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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Novels, by Wilkie Collins
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Little Novels
+
+Author: Wilkie Collins
+
+Posting Date: October 15, 2008 [EBook #1630]
+Release Date: February, 1999
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE NOVELS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Rusk
+
+
+
+
+
+LITTLE NOVELS
+
+By Wilkie Collins
+
+
+
+
+MRS. ZANT AND THE GHOST.
+
+I.
+
+THE course of this narrative describes the return of a disembodied
+spirit to earth, and leads the reader on new and strange ground.
+
+Not in the obscurity of midnight, but in the searching light of day, did
+the supernatural influence assert itself. Neither revealed by a vision,
+nor announced by a voice, it reached mortal knowledge through the sense
+which is least easily self-deceived: the sense that feels.
+
+The record of this event will of necessity produce conflicting
+impressions. It will raise, in some minds, the doubt which reason
+asserts; it will invigorate, in other minds, the hope which faith
+justifies; and it will leave the terrible question of the destinies of
+man, where centuries of vain investigation have left it--in the dark.
+
+Having only undertaken in the present narrative to lead the way along a
+succession of events, the writer declines to follow modern examples by
+thrusting himself and his opinions on the public view. He returns to
+the shadow from which he has emerged, and leaves the opposing forces of
+incredulity and belief to fight the old battle over again, on the old
+ground.
+
+II.
+
+THE events happened soon after the first thirty years of the present
+century had come to an end.
+
+On a fine morning, early in the month of April, a gentleman of middle
+age (named Rayburn) took his little daughter Lucy out for a walk in the
+woodland pleasure-ground of Western London, called Kensington Gardens.
+
+The few friends whom he possessed reported of Mr. Rayburn (not unkindly)
+that he was a reserved and solitary man. He might have been more
+accurately described as a widower devoted to his only surviving child.
+Although he was not more than forty years of age, the one pleasure which
+made life enjoyable to Lucy's father was offered by Lucy herself.
+
+Playing with her ball, the child ran on to the southern limit of the
+Gardens, at that part of it which still remains nearest to the old
+Palace of Kensington. Observing close at hand one of those spacious
+covered seats, called in England "alcoves," Mr. Rayburn was reminded
+that he had the morning's newspaper in his pocket, and that he might do
+well to rest and read. At that early hour the place was a solitude.
+
+"Go on playing, my dear," he said; "but take care to keep where I can
+see you."
+
+Lucy tossed up her ball; and Lucy's father opened his newspaper. He
+had not been reading for more than ten minutes, when he felt a familiar
+little hand laid on his knee.
+
+"Tired of playing?" he inquired--with his eyes still on the newspaper.
+
+"I'm frightened, papa."
+
+He looked up directly. The child's pale face startled him. He took her
+on his knee and kissed her.
+
+"You oughtn't to be frightened, Lucy, when I am with you," he said,
+gently. "What is it?" He looked out of the alcove as he spoke, and saw a
+little dog among the trees. "Is it the dog?" he asked.
+
+Lucy answered:
+
+"It's not the dog--it's the lady."
+
+The lady was not visible from the alcove.
+
+"Has she said anything to you?" Mr. Rayburn inquired.
+
+"No."
+
+"What has she done to frighten you?"
+
+The child put her arms round her father's neck.
+
+"Whisper, papa," she said; "I'm afraid of her hearing us. I think she's
+mad."
+
+"Why do you think so, Lucy?"
+
+"She came near to me. I thought she was going to say something. She
+seemed to be ill."
+
+"Well? And what then?"
+
+"She looked at me."
+
+There, Lucy found herself at a loss how to express what she had to say
+next--and took refuge in silence.
+
+"Nothing very wonderful, so far," her father suggested.
+
+"Yes, papa--but she didn't seem to see me when she looked."
+
+"Well, and what happened then?"
+
+"The lady was frightened--and that frightened me. I think," the child
+repeated positively, "she's mad."
+
+It occurred to Mr. Rayburn that the lady might be blind. He rose at once
+to set the doubt at rest.
+
+"Wait here," he said, "and I'll come back to you."
+
+But Lucy clung to him with both hands; Lucy declared that she was afraid
+to be by herself. They left the alcove together.
+
+The new point of view at once revealed the stranger, leaning against the
+trunk of a tree. She was dressed in the deep mourning of a widow. The
+pallor of her face, the glassy stare in her eyes, more than accounted
+for the child's terror--it excused the alarming conclusion at which she
+had arrived.
+
+"Go nearer to her," Lucy whispered.
+
+They advanced a few steps. It was now easy to see that the lady was
+young, and wasted by illness--but (arriving at a doubtful conclusion
+perhaps under the present circumstances) apparently possessed of
+rare personal attractions in happier days. As the father and daughter
+advanced a little, she discovered them. After some hesitation, she left
+the tree; approached with an evident intention of speaking; and suddenly
+paused. A change to astonishment and fear animated her vacant eyes. If
+it had not been plain before, it was now beyond all doubt that she was
+not a poor blind creature, deserted and helpless. At the same time, the
+expression of her face was not easy to understand. She could hardly
+have looked more amazed and bewildered, if the two strangers who were
+observing her had suddenly vanished from the place in which they stood.
+
+Mr. Rayburn spoke to her with the utmost kindness of voice and manner.
+
+"I am afraid you are not well," he said. "Is there anything that I can
+do--"
+
+The next words were suspended on his lips. It was impossible to realize
+such a state of things; but the strange impression that she had already
+produced on him was now confirmed. If he could believe his senses, her
+face did certainly tell him that he was invisible and inaudible to the
+woman whom he had just addressed! She moved slowly away with a heavy
+sigh, like a person disappointed and distressed. Following her with his
+eyes, he saw the dog once more--a little smooth-coated terrier of the
+ordinary English breed. The dog showed none of the restless activity of
+his race. With his head down and his tail depressed, he crouched like
+a creature paralyzed by fear. His mistress roused him by a call. He
+followed her listlessly as she turned away.
+
+After walking a few paces only, she suddenly stood still.
+
+Mr. Rayburn heard her talking to herself.
+
+"Did I feel it again?" she said, as if perplexed by some doubt that awed
+or grieved her. After a while her arms rose slowly, and opened with a
+gentle caressing action--an embrace strangely offered to the empty air!
+"No," she said to herself, sadly, after waiting a moment. "More perhaps
+when to-morrow comes--no more to-day." She looked up at the clear blue
+sky. "The beautiful sunlight! the merciful sunlight!" she murmured. "I
+should have died if it had happened in the dark."
+
+Once more she called to the dog; and once more she walked slowly away.
+
+"Is she going home, papa?' the child asked.
+
+"We will try and find out," the father answered.
+
+He was by this time convinced that the poor creature was in no condition
+to be permitted to go out without some one to take care of her.
+From motives of humanity, he was resolved on making the attempt to
+communicate with her friends.
+
+III.
+
+THE lady left the Gardens by the nearest gate; stopping to lower
+her veil before she turned into the busy thoroughfare which leads to
+Kensington. Advancing a little way along the High Street, she entered a
+house of respectable appearance, with a card in one of the windows which
+announced that apartments were to let.
+
+Mr. Rayburn waited a minute--then knocked at the door, and asked if he
+could see the mistress of the house. The servant showed him into a room
+on the ground floor, neatly but scantily furnished. One little white
+object varied the grim brown monotony of the empty table. It was a
+visiting-card.
+
+With a child's unceremonious curiosity Lucy pounced on the card, and
+spelled the name, letter by letter: "Z, A, N, T," she repeated. "What
+does that mean?"
+
+Her father looked at the card, as he took it away from her, and put it
+back on the table. The name was printed, and the address was added in
+pencil: "Mr. John Zant, Purley's Hotel."
+
+The mistress made her appearance. Mr. Rayburn heartily wished himself
+out of the house again, the moment he saw her. The ways in which it
+is possible to cultivate the social virtues are more numerous and
+more varied than is generally supposed. This lady's way had apparently
+accustomed her to meet her fellow-creatures on the hard ground of
+justice without mercy. Something in her eyes, when she looked at Lucy,
+said: "I wonder whether that child gets punished when she deserves it?"
+
+"Do you wish to see the rooms which I have to let?" she began.
+
+Mr. Rayburn at once stated the object of his visit--as clearly, as
+civilly, and as concisely as a man could do it. He was conscious (he
+added) that he had been guilty perhaps of an act of intrusion.
+
+The manner of the mistress of the house showed that she entirely agreed
+with him. He suggested, however, that his motive might excuse him. The
+mistress's manner changed, and asserted a difference of opinion.
+
+"I only know the lady whom you mention," she said, "as a person of the
+highest respectability, in delicate health. She has taken my first-floor
+apartments, with excellent references; and she gives remarkably little
+trouble. I have no claim to interfere with her proceedings, and no
+reason to doubt that she is capable of taking care of herself."
+
+Mr. Rayburn unwisely attempted to say a word in his own defense.
+
+"Allow me to remind you--" he began.
+
+"Of what, sir?"
+
+"Of what I observed, when I happened to see the lady in Kensington
+Gardens."
+
+"I am not responsible for what you observed in Kensington Gardens. If
+your time is of any value, pray don't let me detain you."
+
+Dismissed in those terms, Mr. Rayburn took Lucy's hand and withdrew. He
+had just reached the door, when it was opened from the outer side. The
+Lady of Kensington Gardens stood before him. In the position which he
+and his daughter now occupied, their backs were toward the window. Would
+she remember having seen them for a moment in the Gardens?
+
+"Excuse me for intruding on you," she said to the landlady. "Your
+servant tells me my brother-in-law called while I was out. He sometimes
+leaves a message on his card."
+
+She looked for the message, and appeared to be disappointed: there was
+no writing on the card.
+
+Mr. Rayburn lingered a little in the doorway on the chance of hearing
+something more. The landlady's vigilant eyes discovered him.
+
+"Do you know this gentleman?" she said maliciously to her lodger.
+
+"Not that I remember."
+
+Replying in those words, the lady looked at Mr. Rayburn for the first
+time; and suddenly drew back from him.
+
+"Yes," she said, correcting herself; "I think we met--"
+
+Her embarrassment overpowered her; she could say no more.
+
+Mr. Rayburn compassionately finished the sentence for her.
+
+"We met accidentally in Kensington Gardens," he said.
+
+She seemed to be incapable of appreciating the kindness of his motive.
+After hesitating a little she addressed a proposal to him, which seemed
+to show distrust of the landlady.
+
+"Will you let me speak to you upstairs in my own rooms?" she asked.
+
+Without waiting for a reply, she led the way to the stairs. Mr. Rayburn
+and Lucy followed. They were just beginning the ascent to the first
+floor, when the spiteful landlady left the lower room, and called to her
+lodger over their heads: "Take care what you say to this man, Mrs. Zant!
+He thinks you're mad."
+
+Mrs. Zant turned round on the landing, and looked at him. Not a word
+fell from her lips. She suffered, she feared, in silence. Something in
+the sad submission of her face touched the springs of innocent pity in
+Lucy's heart. The child burst out crying.
+
+That artless expression of sympathy drew Mrs. Zant down the few stairs
+which separated her from Lucy.
+
+"May I kiss your dear little girl?" she said to Mr. Rayburn. The
+landlady, standing on the mat below, expressed her opinion of the value
+of caresses, as compared with a sounder method of treating young persons
+in tears: "If that child was mine," she remarked, "I would give her
+something to cry for."
+
+In the meantime, Mrs. Zant led the way to her rooms.
+
+The first words she spoke showed that the landlady had succeeded but too
+well in prejudicing her against Mr. Rayburn.
+
+"Will you let me ask your child," she said to him, "why you think me
+mad?"
+
+He met this strange request with a firm answer.
+
+"You don't know yet what I really do think. Will you give me a minute's
+attention?"
+
+"No," she said positively. "The child pities me, I want to speak to the
+child. What did you see me do in the Gardens, my dear, that surprised
+you?" Lucy turned uneasily to her father; Mrs. Zant persisted. "I first
+saw you by yourself, and then I saw you with your father," she went on.
+"When I came nearer to you, did I look very oddly--as if I didn't see
+you at all?"
+
+Lucy hesitated again; and Mr. Rayburn interfered.
+
+"You are confusing my little girl," he said. "Allow me to answer your
+questions--or excuse me if I leave you."
+
+There was something in his look, or in his tone, that mastered her. She
+put her hand to her head.
+
+"I don't think I'm fit for it," she answered vacantly. "My courage has
+been sorely tried already. If I can get a little rest and sleep, you may
+find me a different person. I am left a great deal by myself; and I have
+reasons for trying to compose my mind. Can I see you tomorrow? Or write
+to you? Where do you live?"
+
+Mr. Rayburn laid his card on the table in silence. She had strongly
+excited his interest. He honestly desired to be of some service to
+this forlorn creature--abandoned so cruelly, as it seemed, to her own
+guidance. But he had no authority to exercise, no sort of claim to
+direct her actions, even if she consented to accept his advice. As a
+last resource he ventured on an allusion to the relative of whom she had
+spoken downstairs.
+
+"When do you expect to see your brother-in-law again?" he said.
+
+"I don't know," she answered. "I should like to see him--he is so kind
+to me."
+
+She turned aside to take leave of Lucy.
+
+"Good-by, my little friend. If you live to grow up, I hope you will
+never be such a miserable woman as I am." She suddenly looked round at
+Mr. Rayburn. "Have you got a wife at home?" she asked.
+
+"My wife is dead."
+
+"And _you_ have a child to comfort you! Please leave me; you harden my
+heart. Oh, sir, don't you understand? You make me envy you!"
+
+Mr. Rayburn was silent when he and his daughter were out in the street
+again. Lucy, as became a dutiful child, was silent, too. But there are
+limits to human endurance--and Lucy's capacity for self-control gave way
+at last.
+
+"Are you thinking of the lady, papa?" she said.
+
+He only answered by nodding his head. His daughter had interrupted him
+at that critical moment in a man's reflections, when he is on the point
+of making up his mind. Before they were at home again Mr. Rayburn had
+arrived at a decision. Mrs. Zant's brother-in-law was evidently ignorant
+of any serious necessity for his interference--or he would have made
+arrangements for immediately repeating his visit. In this state of
+things, if any evil happened to Mrs. Zant, silence on Mr. Rayburn's part
+might be indirectly to blame for a serious misfortune. Arriving at that
+conclusion, he decided upon running the risk of being rudely received,
+for the second time, by another stranger.
+
+Leaving Lucy under the care of her governess, he went at once to
+the address that had been written on the visiting-card left at the
+lodging-house, and sent in his name. A courteous message was returned.
+Mr. John Zant was at home, and would be happy to see him.
+
+IV.
+
+MR. RAYBURN was shown into one of the private sitting-rooms of the
+hotel.
+
+He observed that the customary position of the furniture in a room
+had been, in some respects, altered. An armchair, a side-table, and
+a footstool had all been removed to one of the windows, and had been
+placed as close as possible to the light. On the table lay a large open
+roll of morocco leather, containing rows of elegant little instruments
+in steel and ivory. Waiting by the table, stood Mr. John Zant. He said
+"Good-morning" in a bass voice, so profound and so melodious that those
+two commonplace words assumed a new importance, coming from his lips.
+His personal appearance was in harmony with his magnificent voice--he
+was a tall, finely-made man of dark complexion; with big brilliant black
+eyes, and a noble curling beard, which hid the whole lower part of his
+face. Having bowed with a happy mingling of dignity and politeness, the
+conventional side of this gentleman's character suddenly vanished; and
+a crazy side, to all appearance, took its place. He dropped on his knees
+in front of the footstool. Had he forgotten to say his prayers that
+morning, and was he in such a hurry to remedy the fault that he had no
+time to spare for consulting appearances? The doubt had hardly suggested
+itself, before it was set at rest in a most unexpected manner. Mr. Zant
+looked at his visitor with a bland smile, and said:
+
+"Please let me see your feet."
+
+For the moment, Mr. Rayburn lost his presence of mind. He looked at the
+instruments on the side-table.
+
+"Are you a corn-cutter?" was all he could say.
+
+"Excuse me, sir," returned the polite operator, "the term you use is
+quite obsolete in our profession." He rose from his knees, and added
+modestly: "I am a Chiropodist."
+
+"I beg your pardon."
+
+"Don't mention it! You are not, I imagine, in want of my professional
+services. To what motive may I attribute the honor of your visit?"
+
+By this time Mr. Rayburn had recovered himself.
+
+"I have come here," he answered, "under circumstances which require
+apology as well as explanation."
+
+Mr. Zant's highly polished manner betrayed signs of alarm; his
+suspicions pointed to a formidable conclusion--a conclusion that shook
+him to the innermost recesses of the pocket in which he kept his money.
+
+"The numerous demands on me--" he began.
+
+Mr. Rayburn smiled.
+
+"Make your mind easy," he replied. "I don't want money. My object is to
+speak with you on the subject of a lady who is a relation of yours."
+
+"My sister-in-law!" Mr. Zant exclaimed. "Pray take a seat."
+
+Doubting if he had chosen a convenient time for his visit, Mr. Rayburn
+hesitated.
+
+"Am I likely to be in the way of persons who wish to consult you?" he
+asked.
+
+"Certainly not. My morning hours of attendance on my clients are from
+eleven to one." The clock on the mantelpiece struck the quarter-past
+one as he spoke. "I hope you don't bring me bad news?" he said, very
+earnestly. "When I called on Mrs. Zant this morning, I heard that
+she had gone out for a walk. Is it indiscreet to ask how you became
+acquainted with her?"
+
+Mr. Rayburn at once mentioned what he had seen and heard in Kensington
+Gardens; not forgetting to add a few words, which described his
+interview afterward with Mrs. Zant.
+
+The lady's brother-in-law listened with an interest and sympathy, which
+offered the strongest possible contrast to the unprovoked rudeness of
+the mistress of the lodging-house. He declared that he could only do
+justice to his sense of obligation by following Mr. Rayburn's example,
+and expressing himself as frankly as if he had been speaking to an old
+friend.
+
+"The sad story of my sister-in-law's life," he said, "will, I think,
+explain certain things which must have naturally perplexed you. My
+brother was introduced to her at the house of an Australian gentleman,
+on a visit to England. She was then employed as governess to his
+daughters. So sincere was the regard felt for her by the family that the
+parents had, at the entreaty of their children, asked her to accompany
+them when they returned to the Colony. The governess thankfully accepted
+the proposal."
+
+"Had she no relations in England?" Mr. Rayburn asked.
+
+"She was literally alone in the world, sir. When I tell you that she had
+been brought up in the Foundling Hospital, you will understand what I
+mean. Oh, there is no romance in my sister-in-law's story! She never has
+known, or will know, who her parents were or why they deserted her. The
+happiest moment in her life was the moment when she and my brother first
+met. It was an instance, on both sides, of love at first sight. Though
+not a rich man, my brother had earned a sufficient income in mercantile
+pursuits. His character spoke for itself. In a word, he altered all the
+poor girl's prospects, as we then hoped and believed, for the better.
+Her employers deferred their return to Australia, so that she might be
+married from their house. After a happy life of a few weeks only--"
+
+His voice failed him; he paused, and turned his face from the light.
+
+"Pardon me," he said; "I am not able, even yet, to speak composedly
+of my brother's death. Let me only say that the poor young wife was a
+widow, before the happy days of the honeymoon were over. That dreadful
+calamity struck her down. Before my brother had been committed to the
+grave, her life was in danger from brain-fever."
+
+Those words placed in a new light Mr. Rayburn's first fear that her
+intellect might be deranged. Looking at him attentively, Mr. Zant seemed
+to understand what was passing in the mind of his guest.
+
+"No!" he said. "If the opinions of the medical men are to be trusted,
+the result of the illness is injury to her physical strength--not injury
+to her mind. I have observed in her, no doubt, a certain waywardness of
+temper since her illness; but that is a trifle. As an example of what
+I mean, I may tell you that I invited her, on her recovery, to pay me
+a visit. My house is not in London--the air doesn't agree with me--my
+place of residence is at St. Sallins-on-Sea. I am not myself a married
+man; but my excellent housekeeper would have received Mrs. Zant with the
+utmost kindness. She was resolved--obstinately resolved, poor thing--to
+remain in London. It is needless to say that, in her melancholy
+position, I am attentive to her slightest wishes. I took a lodging
+for her; and, at her special request, I chose a house which was near
+Kensington Gardens.
+
+"Is there any association with the Gardens which led Mrs. Zant to make
+that request?"
+
+"Some association, I believe, with the memory of her husband. By the
+way, I wish to be sure of finding her at home, when I call to-morrow.
+Did you say (in the course of your interesting statement) that she
+intended--as you supposed--to return to Kensington Gardens to-morrow? Or
+has my memory deceived me?"
+
+"Your memory is perfectly accurate."
+
+"Thank you. I confess I am not only distressed by what you have told me
+of Mrs. Zant--I am at a loss to know how to act for the best. My only
+idea, at present, is to try change of air and scene. What do you think
+yourself?"
+
+"I think you are right."
+
+Mr. Zant still hesitated.
+
+"It would not be easy for me, just now," he said, "to leave my patients
+and take her abroad."
+
+The obvious reply to this occurred to Mr. Rayburn. A man of larger
+worldly experience might have felt certain suspicions, and might have
+remained silent. Mr. Rayburn spoke.
+
+"Why not renew your invitation and take her to your house at the
+seaside?" he said.
+
+In the perplexed state of Mr. Zant's mind, this plain course of action
+had apparently failed to present itself. His gloomy face brightened
+directly.
+
+"The very thing!" he said. "I will certainly take your advice. If the
+air of St. Sallins does nothing else, it will improve her health and
+help her to recover her good looks. Did she strike you as having been
+(in happier days) a pretty woman?"
+
+This was a strangely familiar question to ask--almost an indelicate
+question, under the circumstances A certain furtive expression in
+Mr. Zant's fine dark eyes seemed to imply that it had been put with a
+purpose. Was it possible that he suspected Mr. Rayburn's interest in
+his sister-in-law to be inspired by any motive which was not perfectly
+unselfish and perfectly pure? To arrive at such a conclusion as this
+might be to judge hastily and cruelly of a man who was perhaps only
+guilty of a want of delicacy of feeling. Mr. Rayburn honestly did his
+best to assume the charitable point of view. At the same time, it is not
+to be denied that his words, when he answered, were carefully guarded,
+and that he rose to take his leave.
+
+Mr. John Zant hospitably protested.
+
+"Why are you in such a hurry? Must you really go? I shall have the honor
+of returning your visit to-morrow, when I have made arrangements to
+profit by that excellent suggestion of yours. Good-by. God bless you."
+
+He held out his hand: a hand with a smooth surface and a tawny color,
+that fervently squeezed the fingers of a departing friend. "Is that man
+a scoundrel?" was Mr. Rayburn's first thought, after he had left the
+hotel. His moral sense set all hesitation at rest--and answered: "You're
+a fool if you doubt it."
+
+V.
+
+DISTURBED by presentiments, Mr. Rayburn returned to his house on foot,
+by way of trying what exercise would do toward composing his mind.
+
+The experiment failed. He went upstairs and played with Lucy; he drank
+an extra glass of wine at dinner; he took the child and her governess
+to a circus in the evening; he ate a little supper, fortified by another
+glass of wine, before he went to bed--and still those vague forebodings
+of evil persisted in torturing him. Looking back through his past life,
+he asked himself if any woman (his late wife of course excepted!) had
+ever taken the predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had
+assumed--without any discernible reason to account for it? If he had
+ventured to answer his own question, the reply would have been: Never!
+
+All the next day he waited at home, in expectation of Mr. John Zant's
+promised visit, and waited in vain.
+
+Toward evening the parlor-maid appeared at the family tea-table, and
+presented to her master an unusually large envelope sealed with black
+wax, and addressed in a strange handwriting. The absence of stamp and
+postmark showed that it had been left at the house by a messenger.
+
+"Who brought this?" Mr. Rayburn asked.
+
+"A lady, sir--in deep mourning."
+
+"Did she leave any message?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+Having drawn the inevitable conclusion, Mr. Rayburn shut himself up in
+his library. He was afraid of Lucy's curiosity and Lucy's questions, if
+he read Mrs. Zant's letter in his daughter's presence.
+
+Looking at the open envelope after he had taken out the leaves of
+writing which it contained, he noticed these lines traced inside the
+cover:
+
+
+
+"My one excuse for troubling you, when I might have consulted my
+brother-in-law, will be found in the pages which I inclose. To speak
+plainly, you have been led to fear that I am not in my right senses. For
+this very reason, I now appeal to you. Your dreadful doubt of me, sir,
+is my doubt too. Read what I have written about myself--and then tell
+me, I entreat you, which I am: A person who has been the object of a
+supernatural revelation? or an unfortunate creature who is only fit for
+imprisonment in a mad-house?"
+
+
+
+Mr. Rayburn opened the manuscript. With steady attention, which soon
+quickened to breathless interest, he read what follows:
+
+VI.
+
+THE LADY'S MANUSCRIPT.
+
+YESTERDAY morning the sun shone in a clear blue sky--after a succession
+of cloudy days, counting from the first of the month.
+
+The radiant light had its animating effect on my poor spirits. I had
+passed the night more peacefully than usual; undisturbed by the dream,
+so cruelly familiar to me, that my lost husband is still living--the
+dream from which I always wake in tears. Never, since the dark days of
+my sorrow, have I been so little troubled by the self-tormenting fancies
+and fears which beset miserable women, as when I left the house, and
+turned my steps toward Kensington Gardens--for the first time since my
+husband's death.
+
+Attended by my only companion, the little dog who had been his favorite
+as well as mine, I went to the quiet corner of the Gardens which is
+nearest to Kensington.
+
+On that soft grass, under the shade of those grand trees, we had
+loitered together in the days of our betrothal. It was his favorite
+walk; and he had taken me to see it in the early days of our
+acquaintance. There, he had first asked me to be his wife. There, we had
+felt the rapture of our first kiss. It was surely natural that I should
+wish to see once more a place sacred to such memories as these? I am
+only twenty-three years old; I have no child to comfort me, no
+companion of my own age, nothing to love but the dumb creature who is so
+faithfully fond of me.
+
+I went to the tree under which we stood, when my dear one's eyes told
+his love before he could utter it in words. The sun of that vanished day
+shone on me again; it was the same noontide hour; the same solitude
+was around me. I had feared the first effect of the dreadful contrast
+between past and present. No! I was quiet and resigned. My thoughts,
+rising higher than earth, dwelt on the better life beyond the grave.
+Some tears came into my eyes. But I was not unhappy. My memory of all
+that happened may be trusted, even in trifles which relate only to
+myself--I was not unhappy.
+
+The first object that I saw, when my eyes were clear again, was the dog.
+He crouched a few paces away from me, trembling pitiably, but uttering
+no cry. What had caused the fear that overpowered him?
+
+I was soon to know.
+
+I called to the dog; he remained immovable--conscious of some mysterious
+coming thing that held him spellbound. I tried to go to the poor
+creature, and fondle and comfort him.
+
+At the first step forward that I took, something stopped me.
+
+It was not to be seen, and not to be heard. It stopped me.
+
+The still figure of the dog disappeared from my view: the lonely scene
+round me disappeared--excepting the light from heaven, the tree that
+sheltered me, and the grass in front of me. A sense of unutterable
+expectation kept my eyes riveted on the grass. Suddenly, I saw its
+myriad blades rise erect and shivering. The fear came to me of something
+passing over them with the invisible swiftness of the wind. The
+shivering advanced. It was all round me. It crept into the leaves of
+the tree over my head; they shuddered, without a sound to tell of their
+agitation; their pleasant natural rustling was struck dumb. The song of
+the birds had ceased. The cries of the water-fowl on the pond were heard
+no more. There was a dreadful silence.
+
+But the lovely sunshine poured down on me, as brightly as ever.
+
+In that dazzling light, in that fearful silence, I felt an Invisible
+Presence near me. It touched me gently.
+
+At the touch, my heart throbbed with an overwhelming joy. Exquisite
+pleasure thrilled through every nerve in my body. I knew him! From the
+unseen world--himself unseen--he had returned to me. Oh, I knew him!
+
+And yet, my helpless mortality longed for a sign that might give me
+assurance of the truth. The yearning in me shaped itself into words.
+I tried to utter the words. I would have said, if I could have spoken:
+"Oh, my angel, give me a token that it is You!" But I was like a person
+struck dumb--I could only think it.
+
+The Invisible Presence read my thought. I felt my lips touched, as my
+husband's lips used to touch them when he kissed me. And that was my
+answer. A thought came to me again. I would have said, if I could have
+spoken: "Are you here to take me to the better world?"
+
+I waited. Nothing that I could feel touched me.
+
+I was conscious of thinking once more. I would have said, if I could
+have spoken: "Are you here to protect me?"
+
+I felt myself held in a gentle embrace, as my husband's arms used to
+hold me when he pressed me to his breast. And that was my answer.
+
+The touch that was like the touch of his lips, lingered and was lost;
+the clasp that was like the clasp of his arms, pressed me and fell away.
+The garden-scene resumed its natural aspect. I saw a human creature
+near, a lovely little girl looking at me.
+
+At that moment, when I was my own lonely self again, the sight of the
+child soothed and attracted me. I advanced, intending to speak to her.
+To my horror I suddenly ceased to see her. She disappeared as if I had
+been stricken blind.
+
+And yet I could see the landscape round me; I could see the heaven
+above me. A time passed--only a few minutes, as I thought--and the child
+became visible to me again; walking hand-in-hand with her father. I
+approached them; I was close enough to see that they were looking at
+me with pity and surprise. My impulse was to ask if they saw anything
+strange in my face or my manner. Before I could speak, the horrible
+wonder happened again. They vanished from my view.
+
+Was the Invisible Presence still near? Was it passing between me and
+my fellow-mortals; forbidding communication, in that place and at that
+time?
+
+It must have been so. When I turned away in my ignorance, with a heavy
+heart, the dreadful blankness which had twice shut out from me the
+beings of my own race, was not between me and my dog. The poor little
+creature filled me with pity; I called him to me. He moved at the sound
+of my voice, and followed me languidly; not quite awakened yet from the
+trance of terror that had possessed him.
+
+Before I had retired by more than a few steps, I thought I was conscious
+of the Presence again. I held out my longing arms to it. I waited in the
+hope of a touch to tell me that I might return. Perhaps I was answered
+by indirect means? I only know that a resolution to return to the same
+place, at the same hour, came to me, and quieted my mind.
+
+The morning of the next day was dull and cloudy; but the rain held off.
+I set forth again to the Gardens.
+
+My dog ran on before me into the street--and stopped: waiting to see in
+which direction I might lead the way. When I turned toward the Gardens,
+he dropped behind me. In a little while I looked back. He was following
+me no longer; he stood irresolute. I called to him. He advanced a few
+steps--hesitated--and ran back to the house.
+
+I went on by myself. Shall I confess my superstition? I thought the
+dog's desertion of me a bad omen.
+
+Arrived at the tree, I placed myself under it. The minutes followed each
+other uneventfully. The cloudy sky darkened. The dull surface of the
+grass showed no shuddering consciousness of an unearthly creature
+passing over it.
+
+I still waited, with an obstinacy which was fast becoming the obstinacy
+of despair. How long an interval elapsed, while I kept watch on the
+ground before me, I am not able to say. I only know that a change came.
+
+Under the dull gray light I saw the grass move--but not as it had moved,
+on the day before. It shriveled as if a flame had scorched it. No flame
+appeared. The brown underlying earth showed itself winding onward in
+a thin strip--which might have been a footpath traced in fire. It
+frightened me. I longed for the protection of the Invisible Presence. I
+prayed for a warning of it, if danger was near.
+
+A touch answered me. It was as if a hand unseen had taken my hand--had
+raised it, little by little--had left it, pointing to the thin brown
+path that wound toward me under the shriveled blades of grass.
+
+I looked to the far end of the path.
+
+The unseen hand closed on my hand with a warning pressure: the
+revelation of the coming danger was near me--I waited for it. I saw it.
+
+The figure of a man appeared, advancing toward me along the thin brown
+path. I looked in his face as he came nearer. It showed me dimly the
+face of my husband's brother--John Zant.
+
+The consciousness of myself as a living creature left me. I knew
+nothing; I felt nothing. I was dead.
+
+When the torture of revival made me open my eyes, I found myself on the
+grass. Gentle hands raised my head, at the moment when I recovered my
+senses. Who had brought me to life again? Who was taking care of me?
+
+I looked upward, and saw--bending over me--John Zant.
+
+VII.
+
+THERE, the manuscript ended.
+
+Some lines had been added on the last page; but they had been so
+carefully erased as to be illegible. These words of explanation appeared
+below the canceled sentences:
+
+"I had begun to write the little that remains to be told, when it struck
+me that I might, unintentionally, be exercising an unfair influence on
+your opinion. Let me only remind you that I believe absolutely in the
+supernatural revelation which I have endeavored to describe. Remember
+this--and decide for me what I dare not decide for myself."
+
+There was no serious obstacle in the way of compliance with this
+request.
+
+Judged from the point of view of the materialist, Mrs. Zant might no
+doubt be the victim of illusions (produced by a diseased state of the
+nervous system), which have been known to exist--as in the celebrated
+case of the book-seller, Nicolai, of Berlin--without being accompanied
+by derangement of the intellectual powers. But Mr. Rayburn was not
+asked to solve any such intricate problem as this. He had been merely
+instructed to read the manuscript, and to say what impression it had
+left on him of the mental condition of the writer; whose doubt of
+herself had been, in all probability, first suggested by remembrance of
+the illness from which she had suffered--brain-fever.
+
+Under these circumstances, there could be little difficulty in forming
+an opinion. The memory which had recalled, and the judgment which had
+arranged, the succession of events related in the narrative, revealed a
+mind in full possession of its resources.
+
+Having satisfied himself so far, Mr. Rayburn abstained from considering
+the more serious question suggested by what he had read.
+
+At any time his habits of life and his ways of thinking would have
+rendered him unfit to weigh the arguments, which assert or deny
+supernatural revelation among the creatures of earth. But his mind was
+now so disturbed by the startling record of experience which he had just
+read, that he was only conscious of feeling certain impressions--without
+possessing the capacity to reflect on them. That his anxiety on Mrs.
+Zant's account had been increased, and that his doubts of Mr. John Zant
+had been encouraged, were the only practical results of the confidence
+placed in him of which he was thus far aware. In the ordinary exigencies
+of life a man of hesitating disposition, his interest in Mrs. Zant's
+welfare, and his desire to discover what had passed between her
+brother-in-law and herself, after their meeting in the Gardens, urged
+him into instant action. In half an hour more, he had arrived at her
+lodgings. He was at once admitted.
+
+VIII.
+
+MRS. ZANT was alone, in an imperfectly lighted room.
+
+"I hope you will excuse the bad light," she said; "my head has been
+burning as if the fever had come back again. Oh, don't go away! After
+what I have suffered, you don't know how dreadful it is to be alone."
+
+The tone of her voice told him that she had been crying. He at once
+tried the best means of setting the poor lady at ease, by telling her
+of the conclusion at which he had arrived, after reading her manuscript.
+The happy result showed itself instantly: her face brightened, her
+manner changed; she was eager to hear more.
+
+"Have I produced any other impression on you?" she asked.
+
+He understood the allusion. Expressing sincere respect for her own
+convictions, he told her honestly that he was not prepared to enter
+on the obscure and terrible question of supernatural interposition.
+Grateful for the tone in which he had answered her, she wisely and
+delicately changed the subject.
+
+"I must speak to you of my brother-in-law," she said. "He has told me of
+your visit; and I am anxious to know what you think of him. Do you like
+Mr. John Zant?"
+
+Mr. Rayburn hesitated.
+
+The careworn look appeared again in her face. "If you had felt as kindly
+toward him as he feels toward you," she said, "I might have gone to St.
+Sallins with a lighter heart."
+
+Mr. Rayburn thought of the supernatural appearances, described at the
+close of her narrative. "You believe in that terrible warning," he
+remonstrated; "and yet, you go to your brother-in-law's house!"
+
+"I believe," she answered, "in the spirit of the man who loved me in the
+days of his earthly bondage. I am under _his_ protection. What have I
+to do but to cast away my fears, and to wait in faith and hope? It might
+have helped my resolution if a friend had been near to encourage me."
+She paused and smiled sadly. "I must remember," she resumed, "that your
+way of understanding my position is not my way. I ought to have told you
+that Mr. John Zant feels needless anxiety about my health. He declares
+that he will not lose sight of me until his mind is at ease. It
+is useless to attempt to alter his opinion. He says my nerves are
+shattered--and who that sees me can doubt it? He tells me that my only
+chance of getting better is to try change of air and perfect repose--how
+can I contradict him? He reminds me that I have no relation but himself,
+and no house open to me but his own--and God knows he is right!"
+
+She said those last words in accents of melancholy resignation, which
+grieved the good man whose one merciful purpose was to serve and console
+her. He spoke impulsively with the freedom of an old friend,
+
+"I want to know more of you and Mr. John Zant than I know now," he said.
+"My motive is a better one than mere curiosity. Do you believe that I
+feel a sincere interest in you?"
+
+"With my whole heart."
+
+That reply encouraged him to proceed with what he had to say. "When
+you recovered from your fainting-fit," he began, "Mr. John Zant asked
+questions, of course?"
+
+"He asked what could possibly have happened, in such a quiet place as
+Kensington Gardens, to make me faint."
+
+"And how did you answer?"
+
+"Answer? I couldn't even look at him!"
+
+"You said nothing?"
+
+"Nothing. I don't know what he thought of me; he might have been
+surprised, or he might have been offended."
+
+"Is he easily offended?" Mr. Rayburn asked.
+
+"Not in my experience of him."
+
+"Do you mean your experience of him before your illness?"
+
+"Yes. Since my recovery, his engagements with country patients have kept
+him away from London. I have not seen him since he took these lodgings
+for me. But he is always considerate. He has written more than once to
+beg that I will not think him neglectful, and to tell me (what I knew
+already through my poor husband) that he has no money of his own, and
+must live by his profession."
+
+"In your husband's lifetime, were the two brothers on good terms?"
+
+"Always. The one complaint I ever heard my husband make of John Zant was
+that he didn't come to see us often enough, after our marriage. Is there
+some wickedness in him which we have never suspected? It may be--but
+_how_ can it be? I have every reason to be grateful to the man against
+whom I have been supernaturally warned! His conduct to me has been
+always perfect. I can't tell you what I owe to his influence in quieting
+my mind, when a dreadful doubt arose about my husband's death."
+
+"Do you mean doubt if he died a natural death?"
+
+"Oh, no! no! He was dying of rapid consumption--but his sudden death
+took the doctors by surprise. One of them thought that he might have
+taken an overdose of his sleeping drops, by mistake. The other disputed
+this conclusion, or there might have been an inquest in the house. Oh,
+don't speak of it any more! Let us talk of something else. Tell me when
+I shall see you again."
+
+"I hardly know. When do you and your brother-in-law leave London?"
+
+"To-morrow." She looked at Mr. Rayburn with a piteous entreaty in her
+eyes; she said, timidly: "Do you ever go to the seaside, and take your
+dear little girl with you?"
+
+The request, at which she had only dared to hint, touched on the idea
+which was at that moment in Mr. Rayburn's mind.
+
+Interpreted by his strong prejudice against John Zant, what she had said
+of her brother-in-law filled him with forebodings of peril to herself;
+all the more powerful in their influence, for this reason--that he
+shrank from distinctly realizing them. If another person had been
+present at the interview, and had said to him afterward: "That man's
+reluctance to visit his sister-in-law, while her husband was living, is
+associated with a secret sense of guilt which her innocence cannot
+even imagine: he, and he alone, knows the cause of her husband's sudden
+death: his feigned anxiety about her health is adopted as the safest
+means of enticing her into his house,"--if those formidable conclusions
+had been urged on Mr. Rayburn, he would have felt it his duty to reject
+them, as unjustifiable aspersions on an absent man. And yet, when he
+took leave that evening of Mrs. Zant, he had pledged himself to give
+Lucy a holiday at the seaside: and he had said, without blushing, that
+the child really deserved it, as a reward for general good conduct and
+attention to her lessons!
+
+IX.
+
+THREE days later, the father and daughter arrived toward evening at St.
+Sallins-on-Sea. They found Mrs. Zant at the station.
+
+The poor woman's joy, on seeing them, expressed itself like the joy of a
+child. "Oh, I am so glad! so glad!" was all she could say when they met.
+Lucy was half-smothered with kisses, and was made supremely happy by a
+present of the finest doll she had ever possessed. Mrs. Zant accompanied
+her friends to the rooms which had been secured at the hotel. She was
+able to speak confidentially to Mr. Rayburn, while Lucy was in the
+balcony hugging her doll, and looking at the sea.
+
+The one event that had happened during Mrs. Zant's short residence at
+St. Sallins was the departure of her brother-in-law that morning, for
+London. He had been called away to operate on the feet of a wealthy
+patient who knew the value of his time: his housekeeper expected that he
+would return to dinner.
+
+As to his conduct toward Mrs. Zant, he was not only as attentive as
+ever--he was almost oppressively affectionate in his language and
+manner. There was no service that a man could render which he had
+not eagerly offered to her. He declared that he already perceived an
+improvement in her health; he congratulated her on having decided to
+stay in his house; and (as a proof, perhaps, of his sincerity) he had
+repeatedly pressed her hand. "Have you any idea what all this means?"
+she said, simply.
+
+Mr. Rayburn kept his idea to himself. He professed ignorance; and asked
+next what sort of person the housekeeper was.
+
+Mrs. Zant shook her head ominously.
+
+"Such a strange creature," she said, "and in the habit of taking such
+liberties that I begin to be afraid she is a little crazy."
+
+"Is she an old woman?"
+
+"No--only middle-aged." This morning, after her master had left the
+house, she actually asked me what I thought of my brother-in-law! I told
+her, as coldly as possible, that I thought he was very kind. She was
+quite insensible to the tone in which I had spoken; she went on from bad
+to worse. "Do you call him the sort of man who would take the fancy of a
+young woman?" was her next question. She actually looked at me (I might
+have been wrong; and I hope I was) as if the "young woman" she had in
+her mind was myself! I said: "I don't think of such things, and I don't
+talk about them." Still, she was not in the least discouraged; she made
+a personal remark next: "Excuse me--but you do look wretchedly pale."
+I thought she seemed to enjoy the defect in my complexion; I really
+believe it raised me in her estimation. "We shall get on better in
+time," she said; "I am beginning to like you." She walked out humming a
+tune. Don't you agree with me? Don't you think she's crazy?"
+
+"I can hardly give an opinion until I have seen her. Does she look as if
+she might have been a pretty woman at one time of her life?"
+
+"Not the sort of pretty woman whom I admire!"
+
+Mr. Rayburn smiled. "I was thinking," he resumed, "that this person's
+odd conduct may perhaps be accounted for. She is probably jealous of any
+young lady who is invited to her master's house--and (till she noticed
+your complexion) she began by being jealous of you."
+
+Innocently at a loss to understand how _she_ could become an object
+of the housekeeper's jealousy, Mrs. Zant looked at Mr. Rayburn in
+astonishment. Before she could give expression to her feeling of
+surprise, there was an interruption--a welcome interruption. A waiter
+entered the room, and announced a visitor; described as "a gentleman."
+
+Mrs. Zant at once rose to retire.
+
+"Who is the gentleman?" Mr. Rayburn asked--detaining Mrs. Zant as he
+spoke.
+
+A voice which they both recognized answered gayly, from the outer side
+of the door:
+
+"A friend from London."
+
+X.
+
+"WELCOME to St. Sallins!" cried Mr. John Zant. "I knew that you were
+expected, my dear sir, and I took my chance at finding you at the
+hotel." He turned to his sister-in-law, and kissed her hand with an
+elaborate gallantry worthy of Sir Charles Grandison himself. "When I
+reached home, my dear, and heard that you had gone out, I guessed that
+your object was to receive our excellent friend. You have not felt
+lonely while I have been away? That's right! that's right!" he looked
+toward the balcony, and discovered Lucy at the open window, staring
+at the magnificent stranger. "Your little daughter, Mr. Rayburn? Dear
+child! Come and kiss me."
+
+Lucy answered in one positive word: "No."
+
+Mr. John Zant was not easily discouraged.
+
+"Show me your doll, darling," he said. "Sit on my knee."
+
+Lucy answered in two positive words--"I won't."
+
+Her father approached the window to administer the necessary reproof.
+Mr. John Zant interfered in the cause of mercy with his best grace. He
+held up his hands in cordial entreaty. "Dear Mr. Rayburn! The fairies
+are sometimes shy; and _this_ little fairy doesn't take to strangers at
+first sight. Dear child! All in good time. And what stay do you make
+at St. Sallins? May we hope that our poor attractions will tempt you to
+prolong your visit?"
+
+He put his flattering little question with an ease of manner which
+was rather too plainly assumed; and he looked at Mr. Rayburn with a
+watchfulness which appeared to attach undue importance to the reply.
+When he said: "What stay do you make at St. Sallins?" did he really
+mean: "How soon do you leave us?" Inclining to adopt this conclusion,
+Mr. Rayburn answered cautiously that his stay at the seaside would
+depend on circumstances. Mr. John Zant looked at his sister-in-law,
+sitting silent in a corner with Lucy on her lap. "Exert your
+attractions," he said; "make the circumstances agreeable to our good
+friend. Will you dine with us to-day, my dear sir, and bring your little
+fairy with you?"
+
+Lucy was far from receiving this complimentary allusion in the spirit
+in which it had been offered. "I'm not a fairy," she declared. "I'm a
+child."
+
+"And a naughty child," her father added, with all the severity that he
+could assume.
+
+"I can't help it, papa; the man with the big beard puts me out."
+
+The man with the big beard was amused--amiably, paternally amused--by
+Lucy's plain speaking. He repeated his invitation to dinner; and he
+did his best to look disappointed when Mr. Rayburn made the necessary
+excuses.
+
+"Another day," he said (without, however, fixing the day). "I think
+you will find my house comfortable. My housekeeper may perhaps be
+eccentric--but in all essentials a woman in a thousand. Do you feel the
+change from London already? Our air at St. Sallins is really worthy of
+its reputation. Invalids who come here are cured as if by magic. What do
+you think of Mrs. Zant? How does she look?"
+
+Mr. Rayburn was evidently expected to say that she looked better. He
+said it. Mr. John Zant seemed to have anticipated a stronger expression
+of opinion.
+
+"Surprisingly better!" he pronounced. "Infinitely better! We ought both
+to be grateful. Pray believe that we _are_ grateful."
+
+"If you mean grateful to me," Mr. Rayburn remarked, "I don't quite
+understand--"
+
+"You don't quite understand? Is it possible that you have forgotten our
+conversation when I first had the honor of receiving you? Look at Mrs.
+Zant again."
+
+Mr. Rayburn looked; and Mrs. Zant's brother-in-law explained himself.
+
+"You notice the return of her color, the healthy brightness of her eyes.
+(No, my dear, I am not paying you idle compliments; I am stating plain
+facts.) For that happy result, Mr. Rayburn, we are indebted to you."
+
+"Surely not?"
+
+"Surely yes! It was at your valuable suggestion that I thought of
+inviting my sister-in-law to visit me at St. Sallins. Ah, you remember
+it now. Forgive me if I look at my watch; the dinner hour is on my mind.
+Not, as your dear little daughter there seems to think, because I am
+greedy, but because I am always punctual, in justice to the cook. Shall
+we see you to-morrow? Call early, and you will find us at home."
+
+He gave Mrs. Zant his arm, and bowed and smiled, and kissed his hand
+to Lucy, and left the room. Recalling their interview at the hotel in
+London, Mr. Rayburn now understood John Zant's object (on that occasion)
+in assuming the character of a helpless man in need of a sensible
+suggestion. If Mrs. Zant's residence under his roof became associated
+with evil consequences, he could declare that she would never have
+entered the house but for Mr. Rayburn's advice.
+
+With the next day came the hateful necessity of returning this man's
+visit.
+
+Mr. Rayburn was placed between two alternatives. In Mrs. Zant's
+interests he must remain, no matter at what sacrifice of his own
+inclinations, on good terms with her brother-in-law--or he must return
+to London, and leave the poor woman to her fate. His choice, it is
+needless to say, was never a matter of doubt. He called at the house,
+and did his innocent best--without in the least deceiving Mr. John
+Zant--to make himself agreeable during the short duration of his visit.
+Descending the stairs on his way out, accompanied by Mrs. Zant, he was
+surprised to see a middle-aged woman in the hall, who looked as if she
+was waiting there expressly to attract notice.
+
+"The housekeeper," Mrs. Zant whispered. "She is impudent enough to try
+to make acquaintance with you."
+
+This was exactly what the housekeeper was waiting in the hall to do.
+
+"I hope you like our watering-place, sir," she began. "If I can be of
+service to you, pray command me. Any friend of this lady's has a claim
+on me--and you are an old friend, no doubt. I am only the housekeeper;
+but I presume to take a sincere interest in Mrs. Zant; and I am indeed
+glad to see you here. We none of us know--do we?--how soon we may want a
+friend. No offense, I hope? Thank you, sir. Good-morning."
+
+There was nothing in the woman's eyes which indicated an unsettled
+mind; nothing in the appearance of her lips which suggested habits of
+intoxication. That her strange outburst of familiarity proceeded from
+some strong motive seemed to be more than probable. Putting together
+what Mrs. Zant had already told him, and what he had himself
+observed, Mr. Rayburn suspected that the motive might be found in the
+housekeeper's jealousy of her master.
+
+XI.
+
+REFLECTING in the solitude of his own room, Mr. Rayburn felt that the
+one prudent course to take would be to persuade Mrs. Zant to leave St.
+Sallins. He tried to prepare her for this strong proceeding, when she
+came the next day to take Lucy out for a walk.
+
+"If you still regret having forced yourself to accept your
+brother-in-law's invitation," was all he ventured to say, "don't forget
+that you are perfect mistress of your own actions. You have only to
+come to me at the hotel, and I will take you back to London by the next
+train."
+
+She positively refused to entertain the idea.
+
+"I should be a thankless creature, indeed," she said, "if I accepted
+your proposal. Do you think I am ungrateful enough to involve you in a
+personal quarrel with John Zant? No! If I find myself forced to leave
+the house, I will go away alone."
+
+There was no moving her from this resolution. When she and Lucy had
+gone out together, Mr. Rayburn remained at the hotel, with a mind ill at
+ease. A man of readier mental resources might have felt at a loss how to
+act for the best, in the emergency that now confronted him. While he was
+still as far as ever from arriving at a decision, some person knocked at
+the door.
+
+Had Mrs. Zant returned? He looked up as the door was opened, and saw to
+his astonishment--Mr. John Zant's housekeeper.
+
+"Don't let me alarm you, sir," the woman said. "Mrs. Zant has been taken
+a little faint, at the door of our house. My master is attending to
+her."
+
+"Where is the child?" Mr. Rayburn asked.
+
+"I was bringing her back to you, sir, when we met a lady and her little
+girl at the door of the hotel. They were on their way to the beach--and
+Miss Lucy begged hard to be allowed to go with them. The lady said the
+two children were playfellows, and she was sure you would not object."
+
+"The lady is quite right. Mrs. Zant's illness is not serious, I hope?"
+
+"I think not, sir. But I should like to say something in her interests.
+May I? Thank you." She advanced a step nearer to him, and spoke her next
+words in a whisper. "Take Mrs. Zant away from this place, and lose no
+time in doing it."
+
+Mr. Rayburn was on his guard. He merely asked: "Why?"
+
+The housekeeper answered in a curiously indirect manner--partly in jest,
+as it seemed, and partly in earnest.
+
+"When a man has lost his wife," she said, "there's some difference of
+opinion in Parliament, as I hear, whether he does right or wrong, if
+he marries his wife's sister. Wait a bit! I'm coming to the point. My
+master is one who has a long head on his shoulders; he sees consequences
+which escape the notice of people like me. In his way of thinking,
+if one man may marry his wife's sister, and no harm done, where's the
+objection if another man pays a compliment to the family, and marries
+his brother's widow? My master, if you please, is that other man. Take
+the widow away before she marries him."
+
+This was beyond endurance.
+
+"You insult Mrs. Zant," Mr. Rayburn answered, "if you suppose that such
+a thing is possible!"
+
+"Oh! I insult her, do I? Listen to me. One of three things will
+happen. She will be entrapped into consenting to it--or frightened into
+consenting to it--or drugged into consenting to it--"
+
+Mr. Rayburn was too indignant to let her go on.
+
+"You are talking nonsense," he said. "There can be no marriage; the law
+forbids it."
+
+"Are you one of the people who see no further than their noses?" she
+asked insolently. "Won't the law take his money? Is he obliged to
+mention that he is related to her by marriage, when he buys the
+license?" She paused; her humor changed; she stamped furiously on the
+floor. The true motive that animated her showed itself in her next
+words, and warned Mr. Rayburn to grant a more favorable hearing than he
+had accorded to her yet. "If you won't stop it," she burst out, "I will!
+If he marries anybody, he is bound to marry ME. Will you take her away?
+I ask you, for the last time--_will_ you take her away?"
+
+The tone in which she made that final appeal to him had its effect.
+
+"I will go back with you to John Zant's house," he said, "and judge for
+myself."
+
+She laid her hand on his arm:
+
+"I must go first--or you may not be let in. Follow me in five minutes;
+and don't knock at the street door."
+
+On the point of leaving him, she abruptly returned.
+
+"We have forgotten something," she said. "Suppose my master refuses to
+see you. His temper might get the better of him; he might make it so
+unpleasant for you that you would be obliged to go."
+
+"_My_ temper might get the better of _me_," Mr. Rayburn replied;
+"and--if I thought it was in Mrs. Zant's interests--I might refuse to
+leave the house unless she accompanied me."
+
+"That will never do, sir."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I should be the person to suffer."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"In this way. If you picked a quarrel with my master, I should be blamed
+for it because I showed you upstairs. Besides, think of the lady. You
+might frighten her out of her senses, if it came to a struggle between
+you two men."
+
+The language was exaggerated; but there was a force in this last
+objection which Mr. Rayburn was obliged to acknowledge.
+
+"And, after all," the housekeeper continued, "he has more right over her
+than you have. He is related to her, and you are only her friend."
+
+Mr. Rayburn declined to let himself be influenced by this consideration,
+"Mr. John Zant is only related to her by marriage," he said. "If she
+prefers trusting in me--come what may of it, I will be worthy of her
+confidence."
+
+The housekeeper shook her head.
+
+"That only means another quarrel," she answered. "The wise way, with
+a man like my master, is the peaceable way. We must manage to deceive
+him."
+
+"I don't like deceit."
+
+"In that case, sir, I'll wish you good-by. We will leave Mrs. Zant to do
+the best she can for herself."
+
+Mr. Rayburn was unreasonable. He positively refused to adopt this
+alternative.
+
+"Will you hear what I have got to say?" the housekeeper asked.
+
+"There can be no harm in that," he admitted. "Go on."
+
+She took him at his word.
+
+"When you called at our house," she began, "did you notice the doors in
+the passage, on the first floor? Very well. One of them is the door
+of the drawing-room, and the other is the door of the library. Do you
+remember the drawing-room, sir?"
+
+"I thought it a large well-lighted room," Mr. Rayburn answered. "And I
+noticed a doorway in the wall, with a handsome curtain hanging over it."
+
+"That's enough for our purpose," the housekeeper resumed. "On the other
+side of the curtain, if you had looked in, you would have found the
+library. Suppose my master is as polite as usual, and begs to be excused
+for not receiving you, because it is an inconvenient time. And suppose
+you are polite on your side and take yourself off by the drawing-room
+door. You will find me waiting downstairs, on the first landing. Do you
+see it now?"
+
+"I can't say I do."
+
+"You surprise me, sir. What is to prevent us from getting back softly
+into the library, by the door in the passage? And why shouldn't we use
+that second way into the library as a means of discovering what may be
+going on in the drawing-room? Safe behind the curtain, you will see him
+if he behaves uncivilly to Mrs. Zant, or you will hear her if she calls
+for help. In either case, you may be as rough and ready with my master
+as you find needful; it will be he who has frightened her, and not you.
+And who can blame the poor housekeeper because Mr. Rayburn did his
+duty, and protected a helpless woman? There is my plan, sir. Is it worth
+trying?"
+
+He answered, sharply enough: "I don't like it."
+
+The housekeeper opened the door again, and wished him good-by.
+
+If Mr. Rayburn had felt no more than an ordinary interest in Mrs. Zant,
+he would have let the woman go. As it was, he stopped her; and, after
+some further protest (which proved to be useless), he ended in giving
+way.
+
+"You promise to follow my directions?" she stipulated.
+
+He gave the promise. She smiled, nodded, and left him. True to his
+instructions, Mr. Rayburn reckoned five minutes by his watch, before he
+followed her.
+
+XII.
+
+THE housekeeper was waiting for him, with the street-door ajar.
+
+"They are both in the drawing-room," she whispered, leading the way
+upstairs. "Step softly, and take him by surprise."
+
+A table of oblong shape stood midway between the drawing-room walls. At
+the end of it which was nearest to the window, Mrs. Zant was pacing
+to and fro across the breadth of the room. At the opposite end of the
+table, John Zant was seated. Taken completely by surprise, he showed
+himself in his true character. He started to his feet, and protested
+with an oath against the intrusion which had been committed on him.
+
+Heedless of his action and his language, Mr. Rayburn could look at
+nothing, could think of nothing, but Mrs. Zant. She was still walking
+slowly to and fro, unconscious of the words of sympathy which he
+addressed to her, insensible even as it seemed to the presence of other
+persons in the room.
+
+John Zant's voice broke the silence. His temper was under control
+again: he had his reasons for still remaining on friendly terms with Mr.
+Rayburn.
+
+"I am sorry I forgot myself just now," he said.
+
+Mr. Rayburn's interest was concentrated on Mrs. Zant; he took no notice
+of the apology.
+
+"When did this happen?" he asked.
+
+"About a quarter of an hour ago. I was fortunately at home. Without
+speaking to me, without noticing me, she walked upstairs like a person
+in a dream."
+
+Mr. Rayburn suddenly pointed to Mrs. Zant.
+
+"Look at her!" he said. "There's a change!"
+
+All restlessness in her movements had come to an end. She was standing
+at the further end of the table, which was nearest to the window, in
+the full flow of sunlight pouring at that moment over her face. Her eyes
+looked out straight before her--void of all expression. Her lips were
+a little parted: her head drooped slightly toward her shoulder, in
+an attitude which suggested listening for something or waiting for
+something. In the warm brilliant light, she stood before the two men,
+a living creature self-isolated in a stillness like the stillness of
+death.
+
+John Zant was ready with the expression of his opinion.
+
+"A nervous seizure," he said. "Something resembling catalepsy, as you
+see."
+
+"Have you sent for a doctor?"
+
+"A doctor is not wanted."
+
+"I beg your pardon. It seems to me that medical help is absolutely
+necessary."
+
+"Be so good as to remember," Mr. John Zant answered, "that the decision
+rests with me, as the lady's relative. I am sensible of the honor
+which your visit confers on me. But the time has been unhappily chosen.
+Forgive me if I suggest that you will do well to retire."
+
+Mr. Rayburn had not forgotten the housekeeper's advice, or the promise
+which she had exacted from him. But the expression in John Zant's face
+was a serious trial to his self-control. He hesitated, and looked back
+at Mrs. Zant.
+
+If he provoked a quarrel by remaining in the room, the one alternative
+would be the removal of her by force. Fear of the consequences to
+herself, if she was suddenly and roughly roused from her trance, was the
+one consideration which reconciled him to submission. He withdrew.
+
+The housekeeper was waiting for him below, on the first landing. When
+the door of the drawing-room had been closed again, she signed to him
+to follow her, and returned up the stairs. After another struggle with
+himself, he obeyed. They entered the library from the corridor--and
+placed themselves behind the closed curtain which hung over the doorway.
+It was easy so to arrange the edge of the drapery as to observe, without
+exciting suspicion, whatever was going on in the next room.
+
+Mrs. Zant's brother-in-law was approaching her at the time when Mr.
+Rayburn saw him again.
+
+In the instant afterward, she moved--before he had completely passed
+over the space between them. Her still figure began to tremble. She
+lifted her drooping head. For a moment there was a shrinking in her--as
+if she had been touched by something. She seemed to recognize the touch:
+she was still again.
+
+John Zant watched the change. It suggested to him that she was beginning
+to recover her senses. He tried the experiment of speaking to her.
+
+"My love, my sweet angel, come to the heart that adores you!"
+
+He advanced again; he passed into the flood of sunlight pouring over
+her.
+
+"Rouse yourself!" he said.
+
+She still remained in the same position; apparently at his mercy,
+neither hearing him nor seeing him.
+
+"Rouse yourself!" he repeated. "My darling, come to me!"
+
+At the instant when he attempted to embrace her--at the instant when Mr.
+Rayburn rushed into the room--John Zant's arms, suddenly turning rigid,
+remained outstretched. With a shriek of horror, he struggled to draw
+them back--struggled, in the empty brightness of the sunshine, as if
+some invisible grip had seized him.
+
+"What has got me?" the wretch screamed. "Who is holding my hands? Oh,
+the cold of it! the cold of it!"
+
+His features became convulsed; his eyes turned upward until only the
+white eyeballs were visible. He fell prostrate with a crash that shook
+the room.
+
+The housekeeper ran in. She knelt by her master's body. With one hand
+she loosened his cravat. With the other she pointed to the end of the
+table.
+
+Mrs. Zant still kept her place; but there was another change. Little by
+little, her eyes recovered their natural living expression--then slowly
+closed. She tottered backward from the table, and lifted her hands
+wildly, as if to grasp at something which might support her. Mr. Rayburn
+hurried to her before she fell--lifted her in his arms--and carried her
+out of the room.
+
+One of the servants met them in the hall. He sent her for a carriage.
+In a quarter of an hour more, Mrs. Zant was safe under his care at the
+hotel.
+
+XIII.
+
+THAT night a note, written by the housekeeper, was delivered to Mrs.
+Zant.
+
+"The doctors give little hope. The paralytic stroke is spreading upward
+to his face. If death spares him, he will live a helpless man. I shall
+take care of him to the last. As for you--forget him."
+
+Mrs. Zant gave the note to Mr. Rayburn.
+
+"Read it, and destroy it," she said. "It is written in ignorance of the
+terrible truth."
+
+He obeyed--and looked at her in silence, waiting to hear more. She hid
+her face. The few words she had addressed to him, after a struggle with
+herself, fell slowly and reluctantly from her lips.
+
+She said: "No mortal hand held the hands of John Zant. The guardian
+spirit was with me. The promised protection was with me. I know it. I
+wish to know no more."
+
+Having spoken, she rose to retire. He opened the door for her, seeing
+that she needed rest in her own room.
+
+Left by himself, he began to consider the prospect that was before him
+in the future. How was he to regard the woman who had just left him?
+As a poor creature weakened by disease, the victim of her own
+nervous delusion? or as the chosen object of a supernatural
+revelation--unparalleled by any similar revelation that he had heard of,
+or had found recorded in books? His first discovery of the place that
+she really held in his estimation dawned on his mind, when he felt
+himself recoiling from the conclusion which presented her to his pity,
+and yielding to the nobler conviction which felt with her faith, and
+raised her to a place apart among other women.
+
+XIV.
+
+THEY left St. Sallins the next day.
+
+Arrived at the end of the journey, Lucy held fast by Mrs. Zant's hand.
+Tears were rising in the child's eyes.
+
+"Are we to bid her good-by?" she said sadly to her father.
+
+He seemed to be unwilling to trust himself to speak; he only said:
+
+"My dear, ask her yourself."
+
+But the result justified him. Lucy was happy again.
+
+
+
+
+MISS MORRIS AND THE STRANGER.
+
+I.
+
+WHEN I first saw him, he was lost in one of the Dead Cities of
+England--situated on the South Coast, and called Sandwich.
+
+Shall I describe Sandwich? I think not. Let us own the truth;
+descriptions of places, however nicely they may be written, are always
+more or less dull. Being a woman, I naturally hate dullness. Perhaps
+some description of Sandwich may drop out, as it were, from my report of
+our conversation when we first met as strangers in the street.
+
+He began irritably. "I've lost myself," he said.
+
+"People who don't know the town often do that," I remarked.
+
+He went on: "Which is my way to the Fleur de Lys Inn?"
+
+His way was, in the first place, to retrace his steps. Then to turn to
+the left. Then to go on until he found two streets meeting. Then to take
+the street on the right. Then to look out for the second turning on the
+left. Then to follow the turning until he smelled stables--and there
+was the inn. I put it in the clearest manner, and never stumbled over a
+word.
+
+"How the devil am I to remember all that?" he said.
+
+This was rude. We are naturally and properly indignant with any man
+who is rude to us. But whether we turn our backs on him in contempt,
+or whether we are merciful and give him a lesson in politeness,
+depends entirely on the man. He may be a bear, but he may also have
+his redeeming qualities. This man had redeeming qualities. I cannot
+positively say that he was either handsome or ugly, young or old,
+well or ill dressed. But I can speak with certainty to the personal
+attractions which recommended him to notice. For instance, the tone of
+his voice was persuasive. (Did you ever read a story, written by one of
+_us_, in which we failed to dwell on our hero's voice?) Then, again,
+his hair was reasonably long. (Are you acquainted with any woman who can
+endure a man with a cropped head?) Moreover, he was of a good height.
+(It must be a very tall woman who can feel favorably inclined toward
+a short man.) Lastly, although his eyes were not more than fairly
+presentable in form and color, the wretch had in some unaccountable
+manner become possessed of beautiful eyelashes. They were even better
+eyelashes than mine. I write quite seriously. There is one woman who is
+above the common weakness of vanity--and she holds the present pen.
+
+So I gave my lost stranger a lesson in politeness. The lesson took the
+form of a trap. I asked him if he would like me to show him the way to
+the inn. He was still annoyed at losing himself. As I had anticipated,
+he bluntly answered: "Yes."
+
+"When you were a boy, and you wanted something," I said, "did your
+mother teach you to say 'Please'?"
+
+He positively blushed. "She did," he admitted; "and she taught me to say
+'Beg your pardon' when I was rude. I'll say it now: 'Beg your pardon.'"
+
+This curious apology increased my belief in his redeeming qualities. I
+led the way to the inn. He followed me in silence. No woman who respects
+herself can endure silence when she is in the company of a man. I made
+him talk.
+
+"Do you come to us from Ramsgate?" I began. He only nodded his head.
+"We don't think much of Ramsgate here," I went on. "There is not an old
+building in the place. And their first Mayor was only elected the other
+day!"
+
+This point of view seemed to be new to him. He made no attempt to
+dispute it; he only looked around him, and said: "Sandwich is a
+melancholy place, miss." He was so rapidly improving in politeness, that
+I encouraged him by a smile. As a citizen of Sandwich, I may say that we
+take it as a compliment when we are told that our town is a melancholy
+place. And why not? Melancholy is connected with dignity. And dignity
+is associated with age. And _we_ are old. I teach my pupils logic, among
+other things--there is a specimen. Whatever may be said to the contrary,
+women can reason. They can also wander; and I must admit that _I_ am
+wandering. Did I mention, at starting, that I was a governess? If not,
+that allusion to "pupils" must have come in rather abruptly. Let me make
+my excuses, and return to my lost stranger.
+
+"Is there any such thing as a straight street in all Sandwich?" he
+asked.
+
+"Not one straight street in the whole town."
+
+"Any trade, miss?"
+
+"As little as possible--and _that_ is expiring."
+
+"A decayed place, in short?"
+
+"Thoroughly decayed."
+
+My tone seemed to astonish him. "You speak as if you were proud of its
+being a decayed place," he said.
+
+I quite respected him; this was such an intelligent remark to make. We
+do enjoy our decay: it is our chief distinction. Progress and prosperity
+everywhere else; decay and dissolution here. As a necessary consequence,
+we produce our own impression, and we like to be original. The sea
+deserted us long ago: it once washed our walls, it is now two miles away
+from us--we don't regret the sea. We had sometimes ninety-five ships in
+our harbor, Heaven only knows how many centuries ago; we now have one
+or two small coasting vessels, half their time aground in a muddy little
+river--we don't regret our harbor. But one house in the town is daring
+enough to anticipate the arrival of resident visitors, and announces
+furnished apartments to let. What a becoming contrast to our modern
+neighbor, Ramsgate! Our noble market-place exhibits the laws made by the
+corporation; and every week there are fewer and fewer people to obey the
+laws. How convenient! Look at our one warehouse by the river side--with
+the crane generally idle, and the windows mostly boarded up; and perhaps
+one man at the door, looking out for the job which his better sense
+tells him cannot possibly come. What a wholesome protest against the
+devastating hurry and over-work elsewhere, which has shattered the
+nerves of the nation! "Far from me and from my friends" (to borrow the
+eloquent language of Doctor Johnson) "be such frigid enthusiasm as shall
+conduct us indifferent and unmoved" over the bridge by which you enter
+Sandwich, and pay a toll if you do it in a carriage. "That man is
+little to be envied (Doctor Johnson again) who can lose himself in
+our labyrinthine streets, and not feel that he has reached the welcome
+limits of progress, and found a haven of rest in an age of hurry."
+
+I am wandering again. Bear with the unpremeditated enthusiasm of a
+citizen who only attained years of discretion at her last birthday. We
+shall soon have done with Sandwich; we are close to the door of the inn.
+
+"You can't mistake it now, sir," I said. "Good-morning."
+
+He looked down at me from under his beautiful eyelashes (have I
+mentioned that I am a little woman?), and he asked in his persuasive
+tones: "Must we say good-by?"
+
+I made him a bow.
+
+"Would you allow me to see you safe home?" he suggested.
+
+Any other man would have offended me. This man blushed like a boy, and
+looked at the pavement instead of looking at me. By this time I had made
+up my mind about him. He was not only a gentleman beyond all doubt, but
+a shy gentleman as well. His bluntness and his odd remarks were, as I
+thought, partly efforts to disguise his shyness, and partly refuges in
+which he tried to forget his own sense of it. I answered his audacious
+proposal amiably and pleasantly. "You would only lose your way again,"
+I said, "and I should have to take you back to the inn for the second
+time."
+
+Wasted words! My obstinate stranger only made another proposal.
+
+"I have ordered lunch here," he said, "and I am quite alone." He stopped
+in confusion, and looked as if he rather expected me to box his ears. "I
+shall be forty next birthday," he went on; "I am old enough to be your
+father." I all but burst out laughing, and stepped across the street, on
+my way home. He followed me. "We might invite the landlady to join
+us," he said, looking the picture of a headlong man, dismayed by the
+consciousness of his own imprudence. "Couldn't you honor me by lunching
+with me if we had the landlady?" he asked.
+
+This was a little too much. "Quite out of the question, sir--and you
+ought to know it," I said with severity. He half put out his hand.
+"Won't you even shake hands with me?" he inquired piteously. When
+we have most properly administered a reproof to a man, what is the
+perversity which makes us weakly pity him the minute afterward? I was
+fool enough to shake hands with this perfect stranger. And, having done
+it, I completed the total loss of my dignity by running away. Our dear
+crooked little streets hid me from him directly.
+
+As I rang at the door-bell of my employer's house, a thought occurred to
+me which might have been alarming to a better regulated mind than mine.
+
+"Suppose he should come back to Sandwich?"
+
+II.
+
+BEFORE many more days passed I had troubles of my own to contend with,
+which put the eccentric stranger out of my head for the time.
+
+Unfortunately, my troubles are part of my story; and my early life mixes
+itself up with them. In consideration of what is to follow, may I say
+two words relating to the period before I was a governess?
+
+I am the orphan daughter of a shopkeeper of Sandwich. My father died,
+leaving to his widow and child an honest name and a little income of L80
+a year. We kept on the shop--neither gaining nor losing by it. The truth
+is nobody would buy our poor little business. I was thirteen years old
+at the time; and I was able to help my mother, whose health was then
+beginning to fail. Never shall I forget a certain bright summer's day,
+when I saw a new customer enter our shop. He was an elderly gentleman;
+and he seemed surprised to find so young a girl as myself in charge
+of the business, and, what is more, competent to support the charge. I
+answered his questions in a manner which seemed to please him. He soon
+discovered that my education (excepting my knowledge of the business)
+had been sadly neglected; and he inquired if he could see my mother. She
+was resting on the sofa in the back parlor--and she received him there.
+When he came out, he patted me on the cheek. "I have taken a fancy to
+you," he said, "and perhaps I shall come back again." He did come back
+again. My mother had referred him to the rector for our characters in
+the town, and he had heard what our clergyman could say for us. Our only
+relations had emigrated to Australia, and were not doing well there.
+My mother's death would leave me, so far as relatives were concerned,
+literally alone in the world. "Give this girl a first-rate education,"
+said our elderly customer, sitting at our tea-table in the back parlor,
+"and she will do. If you will send her to school, ma'am, I'll pay for
+her education." My poor mother began to cry at the prospect of parting
+with me. The old gentleman said: "Think of it," and got up to go.
+He gave me his card as I opened the shop-door for him. "If you find
+yourself in trouble," he whispered, so that my mother could not hear
+him, "be a wise child, and write and tell me of it." I looked at the
+card. Our kind-hearted customer was no less a person than Sir Gervase
+Damian, of Garrum Park, Sussex--with landed property in our county as
+well! He had made himself (through the rector, no doubt) far better
+acquainted than I was with the true state of my mother's health. In four
+months from the memorable day when the great man had taken tea with us,
+my time had come to be alone in the world. I have no courage to dwell
+on it; my spirits sink, even at this distance of time, when I think of
+myself in those days. The good rector helped me with his advice--I wrote
+to Sir Gervase Damian.
+
+A change had come over his life as well as mine in the interval since we
+had met.
+
+Sir Gervase had married for the second time--and, what was more foolish
+still, perhaps, at his age, had married a young woman. She was said
+to be consumptive, and of a jealous temper as well. Her husband's only
+child by his first wife, a son and heir, was so angry at his father's
+second marriage that he left the house. The landed property being
+entailed, Sir Gervase could only express his sense of his son's conduct
+by making a new will, which left all his property in money to his young
+wife.
+
+These particulars I gathered from the steward, who was expressly sent to
+visit me at Sandwich.
+
+"Sir Gervase never makes a promise without keeping it," this gentleman
+informed me. "I am directed to take you to a first-rate ladies'
+school in the neighborhood of London, and to make all the necessary
+arrangements for your remaining there until you are eighteen years
+of age. Any written communications in the future are to pass, if you
+please, through the hands of the rector of Sandwich. The delicate health
+of the new Lady Damian makes it only too likely that the lives of her
+husband and herself will be passed, for the most part, in a milder
+climate than the climate of England. I am instructed to say this, and to
+convey to you Sir Gervase's best wishes."
+
+By the rector's advice, I accepted the position offered to me in this
+unpleasantly formal manner--concluding (quite correctly, as I afterward
+discovered) that I was indebted to Lady Damian for the arrangement which
+personally separated me from my benefactor. Her husband's kindness and
+my gratitude, meeting on the neutral ground of Garrum Park, were
+objects of conjugal distrust to this lady. Shocking! shocking! I left a
+sincerely grateful letter to be forwarded to Sir Gervase; and, escorted
+by the steward, I went to school--being then just fourteen years old.
+
+I know I am a fool. Never mind. There is some pride in me, though I am
+only a small shopkeeper's daughter. My new life had its trials--my pride
+held me up.
+
+For the four years during which I remained at the school, my poor
+welfare might be a subject of inquiry to the rector, and sometimes even
+the steward--never to Sir Gervase himself. His winters were no doubt
+passed abroad; but in the summer time he and Lady Damian were at home
+again. Not even for a day or two in the holiday time was there pity
+enough felt for my lonely position to ask me to be the guest of the
+housekeeper (I expected nothing more) at Garrum Park. But for my pride,
+I might have felt it bitterly. My pride said to me, "Do justice to
+yourself." I worked so hard, I behaved so well, that the mistress of the
+school wrote to Sir Gervase to tell him how thoroughly I had deserved
+the kindness that he had shown to me. No answer was received. (Oh, Lady
+Damian!) No change varied the monotony of my life--except when one of
+my schoolgirl friends sometimes took me home with her for a few days at
+vacation time. Never mind. My pride held me up.
+
+As the last half-year of my time at school approached, I began to
+consider the serious question of my future life.
+
+Of course, I could have lived on my eighty pounds a year; but what a
+lonely, barren existence it promised to be!--unless somebody married me;
+and where, if you please, was I to find him? My education had thoroughly
+fitted me to be a governess. Why not try my fortune, and see a little
+of the world in that way? Even if I fell among ill-conditioned people, I
+could be independent of them, and retire on my income.
+
+The rector, visiting London, came to see me. He not only approved of
+my idea--he offered me a means of carrying it out. A worthy family,
+recently settled at Sandwich, were in want of a governess. The head of
+the household was partner in a business (the exact nature of which it
+is needless to mention) having "branches" out of London. He had become
+superintendent of a new "branch"--tried as a commercial experiment,
+under special circumstances, at Sandwich. The idea of returning to my
+native place pleased me--dull as the place was to others. I accepted the
+situation.
+
+When the steward's usual half-yearly letter arrived soon afterward,
+inquiring what plans I had formed on leaving school, and what he could
+do to help them, acting on behalf of Sir Gervase, a delicious tingling
+filled me from head to foot when I thought of my own independence. It
+was not ingratitude toward my benefactor; it was only my little private
+triumph over Lady Damian. Oh, my sisters of the sex, can you not
+understand and forgive me?
+
+So to Sandwich I returned; and there, for three years, I remained with
+the kindest people who ever breathed the breath of life. Under their
+roof I was still living when I met with my lost gentleman in the street.
+
+Ah, me! the end of that quiet, pleasant life was near. When I lightly
+spoke to the odd stranger of the expiring trade of the town, I never
+expected that my employer's trade was expiring too. The speculation had
+turned out to be a losing one; and all his savings had been embarked
+in it. He could no longer remain at Sandwich, or afford to keep a
+governess. His wife broke the sad news to me. I was so fond of the
+children, I proposed to her to give up my salary. Her husband refused
+even to consider the proposal. It was the old story of poor humanity
+over again. We cried, we kissed, we parted.
+
+What was I to do next?--Write to Sir Gervase?
+
+I had already written, soon after my return to Sandwich; breaking
+through the regulations by directly addressing Sir Gervase. I expressed
+my grateful sense of his generosity to a poor girl who had no family
+claim on him; and I promised to make the one return in my power by
+trying to be worthy of the interest he had taken in me. The letter was
+written without any alloy of mental reserve. My new life as a governess
+was such a happy one that I had forgotten my paltry bitterness of
+feeling against Lady Damian.
+
+It was a relief to think of this change for the better, when the
+secretary at Garrum Park informed me that he had forwarded my letter
+to Sir Gervase, then at Madeira with his sick wife. She was slowly and
+steadily wasting away in a decline. Before another year had passed, Sir
+Gervase was left a widower for the second time, with no child to console
+him under his loss. No answer came to my grateful letter. I should
+have been unreasonable indeed if I had expected the bereaved husband to
+remember me in his grief and loneliness. Could I write to him again, in
+my own trumpery little interests, under these circumstances? I thought
+(and still think) that the commonest feeling of delicacy forbade it. The
+only other alternative was to appeal to the ever-ready friends of the
+obscure and helpless public. I advertised in the newspapers.
+
+The tone of one of the answers which I received impressed me so
+favorably, that I forwarded my references. The next post brought my
+written engagement, and the offer of a salary which doubled my income.
+
+The story of the past is told; and now we may travel on again, with no
+more stoppages by the way.
+
+III.
+
+THE residence of my present employer was in the north of England. Having
+to pass through London, I arranged to stay in town for a few days to
+make some necessary additions to my wardrobe. An old servant of the
+rector, who kept a lodging-house in the suburbs, received me kindly, and
+guided my choice in the serious matter of a dressmaker. On the second
+morning after my arrival an event happened. The post brought me a
+letter forwarded from the rectory. Imagine my astonishment when my
+correspondent proved to be Sir Gervase Damian himself!
+
+The letter was dated from his house in London. It briefly invited me to
+call and see him, for a reason which I should hear from his own lips. He
+naturally supposed that I was still at Sandwich, and requested me, in a
+postscript, to consider my journey as made at his expense.
+
+I went to the house the same day. While I was giving my name, a
+gentleman came out into the hall. He spoke to me without ceremony.
+
+"Sir Gervase," he said, "believes he is going to die. Don't encourage
+him in that idea. He may live for another year or more, if his friends
+will only persuade him to be hopeful about himself."
+
+With that, the gentleman left me; the servant said it was the doctor.
+
+The change in my benefactor, since I had seen him last, startled and
+distressed me. He lay back in a large arm-chair, wearing a grim black
+dressing-gown, and looking pitiably thin and pinched and worn. I do
+not think I should have known him again, if we had met by accident. He
+signed to me to be seated on a little chair by his side.
+
+"I wanted to see you," he said quietly, "before I die. You must have
+thought me neglectful and unkind, with good reason. My child, you have
+not been forgotten. If years have passed without a meeting between us,
+it has not been altogether my fault--"
+
+He stopped. A pained expression passed over his poor worn face; he
+was evidently thinking of the young wife whom he had lost. I
+repeated--fervently and sincerely repeated--what I had already said
+to him in writing. "I owe everything, sir, to your fatherly kindness."
+Saying this, I ventured a little further. I took his wan white hand,
+hanging over the arm of the chair, and respectfully put it to my lips.
+
+He gently drew his hand away from me, and sighed as he did it. Perhaps
+_she_ had sometimes kissed his hand.
+
+"Now tell me about yourself," he said.
+
+I told him of my new situation, and how I had got it. He listened with
+evident interest.
+
+"I was not self-deceived," he said, "when I first took a fancy to you
+in the shop. I admire your independent feeling; it's the right kind of
+courage in a girl like you. But you must let me do something more for
+you--some little service to remember me by when the end has come. What
+shall it be?"
+
+"Try to get better, sir; and let me write to you now and then," I
+answered. "Indeed, indeed, I want nothing more."
+
+"You will accept a little present, at least?" With those words he took
+from the breast-pocket of his dressing-gown an enameled cross attached
+to a gold chain. "Think of me sometimes," he said, as he put the chain
+round my neck. He drew me to him gently, and kissed my forehead. It
+was too much for me. "Don't cry, my dear," he said; "don't remind me of
+another sad young face--"
+
+Once more he stopped; once more he was thinking of the lost wife. I
+pulled down my veil, and ran out of the room.
+
+IV.
+
+THE next day I was on my way to the north. My narrative brightens
+again--but let us not forget Sir Gervase Damian.
+
+I ask permission to introduce some persons of distinction:--Mrs.
+Fosdyke, of Carsham Hall, widow of General Fosdyke; also Master
+Frederick, Miss Ellen, and Miss Eva, the pupils of the new governess;
+also two ladies and three gentlemen, guests staying in the house.
+
+Discreet and dignified; handsome and well-bred--such was my impression
+of Mrs. Fosdyke, while she harangued me on the subject of her children,
+and communicated her views on education. Having heard the views before
+from others, I assumed a listening position, and privately formed my
+opinion of the schoolroom. It was large, lofty, perfectly furnished
+for the purpose; it had a big window and a balcony looking out over
+the garden terrace and the park beyond--a wonderful schoolroom, in my
+limited experience. One of the two doors which it possessed was left
+open, and showed me a sweet little bedroom, with amber draperies and
+maplewood furniture, devoted to myself. Here were wealth and liberality,
+in the harmonious combination so seldom discovered by the spectator of
+small means. I controlled my first feeling of bewilderment just in time
+to answer Mrs. Fosdyke on the subject of reading and recitation--viewed
+as minor accomplishments which a good governess might be expected to
+teach.
+
+"While the organs are young and pliable," the lady remarked, "I regard
+it as of great importance to practice children in the art of reading
+aloud, with an agreeable variety of tone and correctness of emphasis.
+Trained in this way, they will produce a favorable impression on others,
+even in ordinary conversation, when they grow up. Poetry, committed to
+memory and recited, is a valuable means toward this end. May I hope that
+your studies have enabled you to carry out my views?"
+
+Formal enough in language, but courteous and kind in manner. I relieved
+Mrs. Fosdyke from anxiety by informing her that we had a professor of
+elocution at school. And then I was left to improve my acquaintance with
+my three pupils.
+
+They were fairly intelligent children; the boy, as usual, being slower
+than the girls. I did my best--with many a sad remembrance of the far
+dearer pupils whom I had left--to make them like me and trust me; and
+I succeeded in winning their confidence. In a week from the time of my
+arrival at Carsham Hall, we began to understand each other.
+
+The first day in the week was one of our days for reciting poetry, in
+obedience to the instructions with which I had been favored by Mrs.
+Fosdyke. I had done with the girls, and had just opened (perhaps I ought
+to say profaned) Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," in the elocutionary
+interests of Master Freddy. Half of Mark Antony's first glorious speech
+over Caesar's dead body he had learned by heart; and it was now my duty
+to teach him, to the best of my small ability, how to speak it. The
+morning was warm. We had our big window open; the delicious perfume of
+flowers in the garden beneath filled the room.
+
+I recited the first eight lines, and stopped there feeling that I must
+not exact too much from the boy at first. "Now, Freddy," I said, "try if
+you can speak the poetry as I have spoken it."
+
+"Don't do anything of the kind, Freddy," said a voice from the garden;
+"it's all spoken wrong."
+
+Who was this insolent person? A man unquestionably--and, strange to
+say, there was something not entirely unfamiliar to me in his voice.
+The girls began to giggle. Their brother was more explicit. "Oh," says
+Freddy, "it's only Mr. Sax."
+
+The one becoming course to pursue was to take no notice of the
+interruption. "Go on," I said. Freddy recited the lines, like a dear
+good boy, with as near an imitation of my style of elocution as could be
+expected from him.
+
+"Poor devil!" cried the voice from the garden, insolently pitying my
+attentive pupil.
+
+I imposed silence on the girls by a look--and then, without stirring
+from my chair, expressed my sense of the insolence of Mr. Sax in clear
+and commanding tones. "I shall be obliged to close the window if this is
+repeated." Having spoken to that effect, I waited in expectation of an
+apology. Silence was the only apology. It was enough for me that I had
+produced the right impression. I went on with my recitation.
+
+           "Here, under leave of Brutus, and the rest
+           (For Brutus is an honorable man;
+           So are they all, all honorable men),
+           Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
+           He was my friend, faithful and just to me--"
+
+"Oh, good heavens, I can't stand _that!_ Why don't you speak the last
+line properly? Listen to me."
+
+Dignity is a valuable quality, especially in a governess. But there
+are limits to the most highly trained endurance. I bounced out into
+the balcony--and there, on the terrace, smoking a cigar, was my lost
+stranger in the streets of Sandwich!
+
+He recognized me, on his side, the instant I appeared. "Oh, Lord!" he
+cried in tones of horror, and ran round the corner of the terrace as if
+my eyes had been mad bulls in close pursuit of him. By this time it
+is, I fear, useless for me to set myself up as a discreet person in
+emergencies. Another woman might have controlled herself. I burst into
+fits of laughter. Freddy and the girls joined me. For the time, it
+was plainly useless to pursue the business of education. I shut up
+Shakespeare, and allowed--no, let me tell the truth, encouraged--the
+children to talk about Mr. Sax.
+
+They only seemed to know what Mr. Sax himself had told them. His father
+and mother and brothers and sisters had all died in course of time.
+He was the sixth and last of the children, and he had been christened
+"Sextus" in consequence, which is Latin (here Freddy interposed) for
+sixth. Also christened "Cyril" (here the girls recovered the lead) by
+his mother's request; "Sextus" being such a hideous name. And which
+of his Christian names does he use? You wouldn't ask if you knew him!
+"Sextus," of course, because it is the ugliest. Sextus Sax? Not the
+romantic sort of name that one likes, when one is a woman. But I have
+no right to be particular. My own name (is it possible that I have not
+mentioned it in these pages yet?) is only Nancy Morris. Do not despise
+me--and let us return to Mr. Sax.
+
+Is he married? The eldest girl thought not. She had heard mamma say to a
+lady, "An old German family, my dear, and, in spite of his oddities, an
+excellent man; but so poor--barely enough to live on--and blurts out the
+truth, if people ask his opinion, as if he had twenty thousand a year!"
+"Your mamma knows him well, of course?" "I should think so, and so do
+we. He often comes here. They say he's not good company among grown-up
+people. _We_ think him jolly. He understands dolls, and he's the best
+back at leap-frog in the whole of England." Thus far we had advanced in
+the praise of Sextus Sax, when one of the maids came in with a note
+for me. She smiled mysteriously, and said, "I'm to wait for an answer,
+miss."
+
+I opened the note, and read these lines:--
+
+"I am so ashamed of myself, I daren't attempt to make my apologies
+personally. Will you accept my written excuses? Upon my honor, nobody
+told me when I got here yesterday that you were in the house. I heard
+the recitation, and--can you excuse my stupidity?--I thought it was
+a stage-struck housemaid amusing herself with the children. May I
+accompany you when you go out with the young ones for your daily walk?
+One word will do. Yes or no. Penitently yours--S. S."
+
+In my position, there was but one possible answer to this. Governesses
+must not make appointments with strange gentlemen--even when the
+children are present in the capacity of witnesses. I said, No. Am I
+claiming too much for my readiness to forgive injuries, when I add that
+I should have preferred saying Yes?
+
+We had our early dinner, and then got ready to go out walking as usual.
+These pages contain a true confession. Let me own that I hoped Mr. Sax
+would understand my refusal, and ask Mrs. Fosdyke's leave to accompany
+us. Lingering a little as we went downstairs, I heard him in the
+hall--actually speaking to Mrs. Fosdyke! What was he saying? That
+darling boy, Freddy, got into a difficulty with one of his boot-laces
+exactly at the right moment. I could help him, and listen--and be sadly
+disappointed by the result. Mr. Sax was offended with me.
+
+"You needn't introduce me to the new governess," I heard him say. "We
+have met on a former occasion, and I produced a disagreeable impression
+on her. I beg you will not speak of me to Miss Morris."
+
+Before Mrs. Fosdyke could say a word in reply, Master Freddy changed
+suddenly from a darling boy to a detestable imp. "I say, Mr. Sax!" he
+called out, "Miss Morris doesn't mind you a bit--she only laughs at
+you."
+
+The answer to this was the sudden closing of a door. Mr. Sax had taken
+refuge from me in one of the ground-floor rooms. I was so mortified, I
+could almost have cried.
+
+Getting down into the hall, we found Mrs. Fosdyke with her garden
+hat on, and one of the two ladies who were staying in the house (the
+unmarried one) whispering to her at the door of the morning-room. The
+lady--Miss Melbury--looked at me with a certain appearance of curiosity
+which I was quite at a loss to understand, and suddenly turned away
+toward the further end of the hall.
+
+"I will walk with you and the children," Mrs. Fosdyke said to me.
+"Freddy, you can ride your tricycle if you like." She turned to
+the girls. "My dears, it's cool under the trees. You may take your
+skipping-ropes."
+
+She had evidently something special to say to me; and she had adopted
+the necessary measures for keeping the children in front of us, well out
+of hearing. Freddy led the way on his horse on three wheels; the girls
+followed, skipping merrily. Mrs. Fosdyke opened the business by the
+most embarrassing remark that she could possibly have made under the
+circumstances.
+
+"I find that you are acquainted with Mr. Sax," she began; "and I am
+surprised to hear that you dislike him."
+
+She smiled pleasantly, as if my supposed dislike of Mr. Sax rather
+amused her. What "the ruling passion" may be among men, I cannot presume
+to consider. My own sex, however, I may claim to understand. The
+ruling passion among women is Conceit. My ridiculous notion of my
+own consequence was wounded in some way. I assumed a position of the
+loftiest indifference.
+
+"Really, ma'am," I said, "I can't undertake to answer for any impression
+that Mr. Sax may have formed. We met by the merest accident. I know
+nothing about him."
+
+Mrs. Fosdyke eyed me slyly, and appeared to be more amused than ever.
+
+"He is a very odd man," she admitted, "but I can tell you there is a
+fine nature under that strange surface of his. However," she went on,
+"I am forgetting that he forbids me to talk about him in your presence.
+When the opportunity offers, I shall take my own way of teaching you two
+to understand each other: you will both be grateful to me when I have
+succeeded. In the meantime, there is a third person who will be sadly
+disappointed to hear that you know nothing about Mr. Sax."
+
+"May I ask, ma'am, who the person is?"
+
+"Can you keep a secret, Miss Morris? Of course you can! The person is
+Miss Melbury."
+
+(Miss Melbury was a dark woman. It cannot be because I am a fair woman
+myself--I hope I am above such narrow prejudices as that--but it is
+certainly true that I don't admire dark women.)
+
+"She heard Mr. Sax telling me that you particularly disliked him," Mrs.
+Fosdyke proceeded. "And just as you appeared in the hall, she was asking
+me to find out what your reason was. My own opinion of Mr. Sax, I ought
+to tell you, doesn't satisfy her; I am his old friend, and I present him
+of course from my own favorable point of view. Miss Melbury is anxious
+to be made acquainted with his faults--and she expected you to be a
+valuable witness against him."
+
+Thus far we had been walking on. We now stopped, as if by common
+consent, and looked at one another.
+
+In my previous experience of Mrs. Fosdyke, I had only seen the more
+constrained and formal side of her character. Without being aware of my
+own success, I had won the mother's heart in winning the goodwill of her
+children. Constraint now seized its first opportunity of melting away;
+the latent sense of humor in the great lady showed itself, while I
+was inwardly wondering what the nature of Miss Melbury's extraordinary
+interest in Mr. Sax might be. Easily penetrating my thoughts, she
+satisfied my curiosity without committing herself to a reply in words.
+Her large gray eyes sparkled as they rested on my face, and she hummed
+the tune of the old French song, _"C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour!"_
+There is no disguising it--something in this disclosure made me
+excessively angry. Was I angry with Miss Melbury? or with Mr. Sax? or
+with myself? I think it must have been with myself.
+
+Finding that I had nothing to say on my side, Mrs. Fosdyke looked at her
+watch, and remembered her domestic duties. To my relief, our interview
+came to an end.
+
+"I have a dinner-party to-day," she said, "and I have not seen the
+housekeeper yet. Make yourself beautiful, Miss Morris, and join us in
+the drawing-room after dinner."
+
+V.
+
+I WORE my best dress; and, in all my life before, I never took such
+pains with my hair. Nobody will be foolish enough, I hope, to suppose
+that I did this on Mr. Sax's account. How could I possibly care about
+a man who was little better than a stranger to me? No! the person I
+dressed at was Miss Melbury.
+
+She gave me a look, as I modestly placed myself in a corner, which amply
+rewarded me for the time spent on my toilet. The gentlemen came in.
+I looked at Mr. Sax (mere curiosity) under shelter of my fan. His
+appearance was greatly improved by evening dress. He discovered me in
+my corner, and seemed doubtful whether to approach me or not. I was
+reminded of our first odd meeting; and I could not help smiling as I
+called it to mind. Did he presume to think that I was encouraging him?
+Before I could decide that question, he took the vacant place on the
+sofa. In any other man--after what had passed in the morning--this would
+have been an audacious proceeding. _He_ looked so painfully embarrassed,
+that it became a species of Christian duty to pity him.
+
+"Won't you shake hands?" he said, just as he had said it at Sandwich.
+
+I peeped round the corner of my fan at Miss Melbury. She was looking at
+us. I shook hands with Mr. Sax.
+
+"What sort of sensation is it," he asked, "when you shake hands with a
+man whom you hate?"
+
+"I really can't tell you," I answered innocently; "I have never done
+such a thing."
+
+"You would not lunch with me at Sandwich," he protested; "and, after the
+humblest apology on my part, you won't forgive me for what I did this
+morning. Do you expect me to believe that I am not the special object of
+your antipathy? I wish I had never met with you! At my age, a man gets
+angry when he is treated cruelly and doesn't deserve it. You don't
+understand that, I dare say."
+
+"Oh, yes, I do. I heard what you said about me to Mrs. Fosdyke, and I
+heard you bang the door when you got out of my way."
+
+He received this reply with every appearance of satisfaction. "So you
+listened, did you? I'm glad to hear that."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It shows you take some interest in me, after all."
+
+Throughout this frivolous talk (I only venture to report it because it
+shows that I bore no malice on my side) Miss Melbury was looking at us
+like the basilisk of the ancients. She owned to being on the wrong side
+of thirty; and she had a little money--but these were surely no reasons
+why she should glare at a poor governess. Had some secret understanding
+of the tender sort been already established between Mr. Sax and herself?
+She provoked me into trying to find out--especially as the last words he
+had said offered me the opportunity.
+
+"I can prove that I feel a sincere interest in you," I resumed. "I can
+resign you to a lady who has a far better claim to your attention than
+mine. You are neglecting her shamefully."
+
+He stared at me with an appearance of bewilderment, which seemed to
+imply that the attachment was on the lady's side, so far. It was of
+course impossible to mention names; I merely turned my eyes in the right
+direction. He looked where I looked--and his shyness revealed itself,
+in spite of his resolution to conceal it. His face flushed; he looked
+mortified and surprised. Miss Melbury could endure it no longer. She
+rose, took a song from the music-stand, and approached us.
+
+"I am going to sing," she said, handing the music to him. "Please turn
+over for me, Mr. Sax."
+
+I think he hesitated--but I cannot feel sure that I observed him
+correctly. It matters little. With or without hesitation, he followed
+her to the piano.
+
+Miss Melbury sang--with perfect self-possession, and an immense compass
+of voice. A gentleman near me said she ought to be on the stage. I
+thought so too. Big as it was, our drawing-room was not large enough for
+her. The gentleman sang next. No voice at all--but so sweet, such true
+feeling! I turned over the leaves for him. A dear old lady, sitting near
+the piano, entered into conversation with me. She spoke of the great
+singers at the beginning of the present century. Mr. Sax hovered about,
+with Miss Melbury's eye on him. I was so entranced by the anecdotes of
+my venerable friend, that I could take no notice of Mr. Sax. Later, when
+the dinner-party was over, and we were retiring for the night, he still
+hovered about, and ended in offering me a bedroom candle. I immediately
+handed it to Miss Melbury. Really a most enjoyable evening!
+
+VI.
+
+THE next morning we were startled by an extraordinary proceeding on the
+part of one of the guests. Mr. Sax had left Carsham Hall by the first
+train--nobody knew why.
+
+Nature has laid--so, at least, philosophers say--some heavy burdens
+upon women. Do those learned persons include in their list the burden
+of hysterics? If so, I cordially agree with them. It is hardly worth
+speaking of in my case--a constitutional outbreak in the solitude of
+my own room, treated with eau-de-cologne and water, and quite forgotten
+afterward in the absorbing employment of education. My favorite pupil,
+Freddy, had been up earlier than the rest of us--breathing the morning
+air in the fruit-garden. He had seen Mr. Sax and had asked him when he
+was coming back again. And Mr. Sax had said, "I shall be back again next
+month." (Dear little Freddy!)
+
+In the meanwhile we, in the schoolroom, had the prospect before us of a
+dull time in an empty house. The remaining guests were to go away at the
+end of the week, their hostess being engaged to pay a visit to some old
+friends in Scotland.
+
+During the next three or four days, though I was often alone with Mrs.
+Fosdyke, she never said one word on the subject of Mr. Sax. Once or
+twice I caught her looking at me with that unendurably significant smile
+of hers. Miss Melbury was equally unpleasant in another way. When
+we accidentally met on the stairs, her black eyes shot at me passing
+glances of hatred and scorn. Did these two ladies presume to think--?
+
+No; I abstained from completing that inquiry at the time, and I abstain
+from completing it here.
+
+The end of the week came, and I and the children were left alone at
+Carsham Hall.
+
+I took advantage of the leisure hours at my disposal to write to Sir
+Gervase; respectfully inquiring after his health, and informing him
+that I had been again most fortunate in my engagement as a governess. By
+return of post an answer arrived. I eagerly opened it. The first lines
+informed me of Sir Gervase Damian's death.
+
+The letter dropped from my hand. I looked at my little enameled cross.
+It is not for me to say what I felt. Think of all that I owed to him;
+and remember how lonely my lot was in the world. I gave the children a
+holiday; it was only the truth to tell them that I was not well.
+
+How long an interval passed before I could call to mind that I had only
+read the first lines of the letter, I am not able to say. When I did
+take it up I was surprised to see that the writing covered two pages.
+Beginning again where I had left off, my head, in a moment more, began
+to swim. A horrid fear overpowered me that I might not be in my right
+mind, after I had read the first three sentences. Here they are, to
+answer for me that I exaggerate nothing:--
+
+"The will of our deceased client is not yet proved. But, with the
+sanction of the executors, I inform you confidentially that you are the
+person chiefly interested in it. Sir Gervase Damian bequeaths to you,
+absolutely, the whole of his personal property, amounting to the sum of
+seventy thousand pounds."
+
+If the letter had ended there, I really cannot imagine what
+extravagances I might not have committed. But the writer (head partner
+in the firm of Sir Gervase's lawyers) had something more to say on his
+own behalf. The manner in which he said it strung up my nerves in an
+instant. I can not, and will not, copy the words here. It is quite
+revolting enough to give the substance of them.
+
+The man's object was evidently to let me perceive that he disapproved of
+the will. So far I do not complain of him--he had, no doubt, good
+reason for the view he took. But, in expressing his surprise "at this
+extraordinary proof of the testator's interest in a perfect stranger
+to the family," he hinted his suspicion of an influence, on my part,
+exercised over Sir Gervase, so utterly shameful, that I cannot dwell on
+the subject. The language, I should add, was cunningly guarded. Even
+I could see that it would bear more than one interpretation, and would
+thus put me in the wrong if I openly resented it. But the meaning
+was plain; and part at least of the motive came out in the following
+sentences:
+
+"The present Sir Gervase, as you are doubtless aware, is not seriously
+affected by his father's will. He is already more liberally provided
+for, as heir under the entail to the whole of the landed property. But,
+to say nothing of old friends who are forgotten, there is a surviving
+relative of the late Sir Gervase passed over, who is nearly akin to him
+by blood. In the event of this person disputing the will, you will of
+course hear from us again, and refer us to your legal adviser."
+
+The letter ended with an apology for delay in writing to me, caused by
+difficulty in discovering my address.
+
+And what did I do?--Write to the rector, or to Mrs. Fosdyke, for
+advice? Not I!
+
+At first I was too indignant to be able to think of what I ought to
+do. Our post-time was late, and my head ached as if it would burst into
+pieces. I had plenty of leisure to rest and compose myself. When I got
+cool again, I felt able to take my own part, without asking any one to
+help me.
+
+Even if I had been treated kindly, I should certainly not have taken the
+money when there was a relative living with a claim to it. What did _I_
+want with a large fortune! To buy a husband with it, perhaps? No, no!
+from all that I have heard, the great Lord Chancellor was quite right
+when he said that a woman with money at her own disposal was "either
+kissed out of it or kicked out of it, six weeks after her marriage." The
+one difficulty before me was not to give up my legacy, but to express my
+reply with sufficient severity, and at the same time with due regard to
+my own self-respect. Here is what I wrote:
+
+"SIR--I will not trouble you by attempting to express my sorrow on
+hearing of Sir Gervase Damian's death. You would probably form your own
+opinion on that subject also; and I have no wish to be judged by your
+unenviable experience of humanity for the second time.
+
+"With regard to the legacy, feeling the sincerest gratitude to my
+generous benefactor, I nevertheless refuse to receive the money.
+
+"Be pleased to send me the necessary document to sign, for transferring
+my fortune to that relative of Sir Gervase mentioned in your letter. The
+one condition on which I insist is, that no expression of thanks shall
+be addressed to me by the person in whose favor I resign the money. I
+do not desire (even supposing that justice is done to my motives on this
+occasion) to be made the object of expressions of gratitude for only
+doing my duty."
+
+So it ended. I may be wrong, but I call that strong writing.
+
+In due course of post a formal acknowledgment arrived. I was requested
+to wait for the document until the will had been proved, and was
+informed that my name should be kept strictly secret in the interval. On
+this occasion the executors were almost as insolent as the lawyer. They
+felt it their duty to give me time to reconsider a decision which had
+been evidently formed on impulse. Ah, how hard men are--at least, some
+of them! I locked up the acknowledgment in disgust, resolved to think
+no more of it until the time came for getting rid of my legacy. I kissed
+poor Sir Gervase's little keepsake. While I was still looking at it,
+the good children came in, of their own accord, to ask how I was. I was
+obliged to draw down the blind in my room, or they would have seen the
+tears in my eyes. For the first time since my mother's death, I felt the
+heartache. Perhaps the children made me think of the happier time when I
+was a child myself.
+
+VII.
+
+THE will had been proved, and I was informed that the document was
+in course of preparation when Mrs. Fosdyke returned from her visit to
+Scotland.
+
+She thought me looking pale and worn.
+
+"The time seems to me to have come," she said, "when I had better make
+you and Mr. Sax understand each other. Have you been thinking penitently
+of your own bad behavior?"
+
+I felt myself blushing. I _had_ been thinking of my conduct to Mr.
+Sax--and I was heartily ashamed of it, too.
+
+Mrs. Fosdyke went on, half in jest, half in earnest. "Consult your own
+sense of propriety!" she said. "Was the poor man to blame for not being
+rude enough to say No, when a lady asked him to turn over her music?
+Could _he_ help it, if the same lady persisted in flirting with him? He
+ran away from her the next morning. Did you deserve to be told why he
+left us? Certainly not--after the vixenish manner in which you handed
+the bedroom candle to Miss Melbury. You foolish girl! Do you think I
+couldn't see that you were in love with him? Thank Heaven, he's too poor
+to marry you, and take you away from my children, for some time to come.
+There will be a long marriage engagement, even if he is magnanimous
+enough to forgive you. Shall I ask Miss Melbury to come back with him?"
+
+She took pity on me at last, and sat down to write to Mr. Sax. His
+reply, dated from a country house some twenty miles distant, announced
+that he would be at Carsham Hall in three days' time.
+
+On that third day the legal paper that I was to sign arrived by post. It
+was Sunday morning; I was alone in the schoolroom.
+
+In writing to me, the lawyer had only alluded to "a surviving relative
+of Sir Gervase, nearly akin to him by blood." The document was more
+explicit. It described the relative as being a nephew of Sir Gervase,
+the son of his sister. The name followed.
+
+It was Sextus Cyril Sax.
+
+I have tried on three different sheets of paper to describe the effect
+which this discovery produced on me--and I have torn them up one after
+another. When I only think of it, my mind seems to fall back into the
+helpless surprise and confusion of that time. After all that had passed
+between us--the man himself being then on his way to the house! what
+would he think of me when he saw my name at the bottom of the document?
+what, in Heaven's name, was I to do?
+
+How long I sat petrified, with the document on my lap, I never knew.
+Somebody knocked at the schoolroom door, and looked in and said
+something, and went out again. Then there was an interval. Then the
+door was opened again. A hand was laid kindly on my shoulder. I looked
+up--and there was Mrs. Fosdyke, asking, in the greatest alarm, what was
+the matter with me.
+
+The tone of her voice roused me into speaking. I could think of nothing
+but Mr. Sax; I could only say, "Has he come?"
+
+"Yes--and waiting to see you."
+
+Answering in those terms, she glanced at the paper in my lap. In the
+extremity of my helplessness, I acted like a sensible creature at last.
+I told Mrs. Fosdyke all that I have told here.
+
+She neither moved nor spoke until I had done. Her first proceeding,
+after that, was to take me in her arms and give me a kiss. Having so far
+encouraged me, she next spoke of poor Sir Gervase.
+
+"We all acted like fools," she announced, "in needlessly offending him
+by protesting against his second marriage. I don't mean you--I mean his
+son, his nephew, and myself. If his second marriage made him happy, what
+business had we with the disparity of years between husband and wife?
+I can tell you this, Sextus was the first of us to regret what he
+had done. But for his stupid fear of being suspected of an interested
+motive, Sir Gervase might have known there was that much good in his
+sister's son."
+
+She snatched up a copy of the will, which I had not even noticed thus
+far.
+
+"See what the kind old man says of you," she went on, pointing to the
+words. I could not see them; she was obliged to read them for me. "I
+leave my money to the one person living who has been more than worthy of
+the little I have done for her, and whose simple unselfish nature I know
+that I can trust."
+
+I pressed Mrs. Fosdyke's hand; I was not able to speak. She took up the
+legal paper next.
+
+"Do justice to yourself, and be above contemptible scruples," she said.
+"Sextus is fond enough of you to be almost worthy of the sacrifice that
+you are making. Sign--and I will sign next as the witness."
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"What will he think of me?" I said.
+
+"Sign!" she repeated, "and we will see to that."
+
+I obeyed. She asked for the lawyer's letter. I gave it to her, with the
+lines which contained the man's vile insinuation folded down, so that
+only the words above were visible, which proved that I had renounced my
+legacy, not even knowing whether the person to be benefited was a man or
+a woman. She took this, with the rough draft of my own letter, and the
+signed renunciation--and opened the door.
+
+"Pray come back, and tell me about it!" I pleaded.
+
+She smiled, nodded, and went out.
+
+Oh, what a long time passed before I heard the long-expected knock at
+the door! "Come in," I cried impatiently.
+
+Mrs. Fosdyke had deceived me. Mr. Sax had returned in her place. He
+closed the door. We two were alone.
+
+He was deadly pale; his eyes, as they rested on me, had a wild startled
+look. With icy cold fingers he took my hand, and lifted it in silence to
+his lips. The sight of his agitation encouraged me--I don't to this day
+know why, unless it appealed in some way to my compassion. I was bold
+enough to look at him. Still silent, he placed the letters on the
+table--and then he laid the signed paper beside them. When I saw that, I
+was bolder still. I spoke first.
+
+"Surely you don't refuse me?" I said.
+
+He answered, "I thank you with my whole heart; I admire you more than
+words can say. But I can't take it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The fortune is yours," he said gently. "Remember how poor I am, and
+feel for me if I say no more."
+
+His head sank on his breast. He stretched out one hand, silently
+imploring me to understand him. I could endure it no longer. I forgot
+every consideration which a woman, in my position, ought to have
+remembered. Out came the desperate words, before I could stop them.
+
+"You won't take my gift by itself?" I said.
+
+"No."
+
+"Will you take Me with it?"
+
+
+That evening, Mrs. Fosdyke indulged her sly sense of humor in a new way.
+She handed me an almanac.
+
+"After all, my dear," she remarked, "you needn't be ashamed of having
+spoken first. You have only used the ancient privilege of the sex. This
+is Leap Year."
+
+
+
+
+MR. COSWAY AND THE LANDLADY.
+
+I.
+
+THE guests would have enjoyed their visit to Sir Peter's country
+house--but for Mr. Cosway. And to make matters worse, it was not Mr.
+Cosway but the guests who were to blame. They repeated the old story of
+Adam and Eve, on a larger scale. The women were the first sinners; and
+the men were demoralized by the women.
+
+Mr. Cosway's bitterest enemy could not have denied that he was a
+handsome, well-bred, unassuming man. No mystery of any sort attached
+to him. He had adopted the Navy as a profession--had grown weary of it
+after a few years' service--and now lived on the moderate income left
+to him, after the death of his parents. Out of this unpromising material
+the lively imaginations of the women built up a romance. The men only
+noticed that Mr. Cosway was rather silent and thoughtful; that he was
+not ready with his laugh; and that he had a fancy for taking long walks
+by himself. Harmless peculiarities, surely? And yet, they excited the
+curiosity of the women as signs of a mystery in Mr. Cosway's past life,
+in which some beloved object unknown must have played a chief part.
+
+As a matter of course, the influence of the sex was tried, under every
+indirect and delicate form of approach, to induce Mr. Cosway to open
+his heart, and tell the tale of his sorrows. With perfect courtesy, he
+baffled curiosity, and kept his supposed secret to himself. The most
+beautiful girl in the house was ready to offer herself and her fortune
+as consolations, if this impenetrable bachelor would only have taken her
+into his confidence. He smiled sadly, and changed the subject.
+
+Defeated so far, the women accepted the next alternative.
+
+One of the guests staying in the house was Mr. Cosway's intimate
+friend--formerly his brother-officer on board ship. This gentleman was
+now subjected to the delicately directed system of investigation which
+had failed with his friend. With unruffled composure he referred the
+ladies, one after another, to Mr. Cosway. His name was Stone. The ladies
+decided that his nature was worthy of his name.
+
+The last resource left to our fair friends was to rouse the dormant
+interest of the men, and to trust to the confidential intercourse of the
+smoking-room for the enlightenment which they had failed to obtain by
+other means.
+
+In the accomplishment of this purpose, the degree of success which
+rewarded their efforts was due to a favoring state of affairs in the
+house. The shooting was not good for much; the billiard-table was under
+repair; and there were but two really skilled whist-players among the
+guests. In the atmosphere of dullness thus engendered, the men not only
+caught the infection of the women's curiosity, but were even ready to
+listen to the gossip of the servants' hall, repeated to their mistresses
+by the ladies' maids. The result of such an essentially debased state
+of feeling as this was not slow in declaring itself. But for a lucky
+accident, Mr. Cosway would have discovered to what extremities of
+ill-bred curiosity idleness and folly can lead persons holding the
+position of ladies and gentlemen, when he joined the company at
+breakfast on the next morning.
+
+The newspapers came in before the guests had risen from the table. Sir
+Peter handed one of them to the lady who sat on his right hand.
+
+She first looked, it is needless to say, at the list of births, deaths,
+and marriages; and then she turned to the general news--the fires,
+accidents, fashionable departures, and so on. In a few minutes, she
+indignantly dropped the newspaper in her lap.
+
+"Here is another unfortunate man," she exclaimed, "sacrificed to the
+stupidity of women! If I had been in his place, I would have used my
+knowledge of swimming to save myself, and would have left the women to
+go to the bottom of the river as they deserved!"
+
+"A boat accident, I suppose?" said Sir Peter.
+
+"Oh yes--the old story. A gentleman takes two ladies out in a boat.
+After a while they get fidgety, and feel an idiotic impulse to change
+places. The boat upsets as usual; the poor dear man tries to save
+them--and is drowned along with them for his pains. Shameful! shameful!"
+
+"Are the names mentioned?"
+
+"Yes. They are all strangers to me; I speak on principle." Asserting
+herself in those words, the indignant lady handed the newspaper to Mr.
+Cosway, who happened to sit next to her. "When you were in the navy,"
+she continued, "I dare say _your_ life was put in jeopardy by taking
+women in boats. Read it yourself, and let it be a warning to you for the
+future."
+
+Mr. Cosway looked at the narrative of the accident--and revealed the
+romantic mystery of his life by a burst of devout exclamation, expressed
+in the words:
+
+"Thank God, my wife's drowned!"
+
+II.
+
+To declare that Sir Peter and his guests were all struck speechless,
+by discovering in this way that Mr. Cosway was a married man, is to say
+very little. The general impression appeared to be that he was mad. His
+neighbors at the table all drew back from him, with the one exception of
+his friend. Mr. Stone looked at the newspaper: pressed Mr. Cosway's hand
+in silent sympathy--and addressed himself to his host.
+
+"Permit me to make my friend's apologies," he said, "until he is composed
+enough to act for himself. The circumstances are so extraordinary that
+I venture to think they excuse him. Will you allow us to speak to you
+privately?"
+
+Sir Peter, with more apologies addressed to his visitors, opened the
+door which communicated with his study. Mr. Stone took Mr. Cosway's
+arm, and led him out of the room. He noticed no one, spoke to no one--he
+moved mechanically, like a man walking in his sleep.
+
+After an unendurable interval of nearly an hour's duration, Sir Peter
+returned alone to the breakfast-room. Mr. Cosway and Mr. Stone had
+already taken their departure for London, with their host's entire
+approval.
+
+"It is left to my discretion," Sir Peter proceeded, "to repeat to you
+what I have heard in my study. I will do so, on one condition--that you
+all consider yourselves bound in honor not to mention the true names and
+the real places, when you tell the story to others."
+
+Subject to this wise reservation, the narrative is here repeated by
+one of the company. Considering how he may perform his task to the best
+advantage, he finds that the events which preceded and followed Mr.
+Cosway's disastrous marriage resolve themselves into certain well-marked
+divisions. Adopting this arrangement, he proceeds to relate:
+
+_The First Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._
+
+The sailing of her Majesty's ship _Albicore_ was deferred by the severe
+illness of the captain. A gentleman not possessed of political
+influence might, after the doctor's unpromising report of him, have been
+superseded by another commanding officer. In the present case, the
+Lords of the Admiralty showed themselves to be models of patience and
+sympathy. They kept the vessel in port, waiting the captain's recovery.
+
+Among the unimportant junior officers, not wanted on board under these
+circumstances, and favored accordingly by obtaining leave to wait for
+orders on shore, were two young men, aged respectively twenty-two and
+twenty-three years, and known by the names of Cosway and Stone. The
+scene which now introduces them opens at a famous seaport on the south
+coast of England, and discloses the two young gentlemen at dinner in a
+private room at their inn.
+
+"I think that last bottle of champagne was corked," Cosway remarked.
+"Let's try another. You're nearest the bell, Stone. Ring."
+
+Stone rang, under protest. He was the elder of the two by a year, and he
+set an example of discretion.
+
+"I am afraid we are running up a terrible bill," he said. "We have been
+here more than three weeks--"
+
+"And we have denied ourselves nothing," Cosway added. "We have
+lived like princes. Another bottle of champagne, waiter. We have our
+riding-horses, and our carriage, and the best box at the theater, and
+such cigars as London itself could not produce. I call that making the
+most of life. Try the new bottle. Glorious drink, isn't it? Why doesn't
+my father have champagne at the family dinner-table?"
+
+"Is your father a rich man, Cosway?"
+
+"I should say not. He didn't give me anything like the money I expected,
+when I said good-by--and I rather think he warned me solemnly, at
+parting, to take the greatest care of it.' There's not a farthing more
+for you,' he said, 'till your ship returns from her South American
+station.' _Your_ father is a clergyman, Stone."
+
+"Well, and what of that?"
+
+"And some clergymen are rich."
+
+"My father is not one of them, Cosway."
+
+"Then let us say no more about him. Help yourself, and pass the bottle."
+
+Instead of adopting this suggestion, Stone rose with a very grave face,
+and once more rang the bell. "Ask the landlady to step up," he said,
+when the waiter appeared.
+
+"What do you want with the landlady?" Cosway inquired.
+
+"I want the bill."
+
+The landlady--otherwise Mrs. Pounce--entered the room. She was short,
+and old, and fat, and painted, and a widow. Students of character, as
+revealed in the face, would have discovered malice and cunning in her
+bright black eyes, and a bitter vindictive temper in the lines about her
+thin red lips. Incapable of such subtleties of analysis as these, the
+two young officers differed widely, nevertheless, in their opinions of
+Mrs. Pounce. Cosway's reckless sense of humor delighted in pretending
+to be in love with her. Stone took a dislike to her from the first. When
+his friend asked for the reason, he made a strangely obscure answer.
+"Do you remember that morning in the wood when you killed the snake?" he
+said. "I took a dislike to the snake." Cosway made no further inquiries.
+
+"Well, my young heroes," said Mrs. Pounce (always loud, always cheerful,
+and always familiar with her guests), "what do you want with me now?"
+
+"Take a glass of champagne, my darling," said Cosway; "and let me try if
+I can get my arm round your waist. That's all _I_ want with you."
+
+The landlady passed this over without notice. Though she had spoken to
+both of them, her cunning little eyes rested on Stone from the moment
+when she appeared in the room. She knew by instinct the man who disliked
+her--and she waited deliberately for Stone to reply.
+
+"We have been here some time," he said, "and we shall be obliged, ma'am,
+if you will let us have our bill."
+
+Mrs. Pounce lifted her eyebrows with an expression of innocent surprise.
+
+"Has the captain got well, and must you go on board to-night?" she
+asked.
+
+"Nothing of the sort!" Cosway interposed. "We have no news of the
+captain, and we are going to the theater to-night."
+
+"But," persisted Stone, "we want, if you please, to have the bill."
+
+"Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Pounce, with a sudden assumption of respect.
+"But we are very busy downstairs, and we hope you will not press us for
+it to-night?"
+
+"Of course not!" cried Cosway.
+
+Mrs. Pounce instantly left the room, without waiting for any further
+remark from Cosway's friend.
+
+"I wish we had gone to some other house," said Stone. "You mark my
+words--that woman means to cheat us."
+
+Cosway expressed his dissent from this opinion in the most amiable
+manner. He filled his friend's glass, and begged him not to say
+ill-natured things of Mrs. Pounce.
+
+But Stone's usually smooth temper seemed to be ruffled; he insisted on
+his own view. "She's impudent and inquisitive, if she is not downright
+dishonest," he said. "What right had she to ask you where we lived when
+we were at home; and what our Christian names were; and which of us was
+oldest, you or I? Oh, yes--it's all very well to say she only showed a
+flattering interest in us! I suppose she showed a flattering interest in
+my affairs, when I awoke a little earlier than usual, and caught her in
+my bedroom with my pocketbook in her hand. Do you believe she was going
+to lock it up for safety's sake? She knows how much money we have got
+as well as we know it ourselves. Every half-penny we have will be in her
+pocket tomorrow. And a good thing, too--we shall be obliged to leave the
+house."
+
+Even this cogent reasoning failed in provoking Cosway to reply. He took
+Stone's hat, and handed it with the utmost politeness to his foreboding
+friend. "There's only one remedy for such a state of mind as yours," he
+said. "Come to the theater."
+
+
+At ten o'clock the next morning Cosway found himself alone at the
+breakfast-table. He was informed that Mr. Stone had gone out for a
+little walk, and would be back directly. Seating himself at the table,
+he perceived an envelope on his plate, which evidently inclosed the
+bill. He took up the envelope, considered a little, and put it back
+again unopened. At the same moment Stone burst into the room in a high
+state of excitement.
+
+"News that will astonish you!" he cried. "The captain arrived yesterday
+evening. His doctors say that the sea-voyage will complete his recovery.
+The ship sails to-day--and we are ordered to report ourselves on board
+in an hour's time. Where's the bill?"
+
+Cosway pointed to it. Stone took it out of the envelope.
+
+It covered two sides of a prodigiously long sheet of paper. The sum
+total was brightly decorated with lines in red ink. Stone looked at the
+total, and passed it in silence to Cosway. For once, even Cosway was
+prostrated. In dreadful stillness the two young men produced their
+pocketbooks; added up their joint stores of money, and compared the
+result with the bill. Their united resources amounted to a little more
+than one-third of their debt to the landlady of the inn.
+
+The only alternative that presented itself was to send for Mrs. Pounce;
+to state the circumstances plainly; and to propose a compromise on the
+grand commercial basis of credit.
+
+Mrs. Pounce presented herself superbly dressed in walking costume. Was
+she going out; or had she just returned to the inn? Not a word escaped
+her; she waited gravely to hear what the gentlemen wanted. Cosway,
+presuming on his position as favorite, produced the contents of the two
+pocketbooks and revealed the melancholy truth.
+
+"There is all the money we have," he concluded. "We hope you will not
+object to receive the balance in a bill at three months."
+
+Mrs. Pounce answered with a stern composure of voice and manner entirely
+new in the experience of Cosway and Stone.
+
+"I have paid ready money, gentlemen, for the hire of your horses and
+carriages," she said; "here are the receipts from the livery stables
+to vouch for me; I never accept bills unless I am quite sure beforehand
+that they will be honored. I defy you to find an overcharge in the
+account now rendered; and I expect you to pay it before you leave my
+house."
+
+Stone looked at his watch.
+
+"In three-quarters of an hour," he said, "we must be on board."
+
+Mrs. Pounce entirely agreed with him. "And if you are not on board," she
+remarked "you will be tried by court-martial, and dismissed the service
+with your characters ruined for life."
+
+"My dear creature, we haven't time to send home, and we know nobody in
+the town," pleaded Cosway. "For God's sake take our watches and jewelry,
+and our luggage--and let us go."
+
+"I am not a pawnbroker," said the inflexible lady. "You must either pay
+your lawful debt to me in honest money, or--"
+
+She paused and looked at Cosway. Her fat face brightened--she smiled
+graciously for the first time.
+
+Cosway stared at her in unconcealed perplexity. He helplessly repeated
+her last words. "We must either pay the bill," he said, "or what?"
+
+"Or," answered Mrs. Pounce, "one of you must marry ME."
+
+Was she joking? Was she intoxicated? Was she out of her senses? Neither
+of the three; she was in perfect possession of herself; her explanation
+was a model of lucid and convincing arrangement of facts.
+
+"My position here has its drawbacks," she began. "I am a lone widow;
+I am known to have an excellent business, and to have saved money. The
+result is that I am pestered to death by a set of needy vagabonds
+who want to marry me. In this position, I am exposed to slanders and
+insults. Even if I didn't know that the men were after my money, there
+is not one of them whom I would venture to marry. He might turn out a
+tyrant and beat me; or a drunkard, and disgrace me; or a betting man,
+and ruin me. What I want, you see, for my own peace and protection, is
+to be able to declare myself married, and to produce the proof in the
+shape of a certificate. A born gentleman, with a character to lose, and
+so much younger in years than myself that he wouldn't think of
+living with me--there is the sort of husband who suits my book! I'm a
+reasonable woman, gentlemen. I would undertake to part with my husband
+at the church door--never to attempt to see him or write to him
+afterward--and only to show my certificate when necessary, without
+giving any explanations. Your secret would be quite safe in my keeping.
+I don't care a straw for either of you, so long as you answer my
+purpose. What do you say to paying my bill (one or the other of you) in
+this way? I am ready dressed for the altar; and the clergyman has notice
+at the church. My preference is for Mr. Cosway," proceeded this terrible
+woman with the cruelest irony, "because he has been so particular in
+his attentions toward me. The license (which I provided on the chance
+a fortnight since) is made out in his name. Such is my weakness for Mr.
+Cosway. But that don't matter if Mr. Stone would like to take his place.
+He can hail by his friend's name. Oh, yes, he can! I have consulted my
+lawyer. So long as the bride and bridegroom agree to it, they may be
+married in any name they like, and it stands good. Look at your watch
+again, Mr. Stone. The church is in the next street. By my calculation,
+you have just got five minutes to decide. I'm a punctual woman, my
+little dears; and I will be back to the moment."
+
+She opened the door, paused, and returned to the room.
+
+"I ought to have mentioned," she resumed, "that I shall make you a
+present of the bill, receipted, on the conclusion of the ceremony. You
+will be taken to the ship in my own boat, with all your money in your
+pockets, and a hamper of good things for the mess. After that I wash my
+hands of you. You may go to the devil your own way."
+
+With this parting benediction, she left them.
+
+Caught in the landlady's trap, the two victims looked at each other in
+expressive silence. Without time enough to take legal advice; without
+friends on shore; without any claim on officers of their own standing in
+the ship, the prospect before them was literally limited to Marriage or
+Ruin. Stone made a proposal worthy of a hero.
+
+"One of us must marry her," he said; "I'm ready to toss up for it."
+
+Cosway matched him in generosity. "No," he answered. "It was I who
+brought you here; and I who led you into these infernal expenses. I
+ought to pay the penalty--and I will."
+
+Before Stone could remonstrate, the five minutes expired. Punctual Mrs.
+Pounce appeared again in the doorway.
+
+"Well?" she inquired, "which is it to be--Cosway, or Stone?"
+
+Cosway advanced as reckless as ever, and offered his arm.
+
+"Now then, Fatsides," he said, "come and be married!"
+
+In five-and-twenty minutes more, Mrs. Pounce had become Mrs. Cosway; and
+the two officers were on their way to the ship.
+
+
+_The Second Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._
+
+Four years elapsed before the _Albicore_ returned to the port from which
+she had sailed.
+
+In that interval, the death of Cosway's parents had taken place. The
+lawyer who had managed his affairs, during his absence from England,
+wrote to inform him that his inheritance from his late father's "estate"
+was eight hundred a year. His mother only possessed a life interest in
+her fortune; she had left her jewels to her son, and that was all.
+
+Cosway's experience of the life of a naval officer on foreign stations
+(without political influence to hasten his promotion) had thoroughly
+disappointed him. He decided on retiring from the service when the ship
+was "paid off." In the meantime, to the astonishment of his comrades, he
+seemed to be in no hurry to make use of the leave granted him to go on
+shore. The faithful Stone was the only man on board who knew that he was
+afraid of meeting his "wife." This good friend volunteered to go to the
+inn, and make the necessary investigation with all needful prudence.
+"Four years is a long time, at _her_ age," he said. "Many things may
+happen in four years."
+
+An hour later, Stone returned to the ship, and sent a written message on
+board, addressed to his brother-officer, in these words: "Pack up your
+things at once, and join me on shore."
+
+"What news?" asked the anxious husband.
+
+Stone looked significantly at the idlers on the landing-place. "Wait,"
+he said, "till we are by ourselves."
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+"To the railway station."
+
+They got into an empty carriage; and Stone at once relieved his friend
+of all further suspense.
+
+"Nobody is acquainted with the secret of your marriage, but our two
+selves," he began quietly. "I don't think, Cosway, you need go into
+mourning."
+
+"You don't mean to say she's dead!"
+
+"I have seen a letter (written by her own lawyer) which announces her
+death," Stone replied. "It was so short that I believe I can repeat it
+word for word: 'Dear Sir--I have received information of the death of
+my client. Please address your next and last payment, on account of
+the lease and goodwill of the inn, to the executors of the late Mrs.
+Cosway.' There, that is the letter. 'Dear Sir' means the present
+proprietor of the inn. He told me your wife's previous history in two
+words. After carrying on the business with her customary intelligence
+for more than three years, her health failed, and she went to London
+to consult a physician. There she remained under the doctor's care.
+The next event was the appearance of an agent, instructed to sell the
+business in consequence of the landlady's declining health. Add the
+death at a later time--and there is the beginning and the end of the
+story. Fortune owed you a good turn, Cosway--and Fortune has paid the
+debt. Accept my best congratulations."
+
+Arrived in London, Stone went on at once to his relations in the North.
+Cosway proceeded to the office of the family lawyer (Mr. Atherton),
+who had taken care of his interests in his absence. His father and Mr.
+Atherton had been schoolfellows and old friends. He was affectionately
+received, and was invited to pay a visit the next day to the lawyer's
+villa at Richmond.
+
+"You will be near enough to London to attend to your business at the
+Admiralty," said Mr. Atherton, "and you will meet a visitor at my house,
+who is one of the most charming girls in England--the only daughter of
+the great Mr. Restall. Good heavens! have you never heard of him?
+My dear sir, he's one of the partners in the famous firm of Benshaw,
+Restall, and Benshaw."
+
+Cosway was wise enough to accept this last piece of information as quite
+conclusive. The next day, Mrs. Atherton presented him to the charming
+Miss Restall; and Mrs. Atherton's young married daughter (who had been
+his playfellow when they were children) whispered to him, half in jest,
+half in earnest: "Make the best use of your time; she isn't engaged
+yet."
+
+Cosway shuddered inwardly at the bare idea of a second marriage. Was
+Miss Restall the sort of woman to restore his confidence?
+
+She was small and slim and dark--a graceful, well-bred, brightly
+intelligent person, with a voice exquisitely sweet and winning in
+tone. Her ears, hands, and feet were objects to worship; and she had an
+attraction, irresistibly rare among the women of the present time--the
+attraction of a perfectly natural smile. Before Cosway had been an hour
+in the house, she discovered that his long term of service on foreign
+stations had furnished him with subjects of conversation which favorably
+contrasted with the commonplace gossip addressed to her by other men.
+Cosway at once became a favorite, as Othello became a favorite in his
+day.
+
+The ladies of the household all rejoiced in the young officer's success,
+with the exception of Miss Restall's companion (supposed to hold the
+place of her lost mother, at a large salary), one Mrs. Margery.
+
+Too cautious to commit herself in words, this lady expressed doubt and
+disapprobation by her looks. She had white hair, iron-gray eyebrows, and
+protuberant eyes; her looks were unusually expressive. One evening, she
+caught poor Mr. Atherton alone, and consulted him confidentially on the
+subject of Mr. Cosway's income. This was the first warning which opened
+the eyes of the good lawyer to the nature of the "friendship" already
+established between his two guests. He knew Miss Restall's illustrious
+father well, and he feared that it might soon be his disagreeable duty
+to bring Cosway's visit to an end.
+
+On a certain Saturday afternoon, while Mr. Atherton was still
+considering how he could most kindly and delicately suggest to Cosway
+that it was time to say good-by, an empty carriage arrived at the villa.
+A note from Mr. Restall was delivered to Mrs. Atherton, thanking
+her with perfect politeness for her kindness to his daughter.
+"Circumstances," he added, "rendered it necessary that Miss Restall
+should return home that afternoon."
+
+The "circumstances" were supposed to refer to a garden-party to be given
+by Mr. Restall in the ensuing week. But why was his daughter wanted at
+home before the day of the party?
+
+The ladies of the family, still devoted to Cosway's interests,
+entertained no doubt that Mrs. Margery had privately communicated with
+Mr. Restall, and that the appearance of the carriage was the natural
+result. Mrs. Atherton's married daughter did all that could be done: she
+got rid of Mrs. Margery for one minute, and so arranged it that Cosway
+and Miss Restall took leave of each other in her own sitting-room.
+
+When the young lady appeared in the hall she had drawn her veil down.
+Cosway escaped to the road and saw the last of the carriage as it drove
+away. In a little more than a fortnight his horror of a second marriage
+had become one of the dead and buried emotions of his nature. He stayed
+at the villa until Monday morning, as an act of gratitude to his good
+friends, and then accompanied Mr. Atherton to London. Business at the
+Admiralty was the excuse. It imposed on nobody. He was evidently on his
+way to Miss Restall.
+
+"Leave your business in my hands," said the lawyer, on the journey to
+town, "and go and amuse yourself on the Continent. I can't blame you for
+falling in love with Miss Restall; I ought to have foreseen the danger,
+and waited till she had left us before I invited you to my house. But I
+may at least warn you to carry the matter no further. If you had eight
+thousand instead of eight hundred a year, Mr. Restall would think it an
+act of presumption on your part to aspire to his daughter's hand, unless
+you had a title to throw into the bargain. Look at it in the true
+light, my dear boy; and one of these days you will thank me for speaking
+plainly."
+
+Cosway promised to "look at it in the true light."
+
+The result, from his point of view, led him into a change of residence.
+He left his hotel and took a lodging in the nearest bystreet to Mr.
+Restall's palace at Kensington.
+
+On the same evening he applied (with the confidence due to a previous
+arrangement) for a letter at the neighboring post-office, addressed to
+E. C.--the initials of Edwin Cosway. "Pray be careful," Miss Restall
+wrote; "I have tried to get you a card for our garden party. But that
+hateful creature, Margery, has evidently spoken to my father; I am not
+trusted with any invitation cards. Bear it patiently, dear, as I do, and
+let me hear if you have succeeded in finding a lodging near us."
+
+Not submitting to this first disappointment very patiently, Cosway sent
+his reply to the post-office, addressed to A. R.--the initials of Adela
+Restall. The next day the impatient lover applied for another letter. It
+was waiting for him, but it was not directed in Adela's handwriting.
+Had their correspondence been discovered? He opened the letter in the
+street; and read, with amazement, these lines:
+
+"Dear Mr. Cosway, my heart sympathizes with two faithful lovers, in
+spite of my age and my duty. I inclose an invitation to the party
+tomorrow. Pray don't betray me, and don't pay too marked attention to
+Adela. Discretion is easy. There will be twelve hundred guests. Your
+friend, in spite of appearances, Louisa Margery."
+
+How infamously they had all misjudged this excellent woman! Cosway went
+to the party a grateful, as well as a happy man. The first persons
+known to him, whom he discovered among the crowd of strangers, were
+the Athertons. They looked, as well they might, astonished to see him.
+Fidelity to Mrs. Margery forbade him to enter into any explanations.
+Where was that best and truest friend? With some difficulty he succeeded
+in finding her. Was there any impropriety in seizing her hand and
+cordially pressing it? The result of this expression of gratitude was,
+to say the least of it, perplexing.
+
+Mrs. Margery behaved like the Athertons! She looked astonished to see
+him and she put precisely the same question: "How did you get here?"
+Cosway could only conclude that she was joking. "Who should know that,
+dear lady, better than yourself?" he rejoined. "I don't understand you,"
+Mrs. Margery answered, sharply. After a moment's reflection, Cosway hit
+on another solution of the mystery. Visitors were near them; and Mrs.
+Margery had made her own private use of one of Mr. Restall's invitation
+cards. She might have serious reasons for pushing caution to its last
+extreme. Cosway looked at her significantly. "The least I can do is not
+to be indiscreet," he whispered--and left her.
+
+He turned into a side walk; and there he met Adela at last!
+
+It seemed like a fatality. _She_ looked astonished; and _she_ said: "How
+did you get here?" No intrusive visitors were within hearing, this time.
+"My dear!" Cosway remonstrated, "Mrs. Margery must have told you, when
+she sent me my invitation." Adela turned pale. "Mrs. Margery?" she
+repeated. "Mrs. Margery has said nothing to me; Mrs. Margery detests
+you. We must have this cleared up. No; not now--I must attend to our
+guests. Expect a letter; and, for heaven's sake, Edwin, keep out of my
+father's way. One of our visitors whom he particularly wished to see has
+sent an excuse--and he is dreadfully angry about it."
+
+She left him before Cosway could explain that he and Mr. Restall had
+thus far never seen each other.
+
+He wandered away toward the extremity of the grounds, troubled by vague
+suspicions; hurt at Adela's cold reception of him. Entering a shrubbery,
+which seemed intended to screen the grounds, at this point, from a lane
+outside, he suddenly discovered a pretty little summer-house among the
+trees. A stout gentleman, of mature years, was seated alone in this
+retreat. He looked up with a frown. Cosway apologized for disturbing
+him, and entered into conversation as an act of politeness.
+
+"A brilliant assembly to-day, sir."
+
+The stout gentleman replied by an inarticulate sound--something between
+a grunt and a cough.
+
+"And a splendid house and grounds," Cosway continued.
+
+The stout gentleman repeated the inarticulate sound.
+
+Cosway began to feel amused. Was this curious old man deaf and dumb?
+
+"Excuse my entering into conversation," he persisted. "I feel like a
+stranger here. There are so many people whom I don't know."
+
+The stout gentleman suddenly burst into speech. Cosway had touched a
+sympathetic fiber at last.
+
+"There are a good many people here whom _I_ don't know," he said,
+gruffly. "You are one of them. What's your name?"
+
+"My name is Cosway, sir. What's yours?"
+
+The stout gentleman rose with fury in his looks. He burst out with an
+oath; and added the in tolerable question, already three times repeated
+by others: "How did you get here?" The tone was even more offensive than
+the oath. "Your age protects you, sir," said Cosway, with the loftiest
+composure. "I'm sorry I gave my name to so rude a person."
+
+"Rude?" shouted the old gentleman. "You want my name in return, I
+suppose? You young puppy, you shall have it! My name is Restall."
+
+He turned his back and walked off. Cosway took the only course now open
+to him. He returned to his lodgings.
+
+The next day no letter reached him from Adela. He went to the
+postoffice. No letter was there. The day wore on to evening--and, with
+the evening, there appeared a woman who was a stranger to him. She
+looked like a servant; and she was the bearer of a mysterious message.
+
+"Please be at the garden-door that opens on the lane, at ten o'clock
+to-morrow morning. Knock three times at the door--and then say 'Adela.'
+Some one who wishes you well will be alone in the shrubbery, and will
+let you in. No, sir! I am not to take anything; and I am not to say a
+word more." She spoke--and vanished.
+
+Cosway was punctual to his appointment. He knocked three times; he
+pronounced Miss Restall's Christian name. Nothing happened. He waited a
+while, and tried again. This time Adela's voice answered strangely from
+the shrubbery in tones of surprise: "Edwin, is it really you?"
+
+"Did you expect any one else?" Cosway asked. "My darling, your message
+said ten o'clock--and here I am."
+
+The door was suddenly unlocked.
+
+"I sent no message," said Adela, as they confronted each other on the
+threshold.
+
+In the silence of utter bewilderment they went together into the
+summer-house. At Adela's request, Cosway repeated the message that
+he had received, and described the woman who had delivered it. The
+description applied to no person known to Miss Restall. "Mrs. Margery
+never sent you the invitation; and I repeat, I never sent you the
+message. This meeting has been arranged by some one who knows that I
+always walk in the shrubbery after breakfast. There is some underhand
+work going on--"
+
+Still mentally in search of the enemy who had betrayed them, she checked
+herself, and considered a little. "Is it possible--?" she began, and
+paused again. Her eyes filled with tears. "My mind is so completely
+upset," she said, "that I can't think clearly of anything. Oh, Edwin, we
+have had a happy dream, and it has come to an end. My father knows more
+than we think for. Some friends of ours are going abroad tomorrow--and
+I am to go with them. Nothing I can say has the least effect upon my
+father. He means to part us forever--and this is his cruel way of doing
+it!"
+
+She put her arm round Cosway's neck and lovingly laid her head on his
+shoulder. With tenderest kisses they reiterated their vows of eternal
+fidelity until their voices faltered and failed them. Cosway filled up
+the pause by the only useful suggestion which it was now in his power to
+make--he proposed an elopement.
+
+Adela received this bold solution of the difficulty in which they were
+placed exactly as thousands of other young ladies have received similar
+proposals before her time, and after.
+
+She first said positively No. Cosway persisted. She began to cry, and
+asked if he had no respect for her. Cosway declared that his respect was
+equal to any sacrifice except the sacrifice of parting with her forever.
+He could, and would, if she preferred it, die for her, but while he was
+alive he must refuse to give her up. Upon this she shifted her ground.
+Did he expect her to go away with him alone? Certainly not. Her maid
+could go with her, or, if her maid was not to be trusted, he would apply
+to his landlady, and engage "a respectable elderly person" to attend on
+her until the day of their marriage. Would she have some mercy on him,
+and just consider it? No: she was afraid to consider it. Did she prefer
+misery for the rest of her life? Never mind _his_ happiness: it
+was _her_ happiness only that he had in his mind. Traveling with
+unsympathetic people; absent from England, no one could say for
+how long; married, when she did return, to some rich man whom she
+hated--would she, could she, contemplate that prospect? She contemplated
+it through tears; she contemplated it to an accompaniment of sighs,
+kisses, and protestations--she trembled, hesitated, gave way. At an
+appointed hour of the coming night, when her father would be in the
+smoking-room, and Mrs. Margery would be in bed, Cosway was to knock at
+the door in the lane once more; leaving time to make all the necessary
+arrangements in the interval.
+
+The one pressing necessity, under these circumstances, was to guard
+against the possibility of betrayal and surprise. Cosway discreetly
+alluded to the unsolved mysteries of the invitation and the message.
+"Have you taken anybody into our confidence?" he asked.
+
+Adela answered with some embarrassment. "Only one person," She
+said--"dear Miss Benshaw."
+
+"Who is Miss Benshaw?"
+
+"Don't you really know, Edwin? She is richer even than papa--she has
+inherited from her late brother one half-share in the great business in
+the City. Miss Benshaw is the lady who disappointed papa by not coming
+to the garden-party. You remember, dear, how happy we were when we were
+together at Mr. Atherton's? I was very miserable when they took me
+away. Miss Benshaw happened to call the next day and she noticed it. 'My
+dear,' she said (Miss Benshaw is quite an elderly lady now), 'I am an
+old maid, who has missed the happiness of her life, through not having
+had a friend to guide and advise her when she was young. Are you
+suffering as I once suffered?' She spoke so nicely--and I was so
+wretched--that I really couldn't help it. I opened my heart to her."
+
+Cosway looked grave. "Are you sure she is to be trusted?" he asked.
+
+"Perfectly sure."
+
+"Perhaps, my love, she has spoken about us (not meaning any harm)
+to some friend of hers? Old ladies are so fond of gossip. It's just
+possible--don't you think so?"
+
+Adela hung her head.
+
+"I have thought it just possible myself," she admitted. "There is plenty
+of time to call on her to-day. I will set our doubts at rest before Miss
+Benshaw goes out for her afternoon drive."
+
+On that understanding they parted.
+
+Toward evening Cosway's arrangements for the elopement were completed.
+He was eating his solitary dinner when a note was brought to him. It
+had been left at the door by a messenger. The man had gone away without
+waiting for an answer. The note ran thus:
+
+"Miss Benshaw presents her compliments to Mr. Cosway, and will be
+obliged if he can call on her at nine o'clock this evening, on business
+which concerns himself."
+
+This invitation was evidently the result of Adela's visit earlier in the
+day. Cosway presented himself at the house, troubled by natural emotions
+of anxiety and suspense. His reception was not of a nature to compose
+him. He was shown into a darkened room. The one lamp on the table was
+turned down low, and the little light thus given was still further
+obscured by a shade. The corners of the room were in almost absolute
+darkness.
+
+A voice out of one of the corners addressed him in a whisper:
+
+"I must beg you to excuse the darkened room. I am suffering from a
+severe cold. My eyes are inflamed, and my throat is so bad that I can
+only speak in a whisper. Sit down, sir. I have got news for you."
+
+"Not bad news, I hope, ma'am?" Cosway ventured to inquire.
+
+"The worst possible news," said the whispering voice. "You have an enemy
+striking at you in the dark."
+
+Cosway asked who it was, and received no answer. He varied the form of
+inquiry, and asked why the unnamed person struck at him in the dark. The
+experiment succeeded; he obtained a reply.
+
+"It is reported to me," said Miss Benshaw, "that the person thinks it
+necessary to give you a lesson, and takes a spiteful pleasure in doing
+it as mischievously as possible. The person, as I happen to know, sent
+you your invitation to the party, and made the appointment which took
+you to the door in the lane. Wait a little, sir; I have not done yet.
+The person has put it into Mr. Restall's head to send his daughter
+abroad tomorrow."
+
+Cosway attempted to make her speak more plainly.
+
+"Is this wretch a man or a woman?" he said.
+
+Miss Benshaw proceeded without noticing the interruption.
+
+"You needn't be afraid, Mr. Cosway; Miss Restall will not leave England.
+Your enemy is all-powerful. Your enemy's object could only be to provoke
+you into planning an elopement--and, your arrangements once completed,
+to inform Mr. Restall, and to part you and Miss Adela quite as
+effectually as if you were at opposite ends of the world. Oh, you will
+undoubtedly be parted! Spiteful, isn't it? And, what is worse, the
+mischief is as good as done already."
+
+Cosway rose from his chair.
+
+"Do you wish for any further explanation?" asked Miss Benshaw.
+
+"One thing more," he replied. "Does Adela know of this?"
+
+"No," said Miss Benshaw; "it is left to you to tell her."
+
+There was a moment of silence. Cosway looked at the lamp. Once roused,
+as usual with men of his character, his temper was not to be trifled
+with.
+
+"Miss Benshaw," he said, "I dare say you think me a fool; but I can draw
+my own conclusion, for all that. _You_ are my enemy."
+
+The only reply was a chuckling laugh. All voices can be more or less
+effectually disguised by a whisper but a laugh carries the revelation of
+its own identity with it. Cosway suddenly threw off the shade over the
+lamp and turned up the wick.
+
+The light flooded the room, and showed him--His Wife.
+
+
+_The Third Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._
+
+Three days had passed. Cosway sat alone in his lodging--pale and worn:
+the shadow already of his former self.
+
+He had not seen Adela since the discovery. There was but one way in
+which he could venture to make the inevitable disclosure--he wrote to
+her; and Mr. Atherton's daughter took care that the letter should be
+received. Inquiries made afterward, by help of the same good friend,
+informed him that Miss Restall was suffering from illness.
+
+The mistress of the house came in.
+
+"Cheer up, sir," said the good woman. "There is better news of Miss
+Restall to-day."
+
+He raised his head.
+
+"Don't trifle with me!" he answered fretfully; "tell me exactly what the
+servant said."
+
+The mistress repeated the words. Miss Restall had passed a quieter
+night, and had been able for a few hours to leave her room. He asked
+next if any reply to his letter had arrived. No reply had been received.
+
+If Adela definitely abstained from writing to him, the conclusion would
+be too plain to be mistaken. She had given him up--and who could blame
+her?
+
+There was a knock at the street-door. The mistress looked out.
+
+"Here's Mr. Stone come back, sir!" she exclaimed joyfully--and hurried
+away to let him in.
+
+Cosway never looked up when his friend appeared.
+
+"I knew I should succeed," said Stone. "I have seen your wife."
+
+"Don't speak of her," cried Cosway. "I should have murdered her when I
+saw her face, if I had not instantly left the house. I may be the death
+of the wretch yet, if you presist in speaking of her!"
+
+Stone put his hand kindly on his friend's shoulder.
+
+"Must I remind you that you owe something to your old comrade?" he
+asked. "I left my father and mother, the morning I got your letter--and
+my one thought has been to serve you. Reward me. Be a man, and hear what
+is your right and duty to know. After that, if you like, we will never
+refer to the woman again."
+
+Cosway took his hand, in silent acknowledgment that he was right. They
+sat down together. Stone began.
+
+"She is so entirely shameless," he said, "that I had no difficulty in
+getting her to speak. And she so cordially hates you that she glories in
+her own falsehood and treachery."
+
+"Of course, she lies," Cosway said bitterly, "when she calls herself
+Miss Benshaw?"
+
+"No; she is really the daughter of the man who founded the great house
+in the City. With every advantage that wealth and position could give
+her the perverse creature married one of her father's clerks, who had
+been deservedly dismissed from his situation. From that moment her
+family discarded her. With the money procured by the sale of her
+jewels, her husband took the inn which we have such bitter cause to
+remember--and she managed the house after his death. So much for the
+past. Carry your mind on now to the time when our ship brought us back
+to England. At that date, the last surviving member of your wife's
+family--her elder brother--lay at the point of death. He had taken his
+father's place in the business, besides inheriting his father's fortune.
+After a happy married life he was left a widower, without children;
+and it became necessary that he should alter his will. He deferred
+performing his duty. It was only at the time of his last illness that he
+had dictated instructions for a new will, leaving his wealth (excepting
+certain legacies to old friends) to the hospitals of Great Britain and
+Ireland. His lawyer lost no time in carrying out the instructions. The
+new will was ready for signature (the old will having been destroyed by
+his own hand), when the doctors sent a message to say that their patient
+was insensible, and might die in that condition."
+
+"Did the doctors prove to be right?"
+
+"Perfectly right. Our wretched landlady, as next of kin, succeeded, not
+only to the fortune, but (under the deed of partnership) to her late
+brother's place in the firm: on the one easy condition of resuming the
+family name. She calls herself "Miss Benshaw." But as a matter of legal
+necessity she is set down in the deed as "Mrs. Cosway Benshaw." Her
+partners only now know that her husband is living, and that you are
+the Cosway whom she privately married. Will you take a little breathing
+time? or shall I go on, and get done with it?"
+
+Cosway signed to him to go on.
+
+"She doesn't in the least care," Stone proceeded, "for the exposure.
+'I am the head partner,' she says 'and the rich one of the firm;
+they daren't turn their backs on Me.' You remember the information I
+received--in perfect good faith on his part--from the man who keeps
+the inn? The visit to the London doctor, and the assertion of failing
+health, were adopted as the best means of plausibly severing the lady's
+connection (the great lady now!) with a calling so unworthy of her as
+the keeping of an inn. Her neighbors at the seaport were all deceived
+by the stratagem, with two exceptions. They were both men--vagabonds who
+had pertinaciously tried to delude her into marrying them in the days
+when she was a widow. They refused to believe in the doctor and the
+declining health; they had their own suspicion of the motives which had
+led to the sale of the inn, under very unfavorable circumstances; and
+they decided on going to London, inspired by the same base hope of
+making discoveries which might be turned into a means of extorting
+money."
+
+"She escaped them, of course," said Cosway. "How?"
+
+"By the help of her lawyer, who was not above accepting a handsome
+private fee. He wrote to the new landlord of the inn, falsely announcing
+his client's death, in the letter which I repeated to you in the railway
+carriage on our journey to London. Other precautions were taken to
+keep up the deception, on which it is needless to dwell. Your natural
+conclusion that you were free to pay your addresses to Miss Restall, and
+the poor young lady's innocent confidence in 'Miss Benshaw's' sympathy,
+gave this unscrupulous woman the means of playing the heartless trick
+on you which is now exposed. Malice and jealousy--I have it, mind, from
+herself!--were not her only motives. 'But for that Cosway,' she said (I
+spare you the epithet which she put before your name), 'with my money
+and position, I might have married a needy lord, and sunned myself in
+my old age in the full blaze of the peerage.' Do you understand how she
+hated you, now? Enough of the subject! The moral of it, my dear Cosway,
+is to leave this place, and try what change of scene will do for you. I
+have time to spare; and I will go abroad with you. When shall it be?"
+
+"Let me wait a day or two more," Cosway pleaded.
+
+Stone shook his head. "Still hoping, my poor friend, for a line from
+Miss Restall? You distress me."
+
+"I am sorry to distress you, Stone. If I can get one pitying word from
+_her_, I can submit to the miserable life that lies before me."
+
+"Are you not expecting too much?"
+
+"You wouldn't say so, if you were as fond of her as I am."
+
+They were silent. The evening slowly darkened; and the mistress came in
+as usual with the candles. She brought with her a letter for Cosway.
+
+He tore it open; read it in an instant; and devoured it with kisses.
+His highly wrought feelings found their vent in a little allowable
+exaggeration. "She has saved my life!" he said, as he handed the letter
+to Stone.
+
+It only contained these lines:
+
+"My love is yours, my promise is yours. Through all trouble, through all
+profanation, through the hopeless separation that may be before us in
+this world, I live yours--and die yours. My Edwin, God bless and comfort
+you."
+
+
+_The Fourth Epoch in Mr. Cosway's Life._
+
+The separation had lasted for nearly two years, when Cosway and Stone
+paid that visit to the country house which is recorded at the outset of
+the present narrative. In the interval nothing had been heard of Miss
+Restall, except through Mr. Atherton. He reported that Adela was leading
+a very quiet life. The one remarkable event had been an interview
+between "Miss Benshaw" and herself. No other person had been present;
+but the little that was reported placed Miss Restall's character above
+all praise. She had forgiven the woman who had so cruelly injured her!
+
+The two friends, it may be remembered, had traveled to London,
+immediately after completing the fullest explanation of Cosway's
+startling behavior at the breakfast-table. Stone was not by nature a
+sanguine man. "I don't believe in our luck," he said. "Let us be quite
+sure that we are not the victims of another deception."
+
+The accident had happened on the Thames; and the newspaper narrative
+proved to be accurate in every respect. Stone personally attended
+the inquest. From a natural feeling of delicacy toward Adela, Cosway
+hesitated to write to her on the subject. The ever-helpful Stone wrote
+in his place.
+
+After some delay, the answer was received. It inclosed a brief statement
+(communicated officially by legal authority) of the last act of malice
+on the part of the late head-partner in the house of Benshaw and
+Company. She had not died intestate, like her brother. The first clause
+of her will contained the testator's grateful recognition of Adela
+Restall's Christian act of forgiveness. The second clause (after stating
+that there were neither relatives nor children to be benefited by the
+will) left Adela Restall mistress of Mrs. Cosway Benshaw's fortune--on
+the one merciless condition that she did _not_ marry Edwin Cosway. The
+third clause--if Adela Restall violated the condition--handed over the
+whole of the money to the firm in the City, "for the extension of the
+business, and the benefit of the surviving partners."
+
+Some months later, Adela came of age. To the indignation of Mr. Restall,
+and the astonishment of the "Company," the money actually went to the
+firm. The fourth epoch in Mr. Cosway's life witnessed his marriage to a
+woman who cheerfully paid half a million of money for the happiness of
+passing her life, on eight hundred a year, with the man whom she loved.
+
+But Cosway felt bound in gratitude to make a rich woman of his wife, if
+work and resolution could do it. When Stone last heard of him, he was
+reading for the bar; and Mr. Atherton was ready to give him his first
+brief.
+
+NOTE.--That "most improbable" part of the present narrative, which
+is contained in the division called The First Epoch, is founded on an
+adventure which actually occurred to no less a person than a cousin of
+Sir Walter Scott. In Lockhart's delightful "Life," the anecdote will be
+found as told by Sir Walter to Captain Basil Hall. The remainder of the
+present story is entirely imaginary. The writer wondered what such a
+woman as the landlady would do under certain given circumstances, after
+her marriage to the young midshipman--and here is the result.
+
+
+
+
+
+MR. MEDHURST AND THE PRINCESS.
+
+I.
+
+THE day before I left London, to occupy the post of second secretary of
+legation at a small German Court, I took leave of my excellent French
+singing-master, Monsieur Bonnefoy, and of his young and pretty daughter
+named Jeanne.
+
+Our farewell interview was saddened by Monsieur Bonnefoy's family
+anxieties. His elder brother, known in the household as Uncle David,
+had been secretly summoned to Paris by order of a republican society.
+Anxious relations in London (whether reasonably or not, I am unable to
+say) were in some fear of the political consequences that might follow.
+
+At parting, I made Mademoiselle Jeanne a present, in the shape of
+a plain gold brooch. For some time past, I had taken my lessons at
+Monsieur Bonnefoy's house; his daughter and I often sang together under
+his direction. Seeing much of Jeanne, under these circumstances, the
+little gift that I had offered to her was only the natural expression of
+a true interest in her welfare. Idle rumor asserted--quite falsely--that
+I was in love with her. I was sincerely the young lady's friend: no
+more, no less.
+
+Having alluded to my lessons in singing, it may not be out of place
+to mention the circumstances under which I became Monsieur Bonnefoy's
+pupil, and to allude to the change in my life that followed in due
+course of time.
+
+Our family property--excepting the sum of five thousand pounds left to
+me by my mother--is landed property strictly entailed. The estates were
+inherited by my only brother, Lord Medhurst; the kindest, the best, and,
+I grieve to say it, the unhappiest of men. He lived separated from a
+bad wife; he had no children to console him; and he only enjoyed at rare
+intervals the blessing of good health. Having myself nothing to live on
+but the interest of my mother's little fortune, I had to make my own way
+in the world. Poor younger sons, not possessed of the commanding ability
+which achieves distinction, find the roads that lead to prosperity
+closed to them, with one exception. They can always apply themselves to
+the social arts which make a man agreeable in society. I had naturally
+a good voice, and I cultivated it. I was ready to sing, without being
+subject to the wretched vanity which makes objections and excuses--I
+pleased the ladies--the ladies spoke favorably of me to their
+husbands--and some of their husbands were persons of rank and influence.
+After no very long lapse of time, the result of this combination of
+circumstances declared itself. Monsieur Bonnefoy's lessons became the
+indirect means of starting me on a diplomatic career--and the diplomatic
+career made poor Ernest Medhurst, to his own unutterable astonishment,
+the hero of a love story!
+
+The story being true, I must beg to be excused, if I abstain from
+mentioning names, places, and dates, when I enter on German ground. Let
+it be enough to say that I am writing of a bygone year in the present
+century, when no such thing as a German Empire existed, and when the
+revolutionary spirit of France was still an object of well-founded
+suspicion to tyrants by right divine on the continent of Europe.
+
+II.
+
+ON joining the legation, I was not particularly attracted by my chief,
+the Minister. His manners were oppressively polite; and his sense of his
+own importance was not sufficiently influenced by diplomatic reserve. I
+venture to describe him (mentally speaking) as an empty man, carefully
+trained to look full on public occasions.
+
+My colleague, the first secretary, was a far more interesting person.
+Bright, unaffected, and agreeable, he at once interested me when we were
+introduced to each other. I pay myself a compliment, as I consider, when
+I add that he became my firm and true friend.
+
+We took a walk together in the palace gardens on the evening of my
+arrival. Reaching a remote part of the grounds, we were passed by a
+lean, sallow, sour-looking old man, drawn by a servant in a chair on
+wheels. My companion stopped, whispered to me, "Here is the Prince,"
+and bowed bareheaded. I followed his example as a matter of course. The
+Prince feebly returned our salutation. "Is he ill?" I asked, when we had
+put our hats on again.
+
+"Shakespeare," the secretary replied, "tells us that 'one man in
+his time plays many parts.' Under what various aspects the Prince's
+character may have presented itself, in his younger days, I am not able
+to tell you. Since I have been here, he has played the part of a martyr
+to illness, misunderstood by his doctors."
+
+"And his daughter, the Princess--what do you say of her?"
+
+"Ah, she is not so easily described! I can only appeal to your memory of
+other women like her, whom you must often have seen--women who are tall
+and fair, and fragile and elegant; who have delicate aquiline noses
+and melting blue eyes--women who have often charmed you by their tender
+smiles and their supple graces of movement. As for the character of this
+popular young lady, I must not influence you either way; study it for
+yourself."
+
+"Without a hint to guide me?"
+
+"With a suggestion," he replied, "which may be worth considering. If you
+wish to please the Princess, begin by endeavoring to win the good graces
+of the Baroness."
+
+"Who is the Baroness?"
+
+"One of the ladies in waiting--bosom friend of her Highness, and chosen
+repository of all her secrets. Personally, not likely to attract you;
+short and fat, and ill-tempered and ugly. Just at this time, I happen
+myself to get on with her better than usual. We have discovered that
+we possess one sympathy in common--we are the only people at Court who
+don't believe in the Prince's new doctor."
+
+"Is the new doctor a quack?"
+
+The secretary looked round, before he answered, to see that nobody was
+near us.
+
+"It strikes me," he said, "that the Doctor is a spy. Mind! I have no
+right to speak of him in that way; it is only my impression--and I ought
+to add that appearances are all in his favor. He is in the service of
+our nearest royal neighbor, the Grand Duke; and he has been sent here
+expressly to relieve the sufferings of the Duke's good friend and
+brother, our invalid Prince. This is an honorable mission no doubt. And
+the man himself is handsome, well-bred, and (I don't quite know whether
+this is an additional recommendation) a countryman of ours. Nevertheless
+I doubt him, and the Baroness doubts him. You are an independent
+witness; I shall be anxious to hear if your opinion agrees with ours."
+
+I was presented at Court, toward the end of the week; and, in the course
+of the next two or three days, I more than once saw the Doctor. The
+impression that he produced on me surprised my colleague. It was my
+opinion that he and the Baroness had mistaken the character of a worthy
+and capable man.
+
+The secretary obstinately adhered to his own view.
+
+"Wait a little," he answered, "and we shall see."
+
+He was quite right. We did see.
+
+III.
+
+BUT the Princess--the gentle, gracious, beautiful Princess--what can I
+say of her Highness?
+
+I can only say that she enchanted me.
+
+I had been a little discouraged by the reception that I met with from
+her father. Strictly confining himself within the limits of politeness,
+he bade me welcome to his Court in the fewest possible words, and then
+passed me by without further notice. He afterward informed the English
+Minister that I had been so unfortunate as to try his temper: "Your new
+secretary irritates me, sir--he is a person in an offensively perfect
+state of health." The Prince's charming daughter was not of her father's
+way of thinking; it is impossible to say how graciously, how sweetly I
+was received. She honored me by speaking to me in my own language,
+of which she showed herself to be a perfect mistress. I was not only
+permitted, but encouraged, to talk of my family, and to dwell on my own
+tastes, amusements, and pursuits. Even when her Highness's attention was
+claimed by other persons waiting to be presented, I was not forgotten.
+The Baroness was instructed to invite me for the next evening to the
+Princess's tea-table; and it was hinted that I should be especially
+welcome if I brought my music with me, and sang.
+
+My friend the secretary, standing near us at the time, looked at me with
+a mysterious smile. He had suggested that I should make advances to the
+Baroness--and here was the Baroness (under royal instructions) making
+advances to Me!
+
+"We know what _that_ means," he whispered.
+
+In justice to myself, I must declare that I entirely failed to
+understand him.
+
+On the occasion of my second reception by the Princess, at her little
+evening party, I detected the Baroness, more than once, in the act of
+watching her Highness and myself, with an appearance of disapproval in
+her manner, which puzzled me. When I had taken my leave, she followed me
+out of the room.
+
+"I have a word of advice to give you," she said. "The best thing you can
+do, sir, is to make an excuse to your Minister, and go back to England."
+
+I declare again, that I entirely failed to understand the Baroness.
+
+IV.
+
+BEFORE the season came to an end, the Court removed to the Prince's
+country-seat, in the interests of his Highness's health. Entertainments
+were given (at the Doctor's suggestion), with a view of raising the
+patient's depressed spirits. The members of the English legation were
+among the guests invited. To me it was a delightful visit. I had again
+every reason to feel gratefully sensible of the Princess's condescending
+kindness. Meeting the secretary one day in the library, I said that I
+thought her a perfect creature. Was this an absurd remark to make? I
+could see nothing absurd in it--and yet my friend burst out laughing.
+
+"My good fellow, nobody is a perfect creature," he said. "The Princess
+has her faults and failings, like the rest of us."
+
+I denied it positively.
+
+"Use your eyes," he went on; "and you will see, for example, that she is
+shallow and frivolous. Yesterday was a day of rain. We were all obliged
+to employ ourselves somehow indoors. Didn't you notice that she had no
+resources in herself? She can't even read."
+
+"There you are wrong at any rate," I declared. "I saw her reading the
+newspaper."
+
+"You saw her with the newspaper in her hand. If you had not been deaf
+and blind to her defects, you would have noticed that she couldn't fix
+her attention on it. She was always ready to join in the chatter of the
+ladies about her. When even their stores of gossip were exhausted, she
+let the newspaper drop on her lap, and sat in vacant idleness smiling at
+nothing."
+
+I reminded him that she might have met with a dull number of the
+newspaper. He took no notice of this unanswerable reply.
+
+"You were talking the other day of her warmth of feeling," he proceeded.
+"She has plenty of sentiment (German sentiment), I grant you, but no
+true feeling. What happened only this morning, when the Prince was in
+the breakfast-room, and when the Princess and her ladies were dressed
+to go out riding? Even she noticed the wretchedly depressed state of
+her father's spirits. A man of that hypochondriacal temperament suffers
+acutely, though he may only fancy himself to be ill. The Princess
+overflowed with sympathy, but she never proposed to stay at home, and
+try to cheer the old man. Her filial duty was performed to her own
+entire satisfaction when she had kissed her hand to the Prince. The
+moment after, she was out of the room--eager to enjoy her ride. We all
+heard her laughing gayly among the ladies in the hall."
+
+I could have answered this also, if our discussion had not been
+interrupted at the moment. The Doctor came into the library in search of
+a book. When he had left us, my colleague's strong prejudice against him
+instantly declared itself.
+
+"Be on your guard with that man," he said.
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Haven't you noticed," he replied, "that when the Princess is talking to
+you, the Doctor always happens to be in that part of the room?"
+
+"What does it matter where the Doctor is?"
+
+My friend looked at me with an oddly mingled expression of doubt and
+surprise. "Do you really not understand me?" he said.
+
+"I don't indeed."
+
+"My dear Ernest, you are a rare and admirable example to the rest of
+us--you are a truly modest man."
+
+What did he mean?
+
+V.
+
+EVENTS followed, on the next day, which (as will presently be seen) I
+have a personal interest in relating.
+
+The Baroness left us suddenly, on leave of absence. The Prince wearied
+of his residence in the country; and the Court returned to the capital.
+The charming Princess was reported to be "indisposed," and retired to
+the seclusion of her own apartments.
+
+A week later, I received a note f rom the Baroness, marked "private
+and confidential." It informed me that she had resumed her duties
+as lady-in-waiting, and that she wished to see me at my earliest
+convenience. I obeyed at once; and naturally asked if there were better
+accounts of her Highness's health.
+
+The Baroness's reply a little surprised me. She said, "The Princess is
+perfectly well."
+
+"Recovered already!" I exclaimed.
+
+"She has never been ill," the Baroness answered. "Her indisposition was
+a sham; forced on her by me, in her own interests. Her reputation is in
+peril; and you--you hateful Englishman--are the cause of it."
+
+Not feeling disposed to put up with such language as this, even when
+it was used by a lady, I requested that she would explain herself. She
+complied without hesitation. In another minute my eyes were opened to
+the truth. I knew--no; that is too positive--let me say I had reason to
+believe that the Princess loved me!
+
+It is simply impossible to convey to the minds of others any idea of the
+emotions that overwhelmed me at that critical moment of my life. I
+was in a state of confusion at the time; and, when my memory tries to
+realize it, I am in a state of confusion now. The one thing I can do
+is to repeat what the Baroness said to me when I had in some degree
+recovered my composure.
+
+"I suppose you are aware," she began, "of the disgrace to which the
+Princess's infatuation exposes her, if it is discovered? On my own
+responsibility I repeat what I said to you a short time since. Do you
+refuse to leave this place immediately?"
+
+Does the man live, honored as I was, who would have hesitated to refuse?
+Find him if you can!
+
+"Very well," she resumed. "As the friend of the Princess, I have no
+choice now but to take things as they are, and to make the best of them.
+Let us realize your position to begin with. If you were (like your elder
+brother) a nobleman possessed of vast estates, my royal mistress might
+be excused. As it is, whatever you may be in the future, you are nothing
+now but an obscure young man, without fortune or title. Do you see your
+duty to the Princess? or must I explain it to you?"
+
+I saw my duty as plainly as she did. "Her Highness's secret is a sacred
+secret," I said. "I am bound to shrink from no sacrifice which may
+preserve it."
+
+The Baroness smiled maliciously. "I may have occasion," she answered,
+"to remind you of what you have just said. In the meanwhile the
+Princess's secret is in danger of discovery."
+
+"By her father?"
+
+"No. By the Doctor."
+
+At first, I doubted whether she was in jest or in earnest. The next
+instant, I remembered that the secretary had expressly cautioned me
+against that man.
+
+"It is evidently one of your virtues," the Baroness proceeded, "to
+be slow to suspect. Prepare yourself for a disagreeable surprise. The
+Doctor has been watching the Princess, on every occasion when she speaks
+to you, with some object of his own in view. During my absence,
+young sir, I have been engaged in discovering what that object is. My
+excellent mother lives at the Court of the Grand Duke, and enjoys
+the confidence of his Ministers. He is still a bachelor; and, in the
+interests of the succession to the throne, the time has arrived when
+he must marry. With my mother's assistance, I have found out that the
+Doctor's medical errand here is a pretense. Influenced by the Princess's
+beauty the Grand Duke has thought of her first as his future duchess.
+Whether he has heard slanderous stories, or whether he is only a
+cautious man, I can't tell you. But this I know: he has instructed his
+physician--if he had employed a professed diplomatist his motive
+might have been suspected--to observe her Highness privately, and to
+communicate the result. The object of the report is to satisfy the Duke
+that the Princess's reputation is above the reach of scandal; that she
+is free from entanglements of a certain kind; and that she is in
+every respect a person to whom he can with propriety offer his hand
+in marriage. The Doctor, Mr. Ernest, is not disposed to allow you
+to prevent him from sending in a favorable report. He has drawn his
+conclusions from the Princess's extraordinary kindness to the second
+secretary of the English legation; and he is only waiting for a little
+plainer evidence to communicate his suspicions to the Prince. It rests
+with you to save the Princess."
+
+"Only tell me how I am to do it!" I said.
+
+"There is but one way of doing it," she answered; "and that way has
+(comically enough) been suggested to me by the Doctor himself."
+
+Her tone and manner tried my patience.
+
+"Come to the point!" I said.
+
+She seemed to enjoy provoking me.
+
+"No hurry, Mr. Ernest--no hurry! You shall be fully enlightened, if you
+will only wait a little. The Prince, I must tell you, believes in his
+daughter's indisposition. When he visited her this morning, he was
+attended by his medical adviser. I was present at the interview. To do
+him justice, the Doctor is worthy of the trust reposed in him--he boldly
+attempted to verify his suspicions of the daughter in the father's
+presence."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Oh, in the well-known way that has been tried over and over again,
+under similar circumstances! He merely invented a report that you were
+engaged in a love-affair with some charming person in the town. Don't be
+angry; there's no harm done."
+
+"But there _is_ harm done," I insisted. "What must the Princess think of
+me?"
+
+"Do you suppose she is weak enough to believe the Doctor? Her Highness
+beat him at his own weapons; not the slightest sign of agitation on her
+part rewarded his ingenuity. All that you have to do is to help her
+to mislead this medical spy. It's as easy as lying: and easier. The
+Doctor's slander declares that you have a love-affair in the town. Take
+the hint--and astonish the Doctor by proving that he has hit on the
+truth."
+
+It was a hot day; the Baroness was beginning to get excited. She paused
+and fanned herself.
+
+"Do I startle you?" she asked.
+
+"You disgust me."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"What a thick-headed man this is!" she said, pleasantly. "Must I put
+it more plainly still? Engage in what your English prudery calls a
+'flirtation,' with some woman here--the lower in degree the better, or
+the Princess might be jealous--and let the affair be seen and known by
+everybody about the Court. Sly as he is, the Doctor is not prepared
+for that! At your age, and with your personal advantages, he will take
+appearances for granted; he will conclude that he has wronged you, and
+misinterpreted the motives of the Princess. The secret of her Highness's
+weakness will be preserved--thanks to that sacrifice, Mr. Ernest, which
+you are so willing and so eager to make."
+
+It was useless to remonstrate with such a woman as this. I simply stated
+my own objection to her artfully devised scheme.
+
+"I don't wish to appear vain," I said; "but the woman to whom I am to
+pay these attentions may believe that I really admire her--and it is
+just possible that she may honestly return the feeling which I am only
+assuming."
+
+"Well--and what then?"
+
+"It's hard on the woman, surely?"
+
+The Baroness was shocked, unaffectedly shocked.
+
+"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "how can anything that you do for the
+Princess be hard on a woman of the lower orders? There must be an end of
+this nonsense, sir! You have heard what I propose, and you know what the
+circumstances are. My mistress is waiting for your answer. What am I to
+say?"
+
+"Let me see her Highness, and speak for myself," I said.
+
+"Quite impossible to-day, without running too great a risk. Your reply
+must be made through me."
+
+There was to be a Court concert at the end of the week. On that occasion
+I should be able to make my own reply. In the meanwhile I only told the
+Baroness I wanted time to consider.
+
+"What time?" she asked.
+
+"Until to-morrow. Do you object?"
+
+"On the contrary, I cordially agree. Your base hesitation may lead to
+results which I have not hitherto dared to anticipate."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Between this and to-morrow," the horrid woman replied, "the
+Princess may end in seeing you with my eyes. In that hope I wish you
+good-morning."
+
+VI.
+
+MY enemies say that I am a weak man, unduly influenced by persons of
+rank--because of their rank. If this we re true, I should have found
+little difficulty in consenting to adopt the Baroness's suggestion.
+As it was, the longer I reflected on the scheme the less I liked it. I
+tried to think of some alternative that might be acceptably proposed.
+The time passed, and nothing occurred to me. In this embarrassing
+position my mind became seriously disturbed; I felt the necessity of
+obtaining some relief, which might turn my thoughts for a while into a
+new channel. The secretary called on me, while I was still in doubt what
+to do. He reminded me that a new prima donna was advertised to appear on
+that night; and he suggested that we should go to the opera. Feeling as
+I did at the time, I readily agreed.
+
+We found the theater already filled, before the performance began. Two
+French gentlemen were seated in the row of stalls behind us. They were
+talking of the new singer.
+
+"She is advertised as 'Mademoiselle Fontenay,'" one of them said. "That
+sounds like an assumed name."
+
+"It _is_ an assumed name," the other replied. "She is the daughter of a
+French singing-master, named Bonnefoy."
+
+To my friend's astonishment I started to my feet, and left him without a
+word of apology. In another minute I was at the stage-door, and had sent
+in my card to "Mademoiselle Fontenay." While I was waiting, I had time
+to think. Was it possible that Jeanne had gone on the stage? Or were
+there two singing-masters in existence named Bonnefoy? My doubts were
+soon decided. The French woman-servant whom I remembered when I was
+Monsieur Bonnefoy's pupil, made her appearance, and conducted me to her
+young mistress's dressing-room. Dear good Jeanne, how glad she was to
+see me!
+
+I found her standing before the glass, having just completed her
+preparations for appearing on the stage. Dressed in her picturesque
+costume, she was so charming that I expressed my admiration heartily,
+as became her old friend. "Do you really like me?" she said, with the
+innocent familiarity which I recollected so well. "See how I look in
+the glass--that is the great test." It was not easy to apply the test.
+Instead of looking at her image in the glass, it was far more agreeable
+to look at herself. We were interrupted--too soon interrupted--by the
+call-boy. He knocked at the door, and announced that the overture had
+begun.
+
+"I have a thousand things to ask you," I told her. "What has made this
+wonderful change in your life? How is it that I don't see your father--"
+
+Her face instantly saddened; her hand trembled as she laid it on my arm
+to silence me.
+
+"Don't speak of him now," she said, "or you will unnerve me. Come to me
+to-morrow when the stage will not be waiting; Annette will give you my
+address." She opened the door to go out, and returned. "Will you
+think me very unreasonable if I ask you not to make one of my audience
+to-night? You have reminded me of the dear old days that can never come
+again. If I feel that I am singing to _you_--" She left me to understand
+the rest, and turned away again to the door. As I followed her out, to
+say good-by, she drew from her bosom the little brooch which had been my
+parting gift, and held it out to me. "On the stage, or off," she said,
+"I always wear it. Good-night, Ernest."
+
+I was prepared to hear sad news when we met the next morning.
+
+My good old friend and master had died suddenly. To add to the
+bitterness of that affliction, he had died in debt to a dear and
+intimate friend. For his daughter's sake he had endeavored to add to his
+little savings by speculating with borrowed money on the Stock Exchange.
+He had failed, and the loan advanced had not been repaid, when a fit of
+apoplexy struck him down. Offered the opportunity of trying her fortune
+on the operatic stage, Jeanne made the attempt, and was now nobly
+employed in earning the money to pay her father's debt.
+
+"It was the only way in which I could do justice to his memory," she
+said, simply. "I hope you don't object to my going on the stage?"
+
+I took her hand, poor child--and let that simple action answer for me. I
+was too deeply affected to be able to speak.
+
+"It is not in me to be a great actress," she resumed; "but you know what
+an admirable musician my father was. He has taught me to sing, so that
+I can satisfy the critics, as well as please the public. There was what
+they call a great success last night. It has earned me an engagement
+for another year to come, and an increase of salary. I have already sent
+some money to our good old friend at home, and I shall soon send more.
+It is my one consolation--I feel almost happy again when I am paying my
+poor father's debt. No more now of my sad story! I want to hear all that
+you can tell me of yourself." She moved to the window, and looked out.
+"Oh, the beautiful blue sky! We used sometimes to take a walk, when we
+were in London, on fine days like this. Is there a park here?"
+
+I took her to the palace gardens, famous for their beauty in that part
+of Germany.
+
+Arm in arm we loitered along the pleasant walks. The lovely flowers,
+the bright sun, the fresh fragrant breeze, all helped her to recover her
+spirits. She began to be like the happy Jeanne of my past experience,
+as easily pleased as a child. When we sat down to rest, the lap of her
+dress was full of daisies. "Do you remember," she said, "when you first
+taught me to make a daisy-chain? Are you too great a man to help me
+again now?"
+
+We were still engaged with our chain, seated close together, when the
+smell of tobacco-smoke was wafted to us on the air.
+
+I looked up and saw the Doctor passing us, enjoying his cigar. He bowed;
+eyed my pretty companion with a malicious smile; and passed on.
+
+"Who is that man?" she asked.
+
+"The Prince's physician," I replied.
+
+"I don't like him," she said; "why did he smile when he looked at me?"
+
+"Perhaps," I suggested, "he thought we were lovers."
+
+She blushed. "Don't let him think that! tell him we are only old
+friends."
+
+We were not destined to finish our flower chain on that day.
+
+Another person interrupted us, whom I recognized as the elder brother of
+Monsieur Bonnefoy--already mentioned in these pages, under the name
+of Uncle David. Having left France for political reasons, the old
+republican had taken care of his niece after her father's death, and had
+accepted the position of Jeanne's business manager in her relations with
+the stage. Uncle David's object, when he joined us in the garden, was
+to remind her that she was wanted at rehearsal, and must at once return
+with him to the theater. We parted, having arranged that I was to see
+the performance on that night.
+
+Later in the day, the Baroness sent for me again.
+
+"Let me apologize for having misunderstood you yesterday," she said:
+"and let me offer you my best congratulations. You have done wonders
+already in the way of misleading the Doctor. There is only one objection
+to that girl at the theater--I hear she is so pretty that she may
+possibly displease the Princess. In other respects, she is just in the
+public position which will make your attentions to her look like the
+beginning of a serious intrigue. Bravo, Mr. Ernest--bravo!"
+
+I was too indignant to place any restraint on the language in which I
+answered her.
+
+"Understand, if you please," I said, "that I am renewing an old
+friendship with Mademoiselle Jeanne--begun under the sanction of her
+father. Respect that young lady, madam, as I respect her."
+
+The detestable Baroness clapped her hands, as if she had been at the
+theater.
+
+"If you only say that to the Princess," she remarked, "as well as you
+have said it to me, there will be no danger of arousing her Highness's
+jealousy. I have a message for you. At the concert, on Saturday, you are
+to retire to the conservatory, and you may hope for an interview when
+the singers begin the second part of the programme. Don't let me detain
+you any longer. Go back to your young lady, Mr. Ernest--pray go back!"
+
+VII.
+
+ON the second night of the opera the applications for places were too
+numerous to be received. Among the crowded audience, I recognized many
+of my friends. They persisted in believing an absurd report (first
+circulated, as I imagine, by the Doctor), which asserted that my
+interest in the new singer was something more than the interest of an
+old friend. When I went behind the scenes to congratulate Jeanne on
+her success, I was annoyed in another way--and by the Doctor again. He
+followed me to Jeanne's room, to offer _his_ congratulations; and he
+begged that I would introduce him to the charming prima donna. Having
+expressed his admiration, he looked at me with his insolently suggestive
+smile, and said he could not think of prolonging his intrusion. On
+leaving the room, he noticed Uncle David, waiting as usual to take
+care of Jeanne on her return from the theater--looked at him
+attentively--bowed, and went out.
+
+The next morning, I received a note from the Baroness, expressed in
+these terms:
+
+"More news! My rooms look out on the wing of the palace in which the
+Doctor is lodged. Half an hour since, I discovered him at his window,
+giving a letter to a person who is a stranger to me. The man left the
+palace immediately afterward. My maid followed him, by my directions.
+Instead of putting the letter in the post, he took a ticket at the
+railway-station--for what place the servant was unable to discover.
+Here, you will observe, is a letter important enough to be dispatched
+by special messenger, and written at a time when we have succeeded in
+freeing ourselves from the Doctor's suspicions. It is at least possible
+that he has decided on sending a favorable report of the Princess to the
+Grand Duke. If this is the case, please consider whether you will
+not act wisely (in her Highness's interests) by keeping away from the
+concert."
+
+Viewing this suggestion as another act of impertinence on the part of
+the Baroness, I persisted in my intention of going to the concert. It
+was for the Princess to decide what course of conduct I was bound to
+follow. What did I care for the Doctor's report to the Duke! Shall I own
+my folly? I do really believe I was jealous of the Duke.
+
+VIII.
+
+ENTERING the Concert Room, I found the Princess alone on the dais,
+receiving the company. "Nervous prostration" had made it impossible for
+the Prince to be present. He was confined to his bed-chamber; and the
+Doctor was in attendance on him.
+
+I bowed to the Baroness, but she was too seriously offended with me for
+declining to take her advice to notice my salutation. Passing into
+the conservatory, it occurred to me that I might be seen, and possibly
+suspected, in the interval between the first and second parts of the
+programme, when the music no longer absorbed the attention of the
+audience. I went on, and waited outside on the steps that led to the
+garden; keeping the glass door open, so as to hear when the music of the
+second part of the concert began.
+
+After an interval which seemed to be endless, I saw the Princess
+approaching me.
+
+She had made the heat in the Concert Room an excuse for retiring for
+a while; and she had the Baroness in attendance on her to save
+appearances. Instead of leaving us to ourselves, the malicious creature
+persisted in paying the most respectful attentions to her mistress. It
+was impossible to make her understand that she was not wanted any longer
+until the Princess said sharply, "Go back to the music!" Even then,
+the detestable woman made a low curtsey, and answered: "I will return,
+Madam, in five minutes."
+
+I ventured to present myself in the conservatory.
+
+The Princess was dressed with exquisite simplicity, entirely in white.
+Her only ornaments were white roses in her hair and in her bosom. To say
+that she looked lovely is to say nothing. She seemed to be the ethereal
+creature of some higher sphere; too exquisitely delicate and pure to be
+approached by a mere mortal man like myself. I was awed; I was silent.
+Her Highness's sweet smile encouraged me to venture a little nearer. She
+pointed to a footstool which the Baroness had placed for her. "Are you
+afraid of me, Ernest?" she asked softly.
+
+Her divinely beautiful eyes rested on me with a look of encouragement.
+I dropped on my knees at her feet. She had asked if I was afraid of
+her. This, if I may use such an expression, roused my manhood. My own
+boldness astonished me. I answered: "Madam, I adore you."
+
+She laid her fair hand on my head, and looked at me thoughtfully.
+"Forget my rank," she whispered--"have I not set you the example?
+Suppose that I am nothing but an English Miss. What would you say to
+Miss?"
+
+"I should say, I love you."
+
+"Say it to Me."
+
+My lips said it on her hand. She bent forward. My heart beats fast at
+the bare remembrance of it. Oh, heavens, her Highness kissed me!
+
+"There is your reward," she murmured, "for all you have sacrificed for
+my sake. What an effort it must have been to offer the pretense of
+love to an obscure stranger! The Baroness tells me this actress--this
+singer--what is she?--is pretty. Is it true?"
+
+The Baroness was quite mischievous enough to have also mentioned the
+false impression, prevalent about the Court, that I was in love with
+Jeanne. I attempted to explain. The gracious Princess refused to hear
+me.
+
+"Do you think I doubt you?" she said. "Distinguished by me, could you
+waste a look on a person in _that_ rank of life?" She laughed softly, as
+if the mere idea of such a thing amused her. It was only for a moment:
+her thoughts took a new direction--they contemplated the uncertain
+future. "How is this to end?" she asked. "Dear Ernest, we are not in
+Paradise; we are in a hard cruel world which insists on distinctions in
+rank. To what unhappy destiny does the fascination which you exercise
+over me condemn us both?"
+
+She paused--took one of the white roses out of her bosom--touched it
+with her lips--and gave it to me.
+
+"I wonder whether you feel the burden of life as I feel it?" she
+resumed. "It is immaterial to me, whether we are united in this world or
+in the next. Accept my rose, Ernest, as an assurance that I speak with
+perfect sincerity. I see but two alternatives before us. One of them
+(beset with dangers) is elopement. And the other," she added, with truly
+majestic composure, "is suicide."
+
+Would Englishmen in general have rightly understood such fearless
+confidence in them as this language implied? I am afraid they might have
+attributed it to what my friend the secretary called "German sentiment."
+Perhaps they might even have suspected the Princess of quoting from
+some old-fashioned German play. Under the irresistible influence of that
+glorious creature, I contemplated with such equal serenity the perils of
+elopement and the martyrdom of love, that I was for the moment at a loss
+how to reply. In that moment, the evil genius of my life appeared in
+the conservatory. With haste in her steps, with alarm in her face, the
+Baroness rushed up to her royal mistress, and said, "For God's sake,
+Madam, come away! The Prince desires to speak with you instantly."
+
+Her Highness rose, calmly superior to the vulgar excitement of her lady
+in waiting. "Think of it to-night," she said to me, "and let me hear
+from you to-morrow."
+
+She pressed my hand; she gave me a farewell look. I sank into the
+chair that she had just left. Did I think of elopement? Did I think of
+suicide? The elevating influence of the Princess no longer sustained me;
+my nature became degraded. Horrid doubts rose in my mind. Did her father
+suspect us?
+
+IX.
+
+NEED I say that I passed a sleepless night?
+
+The morning found me with my pen in my hand, confronting the serious
+responsibility of writing to the Princess, and not knowing what to say.
+I had already torn up two letters, when Uncle David presented himself
+with a message from his niece. Jeanne was in trouble, and wanted to ask
+my advice.
+
+My state of mind, on hearing this, became simply inexplicable. Here was
+an interruption which ought to have annoyed me. It did nothing of the
+kind--it inspired me with a feeling of relief!
+
+I naturally expected that the old Frenchman would return with me to his
+niece, and tell me what had happened. To my surprise, he begged that
+I would excuse him, and left me without a word of explanation. I found
+Jeanne walking up and down her little sitting-room, flushed and angry.
+Fragments of torn paper and heaps of flowers littered the floor; and
+three unopen jewel-cases appeared to have been thrown into the empty
+fireplace. She caught me excitedly by the hand the moment I entered the
+room.
+
+"You are my true friend," she said; "you were present the other night
+when I sang. Was there anything in my behavior on the stage which could
+justify men who call themselves gentlemen in insulting me?"
+
+"My dear, how can you ask the question?"
+
+"I must ask it. Some of them send flowers, and some of them send
+jewels; and every one of them writes letters--infamous, abominable
+letters--saying they are in love with me, and asking for appointments as
+if I was--"
+
+She could say no more. Poor dear Jeanne--her head dropped on
+my shoulder; she burst out crying. Who could see her so cruelly
+humiliated--the faithful loving daughter, whose one motive for appearing
+on the stage had been to preserve her father's good name--and not feel
+for her as I did? I forgot all considerations of prudence; I thought of
+nothing but consoling her; I took her in my arms; I dried her tears; I
+kissed her; I said, "Tell me the name of any one of the wretches who has
+written to you, and I will make him an example to the rest!" She shook
+her head, and pointed to the morsels of paper on the floor. "Oh, Ernest,
+do you think I asked you to come here for any such purpose as that?
+Those jewels, those hateful jewels, tell me how I can send them back!
+spare me the sight of them!"
+
+So far it was easy to console her. I sent the jewels at once to the
+manager of the theater--with a written notice to be posted at the stage
+door, stating that they were waiting to be returned to the persons who
+could describe them.
+
+"Try, my dear, to forget what has happened," I said. "Try to find
+consolation and encouragement in your art."
+
+"I have lost all interest in my success on the stage," she answered,
+"now I know the penalty I must pay for it. When my father's memory
+is clear of reproach, I shall leave the theater never to return to it
+again."
+
+"Take time to consider, Jeanne."
+
+"I will do anything you ask of me."
+
+For a while we were silent. Without any influence to lead to it that I
+could trace, I found myself recalling the language that the Princess had
+used in alluding to Jeanne. When I thought of them now, the words and
+the tone in which they had been spoken jarred on me. There is surely
+something mean in an assertion of superiority which depends on nothing
+better than the accident of birth. I don't know why I took Jeanne's
+hand; I don't know why I said, "What a good girl you are! how glad I
+am to have been of some little use to you!" Is my friend the secretary
+right, when he reproaches me with acting on impulse, like a woman? I
+don't like to think so; and yet, this I must own--it was well for me
+that I was obliged to leave her, before I had perhaps said other words
+which might have been alike unworthy of Jeanne, of the Princess, and of
+myself. I was called away to speak to my servant. He brought with him
+the secretary's card, having a line written on it: "I am waiting at your
+rooms, on business which permits of no delay."
+
+As we shook hands, Jeanne asked me if I knew where her uncle was. I
+could only tell her that he had left me at my own door. She made no
+remark; but she seemed to be uneasy on receiving that reply.
+
+X.
+
+WHEN I arrived at my rooms, my colleague hurried to meet me the moment I
+opened the door.
+
+"I am going to surprise you," he said; "and there is no time to prepare
+you for it. Our chief, the Minister, has seen the Prince this morning,
+and has been officially informed of an event of importance in the life
+of the Princess. She is engaged to be married to the Grand Duke."
+
+Engaged to the Duke--and not a word from her to warn me of it!
+Engaged--after what she had said to me no longer ago than the past
+night! Had I been made a plaything to amuse a great lady? Oh, what
+degradation! I was furious; I snatched up my hat to go to the palace--to
+force my way to her--to overwhelm her with reproaches. My friend stopped
+me. He put an official document into my hand.
+
+"There is your leave of absence from the legation," he said; "beginning
+from to-day. I have informed the Minister, in strict confidence, of the
+critical position in which you are placed. He agrees with me that the
+Princess's inexcusable folly is alone to blame. Leave us, Ernest, by
+the next train. There is some intrigue going on, and I fear you may be
+involved in it. You know that the rulers of these little German States
+can exercise despotic authority when they choose?"
+
+"Yes! yes!"
+
+"Whether the Prince has acted of his own free will--or whether he has
+been influenced by some person about him--I am not able to tell you.
+He has issued an order to arrest an old Frenchman, known to be a
+republican, and suspected of associating with one of the secret
+societies in this part of Germany. The conspirator has taken to flight;
+having friends, as we suppose, who warned him in time. But this, Ernest,
+is not the worst of it. That charming singer, that modest, pretty
+girl--"
+
+"You don't mean Jeanne?"
+
+"I am sorry to say I do. Advantage has been taken of her relationship to
+the old man, to include that innocent creature in political suspicions
+which it is simply absurd to suppose that she has deserved. She is
+ordered to leave the Prince's domains immediately.--Are you going to
+her?"
+
+"Instantly!" I replied.
+
+Could I feel a moment's hesitation, after the infamous manner in which
+the Princess had sacrificed me to the Grand Duke? Could I think of
+the poor girl, friendless, helpless--with nobody near her but a stupid
+woman-servant, unable to speak the language of the country--and fail
+to devote myself to the protection of Jeanne? Thank God, I reached her
+lodgings in time to tell her what had happened, and to take it on myself
+to receive the police.
+
+XI.
+
+IN three days more, Jeanne was safe in London; having traveled under my
+escort. I was fortunate enough to find a home for her, in the house of a
+lady who had been my mother's oldest and dearest friend.
+
+We were separated, a few days afterward, by the distressing news which
+reached me of the state of my brother's health. I went at once to his
+house in the country. His medical attendants had lost all hope of saving
+him: they told me plainly that his release from a life of suffering was
+near at hand.
+
+While I was still in attendance at his bedside, I heard from
+the secretary. He inclosed a letter, directed to me in a strange
+handwriting. I opened the envelope and looked for the signature. My
+friend had been entrapped into sending me an anonymous letter.
+
+Besides addressing me in French (a language seldom used in my experience
+at the legation), the writer disguised the identity of the persons
+mentioned by the use of classical names. In spite of these precautions,
+I felt no difficulty in arriving at a conclusion. My correspondent's
+special knowledge of Court secrets, and her malicious way of
+communicating them, betrayed the Baroness.
+
+I translate the letter; restoring to the persons who figure in it the
+names under which they are already known. The writer began in these
+satirically familiar terms:
+
+
+"When you left the Prince's dominions, my dear sir, you no doubt
+believed yourself to be a free agent. Quite a mistake! You were a mere
+puppet; and the strings that moved you were pulled by the Doctor.
+
+"Let me tell you how.
+
+"On a certain night, which you well remember, the Princess was
+unexpectedly summoned to the presence of her father. His physician's
+skill had succeeded in relieving the illustrious Prince, prostrate under
+nervous miseries. He was able to attend to a state affair of importance,
+revealed to him by the Doctor--who then for the first time acknowledged
+that he had presented himself at Court in a diplomatic, as well as in a
+medical capacity.
+
+"This state affair related to a proposal for the hand of the Princess,
+received from the Grand Duke through the authorized medium of the
+Doctor. Her Highness, being consulted, refused to consider the proposal.
+The Prince asked for her reason. She answered: 'I have no wish to be
+married.' Naturally irritated by such a ridiculous excuse, her father
+declared positively that the marriage should take place.
+
+"The impression produced on the Grand Duke's favorite and emissary was
+of a different kind.
+
+"Certain suspicions of the Princess and yourself, which you had
+successfully contrived to dissipate, revived in the Doctor's mind when
+he heard the lady's reason for refusing to marry his royal master. It
+was now too late to regret that he had suffered himself to be misled by
+cleverly managed appearances. He could not recall the favorable report
+which he had addressed to the Duke--or withdraw the proposal of marriage
+which he had been commanded to make.
+
+"In this emergency, the one safe course open to him was to get rid of
+You--and, at the same time, so to handle circumstances as to excite
+against you the pride and anger of the Princess. In the pursuit of this
+latter object he was assisted by one of the ladies in waiting, sincerely
+interested in the welfare of her gracious mistress, and therefore
+ardently desirous of seeing her Highness married to the Duke.
+
+"A wretched old French conspirator was made the convenient pivot on
+which the intrigue turned.
+
+"An order for the arrest of this foreign republican having been first
+obtained, the Prince was prevailed on to extend his distrust of the
+Frenchman to the Frenchman's niece. You know this already; but you
+don't know why it was done. Having believed from the first that you were
+really in love with the young lady, the Doctor reckoned confidently on
+your devoting yourself to the protection of a friendless girl, cruelly
+exiled at an hour's notice.
+
+"The one chance against us was that tender considerations, associated
+with her Highness, might induce you to hesitate. The lady in waiting
+easily moved this obstacle out of the way. She abstained from delivering
+a letter addressed to you, intrusted to her by the Princess. When the
+great lady asked why she had not received your reply, she was informed
+(quite truly) that you and the charming opera singer had taken your
+departure together. You may imagine what her Highness thought of you,
+and said of you, when I mention in conclusion that she consented, the
+same day, to marry the Duke.
+
+"So, Mr. Ernest, these clever people tricked you into serving their
+interests, blindfold. In relating how it was done, I hope I may have
+assisted you in forming a correct estimate of the state of your own
+intelligence. You have made a serious mistake in adopting your present
+profession. Give up diplomacy--and get a farmer to employ you in keeping
+his sheep."
+
+                                 * * * * *
+
+Do I sometimes think regretfully of the Princess?
+
+Permit me to mention a circumstance, and to leave my answer to be
+inferred. Jeanne is Lady Medhurst.
+
+
+
+
+MR. LISMORE AND THE WIDOW.
+
+I.
+
+LATE in the autumn, not many years since, a public meeting was held at
+the Mansion House, London, under the direction of the Lord Mayor.
+
+The list of gentlemen invited to address the audience had been chosen
+with two objects in view. Speakers of celebrity, who would rouse public
+enthusiasm, were supported by speakers connected with commerce, who
+would be practically useful in explaining the purpose for which the
+meeting was convened. Money wisely spent in advertising had produced the
+customary result--every seat was occupied before the proceedings began.
+
+Among the late arrivals, who had no choice but to stand or to leave the
+hall, were two ladies. One of them at once decided on leaving the hall.
+"I shall go back to the carriage," she said, "and wait for you at the
+door." Her friend answered, "I shan't keep you long. He is advertised to
+support the second Resolution; I want to see him--and that is all."
+
+An elderly gentleman, seated at the end of a bench, rose and offered his
+place to the lady who remained. She hesitated to take advantage of his
+kindness, until he reminded her that he had heard what she said to her
+friend. Before the third Resolution was proposed, his seat would be at
+his own disposal again. She thanked him, and without further ceremony
+took his place He was provided with an opera-glass, which he more than
+once offered to her, when famous orators appeared on the platform;
+she made no use of it until a speaker--known in the City as a
+ship-owner--stepped forward to support the second Resolution.
+
+His name (announced in the advertisements) was Ernest Lismore.
+
+The moment he rose, the lady asked for the opera-glass. She kept it to
+her eyes for such a length of time, and with such evident interest in
+Mr. Lismore, that the curiosity of her neighbors was aroused. Had
+he anything to say in which a lady (evidently a stranger to him)
+was personally interested? There was nothing in the address that he
+delivered which appealed to the enthusiasm of women. He was undoubtedly
+a handsome man, whose appearance proclaimed him to be in the prime of
+life--midway perhaps between thirty and forty years of age. But why a
+lady should persist in keeping an opera-glass fixed on him all through
+his speech, was a question which found the general ingenuity at a loss
+for a reply.
+
+Having returned the glass with an apology, the lady ventured on putting
+a question next. "Did it strike you, sir, that Mr. Lismore seemed to be
+out of spirits?" she asked.
+
+"I can't say it did, ma'am."
+
+"Perhaps you noticed that he left the platform the moment he had done?"
+
+This betrayal of interest in the speaker did not escape the notice of
+a lady, seated on the bench in front. Before the old gentleman could
+answer, she volunteered an explanation.
+
+"I am afraid Mr. Lismore is troubled by anxieties connected with his
+business," she said. "My husband heard it reported in the City yesterday
+that he was seriously embarrassed by the failure--"
+
+A loud burst of applause made the end of the sentence inaudible. A
+famous member of Parliament had risen to propose the third Resolution.
+The polite old man took his seat, and the lady left the hall to join her
+friend.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Callender, has Mr. Lismore disappointed you?"
+
+"Far from it! But I have heard a report about him which has alarmed me:
+he is said to be seriously troubled about money matters. How can I find
+out his address in the City?"
+
+"We can stop at the first stationer's shop we pass, and ask to look at
+the Directory. Are you going to pay Mr. Lismore a visit?"
+
+"I am going to think about it."
+
+II.
+
+THE next day a clerk entered Mr. Lismore's private room at the office,
+and presented a visiting-card. Mrs. Callender had reflected, and
+had arrived at a decision. Underneath her name she had written these
+explanatory words: "On important business."
+
+"Does she look as if she wanted money?" Mr. Lismore inquired.
+
+"Oh dear, no! She comes in her carriage."
+
+"Is she young or old?"
+
+"Old, sir."
+
+To Mr. Lismore--conscious of the disastrous influence occasionally
+exercised over busy men by youth and beauty--this was a recommendation
+in itself. He said: "Show her in."
+
+Observing the lady, as she approached him, with the momentary curiosity
+of a stranger, he noticed that she still preserved the remains of
+beauty. She had also escaped the misfortune, common to persons at her
+time of life, of becoming too fat. Even to a man's eye, her dressmaker
+appeared to have made the most of that favorable circumstance. Her
+figure had its defects concealed, and its remaining merits set off to
+advantage. At the same time she evidently held herself above the common
+deceptions by which some women seek to conceal their age. She wore her
+own gray hair; and her complexion bore the test of daylight. On entering
+the room, she made her apologies with some embarrassment. Being the
+embarrassment of a stranger (and not of a youthful stranger), it failed
+to impress Mr. Lismore favorably.
+
+"I am afraid I have chosen an inconvenient time for my visit," she
+began.
+
+"I am at your service," he answered a little stiffly; "especially if you
+will be so kind as to mention your business with me in few words."
+
+She was a woman of some spirit, and that reply roused her.
+
+"I will mention it in one word," she said smartly. "My business
+is--gratitude."
+
+He was completely at a loss to understand what she meant, and he said so
+plainly. Instead of explaining herself, she put a question.
+
+"Do you remember the night of the eleventh of March, between five and
+six years since?"
+
+He considered for a moment.
+
+"No," he said, "I don't remember it. Excuse me, Mrs. Callender, I have
+affairs of my own to attend to which cause me some anxiety--"
+
+"Let me assist your memory, Mr. Lismore; and I will leave you to your
+affairs. On the date that I have referred to, you were on your way to
+the railway-station at Bexmore, to catch the night express from the
+North to London."
+
+As a hint that his time was valuable the ship-owner had hitherto
+remained standing. He now took his customary seat, and began to listen
+with some interest. Mrs. Callender had produced her effect on him
+already.
+
+"It was absolutely necessary," she proceeded, "that you should be on
+board your ship in the London Docks at nine o'clock the next morning. If
+you had lost the express, the vessel would have sailed without you."
+
+The expression of his face began to change to surprise. "Who told you
+that?" he asked.
+
+"You shall hear directly. On your way into the town, your carriage was
+stopped by an obstruction on the highroad. The people of Bexmore were
+looking at a house on fire."
+
+He started to his feet.
+
+"Good heavens! are you the lady?"
+
+She held up her hand in satirical protest.
+
+"Gently, sir! You suspected me just now of wasting your valuable time.
+Don't rashly conclude that I am the lady, until you find that I am
+acquainted with the circumstances."
+
+"Is there no excuse for my failing to recognize you?" Mr. Lismore asked.
+"We were on the dark side of the burning house; you were fainting, and
+I--"
+
+"And you," she interposed, "after saving me at the risk of your own
+life, turned a deaf ear to my poor husband's entreaties, when he asked
+you to wait till I had recovered my senses."
+
+"Your poor husband? Surely, Mrs. Callender, he received no serious
+injury from the fire?"
+
+"The firemen rescued him under circumstances of peril," she answered,
+"and at his great age he sank under the shock. I have lost the kindest
+and best of men. Do you remember how you parted from him--burned and
+bruised in saving me? He liked to talk of it in his last illness. 'At
+least' (he said to you), 'tell me the name of the man who has preserved
+my wife from a dreadful death.' You threw your card to him out of the
+carriage window, and away you went at a gallop to catch your train! In
+all the years that have passed I have kept that card, and have vainly
+inquired for my brave sea-captain. Yesterday I saw your name on the
+list of speakers at the Mansion House. Need I say that I attended
+the meeting? Need I tell you now why I come here and interrupt you in
+business hours?"
+
+She held out her hand. Mr. Lismore took it in silence, and pressed it
+warmly.
+
+"You have not done with me yet," she resumed with a smile. "Do you
+remember what I said of my errand, when I first came in?"
+
+"You said it was an errand of gratitude."
+
+"Something more than the gratitude which only says 'Thank you,'" she
+added. "Before I explain myself, however, I want to know what you have
+been doing, and how it was that my inquiries failed to trace you after
+that terrible night."
+
+The appearance of depression which Mrs. Callender had noticed at the
+public meeting showed itself again in Mr. Lismore's face. He sighed as
+he answered her.
+
+"My story has one merit," he said; "it is soon told. I cannot wonder
+that you failed to discover me. In the first place, I was not captain of
+my ship at that time; I was only mate. In the second place, I inherited
+some money, and ceased to lead a sailor's life, in less than a year from
+the night of the fire. You will now understand what obstacles were
+in the way of your tracing me. With my little capital I started
+successfully in business as a ship-owner. At the time, I naturally
+congratulated myself on my own good fortune. We little know, Mrs.
+Callender, what the future has in store for us."
+
+He stopped. His handsome features hardened--as if he was suffering (and
+concealing) pain. Before it was possible to speak to him, there was a
+knock at the door. Another visitor, without an appointment, had called;
+the clerk appeared again, with a card and a message.
+
+"The gentleman begs you will see him, sir. He has something to tell you
+which is too important to be delayed."
+
+Hearing the message, Mrs. Callender rose immediately.
+
+"It is enough for to-day that we understand each other," she said. "Have
+you any engagement to-morrow, after the hours of business?"
+
+"None."
+
+She pointed to her card on the writing-table. "Will you come to me
+to-morrow evening at that address? I am like the gentleman who has just
+called; I, too, have my reason for wishing to see you."
+
+He gladly accepted the invitation. Mrs. Callender stopped him as he
+opened the door for her.
+
+"Shall I offend you," she said, "if I ask a strange question before I
+go? I have a better motive, mind, than mere curiosity. Are you married?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Forgive me again," she resumed. "At my age, you cannot possibly
+misunderstand me; and yet--"
+
+She hesitated. Mr. Lismore tried to give her confidence. "Pray don't
+stand on ceremony, Mrs. Callender. Nothing that _you_ can ask me need be
+prefaced by an apology."
+
+Thus encouraged, she ventured to proceed.
+
+"You may be engaged to be married?" she suggested. "Or you may be in
+love?"
+
+He found it impossible to conceal his surprise. But he answered without
+hesitation.
+
+"There is no such bright prospect in _my_ life," he said. "I am not even
+in love."
+
+She left him with a little sigh. It sounded like a sigh of relief.
+
+Ernest Lismore was thoroughly puzzled. What could be the old lady's
+object in ascertaining that he was still free from a matrimonial
+engagement? If the idea had occurred to him in time, he might have
+alluded to her domestic life, and might have asked if she had children?
+With a little tact he might have discovered more than this. She had
+described her feeling toward him as passing the ordinary limits of
+gratitude; and she was evidently rich enough to be above the imputation
+of a mercenary motive. Did she propose to brighten those dreary
+prospects to which he had alluded in speaking of his own life? When he
+presented himself at her house the next evening, would she introduce him
+to a charming daughter?
+
+He smiled as the idea occurred to him. "An appropriate time to be
+thinking of my chances of marriage!" he said to himself. "In another
+month I may be a ruined man."
+
+III.
+
+THE gentleman who had so urgently requested an interview was a devoted
+friend--who had obtained a means of helping Ernest at a serious crisis
+in his affairs.
+
+It had been truly reported that he was in a position of pecuniary
+embarrassment, owing to the failure of a mercantile house with which he
+had been intimately connected. Whispers affecting his own solvency had
+followed on the bankruptcy of the firm. He had already endeavored to
+obtain advances of money on the usual conditions, and had been met
+by excuses for delay. His friend had now arrived with a letter of
+introduction to a capitalist, well known in commercial circles for his
+daring speculations and for his great wealth.
+
+Looking at the letter, Ernest observed that the envelope was sealed.
+In spite of that ominous innovation on established usage, in cases of
+personal introduction, he presented the letter. On this occasion, he was
+not put off with excuses. The capitalist flatly declined to discount Mr.
+Lismore's bills, unless they were backed by responsible names.
+
+Ernest made a last effort.
+
+He applied for help to two mercantile men whom he had assisted
+in _their_ difficulties, and whose names would have satisfied the
+money-lender. They were most sincerely sorry--but they, too, refused.
+
+The one security that he could offer was open, it must be owned, to
+serious objections on the score of risk. He wanted an advance of twenty
+thousand pounds, secured on a homeward-bound ship and cargo. But the
+vessel was not insured; and, at that stormy season, she was already more
+than a month overdue. Could grateful colleagues be blamed if they forgot
+their obligations when they were asked to offer pecuniary help to a
+merchant in this situation? Ernest returned to his office, without money
+and without credit.
+
+A man threatened by ruin is in no state of mind to keep an engagement at
+a lady's tea-table. Ernest sent a letter of apology to Mrs. Call ender,
+alleging extreme pressure of business as the excuse for breaking his
+engagement.
+
+"Am I to wait for an answer, sir?" the messenger asked.
+
+"No; you are merely to leave the letter."
+
+IV.
+
+IN an hour's time--to Ernest's astonishment--the messenger returned with
+a reply.
+
+"The lady was just going out, sir, when I rang at the door," he
+explained, "and she took the letter from me herself. She didn't appear
+to know your handwriting, and she asked me who I came from. When I
+mentioned your name, I was ordered to wait."
+
+Ernest opened the letter.
+
+
+"DEAR MR. LISMORE--One of us must speak out, and your letter of apology
+forces me to be that one. If you are really so proud and so distrustfull
+as you seem to be, I shall offend you. If not, I shall prove myself to
+be your friend.
+
+"Your excuse is 'pressure of business.' The truth (as I have good reason
+to believe) is 'want of money.' I heard a stranger, at that public
+meeting, say that you were seriously embarrassed by some failure in the
+City.
+
+"Let me tell you what my own pecuniary position is in two words. I am
+the childless widow of a rich man--"
+
+
+Ernest paused. His anticipated discovery of Mrs. Callender's "charming
+daughter" was in his mind for the moment. "That little romance must
+return to the world of dreams," he thought--and went on with the letter.
+
+
+"After what I owe to you, I don't regard it as repaying an obligation--I
+consider myself as merely performing a duty when I offer to assist you
+by a loan of money.
+
+"Wait a little before you throw my letter into the wastepaper basket.
+
+"Circumstances (which it is impossible for me to mention before we meet)
+put it out of my power to help you--unless I attach to my most sincere
+offer of service a very unusual and very embarrassing condition. If you
+are on the brink of ruin, that misfortune will plead my excuse--and your
+excuse, too, if you accept the loan on my terms. In any case, I rely on
+the sympathy and forbearance of the man to whom I owe my life.
+
+"After what I have now written, there is only one thing to add. I beg to
+decline accepting your excuses; and I shall expect to see you tomorrow
+evening, as we arranged. I am an obstinate old woman--but I am also your
+faithful friend and servant,
+
+"MARY CALLENDER."
+
+
+Ernest looked up from the letter. "What can this possibly mean?" he
+wondered.
+
+But he was too sensible a man to be content with wondering--he decided
+on keeping his engagement.
+
+V.
+
+WHAT Doctor Johnson called "the insolence of wealth" appears far more
+frequently in the houses of the rich than in the manners of the rich.
+The reason is plain enough. Personal ostentation is, in the very nature
+of it, ridiculous. But the ostentation which exhibits magnificent
+pictures, priceless china, and splendid furniture, can purchase good
+taste to guide it, and can assert itself without affording the smallest
+opening for a word of depreciation, or a look of contempt. If I am worth
+a million of money, and if I am dying to show it, I don't ask you to
+look at me--I ask you to look at my house.
+
+Keeping his engagement with Mrs. Callender, Ernest discovered that
+riches might be lavishly and yet modestly used.
+
+In crossing the hall and ascending the stairs, look where he might,
+his notice was insensibly won by proofs of the taste which is not to
+be purchased, and the wealth which uses but never exhibits its purse.
+Conducted by a man-servant to the landing on the first floor, he found a
+maid at the door of the boudoir waiting to announce him. Mrs. Callender
+advanced to welcome her guest, in a simple evening dress perfectly
+suited to her age. All that had looked worn and faded in her fine face,
+by daylight, was now softly obscured by shaded lamps. Objects of beauty
+surrounded her, which glowed with subdued radiance from their background
+of sober color. The influence of appearances is the strongest of all
+outward influences, while it lasts. For the moment, the scene produced
+its impression on Ernest, in spite of the terrible anxieties which
+consumed him. Mrs. Callender, in his office, was a woman who had stepped
+out of her appropriate sphere. Mrs. Callender, in her own house, was a
+woman who had risen to a new place in his estimation.
+
+"I am afraid you don't thank me for forcing you to keep your
+engagement," she said, with her friendly tones and her pleasant smile.
+
+"Indeed I do thank you," he replied. "Your beautiful house and your
+gracious welcome have persuaded me into forgetting my troubles--for a
+while."
+
+The smile passed away from her face. "Then it is true," she said
+gravely.
+
+"Only too true."
+
+She led him to a seat beside her, and waited to speak again until her
+maid had brought in the tea.
+
+"Have you read my letter in the same friendly spirit in which I wrote
+it?" she asked, when they were alone again.
+
+"I have read your letter gratefully, but--"
+
+"But you don't know yet what I have to say. Let us understand each other
+before we make any objections on either side. Will you tell me what your
+present position is--at its worst? I can and will speak plainly when
+my turn comes, if you will honor me with your confidence. Not if it
+distresses you," she added, observing him attentively.
+
+He was ashamed of his hesitation--and he made amends for it.
+
+"Do you thoroughly understand me?" he asked, when the whole truth had
+been laid before her without reserve.
+
+She summed up the result in her own words.
+
+"If your overdue ship returns safely, within a month from this time, you
+can borrow the money you want, without difficulty. If the ship is lost,
+you have no alternative (when the end of the month comes) but to accept
+a loan from me or to suspend payment. Is that the hard truth?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"And the sum you require is--twenty thousand pounds?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I have twenty times as much money as that, Mr. Lismore, at my sole
+disposal--on one condition."
+
+"The condition alluded to in your letter?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Does the fulfillment of the condition depend in some way on any
+decision of mine?"
+
+"It depends entirely on you."
+
+That answer closed his lips.
+
+With a composed manner and a steady hand she poured herself out a cup of
+tea.
+
+"I conceal it from you," she said; "but I want confidence. Here" (she
+pointed to the cup) "is the friend of women, rich or poor, when they
+are in trouble. What I have now to say obliges me to speak in praise of
+myself. I don't like it--let me get it over as soon as I can. My
+husband was very fond of me: he had the most absolute confidence in
+my discretion, and in my sense of duty to him and to myself. His
+last words, before he died, were words that thanked me for making the
+happiness of his life. As soon as I had in some degree recovered, after
+the affliction that had fallen on me, his lawyer and executor produced a
+copy of his will, and said there were two clauses in it which my husband
+had expressed a wish that I should read. It is needless to say that I
+obeyed."
+
+She still controlled her agitation--but she was now unable to conceal
+it. Ernest made an attempt to spare her.
+
+"Am I concerned in this?" he asked.
+
+"Yes. Before I tell you why, I want to know what you would do--in a
+certain case which I am unwilling even to suppose. I have heard of men,
+unable to pay the demands made on them, who began business again, and
+succeeded, and in course of time paid their creditors."
+
+"And you want to know if there is any likelihood of my following their
+example?" he said. "Have you also heard of men who have made that second
+effort--who have failed again--and who have doubled the debts they owed
+to their brethren in business who trusted them? I knew one of those men
+myself. He committed suicide."
+
+She laid her hand for a moment on his.
+
+"I understand you," she said. "If ruin comes--"
+
+"If ruin comes," he interposed, "a man without money and without credit
+can make but one last atonement. Don't speak of it now."
+
+She looked at him with horror.
+
+"I didn't mean _that!_" she said.
+
+"Shall we go back to what you read in the will?" he suggested.
+
+"Yes--if you will give me a minute to compose myself."
+
+VI.
+
+IN less than the minute she had asked for, Mrs. Callender was calm
+enough to go on.
+
+"I now possess what is called a life-interest in my husband's fortune,"
+she said. "The money is to be divided, at my death, among charitable
+institutions; excepting a certain event--"
+
+"Which is provided for in the will?" Ernest added, helping her to go on.
+
+"Yes. I am to be absolute mistress of the whole of the four hundred
+thousand pounds--" her voice dropped, and her eyes looked away from
+him as she spoke the next words--"on this one condition, that I marry
+again."
+
+He looked at her in amazement.
+
+"Surely I have mistaken you," he said. "You mean on this one condition,
+that you do _not_ marry again?"
+
+"No, Mr. Lismore; I mean exactly what I have said. You now know that
+the recovery of your credit and your peace of mind rests entirely with
+yourself."
+
+After a moment of reflection he took her hand and raised it respectfully
+to his lips. "You are a noble woman!" he said.
+
+She made no reply. With drooping head and downcast eyes she waited for
+his decision. He accepted his responsibility.
+
+"I must not, and dare not, think of the hardship of my own position," he
+said; "I owe it to you to speak without reference to the future that
+may be in store for me. No man can be worthy of the sacrifice which your
+generous forgetfulness of yourself is willing to make. I respect you; I
+admire you; I thank you with my whole heart. Leave me to my fate, Mrs.
+Callender--and let me go."
+
+He rose. She stopped him by a gesture.
+
+"A _young_ woman," she answered, "would shrink from saying--what I, as
+an old woman, mean to say now. I refuse to leave you to your fate. I
+ask you to prove that you respect me, admire me, and thank me with your
+whole heart. Take one day to think--and let me hear the result. You
+promise me this?"
+
+He promised. "Now go," she said.
+
+VII.
+
+NEXT morning Ernest received a letter from Mrs. Callender. She wrote to
+him as follows:
+
+
+"There are some considerations which I ought to have mentioned yesterday
+evening, before you left my house.
+
+"I ought to have reminded you--if you consent to reconsider your
+decision--that the circumstances do not require you to pledge yourself
+to me absolutely.
+
+"At my age, I can with perfect propriety assure you that I regard our
+marriage simply and solely as a formality which we must fulfill, if I am
+to carry out my intention of standing between you and ruin.
+
+"Therefore--if the missing ship appears in time, the only reason for the
+marriage is at an end. We shall be as good friends as ever; without the
+encumbrance of a formal tie to bind us.
+
+"In the other event, I should ask you to submit to certain restrictions
+which, remembering my position, you will understand and excuse.
+
+"We are to live together, it is unnecessary to say, as mother and son.
+The marriage ceremony is to be strictly private; and you are so to
+arrange your affairs that, immediately afterward, we leave England for
+any foreign place which you prefer. Some of my friends, and (perhaps)
+some of your friends, will certainly misinterpret our motives--if we
+stay in our own country--in a manner which would be unendurable to a
+woman like me.
+
+"As to our future lives, I have the most perfect confidence in you, and
+I should leave you in the same position of independence which you occupy
+now. When you wish for my company you will always be welcome. At other
+times, you are your own master. I live on my side of the house, and you
+live on yours--and I am to be allowed my hours of solitude every day, in
+the pursuit of musical occupations, which have been happily associated
+with all my past life and which I trust confidently to your indulgence.
+
+"A last word, to remind you of what you may be too kind to think of
+yourself.
+
+"At my age, you cannot, in the course of Nature, be troubled by the
+society of a grateful old woman for many years. You are young enough to
+look forward to another marriage, which shall be something more than
+a mere form. Even if you meet with the happy woman in my lifetime,
+honestly tell me of it--and I promise to tell her that she has only to
+wait.
+
+"In the meantime, don't think, because I write composedly, that I write
+heartlessly. You pleased and interested me, when I first saw you, at the
+public meeting. I don't think I could have proposed, what you call this
+sacrifice of myself, to a man who had personally repelled me--though I
+might have felt my debt of gratitude as sincerely as ever. Whether your
+ship is saved, or whether your ship is lost, old Mary Callender likes
+you--and owns it without false shame.
+
+"Let me have your answer this evening, either personally or by
+letter--whichever you like best."
+
+VIII.
+
+MRS. CALLENDER received a written answer long before the evening. It
+said much in few words:
+
+"A man impenetrable to kindness might be able to resist your letter. I
+am not that man. Your great heart has conquered me."
+
+
+The few formalities which precede marriage by special license were
+observed by Ernest. While the destiny of their future lives was still
+in suspense, an unacknowledged feeling of embarrassment, on either side,
+kept Ernest and Mrs. Callender apart. Every day brought the lady her
+report of the state of affairs in the City, written always in the same
+words: "No news of the ship."
+
+IX.
+
+ON the day before the ship-owner's liabilities became due, the terms of
+the report from the City remained unchanged--and the special license
+was put to its contemplated use. Mrs. Callender's lawyer and Mrs.
+Callender's maid were the only persons trusted with the secret. Leaving
+the chief clerk in charge of the business, with every pecuniary demand
+on his employer satisfied in full, the strangely married pair quitted
+England.
+
+They arranged to wait for a few days in Paris, to receive any letters of
+importance which might have been addressed to Ernest in the interval.
+On the evening of their arrival, a telegram from London was waiting
+at their hotel. It announced that the missing ship had passed up
+Channel--undiscovered in a fog, until she reached the Downs--on the day
+before Ernest's liabilities fell due.
+
+"Do you regret it?" Mrs. Lismore said to her husband.
+
+"Not for a moment!" he answered.
+
+They decided on pursuing their journey as far as Munich.
+
+Mrs. Lismore's taste for music was matched by Ernest's taste for
+painting. In his leisure hours he cultivated the art, and delighted in
+it. The picture-galleries of Munich were almost the only galleries in
+Europe which he had not seen. True to the engagements to which she had
+pledged herself, his wife was willing to go wherever it might please
+him to take her. The one suggestion she made was, that they should hire
+furnished apartments. If they lived at an hotel, friends of the husband
+or the wife (visitors like themselves to the famous city) might see
+their names in the book, or might meet them at the door.
+
+They were soon established in a house large enough to provide them with
+every accommodation which they required.
+
+Ernest's days were passed in the galleries; Mrs. Lismore remaining at
+home, devoted to her music, until it was time to go out with her husband
+for a drive. Living together in perfect amity and concord, they were
+nevertheless not living happily. Without any visible reason for the
+change, Mrs. Lismore's spirits were depressed. On the one occasion when
+Ernest noticed it she made an effort to be cheerful, which it distressed
+him to see. He allowed her to think that she had relieved him of any
+further anxiety. Whatever doubts he might feel were doubts delicately
+concealed from that time forth.
+
+But when two people are living together in a state of artificial
+tranquillity, it seems to be a law of Nature that the element of
+disturbance gathers unseen, and that the outburst comes inevitably with
+the lapse of time.
+
+In ten days from the date of their arrival at Munich, the crisis came.
+Ernest returned later than usual from the picture-gallery, and--for the
+first time in his wife's experience--shut himself up in his own room.
+
+He appeared at the dinner-hour with a futile excuse. Mrs. Lismore waited
+until the servant had withdrawn. "Now, Ernest," she said, "it's time to
+tell me the truth."
+
+Her manner, when she said those few words, took him by surprise. She was
+unquestionably confused; and, instead of lookin g at him, she trifled
+with the fruit on her plate. Embarrassed on his side, he could only
+answer:
+
+"I have nothing to tell."
+
+"Were there many visitors at the gallery?" she asked.
+
+"About the same as usual."
+
+"Any that you particularly noticed?" she went on. "I mean, among the
+ladies."
+
+He laughed uneasily. "You forget how interested I am in the pictures,"
+he said.
+
+There was a pause. She looked up at him--and suddenly looked away again.
+But he saw it plainly: there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"Do you mind turning down the gas?" she said. "My eyes have been weak
+all day."
+
+He complied with her request--the more readily, having his own reasons
+for being glad to escape the glaring scrutiny of the light.
+
+"I think I will rest a little on the sofa," she resumed. In the position
+which he occupied, his back would have been now turned on her. She
+stopped him when he tried to move his chair. "I would rather not look at
+you, Ernest," she said, "when you have lost confidence in me."
+
+Not the words, but the tone, touched all that was generous and noble in
+his nature. He left his place, and knelt beside her--and opened to her
+his whole heart.
+
+"Am I not unworthy of you?" he asked, when it was over.
+
+She pressed his hand in silence.
+
+"I should be the most ungrateful wretch living," he said, "if I did
+not think of you, and you only, now that my confession is made. We will
+leave Munich to-morrow--and, if resolution can help me, I will only
+remember the sweetest woman my eyes ever looked on as the creature of a
+dream."
+
+She hid her face on his breast, and reminded him of that letter of her
+writing, which had decided the course of their lives.
+
+"When I thought you might meet the happy woman in my life-time, I said
+to you, 'Tell me of it--and I promise to tell _her_ that she has only
+to wait.' Time must pass, Ernest, before it can be needful to perform
+my promise. But you might let me see her. If you find her in the gallery
+to-morrow, you might bring her here."
+
+Mrs. Lismore's request met with no refusal. Ernest was only at a loss to
+know how to grant it.
+
+"You tell me she is a copyist of pictures," his wife reminded him. "She
+will be interested in hearing of the portfolio of drawings by the great
+French artists which I bought for you in Paris. Ask her to come and see
+them, and to tell you if she can make some copies. And say, if you like,
+that I shall be glad to become acquainted with her."
+
+He felt her breath beating fast on his bosom. In the fear that she
+might lose all control over herself, he tried to relieve her by speaking
+lightly. "What an invention yours is!" he said. "If my wife ever tries
+to deceive me, I shall be a mere child in her hands."
+
+She rose abruptly from the sofa--kissed him on the forehead--and said
+wildly, "I shall be better in bed!" Before he could move or speak, she
+had left him.
+
+X.
+
+THE next morning he knocked at the door of his wife's room and asked how
+she had passed the night.
+
+"I have slept badly," she answered, "and I must beg you to excuse my
+absence at breakfast-time." She called him back as he was about to
+withdraw. "Remember," she said, "when you return from the gallery
+to-day, I expect that you will not return alone."
+
+                         *  *  *  *  *
+
+Three hours later he was at home again. The young lady's services as a
+copyist were at his disposal; she had returned with him to look at the
+drawings.
+
+The sitting-room was empty when they entered it. He rang for his wife's
+maid--and was informed that Mrs. Lismore had gone out. Refusing to
+believe the woman, he went to his wife's apartments. She was not to be
+found.
+
+When he returned to the sitting-room, the young lady was not unnaturally
+offended. He could make allowances for her being a little out of
+temper at the slight that had been put on her; but he was inexpressibly
+disconcerted by the manner--almost the coarse manner--in which she
+expressed herself.
+
+"I have been talking to your wife's maid, while you have been away," she
+said. "I find you have married an old lady for her money. She is jealous
+of me, of course?"
+
+"Let me beg you to alter your opinion," he answered. "You are wronging
+my wife; she is incapable of any such feeling as you attribute to her."
+
+The young lady laughed. "At any rate you are a good husband," she said
+satirically. "Suppose you own the truth? Wouldn't you like her better if
+she was young and pretty like me?"
+
+He was not merely surprised--he was disgusted. Her beauty had so
+completely fascinated him, when he first saw her, that the idea of
+associating any want of refinement and good breeding with such a
+charming creature never entered his mind. The disenchantment to him was
+already so complete that he was even disagreeably affected by the tone
+of her voice: it was almost as repellent to him as the exhibition of
+unrestrained bad temper which she seemed perfectly careless to conceal.
+
+"I confess you surprise me," he said, coldly.
+
+The reply produced no effect on her. On the contrary, she became more
+insolent than ever.
+
+"I have a fertile fancy," she went on, "and your absurd way of taking a
+joke only encourages me! Suppose you could transform this sour old wife
+of yours, who has insulted me, into the sweetest young creature that
+ever lived, by only holding up your finger--wouldn't you do it?"
+
+This passed the limits of his endurance. "I have no wish," he said, "to
+forget the consideration which is due to a woman. You leave me but one
+alternative." He rose to go out of the room.
+
+She ran to the door as he spoke, and placed herself in the way of his
+going out.
+
+He signed to her to let him pass.
+
+She suddenly threw her arms round his neck, kissed him passionately, and
+whispered, with her lips at his ear: "Oh, Ernest, forgive me! Could I
+have asked you to marry me for my money if I had not taken refuge in a
+disguise?"
+
+XI.
+
+WHEN he had sufficiently recovered to think, he put her back from him.
+"Is there an end of the deception now?" he asked, sternly. "Am I to
+trust you in your new character?"
+
+"You are not to be harder on me than I deserve," she answered, gently.
+"Did you ever hear of an actress named Miss Max?"
+
+He began to understand her. "Forgive me if I spoke harshly," he said.
+"You have put me to a severe trial."
+
+She burst into tears. "Love," she murmured, "is my only excuse."
+
+From that moment she had won her pardon. He took her hand, and made her
+sit by him.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I have heard of Miss Max and of her wonderful powers of
+personation--and I have always regretted not having seen her while she
+was on the stage."
+
+"Did you hear anything more of her, Ernest?"
+
+"Yes, I heard that she was a pattern of modesty and good conduct, and
+that she gave up her profession, at the height of her success, to marry
+an old man."
+
+"Will you come with me to my room?" she asked. "I have something there
+which I wish to show you."
+
+It was the copy of her husband's will.
+
+"Read the lines, Ernest, which begin at the top of the page. Let my dead
+husband speak for me."
+
+The lines ran thus:
+
+
+"My motive in marrying Miss Max must be stated in this place, in justice
+to her--and, I will venture to add, in justice to myself. I felt the
+sincerest sympathy for her position. She was without father, mother,
+or friends; one of the poor forsaken children, whom the mercy of the
+Foundling Hospital provides with a home. Her after life on the stage
+was the life of a virtuous woman: persecuted by profligates; insulted
+by some of the baser creatures associated with her, to whom she was an
+object of envy. I offered her a home, and the protection of a father--on
+the only terms which the world would recognize as worthy of us.
+My experience of her since our marriage has been the experience of
+unvarying goodness, sweetness, and sound sense. She has behaved so
+nobly, in a trying position, that I wish her (even in this life) to have
+her reward. I entreat her to make a second choice in marriage, which
+shall not be a mere form. I firmly believe that she will choose well
+and wisely--that she will make the happiness of a man who is worthy
+of her--and that, as wife and mother, she will set an example of
+inestimable value in the social sphere that she occupies. In proof of
+the heartfelt sincerity with which I pay my tribute to her virtues, I
+add to this my will the clause that follows."
+
+With the clause that followed, Ernest was already acquainted.
+
+"Will you now believe that I never loved till I saw your face for the
+first time?" said his wife. "I had no experience to place me on my guard
+against the fascination--the madness some people might call it--which
+possesses a woman when all her heart is given to a man. Don't despise
+me, my dear! Remember that I had to save you from disgrace and ruin.
+Besides, my old stage remembrances tempted me. I had acted in a play in
+which the heroine did--what I have done! It didn't end with me, as it
+did with her in the story. _She_ was represented as rejoicing in the
+success of her disguise. _I_ have known some miserable hours of doubt
+and shame since our marriage. When I went to meet you in my own person
+at the picture-gallery--oh, what relief, what joy I felt, when I saw
+how you admired me--it was not because I could no longer carry on the
+disguise. I was able to get hours of rest from the effort; not only at
+night, but in the daytime, when I was shut up in my retirement in the
+music-room; and when my maid kept watch against discovery. No, my
+love! I hurried on the disclosure, because I could no longer endure the
+hateful triumph of my own deception. Ah, look at that witness against
+me! I can't bear even to see it!"
+
+She abruptly left him. The drawer that she had opened to take out
+the copy of the will also contained the false gray hair which she had
+discarded. It had only that moment attracted her notice. She snatched it
+up, and turned to the fireplace.
+
+Ernest took it from her, before she could destroy it. "Give it to me,"
+he said.
+
+"Why?"
+
+He drew her gently to his bosom, and answered: "I must not forget my old
+wife."
+
+
+
+
+MISS JEROMETTE AND THE CLERGYMAN.
+
+I.
+
+MY brother, the clergyman, looked over my shoulder before I was aware
+of him, and discovered that the volume which completely absorbed my
+attention was a collection of famous Trials, published in a new edition
+and in a popular form.
+
+He laid his finger on the Trial which I happened to be reading at the
+moment. I looked up at him; his face startled me. He had turned pale.
+His eyes were fixed on the open page of the book with an expression
+which puzzled and alarmed me.
+
+"My dear fellow," I said, "what in the world is the matter with you?"
+
+He answered in an odd absent manner, still keeping his finger on the
+open page.
+
+"I had almost forgotten," he said. "And this reminds me."
+
+"Reminds you of what?" I asked. "You don't mean to say you know anything
+about the Trial?"
+
+"I know this," he said. "The prisoner was guilty."
+
+"Guilty?" I repeated. "Why, the man was acquitted by the jury, with the
+full approval of the judge! What call you possibly mean?"
+
+"There are circumstances connected with that Trial," my brother
+answered, "which were never communicated to the judge or the jury--which
+were never so much as hinted or whispered in court. _I_ know them--of
+my own knowledge, by my own personal experience. They are very sad, very
+strange, very terrible. I have mentioned them to no mortal creature. I
+have done my best to forget them. You--quite innocently--have brought
+them back to my mind. They oppress, they distress me. I wish I had found
+you reading any book in your library, except _that_ book!"
+
+My curiosity was now strongly excited. I spoke out plainly.
+
+"Surely," I suggested, "you might tell your brother what you are
+unwilling to mention to persons less nearly related to you. We have
+followed different professions, and have lived in different countries,
+since we were boys at school. But you know you can trust me."
+
+He considered a little with himself.
+
+"Yes," he said. "I know I can trust you." He waited a moment, and then
+he surprised me by a strange question.
+
+"Do you believe," he asked, "that the spirits of the dead can return to
+earth, and show themselves to the living?"
+
+I answered cautiously--adopting as my own the words of a great English
+writer, touching the subject of ghosts.
+
+"You ask me a question," I said, "which, after five thousand years, is
+yet undecided. On that account alone, it is a question not to be trifled
+with."
+
+My reply seemed to satisfy him.
+
+"Promise me," he resumed, "that you will keep what I tell you a secret
+as long as I live. After my death I care little what happens. Let the
+story of my strange experience be added to the published experience of
+those other men who have seen what I have seen, and who believe what
+I believe. The world will not be the worse, and may be the better, for
+knowing one day what I am now about to trust to your ear alone."
+
+My brother never again alluded to the narrative which he had confided to
+me, until the later time when I was sitting by his deathbed. He asked if
+I still remembered the story of Jeromette. "Tell it to others," he said,
+"as I have told it to you."
+
+I repeat it after his death--as nearly as I can in his own words.
+
+II.
+
+ON a fine summer evening, many years since, I left my chambers in the
+Temple, to meet a fellow-student, who had proposed to me a night's
+amusement in the public gardens at Cremorne.
+
+You were then on your way to India; and I had taken my degree at Oxford.
+I had sadly disappointed my father by choosing the Law as my profession,
+in preference to the Church. At that time, to own the truth, I had no
+serious intention of following any special vocation. I simply wanted an
+excuse for enjoying the pleasures of a London life. The study of the
+Law supplied me with that excuse. And I chose the Law as my profession
+accordingly.
+
+On reaching the place at which we had arranged to meet, I found that
+my friend had not kept his appointment. After waiting vainly for ten
+minutes, my patience gave way and I went into the Gardens by myself.
+
+I took two or three turns round the platform devoted to the dancers
+without discovering my fellow-student, and without seeing any other
+person with whom I happened to be acquainted at that time.
+
+For some reason which I cannot now remember, I was not in my usual good
+spirits that evening. The noisy music jarred on my nerves, the sight of
+the gaping crowd round the platform irritated me, the blandishments of
+the painted ladies of the profession of pleasure saddened and disgusted
+me. I opened my cigar-case, and turned aside into one of the quiet
+by-walks of the Gardens.
+
+A man who is habitually careful in choosing his cigar has this advantage
+over a man who is habitually careless. He can always count on smoking
+the best cigar in his case, down to the last. I was still absorbed in
+choosing _my_ cigar, when I heard these words behind me--spoken in a
+foreign accent and in a woman's voice:
+
+"Leave me directly, sir! I wish to have nothing to say to you."
+
+I turned round and discovered a little lady very simply and tastefully
+dressed, who looked both angry and alarmed as she rapidly passed me on
+her way to the more frequented part of the Gardens. A man (evidently
+the worse for the wine he had drunk in the course of the evening) was
+following her, and was pressing his tipsy attentions on her with the
+coarsest insolence of speech and manner. She was young and pretty, and
+she cast one entreating look at me as she went by, which it was not in
+manhood--perhaps I ought to say, in young-manhood--to resist.
+
+I instantly stepped forward to protect her, careless whether I involved
+myself in a discreditable quarrel with a blackguard or not. As a matter
+of course, the fellow resented my interference, and my temper gave
+way. Fortunately for me, just as I lifted my hand to knock him down, at
+policeman appeared who had noticed that he was drunk, and who settled
+the dispute officially by turning him out of the Gardens.
+
+I led her away from the crowd that had collected. She was evidently
+frightened--I felt her hand trembling on my arm--but she had one great
+merit; she made no fuss about it.
+
+"If I can sit down for a few minutes," she said in her pretty foreign
+accent, "I shall soon be myself again, and I shall not trespass any
+further on your kindness. I thank you very much, sir, for taking care of
+me."
+
+We sat down on a bench in a retired par t of the Gardens, near a little
+fountain. A row of lighted lamps ran round the outer rim of the basin. I
+could see her plainly.
+
+I have said that she was "a little lady." I could not have described her
+more correctly in three words.
+
+Her figure was slight and small: she was a well-made miniature of a
+woman from head to foot. Her hair and her eyes were both dark. The hair
+curled naturally; the expression of the eyes was quiet, and rather sad;
+the complexion, as I then saw it, very pale; the little mouth perfectly
+charming. I was especially attracted, I remembered, by the carriage of
+her head; it was strikingly graceful and spirited; it distinguished her,
+little as she was and quiet as she was, among the thousands of other
+women in the Gardens, as a creature apart. Even the one marked defect
+in her--a slight "cast" in the left eye--seemed to add, in some strange
+way, to the quaint attractiveness of her face. I have already spoken of
+the tasteful simplicity of her dress. I ought now to add that it was not
+made of any costly material, and that she wore no jewels or ornaments of
+any sort. My little lady was not rich; even a man's eye could see that.
+
+She was perfectly unembarrassed and unaffected. We fell as easily into
+talk as if we had been friends instead of strangers.
+
+I asked how it was that she had no companion to take care of her. "You
+are too young and too pretty," I said in my blunt English way, "to trust
+yourself alone in such a place as this."
+
+She took no notice of the compliment. She calmly put it away from her as
+if it had not reached her ears.
+
+"I have no friend to take care of me," she said simply. "I was sad
+and sorry this evening, all by myself, and I thought I would go to the
+Gardens and hear the music, just to amuse me. It is not much to pay at
+the gate; only a shilling."
+
+"No friend to take care of you?" I repeated. "Surely there must be one
+happy man who might have been here with you to-night?"
+
+"What man do you mean?" she asked.
+
+"The man," I answered thoughtlessly, "whom we call, in England, a
+Sweetheart."
+
+I would have given worlds to have recalled those foolish words the
+moment they passed my lips. I felt that I had taken a vulgar liberty
+with her. Her face saddened; her eyes dropped to the ground. I begged
+her pardon.
+
+"There is no need to beg my pardon," she said. "If you wish to know,
+sir--yes, I had once a sweetheart, as you call it in England. He has
+gone away and left me. No more of him, if you please. I am rested now. I
+will thank you again, and go home."
+
+She rose to leave me.
+
+I was determined not to part with her in that way. I begged to be
+allowed to see her safely back to her own door. She hesitated. I took
+a man's unfair advantage of her, by appealing to her fears. I said,
+"Suppose the blackguard who annoyed you should be waiting outside the
+gates?" That decided her. She took my arm. We went away together by the
+bank of the Thames, in the balmy summer night.
+
+A walk of half an hour brought us to the house in which she lodged--a
+shabby little house in a by-street, inhabited evidently by very poor
+people.
+
+She held out her hand at the door, and wished me good-night. I was
+too much interested in her to consent to leave my little foreign lady
+without the hope of seeing her again. I asked permission to call on her
+the next day. We were standing under the light of the street-lamp. She
+studied my face with a grave and steady attention before she made any
+reply.
+
+"Yes," she said at last. "I think I do know a gentleman when I see him.
+You may come, sir, if you please, and call upon me to-morrow."
+
+So we parted. So I entered--doubting nothing, foreboding nothing--on a
+scene in my life which I now look back on with unfeigned repentance and
+regret.
+
+III.
+
+I AM speaking at this later time in the position of a clergyman, and
+in the character of a man of mature age. Remember that; and you will
+understand why I pass as rapidly as possible over the events of the
+next year of my life--why I say as little as I can of the errors and the
+delusions of my youth.
+
+I called on her the next day. I repeated my visits during the days and
+weeks that followed, until the shabby little house in the by-street had
+become a second and (I say it with shame and self-reproach) a dearer
+home to me.
+
+All of herself and her story which she thought fit to confide to me
+under these circumstances may be repeated to you in few words.
+
+The name by which letters were addressed to her was "Mademoiselle
+Jeromette." Among the ignorant people of the house and the small
+tradesmen of the neighborhood--who found her name not easy of
+pronunciation by the average English tongue--she was known by the
+friendly nickname of "The French Miss." When I knew her, she was
+resigned to her lonely life among strangers. Some years had elapsed
+since she had lost her parents, and had left France. Possessing a small,
+very small, income of her own, she added to it by coloring miniatures
+for the photographers. She had relatives still living in France; but
+she had long since ceased to correspond with them. "Ask me nothing
+more about my family," she used to say. "I am as good as dead in my own
+country and among my own people."
+
+This was all--literally all--that she told me of herself. I have never
+discovered more of her sad story from that day to this.
+
+She never mentioned her family name--never even told me what part of
+France she came from or how long she had lived in England. That she was
+by birth and breeding a lady, I could entertain no doubt; her manners,
+her accomplishments, her ways of thinking and speaking, all proved it.
+Looking below the surface, her character showed itself in aspects not
+common among young women in these days. In her quiet way she was an
+incurable fatalist, and a firm believer in the ghostly reality of
+apparitions from the dead. Then again in the matter of money, she had
+strange views of her own. Whenever my purse was in my hand, she held me
+resolutely at a distance from first to last. She refused to move into
+better apartments; the shabby little house was clean inside, and the
+poor people who lived in it were kind to her--and that was enough. The
+most expensive present that she ever permitted me to offer her was a
+little enameled ring, the plainest and cheapest thing of the kind in the
+jeweler's shop. In all relations with me she was sincerity itself. On
+all occasions, and under all circumstances, she spoke her mind (as the
+phrase is) with the same uncompromising plainness.
+
+"I like you," she said to me; "I respect you; I shall always be faithful
+to you while you are faithful to me. But my love has gone from me. There
+is another man who has taken it away with him, I know not where."
+
+Who was the other man?
+
+She refused to tell me. She kept his rank and his name strict secrets
+from me. I never discovered how he had met with her, or why he had left
+her, or whether the guilt was his of making of her an exile from her
+country and her friends. She despised herself for still loving him; but
+the passion was too strong for her--she owned it and lamented it with
+the frankness which was so preeminently a part of her character. More
+than this, she plainly told me, in the early days of our acquaintance,
+that she believed he would return to her. It might be to-morrow, or
+it might be years hence. Even if he failed to repent of his own cruel
+conduct, the man would still miss her, as something lost out of his
+life; and, sooner or later, he would come back.
+
+"And will you receive him if he does come back?" I asked.
+
+"I shall receive him," she replied, "against my own better judgment--in
+spite of my own firm persuasion that the day of his return to me will
+bring with it the darkest days of my life."
+
+I tried to remonstrate with her.
+
+"You have a will of your own," I said. "Exert it if he attempts to
+return to you."
+
+"I have no will of my own," she answered quietly, "where _he_ is
+concerned. It is my misfortune to love him." Her eyes rested for a
+moment on mine, with the utter self-abandonment of despair. "We have
+said enough about this," she added abruptly. "Let us say no more."
+
+From that time we never spoke again of the unknown man. During the year
+that followed o ur first meeting, she heard nothing of him directly or
+indirectly. He might be living, or he might be dead. There came no
+word of him, or from him. I was fond enough of her to be satisfied with
+this--he never disturbed us.
+
+IV.
+
+THE year passed--and the end came. Not the end as you may have
+anticipated it, or as I might have foreboded it.
+
+You remember the time when your letters from home informed you of the
+fatal termination of our mother's illness? It is the time of which I am
+now speaking. A few hours only before she breathed her last, she called
+me to her bedside, and desired that we might be left together alone.
+Reminding me that her death was near, she spoke of my prospects in life;
+she noticed my want of interest in the studies which were then
+supposed to be engaging my attention, and she ended by entreating me to
+reconsider my refusal to enter the Church.
+
+"Your father's heart is set upon it," she said. "Do what I ask of you,
+my dear, and you will help to comfort him when I am gone."
+
+Her strength failed her: she could say no more. Could I refuse the last
+request she would ever make to me? I knelt at the bedside, and took her
+wasted hand in mine, and solemnly promised her the respect which a son
+owes to his mother's last wishes.
+
+Having bound myself by this sacred engagement, I had no choice but to
+accept the sacrifice which it imperatively exacted from me. The time
+had come when I must tear myself free from all unworthy associations.
+No matter what the effort cost me, I must separate myself at once and
+forever from the unhappy woman who was not, who never could be, my wife.
+
+At the close of a dull foggy day I set forth with a heavy heart to say
+the words which were to part us forever.
+
+Her lodging was not far from the banks of the Thames. As I drew near the
+place the darkness was gathering, and the broad surface of the river was
+hidden from me in a chill white mist. I stood for a while, with my eyes
+fixed on the vaporous shroud that brooded over the flowing water--I
+stood and asked myself in despair the one dreary question: "What am I to
+say to her?"
+
+The mist chilled me to the bones. I turned from the river-bank, and made
+my way to her lodgings hard by. "It must be done!" I said to myself, as
+I took out my key and opened the house door.
+
+She was not at her work, as usual, when I entered her little
+sitting-room. She was standing by the fire, with her head down and with
+an open letter in her hand.
+
+The instant she turned to meet me, I saw in her face that something was
+wrong. Her ordinary manner was the manner of an unusually placid and
+self-restrained person. Her temperament had little of the liveliness
+which we associate in England with the French nature. She was not ready
+with her laugh; and in all my previous experience, I had never yet known
+her to cry. Now, for the first time, I saw the quiet face disturbed;
+I saw tears in the pretty brown eyes. She ran to meet me, and laid her
+head on my breast, and burst into a passionate fit of weeping that shook
+her from head to foot.
+
+Could she by any human possibility have heard of the coming change in my
+life? Was she aware, before I had opened my lips, of the hard necessity
+which had brought me to the house?
+
+It was simply impossible; the thing could not be.
+
+I waited until her first burst of emotion had worn itself out. Then
+I asked--with an uneasy conscience, with a sinking heart--what had
+happened to distress her.
+
+She drew herself away from me, sighing heavily, and gave me the open
+letter which I had seen in her hand.
+
+"Read that," she said. "And remember I told you what might happen when
+we first met."
+
+I read the letter.
+
+It was signed in initials only; but the writer plainly revealed himself
+as the man who had deserted her. He had repented; he had returned to
+her. In proof of his penitence he was willing to do her the justice
+which he had hitherto refused--he was willing to marry her, on the
+condition that she would engage to keep the marriage a secret, so
+long as his parents lived. Submitting this proposal, he waited to know
+whether she would consent, on her side, to forgive and forget.
+
+I gave her back the letter in silence. This unknown rival had done me
+the service of paving the way for our separation. In offering her the
+atonement of marriage, he had made it, on my part, a matter of duty
+to _her_, as well as to myself, to say the parting words. I felt this
+instantly. And yet, I hated him for helping me.
+
+She took my hand, and led me to the sofa. We sat down, side by side. Her
+face was composed to a sad tranquillity. She was quiet; she was herself
+again.
+
+"I have refused to see him," she said, "until I had first spoken to you.
+You have read his letter. What do you say?"
+
+I could make but one answer. It was my duty to tell her what my own
+position was in the plainest terms. I did my duty--leaving her free to
+decide on the future for herself. Those sad words said, it was useless
+to prolong the wretchedness of our separation. I rose, and took her hand
+for the last time.
+
+I see her again now, at that final moment, as plainly as if it had
+happened yesterday. She had been suffering from an affection of the
+throat; and she had a white silk handkerchief tied loosely round her
+neck. She wore a simple dress of purple merino, with a black-silk apron
+over it. Her face was deadly pale; her fingers felt icily cold as they
+closed round my hand.
+
+"Promise me one thing," I said, "before I go. While I live, I am your
+friend--if I am nothing more. If you are ever in trouble, promise that
+you will let me know it."
+
+She started, and drew back from me as if I had struck her with a sudden
+terror.
+
+"Strange!" she said, speaking to herself. "_He_ feels as I feel. He is
+afraid of what may happen to me, in my life to come."
+
+I attempted to reassure her. I tried to tell her what was indeed the
+truth--that I had only been thinking of the ordinary chances and changes
+of life, when I spoke.
+
+She paid no heed to me; she came back and put her hands on my shoulders
+and thoughtfully and sadly looked up in my face.
+
+"My mind is not your mind in this matter," she said. "I once owned to
+you that I had my forebodings, when we first spoke of this man's return.
+I may tell you now, more than I told you then. I believe I shall die
+young, and die miserably. If I am right, have you interest enough still
+left in me to wish to hear of it?"
+
+She paused, shuddering--and added these startling words:
+
+"You _shall_ hear of it."
+
+The tone of steady conviction in which she spoke alarmed and distressed
+me. My face showed her how deeply and how painfully I was affected.
+
+"There, there!" she said, returning to her natural manner; "don't take
+what I say too seriously. A poor girl who has led a lonely life like
+mine thinks strangely and talks strangely--sometimes. Yes; I give you
+my promise. If I am ever in trouble, I will let you know it. God bless
+you--you have been very kind to me--good-by!"
+
+A tear dropped on my face as she kissed me. The door closed between us.
+The dark street received me.
+
+It was raining heavily. I looked up at her window, through the drifting
+shower. The curtains were parted: she was standing in the gap, dimly lit
+by the lamp on the table behind her, waiting for our last look at each
+other. Slowly lifting her hand, she waved her farewell at the window,
+with the unsought native grace which had charmed me on the night when we
+first met. The curtain fell again--she disappeared--nothing was before
+me, nothing was round me, but the darkness and the night.
+
+V.
+
+IN two years from that time, I had redeemed the promise given to my
+mother on her deathbed. I had entered the Church.
+
+My father's interest made my first step in my new profession an easy
+one. After serving my preliminary apprenticeship as a curate, I was
+appointed, before I was thirty years of age, to a living in the West of
+England.
+
+My new benefice offered me every advantage that I could possibly
+desire--with the one exception of a sufficient income. Although my
+wants were few, and although I was still an unmarried man, I found
+it desirable, on many accounts, to add to my resources. Following
+the example of other young clergymen in my position, I det ermined to
+receive pupils who might stand in need of preparation for a career at
+the Universities. My relatives exerted themselves; and my good fortune
+still befriended me. I obtained two pupils to start with. A third would
+complete the number which I was at present prepared to receive.
+In course of time, this third pupil made his appearance, under
+circumstances sufficiently remarkable to merit being mentioned in
+detail.
+
+It was the summer vacation; and my two pupils had gone home. Thanks to a
+neighboring clergyman, who kindly undertook to perform my duties for me,
+I too obtained a fortnight's holiday, which I spent at my father's house
+in London.
+
+During my sojourn in the metropolis, I was offered an opportunity
+of preaching in a church, made famous by the eloquence of one of the
+popular pulpit-orators of our time. In accepting the proposal, I
+felt naturally anxious to do my best, before the unusually large and
+unusually intelligent congregation which would be assembled to hear me.
+
+At the period of which I am now speaking, all England had been startled
+by the discovery of a terrible crime, perpetrated under circumstances
+of extreme provocation. I chose this crime as the main subject of my
+sermon. Admitting that the best among us were frail mortal creatures,
+subject to evil promptings and provocations like the worst among us, my
+object was to show how a Christian man may find his certain refuge from
+temptation in the safeguards of his religion. I dwelt minutely on
+the hardship of the Christian's first struggle to resist the evil
+influence--on the help which his Christianity inexhaustibly held out to
+him in the worst relapses of the weaker and viler part of his nature--on
+the steady and certain gain which was the ultimate reward of his faith
+and his firmness--and on the blessed sense of peace and happiness
+which accompanied the final triumph. Preaching to this effect, with the
+fervent conviction which I really felt, I may say for myself, at least,
+that I did no discredit to the choice which had placed me in the pulpit.
+I held the attention of my congregation, from the first word to the
+last.
+
+While I was resting in the vestry on the conclusion of the service, a
+note was brought to me written in pencil. A member of my congregation--a
+gentleman--wished to see me, on a matter of considerable importance
+to himself. He would call on me at any place, and at any hour, which
+I might choose to appoint. If I wished to be satisfied of his
+respectability, he would beg leave to refer me to his father, with whose
+name I might possibly be acquainted.
+
+The name given in the reference was undoubtedly familiar to me, as the
+name of a man of some celebrity and influence in the world of London. I
+sent back my card, appointing an hour for the visit of my correspondent
+on the afternoon of the next day.
+
+VI.
+
+THE stranger made his appearance punctually. I guessed him to be some
+two or three years younger than myself. He was undeniably handsome; his
+manners were the manners of a gentleman--and yet, without knowing why, I
+felt a strong dislike to him the moment he entered the room.
+
+After the first preliminary words of politeness had been exchanged
+between us, my visitor informed me as follows of the object which he had
+in view.
+
+"I believe you live in the country, sir?" he began.
+
+"I live in the West of England," I answered.
+
+"Do you make a long stay in London?"
+
+"No. I go back to my rectory to-morrow."
+
+"May I ask if you take pupils?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Have you any vacancy?"
+
+"I have one vacancy."
+
+"Would you object to let me go back with you to-morrow, as your pupil?"
+
+The abruptness of the proposal took me by surprise. I hesitated.
+
+In the first place (as I have already said), I disliked him. In the
+second place, he was too old to be a fit companion for my other two
+pupils--both lads in their teens. In the third place, he had asked me to
+receive him at least three weeks before the vacation came to an end. I
+had my own pursuits and amusements in prospect during that interval, and
+saw no reason why I should inconvenience myself by setting them aside.
+
+He noticed my hesitation, and did not conceal from me that I had
+disappointed him.
+
+"I have it very much at heart," he said, "to repair without delay the
+time that I have lost. My age is against me, I know. The truth is--I
+have wasted my opportunities since I left school, and I am anxious,
+honestly anxious, to mend my ways, before it is too late. I wish to
+prepare myself for one of the Universities--I wish to show, if I can,
+that I am not quite unworthy to inherit my father's famous name. You are
+the man to help me, if I can only persuade you to do it. I was struck by
+your sermon yesterday; and, if I may venture to make the confession in
+your presence, I took a strong liking to you. Will you see my father,
+before you decide to say No? He will be able to explain whatever may
+seem strange in my present application; and he will be happy to see you
+this afternoon, if you can spare the time. As to the question of terms,
+I am quite sure it can be settled to your entire satisfaction."
+
+He was evidently in earnest--gravely, vehemently in earnest. I
+unwillingly consented to see his father.
+
+Our interview was a long one. All my questions were answered fully and
+frankly.
+
+The young man had led an idle and desultory life. He was weary of it,
+and ashamed of it. His disposition was a peculiar one. He stood sorely
+in need of a guide, a teacher, and a friend, in whom he was disposed
+to confide. If I disappointed the hopes which he had centered in me, he
+would be discouraged, and he would relapse into the aimless and indolent
+existence of which he was now ashamed. Any terms for which I might
+stipulate were at my disposal if I would consent to receive him, for
+three months to begin with, on trial.
+
+Still hesitating, I consulted my father and my friends.
+
+They were all of opinion (and justly of opinion so far) that the new
+connection would be an excellent one for me. They all reproached me for
+taking a purely capricious dislike to a well-born and well-bred young
+man, and for permitting it to influence me, at the outset of my career,
+against my own interests. Pressed by these considerations, I allowed
+myself to be persuaded to give the new pupil a fair trial. He
+accompanied me, the next day, on my way back to the rectory.
+
+VII.
+
+LET me be careful to do justice to a man whom I personally disliked. My
+senior pupil began well: he produced a decidedly favorable impression on
+the persons attached to my little household.
+
+The women, especially, admired his beautiful light hair, his
+crisply-curling beard, his delicate complexion, his clear blue eyes,
+and his finely shaped hands and feet. Even the inveterate reserve in his
+manner, and the downcast, almost sullen, look which had prejudiced
+_me_ against him, aroused a common feeling of romantic enthusiasm in my
+servants' hall. It was decided, on the high authority of the housekeeper
+herself, that "the new gentleman" was in love--and, more interesting
+still, that he was the victim of an unhappy attachment which had driven
+him away from his friends and his home.
+
+For myself, I tried hard, and tried vainly, to get over my first dislike
+to the senior pupil.
+
+I could find no fault with him. All his habits were quiet and regular;
+and he devoted himself conscientiously to his reading. But, little by
+little, I became satisfied that his heart was not in his studies.
+More than this, I had my reasons for suspecting that he was concealing
+something from me, and that he felt painfully the reserve on his own
+part which he could not, or dared not, break through. There were moments
+when I almost doubted whether he had not chosen my remote country
+rectory as a safe place of refuge from some person or persons of whom he
+stood in dread.
+
+For example, his ordinary course of proceeding, in the matter of his
+correspondence, was, to say the least of it, strange.
+
+He received no letters at my house. They waited for him at the village
+post office. He invariably called for them himself, and invariably
+forbore to trust any of my servants with his own letters for the post.
+Again, when we were out walking together, I more than once caught him
+looking furtively over his shoulder, as if he suspected some person of
+following him, for some evil purpose. Being constitutionally a hater of
+mysteries, I determined, at an early stage of our intercourse, on
+making an effort to clear matters up. There might be just a chance of my
+winning the senior pupil's confidence, if I spoke to him while the last
+days of the summer vacation still left us alone together in the house.
+
+"Excuse me for noticing it," I said to him one morning, while we were
+engaged over our books--"I cannot help observing that you appear to have
+some trouble on your mind. Is it indiscreet, on my part, to ask if I can
+be of any use to you?"
+
+He changed color--looked up at me quickly--looked down again at his
+book--struggled hard with some secret fear or secret reluctance that
+was in him--and suddenly burst out with this extraordinary question: "I
+suppose you were in earnest when you preached that sermon in London?"
+
+"I am astonished that you should doubt it," I replied.
+
+He paused again; struggled with himself again; and startled me by a
+second outbreak, even stranger than the first.
+
+"I am one of the people you preached at in your sermon," he said.
+"That's the true reason why I asked you to take me for your pupil.
+Don't turn me out! When you talked to your congregation of tortured and
+tempted people, you talked of Me."
+
+I was so astonished by the confession, that I lost my presence of mind.
+For the moment, I was unable to answer him.
+
+"Don't turn me out!" he repeated. "Help me against myself. I am telling
+you the truth. As God is my witness, I am telling you the truth!"
+
+"Tell me the _whole_ truth," I said; "and rely on my consoling and
+helping you--rely on my being your friend."
+
+In the fervor of the moment, I took his hand. It lay cold and still in
+mine; it mutely warned me that I had a sullen and a secret nature to
+deal with.
+
+"There must be no concealment between us," I resumed. "You have entered
+my house, by your own confession, under false pretenses. It is your duty
+to me, and your duty to yourself, to speak out."
+
+The man's inveterate reserve--cast off for the moment only--renewed its
+hold on him. He considered, carefully considered, his next words before
+he permitted them to pass his lips.
+
+"A person is in the way of my prospects in life," he began slowly, with
+his eyes cast down on his book. "A person provokes me horribly. I feel
+dreadful temptations (like the man you spoke of in your sermon) when I
+am in the person's company. Teach me to resist temptation. I am afraid
+of myself, if I see the person again. You are the only man who can help
+me. Do it while you can."
+
+He stopped, and passed his handkerchief over his forehead.
+
+"Will that do?" he asked--still with his eyes on his book.
+
+"It will _not_ do," I answered. "You are so far from really opening your
+heart to me, that you won't even let me know whether it is a man or a
+woman who stands in the way of your prospects in life. You used the word
+'person,' over and over again--rather than say 'he' or 'she' when you
+speak of the provocation which is trying you. How can I help a man who
+has so little confidence in me as that?"
+
+My reply evidently found him at the end of his resources. He tried,
+tried desperately, to say more than he had said yet. No! The words
+seemed to stick in his throat. Not one of them would pass his lips.
+
+"Give me time," he pleaded piteously. "I can't bring myself to it, all
+at once. I mean well. Upon my soul, I mean well. But I am slow at this
+sort of thing. Wait till to-morrow."
+
+To-morrow came--and again he put it off.
+
+"One more day!" he said. "You don't know how hard it is to speak
+plainly. I am half afraid; I am half ashamed. Give me one more day."
+
+I had hitherto only disliked him. Try as I might (and did) to make
+merciful allowance for his reserve, I began to despise him now.
+
+VIII.
+
+THE day of the deferred confession came, and brought an event with it,
+for which both he and I were alike unprepared. Would he really have
+confided in me but for that event? He must either have done it, or have
+abandoned the purpose which had led him into my house.
+
+We met as usual at the breakfast-table. My housekeeper brought in my
+letters of the morning. To my surprise, instead of leaving the room
+again as usual, she walked round to the other side of the table, and
+laid a letter before my senior pupil--the first letter, since his
+residence with me, which had been delivered to him under my roof.
+
+He started, and took up the letter. He looked at the address. A spasm
+of suppressed fury passed across his face; his breath came quickly; his
+hand trembled as it held the letter. So far, I said nothing. I waited to
+see whether he would open the envelope in my presence or not.
+
+He was afraid to open it in my presence. He got on his feet; he said,
+in tones so low that I could barely hear him: "Please excuse me for a
+minute"--and left the room.
+
+I waited for half an hour--for a quarter of an hour after that--and then
+I sent to ask if he had forgotten his breakfast.
+
+In a minute more, I heard his footstep in the hall. He opened
+the breakfast-room door, and stood on the threshold, with a small
+traveling-bag in his hand.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, still standing at the door. "I must ask
+for leave of absence for a day or two. Business in London."
+
+"Can I be of any use?" I asked. "I am afraid your letter has brought you
+bad news?"
+
+"Yes," he said shortly. "Bad news. I have no time for breakfast."
+
+"Wait a few minutes," I urged. "Wait long enough to treat me like your
+friend--to tell me what your trouble is before you go."
+
+He made no reply. He stepped into the hall and closed the door--then
+opened it again a little way, without showing himself.
+
+"Business in London," he repeated--as if he thought it highly important
+to inform me of the nature of his errand. The door closed for the second
+time. He was gone.
+
+I went into my study, and carefully considered what had happened.
+
+The result of my reflections is easily described. I determined on
+discontinuing my relations with my senior pupil. In writing to his
+father (which I did, with all due courtesy and respect, by that day's
+post), I mentioned as my reason for arriving at this decision:--First,
+that I had found it impossible to win the confidence of his son.
+Secondly, that his son had that morning suddenly and mysteriously left
+my house for London, and that I must decline accepting any further
+responsibility toward him, as the necessary consequence.
+
+I had put my letter in the post-bag, and was beginning to feel a little
+easier after having written it, when my housekeeper appeared in the
+study, with a very grave face, and with something hidden apparently in
+her closed hand.
+
+"Would you please look, sir, at what we have found in the gentleman's
+bedroom, since he went away this morning?"
+
+I knew the housekeeper to possess a woman's full share of that amicable
+weakness of the sex which goes by the name of "Curiosity." I had also,
+in various indirect ways, become aware that my senior pupil's strange
+departure had largely increased the disposition among the women of my
+household to regard him as the victim of an unhappy attachment. The time
+was ripe, as it seemed to me, for checking any further gossip about him,
+and any renewed attempts at prying into his affairs in his absence.
+
+"Your only business in my pupil's bedroom," I said to the housekeeper,
+"is to see that it is kept clean, and that it is properly aired. There
+must be no interference, if you please, with his letters, or his papers,
+or with anything else that he has left behind him. Put back directly
+whatever you may have found in his room."
+
+The housekeeper had her full share of a woman's temper as well as of a
+woman's curiosity. She listened to me with a rising color, and a just
+perceptible toss of the head.
+
+"Must I put it back, sir, on the floor, between the bed and the wall?"
+she inquired, with an ironical assumption of the humblest deference to
+my wishes. "_That's_ where the girl found it when she was sweeping
+the room. Anybody can see for themselves," pursued the housekeeper
+indignantly, "that the poor gentleman has gone away broken-hearted. And
+there, in my opinion, is the hussy who is the cause of it!"
+
+With those words, she made me a low curtsey, and laid a small
+photographic portrait on the desk at which I was sitting.
+
+I looked at the photograph.
+
+In an instant, my heart was beating wildly--my head turned giddy--the
+housekeeper, the furniture, the walls of the room, all swayed and
+whirled round me.
+
+The portrait that had been found in my senior pupil's bedroom was the
+portrait of Jeromette!
+
+IX.
+
+I HAD sent the housekeeper out of my study. I was alone, with the
+photograph of the Frenchwoman on my desk.
+
+There could surely be little doubt about the discovery that had burst
+upon me. The man who had stolen his way into my house, driven by the
+terror of a temptation that he dared not reveal, and the man who had
+been my unknown rival in the by-gone time, were one and the same!
+
+Recovering self-possession enough to realize this plain truth, the
+inferences that followed forced their way into my mind as a matter of
+course. The unnamed person who was the obstacle to my pupil's prospects
+in life, the unnamed person in whose company he was assailed by
+temptations which made him tremble for himself, stood revealed to me
+now as being, in all human probability, no other than Jeromette. Had she
+bound him in the fetters of the marriage which he had himself proposed?
+Had she discovered his place of refuge in my house? And was the letter
+that had been delivered to him of her writing? Assuming these questions
+to be answered in the affirmative, what, in that case, was his "business
+in London"? I remembered how he had spoken to me of his temptations, I
+recalled the expression that had crossed his face when he recognized the
+handwriting on the letter--and the conclusion that followed literally
+shook me to the soul. Ordering my horse to be saddled, I rode instantly
+to the railway-station.
+
+The train by which he had traveled to London had reached the terminus
+nearly an hour since. The one useful course that I could take, by way of
+quieting the dreadful misgivings crowding one after another on my mind,
+was to telegraph to Jeromette at the address at which I had last seen
+her. I sent the subjoined message--prepaying the reply:
+
+"If you are in any trouble, telegraph to me. I will be with you by the
+first train. Answer, in any case."
+
+There was nothing in the way of the immediate dispatch of my message.
+And yet the hours passed, and no answer was received. By the advice of
+the clerk, I sent a second telegram to the London office, requesting an
+explanation. The reply came back in these terms:
+
+"Improvements in street. Houses pulled down. No trace of person named in
+telegram."
+
+I mounted my horse, and rode back slowly to the rectory.
+
+"The day of his return to me will bring with it the darkest days of my
+life."..... "I shall die young, and die miserably. Have you interest
+enough still left in me to wish to hear of it?" .... "You _ shall_ hear
+of it." Those words were in my memory while I rode home in the cloudless
+moonlight night. They were so vividly present to me that I could hear
+again her pretty foreign accent, her quiet clear tones, as she spoke
+them. For the rest, the emotions of that memorable day had worn me out.
+The answer from the telegraph office had struck me with a strange and
+stony despair. My mind was a blank. I had no thoughts. I had no tears.
+
+I was about half-way on my road home, and I had just heard the clock of
+a village church strike ten, when I became conscious, little by little,
+of a chilly sensation slowly creeping through and through me to the
+bones. The warm, balmy air of a summer night was abroad. It was the
+month of July. In the month of July, was it possible that any living
+creature (in good health) could feel cold? It was _not_ possible--and
+yet, the chilly sensation still crept through and through me to the
+bones.
+
+I looked up. I looked all round me.
+
+My horse was walking along an open highroad. Neither trees nor waters
+were near me. On either side, the flat fields stretched away bright and
+broad in the moonlight.
+
+I stopped my horse, and looked round me again.
+
+Yes: I saw it. With my own eyes I saw it. A pillar of white
+mist--between five and six feet high, as well as I could judge--was
+moving beside me at the edge of the road, on my left hand. When I
+stopped, the white mist stopped. When I went on, the white mist went on.
+I pushed my horse to a trot--the pillar of mist was with me. I urged him
+to a gallop---the pillar of mist was with me. I stopped him again--the
+pillar of mist stood still.
+
+The white color of it was the white color of the fog which I had seen
+over the river--on the night when I had gone to bid her farewell. And
+the chill which had then crept through me to the bones was the chill
+that was creeping through me now.
+
+I went on again slowly. The white mist went on again slowly--with the
+clear bright night all round it.
+
+I was awed rather than frightened. There was one moment, and one only,
+when the fear came to me that my reason might be shaken. I caught
+myself keeping time to the slow tramp of the horse's feet with the slow
+utterances of these words, repeated over and over again: "Jeromette is
+dead. Jeromette is dead." But my will was still my own: I was able to
+control myself, to impose silence on my own muttering lips. And I rode
+on quietly. And the pillar of mist went quietly with me.
+
+My groom was waiting for my return at the rectory gate. I pointed to the
+mist, passing through the gate with me.
+
+"Do you see anything there?" I said.
+
+The man looked at me in astonishment.
+
+I entered the rectory. The housekeeper met me in the hall. I pointed to
+the mist, entering with me.
+
+"Do you see anything at my side?" I asked.
+
+The housekeeper looked at me as the groom had looked at me.
+
+"I am afraid you are not well, sir," she said. "Your color is all
+gone--you are shivering. Let me get you a glass of wine."
+
+I went into my study, on the ground-floor, and took the chair at my
+desk. The photograph still lay where I had left it. The pillar of
+mist floated round the table, and stopped opposite to me, behind the
+photograph.
+
+The housekeeper brought in the wine. I put the glass to my lips, and
+set it down again. The chill of the mist was in the wine. There was
+no taste, no reviving spirit in it. The presence of the housekeeper
+oppressed me. My dog had followed her into the room. The presence of the
+animal oppressed me. I said to the woman: "Leave me by myself, and take
+the dog with you."
+
+They went out, and left me alone in the room.
+
+I sat looking at the pillar of mist, hovering opposite to me.
+
+It lengthened slowly, until it reached to the ceiling. As it lengthened,
+it grew bright and luminous. A time passed, and a shadowy appearance
+showed itself in the center of the light. Little by little, the shadowy
+appearance took the outline of a human form. Soft brown eyes, tender and
+melancholy, looked at me through the unearthly light in the mist. The
+head and the rest of the face broke next slowly on my view. Then
+the figure gradually revealed itself, moment by moment, downward and
+downward to the feet. She stood before me as I had last seen her, in
+her purple-merino dress, with the black-silk apron, with the white
+handkerchief tied loosely round her neck. She stood before me, in the
+gentle beauty that I remembered so well; and looked at me as she had
+looked when she gave me her last kiss--when her tears had dropped on my
+cheek.
+
+I fell on my knees at the table. I stretched out my hands to her
+imploringly. I said: "Speak to me--O, once again speak to me,
+Jeromette."
+
+Her eyes rested on me with a divine compassion in them. She lifted her
+hand, and pointed to the photograph on my desk, with a gesture which
+bade me turn the card. I turned it. The name of the man who had left my
+house that morning was inscribed on it, in her own handwriting.
+
+I looked up at her again, when I had read it. She lifted her hand once
+more, and pointed to the handkerchief round her neck. As I looked at
+it, the fair white silk changed horribly in color--the fair white silk
+became darkened and drenched in blood.
+
+A moment more--and the vision of her began to grow dim. By slow degrees,
+the figure, then the face, faded back into the shadowy appearance that
+I had first seen. The luminous inner light died out in the white mist.
+The mist itself dropped slowly downward--floated a moment in airy
+circles on the floor--vanished. Nothing was before me but the familiar
+wall of the room, and the photograph lying face downward on my desk.
+
+X.
+
+THE next day, the newspapers reported the discovery of a murder in
+London. A Frenchwoman was the victim. She had been killed by a wound in
+the throat. The crime had been discovered between ten and eleven o'clock
+on the previous night.
+
+I leave you to draw your conclusion from what I have related. My own
+faith in the reality of the apparition is immovable. I say, and
+believe, that Jeromette kept her word with me. She died young, and died
+miserably. And I heard of it from herself.
+
+Take up the Trial again, and look at the circumstances that were
+revealed during the investigation in court. His motive for murdering her
+is there.
+
+You will see that she did indeed marry him privately; that they lived
+together contentedly, until the fatal day when she discovered that his
+fancy had been caught by another woman; that violent quarrels took place
+between them, from that time to the time when my sermon showed him his
+own deadly hatred toward her, reflected in the case of another man; that
+she discovered his place of retreat in my house, and threatened him by
+letter with the public assertion of her conjugal rights; lastly, that
+a man, variously described by different witnesses, was seen leaving the
+door of her lodgings on the night of the murder. The Law--advancing no
+further than this--may have discovered circumstances of suspicion, but
+no certainty. The Law, in default of direct evidence to convict the
+prisoner, may have rightly decided in letting him go free.
+
+But _I_ persisted in believing that the man was guilty. _I_ declare that
+he, and he alone, was the murderer of Jeromette. And now, you know why.
+
+
+
+
+MISS MINA AND THE GROOM
+
+I.
+
+I HEAR that the "shocking story of my conduct" was widely circulated at
+the ball, and that public opinion (among the ladies), in every part of
+the room, declared I had disgraced myself. But there was one dissentient
+voice in this chorus of general condemnation. You spoke, Madam, with all
+the authority of your wide celebrity and your high rank. You said: "I am
+personally a stranger to the young lady who is the subject of remark.
+If I venture to interfere, it is only to remind you that there are two
+sides to every question. May I ask if you have waited to pass sentence,
+until you have heard what the person accused has to say in her own
+defense?"
+
+These just and generous words produced, if I am correctly informed, a
+dead silence. Not one of the women who had condemned me had heard me in
+my own defense. Not one of them ventured to answer you.
+
+How I may stand in the opinions of such persons as these, is a matter
+of perfect indifference to me. My one anxiety is to show that I am not
+quite unworthy of your considerate interference in my favor. Will you
+honor me by reading what I have to say for myself in these pages?
+
+I will pass as rapidly as I can over the subject of my family; and
+I will abstain (in deference to motives of gratitude and honor) from
+mentioning surnames in my narrative.
+
+My father was the second son of an English nobleman. A German lady was
+his first wife, and my mother. Left a widower, he married for the second
+time; the new wife being of American birth. She took a stepmother's
+dislike to me--which, in some degree at least, I must own that I
+deserved.
+
+When the newly married pair went to the United States they left me in
+England, by my own desire, to live under the protection of my uncle--a
+General in the army. This good man's marriage had been childless, and
+his wife (Lady Claudia) was, perhaps on that account, as kindly ready as
+her husband to receive me in the character of an adopted daughter. I may
+add here, that I bear my German mother's Christian name, Wilhelmina.
+All my friends, in the days when I had friends, used to shorten this to
+Mina. Be my friend so far, and call me Mina, too.
+
+After these few words of introduction, will your patience bear with me,
+if I try to make you better acquainted with my uncle and aunt, and if I
+allude to circumstances connected with my new life which had, as I fear,
+some influence in altering my character for the worse?
+
+II.
+
+WHEN I think of the good General's fatherly kindness to me, I really
+despair of writing about him in terms that do justice to his nature. To
+own the truth, the tears get into my eyes, and the lines mingle in such
+confusion that I cannot read them myself. As for my relations with my
+aunt, I only tell the truth when I say that she performed her duties
+toward me without the slightest pretension, and in the most charming
+manner.
+
+At nearly fifty years old, Lady Claudia was still admired, though she
+had lost the one attraction which distinguished her before my time--the
+attraction of a perfectly beautiful figure. With fine hair and
+expressive eyes, she was otherwise a plain woman. Her unassuming
+cleverness and her fascinating manners were the qualities no doubt
+which made her popular everywhere. We never quarreled. Not because I was
+always amiable, but because my aunt would not allow it. She managed me,
+as she managed her husband, with perfect tact. With certain occasional
+checks, she absolutely governed the General. There were eccentricities
+in his character which made him a man easily ruled by a clever woman.
+Deferring to his opinion, so far as appearances went, Lady Claudia
+generally contrived to get her own way in the end. Except when he was
+at his Club, happy in his gossip, his good dinners, and his whist, my
+excellent uncle lived under a despotism, in the happy delusion that he
+was master in his own house.
+
+Prosperous and pleasant as it appeared on the surface, my life had its
+sad side for a young woman.
+
+In the commonplace routine of our existence, as wealthy people in
+the upper rank, there was nothing to ripen the growth of any better
+capacities which may have been in my nature. Heartily as I loved and
+admired my uncle, he was neither of an age nor of a character to be the
+chosen depositary of my most secret thoughts, the friend of my inmost
+heart who could show me how to make the best and the most of my life.
+With friends and admirers in plenty, I had found no one who could hold
+this position toward me. In the midst of society I was, unconsciously, a
+lonely woman.
+
+As I remember them, my hours of happiness were the hours when I took
+refuge in my music and my books. Out of the house, my one diversion,
+always welcome and always fresh, was riding. Without, any false modesty,
+I may mention that I had lovers as well as admirers; but not one of them
+produced an impression on my heart. In all that related to the tender
+passion, as it is called, I was an undeveloped being. The influence
+that men have on women, _because_ they are men, was really and truly
+a mystery to me. I was ashamed of my own coldness--I tried, honestly
+tried, to copy other girls; to feel my heart beating in the presence of
+the one chosen man. It was not to be done. When a man pressed my hand, I
+felt it in my rings, instead of my heart.
+
+These confessions made, I have done with the past, and may now relate
+the events which my enemies, among the ladies, have described as
+presenting a shocking story.
+
+III.
+
+WE were in London for the season. One morning, I went out riding with my
+uncle, as usual, in Hyde Park.
+
+The General's service in the army had been in a cavalry
+regiment--service distinguished by merits which justified his rapid rise
+to the high places in his profession. In the hunting-field, he was noted
+as one of the most daring and most accomplished riders in our county. He
+had always delighted in riding young and high-spirited horses; and the
+habit remained with him after he had quitted the active duties of his
+profession in later life. From first to last he had met with no accident
+worth remembering, until the unlucky morning when he went out with me.
+
+His horse, a fiery chestnut, ran away with him, in that part of the
+Park-ride call ed Rotten Row. With the purpose of keeping clear of other
+riders, he spurred his runaway horse at the rail which divides the Row
+from the grassy inclosure at its side. The terrified animal swerved in
+taking the leap, and dashed him against a tree. He was dreadfully
+shaken and injured; but his strong constitution carried him through to
+recovery--with the serious drawback of an incurable lameness in one leg.
+
+The doctors, on taking leave of their patient, united in warning him (at
+his age, and bearing in mind his weakened leg) to ride no more restive
+horses. "A quiet cob, General," they all suggested. My uncle was sorely
+mortified and offended. "If I am fit for nothing but a quiet cob," he
+said, bitterly, "I will ride no more." He kept his word. No one ever saw
+the General on horseback again.
+
+Under these sad circumstances (and my aunt being no horsewoman), I
+had apparently no other choice than to give up riding also. But my
+kind-hearted uncle was not the man to let me be sacrificed to his own
+disappointment. His riding-groom had been one of his soldier-servants
+in the cavalry regiment--a quaint sour tempered old man, not at all
+the sort of person to attend on a young lady taking her riding-exercise
+alone. "We must find a smart fellow who can be trusted," said the
+General. "I shall inquire at the club."
+
+For a week afterward, a succession of grooms, recommended by friends,
+applied for the vacant place.
+
+The General found insurmountable objections to all of them. "I'll tell
+you what I have done," he announced one day, with the air of a man who
+had hit on a grand discovery; "I have advertised in the papers."
+
+Lady Claudia looked up from her embroidery with the placid smile that
+was peculiar to her. "I don't quite like advertising for a servant," she
+said. "You are at the mercy of a stranger; you don't know that you are
+not engaging a drunkard or a thief."
+
+"Or you may be deceived by a false character," I added on my side.
+I seldom ventured, at domestic consultations, on giving my opinion
+unasked--but the new groom represented a subject in which I felt a
+strong personal interest. In a certain sense, he was to be _my_ groom.
+
+"I'm much obliged to you both for warning me that I am so easy to
+deceive," the General remarked satirically. "Unfortunately, the mischief
+is done. Three men have answered my advertisement already. I expect them
+here tomorrow to be examined for the place."
+
+Lady Claudia looked up from her embroidery again. "Are you going to see
+them yourself?" she asked softly. "I thought the steward--"
+
+"I have hitherto considered myself a better judge of a groom than my
+steward," the General interposed. "However, don't be alarmed; I won't
+act on my own sole responsibility, after the hint you have given me. You
+and Mina shall lend me your valuable assistance, and discover whether
+they are thieves, drunkards, and what not, before I feel the smallest
+suspicion of it, myself."
+
+IV.
+
+WE naturally supposed that the General was joking. No. This was one of
+those rare occasions on which Lady Claudia's tact--infallible in matters
+of importance--proved to be at fault in a trifle. My uncle's self-esteem
+had been touched in a tender place; and he had resolved to make us feel
+it. The next morning a polite message came, requesting our presence in
+the library, to see the grooms. My aunt (always ready with her smile,
+but rarely tempted into laughing outright) did for once laugh heartily.
+"It is really too ridiculous!" she said. However, she pursued her policy
+of always yielding, in the first instance. We went together to the
+library.
+
+The three grooms were received in the order in which they presented
+themselves for approval. Two of them bore the ineffaceable mark of the
+public-house so plainly written on their villainous faces, that even
+I could see it. My uncle ironically asked us to favor him with our
+opinions. Lady Claudia answered with her sweetest smile: "Pardon me,
+General--we are here to learn." The words were nothing; but the manner
+in which they were spoken was perfect. Few men could have resisted that
+gentle influence--and the General was not one of the few. He stroked his
+mustache, and returned to his petticoat government. The two grooms were
+dismissed.
+
+The entry of the third and last man took me completely by surprise.
+
+If the stranger's short coat and light trousers had not proclaimed his
+vocation in life, I should have taken it for granted that there had been
+some mistake, and that we were favored with a visit from a gentleman
+unknown. He was between dark and light in complexion, with frank clear
+blue eyes; quiet and intelligent, if appearances were to be trusted;
+easy in his movements; respectful in his manner, but perfectly free
+from servility. "I say!" the General blurted out, addressing my aunt
+confidentially, "_he_ looks as if he would do, doesn't he?"
+
+The appearance of the new man seemed to have had the same effect on Lady
+Claudia which it had produced on me. But she got over her first feeling
+of surprise sooner than I did. "You know best," she answered, with the
+air of a woman who declined to trouble herself by giving an opinion.
+
+"Step forward, my man," said the General. The groom advanced from the
+door, bowed, and stopped at the foot of the table--my uncle sitting at
+the head, with my aunt and myself on either side of him. The inevitable
+questions began.
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+"Michael Bloomfield."
+
+"Your age?"
+
+"Twenty-six."
+
+My aunt's want of interest in the proceedings expressed itself by a
+little weary sigh. She leaned back resignedly in her chair.
+
+The General went on with his questions: "What experience have you had as
+a groom?"
+
+"I began learning my work, sir, before I was twelve years old."
+
+"Yes! yes! I mean what private families have you served in?"
+
+"Two, sir."
+
+"How long have you been in your two situations?"
+
+"Four years in the first; and three in the second."
+
+The General looked agreeably surprised. "Seven years in only two
+situations is a good character in itself," he remarked. "Who are your
+references?"
+
+The groom laid two papers on the table.
+
+"I don't take written references," said the General.
+
+"Be pleased to read my papers, sir," answered the groom.
+
+My uncle looked sharply across the table. The groom sustained the look
+with respectful but unshaken composure. The General took up the
+papers, and seemed to be once more favorably impressed as he read them.
+"Personal references in each case if required in support of strong
+written recommendations from both his employers," he informed my aunt.
+"Copy the addresses, Mina. Very satisfactory, I must say. Don't you
+think so yourself?" he resumed, turning again to my aunt.
+
+Lady Claudia replied by a courteous bend of her head. The General went
+on with his questions. They related to the management of horses; and
+they were answered to his complete satisfaction.
+
+"Michael Bloomfield, you know your business," he said, "and you have
+a good character. Leave your address. When I have consulted your
+references, you shall hear from me."
+
+The groom took out a blank card, and wrote his name and address on it.
+I looked over my uncle's shoulder when he received the card. Another
+surprise! The handwriting was simply irreproachable--the lines running
+perfectly straight, and every letter completely formed. As this
+perplexing person made his modest bow, and withdrew, the General, struck
+by an after-thought, called him back from the door.
+
+"One thing more," said my uncle. "About friends and followers? I
+consider it my duty to my servants to allow them to see their relations;
+but I expect them to submit to certain conditions in return--"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir," the groom interposed. "I shall not give you
+any trouble on that score. I have no relations."
+
+"No brothers or sisters?" asked the General.
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"Father and mother both dead?"
+
+"I don't know, sir."
+
+"You don't know! What does that mean?"
+
+"I am telling you the plain truth, sir. I never heard who my father and
+mother were--and I don't expect to hear now."
+
+He said those words with a bitter composure which impressed me
+painfully. Lady Claudia was far from feeling it as I did. Her languid
+interest in the engagement of the groom seemed to be completely
+exhausted--and that was all. She rose, in her easy graceful way, and
+looked out of the window at the courtyard and fountain, the house-dog in
+his kennel, and the box of flowers in the coachman's window.
+
+In the meanwhile, the groom remained near the table, respectfully
+waiting for his dismissal. The General spoke to him sharply, for the
+first time. I could see that my good uncle had noticed the cruel tone of
+that passing reference to the parents, and thought of it as I did.
+
+"One word more, before you go," he said. "If I don't find you more
+mercifully inclined toward my horses than you seem to be toward your
+father and mother, you won't remain long in my service. You might have
+told me you had never heard who your parents were, without speaking as
+if you didn't care to hear."
+
+"May I say a bold word, sir, in my own defense?"
+
+He put the question very quietly, but, at the same time, so firmly that
+he even surprised my aunt. She looked round from the window--then turned
+back again, and stretched out her hand toward the curtain, intending, as
+I supposed, to alter the arrangement of it. The groom went on.
+
+"May I ask, sir, why I should care about a father and mother who
+deserted me? Mind what you are about, my lady!" he cried--suddenly
+addressing my aunt. "There's a cat in the folds of that curtain; she
+might frighten you."
+
+He had barely said the words before the housekeeper's large tabby cat,
+taking its noonday siesta in the looped-up fold of the curtain, leaped
+out and made for the door.
+
+Lady Claudia was, naturally enough, a little perplexed by the man's
+discovery of an animal completely hidden in the curtain. She appeared
+to think that a person who was only a groom had taken a liberty in
+presuming to puzzle her. Like her husband, she spoke to Michael sharply.
+
+"Did you see the cat?" she asked.
+
+"No, my lady."
+
+"Then how did you know the creature was in the curtain?"
+
+For the first time since he had entered the room the groom looked a
+little confused.
+
+"It's a sort of presumption for a man in my position to be subject to
+a nervous infirmity," he answered. "I am one of those persons (the
+weakness is not uncommon, as your ladyship is aware) who know by their
+own unpleasant sensations when a cat is in the room. It goes a little
+further than that with me. The 'antipathy,' as the gentlefolks call it,
+tells me in what part of the room the cat is."
+
+My aunt turned to her husband, without attempting to conceal that she
+took no sort of interest in the groom's antipathies.
+
+"Haven't you done with the man yet?" she asked.
+
+The General gave the groom his dismissal.
+
+"You shall hear from me in three days' time. Good-morning."
+
+Michael Bloomfield seemed to have noticed my aunt's ungracious manner.
+He looked at her for a moment with steady attention before he left the
+room.
+
+V.
+
+"You don't mean to engage that man?" said Lady Claudia as the door
+closed.
+
+"Why not?" asked my uncle.
+
+"I have taken a dislike to him."
+
+This short answer was so entirely out of the character of my aunt that
+the General took her kindly by the hand, and said:
+
+"I am afraid you are not well."
+
+She irritably withdrew her hand.
+
+"I don't feel well. It doesn't matter."
+
+"It does matter, Claudia. What can I do for you?"
+
+"Write to the man--" She paused and smiled contemptuously. "Imagine a
+groom with an antipathy to cats!" she said, turning to me. "I don't know
+what you think, Mina. I have a strong objection, myself, to servants
+who hold themselves above their position in life. Write," she resumed,
+addressing her husband, "and tell him to look for another place."
+
+"What objection can I make to him?" the General asked, helplessly.
+
+"Good heavens! can't you make an excuse? Say he is too young."
+
+My uncle looked at me in expressive silence--walked slowly to the
+writing-table--and glanced at his wife, in the faint hope that she might
+change her mind. Their eyes met--and she seemed to recover the command
+of her temper. She put her hand caressingly on the General's shoulder.
+
+"I remember the time," she said, softly, "when any caprice of mine was a
+command to you. Ah, I was younger then!"
+
+The General's reception of this little advance was thoroughly
+characteristic of him. He first kissed Lady Claudia's hand, and then he
+wrote the letter. My aunt rewarded him by a look, and left the library.
+
+"What the deuce is the matter with her?" my uncle said to me when we
+were alone. "Do you dislike the man, too?"
+
+"Certainly not. As far as I can judge, he appears to be just the sort of
+person we want."
+
+"And knows thoroughly well how to manage horses, my dear. What _can_ be
+your aunt's objection to him?"
+
+As the words passed his lips Lady Claudia opened the library door.
+
+"I am so ashamed of myself," she said, sweetly. "At my age, I have been
+behaving like a spoiled child. How good you are to me, General! Let me
+try to make amends for my misconduct. Will you permit me?"
+
+She took up the General's letter, without waiting for permission; tore
+it to pieces, smiling pleasantly all the while; and threw the fragments
+into the waste-paper basket. "As if you didn't know better than I do!"
+she said, kissing him on the forehead. "Engage the man by all means."
+
+She left the room for the second time. For the second time my uncle
+looked at me in blank perplexity--and I looked back at him in the same
+condition of mind. The sound of the luncheon bell was equally a relief
+to both of us. Not a word more was spoken on the subject of the new
+groom. His references were verified; and he entered the General's
+service in three days' time.
+
+VI.
+
+ALWAYS careful in anything that concerned my welfare, no matter how
+trifling it might be, my uncle did not trust me alone with the new
+groom when he first entered our service. Two old friends of the General
+accompanied me at his special request, and reported the man to be
+perfectly competent and trustworthy. After that, Michael rode out with
+me alone; my friends among young ladies seldom caring to accompany me,
+when I abandoned the park for the quiet country roads on the north and
+west of London. Was it wrong in me to talk to him on these expeditions?
+It would surely have been treating a man like a brute never to take
+the smallest notice of him--especially as his conduct was uniformly
+respectful toward me. Not once, by word or look, did he presume on the
+position which my favor permitted him to occupy.
+
+Ought I to blush when I confess (though he was only a groom) that he
+interested me?
+
+In the first place, there was something romantic in the very blankness
+of the story of his life.
+
+He had been left, in his infancy, in the stables of a gentleman living
+in Kent, near the highroad between Gravesend and Rochester. The same
+day, the stable-boy had met a woman running out of the yard, pursued by
+the dog. She was a stranger, and was not well-dressed. While the boy was
+protecting her by chaining the dog to his kennel, she was quick enough
+to place herself beyond the reach of pursuit.
+
+The infant's clothing proved, on examination, to be of the finest linen.
+He was warmly wrapped in a beautiful shawl of some foreign manufacture,
+entirely unknown to all the persons present, including the master and
+mistress of the house. Among the folds of the shawl there was discovered
+an open letter, without date, signature, or address, which it was
+presumed the woman must have forgotten.
+
+Like the shawl, the paper was of foreign manufacture. The handwriting
+presented a strongly marked character; and the composition plainly
+revealed the mistakes of a person imperfectly acquainted with the
+English language. The contents of the letter, after alluding to the
+means supplied for the support of the child, announced that the writer
+had committed the folly of inclosing a sum of a hundred pounds in a
+banknote, "to pay expenses." In a postscript, an appointment was made
+for a meeting in six months' time, on the eastward side of London
+Bridge. The stable-boy's description of the woman who had passed him
+showed that she belonged to the lower class. To such a person a hundred
+pounds would be a fortune. She had, no doubt, abandoned the child, and
+made off with the money.
+
+No trace of her was ever discovered. On the day of the appointment the
+police watched the eastward side of London Bridge without obtaining any
+result. Through the kindness of the gentleman in whose stable he had
+been found, the first ten years of the boy's life were passed under the
+protection of a charitable asylum. They gave him the name of one of the
+little inmates who had died; and they sent him out to service before he
+was eleven years old. He was harshly treated and ran away; wandered to
+some training-stables near Newmarket; attracted the favorable notice
+of the head-groom, was employed among the other boys, and liked the
+occupation. Growing up to manhood, he had taken service in private
+families as a groom. This was the story of twenty-six years of Michael's
+life.
+
+But there was something in the man himself which attracted attention,
+and made one think of him in his absence.
+
+I mean by this, that there was a spirit of resistance to his destiny in
+him, which is very rarely found in serving-men of his order. I remember
+accompanying the General "on one of his periodical visits of inspection
+to the stable." He was so well satisfied that he proposed extending his
+investigations to the groom's own room.
+
+"If you don object, Michael?" he added, with his customary consideration
+for the self-respect of all persons in his employment. Michael's color
+rose a little; he looked at me. "I am afraid the young lady will not
+find my room quite so tidy as it ought to be," he said as he opened the
+door for us.
+
+The only disorder in the groom's room was produced, to our surprise, by
+the groom's books and papers.
+
+Cheap editions of the English poets, translations of Latin and Greek
+classics, handbooks for teaching French and German "without a master,"
+carefully written "exercises" in both languages, manuals of shorthand,
+with more "exercises" in that art, were scattered over the table, round
+the central object of a reading-lamp, which spoke plainly of studies
+by night. "Why, what is all this?" cried the General. "Are you going
+to leave me, Michael, and set up a school?" Michael answered in sad,
+submissive tones. "I try to improve myself, sir--though I sometimes lose
+heart and hope." "Hope of what?" asked my uncle. "Are you not content to
+be a servant? Must you rise in the world, as the saying is?" The groom
+shrank a little at that abrupt question. "If I had relations to care
+for me and help me along the hard ways of life," he said, "I might be
+satisfied, sir, to remain as I am. As it is, I have no one to think
+about but myself--and I am foolish enough sometimes to look beyond
+myself."
+
+So far, I had kept silence; but I could no longer resist giving him
+a word of encouragement--his confession was so sadly and so patiently
+made. "You speak too harshly of yourself," I said; "the best and
+greatest men have begun like you by looking beyond themselves." For a
+moment our eyes met. I admired the poor lonely fellow trying so modestly
+and so bravely to teach himself--and I did not care to conceal it. He
+was the first to look away; some suppressed emotion turned him deadly
+pale. Was I the cause of it? I felt myself tremble as that bold question
+came into my mind. The General, with one sharp glance at me, diverted
+the talk (not very delicately, as I thought) to the misfortune of
+Michael's birth.
+
+"I have heard of your being deserted in your infancy by some woman
+unknown," he said. "What has become of the things you were wrapped in,
+and the letter that was found on you? They might lead to a discovery,
+one of these days." The groom smiled. "The last master I served thought
+of it as you do, Sir. He was so good as to write to the gentleman who
+was first burdened with the care of me--and the things were sent to me
+in return."
+
+He took up an unlocked leather bag, which opened by touching a brass
+knob, and showed us the shawl, the linen (sadly faded by time) and the
+letter. We were puzzled by the shawl. My uncle, who had served in
+the East, thought it looked like a very rare kind of Persian work. We
+examined with interest the letter, and the fine linen. When Michael
+quietly remarked, as we handed them back to him, "They keep the secret,
+you see," we could only look at each other, and own there was nothing
+more to be said.
+
+VII.
+
+THAT night, lying awake thinking, I made my first discovery of a great
+change that had come over me. I felt like a new woman.
+
+Never yet had my life been so enjoyable to me as it was now. I was
+conscious of a delicious lightness of heart. The simplest things pleased
+me; I was ready to be kind to everybody, and to admire everything. Even
+the familiar scenery of my rides in the park developed beauties which
+I had never noticed before. The enchantments of music affected me to
+tears. I was absolutely in love with my dogs and my birds--and, as for
+my maid, I bewildered the girl with presents, and gave her holidays
+almost before she could ask for them. In a bodily sense, I felt an
+extraordinary accession of strength and activity. I romped with the dear
+old General, and actually kissed Lady Claudia, one morning, instead
+of letting her kiss me as usual. My friends noticed my new outburst of
+gayety and spirit--and wondered what had produced it. I can honestly say
+that I wondered too! Only on that wakeful night which followed our visit
+to Michael's room did I arrive at something like a clear understanding
+of myself. The next morning completed the process of enlightenment. I
+went out riding as usual. The instant when Michael put his hand under
+my foot as I sprang into the saddle, his touch flew all over me like a
+flame. I knew who had made a new woman of me from that moment.
+
+As to describing the first sense of confusion that overwhelmed me, even
+if I were a practiced writer I should be incapable of doing it. I pulled
+down my veil, and rode on in a sort of trance. Fortunately for me, our
+house looked on the park, and I had only to cross the road. Otherwise I
+should have met with some accident if I had ridden through the streets.
+To this day, I don't know where I rode. The horse went his own way
+quietly--and the groom followed me.
+
+The groom! Is there any human creature so free from the hateful and
+anti-Christian pride of rank as a woman who loves with all her heart and
+soul, for the first time in her life? I only tell the truth (in however
+unfavorable a light it may place me) when I declare that my confusion
+was entirely due to the discovery that I was in love. I was not ashamed
+of myself for being in love with the groom. I had given my heart to the
+man. What did the accident of his position matter? Put money into his
+pocket and a title before his name--by another accident: in speech,
+manners, and attainments, he would be a gentleman worthy of his wealth
+and worthy of his rank.
+
+Even the natural dread of what my relations and friends might say, if
+they discovered my secret, seemed to be a sensation so unworthy of me
+and of him, that I looked round, and called to him to speak to me, and
+asked him questions about himself which kept him riding nearly side by
+side with me. Ah, how I enjoyed the gentle deference and respect of his
+manner as he answered me! He was hardly bold enough to raise his eyes to
+mine, when I looked at him. Absorbed in the Paradise of my own making,
+I rode on slowly, and was only aware that friends had passed and
+had recognized me, by seeing him touch his hat. I looked round and
+discovered the women smiling ironically as they rode by. That one
+circumstance roused me rudely from my dream. I let Michael fall back
+again to his proper place, and quickened my horse's pace; angry with
+myself, angry with the world in general, then suddenly changing, and
+being fool enough and child enough to feel ready to cry. How long these
+varying moods lasted, I don't know. On returning, I slipped off my horse
+without waiting for Michael to help me, and ran into the house without
+even wishing him "Good-day."
+
+VIII.
+
+AFTER taking off my riding-habit, and cooling my hot face with
+eau-de-cologne and water, I went down to the room which we called the
+morning-room. The piano there was my favorite instrument and I had the
+idea of trying what music would do toward helping me to compose myself.
+
+As I sat down before the piano, I heard the opening of the door of the
+breakfast-room (separated from me by a curtained archway), and the voice
+of Lady Claudia asking if Michael had returned to the stable. On the
+servant's reply in the affirmative, she desired that he might be sent to
+her immediately.
+
+No doubt, I ought either to have left the morning-room, or to have let
+my aunt know of my presence there. I did neither the one nor the other.
+Her first dislike of Michael had, to all appearance, subsided. She had
+once or twice actually taken opportunities of speaking to him kindly.
+I believed this was due to the caprice of the moment. The tone of her
+voice too suggested, on this occasion, that she had some spiteful object
+in view, in sending for him. I knew it was unworthy of me--and yet, I
+deliberately waited to hear what passed between them.
+
+Lady Claudia began.
+
+"You were out riding to-day with Miss Mina?"
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"Turn to the light. I wish to see people when I speak to them. You were
+observed by some friends of mine; your conduct excited remark. Do you
+know your business as a lady's groom?"
+
+"I have had seven years' experience, my lady."
+
+"Your business is to ride at a certain distance behind your mistress.
+Has your experience taught you that?"
+
+"Yes, my lady."
+
+"You were not riding behind Miss Mina--your horse was almost side by
+side with hers. Do you deny it?"
+
+"No, my lady."
+
+"You behaved with the greatest impropriety--you were seen talking to
+Miss Mina. Do you deny that?"
+
+"No, my lady."
+
+"Leave the room. No! come back. Have you any excuse to make?"
+
+"None, my lady."
+
+"Your insolence is intolerable! I shall speak to the General."
+
+The sound of the closing door followed.
+
+I knew now what the smiles meant on the false faces of those
+women-friends of mine who had met me in the park. An ordinary man, in
+Michael's place, would have mentioned my own encouragement of him as
+a sufficient excuse. _He_, with the inbred delicacy and reticence of a
+gentleman, had taken all the blame on himself. Indignant and ashamed,
+I advanced to the breakfast-room, bent on instantly justifying him.
+Drawing aside the curtain, I was startled by a sound as of a person
+sobbing. I cautiously looked in. Lady Claudia was prostrate on the sofa,
+hiding her face in her hands, in a passion of tears.
+
+I withdrew, completely bewildered. The extraordinary contradictions in
+my aunt's conduct were not at an end yet. Later in the day, I went to my
+uncle, resolved to set Michael right in _his_ estimation, and to leave
+him to speak to Lady Claudia. The General was in the lowest spirits; he
+shook his head ominously the moment. I mentioned the groom's name. "I
+dare say the man meant no harm--but the thing has been observed. I can't
+have you made the subject of scandal, Mina. My wife makes a point of
+it--Michael must go.
+
+"You don't mean to say that she has insisted on your sending Michael
+away?"
+
+Before he could answer me, a footman appeared with a message. "My lady
+wishes to see you, sir."
+
+The General rose directly. My curiosity had got, by this time, beyond
+all restraint. I was actually indelicate enough to ask if I might go
+with him! He stared at me, as well he might. I persisted; I said I
+particularly wished to see Lady Claudia. My uncle's punctilious good
+breeding still resisted me. "Your aunt may wish to speak to me in
+private," he said. "Wait a moment, and I will send for you."
+
+I was incapable of waiting: my obstinacy was something superhuman. The
+bare idea that Michael might lose his place, through my fault, made me
+desperate, I suppose. "I won't trouble you to send for me," I persisted;
+"I will go with you at once as far as the door, and wait to hear if I
+may come in." The footman was still present, holding the door open; the
+General gave way. I kept so close behind him that my aunt saw me as
+her husband entered the room. "Come in, Mina," she said, speaking and
+looking like the charming Lady Claudia of everyday life. Was this the
+woman whom I had seen crying her heart out on the sofa hardly an hour
+ago?
+
+"On second thoughts," she continued, turning to the General, "I fear
+I may have been a little hasty. Pardon me for troubling you about it
+again--have you spoken to Michael yet? No? Then let us err on the side
+of kindness; let us look over his misconduct this time."
+
+My uncle was evidently relieved. I seized the opportunity of making my
+confession, and taking the whole blame on myself. Lady Claudia stopped
+me with the perfect grace of which she was mistress.
+
+"My good child, don't distress yourself! don't make mountains out of
+molehills!" She patted me on the cheek with two plump white fingers
+which felt deadly cold. "I was not always prudent, Mina, when I was your
+age. Besides, your curiosity is naturally excited about a servant who
+is--what shall I call him?--a foundling."
+
+She paused and fixed her eyes on me attentively. "What did he tell you?"
+she asked. "Is it a very romantic story?"
+
+The General began to fidget in his chair. If I had kept my attention on
+him, I should have seen in his face a warning to me to be silent. But
+my interest at the moment was absorbed in my aunt. Encouraged by her
+amiable reception, I was not merely unsuspicious of the trap that she
+had set for me--I was actually foolish enough to think that I could
+improve Michael's position in her estimation (remember that I was in
+love with him!) by telling his story exactly as I have already told it
+in these pages. I spoke with fervor. Will you believe it?--her humor
+positively changed again! She flew into a passion with me for the first
+time in her life.
+
+"Lies!" she cried. "Impudent lies on the face of them--invented to
+appeal to your interest. How dare you repeat them? General! if Mina
+had not brought it on herself, this man's audacity would justify you in
+instantly dismissing him. Don't you agree with me?"
+
+The General's sense of fair play roused him for once into openly
+opposing his wife.
+
+"You are completely mistaken," he said. "Mina and I have both had the
+shawl and the letter in our hands--and (what was there besides?)--ah,
+yes, the very linen the child was wrapped in."
+
+What there was in those words to check Lady Claudia's anger in its full
+flow I was quite unable to understand. If her husband had put a pistol
+to her head, he could hardly have silenced her more effectually. She did
+not appear to be frightened, or ashamed of her outbreak of rage--she
+sat vacant and speechless, with her eyes on the General and her hands
+crossed on her lap. After waiting a moment (wondering as I did what
+it meant) my uncle rose with his customary resignation and left her. I
+followed him. He was unusually silent and thoughtful; not a word passed
+between us. I afterward discovered that he was beginning to fear,
+poor man, that his wife's mind must be affected in some way, and was
+meditating a consultation with the physician who helped us in cases of
+need.
+
+As for myself, I was either too stupid or too innocent to feel any
+positive forewarning of the truth, so far. After luncheon, while I was
+alone in the conservatory, my maid came to me from Michael, asking if
+I had any commands for him in the afternoon. I thought this rather odd;
+but it occurred to me that he might want some hours to himself. I made
+the inquiry.
+
+To my astonishment, the maid announced that Lady Claudia had employed
+Michael to go on an errand for her. The nature of the errand was to take
+a letter to her bookseller, and to bring back the books which she had
+ordered. With three idle footmen in the house, whose business it was to
+perform such service as this, why had she taken the groom away from his
+work? The question obtained such complete possession of my mind that I
+actually summoned courage enough to go to my aunt. I said I had thought
+of driving out in my pony-carriage that afternoon, and I asked if she
+objected to sending one of the three indoor servants for her books in
+Michael's place.
+
+She received me with a strange hard stare, and answered with obstinate
+self-possession: "I wish Michael to go!" No explanation followed. With
+reason or without it, agreeable to me or not agreeable to me, she wished
+Michael to go.
+
+I begged her pardon for interfering, and replied that I would give up
+the idea of driving on that day. She made no further remark. I left the
+room, determining to watch her. There is no defense for my conduct; it
+was mean and unbecoming, no doubt. I was drawn on, by some force in me
+which I could not even attempt to resist. Indeed, indeed I am not a mean
+person by nature!
+
+At first, I thought of speaking to Michael; not with any special motive,
+but simply because I felt drawn toward him as the guide and helper in
+whom my heart trusted at this crisis in my life. A little consideration,
+however, suggested to me that I might be seen speaking to him, and might
+so do him an injury. While I was still hesitating, the thought came to
+me that my aunt's motive for sending him to her bookseller might be to
+get him out of her way.
+
+Out of her way in the house? No: his place was not in the house. Out of
+her way in the stable? The next instant, the idea flashed across my mind
+of watching the stable door.
+
+The best bedrooms, my room included, were all in front of the house. I
+went up to my maid's room, which looked on the courtyard; ready with my
+excuse, if she happened to be there. She was not there. I placed myself
+at the window, in full view of the stable opposite.
+
+An interval elapsed--long or short, I cannot say which; I was too much
+excited to look at my watch. All I know is that I discovered her! She
+crossed the yard, after waiting to make sure that no one was there to
+see her; and she entered the stable by the door which led to that part
+of the building occupied by Michael. This time I looked at my watch.
+
+Forty minutes passed before I saw her again. And then, instead of
+appearing at the door, she showed herself at the window of Michael's
+room; throwing it wide open. I concealed myself behind the window
+curtain, just in time to escape discovery, as she looked up at the
+house. She next appeared in the yard, hurrying back. I waited a while,
+trying to compose myself in case I met any one on the stairs. There was
+little danger of a meeting at that hour. The General was at his club;
+the servants were at their tea. I reached my own room without being seen
+by any one, and locked myself in.
+
+What had my aunt been doing for forty minutes in Michael's room? And why
+had she opened the window?
+
+I spare you my reflections on these perplexing questions. A convenient
+headache saved me from the ordeal of meeting Lady Claudia at the
+dinner-table. I passed a restless and miserable night; conscious that
+I had found my way blindly, as it were, to some terrible secret which
+might have its influence on my whole future life, and not knowing what
+to think, or what to do next. Even then, I shrank instinctively from
+speaking to my uncle. This was not wonderful. But I felt afraid to speak
+to Michael--and that perplexed and alarmed me. Consideration for Lady
+Claudia was certainly not the motive that kept me silent, after what I
+had seen.
+
+The next morning my pale face abundantly justified the assertion that I
+was still ill.
+
+My aunt, always doing her maternal duty toward me, came herself to
+inquire after my health before I was out of my room. So certain was she
+of not having been observed on the previous day--or so prodigious was
+her power of controlling herself--that she actually advised me to go out
+riding before lunch, and try what the fresh air and the exercise would
+do to relieve me! Feeling that I must end in speaking to Michael, it
+struck me that this would be the one safe way of consulting him in
+private. I accepted her advice, and had another approving pat on the
+cheek from her plump white fingers. They no longer struck cold on my
+skin; the customary vital warmth had returned to them. Her ladyship's
+mind had recovered its tranquillity.
+
+IX.
+
+I LEFT the house for my morning ride.
+
+Michael was not in his customary spirits. With some difficulty, I
+induced him to tell me the reason. He had decided on giving notice to
+leave his situation in the General's employment. As soon as I
+could command myself, I asked what had happened to justify this
+incomprehensible proceeding on his part. He silently offered me a
+letter. It was written by the master whom he had served before he came
+to us; and it announced that an employment as secretary was offered to
+him, in the house of a gentleman who was "interested in his creditable
+efforts to improve his position in the world."
+
+What it cost me to preserve the outward appearance of composure as I
+handed back the letter, I am ashamed to tell. I spoke to him with some
+bitterness. "Your wishes are gratified," I said; "I don't wonder
+that you are eager to leave your place." He reined back his horse
+and repeated my words. "Eager to leave my place? I am heart-broken at
+leaving it." I was reckless enough to ask why. His head sank. "I daren't
+tell you," he said. I went on from one imprudence to another. "What are
+you afraid of?" I asked. He suddenly looked up at me. His eyes answered:
+_"You."_
+
+Is it possible to fathom the folly of a woman in love? Can any sensible
+person imagine the enormous importance which the veriest trifles assume
+in her poor little mind? I was perfectly satisfied--even perfectly
+happy, after that one look. I rode on briskly for a minute or two--then
+the forgotten scene at the stable recurred to my memory. I resumed a
+foot-pace and beckoned to him to speak to me.
+
+"Lady Claudia's bookseller lives in the City, doesn't he?" I began.
+
+"Yes, miss."
+
+"Did you walk both ways?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You must have felt tired when you got back?"
+
+"I hardly remember what I felt when I got back--I was met by a
+surprise."
+
+"May I ask what it was?"
+
+"Certainly, miss. Do you remember a black bag of mine?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"When I returned from the City I found the bag open; and the things I
+kept in it--the shawl, the linen, and the letter--"
+
+"Gone?"
+
+"Gone."
+
+My heart gave one great leap in me, and broke into vehement throbbings,
+which made it impossible for me to say a word more. I reined up my
+horse, and fixed my eyes on Michael. He was startled; he asked if I felt
+faint. I could only sign to him that I was waiting to hear more.
+
+"My own belief," he proceeded, "is that some person burned the things in
+my absence, and opened the window to prevent any suspicion being excited
+by the smell. I am certain I shut the window before I left my room. When
+I closed it on my return, the fresh air had not entirely removed the
+smell of burning; and, what is more, I found a heap of ashes in the
+grate. As to the person who has done me this injury, and why it has
+been done, those are mysteries beyond my fathoming--I beg your pardon,
+miss--I am sure you are not well. Might I advise you to return to the
+house?"
+
+I accepted his advice and turned back.
+
+In the tumult of horror and amazement that filled my mind, I could
+still feel a faint triumph stirring in me through it all, when I saw how
+alarmed and how anxious he was about me. Nothing more passed between
+us on the way back. Confronted by the dreadful discovery that I had now
+made, I was silent and helpless. Of the guilty persons concerned in
+the concealment of the birth, and in the desertion of the infant, my
+nobly-born, highly-bred, irreproachable aunt now stood revealed before
+me as one! An older woman than I might have been hard put to it to
+preserve her presence of mind, in such a position as mine. Instinct,
+not reason, served me in my sore need. Instinct, not reason, kept me
+passively and stupidly silent when I got back to the house. "We will
+talk about it to-morrow," was all I could say to Michael, when he gently
+lifted me from my horse.
+
+I excused myself from appearing at the luncheon-table; and I drew down
+the blinds in my sitting-room, so that my face might not betray me when
+Lady Claudia's maternal duty brought her upstairs to make inquiries. The
+same excuse served in both cases--my ride had failed to relieve me of
+my headache. My aunt's brief visit led to one result which is worth
+mentioning. The indescribable horror of her that I felt forced the
+conviction on my mind that we two could live no longer under the same
+roof. While I was still trying to face this alternative with the
+needful composure, my uncle presented himself, in some anxiety about
+my continued illness. I should certainly have burst out crying, when the
+kind and dear old man condoled with me, if he had not brought news with
+him which turned back all my thoughts on myself and my aunt. Michael had
+shown the General his letter and had given notice to leave. Lady Claudia
+was present at the time. To her husband's amazement, she abruptly
+interfered with a personal request to Michael to think better of it, and
+to remain in his place!
+
+"I should not have troubled you, my dear, on this unpleasant subject,"
+said my uncle, "if Michael had not told me that you were aware of the
+circumstances under which he feels it his duty to leave us. After your
+aunt's interference (quite incomprehensible to me), the man hardly
+knows what to do. Being your groom, he begs me to ask if there is any
+impropriety in his leaving the difficulty to your decision. I tell you
+of his request, Mina; but I strongly advise you to decline taking any
+responsibility on yourself."
+
+I answered mechanically, accepting my uncle's suggestion, while my
+thoughts were wholly absorbed in this last of the many extraordinary
+proceedings on Lady Claudia's part since Michael had entered the house.
+There are limits--out of books and plays--to the innocence of a young
+unmarried woman. After what I had just heard the doubts which had thus
+far perplexed me were suddenly and completely cleared up. I said to my
+secret self: "She has some human feeling left. If her son goes away, she
+knows that they may never meet again!"
+
+From the moment when my mind emerged from the darkness, I recovered the
+use of such intelligence and courage as I naturally possessed. From this
+point, you will find that, right or wrong, I saw my way before me, and
+took it.
+
+To say that I felt for the General with my whole heart, is merely to own
+that I could be commonly grateful. I sat on his knee, and laid my cheek
+against his cheek, and thanked him for his long, long years of kindness
+to me. He stopped me in his simple generous way. "Why, Mina, you talk
+as if you were going to leave us!" I started up, and went to the window,
+opening it and complaining of the heat, and so concealing from him that
+he had unconsciously anticipated the event that was indeed to come. When
+I returned to my chair, he helped me to recover myself by alluding once
+more to his wife. He feared that her health was in some way impaired. In
+the time when they had first met, she was subject to nervous maladies,
+having their origin in a "calamity" which was never mentioned by either
+of them in later days. She might possibly be suffering again, from
+some other form of nervous derangement, and he seriously thought of
+persuading her to send for medical advice.
+
+Under ordinary circumstances, this vague reference to a "calamity" would
+not have excited any special interest in me. But my mind was now in a
+state of morbid suspicion. I had not heard how long my uncle and aunt
+had been married; but I remembered that Michael had described himself
+as being twenty-six years old. Bearing these circumstances in mind, it
+struck me that I might be acting wisely (in Michael's interest) if I
+persuaded the General to speak further of what had happened, at the time
+when he met the woman whom an evil destiny had bestowed on him for a
+wife. Nothing but the consideration of serving the man I loved would
+have reconciled me to making my own secret use of the recollections
+which my uncle might innocently confide to me. As it was, I thought the
+means would, in this case, he for once justified by the end. Before we
+part, I have little doubt that you will think so too.
+
+I found it an easier task than I had anticipated to turn the talk back
+again to the days when the General had seen Lady Claudia for the first
+time. He was proud of the circumstances under which he had won his wife.
+Ah, how my heart ached for him as I saw his eyes sparkle, and the color
+mount in his fine rugged face!
+
+This is the substance of what I heard from him. I tell it briefly,
+because it is still painful to me to tell it at all.
+
+
+My uncle had met Lady Claudia at her father's country house. She had
+then reappeared in society, after a period of seclusion, passed partly
+in England, partly on the Continent. Before the date of her retirement,
+she had been engaged to marry a French nobleman, equally illustrious by
+his birth and by his diplomatic services in the East. Within a few weeks
+of the wedding-day, he was drowned by the wreck of his yacht. This was
+the calamity to which my uncle had referred.
+
+Lady Claudia's mind was so seriously affected by the dreadful event,
+that the doctors refused to answer for the consequences, unless she was
+at once placed in the strictest retirement. Her mother, and a French
+maid devotedly attached to her, were the only persons whom it was
+considered safe for the young lady to see, until time and care had in
+some degree composed her. Her return to her friends and admirers, after
+the necessary interval of seclusion, was naturally a subject of sincere
+rejoicing among the guests assembled in her father's house. My uncle's
+interest in Lady Claudia soon developed into love. They were equals
+in rank, and well suited to each other in age. The parents raised no
+obstacles; but they did not conceal from their guest that the disaster
+which had befallen their daughter was but too likely to disincline her
+to receive his addresses, or any man's addresses, favorably. To their
+surprise, they proved to be wrong. The young lady was touched by the
+simplicity and the delicacy with which her lover urged his suit. She
+had lived among worldly people. This was a man whose devotion she could
+believe to be sincere. They were married.
+
+Had no unusual circumstances occurred? Had nothing happened which the
+General had forgotten? Nothing.
+
+X.
+
+IT is surely needless that I should stop here, to draw the plain
+inferences from the events just related.
+
+Any person who remembers that the shawl in which the infant was wrapped
+came from those Eastern regions which were associated with the French
+nobleman's diplomatic services--also, that the faults of composition
+in the letter found on the child were exactly the faults likely to have
+been committed by the French maid--any person who follows these traces
+can find his way to the truth as I found mine.
+
+Returning for a moment to the hopes which I had formed of being of some
+service to Michael, I have only to say that they were at once destroyed,
+when I heard of the death by drowning of the man to whom the evidence
+pointed as his father. The prospect looked equally barren when I thought
+of the miserable mother. That she should openly acknowledge her son
+in her position was perhaps not to be expected of any woman. Had she
+courage enough, or, in plainer words, heart enough to acknowledge him
+privately?
+
+I called to mind again some of the apparent caprices and contradictions
+in Lady Claudia's conduct, on the memorable day when Michael had
+presented himself to fill the vacant place. Look back with me to the
+record of what she said and did on that occasion, by the light of your
+present knowledge, and you will see that his likeness to his father must
+have struck her when he entered the room, and that his statement of his
+age must have correctly described the age of her son. Recall the actions
+that followed, after she had been exhausted by her first successful
+efforts at self-control--the withdrawal to the window to conceal her
+face; the clutch at the curtain when she felt herself sinking; the
+harshness of manner under which she concealed her emotions when
+she ventured to speak to him; the reiterated inconsistencies and
+vacillations of conduct that followed, all alike due to the protest of
+Nature, desperately resisted to the last--and say if I did her injustice
+when I believed her to be incapable of running the smallest risk of
+discovery at the prompting of maternal love.
+
+There remained, then, only Michael to think of. I remember how he had
+spoken of the unknown parents whom he neither expected nor cared to
+discover. Still, I could not reconcile it to my conscience to accept a
+chance outbreak of temper as my sufficient justification for keeping
+him in ignorance of a discovery which so nearly concerned him. It seemed
+at least to be my duty to make myself acquainted with the true state of
+his feelings, before I decided to bear the burden of silence with me to
+my grave.
+
+What I felt it my duty to do in this serious matter, I determined to do
+at once. Besides, let me honestly own that I felt lonely and desolate,
+oppressed by the critical situation in which I was placed, and eager for
+the relief that it would be to me only to hear the sound of Michael's
+voice. I sent my maid to say that I wished to speak to him immediately.
+The crisis was already hanging over my head. That one act brought it
+down.
+
+XI.
+
+He came in, and stood modestly waiting at the door.
+
+After making him take a chair, I began by saying that I had received
+his message, and that, acting on my uncle's advice, I must abstain from
+interfering in the question of his leaving, or not leaving, his place.
+Having in this way established a reason for sending for him, I alluded
+next to the loss that he had sustained, and asked if he had any prospect
+of finding out the person who had entered his room in his absence. On
+his reply in the negative, I spoke of the serious results to him of
+the act of destruction that had been committed. "Your last chance of
+discovering your parents," I said, "has been cruelly destroyed."
+
+He smiled sadly. "You know already, miss, that I never expected to
+discover them."
+
+I ventured a little nearer to the object I had in view.
+
+"Do you never think of your mother?" I asked. "At your age, she might be
+still living. Can you give up all hope of finding her, without feeling
+your heart ache?"
+
+"If I have done her wrong, in believing that she deserted me," he
+answered, "the heart-ache is but a poor way of expressing the remorse
+that I should feel."
+
+I ventured nearer still.
+
+"Even if you were right," I began--"even it she did desert you--"
+
+He interrupted me sternly. "I would not cross the street to see her,"
+he said. "A woman who deserts her child is a monster. Forgive me for
+speaking so, miss! When I see good mothers and their children it maddens
+me when I think of what _my_ childhood was."
+
+Hearing these words, and watching him attentively while he spoke, I
+could see that my silence would be a mercy, not a crime. I hastened to
+speak of other things.
+
+"If you decide to leave us," I said, "when shall you go?"
+
+His eyes softened instantly. Little by little the color faded out of his
+face as he answered me.
+
+"The General kindly said, when I spoke of leaving my place--" His voice
+faltered, and he paused to steady it. "My master," he resumed, "said
+that I need not keep my new employer waiting by staying for the
+customary month, provided--provided you were willing to dispense with my
+services."
+
+So far, I had succeeded in controlling myself. At that reply I felt
+my resolution failing me. I saw how he suffered; I saw how manfully he
+struggled to conceal it.
+
+"I am not willing," I said. "I am sorry--very, very sorry to lose you.
+But I will do anything that is for your good. I can say no more."
+
+He rose suddenly, as if to leave the room; mastered himself; stood for
+a moment silently looking at me--then looked away again, and said his
+parting words.
+
+"If I succeed, Miss Mina, in my new employment--if I get on to higher
+things--is it--is it presuming too much, to ask if I might, some
+day--perhaps when you are out riding alone--if I might speak to
+you--only to ask if you are well and happy--"
+
+He could say no more. I saw the tears in his eyes; saw him shaken by the
+convulsive breathings which break from men in the rare moments when they
+cry. He forced it back even then. He bowed to me--oh, God, he bowed to
+me, as if he were only my servant! as if he were too far below me to
+take my hand, even at that moment! I could have endured anything else;
+I believe I could still have restrained myself under any other
+circumstances. It matters little now; my confession must be made,
+whatever you may think of me. I flew to him like a frenzied creature--I
+threw my arms round his neck--I said to him, "Oh, Michael, don't you
+know that I love you?" And then I laid my head on his breast, and held
+him to me, and said no more.
+
+In that moment of silence, the door of the room was opened. I started,
+and looked up. Lady Claudia was standing on the threshold.
+
+I saw in her face that she had been listening--she must have followed
+him when he was on his way to my room. That conviction steadied me. I
+took his hand in mine, and stood side by side with him, waiting for her
+to speak first. She looked at Michael, not at me. She advanced a step or
+two, and addressed him in these words:
+
+"It is just possible that _you_ have some sense of decency left. Leave
+the room."
+
+That deliberate insult was all that I wanted to make me completely
+mistress of myself. I told Michael to wait a moment, and opened my
+writing desk. I wrote on an envelope the address in London of a faithful
+old servant, who had attended my mother in her last moments. I gave it
+to Michael. "Call there to-morrow morning," I said. "You will find me
+waiting for you."
+
+He looked at Lady Claudia, evidently unwilling to leave me alone with
+her. "Fear nothing," I said; "I am old enough to take care of myself.
+I have only a word to say to this lady before I leave the house." With
+that, I took his arm, and walked with him to the door, and said good-by
+almost as composedly as if we had been husband and wife already.
+
+Lady Claudia's eyes followed me as I shut the door again and crossed
+the room to a second door which led into my bed-chamber. She suddenly
+stepped up to me, just as I was entering the room, and laid her hand on
+my arm.
+
+"What do I see in your face?" she asked as much of herself as of
+me--with her eyes fixed in keen inquiry on mine.
+
+"You shall know directly," I answered. "Let me get my bonnet and cloak
+first."
+
+"Do you mean to leave the house?"
+
+"I do."
+
+She rang the bell. I quietly dressed myself, to go out.
+
+The servant answered the bell, as I returned to the sitting-room.
+
+"Tell your master I wish to see him instantly," said Lady Claudia.
+
+"My master has gone out, my lady."
+
+"To his club?"
+
+"I believe so, my lady."
+
+"I will send you with a letter to him. Come back when I ring again." She
+turned to me as the man withdrew. "Do you refuse to stay here until the
+General returns?"
+
+"I shall be happy to see the General, if you will inclose my address in
+your letter to him."
+
+Replying in those terms, I wrote the address for the second time. Lady
+Claudia knew perfectly well, when I gave it to her, that I was going
+to a respectable house kept by a woman who had nursed me when I was a
+child.
+
+"One last question," she said. "Am I to tell the General that it is your
+intention to marry your groom?"
+
+Her tone stung me into making an answer which I regretted the moment it
+had passed my lips.
+
+"You can put it more plainly, if you like," I said. "You can tell the
+General that it is my intention to marry _your_ son."
+
+She was near the door, on the point of leaving me. As I spoke, she
+turned with a ghastly stare of horror--felt about her with her hands as
+if she was groping in darkness--and dropped on the floor.
+
+I instantly summoned help. The women-servants carried her to my bed.
+While they were restoring her to herself, I wrote a few lines telling
+the miserable woman how I had discovered her secret.
+
+"Your husband's tranquillity," I added, "is as precious to me as my own.
+As for your son, you know what he thinks of the mother who deserted him.
+Your secret is safe in my keeping--safe from your husband, safe from
+your son, to the end of my life."
+
+I sealed up those words, and gave them to her when she had come to
+herself again. I never heard from her in reply. I have never seen her
+from that time to this. She knows she can trust me.
+
+And what did my good uncle say, when we next met? I would rather report
+what he did, when he had got the better of his first feelings of anger
+and surprise on hearing of my contemplated marriage. He consented to
+receive us on our wedding-day; and he gave my husband the appointment
+which places us both in an independent position for life.
+
+But he had his misgivings. He checked me when I tried to thank him.
+
+"Come back in a year's time," he said. "I will wait to be thanked till
+the experience of your married life tells me that I have deserved it."
+
+The year passed; and the General received the honest expression of my
+gratitude. He smiled and kissed me; but there was something in his face
+which suggested that he was not quite satisfied yet.
+
+"Do you believe that I have spoken sincerely?" I asked.
+
+"I firmly believe it," he answered--and there he stopped.
+
+A wiser woman would have taken the hint and dropped the subject. My
+folly persisted in putting another question:
+
+"Tell me, uncle. Haven't I proved that I was right when I married my
+groom?"
+
+"No, my dear. You have only proved that you are a lucky woman!"
+
+
+
+
+MR. LEPEL AND THE HOUSEKEEPER
+
+FIRST EPOCH.
+
+THE Italians are born actors.
+
+At this conclusion I arrived, sitting in a Roman theater--now many years
+since. My friend and traveling companion, Rothsay, cordially agreed
+with me. Experience had given us some claim to form an opinion. We had
+visited, at that time, nearly every city in Italy. Where-ever a theater
+was open, we had attended the performances of the companies which travel
+from place to place; and we had never seen bad acting from first to
+last. Men and women, whose names are absolutely unknown in England,
+played (in modern comedy and drama for the most part) with a general
+level of dramatic ability which I have never seen equaled in the
+theaters of other nations. Incapable Italian actors there must be, no
+doubt. For my own part I have only discovered them, by ones and twos,
+in England; appearing among the persons engaged to support Salvini and
+Ristori before the audiences of London.
+
+On the occasion of which I am now writing, the night's performances
+consisted of two plays. An accident, to be presently related, prevented
+us from seeing more than the introductory part of the second piece.
+That one act--in respect of the influence which the remembrance of it
+afterward exercised over Rothsay and myself--claims a place of its own
+in the opening pages of the present narrative.
+
+The scene of the story was laid in one of the principalities of Italy,
+in the bygone days of the Carbonaro conspiracies. The chief persons were
+two young noblemen, friends affectionately attached to each other, and a
+beautiful girl born in the lower ranks of life.
+
+On the rising of the curtain, the scene before us was the courtyard of
+a prison. We found the beautiful girl (called Celia as well as I can
+recollect) in great distress; confiding her sorrows to the jailer's
+daughter. Her father was pining in the prison, charged with an offense
+of which he was innocent; and she herself was suffering the tortures
+of hopeless love. She was on the point of confiding her secret to her
+friend, when the appearance of the young nobleman closed her lips. The
+girls at once withdrew; and the two friends--whom I now only remember as
+the Marquis and the Count--began the dialogue which prepared us for the
+story of the play.
+
+The Marquis had been tried for conspiracy against the reigning Prince
+and his government; had been found guilty, and is condemned to be shot
+that evening. He accepts his sentence with the resignation of a man
+who is weary of his life. Young as he is, he has tried the round of
+pleasures without enjoyment; he has no interests, no aspirations, no
+hopes; he looks on death as a welcome release. His friend the Count,
+admitted to a farewell interview, has invented a stratagem by which the
+prisoner may escape and take to flight. The Marquis expresses a grateful
+sense of obligation, and prefers being shot. "I don't value my life,"
+he says; "I am not a happy man like you." Upon this the Count mentions
+circumstances which he has hitherto kept secret. He loves the charming
+Celia, and loves in vain. Her reputation is unsullied; she possesses
+every good quality that a man can desire in a wife--but the Count's
+social position forbids him to marry a woman of low birth. He is
+heart-broken; and he too finds life without hope a burden that is not
+to be borne. The Marquis at once sees a way of devoting himself to his
+friend's interests. He is rich; his money is at his own disposal; he
+will bequeath a marriage portion to Celia which will make her one of the
+richest women in Italy. The Count receives this proposal with a sigh.
+"No money," he says, "will remove the obstacle that still remains. My
+father's fatal objection to Celia is her rank in life." The Marquis
+walks apart--considers a little--consults his watch--and returns with a
+new idea. "I have nearly two hours of life still left," he says. "Send
+for Celia: she was here just now, and she is probably in her father's
+cell." The Count is at a loss to understand what this proposal means.
+The Marquis explains himself. "I ask your permission," he resumes, "to
+offer marriage to Celia--for your sake. The chaplain of the prison will
+perform the ceremony. Before dark, the girl you love will be my widow.
+My widow is a lady of title--a fit wife for the greatest nobleman in
+the land." The Count protests and refuses in vain. The jailer is sent
+to find Celia. She appears. Unable to endure the scene, the Count rushes
+out in horror. The Marquis takes the girl into his confidence, and makes
+his excuses. If she becomes a widow of rank, she may not only marry the
+Count, but will be in a position to procure the liberty of the innocent
+old man, whose strength is failing him under the rigors of imprisonment.
+Celia hesitates. After a struggle with herself, filial love prevails,
+and she consents. The jailer announces that the chaplain is waiting; the
+bride and bridegroom withdraw to the prison chapel. Left on the stage,
+the jailer hears a distant sound in the city, which he is at a loss to
+understand. It sinks, increases again, travels nearer to the prison, and
+now betrays itself as the sound of multitudinous voices in a state of
+furious uproar. Has the conspiracy broken out again? Yes! The whole
+population has risen; the soldiers have refused to fire on the people;
+the terrified Prince has dismissed his ministers, and promises a
+constitution. The Marquis, returning from the ceremony which has just
+made Celia his wife, is presented with a free pardon, and with the offer
+of a high place in the re-formed ministry. A new life is opening before
+him--and he has innocently ruined his friend's prospects! On this
+striking situation the drop-curtain falls.
+
+While we were still applauding the first act, Rothsay alarmed me: he
+dropped from his seat at my side, like a man struck dead. The stifling
+heat in the theater had proved too much for him. We carried him out at
+once into the fresh air. When he came to his senses, my friend entreated
+me to leave him, and see the end of the play. To my mind, he looked as
+if he might faint again. I insisted on going back with him to our hotel.
+
+On the next day I went to the theater, to ascertain if the play would be
+repeated. The box-office was closed. The dramatic company had left Rome.
+
+My interest in discovering how the story ended led me next to the
+booksellers' shops--in the hope of buying the play. Nobody knew anything
+about it. Nobody could tell me whether it was the original work of an
+Italian writer, or whether it had been stolen (and probably disfigured)
+from the French. As a fragment I had seen it. As a fragment it has
+remained from that time to this.
+
+SECOND EPOCH.
+
+ONE of my objects in writing these lines is to vindicate the character
+of an innocent woman (formerly in my service as housekeeper) who has
+been cruelly slandered. Absorbed in the pursuit of my purpose, it has
+only now occurred to me that strangers may desire to know something more
+than they know now of myself and my friend. "Give us some idea," they
+may say, "of what sort of persons you are, if you wish to interest us at
+the outset of your story."
+
+A most reasonable suggestion, I admit. Unfortunately, I am not the right
+man to comply with it.
+
+In the first place, I cannot pretend to pronounce judgment on my own
+character. In the second place, I am incapable of writing impartially
+of my friend. At the imminent risk of his own life, Rothsay rescued me
+from a dreadful death by accident, when we were at college together. Who
+can expect me to speak of his faults? I am not even capable of seeing
+them.
+
+Under these embarrassing circumstances--and not forgetting, at the same
+time, that a servant's opinion of his master and his master's friends
+may generally be trusted not to err on the favorable side--I am tempted
+to call my valet as a witness to character.
+
+I slept badly on our first night at Rome; and I happened to be awake
+while the man was talking of us confidentially in the courtyard of
+the hotel--just under my bedroom window. Here, to the best of my
+recollection, is a faithful report of what he said to some friend among
+the servants who understood English:
+
+"My master's well connected, you must know--though he's only plain Mr.
+Lepel. His uncle's the great lawyer, Lord Lepel; and his late father was
+a banker. Rich, did you say? I should think he _was_ rich--and be hanged
+to him! No, not married, and not likely to be. Owns he was forty last
+birthday; a regular old bachelor. Not a bad sort, taking him altogether.
+The worst of him is, he is one of the most indiscreet persons I ever
+met with. Does the queerest things, when the whim takes him, and doesn't
+care what other people think of it. They say the Lepels have all got a
+slate loose in the upper story. Oh, no; not a very old family--I mean,
+nothing compared to the family of his friend, young Rothsay. _They_
+count back, as I have heard, to the ancient kings of Scotland. Between
+ourselves, the ancient kings haven't left the Rothsays much money. They
+would be glad, I'll be bound, to get my rich master for one of their
+daughters. Poor as Job, I tell you. This young fellow, traveling with
+us, has never had a spare five-pound note since he was born. Plenty of
+brains in his head, I grant you; and a little too apt sometimes to be
+suspicious of other people. But liberal--oh, give him his due--liberal
+in a small way. Tips me with a sovereign now and then. I take it--Lord
+bless you, I take it. What do you say? Has he got any employment? Not
+he! Dabbles in chemistry (experiments, and that sort of thing) by way
+of amusing himself; and tells the most infernal lies about it. The other
+day he showed me a bottle about as big as a thimble, with what looked
+like water in it, and said it was enough to poison everybody in the
+hotel. What rot! Isn't that the clock striking again? Near about
+bedtime, I should say. Wish you good night."
+
+There are our characters--drawn on the principle of justice without
+mercy, by an impudent rascal who is the best valet in England. Now you
+know what sort of persons we are; and now we may go on again.
+
+
+Rothsay and I parted, soon after our night at the theater. He went to
+Civita Vecchia to join a friend's yacht, waiting for him in the harbor.
+I turned homeward, traveling at a leisurely rate through the Tyrol and
+Germany.
+
+After my arrival in England, certain events in my life occurred
+which did not appear to have any connection at the time. They led,
+nevertheless, to consequences which seriously altered the relations of
+happy past years between Rothsay and myself.
+
+The first event took place on my return to my house in London. I found
+among the letters waiting for me an invitation from Lord Lepel to spend
+a few weeks with him at his country seat in Sussex.
+
+I had made so many excuses, in past years, when I received invitations
+from my uncle, that I was really ashamed to plead engagements in London
+again. There was no unfriendly feeling between us. My only motive for
+keeping away from him took its rise in dislike of the ordinary modes
+of life in an English country-house. A man who feels no interest in
+politics, who cares nothing for field sports, who is impatient of
+amateur music and incapable of small talk, is a man out of his element
+in country society. This was my unlucky case. I went to Lord Lepel's
+house sorely against my will; longing already for the day when it would
+be time to say good-by.
+
+The routine of my uncle's establishment had remained unaltered since my
+last experience of it.
+
+I found my lord expressing the same pride in his collection of old
+masters, and telling the same story of the wonderful escape of his
+picture-gallery from fire--I renewed my acquaintance with the same
+members of Parliament among the guests, all on the same side in
+politics--I joined in the same dreary amusements--I saluted the same
+resident priest (the Lepels are all born and bred Roman Catholics)--I
+submitted to the same rigidly early breakfast hour; and inwardly cursed
+the same peremptory bell, ringing as a means of reminding us of our
+meals. The one change that presented itself was a change out of the
+house. Death had removed the lodgekeeper at the park-gate. His widow and
+daughter (Mrs. Rymer and little Susan) remained in their pretty cottage.
+They had been allowed by my lord's kindness to take charge of the gate.
+
+Out walking, on the morning after my arrival, I was caught in a shower
+on my way back to the park, and took shelter in the lodge.
+
+In the bygone days I had respected Mrs. Rymer's husband as a thoroughly
+worthy man--but Mrs. Rymer herself was no great favorite of mine. She
+had married beneath her, as the phrase is, and she was a little
+too conscious of it. A woman with a sharp eye to her own interests;
+selfishly discontented with her position in life, and not very
+scrupulous in her choice of means when she had an end in view: that is
+how I describe Mrs. Rymer. Her daughter, whom I only remembered as a
+weakly child, astonished me when I saw her again after the interval that
+had elapsed. The backward flower had bloomed into perfect health.
+Susan was now a lovely little modest girl of seventeen--with a natural
+delicacy and refinement of manner, which marked her to my mind as one
+of Nature's gentlewomen. When I entered the lodge she was writing at
+a table in a corner, having some books on it, and rose to withdraw. I
+begged that she would proceed with her employment, and asked if I might
+know what it was. She answered me with a blush, and a pretty brightening
+of her clear blue eyes. "I am trying, sir, to teach myself French," she
+said. The weather showed no signs of improving--I volunteered to help
+her, and found her such an attentive and intelligent pupil that I
+looked in at the lodge from time to time afterward, and continued my
+instructions. The younger men among my uncle's guests set their own
+stupid construction on my attentions "to the girl at the gate," as they
+called her--rather too familiarly, according to my notions of propriety.
+I contrived to remind them that I was old enough to be Susan's father,
+in a manner which put an end to their jokes; and I was pleased to hear,
+when I next went to the lodge, that Mrs. Rymer had been wise enough to
+keep these facetious gentlemen at their proper distance.
+
+The day of my departure arrived. Lord Leper took leave of me kindly, and
+asked for news of Rothsay. "Let me know when your friend returns," my
+uncle said; "he belongs to a good old stock. Put me in mind of him when
+I next invite you to come to my house."
+
+On my way to the train I stopped of course at the lodge to say good-by.
+Mrs. Rymer came out alone I asked for Susan.
+
+"My daughter is not very well to-day."
+
+"Is she confined to her room?"
+
+"She is in the parlor."
+
+I might have been mistaken, but I thought Mrs. Rymer answered me in no
+very friendly way. Resolved to judge for myself, I entered the lodge,
+and found my poor little pupil sitting in a corner, crying. When I asked
+her what was the matter, the excuse of a "bad headache" was the only
+reply that I received. The natures of young girls are a hopeless
+puzzle to me. Susan seemed, for some reason which it was impossible to
+understand, to be afraid to look at me.
+
+"Have you and your mother been quarreling?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+She denied it with such evident sincerity that I could not for a moment
+suspect her of deceiving me. Whatever the cause of her distress might
+be, it was plain that she had her own reasons for keeping it a secret.
+
+Her French books were on the table. I tried a little allusion to her
+lessons.
+
+"I hope you will go on regularly with your studies," I said.
+
+"I will do my best, sir--without you to help me."
+
+She said it so sadly that I proposed--purely from the wish to encourage
+her--a continuation of our lessons through the post.
+
+"Send your exercises to me once a week," I suggested; "and I will return
+them corrected."
+
+She thanked me in low tones, with a shyness of manner which I had
+never noticed in her before. I had done my best to cheer her--and I was
+conscious, as we shook hands at parting, that I had failed. A feeling
+of disappointment overcomes me when I see young people out of spirits. I
+was sorry for Susan.
+
+THIRD EPOCH.
+
+ONE of my faults (which has not been included in the list set forth
+by my valet) is a disinclination to occupy myself with my own domestic
+affairs. The proceedings of my footman, while I had been away from
+home, left me no alternative but to dismiss him on my return. With this
+exertion of authority my interference as chief of the household came to
+an end. I left it to my excellent housekeeper, Mrs. Mozeen, to find
+a sober successor to the drunken vagabond who had been sent away. She
+discovered a respectable young man--tall, plump, and rosy--whose name
+was Joseph, and whose character was beyond reproach. I have but one
+excuse for noticing such a trifling event as this. It took its place, at
+a later period, in the chain which was slowly winding itself round me.
+
+My uncle had asked me to prolong my visit and I should probably
+have consented, but for anxiety on the subject of a near and dear
+relative--my sister. Her health had been failing since the death of her
+husband, to whom she was tenderly attached. I heard news of her while I
+was in Sussex, which hurried me back to town. In a month more, her death
+deprived me of my last living relation. She left no children; and my two
+brothers had both died unmarried while they were still young men.
+
+This affliction placed me in a position of serious embarrassment, in
+regard to the disposal of my property after my death.
+
+I had hitherto made no will; being well aware that my fortune (which was
+entirely in money) would go in due course of law to the person of all
+others who would employ it to the best purpose--that is to say, to my
+sister as my nearest of kin. As I was now situated, my property would
+revert to my uncle if I died intestate. He was a richer man than I was.
+Of his two children, both sons, the eldest would inherit his estates:
+the youngest had already succeeded to his mother's ample fortune. Having
+literally no family claims on me, I felt bound to recognize the wider
+demands of poverty and misfortune, and to devote my superfluous wealth
+to increasing the revenues of charitable institutions. As to minor
+legacies, I owed it to my good housekeeper, Mrs. Mozeen, not to forget
+the faithful services of past years. Need I add--if I had been free to
+act as I pleased--that I should have gladly made Rothsay the object of
+a handsome bequest? But this was not to be. My friend was a man morbidly
+sensitive on the subject of money. In the early days of our intercourse
+we had been for the first and only time on the verge of a quarrel, when
+I had asked (as a favor to myself) to be allowed to provide for him in
+my will.
+
+"It is because I am poor," he explained, "that I refuse to profit by
+your kindness--though I feel it gratefully."
+
+I failed to understand him--and said so plainly.
+
+"You will understand this," he resumed; "I should never recover my sense
+of degradation, if a mercenary motive on my side was associated with
+our friendship. Don't say it's impossible! You know as well as I do that
+appearances would be against me, in the eyes of the world. Besides, I
+don't want money; my own small income is enough for me. Make me your
+executor if you like, and leave me the customary present of five hundred
+pounds. If you exceed that sum I declare on my word of honor that I
+will not touch one farthing of it." He took my hand, and pressed it
+fervently. "Do me a favor," he said. "Never let us speak of this again!"
+
+I understood that I must yield--or lose my friend.
+
+In now making my will, I accordingly appointed Rothsay one of my
+executors, on the terms that he had prescribed. The minor legacies
+having been next duly reduced to writing, I left the bulk of my fortune
+to public charities.
+
+My lawyer laid the fair copy of the will on my table.
+
+"A dreary disposition of property for a man of your age," he said, "I
+hope to receive a new set of instructions before you are a year older."
+
+"What instructions?" I asked.
+
+"To provide for your wife and children," he answered.
+
+My wife and children! The idea seemed to be so absurd that I burst out
+laughing. It never occurred to me that there could be any absurdity from
+my own point of view.
+
+I was sitting alone, after my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking
+absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the
+house-door which I thought I recognized. In another minute Rothsay's
+bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned from the
+Mediterranean that morning.
+
+"Am I interrupting you?" he asked, pointing to the leaves of manuscript
+before me. "Are you writing a book?"
+
+"I am making my will."
+
+His manner changed; he looked at me seriously.
+
+"Do you remember what I said, when we once talked of your will?" he
+asked. I set his doubts at rest immediately--but he was not quite
+satisfied yet. "Can't you put your will away?" he suggested. "I hate the
+sight of anything that reminds me of death."
+
+"Give me a minute to sign it," I said--and rang to summon the witnesses.
+
+Mrs. Mozeen answered the bell. Rothsay looked at her, as if he wished to
+have my housekeeper put away as well as my will. From the first
+moment when he had seen her, he conceived a great dislike to that good
+creature. There was nothing, I am sure, personally repellent about her.
+She was a little slim quiet woman, with a pale complexion and bright
+brown eyes. Her movements were gentle; her voice was low; her decent
+gray dress was adapted to her age. Why Rothsay should dislike her was
+more than he could explain himself. He turned his unreasonable
+prejudice into a joke--and said he hated a woman who wore slate colored
+cap-ribbons!
+
+I explained to Mrs. Mozeen that I wanted witnesses to the signature of
+my will. Naturally enough--being in the room at the time--she asked if
+she could be one of them.
+
+I was obliged to say No; and not to mortify her, I gave the reason.
+
+"My will recognizes what I owe to your good services," I said. "If
+you are one of the witnesses, you will lose your legacy. Send up the
+men-servants."
+
+With her customary tact, Mrs. Mozeen expressed her gratitude silently,
+by a look--and left the room.
+
+"Why couldn't you tell that woman to send the servants, without
+mentioning her legacy?" Rothsay asked. "My friend Lepel, you have done a
+very foolish thing."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"You have given Mrs. Mozeen an interest in your death."
+
+It was impossible to make a serious reply to this ridiculous exhibition
+of Rothsay's prejudice against poor Mrs. Mozeen.
+
+"When am I to be murdered?" I asked. "And how is it to be done? Poison?"
+
+"I'm not joking," Rothsay answered. "You are infatuated about your
+housekeeper. When you spoke of her legacy, did you notice her eyes."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did nothing strike you?"
+
+"It struck me that they were unusually well preserved eyes for a woman
+of her age."
+
+The appearance of the valet and the footman put an end to this idle
+talk. The will was executed, and locked up. Our conversation turned on
+Rothsay's travels by sea. The cruise had been in every way successful.
+The matchless shores of the Mediterranean defied description; the
+sailing of the famous yacht had proved to be worthy of her reputation;
+and, to crown all, Rothsay had come back to England, in a fair way, for
+the first time in his life, of making money.
+
+"I have discovered a treasure," he announced.
+
+"It _was_ a dirty little modern picture, picked up in a by-street at
+Palermo. It is a Virgin and Child, by Guido."
+
+On further explanation it appeared that the picture exposed for sale was
+painted on copper. Noticing the contrast between the rare material and
+the wretchedly bad painting that covered it, Rothsay had called t o mind
+some of the well-known stories of valuable works of art that had been
+painted over for purposes of disguise. The price asked for the picture
+amounted to little more than the value of the metal. Rothsay bought it.
+His knowledge of chemistry enabled him to put his suspicion successfully
+to the test; and one of the guests on board the yacht--a famous French
+artist--had declared his conviction that the picture now revealed to
+view was a genuine work by Guido. Such an opinion as this convinced
+me that it would be worth while to submit my friend's discovery to
+the judgment of other experts. Consulted independently, these critics
+confirmed the view taken by the celebrated personage who had first seen
+the work. This result having been obtained, Rothsay asked my advice next
+on the question of selling his picture. I at once thought of my uncle.
+An undoubted work by Guido would surely be an acquisition to his
+gallery. I had only (in accordance with his own request) to let him know
+that my friend had returned to England. We might take the picture with
+us, when we received our invitation to Lord Lepel's house.
+
+FOURTH EPOCH.
+
+My uncle's answer arrived by return of post. Other engagements obliged
+him to defer receiving us for a month. At the end of that time, we were
+cordially invited to visit him, and to stay as long as we liked.
+
+In the interval that now passed, other events occurred--still of the
+trifling kind.
+
+One afternoon, just as I was thinking of taking my customary ride in the
+park, the servant appeared charged with a basket of flowers, and with
+a message from Mrs. Rymer, requesting me to honor her by accepting a
+little offering from her daughter. Hearing that she was then waiting
+in the hall, I told the man to show her in. Susan (as I ought to have
+already mentioned) had sent her exercises to me regularly every week.
+In returning them corrected, I had once or twice added a word of
+well-deserved approval. The offering of flowers was evidently intended
+to express my pupil's grateful sense of the interest taken in her by her
+teacher.
+
+I had no reason, this time, to suppose that Mrs. Rymer entertained an
+unfriendly feeling toward me. At the first words of greeting that passed
+between us I perceived a change in her manner, which ran in the opposite
+extreme. She overwhelmed me with the most elaborate demonstrations of
+politeness and respect; dwelling on her gratitude for my kindness in
+receiving her, and on her pride at seeing her daughter's flowers on my
+table, until I made a resolute effort to stop her by asking (as if it
+was actually a matter of importance to me!) whether she was in London on
+business or on pleasure.
+
+"Oh, on business, sir! My poor husband invested his little savings in
+bank stock, and I have just been drawing my dividend. I do hope you
+don't think my girl over-bold in venturing to send you a few flowers.
+She wouldn't allow me to interfere. I do assure you she would gather and
+arrange them with her own hands. In themselves I know they are hardly
+worth accepting; but if you will allow the motive to plead--"
+
+I made another effort to stop Mrs. Rymer; I said her daughter could not
+have sent me a prettier present.
+
+The inexhaustible woman only went on more fluently than ever.
+
+"She is so grateful, sir, and so proud of your goodness in looking at
+her exercises. The difficulty of the French language seem as nothing to
+her, now her motive is to please you. She is so devoted to her studies
+that I find it difficult to induce her to take the exercise necessary
+to her health; and, as you may perhaps remember, Susan was always
+rather weakly as a child. She inherits her father's constitution, Mr.
+Lepel--not mine."
+
+Here, to my infinite relief, the servant appeared, announcing that my
+horse was at the door.
+
+Mrs. Rymer opened her mouth. I saw a coming flood of apologies on the
+point of pouring out--and seized my hat on the spot. I declared I had an
+appointment; I sent kind remembrances to Susan (pitying her for having
+such a mother with my whole heart); I said I hoped to return to my
+uncle's house soon, and to continue the French lessons. The one thing
+more that I remember was finding myself safe in the saddle, and out of
+the reach of Mrs. Rymer's tongue.
+
+Reflecting on what had passed, it was plain to me that this woman had
+some private end in view, and that my abrupt departure had prevented her
+from finding the way to it. What motive could she possibly have for that
+obstinate persistence in presenting poor Susan under a favorable aspect,
+to a man who had already shown that he was honestly interested in her
+pretty modest daughter? I tried hard to penetrate the mystery--and gave
+it up in despair.
+
+Three days before the date at which Rothsay and I were to pay our visit
+to Lord Lepel, I found myself compelled to undergo one of the minor
+miseries of human life. In other words I became one of the guests at a
+large dinner-party. It was a rainy day in October. My position at the
+table placed me between a window that was open and a door that was
+hardly ever shut. I went to bed shivering; and woke the next morning
+with a headache and a difficulty in breathing. On consulting the doctor,
+I found that I was suffering from an attack of bronchitis. There was
+no reason to be alarmed. If I remained indoors, and submitted to the
+necessary treatment, I might hope to keep my engagement with my uncle in
+ten days or a fortnight.
+
+There was no alternative but to submit. I accordingly arranged with
+Rothsay that he should present himself at Lord Lepel's house (taking
+the picture with him), on the date appointed for our visit, and that I
+should follow as soon as I was well enough to travel.
+
+On the day when he was to leave London, my friend kindly came to keep me
+company for a while. He was followed into my room by Mrs. Mozeen, with
+a bottle of medicine in her hand. This worthy creature, finding that the
+doctor's directions occasionally escaped my memory, devoted herself to
+the duty of administering the remedies at the prescribed intervals of
+time. When she left the room, having performed her duties as usual, I
+saw Rothsay's eyes follow her to the door with an expression of sardonic
+curiosity. He put a strange question to me as soon as we were alone.
+
+"Who engaged that new servant of yours?" he asked. "I mean the fat
+fellow, with the curly flaxen hair."
+
+"Hiring servants," I replied, "is not much in my way. I left the
+engagement of the new man to Mrs. Mozeen."
+
+Rothsay walked gravely up to my bedside.
+
+"Lepel," he said, "your respectable housekeeper is in love with the fat
+young footman."
+
+It is not easy to amuse a man suffering from bronchitis. But this
+new outbreak of absurdity was more than I could resist, even with a
+mustard-plaster on my chest.
+
+"I thought I should raise your spirits," Rothsay proceeded. "When I came
+to your house this morning, the valet opened the door to me. I expressed
+my surprise at his condescending to take that trouble. He informed
+me that Joseph was otherwise engaged. 'With anybody in particular?'
+I asked, humoring the joke. 'Yes, sir, with the housekeeper. She's
+teaching him how to brush his hair, so as to show off his good looks
+to the best advantage.' Make up your mind, my friend, to lose Mrs.
+Mozeen--especially if she happens to have any money."
+
+"Nonsense, Rothsay! The poor woman is old enough to be Joseph's mother."
+
+"My good fellow, that won't make any difference to Joseph. In the days
+when we were rich enough to keep a man-servant, our footman--as handsome
+a fellow as ever you saw, and no older than I am--married a witch with
+a lame leg. When I asked him why he had made such a fool of himself he
+looked quite indignant, and said: 'Sir! she has got six hundred pounds.'
+He and the witch keep a public house. What will you bet me that we don't
+see your housekeeper drawing beer at the bar, and Joseph getting drunk
+in the parlor, before we are a year older?"
+
+I was not well enough to prolong my enjoyment of Rothsay's boyish humor.
+Besides, exaggeration to be really amusing must have some relation, no
+matter how slender it may be, to the truth. My housekeeper belonged to a
+respectable family, and was essentially a person accustomed to respect
+herself. Her brother occupied a position of responsibility in the
+establishment of a firm of chemists whom I had employed for years past.
+Her late husband had farmed his own land, and had owed his ruin to
+calamities for which he was in no way responsible. Kind-hearted Mrs.
+Mozeen was just the woman to take a motherly interest in a
+well-disposed lad like Joseph; and it was equally characteristic of
+my valet--especially when Rothsay was thoughtless enough to encourage
+him--to pervert an innocent action for the sake of indulging in a stupid
+jest. I took advantage of my privilege as an invalid, and changed the
+subject.
+
+A week passed. I had expected to hear from Rothsay. To my surprise and
+disappointment no letter arrived.
+
+Susan was more considerate. She wrote, very modestly and prettily, to
+say that she and her mother had heard of my illness from Mr. Rothsay,
+and to express the hope that I should soon be restored to health. A few
+days later, Mrs. Rymer's politeness carried her to the length of taking
+the journey to London to make inquiries at my door. I did not see her,
+of course. She left word that she would have the honor of calling again.
+
+The second week followed. I had by that time perfectly recovered from my
+attack of bronchitis--and yet I was too ill to leave the house.
+
+The doctor himself seemed to be at a loss to understand the symptoms
+that now presented themselves. A vile sensation of nausea tried my
+endurance, and an incomprehensible prostration of strength depressed
+my spirits. I felt such a strange reluctance to exert myself that I
+actually left it to Mrs. Mozeen to write to my uncle in my name, and say
+that I was not yet well enough to visit him. My medical adviser tried
+various methods of treatment; my housekeeper administered the prescribed
+medicines with unremitting care; but nothing came of it. A physician of
+great authority was called into consultation. Being completely puzzled,
+he retreated to the last refuge of bewildered doctors. I asked him what
+was the matter with me. And he answered: "Suppressed gout."
+
+FIFTH EPOCH.
+
+MIDWAY in the third week, my uncle wrote to me as follows:
+
+
+"I have been obliged to request your friend Rothsay to bring his visit
+to a conclusion. Although he refuses to confess it, I have reason to
+believe that he has committed the folly of falling seriously in love
+with the young girl at my lodge gate. I have tried remonstrance in vain;
+and I write to his father at the same time that I write to you. There
+is much more that I might say. I reserve it for the time when I hope to
+have the pleasure of seeing you, restored to health."
+
+
+Two days after the receipt of this alarming letter Rothsay returned to
+me.
+
+Ill as I was, I forgot my sufferings the moment I looked at him. Wild
+and haggard, he stared at me with bloodshot eyes like a man demented.
+
+"Do you think I am mad? I dare say I am. I can't live without her."
+Those were the first words he said when we shook hands.
+
+But I had more influence over him than any other person; and, weak as I
+was, I exerted it. Little by little, he became more reasonable; he began
+to speak like his old self again.
+
+To have expressed any surprise, on my part, at what had happened, would
+have been not only imprudent, but unworthy of him and of me. My first
+inquiry was suggested by the fear that he might have been hurried into
+openly confessing his passion to Susan--although his position forbade
+him to offer marriage. I had done him an injustice. His honorable nature
+had shrunk from the cruelty of raising hopes, which, for all he knew
+to the contrary, might never be realized. At the same time, he had his
+reasons for believing that he was at least personally acceptable to her.
+
+"She was always glad to see me," said poor Rothsay. "We constantly
+talked of you. She spoke of your kindness so prettily and so gratefully.
+Oh, Lepel, it is not her beauty only that has won my heart! Her nature
+is the nature of an angel."
+
+His voice failed him. For the first time in my remembrance of our long
+companionship, he burst into tears.
+
+I was so shocked and distressed that I had the greatest difficulty in
+preserving my own self-control. In the effort to comfort him, I asked if
+he had ventured to confide in his father.
+
+"You are the favorite son," I reminded him. "Is there no gleam of hope
+in the future?"
+
+He had written to his father. In silence he gave me the letter in reply.
+
+It was expressed with a moderation which I had hardly dared to expect.
+Mr. Rothsay the elder admitted that he had himself married for love, and
+that his wife's rank in the social scale (although higher than Susan's)
+had not been equal to his own.
+
+"In such a family as ours," he wrote--perhaps with pardonable pride--"we
+raise our wives to our own degree. But this young person labors under a
+double disadvantage. She is obscure, and she is poor. What have you to
+offer her? Nothing. And what have I to give you? Nothing."
+
+This meant, as I interpreted it, that the main obstacle in the way was
+Susan's poverty. And I was rich! In the excitement that possessed me, I
+followed the impulse of the moment headlong, like a child.
+
+"While you were away from me," I said to Rothsay, "did you never once
+think of your old friend? Must I remind you that I can make Susan your
+wife with one stroke of my pen?" He looked at me in silent surprise. I
+took my check-book from the drawer of the table, and placed the inkstand
+within reach. "Susan's marriage portion," I said, "is a matter of a line
+of writing, with my name at the end of it."
+
+He burst out with an exclamation that stopped me, just as my pen touched
+the paper.
+
+"Good heavens!" he cried, "you are thinking of that play we saw at Rome!
+Are we on the stage? Are you performing the part of the Marquis--and am
+I the Count?"
+
+I was so startled by this wild allusion to the past--I recognized with
+such astonishment the reproduction of one of the dramatic situations
+in the play, at a crisis in his life and mine--that the use of the
+pen remained suspended in my hand. For the first time in my life I was
+conscious of a sensation which resembled superstitious dread.
+
+Rothsay recovered himself first. He misinterpreted what was passing in
+my mind.
+
+"Don't think me ungrateful," he said. "You dear, kind, good fellow,
+consider for a moment, and you will see that it can't be. What would be
+said of her and of me, if you made Susan rich with your money, and if I
+married her? The poor innocent would be called your cast-off mistress.
+People would say: 'He has behaved liberally to her, and his needy friend
+has taken advantage of it.'"
+
+The point of view which I had failed to see was put with terrible
+directness of expression: the conviction that I was wrong was literally
+forced on me. What reply could I make? Rothsay evidently felt for me.
+
+"You are ill," he said, gently; "let me leave you to rest."
+
+He held out his hand to say good-by. I insisted on his taking up his
+abode with me, for the present at least. Ordinary persuasion failed to
+induce him to yield. I put it on selfish grounds next.
+
+"You have noticed that I am ill," I said, "I want you to keep me
+company."
+
+He gave way directly.
+
+Through the wakeful night, I tried to consider what moral remedies might
+be within our reach. The one useful conclusion at which I could arrive
+was to induce Rothsay to try what absence and change might do to compose
+his mind. To advise him to travel alone was out of the question. I wrote
+to his one other old friend besides myself--the friend who had taken him
+on a cruise in the Mediterranean.
+
+The owner of the yacht had that very day given directions to have his
+vessel laid up for the winter season. He at once countermanded the order
+by telegraph. "I am an idle man," he said, "and I am as fond of Rothsay
+as you are. I will take him wherever he likes to go." It was not easy to
+persuade the object of these kind intentions to profit by them. Nothing
+that I could say roused him. I spoke to him of his picture. He had left
+it at my uncle's house, and neither knew nor cared to know whether it
+had been sold or not. The one consideration which ultimately influenced
+Rothsay was presented by the doctor; speaking as follows (to quote his
+own explanation) in the interests of my health:
+
+"I warned your friend," he said, "that his conduct was causing anxiety
+which you were not strong enough to bear. On hearing this he at once
+promised to follow the advice which you had given to him, and to join
+the yacht. As you know, he has kept his word. May I ask if he has ever
+followed the medical profession?"
+
+Replying in the negative, I begged the doctor to tell me why he had put
+his question.
+
+He answered, "Mr. Rothsay requested me to tell him all that I knew
+about your illness. I complied, of course; mentioning that I had lately
+adopted a new method of treatment, and that I had every reason to feel
+confident of the results. He was so interested in the symptoms of your
+illness, and in the remedies being tried, that he took notes in his
+pocketbook of what I had said. When he paid me that compliment, I
+thought it possible that I might be speaking to a colleague."
+
+I was pleased to hear of my friend's anxiety for my recovery. If I had
+been in better health, I might have asked myself what reason he could
+have had for making those entries in his pocketbook.
+
+Three days later, another proof reached me of Rothsay's anxiety for my
+welfare.
+
+The owner of the yacht wrote to beg that I would send him a report of my
+health, addressed to a port on the south coast of England, to which they
+were then bound. "If we don't hear good news," he added, "I have reason
+to fear that Rothsay will overthrow our plans for the recovery of his
+peace of mind by leaving the vessel, and making his own inquiries at
+your bedside."
+
+With no small difficulty I roused myself sufficiently to write a few
+words with my own hand. They were words that lied--for my poor friend's
+sake. In a postscript, I begged my correspondent to let me hear if the
+effect produced on Rothsay had answered to our hopes and expectations.
+
+SIXTH EPOCH.
+
+THE weary days followed each other--and time failed to justify the
+doctor's confidence in his new remedies. I grew weaker and weaker.
+
+My uncle came to see me. He was so alarmed that he insisted on a
+consultation being held with his own physician. Another great authority
+was called in, at the same time, by the urgent request of my own medical
+man. These distinguished persons held more than one privy council,
+before they would consent to give a positive opinion. It was an evasive
+opinion (encumbered with hard words of Greek and Roman origin) when it
+was at last pronounced. I waited until they had taken their leave, and
+then appealed to my own doctor. "What do these men really think?" I
+asked. "Shall I live, or die?"
+
+The doctor answered for himself as well as for his illustrious
+colleagues. "We have great faith in the new prescriptions," he said.
+
+I understood what that meant. They were afraid to tell me the truth. I
+insisted on the truth.
+
+"How long shall I live?" I said. "Till the end of the year?"
+
+The reply followed in one terrible word:
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+It was then the first week in December. I understood that I might
+reckon--at the utmost--on three weeks of life. What I felt, on arriving
+at this conclusion, I shall not say. It is the one secret I keep from
+the readers of these lines.
+
+The next day, Mrs. Rymer called once more to make inquiries. Not
+satisfied with the servant's report, she entreated that I would consent
+to see her. My housekeeper, with her customary kindness, undertook to
+convey the message. If she had been a wicked woman, would she have acted
+in this way? "Mrs. Rymer seems to be sadly distressed," she pleaded. "As
+I understand, sir, she is suffering under some domestic anxiety which
+can only be mentioned to yourself."
+
+Did this anxiety relate to Susan? The bare doubt of it decided me. I
+consented to see Mrs. Rymer. Feeling it necessary to control her in the
+use of her tongue, I spoke the moment the door was opened.
+
+"I am suffering from illness; and I must ask you to spare me as much as
+possible. What do you wish to say to me?"
+
+The tone in which I addressed Mrs. Rymer would have offended a more
+sensitive woman. The truth is, she had chosen an unfortunate time for
+her visit. There were fluctuations in the progress of my malady; there
+were days when I felt better, and days when I felt worse--and this was
+a bad day. Moreover, my uncle had tried my temper that morning. He had
+called to see me, on his way to winter in the south of France by his
+physician's advice; and he recommended a trial of change of air in
+my case also. His country house (only thirty miles from London) was
+entirely at my disposal; and the railway supplied beds for invalids. It
+was useless to answer that I was not equal to the effort. He reminded me
+that I had exerted myself to leave my bedchamber for my arm-chair in the
+next room, and that a little additional resolution would enable me to
+follow his advice. We parted in a state of irritation on either side
+which, so far as I was concerned, had not subsided yet.
+
+"I wish to speak to you, sir, about my daughter," Mrs. Rymer answered.
+
+The mere allusion to Susan had its composing effect on me. I said kindly
+that I hoped she was well.
+
+"Well in body," Mrs. Rymer announced. "Far from it, sir, in mind."
+
+Before I could ask what this meant, we were interrupted by the
+appearance of the servant, bringing the letters which had arrived for me
+by the afternoon post. I told the man, impatiently, to put them on the
+table at my side.
+
+"What is distressing Susan?" I inquired, without stopping to look at the
+letters.
+
+"She is fretting, sir, about your illness. Oh, Mr. Lepel, if you would
+only try the sweet country air! If you only had my good little Susan to
+nurse you!"
+
+_She_, too, taking my uncle's view! And talking of Susan as my nurse!
+
+"What are you thinking of?" I asked her. "A young girl like your
+daughter nursing Me! You ought to have more regard for Susan's good
+name!"
+
+"I know what _you_ ought to do!" She made that strange reply with a
+furtive look at me, half in anger, half in alarm.
+
+"Go on," I said.
+
+"Will you turn me out of your house for my impudence?" she asked.
+
+"I will hear what you have to say to me. What ought I to do?"
+
+"Marry Susan."
+
+I heard the woman plainly--and yet, I declare, I doubted the evidence of
+my senses.
+
+"She's breaking her heart for you," Mrs. Rymer burst out. "She's been in
+love with you since you first darkened our doors--and it will end in the
+neighbors finding it out. I did my duty to her; I tried to stop it; I
+tried to prevent you from seeing her, when you went away. Too late; the
+mischief was done. When I see my girl fading day by day--crying about
+you in secret, talking about you in her dreams--I can't stand it; I must
+speak out. Oh, yes, I know how far beneath you she is--the daughter of
+your uncle's servant. But she's your equal, sir, in the sight of Heaven.
+My lord's priest converted her only last year--and my Susan is as good a
+Papist as yourself."
+
+How could I let this go on? I felt that I ought to have stopped it
+before.
+
+"It's possible," I said, "that you may not be deliberately deceiving
+me. If you are yourself deceived, I am bound to tell you the truth. Mr.
+Rothsay loves your daughter, and, what is more, Mr. Rothsay has reason
+to know that Susan--"
+
+"That Susan loves him?" she interposed, with a mocking laugh. "Oh, Mr.
+Lepel, is it possible that a clever man like you can't see clearer than
+that? My girl in love with Mr. Rothsay! She wouldn't have looked at him
+a second time if he hadn't talked to her about _you_. When I complained
+privately to my lord of Mr. Rothsay hanging about the lodge, do you
+think she turned as pale as ashes, and cried when _he_ passed through
+the gate, and said good-by?"
+
+She had complained of Rothsay to Lord Lepel--I understood her at last!
+She knew that my friend and all his family were poor. She had put
+her own construction on the innocent interest that I had taken in her
+daughter. Careless of the difference in rank, blind to the malady that
+was killing me, she was now bent on separating Rothsay and Susan, by
+throwing the girl into the arms of a rich husband like myself!
+
+"You are wasting your breath," I told her; "I don't believe one word you
+say to me."
+
+"Believe Susan, then!" cried the reckless woman. "Let me bring her here.
+If she's too shamefaced to own the truth, look at her--that's all I
+ask--look at her, and judge for yourself!"
+
+This was intolerable. In justice to Susan, in justice to Rothsay, I
+insisted on silence. "No more of it!" I said. "Take care how you provoke
+me. Don't you see that I am ill? don't you see that you are irritating
+me to no purpose?"
+
+She altered her tone. "I'll wait," she said, quietly, "while you compose
+yourself."
+
+With those words, she walked to the window, and stood there with
+her back toward me. Was the wretch taking advantage of my helpless
+condition? I stretched out my hand to ring the bell, and have her sent
+away--and hesitated to degrade Susan's mother, for Susan's sake. In
+my state of prostration, how could I arrive at a decision? My mind was
+dreadfully disturbed; I felt the imperative necessity of turning my
+thoughts to some other subject. Looking about me, the letters on the
+table attracted my attention. Mechanically, I took them up; mechanically
+I put them down again. Two of them slipped from my trembling fingers;
+my eyes fell on the uppermost of the two. The address was in the
+handwriting of the good friend with whom Rothsay was sailing.
+
+Just as I had been speaking of Rothsay, here was the news of him for
+which I had been waiting.
+
+I opened the letter and read these words:
+
+
+"There is, I fear, but little hope for our friend--unless this girl on
+whom he has set his heart can (by some lucky change of circumstances)
+become his wife. He has tried to master his weakness; but his own
+infatuation is too much for him. He is really and truly in a state of
+despair. Two evenings since--to give you a melancholy example of what I
+mean--I was in my cabin, when I heard the alarm of a man overboard. The
+man was Rothsay. My sailing-master, seeing that he was unable to swim,
+jumped into the sea and rescued him, as I got on deck. Rothsay declares
+it to have been an accident; and everybody believes him but myself.
+I know the state of his mind. Don't be alarmed; I will have him well
+looked after; and I won't give him up just yet. We are still bound
+southward, with a fair wind. If the new scenes which I hope to show him
+prove to be of no avail, I must reluctantly take him back to England.
+In that case, which I don't like to contemplate, you may see him
+again--perhaps in a month's time."
+
+
+He might return in a month's time--return to hear of the death of the
+one friend, on whose power and will to help him he might have relied.
+If I failed to employ in his interests the short interval of life still
+left to me, could I doubt (after what I had just read) what the end
+would be? How could I help him? Oh, God! how could I help him?
+
+Mrs. Rymer left the window, and returned to the chair which she had
+occupied when I first received her.
+
+"Are you quieter in your mind now?" she asked.
+
+I neither answered her nor looked at her.
+
+Still determined to reach her end, she tried again to force her unhappy
+daughter on me. "Will you consent," she persisted, "to see Susan?"
+
+If she had been a little nearer to me, I am afraid I should have struck
+her. "You wretch!" I said, "do you know that I am a dying man?"
+
+"While there's life there's hope," Mrs. Rymer remarked.
+
+I ought to have controlled myself; but it was not to be done.
+
+"Hope of your daughter being my rich widow?" I asked.
+
+Her bitter answer followed instantly.
+
+"Even then," she said, "Susan wouldn't marry Rothsay."
+
+A lie! If circumstances favored her, I knew, on Rothsay's authority,
+what Susan would do.
+
+The thought burst on my mind, like light bursting on the eyes of a man
+restored to sight. If Susan agreed to go through the form of marriage
+with a dying bridegroom, my rich widow could (and would) become
+Rothsay's wife. Once more, the remembrance of the play at Rome returned,
+and set the last embers of resolution, which sickness and suffering had
+left to me, in a flame. The devoted friend of that imaginary story had
+counted on death to complete his generous purpose in vain: _he_ had
+been condemned by the tribunal of man, and had been reprieved. I--in
+his place, and with his self-sacrifice in my mind--might found a firmer
+trust in the future; for I had been condemned by the tribunal of God.
+
+Encouraged by my silence, the obstinate woman persisted. "Won't you even
+send a message to Susan?" she asked.
+
+Rashly, madly, without an instant's hesitation, I answered:
+
+"Go back to Susan, and say I leave it to _her_."
+
+Mrs. Rymer started to her feet. "You leave it to Susan to be your wife,
+if she likes?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And if she consents?"
+
+"_I_ consent."
+
+In two weeks and a day from that time, the deed was done. When Rothsay
+returned to England, he would ask for Susan--and he would find my
+virgin-widow rich and free.
+
+SEVENTH EPOCH.
+
+WHATEVER may be thought of my conduct, let me say this in justice to
+myself--I was resolved that Susan should not be deceived.
+
+Half an hour after Mrs. Rymer had left my house, I wrote to her
+daughter, plainly revealing the motive which led me to offer marriage,
+solely in the future interest of Rothsay and herself. "If you refuse," I
+said in conclusion, "you may depend on my understanding you and feeling
+for you. But, if you consent--then I have a favor to ask Never let us
+speak to one another of the profanation that we have agreed to commit,
+for your faithful lover's sake."
+
+I had formed a high opinion of Susan--too high an opinion as it seemed.
+Her reply surprised and disappointed me. In other words, she gave her
+consent.
+
+I stipulated that the marriage should be kept strictly secret, for a
+certain period. In my own mind I decided that the interval should
+be held to expire, either on the day of my death, or on the day when
+Rothsay returned.
+
+My next proceeding was to write in confidence to the priest whom I have
+already mentioned, in an earlier part of these pages. He has reasons of
+his own for not permitting me to disclose the motive which induced him
+to celebrate my marriage privately in the chapel at Lord Lepel's house.
+My uncle's desire that I should try change of air, as offering a last
+chance of recovery, was known to my medical attendant, and served as
+a sufficient reason (although he protested against the risk) for my
+removal to the country. I was carried to the station, and placed on
+a bed--slung by ropes to the ceiling of a saloon carriage, so as to
+prevent me from feeling the vibration when the train was in motion.
+Faithful Mrs. Mozeen entreated to be allowed to accompany me. I was
+reluctantly compelled to refuse compliance with this request, in justice
+to the claims of my lord's housekeeper; who had been accustomed to
+exercise undivided authority in the household, and who had made every
+preparation for my comfort. With her own hands, Mrs. Mozeen packed
+everything that I required, including the medicines prescribed for the
+occasion. She was deeply affected, poor soul, when we parted.
+
+I bore the journey--happily for me, it was a short one--better than had
+been anticipated. For the first few days that followed, the purer air of
+the country seemed, in some degree, to revive me. But the deadly sense
+of weakness, the slow sinking of the vital power in me, returned as the
+time drew near for the marriage. The ceremony was performed at night.
+Only Susan and her mother were present. No persons in the house but
+ourselves had the faintest suspicion of what had happened.
+
+I signed my new will (the priest and Mrs. Rymer being the witnesses)
+in my bed that night. It left everything that I possessed, excepting a
+legacy to Mrs. Mozeen, to my wife.
+
+Obliged, it is needless to say, to preserve appearances, Susan remained
+at the lodge as usual. But it was impossible to resist her entreaty to
+be allowed to attend on me, for a few hours daily, as assistant to the
+regular nurse. When she was alone with me, and had no inquisitive eyes
+to dread, the poor girl showed a depth of feeling, which I was unable to
+reconcile with the motives that could alone have induced her (as I then
+supposed) to consent to the mockery of our marriage. On occasions when
+I was so far able to resist the languor that oppressed me as to observe
+what was passing at my bedside--I saw Susan look at me as if there were
+thoughts in her pressing for utterance which she hesitated to express.
+Once, she herself acknowledged this. "I have so much to say to you," she
+owned, "when you are stronger and fitter to hear me." At other times,
+her nerves seemed to be shaken by the spectacle of my sufferings. Her
+kind hands trembled and made mistakes, when they had any nursing duties
+to perform near me. The servants, noticing her, used to say, "That
+pretty girl seems to be the most awkward person in the house." On the
+day that followed the ceremony in the chapel, this want of self-control
+brought about an accident which led to serious results.
+
+In removing the small chest which held my medicines from the shelf
+on which it was placed, Susan let it drop on the floor. The two
+full bottles still left were so completely shattered that not even a
+teaspoonful of the contents was saved.
+
+Shocked at what she had done, the poor girl volunteered to go herself to
+my chemist in London by the first train. I refused to allow it. What did
+it matter to me now, if my death from exhaustion was hastened by a day
+or two? Why need my life be prolonged artificially by drugs, when I had
+nothing left to live for? An excuse for me which would satisfy others
+was easily found. I said that I had been long weary of physic, and that
+the accident had decided me on refusing to take more.
+
+That night I did not wake quite so often as usual. When she came to me
+the next day, Susan noticed that I looked better. The day after, the
+other nurse made the same observation. At the end of the week, I was
+able to leave my bed, and sit by the fireside, while Susan read to
+me. Some mysterious change in my health had completely falsified the
+prediction of the medical men. I sent to London for my doctor--and told
+him that the improvement in me had begun on the day when I left off
+taking his remedies. "Can you explain it?" I asked.
+
+He answered that no such "resurrection from the dead" (as he called it)
+had ever happened in his long experience. On leaving me, he asked for
+the latest prescriptions that had been written. I inquired what he was
+going to do with them. "I mean to go to the chemist," he replied, "and
+to satisfy myself that your medicines have been properly made up."
+
+I owed it to Mrs. Mozeen's true interest in me to tell her what had
+happened. The same day I wrote to her. I also mentioned what the
+doctor had said, and asked her to call on him, and ascertain if the
+prescriptions had been shown to the chemist, and if any mistake had been
+made.
+
+A more innocently intended letter than this never was written. And yet
+there are people who have declared that it was inspired by suspicion of
+Mrs. Mozeen!
+
+EIGHTH EPOCH.
+
+WHETHER I was so weakened by illness as to be incapable of giving my
+mind to more than one subject for reflection at a time (that subject
+being now the extraordinary recovery of my health)--or whether I was
+preoccupied by the effort, which I was in honor bound to make, to resist
+the growing attraction to me of Susan's society--I cannot presume to
+say. This only I know: when the discovery of the terrible position
+toward Rothsay in which I now stood suddenly overwhelmed me, an interval
+of some days had passed. I cannot account for it. I can only say--so it
+was.
+
+Susan was in the room. I was wholly unable to hide from her the sudden
+change of color which betrayed the horror that had overpowered me. She
+said, anxiously: "What has frightened you?"
+
+I don't think I heard her. The play was in my memory again--the fatal
+play, which had wound itself into the texture of Rothsay's life and
+mine. In vivid remembrance, I saw once more the dramatic situation of
+the first act, and shrank from the reflection of it in the disaster
+which had fallen on my friend and myself.
+
+"What has frightened you?" Susan repeated.
+
+I answered in one word--I whispered his name: "Rothsay!"
+
+She looked at me in innocent surprise. "Has he met with some
+misfortune?" she asked, quietly.
+
+"Misfortune"--did she call it? Had I not said enough to disturb her
+tranquillity in mentioning Rothsay's name? "I am living!" I said.
+"Living--and likely to live!"
+
+Her answer expressed fervent gratitude. "Thank God for it!"
+
+I looked at her, astonished as she had been astonished when she looked
+at me.
+
+"Susan, Susan," I cried--"must I own it? I love you!"
+
+She came nearer to me with timid pleasure in her eyes--with the first
+faint light of a smile playing round her lips.
+
+"You say it very strangely," she murmured. "Surely, my dear one,
+you ought to love me? Since the first day when you gave me my French
+lesson--haven't I loved You?"
+
+"You love _me?_" I repeated. "Have you read--?" My voice failed me; I
+could say no more.
+
+She turned pale. "Read what?" she asked.
+
+"My letter."
+
+"What letter?"
+
+"The letter I wrote to you before we were married."
+
+
+Am I a coward? The bare recollection of what followed that reply makes
+me tremble. Time has passed. I am a new man now; my health is restored;
+my happiness is assured: I ought to be able to write on. No: it is
+not to be done. How can I think coolly? how force myself to record the
+suffering that I innocently, most innocently, inflicted on the sweetest
+and truest of women? Nothing saved us from a parting as absolute as the
+parting that follows death but the confession that had been wrung from
+me at a time when my motive spoke for itself. The artless avowal of her
+affection had been justified, had been honored, by the words which laid
+my heart at her feet when I said "I love you."
+
+*****
+
+She had risen to leave me. In a last look, we had silently resigned
+ourselves to wait, apart from each other, for the day of reckoning that
+must follow Rothsay's return, when we heard the sound of carriage-wheels
+on the drive that led to the house. In a minute more the man himself
+entered the room.
+
+He looked first at Susan--then at me. In both of us he saw the traces
+that told of agitation endured, but not yet composed. Worn and weary he
+waited, hesitating, near the door.
+
+"Am I intruding?" he asked.
+
+"We were thinking of you, and speaking of you," I replied, "just before
+you came in."
+
+"_We?_" he repeated, turning toward Susan once more. After a pause, he
+offered me his hand--and drew it back.
+
+"You don't shake hands with me," he said.
+
+"I am waiting, Rothsay, until I know that we are the same firm friends
+as ever."
+
+For the third time he looked at Susan.
+
+"Will _you_ shake hands?" he asked.
+
+She gave him her hand cordially. "May I stay here?" she said, addressing
+herself to me.
+
+In my situation at that moment, I understood the generous purpose that
+animated her. But she had suffered enough already--I led her gently to
+the door. "It will be better," I whispered, "if you will wait downstairs
+in the library." She hesitated. "What will they say in the house?" she
+objected, thinking of the servants and of the humble position which she
+was still supposed to occupy. "It matters nothing what they say, now." I
+told her. She left us.
+
+"There seems to be some private understanding between you," Rothsay
+said, when we were alone.
+
+"You shall hear what it is," I answered. "But I must beg you to excuse
+me if I speak first of myself."
+
+"Are you alluding to your health?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Quite needless, Lepel. I met your doctor this morning. I know that a
+council of physicians decided you would die before the year was out."
+
+He paused there.
+
+"And they proved to be wrong," I added.
+
+"They might have proved to be right," Rothsay rejoined, "but for the
+accident which spilled your medicine and the despair of yourself which
+decided you on taking no more."
+
+I could hardly believe that I understood him. "Do you assert," I said,
+"that my medicine would have killed me, if I had taken the rest of it?"
+
+"I have no doubt that it would."
+
+"Will you explain what you mean?"
+
+"Let me have your explanation first. I was not prepared to find Susan in
+your room. I was surprised to see traces of tears in her face. Something
+has happened in my absence. Am I concerned in it?"
+
+"You are."
+
+I said it quietly--in full possession of myself. The trial of fortitude
+through which I had already passed seemed to have blunted my customary
+sense of feeling. I approached the disclosure which I was now bound to
+make with steady resolution, resigned to the worst that could happen
+when the truth was known.
+
+"Do you remember the time," I resumed, "when I was so eager to serve you
+that I proposed to make Susan your wife by making her rich?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you remember asking me if I was thinking of the play we saw together
+at Rome? Is the story as present to your mind now, as it was then?"
+
+"Quite as present."
+
+"You asked if I was performing the part of the Marquis--and if you were
+the Count. Rothsay! the devotion of that ideal character to his friend
+has been my devotion; his conviction that his death would justify what
+he had done for his friend's sake, has been _my_ conviction; and as it
+ended with him, so it has ended with me--his terrible position is _my_
+terrible position toward you, at this moment."
+
+"Are you mad?" Rothsay asked, sternly.
+
+I passed over that first outbreak of his anger in silence.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me you have married Susan?" he went on.
+
+"Bear this in mind," I said. "When I married her, I was doomed to death.
+Nay, more. In your interests--as God is my witness--I welcomed death."
+
+He stepped up to me, in silence, and raised his hand with a threatening
+gesture.
+
+That action at once deprived me of my self-possession. I spoke with the
+ungovernable rashness of a boy.
+
+"Carry out your intention," I said. "Insult me."
+
+His hand dropped.
+
+"Insult me," I repeated; "it is one way out of the unendurable situation
+in which we are placed. You may trust me to challenge you. Duels are
+still fought on the Continent; I will follow you abroad; I will choose
+pistols; I will take care that we fight on the fatal foreign system; and
+I will purposely miss you. Make her what I intended her to be--my rich
+widow."
+
+He looked at me attentively.
+
+"Is _that_ your refuge?" he asked, scornfully. "No! I won't help you to
+commit suicide."
+
+God forgive me! I was possessed by a spirit of reckless despair; I did
+my best to provoke him.
+
+"Reconsider your decision," I said; "and remember--you tried to commit
+suicide yourself."
+
+He turned quickly to the door, as if he distrusted his own powers of
+self-control.
+
+"I wish to speak to Susan," he said, keeping his back turned on me.
+
+"You will find her in the library."
+
+He left me.
+
+I went to the window. I opened it and let the cold wintry air blow over
+my burning head. I don't know how long I sat at the window. There came a
+time when I saw Rothsay on the house steps. He walked rapidly toward the
+park gate. His head was down; he never once looked back at the room in
+which he had left me.
+
+As he passed out of my sight, I felt a hand laid gently on my shoulder.
+Susan had returned to me.
+
+"He will not come back," she said. "Try still to remember him as your
+old friend. He asks you to forgive and forget."
+
+She had made the peace between us. I was deeply touched; my eyes filled
+with tears as I looked at her. She kissed me on the forehead and went
+out. I afterward asked what had passed between them when Rothsay spoke
+with her in the library. She never has told me what they said to each
+other; and she never will. She is right.
+
+
+Later in the day I was told that Mrs. Rymer had called, and wished to
+"pay her respects."
+
+I refused to see her. Whatever claim she might have otherwise had on my
+consideration had been forfeited by the infamy of her conduct, when
+she intercepted my letter to Susan. Her sense of injury on receiving my
+message was expressed in writing, and was sent to me the same evening.
+The last sentence in her letter was characteristic of the woman.
+
+"However your pride may despise me," she wrote, "I am indebted to you
+for the rise in life that I have always desired. You may refuse to see
+me--but you can't prevent my being the mother-in-law of a gentleman."
+
+
+Soon afterward, I received a visit which I had hardly ventured to
+expect. Busy as he was in London, my doctor came to see me. He was not
+in his usual good spirits.
+
+"I hope you don't bring me any bad news?" I said.
+
+"You shall judge for yourself," he replied. "I come from Mr. Rothsay, to
+say for him what he is not able to say for himself."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"He has left England."
+
+"For any purpose that you know of?"
+
+"Yes. He has sailed to join the expedition of rescue--I ought rather to
+call it the forlorn hope--which is to search for the lost explorers in
+Central Australia."
+
+In other words, he had gone to seek death in the fatal footsteps of
+Burke and Wills. I could not trust myself to speak.
+
+The doctor saw that there was a reason for my silence, and that he would
+do well not to notice it. He changed the subject.
+
+"May I ask," he said, "if you have heard from the servants left in
+charge at your house in London?"
+
+"Has anything happened?"
+
+"Something has happened which they are evidently afraid to tell you,
+knowing the high opinion which you have of Mrs. Mozeen. She has suddenly
+quitted your service, and has gone, nobody knows where. I have taken
+charge of a letter which she left for you."
+
+He handed me the letter. As soon as I had recovered myself, I looked at
+it.
+
+There was this inscription on the address: "For my good master, to wait
+until he returns home." The few lines in the letter itself ran thus:
+
+
+"Distressing circumstances oblige me to leave you, sir, and do not
+permit me to enter into particulars. In asking your pardon, I offer
+my sincere thanks for your kindness, and my fervent prayers for your
+welfare."
+
+
+That was all. The date had a special interest for me. Mrs. Mozeen had
+written on the day when she must have received my letter--the letter
+which has already appeared in these pages.
+
+"Is there really nothing known of the poor woman's motives?" I asked.
+
+"There are two explanations suggested," the doctor informed me. "One of
+them, which is offered by your female servants, seems to me absurd. They
+declare that Mrs. Mozeen, at her mature age, was in love with the young
+man who is your footman! It is even asserted that she tried to recommend
+herself to him, by speaking of the money which she expected to bring to
+the man who would make her his wife. The footman's reply, informing her
+that he was already engaged to be married, is alleged to be the cause
+which has driven her from your house."
+
+I begged that the doctor would not trouble himself to repeat more of
+what my women servants had said.
+
+"If the other explanation," I added, "is equally unworthy of notice--"
+
+"The other explanation," the doctor interposed, "comes from Mr. Rothsay,
+and is of a very serious kind."
+
+Rothsay's opinion demanded my respect.
+
+"What view does he take?" I inquired.
+
+"A view that startles me," the doctor said. "You remember my telling
+you of the interest he took in your symptoms, and in the remedies I had
+employed? Well! Mr. Rothsay accounts for the incomprehensible recovery
+of your health by asserting that poison--probably administered in small
+quantities, and intermitted at intervals in fear of discovery--has been
+mixed with your medicine; and he asserts that the guilty person is Mrs.
+Mozeen."
+
+It was impossible that I could openly express the indignation that I
+felt on hearing this. My position toward Rothsay forced me to restrain
+myself.
+
+"May I ask," the doctor continued, "if Mrs. Mozeen was aware that she
+had a legacy to expect at your death?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Has she a brother who is one of the dispensers employed by your
+chemists?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did she know that I doubted if my prescriptions had been properly
+prepared, and that I intended to make inquiries?"
+
+"I wrote to her myself on the subject."
+
+"Do you think her brother told her that I was referred to _him_, when I
+went to the chemists?"
+
+"I have no means of knowing what her brother did."
+
+"Can you at least tell me when she received your letter?"
+
+"She must have received it on the day when she left my house."
+
+The doctor rose with a grave face.
+
+"These are rather extraordinary coincidences," he remarked.
+
+I merely replied, "Mrs. Mozeen is as incapable of poisoning as I am."
+
+The doctor wished me good-morning.
+
+I repeat here my conviction of my housekeeper's innocence. I protest
+against the cruelty which accuses her. And, whatever may have been
+her motive in suddenly leaving my service, I declare that she still
+possesses my sympathy and esteem, and I invite her to return to me if
+she ever sees these lines.
+
+I have only to add, by way of postscript, that we have heard of the safe
+return of the expedition of rescue. Time, as my wife and I both hope,
+may yet convince Rothsay that he will not be wrong in counting on
+Susan's love--the love of a sister.
+
+In the meanwhile we possess a memorial of our absent friend. We have
+bought his picture.
+
+
+
+
+MR. CAPTAIN AND THE NYMPH.
+
+I.
+
+"THE Captain is still in the prime of life," the widow remarked. "He has
+given up his ship; he possesses a sufficient income, and he has nobody
+to live with him. I should like to know why he doesn't marry."
+
+"The Captain was excessively rude to Me," the widow's younger sister
+added, on her side. "When we took leave of him in London, I asked if
+there was any chance of his joining us at Brighton this season. He
+turned his back on me as if I had mortally offended him; and he made me
+this extraordinary answer: 'Miss! I hate the sight of the sea.' The
+man has been a sailor all his life. What does he mean by saying that he
+hates the sight of the sea?"
+
+These questions were addressed to a third person present--and the person
+was a man. He was entirely at the mercy of the widow and the widow's
+sister. The other ladies of the family--who might have taken him under
+their protection--had gone to an evening concert. He was known to be the
+Captain's friend, and to be well acquainted with events in the
+Captain's life. As it happened, he had reasons for hesitating to revive
+associations connected with those events. But what polite alternative
+was left to him? He must either inflict disappointment, and, worse
+still, aggravate curiosity--or he must resign himself to circumstances,
+and tell the ladies why the Captain would never marry, and why (sailor
+as he was) he hated the sight of the sea. They were both young women and
+handsome women--and the person to whom they had appealed (being a man)
+followed the example of submission to the sex, first set in the garden
+of Eden. He enlightened the ladies, in the terms that follow:
+
+THE British merchantman, _Fortuna_, sailed from the port of Liverpool
+(at a date which it is not necessary to specify) with the morning tide.
+She was bound for certain islands in the Pacific Ocean, in search of a
+cargo of sandal-wood--a commodity which, in those days, found a ready
+and profitable market in the Chinese Empire.
+
+A large discretion was reposed in the Captain by the owners, who knew
+him to be not only trustworthy, but a man of rare ability, carefully
+cultivated during the leisure hours of a seafaring life. Devoted
+heart and soul to his professional duties, he was a hard reader and an
+excellent linguist as well. Having had considerable experience among
+the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, he had attentively studied their
+characters, and had mastered their language in more than one of its many
+dialects. Thanks to the valuable information thus obtained, the Captain
+was never at a loss to conciliate the islanders. He had more than once
+succeeded in finding a cargo under circumstances in which other captains
+had failed.
+
+Possessing these merits, he had also his fair share of human defects.
+For instance, he was a little too conscious of his own good looks--of
+his bright chestnut hair and whiskers, of his beautiful blue eyes,
+of his fair white skin, which many a woman had looked at with the
+admiration that is akin to envy. His shapely hands were protected by
+gloves; a broad-brimmed hat sheltered his complexion in fine weather
+from the sun. He was nice in the choice of his perfumes; he never drank
+spirits, and the smell of tobacco was abhorrent to him. New men among
+his officers and his crew, seeing him in his cabin, perfectly dressed,
+washed, and brushed until he was an object speckless to look upon--a
+merchant-captain soft of voice, careful in his choice of words, devoted
+to study in his leisure hours--were apt to conclude that they had
+trusted themselves at sea under a commander who was an anomalous mixture
+of a schoolmaster and a dandy. But if the slightest infraction of
+discipline took place, or if the storm rose and the vessel proved to
+be in peril, it was soon discovered that the gloved hands held a rod of
+iron; that the soft voice could make itself heard through wind and sea
+from one end of the deck to the other; and that it issued orders which
+the greatest fool on board discovered to be orders that had saved the
+ship. Throughout his professional life, the general impression that this
+variously gifted man produced on the little world about him was always
+the same. Some few liked him; everybody respected him; nobody understood
+him. The Captain accepted these results. He persisted in reading his
+books and protecting his complexion, with this result: his owners shook
+hands with him, and put up with his gloves.
+
+The _Fortuna_ touched at Rio for water, and for supplies of food which
+might prove useful in case of scurvy. In due time the ship rounded Cape
+Horn, favored by the finest weather ever known in those latitudes by the
+oldest hand on board. The mate--one Mr. Duncalf--a boozing, wheezing,
+self-confident old sea-dog, with a flaming face and a vast vocabulary
+of oaths, swore that he didn't like it. "The foul weather's coming, my
+lads," said Mr. Duncalf. "Mark my words, there'll be wind enough to take
+the curl out of the Captain's whiskers before we are many days older!"
+
+For one uneventful week, the ship cruised in search of the islands to
+which the owners had directed her. At the end of that time the wind took
+the predicted liberties with the Captain's whiskers; and Mr. Duncalf
+stood revealed to an admiring crew in the character of a true prophet.
+
+For three days and three nights the _Fortuna_ ran before the storm, at
+the mercy of wind and sea. On the fourth morning the gale blew itself
+out, the sun appeared again toward noon, and the Captain was able to
+take an observation. The result informed him that he was in a part of
+the Pacific Ocean with which he was entirely unacquainted. Thereupon,
+the officers were called to a council in the cabin.
+
+Mr. Duncalf, as became his rank, was consulted first. His opinion
+possessed the merit of brevity. "My lads, this ship's bewitched. Take my
+word for it, we shall wish ourselves back in our own latitudes before we
+are many days older." Which, being interpreted, meant that Mr. Duncalf
+was lost, like his superior officer, in a part of the ocean of which he
+knew nothing.
+
+The remaining members of the council having no suggestions to offer,
+left the Captain to take his own way. He decided (the weather being fine
+again) to stand on under an easy press of sail for four-and-twenty hours
+more, and to see if anything came of it.
+
+Soon after nightfall, something did come of it. The lookout forward
+hailed the quarter-deck with the dread cry, "Breakers ahead!" In less
+than a minute more, everybody heard the crash of the broken water. The
+_Fortuna_ was put about, and came round slowly in the light wind. Thanks
+to the timely alarm and the fine weather, the safety of the vessel was
+easily provided for. They kept her under a short sail; and they waited
+for the morning.
+
+The dawn showed them in the distance a glorious green island, not marked
+in the ship's charts--an island girt about by a coral-reef, and having
+in its midst a high-peaked mountain which looked, through the telescope,
+like a mountain of volcanic origin. Mr. Duncalf, taking his morning
+draught of rum and water, shook his groggy old head and said (and
+swore): "My lads, I don't like the look of that island." The Captain
+was of a different opinion. He had one of the ship's boats put into the
+water; he armed himself and four of his crew who accompanied him; and
+away he went in the morning sunlight to visit the island.
+
+Skirting round the coral reef, they found a natural breach, which proved
+to be broad enough and deep enough not only for the passage of the boat,
+but of the ship herself if needful. Crossing the broad inner belt of
+smooth water, they approached the golden sands of the island, strew ed
+with magnificent shells, and crowded by the dusky islanders--men,
+women, and children, all waiting in breathless astonishment to see the
+strangers land.
+
+The Captain kept the boat off, and examined the islanders carefully.
+The innocent, simple people danced, and sang, and ran into the water,
+imploring their wonderful white visitors by gestures to come on shore.
+Not a creature among them carried arms of any sort; a hospitable
+curiosity animated the entire population. The men cried out, in their
+smooth musical language, "Come and eat!" and the plump black-eyed women,
+all laughing together, added their own invitation, "Come and be kissed!"
+Was it in mortals to resist such temptations as these? The Captain
+led the way on shore, and the women surrounded him in an instant,
+and screamed for joy at the glorious spectacle of his whiskers, his
+complexion, and his gloves. So the mariners from the far north were
+welcomed to the newly-discovered island.
+
+III.
+
+THE morning wore on. Mr. Duncalf, in charge of the ship, cursing the
+island over his rum and water, as a "beastly green strip of a place, not
+laid down in any Christian chart," was kept waiting four mortal hours
+before the Captain returned to his command, and reported himself to his
+officers as follows:
+
+He had found his knowledge of the Polynesian dialects sufficient to
+make himself in some degree understood by the natives of the new
+island. Under the guidance of the chief he had made a first journey of
+exploration, and had seen for himself that the place was a marvel of
+natural beauty and fertility. The one barren spot in it was the peak of
+the volcanic mountain, composed of crumbling rock; originally no doubt
+lava and ashes, which had cooled and consolidated with the lapse of
+time. So far as he could see, the crater at the top was now an extinct
+crater. But, if he had understood rightly, the chief had spoken of
+earthquakes and eruptions at certain bygone periods, some of which lay
+within his own earliest recollections of the place.
+
+Adverting next to considerations of practical utility, the Captain
+announced that he had seen sandal-wood enough on the island to load a
+dozen ships, and that the natives were willing to part with it for a
+few toys and trinkets generally distributed among them. To the mate's
+disgust, the _Fortuna_ was taken inside the reef that day, and was
+anchored before sunset in a natural harbor. Twelve hours of recreation,
+beginning with the next morning, were granted to the men, under the wise
+restrictions in such cases established by the Captain. That interval
+over, the work of cutting the precious wood and loading the ship was to
+be unremittingly pursued.
+
+Mr. Duncalf had the first watch after the _Fortuna_ had been made snug.
+He took the boatswain aside (an ancient sea-dog like himself), and he
+said in a gruff whisper: "My lad, this here ain't the island laid down
+in our sailing orders. See if mischief don't come of disobeying orders
+before we are many days older."
+
+Nothing in the shape of mischief happened that night. But at sunrise
+the next morning a suspicious circumstance occurred; and Mr. Duncalf
+whispered to the boatswain: "What did I tell you?" The Captain and the
+chief of the islanders held a private conference in the cabin, and the
+Captain, after first forbidding any communication with the shore until
+his return, suddenly left the ship, alone with the chief, in the chief's
+own canoe.
+
+What did this strange disappearance mean? The Captain himself, when
+he took his seat in the canoe, would have been puzzled to answer that
+question. He asked, in the nearest approach that his knowledge could
+make to the language used in the island, whether he would be a long time
+or a short time absent from his ship.
+
+The chief answered mysteriously (as the Captain understood him) in these
+words: "Long time or short time, your life depends on it, and the lives
+of your men."
+
+Paddling his light little boat in silence over the smooth water inside
+the reef, the chief took his visitor ashore at a part of the island
+which was quite new to the Captain. The two crossed a ravine, and
+ascended an eminence beyond. There the chief stopped, and silently
+pointed out to sea.
+
+The Captain looked in the direction indicated to him, and discovered a
+second and a smaller island, lying away to the southwest. Taking out his
+telescope from the case by which it was slung at his back, he narrowly
+examined the place. Two of the native canoes were lying off the shore
+of the new island; and the men in them appeared to be all kneeling
+or crouching in curiously chosen attitudes. Shifting the range of his
+glass, he next beheld a white-robed figure, tall and solitary--the one
+inhabitant of the island whom he could discover. The man was standing on
+the highest point of a rocky cape. A fire was burning at his feet. Now
+he lifted his arms solemnly to the sky; now he dropped some invisible
+fuel into the fire, which made a blue smoke; and now he cast other
+invisible objects into the canoes floating beneath him, which the
+islanders reverently received with bodies that crouched in abject
+submission. Lowering his telescope, the Captain looked round at the
+chief for an explanation. The chief gave the explanation readily. His
+language was interpreted by the English stranger in these terms:
+
+"Wonderful white man! the island you see yonder is a Holy Island. As
+such it is _Taboo_--an island sanctified and set apart. The honorable
+person whom you notice on the rock is an all-powerful favorite of the
+gods. He is by vocation a Sorcerer, and by rank a Priest. You now see
+him casting charms and blessings into the canoes of our fishermen, who
+kneel to him for fine weather and great plenty of fish. If any profane
+person, native or stranger, presumes to set foot on that island, my
+otherwise peaceful subjects will (in the performance of a religious
+duty) put that person to death. Mention this to your men. They will be
+fed by my male people, and fondled by my female people, so long as they
+keep clear of the Holy Isle. As they value their lives, let them respect
+this prohibition. Is it understood between us? Wonderful white man! my
+canoe is waiting for you. Let us go back."
+
+Understanding enough of the chief's language (illustrated by his
+gestures) to receive in the right spirit the communication thus
+addressed to him, the Captain repeated the warning to the ship's company
+in the plainest possible English. The officers and men then took their
+holiday on shore, with the exception of Mr. Duncalf, who positively
+refused to leave the ship. For twelve delightful hours they were fed by
+the male people, and fondled by the female people, and then they were
+mercilessly torn from the flesh-pots and the arms of their new friends,
+and set to work on the sandal-wood in good earnest. Mr. Duncalf
+superintended the loading, and waited for the mischief that was to come
+of disobeying the owners' orders with a confidence worthy of a better
+cause.
+
+IV.
+
+STRANGELY enough, chance once more declared itself in favor of the
+mate's point of view. The mischief did actually come; and the chosen
+instrument of it was a handsome young islander, who was one of the sons
+of the chief.
+
+The Captain had taken a fancy to the sweet-tempered, intelligent lad.
+Pursuing his studies in the dialect of the island, at leisure hours,
+he had made the chief's son his tutor, and had instructed the youth
+in English by way of return. More than a month had passed in this
+intercourse, and the ship's lading was being rapidly completed--when, in
+an evil hour, the talk between the two turned on the subject of the Holy
+Island.
+
+"Does nobody live on the island but the Priest?" the Captain asked.
+
+The chief's son looked round him suspiciously. "Promise me you won't
+tell anybody!" he began very earnestly.
+
+The Captain gave his promise.
+
+"There is one other person on the island," the lad whispered; "a person
+to feast your eyes upon, if you could only see her! She is the Priest's
+daughter. Removed to the island in her infancy, she has never left
+it since. In that sacred solitude she has only looked on two human
+beings--her father and her mother. I once saw her from my canoe, taking
+care not to attract her notice, or to approach too near the holy soil.
+Oh, so young, dear master, and, oh, so beautiful!" The chief's son
+completed the description by kissing his own hands as an expression of
+rapture.
+
+The Captain's fine blue eyes sparkled. He asked no more questions; but,
+later on that day, he took his telescope with him, and paid a secret
+visit to the eminence which overlooked the Holy Island. The next day,
+and the next, he privately returned to the same place. On the fourth
+day, fatal Destiny favored him. He discovered the nymph of the island.
+
+Standing alone upon the cape on which he had already seen her father,
+she was feeding some tame birds which looked like turtle-doves. The
+glass showed the Captain her white robe, fluttering in the sea-breeze;
+her long black hair falling to her feet; her slim and supple young
+figure; her simple grace of attitude, as she turned this way and that,
+attending to the wants of her birds. Before her was the blue ocean;
+behind her rose the lustrous green of the island forest. He looked and
+looked until his eyes and arms ached. When she disappeared among the
+trees, followed by her favorite birds, the Captain shut up his telescope
+with a sigh, and said to himself: "I have seen an angel!"
+
+From that hour he became an altered man; he was languid, silent,
+interested in nothing. General opinion, on board his ship, decided that
+he was going to be taken ill.
+
+A week more elapsed, and the officers and crew began to talk of the
+voyage to their market in China. The Captain refused to fix a day for
+sailing. He even took offense at being asked to decide. Instead of
+sleeping in his cabin, he went ashore for the night.
+
+Not many hours afterward (just before daybreak), Mr. Duncalf, snoring
+in his cabin on deck, was aroused by a hand laid on his shoulder. The
+swinging lamp, still alight, showed him the dusky face of the chief's
+son, convulsed with terror. By wild signs, by disconnected words in
+the little English which he had learned, the lad tried to make the mate
+understand him. Dense Mr. Duncalf, understanding nothing, hailed the
+second officer, on the opposite side of the deck. The second officer was
+young and intelligent; he rightly interpreted the terrible news that had
+come to the ship.
+
+The Captain had broken his own rules. Watching his opportunity, under
+cover of the night, he had taken a canoe, and had secretly crossed the
+channel to the Holy Island. No one had been near him at the time but
+the chief's son. The lad had vainly tried to induce him to abandon his
+desperate enterprise, and had vainly waited on the shore in the hope
+of hearing the sound of the paddle announcing his return. Beyond all
+reasonable doubt, the infatuated man had set foot on the shores of the
+tabooed island.
+
+The one chance for his life was to conceal what he had done, until the
+ship could be got out of the harbor, and then (if no harm had come to
+him in the interval) to rescue him after nightfall. It was decided to
+spread the report that he had really been taken ill, and that he was
+confined to his cabin. The chief's son, whose heart the Captain's
+kindness had won, could be trusted to do this, and to keep the secret
+faithfully for his good friend's sake.
+
+Toward noon, the next day, they attempted to take the ship to sea, and
+failed for want of wind. Hour by hour, the heat grew more oppressive. As
+the day declined, there were ominous appearances in the western heaven.
+The natives, who had given some trouble during the day by their anxiety
+to see the Captain, and by their curiosity to know the cause of the
+sudden preparations for the ship's departure, all went ashore together,
+looking suspiciously at the sky, and reappeared no more. Just at
+midnight, the ship (still in her snug berth inside the reef) suddenly
+trembled from her keel to her uppermost masts. Mr. Duncalf, surrounded
+by the startled crew, shook his knotty fist at the island as if he could
+see it in the dark. "My lads, what did I tell you? That was a shock of
+earthquake."
+
+With the morning the threatening aspect of the weather unexpectedly
+disappeared. A faint hot breeze from the land, just enough to give
+the ship steerage-way, offered Mr. Duncalf a chance of getting to sea.
+Slowly the _Fortuna_, with the mate himself at the wheel, half sailed,
+half drifted into the open ocean. At a distance of barely two miles from
+the island the breeze was felt no more, and the vessel lay becalmed for
+the rest of the day.
+
+At night the men waited their orders, expecting to be sent after their
+Captain in one of the boats. The intense darkness, the airless heat, and
+a second shock of earthquake (faintly felt in the ship at her present
+distance from the land) warned the mate to be cautious. "I smell
+mischief in the air," said Mr. Duncalf. "The Captain must wait till I am
+surer of the weather."
+
+Still no change came with the new day. The dead calm continued, and the
+airless heat. As the day declined, another ominous appearance became
+visible. A thin line of smoke was discovered through the telescope,
+ascending from the topmost peak of the mountain on the main island. Was
+the volcano threatening an eruption? The mate, for one, entertained no
+doubt of it. "By the Lord, the place is going to burst up!" said Mr.
+Duncalf. "Come what may of it, we must find the Captain to-night!"
+
+V.
+
+WHAT was the Captain doing? and what chance had the crew of finding him
+that night?
+
+He had committed himself to his desperate adventure, without forming
+any plan for the preservation of his own safety; without giving even a
+momentary consideration to the consequences which might follow the risk
+that he had run. The charming figure that he had seen haunted him night
+and day. The image of the innocent creature, secluded from humanity
+in her island solitude, was the one image that filled his mind. A man,
+passing a woman in the street, acts on the impulse to turn and follow
+her, and in that one thoughtless moment shapes the destiny of his future
+life. The Captain had acted on a similar impulse, when he took the first
+canoe he had found on the beach, and shaped his reckless course for the
+tabooed island.
+
+Reaching the shore while it was still dark, he did one sensible
+thing--he hid the canoe so that it might not betray him when the
+daylight came. That done, he waited for the morning on the outskirts of
+the forest.
+
+The trembling light of dawn revealed the mysterious solitude around him.
+Following the outer limits of the trees, first in one direction, then
+in another, and finding no trace of any living creature, he decided on
+penetrating to the interior of the island. He entered the forest.
+
+An hour of walking brought him to rising ground. Continuing the ascent,
+he got clear of the trees, and stood on the grassy top of a broad cliff
+which overlooked the sea. An open hut was on the cliff. He cautiously
+looked in, and discovered that it was empty. The few household utensils
+left about, and the simple bed of leaves in a corner, were covered with
+fine sandy dust. Night-birds flew blundering out of the inner cavities
+of the roof, and took refuge in the shadows of the forest below. It was
+plain that the hut had not been inhabited for some time past.
+
+Standing at the open doorway and considering what he should do next,
+the Captain saw a bird flying toward him out of the forest. It was a
+turtle-dove, so tame that it fluttered close up to him. At the same
+moment the sound of sweet laughter became audible among the trees. His
+heart beat fast; he advanced a few steps and stopped. In a moment more
+the nymph of the island appeared, in her white robe, ascending the cliff
+in pursuit of her truant bird. She saw the strange man, and suddenly
+stood still; struck motionless by the amazing discovery that had burst
+upon her. The Captain approached, smiling and holding out his hand. She
+never moved; she stood before him in helpless wonderment--her lovely
+black eyes fixed spellbound on his face; her dusky bosom palpitating
+above the fallen folds of her robe; her rich red lips parted in mute
+astonishment. Feasting his eyes on her beauty in silence, the Captain
+after a while ventured to speak to her in the language of the main
+island. The sound of his voice, addressing her in the words that she
+understood, roused the lovely creature to action. She started, stepped
+close up to him, and dropped on her knees at his feet.
+
+"My father worships invisible deities," she said, softly. "Are you a
+visible deity? Has my mother sent you?" She pointed as she spoke to the
+deserted hut behind them. "You appear," she went on, "in the place where
+my mother died. Is it for her sake that you show yourself to her child?
+Beautiful deity, come to the Temple--come to my father!"
+
+The Captain gently raised her from the ground. If her father saw him, he
+was a doomed man.
+
+Infatuated as he was, he had sense enough left to announce himself
+plainly in his own character, as a mortal creature arriving from a
+distant land. The girl instantly drew back from him with a look of
+terror.
+
+"He is not like my father," she said to herself; "he is not like me. Is
+he the lying demon of the prophecy? Is he the predestined destroyer of
+our island?"
+
+The Captain's experience of the sex showed him the only sure way out
+of the awkward position in which he was now placed. He appealed to his
+personal appearance.
+
+"Do I look like a demon?" he asked.
+
+Her eyes met his eyes; a faint smile trembled on her lips. He ventured
+on asking what she meant by the predestined destruction of the island.
+She held up her hand solemnly, and repeated the prophecy.
+
+The Holy Island was threatened with destruction by an evil being, who
+would one day appear on its shores. To avert the fatality the place
+had been sanctified and set apart, under the protection of the gods
+and their priest. Here was the reason for the taboo, and for the
+extraordinary rigor with which it was enforced. Listening to her with
+the deepest interest, the Captain took her hand and pressed it gently.
+
+"Do I feel like a demon?" he whispered.
+
+Her slim brown fingers closed frankly on his hand. "You feel soft and
+friendly," she said with the fearless candor of a child. "Squeeze me
+again. I like it!"
+
+The next moment she snatched her hand away from him; the sense of his
+danger had suddenly forced itself on her mind. "If my father sees you,"
+she said, "he will light the signal fire at the Temple, and the people
+from the other island will come here and put you to death. Where is
+your canoe? No! It is daylight. My father may see you on the water."
+She considered a little, and, approaching him, laid her hands on his
+shoulders. "Stay here till nightfall," she resumed. "My father never
+comes this way. The sight of the place where my mother died is
+horrible to him. You are safe here. Promise to stay where you are till
+night-time."
+
+The Captain gave his promise.
+
+Freed from anxiety so far, the girl's mobile temperament recovered
+its native cheerfulness, its sweet gayety and spirit. She admired the
+beautiful stranger as she might have admired a new bird that had flown
+to her to be fondled with the rest. She patted his fair white skin, and
+wished she had a skin like it. She lifted the great glossy folds of her
+long black hair, and compared it with the Captain's bright curly locks,
+and longed to change colors with him from the bottom of her heart. His
+dress was a wonder to her; his watch was a new revelation. She rested
+her head on his shoulder to listen delightedly to the ticking, as he
+held the watch to her ear. Her fragrant breath played on his face, her
+warm, supple figure rested against him softly. The Captain's arm stole
+round her waist, and the Captain's lips gently touched her cheek. She
+lifted her head with a look of pleased surprise. "Thank you," said the
+child of Nature, simply. "Kiss me again; I like it. May I kiss you?"
+The tame turtle-dove perched on her shoulder as she gave the Captain her
+first kiss, and diverted her thoughts to the pets that she had left, in
+pursuit of the truant dove. "Come," she said, "and see my birds. I keep
+them on this side of the forest. There is no danger, so long as you
+don't show yourself on the other side. My name is Aimata. Aimata will
+take care of you. Oh, what a beautiful white neck you have!" She put her
+arm admiringly round his neck. The Captain's arm held her tenderly to
+him. Slowly the two descended the cliff, and were lost in the leafy
+solitudes of the forest. And the tame dove fluttered before them, a
+winged messenger of love, cooing to his mate.
+
+VI.
+
+THE night had come, and the Captain had not left the island.
+
+Aimata's resolution to send him away in the darkness was a forgotten
+resolution already. She had let him persuade her that he was in no
+danger, so long as he remained in the hut on the cliff; and she had
+promised, at parting, to return to him while the Priest was still
+sleeping, at the dawn of day.
+
+He was alone in the hut. The thought of the innocent creature whom he
+loved was sorrowfully as well as tenderly present to his mind. He almost
+regretted his rash visit to the island. "I will take her with me to
+England," he said to himself. "What does a sailor care for the opinion
+of the world? Aimata shall be my wife."
+
+The intense heat oppressed him. He stepped out on the cliff, toward
+midnight, in search of a breath of air.
+
+At that moment, the first shock of earthquake (felt in the ship while
+she was inside the reef) shook the ground he stood on. He instantly
+thought of the volcano on the main island. Had he been mistaken in
+supposing the crater to be extinct? Was the shock that he had just felt
+a warning from the volcano, communicated through a submarine connection
+between the two islands? He waited and watched through the hours of
+darkness, with a vague sense of apprehension, which was not to be
+reasoned away. With the first light of daybreak he descended into the
+forest, and saw the lovely being whose safety was already precious to
+him as his own, hurrying to meet him through the trees.
+
+She waved her hand distractedly as she approached him. "Go!" she cried;
+"go away in your canoe before our island is destroyed!"
+
+He did his best to quiet her alarm. Was it the shock of earthquake that
+had frightened her? No: it was more than the shock of earthquake--it was
+something terrible which had followed the shock. There was a lake
+near the Temple, the waters of which were supposed to be heated by
+subterranean fires. The lake had risen with the earthquake, had bubbled
+furiously, and had then melted away into the earth and been lost. Her
+father, viewing the portent with horror, had gone to the cape to watch
+the volcano on the main island, and to implore by prayers and sacrifices
+the protection of the gods. Hearing this, the Captain entreated Aimata
+to let him see the emptied lake, in the absence of the Priest. She
+hesitated; but his influence was all-powerful. He prevailed on her to
+turn back with him through the forest.
+
+Reaching the furthest limit of the trees, they came out upon open rocky
+ground which sloped gently downward toward the center of the island.
+Having crossed this space, they arrived at a natural amphitheater of
+rock. On one side of it the Temple appeared, partly excavated, partly
+formed by a natural cavern. In one of the lateral branches of the cavern
+was the dwelling of the Priest and his daughter. The mouth of it looked
+out on the rocky basin of the lake. Stooping over the edge, the Captain
+discovered, far down in the empty depths, a light cloud of steam. Not a
+drop of water was visible, look where he might.
+
+Aimata pointed to the abyss, and hid her face on his bosom. "My father
+says," she whispered, "that it is your doing."
+
+The Captain started. "Does your father know that I am on the island?"
+
+She looked up at him with a quick glance of reproach. "Do you think I
+would tell him, and put your life in peril?" she asked. "My father felt
+the destroyer of the island in the earthquake; my father saw the coming
+destruction in the disappearance of the lake." Her eyes rested on him
+with a loving languor. "Are you indeed the demon of the prophecy?" she
+said, winding his hair round her finger. "I am not afraid of you, if
+you are. I am a creature bewitched; I love the demon." She kissed him
+passionately. "I don't care if I die," she whispered between the kisses,
+"if I only die with you!"
+
+The Captain made no attempt to reason with her. He took the wiser
+way--he appealed to her feelings.
+
+"You will come and live with me happily in my own country," he said. "My
+ship is waiting for us. I will take you home with me, and you shall be
+my wife."
+
+She clapped her hands for joy. Then she thought of her father, and drew
+back from him in tears.
+
+The Captain understood her. "Let us leave this dreary place," he
+suggested. "We will talk about it in the cool glades of the forest,
+where you first said you loved me."
+
+She gave him her hand. "Where I first said I loved you!" she repeated,
+smiling tenderly as she looked at him. They left the lake together.
+
+VII.
+
+THE darkness had fallen again; and the ship was still becalmed at sea.
+
+Mr. Duncalf came on deck after his supper. The thin line of smoke, seen
+rising from the peak of the mountain that evening, was now succeeded by
+ominous flashes of fire from the same quarter, intermittently visible.
+The faint hot breeze from the land was felt once more. "There's just an
+air of wind," Mr. Duncalf remarked. "I'll try for the Captain while I
+have the chance."
+
+One of the boats was lowered into the water--under command of the
+second mate, who had already taken the bearings of the tabooed island by
+daylight. Four of the men were to go with him, and they were all to be
+well armed. Mr. Duncalf addressed his final instructions to the officer
+in the boat.
+
+"You will keep a lookout, sir, with a lantern in the bows. If the
+natives annoy you, you know what to do. Always shoot natives. When you
+get anigh the island, you will fire a gun and sing out for the Captain."
+
+"Quite needless," interposed a voice from the sea. "The Captain is
+here!"
+
+Without taking the slightest notice of the astonishment that he had
+caused, the commander of the _Fortuna_ paddled his canoe to the side of
+the ship. Instead of ascending to the deck, he stepped into the boat,
+waiting alongside. "Lend me your pistols," he said quietly to the second
+officer, "and oblige me by taking your men back to their duties on
+board." He looked up at Mr. Duncalf and gave some further directions.
+"If there is any change in the weather, keep the ship standing off and
+on, at a safe distance from the land, and throw up a rocket from time to
+time to show your position. Expect me on board again by sunrise."
+
+"What!" cried the mate. "Do you mean to say you are going back to the
+island--in that boat--all by yourself?"
+
+"I am going back to the island," answered the Captain, as quietly as
+ever; "in this boat--all by myself." He pushed off from the ship, and
+hoisted the sail as he spoke.
+
+"You're deserting your duty!" the old sea-dog shouted, with one of his
+loudest oaths.
+
+"Attend to my directions," the Captain shouted back, as he drifted away
+into the darkness.
+
+Mr. Duncalf--violently agitated for the first time in his life--took
+leave of his superior officer, with a singular mixture of solemnity and
+politeness, in these words:
+
+"The Lord have mercy on your soul! I wish you good-evening."
+
+VIII.
+
+ALONE in the boat, the Captain looked with a misgiving mind at the
+flashing of the volcano on the main island.
+
+If events had favored him, he would have removed Aimata to the shelter
+of the ship on the day when he saw the emptied basin on the lake. But
+the smoke of the Priest's sacrifice had been discovered by the chief;
+and he had dispatched two canoes with instructions to make inquiries.
+One of the canoes had returned; the other was kept in waiting off the
+cape, to place a means of communicating with the main island at the
+disposal of the Priest. The second shock of earthquake had naturally
+increased the alarm of the chief. He had sent messages to the Priest,
+entreating him to leave the island, and other messages to Aimata
+suggesting that she should exert her influence over her father, if he
+hesitated. The Priest refused to leave the Temple. He trusted in his
+gods and his sacrifices--he believed they might avert the fatality that
+threatened his sanctuary.
+
+Yielding to the holy man, the chief sent re-enforcements of canoes to
+take their turn at keeping watch off the headland. Assisted by torches,
+the islanders were on the alert (in superstitious terror of the demon of
+the prophecy) by night as well as by day. The Captain had no alternative
+but to keep in hiding, and to watch his opportunity of approaching the
+place in which he had concealed his canoe. It was only after Aimata had
+left him as usual, to return to her father at the close of evening, that
+the chances declared themselves in his favor. The fire-flashes from the
+mountain, visible when the night came, had struck terror into the hearts
+of the men on the watch. They thought of their wives, their children,
+and their possessions on the main island, and they one and all deserted
+their Priest. The Captain seized the opportunity of communicating with
+the ship, and of exchanging a frail canoe which he was ill able to
+manage, for a swift-sailing boat capable of keeping the sea in the event
+of stormy weather.
+
+As he now neared the land, certain small sparks of red, moving on the
+distant water, informed him that the canoes of the sentinels had been
+ordered back to their duty.
+
+Carefully avoiding the lights, he reached his own side of the island
+without accident, and, guided by the boat's lantern, anchored under the
+cliff. He climbed the rocks, advanced to the door of the hut, and was
+met, to his delight and astonishment, by Aimata on the threshold.
+
+"I dreamed that some dreadful misfortune had parted us forever," she
+said; "and I came here to see if my dream was true. You have taught me
+what it is to be miserable; I never felt my heart ache till I looked
+into the hut and found that you had gone. Now I have seen you, I am
+satisfied. No! you must not go back with me. My father may be out
+looking for me. It is you that are in danger, not I. I know the forest
+as well by dark as by daylight."
+
+The Captain detained her when she tried to leave him.
+
+"Now you _are_ here," he said, "why should I not place you at once in
+safety? I have been to the ship; I have brought back one of the boats.
+The darkness will befriend us--let us embark while we can."
+
+She shrank away as he took her hand. "You forget my father!" she said.
+
+"Your father is in no danger, my love. The canoes are waiting for him at
+the cape; I saw the lights as I passed."
+
+With that reply he drew her out of the hut and led her toward the
+sea. Not a breath of the breeze was now to be felt. The dead calm had
+returned--and the boat was too large to be easily managed by one man
+alone at the oars.
+
+"The breeze may come again," he said. "Wait here, my angel, for the
+chance."
+
+As he spoke, the deep silence of the forest below them was broken by a
+sound. A harsh wailing voice was heard, calling:
+
+"Aimata! Aimata!"
+
+"My father!" she whispered; "he has missed me. If he comes here you are
+lost."
+
+She kissed him with passionate fervor; she held him to her for a moment
+with all her strength.
+
+"Expect me at daybreak," she said, and disappeared down the landward
+slope of the cliff.
+
+He listened, anxious for her safety. The voices of the father and
+daughter just reached him from among the trees. The Priest spoke in
+no angry tones; she had apparently found an acceptable excuse for her
+absence. Little by little, the failing sound of their voices told him
+that they were on their way back together to the Temple. The silence
+fell again. Not a ripple broke on the beach. Not a leaf rustled in the
+forest. Nothing moved but the reflected flashes of the volcano on the
+main island over the black sky. It was an airless and an awful calm.
+
+He went into the hut, and laid down on his bed of leaves--not to sleep,
+but to rest. All his energies might be required to meet the coming
+events of the morning. After the voyage to and from the ship, and the
+long watching that had preceded it, strong as he was he stood in need of
+repose.
+
+For some little time he kept awake, thinking. Insensibly the oppression
+of the intense heat, aided in its influence by his own fatigue,
+treacherously closed his eyes. In spite of himself, the weary man fell
+into a deep sleep.
+
+He was awakened by a roar like the explosion of a park of artillery. The
+volcano on the main island had burst into a state of eruption. Smoky
+flame-light overspread the sky, and flashed through the open doorway of
+the hut. He sprang from his bed--and found himself up to his knees in
+water.
+
+Had the sea overflowed the land?
+
+He waded out of the hut, and the water rose to his middle. He looked
+round him by the lurid light of the eruption. The one visible object
+within the range of view was the sea, stained by reflections from the
+blood-red sky, swirling and rippling strangely in the dead calm. In a
+moment more, he became conscious that the earth on which he stood was
+sinking under his feet. The water rose to his neck; the last vestige of
+the roof of the hut disappeared.
+
+He looked round again, and the truth burst on him. The island was
+sinking--slowly, slowly sinking into volcanic depths, below even the
+depth of the sea! The highest object was the hut, and that had dropped
+inch by inch under water before his own eyes. Thrown up to the surface
+by occult volcanic influences, the island had sunk back, under the same
+influences, to the obscurity from which it had emerged!
+
+A black shadowy object, turning in a wide circle, came slowly near him
+as the all-destroying ocean washed its bitter waters into his mouth. The
+buoyant boat, rising as the sea rose, had dragged its anchor, and was
+floating round in the vortex made by the slowly sinking island. With a
+last desperate hope that Aimata might have been saved as _he_ had been
+saved, he swam to the boat, seized the heavy oars with the strength of a
+giant, and made for the place (so far as he could guess at it now) where
+the lake and the Temple had once been.
+
+He looked round and round him; he strained his eyes in the vain attempt
+to penetrate below the surface of the seething dimpling sea. Had the
+panic-stricken watchers in the canoes saved themselves, without an
+effort to preserve the father and daughter? Or had they both been
+suffocated before they could make an attempt to escape? He called to her
+in his misery, as if she could hear him out of the fathomless depths:
+"Aimata! Aimata!" The roar of the distant eruption answered him. The
+mounting fires lit the solitary sea far and near over the sinking
+island. The boat turned slowly and more slowly in the lessening vortex.
+Never again would those gentle eyes look at him with unutterable love!
+Never again would those fresh lips touch his lips with their fervent
+kiss! Alone, amid the savage forces of Nature in conflict, the miserable
+mortal lifted his hands in frantic supplication--and the burning sky
+glared down on him in its pitiless grandeur, and struck him to his knees
+in the boat. His reason sank with his sinking limbs. In the merciful
+frenzy that succeeded the shock, he saw afar off, in her white robe, an
+angel poised on the waters, beckoning him to follow her to the brighter
+and the better world. He loosened the sail, he seized the oars; and the
+faster he pursued it, the faster the mocking vision fled from him over
+the empty and endless sea.
+
+IX.
+
+THE boat was discovered, on the next morning, from the ship.
+
+All that the devotion of the officers of the _Fortuna_ could do for
+their unhappy commander was done on the homeward voyage. Restored to
+his own country, and to skilled medical help, the Captain's mind by
+slow degrees recovered its balance. He has taken his place in society
+again--he lives and moves and manages his affairs like the rest of us.
+But his heart is dead to all new emotions; nothing remains in it but the
+sacred remembrance of his lost love. He neither courts nor avoids
+the society of women. Their sympathy finds him grateful, but their
+attractions seem to be lost on him; they pass from his mind as they pass
+from his eyes--they stir nothing in him but the memory of Aimata.
+
+
+"Now you know, ladies, why the Captain will never marry, and why (sailor
+as he is) he hates the sight of the sea."
+
+
+
+
+MR. MARMADUKE AND THE MINISTER.
+
+I.
+
+September 13th.--Winter seems to be upon us, on the Highland Border,
+already.
+
+I looked out of window, as the evening closed in, before I barred
+the shutters and drew the curtains for the night. The clouds hid the
+hilltops on either side of our valley. Fantastic mists parted and
+met again on the lower slopes, as the varying breeze blew them. The
+blackening waters of the lake before our window seemed to anticipate
+the coming darkness. On the more distant hills the torrents were just
+visible, in the breaks of the mist, stealing their way over the brown
+ground like threads of silver. It was a dreary scene. The stillness of
+all things was only interrupted by the splashing of our little waterfall
+at the back of the house. I was not sorry to close the shutters, and
+confine the view to the four walls of our sitting-room.
+
+The day happened to be my birthday. I sat by the peat-fire, waiting
+for the lamp and the tea-tray, and contemplating my past life from the
+vantage-ground, so to speak, of my fifty-fifth year.
+
+There was wonderfully little to look back on. Nearly thirty years since,
+it pleased an all-wise Providence to cast my lot in this remote
+Scottish hamlet, and to make me Minister of Cauldkirk, on a stipend of
+seventy-four pounds sterling per annum. I and my surroundings have grown
+quietly older and older together. I have outlived my wife; I have buried
+one generation among my parishioners, and married another; I have borne
+the wear and tear of years better than the kirk in which I minister
+and the manse (or parsonage-house) in which I live--both sadly out of
+repair, and both still trusting for the means of reparation to the pious
+benefactions of people richer than myself. Not that I complain, be
+it understood, of the humble position which I occupy. I possess many
+blessings; and I thank the Lord for them. I have my little bit of land
+and my cow. I have also my good daughter, Felicia; named after her
+deceased mother, but inheriting her comely looks, it is thought, rather
+from myself.
+
+Neither let me forget my elder sister, Judith; a friendless single
+person, sheltered under my roof, whose temperament I could wish somewhat
+less prone to look at persons and things on the gloomy side, but whose
+compensating virtues Heaven forbid that I should deny. No; I am grateful
+for what has been given me (from on high), and resigned to what has been
+taken away. With what fair prospects did I start in life! Springing from
+a good old Scottish stock, blessed with every advantage of education
+that the institutions of Scotland and England in turn could offer; with
+a career at the Bar and in Parliament before me--and all cast to the
+winds, as it were, by the measureless prodigality of my unhappy father,
+God forgive him! I doubt if I had five pounds left in my purse, when the
+compassion of my relatives on the mother's side opened a refuge to me
+at Cauldkirk, and hid me from the notice of the world for the rest of my
+life.
+
+
+September 14th.--Thus far I had posted up my Diary on the evening of the
+13th, when an event occurred so completely unexpected by my household
+and myself, that the pen, I may say, dropped incontinently from my hand.
+
+It was the time when we had finished our tea, or supper--I hardly know
+which to call it. In the silence, we could hear the rain pouring against
+the window, and the wind that had risen with the darkness howling
+round the house. My sister Judith, taking the gloomy view according to
+custom--copious draughts of good Bohea and two helpings of such a
+mutton ham as only Scotland can produce had no effect in raising her
+spirits--my sister, I say, remarked that there would be ships lost
+at sea and men drowned this night. My daughter Felicia, the
+brightest-tempered creature of the female sex that I have ever met with,
+tried to give a cheerful turn to her aunt's depressing prognostication.
+"If the ships must be lost," she said, "we may surely hope that the men
+will be saved." "God willing," I put in--thereby giving to my daughter's
+humane expression of feeling the fit religious tone that was all it
+wanted--and then went on with my written record of the events and
+reflections of the day. No more was said. Felicia took up a book. Judith
+took up her knitting.
+
+On a sudden, the silence was broken by a blow on the house-door.
+
+My two companions, as is the way of women, set up a scream. I was
+startled myself, wondering who could be out in the rain and the darkness
+and striking at the door of the house. A stranger it must be. Light or
+dark, any person in or near Cauldkirk, wanting admission, would know
+where to find the bell-handle at the side of the door. I waited a
+while to hear what might happen next. The stroke was repeated, but more
+softly. It became me as a man and a minister to set an example. I went
+out into the passage, and I called through the door, "Who's there?"
+
+A man's voice answered--so faintly that I could barely hear him--"A lost
+traveler."
+
+Immediately upon this my cheerful sister expressed her view of the
+matter through the open parlor door. "Brother Noah, it's a robber. Don't
+let him in!"
+
+What would the Good Samaritan have done in my place? Assuredly he would
+have run the risk and opened the door. I imitated the Good Samaritan.
+
+A man, dripping wet, with a knapsack on his back and a thick stick in
+his hand, staggered in, and would, I think, have fallen in the passage
+if I had not caught him by the arm. Judith peeped out at the parlor
+door, and said, "He's drunk." Felicia was behind her, holding up a
+lighted candle, the better to see what was going on. "Look at his
+face, aunt," says she. "Worn out with fatigue, poor man. Bring him in,
+father--bring him in."
+
+Good Felicia! I was proud of my girl. "He'll spoil the carpet," says
+sister Judith. I said, "Silence, for shame!" and brought him in, and
+dropped him dripping into my own armchair. Would the Good Samaritan have
+thought of his carpet or his chair? I did think of them, but I overcame
+it. Ah, we are a decadent generation in these latter days!
+
+"Be quick, father"' says Felicia; "he'll faint if you don't give him
+something!"
+
+I took out one of our little drinking cups (called among us a "Quaigh"),
+while Felicia, instructed by me, ran to the kitchen for the cream-jug.
+Filling the cup with whisky and cream in equal proportions, I offered it
+to him. He drank it off as if it had been so much water. "Stimulant and
+nourishment, you'll observe, sir, in equal portions," I remarked to him.
+"How do you feel now?"
+
+"Ready for another," says he.
+
+Felicia burst out laughing. I gave him another. As I turned to hand it
+to him, sister Judith came behind me, and snatched away the cream-jug.
+Never a generous person, sister Judith, at the best of times--more
+especially in the matter of cream.
+
+He handed me back the empty cup. "I believe, sir, you have saved my
+life," he said. "Under Providence," I put in--adding, "But I would
+remark, looking to the state of your clothes, that I have yet another
+service to offer you, before you tell us how you came into this pitiable
+state." With that reply, I led him upstairs, and set before him the
+poor resources of my wardrobe, and left him to do the best he could with
+them. He was rather a small man, and I am in stature nigh on six feet.
+When he came down to us in my clothes, we had the merriest evening
+that I can remember for years past. I thought Felicia would have had a
+hysteric fit; and even sister Judith laughed--he did look such a comical
+figure in the minister's garments.
+
+As for the misfortune that had befallen him, it offered one more example
+of the preternatural rashness of the English traveler in countries
+unknown to him. He was on a walking tour through Scotland; and he had
+set forth to go twenty miles a-foot, from a town on one side of the
+Highland Border, to a town on the other, without a guide. The only
+wonder is that he found his way to Cauldkirk, instead of perishing of
+exposure among the lonesome hills.
+
+"Will you offer thanks for your preservation to the Throne of Grace, in
+your prayers to-night?" I asked him. And he answered, "Indeed I will!"
+
+We have a spare room at the manse; but it had not been inhabited for
+more than a year past. Therefore we made his bed, for that night, on the
+sofa in the parlor; and so left him, with the fire on one side of his
+couch, and the whisky and the mutton ham on the other in case of need.
+He mentioned his name when we bade him good-night. Marmaduke Falmer
+of London, son of a minister of the English Church Establishment, now
+deceased. It was plain, I may add, before he spoke, that we had offered
+the hospitality of the manse to a man of gentle breeding.
+
+
+
+September 15th.--I have to record a singularly pleasant day; due partly
+to a return of the fine weather, partly to the good social gifts of our
+guest.
+
+Attired again in his own clothing, he was, albeit wanting in height, a
+finely proportioned man, with remarkably small hands and feet; having
+also a bright mobile face, and large dark eyes of an extraordinary
+diversity of expression. Also, he was of a sweet and cheerful humor;
+easily pleased with little things, and amiably ready to make his gifts
+agreeable to all of us. At the same time, a person of my experience and
+penetration could not fail to perceive that he was most content when
+in company with Felicia. I have already mentioned my daughter's comely
+looks and good womanly qualities. It was in the order of nature that
+a young man (to use his own phrase) getting near to his thirty-first
+birthday should feel drawn by sympathy toward a well-favored young woman
+in her four-and-twentieth year. In matters of this sort I have always
+cultivated a liberal turn of mind, not forgetting my own youth.
+
+As the evening closed in, I was sorry to notice a certain change in
+our guest for the worse. He showed signs of fatigue--falling asleep at
+intervals in his chair, and waking up and shivering. The spare room was
+now well aired, having had a roaring fire in it all day.
+
+I begged him not to stand on ceremony, and to betake himself at once to
+his bed. Felicia (having learned the accomplishment from her excellent
+mother) made him a warm sleeping-draught of eggs, sugar, nutmeg, and
+spirits, delicious alike to the senses of smell and taste. Sister Judith
+waited until he had closed the door behind him, and then favored me with
+one of her dismal predictions. "You'll rue the day, brother, when you
+let him into the house. He is going to fall ill on our hands."
+
+II.
+
+November 28th.--God be praised for all His mercies! This day, our guest,
+Marmaduke Falmer, joined us downstairs in the sitting-room for the first
+time since his illness.
+
+He is sadly deteriorated, in a bodily sense, by the wasting rheumatic
+fever that brought him nigh to death; but he is still young, and the
+doctor (humanly speaking) has no doubt of his speedy and complete
+recovery. My sister takes the opposite view. She remarked, in his
+hearing, that nobody ever thoroughly got over a rheumatic fever. Oh,
+Judith! Judith! it's well for humanity that you're a single person! If
+haply, there had been any man desperate enough to tackle such a woman in
+the bonds of marriage, what a pessimist progeny must have proceeded from
+you!
+
+Looking back over my Diary for the last two months and more, I see one
+monotonous record of the poor fellow's sufferings; cheered and varied,
+I am pleased to add, by the devoted services of my daughter at the sick
+man's bedside. With some help from her aunt (most readily given when he
+was nearest to the point of death), and with needful services performed
+in turn by two of our aged women in Cauldkirk, Felicia could not have
+nursed him more assiduously if he had been her own brother. Half the
+credit of bringing him through it belonged (as the doctor himself
+confessed) to the discreet young nurse, always ready through the worst
+of the illness, and always cheerful through the long convalescence that
+followed. I must also record to the credit of Marmaduke that he was
+indeed duly grateful. When I led him into the parlor, and he saw Felicia
+waiting by the armchair, smiling and patting the pillows for him,
+he took her by the hand, and burst out crying. Weakness, in part, no
+doubt--but sincere gratitude at the bottom of it, I am equally sure.
+
+
+
+November 29th.--However, there are limits even to sincere gratitude. Of
+this truth Mr. Marmaduke seems to be insufficiently aware. Entering the
+sitting-room soon after noon today, I found our convalescent guest and
+his nurse alone. His head was resting on her shoulder; his arm was round
+her waist--and (the truth before everything) Felicia was kissing him.
+
+A man may be of a liberal turn of mind, and may yet consistently object
+to freedom when it takes the form of unlicensed embracing and kissing;
+the person being his own daughter, and the place his own house. I signed
+to my girl to leave us; and I advanced to Mr. Marmaduke, with my opinion
+of his conduct just rising in words to my lips--when he staggered me
+with amazement by asking for Felicia's hand in marriage.
+
+"You need feel no doubt of my being able to offer to your daughter a
+position of comfort and respectability," he said. "I have a settled
+income of eight hundred pounds a year."
+
+His raptures over Felicia; his protestations that she was the first
+woman he had ever really loved; his profane declaration that he
+preferred to die, if I refused to let him be her husband--all these
+flourishes, as I may call them, passed in at one of my ears and out at
+the other. But eight hundred pounds sterling per annum, descending as
+it were in a golden avalanche on the mind of a Scottish minister
+(accustomed to thirty years' annual contemplation of seventy-four
+pounds)--eight hundred a year, in one young man's pocket, I say,
+completely overpowered me. I just managed to answer, "Wait till
+tomorrow"--and hurried out of doors to recover my self-respect, if the
+thing was to be anywise done. I took my way through the valley. The sun
+was shining, for a wonder. When I saw my shadow on the hillside, I saw
+the Golden Calf as an integral part of me, bearing this inscription in
+letters of flame--"Here's another of them!"
+
+
+
+_November 30th._--I have made amends for yesterday's backsliding; I have
+acted as becomes my parental dignity and my sacred calling.
+
+The temptation to do otherwise, has not been wanting. Here is sister
+Judith's advice: "Make sure that he has got the money first; and, for
+Heaven's sake, nail him!" Here is Mr. Marmaduke's proposal: "Make any
+conditions you please, so long as you give me your daughter." And,
+lastly, here is Felicia's confession: "Father, my heart is set on him.
+Oh, don't be unkind to me for the first time in your life!"
+
+But I have stood firm. I have refused to hear any more words on the
+subject from any one of them, for the next six months to come.
+
+"So serious a venture as the venture of marriage," I said, "is not to
+be undertaken on impulse. As soon as Mr. Marmaduke can travel, I request
+him to leave us, and not to return again for six months. If, after that
+interval, he is still of the same mind, and my daughter is still of the
+same mind, let him return to Cauldkirk, and (premising that I am in all
+other respects satisfied) let him ask me for his wife."
+
+There were tears, there were protestations; I remained immovable. A week
+later, Mr. Marmaduke left us, on his way by easy stages to the south. I
+am not a hard man. I rewarded the lovers for their obedience by keeping
+sister Judith out of the way, and letting them say their farewell words
+(accompaniments included) in private.
+
+III.
+
+May 28th.--A letter from Mr. Marmaduke, informing me that I may
+expect him at Cauldkirk, exactly at the expiration of the six months'
+interval--viz., on June the seventh.
+
+Writing to this effect, he added a timely word on the subject of his
+family. Both his parents were dead; his only brother held a civil
+appointment in India, the place being named. His uncle (his father's
+brother) was a merchant resident in London; and to this near relative he
+referred me, if I wished to make inquiries about him. The names of
+his bankers, authorized to give me every information in respect to
+his pecuniary affairs, followed. Nothing could be more plain and
+straightforward. I wrote to his uncle, and I wrote to his bankers.
+In both cases the replies were perfectly satisfactory--nothing in the
+slightest degree doubtful, no prevarications, no mysteries. In a
+word, Mr. Marmaduke himself was thoroughly well vouched for, and Mr.
+Marmaduke's income was invested in securities beyond fear and beyond
+reproach. Even sister Judith, bent on picking a hole in the record
+somewhere, tried hard, and could make nothing of it.
+
+The last sentence in Mr. Marmaduke's letter was the only part of it
+which I failed to read with pleasure.
+
+He left it to me to fix the day for the marriage, and he entreated
+that I would make it as early a day as possible. I had a touch of the
+heartache when I thought of parting with Felicia, and being left at home
+with nobody but Judith. However, I got over it for that time, and,
+after consulting my daughter, we decided on naming a fortnight after Mr.
+Marmaduke's arrival--that is to say, the twenty-first of June. This
+gave Felicia time for her preparations, besides offering to me
+the opportunity of becoming better acquainted with my son-in-law's
+disposition. The happiest marriage does indubitably make its demands
+on human forbearance; and I was anxious, among other things, to assure
+myself of Mr. Marmaduke's good temper.
+
+IV.
+
+June 22d.--The happy change in my daughter's life (let me say nothing
+of the change in _my_ life) has come: they were married yesterday.
+The manse is a desert; and sister Judith was never so uncongenial a
+companion to me as I feel her to be now. Her last words to the married
+pair, when they drove away, were: "Lord help you both; you have all your
+troubles before you!"
+
+I had no heart to write yesterday's record, yesterday evening, as usual.
+The absence of Felicia at the supper-table completely overcame me. I,
+who have so often comforted others in their afflictions, could find no
+comfort for myself. Even now that the day has passed, the tears come
+into my eyes, only with writing about it. Sad, sad weakness! Let me
+close my Diary, and open the Bible--and be myself again.
+
+
+
+June 23d.--More resigned since yesterday; a more becoming and more pious
+frame of mind--obedient to God's holy will, and content in the belief
+that my dear daughter's married life will be a happy one.
+
+They have gone abroad for their holiday--to Switzerland, by way
+of France. I was anything rather than pleased when I heard that my
+son-in-law proposed to take Felicia to that sink of iniquity, Paris. He
+knows already what I think of balls and playhouses, and similar devils'
+diversions, and how I have brought up my daughter to think of them--the
+subject having occurred in conversation among us more than a week since.
+That he could meditate taking a child of mine to the headquarters of
+indecent jiggings and abominable stage-plays, of spouting rogues and
+painted Jezebels, was indeed a heavy blow.
+
+However, Felicia reconciled me to it in the end. She declared that her
+only desire in going to Paris was to see the picture-galleries, the
+public buildings, and the fair outward aspect of the city generally.
+"Your opinions, father, are my opinions," she said; "and Marmaduke, I am
+sure, will so shape our arrangements as to prevent our passing a Sabbath
+in Paris." Marmaduke not only consented to this (with the perfect good
+temper of which I have observed more than one gratifying example in
+him), but likewise assured me that, speaking for himself personally, it
+would be a relief to him when they got to the mountains and the lakes.
+So that matter was happily settled. Go where they may, God bless and
+prosper them!
+
+Speaking of relief, I must record that Judith has gone away to Aberdeen
+on a visit to some friends. "You'll be wretched enough here," she said
+at parting, "all by yourself." Pure vanity and self-complacence! It may
+be resignation to her absence, or it may be natural force of mind, I
+began to be more easy and composed the moment I was alone, and this
+blessed state of feeling has continued uninterruptedly ever since.
+
+V.
+
+September 5th.--A sudden change in my life, which it absolutely startles
+me to record. I am going to London!
+
+My purpose in taking this most serious step is of a twofold nature. I
+have a greater and a lesser object in view.
+
+The greater object is to see my daughter, and to judge for myself
+whether certain doubts on the vital question of her happiness, which now
+torment me night and day, are unhappily founded on truth. She and her
+husband returned in August from their wedding-tour, and took up their
+abode in Marmaduke's new residence in London. Up to this time, Felicia's
+letters to me were, in very truth, the delight of my life--she was so
+entirely happy, so amazed and delighted with all the wonderful things
+she saw, so full of love and admiration for the best husband that ever
+lived. Since her return to London, I perceive a complete change.
+
+She makes no positive complaint, but she writes in a tone of weariness
+and discontent; she says next to nothing of Marmaduke, and she dwells
+perpetually on the one idea of my going to London to see her. I hope
+with my whole heart that I am wrong; but the rare allusions to her
+husband, and the constantly repeated desire to see her father (while she
+has not been yet three months married), seem to me to be bad signs. In
+brief, my anxiety is too great to be endured. I have so arranged matters
+with one of my brethren as to be free to travel to London cheaply by
+steamer; and I begin the journey tomorrow.
+
+My lesser object may be dismissed in two words. Having already decided
+on going to London, I propose to call on the wealthy nobleman who owns
+all the land hereabouts, and represent to him the discreditable, and
+indeed dangerous, condition of the parish kirk for want of means to
+institute the necessary repairs. If I find myself well received, I
+shall put in a word for the manse, which is almost in as deplorable a
+condition as the church. My lord is a wealthy man--may his heart and his
+purse be opened unto me!
+
+Sister Judith is packing my portmanteau. According to custom, she
+forbodes the worst. "Never forget," she says, "that I warned you against
+Marmaduke, on the first night when he entered the house."
+
+VI.
+
+September 10th.--After more delays than one, on land and sea, I was at
+last set ashore near the Tower, on the afternoon of yesterday. God help
+us, my worst anticipations have been realized! My beloved Felicia has
+urgent and serious need of me.
+
+It is not to be denied that I made my entry into my son-in-law's house
+in a disturbed and irritated frame of mind. First, my temper was tried
+by the almost interminable journey, in the noisy and comfortless vehicle
+which they call a cab, from the river-wharf to the west-end of London,
+where Marmaduke lives. In the second place, I was scandalized and
+alarmed by an incident which took place--still on the endless journey
+from east to west--in a street hard by the market of Covent Garden.
+
+We had just approached a large building, most profusely illuminated with
+gas, and exhibiting prodigious colored placards having inscribed on
+them nothing but the name of Barrymore. The cab came suddenly to
+a standstill; and looking out to see what the obstacle might be, I
+discovered a huge concourse of men and women, drawn across the pavement
+and road alike, so that it seemed impossible to pass by them. I inquired
+of my driver what this assembling of the people meant. "Oh," says
+he, "Barrymore has made another hit." This answer being perfectly
+unintelligible to me, I requested some further explanation, and
+discovered that "Barrymore" was the name of a stage-player favored
+by the populace; that the building was a theater, and that all these
+creatures with immortal souls were waiting, before the doors opened, to
+get places at the show!
+
+The emotions of sorrow and indignation caused by this discovery so
+absorbed me that I failed to notice an attempt the driver made to pass
+through, where the crowd seemed to be thinner, until the offended people
+resented the proceeding. Some of them seized the horse's head; others
+were on the point of pulling the driver off his box, when providentially
+the police interfered. Under their protection, we drew back, and reached
+our destination in safety, by another way. I record this otherwise
+unimportant affair, because it grieved and revolted me (when I thought
+of the people's souls), and so indisposed my mind to take cheerful views
+of anything. Under these circumstances, I would fain hope that I have
+exaggerated the true state of the case, in respect to my daughter's
+married life.
+
+My good girl almost smothered me with kisses. When I at last got a fair
+opportunity of observing her, I thought her looking pale and worn and
+anxious. Query: Should I have arrived at this conclusion if I had met
+with no example of the wicked dissipations of London, and if I had
+ridden at my ease in a comfortable vehicle?
+
+They had a succulent meal ready for me, and, what I call, fair enough
+whisky out of Scotland. Here again I remarked that Felicia ate very
+little, and Marmaduke nothing at all. He drank wine, too--and, good
+heavens, champagne wine!--a needless waste of money surely when there
+was whisky on the table. My appetite being satisfied, my son-in-law went
+out of the room, and returned with his hat in his hand. "You and Felicia
+have many things to talk about on your first evening together. I'll
+leave you for a while--I shall only be in the way." So he spoke. It was
+in vain that his wife and I assured him he was not in the way at all. He
+kissed his hand, and smiled pleasantly, and left us.
+
+"There, father!" says Felicia. "For the last ten days he has gone
+out like that, and left me alone for the whole evening. When we first
+returned from Switzerland, he left me in the same mysterious way, only
+it was after breakfast then. Now he stays at home in the daytime, and
+goes out at night."
+
+I inquired if she had not summoned him to give her some explanation.
+
+"I don't know what to make of his explanation," says Felicia. "When he
+went away in the daytime, he told me he had business in the City. Since
+he took to going out at night, he says he goes to his club."
+
+"Have you asked where his club is, my dear?"
+
+"He says it's in Pall Mall. There are dozens of clubs in that
+street--and he has never told me the name of _his_ club. I am completely
+shut out of his confidence. Would you believe it, father? he has not
+introduced one of his friends to me since we came home. I doubt if they
+know where he lives, since he took this house."
+
+What could I say?
+
+I said nothing, and looked round the room. It was fitted up with
+perfectly palatial magnificence. I am an ignorant man in matters of this
+sort, and partly to satisfy my curiosity, partly to change the
+subject, I asked to see the house. Mercy preserve us, the same grandeur
+everywhere! I wondered if even such an income as eight hundred a year
+could suffice for it all. In a moment when I was considering this,
+a truly frightful suspicion crossed my mind. Did these mysterious
+absences, taken in connection with the unbridled luxury that surrounded
+us, mean that my son-in-law was a gamester? a shameless shuffler of
+cards, or a debauched bettor on horses? While I was still completely
+overcome by my own previsions of evil, my daughter put her arm in mine
+to take me to the top of the house.
+
+For the first time I observed a bracelet of dazzling gems on her wrist.
+"Not diamonds?" I said. She answered, with as much composure as if
+she had been the wife of a nobleman, "Yes, diamonds--a present from
+Marmaduke." This was too much for me; my previsions, so to speak, forced
+their way into words. "Oh, my poor child!" I burst out, "I'm in mortal
+fear that your husband's a gamester!"
+
+She showed none of the horror I had anticipated; she only shook her head
+and began to cry.
+
+"Worse than that, I'm afraid," she said.
+
+I was petrified; my tongue refused its office, when I would fain have
+asked her what she meant. Her besetting sin, poor soul, is a proud
+spirit. She dried her eyes on a sudden, and spoke out freely, in these
+words: "I am not going to cry about it. The other day, father, we were
+out walking in the park. A horrid, bold, yellow-haired woman passed us
+in an open carriage. She kissed her hand to Marmaduke, and called out
+to him, 'How are you, Marmy?' I was so indignant that I pushed him away
+from me, and told him to go and take a drive with his lady. He burst out
+laughing. 'Nonsense!' he said; 'she has known me for years--you don't
+understand our easy London manners.' We have made it up since then; but
+I have my own opinion of the creature in the open carriage."
+
+Morally speaking, this was worse than all. But, logically viewed, it
+completely failed as a means of accounting for the diamond bracelet and
+the splendor of the furniture.
+
+We went on to the uppermost story. It was cut off from the rest of the
+house by a stout partition of wood, and a door covered with green baize.
+
+When I tried the door it was locked. "Ha!" says Felicia, "I wanted you
+to see it for yourself!" More suspicious proceedings on the part of
+my son-in-law! He kept the door constantly locked, and the key in his
+pocket. When his wife asked him what it meant, he answered: "My study is
+up there--and I like to keep it entirely to myself." After such a reply
+as that, the preservation of my daughter's dignity permitted but one
+answer: "Oh, keep it to yourself, by all means!"
+
+My previsions, upon this, assumed another form.
+
+I now asked myself--still in connection with my son-in-law's extravagant
+expenditure--whether the clew to the mystery might not haply be the
+forging of bank-notes on the other side of the baize door. My mind
+was prepared for anything by this time. We descended again into the
+dining-room. Felicia saw how my spirits were dashed, and came and
+perched upon my knee. "Enough of my troubles for to-night, father,"
+she said. "I am going to be your little girl again, and we will talk
+of nothing but Cauldkirk, until Marmaduke comes back." I am one of the
+firmest men living, but I could not keep the hot tears out of my eyes
+when she put her arm round my neck and said those words. By good fortune
+I was sitting with my back to the lamp; she didn't notice me.
+
+A little after eleven o'clock Marmaduke returned. He looked pale and
+weary. But more champagne, and this time something to eat with it,
+seemed to set him to rights again--no doubt by relieving him from the
+reproaches of a guilty conscience.
+
+I had been warned by Felicia to keep what had passed between us a secret
+from her husband for the present; so we had (superficially speaking) a
+merry end to the evening. My son-in-law was nearly as good company as
+ever, and wonderfully fertile in suggestions and expedients when he saw
+they were wanted. Hearing from his wife, to whom I had mentioned it,
+that I purposed representing the decayed condition of the kirk and manse
+to the owner of Cauldkirk and the country round about, he strongly urged
+me to draw up a list of repairs that were most needful, before I waited
+on my lord. This advice, vicious and degraded as the man who offered it
+may be, is sound advice nevertheless. I shall assuredly take it.
+
+So far I had written in my Diary, in the forenoon. Returning to my daily
+record, after a lapse of some hours, I have a new mystery of iniquity to
+chronicle. My abominable son-in-law now appears (I blush to write it) to
+be nothing less than an associate of thieves!
+
+After the meal they call luncheon, I thought it well before recreating
+myself with the sights of London, to attend first to the crying
+necessities of the kirk and the manse. Furnished with my written list, I
+presented myself at his lordship's residence. I was immediately informed
+that he was otherwise engaged, and could not possibly receive me. If
+I wished to see my lord's secretary, Mr. Helmsley, I could do so.
+Consenting to this, rather than fail entirely in my errand, I was shown
+into the secretary's room.
+
+Mr. Helmsley heard what I had to say civilly enough; expressing,
+however, grave doubts whether his lordship would do anything for me, the
+demands on his purse being insupportably numerous already. However, he
+undertook to place my list before his employer, and to let me know the
+result. "Where are you staying in London?" he asked. I answered: "With
+my son-in-law, Mr. Marmaduke Falmer." Before I could add the address,
+the secretary started to his feet and tossed my list back to me across
+the table in the most uncivil manner.
+
+"Upon my word," says he, "your assurance exceeds anything I ever heard
+of. Your son-in-law is concerned in the robbery of her ladyship's
+diamond bracelet--the discovery was made not an hour ago. Leave the
+house, sir, and consider yourself lucky that I have no instructions to
+give you in charge to the police." I protested against this unprovoked
+outrage, with a violence of language which I would rather not recall.
+As a minister, I ought, under every provocation, to have preserved my
+self-control.
+
+The one thing to do next was to drive back to my unhappy daughter.
+
+Her guilty husband was with her. I was too angry to wait for a fit
+opportunity of speaking. The Christian humility which I have all my life
+cultivated as the first of virtues sank, as it were, from under me. In
+terms of burning indignation I told them what had happened. The result
+was too distressing to be described. It ended in Felicia giving her
+husband back the bracelet. The hardened reprobate laughed at us. "Wait
+till I have seen his lordship and Mr. Helmsley," he said, and left the
+house.
+
+Does he mean to escape to foreign parts? Felicia, womanlike, believes in
+him still; she is quite convinced that there must be some mistake. I am
+myself in hourly expectation of the arrival of the police.
+
+
+
+With gratitude to Providence, I note before going to bed the harmless
+termination of the affair of the bracelet--so far as Marmaduke is
+concerned. The agent who sold him the jewel has been forced to come
+forward and state the truth. His lordship's wife is the guilty person;
+the bracelet was hers--a present from her husband. Harassed by debts
+that she dare not acknowledge, she sold it; my lord discovered that it
+was gone; and in terror of his anger the wretched woman took refuge in a
+lie.
+
+She declared that the bracelet had been stolen from her. Asked for the
+name of the thief, the reckless woman (having no other name in her mind
+at the moment) mentioned the man who had innocently bought the jewel of
+her agent, otherwise my unfortunate son-in-law. Oh, the profligacy of
+the modern Babylon! It was well I went to the secretary when I did or we
+should really have had the police in the house. Marmaduke found them in
+consultation over the supposed robbery, asking for his address.
+There was a dreadful exhibition of violence and recrimination at his
+lordship's residence: in the end he re-purchased the bracelet. My
+son-in-law's money has been returned to him; and Mr. Helmsley has sent
+me a written apology.
+
+In a worldly sense, this would, I suppose, be called a satisfactory
+ending.
+
+It is not so to my mind. I freely admit that I too hastily distrusted
+Marmaduke; but am I, on that account, to give him back immediately
+the place which he once occupied in my esteem? Again this evening he
+mysteriously quitted the house, leaving me alone with Felicia, and
+giving no better excuse for his conduct than that he had an engagement.
+And this when I have a double claim on his consideration, as his
+father-in-law and his guest.
+
+
+
+September 11th.--The day began well enough. At breakfast, Marmaduke
+spoke feelingly of the unhappy result of my visit to his lordship, and
+asked me to let him look at the list of repairs. "It is just useless
+to expect anything from my lord, after what has happened," I said.
+"Besides, Mr. Helmsley gave me no hope when I stated my case to him."
+Marmaduke still held out his hand for the list. "Let me try if I can
+get some subscribers," he replied. This was kindly meant, at any rate.
+I gave him the list; and I began to recover some of my old friendly
+feeling for him. Alas! the little gleam of tranquillity proved to be of
+short duration.
+
+We made out our plans for the day pleasantly enough. The check came when
+Felicia spoke next of our plans for the evening. "My father has only
+four days more to pass with us," she said to her husband. "Surely you
+won't go out again to-night, and leave him?" Marmaduke's face clouded
+over directly; he looked embarrassed and annoyed. I sat perfectly
+silent, leaving them to settle it by themselves.
+
+"You will stay with us this evening, won't you?" says Felicia. No: he
+was not free for the evening. "What! another engagement? Surely you can
+put it off?" No; impossible to put it off. "Is it a ball, or a party of
+some kind?" No answer; he changed the subject--he offered Felicia the
+money repaid to him for the bracelet. "Buy one for yourself, my dear,
+this time." Felicia handed him back the money, rather too haughtily,
+perhaps. "I don't want a bracelet," she said; "I want your company in
+the evening."
+
+He jumped up, good-tempered as he was, in something very like a
+rage--then looked at me, and checked himself on the point (as I believe)
+of using profane language. "This is downright persecution!" he burst
+out, with an angry turn of his head toward his wife. Felicia got up, in
+her turn. "Your language is an insult to my father and to me!" He looked
+thoroughly staggered at this: it was evidently their first serious
+quarrel.
+
+Felicia took no notice of him. "I will get ready directly, father;
+and we will go out together." He stopped her as she was leaving the
+room--recovering his good temper with a readiness which it pleased me
+to see. "Come, come, Felicia! We have not quarreled yet, and we won't
+quarrel now. Let me off this one time more, and I will devote the next
+three evenings of your father's visit to him and to you. Give me a kiss,
+and make it up." My daughter doesn't do things by halves. She gave him a
+dozen kisses, I should think--and there was a happy end of it.
+
+"But what shall we do to-morrow evening?" says Marmaduke, sitting down
+by his wife, and patting her hand as it lay in his.
+
+"Take us somewhere," says she. Marmaduke laughed. "Your father objects
+to public amusements. Where does he want to go to?" Felicia took up the
+newspaper. "There is an oratorio at Exeter Hall," she said; "my father
+likes music." He turned to me. "You don't object to oratorios, sir?"
+"I don't object to music," I answered, "so long as I am not required
+to enter a theater." Felicia handed the newspaper to me. "Speaking of
+theaters, father, have you read what they say about the new play? What a
+pity it can't be given out of a theater!" I looked at her in speechless
+amazement. She tried to explain herself. "The paper says that the new
+play is a service rendered to the cause of virtue; and that the great
+actor, Barrymore, has set an example in producing it which deserves the
+encouragement of all truly religious people. Do read it, father!" I held
+up my hands in dismay. My own daughter perverted! pinning her faith on
+a newspaper! speaking, with a perverse expression of interest, of
+a stage-play and an actor! Even Marmaduke witnessed this lamentable
+exhibition of backsliding with some appearance of alarm. "It's not
+her fault, sir," he said, interceding with me. "It's the fault of the
+newspaper. Don't blame her!" I held my peace; determining inwardly to
+pray for her. Shortly afterward my daughter and I went out. Marmaduke
+accompanied us part of the way, and left us at a telegraph office.
+"Who are you going to telegraph to?" Felicia asked. Another mystery! He
+answered, "Business of my own, my dear"--and went into the office.
+
+
+
+September 12th.--Is my miserable son-in-law's house under a curse?
+The yellow-haired woman in the open carriage drove up to the door at
+half-past ten this morning, in a state of distraction. Felicia and I saw
+her from the drawing-room balcony--a tall woman in gorgeous garments.
+She knocked with her own hand at the door--she cried out distractedly,
+"Where is he? I must see him!" At the sound of her voice, Marmaduke
+(playing with his little dog in the drawing-room) rushed downstairs and
+out into the street. "Hold your tongue!" we heard him say to her. "What
+are you here for?"
+
+What she answered we failed to hear; she was certainly crying. Marmaduke
+stamped on the pavement like a man beside himself--took her roughly by
+the arm, and led her into the house.
+
+Before I could utter a word, Felicia left me and flew headlong down the
+stairs.
+
+She was in time to hear the dining-room locked. Following her, I
+prevented the poor jealous creature from making a disturbance at the
+door. God forgive me--not knowing how else to quiet her--I degraded
+myself by advising her to listen to what they said. She instantly
+opened the door of the back dining-room, and beckoned to me to follow.
+I naturally hesitated. "I shall go mad," she whispered, "if you leave me
+by myself!" What could I do? I degraded myself the second time. For my
+own child--in pity for my own child!
+
+We heard them, through the flimsy modern folding-doors, at those times
+when he was most angry, and she most distracted. That is to say, we
+heard them when they spoke in their loudest tones.
+
+"How did you find out where I live?" says he. "Oh, you're ashamed of
+me?" says she. "Mr. Helmsley was with us yesterday evening. That's how I
+found out!" "What do you mean?" "I mean that Mr. Helmsley had your card
+and address in his pocket. Ah, you were obliged to give your address
+when you had to clear up that matter of the bracelet! You cruel,
+cruel man, what have I done to deserve such a note as you sent me this
+morning?" "Do what the note tells you!" "Do what the note tells me?
+Did anybody ever hear a man talk so, out of a lunatic asylum? Why,
+you haven't even the grace to carry out your own wicked deception--you
+haven't even gone to bed!" There the voices grew less angry, and
+we missed what followed. Soon the lady burst out again, piteously
+entreating him this time. "Oh, Marmy, don't ruin me! Has anybody
+offended you? Is there anything you wish to have altered? Do you want
+more money? It is too cruel to treat me in this way--it is indeed!" He
+made some answer, which we were not able to hear; we could only suppose
+that he had upset her temper again. She went on louder than ever "I've
+begged and prayed of you--and you're as hard as iron. I've told you
+about the Prince--and _that_ has had no effect on you. I have done now.
+We'll see what the doctor says." He got angry, in his turn; we heard him
+again. "I won't see the doctor!" "Oh, you refuse to see the doctor?--I
+shall make your refusal known--and if there's law in England, you shall
+feel it!" Their voices dropped again; some new turn seemed to be taken
+by the conversation. We heard the lady once more, shrill and joyful this
+time. "There's a dear! You see it, don't you, in the right light? And
+you haven't forgotten the old times, have you? You're the same dear,
+honorable, kind-hearted fellow that you always were!"
+
+I caught hold of Felicia, and put my hand over her mouth.
+
+There was a sound in the next room which might have been--I cannot be
+certain--the sound of a kiss. The next moment, we heard the door of the
+room unlocked. Then the door of the house was opened, and the noise
+of retreating carriage-wheels followed. We met him in the hall, as he
+entered the house again.
+
+My daughter walked up to him, pale and determined.
+
+"I insist on knowing who that woman is, and what she wants here." Those
+were her first words. He looked at her like a man in utter confusion.
+"Wait till this evening; I am in no state to speak to you now!" With
+that, he snatched his hat off the hall table and rushed out of the
+house.
+
+It is little more than three weeks since they returned to London from
+their happy wedding-tour--and it has come to this!
+
+The clock has just struck seven; a letter has been left by a messenger,
+addressed to my daughter. I had persuaded her, poor soul, to lie down
+in her own room. God grant that the letter may bring her some tidings of
+her husband! I please myself in the hope of hearing good news.
+
+My mind has not been kept long in suspense. Felicia's waiting-woman has
+brought me a morsel of writing paper, with these lines penciled on it
+in my daughter's handwriting: "Dearest father, make your mind easy.
+Everything is explained. I cannot trust myself to speak to you about it
+to-night--and _he_ doesn't wish me to do so. Only wait till tomorrow,
+and you shall know all. He will be back about eleven o'clock. Please
+don't wait up for him--he will come straight to me."
+
+
+
+September 13th.--The scales have fallen from my eyes; the light is let
+in on me at last. My bewilderment is not to be uttered in words--I am
+like a man in a dream.
+
+Before I was out of my room in the morning, my mind was upset by the
+arrival of a telegram addressed to myself. It was the first thing of
+the kind I ever received; I trembled under the prevision of some new
+misfortune as I opened the envelope.
+
+Of all the people in the world, the person sending the telegram was
+sister Judith! Never before did this distracting relative confound me
+as she confounded me now. Here is her message: "You can't come back. An
+architect from Edinburgh asserts his resolution to repair the kirk and
+the manse. The man only waits for his lawful authority to begin. The
+money is ready--but who has found it? Mr. Architect is forbidden to
+tell. We live in awful times. How is Felicia?"
+
+Naturally concluding that Judith's mind must be deranged, I went
+downstairs to meet my son-in-law (for the first time since the events
+of yesterday) at the late breakfast which is customary in this house. He
+was waiting for me--but Felicia was not present. "She breakfasts in
+her room this morning," says Marmaduke; "and I am to give you the
+explanation which has already satisfied your daughter. Will you take
+it at great length, sir? or will you have it in one word?" There was
+something in his manner that I did not at all like--he seemed to be
+setting me at defiance. I said, stiffly, "Brevity is best; I will have
+it in one word."
+
+"Here it is then," he answered. "I am Barrymore."
+
+
+POSTSCRIPT ADDED BY FELICIA.
+
+If the last line extracted from my dear father's Diary does not contain
+explanation enough in itself, I add some sentences from Marmaduke's
+letter to me, sent from the theater last night. (N. B.--I leave out the
+expressions of endearment: they are my own private property.)
+
+... "Just remember how your father talked about theaters and actors,
+when I was at Cauldkirk, and how you listened in dutiful agreement with
+him. Would he have consented to your marriage if he had known that I was
+one of the 'spouting rogues,' associated with the 'painted Jezebels'
+of the playhouse? He would never have consented--and you yourself, my
+darling, would have trembled at the bare idea of marrying an actor.
+
+"Have I been guilty of any serious deception? and have my friends been
+guilty in helping to keep my secret? My birth, my name, my surviving
+relatives, my fortune inherited from my father--all these important
+particulars have been truly stated. The name of Barrymore is nothing but
+the name that I assumed when I went on the stage.
+
+"As to what has happened, since our return from Switzerland, I own
+that I ought to have made my confession to you. Forgive me if I weakly
+hesitated. I was so fond of you; and I so distrusted the Puritanical
+convictions which your education had rooted in your mind, that I put it
+off from day to day. Oh, my angel....!
+
+"Yes, I kept the address of my new house a secret from all my friends,
+knowing they would betray me if they paid us visits. As for my
+mysteriously-closed study, it was the place in which I privately
+rehearsed my new part. When I left you in the mornings, it was to go
+to the theater rehearsals. My evening absences began of course with the
+first performance.
+
+"Your father's arrival seriously embarrassed me. When you (most
+properly) insisted on my giving up some of my evenings to him, you
+necessarily made it impossible for me to appear on the stage. The one
+excuse I could make to the theater was, that I was too ill to act. It
+did certainly occur to me to cut the Gordian knot by owning the truth.
+But your father's horror, when you spoke of the newspaper review of the
+play, and the shame and fear you showed at your own boldness, daunted me
+once more.
+
+"The arrival at the theater of my written excuse brought the manageress
+down upon me, in a state of distraction. Nobody could supply my place;
+all the seats were taken; and the Prince was expected. There was what
+we call a scene between the poor lady and myself. I felt I was in the
+wrong; I saw that the position in which I had impulsively placed myself
+was unworthy of me--and it ended in my doing my duty to the theater and
+the public. But for the affair of the bracelet, which obliged me as an
+honorable man to give my name and address, the manageress would not have
+discovered me. She, like every one else, only knew of my address at
+my bachelor chambers. How could you be jealous of the old theatrical
+comrade of my first days on the stage? Don't you know yet that you are
+the one woman in the world....?
+
+"A last word relating to your father, and I have done.
+
+"Do you remember my leaving you at the telegraph office? It was to send
+a message to a friend of mine, an architect in Edinburgh, instructing
+him to go immediately to Cauldkirk, and provide for the repairs at my
+expense. The theater, my dear, more than trebles my paternal income,
+and I can well afford it. Will your father refuse to accept a tribute
+of respect to a Scottish minister, because it is paid out of an actor's
+pocket? You shall ask him the question.
+
+"And, I say, Felicia--will you come and see me act? I don't expect your
+father to enter a theater; but, by way of further reconciling him to his
+son-in-law, suppose you ask him to hear me read the play?"
+
+
+
+
+MR. PERCY AND THE PROPHET.
+
+PART 1.--THE PREDICTION.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE QUACK.
+
+THE disasters that follow the hateful offense against Christianity,
+which men call war, were severely felt in England during the peace that
+ensued on the overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo. With rare exceptions,
+distress prevailed among all classes of the community. The starving
+nation was ripe and ready for a revolutionary rising against its rulers,
+who had shed the people's blood and wasted the people's substance in
+a war which had yielded to the popular interests absolutely nothing in
+return.
+
+Among the unfortunate persons who were driven, during the disastrous
+early years of this century, to strange shifts and devices to obtain
+the means of living, was a certain obscure medical man, of French
+extraction, named Lagarde. The Doctor (duly qualified to bear the title)
+was an inhabitant of London; living in one of the narrow streets which
+connect the great thoroughfare of the Strand with the bank of the
+Thames.
+
+The method of obtaining employment chosen by poor Lagarde, as the one
+alternative left in the face of starvation, was, and is still considered
+by the medical profession to be, the method of a quack. He advertised in
+the public journals.
+
+Addressing himself especially to two classes of the community, the
+Doctor proceeded in these words:
+
+"I have the honor of inviting to my house, in the first place: Persons
+afflicted with maladies which ordinary medical practice has failed to
+cure--and, in the second place: Persons interested in investigations,
+the object of which is to penetrate the secrets of the future. Of the
+means by which I endeavor to alleviate suffering and to enlighten
+doubt, it is impossible to speak intelligibly within the limits of an
+advertisement. I can only offer to submit my system to public inquiry,
+without exacting any preliminary fee from ladies and gentlemen who may
+honor me with a visit. Those who see sufficient reason to trust
+me, after personal experience, will find a money-box fixed on the
+waiting-room table, into which they can drop their offerings according
+to their means. Those whom I am not fortunate enough to satisfy will be
+pleased to accept the expression of my regret, and will not be expected
+to give anything. I shall be found at home every evening between the
+hours of six and ten."
+
+Toward the close of the year 1816 this strange advertisement became a
+general topic of conversation among educated people in London. For some
+weeks the Doctor's invitations were generally accepted--and, all things
+considered, were not badly remunerated. A faithful few believed in him,
+and told wonderful stories of what he had pronounced and prophesied
+in the sanctuary of his consulting-room. The majority of his visitors
+simply viewed him in the light of a public amusement, and wondered
+why such a gentlemanlike man should have chosen to gain his living by
+exhibiting himself as a quack.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE NUMBERS.
+
+ON a raw and snowy evening toward the latter part of January, 1817, a
+gentleman, walking along the Strand, turned into the street in which
+Doctor Lagarde lived, and knocked at the physician's door.
+
+He was admitted by an elderly male servant to a waiting-room on the
+first floor. The light of one little lamp, placed on a bracket fixed to
+the wall, was so obscured by a dark green shade as to make it difficult,
+if not impossible, for visitors meeting by accident to recognize each
+other. The metal money-box fixed to the table was just visible. In the
+flickering light of a small fire, the stranger perceived the figures of
+three men seated, apart and silent, who were the only occupants of the
+room beside himself.
+
+So far as objects were to be seen, there was nothing to attract
+attention in the waiting-room. The furniture was plain and neat, and
+nothing more. The elderly servant handed a card, with a number inscribed
+on it, to the new visitor, said in a whisper, "Your number will be
+called, sir, in your turn," and disappeared. For some minutes nothing
+disturbed the deep silence but the faint ticking of a clock. After a
+while a bell rang from an inner room, a door opened, and a gentleman
+appeared, whose interview with Doctor Lagarde had terminated.
+His opinion of the sitting was openly expressed in one emphatic
+word--"Humbug!" No contribution dropped from his hand as he passed the
+money-box on his way out.
+
+The next number (being Number Fifteen) was called by the elderly
+servant, and the first incident occurred in the strange series of events
+destined to happen in the Doctor's house that night.
+
+One after another the three men who had been waiting rose, examined
+their cards under the light of the lamp, and sat down again surprised
+and disappointed.
+
+The servant advanced to investigate the matter. The numbers possessed
+by the three visitors, instead of being Fifteen, Sixteen and Seventeen,
+proved to be Sixteen, Seventeen and Eighteen. Turning to the stranger
+who had arrived the last, the servant said:
+
+"Have I made a mistake, sir? Have I given you Number Fifteen instead of
+Number Eighteen?"
+
+The gentleman produced his numbered card.
+
+A mistake had certainly been made, but not the mistake that the servant
+supposed. The card held by the latest visitor turned out to be the
+card previously held by the dissatisfied stranger who had just left
+the room--Number Fourteen! As to the card numbered Fifteen, it was only
+discovered the next morning lying in a corner, dropped on the floor!
+
+Acting on his first impulse, the servant hurried out, calling to the
+original holder of Fourteen to come back and bear his testimony to that
+fact. The street-door had been opened for him by the landlady of
+the house. She was a pretty woman--and the gentleman had fortunately
+lingered to talk to her. He was induced, at the intercession of the
+landlady, to ascend the stairs again.
+
+On returning to the waiting-room, he addressed a characteristic question
+to the assembled visitors. "_More_ humbug?" asked the gentleman who
+liked to talk to a pretty woman.
+
+The servant--completely puzzled by his own stupidity--attempted to make
+his apologies.
+
+"Pray forgive me, gentlemen," he said. "I am afraid I have confused the
+cards I distribute with the cards returned to me. I think I had better
+consult my master."
+
+Left by themselves, the visitors began to speak jestingly of the strange
+situation in which they were placed. The original holder of Number
+Fourteen described his experience of the Doctor in his own pithy way.
+"I applied to the fellow to tell my fortune. He first went to sleep over
+it, and then he said he could tell me nothing. I asked why. 'I don't
+know,' says he. '_ I_ do,' says I--'humbug!' I'll bet you the long odds,
+gentlemen, that _you_ find it humbug, too."
+
+Before the wager could be accepted or declined, the door of the inner
+room was opened again. The tall, spare, black figure of a new personage
+appeared on the threshold, relieved darkly against the light in the room
+behind him. He addressed the visitors in these words:
+
+"Gentlemen, I must beg your indulgence. The accident--as we now suppose
+it to be--which has given to the last comer the number already held by a
+gentleman who has unsuccessfully consulted me, may have a meaning which
+we can none of us at present see. If the three visitors who have been
+so good as to wait will allow the present holder of Number Fourteen
+to consult me out of his turn--and if the earlier visitor who left me
+dissatisfied with his consultation will consent to stay here a little
+longer--something may happen which will justify a trifling sacrifice of
+your own convenience. Is ten minutes' patience too much to ask of you?"
+
+The three visitors who had waited longest consulted among themselves,
+and (having nothing better to do with their time) decided on accepting
+the Doctor's proposal. The visitor who believed it all to be "humbug"
+coolly took a gold coin out of his pocket, tossed it into the air,
+caught it in his closed hand, and walked up to the shaded lamp on the
+bracket.
+
+"Heads, stay," he said, "Tails, go." He opened his hand, and looked at
+the coin. "Heads! Very good. Go on with your hocus-pocus, Doctor--I'll
+wait."
+
+"You believe in chance," said the Doctor, quietly observing him. "That
+is not my experience of life."
+
+He paused to let the stranger who now held Number Fourteen pass him into
+the inner room--then followed, closing the door behind him.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE CONSULTATION.
+
+THE consulting-room was better lighted than the waiting-room, and that
+was the only difference between the two. In the one, as in the other, no
+attempt was made to impress the imagination. Everywhere, the commonplace
+furniture of a London lodging-house was left without the slightest
+effort to alter or improve it by changes of any kind.
+
+Seen under the clearer light, Doctor Lagarde appeared to be the last
+person living who would consent to degrade himself by an attempt at
+imposture of any kind. His eyes were the dreamy eyes of a visionary; his
+look was the prematurely-aged look of a student, accustomed to give the
+hours to his book which ought to have been given to his bed. To state
+it briefly, he was a man who might easily be deceived by others, but who
+was incapable of consciously practicing deception himself.
+
+Signing to his visitor to be seated, he took a chair on the opposite
+side of the small table that stood between them--waited a moment with
+his face hidden in his hands, as if to collect himself--and then spoke.
+
+"Do you come to consult me on a case of illness?" he inquired, "or do
+you ask me to look to the darkness which hides your future life?"
+
+The answer to these questions was frankly and briefly expressed. "I have
+no need to consult you about my health. I come to hear what you can tell
+me of my future life."
+
+"I can try," pursued the Doctor; "but I cannot promise to succeed."
+
+"I accept your conditions," the stranger rejoined. "I never believe nor
+disbelieve. If you will excuse my speaking frankly, I mean to observe
+you closely, and to decide for myself."
+
+Doctor Lagarde smiled sadly.
+
+"You have heard of me as a charlatan who contrives to amuse a few idle
+people," he said. "I don't complain of that; my present position leads
+necessarily to misinterpretation of myself and my motives. Still, I may
+at least say that I am the victim of a sincere avowal of my belief in
+a great science. Yes! I repeat it, a great science! New, I dare say, to
+the generation we live in, though it was known and practiced in the days
+when pyramids were built. The age is advancing; and the truths which
+it is my misfortune to advocate, before the time is ripe for them, are
+steadily forcing their way to recognition. I am resigned to wait. My
+sincerity in this matter has cost me the income that I derived from my
+medical practice. Patients distrust me; doctors refuse to consult with
+me. I could starve if I had no one to think of but myself. But I have
+another person to consider, who is very dear to me; and I am driven,
+literally driven, either to turn beggar in the streets, or do what I am
+doing now."
+
+He paused, and looked round toward the corner of the room behind him.
+"Mother," he said gently, "are you ready?"
+
+An elderly lady, dressed in deep mourning, rose from her seat in the
+corner. She had been, thus far, hidden from notice by the high back of
+the easy-chair in which her son sat. Excepting some f olds of fine black
+lace, laid over her white hair so as to form a head-dress at once simple
+and picturesque, there was nothing remarkable in her attire. The visitor
+rose and bowed. She gravely returned his salute, and moved so as to
+place herself opposite to her son.
+
+"May I ask what this lady is going to do?" said the stranger.
+
+"To be of any use to you," answered Doctor Lagarde, "I must be thrown
+into the magnetic trance. The person who has the strongest influence
+over me is the person who will do it to-night."
+
+He turned to his mother. "When you like," he said.
+
+Bending over him, she took both the Doctor's hands, and looked steadily
+into his eyes. No words passed between them; nothing more took place. In
+a minute or two, his head was resting against the back of the chair, and
+his eyelids had closed.
+
+"Are you sleeping?" asked Madame Lagarde.
+
+"I am sleeping," he answered.
+
+She laid his hands gently on the arms of the chair, and turned to
+address the visitor.
+
+"Let the sleep gain on him for a minute or two more," she said. "Then
+take one of his hands, and put to him what questions you please."
+
+"Does he hear us now, madam?"
+
+"You might fire off a pistol, sir, close to his ear, and he would not
+hear it. The vibration might disturb him; that is all. Until you or I
+touch him, and so establish the nervous sympathy, he is as lost to all
+sense of our presence here, as if he were dead."
+
+"Are you speaking of the thing called Animal Magnetism, madam?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"And you believe in it, of course?"
+
+"My son's belief, sir, is my belief in this thing as in other things.
+I have heard what he has been saying to you. It is for me that he
+sacrifices himself by holding these exhibitions; it is in my poor
+interests that his hardly-earned money is made. I am in infirm health;
+and, remonstrate as I may, my son persists in providing for me, not
+the bare comforts only, but even the luxuries of life. Whatever I may
+suffer, I have my compensation; I can still thank God for giving me
+the greatest happiness that a woman can enjoy, the possession of a good
+son."
+
+She smiled fondly as she looked at the sleeping man. "Draw your chair
+nearer to him," she resumed, "and take his hand. You may speak freely
+in making your inquiries. Nothing that happens in this room goes out of
+it."
+
+With those words she returned to her place, in the corner behind her
+son's chair.
+
+The visitor took Doctor Lagarde's hand. As they touched each other,
+he was conscious of a faintly-titillating sensation in his own hand--a
+sensation which oddly reminded him of bygone experiments with an
+electrical machine, in the days when he was a boy at school!
+
+"I wish to question you about my future life," he began. "How ought I to
+begin?"
+
+The Doctor spoke his first words in the monotonous tones of a man
+talking in his sleep.
+
+"Own your true motive before you begin," he said. "Your interest in your
+future life is centered in a woman. You wish to know if her heart will
+be yours in the time that is to come--and there your interest in your
+future life ends."
+
+This startling proof of the sleeper's capacity to look, by sympathy,
+into his mind, and to see there his most secret thoughts, instead of
+convincing the stranger, excited his suspicions. "You have means of
+getting information," he said, "that I don't understand."
+
+The Doctor smiled, as if the idea amused him.
+
+Madame Lagarde rose from her seat and interposed.
+
+"Hundreds of strangers come here to consult my son," she said quietly.
+"If you believe that we know who those strangers are, and that we have
+the means of inquiring into their private lives before they enter this
+room, you believe in something much more incredible than the magnetic
+sleep!"
+
+This was too manifestly true to be disputed. The visitor made his
+apologies.
+
+"I should like to have _some_ explanation," he added. "The thing is so
+very extraordinary. How can I prevail upon Doctor Lagarde to enlighten
+me?"
+
+"He can only tell you what he sees," Madame Lagarde answered; "ask
+him that, and you will get a direct reply. Say to him: 'Do you see the
+lady?'"
+
+The stranger repeated the question. The reply followed at once, in these
+words:
+
+"I see two figures standing side by side. One of them is your figure.
+The other is the figure of a lady. She only appears dimly. I can
+discover nothing but that she is taller than women generally are, and
+that she is dressed in pale blue."
+
+The man to whom he was speaking started at those last words. "Her
+favorite color!" he thought to himself--forgetting that, while he held
+the Doctor's hand, the Doctor could think with _his_ mind.
+
+"Yes," added the sleeper quietly, "her favorite color, as you know. She
+fades and fades as I look at her," he went on. "She is gone. I only see
+_you_, under a new aspect. You have a pistol in your hand. Opposite to
+you, there stands the figure of another man. He, too, has a pistol in
+his hand. Are you enemies? Are you meeting to fight a duel? Is the lady
+the cause? I try, but I fail to see her."
+
+"Can you describe the man?"
+
+"Not yet. So far, he is only a shadow in the form of a man."
+
+There was another interval. An appearance of disturbance showed itself
+on the sleeper's face. Suddenly, he waved his free hand in the direction
+of the waiting-room.
+
+"Send for the visitors who are there," he said. "They are all to come
+in. Each one of them is to take one of my hands in turn--while you
+remain where you are, holding the other hand. Don't let go of me, even
+for a moment. My mother will ring."
+
+Madame Lagarde touched a bell on the table. The servant received his
+orders from her and retired. After a short absence, he appeared again
+in the consulting-room, with one visitor only waiting on the threshold
+behind him.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE MAN.
+
+"The other three gentlemen have gone away, madam," the servant
+explained, addressing Madame Lagarde. "They were tired of waiting. I
+found _this_ gentleman fast asleep; and I am afraid he is angry with me
+for taking the liberty of waking him."
+
+"Sleep of the common sort is evidently not allowed in this house." With
+that remark the gentleman entered the room, and stood revealed as the
+original owner of the card numbered Fourteen.
+
+Viewed by the clear lamplight, he was a tall, finely-made man, in
+the prime of life, with a florid complexion, golden-brown hair, and
+sparkling blue eyes. Noticing Madame Lagarde, he instantly checked the
+flow of his satire, with the instinctive good-breeding of a gentleman.
+"I beg your pardon," he said; "I have a great many faults, and a habit
+of making bad jokes is one of them. Is the servant right, madam, in
+telling me that I have the honor of presenting myself here at your
+request?"
+
+Madame Lagarde briefly explained what had passed.
+
+The florid gentleman (still privately believing it to be all "humbug")
+was delighted to make himself of any use. "I congratulate you, sir,"
+he said, with his easy humor, as he passed the visitor who had become
+possessed of his card. "Number Fourteen seems to be a luckier number in
+your keeping than it was in mine."
+
+As he spoke, he took Doctor Lagarde's disengaged hand. The instant
+they touched each other the sleeper started. His voice rose; his face
+flushed. "You are the man!" he exclaimed. "I see you plainly now!"
+
+"What am I doing?"
+
+"You are standing opposite to the gentleman here who is holding my other
+hand; and (as I have said already) you have met to fight a duel."
+
+The unbeliever cast a shrewd look at his companion in the consultation.
+
+"Considering that you and I are total strangers, sir," he said, "don't
+you think the Doctor had better introduce us, before he goes any
+further? We have got to fighting a duel already, and we may as well know
+who we are, before the pistols go off." He turned to Doctor Lagarde.
+"Dramatic situations don't amuse me out of the theater," he resumed.
+"Let me put you to a very commonplace test. I want to be introduced to
+this gentleman. Has he told you his name?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Of course, you know it, without being told?"
+
+"Certainly. I have only to look into your own knowledge of yourselves,
+while I am in this trance, and while you have got my hands, to know both
+your names as well as you do."
+
+"Introduce us, then!" retorted the jesting gentleman. "And take my name
+first."
+
+"Mr. Percy Linwood," replied the Doctor; "I have the honor of presenting
+you to Captain Bervie, of the Artillery."
+
+With one accord, the gentlemen both dropped Doctor Lagarde's hands, and
+looked at each other in blank amazement.
+
+"Of course he has discovered our names somehow!" said Mr. Percy Linwood,
+explaining the mystery to his own perfect satisfaction in that way.
+
+Captain Bervie had not forgotten what Madame Lagarde had said to
+him, when he too had suspected a trick. He now repeated it (quite
+ineffectually) for Mr. Linwood's benefit. "If you don't feel the force
+of that argument as I feel it," he added, "perhaps, as a favor to me,
+sir, you will not object to our each taking the Doctor's hand again,
+and hearing what more he can tell us while he remains in the state of
+trance?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure!" answered good-humored Mr. Linwood. "Our
+friend is beginning to amuse me; I am as anxious as you are to know what
+he is going to see next."
+
+Captain Bervie put the next question.
+
+"You have seen us ready to fight a duel--can you tell us the result?"
+
+"I can tell you nothing more than I have told you already. The figures
+of the duelists have faded away, like the other figures I saw before
+them. What I see now looks like the winding gravel-path of a garden. A
+man and a woman are walking toward me. The man stops, and places a ring
+on the woman's finger, and kisses her."
+
+Captain Bervie opened his lips to continue his inquiries--turned
+pale--and checked himself. Mr. Linwood put the next question.
+
+"Who is the happy man?" he asked.
+
+"_You_ are the happy man," was the instantaneous reply.
+
+"Who is the woman?" cried Captain Bervie, before Mr. Linwood could speak
+again.
+
+"The same woman whom I saw before; dressed in the same color, in pale
+blue."
+
+Captain Bervie positively insisted on receiving clearer information than
+this. "Surely you can see _something_ of her personal appearance?" he
+said.
+
+"I can see that she has long dark-brown hair, falling below her waist.
+I can see that she has lovely dark-brown eyes. She has the look of a
+sensitive nervous person. She is quite young. I can see no more."
+
+"Look again at the man who is putting the ring on her finger," said the
+Captain. "Are you sure that the face you see is the face of Mr. Percy
+Linwood?"
+
+"I am absolutely sure."
+
+Captain Bervie rose from his chair.
+
+"Thank you, madam," he said to the Doctor's mother. "I have heard
+enough."
+
+He walked to the door. Mr. Percy Linwood dropped Doctor Lagarde's hand,
+and appealed to the retiring Captain with a broad stare of astonishment.
+
+"You don't really believe this?" he said.
+
+"I only say I have heard enough," Captain Bervie answered.
+
+Mr. Linwood could hardly fail to see that any further attempt to treat
+the matter lightly might lead to undesirable results.
+
+"It is difficult to speak seriously of this kind of exhibition," he
+resumed quietly. "But I suppose I may mention a mere matter of fact,
+without meaning or giving offense. The description of the lady, I can
+positively declare, does not apply in any single particular to any one
+whom I know."
+
+Captain Bervie turned round at the door. His patience was in some danger
+of failing him. Mr. Linwood's unruffled composure, assisted in its
+influence by the presence of Madame Lagarde, reminded him of the claims
+of politeness. He restrained the rash words as they rose to his lips.
+"You may make new acquaintances, sir," was all that he said. "_You_ have
+the future before you."
+
+Upon that, he went out. Percy Linwood waited a little, reflecting on the
+Captain's conduct.
+
+Had Doctor Lagarde's description of the lady accidentally answered the
+description of a living lady whom Captain Bervie knew? Was he by any
+chance in love with her? and had the Doctor innocently reminded him that
+his love was not returned? Assuming this to be likely, was it really
+possible that he believed in prophetic revelations offered to him under
+the fantastic influence of a trance? Could any man in the possession
+of his senses go to those lengths? The Captain's conduct was simply
+incomprehensible.
+
+Pondering these questions, Percy decided on returning to his place by
+the Doctor's chair. "Of one thing I am certain, at any rate," he thought
+to himself. "I'll see the whole imposture out before I leave the house!"
+
+He took Doctor Lagarde's hand. "Now, then! what is the next discovery?"
+he asked.
+
+The sleeper seemed to find some difficulty in answering the question.
+
+"I indistinctly see the man and the woman again," he said.
+
+"Am I the man still?" Percy inquired.
+
+"No. The man, this time, is the Captain. The woman is agitated by
+something that he is saying to her. He seems to be trying to persuade
+her to go away with him. She hesitates. He whispers something in her
+ear. She yields. He leads her away. The darkness gathers behind them. I
+look and look, and I can see no more."
+
+"Shall we wait awhile?" Percy suggested, "and then try again?"
+
+Doctor Lagarde sighed, and reclined in his chair. "My head is heavy," he
+said; "my spirits are dull. The darkness baffles me. I have toiled long
+enough for you. Drop my hand and leave me to rest."
+
+Hearing those words, Madame Lagarde approached her son's chair.
+
+"It will be useless, sir, to ask him any more questions to-night," she
+said. "He has been weak and nervous all day, and he is worn out by the
+effort he has made. Pardon me, if I ask you to step aside for a moment,
+while I give him the repose that he needs."
+
+She laid her right hand gently on the Doctor's head, and kept it there
+for a minute or so. "Are you at rest now?" she asked.
+
+"I am at rest," he answered, in faint, drowsy tones.
+
+Madame Lagarde returned to Percy. "If you are not yet satisfied," she
+said, "my son will be at your service to-morrow evening, sir."
+
+"Thank you, madam, I have only one more question to ask, and you can no
+doubt answer it. When your son wakes, will he remember what he has said
+to Captain Bervie and to myself?"
+
+"My son will be as absolutely ignorant of everything that he has seen,
+and of everything that he has said in the trance, as if he had been at
+the other end of the world."
+
+Percy Linwood swallowed this last outrageous assertion with an effort
+which he was quite unable to conceal. "Many thanks, madam," he said; "I
+wish you good-night."
+
+Returning to the waiting-room, he noticed the money-box fixed to the
+table. "These people look poor," he thought to himself, "and I feel
+really indebted to them for an amusing evening. Besides, I can afford
+to be liberal, for I shall certainly never go back." He dropped a
+five-pound note into the money-box, and left the house.
+
+Walking toward his club, Percy's natural serenity of mind was a little
+troubled by the remembrance of Captain Bervie's language and conduct.
+The Captain had interested the young man in spite of himself. His
+first idea was to write to Bervie, and mention what had happened at the
+renewed consultation with Doctor Lagarde. On second thoughts, he saw
+reason to doubt how the Captain might receive such an advance as this,
+on the part of a stranger. "After all," Percy decided, "the whole thing
+is too absurd to be worth thinking about seriously. Neither he nor I are
+likely to meet again, or to see the Doctor again--and there's an end of
+it."
+
+He never was more mistaken in his life. The end of it was not to come
+for many a long day yet.
+
+
+PART II.--THE FULFILLMENT.
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE BALLROOM.
+
+WHILE the consultation at Doctor Lagarde's was still fresh in the memory
+of the persons present at it, Chance or Destiny, occupied in sowing
+the seeds for the harvest of the future, discovered as one of its fit
+instruments a retired military officer named Major Mulvany.
+
+The Major was a smart little man, who persisted in setting up the
+appearance of youth as a means of hiding the reality of fifty. Being
+still a bachelor, and being always ready to make himself agreeable, he
+was generally popular in the society of women. In the ballroom he was a
+really welcome addition to the company. The German waltz had then been
+imported into England little more than three years since. The outcry
+raised against the dance, by persons ski lled in the discovery of latent
+impropriety, had not yet lost its influence in certain quarters. Men who
+could waltz were scarce. The Major had successfully grappled with the
+difficulties of learning the dance in mature life; and the young ladies
+rewarded him nobly for the effort. That is to say, they took the
+assumption of youth for granted in the palpable presence of fifty.
+
+Knowing everybody and being welcome everywhere, playing a good hand at
+whist, and having an inexhaustible fancy in the invention of a dinner,
+Major Mulvany naturally belonged to all the best clubs of his time.
+Percy Linwood and he constantly met in the billiard-room or at
+the dinner-table. The Major approved of the easy, handsome,
+pleasant-tempered young man. "I have lost the first freshness of youth,"
+he used to say, with pathetic resignation, "and I see myself revived, as
+it were, in Percy. Naturally I like Percy."
+
+About three weeks after the memorable evening at Doctor Lagarde's, the
+two friends encountered each other on the steps of a club.
+
+"Have you got anything to do to-night?" asked the Major.
+
+"Nothing that I know of," said Percy, "unless I go to the theater."
+
+"Let the theater wait, my boy. My old regiment gives a ball at Woolwich
+to-night. I have got a ticket to spare; and I know several sweet girls
+who are going. Some of them waltz, Percy! Gather your rosebuds while you
+may. Come with me."
+
+The invitation was accepted as readily as it was given. The Major found
+the carriage, and Percy paid for the post-horses. They entered the
+ballroom among the earlier guests; and the first person whom they met,
+waiting near the door, was--Captain Bervie.
+
+Percy bowed a little uneasily. "I feel some doubt," he said, laughing,
+"whether we have been properly introduced to one another or not."
+
+"Not properly introduced!" cried Major Mulvany. "I'll soon set that
+right. My dear friend, Percy Linwood; my dear friend, Arthur Bervie--be
+known to each other! esteem each other!"
+
+Captain Bervie acknowledged the introduction by a cold salute. Percy,
+yielding to the good-natured impulse of the moment, alluded to what had
+happened in Doctor Lagarde's consulting-room.
+
+"You missed something worth hearing when you left the Doctor the other
+night," he said. "We continued the sitting; and _you_ turned up again
+among the persons of the drama, in a new character--"
+
+"Excuse me for interrupting you," said Captain Bervie. "I am a member
+of the committee, charged with the arrangements of the ball, and I must
+really attend to my duties."
+
+He withdrew without waiting for a reply. Percy looked round wonderingly
+at Major Mulvany. "Strange!" he said, "I feel rather attracted toward
+Captain Bervie; and he seems to have taken such a dislike to me that he
+can hardly behave with common civility. What does it mean?"
+
+"I'll tell you," answered the Major, confidentially. "Arthur Bervie is
+madly in love--madly is really the word--with a Miss Bowmore. And (this
+is between ourselves) the young lady doesn't feel it quite in the same
+way. A sweet girl; I've often had her on my knee when she was a child.
+Her father and mother are old friends of mine. She is coming to the ball
+to-night. That's the true reason why Arthur left you just now. Look at
+him--waiting to be the first to speak to her. If he could have his way,
+he wouldn't let another man come near the poor girl all through the
+evening; he really persecutes her. I'll introduce you to Miss Bowmore;
+and you will see how he looks at us for presuming to approach her. It's
+a great pity; she will never marry him. Arthur Bervie is a man in a
+thousand; but he's fast becoming a perfect bear under the strain on his
+temper. What's the matter? You don't seem to be listening to me."
+
+This last remark was perfectly justified. In telling the Captain's
+love-story, Major Mulvany had revived his young friend's memory of the
+lady in the blue dress, who had haunted the visions of Doctor Lagarde.
+
+"Tell me," said Percy, "what is Miss Bowmore like? Is there anything
+remarkable in her personal appearance? I have a reason for asking."
+
+As he spoke, there arose among the guests in the rapidly-filling
+ballroom a low murmur of surprise and admiration. The Major laid one
+hand on Percy's shoulder, and, lifting the other, pointed to the door.
+
+"What is Miss Bowmore like?" he repeated. "There she is! Let her answer
+for herself."
+
+Percy turned toward the lower end of the room.
+
+A young lady was entering, dressed in plain silk, and the color of
+it was a pale blue! Excepting a white rose at her breast, she wore no
+ornament of any sort. Doubly distinguished by the perfect simplicity of
+her apparel, and by her tall, supple, commanding figure, she took rank
+at once as the most remarkable woman in the room. Moving nearer to her
+through the crowd, under the guidance of the complaisant Major, young
+Linwood gained a clearer view of her hair, her complexion, and the color
+of her eyes. In every one of these particulars she was the living image
+of the woman described by Doctor Lagarde!
+
+While Percy was absorbed over this strange discovery, Major Mulvany had
+got within speaking distance of the young lady and of her mother, as
+they stood together in conversation with Captain Bervie. "My dear
+Mrs. Bowmore, how well you are looking! My dear Miss Charlotte, what a
+sensation you have made already! The glorious simplicity (if I may so
+express myself) of your dress is--is--what was I going to say?--the
+ideas come thronging on me; I merely want words."
+
+Miss Bowmore's magnificent brown eyes, wandering from the Major to
+Percy, rested on the young man with a modest and momentary interest,
+which Captain Bervie's jealous attention instantly detected.
+
+"They are forming a dance," he said, pressing forward impatiently to
+claim his partner. "If we don't take our places we shall be too late."
+
+"Stop! stop!" cried the Major. "There is a time for everything, and this
+is the time for presenting my dear friend here, Mr. Percy Linwood. He
+is like me, Miss Charlotte--_he_ has been struck by your glorious
+simplicity, and _he_ wants words." At this part of the presentation, he
+happened to look toward the irate Captain, and instantly gave him a
+hint on the subject of his temper. "I say, Arthur Bervie! we are all
+good-humored people here. What have you got on your eyebrows? It looks
+like a frown; and it doesn't become you. Send for a skilled waiter, and
+have it brushed off and taken away directly!"
+
+"May I ask, Miss Bowmore, if you are disengaged for the next dance?"
+said Percy, the moment the Major gave him an opportunity of speaking.
+
+"Miss Bowmore is engaged to _me_ for the next dance," said the angry
+Captain, before the young lady could answer.
+
+"The third dance, then?" Percy persisted, with his brightest smile.
+
+"With pleasure, Mr. Linwood," said Miss Bowmore. She would have been
+no true woman if she had not resented the open exhibition of Arthur's
+jealousy; it was like asserting a right over her to which he had not
+the shadow of a claim. She threw a look at Percy as her partner led her
+away, which was the severest punishment she could inflict on the man who
+ardently loved her.
+
+The third dance stood in the programme as a waltz.
+
+In jealous distrust of Percy, the Captain took the conductor of the
+band aside, and used his authority as committeeman to substitute another
+dance. He had no sooner turned his back on the orchestra than the
+wife of the Colonel of the regiment, who had heard him, spoke to the
+conductor in her turn, and insisted on the original programme being
+retained. "Quote the Colonel's authority," said the lady, "if Captain
+Bervie ventures to object." In the meantime, the Captain, on his way to
+rejoin Charlotte, was met by one of his brother officers, who summoned
+him officially to an impending debate of the committee charged with the
+administrative arrangements of the supper-table. Bervie had no choice
+but to follow his brother officer to the committee-room.
+
+Barely a minute later the conductor appeared at his desk, and the first
+notes of the music rose low and plaintive, introducing the third dance.
+
+"Percy, my boy!" cried the Major, recognizing the melody, "you're in
+luck's way--it's going to be a waltz!"
+
+Almost as he spoke, the notes of the symphony glided by subtle
+modulations into the inspiriting air of the waltz. Percy claimed his
+partner's hand. Miss Charlotte hesitated, and looked at her mother.
+
+"Surely you waltz?" said Percy.
+
+"I have learned to waltz," she answered, modestly; "but this is such a
+large room, and there are so many people!"
+
+"Once round," Percy pleaded; "only once round!"
+
+Miss Bowmore looked again at her mother. Her foot was keeping time
+with the music, under her dress; her heart was beating with a delicious
+excitement; kind-hearted Mrs. Bowmore smiled and said: "Once round, my
+dear, as Mr. Linwood suggests."
+
+In another moment Percy's arm took possession of her waist, and they
+were away on the wings of the waltz!
+
+Could words describe, could thought realize, the exquisite enjoyment
+of the dance? Enjoyment? It was more--it was an epoch in Charlotte's
+life--it was the first time she had waltzed with a man. What a
+difference between the fervent clasp of Percy's arm and the cold, formal
+contact of the mistress who had taught her! How brightly his eyes looked
+down into hers; admiring her with such a tender restraint, that there
+could surely be no harm in looking up at him now and then in return.
+Round and round they glided, absorbed in the music and in themselves.
+Occasionally her bosom just touched him, at those critical moments when
+she was most in need of support. At other intervals, she almost let her
+head sink on his shoulder in trying to hide from him the smile which
+acknowledged his admiration too boldly. "Once round," Percy had
+suggested; "once round," her mother had said. They had been ten, twenty,
+thirty times round; they had never stopped to rest like other dancers;
+they had centered the eyes of the whole room on them--including the eyes
+of Captain Bervie--without knowing it; her delicately pale complexion
+had changed to rosy-red; the neat arrangement of her hair had become
+disturbed; her bosom was rising and falling faster and faster in the
+effort to breathe--before fatigue and heat overpowered her at last, and
+forced her to say to him faintly, "I'm very sorry--I can't dance any
+more!"
+
+Percy led her into the cooler atmosphere of the refreshment-room, and
+revived her with a glass of lemonade. Her arm still rested on his--she
+was just about to thank him for the care he had taken of her--when
+Captain Bervie entered the room.
+
+"Mrs. Bowmore wishes me to take you back to her," he said to Charlotte.
+Then, turning to Percy, he added: "Will you kindly wait here while I
+take Miss Bowmore to the ballroom? I have a word to say to you--I will
+return directly."
+
+The Captain spoke with perfect politeness--but his face betrayed him. It
+was pale with the sinister whiteness of suppressed rage.
+
+Percy sat down to cool and rest himself. With his experience of the
+ways of men, he felt no surprise at the marked contrast between Captain
+Bervie's face and Captain Bervie's manner. "He has seen us waltzing,
+and he is coming back to pick a quarrel with me." Such was the
+interpretation which Mr. Linwood's knowledge of the world placed
+on Captain Bervie's politeness. In a minute or two more the Captain
+returned to the refreshment-room, and satisfied Percy that his
+anticipations had not deceived him.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LOVE.
+
+FOUR days had passed since the night of the ball.
+
+Although it was no later in the year than the month of February, the
+sun was shining brightly, and the air was as soft as the air of a day in
+spring. Percy and Charlotte were walking together in the little garden
+at the back of Mr. Bowmore's cottage, near the town of Dartford, in
+Kent.
+
+"Mr. Linwood," said the young lady, "you were to have paid us your first
+visit the day after the ball. Why have you kept us waiting? Have you
+been too busy to remember your new friends?"
+
+"I have counted the hours since we parted, Miss Charlotte. If I had not
+been detained by business--"
+
+"I understand! For three days business has controlled you. On the fourth
+day, you have controlled business--and here you are? I don't believe one
+word of it, Mr. Linwood!"
+
+There was no answering such a declaration as this. Guiltily conscious
+that Charlotte was right in refusing to accept his well-worn excuse,
+Percy made an awkward attempt to change the topic of conversation.
+
+They happened, at the moment, to be standing near a small conservatory
+at the end of the garden. The glass door was closed, and the few plants
+and shrubs inside had a lonely, neglected look. "Does nobody ever
+visit this secluded place?" Percy asked, jocosely, "or does it hide
+discoveries in the rearing of plants which are forbidden mysteries to a
+stranger?"
+
+"Satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Linwood, by all means," Charlotte answered
+in the same tone. "Open the door, and I will follow you."
+
+Percy obeyed. In passing through the doorway, he encountered the bare
+hanging branches of some creeping plant, long since dead, and detached
+from its fastenings on the woodwork of the roof. He pushed aside the
+branches so that Charlotte could easily follow him in, without being
+aware that his own forced passage through them had a little deranged
+the folds of spotless white cambric which a well-dressed gentleman wore
+round his neck in those days. Charlotte seated herself, and directed
+Percy's attention to the desolate conservatory with a saucy smile.
+
+"The mystery which your lively imagination has associated with this
+place," she said, "means, being interpreted, that we are too poor to
+keep a gardener. Make the best of your disappointment, Mr. Linwood, and
+sit here by me. We are out of hearing and out of sight of mamma's other
+visitors. You have no excuse now for not telling me what has really kept
+you away from us."
+
+She fixed her eyes on him as she said those words. Before Percy could
+think of another excuse, her quick observation detected the disordered
+condition of his cravat, and discovered the upper edge of a black
+plaster attached to one side of his neck.
+
+"You have been hurt in the neck!" she said. "That is why you have kept
+away from us for the last three days!"
+
+"A mere trifle," he answered, in great confusion; "please don't notice
+it."
+
+Her eyes, still resting on his face, assumed an expression of suspicious
+inquiry, which Percy was entirely at a loss to understand. Suddenly, she
+started to her feet, as if a new idea had occurred to her. "Wait here,"
+she said, flushing with excitement, "till I come back: I insist on it!"
+
+Before Percy could ask for an explanation she had left the conservatory.
+
+In a minute or two, Miss Bowmore returned, with a newspaper in her hand.
+"Read that," she said, pointing to a paragraph distinguished by a line
+drawn round it in ink.
+
+The passage that she indicated contained an account of a duel which had
+recently taken place in the neighborhood of London. The names of the
+duelists were not mentioned. One was described as an officer, and the
+other as a civilian. They had quarreled at cards, and had fought
+with pistols. The civilian had had a narrow escape of his life. His
+antagonist's bullet had passed near enough to the side of his neck
+to tear the flesh, and had missed the vital parts, literally, by a
+hair's-breadth.
+
+Charlotte's eyes, riveted on Percy, detected a sudden change of color in
+his face the moment he looked at the newspaper. That was enough for her.
+"You _are_ the man!" she cried. "Oh, for shame, for shame! To risk your
+life for a paltry dispute about cards!"
+
+"I would risk it again," said Percy, "to hear you speak as if you set
+some value on it."
+
+She looked away from him without a word of reply. Her mind seemed to
+be busy again with its own thoughts. Did she meditate returning to the
+subject of the duel? Was she not satisfied with the discovery which she
+had just made?
+
+No such doubts as these troubled the mind of Percy Linwood. Intoxicated
+by the charm of her presence, emboldened by her innocent betrayal of
+the interest that she felt in him, he opened his whole heart to her
+as unreservedly as if they had known each other from the days of their
+childhood. There was but one excuse for him. Charlotte was his first
+love.
+
+"You don't know how completely you have become a part of my life, since
+we met at the ball," he went on. "That one delightful dance seemed, by
+some magic which I can't explain, to draw us together in a few minutes
+as if we had known each other for years. Oh, dear! I could make such a
+confession of what I felt--only I am afraid of offending you by speaking
+too soon. Women are so dreadfully difficult to understand. How is a man
+to know at what time it is considerate toward them to conceal his true
+feelings; and at what time it is equally considerate to express his true
+feelings? One doesn't know whether it is a matter of days or weeks or
+months--there ought to be a law to settle it. Dear Miss Charlotte, when
+a poor fellow loves you at first sight, as he has never loved any other
+woman, and when he is tormented by the fear that some other man may
+be preferred to him, can't you forgive him if he lets out the truth a
+little too soon?" He ventured, as he put that very downright question,
+to take her hand. "It really isn't my fault," he said, simply. "My heart
+is so full of you I can talk of nothing else."
+
+To Percy's delight, the first experimental pressure of his hand, far
+from being resented, was softly returned. Charlotte looked at him again,
+with a new resolution in her face.
+
+"I'll forgive you for talking nonsense, Mr. Linwood," she said; "and I
+will even permit you to come and see me again, on one condition--that
+you tell the whole truth about the duel. If you conceal the smallest
+circumstance, our acquaintance is at an end."
+
+"Haven't I owned everything already?" Percy inquired, in great
+perplexity. "Did I say No, when you told me I was the man?"
+
+"Could you say No, with that plaster on your neck?" was the ready
+rejoinder. "I am determined to know more than the newspaper tells me.
+Will you declare, on your word of honor, that Captain Bervie had nothing
+to do with the duel? Can you look me in the face, and say that the real
+cause of the quarrel was a disagreement at cards? When you were talking
+with me just before I left the ball, how did you answer a gentleman who
+asked you to make one at the whist-table? You said, 'I don't play at
+cards.' Ah! You thought I had forgotten that? Don't kiss my hand! Trust
+me with the whole truth, or say good-by forever."
+
+"Only tell me what you wish to know, Miss Charlotte," said Percy humbly.
+"If you will put the questions, I will give the answers--as well as I
+can."
+
+On this understanding, Percy's evidence was extracted from him as
+follows:
+
+"Was it Captain Bervie who quarreled with you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Was it about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He said I had committed an impropriety in waltzing with you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because your parents disapproved of your waltzing in a public
+ballroom."
+
+"That's not true! What did he say next?"
+
+"He said I had added tenfold to my offense, by waltzing with you in such
+a manner as to make you the subject of remark to the whole room."
+
+"Oh! did you let him say that?"
+
+"No; I contradicted him instantly. And I said, besides, 'It's an insult
+to Miss Bowmore, to suppose that she would permit any impropriety.'"
+
+"Quite right! And what did he say?"
+
+"Well, he lost his temper; I would rather not repeat what he said when
+he was mad with jealousy. There was nothing to be done with him but to
+give him his way."
+
+"Give him his way? Does that mean fight a duel with him?"
+
+"Don't be angry--it does."
+
+"And you kept my name out of it, by pretending to quarrel at the
+card-table?"
+
+"Yes. We managed it when the cardroom was emptying at supper-time, and
+nobody was present but Major Mulvany and another friend as witnesses."
+
+"And when did you fight the duel?"
+
+"The next morning."
+
+"You never thought of _me_, I suppose?"
+
+"Indeed, I did; I was very glad that you had no suspicion of what we
+were at."
+
+"Was that all?"
+
+"No; I had your flower with me, the flower you gave me out of your
+nosegay, at the ball."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter."
+
+"It does matter. What did you do with my flower?"
+
+"I gave it a sly kiss while they were measuring the ground; and (don't
+tell anybody!) I put it next to my heart to bring me luck."
+
+"Was that just before he shot at you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How did he shoot?"
+
+"He walked (as the seconds had arranged it) ten paces forward; and then
+he stopped, and lifted his pistol--"
+
+"Don't tell me any more! Oh, to think of my being the miserable cause of
+such horrors! I'll never dance again as long as I live. Did you think he
+had killed you, when the bullet wounded your poor neck?"
+
+"No; I hardly felt it at first."
+
+"Hardly felt it? How he talks! And when the wretch had done his best to
+kill you, and when it came to your turn, what did you do?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"What! You didn't walk your ten paces forward?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you never shot at him in return?"
+
+"No; I had no quarrel with him, poor fellow; I just stood where I was,
+and fired in the air--"
+
+Before he could stop her, Charlotte seized his hand, and kissed it with
+an hysterical fervor of admiration, which completely deprived him of his
+presence of mind.
+
+"Why shouldn't I kiss the hand of a hero?" she cried, with tears of
+enthusiasm sparkling in her eyes. "Nobody but a hero would have given
+that man his life; nobody but a hero would have pardoned him, while the
+blood was streaming from the wound that he had inflicted. I respect you,
+I admire you. Oh, don't think me bold! I can't control myself when I
+hear of anything noble and good. You will understand me better when we
+get to be old friends--won't you?"
+
+She spoke in low sweet tones of entreaty. Percy's arm stole softly round
+her.
+
+"Are we never to be nearer and dearer to each other than old friends?"
+he asked in a whisper. "I am not a hero--your goodness overrates me,
+dear Miss Charlotte. My one ambition is to be the happy man who is
+worthy enough to win _you_. At your own time! I wouldn't distress you,
+I wouldn't confuse you, I wouldn't for the whole world take advantage of
+the compliment which your sympathy has paid to me. If it offends you, I
+won't even ask if I may hope."
+
+She sighed as he said the last words; trembled a little, and silently
+looked at him.
+
+Percy read his answer in her eyes. Without meaning it on either side
+their heads drew nearer together; their cheeks, then their lips,
+touched. She started back from him, and rose to leave the conservatory.
+At the same moment, the sound of slowly-approaching footsteps became
+audible on the gravel walk of the garden. Charlotte hurried to the door.
+
+"My father!" she exclaimed, turning to Percy. "Come, and be introduced
+to him."
+
+Percy followed her into the garden.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+POLITICS.
+
+JUDGING by appearances, Mr. Bowmore looked like a man prematurely wasted
+and worn by the cares of a troubled life. His eyes presented the one
+feature in which his daughter resembled him. In shape and color
+they were exactly reproduced in Charlotte; the difference was in the
+expression. The father's look was habitually restless, eager, and
+suspicious. Not a trace was to be seen in it of the truthfulness and
+gentleness which made the charm of the daughter's expression. A man
+whose bitter experience of the world had soured his temper and shaken
+his faith in his fellow-creatures--such was Mr. Bowmore as he presented
+himself on the surface. He received Percy politely--but with a
+preoccupied air. Every now and then, his restless eyes wandered from the
+visitor to an open letter in his hand. Charlotte, observing him, pointed
+to the letter.
+
+"Have you any bad news there, papa?" she asked.
+
+"Dreadful news!" Mr. Bowmore answered. "Dreadful news, my child, to
+every Englishman who respects the liberties which his ancestors won. My
+correspondent is a man who is in the confidence of the Ministers," he
+continued, addressing Percy. "What do you think is the remedy that the
+Government proposes for the universal distress among the population,
+caused by an infamous and needless war? Despotism, Mr. Linwood;
+despotism in this free country is the remedy! In one week more, sir,
+Ministers will bring in a Bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act!"
+
+Before Percy could do justice in words to the impression produced on
+him, Charlotte innocently asked a question which shocked her father.
+
+"What is the Habeas Corpus Act, papa"'
+
+"Good God!" cried Mr. Bowmore, "is it possible that a child of mine has
+grown up to womanhood, in ignorance of the palladium of English liberty?
+Oh, Charlotte! Charlotte!"
+
+"I am very sorry, papa. If you will only tell me, I will never forget
+it."
+
+Mr. Bowmore reverently uncovered his head, saluting an invisible Habeas
+Corpus Act. He took his daughter by the hand, with a certain parental
+sternness: his voice trembled with emotion as he spoke his next words:
+
+"The Habeas Corpus Act, my child, forbids the imprisonment of an English
+subject, unless that imprisonment can be first justified by law. Not
+even the will of the reigning monarch can prevent us from appearing
+before the judges of the land, and summoning them to declare whether our
+committal to prison is legally just."
+
+He put on his hat again. "Never forget what I have told you, Charlotte!"
+he said solemnly. "I would not remove my hat, sir," he continuing,
+turning to Percy, "in the presence of the proudest autocrat that ever
+sat on a throne. I uncover, in homage to the grand law which asserts the
+sacredness of human liberty. When Parliament has sanctioned the infamous
+Bill now before it, English patriots may be imprisoned, may even be
+hanged, on warrants privately obtained by the paid spies and informers
+of the men who rule us. Perhaps I weary you, sir. You are a young man;
+the conduct of the Ministry may not interest you."
+
+"On the contrary," said Percy, "I have the strongest personal interest
+in the conduct of the Ministry."
+
+"How? in what way?" cried Mr. Bowmore eagerly.
+
+"My late father had a claim on government," Percy answered, "for money
+expended in foreign service. As his heir, I inherit the claim, which
+has been formally recognized by the present Ministers. My petition for
+a settlement will be presented by friends of mine who can advocate my
+interests in the House of Commons."
+
+Mr. Bowmore took Percy's hand, and shook it warmly.
+
+"In such a matter as this you cannot have too many friends to help you,"
+he said. "I myself have some influence, as representing opinion outside
+the House; and I am entirely at your service. Come tomorrow, and let us
+talk over the details of your claim at my humble dinner-table. To-day
+I must attend a meeting of the Branch-Hampden-Club, of which I am
+vice-president, and to which I am now about to communicate the alarming
+news which my letter contains. Excuse me for leaving you--and count on a
+hearty welcome when we see you to-morrow."
+
+The amiable patriot saluted his daughter with a smile, and disappeared.
+
+"I hope you like my father?" said Charlotte. "All our friends say
+he ought to be in Parliament. He has tried twice. The expenses were
+dreadful; and each time the other man defeated him. The agent says he
+would be certainly elected, if he tried again; but there is no money,
+and we mustn't think of it."
+
+A man of a suspicious turn of mind might have discovered, in those
+artless words, the secret of Mr. Bowmore's interest in the success of
+his young friend's claim on the Government. One British subject, with a
+sum of ready money at his command, may be an inestimably useful
+person to another British subject (without ready money) who cannot sit
+comfortably unless he sits in Parliament. But honest Percy Linwood was
+not a man of a suspicious turn of mind. He had just opened his lips
+to echo Charlotte's filial glorification of her father, when a
+shabbily-dressed man-servant met them with a message, for which they
+were both alike unprepared:
+
+"Captain Bervie has called, Miss, to say good-by, and my mistress
+requests your company in the parlor."
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE WARNING.
+
+HAVING delivered his little formula of words, the shabby servant cast a
+look of furtive curiosity at Percy and withdrew. Charlotte turned to her
+lover, with indignation sparkling in her eyes and flushing on her cheeks
+at the bare idea of seeing Captain Bervie again. "Does he think I will
+breathe the same air," she exclaimed, "with the man who attempted to
+take your life!"
+
+Percy gently remonstrated with her.
+
+"You are sadly mistaken," he said. "Captain Bervie stood to receive my
+fire as fairly as I stood to receive his. When I discharged my pistol
+in the air, he was the first man who ran up to me, and asked if I was
+seriously hurt. They told him my wound was a trifle; and he fell on his
+knees and thanked God for preserving my life from his guilty hand. 'I
+am no longer the rival who hates you,' he said. 'Give me time to try if
+change of scene will quiet my mind; and I will be _your_ brother, and
+_her_ brother.' Whatever his faults may be, Charlotte, Arthur Bervie has
+a great heart. Go in, I entreat you, and be friends with him as I am."
+
+Charlotte listened with downcast eyes and changing color. "You believe
+him?" she asked in low and trembling tones.
+
+"I believe him as I believe You," Percy answered.
+
+She secretly resented the comparison, and detested the Captain more
+heartily than ever. "I will go in and see him, if you wish it," she
+said. "But not by myself. I want you to come with me."
+
+"Why?" Percy asked.
+
+"I want to see what his face says, when you and he meet."
+
+"Do you still doubt him, Charlotte?"
+
+She made no reply. Percy had done his best to convince her, and had
+evidently failed.
+
+They went together into the cottage. Fixing her eyes steadily on the
+Captain's face, Charlotte saw it turn pale when Percy followed her into
+the parlor. The two men greeted one another cordially. Charlotte sat
+down by her mother, preserving her composure so far as appearances went.
+"I hear you have called to bid us good-by," she said to Bervie. "Is it
+to be a long absence?"
+
+"I have got two months' leave," the Captain answered, without looking at
+her while he spoke.
+
+"Are you going abroad?"
+
+"Yes. I think so."
+
+She turned away to her mother. Bervie seized the opportunity of speaking
+to Percy. "I have a word of advice for your private ear." At the same
+moment, Charlotte whispered to her mother: "Don't encourage him to
+prolong his visit."
+
+The Captain showed no intention to prolong his visit. To Charlotte's
+surprise, when he took leave of the ladies, Percy also rose to go. "His
+carriage," he said, "was waiting at the door; and he had offered to take
+Captain Bervie back to London."
+
+Charlotte instantly suspected an arrangement between the two men for a
+confidential interview. Her obstinate distrust of Bervie strengthened
+tenfold. She reluctantly gave him her hand, as he parted from her at the
+parlor-door. The effort of concealing her true feeling toward him gave a
+color and a vivacity to her face which made her irresistibly beautiful.
+Bervie looked at the woman whom he had lost with an immeasurable sadness
+in his eyes. "When we meet again," he said, "you will see me in a new
+character." He hurried out of the gate, as if he feared to trust himself
+for a moment longer in her presence.
+
+Charlotte followed Percy into the passage. "I shall be here to-morrow,
+dearest!" he said, and tried to raise her hand to his lips. She abruptly
+drew it away. "Not that hand!" she answered. "Captain Bervie has just
+touched it. Kiss the other!"
+
+"Do you still doubt the Captain?" said Percy, amused by her petulance.
+
+She put her arm over his shoulder, and touched the plaster on his neck
+gently with her finger. "There's one thing I don't doubt," she said:
+"the Captain did _that!_"
+
+Percy left her, laughing. At the front gate of the cottage he found
+Arthur Bervie in conversation with the same shabbily-dressed man-servant
+who had announced the Captain's visit to Charlotte.
+
+"What has become of the other servant?" Bervie asked. "I mean the old
+man who has been with Mr. Bowmore for so many years."
+
+"He has left his situation, sir."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"As I understand, sir, he spoke disrespectfully to the master."
+
+"Oh! And how came the master to hear of _you?_"
+
+"I advertised; and Mr. Bowmore answered my advertisement."
+
+Bervie looked hard at the man for a moment, and then joined Percy at the
+carriage door. The two gentlemen started for London.
+
+"What do you think of Mr. Bowmore's new servant?" asked the Captain as
+they drove away from the cottage. "I don't like the look of the fellow."
+
+"I didn't particularly notice him," Percy answered.
+
+There was a pause. When the conversation was resumed, it turned on
+common-place subjects. The Captain looked uneasily out of the carriage
+window. Percy looked uneasily at the Captain.
+
+They had left Dartford about two miles behind them, when Percy noticed
+an old gabled house, sheltered by magnificent trees, and standing on an
+eminence well removed from the high-road. Carriages and saddle-horses
+were visible on the drive in front, and a flag was hoisted on a staff
+placed in the middle of the lawn.
+
+"Something seems to be going on there," Percy remarked. "A fine old
+house! Who does it belong to?"
+
+Bervie smiled. "It belongs to my father," he said. "He is chairman of
+the bench of local magistrates, and he receives his brother justices
+to-day, to celebrate the opening of the sessions."
+
+He stopped and looked at Percy with some embarrassment. "I am afraid I
+have surprised and disappointed you," he resumed, abruptly changing the
+subject. "I told you when we met just now at Mr. Bowmore's cottage that
+I had something to say to you; and I have not yet said it. The truth is,
+I don't feel sure whether I have been long enough your friend to take
+the liberty of advising you."
+
+"Whatever your advice is," Percy answered, "trust me to take it kindly
+on my side."
+
+Thus encouraged, the Captain spoke out.
+
+"You will probably pass much of your time at the cottage," he began,
+"and you will be thrown a great deal into Mr. Bowmore's society. I have
+known him for many years. Speaking from that knowledge, I most seriously
+warn you against him as a thoroughly unprincipled and thoroughly
+dangerous man."
+
+This was strong language--and, naturally enough, Percy said so. The
+Captain justified his language.
+
+"Without alluding to Mr. Bowmore's politics," he went on, "I can tell
+you that the motive of everything he says and does is vanity. To the
+gratification of that one passion he would sacrifice you or me, his wife
+or his daughter, without hesitation and without remorse. His one desire
+is to get into Parliament. You are wealthy, and you can help him. He
+will leave no effort untried to reach that end; and, if he gets you into
+political difficulties, he will desert you without scruple."
+
+Percy made a last effort to take Mr. Bowmore's part--for the one
+irresistible reason that he was Charlotte's father.
+
+"Pray don't think I am unworthy of your kind interest in my welfare,"
+he pleaded. "Can you tell me of any _facts_ which justify what you have
+just said?"
+
+"I can tell you of three facts," Bervie said. "Mr. Bowmore belongs to
+one of the most revolutionary clubs in England; he has spoken in the
+ranks of sedition at public meetings; and his name is already in the
+black book at the Home Office. So much for the past. As to the future,
+if the rumor be true that Ministers mean to stop the insurrectionary
+risings among the population by suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, Mr.
+Bowmore will certainly be in danger; and it may be my father's duty to
+grant the warrant that apprehends him. Write to my father to verify what
+I have said, and I will forward your letter by way of satisfying him
+that he can trust you. In the meantime, refuse to accept Mr. Bowmore's
+assistance in the matter of your claim on Parliament; and, above all
+things, stop him at the outset, when he tries to steal his way into your
+intimacy. I need not caution you to say nothing against him to his wife
+and daughter. His wily tongue has long since deluded them. Don't let
+him delude _you!_ Have you thought any more of our evening at Doctor
+Lagarde's?" he asked, abruptly changing the subject.
+
+"I hardly know," said Percy, still under the impression of the
+formidable warning which he had just received.
+
+"Let me jog your memory," the other continued. "You went on with the
+consultation by yourself, after I had left the Doctor's house. It will
+be really doing me a favor if you can call to mind what Lagarde saw in
+the trance--in my absence?"
+
+Thus entreated Percy roused himself. His memory of events were still
+fresh enough to answer the call that his friend had made on it. In
+describing what had happened, he accurately repeated all that the Doctor
+had said.
+
+Bervie dwelt on the words with alarm in his face as well as surprise.
+
+"A man like me, trying to persuade a woman like--" he checked himself,
+as if he was afraid to let Charlotte's name pass his lips. "Trying to
+induce a woman to go away with me," he resumed, "and persuading her at
+last? Pray, go on! What did the Doctor see next?"
+
+"He was too much exhausted, he said, to see any more."
+
+"Surely you returned to consult him again?"
+
+"No; I had had enough of it."
+
+"When we get to London," said the Captain, "we shall pass along the
+Strand, on the way to your chambers. Will you kindly drop me at the
+turning that leads to the Doctor's lodgings?"
+
+Percy looked at him in amazement. "You still take it seriously?" he
+said.
+
+"Is it _not_ serious?" Bervie asked. "Have you and I, so far, not done
+exactly what this man saw us doing? Did we not meet, in the days when we
+were rivals (as he saw us meet), with the pistols in our hands? Did you
+not recognize his description of the lady when you met her at the ball,
+as I recognized it before you?"
+
+"Mere coincidences!" Percy answered, quoting Charlotte's opinion when
+they had spoken together of Doctor Lagarde, but taking care not to cite
+his authority. "How many thousand men have been crossed in love? How
+many thousand men have fought duels for love? How many thousand
+women choose blue for their favorite color, and answer to the vague
+description of the lady whom the Doctor pretended to see?"
+
+"Say that it is so," Bervie rejoined. "The thing is remarkable, even
+from your point of view. And if more coincidences follow, the result
+will be more remarkable still."
+
+Arrived at the Strand, Percy set the Captain down at the turning which
+led to the Doctor's lodgings. "You will call on me or write me word, if
+anything remarkable happens?" he said.
+
+"You shall hear from me without fail," Bervie replied.
+
+That night, the Captain's pen performed the Captain's promise, in few
+and startling words.
+
+"Melancholy news! Madame Lagarde is dead. Nothing is known of her son
+but that he has left England. I have found out that he is a political
+exile. If he has ventured back to France, it is barely possible that
+I may hear something of him. I have friends at the English embassy in
+Paris who will help me to make inquiries; and I start for the Continent
+in a day or two. Write to me while I am away, to the care of my father,
+at 'The Manor House, near Dartford.' He will always know my address
+abroad, and will forward your letters. For your own sake, remember the
+warning I gave you this afternoon! Your faithful friend, A. B."
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+OFFICIAL SECRETS
+
+THERE WAS a more serious reason than Bervie was aware of, at the time,
+for the warning which he had thought it his duty to address to Percy
+Linwood. The new footman who had entered Mr. Bowmore's service was a
+Spy.
+
+Well practiced in the infamous vocation that he followed, the wretch had
+been chosen by the Department of Secret Service at the Home Office, to
+watch the proceedings of Mr. Bowmore and his friends, and to report the
+result to his superiors. It may not be amiss to add that the employment
+of paid spies and informers, by the English Government of that time,
+was openly acknowledged in the House of Lords, and was defended as a
+necessary measure in the speeches of Lord Redesdale and Lord Liverpool.*
+
+The reports furnished by the Home Office Spy, under these circumstances,
+begin with the month of March, and take the form of a series of notes
+introduced as follows:
+
+"MR. SECRETARY--Since I entered Mr. Bowmore's service, I have the honor
+to inform you that my eyes and ears have been kept in a state of active
+observation; and I can further certify that my means of making myself
+useful in the future to my honorable employers are in no respect
+diminished. Not the slightest suspicion of my true character is felt by
+any person in the house.
+
+FIRST NOTE.
+
+"The young gentleman now on a visit to Mr. Bowmore is, as you have been
+correctly informed, Mr. Percy Linwood. Although he is engaged to be
+married to Miss Bowmore, he is not discreet enough to conceal a certain
+want of friendly feeling, on his part, toward her father. The young lady
+has noticed this, and has resented it. She accuses her lover of having
+allowed himself to be prejudiced against Mr. Bowmore by some slanderous
+person unknown.
+
+"Mr. Percy's clumsy defense of himself led (in my hearing) to a quarrel!
+Nothing but his prompt submission prevented the marriage engagement from
+being broken off.
+
+"'If you showed a want of confidence in Me' (I heard Miss Charlotte
+say), 'I might forgive it. But when you show a want of confidence in
+a man so noble as my father, I have no mercy on you.' After such an
+expression of filial sentiment as this, Mr. Percy wisely took the
+readiest way of appealing to the lady's indulgence. The young man has
+a demand on Parliament for moneys due to his father's estate; and he
+pleased and flattered Miss Charlotte by asking Mr. Bowmore to advise
+him as to the best means of asserting his claim. By way of advancing
+his political interests, Mr. Bowmore introduced him to the local Hampden
+Club; and Miss Charlotte rewarded him with a generosity which must not
+be passed over in silence. Her lover was permitted to put an engagement
+ring on her finger, and to kiss her afterward to his heart's content."
+
+SECOND NOTE.
+
+"Mr. Percy has paid more visits to the Republican Club; and Justice
+Bervie (father of the Captain) has heard of it, and has written to his
+son. The result that might have been expected has followed. Captain
+Bervie announces his return to England, to exert his influence for
+political good against the influence of Mr. Bowmore for political evil.
+
+"In the meanwhile, Mr. Percy's claim has been brought before the House
+of Commons, and has been adjourned for further consideration in six
+months' time. Both the gentlemen are indignant--especially Mr. Bowmore.
+He has called a meeting of the Club to consider his young friend's
+wrongs, and has proposed the election of Mr. Percy as a member of that
+revolutionary society."
+
+THIRD NOTE.
+
+"Mr. Percy has been elected. Captain Bervie has tried to awaken his
+mind to a sense of the danger that threatens him, if he persists in
+associating with his republican friends--and has utterly failed. Mr.
+Bowmore and Mr. Percy have made speeches at the Club, intended to force
+the latter gentleman's claim on the immediate attention of Government.
+Mr. Bowmore's flow of frothy eloquence has its influence (as you know
+from our shorthand writers' previous reports) on thousands of ignorant
+people. As it seems to me, the reasons for at once putting this man in
+prison are beyond dispute. Whether it is desirable to include Mr. Percy
+in the order of arrest, I must not venture to decide. Let me only hint
+that his seditious speech rivals the more elaborate efforts of Mr.
+Bowmore himself.
+
+"So much for the present. I may now respectfully direct your attention
+to the future.
+
+"On the second of April next the Club assembles a public meeting, 'in
+aid of British liberty,' in a field near Dartford. Mr. Bowmore is to
+preside, and is to be escorted afterward to Westminster Hall on his
+way to plead Mr. Percy's cause, in his own person, before the House
+of Commons. He is quite serious in declaring that 'the minions of
+Government dare not touch a hair of his head.' Miss Charlotte agrees
+with her father And Mr. Percy agrees with Miss Charlotte. Such is the
+state of affairs at the house in which I am acting the part of domestic
+servant.
+
+"I inclose shorthand reports of the speeches recently delivered at the
+Hampden Club, and have the honor of waiting for further orders."
+
+FOURTH NOTE.
+
+"Your commands have reached me by this morning's post.
+
+"I immediately waited on Justice Bervie (in plain clothes, of course),
+and gave him your official letter, instructing me to arrest Mr. Bowmore
+and Mr. Percy Linwood.
+
+"The venerable magistrate hesitated.
+
+"He quite understood the necessity for keeping the arrest a strict
+secret, in the interests of Government. The only reluctance he felt in
+granting the warrant related to his son's intimate friend. But for the
+peremptory tone of your letter, I really believe he would have asked
+you to give Mr. Percy time for consideration. Not being rash enough to
+proceed to such an extreme as this, he slyly consulted the young man's
+interests by declining, on formal grounds, to date the warrant earlier
+than the second of April. Please note that my visit to him was paid at
+noon, on the thirty-first of March.
+
+"If the object of this delay (to which I was obliged to submit) is
+to offer a chance of escape to Mr. Percy, the same chance necessarily
+includes Mr. Bowmore, whose name is also in the warrant. Trust me to
+keep a watchful eye on both these gentlemen; especially on Mr. Bowmore.
+He is the most dangerous man of the two, and the most likely, if he
+feels any suspicions, to slip through the fingers of the law.
+
+"I have also to report that I discovered three persons in the hall of
+Justice Bervie's house, as I went out.
+
+"One of them was his son, the Captain; one was his daughter, Miss
+Bervie; and the third was that smooth-tongued old soldier, Major
+Mulvany. If the escape of Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Linwood is in
+contemplation, mark my words: the persons whom I have just mentioned
+will be concerned in it--and perhaps Miss Charlotte herself as well. At
+present, she is entirely unsuspicious of any misfortune hanging over
+her head; her attention being absorbed in the preparation of her bridal
+finery. As an admirer myself of the fair sex, I must own that it seems
+hard on the girl to have her lover clapped into prison, before the
+wedding-day.
+
+"I will bring you word of the arrest myself. There will be plenty of
+time to catch the afternoon coach to London.
+
+"Here--unless something happens which it is impossible to foresee--my
+report may come to an end."
+
+     * Readers who may desire to test the author's authority for
+     this statement, are referred to "The Annual Register" for
+     1817, Chapters I. and III.; and, further on, to page 66 in
+     the same volume.
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE ELOPEMENT.
+
+ON the evening of the first of April, Mrs. Bowmore was left alone with
+the servants. Mr. Bowmore and Percy had gone out together to attend a
+special meeting of the Club. Shortly afterward Miss Charlotte had left
+the cottage, under very extraordinary circumstances.
+
+A few minutes only after the departure of her father and Percy,
+she received a letter, which appeared to cause her the most violent
+agitation. She said to Mrs. Bowmore:
+
+"Mamma, I must see Captain Bervie for a few minutes in private, on a
+matter of serious importance to all of us. He is waiting at the front
+gate, and he will come in if I show myself at the hall door."
+
+Upon this, Mrs. Bowmore had asked for an explanation.
+
+"There is no time for explanation," was the only answer she received; "I
+ask you to leave me for five minutes alone with the Captain."
+
+Mrs. Bowmore still hesitated. Charlotte snatched up her garden hat, and
+declared, wildly, that she would go out to Captain Bervie, if she was
+not permitted to receive him at home. In the face of this declaration,
+Mrs. Bowmore yielded, and left the room.
+
+In a minute more the Captain made his appearance.
+
+Although she had given way, Mrs. Bowmore was not disposed to trust her
+daughter, without supervision, in the society of a man whom Charlotte
+herself had reviled as a slanderer and a false friend. She took up her
+position in the veranda outside the parlor, at a safe distance from one
+of the two windows of the room which had been left partially open to
+admit the fresh air. Here she waited and listened.
+
+The conversation was for some time carried on in whispers.
+
+As they became more and more excited, both Charlotte and Bervie ended in
+unconsciously raising their voices.
+
+"I swear it to you on my faith as a Christian!" Mrs. Bowmore heard the
+Captain say. "I declare before God who hears me that I am speaking the
+truth!"
+
+And Charlotte had answered, with a burst of tears:
+
+"I can't believe you! I daren't believe you! Oh, how can you ask me to
+do such a thing? Let me go! let me go!"
+
+Alarmed at those words, Mrs. Bowmore advanced to the window and looked
+in.
+
+Bervie had put her daughter's arm on his arm, and was trying to induce
+her to leave the parlor with him. She resisted, and implored him to
+release her. He dropped her arm, and whispered in her ear. She looked at
+him--and instantly made up her mind.
+
+"Let me tell my mother where I am going," she said; "and I will
+consent."
+
+"Be it so!" he answered. "And remember one thing: every minute is
+precious; the fewest words are the best."
+
+Mrs. Bowmore re-entered the cottage by the adjoining room, and met them
+in the passage. In few words, Charlotte spoke.
+
+"I must go at once to Justice Bervie's house. Don't be afraid, mamma! I
+know what I am about, and I know I am right."
+
+"Going to Justice Bervie's!" cried Mrs. Bowmore, in the utmost extremity
+of astonishment. "What will your father say, what will Percy think, when
+they come back from the Club?"
+
+"My sister's carriage is waiting for me close by," Bervie answered. "It
+is entirely at Miss Bowmore's disposal. She can easily get back, if she
+wishes to keep her visit a secret, before Mr. Bowmore and Mr. Linwood
+return."
+
+He led her to the door as he spoke. She ran back and kissed her mother
+tenderly. Mrs. Bowmore called to them to wait.
+
+"I daren't let you go," she said to her daughter, "without your father's
+leave!"
+
+Charlotte seemed not to hear, the Captain seemed not to hear. They ran
+across the front garden, and through the gate--and were out of sight in
+less than a minute.
+
+More than two hours passed; the sun sank below the horizon, and still
+there were no signs of Charlotte's return.
+
+Feeling seriously uneasy, Mrs. Bowmore crossed the room to ring the
+bell, and send the man-servant to Justice Bervie's house to hasten her
+daughter's return.
+
+As she approached the fireplace, she was startled by a sound of stealthy
+footsteps in the hall, followed by a loud noise as of some heavy object
+that had dropped on the floor. She rang the bell violently, and opened
+the door of the parlor. At the same moment, the spy-footman passed her,
+running out, apparently in pursuit of somebody, at the top of his speed.
+She followed him, as rapidly as she could, across the little front
+garden, to the gate. Arrived in the road, she was in time to see him
+vault upon the luggage-board at the back of a post-chaise before the
+cottage, just as the postilion started the horses on their way to
+London. The spy saw Mrs. Bowmore looking at him, and pointed, with an
+insolent nod of his head, first to the inside of the vehicle, and then
+over it to the high-road; signing to her that he designed to accompany
+the person in the post-chaise to the end of the journey.
+
+Turning to go back, Mrs. Bowmore saw her own bewilderment reflected in
+the faces of the two female servants, who had followed her out.
+
+"Who can the footman be after, ma'am?" asked the cook. "Do you think
+it's a thief?"
+
+The housemaid pointed to the post-chaise, barely visible in the
+distance.
+
+"Simpleton!" she said. "Do thieves travel in that way? I wish my master
+had come back," she proceeded, speaking to herself: "I'm afraid there's
+something wrong."
+
+Mrs. Bowmore, returning through the garden-gate, instantly stopped and
+looked at the woman.
+
+"What makes you mention your master's name, Amelia, when you fear that
+something is wrong?" she asked.
+
+Amelia changed color, and looked confused.
+
+"I am loth to alarm you, ma'am," she said; "and I can't rightly see what
+it is my duty to do."
+
+Mrs. Bowmore's heart sank within her under the cruelest of all terrors,
+the terror of something unknown. "Don't keep me in suspense," she said
+faintly. "Whatever it is, let me know it."
+
+She led the way back to the parlor. The housemaid followed her. The cook
+(declining to be left alone) followed the housemaid.
+
+"It was something I heard early this afternoon, ma'am," Amelia began.
+"Cook happened to be busy--"
+
+The cook interposed: she had not forgiven the housemaid for calling
+her a simpleton. "No, Amelia, if you _must_ bring me into it--not busy.
+Uneasy in my mind on the subject of the soup."
+
+"I don't know that your mind makes much difference," Amelia resumed.
+"What it comes to is this--it was I, and not you, who went into the
+kitchen-garden for the vegetables."
+
+"Not by _my_ wish, Heaven knows!" persisted the cook.
+
+"Leave the room!" said Mrs. Bowmore. Even her patience had given way at
+last.
+
+The cook looked as if she declined to believe her own ears. Mrs. Bowmore
+pointed to the door. The cook said "Oh?"--accenting it as a question.
+Mrs. Bowmore's finger still pointed. The cook, in solemn silence,
+yielded to circumstances, and banged the door.
+
+"I was getting the vegetables, ma'am," Amelia proceeded, "when I heard
+voices on the other side of the paling. The wood is so old that one can
+see through the cracks easy enough. I saw my master, and Mr. Linwood,
+and Captain Bervie. The Captain seemed to have stopped the other two on
+the pathway that leads to the field; he stood, as it might be, between
+them and the back way to the house--and he spoke severely, that he did!"
+
+"What did Captain Bervie say?"
+
+"He said these words, ma'am: 'For the last time, Mr. Bowmore,' says he,
+'will you understand that you are in danger, and that Mr. Linwood is
+in danger, unless you both leave this neighborhood to-night?' My master
+made light of it. 'For the last time,' says he, 'will you refer us to
+a proof of what you say, and allow us to judge for ourselves?' 'I have
+told you already,' says the Captain, 'I am bound by my duty toward
+another person to keep what I know a secret.' 'Very well,' says my
+master, '_I_ am bound by my duty to my country. And I tell you this,'
+says he, in his high and mighty way, 'neither Government, nor the spies
+of Government, dare touch a hair of my head: they know it, sir, for the
+head of the people's friend!'"
+
+"That's quite true," said Mrs. Bowmore, still believing in her husband
+as firmly as ever.
+
+Amelia went on:
+
+"Captain Bervie didn't seem to think so," she said. "He lost his temper.
+'What stuff!' says he; 'there's a Government spy in your house at this
+moment, disguised as your footman.' My master looked at Mr. Linwood,
+and burst out laughing. 'You won't beat that, Captain,' says he, 'if you
+talk till doomsday.' He turned about without a word more, and went home.
+The Captain caught Mr. Linwood by the arm, as soon as they were alone.
+'For God's sake,' says he, 'don't follow that madman's example!'"
+
+Mrs. Bowmore was shocked. "Did he really call my husband a madman?" she
+asked.
+
+"He did, indeed, ma'am--and he was in earnest about it, too. 'If you
+value your liberty,' he says to Mr. Linwood; 'if you hope to become
+Charlotte's husband, consult your own safety. I can give you a passport.
+Escape to France and wait till this trouble is over.' Mr. Linwood was
+not in the best of tempers--Mr. Linwood shook him off. 'Charlotte's
+father will soon be my father,' says he, 'do you think I will desert
+him? My friends at the Club have taken up my claim; do you think I will
+forsake them at the meeting to-morrow? You ask me to be unworthy of
+Charlotte, and unworthy of my friends--you insult me, if you say more.'
+He whipped round on his heel, and followed my master."
+
+"And what did the Captain do?"
+
+"Lifted up his hands, ma'am, to the heavens, and looked--I declare it
+turned my blood to see him. If there's truth in mortal man, it's my firm
+belief--"
+
+What the housemaid's belief was, remained unexpressed. Before she could
+get to her next word, a shriek of horror from the hall announced that
+the cook's powers of interruption were not exhausted yet.
+
+Mistress and servant both hurried out in terror of they knew not what.
+There stood the cook, alone in the hall, confronting the stand on which
+the overcoats and hats of the men of the family were placed.
+
+"Where's the master's traveling coat?" cried the cook, staring wildly at
+an unoccupied peg. "And where's his cap to match! Oh Lord, he's off in
+the post-chaise! and the footman's after him!"
+
+Simpleton as she was, the woman had blundered on a very serious
+discovery.
+
+Coat and cap--both made after a foreign pattern, and both strikingly
+remarkable in form and color to English eyes--had unquestionably
+disappeared. It was equally certain that they were well known to the
+foot man, whom the Captain had declared to be a spy, as the coat and cap
+which his master used in traveling. Had Mr. Bowmore discovered (since
+the afternoon) that he was really in danger? Had the necessities of
+instant flight only allowed him time enough to snatch his coat and cap
+out of the hall? And had the treacherous manservant seen him as he was
+making his escape to the post-chaise? The cook's conclusions answered
+all these questions in the affirmative--and, if Captain Bervie's words
+of warning had been correctly reported, the cook's conclusion for once
+was not to be despised.
+
+Under this last trial of her fortitude, Mrs. Bowmore's feeble reserves
+of endurance completely gave way. The poor lady turned faint and giddy.
+Amelia placed her on a chair in the hall, and told the cook to open the
+front door, and let in the fresh air.
+
+The cook obeyed; and instantly broke out with a second terrific scream;
+announcing nothing less, this time, than the appearance of Mr. Bowmore
+himself, alive and hearty, returning with Percy from the meeting at the
+Club!
+
+The inevitable inquiries and explanations followed.
+
+Fully assured, as he had declared himself to be, of the sanctity of his
+person (politically speaking), Mr. Bowmore turned pale, nevertheless,
+when he looked at the unoccupied peg on his clothes stand. Had some
+man unknown personated him? And had a post-chaise been hired to lead an
+impending pursuit of him in the wrong direction? What did it mean? Who
+was the friend to whose services he was indebted? As for the proceedings
+of the man-servant, but one interpretation could now be placed on them.
+They distinctly justified what Captain Bervie had said of him. Mr.
+Bowmore thought of the Captain's other assertion, relating to the urgent
+necessity for making his escape; and looked at Percy in silent dismay;
+and turned paler than ever.
+
+Percy's thoughts, diverted for the moment only from the lady of his
+love, returned to her with renewed fidelity. "Let us hear what Charlotte
+thinks of it," he said. "Where is she?"
+
+It was impossible to answer this question plainly and in few words.
+
+Terrified at the effect which her attempt at explanation produced on
+Percy, helplessly ignorant when she was called upon to account for her
+daughter's absence, Mrs. Bowmore could only shed tears and express a
+devout trust in Providence. Her husband looked at the new misfortune
+from a political point of view. He sat down and slapped his forehead
+theatrically with the palm of his hand. "Thus far," said the patriot,
+"my political assailants have only struck at me through the newspapers.
+_Now_ they strike at me through my child!"
+
+Percy made no speeches. There was a look in his eyes which boded ill
+for Captain Bervie if the two met. "I am going to fetch her," was all he
+said, "as fast as a horse can carry me."
+
+He hired his horse at an inn in the town, and set forth for Justice
+Bervie's house at a gallop.
+
+During Percy's absence, Mr. Bowmore secured the front and back entrances
+to the cottage with his own hands.
+
+These first precautions taken, he ascended to his room and packed his
+traveling-bag. "Necessaries for my use in prison," he remarked. "The
+bloodhounds of Government are after me." "Are they after Percy, too?"
+his wife ventured to ask. Mr. Bowmore looked up impatiently, and
+cried "Pooh!"--as if Percy was of no consequence. Mrs. Bowmore thought
+otherwise: the good woman privately packed a bag for Percy, in the
+sanctuary of her own room.
+
+For an hour, and more than an hour, no event of any sort occurred.
+
+Mr. Bowmore stalked up and down the parlor, meditating. At intervals,
+ideas of flight presented themselves attractively to his mind. At
+intervals, ideas of the speech that he had prepared for the public
+meeting on the next day took their place. "If I fly to-night," he wisely
+observed, "what will become of my speech? I will _not_ fly to-night! The
+people shall hear me."
+
+He sat down and crossed his arms fiercely. As he looked at his wife
+to see what effect he had produced on her, the sound of heavy
+carriage-wheels and the trampling of horses penetrated to the parlor
+from the garden-gate.
+
+Mr. Bowmore started to his feet, with every appearance of having
+suddenly altered his mind on the question of flight. Just as he reached
+the hall, Percy's voice was heard at the front door. "Let me in.
+Instantly! Instantly!"
+
+Mrs. Bowmore drew back the bolts before the servants could help her.
+"Where is Charlotte?" she cried; seeing Percy alone on the doorstep.
+
+"Gone!" Percy answered furiously. "Eloped to Paris with Captain Bervie!
+Read her own confession. They were just sending the messenger with it,
+when I reached the house."
+
+He handed a note to Mrs. Bowmore, and turned aside to speak to her
+husband while she read it. Charlotte wrote to her mother very briefly;
+promising to explain everything on her return. In the meantime, she had
+left home under careful protection--she had a lady for her companion
+on the journey--and she would write again from Paris. So the letter,
+evidently written in great haste, began and ended.
+
+Percy took Mr. Bowmore to the window, and pointed to a carriage and four
+horses waiting at the garden-gate.
+
+"Do you come with me, and back me with your authority as her father?" he
+asked, sternly. "Or do you leave me to go alone?"
+
+Mr. Bowmore was famous among his admirers for his "happy replies." He
+made one now.
+
+"I am not Brutus," he said. "I am only Bowmore. My daughter before
+everything. Fetch my traveling-bag."
+
+While the travelers' bags were being placed in the chaise, Mr. Bowmore
+was struck by an idea.
+
+He produced from his coat-pocket a roll of many papers thickly covered
+with writing. On the blank leaf in which they were tied up, he wrote
+in the largest letters: "Frightful domestic calamity! Vice-President
+Bowmore obliged to leave England! Welfare of a beloved daughter! His
+speech will be read at the meeting by Secretary Joskin, of the Club.
+(Private to Joskin. Have these lines printed and posted everywhere. And,
+when you read my speech, for God's sake don't drop your voice at the
+ends of the sentences.)"
+
+He threw down the pen, and embraced Mrs. Bowmore in the most summary
+manner. The poor woman was ordered to send the roll of paper to the
+Club, without a word to comfort and sustain her from her husband's
+lips. Percy spoke to her hopefully and kindly, as he kissed her cheek at
+parting.
+
+On the next morning, a letter, addressed to Mrs. Bowmore, was delivered
+at the cottage by private messenger.
+
+Opening the letter, she recognized the handwriting of her husband's old
+friend, and her old friend--Major Mulvany. In breathless amazement, she
+read these lines:
+
+"DEAR MRS. BOWMORE--In matters of importance, the golden rule is never
+to waste words. I have performed one of the great actions of my life--I
+have saved your husband.
+
+"How I discovered that my friend was in danger, I must not tell you
+at present. Let it be enough if I say that I have been a guest under
+Justice Bervie's hospitable roof, and that I know of a Home Office spy
+who has taken you unawares, under pretense of being your footman. If
+I had not circumvented him, the scoundrel would have imprisoned your
+husband, and another dear friend of mine. This is how I did it.
+
+"I must begin by appealing to your memory.
+
+"Do you happen to remember that your husband and I are as near as may be
+of about the same height? Very good, so far. Did you, in the next place,
+miss Bowmore's traveling coat and cap from their customary peg? I am the
+thief, dearest lady; I put them on my own humble self. Did you hear a
+sudden noise in the hall? Oh, forgive me--I made the noise! And it
+did just what I wanted of it. It brought the spy up from the kitchen,
+suspecting that something might be wrong.
+
+"What did the wretch see when he got into the hall? His master, in
+traveling costume, running out. What did he find when he reached the
+garden? His master escaping, in a post-chaise, on the road to London.
+What did he do, the born blackguard that he was? Jumped up behind the
+chaise to make sure of his prisoner. It was dark when we got to London.
+In a hop, skip, and jump, I was out of the carriage, and in at my own
+door, before he could look me in the face.
+
+"The date of the warrant, you must know, obliged him to wait till the
+morning. All that night, he and the Bow Street runners kept watch They
+came in with the sunrise--and who did they find? Major Mulvany snug in
+his bed, and as innocent as the babe unborn. Oh, they did their duty!
+Searched the place from the kitchen to the garrets--and gave it up.
+There's but one thing I regret--I let the spy off without a good
+thrashing. No matter. I'll do it yet, one of these days.
+
+"Let me know the first good news of our darling fugitives, and I shall
+be more than rewarded for what little I have done.
+
+"Your always devoted,
+
+"TERENCE MULVANY."
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+PURSUIT AND DISCOVERY.
+
+FEELING himself hurried away on the road to Dover, as fast as four
+horses could carry him, Mr. Bowmore had leisure to criticise Percy's
+conduct, from his own purely selfish point of view.
+
+"If you had listened to my advice," he said, "you would have treated
+that man Bervie like the hypocrite and villain that he is. But no! you
+trusted to your own crude impressions. Having given him your hand
+after the duel (I would have given him the contents of my pistol!) you
+hesitated to withdraw it again, when that slanderer appealed to your
+friendship not to cast him off. Now you see the consequence!"
+
+"Wait till we get to Paris!" All the ingenuity of Percy's traveling
+companion failed to extract from him any other answer than that.
+
+Foiled so far, Mr. Bowmore began to start difficulties next. Had they
+money enough for the journey? Percy touched his pocket, and answered
+shortly, "Plenty." Had they passports? Percy sullenly showed a letter.
+"There is the necessary voucher from a magistrate," he said. "The consul
+at Dover will give us our passports. Mind this!" he added, in warning
+tones, "I have pledged my word of honor to Justice Bervie that we have
+no political object in view in traveling to France. Keep your politics
+to yourself, on the other side of the Channel."
+
+Mr. Bowmore listened in blank amazement. Charlotte's lover was appearing
+in a new character--the character of a man who had lost his respect for
+Charlotte's father!
+
+It was useless to talk to him. He deliberately checked any further
+attempts at conversation by leaning back in the carriage, and closing
+his eyes. The truth is, Mr. Bowmore's own language and conduct were
+insensibly producing the salutary impression on Percy's mind which
+Bervie had vainly tried to convey, under the disadvantage of having
+Charlotte's influence against him. Throughout the journey, Percy did
+exactly what Bervie had once entreated him to do--he kept Mr. Bowmore at
+a distance.
+
+At every stage, they inquired after the fugitives. At every stage, they
+were answered by a more or less intelligible description of Bervie and
+Charlotte, and of the lady who accompanied them. No disguise had been
+attempted; no person had in any case been bribed to conceal the truth.
+
+When the first tumult of his emotions had in some degree subsided, this
+strange circumstance associated itself in Percy's mind with the equally
+unaccountable conduct of Justice Bervie, on his arrival at the manor
+house.
+
+The old gentleman met his visitor in the hall, without expressing, and
+apparently without feeling, any indignation at his son's conduct. It was
+even useless to appeal to him for information. He only said, "I am
+not in Arthur's confidence; he is of age, and my daughter (who has
+volunteered to accompany him) is of age. I have no claim to control
+them. I believe they have taken Miss Bowmore to Paris; and that is all I
+know about it."
+
+He had shown the same dense insensibility in giving his official voucher
+for the passports. Percy had only to satisfy him on the question of
+politics; and the document was drawn out as a matter of course. Such had
+been the father's behavior; and the conduct of the son now exhibited the
+same shameless composure. To what conclusion did this discovery point?
+Percy abandoned the attempt to answer that question in despair.
+
+They reached Dover toward two o'clock in the morning.
+
+At the pier-head they found a coast-guardsman on duty, and received more
+information.
+
+In 1817 the communication with France was still by sailing-vessels.
+Arriving long after the departure of the regular packet, Bervie had
+hired a lugger, and had sailed with the two ladies for Calais, having a
+fresh breeze in his favor. Percy's first angry impulse was to follow him
+instantly. The next moment he remembered the insurmountable obstacle of
+the passports. The Consul would certainly not grant those essentially
+necessary documents at two in the morning!
+
+The only alternative was to wait for the regular packet, which sailed
+some hours later--between eight and nine o'clock in the forenoon. In
+this case, they might apply for their passports before the regular
+office hours, if they explained the circumstances, backed by the
+authority of the magistrate's letter.
+
+Mr. Bowmore followed Percy to the nearest inn that was open, sublimely
+indifferent to the delays and difficulties of the journey. He ordered
+refreshments with the air of a man who was performing a melancholy duty
+to himself, in the name of humanity.
+
+"When I think of my speech," he said, at supper, "my heart bleeds for
+the people. In a few hours more, they will assemble in their thousands,
+eager to hear me. And what will they see? Joskin in my place! Joskin
+with a manuscript in his hand! Joskin, who drops his voice at the ends
+of his sentences! I will never forgive Charlotte. Waiter, another glass
+of brandy and water."
+
+After an unusually quick passage across the Channel, the travelers
+landed on the French coast, before the defeated spy had returned from
+London to Dartford by stage-coach. Continuing their journey by post as
+far as Amiens, they reached that city in time to take their places by
+the diligence to Paris.
+
+Arrived in Paris, they encountered another incomprehensible proceeding
+on the part of Captain Bervie.
+
+Among the persons assembled in the yard to see the arrival of the
+diligence was a man with a morsel of paper in his hand, evidently on
+the lookout for some person whom he expected to discover among the
+travelers. After consulting his bit of paper, he looked with steady
+attention at Percy and Mr. Bowmore, and suddenly approached them. "If
+you wish to see the Captain," he said, in broken English, "you will find
+him at that hotel." He handed a printed card to Percy, and disappeared
+among the crowd before it was possible to question him.
+
+Even Mr. Bowmore gave way to human weakness, and condescended to
+feel astonished in the face of such an event as this. "What next?" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"Wait till we get to the hotel," said Percy.
+
+In half an hour more the landlord had received them, and the waiter had
+led them to the right door. Percy pushed the man aside, and burst into
+the room.
+
+Captain Bervie was alone, reading a newspaper. Before the first furious
+words had escaped Percy's lips, Bervie silenced him by pointing to a
+closed door on the right of the fireplace.
+
+"She is in that room," he said; "speak quietly, or you may frighten her.
+I know what you are going to say," he added, as Percy stepped nearer to
+him. "Will you hear me in my own defense, and then decide whether I am
+the greatest scoundrel living, or the best friend you ever had?"
+
+He put the question kindly, with something that was at once grave and
+tender in his look and manner. The extraordinary composure with which
+he acted and spoke had its tranquilizing influence over Percy. He felt
+himself surprised into giving Bervie a hearing.
+
+"I will tell you first what I have done," the Captain proceeded, "and
+next why I did it. I have taken it on myself, Mr. Linwood, to make an
+alteration in your wedding arrangements. Instead of being married at
+Dartford church, you will be married (if you see no objection) at the
+chapel of the embassy in Paris, by my old college friend the chaplain."
+
+This was too much for Percy's self-control. "Your audacity is beyond
+belief," he broke out.
+
+"And beyond endurance," Mr. Bowmore added. "Understand this, sir!
+Whatever your defense may be, I object, under any circumstances, to be
+made the victim of a trick."
+
+"You are the victim of your own obstinate refusal to profit by a plain
+warning," Bervie rejoined. "At the eleventh hour, I entreated you, and
+I entreated Mr. Linwood, to provide for your own safety; and I spoke in
+vain."
+
+Percy's patience gave way once more.
+
+"To use your own language," he said, "I have still to decide whether
+you have behaved toward me like a scoundrel or a friend. You have said
+nothing to justify yourself yet."
+
+"Very well put!" Mr. Bowmore chimed in. "Come to the point, sir! My
+daughter's reputation is in question."
+
+"Miss Bowmore's reputation is not in question for a single instant,"
+Bervie answered. "My sister has been the companion of her journey from
+first to last."
+
+"Journey?" Mr. Bowmore repeated, indignantly. "I want to know, sir, what
+the journey means. As an outraged father, I ask one plain question. Why
+did you run away with my daughter?"
+
+Bervie took a slip of paper from his pocket, and handed it to Percy with
+a smile.
+
+It was a copy of the warrant which Justice Bervie's duty had compelled
+him to issue for the "arrest of Orlando Bowmore and Percy Linwood."
+There was no danger in divulging the secret now. British warrants were
+waste-paper in France, in those days.
+
+"I ran away with the bride," Bervie said coolly, "in the certain
+knowledge that you and Mr. Bowmore would run after me. If I had not
+forced you both to follow me out of England on the first of April, you
+would have been made State prisoners on the second. What do you say to
+my conduct now?"
+
+"Wait, Percy, before you answer him," Mr. Bowmore interposed. "He is
+ready enough at excusing himself. But, observe--he hasn't a word to say
+in justification of my daughter's readiness to run away with him."
+
+"Have you quite done?" Bervie asked, as quietly as ever.
+
+Mr. Bowmore reserved the right of all others which he most prized,
+the right of using his tongue. "For the present," he answered in his
+loftiest manner, "I have done."
+
+Bervie proceeded: "Your daughter consented to run away with me, because
+I took her to my father's house, and prevailed upon him to trust her
+with the secret of the coming arrests. She had no choice left but to let
+her obstinate father and her misguided lover go to prison--or to take
+her place with my sister and me in the traveling-carriage." He appealed
+once more to Percy. "My friend, you remember the day when you spared my
+life. Have I remembered it, too?"
+
+For once, there was an Englishman who was not contented to express the
+noblest emotions that humanity can feel by the commonplace ceremony of
+shaking hands. Percy's heart overflowed. In an outburst of unutterable
+gratitude he threw himself on Bervie's breast. As brothers the two men
+embraced. As brothers they loved and trusted one another, from that day
+forth.
+
+The door on the right was softly opened from within. A charming
+face--the dark eyes bright with happy tears, the rosy lips just
+opening into a smile--peeped into the room. A low sweet voice, with an
+under-note of trembling in it, made this modest protest, in the form of
+an inquiry:
+
+"When you have quite done, Percy, with our good friend, perhaps you will
+have something to say to ME?"
+
+LAST WORDS.
+
+THE persons immediately interested in the marriage of Percy and
+Charlotte were the only persons present at the ceremony.
+
+At the little breakfast afterward, in the French hotel, Mr. Bowmore
+insisted on making a speech to a select audience of six; namely, the
+bride and bridegroom, the bridesmaid, the Chaplain, the Captain, and
+Mrs. Bowmore. But what does a small audience matter? The English frenzy
+for making speeches is not to be cooled by such a trifle as that. At
+the end of the world, the expiring forces of Nature will hear a dreadful
+voice--the voice of the last Englishman delivering the last speech.
+
+Percy wisely made his honeymoon a long one; he determined to be quite
+sure of his superior influence over his wife before he trusted her
+within reach of her father again.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Bowmore accompanied Captain Bervie and Miss Bervie on
+their way back to England, as far as Boulogne. In that pleasant town the
+banished patriot set up his tent. It was a cheaper place to live in than
+Paris, and it was conveniently close to England, when he had quite made
+up his mind whether to be an exile on the Continent, or to go back to
+his own country and be a martyr in prison. In the end, the course of
+events settled that question for him. Mr. Bowmore returned to England,
+with the return of the Habeas Corpus Act.
+
+
+The years passed. Percy and Charlotte (judged from the romantic point of
+view) became two uninteresting married people. Bervie (always remaining
+a bachelor) rose steadily in his profession, through the higher grades
+of military rank. Mr. Bowmore, wisely overlooked by a new Government,
+sank back again into the obscurity from which shrewd Ministers would
+never have assisted him to emerge. The one subject of interest left,
+among the persons of this little drama, was now represented by Doctor
+Lagarde. Thus far, not a trace had been discovered of the French
+physician, who had so strangely associated the visions of his magnetic
+sleep with the destinies of the two men who had consulted him.
+
+Steadfastly maintaining his own opinion of the prediction and the
+fulfillment, Bervie persisted in believing that he and Lagarde (or
+Percy and Lagarde) were yet destined to meet, and resume the unfinished
+consultation at the point where it had been broken off. Persons, happy
+in the possession of "sound common sense," who declared the prediction
+to be skilled guesswork, and the fulfillment manifest coincidence,
+ridiculed the idea of finding Doctor Lagarde as closely akin to that
+other celebrated idea of finding the needle in the bottle of hay. But
+Bervie's obstinacy was proverbial. Nothing shook his confidence in his
+own convictions.
+
+More than thirteen years had elapsed since the consultation at the
+Doctor's lodgings, when Bervie went to Paris to spend a summer holiday
+with his friend, the chaplain at the English embassy. His last words to
+Percy and Charlotte when he took his leave were: "Suppose I meet with
+Doctor Lagarde?"
+
+It was then the year 1830. Bervie arrived at his friend's rooms on the
+24th of July. On the 27th of the month the famous revolution broke out
+which dethroned Charles the Tenth in three days.
+
+On the second day, Bervie and his host ventured into the streets,
+watching the revolution (like other reckless Englishmen) at the risk of
+their lives. In the confusion around them they were separated. Bervie,
+searching for his companion, found his progress stopped by a barricade,
+which had been desperately attacked, and desperately defended. Men in
+blouses and men in uniform lay dead and dying together: the tricolored
+flag waved over them, in token of the victory of the people.
+
+Bervie had just revived a poor wretch with a drink from an overthrown
+bowl of water, which still had a few drops left in it, when he felt
+a hand laid on his shoulder from behind. He turned and discovered a
+National Guard, who had been watching his charitable action. "Give a
+helping hand to that poor fellow," said the citizen-soldier, pointing to
+a workman standing near, grimed with blood and gunpowder. The tears were
+rolling down the man's cheeks. "I can't see my way, sir, for crying,"
+he said. "Help me to carry that sad burden into the next street." He
+pointed to a rude wooden litter, on which lay a dead or wounded man, his
+face and breast covered with an old cloak. "There is the best friend
+the people ever had," the workman said. "He cured us, comforted us,
+respected us, loved us. And there he lies, shot dead while he was
+binding up the wounds of friends and enemies alike!"
+
+"Whoever he is, he has died nobly," Bervie answered "May I look at him?"
+
+The workman signed that he might look.
+
+Bervie lifted the cloak--and met with Doctor Lagarde once more.
+
+
+
+
+MISS BERTHA AND THE YANKEE.
+
+[PRELIMINARY STATEMENTS OF WITNESSES FOR THE DEFENSE, COLLECTED AT THE
+OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR.]
+
+No. 1.--Miss Bertha Laroche, of Nettlegrove Hall, testifies and says:--
+
+I.
+
+TOWARD the middle of June, in the year 1817, I went to take the waters
+at Maplesworth, in Derbyshire, accompanied by my nearest relative--my
+aunt.
+
+I am an only child; and I was twenty-one years old at my last birthday.
+On coming of age I inherited a house and lands in Derbyshire, together
+with a fortune in money of one hundred thousand pounds. The only
+education which I have received has been obtained within the last two or
+three years of my life; and I have thus far seen nothing of Society,
+in England or in any other civilized part of the world. I can be a
+competent witness, it seems, in spite of these disadvantages. Anyhow, I
+mean to tell the truth.
+
+My father was a French colonist in the island of Saint Domingo. He died
+while I was very young; leaving to my mother and to me just enough to
+live on, in the remote part of the island in which our little property
+was situated. My mother was an Englishwoman. Her delicate health made it
+necessary for her to leave me, for many hours of the day, under the care
+of our household slaves. I can never forget their kindness to me; but,
+unfortunately, their ignorance equaled their kindness. If we had been
+rich enough to send to France or England for a competent governess we
+might have done very well. But we were not rich enough. I am ashamed to
+say that I was nearly thirteen years old before I had learned to read
+and write correctly.
+
+Four more years passed--and then there came a wonderful event in our
+lives, which was nothing less than the change from Saint Domingo to
+England.
+
+My mother was distantly related to an ancient and wealthy English
+family. She seriously offended those proud people by marrying an obscure
+foreigner, who had nothing to live on but his morsel of land in the West
+Indies. Having no expectations from her relatives, my mother preferred
+happiness with the man she loved to every other consideration; and I,
+for one, think she was right. From that moment she was cast off by the
+head of the family. For eighteen years of her life, as wife, mother,
+and widow, no letters came to her from her English home. We had just
+celebrated my seventeenth birthday when the first letter came. It
+informed my mother that no less than three lives, which stood between
+her and the inheritance of certain portions of the family property,
+had been swept away by death. The estate and the fortune which I have
+already mentioned had fallen to her in due course of law, and her
+surviving relatives were magnanimously ready to forgive her at last!
+
+We wound up our affairs at Saint Domingo, and we went to England to take
+possession of our new wealth.
+
+At first, the return to her native air seemed to have a beneficial
+effect on my mother's health. But it was a temporary improvement only.
+Her constitution had been fatally injured by the West Indian climate,
+and just as we had engaged a competent person to look after my neglected
+education, my constant attendance was needed at my mother's bedside. We
+loved each other dearly, and we wanted no strange nurses to come
+between us. My aunt (my mother's sister) relieved me of my cares in the
+intervals when I wanted rest.
+
+For seven sad months our dear sufferer lingered. I have only one
+remembrance to comfort me; my mother's last kiss was mine--she died
+peacefully with her head on my bosom.
+
+I was nearly nineteen years old before I had sufficiently rallied my
+courage to be able to think seriously of myself and my prospects.
+
+At that age one does not willingly submit one's self for the first time
+to the authority of a governess. Having my aunt for a companion and
+protectress, I proposed to engage my own masters and to superintend my
+own education.
+
+My plans failed to meet with the approval of the head of the family. He
+declared (most unjustly, as the event proved) that my aunt was not a
+fit person to take care of me. She had passed all the later years of her
+life in retirement. A good creature, he admitted, in her own way, but
+she had no knowledge of the world, and no firmness of character. The
+right person to act as my chaperon, and to superintend my education, was
+the high-minded and accomplished woman who had taught his own daughters.
+
+I declined, with all needful gratitude and respect, to take his advice.
+The bare idea of living with a stranger so soon after my mother's death
+revolted me. Besides, I liked my aunt, and my aunt liked me. Being made
+acquainted with my decision, the head of the family cast me off, exactly
+as he had cast off my mother before me.
+
+So I lived in retirement with my good aunt, and studied industriously
+to improve my mind until my twenty-first birthday came. I was now an
+heiress, privileged to think and act for myself. My aunt kissed me
+tenderly. We talked of my poor mother, and we cried in each other's arms
+on the memorable day that made a wealthy woman of me. In a little time
+more, other troubles than vain regrets for the dead were to try me, and
+other tears were to fill my eyes than the tears which I had given to the
+memory of my mother.
+
+II.
+
+I MAY now return to my visit, in June, 1817, to the healing springs at
+Maplesworth.
+
+This famous inland watering-place was only between nine and ten miles
+from my new home called Nettlegrove Hall. I had been feeling weak and
+out of spirits for some months, and our medical adviser recommended
+change of scene and a trial of the waters at Maplesworth. My aunt and
+I established ourselves in comfortable apartments, with a letter of
+introduction to the chief doctor in the place. This otherwise harmless
+and worthy man proved, strangely enough, to be the innocent cause of the
+trials and troubles which beset me at the outset of my new life.
+
+The day after we had presented our letter of introduction, we met the
+doctor on the public walk. He was accompanied by two strangers, both
+young men, and both (so far as my ignorant opinion went) persons of some
+distinction, judging by their dress and manners. The doctor said a few
+kind words to us, and rejoined his two companions. Both the gentlemen
+looked at me, and both took off their hats as my aunt and I proceeded on
+our walk.
+
+I own I thought occasionally of the well-bred strangers during the rest
+of the day, especially of the shortest of the two, who was also the
+handsomest of the two to my thinking. If this confession seems rather
+a bold one, remember, if you please, that I had never been taught to
+conceal my feelings at Saint Domingo, and that the events which followed
+our arrival in England had kept me completely secluded from the society
+of other young ladies of my age.
+
+The next day, while I was drinking my glass of healing water (extremely
+nasty water, by the way) the doctor joined us.
+
+While he was asking me about my health, the two strangers made their
+appearance again, and took off their hats again. They both looked
+expectantly at the doctor, and the doctor (in performance of a promise
+which he had already made, as I privately suspected) formally introduced
+them to my aunt and to me. First (I put the handsomest man first)
+Captain Arthur Stanwick, of the army, home from India on leave,
+and staying at Maplesworth to take the waters; secondly, Mr. Lionel
+Varleigh, of Boston, in America, visiting England, after traveling all
+over Europe, and stopping at Maplesworth to keep company with his friend
+the Captain.
+
+On their introduction, the two gentlemen, observing, no doubt, that I
+was a little shy, forbore delicately from pressing their society on us.
+
+Captain Stanwick, with a beautiful smile, and with teeth worthy of the
+smile, stroked his whiskers, and asked me if I had found any benefit
+from taking the waters. He afterward spoke in great praise of the
+charming scenery in the neighborhood of Maplesworth, and then, turning
+away, addressed his next words to my aunt. Mr. Varleigh took his place.
+Speaking with perfect gravity, and with no whiskers to stroke, he said:
+
+"I have once tried the waters here out of curiosity. I can sympathize,
+miss, with the expression which I observed on your face when you emptied
+your glass just now. Permit me to offer you something nice to take the
+taste of the waters out of your mouth." He produced from his pocket a
+beautiful little box filled with sugar-plums. "I bought it in Paris,"
+h e explained. "Having lived a good deal in France, I have got into a
+habit of making little presents of this sort to ladies and children. I
+wouldn't let the doctor see it, miss, if I were you. He has the usual
+medical prejudice against sugar-plums." With that quaint warning, he,
+too, made his bow and discreetly withdrew.
+
+Thinking it over afterward, I acknowledged to myself that the English
+Captain--although he was the handsomest man of the two, and possessed
+the smoothest manners--had failed, nevertheless, to overcome my shyness.
+The American traveler's unaffected sincerity and good-humor, on the
+other hand, set me quite at my ease. I could look at him and thank
+him, and feel amused at his sympathy with the grimace I had made, after
+swallowing the ill-flavored waters. And yet, while I lay awake at night,
+wondering whether we should meet our new acquaintances on the next day,
+it was the English Captain that I most wanted to see again, and not
+the American traveler! At the time, I set this down to nothing more
+important than my own perversity. Ah, dear! dear! I know better than
+that now.
+
+The next morning brought the doctor to our hotel on a special visit to
+my aunt. He invented a pretext for sending me into the next room,
+which was so plainly a clumsy excuse that my curiosity was aroused. I
+gratified my curiosity. Must I make my confession plainer still? Must
+I acknowledge that I was mean enough to listen on the other side of the
+door?
+
+I heard my dear innocent old aunt say: "Doctor! I hope you don't see
+anything alarming in the state of Bertha's health."
+
+The doctor burst out laughing. "My dear madam! there is nothing in the
+state of the young lady's health which need cause the smallest anxiety
+to you or to me. The object of my visit is to justify myself for
+presenting those two gentlemen to you yesterday. They are both greatly
+struck by Miss Bertha's beauty, and they both urgently entreated me
+to introduce them. Such introductions, I need hardly say, are marked
+exceptions to my general rule. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I
+should have said No. In the cases of Captain Stanwick and Mr. Varleigh,
+however, I saw no reason to hesitate. Permit me to assure you that I am
+not intruding on your notice two fortune-hunting adventurers. They are
+both men of position and men of property. The family of the Stanwicks
+has been well known to me for years; and Mr. Varleigh brought me a
+letter from my oldest living friend, answering for him as a gentleman in
+the highest sense of the word. He is the wealthiest man of the two;
+and it speaks volumes for him, in my opinion, that he has preserved his
+simplicity of character after a long residence in such places as Paris
+and Vienna. Captain Stanwick has more polish and ease of manner, but,
+looking under the surface, I rather fancy there may be something a
+little impetuous and domineering in his temper. However, we all have our
+faults. I can only say, for both these young friends of mine, that you
+need feel no scruple about admitting them to your intimacy, if they
+happen to please you--and your niece. Having now, I hope, removed any
+doubts which may have troubled you, pray recall Miss Bertha. I am afraid
+I have interrupted you in discussing your plans for the day."
+
+The smoothly eloquent doctor paused for the moment; and I darted away
+from the door.
+
+Our plans for the day included a drive through the famous scenery near
+the town. My two admirers met us on horseback. Here, again, the Captain
+had the advantage over his friend. His seat in the saddle and his
+riding-dress were both perfect things in their way. The Englishman rode
+on one side of the carriage and the American on the other. They both
+talked well, but Mr. Varleigh had seen more of the world in general than
+Captain Stanwick, and he made himself certainly the more interesting and
+more amusing companion of the two.
+
+On our way back my admiration was excited by a thick wood, beautifully
+situated on rising ground at a little distance from the high-road: "Oh,
+dear," I said, "how I should like to take a walk in that wood!" Idle,
+thoughtless words; but, oh, what remembrances crowd on me as I think of
+them now!
+
+Captain Stanwick and Mr. Varleigh at once dismounted and offered
+themselves as my escort. The coachman warned them to be careful; people
+had often lost themselves, he said, in that wood. I asked the name of
+it. The name was Herne Wood. My aunt was not very willing to leave her
+comfortable seat in the carriage, but it ended in her going with us.
+
+Before we entered the wood, Mr. Varleigh noted the position of the
+high-road by his pocket-compass. Captain Stanwick laughed at him, and
+offered me his arm. Ignorant as I was of the ways of the world and the
+rules of coquetry, my instinct (I suppose) warned me not to distinguish
+one of the gentlemen too readily at the expense of the other. I took my
+aunt's arm and settled it in that way.
+
+A winding path led us into the wood.
+
+On a nearer view, the place disappointed me; the further we advanced,
+the more horribly gloomy it grew. The thickly-growing trees shut out
+the light; the damp stole over me little by little until I shivered; the
+undergrowth of bushes and thickets rustled at intervals mysteriously,
+as some invisible creeping creature passed through it. At a turn in the
+path we reached a sort of clearing, and saw the sky and the sunshine
+once more. But, even here, a disagreeable incident occurred. A snake
+wound his undulating way across the open space, passing close by me, and
+I was fool enough to scream. The Captain killed the creature with his
+riding-cane, taking a pleasure in doing it which I did not like to see.
+
+We left the clearing and tried another path, and then another. And still
+the horrid wood preyed on my spirits. I agreed with my aunt that we
+should do well to return to the carriage. On our way back we missed the
+right path, and lost ourselves for the moment. Mr. Varleigh consulted
+his compass, and pointed in one direction. Captain Stanwick, consulting
+nothing but his own jealous humor, pointed in the other. We followed
+Mr. Varleigh's guidance, and got back to the clearing. He turned to
+the Captain, and said, good-humoredly: "You see the compass was right."
+Captain Stanwick, answered, sharply: "There are more ways than one
+out of an English wood; you talk as if we were in one of your American
+forests."
+
+Mr. Varleigh seemed to be at a loss to understand his rudeness; there
+was a pause. The two men looked at each other, standing face to face
+on the brown earth of the clearing--the Englishman's ruddy countenance,
+light auburn hair and whiskers, and well-opened bold blue eyes,
+contrasting with the pale complexion, the keenly-observant look, the
+dark closely-cut hair, and the delicately-lined face of the American.
+It was only for a moment: I had barely time to feel uneasy before
+they controlled themselves and led us back to the carriage, talking as
+pleasantly as if nothing had happened. For days afterward, nevertheless,
+that scene in the clearing--the faces and figures of the two men, the
+dark line of trees hemming them in on all sides, the brown circular
+patch of ground on which they stood--haunted my memory, and got in the
+way of my brighter and happier thoughts. When my aunt inquired if I had
+enjoyed the day, I surprised her by saying No. And when she asked why, I
+could only answer: "It was all spoiled by Herne Wood."
+
+III.
+
+THREE weeks passed.
+
+The terror of those dreadful days creeps over me again when I think of
+them. I mean to tell the truth without shrinking; but I may at least
+consult my own feelings by dwelling on certain particulars as briefly as
+I can. I shall describe my conduct toward the two men who courted me
+in the plainest terms, if I say that I distinguished neither of them.
+Innocently and stupidly I encouraged them both.
+
+In books, women are generally represented as knowing their own minds in
+matters which relate to love and marriage. This is not my experience of
+myself. Day followed day; and, ridiculous as it may appear, I could not
+decide which of my two admirers I liked best!
+
+Captain Stanwick was, at first, the man of my choice. While he kept his
+temper under control, h e charmed me. But when he let it escape him, he
+sometimes disappointed, sometimes irritated me. In that frame of mind
+I turned for relief to Lionel Varleigh, feeling that he was the more
+gentle and the more worthy man of the two, and honestly believing, at
+such times, that I preferred him to his rival. For the first few days
+after our visit to Herne Wood I had excellent opportunities of comparing
+them. They paid their visits to us together, and they divided their
+attentions carefully between me and my aunt. At the end of the week,
+however, they began to present themselves separately. If I had possessed
+any experience of the natures of men, I might have known what this
+meant, and might have seen the future possibility of some more
+serious estrangement between the two friends, of which I might be the
+unfortunate cause. As it was; I never once troubled my head about what
+might be passing out of my presence. Whether they came together, or
+whether they came separately, their visits were always agreeable to me.
+and I thought of nothing and cared for nothing more.
+
+But the time that was to enlighten me was not far off.
+
+One day Captain Stanwick called much earlier than usual. My aunt had
+not yet returned from her morning walk. The Captain made some excuse for
+presenting himself under these circumstances which I have now forgotten.
+
+Without actually committing himself to a proposal of marriage he spoke
+with such tender feeling, he managed his hold on my inexperience so
+delicately, that he entrapped me into saying some words, on my side,
+which I remembered with a certain dismay as soon as I was left alone
+again. In half an hour more, Mr. Lionel Varleigh was announced as my
+next visitor. I at once noticed a certain disturbance in his look and
+manner which was quite new in my experience of him. I offered him a
+chair. To my surprise he declined to take it.
+
+"I must trust to your indulgence to permit me to put an embarrassing
+question to you," he began. "It rests with you, Miss Laroche, to decide
+whether I shall remain here, or whether I shall relieve you of my
+presence by leaving the room."
+
+"What can you possibly mean?" I asked.
+
+"Is it your wish," he went on, "that I should pay you no more visits
+except in Captain Stanwick's company, or by Captain Stanwick's express
+permission?"
+
+My astonishment deprived me for the moment of the power of answering
+him. "Do you really mean that Captain Stanwick has forbidden you to call
+on me?" I asked as soon as I could speak.
+
+"I have exactly repeated what Captain Stanwick said to me half an hour
+since," Lionel Varleigh answered.
+
+In my indignation at hearing this, I entirely forgot the rash words of
+encouragement which the Captain had entrapped me into speaking to him.
+When I think of it now, I am ashamed to repeat the language in which I
+resented this man's presumptuous assertion of authority over me. Having
+committed one act of indiscretion already, my anxiety to assert my
+freedom of action hurried me into committing another. I bade Mr.
+Varleigh welcome whenever he chose to visit me, in terms which made
+his face flush under the emotions of pleasure and surprise which I had
+aroused in him. My wounded vanity acknowledged no restraints. I signed
+to him to take a seat on the sofa at my side; I engaged to go to
+his lodgings the next day, with my aunt, and see the collection of
+curiosities which he had amassed in the course of his travels. I almost
+believe, if he had tried to kiss me, that I was angry enough with the
+Captain to have let him do it!
+
+Remember what my life had been--remember how ignorantly I had passed the
+precious days of my youth, how insidiously a sudden accession of wealth
+and importance had encouraged my folly and my pride--and try, like good
+Christians, to make some allowance for me!
+
+My aunt came in from her walk, before Mr. Varleigh's visit had ended.
+She received him rather coldly, and he perceived it. After reminding me
+of our appointment for the next day, he took his leave.
+
+"What appointment does Mr. Varleigh mean?" my aunt asked, as soon as we
+were alone. "Is it wise, under the circumstances, to make appointments
+with Mr. Varleigh?" she said, when I had answered her question. I
+naturally inquired what she meant. My aunt replied, "I have met Captain
+Stanwick while I was out walking. He has told me something which I am
+quite at a loss to understand. Is it possible, Bertha, that you have
+received a proposal of marriage from him favorably, without saying one
+word about your intentions to me?"
+
+I instantly denied it. However rashly I might have spoken, I had
+certainly said nothing to justify Captain Stanwick in claiming me as his
+promised wife. In his mean fear of a fair rivalry with Mr. Varleigh, he
+had deliberately misinterpreted me. "If I marry either of the two," I
+said, "it will be Mr. Varleigh!"
+
+My aunt shook her head. "These two gentlemen seem to be both in love
+with you, Bertha. It is a trying position for you between them, and I am
+afraid you have acted with some indiscretion. Captain Stanwick tells me
+that he and his friend have come to a separation already. I fear you are
+the cause of it. Mr. Varleigh has left the hotel at which he was staying
+with the Captain, in consequence of a disagreement between them this
+morning. You were not aware of that when you accepted his invitation.
+Shall I write an excuse for you? We must, at least, put off the visit,
+my dear, until you have set yourself right with Captain Stanwick."
+
+I began to feel a little alarmed, but I was too obstinate to yield
+without a struggle. "Give me time to think over it," I said. "To write
+an excuse seems like acknowledging the Captain's authority. Let us wait
+till to-morrow morning."
+
+IV.
+
+THE morning brought with it another visit from Captain Stanwick. This
+time my aunt was present. He looked at her without speaking, and turned
+to me, with his fiery temper showing itself already in his eyes.
+
+"I have a word to say to you in private," he began.
+
+"I have no secrets from my aunt," I answered. "Whatever you have to say,
+Captain Stanwick, may be said here."
+
+He opened his lips to reply, and suddenly checked himself. He was
+controlling his anger by so violent an effort that it turned his ruddy
+face pale. For the moment he conquered his temper--he addressed himself
+to me with the outward appearance of respect at least.
+
+"Has that man Varleigh lied?" he asked; "or have you given _him_ hopes,
+too--after what you said to me yesterday?"
+
+"I said nothing to you yesterday which gives you any right to put that
+question to me," I rejoined. "You have entirely misunderstood me, if you
+think so."
+
+My aunt attempted to say a few temperate words, in the hope of soothing
+him. He waved his hand, refusing to listen to her, and advanced closer
+to me.
+
+"_You_ have misunderstood _me_," he said, "if you think I am a man to be
+made a plaything of in the hands of a coquette!"
+
+My aunt interposed once more, with a resolution which I had not expected
+from her.
+
+"Captain Stanwick," she said, "you are forgetting yourself."
+
+He paid no heed to her; he persisted in speaking to me. "It is my
+misfortune to love you," he burst out. "My whole heart is set on you. I
+mean to be your husband, and no other man living shall stand in my way.
+After what you said to me yesterday, I have a right to consider that you
+have favored my addresses. This is not a mere flirtation. Don't think
+it! I say it's the passion of a life! Do you hear? It's the passion of
+a man's whole life! I am not to be trifled with. I have had a night of
+sleepless misery about you--I have suffered enough for you--and you're
+not worth it. Don't laugh! This is no laughing matter. Take care,
+Bertha! Take care!"
+
+My aunt rose from her chair. She astonished me. On all ordinary
+occasions the most retiring, the most feminine of women, she now
+walked up to Captain Stanwick and looked him full in the face, without
+flinching for an instant.
+
+"You appear to have forgotten that you are speaking in the presence of
+two ladies," she said. "Alter your tone, sir, or I shall be obliged to
+take my niece out of the room."
+
+Half angry, half frightened, I tried to speak in my turn. My aunt signed
+to me to be silent. The Captain drew back a step as if he felt her
+reproof. But his eyes, still fixed on me, were as fiercely bright as
+ever. _There_ the gentleman's superficial good-breeding failed to hide
+the natural man beneath.
+
+"I will leave you in undisturbed possession of the room," he said to my
+aunt with bitter politeness. "Before I go, permit me to give your niece
+an opportunity of reconsidering her conduct before it is too late." My
+aunt drew back, leaving him free to speak to me. After considering for
+a moment, he laid his hand firmly, but not roughly, on my arm. "You have
+accepted Lionel Varleigh's invitation to visit him," he said, "under
+pretense of seeing his curiosities. Think again before you decide on
+keeping that engagement. If you go to Varleigh tomorrow, you will repent
+it to the last day of your life." Saying those words, in a tone which
+made me tremble in spite of myself, he walked to the door. As he laid
+his hand on the lock, he turned toward me for the last time. "I forbid
+you to go to Varleigh's lodgings," he said, very distinctly and quietly.
+"Understand what I tell you. I forbid it."
+
+With those words he left us.
+
+My aunt sat down by me and took my hand kindly. "There is only one
+thing to be done," she said; "we must return at once to Nettlegrove.
+If Captain Stanwick attempts to annoy you in your own house, we have
+neighbors who will protect us, and we have Mr. Loring, our rector, to
+appeal to for advice. As for Mr. Varleigh, I will write our excuses
+myself before we go away."
+
+She put out her hand to ring the bell and order the carriage. I stopped
+her. My childish pride urged me to assert myself in some way, after the
+passive position that I had been forced to occupy during the interview
+with Captain Stanwick.
+
+"No," I said, "it is not acting fairly toward Mr. Varleigh to break our
+engagement with him. Let us return to Nettlegrove by all means, but
+let us first call on Mr. Varleigh and take our leave. Are we to
+behave rudely to a gentleman who has always treated us with the utmost
+consideration, because Captain Stanwick has tried to frighten us by
+cowardly threats? The commonest feeling of self-respect forbids it."
+
+My aunt protested against this outbreak of folly with perfect temper
+and good sense. But my obstinacy (my firmness as I thought it!) was
+immovable. I left her to choose between going with me to Mr. Varleigh,
+or letting me go to him by myself. Finding it useless to resist, she
+decided, it is needless to say, on going with me.
+
+We found Mr. Varleigh very courteous, but more than usually grave
+and quiet. Our visit only lasted for a few minutes; my aunt using the
+influence of her age and her position to shorten it. She mentioned
+family affairs as the motive which recalled us to Nettlegrove. I took it
+on myself to invite Mr. Varleigh to visit me at my own house. He bowed
+and thanked me, without engaging himself to accept the invitation. When
+I offered him my hand at parting, he raised it to his lips, and kissed
+it with a fervor that agitated me. His eyes looked into mine with a
+sorrowful admiration, with a lingering regret, as if they were taking
+their leave of me for a long while. "Don't forget me!" he whispered,
+as he stood at the door, while I followed my aunt out. "Come to
+Nettlegrove," I whispered back. His eyes dropped to the ground; he let
+me go without a word more.
+
+This, I declare solemnly, was all that passed at our visit. By some
+unexpressed consent among us, no allusion whatever was made to Captain
+Stanwick; not even his name was mentioned. I never knew that the two men
+had met, just before we called on Mr. Varleigh. Nothing was said which
+could suggest to me the slightest suspicion of any arrangement for
+another meeting between them later in the day. Beyond the vague threats
+which had escaped Captain Stanwick's lips--threats which I own I was
+rash enough to despise--I had no warning whatever of the dreadful events
+which happened at Maplesworth on the day after our return to Nettlegrove
+Hall.
+
+I can only add that I am ready to submit to any questions that may be
+put to me. Pray don't think me a heartless woman. My worst fault was
+ignorance. In those days, I knew nothing of the false pretenses under
+which men hide what is selfish and savage in their natures from the
+women whom it is their interest to deceive.
+
+No. 2.--Julius Bender, fencing-master, testifies and says:--
+
+I am of German nationality; established in England as teacher of the use
+of the sword and the pistol since the beginning of the present year.
+
+Finding business slack in London, it unfortunately occurred to me to try
+what I could do in the country. I had heard of Maplesworth as a place
+largely frequented by visitors on account of the scenery, as well as by
+invalids in need of taking the waters; and I opened a gallery there at
+the beginning of the season of 1817, for fencing and pistol practice.
+About the visitors I had not been deceived; there were plenty of idle
+young gentlemen among them who might have been expected to patronize my
+establishment. They showed the most barbarous indifference to the
+noble art of attack and defense--came by twos and threes, looked at
+my gallery, and never returned. My small means began to fail me. After
+paying my expenses, I was really at my wits' end to find a few pounds to
+go on with, in the hope of better days.
+
+One gentleman, I remember, who came to see me, and who behaved most
+liberally.
+
+He described himself as an American, and said he had traveled a
+great deal. As my ill luck would have it, he stood in no need of my
+instructions. On the two or three occasions when he amused himself
+with my foils and my pistols, he proved to be one of the most expert
+swordsmen and one of the finest shots that I ever met with. It was not
+wonderful: he had by nature cool nerves and a quick eye; and he had been
+taught by the masters of the art in Vienna and Paris.
+
+Early in July--the 9th or 10th of the month, I think--I was sitting
+alone in my gallery, looking ruefully enough at the last two sovereigns
+in my purse, when a gentleman was announced who wanted a lesson. "A
+_private_ lesson," he said, with emphasis, looking at the man who
+cleaned and took care of my weapons.
+
+I sent the man out of the room. The stranger (an Englishman, and, as I
+fancied, judging by outward appearances, a military man as well) took
+from his pocket-book a fifty-pound banknote, and held it up before me.
+"I have a heavy wager depending on a fencing match," he said, "and I
+have no time to improve myself. Teach me a trick which will make me a
+match for a man skilled in the use of the foil, and keep the secret--and
+there are fifty pounds for you."
+
+I hesitated. I did indeed hesitate, poor as I was. But this devil of a
+man held his banknote before me whichever way I looked, and I had only
+two pounds left in the world!
+
+"Are you going to fight a duel?'' I asked.
+
+"I have already told you what I am going to do," he answered.
+
+I waited a little. The infernal bank-note still tempted me. In spite of
+myself, I tried him again.
+
+"If I teach you the trick," I persisted, "will you undertake to make no
+bad use of your lesson?"
+
+"Yes," he said, impatiently enough.
+
+I was not quite satisfied yet.
+
+"Will you promise it, on your word of honor?" I asked.
+
+"Of course I will," he answered. "Take the money, and don't keep me
+waiting any longer."
+
+I took the money, and I taught him the trick--and I regretted it
+almost as soon as it was done. Not that I knew, mind, of any serious
+consequences that followed; for I returned to London the next morning.
+My sentiments were those of a man of honor, who felt that he had
+degraded his art, and who could not be quite sure that he might not have
+armed the hand of an assassin as well. I have no more to say.
+
+No. 3.--Thomas Outwater, servant to Captain Stanwick, testifies and
+says:--
+
+If I did not firmly believe my master to be out of his senses, no
+punishment that I could receive would prevail upon me to tell of him
+what I am going to tell now.
+
+But I say he is mad, and therefore not accountable for what he has
+done--mad for love of a young woman. If I could have my way, I should
+like to twist her neck, though she _is_ a lady, and a great heiress
+into the bargain. Before she came between them, my master and Mr.
+Varleigh were more like brothers than anything else. She set them at
+variance, and whether she meant to do it or not is all the same to me.
+I own I took a dislike to her when I first saw her. She was one of
+the light-haired, blue-eyed sort, with an innocent look and a snaky
+waist--not at all to be depended on, as I have found them.
+
+I hear I am not expected to give an account of the disagreement between
+the two gentlemen, of which this lady was the cause. I am to state what
+I did in Maplesworth, and what I saw afterward in Herne Wood. Poor as
+I am, I would give a five-pound note to anybody who could do it for me.
+Unfortunately, I must do it for myself.
+
+On the 10th of July, in the evening, my master went, for the second time
+that day, to Mr. Varleigh's lodgings.
+
+I am certain of the date, because it was the day of publication of the
+town newspaper, and there was a law report in it which set everybody
+talking. There had been a duel with pistols, a day or two before,
+between a resident in the town and a visitor, caused by some dispute
+about horses. Nothing very serious came of the meeting. One of the men
+only was hurt, and the wound proved to be of no great importance. The
+awkward part of the matter was that the constables appeared on the
+ground, before the wounded man had been removed. He and his two seconds
+were caught, and the prisoners were committed for trial. Dueling (the
+magistrates said) was an inhuman and unchristian practice, and they were
+determined to put the law in force and stop it. This sentence made a
+great stir in the town, and fixed the date, as I have just said, in my
+mind.
+
+Having been accidentally within hearing of some of the disputes
+concerning Miss Laroche between my master and Mr. Varleigh, I had my
+misgivings about the Captain's second visit to the friend with whom he
+had quarreled already. A gentleman called on him, soon after he had gone
+out, on important business. This gave me an excuse for following him
+to Mr. Varleigh's rooms with the visitor's card, and I took the
+opportunity.
+
+I heard them at high words on my way upstairs, and waited a little on
+the landing. The Captain was in one of his furious rages; Mr. Varleigh
+was firm and cool as usual. After listening for a minute or so, I heard
+enough (in my opinion) to justify me in entering the room. I caught
+my master in the act of lifting his cane--threatening to strike Mr.
+Varleigh. He instantly dropped his hand, and turned on me in a fury at
+my intrusion. Taking no notice of this outbreak of temper, I gave him
+his friend's card, and went out. A talk followed in voices too low for
+me to hear outside the room, and then the Captain approached the door.
+I got out of his way, feeling very uneasy about what was to come next. I
+could not presume to question Mr. Varleigh. The only thing I could think
+of was to tell the young lady's aunt what I had seen and heard, and
+to plead with Miss Laroche herself to make peace between them. When I
+inquired for the ladies at their lodgings, I was told that they had left
+Maplesworth.
+
+I saw no more of the Captain that night.
+
+The next morning he seemed to be quite himself again. He said to me,
+"Thomas, I am going sketching in Herne Wood. Take the paint-box and the
+rest of it, and put this into the carriage."
+
+He handed me a packet as thick as my arm, and about three feet long,
+done up in many folds of canvas. I made bold to ask what it was.
+He answered that it was an artist's sketching umbrella, packed for
+traveling.
+
+In an hour's time, the carriage stopped on the road below Herne Wood.
+My master said he would carry his sketching things himself, and I was to
+wait with the carriage. In giving him the so-called umbrella, I took the
+occasion of his eye being off me for the moment to pass my hand over it
+carefully; and I felt, through the canvas, the hilt of a sword. As an
+old soldier, I could not be mistaken--the hilt of a sword.
+
+What I thought, on making this discovery, does not much matter. What I
+did was to watch the Captain into the wood, and then to follow him.
+
+I tracked him along the path to where there was a clearing in the midst
+of the trees. There he stopped, and I got behind a tree. He undid the
+canvas, and produced _two_ swords concealed in the packet. If I had felt
+any doubts before, I was certain of what was coming now. A duel without
+seconds or witnesses, by way of keeping the town magistrates in the
+dark--a duel between my master and Mr. Varleigh! As his name came into
+my mind, the man himself appeared, making his way into the clearing from
+the other side of the wood.
+
+What could I do to stop it? No human creature was in sight. The nearest
+village was a mile away, reckoning from the further side of the wood.
+The coachman was a stupid old man, quite useless in a difficulty, even
+if I had had time enough to go back to the road and summon him to help
+me. While I was thinking about it, the Captain and Mr. Varleigh had
+stripped to their shirts and trousers. When they crossed their swords, I
+could stand it no longer--I burst in on them. "For God Almighty's sake,
+gentlemen," I cried out, "don't fight without seconds!" My master turned
+on me, like the madman he was, and threatened me with the point of his
+sword. Mr. Varleigh pulled me back out of harm's way. "Don't be afraid,"
+he whispered, as he led me back to the verge of the clearing; "I have
+chosen the sword instead of the pistol expressly to spare his life."
+
+Those noble words (spoken by as brave and true a man as ever breathed)
+quieted me. I knew Mr. Varleigh had earned the repute of being one of
+the finest swordsmen in Europe.
+
+The duel began. I was placed behind my master, and was consequently
+opposite to his antagonist. The Captain stood on his defense, waiting
+for the other to attack. Mr. Varleigh made a pass. I was opposite the
+point of his sword; I saw it touch the Captain's left shoulder. In the
+same instant of time my master struck up his opponent's sword with his
+own weapon, seized Mr. Varleigh's right wrist in his left hand, and
+passed his sword clean through Mr. Varleigh's breast. He fell, the
+victim of a murderous trick--fell without a word or a cry.
+
+The Captain turned slowly, and faced me with his bloody sword in his
+hand. I can't tell you how he looked; I can only say that the sight of
+him turned me faint with terror. I was at Waterloo--I am no coward. But
+I tell you the cold sweat poured down my face like water. I should have
+dropped if I had not held by the branch of a tree.
+
+My master waited until I had in a measure recovered myself. "Feel if his
+heart beats," he said, pointing to the man on the ground.
+
+I obeyed. He was dead--the heart was still; the beat of the pulse was
+gone. I said, "You have killed him!"
+
+The Captain made no answer. He packed up the two swords again in the
+canvas, and put them under his arm. Then he told me to follow him with
+the sketching materials. I drew back from him without speaking; there
+was a horrid hollow sound in his voice that I did not like. "Do as I
+tell you," he said: "you have yourself to thank for it if I refuse to
+lose sight of you now." I managed to say that he might trust me to say
+nothing. He refused to trust me; he put out his hand to take hold of me.
+I could not stand that. "I'll go with you," I said; "don't touch me!"
+We reached the carriage and returned to Maplesworth. The same day we
+traveled by post to London.
+
+In London I contrived to give the Captain the slip. By the first coach
+the next morning I want back to Maplesworth, eager to hear what had
+happened, and if the body had been found. Not a word of news reached me;
+nothing seemed to be known of the duel in Herne Wood.
+
+I went to the wood--on foot, fearing that I might be traced if I hired a
+carriage. The country round was as solitary as usual. Not a creature was
+near when I entered the wood; not a creature was near when I looked into
+the clearing.
+
+There was nothing on the ground. The body was gone.
+
+No. 4.--The Reverend Alfred Loring, Rector of Nettlegrove, testifies and
+says:--
+
+I.
+
+EARLY in the month of October, 1817, I was informed that Miss Bertha
+Laroche had called at my house, and wished to see me in private.
+
+I had first been presented to Miss Laroche on her arrival, with her
+aunt, to take possession of her property at Nettlegrove Hall. My
+opportunities of improving my acquaintance with her had not been so
+numerous as I could have desired, and I sincerely regretted it. She had
+produced a very favorable impression on me. Singularly inexperienced and
+impulsive--with an odd mixture of shyness and vivacity in her manner,
+and subject now and then to outbursts of vanity and petulance which she
+was divertingly incapable of concealing--I could detect, nevertheless,
+under the surface the signs which told of a true and generous nature,
+of a simple and pure heart. Her personal appearance, I should add,
+was attractive in a remarkable degree. There was something in it so
+peculiar, and at the same time so fascinating, that I am conscious it
+may have prejudiced me in her favor. For fear of this acknowledgment
+being misunderstood, I think it right to add that I am old enough to be
+her grandfather, and that I am also a married man.
+
+I told the servant to show Miss Laroche into my study.
+
+The moment she entered the room, her appearance alarmed me: she looked
+literally panic-stricken. I offered to send for my wife; she refused the
+proposal. I entreated her to take time at least to compose herself. It
+was not in her impulsive nature to do this. She said, "Give me your hand
+to encourage me, and let me speak while I can." I gave her my hand, poor
+soul. I said, "Speak to me, my dear, as if I were your father."
+
+So far as I could understand the incoherent statement which she
+addressed to me, she had been the object of admiration (while visiting
+Maplesworth) of two gentlemen, who both desired to marry her. Hesitating
+between them and perfectly inexperienced in such matters, she had been
+the unfortunate cause of enmity between the rivals, and had returned to
+Nettlegrove, at her aunt's suggestion, as the best means of extricating
+herself from a very embarrassing position. The removal failing to
+alleviate her distressing recollections of what had happened, she and
+her aunt had tried a further change by making a tour of two months on
+the Continent. She had returned in a more quiet frame of mind. To her
+great surprise, she had heard nothing of either of her two suitors, from
+the day when she left Maplesworth to the day when she presented herself
+at my rectory.
+
+Early that morning she was walking, after breakfast, in the park at
+Nettlegrove when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned, and found
+herself face to face with one of her suitors at Maplesworth. I am
+informed that there is no necessity now for my suppressing the name. The
+gentleman was Captain Stanwick.
+
+He was so fearfully changed for the worse that she hardly knew him
+again.
+
+After his first glance at her, he held his hand over his bloodshot eyes
+as if the sunlight hurt them. Without a word to prepare her for the
+disclosure, he confessed that he had killed Mr. Varleigh in a duel.
+His remorse (he declared) had unsettled his reason: only a few days had
+passed since he had been released from confinement in an asylum.
+
+"You are the cause of it," he said wildly. "It is for love of you. I
+have but one hope left to live for--my hope in you. If you cast me off,
+my mind is made up. I will give my life for the life that I have taken;
+I will die by my own hand. Look at me, and you will see that I am in
+earnest. My future as a living man depends on your decision. Think of
+it to-day, and meet me here to-morrow. Not at this time; the horrid
+daylight feels like fire in my eyes, and goes like fire to my brain.
+Wait till sunset--you will find me here."
+
+He left her as suddenly as he had appeared. When she had sufficiently
+recovered herself to be able to think, she decided on saying nothing of
+what had happened to her aunt. She took her way to the rectory to seek
+my advice.
+
+It is needless to encumber my narrative by any statement of
+the questions which I felt it my duty to put to her under these
+circumstances. My inquiries informed me that Captain Stanwick had in the
+first instance produced a favorable impression on her. The less showy
+qualities of Mr. Varleigh had afterward grown on her liking; aided
+greatly by the repelling effect on her mind of the Captain's violent
+language and conduct when he had reason to suspect that his rival
+was being preferred to him. When she knew the horrible news of Mr.
+Varleigh's death, she "knew her own heart" (to repeat her exact words to
+me) by the shock that she felt. Toward Captain Stanwick the only
+feeling of which she was now conscious was, naturally, a feeling of the
+strongest aversion.
+
+My own course in this difficult and painful matter appeared to me to be
+clear. "It is your duty as a Christian to see this miserable man again,"
+I said. "And it is my duty as your friend and pastor, to sustain you
+under the trial. I will go with you to-morrow to the place of meeting."
+
+II.
+
+THE next evening we found Captain Stanwick waiting for us in the park.
+
+He drew back on seeing me. I explained to him, temperately and firmly,
+what my position was. With sullen looks he resigned himself to endure
+my presence. By degrees I won his confidence. My first impression of him
+remains unshaken--the man's reason was unsettled. I suspected that the
+assertion of his release was a falsehood, and that he had really escaped
+from the asylum. It was impossible to lure him into telling me where the
+place was. He was too cunning to do this--too cunning to say anything
+about his relations, when I tried to turn the talk that way next. On the
+other hand, he spoke with a revolting readiness of the crime that he
+had committed, and of his settled resolution to destroy himself if Miss
+Laroche refused to be his wife. "I have nothing else to live for; I am
+alone in the world," he said. "Even my servant has deserted me. He knows
+how I killed Lionel Varleigh." He paused and spoke his next words in a
+whisper to me. "I killed him by a trick--he was the best swordsman of
+the two."
+
+This confession was so horrible that I could only attribute it to an
+insane delusion. On pressing my inquiries, I found that the same idea
+must have occurred to the poor wretch's relations, and to the doctors
+who signed the certificates for placing him under medical care. This
+conclusion (as I afterward heard) was greatly strengthened by the fact
+that Mr. Varleigh's body had not been found on the reported scene of the
+duel. As to the servant, he had deserted his master in London, and had
+never reappeared. So far as my poor judgment went, the question before
+me was not of delivering a self-accused murderer to justice (with no
+corpse to testify against him), but of restoring an insane man to the
+care of the persons who had been appointed to restrain him.
+
+I tried to test the strength of his delusion in an interval when he was
+not urging his shocking entreaties on Miss Laroche. "How do you know
+that you killed Mr. Varleigh?" I said.
+
+He looked at me with a wild terror in his eyes. Suddenly he lifted
+his right hand, and shook it in the air, with a moaning cry, which was
+unmistakably a cry of pain. "Should I see his ghost," he asked, "if I
+had not killed him? I know it, by the pain that wrings me in the hand
+that stabbed him. Always in my right hand! always the same pain at the
+moment when I see him!" He stopped and ground his teeth in the agony and
+reality of his delusion. "Look!" he cried. "Look between the two trees
+behind you. There he is--with his dark hair, and his shaven face, and
+his steady look! There he is, standing before me as he stood in the
+wood, with his eyes on my eyes, and his sword feeling mine!" He turned
+to Miss Laroche. "Do _you_ see him too?" he asked eagerly. "Tell me the
+truth. My whole life depends on your telling me the truth."
+
+She controlled herself with a wonderful courage. "I don't see him," she
+answered.
+
+He took out his handkerchief, and passed it over his face with a gasp
+of relief. "There is my last chance!" he said. "If she will be true to
+me--if she will be always near me, morning, noon, and night, I shall be
+released from the sight of him. See! he is fading away already! Gone!"
+h e cried, with a scream of exultation. He fell on his knees, and looked
+at Miss Laroche like a savage adoring his idol. "Will you cast me off
+now?" he asked, humbly. "Lionel was fond of you in his lifetime. His
+spirit is a merciful spirit. He shrinks from frightening you, he has
+left me for your sake; he will release me for your sake. Pity me, take
+me to live with you--and I shall never see him again!"
+
+It was dreadful to hear him. I saw that the poor girl could endure no
+more. "Leave us," I whispered to her; "I will join you at the house."
+
+He heard me, and instantly placed himself between us. "Let her promise,
+or she shan't go."
+
+She felt, as I felt, the imperative necessity of saying anything that
+might soothe him. At a sign from me she gave him her promise to return.
+
+He was satisfied--he insisted on kissing her hand, and then he let
+her go. I had by this time succeeded in inducing him to trust me. He
+proposed, of his own accord, that I should accompany him to the inn in
+the village at which he had been staying. The landlord (naturally enough
+distrusting his wretched guest) had warned him that morning to find some
+other place of shelter. I engaged to use my influence with the man to
+make him change his purpose, and I succeeded in effecting the necessary
+arrangements for having the poor wretch properly looked after. On my
+return to my own house, I wrote to a brother magistrate living near
+me, and to the superintendent of our county asylum, requesting them
+to consult with me on the best means of lawfully restraining Captain
+Stanwick until we could communicate with his relations. Could I have
+done more than this? The event of the next morning answered that
+question--answered it at once and forever.
+
+III.
+
+PRESENTING myself at Nettlegrove Hall toward sunset, to take charge of
+Miss Laroche, I was met by an obstacle in the shape of a protest from
+her aunt.
+
+This good lady had been informed of the appearance of Captain Stanwick
+in the park, and she strongly disapproved of encouraging any further
+communication with him on the part of her niece. She also considered
+that I had failed in my duty in still leaving the Captain at liberty.
+I told her that I was only waiting to act on the advice of competent
+persons, who would arrive the next day to consult with me; and I did my
+best to persuade her of the wisdom of the course that I had taken in
+the meantime. Miss Laroche, on her side, was resolved to be true to the
+promise that she had given. Between us, we induced her aunt to yield on
+certain conditions.
+
+"I know the part of the park in which the meeting is to take place," the
+old lady said; "it is my niece's favorite walk. If she is not brought
+back to me in half an hour's time, I shall send the men-servants to
+protect her."
+
+The twilight was falling when we reached the appointed place. We found
+Captain Stanwick angry and suspicious; it was not easy to pacify him
+on the subject of our delay. His insanity seemed to me to be now more
+marked than ever. He had seen, or dreamed of seeing, the ghost during
+the past night. For the first time (he said) the apparition of the dead
+man had spoken to him. In solemn words it had condemned him to expiate
+his crime by giving his life for the life that he had taken. It had
+warned him not to insist on marriage with Bertha Laroche: "She shall
+share your punishment if she shares your life. And you shall know it by
+this sign--_She shall see me as you see me._"
+
+I tried to compose him. He shook his head in immovable despair. "No,"
+he answered; "if she sees him when I see him, there ends the one hope
+of release that holds me to life. It will be good-by between us, and
+good-by forever!"
+
+We had walked on, while we were speaking, to a part of the park through
+which there flowed a rivulet of clear water. On the further bank, the
+open ground led down into a wooded valley. On our side of the stream
+rose a thick plantation of fir-trees intersected by a winding path.
+Captain Stanwick stopped as we reached the place. His eyes rested, in
+the darkening twilight, on the narrow space pierced by the path among
+the trees. On a sudden he lifted his right hand, with the same cry of
+pain which we had heard before; with his left hand he took Miss Laroche
+by the arm. "There!" he said. "Look where I look! Do you see him there?"
+
+As the words passed his lips, a dimly-visible figure appeared, advancing
+toward us along the path.
+
+Was it the figure of a living man? or was it the creation of my own
+excited fancy? Before I could ask myself the question, the man advanced
+a step nearer to us. A last gleam of the dying light fell on his face
+through an opening in the trees. At the same instant Miss Laroche
+started back from Captain Stanwick with a scream of terror. She would
+have fallen if I had not been near enough to support her. The Captain
+was instantly at her side again. "Speak!" he cried. "Do _you_ see it,
+too?"
+
+She was just able to say "Yes" before she fainted in my arms.
+
+He stooped over her, and touched her cold cheek with his lips. "Goodby!"
+he said, in tones suddenly and strangely changed to the most exquisite
+tenderness. "Good-by, forever!"
+
+He leaped the rivulet; he crossed the open ground; he was lost to sight
+in the valley beyond.
+
+As he disappeared, the visionary man among the fir-trees advanced;
+passed in silence; crossed the rivulet at a bound; and vanished as the
+figure of the Captain had vanished before him.
+
+I was left alone with the swooning woman. Not a sound, far or near,
+broke the stillness of the coming night.
+
+No 5.--Mr. Frederic Darnel, Member of the College of Surgeons, testifies
+and says:--
+
+IN the intervals of my professional duty I am accustomed to occupy
+myself in studying Botany, assisted by a friend and neighbor, whose
+tastes in this respect resemble my own. When I can spare an hour or
+two from my patients, we go out together searching for specimens. Our
+favorite place is Herne Wood. It is rich in material for the botanist,
+and it is only a mile distant from the village in which I live.
+
+Early in July, my friend and I made a discovery in the wood of a very
+alarming and unexpected kind. We found a man in the clearing, prostrated
+by a dangerous wound, and to all appearance dead.
+
+We carried him to the gamekeeper's cottage on the outskirts of the
+woods, and on the side of it nearest to our village. He and his boy were
+out, but the light cart in which he makes his rounds, in the remoter
+part of his master's property, was in the outhouse. While my friend was
+putting the horse to, I examined the stranger's wound. It had been quite
+recently inflicted, and I doubted whether it had (as yet, at any rate)
+really killed him. I did what I could with the linen and cold water
+which the gamekeeper's wife offered to me, and then my friend and I
+removed him carefully to my house in the cart. I applied the necessary
+restoratives, and I had the pleasure of satisfying myself that the vital
+powers had revived. He was perfectly unconscious, of course, but the
+action of the heart became distinctly perceptible, and I had hopes.
+
+In a few days more I felt fairly sure of him. Then the usual fever set
+in. I was obliged, in justice to his friends, to search his clothes in
+presence of a witness. We found his handkerchief, his purse, and his
+cigar-case, and nothing more. No letters or visiting cards; nothing
+marked on his clothes but initials. There was no help for it but to wait
+to identify him until he could speak.
+
+When that time came, he acknowledged to me that he had divested himself
+purposely of any clew to his identity, in the fear (if some mischance
+happened to him) of the news of it reaching his father and mother
+abruptly, by means of the newspapers. He had sent a letter to his
+bankers in London, to be forwarded to his parents, if the bankers
+neither saw him nor heard from him in a month's time. His first act was
+to withdraw this letter. The other particulars which he communicated to
+me are, I am told, already known. I need only add that I willingly kept
+his secret, simply speaking of him in the neighborhood as a traveler
+from foreign parts who had met with an accident.
+
+His convalescence was a long one. It was the beginning of October
+before he was completely restored to health. When he left us he went to
+London. He behaved most liberally to me; and we parted with sincere good
+wishes on either side.
+
+No. 6.--_Mr. Lionel Varleigh, of Boston, U. S. A., testifies and
+says:--_
+
+MY first proceeding, on my recovery, was to go to the relations of
+Captain Stanwick in London, for the purpose of making inquiries about
+him.
+
+I do not wish to justify myself at the expense of that miserable man. It
+is true that I loved Miss Laroche too dearly to yield her to any rival
+except at her own wish. It is also true that Captain Stanwick more than
+once insulted me, and that I endured it. He had suffered from sunstroke
+in India, and in his angry moments he was hardly a responsible being.
+It was only when he threatened me with personal chastisement that my
+patience gave way. We met sword in hand. In my mind was the resolution
+to spare his life. In his mind was the resolution to kill me. I have
+forgiven him. I will say no more.
+
+His relations informed me of the symptoms of insane delusion which he
+had shown after the duel; of his escape from the asylum in which he had
+been confined; and of the failure to find him again.
+
+The moment I heard this news the dread crossed my mind that Stanwick
+had found his way to Miss Laroche. In an hour more I was traveling to
+Nettlegrove Hall.
+
+I arrived late in the evening, and found Miss Laroche's aunt in great
+alarm about her niece's safety. The young lady was at that very moment
+speaking to Stanwick in the park, with only an old man (the rector) to
+protect her. I volunteered to go at once, and assist in taking care of
+her. A servant accompanied me to show me the place of meeting. We heard
+voices indistinctly, but saw no one. The servant pointed to a path
+through the fir-trees. I went on quickly by myself, leaving the man
+within call. In a few minutes I came upon them suddenly, at a little
+distance from me, on the bank of a stream.
+
+The fear of seriously alarming Miss Laroche, if I showed myself too
+suddenly, deprived me for a moment of my presence of mind. Pausing to
+consider what it might be best to do, I was less completely protected
+from discovery by the trees than I had supposed. She had seen me; I
+heard her cry of alarm. The instant afterward I saw Stanwick leap over
+the rivulet and take to flight. That action roused me. Without stopping
+for a word of explanation, I pursued him.
+
+Unhappily, I missed my footing in the obscure light, and fell on the
+open ground beyond the stream. When I had gained my feet once more,
+Stanwick had disappeared among the trees which marked the boundary of
+the park beyond me. I could see nothing of him, and I could hear nothing
+of him, when I came out on the high-road. There I met with a laboring
+man who showed me the way to the village. From the inn I sent a letter
+to Miss Laroche's aunt, explaining what had happened, and asking leave
+to call at the Hall on the next day.
+
+Early in the morning the rector came to me at the inn. He brought sad
+news. Miss Laroche was suffering from a nervous attack, and my visit to
+the Hall must be deferred. Speaking next of the missing man, I heard all
+that Mr. Loring could tell me. My intimate knowledge of Stanwick enabled
+me to draw my own conclusion from the facts. The thought instantly
+crossed my mind that the poor wretch might have committed his expiatory
+suicide at the very spot on which he had attempted to kill me. Leaving
+the rector to institute the necessary inquiries, I took post-horses to
+Maplesworth on my way to Herne Wood.
+
+Advancing from the high-road to the wood, I saw two persons at a little
+distance from me--a man in the dress of a gamekeeper, and a lad. I was
+too much agitated to take any special notice of them; I hurried along
+the path which led to the clearing. My presentiment had not misled me.
+There he lay, dead on the scene of the duel, with a blood-stained razor
+by his side! I fell on my knees by the corpse; I took his cold hand in
+mine; and I thanked God that I had forgiven him in the first days of my
+recovery.
+
+I was still kneeling, when I felt myself seized from behind. I struggled
+to my feet, and confronted the gamekeeper. He had noticed my hurry in
+entering the wood; his suspicions had been aroused, and he and the lad
+had followed me. There was blood on my clothes; there was horror in
+my face. Appearances were plainly against me; I had no choice but to
+accompany the gamekeeper to the nearest magistrate.
+
+My instructions to my solicitor forbade him to vindicate my innocence by
+taking any technical legal objections to the action of the magistrate
+or of the coroner. I insisted on my witnesses being summoned to the
+lawyer's office, and allowed to state, in their own way, what they could
+truly declare on my behalf; and I left my defense to be founded upon the
+materials thus obtained. In the meanwhile I was detained in custody, as
+a matter of course.
+
+With this event the tragedy of the duel reached its culminating point. I
+was accused of murdering the man who had attempted to take my life!
+
+
+This last incident having been related, all that is worth noticing in
+my contribution to the present narrative comes to an end. I was tried
+in due course of law. The evidence taken at my solicitor's office was
+necessarily altered in form, though not in substance, by the examination
+to which the witnesses were subjected in a court of justice. So
+thoroughly did our defense satisfy the jury, that they became restless
+toward the close of the proceedings, and returned their verdict of Not
+Guilty without quitting the box.
+
+When I was a free man again, it is surely needless to dwell on the
+first use that I made of my honorable acquittal. Whether I deserved the
+enviable place that I occupied in Bertha's estimation, it is not for me
+to say. Let me leave the decision to the lady who has ceased to be Miss
+Laroche--I mean the lady who has been good enough to become my wife.
+
+
+
+
+MISS DULANE AND MY LORD.
+
+Part I.
+
+TWO REMONSTRATIONS.
+
+I.
+
+ONE afternoon old Miss Dulane entered her drawing-room; ready to receive
+visitors, dressed in splendor, and exhibiting every outward appearance
+of a defiant frame of mind.
+
+Just as a saucy bronze nymph on the mantelpiece struck the quarter to
+three on an elegant clock under her arm, a visitor was announced--"Mrs.
+Newsham."
+
+Miss Dulane wore her own undisguised gray hair, dressed in perfect
+harmony with her time of life. Without an attempt at concealment, she
+submitted to be too short and too stout. Her appearance (if it had only
+been made to speak) would have said, in effect: "I am an old woman, and
+I scorn to disguise it."
+
+Mrs. Newsham, tall and elegant, painted and dyed, acted on the opposite
+principle in dressing, which confesses nothing. On exhibition before the
+world, this lady's disguise asserted that she had reached her thirtieth
+year on her last birthday. Her husband was discreetly silent, and Father
+Time was discreetly silent: they both knew that her last birthday had
+happened thirty years since.
+
+"Shall we talk of the weather and the news, my dear? Or shall we come to
+the object of your visit at once?" So Miss Dulane opened the interview.
+
+"Your tone and manner, my good friend, are no doubt provoked by the
+report in the newspaper of this morning. In justice to you, I refuse to
+believe the report." So Mrs. Newsham adopted her friend's suggestion.
+
+"You kindness is thrown away, Elizabeth. The report is true."
+
+"Matilda, you shock me!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"At your age!"
+
+"If _he_ doesn't object to my age, what does it matter to _you?_"
+
+"Don't speak of that man!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"He is young enough to be your son; and he is marrying you--impudently,
+undisguisedly marrying you--for your money!"
+
+"And I am marrying him--impudently, undisguisedly marrying him--for his
+rank."
+
+"You needn't remind me, Matilda, that you are the daughter of a tailor."
+
+"In a week or two more, Elizabeth, I shall remind you that I am the wife
+of a nobleman's son."
+
+"A younger son; don't forget that."
+
+"A younger son, as you say. He finds the social position, and I find the
+money--half a million at my own sole disposal. My future husband is a
+good fellow in his way, and his future wife is another good fellow in
+her way. To look at your grim face, one would suppose there were no such
+things in the world as marriages of convenience."
+
+"Not at your time of life. I tell you plainly, your marriage will be a
+public scandal."
+
+"That doesn't frighten us," Miss Dulane remarked. "We are resigned to
+every ill-natured thing that our friends can say of us. In course of
+time, the next nine days' wonder will claim public attention, and we
+shall be forgotten. I shall be none the less on that account Lady
+Howel Beaucourt. And my husband will be happy in the enjoyment of every
+expensive taste which a poor man call gratify, for the first time in
+his life. Have you any more objections to make? Don't hesitate to speak
+plainly."
+
+"I have a question to ask, my dear."
+
+"Charmed, I am sure, to answer it--if I can."
+
+"Am I right in supposing that Lord Howel Beaucourt is about half your
+age?"
+
+"Yes, dear; my future husband is as nearly as possible half as old as I
+am."
+
+Mrs. Newsham's uneasy virtue shuddered. "What a profanation of
+marriage!" she exclaimed.
+
+"Nothing of the sort," her friend pronounced positively. "Marriage, by
+the law of England (as my lawyer tells me), is nothing but a contract.
+Who ever heard of profaning a contract?"
+
+"Call it what you please, Matilda. Do you expect to live a happy life,
+at your age, with a young man for your husband?"
+
+"A happy life," Miss Dulane repeated, "because it will be an innocent
+life." She laid a certain emphasis on the last word but one.
+
+Mrs. Newsham resented the emphasis, and rose to go. Her last words were
+the bitterest words that she had spoken yet.
+
+"You have secured such a truly remarkable husband, my dear, that I
+am emboldened to ask a great favor. Will you give me his lordship's
+photograph?"
+
+"No," said Miss Dulane, "I won't give you his lordship's photograph."
+
+"What is your objection, Matilda?"
+
+"A very serious objection, Elizabeth. You are not pure enough in mind to
+be worthy of my husband's photograph."
+
+With that reply the first of the remonstrances assumed hostile
+proportions, and came to an untimely end.
+
+II.
+
+THE second remonstrance was reserved for a happier fate. It took its
+rise in a conversation between two men who were old and true friends. In
+other words, it led to no quarreling.
+
+The elder man was one of those admirable human beings who are cordial,
+gentle, and good-tempered, without any conscious exercise of their own
+virtues. He was generally known in the world about him by a fond and
+familiar use of his Christian name. To call him "Sir Richard" in these
+pages (except in the character of one of his servants) would be
+simply ridiculous. When he lent his money, his horses, his house, and
+(sometimes, after unlucky friends had dropped to the lowest social
+depths) even his clothes, this general benefactor was known, in the best
+society and the worst society alike, as "Dick." He filled the hundred
+mouths of Rumor with his nickname, in the days when there was an
+opera in London, as the proprietor of the "Beauty-box." The ladies who
+occupied the box were all invited under the same circumstances. They
+enjoyed operatic music; but their husbands and fathers were not rich
+enough to be able to gratify that expensive taste. Dick's carriage
+called for them, and took them home again; and the beauties all agreed
+(if he ever married) that Mrs. Dick would be the most enviable woman on
+the face of the civilized earth. Even the false reports, which declared
+that he was privately married already, and on bad terms with his
+wife, slandered him cordially under the popular name. And his intimate
+companions, when they alluded among each other to a romance in his life
+which would remain a hidden romance to the end of his days, forgot that
+the occasion justified a serious and severe use of his surname, and
+blamed him affectionately as "poor dear Dick."
+
+The hour was midnight; and the friends, whom the most hospitable of men
+delighted to assemble round his dinner-table, had taken their leave with
+the exception of one guest specially detained by the host, who led him
+back to the dining-room.
+
+"You were angry with our friends," Dick began, "when they asked you
+about that report of your marriage. You won't be angry with Me. Are you
+really going to be the old maid's husband?"
+
+This plain question received a plain reply: "Yes, I am."
+
+Dick took the young lord's hand. Simply and seriously, he said: "Accept
+my congratulations."
+
+Howel Beaucourt started as if he had received a blow instead of a
+compliment.
+
+"There isn't another man or woman in the whole circle of my
+acquaintance," he declared, "who would have congratulated me on marrying
+Miss Dulane. I believe you would make allowances for me if I had
+committed murder."
+
+"I hope I should," Dick answered gravely. "When a man is my
+friend--murder or marriage--I take it for granted that he has a reason
+for what he does. Wait a minute. You mustn't give me more credit than
+I deserve. I don't agree with you. If I were a marrying man myself, I
+shouldn't pick an old maid--I should prefer a young one. That's a matter
+of taste. You are not like me. _You_ always have a definite object in
+view. I may not know what the object is. Never mind! I wish you joy all
+the same."
+
+Beaucourt was not unworthy of the friendship he had inspired. "I should
+be ungrateful indeed," he said, "if I didn't tell you what my object is.
+You know that I am poor?"
+
+"The only poor friend of mine," Dick remarked, "who has never borrowed
+money of me."
+
+Beaucourt went on without noticing this. "I have three expensive
+tastes," he said. "I want to get into Parliament; I want to have a
+yacht; I want to collect pictures. Add, if you like, the selfish luxury
+of helping poverty and wretchedness, and hearing my conscience tell
+me what an excellent man I am. I can't do all this on five hundred a
+year--but I can do it on forty times five hundred a year. Moral: marry
+Miss Dulane."
+
+Listening attentively until the other had done, Dick showed a sardonic
+side to his character never yet discovered in Beaucourt's experience of
+him.
+
+"I suppose you have made the necessary arrangements," he said. "When
+the old lady releases you, she will leave consolation behind her in her
+will."
+
+"That's the first ill-natured thing I ever heard you say, Dick. When the
+old lady dies, my sense of honor takes fright, and turns its back on
+her will. It's a condition on my side, that every farthing of her money
+shall be left to her relations."
+
+"Don't you call yourself one of them?"
+
+"What a question! Am I her relation because the laws of society force
+a mock marriage on us? How can I make use of her money unless I am her
+husband? and how can she make use of my title unless she is my wife? As
+long as she lives I stand honestly by my side of the bargain. But when
+she dies the transaction is at an end, and the surviving partner returns
+to his five hundred a year."
+
+Dick exhibited another surprising side to his character. The most
+compliant of men now became as obstinate as the proverbial mule.
+
+"All very well," he said, "but it doesn't explain why--if you must sell
+yourself--you have sold yourself to an old lady. There are plenty of
+young ones and pretty ones with fortunes to tempt you. It seems odd that
+you haven't tried your luck with one of them."
+
+"No, Dick. It would have been odd, and worse than odd, if I had tried my
+luck with a young woman."
+
+"I don't see that."
+
+"You shall see it directly. If I marry an old woman for her money, I
+have no occasion to be a hypocrite; we both know that our marriage is a
+mere matter of form. But if I make a young woman my wife because I want
+her money, and if that young woman happens to be worth a straw, I must
+deceive her and disgrace myself by shamming love. That, my boy, you may
+depend upon it, I will never do."
+
+Dick's face suddenly brightened with a mingled expression of relief and
+triumph.
+
+"Ha! my mercenary friend," he burst out, "there's something mixed up in
+this business which is worthier of you than anything I have heard yet.
+Stop! I'm going to be clever for the first time in my life. A man who
+talks of love as you do, must have felt love himself. Where is the young
+one and the pretty one? And what has she done, poor dear, to be deserted
+for an old woman? Good God! how you look at me! I have hurt your
+feelings--I have been a greater fool than ever--I am more ashamed of
+myself than words can say!"
+
+Beaucourt stopped him there, gently and firmly.
+
+"You have made a very natural mistake," he said. "There _was_ a young
+lady. She has refused me--absolutely refused me. There is no more love
+in my life. It's a dark life and an empty life for the rest of my
+days. I must see what money can do for me next. When I have thoroughly
+hardened my heart I may not feel my misfortune as I feel it now. Pity me
+or despise me. In either case let us say goodnight."
+
+He went out into the hall and took his hat. Dick went out into the hall
+and took _his_ hat.
+
+"Have your own way," he answered, "I mean to have mine--I'll go home
+with you."
+
+The man was simply irresistible. Beaucourt sat down resignedly on the
+nearest of the hall chairs. Dick asked him to return to the dining-room.
+"No," he said; "it's not worth while. What I can tell you may be told in
+two minutes." Dick submitted, and took the next of the hall chairs. In
+that inappropriate place the young lord's unpremeditated confession
+was forced out of him, by no more formidable exercise of power than the
+kindness of his friend.
+
+"When you hear where I met with her," he began, "you will most likely
+not want to hear any more. I saw her, for the first time, on the stage
+of a music hall."
+
+He looked at Dick. Perfectly quiet and perfectly impenetrable, Dick only
+said, "Go on." Beaucourt continued in these words:
+
+"She was singing Arne's delicious setting of Ariel's song in the
+'Tempest,' with a taste and feeling completely thrown away on the
+greater part of the audience. That she was beautiful--in my eyes at
+least--I needn't say. That she had descended to a sphere unworthy of her
+and new to her, nobody could doubt. Her modest dress, her refinement
+of manner, seemed rather to puzzle than to please most of the people
+present; they applauded her, but not very warmly, when she retired. I
+obtained an introduction through her music-master, who happened to be
+acquainted professionally with some relatives of mine. He told me that
+she was a young widow; and he assured me that the calamity through which
+her family had lost their place in the world had brought no sort of
+disgrace on them. If I wanted to know more, he referred me to the lady
+herself. I found her very reserved. A long time passed before I could
+win her confidence--and a longer time still before I ventured to confess
+the feeling with which she had inspired me. You know the rest."
+
+"You mean, of course, that you offered her marriage?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And she refused you on account of your position in life."
+
+"No. I had foreseen that obstacle, and had followed the example of the
+adventurous nobleman in the old story. Like him, I assumed a name, and
+presented myself as belonging to her own respectable middle class of
+life. You are too old a friend to suspect me of vanity if I tell you
+that she had no objection to me, and no suspicion that I had approached
+her (personally speaking) under a disguise."
+
+"What motive could she possibly have had for refusing you?" Dick asked.
+
+"A motive associated with her dead husband," Beaucourt answered. "He
+had married her--mind, innocently married her--while his first wife was
+living. The woman was an inveterate drunkard; they had been separated
+for years. Her death had been publicly reported in the newspapers, among
+the persons killed in a railway accident abroad. When she claimed her
+unhappy husband he was in delicate health. The shock killed him. His
+widow--I can't, and won't, speak of her misfortune as if it was her
+fault--knew of no living friends who were in a position to help her.
+Not a great artist with a wonderful voice, she could still trust to her
+musical accomplishments to provide for the necessities of life. Plead as
+I might with her to forget the past, I always got the same reply: 'If
+I was base enough to let myself be tempted by the happy future that you
+offer, I should deserve the unmerited disgrace which has fallen on me.
+Marry a woman whose reputation will bear inquiry, and forget me.' I was
+mad enough to press my suit once too often. When I visited her on the
+next day she was gone. Every effort to trace her has failed. Lost, my
+friend--irretrievably lost to me!"
+
+He offered his hand and said good-night. Dick held him back on the
+doorstep.
+
+"Break off your mad engagement to Miss Dulane," he said. "Be a man,
+Howel; wait and hope! You are throwing away your life when happiness is
+within your reach, if you will only be patient. That poor young creature
+is worthy of you. Lost? Nonsense! In this narrow little world people
+are never hopelessly lost till they are dead and underground. Help me
+to recognize her by a description, and tell me her name. I'll find her;
+I'll persuade her to come back to you--and, mark my words, you will live
+to bless the day when you followed my advice."
+
+This well-meant remonstrance was completely thrown away. Beaucourt's
+despair was deaf to every entreaty that Dick had addressed to him.
+"Thank you with all my heart," he said. "You don't know her as I do.
+She is one of the very few women who mean No when they say No. Useless,
+Dick--useless!"
+
+Those were the last words he said to his friend in the character of a
+single man.
+
+Part II
+
+PLATONIC MARRIAGE.
+
+III.
+
+"SEVEN months have passed, my dear Dick, since my 'inhuman obstinacy'
+(those were the words you used) made you one of the witnesses at my
+marriage to Miss Dulane, sorely against your will. Do you remember your
+parting prophecy when you were out of the bride's hearing? 'A miserable
+life is before that woman's husband--and, by Jupiter, he has deserved
+it!'
+
+"Never, my dear boy, attempt to forecast the future again. Viewed as a
+prophet you are a complete failure. I have nothing to complain of in my
+married life.
+
+"But you must not mistake me. I am far from saying that I am a happy
+man; I only declare myself to be a contented man. My old wife is a
+marvel of good temper and good sense. She trusts me implicitly, and
+I have given her no reason to regret it. We have our time for being
+together, and our time for keeping apart. Within our inevitable limits
+we understand each other and respect each other, and have a truer
+feeling of regard on both sides than many people far better matched than
+we are in point of age. But you shall judge for yourself. Come and dine
+with us, when I return on Wednesday next from the trial trip of my new
+yacht. In the meantime I have a service to ask of you.
+
+"My wife's niece has been her companion for years. She has left us to be
+married to an officer, who has taken her to India; and we are utterly
+at a loss how to fill her place. The good old lady doesn't want much.
+A nice-tempered refined girl, who can sing and play to her with some
+little taste and feeling, and read to her now and then when her eyes are
+weary--there is what we require; and there, it seems, is more than we
+can get, after advertising for a week past. Of all the 'companions'
+who have presented themselves, not one has turned out to be the sort of
+person whom Lady Howel wants.
+
+"Can you help us? In any case, my wife sends you her kind remembrances;
+and (true to the old times) I add my love."
+
+On the day which followed the receipt of this letter, Dick paid a
+visit to Lady Howel Beaucourt.
+
+"You seem to be excited," she said. "Has anything remarkable happened?"
+
+"Pardon me if I ask a question first," Dick replied. "Do you object to a
+young widow?"
+
+"That depends on the widow."
+
+"Then I have found the very person you want. And, oddly enough, your
+husband has had something to do with it."
+
+"Do you mean that my husband has recommended her?"
+
+There was an undertone of jealousy in Lady Howel's voice---jealousy
+excited not altogether without a motive. She had left it to Beaucourt's
+sense of honor to own the truth, if there had been any love affair in
+his past life which ought to make him hesitates before he married.
+He had justified Miss Dulane's confidence in him; acknowledging an
+attachment to a young widow, and adding that she had positively refused
+him. "We have not met since," he said, "and we shall never meet again."
+Under those circumstances, Miss Dulane had considerately abstained from
+asking for any further details. She had not thought of the young widow
+again, until Dick's language had innocently inspired her first doubt.
+Fortunately for both of them, he was an outspoken man; and he reassured
+her unreservedly in these words: "Your husband knows nothing about it."
+
+"Now," she said, "you may tell me how you came to hear of the lady."
+
+"Through my uncle's library," Dick replied. "His will has left me his
+collection of books--in such a wretchedly neglected condition that
+I asked Beaucourt (not being a reading man myself) if he knew of
+any competent person who could advise me how to set things right. He
+introduced me to Farleigh & Halford, the well-known publishers. The
+second partner is a book collector himself, as well as a bookseller. He
+kindly looks in now and then, to see how his instructions for mending
+and binding are being carried out. When he called yesterday I thought of
+you, and I found he could help us to a young lady employed in his office
+at correcting proof sheets."
+
+"What is the lady's name?"
+
+"Mrs. Evelin."
+
+"Why does she leave her employment?"
+
+"To save her eyes, poor soul. When the senior partner, Mr. Farleigh, met
+with her, she was reduced by family misfortunes to earn her own living.
+The publishers would have been only too glad to keep her in their
+office, but for the oculist's report. He declared that she would run the
+risk of blindness, if she fatigued her weak eyes much longer. There is
+the only objection to this otherwise invaluable person--she will not be
+able to read to you."
+
+"Can she sing and play?"
+
+"Exquisitely. Mr. Farleigh answers for her music."
+
+"And her character?"
+
+"Mr. Halford answers for her character."
+
+"And her manners?"
+
+"A perfect lady. I have seen her and spoken to her; I answer for her
+manners, and I guarantee her personal appearance. Charming--charming!"
+
+For a moment Lady Howel hesitated. After a little reflection, she
+decided that it was her duty to trust her excellent husband. "I will
+receive the charming widow," she said, "to-morrow at twelve o'clock;
+and, if she produces the right impression, I promise to overlook the
+weakness of her eyes."
+
+IV.
+
+BEAUCOURT had prolonged the period appointed for the trial trip of
+his yacht by a whole week. His apology when he returned delighted the
+kind-hearted old lady who had made him a present of the vessel.
+
+"There isn't such another yacht in the whole world," he declared. "I
+really hadn't the heart to leave that beautiful vessel after only
+three days experience of her." He burst out with a torrent of technical
+praises of the yacht, to which his wife listened as attentively as if
+she really understood what he was talking about. When his breath and his
+eloquence were exhausted alike, she said, "Now, my dear, it's my turn. I
+can match your perfect vessel with my perfect lady."
+
+"What! you have found a companion?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did Dick find her for you?"
+
+"He did indeed. You shall see for yourself how grateful I ought to be to
+your friend."
+
+She opened a door which led into the next room. "Mary, my dear, come and
+be introduced to my husband."
+
+Beaucourt started when he heard the name, and instantly recovered
+himself. He had forgotten how many Marys there are in the world.
+
+Lady Howel returned, leading her favorite by the hand, and gayly
+introduced her the moment they entered the room.
+
+"Mrs. Evelin; Lord--"
+
+She looked at her husband. The utterance of his name was instantly
+suspended on her lips. Mrs. Evelin's hand, turning cold at the same
+moment in her hand, warned her to look round. The face of the woman more
+than reflected the inconcealable agitation in the face of the man.
+
+The wife's first words, when she recovered herself, were addressed to
+them both.
+
+"Which of you can I trust," she asked, "to tell me the truth?"
+
+"You can trust both of us," her husband answered.
+
+The firmness of his tone irritated her. "I will judge of that for
+myself," she said. "Go back to the next room," she added, turning to
+Mrs. Evelin; "I will hear you separately."
+
+The companion, whose duty it was to obey--whose modesty and gentleness
+had won her mistress's heart--refused to retire.
+
+"No," she said; "I have been deceived too. I have _my_ right to hear
+what Lord Howel has to say for himself."
+
+Beaucourt attempted to support the claim that she had advanced. His
+wife sternly signed to him to be silent. "What do you mean?" she said,
+addressing the question to Mrs. Evelin.
+
+"I mean this. The person whom you speak of as a nobleman was presented
+to me as 'Mr. Vincent, an artist.' But for that deception I should never
+have set foot in your ladyship's house."
+
+"Is this true, my lord?" Lady Howel asked, with a contemptuous emphasis
+on the title of nobility.
+
+"Quite true," her husband answered. "I thought it possible that my rank
+might prove an obstacle in the way of my hopes. The blame rests on me,
+and on me alone. I ask Mrs. Evelin to pardon me for an act of deception
+which I deeply regret."
+
+Lady Howel was a just woman. Under other circumstances she might
+have shown herself to be a generous woman. That brighter side of her
+character was incapable of revealing itself in the presence of Mrs.
+Evelin, young and beautiful, and in possession of her husband's heart.
+She could say, "I beg your pardon, madam; I have not treated you
+justly." But no self-control was strong enough to restrain the next
+bitter words from passing her lips. "At my age," she said, "Lord Howel
+will soon be free; you will not have long to wait for him."
+
+The young widow looked at her sadly--answered her sadly.
+
+"Oh, my lady, your better nature will surely regret having said that!"
+
+For a moment her eyes rested on Beaucourt, dim with rising tears. She
+left the room--and left the house.
+
+There was silence between the husband and wife. Beaucourt was the first
+to speak again.
+
+"After what you have just heard, do you persist in your jealousy of that
+lady, and your jealousy of me?" he asked.
+
+"I have behaved cruelly to her and to you. I am ashamed of myself," was
+all she said in reply. That expression of sorrow, so simple and so true,
+did not appeal in vain to the gentler side of Beaucourt's nature. He
+kissed his wife's hand; he tried to console her.
+
+"You may forgive me," she answered. "I cannot forgive myself. That poor
+lady's last words have made my heart ache. What I said to her in anger
+I ought to have said generously. Why should she not wait for you? After
+your life with me--a life of kindness, a life of self-sacrifice--you
+deserve your reward. Promise me that you will marry the woman you
+love--after my death has released you."
+
+"You distress me, and needlessly distress me," he said. "What you are
+thinking of, my dear, can never happen; no, not even if--" He left the
+rest unsaid.
+
+"Not even if you were free?" she asked.
+
+"Not even then."
+
+She looked toward the next room. "Go in, Howel, and bring Mrs. Evelin
+back; I have something to say to her."
+
+The discovery that she had left the house caused no fear that she had
+taken to flight with the purpose of concealing herself. There was a
+prospect before the poor lonely woman which might be trusted to preserve
+her from despair, to say the least of it.
+
+During her brief residence in Beaucourt's house she had shown to Lady
+Howel a letter received from a relation, who had emigrated to New
+Zealand with her husband and her infant children some years since. They
+had steadily prospered; they were living in comfort, and they wanted for
+nothing but a trustworthy governess to teach their children. The
+mother had accordingly written, asking if her relative in England could
+recommend a competent person, and offering a liberal salary. In showing
+the letter to Lady Howel, Mrs. Evelin had said: "If I had not been
+so happy as to attract your notice, I might have offered to be the
+governess myself."
+
+Assuming that it had now occurred to her to act on this idea, Lady Howel
+felt assured that she would apply for advice either to the publishers
+who had recommended her, or to Lord Howel's old friend.
+
+Beaucourt at once offered to make th e inquiries which might satisfy his
+wife that she had not been mistaken. Readily accepting his proposal, she
+asked at the same time for a few minutes of delay.
+
+"I want to say to you," she explained, "what I had in my mind to say to
+Mrs. Evelin. Do you object to tell me why she refused to marry you? I
+couldn't have done it in her place."
+
+"You would have done it, my dear, as I think, if her misfortune had been
+your misfortune." With those prefatory words he told the miserable story
+of Mrs. Evelin's marriage.
+
+Lady Howel's sympathies, strongly excited, appeared to have led her to a
+conclusion which she was not willing to communicate to her husband. She
+asked him, rather abruptly, if he would leave it to her to find Mrs.
+Evelin. "I promise," she added, "to tell you what I am thinking of, when
+I come back."
+
+In two minutes more she was ready to go out, and had hurriedly left the
+house.
+
+V.
+
+AFTER a long absence Lady Howel returned, accompanied by Dick. His face
+and manner betrayed unusual agitation; Beaucourt noticed it.
+
+"I may well be excited," Dick declared, "after what I have heard, and
+after what we have done. Lady Howel, yours is the brain that thinks to
+some purpose. Make our report--I wait for you."
+
+But my lady preferred waiting for Dick. He consented to speak first, for
+the thoroughly characteristic reason that he could "get over it in no
+time."
+
+"I shall try the old division," he said, "into First, Second, and Third.
+Don't be afraid; I am not going to preach--quite the contrary; I am
+going to be quick about it. First, then, Mrs. Evelin has decided, under
+sound advice, to go to New Zealand. Second, I have telegraphed to her
+relations at the other end of the world to tell them that she is coming.
+Third, and last, Farleigh & Halford have sent to the office, and
+secured a berth for her in the next ship that sails--date the day after
+to-morrow. Done in half a minute. Now, Lady Howel!"
+
+"I will begin and end in half a minute too," she said, "if I can.
+First," she continued, turning to her husband, "I found Mrs. Evelin at
+your friend's house. She kindly let me say all that I could say for the
+relief of my poor heart. Secondly--"
+
+She hesitated, smiled uneasily, and came to a full stop.
+
+"I can't do it, Howel," she confessed; "I speak to you as usual, or I
+can never get on. Saying many things in few words--if the ladies
+who assert our rights will forgive me for confessing it--is an
+accomplishment in which we are completely beaten by the men. You must
+have thought me rude, my dear, for leaving you very abruptly, without a
+word of explanation. The truth is, I had an idea in my head, and I kept
+it to myself (old people are proverbially cautious, you know) till I had
+first found out whether it was worth mentioning. When you were speaking
+of the wretched creature who had claimed Mrs. Evelin's husband as her
+own, you said she was an inveterate drunkard. A woman in that state of
+degradation is capable, as I persist in thinking, of any wickedness.
+I suppose this put it into my head to doubt her--no; I mean, to wonder
+whether Mr. Evelin--do you know that she keeps her husband's name by his
+own entreaty addressed to her on his deathbed?--oh, I am losing myself
+in a crowd of words of my own collecting! Say the rest of it for me, Sir
+Richard!"
+
+"No, Lady Howel. Not unless you call me 'Dick.'"
+
+"Then say it for me--Dick."
+
+"No, not yet, on reflection. Dick is too short, say 'Dear Dick.'"
+
+"Dear Dick--there!"
+
+"Thank you, my lady. Now we had better remember that your husband
+is present." He turned to Beaucourt. "Lady Howel had the idea," he
+proceeded, "which ought to have presented itself to you and to me. It
+was a serious misfortune (as she thought) that Mr. Evelin's sufferings
+in his last illness, and his wife's anxiety while she was nursing him,
+had left them unfit to act in their own defense. They might otherwise
+not have submitted to the drunken wretch's claim, without first making
+sure that she had a right to advance it. Taking her character into due
+consideration, are we quite certain that she was herself free to
+marry, when Mr. Evelin unfortunately made her his wife? To that serious
+question we now mean to find an answer. With Mrs. Evelin's knowledge of
+the affair to help us, we have discovered the woman's address, to begin
+with. She keeps a small tobacconist's shop at the town of Grailey in the
+north of England. The rest is in the hands of my lawyer. If we make the
+discovery that we all hope for, we have your wife to thank for it." He
+paused, and looked at his watch. "I've got an appointment at the club.
+The committee will blackball the best fellow that ever lived if I don't
+go and stop them. Good-by."
+
+The last day of Mrs. Evelin's sojourn in England was memorable in more
+ways than one.
+
+On the first occasion in Beaucourt's experience of his married life, his
+wife wrote to him instead of speaking to him, although they were both in
+the house at the time. It was a little note only containing these words:
+"I thought you would like to say good-by to Mrs. Evelin. I have told
+her to expect you in the library, and I will take care that you are not
+disturbed."
+
+Waiting at the window of her sitting-room, on the upper floor, Lady
+Howel perceived that the delicate generosity of her conduct had been
+gratefully felt. The interview in the library barely lasted for five
+minutes. She saw Mrs. Evelin leave the house with her veil down.
+Immediately afterward, Beaucourt ascended to his wife's room to thank
+her. Carefully as he had endeavored to hide them, the traces of tears in
+his eyes told her how cruelly the parting scene had tried him. It was a
+bitter moment for his admirable wife. "Do you wish me dead?" she asked
+with sad self-possession. "Live," he said, "and live happily, if you
+wish to make me happy too." He drew her to him and kissed her forehead.
+Lady Howel had her reward.
+
+Part III.
+
+NEWS FROM THE COLONY.
+
+VI.
+
+FURNISHED with elaborate instructions to guide him, which included
+golden materials for bribery, a young Jew holding the place of third
+clerk in the office of Dick's lawyer was sent to the town of Grailey
+to make discoveries. In the matter of successfully instituting private
+inquiries, he was justly considered to be a match for any two Christians
+who might try to put obstacles in his way. His name was Moses Jackling.
+
+Entering the cigar-shop, the Jew discovered that he had presented
+himself at a critical moment.
+
+A girl and a man were standing behind the counter. The girl looked like
+a maid-of-all-work: she was rubbing the tears out of her eyes with a
+big red fist. The man, smart in manner and shabby in dress, received the
+stranger with a peremptory eagerness to do business. "Now, then! what
+for you?" Jackling bought the worst cigar he had ever smoked, in
+the course of an enormous experience of bad tobacco, and tried a few
+questions with this result. The girl had lost her place; the man was
+in "possession"; and the stock and furniture had been seized for debt.
+Jackling thereupon assumed the character of a creditor, and ask to speak
+with the mistress.
+
+"She's too ill to see you, sir," the girl said.
+
+"Tell the truth, you fool," cried the man in possession. He led the
+way to a door with a glass in the upper part of it, which opened into
+a parlor behind the shop. As soon as his back was turned, Jackling
+whispered to the maid, "When I go, slip out after me; I've got something
+for you." The man lifted the curtain over the glass. "Look through," he
+said, "and see what's the matter with her for yourself."
+
+Jackling discovered the mistress flat on her back on the floor,
+helplessly drunk. That was enough for the clerk--so far. He took leave
+of the man in possession, with the one joke which never wears out in the
+estimation of Englishmen; the joke that foresees the drinker's headache
+in the morning. In a minute or two more the girl showed herself,
+carrying an empty jug. She had been sent for the man's beer, and she
+was expected back directly. Jackling, having first overwhelmed her by a
+present of five shillings, proposed another appointment in the evening.
+The maid promised to be at the place of meeting; and in memory of the
+five shillings she kept her word.
+
+"What wages do you get?" was the first question that astonished her.
+
+"Three pounds a year, sir," the unfortunate creature replied.
+
+"All paid?"
+
+"Only one pound paid--and I say it's a crying shame."
+
+"Say what you like, my dear, so long as you listen to me. I want to know
+everything that your mistress says and does--first when she's drunk, and
+then when she's sober. Wait a bit; I haven't done yet. If you tell me
+everything you can remember--mind _ everything_--I'll pay the rest of
+your wages."
+
+Madly excited by this golden prospect, the victim of domestic service
+answered inarticulately with a scream. Jackling's right hand and left
+hand entered his pockets, and appeared again holding two sovereigns
+separately between two fingers and thumbs. From that moment, he was at
+liberty to empty the maid-of-all-work's memory of every saying and doing
+that it contained.
+
+The sober moments of the mistress yielded little or nothing to
+investigation. The report of her drunken moments produced something
+worth hearing. There were two men whom it was her habit to
+revile bitterly in her cups. One of them was Mr. Evelin, whom she
+abused--sometimes for the small allowance that he made to her; sometimes
+for dying before she could prosecute him for bigamy. Her drunken
+remembrances of the other man were associated with two names. She
+called him "Septimus"; she called him "Darts"; and she despised him
+occasionally for being a "common sailor." It was clearly demonstrated
+that he was one man, and not two. Whether he was "Septimus," or whether
+he was "Darts," he had always committed the same atrocities. He had
+taken her money away from her; he had called her by an atrocious name;
+and he had knocked her down on more than one occasion. Provided with
+this information, Jackling rewarded the girl, and paid a visit to her
+mistress the next day.
+
+The miserable woman was exactly in the state of nervous prostration
+(after the excess of the previous evening) which offered to the
+clerk his best chance of gaining his end. He presented himself as the
+representative of friends, bent on helping her, whose modest benevolence
+had positively forbidden him to mention their names.
+
+"What sum of money must you pay," he asked, "to get rid of the man in
+possession?"
+
+Too completely bewildered to speak, her trembling hand offered to him a
+slip of paper on which the amount of the debt and the expenses was set
+forth: L51 12s. 10d.
+
+With some difficulty the Jew preserved his gravity. "Very well," he
+resumed. "I will make it up to sixty pounds (to set you going again) on
+two conditions."
+
+She suddenly recovered her power of speech. "Give me the money!" she
+cried, with greedy impatience of delay.
+
+"First condition," he continued, without noticing the interruption:
+"you are not to suffer, either in purse or person, if you give us the
+information that we want."
+
+She interrupted him again. "Tell me what it is, and be quick about it."
+
+"Second condition," he went on as impenetrably as ever; "you take me to
+the place where I can find the certificate of your marriage to Septimus
+Darts."
+
+Her eyes glared at him like the eyes of a wild animal. Furies,
+hysterics, faintings, denials, threats--Jackling endured them all by
+turns. It was enough for him that his desperate guess of the evening
+before, had hit the mark on the morning after. When she had completely
+exhausted herself he returned to the experiment which he had already
+tried with the maid. Well aware of the advantage of exhibiting gold
+instead of notes, when the object is to tempt poverty, he produced
+the promised bribe in sovereigns, pouring them playfully backward and
+forward from one big hand to the other.
+
+The temptation was more than the woman could resist. In another
+half-hour the two were traveling together to a town in one of the
+midland counties.
+
+The certificate was found in the church register, and duly copied.
+
+It also appeared that one of the witnesses to the marriage was still
+living. His name and address were duly noted in the clerk's pocketbook.
+Subsequent inquiry, at the office of the Customs Comptroller, discovered
+the name of Septimus Darts on the captain's official list of the crew
+of an outward bound merchant vessel. With this information, and with a
+photographic portrait to complete it, the man was discovered, alive and
+hearty, on the return of the ship to her port.
+
+His wife's explanation of her conduct included the customary excuse that
+she had every reason to believe her husband to be dead, and was followed
+by a bold assertion that she had married Mr. Evelin for love. In Moses
+Jackling's opinion she lied when she said this, and lied again when she
+threatened to prosecute Mr. Evelin for bigamy. "Take my word for it,"
+said this new representative of the unbelieving Jew, "she would have
+extorted money from him if he had lived." Delirium tremens left this
+question unsettled, and closed the cigar shop soon afterward, under the
+authority of death.
+
+The good news, telegraphed to New Zealand, was followed by a letter
+containing details.
+
+At a later date, a telegram arrived from Mrs. Evelin. She had reached
+her destination, and had received the dispatch which told her that she
+had been lawfully married. A letter to Lady Howel was promised by the
+next mail.
+
+While the necessary term of delay was still unexpired, the newspapers
+received the intelligence of a volcanic eruption in the northern island
+of the New Zealand group. Later particulars, announcing a terrible
+destruction of life and property, included the homestead in which Mrs.
+Evelin was living. The farm had been overwhelmed, and every member of
+the household had perished.
+
+Part IV.
+
+THE NIGHT NURSE.
+
+VII.
+
+_Indorsed as follows:_ "Reply from Sir Richard, addressed to Farleigh &
+Halford."
+
+"Your courteous letter has been forwarded to my house in the country.
+
+"I really regret that you should have thought it necessary to apologize
+for troubling me. Your past kindness to the unhappy Mrs. Evelin gives
+you a friendly claim on me which I gladly recognize--as you shall soon
+see.
+
+"'The extraordinary story,' as you very naturally call it, is
+nevertheless true. I am the only person now at your disposal who can
+speak as an eye-witness of the events.
+
+"In the first place I must tell you that the dreadful intelligence,
+received from New Zealand, had an effect on Lord Howel Beaucourt which
+shocked his friends and inexpressibly distressed his admirable wife. I
+can only describe him, at that time, as a man struck down in mind and
+body alike.
+
+"Lady Howel was unremitting in her efforts to console him. He was
+thankful and gentle. It was true that no complaint could be made of him.
+It was equally true that no change for the better rewarded the devotion
+of his wife.
+
+"The state of feeling which this implied imbittered the disappointment
+that Lady Howel naturally felt. As some relief to her overburdened mind,
+she associated herself with the work of mercy, carried on under the
+superintendence of the rector of the parish. I thought he was wrong
+in permitting a woman, at her advanced time of life, to run the risk
+encountered in visiting the sick and suffering poor at their own
+dwelling-places. Circumstances, however, failed to justify my dread
+of the perilous influences of infection and foul air. The one untoward
+event that happened, seemed to be too trifling to afford any cause for
+anxiety. Lady Howel caught cold.
+
+"Unhappily, she treated that apparently trivial accident with
+indifference. Her husband tried in vain to persuade her to remain at
+home. On one of her charitable visits she was overtaken by a heavy fall
+of rain; and a shivering fit seized her on returning to the house. At
+her age the results were serious. A bronchial attack followed. In a week
+more, the dearest and best of women had left us nothing to love but the
+memory of the dead.
+
+"Her last words were faintly whispered to me in her husband's presence:
+'Take care of him,' the dying woman said, 'when I am gone.'
+
+"No effort of mine to be worthy of that sacred trust was left untried.
+How could I hope to succeed where _she_ had failed? My house in London
+and my house in the country were both open to Beaucourt; I entreated him
+to live with me, or (if he preferred it) to be my guest for a short time
+only, or (if he wished to be alone) to choose the place of abode which
+he liked best for his solitary retreat. With sincere expressions of
+gratitude, his inflexible despair refused my proposals.
+
+"In one of the ancient 'Inns,' built centuries since for the legal
+societies of London, he secluded himself from friends and acquaintances
+alike. One by one, they were driven from his dreary chambers by a
+reception which admitted them with patient resignation and held out
+little encouragement to return. After an interval of no great length, I
+was the last of his friends who intruded on his solitude.
+
+"Poor Lady Howel's will (excepting some special legacies) had left her
+fortune to me in trust, on certain conditions with which it is needless
+to trouble you. Beaucourt's resolution not to touch a farthing of his
+dead wife's money laid a heavy responsibility on my shoulders; the
+burden being ere long increased by forebodings which alarmed me on the
+subject of his health.
+
+"He devoted himself to the reading of old books, treating (as I was
+told) of that branch of useless knowledge generally described as 'occult
+science.' These unwholesome studies so absorbed him, that he remained
+shut up in his badly ventilated chambers for weeks together, without
+once breathing the outer air even for a few minutes. Such defiance of
+the ordinary laws of nature as this could end but in one way; his health
+steadily declined and feverish symptoms showed themselves. The doctor
+said plainly, 'There is no chance for him if he stays in this place.'
+
+"Once more he refused to be removed to my London house. The development
+of the fever, he reminded me, might lead to consequences dangerous to me
+and to my household. He had heard of one of the great London hospitals,
+which reserved certain rooms for the occupation of persons capable of
+paying for the medical care bestowed on them. If he were to be removed
+at all, to that hospital he would go. Many advantages, and no objections
+of importance, were presented by this course of proceeding. We conveyed
+him to the hospital without a moment's loss of time.
+
+"When I think of the dreadful illness that followed, and when I recall
+the days of unrelieved suspense passed at the bedside, I have not
+courage enough to dwell on this part of my story. Besides, you know
+already that Beaucourt recovered--or, as I might more correctly describe
+it, that he was snatched back to life when the grasp of death was on
+him. Of this happier period of his illness I have something to say which
+may surprise and interest you.
+
+"On one of the earlier days of his convalescence my visit to him was
+paid later than usual. A matter of importance, neglected while he was
+in danger, had obliged me to leave town for a few days, after there was
+nothing to be feared. Returning, I had missed the train which would have
+brought me to London in better time.
+
+"My appearance evidently produced in Beaucourt a keen feeling of
+relief. He requested the day nurse, waiting in the room, to leave us by
+ourselves.
+
+"'I was afraid you might not have come to me to-day,' he said. 'My last
+moments would have been imbittered, my friend, by your absence.'
+
+"'Are you anticipating your death,' I asked, 'at the very time when the
+doctors answer for your life?'
+
+"'The doctors have not seen her,' he said; 'I saw her last night.'
+
+"'Of whom are you speaking?'
+
+"'Of my lost angel, who perished miserably in New Zealand. Twice her
+spirit has appeared to me. I shall see her for the third time, tonight;
+I shall follow her to the better world.'
+
+"Had the delirium of the worst time of the fever taken possession of him
+again? In unutterable dread of a relapse, I took his hand. The skin was
+cool. I laid my fingers on his pulse. It was beating calmly.
+
+"'You think I am wandering in my mind,' he broke out. 'Stay here
+tonight--I command you, stay!--and see her as I have seen her.'
+
+"I quieted him by promising to do what he had asked of me. He had still
+one more condition to insist on.
+
+"'I won't be laughed at,' he said. 'Promise that you will not repeat to
+any living creature what I have just told you.'
+
+"My promise satisfied him. He wearily closed his eyes. In a few minutes
+more his poor weak body was in peaceful repose.
+
+"The day-nurse returned, and remained with us later than usual. Twilight
+melted into darkness. The room was obscurely lit by a shaded lamp,
+placed behind a screen that kept the sun out of the sick man's eyes in
+the daytime.
+
+"'Are we alone?' Beaucourt asked.
+
+"'Yes.'
+
+"'Watch the door.'
+
+"'Why?'
+
+"'You will see her on the threshold.'
+
+"As he said those words the door slowly opened. In the dim light I could
+only discern at first the figure of a woman. She slowly advanced toward
+me. I saw the familiar face in shadow; the eyes were large and faintly
+luminous--the eyes of Mrs. Evelin.
+
+"The wild words spoken to me by Beaucourt, the stillness and the
+obscurity in the room, had their effect, I suppose, on my imagination.
+You will think me a poor creature when I confess it. For the moment I
+did assuredly feel a thrill of superstitious terror.
+
+"My delusion was dispelled by a change in her face. Its natural
+expression of surprise, when she saw me, set my mind free to feel the
+delight inspired by the discovery that she was a living woman. I should
+have spoken to her if she had not stopped me by a gesture.
+
+"Beaucourt's voice broke the silence. 'Ministering Spirit!' he said,
+'free me from the life of earth. Take me with you to the life eternal.'
+
+"She made no attempt to enlighten him. 'Wait,' she answered calmly,
+'wait and rest.'
+
+"Silently obeying her, he turned his head on the pillow; we saw his face
+no more.
+
+"I have related the circumstances exactly as they happened: the ghost
+story which report has carried to your ears has no other foundation than
+this.
+
+"Mrs. Evelin led the way to that further end of the room in which the
+screen stood. Placing ourselves behind it, we could converse in whispers
+without being heard. Her first words told me that she had been warned
+by one of the hospital doctors to respect my friend's delusion for the
+present. His mind partook in some degree of the weakness of his body,
+and he was not strong enough yet to bear the shock of discovering the
+truth.
+
+"She had been saved almost by a miracle.
+
+"Released (in a state of insensibility) from the ruins of the house, she
+had been laid with her dead relatives awaiting burial. Happily for her,
+an English traveler visiting the island was among the first men who
+volunteered to render help. He had been in practice as a medical man,
+and he saved her from being buried alive. Nearly a month passed before
+she was strong enough to bear removal to Wellington (the capital city)
+and to be received into the hospital.
+
+"I asked why she had not telegraphed or written to me.
+
+"'When I was strong enough to write,' she said, 'I was strong enough
+to bear the sea-voyage to England. The expenses so nearly exhausted my
+small savings that I had no money to spare for the telegraph.'
+
+"On her arrival in London, only a few days since, she had called on me
+at the time when I had left home on the business which I have already
+mentioned. She had not heard of Lady Howel's death, and had written
+ignorantly to prepare that good friend for seeing her. The messenger
+sent with the letter had found the house in the occupation of strangers,
+and had been referred to the agent employed in letting it. She went
+herself to this person, and so heard that Lord Howel Beaucourt had lost
+his wife, and was reported to be dying in one of the London hospitals.
+
+"'If he had been in his usual state of health,' she said, 'it would
+have been indelicate on my part--I mean it would have seemed like taking
+a selfish advantage of the poor lady's death--to have let him know that
+my life had been saved, in any other way than by writing to him. But
+when I heard he was dying, I forgot all customary considerations.
+His name was so well-known in London that I easily discovered at what
+hospital he had been received. There I heard that the report was false
+and that he was out of danger. I ought to hav e been satisfied with
+that--but oh, how could I be so near him and not long to see him? The
+old doctor with whom I had been speaking discovered, I suppose, that
+I was in trouble about something. He was so kind and fatherly, and he
+seemed to take such interest in me, that I confessed everything to him.
+After he had made me promise to be careful, he told the night-nurse to
+let me take her place for a little while, when the dim light in the room
+would not permit his patient to see me too plainly. He waited at the
+door when we tried the experiment. Neither he nor I foresaw that Lord
+Howel would put such a strange interpretation on my presence. The nurse
+doesn't approve of my coming back--even for a little while only--and
+taking her place again to-night. She is right. I have had my little
+glimpse of happiness, and with that little I must be content.'
+
+"What I said in answer to this, and what I did as time advanced, it is
+surely needless to tell you. You have read the newspapers which announce
+their marriage, and their departure for Italy. What else is there left
+for me to say?
+
+"There is, perhaps, a word more still wanting.
+
+"Obstinate Lord Howel persisted in refusing to take the fortune that was
+waiting for him. In this difficulty, the conditions under which I was
+acting permitted me to appeal to the bride. When she too said No, I was
+not to be trifled with. I showed her poor Lady's Howel's will. After
+reading the terms in which my dear old friend alluded to her she burst
+out crying. I interpreted those grateful tears as an expression of
+repentance for the ill-considered reply which I had just received. As
+yet, I have not been told that I was wrong."
+
+
+
+
+MR. POLICEMAN AND THE COOK.
+
+A FIRST WORD FOR MYSELF.
+
+BEFORE the doctor left me one evening, I asked him how much longer I was
+likely to live. He answered: "It's not easy to say; you may die before
+I can get back to you in the morning, or you may live to the end of the
+month."
+
+I was alive enough on the next morning to think of the needs of my
+soul, and (being a member of the Roman Catholic Church) to send for the
+priest.
+
+The history of my sins, related in confession, included blameworthy
+neglect of a duty which I owed to the laws of my country. In the
+priest's opinion--and I agreed with him--I was bound to make public
+acknowledgment of my fault, as an act of penance becoming to a Catholic
+Englishman. We concluded, thereupon, to try a division of labor. I
+related the circumstances, while his reverence took the pen and put the
+matter into shape.
+
+Here follows what came of it:
+
+I.
+
+WHEN I was a young man of five-and-twenty, I became a member of the
+London police force. After nearly two years' ordinary experience of
+the responsible and ill-paid duties of that vocation, I found
+myself employed on my first serious and terrible case of official
+inquiry--relating to nothing less than the crime of Murder.
+
+The circumstances were these:
+
+I was then attached to a station in the northern district of
+London--which I beg permission not to mention more particularly. On a
+certain Monday in the week, I took my turn of night duty. Up to four in
+the morning, nothing occurred at the station-house out of the ordinary
+way. It was then springtime, and, between the gas and the fire, the room
+became rather hot. I went to the door to get a breath of fresh air--much
+to the surprise of our Inspector on duty, who was constitutionally a
+chilly man. There was a fine rain falling; and a nasty damp in the air
+sent me back to the fireside. I don't suppose I had sat down for more
+than a minute when the swinging-door was violently pushed open.
+A frantic woman ran in with a scream, and said: "Is this the
+station-house?"
+
+Our Inspector (otherwise an excellent officer) had, by some perversity
+of nature, a hot temper in his chilly constitution. "Why, bless the
+woman, can't you see it is?" he says. "What's the matter now?"
+
+"Murder's the matter!" she burst out. "For God's sake, come back with
+me. It's at Mrs. Crosscapel's lodging-house, number 14 Lehigh Street.
+A young woman has murdered her husband in the night! With a knife, sir.
+She says she thinks she did it in her sleep."
+
+I confess I was startled by this; and the third man on duty (a sergeant)
+seemed to feel it too. She was a nice-looking young woman, even in
+her terrified condition, just out of bed, with her clothes huddled on
+anyhow. I was partial in those days to a tall figure--and she was, as
+they say, my style. I put a chair for her; and the sergeant poked the
+fire. As for the Inspector, nothing ever upset _him_. He questioned her
+as coolly as if it had been a case of petty larceny.
+
+"Have you seen the murdered man?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Or the wife?"
+
+"No, sir. I didn't dare go into the room; I only heard about it!"
+
+"Oh? And who are You? One of the lodgers?"
+
+"No, sir. I'm the cook."
+
+"Isn't there a master in the house?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He's frightened out of his wits. And the housemaid's gone for
+the doctor. It all falls on the poor servants, of course. Oh, why did I
+ever set foot in that horrible house?"
+
+The poor soul burst out crying, and shivered from head to foot. The
+Inspector made a note of her statement, and then asked her to read it,
+and sign it with her name. The object of this proceeding was to get her
+to come near enough to give him the opportunity of smelling her breath.
+"When people make extraordinary statements," he afterward said to me,
+"it sometimes saves trouble to satisfy yourself that they are not drunk.
+I've known them to be mad--but not often. You will generally find _that_
+in their eyes."
+
+She roused herself and signed her name--"Priscilla Thurlby." The
+Inspector's own test proved her to be sober; and her eyes--a nice light
+blue color, mild and pleasant, no doubt, when they were not staring with
+fear, and red with crying--satisfied him (as I supposed) that she was
+not mad. He turned the case over to me, in the first instance. I saw
+that he didn't believe in it, even yet.
+
+"Go back with her to the house," he says. "This may be a stupid hoax,
+or a quarrel exaggerated. See to it yourself, and hear what the doctor
+says. If it is serious, send word back here directly, and let nobody
+enter the place or leave it till we come. Stop! You know the form if any
+statement is volunteered?"
+
+"Yes, sir. I am to caution the persons that whatever they say will be
+taken down, and may be used against them."
+
+"Quite right. You'll be an Inspector yourself one of these days. Now,
+miss!" With that he dismissed her, under my care.
+
+Lehigh Street was not very far off--about twenty minutes' walk from
+the station. I confess I thought the Inspector had been rather hard
+on Priscilla. She was herself naturally angry with him. "What does he
+mean," she says, "by talking of a hoax? I wish he was as frightened as
+I am. This is the first time I have been out at service, sir--and I did
+think I had found a respectable place."
+
+I said very little to her--feeling, if the truth must be told, rather
+anxious about the duty committed to me. On reaching the house the door
+was opened from within, before I could knock. A gentleman stepped out,
+who proved to be the doctor. He stopped the moment he saw me.
+
+"You must be careful, policeman," he says. "I found the man lying on his
+back, in bed, dead--with the knife that had killed him left sticking in
+the wound."
+
+Hearing this, I felt the necessity of sending at once to the station.
+Where could I find a trustworthy messenger? I took the liberty of asking
+the doctor if he would repeat to the police what he had already said to
+me. The station was not much out of his way home. He kindly granted my
+request.
+
+The landlady (Mrs. Crosscapel) joined us while we were talking. She was
+still a young woman; not easily frightened, as far as I could see, even
+by a murder in the house. Her husband was in the passage behind her. He
+looked old enough to be her father; and he so trembled with terror that
+some people might have taken him for the guilty person. I removed the
+key from the street door, after locking it; and I said to the landlady:
+"Nobody must leave the house, or enter the house, till the Inspector
+comes. I must examine the premises to see if any on e has broken in."
+
+"There is the key of the area gate," she said, in answer to me. "It's
+always kept locked. Come downstairs and see for yourself." Priscilla
+went with us. Her mistress set her to work to light the kitchen fire.
+"Some of us," says Mrs. Crosscapel, "may be the better for a cup of
+tea." I remarked that she took things easy, under the circumstances. She
+answered that the landlady of a London lodging-house could not afford to
+lose her wits, no matter what might happen.
+
+I found the gate locked, and the shutters of the kitchen window
+fastened. The back kitchen and back door were secured in the same way.
+No person was concealed anywhere. Returning upstairs, I examined the
+front parlor window. There, again, the barred shutters answered for the
+security of that room. A cracked voice spoke through the door of the
+back parlor. "The policeman can come in," it said, "if he will promise
+not to look at me." I turned to the landlady for information. "It's my
+parlor lodger, Miss Mybus," she said, "a most respectable lady." Going
+into the room, I saw something rolled up perpendicularly in the bed
+curtains. Miss Mybus had made herself modestly invisible in that way.
+Having now satisfied my mind about the security of the lower part of
+the house, and having the keys safe in my pocket, I was ready to go
+upstairs.
+
+On our way to the upper regions I asked if there had been any visitors
+on the previous day. There had been only two visitors, friends of the
+lodgers--and Mrs. Crosscapel herself had let them both out. My next
+inquiry related to the lodgers themselves. On the ground floor there was
+Miss Mybus. On the first floor (occupying both rooms) Mr. Barfield, an
+old bachelor, employed in a merchant's office. On the second floor, in
+the front room, Mr. John Zebedee, the murdered man, and his wife. In the
+back room, Mr. Deluc; described as a cigar agent, and supposed to be
+a Creole gentleman from Martinique. In the front garret, Mr. and Mrs.
+Crosscapel. In the back garret, the cook and the housemaid. These were
+the inhabitants, regularly accounted for. I asked about the servants.
+"Both excellent characters," says the landlady, "or they would not be in
+my service."
+
+We reached the second floor, and found the housemaid on the watch
+outside the door of the front room. Not as nice a woman, personally, as
+the cook, and sadly frightened of course. Her mistress had posted
+her, to give the alarm in the case of an outbreak on the part of Mrs.
+Zebedee, kept locked up in the room. My arrival relieved the housemaid
+of further responsibility. She ran downstairs to her fellow-servant in
+the kitchen.
+
+I asked Mrs. Crosscapel how and when the alarm of the murder had been
+given.
+
+"Soon after three this morning," says she, "I was woke by the screams
+of Mrs. Zebedee. I found her out here on the landing, and Mr. Deluc, in
+great alarm, trying to quiet her. Sleeping in the next room he had only
+to open his door, when her screams woke him. 'My dear John's murdered!
+I am the miserable wretch--I did it in my sleep!' She repeated these
+frantic words over and over again, until she dropped in a swoon. Mr.
+Deluc and I carried her back into the bedroom. We both thought the poor
+creature had been driven distracted by some dreadful dream. But when we
+got to the bedside--don't ask me what we saw; the doctor has told you
+about it already. I was once a nurse in a hospital, and accustomed, as
+such, to horrid sights. It turned me cold and giddy, notwithstanding. As
+for Mr. Deluc, I thought _he_ would have had a fainting fit next."
+
+Hearing this, I inquired if Mrs. Zebedee had said or done any strange
+things since she had been Mrs. Crosscapel's lodger.
+
+"You think she's mad?" says the landlady. "And anybody would be of
+your mind, when a woman accuses herself of murdering her husband in
+her sleep. All I can say is that, up to this morning, a more quiet,
+sensible, well-behaved little person than Mrs. Zebedee I never met with.
+Only just married, mind, and as fond of her unfortunate husband as a
+woman could be. I should have called them a pattern couple, in their own
+line of life."
+
+There was no more to be said on the landing. We unlocked the door and
+went into the room.
+
+II.
+
+HE lay in bed on his back as the doctor had described him. On the left
+side of his nightgown, just over his heart, the blood on the linen told
+its terrible tale. As well as one could judge, looking unwillingly at
+a dead face, he must have been a handsome young man in his lifetime. It
+was a sight to sadden anybody--but I think the most painful sensation
+was when my eyes fell next on his miserable wife.
+
+She was down on the floor, crouched up in a corner--a dark little woman,
+smartly dressed in gay colors. Her black hair and her big brown eyes
+made the horrid paleness of her face look even more deadly white than
+perhaps it really was. She stared straight at us without appearing to
+see us. We spoke to her, and she never answered a word. She might have
+been dead--like her husband--except that she perpetually picked at her
+fingers, and shuddered every now and then as if she was cold. I went to
+her and tried to lift her up. She shrank back with a cry that well-nigh
+frightened me--not because it was loud, but because it was more like the
+cry of some animal than of a human being. However quietly she might have
+behaved in the landlady's previous experience of her, she was beside
+herself now. I might have been moved by a natural pity for her, or I
+might have been completely upset in my mind--I only know this, I could
+not persuade myself that she was guilty. I even said to Mrs. Crosscapel,
+"I don't believe she did it."
+
+While I spoke there was a knock at the door. I went downstairs at once,
+and admitted (to my great relief) the Inspector, accompanied by one of
+our men.
+
+He waited downstairs to hear my report, and he approved of what I had
+done. "It looks as if the murder had been committed by somebody in the
+house." Saying this, he left the man below, and went up with me to the
+second floor.
+
+Before he had been a minute in the room, he discovered an object which
+had escaped my observation.
+
+It was the knife that had done the deed.
+
+The doctor had found it left in the body--had withdrawn it to probe the
+wound--and had laid it on the bedside table. It was one of those useful
+knives which contain a saw, a corkscrew, and other like implements.
+The big blade fastened back, when open, with a spring. Except where the
+blood was on it, it was as bright as when it had been purchased. A small
+metal plate was fastened to the horn handle, containing an inscription,
+only partly engraved, which ran thus: "To John Zebedee, from--" There it
+stopped, strangely enough.
+
+Who or what had interrupted the engraver's work? It was impossible even
+to guess. Nevertheless, the Inspector was encouraged.
+
+"This ought to help us," he said--and then he gave an attentive ear
+(looking all the while at the poor creature in the corner) to what Mrs.
+Crosscapel had to tell him.
+
+The landlady having done, he said he must now see the lodger who slept
+in the next bed-chamber.
+
+Mr. Deluc made his appearance, standing at the door of the room, and
+turning away his head with horror from the sight inside.
+
+He was wrapped in a splendid blue dressing-gown, with a golden girdle
+and trimmings. His scanty brownish hair curled (whether artificially or
+not, I am unable to say) in little ringlets. His complexion was yellow;
+his greenish-brown eyes were of the sort called "goggle"--they looked as
+if they might drop out of his face, if you held a spoon under them. His
+mustache and goat's beard were beautifully oiled; and, to complete his
+equipment, he had a long black cigar in his mouth.
+
+"It isn't insensibility to this terrible tragedy," he explained. "My
+nerves have been shattered, Mr. Policeman, and I can only repair the
+mischief in this way. Be pleased to excuse and feel for me."
+
+The Inspector questioned this witness sharply and closely. He was not
+a man to be misled by appearances; but I could see that he was far from
+liking, or even trusting, Mr. Deluc. Nothing came of the examination,
+except what Mrs. Crosscapel had in substance already mentioned to me.
+Mr. Deluc returned to his room.
+
+"How long has he been lodging with you?" the Inspector asked, as soon as
+his back was turned.
+
+"Nearly a year," the landlady answered.
+
+"Did he give you a reference?"
+
+"As good a reference as I could wish for." Thereupon, she mentioned the
+names of a well-known firm of cigar merchants in the city. The Inspector
+noted the information in his pocketbook.
+
+I would rather not relate in detail what happened next: it is too
+distressing to be dwelt on. Let me only say that the poor demented woman
+was taken away in a cab to the station-house. The Inspector possessed
+himself of the knife, and of a book found on the floor, called "The
+World of Sleep." The portmanteau containing the luggage was locked--and
+then the door of the room was secured, the keys in both cases being left
+in my charge. My instructions were to remain in the house, and allow
+nobody to leave it, until I heard again shortly from the Inspector.
+
+III.
+
+THE coroner's inquest was adjourned; and the examination before the
+magistrate ended in a remand--Mrs. Zebedee being in no condition to
+understand the proceedings in either case. The surgeon reported her to
+be completely prostrated by a terrible nervous shock. When he was asked
+if he considered her to have been a sane woman before the murder took
+place, he refused to answer positively at that time.
+
+A week passed. The murdered man was buried; his old father attending the
+funeral. I occasionally saw Mrs. Crosscapel, and the two servants,
+for the purpose of getting such further information as was thought
+desirable. Both the cook and the housemaid had given their month's
+notice to quit; declining, in the interest of their characters, to
+remain in a house which had been the scene of a murder. Mr. Deluc's
+nerves led also to his removal; his rest was now disturbed by frightful
+dreams. He paid the necessary forfeit-money, and left without notice.
+The first-floor lodger, Mr. Barfield, kept his rooms, but obtained leave
+of absence from his employers, and took refuge with some friends in
+the country. Miss Mybus alone remained in the parlors. "When I am
+comfortable," the old lady said, "nothing moves me, at my age. A murder
+up two pairs of stairs is nearly the same thing as a murder in the next
+house. Distance, you see, makes all the difference."
+
+It mattered little to the police what the lodgers did. We had men in
+plain clothes watching the house night and day. Everybody who went away
+was privately followed; and the police in the district to which they
+retired were warned to keep an eye on them, after that. As long as we
+failed to put Mrs. Zebedee's extraordinary statement to any sort of
+test--to say nothing of having proved unsuccessful, thus far, in tracing
+the knife to its purchaser--we were bound to let no person living under
+Mr. Crosscapel's roof, on the night of the murder, slip through our
+fingers.
+
+IV.
+
+IN a fortnight more, Mrs. Zebedee had sufficiently recovered to make the
+necessary statement--after the preliminary caution addressed to persons
+in such cases. The surgeon had no hesitation, now, in reporting her to
+be a sane woman.
+
+Her station in life had been domestic service. She had lived for four
+years in her last place as lady's-maid, with a family residing in
+Dorsetshire. The one objection to her had been the occasional infirmity
+of sleep-walking, which made it necessary that one of the other female
+servants should sleep in the same room, with the door locked and the key
+under her pillow. In all other respects the lady's-maid was described by
+her mistress as "a perfect treasure."
+
+In the last six months of her service, a young man named John Zebedee
+entered the house (with a written character) as a footman. He soon fell
+in love with the nice little lady's-maid, and she heartily returned
+the feeling. They might have waited for years before they were in a
+pecuniary position to marry, but for the death of Zebedee's uncle, who
+left him a little fortune of two thousand pounds. They were now, for
+persons in their station, rich enough to please themselves; and they
+were married from the house in which they had served together, the
+little daughters of the family showing their affection for Mrs. Zebedee
+by acting as her bridesmaids.
+
+The young husband was a careful man. He decided to employ his small
+capital to the best advantage, by sheep-farming in Australia. His wife
+made no objection; she was ready to go wherever John went.
+
+Accordingly they spent their short honeymoon in London, so as to see for
+themselves the vessel in which their passage was to be taken. They went
+to Mrs. Crosscapel's lodging-house because Zebedee's uncle had always
+stayed there when in London. Ten days were to pass before the day of
+embarkation arrived. This gave the young couple a welcome holiday, and a
+prospect of amusing themselves to their heart's content among the sights
+and shows of the great city.
+
+On their first evening in London they went to the theater. They were
+both accustomed to the fresh air of the country, and they felt half
+stifled by the heat and the gas. However, they were so pleased with an
+amusement which was new to them that they went to another theater on
+the next evening. On this second occasion, John Zebedee found the heat
+unendurable. They left the theater, and got back to their lodgings
+toward ten o'clock.
+
+Let the rest be told in the words used by Mrs. Zebedee herself. She
+said:
+
+"We sat talking for a little while in our room, and John's headache got
+worse and worse. I persuaded him to go to bed, and I put out the candle
+(the fire giving sufficient light to undress by), so that he might the
+sooner fall asleep. But he was too restless to sleep. He asked me to
+read him something. Books always made him drowsy at the best of times.
+
+"I had not myself begun to undress. So I lit the candle again, and I
+opened the only book I had. John had noticed it at the railway bookstall
+by the name of 'The World of Sleep.' He used to joke with me about
+my being a sleepwalker; and he said, 'Here's something that's sure to
+interest you'--and he made me a present of the book.
+
+"Before I had read to him for more than half an hour he was fast asleep.
+Not feeling that way inclined, I went on reading to myself.
+
+"The book did indeed interest me. There was one terrible story which
+took a hold on my mind--the story of a man who stabbed his own wife in
+a sleep-walking dream. I thought of putting down my book after that, and
+then changed my mind again and went on. The next chapters were not so
+interesting; they were full of learned accounts of why we fall asleep,
+and what our brains do in that state, and such like. It ended in my
+falling asleep, too, in my armchair by the fireside.
+
+"I don't know what o'clock it was when I went to sleep. I don't know how
+long I slept, or whether I dreamed or not. The candle and the fire had
+both burned out, and it was pitch dark when I woke. I can't even say why
+I woke--unless it was the coldness of the room.
+
+"There was a spare candle on the chimney-piece. I found the matchbox,
+and got a light. Then for the first time, I turned round toward the bed;
+and I saw--"
+
+She had seen the dead body of her husband, murdered while she was
+unconsciously at his side--and she fainted, poor creature, at the bare
+remembrance of it.
+
+The proceedings were adjourned. She received every possible care
+and attention; the chaplain looking after her welfare as well as the
+surgeon.
+
+I have said nothing of the evidence of the landlady and servants. It was
+taken as a mere formality. What little they knew proved nothing against
+Mrs. Zebedee. The police made no discoveries that supported her first
+frantic accusation of herself. Her master and mistress, where she had
+been last in service, spoke of her in the highest terms. We were at a
+complete deadlock.
+
+It had been thought best not to surprise Mr. Deluc, as yet, by citing
+him as a witness. The action of the law was, however, hurried in this
+case by a private communication received from the chaplain.
+
+After twice seeing, and speaking with, Mrs. Zebedee, the reverend
+gentleman was persuaded that she had no more to do than himself with
+the murder of her husband. He did not consider that he was justified in
+repeating a confidential communication--he would only recommend that Mr.
+Deluc should be summoned to appear at the next examination. This advice
+was followed.
+
+The police had no evidence against Mrs. Zebedee when the inquiry
+was resumed. To assist the ends of justice she was now put into the
+witness-box. The discovery of her murdered husband, when she woke in the
+small hours of the morning, was passed over as rapidly as possible. Only
+three questions of importance were put to her.
+
+First, the knife was produced. Had she ever seen it in her husband's
+possession? Never. Did she know anything about it? Nothing whatever.
+
+Secondly: Did she, or did her husband, lock the bedroom door when they
+returned from the theater? No. Did she afterward lock the door herself?
+No.
+
+Thirdly: Had she any sort of reason to give for supposing that she had
+murdered her husband in a sleep-walking dream? No reason, except that
+she was beside herself at the time, and the book put the thought into
+her head.
+
+After this the other witnesses were sent out of court The motive for
+the chaplain's communication now appeared. Mrs. Zebedee was asked if
+anything unpleasant had occurred between Mr. Deluc and herself.
+
+Yes. He had caught her alone on the stairs at the lodging-house; had
+presumed to make love to her; and had carried the insult still farther
+by attempting to kiss her. She had slapped his face, and had declared
+that her husband should know of it, if his misconduct was repeated. He
+was in a furious rage at having his face slapped; and he said to her:
+"Madam, you may live to regret this."
+
+After consultation, and at the request of our Inspector, it was decided
+to keep Mr. Deluc in ignorance of Mrs. Zebedee's statement for the
+present. When the witnesses were recalled, he gave the same evidence
+which he had already given to the Inspector--and he was then asked if he
+knew anything of the knife. He looked at it without any guilty signs
+in his face, and swore that he had never seen it until that moment. The
+resumed inquiry ended, and still nothing had been discovered.
+
+But we kept an eye on Mr. Deluc. Our next effort was to try if we could
+associate him with the purchase of the knife.
+
+Here again (there really did seem to be a sort of fatality in this
+case) we reached no useful result. It was easy enough to find out the
+wholesale cutlers, who had manufactured the knife at Sheffield, by the
+mark on the blade. But they made tens of thousands of such knives,
+and disposed of them to retail dealers all over Great Britain--to say
+nothing of foreign parts. As to finding out the person who had engraved
+the imperfect inscription (without knowing where, or by whom, the knife
+had been purchased) we might as well have looked for the proverbial
+needle in the bundle of hay. Our last resource was to have the knife
+photographed, with the inscribed side uppermost, and to send copies to
+every police-station in the kingdom.
+
+At the same time we reckoned up Mr. Deluc--I mean that we made
+investigations into his past life--on the chance that he and the
+murdered man might have known each other, and might have had a quarrel,
+or a rivalry about a woman, on some former occasion. No such discovery
+rewarded us.
+
+We found Deluc to have led a dissipated life, and to have mixed with
+very bad company. But he had kept out of reach of the law. A man may be
+a profligate vagabond; may insult a lady; may say threatening things to
+her, in the first stinging sensation of having his face slapped--but it
+doesn't follow from these blots on his character that he has murdered
+her husband in the dead of the night.
+
+Once more, then, when we were called upon to report ourselves, we had no
+evidence to produce. The photographs failed to discover the owner of the
+knife, and to explain its interrupted inscription. Poor Mrs. Zebedee was
+allowed to go back to her friends, on entering into her own recognizance
+to appear again if called upon. Articles in the newspapers began to
+inquire how many more murderers would succeed in baffling the police.
+The authorities at the Treasury offered a reward of a hundred pounds for
+the necessary information. And the weeks passed and nobody claimed the
+reward.
+
+Our Inspector was not a man to be easily beaten. More inquiries and
+examinations followed. It is needless to say anything about them. We
+were defeated--and there, so far as the police and the public were
+concerned, was an end of it.
+
+The assassination of the poor young husband soon passed out of notice,
+like other undiscovered murders. One obscure person only was foolish
+enough, in his leisure hours, to persist in trying to solve the problem
+of Who Killed Zebedee? He felt that he might rise to the highest
+position in the police force if he succeeded where his elders and
+betters had failed--and he held to his own little ambition, though
+everybody laughed at him. In plain English, I was the man.
+
+V.
+
+WITHOUT meaning it, I have told my story ungratefully.
+
+There were two persons who saw nothing ridiculous in my resolution to
+continue the investigation, single-handed. One of them was Miss Mybus;
+and the other was the cook, Priscilla Thurlby.
+
+Mentioning the lady first, Miss Mybus was indignant at the resigned
+manner in which the police accepted their defeat. She was a little
+bright-eyed wiry woman; and she spoke her mind freely.
+
+"This comes home to me," she said. "Just look back for a year or two. I
+can call to mind two cases of persons found murdered in London--and the
+assassins have never been traced. I am a person, too; and I ask myself
+if my turn is not coming next. You're a nice-looking fellow and I like
+your pluck and perseverance. Come here as often as you think right; and
+say you are my visitor, if they make any difficulty about letting you
+in. One thing more! I have nothing particular to do, and I am no fool.
+Here, in the parlors, I see everybody who comes into the house or goes
+out of the house. Leave me your address--I may get some information for
+you yet."
+
+With the best intentions, Miss Mybus found no opportunity of helping me.
+Of the two, Priscilla Thurlby seemed more likely to be of use.
+
+In the first place, she was sharp and active, and (not having succeeded
+in getting another situation as yet) was mistress of her own movements.
+
+In the second place, she was a woman I could trust. Before she left home
+to try domestic service in London, the parson of her native parish gave
+her a written testimonial, of which I append a copy. Thus it ran:
+
+
+"I gladly recommend Priscilla Thurlby for any respectable employment
+which she may be competent to undertake. Her father and mother are
+infirm old people, who have lately suffered a diminution of their
+income; and they have a younger daughter to maintain. Rather than be
+a burden on her parents, Priscilla goes to London to find domestic
+employment, and to devote her earnings to the assistance of her father
+and mother. This circumstance speaks for itself. I have known the family
+many years; and I only regret that I have no vacant place in my own
+household which I can offer to this good girl,
+
+(Signed) "HENRY DEERINGTON, Rector of Roth."
+
+
+After reading those words, I could safely ask Priscilla to help me in
+reopening the mysterious murder case to some good purpose.
+
+My notion was that the proceedings of the persons in Mrs. Crosscapel's
+house had not been closely enough inquired into yet. By way of
+continuing the investigation, I asked Priscilla if she could tell
+me anything which associated the housemaid with Mr. Deluc. She was
+unwilling to answer. "I may be casting suspicion on an innocent person,"
+she said. "Besides, I was for so short a time the housemaid's fellow
+servant--"
+
+"You slept in the same room with her," I remarked; "and you had
+opportunities of observing her conduct toward the lodgers. If they had
+asked you, at the examination, what I now ask, you would have answered
+as an honest woman."
+
+To this argument she yielded. I heard from her certain particulars,
+which threw a new light on Mr. Deluc, and on the case generally. On that
+information I acted. It was slow work, owing to the claims on me of my
+regular duties; but with Priscilla's help, I steadily advanced toward
+the end I had in view.
+
+Besides this, I owed another obligation to Mrs. Crosscapel's
+nice-looking cook. The confession must be made sooner or later--and
+I may as well make it now. I first knew what love was, thanks to
+Priscilla. I had delicious kisses, thanks to Priscilla. And, when I
+asked if she would marry me, she didn't say No. She looked, I must own,
+a little sadly, and she said: "How can two such poor people as we are
+ever hope to marry?" To this I answered: "It won't be long before I lay
+my hand on the clew which my Inspector has failed to find. I shall be in
+a position to marry you, my dear, when that time comes."
+
+At our next meeting we spoke of her parents. I was now her promised
+husband. Judging by what I had heard of the proceedings of other people
+in my position, it seemed to be only right that I should be made known
+to her father and mother. She entirely agreed with me; and she wrote
+home that day to tell them to expect us at the end of the week.
+
+I took my turn of night-duty, and so gained my liberty for the greater
+part of the next day. I dressed myself in plain clothes, and we took our
+tickets on the railway for Yateland, being the nearest station to the
+village in which Priscilla's parents lived.
+
+VI.
+
+THE train stopped, as usual, at the big town of Waterbank. Supporting
+herself by her needle, while she was still unprovided with a situation,
+Priscilla had been at work late in the night--she was tired and thirsty.
+I left the carriage to get her some soda-water. The stupid girl in the
+refreshment room failed to pull the cork out of the bottle, and refused
+to let me help her. She took a corkscrew, and used it crookedly. I lost
+all patience, and snatched the bottle out of her hand. Just as I drew
+the cork, the bell rang on the platform. I only waited to pour the
+soda-water into a glass--but the train was moving as I left the
+refreshment room. The porters stopped me when I tried to jump on to the
+step of the carriage. I was left behind.
+
+As soon as I had recovered my temper, I looked at the time-table. We had
+reached Waterbank at five minutes past one. By good luck, the next train
+was due at forty-four minutes past one, and arrived at Yateland (the
+next station) ten minutes afterward. I could only hope that Priscilla
+would look at the time-table too, and wait for me. If I had attempted
+to walk the distance between the two places, I should have lost time
+instead of saving it. The interval before me was not very long; I
+occupied it in looking over the town.
+
+Speaking with all due respect to the inhabitants, Waterbank (to other
+people) is a dull place. I went up one street and down another--and
+stopped to look at a shop which struck me; not from anything in itself,
+but because it was the only shop in the street with the shutters closed.
+
+A bill was posted on the shutters, announcing that the place was to let.
+The outgoing tradesman's name and business, announced in the customary
+painted letters, ran thus: _James Wycomb, Cutler, etc._
+
+For the first time, it occurred to me that we had forgotten an obstacle
+in our way, when we distributed our photographs of the knife. We had
+none of us remembered that a certain proportion of cutlers might be
+placed, by circumstances, out of our reach--either by retiring from
+business or by becoming bankrupt. I always carried a copy of the
+photograph about me; and I thought to myself, "Here is the ghost of a
+chance of tracing the knife to Mr. Deluc!"
+
+The shop door was opened, after I had twice rung the bell, by an old
+man, very dirty and very deaf. He said "You had better go upstairs, and
+speak to Mr. Scorrier--top of the house."
+
+I put my lips to the old fellow's ear-trumpet, and asked who Mr.
+Scorrier was.
+
+"Brother-in-law to Mr. Wycomb. Mr. Wycomb's dead. If you want to buy the
+business apply to Mr. Scorrier."
+
+Receiving that reply, I went upstairs, and found Mr. Scorrier engaged
+in engraving a brass door-plate. He was a middle-aged man, with a
+cadaverous face and dim eyes After the necessary apologies, I produced
+my photograph.
+
+"May I ask, sir, if you know anything of the inscription on that knife?"
+I said.
+
+He took his magnifying glass to look at it.
+
+"This is curious," he remarked quietly. "I remember the queer
+name--Zebedee. Yes, sir; I did the engraving, as far as it goes. I
+wonder what prevented me from finishing it?"
+
+The name of Zebedee, and the unfinished inscription on the knife, had
+appeared in every English newspaper. He took the matter so coolly that
+I was doubtful how to interpret his answer. Was it possible that he
+had not seen the account of the murder? Or was he an accomplice with
+prodigious powers of self-control?
+
+"Excuse me," I said, "do you read the newspapers?"
+
+"Never! My eyesight is failing me. I abstain from reading, in the
+interests of my occupation."
+
+"Have you not heard the name of Zebedee mentioned--particularly by
+people who do read the newspapers?"
+
+"Very likely; but I didn't attend to it. When the day's work is done, I
+take my walk. Then I have my supper, my drop of grog, and my pipe. Then
+I go to bed. A dull existence you think, I daresay! I had a miserable
+life, sir, when I was young. A bare subsistence, and a little rest,
+before the last perfect rest in the grave--that is all I want. The world
+has gone by me long ago. So much the better."
+
+The poor man spoke honestly. I was ashamed of having doubted him. I
+returned to the subject of the knife.
+
+"Do you know where it was purchased, and by whom?" I asked.
+
+"My memory is not so good as it was," he said; "but I have got something
+by me that helps it."
+
+He took from a cupboard a dirty old scrapbook. Strips of paper, with
+writing on them, were pasted on the pages, as well as I could see. He
+turned to an index, or table of contents, and opened a page. Something
+like a flash of life showed itself on his dismal face.
+
+"Ha! now I remember," he said. "The knife was bought of my late
+brother-in-law, in the shop downstairs. It all comes back to me, sir. A
+person in a state of frenzy burst into this very room, and snatched the
+knife away from me, when I was only half way through the inscription!"
+
+I felt that I was now close on discovery. "May I see what it is that has
+assisted your memory?" I asked.
+
+"Oh yes. You must know, sir, I live by engraving inscriptions and
+addresses, and I paste in this book the manuscript instructions which I
+receive, with marks of my own on the margin. For one thing, they
+serve as a reference to new customers. And for another thing, they do
+certainly help my memory."
+
+He turned the book toward me, and pointed to a slip of paper which
+occupied the lower half of a page.
+
+I read the complete inscription, intended for the knife that killed
+Zebedee, and written as follows:
+
+"To John Zebedee. From Priscilla Thurlby."
+
+VII.
+
+I DECLARE that it is impossible for me to describe what I felt when
+Priscilla's name confronted me like a written confession of guilt. How
+long it was before I recovered myself in some degree, I cannot say. The
+only thing I can clearly call to mind is, that I frightened the poor
+engraver.
+
+My first desire was to get possession of the manuscript inscription.
+I told him I was a policeman, and summoned him to assist me in the
+discovery of a crime. I even offered him money. He drew back from my
+hand. "You shall have it for nothing," he said, "if you will only go
+away and never come here again." He tried to cut it out of the page--but
+his trembling hands were helpless. I cut it out myself, and attempted
+to thank him. He wouldn't hear me. "Go away!" he said, "I don't like the
+look of you."
+
+It may be here objected that I ought not to have felt so sure as I did
+of the woman's guilt, until I had got more evidence against her. The
+knife might have been stolen from her, supposing she was the person
+who had snatched it out of the engraver's hands, and might have been
+afterward used by the thief to commit the murder. All very true. But I
+never had a moment's doubt in my own mind, from the time when I read the
+damnable line in the engraver's book.
+
+I went back to the railway without any plan in my head. The train by
+which I had proposed to follow her had left Waterbank. The next train
+that arrived was for London. I took my place in it--still without any
+plan in my head.
+
+At Charing Cross a friend met me. He said, "You're looking miserably
+ill. Come and have a drink."
+
+I went with him. The liquor was what I really wanted; it strung me up,
+and cleared my head. He went his way, and I went mine. In a little while
+more, I determined what I would do.
+
+In the first place, I decided to resign my situation in the police, from
+a motive which will presently appear. In the second place, I took a bed
+at a public-house. She would no doubt return to London, and she would go
+to my lodgings to find out why I had broken my appointment. To bring to
+justice the one woman whom I had dearly loved was too cruel a duty for
+a poor creature like me. I preferred leaving the police force. On
+the other hand, if she and I met before time had helped me to control
+myself, I had a horrid fear that I might turn murderer next, and kill
+her then and there. The wretch had not only all but misled me into
+marrying her, but also into charging the innocent housemaid with being
+concerned in the murder.
+
+The same night I hit on a way of clearing up such doubts as still
+harassed my mind. I wrote to the rector of Roth, informing him that
+I was engaged to marry her, and asking if he would tell me (in
+consideration of my position) what her former relations might have been
+with the person named John Zebedee.
+
+By return of post I got this reply:
+
+
+"SIR--Under the circumstances, I think I am bound to tell you
+confidentially what the friends and well-wishers of Priscilla have kept
+secret, for her sake.
+
+"Zebedee was in service in this neighborhood. I am sorry to say it, of a
+man who has come to such a miserable end--but his behavior to Priscilla
+proves him to have been a vicious and heartless wretch. They were
+engaged--and, I add with indignation, he tried to seduce her under a
+promise of marriage. Her virtue resisted him, and he pretended to be
+ashamed of himself. The banns were published in my church. On the next
+day Zebedee disappeared, and cruelly deserted her. He was a capable
+servant; and I believe he got another place. I leave you to imagine
+what the poor girl suffered under the outrage inflicted on her. Going
+to London, with my recommendation, she answered the first advertisement
+that she saw, and was unfortunate enough to begin her career in domestic
+service in the very lodging-house to which (as I gather from the
+newspaper report of the murder) the man Zebedee took the person whom
+he married, after deserting Priscilla. Be assured that you are about to
+unite yourself to an excellent girl, and accept my best wishes for your
+happiness."
+
+
+It was plain from this that neither the rector nor the parents and
+friends knew anything of the purchase of the knife. The one miserable
+man who knew the truth was the man who had asked her to be his wife.
+
+I owed it to myself--at least so it seemed to me--not to let it be
+supposed that I, too, had meanly deserted her. Dreadful as the prospect
+was, I felt that I must see her once more, and for the last time.
+
+She was at work when I went into her room. As I opened the door she
+started to her feet. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes flashed with
+anger. I stepped forward--and she saw my face. My face silenced her.
+
+I spoke in the fewest words I could find.
+
+"I have been to the cutler's shop at Waterbank," I said. "There is the
+unfinished inscription on the knife, complete in your handwriting. I
+could hang you by a word. God forgive me--I can't say the word."
+
+Her bright complexion turned to a dreadful clay-color. Her eyes were
+fixed and staring, like the eyes of a person in a fit. She stood before
+me, still and silent. Without saying more, I dropped the inscription
+into the fire. Without saying more, I left her.
+
+I never saw her again.
+
+VIII.
+
+BUT I heard from her a few days later. The letter has long since been
+burned. I wish I could have forgotten it as well. It sticks to my
+memory. If I die with my senses about me, Priscilla's letter will be my
+last recollection on earth.
+
+In substance it repeated what the rector had already told me. Further,
+it informed me that she had bought the knife as a keepsake for Zebedee,
+in place of a similar knife which he had lost. On the Saturday, she made
+the purchase, and left it to be engraved. On the Sunday, the banns were
+put up. On the Monday, she was deserted; and she snatched the knife from
+the table while the engraver was at work.
+
+She only knew that Zebedee had added a new sting to the insult inflicted
+on her when he arrived at the lodgings with his wife. Her duties as cook
+kept her in the kitchen--and Zebedee never discovered that she was in
+the house. I still remember the last lines of her confession:
+
+"The devil entered into me when I tried their door, on my way up to bed,
+and found it unlocked, and listened a while, and peeped in. I saw them
+by the dying light of the candle--one asleep on the bed, the other
+asleep by the fireside. I had the knife in my hand, and the thought came
+to me to do it, so that they might hang _her_ for the murder. I couldn't
+take the knife out again, when I had done it. Mind this! I did really
+like you--I didn't say Yes, because you could hardly hang your own wife,
+if you found out who killed Zebedee."
+
+
+Since the past time I have never heard again of Priscilla Thurlby;
+I don't know whether she is living or dead. Many people may think I
+deserve to be hanged myself for not having given her up to the gallows.
+They may, perhaps, be disappointed when they see this confession, and
+hear that I have died decently in my bed. I don't blame them. I am a
+penitent sinner. I wish all merciful Christians good-by forever.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Little Novels, by Wilkie Collins
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