GOLDEN LIVES: 
 
 THE STOEY OF 
 
 A WOMAN'S COUKAGE.
 
 GOLDEN LIVES 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 
 A WOMAN'S COUKAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 FKEDEKICK WICKS, 
 
 WITH ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS 
 BY 
 
 JEAN DE PALEOLOGUE. 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
 
 MDCCCXCI.
 
 Printed by PEWTRESS d- CO., 
 28, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LONDON, W.C.
 
 I DEDICATE THIS BOOK 
 
 TO 
 THAT BUSY, EAGER, RESTLESS THRONG 
 
 WHO HAVE NO TIME, 
 
 IN THE HOPE THAT 
 JUST IN THE SAME WAY AS I HAVE ENJOYED SOME OASES OF CALM 
 
 IN THE MIDST OF A VERY BUSY LIFE BY WRITING THIS STORY, 
 SO THEY MAY PROCURE A LITTLE DISTRACTION IN READING IT. 
 
 AND SEEING 
 
 THAT THE MULTIPLICATION OF WORDS IS TIRESOME 
 I HAVE ENDEAVOURED TO USE AS FEW AS POSSIBLE 
 
 AND MUCH 
 THAT IN THE ORDINARY WAY WOULD BE SAID IN 
 
 LONG PARAGRAPHS OF DESCRIPTION 
 
 I HAVE CONVEYED THROUGH THE PENCIL OF ANOTHER, 
 
 WHO, SUFFERING VICARIOUSLY, HAS PATD3NTLY ENDURED 
 
 MY DETAILED DESCRIPTIONS OF EACH INCIDENT, 
 
 AND, 
 
 WITH ADMIRABLE FACILITY AND INDUSTRY, HAS GIVEN TO MY IDEAS 
 PALPABLE CONFIGURATION. 
 
 1057522
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. SAMUEL SHORTER REVISES HIS CORRESPONDENCE ... 1 
 
 II. JOSHUA COPE'S PARTNER 8 
 
 III. JOSHUA COPE ON MARRIAGE 19 
 
 IV. A THREAD OF LIFE 25 
 
 V. JOSHUA COPE AS PROVIDENCE 84 
 
 VI. CRAWLEY FOYLE AS A POLITICIAN AND A FATHER ... 41 
 
 VII. A CURIOUS ANTE-NUPTIAL SETTLEMENT 49 
 
 VIII. SOME REMARKABLY PLAIN SPEAKING 57 
 
 IX. JOSHUA COPE'S PURCHASE 03 
 
 X. THE JUNIOR PARTNER EXHIBITS TALENT 70 
 
 XI. DAVID THRESHER DISCOVERS HIS Loss 77 
 
 XII. THE FOUNDER'S HEIR 83 
 
 XIII. AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF ABDUCTION 94 
 
 XIV. DAVID THRESHER REVIEWS THE SITUATION 104 
 
 XV. MRS. COPE'S "AT HOME" 110 
 
 XVI. THE LAND OF DEATH 123 
 
 XVII. THE LAND OF FASHION 130 
 
 XVIII. A CATASTROPHE 137 
 
 XIX. THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY 148 
 
 XX. EGG FLIP 158 
 
 XXI. THE SURPRISE 164 
 
 XXII. A CLUE 171 
 
 XXIII. AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING 176 
 
 XXIV. MR. SPEEZER'S CONFIDENCES 181 
 
 XXV. BY SEA AND BY LAND 187 
 
 XXVI. CONVENTIONAL GRIEF AND REAL MALICE 200 
 
 XXVII. PARASITES AT WORK 207 
 
 XXVIII. A STONE WALL MYSTERY 216 
 
 XXIX. THRESHER RESOLVES TO PAY A VISIT .. 225 
 
 XXX. AN HONOURABLE SURRENDER . 233
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXXI. AN AWAKENING 
 
 XXXII. THE FIRST ACT 
 
 XXXIII. A CONFLAGRATION 
 
 XXXIV. THE TRIUMPH OF COPE 
 
 XXXV. INTROSPECTION 
 
 XXXVI. THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW 
 
 XXXVII. GENERAL AND PARTICULAR ... 
 
 XXXVIII. SILAS W. OMAH ARRIVES 
 
 XXXIX. SILAS W. OMAH " OWNS UP A BUSTED FLUSH " 
 
 PAGE 
 239 
 247 
 249 
 260 
 266 
 268 
 282 
 285 
 299 
 
 POSTSCRIPT.
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 SAMUEL SHOKTEE EEVISES HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 IT was the custom of Samuel Shorter to 
 accumulate his correspondence in the various 
 pockets of his black frock coat, and, when 
 opportunity offered, to revise the contents of 
 his pockets by destroying what was of no 
 longer any use. If a fire were near at the 
 time, he would burn the rejected letters ; but 
 his favourite time for unburdening himself 
 was a railway journey, when he could tear the 
 letters into small pieces, and scatter them to 
 the winds. It chanced, therefore, that, sitting 
 in a corner seat of a third-class carriage on 
 the Midland Railway, he went through his 
 pockets, as he travelled South " for," said he to himself, 
 " what is more like to oblivion than a Yorkshire moor? "--and 
 he commenced tearing up vigorously on leaving Appleby. 
 
 The wind was in the East, and it was strong ; and as there 
 were five other people in the carriage, he had to consult their 
 prejudices in the matter of East wind. But, having persuaded 
 his fellow-passengers that a little air was necessary, he 
 lowered the window two inches at the top, and gave a handful 
 of fragments to the winds. Some letters he tore up in large 
 pieces, and threw them out at once ; others he tore and re-tore 
 
 B
 
 2 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 and scattered in two or more portions, and a close observer 
 could have determined the confidential character of the com- 
 munications he disposed of by the size of the pieces to which 
 he reduced them before giving them to the win^s. 
 
 Samuel Shorter was not a nice-looking man. He was tall, 
 and thin, with round shoulders, and a sly look ; about fifty 
 years of age, clean shaven, with close-cut red hair, colourless 
 eyebrows, freckles in abundance, and -thin, compressed lips. 
 
 His eyes were grey and usually half closed, panther-like; 
 and though methodical in his manner and apparently 
 engrossed in what he was doing, he every now and then 
 took a rapid survey of his fellow travellers. There was 
 a steady, business-like persistence in the care with which 
 he examined each letter. His face was not an index to his 
 thoughts : it was a blank. But as each letter disappeared 
 through the space above the nearly closed window, his thin 
 lips became thinner and more firmly set, and his half-closed 
 eyes seemed almost entirely to disappear. Shorter's friends
 
 SAMUEL SHORTER REVISES HIS CORRESPONDENCE. d 
 
 well knew that this was. his way of expressing satisfaction 
 with himself and his works. The young girl, of an observant 
 nature, sitting opposite to him, thought it a very disagreeable 
 way ; and despite his clerical garb, his studied propriety, and 
 his conciliatory speeches, she shrank from him. He reminded 
 her, as he went stealthily through his correspondence, selecting, 
 and destroying, and dispersing, of one of those wild animals in 
 the Zoological Gardens, restlessly busy and terribly energetic ; 
 but not for good. 
 
 " There's the last," said Shorter, as he sent a batch of paper 
 flying ; " and now we'll shut the window. There's nothing 
 like a railway train for dispersing correspondence." 
 
 But a Yorkshire moor was not oblivion. It happened that 
 the wind was driving with considerable force almost at right 
 angles to the train ; and as the fragments of Shorter's cor- 
 respondence left his hand they scudded along the sides of the 
 carriages, rattling against the windows as they passed, and 
 spreading out like a fan, some going over the top of the train, 
 some passing under, and other pieces sticking on the handles of 
 the doors and other projections, pinned there by the wind. It 
 chanced that among the passengers amused by the flight of the 
 Shorter correspondence was a solitary 
 occupant of a first-class carriage, 
 named Joseph Bales, who raised his 
 eyes from his book at the sound of the 
 paper clattering on the glass. Eales 
 was a young man of strikingly accu- 
 rate features, an excellent row of teeth, 
 dark brown hair, and almost black 
 eyes of singular keenness. He wore 
 a travelling suit, and appeared to be of 
 an amiable disposition, yet capable 
 withal of pursuing a purpose with un- 
 faltering determination. 
 
 Having looked at the flying fragments curiously for some 
 moments, he remarked that some pieces were occasionally for an 
 instant held flattened against one or other of the windows, and 
 then, as he attempted to read what was written upon them, 
 they would, from some change in the current or force of the 
 wind, dash away on their wild career. Some pieces remained 
 
 B 2
 
 4 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 longer than others, and as he watched them,wondering how long 
 they would hold there, another volley fluttered past, beating 
 against the windows ; when, suddenly as if he had been the 
 subject of an electric shock, his face assumed an appearance of 
 vigorous determination. Another square inch of paper had 
 struck the window and become fixed, partly by the wind, 
 and partly by being pressed into a chink in the frame. Upon 
 it, in a bold handwriting, were the letters 
 " ua Cope." 
 
 It was the name that startled the solitary 
 traveller, and, throwing his book away, he 
 rapidly let down the window. The next 
 moment he had the piece of paper in the 
 compartment together with the blank that 
 had still retained its place, but the other 
 pieces had been dispersed and rested 
 somewhere on the line among the grey 
 stones and the sleepers, a very wilder 
 ness for the concealment of scraps of paper, but still not 
 oblivion. 
 
 "Wonderful!" was the exclamation that fell from Eales 
 as he held the two pieces of paper in the palm of his hand. 
 Then suddenly putting them in his book for safety he put 
 his head out of the window to watch whence the paper came. 
 In another minute he had a shower in his face from the 
 second compartment from his own. Then they ceased. 
 " Good," said he ; " and where are we ? " 
 The landmarks were few. The district was desolate ; scarcely 
 anything was visible but grey rocks, all broken and serrated, 
 cropping up out of the grass, with low-lying hills in the distance. 
 A few solitary sheep grazed about a quarter of a mile from the 
 railway, but neither man nor habitation was to be seen. As 
 he examined the dreary prospect the train passed on to a 
 viaduct with a stone wall on either side. This was sufficient. 
 Eales gathered his things together, strapped them up, and with 
 cool deliberation broke the apparatus for causing the train to 
 be stopped. 
 
 The driver pulled up in the midst of a barren waste before 
 reaching the small station of Ribbleshead, and engineer, guard 
 and passengers were naturally inquisitive. Eales threw his
 
 SAMUEL SHORTER REVISES HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 packages from the carriage, and quickly followed them. 
 As the guard approached him he produced his card case 
 and said firmly : 
 
 " That is my name and 
 address. It is necessary 
 I should leave the train. 
 My luggage will go on to 
 London, and I will answer 
 for the stoppage to the Sec- 
 retary of the Company." 
 The guard seemed 
 annoyed, and was tempted 
 to remonstrate, but the 
 firmness with which the 
 traveller announced his 
 determination seemed to 
 impress him. He asked 
 for his ticket which he impounded, on the plea that it did not 
 authorise a traveller to break the journey at that place, and 
 then waved the engine-driver to proceed. As the train moved 
 off, Eales stood face to face with Shorter, but neither knew 
 the other. If anything, Eales had the advantage, because he 
 knew the torn letters came from the compartment in which 
 the man with the blanched face sat, and it was fair to assume 
 that it was from his hand and not the girl's that the fragments 
 were thrown from the window. 
 
 The train was very soon a mere speck in the distance, and 
 Eales, having placed his wrappers against a block of stone, 
 set off down the line to the place where the papers he was 
 more particularly interested in were thrown from the carriage. 
 He had undertaken a difficult task without much surety that 
 the result would be useful, even if accomplished ; and when he 
 had crossed the long bridge with a wall on each side, and looked 
 over the grey expanse beyond, he began to doubt whether he had 
 not been a little rash in delaying his journey to London for an 
 entire day, with a chance of a twenty mile walk before he 
 came to a house, all for a thing that might prove to be quite 
 useless. 
 
 The sleepers of the line were laid in a grey stone, that, at a 
 distance, was almost identical with the colour of the paper he
 
 6 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 had in his hand ; and a steady scrutiny right and left, zig-zag 
 fashion, for fully five minutes, gave no trace of a scrap of paper 
 to the keenest pair of eyes in civilised man that ever searched 
 upon the ground. 
 
 It was useless to repent. The train was gone, and he slowly 
 continued his walk with bent back and a frowning brow. At 
 length he descried a piece of paper standing up against the 
 rail. It matched the colour of the two pieces he held, but it 
 was a blank. Still it gave him confidence. He had arrived at 
 the spot where the fragments fell. He found another piece, 
 this time with writing on it, and another. He became excited 
 and energetic. A Yorkshire moor was not oblivion ! 
 
 Carefully placing the pieces in a pocket book as he picked 
 them up, he continued the search for two hours, and then had 
 enough to make it worth while to examine them. The high 
 
 wind troubled him, but he happened to have two shillingsworth 
 of postage stamps in his pocket book, and, shielded behind 
 a low wall, he was able to select the outside pieces 01 
 the letter and stick them on to the back of the stamps. He 
 then made up part of a second row, and a third, and a fourth. 
 The letter had been torn into thirty-two pieces, twenty-three
 
 SAMUEL SHOETER REVIEWS HIS CORRESPONDENCE. 7 
 
 of which he had found. Several of the missing pieces were 
 obviously blanks, so he wanted only five to make the letter 
 complete. 
 
 When he had pasted together all the pieces he had found the 
 fragments made an interesting piece of patchwork, of which a 
 representation appears below. 

 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 JOSHUA COPE'S PARTNER. 
 
 MR. CRAWLEY FOYLE was a 
 profuse man. Big, almost to 
 grossness, loud and demon- 
 strative in speech, exuberant 
 in protestations of affection or 
 denunciation, extravagant in 
 opinion, eager, excitable, and 
 violent a sort of social whirl- 
 wind. If repose had been 
 possible, he would have been 
 accounted handsome. His iron- 
 grey hair was abundant and 
 wavy, his nostril and lips were 
 full, and his eyes sparkled with 
 animation. His garments were 
 capacious, but not other- 
 wise singular ; he eschewed 
 diamonds, but was remarkable 
 for the taste he displayed in 
 antique jewellery. He was a Member of Parliament for 
 Buckton, and lived in Eaton Square. 
 
 Mr. Foyle's name was William, but he strove to forget it. 
 He used the " W." only, because he hoped that, by persistent 
 endeavours, he might induce the public to endow him with a 
 hyphen, and that he might become Crawley-Foyle' to all the 
 world. 
 
 Crawley Foyle manipulated mankind by gastronomy. He 
 believed in the dinner party as the greatest social engine of 
 the nineteenth century. In commerce, as in politics, he 
 relied upon his cook ; and his commercial relations were com- 
 plicated. Being eminently a pushing man, he was mixed up 
 with many enterprises a director of several companies, and 
 was supposed to have money in various private firms. His 
 office was in the Minories, where he appeared as Schreiber
 
 JOSHUA COPE S PARTNER. 9 
 
 and Co., and as a marine victualling contractor, generally 
 known as a ship chandler. He preferred those businesses 
 that ministered to the animal wants of his fellow men, and 
 he was ready to purvey anything that could be eaten or drunk, 
 for any number of people, in any part of the world. Being 
 lavish in expenditure, he was commonly supposed to be 
 wealthy : as a matter of fact, he floated on a sea of debt. 
 
 "Debt," said Crawley Foyle, when performing as a states- 
 man, " is the pivot of commerce." Domestically, and as a 
 merchant, he spoke only of " obligations." The word sounded 
 smoother, and suggested something complimentary and agree- 
 able. He had many of them, and from the way in which he 
 spoke of them one would almost have thought he was rather 
 proud of the possession ; still he steadfastly refused to add 
 them up, or regard them in any other light than as passing 
 incidents in what he called " the daily round of life." 
 
 It was a Wednesday, and Mr. Foyle reached home from the 
 House of Commons by five in the afternoon. 
 
 " Bidewell," said he to his butler, " Mr. Cope dines here to- 
 night, and remember he likes Madeira. Get some of the '28." 
 
 Bidewell was a small, timid man, with failing eyes and a 
 trembling lip. His excessive anxiety to please made him bold 
 to speak when he would have better consulted his peace of mind 
 by silence. Accordingly he announced by way of correction, 
 " There are only two bottles of it left." 
 
 "What of that, sir," exclaimed the member for Buckton. 
 " Cope must have it. You must empty the cellar if Cope wants 
 it ! Cope must have everything he wants do you hear ? " 
 
 Bidewell heard, and knew from the vehemence of the 
 declaration that Mr. Cope must be his peculiar care. Why 
 the strange, little wiry old man, with a deep scar above his left 
 temple, should be so considered, was a mystery he did not try 
 to penetrate. He knew he was Foyle's partner, and that he 
 was wealthy, but he knew no more. 
 
 Joshua Cope was, indeed, wealthy. He made money in 
 many ways, and nearly all of them nasty. He supplied 
 Schrieber & Co. with capital, declined to know what was 
 purveyed, and took most of the profits ; he had a nail 
 warehouse near Halesowen, and the misery of the nailers 
 amused him ; he had manure works in Liverpool, New-
 
 10 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 castle, and Glasgow, where his workmen were paid for hold- 
 ing their tongues, because' all the dead horses and diseased 
 cattle he bought were not made into manure ; he had been 
 a smuggler in his youth, he said, hence the scar ; he had 
 been all over the world ; he was ugly, 
 avaricious, and essentially brutal in 
 his disposition ; he was a member of 
 the London Warehouse Tontine Asso- 
 ciation ; he was, in fact, one of the 
 Golden Lives, and he had made up 
 his mind to outlive his partners in 
 that wealthy corporation. 
 
 He arrived shortly after Foyle, and 
 handed his hat to Bidewell in a cool, 
 matter-of-course manner, indicating 
 that he was thoroughly at home, and 
 with full command of the establish- 
 ment. He seemed to be somewhat 
 absorbed in thought, though at the 
 same time thoroughly confident. 
 
 " Where's your master?" he asked, 
 rubbing his brown and sinewy hands. 
 L "With the ladies." 
 
 "Shew me my room," said Cope; and Bidewell glided 
 orward to do what he knew to be totally unnecessary, for 
 Mr. Cope's room was an established institution, and never 
 varied. This was a second indication to Bidewell that some- 
 thing unusual was afoot. A third indication followed. 
 " Can you shave ? " asked Cope. 
 " Yes, sir." 
 " Then shave me." 
 
 Bidewell could not but admit that this was necessary. 
 Without being actually dirty, Joshua Cope had an untidy and 
 disagreeable appearance. His brown, weather-beaten skin, the 
 persistency with which his collar disappeared behind his black 
 silk tie, his rumpled shirt front, and his rusty clothes defied all 
 attempts at polish. Still the request was singular, but Bidewell 
 associated it in some way with '28 Madeira, and responded 
 with alacrity. 
 
 There was a grim and whimsical smile around the hard,
 
 JOSHUA COPE'S PARTNEK. 
 
 11 
 
 square mouth of Joshua Cope while Bidewell was absent in 
 quest of hot water. He walked the room in deep and 
 humorous contemplation. He was evidently well-pleased 
 with himself. 
 
 As for Bidewell he had a misgiving that while shaving and 
 '28 Madeira came within the same general category of " care 
 of Mr. Cope," yet Mr. Foyle should be informed. He 
 accordingly sought his master in the drawing-room, and 
 furtively whispered that Mr. Cope had desired to be shaven. 
 
 " Then shave him, in the name of the Lord ! " exclaimed 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle, with his arms in the air, and his whole 
 aspect one of violent emotion. Upon which Mrs. Foyle, a 
 
 patient woman of forty-five, nearly upset a cup of tea and 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh ! William, please don't." 
 
 " Don't, my dear, and why not ? Mr. Cope is our guest. 
 He wants Bidewell to shave him. Let him be shaved, I say 
 shave him ! D'ye hear ? " 
 
 Bidewell left without a word, and Mrs. Foyle explained 
 that she had not the least objection, but that William said 
 " such things," and was so excited that she really couldn't help
 
 12 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 it. And the poor lady stroked her lap, and seemed inclined 
 to weep. 
 
 There was a spectator to this incident their daughter 
 Isabel, who, when Mr. Foyle essayed to expostulate remarked 
 firmly, but with perfect composure : 
 " Papa, don't be absurd." 
 And papa was silent. 
 
 Isabel Foyle was a strange product of this curiously dis- 
 similar pair. She was the exact 
 transcript of her father, refined 
 and modulated ; but it was not 
 merely the coarse and florid man 
 refined : she was Crawley Foyle 
 idealised physically and mentally. 
 His light grey eyes were violet 
 in her, his sensuous mouth was 
 merely hinted at, and yet its full 
 ripe curves were eloquent of all 
 that was human. Her hair was 
 auburn in colour and abundant, 
 well cared for and plainly dressed ; 
 her brow was high, and her 
 figure a model of rich woman- 
 hood. Dignified in movement, 
 and always composed, she never 
 allowed her feelings to become 
 her master. She was tender and 
 
 considerate with her mother, because she was weak ; but she 
 ruled her father imperiously. She would have had some 
 difficulty in analysing her feelings, but there is no doubt she 
 was actuated, probably without knowing it, by the fact that 
 Crawley Foyle was an impostor. 
 
 Having checked her father, she handed a fan to her mother 
 and walked to the other end of the room. 
 Crawley Foyle retired, and there was peace. 
 In the meantime, Bidewell had Cope in hand, or it would 
 be more accurate to say, Cope had Bidewell in hand, for he 
 made him talk like a real barber. 
 
 " Many dinner parties lately, Bidewell ? " 
 " Not quite so many, sir."
 
 JOSHUA COrE S PAKTNEE. 
 
 13 
 
 " Much going out? " 
 
 " Pretty considerable, sir, but not the ladies." 
 
 " Seen Mr. Thresher lately ? " 
 
 " He come on Monday, sir, and he's coming to-night." 
 
 " He's a good deal about, I suppose? " 
 
 " Oh ! yes, sir. He's very attentive ; and though I think 
 Mr. Foyle would have liked Miss Isabel to look a leetle bit 
 higher, they're a handsome pair." 
 
 Cope gave a grunt that rather disconcerted Bidewell. 
 Failing to interpret it, he dropped the subject, but Cope being 
 
 now free to walk about, examined his chin in the glass, as 
 he said : 
 
 " She'll jilt him, Bidewell ; I'm sure she'll jilt him. 
 Something always happens to upset these nice little 
 arrangements." 
 
 "I hope not, I'm sure," was Bidewell's pious aspiration; 
 but Cope gave another grunt, this time obviously a grunt of 
 disapproval. 
 
 " You may go, Bidewell," he said. 
 
 "Yes, sir, dinner at 7.30;" and Bidewell left with the 
 unpleasant feeling that he had not managed as well as he had 
 desired.
 
 14 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 The dinner was a sublime effort on the part of M. Parlou 
 the French cook, who had been worked up to a high pitch of 
 bad language-in French also-through Mr. Foyle having had 
 an interview with him the day before, and declared that he 
 had never in his whole life cooked anything fit to be eaten. The 
 interview was stormy in the extreme. 
 M. Parlou declared his honour had been 
 insulted, and resigned his trust with the 
 air of an ambassador, upon which Mr. 
 Foyle became incoherent with rage and 
 left the house. He returned in the 
 afternoon covertly to inquire whether the 
 threat of instant departure had been 
 carried out, and went down to the House 
 of Commons to legislate with a feeling of 
 repose since M. Parlou had resolved to 
 take a noble revenge by surpassing him- 
 self. The result was prodigious, but 
 costly. It was M. Parlou's habit in his 
 sublimer moments to commit to the 
 flames all dishes concerning the excellence 
 of which he had doubts. Two dozen kromesky furnished the 
 fuel for the successful course. The kitchen was a pande- 
 monium, but the dinner was exquisite, and Crawley Foyle was 
 certain he had the finest cook in the world. 
 
 Mr. Foyle's party consisted of ten, seated at a round table, 
 over which was suspended a lamp covered by a crimson shade, 
 lined with white satin. Mrs. Foyle was present, dressed in 
 pink, and distressingly pensive. She was escorted by the 
 Hon. Mr. Peach, a Member, and a younger son, who espoused 
 Radical opinions of the extreme type, chiefly because his 
 father was a Tory, and he imagined that he could not be a 
 loser in the event of a general scramble. Her left hand 
 supporter was Colonel Pate, of the Commissariat Department, 
 who was not in the least annoyed because a half-pay Captain, 
 named Percival Joybell, paid special attention to his partner, 
 Mrs. Lupin, a highly-coloured lady of mature years. Her 
 husband sat next to Mr. Foyle. He was pale and fair, and 
 though giving evidence of extreme timidity, had a commercial 
 history which Mr. Foyle would say marked him out as a man
 
 JOSHUA COPE S PARTNER. 
 
 15 
 
 of courage and foresight. He was originally a bank clerk, and 
 having by penurious habits saved a thousand pounds in fifteen 
 years, he purchased the titles to a heavily mortgaged property 
 in Monmouthshire, discovered a mineral spring on it that had 
 never before been dreamt of, advertised a natural effervescing 
 water of great medicinal qualities, made a fortune and retired, 
 by which time the spring appeared to dry up. Cope admired 
 Mr. Lupin, and frequently gazed upon him with genuine 
 satisfaction. 
 
 David Thresher, who sat between Mr. Lupin and Isabel, 
 was tall and strongly built, with an abundant flaxen beard and 
 a delicate moustache that showed his 
 lips, dark brown eyes, and a strong 
 growth of short, wavy brown hair. 
 He was essentially a strong man, 
 quiet in manner, determined in 
 purpose, and capable of waiting. 
 Isabel noticed that he was unusually 
 reserved this evening, and resolved 
 to know why. But she also could 
 wait. Cope, who sat next to Foyle, 
 watched them with a keen and 
 at times malignant interest. Her 
 beauty irritated him. She wore a 
 low dress of ruby silk, moderately 
 trimmed with black lace, a camellia 
 
 in her bosom, and another in her hair. Her sleeves were 
 merely shoulder straps, and the moulding of her neck 
 defied criticism. Full and round, every line was a graceful 
 curve, and the alabaster surface betrayed no blemish either of 
 form or colour. 
 
 Isabel was animated. She quizzed the Hon. Mr. Peach, 
 and relieved her mother of the necessity of entertaining the 
 Colonel. That was the understanding between them, and 
 the reason she sat so near her mother. The conversation, 
 however, was general. Foyle broke out into violent political 
 declamation now and then, and excited the admiration of 
 Captain Joybell, who, grey, dishevelled, and generally gone 
 to seed, was elated at the bare idea of being in the company of 
 capitalists, for whom, as a genus, he had a profound veneration.
 
 16 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Captain Joybell was related to David Thresher by marriage ; 
 his presence at the dinner table was the consequence of a 
 recent introduction and the realisation of an elaborate scheme 
 on Joybell's part. The gallant Captain was full of brilliant 
 schemes, that needed only capital to enable him to realise 
 immense fortunes, and Foyle, he knew, was the very man 
 for him. He told Cope so before they had finished the 
 soup, and Cope was inwardly convulsed with delight at the 
 humour of the situation. 
 
 Captain Joybell's schemes were all miracles of wealth. 
 Only the day before he had met a man with a gold mine 
 in his pocket in the shape of a concession. A week before, 
 an enterprising German chemist, without a shirt, explained 
 to him a new explosive as harmless as sawdust, of which a 
 pound weight was capable of levelling the Houses of 
 Parliament, while an American of undoubted probity, had 
 placed at his disposal for one week a preferential claim to 
 a great invention for catching fish, by the attraction of the 
 electric light through the glass bottom of a boat ; by means 
 of this expedient myriads of fish could be scooped up in an 
 hour. All these and many other schemes of prospective 
 wealth were at his command, if only he could beguile a 
 capitalist to his assistance. 
 
 Towards the close of the dinner Crawley Foyle became 
 excited about the condition of the British aristocracy, 
 denounced them one and all as " drones fattening on the 
 earnings of the hardy sons of toil." " Not like my friend 
 Peach," he qualified, " who associates himself with great 
 enterprises for the welfare of his fellow men." 
 
 "Aristocracy!" exclaimed Captain Joybell, "what can 
 aristocracy do for your great enterprise ? Sit on them. Crush 
 them. The capitalist is my aristocracy ! Why, gentlemen, 
 my friend Mr. Crawley Foyle is a prince a prince, 
 gentlemen." 
 
 And the gallant Captain gazed upon his glass of port with 
 a proud and happy smile. The company was not in the 
 humour to be critical, and from various motives was rather 
 pleased than otherwise with the outburst of enthusiasm. It 
 relieved the monotony and it was singular from the fact that it 
 was almost sincere.
 
 JOSHUA COPE S PAETNEB. 
 
 17 
 
 In due time the function came to an end, and the company 
 dispersed with the feeling that another solemn duty had been 
 discharged. 
 
 David Thresher took leave of Isabel in the library, where 
 she had led him, and as they were parting she said : 
 
 " Now tell me what has made you so dull this evening? " 
 
 " Nothing," said he, with a nervous tremor of his upper lip 
 that was common with him. 
 
 " That is not true," she said ; " tell me." And she looked 
 up into his face with an intentness that made him shrink and 
 turn aside as he said, 
 
 " I cannot, because " 
 
 And then he stopped. 
 
 "What can there be so to affect you," she asked stepping 
 back a pace, "that I should not know?" She stood with 
 
 her right foot in advance, almost, as it were, upon the 
 defensive. 
 
 c
 
 18 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " That which is the secret of another, who " and again 
 
 he stopped, and looked upon the floor, for her eyes were 
 intent upon him and began to flash with indignation rather 
 than love. 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "You have said you love me," she exclaimed, "and with 
 passionate appeals have sought my love. I hoped to give it 
 and would have married you ; but what marriage can that be 
 where confidence is denied ? That which I may not know 
 should not be part of you and your life." 
 
 And she left him.
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 JOSHUA COPE ON MAEEIAGE. 
 
 JOSHUA COPE indulged him- 
 self in one luxury tobacco. 
 His cigars were the most fra- 
 grant and rare that money 
 could produce. He imported 
 them himself, selected the best, 
 and sold what was left to a 
 dealer. He took infinite pains 
 with them in their storage, 
 and made his daily choice with 
 much deliberation ; he refused 
 to smoke any cigars but his own, and while nothing put 
 him in a worse humour than the smell of bad tobacco, he 
 seemed to revel with a sort of fierce exultation in the 
 fragrance of his own. He liked Foyle's smoking-room. 
 It was not too large, the leather chairs were capacious and 
 low ; the room was effectually ventilated, and was not 
 too far away from the other habitable parts of the house. 
 
 " Foyle, I've brought you a cigar," said he. "It's not my 
 taste, but it will suit you exactly." 
 
 Then he proceeded to pierce the end with a bodkin without 
 breaking the leaf, and handed it to his friend with something 
 like satisfaction gleaming from his eye. Smoking seemed to 
 have quite a humanising influence upon him. 
 
 They lighted up and settled themselves in their chairs. 
 " Give me the facts," said Cope. 
 Foyle shook his head and pursed up his lips. 
 " It's a very painful business, my dear Cope, very painful 
 his relations to Isabel." 
 
 " Never mind about her, Foyle, let us get to business. What 
 did Thresher say ?" 
 
 " He said, my dear Cope, that we were carrying on a 
 dishonest business, and he wished to retire from it." 
 "Nothing more?" 
 
 o 2
 
 20 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 "No threats?" 
 
 "None." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 Cope ruminated ; and after a time jerked out suddenly : 
 
 " What is his capital ? " 
 
 "52,000." 
 
 "Oh," said Cope, and then in a tone of guileless incapacity, 
 he asked, " what is to be done? " 
 
 " That, my dear Cope, is for you to say." 
 
 " Dear Cope wants to know what you are going to do, Foyle." 
 
 " I do ? " exclaimed the head and front of Schrieber & Co. ; 
 " I can do nothing literally nothing. You know my political 
 position and all the numerous obligations resting upon me. 
 It is impossible absolutely impossible for me to do a single 
 thing." 
 
 Cope smoked vigorously, revolving his great cigar with his 
 lips, as if he were winding himself up. Foyle waited with 
 submissive silence : his loud-voiced domineering self-assertion 
 was gone. He was passing through a crisis. David Thresher's 
 fifty thousand had been an acceptable addition to the resources 
 of the firm of Schrieber & Co. when he joined it, and the 
 new partner had been placidly indifferent for a year or two as 
 to the course of the business ; but accident had brought to his 
 knowledge one or two facts from which he drew conclusions 
 detrimental to the honesty, the morality, and even the 
 humanity of Schrieber & Co. David Thresher took the 
 sober commonplace view that a ship's crew, on the open sea, 
 with bad provisions, would be in a fair way of meeting death, 
 and he did not look with equanimity on the fact that he might 
 by a strict view of responsibility be regarded as in some sense 
 their murderer. He accordingly expostulated, but without 
 effect, and, therefore, resolved to withdraw. 
 
 Cope stopped smoking, laid his cigar down, and leaning 
 forward said : 
 
 "Now tell me another thing. Have you any particular 
 affection for Thresher ? " 
 
 " Oh ! dear no," exclaimed Foyle, " none at all." 
 " Oh," grunted Cope, and he commenced smoking again. 
 Presently he said with great deliberation :
 
 JOSHUA COPE ON MAERIAGE. 21 
 
 " It seems to me that the position stands in this way 
 Master Thresher desires to get rid of us. Now I propose 
 we should get rid of him. I don't care to have a mean self- 
 sufficient morality-monger going about our place, looking here 
 and there, and finding fault with our notions \of the way 
 of making profits. He must go, Foyle, before he makes 
 mischief. We must get rid of him at once." 
 
 "Admirable," exclaimed Foyle. 
 
 " I mean altogether," said Cope, with a searching look, 
 " root and branch." 
 
 Foyle thought of Isabel, and turned pale. Cope resumed : 
 
 " The first thing you have to do is to look the facts in the 
 face. You never do, but if you don't begin soon, the facts will 
 look you in the face and stare you out of countenance. Now 
 look ! If you made out a fair and square balance sheet of 
 your affairs with the world, you will find you couldn't 
 pay five shillings in the pound. You're a pauper Foyle. Do 
 you see? " 
 
 Crawley Foyle shuddered. 
 
 "Now," said Cope, "that's a bad state to be in, and 
 you've got to get out of it. And I'll tell yer how." 
 
 Foyle started. A faint ray of hope shot across his 
 countenance. 
 
 " You have first," said Cope, with an emphasis almost 
 amounting to violence, " to get rid of Thresher altogether. 
 You are not going to let your daughter marry a man who 
 accuses you of dishonesty ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said Foyle, reviving under the influence of 
 outraged virtue. 
 
 " Thing's preposterous," responded Cope, who, after a 
 pause, proceeded methodically: "Now, I have been looking 
 at Miss Isabel to-night, and I have come to the conclusion 
 that she's your trump card. You must sell her ! " 
 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle bounded from his chair, his arms 
 revolved like the sails of a windmill. He ejaculated : 
 " Monstrous ! Horrible ! Heathenish ! " and a variety of 
 other melo-dramatic exclamations, during which Cope placidly 
 smoked his cigar. The paroxysm having passed, Foyle stood 
 glaring into space, very much out of breath, and very red in 
 the face.
 
 22 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "I expected you would say that," said Cope, and after 
 another gentle and reflective smoke, he continued his argument. 
 Throwing his words at his partner with crushing emphasis, he 
 said : 
 
 " I knew you'd say that ; but you're wrong. You are wrong 
 because you will not look things in the face. Every match 
 made in every house in this Square is a question of sale and 
 purchase. Money or money's worth. Nothing else. They 
 all shut their eyes to it ; but shutting your eyes don't alter the 
 facts. You were selling your daughter to Thresher, and you 
 were going to make a bad bargain, and I'll tell you the bargain 
 you ought to make. You have got to get a hundred thousand 
 pounds settled on her for her own absolute use, so that you 
 may have someone to take care of you when you smash up." 
 
 Foyle winced. 
 
 " She should have," continued Cope, "the interest 'on the 
 hundred thousand as long as her husband lives, and if she 
 survives him she should have the capital. And if your son-in- 
 law is worthy of your daughter he will put fifty thousand 
 pounds into your business. If he's a mean-spirited, squeamish
 
 JOSHUA COPE ON MAKKIAGB. 23 
 
 milksop, why, of course, he won't ; but you have got to get 
 the right sort. And that's what you must do." 
 
 Foyle was mollified ; he was even impressed. He resumed 
 his seat, and, after a pause, he asked with some hesitation : 
 
 "Don't you think it would be better for you to take up 
 Thresher's share?" 
 
 To which Cope replied with exasperating decision : 
 
 " The man who marries your daughter will do that." 
 
 Foyle shuddered as he asked : 
 
 " And where is he ? " 
 
 " If you can't find dozens of them the young men have very 
 bad taste in these days," said Cope snappishly. " If you 
 can't find a young one, try an old one : and if you can't find 
 anyone else, I'll marry her myself." 
 
 What Crawley Foyle would have done at this point if he 
 had not been previously fixed by Cope's eye it is impossible to 
 say, but he became ghastly pale and seemed unable to utter a 
 word. In the meantime Cope rose and placidly remarked : 
 
 " Now I come to think it over, I believe it will come to me. 
 You see, Foyle, you've not got a penny, and your case is 
 desperate. Desperate ills need desperate remedies. Just think 
 it over. I'm going to bed." 
 
 With this homily Cope poured out a glass of rum and drank 
 it off neat. He seldom took more than one glass at a time, 
 but he always took one when he could get it good ; and he 
 was fond of announcing that when he was ninety he intended 
 to take two. 
 
 When Cope had left the room, Crawley Foyle set to work 
 instinctively to familiarise himself with the condition of things 
 suggested to him by his partner. He was an adept at personal 
 justification, and in less than half-an-hour he had persuaded 
 himself that it was his duty to his wife and daughter to make 
 any sacrifice of their peace of mind and comfort so as to 
 maintain his position in the world all, of course, for their 
 benefit and advantage. This was Crawley Foyle's notion of 
 self-denial, and it was a great consolation to him to feel that 
 he had the courage to do his duty, no matter how disagreeable 
 the process was to others. 
 
 It chanced then that when in the course of the next day 
 Crawley Foyle discovered that a breach had occurred between
 
 24 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 his daughter and David Thresher, he regarded the incident not 
 only with equanimity, but as the ordinary development of the 
 new order of events decreed by fate, and foreseen by Cope. 
 It was only natural that he should nourish on the basis of this 
 incident a profound admiration for his partner's prescience, in 
 the contemplation of which he was relieved of all concern for 
 the complementary infelicity arising out of the occurrence, and 
 was disposed to encourage a feeling of gratitude for what had 
 happened. This feeling was enhanced on learning that Isabel 
 and her mother had resolved to go to Brighton.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A THKEAD OF LIFE. 
 
 "I THINK it will be nice at Brighton," said Mrs. Foyle, 
 settling in the cushions as the train moved off. " It will be 
 quiet." And the look of trouble that habitually contracted 
 her face passed away and left her brow smooth. 
 
 "Yes," said Isabel, with a frown, "we shall be away from 
 everybody rid of the nuisances ; " but her brow was not free 
 from trouble. A look of dark resolution enshrouded it a look 
 such as hate could grow from. 
 
 Isabel had received her first check in life, and the trouble 
 was all the greater since it was her first. All pleasure and 
 pain, all joy and grief are comparative ; and the first real trial 
 of a strong nature, no matter how trivial comparatively, is 
 terrible in its comprehensiveness. It convulses, distorts, 
 uproots, and scatters ; it defies reason, scouts advice, and 
 absolutely prefers immolation. This shock of Isabel's was 
 like the shock of death. The ideal of her secret musings had 
 been shattered. Created out of the domestic error in the 
 midst of which she lived, nurtured by a clear perception 
 of the causes of her mother's unhappiness, and her father's 
 gigantic failure in all that makes life worth having, and 
 coming almost to fruition in the love offered to her by David 
 Thresher, the blow was the more fearful. Its force may 
 be measured by the fact that so far as Isabel was concerned, 
 it destroyed all. She was not conscious of the possession of 
 a single hope, so far as the world was concerned, left to 
 her to cherish and anticipate. It had been made more 
 clear to her beyond dispute that domestic happiness was 
 impossible in the nature of things, that the dominating 
 selfishness, the restless, but unfruitful effort, the persistent 
 lie of her father's life, were but typical of the lives of the 
 majority of men, as her mother's constant apprehension 
 and abject submission were typical of the lives of the 
 majority of women. The fact that in Society she found a 
 calm surface in most households, rippled only by smiles and
 
 26 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 perfect courtesy, was the confirmation of her theory, because 
 she knew that nothing else was shown the world in their own 
 household. She concluded that the cause was inherent in 
 man, and she doubted her strength to withstand a force that 
 seemed all-pervading and irresistible. 
 
 Had she loved it might have been otherwise ; but she had 
 not. She had merely thought she loved. Companionship 
 with David Thresher was pleasant, agreeable, enjoyable ; but 
 it had not become a passion. Absence had not become painful, 
 and, therefore, separation was not torture. Her love had not 
 gone beyond the theoretical stage, and the wound she had 
 received was a wound of the mind rather than of the heart. 
 Still it was none the less terrible, for it had destroyed all there 
 was to kill. Her imagination could conceive of no alternative 
 to resistance, so far as resistance was possible, and endurance 
 when resistance became fruitless. But she was conscious of 
 enormous capacity for resistance, and its first form was a 
 more passionate determination to procure ease for her mother. 
 
 It was only natural that she should have felt herself 
 desperately ill-used by fate. She had not yet learnt that the 
 sum of our pleasures is enormously greater than the sum of 
 our pains even amongst the very miserable. She was about 
 to learn that the epochs of our lives are in most cases marked 
 by pain, not because pain is the more abundant, but because it 
 is sudden. It is in the nature of pleasure to be slow of growth 
 and smooth in endurance, while pain results from, coming 
 against the snags and tenter hooks of life. Our pleasures are 
 like the imperceptible blending of choice colours. 
 
 Crawley Foyle rented the lower portion of a large house at the 
 corner of a street in the western part of Brighton, the property 
 of Miss Winscomb, an elderly lady of small means and great 
 expectations, who occupied the upper part. The arrangement 
 had much to recommend it to both parties. It was economical 
 to the one, profitable to the other, and convenient to both. 
 Brighton to Mrs. Foyle was a refuge, and to Miss Winscomb 
 her first floor was in the nature of a hermitage. Miss 
 Winscomb reserved the upper floors to be out of the damp, 
 and she had double windows to be free from draught, for she 
 desired to inherit the accumulations of the great London 
 Warehouse Tontine Association. Her sitting-room, long,
 
 A THEE AD OF LIFE. 27 
 
 straight and formal, was full of old fashioned straight-backed 
 furniture of the last century and on the walls were hung 
 sundry black effigies which did duty for likenesses in the early 
 part of this. 
 
 The old lady usually reclined on a couch placed before the 
 window on her left hand and with a square table on her right. 
 She was rather tall and must have been graceful in her youth. 
 Her face still retained a winning smile and her manner was 
 uniformly cheerful even to gaiety. Her dress was plain with 
 the exception of a marvellously constructed cap, which rose 
 above her forehead a good three inches, and enclosed two dark 
 brown curls one on each side of her face. She also wore black 
 lace mittens, and a white lace shawl pinned by a brooch con- 
 taining a miniature. Altogether her appearance was striking and 
 almost imposing. She was essentially a survival of the antique. 
 
 She was conducted to her couch from her adjoining bedroom 
 by two attendants, Martha and Mary. Martha was about 
 eighty, and quite ten years her senior. She had nursed her as 
 a child, and lived with her ever since, until she had become a 
 round-shouldered, cadaverous old woman, decorated with a 
 brown hair front, which was held on by a narrow piece of 
 ribbon velvet, and surmounted by an enormous white cap with 
 frills. She wore, also, a little red shawl, and a print dress of 
 sombre pattern and scanty skirts. She shook with a sort of 
 palsy ; but the sense of physical weakness, engendered by the 
 constant jerking of her head, was wholly dissipated by a 
 remarkably keen glance, and a very severe cast of countenance 
 that indicated suspicion. Her companion, Mary, was her niece, 
 and being not more than fifty'two, and only a score of years 
 in Miss Winscomb's service, she was not felt to be altogether 
 trustworthy. Her duties ended as soon as Miss Winscomb was 
 safely placed on her couch, and Martha's special duty began. 
 
 "You're quite well this morning, miss, I hope?" said 
 Martha, arranging a sofa blanket over Miss Winscomb's feet. 
 
 " Perfectly well, Martha, thank you." 
 
 Martha gave her a sharp look, as if she doubted her, then 
 shambled across the room to a cupboard, from which she 
 brought a smelling bottle, two pairs of spectacles, a handbell, a 
 Bible, a Prayer Book, a watch in its stand, a Moore's 
 Almanack, a peerage, and the last copy of Bell's Weekly
 
 28 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Messenger. Having placed these on the table on Miss 
 Winscomb's right hand, Martha rested with her hands on 
 the table, and made a searching examination of Miss 
 Winscomb's countenance, shaking her head with all the more 
 violence since she kept her eyes fixed upon her. 
 
 " Well, Martha ? " said Miss Winscomb. 
 
 " You're nicely now, Miss ? " 
 
 " Very much so, Martha, thank you." 
 
 " Well, I may go then ? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you, Martha." 
 
 And Martha shambled away, having gone through the 
 morning formula that had been the rule for at least twenty 
 years, almost without variation. Service was life to Martha, 
 and though there was not much of it left to her, imagination 
 made a great deal of it and she conscientiously felt that but for 
 her watchfulness Miss Winscomb would have been dead and 
 buried years before. 
 
 There was a ring at the bell as she opened the door, an 
 unusual occurrence that required special vigilance. 
 
 " A ring, Miss," she said, in her hollow voice, " I must see 
 what it is." 
 
 "I see, Martha," said Miss Winscomb, who had a looking- 
 glass which commanded the front door. " It's Mrs. Foyle and 
 Isabel, I do declare. How delightful ! " 
 
 " You won't see them, will you, Miss ? " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure I will." 
 
 " You're sure you're quite strong enough? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " I must tell Miss Isabel not to stay long." 
 
 " I'll see to that, Martha." 
 
 "It's morning now, and you must think of nine to-night," 
 said Martha, leaning on a chair at Miss Winscomb's back as 
 she spoke. She shook very much and looked terribly fierce ; 
 and when Miss Winscomb said : " Very well, Martha," she 
 shook the more, and then shambled out of the room. 
 
 The lower floor was a marked contrast to Miss Winscomb's. 
 The furniture was modern and luxurious. Easy chairs of 
 every variety were placed about the drawing-room inviting 
 repose. Seats for two were fitted to the windows, and low 
 couches with yielding cushions were arranged in shady nooks
 
 A THREAD OF LIFE. 
 
 29 
 
 for rest or conference. The curtains, the decorations, and the 
 ornaments were of the Oriental type ; the whole aspect of the 
 place was restful, and, having regard to the exterior panorama, 
 admirably adapted to dissipate sombre thoughts. 
 
 Within an hour of her arrival Mrs. Foyle was seated at the 
 window watching the sea and the pier and the people who 
 loved to dress five times a day and show themselves to one 
 another, and she felt quite at rest. Isabel was writing a letter. 
 She had come to the conclusion that the brief interview 
 between hef and David Thresher needed expanding into a 
 plain declaration. A suspicion had arisen in her mind that 
 her action had been a trifle hasty, and the bare possibility that 
 she could have been wrong, or that she might be thought to 
 be wrong, incited her to prove that she was incontestibly right. 
 She had no thought of retracting only of justification ; so 
 she wrote to David Thresher expounding the position, setting 
 forth the fact that she meant what she had said, and could 
 accept from him nothing but absolute surrender. It was a 
 cold letter, without a syllable suggestive of pleading. With 
 passionate iteration she wrote : 
 
 " The man who marries me must be wholly mine. There 
 must not be a single crook or crank in his mind or heart or 
 soul, that he is not ready and anxious to lay before me. I care 
 
 not if it be crooked. I 
 could forgive anything, 
 even crime ; but I will not 
 tolerate concealment. The 
 hypocrisy of affection is 
 the blackest curse that 
 ever blighted human life." 
 There was a light tap 
 at the door as she wrote 
 this, and Martha appeared. 
 "My dooty, miss," she 
 said, with her head waving 
 about, " and mistress sends 
 her compliments, and 
 would be glad to see you, if convenient, at any time." 
 
 This was the official message, and it was followed by a 
 personal rejoinder that mistress was not strong, that she took
 
 30 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 a cup of tea at four o'clock, and that she hoped Miss Foyle 
 would be good enough to remember not to tire her ; all of 
 which was delivered with great earnestness of purpose, and 
 much physical contortion, holding on by the door. 
 
 The message gave a fresh turn to Isabel's thoughts. A 
 chat with Miss Winscomb was always pleasant, and the mere 
 prospect of it was cheering. She put the letter aside unfinished, 
 and resolved to go at once. 
 
 "Ah! my dear," exclaimed Miss Winscomb. "It's a fine 
 thing to be young and strong, and a very fine thing indeed to 
 have the world before you, for it's a grand and beautiful world 
 for those who know how to enjoy it." 
 
 All this was said in a high key, with a sort of frolicsome air 
 that filled Martha with alarm, which faithfully reflected itself 
 in her gruesome countenance as she left the room. 
 
 " It's delightful to hear you say that," said Isabel, with a 
 smile, "because " 
 
 " Because what ? " 
 
 " Well, because you ought to know, having had experience, 
 and because one doesn't always think so at least, I don't." 
 
 " Ah ! my dear, that's because you're too serious. Believe 
 me, my dear, you should never be serious if you can help it. 
 I never am, not even when I've got the rheumatism, and I'm 
 seventy-two." 
 
 " Have you never been serious ? " 
 
 " Never, my dear ; but then you know I was 
 a great flirt, and enjoyed myself amazingly. 
 I was never hit but once, and that was with 
 cousin Percy. A handsome man was cousin 
 Percy. There's an ivory miniature of him 
 on the wall." 
 
 The portrait represented a man of the old 
 school high collar, and black satin stock, but 
 with a profusion of curly, brown hair. 
 
 " The very image of the Duke of York, my 
 dear. He was hand and glove with the Duke. He lent the 
 Duke money, you know, but I never heard that he got it back." 
 
 " Perhaps he never expected it." 
 
 " Very likely not, but," added the old lady with dignity, 
 " we always considered it a great mark of the Duke's esteem of
 
 A THREAD OF LIFE. 31 
 
 cousin Percy, that he should put himself under an obligation 
 to him." 
 
 There was a pause ; and then the old lady added with a sigh : 
 
 " Ah me, I should have married cousin Percy, but he broke 
 his neck hunting." 
 
 " That was very sad," said Isabel. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, but it made all the rest more charming by 
 contrast." 
 
 " Then tell me, Miss Winscomb, do you feel you are happier 
 for not having married." 
 
 " That, my dear, is what I cannot tell, because I don't know. 
 I have never' been able to make up my mind ; and besides, I 
 could never think of marrying anyone but cousin Percy. I 
 never liked men, except to tease them and make fools of them, 
 which I could do, you know my dear, very easily. I always 
 thought men very foolish and very insincere." 
 
 " So do I, insincere," said Isabel, with stern decision. 
 
 Miss Winscomb lifted up her mittened hands, and exclaimed : 
 
 " Oh ! my dear, you're very serious far too serious for 
 happiness in any circumstances." 
 
 " Well, dear Miss Winscomb, I am serious because the world 
 is not as bright to all of us as it has been to you." 
 
 " It's as bright as you will let it be ; but if you scratch and 
 bite it, it will scratch and bite back. I've smiled on it, and 
 been pleasant with it, and it has smiled back to me." 
 
 " Then you must have had cheerful people about you." 
 
 " Oh, yes, always cheerful ; that's essential." 
 
 " But suppose you see wrong and injustice being done, would 
 you not fight it ? " 
 
 " Dear me ! no, my dear : I should get away from it as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 " But suppose the evil is among those of your own household 
 what then? " 
 
 " That, I must admit, would be a serious difficulty ; but I 
 should have ordered them to behave, and they would have 
 obeyed me." 
 
 Miss Winscomb said this with an airy confidence and a 
 coquettish shake of the head that inspired belief. Then she 
 added : 
 
 "You, my dear, could do the same,"
 
 32 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Isabel smiled incredulously, rose up and walked to and fro. 
 
 " We can do a great deal with those whom we choose to work 
 upon," said she, " but we cannot change a person's nature. 
 We can mould clay, but it must be clay, not granite rock." 
 
 " Ah," said Miss Winscomb whimsically, regarding the 
 stately form, the noble head, and flashing eye of her visitor. 
 " You don't know your strength my dear. If you only had 
 the will you could melt 'em with your eyes alone, even if they 
 were adamant. Yes, yes," she said, and nodded her head 
 with perfect self composure. 
 
 There was, however, a difficulty in the way of Isabel's com- 
 prehending and reciprocating the old lady's view of her future. 
 Isabel had a set of hard facts to deal with, and, whether she 
 pleased or not, she was driven by her imperious nature to 
 deal with them. She had come by a long process of intro- 
 spection to feel angry with the circumstances in which she 
 found herself; and although she possessed all the qualification 
 for dangerous flirtation, she resisted the disposition, and seldom 
 went beyond natural gaiety. Mere flirtation did not gratify 
 her. The reduction of any number of admirers to a condition 
 of hopeless slavery merely for amusement will not satisfy a 
 reasonable ambition, which must have some definite and more 
 enduring object in view. The old lady's panegyric was, 
 therefore, acceptable to Isabel only in a modified degree. It 
 pleased but did not satisfy her. 
 
 A sharp rap at the door was followed by the appearance 
 of Martha, who gyrated to the chair behind Miss Winscomb, 
 and, when firmly established, glared at Isabel, as she repeated 
 the daily formula : 
 
 "Are you ready for your beef tea, ma'am? It's time you had it." 
 
 " In five minutes, Martha." 
 
 " I hope you're not tiring yourself," was the response, with 
 another more fierce glare at Isabel. 
 
 "No, Martha." 
 
 " Think of nine o'clock," she added with determination, and 
 shook herself out. 
 
 The spectacle was a strange one. For nearly seventy years 
 had the elder woman fought against the ills of life that 
 threatened the one precious thread of her peculiar care, 
 and now she resented with bitterness any interposition that
 
 A THREAD OF LIFE. 
 
 33 
 
 she feared might prevent fruition. East winds and damp, 
 dangerous excursions, and the terrors associated with the ball- 
 
 room, had all been in turn the occasion of solicitude. Though 
 impaired and threatened the life still held on, and every hour 
 was fought for and every enemy was fought against. To the 
 extent that she had had a long interview, Isabel was an enemy, 
 and Martha, in almost vindictive accents, said, when Isabel left : 
 " I don't like her looks, Miss Foyle. She's flushed, and it's 
 a bad sign. We shall have trouble."
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 JOSHUA COPE AS PROVIDENCE. 
 
 MR. CRAWLEY FOYLE was in trouble. His partner had him 
 in his grip ; and it was part of the nature of Cope never to let 
 go. Cope used to tell him that he was a sort of Providence to 
 him, kept him within bounds, showed him when he had gone 
 far enough, now and then lifted him out of the quagmire in 
 which his imprudence had landed him, and sometimes let him 
 flounder out by himself into a state of moral rectitude. If he 
 thought Providence was not smart enough in keeping his partner 
 straight he was not above lending a hand, and occasionally he 
 would scheme out a pitfall of his own, or add a little difficulty 
 by way of finish to the trials that naturally developed from 
 Crawley Foyle's imprudence. But whatever the preliminary 
 stages of his partner's troubles the conclusion was always the 
 same. Whenever Ruin stared Crawley Foyle in the face, 
 Joshua Cope was always behind Ruin, grinning complacently 
 with his hands in his pockets, quite able to relieve his partner, 
 but not always willing to do so, except at a price. 
 
 These situations satisfied Cope's sense of humour. Schrieber 
 and Company was no pleasure to him, unless Mr. Crawley 
 Foyle, M.P,, was heavily overdrawn on his partnership 
 account, in terror for his seat in the House of Commons, 
 and in mortal fear of the destruction of his social position 
 and the dissipation of his social aspirations. Then he would 
 grin and drink rum and smoke strong cigars all day long, 
 and make horrible faces with his scar all red and blue- a 
 sort of inexorable Providence, bent on stern justice and the 
 reform of its victim. 
 
 Providence had been pressing hard on Mr. Crawley Foyle 
 for about a week, and the effect on him was peculiar. He 
 was louder in the voice, more thorough going in his denuncia- 
 tion of political opponents, reviled the Government, abused 
 his own whips, knew the Country was going to the dogs, swore 
 the cooks of the earth were in league to poison him, and 
 generally behaved in an unreasonably boisterous and boastful 
 manner. He had great schemes on foot for regenerating the
 
 JOSHUA COPE AS PROVIDENCE. 35 
 
 commercial decrepitude 01 the country, talked of millions with 
 the familiarity of a man who had them, and in a way. was 
 excellent company for members, who were pledged to remain 
 about the House for divisions and looked for diversion elsewhere 
 than in the House itself. 
 
 But when Mr. Crawley Foyle found himself alone with 
 Providence in his smoking room he became a miserable shift- 
 less creature, scarcely knowing which way to look or where to 
 put himself a sort of shrivelled thing, for although he made a 
 pretence every now and then of putting on his denunciatory 
 tone he felt it was a useless performance, and he was within an 
 ace of acknowledging to himself that he was an impostor. He 
 did not actually do so, but took solace in the reflection that the 
 British public was very idiotic not to see the millions as clearly 
 as he did. Still Providence was not taken in, and merely 
 grinned through the tobacco smoke, said nothing, and 
 waited. 
 
 It was about a week after Cope had insisted upon David 
 Thresher being paid out immediately that Mr. Foyle had a 
 visit from a stranger, a pallid man with short red hair, a long 
 black coat and a white necktie. It was Samuel Shorter, the 
 confidential and familiar instrument of Cope, in the habili- 
 ments of a preacher, and he assured Mr. Foyle that he came to 
 him as a Christian. He sought him at the House of Com- 
 mons about five o'clock one afternoon and sent a note to him 
 to bring him out. The note was a highly finished production. 
 It was designed to excite the greatest possible concern in the 
 mind of the recipient coupled with appreciation of the benevo- 
 lence of the writer. It said : 
 
 "Dear Sir, I approach you from a sense of duty. 
 Although not personally acquainted with you I have in the 
 course of my ministrations become acquainted with facts of the 
 most alarming character for your peace of mind, and your 
 domestic reputation. I refer to an act of your son's no doubt 
 concealed from you, but now unfortunately on the eve of being 
 bruited on the house tops. I await you in the lobby, and am, 
 " Believe me, 
 
 " Your devoted friend in Christ, 
 
 " SAMUEL SHORTER/' 
 D 2
 
 36 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 As a politician, Crawley Foyle was a supporter of the great 
 Mr. Hayter, leader of the Levellers, the idol of professional 
 patriots, and the most popular prime minister the country had 
 ever been blessed with. He had a majority of 150 over the 
 Naturals in the House of Commons, and Foyle was one of his 
 most advanced supporters. 
 
 Foyle was a pronounced Leveller. He had often declared 
 that he would never rest until everybody had been levelled up 
 to everybody else. He would suffer no exceptions, save only 
 that he felt his genius and devotion to the country's weal made 
 it reasonable and proper that he should be levelled up over 
 everybody except Mr. Hayter. He drew the line at the Bight 
 Hon. George Eustace Hayter, because he did not see how the 
 levelling process was to be carried on without his being at the 
 head of everybody else. In fact it was generally admitted by 
 the entire body of Levellers inside and outside the House of 
 Commons that the Bight Hon. George was head and shoulders 
 .above everybody else on the face of the Globe, and therefore it 
 was ridiculous for anybody to think of being levelled up to him. 
 Indeed as long as he kept on levelling up his friends and 
 levelling down his opponents every patriot applauded, and 
 only Naturals reviled. 
 
 Foyle was not only a supporter of Mr. Hayter, he made 
 politics conserve his business interests ; and it chanced at the 
 time he received Shorter's note he was engaged in assisting a 
 project that was characterised by all the appearances of 
 disinterested philanthropy, and at the same time remotely 
 associated with the export of grey shirting. He was in fact 
 waiting his turn in the House to bring on an amendment to 
 Supply in the interest of the Emir of Kiboo whose domestic 
 troubles seriously hampered Mr. Foyle's commerce. 
 
 All thejournals interested in distressed nationalities expressed 
 great concern next morning that he had not brought it on ; and 
 one, which prided itself on being " advanced," announced that 
 it " had reason to believe Mr. Crawley Foyle had been seduced 
 by a malignant minister from the cause of freedom, and had 
 yoked himself to the car of tyranny." 
 
 Shorter thought of demanding an apology when he saw the 
 statement, and could with difficulty be persuaded that the 
 reference was to the Secretary of State and not to him. His
 
 JOSHUA COPE AS PEOVIDENCE. 
 
 37 
 
 grief at the situation was poignant when he reflected that if 
 he could only make out a libel it would be worth 5,000 to 
 him ; but he had always been unfortunate, and this was only 
 one more blow to a crushed worm. 
 
 Crawley Foyle burst out into the lobby like an avalanche, 
 
 nearly overturned a peer and three county members in con- 
 versation with a Parliamentary Agent, and stood out all fume
 
 38 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 and fury with the letter in his hand, waiting to be approached 
 by the writer. 
 
 Shorter advanced, hat in hand. He was much impressed 
 with the company in which he found himself, but kept his 
 mind fixed on the purpose of his visit. 
 
 " I trust, Sir," he said, " you will excuse my intrusion." 
 
 " Excuse you, my dear Sir I A thousand thanks ! Come 
 this way." 
 
 He led him in the direction of the library, then past the 
 tea-room, down stairs to the basement, and out on to the 
 terrace, a safe place to avoid intrusion at five in the afternoon. 
 
 "Now, Sir, what is it? Tell me all everything. Keep 
 nothing back." 
 
 Shorter seated himself beside the member, and clasping his 
 hands upon his umbrella, he said : 
 
 " I was speaking with a friend ot mine, Sir, who is under 
 obligations to me, and he sometimes asks my advice." 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 " Well, Sir, he is a bill discounter, and he has in his hands a 
 bill of your firm's Schrieber & Co., for 2,000, accepted by 
 the hand of your son." 
 
 "Good God!" exclaimed Mr. Crawley Foyle, with every 
 symptom of consternation, while Shorter regarded him
 
 JOSHUA COPE AS PROVIDENCE. 39 
 
 passively, still resting his hands on his umbrella, and noting in 
 his cautious way the effect of his words. 
 
 " But that is not all," said he, warming to his work. 
 " My friend is concerned for you, because he believes this 
 is not a bill of your firm's at all, but a means your son has had 
 recourse to to raise funds for private purposes." 
 
 "How does he dare surmise that?" asked Mr. Crawley 
 Foyle roused to indignation. 
 
 Shorter cringed, but recovering said : "Because on enquiry 
 he finds it is not the custom of your firm to give bills." And 
 then he added with a meaning look that should have alarmed 
 the member to a sense of special danger: "He says it's 
 embezzlement, not forgery." 
 
 " Ten thousand furies seize him," exclaimed the member. 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " Excuse me," said the messenger of peace, shrinking further 
 away from his questioner, " I have all this in confidence, and 
 unless you permit me to respect confidences I have nothing 
 more to do or say. I can give no names, but the exact 
 amount of the bill is two thousand, two hundred and 
 seventy-five pounds ten." 
 
 " Oh," groaned the prop of ministers and the hope of 
 the Emir of Kiboo, "the bitter dregs of the cup of misery 
 are mine ! " Then turning on the patient instrument beside 
 him, he exclaimed : " It's a lie, a foul lie. You know it's 
 a lie." 
 
 "No, no," gasped Shorter retreating. "The very simple 
 truth ; but I have no wish to say another word. I've been a 
 messenger of ill, but my motive is good, believe me, Sir, I wish 
 you no ill." 
 
 The member groaned again. " When's the bill due ? " 
 
 " This day week." 
 
 " Oh Lord ! You can get possession of this bill before it's 
 presented ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, sir ; that is I can get my friend to bring it or send it 
 to you." 
 
 " Then give me your address. I'll write to you. I'm 
 not angry. I am moved, Sir, astounded, alarmed by what 
 you say. I will enquire and write to you. Accept my 
 thanks."
 
 40 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 The member had recovered his external equanimity ; he saw 
 his visitor out of the building and returned to the House to find 
 it in Committee of Supply. That he had been false to the Emir 
 of Kiboo was only one more burden upon his miserable soul, 
 and he left the House in a state of violent emotion, without 
 having once imagined that the hand of Providence was in this 
 grinding turn of the screw.
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 CRAWLEY FOYLE AS A POLITICIAN AND A FATHER. 
 
 ARTHUR FOYLE was the natural 
 result of his parentage and the cir- 
 cumstances of his childhood. Selfish 
 without ambition, handsome without 
 character, vain without self-respect, 
 he went his reckless way, the idol 
 of his mother, the enemy of his 
 father, and the scorn of his sister. 
 He was capable of anything, however 
 despicable, to secure the gratification 
 of a whim. He felt it was a part of 
 the economy of nature that he should 
 have what he wanted. His mother 
 had as good as taught him to think so by the satisfaction of 
 every wish of his childhood, and his sole conception of his father 
 was that of a being to be avoided. He was younger than 
 Isabel, and being naturally cruel and vindictive, he excited 
 her aversion by tormenting her, and destroyed her sympathy 
 by the exactions he made upon their mother's patience. Before 
 he was twenty, he set up an establishment of his own, in a 
 street off Piccadilly, and as soon as he was taken into partner- 
 ship by Schrieber & Co., he seldom visited his mother, and 
 never even her unless he wanted money. 
 
 Still, women thought him handsome and men also, when 
 the devil hid behind his bright blue eyes and careless 
 laugh, and this was when he had what he wanted and all 
 things went to his liking. He was a splendid fellow when 
 his bookmaker had the worst of it and his purse was full, 
 when brandy and soda and cigarettes followed each other in 
 harmonious succession, and none of the parasites who battened 
 on him smiled on other lords. But when things were 
 otherwise, his mouth went down at the corners and a film 
 came over his eyes. Every line in his face was set in callous 
 cruelty, and at such times murder would have been an act of 
 kind with him.
 
 42 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 It was this ill-conditioned result of weakness, neglect and 
 ambition that Crawley Foyle was bent on saving, not that he 
 loved his son, but because he loved himself. It would never 
 do for Schrieber & Co. in its corporate capacity to know about 
 the accommodation bill, which ought never to have been 
 drawn. Things must be put straight, and there was no time 
 to lose. 
 
 Most indignant parents would have gone to the originators 
 of the crucial trouble, but Mr. Foyle knew better. His 
 talented son was enjoying an excellent dinner in company 
 with two elegant examples of modern youth at the Hotel 
 Bristol. They were all made up after the same pattern, with 
 
 their hair cut very short and parted in the middle, with small 
 moustaches very much waxed, an inch and a half of whisker, 
 and amazingly high collars, that forbade stooping or laughter. 
 They were exquisites of the most approved type, wonderful to 
 behold and thoroughly well satisfied with themselves. They 
 contemplated engaging in that miserable travesty of pleasure, a 
 visit to the Carara a popular music hall and thereafter taking 
 supper at 11.30 with a trio of the ballet. Mr. Foyle, senior, 
 knew there was nothing to be done with a son whose soul's 
 ambition was satisfied only with Burlesque, and to whom the 
 grimy precincts of a stage-door were the very vestibule of 
 Heaven.
 
 4 
 
 CRAWLEY FOYLE AS A POLITICIAN AND A FATHER. 43 
 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle, M.P., came to a desperate resolution. 
 He left the Eight Hon. Mr. Hayter and the Emir of Kiboo 
 both in the lurch, broke through the guard of whips in the 
 lobby, and set out for the first convenient train to Brighton. 
 He went via the Reform Club, where he fortified himself with a 
 thick point steak, underdone, a mealy potato, and a pint of old 
 port. This was Mr. Foyle's invariable recipe for strengthening 
 his physical powers when about to wrestle with an antagonist 
 or revive an exhausted frame. It meant strength and vitality 
 to him ; yet it was simple and easily digested. Mr. Foyle 
 went about the steak methodically. The undertaking he was 
 upon was serious, and he felt the commanding necessity of 
 unusual strength. He was less an impostor to himself on 
 occasions of this' sort than at any other time. Indeed, in 
 proportion to the magnitude of his undertaking, he became 
 honest in his musings; but it was then also his cunning 
 predominated, and thus he became a more dangerous impostor 
 to others. 
 
 He gave precise instructions about that steak, had it brought 
 up to him before being cooked, acknowledged it to be perfection, 
 sent a supplementary message to the cook to grill it as for 
 himself, for he knew his taste, and then retired into a corner 
 to muse and scheme. 
 
 This did not surprise the club servants. An incident of the 
 kind had occurred before, and the head waiter associated the 
 peculiarity on this occasion with the lapsed motion about the 
 Emir of Kiboo. When Mr. Foyle dined before the dinner 
 hour off a rurnp steak, there was something in the wind. 
 That was an accepted tradition of the Reform Club ; and 
 although eccentric, Mr. Foyle's demands were respected, and 
 even commanded precedence. 
 
 Mr. Foyle ate the steak in solemn silence not hurriedly, but 
 with steady persistence, revelled in the mealy potatoes, a piece 
 of stale bread with some black crisp crust on it, began on the 
 port wine when half through, and finished solemnly with one 
 full glass. No cheese, no dessert, no anything to disturb 
 the invigorating force of this powerful tonic for a strong 
 man. 
 
 He left the club with satisfied composure, took the hansom 
 cab that always stands at the door of the Reform, and drove to
 
 44 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 a telegraph office. The message was for his daughter, and 
 ran: 
 
 " Meet me railway station nine o'clock. Do not tell anyone 
 I am coming." 
 
 Then he went to the train, had a carriage to himself, and 
 turned the whole matter over in his mind as he went down, 
 settled exactly what lies he would tell, and where the emotion 
 should come in. By the time he arrived he had worked him- 
 selved into a somewhat dishevelled condition, and was 
 conscious that his eye was a little wild and the left-hand 
 corner of his mouth a little bit constrained. Crawley Foyle 
 was a master of facial expression, and seldom overdid it. He 
 was, however, anxious on this occasion, for he had to perform 
 before an unusually critical audience. 
 
 Isabel was standing on the platform as the train drew up. 
 Her father saw her from behind the curtains, and he was slow 
 to alight. When Isabel approached him as he stumbled 
 heavily from the carriage she thought him aged and certainly 
 much disturbed. In an anxious hollow voice he said : 
 
 " Thanks, Isabel, you haven't told your mother? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Where is she?" 
 
 " She was tired, and I persuaded her to go to bed an hour 
 ago." 
 
 " All," said her father, with a heavy sigh, " then we can go 
 home." 
 
 She felt his arm tremble as they walked to the brougham 
 outside ; and her sympathy rather than her apprehension was 
 aroused. 
 
 They rode home in silence, broken only by an occasional 
 sigh from the devoted husband. On reaching the house, Foyle 
 exhibited still greater emotion, walked with trepidation to 
 the drawing-room, and sank into a chair with every sign of 
 exhaustion. A cynic might have remarked that the chair was 
 comfortable, but Isabel was impressed only with his dejected 
 appearance and hastened to sit besides him in the hope that 
 he would speak. 
 
 He took her by the hand, and with a ghastly look he 
 whispered hoarsely : 
 
 "Isabel, my dear, we are ruined ruined past redemption."
 
 CEAWLEY FOYLE AS A POLITICIAN AND A FATHEE. 45 
 
 She understood now why her mother was not to know, and 
 for the first time for years she felt gratified at an action of her 
 father's. His forethought for her mother touched her, and she 
 answered, 
 
 " Well, perhaps we can bear it. Why not ? " 
 
 "Ah, why not?" exclaimed Foyle with a touch of 
 melodrama, and roused from his prostration, he added, "because 
 our ruin is associated with family disgrace. Your brother 
 Arthur, nay not your brother, that pariah, outcast, villain, 
 dog who calls me father, has done it." 
 
 "How?" she asked. 
 
 " Forgery, embezzlement, dissipation, infamy," he groaned 
 in bitterness. 
 
 The room was npt well lighted, but the single lamp shone full 
 on Isabel's face and disclosed a menacing frown upon her brow. 
 Observing the effect of his eloquence, her father exclaimed : 
 
 "Oh, I cannot bear it," and, sobbing, he went on, " all my 
 hopes and ambitions shattered, all your future blighted, all 
 your mother's tenderness requited by an act of infamy. And 
 now we have nothing but a black and shameful future to look 
 forward to." 
 
 He sank back in his chair, and groaned again and again ; 
 and with each groan he seemed to shrink within himself, all 
 huddled up, and shapeless, with his hands over his face, the 
 very picture of a broken-hearted man. 
 
 Still, it must be admitted that the chair was comfortable. 
 There was not a hard knob about it. It was upholstered in 
 every part, a perfect miracle of soft places and nestling springs. 
 And Mr. Crawley Foyle had long before discovered that 
 although the hands might cover the face, much could be seen 
 by a sharp eye through the chinks between the fingers, and no 
 one aught the wiser save the owner of the shielded face. 
 
 Isabel rose and paced the room with a firm step and growing 
 resolution in her manner. Presently she asked : 
 
 "What is it he has done? Tell me plainly." 
 
 "He has raised large sums," said Foyle feebly, "on the 
 name of the firm, and spent the money in dissipation. In a 
 few days my dear friend Cope the best friend I have in the 
 world will discover it, and then all will be lost to us." 
 
 "What will Mr. Cope do ?" asked Isabel.
 
 46 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " What can he do ? I owe him large sums already. He 
 cannot go on with people who rob him." 
 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle's voice quivered with emotion, as he 
 continued : 
 
 " Beside, I should not have the spirit to face him. Think 
 of the dishonour. Happily, I shall be able to tell him myself. 
 He will not hear of Arthur's crime first from another." 
 
 These sublime sentiments were uttered in low tones, 
 exhibiting intense feeling, and every syllable sank into Isabel's 
 heart. A noble ambition was aroused within her, but the 
 inspiration was barren, for as yet no path was open to her. 
 Still, she felt more and more grateful that her mother was 
 as yet spared the trial that appeared to be in store for them, 
 and she pursued her inquiries in hopes of at least prevention 
 from exposure. 
 
 " Do you not think," said she, " that Mr. Cope, who has 
 been your friend hitherto, will still be so, and assist you in 
 the circumstances?" 
 
 "How can I suffer it? Oh God! how can the thought 
 be harboured?".. .This was apostrophised as if in meditation ; 
 and then followed : 
 
 " My dear, you do not understand. It needs five and fifty 
 thousand pounds this day week to enable me to meet my 
 friend Cope on fair terms. The money he has got and to spare. 
 He has perhaps ten times that and more much more : and if 
 it were for another purpose he would give it to me freely, 
 for he is generous, my dear very generous, is Cope but you 
 see the money is needed to cover a fraud, a fraud committed 
 upon him by one who has reviled and insulted him. Besides, 
 it is impossible to go to him for another reason. Oh my God ! " 
 exclaimed the victim of a son's unfaithfulness, " it'll kill me ! " 
 
 " Tell me that other reason," demanded Isabel. 
 
 He looked at her ; his hair dishevelled, his face blanched, his 
 mouth half open and horror depicted in every lineament. He 
 slowly shook his head and buried his face in his hands. 
 
 " Tell me," she demanded, " something must be done ; and 
 I must know all or I cannot help you. You must need my 
 help or you would not have come." 
 
 " No, no, I did not I came because I saw no help none 
 anywhere," he gasped.
 
 CRAWLEY FOYLE AS A POLITICIAN AND A FATHER. 
 
 47 
 
 He began to be alarmed. The situation had become 
 acute and his excitement almost genuine. 
 
 " What is this other reason ? " she asked again. 
 
 " I refrain from telling you, my dear," he answered, " only 
 because I fear you would sacrifice yourself for us. It is better 
 the temptation should be removed." 
 
 A smile broke over Isabel's face, she thought for the moment 
 that the allusion was to David Thresher. She fancied that his 
 secret concern on the night of the dinner party had arisen from 
 
 this unfortunate incident. She imagined she saw the removal of 
 her own despondency and the suppression of her brother's 
 crime by the same means. She almost laughed as she said : 
 " Tell me, father, and let us see what the temptation is like." 
 He shook his head, and then, looking her full in the face, he 
 said, with an effort and with measured tones : 
 
 " Cope has sought you in marriage, and I have repulsed him 
 now do you understand ? "
 
 48 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Isabel did indeed understand ; and she was struck dumb. 
 
 " Now am I right ? " asked her father. " Is it not impossible 
 to approach him ? Could I think of purchasing a continuance 
 of luxury and wealth and position in the political arena at the 
 expense of your bright future ? No," he continued, with 
 melodrama in the ascendant : " I'll be no party to so terrible a 
 sacrifice." He rose as he went on, and began to pace the 
 room. " I'll be no party to the blighting of a young life's hope. 
 If it were not for your mother," he added, with emphasis, " I'd 
 let the scoundrel go, disown him and begin life afresh." There 
 was a fine dash of self-confidence in this declaration, but there 
 he stopped, and with a long drawn sigh exclaimed : 
 
 " Ah, your mother ! How I pity her ! " 
 
 There was a pause, and then Isabel asked : 
 
 " How old is Mr. Cope ? " 
 
 " Seventy-two ; it's hideous." 
 
 There was another pause, during which the Member for 
 Buckton was positively anxious. He wished he hadn't said 
 it was " hideous." 
 
 " Do you think I could do any good by seeing him ?" 
 
 " Not, unless " 
 
 The door opened and Mrs. Foyle appeared. She had risen 
 to take some medicine, and hearing her husband's voice, she 
 had put on a wrapper, and come to greet him. 
 
 " Ah, my dear," said the politician : " I wanted to get away 
 from the House, and thought a night at Brighton would do 
 me good." 
 
 Next morning Isabel's mind was made up. She went to 
 London with her father, and told him to send Mr. Cope to her 
 next day. 
 
 She said she had resolved to see whether something could 
 not be done. What that something was, she steadfastly refused 
 to say.
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 
 A CURIOUS ANTE-NUPTIAL CONTRACT. 
 
 MR. WARE, of the firm of Ware and Frost, Solicitors, Old 
 Jury, was an amiable old gentleman of short stature and few 
 words. An honourable member of his profession, whose whole 
 career had been devoted to keeping people out of the Law Courts, 
 he was pre-eminently a n;an for giving good advice ; and, strange 
 to say, most people took his advice when it was given. 
 
 Mr. Ware was never in a hurry, and usually seemed 
 absorbed in thought. He entered his office, a large, com- 
 fortable, well-carpeted room, on a certain Wednesday morning 
 with his accustomed pre-occupied air, put his umbrella in the 
 stand, hung up his hat, and wiped his downy pate with a large 
 silk pocket-handkerchief with care and deliberation. This 
 was the formula of his actions day by day, throughout the 
 year, summer and winter alike. He then walked to his table, 
 with measured tread, and sat himself down in his capacious 
 easy chair to read his letters. One after the other they were 
 read as he opened them. The envelopes, after examination, 
 he put aside, and the letters themselves he placed one above 
 the other as he read" them. There were twenty of them, and 
 the only sign given by Mr. Ware of their comparative interest 
 was a wider opening of the eyes, as he read one or two that sur- 
 prised him. Having read them all, he rose up, looked out of the 
 window meditatively, and blew his nose. He then returned to 
 his seat, went over the letters again, and divided them into two 
 sets, one of seventeen and the other of three. He then summoned 
 his clerk, gave him the seventeen with the simple direction : 
 
 " Attend to these," and then he added, " I am expecting 
 Miss Foyle at eleven ; show her in," 
 
 The clerk withdrew, and he took up one of the three 
 reserved letters to read it a second time. It was as follows : 
 " Dear Mr. Ware, 
 
 " You have met me on several occasions at my father's 
 house, and we have conversed on general subjects. I believe I 
 can trust you as a friend, and rely on you as a lawyer ; and as 
 
 E
 
 50 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 I need some assistance in rather peculiar circumstances, I 
 intend to call upon you at eleven to-morrow morning. What 
 I require to be done is quite unusual and you may be indisposed 
 to do it ; but if you decline, I presume I am right in supposing 
 that you will regard our interview as strictly confidential. 
 
 " Yours sincerely, ISABEL FOYLE." 
 
 Mr. Ware put the letter down, creased his forehead, pursed 
 up his lips, and then opened his eyes very wide. He then 
 walked slowly to the window, looked out and blew his nose. 
 Mr. Ware was obviously in a state of mental congestion. What 
 on earth could the daughter of his old friend, Crawley Foyle, 
 want with him in the shape of confidential assistance ? The 
 mystery was to be solved at eleven ; and at two minutes before 
 the hour, Isabel Foyle arrived in the Old Jewry with her maid 
 Jacobs, whom she left in the cab, and at eleven she was shown 
 
 into Mr. Ware, 
 smile. 
 
 He received her with just the glimmer of a
 
 A CURIOUS ANTE-NUPTIAL CONTRACT. 51 
 
 " You received my letter," she asked, and Mr. Ware bowed 
 as he placed a chair for her. 
 
 "You understand the last sentence," she asked, still 
 standing. 
 
 " Perfectly," said Mr. Ware, " it is the common practice." 
 
 " Yes," said Isabel, " so I should imagine ; but I want you 
 particularly to understand that you are to make no communica- 
 tion to my father of any kind without my express permission." 
 
 " Certainly," said Mr. Ware. 
 
 " Not even that I have been here." 
 
 " Quite so," said the lawyer, with a genuine smile, "You 
 may rely on me.'' 
 
 " Now I will sit down, and tell you what I want." 
 
 She had been standing during this prelude and Mr. Ware had 
 stood, too, listening attentively and admiring the handsome girl, 
 who settled with such firmness and precision the articles of war. 
 She was indeed brilliant this morning in the simplest costume 
 conceivable. A plain black silk dress, and a black close-fitting 
 jacket, with scarcely any trimming upon it, slate coloured 
 gloves and a slate coloured hat, with one deep crimson rose in 
 the front of it. 
 
 So they sat down, and the second part of the interview was 
 opened by Isabel, with equal decision. 
 
 " It is necessary that I marry Mr. Cope," she said, " against 
 my wish ; and I want you to draw up an agreement settling 
 the conditions upon which I marry, and the rules that are to 
 be observed by him towards me, after we are married ; and I 
 desire you to prepare this agreement at once, that I may 
 present it to Mr. Cope to-morrow for his signature." 
 
 Mr. Ware was somewhat startled. There was nothing 
 singular in an ante-nuptial settlement, but the turn of one or 
 two of the phrases used by his client and her decisive tone, 
 led him to conclude that the real point of the matter had yet 
 to come ; and he was right. After looking at his client 
 fixedly for an instant, he took a step, which those who knew 
 him well would regard as indicating his measure of the impor- 
 tance of the consultation. He removed his solitary eye-glass 
 and assumed his gold spectacles. Having thus armed himself, 
 he coughed slightly, and said : 
 
 " Let us proceed step by step." 
 
 E 2'
 
 52 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 And he took a sheet of foolscap paper upon which he 
 wrote : 
 
 " Isabel Foyle, spinster, to marry Cope" "Joshua, eh?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Yes." And then added, " Against her wish." 
 
 "That's it, eh?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then why do you marry against your will? " 
 
 "Not against my will, but against my wish. I do not wish 
 it, but I am resolved to do it." 
 
 "May I ask why?" 
 
 " Yes. It is necessary in the interest of my father." 
 
 Mr. "Ware gave a little grunt, and frowned at his finger nails. 
 Then he said : 
 
 " Now the conditions ; what are they? " 
 
 " First, that he pays my father 55,000." 
 
 "Fifty-five thousand pounds," said Mr. Ware, scoring it 
 down. 
 
 " Secondly, that he settles in trust, for my absolute use, a 
 sum in Consols they are quite safe, you know, Mr. Ware, 
 and easily managed sufficient to yield me ,5,000 a year, at 
 the price to-day." 
 
 Mr. Ware looked up, with an air of astonishment and admira- 
 tion ; then seemed to recall himself, and said, " Precisely," and 
 wrote it down. 
 
 " Thirdly," proceeded his client " and this is very important 
 while he may require me to live under the same roof with 
 him, we are to have separate establishments, with separate 
 servants at my option, or at his ; and you must put, in the 
 plainest language at your command, not permitting of the 
 least equivocation, that he is not to enter the apartments 
 reserved for me, on any pretext whatever, except at my express 
 invitation." 
 
 Mr. Ware again looked up. He began to feel surprised, and 
 opened his eyes very wide. 
 
 "To make it fair," said his client, "you may make that 
 provision reciprocal." 
 
 "Oh!" said Mr. Ware, and wrote it down, "anything 
 further?" 
 
 " Yes. I am to bind myself to appear in public with him,
 
 A CURIOUS ANTE-NUPTIAL CONTRACT. 53 
 
 for not more than three hours once in each week at his request, 
 in addition to attendance, with him, at Church, on Sunday, if 
 desired." 
 
 "In public, three hours each week, other than Church 
 Sunday," wrote Mr. Ware, who had ceased to be surprised, 
 and having finished, he looked up enquiringly. 
 
 "Nothing more," said his client, looking down some brief 
 memoranda, " except generally that I am to be mistress of my 
 own actions, and am to visit and be visited at my own 
 discretion." 
 
 Mr. Ware noted this general clause, and then put down his 
 pen. He looked very grave, pushed his chair a little way 
 back, and frowned at his finger nails. Isabel waited ; she did 
 not appear to be anxious, but she was very earnest and 
 determined with her large eyes fixed steadfastly on the 
 face of the little lawyer. Presently he looked up and 
 said: 
 
 " Do you wish my opinion on this proposed agreement? " 
 
 " Yes, please." 
 
 " Then it is my duty to inform you, Miss Foyle, that it 
 would not hold good." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because its conditions are repugnant to the purposes of 
 marriage ; because its conditions, if observed, would frustrate 
 the object of marriage." 
 
 " But I want to frustrate it," said Isabel, with vehemence. 
 
 "Precisely, but assuming it signed, your husband could act, 
 and I believe, would act, as if these domestic conditions were 
 non-existent. Do you understand me ? " 
 
 " Quite ; but I am not afraid of being unable to enforce 
 them. The question I want you to answer is : Can these con- 
 ditions be put into legal shape? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ; but what we have to consider is the question as 
 to the utility of putting into legal shape conditions that are 
 inconsistent with the law of the land." 
 
 " That gives me no concern," said Isabel, with much satis- 
 faction. " I only want the document signed." 
 
 Mr. Ware became still more grave ; he clasped the arms of 
 his chair, and frowned at the notes he had made for a minute 
 or two, and then said :
 
 54 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " There is something more I should say, and I presume you 
 would like me to speak frankly and quite openly, as if you 
 were my daughter, say. I have daughters five of them," 
 and Mr. Ware sighed. 
 
 " Do please speak quite plainly to me, and say all you can 
 think of. I should like it so much better than any reserve." 
 
 Isabel spoke with much earnestness, but throughout she 
 preserved a light and cheerful manner. She exhibited no 
 trace of grief, or regret, or fear. She had made up her mind 
 to act on a plan that she felt to be the best, and she was 
 determined to carry it through. She negotiated with Mr. 
 Ware as if she were representing a third person, so free was 
 she from anything approaching to emotion. Mr. Ware 
 remarked this, and could not reconcile it with the extra- 
 ordinary proposals she made, and he felt greatly perplexed. 
 Presently he turned his chair slightly round, and after a little 
 cough said : 
 
 " Miss Foyle, let us begin at the beginning." 
 
 Isabel nodded a dainty little nod, as much as to say, " That's 
 best," and Mr. Ware proceeded. 
 
 " You have no affection for Mr. Cope ? " 
 
 " How can you ask, Mr. Ware ? Have you seen him ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the lawyer quietly, " but we must begin at the 
 beginning." 
 
 "Oh! that reminds me. You begin your deeds with a 
 ' Whereas ' don't you ? Then you must begin this with 
 ' Whereas, Mr. Cope and I, having agreed to go through the 
 ceremony of marriage, and whereas I have no sort of affection 
 for my intended husband, and never expect to have anything 
 but aversion to him, it is agreed,' you know, just as you have 
 put down." 
 
 Mr. Ware's countenance assumed a still more perplexed air. 
 He shook his head and sighed, and wondered how he could get 
 all these preposterous proposals wrapped up in decent legal 
 formula, so as to disguise their horrible import. He would 
 have preferred to decline the work on the ground that a lawyer 
 with a reputation could not consent to draw up an illegal 
 deed ; but while he feared that he might ultimately have so to 
 determine, he resolved to try his utmost to serve his charming 
 client. He accordingly proceeded :
 
 A CUEIOUS ANTE-NUPTIAL CONTRACT. 55 
 
 "Well, now, let us consider," he said, "you observe that 
 Mr. Cope is to agree to pay 55,000 and a sum to yield 5,000 
 a year. That will make a total of over 200,000." 
 
 Isabel nodded assent. 
 
 " But do you observe, my dear young friend, that you propose 
 there a very brutal sale and barter of yourself in marriage for 
 so much hard cash ? " 
 
 "Yes, that is quite clear." 
 
 "And is it not a very unworthy and dishonouring trans- 
 action," added Mr. Ware, with warmth. 
 
 "Very much so." 
 
 " Then why describe it in such a bold manner ? " 
 
 "Because I want its boldness and brutality to appear," she 
 answered with rising passion. " Because I want it on record, 
 signed by his own hand, that he entered into this arrangement 
 with his eyes open, and that if he does not see it is dishonour- 
 able, that is his fault." 
 
 " But what of you ? Will it not be dishonourable to 
 you?" 
 
 " No," she answered. " He will know that I am consenting 
 from a cause that is honourable to me, because it is self- 
 sacrificing." 
 
 " Does he not know already ? " 
 
 " No, he has not yet asked me, and when he does at eleven 
 to-morrow, I shall give him this deed as my answer." 
 
 " Now, I have one more thing to say : you say you propose 
 to do this injury to yourself in the interest of your father. I 
 do not know the circumstances, but I must say to you, 
 that the motive is insufficient. I can conceive of no circum- 
 stances that would justify such a sacrifice ; and I am your 
 father's solicitor." 
 
 Mr. Ware looked at his client, almost sternly, as he said 
 this, but she answered with decision : 
 
 "I quite agree with you. The circumstances which make 
 this step necessary, are not known to you, and cannot be 
 made known. If you knew them you would agree that the 
 motive was sufficient." 
 
 Mr. Ware listened with increased amazement, and gave up 
 the riddle, but he added : 
 
 "I will not intrude my advice upon you, nor urge you to
 
 56 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 disclose matters you prefer to keep to yourself; but I cannot 
 resist repeating that, in my opinion, nothing can justify the 
 sacrifice you propose." 
 
 " I am much obliged, Mr. Ware, for your kindness and con- 
 sideration ; but the sacrifice is not so very great. I feel that 
 it means possibly ten years of my life ; and that, Mr. Ware, 
 I can afford to give."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SOME REMARKABLY PLAIN SPEAKING. 
 
 SOME people pride themselves on always speaking their 
 mind, which in practice means that they are proud of an 
 inclination to make themselves very disagreeable. In the case 
 of Joshua Cope the disposition had been steadily cultivated 
 upon a foundation of financial prosperity, and resulted in an 
 absolute disregard of everybody else's feelings. It is probable 
 that a good deal of the courtesy one meets with in our every- 
 day world is nothing more nor less than the language of 
 conciliation. In some cases it may be regarded almost as 
 the language of fear ; and certainly very much of it would be 
 changed to indifference or positive rudeness if subordination or 
 expectation of advantage were exchanged for complete indepen- 
 dence. This psychological truth was illustrated by the change 
 which Cope achieved in his manner when he came into the 
 presence of Isabel Foyle in the character of a suppliant. There 
 was no brutality, no rudeness, not even brusqueness in his 
 attitude. He was bent on achieving a purpose the supplant- 
 ing of David Thresher old and ugly as he knew he was ; he 
 was bent on the complete eradication of Thresher from every 
 spot that he had chosen as his own through which Joshua 
 Cope had a path. His manner was therefore studiously con- 
 ciliatory and almost polished. The plain speaking was all on 
 the other side, and it was very plain. 
 
 Cope advanced towards Isabel with the air of a diplomatist 
 as she stood in the drawing-room ready to receive him. His 
 step was almost dignified, and his dress and manner, although 
 not polished, were at least appropriate. With his hand placed 
 within his waistcoat, not actually on his heart, but suggestively 
 within the region of it, he bowed as he said : 
 
 " I have come, Miss Foyle, in obedience to an intima- 
 tion from your father, who said you were willing to receive 
 me." 
 
 Isabel bowed stiffly as she stood with a letter in her hand. 
 She had risen from her writing-table to receive him.
 
 58 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Mr. Cope continued : 
 
 " Your father, Miss Foyle, gave me some hope that you 
 were disposd to accede to my request." 
 
 He looked at her with a keen firm look as he spoke, and 
 then bowed again, still with his hand in his waistcoat. 
 
 " What is that request ? " 
 
 " The honour of your hand." 
 
 This time Isabel bowed, and then, as coldly as before, she 
 answered : 
 
 "Your words are well chosen, Mr. Cope. You ask for my 
 hand nothing more." 
 
 She paused. Her face blanched, and it seemed doubtful 
 whether she had not over-estimated her strength. Cope listened 
 with a respectful attitude, but his eyes glistened with watchful 
 excitement. He said nothing, and Isabel continued : 
 
 " My father prepared me for this request, and he has made 
 known to me circumstances that induce me to give you my 
 hand, but I can give nothing more nor even that, except upon 
 conditions which you may decline to accept." 
 
 Cope bowed, as he said : 
 
 " I shall be pleased to consider those conditions." 
 
 "I do not wish you," she continued, "to be under any 
 misapprehension as to my motives or the feelings that I have 
 towards you. I do not want to disguise from you that if I 
 accept your proposals it is from a desire to please and benefit 
 my family, and in no sense to gratify you ; and that the feeling 
 of ordinary respect for you as one of my father's friends is the 
 utmost that I can ever hope to entertain towards you. Any 
 attempt on your part to pass beyond the ordinary courtesies of 
 a public dining or drawing-room would be received by me 
 with repugnance, and my respect for you would be destroyed. 
 I am content to marry you in the eyes of the world ; but as 
 between ourselves we must be mere acquaintances. If we are 
 ever more than this if we are ever friends depends upon you." 
 
 She had said this standing, and every word was uttered 
 with surprising decision. The old man was quite unprepared 
 for so deliberate a declaration ; and although it was an exact 
 corollary to the proposition he had laid down to his friend 
 Foyle concerning his daughter, he was fairly staggered by it. 
 Isabel took a seat when she had finished, and invited Cope to
 
 SOME EEMAEKABLY PLAIN SPEAKING. 
 
 59 
 
 do the same. He did so, and then with his eyes fixed on the 
 cornice, he said : 
 
 " I respect your candour, and if I were younger I should 
 perhaps feel offended ; but on reflection I don't think I could 
 expect anything else." 
 
 This is what he said, but as a matter of fact he was not at 
 all prepared for the logical conclusion of his own theories. 
 He had in his declaration to Foyle looked only at the man's 
 side of the question, and had forgotten the woman's. With 
 the quickness natural to him he pushed the matter through 
 his mind, and concluded that Isabel's position was reasonable 
 in the circumstances, but he was very certain that time would 
 alter those circumstances, and in any case he would be master 
 of the position. 
 
 Isabel seemed relieved. She rose again and took from her 
 writing-table a copy of the agreement she had entrusted Mr. 
 Ware to draw up. Handing it to Cope, she said : 
 
 " When my father spoke to me on this matter, and I had 
 made up my mind about it, I had the conditions I spoke of 
 drawn up in a formal manner."
 
 60 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 She watched him intently as he read it, but observed only 
 that his face grew harder as he passed from clause to clause. 
 When he had finished he folded it up and handed it back, 
 saying : 
 
 " These are your conditions ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, with just a shade of timidity. He 
 was quick to take advantage of it, and said, with his eyes on 
 the cornice, as before : 
 
 " It is not marriage." 
 
 There was a pause, a long and awkward pause, equally 
 embarrassing, but equally useful to both. The old man 
 summed it up in a short compass. It was not marriage, 
 but an arrangement an arrangement that he was prepared to 
 assent to if he could make no better terms, because it satisfied 
 his malice by excluding Thresher, and he had no doubt what- 
 ever but that in course of time, and in rather a short than a 
 long time, he would tear the document into shreds. The only 
 thing that really troubled him was the fear that the conditions 
 would become known. 
 
 Isabel's state of mind was more complicated. She dreaded 
 each and all possible conclusions, and most of all the accept- 
 ance of her own scheme, merely because it was the most 
 probable. She began to realise the difficulties of the future. 
 To plot in the boudoir is a very different thing from the actual 
 contest with the enemy, and her very soul shrank within her 
 at those few words, " It is not marriage." She was not facing 
 a precipice, but stood upright on a pinnacle, and there was no 
 refuge. 
 
 " It is not marriage," repeated Cope with great deliberation, 
 11 and the world will find it out. Are you prepared to stand 
 what they will say when they have found it out ? They will 
 say ' Cope's an old fool, and she sold herself for so much 
 money.' How will you like it ? " 
 
 " I shall not like it," replied Isabel, piqued, " but it is not a 
 question of liking ; it is a question of enduring." 
 
 There was another pause, and then Isabel resumed : 
 
 " I do not know your motive, Mr. Cope. I should like to 
 think it mere generosity, but that cannot be, or you would 
 have given the impulse generous expression. What is your 
 motive? "
 
 SOME REMARKABLY PLAIN SPEAKING. 61 
 
 The old man bowed very low as he said : 
 
 " Can you ask me ? " 
 
 "Mr. Cope," she said sternly, "this is not an occasion for 
 compliment. I have already made plain to you that I do not 
 accede to your proposal with satisfaction. Personally I would 
 sacrifice very, very much to avoid it ; but for reasons sufficient 
 to me I have determined otherwise." 
 
 There was another pause, and then she added : 
 
 " On reflection I do not need to care what your motive is. 
 What I have to do is to adhere strictly to my own line of con- 
 duct ; and I have only to add that if your motive is evil, or if 
 you have ulterior intentions that will conflict with my resolution, 
 I cannot be held responsible for the disappointment in store for 
 you." 
 
 She said this with some asperity, but with unequivocal 
 emphasis, and the tone rather than the language gave a new 
 direction to Cope's thoughts. He had been inclined to, regard 
 Isabel's attitude as a foible ; he was not prepared for stubborn 
 determination that might break out into open resistance and 
 even defiance. He could see now that if he hoped for com- 
 plete conquest he must dissemble. To most men the prospect 
 would not have been inviting, but Cope in a sense was a 
 sportsman, and the prospective struggle had charms for him. 
 He resolved to accept her terms ; and he resolved also to enter 
 upon a siege of conquest or rather of repression and subjugation 
 at the earliest convenient opportunity. The time had arrived 
 for a conclusion to be come to, and rising, he said : 
 
 " Miss Foyle, your manner of transacting business has 
 surprised and pleased me. I am prepared to accept your 
 conditions, and leave the future to disclose whatever it has in 
 store for us." 
 
 After making this oracular declaration, he proposed to sign 
 the agreement at once, so that not even Mr. Ware and his 
 clerks should know that it had been signed. A witness to the 
 signature was found in Jacobs, and after she had withdrawn, 
 Cope, with a touch of gallantry, handed his copy to Isabel, 
 with the remark : 
 
 " I make you, Miss Foyle, the custodian of my copy ; I intend 
 to trust you." 
 
 Going out to meet his future father-in-law, Joshua Cope felt
 
 62 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 rather proud of this last stroke of policy. The document was 
 perfectly useless to him; its very existence was rather shameful 
 than otherwise, and possession of it would have embarrassed 
 him. He wanted to forget it, and as he intended to treat it 
 as a bit of folly, he thought he could not do better than show 
 his contempt for it under the guise of courtesy. But he did 
 not like the rejoinder. It was brief and was not altogether 
 apposite as a rejoinder; but it showed that Isabel had thought 
 out the whole question. She answered as she accepted the 
 custody of the document : 
 
 " We will be married at the Registry Office. I decline to be 
 married by a clergyman ; I have been reading the marriage 
 service."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 JOSHUA COPE'S PUECHASE. 
 
 THE success which had attended Crawley Foyle's finesse 
 had a curious effect upon his mental condition. He was 
 unusually excited. He talked incessantly when in company, 
 and when alone he was continually on the move. Had 
 he questioned himself he would have been obliged to con- 
 fess that he had done a very mean thing; it was because 
 he refused to admit this obvious and intrusive fact that he 
 bristled with declarations of satisfaction at the turn things 
 had taken. 
 
 It must be admitted that on the completion of the financial 
 arrangements, which were all conducted under the super- 
 intendence of Mr. Ware, with many sighs and much doubting, 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle found himself in a highly prosperous 
 position. He had never indeed stood so well with the world, 
 and he did not in the least exaggerate when he seized upon a 
 chance opportunity to remark to Isabel, in tones of genuine 
 emotion, that whatever resulted from the step she had taken 
 he would never forget to his dying day that he and all of 
 their household owed every moment of their future happiness 
 to her self-sacrifice. 
 
 And how had this great change come about ? A little heap 
 of senseless gold had been marked with a new ticket and that 
 gave " happiness." Two or three cross entries in a ledger, a 
 transaction in figures with a banker, a signature or two, and 
 smiling vivacity took the place of vacant consternation. 
 
 But the price paid for the check which Ruin had received 
 had not yet been counted up. The heart that offered itself to 
 be bruised and broken in order that the ledger entries might 
 be made, had not as yet discovered itself. The bud of the 
 rose that's pierced by the worm is not more unconscious of the 
 glow of the summer sun than was this enshrouded heart that 
 seemed likely to be born to the fulness of life and passion only 
 to find itself imprisoned though unenslaved. Not one of all 
 the parties to this purchase and sale of the dormant essence
 
 64 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 of a woman's heart could value the tremendous possibilities in 
 which they trafficked, or imagine a millionth fragment of the 
 evil that they did. Nor could one say that any cared, save 
 only Mr. Ware, and he was silent. 
 
 The financial arrangements were concluded in Mr. Ware's 
 office. The necessary cheques were handed over, the 
 trust deeds signed ; and every anterior provision made to 
 comply with the pre-arranged conditions. The trustees were 
 Mr. Ware, himself, and Mr. Crawley Foyle, with power to 
 appoint successors, and the whole business besides being 
 restrained within the limits of the confidential circle 
 occupied only ten minutes. 
 
 "That's what I call a smooth piece of work," said Cope. 
 " It's all rounded up at the corners, all nice and clean, and 
 nothing left over." His eyes twinkled as he buttoned up his 
 pockets, one on each side, and he finished off his reflections 
 by wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. 
 
 Mr. Ware did not like the action nor the remark, and ho 
 pursed up his lips, and lifted a pen nervously, only to replace 
 it on the table. His natural sense condemned this smooth 
 piece of work, but he made no comment. 
 
 Going home that day, and in the calm of the evening, sur- 
 rounded by three of the five daughters, he thought to him- 
 self that he ought to have said something to make known 
 his disapproval of the transaction, and phrase after phrase 
 that he might have uttered passed through his mind, all 
 more or less appropriate and telling. He turned them 
 over and over, and regretted that he had not had the 
 courage to defy professional etiquette and say them all one 
 after the 'other in the wild enthusiasm of a just indignation. 
 
 "Ah," thought he, "the work was smooth, but let us 
 wait till the friction comes." And if he had only said at 
 the close of the day's sad business, " If my clients are 
 satisfied, I can have no opinion upon the propriety of the 
 agreements ; " or " There is one party to the smooth piece 
 of work whose real interest, whatever her generosity may 
 have conceded, appears to have been very little considered." 
 
 But Mr. Ware had held his peace and fell asleep that 
 night reflecting that even if he had said these, and other 
 things a thousand times more bitter, he would not have
 
 JOSHUA COPE S PURCHASE. 
 
 65 
 
 altered the fact, and he had now the consolation of knowing 
 that he had not made matters worse, nor hampered his hope 
 of usefulness ta. Isabel in the future by comment that might 
 have been regarded as impertinent, and deserving the 
 punishment of dismissal. 
 
 Cope's remark was by no means displeasing to Foyle, however. 
 The bold conspirator is always a source of comfort to his 
 conscience-stricken neighbour, and there was a large reserve 
 of boldness about Cope and no conscience. 
 
 Part of the rounding up and smoothing off had been a letter 
 to David Thresher from Mr. Ware, enclosing a cheque for 
 his capital, and remarking that the grounds of his desiring 
 to withdraw were such that, in the opinion of the other 
 partners, it was undesirable the separation should be delayed, 
 but it remained with Mr. Thresher to elect immediate retire- 
 ment or another six months of " alleged moral contamination." 
 The closing phrase was Foyle's, and he was proud of it. All 
 the cheques and documents were left in the hands of Mr. Ware, 
 to be exchanged after the visit to the Registrar's ; and punctually 
 to the time arranged for, a clerk announced : 
 
 " Mr. Cope's carriage." 
 
 Now it chanced that Mr. Cope had never had a carriage in 
 all his life, and when the party went to tho office door, and
 
 66 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 beheld a positive equipage, consisting of a large but lightly 
 constructed open carriage hung on C springs, drawn by a 
 pair of colossal bays, with an immovable coachman on the 
 box, and a statuesque footman at the door, they were amazed 
 beyond the power of speech. 
 
 Isabel was seated in the carriage, and bowed somewhat 
 coldly. The footman opened the door and the trio paused, 
 but ultimately were placed by Isabel, who ordered her father 
 to sit beside her and Cope opposite. She then requested Cope 
 to give his orders to the footman, which he did mechanically, 
 and, for the first time in the course of these proceedings, he 
 found himself seriously doubting the wisdom of his actions. 
 It was not merely that an equipage, which might fairly be 
 described as perfect, had appeared as if by the waving of a 
 magician's wand; but it presented to him the glimpse of a 
 future that alarmed him. There was a boldness of conception, 
 and a vigour of execution about the incident that took his 
 breath away. What might she not do ? He had no time to 
 answer the question. The coachman was a finished whip; 
 the horses moved in a style that made the pedestrians look 
 round ; the hansom cabmen smiled with delight as the carriage 
 passed them, and Joshua Cope was at the Eegistry Office before 
 he had made up his mind what kind of a comment he should 
 make on the startling incident. But there was more in store 
 for him. The brief and prosaic formalities of a legal marriage 
 wore soon completed, the party resumed their places in 
 the carriage, and as the footman closed the door Mrs. Joshua 
 Cope with perfect composure gave the order herself, and 
 it was 
 
 "Home!" 
 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle rather liked the idea of his daughter 
 appearing in Eaton Square in her own carriage, and smiled. 
 He had tried to converse as they drove to the Kegistrar's, but 
 the effort had failed. Cope's frame of mind forbade it, and 
 Mr. Ware was sad. Mr. Foyle might have had better success 
 this time, but from the fact that he found the coachman took 
 a wrong turn, and then it began to dawn upon him that 
 "home" was not in Eaton Square, but somewhere else. It 
 proved to be in Park Lane, and Mrs. Cope informed her 
 husband that she had ordered luncheon.
 
 JOSHUA COPE S PUECHASE. 
 
 67 
 
 For anything that the three gentlemen could see to the 
 contrary when they arrived, the establishment might have been 
 going on for a twelvemonth. Everything was provided, even 
 down to the detail of a valet for Mr. Joshua Cope, who was 
 taken in hand on the door-mat and conducted to his room in 
 a manner that suffered no denial. This valet was the brother 
 of Jacobs, Isabel's maid, and the pivot on which the whole 
 order of the day turned. His orders were to " look after 
 Mr. Cope," and do nothing else. His sister would look after 
 Mrs. Cope, and the rest of the establishment was in the hands 
 of Gunter. 
 
 The scheme was simple and effective. Isabel chose the 
 house after an hour's interview with a house agent. She 
 wanted a definite thing ; a house with a couple of rooms on the 
 
 ground floor, opening into each other. All other considerations 
 of size, number of rooms, the locality and price were matters 
 of no concern. The two rooms and immediate occupation 
 were the essentials, and these found, she put Jacobs and her 
 brother in possession, and gave her orders to Gunter for a 
 month's service, commencing with luncheon for four. Jacobs 
 
 F 2
 
 68 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 ordered and Gunter provided. Crawley Foyle said everything 
 was admirable, and he positively rejoiced. He actually succeeded 
 in persuading himself that he had done a very good and generous, 
 as well as a very clever thing, in bringing it all about. As for 
 Cope he was perplexed. Even his ideas concerning himself were 
 confused, and he gradually discovered that he was in thraldom. 
 
 The attentions of the valet distressed him ; and Jacobs was 
 such an eminently respectable personage that Joshua Cope, to 
 his amazement, found he could not swear at him. This led 
 him to reflect that there would have to be a change, but he 
 was by no means clear as to the form the change would take or 
 when it should be applied. In ordinary cases the time would 
 arrive when it would be necessaiy to pay the bills, but he was 
 in doubt whether he would have to pay them; and, as a 
 matter of fact, he would not, for it was an essential part of 
 Isabel's scheme that she would have the ordering of her own 
 household wholly in her own hands, leaving her husband to 
 order his where and how he pleased. By the judicious
 
 JOSHUA COPE'S PURCHASE. 69 
 
 application of conventional customs she had resolved to keep 
 Cope to his bargain, and entrenched him within a cordon of 
 domestic servants of irreproachable manners. Cope found 
 himself in their toils before he had time to think even of a 
 dwelling. He had in fact lost his chance. 
 
 It is a very good rule for settling the method of procedure in 
 any new phase of one's life to begin as you mean to go on. 
 There is no condition to which this rule should be more 
 rigorously applied than the married state, and it chanced that 
 Isabel, unconscious that she was regulating her actions by any 
 denned rule, worked rigorously in accordance with it. She 
 gained much by this in fact, she gained everything she looked 
 for, whereas Cope, who had resolved to act cautiously, 
 and play what is allegorically known as " the waiting 
 game," which in many cases is no game at all, unless it be 
 the game of losing one's opportunity, found himself in a 
 diplomatic difficulty. If it had been a commercial transaction, 
 no matter how large and intricate, he would have resolved it in 
 five minutes, but he had taken a plunge out of his depth and 
 wanted breathing time. 
 
 He was no nearer a solution of his doubt and difficulties after 
 the luncheon than before, and whether the wine had mollified 
 him or not it is impossible to say, but in the privacy of his 
 apartments those specially set apart for him he took Mr. 
 Foyle by the arm and said in a way that indicated a desire 
 on his part to justify himself: 
 
 " Foyle, your daughter is a very remarkable woman very 
 remarkable. I wish I was five and thirty and handsome."
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE JUNIOR PARTNER EXHIBITS TALENT. 
 
 THE office of Schrieber & Co. was next morning honoured 
 by a visit from the Junior partner, Mr. Arthur Foyle. This 
 was an event in itself, but what made it altogether extra- 
 ordinary was the fact that he came early. He walked in 
 with his hat on the back of his head, nodded in a friendly 
 way to all and sundry, and beckoned Milton, the cashier and 
 head bookkeeper, into what was known as the room of the 
 Junior partners. 
 
 Milton found him straddling a chair with his gloves and 
 stick in his hand, as if he had no intention of staying. 
 
 " Look here, Milton, old man," said Arthur, " I dropped in 
 to say that I have just lodged a couple of thousand at the Bank
 
 THE JUNIOE PARTNEB EXHIBITS TALENT. 71 
 
 to take up a bill that will be presented to-day, so if you hear 
 anything of it you know it's all right." 
 
 Milton was a meek man whose life was circumscribed by the 
 four corners of the Schrieber & Co. ledger, whose dissipation 
 was limited to the less serious exercises connected with Salem 
 Chapel, Kennington ; and whose domestic circle consisted of a 
 widowed sister and her daughter. 
 
 " Bill, Mr. Arthur? There is no bill that I know of." 
 
 " Exactly, old man. It's because you don't know of it that 
 I tell you. It's nothing to do with you, but in case you hear 
 of it I want you to know it's all right." 
 
 " Certainly, Mr. Arthur. Who accepted it ? " 
 
 "I did." 
 
 " In your own name ? " 
 
 " No, in the firm's name ; but I tell you it's all right." 
 
 Mr. Arthur was very decisive this time, because the questions 
 put by Milton suggested that it was not quite all right, and 
 Milton ventured to remark in the mildest possible manner that 
 it was a little irregular ; to which Arthur in a light and airy 
 way said : 
 
 " Oh, but I say, old fellow, look here, what more can a 
 fellow do, but meet it. There's nothing irregular about that, 
 you know? " 
 
 " Oh dear no, Mr. Arthur. It was only irregular to use the 
 firm's name, that's all." 
 
 Mr. Arthur made an exclamation of pleasurable surprise. 
 The transaction had never occurred to him in that light, and 
 he responded jauntily : 
 
 " Oh, if that's all, old man, it doesn't matter a damn. And 
 look here, as it's irregular, you know, you had better know 
 nothing about it, don't you know ; only, you know, I thought 
 I'd better tell you I had squared it all right in case you heard 
 it mentioned at the Bank." 
 
 With this he began strutting round the room flourishing his 
 stick and vaguely ejaculating, " This is confidential, you know." 
 "No necessity to tell the governor unless he asks you, you 
 know." " Shan't do it again as you say it's irregular," and 
 other comments of a similar character. Then bringing himself 
 up with a knowing air he struck an attitude and said with 
 superb self-confidence :
 
 72 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "I say, old man, I know a trick worth half-a-dozen of 
 Schrieber & Co.'s. I've been making a corner and we've 
 squeezed 'em awfully." 
 
 An expression of horror came over Milton's face as he said : 
 
 " You don't say, Mr. Arthur, you've been speculating ? " 
 
 "Yes I have; and made a devilish good thing of it. My 
 share was 75,000. What do you think of that, old man, for a 
 three month's corner. Better than Schrieber & Co. Eh ?" 
 
 Milton was appalled. The magnitude of the operation ; its 
 unequivocal success ; the daring of Mr. Arthur and the cool- 
 ness with which he disregarded all the ordinary obligations of 
 partnership reduced the unhappy Milton to a condition of 
 terror. But all he could say in response was to express 
 a hope that Mr. Arthur would not in any case let his father 
 know that he had informed him. 
 
 Self-preservation took precedence, even in Milton, of moral 
 obligation. The duty that is imposed by honour and the 
 generosity that shows itself in self-sacrifice are not much 
 cultivated in the neighbourhood of Bankers' clearing-houses. 
 In the atmosphere of Salem Chapel, Milton felt in a theoretical 
 way that the world was ruled by love ; but in the atmosphere 
 of the Minories, and Schrieber & Co., he knew that the 
 controlling principles of commerce were cash on settling day, 
 and the Devil take the hindmost. He resolved to bury in 
 the inmost recesses of his soul all knowledge of Mr. Arthur's 
 bill and his " corner ; " and such was the influence of the 
 Minories on that timid soul that he announced with all the 
 boldness of a practised liar that as it was " confidential as 
 Mr. Arthur had said " he should be justified in taking his 
 dying oath that he had never spoken to him a word on the 
 subject ; and would only know what came to him in the 
 ordinary course of business. 
 
 This having been settled and Mr. Arthur having said a few 
 kindly things in his cheerful easy way, Milton became cheerful 
 too, and said with a sickly smile as if he were not quite sure 
 he was not presuming : 
 
 " I suppose you were at the wedding, yesterday, Mr. 
 Arthur?" 
 
 "Wedding? No. I was at no wedding, old man. What 
 wedding?"
 
 THE JUNIOK PAETNER EXHIBITS TALENT. 
 
 73 
 
 "What wedding, Mr. Arthur? Why your sister's, didn't 
 you know?" 
 
 " No, by God whom has she married ? " 
 
 "Why, dear me, Mr. Cope," exclaimed the astonished 
 Milton. 
 
 " Cope, be damned ! " scoffed Mr. Arthur, with a loud 
 discrediting laugh. 
 
 "Oh dear, yes," said Milton, "it's quite true, it's in The 
 Times" 
 
 And away he went to fetch the authoritative announce- 
 ment. 
 
 There is nothing so interesting as the virtuous indignation 
 of a thoroughly dissolute man or woman ; it seems as if
 
 74 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 nature had specially fitted them for the artistic denunciation 
 of impropriety : they know so much about it. The other 
 more uniformly condemning class, who denounce what they 
 have never had a chance of experiencing are wholly inartistic ; 
 they merely run amuck against what they do not understand, 
 and are frequently actuated by jealousy of those whose 
 physique has made them a prey to temptations the purist 
 never meets with. Mr. Arthur was in a towering rage. He 
 began to feel an heroic devotion to his sister, and strong 
 sympathy with Thresher, whose superiority he had hitherto 
 resented. For his father he felt unutterable things, and as the 
 distinguished Member was at that moment entering the office 
 with his head in the air Arthur dashed into his presence 
 with a paper in his hand, and exclaimed : " You are at 
 the bottom of this you and old Cope have schemed this 
 a couple of infernal scoundrels," and he flung the paper on 
 the desk. 
 
 The attack was startling in tone and in suddenness. Mr. 
 Crawley Foyle was not prepared for it, and for the moment he 
 was incapable of rejoinder. To be suddenly brought from 
 the altitude of complacent self laudation and to be informed by 
 one's own son that you are an exceptional scoundrel is dis- 
 tracting, and Mr. Crawley Foyle had to look about him for 
 ideas. He found them in his pocket-book. The bill that he 
 had purchased from that good man Samuel Shorter the evening 
 before was at command ; and as he searched in his pocket and 
 brought it forth his passions awakened to a sense of the 
 enormity of his son's behaviour, and he exclaimed, boiling with 
 indignation, 
 
 " Scoundrels ! Who talks of scoundrels ? Look at this 
 piece of paper, miserable youth ; and thank a beneficent 
 providence that your brother-in-law has saved you from a 
 felon's dock." 
 
 The production of the bill was certainly effective, and for the 
 moment checked the torrent of Arthur's indignation. But not- 
 withstanding all he had heard from Milton he could not com- 
 prehend the reference to a felon's dock, and the fact that he did 
 not understand made him look rather sheepish. His father 
 mistook this for complete surrender, and followed up his 
 advantage by a melodramatic oration, which he wound up with
 
 THE JUNIOE PARTNER EXHIBITS TALENT. 75 
 
 a suggestion that his misguided son should go down on his 
 knees and sue for mercy. 
 
 The absurdity of the proposition revived Arthur's spirits : 
 and his desire to ascertain how his father had become possessed 
 of his bill took exclusive possession of his mind. As soon as 
 he found his father had taken it up he exhibited the wildest 
 joy at being, as he said, " two thousand richer " than he had 
 thought. Upon this Mr. Crawley Foyle harked back upon the 
 " felon's dock " sentiment, and his son, who had a glimmering 
 perception that a misappropriation of partnership funds, or of 
 funds raised by an act of partnership was in the nature of 
 embezzlement, drew upon his natural ability and made a 
 thoroughly business-like answer : 
 
 " We'll settle one thing at a time. I don't know and don't 
 care how you got hold of that bill ; but it has not yet been 
 presented. When it is it will be paid. I have just lodged the 
 money to pay it." 
 
 " You lodge the money ! " exclaimed the father. "Why you 
 haven't a penny in the world." 
 
 "Don't talk rubbish," rejoined Arthur, with an air of 
 importance. " Present the bill and it will be paid, and fifty 
 more like it if you have them. Send Milton round to the Bank 
 now, unless you are going to make me a present of the 
 money." 
 
 " I will," exclaimed the outraged parent ; and while 
 Milton was gone the two walked up and down the room, 
 blistered their tongues with expletives, and generally boiling 
 over with extravagant vituperation. Some of it was 
 unique for garishness, but exotic Billingsgate is not as 
 picturesque as the natural growth, and to record it would 
 be revolting. 
 
 Milton returned, put the money on the table, and got out of 
 the room as fast as he could. His example seemed to inspire 
 the junior partner with a new idea. Resolving to get possession 
 of the bill at once, he left his father with the two thousand 
 pounds before him a prey to strange misgivings, and some 
 remorse. By no process of reasoning could Crawley Foyle 
 construe the method or object of his son's proceedings, and as 
 doubt was maddening, he called in Milton to his aid. That 
 swerving moralist pretended to have ascertained at the bank
 
 76 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 what Arthur had himself told him, and when confirmation of 
 the position was secured, Mr. Crawley Foyle was bound to 
 admit to himself that he had made a great mistake, and what 
 was worse, was in danger of being found out.
 
 CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 DAVID THRESHER DISCOVERS HIS LOSS. 
 
 IT was the lot of David Thresher to be an object of envy 
 among men on account of attributes on which he seemed 
 to set little store. It is a question not easily answered as to 
 the regard a really handsome man has for his good appearance, 
 and the price he would set upon it in comparison with other 
 desirable things of this life. David Thresher was decidedly 
 handsome. His full stature and auburn beard were typical of 
 physical strength ; the liquid depth of his large dark eyes gave 
 evidence of a reserve of moral force, and these two qualities 
 comprehend all that suggests a perfect man. Women 
 regarded him with something like veneration, and many 
 besides those who enjoyed his confidences looked wistfully 
 towards him and dreamed of the wealth of trustful love and 
 lingering rest in store for the woman who should win him. 
 
 He was wealthy, too, and could have devoted himself wholly 
 to pleasure. The satisfaction of cravings that are common 
 among men he could have easily secured, and perhaps it was 
 because of this that his desires ran in other directions. It is 
 the unattained that men really value, and the impossible is 
 always, and in the nature of things, a priceless treasure. 
 
 David Thresher had a longing for serious occupation, and 
 was curiously impressed with the grandeur of Commerce. He 
 had studied the matter theoretically, and had invested it with 
 imaginary charms. The lying and cheating, the sordid 
 greed, the revolting oppression and the heartless ambitions 
 engendered by the conflict of barter he had never met with 
 except in the cupidity of the huckster, the pettiness of whose 
 transactions caused him to disregard the principle involved. 
 He had joined Schrieber & Co. for amusement rather than for 
 profit ; and though the largeness of the gains amazed and 
 gratified him, the prospect of amusement was annihilated by 
 the incidents of the trading. His imagination had failed to 
 grasp the possibilities which actual experience unfolded to 
 him. His illusions were dispelled.
 
 78 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Invariably reserved and a master of self-restraint, he 
 long pondered on his position before taking action ; and his 
 relations with Isabel formed the chief stumbling-block in the 
 way of a decision. He felt that a breach with the father 
 would mean, perhaps, a breach with the daughter, or, 
 at least, temporary constraint. He hesitated, but finally 
 resolved that he would do nothing that could, in the eyes of 
 Isabel, in any way reflect upon her father. This resolution, 
 conceived in the most honourable spirit, resulted in serious 
 misfortune. It deprived Isabel of the key to the position, and 
 made her father's deception easy. It was impossible to say what 
 view she would have taken of an open denunciation by David 
 Thresher of her father as Schrieber & Co., but it is quite 
 possible she would have declined to believe his malfeasance, 
 notwithstanding her antipathy to him domestically. The 
 die, however, was cast. David Thresher had acted honour- 
 ably, and he suffered. 
 
 A copy of The Times had been delivered to him addressed in 
 a wrapper and with the marriage marked. He was literally 
 stunned. He had long loved Isabel with a deep and earnest 
 love that seldom spoke, but had the strength and devotion 
 which come of long contemplation and that exhibited itself in 
 the thousand and one little actions that scarcely extended 
 beyond ordinary courtesies, but which in his case were never 
 omitted, and were always graced with glances of hope. 
 
 With his love, deep-seated, unmoved by sudden impulse, and 
 guided by a strong determination, he accepted his dismissal at 
 Isabel's hand as an incident that time alone could annul. He 
 was slightly nettled at her want of confidence, and he was un- 
 ready when confronted with a situation so wholly unexpected. 
 Their relationship had not grown sufficiently intimate to 
 justify elaborate remonstrance, and he felt that as soon as the 
 commercial difficulty with the father had been settled, the time 
 for explanation with the daughter would have arrived, and the 
 course would be clear for love alone. A few days had passed, 
 and with them his calculations had been belied, and his hopes 
 absolutely annihilated. Not only so, but the misfortune 
 in its personal aspect to him was dwarfed by the feeling of 
 revulsion which Isabel's action had created. What despicable 
 instincts had been lying bidden in her heart to rise to life and
 
 DAVID THRESHER DISCOVERS HIS LOSS. 79 
 
 hideous deformity at the fiat of a vile old man ? Could any 
 monster have created in the foulest depths of a distorted 
 imagination so great a fall as this bartering of a virgin life for 
 gold ? He was stung to hopelessness, and the surging passion 
 of his riven heart was stilled by a feeling of despair. In utter 
 hopelessness he saw a future, dark and cheerless, unsunned by 
 love, and incapable of awakening hope. The only passion left 
 to stir him into active life was the feeling of revenge. But 
 against whom ? 
 
 Joseph Eales was announced. He came with Mr. Ware's 
 letter in his hand, the letter that enclosed the 52,000 which 
 David Thresher had sent on to him, before he had seen The 
 Times, for Eales was Thresher's lawyer and his college chum. 
 The only question he wanted to settle was whether the 
 acceptance of his money resulted in the closing of the con- 
 nection ; but interest in this point was now at an end. 
 Thresher handed Eales The Times, and scarcely had he read it 
 and exclaimed in amazement at the record when Arthur Foyle 
 came in red-hot from the conflict with his father. 
 
 There naturally followed a piecing together of facts as soon 
 as the storm of mild denunciation had been expended. Eales's 
 professional disposition prompted him to suggest a calm con- 
 sideration of the position ; he asked innumerable questions, 
 and, thus prompted, Arthur, after some hesitation, produced 
 his recovered bill, and told the story of his morning's work 
 in detail. Eales at once seized upon this, and connected the 
 facts with the letter from Cope to Shorter that he had picked 
 up on the railway line with such determined industry. He 
 had not before declared this incident because his object in 
 looking into Cope's proceedings had been something very 
 different from that now in question, and he had never been 
 able to understand the meaning of the letter or to connect it 
 with the matter he was enquiring into. His pursuit of Cope 
 at that time had originated in a departmental enquiry by the 
 Admiralty as to the origin of certain foul and death-dealing 
 stores purveyed to Her Majesty's ship Nineveh with lamentable 
 consequences. The enquiry had failed and the incident of 
 the letter had passed from Eales's mind. It now revived with 
 luminous force, and when he had submitted the letter it 
 became clear to his companions that Cope himself had got
 
 80 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 possession of the bill and had been " the innocent holder " 
 whom Crawley Foyle had paid. 
 
 These few facts opened up a wide field of speculation. 
 David Thresher accordingly handed round cigarettes and the 
 trio smoked. 
 
 It was a large and handsomely arranged apartment with 
 painted walls and ceilings, carved oak furniture, and crowded 
 with ornaments and curiosities gathered from all parts of the 
 world. It was the room where he most liked to be, because 
 it was a sort of record of his life. His dining-room was 
 plain, and even bare, save in the furnishing of the table, 
 which was adequate. The room was devoted to refection, 
 and was provided with all things necessary to that end, 
 but with nothing more. His bed-room and dressing-room 
 were furnished on the same principle of strict utility, but this 
 sitting room was in the nature of a luxurious hall that had 
 grown around the man, was part of him, and inimitable. Its 
 great charm was its power to reflect a sentiment of repose : it 
 seemed to clothe all who entered it with a feeling of rest 
 and quiet. Its carpets were thick and soft ; its hangings 
 were abundant and warm ; its seats were capacious and 
 luxurious. 
 
 Eales and Arthur sat and smoked, Thresher walked the long 
 room nervously, and let his cigarette go out. Presently he 
 stopped and asked : 
 
 " Why is it that we bring all these facts together now for 
 the first time ? " 
 
 "Because," said Eales, "we could not before see their 
 relation to each other nor our concern in them." 
 
 " Cope saw them," said Arthur. 
 
 " Because Cope devised them," added Eales. 
 
 "And we don't know everything yet, old man, you bet," 
 said Arthur. 
 
 They were a gloomy trio ; they were suffering from a 
 sense of defeat, and no matter how violent and angry 
 their denunciations, they were conscious of a feeling of 
 humiliation. 
 
 " What's to be done? " asked Eales. 
 
 " What can be done?" replied Thresher. "What should 
 be done ? Can you conceive of anything fitting as an end to
 
 DAVID THRESHER DISCOVERS HIS LOSS. 8l 
 
 such a catastrophe but annihilation ? Cope must be a devil 
 incarnate ! " 
 
 " He must be all that, old man, to have got round Isabel. 
 That's what beats me why she caved in." 
 
 " Money," said Thresher scornfully. 
 
 " No," replied Arthur, shaking his head, " You had that, 
 and she didn't care a bit for it. There's something else, and I 
 shall go to see her to find out." 
 
 This was an excellent idea. Arthur was in the camp of the 
 enemy, was in no wise troubled by any nice sense of honour, 
 was thoroughly independent, and very angry. Said he : 
 
 " She knows a lot we don't. If she's gone away, I mean to 
 follow. If old Cope gets in my way I shall go for him. I 
 suppose I've a right to see my own sister." 
 
 This proposition was being discussed with approval and its 
 soundness was generally conceded ; but consideration of the 
 way the intention was to be carried out was interrupted by the 
 arrival of a clerk with a note for Bales which ran as follows : 
 
 " A messenger has just called to say Mr. Louison has been
 
 82 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 carried off in the night by three masked men, who made 
 burglarious entry into Maida Lodge, and left Cheriton bound 
 and gagged. Your immediate attention is desired." 
 
 "This is strange," said Eales to Thresher, "Your uncle 
 kidnapped ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE FOUNDER'S HEIE. 
 
 ME. WALTER LOUISOK'S 
 circumstances strikingly il- 
 lustrated the futility of 
 human designs. His father, 
 fifty years before, being 
 much impressed with the 
 assumed desire of heirs to 
 see an end of their prede- 
 cessors, conceived a scheme 
 by which the pains of 
 parentage should be relieved 
 in this respect. 
 
 He had recourse to the 
 well-known expedient of the 
 Tontine, and thought that 
 if it were made the interest 
 of a man's children or succes- 
 sors that he should outlive 
 his compeers, the desire for 
 
 his death in the hope of succession would be probably dis- 
 sipated, or at least minimised. 
 
 He accordingly set about his scheme with great care, 
 and being a man of active mind and no occupation, he was 
 indefatigable in detailing the most minute conditions of the 
 contract, which, from a purely commercial point of view, 
 proved successful beyond the dreams of avarice. 
 
 Over two hundred lives were placed on the register originally, 
 all over twenty-one years of age, and the subscriptions 
 were all invested in the freeholds of London warehouses, 
 a circumstance that gave a title to the Association. It was 
 part of the scheme that none of the revenue should be 
 touched except for the purposes of management, and these 
 expenses were restricted by schedule to the most minute 
 particular. All accumulations were re-invested in freehold 
 
 G 2
 
 84 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 property within the area of the city of London proper, and 
 balances remained in Consols until a satisfactory purchase 
 could be made. 
 
 The growth of the new investments and the increased value 
 of all of them by reason of the development of the City's 
 commerce, had resulted in the accumulation of an enormous 
 capital sum that the vulgar, by its disposition to exaggerate, 
 had reported to amount to many millions sterling. As a 
 matter of fact, the sum was under two millions, but few 
 can really apprehend what this sum means as the possession 
 of one man, which the Founder of the Tontine designed 
 it to be. The power that it would give for good or evil 
 was enormous, and had old Mr. Louison foreseen how near 
 it was falling into hands that were distinctly evil, he would have 
 been as eager to prevent as he was to promote the realisation of 
 his ideal scheme. 
 
 But the ultimate destination of the money was nothing as 
 compared with the influence it was hoped the conditions of its 
 existence would have upon the minds of the heirs of the two 
 hundred subscribers. The founder expected that the influence 
 of greed instead of being directed to the destruction would tend 
 to the prolongation of these two hundred lives. He sought to 
 make an unworthy passion serve the purpose of virtue, to turn 
 covetousness into love, cupidity into self-denying care. The 
 futility of the scheme was written in glaring characters upon 
 its first stages, and one tenth part of the labour involved in its 
 construction would have achieved a thousand times better 
 results if directed to the cultivation of the purest motives merely 
 because they were pure. 
 
 Bent upon the promotion of mutual good-will the Founder 
 had arranged that the subscribers should hold an annual meet- 
 ing, and thereafter dine together. The meetings were called 
 and the dinners were provided, but none attended. The
 
 THE FOUNDEE'S HEIE. 85 
 
 balance-sheet of the Trustees satisfied the subscribers on the 
 first point, and, as regards the second, they were each and all 
 afraid of being poisoned by the soup. The Founder had for- 
 gotten that while the immediate descendants of the subscribers 
 had been provided with an excellent reason for keeping them 
 alive, each subscriber was by the same process endowed with a 
 special aversion to all the rest ; and instead of their having one 
 or two about them whose hope of profit by their death was 
 tempered by the uncertainty of inheritance, each of the sub- 
 scribers knew that there existed one hundred and ninety-nine 
 others all eagerly watching for his death. Eepress the fact as 
 they might it was impossible to deny that the only point of real 
 interest to the subscribers in the annual reports was the record 
 of deaths. The accumulations soon represented a sum that 
 outstripped imagination, so that the annual additions were of 
 comparatively small significance, but each death was a step 
 nearer possession, and the survivors read of them with ghoulish 
 avidity. 
 
 And now there were only three three stubborn and enduring 
 lives, and the three watched each other from a distance with a 
 life's expectation almost within their grasp. How could they 
 fail to encourage hope of evil to their partners ? How resist 
 the unholy aspiration for their fellows' death ? They called it 
 "life," "survivorship," and their "good fortune." They 
 refused to recognise the sinister corollaries and hoped on. 
 
 The evil influence of the marvellous arrangement upon 
 which the elder Louison had expended so much skill had not 
 developed in his son the grosser passions of covetousness, for 
 it could not be said that he desired the death of his partners 
 in hope of gain. The influence, however, had been scarcely 
 less baneful. Mr. Walter Louison, whose disappearance had 
 been announced to the desponding trio, was essentially a 
 generous man. He was very wealthy, apart from the possible 
 inheritance of the Tontine accumulations, nor was he anxious 
 to incur the responsibility involved in the ownership of the 
 enormous wealth of the Association. Still the desire for long 
 life had developed in him to an extraordinary degree, and his 
 fear of falling a victim to the cupidity of his partners had reduced 
 him to the condition of a monomaniac. He would see no one, 
 except his man-servant Cheriton ; and the ingenuity his father
 
 86 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 had shown in arranging the working details of the Tontine 
 scheme, and which he had inherited, was used by him to devise 
 the means of keeping everyone, especially his relations, at a 
 distance. He had come to the conclusion that all care for him 
 had its origin in selfish expectation, and he therefore culti- 
 vated a repugnance to communion with his friends and 
 succeeded to perfection in realising, as far as life in London 
 would permit, the conception of a hermit. 
 
 This disposition to seclusion increased with years, and 
 became pronounced when he was about forty years of age. 
 Even his solicitor, Mr. Eales, had never seen him ; and the 
 large transactions necessary to conduct his investments were 
 all carried out by correspondence, arranged upon a plan which 
 displayed ingenuity similar to that which had marked so much 
 of the life and practice of the father and son. Each invest- 
 ment, each matter of business formed a separate set of papers 
 that recorded the transactions in it from beginning to end. 
 Whenever an incident occurred a record was made of it and 
 added to the papers in question, and these were placed in a 
 locked leathern case together with the papers on other subjects 
 that had arisen during the week, and the whole were taken in 
 their locked case to Maida Lodge and left there. Next day 
 they were fetched away, and, appended to the new transac- 
 tions, were the initials W. L. In some cases remarks or 
 directions were added in a clear methodical hand. Each set 
 of papers was provided with an index, and in the case of an 
 investment they commenced with a brief record of its nature, 
 and its special points of interest. 
 
 Joseph Eales had inherited this system and also the client 
 from his father ; and in a strong room in his office, devoted to 
 the affairs of the Louison family, there was a tin-box, that 
 contained, among other family papers, Mr. Louison's will, 
 sealed up and as secret as the grave, until that grave was 
 opened for the remains of the testator. 
 
 The elder Eales had been much in the confidence of his 
 client, and had said of him that he was a man of most 
 generous impulses, yet always apparently fearful of allowing 
 his schemes to come to fruition. His imagination always 
 pictured danger ahead, and of late years he suspected 
 everyone whom he met of being in league with the
 
 THE FOUNDER'S HEIR. 87 
 
 survivors of the Tontine, and consequently his natural 
 enemy. 
 
 Mr. Louison lived at Maida Lodge, Mayfair, a large solid 
 mansion at the corner of a street. It was surrounded by a 
 massive stone wall, which enclosed exactly one acre of ground, 
 and was as completely isolated as if it had been erected on a 
 moor. Its exterior was sombre, but in no sense could the 
 house be described as neglected. It was indeed well kept, 
 with clean windows and bright brass door and bell handles. 
 It had the appearance of an ordinary town house during the 
 season, except that its front door seldom opened, and none but 
 domestics were seen at its windows. 
 
 The domestics were three in number. Cheriton, a man of 
 fifty, with his wife, who acted as housekeeper, and their 
 daughter Mary, who was housemaid. A coachman and his wife 
 continued to live over the stabling, and assist in the domestic 
 work in default of other occupation, for the brougham was 
 never used, and the horses had been long since sold. With 
 the exception of Cheriton, none of these ever saw their master, 
 but Cheriton was his constant attendant. 
 
 Prominent among the numerous body of relatives, friends, 
 and acquaintances that professed anxiety for the welfare 
 and long life of Walter Louison was Captain Joybell, 
 whose devotion to wealth was illustrated by his adoration 
 of Cope at the dinner table of the member for Buckton. 
 Only the day before the disappearance of Mr. Louison, 
 Captain Joybell rose early, and informed the partner 
 of his joys an elderly lady with weak eyes and a hope- 
 less disposition that he intended visiting their relative. 
 The relative had been the Captain's guiding star throughout 
 the whole of his later years, and had, indeed, attracted him to 
 the charms of Mrs. Joybell, when a widow in comfortable 
 circumstances, mourning the departure of Mr. Louison's 
 younger brother. 
 
 It was on this alliance that Captain Joybell based his hopes 
 of future luxury, but Mrs. Joybell, afflicted by a chronic 
 influenza, and taking no interest in anything but frilled 
 nightcaps and the curtains of her four-post bedstead, 
 declined to hope any more. She based her conclusion on the 
 fact that Mr. Louison had not been known to speak to anyone,
 
 88 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 friend or foe, for twenty years, and the Captain was obliged to 
 admit, in the course of family controversy, that he had only 
 once seen his relative, and then he was received with a stony 
 stare. 
 
 Still the Captain hoped, and he continued to devise 
 innumerable projects for gaining access to one in whose future 
 he took an absorbing interest, and whom he was anxious to 
 inspire with reciprocal confidence. On this occasion he felt 
 sure he should succeed ; but Mrs. Joybell lay with her deaf 
 ear uppermost, and said she didn't want to be bothered. 
 
 Captain Joybell's energy was marvellous ; his hope un- 
 bounded, and he left his house, which was situated in the 
 recesses of Kennington Oval, with a light and jaunty step, 
 cutting the air with his cane, and ever and anon glancing 
 with pride on his varnished boots and the smartness of 
 his shepherd's plaid trousers. He would have had some 
 difficulty in defining his relationship, but he was going to see 
 his relative. 
 
 The door of Maida Lodge was opened by Mis. Cheriton, 
 quiet, clean, and subdued, with a cheerful countenance and 
 hair just turned grey. She had seen Captain Joybell before 
 and knew his mission. She showed him into a sitting-room, 
 and said Cheriton would be with him immediately. Cheriton, 
 however, did not come, and the Captain fretted. He came to 
 the conclusion that he was not being treated respectfully by 
 Cheriton, and he resented it. His resentment took the form 
 of a sortie, for he became suddenly convinced that his relative 
 was dying to see him, and was restrained by the evil influence 
 of Cheriton. 
 
 The architecture of Maida Lodge was peculiar. The en- 
 trance hall was unusually large, paved with marble, and 
 having marble columns on each side. Small rooms, with 
 comparatively low ceilings, led off from the hall, and at its 
 end was a broad staircase that divided right and left half way 
 up, and led to the vestibule of the upper floor. This vestibule 
 was in the centre of the building, a perfect square, and was 
 lighted from the roof. Ponderous black mahogany furniture 
 gave it a sombre appearance, and heavy curtains, concealing 
 the mahogany doors of the rooms to which it led on three 
 sides added mystery to the arrangement.
 
 THE FOUNDER S HEIR. 
 
 89 
 
 Captain Joybell issued from the sitting-room in which he 
 had waited, crossed the hall, and ascended the grand staircase 
 to the upper vestibule. He was astonished to see a little old 
 man of singular appearance sitting in the middle of the apart- 
 ment with his hat on the floor, and close beside it a leather case 
 that he had evidently brought with him. His black frock coat 
 was much too large for him, so were his Blucher boots, and 
 his black trousers were much worn at the heels. His face was 
 unwashed ; he had evidently not shaved for three days, and his 
 lank black hair sprinkled with grey, seemed pasted round his 
 face so as to hide the ghastly appearance of his left eye, which 
 was sightless. He was evidently a nervous man, and from the 
 noises he made he seemed to Captain Joybell to have a cold 
 in his nose. The Captain was not pleased with the visitor, 
 whom he regarded as a conspirator having designs upon his 
 relative. 
 
 "Ah," said he to himself, "what a misfortune that my 
 relative does not confide in me ! " 
 
 His reflections were cut short by the appearance of Cheriton, 
 a small man with a quick eye and a firm manner. Clean 
 shaven on the face, bright grey eyes, a high colour and with 
 the hair of his head cut short, he reminded one of a terrier.
 
 90 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 He was ridiculously active for a servant, and dashed into the 
 presence of Captain Joybell as if he were in pursuit of him. 
 
 " Good morning, Cheriton. How's your master ? " 
 
 " Much as usual, Captain." 
 
 This was said in a sharp decided tone admitting of no con- 
 troversy, and Cheriton stood between the Captain and the 
 curtained doorway through which he had come on guard. 
 
 " Is he there ? " asked the Captain, pointing over Cheriton's 
 shoulder with an insinuating gesture. 
 
 "Yes, Captain, I'll tell him you're here if you'll sit down," 
 said Cherton still on guard. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the Captain, somewhat abashed. " You're 
 a capital watch-dog excellent. He's safe with you quite 
 safe." Then drawing closer to Cheriton, he pointed his thumb 
 over his shoulder at the stranger and asked, " Who's he ? " 
 
 " Slipper Mr. Eales's clerk come with the week's 
 accounts." 
 
 " Oh ! " jerked the Captain, as if this most reasonable 
 answer had disconcerted him. Slipper was no longer a mystery, 
 but the Captain's confidence was not restored. His relative 
 was in danger, but the Captain was on the alert. 
 
 No sooner had Cheriton disappeared behind the curtained 
 doorway than a brilliant idea occurred to the Captain. He 
 would pursue him. 
 
 Withdrawing the curtain he opened the door stealthily 
 and entered a large dining-room full of massive furniture, 
 and with the walls covered with pictures, but no Cheriton. 
 Directly opposite to him was a full-length portrait of Charles 
 the First in a frame eight feet high. At the other end of 
 the wall was a companion picture of Queen Henrietta, and 
 between them a great canvas, 20 feet in length, repre- 
 senting the Arrest of the Seven Bishops. A most imposing 
 wall covering but where was Cheriton? He had vanished 
 into space. 
 
 The Captain turned round with a sentiment of fear creeping 
 over him. He still looked for Cheriton, although he felt he 
 was not there. The remnants of breakfast for one were 
 still on the table ; and the sideboard had plate on it. 
 But neither master nor man were in the room. A sombre 
 ancestral portrait looked down austerely from over the fire-
 
 THE FOUNDEB S HEIR. 
 
 91 
 
 place : and on each side of it two large canvasses, companion 
 pictures, one representing a shepherdess in ball costume, and 
 the other qne of those eccentric productions which, in 
 addition to representing a legend, depicted the outline of no less 
 than twenty human profiles in the rocks and trees, the clouds, 
 and even in the garments of the figures. The Captain did not 
 see all this. He paid no more attention to this extravagance 
 in art than he did to the shepherdess. He was looking for 
 Cheriton and Cheriton was nowhere. He walked to the 
 window, which was at the other end of the room, and looked 
 out into the back garden a London shrubbery of the best 
 possible intentions but he saw no sign of Cheriton. His 
 alarm increased, and as he turned he was seized with something 
 approaching consternation at the sight of His Majesty King 
 Charles the First advancing into the room, and immediately 
 afterwards Cheriton stood before him. 
 
 The gleam in Cheriton's eye prepared the Captain for an 
 attack. 
 
 "What do you do here, Sir?" asked the little butler, with 
 his hair all on end, and anger in every line of his face. 
 
 " Nothing, Cheriton; positively nothing," urged the Captain, 
 whose face had assumed an ashy paleness, while every vestige
 
 92 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 of starch had disappeared from the fabric known as Captain 
 Joybell. 
 
 " Excuse me, Captain," said Cheriton, with asperity, " That's 
 nonsense, downright nonsense." 
 
 His Majesty Charles the First went back to the wall with a 
 bang, and Cheriton pointed to the door. He did not show the 
 Captain out as a consistent butler should, but directed him 
 with fierce gesture to open the door himself, as he stood 
 with his back to Charles the First, a guardian of all 
 the mysterious possibilities on the other side of the 
 picture. 
 
 It must be admitted that Captain Joybell had a very small 
 opinion of himself as he left his relative's dining-room. He 
 would not have hesitated to admit that he felt disconcerted, 
 and a less interested person would have pronounced his 
 appearance despicable. He did not even dare to look Slipper 
 in the face as he passed him on the way to the staircase, but 
 Slipper gave no sign of life beyond the ever-recurring snuffle, 
 and the Captain was rather relieved than otherwise to stand 
 once more on the door step beyond the reach of Cheritoii's 
 denunciation. But his appearance was characterised by a 
 nervous and furtive manner arising out of an indefinite but 
 still terrible anxiety associated with the temper of his relative 
 and the view he would take of this intrusion. 
 
 The Captain's depression lasted five minutes not more. 
 Reflection made it clear that it would not do for him to return 
 to Mrs. Joybell with a crestfallen appearance, and the imme- 
 diate cause of his discomfiture having passed away, his courage 
 began to revive. Its first expression took the form of a 
 denunciation of pampered menials, with special reference to 
 Cheriton : and in another five minutes he was moving along 
 with the air of that figurative personage associated with the 
 British Army, who is ready to go anywhere and do anything. 
 Such is the effect of imagination working in conjunction with 
 a sanguine temperament that by the time he had reached 
 home his view of what had occurred, and of the future, had 
 assumed a thoroughly rosy hue. 
 
 " My dear," said he, to Mrs. Joybell, " There's a good many 
 years in our relative yet. He's a little eccentric, full of 
 whims, but vigorous."
 
 THE FOUNDER S HEIE. 93 
 
 The Captain made this announcement with an air of great 
 importance, standing with his legs rather far apart, and 
 swinging his gold eye-glass. He had brought himself to 
 believe implicitly in the accuracy of his statement ; and a very 
 little more reflection would have enabled himself to assert that 
 he had actually breakfasted with his relative.
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF ABDUCTION. 
 
 As SOON as Joseph Eales had assured himself 
 of the actual disappearance of his client, he 
 went to Scotland Yard to procure the advice 
 and assistance of the authorities. He was 
 introduced to Mr. Slade, one of the most 
 trusted members of the force, who came to him 
 twirling a bit of string between his ringer and 
 thumb, and apparently indifferent to every- 
 thing under the sun. 
 
 There are some so constituted that they 
 believe nothing, and Mr. Slade was one of them. 
 He owed his eminence at Scotland Yard to his 
 chronic disbelief and his supurb reticence. He 
 was quite unlike anything that one associates 
 with " The Detective." He was not lynx-eyed, nor clean-shaven, 
 nor gimlet-faced. He was decidedly not polished, nor did he 
 exhibit the slightest tendency to smartness. He was essentially 
 deliberate and easy-going, with red hair and whiskers, rather 
 stout, a pleasant countenance, and a mild eye. He would 
 have passed for a commercial traveller, a meat salesman, or 
 any kind of London shopkeeper. Thoroughly common-place, 
 he was eminently calculated to put people at their ease, and 
 the most experienced criminal would never have suspected 
 Josiah Slade to be a detective. 
 
 Slade listened quietly to the smart young solicitor's story, 
 twirled his piece of string, tied a knot in it, and untied it. 
 When Eales had finished he looked up, and said, in a quiet 
 unconcerned way : 
 " A queer go, eh? " 
 
 And he yawned and stretched himself. 
 
 There was a depth of meaning in Slade's remark. Such 
 is the infirmity of the common mind, that the word " abduc- 
 tion " is associated almost exclusively with the disappearance 
 of children of tender years, or marriageable young ladies, with
 
 AN EXTEAOEDINAEY CASE OF ABDUCTION. 95 
 
 obstinate parents. It is seldom even that the mature spinster 
 becomes the heroine of abduction, and Slade had never in all 
 his experience heard that anyone had thought it worth his 
 while to run away with a gentleman of three-score and ten. 
 Why should they ? 
 
 It was not often that Slade's scepticism carried him as far 
 as this. He did not usually begin his investigations by 
 declining to believe in the occurrence of the crime, the perpe- 
 trator of which he was asked, in the name of society, to 
 pursue ; but this was an unusual case, and he wanted it to be 
 made quite clear before he stirred, that there was really 
 something to stir about. Accordingly, he said, " Why should 
 they ? " 
 
 " For a good reason," responded Eales. " Mr. Louison is 
 a member of the London Warehouse Tontine Association, and 
 over a million of money will come to the survivor of three 
 lives, of which he is one." 
 
 " And you think that one of the other two lives would not 
 be dissatisfied if his life came to an end." 
 
 " Or their heirs," said Mr. Eales. 
 
 "Ay!" said Slade, blowing his nose, "and who are the 
 survivors ? ' ' 
 
 " Miss Winscomb, who lives at Brighton, but never leaves 
 her room, and Joshua Cope, a wiry old man, who lives prin- 
 cipally in hotels ; and who has many connections. He is 
 Schrieber & Co. in the Minories ; and carries on Manure 
 Works in Liverpool, Newcastle and Glasgow ; and is a nail- 
 maker at Halesowen. He is here, there, and everywhere, 
 drinks rum, and says he means to live for ever." 
 
 " Nice man, Cope," said Slade. 
 
 " He buys all the dead horses and diseased cattle he can 
 get," continued Eales, "but there is no cat's-meat sold in the 
 places where he carries on business. He makes manure where 
 the cattle are slaughtered, and barrels of parboiled meat go to 
 London, but the carriage costs more than cat's-meat sells at, 
 and we know Schrieber & Co. purvey tinned meats to the 
 Navy, and manufacture potted meats for breakfast." 
 
 " Anything more about Cope? " asked Slade. 
 
 " Nothing except that the businesses are all distinct and no 
 connection can be clearly proved."
 
 96 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "You evidently don't like Cope, eh?" said Slade, with a 
 broad grin. "What about the heirs? " 
 
 " Cope has none, that I know of; and Miss Winscomb has 
 cousins, but she never sees them." 
 
 " We'd better go and look over the place," said Slade. 
 
 As they drove along, he heard more of Mr. Louison's 
 eccentric ways, and his curious method of doing business, and 
 when Eales admitted he had never seen him, Slade asked, as 
 they drew up at Maida Lodge: 
 
 " Then how do you know that he has not been dead this 
 five or ten years ? " 
 
 This was a very disagreeable remark, and was made doubly 
 irritating by the cool, matter-of-course way in which it was 
 uttered. Eales was a lawyer, and recognised the force of it. He 
 knew he hadn't a particle of evidence that his client existed, 
 beyond Cheriton's statement, and he faltered, as he said : 
 
 " We have been in constant communication ever since my 
 father died." 
 
 " By letter. Most people can write now-a-days." 
 
 Eales was dissatisfied with the representative of Scotland 
 Yard, especially because he could not take exception to his 
 argument, and also because Slade was quite satisfied with 
 himself. He hummed tunes, fingered the piece of string, 
 yawned, and generally behaved as if his mission were the least 
 important thing in the universe. Eales was nettled, and 
 asked, in continuation of the conversation : 
 
 " You don't mean to suggest that my client is a myth, eh ? " 
 
 " So far as your own knowledge goes, he has no existence," 
 was the answer. 
 
 This also was incontestable, and the lawyer felt the detective 
 was teaching him his business. 
 
 "You may have your reasons," continued Slade, "for 
 believing there is such a person as Mr. Louison, and his 
 name may be in the London Directory, but you've never 
 seen him." 
 
 " My father knew him," said Eales apologetically. 
 
 " Yes, twenty years ago. Suppose he had died. Anybody 
 could have carried on the correspondence with you and 
 pocketed his revenues. Why not? We must stand firm, 
 Mr. Eales."
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF ABDUCTION. 97 
 
 Slade had his hand on the bell as he said this, when Eales 
 stayed him. It occurred to Eales that it would be well to 
 conciliate the representative of Scotland Yard. Accordingly, 
 he said : 
 
 "Let me tell you before you ring that you put the case 
 properly from an outside point of view, and that, continuing in 
 that line, you must prove Mr. Louison's existence by the 
 evidence of his man Cheriton, and so far as I know by Cheriton 
 alone." 
 
 Slade nodded, said " Good ! " with an air of complete 
 self-satisfaction, and rang the bell. 
 
 The door was opened by Mrs. Cheriton, and Eales introduced 
 his companion by name only. 
 
 Slade walked into the house, humming a tune, and stared 
 about him, as if he had come to town to see the sights, and 
 was seeing them. It was part of his system to rub people 
 the wrong way, and see what happened. He said that natural 
 philosophy taught him" that sparks resulted from friction, and 
 sparks sometimes led people to discover fire. He was making 
 sparks. 
 
 Mrs. Cheriton explained that her husband was a little 
 upset, and was taking some strong broth she had made for 
 him. 
 
 "All right, mother," said the cheerful Slade. "Tell us 
 what happened." 
 
 . Mrs. Cheriton told her story, standing in the hall, while 
 Slade sat in a large arm-chair, twirling his piece of string and 
 interjecting an occasional " Ay," and " Oh," and a " Just so." 
 The solicitor would have preferred an adjournment to a sitting- 
 room, but Slade said he rather liked the chair he was sitting 
 in, and Eales had seen enough of his companion to know it 
 would be better to let him have his own way. Mrs. Cheriton 
 accordingly, in a quiet, matter-of-fact way, that greatly pleased 
 the detective, told how she had, that morning, found the front 
 door open, and being alarmed by the circumstance had, on 
 investigation, discovered that the stair-carpet was slightly 
 disarranged, one of the hall chairs had been displaced, and a 
 chair that was usually in her master's library, had been 
 brought down into the hall, and there it was before 
 Mr. Slade's eyes a light rocking chair of singular con- 
 
 H
 
 98 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 struction, an early example in conception of many modern 
 productions. 
 
 These unusual incidents having excited Mrs. Cheriton's 
 alarm, she closed the door and went upstairs. She found 
 everything as usual so far as she could see : but she did not go 
 further than the dining-room, where Captain Joybell's progress 
 had been arrested the day before, because it was an established 
 and unalterable rule of the house, that no one was to pass 
 beyond that room except in the company of Cheriton, the sole 
 attendant of Mr. Louison, whose pleasure it was to refuse 
 visitors. 
 
 " Where was your husband? " asked Slade, suddenly. 
 
 "I'm coming to that," replied the housekeeper, who ex- 
 plained that Cheriton's non-appearance did not surprise her 
 because he slept in Mr. Louison's wing and never appeared 
 before eight o'clock. 
 
 " He sleeps in a room behind that door," said Mrs. 
 Cheriton, pointing to the door on the right-hand of the 
 entrance, going out, " and when I could find nothing upstairs, 
 I came down and waited. I was a little nervous, Sir, and 
 as I waited, sitting in the chair you have now, I heard a 
 dull knocking, and after a bit, a crash of something heavy 
 falling." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Slade, beginning to feel interested. 
 
 Mrs. Cheriton said she thought the sound came from her 
 husband's room, and she knocked at his door ; getting no 
 response she called " Cheriton " as loud as she dared and still 
 getting no response, she knocked four times heavily, and after 
 a pause, repeated the four knocks. After some time she 
 heard what she described as four dull thuds, to which she 
 replied by a rapid knocking, and when this was responded 
 to by a somewhat poor imitation of her blows, she became 
 seriously alarmed, and resolved to get to the other side of the 
 door without delay. There were two ways of achieving 
 this object, either to proceed by way of Mr. Louison's apart- 
 ments or to break open the door which led to Cheriton's 
 room. 
 
 Both of these ways, however, were forbidden by the rules of 
 the house, and it became a question for Mrs. Cheriton's 
 consideration^ as jto^ whether the circumstances justified a
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF ABDUCTION. 
 
 99 
 
 departure from established custom. She did not consider 
 long, and being desirous of taking a noiseless course, made 
 her way, with much trepidation, through Mr. Louison's 
 apartments. 
 
 Mrs. Cheriton quite well knew the secret of the Vandyke 
 doorway leading from the dining-room into the library. 
 She opened it cautiously, and finding no one on the other 
 side crossed the chamber diagonally, and opening a door- 
 way descended a narrow staircase which led to a set of 
 three rooms. In the middle one of these was Cheriton 
 lying on his bed with scarcely any clothes on, gagged, and 
 with his arms tied right and left to the head of the bed. 
 His feet had also been tied to the foot of the bed, but he 
 
 had managed to get one of them free, and it was with this 
 that he had been able to make himself heard. By a series of 
 jerks, he had moved the iron bedstead in the direction of a 
 small chest of drawers and with his foot he had managed to 
 pull the drawers out. By rocking the chest backwards and 
 forwards he had made the dull noise his wife had heard, and 
 the louder noise was made by pulling a top drawer on to the 
 floor. 
 
 Mrs. Cheriton soon liberated her husband from gag and 
 bonds, asking numerous questions the while. Cheriton made 
 
 H 2
 
 100 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 no answer to her enquiries, bat immediately on getting com- 
 mand of speech, asked : 
 
 " Where's the master ? " 
 
 " And what did you answer?" asked Slade. 
 
 "I says I didn't know, Sir, but that things wasn't in their 
 places ; and with that me and Cheriton had a look round." 
 
 " Let us have a look round," said Slade, and they all went 
 upstairs to follow the route taken by Mrs. Cheriton. 
 
 The Vandyke doorway was open ; and the room beyond was 
 a chamber of unusual interest. The walls were literally 
 covered with books to a height of seven feet, and above that 
 were a series of busts and portraits of the learned of all ages. 
 Light came from a large painted window in the ceiling, 
 through which, however, the sun never shone, because the 
 window was covered outside by a small chamber glazed only at 
 the sides. 
 
 Cheriton, who had followed the party into the library, 
 pointed out that the doorway to the left led to his staircase, 
 and that to the right to Mr. Louison's bedroom, which they 
 found was unoccupied. Questioned by Slade, he said he was 
 awakened in the middle of the night by three men with masked 
 faces, who gagged and bound him, and then went upstairs to 
 Mr. Louison's room. He said they were very quiet, but from 
 the sounds he heard, he thought they were carrying the old 
 gentleman off. 
 
 " What made you think that." asked Slade. 
 
 " What makes anybody think of things that come ? " answered 
 Cheriton, with rising indignation. He resented the manner of 
 the detective. " I only know what I saw and what I heard," 
 he added, " and I know no more about it, except what I've 
 seen since." 
 
 " And what have you seen since ? " asked Slade, as he 
 flecked a piece of dirt off his coat sleeve. 
 
 " Why," said Cheriton, in a boiling fever, " the window they 
 got in by." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Slade, " let's see it." And they went down the 
 narrow staircase leading from the library, and at the bottom 
 they found themselves in a vestibule leading to Cheriton's bed- 
 room. Cheriton pointed out that a pane of glass in the window 
 of this vestibule had been cut away ; and looking out they saw
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OP ABDUCTION. 101 
 
 the glass lying on the ground with some pieces of calico about 
 it. Blade viewed it with a grim smile, and looked at the mark 
 of the diamond on the glass that remained, saw it was on the 
 inside, and broke into a broad grin. 
 
 " Now show us your crib, Mr. Cheriton," exclaimed Slade, 
 with exasperating indifference. 
 
 The party moved on into the little room, and Cheriton 
 explained the way everything had happened so as to confirm in 
 every particular his wife's description of what she had seen 
 and heard. 
 
 " Now get on the bed, and show us how you did your 
 gymnastics," said Slade. 
 
 Cheriton did so, and volunteered to have himself tied up, but 
 this was not thought necessary, and they went outside to pick 
 up the glass. 
 
 There were six pieces, and attached to one of them was a 
 strip of calico, about a yard long ; and one of the other five 
 pieces had a piece of calico attached to it, wrapping over 
 both sides. The calico had been fixed to the glass by spirit gum. 
 
 " Clever, anyhow," said Slade, as he put the pieces of glass 
 into a pocket handkerchief. " Gravel doesn't take footprints, so 
 we have nothing more to find here." 
 
 With this he walked indoors, and into the small reception- 
 room, where he put the pieces of glass together. The long
 
 102 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 strip of calico was fixed to a piece neither square nor circular, 
 about four inches across, and the five other pieces fitted round 
 it making nearly the whole pane. One of these five pieces 
 with the calico wrapped on both sides, and with a strip hanging 
 from it about two feet long, was evidently the second piece 
 removed ; the others followed easily, and each had been 
 removed by a separate diamond cut made on the inside of the 
 window. Slade grinned again, looked hard at Cheriton, and 
 said : 
 
 " Lend me your diamond." 
 
 "Haven't got one," was the quick response, whereupon 
 Slade shook his head, handed Cheriton a piece of glass, and 
 asked him on which side the diamond had passed. Cheriton 
 looked at it, and then answered : 
 
 " Both sides : one curve inside, and the other curve outside." 
 And so it was. 
 
 " Very clever, indeed," said Slade ; " clever anyhow." 
 
 And then he explained to Mr. Eales that the first piece had 
 been cut on the outside, and this having been removed, the 
 succeeding pieces had been cut on the inside. 
 
 Then followed a private colloquy between the solicitor and 
 the detective, in which the latter pointed out that granted 
 collusion between Cheriton and his wife, nothing had occurred 
 that could not have been encompassed by them, including 
 even the death of Mr. Louison. The first cut on the glass 
 had been made on the outside, but Cheriton could have gone 
 outside to do it, just as a burglar could have put his hand 
 through the first opening to make the subsequent cuts on the 
 inside. 
 
 " Then what is your opinion? " asked Mr. Eales. 
 
 " Haven't got one," said Slade, rubbing his face in a 
 meditative way. " People have been carried off before 
 to-day, and detained in the hope of a reward. Cheriton 
 could have carried off his master. His Tontine friends could 
 have done so. Anybody could have done it. We'll advertise 
 for him." 
 
 They accordingly commenced to draw up an advertisement, 
 and having set down the first word, remembered that they 
 didn't know what Mr. Louison was like, for the very sufficient 
 reason that they had never seen him.
 
 AN EXTRAORDINARY CASE OP ABDUCTION. 
 
 103 
 
 Cheriton was called in, and by dint of much questioning it 
 was elicited that Mr. Louison was five feet eleven, when he 
 stood upright, was grey, but abundant in the matter of hair, 
 usually of a forbidding countenance in the presence of others, 
 and never spoke if he could possibly avoid it. His dress was 
 plain black, with a frock coat, and a tall hat. A gold eye-glass 
 was the only sign of jewellery about him, and a less definite 
 description was never penned. 
 
 Slade looked upon the case as hopeless unless some accidental 
 circumstance occurred to assist him. Cheriton quite agreed 
 with him, and privately informed Mr. Eales, with an expression 
 of profound contempt for Scotland Yard, that he should go on 
 the quest himself. 
 
 " As for him, Sir," said he, " he don't believe no such 
 gentleman as the master ever lived."
 
 CHAPTEB XIV. 
 
 DAVID THRESHEE REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 
 
 DAVID THRESHER could not be induced to interest himself 
 in the disappearance of his uncle. A bitter sense of wrong 
 saturated his mind, and his soul was in revolt. There had 
 been some interviews with Arthur Foyle, some stern com- 
 munings with himself, and some moments of unutterable 
 rage. Then he took a pen and wrote. Without preface 
 cr subscription he flung his bitterness on the paper, 
 and the name on the envelope alone indicated whom he 
 addressed : 
 
 " I would not write in the first bitterness of my soul, nor 
 will I wait until I stand on the ashes of my love. I will not 
 upbraid you for an act that most will say was dictated by 
 caprice, nor will I charge you with contemptuous indifference 
 to the sacredness of the engagement you have contracted. 
 Anger, horror, revenge, have each in turn impelled me to 
 vindictiveness and language of which I should have come to 
 be ashamed. Amazement alone remains to possess iny soul 
 amazement even to the feeling of alarm. I cannot reason upon 
 your act because I do not understand it. Yesterday I said to 
 myself, ' She could not be worthy of a strong true love that would 
 live through all enduring time, facing all dangers, and over- 
 coming all difficulties, accepting pain and suffering, fighting to 
 the last, because the love was true. Then why should I regret ? 
 Better that the harsh brutality of the open fact should be 
 spread out before me while I am yet free.' To-day I say, ' I 
 do not know.' I say I do not know because I cannot think you 
 incapable of heroism. To imagine one, whose being has been 
 hallowed in the thought, could have been capable of a sordid 
 passion is impossible, and my reason falters. What is it that 
 has precipitated a step so strange, so unexpected, so abso- 
 lutely foreign to a pure mind and a high purpose ? 
 I cannot tell. I do not charge you with breaking 
 your pledge to me : you never actually pledged 
 yourself to me. I cannot say you have been
 
 DAVID THRESHEE EEVIEWS THE SITUATION. 105 
 
 false to your love. You never allowed that you really loved 
 me. I admit I have no right to address you in terms of 
 remonstrance or reproach : I cannot even claim a right to 
 address you at all; but in the name of the God who made 
 us, in the name of the love with which you have inspired 
 me, in the name of our common humanity that ever looks for 
 something higher and purer than the hand handles or the foot 
 treads on : Why have you thrown my idol down ; why 
 have you broken the charm with which the deepest passion of 
 my nature invested you as with a halo of light and purity ; 
 why have you taken a step that the world brands with sordid 
 names ; and how could you do a thing that links me with a 
 sullied hope and you with a fallen nature ? The world with its 
 cold cynicism looks on and grins as it measures out the veil of 
 conventional propriety covering the ghastly sight. I could 
 have borne your rejection of me not being found worthy. I 
 could have claimed honourable regard even though you had 
 preferred another equal to yourself, as I imagined you ; but to 
 be rejected for such a one humbles me, benumbs me with 
 consternation, shatters me to the foundations of my being! 
 
 "And now I must forget you forget that you have ever 
 been. To dismiss you from my thoughts as you are would be 
 easy, except that your future must ever awaken my commisera- 
 tion ; but to forget an immaculate ideal, incarnate with the 
 most perfect form of womanhood, is impossible ; nor shall I 
 ever strive to forget, nay I shall ever keep fresh and green the 
 remembrance of a form whose presence awakened within me a 
 reverent hope, an undying love, and the conception of a perfect 
 mind. The hope may be blasted, the love dead, and the con- 
 ception false, but they have become to me an aspiration, and I 
 will cherish them as a reality that I have as yet missed but 
 still look for. Farewell." 
 
 " And now," said he as he folded up the letter and addressed 
 it to Mrs. Cope, " Now my friend, Eales, I can think about my 
 uncle." 
 
 Eales was not present, but he was in Thresher's thoughts, 
 for the disappearance of his uncle had much impressed him, 
 and nothing but the absorbing character of his own misfortune 
 would have prevented him from taking immediate action in 
 that respect.
 
 106 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 The letter, if it can be called so, seeing it was addressed to 
 no one and had no superscription, was a necessary exhalation 
 of the mind. The reduction of his thoughts to writing, 
 enabled him to understand what he actually did think ; and 
 when he had finished he felt relief. Something had happened, 
 a crisis had come ; and the future would be coloured by the 
 incident ; but he had resolved to put the whole matter aside. 
 His success in executing that resolution would depend upon 
 events, but at the time he was perfectly sincere in regarding 
 this chapter of his life as closed. 
 
 He was curious, however, as to the motive which had 
 impelled Isabel, and to this extent his mind was open to 
 fresh impressions and his heart to renewed pain. In view 
 of the singular relations subsisting between him and those 
 with whom he had been associated in business and social 
 courtesy, he had resolved to send this note or memorandum 
 by the hand of Arthur, between whom and Thresher a strange 
 compact had been tacitly entered into, based on something 
 stronger than reciprocal tastes stronger even than love itself, 
 for they had joined hands in the bond of a common antipathy. 
 
 Arthur was received by his sister in her own sitting-room 
 before noon. It was a charming place, full of tasteful nick- 
 nacks, and draped with fabrics of soft texture and pleasing 
 colours. Low chairs responsive to an indolent habit, a large 
 writing table suggestive of work, reading lamps, an easel 
 holding a draped canvass, and books in abundance. This 
 room had become a home, and its mistress matched its graceful 
 repose. She wore a Japanese robe, loosely girdled, open at 
 the neck, and the full sleeves disclosed a pair of oriental 
 bracelets. Her hair was loosely knotted at the crown of her 
 head, her neck was unadorned, and her brother was startled 
 by the freshness of her beauty, no less than by her calm 
 repose and self-possession. 
 
 She took him by the hand and said she was glad to see 
 him. He responded with a look of admiration and pleasure. 
 Then he said : 
 
 " Well, Iz, I'm glad to see you looking so well. I thought 
 you'd have been miserable, don't you know." 
 
 "Why? "she asked, somewhat sternly. She remembered 
 the cause of the step she had taken, and, although she had
 
 DAVID THRESHER REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 107 
 
 resolved not to admit it to her brother, or refer to the incident 
 her father had disclosed, she felt in a sense aggrieved at her 
 brother's remark. She was indeed astonished at his coming. 
 His tone and manner did not accord with the fitness of 
 things, and she regarded him forbiddingly. 
 
 " Well, you know, Iz, I'm not going to believe, you know, 
 you married Cope by choice, you know. There's some- 
 thing at the bottom of it Thresher and I don't know about, 
 and I want you to tell me what it is, because we don't believe 
 the governor has been square, don't you know." 
 
 Isabel was seated now, and at the end of this speech, which 
 was delivered with some signs of embarrassment, she turned on 
 her brother with a look so penetrating that he was startled, 
 and began to wonder whether he had said anything amiss. 
 
 "Have you no suspicions?" she asked still more sternly, 
 nothing doubting as yet. 
 
 "We have suspicions, you know; but we haven't anything 
 we can be sure about, don't you know." 
 
 "But you?" she asked, " You ? Have you nothing 
 certain ? " 
 
 " Why, of course not, else I shouldn't ask," he answered, 
 recovering his self-possession. 
 
 "But come now, Arthur, has your father said nothing to 
 you nothing about a difficulty in which you were concerned ? " 
 
 "No," said Arthur, "I've been concerned in no difficulty 
 that has anything to do with you. Why, I never heard of the 
 marriage until it was all over." 
 
 Isabel was perplexed ; then after consideration she asked : 
 
 " But has there been no difficulty about money? " 
 
 "No, not a bit." 
 
 Isabel pondered. Obviously deception existed somewhere, 
 but she was quite unable to determine where. She more 
 than suspected her brother, and believed he was pretending 
 ignorance. It was exactly what would happen in the cir- 
 cumstances described by her father. Seeing she hesitated, 
 her brother broke out with 
 
 " Well, I don't understand the how and the why, nor what 
 you mean by thinking me mixed up with the business, but all 
 I can tell you is that the governor has been interfering in 
 matters that don't concern him, and if you've been influenced
 
 108 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 by anything connected with me, you've been let in, and it's a 
 damned shame, so there." 
 
 Isabel shuddered. Fears of horrible import broke in upon 
 her, and she dared not press her brother further. He was 
 about to speak when she held up her hand to silence him, and 
 said : 
 
 " Stay, let me think." 
 
 And she turned away from him with her brows knit, and a 
 look of growing fear and pain upon her face. 
 
 During the pause Arthur was reminded of David Thresher's 
 letter, which he drew from his pocket, saying : 
 
 " Here's a letter. I forgot. It's from Thresher, and I 
 promised to give it to you." 
 
 She took the letter with a start, and blushed as she held it, 
 deliberating for only an instant as to whether she should open 
 it. The hesitation was natural, but the conclusion was inevit- 
 able. She opened it, and read two sentences as she sat : then 
 dashed from the room bidding her brother wait. 
 
 It was well she was alone as she read those fearful words. 
 Though every line was written, as it were, with the blood of a 
 wounded heart, and the entire spirit of the appeal for light 
 and guidance was the cry of a true but shattered love, yet to
 
 DAVID THRESHER REVIEWS THE SITUATION. 109 
 
 her every syllable was a reproach a burning, lacerating torture 
 of the soul. That she had erred unconsciously did not avail 
 her ; that she had erred honourably and generously was never 
 thought of; that she had been deceived, and by her father, was 
 exasperating, maddening ; but even this was a trivial senti- 
 ment compared with the dazzling conception that the letter 
 engendered of what she had lost. And to add to the terrors 
 of the catastrophe she awakened out of the benumbing agony 
 of her soul with the knowledge that she loved. 
 
 And now how was she to act ? Her resentment was deep, 
 and would be lasting. That could remain in abeyance ; but 
 her sympathy was imperious, and demanded expression. She 
 wrote six words : 
 
 " I have been deceived : pity me."
 
 CHAPTEE XV. 
 
 MRS. COPE'S "AT HOME." 
 
 LONDON SOCIETY was much exercised in the height of the 
 season as to how Mrs. Cope had come to pass. It was true 
 she had been taken up with vigour and determination by 
 Lady Arabella, but then Lady Arabella was not averse to 
 accepting responsibilities of this sort, and, although very 
 careful, she had been known to make mistakes. 
 
 Lady Arabella was the daughter of an earl. She combined 
 the possession of a small income with a passion for giving 
 entertainments. The two conditions however were incom- 
 patible, and as she could not give entertainments herself to 
 the full extent of her desires, she was eager to associate herself 
 with the inexperienced and ambitious, provided they were also 
 wealthy. Mrs. Cope was comparatively inexperienced, and, so 
 far as Lady Arabella knew, she was ambitious. She was also 
 wealthy, and therefore Society was not surprised. 
 
 How Lady Arabella came to know Mrs. Cope within a week 
 of her marriage, and immediately thereafter jump into the 
 capacity of a bosom friend and adviser, was one of those 
 mysteries the courteous never inquire into, and the censorious 
 dispose of with a sneer. Some said she was engaged through 
 a Registry Office, and others that Gunter supplied her with the 
 ice-creams and waiters. Whatever the process she was very 
 useful, and piloted those she took in hand with energy and 
 determination. 
 
 She was not handsome, but tall and angular, with dark 
 hair and a harsh voice, well dressed, and forcible in her 
 movements ; but when all the arts had done their best she 
 was a gaunt specimen of human nature, and an odd person 
 to make a friend when grace and fashion were the matters 
 in hand. 
 
 Lady Arabella made out the list of invitations, sent out the 
 cards, and wrote an enormous number of letters to her dearest 
 friends concerning the beauty, the accomplishments, and the 
 wealth of dear Mrs. Cope. It was very amusing to society,
 
 MRS. COPE'S "AT HOME." HI 
 
 and as society lives to be amused, society took Lady Arabella 
 at her word and made up its mind to respond. Isabel added 
 less than a dozen names to the list, and one of them was that 
 of David Thresher. 
 
 Lady Arabella engaged a new baritone, whom society had 
 lately fallen in love with, and a French conjurer a decided 
 novelty, just imported, whom it was intended to turn on if 
 things became dull. All the rest was left to Gunter and the 
 Chapter of Accidents. 
 
 The Chapter of Accidents included the vagaries of Cope, and 
 they were distinctly an unknown quantity. Cope by this time 
 had become a slave to a reckless ambition. He found himself 
 surrounded by circumstances not only uncontemplated, but so
 
 112 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 novel to him that he spent all his days and nights in mastering 
 their characteristics. He made very little real progress, but 
 his eagerness to triumph outstripped his prudence, and he 
 resolved to act. 
 
 Distinctly in view of an ultimate purpose he had brought 
 himself to endure Jacobs. It is true he hated him with a 
 consuming animosity that occasionally found expression, as 
 familiarity supervened, in bad language and bootjacks ; but 
 Jacobs was the only medium through which he could acquire 
 knowledge of the working and intentions of the household of 
 which he by the accident of natural evolution had become a 
 part. He had at first thought of driving Jacobs out of the 
 house, prompted by a feeling of resentment at the intrusion 
 upon his habit of exclusiveness. This sentiment is not un- 
 common among men whose lives have been marked by strong 
 individuality and self-dependence, but Cope overcame his 
 repugnance to the demonstrative attentions of Jacobs, just as 
 he resisted the temptation to resume his vagrant life. Joshua 
 Cope had taken a step and he " meant to go through with it," 
 moreover he " meant to win," and therefore he accepted the 
 position assigned to him, and watched for his opportunity. 
 He admitted to himself he had lost on the first deal, but the 
 rubber was not played out. Joshua Cope had no intention of 
 admitting to the household, and therefore to the world, that 
 he had met with a check, so he had in an upholsterer and 
 furnished a smoking room. He felt it would be a long heat, 
 and he stripped for it. 
 
 Cope heard of Lady Arabella, and was concerned at her 
 advent. Jacobs was a barrier, Jacobs's sister was a dead wall, 
 but Lady Arabella was to his imagination in the nature of an 
 impassable gulf. Close on the heels of this news came the fact 
 that Mrs. Cope intended giving an "At Home " on Wednesday, 
 the 17th, and Cope became a prey to thought. He bit his 
 nails ; he smoked costly cigars ; he drank rum ; his life had 
 become a chronic nightmare. 
 
 Surrounded, hemmed in, literally dogged by an army of 
 domestics, he was never free from intrusion, except when he 
 was in bed and asleep, and now he was going to be subjected 
 to troops of implacable demons, who, he felt sure, would 
 come for no other purpose but to look at him and revile
 
 MRS. COPE'S "AT HOME." 
 
 113 
 
 him. Flight was his only course if he desired peace, but 
 Joshua Cope's pride was strong. He smoked more cigars and 
 drank more rum. 
 
 It was the morning of the 17th ; and Jacobs observed that 
 his master's eye twinkled, that his manner was cheerful, and 
 that he conversed freely on the weather, the state of the crops, 
 and praised the polish of his boots. Jacobs thought he had 
 become tamed, but Jacobs did not understand the idiosyn- 
 cracies of wild beasts. 
 
 " I say, Jacobs, is Mrs. Cope about? " 
 
 " Yes, Sir, I believe so." 
 
 "Ah," said Cope, looking at himself in the glass, and 
 thinking that he really had improved in appearance, " I want 
 to see her. No, I don't. Second thoughts are always best, 
 eh, Jacobs?" 
 
 Jacobs, ; who was the .most solemn person that ever walked 
 on two legs, whose face was an arid waste so far as expression 
 went, whose garments were without creases, and whose lips 
 were without colour, actually smiled, but with the smile of 
 wonder.
 
 114 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "Jacobs," resumed Cope, "a message will do a message 
 after breakfast. I suppose she breakfasts in her own room, as 
 usual, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes, Sir, I suppose so." 
 
 The house of a week or two had become a creature of habit. 
 
 The message was a simple one : " Give my compliments to 
 Mrs. Cope, and say I shall return at three o'clock to drive with 
 her, and that two gentlemen dine with us at a quarter to eight." 
 
 " Yes, Sir," said Jacobs, and the disturbing character of the 
 message was shown only by a very slight nervous twitch on 
 his left cheek. 
 
 " Eepeat the message," said Cope savagely. He had observed 
 the nervous twitch, and resented it. 
 
 Jacobs obeyed. 
 
 " Then deliver it, and see Mrs. Cope is not kept waiting." 
 
 With this he left the house, and Jacobs felt that a crisis had 
 arrived. He delivered the message with mechanical accuracy, 
 and when he found it was received with apparent unconcern, 
 he concluded his reasoning was at fault. Mrs. Cope merely 
 told him to see the orders carried out, but when the door had 
 closed on him, she and Lady Arabella held a council of war. 
 
 Lady Arabella did not thoroughly understand the situation. 
 She accepted the position as it presented itself to her without 
 enquiry, and indeed regarded it as in the ordinary nature of 
 things, except that she thought Mr. Cope wanting in considera- 
 tion. She was, however, enlightened. 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Cope, "this is not the trivial matter 
 you think it. I am in doubt about these ' two gentlemen.' If 
 they should be gentlemen it would not matter, but I am afraid 
 they cannot be ; and if not, your friends would be displeased." 
 
 Lady Arabella admitted this to be a most serious matter. 
 
 " What do you propose ? " she asked. 
 
 " We are in the dark," was the answer. " But I would run 
 no risk. Bather than do so, I would send for a doctor, and 
 telegraph to everyone that I am down with a fever." 
 
 " You can do better than that," said Lady Arabella ; " you 
 can receive in another house." 
 
 " Excellent," said Isabel. " But how is that to be done? " 
 
 " Get out the brougham," cried Lady Arabella. " It's half- 
 past ten. Time enough for the fever after two o'clock ;" and
 
 MRS. COPE'S "AT HOME." 115 
 
 she rang the bell, ordered the brougham, and strode the 
 boudoir like a war-horse. 
 
 Before one o'clock every expected guest had been apprised by 
 telegraph that in consequence of an accident in the drawing- 
 room of her house, Mrs. Cope would receive at No. 2, Assheton 
 Square, formerly the residence of Lady Pomfrey. 
 
 By two o'clock No. 2, Assheton Square, was attacked by an 
 army of decorators, and by eight it was a galaxy of light and 
 a stud} 7 of floral beauty. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Cope had driven in the park : 
 he in a spirit of bold vindictiveness, she with cold reserve, 
 unimpassioned, and apparently undisturbed. Cope felt he was 
 not getting on as well as he had hoped. 
 
 On returning from the drive Isabel enquired : 
 " Who are your friends who dine here to-night?" 
 <; Tonks and Shorter." 
 "Who is Mr. Tonks?" 
 "An old friend of mine." 
 "And Mr. Shorter?" 
 " Another old friend." 
 
 " I will receive them in the drawing-room. If they do not 
 please me you must excuse me from joining your party." 
 
 Cope bowed low as he did on the day he 
 proposed. He was clearly not getting on. 
 
 Tonks arrived in good time. He was a rare 
 old salt with a wooden leg, and was dressed 
 in a flannel shirt, a waistcoat of blue and 
 white stripes, and a pea jacket. His hair was 
 abundant, dark brown and curly, his face 
 beamed with homely good nature, and his 
 beard, just turning to grey, was a mass of 
 ringlets like the beard of an aged Satyr. 
 
 " What cheer, my sonny bo-oy," he roared 
 as he caught sight of Cope on the stairs. " I've 
 come yer see. You'll never find Tonks fail 
 yer. Daun me, we've hauled at the same 
 ropes for fifty year, and we ain't goin' to chuck 
 over now." 
 
 And he went on roaring his complimentary aphorisms in 
 unison with the stumping of his leg all the way up stairs and 
 
 I 2
 
 116 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 into the drawing room, where he was received with calm 
 serenity by Isabel, whose mere presence charmed him to 
 respectful moderation. 
 
 "I hope I see yer well, my leddy," he said, with a wave of 
 the left hand to the rear and a circular swing of the wooden 
 leg to the fore, his ordinary method of respectful salute. 
 
 "You are welcome, Mr. Tonks," replied Isabel, "but I 
 suppose Mr. Cope has told you that I am not able to dine with 
 you, as I am engaged elsewhere? " 
 
 " No, my leddy," said Tonks with an appearance of surprise ; 
 " and I'm truly sorry to hear as you can't, my leddy," 
 and with this he made another salute, gyrating on his left leg 
 of flesh and blood, for Mr. Tonks was much impressed with 
 the dignity of Mrs. Cope, even to a sense of awe. 
 
 Cope who was a silent witness to this scene had introduced 
 his friend with a grin ; he anticipated amusement at his bride's 
 discomfort ure. Her manner, however, and the abashed 
 condition of his friend dispersed the grin, and in place of it 
 came the keen eager look indicative of repressed resistance and 
 anxiety for the future. 
 
 Cope did not understand the situation and was compelled to 
 wait. He could do no more than bow when Isabel turned to 
 him and said : 
 
 " I am dining with Lady Arabella." 
 
 Bowing was a novelty in his experience, and Cope felt he 
 was bowing far too much. He was awakening to the fact that 
 he was in a subjective position, and that his bowing was 
 the open expression of a moral condition to which he had 
 hitherto been a stranger. He did not like it, but he bowed 
 nevertheless. 
 
 " You'll dine with more freedom by yourselves, Mr. Tonks," 
 suggested Isabel with another gracious smile that completely 
 turned the head of the old salt, who made another gyration as 
 he exclaimed : 
 
 " This is a proud day for Nathan Tonks, my leddy, to see my 
 mate Cope in such a grand house, and you, my leddy, and all 
 the rest." 
 
 The necessity for a reply was obviated by the introduction of 
 Shorter, to whom, however, Isabel merely bowed on his being 
 introduced, and with the simple words, " I will leave you now,
 
 MRS. COPE'S " AT HOME." 
 
 117 
 
 gentlemen, to enjoy yourselves," she left the room. She was 
 not, indeed, fully dressed for the evening, having put on a quiet 
 dinner dress for the comedy in which she had just been taking 
 a part : and her maid Jacobs was waiting for her in her dress- 
 ing-room with a marvellous effort in cream coloured brocade 
 over which Lady Arabella had spent much anxious thought. 
 
 Cope's dinner was a curiosity. The menu was excellent, for 
 it was the cook's ; the service was precise for it was under the 
 direction of the impassive Jacobs, but the guests were embar- 
 rassed by the variety of the dishes andtho number of wine glasses. 
 They were also embarrassed with each other, for no parasite ever 
 loved a brother, and Nathan Tonks's contempt for Shorter 
 approached the sublime. He once reviled his pretensions to 
 clerical status, and described him as " a parboiled imitation of 
 a sky pilot." The vigour of his criticisms of Shorter caused the 
 cunning clerk to preserve a complete silence in the presence of 
 Tonks, and this added to the oddity of the dinner, which was 
 enlivened only by a series of panegyrics by Tonks on the 
 position of his shipmate Cope, and the surpassing grandeur of 
 his bride. Later on he reverted to the earlier years of their 
 companionship, talked of the old smuggling daj's, revelled in
 
 118 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 the recital of contests with the coast-guard, and recalled the 
 incident which resulted in the scar on Cope's face. 
 
 "Aye, aye, my sonny boy, stirring times them afore the 
 forties," said he. " No such fun now-a-days ; no chance of 
 slaps in the face like that o' yourn. All humdrum and 
 respectability. Daun me if it ain't sickening," and he 
 scowled at Shorter as the type of modern degeneracy. 
 
 Shorter resisted the temptation to retort ; and his apparent 
 indifference excited the malignity of Tonks, who, after rolling 
 
 his eyes at the clerk for a moment or two, exploded upon 
 him a torrent of questions, all calculated, in his opinion, 
 to exhibit the debased condition of Shorter and his own 
 superiority. 
 
 "What do you know about the forties?" he growled. 
 "What can yer know? Who's Shorrocks?" he shouted, 
 with an aspect of triumph and menace glimmering through 
 the haze of rum that obscured his intellect. The question was 
 followed by a gleam of suspicion on the part of Shorter, and a 
 lunge on the part of Cope at Tonks's live leg. The effort to
 
 MES. COPE'S " AT HOME." 119 
 
 silence him was not successful, and before another could be 
 made, Tonks had shouted with additional vehemence : 
 
 "You don't know Omah. How could yer? Why, you 
 wern't born in '48. You're a chicken a ignorant chicken." 
 
 " Tonks," said Cope, with desperate emphasis, " Tonks, 
 you're drunk and playing the fool," 
 
 " Ah, maybe, shipmate, maybe," replied Tonks; and then a 
 look of cunning passed over his face as he added, " Aye, drunk, 
 so I am very drunk drunk and dreamin' of old times 
 Shorrocks's times. Ha, ha," he chuckled, " Them was the 
 tirnss. No chuckle-headed, white-livered swabs among us 
 then. All men, real live men," and he struck the table 
 and looked defiantly at Shorter. 
 
 Apart from this episode the domestic situation continued 
 to increase in embarrassment for Cope. His dinner was over 
 and the reception had not commenced. What had occurred 
 to prevent it ? He could not understand what was going on 
 in the household outside the dining-room, and dared not ask. 
 The fact that he dared not ask was in itself singular upon 
 the part of a man whose capacity for daring was his most 
 striking characteristic ; but lie felt that he had been foiled, 
 and he was afraid to ask, because the mere question would 
 have been a confession of failure. They had reached the 
 rum and cigar stage without hearing any sign of visitors. 
 Some carriages had drawn up at the house, but they had 
 passed on again. Cope had observed this, and did not 
 understand it any more than he comprehended the absence 
 of bustle in the establishment. Joshua Cope came to a wise 
 conclusion. He got rid of his friends and went to bed. 
 
 In the meantime, No. 2, Assheton Square was all ablaze, 
 and Lady Arabella triumphant. The people she had most 
 wished to come were present, and her hostess and protegee was, 
 beyond comparison, the most striking figure in the assembly. 
 
 " It's true the Duchess didn't come, my dear," said Lady 
 Arabella in the height of her enthusiasm, " but that would 
 have been too much at first." 
 
 The Legislature was pretty well represented, but Mr. 
 Crawley Foyle had not received a card. Some were there who 
 were to be seen in the very best houses ; but the motives which 
 impelled them to come were mixed, and not of the most worthy
 
 120 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 sort. None, however, guessed why the " At Home " was given, 
 not even Lady Arabella, nor did she imagine any other motive 
 could inspire the breast of one so eminently fitted to adorn a 
 drawing-room than a wish to become recognised in society. 
 
 David Thresher came late. The invitation had disturbed 
 him. It suggested possibilities which were repugnant to him, 
 and his imagination ran riot in the secret recesses of his mind. 
 The brief message he had received by Arthur Foyle had 
 destroyed all feeling of antagonism to Isabel, and had awakened 
 a determined resolution to assist her. His passion for Isabel 
 was revived in intensity, was unalloyed by a single selfish 
 hope, but was fired by bitter anger towards the authors of 
 her unfortunate position. He approached her in the course 
 of the evening with every appearance of suppressed emotion, 
 and if Lady Arabella had been near she would have made 
 a discovery ; for notwithstanding Isabel's power of self- 
 control, she blushed and trembled at the touch of Thresher's 
 hand. Her welcome was almost a whisper. 
 
 He was satisfied. The pain, the misery, the anguish of 
 mind, the bitter contempt were all dissipated; and for the 
 moment he forgot that they were irrevocably separated. It was 
 enough for him that she had sent for him, and welcomed him as 
 she had never done before without words it was true beyond 
 the common-place, but with the very manner and tone of love. 
 
 " I must speak to you before you go," she said ; " wait near." 
 
 Lady Arabella was bearing down upon them. She was a great 
 student of the emotions, and an idea had occurred to her. 
 
 " One of your friends, my dear? " she queried. " Quite a 
 handsome man. A perfect treasure, my dear. Nice to have 
 men like that about." 
 
 Isabel beckoned David Thresher and introduced him. 
 
 Lady Arabella bowed with becoming reserve. David 
 Thresher could have had no conception that she had said 
 "such nice things" about him. He made one or two 
 common-place remarks, and would have left her, but she, still 
 in pursuance of the idea that had occurred to her, detained 
 him, told Isabel she had just turned on the French conjuror, 
 and left them together. 
 
 Lady Arabella was a dexterous woman ; she knew exactly 
 what to say and do, as for instance when people asked her
 
 MRS. COPE'S "AT HOME. 
 
 121 
 
 " Where Mr. Cope was," she answered : " Oh, he's not here, 
 doesn't care for this sort of thing : he's thinking of his money 
 bogs, my dear." 
 
 The French conjuror attracted everybody's attention save 
 only two, and Lady Arabella's delight at the expertness of the 
 sleight of hand was heightened and capped by the pleasure 
 she experienced in contemplating the result of her own 
 perspicacity. Lady Arabella was confirmed in her idea. 
 
 " I have but one thing to say," said David Thresher, not 
 looking at Isabel, but straight before him after the manner of 
 those who hope to conceal from the crowd the earnestness of 
 their conversation, " I sympathise with you, and you may 
 command me in anything." 
 
 " I know it now," was the reply. " I am going to Brighton 
 to-morrow. I shall be on the pier every day when the band 
 plays. That's a clever trick," she added, looking towards the 
 conjuror. " How delighted everybody seems." 
 
 She hadn't the slightest idea what the French conjuror had 
 done, but she was well pleased that others liked it. The " At 
 Home " indeed was a great success. Lady Arabella said so,
 
 122 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 and Isabel was perfectly satisfied. So was David Thresher 
 within limits ; but a future had opened up to him. 
 
 Next morning Cope received a letter from his wife. It was 
 brief, and a mere record of a domestic fact. It said : 
 
 " Mrs. Cope is going to Brighton to-morrow, with her mother. 
 She has undertaken the responsibility of the establishment 
 formerly maintained by Mr. Foyle, who will not again reside 
 there. A room will always be at the service of Mr. Cope, 
 whether Mrs. Cope is there or not. The servants have orders 
 to this effect." 
 
 This ought not to have been an exasperating letter, but 
 Cope received it when in the act of dressing, and having read 
 it, he uttered an expletive, which for rudeness could scarcely 
 be surpassed. Not only so, but lie changed all his clothes and 
 left within an hour for Halesowen. The situation had become 
 intolerable. He concluded it would be impossible for him to 
 make headway on the lines his bride had chosen ; his only 
 chance lay in complete retirement for a time, a review of the 
 situation, and an entirely new attack on fresh lines. By way 
 of change, he would seek amusement by a few weeks' residence 
 among the nailers. He hated them because he oppressed 
 them, and he proposed to renew his energy in the con- 
 templation of their misery.
 
 CHAPTEK XVI. 
 
 THE LAND OF DEATH. 
 
 LIFE among the nailers is a 
 wizened, battered thing that 
 dare not lift its head, where no 
 tree grows nor yet a blade of 
 grass, where black and barldess 
 stumps show to man how life must once 
 have been ; where the sun is known to 
 shine only because the black dust bites 
 the face and cuts the blistered eye, where the 
 very ground is black and all the stones are hid 
 with grime, and all is gloom and darkness, 
 where nothing looks like nature save the night 
 and then the stars shine, and those who dwell upon this 
 blighted plain feel they live in common with their fellow-men 
 because there is a Night. 
 
 Joshua Cope went down to settle accounts with his nailers 
 at Halesowen because he had been worsted and his self- 
 esteem needed a tonic. He went where he felt himself strong, 
 where he could trample down and lay waste at will. He 
 knew the nailers were his slaves and bowed to him because 
 they must have bread ; and he let them have an ounce or two 
 for fear they should die outright and be no longer useful. 
 Like Death he preferred a little life lest there should be
 
 124 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 nothing left to wrench and grind and torture out of being. So 
 the nailers were born to work and to die. 
 
 Men talk of life as if it were a living thing ; men talk of 
 growth as if it were a force essential , yet here and there within 
 this land of plenty and of greatness we are shown that there 
 is but one all-pervading power, and that is Death, but 
 one triumphant influence Decay. Life after all is but a feeble 
 resistance of Death, a mere effort to repel. We fight against 
 the all-conquering power from the day of our birth we fight 
 against the cold that checks and the hunger that kills, but in 
 the end we each and all succumb. We help each other in the 
 struggle as we have all been helped and shielded and nurtured 
 by the mother who bore us and the friend who would have us 
 remain, but it is only for a time. Even if one helps to give a 
 life to the world it is but another effort to carry on the conflict 
 with the one stern, irresistible, all-conquering activity. The 
 future has much in store for us, but as we see it Life is a poor 
 weak thing at the best, and to some it is a barren waste, all 
 parched and black and withered. With these Death is in the 
 ascendant from the hour of their birth, and to most of them 
 the end is Relief. 
 
 Some there be whose sense of being is continuous, who 
 rejoice in a Life that is perfect in its strength, beautiful in all 
 that encompasses it, and endless in its vista of hope. These 
 acknowledge not Death, but as a symbol, and they triumph in 
 their Faith. But this is not for those who strive and work in 
 endless battling for bare existence in the scenes that men have 
 made for those who live by Effort, not by Life itself. Base 
 passions and the instincts of the brute exhale from such a soil. 
 What can there be of love and hope and gentle culture when 
 the little children have no time to weep, much less to laugh ; 
 when all that ever is or was or can be in their horizon is the 
 cold drear waste of blackness and the ceaseless toil to make the 
 little that the stunted lives must have, or die ? 
 
 What life can that be which awakes in a hovel next a forge 
 where nails are made, where not a breath of pure and honest 
 air can ever work to give to man the life that lives and bursts 
 upon the world with all the wondrous works of Life itself? 
 For such poor souls Death is pre-eminent, and they struggle on, 
 fighting for they know not what, not even cursing fate ; but
 
 THE LAND OF DEATH. 125 
 
 always striving for the something better and that the Life 
 unknown. 
 
 Cope's warehouse was a dreary building. It might once 
 have been a farm house. Perhaps it had known the smell of 
 new-mown hay and meadow-sweet. Many years before it had 
 been whitewashed, and nails could be found in the walls as if 
 a creeper had once grown around the grimy windows. Kuined 
 outhouses stood in the rear, and what appeared to be the wreck 
 of a threshing mill lay scattered about, mingled with scrap iron, 
 broken castings, and other embellishments of desolation. 
 
 Inside his warehouse was Joshua Cope, appropriately dirty 
 and full of venom. He stood in the doorway of a large low 
 room, smoking, with his hands in his pockets and glaring at a 
 strange old man busy packing the nails into bags. 
 
 Ebenezer Warp had a weird face, all seared and yellow 
 with straggling locks of hair that would have been white if 
 whiteness could have been in such surroundings, and with eyes 
 that made one pause. They were almost colourless, but 
 fascinated by their immeasurable depth, and the sudden flashes 
 that seemed to dart from them at times alternating with weary 
 dulness. His back was bent with years and rheumatism and 
 his arms projected behind him when he stood as upright as he 
 was able. He was always thinly clad, and moved about 
 mechanically with his shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbows 
 and with an apron of sacking more ragged and shapeless than 
 his miserable garments 
 
 " No one's robbin' yer as I knows of, Mr. Cope," he was 
 saying in a weird, far-away voice, " I'm notlarned, and I can't 
 reckon accounts, but I can weigh the nails and give the price 
 c'rect, Mr. Cope." 
 
 " And tell lies," was the sardonic rejoinder. 
 
 "No, Mr. Cope, not lies," he said, and then he stood, and 
 as he looked at his master there seemed to grow in his face 
 a look of imprecation, heroic in its intensity for the moment, 
 and then it passed away into blank desolation and he fell to 
 filling the bags of nails with the dull weary monotonous motion 
 of the mill horse. 
 
 Joshua Cope smoked/m and watched as he stood in the door- 
 way. He was not ill-pleased ; he was altogether reckless of the 
 pain he caused, and the manner of the old man amused him.
 
 126 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 1 'What 'sail this," he asked, "about some new warehouse 
 being started?" 
 
 " It's not a warehouse," exclaimed Ebenezer excitedly. " It's 
 a factory where men can work and earn enough to keep their 
 homes in comfort." 
 
 " Oh," grunted Cope. 
 
 "A factory," resumed the old man, "well-built and clean 
 and new, where men will get good wages and have a home." 
 
 " What's a home, Neb? " asked Cope with a stolid look. He 
 was getting angry. 
 
 The old man turned and his eyes lit up for a moment as he 
 answered : 
 
 " A home is a place where the young 'uns are cared for, and 
 the old 'uns can get rest o' evenin's afore they die." 
 
 " Oh," grunted Cope, " and who's building this fine place?" 
 
 Ebenezer shook his head as he walked across the room with 
 a bag ; and when he had set it down, he said : 
 
 " A stranger ; an old man, name o' Speezer. A stranger : 
 but he's ne'er been hereabouts." 
 
 Ebenezer returned across the warehouse waving his arms as 
 much in the air as his bent form would let him, and crying as 
 he did so : "A stranger, aye, a stranger." 
 
 The gloom of twilight was coming on, and the small and 
 dirty windows of the warehouse admitted little light. The 
 old man continued working away filling and weighing the 
 bags, and the long arms spread out and the ragged white hair 
 streamed hazily in the gloom. He looked like a spectre 
 Joshua Cope thought, and he smoked with vigour to dispel the 
 illusion. Presently he began to growl out horrible oaths. 
 That reference to a stranger seemed to him to partake of a 
 criticism and a rebuke, so he cursed the stranger, and Ebenezer, 
 and everybody. 
 
 The old man continued filling and weighing the bags, and 
 when he had cleared away and packed up the whole heap of 
 nails he swung his arms around in the air and did his best to 
 straighten himself. Then, with a weird look at Cope, he lifted 
 up his right hand and menaced him from out of the gloom 
 with words more terrible than curses and oaths, for the voice, 
 though thin and plaintive in its accents, sounded to Joshua 
 Cope like inspiration, for the words were true :
 
 128 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Ye may curse and curse, Joshua Cope ; you may foul yer 
 soul with blasphemy, but ye cannot stop the coming day. I've 
 worked here, man and boy for sixty year without a break and 
 have only now to die. That's not the life for man to live ; 
 it's not the will of God, Joshua Cope ! It can't a be it can't 
 a be, and the curses that you throw at us lie black upon your 
 own soul." 
 
 He went out with his coat under his arm muttering as he 
 went all the way to his home, and there he found the whole 
 family still at work. His daughter hammered at a rod of iron 
 making horseshoe nails ; her two girls aged sixteen and seven- 
 teen and a boy of twelve were at similar work, and the bellows 
 was being worked by a little crippled girl. Their father was 
 dead. 
 
 Late that night Joshua Cope made a pilgrimage to the new 
 building, and there being no watchman or guard he walked in 
 and examined it. The scheme was quite plain to him. At 
 one end of the building was a boiler set, and near it the seat 
 for an engine. From this extended half a dozen long alleys 
 on each side of which were set up little forges. They were all 
 furnished with blow pipes, but no bellows. The blowing was 
 to be done by the engine, and the air would be driven through 
 a coil of pipe in the furnace so that it would reach the fires 
 tolerably warm, and the workers had need only to turn a tap 
 to get their blow. Cope looked upon the idea of saving the 
 work-people the trouble of blowing as folly, but there was 
 something else at which he became angry. In a compartment 
 next the engine there was set up a machine, the purpose of 
 which he could not at first comprehend, but on examination 
 he found it was designed to produce wrought nails in the 
 rough. The rod was inserted between rollers that simply 
 squeezed the iron into shape and then cut the nail apart so 
 that it needed little more than sharpening. This machine was 
 for horse-shoe nails, but there was another for flat-headed nails 
 that was only partly built. The scowl on Joshua Cope's face 
 as he looked at them gave way after a time to a malicious 
 grin. As he turned to go he came dead into the arms of an 
 elderly gentleman of benevolent aspect dressed in a pea-jacket 
 and a yachting cap. Cope concluded it was Mr. Speezer 
 come on a visit of inspection, and he thought the time oddly
 
 THE LAND OP DEATH. 
 
 129 
 
 chosen Mr. Speezer was accompanied by a little man also 
 in yachting costume, who seemed unusually active for his 
 years and whom the elderly gentleman of benevolent aspect 
 called Chenton.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE LAND OF FASHION. 
 
 LADY ARABELLA loved Brighton, and naturally sacrificed 
 herself for "dear Mrs. Cope's sake" by accompanying her. 
 Brighton is, and has always been, a wonderful place. You 
 may dress five times a day and promenade a hundred miles a 
 week without being remarked on as singular: all your 
 neighbours do the same. Isabel gave Lady Arabella a room at 
 the top of the house, which she protested was delightful, and 
 she was incessant at the toilet and the promenade. 
 
 "My dear, I sympathise with you," said Lady Arabella. 
 " Your position, my dear, is difficult. You need someone with 
 you who understands the difficulty and can assist you to 
 surmount it." 
 
 Isabel was not quite sure that the necessity was urgent, 
 and she felt Lady Arabella was a little tiresome, but the 
 situation was new, and she thought it prudent to resign herself 
 to the intrusion. 
 
 Accordingly, they dressed, perambulated and drove and sat 
 on the pier, and generally pervaded the miscellaneous throng 
 that ebbs and flows on the shore at Brighton with the 
 persistency of the waves themselves, and Isabel found the 
 Lady Arabella a complete directory of everybody resident in 
 the town, whether temporary or permanent. 
 
 Residence at Brighton is dictated by various motives. The 
 man who draws his nets in Threadneedle Street and likes to 
 sleep at Brighton, travels a hundred miles a day between his 
 bed and his business, and calls it rest. The Billingsgate Fish 
 salesman finds it convenient to sleep near the Monument and 
 take his lunch in the domestic circle at Brighton. The 
 politician imagines Brighton air productive of ideas, and the 
 man of leisure discovers charms in Brighton flirtations that are 
 unequalled in any place under the sun. The snob flourishes 
 there as a restrained growth during the major part of the 
 year, but develops the full efflorescence of his species in the 
 season recognised as especially set apart for him. Surrounded
 
 THE LAND OF FASHION. 
 
 131 
 
 by the objects of his idolatry, he offers them the incense of 
 imitation. 
 
 Associated with the aristocracy and aromatic with traditions 
 of royal favour, Brighton has become the home of conventional 
 propriety. The ladies take everything as a matter of course ; 
 the frail and demure are alike circumspect, and Mrs. Grundy 
 is triumphant on the surface. The result is at least a decorous 
 crowd. 
 
 Isabel had always been given to pensive reflection, and life 
 had become more of a riddle to her now than ever. Why she 
 was there at all ; the feeling of restraint or depression under 
 which she laboured ; the indefinable hope of future happiness ; 
 the crushing fear of an intervening catastrophe contributed to 
 a condition of quiet reserve, and she endured Lady Arabella in 
 much the same way as reasonable people put up with the band 
 at a theatre. She listened to the conventional chatter and 
 responded absently. Her toleration of Lady Arabella was 
 inexplicable on ordinary grounds, and she resisted the temp- 
 tation to search for a definite solution of the phenomenon. She 
 instinctively refused to look at the truth. She remembered the 
 " At Home ;" she remembered her invitation ; she encouraged 
 the hope that it would be responded to, and yet all the while 
 she dismissed the thoughts and put them aside as if they had
 
 132 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 no existence. Lady Arabella was thus a convenient counter 
 irritant. 
 
 And as they rode and drove and walked and sat, Lady 
 Arabella reviewed the human sea that eddied round them. 
 The stout man with the red face and the elaborately curved 
 hat was Sir Keginald Ball, once a Cabinet Minister, but now 
 concerned only about the colour of his mail-phaeton and the 
 polish of his boots. The lady with the pink complexion and 
 yellow hair was Mrs. Bowcher, whose husband was a man- 
 milliner in Bond street, and that accounted for the marvellous 
 dresses she wore : she advertised the business. The tall man, 
 all elbows and stride, was Mr. Richmond Pilcher, a stockbroker, 
 who advertised himself. The extravagance of an occasional 
 special train to take a friend home to dinner was part of his 
 system ; so was his town house, vulgarly magnificent and 
 devoid of comfort ; too big for a Duke, but too small for Mr. 
 Richmond Pilcher, or at least he said so. 
 
 " They say, my dear, such people are necessary," said Lady 
 Arabella, describing this curious development of the 19th Cen- 
 tury. " It's very unfortunate, "but we must put up with it." 
 
 The necessity for Mr. Richmond Pilcher's existence was not 
 quite apparent to more accurate thinkers, and none knew 
 better than he how precarious was the footing of the com- 
 mercial tight-rope dancer. Upon occasions he persuaded 
 himself that he served a purpose in the commercial world, 
 and custom, personal extravagance and the fraudulent intent 
 of those he served combined to explain if they did not justify 
 the ridiculous disproportion between his services and the 
 emoluments he exacted. But there he was in the Brighton 
 crowd beside many other extravagant examples of modern 
 civilisation, such as the young peer who dressed as a 
 groom and boasted that he had never entered the House of 
 Lords, the decayed financier who lived on the bounty of his 
 friends whom he had made rich, the most successful tailor that 
 the world had ever produced, and a leading actress accom- 
 panied by two coronets and a budding poet. There they were 
 as they may be found any day with variations of character and 
 quality according to the season ; but all with a decorous exterior 
 and the heart and the passions crushed out of life or battened 
 down and in any case well hidden out of the way.
 
 THE LAND OF FASHION. 133 
 
 On the third day after their arrival, the incident that Lady 
 Arabella had expected came to pass. David Thresher was on 
 the pier in the neighbourhood of the band ; and there was a 
 formal greeting with a timid hand-shaking and a brief common- 
 
 place conversation, just as much demonstration, in fact, as 
 courtesy demanded, and nothing more. 
 
 " So glad, my dear," said Lady Arabella. " So glad I was 
 with you when Mr. Thresher came upon us. So much better. 
 My husband blew his brains out because a gentleman was too 
 attentive to me. I don't think Mr. Cope is that sort of man, 
 my dear, but it is so much better to have some one about who 
 can make statements if required." 
 
 " I don't anticipate any statements will be required," said 
 Isabel somewhat coldly. 
 
 " No, my dear, probably not," said Lady Arabella pursuing 
 the subject. " It is not what should be actually required, but 
 what people think and say ; and it is always best to be pre- 
 pared. You know Mr. Thresher is very handsome very." 
 
 The subject dropped. Lady Arabella feared she had said 
 too much, and Isabel preferred not to have hints dropped of 
 disagreeable possibilities. Silence was natural when each had
 
 134 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 food for reflection, still it was odd that two people apparently 
 to all the world the best of friends should be walking side by 
 side with a wall of ice suddenly reared between them that 
 neither felt able to demolish or even recognise. 
 
 And perhaps the oddest part of this juxtaposition, so common 
 in the more highly wrought friction of social life, was the fact 
 that nothing that Lady Arabella could say would have altered 
 the course of Isabel's mind. The delicious essence of a for- 
 bidden hope pervaded every fibre of her being. Her danger 
 lay in the fact that she approached the sweet contemplation of 
 these grave sensations v/ith the knowledge that there was 
 danger in them, and with the proud belief that she was 
 superior to all possible evil from such a source. 
 
 So the waves beat upon the shore and the people surged 
 upon the beach, and Mrs. Foyle gazed upon her daughter 
 wistfully and with a feeling almost of awe. She did not dare 
 express the sympathy she felt. She doubted in the helpless 
 humility of her nature whether she ought to feel sympathy for 
 so great a creature as Isabel. She looked on fearful and amazed. 
 
 So also as the waves beat upon the shore and the people 
 surged upon the beach in this little area, the larger world 
 swayed on in all the interminable variation of its absorbing 
 ambitions, its petty interests, and its boundless passions, 
 unknown and uncared for by the promenaders who conceived 
 that all the ends of creation were fulfilled if only they dressed 
 five times a day and walked decorously. 
 
 David Thresher was among the few whose objects were 
 more definite if not more commendable. His resolution to go in 
 pursuit of his uncle was abandoned for the time, though not 
 wholly. He had not yet construed his immediate purpose. 
 He would have confessed to an engrossing sympathy and a 
 desire to relieve severe mental distress, nothing more. It was 
 imperative, he thought, that he should have at least one 
 interview with Isabel that should wipe out all past miscon- 
 structions, and if not actually to horoscope the future, at least, 
 not to aggravate the misfortune that obscured it. Lady 
 Arabella's conception of the necessities of the position resulted 
 in the same conclusion, and she took steps to provide an 
 opportunity, which should be consistent with conventional 
 propriety, and of course within her knowledge.
 
 THE LAND OP FASHION. 135 
 
 It is difficult to say to what extent Lady Arabella appre- 
 hended the true character of her position in relation to " dear 
 Mrs. Cope." The habit of living in a given station without 
 the means to sustain it results in the cultivation of tastes in 
 excess of one's resources, and gradually provokes the victim to 
 actions that, without being positively mean in themselves, 
 approach the dishonourable, and in the result become despicable. 
 Lady Arabella would have been honestly shocked at the sugges- 
 tion that she was assisting to provide a pit-fall for a friend in order 
 that she might have the credit of relieving her in misfortune, 
 but Lady Arabella was doing a good deal worse than this and 
 did not know it, only because she declined to think about it. 
 " Dear Mrs. Cope " was in a very disagreeable position with a 
 wretch of a husband, and she was determined to make things 
 as pleasant as possible for her. Lady Arabella therefore had 
 a mission. 
 
 When three people conspire together to realise an object 
 wholly within their capacity, it would be wonderful if its 
 achievement were prevented. Mrs. Cope and Lady Arabella 
 met David Thresher on the pier, and Lady Arabella, dis- 
 covering she had a headache, found the band rather distressing 
 where they sat, and thought she would walk up the pier and 
 back. The two remained. A public pier with a band playing 
 is not a place for clearing up past misconception and devising 
 a future plan of action. What then was more natural than 
 the making of a future appointment. 
 
 When Lady Arabella returned she found her two companions 
 gravely and silently listening to the band as if they had not 
 exchanged a single word during her absence, and in truth the 
 words exchanged were very few about a couple of dozen 
 and Lady Arabella was puzzled to know what had happened. 
 She remained in ignorance, but concluded that, an opportunity 
 having been given, she had nothing more to do but wait 
 events. Her feelings, however, were somewhat ruffled by 
 that species of nervous irritation which comes of doubt 
 whether one has not been foolishly eager concerning other 
 people's business or foolishly neglectful about one's own. 
 Lady Arabella, indeed, was conscious of a new sentiment 
 concerning her friends. She resented their contentment and 
 still more their reticence.
 
 136 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Still the waves beat on the shore, and the people surged on 
 the beach, all unmindful of what was borne on the boundless 
 ocean, and blind to the tangled wilderness of hopes and 
 ambitions spread beyond that petty strand. The meagre 
 horizon within range of the human eye and the human ear 
 was strikingly illustrated by the indifference of these Brighton 
 promenaders, while events of the first importance to themselves 
 were maturing in more than one direction with the resistless 
 growth of time. The strange old gentleman of eccentric 
 habits, tended by the faithful Cheriton, and mysteriously 
 crossing the path of Joshua Cope far away in the Black 
 Country was typical in relation to these listeners to the band, 
 of the ridiculous limit of man's capacity. Man is regarded 
 as a superior animal, but his eminence is reared on an exceed- 
 ingly narrow platform. The beasts of the field are conscious 
 only of the immediate present with just a dash of memory ; 
 and philosophers tell us that man is superior to the beasts 
 because he has imagination and cooks his meat, but even 
 with these qualities he is so little better than the beast 
 that when he follows his imagination he pursues a mirage, 
 and he usually destroys his meat when he cooks it. There 
 is much truth in the saying that few see further than their 
 noses, and some at least in that Brighton promenade were 
 living in a fool's paradise of the security of ignorance.
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 A CATASTEOPHE. 
 
 THE world is governed by jealousy. Some call it love and 
 some ambition, but when all is said and done and all philo- 
 sophy is exhausted, the motive for all Worldly effort is 
 discovered to be jealousy jealousy of possession ; and is not 
 this the mother of all ambition even the ambition of love ? 
 What single act of any member of the seething crowd called 
 " Society," within its inmost heart, or helplessly whirling in 
 its outermost eddies, can be named that does not spring from 
 jealousy of the meanest sort ? Its very laws are the product 
 of the jealousy of the impotent ! 
 
 The effort of original genius alone is prompted by a higher 
 motive than jealousy, for since the world is indifferent to the 
 aspirations of genius and laughs at unrealised inspiration 
 these efforts excite no concern. The World is not jealous of 
 conception. It is fruition, whether of original genius or of 
 worldly effort, that alone awakens jealousy; and this same 
 fruition creates copyists by the million, all resentful, eager, 
 jealous and therefore active. 
 
 Lady Arabella had never risen to the height of the jealousy 
 of the passions, but she had now become a prey to the meaner 
 envy of resentment at the happiness of others. She was 
 content so long as she controlled the arrangements so long 
 as she was stage-manager of the drama but she assumed the 
 airs of Mrs. Grundy herself as soon as she found the play went on 
 without her. She must therefore have recourse to all the petty 
 artifices which give piquancy to Society's monotonous round. 
 
 Isabel was reticence itself. She had all her life cultivated 
 that charming accomplishment an intelligent repose, and 
 only a surprise would cause her to betray her emotion. But 
 Lady Arabella could work and wait. She did work; was 
 immoderately amiable to dear Mrs. Cope, profuse in suggesting 
 the precise methods by which time was to be killed during the 
 next four and twenty hours, and generally pieced out the 
 minutes so as to see which were already appropriated.
 
 138 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "You look a little pale, my dear ; you should take a drive 
 to-morrow a long one." 
 
 " No, I think not," was the answer ; " I've a little headache 
 and feel tired. Some extra sleep will cure that." 
 
 Then, after a pause, Lady Arabella would say : 
 
 " I'm sorry you're worried, dear." 
 
 And Isabel would shrug her shoulders, and answer : 
 
 " I mustn't make the worries worse by thinking of them." 
 
 About four o'clock, Isabel, becoming tired of the attentions 
 of her friend, recalled that she had not visited Miss Winscomb 
 since her marriage, and went upstairs to make a call. 
 
 She was opposed at the door of Miss Winscomb's apart- 
 ments by Martha, who barred the way with menacing gesticu- 
 lations, and made it almost impossible for Isabel to advance 
 without actual rudeness; but Isabel saw Miss Winscomb's 
 cap towering in the distance over the back of her chair, and 
 attributing Martha's demonstration to her habitual antipathy 
 to visitors of all kinds, she put her aside with a graceful smile, 
 and greeted Miss Winscomb with another. 
 
 She was met by a stolid stare, and then she realised that a 
 change had occurred. 
 
 " I hope you're not ill," she said with concern. 
 
 " No," was the answer, in deep guttural tones. " I'm well, 
 very well, but I'm not receiving visitors to-day." 
 
 The old lady's eye glistened as she said this, and she looked 
 almost fiercely at Isabel, who answered that she was sorry 
 she had intruded, but thought that she was an exception to 
 the strict rule. 
 
 " Isabel Foyle was an exception, but not Mrs. Cope," said 
 the old lady firmly. "Martha," she added, "didn't I say I 
 was ' not at home ' to Mrs. Cope? " 
 
 "Yes, Miss," said Martha, and both of them fixed their 
 eyes on Isabel, the one head as firm as a rock, and the other 
 spasmodically oscillating behind it. 
 
 There was only one possible termination to the interview 
 after this. Isabel rightly concluded that nothing she could 
 say would alter the view her old friend had taken of her 
 marriage simply because that view was the product of a 
 confirmed prejudice. She did not fully realise this at the 
 moment, was a little nettled at the reception given her, and
 
 A CATASTROPHE. 139 
 
 her consequent embarrassment caused her to make a some- 
 what lame exit. She apologised, the two pair of eyes 
 continuing to glare at her, and she left the room with a feeling 
 of distress. 
 
 The dinner party that evening was a sombre one. Isabel's 
 headache was a reason for her silence, Mrs. Foyle was 
 sympathetically quiet, and Lady Arabella was reflecting. The 
 situation to her was absolutely incomprehensible, and when 
 Isabel retired to her room at ten o'clock, she accompanied her 
 on the Christian mission of bearing some portion of her burden. 
 That she could acquire not only a portion of it, but the entire 
 load, was her hopeless prayer. 
 
 "I'm so sorry you're indisposed, my dear," said Lady 
 Arabella. " I did not wish to excite your dear mother's 
 apprehensions, but throughout dinner you have looked 
 positively ill. What can I do for you? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Isabel, with aweary sigh. " I have merely 
 a headache and feel very tired." 
 
 She sat herself near a side table in a low easy chair with a 
 languid air, sighed, and removed a brooch. 
 Lady Arabella sighed too. 
 
 " You know, my dear," said she, " I think you are fretting ; 
 you are in a sense unconsciously pining ; you think too much 
 of what might have been." 
 
 Isabel shrugged her shoulders and said, still languidly, " No, 
 I occasionally doubt whether life is worth the trouble, but 
 perhaps to-morrow I may think it is," she said, loosening her 
 dress. 
 
 " To-morrow ? " queried Lady Arabella, with emphasis. 
 
 " Yes, if the wind isn't still in the east." 
 
 Isabel had let her hair down ; she swept it all back and then 
 
 lay upon it so that it formed a rich back-ground to her massive 
 
 neck and shoulders with the light full on them and the brow 
 
 shaded on the left side, one of those wonderful pictures that 
 
 are seen only in camera, which come to pass by accident ; so 
 
 beautiful and so free from everything suggestive of decay that 
 
 the human form seems something more enduring and more 
 
 pure than the common stuff that men and women are made of. 
 
 Lady Arabella was too practical a person to be envious of 
 
 the possessor of such charms. She indeed experienced a
 
 140 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 passing sensation of admiration, which was dissipated only 
 by her chagrin at Isabella's reference to the east wind. 
 
 Isabel drew off her rings and then rested her head upon her 
 hand, a picture of weariness. Lady Arabella could no longer 
 disregard the suggestion. She was profuse in expressions of 
 sympathy and regret and left Isabel in the hands of Jacobs. 
 Ten minutes later, Jacobs was dismissed for the night and then 
 a change occurred. There was no more langour, 110 sighs, 
 no headache, but a vigorous brightness and elasticity actual 
 life. 
 
 Isabel commenced to re-dress herself, not in full walking 
 costume, but in a loose robe of maroon silk, quilted with 
 down and drawn in at the waist with a girdle. She did 
 up her hair in rich rolls, concentrating on the crown of the 
 head, and fixed it with a diamond-hilted dagger. She wore 
 only a single ring one that David Thresher had given 
 her six months before five diamonds set in a plain hoop 
 and with noiseless silken slippers on her feet, her toilet was 
 complete. 
 
 By this time it was a quarter to twelve and dead silence 
 prevaiJed, broken only by the rolling of the waves and at rare 
 intervals the passing of a carriage. Isabel reflected a moment, 
 and then moving a small lamp to a table near the window she 
 drew the chintz curtain aside so that the light might glint 
 through the Venetian blind. She then waited another five 
 minutes without any signs of weariness or fatigue, but with a 
 calm expression of habitual content upon her face ; and when 
 the hands of her watch approached midnight she unlocked her 
 door, crossed the hall to the front door of the house, fixed back 
 the latch so that the door would open with a push, and placed 
 the corner of the door-mat against it so that it would not open 
 without pressure. She then calmly walked to her room and 
 sat peering through the chink of her barely open doorway into 
 the darkness of the hall. 
 
 That indeed was a moment of excitement. Her heart beat 
 heavily and she trembled, for although she knew that in a 
 single moment she could close and lock her door noiselessly, 
 and that the fact of the front door being open would have no 
 apparent connection with her, yet the concentration was 
 extreme, and the minutes hours.
 
 A CATASTEOPHE. 
 
 141 
 
 But most lovers are punctual, and before the chimes tolled 
 twelve, she heard the noise of a pressure on the door-mat. 
 She immediately opened her door wide, crossed the hall to let 
 
 in her visitor, and 
 
 pointing him to 
 
 her room, closed 
 
 the front door. In 
 
 a trice she was 
 
 locking her own 
 
 on the inside. She 
 
 then, with extreme 
 
 rapidity, closed the 
 
 chintz curtains, 
 
 lowered the lamp, 
 
 and whispered to 
 
 her visitor, who 
 
 stood just within 
 
 the door, as he had 
 
 entered : 
 
 "Sit down; but 
 
 do not speak yet." 
 She then list- 
 ened at a second 
 
 door, from behind 
 
 which she heard 
 
 the heavy breath- 
 ing of the constant 
 
 Jacobs. 
 
 Then came a pause, during which, hidden by the gloom, 
 she put her hand upon her breast to restrain the impetuous 
 beating of her heart and the wild vibration of her nerves. 
 The incident she had planned with so much care was accom- 
 plished. The risks attending the enterprise had so far been 
 evaded ; but the calmness of a strong nature during the period 
 of resolute action was followed by tumultuous emotion now 
 that a crisis had arrived. The stillness of the night, the 
 hour, the necessity for even increased caution added to her 
 agitation, but the opportunity was precious, and with a sudden 
 impulse she walked across the room put her hand upon 
 Thresher's shoulder, and said in low tones :
 
 142 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES.- 
 
 " I have asked you to come here, because I wished to give 
 you the fullest proof of iny trust in you, and because I could 
 contrive no other opportunity for those mutual explanations 
 our case needs." 
 
 Thresher bowed, in silence, and then with a sudden impulse, 
 he said passionately, with his arms encircling her : 
 
 " Why explain ? Why speak of the miserable past ? It is 
 enough for me that w T e understand each other. I think only 
 of the future." 
 
 She did not answer, and he drew her close to him. Folded 
 in each other's arms they revelled in the awakening of new 
 anticipations. Her lithe and sinuous form, embedded in the 
 downy robe, with passionate involutions was embraced by the 
 lover of her youth. All the melodramatic speeches they had
 
 A CATASfEOPHli. 143 
 
 framed for each other's edification and their mutual justifica- 
 tion in circumstances scarcely in accordance with the. pro- 
 prieties evaporated ; every prudential consideration was cast 
 to the winds and passion rose with the nervous touch, the 
 hastened pulse, the wild delirium of the burning kisses on 
 those lips that had not yet been sullied by the mercenary 
 husband's breath. 
 
 " I have kept myself for you," she whispered. " Nothing but 
 death can prevent us enjoying the happiness in store for us, if 
 we have but the courage to wait nothing." 
 
 " Your words are indeed comfort to me," he responded. " It 
 has been hard to bear, but now we are within hail of the heaven 
 of our future ; and, with the hope you give me, to wait is easy." 
 
 " Oh, God ! " she exclaimed, clinging to him passionately. 
 " How have I suffered ! The memory of my desolation makes 
 me tremble again." 
 
 " And you will be desolate again." 
 
 " No, for I have seen you, my beloved, and I shall know 
 that you are waiting for me with loyal hope." 
 
 "Yes, JOB, but I'm afraid it will be a weary waiting. Must 
 we wait for days that may never come, when the world is 
 wide, and love is ours, all ours ? I'm fearful, Isabel, that 
 the depth of our love will be our daily trial. Are we really to 
 part ? Have you properly estimated your power of waiting ? 
 Do you really think you can endure it ? Are you quite safe 
 to rely on security from danger ? What of those whom we 
 must regard as our enemies ? Will not malice devise some 
 means of harassing you ?" 
 
 " Do not tempt me, David." 
 
 "But we may meet sometimes?" he pleaded. "We can 
 surely engage in the ordinary courtesies of life." 
 
 " I'm afraid," she answered. 
 
 " Of your husband ? " 
 
 " No, of myself, afraid of everything and everybody except 
 my husband, whom. I despise, because he bought the right to 
 tell the world I was his wife bought it with gilded lies, that 
 hid the malice of his thoughts." 
 
 He kissed her on the brow, and answered : 
 
 " Still we must meet, not often, but we must not deny 
 ourselves a few precious moments, such as this. Let us part
 
 144 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 for a time for a month, for two months, or even a whole 
 year, only let there be a time to look forward to when we can 
 say, ' On such a day we are to meet.' It would be for you to 
 choose the time and for me to come whenever and wherever 
 you may appoint. I will go away. I will go abroad if you 
 wish it. I will treat you with indifference, if we meet before 
 the world. I will avoid all actions that may betray our 
 relations. I will do anything that discretion may suggest, 
 only do not say we may not meet." 
 
 "Have patience. Trouble would come of meeting more 
 trouble than would come of flight, because flight is open." 
 
 " Then let us fly : I'll go anywhere you like to name, and I 
 will so arrange that none need know till we are safe abroad." 
 
 " I wish I could." 
 
 " You can. See how easy it would be, and how just. You 
 have been wronged more than any woman. You have been 
 tricked into a marriage that is not a marriage. You have 
 assented only to a conventional alliance. You are not a wife, 
 and you have no husband. You have made only a business 
 contract, and you are free to cancel it because it was based on 
 fraud and deception." 
 
 Isabel merely sighed in response to this impetuous outburst, 
 and then whispered, with a gentle pressure of the hand : 
 
 " Still we must wait. There is something you have 
 forgotten." 
 
 "And what is that?" 
 
 "My mother. I cannot leave her; she needs me. She 
 suffers, too, as much and more than we, for she is weak." 
 
 Thresher was abashed. 
 
 " No," said he, " you must not leave her. We must endure." 
 
 Then they drank again a long deep draught of love, for 
 "sweet remembrance," they said, in the passionate incoherence 
 of their happiness; and then they fell to planning for the future 
 a series of signs and counter signs, occult methods of commu- 
 nication should ordinary correspondence be denied them ; and, 
 despite the decorous resolutions of the hour, meeting places were 
 agreed on, and times and seasons fixed. Throughout it was under- 
 stood Isabel was to be the fugleman ; it was Thresher's part 
 only to obey, and he was to come even from the ends of the earth, 
 when opportunity was at her command. So they whispered on,
 
 A CATASTROPHE. 
 
 145 
 
 forgetful of their misery, and, sealing their oaths of love with 
 fervent embraces, they revelled in the ecstacy of love. 
 
 But suddenly the delirium was checked by a sound. The 
 
 front door had opened, and a muffled footstep crossed the hall. 
 
 With a look of horror and awakened resolution, Isabel rose 
 from the couch on which they sat ; her face blanched ; the 
 wreck of lover's kisses in the broken braids of hair upon her 
 face ; the deep set frown of resolute purpose on her brow. In 
 an instant she had extinguished the light, and after a long drawn 
 out moment or two of suspense, David felt her hand upon his 
 shoulder, and then her hot breath whispered in his ear : 
 
 " Keep absolute silence. Someone has entered the house. 
 My door is locked. On no account stir from here. We must 
 watch." 
 
 The suspense was terrible to both of them. Not a sound 
 could be heard save the sonorous breathing of Jacobs the 
 maid, and this from its monotonous character added to the 
 ghostly character of the incident.
 
 146 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 A feeling as of imminent peril crept over Isabel. It needed 
 all her powers of self control and cool common sense to dissi- 
 pate the anxiety she experienced. As if to convince herself 
 of safety she whispered : 
 
 " No one can enter here. The door is locked." 
 " Hush," exclaimed Thresher ; " there's a sound." 
 A shambling footstep was again heard as of one slowly and 
 cautiously moving across the hall. The person was returning 
 no doubt to the door to leave 
 the house. Thresher was con- 
 scious of the departure of 
 Isabel from his side, and the 
 slight rustle of her dress indi- 
 cated that she had crossed the 
 room to the window. Neither 
 spoke. 
 
 Looking across the room, 
 Thresher could see that Isabel 
 had put aside the curtain and 
 had raised one of the laths of 
 the Venetian blind. Her face 
 was dimly lighted by the street 
 lamp, and her anxiety was 
 shown by the eagerness with 
 which she peered through the 
 chink. 
 
 As she waited and watched 
 the front door was opened. 
 This was indicated by a slight 
 rattle of the dangling chain. It 
 was probably brushed by the 
 garments of the intruder and 
 hit the door on its recoil. Then 
 there was a pause, and there- 
 after the door was closed obviously with the key in the lock to 
 prevent the click of the latch. The next moment Isabel saw the 
 figure of a man slowly move down the steps from the hall door 
 keeping as much as possible in the shadow of the portico. 
 " Good God," she ejaculated. " What can this mean ? " 
 It was Joshua Cope's figure she saw leaving the house.
 
 A CATASTROPHE. 
 
 147 
 
 She waited at the window, watched him cross the road, and 
 saw him stand looking at the house. She still waited after 
 he had turned and passed out of sight, not with the expec- 
 tation of seeing anything further, but considering what she 
 Should do and say. 
 
 It must have been five minutes before she returned to David 
 Thresher from the time she had left him. 
 
 " Do not move yet," she whispered ; " it's nothing, but it is 
 necessary to be careful." 
 
 ****** 
 
 Next day, at half-past eleven, Mary, the junior domestic in 
 the service of Miss Winscomb, met with death in a sudden and 
 mysterious manner. Soon after she had eaten her lunch she be- 
 came dizzy, and expired before assistance could be summoned. 
 
 L 2
 
 CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY. 
 
 DR. FLOUT was a man of principle, and expected everybody 
 else to be guided by principle. He did not care what the 
 principles were, whether good or bad. All that he wanted was 
 that men should have principles and act up to them. His 
 leading principle in life was to be quite sure where he was. 
 " Let me know where I am," said he, " and then I can act." 
 
 Accordingly, when he was called in to see Mary and found her 
 quite dead he struck an attitude, placed his right hand on the
 
 THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY. 149 
 
 kitchen table, bent his lank body forward and pinched his blue 
 and rugged chin with his left thumb and finger. Then he 
 rubbed his hand over his short stubby hair, coughed and 
 addressed the world in general as represented by Mrs. Shilton, 
 who acted as cook, and Martha whose whole body quaked and 
 shook as she fixed her eyes on him. 
 
 " Now," said he, " in a case like this it is essential to review 
 the situation." 
 
 Then he waved his hand as if he were giving a professional 
 lecture he always thought he should have been a Professor 
 and added : 
 
 " If you don't define your position you don't know where you 
 are, and if you don't know where you are, why, of course, 
 you're lost, and that's a position in which no man of principle 
 should be for a moment. Now, I repeat, let us see where we 
 are. In the first place, she's dead. That's clear. Then you 
 say she was taken soon after eating her lunch half-an-hour ago ; 
 that was 11.30. Now where's the food she didn't eat ? " 
 
 "Where's the victuals she didn't eat?" repeated Martha in 
 sepulchral tones shaking her head at Mrs. Shilton, a widow 
 of fifty-five who had the misfortune to be nervous. 
 
 Mrs. Shilton looked sideways at the doctor, holding the 
 bottom hem of her apron in her hands, and working it back- 
 wards and forwards. 
 
 "There," she said, "them 
 crumbs of bread and butter, and 
 that drop of beer in the glass." 
 
 "Where did she get them 
 from?" 
 
 " From the pantry." 
 " Now, there you are," said the 
 doctor in triumph. "Let's take 
 them back to the pantry and then 
 we shall have the whole case clear." 
 
 They did so, and then he locked the pantry door, and put 
 the key in his pocket. 
 
 " Now," said he, " as I don't know what the patient died of 
 I cannot certify, so I'll report the case to the coroner and 
 give him the key of the pantry. Then he'll know where 
 he is."
 
 150 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 So saying Dr. Flout took up his umbrella, put on his hat 
 and strode out of the house as if he were in a violent hurry to 
 find out where he was. 
 
 " Mrs. Shilton," said Martha, "you must help me with the 
 mistress to-day. She's waiting for us. Come." And then 
 she added glaring at Mrs. Shilton, and shaking with unusual 
 violence : 
 
 " I came down for Mary, but she's dead. You must come 
 instead." 
 
 Mrs. Shilton followed with a scared look, as if she had been 
 responding to the summons of an evil spirit, when Martha 
 turned and said : 
 
 " Mind you don't say a word of this to the Mistress. I'll 
 tell her, and mind what I say." 
 
 With this injunction they entered Miss Winscomb's bed- 
 room, and Mrs. Shilton nearly swooned as she heard Martha 
 say in her usual monotonous tones : 
 
 " Mary's not very well, Miss, and the Doctor says she must 
 lie quiet, so I've brought Mrs. Shilton instead, Miss." 
 
 Miss Winscomb wanted to know what was the matter with 
 Mary, and Martha replied that she had eaten something that 
 hadn't agreed with her, a reply that may be described as strictly 
 accurate. 
 
 Later on in the day Martha paid a visit to her mistress 
 and reported that Mary was seriously ill : 
 
 "Nothin' ketchin'," she added reassuringly; "inflammation, 
 the doctor says inflammation of the bowels, and the doctor 
 says it's very dangerous." 
 
 "You must take care of her, Martha," said Miss Winscomb. 
 " Mind she wants for nothing, and get her well again as soon 
 as possible." 
 
 " Thank you kindly, Miss. I'm afraid she won't get over it. 
 Mary's very careless, Miss always was very careless never 
 think's of what she's eating, like you and me, Miss." 
 
 " Unlike you and me, Martha, you mean," corrected Miss 
 Winscomb. 
 
 "Do I, Miss? Well, we're always very careful, Miss, but 
 Mary isn't, and she's taken somethink that has not agreed 
 with her, and I don't think she'll get over it ; indeed I don't, 
 Miss; she's very bad indeed."
 
 THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY. 
 
 151 
 
 Then in response to sympathetic comments by Miss 
 Winscomb she said : 
 
 " I must leave you now, Miss, I'm going to get some arrow- 
 root for Mary. The doctor says she must have nothing but 
 arrowroot and milk." 
 
 And so she shambled out of the room, jerking and twitching 
 as if she would break her poor old body in pieces, and going 
 downstairs she muttered with horrible 
 grimaces, clutching the bannisters as she 
 jerked herself down : 
 
 "It was poison: the doctor said as 
 much ; and it wasn't meant for Mary. 
 No, no, not for Mary." 
 
 And all that day the old woman went 
 about twitching and jerking and mutter- 
 ing. It was a wearing time for Martha 
 with her shattered nerves and feeble old 
 frame, but she never for a moment 
 thought of herself. Her devotion to her 
 mistress absorbed and controlled all other 
 obligations. She was a heroine in her 
 sublime indifference to truth, when a 
 circumstantial prevarication would save 
 her mistress a disagreeable sensation. 
 Now and then in her mutterings she 
 would say : 
 
 " It was Mrs. Cope. I know it was 
 Mrs. Cope. I hate her. We must get 
 her out of the house." 
 
 There seemed to be no limit to her 
 devotion ; it reached zealotry. She went, 
 in spite of her infirmities, to the 
 butcher's herself, bought the necessary mutton-chops, and 
 had them cooked under her own eyes. Her own life she 
 regarded as precious only because it was necessary to the 
 preservation of her mistress's. She was of the stuff that 
 martyrs were made of. She would have walked barefooted 
 on red hot iron for an idea, and have gone to the stake 
 glaring at mankind in triumph rather than recant. She 
 was precisely that class of being that creates by the fanatical
 
 152 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 realisation of their own small part in the small span of 
 human life, the larger drama of communities, and nations, 
 and epochs. 
 
 And when the case assumed proportions beyond the capacity 
 of the local police, and our old friend Slade was brought 
 down to put the facts together, Martha took him aside and 
 said: 
 
 " Come, before you see anything or say anything, I want you 
 to know about mistress." 
 
 And Slade, nothing loth, was led away by the arm and 
 was twitched, and jerked, and vibrated into a comfortable arm- 
 chair, and Martha sat herself down opposite to him, and 
 after a few preliminary gyrations levelled her eyes at him 
 and began : 
 
 " Mistrqss is an invalid, and she's 75, and if she lives 
 she'll inherit a mint of money, and there's people wish her 
 dead." 
 
 Then came a pause, and the keen eye glistened the brighter, 
 and no matter how the head jerked, the eyes fixed the 
 placid Slade who waited patiently for more. It came with 
 a rush. 
 
 " Mary was my niece, but the mistress doesn't know she's 
 dead, and she must not know ; it would be a shock to her ; 
 you'll want to see everybody, but as she knows nothing, she 
 can tell you nothing, and I thought it best you should see her 
 first and then you'll understand." 
 
 Josiah Slade assented. He was, as usual, receptive, and 
 disposed to encourage communications. 
 
 " Then," said Martha, " I want you to say you are the 
 doctor, and that Mary must be removed to the hospital. Come." 
 
 This rather surprised Slade, who was not used to being 
 taken in hand in this peremptory manner, but the force and 
 decision of the old woman's character had its natural sway, 
 and Slade was led upstairs in a reflective rnood, not quite sure 
 what he would do or say. 
 
 Martha, however, was quite sure what she would say, and, 
 opening the door, with Slade at her heels, she said in solemn 
 tones : 
 
 " Mistress Winscomb, here's the doctor ; I've brought him 
 to tell you Mary must go to the hospital."
 
 THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY. 153 
 
 " I'm really very sorry to hear it," exclaimed Miss Wiiiscomb, 
 who was quite gay on that particular morning, " Is she very 
 ill, doctor?" 
 
 " Seriously," said Slade with a bow. 
 
 " Then do the best you can, doctor, and spare no 
 expense." 
 
 So the interview ended, and Slade commenced his investiga- 
 tion, not absolutely clear about the rights and wrongs of this 
 little comedy in which he had taken a part ; but being then 
 only on the threshold of his enquiry, he put the incident aside 
 as part of the case for future consideration. 
 
 It took him some time to go through the household in his 
 easy-going, undemonstrative way, and when he had come to 
 an end of the enquiry he found himself in possession of a 
 curious array of facts, several contradictory suspicions, but 
 nothing conclusive, beyond the unquestionably solid fact that 
 Mary had died of poison. The precise nature of the poison 
 was undetermined, and how it had come to be taken by her 
 was a profound mystery. Examination showed the presence 
 of cyanogen in company with the food last eaten, but nothing 
 of the kind was found in the remnants that remained. The 
 position of Mary in the household, and her relations with 
 everyone about her, forbade the idea that she was the victim of 
 malice ; and she had absolutely no connections outside the house- 
 hold. There were but two solitary facts to show that she had 
 not met death accidentally ; the deadly quality of the poison, 
 and the almost positive presumption that it could not inno- 
 cently have found its way into the exclusive circle of Miss 
 Winscomb's household. The questions Mr. Slade therefore 
 asked himself were : "How did the poison get there ? Why 
 was it put there? And who put it?" Or, in other words, 
 the method, the motive, and the person, for criminal inves- 
 tigation, like moral philosophy, physical science, grammar, 
 and theology, resolves itself into a trinity. 
 
 Mrs. Shilton's scared appearance and nervous manner 
 impressed Slade greatly, but in her case the motive would 
 be necessarily inadequate, and would have probably originated 
 in mania. Mrs. Shilton, however, had not been outside the 
 door of the house for a month, and had received no letters or 
 parcels for herself. The poison was probably the Cyanide of
 
 154 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Potassium, in use among photographers, but she knew none 
 of these mechanical artists, and had never heard of Cyanide. 
 The scared manner of Mrs. Shilton was put aside along with 
 his interview with Miss Winscomb, and the review of facts 
 was continued. 
 
 Martha's theory was precise and thorough-going in the 
 extreme. She measured out the probable thoughts and actions 
 of others in accordance with her own resolute uncompromising 
 habit. She laid it down that the poison was intended for Miss 
 Winscomb and not for Mary, and she did not hesitate in her 
 private interviews with Slade to state her positive conviction 
 that the author of the crime was Mrs. Cope. She supported 
 her theory by showing motive, opportunity, and immediate 
 cause. The wife of a competitor in long life with Miss 
 Winscomb was the natural enemy of her mistress. The cold 
 reception of the day before gave ground for suspecting special 
 animosity, and her residence in the household gave ample 
 opportunity. 
 
 This was a remarkable indictment, but Slade was not dis- 
 posed to endorse it. His interview with Isabel, commenced in 
 the presence of Mrs. Foyle and Lady Arabella, and ending with 
 herself alone, gave no results. He was much influenced by 
 the belief that a person of her decision of character would not 
 have missed her mark so completely by disposing of the wrong 
 person ; and he was still more impressed with the fact that they 
 had not a single incident to support Martha's theory beyond 
 the circumstance that Mrs. Cope was the wife of her husband. 
 
 " That," said Slade, " is not enough." 
 
 Having passed everyone in the household in review, his 
 mind reverted to Mrs. Shilton, whose scared manner indicated 
 unusual concern. The motive on her part for the act was not 
 apparent, but it was part of Slade's system to look for 
 abnormal, not ordinary motives. It was consistent, he 
 reasoned, that so extraordinary an act as murder should be 
 prompted by an equally uncommon motive. It was certainly 
 wrong to assume that an ordinary motive should induce so 
 extraordinary an act as murder. Pursuing this course of 
 reasoning, he was strongly inclined to regard Mrs. Shilton as 
 the only person worthy of suspicion, so far as the range of his 
 enquiry had extended. Mrs. Shilton was resident in the house,
 
 THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY. 155 
 
 and habitually in the kitchen. She was present during the 
 meal which seemed to carry death with it ; and a motive could 
 perhaps be discovered. Slade resolved to enquire further as to 
 the cause of Mrs. Shilton's timidity and nervousness, and he 
 pressed Dr. Flout into the service. ' 
 
 " Doctor," said he, "I want to have a conversation with you. 
 I want you to come into the kitchen with me. I want you to 
 stand with your back to Mrs. Shilton so that I may see her 
 face, and I want you to follow my lead so that I may see how 
 she takes our conversation." 
 
 " Oh ! " said the doctor, " your wants are numerous and 
 precise." 
 
 "They are," replied the detective; "I want to see how 
 Mrs. Shilton behaves when I say certain things I have put 
 together." 
 
 " Do you wish me to say anything? " asked the doctor. 
 
 " No, sir, unless anything particular occurs to you. I 
 propose to ask you questions and see how your answers affect 
 the old lady." 
 
 " You must not expect me to assert anything not strictly 
 accurate," said the doctor. 
 
 "No, certainly not, doctor." 
 
 " Nor admit anything I cannot prove." 
 
 " Of course not ; we will simply go over the ground." 
 
 The doctor was prevailed on, and the detective propped him- 
 self up against the dresser in full view of the fireplace, and of 
 Mrs. Shilton, taking her tea. 
 
 " Now, where are we ? " enquired the doctor. 
 
 " Nowhere, at present ; " said the detective ; " but we're 
 getting on the rails." 
 
 Mrs. Shilton gave a little start, and seemed inclined to 
 weep. 
 
 "In the first place, doctor," continued the detective, much 
 encouraged by Mrs. Shilton's manner, "it's a clear case of 
 poisoning. You say that ? " 
 
 " Unquestionably," said the doctor, stamping his umbrella 
 on the floor with decision. 
 
 " Then you say, doctor, that the poison must have been 
 taken in the house and in this very room, eh? " 
 
 " Certainly."
 
 156 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " You say this, doctor, because the action of the poison is 
 unusually rapid ? " 
 
 " No doubt." 
 
 " And, therefore, you assert that the poison must have been 
 administered by some one within the house." 
 
 " Unquestionably." 
 
 " And by some one who must have been near about the poor 
 woman shortly before her death." 
 
 " Obviously." 
 
 Mrs. Shilton was in the act of swallowing a spoonful of egg as 
 this remark was made ; dazed as she was, the horribleinference 
 presented itself to her with startling effect. She nearly choked, 
 then swallowed some hot tea, and choked the more. Ee- 
 covering, she stared vacantly at Mr. Slade, who appeared not 
 to notice her, and went on eagerly with his argument : 
 
 " Now, doctor, the poor woman was taking her lunch, here 
 at this table. She had eaten an egg and some bread and 
 butter, and had drunk some beer ; and she was dead before 
 she had finished her beer. That was so, eh, doctor ? " 
 
 "Precisely." 
 
 " Well, doctor, you then say there was no poison in the 
 beer, and that the poison in question could not have been 
 put into beer without destroying its character ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 " Then we dismiss the beer ; and we dismiss the egg, 
 because people can't get inside eggs ; and we have the bread 
 and butter. How about the bread and butter, doctor? " 
 
 " Can't say," said the doctor. " There was no poison in 
 what was left ; no sign of it. Nothing ! " he added with a 
 snap of his jaw. 
 
 " How much of this material would kill, doctor? " 
 
 " A minute fragment. A piece as big as a pin's head might 
 do it." 
 
 " Suppose such a piece had been dropped on the bread and 
 butter ? " 
 
 " That would do." 
 
 " Or put into the spoon ? " 
 
 " That would be more easy." 
 
 " Then," said Slade, with an airy wave of the arm, 
 " anyone in the room could have done that ? "
 
 THE CONSEQUENT ENQUIRY. 157 
 
 " Unquestionably," rejoined the doctor, who, in response to 
 a sudden change in Slade's countenance, turned to look at 
 Mrs. Shilton. 
 
 She had risen and was holding on to the mantle-shelf with 
 one hand, and was stretching out the other grasping at the air 
 as if for support. All colour and expression had left her face 
 and her attitude was that of one suddenly bereft of power. 
 Slade thought this the natural effect of his reasoning, and was 
 gratified ; he was even elated. The doctor, careless of every- 
 thing but professional obligation, turned to assist the poor 
 woman, but before he could reach her she had swung round 
 and had fallen dead upon the hearth.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 EGG FLIP. 
 
 NOTHING in the Whole range of social 
 phenomena more clearly illustrates the 
 finite in man, nothing is qualified to 
 reduce him more completely to a sense 
 of his weakness and deficiency than the 
 contemplation of a sudden and mysterious 
 death. Mr. Slade had achieved the con- 
 viction, by a process of reasoning, that 
 Mrs. Shilton had poisoned her fellow servant, and on the 
 instant of his triumph, the whole of his argument was 
 destroyed by an appalling fact, obviously identical in its 
 origin with that he was engaged in probing, but which, 
 instead of enlightening him, aggravated the obscurity which 
 bewildered him. Slade was humbled. 
 
 " Doctor," said he, as soon as the immediate consequences 
 of this fresh catastrophe had subsided, " I am not pleased 
 with myself. I feel mean." 
 
 //A 
 
 Doctor Flout frowned, pinched his chin, and nodded, but 
 said nothing. 
 
 Slade was not the egotist that is often created by the 
 occupation he followed, and he appreciated to the fullest
 
 EGG FLIP. 159 
 
 extent his folly in attempting to arrive at a conclusion 
 by a mere review of probabilities. He had once been 
 a conjuror, and knew that an audience is deceived only 
 because an essential fact is hidden. He knew also that 
 completed crime was a riddle because the criminal's first 
 object was to hide, destroy, or distort the incidents and 
 appearances associated with the criminal fact. Slade accord- 
 ingly made a fresh start. 
 
 "Doctor," said he, "this is a serious business, a very 
 serious business, and I shall not leave this house till I can see 
 a clear roadway." 
 
 Dr. Flout nodded again. 
 
 " Doctor, it's clear they didn't both commit suicide. Do you 
 think the second one did ? " 
 
 Dr. Flout shook his head. 
 
 " Doctor," continued Slade, " it's in the food. There can be 
 no question of that. We opened the pantry this morning. It 
 had been closed ever since No. 1. To-day we opened it and we 
 have No. 2. Doctor, we must concentrate on the pantry, and 
 as far as I can see we must concentrate on bread and butter 
 and eggs. The bread did not come from the pantry. All that 
 was there was stale and was thrown away. The butter was 
 there and so were the eggs. I want you to join with me in an 
 inspection." 
 
 They went into the pantry, and in addition to the remnants 
 of Mrs. Shilton's tea, they found a crock half full of salt butter 
 and two eggs part of the original store. Slade asked the 
 doctor to examine the butter, and he did so by plastering 
 it out in thin layers and smelling it. He found no trace 
 of the pungent odour of cyanogen, and declared the butter 
 innocuous. 
 
 "And what's the use of looking at the eggs?" said Slade 
 despondingly, balancing one in his hand. " Fowls don't lay 
 poisoned eggs." 
 
 " No," said the doctor, taking up the other. " They don't." 
 
 And the two men each balanced an egg, and each laid it 
 down in the plate from which they had taken it, utterly at a 
 loss to know where and how to move in the great quest they 
 were engaged in. Then they frowned and looked gravely at 
 each other, and at the floor and at the ceiling, and gradually
 
 160 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Slade concluded he was of no sort of use, and that the doctor 
 was worse even than himself. 
 
 " You see," said Slade, " I'm not a doctor, and I can't put 
 two and two together in poisons. I want to see how the 
 poisons was used and then I can move." 
 
 He said this in a spirit of remonstrance. He wanted to 
 rouse Dr. Flout to action by irritation, but before the doctor 
 could answer the two investigators were startled by the 
 appearance of Martha, who rolled her head about with more 
 than usual energy as she said : 
 
 " Mrs. Cope and her mother have gone to London. Their 
 servants follow in an hour or two. Me and the mistress'll be 
 all alone." 
 
 Slade made no response, and the weird figure continued : 
 
 " Do you know where she's gone, policeman? " 
 
 " Yes," said Slade, " she gave me her card." 
 
 " Ah, a blind," said Martha with increased energy, " but she 
 doesn't deceive me. No ! " 
 
 Then came a pause. The two men made no response, and 
 Martha said : 
 
 " I want some eggs. I want some egg and sherry for 
 mistress and egg and brandy for myself." 
 
 " Here you are, Martha," said Slade cheerily, as he handed 
 her the plate. " There's only two, Martha, and if you like 
 we'll come and help you mix 'em." 
 
 The old woman worked her way to the kitchen, and they 
 followed, Slade bearing the eggs, which would certainly not 
 have arrived in safety if Martha had attempted to carry them. 
 The situation pleased Slade. It was one of those cases of 
 natural movement that sometimes developed important points; 
 something akin to tossing a straw in the air. And it was an 
 odd sight. A doctor of medicine and a member of the detective 
 force assisting a decrepit old maid to make an egg flip. 
 
 They proceeded with much circumstance. 
 
 The utensils were all arrayed before Martha, who broke first 
 one egg and then the other in separate cups. Then she smelt 
 them according to the custom of the kitchen, and pronounced 
 them sound, but suddenly she was seized with unusual excite- 
 ment, and called the doctor's attention to an extraordinary 
 fact. Sunk to the bottom of the cup she had observed among
 
 EGG FLIP. 
 
 161 
 
 the albumen two white balls similar to the grains of pearl 
 barley in appearance, only smaller and less spherical. The 
 doctor looked at them, frowned, and reflected. 
 
 Dr. Flout reflecting was a powerful sedative. No one could 
 possibly encourage excitement in the presence of Dr. Flout 
 imbued with the professional instinct, not even in a kitchen 
 with an audience of two. The reflection was not unproductive. 
 
 " Observe, my dear sir," said he, " those little white balls 
 embedded in the albumen of a boiled egg would be of the same 
 colour and apparently of the same density as the white of the 
 egg itself." 
 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Slade, and his eye gleamed at the sight : 
 "Fish 'em out." 
 
 The vernacular was offensive to the ears of Dr. Flout, astride 
 the forensic charger ; and with visions of future audiences con- 
 sisting of the entire nation, he lifted his eyebrows, and said : 
 
 " Mr. Slade, allow me ! Let us first consider where we are. 
 We have broken an egg, and we have found it presents to us
 
 162 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 nothing singular. We have broken a second egg and placed it 
 in a separate vessel, and we have observed that it contains in 
 partial suspension two small globules, white and opaque ; and 
 we observe that they have no relation to the germinal vesicle 
 of the egg, but are wholly separate from it, and obviously a 
 foreign substance a foreign substance, Mr. Slade." 
 
 " How did it get there? " asked the detective, beaming with 
 delight. 
 
 " My dear Sir," said Dr. Flout, " we are coming to that. It 
 has been put there," he added in triumph. 
 
 " Yes, put there," exclaimed Martha trembling, "put there. 
 The eggs have been changed." 
 
 Slade was awakening to a true sense of the position. He 
 had sobered down to common matter of fact procedure ; and, 
 looking at the simple fact of the discovery of foreign matter in 
 an egg, he urged a closer inspection of the globules. One of 
 them was accordingly put upon a clean plate, crushed and 
 examined. It proved to be a cyanide, and the fragments were 
 washed off the plate and gathered in a third cup, partly in 
 solution and partly solid, for future more minute tests. An 
 examination of the shell of the egg disclosed a small hole 
 drilled in the side and afterwards closed with plaster of Paris. 
 The work had been done with extreme neatness, and despite 
 the horrible consequences of the act, did not fail to excite the 
 admiration of the two investigators. Martha, however, gave 
 way to passionate denunciation. 
 
 The other egg presented none of these features ; but further 
 enquiry showed that the one Mrs. Shilton had eaten had a 
 perforated shell, and had no doubt been furnished with the 
 fatal globules. 
 
 How had they come there and for what purpose ? 
 
 This was the question Slade had to solve, and the presence 
 of a definite quest put him at comparative ease. Up to this 
 time he had been absolutely in the dark. He now, however, 
 knew what he had to look for, and before the night was out he 
 had made another discovery. 
 
 One of the ordinary constables, whose dull intellect had had 
 time to resolve the occurrence of two sudden and mysterious 
 deaths in three days, informed his superintendent that on the 
 night before the first death, he had observed when on his beat,
 
 EGG FLIP. 
 
 163 
 
 that a tall man, well dressed and with the collar of his coat 
 turned up, was observed to leave the house at half-past two 
 in the morning and to walk towards the centre of the town at 
 a rapid pace as if fearful of being observed. 
 
 It became Mr. Blade's duty to discover this tall, well dressed 
 man. 
 
 M 2
 
 CHAPTEE XXI. 
 
 " THE SURPEISE." 
 
 DAVID THBESHER was, comparatively speaking, at ease. He 
 had come to recognise the impossibility of realising his desires 
 by any course other than the dishonourable, and he was 
 resolved, if not content, to wait. Whatever possibilities had 
 presented themselves to him in anticipation of his visit to 
 Brighton they were dissipated at the very moment they should 
 have come to fruition. He had experienced with crucial force 
 the common experience of mankind that the actual, whether 
 in controversy or in co-operation, can never be imagined ; and 
 that of all the castles in the air that are ever built, those of 
 the lover are the most preposterously grand and the most 
 unsubstantial. 
 
 The absorbing passion having been assuaged by comparative 
 failure, the necessity for delay prompted him to think about 
 his uncle, and being reduced to common sense and an every- 
 day programme, he sent for Eales; but although the purpose of 
 the interview was distinct, David Thresher devoted it to railing 
 at mankind in relation, especially to his absorbing passion and 
 the infamy of Joshua Cope. He experienced that sense of 
 gratified egotism which is always associated with a review of 
 one's ill-treatment at the hands of fate. He therefore recited 
 with the most minute detail the commercial malpractices of 
 Cope, the insufficiency of Arthur Foyle, the treachery of 
 Crawley Foyle, and the consequent misfortune that had 
 befallen Isabel and himself. 
 
 The consultation was carried on in Thresher's sitting-room, 
 where the two, as was common with them, promenaded as 
 they talked declaiming, arguing, denouncing, exalting. 
 Thresher was on this occasion in a superlative mood no 
 language was too strong to give expression to his outraged 
 feelings, nor would he allow a single fraction of weight to any 
 suggested palliative. Eales was naturally more generous, 
 because he was not personally interested. He was not merely 
 Thresher's solicitor ; he was also and before this his friend.
 
 " THE SURPRISE." 165 
 
 He directed his energies to enforcing a calmer view of matters, 
 and he had the courage to present to his friend the cynical 
 view the disinterested take of lovers' woes and generally of the 
 misfortunes of others. He showed how absurd it would be to 
 pretend that commerce could be conducted on any other 
 principles but those of cupidity and greed. 
 
 " You must be careful," said he, " that you do not carry 
 your exaltation too far." 
 
 "How can I?" 
 
 "Very easily. An assumption of superiority, however 
 justified, is resented by the world." 
 
 " What do I care for the world ? " 
 
 " Nothing probably to-day ; whatever your feeling at 
 this moment you will most certainly come to respect the 
 judgment of the world and be eager to have that judgment in 
 your favour. This is what all men do, however much they 
 think they do otherwise. You say you despise the opinion of 
 the world, but to-morrow, next day, or a year hence, you 
 would no doubt smart if people called you 'priggish.' " 
 
 " Do you think me priggish? " 
 
 " No ; but it's not a question what I think, or what you are ; 
 it is the appearance you present to the unreflecting and the 
 reputation they give you." 
 
 " What appearance do I present then? " 
 
 " Everything that is satisfactory to-day ; but you may by 
 your excitement be betrayed into extravagance of expression 
 that the ill-informed will misconstrue. Not only should one 
 not wash his dirty linen in public ; he should not let anyone 
 know he has any to wash. People do not like the man with 
 a grievance. They think him a nuisance ; but the man who 
 fights in secret and wins they rejoice with, but only when he 
 has won, not before." 
 
 " But there is nothing people enjoy so much as a fight." 
 
 " No doubt, but it must be a fight an open, vigorous, active 
 fight, for objects they comprehend, and on principles they 
 appreciate. I don't think people would care much about your 
 views of Schrieber & Co.'s procedure; and it is just possible, 
 indeed probable, they would consider you foolishly nice to 
 have retired from a remunerative business because you 
 suspected malpractices."
 
 166 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Suspected ? Surely you 
 do not pretend it was only a 
 case of suspicion ! " 
 
 "Not to us. To me it is 
 certain that Schrieber & Co., 
 through the ingenuity of Cope, 
 supplies diseased cows and 
 horses to the British Navy and 
 our merchant seamen in the 
 shape of preserved meats 
 highly seasoned, and elegantly 
 labelled ; but you cannot prove 
 this legally, and therefore you 
 must say nothing. You can 
 retire from participating in the 
 enormity. This you do be- 
 cause you decline to be dis- 
 honorable, but that is a 
 personal consideration. You 
 can go on enquiring and I 
 will assist you as I have 
 done, until we can light on 
 something that will bring 
 Cope within the law ; but 
 until we do this 
 you had better 
 keep your own 
 counsel, and 
 3^ hide those deep 
 emotions which 
 stir your soul.
 
 "THE SUKPKISE." 167 
 
 Depend upon it, the public would laugh at your denunciation 
 of Cope." 
 
 " I don't care what others think or say, I know only what I 
 want, and what I want I would spend my last farthing to 
 achieve, even if I blew my brains out afterwards." 
 
 " Then my dear fellow," said Eales, " you would do a very 
 foolish thing. The mildest manner critic would say you were 
 ' Quixotic,' and most people would add something still more un- 
 complimentary. Your impulses are creditable and your object 
 is commendable, but the self-constituted arbiter of justice is 
 always regarded with supercilious contempt by the masses. A 
 few think him a hero, but he would be far happier and more 
 likely to do good as a social reformer if he left criminals to the 
 ordinary operation of the law, and busied himself with con- 
 structive, not destructive philanthropy. It is not the purpose 
 which is objected to, but the presumption. The public resent 
 amateur censorship and laugh at heroics in the individual. If 
 Cope's villainy decimated our fleet in time of war, or if he 
 poisoned any large section of the community by his trash, 
 heroics would be acceptable ; but any assertion on your part 
 that Cope makes up diseased animals for the wealthy in the 
 shape of potted meat, and for the sailor in sealed tins would 
 be disbelieved, simply because Cope would show he disposed of 
 his carcases in the form of cat's meat and patent manures. We 
 know to the contrary. We know that only a small fraction of 
 his carcases go in this way, and that the major portion gets into 
 the market of human food. We know that his sales of cat's 
 meat will not account for all the product of his works in Edin- 
 burgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, and Liverpool, but legal proof is 
 not as yet forthcoming, and if it were, I don't know how you 
 could use it. You do not feel disposed to turn informer? " 
 
 This was a sad damper upon the ardour of David Thresher, 
 who had worked himself up to a highly finished state of 
 righteous indignation. There was no resisting the blunt 
 common sense of his friend, and as he could not combat it he 
 dismissed the subject, and introduced the matter they had met 
 to discuss. 
 
 " What about my uncle, Eales ? " 
 
 " I believe he is safe, and in seclusion of his own choosing. 
 I believe also that when the proper time comes he will
 
 168 60LDEN LIVES. 
 
 announce himself to me as if nothing extraordinary had 
 happened." 
 
 " Tell me the story," said Thresher, sitting down with a 
 return of cheerfulness. 
 
 " In the first place, Maida Lodge has been watched day and 
 night ever since Mr. Louison's disappearance and without 
 result. The door has scarcely been opened, and no letters have 
 been delivered to any one. But a week ago I was sent for by 
 the manager of the National Bank to ask my opinion about a 
 three months' bill that had been presented for payment by 
 their Liverpool Branch for 5,000. It had been accepted by 
 Mr. Louison and was drawn by Samuel Speezer. It appeared 
 to be quite regular and there was nothing unusual about it 
 beyond the fact that Mr. Louison had never before to my 
 knowledge accepted any bills of any kind. I advised that the 
 bill be paid but procured a letter to the manager of the bank 
 where the cash would be credited asking that a representative 
 of mine might be allowed to remain in the bank until Mr. 
 Speezer made his appearance, so that I might be provided 
 with a description of him. Next morning I received by post 
 a statement to the effect that Mr. Speezer was a tall, 
 elderly gentleman, dressed in yachting costume, and that 
 he was accompanied by another shorter man, whose descrip- 
 tion tallies exactly with that of Cheriton. As soon as 
 the two made application for the 5,000 my agent who 
 sat in the rear of the counter as if he were a clerk 
 communicated with a subordinate who followed the two men 
 to another bank, the Lancashire and Yorkshire, where I have 
 since ascertained they opened a drawing account with the five 
 thousand pounds in the name of Samuel Speezer. They were 
 then followed to the harbour, and in the course of the after- 
 noon they took a boat that was waiting for them, and were 
 rowed to a three-hundred ton schooner then lying at anchor. 
 The yacht is named the Surprise, and she sailed that evening 
 for we don't know where." 
 
 " Then you have lost them." 
 
 " Not exactly. The yacht can be traced, but there is some- 
 thing more. You know it has always been my custom to send 
 in a series of statements of accounts every Monday recording 
 the transactions of the previous week. I have continued to
 
 "THE SUBPBISE." 169 
 
 do this, and the papers have been fetched away from Maida 
 Lodge as usual on the following Wednesday, and brought 
 back to me. I continued this practice because I am not 
 supposed to know who examines the accounts, and also because 
 I wanted to test the opinion of Scotland Yard that Mr. 
 Louison was his own kidnapper. I found that the papers had 
 been opened up and re-tied in a manner different from that I 
 had adopted, but a letter addressed to Mr. Louison had not 
 been opened, and was returned as I had sent it." 
 
 " Then what do you conclude ? " 
 
 " That Mr. Louison has by some means evaded the vigilance 
 of my watchers and has actually returned to Maida Lodge and 
 left it again ; that he has means of doing this of which we 
 are ignorant ; that he does not wish me to know of his return, 
 and therefore did not open the letter addressed to him ; that 
 money was necessary to him, and that he has created a three 
 months' bill so as to make it appear that he accepted it before 
 his disappearance, and that he has opened an account with the 
 proceeds in an assumed name. By what means he managed to 
 procure an introduction to the banker so as to open the account 
 I cannot imagine ; but it is supposed he was introduced by the 
 firm from whom he chartered the yacht. The signature of 
 Samuel Speezer is not in Mr. Louison's writing, but apparently 
 in Cheriton's. The accepting signature is Mr. Louison's 
 own, and perfectly regular. I conclude, therefore, that 
 Cheriton has signed Mr. Louison's assumed name, and that 
 we shall hear very little of them for some months to come 
 unless we go after them." 
 
 " How can we do that ? " 
 
 "Very easily. We have only to find where the yacht is 
 lying and you can throw yourself in the way as if by 
 accident." 
 
 " But the yacht may be off before I can get to the port." 
 
 " Then you must try another." 
 
 " But suppose if I do come up with them they say nothing. 
 I should not feel disposed to intrude upon my uncle, especially 
 when we know so surely he wants to keep out of everybody's 
 way." 
 
 " That point may be considered when it arises, but I conceive 
 it to be my duty to look after the interests of my client, and
 
 170 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 it is his interest at present that his whereabouts should be 
 known. Acting for you I have procured the assistance of 
 Lloyds' intelligence department to find the yacht Surprise, and 
 I feel sure I shall hear before the day is out where she is." 
 
 Eales was right. Before the interview closed a message 
 was brought to him from his office to the effect that the yacht 
 Surprise was anchored in Lamlash Bay, and David Thresher 
 left London for Greenock by the Scotch mail that same night.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A CLUE. 
 
 DAVID THEESHBE breakfasted at the Tontine Hotel, Greenock, 
 next morning, and at ten o'clock he walked along the 
 Esplanade towards Gourock, a charming promenade with a 
 magnificent prospect, but as there was no one enjoying it, 
 David Thresher supposed the people, through national slow- 
 ness of perception, had not yet discovered its beauties, or 
 from prudential reasons, were slow to admit a partiality for 
 the mild dissipation of a promenade. A telegram had informed 
 him that the Surprise had left Lamlash Bay, for the 
 Clyde, and as Eales's information was collected by an intel- 
 ligent man, who whetted the energies of correspondents by 
 promise of a guinea for each sighting of the yacht Surprise, 
 David Thresher was further informed that the yacht was 
 probably bound for Hunter's Quay, where the Regatta of the 
 Phearshon Yacht Club was being held. Possessed of this 
 knowledge, Thresher formed a plan. He would go to Hunter's 
 Quay, and join, if possible, in a yacht ; he accordingly tele- 
 graphed to Eales his address, till further notice, as " The 
 Hotel at Hunter's Quay." The next thing was to get a yacht, 
 a matter of some difficulty he feared, seeing it was the height 
 of the season. To the westward he descried a man, dressed 
 in weather-worn blue, smoking a pipe, with his hands in his 
 pockets, as he gazed on the moving tide abstractedly. He was 
 an elderly man, and Thresher noticed as he approached him 
 that his face was wrinkled with an habitual frown and a 
 persistent scowl about his mouth. 
 
 " It's a fine morning," ventured Thresher. 
 
 "Aye, "said the smoker, still looking at the water. "It's 
 jist that." 
 
 " Will it be fine to-morrow ? " 
 
 The man looked at him enquiringly, and coming to the con- 
 clusion he was serious, he answered : 
 
 " There's nae tellin' ; but it seems a wee bit inclined to be 
 saft-like."
 
 172 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Thresher, who was not quite clear as to the 
 import of the remark. Then he asked : 
 
 " Can you tell me where I can hire a yacht ? " 
 
 " What sort of a boat ? " 
 
 " Anything, but it must be small ; and steam preferred." 
 
 " When may ye want it ? " 
 
 "Now." 
 
 The man looked at Thresher curiously, then scratched his 
 head, and after considerable meditation, pointed out into the 
 bay, and said : 
 
 " Do ye see the wee steamer yonder. Will that fit ye? " 
 
 " Yes ; if she's manned and ready." 
 
 " Aye ; she's ready the noo," said the man, and he went on 
 smoking and gazing at the little boat as if she were a strange 
 object of altogether rare and singular interest. Then after 
 much apparent earnest thought, he said : 
 
 " She's the Midge. She belongs, ye ken, to Mr. Buchan, a
 
 A CLUE. 173 
 
 gentleman frae London, and he's away in his cutter, the 
 May Bell" 
 
 Then he put his pipe in his mouth again, and gazed away 
 across the water, as if he had settled every question that could 
 possibly be raised for the next hundred years. 
 
 After a decent interval, Thresher asked : 
 
 " And how much a month do you think; Mr. Buchan want 
 for her?" 
 
 "It's no very certain he'd let you have her at all, ye ken," 
 was the reply ; and the smoker again relapsed into a state of 
 meditation. 
 
 David Thresher by this time found himself confronted by a 
 serious psychological puzzle, and he pulled himself together to 
 master it. There was a boat that would suit his purpose, and 
 the man who was beside him could evidently direct him, if he 
 chose, how to acquire the use of it. He made an effort, and 
 put what he thought was a very direct question. 
 
 " Who's in charge of her? " he asked. 
 
 " Jest Tarn," was the reply; nothing more, and without a 
 smile. 
 
 " And where is Tarn ? " 
 
 " Well, I'm no vara certain. Maybe he's aboard and maybe 
 no." 
 
 " Does he live aboard ? " 
 
 "Whiles aye and whiles no. Ye ken there's just a wee 
 bunk for Tarn, but naething like accoamadation ye ken." 
 
 This information was profusion itself, but Thresher did not 
 seem to be progressing in his object. 
 
 He thought he would try a new line, and asked : 
 
 "Whom can I see about her?" 
 
 " See aboot her ! " exclaimed the stolid one. " Aye, man, 
 and ye must gae to Measter McCloo ; he's got the sellin' 
 o' her." 
 
 "And where is Mr. McCloo?" 
 
 "Will I tak' yer tae him?" 
 
 " If you please." 
 
 At last the course was clear, and as they walked the wary 
 smoker extracted from the frivolous Southron that he was a 
 stranger, that he was on an undefined errand, and that he was 
 prepared to buy a boat if he could not get one by hiring.
 
 174 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 After a long walk, they reached a shipyard, where they found 
 abundance of timber and iron and noise of hammers and 
 apparent confusion, and bye-and-bye, after being left alone in 
 what appeared to David Thresher to be a waste of desolation, 
 the taciturn smoker hove in sight, accompanied by a stout 
 man, with a clear eye, and an open countenance, who turned 
 out to be Mr. McCloo. 
 
 " You want to buy the Midge ? " said he. 
 
 " I want to hire her." 
 
 " Can't be done." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I have power only to sell. You can make up two 
 berths in her, she's got a good galley, and a surface condensing 
 engine ; and you can have her for 300." 
 
 Mr. McCloo looked at his customer keenly to see how he 
 liked the prospect, and finding hesitation in his countenance, 
 advised him to give the boat a trial. If he would favour him 
 with his company at the Phearson gathering that night 
 at Hunter's Quay, he would introduce him to the owner, 
 and they could settle matters between them. Mr. McCloo 
 further informed his visitor that he ought to have been 
 away with the yachts himself, but that important business 
 had delayed him, and if Mr. Thresher would return about 
 four o'clock he would steam him across to Hunter's Quay 
 in the Midge herself, so that he might get a taste of her 
 quality. 
 
 All this was very satisfactory to David Thresher who, to fill 
 up the time, took a walk along the high road towards the Cloch 
 light, and then, out on the Firth, he saw the fleet of yachts 
 making long tacks, under a westerly breeze, towards the Holy 
 Loch. 
 
 And as this casual tourist looked upon the peaceful and yet 
 stirring scene, and revelled in the boundless prospect of bay 
 and loch and rippling burn, of glen and moor and forest glade, 
 Mr. Slade was, by a process of elimination, coming to the 
 conclusion that David Thresher was the only person in any 
 way associated with the inmates of Miss Winscomb's house- 
 hold answering the description of a " tall and well-dressed 
 man," who was also in circumstances that admitted the 
 suggestion of a motive for the acts committed.
 
 A CLUE. 
 
 175 
 
 And with the absence of perspicacity common to his class, 
 he came to the conclusion that he had what is called a " clue." 
 The fact that enquiry showed David Thresher had left his 
 house for nobody knew where, confirmed Mr. Slade in the 
 conviction that the clue was a sure one.
 
 CHAPTEK XXIII. 
 
 AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING. 
 
 DAVID THRESHER steamed over to Hunter's Quay, later in the 
 day, with Mr. McCloo, under the vain impression that he was 
 engaging in a commercial negotiation. The sale or chartering 
 of the Midge was, however, the very last thing anyone else 
 appeared to have in his thoughts. The entire population of 
 the bay was bent on revelry, in which he was expected to take a 
 part. He found himself the guest of Mr. Buchan, with whom 
 he dined on board The May Bell, but whom nothing would 
 induce to talk of the Midge, or of anything else other than the 
 day's sport, or the Function of the night* 
 
 Life in the estimation of ordinary folk is made up of its 
 festivals, and among those who live on board or in sight of 
 yachts, the great Carnivals of the year are the Eegattas. 
 David Thresher was informed, with much fervour, by the four 
 members of the Club, who dined with him, including Mr. 
 Dugald, the secretary, a stout man of six feet four, with a 
 voice like thunder, that there was no function, that ever had 
 been devised to be held, from the foundation of the world, in 
 any way to be compared with the Annual Function of the 
 Phearshon Yacht Club, of which he was destined to be a guest 
 that night. 
 
 In due time he was, with the others, on board the May 
 Bell, rowed about a quarter of a mile to a large steamer that 
 had been requisitioned by the secretary for the occasion, and 
 then David Thresher saw his friend Mr. McCloo taking the 
 chair for the night, as Admiral of the Club, for although most 
 clubs are content with Commodores, the Phearshon Club 
 would be content with nothing short of an Admiral as 
 President. 
 
 The Admiral, having swung his mallet in the air, and com- 
 manded silence for the anthem, the Secretary led off with a 
 Shanty song, imported from the slopes of the South Pacific 
 coast, descriptive of the modest ambitions of an A.B., coupled 
 with a melancholy refrain of regret at the contemplation of
 
 AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING. 
 
 177 
 
 his dollar and a half a day, which, as the anthem recorded, 
 invariably proved quite inadequate to supply his desires. The 
 whole company joined in the refrain, and the ponderous 
 secretary swayed to and fro, pulling at an imaginary rope as 
 he told with harrowing yells the story of disappointed hopes. 
 How long the anthem was capable of being prolonged no one 
 could say, as Mr. Dugald had never been known to come to a 
 full stop of his own accord ; and it happened on this, as on all 
 previous occasions, that the anthem was brought to a sudden 
 end, at the very height of its fury, by the descent of the 
 Admiral's hammer, an incident that was supposed, according 
 to the traditions of the Club, to represent the let-go of the 
 anchor. 
 
 The Admiral then proposed the toast of " The greatest 
 woman on earth, the Queen, God bless her," and this having 
 been drunk, with Highland honours, the Function was 
 declared open, and the business of the night commenced. 
 
 The business consisted in the consumption of large potations 
 of whiskey and various descriptions of tobacco, varied by the 
 telling of sea yarns, and the singing of songs of varied shades 
 of delicacy and refinement, the whole 
 being gone through with an air of 
 solemnity and regard for rule and 
 order that few assemblies could 
 match. 
 
 It had come to pass that David 
 Thresher sat on the left of the Admiral, 
 with Mr. Buchan next, and it was 
 observed that a chair had been re- 
 served 011 the right of the Admiral for 
 someone who was not present at the 
 opening of the function. During the 
 progress of the anthem, however, a 
 hands 'jme old gentleman, with white 
 hair, and a genial smile, was con- 
 ducted up the deck to the vacant 
 seat, and was heartily welcomed by 
 the Admiral as Mr. Speezer, of the yacht Surprise. 
 
 David Thresher observed the incident with great delight, 
 and up to this time it w r as obvious he had the advantage, for 
 
 N
 
 178 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 his uncle's attention had been concentrated on the Admiral, 
 and the way to get to his seat, while David Thresher had 
 wholly escaped his notice, and was able to study the appear- 
 ance of his relative, quite at his ease. 
 
 While the pipes and the glasses were being filled, the 
 Admiral thought it becoming to introduce the two guests 
 to each other on the ground that they had both come 
 from the south, and as he did so, a curious look of 
 intelligence almost amounting to a glimmer of cunning, 
 broke over the face of the old man, so sure was he of 
 the completeness of his incognito. He congratulated him- 
 self upon the superiority of his knowledge, in no way 
 doubting that he alone was informed of the identity of 
 his new acquaintance. On the other hand David Thresher, 
 having the advantage of a few moments' reflection before 
 being formally introduced was able to control his excite- 
 ment, and left his uncle in entire ignorance of the fact 
 that he was discovered. 
 
 It was easy for him, therefore, to speak by the card, when 
 his uncle, with much of the old world courtesy of manner, asked 
 him whether he had been long in the north, and whether 
 he intended staying long. He answered, with comparative 
 unconcern, that he had been somewhat disturbed by some 
 disagreeable domestic incidents, and he had been advised to seek 
 a renewal of health in the bracing air of the Highlands. 
 
 This answer was eminently pleasing to Mr. Speezer, 
 and from time to time he renewed the conversation, when 
 the duties of the Admiral permitted, and ended by asking 
 him on board the Surprise. 
 
 Mr. McCloo being an eminently genial and hospitable 
 person, was greatly delighted at this exchange of courtesies, 
 and presently arose from his seat. Having commanded 
 silence, he called upon his brother Phearshons to drink a 
 toast. Profound silence and expectation followed, and when 
 he announced his pleasure at finding the Surprise in the loch 
 the sentiment was received with the greatest enthusiasm. 
 That she had a new owner in the person of their old friend and 
 fellow sportsman Mr. Speezer was a statement that evoked 
 another tumult of applause, and David Thresher discovered 
 that however much his uncle Louison was a recluse to his
 
 AN ACCIDENTAL MEETING. 179 
 
 relatives he was to the members of the Phearshon Club a 
 rollicking yachtsman. The opinion that the occasion of 
 Mr. Speezer's return to the Holy Loch as owner of the Surprise 
 was an occasion for bumpers was loudly echoed. " Bumpers," 
 said McCloo, " bumpers, gentlemen, that the Surprise is in 
 such good hands, and bumpers that a rare sportsman, who 
 knows how to handle the tiller, is among us once more. 
 Mr. Speezer, gentlemen, the new owner of the Surprise." 
 
 The whole company, rising as one man, yelled with delight, 
 roared "He's a jolly good fellow," mounted the table, 
 and, led on by the Secretary, shouted the weird formula of 
 the Highland toast. Then draining their tumblers, tossed 
 the glasses over their heads, and shouted to the steward 
 for new ones to continue the wild orgie. 
 
 Then followed another scene, still more extravagant, but 
 all in keeping with the practices of the Club. 
 
 " Phearshons," said McCloo, " I observe a defect in our 
 proceedings. The Major is not present. That is a defect we 
 must remedy at all cost. I understand the Major is on board 
 the steam-yacht Queen of Spades playing poker, and taking 
 thick 'uns off a down south American. It is my duty to 
 command the Secretary to select four Phearshons and to 
 proceed with them at once, and bring the Major here, 
 using no more force than is necessary." 
 
 This order was loudly applauded, and while it was in 
 course of execution, a member enlivened the company with 
 "Oh, Willie, we have missed you," but the sentiment of 
 the song became gradually disguised in a wild lament, 
 which, in its turn, resolved itself into " Johnny came 
 marching home," as the gig of the Queen of Spades was 
 reported in sight. 
 
 Soon afterwards the Secretary and his four myrmidons 
 appeared, leading a pitiable object, in the shape of the 
 missing Major in his pyjamas of Zebra pattern. He had 
 been discovered in his bunk, and had been brought rolled 
 up in a blanket. Having swallowed a glass of whiskey, 
 he revived sufficiently to apologise for his absence, and 
 after his second glass he divested himself of his blanket, 
 and danced the sword dance on the table, to the great 
 delight of the company. The occasion was altogether a 
 
 N 2
 
 180 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 memorable one, and stands recorded in the minutes ot the 
 Club as unprecedented for the length of the sederunt, and 
 the vivacity of the proceedings. 
 
 It was three in the morning before the company broke 
 up, and to such an extent had the good cheer penetrated 
 the heart of Mr. Speezer that nothing would content 
 him, but that his new friend, Mr. Thresher, should sleep 
 on board the Surprise that night, instead of going ashore 
 to the hotel. 
 
 Whether Mr. Speezer would have done this if he had 
 known that David Thresher knew Mr. Speezer was Mr. 
 Louison, is a matter of extreme doubt.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 MR. SPEEZER'S CONFIDENCES. 
 
 THE obvious advantage of turning in on board the Surprise 
 to going ashore at three in the morning to an hotel would have 
 weighed with David Thresher in any case, but the special 
 reasons he had for accepting the owner's invitation gave him 
 no alternative and he was soon stowed away safely in his bunk, 
 with plenty of food for reflection. Circumstances had favoured 
 his project, but it was after all no very extraordinary thing 
 that he should have fallen in with his uncle ; seeing that he 
 went in search of him. The singular thing was that he should 
 find himself actually his uncle's guest, or indeed the guest of 
 anyone on so short an acquaintance. Had Mr. Speezer, how- 
 ever, been indeed a stranger he would probably never have 
 offered him hospitality ; and for the same reason if the offer 
 had been made, David Thresher's natural reserve would have 
 induced him to decline it. And lying in his bunk, in the 
 perfect stillness of the night, he reflected that he was there to 
 some extent under false pretences. He was taking advan- 
 tage of knowledge he was not supposed to possess. His 
 uncle was perfectly sure of his ignorance of the identity 
 of his host ; and the belief that he was entertaining his 
 nephew as a stranger gave him intense satisfaction. He 
 mentally revelled in the prospect of studying Thresher's 
 character as a casual acquaintance. It was precisely one of 
 those situations that attracted and absorbed the abnormal 
 bent of the Louison mind, and Cheriton afterwards said 
 he had never seen his master so cheerful as on that very 
 night. 
 
 Cheriton had become a singular object. He had grown a 
 short and stubbly beard and moustache, and not content with 
 growing them, he had dyed both them and the hair of his 
 head, which had been allowed to grow long, a very dark brown. 
 This change, with his steward's costume, would have been a 
 disguise even to his wife, and would quite have deceived 
 Thresher but for the fact that from the knowledge he had
 
 182 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 acquired in London he expected to find him with his master 
 on board the Surprise. 
 
 The question that puzzled Thresher was his next step. 
 How could he discover to his uncle that he knew him to be 
 Louison and not Speezer ? He thought over this a great deal 
 without meeting with any solution. It worried him, and the 
 difficulty, coupled with the lapping of the water on the skin of 
 the boat, and the irregular click of some valve open to the 
 water-line, kept him in a state of nervous wakefulness, when 
 suddenly it occurred to him that it was not at all necessary to 
 disclose the fact, but that, on the contrary, it was advisable he 
 should respect his host's desire for incognito, and not only 
 treat him as Mr. Speezer, but refuse to recognise him in any 
 other personality, until he should choose to disclose himself. 
 The thought was comforting, and despite the lapping of the 
 water and the click of the discordant valve, he fell asleep and 
 dreamt of Isabel. 
 
 There were not many stirring by nine o'clock next morning 
 011 board the yachts at Hunter's Quay, but there was a good 
 deal of strong tea, and brandy and soda, being consumed 
 below. The novelty of the situation, and the fresh air caused 
 David Thresher to rise early, and seeing the May Bell was at 
 anchor close by, he sent to the owner, saying he would let 
 him have a cheque for the Midge if he could make delivery that 
 morning. It had occurred to Thresher that to retire from the 
 negotiations for the purchase of the little steamer, now that he 
 was the guest of another, would have a touch of meanness 
 about it, and he felt that he would be a more welcome guest if 
 he complimented his host by supplying him with a tender ; for, 
 as all the world knows, the perfection of yachting is a well- 
 found schooner waited on by a steam-tender. The answer 
 came that Mr. Buchan would be glad to see Mr. Thresher at 
 one o'clock to lunch. 
 
 Mr. Speezer's welcome of David Thresher at breakfast was 
 all that could be desired. 
 
 " I've been thinking, my young friend, it's a good thing to 
 have company on a trip like this." 
 
 David Thresher nodded, and Cheriton, who was always called 
 " William " on the yacht, gave a start of amazement at this 
 extraordinary declaration on the part of a pronounced recluse.
 
 MB. SPEEZER'S CONFIDENCES. 183 
 
 " I've been sailing now, off and on, for ten years past," 
 added the old gentleman, "but mostly in small yachts 
 chartered for the season. I've bought this one, and if you 
 have no engagements you're welcome for the season." 
 
 David Thresher said he was free for a month and was 
 about to complete the purchase of the Midge. The pair might 
 run together, and the Midge could tow if the Surprise were 
 becalmed. 
 
 Mr. Speezer thought the scheme excellent and fell to talking 
 of the Clyde waters, and its superiority for sport to the south, 
 and was so full of his past adventures that David Thresher 
 began to have doubts about the identity of his uncle with 
 Mr. Speezer. His extreme cheerfulness, his jovial temper, 
 his animal spirits, and the charm society appeared to have for 
 him, all tended to increase the doubt ; but recollection of the 
 acknowledged disappearance from Maida Lodge, and the 
 undoubted information Eales had acquired connected with 
 the purchase of the yacht, brought him to the conclusion 
 that he had much to learn concerning his uncle's mode of 
 life in the past, little dreamt of by him or anyone else but 
 Cheriton, whose amazement, by the way, at this break- 
 fast scene, would most surely have betrayed his master 
 if David Thresher had not determinedly abstained from 
 noticing it. 
 
 " That was a remarkable gathering we were at last night," 
 said the old man, and he shook his head with a knowing chuckle. 
 "You'd suppose that none of those fellows had ever had a 
 care or a thought of anything else but pleasure in their lives ; 
 but they had among them some of the cleverest men of 
 business in the country mostly mixed up with iron or 
 shipping but they were all boys again last night ; and they 
 always treat me as one of themselves when I'm down here. 
 Grand air here ! " 
 
 Cheriton was offering David some fish at this point, and he 
 was so amazed at his master's assurance that he gave a sudden 
 jerk and knocked over the coffee-pot. There was very little in 
 it, but the incident caused the old gentleman to rebuke him 
 with the suggestion that clumsiness so early in the morning 
 was a bad sign. Cheriton retired. The position of affairs was 
 beyond his comprehension.
 
 184 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 By a dexterous turn in the conversation Mr. Speezer induced 
 David Thresher to talk of Himself. 
 
 " Have you travelled much? " he asked. 
 
 " No. I have been somewhat peculiarly placed," said 
 Thresher, measuring each word. " I have had the care of my 
 mother up to a few years ago. Latterly I have got entangled in 
 a partnership with a set of rascals, and now I am obliged to 
 keep up communication with my solicitor in London, who has 
 a family matter in hand that may command my attendance at 
 any time." 
 
 " Nothing serious, I hope." 
 
 " I cannot tell how it may end. It concerns a relative whom 
 I have never seen, and whose desire for seclusion I feel bound 
 to respect ; but as I am his nearest relative, I may be called on 
 at any time, in his behalf, and for that reason, I can accept 
 your invitation only on condition that we put in at some port 
 every two or three days." 
 
 " To be sure," said Mr. Speezer. "We'll touch land every 
 day ; and that you may know my programme, I propose to go 
 south to Holyhead and then as far north as Stornoway." 
 
 All this being amicably agreed on, David Thresher went 
 ashore for his baggage, sent a telegram to Eales that he was a 
 guest of Mr. Speezer's on board the Surprise, and gave " Post 
 Office, Holyhead," as the next address. 
 
 The relationship of the host and guest was now clearly 
 established. What the issue would be was a matter of curiosity 
 to both of them, but it was clear to David Thresher that although 
 he was the better informed he must on no account force his 
 uncle's hand, but continue to treat with Mr. Speezer only. 
 
 His next business was to go on board the May Bell and 
 conclude the purchase of the Midge. He found Mr. Buchan 
 very busy teaching a Scotch terrier to walk on one leg ; and his 
 two friends were lying about the deck with that perfection of list- 
 lessness which is the envy of active minds and the unattainable 
 medicine for most of the ills of nineteenth century life. 
 There was a third visitor on board, the hero of the blanket 
 of the night before. The Major had, by some mistake, been 
 returned to the wrong boat, at the close of the function, 
 and he had refused to leave the May Bell until they had 
 fetched his clothes. In all probability, the episode would
 
 MR. SPEEZER'S CONFIDENCES. 185 
 
 have future development, but what happened was not a matter 
 of concern to anybody in the loch that day, least of all to 
 the Major. 
 
 Thresher's object was to conclude his bargain and to return 
 to the Surprise, but Mr. Buohan showed a decided objection to 
 discuss business and ordered lunch to be served. It was served 
 accordingly and disposed of, and then, with a supreme effort, 
 the owner of the Midge spoke to David Thresher as a buyer. He 
 told his visitor that while three hundred pounds was the price 
 put upon the Midge, he understood Mr. Thresher was a man who 
 did not haggle, but paid what he was asked, and therefore the 
 price to him was two hundred and fifty. 
 
 An hour afterwards the Midge was transferred to the 
 new owner, men and all, and the Surprise, with her 
 tender, set sail for the south. 
 
 They made Lamlash Bay that night, and the crew 
 turned in with the knowledge that the anchor would be 
 weighed at five in the morning. Mr. Speezer enjoyed 
 the company of his visitor extremely that evening, plied 
 him with numerous questions as to his likes and dislikes 
 and gazed at him through the smoke after dinner with 
 intense satisfaction. Once after a long pause, he said 
 
 "Very quiet here, eh? No callers; no intruders, perfectly 
 safe, eh?" 
 
 David Thresher assented, without showing any special 
 appreciation of the fact that he knew what was uppermost 
 in his uncle's mind. He merely said it was pleasant to 
 be away from the world for a time, and then relapsed 
 into more vigorous smoking. The old man next broached 
 the question of reading, said he had quantities of books 
 on board three unopened packing cases full, besides what 
 was on the shelves, and gave his new found friend the 
 run of them. Said he 
 
 " I have been collecting facts illustrating the distribution 
 of wealth not the precious metals or capital which is 
 only a measure of accumulated wealth, but the distribution 
 of the means of using the produce of the soil in the shape 
 of food and clothing." 
 
 He paused, and contemplated the smoke as it rose. David 
 Thresher waited, and presently the old man said :
 
 186 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " I've made considerable progress, but I don't see that I can 
 do much good with the facts when I have got them." 
 
 Thresher nodded, and waited for more. It was obvious there 
 was more, and he was much interested in the occupation of the 
 old man, so much so that he almost disassociated him from the 
 uncle of mysterious seclusion and regarded him only as Mr. 
 Speezer of recent acquaintance. The old man continued : 
 
 " I have been much struck with the fact that while hundreds 
 and thousands of people are daily able to provide themselves with 
 every luxury the world can produce, no matter in how distant 
 part of the world it is produced, yet there are many more 
 thousands who have to labour incessantly to get the coarsest 
 food and the poorest clothing ; and millions beside, still in 
 a state of primitive barbarism. The question that troubles 
 me is, How can this be mended?" 
 
 Thresher nodded again. 
 
 "You want to know why it troubles me," resumed the old 
 man, with a smile, " and why it should trouble me. I answer, 
 merely because I find looking on, for I take no part in these 
 matters openly that the state of matters I have described is 
 used as a handle by demigods to excite the people for no useful 
 purpose. I find the wealthy, who have everything they need, 
 use it to excess and to their injury, and the poor, who have as 
 a rule, the meagre portion too frequently are prodigal in times 
 of plenty, whenever they come ; and I can therefore see no 
 advantage in an indiscriminate levelling, but I am very deeply 
 impressed " and here the old gentleman became earnest and 
 impressive " very deeply impressed, with sights I have seen, 
 and which, if you like, I will show you, of whole territories of 
 our own country, filled with a population, not a single man or 
 woman, or child of whom can be said to be either in feature or 
 habit as God designed them to live, and fighting for a bare 
 and squalid subsistence in circumstances that nothing but the 
 brute instinct in man can make preferable to death itself." 
 
 The old man resumed his pipe, and both smoked on in 
 silence. The sentiment was quite in accordance with 
 Thresher's own feelings, but he refrained from anything like 
 warm approval for fear he should give ground for a suspicion 
 of servile commendation. 
 
 " There should be a remedy," said he.
 
 MB. SPEEZEB'S CONFIDENCES. 187 
 
 " There should," said the old man, fiercely, " but there isn't. 
 There is no natural remedy save that which I hope time will 
 bring. We live in houses built of bricks. Have you seen 
 the people making them the men, women, and the children? 
 They are not human; they are mere animals, and 
 their earnings are despicable. You would be disposed 
 to pay more for your bricks to help them, but if you did 
 the extra pay would not go to the workpeople, nor should you 
 pay more for bricks than people offer them at. If you did 
 this, all commerce would be disarranged, and while it is 
 doubtful whether the workpeople would profit by your generous 
 impulse, the consequence of your action would be either 
 trifling, temporary, and comparatively useless, or positively 
 injurious, because all artificial remedies of social evils are 
 productive of special evils of their own. I know this from 
 experience, because I have tried several processes." 
 
 Mr. Speezer said this with determination. Indeed he 
 almost snapped at his guest as if he had contradicted him. 
 After a pause he continued reflecting : 
 
 " Yes ; I've tried it, tried it in the nail district. I'm trying 
 a new plan now. You shall see in a day or two, and if you 
 can help me, I shall be very glad of your assistance." 
 
 David Thresher said he would be very happy to assist as he 
 quite sympathised with Mr. Speezer. 
 
 " Then look you here," exclaimed the old man, with a look 
 almost malignant in its intensity. " There's an accursed 
 villain of the name of Cope in Halesowen that I am resolved 
 to ruin, because the scoundrel robs the poor wretches who 
 work for him. It is not that he pays them poor wages, but 
 that he actually cheats them." 
 
 David Thresher became enthusiastic at the prospect of 
 bringing Joshua Cope to book, and explained why. He told 
 about his partnership, the action of Crawley Foyle, described 
 the marriage, omitting the tender interest he had in the event, 
 and generally denounced the actions of Cope in language 
 that excited in the mind of the old gentleman the liveliest 
 satisfaction. 
 
 The bond of union was complete, and Mr. Speezer almost 
 embraced his guest. For an instant, but only for an instant, 
 he looked at Thresher with an eye that seemed to herald a
 
 188 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 confession, but the look faded and the thought that created 
 it resolved itself by a knowing shake of the head, and a 
 self-satisfied smile : 
 
 "We shall be friends, Mr. Thresher comrades," said the 
 old man, as they parted for the night. " I'm glad I have 
 met you."
 
 CHAPTEE XXV. 
 
 BY SEA AND BY LAND. 
 
 SOME assume that it is a happy circumstance in our lives to be 
 denied the knowledge of misfortune after it has become imminent 
 or accomplished ; but it is a nice question whether that 
 ignorance can be said to be blissful, which consists only in 
 an absence of a knowledge of impending danger, or of a 
 misfortune that must sooner or later be faced. 
 
 It was a grey fresh morning when the Surprise turned out of 
 Lamlash Bay and went before a smart north-wester down the 
 Firth. The schooner was goose-winged as she passed the 
 Holy Isle light, but as soon as she laid her course for the Mull 
 of Galloway a puff came from the Whiting Bay shore and with 
 sheets slightly hauled in and every stitch drawing, her lee rail 
 dipped in the white eddies. The wind backing two or three 
 points was rather in her favour, and as they hauled further off 
 the island they met a slight swell from the southward, which the 
 Surprise seemed to recognise as she lifted to each long roller 
 with a sympathetic swing. On the port-bow Ailsa Craig loomed 
 up lonely and severe through the haze of the early morning. 
 
 David Thresher was early on deck to taste the caller air, 
 bare-footed and lightly clad. The bracing wind, the speed, 
 and the novelty of the situation were eminently calculated to 
 exhilarate. Life he felt was worth living ; and much of the 
 depression, consequent upon the incidents of the previous few 
 weeks, evaporated, and hope established itself in the form of a 
 possible schooner of the future, with Isabel on board and 
 barriers to perfect happiness obliterated. The sentiment of 
 hopefulness continued throughout the day, and was at its 
 height as they sat at noon in the stern. The heat of the sun 
 was tempered by the bracing wind, and the Surprise was still 
 going her best when a strong disposition seized upon Thresher 
 to declare his knowledge of his uncle's identity with his host. 
 Still he could not contrive the mode, and contented himself by 
 reciprocating the cheery manner of the old man and waiting on 
 events.
 
 190 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Events were ripening apace. The placid Mr. Slade was 
 whistling and humming snatches of the popular airs of his 
 youth in Scotland Yard, happy in the belief that he had a 
 surprisingly clear clue. The continued absence and unknown 
 whereabouts of David Thresher was, in his opinion, a profound 
 confirmation of his theories. Slade had a clue but no track, 
 for David Thresher's letters were in accordance with invariable 
 custom in case of his absence carried to Eales, and Eales in 
 accordance with the methods of his profession knew nothing. 
 Eales, however, was at the very moment of David Thresher's 
 most perfect repose writing him a letter that was calculated to 
 rouse him to something approaching madness. 
 
 Still he was happy, and happy because he was ignorant. 
 His isolation was complete ; and surely there is something 
 humiliating in the reflection that man in all his pride is ever 
 circumscribed within the area of his touch and vision, and that, 
 being so, he may be lightly employed at the very moment his 
 whole future shall have been blighted by an occurrence of 
 which he must of necessity be ignorant for many days. 
 
 The boat sped on all gaiety and brightness, and, acting in 
 accordance with his invariable policy of mystification, Mr. 
 Speezer changed his scheme of the night before, and ordered a 
 straight course for Douglas, Isle of Man. He explained to 
 Thresher that if they landed on the island early in the 
 morning, they could cross to Liverpool by steamer and get 
 to the Halesowen district by the evening, could see what he 
 wished by noon the next day, and return to Holyhead in the 
 evening. He instructed the Skipper accordingly, and the 
 programme so arranged was carried out with such expedition 
 that the two tourists were able to leave Dudley in a four-wheel 
 dog-cart at seven in the morning. Fresh from the moss and 
 heather of the north, the black desolation of the nail country 
 struck Thresher with peculiar force, while the aspect of the 
 people aroused the deepest sympathies of his nature. 
 " Look at them ! " said the old man, " it's very bad." 
 "Damnable, "said the other; "literally the work of the Fiend." 
 " Yes ; but it's a good thing to see scenes like this. It 
 steadies one. It's different from Piccadilly and Pall Mall, but 
 it's a part of the life we live, and in closer connection with 
 wealth and luxury than we suppose."
 
 BY SEA AND BY LAND. 191 
 
 "Ah ! " said Thresher, " and where's the Kemedy ? " 
 
 " That's the difficulty. It's not in alms : they would get 
 drunk. It's not in legislation : that would simply force 
 unnatural growth and change the character of the evil. I am 
 about to try the effect of competing with my friend Cope by 
 working at a loss. The process is economically vicious, but it 
 is only an error on my own part no worse than an error of 
 judgment, and the workpeople all about here will be better off 
 without knowing that the cause of their improvement is based 
 upon unsound political economy." 
 
 The old man laughed as he said this, and Thresher said : 
 
 " And it amuses you." 
 
 " Yes, it amuses me, and it does more. I'll make a confession ; 
 I'm in the humour to make confessions, my friend." Here 
 he slapped Thresher on the back in good nautical style as he 
 faced round and said, " look you, my friend. I shall annoy 
 Cope by doing this. It'll irritate him, worry him, make him 
 mad. Ha ! ha ! That also is economically unsound, but 
 what does it matter if it amuses me and benefits the people ? 
 Cope's a ruffian, my friend. He's doing wrong. Why, it's 
 dramatic justice." 
 
 The old man laughed aloud as they walked along the dreary 
 road with the blackened stones and the coal dust path and the 
 blighted tree stumps. Laughter other than drunken outbursts 
 was never heard on that fearful plain. Humour was exotic to 
 the nail district. 
 
 "You agree with me you approve, my friend?" enquired 
 the old man. 
 
 "Oh, yes. It seems tome," said Thresher, "that nature 
 will settle the question of itself without any artificial 
 intervention." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " By killing the whole lot off." 
 
 " No ; there you're wrong. They are all thin and miserable, 
 but the strength of those who survive childhood is enormous- 
 phenomenal. They're all bone and sinew. They haven't a 
 scrap of unnecessary flesh on them no fatty degeneracy of the 
 heart here, my friend, and the population is increasing. The 
 way nature works is to push out the surplus and fill the larger 
 towns, but that also is a harsh remedy."
 
 192 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "It's a sorry business altogether," said Thresher, " and a 
 nice chapter for the philosophers who discuss the question as 
 to whether life's worth living." 
 
 As Thresher said this they turned a corner, 
 and came upon Ebenezer Warp, bent and 
 weird, with his apron wound round his waist, 
 and his eyes sternly bent before him. He 
 peered up at the faces of the strangers as he 
 passed them with an earnest appealing look, 
 and went off muttering and wailing. They 
 passed many others as wretched as he 
 many sullen and brutal 
 of aspect, and all alike 
 desperate. The social 
 problem was abundant 
 of examples, but as hopeless of solu- 
 tion as the misery was deep. As Thresher 
 passed along he came to the conclusion 
 that he was a very poor specimen of a 
 philanthropist in the face of an evil so 
 stupendous, and he readily found excuse 
 for retreating from the con- 
 templation of so much human 
 suffering in the necessity of ' 
 
 Thresher on the return journey remarked that 
 his uncle took tickets for Bangor and not for 
 Holyhead. He suggested a possible error. 
 
 " Quite right, my friend ; quite right. I'll make 
 another confession. I never tell my captain where 
 he will find me when I leave him, because then he 
 cannot tell anyone else. I tell him to call at the 
 Post Office. You didn't observe that I posted a 
 letter immediately I landed at Douglas. That was 
 directed to Holyhead, and instructed the Captain 
 to be at Bangor this evening, and have a boat at a certain pier 
 he knows of at ten to-night. That's my way." 
 
 The old man winked cheerily and seemed very well satisfied 
 with himself. Thresher merely smiled and bowed. Perhaps if 
 he had known less he would have said more, but his knowledge 
 of Mr. Speezer's identity embarrassed him. 
 
 catching the train."
 
 BY SEA AND BY LAND. 193 
 
 The old gentleman increased in cheerfulness during the 
 journey, and once when they were alone in the carriage he put 
 his hand upon Thresher's knee, and said with a kindly accent 
 that showed more feeling than the circumstances should in an 
 ordinary case have warranted : 
 
 " Allow me, Mr. Thresher, to say that I'm very glad you have 
 accepted my invitation. Your company has much cheered me." 
 
 Thresher was about to say the obligation was on his side, 
 but he was stopped in the middle of his remark by the old 
 man, who exclaimed : 
 
 " No, no, my friend, I know what you would say ; but 
 believe me, the obligation is with me. I am pleased 
 delighted. I have led a retired life, and the loneliness was 
 beginning to pall upon me in fact, it was becoming serious. 
 I have met a good many men in my yachting experiences, but 
 they have not given me pleasure. You do. I sincerely hope 
 we shall know more of each other. Yes," he added wistfully, 
 "more of each other." 
 
 This statement was, as may be supposed, peculiarly 
 embarrassing to Thresher, who was again tempted to make 
 a declaration on his part, but again he resisted, and said : 
 
 " I am complimented, Sir, by your statement; but I will 
 not say more than that I reciprocate your hopes." 
 
 "All right. Let's say no more now; let's say no more. 
 I'm glad you like my work at Halesowen, and if you'll assist 
 me with your advice and occasional oversight, I shall be much 
 obliged." And again he slapped Thresher on the knee with 
 a cheery look of confidence. . 
 
 There was nothing more of interest said during the journey, 
 except when Thresher asked, with some show of anxiety, 
 whether Mr. Speezer was sure the letters would be fetched 
 from Holyhead. 
 
 " Oh, yes ; certain. You may trust William. William never 
 fails, my friend. If our letters are not now in the cabin of 
 the Surprise, something very serious has happened. William, 
 my friend, may be trusted, never doubt that." 
 
 This eulogium was justified by the event. The Midge was 
 at the landing place on their arrival, and the schooner was 
 lying out in the seaway with sails slack and ready for a start, 
 for it was also part of Mr. Speezer's custom never to remain 
 
 o
 
 194 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 at anchor where he joined the boat. No matter what the 
 hour, he always weighed up and sailed to the next convenient 
 anchorage the less frequented the better. On this occasion, 
 the wind being light, the Midge showed her usefulness, and 
 towed the schooner to a well sheltered nook at the Carmarthen 
 end of the straits. 
 
 The letters were there, and one of them was from Bales ; 
 but Thresher having achieved the object of his quest was not 
 in any undue haste to read it. Eales's letters had ceased to 
 be matters of absorbing interest. He changed his jacket and 
 shoes, had a wash, and then prepared to read his letter in the 
 saloon as he waited for some grilled bones and the company of 
 his cheery host. His complacency deserted him as soon as he 
 had read a dozen lines ; and before he had finished he was 
 in a whirlpool of thought. 
 
 The letter was as follows : 
 
 " My dear Thresher, I am under the necessity of reporting 
 what cannot fail to be disagreeable. If it does not alarm you, 
 it will at least cause you the deepest concern, to hear that you 
 are actually accused of murder, and that men are watching 
 your house in expectation of your return, with intent, I 
 suppose, to apprehend you. You are accused of causing the 
 death, by poison, of Mary Joiner, and a Mrs. Shilton, both in 
 the service of Miss Winscomb, at Brighton ; and the evidence in 
 support of the charge is, according to the police and the press, 
 conclusive against you. Inasmuch as the police and the press 
 are usually wrong, the situation is less disturbing than it other- 
 wise would be ; but it is well I should give you some statement 
 of the grounds of the accusation in case you should not have 
 seen the papers. In the first place, it is asserted on the basis 
 of medical analysis that these two women died of a poison of 
 the nature of prussic acid, and that a poison of this character 
 was found inserted in an egg in the pantry of the house. 
 These points seem well ascertained, but it is remarkable that 
 you should be charged with having put those eggs into the 
 pantry in the place of others that you are supposed to have 
 removed and carried away. It is alleged that you burglariously 
 entered the house on the night before the death of Mary Joiner 
 and exchanged these eggs, not with intent to poison Mary 
 Joiner, but to procure the death either of Miss Winscomb or
 
 BY SEA AND BY LAND. 
 
 195 
 
 Mrs. Cope, both of whom lived in the house. Your motive is 
 alleged to be in the case of Miss Winscomb a desire to remove 
 her in the -hope that your uncle, Mr. Louison, may the more 
 surely inherit the accumulations of the Tontine, and in the 
 case of Mrs. Cope revenge on account of her having married 
 one other than yourself. In support of these assertions it is 
 stated that you were seen issuing from the house between two 
 and three in the morning of the day on which Mary Joiner 
 was poisoned ; and in further confirmation it is pointed out 
 that you have since absented yourself from your dwelling, and 
 your whereabouts is unknown. 
 
 "This is the substance of what has been published on the 
 matter, and the fact that it is published induces me to advise 
 you that some notice be taken of it ; and especially that you" 
 should declare yourself. The necessity for so doing must be 
 apparent to you ; but pending your authority I can make no 
 statement as to your whereabouts or the cause of your 
 absence ; and I therefore await your instructions with some 
 anxiety. Yours, very truly, 
 
 " JOSEPH EALES." 
 
 "P.S. The police have been here enquiring for your 
 address. They have plied my clerks, and are no doubt 
 watching our letter boy. I therefore intend to post this 
 myself when I am sure of not being 
 observed." 
 
 This postcript formed a startling 
 commentary on the situation. It 
 exhibited the necessity for caution ; 
 it showed him the belief was current 
 that he was hiding, and the incident 
 enraged him. 
 
 He read the letter a second time, 
 and was obliged to confess to himself 
 that on all points he was much 
 disturbed by it. The fact of his 
 presence in the house at Brighton 
 on the night in question, the cause of 
 his being there, the fact that he had 
 been observed, and the consequences 
 
 o 2
 
 196 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 that would ensue if the incident were openly canvassed were 
 matters for serious alarm. That Eales treated the case lightly 
 was natural, seeing he was unacquainted with the one fact that 
 made it serious. 
 
 Mr. Speezer entered the saloon rubbing his hands and 
 smiling in anticipation of a cheery evening, when he was 
 staggered by the excitement depicted on his friend's face. He 
 stopped short in an attitude of enquiry. 
 
 " I've had a disagreeable communication," responded 
 Thresher. " You, sir, have been so good as to extend 
 to me your hospitality, and I feel it to be impossible to 
 delay a single moment in showing to you the cause of 
 my anxiety." 
 
 With this he handed the old man the open letter, and waited 
 with an expression of deep concern on his face. Much to his 
 surprise, Mr. Speezer folded it up and stuck it between a 
 couple of books behind him, as he said : 
 
 " We'll discuss this after supper, my friend." 
 
 " But," said Thresher, with hesitation, " I'm doubtful 
 whether I should take supper in the circumstances." 
 
 "What?" exclaimed the old man, "Not take supper after 
 such a day as we have had. I don't wish to dictate, but I 
 decline to discuss anything until I have eaten my supper, and 
 I invite you, my young friend, to follow my example." 
 
 Cheriton at this moment entered with a dish of boiled 
 flounders, preparatory to the grilled bones, and David Thresher 
 took his seat. 
 
 " Ah ! that's better," exclaimed Mr. Speezer. " Have you 
 had fine weather, William ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " No accidents ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " That's good," said the old man, and then he caught sight 
 of the settled gloom on Thresher's face, and he began to have 
 a decided curiosity to know what was in the letter. He, how- 
 ever, kept bravely on with persistent cheerfulness till he came 
 to the last item of the supper, and when Cheriton had set 
 down a prime dish of soft roes on toast, he looked up to see 
 whether the sight of them had any effect upon Thresher. He 
 was surprised to remark only the faintest glimmer of interest,
 
 BY SEA AND BY LAND. 197 
 
 and then he knew the letter was serious indeed. He shook 
 his head, thought a minute, and then said : 
 
 " Now, I think we can venture to look at this letter." 
 
 "I hope you won't repent not having read it before," said 
 Thresher. 
 
 On this the old man put the letter down, ate his savory, 
 drank a little whiskey and water and then, rising up, held the 
 letter in his hand as he said : 
 
 " My dear friend, I'm not going to allow this letter to disturb 
 me, no matter what its contents," and he shook the letter as 
 if he bore it animosity. He then settled himself to read it, 
 and when he had finished he said with solemn deliberation : 
 
 "Well, I never in the whole of my experience came upon 
 such an extraordinary combination most extraordinary ! Let 
 me read it again ; " and with this he settled himself in an 
 arm-chair, and read the letter with a whimsical expression of 
 calm amusement overspreading his countenance. 
 
 "Ah," he exclaimed, "they're dropping the anchor. I 
 must go on deck, and see where we are." 
 
 And away he went, throwing the letter on the table as if 
 it had been of no more consequence than a washing-bill. 
 
 The cool indifference of the old man somewhat revived 
 Thresher, who took up the letter mechanically, as if to read it 
 again, but he paraded the saloon instead. 
 
 Presently the old man returned, and in a light and cheerful 
 manner said it was a very fine night, and that they had got a 
 very good anchorage ; ordered Cheriton to clear the table and 
 put on the whiskey, made believe he had forgotten all about 
 the letter, and generally behaved in an eccentric manner. 
 David Thresher's amazement at his uncle's behaviour was a 
 corrective to his nervousness, and he was decidedly cooler 
 when the old man said : 
 
 " Now, let's have a talk about this very curious letter." 
 
 Saying this, he sat down, mixed more whiskey and water, 
 insisted on Thresher doing the same as he passed the 
 decanter, and proceeded with a light and almost frivolous air, 
 to say : 
 
 " I know of your friend Eales. He's a very nice fellow, 
 isn't he?" 
 
 " Very trustworthy," said Thresher.
 
 198 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " And you know I know of Cope. He's a scoundrel." 
 
 " Yes," said Thresher. 
 
 " But I know Miss Winscomb also, although I have not seen 
 her for nearly fifty years. Fifty years," he repeated with a 
 touch of sentiment. He recalled a tall, dashing girl in a riding 
 habit and wearing a hat and feathers. Then, after a pause, 
 he asked : 
 
 " Who are these two women you are supposed to have 
 poisoned, eh ? " 
 
 Thresher looked askance at the old man, and, finding him 
 serious, said he had never heard of them. 
 
 " Then what about Mr. Louison ? " asked Mr. Speezer. 
 
 " He's my uncle, but I have never seen him." 
 
 " Then what do you think is the meaning of this matter ? " 
 
 " As I am enjoying your hospitality, sir," said Thresher, 
 with dignity, "you are entitled to ask, and I am desirous of 
 answering. I can make nothing of it, but I feel it incumbent 
 on me to telegraph to the police and say I am commg^.to 
 Scotland Yard as soon as possible." 
 
 " Oh, no, don't do that. You're quite safe here. We'll 
 manage better than that. Let's consider. You say you have 
 never seen your uncle. Is that so ? " 
 
 " I have never had any communication with him in any 
 way. He was desirous of seclusion, and, although I am his 
 nearest relative, I thought it proper to respect his wishes." 
 
 " Oh," said the old man. " Then I'll tell you something. 
 You have seen him, and know him well." 
 
 Thresher turned half round to look at the old man, and put 
 on a smile of incredulity. The old man laughed and nodded, 
 but Thresher merely said : 
 
 " Perhaps you'll tell me when and where." 
 
 "Here! Now, my boy!" and the old man rose up, and 
 took Thresher by the hand, as he exclaimed, " I'm your uncle 
 Louison ; but only when I'm at home. I'm Speezer abroad, 
 and nobody else. And I tell you what, my boy. You've 
 won my heart. We shall be friends, shipmates, comrades ; 
 and as you are accused in this matter somewhat on account 
 of me, I'll stand by you, and get you out of the mess ; but 
 you must tell me as much as you can of the whole matter, 
 and we must settle the campaign at once."
 
 BY SEA AND BY LAND. 199 
 
 It was difficult for Thresher to reply to this speech. It was 
 impossible for him to disclose his previous knowledge, and he 
 shrank from the imposture of pretending surprise. He 
 merely grasped his uncle's hand, and said : 
 
 " I'm very glad to hear it. I was amazed the other day to 
 hear you had been kidnapped, and although I had never met 
 you, I was concerned at the knowledge that nothing could 
 be heard of you ! " 
 
 The old man laughed heartily, and said : 
 
 " Then let us take an example from the fact, and not be in 
 a hurry to send word to Scotland Yard. The first thing you 
 have to do is to see Eales, and I'll manage that for you in 
 London without any chance of your being seen, and you shall 
 be on the water next day safe from pursuit, if you like." 
 
 " I would prefer to go straight to the police," said Thresher ; 
 " but as matters stand, I'll be guided by you." 
 
 " You'll not repent it ; but in the meantime we must act." 
 
 With this he touched the hand-bell, and Cheriton appeared 
 with all his old alertness, but with less of the terrier 
 aspect about him now that he was standing behind a beard 
 of the wrong colour. Mr. Speezer asked for note-paper, 
 and when it was produced he requested Cheriton to write a 
 letter as follows : 
 
 Post Office, Milford. 
 
 Sir, Please to send me at the above address information 
 whether Maida Lodge is still watched, and if so, where the 
 men are placed. You may expect another communication 
 from me the day after I get your answer. 
 Yours obediently, 
 
 To J. Eales, Esq. WILLIAM CHERITON. 
 
 "Now, William," said the old man, "that letter must be 
 posted to-night somewhere." 
 
 Cheriton nodded. 
 
 "And further, William, Mr. Thresher is my nephew. He 
 knows me, but it is understood I am still Mr. Speezer so far 
 as the world is concerned." 
 
 Cheriton nodded again, but there was a twinkle in his eye, 
 as if he were glad to have a companion in the secrets of 
 Maida Lodge.
 
 CHAPTEE XXVI. 
 
 CONVENTIONAL GRIEF AND EEAL MALICE. 
 
 ISABEL'S concern for David Thresher would have been extreme 
 but from the fact that she had to face another misfortune more 
 definite and not less calculated to excite her sympathy. The 
 journey she and her mother took in haste from Brighton, 
 fleeing as from a plague, resulted in an attack of cold that laid 
 her mother prostrate ; and at the very time the allegation 
 against David Thresher assumed shape, Mrs. Foyle died of 
 inflammation of the lungs. Isabel's anxiety, tending her 
 mother, in her mother's house, and with the intensity of her 
 nature wholly absorbed in her work, to the exclusion of all 
 other matters under the sun, caused her to disregard popular 
 rumour and newspaper reports ; and from varied motives it 
 became the object of those about her to conceal rather than 
 communicate the circumstances associated with the Brighton 
 incident. Her father dared not mention the name of David 
 Thresher to her ; and Lady Arabella, who was now a regular 
 occupant of Mr. Foyle's house, to keep dear Mrs. Cope 
 company in her distress, had reasons of her own, of no very 
 distinct character, however, for not exciting a sympathy that 
 might become inconveniently pronounced. 
 
 And the poor weak mother died in the arms of her strong, 
 defiant daughter, passing almost imperceptibly to the rest she 
 had hungered for during many years. And as she passed 
 away, just lifting her arms a very little as if she would have 
 embraced her one friend, and then closing her eyes for ever, 
 Isabel knew that her work of tender watchfulness was over, 
 that her place in the family circle was gone, and that if in her 
 future life she should know aught of tenderness, it would come 
 of hopes as yet undeveloped, and perhaps, impossible. 
 
 She was much impressed, inevitably so, but she did not 
 weep ; she did not shed a single tear. The spirit of her past 
 life left her with one long drawn sigh, and then a deep-set 
 frown fell upon her face, and she braced herself in anger, 
 because she felt her mother's life had been wasted for her, and
 
 CONVENTIONAL GEIEF AND REAL MALICE. 201 
 
 all the world literally strangled by hypocritical neglect and 
 brutal selfishness. 
 
 As for Mr. Crawley Foyle, member for Buckton, and 
 financier, philanthropist, and champion of oppressed nation- 
 alities, he behaved as a model husband. He wept copiously, 
 apostrophised the household's friends, whenever he could find 
 opportunity, on the virtues of his poor dear Clara, 
 claimed the compassion of the world in general 
 for his irreparable loss, and said he looked 
 forward to a dread and dreary future, de- 
 prived of the companionship of the most 
 amiable creature that ever breathed the 
 breath of life. But careful observers 
 remarked that Mr. Crawley Foyle con- 
 tinued to be blessed with a good appetite, 
 and he took special care never to be left 
 alone with his daughter. 
 
 As became an affectionate husband who 
 was also a member of Parliament, Mr. 
 Crawley Foyle had recourse to plumes and 
 velvet horsecloths to indicate to the world at large the measure 
 of his grief ; and although he was by no means clear whom 
 to put in them, he felt that two mourning coaches, were an 
 absolute necessity. He had few relatives and no friends, and 
 the question of complying with conventional custom in the 
 matter of mourners became to Mr. Crawley Foyle, M.P., a 
 matter of difficulty. He and Arthur made two ; it suited 
 the purpose of Joshua Cope to be a third, and it suited 
 the purpose of Mr. Foyle that Captain Joybell should be 
 a fourth, although he had not the remotest connection 
 with anyone concerned. Belief in the urgent need of using 
 a second coach resulted in an invitation to Milton, the book- 
 keeper of Schrieber & Co., couched in language that amounted 
 to an order and coupled with a request that he should return 
 to the City as soon after the funeral as possible. Crawley 
 Foyle's lamentations over the dead were modified by a keen 
 appreciation of the necessities of the living ; and a profound 
 conviction that his own necessities were great indeed. 
 
 Joshua Cope had been somewhat troublesome of late. He 
 had been applying mercantile blisters to the house of
 
 202 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Schrieber & Co., and his partners, father and son, had not 
 been happy under the treatment. Mr. Foyle, senior, was 
 suffering from an acute attack of impecuniosity, and Mr. Foyle, 
 junior, having met with the usual reverse of those who are 
 successful in corners, had been having recourse to those 
 desperate remedies, which in his case, resulted in sleepless 
 nights, and abnormal filial attention. Both father and son 
 were, therefore, particularly desirous of company. Neither 
 wished to be left alone with the other; and, whatever they 
 differed upon, they were unanimous in the desire to avoid a 
 business conversation with Cope. This state of things, coupled 
 with the fear of being alone with his daughter, had caused 
 Mr. Foyle to insist upon Captain Joybell returning with him 
 to lunch. Nothing, in the estimation of Mr. Crawley Foyle, 
 was so efficient a bar to disagreeable family discussion as the 
 presence of a comparative stranger. The surpassing vanity of 
 Captain Joybell, however, had, after mature reflection on his 
 part, shown him, conclusively, that appreciation of his 
 commercial genius alone prompted the invitation, and he 
 returned to Eaton Square in a frame of mind approaching 
 the hilarious. 
 
 Diversified as were the circumstances, they all contributed 
 to repress conversation. Only two persons present had 
 complete control of themselves, and Lady Arabella, who was 
 one of them, was silent of set purpose. The other, Joshua 
 Cope, who saw his wife for the first time since he had left for 
 Halesowen, was waiting his opportunity. It came near the 
 end of the lunch, and Mr. Crawley Foyle, who had sought 
 safety in distance from his partner, was made the passive 
 instrument of his malice. 
 
 " I think, Foyle," said Cope, in cold, snappish tones, " we 
 may congratulate ourselves in being rid of Thresher now, eh?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, certainly, of course," answered Foyle, with a 
 nervous glance at Isabel, who listened unmoved. 
 
 " It'd be a nice thing for Schrieber & Co. to be mixed up with 
 a murderer, eh ? " cried Cope ; " a nice thing ! " 
 
 Isabel started. This was news to her, and she could not 
 restrain a sharp look of anger and curiosity at her titular 
 husband. Her father, noticing her with alarm, exclaimed : 
 
 " My friend, remember Captain Joybell is his relation."
 
 CONVENTIONAL GEIEF AND REAL MALICE. 203 
 
 " Kelation," sneered Cope, "I shouldn't suppose he'll admit 
 the relationship when the upstart swings." 
 
 Captain Joybell felt bound to make himself agreeable to 
 the embodiment of capital, and, with ineffable contempt, flung 
 a few epithets across the table for his hearers to apply as they 
 pleased : 
 
 "Dirt, scum, outcast! " exclaimed the captain, loftily, but 
 no sooner'were the words out of his mouth than his complacent 
 smile left him, and he quailed before Isabel, who now sufficiently 
 comprehended the situation to be aroused. With more heat 
 than judgment she asked : 
 
 " Have you now exhausted your malice, you two gentlemen?" 
 
 " My dear ! my dear ! " apostrophised Mr. Crawley Foyle, 
 " think of the occasion." 
 
 "Have these gentlemen thought of the occasion? Have 
 you thought of it ? " she asked. 
 
 " My dear ! my dear ! " exclaimed her father in an agony of 
 fear, " this is unseemly." 
 
 " Unseemly ! " she retorted. " Cannot your hypocrisy give 
 place for a single day to repentance? Are you still the 
 fawning slave of this wretched man you call my husband ? " 
 
 Mr. Crawley Foyle became pallid and speechless. He never 
 had been equal to the braving of the scorn of his daughter, 
 and, without knowing why, he felt a torrent had been let 
 loose which threatened to overwhelm him. Cope came to his 
 rescue. 
 
 "Do you usually defend criminals with such warmth, Mrs. 
 Cope? " he asked, with special emphasis on the name. 
 
 " Silence, sir," she retorted. " You at least know he is 
 innocent of participation in that business." 
 
 " The police don't think so," sneered Cope, who was 
 beginning to lose his temper. 
 
 " Then you can instruct them," she answered again with 
 more zeal than discretion. 
 
 Cope's suspicion of her knowledge was aroused. He cast 
 one quick malignant look at her, and then attacked a banana 
 with unusual ferocity. With the last mouthful he had 
 arrived at the conclusion that love of Thresher and chagrin 
 had originated the remark, not knowledge of facts, and he 
 felt more at ease.
 
 204 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 There was really nothing in her retort which might not 
 have been prompted by esteem of the man Cope maligned, 
 and it was presumable she should expect all her friends 
 to believe in the honour and freedom from reproach of one 
 whom she regarded with tenderness ; but consoling as this 
 conclusion was on the main point it was desperately irritating 
 in another respect ; it was hardly to be expected that Joshua 
 Cope could regard Isabel's championship of his rival with 
 equanamity, and as his fears were dispelled malignity revived. 
 
 Cope was assisted in his reflections by the silence of his 
 friends. It lasted only for a moment or two, but the irksome- 
 ness of the pause bore heavily on the soul of Mr. Foyle, who, 
 by a supreme mental effort, pushed on one side all that had 
 gone before, and said, in the mildest and most complacent 
 tones : 
 
 " My dear, you'll excuse me, I'm sure, but I really must see 
 Mr. Ware this afternoon, though I shan't be long." 
 
 With this he rose and walked to the door with the solemnity 
 fitting the occasion. What was more natural, although he 
 had begged them not to disturb themselves, than that his son 
 should resolve " to follow the governor's example " or that 
 Captain Joybell's discretion should incite him to a similar 
 course. 
 
 The ladies next rose, and it was then that Cope, who had 
 remained inactive, executed a strategic movement based upon 
 a sudden accession of artificial politeness. He managed by a 
 dexterous pretence of opening the door for his wife to procure 
 precedence for Lady Arabella, and then with a pronounced 
 accession of rudeness, shut the door, and standing with his 
 back to it, hissed at Isabel : 
 
 " What did you mean when you said I could instruct the 
 police about Thresher? " 
 
 11 Stand aside, sir," was the answer. " How dare you? " 
 
 He remained at bay, glaring at her. It was in the balance 
 which of the two would give way, but temper got the better 
 of Joshua Cope, to whom the irksomeness of his position 
 became more exasperating day by day. 
 
 "You are in league with him," said he fiercely, " in league 
 against me." 
 
 " Stand aside," said Isabel, with increased emphasis.
 
 CONVENTIONAL GRIEF AND REAL MALICE. 
 
 205 
 
 Joshua Cope did not move, but Lady Arabella had remained 
 outside waiting in expectation that her interference would be 
 needed. At this point she pushed open the door. 
 
 " Call Mr. Foyle," said Isabel, as Lady Arabella appeared. 
 " Tell him to come here, immediately. Tell them all to come." 
 
 As Foyle was at that time in the act of escaping from the 
 house, followed by his two satellites, Lady Arabella's task was 
 an easy one, and before Joshua Cope could determine what to 
 do next, they were in the room. Prudence suggested that he 
 should retreat, but vindictiveness restrained him. He still 
 glared at Isabel. 
 
 " Look at him," said she, falling back a step as she pointed 
 to that hideous spectacle, a man convulsed with passion- 
 foiled, and without resource. " He stands in my way," she 
 added. " Remove him, and let me pass." 
 
 " My dear, you should remember," expostulated Mr. Foyle, 
 with delightful vagueness. 
 
 " Eemember what ? " she asked. " The miserable trick you 
 played upon me to induce me to marry this wretched man ? 
 I shall not easily forget it," she continued, with withering 
 contempt.
 
 206 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " My dear, my dear," exclaimed Foyle, "this is not a day 
 for recrimination. Think of your mother." 
 
 " I do think of her. Thank God I have no longer to protect 
 her from your insolent selfishness. I live for the living, not 
 for the dead ; and I again command you to put that man aside 
 to let me pass." 
 
 " Did you hear her? " said Cope. " She's going to Thresher, 
 she confesses it ; but she daren't." 
 
 " Let me pass, I say," and she waived him aside. " I dare 
 do as I please and as honour commands." 
 
 She stopped in the doorway, and turning upon him with 
 exceeding bitterness, she declaimed : 
 
 " Your malignity shall not prevent me assisting any friend of 
 mine, if it comes within my power. If David Thresher should 
 need my help, and I knew where he was, he should have my 
 help. I never knew till now, and I say it before all these, how 
 deeply I had loved him ; how bitter my hatred is of you ! "
 
 CHAPTEE XXVII. 
 
 PARASITES AT WORK. 
 
 THE private enquiry agent is an abnormal growth of modern 
 civilization : the creation of conventional laws, the instrument 
 of suspicion, and the parasite of jealousy. The fact that 
 Joshua Cope had recourse to this refuge for social failures 
 indicates the condition to which he was reduced, but it is 
 no exaggeration to say that he regarded the expedient as 
 nothing less than a panacea. 
 
 He went to Chudleigh & Co., and found Chudleigh at home. 
 He did not find him at home easily. There was a good deal of 
 mystery about Chudleigh. There were four bells at his office 
 door and four names, but the name " Chudleigh" was at the 
 top. Unlike the custom at most offices, a visitor was admitted 
 only on ringing ; and upon entering he would find himself in 
 
 the presence of three or four extremely dejected members of 
 the human race who seemed very much washed as regards
 
 208 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 their faces and very much unwashed as regards their garments. 
 There is nothing so suggestive of penury as a man in faded 
 clothes with a bleached face and boots polished with black lead. 
 Why Chudleigh had such men sitting in his waiting-room was 
 one of the many mysteries of his official life, but the initiated 
 knew them to be watchers. They were precisely of the type 
 of men who hang about street corners, and, therefore, they 
 were able to watch without exciting suspicion of their 
 purpose. 
 
 Chudleigh himself was a smart man. Young, active, 
 excitable and eager ; apparently always in the act of pouncing 
 upon some one, or at least on the look out for someone to 
 pounce upon, he impressed his clients with the idea that 
 revenge was actually within their grasp the very moment they 
 entered his presence. Bed hair, a red moustache, a velvet 
 waistcoat, and white gaiters were the striking features of his 
 personal appearance, with patent leather boots and a blue tie. 
 His intimate friends, who liked his dash, admired his 
 figure, and tried to imitate the inimitable fit of his coat, 
 had misgivings about the waistcoat. That and the blue tie 
 indicated a defect in the psychology of Chudleigh. If 
 Chudleigh had not been capable of velvet waistcoats and blue 
 ties in combination, he could never have been an enquiry 
 agent. The two conditions were complementary, and 
 in this respect Chudleigh was artistically perfect, but it 
 was bad art. 
 
 Joshua Cope, rogue as he was, felt ashamed as he entered 
 Chudleigh's office. Filled with black malignity, and spurred 
 by impetuous hate, he selected Chudleigh with his habitual 
 care, and set out to approach him with the eagerness of relent- 
 less spite. But when he saw Chudleigh when he was face 
 to face with a human being who was to become his father 
 confessor, he quailed. He did not bate one jot of his purpose : 
 his malignity was unallayed, but the nervous movement of 
 Chudleigh, the keenness of his eye, the dash of slyness that 
 destroyed all hope of genuineness in the man, and the undis- 
 guised eagerness with which he welcomed a new comer whose 
 misfortune was his gain, reminded Joshua Cope of the method 
 of a ferret. He was accordingly nervous about coming to close 
 quarters. Instinct told him he might have too much of
 
 PAEASITES AT WOBK. 209 
 
 Chudleigh, but malignity overcame this spasm of caution, and 
 said he : 
 
 " You watch people ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. Whom do you want watched? " 
 
 " My wife." 
 
 " Yes, certainly. Will you oblige me with a few particulars, 
 name and so forth? " 
 
 Cope did this, and then came an awkward pause, 
 
 " I expect this is a serious case, eh? " said Chudleigh in a 
 manner that was intended to be sympathetic, but was really 
 impertinent. 
 
 " Why do you expect that? " asked Cope, with asperity. 
 
 
 " It looks like it," said Chudleigh, with a shake of the head. 
 
 " Wliy does it look like it ? " 
 
 " From the facts." 
 
 "What facts?" 
 
 "Mrs. Cope is not unknown," said Chudleigh, with a 
 mysterious air. 
 
 Mr Cope grunted, and Chudleigh was encouraged. 
 
 "Do you want me to proceed blindly?" he asked, "to 
 report in the dark only what we see, or do you wish me t 
 proceed with knowledge and report with intelligence ? " 
 
 "I want your assistance," said Cope, with a touch 
 irritation.
 
 210 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "Precisely: then give me some of your facts. Who is 
 suspected ? " asked Chudleigh, fixing his victim with his eye. 
 
 Cope literally writhed, then pulled himself together with an 
 effort, and without a blush, said : 
 
 "No one." 
 
 Chudleigh bowed, said it was singular, and added he would 
 probably be able to let Mr. Cope know whom to suspect on 
 the morrow. 
 
 Chudleigh made a mental reflection that all his "clients," 
 as he called them, were alike. He doubted whether half of 
 them could define their suspicions to themselves, and as to 
 communicating them to the man who was to assist them, not 
 one in a hundred ever thought of doing anything else than 
 conceal and confuse him. Chudleigh surmised they thought 
 it clever. It was understood, therefore, that Joshua Cope 
 suspected no one, and merely wanted his wife watched day and 
 night for the humour of the thing. Having got over this 
 difficult point, Chudleigh reverted to business and asked when 
 the reports were desired. It was ultimately determined to 
 have them made out each day up to five in the afternoon, to 
 be delivered at the house in Park Lane by a special messenger, 
 who was to call himself " Smith," and to hand the report to 
 Mr. Cope in person. As the house was to be watched day 
 and night, Chudleigh's fee was to be two guineas a day, and 
 travelling expenses, 
 
 Joshua Cope was not absolutely certain he had not done a 
 foolish thing in putting his domestic affairs into such hands, but 
 solacing himself with the reflection that he could call a halt at 
 any time, he experienced that sort of relief which comes of 
 smashing crockery in a fit of temper : his feelings were relieved 
 by action. 
 
 Chudleigh, however, was delighted. He saw a long vista of 
 guineas opening up before him, and he became more delighted 
 as the day advanced, for in a very short time he had made 
 discoveries. 
 
 Chudleigh had a partner named Marks, who carried on 
 business in another street as if it were a totally distinct concern. 
 The advantages of this were numerous, and every care was 
 taken to keep the fact of the partnership to themselves. They 
 never visited each other's office on any pretext whatever;
 
 PAEASITES AT WORK. 211 
 
 and if they communicated, the correspondence was carried on 
 by means of a mongrel cypher. Their domestic partnership, 
 however, was closer. They lived in the same house, and 
 though they had two suites of apartments, they invariably 
 dined together, and their evening conferences formed the most 
 important transactions of the day. 
 
 Marks was a contrast to Chudleigh. He was older and 
 larger, and dressed always in black ; he was a sombre man. 
 He had a large nose set upon a large puffy face, short black 
 hair, a bull neck, and small dark eyes that never opened wide. 
 He was formerly a solicitor, but had been struck off the rolls ; 
 and it might have been worse for him had it not been for the 
 timely disappearance of a witness whose relations with 
 Chudleigh have always been surmised but never proved. 
 Marks, as if desirous of corroborating the suggestion, served 
 Chudleigh with the faithfulness of a dog. To all the world 
 beside he was a bitter enemy, and he took a positive delight 
 in the pursuit of others and the aggravation of their perplexities. 
 He did not succeed in inspiring his clients with the unbounded 
 confidence that Chudleigh's manner imposed, but he was more 
 persistent and more sure. The industry of the mole and the 
 impetuosity of the ferret, formed a good burrowing combina- 
 tion and the partnership prospered. 
 
 Marks being slower was more punctual than Chudleigh, and 
 was awaiting his arrival in their Chambers on the day Joshua 
 Cope had given his instructions. The Chambers consisted 
 of an upper floor of a mansion in Bloomsbury Square that 
 had seen better days. The furniture was second-hand and 
 discordant in form and colour, but the partners had not 
 at this time amassed a sufficient fortune to induce a quest for 
 luxury, and it was not within their nature to conceive of an 
 artistic home. 
 
 Marks was sitting at an office table writing in a large folio 
 when Chudleigh entered. It was his custom to keep a 
 duplicate of the cases of both establishments at home, with an 
 index and references. He spent many hours over this work at 
 night collating facts and constructing methods of action. It 
 was in this way that the value of the partnership and especially 
 the co-operation of the two establishments was exhibited. 
 
 "Much business, old man?" asked Chudleigh. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Three new cases," was the reply in dull, monotonous tones. 
 
 Such an accession of business was remarkable ; but prosperity 
 did not elate Marks. 
 
 " What are they? " asked Chudleigh. 
 
 " A Mrs. Filter has been receiving anonymous letters, and 
 wants to know who sent them, but she doesn't seem inclined 
 to pay for the trouble, and she will not be a lasting case. A 
 man named Bowdler wants his partner's movements reported, 
 and I hope to make something good of this. A lawyer named 
 Eales wants a house in Mayfair watched to see whether any 
 one else is watching it ; and generally to report what occurs 
 on all points. A good case." 
 
 " All right, old man," said Chudleigh, lighting a cigarette. 
 "I've one case. It's only one, but I think it's a good one. 
 Strong passion, my boy. Joshua Cope, rich as Croasus, wants 
 his wife tracked." 
 
 Chudleigh gave the particulars, and the unimpassioned 
 Marks entered them. When he had finished, he said in the 
 same dull matter of course tone : 
 
 " I can make your first report for you. The lady went to 
 Maida Lodge yesterday afternoon." 
 
 " The devil she did. That's good. How do you make it 
 out ? " 
 
 "Well, you see," said Marks, " that's the house my client 
 Eales the solicitor wants watched ; we had a man on at 
 eleven o'clock." 
 
 " That's all right," said Chudleigh, waving his cigarette in 
 the air. 
 
 " Here's our memorandum," said Marks, turning over his 
 ledger of social peccadilloes, and then he read : 
 
 " Maida Lodge, the house of Walter Louison, watched by 
 Scotland Yard for two reasons. Louison is said to have been 
 kidnapped, but Scotland Yard doesn't believe it, and watched 
 the house for a week to see him return. Scotland Yard now 
 watches it to see whether David Thresher, Louison's nephew, 
 and suspected of being implicated in the Brighton poisoning 
 case, goes to the house. Motive : Thresher is next-of-kin and 
 probable heir of Louison, who would benefit by the death of 
 Miss Winscomb, whom it is supposed he wanted to make 
 away with."
 
 PAEASITES AT WORK. 213 
 
 " What's that to do with Mrs. Cope ? " asked Chudleigh, 
 smoking pleasantly on the hearthrug. 
 
 " Nothing," was the answer, " but that's Scotland Yard, not 
 me. My note is that a lady in deep mourning called this 
 afternoon, spoke to the housekeeper, who opened the door, 
 and was tracked home to Park Lane, where Mr. and Mrs. 
 Joshua Cope live. House taken furnished." 
 
 " How does that connect up? " 
 
 " It doesn't connect, but there's no doubt it will very soon. 
 What does Cope want ? Whom and what does he suspect ? " 
 
 " He says he suspects no one the usual lie the customary 
 pretence the common difficulty the British public puts in our 
 way when the British public wants us to help them." 
 
 Chudleigh delivered this sentiment with appropriate scorn, 
 and waved the smoke around as if to signify his vast power 
 and superiority. 
 
 " We shall know more to-morrow," said Marks. 
 
 " Yes, but we should do something to-night. You see Cope's 
 mad with rage, and he's bound to go the whole hog, and it is 
 advisable to impress him. Now it's only four hours since I 
 had instructions, and if I were to send in a report giving 
 facts likely to rouse him up and make him mad, I fancy he 
 would be impressed with Chudleigh & Co., eh? Think it 
 out, Marks." 
 
 Marks took a long look at his partner, a covert and 
 sinister look as if the authoritative tone were displeasing, and 
 then said, " Yes," mechanically. After a moment he added : 
 " I'll draught a report ; " and he set to work. 
 
 The report was not long, but it was very much to the point, 
 and was as follows 
 
 " Eeport by Chudleigh & Co. on case 68,974 : 
 
 " Our representatives have brought us information to 
 the effect that a lady dressed in deep mourning visited the 
 house of Mr. Louison, Maida Lodge, Mayfair, yesterday after- 
 noon, twenty-four hours before the case was put into our 
 hands, and that said lady was followed to the house of Mr. 
 Cope in Park Lane. It is assumed the lady was Mrs. Cope. 
 
 "Mr. Louison is the uncle of David Thresher who is 
 wanted by the police on a charge of poisoning. Enquiries 
 lead to the assumption that the lady in mourning enquired
 
 214 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 at Maida Lodge in the hope of procuring information con- 
 cerning the said David Thresher." 
 
 "Ah! " said Chudleigh, as he read it, "that'll fetch him; 
 that'll make business. We must send this off at once." 
 
 Chudleigh rang the bell and tossed the report to Marks, who 
 put it in an envelope and addressed it, while Chudleigh 
 remained standing on the hearthrug smoking and admiring 
 his boots. 
 
 The bell was answered by Slammer, who being the husband 
 of Mrs. Slammer, the housekeeper, discharged the duties of 
 butler, valet, and manager, to Messrs. Chudleigh & Marks, 
 and took a special pride in being in their confidence. He 
 called them his " gentlemen," and assumed a mysterious air 
 whenever they were referred to by others. He was especially 
 severe in his manner when any messenger from either of the 
 establishments called, and had given much earnest thought 
 upon the question as to what would happen if a messenger 
 from each office arrived at the same moment. No such 
 catastrophe had ever yet occurred, but the possibility of its 
 occurrence kept Slammer in a state of chronic excitement after 
 five in the evening. 
 
 Slammer was a stout man, all round and plump, and looked 
 much shorter than he was by reason of his plumpness. He 
 usually wore a loose fitting jacket that made him look stouter 
 than he actually was, so what with his roundness and plump- 
 ness and his short loose jacket, he seemed to be as broad as 
 he was long. When spoken to, Slammer always stood at 
 attention, and answered with his head in the air. 
 
 " Slammer," said Mr. Chudleigh, " your name's ' Smith.' " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You're to go at once to this address and ask to see Mr. 
 Cope. You're to give the name of ' Smith,' and when you are 
 quite sure you have got Mr. Cope alone give him this letter, 
 which you'll keep in your pocket till you do get him alone." 
 
 " Yes, sir. What's Mr. Cope like ? " 
 
 " A little hard-headed old man, with an eye like a gimlet and 
 a scar on his left forehead." 
 
 " Right, sir," and Slammer went on his errand. 
 
 " What did you say in your report to Eales the lawyer," 
 asked Chudleigh.
 
 PARASITES AT WORK. 
 
 215 
 
 " Much the same thing," said Marks, with just a glimmer of 
 a twinkle in his half-closed eyes. " I believe he's interested in 
 Thresher." 
 
 "I say," exclaimed Chudleigh with much eagerness, " suppose 
 that wasn't Mrs. Cope. What then ? " 
 
 " But it was," said Marks quietly. " We put Dolly Mullins 
 on and she bought some cast-off clothes from the housekeeper. 
 The prices she paid made the housekeeper talk, and she 
 managed to bring away a portrait of the lady. There it is," 
 added Marks, drawing a large photograph from his pocket very 
 slowly as if he set much store by the knowledge it gave. 
 
 "Well, you are a chap," said Chudleigh. "The idea of 
 keeping that to yourself. My stars, she is a stunner." 
 
 And he held the portrait at arm's length in an attitude of 
 profound admiration. 
 
 " There's a lot in this, Marks," he said, contemplating the 
 portrait. " There's no end in it. Let's have our dinner."
 
 CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 A STONE WALL MYSTEEY. 
 
 THE reports of Chudleigh & Co. were followed by varied 
 consequences. Joshua Cope rubbed his hands with malicious 
 glee and passed a brief eulogy on his own foresight. Bales 
 received the information imparted to him with every mark of 
 concern, and conceived that when his report reached the 
 Surprise, his condition of mind would be reflected with 
 indignation and resentment by his client. Isabel having no 
 report, and in ignorance that reports were being made, 
 preserved an even temper, but withal seemed controlled by a 
 purpose. Scotland Yard was in ecstasy : the clue was assuming 
 form and substance. 
 
 Marks, in his capacity of Chudleigh & Co., had singular 
 material for his next report to Eales. It was the custom of 
 the head of his staff, when making a continuous watch, to 
 divide the day of twenty-four hours into three sections of eight 
 hours each, from ten in the morning to six in the evening, 
 from six to two in the morning, and from two to ten. It 
 was the duty of the last man to report in person, but an 
 incident had occurred during the night so unusual and indeed 
 inexplicable, that he and his predecessor both waited on 
 Marks together. 
 
 The principal watcher was a tall, thin man, named Larney, 
 close cropped as regards hair, with a long fringe of whisker 
 and beard, a broken nose, and thin, straight lips. He had 
 been a game-keeper, having risen from the rank of poacher to 
 the superior function, and he gave one the impression that he 
 would be very sorry if a condition of universal brotherhood 
 and well-doing came to pass. His companion, named Pike, 
 was a short, stout man, with a hook nose, and a super- 
 abundant growth of black hair in every place where hair can 
 grow on a man's face and head, so that having a very low 
 forehead, his black eyes and large nose became unusually 
 prominent. He was untidily dressed in clothes too large for 
 him, and smoked incessantly.
 
 A STONE WALL MYSTERY. 
 
 217 
 
 " What's this ? " enquired Marks, full of suspicion. " Why 
 is Pike here? " 
 
 " For a good reason," said Larney, and his lips compressed 
 so that there were no lips visible at all. "A most estrorniery 
 thing took place this mornin' when I was relievin' Pike, and 
 we come together that you might know the rights of it." 
 
 Marks being constitutionally indisposed to believe in the 
 moral rectitude of anybody, and having a preference to the 
 belief that all men were liars, concluded that in all probability 
 the two men had been neglecting their duty, and had come to 
 give a circumstantial account of some imaginary incident. He 
 contemplated their appearance for a moment, as he sat in his 
 chair, with his elbows on the table, and then said : 
 
 "Go on, Larney." 
 
 Larney proceeded, hat in hand, with his story in the firm 
 decisive manner usual with him, while Pike looked on, as if 
 
 vastly pleased with the accuracy ot a statement he would have 
 found it impossible to make himself. Said Larney : 
 
 " I found Pike, Mr. Marks, if you please, at the corner where 
 we wait for relief, and mostly stands, which it commands two
 
 218 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 sides of the house the front and the left side wall of the 
 garden, and it was ezakly two minutes to two." 
 
 This was designed to impress Mr. Marks with Larney's 
 punctuality, and was stated with much emphasis, but Marks 
 merely blinked over his hands, which covered the lower part of 
 his face as he listened with his elbows on the writing-table. 
 
 " We was exchanging a word or two," continued Larney, 
 " when Pike, who was standing in full view of the street as 
 runs up the left side of the house, says to me, he says ' Larney,' 
 he says, ' there's two figgers come up from the end of the 
 street.' I turns, and says, ' Right you are,' and altho' we didn't 
 suspect nothin', we put ourselves in the shadder of a porterco 
 as they come along, and turns to watch 'em, when Pike, he says, 
 ' Larney,' he says, ' they've wanished ; ' and sure as I'm 
 standin' 'ere this minit they was nowheres to be seen, and all 
 in the little bit o' time it took for me and Pike to shunt back 
 into the shadder of the porterco ; and we looks at each other 
 blank and says, ' where the Devil have they gone to ? ' and 
 that's what we don't know now." 
 
 " They went back, I suppose," suggested Marks. 
 
 Larney shook his head, and Pike said " Couldn't. There 
 worn't time." Pike spoke in a whisper, a habit that had its 
 origin in an excess of gin, combined with the sentiment of 
 secrecy associated with his vocation. 
 
 " Is there a side gate ? " asked Marks. 
 
 "No, there ain't no side gate," said Larney; "nor yet a 
 hen try of any sort or kind up to the end of the street on either 
 side. There's a long 'igh stone wall, ten foot 'igh, round the 
 house, without a break exceptin' in the lane at the back, 
 where the stables is ; and on t'other side o' the street there's a 
 seven foot brick wall, and some side doors, but the parties 
 couldn't have crossed the road, without bein' observed by us ; 
 and I tell you, Mr. Marks, they wanished." 
 
 Again Larney's lips disappeared by reason of the decision 
 he imparted into this deliverance. 
 
 "But what has this affair to do with our case?" asked 
 Marks, with an air of petulance. 
 
 "Ah," said Larney, with a shake of the head. "That's a 
 question we can't answer. If the parties had come along and 
 had gone by us we should have thought nothin' of it ; but yer
 
 A STONE WALL MYSTERY. 219 
 
 see they come half way up the street and then they wanish 
 clean wanish," repeated Larney, waving his arm. 
 
 "You both saw this?" asked Marks. "Or rather you 
 both didn't see it," he added, with a sneer. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Marks," responded Larney, in a reproachful 
 tone, " it was dark; there's only one lamp at the end of the 
 street ; and not only wasn't we expecting nothin', but it all 
 happened just the very minit we was stepping aside, so as to 
 put ourselves in persition to see 'em to rights. Why our 
 eyes wasn't off 'em three seconds." 
 
 " And you were both quite sober? " 
 
 " I can answer for myself," said Larney, with dignity ; "and 
 I can answer for Pike." 
 
 There was a pause, during which Marks made a brief 
 memorandum, and then studied it in silence. Then he said : 
 
 " Now what were those men like ? " 
 
 " Tallish," said Larney; "one was stouter than the other, 
 low-crowned hats, and they walked smart." 
 
 " How were they dressed? " 
 
 " Too far off to see proper, but the stout one had on a long 
 overcoat, and the other seemed to wear a jacket." 
 
 Marks made a note, and then asked : 
 
 " Did the Scotland Yard men know anything of this? " 
 
 " Scotland Yard men ! " exclaimed Larney, with ineffable 
 disgust. " They keeps their blessed eyes on the street-door 
 knocker and sets like scarecrows, which they are, and nothin' 
 more nor less." 
 
 Later in the morning, a report was brought to Marks that 
 Cheriton had driven up to the house in a cab alone. He 
 carried a small bag with him, having no railway labels on it. The 
 cabman stated he had been hailed by Cheriton outside the 
 Horns Tavern, at Kennington, and knew nothing more of his 
 fare. 
 
 Marks ruminated on these statements, and took action. 
 Although he was distinctly inclined to regard the incident as 
 a myth, he felt it was too striking and dramatic not to be used 
 if possible, and it occurred to him that, if he could make it look a 
 little less apochryphal it would enable him to turn out a remark- 
 ably good report. He accordingly resolved to visit the spot 
 himself, and see whether broad daylight and what he thought
 
 220 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 to be less imaginative observation would explain the mystery. 
 Marks was not the person to believe off-hand in the sudden 
 evaporation of two ordinary men, or the passage of flesh and 
 blood through stone walls. 
 
 The inspection was made, and Chudleigh received a summons 
 to be in consultation at four o'clock. 
 
 Chudleigh found Marks writing when he responded to the 
 summons, and Marks continued writing for fully five minutes 
 after his partner entered, without so much as turning his head. 
 The incident was ominous and aroused the suspicions of 
 Chudleigh, without exciting his apprehension. Chudleigh 
 took up his place on the hearthrug and smoked cigarettes. 
 
 Chudleigh's suspicions were in the main right. A desire for 
 freedom had for some time been awakening in the bosom of 
 Marks & Co. freedom from the insolent assumption of 
 Chudleigh & Co. as displayed in the cigarettes, the velvet 
 waistcoat, and the blue tie. The conviction that Marks & Co. 
 was the cause of the great successes of Chudleigh & Co. was 
 continually thrusting itself upon Marks and provoking a feeling 
 of sullen resentment. Chudleigh, it was true, brought business, 
 but he never worked it out, and the time had come for 
 asserting the relative values of the partners.
 
 A STONE WALL MYSTEEY. 221 
 
 Theoretical resolution, however, is seldom reduced to prac- 
 tical realization in such cases, and the superb self-sufficiency 
 of Chudleigh on this occasion, as on all others, reduced the 
 presumption of Marks to helplessness. He had continued 
 writing because his resolution began to ebb immediately 
 Chudleigh entered the room ; he ceased to write only 
 when all his resolution had gone out, as it were, at the 
 tip of his pen, and then he turned with the sullen air of 
 a beaten slave to throw a golden opportunity at his partner's 
 feet. 
 
 " Well, my friend ? " enquired Chudleigh. 
 
 Marks coughed, and with a nervous twitching of his face, 
 brought himself back to his normal state of mind. Then, 
 without a word of preface, he said : 
 
 " How many people, Chudleigh, should you think were in a 
 house, where they take in about half a sheep and 28 Ibs. of 
 beef, besides kidneys, suet, and such things ? " 
 
 " Where have they been doing that, old man ? " 
 
 Marks made a gesture of impatience. He had not the 
 courage to raise the question of partnership, but he resented 
 what he regarded as stupidity. 
 
 " Never mind where," said he. " Answer the question. 
 It's important." 
 
 Chudleigh obeyed. 
 
 "It depends upon the pantry. Five-and-twenty people 
 could not use it up, unless there was an ice-house in the 
 establishment." 
 
 " It's more than six servants would want, eh ? " said Marks, 
 ruminating. " Much more, very much more. It would give 
 a dozen people an allowance of a pound a day for over a 
 week. That's clear." 
 
 "That's quite clear," said Chudleigh, lighting another 
 cigarette. "Now make the application." He liked to 
 humour his partner, and never departed from the patronising 
 air, appropriate to the head of the combination. "Half a 
 sheep, and twenty-eight pounds of beef. What does that 
 prove ? " 
 
 " And kidneys," said Marks. 
 
 " All right, kidneys and suet, too ; let's see the application. 
 What's the case?"
 
 222 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Maida Lodge," said Marks. " All that went into the 
 stable entrance to Maida Lodge about one o'clock to-day." 
 
 " You don't say so ! " 
 
 " I do, because I saw it, and more. Smoke was coming out 
 of a chimney on the east side of the house. That means 
 that somebody has come home, and come to stay." 
 
 " Looks like it, but who has come home? " 
 
 " Don't know." 
 
 "Have your men missed them?" asked Chudleigh, with 
 just a suspicion of asperity. 
 
 " No," answered Marks, resuming a surly air. " They have 
 not missed them. The only man who has entered the front 
 door is the butler, Cheriton. He has come home, but no one 
 else has been seen to enter the house; yet I'm convinced 
 there's more than one returned." 
 
 Then he related the story he had heard that morning from 
 Larney, and suggested the probability of the two men having 
 returned and got into the house by the stable entrance in the 
 lane. 
 
 " Larney says ' No ' " continued Marks. " He says it was 
 impossible, but I can see no other way, and I am not particular 
 as to the road. That Mr. Louison and his nephew are both 
 there I have not a doubt. How they got there is a secondary 
 matter." 
 
 "You're usually right, Marks, and I suppose you're right 
 now. Let's assume you are. Is Scotland Yard still on the 
 job?" 
 
 " Yes, but they know nothing of this. All this occurred in the 
 side street and the stable lane. Larney says the two men he 
 saw coming disappeared through the stone wall. He says they 
 had not time to walk back to the lane, but I have examined 
 every inch of the wall and there is no doorway or entrance of 
 any sort. It's a plain solid stone wall of ten feet high built of 
 dressed stone and with a heavy coping on the top of it. There 
 are no marks of scaling on the stone work ; and I calculate it 
 would have taken longer to scale it than to go round by the 
 stables." 
 
 " Very well," said Chudleigh, " we'll agree to all that, and 
 now, what is to be made of it ? " 
 
 "Ah," said Marks, ruminating ; " what is it we want ? We
 
 A STONE WALL MYSTERY. 223 
 
 want Mrs. Cope to go there, don't we? That'll keep the pot 
 boiling, eh ? " 
 
 " But we've no connection with her," said Chudleigh. 
 
 "Oh, yes, we have. She has been to see my client, Eales," 
 said Marks, with a look of cunning not unmixed with 
 contempt. 
 
 " You don't say so ! " 
 
 " Went last evening at six o'clock. You didn't see the 
 report because you were fooling away your time at the 
 Theatre or somewhere ; but she did go and she'll go again. At 
 any rate this report will fetch her, and then you shall have a 
 report for Cope. Better not report last night's visit to Eales 
 yet : say she went out shopping." 
 
 Marks held a report in his hand for Eales ; it was very brief 
 and merely stated that two persons supposed to be Mr. Louison 
 and his nephew were believed to have returned and gained 
 access to Maida Lodge ; that Cheriton, the butler, had also 
 returned and went in and out of the house at will, and the 
 house was still being watched by detectives from Scotland 
 Yard. 
 
 These few facts were set out with much circumstance with 
 many sage reflections as to what Marks & Co. surmised, and 
 concluding with a declaration that Marks & Co.'s agents were 
 still on the watch. 
 
 Chudleigh was pleased to approve of the report and did so 
 with a gracious flourish of his cigarette in the air, and a " Very 
 good, Marks ; very good," which observation and manner were 
 unfortunate, for they maddened Marks and caused him to 
 enquire with surly contempt : 
 
 " How good ? What reason can you give for its being good ? 
 You know nothing of the matter, and cannot reason on the 
 facts." 
 
 " Indeed," said Chudleigh, still with a lofty air, " Why do 
 you think that? " 
 
 " Because," exclaimed Marks, "you have utterly failed to 
 grasp the meaning of the kidneys." He said this looking on 
 the ground, and walking about the room in an irritable manner. 
 Then suddenly, with a curious accession of nervous energy, he 
 exclaimed : " Entrees. Devilled kidneys, on toast ! " Then he 
 stopped short and moved about with exhibitions of the same
 
 224 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 nervous irritation, and again suddenly he exclaimed: 
 " Sybarites, not servitors. Without the kidneys, my reasoning 
 is inconclusive," saying which, he left the room, convulsed 
 with suppressed passion, and Chudleigh continued his 
 cigarette chuckling over the humour of the situation.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THEESHEB RESOLVES TO PAY A VISIT. 
 
 THERE are times in the lives of all of us when even in the most 
 innocent circumstances we are subject to all the irksomeness 
 engendered by guilt ; and it is almost certain that the unjustly 
 accused suffer more from the fear that suspicion concerning 
 them may rest in the minds of their friends than an actual 
 criminal will experience throughout the whole of his trial and 
 punishment. 
 
 David Thresher, possessed of an unusually sensitive nature, 
 shrank with horror when contemplating the possibility of such 
 suspicion, and the seclusion his uncle advised him to have 
 recourse to rather increased than allayed the misery of his 
 position. The tender solicitude of the old man and his 
 anxiety to utilise the admirable resources of Maida Lodge for 
 this purpose of concealment, brought home to him with 
 irresistible force the fact that he was hiding. The idea was 
 maddening, and throughout the whole of the day succeeding 
 his mysterious entrance into the house, he racked his brains 
 to discover by what means he could cease to be a fugitive and 
 at the same time avoid offending his host. Obviously 
 innocence was incompatible with hiding, and he had no 
 recourse but to endeavour to make clear to his uncle the 
 evil consequences of concealment. 
 
 They had finished lunch, which had been served by Cheriton 
 in the dining-room, with unusual celerity, and with the door 
 locked two conditions that were prompted by motives 
 Cheriton would not have dared to confess even to himself. 
 Cheriton's nervous excitement was not allayed until he had his 
 master and guest on the other side of King Charles's portrait, 
 for he was at this time wholly unaware of the fact that Scotland 
 Yard had penetrated the mysteries of the inner chamber and 
 knew all about the Vandyke. Cheriton was, of course, a 
 strong advocate for the policy of resistance to authority. 
 
 The duel began in the library. Thresher selected a book 
 deliberately, and sauntering to an easy chair, opened the book 
 
 Q
 
 226 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 on his knee, when he appeared to become languid and 
 abstracted. He had carefully thought out his plan of attack, 
 and the book was an essential property in the comedy he 
 proposed to play. 
 
 His uncle, on the other hand, watched every movement 
 with the keenest interest ; and the fact of his settling down in 
 an easy chair after lunch with a book gave him special satis- 
 faction. It indicated a comparatively contented mind. He was, 
 however, soon undeceived. With a deep-drawn sigh, and in 
 tones little above a whisper, Thresher asked, as if of himself : 
 
 " How is this to end ? " 
 
 The old man looked up with a start, and fixing his eyes 
 upon his nephew, said : 
 
 " How should it end, but in your safety and freedom ? " 
 
 There was something of impatience in his remark, as if he re- 
 sented the suggestion that his method was tainted with error. 
 
 "I regret," said Thresher in appealing tones "I very 
 much regret to say I cannot feel safety in hiding and con- 
 cealment." 
 
 " This is not hiding ! " said the old man. " You cannot 
 be said to be hiding when you are staying in your uncle's 
 house." 
 
 "I have knowledge," was the reply, in firm and solemn 
 tones, " that a grave charge has been made against me, and I 
 see by the newspapers that I am being sought for by the 
 police. It is not compatible with innocence to refrain from 
 declaring myself. The initial step in proof of my innocence is 
 to go at once to the police. You say I am not hiding : shall I 
 walk out?" 
 
 He rose up as he said this, as if he would put the proposal 
 into immediate execution. He was met with a look of horror, 
 and the exclamation : 
 
 " Good God, my boy, you mustn't do that ! The house 
 is watched day and night." 
 
 " Then we must admit that I am hiding," said Thresher, 
 with his lip quivering,, and his face blanched. " I am being 
 actually pursued by the police, and I am hiding. An innocent 
 man doesn't hide. It is the guilty who hide. I am afraid," he 
 added, in a hollow voice, " that you have in the bottom of 
 your heart some fear that I am guilty and you would save me."
 
 THEESHER RESOLVES TO PAY A VISIT. 229 
 
 " No, my boy, no nothing of the kind. We'll go back to 
 the boat to-night. You will be safe there." 
 
 Thresher shook his head with a melancholy smile, rose and 
 paced the room. 
 
 " Yes," said the old man. "Nothing could be easier. We'll 
 go as we came. No one will see us." 
 
 Again Thresher shook his head. Then he said firmly and 
 impressively, standing before his uncle : 
 
 " You are asking me to act dishonourably. You are asking 
 me to put on an appearance of guilt and proclaim myself a 
 fugitive from justice. To do so would be literally suicide. 
 They would hang me and I should deserve to be hanged for 
 being a coward and a traitor to myself." 
 
 " No, no," said the old man. " We must get out of the way. 
 No one knows we are here except Cheriton ; and no one need 
 know that we have ever been here." 
 
 An idea occurred to Thresher. He had no knowledge 
 at this time how he had come into the room in which 
 he stood. They had entered during the darkness, and when 
 a light was struck he had no means of identifying even 
 the side of the room at which he had entered. He had 
 presumed later that he must have come in by the Vandyke 
 portrait, but as he had no knowledge of the house beyond 
 the dining-room he could only conjecture, and felt it would 
 be as well if he informed himself definitely. Accordingly 
 he asked, 
 
 " How can we leave the house unobserved ? " 
 
 " See, see," said the old man eagerly, thinking he had gained 
 a point, if not secured a victory. As he spoke he removed a 
 book from the case behind his chair, put his hand in the vacant 
 place and drew out the entire set of shelves on a hinge, 
 disclosing a narrow stone staircase. 
 
 " There," said he, " that's how you came in and that's how 
 you can get out without anyone being the wiser." 
 
 " Does this lead into the street ? " enquired Thresher. 
 
 " Come, I will show you." 
 
 They descended to a small chamber dimly lighted and all of 
 solid stone like a prison cell, except that on one side there was 
 a large iron door of unusual width, provided with a powerful 
 and delicately constructed bolt.
 
 230 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Did you see me," asked the old man, " on the night we 
 arrived put my hand to the coping stone ? I think not, but 
 you saw me raise my hand. I did so to lift the coping stone, 
 and in doing so I depressed this rod. See, I can do it here. 
 Now the door is free ; and the least pressure upon the wall 
 outside will cause the heavy stones to open inwards. See." 
 
 The old man pulled a handle and the great iron door moved 
 an inch or two, and then was immediately closed to prevent 
 observation from without. He then commenced explaining, 
 with great minuteness and childish delight, that five of the 
 massive stones of the wall were carried in an iron framework, 
 and that when closed the interstices were concealed by the 
 accuracy of the masonry, and the fact that the bevil of the 
 movable stones was in each instance continued behind its 
 neighbour. 
 
 " The key is very simple," said the old man impressively. 
 " Press the twelfth coping stone from the stable lane half-an- 
 inch upwards. That done, the slightest pressure on the stones 
 below will cause them to yield, and you can enter." 
 
 "And you think we should use this to-night?" asked 
 Thresher. 
 
 " Yes, to-night. There's no moon to-night." 
 
 "Let us return," said Thresher. "I have something to 
 say." 
 
 Thresher led the way back to the library with deliberation, 
 and when they had closed the door, he took his uncle by the 
 hand and said : 
 
 " I would like to use that exit to-night, sir," and then, with 
 a little tremor of his lip he added, " but I beg of you do not ask 
 me to return to the boat until I have paid a visit." 
 
 " To whom? " asked the old man excitedly. 
 
 " To Scotland Yard. I must no longer run the risk of being 
 taken like a criminal." 
 
 The old man was much shocked, and for the moment did not 
 respond. There was something in the manner of Thresher 
 which forebade resistance, but although he did not openly 
 resist, he hoped something would happen to prevent the 
 catastrophe. As the day wore on this hope faded, and 
 although little had been said, a sentiment of unison grew up 
 between the uncle and nephew in the direction arrived at by
 
 THKESHER RESOLVES TO PAY A VISIT. 231 
 
 Thresher. So it came to pass an hour or two after dinner- 
 little having been said up to that time that the old man 
 continued the conversation of the afternoon. 
 
 "I have been thinking," said he, " of what you said about 
 the door downstairs, and I am unable to avoid the conclusion 
 that you are right; but strange and terrible things have 
 happened in the matter of false verdicts. I am an old man 
 now, and your companionship the last few days has been a 
 new life to me. Perhaps I have been wrong in continuing by 
 myself for so long, but let that pass. You are going out from 
 here to face the world and to demand trial on a groundless 
 charge. You do this with a full knowledge that in defiance of 
 the theory of the law almost everyone believes you guilty 
 merely because you are charged. I commend your courage 
 and approve your sense of honour, but the contemplation of 
 the possibilities fills me with terrible forebodings." 
 
 He paused, labouring under much excitement. Presently 
 he would have resumed, but Thresher interposed : 
 
 " You are very good," said he, " to let me have my way, and 
 you must not think me selfish in exacting it. The necessities 
 of the case are paramount, and I am sure you will never regret 
 the step I am about to take, whatever the consequences. There 
 are some things men are called upon to do, condemned by 
 reason, and repugnant to natural impulse, but which, undone, 
 would make their lives a curse to them. I cannot live in hiding 
 or in flight ; and the knowledge that you have confidence in 
 me and would retain me near you, only because of your 
 love for me, renews my hope of returning to enjoy the 
 pleasure of your companionship." 
 
 He spoke cheerfully, but the old man shook his head as he 
 replied : 
 
 " I do not expect you will return here to-night, but if you 
 should do so, come to the front door. As for myself I must 
 take a new departure. I shall send at once for Eales, and 
 advise with him. We must be active. We must not rest. I 
 put no trust in a British jury for the discernment of the truth 
 without assistance." 
 
 Thresher was silent for a moment, and then said in a 
 quiet, restrained manner : 
 
 "You may be right, sir, indeed you are right; but for all
 
 232 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 that the risk must be run. I could not live without facing 
 the situation." 
 
 They then became silent, and remained so. The hour or so 
 that followed was a gloomy time for both of them, and both 
 avoided the subject which most occupied and depressed them. 
 They spent the time in reading or endeavouring to read ; and 
 soon after midnight, Thresher approached his uncle with his 
 watch in his hand. The old man, silently responsive, opened 
 up the staircase and conducted his nephew to the outer wall. 
 Adjusting the mechanism, he caused the stone door to fall in 
 a couple of inches, and then, taking Thresher by the hand, he 
 wished him " God speed." 
 
 Thresher responded with a silent pressure of the hand. In 
 another moment he was outside on the pavement, and the 
 wall closed behind him.
 
 CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 AN HONOURABLE SURRENDER. 
 
 DAVID THRESHER did not return to 
 Maida Lodge, and the country was 
 electrified by a brief announcement 
 in the morning papers that he had 
 given himself up. Before the day 
 was out, he was as good as convicted 
 and hanged, by the general consensus 
 of opinion, for the multitude is always 
 prone to believe the evil spoken of 
 the individual ; and although a few 
 regarded the visit of David Thresher 
 to Scotland Yard as evidence of 
 innocence, the common belief was 
 that he was compelled to the act by contrition. 
 
 When Thresher emerged from the wall of Maida Lodge he 
 hastened to Piccadilly, and took the first cab he could find. 
 He experienced a feeling of relief and satisfaction as he found 
 himself safely on the road to Scotland Yard, uncontaminated 
 by the bonds of the thief-taker. It was a matter of ambition 
 with him, and something more than common prudence, to go 
 voluntarily in response to a demand for his presence by the 
 State. He paid the cabman double fare, at the door of the 
 police-office, and entered with a light and cheerful manner ; 
 but cool and self-possessed as was his aspect, his heart 
 beat a wild and bounding measure as he asked for the 
 Inspector on duty. The interview between Thresher and 
 the Inspector was constrained. Said the Inspector, in official 
 tones, and with a bearing magnificent for rigid formality and 
 exactness : 
 
 " What can I do for you, sir ? " 
 
 " My name is David Thresher," was the answer, with just a 
 shade of nervousness in the tone. " I have arrived in London 
 from a yachting cruise, and I have called to ascertain whether 
 it is true that you are in search of me."
 
 234 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 This answer was sufficiently startling to awaken the official 
 inind to the knowledge that the surrender was the act of a 
 man of honour who was controlled by mature reflection, and 
 not by sudden impulse, but with that inability, common 
 among the slaves of routine, to construe a novel situation, the 
 Inspector's first idea was to prevent the man 
 who called himself David Thresher repenting 
 of his surrender. 
 
 "Maguire," said the Inspector, calling to a 
 constable at the door, " this is David Thresher. 
 Be in attendance." 
 
 The officer responded, and the Inspector, 
 without any outward sign of emotion, resumed 
 the conversation by informing Thresher that 
 he must consider himself in custody, and that 
 whatever he said would be taken down and 
 used against him. Thresher, somewhat nettled 
 at the brusque officialism, responded, with 
 asperity : 
 
 " That warning is superfluous and irregular. 
 This is not a police-court, and you are not a 
 magistrate. I shall say what I wish to ; and 
 as I have come here of my own accord, you 
 will have no need to fear I shall attempt to run away, if you 
 wish me to stay." 
 
 This rebuke was an imprudence, but the occasion was not 
 productive of calm reflection and cool action. David Thresher 
 had resolved to face the world, and was reckless about 
 trifles. 
 
 The Inspector reflected, made some memoranda in a book 
 lying open on his desk ; and, without saying another 
 word, left his post, nodding significantly as he did so to 
 the officer he had practically charged with the custody of 
 Thresher. 
 
 In less than twenty minutes, thereafter, David Thresher 
 was left to his reflections in a cell at the Bow Street Police 
 Office, charged with the murder of two women whom he had 
 never seen, and whose names he had never heard before they 
 were read out to him by the officer who received him. 
 
 Up to this time he had been sustained by a commanding
 
 AN HONOUEABLE SURRENDER. 235 
 
 sense of social obligation. No room for doubt existed in his 
 mind of the propriety of his action ; he was conscious only of 
 an all-powerful impulse to respond to a public challenge, 
 reflecting upon his honour ; and he was buoyed up by a 
 profound conviction that he would succeed in unmasking the 
 popular error. But now, in the loneliness of a prison cell, 
 unsustained by the presence of even opposing friends, and 
 bereft of the exhilarating influence of a consciousness of 
 freedom, the heroic sentiments died. The hard, cold, uncom- 
 promising evidence of restraint, subjection, and shame 
 surrounded him, and his blood chilled. The crisis over, his 
 energy abated ; hunger, too, asserted itself, and he became a 
 prey to despondency. 
 
 Sleep was impossible, and as the night wore on, he 
 tried to reason back his confidence. His limited knowledge 
 of the . circumstances in which he was placed caused 
 him, with justice, to regard the action of the police as the 
 height of absurdity. He knew of only one ground for sus- 
 picion regarding him, and that was his presence in Brighton 
 on the fatal night. This he was prepared to admit. His 
 presence in the house where the women had died was the one 
 incident of his whole life he was resolved to conceal. Could 
 this be known ? He believed not, but the doubt revived with 
 persistent iteration, and, acquiring force as the night wore 
 on, it ultimately exerted an influence that was simply 
 appalling. 
 
 Then followed another and more terrible thought : the taint 
 of the jail was now upon him, never to be removed, because the 
 fact of actual imprisonment could never be obliterated. The 
 reassuring reflection that a man is always innocent until proved 
 to be guilty, gave him no consolation. The fact that he had 
 been spared the indignity of manacles was an incident that, 
 however consolatory, was incapable of mitigating the com- 
 promising fact of confinement in a police cell. 
 
 The whole range of his future life its hopes and ambitions, 
 were now dulled, dwarfed, and disfigured shrouded in an 
 impenetrable mist, and robbed of every particle of interest. 
 
 Even Isabel he regarded only as a spectator of his degrada- 
 tion ; but in her case he had the knowedge that she, at least, 
 was without suspicion of his guilt, and this was the one
 
 236 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 solitary gleam of sunshine that was left him, when the morning 
 broke, and from sheer exhaustion he fell asleep. He dreamed of 
 her, and curiously, his dream was almost prophetic. So accurate 
 was his construction of the line her thoughts would move in, 
 that his unguided wanderings imagined her in conference with 
 Eales, and so it chanced within an hour of his dreaming. 
 
 There was no sort of doubt in the mind of Isabel as to the 
 part she had to play in this drama, the first scene of which 
 was about to open before the delighted public. Her course 
 was clear before her, and her courage high. 
 
 It was three o'clock in the morning, when Eales heard of 
 the action of his friend and client. It was past four when he 
 applied at Bow Street, and was told he could not see his man 
 till nine. It was five when his messenger rang up Mrs. Cope's 
 household, in Park Lane, and at six he was in Isabel's boudoir, 
 without the presence of Lady Arabella. Joshua Cope was 
 down with his nailers, engaged as will hereafter appear ; and 
 Mr. Louison had not yet given up all hope of his nephew's 
 return, so he had not taken the tremendous step of summoning 
 Eales to Maida Lodge for the unprecedented incident of a 
 personal interview. 
 
 Isabel did not disguise from herself the seriousness of the 
 crisis, nor did she seek to limit the range of the programme 
 proposed by Eales. She listened with marked anxiety to the 
 array of facts he unfolded, and weighed them with the pre- 
 cision of a lawyer. Some of them were new, and of startling 
 significance. Thresher's presence in Brighton, at the time of 
 the occurrence, she admitted, as within her own knowledge, 
 and also that of Lady Arabella. She said they had spoken 
 to him ; but when Eales declared that the police asserted that 
 he was actually seen issuing from the front door of the house, 
 at half-past two in the morning, she suppressed an exclamation 
 of horror, and said with comparative calm : 
 
 " Impossible." 
 
 " Can we prove it to be impossible? " 
 
 " I always understood you lawyers declined the attempt to 
 prove a negative," she answered, with that suggestion of 
 irritation that strong natures so frequently exhibit when 
 unexpected facts stand in the way of their wilfulness. " They 
 cannot prove his leaving the house ; it's absurd."
 
 AN HONOURABLE SURRENDER. 237 
 
 " They say they can prove by the night porter his late return 
 home to his hotel, after the time he was seen by the policeman 
 011 the beat, to leave the house." 
 
 Isabel winced ; it needed all her courage to listen without 
 betraying her thoughts. She rose and paced the room, with 
 flashing eyes and her hands clenched. It was not despair but 
 anger anger at an adverse fate. 
 
 " What more ? " she asked. 
 
 " In response to a search warrant," said Eales, " his rooms 
 have been ransacked, and a key has been found that fits the lock 
 of the front door from which the policeman saw him come." 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " They assert it, and that is a statement that can be proved 
 or disproved without question. But there is more. They 
 declare they have found in his rooms some white plaster 
 identical in character with that in which the poison was 
 encased in the eggs." 
 
 " Impossible," exclaimed Isabel. " Why, Mr. Eales, are you 
 not his friend ?" she asked, indignantly. "Why do you say 
 these things? " 
 
 " I am his friend," said Eales, impressively, " and I repeat 
 these things because they have to be met." 
 
 " But they are lies horrible lies," she exclaimed. 
 
 " They may be, but also they may be facts." 
 
 " How dare you say that ? " 
 
 "Facts, capable of explanation, perhaps common-place 
 explanation." 
 
 " Of course they are ! What is the explanation ? " 
 
 "That we have to discover. I am now going to see our 
 friend, and he may help us." 
 
 Eales continued by suggesting numerous possible explana- 
 tions of each damning fact. Keys, he said, were often found 
 to open locks they were never intended for ; white cement was 
 common in households all over the land for mending china and 
 nicknacks, so was spirits of wine, in which it was assumed this 
 particular cement was softened; and as for the supposed 
 midnight visitor, mistaken identity was the most reasonable 
 explanation of an incident that perhaps had no more solid 
 foundation than the imagination of the policeman who had 
 described it.
 
 238 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 This was comforting to Isabel, for the propositions were 
 delivered with a jaunty air of assumed self-confidence, calcu- 
 lated to allay anxiety; but the hope they awakened was of 
 brief duration, for, overtopping, permeating, and withering 
 this embrasure was the solid fact of Thresher's presence in the 
 house on the night in question a fact that none could demon- 
 strate more conclusively than she, and not only did this fact 
 reduce to impotence every presumption that could be suggested, 
 but threatened to overwhelm her, also, in the impending 
 catastrophe. 
 
 Before the interview ended, she charged Eales with a 
 message for the man she loved : 
 
 " Tell him," she said, "I shall rest neither day nor night 
 until his freedom from this charge is assured." 
 
 And in due time, back came the answer: 
 
 " Say I am grateful for so ungrudging a promise, but that 
 I beg of her on no account to identify herself with me or my 
 defence, as her reputation is to me more sacred than my life, 
 and she must remember that she is married to another."
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 AN AWAKENING. 
 
 MORALISTS have held that one of the dangers of a high state 
 of civilisation is the probable decadence of the people through 
 the enervating influences of luxury ; but a greater evil is now 
 being realised in the creation of a universal mediocrity, the 
 persistent repetition of uninteresting patterns of human 
 beings, and the gradual elimination of all chance of recurring 
 examples of original capacity. To such an extent is this 
 condition of things growing that one accepts the extravagance 
 of the artistic or literary mountebank, and the phantas- 
 magoria of any brand-new philosophy with complacency if not 
 with satisfaction. So, therefore, however much the energy 
 and ingenuity displayed by Mr. Louison was misapplied, his 
 eccentricities were at least agreeable, from the fact that 
 they were a contrast to the humdrum repetition of life 
 upon life in Mayfair. Having regard to his ultimate pur- 
 poses, his course was commendable ; and he now showed that, 
 in the presence of an emergency, he could remove the mask, 
 and cease from the pastime of playing hide-and-seek with the 
 world. He also proved himself a man of resource, because, 
 when he received his solicitor in his library with the Charles 
 the First doorway standing wide open, his manner and method 
 were so perfect in all respects that the nervous man was Bales, 
 not Louison; and Eales would have been puzzled to say 
 whether he was not more amazed at finding himself in the 
 presence of his client, than he had been from the fact that, 
 during the whole of the period he had worked for him he 
 had been obliged to take him on trust. 
 
 "Mr. Joseph Eales, I presume," said the old gentleman 
 rising, "I'm glad to make your acquaintance. Your father 
 was long a faithful friend to me, and you, I am glad to know, 
 have been no less." 
 
 Eales bowed, acknowledged the gracious compliment, 
 and hoped the relations would be equally agreeable in the 
 future
 
 240 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 They then sat down at the library table, Mr. Louison with 
 his back to the secret doorway and Eales opposite to him. 
 There was a pause. It was obviously difficult for Eales to 
 take the lead, and yet he had much to say that must sooner or 
 later be said. He waited for his client to recommence the 
 conversation, and watched him as he methodically arranged 
 his papers and his books. It was thus, thought Eales to 
 himself, he reviewed my weekly statements, and went through 
 them away here in the quiet recesses of Maida Lodge, lighted 
 by the window from above, and excluded from all the outer 
 world the noise of traffic, the intrusion of callers, and the 
 officious care of relatives. 
 
 " Mr. Eales," said the old gentleman, " this interview is a 
 variation of our practice hitherto. I propose we continue to 
 meet weekly at this hour and on this day of the week, the 
 papers having been delivered the day before. These meetings 
 will be for our ordinary business. We have now, however, 
 some extraordinary and very pressing business. It is that we 
 have met to discuss to-day." 
 
 Eales assented generally, being still Undesirous of breaking 
 the current of Mr. Louison's thoughts. 
 
 " Mr. Eales," he resumed, sitting in his reading chair with 
 one hand on the table and looking away in the distance, " Mr. 
 Eales, I have broken the custom of the past and sent for you 
 especially to-day to consult on the subject of the defence of my 
 nephew, David Thresher. I charge myself with that duty. 
 Mr. Eales, I desire that you spare no trouble or expense, but 
 command the resources of the Universe to put an end to the 
 absurd charge that our enemies have devised to annoy us." 
 
 The reference to " our enemies" revived in Eales's mind a 
 suspicion of the old mania, but, being wise, he made no 
 comment, and proceeded straightway to the subject of the 
 projected defence. 
 
 " He is my sister's son, Mr. Eales," said the old man gazing 
 wistfully across the room as if in reverie, with his left hand 
 lying listlessly on the table, his right on the arm of the chair, 
 and sadness in every tone of his voice. 
 
 He remained so for some time, and Eales waited with 
 growing sympathy. The opportunity for him to speak on 
 matters that were uppermost in his mind had not yet come.
 
 AN AWAKENING. 241 
 
 " Mr. Eales," said the old man, turning to him, " I think it 
 will be best, now that we have become personally acquainted, 
 that I should speak quite fully to you as I used to your father. 
 You will be able to assist me better if I think aloud to you. 
 'We shall make fewer mistakes if we consult without reserve." 
 
 Eales bowed assent, but still waited. He wanted his client 
 to define their relations in his own way. Mr. Louison 
 resumed : 
 
 " The thing that weighs most heavily upon me just now, 
 that oppresses me even more than the knowledge of the peril 
 in which my nephew stands, is the fear that I have in some 
 way been the cause of his present position, or have at least 
 contributed to that cause, by specific actions, or generally by 
 a manner of life that has in some way influenced events to his 
 detriment." 
 
 Here was an opportunity for Eales, and he took it. Said he, 
 
 " I regret to say I feel there is cause, sir, for your fear." 
 
 " Ah," exclaimed the old man in a state of great nervous 
 excitement, " you say so. It's most unfortunate, but who 
 could foresee it ? And, you know, the catastrophe has 
 happened almost at the very moment of my gaining a know- 
 ledge of my nephew's disposition, and on the very day on 
 which I had discovered that his companionship was to become 
 the first necessity for my future happiness. It's a fearful 
 punishment for a mere error of judgment. But do you really 
 think I could be held responsible for such consequences? " 
 
 He asked the question with a look of eager enquiry, and an 
 answer in the negative turned the expression on his face to one 
 of extreme sadness. 
 
 "You cannot be held responsible," said Eales, "for the 
 consequences of actions innocent in themselves, although 
 unusual, especially when, as is the case in this instance, the 
 consequences are the result only of reflection, and have no 
 actual connection with the event you deplore." 
 
 " I do not understand you," said the old man with a return 
 of the eager look ; and Eales, who had been purposely a little 
 obscure, found himself getting full possession of the field. 
 He resumed : 
 
 " You are probably aware that your recent absence has been 
 a subject of enquiry by the police." 
 
 R
 
 242 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 "Yes," said the old man with a curious expression of 
 unconcern coming over his face. " Yes ; Cheriton told me 
 something of that, but it was quite unnecessary quite." 
 
 " I am afraid I must divide the responsibility of the enquiry 
 with Cheriton," said Eales, looking fixedly at his client, " and 
 perhaps Cheriton would say I was wholly responsible." 
 
 " Oh," said Mr. Louison, with all nervousness and anxiety 
 thoroughly dispersed, and in their place a sharp business-like 
 manner, that may be described as almost snappy. 
 
 " I was summoned by your housekeeper, as your solicitor," 
 said Eales, " and I proceeded to act as your solicitor in the only 
 way I or any other solicitor in similar circumstances could act." 
 
 " Oh," repeated Mr. Louison, with the same expression, 
 and again Eales proceeded. He was getting the facts laid 
 out, so as to ascertain, without the risk of offending his client 
 by direct questions the exact grounds and method of the 
 supposed kidnapping. Said he : 
 
 " I was informed that you had been kidnapped, and I imme- 
 diately went to Scotland Yard to have you found." 
 
 " And Scotland Yard didn't find me, eh ? " 
 
 Eales laughed. 
 
 " I was not kidnapped," said the old man, with a whimsical 
 smile. " I walked out of my house, as any man has a right to 
 do, and went on a yachting cruise, as any man has a right to 
 do, and as I have done at any time I chose during the last 
 ten or twenty years." 
 
 Mr. Louison looked across the table with a triumphant 
 smile, as if he would challenge criticism on his conduct in 
 relation to his rights as a British subject. 
 
 " There can be no question of your right to go and come as 
 you please, sir, nor can there be any question as to your right 
 to seclusion ; what we are concerned about, however, is not 
 your right, but the consequences of what has happened 
 through the exercise of your undoubted right." 
 
 " That's very good, Mr. Eales ; very good. I'm beginning 
 to understand you. I accept the principle, but shouldn't we 
 get at once to the matter of my nephew's position ? " 
 
 " I'm dealing with that position. It would not be proper 
 for me to criticise your conduct, even inferentially, but with a 
 view to your nephew's defence."
 
 AN AWAKENING. 243 
 
 " Go on, Mr. Eales," said the old man, with a revival of 
 earnestness. " Go on as fast as you can. I'm at your service." 
 
 " Well, sir, you have met your nephew in the north ; you've 
 been yachting with him ; and you have been sailing about the 
 west coast of Scotland at a time when the police were seeking 
 your nephew, and for days and days they could find no trace 
 of you or of him." 
 
 . " Quite right," said Mr. Louison, with a chuckle. It was 
 impossible for him to restrain his delight at the success of his 
 scheme of seclusion. 
 
 " This should be explained," said Eales ; " but when we set 
 to work we meet a difficulty on the very threshold. The 
 police have been apprised of and have been solicited to enquire 
 into your sudden and mysterious disappearance from your 
 house under the impression that you had been kidnapped. 
 The evidence that you had been kidnapped was complete on 
 the surface ; but a doubt arises, whether, if the statements 
 and circumstances were proved, collusion could not also be 
 proved." 
 
 " Between whom ? " 
 
 "You and your man Cheriton." 
 
 "Very good, Mr. Eales. That is how the case presents 
 itself to you as a lawyer. We will have Cheriton in and you 
 shall examine him." 
 
 . " Presently, if you will ; but before seeing Cheriton I want 
 to show you what we have to clear up." 
 
 Mr. Louison nodded, and Eales proceeded : 
 
 " Cheriton reports that you were kidnapped, and that he 
 was bound and gagged. You say you were not kidnapped, but 
 left the house of your own accord to go yachting. Cheriton's 
 wife confirms her husband's statement in essential particulars by 
 what she says she saw ; and others of the household add to the 
 confirmation by other less important particulars. Then four 
 things happen. Cheriton goes off after the fruitless police 
 enquiry and joins you straight ; and your nephew apparently 
 does the same immediately after occurrences in which he had 
 played a part, and which have caused his name to be associated 
 with the commission of a crime. You remain on the sea for 
 days holding no communication with the land, so far as I or 
 anyone else knows; and then you all three return to this, 
 
 B 2
 
 244 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 house together 'suddenly, and by means that no one can 
 divine, for the house has been watched day and night, as you 
 know, ever since you disappeared." 
 
 " Well put, Mr. Eales," said the old man, still controlled 
 by delight at the completeness of his devices for evading 
 intrusion. 
 
 " Yes," exclaimed Eales, with his eyes flashing. Departing, 
 for the first time, from his cool matter-of-fact manner, and, 
 becoming eloquent, he proceeded : 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Louison, that may be well put ; but it will be 
 put better and stronger by the other side, and it will go far to 
 prove the case against your nephew, because, at the back 
 of all this, they will exhibit circumstances and conditions 
 that will provide an abundant motive for his committing the 
 very crime he is charged with. Moreover, you may be charged 
 with a guilty knowledge. It is this we have to face, and it is 
 this we have to explain away." 
 
 The old ;man became grave, and his aspect encouraged 
 Eales to go on. He could not rid himself of the idea that his 
 client was the victim of mania. There was abundant cause 
 for the suspicion, yet he had strong hopes that it was merely a 
 case of harmless eccentricity. The truth as to this question 
 was of the first importance in guiding Eales as to his conduct 
 of Thresher's defence ; and he set to work thoroughly to 
 arouse his client to a sense of the urgency of the position. 
 Accordingly he continued his argument, saying : 
 
 " There is yet another point which adds to our difficulty, 
 and may result in a new and very serious personal anxiety for 
 your future." 
 
 "Go on," said the old man, still gravely. 
 
 " Well, sir, it was suggested by the detective, who enquired 
 into the matter of your disappearance, that you, Mr. Walter 
 Louison, may have been dead for twenty years past, and that 
 the person now representing himself as Mr. Louison was an 
 imposter, appropriating Mr. Louison's revenues, and hoping 
 to inherit more by this alleged personation." 
 
 " But here I am," exclaimed the old man, seriously alarmed. 
 
 " Yes, you, whom I see before me, are here, but I have never 
 seen you before this day, and it becomes necessary that you 
 assist me to find evidence to prove that you are yourself,
 
 AN AWAKENING. 245 
 
 because not only is this of importance in itself, but if doubt is 
 cast upon your identity, and the allegation is made in Court 
 that you are a personator, a jury would be prone to believe 
 that you and Thresher were conspirators." 
 
 " But I can bring dozens of people who have been out 
 yachting with me at any time during these thirty years." 
 
 " Yes," said Eales, " under the name of Speezer ; but why 
 should we suppose Speezer is Louison ? " 
 " Because I am the same ? " 
 
 " Who now living can certify that during all the years of 
 your seclusion, Mr. Speezer on board his yacht is Mr. Louison 
 of Maida Lodge ? " 
 " Cheriton." 
 " Anyone else?" 
 
 The old man reflected, and was ultimately bound to confess 
 there was no one. 
 
 " Then," said Eales, " Cheriton is insufficient, and your 
 dilemma is extreme. Cheriton is one of your party. The 
 theory of the prosecution will be that he was in league with 
 you, and, being under your control as his master, that he. 
 aided in what they will describe as the conspiracy." 
 
 Matters having been probed thus far, and Mr. Louison's mind 
 having now become thoroughly awakened to a true sense of 
 the position, it was resolved to call in Cheriton, and with a 
 view the better to inform himself and show to Mr. Louison 
 what would happen if Cheriton was put in a witness-box, 
 Eales insisted upon questioning Cheriton himself. 
 
 Cheriton came in with the old terrier instinct revived ; he 
 glanced from one to the other with comical alertness, and 
 exhibited all the signs of extreme nervousness combined with 
 obstinate determination to play his master's game. 
 
 "Do you remember," asked Eales, "that on the morning I 
 was sent for, because of the non-appearance of Mr. Louison, 
 you said he was kidnapped? " 
 
 Cheriton looked sharply towards his master in hopes of a hint, 
 and found his master gravely mending a quill pen. Cheriton 
 accordingly knit his brows, looked at his boots, and said : 
 "Yes, sir, I thought so." 
 
 " How then was it you went straight to Mr. Louison on 
 leaving here after the investigation ? "
 
 246 <5OLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Because Mr. Louison had arranged to go north to purchase 
 a yacht, and I felt certain if he was able he would go to the 
 place arranged, and I went to see." 
 
 " Why didn't you make us acquainted with this before ? " 
 
 Another quick glance at his master and his questioner 
 followed by an inspection of his boots, resulted in a diplomatic 
 answer : 
 
 " I have never spoken of master's intentions. He doesn't 
 like it." 
 
 " But this might have put us on the track." 
 
 Too quick came the answer : 
 
 " He didn't want it." 
 
 Eales looked at his client significantly, and then said he had 
 nothing more to ask of Cheriton, who withdrew, without in 
 the least being aware he had admitted collusion in the comedy 
 of his master's abduction, and shown conclusively that he 
 could never be trusted in a witness-box to make plain the 
 innocent character of the alleged abduction and the equally 
 innocent journey of Thresher to the north. 
 
 " And to think," said the old man, " that my poor nephew 
 is now in prison."
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 THE FIEST ACT. 
 
 THE Brighton murder became the topic of the hour. The 
 Parliamentary session was about ending, and the political 
 drama had become stale and correspondingly uninteresting. 
 The Bow Street Police Court always a centre of attraction to 
 those afflicted with the craving for the melodrama of life 
 provided the closing sensation of the season ; and the magis- 
 trate of the day, rising to the demands of his audience, pro- 
 ceeded, with all the form and circumstance the simple incident 
 permitted, to consider the question as to whether he should, or 
 should not remit David Thresher to the Brighton magistrates 
 on the charge of murder. 
 
 What is it about crime and allegation of crime that attracts ? 
 Is it the otherwise latent demoniacal spirit in man assuming 
 the ascendant, and rejoicing over the fact that another has 
 succumbed to passion or despair? Is it the revival of that 
 instinct suppressed by civilisation which gloats over a victim's 
 sufferings, laughs at his wounds, and laves its hands in his 
 blood? Immediately and directly it must come from the 
 exaggeration and distortion of the hunting and fighting 
 spirit, which finds legitimate expression in the work of the 
 pioneer, in athletics, and in sportsmanlike sport. 
 
 The court was crowded with the ordinary attendants on 
 the administration of justice, and many others not usually 
 found among the regular representatives of the British public.
 
 248 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 The motly crowd at the back of the court were supported in 
 their desire to see the law administered with decorum and 
 impartiality by at least half-a-dozen men who, but for this 
 event, would have been in Pall Mall or the park, two or three 
 law students, who attended as a duty and a right, a clergyman 
 who frequented police-courts as a student of human nature, 
 and a local butcher to whom the police-court was a theatre. 
 Of course the journalist was there of every shade of 
 character and disposition, from the dull chronicler of sober 
 fact to the latter-day pest, who interviews everyone con- 
 nected with anything concerning which he can manage 
 by hook or by crook to form a text, upon which he can 
 hang what he calls a moral. They were all there cynically 
 indifferent to every human aspiration, and sympathetic only 
 for what has come to be known as a " sensation" an eager, 
 striving, callous, but persistent army, the precise embodiment 
 in exact ratio of the public they serve, for if the public did not 
 demand their exaggeration and distortion, their inaccuracy and 
 unreason, they would not be. 
 
 And standing in the midst of the crowd, solitary, and ex- 
 cluded from all participation in the commanding interest of 
 the scene, was David Thresher, as pale as if in death, but 
 absolutely calm and erect not defiant, but resolute, and no 
 one in the court who had a fair look at his face could fail to be 
 struck with the depth and charm of his large dark eyes, the 
 power of which was heightened by the extreme pallor of his 
 forehead. The women in the court " thought it lovely." 
 
 The facts and circumstances of the incident that had caused 
 the gathering were stated with much complacency by the 
 representative of the Crown, two or three facts were formally 
 deposed to, the warrant was exhibited, and the order to remit 
 the prisoner was made, as a matter of course. 
 
 The whole affair lasted only ten minutes, and the spectators 
 felt they had a grievance in being treated to so little after so 
 much anxious struggling and waiting. Justice, however, is 
 proverbially indifferent to small grievances, and the attendant 
 public dispersed with the feeling that there were some wrongs 
 for which the law provided no remedy.
 
 CHAPTEK XXXIII. 
 
 A CONFLAGKATION. 
 
 ISABEL'S first impulse was to join her strength with the 
 legitimate defenders of her friend, but her interview with 
 Eales had set her thinking much more seriously on the position 
 she herself occupied in the case. 
 
 In full accordance with her message to Thresher, and, in a 
 modified sense, with the spirit of his rejoinder, Isabel resolved 
 to act, not only independently, but with vigour. She set out 
 to see her husband ! 
 
 It was necessary that she should protect herself as the first 
 step towards protecting her friend, and before starting for the 
 Midlands she wrote two notes to Mr. Ware that very much 
 increased the old gentleman's respect and admiration for her ; 
 and, reviving the natural gallantry of his disposition, caused 
 him to swear something very much like an oath of knightly 
 allegiance to his brilliant client, all in the secret recesses of his 
 inner room, and altogether beyond the knowledge of even his 
 confidential clerk. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Ware," wrote Isabel, "I have again to 
 trespass upon your good nature in a matter that causes me 
 some anxiety. I refer to the consequences of the deaths of the 
 two women servants in the house we had at Brighton. I have 
 been catechised by the police, and am afraid our names will be 
 brought in at the various public proceedings. I should be 
 much obliged if you would watch these proceedings on my 
 behalf, especially to prevent my being further mixed up with 
 the case. I enclose a note that will introduce you to Mr. 
 Eales, the solicitor to my unfortunate friend, whom I desire all 
 in my power to assist. You will much oblige me if you would 
 speak to him, and say how much I should like you to co- 
 operate." 
 
 "I will," said Mr. Ware, "I will ; with all my heart, I 
 will." 
 
 And the old gentleman stood up and kissed his hand to an 
 imaginary Mrs. Cope in the far distance.
 
 250 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 And he did speak to Mr. Eales to the advantage of all 
 concerned, for his circumspection could not fail to be of use in 
 any matter whatsoever. 
 
 Isabel's first impulse was to go alone to Halesowen, but on 
 reflection she concluded it would be prudent to continue her 
 policy of entrenchment within a circumvallation of domestics, 
 and certainly on a mission in which it may become apparent 
 to one's opponent that your very existence is undesirable, it 
 is advisable to have other people about. Jacobs the maid and 
 Jacobs the valet therefore were in attendance. 
 
 Lady Arabella would have been useful on this occasion, but 
 Lady Arabella had found it expedient to go on the Continent 
 without leaving her address. Lady Arabella had come to the 
 conclusion on the day the detectives had questioned her that 
 dear Mrs. Cope was all very well, but that her friendship could 
 be purchased at too dear a price. She did not so much object 
 to the poisoning of course she was very sorry for the women, 
 she said but policemen and coroners and people of that sort 
 were most objectionable. She really couldn't think of being 
 mixed up with them and their vulgarities, so as soon as the 
 news came to her that David Thresher had given himself up, 
 she packed up her wardrobe and departed, leaving a little note : 
 
 " So sorry, my dear, but my uncle has telegraphed forme, 
 and it is absolutely impossible for me to deny him. None of 
 us dare do so. If you want me very much telegraph and I will 
 come at once. So very sorry, but see you again 
 soon." 
 
 The capacity for graceful lying is brought to 
 such a high state of perfection in these days 
 that honest, straightforward folk like Isabel fail 
 to recognise that it is lying, and the cynical 
 wonder whether it is not better to have the 
 lies ; they're so much more amusing. 
 
 So Lady Arabella went out of the life 
 of dear Mrs. Cope reflecting that she had had 
 a very narrow escape, and not quite sure 
 that her delicate reputation was not a little 
 smirched by the contact ; but she consoled 
 herself with the knowledge that people have 
 short memories, especially in society where
 
 A CONFLAGEATION. 251 
 
 scandal follows scandal with frivolous volubility ; and, being 
 conscious of this failing personally, she had in the goodness of 
 her heart packed up a few keepsakes of dear Mrs. Cope, with 
 all the appearance of accident, just to remember her very good 
 friend by when miles and miles away. So nice of her ! 
 
 The advent of a lady of position accompanied by two 
 servants at the principal commercial hotel in Dudley was an 
 event so unusual as to excite general surprise, for it was 
 commonly accepted as beyond question that Dudley was not 
 a summer resort for the opulent ; and when after a light dinner 
 about nine o'clock at night an order was given for a carriage to 
 drive to Halesowen the humour of the situation was complete in 
 the opinion of the chamber-maid and the boots, for assuming 
 the outrage of any lady desiring to go to Halesowen at all, 
 what could possibly have induced her to go at night and by way 
 of Dudley. 
 
 But so it happened, and, with Jacobs the brother on the box 
 and Jacobs the maid inside, the journey of inspection was 
 begun. It was a dreary enterprise, but far from purposeless. 
 Isabel's idea was to coerce Cope into co-operation with the 
 army of defence, and inasmuch as every hour of Thresher's 
 imprisonment was a pang to her, she resolved to hunt her 
 husband down. Her purpose however was not easily carried out, 
 for much to her annoyance and disappointment her way was 
 stopped by a wildly excited crowd gathered round a burning 
 building that none made even the slightest effort to save. It 
 was Mr. Louison's model warehouse that had been prepared 
 for firing, and was ; destroyed before it had been completed. 
 
 There was a good deal of tar about, provided for covering the 
 iron work of the building, and the presence of the barrels had 
 evidently suggested the act of the incendiary. The conflagra- 
 tion was in keeping with the rest of the scene ; the flames were 
 dulled by the all-pervading smoke which every now and then 
 was lifted to show the havoc that the fire had made, and then it 
 lowered again as if it were jealous of giving the miserable 
 people the luxury of a spectacle. The coachman was for 
 forcing his way through the crowd, but Isabel preferred first to 
 see what was afoot. 
 
 Jacobs on the box reported the appearance of a little bent 
 man on a tub gesticulating in the gloom to an angry mob. It
 
 252 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 was Ebenezer Warp denouncing Cope as the incendiary. He 
 had seen him near the place before the fire broke out, and he 
 counselled retaliation with many imprecations of an apparently 
 exhilarating character, and what was more alarming, with a 
 distinct reference to the visitors in the carriage towards whom 
 the entire mass of humanity moved with a settled purpose that 
 there was no resisting. 
 
 It appeared that the barrel from which old Ebenezer had 
 been haranguing his friends was full of tar, and his scheme of 
 dramatic justice was to use it to put Cope's warehouse in ruins. 
 The presence of the carriage he regarded as providential, and 
 its use was requisitioned to carry the barrel to the scene of 
 action. 
 
 Isabel was naturally alarmed when she found herself 
 surrounded by the mob. Their pinched faces and eager 
 searching eyes would have startled anyone, and the growing 
 darkness added to the threatening appearance of the crowd. 
 Even the constantly repeated shouting of the stronger men 
 that the ladies were not to be touched was not altogether 
 reassuring because it indicated that mischief of some sort was 
 brewing. There was however no means of resisting whatever 
 might be determined, and in a very few minutes from the time 
 Ebenezer left the tub it was swung on to the footboard and the 
 horse was led by two of the men to see the driver did not carry 
 off their prize. 
 
 In half-an-hour the mob had arrived at Cope's warehouse, 
 the barrel was taken from the carriage, and a dozen or two of 
 the more determined crowded round with grinning satisfaction 
 to thank the ladies for their assistance. Some of them wanted 
 to shake hands in token that there was no ill-feeling, but the 
 hoarse-throated women pulled them back and the carriage 
 passed on. 
 
 Sufficient had occurred to make Isabel curious as to how this 
 strange incident would end, and after continuing the drive a 
 short distance she stopped and finally returned to within a safe 
 distance of the building that she afterwards learned was Cope's 
 warehouse. There she was a witness to and practically a 
 participator in a weird and terrible scene. The windows of 
 the large room in the basement had been broken open, the 
 contents of the tar barrel had been strewn about, the floor and
 
 A CONFLAGRATION. 
 
 255 
 
 the 
 barrel 
 itself 
 had been set 
 on fire. By the 
 time Isabel had 
 returned, the en- 
 tire basement of the 
 building was belching 
 dense black smoke and 
 lurid flame ; and when 
 an occasional gust of 
 wind swung the smoke away 
 to the opposite side she 
 thought she could descry a figure 
 moving on the roof of the burning 
 building. A few minutes later and 
 this figure was seen by the mob, 
 and a yell of delight went up when it became 
 / certain that the figure was Cope himself, 
 smoked out of an upper room where he 
 occasionally sought seclusion and a hammock. His position 
 was perilous indeed. The staircase was burnt down, the 
 first floor was filled with smoke and fire, and the attics 
 alone were habitable. Cope was making an inspection of 
 the roof, and although his movements seemed erratic and 
 aimless, they were, as a matter of fact, eminently practical. 
 It was clear to him that the mob expected him to be 
 burnt alive, and it was equally clear that his fate would be 
 scarcely improved by falling into their hands. He knew how 
 the nailers hated him. He had spent half a lifetime in 
 grinding gold out of them, and spurning them as they laid it 
 at his feet. None knew better than he how sweet and terrible 
 would be the retaliation when once an opportunity offered for
 
 256 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 exacting it. Scheming his escape on the top of the house, he 
 reasoned that the flames once passed, they would be evaded, but 
 that his body would be as fuel to the passions of the mob. 
 Harsh as was the alternative, he preferred to risk a fall upon a 
 heap of broken iron in a roofless shed to being torn in pieces 
 by the infuriated nailers. So he skirted his body with a 
 blanket and wrapped another round his head. Over all he put 
 a third, and, holding it down with his hands, coolly rolled over 
 the parapet where the smoke was densest, and came with a 
 crash and a bound into the middle of the shed where the 
 crowd was unable to approach for the heat. There on the 
 ground he lay disabled and stunned, but free from molestation. 
 
 So long as the flames continued to assert themselves the 
 spirits of the crowd remained at fever heat, and yells of 
 denunciation of Cope were frequent. That they could not see 
 him was an additional incentive to their rage ; but after 
 giving vent to a wild shout of triumph as the roof fell in, their 
 ardour cooled with the falling flames. They felt assured of the 
 end of Cope, but their joy was the faint and fitful elation of 
 gratified revenge ; and as it spent itself they slunk away to 
 their homes in groups of two and three, for with fatigue comes 
 repentance. 
 
 There was not a doubt in the mind of Isabel but that Cope 
 had perished in the flames, and the question with her was 
 whether she should hasten back to Dudley for assistance, or 
 direct Jacobs and the driver to make an examination in the 
 bare hope of finding him still alive. She resolved on the latter 
 course, but as there was no chance of entering the building 
 while the ruins yet smouldered, the two men were unable to 
 do more than make a tour of the outside, much of which 
 was exposed to view from the roadway. Some parts of 
 the rear of the building, however, were enclosed by the 
 sheds, and in one of these was a heap of broken iron pipes, 
 girders and rails, boilers, geared wheels, and other elements 
 of the ironmaster's scrap-heap, variously jagged, and the 
 very reverse of a feather bed. Upon this lay the bundle of 
 smouldering blankets which enclosed the form of Joshua 
 Cope. 
 
 Notwithstanding its character, this fearful pile of broken iron 
 was the only place Cope could have chosen for his fall so as to
 
 A CONFLAGRATION. 259 
 
 be free both from the flames and the fury of the mob. The 
 contents of the bundle were not in the least suspected by the 
 two men, but on close inspection one of the old man's legs was 
 descried with the trouser smouldering on it as he lay insensible 
 even to the pain of seething flesh. 
 
 The blanket round his head was removed, and, finding he 
 still breathed, they lifted him out into the open yard away from 
 the heat of the building, and soon extinguished the burning 
 clothes. The carriage being at hand, Isabel resolved to take 
 him to Dudley. To assist in this, both she and her maid rode 
 beside the driver, while Jacobs sat inside with his master, who 
 reclined in the bottom of the carriage, with his head and 
 shoulders resting against one of the doors. He remained 
 insensible throughout the journey, and gave no sign of life 
 even when lying on a bed on the first floor of the hotel a 
 miserable object with both arms fractured and both legs fear- 
 fully burnt, one of them being almost beyond recognition as a 
 limb. 
 
 The local doctor recommended surgical aid ; and accordingly 
 a surgeon of eminence was summoned. He came, accom- 
 panied by a nurse of superior muscular development, and of 
 stern demeanour. The surgeon, who attributed his profes- 
 sional success to his artistic appearance and his melodramatic 
 manner, for he was dressed like a Tyrolese minstrel and 
 operated like a conjurer, was much distressed that his patient 
 was insensible, and therefore could not see him. He dressed 
 on the theory that a surgeon should excite the artistic instincts 
 of his patient and thus distract him from the contemplation of 
 his physical sufferings. But what was the use of a powerful 
 physiognomy, a magnificent head of hair, and a Byronic collar 
 if the patient were insensible. Dr. Prod gave expression to 
 his annoyance by pronouncing it a hopeless case. 
 
 s 2
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF COPE. 
 
 HAVING responded to the dictates of an essentially human 
 impulse in rescuing an old maimed man from a lingering 
 death, Isabel began to reflect on the consequences of her action 
 to herself. She was incapable of the daring hypocrisy [of 
 
 asserting that Cope's recovery was a cherished hope with her, 
 but candour also required of her the admission that she did 
 actually desire his recovery in the interest of Thresher. She 
 felt that he alone could provide the evidence to preserve the
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF COPE. 261 
 
 life of Thresher, and that she alone possessed the lever 
 wherewith to extract it from him. The life that was not 
 desired for its own sake had become precious because she 
 thought it necessary to preserve the life she valued; and 
 although no motive of this kind could have controlled her in 
 such a case, she reviewed the incident with much satisfaction 
 because the thing, it was right to do accorded so admirably 
 with the thing that was desirable. If all moral impulse 
 were so circumstanced virtue would be not only its own reward, 
 but its own incentive. 
 
 Cope's view of the tender consideration shown to him would 
 have been a study in villainy and chagrin if only he had known 
 the facts ; but he knew nothing, and thought of nothing on 
 his awakening to consciousness but of the fact that he was 
 really alive ; and this he attributed wholly to the adroitness of 
 his escape. His feelings formed another example of the 
 blessings of ignorance, for an entire week passed before he 
 knew even how he had been discovered. 
 
 At this time he was pretty much in the form of a mummy. 
 Both his arms were in splinters, strapped to his sides ; his legs 
 were each a mass of cotton wool ; and his face was haggard 
 and marred by a large bruise on his cheek. His temper in 
 these circumstances was execrable. Notwithstanding his age, 
 it was his first illness ; and he had come to regard his immunity 
 from disaster as a part of the scheme of the Universe. 
 Throughout life he had systematically accepted risks that 
 should have shipwrecked him a hundred times ; but he had 
 always escaped, and with these escapes, which he persisted in 
 regarding as the natural consequences of well -arranged schemes, 
 he had acquired a spirit of boundless egotism. What he 
 thought, what he schemed, what he wanted was right incon- 
 testably right ; and anything within the compass of the spheres 
 that in any way conflicted with Joshua Cope's ambition was 
 an error that the Universe was responsible for, and not Cope ; 
 and, as a logical consequence, the laws of the Universe had to 
 give way in subjection to the purposes of the inexorable Cope. 
 
 So complete was his egotism, that he had never from the 
 first the slightest anxiety concerning himself in connection 
 with the Brighton affair. If anyone could have discussed the 
 circumstances with him he would have scouted the suggestion
 
 262 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 of risk. The possibility of failure had never entered his mind ; 
 and the idea of his having been reduced to impotence by the 
 action of the nailers excited within him only amazement and 
 indignation. The fact that he had survived, which to an 
 ordinary person would have been a cause of thankfulness, was 
 to him merely an act of conciliation or repentance upon the 
 part of Providence due to the genius of Cope. 
 
 It had been designed by Isabel that he should not be made 
 aware of her intervention in the matter of his rescue ; but, 
 unfortunately for her scheme, his man Jacobs was in the room 
 when he regained consciousness. The mind, once awakened, 
 was violently active; and, finding himself a prisoner, he 
 concentrated all the malice of his soul on the miserable 
 Jacobs as representing not only himself but the Universe 
 in general. 
 
 "What do you mean by this?" he asked with oaths and 
 imprecations. " This is a nice condition for me to be in. 
 How did you get here?" 
 
 The volley of oaths, as well as the suddenness of the 
 onslaught, unnerved Jacobs, who said precisely the thing he 
 should not. 
 
 " Mrs. Cope brought me," said he. 
 
 " The devil ! " exclaimed Cope, and incontinently fainted 
 away. 
 
 When he again awoke to consciousness the nurse was alone 
 with him, and a curious colloquy ensued. The professional 
 eye remarked the awakening, but nothing was said. She left 
 it to the patient to open the conversation ; and the patient 
 considered for some time before commencing the attack. 
 
 " You're a nurse," he said. 
 
 " Yes, sir. I hope you're feeling better." 
 
 " Who engaged you? " 
 
 "Mrs. Cope." 
 
 " The devil," he muttered, and then a grim smile came over 
 his face, and he reflected. Presently he asked in a mild 
 insinuating way : 
 
 " How did Mrs. Cope know I was ill? " 
 
 " She found you." 
 
 " Found me ? " ejaculated the old man. 
 
 " Yes ; but you'd better go to sleep now."
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF COPE. 263 
 
 ' No, I hadn't better go to sleep. I'm not going to sleep, 
 nor to anything until you tell me exactly how I come to be 
 here ; so begin." 
 
 The tone was violent if not loud, and the nurse concluded 
 it was better to satisfy him. She told the story briefly, and 
 the old man's eye glistened with surprise as she described the 
 accidental presence of Mrs. Cope on the scene. Then his face 
 assumed an appearance of anger and malicious resolution. He 
 made no comment, but his excitement was severe, and the 
 nurse knew she had done wrong from the heavy drops of 
 sweat that stood out on his forehead and the wild aspect of 
 his eyes. 
 
 " Where is Mrs. Cope ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't know," said the nurse ; "but you had better try to 
 sleep a little." 
 
 Quick as lightning came the rejoinder : 
 
 " You are lying. Tell me the truth." 
 
 The command came with such decision that the nurse 
 confessed her belief that Mrs. Cope was in the hotel. 
 
 " Of course she is. Get her here ! Quick ! " 
 
 The nurse left the room, and considered the matter on the 
 door-mat outside. The violent emotion of the patient must 
 be allayed. Would the presence of Mrs. Cope allay or only 
 aggravate it ? She consulted Mrs. Cope ; and Isabel, with an 
 impetuosity that would have become a devoted wife, imme- 
 diately responded to the request. The nurse thought it very 
 natural. 
 
 " So I owe my present position to you, madam ? " he sneered. 
 
 Isabel assented, saying : 
 
 "I could do no less." 
 
 " What ? " he shrieked. " She glories in it, the beldame." 
 
 And then he set to work mumbling anathemas, and rolling 
 his eyes in impotent rage in the firm belief that she had set 
 the nailers on him. Presently his meaning began to dawn on 
 her, but she repressed her indignation, and said : 
 
 " When you are calmer I have something to say to you." 
 
 She would have left the room at once, but he instantly 
 apprehended her purpose, and with his usual cunning changed 
 his tone, and said : 
 
 " Now or never ; and quick."
 
 264 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 Isabel hesitated only a moment, and then said in a firm, 
 bold voice : 
 
 " I came to seek you because David Thresher is charged 
 with poisoning the servants in our house at Brighton, and 
 " He'll be hanged too ; the sooner the better." 
 " No," she exclaimed ; " he will not, because he is 
 innocent." 
 
 " Innocent or guilty, he'll be hanged, and serve him 
 right." 
 
 This was said with unusual vehemence and malignity, the 
 more so as only the head of the speaker seemed to be alive ; 
 but the response came with decision : 
 
 " No, he will not be hanged, and you will save him, because 
 you know him to be innocent." 
 
 " I don't, and I won't, and I'd hang him myself if I 
 could." 
 
 " Shall I speak more plainly?" asked Isabel, impressively. 
 She was leaning forward with her left hand on the back of a 
 chair at some distance from the bed, and a slightly startled 
 look came over the old man's face as she asked the question. 
 He did not answ r er, but watched her keenly. 
 
 " I heard the man who did the deed enter the house that 
 night," she continued, " and I saw him leave." 
 
 He winced, but merely said : 
 
 " Did you, and what of that ? " 
 
 " It was not David Thresher, and you know who it was." 
 
 " I don't ; you lie," he exclaimed savagely. 
 
 "You do know, and you will assist in procuring evidence to 
 acquit my friend." 
 
 "I will not; I'll die first. If he were only hanged I'd die 
 happy. I hate him ! " 
 
 Isabel did not move a muscle at the fearful imprecations 
 that followed this declaration, but with the same firmness as 
 had hitherto marked her manner she said : 
 
 " If you do not comply with my wish I propose to act 
 myself. I leave here to-morrow afternoon. I shall send a 
 message to you at noon." 
 
 " You needn't." said the head, writhing impotently, but with 
 undisguised malice in every lineament of the face, " I have 
 never changed my purpose and I never will."
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF COPE. 
 
 265 
 
 Isabel was about to answer, when Cope suddenly exclaimed : 
 " Wait ! " in a tone that in some sort indicated repentance to 
 the hearer ; and then he said : 
 
 " Bring in the nurse." 
 
 The nurse was waiting in the passage, and on her entering 
 Cope said, looking at her appealingly : 
 
 " You are appointed by the doctor to attend on me." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " It is your duty to see I am not injured by any one." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Then," he added, raising his voice almost to a scream, and 
 speaking with marvellous rapidity, " See this woman off the 
 premises within an hour. She's my wife, but she'll kill me. 
 She's the paramour of the poisoner of the women at Brighton. 
 She set my workpeople on to destroy me. She'll poison my 
 food. Get her away, away, away." 
 
 As the nurse, impelled by professional obligation, led Isabel 
 from the room, a ghastly smile and a devilish sparkle of the 
 eye lit up his face a gleeful transport at the success of his 
 scheme. He was a cripple, he thought, but still triumphant.
 
 CHAPTEK XXXV. 
 
 INTROSPECTION. 
 
 ISABEL had failed ; and but for the great passion of her life she 
 would have despaired. The consciousness of her weakness in 
 the presence of overpowering circumstances that threatened 
 the life of her friend bewildered her and almost unnerved her. 
 She had come to Cope with no definite purpose beyond pro- 
 curing his co-operation through fear. He had responded by 
 striking at her with reckless daring. He had shattered her 
 hopes so effectually that she felt almost guilty of the crimes 
 he imputed to her. 
 
 It would have been a time of weeping with most women, 
 but Isabel did not weep. Introspection was her panacea for 
 mental distress, but on this occasion it resulted in rebellion 
 and resentment at what she conceived to be the injustice to 
 which events had subjected her. Nothing that she had 
 done could, in her opinion, legitimately result in the series 
 of disasters that had befallen her. The indiscretion of 
 Thresher's midnight visit curiously never struck her as an 
 impropriety, and she had never until this moment traced any 
 evil consequences to it. She had indeed always regarded it as 
 an ordinary occurrence, and as in natural sequence to the 
 deception which had been practised upon her by her father. 
 Cope's denunciation of her, however, awakened new reflec- 
 tions, and although concern for her own reputation had 
 hitherto been but a small factor in the case as it presented 
 itself to her mind, she now regarded her position as exceed- 
 ingly perilous, because it was not only dangerous to herself, 
 but reacted on Thresher. 
 
 The words of Cope had fallen upon her as a succession of 
 blows, and the only shield she could present against them 
 the flimsy gossamer of Cope's fears and apprehensions had 
 been worse than useless. She had provoked attack, and was 
 utterly worsted. 
 
 Then followed a sense of extreme loneliness. She needed 
 counsel, but to whom could she go? And if she found a
 
 INTROSPECTION. 267 
 
 counsellor, what could she say ? The one great fact that formed 
 the pivot of all her reasoning she dared not mention. 
 
 She called the nurse and enquired as to the situation. She 
 was told that the gentleman was very light-headed and still 
 " going on." The nurse thought my lady had best not see 
 him again until after the doctor had called because she seemed 
 to excite him, to which Isabel 'replied that she might tell her 
 patient that she was leaving for London by the next train a 
 declaration that would have surprised the nurse if she had not 
 put it down as a sick-room fiction contrived for the benefit of 
 the patient. As a matter of fact, however, Isabel did go by 
 the next train to London, and on reaching home sent for Mr. 
 "Ware, who gave the advice that every sensible man would 
 have given in similar circumstances : to leave the matter in 
 the hands of those to whom it was committed an impotent 
 conclusion, nevertheless, wholly unsuited to allay the eager 
 spirit of a devoted woman.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVI. 
 
 THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW. 
 
 THE gladiatorial displays of old Rome have their prototype 
 to-day in the fashionable trial, which excites the brutal 
 instincts of the spectator and gives pleasure in proportion to 
 the danger or sufferings of the victim. Counsel, witnesses, 
 and Court officials are each conscious of a histrionic disposition, 
 when the gallery is crowded, and the gangways are choked 
 with the striving populace ; every interest has its representa- 
 tive at the entertainment, and, in some instances, not even the 
 Judge upon the Bench is free from the vulgar passion for display. 
 
 The trial of David Thresher was a rare opportunity. He 
 was not merely one of the better classes, which was in itself 
 a ground for special interest, but he was handsome and he was 
 regarded as an eccentric criminal ; for of course he was guilty, 
 else why was he in the dock. Opinion was divided as to the 
 motive, for, although it was generally admitted he did not 
 intend to poison the two women he had never seen or heard 
 of, yet the popular voice inclined to the conclusion that his 
 malice was directed to Isabel, who had jilted him, rather than 
 towards Miss Winscomb whose death would not of necessity 
 be to his advantage. The public was in fact very much of opinion 
 that revenge rather than cupidity had controlled the interesting 
 malefactor, and this belief made the situation all the more 
 attractive. Jealousy and revenge are far more popular motives, 
 dramatically regarded, than greed ; and those who review 
 public opinion would have said that the people decided 
 on jealousy of Cope as the motive of the crime only because 
 it was more agreeable to associate the incident with the grand 
 passion than with one of a coarser type. The majority has 
 always preferred melodrama. 
 
 Ignorance of the facts was of course at the bottom of this 
 wrongheadedness ; but facts, as a rule, are hard to get at, and 
 the faculty of reasoning is not common enough to make it a 
 matter of real importance to anyone whether the public has 
 fact or fiction to deal with. The result would probably be
 
 THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW. 
 
 269 
 
 the same in either case. The public enjoys being wrong. It 
 would never be enthusiastic about anything if it regarded 
 accuracy ; and if Society were denied its scandal, its lions, its 
 private views, its dress rehearsals, and its popular trials, what 
 would become of it ? David Thresher was supplying a want, 
 and had he known his duty to Society he would have been 
 gratified. 
 
 The leading counsel for the prosecution was typical of the 
 melodramatic bar. He was an eminent politician and a 
 notorious bully. He had elbowed his way to the front by the 
 insolent repression of ability that had not the good fortune to 
 be associated with presumption, 
 and, since he fulfilled the first 
 condition of the commercial aspect 
 of the profession that he won 
 cases he had come to be regarded 
 as invulnerable, and in conse- 
 quence a forensic star of the first 
 magnitude. Thresher had the 
 misfortune to be defended by a 
 gentleman. 
 
 Isabel was very much alone in 
 that seething throng. She sat in 
 the gallery, having her friend, the 
 prisoner, on her right, the judge 
 on her left, and the jury opposite. 
 The bar was below briefed and briefless, and the press was there 
 in a flood. All the descriptive men were there, contemptuous 
 of fact as of shorthand, from excess of imagination and love of 
 the picturesque. The general public was there in its thirst 
 for excitement, and its passion for the study of the criminal 
 law; and Society was there, on the bench by virtue of its 
 political status, in the gallery by virtue of special orders, and 
 in all the best places because it was " Society." All the con- 
 ditions of the modern gratis show were complied with, and the 
 most exacting could not have hoped for a more sensitive victim 
 or more acute suffering on the part of those near to him, than 
 was provided by these proceedings. 
 
 The Judge was, perhaps, the least influenced by the histrionic 
 aspect of the display, but still he was human. He felt com-
 
 270 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 plirnented by the largeness of the gathering, and congratulated 
 himself on his good fortune in being relieved of the monotony 
 of nisi prius and being provided with a study in artistic 
 crime. A man who could conceive of poisoning people 
 with eggs he regarded with scientific interest, for one of 
 his most cherished delusions was that he had early exhibited 
 a genius for scientific research, and might have been a 
 .great discoverer in the realm of natural philosophy had not 
 a perverse fate led him to the bar. A trial of this character 
 was in the nature of a rare opportunity, and he entered upon 
 it with zest. Thus it came to pass, that the entire company 
 there gathered together were eminently pleased with them- 
 selves for being there, and had made up their minds for a day's 
 rare enjoyment. Thresher and his immediate circle of friends 
 must of course be excepted from the general ; but they were 
 only three, including Eales. 
 
 The trial was not a long one. Much time was spent in 
 proving quite obvious facts from the necessity of getting put on 
 record in due torm the notorious as well as the novel. The 
 position soon, however, looked black for Thresher. He had in 
 his possession a key of the front door of the house at Brighton, 
 and although it was explained that the lock on the house at 
 Brighton was one of a series provided for the firm of Schrieber 
 and Co., and that he had a key because he had been a partner, 
 the fact remained that he had a key and could enter the house 
 at will. " Moreover," demanded the prosecuting counsel, 
 with a look of horror, " why had he not given up the key, 
 when he ceased to be a partner of Schrieber & Co. ?." It was 
 true the lock had been put there by Mr. Foyle, to save him the 
 trouble of carrying an extra key, and it was equally true that 
 Thresher did not know he had the key to it, but this could not 
 be proved, and was only suggested. How could anyone 
 prove that a man does not know a thing ? What could be and 
 what was proved was that he had the key, and the key was 
 shown and the lock too. It was not asking much of the jury 
 to believe that a man who had a key should know it opened a 
 .given lock. It was not a very long step from the fact that the 
 key was in his pocket to the belief that he had heard that one 
 of the locks it opened was on the door of the house at Brighton. 
 He had been a partner with Foyle, in daily communication, in
 
 THE PEACTICE OF THE LAW. 271 
 
 domestic relations, and peculiarly intimate. Surely it was 
 easier to believe that he knew about the Brighton lock 
 than that he did not. The key was a very sad business 
 for Thresher. 
 
 Then he had some white plaster in his house, bought, 
 so they said, for mending a curio. The experts revelled 
 in this white plaster for a long time. One set declared 
 that it was identical with that found in the eggs, and 
 another set were equally confident of the reverse. The 
 natural tendency of the human mind was to go with the 
 former set. White plaster is white plaster, and the posses- 
 sion of it shows it could have been used for manipulating the 
 eggs, and this also is a short step from the conviction that 
 it was so used. 
 
 But he was seen seen issuing from the house at Brighton, 
 of which he had the key, at two in the morning or later, by 
 the policeman on the beat, on the very night before the women 
 were poisoned. That was a damning fact, not capable of 
 refutation, nor even of dispute. What business had he there, 
 and by what right was he in a house not his own, and without 
 the knowledge of its owner? Thus reasoned the triumphant 
 extractor of verdicts, and so winced the friends of Thresher. 
 This was unanswerable. There was no alibi. Thresher, all 
 admitted, was in Brighton that night, and he left the next day, 
 not actually in haste, but having given no sign of an intended 
 departure until that day. 
 
 Moreover, he gave no explanation of his movements that 
 night ; but if he did not, others did. He was admitted to his 
 hotel between two and three in the morning by the night 
 porter, and he had not been seen by any of the hotel servants 
 from half-past ten on that same night until he returned. This 
 was all in perfect confirmation of the statement of the constable, 
 and none could doubt that Thresher was there. The policeman 
 might have been deceived in the darkness as to his identity, 
 but the night porter of the hotel could not be mistaken. 
 Thresher was well-known to him, and he addressed him by name 
 when he let him in. Apart from the main incidents, and the 
 associated facts, there was nothing extraordinary in his late 
 return. There might have been a hundred causes for absence, 
 all natural and even commonplace an argument with a
 
 272 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 friend, a game at billiards, a late supper ; but there stood 
 Thresher, and none of these possibilities were even hinted at, 
 much less proved. 
 
 No one but the policeman and the night porter were found 
 to say where he was on that fearful night, and their state- 
 ments, simple as they were, rang like a death-knell in Isabel's 
 ears. Dizzy and blinded with emotion the Court swung round 
 and round with her, and her heart seemed to stop. Then 
 came the mental effort and a straining wrench of the rail in 
 front of her, the sickening revulsion that comes with reviving 
 power, and then she breathed again to think and nerve herself 
 to reconstrue the situation. 
 
 The brutal energy of the prosecuting counsel acted as a 
 tonic with her, for anger is ever a better taskmaster than love. 
 The distinguished counsel revelled with ghoulish satisfaction 
 in the completeness of the meshes he had woven round his 
 victim. If the crowning joy of his life had been to prepare 
 subjects for the hangman he could not have dwelt with more 
 enthusiasm upon the petty incidents that, pieced together, 
 spelt scaffold at every turn. Thresher's presence at Brighton, 
 and in the house, was the clinching fact to which he reverted 
 time after time at the end of every period of constructive 
 comment ; but his method awakened in the heart of Isabel a 
 passionate hatred, with which pride had something to do ; for, 
 in the course of his headlong declaration, he offered an alter- 
 native of two motives to the jury, one of prospective gain 
 through the death of Miss Winscomb, and the other of 
 revenge through the death of herself ; and he dwelt upon the 
 probabilities in each case with a minuteness and a callous 
 disregard of the possibility of the actual truth that was 
 positively maddening. 
 
 Isabel had her revenge. She did not reason as to her 
 course but, intuitively, she rushed to a conclusion. Imme- 
 diately her enemy had sat down, eminently gratified with his 
 own performance, and whilst the ushers were silencing the 
 cheers of his delighted audience, she rose in the gallery, 
 and in a voice clear as a bell and rich in volume, she 
 exclaimed : 
 
 " My lord, I know something of this matter that should be 
 spoken."
 
 THE PEACTICE OF THE LAW. 275 
 
 And there she stood, calm and erect, unveiled, and with her 
 pale face bent eagerly towards the judge as she broke the 
 silence that ensued. 
 
 " I appeal to you, my lord, to hear me." 
 The judge was annoyed. Nothing annoys a judge more 
 than an irregularity, and here was a most improper interven- 
 tion of an utter stranger in a case of the first importance at a 
 point when everything connected with it was closing up in a 
 decent, orderly and regular manner. He had cause to be 
 annoyed ; but he looked at Isabel as she stood before him, and 
 he looked long before he spoke. Everybody in Court looked. 
 He shuffled his notes about and reflected, had another look, 
 and then asked : 
 
 " Do you know this per this lady, Mr. Attorney ? " 
 " No, my lord," said the prosecuting counsel, savagely. He 
 guessed there was something afoot adverse to his cause. 
 
 " Nor you, Sir Henry? " enquired the judge of the defending 
 counsel. 
 
 " Yes, my lord," was the reply. " This is Mrs. Cope, of 
 whom we have heard in this case." 
 
 " Do you know what she has to say ? " 
 
 He did not, but knowing he had no case, and thinking that, 
 while it could not be made worse, it might be made better, he 
 expressed the opinion that in the interest of justice she should be 
 heard. The jury all eagerly supported this deliverance, and the 
 entire Court would have applauded if it had dared. The judge 
 hesitated. It was most irregular not unprecedented, but 
 irregular. He hesitated still more, and before he had determined 
 on a course, the rich full voice burst upon the Court again : 
 
 " My lord, he came to the house that fatal night, on my 
 invitation, and I let him in. While there with me another 
 entered the house secretly, and left after ten minutes' stay. My 
 friend, whom you are trying, is innocent of all this crime. I 
 swear it." 
 
 The silence was appalling. The sensation was exquisite, 
 and the situation the choicest of the season. Society was 
 abundantly gratified. 
 
 The perplexity of the judge increased. A statement had 
 been made, and whatever he or anyone else might say it would 
 weigh with the jury. He did not wish that it should 
 
 T 2
 
 276 
 
 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 weigh, for he was annoyed at an interruption that he dared not 
 ignore. The practice of the Court had been outraged. The 
 result of much solemn consultation and headshaking was that 
 Mrs. Cope was sworn and repeated her statement with a view 
 to cross-examination, for the counsel for the defence asked 
 no questions. He was content with the statement as it stood. 
 Then the eminent and popular counsel for the prosecution 
 assumed his most impressive mien. He did not look at Isabel 
 as he addressed her, but stared fixedly at a blank space high 
 
 up on the wall of the Court. 
 He had small grey eyes, no 
 eyebrows, a large shapeless 
 nose, and a mouth with thin, 
 colourless, dry lips, that he 
 was accustomed to purse up 
 with many creases. But 
 although he asked his ques- 
 tions, staring at the wall, 
 he turned his eyes suddenly 
 on the witness as he waited 
 for the answer, with a good 
 deal of the cobra in his man- 
 ner. This was the way it 
 ran : 
 
 " You are a married 
 woman?" 
 
 " I have contracted a mar- 
 riage engagement." 
 " Then you are married ; yes or no ? " 
 " Conventionally : yes." 
 
 " Construe what you mean by ' conventionally ' ? " 
 " I attended a Registrar's Office, and signed a record of 
 marriage." 
 
 " That is unconventional," remarked the counsel, highly 
 gratified at his smartness. "We'll let that pass. You are 
 married to Mr. Cope, eh? " 
 " Unfortunately, yes." 
 " Why unfortunately ? " 
 
 " I was deceived and betrayed into the marriage by falsehood 
 and fraud."
 
 THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW. 
 
 277 
 
 Society was in the seventh heaven. 
 
 " Who betrayed you ? " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Who betrayed you, I say ? " 
 
 " My father," came the answer, in low and melancholy tones. 
 
 The eminent counsel did not like this answer. It awakened 
 recollections of a little domestic incident associated with a 
 hoped for marriage then being worked out at home, and the 
 answer made him angry. 
 
 " You would have pre- 
 ferred the prisoner ? " 
 
 " I was engaged to him, 
 and would have married 
 him." 
 
 " You therefore thought 
 it proper to receive him at 
 midnight in your husband's 
 absence?" 
 
 " No, I did not." 
 
 " Then why did you re- 
 ceive him, at midnight, in 
 your husband's absence ? " 
 
 "Because a parting inter- 
 view was necessary to ex- 
 plain my act." 
 
 " At midnight ?" 
 
 " Yes, at midnight. I had 
 prying friends about me." 
 
 At this answer a little 
 scream was heard in the gal- 
 lery, and Society discovered that Lady Arabella was among 
 them, veiled and in the third row. 
 
 "You thought that because you had assented to a marriage 
 your father had proposed to you, you were entitled to receive 
 an old lover at midnight, in the absence of your lawful husband, 
 to exchange explanations. Is that your answer? " 
 
 " Yes. It was on such an understanding." 
 
 "Never mind your understanding. We only want your 
 idea of marital propriety. Now, tell me this. You have said 
 that when the prisoner was with you making these explaua-
 
 278 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 tions and so forth, you heard someone enter the house with a 
 key. Is that so ? " 
 
 '"Yes." 
 
 " That you then waited for ten minutes in silence no 
 further explanations going on and then the intruder left the 
 house, as he came. Is that so ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You saw him from the window ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " He crossed the street ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Who was he?" 
 
 This question came suddenly as the crack of a whip, but 
 there was no answer, and the eminent counsel felt proud. 
 
 " Come, Mrs. Cope ; you saw him. Who was he? " 
 
 Still there was no answer. 
 
 "You had a good look at him, Mrs. Cope, you know. He 
 crossed the road, and stood looking at the house from the other 
 side before he went away. Did you recognise him ? " 
 
 Still there was no answer, and the judge awoke to the 
 situation. 
 
 " You must answer that question, Madam, for you must 
 know whether you recognised the person or not." 
 
 " My lord, I should not answer it." 
 
 " Indeed, and why should you not ? " exclaimed the judge. 
 
 " Because I am not sure, and being not sure, if I named a 
 person I might do him a grave injustice." 
 
 " Then your answer is," said the judge, " that you did not 
 recognise the person, but thought he resembled some one of 
 your acquaintance." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Then came a long wrangle about the name, and as to 
 whether Isabel should be compelled to divulge it. Ultimately, 
 it was agreed that it should be written down and handed to 
 the judge. Isabel complied, but folded the paper twice before 
 handing it to the court usher, and as the judge received it, she 
 said: 
 
 " My lord, the responsibility is with you ; " and then heaving a 
 deep sigh, she seemed to be losing somewhat of her composure. 
 The strain was becoming severe.
 
 THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW. 279 
 
 There was just the suspicion of a grim smile upon the 
 features of the judge, as he read the name of Joshua Cope on 
 the paper, followed by a glance of surprise at Isabel, and then 
 he folded the paper up again and pondered. 
 
 " I am considering, Mr. Attorney," said he, "whether this 
 name should go any further. I am certainly of opinion that it 
 should not go beyond the counsel in the case." 
 
 " As your lordship pleases," was the response, and the 
 paper was handed down. 
 
 The feelings of Society and the press may be imagined as 
 the paper was unfolded and read. In each case the reading 
 was followed by an involuntary glance at Isabel a surprised 
 look, not unmixed with admiration. It was evident that 
 neither the judge nor the counsel believed her story, but they 
 thought it a most ingenious conception ; and he for the 
 defence, as in duty bound, took it the more seriously. 
 
 Society relied on the press for the contents of the paper, and 
 the press was at its wits end devising schemes to procure it, 
 but as each representative played for his own hand, no sign 
 was given, and one at least chuckled at the idea, of his being 
 safe for the prize, on the basis of a political affinity between 
 his paper and the popular advocate, who owed much to 
 democratic advocacy, and was a profound believer in con- 
 ciliation. Holding a candle to the devil was a familiar act 
 with him. He owed much to Society also, and the idea 
 occurred to him that Society might be gratified by the publi- 
 cation of that name, which, in any case, he was resolved 
 the jury should know, because he foresaw an excellent 
 opportunity of turning the whole incident to account with 
 them. So, said he : 
 
 " My lord, your lordship cannot fail to have remarked upon 
 the important light this name throws on all that this witness 
 has said ; and I must ask you in the interest of justice to 
 reconsider your determination to withhold it from the jury. 
 Before, however, asking for your decision, I propose to ask one 
 question." 
 
 The judge assented, and the cross-examination proceeded. 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Cope, you have told us that you preferred not to 
 mention the name of this person, who, you say, entered and 
 left the house while the prisoner was with you, because you
 
 280 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 might be wrong. Now, will you swear you cannot make up 
 your mind whether you recognised him or not ? " 
 
 There was marked hesitation wavering a strong effort, 
 and again clear self-possession, as she said : 
 
 " I believe it was he, but it was dark." 
 
 " Now, my lord," exclaimed the counsel, with an outburst 
 of impetuosity, " I ask that that name be handed to the 
 jury." 
 
 He had got exactly what he wanted, and while those who 
 listened were with few exceptions unable to follow him, the 
 air of savage triumph with which he demanded the publication 
 of the name attracted the sympathy of the audience, and gave 
 the key to his public successes. He drove with brutal energy 
 to the objective point, sparing none, and absolutely reckless 
 of everything but the purpose of the moment. The judge 
 was as a feather in the wind, and Society was duly informed 
 that it was her husband that she had named. 
 
 Isabel, speaking as she did with simple truth, save only 
 that she had no doubt whatever but that the visitor was 
 Cope, was wholly unconscious of the use her statement would 
 be put to, and had no conception of the aspect in which 
 she would be regarded on the morrow by ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred of the population. She had desired not to be an 
 accuser of the man who happened to be her husband. She 
 shrank from assuming a vindictive part ; and thus she 
 hesitated and threw a doubt on what, in other circumstances, 
 would have been avowed without a thought. But the popular 
 counsel had not done with her. 
 
 " Where is your husband ? " 
 
 " At Dudley." 
 
 " What is he doing there ? " 
 
 " He is ill." 
 
 "How ill?" 
 
 " He has his arms broken from an accident." 
 
 " How did that happen ? " 
 
 " He fell from a burning warehouse." 
 
 " How did it come to be burning ? " 
 
 " It was fired by the mob." 
 
 "Were you there?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 THE PRACTICE OF THE LAW. 281 
 
 " When did you reach Dudley? " 
 
 "That afternoon." 
 
 " That will do," said the counsel, and sat down, very much 
 satisfied with himself indeed. He had achieved a distinct 
 triumph, in a very difficult position. He had traded on the 
 preference mankind has to believe evil, and had succeeded 
 beyond imagination. 
 
 The defence was hopeless. What to the simple mind of 
 Isabel was a complete answer to the accusations made against 
 her friend had been turned into a most fearful condemnation 
 of herself. Even as she left the witness-box she had no appre- 
 hension of the terrible consequences to herself of the declaration 
 she had made ; still less of the confirmation she had given to 
 the charge against her friend. She understood it later, when 
 the jury was told that her story was an obvious fabrication 
 conceived in the hope of weaving a halter for her husband's 
 neck that she might be free to marry her lover. The infamy 
 of the suggested motive appalled her. She listened, almost 
 unmoved at the accusation that the same motive accounted for 
 her presence at Dudley and the action of the incendiaries. 
 The words of Cope, in his sick room, flung at her with male- 
 dictions, returned to her, and she recognised at once the origin 
 of her new misfortunes, and the error she had made. She was 
 dumb with horror, and fled from the Court with the perfect 
 certainty that all was lost. She was in no degree surprised, 
 when three hours later, the news was brought to her that 
 David Thresher was condemned to death. It was balm to 
 her, when, later in the day, she heard that his only comment 
 on her action was : 
 
 "What a fearful sacrifice! Dishonoured for nothing, and 
 worse than nothing!"
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVII. 
 
 GENEEAL AND PAETICULAR. 
 
 THE floodgates of popular opinion were opened up on the 
 morrow of the trial. The British jury in the person of the 
 entire British nation tried the case on appeal, zealously assisted 
 by the press, which started any number of contradictory 
 theories to their universal confusion. There was, however, 
 little difference of opinion on one point. Nobody seemed to 
 believe in Mrs. Cope's other man, excepting one journalist 
 who had made a school of social thought based on the assump- 
 tion that no woman was ever wrong, but always wronged, and 
 that he and his devotees were alone pure among men. These 
 accepted Mrs. Cope's other man as the only intelligible 
 explanation of the mysteries of the case, and the fact that 
 they did accept it and advocate it was a great misfortune 
 for Isabel and Thresher and all their friends, because 
 there is nothing that tells so much against one in this 
 world as the support of a discredited advocate. But so it was, 
 and the more this immaculate journalist worked his theories 
 the more the cynics smiled and turned to other things. This 
 inveterate person, however, was rather unhappy over one point. 
 Mrs. Cope had disappeared, and was nowhere to be seen or 
 heard of. He wanted to interview her, but she was gone. He 
 had printed her portrait. That was easy, because it was on 
 sale, along with the Bishops and notorious ladies of the ballet, 
 the prominent statesmen and the ladies of title who had also a 
 reputation for beauty. Mrs. Cope's portrait had become a 
 rage ; but it was common. Everybody knew what Mrs. Cope 
 was like, but she had never been interviewed, and what every 
 journalist wants is something that nobody else has got or can 
 get. That's why so many of them print what is not true. It 
 is hardly in accordance with the fitness of things that because 
 a lady in painful circumstances chooses to retire into privacy 
 she should be discredited ; but so it was, and by not permitting 
 herself to be interviewed she lost the energetic advocacy of the 
 purist journalist who one fine day started an entirely new
 
 GENEEAL AND PARTICULAE. 283 
 
 legend. Mrs. Cope, he announced with much circumstance 
 and carefully contrived innuendo, was being sought for by the 
 police and could nowhere be found. This was followed by 
 mention of a possible respite in view of the trial of another. 
 The language used was obscure, but sufficient to induce the 
 suggestion that Isabel was an accomplice, if not the only 
 criminal. If that did not bring her out of hiding to be inter- 
 viewed nothing would. As she did not come it may be 
 presumed that no product of a prurient imagination was equal 
 to the task of stirring her to a sense of her obligation to an 
 energetic press. 
 
 Failing Mrs. Cope they besought her father, and Mr. Crawley 
 Foyle was only too happy. It afforded him an opportunity he 
 had been looking for to publicly announce " his discardation of 
 the entire circle." He renounced his daughter, renounced 
 Thresher, renounced everybody except Cope the injured 
 Cope ; and Arthur joined him in the general renunciation for 
 a very potent reason. He had got into a very bad corner and 
 Cope was his only chance of getting out with a whole skin. 
 He had begun to revere Cope, and wondered how it was he 
 never got into bad corners. Cope once said in his hearing that 
 he supposed he was not cleverer than other people ; that he 
 only saw a little further, which Arthur Foyle thought a 
 ridiculous excess of modesty on Cope's part, and then went 
 home and bit his nails in anger because he could not see as 
 far as Cope. In this way it came to pass that Cope recruited 
 the father and the brother on his side and so helped justice 
 further on the road astray. 
 
 Cope, still bound hand and foot, was in an ecstasy at the 
 situation, and had all the newspapers read to him all day long, 
 some of them twice over, they said such disagreeable things 
 about his w if e . One of them tickled him immensely by 
 working out the idea that the poison had been intended by the 
 two lovers for himself. This theorist had imported into his 
 argument the entirely new fact that Cope had intended visiting 
 Brighton the very day of the death, and had been prevented 
 by an unexpected piece of business. He had the article cut 
 out and pasted on a card that he might read it himself it 
 pleased him so much, and he alternated the reading of it with 
 other special gems of thought of the same character. He
 
 284 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 suffered no interruption of this pastime except a visit from 
 Shorter, and occasionally he vented an outburst of imprecation 
 when by chance a sympathetic chord was struck at variance 
 with his views, for there were a few a very few who by 
 a process of abstract reasoning declined to admit the possibility 
 of a heinous crime without the appropriate seed and soil. 
 
 But almost all the forces that controlled the movement of the 
 social life were dead against the wretched man, who looked to 
 death as a relief from what had come to be a world of hopeless 
 misery for him ; for what could wealth or faithful friends do 
 for one saturated with the recollection of the hollowness, un- 
 soundness, and determined error of the public mind and of the 
 impotence of man against a combination of adverse facts that 
 the Omniscient alone could construe in the absence of the 
 hidden key ; and this was Cope's secret. Thresher became a 
 fatalist as he brooded in his condemned cell. It is thus he 
 reasoned that men and women win or lose, prosper or decay, 
 not as they design nor as they work ; nor are they helped by 
 others or thrown back from motives pertinent to the matter 
 of their lives ; but here and there a blow is struck or a helping 
 hand is given, because another with another purpose striving 
 on another mission thinks the act will serve him in that 
 other mission, reckless of the good or harm his selfish act 
 may do. His misery was complete, for he had cherished 
 ambitions for the good of his fellow men and his arm had been 
 paralyzed as if by a lightning stroke. A victim of falsehood, 
 fraud, and the crimes of others may surely be excused a 
 feeling of satisfaction at the approach of death save only that 
 the end was associated with dishonour.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXVIII. 
 
 SILAS W. OMAH AERIVES. 
 
 THE disappearance of Mrs. Cope from the public eye was 
 another of Mr Louison's triumphs. It was natural that Isabel 
 should have sought a refuge in Maida Lodge ; and it delighted 
 Mr. Louison to know that the seclusion it afforded could be put 
 to so good a purpose. Jacobs and her mistress entered Maida 
 Lodge at night by the wall that had not opened since Thresher's 
 departure to give himself up to the police. They arrived late 
 on the night of the trial, and it pleased the old man to leave 
 them in almost exclusive possession of the wing that he 
 formerly appropriated to his own use. 
 
 Most sensible people applauded Isabel's seclusion, even the 
 cynical said it was another mark of her cleverness, and Mr. 
 Ware, her ever faithful counsellor, commended it as an act of 
 wisdom. 
 
 Consequent upon the retirement of Mrs. Cope the house 
 in Park Lane was given up. The personal effects of Isabel 
 were packed and stored, and those of Cope, being very 
 few, were sent by train to Dudley. Their arrival at the Hotel 
 caused him some thought, which he concluded with a sardonic 
 grin and the remark : 
 
 " Close of the account ! He'll be hanged next week, and 
 then I shall have a receipt in full." 
 
 Cope's exultation would have been vastly increased if he 
 could have had ocular demonstration of the concern of his 
 opponents. There was much to plan and to do, for hope 
 had not wholly deserted them. The lawyers were the less 
 sanguine, because they appreciated more accurately the diffi- 
 culties in the path they each and all resolved in their 
 secret hearts to go ; but although the lawyers were less 
 sanguine, they knew the road better, and happily for all con- 
 cerned no doubt existed in the minds of any of the four of the 
 singleness of purpose of the rest. 
 
 The counsels were many and prolonged. Eales practically 
 regulated them ; and once or twice his rigid guidance
 
 286 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 gave rise to remonstrance on the ground of lack of 
 zeal. But there was exceedingly little to work on practi- 
 cally nothing. 
 
 There was no longer any need of reticence on Isabel's part. 
 She could declare now, without fear of misconception among 
 her friends, that she had no doubt whatever as to who 
 was the visitor who entered the house at Brighton while 
 Thresher was with her. It was Cope, and no other than 
 Cope. His figure, his walk, his manner, his clothes were all 
 too vividly present to her mind had been too forcibly 
 impressed there to admit of a single doubt. Her hesitation 
 and expressed fear of error had been dictated only by the 
 knowledge that her motive might be misconstrued. Unhap- 
 pily that caution had told against her, for her hesitation had 
 been construed as an avoidance of actual perjury. That, in 
 the light of succeeding events, was construed as a distinct blot 
 in the case ; but how would a bold and open declaration 
 unequivocal and immediate, have been construed, in the 
 absence of any evidence to show that Cope had left Halesowen 
 during that night. Of this there was none. It could merely 
 be said there were trains he could have caught; but as 
 matters stood, he was believed to have slept in his warehouse, 
 huddled in his hammock, on the night he was seen by 
 Isabel ; and none but Isabel could be found to say they had 
 seen him, from three o'clock the afternoon before until noon 
 the next day, on any part of the route or anywhere at all. 
 
 The negation was valuable, but wholly insufficient, and, 
 despite all search, nothing more could be made of it. One 
 new fact had been gathered, but that it was deemed prudent 
 to conceal. Some egg shells had been found lodged in a street 
 drain at Brighton, of an apparent age corresponding with those 
 that had been removed from Miss 
 Winscomb's house. The eggs had 
 been apparently broken upon the 
 grating, and had been partly forced 
 through into the drain which was 
 on the road from the house to 
 Thresher's hotel. Obviously nothing 
 
 could be made of this by his friends. Wild schemes of going to 
 the Queen were discussed and were gradually pared down to the
 
 SILAS W. OMAH AEEIVES. 
 
 287 
 
 meagre aspect of a visit to the Home Secretary, and then 
 abandoned in the absence of support from the Judge. The 
 prospect was black indeed. 
 
 Matters were at this pass within a week of the day fixed 
 for the execution when Cheriton answered a timid knock 
 at the front door of Maida Lodge. It was Slipper, the dis- 
 reputable-looking clerk to Mr. Eales, who had brought a 
 stranger with him anxious to see his master. The stranger 
 was tall and dark, with black curly hair 
 and black eyes that glistened. He was 
 decidedly handsome, but careless about 
 his appearance, and evidently a pushing 
 man, for he soon supplanted Slipper in 
 the conduct of his mission. 
 
 " I've come, my friend," said he to 
 Cheriton, with a hoarse voice, for he had 
 a bad cold, "from the United States to 
 see Mr. Eales, and I want to go back as 
 soon as possible. Can I see him now?" 
 
 Cheriton said he would find out, and 
 took the stranger's card, which bore 
 upon it, 
 
 "Silas W. Omah, 
 
 " Lawyer, 
 " Topeka, Kansas, U.S." 
 
 The stranger and Slipper followed Cheriton to the upper 
 vestibule, and, looking around, the American gave expression in 
 slow and measured tones to his views. 
 
 '' My friend," said he, " this is a grand old house. We 
 don't grow 'em like this in Kansas yet. This is a house that 
 seems to have been going on some time. It's solid and 
 is calculated to make a man feel comfortable and established 
 when he looks around. There's a good deal in your country, 
 my friend, of this sort of thing to be proud of, because you 
 can't buy it. You must grow it." 
 
 Slipper turned his active eye upon the stranger, wreathed a 
 timid smile among the grime on his face, and muttered in 
 guttural tones : 
 
 " Eeal property."
 
 288 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " Quite so," said the stranger, " This country is real. It's 
 all wood. You're a sight too solid and comfortable, and 
 that's why you're so darned hard to get set agoing." 
 
 Slipper did his best to straighten himself up for the honour 
 of his country, and feeling a response was necessary, also 
 for the honour of the country, said with more vigour than 
 usual : 
 
 " It's safer." 
 
 " Xo doubt," said the American, "safer, quieter, easier, but 
 it ain't inspiritin'." 
 
 At this point Eales appeared, and enquired his business. 
 
 "My business is very simple, sir," said the American, 
 addressing Eales. " I have come from the States for a client of 
 mine to see Mr. Joshua Cope, and I don't want to trouble 
 you further than to let me know where I can come along with 
 him. I see by the papers you have had some business with 
 him. Isn't that so ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Eales, cautiously ; " I have relations with him ; 
 I am not instructed to ask your business, but I should be glad 
 to assist you." 
 
 " No, sir," said the American, promptly. " You cannot 
 have been instructed, because Mr. Cope doesn't know I'm 
 coming to see him. If my interview doesn't pan out, I'll 
 come back and see you." 
 
 Eales had no alternative. He gave the address and stated 
 the condition of the old reprobate. The information had a 
 striking effect upon the American, who, however, avoided any 
 open mark of concern, and would have wound up the interview 
 by expressing his obligations, but Eales continued by asking a 
 question of much moment to his friends : 
 
 " You have not come on any mission," said he, " connected 
 with a recent trial in which Mrs. Cope, his wife, has appeared ? 
 Eh?" 
 
 "No, sir; my business is quite private with Mr. Cope. I 
 shall be glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Eales, if my 
 business with Mr. Cope enables me to return to you. Good 
 morning, sir." 
 
 The American left the house with Slipper and renewed the 
 conversation which Eales had interrupted. He continued to 
 lavish compliments on the institutions of the country, and
 
 SILAS W. OMAH AERIVES. 289 
 
 Slipper rose to the situation as far as he was able. Although 
 his answers were monosyllabic, they were very much to the 
 point, and the American not only accepted them, but in some 
 cases expanded and embellished them. Slipper was elated 
 with a feeling of national pride, and for the first time in 
 his life experienced dissatisfaction with the state of his 
 boots. He felt they were unbecoming in themselves, and 
 in no sense fit for the representative of the British nation ; 
 but he shambled along by the side of the tall stranger and 
 tried to forget his personal shortcomings in his pride of 
 nationality. 
 
 " Say, friend," said Silas W. Omah, " where can I get a long 
 drink? You would like a long drink. That's so I " 
 
 A smile of daring, qualified by sickly doubt, broke over 
 Slipper's face. Then, turning full round to bring his right eye 
 upon his companion, he asked : 
 
 " American drinks ? " 
 
 " No, sir, British. What is your particular, Mr. Slipper?" 
 
 " Gin," was the reply. 
 
 " Then you shall have gin ; and I, well, I, my friend, will 
 have what we are unable to get on the other side with that 
 perfection to which you, my friend, attain brandy old 
 brandy." 
 
 The Kansas lawyer uttered this with an air of triumph, and 
 Slipper, quickening his pace, led his companion down a 
 narrow turning and into a very humble-looking public-house 
 known as the " Black Bull," much frequented by the inhabitants 
 of a neighbouring mews, and directed by a landlady of un- 
 impeachable integrity. Slipper knew the place well ; it was 
 the hostelry to which he had recourse on the greater occasions 
 of his life, among which he accounted this as one. He intro- 
 duced the American with confidence, and when they were 
 seated in the tap-room with their glasses he waited with calm 
 expectation for more compliments. 
 
 " Now, say, Mr. Slipper," said the American, with his 
 arms folded across his chest, and his legs stretched out 
 in front of him ; "Do you really think, now, that Mr. 
 Eales actually expected me to tell him my business with 
 Mr. Cope?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 u
 
 290 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 The American brought himself up suddenly, and faced round 
 to Slipper as if he had been struck. Leaning over the table, 
 he exclaimed : 
 
 " You surprise me." 
 
 Not being provided with a satisfactory response, Slipper 
 buried his nose in his tumbler, and setting the glass dowii r 
 coughed. 
 
 " You see," said Silas W. Omah, with increasing earnestness, 
 " I don't know Cope." 
 
 Slipper still did not see his way to a remark, and coughed 
 again. 
 
 " Now, what sort of a man is Cope? " asked the American. 
 
 Slipper shook his head, put on a grim smile, and said : 
 
 "Queer." 
 
 "Plenty of money? " 
 
 " Heaps." 
 
 " Good man of business ? " 
 
 " Tremendous." 
 
 " And what has he to do with friend Eales ? " 
 
 Slipper this time gave a little nervous cough, and, Omah 
 noticing that the glass had been emptied, drained his own, 
 and ordered duplicates. Then Slipper ventured his arms on 
 the table, and said in a hoarse whisper : 
 
 " Eales and me manage the Tontine that Cope's a 
 member of." 
 
 " The devil you do," exclaimed the American. " Give me 
 your hand on that. I've business with Cope, and you just 
 make me feel real good when you say he's wealthy and full of 
 beans. You think he'll win, eh? " 
 
 Slipper shook his head, and grinned. 
 
 " Fairish chance," said he ; but no questioning would induce 
 him to go further in his opinion ; and after some general con- 
 versation, an examination of the time-table, and deliverance oi 
 Slipper's views as to the route, the two parted. 
 
 Omah was in Dudley that night sleeping within a few 
 rooms of Joshua Cope, who was still engaged in the 
 pleasurable contemplation of Thresher's misfortunes and 
 Mrs. Cope's discomfiture. The American seemed to be in no 
 great haste, breakfasted late, and perambulated the hotel 
 listlessly. He had observed the nurse, noted the room of the
 
 SILAS W. OMAH AEBIVES. 291 
 
 invalid, and finally resolved upon action. He commenced 
 with the waiter when taking lunch. 
 Said he : 
 
 "There's somebody up stairs seems to be pretty bad 
 James, eh?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, Mr. Cope burnt in the fire ; very bad, sir. Mr. 
 Cope'll never walk about any more, sir, except with a crutch." 
 
 "You don't say. Well, that's cruel," said the sympathetic 
 Omah. " And there's a nurse attending him." 
 
 " Two nurses." 
 
 " Not both on duty ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; one by day and t'other by night." 
 
 " They lift him about, I suppose." 
 
 " He can't move himself, anyways," said James. 
 
 " You don't say. Now, that is cruel. I suppose, James, if 
 you was to go into his room and call him names, he wouldn't 
 get up to punch your head ? " 
 
 James grinned, and presently the American added : 
 
 "People hereabout don't seem over sorry for him. He 
 wasn't too popular." 
 
 James regarded a dish of potatoes in his hand with a 
 malevolent countenance and shook them about as he ejacu- 
 lated, 
 
 "Popular? Likely! Not the sort," and various other 
 satirical comments indicative of Cope's standing and repu- 
 tation. 
 
 Omah's next proceeding was to waylay Mrs. Betts, the 
 nurse, in the corridor, and said he : 
 
 "My good lady, you see before you a very unfortunate 
 young man. I've come all the way from the United States 
 to see Mr. Cope for one minute and three-quarters, and now I 
 find he's very ill. I want to see him for just one minute and 
 three-quarters, and then I go straight back to the States 
 right away after that one minute and three-quarters. 
 
 Mrs. Betts looked grave, said she was very sorry, quoted the 
 doctor's orders : perfect quiet and no visitors. 
 
 " My good lady, you're a model nurse. You're going on a 
 little errand I suppose. Chicken broth, eh ? Now would you 
 just put this little coin into your reticule in acknowledgment of 
 your care and attention in the case of my dear friend Cope ; 
 
 u 2
 
 292 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 and if you can arrange anything for me send word to number 
 twenty-seven. Just one minute and three-quarters, Mrs. Betts 
 no more." 
 
 Mrs. Betts said she would think about it. The American 
 watched her down the corridor, and the moment after 
 she had disappeared he walked into the invalid's room 
 unannounced. 
 
 "Well, Abe Shorrocks, my friend, it's a long time since we 
 met." 
 
 The head lying on the pillow gave as it were a leap, and 
 ejaculated : 
 
 " We've never met : who are you ? " 
 
 " Sir," was the response, with an air of offended dignity. 
 " My name is Silas W. Omah," and here the tall American 
 stopped to gauge the effect. He was not disappointed with 
 the sudden jerk the head made as it lay on the pillow, and 
 then he said : 
 
 " Lawyer of Topeka, Kansas ; son of Ozias Omah, of 
 Massachusetts, and once of New York city, sir." 
 
 The yellow and somewhat parched and crinkled visage, ill- 
 shaven, and hollow-eyed lay stolid and unmoved, but obviously 
 impressed at the words. Being addressed as " Shorrocks " had 
 troubled him, but the name of Ozias Omah reduced the 
 yellow to a pallid hue. 
 
 " What do you want with me? " asked the head. 
 
 "I've come," said the imperturbable Silas W. Omah, "to 
 revive a family association. That is all." 
 
 " Then you've come to the wrong man," said Cope, 
 nervously. 
 
 " No, sir. You're Shorrocks, and I'm right. I've not come 
 from Topeka, Kansas, straight here without knowing my man. 
 No, sir." 
 
 " What do you want with Shorrocks? " asked Cope. 
 
 " I want Shorrocks, meaning you, my friend, in connection 
 with a little partnership account of long standing, and which 
 to all appearances has prospered in the matter of dollars ; and 
 my client, who happens to be my father, would like his 
 share." 
 
 The head rocked to and fro in token of dissent, but there was 
 no answer.
 
 SILAS W. OMAH ARKIVES. 293 
 
 " You don't appear to be well ; I don't want to inconvenience 
 you, but I must get back home pretty smart, and I must have 
 a settlement." 
 
 " I'm very ill," groaned Cope, who looked far worse than he 
 was. " I shan't live a day if I'm worried, they say. My feet 
 burnt off and my arms both broken." 
 
 " And a nasty gash on the face," added the American, 
 referring to the scar. 
 
 " No," said Cope sharply. " That's old, fifty years old a 
 sabre cut." 
 
 The American grinned, and leaning over the patient took a 
 near look at it. Then he grinned again, as he said : 
 
 "Not much sabre, Shorrocks. I should say it was more 
 tatoo than sabre. What do you say to a flesh wound cut 
 around to shape it out, and tatoo to give it colour? What do 
 you say to the old quarter in New York fifty years ago, with 
 the real Cope finished off with opium and Tonks and Ozias 
 Omah very good friends ? What do you say to Ozias Omah 
 sitting along with me, his dutiful son and his lawyer, and 
 reading in the newspaper all about the private family history of 
 Joshua Cope who oughtn't to have had any family history for 
 fifty years all telegraphed right away for we have enter- 
 prising newspaper people in New York city ? And what do you 
 say to the old man starting up pretty much mad and yellin' 
 out ' Shorrocks, by gum ; off you go, Silas, to Europe ! It's 
 halves,' says he, ' halves, but if Tonks is alive it's thirds. 
 Hunt 'em up, Silas,' says he, ' and smart.' And then his 
 language on the subject of Shorrocks became impolite. It was 
 a partnership, Shorrocks ; and it's about time you divided up." 
 
 The haggard old man's eyes nearly started out of his head as 
 he listened to this speech, but he said nothing. Then the 
 American added : 
 
 " Think it over, Shorrocks ; I'll take a seat." 
 
 The American's voice was still hoarse, and he coughed to 
 clear his throat as he sat down. Cope turning his head, said 
 in guttural tones : 
 
 "You've got a bad cold : so have I. I'm very weak. You 
 must let me think. Come back in an hour. Send in the nurse." 
 
 " Why certainly, Shorrocks," said the American. " No one 
 could refuse a reasonable request of that sort. I'll come back
 
 294 GOLDEN LIVE S . 
 
 in an hour, and if you're not ready then, we'll have another 
 adjournment. If you're ready earlier, why, send for me. I 
 shall be near the bar." 
 
 He soon found the nurse, confidentially remarked that he 
 thought it better to see his friend without compromising her 
 in the eyes of the doctor, told her of the adjournment for an 
 hour, and retired to the bar parlour, where he commenced 
 amusing himself by initiating the florid barmaid in the 
 mysteries of mixing " a corpse reviver " for his refreshment. 
 
 The nurse found her patient by no means improved from 
 the visit, but she had not yet acquired sufficient influence over 
 him to scold without making him worse. She merely there- 
 fore shook her head at him, stroked her apron, and asked what 
 she could do for him. 
 
 " Which is the drawer that holds my clothes ? " asked Cope 
 faintly. " That's it at the bottom, eh ? Open the drawer, 
 Mrs. Betts, and look for a belt with pockets in it." 
 
 The woman did as she was bid, and soon held up a 
 substantial canvas belt with two pockets in it, one on 
 each side. 
 
 " Open the pocket on the left side," said Cope, " and you'll 
 find some bank notes. Take 'em out. Now count 'em." 
 
 Mrs. Betts counted out ten five pound notes and laid them 
 on the table. 
 
 "That's right, Mrs. Betts. Put them into your pocket. 
 Fifty pounds, Mrs. Betts, remember, fifty pounds. If I die 
 they are yours, but remember this, Mrs. Betts," he added with 
 energy, "if I live I'll give you ten five pound notes for every 
 one of those you have. That's five hundred. And now, Mrs. 
 Betts, go to the other pocket ; and see what you find." 
 
 "A snuffbox, sir," answered the woman, who was trembling 
 with emotion at the flood of riches that had unexpectedly 
 come in her road. She would not have been surprised if the 
 snuff box had been full of diamonds, but on opening it as 
 directed, she said it contained lozenges. 
 
 "How many? " asked Cope. 
 
 " Six," was the answer. 
 
 " Put them here on the table beside me, within reach if I 
 had arms to put towards them. Put them nearer," he added, 
 " and so that I can see them."
 
 SILAS W. OMAH ARRIVES. 295 
 
 She did so, and thought she observed a wild scared look in 
 his face, as his eye rested on the lozenges. Then he 
 ruminated, and his mouth and eyebrows twitched, and his eyes 
 glistened with mental excitement. Presently he said : 
 
 " Mrs. Betts, you've got the fifty pounds, and you remember 
 the five hundred." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Then, Mrs. Betts, you'll do as I want you." 
 
 " Lor, sir, yes ; but don't look so skeared like." 
 
 Cope laughed a hoarse little laugh and said : 
 
 " I'm not well to-night, Mrs. Betts, and I feel weaker. I 
 was only wanting you to do a very little thing. If anything 
 happens to me, Mrs. Betts, I want you to put this snuff box and 
 the lozenges into the fire before anyone comes. That's all, 
 Mrs. Betts. 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir," said the nurse. 
 
 " That's not much, Mrs. Betts." 
 
 " Oh, no, sir." 
 
 "No," he repeated, "that's not much. It's very little. 
 Now take care of the notes, Mrs. Betts, and mind you do as I 
 say. Keep me alive if you can, Mrs. Betts, but if you can't, 
 then do as I say." 
 
 He closed his eyes and seemed to take a little rest, and 
 his face hardened to something like its old form, and he 
 began to mutter to himself and set his teeth ; and Mrs. 
 Betts felt nervous, but more hopeful of her five hundred 
 pounds than she had done a few minutes before, because 
 she knew that this awakening energy was not that of a 
 dying man. 
 
 Soon afterwards the American returned, and without 
 waiting to be announced, walked into the room. At the sight 
 of him Cope set to coughing violently, and when he had 
 recovered, told Mrs. Betts to leave the room. 
 
 The American walked about in a somewhat masterful 
 manner ; and Cope watched him with curious intentness. At 
 length he said : 
 
 " What is it you want of me? " 
 
 " To divide up, my friend." 
 
 " Speak plainer : how much do you want ? " 
 
 " Five hundred thousand dollars."
 
 296 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 " And if I don't give it to you : what then ? " 
 
 " I shall go and trade with Eales." 
 
 " That won't help you." 
 
 " Not as good as tradin' with you, I reckon ; but it'll be 
 better than nothing." 
 
 The American coughed. 
 
 "All right," said Cope, "we'll trade. Take one of my 
 lozenges, it'll do your throat good, and give me one." 
 
 The American put a lozenge into Cope's mouth and two into 
 his own. As he did so, Cope was seized with coughing, and 
 threw his head round on the pillow away from the American ; 
 but the American was tall, and looking over, he saw that the 
 lozenge he had given Cope had fallen out of his mouth, and 
 that the sick man, with a dexterous twist of the neck, had 
 almost hidden it from view. Quick as thought, he spat the 
 two lozenges on the floor, and said : 
 
 " Shorrocks, I always follow a good example." 
 
 A look of fright passed over Cope's face, as he gasped : 
 "What?" 
 
 " A good example, Shorrocks. Those lozenges are evidently 
 not good for your digestion, and they may accordingly disagree 
 with me. They remind me of those eggs that the ladies of 
 Brighton succumbed to, eh ? I think I'll take charge of your 
 supply." 
 
 And saying this, he took the snuff-box from the table, and 
 with much deliberation picked up the two lozenges he had 
 thrown on the floor. While he was doing this, Cope twisted 
 his head over, recovered the lozenge he had spat on the pillow, 
 and swallowed it. 
 
 The American proceeded in a deliberate manner to wrap up 
 the two lozenges in paper before he put them with the rest, 
 accompanying the action with several sarcastic remarks, such 
 as : "I opine a cough is preferable to the medicine." " There 
 are some cures worse than the disease." " Always keep your 
 eyes on Shorrocks is a good rule." With this, he looked up, 
 and found Cope staring at him with glazed eyes, and a 
 hideously di&torted face. He was dead.
 
 CHAPTEE XXXIX. 
 
 SILAS W. OMAH " OWNS UP A BUSTED FLUSH." 
 
 SILAS W. OMAH, Lawyer, of Topeka, Kansas, found himself 
 in a difficult position. To be in the room of a sick and 
 helpless man alone, and to be found there a quarter of an-hour 
 after with the man dead, was a position that required expla- 
 nation, especially as Silas W. Omah held in his hand the 
 instrument of Death ; and more especially since Dr. Prod, Mr. 
 Eales, and the nurse, all appeared in a body at the door before 
 he had sufficiently realised the irksomeness of the situation. 
 He soon recovered, however, and looking at the new comers, 
 said : 
 
 "Well, gents, if you had come a little sooner, you might 
 have prevented a catastrophe. Shorrocks has just given in his 
 cheques ; and this snuff-box '11 tell yer how, for I'm denied if 
 I know." 
 
 The doctor passed rapidly to the bedside, the nurse turned 
 pale with fright at the sight of the snuff-box in the American's 
 hand, and impulsively crossed the room with a vague idea of 
 getting possession of the box. Eales stood apart, gradually 
 acquiring conception of the incident. Professional instinct 
 caused him to remain with his back to the door. 
 
 " I told you, Mr. Eales," said the American, as soon as the 
 first excitement had subsided, " that if my trading with Cope 
 didn't pan out, that I should come back to you ; it has not 
 panned out, and it seems you've saved me the trouble of going 
 south. You've been straight and fair with me, Mr. Eales, and 
 I may as well tell you that, now Shorrocks is dead, I'm played 
 out, and propose to find my way back to Topeka, Kansas, 
 right away." 
 
 Eales explained he could scarcely do that in the circum- 
 stances, and when this had become quite clear to him, he 
 resigned himself to the situation. 
 
 The necessary inquiries followed, the nurse confessed to the 
 circumstances of the snuff-box, and its contents explained, not 
 only the death of the patient, but provided the necessary key
 
 300 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 to the Brighton mystery. It is needless to add that it opened 
 the door of the condemned cell to Thresher. The British 
 public thereupon commenced a series of indignant remon- 
 strances at the practice of the law, on the assumption that it 
 ought to be omniscient and unerring, notwithstanding it was 
 the creation of the critics themselves. The revulsion of public 
 sentiment was complete, and Isabel became the idol of the 
 hour. 
 
 Silas W. Omah took a more matter-of-fact view of the 
 situation, and on a subsequent occasion when Eales was urging 
 him to stay, that Thresher might thank him for his part in 
 the business, he replied : 
 
 " Mr. Eales, you've been very good and straightforward to 
 me, and have won fair. I can't raise you, Mr. Eales, and I 
 can't even pay to see 'cause you've got a straight flush to an 
 ace, and I've nothing but a busted flush knave high. I've 
 made a bad draw ; and I hope your luck '11 hold on, as I shan't 
 be here to steer against it. I didn't come here to serve you ; 
 and I wasn't extra anxious to help your friend Thresher out of 
 a bad hole, specially because I didn't know he was in it till I 
 got here. I'm glad he's likely to be put right, and I'm glad 
 I've been the means, but I never meant to do him a good turn, 
 and I've no claim on him. Still, as you say he'd like to see 
 me, I'll stop just to shake hands, and then I'm off." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Omah," said Eales, suppressing a smile, " I'm 
 not a poker player, and cannot quite appreciate your simile ; 
 but I sympathise with you, and I hope my sympathy will not 
 ba altogether barren. You've come a long journey on a 
 mission of your own, and you have failed by an accident, 
 which you could not control, and which none of us could 
 foresee." 
 
 "Well, sir, I was warned," said the American, in a melan- 
 choly manner. " The last words the old man said to me, as I 
 came away, was a warning, true as any words man spoke. 
 Said he, ' Silas, boy,' says he, ' remember Shorrocks is up to 
 all the cussedness that ever entered the soul of man and 
 more.' I made a mistake, sir; I should have pretended to 
 swallow those lozenges, as Cope did, and I should not have let 
 him know I saw his on the pillow. That move would have 
 given him fits, eh ? "
 
 SILAS W. OMAH " OWNS UP A BUSTED FLUSH." 301 
 
 The American was much amused by this reflection, but the 
 melancholy tone returned, as he said : 
 
 " But there was more than that. You see that his game 
 was up. What could a man do without feet, and both arms 
 broken, at the age of seventy, and more. He had made up his 
 mind to turn off the steam on the first hitch, and the first 
 hitch came when I saw that lozenge on his pillow. Turn 
 over in your mind, Mr. Eales, where he would have been now, 
 if he hadn't swallowed that lozenge besides, his arms would 
 not mend the doctor had told him the bone was past mending. 
 It wouldn't join up." 
 
 Omah's interview with Thresher was equally characteristic. 
 He repeated his protestation that he had come with no good 
 intention, but with absolute indifference to Thresher's fate. 
 
 " Then," said Thresher, still holding Silas W. Omah by the 
 hand, " it is the hand of God." 
 
 The American looked at his newly found friend, with a 
 correspondingly serious manner, but with the matter-of-fact 
 habit of his people, he answered : 
 
 " Well sir I'm not quite sure about the hand of God, unless 
 you think a pair of aces up the sleeve a part of your notion o:
 
 302 GOLDEN LIVES. 
 
 that sort of thing. But look here, sir, I'm very glad to see 
 you outside of your Tombs here," he added, heartily shaking 
 Thresher's hand, with both his own ; and then with his arms 
 folded across his chest and taking a full survey of the company, 
 he said : 
 
 " But, as I told your friend Eales, the other day, I didn't 
 come here to serve you. I came to grind my own axe, and, it's 
 no use to disguise the truth. If I had succeeded, you, my friends, 
 would have been the losers. I'm very glad you're not mad 
 with me for doing my best to win." 
 
 They were by no means " mad," and Eales made many 
 proffers of compensation for his time and trouble, all of which 
 Omah refused, saying Eales had played straight and fair, and 
 there was nothing due to him. He left the country in the same 
 mind, made money at poker on the way across the Atlantic, and 
 had only one misgiving his father's reception of him. It was, 
 however, boisterously cordial, and a positive welcome of praises. 
 Five hundred thousand dollars had been telegraphed to the 
 old man, on the order of Silas W. Omah, and Silas, guessing 
 its origin, came to the conclusion to refrain from explanation. 
 What amazed the old man, however, was that his son had 
 managed so successfully, seeing Shorrocks had poisoned himself. 
 But Silas merely smiled. 
 
 Joshua Cope's death affected others. Immediately it came 
 to the ears of Crawley Foyle he sent for Shorter, made him a 
 partner of Schrieber & Co. in five minutes, and thereafter 
 occurred a vigorous burning of partnership accounts on both 
 sides. The wisdom of this activity was apparent shortly 
 afterwards in the smiling countenance and air of repose that 
 characterised the member for Buckton, whose sense of 
 moral rectitude obliged him, so he said, to refrain from 
 intercourse with his daughter, a course that Arthur Foyle, 
 from equally cogent reasons of his own, was mean enough to 
 subscribe to. 
 
 As for Shorter, he gradually assumed the manners of a 
 successful City merchant, whose penurious habits were 
 regarded as a natural accompaniment of great wealth. He 
 gave up preaching, but was in hopes of soon becoming another 
 Providence for the correction of the improvident habits of the 
 Foyle family.
 
 SILAS W. OMAH " OWNS UP A BUSTED FLUSH." 303 
 
 Isabel, in the circumstances, was superior to the hypocrisy 
 of mourning, or the affectation of widowhood. She married 
 Thresher in a week from his liberation. Soon afterwards 
 Eales arranged a deed winding up the Tontine for the benefit 
 of old Louison and Miss Winscomb, with remainder to David 
 Thresher in trust for certain benevolent purposes. Miss 
 Winscomb said it seemed like a marriage settlement, and 
 she waited only for the consent of Martha to name the 
 wedding dav.
 
 POSTSCEIPT. 
 
 A FRIENDLY critic has remarked upon the mechanical contrivance referred 
 to in the twenty-ninth chapter of this book, and has not only objected to 
 the possibility of so constructing a secret doorway in a stone wall, but has 
 still more doubted the possibility of setting up such a contrivance without 
 the fact of the structure becoming notorious through the gossip of the 
 workmen employed. The singular character of the arrangement, it has 
 been pointed out, would have provoked interest and discussion ; and the 
 doorway, so far from remaining a secret entrance, would have become an 
 object of special interest and one of the sights of the neighbourhood. 
 
 In the absence of a detailed description of the structure, it is more than 
 likely many others would share this view, but the temptation to hamper 
 the story by an elaborate description of the design of the doorway and the 
 manner in which it was put up was successfully resisted, for while a 
 comparatively few may be desirous of wading through half a dozen pages 
 on such a matter, the many prefer that an author should have a due 
 regard for proportion, especially in a work that has been designed to 
 present situations dramatically in the fewest possible words. It is proper, 
 however, to deal with this mechanical curiosity in a postscript for the 
 satisfaction of those who are curious on the subject. 
 
 From the plans and papers relating to this matter, carefully preserved 
 in Mr. Louison's library, it appears that when he first conceived the idea 
 of procuring for himself a secret exit from Maida Lodge, he procured 
 through the elder Bales a detailed plan and specification of the door 
 of a strong room, which should open inwards, and the hinge of which 
 should be set back two feet from the plane of the door's face, and 
 six inches from the jam, so that the hinge would cause the entire 
 doorway to move in a curve on an eccentric axis. He required also 
 that the door should be in the form of a hollow box one foot deep, 
 so that, as he said, he could construct within it a wooden cupboard, 
 which should conceal its character. The fact that he had no in- 
 tention of doing this was carefully concealed from everyone, even the 
 elder Bales. He acted throughout, indeed, on a principle of intentional 
 concealment of his object, and, as will be seen from what follows, each 
 contributor to this curious structure was employed to do a thing which was 
 in most cases reasonable and intelligible in itself, and, so far as they could 
 judge, a complete job. The specification for the iron doorway to this pro- 
 posed strong room prescribed that the doorway should run back on rollers, 
 that the iron track on which these rollers ran should be joined to, and if 
 possible, be cast bodily with the frame on which the doorway was hinged, 
 and that the frame was to be so made that it could be built into the left- 
 hand wall of the strong room. All these conditions were complied with, 
 the strong room door was made, paid for, and, having been packed in two 
 separate cases, was warehoused in the south of London, three miles froir 
 
 The next step was to have a wall built round the house, and the 
 contract prescribed that the blocks of stone should all be eighteen inches 
 square by four feet long ; they were all to be bevelled two inches on th 
 face and worked so as to show a bevel on the face of two inches all round 
 each stone. What struck the builder as singular on this point was a
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 further stipulation that the bevel should at one end be continued the 
 whole width of the block, while at the other end, it should cease at the 
 end of two inches, and that after this, the stone should be bevelled at 
 right angles to that bevel so as to fit its neighbour. The horizontal 
 section of these stones therefore presented the following singular form. 
 
 No stones of any other form and size were to be used, except stones of 
 less length at the corners of the street, and so the wall was built 
 within twelve months of the warehousing of the iron door of the 
 proposed strong room. 
 
 When this work was completed, and the contractor had finally removed 
 his workmen and plant, Mr. Louison caused another mason to begin 
 another work the building of two inner walls at right angles to the 
 outer wall, and so as to connect the outer wall with the house throughout 
 the whole depth of the house. This enclosure, so constructed between 
 the house and the wall, was divided into three separate chambers ; and 
 doorways were made to gain access from the gardens to the two outer 
 chambers, but the middle chamber was a sealed vault. 
 
 This done, and the workmen dismissed, another mason was called in 
 to make a doorway from the basement of the house into the middle of 
 the three chambers built between the house and the garden wall. Then 
 the iron doorway, after eighteen months' warehousing, was brought to 
 Maida Lodge packed in the two cases, and an exact copy of the box-like 
 door was made in wood for the purpose of easy handling and carried 
 into the inner chamber, where a mason chiselled away various portions 
 of the inside of the five stones and fitted them to occupy and fill the 
 interior of the box-like wooden copy of the door. Thereafter the iron 
 door itself was fitted to the five stones, and joined to them by bolts, 
 and there it stood a fixture and actually a part of the wall. 
 
 The next step was the introduction of an engineer to fit the framework 
 of the door, and the first man who came refused the job because he 
 declined to do so absurd a thing as fit up a door that obviously would not 
 move. Another more complaisant engineer was discovered, and the work 
 was done. 
 
 The interior arrangements having been thus completed, the final 
 operation of actually opening and swinging the door remained to be done, 
 and it became necessary to do this by the hand of Cheriton alone. An 
 enclosure or hoarding on the outside of the wall was necessary to conceal 
 the operations from the passers by, and to procure this an order was 
 given to a mason to construct a fireplace and chimney in one of the outer 
 chambers. Under cover of this hoarding Mr. Louison and his man 
 Cheriton, between them, passed a saw through the bevilled interstices 
 of the five stones held in the iron door and the work was complete. 
 A little later the unnecessary chimney was removed and the top of it 
 closed with a stone slab. 
 
 Altogether, tho work was spread over two years, and cost about a 
 thousand pounds, apart from the cost of the wall itself, but time and cost 
 were never considered by Mr. Louison when engaged in working out a 
 scheme that gratified his passion for realising an ingenious and secret 
 enterprise.