffused over the breadth 
 of his appreciation of that atmosphere which Norah 
 embodied, too much over-ruled by the sudden, new 
 
 99
 
 I00 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 influence of Leo Tame, to allow of its again resolving 
 itself, during the short period over which the young 
 man's visits to Weir Lodge had extended, into any 
 such close and personal touch as was theirs on the 
 Sunday morning which had followed Molesey Regatta. 
 
 And the girl herself, Norah, had to all intents and 
 purposes been absolutely untouched by the influence 
 of Leo Tarne. And, probably for that reason, she had 
 roused in him an unusual degree of interest. She 
 had had no consideration or appreciation of a new 
 atmosphere to disintegrate and absorb the direct per- 
 sonal meaningness of her contact with Harold Foster. 
 She had received her impression of the man, and not of 
 any set of circumstances or framework of influences 
 which the man brought within her range of vision. 
 And this impression had made the girl lean strongly 
 sometimes with a strength which, regarded as it was 
 by her as weakness, had frightened her towards the 
 young man whom Mr. Morley Fenton had requested 
 his family to " be kind to." 
 
 Some day, perhaps, if the fates permit, scientists 
 will make these matters clear for us, and by analysis 
 of those chemical properties within us which, flying 
 to their companion molecules, draw individuals of 
 either sex each to each, will warn us against allowing 
 our feet to stray in those of love's paths which have 
 at their far ends danger or non-admittance notices. 
 Then there will be no more unrequited attachments 
 or forlorn loves. For the blind boy god will die, and 
 ferret-eyed science will cremate him, and sit down 
 then to compile learned memoirs of his life. 
 
 Meantime, Norah Fenton, who had no knowledge 
 of the chemical key to such problems, hardly knew 
 what could be tugging at her tender heart-strings 
 when the family returned from Ventnor to Weir 
 Lodge, or why, in the days which followed, she always
 
 AFTERNOON TEA AND SCANDAL. IO i 
 
 caught her breath, the better to listen to Mary the 
 housemaid's announcements of the names of afternoon 
 callers. 
 
 Maud Fenton, warm-hearted and impulsive as she 
 was flighty-minded and careless, never mentioned 
 Harold Foster's name in Norah's hearing now. This 
 dated from a certain evening in Ventnor, when a 
 chance glance into a mirror before which Norah was 
 sitting, in the girls' joint bedroom, brought an abrupt 
 conclusion to a teasing remark in which Maud had 
 deplored the hard fate which placed them beyond the 
 range of Harold Foster's visiting list. The picture 
 seen in the mirror had been a revelation to laughing, 
 heart-whole Maud Fenton; for the glass had shown a 
 face pale under its natural creamy bloom, and two 
 wide-open eyes full of pain, and dimmed by heavy 
 tears which hung between their lashes. 
 
 Maud had stepped forward impulsively, and, kiss- 
 ing Norah's pale cheek, had shown the loving under- 
 standing which formed the groundwork of her frivo- 
 lous disposition, by leaving the room without a word, 
 and not returning to it until a good hour had passed. 
 
 And now a whole month had elapsed since the 
 family's return from Ventnor to Weir Lodge, and 
 though Mr. Leo Tarne had paid one call of courtesy 
 during that time, Norah had seen nothing of the man 
 about whom she felt a natural disinclination to make 
 any inquiry. Every evening, when Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton arrived home from town, Norah was in the hall 
 a pensive picture, framed in old oak, on a back- 
 ground of heavy rugs scattered over a polished floor 
 to welcome her adopted father. And, though at 
 first sound of his footsteps on the gravel of the drive 
 outside, Norah's great shadowy eyes would flash light 
 rays from hidden depths to glistening surfaces, yet 
 when Mr. Morley Fenton, alone, pushed aside the
 
 I02 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 swing doors of the vestibule, these expectant gleams 
 would sink back into the hidden places of their birth, 
 and a little ring of loneliness and sadness would creep 
 into the voice which greeted the head of the house. 
 
 " Your voice sounds sad, mavourneen," Mr. Fen- 
 ton had said on one late autumn evening. " Aren't 
 you happy, dear, or are you only a little tired?" 
 
 " Yes, father, that is all; I am a little tired." And 
 then the girl's lithe arms had twined round the neck 
 of the man whom she respected so deeply that she 
 called him " Father," with a tenderness which had 
 nothing to do with respect, and not much, perhaps, 
 with the girl's affection for Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 
 Norah's childhood had been passed in her dead 
 father's birthplace, which had also been Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's home, a ruinous old country house in the 
 west of Ireland. There were times at which Norah 
 crept closer to the inner heart of her adopted father 
 than either of his own daughters ever reached. There 
 were bonds between them that had grown, perhaps, 
 from out the man's protecting sympathy, which for 
 years had stood between his weak elder brother 
 Norah's father and the world into and out of which 
 that brother had unresistingly drifted. 
 
 These bonds showed themselves, but only to the 
 observant, in several curious .small ways. Since re- 
 ceiving instructions as a lad of fourteen from his 
 father, a devotee in music, Mr. Morley Fenton had 
 played the violoncello, and played with a rare mastery 
 of this instrument's subtle possibilities. But on no 
 single occasion had Mr. Fenton been seen with his 
 'cello in any other part of Weir Lodge than his study, 
 the one room in the house which no member of the 
 family would have thought of entering without an 
 invitation from its owner. And these invitations had 
 never come when Mr. Morley Fenton intended taking
 
 AFTERNOON TEA AND SCANDAL. 103 
 
 the 'cello from its case. Yet, on the very evening of 
 Norah's first arrival at the house of her adopted father, 
 she had sat for more than an hour on a stool in the 
 study, while Mr. Fenton made his instrument breathe 
 comfort and sympathy into her heart. And since that 
 evening, the master of the house had always played 
 to an audience of one, and Norah had been grateful. 
 
 It happened that on a certain chilly afternoon 
 some few weeks after Harold Foster's visit to Trou- 
 ville, Mrs. Fenton forgot her diplomacy. On this oc- 
 casion she left Weir Lodge with her two daughters to 
 make a round of calls in the neighbourhood. Chance 
 directed that on this same afternoon Norah should 
 be suffering from a headache, and Mr. Leo Tarne 
 from an acute attack of boredom. The resulting hap- 
 penings were that Norah was left at home alone, and 
 that, towards the hour of afternoon tea, Mr. Leo 
 Tarne was announced by Mary the housemaid, and 
 received by Norah in the long drawing-room. 
 
 Strung up by boredom to a high pitch of arti- 
 ficiality, Leo Tarne was conversationally more brilliant 
 than usual. Then came to the man his pique-inspired 
 desire to please Norah, and, acting under these com- 
 bined forces, he exerted to the utmost his every power 
 to interest. Norah responded with tea and polite at- 
 tention. Tarne was puzzled and annoyed. 
 
 Then, with much girlish circumlocution and ap- 
 parent indifference, Norah led up to a reference to 
 Harold Foster; and Leo Tarne, who, with all his arti- 
 ficiality, was by no means lacking in intuitive percep- 
 tion, smarted under the light which shone out of her 
 eyes at his, Tarne's, careless mention of his friend's 
 mere name. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a little wave of his hand, " I 
 believe Mr. Foster is very well. We spent a few days 
 in Trouville together last month."
 
 104 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Norah's indifference was the poorest piece of act- 
 ing that even an innocent-minded, tender-hearted girl 
 could have perpetrated. 
 
 " Ah," she said brightly, " Mr. Foster is studying 
 at a hospital, is he not? " 
 
 " Ye-es! " Tarne smiled and his eyebrows were 
 raised very slightly. " At all events, Mr. Foster is a 
 medical student, Miss Fenton. The distinction, like 
 all trifling distinctions, is not without a difference." 
 
 Norah's puckered mouth showed interested lack of 
 comprehension. She made a little gesture of per- 
 plexity. 
 
 " I am sure that remark is like one of the books 
 we used to get as prizes at school, Mr. Tarne, and 
 ' will amply repay perusal.' But you know I can't 
 peruse it." 
 
 " What a fearful condemnation to be pronounced 
 on so harmless an observation. It merely meant that 
 there is a wide difference, otherwise known as a trifling 
 distinction, between studying and being a student. 
 Everyone who studies is a student, and I believe there 
 are some people who are students, and who, in spite 
 of that, study. But the species is a rare one." 
 
 " Which means that Mr. Foster does not study? " 
 
 Norah's eyes were a challenge. 
 
 " Well, I certainly don't think Mr. Foster has 
 studied much in surgery or medicine of late, though 
 I have no doubt that he has, on the other hand, been 
 learning a good deal in connection with another inter- 
 esting trifle, called life. The preservation of life is 
 what one learns in the hospitals, you know, and pre- 
 served things are so much less interesting than the 
 same things in a state of freshness." 
 
 " But if one is going to be a doctor? " protested 
 Norah. 
 
 " Exactly." Mr. Tarne's tone was one of gentle
 
 AFTERNOON TEA AND SCANDAL. 105 
 
 and acquiescent deprecation. " Mr. Foster is some- 
 what reckless in that respect. Really quite a danger- 
 ous companion for an easily-led man like myself. I 
 assure you I was quite afraid in Trouville that my 
 sense of duty would be overcome by his drifting se- 
 ductiveness, and end in my indefinitely forsaking 
 home and my beloved public, in order to waltz 
 through an eternity of Trouville dissipations with Har- 
 old Foster. But I made a heroic effort, and brought 
 him back to St. Bartholomew's and comparative vir- 
 tue." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 There was serious wonder and distress in Norah's 
 exclamation. Leo Tarne smiled slightly. 
 
 " But, joking apart," he continued, " Mr. Foster 
 is a difficult man to act upon as a brake. His extremes 
 are so whole-souled, his disregard of consequences is 
 so bewilderingly consistent." 
 
 " But is not Mr. Barnard a friend of Mr. Foster's? 
 I should have thought Mr. Barnard would would 
 be a brake." 
 
 " Ah! yes, I dare say he might. Yes, I think one 
 can imagine him in the character of a drawback, cer- 
 tainly; but I fancy our friend finds drawbacks a nui- 
 sance, and is seeing very little of Mr. Barnard just 
 now. Of course you know, Miss Fenton, every man 
 understands his own affairs better than anyone else 
 can according to a popular superstition and I don't 
 mean for a moment that Mr. Foster is doing anything 
 wrong. I think he is drifting, that is all drifting. 
 And, of course, he is not likely to drift beyond a cer- 
 tain point. That's the worst of being a gentleman, 
 you know or the best, or something: one cannot 
 drift beyond a certain point. It simply is not done. 
 But as far as my friend Foster is concerned, I am 
 sorry his drift is so complete, because well, you see,
 
 I0 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 it will prevent his ever having any chances, profes- 
 sionally; and the business of prolonging life is, I 
 think, about as good as any other after that of liv- 
 ing life. Arid that is not remunerative or respect- 
 able." 
 
 Mr. Leo Tarne rose, looking frankly into the girl's 
 puzzled eyes. 
 
 " And now I really must run away. Thank you so 
 much for giving me tea, and allowing me to stay. 
 Will you give my regards to Mrs. Fenton? I am sorry 
 to have missed seeing the others, and so glad they 
 were out, and you were not. Good-bye! " 
 
 Mr. Leo Tarne strolled out through the Weir 
 Lodge garden, which was divested now alike of its 
 summer vividness and its autumn glory. He was 
 humming softly to himself, and the remedy he had 
 chosen for his attack of boredom appeared to have 
 most admirably answered its purpose. 
 
 Norah's headache had not been removed by her 
 afternoon at home. So she did not come down to 
 dinner that evening. But later on, when Mrs. Fenton 
 and her two daughters were chatting together and 
 working in the drawing-room, Norah walked slowly 
 down to the hall, and, after standing for a moment 
 in hesitation at the foot of the stairs, stepped for- 
 ward and tapped at the door of Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 study. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards Maud Fenton, in 
 the drawing-room, raised her head listeningly, and 
 said: 
 
 "There's father's 'cello: that's the first time this 
 week that father's played. What a pity Norah isn't 
 downstairs." 
 
 But Norah was sitting on the big hassock beside 
 the study fire, and her eyes were full of tears. Mr. 
 Morley Fenton's choice of music that evening favoured
 
 AFTERNOON TEA AND SCANDAL. 
 
 107 
 
 pathos, and there were sounds like a sorrowing wom- 
 an's wailing in some of the notes he drew from his 
 'cello strings. 
 
 For a long while Norah sat thinking in her bed- 
 room that night. The bedrooms at Weir Lodge were 
 not conventual homes of chilly caution against sloth- 
 fulness, but comfortable, firelit places, full of invita- 
 tion to repose. At last Norah rose, and stepped 
 across the room to where a little writing-table stood. 
 
 " I will," she murmured very softly. " I will write 
 to Mr. Barnard. And he is not a ' drawback,' as 
 Mr. Tarne said. I know he's not, and I am sure he 
 is a good, kind man, else he wouldn't have such beau- 
 tiful eyes." 
 
 Norah found her decision harder to carry out than 
 it had been to make, and she tore in pieces and burned 
 several quite long letters before finishing, as the hall 
 clock was striking one, the short note which she posted 
 next morning. 
 
 A few hours after this note had been posted in 
 Sunbury, Mrs. Greet, having carefully read the ad- 
 dress on its envelope, and sniffed suspiciously over its 
 obviously feminine penmanship, handed the dainty 
 thing to George Barnard, whom the good housekeeper 
 discovered kneeling on the littered floor of his 
 den, puffing tobacco smoke into the open mouth 
 of his " idiot dog," and chuckling with delight at 
 that animal's pretended appreciation of the pro- 
 cess. 
 
 The barrister read and re-read the timidly daring 
 little note, and leaned back in his pivot-chair to de- 
 liberate upon it. 
 
 " No," he muttered, after a few moments. " Good 
 
 Lord, no! The boy's all right. But she's a dear, 
 
 thoughtful little girl, by gad! she is. I remember 
 
 now; I thought so before. But Hal's not drifting. 
 
 8
 
 108 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 He can't be drifting. And yet well, she must be a 
 wonderful little girl. Only, Hal can't be drifting, you 
 know you imbecile, flap-eared dog! " 
 
 The dog turned over inanely, on its master's out- 
 stretched feet, and George Barnard sighed heavily.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP. 
 
 " And some are sulky, while some will plunge. 
 
 [So ho ! Steady ! Stand still, you /] 
 Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge. 
 
 [There ! There ! Who wants to kill you ?\ 
 Some there are losses in every trade 
 Will break their hearts ere bitted and made. 
 Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard, 
 And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard." 
 
 RUDYARD KIPLING. 
 
 THIS is all that was contained in the little laven- 
 der-coloured note over which Mrs. Greet had sniffed, 
 and in iforming an opinion about which George 
 Barnard had appealed for confirmation to his 
 dog: 
 
 " DEAR MR. BARNARD: Mr. Leo Tame called here 
 this afternoon, and spoke about Mr. Foster. I think 
 they are great friends, you know, and Mr. Tarne 
 seemed quite distressed about him about Mr. Foster, 
 I mean. I am afraid you will think me rather mad and 
 very stupid in writing and bothering you about it, 
 but I know my father (that is, Uncle Morley, you 
 know) takes a great interest in Mr. Foster, and Mr. 
 Tarne says he is ' drifting/ and I am not quite sure 
 what that means, but it sounds horrid, and Mr. Tarne 
 is worried about it. So I thought I would write and 
 tell you, because I know you understand things, and 
 will go and help Mr. Foster not to ' drift ' any more. 
 And I did not like to tell father, because I don't 
 
 109
 
 IIO GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 quite know why, but he does not seem to have any- 
 thing to do with ' drifting,' does he? 
 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 " NORAH FENTON. 
 
 " P. S. Please excuse this being so abominably 
 written; it's better than I generally write." 
 
 George Barnard read this for the fifth time whilst 
 arranging a fresh collar and tie, and then, changing 
 his dressing-gown for a hardly less shabby walking 
 coat, began to hunt about the room for his most pre- 
 sentable hat. 
 
 "She's a little brick, that's just what she is!" he 
 murmured, as, having discovered his hat on a gas- 
 bracket, he proceeded to blow off some of its loose 
 dust. " And I'll go straight round and help him ' not 
 to drift.' Drift indeed! Good-bye, lunatic poodle! 
 No, you don't. Aha! go back!" 
 
 The animal retreated sadly from the closing outer 
 door, and the barrister made his way out of the house. 
 
 " That's the worst of that dog," said George Bar- 
 nard as he mounted the steps of a Kensington bus. 
 " She's so horribly fastidious. If I take her out it 
 means cab tares and loss of moral fibre." 
 
 Less than a minute later, an omnibus bearing on its 
 side the legend " Waterloo Station," passed the vehicle 
 upon which George Barnard had conferred his patron- 
 age. 
 
 " By Jove! " muttered the barrister, starting to his 
 feet. " Why shouldn't I go down and answer that 
 little brick's letter first. The afternoon is young." 
 
 He scrambled down the steps of the bus and ca- 
 reered wildly along the crowded street in pursuit of 
 the Waterloo-bound vehicle. 
 
 Seated in a Thames Valley train, and meditating
 
 TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP. IIr 
 
 < 
 
 behind his short briar pipe, the barrister more than 
 half regretted the step which his enthusiasm about 
 " the little brick " had induced him to take. 
 
 " What in the world excuse shall I make," he 
 thought, " for arriving at Weir Lodge when the lord 
 of the manor's not at home? And I don't suppose I 
 shall have an opportunity of saying two words to her, 
 anyhow. Maud wouldn't allow that. By gad! I be- 
 lieve I had better take Maud into my confidence. Lit- 
 tle baggage, she'd chaff me so horribly; and then, the 
 little brick mightn't like it. And she isn't very ' little ' 
 either. My word, I would sooner take Maud's chaff 
 than get into the brick's black books. I don't know, 
 but it's quite romantic. Eh, what a clown I am! And 
 there's no fool like an old fool an ancient imbecile, 
 who might be her father, but he's not good enough, 
 not by yards. Hullo, Sunbury! H'm! 'Pon my soul, 
 I'm quite nervous. Old fool!" 
 
 But the fates were kind to George Barnard, in 
 view, perhaps, of his age and foolishness. As he 
 turned a bend in the quiet road from the station to 
 Weir Lodge, he came face to face with the object of 
 his visit. The " little brick " looked imperial, a flat- 
 crowned scarlet toque surmounting the sweeping 
 curves of her black hair, her creamy skin given a dusky 
 bloom of warmth by exercise in a strong wind so a 
 Russian Botticelli might have pictured the head of a 
 young empress. 
 
 George Barnard's cloth hat was in his hand, and 
 the wind of young winter tossed the tawny hair back 
 from his forehead. His foolishness must have more 
 than balanced the barrister's vaunted age, for as he 
 saluted Norah the colour in his face rose visibly. 
 Such things as this, though one sees them seldom, 
 make one forget for a time that our world has any 
 ugliness.
 
 II2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " I am so glad I met you," began Barnard. " I 
 had been thinking that when I came to Weir Lodge, I 
 probably should hardly have two words with you. And 
 then, I'm sure they would wonder why I had come 
 without Mr. Fenton." 
 
 " It was kind of you to come, Mr. Barnard." If 
 any colour, other than that which the wind brought, 
 came into Norah's face, then the addition was trifling. 
 " I did not think for a moment you would trouble to 
 come and see me, and so soon." 
 
 " Oh, well, you know, as far as that goes, it isn't 
 a trouble to come and see you. I am not quite so 
 besotted a misanthrope as all that. And I didn't like 
 the idea of your forming a wrong impression of Hal, 
 you know. We are old friends, you see, Harold Fos- 
 ter and myself. May we turn down this lane, instead 
 of going to the Oh, but I beg your pardon! You 
 have a basket you were going into the village?" 
 
 " No that is, I was, but it doesn't matter in the 
 least, and I would really rather go this way now, if 
 you don't mind." 
 
 So they turned down the lane. 
 
 " I thought it was the very kindest thing I'd ever 
 known, your writing to me like that, Miss Fenton 
 I did really. I didn't think a girl that is, it was won- 
 derfully kind and thoughtful of you." 
 
 There was no doubt now about Norah's added 
 colour, and the barrister's stammering confusion made 
 the two look like a pair of boy and girl sweethearts. 
 
 "And so Mr. Tarne was mistaken?" said Norah. 
 " I am very glad. Perhaps he was only joking." 
 
 " I don't admire his sense of humour." 
 
 " It was very absurd of me to take it seriously, and 
 I'm afraid it was very rude to interfere and to write 
 to you. I I have been wondering ever since how I 
 dared!"
 
 TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP. 113 
 
 " My dear girl forgive me! I am an old fogey, 
 you know. But, please don't talk like that. You 
 know what I thought of your writing, and some day 
 that rascal of a Hal shall tell you how grateful he is." 
 
 " Oh no! Please, Mr. Barnard, don't tell anyone, 
 least of please don't think of telling Mr. Foster. It 
 was so stupid of me. But, of course, I didn't really 
 think and it was no business of mine. Please say 
 you won't tell anyone." 
 
 " Certainly I won't if you would rather not," re- 
 plied Barnard. And then they reached the end of the 
 lane, which was within sight of the Weir Lodge gar- 
 den. " I expect Mr. Fenton will be home now, or 
 very shortly," continued the barrister; " so they will 
 naturally suppose I have come down to see him." 
 
 " But father went to Southampton to-day on busi- 
 ness, and will not be back until to-morrow even- 
 ing." 
 
 " Oh! " The barrister looked blank for a moment. 
 " Well, dor you know, I don't think I will come up to 
 the house at all. You see, I have no Well, I 
 really think it would be better under the circumstances; 
 and I want to go and see Harold this evening." 
 
 George Barnard held out his hand. 
 
 " You know best, Mr. Barnard." He was still 
 holding Norah's small hand. " You you won't think 
 me a very stupid girl for writing? And Mr. Foster 
 is not ' drifting'?" 
 
 " I shall always think you a very sweet, kind girl 
 for writing, and and you mustn't ever believe any- 
 thing against Hal at least, not without writing to 
 me. Good-bye dear! " 
 
 " Good-bye, Mr. Barnard, and I'm so glad." 
 
 A moment later and the girl was gliding, with long, 
 rhythmical steps along the little path which led to the 
 garden-gate at Weir Lodge ; and George Barnard was
 
 II4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 watching her through a gap in the thin, wintry hedge 
 which skirted the lane. 
 
 " Well," he muttered as he turned to walk to the 
 station, "I'd no idea there were such girls. Drift! 
 No, by gad! he mustn't drift! Lucky dog! If I were 
 a painter what a head ! " 
 
 And hearing sounds as of a train in the distance, 
 the barrister broke into a trot, and hurried on to the 
 station. 
 
 When George Barnard arrived at Harold Foster's 
 rooms in Kensington, he found that he had to all ap- 
 pearances made a journey for nothing. After knock- 
 ing once or twice and receiving no answer, the bar- 
 rister turned from the door which bore his friend's 
 name, and stood a moment meditatively tapping his 
 pipe against the banisters. 
 
 " H'm ! I suppose he has gone out to feed. I 
 wonder if Mrs. Greet is cooking a steak for me. Poor 
 old lady! she is quite the worst cook in England. 
 There used to be a rather good little Italian place 
 somewhere near here. I might do worse than go out 
 and have some dinner myself. Then I could come 
 back here. Yes." 
 
 At that moment the housekeeper who had charge 
 of Harold Foster's rooms and of other parts of the 
 house, came slowly downstairs. She had met the bar- 
 rister before; in fact, George Barnard had arranged 
 with her in engaging Harold's rooms. 
 
 " Good-evening, sir," said the woman. 
 
 " Good-evening. Mr. Foster is out, I think? " 
 
 " No, sir; I think not. Mr. Foster has been out 
 since yesterday afternoon, but he came in just after 
 dark, about an hour ago, sir." 
 
 " Ah! I knocked two or three times, too." 
 
 The housekeeper stepped up to Harold's door and 
 knocked loudlv, but received no answer.
 
 TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP. 115 
 
 "Well, now," she said; "look at that! I'm sure 
 I never thought he had gone out again. Mr. Foster 
 don't waste much time at home, that's certain. I 
 don't know whether he'll be back this evening, but if 
 you'd like to go in and wait, sir, I can lend you my 
 key." 
 
 " Well, I'm much obliged to you. I think I will. 
 I particularly want to see him." 
 
 "Very good, sir; and if you'll just drop this key 
 in the housekeeper's letter-box when you're leaving, 
 I shall be able to get in in the morning." 
 
 So the housekeeper showed the barrister into Har- 
 old's sitting-room, and left him there. 
 
 A crumpled dress-tie was lying on Harold's desk, 
 and its position and condition were peculiarly sug- 
 gestive of hurry and of vehement language. Beside 
 it lay two unopened letters, one of which was addressed 
 in Mr. Morley Fenton's handwriting. 
 
 " H'm! " said the barrister, as his eyes fell on these 
 objects. "H'm!" he repeated, as he walked round 
 the room, taking in and noting its salient features with 
 a journalist's swiftness of perception. " Place abso- 
 lutely reeks of Mr. Leo Tarne. Leo Tarne walls, Leo 
 
 Tarne floor, Leo Tarne pictures Hullo, begad! 
 
 Here's a portrait of me! Ton my soul, I look quite 
 decent, too!" 
 
 The barrister waited for an hour, and then went 
 out to have a little dinner. Having ordered the meal 
 in a restaurant near at hand, he suddenly bethought 
 himself that Harold Foster might return home and go 
 out again, without knowing that he, Barnard, was in 
 the neighbourhood. So, much to the bewilderment 
 of the waiter who had taken his order, the barrister 
 rushed out of the restaurant, on his way back to Har- 
 old's rooms. Having left a note there, he returned 
 to his chop and claret, thereby putting an end to an
 
 n 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 animated discussion between two waiters as to the 
 probabilities of his being what one of them called 
 a "bilker." 
 
 His dinner over, George Barnard lit a cheroot and 
 strolled back to Harold's sitting-room, which he found 
 had not been visited during his absence. The barrister 
 picked up a novel written by Leo Tame, which he 
 found lying in a chair before the fire, and composed 
 himself to read and to wait. Enforced idleness was as 
 irksome to George Barnard as it is to most men of 
 no fixed occupation ; but he had sighed whilst assuring 
 Norah that Harold was not drifting, and he was a 
 good deal worried about the young man. The fire 
 in Harold's sitting-room gave out a genial warmth. 
 Leo Tarne's style of writing, as illustrated in the novel 
 which the barrister had picked up, may have been 
 soothing. At all events, George Barnard, after one 
 or two long drawn-out yawns, nodded, woke, read an- 
 other half page, rubbed his eyes, and finally slum- 
 bered peacefully and steadily, while the fire before 
 him gradually dwindled down to a handful of glower- 
 ing cinders, thickly coated in grey ash. 
 
 Then he woke, feeling stiff and cold, and wonder- 
 ing why the room was dark. The housekeeper had 
 probably forgotten to trim Mr. Foster's lamps the 
 lamps with the lurid shades. They were out when 
 George Barnard woke, in the chair before the dead 
 fire, and a little crimson circle round the burner of 
 one of them conveyed a suggestion of used-up vitality. 
 " Dissipation on an empty stomach," was the thought 
 which it sent across the barrister's mind, as, yawning 
 and stretching himself, he rose from the low chair he 
 had occupied. 
 
 Then he heard footsteps on the stairs outside, and 
 realized that he had probably been wakened by the 
 sound of the opening and shutting of the outer,
 
 TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP, j 17 
 
 ground-floor, door. A moment later, and the sound of 
 a key being turned in the lock of the sitting-room 
 door, told the barrister that the period of his wait- 
 ing was ended. He moved forward as the door opened, 
 showing Harold Foster in evening dress, holding in 
 one hand a candlestick with a lighted taper in it. 
 
 "Well, Hal!" 
 
 "Good heavens! Is that you, George? What in 
 the world are you doing here? And in the dark! " 
 
 The young man's face was pale, and a little drawn 
 and weary-looking. But his eyes were very bright, 
 and he spoke quickly, with a suggestion of tension in 
 his voice. There was a little wine-stain on one side 
 of his shirt-front, and his hair, as he pushed his hat 
 back, lay in little points on his forehead, as though its 
 gold had been moist, and was now dry; as though 
 Harold had been hot and was now cold. 
 
 "Like that confounded lamp-wick!" thought the 
 barrister. Then he said aloud: "Well, I came round 
 to see you, and the housekeeper let me in, and I sup- 
 pose I must have fallen asleep. What time is it? " 
 
 " Something after three," replied Harold, putting 
 down his candlestick, with a little, dry laugh. 
 
 " Three? By gad! Nice hours, young man! " 
 
 Harold laughed again. 
 
 "Yes; I think one can live more in one of the 
 small hours than in a dozen of the big ones. Leo 
 Tarne wanted me to sleep at his place, but I thought 
 I'd walk back here. I am glad I did. Hang it! these 
 lamps have no oil in them." 
 
 " No; they've been living through the small hours, 
 Hal." 
 
 " Ha ! Yes ; and you've been sleeping, George. 
 Think what you have lost. You might have written 
 an article which would have made Europe tremble; 
 or been in bed, you know. One moment I'll get a
 
 !,8 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 lamp from the bedroom, and then you shall tell me 
 what you wanted to see me about." 
 
 Harold lighted his bedroom lamp, and returning 
 presently, placed it on the writing-table before which 
 the barrister stood. George Barnard picked up the 
 lamp in his left hand, placing his right on the younger 
 man's shoulder. 
 
 " Let's have a look at you, Hal," he said. 
 
 A wave of colour spread itself over the pale, tight- 
 drawn skin of Harold's face. The weak lips twitched 
 into a forced smile. The bright eyes flickered under 
 the older man's gaze. Then the young man drew 
 away, tossing back his fair head, and laughing nerv- 
 ously. 
 
 " Is that what you came to see me for? " he asked. 
 
 The barrister sighed. 
 
 "By gad, I believe it's true!" he said thought- 
 fully. 
 
 "What's true?" 
 
 " Eh? Why, someone said you were drifting, Hal, 
 and I said you weren't; but I thought I'd come and 
 see." 
 
 "Nonsense, George! Drifting? Who said so?" 
 
 " How does living in town affect work at the hos- 
 pital, Hal?" 
 
 The younger man raised one hand impatiently. 
 
 " For God's sake, George, don't preach hospital to 
 me at four o'clock in the morning! The hospital is 
 not all the world, thank goodness, though some would 
 have one think so. George, I have seen more of the 
 beauty and colour of life since I came to live here, 
 than in all my life before, and I cannot live as you 
 would like me to neither could you. When I have 
 learned a little more of real things, lived a little more, 
 I will work as hard as you like for the ends you want 
 me to serve. But, George, don't ask me to close the
 
 TWO MEETINGS AND A LITTLE SLEEP. 1 19 
 
 eyes I never opened till a little while ago; don't ask 
 me to shut out altogether the beauty which is outside 
 professions and money-making! And who told you I 
 was drifting, George? What made you come to to 
 find out?" 
 
 For a minute the barrister did not speak, but stood 
 looking, with sad understanding, into the young man's 
 face. And while he looked, his thoughts went back 
 to the face of Harold's father, as it had been before 
 Harold's birth; back along the lines of similarity to 
 the voice and words, the phases of life, reflected there 
 before him now. Then he took a step forward, and 
 pushed his arm out to the elbow over Harold's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Dear old boy," he said, with a little break in his 
 voice, "don't misunderstand me; don't, for Heaven's 
 sake, think I came to spy on you! Never mind who 
 said you were drifting. The the man who said it 
 lied, because we say you are not. Sonny, don't ever 
 
 misunderstand me, because I Let's go to sleep, 
 
 Hal. I shall walk all the weary way home if you don't 
 let me sleep in here on this couch. Go to bed, old 
 boy ; you are you're looking burnt out ! " 
 
 And before many minutes had passed Harold was 
 asleep. And George Barnard was thinking.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A STRAIGHT LINE. 
 
 "These are the moments which mostly count in one's life, for 
 from them spring those quaint denials of the theory of man's original 
 and inherent badness, which we call ' good resolutions.' " Lee-way. 
 
 " TO-DAY'S Friday, George," said Harold Foster, 
 as the two were parting after breakfast, when the sun- 
 light of an early winter's morning had brushed into the 
 past their conversation of the small hours, and other 
 matters. " You'll let me come and have lunch with 
 you to-morrow, won't you? We have missed our Sat- 
 urdays for two or three weeks now." 
 
 Harold Foster spoke with some slight hesitation, 
 as one who thought he deserved but little at the hands 
 of the man to whom he spoke; but his tone, his atti- 
 tude, his expression, and the man himself, in the light 
 which one would expect a nerve specialist to consider 
 a man, was as great a contrast to the Harold Foster 
 of four o'clock that morning, as morning is to night, 
 or as breezy moorland sunshine to the artificial warmth 
 of a gambling hell at midnight. 
 
 " Why, of course, Hal, at the usual time, and I'll 
 be waiting for you. Going to the hospital to-day?" 
 " Yes; I'm going in a few minutes." 
 " Good-bye, old boy, till to-morrow ! " 
 " Good-bye, George. You you are a brick! " 
 " It's that girl who's a brick," muttered the bar- 
 rister, as he walked downstairs on his way home to 
 Furnival's Inn, and the wrath of Mrs. Greet. The
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A STRAIGHT LINE. 121 
 
 good housekeeper always treated George Barnard 
 with unusual severity for some time after any occasion 
 upon which, without due notice, he spent a night away 
 from his chambers. " I must go and see Morley Fen- 
 ton this afternoon," continued the barrister, talking 
 to himself, and thereby scandalizing an old lady next 
 to whom he had taken a seat on a Holborn bus. " I 
 must go and see Fenton, and have a yarn with him 
 about Hal. The boy means just as well as ever he 
 can mean, but Well, there's something in Fen- 
 ton's ideas about heredity, and the influences of a phase 
 which precedes birth; and Hal oughtn't to live alone. 
 Great mistake to have shut him out of Weir Lodge 
 and, by gad! what a girl she is! She'd do Hal a heap 
 more good than Hal would ever do her harm. Ah, 
 it's a big mistake to try and play at being Provi- 
 dence! " 
 
 Just as Harold Foster was preparing to leave his 
 chambers for the hospital, and not more than ten 
 minutes after George Barnard's departure, Leo Tarne 
 walked into the little sitting-room, as though from an 
 adjoining apartment. George Barnard had left open 
 the outer door of the little lobby, and Leo Tarne never 
 knocked at doors unless they were locked. He said 
 it was a trying enough practice for postmen and other 
 necessitous persons, who were paid for doing such 
 things. 
 
 "Hullo, Leo!" exclaimed Harold, with a shade 
 of brusqueness in his voice. " What are you doing 
 out of bed in the middle of the night?" 
 
 "Ask of the publishers and other misguided en- 
 thusiasts who make night hideous with sounds of 
 shoppy talk and unearthly appointments. I would not 
 do it for anyone else, but I have an appointment for 
 half-past "ten this morning with the man who pub- 
 lished my first book. I've always felt so sorry for
 
 I22 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 him, poor man! that really I can deny him nothing. 
 That is why I am so punctual. It is only twenty min- 
 utes past now, and in less than an hour I shall be at his 
 office in Covent Garden. All publishers live in Covent 
 Garden, and all maiden ladies live in Camberwell; it's 
 most peculiar. The Carissima will probably go to 
 Camberwell as soon as she is old enough to be a 
 maiden lady, and missionaries from foreign lands will 
 take tea with her, and say pretty things about her eyes. 
 I believe the Carissima has fine eyes; I must ask a 
 missionary " 
 
 " Silence! Give peace in our time! Leo, you have 
 a frightfully bad influence on me. Do you know that 
 I am just starting for the hospital and the realities of 
 life?" 
 
 " My dear fellow, at this hour London contains 
 nothing else but realities, except, of course, in its 
 morning papers. Did you see any of the reviews of 
 my new book this morning?" 
 
 "No; I have only just breakfasted." 
 
 " Really! I wondered what had made you look so 
 bucolic." 
 
 " Leo, you are poisoning me." 
 
 " Never! Moral I have been occasionally. For 
 further particulars, see the reviews this morning. 
 Melodramatic I have never been I swear it, Harold! 
 it's too exhausting." 
 
 " My dear old man, think what this is for me, as 
 preparation for a day at the hospital." 
 
 " I prefer to think of it as compensation, Harold. 
 As a preparer I am less distinguished than as a com- 
 pensator." 
 
 I shall clear out, and leave you here." 
 
 " In pity, no! Your housekeeper will undermine 
 my affections." 
 
 " I will lock you in."
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A STRAIGHT LINE. 123 
 
 " I have a cab outside. Shall I lay bilkery upon 
 my soul ? " 
 
 " I am absolutely rigid in my determination to go 
 to the hospital." 
 
 " In after years you will repent this youthful folly." 
 
 " I am armed with virtue, and clothed in righteous 
 fixity of purpose." 
 
 " You have had a letter from your spiritual ad- 
 viser at Weir Lodge?" 
 
 " I have had breakfast with my worldly adviser, 
 George Barnard." 
 
 "Ah, I cry you mercy! As you are strong, be 
 merciful. Come, I will prove my penitence by goodly 
 deeds. You shall save ten precious minutes of hos- 
 pital realities by sharing my cab." 
 
 " Thanks, Leo. I'm sorry to seem bearish " they 
 were already on the stairs " but I really must keep 
 hold of things, you know." 
 
 " Do, my dear fellow St. Bartholomew's Hospital, 
 cabby. My trouble is always to prevent things catch- 
 ing hold of me." 
 
 " You see," continued Harold as they stepped into 
 Tarne's cab, " I have been rather I have been drifting 
 ' too far lately." 
 
 " By Jove! How quaint! Yet, now you mention 
 it, I think you have; yes, I believe I have noticed that 
 you've been drifting too much. And did Mr. Barnard 
 tell you so?" 
 
 Harold Foster looked sharply at his friend. 
 
 " Well, oddly enough, I believe he did say some- 
 thing of the sort. Why?" 
 
 " Oh, merely that it is the kind of thing I should 
 have expected he would say." 
 
 " George is a dear old chap, Leo, and I am very 
 fond of him." 
 
 "I don't doubt it, my dear Harold; but don't
 
 !2 4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 scold me because of that. I didn't make you fond of 
 him, you know, or not consciously." 
 
 " You are incorrigible. But, really, he is an awfully 
 good old sort, the oldest friend I have ; and if only be- 
 cause it worries him, I mustn't drift too much." 
 
 " I am sure I cautioned you against it at Trouville, 
 even before that fearful woman came and bored me." 
 
 " You did, and I was a beast. But I won't be any 
 more. You know, Leo, I really do want to achieve 
 something myself, apart from George Barnard." 
 
 " The worst of achievement is that it makes you so 
 absolutely unable to do anything." 
 
 " Don't be cynical, Leo. I'm not strong enough 
 yet. And it seems to me, you know, that as far as I'm 
 concerned, achievement lies at the end of a certain 
 uninterestingly straight line so." Harold drew the 
 ferrule of his umbrella across the rubber mat at his 
 feet. 
 
 " I thought the straight path was the one which 
 led However, I interrupted you yes? " 
 
 " Well, and colour and light and beauty things 
 which to me, alone, seem only to be reached by drift 
 lie out here, do you see, in curves on either side of my 
 straight line." 
 
 "This grows upon me. Proceed, Euclid!" 
 
 " Well, when I take little dips into the curves, I 
 can't pursue the curve to the extent of getting back 
 to my straight line at a more advanced point by it." 
 
 "Why, my algebraic friend?" 
 
 " I don't know; but I can't. The ends of the curves 
 have been cut off; they don't seemto rejoin the line. 
 I always come up at the point from which I made the 
 dip. So it follows that if, in anything like one little 
 lifetime, I am to reach the end of the straight line 
 that's achievement, you know my drifts along the 
 curves must be neither frequent nor extensive/'
 
 IN THE MATTER OF A STRAIGHT LINE. 125 
 
 " You speak like a book a library, in fact of 
 parables." 
 
 " Well that's all. And here's the hospital. And 
 as I want the straight line, or, at least, the end of it 
 I do, really, Leo, old man I'm going to try and 
 economize all I know in the matter of those curves. 
 And you must help me. It was awfully good of you to 
 bring me right down here out of your way. Good-bye, 
 Leo." 
 
 " Good-bye, Harold. Come and dine with me on 
 Sunday. They don't allow hospitals to keep open on 
 Sundays, do they? Or is it public-houses? And oh, 
 I say, Harold!" 
 
 " Yes, old man." 
 
 " I say, you know, that straight line hasn't any end 
 really, you know outside the copy-books. It's been 
 cut off, like the ends of the curves, if it ever existed, 
 except as a mirage. Good-bye, Harold." 
 
 And then Mr. Leo Tarne told his cabman to drive 
 to Covent Garden. And Harold Foster walked into 
 the hospital, looking thoughtful.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY." 
 
 " Myself have had hopes of converting 
 The foolish to wisdom, till, sober, 
 My life found its May grow October. 
 I talked and I wrote, but, one morning, 
 Life's autumn bore fruit in this warning : 
 Let tongue rest and quiet thy quill be ! 
 Earth is earth and not heaven and ne'er -will be t 
 Man's work is to labour and leaven 
 As best he may earth here with heaven." 
 
 Pacchiarotto. 
 
 THE occasions upon which George Barnard had 
 crossed the threshold of Mr. Morley Fenton's count- 
 ing-house in Lombard Street were not numerous. 
 There was that about the man which made news-boys 
 in the purlieus of the Stock Exchange forbear to press 
 upon him journals which dealt in " Westralian " sen- 
 sations or South African " slumps." Then mentally 
 gauged the big man, with his viking head and his 
 breezy gait, and half laughingly begged coppers of 
 him, or proffered to him illustrated papers, or comicali- 
 ties of the prize-competition variety. 
 
 Dazzling young clerks, with pale, lank faces and 
 awe-inspiring collars, would eye George with languid 
 superciliousness as being a bumpkin or " outsider " 
 of some description. And, as the barrister yawed 
 largely down narrow, silk-hat-thronged city alleys, 
 grey-haired men, in whose faces feverish acuteness 
 battled always with worn, flat weariness, would turn 
 their heads to look after him, expand their lungs as 
 
 126
 
 "UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY." 127 
 
 the swing of his arms fanned them or a snatch of the 
 tune he hummed reached them, and sigh heavily. 
 
 Towards half-past three on the afternoon of the 
 day on which he had breakfasted with Harold Foster, 
 George Barnard was wending his way through the 
 city to the office of Messrs. Morley Fenton, Son and 
 Co. At the corner of Lombard Street a small boy 
 offered the barrister two oranges for three-halfpence. 
 Barnard took the two oranges, gave the boy twopence, 
 and then returning him one of the oranges, told the 
 lad to eat that himself. Then he paused beside a lamp- 
 post, and began to suck the other orange with keen 
 and evident enjoyment. 
 
 Just as the orange was half finished, and the bar- 
 rister was in the full flood of his appreciation of the 
 fruit, a man passed him, and then, turning round, stood 
 quite still for some seconds watching Barnard. He 
 was a red-bearded, grimy-skinned, tired-eyed man, 
 dressed in shiny black, and carrying in one hand an 
 old and shapeless brown bag. This was one of the 
 hardest worked of London's city missionaries. As, at 
 last, he turned from his contemplation of the big man 
 with the orange, the missionary sighed, and said 
 quietly : 
 
 " ' And of such is the kingdom of heaven ' thank 
 God!" 
 
 George Barnard wiped his lips and tawny mous- 
 tache with a soft, old bandana, and passed on to the 
 counting-house, where Mr. Morley Fenton held silent, 
 methodical sway. Half an hour afterwards Mr. Fen- 
 ton had persuaded the barrister to accompany him to 
 Weir Lodge for the evening. 
 
 " You have great adaptability, George," said the 
 man of business ; " but you are not at home within a 
 half-mile of the Bank. The setting is out of keeping, 
 George. We can talk better down below."
 
 I2 8 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 And so when Norah, waiting and listening in the 
 hall at Weir Lodge, heard steps on the drive outside, 
 she turned away from the vestibule door with the in- 
 differently preoccupied air of one uninterested in the 
 matter of new arrivals. She had heard another step 
 beside Mr. Morley Fenton's. When she did, with 
 overacted nonchalance, step forward to greet the head 
 of the house and his friend, she did so with a little sigh 
 which, though she perhaps was not aware of the fact, 
 meant: "Ah! it is not; no, but it is the next best 
 to that." 
 
 Yet the girl was somewhat strained and nervous 
 when she held out her hand to the barrister. George 
 Barnard retained this little hand in his for perhaps a 
 shade longer than he might have done before that 
 walk in the lane behind Weir Lodge; but in doing so 
 he looked frankly and assuringly into Norah's eyes, 
 and her little twinge of nervous anxiety melted and 
 disappeared, like hoar-frost in the light of an ardent 
 spring sun. 
 
 For some reason similar to that which made Mr. 
 Morley Fenton disinclined to talk to George Barnard 
 in Lombard Street, the barrister, on the journey down 
 to Sunbury that evening had chatted upon a variety 
 of topics, but had said no word about the matter upper- 
 most in his mind. Dinner over, however, and cheroots 
 and coffee well under way in Mr. Fenton's study, he 
 said: 
 
 " I went round to Harold's diggings last night, 
 and fell asleep in his sitting-room while waiting for 
 him to come home." 
 
 " Ah, and how do you think living in town suits 
 him now? I felt a little uneasy about him when I 
 met him after the return from Trouville." 
 
 " Yes, I felt a little uneasy about him yesterday. 
 That's why I waited to see him last night."
 
 "UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY." I29 
 " And " 
 
 " I slept there, and left him this morning starting 
 for the hospital very fit and full of work." 
 
 " Yes, and how had you found him?" 
 
 The barrister puffed thoughtfully at his cheroot, 
 before saying, thoughtfully: 
 
 " Well you know, Morley, I am free to confess that 
 I don't think Hal ought to live alone. You will think 
 all my advice about him objective, because I fancy 
 that even living alone in town, though not good for 
 him, is better than living at the Vicarage in Norwood." 
 
 " And in what way do you think his present style 
 of living bad for Harold, George? " 
 
 " Simply in so far as that I think it not actively 
 good for him. And then I think his temperament 
 demands an atmosphere which should be better for 
 him, more strengthening and repose-giving than any- 
 thing merely negative. After all, you know, it is a 
 good deal to ask of any young man. He is put down, 
 alone, in well, in London, with no routine to steady 
 him, and no incentive to work save such as may come 
 from within, and and doesn't come in a normal young 
 man. The other life, at Norwood, of course, was an 
 active influence on the other side; an irritant and 
 direct incentive to the worst kind of frivole. So I 
 think, at all events." 
 
 " And because of that it was because of that, you 
 know, George we fell in with Harold's own wish to 
 live in town." 
 
 "True; and for that reason my advice about him 
 seems merely objective and not helpful." 
 
 " Not at all. Not at all, George. But what do you 
 suggest? What do you consider lacking?" 
 
 " Well, I think Harold is lacking now, just that 
 active influence which was shut out of his life by the 
 bringing to an end of his visits here."
 
 I30 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's right hand rose to his mous- 
 tache with a characteristic movement which suggested 
 the attitude of a mesmerist whose will-power is being 
 concentrated on the calming and controlling of a rest- 
 ive subject. 
 
 " That is what I have been waiting and fearing to 
 hear from you, George," he said quietly. " From vari- 
 ous causes, I am not able to see as much of Harold 
 as you do, but yet, in some way, I feel most growths 
 and changes in his life. Ever since his visit to his 
 little holiday in France, I have been filled by an uneasy 
 consciousness, which has been strengthened by the 
 little I have seen of him, that he was losing steering- 
 way, and being affected to some extent by the kind 
 of influences which I the very influences from which 
 we most wished to shield him. And now, old friend, 
 I can see in your eyes that you are convinced of the 
 same thing. Is he has Harold committed himself 
 in any way, George?" 
 
 " No, no, I don't think so for a moment; but I 
 think what you say regarding steering-way is about 
 right." 
 
 " Ah, it is very hard to know exactly what can be 
 done, and you know the thought which made me re- 
 move whatever influence his visits here may have had. 
 The circumstances have not changed, and there seems 
 to me a risk of injustice involved." 
 
 " I can't agree with you, old man, and you know I 
 couldn't at first. It seems to me that if the one course 
 contains risks for your niece, the other entails injustice 
 to to Harold." George Barnard rose to his feet on 
 the hearthrug. His mind was occupied by two pic- 
 tures Harold as he had appeared at the door of his 
 own chambers at three o'clock that morning, and 
 Norah Fenton as she had looked when receiving his, 
 Barnard's, assurance that Harold Foster was not drift-
 
 "UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY." 13 r 
 
 irig. " Believe me, Morley, old man," continued the 
 barrister, from his place before the fire, " when Provi- 
 dence brings two people together it's a risky thing to 
 upset Providence's schemes; particularly if the two 
 people are a young man 1 and a young woman. I know 
 you think that anything touching upon home life is 
 beyond my grip, but yet I fancy I know, when I say 
 that Norah could do Harold a lot of good she might 
 but Harold could never do Norah any harm. We 
 outsiders, old man, we sometimes see a little, you 
 know." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton sighed, and uncrossed his out- 
 stretched legs. 
 
 " It is curious," he said, " that you should prac- 
 tically be pleading to me, for on behalf of 
 Harold Foster. Believe me, George, I see with you 
 eye to eye in Harold's interest; but then, you know, 
 you have no feeling of moral responsibility for Nor- 
 ah's life, and you don't know Norah, George, do 
 
 you 
 
 The barrister coloured slightly. 
 
 " Not as you do, of course, but I have studied her 
 pretty closely, and it was that study, and its result, 
 which made me so firm in the belief I told you of just 
 now. You think it over, old man, and credit me with 
 some little knowledge of the good old gardener in us 
 all. And believe me when I say that something 
 the, entree of this house, for choice should be given 
 Hal, for ballast." 
 
 " I do believe you, and I do credit you with knowl- 
 edge, and wide knowledge. I must believe you, for I 
 have told you of my own consciousness of the immedi- 
 ate need for some help in Harold's life. As a matter 
 of fact, I wrote him a long letter on the subject only 
 yesterday morning." 
 
 The barrister thought of the crumpled dress-tie and
 
 , 3 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 the unopened letters on Harold Foster's desk, and he 
 moved uneasily. 
 
 " Some time back," continued Mr. Fenton, " we 
 introduced a new element into his life by bringing him 
 here; and that with a hope of supplying some of the 
 interest he seemed to lack. Then, to protect Norah 
 from danger, the new element was withdrawn by me 
 from Harold. Then, partly with a hope of filling the 
 vacant place it left, we arranged the change in his way 
 of living. And now, I see clearly that something must 
 be done, and done at once, toward the supply of an in- 
 centive to work and to steady steering. I must think 
 over what you have said, George; we must think it 
 over, and do whatever can be done without injustice." 
 
 The barrister nodded his head slowly. He wished 
 he dared say more. But he was thinking of " the little 
 brick," and remembering her instant confusion when 
 he had carelessly hinted at a possibility of his some day 
 conveying to Harold an idea of her effort to have 
 help extended in that " drift " of which Leo Tarne 
 had spoken. No. In whatever cause, no light of 
 pain must be brought into those great, shadowy eyes. 
 The unspoken assurance with which he had answered 
 her greeting in the hall that evening must be scrupu- 
 lously lived up to. The barrister could say no more 
 to his friend. But his thoughts in the matter were 
 luminous, and widely comprehensive. And something 
 of their light may have illumined and given meaning 
 to his hand-shake, when he left Mr. Morley Fenton 
 that evening, and repeated the expression of his opin- 
 ion regarding interference in " Providence's schemes." 
 
 " By the way," he added, as the train in which he 
 was returning to town began to move from the plat- 
 form where Mr. Morley Fenton stood, " Harold 
 lunches with me to-morrow, you know. Join us, if 
 you can manage it, will you? "
 
 "UP AT A VILLA, DOWN IN THE CITY." 133 
 
 Mr. Fenton nodded gravely as he walked beside 
 the moving train. 
 
 "One o'clock at my rooms?" The barrister 
 leaned far out of his carriage-window. 
 
 " One o'clock," assented Mr. Morley Fenton. And 
 turning then, with a little wave of his hand, he slowly 
 retraced his steps down the platform, responded with 
 quiet courtesy to the stationmaster's salutation, and 
 proceeded, with head bent thoughtfully, in the direc- 
 tion of Weir Lodge. 
 
 " I may be a little late to-night, dear," he said to 
 Mrs. Fenton, before re-entering his study, and some 
 ten minutes after parting with George Barnard at the 
 station; "so you won't wait up, will you?" 
 
 Then he bade the girls " Good-night! " in his cus- 
 tomarily grave way, and walked across the hall to the 
 room in one corner of which stood his 'cello. But the 
 'cello was not on this particular evening to be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton sat down in a wicker chair be- 
 fore the study fire. His limbs seemed to relax wearily, 
 and as though in* some way they were no longer 
 amenable to any controlling sense. He sighed, and 
 his hands shook slightly as he passed them slowly 
 over his face, from which they seemed to remove, as 
 a mask might be lowered, all its wonted impassive 
 serenity, and much of its strength of purpose. Much 
 there was which seemed taken from his face, and 
 something there seemed added. The addition was 
 age sad, grey age, which sometimes has nothing to 
 do with years. But it was the ageing of Morley Fen- 
 ton, and the greyness of strength tired strength.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 " With faith it was friends bulwarked him about 
 From infancy to boyhood ; so by youth 
 He stood impenetrably circuited ; 
 Heaven high and low as hell : what lacked he thus, 
 Guarded against oppression, storm or sap? 
 What foe would dare approach ? " 
 
 Red Cotton Nightcap Country. 
 
 THE unquestioned authority over his own house- 
 hold held by Mr. Morley Fenton, resembled most 
 things absolute, in that it was rarely asserted, seldom 
 felt, and never overthrown. 
 
 Once during her married life Mrs. Fenton had ex- 
 pressed a strong desire to set up house in Belgravia. 
 During an entire season Mrs. Fenton had urged her 
 husband to terminate his active connection with the 
 firm in Lombard Street. At different times during 
 the year following a certain general election, Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton's wife had endeavoured to induce him to 
 put himself forward as a candidate for political 
 honours. 
 
 Throughout these phases Mr. Morley Fenton had, 
 up to a certain point, been blandly, courteously depre- 
 catory. The particular point which marked the end 
 of his endurance being passed, he had in these matters 
 allowed his authority to briefly, tersely, assert itself, 
 making it to quickly disappear then behind the ram- 
 parts of its own immovability. 
 
 The owner of Weir Lodge remained the active 
 ruler in the counting-house of Messrs. Morley Fenton,
 
 MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 135 
 
 Son and Co.; he continued to reside quietly at Sun- 
 bury; he refrained from any closer contact with the 
 House of Commons than may be reached in the occa- 
 sional perusal of the daily papers' leading columns; 
 and these several subjects were struck out of the Fen- 
 ton family's list of possible topics. But Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's was not the hand which marked out these 
 topics; and the head of the house was rarely known 
 to say that anything must or must not be. 
 
 Whilst talking over the coffee partaken of above- 
 stairs, on the morning following his conversation with 
 George Barnard, Mr. Fenton said to his wife: 
 
 " Oh, by the way, dear, I am inclined to think, 
 from one or two things I have heard this week, that 
 we both exaggerated the importance of any feeling 
 which may have existed between young Mr. Foster 
 and our Norah." 
 
 " My dear Morley, I was quite sure of my ground 
 so far as Norah was concerned." 
 
 "Ah! Well, in any case neither of them are chil- 
 dren, and I don't know that we have any right to as- 
 sume that our guidance is necessary to them, or to 
 insist on their following it. I think it would be 
 wiser, all things considered, to let events fall out natu- 
 rally." 
 
 "That is, to allow these two to fall in love with 
 each other." 
 
 " I do not agree with you, my dear, and I don't 
 think you will find that such a thing follows. How- 
 ever, that remains to be seen. In the meantime, I 
 think you know that I am more than ordinarily in- 
 terested in Harold Foster's life. In fact, having been 
 his father's closest friend, I have always felt towards 
 him more as a guardian than a friend. He has no rela- 
 tives living, and, with the exception of George Bar- 
 nard, no other old friend except myself."
 
 I3 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Yes." Mrs. Fenton's tone and expression sug- 
 gested expectant wonder and surprise. Her husband's 
 voice reminded her in some vague way of the end 
 which had been brought to those few phases in which 
 she had endeavoured by persuasion to regulate ac- 
 cording to a wish of her own, Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 life. It was reminiscent of those rare occasions upon 
 which she had been suddenly made to realize that her 
 husband was a very strong man, who was master of 
 his own life and his own house. " Yes, dear," she 
 repeated. 
 
 " Well, Harold Foster has been living alone in town 
 for some time past, and has had very few opportuni- 
 ties of enjoying any sort of home life. I want him 
 to visit here again, and on a slightly different footing. 
 I think you all liked the little you saw of him, and 
 I think I may say that there will be no difficulty about 
 Norah. I want you to set aside let me see, suppose 
 you set aside the little walnut room over my study, and 
 let that be kept at Harold Foster's disposal, so that 
 he may come down at any time, and spend his week 
 ends here, you know. He will, of course, retain his 
 town rooms, but I should like you to make him feel, 
 as you so gracefully can, dear, that he may regard 
 our home as his, and use it when he chooses. By the 
 way, I think that was the second gong, was it not? I 
 will be down in two minutes, if you and the girls care 
 to begin breakfast." 
 
 Mrs. Fenton left her husband to the arrangement 
 of his necktie, and went slowly downstairs, thinking 
 over what had been said. There was, of course, noth- 
 ing distasteful to her in this little family arrangement; 
 but it surprised her somewhat, in view of the manner 
 in which Mr. Fenton had received her intelligence of 
 what she had observed between the young man in 
 question and Norah. But tactful Mrs. Fenton prompt-
 
 MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY. ,37 
 
 ly recognised that this wish of her husband's was one 
 of the things which were to be. 
 
 She communicated the news in the wisest possible 
 manner, and as an item of entirely pleasant informa- 
 tion, to the three girls; and when the head of the house 
 took his seat at the breakfast-table, he was promptly 
 assailed with a running fire of questions, one in six 
 of which he answered verbally, and all of which he 
 responded to good-humouredly. 
 
 " Would you care to walk down to the station with 
 me, Norah? The weather is beautifully bright and 
 crisp, and you are not looking anything like so well 
 as you might look." 
 
 If justified by expediency, Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 comment on Norah's appearance was somewhat unfor- 
 tunate when judged under reality's strong light. That 
 the girl was unusually silent might well have been 
 attributed to some other cause than depression, mental 
 or physical, since Lucy and Maud left no gaps between 
 their speeches and questions, and Norah's face was a 
 beautiful and animated picture in ever-changing and, 
 for her, brilliant colouring. 
 
 Norah was dressed for walking, and waiting in the 
 vestibule for Mr. Morley Fenton when that gentleman 
 lighted his cheroot and appeared, prepared for his day 
 in town. On their way to the station he glanced once 
 at the girl's changed face, her warmly-flushed cheeks 
 and glowing eyes, which of late had contained little 
 else than sadness. He said quietly, and as though 
 touching lightly, en passant, upon a trivial subject: 
 
 " You are glad our friend Harold Foster is to be- 
 stow his society upon us a little more often in future, 
 are you not, mavourneen?" 
 
 "Yes, father; I shall be glad to see him." 
 
 " Yes, I think we all shall. It is a pity for anyone 
 young to live so much alone, and I think we have
 
 I3 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 an opportunity of helping him a good deal by making 
 Weir Lodge homelike to him. When a young man 
 has no home he is so liable to make mistakes. With 
 Harold Foster, now, who knows, if he lived alone 
 much longer, whether he might not fall in love, or do 
 some other foolish thing of that sort. I say ' foolish ' 
 because, at this particular stage of his work, such a 
 thing would be fatal to his prospects. And then, 
 again that is one of the necessary evils of our social 
 system it is absolutely essential that Harold should 
 marry someone of independent means, because of his 
 own position and the particular career he has chosen 
 absolutely essential. What a beautiful piece of col- 
 our that strip of gorse makes, does it not?" 
 
 " Yes, beautiful." 
 
 " And, you see, I fancy that we can do a good deal 
 towards saving Harold Foster from any such mis- 
 takes as that, even if he had any inclination to make 
 them, by giving him a relief element of quiet interest 
 in our home, as something to alternate with the hos- 
 pital and town life. I am sure of your good offices 
 in this, mavourneen, because I know he interested 
 you. By the way, is it to-night that you and the girls 
 are going to a dance? " 
 
 " Yes, father; at the Crossthwaites', you know." 
 
 " Ah, well, I will send down some flowers. I shall 
 not be home much before dinner-time this evening 
 myself, and I might bring Harold Foster. You will 
 see that the little walnut room is snug, won't you, 
 dear? And what sort of flowers would you like 
 best?" 
 
 " Oh, I would much rather leave that to you, 
 father; you always choose the nicest. I should like 
 some violets, and Hark! Surely that's the train, 
 father? " 
 
 " I believe it is; I must hurry. Perhaps you had
 
 MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY. I ^g 
 
 better not come into the station. I will send a boy 
 down with the flowers. Good-bye, dear." 
 
 " Good-bye, father." 
 
 While it had lasted their little conversation had 
 seemed to be a casual enough chat about flowers, and 
 that evening's dance, and Harold Foster, and Sunbury 
 scenery. But on her way back to Weir Lodge Norah 
 began to realize that the talk had been one of import, 
 great import to her, and of information almost in- 
 struction about Harold Foster. Norah looked very 
 thoughtful when she reached the house. The effects 
 of the draught of bright wine, which that morning's 
 news had been to her, seemed to have passed off. 
 But Norah, moving to and fro, and handling all things 
 with dainty deftness of touch; Norah spent a good 
 deal of time that morning, in the little walnut room 
 over Mr. Morley Fenton's study. 
 
 When, shortly after one o'clock, the owner of Weir 
 Lodge arrived at his friend's chambers in Furnival's 
 Inn, he found George Barnard in pronounced dis- 
 habille, and scribbling hard at his littered writing- 
 table. On the shabby old couch beside the fireplace, 
 that couch which for at least fifteen years George Bar- 
 nard had been threatening to make away with in favour 
 of something new, Harold Foster lay stretched at full 
 length and gazing at the smoky ceiling above him. 
 
 This was the end of Harold's first twenty-four hours 
 of rigid adherence to his " straight line," that path 
 which Leo Tarne had said was without any real end. 
 The beginnings of most good things, like the ends of 
 most bad things, are exhausting. The relative near- 
 ness of such beginnings and endings may have some- 
 thing to do with this family resemblance in their fea- 
 tures. Social philosophy is lacking in observance of 
 moral periodicity, and the phase life of the imagina- 
 tive temperament.
 
 I40 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Harold Foster had, since his visit to Trouville, 
 been drifting more pronouncedly, perhaps, than even 
 Leo Tarne had guessed more, certainly, than himself 
 of George Barnard had imagined. This was inevita- 
 ble. It was part of Harold's character, and that part 
 which marked the difference between his friend Leo 
 Tarne's temperament and his own. His was in every 
 way the more active, Leo Tarne's in all respects the 
 more negative. Tarne's life was as nearly devoid of 
 phases as his nature was of passion, or his writings of 
 aught else beyond phases. Harold Foster's life, by 
 reason of the vivid sensitiveness of all his perceptive 
 faculties, was as full of phases as a tropical sunset. 
 
 " I live as I think," Leo Tarne had once said to 
 Harold, " and you live as I write, which must be ex- 
 hausting. And then, too, it produces resolutions and 
 repentance, and to avoid further alliteration other 
 things which interfere with one's appetite, and put one's 
 liver out of order." 
 
 Leo Tarne led an " illustrated life," he being pro- 
 jected or reflected on to a series of canvases, himself 
 a prominent figure in each picture. Harold Foster 
 lived a dramatically-grouped life, himself stepping into 
 the centre, the extreme point, of a series of " situa- 
 tions"; his the most outstanding personality in each 
 tableau vivant. 
 
 As has been said, Harold Foster had been drifting 
 almost unreservedly since his visit to Trouville. He 
 had held only very loosely and listlessly the curb rein 
 of his life's bridle. Then, with the chilly hour of his 
 home-coming on Friday morning, had come the burnt- 
 out lamps, and George Barnard's suggested likening 
 of their condition to Harold's own state. That and 
 the circumstances immediately following it, had been 
 not simply a picture, no mere page in an " illustrated 
 life," but a crucial situation, an important scene in a
 
 MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY. I4I 
 
 flesh and blood drama, and the living forerunner of 
 " resolutions and repentance, and other things which 
 interfere with one's appetite, and put one's liver out of 
 order." 
 
 At the end of a hard day's work as his first in the 
 " straight line " path, Harold had taken over another 
 man's evening duty at the hospital, and then, after 
 reading through the small hours, he had left Kensing- 
 ton at half-past eight to attend nine o'clock lecture 
 on Saturday morning. And now, as he lay stretched 
 on George Barnard's couch, his face contained no light 
 of interest to relieve its overstrained weariness. And 
 that inner voice of a man, which at times apologizes 
 to the outer mind for what it says, was whispering 
 to Harold that as a matter of courtesy he was bound 
 to accept Leo Tarne's invitation to dine with the 
 Carissima at his flat on Sunday. " And," added the 
 small voice with deprecating modesty, " perhaps it is 
 as well. It will be a great relief, a rest, a little rift of 
 colour in the greyness, you know." 
 
 " Open that door, like a good fellow, Hal," said 
 the barrister, looking up hurriedly through the cloud 
 of blue smoke which surrounded him, as a knock fell 
 on the outer door of the chambers. " I locked it to 
 keep Mrs. Greet out. It's Mr. Fenton, I expect. Oh 
 yes; I forgot to tell you Mr. Fenton's coming to 
 lunch with us." 
 
 Down went the barrister's lion head once more, 
 and up ros"e a dense addition to his smoke cloud, as 
 murmuring, "By Jove! I wish I'd known," Harold 
 Foster rose to answer a second brisk tap on the door. 
 
 " How are you, Harold? Thank you. It is quite 
 a long while since I have seen you. You are not 
 looking quite so well, I think, as when we last met." 
 
 " I am very well, thanks; but a little tired to-day," 
 explained Harold.
 
 , 4 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Good-morning, Morley," said the man under a 
 cloud at the writing-table. " Sit down a minute and 
 talk, and excuse me, will you? I want to finish this 
 bit of work, so I can post it when we go to lunch. 
 Mind the dog oh, mind that unfortunate idiot dog! 
 I won't be more than five minutes." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton had trodden on the over-trust- 
 ful dog, and that animal had interjected a shrill and 
 hurried remark. 
 
 " I see there is an afternoon concert at the Queen's 
 Hall to-day," said Mr. Fenton, as he sat down facing 
 Harold Foster. " I thought we might go there after 
 lunch, but perhaps you are too tired." 
 
 " No, not at all," replied Harold quickly. " I 
 should enjoy nothing better. I'm only a little fagged 
 through because I was up late last night." 
 
 "Ah! yes, living in town is conducive to late 
 hours, I know, but you must be as careful as you can, 
 you know, because a good deal depends on the next 
 six or eight months, does it not? " 
 
 "Yes. My final at the hospital, you mean?" 
 
 " Exactly. And that entails so much in the 
 way of consequences. By the way, I wanted you to 
 come down to Sunbury this evening, and stay till 
 Monday. What do you think? Mrs. Fenton expects 
 you, and you have had a long spell of town life 
 lately." 
 
 : 'Yes; I should have been delighted, really" 
 Harold hesitated. His face, being pale, 'showed in- 
 stantly a very slight influx of colour " but the fact is, 
 I have promised to dine with Leo Tarne to-morrow 
 evening, at his place, you know." 
 
 "Oh; I am sorry for that." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 There was a slight addition to the suggestion of 
 colour in the young man's face. He was silently
 
 MATTERS OF EXPEDIENCY. 143 
 
 arguing with that inner voice of his, and the inner 
 voice was triumphing easily. 
 
 " They all expect you," continued Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton, adding then, with genuine and forgetful careless- 
 ness, " and I asked Norah to make the room over 
 my study comfortable for you. They will be dis- 
 appointed." 
 
 If at the end of this remark Mr. Morley Fenton 
 had glanced at Harold's face, his subsequent conduct 
 might have been a good deal influenced thereby. But 
 George Barnard's dog, acting at the instance of, or in 
 conjunction with, Providence, ordered matters other- 
 wise. The discriminating animal had chosen this par- 
 ticular moment in which to rise on its hind-legs, and 
 with tentatively wagging tail, announce to the best of 
 its ability its willingness to forget and forgive the 
 accident which had led to a too confiding canine na- 
 ture and a too prominent right front paw, being 
 trampled upon. 
 
 While Mr. Morley Fenton's attention was thus 
 momentarily engaged by George Barnard's dog, a 
 whole wave of recollection and of conflicting thoughts, 
 was reflecting its vivid light upon Harold Foster's 
 face. Norah, the beautiful, shadowy-eyed type and 
 emblem of the short phase which in a few weeks had 
 made Harold familiar with Leo Tarne, and dreamily, 
 happily conscious of another atmosphere outside that 
 of the novelist an atmosphere of dainty white purity, 
 soft music, and home tenderness Norah expected 
 him, and had prepared a room for him! 
 
 In an instant flash of fancy he saw the girl as she 
 had appeared in the light of his awakening wonder, 
 on the Sunday morning following Molesey Regatta, 
 a scarlet poppy flaming out its colour from the hollow 
 between her dark waves of hair, her little right hand 
 raised, and her ripple-tipped lashes curving upward
 
 I44 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 over a wide gaze of seeming wonder at his Harold's 
 presence. He saw her in a dozen different garbs, 
 and in the varying settings of a score of changing 
 surroundings, all beautiful; and he remembered all 
 she had embodied in that short phase, the end of 
 which had come with rude abruptness, and yet he 
 knew not exactly how or when or why. And Norah 
 expected him! 
 
 When Mr. Morley Fenton looked up a moment 
 later from George Barnard's aggressively forgiving 
 dog, Harold Foster's face was pale and once more in 
 repose. He was feeling in his pocket for a cigarette 
 an all-important conversational factor and refuge 
 to the modern man and his eyes were lowered, as he 
 said quietly: 
 
 " Well, of course, I could send word round to Leo 
 Tarne to explain that I cannot be with him to-morrow. 
 I I don't suppose he would mind." 
 
 " Ah, yes that is better. After all, Mr. Tarne 
 sees more of you than we do, I dare say; and I am 
 sure an occasional change from town life is whole- 
 some. Then we will regard that as settled?" 
 
 " Yes ; thank you very much. I shall be very glad 
 to come." 
 
 "Ah! O-oh!" The long-drawn exclamation 
 came from the smoke-curtained writing-table. 
 
 "What's the matter, George?" asked Harold. 
 
 "Oh, nothing nothing, my dear boy! But I've 
 finished my screed, that's all; and I'm the hungriest 
 man in England and the blithest. That's what's 
 wrong with me."
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 PROVIDENCE AND MR. MORLEY FENTON. 
 
 " No 'tis ungainly work, the ruling men, at best ! 
 The graceful instinct's right : 'tis women stand confessed 
 Auxiliary, the gain that never goes away, 
 Takes nothing and gives all." 
 
 Fifine at the Fair. 
 
 GEORGE BARNARD'S appetite did not appear to be 
 so startling when he sat down to lunch with Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton and Harold Foster at the Constitutional 
 Club, as his own statement regarding it might have led 
 one to think. He did justice to the meal, however, 
 as he did to most meals in the preparing of which 
 Mrs. Greet's peculiar talents had had no opportunity 
 of asserting themselves; and he was obviously in the 
 best of good spirits. 
 
 At Mr. Morley Fenton's suggestion, Harold Foster 
 left his friends after luncheon, and proceeded alone to 
 his rooms in Kensington, in order to despatch a note 
 to Leo Tarne regarding the next day's engagement. 
 At the same time he packed a small bag, and sent it to 
 Waterloo to await him there. Hurrying back then to 
 town, Harold met George Barnard and Mr. Fenton 
 at the concert hall, where the three spent something 
 like a couple of hours very pleasantly. 
 
 Later on, the barrister accompanied his friends to 
 Waterloo, and stayed chatting for some minutes after 
 Mr. Morley Fenton and Harold had taken their seats 
 in the Sunbury train. 
 
 " Better come down with us, George, for the even- 
 i45
 
 I4 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ing anyhow," suggested Mr. Fenton. He had made 
 the same suggestion at an earlier stage in the after- 
 noon. 
 
 " Thank you, old man, but I can't manage it. I 
 must get through the work I'm on just now." 
 
 "Ah, well! you may be able to come down with 
 Harold this time next week." 
 
 " Yes, I hope so. Good-bye, Morley. Good-bye, 
 Harold. I suppose you will come up to town together 
 on Monday? " 
 
 " Yes, pretty sure to, I expect. Good-bye." 
 
 And the Sunbury train moved out from the sta- 
 tion, leaving George Barnard on the platform, look- 
 ing after it half longingly. He had felt a strong de- 
 sire to accept Mr. Morley Fenton's invitation, for, 
 like most other bachelors, the barrister had his week- 
 end phases of loneliness. But something had told him 
 that Harold Foster might be made to feel the more 
 at home in Weir Lodge on the occasion of this visit 
 if he were Mr. Fenton's only guest. The barrister 
 told himself that he represented town and bachelor- 
 dom in Harold's life, and might therefore, without 
 wishing it, stand between the latter and the home at- 
 mosphere at Sunbury that atmosphere which was to 
 serve Harold as ballast. 
 
 So George Barnard walked slowly down the sta- 
 tion platform, and made the best of his journey back 
 to Furnival's Inn alone. 
 
 " We shall have a very quiet evening, Harold," 
 said Mr. Morley Fenton, when the train they were 
 travelling in had placed some miles between itself and 
 George Barnard; "but perhaps that will be quite as 
 well, since you are tired. The girls are going to a 
 dance this evening." 
 
 "Oh yes. Are they all well?" 
 
 " Yes, thanks ; I think they are very well. Norah
 
 PROVIDENCE AND MR. MORLEY FENTON. 147 
 
 has been rather pale and languid lately, but she was 
 always a little delicate, you know. Constitutional on 
 her mother's side, I fancy. And then I do not think 
 she has ever been quite the same since her father 
 died." 
 
 " No ; she does give one the impression of having 
 been saddened." 
 
 " Yes. They were great friends, you see, she and 
 her father. He was a sweet-natured man, who suf- 
 fered all his life through not having been born with an 
 independence of some sort. He was not qualified for 
 forcing one out of the world, poor fellow; and so 
 Norah was left really without anything." 
 
 " Ah! yet she has a good deal which one does not 
 see- in all girls." 
 
 " Oh yes ; she has her beauty, and a very sweet 
 nature. I think she will make some man very happy 
 by-and-by. And I think when that time comes it will 
 do Norah herself a great deal of good. Hers is the 
 kind of nature which I think is rounded off and greatly 
 benefited by marriage." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Leo Tarne and all that he represented in Harold 
 Foster's life, was fading fast now from out the young 
 man's immediate mental environment, and all sorts 
 of misty, delicate fancies and ideas were blending, in 
 place of this, round the anticipatory influences of the 
 Weir Lodge home circle. But these fancies were as 
 yet vague, formless things, aerial shapes, to which 
 meaning had not given outline. 
 
 " In fact," continued Norah's adopted father, " to 
 let you into a little parental confidence, I may tell you 
 that one of my ideas in bringing Norah to Weir Lodge 
 was that we might be able to find the right husband 
 for her. You see, when the child does marry, it is ab- 
 solutely essential that she should marry a man of some
 
 I4 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 means. Then, I think, she would benefit by marriage; 
 but she must never be a poor man's wife. A country 
 life is what I think Norah should have, and a well- 
 to-do husband, with very few, if any, professional ties. 
 But this is domesticity with a vengeance, and must be 
 very uninteresting to you." 
 
 " Not at all " the younger man coloured slightly, 
 and smiled in a constrained way " not at all. But 
 I was wondering how you would manage if if I call 
 her ' Miss Fenton,' you see, I have no name left for 
 your eldest daughter." 
 
 " Exactly. Call her Norah. You will be seeing a 
 good deal of each other now, you know." 
 
 " Well, I was going to say, I was wondering how 
 you would manage if Norah fixed upon the wrong 
 man? " 
 
 " Ah, but I don't think she will. I don't think she 
 is much inclined to fix upon any man. She feels at 
 home where she is, and when she leaves us I shall 
 miss her just as much as though she were really my 
 own daughter. No, I don't think she will choose 
 the wrong man. And then, you know, that is just 
 where we fathers have to exercise our diplomacy, and 
 look ahead with eyes which see more than our chil- 
 dren's eyes can see. I am practically able to see that 
 if that child she is a very womanly child, by the way 
 were to marry anyone other than a man of leisure 
 and of considerable means, she would be unhappy. 
 Consequently, don't you see, I keep a sharp look-out 
 along the rim of her horizon. Mrs. Fenton shares 
 my look-out, and if we sighted any piratical-looking 
 craft bearing down towards this particular schooner- 
 yacht of ours, we should er range alongside to 
 shield her, or even put her a few points off her course 
 until the pirate was out of sight. Really, I had no 
 idea I was so nautical or so prosy."
 
 PROVIDENCE AND MR. MORLEY FENTON. 149 
 
 " On the contrary, I am very much interested." 
 
 " A glimpse behind the scenes, eh? " 
 
 " Quite. And are all all vessels without inde- 
 pendent means, and the other things, you know, 
 pirates? " 
 
 " In this case, yes, I think they would be. In most 
 cases, no. But you follow my reasoning, do you not? 
 You see why I feel that certain conditions are essential 
 to Norah's happiness a husband who should be thor- 
 oughly a home bird, amongst other things." 
 
 " Ye-es yes, I see." 
 
 " Have you another of those cigarettes? Thanks. 
 I don't know why my cheroot should have burned 
 so badly to-day, I'm sure." (It was curious, in view 
 of the casual vein in which Mr. Morley Fenton had 
 been talking, that he should have so neglected his 
 cheroot.) " Thanks, I was going to say, whilst still 
 on this behind-the-curtain subject, that my wife, like 
 most of her sex, has a way of jumping rather hastily 
 at conclusions. In the looking-out process I fancy 
 she was half inclined to regard you as a possible pirate, 
 an unconscious one I believe she credited you with 
 being, but a pirate. Well, of course I reassured her 
 on that point, knowing you as I do. So for the future 
 you will be a privileged cruiser, as it were, sailing 
 under a flag of treaty in treaty waters, eh? " 
 
 "Just so; of course." 
 
 Thinking the matter over at a later stage, Harold 
 Foster told himself that the manner in which he had 
 become a party to this treaty was peculiar. 
 
 " Yes," continued Mr. Morley Fenton, as though 
 in reply to some observation ; " in this matter there is 
 really a certain sort of similarity between your position 
 and Norah's, except that it would be a rather danger- 
 ous thing for you to fall in love with even the most 
 eligible of partis just now, because so much depends
 
 I50 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 on your freedom from distraction during the coming 
 year. Later on, of course But you are not a 
 family man, and all this forecasting will bore you. I 
 thought I might as well mention the matter, since it 
 had cropped up between Mrs. Fenton and myself, and 
 you are sure to be brought a good deal into contact, 
 now, with my wife and the girls. At least, I hope 
 you will. I want you to treat Weir Lodge as a home." 
 
 " That's very kind of you," murmured Harold. 
 
 " And, feeling sure, as I did, that you would readily 
 grasp the situation, as affecting Norah and yourself, 
 I had no hesitation in er in, as it were, giving peace 
 guarantee for you, and asserting your privileges as a 
 friend of the family." 
 
 " You are very good very good." 
 
 It was one of those points in conversation at which 
 one gropes in vacancy for an observation. Harold 
 Foster's groping was unsuccessful. He had a curious 
 feeling of having been absorbed and distributed along 
 the lines of a stronger nature's desires. Mr. Morley 
 Fenton lost no least fleeting change of expression in 
 Harold's face, though he seemed to be studying con- 
 templatively his cigarette. Only a very close observer 
 would have noticed the slightest indication in Mr. 
 Morley Fenton's fine face of any mental state other 
 than restful, impassive serenity. But, then, this face 
 had in it no tell-tale characteristics, unless, perhaps, 
 in the network of fine veins, sometimes not discernible, 
 but just now clearly visible, on either side of the high 
 forehead. 
 
 " By the way," observed Mr. Fenton, with an in- 
 flection of casual interest in his voice, " are you still 
 ' clerking ' at the hospital, Harold? " 
 
 "No; I am dressing now, under Carrington. I 
 think you know Carrington, do you not?" 
 
 " Yes." Mr. Fenton tossed his half-smoked cigar-
 
 PROVIDENCE AND MR. MORLEY FENTON. i 5l 
 
 ette under the seat facing him, with a little sigh which 
 suggested relief of some sort. " Yes, I have known 
 Carrington for some time. A very good man to be 
 under I should think." 
 
 " Yes, he is counted amongst the first flight." 
 
 " Ah! and I suppose ' dressing ' is more interesting 
 work than the other, is it not?" 
 
 " Ye-es yes, I think it is. There's more of it, 
 anyhow." 
 
 " And, of course, it is more practical. Ah, here's 
 Sunbury; this must have been a slow train. Don't 
 forget your umbrella, Harold. Good-evening, John- 
 son. It is very cold." 
 
 When Harold Foster and his host reached the Weir 
 Lodge garden, they were chatting on the subject of 
 singing in general, and the vocal items of that after- 
 noon's concert in particular. There was a pleasant 
 and satisfied ring in Mr. Fenton's voice, and Harold 
 had forgotten, for the moment, both the conversation 
 of the previous half-hour, and the little shadow of 
 nervousness which he had felt about this visit to Weir 
 Lodge. 
 
 " I suppose the girls are preparing for their even- 
 ing's dissipation," said Mr. Morley Fenton, as he 
 helped Harold to remove his overcoat, in the vestibule 
 where Norah was wont to greet her adopted father 
 on his home-coming. " If you will leave your bag 
 there, I will Ah, here's Norah. Good-evening, 
 dear. I'm afraid we are a little late." 
 
 Harold Foster had been facing the door at which 
 Norah appeared, whilst Mr. Fenton had turned to 
 place his gloves in a drawer. Consequently, the eyes 
 of his two proteges had met before Mr. Morley Fenton 
 was aware of Norah's presence. Norah was dressed 
 for the evening, and heavy double violets nestled be- 
 tween delicate sprays of lily of the valley under her
 
 152 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 flowing girdle on one side, and in the bosom of her 
 gown on the other. 
 
 Their eyes met, and were simultaneously lowered 
 under one and the same impulse. Both were recol- 
 lecting certain casual words of Mr. Morley Fenton's. 
 Both were far more stirred by that suddenly averted 
 look, each into the eyes of the other, than either would 
 have been had either lacked that impulse of recollec- 
 tion. George Barnard would have called this the re- 
 sult of " playing at being Providence." But George 
 Barnard was a bachelor and a Bohemian, two indis- 
 putable proofs, of course, of inability to judge cor- 
 rectly in matters connected with family life. As a 
 matter of fact, all that happened was that Norah, who 
 had been beautiful when she appeared at the vestibule 
 door, became more beautiful while she stood there, 
 with shaded eyes and rising fruit-like colour; and Har- 
 old Foster forgot to say " Good-evening " or anything 
 else, when he took her hand in his. 
 
 But Mr Morley Fenton, being moved by no remi- 
 niscent impulse, chatted for both in calm and even 
 tones, as the three walked into the circle of light and 
 warmth round the hall fire.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. 
 
 " The common problem, yours, mine, everyone's, 
 Is not to fancy what were fair in life 
 Provided it could be but finding first 
 What may be, then find how to make it fair 
 Up to our means : a very different thing ! 
 
 You see lads walk the street 
 Sixty the minute ; what's to note in that ? 
 You see one lad o'erstride a chimney-stack ! 
 Him you must watch he's sure to fall, yet stands ! 
 Our interest's on the dangerous edge of things." 
 
 Bishop Blougram's Apology. 
 
 HAROLD FOSTER was more physically tired on this 
 Saturday evening of his return to Weir Lodge than 
 he himself was aware. He had been exhausted when, 
 in the small hours of the previous day, he had found 
 George Barnard waiting in his chambers, and since 
 then he not only had been practically without sleep, 
 but had been enduring a sudden and self-imposed 
 strain the strain of mechanical effort in an abruptly- 
 changed mode of life. This is the keynote to the phase 
 life, the bane and pathos of the extremist temperament : 
 the price paid by the sanguine nature for its morbid 
 reactions, by the morbid nature for its sanguine inter- 
 ludes. 
 
 Acting right through all this, Harold's meeting 
 with Norah, and the instant sympathy evoked by their 
 jointly-acted-upon impulse of reserve, had stirred the 
 young man to his nature's deep places. Playing over 
 and about the surface of all this, Maud Fenton's high- 
 
 i53
 
 I5 4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 spirited effervescence during dinner spurred Harold 
 on to responsiveness, almost to emulation, of her 
 gaiety. Then, before the last stages of dinner were 
 reached, came the warning sound of wheels on the 
 drive outside, a vision of bright faces in cloudy set- 
 tings of evening wraps, laughing excuses and hurried 
 "Good-nights!" and Harold Foster found himself 
 drinking his coffee alone with his host and hostess. 
 
 Then the young man's tiredness showed through 
 the thin film of his reserve, a film which melted in the 
 warm light of domesticity which the three girls had 
 left in their wake. Harold became unguarded, naked 
 almost, in his talk of himself. He spoke of all that he 
 had found oppressive in his Norwood life; of that irk- 
 someness which had wearied him in the hospital rou- 
 tine; of how he turned for relief from these things to 
 Leo Tarne, and to ways and paths suggested by Leo 
 Tarne's atmosphere; of how he had found some change 
 in this way, but only a little relief; of how his own 
 ideals pointed to a blend of much that Leo Tarne had 
 shown him, with a softer, simpler life, the centre- 
 piece and altar of which would be home. 
 
 Mrs. Fenton smiled sympathetically, eking out 
 Harold's unguarded periods with encouraging com- 
 monplaces. Mr. Morley Fenton, with a feminine in- 
 stinct of desire to shield and hide nakedness in one of 
 his own sex, threw himself conversationally between 
 his wife and his protege. This he did repeatedly, with- 
 out much success. Then he rose from his chair, and 
 asked Harold Foster to join him in his study, where 
 he wished to smoke. 
 
 " I shall be sitting up until after the girls come 
 in, dear," he said to Mrs. Fenton ; " so I hope you 
 will not think of waiting for them. Harold, I 
 know, is tired out, and will not be sorry to go early to 
 bed."
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. ^5 
 
 "Not at all," protested Harold; "I feel beauti- 
 fully rested now, really." 
 
 Harold had some time since passed that stage at 
 which a young man's own opinion in this particular 
 matter ceases to be of any great value. 
 
 Mrs. Fenton smiled as she walked past her hus- 
 band to the door of the room. 
 
 " Ah well," she said, " I have a few letters to write 
 and a little work to do, but in case I do not see you 
 later on, in the drawing-room, I will say good-night, 
 Mr. Foster." 
 
 " A wise precaution, believe me," said the head of 
 the house; "there is such a thing as being too tired 
 to feel tired, Harold." 
 
 So the three separated, Mrs. Fenton going to the 
 drawing-room, and Harold accompanying his host to 
 the room where the 'cello stood. 
 
 Most men are made to feel stronger by speaking 
 unreservedly, and to a sympathetic audience, of their 
 own weakness. Many men are made to feel compara- 
 tively well-to-do, by a little open talk about their own 
 penury. He is refreshed and temporarily stimulated, 
 who has with any degree of eloquence or lucidity 
 given words to his weariness. 
 
 Arrived with Harold in his study, Mr. Morley 
 Fenton sat down before his writing-table, and pro- 
 ceeded to fill a pipe. He motioned Harold to a very 
 low, sloping-backed wicker-chair, which faced away 
 from the only light in the room a green-shaded lamp 
 standing on the writing-table. Thus, Mr. Fenton saw 
 the young man's face in profile, while Harold, except 
 when his head was turned, saw nothing beyond a glow- 
 ing wood fire, and warm, dull rays flickering from it 
 in the surrounding shadows. 
 
 "Ah!" sighed Harold, as his gleaming head sank 
 back into the cushion of the wicker-chair. " I feel
 
 I5 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 wide awake and beautifully refreshed now. You are 
 very good to me, and there is the working den's sense 
 of freedom about this charming room." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton smiled, and, leaning forward, 
 lowered slightly the green-shaded lamp. 
 
 " I am afraid," continued the younger man, cross- 
 ing his outstretched feet " I'm afraid I shall never 
 make a society man a correct and useful member 
 of the orthodox community." 
 
 " Why? Surely the presence of Mrs. Fenton does 
 not mean any great conventional restraint to you? " 
 
 "Oh no!" Harold was in haste to redeem the 
 sentiment his last words had implied. " No, you are 
 all so kind to me here; you make light of my awk- 
 wardness, and hide from me my own sins against 
 society's decalogue. But conscience, or something, 
 opens my eyes at times, and I realize that I am never 
 natural or really at ease, except in except when hope- 
 lessly incorrect." 
 
 " I don't think you need be alarmed. It is not 
 likely that these sins of yours against the proprieties 
 are seen by anyone but yourself. They may be merely 
 the creations of over-sensitiveness and imagination." 
 
 " Hardly, I think ; but it's true they don't weigh 
 heavily upon me. May I be perfectly frank?" 
 
 " Please. You are at home, you know." 
 
 " Thank you. Well, it is not really that I reproach 
 myself much for sinning against the canons, or for 
 falling short of Mrs. Grundy's requirements, but rather 
 that I cannot bring myself to try and refrain from 
 these sins, or to endeavour to satisfy the requirements. 
 They seem to me to entail so empty and deadly unin- 
 teresting a life. The standards seem so petty, the 
 limits so narrow, their fulfilment so irksome, fruitless, 
 and unsatisfying. The conventional state seems to 
 me to represent so much pose and so little reality, such
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. I57 
 
 endless process and such trivial attainment, such un- 
 ceasing strain and quite colourless effects, so much 
 wearisome existence and so very little life. So, if I 
 am penitent for my shortcomings, I stand in dread 
 in positive dread of the life without reproach on 
 this score." 
 
 " Ah! I think I understand your feeling. But yet, 
 I assure you, Harold, that conventionality has its uses, 
 and respect for the canons you despise, brings its own 
 reward a liberal one." 
 
 " But it seems to me to render appreciation im- 
 possible even the appreciation of its own reward. 
 Of course, I don't mean that I think I am right and 
 the rest of the world wrong. No; it is my want of 
 understanding something in me awry, some twist in 
 my nature, which distorts my view of life and vitiates 
 my taste. This seems inherent in me." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton sighed. 
 
 " There are very few inherent tendencies," he said, 
 " so strong that they may not be bent and subdued 
 into any channel one chooses. It is left to a lower 
 creation to simply follow the surface dictates of its 
 disposition." 
 
 " Yes ; I suppose so. But is one right in assuming, 
 as a matter of course, that one's inborn tendencies, 
 when not in accord with all things established and 
 accepted, should be subdued or forced to run along 
 the recognised grooves?" 
 
 " That, of course, must be determined by the nature 
 of the tendencies." Mr. Morley Fenton's voice lacked 
 modulation. One might have almost fancied that of 
 set purpose he spoke in a droning, or, at least, a restful 
 key. " But as a general thing, I think, you would 
 not be far wrong in that assumption. You see, you 
 have the edicts, and presumably the wisdom, of all 
 the ages to consider in juxtaposition with inclinations
 
 158 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 of your own, which may, after all, be merely the fruit 
 of passing phases in your life. It is hard to be sure 
 that any given tendency is really one of your nature's 
 permanent needs. A poet whose work is fascinating 
 in its wisdom has said: 
 
 " ' Grow old along with me ! 
 The best is yet to be, 
 The last of life, for which the first was made.' " 
 
 " I see. Yes, of course, it is a sort of impudence for 
 a young man to accept his own feelings as his guide 
 and law, in place of the laws which conventionality 
 has made and sanctioned." 
 
 Harold Foster's estimate of his own wakefulness 
 appeared to be correct, for his eyes were shining now, 
 his fingers moved nervously on the arms of the wicker- 
 chair, and his voice was as full of unstudied anima- 
 tion as Mr. Fenton's was of restful evenness natural 
 or assumed. But the younger man's uncertainly mov- 
 ing lips and over-weighted diction, suggested rather 
 the tenseness which comes of unstrung or too-highly- 
 strung nerves, than the enthusiasm of healthy interest. 
 
 " No, not impudence," said Mr. Fenton quietly. 
 " Say it is impolitic a method which lacks diplomacy, 
 and is likely to prove unprofitable." 
 
 " And yet, isn't there a kind of meanness about 
 choking your own convictions, and living according 
 to theories you which you don't believe in, for the 
 , sake of possible, or even certain, gain? I mean when 
 either course only affects yourself. Doesn't it seem 
 a finer, cleaner sort of thing to say, ' Well, hit or miss, 
 this is what I believe, and so I live accordingly'?" 
 
 " Ah! but the mere fact of yourself being the only 
 person involved surely makes a pure matter of taste 
 of the question of living according to your own con- 
 victions, or the convictions of those who have built
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. 
 
 159 
 
 up society. If either course involves meanness, then, 
 in the light of your own view, it could only be a man's 
 meanness to himself. As a matter of fact, I think it's 
 not a fair statement of the case. You may be firmly 
 convinced of the wisdom of eating without the use of 
 a knife or fork. It is not meanness which causes you 
 to refrain from acting on this theory. A man's method 
 of dealing with the events of his daily life can never, 
 in a civilized community, be a matter affecting only 
 that man himself. Life as it is, the world as we find 
 it, are, after all, the things one has to deal with; and 
 believe me, ' it's wiser being good than bad it's fitter 
 being sane than mad.' Young folk sometimes speak 
 contemptuously of conventional and worldly success, 
 as though they themselves lived in the moon, or in 
 some hitherto undiscovered planet. We have only 
 one world to our hand, Harold, one world for one 
 life the life of the next will be made clear in the next 
 and granting that success is preferable to failure, 
 and that ' worldly ' means ' of the world,' then what 
 save worldly success should a man strive to win? And 
 respect for the conventions is one of the conditions 
 of the race; one of the things expected of those who 
 want to be, by those who are, in the world which is 
 that world we know and feel, were born in and must 
 die in." 
 
 Harold sighed, and Mr. Fenton continued, with a 
 little upward movement of one hand, but with no 
 change in his even tone: 
 
 "Am I preaching? Forgive me. But there are 
 certain points in life, Harold, at which mistakes are 
 more disastrous, indecision less permissible, than at 
 others. Some tactics are made worth adopting by the 
 goal they lead to, and perhaps by the good in them- 
 selves, Harold." 
 
 Harold had not interrupted Mr. Fenton even by a
 
 !6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 gesture, though, while the older man had been speak- 
 ing with calm, gentle insistence, the young one's hands 
 had been nervously clasping and unclasping on his 
 knees, his head had ceased to rest on the cushioned 
 chair-back, and his thoughts, tumbling one over the 
 other, had evidently forced themselves to the extreme 
 verge of articulation. Now that the tuneless flow of 
 smooth words had ceased, Harold turned half round in 
 his chair and faced Mr. Fenton, in the soft light of 
 the green-shaded lamp. His eyes were filmy with 
 physical fatigue, his chin out-thrust with nervous em- 
 phasis, his lips moving, as though the words they 
 would give birth to were heralded by labour pains. 
 
 " I feel," he said, " as though the wisdom of the 
 things you say would choke me. It is so pitiless and 
 cruel or else it is only untrue. But, right or wrong, 
 I could not make it mine; and, if you think me mad, 
 then please don't think me rude as well, for I don't 
 mean to be; and I cannot even explain to you what 
 I do mean. Only this, that in the kind of life you speak 
 of the world where people breathe by rote, and speak 
 and eat and live according to policy I have found 
 nothing that has not been wearisome to me. I have 
 seen no beauty in it, learned nothing, made no dis- 
 coveries, experienced no single little thrill unless, 
 sometimes, of sadness. Outside that world, I have 
 breathed freely and been glad to breathe. I have 
 learned many things, seen much of what to me was 
 beauty, been thrilled in a hundred ways, and made 
 discovery on discovery. I have felt myself living 
 stood back and watched my heart beat, and my blood 
 pulse. And for all of it I have been glad, and not 
 weary. Yet that has been only from glimpses. I have 
 lived always, really, in the world you speak of; but 
 at times more entirely than at other times. And it 
 seems to me, that at intervals, when my life has almost
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. j6i 
 
 stopped, it was so empty, I have turned aside for one 
 of these glimpses into the other world, and have started 
 the blood in my veins again, by just one little look. It 
 seems that against five-and-twenty years of existence 
 in one world, I place five-and-twenty days of life in 
 another, and that that forces the scale of me to bal- 
 ance in the centre of this moment present." 
 
 Harold paused for an instant, and as though his 
 mind half feared the launching into being of its own 
 children. Then, with a little backward movement of 
 his fair head, he continued: 
 
 " And I look at the lives of others round me and 
 high above me in their assured states, and I say: 
 ' Are we differently made, I and you, or is your life 
 part hidden, or how, then, do you find something 
 which looks like ease and content in the same kind of 
 little narrow round that fills my lungs with fog? How 
 do you pass so smoothly along the groove which for 
 me seems lined with out-jutting spikes of impossibil- 
 ity?' That's when their eyes seem to me seeing and 
 understanding eyes eyes made to sweep the horizon 
 outside. I don't want to ask that of the Norwood 
 people. Some folk seem to me to hibernate in sanctity, 
 to be cataleptics in conventionality, and to walk in a 
 dream, drowsy with the fumes of rarefied respectabil- 
 ity. But I forgive me I look in that way sometimes 
 at you, and and want to ask you. Please don't put 
 this down as impertinence. I felt bound to tell you, 
 after what you said. And when I watch you, coming 
 and going, and here in this beautiful, still house, which 
 seems to me like a great, magnificent place full of tiny 
 separate cells; seeing how wise you are, and how 
 strong you are, and how many lives you must know, 
 I wonder I, with my little tired life in one world, and 
 my tiny, flash glimpses of another I wonder how you 
 have done it, how you go on doing it, whether you
 
 !6 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 never want to shout, whether you never feel as though 
 the restrained, perfectly-fatting, inevitable little round 
 of things which knows no divergence, will would 
 choke you you, who must have drawn so many 
 breaths, and deep ones. I 
 
 Again Harold paused. This time his head reached 
 its original resting-place against the chair-back. He 
 began to speak again. But his mind had been deliv- 
 ered, and his body was left limp and listless. The 
 jangling nerves hung loose and pulseless now. His 
 eyes were half closed. The way of his weariness was 
 undisputed by Harold. All he said was: 
 
 " I am afraid what I have said must seem like pure 
 rudeness. I am very sorry; I did not wish to be rude, 
 but only to try and explain myself in the light of what 
 your words mean to me. My my respect for you 
 is as for my father." 
 
 Harold had leaned forward over his last words, 
 with one hand outstretched. Mr. Morley Fenton rose 
 to his feet, and took Harold's tremulous hand in his 
 own, holding it for a moment; and a curiously in- 
 scrutable smile flickered under the heavy, silver-pointed 
 brown moustache, as he said: 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know, my dear Harold. I don't mis- 
 understand you." 
 
 There was something marvellously soothing in the 
 older man's voice as he said these few words. Some- 
 thing there was, too, big with suggestion of restfulness 
 in the slow, upward and forward movement of his 
 hand, as, having released Harold's, Mr. Fenton raised 
 and then gently lowered it to his side. So, and not in 
 any other way, one may see a clever young doctor 
 move his hand before a restive and nervously alert 
 patient. With such a gesture, too, one may occasion- 
 ally see a horse-breaker, who is an artist in his work, 
 pass one firm hand over the forehead and quivering
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. j6 3 
 
 nostrils of a high-strung colt. Such men make no 
 professions about hypnotism. Practice and profession 
 are but distantly related; and this is well, in view of 
 the value of the one and the amount of time requisite 
 for proficiency in the other. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton, holding his long study pipe 
 in one hand, turned from where Harold sat, and moved 
 silently across the room to where a phthoric old book- 
 case stood. He drew out a book, with the touch of a 
 man who loves books, and turned again then to his 
 chair and the circle of soft light thrown out by the 
 green-shaded lamp. A long-drawn sigh came from 
 the low wicker-chair. There was nothing aggressive 
 left now in Harold's immediate environment. The 
 battling element in his nature was asleep; his eyelids 
 drooped low; his position was recumbent; his hands 
 lay still beside him; even the sensitive lips were in 
 repose. 
 
 " Are you too tired to listen to something I should 
 like read to you, Harold?" Mr. Fenton looked up 
 from the open book on the table before him. 
 
 " No please." Harold's eyes did not move as he 
 spoke. Again that queer smile, which seemed to say 
 so little and to mean so much, drew down the corners 
 of Mr. Fenton's mouth. 
 
 " It is something written by a great-hearted man, 
 Harold, whose loving wisdom is even more wonderful 
 than his art. His work and and my 'cello, have 
 meant a great deal in my life. See! An elderly man, 
 a ' potent grave and reverend seigneur/ is talking, 
 over his wine, to a young, clever, literary man, pre- 
 sumably a Bohemian. 
 
 " ' No more wine ? Then we'll push back chairs and talk.' " 
 
 Harold listened, and, reading lovingly, interpret- 
 ing lucidly, Mr. Morley Fenton pursued in low, full
 
 !6 4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 tones the pregnant English in which the subsequent 
 lines were clothed glowingly. As these fell across 
 Harold's passive intelligence, the effect produced on 
 his senses seemed to him like that he would expect 
 from the rustling of kingly robes. 
 
 " ' Now's the time : , 
 
 Truth's break of day ! You do despise me, then ; 
 And if I say, despise me never fear ! 
 I know you do not in a certain sense 
 Not in my arm-chair, for example : here, 
 I well imagine you respect my place 
 (Status entourage, worldly circumstance) 
 Quite to its value very much indeed." " 
 
 Harold was interested, deeply interested. Yet he 
 was tasting the delights of abandon to completest lan- 
 guor. Looking up whilst turning a page, Mr. Morley 
 Fenton smiled as he noticed that Harold's eyes were 
 quite closed now. There was something of the nurse, 
 a good deal of the mother, and all the kindness of the 
 strong man, in Mr. Morley Fenton's smile. 
 
 " ' Your ideal of life 
 
 Is not the bishop's : you would not be I. 
 You would like better to be Goethe, now 
 Or Buonaparte, or, bless me, lower still, 
 Count D'Orsay.' "... 
 
 Harold's fair head inclined ever so little to one 
 side, on the wicker-chair's cushion. The firm, even 
 tones of the reader continued, without pause or change. 
 
 "' So, drawing comfortable breath again, 
 You weigh and find, whatever more or less 
 I boast of my ideal realized, 
 Is nothing in the balance when opposed 
 To your ideal, your grand simple life, 
 Of which you will not realize one jot.' " 
 
 With a sharp movement Harold's head reverted to 
 its original position on the cushion. Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton did not raise his eyes. Harold's were opened 
 widely.
 
 THE WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. 165 
 
 " ' Fool or knave ? 
 
 Why needs a bishop be a fool or knave 
 When there's a thousand diamond weights between ? ' " 
 
 Once more Harold's head inclined sideways, slight- 
 ly, on the chair-back. 
 
 ' ' Had I been born three hundred years ago 
 
 They'd say, " What's strange ? Blougram, of course, believes ; " 
 And, seventy years since, " disbelieves, of course." 
 But now, " He may believe ; and yet, and yet 
 How can he ? " All eyes turn with interest.' " 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton looked up quickly, and without 
 pausing. 
 
 " ' You disbelieve ! Who wonders and who cares ? ' " 
 
 Again Harold's head moved sharply, and his eyes 
 opened to the full. 
 
 " ' But I, the man of sense and learning, too, 
 The able to think yet act, the this, the that, 
 I, to believe, at this late time of day ! 
 Enough ; you see I need not fear contempt.' " 
 
 And so on and on, " while the great bishop rolled 
 him out a mind long crumpled, till creased conscious- 
 ness lay smooth," read Mr. Morley Fenton, in a very 
 slightly modulated voice, and in time as unvarying as 
 the sweeping stroke of a piston-rod. And Harold, 
 in his weariness losing control of himself, drooped 
 again and again into momentary oblivion, his flag- 
 ging senses careless of his willing brain's straining 
 at the collar, till a sharper pull than usual startled him 
 once more into wide-eyed understanding. Then, again, 
 the droop. And then: 
 
 " ' There, I hope, 
 
 By this time he has tested his first plough, 
 And studied his last chapter of St. John.' "
 
 T 66 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton rose slowly to his feet, closing 
 the volume from which he had been reading, and walk- 
 ing with it towards the big open bookcase. 
 
 " And now, Harold," he said, as the young man 
 leaned forward and uncrossed his legs; " I think you 
 really must go to bed. I oughtn't to have kept you 
 up so long. You must be worn out." 
 
 " Not at all, not at all, really." Harold's face was 
 very grey, and his eyelids were swollen. He took 
 Mr. Fenton's outstretched hand, and bade him " Good- 
 night." " And," he added, as they parted in the hall, 
 " thank you very much for reading er 
 
 " The ' Apology,' Harold. It is always a pleasure 
 to me to read some writers' works, even without a 
 listener. Sleep well, my dear fellow, and don't get up 
 till you feel inclined. Good-night!" 
 
 And Harold wandered loosely up the wide stair- 
 case, his head swaying forward as he walked. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton returned to his study and sat 
 down by the table where the green lamp stood, to 
 think. 
 
 " Ah! " he muttered; " the first step's taken, thank 
 Heaven. And a night's sound sleep is a fine thing 
 a beautiful thing." 
 
 Just an hour later came girlish voices in the vesti- 
 bule, and the owner of Weir Lodge stepped quickly 
 into the hall to welcome his daughters. The night 
 was crisp and cold, and even Norah's cheeks were 
 glowing with rich colour. Lucy was sylph-like and 
 in high spirits. Maud babbled and burbled, as her 
 wont was. Norah was the first to kiss her adopted 
 father, and, having done so, she drew back from him 
 quickly, and looked questioningly into his face. 
 
 " Father, you are What is it, father dear? " 
 
 " Eh? Nothing, my dear nothing. Do I look so 
 very ugly and sleepy? I haven't been to a dance, you
 
 WEARINESS OF HAROLD FOSTER. 
 
 167 
 
 see. I am so glad you have all had a good time. And 
 now you'd better each have a glass of wine and scurry 
 off to bed. It's Sunday, already, you know, and you've 
 a guest to entertain in the morning." 
 
 In a very few minutes the three girls were on their 
 way upstairs. Turning round, when halfway up the 
 staircase, Norah looked down at Mr. Fenton, where 
 he stood in the hall, and said: 
 
 " Poor father! I'm so sorry I mean, I hope there's 
 nothing the matter, because I have been so happy 
 to-night.'' 
 
 A little tremor passed over the grey face of the 
 man in the- hall ; and then, looking up with a smile 
 at the pitying woman's face above him, he said almost 
 gaily: 
 
 "Why, no, dear; there's nothing the matter. I'm 
 always a little tired on Saturday nights, you know. 
 Good-night, sweetheart!" 
 
 Then Mr. Morley Fenton returned to his study, 
 and, closing its door, took down and opened the vol- 
 ume from which he had read to Harold. But Mr. 
 Fenton found he was unable to read to himself that 
 night. So he sat thinking before the dying fire in his 
 room. There was a curious lifelessness in the position 
 of his legs, bent at the knee and thrust to one side 
 of his chair. His face, too, was strangely sunken, 
 almost livid-looking. From time to time he raised 
 one hand, with an uncertain sidelong movement, to his 
 lips. The veins in his temples were unusually active, 
 and outstandingly visible, on this Sunday morning. 
 
 Mary, the housemaid, rose unusually early that 
 morning, and as she wended her way down the main 
 staircase she heard her master's dressing-room door 
 closed, ^ softly. 
 
 "Well, I never!" said Mary; and passed on to- 
 wards the kitchen.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 " A soft and easy life these ladies lead : 
 Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed. 
 Oh, save that brow its virgin dimness, 
 Keep that foot its lady primness, 
 Let those ankles never swerve 
 From their exquisite reserve, 
 Yet have to trip along the streets like me, 
 All but naked to the knee ! 
 
 Not envy, sure ! for if you gave me 
 Leave to take or to refuse, 
 In earnest, do you think I'd choose 
 That sort of new love to enslave me ? " 
 
 Pipfa Passes. 
 
 WHEN Mary, the housemaid, was feeling that she 
 had already accomplished a fair day's work, and a 
 bright wintry sun at this season a far later riser than 
 Mary was doing its best to announce the coming of 
 noon; Harold Foster, in the little walnut room over 
 Mr. Fenton's study, opened his eyes, ran the fingers 
 of one hand through the fine gold of his hair, and 
 said, "Ah!" 
 
 So, and not otherwise, would many a man like to 
 wake on the morning of the Judgment Day. 
 
 Then Harold looked at his watch on a little table 
 beside the bed. 
 
 "By Jove!" Harold flung both legs out of the 
 warm bed into the still warm air of the bedroom. 
 " Half-past eleven; and I came to bed soon after eleven 
 last night! Gad, but I have slept! What a delightful 
 house! No one called me, and no church-bells woke 
 me. Oh, but I've had a lovely sleep! " 
 
 168
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 169 
 
 And then the young man betook himself to the 
 next room the " walnut bath room," as Mary called 
 it and bathed, with the whole-souled enthusiasm of a 
 young grampus. And to Harold Foster, on that Sun- 
 day morning, there seemed no manner of doubt that 
 all was well with the world the world as it was. His 
 thoughts, as he walked lightly downstairs and across 
 the hall, had no bearing on a world which might be, 
 less still on a world which might have been. It is 
 such moments as this, no doubt, that give to great 
 Nature's smiles their sweetness. 
 
 A maid-servant met Harold on the threshold of the 
 breakfast-room, and informed him, with a smile, that 
 his breakfast would be brought in immediately. " Din- 
 ner is at two o'clock on Sundays, sir; and Mrs. Fenton 
 and the young ladies are away at church; and and 
 Mr. Fenton's in the conservatory, sir, and said he 
 hoped you would join him there, when you'd had 
 breakfast, sir; and oh, here is breakfast, sir!" 
 
 Exit, with a curious little duck of the head, this 
 well-intentioned, if slightly incoherent, maid; and 
 enter, with some pride of place and a laden tray, Mary, 
 leading lady in the servants' hall. 
 
 Whilst munching his toast, a function in itself 
 highly provocative of retrospection, when gone 
 through in solitude, Harold reviewed in his mind, 
 carelessly enough at first, the events of the previous 
 evening. Midway through his second egg, his reminis- 
 cences brought him to his talk with Mr. Morley Fenton 
 in that gentleman's study. 
 
 "By Jove!" he muttered, whilst abstractedly dip- 
 ping his eggspoon into his coffee, " I believe I must 
 have been dozing part of the while he was reading. 
 I wonder if he noticed it. Gad! I hope not; and 
 what was it he read? A magnificent thing, too; but 
 I'd never heard of it before. H'm! and there was a
 
 I/O 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 bishop sort of defending himself, and scarifying an 
 unfortunate literary man. Of course! Gigadibs and 
 he wrote for Blackwood's. The bishop was a bit of a 
 well, I don't know. He was rather rough on Giga- 
 dibs a host to his guest. But, by gad, what a man 
 what a mountain, tossing back clouds of mist from its 
 sides! It's why, it's Mr. Morley Fenton himself! 
 
 " ' You do despise me, then ; 
 And if I say "despise me " never fear ! ' 
 
 Good heavens! and I must have implied that I that 
 I despised his way of living, and gad, I must go and 
 read that thing ! " 
 
 Harold did not finish his second egg; but, walking 
 across to Mr. Morley Fenton's room, found the well- 
 worn volume of poems, in the place from which he 
 had seen it taken in an overflowing bookcase, and 
 sat down to search for the great bishop, and his " Apol- 
 ogy." He found it, and read on through the forceful, 
 vivid periods of the big mind uncreased spread out, 
 for such a one as he, Harold Foster. He was ab- 
 sorbed, glowing with a young man's new-wakened 
 understanding; appreciation of the beauty of sheer 
 bigness, of wide expanses, of rolling dales of human 
 insight into human life. 
 
 Then, quietly, the study-door swung open, and 
 Mr. Morley Fenton stepped into the room, glancing 
 quickly as he entered at the volume in Harold's hands. 
 
 "Ah, good-morning, Harold! I needn't ask how 
 you are this morning. I am so glad you were able to 
 take a good long rest. I can see it's done you a world 
 of good." 
 
 " Yes, yes, thank you. It has, as you say, done 
 me a world of good, though I ought to apologize for 
 not turning up to breakfast." 
 
 ' Not at all. I'm very glad you did not.''
 
 HOUSE. I7I 
 
 " But," continued Harold, hesitatingly, and glanc- 
 ing as he spoke at the book in his hand; " I feel there 
 are so many other apologies due from me that I 
 I 
 
 " My dear Harold, what nonsense! " 
 
 " No, it's true. I I've been reading Blougram. 
 It is magnificent." 
 
 " Yes. Yes, it is fine; and I am glad you enjoyed 
 it. What do you say to a little stroll while the sun's 
 out? We can meet Mrs. Fenton and the girls com- 
 ing home from church and we dine in the middle of 
 the day on Sundays, you know." 
 
 "Yes. Thanks; I should like it very much." 
 
 So Harold replaced the book of poems in the book- 
 case, and walked out into the sunshine with Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton. 
 
 The owner of Weir Lodge had risen and been pres- 
 ent at the family breakfast, to time, and as his custom 
 was. His face, even when seen in the cold sunlight of 
 the winter's morning, contained all its ordinary smooth 
 impassivity; but his cheeks on either side the lines- 
 from lips to nostril, seemed flecked by a little shadow, 
 his eyelids' rims were somewhat thicker and darker, 
 the greyness of the fine face was a little more pro- 
 nounced, than on the previous day. There was a 
 strong touch of autumn in Mr. Morley Fenton his 
 voice, his movements, his slightly stooping gait on 
 this Sunday morning which found Harold Foster so 
 young and so stored with vitality. 
 
 The Fenton family, strongly united as its members 
 were by a quiescent kind of love, was not an observant 
 one, in matters affecting itself as a household, or in 
 the affairs of the outside world. The foundation of 
 love which united the two girls and their parents, each 
 to each, was a very passive bond. Their daily inter- 
 course showed very little more than the polite good-
 
 172 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 fellowship of society. There were times when a mild 
 and uncomprehended phase of boredom prevented 
 even this being shown. Maud and Lucy Fenton were 
 very good friends, and very rarely other than amiable 
 and considerate to each other and to all comers. They 
 were in no sense chums. In the presence of Mrs. Fen- 
 ton they were two charming young women, with an 
 equally charming and somewhat older lady-friend, 
 whose interests were identical with their own. Every 
 morning and every evening, the two girls kissed their 
 lady-friend. Prior to Norah's arrival at Weir Lodge, 
 an embrace was a positively unknown institution in 
 the Fenton family. Even now, Lucy's delicate eye- 
 brows were always unconsciously raised when she 
 happened to see Norah place her hands on Mr. Fen- 
 ton's shoulders. 
 
 A curiously illustrative comment on the Fentons' 
 inner life was the fact unobserved, of course, by 
 members of the family that the presence in the home 
 of almost any guest, no matter how familiar or how 
 little known, served temporarily and on the surface 
 of things, to bring into closer communion the house- 
 hold's constituent parts. Parents and daughters, by 
 tacit consent, held hands whilst facing and entertain- 
 ing friend, acquaintance, or guest. There were times, 
 too, when illness or emergency had rallied the four 
 into closest possible compact. But the ordinary, daily 
 life of the family had always been something which 
 produced what Harold's sensibility had felt when he 
 referred to Weir Lodge as, " this beautiful, still house, 
 which seems to me like a great, magnificent place, 
 full of tiny, separate cells." 
 
 Entering the house as an invisible presence, and 
 when no guest was in it, one would, under average 
 circumstances, have found Mr. Morley Fenton in his 
 study, Mrs. Fenton in the drawing-room, Lucy Fen-
 
 HOUSE. I73 
 
 ton writing letters, or otherwise occupied, in her bou- 
 doir, and Maud playing with her dog in the hall, or 
 coiled up with a book on a couch in the library. In 
 summer-time, the garden and the river brought the 
 girls and the mother into somewhat closer contact. 
 But, even on the river, Lucy preferred scarlet cushions 
 and the punt, Maud was happier in her own dinghy 
 than elsewhere, and Mrs. Fenton found a seat under 
 the awning of the gondola more adapted to her tastes 
 than was a place in either of the other boats. The 
 presence of a near relative, or again, of the most 
 casual acquaintance, was sufficient to alter all this. 
 
 Into this atmosphere dark-eyed Norah had crept, 
 whilst her cheeks were yet stained by the first flood 
 of tears which had followed her weak father's death. 
 Instinctively she had groped her way to the side and 
 heart of the strong, understanding man who during 
 all his life had stood between her father and the world 
 of busy conflict and rushing reality. Unconsciously 
 she had to all intents and purposes ignored the mother 
 and her two daughters. And, in the first loneliness 
 of her sorrow, she had lain down her beautiful head 
 on the shoulder of the big-minded man in whose life 
 the smoothly executed duties, and easily-borne re- 
 sponsibilities of the Weir Lodge household, formed 
 only one feature. She had asked nothing more than 
 permission to sit at Mr. Morley Fenton's feet, in the 
 little study where the 'cello stood, and, sometimes, to 
 hear the 'cello's deep-bosomed voice. 
 
 For days, and without cessation, Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton had devoted himself entirely to his dead brother's 
 child; holding her torn heart in his two firm white 
 hands, whilst the edges of its wound drew together, 
 draping her grief-shaken self, not in consolation or 
 forgetfulness, but in quiet, ever-strengthening repose- 
 great Nature's infallible specific, the earth's all-healing
 
 174 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 balm, less and less understood by her sons, perhaps, 
 with every year which is added to the earth-mother's 
 age. Mrs. Fenton, with her two daughters, had stood 
 aside, pitying and waiting to help. 
 
 Later on, with Mr. Fenton's strength-giving repose 
 written across the girlish forehead which sadness 
 seemed to have ennobled, Norah had approached her 
 new mother and sisters, holding gratitude in her out- 
 stretched arms. They had very graciously welcomed 
 her, and quickly learned to love, though never to 
 understand, this dark-eyed girl, in whose nature was 
 much which resembled what clear-seeing eyes might 
 have observed in the owner of Weir Lodge, more that 
 all had seen in the man who was dead, and little which 
 was part and parcel of the three who welcomed her. 
 Afterwards, even without understanding, Norah be- 
 came, perhaps, a closer friend to Lucy than was Maud, 
 certainly a more loved friend to Maud than was Lucy, 
 and possibly a better uniformly devoted daughter to 
 Mrs. Fenton than were either of her own girls. Just 
 how much she was to Mr. Morley Fenton, or he to 
 her, only the two knew. Her influence upon the family 
 as a whole had been to largely minimize and reduce 
 that " tiny separate cells " element in the Weir Lodge 
 atmosphere which, all unnoticed as it was by many 
 people, had even at this period, chilled slightly the 
 ultra-impressionable outer plates of Harold Foster's 
 nature. Remove it she never could. Some parts of it 
 were too strong. All of it was too many-headed and 
 diffuse. Its mitigation even, would have quite ex- 
 hausted the strongly loving girl, but for the rest to 
 be found in the little study where she was always wel- 
 come, the relief which was embodied in the notes of 
 the 'cello. 
 
 This was the family of which Harold Foster was 
 practically to be made a member this the household
 
 HOUSE. ,75 
 
 of united disintegration which Harold entered, with 
 talk on his lips of " the restrained, perfectly-fitting, in- 
 evitable little round of things which knows no di- 
 vergence." And between the outward personalities of 
 Norah Fenton and Harold Foster Mr. Morley Fenton 
 wiser in most things than in matters affecting his 
 deepest, inmost feelings had been at some pains to 
 erect a barrier which should be impassable to any 
 closer relation than friendship. 
 
 But there is an impalpable something in us all more 
 vital, more indestructible, and more essentially indi- 
 vidual, than is any mere personality. Perhaps Mr. 
 Morley Fenton relied on his palpable barrier even in 
 dealing with the impalpable. Or, perhaps, considera- 
 tion of the impalpable had no place in Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's wisdom. A poet once said, in effect, that it 
 was not the immensity of the scheme of Creation which 
 filled him with admiring awe so much as its infinitesi- 
 mal detail. But that poet was probably a man who 
 never attempted, even in a small matter, to play the 
 part of Providence; one who respected the seemingly 
 trivial. 
 
 During the middle-day dinner at Weir Lodge, on 
 this Sunday of Harold Foster's reinstatement, the con- 
 versation turned upon bachelors and the bachelor life. 
 
 " I always fancy the poor fellows must be so lone- 
 ly," said Mrs. Fenton. 
 
 " I should think bachelors would miss a great deal 
 in the way of music and the beautiful things," opined 
 Lucy. 
 
 " I think it must be awfully jolly, and if I could 
 have the river as well, you know, I should like to be 
 a bachelor myself." Maud Fenton was not aesthetic. 
 
 "There are certain things which I think should 
 be achieved before a man forsakes bachelordom," said 
 the head of the house.
 
 I7 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " I think a bachelor's greatest loss is the absence 
 of any sense of community in his ordinary life. I 
 mean, if he's living really alone not in the kind of 
 Quartier Latin colonies one reads about." 
 
 Norah looked swiftly across the table to Harold, 
 who had spoken last. 
 
 " But I expect there are some homes, aren't there," 
 she said, " where there is just as little community less 
 perhaps? " And then she lowered her eyes with a half- 
 frightened look, as though regretting the impulse on 
 which she had spoken. 
 
 " Norah means that a feeling of community makes 
 home, but that home does not necessarily produce 
 community. That depends on the individuals of the 
 home. Is that what you thought, Norah?" 
 
 And the girl bent her head without risking further 
 utterance of her thoughts. 
 
 " The river and the empty house-boats look very 
 desolate and dreary at this time of year, don't you think 
 so, Mr. Foster? " 
 
 Mrs. Fenton's bird-like head inclined interroga- 
 tively towards Harold.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 COLD SUPPER, AND A BREATHING SPACE. 
 
 " Here's Spring come, and the nights one makes up bands 
 To roam the town and sing out carnival, 
 And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, 
 A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 
 And saints again. I could not paint all night 
 Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air, 
 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 
 A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song." 
 
 Fra Lippo Lippi. 
 
 " MR. FOSTER," said Maud Fenton, as the party 
 filed out of the dining-room Maud was gifted with 
 a beautifully inexhaustible and varied curiosity " I 
 want you to tell me all about hospitals, will you?" 
 
 " Oh, I say, you know, you make me feel as though 
 I were going up for my final to-morrow. However, 
 where shall I begin?" 
 
 " Oh, in the drawing-room, or the conservatory 
 if you like ; it's beautifully warm there." 
 
 " No but whereabouts in the matter of hospitals?" 
 
 " Norah," Mr. Morley Fenton stood at the foot of 
 the stairs, addressing his adopted daughter, " I wish 
 you would tell one of the maids to light the fire in 
 the study." 
 
 " I lighted it before dinner, father dear. And you 
 are going to have a rest, aren't you? Do; you are 
 so dreadfully tired." 
 
 "Eh? Oh no; not dreadfully. But I am going 
 into the study, and it was like you to think of light- 
 ing the fire." 
 
 i77
 
 I7 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 The head of the house touched Norah's shoulder 
 lightly as he stepped past her. He was looking very 
 grey and tired, but no one save Norah and, casually, 
 Harold Foster had noticed the fact. 
 
 So Mr. Morley Fenton went alone to his study, 
 and Norah joined the others in the drawing-room. 
 After a little while Mrs. Fenton disappeared, seeming 
 to fade away, so unobtrusively she left the room. It 
 is possible that Mrs. Fenton understood and appreci- 
 ated the value of the siesta. Family Sabbaths and 
 mid-day dinners have a tendency toward that under- 
 standing appreciation; and perhaps at no other times 
 are average men and women so curiously unobtrusive 
 in their comings and goings, as in the early stages of 
 sea-sickness, and in the steps preliminary and subse- 
 quent to the afternoon nap. 
 
 Harold Foster spent the afternoon pleasantly 
 enough, in chatting with the girls in the drawing- 
 room, with one short interval spent in the conserva- 
 tory with Maud and a cigarette. Maud did not no- 
 tice the cigarette, but Harold was less unconscious 
 of it. 
 
 Later on, matters were focussed a little by the serv- 
 ing of tea round the drawing-room fire. Mrs. and 
 Mr. Fenton the latter looking a little rested were 
 both present at this ceremony, over which Lucy pre- 
 sided, whilst Norah supplied everybody's needs, there- 
 by suggesting the infinite superiority of ministering 
 over ruling. 
 
 " You must excuse my having kept out of sight, 
 Harold," said Mr. Fenton. " I've been feeling rather 
 tired to-day, and I thought an hour or two alone 
 would be better for me and for the rest of you." 
 
 '' My dear," said the mistress of the house, " if an 
 apology is necessary from you, what shall I say for 
 myself? "
 
 COLD SUPPER, AND A BREATHING SPACE. 179 
 
 ' Nothing, my dear. Your correspondents er 
 would suffer if you broke off your habit of Sunday 
 afternoon letter-writing." Mr. Fenton's voice still 
 sounded a little weary. His last remark may have 
 suggested to him what Harold Foster had meant in 
 speaking of the "perfectly-fitting little round of 
 things." 
 
 When teacups were laid aside Harold asked Norah 
 if she would play something. At Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 suggestion the ringing for lights was tabooed, and 
 Norah took her seat at the piano in darkness which 
 was only relieved by the fire's warm glow. So every- 
 one rested, and Norah, from her shadowy place at the 
 piano, made the air of the room dreamily sweet by soft 
 snatches from the work of great masters, and sweetly 
 sad then by the low pathos of earthy little Irish airs. 
 Later, lest minor clouds should prove too dominant, 
 Norah called great Handel to her aid, and when at 
 length a maid entered with lights, the room's occu- 
 pants were barely cognizant of any change; so they 
 were filled and thrilled by Mendelssohn's most beau- 
 tiful wordless song. 
 
 Then Norah closed the piano, and seated herself 
 on a stool beside Mr. Fenton. Small topics were made 
 to furnish much talk. Some big subjects lent them- 
 selves to casual reference. The head of the house 
 heroically cut down in their early life one or two 
 yawns. There came a moment it chanced to be at 
 the usual dinner-hour, half-past seven when Mrs. 
 Fenton looked at her watch. A clock of genuine 
 Sevres ticked on a bracket above her head. The 
 moment happened to be one of silence, when topics 
 big and little seemed part of the day departed and 
 the evening not begun. A sense of flatness and empti- 
 ness fell upon the party assembled before the fire, 
 descended so suddenly as to be irritating to restful
 
 ,80 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Mrs. Fenton and to Maud and Lucy, painful to Norah, 
 chilling and numbing to Harold's impressionism, and 
 full of weariness to Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 
 Norah looked round her, and through this palpa- 
 ble flatness, pathetically. She could have been very 
 fairly happy with Mr. Fenton and Harold, or alone 
 with any member of the party; but with all five, and 
 all choking in this painful silence, Norah felt helpless. 
 
 " Oh, mother, just fancy! We have none of us been 
 to church this evening." 
 
 Maud's discovery was handled with feverish inter- 
 est, and then with languid elaboration. But the crisis, 
 the falling of the flatness, was passed. 
 
 At half-past eight the supper-gong sounded. With 
 all that noble, if somewhat fruitless, sacrifice of com- 
 fort which distinguishes the orthodox British observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath, the hours for meals on the first 
 day of the week were chosen at Weir Lodge on the 
 principle that what is exceedingly ill-suited to the con- 
 venience of the family must needs be best suited to the 
 requirements of the servants. 
 
 The cold baron of beef and flagon of ale style of 
 repast is a relic of pre-railway days. As a refection 
 it fails to entertain the modern man. It stiffens his 
 mental joints, refuses to adapt itself to his physical 
 economy, fills no vacuum, appeals to no tendency, and 
 tires but does not exhilarate. 
 
 Supper at Weir Lodge was a cold collation. The 
 servants would have very much preferred preparing, 
 and subsequently sharing, a hot meal more particu- 
 larly as the servants' hall was " at home " on Sunday 
 evenings. But Mrs. Fenton was wont to deprecatingly 
 remark, as she sat down to the collation, " One really 
 must consider one's servants, you know. Sunday is 
 
 as much Sunday to them as to us, and Thank 
 
 you, Morley, a very little beef, please." And so, by
 
 COLD SUPPER, AND A BREATHING SPACE, jgr 
 
 some subtle train of reasoning on good Mrs. Fenton's 
 part, it was ordained that on Sunday evenings Mary 
 the housemaid's admirer should content himself with 
 cold potluck, whilst in the dining-room ill-digested 
 reminiscences were awakened of fishing parties on wet 
 days. 
 
 After supper there was a little more music in the 
 drawing-room, from Lucy Fenton this time, and a little 
 more talk. But for Harold's presence, the party would 
 have separated, drifting vaguely and in different direc- 
 tions from the dining-room door. In Harold's pres- 
 ence the members of the family remained together, 
 by tacit consent. It was not done clumsily, but it 
 lacked the ease of use and habit, though not obviously, 
 and this produced a thinness of atmosphere which, 
 coming after the collation and in conjunction with an 
 absence of tobacco, was distinctly perceptible to Har- 
 old Foster. 
 
 Shortly after ten o'clock, Mr. Morley Fenton his 
 afternoon's rest had been very trifling rose from his 
 chair, looked at his watch, and yawned without dis- 
 guise. 
 
 " Is the vestibule door locked, dear? " Mr. Fenton 
 spoke with a tone of finality. Mrs. Fenton believed 
 the door referred to had been locked. "Ah!" con- 
 tinued the head of the house. "Then I think 
 Would you like a glass of wine, or anything, Harold? " 
 
 Harold rose to his feet, as an afternoon caller rises 
 when he hears a door-bell ring, or steps crossing a 
 hall. 
 
 " No, thanks," he said. " No I suppose it's about 
 bed-time? " 
 
 The girls had risen. It was not quite Harold's 
 usual bed-time not by some two or three hours. 
 
 "Well, yes; I think we are all pretty well ready 
 for bed," said Mr. Fenton. " But, of course, you
 
 j8 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Oh, not at all not at all. I that is, I haven't 
 been sleeping any too much lately." 
 
 Harold found it a little difficult to express his readi- 
 ness to retire. Yet in sober truth he was not sorry for 
 the opportunity. He had hastily pictured himself to 
 himself, smoking in the arm-chair before the little wal- 
 nut room fire. 
 
 " Good-night, father," said Lucy. Her sister fol- 
 lowed suit. Mrs. Fenton trusted Mr. Foster would 
 sleep well. Mr. Morley Fenton, looking extremely 
 tired, was turning off the gas at two or three brackets. 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Foster," said Norah, holding 
 her little hand out to Harold. 
 
 " Good-night er do you mind my saying, ' Nor- 
 ah '? You see I have to think of you as ' Norah,' be- 
 cause there is another Miss Fenton." 
 
 Lucy Fenton had already left the room. Norah 
 coloured slightly whilst murmuring the necessary per- 
 mission, with the necessary " of course." Mr. Morley 
 Fenton's tired face lightened momentarily, as he stood 
 with hand raised under a gas bracket. He smiled. 
 
 " And how do you think of poor me, Mr. Foster? " 
 interposed Maud, who was standing near the open 
 door of the room. Harold laughed lightly, and with 
 an easier ring in his voice than had been there during 
 the day. 
 
 " Oh," he said, " I think of you as George Bar- 
 nard's Maud. Princesses and other autocrats are al- 
 ways called by their Christian names, you know." 
 
 " Then I think it's very disrespectful of you, not 
 to to be as respectful as Mr. Barnard." 
 
 So they all laughed, and at the foot of the stairs 
 they exchanged a few slenderly-humorous remarks, 
 which seemed to free the breathing passages and 
 lighten the hearts of all concerned. In one brief but 
 natural minute the effects of the cold collation and
 
 COLD SUPPER, AND A BREATHING SPACE. j8 3 
 
 the evening's conversational gaps melted away, and 
 the party separated Mr. Fenton being still occupied 
 with matters of bolts and gas taps on a far friendlier 
 footing than had been reached all day. 
 
 When Harold Foster and Mr. Morley Fenton were 
 parting at Waterloo Station, after journeying up from 
 Sunbury together on Monday morning, the latter said: 
 
 " Oh, by the way, Harold, I sent an order to the 
 Stores on Saturday for some odds and ends which I 
 thought it would be convenient for you to have at 
 Weir Lodge. They will be down to-day toilet things, 
 you know, and sleeping suits, and linen, and so on. 
 It will save the trouble of bringing things up and 
 down. I would order a couple of suits to keep down 
 there if I were you. The other things you must accept 
 as a little present from me." 
 
 " It was awfully kind and thoughtful of you." 
 
 " No, no ; not at all. Only I want you to feel per- 
 fectly free now to spend the night in your lodgings, 
 if work requires it, or anything of that sort, or to run 
 down to Weir Lodge. I shall always expect you, you 
 know, and so, of course, will the others. Dinner at 
 7.30. How about this evening? Better make a good 
 start. Come down if you can, will you? I shall catch 
 the 4.30." 
 
 " Ye-es." Like most men of strong mentality and 
 self-mastery, Mr. Morley Fenton managed to convey 
 a good deal of command in his suggestions and re- 
 quests. Then, too, Harold was very uncertain about 
 his own wish in the matter. " Yes, very well," he con- 
 tinued, " I will try and catch the 4.30. Good-bye! " 
 
 So they parted, Mr. Morley Fenton, no trace of the 
 previous day's relaxed air of weariness showing in his 
 erect carriage or impassive face, proceeding to Lom- 
 bard Street, whilst Harold started- off for St. Bar- 
 tholomew's.
 
 !8 4 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 During the previous day there had been for Harold 
 moments, and longer periods, of thorough chill; phases 
 of constraint and over-repression, as acute in their way 
 as any he had experienced at the Norwood vicarage. 
 Harold was not analytically inclined, and he had been 
 at no pains to discover reasons or causes for this. He 
 had experienced it, feeling it acutely, as he felt most 
 experiences, and recovering from it readily as was nat- 
 ural in one of his temperament. 
 
 Sitting smoking before his bedroom fire on the 
 previous night, he had reviewed the day's events, or 
 lack of events, thinking of that in the little round which 
 to him had been dreary, but seeing it in the light of 
 those last few minutes of friendly chatter with Maud 
 and Norah. Now, on his way to St. Bartholomew's, 
 his reflections were focussed upon the chat at the foot 
 of the staircase, seen under a vague light from the 
 day's dreary interludes. 
 
 Two circumstances which had undoubtedly been 
 factors in the constraint of the Weir Lodge atmos- 
 phere on Sunday, were, Mr. Morley Fenton's extreme 
 weariness the cost of bringing rest to Harold on 
 Saturday night had not been trifling and the tact- 
 fully arranged barrier which Mr. Morley Fenton had 
 placed between Harold and Norah. The keynote of 
 Weir Lodge, its dominating personality, had been qui- 
 escent from fatigue. The individuality in the Weir 
 Lodge household, most naturally sympathetic to Har- 
 old's, had been separated from him by a distinct ele- 
 ment of artificiality. 
 
 The porter at the hospital handed Harold two notes 
 as he passed through the entrance hall. One was a 
 few lines of piquant raillery and reproach for deser- 
 tion, from the Carissima. Harold smiled, and col- 
 oured, and frowned and smiled again, as he read the 
 dainty thing, redcflent in its shape and scent of her
 
 COLD SUPPER, AND A BREATHING SPACE. 185 
 
 who had written it. The other was from Leo Tarne, 
 and said simply: 
 
 " I make no comment on your heartless indiffer- 
 ence to my arrangements. Carissima will attend to 
 that. In your presence it seems to me, I am becoming 
 a detail of no importance to her highness. In your 
 absence I am made your whipping-boy, which, were 
 it not for the fact that I always was more interested 
 in her rosy wrath than in her pale tenderness, would 
 be very annoying. I will only say that you are to 
 lunch with me at the Hereford, and that I believe we 
 have to meet the Carissima after some chamber con- 
 cert rehearsal, or something somewhere. Seriously, 
 Caro, don't. let anything prevent your coming. You 
 must have had a good deal of that weird ' straight 
 line ' of yours since Friday. 
 
 " Forgivingly yours, 
 
 " LEO TARNE. 
 
 " P. S. One o'clock, the Hereford dejeuner for 
 me, you know." 
 
 " I must go," muttered Harold, as he walked down 
 the corridor. "And that will mean an afternoon 
 wasted. Bother! But I must go, I suppose H'm!" 
 
 The young man's brows were drawn into a pro- 
 testing frown. His tone implied annoyance and regret. 
 His lips moved in a smile which denied itself. His 
 eyes shone with a light of pleasurable anticipation.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. 
 
 " Therefore, no sooner does oui candidate 
 For saintship spotlessly emerge soul-cleansed 
 From First Communion to mount guard at post, 
 Paris-proof, top to toe, than up there starts 
 The Spirit of the Boulevard you know who." 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 WITHIN five minutes of one o'clock, Harold Fos- 
 ter, stepping springily and humming under his breatli 
 a little French melody of the Carissima's composition, 
 walked into the entrance hall of the Hereford Hotel. 
 He had left word at the hospital that he would be back 
 soon " as soon as I can, you know." And now, hav- 
 ing glanced into the drawing-room of the Hereford 
 Leo Tarne said he always chose the drawing-room 
 of an hotel to smoke a cigarette in, until he was inter- 
 fered with, because smoking-rooms smelt so abomi- 
 nably of tobacco Harold approached the gold-laced 
 official in the entrance hall. Both Leo Tarne and him- 
 self were well-known at the Hereford. 
 
 " Have you seen Mr. Tarne, this morning? " Har- 
 old asked the man. 
 
 " No, sir; Mr. Tarne's not been here this morn- 
 
 ing C 
 
 " Up to the present, that is. How are you, Harold? 
 
 Hope I haven't kept you waiting. I met a man named 
 Tritton in Vere Street an awfully well-intentioned 
 nuisance, who persists in asking me to tete-a-tcte din- 
 ners, and reading me dyspeptic passages from his own 
 
 1 86
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. 
 
 I8 7 
 
 poetry. I once committed myself by saying at a club 
 that some verses of Tritton's in an evening paper had 
 opened my eyes to the existence of hitherto undis- 
 covered organs in myself. I merely meant that the 
 verses told me I had a liver susceptible to jaundice 
 and things. But ever since then, I have been bullied 
 by him as though I were an art patron, or a discoverer 
 of genius, or some horrible vulgarity of that sort. 
 However No! Let us take this table, my dear Har- 
 old, if you don't mind. A window-table is almost 
 as beautiful an institution as a hansom. It secures 
 you a certain amount of privacy, and enables you to 
 give people the pleasure of seeing you people in the 
 street, I mean, who, being less real, are always far 
 more tolerable than people close at hand. Excuse me. 
 Bring some olives, Gustave, will you, and a bottle of 
 Reisling Berg, or would you rather begin with some 
 fruit, Harold? No. That will do then, Gustave, thank 
 you. And now, my poor Harold, tell me how you are. 
 I need not ask how our friends at Weir Lodge are, 
 because the suggestion in your own charming fea- 
 tures, of exhaustion, tells me that Weir Lodge is in the 
 full enjoyment of health and strength and faculties of 
 absorption. Do say something, my dear Harold, to 
 show me you are not utterly worn out. Unless you 
 would rather wait for the Reisling Berg." 
 
 Leo Tarne paused at length. He had babbled on 
 continuously from the time of his entering the hotel, 
 when Harold was talking to the hall-porter. And he 
 had done this because he was so thoroughly interested 
 in watching the smiles quickly reinforcing each other 
 on Harold's mobile lips, chasing away deprecation, 
 smoothing out lines of resistance, and telling frankly 
 of enjoyment, in the handsome, plastic face of the 
 young man. 
 
 " I'm sorry to falsify your conclusions, Leo, but 
 13
 
 !88 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 truth compels me to remark here that I've had a very 
 pleasant time indeed at Weir Lodge," said Harold 
 brightly. 
 
 "Ah! how charming of you! The lamented 
 Grandison might have said that very thing, with just 
 your air in his young days, I mean, when even a 
 gentleman's swearing was delightful. Though the 
 gentlemen themselves, by the way, must have been 
 a fearful nuisance, taking themselves and their im- 
 morality so horribly seriously as they did. But, really 
 though lovely colour that Reisling has, has it not? 
 have you had a very dull time, Harold?" 
 
 " My dear fellow, I haven't had a dull time at all. 
 I don't know what has given you that notion." Har- 
 old looked back at Weir Lodge now, over the yellow- 
 rippled edge of his hock glass, through the colour with 
 which, in his eyes, Leo Tarne always managed to 
 saturate his immediate atmosphere. " On the con- 
 trary, I enjoyed it very much," he continued, lowering 
 the slender Venetian glass from his lips, and lifting be- 
 tween thumb and finger an olive. " Quiet, of course. 
 None of the Carissima's after-dinner ditties, you know.'' 
 
 " Hardly," murmured Tarne. 
 
 " But a very pleasant time, all the same; and good 
 music, of another kind, too." 
 
 "Ah, ' Songs without Words,' or ' Hold the Fort.' " 
 
 " Leo, you are very rude." 
 
 " I do my best." 
 
 " And succeed infamously. We had some Men- 
 delssohn, and we had some deliciously plaintive little 
 Irish airs." 
 
 " Oh yes. The Botticelli fairy, n'est ce pas? " 
 
 Harold coloured slightly. 
 
 " She is a very charming girl," he said slowly. 
 
 "Very very charming! Though why you should 
 mention a delightful and undeniable fact so resentfully,
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. 
 
 189 
 
 I don't know. Were you ever sufficiently strong- 
 minded to dive far enough through Browning's prickly 
 shell to reach his beautiful pearls, Harold?" 
 
 Harold looked up sharply. 
 
 " I know very little of his work but, curiously 
 enough But why do you ask, Leo? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing of any importance. Tell me that 
 ' curiously enough ' thing. I was merely about to ask 
 whether you knew ' Fifine,' and if so, whether the 
 charming Botticelli study at Weir Lodge should be 
 called Elvire. But I await the something ' curious.' 
 There is so little that is curious, outside people's com- 
 monplaces." 
 
 Harold laughed quietly. 
 
 " You will probably find my curio the essence of 
 commonplaceness. I shouldn't have mentioned it but 
 for your question. It is merely that Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton read something of Browning's to me on Saturday 
 night, when I was very tired." 
 
 " Ah, that straight line of yours! But I am much 
 interested, my dear Harold. Mr. Morley Fenton 
 h'm! What did he read you 'Bishop Blougram'? 
 or 
 
 " That's exactly what he did read. You are a most 
 extraordinary man, Leo." 
 
 " Not at all. I did not suppose for a moment he 
 had read ' Blougram ' to you. I suspected him of the 
 ' Pied Piper,' or ' Ghent to Aix.' I merely said ' Blou- 
 gram ' because I was just thinking that Mr. Morley 
 Fenton might have a good deal of the ' great bishop ' 
 in himself." 
 
 " This is sheer clairvoyance." 
 
 " No. Did you think the same thing? My dear 
 Harold, that is natural enough. If you wrote books, 
 you would find that we should hit upon the same titles. 
 You would use up all my best situations, while I
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 worked on them, and then accuse me of barefaced 
 plagiarism. That is why we are lunching together 
 to-day. It will always be so. You live as I write, or I 
 write as you live as you like. The theory of oppo- 
 sites in friendship is a grotesque absurdity. In choos- 
 ing a friend one really is feeling for a mouthpiece 
 a personality who gives expression to one's thoughts, 
 or lives one's tastes: just as in forming acquaintances 
 one looks for capacity to comprehend and admire one; 
 just as in making enemies one's attention is directed 
 towards those who are clever enough to see through 
 one's little disguises, vulgar enough to show that they 
 see, and inartistic enough not to admire what they see. 
 But how about Mr. Fenton and the ' Apology '? Did 
 it make you more tired?" 
 
 " I was too sleepy to appreciate; but I read it my- 
 self next morning 
 
 " And sympathized with Bohemia under ortho- 
 doxy's bludgeon? " 
 
 " No; but felt painfully like Gigadibs, and wanted 
 to apologize to to the Bishop." 
 
 " By Jove! Poor old chap! You must have been 
 horribly bullied. After that, I don't know whether to 
 tell you to read ' Fifine ' or Balzac. I only feel safe 
 in taking you at once to the Carissima. She is very 
 good reading, and in lovely voice just now. We will 
 certainly dine at Carlo Varni's to-night. Poor Har- 
 old! Poor persecuted medico! " 
 
 " Don't be absurd, Leo." 
 
 " Absurd? I languish in sympathy." 
 
 " You revel in exaggeration." 
 
 " As you will. May I give you some Camembert, 
 or the Brie looks moderately tempting. No; ah well, 
 the Carissima shall sing you her answer to the pon- 
 derous bishop this evening." 
 
 " But I am going down to Sunbury this evening."
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. Igl 
 
 ; ' Nay absurd! Consider the lilies and things, 
 and the Carissima, how she is waiting. By the way, 
 don't let me forget St. James's Hall at four o'clock." 
 
 " Or I my train 4.30 at Waterloo." 
 
 " I forgive you for reverting to that impossibly 
 ridiculous topic, but don't let it occur again." 
 
 " Ah, Leo," rejoined Harold with fine irrelevance, 
 " I'm awfully glad to see you again, anyhow, and 
 you are very demoralizing." 
 
 So, sitting over his winter-sunlight-flecked Riides- 
 heimer, in the window corner at the Hereford, Harold 
 Foster smiled at the past, draped rosily the future, 
 and threw a careless main in pleasantry with Leo 
 Tarne for the present. And Leo Tarne, lounging op- 
 posite Harold, smiled, and, in his own way, thoroughly 
 enjoyed the moment as it passed. Of all our facial 
 signs and expressions, this that we call a smile is surely 
 the most comprehensive, embracing as it does the 
 poles of pure delight and that -exultation which is re- 
 garded as Mephistophelian. 
 
 There had been a period during which Leo Tarne 
 was dominated by a passion forplaying upon stringed 
 instruments; queer sensitive things, of grotesque shape 
 and strange shrill tones ; odd Eastern lutes, and Moor- 
 ish gimbris, picked up for Tarne by sailors and trav- 
 ellers in out-of-the-way Persian towns, and in Levan- 
 tine ports; instruments the writer had never tried to 
 master, but only to draw strange chords and eerie re- 
 sponses from. It was a very similar desire he gratified 
 when he set himself to talk to, and listen to the talk 
 of, Harold Foster. He had no deliberately evil intent, 
 but he had been unable to resist telling Harold that 
 the end of the " straight line " had no existence, be- 
 cause of the sudden desire which had come to him 
 to see the quick flash of impressionistic pain, foretaste 
 of readilv-believed-in disillusion, which he knew would
 
 I9 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 illumine Harold's sensitive face; to hear the curious 
 ripple down from staccato C major to a lingering 
 minor key of doubt, which he had known his careless 
 flick of cynicism would surely bring into Harold's 
 voice. 
 
 Harold surveyed the quiet bustle of a West End 
 thoroughfare through one broad pane of the corner 
 window. He erected ramparfs of rusk crumbs round 
 his wine-glass, tossing them idly aside with one finger 
 then, as he raised the spiral-stemmed toy, and smiled 
 over its edge at Tarne. He, as it were, coquetted with 
 that side-slope of his life of which Leo Tarne was 
 keynote and embodiment, whilst endeavouring not 
 to altogether lose his grasp of the slope's antithesis, 
 the straight line, the life exemplified by the " little 
 round of things " at Weir Lodge. It was as though 
 Harold Foster had said to the thing within himself 
 which was himself: 
 
 " You see how pleasant it is here on this sun-suf- 
 fused, flower-carpeted little slope; how the air is glad 
 here, and the light laughs in one's face. So I am 
 resting here, just resting, while an hour lives and dies. 
 And then the summit, of course. The narrow track 
 above for me, where the mist envelopes one, and the 
 wind calls for unceasing resistance. But I know it 
 has its end, that grey- walled track; while, of course, 
 the slope runs down to the river, on the banks of which 
 the wild oats grow, and rank weeds flourish. And the 
 narrow track has its glimpses, too, where the sun 
 breaks through the crevice of a moment. That chat 
 by the stairs last night ; and, yes, there is Norah. But 
 just by the way, you know a little hour's rest, my 
 soul." 
 
 Harold had forgotten, probably, that a peculiarity 
 of these slopes is that one is always slipping forward 
 on them, and never sitting or standing still.
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. Ig3 
 
 When at length the two men rose from their seat 
 by the window, Harold looked at his watch, and said, 
 with a slight inflection of annoyance in his voice: 
 
 " By Jove, Leo, it's positively three o'clock al- 
 ' ready!" 
 
 "Ah! Shall I say I am sorry, or delighted? I 
 really don't know what is the correct feeling to have 
 about your interesting discovery. Three o'clock in the 
 day is one of those absurd hours which have no real 
 existence. It is the time at which things are 'held,' 
 things one subsequently reads about, if one is a student 
 of topics current and reads the evening paper posters, 
 as I, for instance, most religiously do. It is my chief- 
 est tribute to institutions of which you know nothing; 
 like ' the age we live in,' ' society ' and ' the world 
 of to-day.' " 
 
 " Institutions I know nothing of, indeed! My dear 
 fellow, you ought to see me at the family board this 
 evening." 
 
 " I shall." 
 
 " At Sunbury, I mean. I live in and of those in- 
 stitutions." 
 
 " Ah, you think so. Well, with regard to this ques- 
 tion of three o'clock good, serviceable old three 
 o'clock! There is just time for us to stroll comfort- 
 ably through the park, read the posters, smoke several 
 cigarettes it is a mistake to ever smoke less than sev- 
 eral cigarettes, cigarette-smoking being essentially a 
 pleasure of excess : moderation in it vitiates one's taste 
 smoke several cigarettes, as I said, and meet the 
 Carissima. I wish she wouldn't go to St. James's 
 though, because it makes one think of comic songs 
 and the sadness of life." 
 
 " I must go to the hospital, Leo, I must really." 
 
 " Harold, the manner in which you flaunt that 
 dismal charnel-house of yours in my face is positively
 
 194 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 indecent. In Regent Street there is a funny little place 
 where messenger boys assemble for innocent recrea- 
 tion and conversation. There we will interview a gen- 
 tleman who holds a pen between his lips all day, and 
 thrives on it. He will despatch one of his aides-de- 
 camp to the charnel-house, with a message, telling 
 in guarded terms of the lamentable accident which robs 
 you of the pleasure of further surgical amusement for 
 to-day." 
 
 " This is not such a bad town, this little London 
 of ours, Leo, after all. Look at that stream of car- 
 riages beyond the trees." 
 
 " Yes. Might be Unter den Linden when some 
 big funeral was taking place, eh! Then, as I was 
 about to remark, when we have taken the Carissima 
 home she will probably like to have tea at Sartello's 
 I will go round with you to your rooms. Or, better 
 still, I'll send round for your things, and you can dress 
 at my place. The young man who eats pens will ar- 
 range that for us. Like Tritton, he is a well-intentioned 
 young man, and, unlike Tritton, he is well worth 
 knowing." 
 
 " I too, am like Tritton, in so far as that I was 
 thoroughly well-intentioned this afternoon; but 
 
 " But don't do yourself an injustice, Harold. Where 
 you differ materially from poor dear Tritton is in your 
 capacity for lucid intervals. Tritton remains sunk in 
 a chronic mire of good intentions. Wisdom comes to 
 you occasionally, as now, and you rise almost to the 
 level of the happily intentionless man." 
 
 " You cloak it charmingly. But I frankly confess 
 that if I remain with you it is because I want to be 
 with you, and don't want to be at the hospital. Only, 
 don't forget, Leo, that if you always exert this sort 
 of influence over me Why, hullo! there's George 
 Barnard! How are you, George?"
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. Io c 
 
 " Harold, I'm so glad to see you. How do you 
 do, Mr. Tame?" 
 
 The barrister, looking more dishevelled than usual, 
 had been staring into the window of a bookseller's 
 shop in the street down which Harold and Tarne were 
 walking from the park. This was the afternoon of the 
 first Monday in the month, and Mrs. Greet's day for 
 giving notice, a process which generally drove the 
 barrister direct from his writing-table into the street. 
 Mrs. Greet must have triumphed signally on this par- 
 ticular occasion, for George Barnard to have been 
 driven into wandering so far afield as Regent Street, 
 or its immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 The change of expression in Harold's face when he 
 caught sight of the barrister's kindly features had been 
 very curious. Colour had rushed into it, as though 
 Harold had been detected in some misdemeanour. 
 Then, quickly, had come a look of general awaken- 
 ing, recollection, and some regret. George Barnard 
 was part, and the most generous, least constrained 
 part, of all that Harold had clung to, whilst lunching 
 at the corner window-table in the Hereford, and had 
 relinquished, brushed aside, in his subsequent yielding 
 to Leo Tarne's persuasions. 
 
 " Why, Harold," said George Barnard, " I fancied 
 you would be on your way from Bart's to Waterloo 
 by now." 
 
 " Our friend was kind enough to make lunch en- 
 joyable for me to-day," explained Leo Tarne. " And 
 we were arranging to dine together, this evening. If 
 you would be induced to join us, Mr. Barnard, it would 
 have the effect 
 
 "I'm sorry," interrupted the barrister, the 
 coming from him with transparent want of ease, 
 "but I have to put in a working evening to- 
 night."
 
 I9 6 GOD/S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Leo Tarne bowed polite regret, and turning to 
 Harold again, the barrister said: 
 
 " I met Mr. Morley Fenton outside a music-shop 
 in Holborn. He had one or two little things to do, 
 and then was going on to Waterloo. He told me 
 he was to meet you there in time for the 4.30, and 
 he spoke of some letter he had had about you. I 
 know he expects you, and I fancy he will wait for 
 you." 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Harold, " but I don't think Mr. 
 Fenton will wait, George." 
 
 But Harold's tone was full of amenability, almost 
 of penitence. The barrister's frank blue eyes flashed 
 upward understanding and sidelong resentment. Leo 
 Tarne stood at his side. 
 
 " Seems a shame to disappoint him, Harold. He 
 certainly expects you. And er in view of to-day's 
 lunch, I dare say Mr. Tarne will excuse you, won't 
 you, Mr. Tarne?" 
 
 The barrister's endeavour to give a genial ring to 
 his question made Leo Tarne smile a smile which 
 concerned his upper lip alone, and was not the most 
 cordial kind of expression. 
 
 " I excuse my enemies, Mr. Barnard, and my ac- 
 quaintances, I believe, for the most part excuse me. 
 But I do not excuse my friends. Felicitations are the 
 things to reserve for one's friends, I think or con- 
 dolences. In pleasing himself, Harold will, I am sure, 
 delight me." 
 
 " H'm ! " The barrister glanced at his watch. " It 
 is only five minutes to four now, Harold. If you jump 
 into this hansom, you'll get to Waterloo, with five 
 minutes to spare. What do you say? Shall I hail 
 it?" 
 
 " Well, you know, I left my bag at the hospital, 
 George."
 
 ON A WAYSIDE SLOPE. lg? 
 
 " But you have things down at Sunbury, haven't 
 you." 
 
 Harold ^thought of Mr. Fenton's little present. 
 '" Ye-es," he said with slight hesitation. " I have 
 some things." 
 
 " And they don't dress for dinner as a general 
 thing, I think. Let me call this cab. Don't disap- 
 point Yes! Here you are, Cabby! Waterloo!" 
 Leo Tarne accepted the situation gracefully, and 
 smilingly wished his friend a pleasant evening. 
 
 " My kindest regards to' all at Weir Lodge," he 
 said, as Harold leaned forward in the cab to shake his 
 hand ; " and to the Botticelli fairy," he added, lower- 
 ing his voice. " Yours, of course, to the Carissima? 
 Yes. Adio." 
 
 And as the cab moved away Leo Tarne turned, 
 and stood facing George Barnard, where he stood on 
 the pavement's edge. For a full and somewhat awk- 
 ward moment these two men looked into each other's 
 eyes. Then Leo Tarne made a little, half-laughing, 
 inarticulate sound which might have been regarded as 
 the clearing of his throat. 
 
 " Let me offer you a cigarette," he said, holding 
 out his case to the barrister. " I am due at St. James's 
 at four. I think I had better cab it. May I put you 
 down anywhere?" 
 
 The barrister had mechanically taken one of 
 Tarne's cigarettes, and was twisting it unconsciously 
 between finger and thumb. 
 
 " No," he said at length slowly; "no, thanks, Mr. 
 Tarne; I'm just meandering about er that is, for a 
 few minutes, you know." 
 
 Leo Tarne smiled, whilst unobtrusively beckoning 
 to the driver of a passing hansom. As the vehicle 
 drew up beside the two men the barrister stepped 
 aside to allow Tarne to enter it.
 
 I9 8 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " I say, Mr. Tarne," he said hesitatingly, and whilst 
 resting one hand on the splashboard of the cab, " you 
 have a good deal of influence with Harold Foster, 
 don't you think so? " 
 
 " It's very kind of you to say so." The sneer in 
 Leo Tarne's voice was very thinly, if gracefully, dis- 
 guised. " I like to think so." 
 
 " Yes, just so. Well, there are reasons, believe me, 
 why parts of your world, even my shabby old world, 
 are rather dangerous places for Harold just now. His 
 examination at the hospital comes on soon, you know." 
 
 " Ah, yes." Leo Tarne flicked the ash from his 
 cigarette, and looked all the polite interest of polite 
 boredom. 
 
 " Well, forgive my boring you, but, for the sake 
 of one or two people who've been watching that boy 
 since he was a child, and who love him, Mr. Tarne, 
 don't exert any influence that is likely to keep him 
 back in the world more than you can help." 
 
 Again the eyes of the two men met for just one 
 moment, and Leo Tarne's were the first to be lowered, 
 though they were lowered carelessly enough. 
 
 Then the barrister stepped back from the cab and 
 bowed, as Leo Tarne murmured: 
 
 " I am afraid I don't quite follow you, Mr. Bar- 
 nard, but yes, St. James's Hall, Cabby. Good-bye, 
 Mr. Barnard." 
 
 The cab moved on in the direction taken by Har- 
 old's cab a few minutes before. The barrister turned 
 slowly towards the bookseller's window. 
 
 " Hang! Damn your smooth face!" he muttered. 
 And a gentleman in black cloth gaiters passing, at the 
 moment, turned his irreproachable head, and gazed 
 with horror at George Barnard. 
 
 The gentleman in gaiters was clean shaven.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A QUESTION OF DIAGNOSIS. 
 
 " But try and, what you find wrong, remedy, 
 Accepting the conditions : never ask 
 ' How came you to be born here with those lungs, 
 That liver ? ' But bid asthma smoke a pipe, 
 Stramonium, just as if no Tropics were, 
 And ply with calomel the sluggish duct, 
 Nor taunt ' The born Norwegian breeds no bile ! ' 
 And as with body, so proceed with soul." 
 
 Red Cotton Nightcap Country. 
 
 HAROLD FOSTER had both time and food for re- 
 flection during his drive to Waterloo, and during the 
 five minutes which he spent there in waiting for Mr. 
 Morley Fenton. He remembered a favourite saying 
 of Leo Tarne's to the effect that " Virtue brings its 
 own remorse." 
 
 " Hang it! " he muttered, looking about him in the 
 crowded station, with half a frown and half a smile of 
 amused perplexity. " I wonder what made me throw 
 over Leo and his dinner so meekly. It seems to me 
 that my best friends either bully or poison or exhaust 
 me. Good old George; how disreputable he looked! 
 And Leo must have thought it deuced unfriendly of 
 me. Bother! I wonder if Norah Ah!" 
 
 Harold stepped forward slowly as he noticed Mr. 
 Morley Fenton approaching him from the gates at the 
 head of the platform. 
 
 "So you are here before me," said Mr. Fenton, 
 holding out his hand. " I am very glad you came. 
 Didn't you bring a bag? " 
 
 199
 
 200 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Well, the fact is, I I was going to dine with 
 Leo Tarne, only I met George Barnard, and he 
 said he thought you might wait for me, so I 
 
 " Exactly; it was good of you to put off Mr. Tarne, 
 and I am glad you did. I have had a very interesting 
 letter from Dr. Wainwright, in which he tells me a 
 good deal about you and your work at Bartholo- 
 mew's." 
 
 Harold and Mr. Fenton had taken their seats, and 
 the Sunbury train was beginning to move slowly out 
 from the station. Mr. Fenton drew a letter from his 
 pocket, and held it in his hand as he leaned forward 
 to talk to Harold. The carriage they had chosen had 
 but one other occupant. Harold knew that the distin- 
 guished physician, behind whom he had frequently 
 walked the wards of Bartholomew's, was an old ac- 
 quaintance of Mr. Morley Fenton's. But he rather 
 wondered what the great man could have to say about 
 so insignificant a personage as himself. " Nothing 
 flattering, certainly," reflected Harold, thinking of the 
 extremely spasmodic nature of his recent work at the 
 hospital. 
 
 " This letter is of course a confidential one," said 
 Mr. Fenton; "but I don't think for a moment that 
 Dr. Wainwright would mind my talking to you about 
 it. In fact, I fancy it was with a view to something of 
 that sort that he wrote it." 
 
 " Ah! Then I suppose he has nothing very pleas- 
 ing to say about me," said Harold, with a rather 
 strained smile. 
 
 " On the contrary, he says several very pleasant 
 things things almost too flattering for you to hear. 
 Here is one. He says: ' If I am any judge, your young 
 friend has all the material in him of which really bril- 
 liant doctors are made. He will never be a surgeon, 
 but my firm belief is that he can, if he likes, be a
 
 A QUESTION OF DIAGNOSIS. 
 
 2OI 
 
 cleverer physician than any one of the students now 
 at Bart's will be. His diagnostic insight has startled 
 me more than once, and he has all the really big doc- 
 tors' sensitive, perceptive touch.' That's pleasant 
 enough, Harold, is it not?" 
 
 The young man nodded. His face was aflame. 
 
 " It's very kind of Dr. Wainwright," he murmured. 
 
 " Then," continued Mr. Fenton, " he says that last 
 Friday you positively upset the verdict of one of his 
 own colleagues, re-diagnosed a case, and proved an 
 able man to have been quite wrong in his judgment, 
 thereby, in all probability, preventing so serious an 
 accident as a useless operation." 
 
 Harold's colour deepened under this shower of 
 kudos. 
 
 " Ah, that's nothing," he said hesitatingly. " Any 
 man might have taken that haematoma for a cold 
 abscess. That was mere chance." 
 
 "H'm! very creditable chance very." Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton's brows straightened; his moustache was 
 drawn inward slightly. " Well, then," he continued, 
 " after all this, comes a little of a different flavour. 
 He says you are more irregular in your attendance 
 than ' the most roystering chuckle-head on the stu- 
 dents' list.' " 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton raised his eyes till they met 
 Harold's like levelled lances. The young man's face 
 had regained its natural colour. His expression im- 
 plied nervous annoyance under a thin veil of polite 
 indifference. Mr. Fenton resumed his extract from 
 the eminent medico's letter. 
 
 " ' He is as full of moods as a fashionable prac- 
 titioner; as variable as a woman; as little inclined to 
 steady effort as a young poet, and as nonchalant as a 
 crack surgeon. These be trifles which, if not seen to, 
 may prove sufficient to prevent one of the most pos-
 
 202 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 sible, the most promising, students I ever gave a hint 
 to, being able to write M. D. after his name, far less 
 succeeding in his profession.' " 
 
 Again Mr. Fenton's eyes met those of his protege, 
 and this time the younger man flinched under the 
 sharp attack. Then Mr. Fenton replaced the letter in 
 his coat pocket, and leaned back, puffing thoughtfully 
 at his cheroot. 
 
 " An interesting letter, is it not? " he asked quietly, 
 after a silence of a full minute's duration. 
 
 " Very," said Harold, without raising his eyes. 
 " And I dare say the latter part is very true. I have 
 been irregular. Regularity is the one thing most 
 hard to me." 
 
 Then both were silent again. The train passed 
 through Hampton. 
 
 " Yes. Regularity is a habit, like irregularity, but 
 a little more difficult to cultivate, and a great deal 
 more useful when one has it." 
 
 Harold nodded, and a few minutes later the two 
 were walking together towards Weir Lodge. 
 
 As they were leaving their coats in the vestibule 
 of the white house, Mr. Morley Fenton turned sud- 
 denly, and placed one hand on Harold's arm. Harold 
 thought afterwards that there had been something 
 curiously uncertain and undecided in the touch 
 something which suggested the touch of a man grop- 
 ing his way in a dark room. 
 
 " The first part of the letter must come true, Har- 
 old; the material must be used." 
 
 Mr. Fenton paused, and cleared his throat. 
 
 " Yes," assented Harold, rather vaguely. And 
 then came light footsteps in the hall, and the two men 
 stepped forward to meet Norah, who announced her- 
 self before Mr. Fenton pushed aside the swing-doors 
 of the vestibule, by crying:
 
 A QUESTION OF DIAGNOSIS. 203 
 
 " Is that you, father dear? " 
 
 Norah had been running across the hall. Catching 
 sight of Harold's fair head as the swing-doors opened, 
 she dropped on the instant into a gliding walk, ad- 
 vancing demurely then to meet Mr. Morley Fenton 
 and his guest.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 INTERVENTION. 
 
 " "Tis an awkward thing to play with souls, 
 And matter enough to save one's own." 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 NORAH advanced towards Harold, full of abruptly- 
 recalled consciousness that a mystic ring surrounded 
 that young man, with his glinting fair hair, and his eyes 
 coloured like far-off mountain-sides seen in sunshine 
 which has followed rain a ring across the edges of 
 which she might not allow her little feet to stray. 
 
 Harold addressed Xorah by her Christian name in 
 saluting her, and was surprised at the little thrill which 
 the indulgence of this permitted familiarity sent 
 through him, even there in Air. Morley Fenton's pres- 
 ence. 
 
 A few moments afterwards Harold was in the little 
 walnut room over Mr. Fenton's study. Whilst making 
 some slight change in his dress, there floated insist- 
 ently before Harold's eyes a picture, in which the 
 figure was dark-eyed Norah, in the flowing creamy 
 gown she wore that evening, the foreground was the 
 great rug at the foot of the Weir Lodge staircase, and 
 the background was an oak wainscoted wall, illumined 
 by the uncertain, warm glow of the hall fire. 
 
 Harold sighed, and smiled, as he stood before the 
 dressing-table in the little walnut room, a hair-brush 
 in either hand, his head inclined sideways, as though 
 he questioned his own reflection. 
 
 204
 
 INTERVENTION. 2o e 
 
 "What was it that poet-sprite wrote?" he said: 
 
 " ' Not content to dig with other men, 
 Because cf certain sudden sights and sounds 
 (Bars of broke music ; furtive, fleeting glimpse 
 Of angel faces 'thwart the grating seen) 
 Perceived in Heaven. Yet when I approach 
 To catch the sound's completeness, to absorb 
 The faces' full perfection, Heaven's gate, 
 Which then had stood ajar, sudden falls to 
 And I I ' 
 
 I forget the rest, but it was something- about ' men's 
 mocking at the man who didn't care to dig.' H'm! 
 and the gate falls to. No; it seems some kind soul 
 always pushes it to in my life. Ah, well, I'll go 
 downstairs, and talk to George Barnard's Maud, about 
 hospitals and theatres, and things!" 
 
 There was half-amused bitterness in Harold's face 
 as he left the little walnut room; but, perhaps, by 
 reason of that " furtive, fleeting " picture he had seen 
 in the hall, he had as yet given no thought to the 
 Carissima, or to Leo Tarne, or to the evening he was 
 to have spent with them. 
 
 Harold did not edify Maud Fenton when he went 
 downstairs, with information about " theatres and hos- 
 pitals." There were difficulties in the way which Har- 
 old had not anticipated in connection with his laudable 
 design. Maud was in the breakfast-room, coiled all 
 round a volume from a circulating library. To reach 
 the breakfast-room the hall had to be crossed. In the 
 hall, on a low shadowy couch, at one side of the fire- 
 place, sat Norah, dreamily watching certain evening 
 stars that were beginning to peer through the big hall- 
 window, in the mauve light against which Harold's 
 figure appeared silhouetted, as he descended the 
 stairs. 
 
 Harold felt vaguely that he was on his honour in 
 the matter of maintaining a certain reserve between
 
 20 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Norah and himself. He intended now to pass her, 
 with a smile and, as chance directed, some casual re- 
 mark, and then to find Maud, and talk to her. Sud- 
 denly, and as Harold's feet touched the floor of the 
 hall, a brilliant wintry moon, new risen, sailed over 
 the edge of a sullen snow-cloud, and poured down a 
 broad stream of its beautifying light through the upper 
 half of the hall-window. It glanced along the polished 
 balustrade beside the stairs, shimmered, like sea-phos- 
 phorescence, across one side of a quaintly fretted 
 Venetian lamp, and stretched at last slim fingers of 
 purity over Norah's massed dark hair; giving to her 
 sweet face a curiously saintly beauty, and circling her 
 creamy throat, from where her ears crept out, under 
 overhanging tendrils of hair, with a band like nacre 
 nacre bedded in the shadowy foam of laces on her 
 breast. There the light melted into sepia indistinct- 
 ness. 
 
 Regarded as a picture merely, a thing without life, 
 Norah, under her silvery diadem, was calculated to 
 appeal strongly to the admiration of any man, to fas- 
 cinate some. Harold stood still, his head gleaming in 
 the same moon-ray which gave Norah her crown, gaz- 
 ing at the girl in much the same ecstasy of appreciation 
 which had been his on that Sunday morning of the 
 previous summer that had followed the evening of 
 his first meeting with her. 
 
 " Father has gone into the study. Were you look- 
 ing for him, Mr. Foster? " 
 
 " No, thank you. I was that is, I think I must 
 have been looking for a cathedral organ, or or for 
 the other angels. But you are not a cathedral vision, 
 or a dream of Corregio's painted on mother-o'-pearl, 
 are you, Norah? " 
 
 The girl laughed cooingly, a warm glow creeping 
 over the cream of her cheeks. Then she remembered
 
 INTERVENTION. 
 
 the barrier, and bending forward out of reach of the 
 moonlight, she said slowly: 
 
 "Aunty and Lucy are in the drawing-room, I 
 think." 
 
 Harold's virtuous resolves anent theatre and hos- 
 pital talk had melted away in the moonlight, as frost 
 recedes from a March sun's advances. He sat down 
 on a low stool within a yard of Norah's couch. 
 
 " I am glad to-day is not Sunday," he said, refer- 
 ring evidently to some subject as yet undiscussed. 
 
 "Why?" asked Norah, with fine impartiality. 
 
 " Well, really, I could hardly tell you why, unless 
 it is because Sunday is a more correct day than the 
 others, and I I am less correct than most people, 
 perhaps." 
 
 "Oh! Being correct is rather horrid, is it not? 
 That is, I mean being very correct, you know." 
 
 " I'm awfully glad you think so. But you you 
 manage it much better than I do." 
 
 " Perhaps that is because I am more used to it. 
 But I'm sure I am not correct at all." 
 
 " No, no, perhaps, all things considered, you are 
 not more correct than is absolutely necessary, to avoid 
 upsetting very correct people, you know, and thereby 
 becoming less charming well, I mean, of course you 
 couldn't be like that, you know." 
 
 Harold seemed to be recklessly approaching dan- 
 gerous ground. 
 
 " Oh, I have not asked after your friend, Mr. 
 Tame," said Norah. And, of course, she may have 
 wished to hear something of Mr. Tarne. 
 
 "And I haven't told you that Leo asked to be 
 remembered to you, just as I was leaving him this 
 afternoon. He is very well, I think. The giving of 
 those messages is just one of the correct things I am 
 always forgetting. Of course, they are often sincere
 
 20 8 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 enough; but then, again, they are sometimes such 
 palpable humbug. I I wonder why I say all these 
 things to you. You will think me a fearful barbarian." 
 
 " You don't think that, Mr. Foster; you know you 
 don't." 
 
 " But somehow I always fancy that you under- 
 stand; and so, I suppose, I am daring enough to ex- 
 pect sympathy." 
 
 So these two chatted while the moonlight grad- 
 ually spread, penetrating every shadow, and trickling 
 into every corner of the hall. Harold had, for the 
 moment, forgotten the existence of any barrier be- 
 tween them. With each unimportant but much por- 
 tending sentence which they exchanged, the barrier 
 became more misty and unreal to Norah. Once there 
 was a little rustling noise at the drawing-room door. 
 Then, all being still again, the two in the moonlight 
 babbled on. They were drawing nearer, nearer each 
 to each, with every word that passed between them. 
 
 Then suddenly the drawing-room door swung 
 back. Curiously enough, Norah felt quite convinced 
 that the door had been shut ; yet it opened noiselessly, 
 and Mrs. Morley Fenton stepped briskly into the 
 moonlight from out a flood of yellow light from the 
 drawing-room. 
 
 " Norah dear, why didn't you ring for lights? Oh, 
 Mr. Foster, this is too bad of you, not to have come 
 in to see us all. We thought you must be in your 
 room. Where's father, Norah?" 
 
 " In the study. I will run and tell him it's nearly 
 dinner-time. I thought the hall looked so much pret- 
 tier without gas." 
 
 So Norah, for whom the hall seemed to have lost 
 some of its attractiveness, disappeared in the direction 
 of Mr. Morley Fenton's room, whilst Harold, mur- 
 muring a lame apology to his hostess, walked with
 
 INTERVENTION. 2O9 
 
 her to the drawing-room, where Lucy Fenton sat, 
 working flowers in silk on a hand-screen. Mrs. Fen- 
 ton's bright, keen eyes swept searchingly over Harold's 
 face, as the rather glaring light from the drawing-room 
 gasalier fell upon it. Mrs. Fenton had less faith in her 
 husband's manipulation of some matters, at all events, 
 than had that gentleman himself. And, curiously 
 enough, the thought of her own daughter, Lucy, prov- 
 ing an attraction to Harold Foster was rather pleasant 
 than otherwise to this good lady. 
 
 After dinner the family gathered in the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " I want everybody to excuse my being fearfully 
 rude here," said Maud, " because there's no fire in the 
 billiard-room, and the breakfast-room's horrid after 
 dinner." 
 
 " What special form is your rudeness to take, Mad- 
 cap? " asked the head of the house. 
 
 " Oh yes; I forgot. Why, I have four more chap- 
 ters of ' The Gigantic Fragment ' to read, and I must 
 read them now, else I shall forget what the rest of it 
 was about." 
 
 "Oh yes! Complimentary to the author, isn't it, 
 Harold? Norah dear, do you feel like giving us a 
 little music, if we are self-denying enough to postpone 
 our smoke? " 
 
 Norah smiled and moved towards the piano. Har- 
 old stepped to her side. Mrs. Fenton raised her deli- 
 cate eyebrows. Mr. Morley Fenton misunderstood 
 his wife's expression. 
 
 " Yes, I know, my dear," he said; " you don't mind 
 your curtains being spoiled in the least, and you are 
 rather fond of the smell of smoke. But we won't 
 take advantage of your goodness, all the same." 
 
 Mrs. Fenton shrugged her shoulders ever so slight- 
 ly, and Harold stood at ease to turn the pages of
 
 2io GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Norah's music. So Norah played from printed music, 
 though she preferred playing from memory. 
 
 Later on in the evening, when Mr. Morley Fenton 
 had perhaps forgotten the matter of his after-dinner 
 smoke he was staring rather fixedly into the fire, 
 whilst Mrs. Fenton knitted, Lucy embroidered indus- 
 triously, and Maud remained coiled round her " Gigan- 
 tic Fragment " Xorah left the piano, and strolled to 
 the open door of the conservatory. Harold followed 
 her, drawing a cigarette from his pocket as he did so. 
 
 The atmosphere of the conservatory was warm and 
 flower-fragrant. The light there was very beautiful. 
 Neither Norah nor Harold Foster were slow to ap- 
 preciate these facts, but Norah was severely general 
 in her share of the conversation. Harold was guarded, 
 and not forgetful particularly during the first three 
 minutes. 
 
 Ten minutes afterwards Mrs. Fenton laid aside her 
 knitting, and her fair face showed that knitting had 
 ceased to interest or charm her. She rose, and glanced 
 at her husband. 
 
 " Why should you not have your cigar in the con- 
 servatory, dear, since you insist on sparing the draw- 
 ing-room? " 
 
 "Ah, to be sure! Yes thank you, dear; I'll go 
 to my room. Yes, I think I will go to the study, 
 thanks." 
 
 There was a distinct look of impatience on Mrs. 
 Fenton's usually smiling face as she stepped towards 
 the conservatory door. But her voice had all its wonted 
 trilling sweetness when she said, whilst on the threshold 
 of the conservatory, and immediately behind Norah: 
 
 " How pretty the moonlight makes these ferns 
 under the glass. Don't you think so, Mr. Foster? " 
 
 Mr. Foster did think so, and moreover said as 
 much, with some added comment about " tropical
 
 INTERVENTION. 21 1 
 
 effect" and the branches of a certain palm. But he 
 had been unable to restrain a movement of surprise, 
 and, perhaps, of annoyance, when the first sounds of 
 Mrs. Fentoirs voice had reached him. He tossed the 
 end of his cigarette into an empty flower-pot, and 
 turned to speak to the lady of the house. The dis- 
 carded cigarette-end was at least two inches in length. 
 But then it was not alight. 
 
 Yet once again during that short evening, was the 
 joint attention of Harold and Norah called to the 
 barrier which had been carefully erected between them ; 
 this third time by its architect and builder. The party 
 had separated for the night at the door of the drawing- 
 room. The ladies had made their way upstairs, Mr. 
 Morley Fenton had gone into his study to write a 
 letter before going to bed, and Harold had paused 
 beside the hall fire, dividing his attention between a 
 cigarette and Maud Fenton's brown spaniel a pam- 
 pered animal with an exaggerated fondness for choco- 
 late creams. 
 
 Norah came running downstairs alone, with a per- 
 fectly innocent desire to find a letter which she had 
 left on the piano in the drawing-room with her hand- 
 kerchief. Having found her property she lingered by 
 the hall fire. Common courtesy forced her to do this, 
 because Harold besieged her with small questions. 
 The study door stood ajar. Just as Harold's questions 
 were veering from Pompey, the spaniel, to Norah, 
 whom Leo Tarne called "the Botticelli fairy," there 
 issued from the study a sound as of the turning, in a 
 hesitating way, of. a revolving chair. One minute later 
 and Mr. Morley Fenton appeared in the hall. There 
 was a curious, half-reluctant, half-annoyed expression 
 on his face, as he said: 
 
 "Aha! you two late ones; I thought I heai 
 voices. You ought to be in bed, you know, Norah.
 
 212 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 I was just going to put the lights out. Will that train 
 we went by this morning suit you to-morrow, Har- 
 old?" 
 
 Norah kissed her adopted father somewhat hur- 
 riedly, and, with a funny little smile over one shoulder, 
 and a " Good-night," which contained no suggestion 
 of barriers, to Harold, she ran lightly upstairs, leaving 
 the two men alone before the hall fire. 
 
 "Oh yes, thanks; it will suit me very well," said 
 Harold, speaking with some little constraint. " Good- 
 night! I I know it will relieve your mind to see me 
 go to bed." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton looked up sharply; but Har- 
 old had turned, and w r as moving towards the staircase. 
 Then the last vestige of annoyance faded from Mr. 
 Fenton's face, leaving only regret, reluctance, and 
 some weariness, in its place. 
 
 " Why yes," he said, as Harold paused with one 
 hand on the balustrade " yes, I like you to rest well, 
 my dear boy, because I want Wainwright's prophecies 
 to be fulfilled; and and that must mean working 
 well, mustn't it? " 
 
 "Yes oh yes; it means working. Good-night!" 
 
 "Good-night, Harold!" 
 
 Something insistent and not happy, rang through 
 the cheerfulness of Mr. Morley Fenton's voice. 
 
 " Well, of course, she is no more to me than any 
 other girl," muttered Harold, whilst moodily poking 
 the fire in the little \valnut room. " And I'm no more 
 to her not so much," he added, with more emphasis 
 than lucidity. " Only, it does seem a weird thing, 
 rather, that I can't be allowed oh, hang! Of course, 
 it's part of the general impossibility of things. H'm 
 part of the whole eternal question. And, of course, 
 Norah is no more to me than anyone else," he repeated, 
 as he began listlessly to undress. " She she can't be ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 REACTION. 
 
 " I called the devil, and he came ; 
 To view him with wonder I began. 
 He is not ugly and is not lame ; 
 Far from it, he is a charming man. 
 A man in the vigour still of his years, 
 A man of the world and polite he appears." 
 
 HEINE. 
 
 GUIDED by that general principle which, to him, 
 seemed to underlie all the laws which governed Weir 
 Lodge, the principle of acting always in direct oppo- 
 sition to the inclination of the moment, Harold Foster 
 paid a good deal of polite attention to Lucy Fenton, 
 when the family met at breakfast next morning. Per- 
 haps this may have influenced Mrs. Fenton in her evi- 
 dent forgetfulness of all that which, on the previous 
 evening, had more than once brought a look of im- 
 patience into her dainty face. 
 
 She inquired with almost effusive solicitude whether 
 her husband's protege had passed a good night. Actu- 
 ated presumably by motives of courtesy to his hostess, 
 certainly by no inherent love of truth, Harold replied 
 in the affirmative, thereby leaving unexplained the 
 dark semicircles under his eyes, and the weariness 
 which, denied by his words, was made obvious by the 
 flat ring in his voice. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Harold had passed an ex- 
 tremely tiring, if varied night, in the course of which 
 he had read disconnected chapters from an uninterest- 
 
 213
 
 214 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ing novel ; smoked the first halves of five or six cigar- 
 ettes; endeavoured to restore to life a hopelessly de- 
 funct fire, with the aid of leaves from a work on ob- 
 stetric surgery ; and, in broken snatches of restless un- 
 consciousness, had dreamed persistently of being 
 forced over the edge of a most forbidding precipice 
 by Mr. Morley Fenton, who, presumably with a view 
 to hiding his identity in this episode, had clothed 
 himself in the vestments of a bishop of the Epis- 
 copal Church, gaiters, sleeves and shovel hat en 
 regie. 
 
 " It's all very fine, Blougram," Harold had defi- 
 antly opined, during one of his tussles with the soi- 
 disant Church dignitary. " Your status entourage and 
 the rest of it may be very well for those who like 
 to pay the price you pay for it. I don't. I prefer 
 
 the heath here, with the gipsies; and " And 
 
 Harold had waked again, to find one leg in reality 
 dangling over a precipice formed by the side of his 
 bed. 
 
 The previous evening, with its suggestions of pleas- 
 ant interludes inexorably nipped in the bud by his 
 host and hostess, had, as a whole, been chilly and 
 constraining in its impression upon Harold. The night, 
 so far as its brief intervals of sleep were concerned, 
 had been a grotesque exaggeration of the evening's 
 worst points, plus that feeling of intense reality which 
 actual life, it would seem, never yields in the same de- 
 gree as do experiences in that mysterious land of the 
 unexplained which one sometimes visits whilst sleep- 
 ing. 
 
 " I shall look out for you at the usual time this 
 afternoon," said Air. Morley Fenton to Harold when 
 the two were separating at Waterloo. " But if you 
 cannot manage the 4.30, come on by a later train, 
 won't you? I am half expecting a young fellow from
 
 REACTION. 2I - 
 
 Ireland this evening, a very clever fellow, I believe 
 My poor brother took a great interest in him, and he 
 knows Norah well." 
 
 "Oh yes! He is not a 'piratical craft,' I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 " Eh? Oh ah! Oh dear no! No; I believe he is 
 one of the few rich landholders left in the West of Ire- 
 land. Anyhow, he is a very nice fellow. Well, I will 
 look out for you at 4.30, then? " 
 
 "Yes, thanks. Good-bye." 
 
 So they parted on this dull February morning. 
 And Harold made the best of his way through Lon- 
 don's early-day rawness to the hospital, feeling thor- 
 oughly in keeping with his atmospheric surroundings 
 of chill, clinging greyness. 
 
 The day dragged, to Harold, whilst doubtless trip- 
 ping along gaily enough to many Jess fortunately 
 placed. Noon passed, and Harold, feeling too dis- 
 pirited to go out to lunch, took the place for an hour 
 of a fellow-student " on the door." 
 
 The special destiny which overlooks such combina- 
 tions as the short-sighted amongst us call " trifles," 
 was not well disposed towards Harold Foster on this 
 February morning. He made several small mistakes 
 whilst on duty in the casualty ward, and was afforded 
 a fine insight into the highly inflammable tempera- 
 ment and dictatorial fastidiousness of the average out- 
 door patient. 
 
 He was subsequently overcome by an altogether 
 unaccountable attack of nausea in the operating thea- 
 tre; and, finally, towards four o'clock, having been 
 severely rebuked by two surgeons, wrathfully remon- 
 strated with by a motherly nurse, whom, having for- 
 gotten in a fit of abstraction, he had left supporting 
 a patient's half-bandaged leg, and unmercifully chafed 
 bv a number of his fellow-students; Harold took his
 
 2i6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 hat and coat in despair, and decided to go home to his 
 rooms in Kensington. 
 
 Whilst standing moodily in the doorway of the 
 cloak-room, Harold was hailed by a passing porter, 
 who said that a lady was inquiring for him in the wait- 
 ing-room on the ground-floor. 
 
 " Oh, all right, Lawson thank you! " said Harold, 
 as though at this particular hour he was in the habit 
 of entertaining his lady friends in the hospital. Then, 
 hat in hand, and dressed for walking, Harold made 
 his way to the room beside the main entrance. 
 
 In the waiting-room the friends of several poor 
 patients, carrying, for the most part, babies, these in 
 various stages of irritability, were comparing notes 
 upon the disorders and ailments of their respective 
 families, and upon other matters. Some carried quart 
 medicine bottles, most carried baskets of allegedly 
 edible treasures, and all carried that peculiar odour of 
 combined illness and poverty which is so full of pathos, 
 and unpleasantness. 
 
 Standing in the middle of the room, and bending 
 over the by no means cleanly head of a small boy, 
 whose mother was being treated in the casualty ward, 
 Harold Foster saw the Carissima. He also heard her 
 rippling, silvery voice as she spoke words of consola- 
 tion to the grimy and temporarily motherless small 
 boy, whose fingers clutched her gown. The other 
 occupants of the room raised their eyes as the door 
 was opened by Harold, and then lowered them with a 
 curiously contemptuous deprecation, intended as a dis- 
 claimer, and an assurance of complete absence of con- 
 nection with the couple who stood apart. 
 
 A blended fragrance of Parma violets, and of some 
 perfume more subtle, hung between the Carissima and 
 the good ladies who resented her presence. Her hat 
 was a bewildering little bower of shimmering fragilities.
 
 REACTION. 
 
 An outstanding cloud of sunset-tinted foam which 
 clung about her shoulders, was probably, Harold 
 thought, the Carissima's idea of a cloak. The curi- 
 ously Arcadian-looking crook or wand upon which 
 her white-gloved hand rested, like a snowflake, was 
 doubtless regarded by its owner as an umbrella. Four 
 stunted fingers of the temporary orphan's right hand 
 were buried in the folds of a Parisian modiste's dreamy 
 ideal, materialized to serve the Carissima as a gown. 
 Whilst Harold Foster's mind absorbed and informed 
 him of these things, the bewildering hat moved up- 
 ward and backward, and the Carissima's violet eyes 
 met those of the young man. 
 
 The whole thing was very simple from the Carissi- 
 ma's point of view. Leo Tarne was brutal, and had 
 refused to be amusing that afternoon, pleading in a 
 cowardly way, so the Carissima explained to Harold, 
 that he suffered from neuralgia. It was obvious that 
 someone must amuse the Carissima. Harold looked 
 at the small boy, whose mother was in the casualty 
 ward. It was also obvious that a second kidnapping 
 of Harold by the gentleman from Sunbury, whom 
 the Carissima thought of as being some kind of a 
 tract-distributor, in goloshes and blue spectacles, was 
 not to be permitted. Ergo, "Che, che! " exclaimed 
 the lady, with a little wave of her Arcadian crook a 
 slightly unusual end to her afternoon drive, and here 
 was the Carissima prepared to personally ensure for 
 Harold immunity from tracts and kidnapping. 
 
 " The brougham is outside. You shall take me to 
 Sartello's for tea; and then then we will go and 
 bastinado the infamous Leo." 
 
 " It's awfully good of you," murmured Harold, as 
 the Carissima plucked a shilling out of her dainty 
 silken purse, and bestowed it on the small boy who 
 still clung to her skirt; "but* you know well, you
 
 2I g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 mustn't come to this place, you know; it's too ab- 
 surd. They'll take you for for an outdoor patient, 
 you know, and want to examine you, or some- 
 thing." 
 
 The Carissima laughed trillingly, such a laugh as 
 possibly had never before been heard within the pre- 
 cincts of St. Bartholomew's. Then she carried Harold 
 off in triumph to her tiny waiting brougham, and hall- 
 porters assembled about the entrance doors with af- 
 fected nonchalance, looking over each other's shoul- 
 ders to see the last of this dazzling vision from a world 
 they knew but slightly. As the miniature brougham 
 rolled away, the porters turned again to their duties, 
 with many solemn winks and knowing shoulder- 
 shrugs. 
 
 " Well," said one, " I've knowed a few gents in 
 this 'orspital; I've knowed a few, but well, I reckin 
 Mr. Foster takes it yes, I reckin 'e takes it!" 
 
 After which lucid summing up of the situation the 
 other porters realized that further comment would be 
 a work of supererogation, and therefore a thing not 
 to be thought of. 
 
 Harold drove with the Carissima to Sartello's, and 
 there, over daintily-served gossip and tea, he allowed 
 the cold greyness of his own atmosphere to gradually 
 lose itself in, and become dominated by, the rosy light 
 of piquancy which was part and parcel of Leo Tarne's 
 " guardian," as that gentleman was fond of calling the 
 beautiful Italian, who always persisted in regarding 
 him as an erring child. 
 
 After three-quarters of an hour spent in this way, 
 they rose from the aesthetic little alcove in which tea 
 had been served, and Harold said: 
 
 " I'm awfully grateful to you for having cheered 
 me up so; I was getting sordidly wretched. And 
 now, if you'll let me put you in your carriage again,
 
 REACTION. 219 
 
 I'm afraid I really must get away. I have prom- 
 ised 
 
 Harold paused. The Carissima's hat appeared to 
 be in imminent danger of actual dissolution. The 
 Carissima herself, an embodied ideal of carnival merri- 
 ment, was laughing with charming and insolent frank- 
 ness. 
 
 " Oh yes! yes!. yes! " she trilled out at last; "you 
 have promised, Signer Dolorous you have promised. 
 Ha, ha! Come, come; it is true. I had forgotten. 
 We have no time to waste. You must drive with me 
 to disagreeable Leo's. I could not go alone. Che, 
 che! most improper, most improper! Come,Signor! " 
 
 Harold bowed, and for the moment said no more. 
 So it happened that, presently, Leo Tarne's servant 
 opened the door of the flat in West Kensington to 
 admit his master's friends, Harold Foster and Lise 
 Vecci. 
 
 Leo Tarne welcomed his visitors with graceful 
 cordiality. His neuralgia, he said, had worn itself out, 
 and left him in high good-humour. The Carissima, 
 without removing her sunset cloak or her bower of 
 fragilities, sat down before the piano, and, accompany- 
 ing herself with Southern verve and brilliancy, sang 
 half a dozen verses of half a dozen roundelays, each 
 more trilling and more joyous than its predecessor. 
 Then, with no shadow of any decrease in her mar- 
 vellous vivacity, the Carissima lighted a dainty Rus- 
 , sian cigarette, and dashed off into the most recklessly 
 irresponsible French dance-music, punctuated by odd 
 snatches of song, and such quaintly thrown-out col- 
 loquialisms from three languages as one might ex- 
 pect to hear from the lips of a burlesque actress turned 
 vivandiere. 
 
 Meanwhile Leo Tarne, at his best just now, chatted 
 brightly, and exerted to the full all that influence of 
 15
 
 220 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 which George Barnard had spoken on the previous 
 afternoon a very real force to Harold, and one the 
 strength of which no one could realize more clearly 
 than did Leo Tarne himself. 
 
 Later on, a messenger was despatched to Harold's 
 rooms for his dress clothes, and the dinner which was 
 to have been partaken of at Carlo Varni's on the pre- 
 vious evening, was on this evening made a pronounced 
 success in another famous restaurant. The Carissima 
 expressed herself as well content with the conduct and 
 happiness of her " two children." Harold, growing 
 brighter and more vivacious as the evening wore on, 
 gave no further thought to Mr. Morley Fenton or to 
 Weir Lodge. As Leo Tarne had said, he, Harold, 
 lived as his friend wrote in phases. He was living 
 now through the reaction from the previous evening's 
 repression, from that day's greyness; and he drank 
 not in sips, but in gulps, from the cup of neurotic 
 exhilaration. 
 
 It was not until a rather chaotic little supper ,was 
 being discussed during the early morning hours, in 
 the dining-room of Tarne's flat, that the Weir Lodge 
 household was mentioned. Then the speaker was Leo 
 Tarne himself, who mockingly raised a tall Nurem- 
 berger glass of Rhein wine, and drank to " the apothe- 
 osis of appearances, coupled with the name of the Lord 
 Bishop of Weir Lodge." 
 
 The Carissima shook with unrestrained merriment, 
 till purple drops fell from the Burgundy glass she had 
 raised to her lips, on to the snowy cloud of lace which 
 nestled over her bosom. And Harold, who had once 
 almost quarrelled with his friend over a sneering refer- 
 ence to Mr. Morley Fenton, drank this toast with 
 laughing enthusiasm ; and, in mockingly giving thanks 
 for the same, he said that the one thing which pre- 
 vented his adopting the cult of conventionality was
 
 REACTION. 22 j 
 
 "the deadly nature of the advantages it offers, the 
 chilly misery of its rewards to faithful adherents." 
 
 When Harold unlocked the outer door of his own 
 chambers, which he had not visited for three or four 
 days, the dawning of another raw February day was 
 close at hand. And Harold's only comment as he 
 climbed into bed was: 
 
 " Well, Dr. Wainwright may be right, and Mr. 
 Fenton may be right, as regards themselves and their 
 lives; but for me by gad! they have to pay too big 
 a price for the status entourage, and I don't like it 
 when it's bought. Oh, the everlasting little round of 
 things, and the smoke in the curtains, and the locks 
 and bolts, and musts and must nots, and H'm! 
 and the Irishman isn't a piratical craft, because 
 of ' 
 
 If continued at all, Harold's reflections must have 
 partaken of the nature of a dream. For at this point 
 he fell asleep, and did not open his eyes until the house- 
 keeper knocked at his door, and made a remark about 
 " letters." 
 
 Two hours later Harold rose, picked up three let- 
 ters which lay near the door, glanced at his watch, 
 and realized that morning lecture-time at the hospital 
 had passed. He hesitated a moment whilst looking 
 at the outside of his letters. Then he yawned, and 
 returned to bed to read the said letters, comforting 
 himself with the threadbare shibboleth as to being 
 hanged for a sheep, and reflecting that, in any case, 
 the day was already a broken one. 
 
 If after leaving his bed Harold had proceeded to 
 wash, shave and dress, his subsequent actions might 
 have been considerably influenced thereby. He did 
 not, however. Two of his letters contained trades- 
 men's bills, and found their way speedily to the floor 
 by the bedside. The third was from George Barnard.
 
 222 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 It was brief, as were most of the barrister's letters. 
 It said: 
 
 "DEAR HAROLD: Come round to Furnival's Inn, 
 like a good fellow, when you leave the hospital to- 
 morrow. I want a yarn, and we can go somewhere and 
 feed together, and do a theatre if you like. Anyhow, 
 come. Affectionately, 
 
 " GEORGE BARNARD." 
 
 It had been written on the previous afternoon, and 
 was headed " Four o'clock." 
 
 " H'm, just about the time of the Carissima's ap- 
 pearance at the hospital," muttered Harold, lazily. 
 " Great Scott! how she must have startled the porters! 
 Good old George! Wonder what he wants to see me 
 about! I suppose I'd better go, and yet, I don't feel 
 much like it h'm! But George is certainly part of 
 that straight line. And what a wearisome line it is. 
 Yes, I'd better go. Shall I? H'm, I don't - Hullo! 
 who's that? Come in! " 
 
 " I'm coming, my good sybarite; I'm coming, be 
 not afraid. But you .see, I stumbled over your boots. 
 Very clumsy of me, I know; but I'm not used to com- 
 ing in with the milk as it were. How are you?" 
 
 " Ah, Leo, old man ! Glad to see you. You look 
 verdant and daisy-like as ever." 
 
 " Don't feel like it, I assure you. I had to dress 
 in a hurry, and interview the editor of the Green Re- 
 view this morning. Heaven knows what time he rises. 
 Indecent, I call it, positively. Our supper-table hadn't 
 been cleared." 
 
 " What did the gentleman want breakfast?" 
 
 " No copy. It appears they begin publishing that 
 Berlin story I told you of, as a serial, on Saturday. 
 Well, you know, the fact is I have only written four
 
 REACTION. 223 
 
 chapters of it. I didn't tell the early-rising man that; 
 but it is so. The story is all atmosphere and colour,' 
 you know; and I really don't feel as though I can go 
 on with it, to order. But it appears they have adver- 
 tised it all over the country; and well, they gave 
 me a very decent cheque beforehand. That's the 
 worst of the evening paper posters. They don't 
 tell you when a thing like that is being adver- 
 tised." 
 
 " H'm! Well, what's your idea? " 
 
 " Don't talk like that. That is how the Green Re- 
 view man put it. I must go on with the thing, and 
 I must have the right colour. So I am going where 
 the colour is; and I have come round here, at great 
 cost of er vitality and things, in order that you 
 might have plenty of time to pack your bag before 
 we start." 
 
 " But, my dear Leo, I 
 
 " Oh, of course, you have promised to go to Sun- 
 bury this evening, or Margate, or somewhere! But 
 you are coming to Berlin instead." 
 
 " No, I wasn't going to say anything about Sun- 
 bury. As a matter of fact, I believe I have to dine 
 with George Barnard, to-night. But, the hospital, my 
 dear Leo; consider 
 
 " No, I won't consider the charnel-house. It will 
 jog along without you for a week or so. You want 
 a holiday. Harold, there is more colour and move- 
 ment in one street of Berlin, than in all London and 
 Sunbury put together. We will go and bathe our 
 eyes in that colour, and come back seeing, breathing, ' 
 living. Come with me. You mustn't say ' No ' to me, 
 Harold. You cannot say ' No ' to me in this thing. 
 I want you. And I want to show you heaps of things. 
 You don't understand, Harold. Alone, I shall not 
 see the colour, as I shall in showing it to you. For
 
 224 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 my sake, Harold, you must come. You will, will you 
 not? " 
 
 It was very seldom that Leo Tarne expressed him- 
 self so emphatically as this. With every word he said 
 Harold's eyes had been growing brighter. Now the 
 younger man sat up in bed with parted lips, and head 
 thrown back. 
 
 " Yes, I'll come, Leo," he said. " I'll come and 
 see this colour with you." 
 
 So Leo Tarne gained his point, as he had known 
 very well that he would.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PHASES. 
 
 " There was a graven image of Desire 
 Painted with red blood on a ground of gold, 
 Passing between the young men and the old, 
 And by him Pain, whose body shone like fire, 
 And Pleasure, with gaunt hands that grasped their hire. 
 
 Death stood aloof behind a gaping grate, 
 Upon whose lock was written Peradventure" 
 
 SWINBURNE. 
 
 DURING the afternoon of that day on the morning 
 of which Leo Tarne had interviewed the editor of the 
 Green Review, George Barnard received from the 
 hands of the worthy Mrs. Greet a telegram which in- 
 formed him that Harold Foster was unable to come to 
 him that evening. 
 
 " Thanks to Mr. Leo Tarne, I suppose," said the 
 barrister, addressing his dog. That canine absurdity 
 promptly rose on its haunches, and assumed a begging 
 attitude. This senseless formula was reserved by 
 George Barnard's dog as a fixed answer to all ques- 
 tions the significance of which was not obviously ap- 
 parent; and it was also adopted as a means of cloak- 
 ing the evasion of all requests which, if acceded to, 
 would involve any. decrease in the animal's own com- 
 fort. In this way, and by the exercise of such simple 
 diplomacy, the mongrel dog had proved that situations 
 fraught with all the elements of serious discomfort 
 might be resolved into the mere acceptance from 
 George Barnard's hands of a stale sandwich, or a more 
 or less uninteresting biscuit. 
 
 225
 
 22 6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 The first post on the following morning brought 
 to the barrister, sandwiched between a returned manu- 
 script, a bill for coal supplied, and an invitation to 
 subscribe to a Hamburg lottery, a brief note from 
 Harold Foster. The note said: 
 
 " Leo Tarne has been called away on business 
 business on the Continent. He begged me to go with 
 him. I have been hungering for a change lately, so 
 thought I would go for a few days not more than 
 a week, I think. I will write, giving you an address. 
 We leave this evening for the Hook of Holland. 
 Please tell Mr. Fenton. Affectionately yours, 
 
 " HAROLD." 
 
 Once more the barrister's dog was appealed to for 
 an opinion on a subject outside the range of that ani- 
 mal's own immediate concerns. And once more the 
 stereotyped diplomacy aforementioned proved an emi- 
 nently satisfactory solution, and an appetizing fore- 
 taste of breakfast to come. But the barrister's lan- 
 guage, in the soliloquy which usually formed part of 
 his morning toilet, was of a kind unsuited to the hear- 
 ing of a well-regulated dog, and by no means credita- 
 ble to even a briefless young barrister of forty-five. 
 
 Towards noon, George Barnard was appealing to 
 a superior young native of Brixton, newly engaged as 
 comptroller of the enquiry desk in the counting-house 
 of Messrs. Morley Fenton, Son and Co. 
 
 " Yes, I believe Mr. Morley Fenton is in," said the 
 comptroller, with a glance of deprecating disapproval 
 at Barnard's soft hat and irresponsible necktie. " But 
 this is mail-day, and after eleven o'clock Mr. Fenton 
 never sees anyone except by appointment. Er per- 
 haps I 
 
 " No, I think not, thanks; not this morning. But
 
 PHASES. 227 
 
 if you could spare time to tell Mr. Fenton I want to 
 see him I'd be obliged. My name is Barnard." 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon! Mr. Barnard, of Bar- 
 nard, Schnell and Co." 
 
 " My young friend, your imagination is too vivid 
 much too vivid." 
 
 The big, kindly face of the barrister wore a rather 
 heightened colour, as he strode past the enquiry-desk 
 to the sanctum on the door of which was painted the 
 name of the firm's principal. The wings of George 
 Barnard's cape-coat created quite a little commotion 
 among loose papers lying on the desks he passed. His 
 footsteps echoed in the humming silence of that 
 smoothly-working temple of finance. A brisk tap at 
 the door marked, " Mr. Morley Fenton, Private," and 
 the privacy of the apartment it protected was broken 
 in upon. The barrister disappeared from the mildly- 
 surprised view of the temple's beautifully appointed 
 machinery. 
 
 The superior young gentleman from Brixton had 
 not departed from the truth in implying that the day 
 was a busy one for his employer. But Mr. Morley 
 Fenton managed to spare a little more than half an 
 hour of this busy day for conversation, in the lemon- 
 coloured half-light which left the greater part of his 
 sanctum in shadow, with the caller whose flapping 
 coat-wings had disturbed the serenity of the counting- 
 house atmosphere. And then, somewhat to the con- 
 sternation of the gentleman at the enquiry desk, Mr. 
 Morley Fenton walked out through the office, accom- 
 panying George Barnard to the swing-doors of the 
 entrance. 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Fenton to the barrister, ' I sup- 
 pose it is one of those unfortunate things which can- 
 not be altered or remedied. We must try and counter- 
 act the influence of it when Harold comes back."
 
 228 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Yes yes," assented the barrister reflectively, as 
 they reached the entrance doors, and paused there, 
 where the somewhat clearer light of the outer air fell 
 across Mr. Fenton's face. " But I'm afraid it is rather 
 a large order, that to counteract Mr. Leo Tarne 
 er confound him! By Jove! I say, old man, do 
 you know you're looking horribly seedy. You are 
 really." 
 
 " Oh, I am all right, George; a little tired, per- 
 haps nothing more." 
 
 "H'm! You ought to go away somewhere for a 
 rest. I couldn't see you in that little clockwork den 
 of yours, but, by gad ! I can now. You look regularly 
 run down. It's this place with its telephones and tubes 
 and tapes and cussedness. Ugh! aren't you rich 
 enough to give it up, Morley?" 
 
 " Give it up? My dear Barnard, you talk as though 
 I were an old man." 
 
 The financier's voice changed suddenly. It was 
 lowered, and seemed to suggest a light on the inward- 
 ness of Mr. Morley Fenton, such as, perhaps, would 
 never have been shown to other eyes than George 
 Barnard's. 
 
 "I've heard of prisoners, George, who have been 
 released after serving long sentences, and who have 
 been killed by the change couldn't stand without their 
 fetters, as it were, you know. Dear me, what non- 
 sense we're talking! I think I have said before that 
 you have no place citywards of St. Paul's, my old 
 friend. In Lombard Street you are really demoraliz- 
 ing. Good-bye, and thank you very much for coming 
 down to tell me about Harold." 
 
 " Good-bye, old chap. But I I wish you weren't 
 such a marvel." 
 
 And presently George Barnard was looking over 
 the heads alike of loiterers and of scurrying human
 
 PHASES. 
 
 ants of the city, for the bus which should take him 
 from the Bank to a part of London slightly less for- 
 eign to his large and easy Bohemianism. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton returned briskly to his " little 
 clockwork den." He took up his pen quickly, and laid 
 it down again slowly. He raised the finger-tips of 
 both hands to his smooth-shaven chin. He breathed 
 a tired, thoughtful ejaculation, and allowed his mind's 
 eyes to sweep away back, over five-and-twenty years 
 of " telephones and tubes and tapes and cussedness," 
 with all that pertained to them, to that point in his life 
 at which, as a young man of something like Harold's 
 age, he had crossed over to the Continent for " two 
 or three days," in the company of a beautiful capricious 
 woman, and had remained there during the four most 
 reckless months of his life. He thought of the im- 
 mediately subsequent six months, spent in chilly regret 
 over the ashes of the four months' abandon. And 
 then had come Harold, and a beautiful woman's death. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's correspondence of that day 
 lacked its customary completeness, its lucid and de- 
 tailed precision. 
 
 " I suppose I am a little run down," he admitted 
 to himself, as he was preparing to leave the office that 
 afternoon. "H'm! Well," he added grimly, whilst 
 buttoning the trim Chesterfield which his tailor called 
 " a Mr. Morley Fenton coat " " well, I must climb 
 up again, that is all climb up again." 
 
 And he walked out into Lombard Street, bidding 
 his employes good-night with grave courtesy as he 
 passed through the outer office, and hailing a hansom 
 with the very slightest inclination of his erect head, 
 as he stepped on to the pavement. 
 
 A week passed, during which Mr. Morley Fenton 
 called each afternoon at the barrister's chambers in 
 Furnival's Inn, to ask if any word had come from
 
 230 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Harold. None came. Another week passed in the 
 same way, and Norah Fenton, at Weir Lodge, grew 
 sad and inclined to sit silently and for hours at a time 
 in the room where the 'cello was. There were at least 
 two reasons for Norah's growing sadness. One of 
 them w r as the fact that Mr. Morley Fenton's face 
 seemed each day to develop new lines of pain and 
 worry and weariness. Norah spoke to him of this 
 when they were alone, and showed very loving sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 A third week passed, and brought no smallest sign 
 from Harold Foster. Then Mrs. Fenton told her hus- 
 band, whilst he sat one morning sipping his coffee and 
 glancing through some letters in his dressing-room, 
 that she thought he was not looking very well. 
 
 " I think you work too hard, my dear," she said, 
 bending forward to remove a speck of fluff from her 
 husband's coat-collar. " You are not looking at all 
 bright this morning. Why not go up North for a few 
 days' fishing? " 
 
 " Too early, dear, for one thing," said Mr. Fenton, 
 looking up from his letters. " And, besides, there is 
 really nothing the matter. I may have been doing a 
 little too much reading or writing, because I have 
 noticed lately that my eyes have been weak. Things 
 have looked misty to me. A little indigestion, I ex- 
 pect. It will pass, dear it will pass off in a day or 
 two." 
 
 On the following morning, George Barnard at 
 Furnival's Inn, and Mr. Morley at Weir Lodge, each 
 received a note of some half-dozen lines hurriedly 
 scribbled on paper headed with the name of a famous 
 Berlin cafe. 
 
 " I must apologize for not having written before, 
 but I don't seem to have had a minute to spare; and
 
 PHASES. -, T 
 
 *3 l 
 
 then, of course, you knew where I was. I have had 
 an awfully good time, though I am not very well just 
 now. Leo has finished his business, and we leave 
 here for London the day after to-morrow. 
 
 " Yours affectionately, 
 
 '' HAROLD." 
 
 There was practically no difference between the 
 two notes, unless, possibly, that one had, if anything, 
 been more carelessly scribbled than the other, the most 
 legible being Mr. Morley Fenton's. 
 
 Mr. Fenton wrote at once to Harold at his Ken- 
 sington chambers, asking him to come down to Weir 
 Lodge as soon after his arrival as possible. Mr. Fen- 
 ton was, not unnaturally, a little hurt by reason of what 
 he considered want of courtesy and lack of frankness 
 in Harold's treatment of him. 
 
 George Barnard hurried off to Harold's rooms at 
 what he supposed would be the time of that young 
 man's arrival in London. Harold had not returned, 
 but the housekeeper had received written instructions 
 to send his letters to Mr. Leo Tarne's flat. The bar- 
 rister jumped into a cab, and drove to Leo Tarne's 
 address. The writer's servant was suave, but reticent. 
 Yes; his master had returned to town with Mr. Foster 
 at an unheard of hour that morning. They had break- 
 fasted in the flat with the servant hesitated slightly 
 with a friend, and they had driven almost immediately 
 afterwards to Victoria Station. No; the man could 
 not say what the place of their destination might be. 
 George Barnard risked half a sovereign. The servant 
 was not accustomed to dealing with impecunious bar- 
 risters. He accepted the coin with unconsciously 
 humorous deprecation. 
 
 " I have been instructed, sir, to forward letters for 
 both the gentlemen to the Hotel Central, Brighton,
 
 23 2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 for the rest of the week. But, of course, I cannot say, 
 sir, whether 
 
 " Quite so quite so. I'm much obliged. Good- 
 morning." 
 
 The barrister walked slowly out into the street 
 again. 
 
 " Oh Lord ! " he muttered, with the profanity of 
 abstraction. " The bit's between his teeth fairly. It's 
 young Morley Fenton over again; and, by gad! it 
 will send old Morley Fenton off his head." The bar- 
 rister paused in a covered lobby to fill his pipe. " Oh, 
 Harold, Harold! For God's sake, my son, simmer 
 down and and catch hold ! " 
 
 There was moisture in the big man's blue eyes, 
 and a little break in his deep voice. The words were 
 not well-chosen, perhaps, but a child would have felt 
 the purity and goodness of their intention. 
 
 Having filled and lighted his pipe, pausing once or 
 twice in the process to cough and clear his throat, 
 George Barnard mounted an omnibus, and started off 
 for the counting-house in Lombard Street. 
 
 On the following day, whilst discussing a twelve 
 o'clock breakfast with Leo Tarne and the Carissima, 
 at a window overlooking the sea and the Brighton 
 promenade, Harold Foster glanced through two letters 
 received from London. One was brief, distinctly re- 
 proachful, and a little curt; the other was lengthy, 
 slightly incoherent, and brimful of affectionate appeal. 
 The first was from Mr. Morley Fenton, and the other 
 was from George Barnard. 
 
 " It is sad," said Leo Tarne he was peeling grapes 
 for the Carissima " very sad, because in most re- 
 spects he is rather a treasure of a servant; but I shall 
 be obliged to dismiss Castor when we get back to 
 town." 
 
 " But, my dear fellow " of late the morning-time
 
 PHASES. 23 - 
 
 of each day had found Harold Foster very languid 
 and susceptible to irritation "why in the world 
 should you? You did not forbid the man to tell any- 
 one our address; and, besides, what does it matter?" 
 
 Tarne sipped his Riidesheimer, and continued his 
 grape-peeling. 
 
 ''' There is such a thing as principle, sir," he said 
 
 solemnly. " The traditions of our order er er 
 
 Excuse me; I haven't seen the evening paper posters 
 for so long, I lose my fluency. You see, had I for- 
 bidden Castor to be communicative, his giving our 
 address to a moneyed inquirer would have been mere 
 disobedience, with an eye to pecuniary gain a kind 
 of commercial transaction natural enough to a man 
 of Castor's class. But I didn't forbid him. I trusted 
 to his discretion, and he betrayed me; I dozed in the 
 shadow of his acuteness, and he wandered off on busi- 
 ness, leaving me in the glare of forced publicity a 
 man with an address. No; I am sorry, but Castor 
 must go. Carissima, I beg you will keep a look-out 
 for Pollux; I don't want to have to advertise, there 
 has been sufficient publicity. Look at our poor friend 
 with his letters." 
 
 Harold wrote two vaguely apologetic, mistily ex- 
 planatory letters after breakfast, one to Weir Lodge, 
 the other to Furnival's Inn. In each he said that he 
 should be back in London and at the hospital on the 
 following Monday. Then he went out for a drive 
 with Leo Tarne, the Carissima, and a lady friend of 
 the Carissima's. Then came evening, and at this pe- 
 riod, evening meant gaiety to Harold Foster, and 
 thought for the moment only. 
 
 Just a month before, being at that time very weary 
 of what seemed to him the essential greyness, the irri- 
 tating dulness and repression of the life of which he now 
 always thought in connection with his " straight line ";
 
 234 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Harold Foster had yielded to Leo Tarne's persuasions 
 to join that artist, who wrote as he, Harold, lived, in 
 the assimilation of the vivid colour and dancing move- 
 ment in which, Leo Tarne said the atmosphere of Ber- 
 lin was rich. 
 
 For more than three weeks the two men had lived 
 in the German capital a life in which nothing they 
 desired was lacking or denied. There are great pos- 
 sibilities in Berlin to the lover* of carnival gaiety. 
 There is a nearness to Prague about the place, in other 
 senses than the geographical, which, in this particular 
 phase of his life, was very fascinating and very poison- 
 ous to Harold Foster. 
 
 Throughout a certain portion of each day in the 
 Berlin life, Harold had been listlessly alive to the dan- 
 ger of his position. While these periods lasted he had 
 been languid, depressed, and full of weak resolutions 
 regarding the immediate future. During these daily 
 interludes of depression in Harold, Leo Tarne, to 
 whom times and seasons seemed to make little or no 
 difference, had always worked steadily, only putting 
 aside his papers when signs of returning energy and 
 desire for pleasure and movement, in Harold, had told 
 him that evening was approaching. 
 
 And now that the two were in England again, Leo 
 Tarne was in more than usually good spirits. He was 
 in the best of health, and his story was developing 
 very satisfactorily from day to day. 
 
 Harold Foster was in a state of highly unnatural 
 nervous tension. His daily life was one of sharply- 
 defined and extreme phases. As a necessary conse- 
 quence, his physical condition was poor. His health 
 was very obviously affected by the unfair demands 
 made upon it by his nervous system. His mental 
 powers, tossed to and fro between his phases of de- 
 pression and elation, were suffering with those of the
 
 PHASES. 
 
 235 
 
 body; and decision, even in small matters, was daily 
 becoming more and more a difficulty to be avoided if 
 possible. 
 
 " These grey hours of yours are a huge mistake, 
 my susceptible friend," said Leo Tarne. " If only you 
 would live more as as the Carissima lives, par ex- 
 ample, and less as I write Ah ! " 
 
 But Harold could not. 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 
 
 " Fool ! all that is, at all, 
 Lasts ever past recall ; 
 Earth changes, bnt thy soul and God stands sure." 
 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
 
 LATE on an evening which came some two weeks 
 after Harold Foster's return to England from Berlin, 
 the owner of Weir Lodge sat writing by the light of 
 the green-shaded lamp w r hich stood on his study table. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton alone and in his study, was 
 always, perhaps, a rather different man to Mr. Morley 
 Fenton the head of the smoothly-working home of 
 finance in Lombard Street. Assuredly he was a new 
 rendering of the impassive, gravely good-humoured 
 man who sat at the head of the Weir Lodge dining- 
 table. 
 
 Now the light of the green lamp, falling softly over 
 his face, whilst leaving the fine head in shadow, showed 
 lines of nervous anxiety and naked weariness. All the 
 natural hollows and indurations of the face seemed 
 deepened and darkened. The heavy eyelids hung list- 
 lessly and low, over a livid crease which seemed to 
 reach up and after them. The lower lip, crowning 
 as it did a chin rich in suggestion of strength, massive 
 and enduring, protruded slightly under the silver 
 pointed moustache, while the chin itself drooped, like 
 a Samson shorn of his locks, a corner-stone robbed 
 of its buttress. 
 
 All this, however, spoke of power, strength wearied, 
 236
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. . 
 
 but strength. But over and beyond this, permeating 
 every feature with its pathos, tainting the wearied 
 strength with its morbidity, and clouding all else in 
 a haze of the unexplained, the light from the green 
 lamp showed a curious instability, a fleeting', shifting 
 weakness, a muscular and mental uncertainty, sad to 
 see in any setting, grotesque almost in such a face. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton was obviously very wearied, 
 and, some would have thought, far from being at peace 
 with himself. Yet his daily life was stainless in the 
 eyes of those who knew it best. His was the standing 
 expected of Caesar's wife. Commercially, Mr. Fenton 
 held the unquestioning respect of London's magnates, 
 and the envying admiration of his confidential ac- 
 countant. The perfectly regulated round of his life, 
 public and private, pursued the even tenor of its hon- 
 ourable way, flawless and without hitch. But on this 
 evening in his study Mr. Morley Fenton was obviously 
 very wearied. 
 
 The owner of Weir Lodge laid down his pen, 
 sighed, and leaned far back in his chair to read the 
 letter he had written. It was addressed to George 
 Barnard, and, after a few lines devoted to generalities, 
 this is what the letter contained: 
 
 " In a way, I believe I appreciate the wisdom of 
 your advice to allow this phase of Harold's life to work 
 itself out before attempting to further influence him. 
 Indeed it would appear that we can do nothing else. 
 And yet and yet, old friend, look at the matter eye 
 to eye with me, allowing your memory to run back 
 over the years between to a certain phase in my life; 
 a phase with a bitter end of death and birth, and shame 
 and pain, useless regrets and exhausted energies. No 
 one interfered with that phase in me, save you, George, 
 with your unchanging clean strength, which was foiled
 
 2 3 g GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 by my recklessness, as a fencer's skill is sometimes 
 rendered useless by the passionate onslaught of one 
 who has never before handled sword or rapier. Of 
 the moral consequences I say nothing. Of the mental 
 effect of that dead passage in my life it is hard to judge 
 fairly. Its physical result, I sometimes fancy, was 
 merely indicated by that long and helpless prostration 
 through which you nursed me. Is experience abso- 
 lutely lacking in utility? Can the past, the dead past, 
 that we pay for in blood and in tears, be of no service 
 to the present, beyond the mere forestalling of calam- 
 ity by anticipation? 
 
 " By the uninforming note which told me of his 
 return to town, I know that Harold has been six days 
 now in London. I have written twice, and been to 
 his lodgings four times. You have done still more. 
 Yet we have not even seen him. He has not been to 
 the hospital. Leo Tarne says he has lost touch with 
 him, after trying all he could to steady the boy. Dr. 
 Wainwright tells me that he overheard a remark made 
 by one of the students at Bartholomew's, who had seen 
 Harold in a West End supper-hall after midnight on 
 Wednesday, a remark which in its suggestiveness is as 
 painful as it is coarse. The student said that ' Morley 
 Fenton's foundling seems to have gone a regular 
 mucker.' 
 
 " As you know, the annuity I purchased and set- 
 tled on Harold when he left the University was three 
 hundred a year. He must be spending a great deal 
 more than that, which may mean that he is in the 
 hands of some money-lender. I cannot help feeling 
 that a personal remonstrance would appeal to Harold's 
 better feelings. Financial aid, of course, I should 
 never let him be without, even though I could not 
 meet him. But beyond that, old friend, I cannot yet 
 lay down my arms. I cannot admit to myself that I
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 239 
 
 that we have definitely failed in our attempt to 
 guide and shape the course of Harold's life. I must 
 see him, if only once, and try the weight of personal 
 influence before I can admit failure, even to you. If 
 that really failed, which, mind you, I cannot believe 
 likely, then I think I should be forced to agree with 
 you that, for the present at all events, Harold's life is 
 something for him to thrash out alone with the devil 
 that you and I, George, have failed utterly to 
 straighten out a life inherently awry. So, help me once 
 more, old friend. Bohemia, even your hard-working, 
 clean-lived Bohemia, has for many years been a for- 
 eign land to me, as you know; how foreign, and yet 
 how near, perhaps you yourself can hardly guess. 
 Find out for me, George, some place in which Har- 
 old has been seen. Then I will go alone, and meet 
 him there. Who knows? Some hidden instinct in 
 us both may incline Harold sufficiently toward me. 
 At least, I can try. So much, believe me, I must do. 
 Therefore, help me once more, and add to the debt 
 owing you from MORLEY FENTON." 
 
 Some warmth which had crept into his tired face 
 in the writing of this long letter, faded out from it 
 now, as, having folded the sheets in an addressed en- 
 velope, Mr. Morley Fenton rose from his chair, and 
 walked slowly out from the study into the shadowy 
 hall beyond. 
 
 " H'm, a quarter, to twelve," he murmured, glanc- 
 ing thoughtfully at the hall clock. " I may as well 
 go and post this. I should like Barnard to have it in 
 the morning. Yes." 
 
 So Mr. Fenton slipped an ulster over his shoulders 
 and put a soft hat on his head, in the vestibule, where 
 the white light of an incandescent gas lamp shone 
 brightly. Then he opened the outer door and stepped
 
 240 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 into the complete darkness of a cloudy April 
 night. 
 
 Before the door had closed behind him a little 
 ejaculation of nervous surprise escaped Mr. Fenton's 
 lips. He appeared to have stumbled curiously, for 
 he was bending over the doorstep, one knee on the 
 ground, the other hugged under his left arm. He 
 rose, however, his left hand resting on the handle of 
 the door, and felt no sensation of pain, or of any shock. 
 
 " Very odd," he murmured, whilst walking down 
 the silent road to the pillar-box. " I must have been 
 thinking of something else, and missed the step, I 
 suppose." 
 
 Ten minutes later, Mr. Fenton had completed his 
 usual round of locking up and putting lights out, and 
 was standing before the dead fire in the hall with a 
 bedroom candle in his hand. He lighted the taper, 
 and leaning forward then, turned out the last remain- 
 ing jet of gas. In raising his hand to the gas bracket, 
 Mr. Fenton accidentally brushed the candle's wick 
 with his coat-cuff. Having been only that moment 
 lighted, the candle was the more easily extinguished 
 by this contact. 
 
 Mr. Fenton turned sharply on his heel to relight 
 the taper, and in that same instant he fell at full length, 
 and heavily, on the soft rug at his feet. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's head had only grazed the 
 floor, and beyond a slight shock, and possibly a bruise 
 or two, he was in no way hurt by his fall. Rising, with 
 a muttered exclamation of astonishment, to his knees, 
 Mr. Fenton drew a match from his pocket, struck it, 
 and, standing up then, relighted his candle. 
 
 " This is really very odd," he said with half a smile. 
 " It is a good thing no one is about. The servants 
 might fairly suspect something." Then the hesitating 
 half-smile died out of Mr. Fenton's face as, moving
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 241 
 
 slowly toward the stairs, candle in hand, he added, 
 under his breath: " Does this mean growing old? Ab- 
 surd ! elderly men don't necessarily fall about. I won- 
 der if it can have anything to do with that mistiness 
 in my eyes. But it was dark when I fell, anyhow. 
 Yes, of course, quite dark. Very odd. I think I must 
 call on Wainwright to-morrow, and get him to pre- 
 scribe something. Ah, if Harold Tcha!" 
 
 And with something of his customary alertness and 
 precision in walking, Mr. Fenton made his way to his 
 room, and to bed. 
 
 " My dear, I am quite sure," said Mrs. Fenton to 
 her husband next morning " I am quite sure you are 
 getting run down, and in want of a rest. I wish you 
 would call on Dr. Wainwright and ask his opinion. 
 You look dreadfully tired again this morning, and 
 you were awake when I woke for a moment hours 
 ago." 
 
 " Well, you may set your mind at rest, dear, for, 
 oddly enough, I had made up my mind to call on 
 Wainwright this morning; though, as Wainwright is 
 really a nerve specialist, I suppose it would be more 
 fitting for me to visit our own good little Brownlow." 
 
 " Ah, but Dr. Wainwright is, I am sure, the clev- 
 erer. No, go to Dr. Wainwright, dear." 
 
 " Yes, I think yes, I will go to Wainwright." 
 
 " Well, Sad-eyes," said Mr. Fenton to Norah, as 
 she accompanied him from the breakfast-room to the 
 vestibule on that same morning. " I wish you could 
 be a little brighter and happier." 
 
 " Father," said the girl, looking up into his face 
 half reproachfully, " how can I be bright when you 
 when you are so ill?" 
 
 " Nonsense, sweetheart, I'm not ill. But, anyhow, 
 I am going to call on Dr. Wainwright to-day, so that 
 I may be assured of the fact."
 
 242 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad, father dear. But you will tell 
 me truly what he says, won't you? You'll tell me? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, inquisitive one, I'll tell you. He may 
 tell me to take a holiday, and go away, with you to 
 look after me. Eh? How should you like that?" 
 
 Norah's big eyes glistened and glowed lovingly. 
 And Mr. Morley Fenton left her happier that morning 
 than she had been for some time. So hope seemed 
 to spring up in her heart, that she had almost asked 
 why Harold Foster made no sign. She had almost 
 asked, but her mind's eyes catching a flash glimpse of 
 the barrier, and her woman's heart making a shrewd 
 guess at the nature of one of Mr. Fenton's worries, 
 she had refrained. 
 
 In the early afternoon Mr. Morley Fenton was 
 ushered by a solemn man-servant into the consulting- 
 room of Dr. Wainwright, the eminent nerve specialist 
 and physician. He had spent some little time in the 
 doctor's waiting-room, where a patient, one side of 
 whose face was paralyzed, had exercised a curious in- 
 fluence upon him. This patient had fixed his gaze 
 on Mr. Fenton, and had stared with weak persistence 
 at the owner of Weir Lodge, until the time of his sum- 
 mons to attend in the consulting-room. 
 
 The doctor's greeting was friendly, and Mr. Morley 
 Fenton, as he took his seat in the beautifully appointed 
 room of judgment, spoke half apologetically of the 
 trifling causes which had induced him to pay a pro- 
 fessional visit. 
 
 " I think I am merely a little run down, you know, 
 Doctor," he said. " But I promised my wife I would 
 come and see you. By the way, a rather odd thing 
 happened to me last night two rather odd things, I 
 may say." 
 
 " Oh yes! Let me hear them, Mr. Fenton. You 
 know the value of confidence and detail to a doctor.
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 243 
 
 But, excuse me, would you mind taking this easy- 
 chair here? Thanks, the light is so much better. It 
 doesn't try your eyes, does it?" 
 
 "No; oh no, thanks. But just lately I have no- 
 ticed a queer mistiness sometimes in my sight. A little 
 indigestion, I fancy, or something like that." 
 
 " Quite likely quite likely," assented the physician 
 suavely. " And now, about last night's adventures." 
 
 Speaking in the tone of one who dismissed lightly 
 and by the way, some trivial circumstances, Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton described his stumble outside Weir Lodge 
 on the previous night, and, again, his fall on the hearth- 
 rug in the hall. Immediately then, he began to speak 
 of his eyes and general state. The doctor checked Mr. 
 Fenton with a deft interpolation. His eyes had been 
 fixed on his patient's face. Every vestige of the friend- 
 ly host had gradually faded from out his own smooth 
 features. He was now in every glance, in each chang- 
 ing expression, the shrewd, grave, watchful man of 
 science, held in check, made suavely self-contained, 
 by his professional aplomb, toned down and softened 
 slightly by his life's habit as a healer. 
 
 " Permit me for one moment, Mr. Fenton," he said, 
 leaning forward slightly in his chair. His right hand 
 was raised, its white forefinger lifted perpendicularly. 
 " Would you mind letting your eyes follow my finger 
 as I move it laterally, so. H'm! thank you. Once 
 more, please. Ah'm! thanks. Yes thank you." 
 
 These last exclamations were obviously the physi- 
 cian's vent for unspoken thoughts, the relief channels 
 from which his perfectly trained mind drew its pro- 
 fessional equanimity. 
 
 " If you will excuse me for one moment, I will ask 
 you to step into another room." The doctor disap- 
 peared for perhaps two or three minutes by way of a 
 curtained-off entrance to an apartment opening out of
 
 244 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 the consulting-room. Then he returned, and again 
 addressed his patient. " I want to have a look at your 
 eyes under the ophthalmoscope, Mr. Fenton, if you 
 will come with me into my dark room here. No, per- 
 mit me. Let me take your arm. I know the way, you 
 see." 
 
 After a few minutes of careful examination, doctor 
 and patient returned to the consulting-room. 
 
 " Well, Doctor?" inquired Mr. Morley Fenton, re- 
 suming his seat in the easy-chair by the window. He 
 had caught some of the gravity of the physician's ex- 
 pression, and his face was more pale than before his 
 visit to the dark room. 
 
 " Well, you mustn't let things frighten you, you 
 know, but yes, you ought to have come to me some 
 little time back." 
 
 " You don't mean that I'm going blind, Doc- 
 tor? " 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's voice sounded a little dry 
 and harsh. 
 
 " Oh dear no! No, you are certainly not going 
 blind, Mr. Fenton. Just cross your legs for a mo- 
 ment at the knee so. Thank you. H'm! exactly. 
 Only, as I say, I should have been the better pleased 
 to have seen you a little earlier. But you need not.be 
 alarmed about your eyes. Don't strain them in any 
 way, you know, but Yes!" 
 
 The doctor was seated at his great writing-table, 
 pen in hand. 
 
 " I want you to be very careful in taking the medi- 
 cine I shall give you. By the way, let S make it 
 
 up, will you? The dose is only one drop, you see, 
 so that Yes, that's the prescription, Mr. Fenton. 
 
 And I want you to come and see me Let me see." 
 
 The doctor ran his eyes over three pages of his en- 
 gagement book. "To-day is Tuesday, and Would
 
 AFTER MANY DAYS. 245 
 
 this time on Friday suit? Yes; very good. Friday, 
 then. You er do you go about much in the City, 
 Mr. Fenton?" 
 
 " No, no, not very much, Doctor." 
 
 " Ah well, I would patronize the harmless neces- 
 sary hansom, you know, pretty often, if I were you 
 always, I think, in London." 
 
 " Why, Doctor, you don't 
 
 " No, I don't, my dear Mr. Fenton. I don't say 
 anything, except ' be careful.' To be sure, you are 
 strong enough, but well, you know, a sudden faint- 
 ness or dizziness is a serious matter in a crowded 
 London street. Business? Well, you ought to go 
 away for a change and complete rest. But if you can- 
 not manage that at the moment, you must just take 
 things as easily as possible. Don't walk about, don't 
 spend much time alone, and don't worry about any- 
 thing. Mind, there must be no worrying, or I shall 
 drive you away from town. Ha! yes a serious matter 
 for a city magnate. Good-morning, Mr. Fenton. Fri- 
 day afternoon, two-thirty." 
 
 " Very well, Doctor." 
 
 So they parted, and it was not until Mr. Morley 
 Fenton reached his inner sanctum in Lombard 
 Street that he called to mind the fact that he had 
 spent half an hour with Dr. Wainwright without 
 once mentioning the name of Harold Foster. He 
 had not up to that moment even thought of Harold. 
 His interview with Dr. Wainwright had been one 
 of some moment. Now, however, Mr. Fenton's 
 thoughts returned sharply to the affairs of his pro- 
 tege. 
 
 A telegram from George Barnard was lying on the 
 desk of the Lombard Street sanctum. It had been 
 opened by Mr. Fenton's secretary. The words it con- 
 tained were:
 
 246 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " The Castanets the old place Arthur Street, be- 
 fore midnight. Shall I meet you? GEORGE." 
 
 Ten minutes later Mr. Morley Fenton's bell rang. 
 A clerk appeared at the door of the sanctum. 
 
 " Send that telegram off at once, Harris," said the 
 head of the firm. And as the door of the room closed 
 behind the silently retiring clerk, Mr. Morley Fenton 
 placed his elbows wearily on the desk before him, and 
 covered his face with both his hands. 
 
 The wording of the telegram written by Mr. Fen- 
 ton had been as follows: 
 
 "Thank you. But I will try quite alone. Thank 
 you. MORLEY." 
 
 " Quite alone," muttered Mr. Morley Fenton, low- 
 ering his hands from a face set now in stern lines of 
 determination. " Quite alone! This thing is it is 
 too big to divide."
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 
 
 " Festus. What is your purpose, Aureole ? 
 Paracelsus. Oh, for purpose, 
 
 There is no lack of precedents in a case 
 Like mine ; at least, if not precisely mine, 
 The case of men cast off by those they sought 
 To benefit." 
 
 Paracelsus. 
 
 MR. MORLEY FENTON left his office in Lombard 
 Street shortly after four o'clock on the afternoon of 
 his visit to Dr. Wainwright. He did this from habit, 
 passing through the outer office only a few minutes 
 after his usual time for so doing. Then he bethought 
 him of the long evening to be lived through before he 
 could hope to accomplish his that night's task. He 
 also thought of Dr. Wainwright's curious caution 
 about not spending much time alone. The caution 
 was not a very necessary one as a matter of fact, for, 
 since his interview with the physician, Mr. Fenton had 
 felt a nervous desire for the company of some presence 
 other than his own. 
 
 So he walked back from Lombard Street into the 
 office, and, having reached the enquiry desk, was aston- 
 ished to see its occupant leisurely lighting a cigarette. 
 The cigarette vanished in a floorward direction. The 
 young man from Brixton blushed, just as ordinary 
 mortals sometimes blush, and addressed three words 
 of incoherent apology to his blotting-pad, as Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton, with an inscrutable little smile, asked for 
 a couple of telegram forms. 
 
 247
 
 248 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Having written a message to Weir Lodge to ex- 
 plain that he would be unavoidably detained in town 
 that night, and another to Furnival's Inn, requesting 
 George Barnard to join him at whatever time was most 
 convenient, for dinner at his club, Mr. Morley Fenton 
 handed the forms to the clerk, and said : 
 
 " You might take these round to the telegraph 
 office yourself, Mr. Smithson, if you will. It will be 
 an opportunity for a cigarette or a pipe away from 
 the counting-house." 
 
 A subdued and perfectly business-like titter ran, 
 with a sound like the rustling of new bank-notes, 
 round the desks whose occupants had not found time 
 to begin their evening smoke. Mr. Morley Fenton 
 bowed his grave " Good-night, gentlemen," to the 
 staff, and passed out through the swing-doors to the 
 street. Then, having called a hansom, he drove to 
 his club, feeling a little more at ease than he had felt 
 since seeing Dr. Wainwright. Arrived there, he sat 
 down in the smoking-room to think, and to await the 
 arrival of George Barnard. 
 
 One of the very few matters in which Mr. Morley 
 Fenton paid no outward tribute to the canons of ortho- 
 doxy, a matter, in fact, regarding which he passively 
 ignored the laws of custom, was attendance at any 
 church. As was natural and to be expected in such 
 a man, he showed every possible respect and considera- 
 tion for the habits of others in this matter. Further, 
 he was a liberal subscriber to the funds and to all in- 
 terests of the church his family attended. He also 
 contributed freely to other religious causes, and was 
 scrupulous in the matter of providing books, sittings 
 at church and the like, for the use of Weir Lodge 
 domestics. Beyond this, and a quiet, courteous in- 
 terest which he displayed in any church affairs spoken 
 of by his wife and children, Mr. Morley Fenton's bear-
 
 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 249 
 
 ing towards matters of religion, faith, or devotion, was 
 impassive, and absolutely inscrutable. With one ex- 
 ception, no member of the Weir Lodge household 
 had ever heard the family's head refer in any way what- 
 ever to his own feeling in matters spiritual or sacred. 
 The one exception was his wife. On an occasion, 
 during her early married life, Mrs. Fenton had asked 
 her husband why he did not attend a place of worship 
 regularly? 
 
 The reply of this grave man, whose youth was 
 buried, had been: 
 
 " That, my dear, is a matter in which I think a 
 man cannot be held answerable even to his wife." Mr. 
 Fenton had paused to stroke the said wife's soft hand. 
 " If I believed that the Creator desired my presence 
 each week at St. Ann's, believe me, I should not hesi- 
 tate to give it. But I don't. Personally, I think that 
 when the Creator chose the last day of the week as a 
 day of rest, He did so knowing well that rest was the 
 first essential to the state of worship. Now, I I admit 
 my taste is at fault cannot rest anything like so thor- 
 oughly at St. Ann's as I can in my own study. Con- 
 sequently, I think that at St. Ann's I should be farther 
 from the state of worship than in my study. Conse- 
 quently, again, I go to St. Ann's only two or three 
 times a year, and to my study very much more often. 
 Believe me, dear, there is no cause for you to worry. 
 Go you to the form of worship toward which your 
 greater refinement inclines you, and leave me to to 
 come and meet you." 
 
 So Mrs. Fenton had gone to church, and Mr. 
 Fenton had subsequently walked home with her. And 
 the smooth daily round of both their lives had gone 
 evenly on from that day to this evening of Mr. Fen- 
 ton's meditation in the smoking-room of the Consti- 
 tutional Club; if without any great joyousness, then,
 
 250 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 as certainly, without the smallest shadow of trouble 
 or hitch, and without one reference from the head 
 and guiding spirit of it all, to any subject akin to re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Now, it would have been quite foreign to Mr. 
 Morley Fenton's nature, even on such an occasion as 
 this evening, when he sat thinking over what he be- 
 lieved to be a crucial situation in his life, and in that 
 of Harold Foster, to have looked for help from other 
 than purely human agencies. He desired nothing of 
 the sort. 
 
 " Harold is flesh and blood," he would have said ; 
 " and it is Harold's flesh and blood life, in a very real 
 world of flesh and blood, with which I have to deal. 
 The moral aspect of it is no concern of mine, and a 
 matter about which every man must answer to him- 
 self." 
 
 But yet, as he sat there waiting for George Bar- 
 nard, strong, impassive Mr. Morley Fenton grew more 
 and more solemn, and a little over-awed, at the pros- 
 pects and possibilities of the night before him. His 
 immobility had been severely strained by the events 
 of the past few weeks, and shaken more than he sus- 
 pected by his interview in Dr. Wainwright's consult- 
 ing-room. A large share of the latter half of this man's 
 life had been devoted to the work of shaping and 
 shielding another, younger, life, for which he held 
 himself responsible to a stern judge himself. To 
 this end the working out in Harold Foster, its living 
 offspring, of what he, Morley Fenton, tacitly regarded 
 as his atonement for the buried portion of his own 
 life had been devoted rigidly repressed habit and 
 inclination, and a life of absolutely unremitting re- 
 straint, of discipline adhered to with unvarying 
 fidelity. 
 
 And of late had come a consciousness of the utter
 
 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 251 
 
 futility of all this. Of late had been forced, like steel, 
 slowly and irresistibly, into Mr. Morley Fenton's mind, 
 a sense of failure in his life's work, his buried half's 
 atonement. And on this night, by his own seeking, 
 he was to face the crisis of it all; he was to make his 
 last throw with Fate; to grasp and hold again in 
 safety the soul of his atonement, or to bow his head 
 before the remorselessness of the penalty of that for 
 which he had striven to atone to confess himself to 
 himself a failure, in his chosen work. 
 
 " Mr. Morley Fenton ! Mr. Morley Fenton ! " 
 
 Three times the page-boy's monotonous cry rang 
 on the ears of the gentleman for whose benefit it was 
 intended. And then Mr. Fenton rose abruptly from 
 his chair, at the same moment that the boy, having 
 recognised the owner of the name he cried, stepped 
 towards him. 
 
 " Mr. George Barnard wishes to see you, sir." 
 
 " Yes. Quite right. I'll come down. Is Mr. Bar- 
 nard in the waiting-room?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton gained in spirits and in con- 
 fidence as he sat talking over dinner with the barris- 
 ter. The two men agreed tacitly in appearing to ig- 
 nore the subject uppermost in the minds of both, until 
 late in the evening, when they occupied a secluded 
 corner of the great smoking-room. 
 
 " This place is too big, Morley. It's like belong- 
 ing to a Crystal Palace." 
 
 " It is a big place, but a good club, Barnard, a very 
 good club," replied Mr. Fenton with disproportionate 
 seriousness. " I dare say you think it peculiar," he 
 continued, without any pause, " that I do not ask you 
 to come with me to-night? " ^ 
 
 " Not at all; not a bit, old man, I assure you. 
 
 Anything approaching to absence of reserve in Mr, 
 17
 
 252 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Morley Fenton was calculated to force respectful con- 
 sideration from a far less understanding man than big, 
 clean-minded George Barnard. 
 
 " Thank you," resumed Mr. Fenton. " After all, I 
 might have known that you would know. You can 
 guess, perhaps, as no one else could, how all these 
 twenty-five years I have lived fixedly, George in 
 one world; but yet near enough to its edge to see 
 always, as I walked along, the many-coloured beach 
 of another world, here in London. Once or twice 
 visitors from that world, wanderers, have passed me 
 here in this. But I have made no sign. I tiave been 
 just a sort of passing shade to them just a shade. 
 And now that I am going to step back over the edge 
 I must do it alone, George. I it's a very naked thing, 
 you see." 
 
 " Yes, yes; I know. Of course you will go alone. 
 And I will wait here for you, if you like." 
 
 " No, I have taken rooms at the hotel across the 
 square, you know. You see, I can't take Harold down 
 to Sunbury to-night. I shall be very glad if you will 
 stay and sleep there, or go back to Furnival's Inn, as 
 you think best." 
 
 " Yes. All right. Anyhow, I'll wait and meet you 
 when you come back. It it's rather weird that it 
 should be the Castanets, of all places, isn't it? But, 
 to be sure, there's not much likelihood of any of its 
 present frequenters er 
 
 " Being old enough habitues to remember my day? 
 No, I don't think so, George; I don't think so. But, 
 perhaps, the chance may be one reason why I don't 
 want you to 
 
 " Exactly. And, I say, it's after eleven o'clock. 
 Did you say you had engaged these rooms?" 
 
 " Yes. I sent word from here. I will walk there 
 with you now."
 
 BETWEEN TWO WORLDS. 2 ^ 
 
 Mr. Fenton rose from his chair, a little unsteadily, 
 and rested one hand on the barrister's arm. 
 
 " It is strange how this thing affects me," he said. 
 " I'm afraid I am not so strong as I was, nothing like 
 so strong as I was, George." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton had not told the barrister of his 
 visit to Dr. Wainwright. George Barnard smiled 
 cheerily as he took his friend's arm, and walked with 
 him down the great staircase to the entrance hall of 
 the club house. The man from Furnival's Inn was 
 very anxious about his friend's intended meeting with 
 Harold Foster, and had far less faith in it as a means 
 of regaining the lost hold upon the younger man, 
 than had Mr. Fenton. He looked at the situation 
 with the added clearness of vision of a comparative- 
 ly outside point of view. Therefore, hoping little, 
 he smiled cheerily, and, fearing much, he spoke hope- 
 fully. 
 
 The two parted in the lobby of the hotel in which 
 Mr. Fenton had engaged rooms, the barrister promis- 
 ing to wait there for his friend's return. 
 
 " And then we'll all three have some supper to- 
 gether," said Barnard. 
 
 " Yes, yes," replied Mr. Fenton thoughtfully. "And 
 to-morrow I may possibly go away somewhere with 
 Harold. I am a little run down, as you told me the 
 other day. My life has not been a very easy one of 
 late, anyhow. But to-night is not going to prove 
 it lived in vain. That could hardly be, George." 
 
 " Why, no ! " The barrister spoke reassuringly, but 
 a glance at his friend's face showed him that no reas- 
 surance was needed. The strong mouth was settling 
 itself in firm lines now, the eyes seemed clearer, 
 brighter than before, and growing, strengthening de- 
 termination was asserting itself, quietly supreme, over 
 all Mr. Morley Fenton's face.
 
 254 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " No, that shall not be. Good-bye for a little while, 
 George." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton stepped briskly across the 
 pavement and into a cab which the hotel porter had 
 called for him. 
 
 " Drive to the Cas to the corner of Arthur Street 
 and Regent Street, Cabby." 
 
 " Yessir." 
 
 The trap in the roof of the cab was closed, and Mr. 
 Morley Fenton started on his way to a place the very 
 name of which had not passed his lips for twenty 
 years.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 " MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 
 
 " Now what is it ? returns 
 
 The question heartens so this losel that he spurns 
 All we so prize ? I want put down in black and white, 
 What compensating joy, unknown and infinite, 
 Turns lawlessness to law, makes destitution wealth, 
 Vice virtue, and disease of soul and body health ? 
 
 Ah, the slow shake of head, the melancholy smile, 
 The sigh almost a sob ! " 
 
 Fifine at the Fair, 
 
 GEORGE BARNARD filled his pipe, and sat down to 
 wait as patiently as might be for his friend's return to 
 the hotel. The barrister had not much hope of seeing 
 Harold Foster that night. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton drove westward towards the 
 Castanets. 
 
 Arrived at the corner of Arthur Street, Mr. Fenton 
 paid his cabman, but told the man that if he were in- 
 clined to wait for half an hour, he might probably earn 
 a return fare. The man said he would wait, and looked 
 curiously after Mr. Fenton's retreating figure as it 
 disappeared into the darkness of the quiet side street. 
 Presently this tall, erect figure reappeared to the 
 watchful gaze of the cabman, a couple of hundred , 
 yards away and in the blaze of light which fell across 
 the pavement from the entrance to the Castanets. 
 
 "Well, I'm blowed!" muttered the cabman, feel- 
 ing in his pocket for pipe and matches. "Well, I'm 
 damned ! " he added, with matter-of-fact profanity, as 
 he struck a match on the rail behind him. And, hav- 
 
 255
 
 256 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ing lighted his pipe, the cabman dismissed the subject 
 of his ejaculatory comment by saying, with Cockney 
 readiness of deduction, " And a' Sundays 'e 'ands 
 round the plate." 
 
 The first obstacle which presented itself to Mr. 
 Morley Fenton was one for which he had quite for- 
 gotten to provide. 
 
 " Can't let you in, sir, without someone introduces 
 you. You're not a member, sir, are you? " 
 
 " A no ; I am not a member at present, I think, 
 but is M. Dupuy, the manager, here? " 
 
 " M. Dewpwee's son is here, sir." 
 
 " Ah Alphonse, eh?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Just give him this card, will you? Ask him to 
 to hark back a good bit, and tell him Mr. Fenton is 
 waiting, will you? Or wait. Is Mr. Foster in the 
 house. You know Mr. Foster, don't you?" 
 
 " Yes, sir. Mr. Foster is upstairs, sir." The por- 
 ter felt that he was not dealing with a stranger. 
 " You had better step in, sir. I'll call Moosyer Dew- 
 pwee." 
 
 " Thank you. Yes, I'll come in." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton stood waiting before a bright 
 fire which burned in the little entrance hall. Presently 
 a fussy little Frenchman, with an embroidered shirt- 
 front and braided evening clothes, tripped forward 
 from a door at the far end of the hall, and with a quick 
 comprehensive glance the man had been educated in 
 ( the study of appearances advanced to Mr. Morley 
 Fenton. The Frenchman's scrutiny brought recogni- 
 tion with it, and some recollection. It was a satisfac- 
 tory scrutiny to him, and would have been sufficient 
 to justify recognition, even had no vestige of recol- 
 lection supported it. 
 
 " Ah, it ees, it ees," said the man of embroidery,
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 257 
 
 with no little dramatic force. " I am vare glad to zee 
 you, Meestah Fenton. You will again, ze amus " 
 
 " Yes, yes, quite so, Alphonse quite so. In the 
 meantime, just for this evening, I am not looking for 
 amusement. To-morrow, perhaps," said Mr. Morley 
 Fenton with suave mendacity. " But to-night I want 
 your assistance." 
 
 "Ah, yes, yes, yes my assistance; quite the same 
 as long ago ees it not so? " 
 
 " Not quite, Alphonse," said Mr. Fenton" not 
 quite the same. However, Mr. Foster is supping here 
 to-night, is he not?" 
 
 " Oui." 
 
 " In the supper hall? " 
 
 " Ah no. En particulier. Mr. Foster has only one 
 friend to-night ze leetle sister of her, it ees." 
 
 " Eh? Oh, someone's little sister, is it? Well, look 
 here, Alphonse, I want you to show me in to Mr. 
 Faster. I I fancy he half expects me, you know. 
 Which room is he supping in?" 
 
 " Ze Fleur-de-lys. He how you say? he ex- 
 pect you, eh? " 
 
 " Yes yes, I think he expects me a little, you 
 know. Anyhow, that will be all right, Alphonse. He 
 will not mind my coming." 
 
 So, Alphonse tripping before, with the air of a mas- 
 ter of ceremonies, Mr. Morley Fenton walked up the 
 staircase, and down a corridor, every panel in the 
 wainscoted sides of which touched with recollection's 
 cold finger upon some tightly-strung nerve in the 
 grave man who had viewed them so differently, his 
 blood at such an opposite temperature, more than 
 twenty years before. 
 
 Alphonse tapped airily at the door of the chambre 
 ftcur-de-lys. The man who felt like a spirit from an- 
 other world, haunting now this place of dead memo-
 
 258 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ries of hot young blood, dazzling lights, and dancing 
 movement, heard a voice which he barely recognised, 
 and the words: " Come in! " 
 
 Then he stepped forward, rigid, erect, colder than 
 any waif in London that night, and felt the door of 
 the room closed behind him by Alphonse. 
 
 The room was small, dainty, brilliantly lighted, and 
 upholstered in pale blue and silver, with a fresco of 
 fleur-de-lys, and the atmosphere of a flower-filled hot- 
 house. In its centre, and immediately under a hand- 
 some candelabra, stood the supper-table, a sparkling 
 study of flowers, cut glass, plate, and red wine spar- 
 kling Pommard it was on snowy damask. 
 
 A fair-haired woman, with dancing eyes and a curi- 
 ous Dresden-china-like daintiness about her skin and 
 about the flowered folds of her dress, sat at the supper- 
 table, facing the door of the room. The tiniest of 
 yellow cigarettes was between her rather doll-like lips, 
 and her glass was raised and held towards that of her 
 companion. This woman might have been one or two 
 and twenty years in age. But, on the other hand, there 
 were pretty, puckered little lines about her mouth and 
 eyes which might have been the developments of ten 
 or twelve years more than that. On the whole she 
 was a charming picture very like a piquant figure in 
 a French pastoral print. 
 
 Harold Foster sat facing her. He turned abruptly 
 in his chair and glanced sharply over one shoulder, 
 as the door of the apartment closed behind Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton's spare figure. Then he started forward, 
 and to his feet, overturning a glass of wine as he 
 did so. The generous wine ran down the snowy 
 cloth's out-curving side, like blood on a woman's 
 arm. 
 
 " Good God! " he exclaimed. " Mr. Fenton! " 
 
 Then he nervously jerked his chair aside, and
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 259 
 
 stepped clear of the supper-table. The fingers of his 
 right hand were twisted tightly in the folds of a napkin. 
 Harold was facing the man to whom he owed many 
 things. 
 
 " Forgive my coming uninvited, Harold. I have 
 tried to find you at your lodgings, but without suc- 
 cess. I heard that you were sometimes here in the 
 evening, so came in, because I am particularly anx- 
 ious to have a chat with' you." 
 
 The lightsome eyes of the girl who suggested Dres- 
 den china shepherdesses, widened and widened in their 
 gaze at the new-comer. Her red lips parted, the tiny 
 Russian cigarette still clinging to the under-lip, like 
 the yellow pistil one may see in the bells of some cac- 
 tus flowers. Mr. Morley Fenton's words cut incisive- 
 ly through the perfumed air of the brilliant little room. 
 Both men remained standing. Harold Foster's face 
 was flushed now, with wine and the heat of the room. 
 Something which looked like anger and resentment 
 blazed out through the filmy moisture of his blue eyes, 
 accentuating the fact that they were bloodshot, and a 
 little sunken, between purple-streaked rims. There was 
 a certain carelessness in his dress a creased white 
 tie, two wine spots on his shirt-front, grey lines round 
 the button-holes and collar of his dress-coat which, 
 in so young and so handsome a man, was suggestive 
 of reckless living. His lips twitched in anger or nerv- 
 ousness when they parted, and the words which came 
 from them sounded as though they were uttered 
 merely to give the speaker cover behind which to col- 
 lect himself to check and restrain other words which 
 struggled to free themselves. 
 
 " I have left my old lodgings," he said. " And I 
 don't think you would be interested in my present resi- 
 dence or way of living." 
 
 " You might have given me an opportunity of
 
 2 6o GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 trying, Harold. I have some knowledge of more kinds 
 of life than one." 
 
 " Evidently, sir! " 
 
 The end of Harold Foster's restraint was very near 
 at hand, exactly how near Mr. Morley Fenton recog- 
 nised more clearly than did Harold himself. Mr. 
 Fenton was always a quick thinker. Essentially man 
 of the world and worldly, he was thinking luminously 
 now, and with rapidity born of nervous tension. He 
 modified the staccato incisiveness of his utterance, 
 lowering and broadening his voice slightly. 
 
 " I have apologized for my intrusion, Harold. Af'er 
 all, some liberty I may claim as an old friend. I fear 
 I must not ask now for the the tctc-a-tete I had looked 
 forward to. But, perhaps May I talk in the pres- 
 ence of this lady? " 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton bowed with old-world grace 
 in the direction of Harold's companion. Here a touch 
 of something more human than all that had as yet 
 transpired, relieved the tension of the atmosphere. 
 A woman's intuition told the Dresden shepherdess 
 that the new-comer was no friend to her or to her 
 interests. A woman's curiosity made her wishful to 
 hear and see more of the relations between her cava- 
 lier and his friend. A woman's vanity and, possibly, 
 some truer, better quality forced her to return some 
 consideration for the dignified courtliness shown her 
 by the handsome, grey-haired stranger. She re- 
 sponded in her own kind: 
 
 " Oh, I say, you know nonsense, you two ! Hal, 
 why don't you ask your friend to sit down and have 
 a glass of wine, if he wants to talk to you? And if 
 you don't care to talk in front of me, I'll go somewhere 
 else till you've finished. And if you won't talk at all, 
 I'll go away altogether. What nonsense! Why don't 
 you both sit down? Ah, footsak!"
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 2 6i 
 
 With this curious exclamation presumably a sort 
 of toast the Dresden shepherdess raised her glass to 
 her lips and lowered it more than half emptied, there- 
 by doing a good deal towards relaxing the strain of 
 the men's attitude each to each. 
 
 " I beg you'll stay where you are," said Harold, 
 turning abruptly towards the fair woman. 
 
 Bowing again, with the slightest inflection of a 
 smile his friend had not introduced him towards 
 Harold's companion, Mr. Morley Fenton placed his 
 hand hesitatingly on the back of a chair which stood 
 beside the door. 
 
 " You will permit me? " he said, turning to Harold. 
 " Oh, please do as you wish. I have an engage- 
 ment elsewhere very shortly," said Harold; ungra- 
 ciously enough, but still speaking under strong re- 
 straint. 
 
 Following up the line of thought which had caused 
 him to modulate his voice after his first few remarks, 
 Mr. Morley Fenton, having seated himself, began now 
 to speak with some easiness, and as though attaching 
 no great weight to his own words. 
 
 " You see, Harold, this is your final year at the 
 hospital, and I cannot help following that with inter- 
 est and some trepidation. I was made a little anxious 
 by your lengthened stay on the Continent with Leo 
 Tarne. And then, when you returned to London, only 
 to immediately set off for somewhere else, and I had 
 a quite plaintive letter about your missed opportunities 
 and spoiled prospects from Dr. Wainwright, I well, I 
 began to think something must be done, you know." 
 " Surely this is hardly a suitable time or oppor- 
 tunity for a discussion about my hospital work," said 
 Harold Foster, with ominous calm in his voice, and 
 colour in his somewhat sunken cheeks. 
 
 " No; perhaps not. But you see, I had no choice
 
 262 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 of opportunities. Now, Harold, for the sake of all 
 the years of all your life believe me, I have watched 
 them all carefully enough listen to me to-night, and 
 let me tell you what is in my mind. As a man of the 
 world you might fairly grant some consideration to 
 advice which comes from an experience of double the 
 length of your own. There are some affairs of a man's 
 life, Harold, which he may allow to be guided by 
 caprice, developed according to his whim or desire of 
 each passing moment. There are other matters, again, 
 in which sanity, the world's good-will, and the eternal 
 fitness of things, all demand that a man shall express 
 himself clearly, take a definite stand, and abide by it. 
 These are the portions of a man's life which affect the 
 community. These are the things he is judged on. 
 The adoption of a profession is one of these latter 
 things, one of the matters of definite success or fail- 
 ure. The initiatory steps necessitate a certain promi- 
 nence, exposure of a clear front to judgment. The 
 thing achieved and decided, much of a man's life may 
 be allowed to subside into the behind-the-curtain free- 
 dom with which the world has nothing to do." 
 
 " All men may not care for the verdicts of this 
 world you speak of," said Harold, nervously twisting 
 and untwisting his finger-napkin. " Some men may 
 be indifferent utterly, to this question of judgment." 
 
 " No; pardon me! I thought I had explained that. 
 In the matters which whims may rule yes. In this 
 matter no. A man must live the life he is born to, 
 whether he will or no. The question is how to make 
 it the best possible which its scope permits. The an- 
 swer is, by careful decision in the important issues, 
 absolute adherence to those decisions when formed, 
 and the sacrifice of smaller matters whims and the 
 like in the carrying to achievement of the greater 
 issues."
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 263 
 
 Harold jerked his watch from his pocket. 
 
 " I cannot miss my engagement," he said brusquely. 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton permitted himself to smile 
 slightly. And that was an error of judgment surpris- 
 ing in so astute a man. 
 
 "That is precisely the attitude which policy de- 
 mands of a man in relation to the important steps of 
 which I have spoken. You feel its necessity in the 
 matter of your engagement, and But you follow 
 me, I am sure." 
 
 Harold muttered something which might have 
 been assent to Mr. Fenton's last remark, but which 
 sounded to the Dresden shepherdess very like, " Damn 
 policy ! " Mr. Morley Fenton believed it to be mut- 
 tered assent. So he continued speaking. The Dres- 
 den shepherdess smiled. 
 
 " Harold, you know that I can have no other mo- 
 tive than a desire to help you, when I say that the 
 point in your life, which you are now making sub- 
 sidiary to the behind-curtain trifles, is one of the junc- 
 tion points at which the world you live in demands 
 definite action that application which holds in its 
 hands success or failure." 
 
 Harold moved uneasily. He was sitting on the 
 extreme edge of his chair. 
 
 " If I have any knowledge of men and women," 
 continued Mr. Morley Fenton, his didactic tone being 
 unconscious, and induced by depth of feeling and 
 strength of meaning, " this lady will not in any way 
 misconstrue my intention, or take umbrage at my 
 words, when I say that common-sense demands your 
 turning your back just now on on" Mr. Fenton 
 embraced the Castanets and its atmosphere with a 
 meaning wave of one hand, a gesture which obviously 
 included the Dresden shepherdess " you understand 
 meon this life of the past month or two. Wisdom,
 
 264 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 policy, your place in the only world you have at pres- 
 ent, your whole life's future, demands it, Harold. And 
 I want you to see it, and and accede. I beg you to." 
 
 Harold raised his head with a gesture of over- 
 whelming impatience. 
 
 " Some of the secondary matters, the trifles you 
 dismiss so lightly," he said explosively, " may be of 
 infinitely more importance to me than the matters of 
 policy which you esteem so highly. And it is my life 
 mine which you are of which you speak." 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton drew a long, sighing breath. 
 Nervousness, anxiety, impatience and regret were all 
 represented in Mr. Fenton's sigh. 
 
 "It is, Harold; it is your life, and not mine, of 
 which I am speaking. But you see, when a man has 
 passed a certain point, his own life is not always a 
 matter so near and dear to him as some other life 
 may be." 
 
 Then Mr. Fenton's hand moved forward and up- 
 ward, as though he would have touched Harold Fos- 
 ter, and his voice rose and broadened in scope and 
 volume, as he said: 
 
 " Look at this thing eye to eye with me, Harold, as 
 a man of the real, workaday world. Good God ! Don't 
 let us sit here in this place, stabbing each other with 
 childish cross questions and crooked answers. Put 
 the little sparkling toy a pretty thing for idle mo- 
 ments, this life, I know put it aside, Harold, in the 
 face of a flesh-and-blood crisis. Do I ask so very 
 much? Am I inhuman bloodless unreasonable? 
 No! Believe me, I know it all. Yes, all of it. See! 
 Be a man of parts, restraint, and policy. Look at your 
 life; not at a London season. I don't ask renuncia- 
 tion, and a life of denial. Nothing of the sort. I ask 
 the momentary exercise of a little of the oil that makes 
 the wheels of the world go round ; a little simple policy,
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 265 
 
 for a solid, tangible, permanent end; a knuckling 
 down to finish an almost completed task. And the 
 world the world of success and honour and repute 
 which, mind you, is the world which supplies the toys 
 that glitter the real, great world asks no more than 
 this that I ask. Make this little effort. Take your 
 stand. And then oh! such slight tribute then, gives 
 you perfect freedom! And without the light gold 
 shackles, is no freedom worth the name. The whims 
 and trifling of a season Tsh! Come away with 
 me, now, Harold. You know me. Remember Bishop 
 Blougram. Pay the little price. Put the moment 
 behind you, for the sake of the years. Don't you see 
 it? It is all so clear. For God's sake, Harold, come 
 away with me now!" 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton had risen to his feet, one hand 
 extended as though to take Harold's, his eyes glowing 
 as perhaps they had not glowed since he was last in 
 the Castanets. The Dresden shepherdess was bend- 
 ing forward, her dainty chin pillowed on one little bis- 
 cuit-coloured palm, her lips parted, her eyes dancing, 
 and her breast rising and falling with her every quick- 
 drawn breath. She had not heard talk like this before, 
 and her experience, of its kind, was varied, and one 
 covering no inconsiderable period; even as time is 
 reckoned in the world of which Weir Lodge, for in- 
 stance, was a part. 
 
 Harold Foster had for some minutes been moving 
 irritably on his chair, his lips twitching, and his fingers 
 twining in and out the creased and crumpled serviette 
 which he still held. Half a dozen times he had been 
 on the verge of an angry interruption. His sense of 
 proportion was distorted out of all reason by anger; 
 his old feeling of respect for Mr. Morley Fenton was 
 swallowed up completely by his nervous exaspera- 
 tion. Now, as Mr. Fenton ceased speaking, Harold
 
 2 66 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 jumped to his feet, and, with hands springing to ges- 
 ticulation, faced the man of whom he had thought as 
 of a guardian. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I see it all, and hate it for its sor- 
 didness." There was too much hysteria to admit of 
 perfect truth in the chord his voice struck ; but it rang 
 out clear and loud, and penetrated every corner of the 
 brilliant little fleur-de-lys room. " I do remember 
 Bishop Blougram, and hate him for the damned smug- 
 ness of his oily adherence to the faith which brought 
 old wines, and many-coursed dinners, and hand-kiss- 
 ing. Faugh! for his policy, do you understand? and 
 the lying, white-handed diplomacy which you would 
 have me emulate. You join with more courtesy in his 
 sneer at the literary man his guest. And wherein 
 lay his superiority, and all that gave him the power 
 to sneer, and the snobbishness? Why, in the Bishop's 
 princely revenues, the reward of your vaunted di- 
 plomacy, and his shameless hypocrisy. Ah, Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton, the world's body-grinding old wheels 
 might stop for want of oil, if the world were peopled 
 with men like me; but I would rather live one hour of 
 my purposeless, trifling life, as you see it yes, here 
 in this place you despise so than earn a century of 
 the smug respectability you prize. You threaten me 
 with your august world's disapproval. Well, I care 
 not one curse for your world or its disapproval. You 
 ask me to throw aside the moment which I love for 
 its colour, for -the sake of those years in the world 
 which I loathe for its drabness. You tell me that a 
 little grubbing in the drabness now, will make it safe 
 and possible for me to indulge my whim to live accord- 
 ing to the lights of my nature behind certain fences 
 of diplomatic humbug, of course later on. Well you 
 see, I have the moment, which is natural and bright 
 to me; I don't want the grubbing even temporarily,
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING.' 
 
 267 
 
 and I won't hide behind those white-washed fences, 
 not for an eternity of indulgence, or for any other 
 reward which Blougram and his world could devise 
 under the inspiration of beeswinged port. That's my 
 childish ignorance, my vulgar want of diplomacy. 
 Granted. But it's mine mine! And if God made me, 
 then He made me so just so, not otherwise. And if 
 I choose to live my life as He made it and I feel it, 
 in the world He put me in as I see it why then that's 
 my affair, not yours or Blougram's. He with his pul- 
 pit and his port his ' soul titillations'; you with your 
 beautiful house, your honour, and high-standing, those 
 things you value highest can't you both go on living 
 the life you love and hold best, leaving me in peace to 
 run through my little, insignificant, impolitic life with 
 the the trifles I love best? You can, but you won't, 
 you say? You know best, and for my sake Fid- 
 dle-de-dee, and sauve qui pent! It is I who have to 
 lead my life, not you. Oh God ! if You can really hear 
 and see little things like me, and great, hill-faced things 
 like like Bishop Blougram, who made wine and oil 
 for his table out of folks' duty to Your Church; if 
 You really know of me at all, and if my life and Your 
 beautiful world as I see them, are not my life and 
 Your beautiful world as You made them, then why 
 am I not given the power to see things as they are? 
 Anyhow, this is as I see them so I live. It is not 
 wise maybe, or politic, or diplomatic; but at least 
 it is not a lie. It is really me. And lie and truckle 
 for the approval of your other world, which I hate, I 
 will not! And that is my last word, Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton. If I am ungrateful I am sorry for it. Perhaps 
 I, too, have my little conscience. If I am rude, I ask 
 pardon for that. And and I leave you to say, sir, 
 whether you or I shall be the first to leave this room. ' 
 Harold stepped forward, and opened the door of 
 18
 
 2 68 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 the fleur-de-lys room. Mr. Morley Fenton's head was 
 bent low, and as he raised it for a moment his face 
 showed grey and sunken, and his eyes seemed to hold 
 no light. His voice, too, when he spoke sounded 
 empty, fleshless. 
 
 "And that is your last word to me, Harold?" 
 
 " Now, and on such a subject always yes! " 
 
 The young man was pale, and seemed to have 
 grown calm and firm. He spoke with all the blind 
 finality of the man who has had his say, and has re- 
 sisted all persuasion to relinquish his conviction. 
 
 " Then I must go. Good-night, Harold! " 
 
 "Good-bye, sir!" 
 
 Mr. Morley Fenton, his shoulders sunken, and 
 his head bowed, walked slowly from the room, and 
 down the brilliantly lighted corridor, once so fa- 
 miliar to him, to the entrance-hall and the street 
 beyond. 
 
 And talkative, volatile Alphonse, he of the em- 
 broidered linen and the mincing gait, meeting his old 
 patron in the entrance-hall, bowed, and drew aside 
 with wide, staring eyes, but spoke never a word. 
 
 " What did you say his name was? " asked the fair 
 woman in the fleur-de-lys room. There were tears 
 hanging between the lashes of her blue eyes. But her 
 voice was firm enough. 
 
 " What earthly interest can his name have for you, 
 child?" said Harold Foster wearily. 
 
 " I know him, I'm certain I know him; and I shall 
 remember by-and-by." 
 
 "Nonsense, little one; that's impossible. He is 
 or was my guardian, my adopted father, and his 
 name is Morley Fenton." 
 
 "Morley Fenton, Morley Fenton? Ah!" The 
 Dresden shepherdess tapped her forehead with two 
 taper fingers. " Well, presently, you will see, I shall
 
 "MORLEY FENTON'S FOUNDLING." 269 
 
 remember all about him. I remember him, and his 
 name too, now." 
 
 When Mr. Morley Fenton drove up to the entrance 
 of the hotel in which he had left George Barnard, the 
 barrister was waiting beside the hall-fire, and Big Ben 
 was chiming half-past one. 
 
 The barrister walked slowly upstairs, his old friend's 
 arm linked in his. His was that beautiful sympathy 
 of silence which, perhaps, can only exist between men 
 Who have been for many years friends. Supper was 
 laid for three in one of the rooms engaged by Mr. 
 Fenton. The barrister poured out a glass of wine 
 for his friend. Mr. Fenton shook his head. 
 
 " No, thanks, George. It is finished. He bade 
 me good-bye. I have failed utterly. We have quite 
 failed, George. And this is the end of it." 
 
 " We did our best, old man. We we are only 
 men, you know. There's Someone else watching over 
 him." 
 
 "Ah yes! Yes, George, you always found com- 
 fort in that idea, didn't you? A beautiful idea, very 
 beautiful, for a man who can feel it." 
 
 " Look here, Morley, old man, have a little supper, 
 and a smoke afterwards with me." 
 
 " Not to-night, George; not to-night. To-morrow. 
 I would rather be left alone now. Forgive me, old 
 friend, I would really. There's plenty of time for us 
 to talk to-morrow plenty of time. I have several 
 things to tell you. And now I am going to my room. 
 Good-night, George." 
 
 " Good-night, old chap! I say damn it, you 
 know! God bless you, Morley good-night! " 
 
 So they parted.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 HAROLD FOSTER LOSES HIS WAY. 
 
 " For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own 
 pleasure ; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His 
 holiness." The Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews. 
 
 FOR many minutes after Mr. Morley Fenton's de- 
 parture from the chambre fleur-de-lys, the chill which 
 had crept over Harold Foster remained a potent factor 
 in the atmosphere of the little silver-and-blue apart- 
 ment. 
 
 Then Harold left the place, with his companion, to 
 keep that " engagement " of which he had spoken. 
 This was the beginning of a very riotous night, or 
 morning a reckless round of visits to a number of 
 gaily-coloured temples of recklessness in that small, 
 lurid patch which represents London's forcing-bed of 
 London's rankest growths. This is a field in which are 
 sown the seeds of disease, moral, physical, and mental 
 a bed in which upthrusting wild oats jostle and 
 choke down timid conscience buds; a swamp thinly 
 covered by verdure of the greenest, and ablaze with 
 exotic growths and colouring a patch of the very 
 air above which is cloudy with the flying pollen of 
 sorrows born of Satiety by Pleasure. 
 
 The other, big, workaday world the moorland 
 was thronged and busy when Harold Foster turned 
 from the day-paled purple lights to take such rest as 
 comes with loss of consciousness in tossing, dream- 
 clouded slumber. 
 
 Another day had passed and had given way to 
 270
 
 HAROLD FOSTER LOSES HIS WAY. 2 ;i 
 
 reality-cloaking evening, before Harold moved out 
 again into the world before the curtain. Then, by 
 merest chance, and as he passed out of the entrance to 
 a Turkish bath house, he happened across a fellow- 
 student at St. Bartholomew's, the student who had 
 spoken of " that Morley Fenton's foundling." 
 
 " Hullo, Foster! " said the student. " Buck up, old 
 man; you're looking like a corpse! Is this true this 
 business about Mr. Morley Fenton?" 
 
 "Is what true?" 
 
 " Why, what the papers say about his illness, you 
 know. I only this minute saw it in the St. James's 
 here." 
 
 " Let me see." 
 
 Harold had been pale enough before. He was a 
 little whiter now, and his hands shook as he took the 
 medical student's evening paper and unfolded it in the 
 light from the entrance to the baths he had just left. 
 
 " No, last page but one, near the bottom," said 
 the student. " I expect all the papers will give some 
 version of it, you know." 
 
 But Harold Foster was no longer conscious that 
 his fellow-student was speaking. He was reading the 
 paragraph about Mr. Fenton ; and this is what it said : 
 
 " Financial circles in the City, and his own long 
 list of friends and acquaintances, will very much regret 
 to hear of the serious illness of Mr. Morley Fenton, 
 of the well-known Lombard Street firm of Messrs. 
 Morley Fenton, Son and Co. Being detained in town 
 until a late hour last evening, it appears that the gen- 
 tleman in question decided to sleep at - 's Hotel, in 
 Trafalgar Square. Mr. Fenton was late in retiring, 
 and was accompanied by an old friend, a barrister, 
 who also slept in the hotel. This gentleman it was 
 who, having entered Mr. Fenton's room for the pur- 
 pose of waking him this morning, discovered that he
 
 2J2 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 was very seriously ill, and, we believe, in a helpless 
 condition. Dr. Wainwright, the eminent Cavendish 
 Square physician, was shortly afterwards in attendance, 
 and news of the patient's condition was sent at once 
 to Sunbury, where Mr. Morley Fenton has for many 
 years lived with his wife and family. Dr. Wainwright 
 naturally showed some reticence in speaking of Mr. 
 Fenton's condition, but we gather that the illness is 
 something in the nature of a paralytic seizure lateral 
 sclerosis, it is thought and that it will for a few days 
 prevent Mr. Morley Fenton's removal to his own 
 home. Mrs. Fenton, with one of her daughters, has 
 taken rooms at - 's Hotel, and a professional nurse 
 is in attendance. Mr. Fenton is the head and principal 
 of the Lombard Street house, and is regarded as one 
 of the ablest and most successful financiers in the 
 City." 
 
 " I wonder you hadn't seen all the papers by now," 
 said the student from Bartholomew's, as Harold Foster 
 raised his eyes, allowing one half the paper to fall from 
 his hands to the pavement. " I suppose it's exag- 
 gerated a bit, eh? I bet old Wainwright never men- 
 tioned ' sclerosis.' He's not fond enough of reporters. 
 But I suppose Mr. Fenton must be pretty bad, isn't 
 he?" 
 
 " Eh? Yes I don't know. Excuse me, Yorke. 
 I I've got an engagement. Good-night ! " 
 
 " Oh, good-night, Foster." 
 
 Harold strode off down the busy street. 
 
 ' 'Pon my soul, I don't believe he knew anything 
 about it," muttered the young man from Bartholo- 
 mew's. " He certainly is going the pace. Never shows 
 
 his face at Bart's; and every night I wonder 
 
 where he gets the cash? Hejgho! it's good to be an 
 'able financier's' foundling! Shouldn't be surprised 
 if he was really."
 
 HAROLD FOSTER LOSES HIS WAY. 2 ;$ 
 
 The student went into the Turkish baths, and Har- 
 old Foster wandered rather aimlessly into Regent 
 Street. 
 
 His impulse in leaving the man from Bartholo- 
 mew's had been to proceed at once to the Trafalgar 
 Square hotel, and ask to see the man whom he had 
 regarded in the light of a father. Then quickly he 
 had recalled the stormy interview of the previous night, 
 his own passionate resentment of Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 attitude, and the bitter, hopelessly final note which 
 had been struck between them in their parting at the 
 door of the chambre fieur-de-lys. 
 
 " No," he muttered, pausing on the curb-stone at a 
 crowded corner " no, I'm about the last man he will 
 want to see or any of the others. God! how they 
 will hate me! George surely knows about last night; 
 and, of course, they will all want to know where Mr. 
 Fenton had been before going to bed. Paralysis, 
 paralysis Mr. Morley Fenton paralyzed! The thing's 
 not possible; that's the paper's mistake. Nervous ex- 
 haustion; he's overworked run down and last night 
 upset him. And yet sclerosis! Good Lord!" 
 
 The wheel of a passing cab brushed one of Har- 
 old's coat-sleeves. 
 
 "Where yer goin', clumsy?" jeered the driver of 
 the cab. 
 
 " Eh what? I beg your pardon," muttered Har- 
 old to the street. And he wandered on vaguely, in- 
 definitely, past Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, 
 down Long Acre, and so to Bloomsbury and the old 
 Court end of the town. 
 
 He paused at last outside a house in which Amelia 
 may have entertained Becky Sharpe, and became con- 
 scious that rain was driving against his shirt-front- 
 he was in evening dress and that the time of an ap- 
 pointment he had made with his companion of the
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 previous evening must be long since past. With a 
 murmured protest against the futility of things, he 
 raised his hands to button the neck of his light even- 
 ing cape. Then he walked on to the Russell Square 
 cab-rank, and stepped into a hansom. 
 
 " Thirteen, Dalmain Crescent, Cabby," he said 
 shortly. " Quickly as you can." 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the man. 
 
 " Window ! " cried Harold impatiently, when the 
 driver had whipped up his horse, and half the length 
 of Southampton Row had been traversed. 
 
 The window was lowered, and Harold, leaning far 
 back in one corner, remained without moving a mus- 
 cle until the cab drew up outside the house in which 
 the Dresden shepherdess occupied a flat. The fair 
 woman said nothing as to Harold's unpunctuality, but 
 led him to the fire in her florid little sitting-room. 
 
 " You look as though you'd seen a ghost," she 
 said, " a wet one. But sit down. I've got news for 
 you. I've remembered all about your friend, as I said 
 I should. Look here! Whose writing is that?" 
 
 The Dresden shepherdess slipped into Harold's 
 outstretched hand an envelope, yellow with age and 
 dust, but clearly addressed in firm, distinctive hand- 
 writing to " Miss Blair, Ivy Cottage, Barford, Surrey." 
 The name of Harold's companion was May Blair. 
 
 " Great Scott! That's Mr. Fenton's writing," said 
 Harold excitedly. " You don't mean to say he ever 
 wrote to you, child ? " 
 
 " No, I was only ten years old when that was writ- 
 ten. That was written to my sister, who died. You 
 know, I've spoken to you about my sister Lottie. That 
 was written to her over five-and-twenty years ago 
 only a week before she died before her child was 
 born. And it was written by Mr. Morley Fenton, just 
 after he brought Lottie back from abroad. I can re-
 
 HAROLD FOSTER LOSES HIS WAY. 275 
 
 member him as well as possible. How we hated 
 him!" 
 
 " Well, but 
 
 " Yes, I know. I am older than you think. Now, 
 look here, Hal, have you any relations?" 
 
 " No not one, that I know of." 
 
 " And who were your father and mother? " 
 
 " My mother died when I was born, and my father 
 died soon after. I don't know who they were, except 
 that Mr. Fenton was my father's best friend." 
 
 "When is your birthday, Hal?" 
 
 " The second of May. That's next Thursday. 
 Why?" 
 
 " Yes yes. And your old nurse was a Scotch 
 woman, called Mary Crichton. And the young nurse 
 who weaned you was a Lizzie Johnson. I know the 
 whole thing. And in this letter Mr. Morley Fenton 
 said that if her child was a boy, it should be called 
 Harold Harold Foster, because Foster was the name 
 they had taken abroad, Hal." 
 
 " Good God, child, don't say things like that! You 
 don't know You My God! I went to see 
 old Mary Crichton, in Barford, two years ago. But 
 not at Ivy Cottage. She's dead now. I 
 
 " You were brought up at Barford, Hal. You 
 wer e you were her child; and Mr. Morley Fenton 
 is your father, as well as your guardian. I remember 
 him well enough, now. I've a bundle of these letters, 
 Hal. I had them when my mother died. But she 
 would never mention Mr. Morley Fenton's name. He 
 wanted to give her a house, but she wouldn't take it. 
 You know that pearl cross I sometimes wear?" 
 
 Harold stared mechanically. 
 
 "Well, your father gave that to Lottie to your 
 mother. See you can have this letter. Do you un- 
 derstand all I'm telling you?"
 
 276 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 The Dresden shepherdess, who looked far more of 
 a girl than a woman, placed one of her little hands with 
 a familiar, bon camarade gesture, on Harold's neck. 
 He was sitting on a low chair before the fire. She was 
 standing beside him. As her soft hand touched his 
 neck, Harold threw back his head, and started ab- 
 ruptly to his feet. He had been staring vacantly into 
 the bright fire. The touch of her woman's skin seemed 
 to tear vacancy's veil from his eyes, to bring with it 
 a whole world of reality, consciousness of the things 
 that are. Harold knew. The idea of further inquiry 
 seemed absurd. He felt, in every fibre of him, that 
 what this dainty, doll-like woman at his side had said 
 was truth absolute truth. This pretty, laughing com- 
 rade, with her laces and perfumes, her love of gaiety, 
 her reckless abandon to his whims, his recklessness; 
 she had really known his dead mother; the dead 
 woman wife, in God's eyes, of Mr. Morley Fenton. 
 And Mr. Morley Fenton, the grave, respected man 
 of high repute and unquestioned position, was his 
 father, and had known it all these years. George Bar- 
 nard, too. Yes, he must have known it. And on 
 the previous night he had parted, finally, with this 
 grave, worldly man. They had said "Good-bye!" 
 with great bitterness, and in the presence of this fair 
 woman who now touched his neck this companion 
 of his reckless life, who was really 
 
 "My God! Don't touch me, don't " He 
 
 moved back from the Dresden shepherdess with hands 
 upraised. " He is ill Mr. Morley Fenton. Paralyzed, 
 or something. I I it is all true, all of it. I know 
 it is. Only for God's sake, don't touch me, now 
 child! Forgive me! What can I say? But I want 
 to get out get out. You must forgive me! Good- 
 bye! God, I must go out! " 
 
 "Yes yes; I knew. Good-bye, Hal."
 
 HAROLD FOSTER LOSES HIS WAY. 
 
 277 
 
 Harold Foster had snatched his cloak and hat from 
 where they lay, on a chair-back; and carrying them 
 in his hands, he strode out of the pretty, littered little 
 room. The Dresden shepherdess stood watching the 
 door for a minute. Then she sank down on her knees 
 before the fire, holding the faded, creased envelope in 
 her hand, gazing fixedly before her. Then two big, 
 bright tears fell on to the yellowed envelope. 
 
 " Yes, yes, I knew," repeated the Dresden shep- 
 herdess slowly. " Of course, it's part of my my busi- 
 ness." 
 
 Harold strode along in the rain outside, his cloak 
 flying loose over his right arm.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 
 
 " That man will read you rightly head to foot, 
 Mark the brown face of you, the bushy beard. 
 The breadth 'twixt shoulder-blades, and through each black 
 Castilian orbit see into your soul. 
 
 He will have understood you, I engage. 
 Endeavour, for your part, to understand 
 He knows more, and loves better, than the world 
 That never heard his name, and never may." 
 
 Red Cotton Nightcap Country. 
 
 HAROLD FOSTER strode on unseeingly, through 
 the gusty rain of the spring night; on and on, un- 
 thinkingly, through the squares and crescents and 
 gardens of Kensington. 
 
 There was no doubt that for the time Harold had 
 lost his way. There are doubtless many who would 
 say that he had lost it when he went to Berlin with 
 Leo Tarne, or to the Castanets with the Dresden shep- 
 herdess. That would be a mistake. He was following 
 then a very distinct way of a sort. But on this rainy 
 April night he had made certain discoveries, and lie 
 had very completely lost his way. 
 
 If a ship be off her course, one of the first steps 
 towards taking her back to it is the ascertaining of 
 her exact bearings. When Harold Foster left the St. 
 Bartholomew's student who had given him the even- 
 ing paper containing news of Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 illness, he, Harold had not even known that he had 
 lost his way. When he left the house in which the 
 Dresden shepherdess lived, he had realized the fact 
 in every nerve and fibre of himself. Consequently, 
 though he, of course, was not aware of the fact, his 
 
 278
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 279 
 
 position was considerably more hopeful than it had 
 been earlier in the evening. 
 
 Harold's decline, from the points of view, say, of 
 Dr. Wainwright, the specialist in nervous diseases, 
 of Mr. Morley Fenton, the man of standing and of 
 unquestioned social and commercial repute, and of any 
 upholder of morality, Christian or otherwise, had, 
 since his return from Berlin, been very marked and 
 rapid. It had not been marked by Harold, but it had 
 by everyone else with whom he came in contact. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking proof of this lay in the 
 fact of his being severed from Leo Tarne. Leo Tarne 
 was not a man who had any great care of his reputa- 
 tion. Respect for the conventions had no place in 
 Leo Tarne's creed. Beauty and morality, comfort 
 and virtue, meant to Leo Tarne one and the same 
 thing. Ugliness, immorality, discomfort, and vice 
 these were synonyms to Leo Tarne. 
 
 Yet, almost immediately after their return from 
 Brighton together, to London, these two had parted, 
 with an understanding that their paths for the present 
 diverged. And Leo Tarne had taken the initiative 
 in this parting. He had said: 
 
 " Frankly, my dear Harold, no consideration of 
 friendship or obligation would induce me to associate 
 closely with a man whose ways jarred on me. I 
 couldn't afford it. It would destroy the beauty of 
 my life, spoil my work, and make the Carissima un- 
 happy. It would make me unhappy. Nothing in the 
 world, to me, is worth purchase at the price of un- 
 happiness. Far be it from me to interfere with my 
 friend's actions or desires. I have made suggestions. 
 To me it is surprising your present way of living 
 because, to me, it seems so grossly inartistic. You 
 seem to divide your time now between doing grotesque 
 things and making hideous resolutions. Your resolu-
 
 2 8o GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 tions smack of religious revival meetings, and your 
 actions forgive me suggest Saturday night in Pic- 
 cadilly Circus. It is painful to me it is really. See! 
 Here is a little finger-post to what I mean. You never 
 drink Rhein wine now. You drink brandy-and-soda 
 in the daytime brandy-and-soda, Harold ! and sweet, 
 sparkling, red things, at night. I am awfully sorry; 
 but you are upsetting my life you are, really, by 
 making me a kind of accomplice in all this." 
 
 There had been no banter in this speech, to the 
 man who had made it, or to the man who had heard 
 it. And in that way these two had parted. And their 
 parting had slightly accelerated Harold's descent, 
 which had been fast enough before, as was inevitable 
 to his peculiar temperament. That at which he had 
 shuddered early on one evening, he had merely turned 
 away from at midnight, shrugged his shoulders at in 
 the small hours, smiled at the next evening, and taken 
 part in twenty-four hours later. 
 
 Already, as he strode along through the outlying 
 streets of Kensington, it seemed to Harold that a long 
 stretch of life, a wide gulf of time, lay between that 
 evening with its revelations, and the other, past, even- 
 ing of his parting with Mr. Morley Fenton at the door 
 of the blue-and-silver room in the Castanets. Already, 
 it seemed that, walking along there, through the thin, 
 driving rain, he was living a different phase of his life 
 to that in which the Dresden shepherdess had had 
 a part. He would probably never see her again. They 
 had met for the last time. He had known her, it was 
 true, for a few weeks. Then they had parted. That 
 belonged to the past. Even the fact that Mr. Morley 
 Fenton was his father! Well, of course he was! 
 
 Harold came to a standstill suddenly, in a quiet, 
 deserted street. The point reached in his reflections 
 was what had stopped him. But the moment he stood
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 2 8l 
 
 still he realized that he was carrying his cape-coat in- 
 stead of wearing it, and that he was already very wet. 
 He drew on the coat slowly, and buttoned it over his 
 wet shirt and limp collar. 
 
 To seek to disclose the mind-workings of just such 
 a young man in just such a condition as was Harold 
 Foster's at this moment, would surely be unfair if 
 the disclosure were an offering up for judgment. The 
 most self-satisfied among Pharisees would hesitate to 
 judge a man on the utterances of his delirium. But 
 a wise physician, a kindly doctor, will sometimes listen 
 most attentively and thoughtfully to a patient's raving. 
 
 " He was very anxious about my worldly success," 
 muttered Harold, whilst he stood still in the rain; 
 "very much afraid of my offending the proprieties; 
 but he didn't care to own me as his son even as a 
 foundling all those years. Oh no! that wouldn't have 
 been diplomatic; and Psh! But I will never 
 trouble him. If I disgrace myself, he needn't fear my 
 disgracing him. Oh, God! What am I talking about? 
 And he is 
 
 Harold resumed his walk, but more slowly and less 
 blindly than before. 
 
 Once again he stopped abruptly in his walk, and, 
 raising his eyes in the darkness, said, with the tone of a 
 man who makes a discovery: 
 
 " Then I am absolutely alone much more alone 
 than before. Leo Tarne, and the Carissima, and 
 George Barnard, and and the child, and Mr. Morley 
 Fenton they're all gone. And Weir Lodge 
 Psh! And Norahl Why I am just My God! 
 and even my name isn't my own." 
 
 As before, a mental break brought cognizance of 
 physical surroundings. Looking round him, Harold 
 saw that he was approaching a bridge over the river. 
 He was in the suburbs.
 
 282 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " I don't want that place," he muttered; and, turn- 
 ing sharp round then, he began to walk back over the 
 ground he had covered up to that point. Then his 
 mind resumed its troubled working, and he ceased to 
 take note of his surroundings. 
 
 Eleven o'clock was passed when Harold had left 
 the sitting-room in which he had seen that yellow, 
 creased envelope. He had felt no weariness whilst 
 trampling along the suburban roads, groping in his 
 mind for that course which he had lost. But at last, 
 whilst he retraced his steps without noticing where 
 they were leading him, his pace slackened, his shoul- 
 ders began steadily to droop, his arms hung listlessly 
 beside him, and, looking up wearily once, as the hour 
 of one boomed out from St. Stephen's, he murmured: 
 
 " That sounds like Big Ben. Half-past something 
 no, one o'clock. I am very tired." 
 
 He wandered on, dejectedly now and with no pro- 
 test, no suggestion of battling, in the weary lines his 
 figure took. Rather was there in his crouching gait 
 an implied desire to escape unnoticed to escape even 
 from himself, perhaps. And, later, as he still crept 
 on through one street after another, even this sugges- 
 tion faded out from his movements and appearance, 
 leaving apparent only weariness great weariness. 
 
 Harold had not dined that night, and he had taken 
 no food, save a very little fruit, during the day. For 
 days and weeks he had been growing more nervously 
 feverish, more physically listless, and on this night 
 there was no very great store of vitality left in Harold 
 to respond to the strain he put upon himself. 
 
 " Just give us a lift up with this, mate, will yer? " 
 said a voice at Harold's elbow. " Ah, thank ye 
 
 thankee, sir! I thought ye wor , seein' ye 'ere, 
 
 like. Thankee, sir." 
 
 Harold passed on with a murmured " Don't men-
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 283 
 
 tion it." He had just strained every muscle in his 
 weary body to aid a market-gardener in dragging a 
 sack of turnips on to a little raised platform. Looking 
 round now, Harold saw that he was at one of the 
 entrances to Covent Garden market. His only desire 
 just then was to sit down somewhere and rest. For 
 a few minutes he walked on over rough cobble-stones, 
 which were strewn with leaves of broken vegetables 
 and flower stems. Then he reached the piazza, and 
 sat wearily down in the shadow of one of its stone 
 supports. 
 
 " I must go somewhere and sleep," he muttered, 
 stretching out his legs on the damp stone. 
 
 But in the meantime he sat there, in the shadow 
 of the pillar. 
 
 The rain of the night had ceased during the first 
 hour of morning, and spring was in the air, whisper- 
 ing, like a glad child on the eve of a child's holiday, 
 of coming dawn. In the streets beyond, tired night 
 would hold her sway for two or three hours yet. But 
 there, in the great market, night seemed already to be 
 drawing her sable skirts about her, half abashed by the 
 joyous, soft whisperings of new life, and the floating 
 breaths from country pastures, which strove to assert 
 themselves in the London air. 
 
 Now and again came the slow rumbling of a cart 
 or waggon, earlier than its fellows tarpaulins span- 
 gled over with mingled rain and dew from outside the 
 Charing Cross radius; horses, the matted hair of whose 
 fetlocks carried fragments of wet clean earth, foreign 
 quite to the refuse of wood pavements; earthy vege- 
 table smells, suggestive of wide, wet bovine nostrils; 
 fruity smells calling up visions of sun-kissed orchard 
 slopes, flecked over with snowy dimples of fallen blos- 
 som, and of warm old lofts where apples mellow and 
 develop the skin-creases of kindly old age; flowery,
 
 284 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 budding smells, which embodied faintly all the moist 
 loveliness of spring, and roused fancies about lads 
 and lasses, sun-bonnets, rosy plumpness, cream, dim- 
 ity, and tiny windows. 
 
 Harold Foster decided to go somewhere and sleep. 
 Meanwhile, he sat on the damp stone of the piazza, 
 leaning against a dark pillar, his legs outstretched 
 over wet cobble-stones, his nostrils inhaling languidly 
 that air, its fancies, whisperings, and perfumes, which 
 made tired night to gather about her her sable drapery. 
 
 " Thanks all the same, my young friend. I thor- 
 oughly appreciate your kindness, but a Bond Street 
 hotel is a little out of my line. With the coming of 
 the springtime, no doubt, your thoughts turn lightly 
 to to Bond Street, and love. Mine frequently mean- 
 der heavily towards Covent Garden this very spot 
 where I have a weakness for playing death's head at 
 the feast of dawn. Damn poor taste, you think? Why, 
 yes; it's some time since I've read my Shelley, cer- 
 tainly. But, que voulez vous? You and your good 
 friends toasted me as the King of Bohemia. Voila! 
 C'est le roi! vive le roi! In these days, my young 
 friend to be honest, it was always so the path to 
 such a throne is well, not Bond Street. Shall I tell 
 you something that one of your clever set said the 
 other day? Ha! He said: ' Old man Carroll is mel- 
 lowing like some fine old pear. If he only lives long 
 enough, be gad! he'll found a school of philosophy.' 
 Not bad, was it? A fine future for ' old man Carroll,' 
 eh? Ha, ha! No, don't sit down, my friend my very 
 kind-hearted young friend. To begin with, I I really 
 don't want you, you know, and, further, this stone is 
 damp very damp. I? Oh, I am immune, thanks! 
 Yes " 
 
 " But, I say, Mr. Carroll, you know, of course I 
 haven't known you long, you know, and er that
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 385 
 
 sort of thing; but er are you sure you won't er 
 
 eh? Because I should be only too " 
 
 :< Yes, yes, I know, my young friend. I'm not jok- 
 ing; I count it an honour that you've made your offer 
 and and, yes, I'm quite sure, thanks. Good-night." 
 Harold Foster, curiosity and interest overcoming 
 his languor, peered round the side of his pillar, and 
 saw, occupying exactly his own position at the next 
 pillar, the figure of a man whose long beard glistened 
 with moisture and greyness; and facing the recumbent 
 figure stood a young man in evening dress, his over- 
 coat unbuttoned and hanging loosely. 
 
 " Well, of course, if you're sure er you won't 
 let me 
 
 " No, thank you," interrupted the man who was 
 sitting on the piazza. 
 
 "Well, then, I'll say good-night!" 
 " Good-night, my friend." 
 
 And Harold saw the young man walk slowly away 
 over the cobble-stones, towards one of the market en- 
 trances. 
 
 For some minutes Harold sat thinking of the words 
 he had listened to. He remembered quite well having 
 heard George Barnard and a young doctor at St. 
 Bartholomew's each speak of Carroll, the old Bohe- 
 mian. Then he thought he ought to have made his 
 presence known in some way. But yet, he was not in 
 a private place. He felt strongly interested in the old 
 man, whom he could distinctly hear now in the act of 
 lighting a pipe. Harold Foster coughed loudly, as one 
 who announces himself. 
 
 "Hullo, there! Who's that?" 
 The question came in the thick, deep voice of the 
 man called Carroll. And it carried authority. Harold 
 rose to his feet, half shamefacedly. Weariness had 
 some part in this. .
 
 286 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " It's me," he said, with almost childish lack of 
 confidence, and grammar. 
 
 " Well, who are you, my friend?" 
 
 " My name's Harold Foster." 
 
 " Harold Foster! Is it now? What an odd little 
 world! Sit down, Harold Foster, if you don't mind 
 the damp. Let me have a look at you. Well, really! 
 It is damned odd! you must excuse me. Yes! And 
 so you are Morley Fenton's foundling, eh? Well, 
 well! You appear to be beginning where I leave off, 
 my friend on the piazza." 
 
 Harold Foster stared in amazement at the old 
 man, whose authoritative gesture of invitation he me- 
 chanically obeyed. Perhaps his weariness had some- 
 thing to do with this, too. 
 
 " But but how is it you know me? " he asked as 
 he sat down beside the man Carroll. 
 
 " Eh? Oh, bless you! I know most people, in- 
 cluding George Barnard, who came to have a talk with 
 me the other day about the Castanets and things. 
 My name's Carroll. Now, look here, tell me about 
 yourself, Harold Foster. You're rather alone just 
 now, aren't you? There's no one holding cotton- wool 
 round you any longer. You've stampeded round a lit- 
 tle without the Morley Fenton curb or the George 
 Barnard snaffle, and now you don't quite know where 
 you are. Steady! So then, steady, sonny! No one 
 wants to hurt you. Tell me all about it come! You 
 and I will sit and see the spring come the light creep 
 over the gloom of things. You're in luck's way. 
 We've nothing to do with any of 'em. We'll just look 
 over the ball of the earth together." 
 
 Then they began to talk, these two, " old man Car- 
 roll " saying very little at first, but listening mightily, 
 the while a largely comprehending smile played under 
 his grey moustache, and his eyes glowed and beamed
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 
 
 28 7 
 
 dull fire below their eaves of moist straggling hair. 
 Harold warmed towards the old outcast with every 
 word which he, Harold, spoke. He felt no shadow 
 of restraint in unbosoming himself to Carroll. To be 
 sure he was ripe for unbosoming. And he had never 
 before met a man who understood quite as Carroll 
 understood, with such sweeping breadth of tolerance, 
 such minute grip of trifles, such instant seizure of 
 loosely indicated large facts; and, above all, such 
 power of showing, with passive ease and obvious- 
 ness, just how all-embracing was this understanding 
 of his. 
 
 Soon Harold ceased to explain his thoughts; such 
 supererogation seemed in bad taste. He simply gave 
 them utterance. And the thoughts of such a mind as 
 was Harold Foster's, unexplained, are tight-packed 
 images. They dismiss massed facts, indicate serried 
 events, advance premises, sequences, deductions, by 
 little pungent gusts of atmospheric suggestion, by 
 carelessly out-flung splashes of vivid word-colouring. 
 
 And all this was absorbed by the big man recum- 
 bent beside Harold understood with that evidence of 
 understanding which cannot be denied or simulated, 
 since itself is the current across which one man makes 
 such hot communications to another. The great grey 
 beard rose and fell gently. "Ah!" "H'm!" "Ye-es!" 
 " And" " So? " " Ha! " " I know! " " Oh Lord! 
 I know!" These and similar murmured ejaculations 
 were the rest-houses, the restoring stations, at which 
 Harold paused momentarily, with sails half-hoisted, 
 wings aflutter, on his voyage of explanation. 
 
 Now and again Harold would beat his wings im- 
 petuously against the glass of some barrier the far side 
 of which he saw clearly enough, but knew not how 
 to reach. Then the big man would seem to bend down 
 over Harold, and with his catholic knowledge press
 
 288 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 aside some sash which held the barrier of glass, draw- 
 ing Harold through then to the clearer, freer air of his 
 own understanding. 
 
 Everything in his mind Harold Foster poured out 
 for the inspection of the big man on the piazza, with 
 the exception of his discoyery as to Mr. Morley Fen- 
 ton's real relation to him; and of that the big man's 
 memory, freshened by much that he heard now and 
 had thought of late, told him a good deal, and sug- 
 gested more, of which he made no mention to Harold. 
 
 And then Harold ceased speaking, and the two rose 
 to their feet on the piazza's edge, just as the first 
 nacreous hints of coming dawn began to ripple, opales- 
 cent-wave-like, over the sky citywards. 
 
 " A foretaste of spring, Harold Foster," said Car- 
 roll, raising his lean right hand, and pointing to the 
 east. 
 
 Harold looked, and saw insistent purpling colour 
 stealing out and up over the grey, sighing bosom of 
 night night as she lay a-dying, on a blue-fringed 
 bed of pearl. The morning star was paling, stepping 
 backward before day's joyous advance. 
 
 " See the troubled mist of things not understood, 
 fade silently out, and truth rise with the dawn and 
 springtime," said the big man, with a queer little smile. 
 " Look at it all, sonny, and soak it in ; for for of 
 such is the real kingdom of heaven. The wide sweep 
 that takes it all in not a street or a house, or a class 
 or profession, but the ' good gigantic smile o' the 
 brown old earth,' Harold Foster. 
 
 " ' And a bird overhead sang Follow, 
 
 And a bird to the right sang Here ; 
 
 And the arch of the leaves was hollow, 
 
 And the meaning of May was clear. 
 
 ' ' I saw where the sun's hand pointed, 
 
 I knew what the bird's note said '
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 
 
 289 
 
 That's some of what your mind's got to take in and 
 thrive on, to make a whole man of you, outside cotton- 
 wool and Morley Fenton good man and George 
 Barnard better man. And it's going to take it in, 
 too, sonny. You start a clean page with the day-dawn 
 that's coming, and you start it alone alone, by the 
 eternal Catholicism of things! You start it alone, and 
 you're going to make a real book of your life: a big 
 book men may read, not a little diary of Lombard 
 Street and Suburbia; not a. ten to four journal of any 
 spit-turning little round, nor even a record of Harley 
 Street and Bartholomew's, but a great big leather- 
 backed book of a white man's life, sonny. That's 
 what you're going to begin, when the sun gets up. 
 And a man can't do that in a cotton-wool waistcoat, 
 so don't be cast down at the loneliness of things. You 
 were stark, staring naked when you sat down here 
 and a damned good thing for you, my son. For to 
 get anywhere near the brown old earth that's your 
 white man's Catholicism a man's got to begin naked; 
 and that's just what you're going to do. Why, look 
 here, Harold Foster, when I 
 
 And then, while the market was beginning to fill, 
 while the spring day's rose-dimpled feet tripped with 
 life's joyousness over the night's mauve-coloured 
 grave-clothes, this big old man called Carroll rolled 
 out a few yellowed-over scrolls of his seamed and 
 cross-seamed past, for the aid and benefit of Harold 
 Foster Harold Foster, who was beginning his life 
 that morning, quite alone, and the object of no 
 man's protection. It was light thrown with abso- 
 lute impartiality over portions of not a good life 
 a life full of stains and blemishes, but a life which, 
 in the living as in the telling, had been one long 
 lesson, one unceasing gleaning of knowledge, 
 one unending round cf varying experiences a
 
 290 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 broadly catholic storing up of understanding and 
 wisdom. 
 
 And all this Harold listened to and drew into him- 
 self whilst standing in the dawnlight on the edge of 
 the piazza; his limp, stained coat buttoned closely 
 under his pallid chin, his eyes gleaming brightly be- 
 tween flushed cheek-bones, which seemed to thrust 
 redly through the rain-washed whiteness of his face. 
 
 "And you look at me," said the big man; "and 
 you wonder where it has all led me. And you 
 But no, you don't sneer. You have learned too much 
 already, this morning, for that. And then I know 
 you're white and clean underneath. The cotton-wool 
 naturally set up a little irritation, and left a few patchy 
 marks. But I know you're clean. Besides, God for- 
 bid that I should tell you to do as I've done. I didn't 
 have anyone who'd done it to tell me; and I didn't see 
 the dawn early in my life as you are seeing it now. 
 No; I crippled myself just so much in one of the 
 patches you know it: you've passed through it al- 
 ready just so much as to prevent my finally coming 
 out on the other side; but but not enough to pre- 
 vent my seeing, watching, and learning to understand 
 the big horizon outside. Oh no! I had my dawn. I 
 saw the rim peer over the ball of the earth. But I saw 
 it late very late. You see it early. You have 
 sloughed your cotton-wool. You have skimmed 
 through the lurid, weedy patch, learning it for there's 
 a heap to be learned there, where so many stick, as 
 you've found out in the last month or two. And 
 one should learn all. And you have reached the brown 
 earth outside, naked, in the dawning. It's magnificent. 
 Those are the two great preliminary quicksands. And 
 you've cfossed 'em, and learned 'em. And now you 
 stand in the dawnlight, watching. You look down 
 at the little lurid patch which some folk call Bohemia
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 29! 
 
 that's a mistake, of course, because Christ was the 
 first Bohemian and you see that, with all its splashes 
 of colour and perfume, it is still only a very small patch 
 of your brown old earth, the great horizon where 
 your book's to be made. It is, as a matter of fact, a 
 small patch. But it's not quite so small as another 
 patch you look at now. Some call that Nonconform- 
 ity. That, too, is a mistake in labelling, because Christ 
 was the first Nonconformist. It contains the cotton- 
 wool process, and ten to four respectability, Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton's life, and the religion of appearances; and 
 it's even worse to get stuck in because smaller than 
 the lurid patch. But what you've to remember, sonny, 
 is that this, and all the other patches conventionality 
 and unconventionality, five o'clock tea and small 
 hours Burgundy, ten to four appearances and the 
 Castanets abandon, Sunday-school teaching and 
 decadent art exoticism all these are only little 
 patches. But, understand, they are patches of your 
 great brown earth the big windy-skied, sweet- 
 heather-smelling world, in which you are going to 
 make your book. You spoke of Blougram and his 
 dinner-table -philosophy. That's a patch, Harold Fos- 
 ter, the patch Morley Fenton wanted you to live in. 
 I suppose he chose it in mistake for the world. But 
 don't despise it, sonny, because it's a piece of your 
 earth, remember. And, for God's sake, don't get 
 stuck in it, else you'll grow too fat to ever get out 
 of it." 
 
 The big man paused and smiled in the baby day s 
 
 fs.cc 
 
 " And even looking at me," he continued, " I told 
 you how I was crippled-you needn't be frightened 
 of the new life you're beginning. All the world knows 
 I'm a failure. My dawn came too late. But, son 
 do you fancy for a moment that, as I am, 1
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 places with any millionaire in Christendom stuck fast 
 in one of the patches?" 
 
 Carroll was a fine figure of a man. Broken, 
 gnarled and seared by the life he had led, he yet 
 reared up his grey head like a lightning-blasted elm, 
 and with a large nobility that was fine to see. Har- 
 old did not answer the question, unless with his 
 eyes. 
 
 " So now you will start, and alone," resumed Car- 
 roll. " You will fear nothing, shun nothing, despise 
 nothing, and you will be governed by nothing. Do 
 you understand? No lying down and closing your 
 eyes to classic Greece, while you worship dainty 
 Byzantium, or blind yourself with Moorish high lights. 
 You must move about over the brown earth, learning 
 all all loving all, helping all, and being helped by 
 all. You have seen the dawn this morning, the life 
 you must learn alone. And, sonny, you will do it; 
 you will do it. Go right away from all the influences, 
 and start clear. You can go up for your final examina- 
 tion in a month or two. Well, go to Hargreave 
 at Bartholomew's, and ask him to arrange for you 
 to put in the rest of your time at another hospital, 
 one farther east, say. He'll do it. I'll write him. 
 You have enough money for food and living. Go 
 and work in a new place. You must pass the ex- 
 amination. You will, of course. And then you will 
 go on, and on, and on ah, sonny, it is a beautiful 
 life, this that I have told you of, on the big earth's 
 rought breast. And the book of it the big, russet- 
 leather-covered book of your life it shall- be a 
 classic, my friend, a classic. See! There's the 
 sun, clear of all the mist now. Your life's begun. 
 You've seen truth dawn. Go on! They called you 
 ' Morley Fenton's Foundling.' That's all dead now. 
 And in the life you're going to, Harold Foster
 
 HAROLD FOSTER FINDS HIS WAY. 
 
 293 
 
 ah ! they shall call you ' God's Foundling.' Good- 
 bye." 
 
 So the big man called Carroll disappeared among 
 the throng of waggons. And Harold Foster turned 
 and walked slowly away, his head held high, his eyes 
 looking upward and onward.
 
 CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 THE PASSAGE OF" TIME. 
 
 " Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh that I seek 
 In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be 
 A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me 
 Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever : a Hand like this hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See the Christ stand ! " 
 
 Saul. 
 
 THOSE newspaper reports which had spoken of 
 Mrs. Fenton's hastening, with one of her daughters, 
 to the Trafalgar Square hotel in which Mr. Morley 
 Fenton lay stricken and helpless, had to all intents 
 and purposes been perfectly accurate. Norah Fenton 
 was practically one of Mrs. Fenton's daughters 
 something more, perhaps, to Mr. Morley Fenton. And 
 Norah it was who accompanied Mrs. Fenton, on that 
 morning of consternation and alarm, from the smooth- 
 running calm of Weir Lodge, through London a 
 London hurrying with fixed, unseeing eyes to its 
 daily toil and moil to the hushed, heart-chilling, half- 
 darkness of the room where Mr. Morley Fenton lay. 
 
 They came, as David came to his king's tent when 
 Saul's trouble was heavy upon him, these women; 
 one a wife and a mother, the other in reality neither, 
 but yet with native understanding and intuitive wom- 
 an's wit enough for both. And as David paused in 
 fear and wonder when he saw Saul, 
 
 " Hung there as, caught in his pangs 
 
 And waiting his change, the king serpent all heavily hangs " 
 294
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 2 g 5 
 
 so these two women paused, blanched and fear-struck, 
 at the entrance to the chamber of Mr. Morley Fenton's 
 helplessness, and listened to the trained nurse's grave 
 and kindly words of warning sympathy. 
 
 Mrs. Morley Fentpn shivered, and sat down for a 
 moment in the sitting-room from which the bedroom 
 was approached. The nurse moved to her side. Norah, 
 white and fearful to her finger-tips, but firm and show- 
 ing no slightest tremor, stepped on into the sick 
 room 
 
 " Then once more I prayed, 
 
 And opened the fold skirts and entered, and was hot afraid, 
 But spoke, ' Here is David, thy servant ! ' And no voice replied." 
 
 In this way and alone, Norah first faced the tragic 
 fact that he who to her had been, if in one way less, 
 then in another way more, than had her real father; 
 this strong, impassive man the finest chords in whose 
 nature she had touched upon understandingly, the 
 mere policy in whom had in the course of circumstance 
 never been made to tpuch her; this adopted parent, 
 so close to whose heart she had lived, was unable now 
 to speak to her perhaps, so far as she could tell, to 
 recognise her. For, though the sunken, half-opened 
 eyes gazed up at Norah's face when she bent over him, 
 their expression did not change. No muscle governed 
 by intelligence moved in the dark, finely-chiselled face. 
 But veins and muscles on one side of it were twitching 
 vaguely, and with a suggestion of helpless irresponsi- 
 bility. The grey lips made no sign. 
 
 Later on, days afterwards, at Weir Lodge, Miss 
 Matthews the deft-handed, large-bodied professional 
 nurse engaged by Dr. Wainwright to attend on Mr. 
 Morley Fenton this skilled craftswoman added much 
 to her store of knowledge. She learned to recognise 
 the beauty of art's union with craft. She learned that 
 there is in nursing, to the student who studies it lov-
 
 296 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 ingly, something much greater, much more all-sooth- 
 ing and all-embracing, than is even the important 
 corner-stone of technical knowledge. And this she 
 learned of Norah. In this study her teacher, primer, 
 and modestly silent demonstrator was Norah a mere 
 girl. 
 
 Mrs. Fenton with her two daughters, full of sym- 
 pathy and a genuine desire to help, hovered constantly 
 about the room where the owner of Weir Lodge lay. 
 They were ready and anxious to do anything, endure 
 anything, for the patient. They were ready and anx- 
 ious, to do and to endure. Norah did and endured, 
 saying little and showing no weariness. Everyone 
 appreciated this in Norah. But no one else under- 
 stood the beauty of it to the same extent as did the 
 nurse and the doctor. And so strongly impressed by 
 it all was Nurse Matthews that when, on a certain 
 day of great sorrowing, her services being no longer 
 required, the nurse left Weir Lodge, she could not 
 refrain from saying to Norah: 
 
 " Oh, Miss Fenton, if you only realized the won- 
 derful power your heart puts into your eyes and your 
 fingers, you would give up all the ties of your own 
 life, and make sick creatures happy by going round 
 to their bedsides. You have no need of hospital train- 
 ing. You have something bigger and better to give 
 than that. And don't think me rude I think you 
 would be happier, too ! " 
 
 Norah always remembered what this usually calm 
 and apparently emotionless woman said to her, on 
 that day of weeping in Weir Lodge. 
 
 Before this occasion, however, came a day during 
 the morning of which, when George Barnard was sit- 
 ting with bowed head at his bedside, Mr. Morley 
 Fenton asked very definitely for Harold Foster. The 
 barrister, who had been severely cautioned by Dr.
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 
 
 Wainwright against saying anything to distress or 
 excite the patient, was painfully perplexed. His efforts 
 to ascertain Harold Foster's whereabouts had, since 
 the first morning of Mr. Morley Fenton's illness, been 
 almost unceasing, and quite unavailing. He had even 
 approached the big old man called Carroll, on the 
 subject. But Carroll had merely smiled, in his sa- 
 tirical, half-sympathetic, half-derisive way, and had 
 said: 
 
 " I fancy it's better to let sleeping dogs not to 
 mention dead dogs lie, you know. I rather fancy 
 that young man's life, as Harold Foster and Morley 
 Fenton's foundling, must have ended. And isn't it 
 just as well, don't you think? Morley Fenton's found- 
 ling was a bit of a mistake a bit of a failure, eh? Any- 
 how, I haven't the remotest idea where Harold Foster 
 may have buried himself unless, perhaps, in Covent 
 Garden." 
 
 And then Carroll had asked George Barnard to 
 drink some whisky, and himself had declined to pur- 
 sue farther the subject of Harold Foster's probable 
 whereabouts. 
 
 So, sitting by his stricken friend's bedside, the bar- 
 rister stammered in his perplexity, and finally said that 
 he would take immediate and decisive steps towards 
 bringing Harold Foster to Weir Lodge. 
 
 He took all manner of steps, but he found no trace 
 of Harold Foster, save that the young man had ob- 
 tained authority to pursue his studies at some other 
 hospital, and had left St. Bartholomew's. And two 
 days later, a good deal to Dr. Wainwright's surprise, 
 the disease which held the owner of Weir Lodge en- 
 chained, took an unexpected stride in the remorseless 
 and resistless path of its advance. 
 
 On that morning, seated on one side of her hus- 
 band's bed, and facing George Barnard on the other,
 
 298 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Mrs. Morley Fenton received certain intelligence re- 
 garding which no breath of suspicion had ever crossed 
 her mind. She learned of the buried phase in her 
 strong husband's career; that phase which had come 
 before policy or diplomacy had entered into Mr. Mor- 
 ley Fenton's life. She learned of the real relationship 
 between her husband and Harold Foster; and, all the 
 good woman and devoted wife rising in her and brush- 
 ing aside the resentment-pricks of a life's habit of little- 
 ness and custom-worship, she assured the masterful 
 man who lay dying, that when Harold Foster crossed 
 her path again he should cease to regard himself 
 motherless. 
 
 It was goodness to be expected of some women. 
 In this gracious mistress of Weir Lodge, with her 
 bird-like voice and her smiling, unvarying devotion 
 to the small matters of a small life, it was magnificent. 
 It earned for her the undying respect of George Bar- 
 nard, and the dying gratitude and love of her hus- 
 band, a yielding up to her in impressive silence, of 
 portions of this man's heart, which, in all the years of 
 their married life, had never even been shown to Mrs. 
 Fenton. It is true they had never been looked for, 
 asked for, or felt for. Perhaps Mrs. Grundy does 
 not teach even the most select among her disciples any 
 of the many methods of plumming human hearts, of 
 tracking emotional streams to their sources, of setting 
 free and seizing the wealth of hidden springs, rock- 
 bound, but readily responsive to the divining-rod of 
 understanding, wielded clear of conventionality's re- 
 straint, and in catholic good faith. 
 
 Two weeks afterwards, when the period of strain 
 was ended, and Weir Lodge, as it were, sank back 
 to draw the long breath of submission to weariness, 
 before weeping at finding itself without a master, Dr. 
 Wainwright, seeking with professional courtesy to
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 
 
 299 
 
 show his sympathy with the bereaved wife of his pa- 
 tient, said to her: 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Fenton, everyone who ever came 
 into contact with with him, must needs miss him 
 miss him sorely. But there are many consolations. 
 As a doctor, I cannot but find many consolations. I 
 had looked for months of great and quite hopeless 
 pain, Mrs. Fenton, months of ever-increasing help- 
 lessness, and and, I do assure you, the end was a very 
 merciful one though so sad for you and all of us, 
 yet a very merciful one." 
 
 And as time wore on, far more speedily than she 
 could have believed possible, Mrs. Fenton adapted 
 herself to the great change in her life. Her widow- 
 hood sought consolation in many small ways and 
 channels and found it. So, too, with Maud and 
 Lucy Fenton, who, returning to London with Norah 
 and their mother after ten months spent in South- 
 Coast watering-places, found many new interests in life 
 at the pretty little Mayfair house, which, at Mrs. Fen- 
 ton's request, George Barnard had obtained for them. 
 Many associations were cut off with the giving up of 
 Weir Lodge. Many new ties and associations were 
 formed with the beginning of a London season in the 
 Mayfair house. These were keenly appreciated, at all 
 events, by Maud and Lucy. Mrs. Fenton was rich. 
 She was not without ambitions, as far as her daughters 
 were concerned. And these ambitions were, in the na- 
 ture of things, to her full of small interests. 
 
 Norah at this time, was less understood, more iso- 
 lated, and probably less happy, than at any other period 
 of her life. 
 
 Though the events of Mr. Morley Fenton's illness 
 had added to the affectionate admiration with which 
 Mrs. Fenton and her two daughters regarded Norah, 
 and, perhaps, to their closeness of touch, yet by his
 
 300 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 death it seemed that a slowly widening gulf, an ever- 
 strengthening wall of reserve, had been brought into 
 being between Norah and the dead man's family. 
 
 Almost unconsciously, and entirely without recog- 
 nition of the feeling, Mrs. Fenton had shared with 
 Maud and Lucy, her daughters, certain vague resent- 
 ments. Mr. Morley Fenton's inclinations and actions 
 during all the strong, evenly-lived period of his life 
 which these three women had known, had been sub- 
 ject to, and cloaked by, the man's never-failing tact and 
 sense of fitness. On the bed of his sickness, every fibre 
 of him the child of his disease, all this had been 
 changed. Many of Mr. Morley Fenton's inmost 
 thoughts had then carelessly announced themselves; 
 his every passing desire had been readily apparent and 
 instantly acted upon. 
 
 He had seldom asked for his wife, he had only 
 once looked for his children, and rarely, during this 
 sad time of his helplessness, had Mr. Morley Fenton 
 opened his eyes, or turned wearily on his bed, without 
 looking and asking for Norah, the daughter of his 
 dead brother the girl whose unvarying deftness and 
 inspired ability to soothe, had been a study and a mar- 
 vel to Nurse Matthews. 
 
 Then had come the end of sickness, of nursing, 
 and of Mr. Morley Fenton. And with it the causes 
 of the small resentments had been removed. In their 
 place had opened out the gulf afore-mentioned; rose 
 then, between Norah and her kinsfolk, a misty veil 
 born of a great devotion, out of different points of 
 view. And this was a far more real thing to Norah 
 than it was to Maud and Lucy or to their widowed 
 mother. The giving up of Weir Lodge, the settling 
 down to a new life full of new interests and new pleas- 
 ures, in the Mayfair house, the social ambitions which 
 brought absorption to Mrs. Fenton and forgetfulness
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 3OI 
 
 to her daughters all this, to the girl who had loved 
 so well and been so well beloved of the man now dead, 
 served to widen the gulf and give substance to the 
 veil, which hung between herself and her only relatives. 
 
 Norah was very much alone, a state felt keenly 
 by all deep-rooted natures whose intimacies are few 
 and close. She could not escape from her daily, hourly 
 consciousness of the final loss of that life which had 
 been so close, so intimate, to her own. Mr. Morley 
 Fenton had entered and filled the grief-hung place left 
 in her heart by his weak elder brother's death. His 
 strength had enlarged this place, filling and dominating 
 it amply. Now he had gone. And to fill the space 
 his loss left empty, Norah was offered the little ties 
 and pleasures of a London season, in a woman-ruled 
 house in Mayfair. 
 
 So Norah sat in the no-man's-land to which calam- 
 ity sometimes introduces deep-feeling natures, won- 
 dering at the greyness of her life, groping with out- 
 stretched hands, which shrank from much they came 
 in contact with, groping through a mist of sadness 
 in a waste of littleness. 
 
 George Barnard, his dead friend's executor, could 
 only sympathize. This he did with all the kindness 
 of his big heart. And Norah, in her misty, between- 
 whiles place, was very grateful. The barrister was 
 nearer and more real to her then than was anybody 
 else. But breezy, blue-eyed George Barnard had not 
 the faculty of imparting, dominating, absorbing, whicli 
 had enabled the strong man whom these two had both 
 loved, to give to Norah a new hold of her life. 
 
 And Harold Foster, toward whom so much of 
 Norah's understanding heart had instinctively gone 
 out in sympathy, Harold Foster made no sign. He 
 had disappeared utterly from out the horizon of Nor- 
 ah's life. His loss seemed as real and complete a thing
 
 3O2 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 as was that of the older, stronger man, who, having 
 led him into Norah's presence, had then set a bar 
 between them, which had matured into what appeared 
 to be final separation. 
 
 Then came a morning when Norah woke calm 
 and rested, filled and dominated by a loving determina- 
 tion to step out from her place in the mists of passive 
 sadness, and to act. Norah's mind was very clear in 
 the matter. She would set out to bring into other 
 lives some of that happiness which Fate had been 
 pleased to take from hers. This was her inmost na- 
 ture's assertion of its superiority over the dictates of 
 circumstance a quiet, great triumph. 
 
 Norah wrote to George Barnard. Then she tore 
 up the letter she had written, and went to see Nurse 
 Matthews. 
 
 Nurse Matthews listened and smiled. 
 
 " I knew you would come," she said. " I don't 
 think one can be given all that you have, without feel- 
 ing bound to use it. It wouldn't be right or kind." 
 
 Mrs. Fenton, in her pretty little Mayfair drawing- 
 room, raised her eyebrows deprecatingly when she 
 heard Norah's announcement of her intention to enter 
 a training school for nurses. 
 
 " Of course it is very good of you, Norah dear, very 
 good and sweet of you ; but ' And Mrs. Fenton's 
 expression of opinion ended vaguely in the gentle 
 deprecation afore-mentioned. 
 
 " Well, do you know, I always had an idea that 
 Norah would do something something peculiar, you 
 know, like that," said Lucy Fenton in the course of 
 subsequent conversation. 
 
 " I don't know about ' peculiar,' " said Maud, 
 quickly; " but the fact is, she's a great deal too good 
 for any of us. I'm quite sure of that. We never half- 
 understood her, you know, Lucy, and it's because
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 303 
 
 she's so much better than we are that you think Norah 
 peculiar." 
 
 So Norah ceased to be an inmate of the house in 
 Mayfair. She took up her abode instead at a certain 
 nursing institute, where she quickly became the close 
 friend of Nurse Matthews and the affectionately ad- 
 mired associate of many good women, who were im- 
 pressed deeply by that in Norah which had led Nurse 
 Matthews to say, " I knew you would come." 
 
 In her new life, too, Norah saw more of George 
 Barnard, himself a man rich in the instinct which 
 makes healers and nurses of men and women. Nurse 
 Matthews grew to regard the barrister in the light of 
 a comrade, and these three passed many pleasant hours 
 together, in an atmosphere more genial and more 
 hopeful than anything Norah had found in Mayfair. 
 The woman in her the catholic, all-loving woman 
 grew and broadened out in ever-brightening, ever- 
 widening eddies of human faith and human under- 
 standing. 
 
 Norah did not enter a hospital, but chose rather to 
 enrol herself on the books of a little, unsectarian or- 
 ganization of which Nurse Matthews had become a 
 devoted member. This little colony of workers had its 
 modest head-quarters in a rather sordid quarter of 
 that curious world in which all roads lead to the 
 Docks. The members of this obscure association knew 
 no professional etiquette. They lived, and helped 
 others to live, on their own small means, and nursed 
 all and sundry, with and without medical assistance, 
 with and without thanks. Norah lived on a small por- 
 tion of the small annuity which had been left her by 
 Mr. Morley Fenton. Her visits to the house in May- 
 fair were brief ones now, and paid at infrequent in- 
 tervals. She was losing touch with the few intimates 
 of her old life, always excepting the man from Furni-
 
 304 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 val's Inn, and was gaining, in the place of this lost 
 touch, the admiring comradeship of some dozen of 
 workers, and the grateful devotion of a few men, 
 women and children, in one small corner of the wilder- 
 ness called London's East End. 
 
 Her life at this time was genial and deep-breathing, 
 if somewhat lacking in directness of aim and method. 
 She was not quite content, and certainly not entirely 
 happy. She felt the absence of much the want of 
 many things. But she was growing in heart and mind, 
 and was influencing lives round her from day to day. 
 In moments of depression wholesome, hopeful de- 
 pression she tried sometimes to explain to George 
 Barnard and to Nurse Matthews the sense of limita- 
 tion which, whilst denying her positive content, and 
 lending a certain vagueness to all her work, yet had 
 not robbed her efforts and projects of their spirit. 
 
 " We seem so hemmed in," she would say at times, 
 wearily, to this sympathetic couple. " What we do 
 is so tiny, after all. And and sometimes, you know, 
 it makes me wish I were a man. I believe I could 
 have saved that red-haired woman's husband last week, 
 if I had been a man and a doctor. They think a 
 woman cannot really know. And even if we ease 
 their bodies, they they smile at me afterwards, as 
 though I were a child a good child, you know. And 
 I have no influence that lasts. When they are well, 
 they I think they rather resent me. It makes me 
 feel very small and weak." 
 
 Then George Barnard would glance over Norah's 
 head to Nurse Matthews, and that large-minded 
 woman would smile back at him, with a little reassur- 
 ing pursing up of her lips which said : 
 
 "Yes, yes; exactly. We know, do we not? But 
 wait. All is well, as you will see. It will come; it will 
 come."
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 305 
 
 And Norah would ask to be forgiven for com- 
 plaining; or perhaps she would resume, as on one oc- 
 casion when she said: 
 
 " If only one could be like that man they are 
 always talking of in Stepney, that young doctor. Ah, 
 that would be beautiful beautiful!" And the white 
 light of inspiration fell across, and seemed to illumine, 
 Norah's beautiful face and dark, wave-clouded head. 
 " Do you know what Mrs. Gunning's husband said 
 to me yesterday? the man who broke his leg on the 
 P. and O. wharf, you know. It sounded rather dread- 
 ful, of course, but he didn't mean to be irreverent. He 
 said : ' I reckon if that there Dr. Stephens had been 
 alive 'way back in the old days, God wouldn't have 
 bothered sending Christ down here. There wouldn't 
 have been any need.' That's what he said," continued 
 Norah, with eyes aglow and rising breast. " And he 
 did not mean any irreverence, but only love and grati- 
 tude. Why, the man was just a brute, till he broke his 
 leg, and that Dr. Stephens took him in hand and cured 
 him. And look at him now. He is quite the best man 
 in Geranium Court quite the best man. And I have 
 heard lots of them talking in the same way. They are 
 close to him for a few weeks, this doctor, and then 
 their whole lives seem altered. He heals their bodies, 
 and asks nothing of them not even a promise. And 
 they come away wanting to help others. Oh, no won- 
 der they think him like Christ. Like Christ to be 
 thought like Christ! Ah!" 
 
 And Norah turned away, her eyes brimming with 
 tears. But she won through all her little phases of 
 sadness, and went on striving, and loving, and learn- 
 ing, hopefully and helpfully, in the small circle through 
 which her influence was felt. 
 
 So Norah livid and grew, while time wore on, till 
 the fifth anniversary of Mr. Morley Fenton's death
 
 306 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 had passed. A few days' break came in the rou- 
 tine of her life, when Lucy Fenton was married 
 to Sir Arthur Barstairs; and no one congratulated 
 Maud on her engagement to Captain Lefevre, of 
 the Seventh Hussars, more sincerely than did 
 Norah. 
 
 " You dear, sweet Norah," Maud had said impetu- 
 ously. " You make me feel absolutely ashamed of my 
 useless little silly self, when I think of your giving 
 up your life to to those funny people at the docks, 
 and things. But you're not ashamed of me, are you, 
 dear? " 
 
 Mrs. Fenton's only sister was living with her in 
 Mayfair, now. There had been a vague rumour of 
 Mrs. Fenton's intention to marry again. The name of 
 the vicar of a certain fashionable church had been 
 mentioned in this connection. And during the whole 
 of these five years, Harold Foster's disappearance had 
 remained a thing unexplained. George Barnard, as 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's executor, held in trust for the 
 young man who had been called " Morley Fenton's 
 foundling," the sum of twenty thousand pounds. But 
 George Barnard had been absolutely unable to trace 
 the whereabouts of the heir to this legacy. And, partly 
 because of certain carelessly suggestive words which 
 the man called Carroll had spoken, the barrister had 
 practically given up his search. 
 
 " The boy was badly bitten by the cotton-wool 
 complaint," Carroll had said in answer to renewed in- 
 quiries from George Barnard. " You didn't mean any 
 harm, I know, but you nearly swamped Morley Fen- 
 ton's foundling with influence. The influence was a 
 dead failure, and left him pretty raw and naked. When 
 he's healed, and sure of himself, I expect he'll come 
 and look us up. As for the money, he's better without 
 it. If half what Hargreave at Bartholomew's said
 
 THE PASSAGE OF TIME. 3o; 
 
 about him is true, he's far too clever a doctor to ever 
 want money." 
 
 So George Barnard had gone on with his work at 
 Furnival's Inn, his heated discussion of trifles with 
 Nurse Matthews, his stormy interviews with Mrs. 
 Greet, his confidential unbosomings to his mongrel 
 dog, and his admiring study of Norah Fenton; and 
 had determined to await patiently the return of the 
 man whom Carroll thought might have been buried 
 " in Covent Garden." 
 
 Late one night, just five years and one month after 
 the morning on which Harold Foster had stood on 
 the Covent Garden piazza., watching a spring sunrise, 
 the big man called Carroll meandered heavily up the 
 ill-lighted stairway which led to George Barnard's 
 chambers in Furnival's Inn. 
 
 The old man declined the barrister's invitation to 
 sit down and smoke. He staggered slightly as he 
 stood there in the open doorway of George Barnard's 
 den. His eyes were glassy, and his voice hoarse and 
 thick. The last five years of his life had told very 
 markedly on the strength of this storm-stained old 
 man. 
 
 " Look here, George Barnard," he said. " You 
 wanted to find that young man they called ' Morley 
 Fenton's foundling,' didn't you? You were very keen 
 on it." 
 
 The barrister nodded. 
 
 " Well, you know, he might have changed his name 
 without losing very much, mightn't he? Just as he 
 might have changed his life, when he stopped being 
 ' Morley Fenton's foundling.' " 
 
 "Yes. Well?" 
 
 " Well, did it ever strike you to inquire at the bank 
 that paid his annuity in the old days, whether " 
 
 "Well, I well, I'm damned!"
 
 308 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 " Not yet, surely," chuckled the old man. " You 
 forgot that? Yes. Well, look here, George Barnard, 
 he's had five years now to get healed and set. I reckon 
 he must be well on with whatever he meant to do. 
 You go and see the people at that bank, George Bar- 
 nard that's my advice. Good-night ! " 
 
 And the old man wandered out again, and down 
 the narrow staircase into the street, and the warm 
 spring night.
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 
 
 " So, take and use Thy work, 
 Amend what flaws may lurk, 
 
 What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim ! 
 My times he in thy hand ! 
 Perfect the cup as planned ! 
 Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same ! " 
 
 Rabbi Ben Ezra. 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Greet made her appearance at George 
 Barnard's chambers, somewhat later than usual, on 
 the morning following the visit of the old man Car- 
 roll, the good woman was astonished to find that her 
 employer was absent. 
 
 ." H'm! " she muttered, with a certain virtuous glee, 
 " p'r'aps he never slept here." 
 
 A hurried inspection of the barrister's bed caused 
 a look of unmistakable disappointment to flit across 
 the lumpy lines of the worthy housekeeper's face. 
 Such disappointment is not unknown to pious mem- 
 bers of certain societies formed for the discovery and 
 trumpeting abroad of hidden vices vices so deeply 
 hidden as to be mistaken by ordinary mortals for in- 
 nocent amusements and the like. The barrister had 
 without doubt slept in his own bed, and, further, Mrs. 
 Greet observed, had burned a hole in the cover of his 
 pillow with his " filthy terbacker." Apparently, too, 
 he had breakfasted, in some haste, on the mantelshelf, 
 on his dressing-table, and on the back of an easy- 
 chair. With a scornful curl of her hirsute upper lip, 
 
 309
 
 310 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Mrs. Greet began gathering together fragments of 
 digestive biscuits and potted game. 
 
 At that moment the barrister, attended by his dis- 
 reputable dog, was patiently awaiting admission at 
 the outer door of the bank from which Harold Foster 
 had, in the old days, drawn his annuity. 
 
 " Why, no," said the manager, when in due course 
 he had arrived at the bank and the barrister had been 
 ushered into his room. " No; Mr. Foster has not 
 drawn upon his annuity since let me see since one 
 year after Mr. Morley Fenton's death. At that time 
 his account was considerably overdrawn, you know. 
 I say this in confidence, of course, regarding you as 
 Mr. Morley Fenton's executor." 
 
 " Exactly. Oh yes, I am not asking from mere 
 curiosity. As a matter of fact, I But, however, 
 perhaps you can give me Mr. Foster's address?" 
 
 The manager called a clerk and asked for Mr. 
 Harold Foster's address. 
 
 " The last we have, sir, was given us four and a half 
 years ago. ' Harold Foster, Esq., care of H. Stephens, 
 Esq., Royal Free Hospital, Stepney.' That is the entry 
 I have." ' 
 
 "Ah! Thanks, very much thanks, very much!" 
 And two minutes afterwards George Barnard was hur- 
 rying eastward, bound for the Royal Free Hospital, 
 Stepney. 
 
 Arrived at that huge and dingy building, in which 
 some of the foremost medical men of the age may be 
 seen at times patiently tending the needs of the most sor- 
 did among London's sick and ailing, George Barnard 
 breezily inquired of a hall-porter for Mr. Harold Foster. 
 
 " Don't know th' gen'elman, sir. Is he one of the 
 students? " 
 
 " Well er now you mention it, no ; I think not. 
 Is Mr. H. Stephens here? "
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 3II 
 
 " What, Dr. Stephens, sir? 'E won't be 'ere till 
 three o'clock to-day, sir. I did 'ear that Sir Charles 
 Mathieson 'ad called 'im in fur a consultation on Lord 
 Burgher's case to-day. But I'm not sure, sir. Tain't 
 horfen he goes out West now, sir only for some real 
 tip-top case." 
 
 " Ah ! Perhaps you can tell me where his private 
 house is?" 
 
 " I can that. Tisn't more'n half a mile from 'ere, 
 sir. Th' Maner-rouse, top o' Brook Road. Anyone 
 '11 tell yer, if yer jest follow this road till yer come to 
 th' Wesleen Church." 
 
 "Ah, thanks thanks! What number did you 
 say? " 
 
 " I didn't say no number, sir. I never 'card it 'ad 
 one." 
 
 So George Barnard, after giving a little monetary 
 proof of his gratitude for information afforded him, 
 hurried on down the wide, gritty, shabby Stepney 
 highway till he came to a blue and chilly-looking build- 
 ing, which he assumed was the " Wesleen Church " 
 referred to by his friend at the hospital. 
 
 " Do you know where Dr. Stephens lives, sonny? " 
 he asked of a small but responsible-looking urchin, 
 whom he found some few minutes later, sitting on a 
 high curbing and poring over a ragged copy of " Rob- 
 inson Crusoe." 
 
 " Do I what?" replied the urchin, looking up with 
 fine scorn from Defoe's pages to the face of his ques- 
 tioner. "Ain't this 'is book? You're a-gettin' at me, 
 that's what you're doin' ! " 
 
 " No, really," said the barrister, humbly, whilst 
 feeling in his pocket for a copper. " I do want to 
 know." 
 
 "Well, I'm blowed!" exclaimed the urchin, rising 
 from his place on the curb and tucking his classic
 
 3 i2 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 under one small arm. "Well, bli'me! But oh yus, 
 you're a stranger, you are. You 'aven't been in Lon- 
 don long, 'ave yer, sir?" asked the boy with a quaint 
 mixture of impudence and respect. " Well, 'ar docter, 
 'e lives in th' Maner-rouse, an' if it wasn't fur 'im I 
 sh'd be at school wif me 'ed splittin' ag'in t'dye. I'll 
 take yer t' 'ar docter's, sir, if y'll let me; an' an' I 
 won't tike nnffin fer it, neither. I thort everybody 
 knew 'ar docter. Come on, sir." 
 
 So the barrister stepped out beside the small stu- 
 dent of fiction, having wonderingly replaced the penny 
 he had drawn from his coat-pocket. 
 
 As they walked together over the paper-strewn 
 pavement, the man and the boy, a sudden idea came 
 to George Barnard. 
 
 " Why, bless me," he muttered, " this Dr. Stephens 
 of Stepney, whom everybody knows, he must be 
 Norah's Christ-like young doctor, the man they 
 swear by in Geranium Court the healer of souls and 
 bodies! I hope Harold's living with this man. It 
 must be the same. What's he like, sonny, your Dr. 
 Stephens? " 
 
 "My Dr. Stephens! Bli'me, 'e's everybody's doc- 
 ter! Well, 'e ain't like anyone, as I know, 'less it's 
 Gawd." 
 
 "Unless it's who?" 
 
 " Gawd! Well, 'e's jest like the pictures uv Christ 
 wot's 'angin' in th' misshun 'all; jes' th' sime, beard 
 an' all." 
 
 " Good heavens! But, sonny, Christ is in heaven, 
 you know." 
 
 "Yus; that's all right. P'raps that's the nobs' 
 Christ. 'Ar Christ, in Stepney, 'e lives at Maner-rouse. 
 Eny'ow, that's what 'ar docter's like; an' 'ere y'are, 
 sir! 'Ere's Maner-rouse." 
 
 " Thank you, sonny. Here Well, get some
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 3I3 
 
 sweets for your friends with it, if you don't want it 
 yourself. Good-bye!" 
 
 " Good-bye, sir! Bli'me! I s'y, mister! Tell 'ar 
 docter as Dick Tate showed yer th' wye, will yer? " 
 
 Then the small boy sauntered off, still clutching De- 
 foe's masterpiece under one arm; and George Barnard 
 pushed open the crazy wooden gate which bore upon 
 it, in faded black lettering, the words, " Manor House." 
 
 Manor House, Brook Road, Stepney, was one of 
 the many curious dwelling-houses which display their 
 decaying fortunes to the prying eyes of encroaching 
 jerry-buildings in most of the northern and eastern 
 suburbs of London. When a tenant can be found for 
 these once substantial residences decaying aristocrats 
 among self-assertive plebeians they are permitted to 
 very gradually fall to pieces, and often are not finally 
 swept away on the outrushing tide of consumptive 
 lath and plaster, of draught-wheezing villa-ets, until 
 their very sides gape and cry out for burial. In most 
 cases their lives these landmarks of a forgotten gen- 
 eration were begun in roomy surroundings, includ- 
 ing kitchen-garden, orchard, and sometimes a pad- 
 dock. First the paddock was sacrificed to the maw 
 of the relentless, conscienceless jerry-builder. Then 
 orchard and poultry-yard gave place to a huddled 
 mass of rickety, two-storey cupboards. Then the 
 kitchen-garden was yielded up; and finally, in some 
 places, one may see the hoary wreck of a last-century 
 dwelling-house, hemmed in to its very porch, jeered 
 at in its own stable-yard, by little rudimentary abor- 
 tions in stucco and plaster, which have risen up with 
 the rapidity said to characterize the creation of fairy 
 palaces, and the crumbling instability of the most vul- 
 gar variety of fungus. 
 
 Such a bankrupt gentleman among vulgar pec 
 dlers was Manor House, down whose grass-grown
 
 3^4 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 gravel drive George Barnard walked toward the door 
 upon which appeared Dr. Stephens' name. 
 
 But Manor House, though tottering toward lin- 
 gering dissolution, was yet propped up, and, as it were, 
 smartened to face the world, by all sorts of quaint evi- 
 dences of young life in its surroundings. The kitchen- 
 garden was still intact, and straggled out to meet a 
 roughly- mo wiv lawn. The coach-house and stable 
 held up its grey old head bravely, if its nether limbs 
 were a little uncertain. The narrow conservatory on 
 one side of Manor House still clung to its parent wall, 
 though in places its parent wall did shrink weakly 
 from it, as though half inclined to disown its yellow 
 panes, by way of expressing contempt for its humble 
 uses as a lumber place and storehouse. 
 
 In the side garden, beyond the dingy greenhouse, 
 stood two substantial children's swings. Over the 
 coach-house door were painted, in \vhite letters on a 
 dark board, the words, " Play-room." On the great 
 red lamp over the front entrance, appeared two painted 
 hands, pointing in opposite directions. Under one was 
 written, " To the medicine room." Under the other 
 appeared, " To the doctor's room." 
 
 " Aha! " murmured George, as he raised his hand 
 to an old iron bell-pull. " So he's a family man, this 
 Dr. Stephens. Apparently it would be difficult to hit 
 upon anything that he is not. Hullo! why, this bell 
 doesn't act." 
 
 It was an indisputable fact that the rusty old bell- 
 chain moved nothing, save a loose staple in the wall 
 over the barrister's head. 
 
 " Queer, too, since there's no knocker." 
 
 George Barnard put out his hand, and found that 
 the door facing him stood ajar. He pushed it open 
 and stepped into the entrance-hall of the old house. 
 
 At that moment he heard a thin, querulous voice
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 3 , 5 
 
 issuing from some hinder portion of the house, and 
 the words: 
 
 "Well, aren't our doctor at 'ome, Mary?" 
 
 Then, in a slightly stronger voice: 
 
 " No, daddy, he ain't; but 'e will be in half an hour. 
 What's wrong, daddy? Is th' rheumatiz bad again?" 
 
 " No, no; the rheumatiz is all right. Our doctor 
 don't let me 'ave nothin' wrong wi' me these days. 
 Oh, ay! " The speaker seemed half regretful. 
 
 " Are ye short of food, then, daddy? " 
 
 " No, no, bless ye, Mary; our doctor don't let us 
 old uns go short fur food. He he'd go short first, 
 I'm thinkin'. It's about my son Joe, Mary; he's that 
 bad wi' th' drink, that I I 
 
 "Yes, yes; I know I know; an' so our doctor 
 must go to him, instead o' him comin' here; an' 
 Hark! There's someone in front. Sit down, daddy; 
 sit down, while I go an' see who it is. Our doctor '11 
 be back soon." 
 
 Then a bent, virile little old woman, with a dusky 
 bloom on her shrivelled cheeks, and curious indura- 
 tions on her hands, like those of lizard-skin, came 
 slowly out from a dark doorway, and down the wide 
 hall to where George Barnard stood waiting. 
 
 " Why, to be sure," said the old lady cheerily, in 
 answer to the barrister's questions. " To be sure ye 
 can come in an' rest till our doctor's back. It must 
 be near one now, an' he said he'd be in by one." 
 
 So the barrister was shown into a big, shabby 
 room, the very chairs and walls of which announced 
 to workman George Barnard that this was the den of 
 a hard-working, work-loving man. Medical books, 
 instrument-cases, graduating glasses, diagrams, half- 
 filled medicine-bottles, stethoscopes, a faint but pene- 
 trating odour of antiseptics, and a huge anatomical 
 figure on a pedestal, were sufficient to tell of the nature
 
 3 i6 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 of the work and study to which this apartment was 
 devoted. 
 
 Whilst George Barnard stood in the centre of the 
 great littered room, gossiping with the cheery old 
 dame who spoke of " our doctor " as a personal and 
 much-loved friend, there came to them the sound of 
 a firm tread and of a deep, ringing voice in the hall 
 beyond. 
 
 "Mary! Mary! Where are you? Come and say 
 you're glad to see me! Come and " 
 
 " Bless me bless me! " muttered the old gossip at 
 George Barnard's side. " Coming, sir; coming, Doc- 
 tor dear! That's our doctor back, and I 
 
 But, gently forcing Mary aside, George Barnard 
 strode past her and into the hall from which the ring- 
 ing voice came. He saw a tall man, with a fair, 
 pointed beard ; eyes bluer than his own eyes, shoulders 
 almost as broad as his shoulders, and a face full of 
 clean strength, softened by a light of tenderness such 
 as that with which painters love to glorify their canvas 
 ideals of masculine sainthood. The man was bending 
 over one raised foot and loosening the laces of his 
 boot. 
 
 "Harold!" 
 
 "What George! Dear old George! How 
 
 Why, dear old George, come in here." 
 
 So the two men walked into the big working-den, 
 by the door of which old Mary stood. 
 
 " Oh, Mary! This is Mr. George Barnard, my 
 my very dear friend. George, this is Mary that is 
 yes, Mary. ' Kind Mary ' the children call her. My 
 good, wise housekeeper, George. We'll have lunch 
 in here, Mary; and if anyone comes send them in, 
 and Well, well, George, it is good to see you. 
 Come and sit down and talk." 
 
 Then these two men sat down among the working
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. ^y 
 
 debris of the doctor's den, and talked freely and flu- 
 ently for two hours. At the end of that time Harold 
 had to hurry round to the hospital, accompanied by 
 the barrister, and talking still, as they walked along 
 a road in which almost every passer-by had some re- 
 spectful word of salutation for the young doctor. 
 
 Then, after an hour spent in the hospital and half 
 an hour at the house of the old man whom Harold's 
 housekeeper called " Daddy," the two returned to the 
 working-room in Manor House, to talk again and 
 far on into the spring evening. 
 
 " You see," said the golden-bearded man whom 
 George Barnard had known as Harold Foster, and 
 whom everyone in the neighbourhood of the Royal 
 Free Hospital and of Manor House, appeared to know 
 as " our doctor " " you see, I felt bound to go to that 
 consultation this morning, or I should have had more 
 leisure this afternoon. A thirty-guinea fee, you know, 
 George; and my people down here want it want it 
 all. If it weren't for that I think I should never go 
 West at all any more, for doctors are plentiful enough 
 there clever doctors, too. I often wonder that they 
 have faith enough in an outsider to offer me the fees 
 they do. But I'm glad of it, because my own people 
 need it all, and badly. I do my best to earn it, you 
 know, George, of course." 
 
 " Well, but bless me, Harold, there's twenty thou- 
 sand pounds of yours lying idle because I couldn't 
 find you." 
 
 " Twenty thousand pounds, eh! Well, well! What 
 a place I could make of the old Manor House! And 
 my people are ripe for it now, George they are ripe 
 for it. And they are very good and grateful very 
 good people." 
 
 " Well, then there's your annuity, Harold." 
 
 " Ah! Yes, there's the annuity. Well, you know,
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 George, I meant to have come to you soon, and asked 
 you if you thought if you thought I deserved the use 
 of that. I didn't care to use it after I had qualified, 
 because it Well, it seemed to be all part of 
 the 
 
 "Yes, yes! I understand, Harold I think I un- 
 derstand. Well, you will have so much the more to 
 use now. And God bless you, old chap! I'm so 
 glad you've done it all alone. All this beautiful work 
 of yours all this love and respect from men, women, 
 and children! Why, Harold, do you know I have 
 heard talk of your influence upon men and women 
 only I didn't know it was you miles and miles away, 
 where Norah is at work. I've heard Norah speak of it. 
 People about there told her that Dr. Stephens was like 
 Christ in his life and work. And her eyes faith, her 
 eyes glowed like a saint's eyes, Harold ! " 
 
 The young doctor's face was crimson. His eyes 
 were very moist. 
 
 " Ah, George," he said, " don't ever talk like that. 
 You make me ashamed. What is my one little life 
 of these five years, among so many, where so much 
 is to be done? George, there are men and women 
 among my own people who in all their lives have never 
 known as much happiness as comes to me in every 
 day of mine. And they are far more patient with it 
 all than I am, George far more uncomplaining. My 
 greatest trouble so far, has been want of capital to 
 start any help for my people on a systematic basis. 
 But now 
 
 " Now you will use what what he left for you? 
 And and you can't help doing honour to his memory 
 in using it." 
 
 So they talked on and on through the evening, 
 while George Barnard learned gradually a good deal 
 of the breadth of influence, the broad, ever-increasing
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 
 
 scope, the kindly, loving Catholicism, of the big life 
 which " our doctor " was living. At last he rose to re- 
 turn to Furnival's Inn, promising himself a renewal on 
 the following day of this, his insight into Harold's life. 
 
 " You'd rather I came to you than that you should 
 come to me, wouldn't you, Harold? " he asked, as they 
 were walking together to the railway-station. 
 
 " Well, yes," replied Harold, " I would. You see, 
 I've generally half a dozen sick children, and other 
 folk about Manor House. It's awkward for me to be 
 long away from Stepney. I I suppose it's selfishness, 
 really, you know, because I'm never anything like so 
 happy anywhere else. You see I began with these 
 people, and oh! I love them, George, all of them. 
 That's why they like me, and why I am able to to 
 help them a little." 
 
 " Yes, yes; you oh yes, it's pure selfishness, Har- 
 old, I've no doubt, that makes you refuse West End 
 practice. Well, then, I'll come down to-morrow after- 
 noon, and in the morning I will go and see the lawyers. 
 You can lay your plans for the restitution of that 
 that great old house of worship you live in, at once, 
 Harold. There's over twenty thousand pounds at your 
 disposal, you know. And, Harold, I may tell Norah 
 who Dr. Stephens is, mayn't I ? " 
 
 Added colour crept up from under the doctor's 
 beard to his temples. 
 
 " Well, if you don't mind, George, I should very 
 much like to leave that until you have seen a little of the 
 change I will make at Manor House with some of that 
 money. I should so like Norah to Do you mind?' 1 
 
 "Why, no, of course not. It's as you choose. 
 Here's my train. Till to-morrow, then, good-bye, Har- 
 
 " Good-bye, dear old George; good-night!"
 
 320 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 Just a week after this meeting between the new 
 Harold and his old friend, George Barnard left his 
 chambers in Furnival's Inn, to pay a visit to the de- 
 caying house in Stepney, on which builders were al- 
 ready at work. The time was just two o'clock, on a 
 warm, bright afternoon in early June, and London, 
 despite its whirr and rush of business, seemed softened 
 and sweetened by the joy of young summer. 
 
 The barrister had a call to pay in Fleet Street. This 
 done, he walked slowly down the great highway of 
 the newspaper world, smiling over the heads of its 
 many wayfarers at the beauty of the world he lived in. 
 Suddenly he paused, on the threshold of a famous 
 tavern. He had caught a glimpse of the figure of the 
 old man called Carroll, approaching him from the far 
 side of the road. Pushing young men made way for 
 old Carroll, for in that part of London his gaunt figure 
 was better known than in any other, and it commanded 
 a certain deference. The warm wine of June seemed 
 to have entered the old man's veins on this sunny 
 afternoon. His head was held erect, his eyes were 
 unusually bright, and his voice rang clear and mellow 
 when he saluted the barrister. 
 
 " Hullo, George Barnard! Well, did you find the 
 ' foundling? " 
 
 " I did. I found him living a great workman's life 
 in the East End." 
 
 "Aha! Well, I hope you didn't interfere with 
 him." 
 
 " No," said George Barnard, humbly enough. 
 ' No; I only admired. I'm just off to his place now. 
 Come down with me, will you? He'd be very glad 
 to meet you, I know." 
 
 " Eh? You think so? Let me see! Five years 
 H'm! Yes. All right! Come along, George Bar- 
 nard. I'll go with you, and see the ' foundling.' H'm !
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 32I 
 
 Gadfive years! I'm growing old, George Barnard; 
 but it's a grand world, a brave old world, with its pain 
 and pleasure, and success and failure, and wide brown 
 earth! Eh? Come along, George Barnard." 
 
 So these two journeyed down to Stepney together, 
 in the June sunshine. 
 
 As they walked through the over-grown old gar- 
 den to the side entrance of Manor House, the ringing 
 laughter of children's voices reached them from the 
 clump of trees by the green-house, where the swings 
 stood. There were sharp sounds, too, of tapping ham- 
 mers, and busy sounds, as of wood-sawing. The scent 
 of old-fashioned flowers filled the air. A belated bee 
 was droning about the side of the shabby coach-house. 
 Queen June, who embodies the joy of living, was 
 abroad and about the old Manor House, and Mary, 
 the housekeeper, whose cheeks were like late, winter- 
 ripened fruit, stood in the side-doorway, shading her 
 bright eyes under one wrinkled hand, and gazing out 
 into the sunlight. Mary and the barrister were close 
 friends. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir, he's at home. Our doctor's inside. 
 He's in his room. Come along, sir! " 
 
 Mary had dropped a quaint curtsey to Carroll, and 
 now, as she preceded the two on their way to the doc- 
 tor's den, she seemed to be labouring under some un- 
 usual strain of happy excitement. She chuckled and 
 muttered to herself as she walked through the shadowy 
 hall. 
 
 " Ye'll find our doctor inside, Mr. Barnard," she 
 said, nodding her silvered-over head, as, having first 
 tapped upon it, she pushed wide open the door of her 
 master's working den. George Barnard smiled at the 
 old dame's enthusiasm. Then, followed by Carroll, 
 he stepped past her into the big, littered room. 
 
 Beside the open French window at the far end of
 
 322 
 
 GOD'S FOUNDLING. 
 
 the room, the two men from Fleet Street saw standing 
 Norah Fenton and the tall, yellow-bearded man who 
 had once been called " Morley Fenton's foundling." 
 The picture was a fascinating one. Neither of the two 
 men from Fleet Street spoke. Harold was holding 
 Norah's two hands, outstretched, in his own. Norah 
 had found the man who was thought " like Christ," 
 and that without George Barnard's assistance. 
 
 Harold released one of Norah's hands, and, still 
 holding in his the other, turned to greet his visitors. 
 Then George Barnard and Carroll stepped forward; 
 and there were no apologies between these four. 
 
 " Mr. Gunning was away at the docks," murmured 
 Norah, to the barrister. " And his wife did beg me 
 to take her little boy to to Dr. Stephens, because he 
 was so ill. So I brought him, and " 
 
 " And Norah doesn't mind my name being 
 changed. And she knows everything about every- 
 thing, in fact," said Harold, with feeling, if without 
 much coherence. " And Norah forgives me for every- 
 thing." 
 
 " There is nothing to forgive," murmured Norah, 
 her dark eyes full of tears. 
 
 "And you are very happy?" added the barrister, 
 half questioningly. 
 
 " And I Norah we are very happy. And, you 
 see, George, and Mr. Carroll, you you Christian! we 
 both love our people, and our work, and we think 
 well, you see, I shall be able to do ten times as much 
 with Norah's help. Perhaps I can help Norah a little, 
 too. Anyhow, she is going to let me try. I must 
 try to deserve it. George, Norah has promised to be 
 my wife." 
 
 " I am so glad, Norah! Harold, I am very glad! 
 You will both be very happy, and you will make hun- 
 dreds of others happy."
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF TIME. 333 
 
 " I congratulate you, Doctor," said Carroll; and 
 his rich deep voice seemed to fill every corner of the 
 big room. " You've seen the dawn, and the morning 
 is yours. The first part of that russet-leather-backed 
 book has been written written as a classic should be 
 written. You will go on living in ' the gigantic smile 
 o' the brown old earth.' It's a beautiful life, you big 
 young doctor, a beautiful life. Miss Fenton "the old 
 man turned his sunken, bright eyes towards Norah 
 " you will be very happy. You will have a beautiful 
 life, as is fitting. You will not marry a man who lives 
 in a little patch of the earth, but a man who is a citizen 
 of all the world. Your husband will not be ' Morley 
 Fenton's foundling.' He has won clear, and he's 
 ' God's foundling.' George Barnard, you old bachelor 
 fool! come out with me, and talk to the children in 
 the garden ! " 
 
 George Barnard smiled when Carroll called him a 
 " bachelor fool." The barrister was thinking of Nurse 
 Matthews, and of a certain conditional promise she had 
 given him. The condition had borne upon Norah's 
 prospects, and that afternoon's events made Nurse 
 Matthews' promise free and absolute. 
 
 So Norah and Harold were left together, in the 
 broad wave of sunlight which fell through the open 
 French window on to the floor of " our doctor's " 
 workroom. 
 
 THE END.
 
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 76. A Matter of Skill. By BEATRICE WHITBY. 
 
 77. Maid Marian, and Other Stci its. By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL. 
 
 78. One Woman's Way. By EDMUND PENDLETON. 
 
 79. A Merciful Divorce. By F. W. MAUDE. 
 
 80. Stephen Ellicotfs Daughter, By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL. 
 
 81. One Reason Why. By BEATRICE WHITE Y. 
 
 82. The Tragedy oj Ida ^ oble. By W. CLARK RUPSELL. 
 
 83. The Johnstown Stage, and other Stories. By RCBKP.T H. FLETCHER. 
 
 84. A Widower Indeed. By RIIODA BHOUGHTON and ELIZABETH LISLAND. 
 
 85. The Flight of a Sfiadoiv. By GEORGE MACDONALD. 
 
 86. Love or Money. By KATHAKINE LEE. 
 67. Not All in Vain. By ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 f>8. It Happened Yesterday. By FREDERICK MARSHALL. 
 
 89. My Guardian. By ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 00. The Story of J Jdlip Methuen. By Mrs. J. H. NEEBEI.L. 
 
 91. Amethyst : The Story of a Beauty. By CHKISTABEL R. COLERIDGE- 
 
 92. Don Braulip. By JUAN VALERA. Translated by Ci ARA BELL. 
 
 3. The Chionicles of JLr. Hill Williams. By RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON. 
 94. A Queen of Curds and Crfam, By DOROTHEA GERARD. 
 
 90. " La Bella " and Others. By EGERTON CASTLE. 
 96. " December Roses." By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAEB. 
 
 07. Jean de Kerdren. By JEANNE SCHULTZ. 
 
 98. Etelka's Vow. By DOROTHEA GERARD. 
 
 99. Cross Currents. By MAEY A DICKENS. 
 100. His LiftSs Magnet. " By THEODORA ELMPLIE. 
 
 ^01. Pawing the Love of Women. By Mrs J. H. NEEDELL. 
 
 102. In CM' St. Stephen's. By JEANIE DRAKE. 
 
 103. The BerMeys and their Neighbors. By MOLLY ELLIOT 
 
 104. Mona Mat-lean, Medical Student. By GRAHAM TUAVBRS. 
 
 105. Mr*. TSlinh. By RHODA BROUGHTON. 
 
 106. A Stumble on the Threshold. By JAMES PAYN. 
 1C7. Hanging Moss. By PAUL LINDAU. 
 
 108. A Comedy of Elopement. By CHRISTIAN REID. 
 
 109. In the Suntini" of her Youth By BEATRICE WHITBY. 
 
 110. Storit-s in Black arid White. By'TnoMAS HARDY and Others. 
 110J. An Englishman in Paris. Notes and Recollections. 
 
 111. Commander Mendoza. By JUAN VALERA. 
 
 112. />r. PauWs Theory. By Mrs. A. M. DIEHL. 
 
 11M. Children of Destiny. By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL. 
 114 A Little Minx. By ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 115. Cnpfn Davy's Honeymoon. By HALL CAINE. 
 
 116. The Voice of a Flower. By E. GERARD. 
 
 117. Singularly Deluded. By SARAH GRAND. 
 
 118. Suspected. By LOUISA STRATENUS. 
 
 119. Lucia, Hugh, and Another. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELL. 
 WO. The Tutor's Secret. By VICTOR CHERBULIEZ.
 
 APPLETONS' TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRART.-(Ctonnd.) 
 
 121. from the Five Rivers. By Mrs. F. A. STEEL 
 
 it ^snfjssf&st oth * r *"* By 
 
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 126. #t*&> ; .4 .Ztetai/ o/ <Ae Day. By E. F. BENSON 
 
 127. A Woman of Forty. By EBME STUART. 
 
 128. Zi/ia Tempest. By MART CHOLMONDELEY 
 
 129. 7'A Reciptfor Diamonds. By C. J. CUTCLIFFE HTNB 
 
 130. Christina Chard. By Mrs. CAMFBELL-PRAED 
 
 131. X Oay Eye or So. By FRANK FBANKFORT MOORK. 
 
 132. Earlscourt. By ALEXANDER ALLARDYCE. 
 
 133. A Marriage Ceremony. By ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 134. A Ward in Chancery. By Mrs. ALEXANDER 
 
 135. Lot 13. By DOROTHEA GEBABD. 
 
 136. Our Manifold Nature. By SARAH GRAND. 
 
 137. A Costly Freak. By MAXWELL GRAY. 
 
 138. A Begin/wr. By RHODA BROUGHTON. 
 
 139. A Yellow Aster. By Mrs. MANNINGTON CAFFYN (" IOTA"). 
 
 140. The Rubicon. By E. F. BENSON. 
 
 141. The Trespasser. By GILBERT PARKER. 
 
 142. The Rich Miss Riddell. By DOROTHEA GEKARD. 
 
 143. Mary Fenwick's Daughter. By IEATBICE WHITBY. 
 
 144. Red Diamonds. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 
 
 145. A Daughter of Music. By G. COLMOBE. 
 
 143. Outlaw and Lawmaker. By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PR AED. 
 
 147. Dr. Janet of Barley Street. By ABABELLA KENEALY. 
 
 148. George Mandeville's Husband. By C. E. RAIMOND. 
 
 149. Vashti and Esther. 
 
 150. Timor's Two Worlds. By M. JOKAI. 
 
 151. A Victim of Good Luck. By W. E. NORRIS. 
 
 152. The Trail of the Sword. By GILBERT PARKER. 
 
 153. A Mild Barbarian. By EDGAR FAWCETT. 
 
 154. The God in the Car. By ANTHONY HOPE. 
 
 155. Children of Circumstance. By Mrs. M. CAFFYN. 
 
 156. At the Gate of Samaria. By WILLIAM J. LOCKE. 
 
 157. The Justification of Andrew Lebrun. By FBANK BARRETT. 
 158 Dust and Laurels. By MABY L. PENDEBED. 
 
 159. The Good Ship Mohock. By W. CLABK RUSSELL. 
 
 160. Noemi. By S. BARING-GOULD. 
 
 161. The Honour of Savelli. By S. LEVETT YEATS. 
 
 162. Kitty's Engagement. By FLORENCE WARDEN. 
 
 163. The Mermaid. By L. DOUGALL. 
 
 164. An Arranged Marriage. By DOROTHEA GERARD. 
 
 165. Eve's Ransom. By GEORGE GISSING. 
 
 166. The Marriage of Either. By GUY BOOTHBY. 
 
 167. Fidelis. By ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 
 168. Mo the Highways and Hedges. By F. F. MONTRESOR. 
 
 169. The Vengeance of James Vansittart. By Mrs. J. H. NEEDELI., 
 
 170. A Study in Prejudices. By GEORGE PASTON. 
 
 171. The. Mistress of Qmtt. By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
 
 172. In the Year ofJubUee. By GEORGE GISSING. 
 
 173. In Old New England. By HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTB. 
 
 174. Mrt. Musgraveand Her Husband. By R. MARSH. 
 
 175. Not Counting the Cost. By TASMA. 
 
 176. Out of Due Season. By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
 
 177. ScyUa or Charybdif? By RHODA BKOUOHTON. 
 
 178. In Defiance of the King. By C. C. HOTCHKIBS. 
 
 179. A Bid for Fortune. By GUY BOOTHBY. 
 
 180. The King of Andaman. By J. MACLAREN COBBAH. 
 
 181. Mrs. Tregaski**. By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED. 
 
 182. The Desire of the Moth. By CAPEL VANS. 
 
 183. A Self-Denying Ordinance. By M. HAMILTON. 
 
 184. Successors to the Title. By Mrs. L. B. WALFORD.
 
 APPLETONS' TOWN AND COUNTRY LIBRARY. ( Continued.) 
 
 185. The Lost Stradivariug. By J. MEADK FALKNEB. 
 
 186. The Wrong Man. By DOROTHEA GERARD. 
 
 187. In the Day of Adversity. By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON. 
 
 188. Mistress Dorothy Marvin. By J. C. SNAITH. 
 
 189. A Flash of Summer. By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD. 
 
 190. The Dancer in Yellow. By W. E. MORRIS. 
 
 191. The Chronicles of Martin Hewitt. By ARTHUR MORRISON. 
 
 192. A Winning Hazard. By Mrs. ALEXANDER. 
 
 193. The Picture of Las Cruces. By CHRISTIAN REID. 
 
 194. The Madonna of a Day. By L. DOUGALL. 
 
 195. The Riddle Ring. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. 
 
 196. A Humble Enterprise. By ADA CAMBRIDGE. 
 15)7. Dr. Nikola. By GUY BOOTHBY. 
 
 198. An Outcast of the Islands. By JOSEPH CONRAD. 
 
 199. The King's Revenge. By CLAUDE BRAT. 
 
 200. Denounced. By J. BLOUNUELLE-BURTON. 
 
 201. A Court Intrigue. By BASIL THOMPSON. 
 203. The Idol-Maker. By ADELINE SERGEANT. 
 
 203. The Intriguers. By JOHN D. BARRY. 
 
 204. Master Ardick, Buccaneer. By F. H. COSTELLO. 
 
 205. With Fortune Made. By VICTOU CHTRBULIEZ. 
 
 206. Fellow Travellers. By GRAHAM TRAVERS. 
 
 207. McLeodofthe Cameroas. By M. HAMILTON. 
 
 208. The Career of Candida. By GEORG^ P ASTON. 
 
 209. Arrested. By ESME STUART. 
 
 210. Tatterley. By T. GALLON. 
 
 211. A Pinchbeck Goddess. By Mrs. J. M. FLEMING (Alice M. Kipling). 
 
 212. Perfection City. By Mrs. ORPEN. 
 
 213. A spotless Reputation. By DOROTHEA GERARD. 
 
 214. A Galahad of the Creeks. By S. LEVETT YEATS. 
 
 215. The Beautiful White Devil. By GUY BOOTHBY. 
 
 216. The Sun of Saratoga. By JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER. 
 
 217. Fierceheart, the Soldier. By J. C. SNAITH. 
 
 218. Marietta's Marriage. By W. E. NOBRIS. 
 
 219. Dear Faustina. By RHODA BROUGHTON. 
 
 220. Xulma. By Mrs. CAMPBELL-PRAED. 
 
 221. The Folly of Pen Harrington. By JULIAN STUBGIS. 
 
 222. A Colonial Free-Lance. By C. C. HOTCHKISS. 
 
 223. His Majesty's Greatest Subject. By S. S. THORBURN. 
 
 224. Mifamvy : A Welsh Singer. By ALLEN K AIM K. 
 
 225. .-1 Soldier of Manhattan. By JOSEPH A. ALTSHELER. 
 
 226. Fortune's Footballs. By G. B. BURGIN. 
 
 227. The Clash of Arms. By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON. 
 
 228. God's Foundling. By J. A. DAWSON. 
 
 Each, 12mo, paper cover, 50 cents j cloth, $1.00. 
 
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 " The Story of the Year." 
 
 HALL CAINE'S NEW NOVEL. 
 
 B ? HALL CA ' N *> author of 
 
 The Deemster '" " T 
 
 Jour^ll f ^ &randeSt b kS f the cen tury^nd.-7^ York Home 
 
 hn P stS, C ' iS Har A ly Prepafed f r J remarka ble a performance as 
 hristian. A permanent addition to English literature 
 
 y any P pUlarit y that * merel y temporary?"-^ 
 
 "Must be regarded as the greatest work that has yet come from the pen 
 of this strong writer. . . . A book of wonderful power and force. "Brook- 
 lyn eagle. 
 
 "The best story Hall Caine has written. It is one of the best stories 
 that have been written for many years. It is emphatically the strongest and 
 best story that has been written during the past twelve months 
 masterpiece in fiction." Buffalo Commercial. 
 
 " This extraordinary piece of fiction. None who read it will gainsay its 
 power and effectiveness. . . . The remarkable book of the summer." New 
 York Times. 
 
 "Of powerful and absorbing interest. The reader is irresistibly fasci- 
 nated from the very beginning. ... A remarkable book." Philadelphia 
 Press. 
 
 " A noble story ; one of the best half-dozen novels of the decade ; a 
 splendid piece of writing ; a profound study in character, and a series of 
 thrilling portrayals." Chicago Evening Post. 
 
 " A book that has assuredly placed its maker upon a pedestal which will 
 last well-nigh forever. . . . Powerful, thrilling, dramatic, and, best of all, 
 intensely honest in its every line. ... A truly wonderful achievement." 
 Cincinnati Commercial- 7 'ribune. 
 
 " By long odds the most powerful production of his very productive pen, 
 and it will live and be read and re-read when ninety per cent of the books 
 of to-day are forgotten. " Boston Daily Globe. 
 
 "Though the theme is old, Mr. Caine has worked it up with a passion 
 and power that make it new again. . . . Can not fail to thrill even the most 
 careless reader." New York Herald. 
 
 " ' The Christian ' is one of the strongest novels of the year, and is in 
 some respects the greatest work this author has yet produced." Philadel- 
 phia Evening Telegraph. 
 
 " Indisputably Mr. Caine's strongest and most important work." Phila- 
 delphia Bulletin. 
 
 " A powerful story. . . . The portrait of the pure womanliness of Glory 
 Quayle is beyond any praise we can bestow." ^V. Y. Mail and Express. 
 
 " By far the strongest novel that has been brought out this year. ... If 
 you once dip into it you must stay with it until the end. It lays hold upon 
 your heart and compels attention." San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
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 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE WEST SERIES. 
 
 Edited by RIPLEY 'HITCHCOCK. Each, 12010, cloth, illustrated, $1.50. 
 
 " Histories, many of them, -have been written about the Western country, 
 but most, if not practically all, by outsiders who knew not personally that 
 life of kaleidoscopic allurement. But ere it shall have vanished forever \ve 
 are likely to have truthful, complete, and charming portrayals of it pro- 
 duced by men who actually knew the life and have the power to describe 
 it." HENRY EDWARD ROOD, in the Mail and Express. 
 
 STORY OF THE INDIAN. By GEORGE 
 . BIRD GRINNELL, author of "Pawnee Hero Stories," "Black- 
 foot Lodge Tales," etc. 
 
 " In every way worthy of an author who as an authority upon the Western Indians 
 is second to none. A book full of color, abounding in observation, and remarkable in 
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 rarely to be looKed for in such a work, and which adds not a little to the charm ot it." 
 London Daily Chronicle. 
 
 " Only an author qualified by personal experience could offer us a profitable study 
 of a race so alien from our own as is the Indian in thought, feeling, and culture. Only 
 long association with Indians can enable a white man measurably to comprehend their 
 thoughts and enter into their feelings. Such association has been Mr. Grinnell's " 
 Alew York Sun. 
 
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 "HE STORY OF THE MINE. As illustrated 
 by the Great Com^tock Lode of Nevada. By CHARLES HOW- 
 ARD SHINN. 
 
 " The figures of the prospector and the miner are clearly outlined in the course of 
 the romantic story of that natural treasure house which more than any other embodies 
 the romance, the vicissitudes, the triumphs, the excitement, and the science of mining 
 life." San Francisco Examiner. 
 
 " The authr ' written a book not alone full of information, but replete with the 
 true romance of th< .ime,-ican mine." Aew \ork 'limes. 
 
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 "HE STORY OF THE COWBOY. By E. HOUGH, 
 
 author of " The Singing Mouse Stories," etc. Illustrated by 
 William L. Wells and C. M. Russell. 
 
 The very picturesqueness of the cowboy lias sutjected him to misinterpretation, 
 and his actual story and a picture of the great industry which he has conducted may 
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 cinating pages. The story which he tells is a strange and romantic one, impressive on 
 the practical side by reason of the magnitude of the business described, and very valu- 
 able from the historical point of view, because this book preserves in permanent form 
 a typical figure of Western life, and also the development and the passing, or rather 
 transformation, of a vast industry almost within a generation. 
 
 IN PREPARATION. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER. By GILBERT PARKER. 
 THE STORY OF THE SOLDIER. By Captain J. McB. STEMBEL, U. S. A. 
 THE STORY OF THE EXPLORER. 
 THE STORY OF THE RAILROAD. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
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