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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Love Calls, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+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: When Love Calls
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39214]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN LOVE CALLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard College Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=1XsNAAAAYAAJ
+      (Harvard College Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           WHEN LOVE CALLS
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                          STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+                  AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE,"
+                     "THE CASTLE INN," ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                BOSTON
+
+                          BROWN AND COMPANY
+
+                         144 Purchase Street
+
+                                 1899
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          _Copyright, 1899_
+
+                         By Brown and Company
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           University Press
+
+               John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               Contents
+
+
+       When Love Calls
+
+          I. Her Story
+
+         II. His Story
+
+       A Strange Invitation
+
+       The Invisible Portraits
+
+       Along the Garonne
+
+
+
+
+
+                           When Love Calls
+
+
+
+
+                                  I.
+
+                              HER STORY
+
+
+"Clare," I said, "I wish that we had brought some better clothes, if
+it were only one frock. You look the oddest figure."
+
+And she did. She was lying head to head with me on the thick moss that
+clothed one part of the river-bank above Breistolen near the Sogn
+Fiord. We were staying at Breistolen, but there was no moss
+thereabouts, nor in all the Sogn district, I often thought, so deep
+and soft, and so dazzling orange and white and crimson as that
+particular patch. It lay quite high upon the hills, and there were
+great gray boulders peeping through the moss here and there, very fit
+to break your legs if you were careless. Little more than a mile
+higher up was the watershed, where our river, putting away with
+reluctance a first thought of going down the farther slope towards
+Bysberg, parted from its twin brother who was thither bound with
+scores upon scores of puny green-backed fishlets; and instead, came
+down our side gliding and swishing, and swirling faster and faster,
+and deeper and wider, every hundred yards to Breistolen, full of
+red-speckled yellow trout all half-a-pound apiece, and very good to
+eat.
+
+But they were not so sweet or toothsome to our girlish tastes as the
+tawny-orange cloud-berries which Clare and I were eating as we lay. So
+busy was she with the luscious pile we had gathered that I had to wait
+for an answer. And then, "Speak for yourself," she said. "I'm sure you
+look like a short-coated baby. He is somewhere up the river too."
+Munch, munch, munch!
+
+"Who is, you impertinent, greedy little chit?"
+
+"Oh, you know," she answered. "Don't you wish you had your gray plush
+here, Bab?"
+
+I flung a look of calm disdain at her; but whether it was the berry
+juice which stained our faces that took from its effect, or the free
+mountain air which papa says saps the foundations of despotism, that
+made her callous, at any rate she only laughed scornfully and got up
+and went off down the stream with her rod, leaving me to finish the
+cloud-berries, and stare lazily up at the snow patches on the
+hillside--which somehow put me in mind of the gray plush--and follow
+or not as I liked.
+
+Clare has a wicked story of how I gave in to papa, and came to start
+without anything but those rough clothes. She says he said--and Jack
+Buchanan has told me that lawyers put no faith in anything that he
+says she says, or she says he says, which proves how much truth there
+is in this--that if Bab took none but her oldest clothes, and fished
+all day and had no one to run upon her errands--he meant Jack and the
+others, I suppose--she might possibly grow an inch in Norway. Just as
+if I wanted to grow an inch! An inch indeed! I am five feet one and a
+half high, and papa, who puts me an inch shorter, is the worst
+measurer in the world. As for Miss Clare, she would give all her
+inches for my eyes. So there!
+
+After Clare left, it began to be dull and chilly. When I had pictured
+to myself how nice it would be to dress for dinner again, and chosen
+the frock I would wear upon the first evening, I grew tired of the
+snow patches, and started up stream, stumbling and falling into holes,
+and clambering over rocks, and only careful to save my rod and my
+face. It was no occasion for the gray plush, but I had made up my mind
+to reach a pool which lay, I knew, a little above me, having filched a
+yellow-bodied fly from Clare's hat with a view to that particular
+place.
+
+Our river did the oddest things hereabouts--pleased to be so young, I
+suppose. It was not a great churning stream of snow water foaming and
+milky, such as we had seen in some parts, streams that affected to be
+always in flood, and had the look of forcing the rocks asunder and
+clearing their path even while you watched them with your fingers in
+your ears. Our river was none of these: still it was swifter than
+English rivers are wont to be, and in parts deeper, and transparent as
+glass. In one place it would sweep over a ledge and fall wreathed in
+spray into a spreading lake of black, rock-bound water. Then it would
+narrow again until, where you could almost jump across, it darted
+smooth and unbroken down a polished shoot with a swoop like a
+swallow's. Out of this it would hurry afresh to brawl along a gravelly
+bed, skipping jauntily over first one and then another ridge of stones
+that had silted up weir-wise and made as if they would bar the
+channel. Under the lee of these there were lovely pools.
+
+To be able to throw into mine, I had to walk out along the ridge on
+which the water was shallow, yet sufficiently deep to cover my boots.
+But I was well rewarded. The "forellin"--the Norse name for trout, and
+as pretty as their girls' wavy fair hair--were rising so merrily that
+I hooked and landed one in five minutes, the fly falling from its
+mouth as it touched the stones. I hate taking out hooks. I used at one
+time to leave the fly in the fish's mouth to be removed by papa at the
+weighing house; until Clare pricked her tongue at dinner with an
+almost new, red tackle, and was so mean as to keep it, though I
+remembered then what I had done with it, and was certain it was
+mine--which was nothing less than dishonest of her.
+
+I had just got back to my place and made a fine cast, when there
+came--not the leap, and splash, and tug which announced the
+half-pounder--but a deep, rich gurgle as the fly was gently sucked
+under, and then a quiet, growing strain upon the line, which began to
+move away down the pool in a way that made the winch spin again and
+filled me with mysterious pleasure. I was not conscious of striking or
+of anything but that I had hooked a really good fish, and I clutched
+the rod with both hands and set my feet as tightly as I could upon the
+slippery gravel. The line moved up and down, and this way and that,
+now steadily and as with a purpose, and then again with an eccentric
+rush that made the top of the rod spring and bend so that I looked
+for it to snap each moment. My hands began to grow numb, and the
+landing-net, hitherto an ornament, fell out of my waist-belt and went
+I knew not whither. I suppose I must have stepped unwittingly into
+deeper water, for I felt that my skirts were afloat, and altogether
+things were going dreadfully against me, when the presence of an ally
+close at hand was announced by a cheery shout from the far side of the
+river.
+
+"Keep up your point! Keep up your point!" some one cried briskly.
+"That is better!"
+
+The unexpected sound--it was a man's voice--did something to keep my
+heart up. But for answer I could only shriek, "I can't! It will
+break!" watching the top of my rod as it jigged up and down, very much
+in the fashion of Clare performing what she calls a waltz. She dances
+as badly as a man.
+
+"No, it will not," he cried back, bluntly. "Keep it up, and let out a
+little line with your fingers when he pulls hardest."
+
+We were forced to shout and scream. The wind had risen and was adding
+to the noise of the water. Soon I heard him wading behind me. "Where's
+your landing net?" he asked, with the most provoking coolness.
+
+"Oh, in the pool! Somewhere about. I am sure I don't know," I answered
+wildly.
+
+What he said to this I could not catch, but it sounded rude. And then
+he waded off to fetch, as I guessed, his own net. By the time he
+reached me again I was in a sad plight, feet like ice, and hands
+benumbed, while the wind, and rain, and hail, which had come down upon
+us with a sudden violence, unknown, it is to be hoped, anywhere else,
+were mottling my face all sorts of unbecoming colors. But the line was
+taut. And wet and cold went for nothing five minutes later, when the
+fish lay upon the bank, its prismatic sides slowly turning pale and
+dull, and I knelt over it half in pity and half in triumph, but wholly
+forgetful of the wind and rain.
+
+"You did that very pluckily, little one," said the on-looker; "but I
+am afraid you will suffer for it by and by. You must be chilled
+through."
+
+Quickly as I looked up at him, I only met a good-humored smile. He did
+not mean to be rude. And, after all, when I was in such a mess it was
+not possible that he could see what I was like. He was wet enough
+himself. The rain was streaming from the brim of the soft hat which he
+had turned down to shelter his face, and trickling from his chin, and
+turning his shabby Norfolk jacket a darker shade. As for his hands,
+they looked red and knuckly enough, and he had been wading almost to
+his waist. But he looked, I don't know why, all the stronger and
+manlier and nicer for these things, because, perhaps, he cared for
+them not one whit. What I looked like myself I dared not think. My
+skirts were as short as short could be, and they were soaked: most of
+my hair was unplaited, my gloves were split, and my sodden boots were
+out of shape. I was forced, too, to shiver and shake from cold; which
+was provoking, for I knew it made me seem half as small again.
+
+"Thank you, I am a little cold, Mr.----, Mr.----," I said, grave, only
+my teeth would chatter so that he laughed outright as he took me up
+with--
+
+"Herapath. And to whom have I the honor of speaking?"
+
+"I am Miss Guest," I said, miserably. It was too cold to be frigid to
+advantage.
+
+"Commonly called Bab, I think," the wretch answered. "The walls of our
+hut are not soundproof, you see. But, come, the sooner you get back to
+dry clothes and the stove, the better, Bab. You can cross the river
+just below, and cut off half-a-mile that way."
+
+"I can't," I said, obstinately. Bab, indeed! How dared he?
+
+"Oh, yes, you can," with intolerable good-temper. "You shall take your
+rod and I the prey. You cannot be wetter than you are now."
+
+He had his way, of course, since I did not foresee that at the ford he
+would lift me up bodily and carry me over the deeper part without a
+pretence of asking leave, or a word of apology. It was done so quickly
+that I had no time to remonstrate. Still I was not going to let it
+pass, and when I had shaken myself straight again, I said, with all
+the haughtiness I could assume, "Don't you think, Mr. Herapath, that
+it would have been more--more--"
+
+"Polite to offer to carry you over, child? No, not at all. It will be
+wiser and warmer for you to run down the hill. Come along!"
+
+And without more ado, while I was still choking with rage, he seized
+my hands and set off at a trot, lugging me through the sloppy places
+much as I have seen a nurse drag a fractious child down Constitution
+Hill. It was not wonderful that I soon lost the little breath his
+speech had left me, and was powerless to complain when we reached the
+bridge. I could only thank heaven that there was no sign of Clare. I
+think I should have died of mortification if she had seen us come down
+the hill hand-in-hand in that ridiculous fashion. But she had gone
+home, and at any rate I escaped that degradation.
+
+A wet stool-car and wetter pony were dimly visible on the bridge; to
+which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added
+himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman
+sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and
+the little "teste" set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver's
+excellent imitation of "Pss," the Norse for "Tchk," that in ten
+minutes we were at home.
+
+"Well, I never!" Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance,
+when at last I was safe in our room. "I would not be seen in such a
+state by a man for all the fish in the sea!"
+
+And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more
+provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her, and had to
+find comfort in promising myself, that when we were back in Bolton
+Gardens I would see that Fräulein kept Miss Clare's pretty nose to the
+grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were
+ever so fond of her. Papa was in the plot against me, too. What right
+had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing "his little girl" home safe?
+He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen's
+Counsel--and papa is stout--who was not, any more than a thin one, who
+did not contradict. It is in their patents, I think.
+
+Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening--if fish and potatoes and
+boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be
+called a dinner--but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my
+wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his
+first impression. It was too bad: he had no eyes! He either could not
+or would not see any one but the draggled Bab--fifteen at most and a
+very tom-boy--whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare,
+who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way,
+Miss Guest, and once at least during the evening dubbed me plain Bab.
+I tried to freeze him with a look then, and papa gave him a taste of
+the pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But
+it was not a bit of use: I could see that he set it all down to the
+grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have
+opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for
+that.
+
+When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, "I
+don't visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the
+evening."
+
+Here was a chance. I was going to say that that no doubt was the
+reason why I had never met him, when papa ruthlessly cut me short by
+asking, "You are not in the law?"
+
+"No," he replied. "I am in the London Fire Brigade."
+
+I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet sitting at
+the door of the fire station by St. Martin's Church. Clare turned
+crimson and papa seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The
+moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest,
+but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining
+with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would
+let me with "Good gracious, how nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
+
+It made matters--my matters--worse, for I could have cried with
+vexation when I read in his face next moment that he had looked for
+their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager
+remark to mere childish ignorance.
+
+"Some time I will," he said with a quiet smile _de haut en bas_; "but
+I do not often attend one in person. I am Captain ----'s private
+secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum."
+
+And it turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so
+that papa lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to
+discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small
+as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. It was a
+long time since I had been used to young men talking politics to papa,
+when they could talk--politics--to me.
+
+Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was
+almost more than I could bear. He--Mr. Herapath, of course--was always
+about fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house,
+taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy papa's
+society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a
+glimpse of the Sulethid peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and
+softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with color, in a
+far-off atmosphere of its own, beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills,
+that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens
+with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came
+into my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view;
+and said to papa that he feared his little girl was tired as well as
+cold--and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as papa
+and I drove down: he was walking by Clare's carcole and they were
+laughing heartily.
+
+And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a
+thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my
+teeth viciously together and said to myself that if ever we met in
+London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered
+nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so
+rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me
+dislike him.
+
+However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when
+I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I
+felt I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had before his
+coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now
+clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the
+magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and
+contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually
+fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I
+was the more vexed to come suddenly upon him fishing; and fishing
+where he had no right to be. Papa had spoken to him about the danger
+of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet there
+he was, thinking, I dare say, that we should not know. It was a spot
+where one bank rose into quite a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at
+the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water still ran with
+the speed of a mill-race, so fast as to endanger a good swimmer. But
+on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water which
+was tempting enough to have set some one's wits to work to devise
+means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just
+above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, perhaps, which might have
+done, only it did not reach to this end of the cliff. However, that
+foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the
+latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away,
+in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.
+
+And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to
+look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not
+stand upright; the first person who got there must surely have learned
+to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were
+short for me. I thought of this oddly enough as I watched him, and
+laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards,
+meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all
+sorts of foolish things would happen. I felt sure that I should have
+no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I
+would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of
+course, he would do it.
+
+I lost no time, but ran down the slope smartly and carelessly. My way
+lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It
+is wonderful how quickly an accident happens; how swiftly a thing that
+cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing--oh, so vainly--that
+we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I
+was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I
+stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the
+stone to roll. It was all done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was
+easy enough, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck
+the piece of board which was only resting lightly at either end, and
+before I could take it all in the little bridge plunged end first into
+the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.
+
+He threw up his hands in affright, for he had turned, and we both saw
+it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was
+impossible; and then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to
+me in the direction of home--again and again. The roar of the falls
+drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him
+myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen,
+rough, rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped
+position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling
+stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no
+better way I could think of; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me
+again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with
+me, but it was not the time for that yet, and I tried to collect
+myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at
+the top set off at a run homewards.
+
+I cannot tell at all how I did it; how I passed over the uneven
+ground, or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning papa
+made afterwards. I can only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I
+panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole,
+breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I
+slipped and dropped down places I should at other times have shrunk
+from, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I
+thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on
+for his life, the clamor of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my
+heart's beating with very fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted
+over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the
+afternoon sunshine, papa's stool-car even then at the door ready to
+take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand in
+broken words that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I
+knew, and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the
+porch, and climbed into the car. Papa was not slow either; he snatched
+a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom
+he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time,
+but so much may happen in so little time.
+
+We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from that part of
+the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even papa,
+as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he let
+escape him when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and
+we all looked. The ledge was empty. Jem Herapath was gone. I suppose
+it startled me. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed
+way, and cry quietly without much feeling that it was my doing; while
+the men, shouting to one another in strange, hushed voices, searched
+about for any sign of his fate--"Jem! Jem Herapath!" So he had written
+his name only yesterday in the travellers' book at the posting-house,
+and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked
+to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, Jem, to hear
+you say "Bab" once more!
+
+"Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?"
+
+Safe and sound! Yes, there he was when I turned, safe, and strong, and
+cool, rod in hand, and a quiet smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen
+him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying "Bab"
+exactly as of old, so that something in my throat--it may have been
+anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was--prevented me saying
+a word until all the others came round us, and a babel of Norse and
+English, and something that was neither, yet both, set in.
+
+"But how is this?" objected my father when he could be heard, "you are
+quite dry, my boy?"
+
+"Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?"
+
+"The matter! Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?" papa
+asked, bewildered by this new aspect of the case.
+
+"It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very
+uncomfortable start by nearly doing so."
+
+Every one looked at him for an explanation. "How did you manage to get
+from the ledge?" I said feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not
+dreamed it.
+
+"From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure, so that I had to
+walk back round the hill. Still I did not mind, for I was thankful
+that it was the plank and not you that fell in.
+
+"I--I thought--you could not get from the ledge," I muttered. The
+possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me,
+and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too
+ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at
+the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to
+one another. But when he laughed too--and he did until the tears came
+into his eyes--there was not an ache or pain in my body--and I had cut
+my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock--that hurt me one-half
+as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not;
+and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and papa drove me
+home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted
+me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an
+ache in every part of me, he was gone.
+
+"He asked me to tell you," said Clare, not looking up from the fly she
+was tying at the window, "that he thought you were the bravest girl he
+had ever met."
+
+So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. "No,
+Clare," I said coldly, "he did not say that exactly; he said 'the
+bravest little girl.'" For indeed, lying upstairs with the window
+open, I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsören. As
+for papa, he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and
+wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.
+
+"You've generally some common-sense, my dear," he said that day at
+dinner, "and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy
+the man was in danger, I--can--not--imagine!"
+
+"Papa," put in Clare, suddenly, "your elbow is upsetting the salt."
+
+And as I had to move my seat just then to avoid the glare of the stove
+which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.
+
+
+
+
+                                  II
+
+                              HIS STORY
+
+
+I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance
+in town was limited, and something too because I cared little for it.
+But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing,
+the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. The
+party had too a holiday flavor about them wholesome to recall in
+Scotland Yard: and as I had thought, play-time over, I should see no
+more of them, I was proportionately pleased to find that Mr. Guest had
+not forgotten me, and pleased also--shrewdly expecting that we might
+kill our fish over again--to regard his invitation to dinner at a
+quarter-to-eight as a royal command.
+
+But if I took it so, I was sadly wanting in the regal courtesy to
+match. What with one delay owing to work that would admit of none,
+and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was
+twenty-five minutes after the hour named, when I reached Bolton
+Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel, that it was plain
+upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me straight into the
+dining-room, where Guest greeted me very kindly, and met my excuses by
+apologies on his part--for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of
+eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, "My
+daughter," and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair
+at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say "Clear, if
+you please," and then I was free to turn and apologize to her, being a
+little shy, and, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.
+
+I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness--to her younger
+sister--in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for
+her dress and some striking differences. Miss Guest could not be more
+than eighteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, with
+the same child-like, innocent look on her face. She had the big, gray
+eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but in her they were more
+soft and tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming.
+Her hair too was brown and wavy: only, instead of hanging loose or in
+a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was
+coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that was so Greek, and
+in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose, so unlike Bab's. Her
+dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white
+throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and, so far, no more
+recalled my little fishing-mate than the sedate self-possession and
+assured dignity of this girl, as she talked to her other neighbor,
+suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's
+children in her strangely and wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not
+Bab in fact: and yet it almost might have been: an etherealized,
+queenly, womanly Bab. Who presently turned to me--
+
+"Have you quite settled down after your holiday?" she asked, staying
+the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.
+
+"I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a
+breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well."
+
+"My sisters?" she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her
+pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning.
+
+"Yes," I said rather puzzled. "You know they were with your father
+when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab."
+
+"Eh?" dropping her fork on the plate with a great clatter.
+
+"Yes, Miss Guest, Miss Clare and Miss Bab."
+
+I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her color rose, and she looked
+me in the face in a half-proud, half-fearful way as if she resented
+the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion,
+she at length stammered, "Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they
+were! How very foolish of me. They are quite well, thank you," and so
+was silent again. But I understood now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
+mention my name, and she had taken me for some one else of whose
+holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room
+that the Guests saw a good deal of company, and it was a very natural
+mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear
+that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without,
+if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a
+humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between
+myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting.
+Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of
+Dresden china, she was so frail and pretty.
+
+"You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?" she
+asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.
+
+"Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved
+in the pluckiest manner--so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that
+the danger was not there to dignify her heroism."
+
+"That was like her," she answered in a tone just a little scornful.
+"You must have thought her a terrible tomboy."
+
+While she was speaking there came one of those dreadful lulls in the
+talk, and Mr. Guest overhearing, cried, "Who is that you are abusing,
+my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it's Clare, I think I can
+name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion."
+
+"It is no one of whom you have ever heard, papa," she answered,
+archly. "It is a person in whom Mr.--Mr. Herapath--" I had murmured my
+name as she stumbled--"and I are interested. Now tell me, did you not
+think so?" she murmured, graciously leaning the slightest bit towards
+me, and opening her eyes as they looked into mine in a way that to a
+man who had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was
+sufficiently intoxicating.
+
+"No," I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. "No, Miss Guest,
+I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little thing,
+rather careless as children are apt to be, but likely to grow into a
+charming girl."
+
+I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent,
+whether, impossible as it must seem to any one looking in her face,
+there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbor.
+Her tone when she spoke of her sister seemed to impart no great
+goodwill.
+
+"So that is your opinion?" she said, after a pause. "Do you know,"
+with a laughing glance, "that some people think I am like her."
+
+"Yes?" I answered, gravely. "Well, I should be able to judge, who have
+seen you both and yet am not an old friend. And I think you are both
+like and unlike. Your sister has very beautiful eyes"--she lowered
+hers swiftly--"and hair like yours, but her manner and style were very
+different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture
+you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time--and on many after
+occasions," I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at
+the queer little figure I had conjured up.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Herapath," she replied, with coldness, though she had
+blushed darkly to her ears. "That, I think, must be enough of
+compliments, for to-night--as you are not an old friend." And she
+turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our
+acquaintance was as yet in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth
+as to a temperature below zero.
+
+A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her
+cheek still lingered there, as she swept past me with a wondrous show
+of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place,
+and we talked of the "land of berries," and our adventures there,
+while the rest--older friends--listened indulgently or struck in from
+time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.
+
+I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why they get
+more joy--I am fain to think they do--out of a scrambling tea up three
+pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the very same materials--and
+comfort withal--in their own house. I imagine it is for the same
+reason that the bachelor finds a singular charm in a lady's
+drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A
+charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests'
+drawing-room--a room rich in subdued colors and a cunning blending of
+luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt alone. Mr. Guest had
+passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of
+these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I
+had been in the habit of rather despising "society." Miss Guest was at
+the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up also
+a keen-faced, dark-whiskered man leaning over her with the air of one
+used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may
+have looked, as well as felt, forlorn, and meeting her eyes could have
+fancied she was regarding me with amusement--almost triumph. It must
+have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment
+she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier:
+
+"There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so
+that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up
+to the schoolroom--Fräulein and Clare are there--and telling Clare,
+that--that--oh, anything."
+
+There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who
+is at home in a house to flaunt his favor in the face of other guests.
+That young lawyer's manner as he left her, and the smile of perfect
+intelligence which passed between them, were such a breach of good
+manners as would have ruffled any one. They ruffled me--yes, me,
+although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he
+conducted himself--so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano
+and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.
+
+She did not speak; and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing
+over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She
+had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something
+about which--not its newness--so startled me that I said abruptly:
+"That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it?"
+
+She looked up, saw what I meant, and stopping hastily, put on her
+bracelets; to all appearance so vexed by my thoughtless question, and
+anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, "I asked
+because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day
+when she thought I was in trouble, and the coincidence struck me."
+
+"Yes, I remember," looking at me, I thought, with a certain suspicion,
+as though she were not sure that I was giving the right motive. "I did
+this much in the same way. By falling, I mean. Isn't it a hateful
+disfigurement?"
+
+No, it was no disfigurement. Even to her, with a woman's love of
+conquest, it must have seemed anything but a disfigurement had she
+known what the quiet, awkward man at her side was thinking, who stood
+looking shyly at it and found no words to contradict her, though she
+asked him twice, and thought him stupid enough. A great longing to
+kiss that soft, scarred wrist was on me--and Miss Guest had added
+another to the number of her slaves. I don't know now why that little
+scar should have so touched me any more than I then could guess why,
+being a commonplace person, I should fall in love at first sight, and
+feel no surprise at my condition, but only a half consciousness
+(seeming fully to justify it) that in some former state of being I had
+met my love, and read her thoughts, and learned her moods; and come to
+know the bright womanly spirit that looked from her frank eyes as well
+as if she were an old, old friend. And so vivid was this sensation,
+that once or twice, then and afterwards, when I would meet her glance,
+another name than hers trembled on my tongue and passed away before I
+could shape it into sound.
+
+After an interval, "Are you going to the Goldmace's dance?"
+
+"No," I answered her, humbly. "I go out so little."
+
+"Indeed," with an odd smile not too kindly; "I wish--no I don't--that
+we could say the same. We are engaged, I think--" she paused, her
+attention divided between myself and Boccherini's minuet, the low
+strains of which she was sending through the room--"for every
+afternoon--this week--except Saturday. By the way, Mr. Herapath--do
+you remember what was the name--Bab told me you teased her with?"
+
+"Wee bonnie Bab," I answered absently. My thoughts had gone forward to
+Saturday. "We are always dropping to-day's substance for the shadow of
+to-morrow; like the dog--a dog was it not?--in the fable."
+
+"Oh, yes, wee bonnie Bab," she murmured softly. "Poor Bab!" and
+suddenly cut short Boccherini's music and our chat by striking a
+terrific discord and laughing merrily at my start of discomfiture.
+Every one took it as a signal to leave. They all seemed to be going to
+meet her again next day, or the day after that; they engaged her for
+dances, and made up a party for the law courts, and tossed to and fro
+a score of laughing catch-words, that were beyond my comprehension.
+They all did this, except myself.
+
+And yet I went away with something before me--that call upon Saturday
+afternoon. Quite unreasonably I fancied I should see her alone. And
+so when the day came and I stood outside the opening door of the
+drawing-room, and heard voices and laughter within, I was hurt and
+aggrieved beyond measure. There was quite a party, and a merry one,
+assembled, who were playing at some game, as it seemed to me, for I
+caught sight of Clare whipping off an impromptu bandage from her eyes,
+and striving by her stiffest air to give the lie to a pair of flushed
+cheeks. The black-whiskered man was there, and two men of his kind,
+and a German governess, and a very old lady in a wheel-chair, who was
+called "grandmamma," and Miss Guest herself looking, in the prettiest
+dress of silvery plush, to the full as bright and fair and graceful as
+I had been picturing her each hour since we parted.
+
+She dropped me a stately courtesy. "Will you play the part of Miss
+Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, Mr. Herapath, while I act honest
+Burchell, and say 'Fudge!' or will you burn nuts and play games with
+neighbor Flamborough? You will join us, won't you? Clare does not so
+misbehave every day, only it is such a wet afternoon and so cold and
+wretched, and we did not think there would be any more callers--and
+tea will be up in five minutes."
+
+She did not think there would be any more callers! Something in her
+smile belied the words and taught me that she had thought--she had
+known--that there would be one more caller--one who would burn nuts
+and play games with her, though Rome itself were afire, and Tooley
+Street and the Mile End Road to boot.
+
+It was a simple game enough, and not likely, one would say, to afford
+much risk of that burning the fingers, which gave a zest to the Vicar
+of Wakefield's nuts. One sat in the middle blindfolded, while the rest
+disguised their own or assumed each other's voices, and spoke one by
+one some gibe or quip at his expense. When he succeeded in naming the
+speaker, the detected satirist put on the poke, and in his turn heard
+things good--if he had a conceit of himself--for his soul's health.
+Now this _rôle_ unhappily soon fell to me, and proved a heavy one,
+because I was not so familiar with the others' voices as were the
+rest; and Miss Guest--whose faintest tones I thought to have
+known--had a wondrous knack of cheating me, now taking off Clare's
+voice, and now--after the door had been opened to admit the tea--her
+father's. So I failed again and again to earn my release. But when a
+voice behind me cried with well-feigned eagerness--
+
+"How nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
+
+Though no fresh creaking at the door had reached me, nor warning been
+given of an addition to the players, I had not the smallest doubt who
+was the speaker; but exclaimed at once, "That is Bab! Now I cry you
+mercy. I am right this time. That was Bab!"
+
+I looked for a burst of applause and laughter, such as had before
+attended a good thrust home, but none came. On the contrary, with my
+words so odd a silence fell upon the room that it was clear that
+something was wrong, and I pulled off my handkerchief in haste,
+repeating, "That was Bab, I am sure."
+
+But if it was, I could not see her. What had come over them all?
+Jack's face wore a provoking smile, and his friends were clearly bent
+upon sniggering. Clare looked horrified, and grandmamma gently
+titillated, while Miss Guest, who had risen and half turned away
+towards the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
+was the matter?
+
+"I beg every one's pardon by anticipation," I said, looking round in a
+bewildered way: "but have I said anything wrong?"
+
+"Oh, dear no," cried the fellow they called Jack, with a familiarity
+that was in the worst taste--as if I had meant to apologize to him!
+"Most natural thing in the world!"
+
+"Jack, how dare you?" exclaimed Miss Guest, stamping her foot.
+
+"Well it seemed all right. It sounded very natural, I am sure."
+
+"Oh, you are unbearable! Why don't you say something, Clare?"
+
+"Mr. Herapath, I am sure that you did not know that my name was
+Barbara."
+
+"Certainly not," I cried. "What a strange thing!"
+
+"But it is, and that is why grandmamma is looking so shocked, and Mr.
+Buchanan is wearing threadbare an old friend's privilege of being
+rude. I freely forgive you if you will make allowance for him. And you
+shall come off the stool of repentance and have your tea first, since
+you are the greatest stranger. It is a stupid game after all!"
+
+She would hear no apologies from me. And when I would have asked why
+her sister bore the same name, and thus excused myself, she was intent
+upon tea-making, and the few moments I could with decency add to my
+call gave me scant opportunity. I blush to think how I eked them out,
+by what subservience to Clare, by what a slavish anxiety to help even
+Jack to muffins--each piece I hoped might choke him. How slow I was to
+find hat and gloves, calling to mind with terrible vividness, as I
+turned my back upon the circle, that again and again in my experience,
+an acquaintance begun by a dinner had ended with the consequent call.
+And so I should have gone--it might have been so here--but that the
+door-handle was stiff, and Miss Guest came to my aid, as I fumbled
+with it. "We are always at home on Saturdays, if you like to call, Mr.
+Herapath," she murmured carelessly, not lifting her eyes--and I found
+myself in the street.
+
+So carelessly she said it, that with a sudden change of feeling I
+vowed I would not call. Why should I? Why should I worry myself with
+the sight of those other fellows parading their favor? With the babble
+of that society chit-chat, which I had so often scorned, and--and
+still scorned, and had no part or concern in. They were not people
+to suit me, or do me good. I would not go, I said, and repeated it
+firmly on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday only so far modified it
+that I thought at some distant time to leave a card--to avoid
+discourtesy;--on Friday preferred an earlier date as wiser and more
+polite, and on Saturday walked shame-faced down the street and knocked
+and rang, and went upstairs--to taste a pleasant misery. Yes, and on
+the next Saturday too, and the next, and the next; and that one on
+which we all went to the theatre, and that other one on which Mr.
+Guest kept me to dinner. Ay, and on other days that were not
+Saturdays, among which two stand high out of the waters of
+forgetfulness--high days indeed--days like twin pillars of Hercules,
+through which I thought to reach, as did the seamen of old, I knew not
+what treasures of unknown lands stretching away under the setting sun.
+First that one on which I found Barbara Guest alone and blurted out
+that I had the audacity to wish to make her my wife; and then heard,
+before I had well--or badly--told my tale, the wheels of grandmamma's
+chair outside.
+
+"Hush!" the girl said, her face turned from me. "Hush, Mr. Herapath.
+You don't know me, indeed. You have seen so little of me. Please say
+nothing more about it. You are completely under a delusion."
+
+"It is no delusion that I love you, Barbara!" I cried.
+
+"It is, it is," she repeated, freeing her hand. "There, if you will
+not take an answer--come--come at three to-morrow. But mind, I promise
+you nothing--I promise you nothing," she added feverishly, and fled
+from the room, leaving me to talk to grandmamma as best, and escape as
+quickly as, I might.
+
+I longed for a great fire that evening, and failing one, tired myself
+by tramping unknown streets of the East-end, striving to teach myself
+that any trouble to-morrow might bring was but a shadow, a sentiment,
+a thing not to be mentioned in the same breath with the want and toil
+of which I caught glimpses up each street and lane that opened to
+right and left. In the main, of course, I failed: but the effort did
+me good, sending me home tired out, to sleep as soundly as if I were
+going to be hanged next day, and not--which is a very different
+thing--to be put upon my trial.
+
+"I will tell Miss Guest you are here, sir," the man said. I looked at
+all the little things in the room which I had come to know well--her
+workbasket, the music upon the piano, the table-easel, her
+photograph--and wondered if I were to see them no more, or if they
+were to become a part of my every-day life. Then I heard her come in,
+and turned quickly, feeling that I should learn my fate from her
+greeting.
+
+"Bab!" The word was rung from me perforce. And then we stood and
+looked at one another, she with a strange pride and defiance in her
+eyes, though her cheek was dark with blushes, and I with wonder and
+perplexity in mine,--wonder and perplexity that quickly grew into a
+conviction, a certainty that the girl standing before me in the
+short-skirted brown dress with tangled hair and loose neck-ribbon was
+the Bab I had known in Norway; and yet that the eyes--I could not
+mistake them now, no matter what unaccustomed look they might
+wear--were Barbara Guest's!
+
+"Miss Guest--Barbara," I stammered, grappling with the truth, "why
+have you played this trick upon me?"
+
+"It is Miss Guest and Barbara now," she cried, with a mocking
+courtesy. "Do you remember, Mr. Herapath, when it was Bab? When you
+treated me as a kind of toy, and a plaything, with which you might be
+as intimate as you liked; and hurt my feelings--yes, it is weak to
+confess it, I know--day by day, and hour by hour?"
+
+"But surely, that is forgiven now?" I said, dazed by an attack so
+sudden and so bitter. "It is atonement enough that I am at your feet
+now, Barbara!"
+
+"You are not," she retorted hotly. "Don't say you have offered love to
+me, who am the same with the child you teased at Breistolen. You have
+fallen in love with my fine clothes, and my pearls and my maid's work,
+not with me. You have fancied the girl you saw other men make much of.
+But you have not loved the woman who might have prized that which Miss
+Guest has never learned to value."
+
+"How old are you?" I said, hoarsely.
+
+"Nineteen!" she snapped out. And then for a moment we were both
+silent.
+
+"I begin to understand now," I answered slowly as soon as I could
+conquer something in my throat. "Long ago when I hardly knew you, I
+hurt your woman's pride; and since that you have plotted----"
+
+"No, you have tricked yourself!"
+
+"And schemed to bring me to your feet that you might have the pleasure
+of trampling on me. Miss Guest, your triumph is complete, more
+complete than you are able to understand. I loved you this morning
+above all the world--as my own life--as every hope I had. See, I tell
+you this that you may have a moment's keener pleasure when I am gone."
+
+"Don't! Don't!" she cried, throwing herself into a chair and covering
+her face.
+
+"You have won a man's heart and cast it aside to gratify an old pique.
+You may rest content now, for there is nothing wanting to your
+vengeance. You have given me as much pain as a woman, the vainest and
+the most heartless, can give a man. Good-by."
+
+And with that I was leaving her, fighting my own pain and passion, so
+that the little hands she raised as though they would ward off my
+words were nothing to me. I felt a savage delight in seeing that I
+could hurt her, which deadened my own grief. The victory was not all
+with her lying there sobbing. Only where was my hat? Let me get my hat
+and go. Let me escape from this room wherein every trifle upon which
+my eye rested awoke some memory that was a pang. Let me get away, and
+have done with it all.
+
+Where was the hat? I had brought it up. I could not go without it. It
+must be under her chair, by all that was unlucky, for it was nowhere
+else. I could not stand and wait, and so I had to go up to her, with
+cold words of apology upon my lips, and being close to her and seeing
+on her wrist, half hidden by fallen hair, the scar she had brought
+home from Norway, I don't know how it was that I fell on my knees by
+her and cried:
+
+"Oh, Bab, I loved you so! Let us part friends."
+
+For a moment, silence. Then she whispered, her hand in mine, "Why did
+you not say Bab to begin? I only told you that Miss Guest had not
+learned to value your love."
+
+"And Bab?" I murmured, my brain in a whirl.
+
+"Learned long ago, poor girl!"
+
+And the fair, tear-stained face of my tyrant looked into mine for a
+moment, and then came quite naturally to its resting place.
+
+"Now," she said, when I was leaving, "you may have your hat, sir."
+
+"I believe," I replied, "that you sat upon this chair on purpose."
+
+And Bab blushed. I believe she did.
+
+
+
+
+
+                         A Strange Invitation
+
+
+I have friends who tell me that they seldom walk the streets of London
+without wondering what is passing behind the house-fronts; without
+picturing a comedy here, a love-scene there, and behind the dingy cane
+blinds a something ill-defined, a something odd and _bizarre_. They
+experience--if you believe them--a sense of loneliness out in the
+street, an impatience of the sameness of all these many houses, their
+dull bricks and discreet windows, and a longing that some one would
+step out and ask them to enter and see the play.
+
+Well, I have never felt any of these things; but as I was passing
+through Fitzhardinge Square about half-past ten o'clock one evening in
+last July, after dining, if I remember rightly, in Baker Street,
+something happened to me which I fancy may be of interest to such
+people.
+
+I was passing through the square from north to south, and to avoid a
+small crowd, which some reception had drawn together, I left the
+pavement and struck across the road to the path round the oval garden;
+which, by the way, contains a few of the finest trees in London. This
+part was in deep shadow, so that when I presently emerged from it and
+recrossed the road to the pavement near the top of Fitzhardinge
+Street, I had an advantage over any persons on the pavement. They were
+under the lamps, while I, coming from beneath the trees, was almost
+invisible.
+
+The door of the house immediately in front of me as I crossed was
+open, and an elderly manservant out of livery was standing at it,
+looking up and down the pavement by turns. It was his air of furtive
+anxiety that drew my attention to him. He was not like a man looking
+for a cab, or waiting for his sweetheart; and I had my eye upon him as
+I stepped upon the pavement before him. But my surprise was great when
+he uttered a low exclamation of dismay at sight of me and made as if
+he would escape; while his face, in the full glare of the light, grew
+so pale and terror-stricken that he might before have been completely
+at his ease. I was astonished and instinctively stood still returning
+his gaze; for perhaps twenty seconds we remained so, he speechless,
+and his hands fallen by his side. Then, before I could move on, as I
+was in the act of doing, he cried, "Oh! Mr. George! Oh! Mr. George!"
+in a tone that rang out in the stillness rather as a wail than an
+ordinary cry.
+
+My name, my surname I mean, is George. For a moment I took the address
+to myself, forgetting that the man was a stranger, and my heart began
+to beat more quickly with fear of what might have happened. "What is
+it?" I exclaimed. "What is it?" and I shook back from the lower part
+of my face the silk muffler I was wearing. The evening was close, but
+I had been suffering from a sore throat.
+
+He came nearer and peered more closely at me, and I dismissed my fear;
+for I thought that I could see the discovery of his mistake dawning
+upon him. His pallid face, on which the pallor was the more noticeable
+as his plump features were those of a man with whom the world as a
+rule went well, regained some of its lost color, and a sigh of relief
+passed his lips. But this feeling was only momentary. The joy of
+escape from whatever blow he had thought imminent gave place at once
+to his previous state of miserable expectancy of something or other.
+
+"You took me for another person," I said, preparing to pass on. At
+that moment I could have sworn--I would have given one hundred to one
+twice over--that he was going to say Yes. To my intense astonishment,
+he did not. With a very visible effort he said, "No!"
+
+"Eh! What?" I exclaimed. I had taken a step or two.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then what is it?" I said. "What do you want, my good fellow?"
+
+Watching his shuffling, indeterminate manner, I wondered if he were
+sane. His next answer reassured me on that point. There was an almost
+desperate deliberation about its manner. "My master wishes to see you,
+sir, if you will kindly walk in for five minutes," was what he said.
+
+I should have replied, "Who is your master?" if I had been wise; or
+cried, "Nonsense!" and gone my way. But the mind when it is spurred by
+a sudden emergency often overruns the more obvious course to adopt a
+worse. It was possible that one of my intimates had taken the house,
+and said in his butler's presence that he wished to see me. Thinking
+of that I answered, "Are you sure of this? Have you not made a
+mistake, my man?"
+
+With an obstinate sullenness that was new in him he said, No, he had
+not. Would I please to walk in? He stepped briskly forward as he
+spoke, and induced me by a kind of gentle urgency to enter the house,
+taking from me with the ease of a trained servant my hat, coat, and
+muffler. Finding himself in the course of his duties he gained more
+composure; while I, being thus treated, lost my sense of the
+strangeness of the proceeding, and only awoke to a full consciousness
+of my position when he had softly shut the door behind us and was in
+the act of putting up the chain.
+
+Then I confess I looked round a little alarmed at my precipitancy. But
+I found the hall spacious, lofty, and dark-panelled, the ordinary hall
+of an old London house. The big fireplace was filled with plants in
+flower. There were rugs on the floor and a number of chairs with
+painted crests on the backs, and in a corner was an old sedan chair,
+its poles upright against the wall.
+
+No other servants were visible, it is true. But apart from this all
+was in order, all was quiet, and any idea of violence was manifestly
+absurd.
+
+At the same time the affair seemed of the strangest. Why should the
+butler in charge of a well-arranged and handsome house--the house of
+an ordinary wealthy gentleman--why should he loiter about the open
+doorway as if anxious to feel the presence of his kind? Why should he
+show such nervous excitement and terror as I had witnessed? Why should
+he introduce a stranger?
+
+I had reached this point when he led the way upstairs. The staircase
+was wide, the steps were low and broad. On either side at the head of
+the flight stood a beautiful Venus of white Parian marble. They were
+not common reproductions, and I paused. I could see beyond them a
+Hercules and a Meleager of bronze, and delicately tinted draperies and
+ottomans that under the light of a silver hanging-lamp?--a gem from
+Malta--changed a mere lobby to a fairies' nook. The sight filled me
+with a certain suspicion; which was dispelled, however, when my hand
+rested for an instant upon the reddish pedestal that supported one of
+the statues. The cold touch of the marble was enough for me. The
+pillars were not of composite; of which they certainly would have
+consisted in a gaming-house, or worse.
+
+Three steps carried me across the lobby to a curtained doorway by
+which the servant was waiting. I saw that the "shakes" were upon
+him again. His impatience was so ill-concealed that I was not
+surprised--though I was taken aback--when he dropped the mask
+altogether, and as I passed him--it being now too late for me to
+retreat undiscovered, if the room were occupied--laid a trembling hand
+upon my arm and thrust his face close to mine. "Ask how he is! Say
+anything," he whispered trembling, "no matter what, sir! Only, for the
+love of heaven, stay five minutes!"
+
+He gave me a gentle push forward as he spoke--pleasant all this!--and
+announced in a loud, quavering voice, "Mr. George!"--which was true
+enough. I found myself walking round a screen at the same time that
+something in the room, a long, dimly-lighted room, fell with a brisk,
+rattling sound, and there was the scuffling noise of a person, still
+hidden from me by the screen, rising to his feet in haste.
+
+Next moment I was face to face with two men. One, a handsome, elderly
+gentleman, who wore gray moustaches and would have seemed in place at
+a service club, was still in his chair regarding me with a perfectly
+calm, unmoved face, as if my entrance at that hour were the commonest
+incident of his life. The other had risen and stood looking at me
+askance. He was five-and-twenty years younger than his companion and
+as good-looking in a different way. But now his face was white and
+drawn, distorted by the same expression of terror--ay, and a darker
+and fiercer terror than that which I had already seen upon the
+servant's features; it was the face of one in a desperate strait. He
+looked as a man looks who has put all he has in the world upon an
+outsider--and done it twice. In that quiet drawing-room by the side of
+his placid companion, with nothing whatever in their surroundings to
+account for his emotion, his panic-stricken face shocked me
+inexpressibly.
+
+They were in evening dress; and between them was a chess-table, its
+men in disorder: almost touching this was another small table bearing
+a tray of Apollinaris water and spirits. On this the young man was
+resting one hand as if but for its support he would have fallen.
+
+To add one more fact, I had never seen either of them in my life.
+
+Or wait; could that be true? If so, it must be indeed a nightmare I
+was suffering. For the elder man broke the silence by addressing me in
+a quiet ordinary tone that exactly matched his face. "Sit down,
+George," he said, "don't stand there. I did not expect you this
+evening." He held out his hand, without rising from his chair, and I
+advanced and shook it in silence. "I thought you were in Liverpool.
+How are you?" he continued.
+
+"Very well, I thank you," I muttered mechanically.
+
+"Not very well, I should say," he retorted. "You are as hoarse as a
+raven. You have a bad cold at best. It is nothing worse, my boy, is
+it?" with anxiety.
+
+"No, a throat cough; nothing else," I murmured, resigning myself to
+this astonishing reception--this evident concern for my welfare on the
+part of a man whom I had never seen in my life.
+
+"That is well!" he answered cheerily. Not only did my presence cause
+him no surprise. It gave him, without doubt, actual pleasure!
+
+It was otherwise with his companion; grimly and painfully so indeed.
+He had made no advances to me, spoken no word, scarcely altered his
+position. His eyes he had never taken from me. Yet in him there was a
+change. He had discovered, exactly as had the butler before him,
+his mistake. The sickly terror was gone from his face, and a
+half-frightened malevolence not much more pleasant to witness had
+taken its place. Why this did not break out in any active form was
+part of the general mystery given to me to solve. I could only surmise
+from glances which he later cast from time to time towards the door,
+and from the occasional faint creaking of a board in that direction,
+that his self-restraint had to do with my friend the butler. The
+inconsequences of dreamland ran through it all: why the elder man
+remained in error; why the younger with that passion on his face was
+tongue-tied; why the great house was so still; why the servant should
+have mixed me up with this business at all--these were questions as
+unanswerable, one as the other.
+
+And the fog in my mind grew denser when the old gentleman turned from
+me as if my presence were a usual thing, and rapped the table before
+him impatiently. "Now, Gerald!" cried he in sharp tones, "have you put
+those pieces back? Good heavens! I am glad that I have not nerves like
+yours! Don't remember the squares, boy? Here, give them to me!" With a
+hasty gesture of his hand, something like a mesmeric pass over the
+board, he set down the half-dozen pieces with a rapid tap! tap! tap!
+which made it abundantly clear that he, at any rate, had no doubt of
+their former positions.
+
+"You will not mind sitting by until we have finished the game?" he
+continued, speaking to me, and in a voice I fancied more genial than
+that which he had used to Gerald. "You are anxious to talk to me about
+your letter, George?" he went on when I did not answer. "The fact is
+that I have not read the inclosure. Barnes, as usual, read the outer
+letter to me, in which you said the matter was private and of grave
+importance; and I intended to go to Laura to-morrow, as you suggested,
+and get her to read the news to me. Now you have returned so soon, I
+am glad that I did not trouble her."
+
+"Just so, sir," I said, listening with all my ears; and wondering.
+
+"Well, I hope there is nothing very bad the matter, my boy?" he
+replied. "However--Gerald! it is your move!--ten minutes more of such
+play as your brother's, and I shall be at your service."
+
+Gerald made a hurried move. The piece rattled upon the board as if he
+had been playing the castanets. His father made him take it back. I
+sat watching the two in wonder and silence. What did it all mean? Why
+should Barnes--doubtless behind the screen listening--read the outer
+letter? Why must Laura be employed to read the inner? Why could not
+this cultivated and refined gentleman before me read his--Ah! That
+much was disclosed to me. A mere turn of the hand did it. He had made
+another of those passes over the board, and I learned from it what an
+ordinary examination would not have detected. He, the old soldier with
+the placid face and light-blue eyes, was blind! Quite blind!
+
+I began to see more clearly now, and from this moment I took up, at
+any rate in my own mind, a different position. Possibly the servant
+who had impelled me into the middle of this had had his own good
+reasons for doing so, as I now began to discern. But with a clue to
+the labyrinth in my hand I could no longer move passively at any
+other's impulse. I must act for myself. For a while I sat still and
+made no sign. My suspicions were presently confirmed. The elder man
+more than once scolded his opponent for playing slowly; in one of
+these intervals he took from an inside pocket of his dress waistcoat a
+small packet.
+
+"You had better take your letter, George," he said. "If there are, as
+you mentioned, originals in it, they will be more safe with you than
+with me. You can tell me all about it, _viva voce_, now you are here.
+Gerald will leave us alone presently."
+
+He held the papers towards me. To take them would be to take an active
+part in the imposture, and I hesitated, my own hand half outstretched.
+But my eyes fell at the critical instant upon Master Gerald's face,
+and my scruples took themselves off. He was eyeing the packet with an
+intense greed, and a trembling longing--a very itching of the fingers
+and toes, to fall upon the prey--that put an end to my doubts. I rose
+and took the papers. With a quiet, but I think significant, look in
+his direction, I placed them in the breast-pocket of my evening coat.
+I had no safer receptacle about me, or into that they would have gone.
+
+"Very well, sir," I said. "There is no particular hurry. I think the
+matter will keep, as things now are, until to-morrow."
+
+"To be sure. You ought not to be out with such a cold at night, my
+boy," he answered. "You will find a decanter of the Scotch whiskey you
+gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some hot water and a
+lemon, George? The servants are all at the theatre--Gerald begged a
+holiday for them--but Barnes will get you the things in a minute."
+
+"Thank you; I won't trouble him. I will take some with cold water," I
+replied, thinking I should gain in this way what I wanted--time to
+think: five minutes to myself, while they played.
+
+But I was out in my reckoning. "I will have mine now too," he said.
+"Will you mix it, Gerald?"
+
+Gerald jumped up to do it with tolerable alacrity. I sat still,
+preferring to help myself, when he should have attended to his
+father--if his father it was. I felt more easy now that I had those
+papers in my pocket. The more I thought of it, the more certain I
+became that they were the object aimed at by whatever devilry was on
+foot; and that possession of them gave me the whip-hand. My young
+gentleman might snarl and show his teeth, but the prize had escaped
+him.
+
+Perhaps I was a little too confident: a little too contemptuous of my
+opponent; a little too proud of the firmness with which I had taken at
+one and the same time the responsibility and the post of vantage. A
+creak of the board behind the screen roused me from my thoughts. It
+fell upon my ear trumpet-tongued: a sudden note of warning. I glanced
+up with a start, and a conviction that I was being caught napping, and
+looked instinctively towards the young man. He was busy at the tray,
+his back to me. Relieved of my fear of I did not know what--perhaps a
+desperate attack upon my pocket, I was removing my eyes, when, in
+doing so, I caught sight of his reflection in a small mirror beyond
+him. Ah!
+
+What was he busy about? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, at the moment. He
+was standing motionless--I could fancy him breathless also--a strange
+listening expression on his face; which seemed to me to have faded to
+a grayish tinge. His left hand was clasping a half-filled tumbler: the
+other was at his waistcoat pocket. So he stood during perhaps a second
+or two, a small lamp upon the tray before him illumining his handsome
+figure; and then his eyes, glancing up, met the reflection of mine in
+the mirror. Swiftly as the thought itself could pass from brain to
+limb, the hand which had been resting in the pocket flashed with a
+clatter among the glasses; and turning almost as quickly, he brought
+one of the latter to the chess-table, and set it down unsteadily.
+
+What had I seen! Nothing; actually nothing. Just what Gerald had been
+doing. Yet my heart was going as many strokes to the minute as a
+losing crew. I rose abruptly.
+
+"Wait a moment, sir," I said, as the elder man laid his hand upon the
+glass, "I don't think that Gerald has mixed this quite as you like
+it."
+
+He had already lifted it to his lips. I looked from him to Gerald.
+That young gentleman's color, though he faced me hardily, shifted more
+than once, and he seemed to be swallowing a succession of over-sized
+fives-balls; but his eyes met mine in a vicious kind of smile that was
+not without its gleam of triumph. I was persuaded that all was right
+even before his father said so.
+
+"Perhaps you have mixed for me, Gerald?" I suggested pleasantly.
+
+"No!" he answered in sullen defiance. He filled a glass with
+something--perhaps it was water--and drank it, his back towards me. He
+had not spoken so much as a single word to me before.
+
+The blind man's ear recognized the tone now. "I wish you boys would
+agree better," he said wearily. "Gerald, go to bed. I would as soon
+play chess with an idiot from Earlswood. Generally you can play the
+game if you are good for nothing else; but since your brother came in,
+you have not made a move which any one not an imbecile would make. Go
+to bed, boy! Go to bed!"
+
+I had stepped to the table while he was speaking. One of the glasses
+was full. I lifted it with seeming unconcern to my nose. There was
+whiskey in it as well as water. Then _had_ Gerald mixed for me? At any
+rate, I put the tumbler aside, and helped myself afresh. When I set
+the glass down empty, my mind was made up.
+
+"Gerald does not seem inclined to move, sir, so I will," I said
+quietly. "I will call in the morning and discuss that matter, if it
+will suit you. But to-night I feel inclined to get to bed early."
+
+"Quite right, my boy. I would ask you to take a bed here instead of
+turning out, but I suppose that Laura will be expecting you. Come in
+any time to-morrow morning. Shall Barnes call a cab for you?"
+
+"I think I will walk," I answered, shaking the proffered hand. "By the
+way, sir," I added, "have you heard who is the new Home Secretary?"
+
+"Yes, Henry Matthews," he replied. "Gerald told me. He had heard it at
+the Club."
+
+"It is to be hoped that he will have no womanish scruples about
+capital punishment," I said, as if I were incidentally considering the
+appointment. And with that last shot at Mr. Gerald--he turned green, I
+thought, a color which does not go well with a black moustache--I
+walked out of the room, so peaceful, so cosy, so softly lighted, as it
+looked, I remember; and downstairs. I hoped that I had paralyzed the
+young fellow, and might leave the house without molestation.
+
+But as I gained the foot of the stairs he tapped me on the shoulder. I
+saw then, looking at him, that I had mistaken my man. Every trace of
+the sullen defiance which had marked his manner throughout the
+interview upstairs was gone. His face was still pale, but it wore a
+gentle smile as we confronted one another under the hall lamp. "I have
+not the pleasure of knowing you, but let me thank you for your help,"
+he said, in a low voice, yet with a kind of frank spontaneity.
+"Barnes's idea of bringing you in was a splendid one, and I am
+immensely obliged to you."
+
+"Don't mention it," I answered stiffly, proceeding with my
+preparations for going out, as if he were not there; although I must
+confess that this complete change in him exercised my mind no little.
+
+"I feel so sure that we may rely upon your discretion," he went on,
+ignoring my tone, "that I need say nothing about that. Of course we
+owe you an explanation, but as your cold is really yours and not my
+brother's, you will not mind if I read you the riddle to-morrow
+instead of keeping you from your bed to-night?"
+
+"It will do equally well--indeed better," I said, putting on my
+overcoat, and buttoning it carefully across my chest, while I affected
+to be looking with curiosity at the sedan chair.
+
+He pointed lightly to the place where the packet lay. "You are
+forgetting the papers," he reminded me. His tone almost compelled the
+answer, "To be sure."
+
+But I had pretty well made up my mind, and I answered instead, "Not at
+all. They are quite safe, thank you."
+
+"But you don't--I beg your pardon--" he said, opening his eyes very
+wide, as if some new light were beginning to shine upon his mind and
+he could scarcely believe its revelations. "You don't really mean that
+you are going to take those papers away with you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"My dear sir!" he remonstrated earnestly. "This is preposterous. Pray
+forgive me the reminder, but those papers, as my father gave you to
+understand, are private papers, which he supposed himself to be
+handing to my brother, George."
+
+"Just so!" was all I said. And I took a step towards the door.
+
+"You really mean to take them?" he asked seriously.
+
+"I do; unless you can satisfactorily explain the part I have played
+this evening. And also make it clear to me that you have a right to
+the possession of the papers."
+
+"Confound it! If I must do so to-night, I must!" he said reluctantly.
+"I trust to your honor, sir, to keep the explanation secret." I bowed,
+and he resumed. "My elder brother and I are in business together.
+Lately we have had losses which have crippled us so severely that we
+decided to disclose them to Sir Charles and ask his help. George did
+so yesterday by letter, giving certain notes of our liabilities. You
+ask why he did not make such a statement by word of mouth? Because he
+had to go to Liverpool at a moment's notice to make a last effort to
+arrange the matter. And as for me," with a curious grimace, "my father
+would as soon discuss business with his dog! Sooner!"
+
+"Well?" I said. He had paused, and was absently flicking the blossoms
+off the geraniums in the fireplace with his pocket-handkerchief,
+looking moodily at his work the while. I cannot remember noticing the
+handkerchief, yet I seem to be able to see it now. It had a red
+border, and was heavily scented with white rose. "Well?"
+
+"Well," he continued, with a visible effort, "my father has been
+ailing lately, and this morning his usual doctor made him see
+Bristowe. He is an authority on heart-disease, as you doubtless know;
+and his opinion is," he added in a lower voice and with some emotion,
+"that even a slight shock may prove fatal."
+
+I began to feel hot and uncomfortable. What was I to think? The packet
+was becoming as lead in my pocket.
+
+"Of course," he resumed more briskly, "that threw our difficulties
+into the shade at once; and my first impulse was to get these papers
+from him. Don't you see that? All day I have been trying in vain to
+effect it. I took Barnes, who is an old servant, partially into my
+confidence, but we could think of no plan. My father, like many people
+who have lost their sight, is jealous, and I was at my wits' end, when
+Barnes brought you up. Your likeness," he added in a parenthesis,
+looking at me reflectively, "to George put the idea into his head, I
+fancy? Yes, it must have been so. When I heard you announced, for a
+moment I thought you were George."
+
+"And you called up a look of the warmest welcome," I put in dryly.
+
+He colored, but answered almost immediately, "I was afraid that he
+would assume that the governor had read his letter, and blurt out
+something about it. Good Lord! if you knew the funk in which I have
+been all the evening lest my father should ask either of us to read
+the letter!" and he gathered up his handkerchief with a sigh of
+relief, and wiped his forehead.
+
+"I could see it very plainly," I answered, going slowly in my mind
+over what he had told me. If the truth must be confessed, I was in no
+slight quandary what I should do, or what I should believe. Was this
+really the key to it all? Dared I doubt it, or that that which I had
+constructed was a mare's nest,--the mere framework of a mare's nest.
+For the life of me I could not tell!
+
+"Well?" he said presently, looking up with an offended air. "Is there
+anything else I can explain? or will you have the kindness to return
+my property to me now?"
+
+"There is one thing about which I should like to ask a question," I
+said.
+
+"Ask on," he replied; and I wondered whether there was not a little
+too much of bravado in the tone of sufferance he assumed.
+
+"Why do you carry--" I went on, raising my eyes to his, and pausing on
+the word an instant--"that little medicament--you know what I mean--in
+your waistcoat pocket, my friend?"
+
+He perceptibly flinched. "I don't quite--quite understand," he began
+to stammer. Then he changed his tone and went on rapidly, "No! I will
+be frank with you, Mr.-- Mr.--"
+
+"George," I said, calmly.
+
+"Ah, indeed?" a trifle surprised, "Mr. George! Well, it is something
+Bristowe gave me this morning to be administered to my father--without
+his knowledge, if possible--whenever he grows excited. I did not think
+that you had seen it."
+
+Nor had I. I had only inferred its presence. But having inferred
+rightly once, I was inclined to trust my inference farther. Moreover
+while he gave this explanation, his breath came and went so quickly
+that my former suspicions returned. I was ready for him when he said,
+"Now I will trouble you, if you please, for those papers!" and held
+out his hand.
+
+"I cannot give them to you," I replied, point blank.
+
+"You cannot give them to me now?" he repeated.
+
+"No. Moreover the packet is sealed. I do not see, on second thoughts,
+what harm I can do you--now that it is out of your father's hands--by
+keeping it until to-morrow, when I will return it to your brother,
+from whom it came."
+
+"He will not be in London," he answered doggedly. He stepped between
+me and the door with looks which I did not like. At the same time I
+felt that some allowance must be made for a man treated in this way.
+
+"I am sorry," I said, "but I cannot do what you ask. I will do this,
+however. If you think the delay of importance, and will give me your
+brother's address in Liverpool, I will undertake to post the letters
+to him at once."
+
+He considered the offer, eyeing me the while with the same disfavor
+which he had exhibited in the drawing-room. At last he said slowly,
+"If you will do that?"
+
+"I will," I repeated. "I will do it immediately."
+
+He gave me the direction--"George Ritherdon, at the London and
+North-Western Hotel, Liverpool," and in return I gave him my own name
+and address. Then I parted from him, with a civil good-night on either
+side--and little liking I fancy--the clocks striking midnight, and the
+servants coming in as I passed out into the cool darkness of the
+square.
+
+Late as it was, I went straight to my club, determined that as I had
+assumed the responsibility there should be no laches on my part. There
+I placed the packet, together with a short note explaining how it came
+into my possession, in an outer envelope, and dropped the whole duly
+directed and stamped into the nearest pillar box. I could not register
+it at that hour, and rather than wait until next morning, I omitted
+the precaution, merely requesting Mr. Ritherdon to acknowledge its
+receipt.
+
+Well, some days passed during which it may be imagined that I thought
+no little about my odd experience. It was the story of the Lady and
+the Tiger over again. I had the choice of two alternatives at least. I
+might either believe the young fellow's story, which certainly had the
+merit of explaining in a fairly probable manner an occurrence of so
+odd a character as not to lend itself freely to explanation. Or I
+might disbelieve his story, plausible in its very strangeness as it
+was, in favor of my own vague suspicions. Which was I to do?
+
+Well, I set out by preferring the former alternative. This
+notwithstanding that I had to some extent committed myself against it
+by withholding the papers. But with each day that passed without
+bringing me an answer from Liverpool, I leaned more and more to the
+other side. I began to pin my faith to the tiger, adding each morning
+a point to the odds in the animal's favor. So it went on until ten
+days had passed.
+
+Then a little out of curiosity, but more, I gravely declare, because I
+thought it the right thing to do, I resolved to seek out George
+Ritherdon. I had no difficulty in learning where he might be found. I
+turned up the firm of Ritherdon Brothers (George and Gerald),
+cotton-spinners and India merchants, in the first directory I
+consulted. And about noon the next day I called at their place of
+business, and sent in my card to the senior partner. I waited five
+minutes--curiously scanned by the porter, who no doubt saw a likeness
+between me and his employer--and then I was admitted to the latter's
+room.
+
+He was a tall man with a fair beard, not one whit like Gerald, and yet
+tolerably good-looking; if I say more I shall seem to be describing
+myself. I fancied him to be balder about the temples, however, and
+grayer and more careworn than the man I am in the habit of seeing in
+my shaving-glass. His eyes, too, had a hard look, and he seemed in
+ill-health. All these things I took in later. At the time I only
+noticed his clothes. "So the old gentleman is dead," I thought, "and
+the young one's tale is true after all!" George Ritherdon was in deep
+mourning.
+
+"I wrote to you," I began, taking the seat to which he pointed, "about
+a fortnight ago."
+
+He looked at my card, which he held in his hand. "I think not," he
+said slowly.
+
+"Yes," I repeated. "You were then at the London and North-Western
+Hotel, at Liverpool."
+
+He was stepping to his writing-table, but he stopped abruptly. "I was
+in Liverpool," he answered in a different tone, "but I was not at
+that hotel. You are thinking of my brother, are you not?"
+
+"No," I said, "it was your brother who told me you were there."
+
+"Perhaps you had better explain what was the subject of your letter,"
+he suggested, speaking in the weary tone of one returning to a painful
+matter. "I have been through a great trouble lately, and this may well
+have been overlooked."
+
+I said I would, and as briefly as possible I told the main facts of my
+strange visit in Fitzhardinge Square. He was much moved, walking up
+and down the room as he listened, and giving vent to exclamations from
+time to time, until I came to the arrangement I had finally made with
+his brother. Then he raised his hand as one might do in pain.
+
+"Enough!" he said abruptly. "Barnes told me a rambling tale of some
+stranger. I understand it all now."
+
+"So do I, I think!" I replied dryly. "Your brother went to Liverpool,
+and received the papers in your name?"
+
+He murmured what I took for "Yes." But he did not utter a single word
+of acknowledgement to me, or of reprobation of his brother's deceit. I
+thought some such word should have been spoken; and I let my feelings
+carry me away. "Let me tell you," I said warmly, "that your brother is
+a--"
+
+"Hush!" he said, holding up his hand again. "He is dead."
+
+"Dead!" I repeated, shocked and amazed.
+
+"Have you not read of it in the papers? It is in all the papers," he
+said wearily. "He committed suicide--God forgive me for it!--at
+Liverpool, at the hotel you have mentioned, and the day after you saw
+him."
+
+And so it was. He had committed some serious forgery--he had always
+been wild, though his father, slow to see it, had only lately closed
+his purse to him--and the forged signatures had come into his
+brother's power. He had cheated his brother before. There had long
+been bad blood between them, the one being as cold, business-like, and
+masterful as the other was idle and jealous.
+
+"I told him," the elder said to me, shading his eyes with his hand,
+"that I should let him be prosecuted--that I would not protect or
+shelter him. The threat nearly drove him mad; and while it was hanging
+over him, I wrote to disclose the matter to Sir Charles. Gerald
+thought his last chance lay in recovering this letter unread. The
+proofs against him destroyed, he might laugh at me. His first attempts
+failed; and then he planned with Barnes's cognizance to get possession
+of the packet by drugging my father's whiskey. Barnes's courage
+deserted him; he called you in, and--and you know the rest."
+
+"But," I said softly, "your brother did get the letter--at Liverpool."
+
+George Ritherdon groaned. "Yes," he said, "he did. But the proofs were
+not enclosed. After writing the outside letter I changed my mind, and
+withheld them, explaining my reasons within. He found his plot laid in
+vain; and it was under the shock of this disappointment--the packet
+lay before him re-sealed and directed to me--that he--that he did it.
+Poor Gerald!"
+
+"Poor Gerald!" I said. What else remained to be said?
+
+It may be a survival of superstition, yet when I dine in Baker Street
+now, I take some care to go home by any other route than that through
+Fitzhardinge Square.
+
+
+
+
+
+                       The Invisible Portraits.
+
+
+On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a
+shoe-lace, having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a
+corner house in St. James's Square, when a man passing behind me
+stopped.
+
+"Well!" said he, aloud, after a short pause during which I wondered--I
+could not see him--what he was doing, "the meanness of these rich folk
+is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be
+ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!"
+
+The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as
+they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the
+house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many
+windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was
+shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too--a little
+red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. "It is just possible," I suggested,
+"that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order."
+
+"Ugh! What has that to do with it?" my new friend answered
+contemptuously. "He ought to think of the public."
+
+"And your hat?" I asked with winning politeness. "It strikes me, an
+unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?"
+
+"Cannot afford it!" he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.
+
+"Cannot afford it? But, my good man, you ought to think of the
+public."
+
+"You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!" was his
+kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.
+
+I was about to go mine, and was first falling back to gain a better
+view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the
+presence of a listener, a thin, gray-haired man, who, hidden by a
+pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were
+engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the
+crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our
+eyes met he spoke.
+
+"Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so," he observed
+with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, "and we are very
+much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir."
+
+"I am afraid he was," I answered; "and a fool too."
+
+"And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he
+was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now might I
+ask," he continued, "if you are an American, sir?"
+
+"No, I am not," I answered; "but I have spent some time in the
+States."
+
+I could have fancied that he sighed.
+
+"I thought--but never mind, sir," he began. "I was wrong. It is
+curious how very much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak.
+Now, I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures."
+
+I was inclined to humor the old fellow's mood.
+
+"I like a good picture, I admit," I said.
+
+"Then perhaps you would not be offended if I asked you to step inside
+and look at one or two," he suggested timidly. "I would not take a
+liberty, sir, but there are some Van Dycks and a Rubens in the
+dining-room that cost a mint of money in their day, I have heard; and
+there is no one else in the house but my wife and myself."
+
+It was a strange invitation, strangely brought about. But I saw no
+reason for myself why I should not accept it, and I followed him into
+the hall. It was spacious, but sparely furnished. The matted floor had
+a cold look, and so had the gaunt stand which seemed to be a fixture,
+and boasted but one umbrella, one sunshade, and one dog-whip. As I
+passed a half-open door I caught a glimpse of a small room prettily
+furnished, with dainty prints and water-colors on the walls. But these
+were of a common order. A dozen replicas of each and all might be seen
+in a walk through Bond Street. Even this oasis of taste and comfort
+told the same story as had the bare hall and dreary exterior, and laid
+as it were a finger on one's heart. I trod softly as I followed my
+guide along the strip of matting towards the rear of the house.
+
+He opened a door at the inner end of the hall, and led me into a large
+and lofty room, built out from the back, as a state dining-room or
+ball-room. At present it rather resembled the latter, for it was
+without furniture. "Now," said the old man, turning and respectfully
+touching my sleeve to gain my attention, "now you will not consider
+your labor lost in coming to see that, sir. It is a portrait of the
+second Lord Wetherby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and is judged to be one
+of the finest specimens of his style in existence."
+
+I was lost in astonishment; amazed, almost appalled. My companion
+stood by my side, his face wearing a placid smile of satisfaction, his
+hand pointing slightly upwards to the blank wall before us. The blank
+wall! Of any picture, there or elsewhere in the room, there was no
+sign. I turned to him and then from him, and I felt very sick at
+heart. The poor old fellow was--must be--mad. I gazed blankly at the
+blank wall. "By Van Dyck?" I repeated mechanically.
+
+"Yes, sir, by Van Dyck?" he replied, in the most matter-of-fact
+tone imaginable. "So, too, is this one;" he moved as he spoke a few
+feet to his left. "The second peer's first wife in the costume of a
+lady-in-waiting. This portrait and the last are in as good a state of
+preservation as on the day they were painted."
+
+Oh, certainly mad! And yet so graphic was his manner, so crisp and
+realistic were his words, that I rubbed my eyes; and looked and looked
+again, and almost fancied that Lord Walter and Anne, his wife, grew
+into shape before me on the wall. Almost, but not quite; and it was
+with a heart full of wondering pity that I accompanied the old man, in
+whose manner there was no trace of wildness or excitement, round the
+walls; visiting in turn the Cuyp which my lord bought in Holland, the
+Rubens, the four Lawrences, and the Philips--a very Barmecide feast of
+art. I could not doubt that the old man saw the pictures. But I saw
+only bare walls.
+
+"Now I think you have seen them, family portraits and all," he
+concluded, as we came to the doorway again; stating the fact, which
+was no fact, with complacent pride. "They are fine pictures, sir.
+They, at least, are left, although the house is not what it was."
+
+"Very fine pictures," I remarked. I was minded to learn if he were
+sane on other points. "Lord Wetherby," I said, "I should suppose that
+he is not in London?"
+
+"I do not know sir, one way or the other," the servant answered with a
+new air of reserve. "This is not his lordship's house. Mrs. Wigram, my
+late lord's daughter-in-law, lives here."
+
+"But this is the Wetherbys' town house," I persisted. I knew so much.
+
+"It was my late lord's house. At his son's marriage it was settled
+upon Mrs. Wigram, and little enough besides, God knows!" he exclaimed
+querulously. "It was Mr. Alfred's wish that some land should be
+settled upon his wife, but there was none out of the entail, and my
+lord, who did not like the match, though he lived to be fond enough of
+the mistress afterwards, said, 'Settle the house in town!' in a bitter
+kind of joke like. So the house was settled, and five hundred pounds a
+year. Mr. Alfred died abroad, as you may know, sir, and my lord was
+not long in following him."
+
+He was closing the shutters of one window after another as he spoke.
+The room had sunk into deep gloom. I could imagine now that the
+pictures were really where he fancied them. "And Lord Wetherby, the
+late peer," I asked, after a pause, "did he leave his daughter-in-law
+nothing?"
+
+"My lord died suddenly, leaving no will," he replied sadly. "That
+is how it all is. And the present peer, who was only a second
+cousin--well, I say nothing about him." A reticence which was well
+calculated to consign his lordship to the lowest deep.
+
+"He did not help?" I asked.
+
+"Devil a bit, begging your pardon, sir. But there! it is not my place
+to talk of these things. I doubt I have wearied you with talk about
+the family. It is not my way," he added, as if wondering at himself,
+"only something in what you said seemed to touch a chord like."
+
+By this time we were outside the room, standing at the inner end of
+the hall, while he fumbled with the lock of the door. Short passages
+ending in swing doors ran out right and left from this point, and
+through one of these a tidy, middle-aged woman wearing an apron
+suddenly emerged. At sight of me she looked greatly astonished. "I
+have been showing the gentleman the pictures," said my guide, who was
+still occupied with the door.
+
+A quick flash of pain altered and hardened the woman's face. "I have
+been very much interested, madam," I said softly.
+
+Her gaze left me to dwell upon the old man with infinite affection.
+"John had no right to bring you in, sir," she said primly. "I have
+never known him do such a thing before, and--Lord a mercy! there is
+the mistress's knock. Go, John, and let her in; and this gentleman,"
+with an inquisitive look at me, "will not mind stepping a bit aside,
+while her ladyship goes upstairs."
+
+"Certainly not," I answered. I hastened to draw back into one of the
+side passages, into the darkest corner of it, and there stood leaning
+against the cool panels, my hat in my hand.
+
+In the short pause which ensued before John opened the door she
+whispered to me, "You have not told him, sir?"
+
+"About the pictures?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He is blind, you see."
+
+"Blind?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, sir, this year and more; and when the pictures were taken
+away--by the present earl--that he had known all his life, and been so
+proud to show to people just the same as if they had been his own,
+why, it seemed a shame to tell him. I have never had the heart to do
+it, and he thinks they are there to this day."
+
+Blind! I had never thought of that; and while I was grasping the idea
+now, and fitting it to the facts, a light footstep sounded in the
+hall, and a woman's voice on the stairs; such a voice and such a
+footstep that, as it seemed to me, a man, if nothing else were left to
+him, might find home in them alone. "Your mistress," I said presently,
+when the sounds had died away upon the floor above, "has a sweet
+voice; but has not something annoyed her?
+
+"Well, I never should have thought that you would have noticed that!"
+exclaimed the housekeeper, who was, I dare say, many other things
+besides housekeeper. "You have a sharp ear, sir; that I will say. Yes,
+there is a something has gone wrong; but to think that an American
+gentleman should have noticed it!"
+
+"I am not an American," I said, perhaps testily.
+
+"Oh, indeed, sir! I beg your pardon, I am sure. It was just your way
+of speaking made me think it," she replied; and then there came a
+second louder rap at the door as John, who had gone upstairs with his
+mistress, came down in a leisurely fashion.
+
+"That is Lord Wetherby, drat him!" he said, on his wife calling to him
+in a low voice. He was ignorant, I think, of my presence. "He is to be
+shown into the library, and the mistress will see him there in five
+minutes; and you are to go to her room. Oh, rap away!" he added,
+turning towards the door, and shaking his fist at it. "There is many a
+better man than you has waited longer at that door."
+
+"Hush, John. Do you not see the gentleman?" interposed his wife, with
+the simplicity of habit. "He will show you out," she added rapidly to
+me, "as soon as his lordship has gone in, if you do not mind waiting
+another minute."
+
+"Not at all," I said, drawing back into the corner as they went on
+their errands; but though I said, "Not at all," mine was an odd
+position. The way in which I had come into the house, and my present
+situation in a kind of hiding, would have made most men only anxious
+to extricate themselves. But I, while listening to John parleying with
+some one at the door, conceived a strange desire, or a desire which
+would have been strange in any other man, to see this thing to the
+end--conceived it and acted upon it.
+
+The library? That was the room on the right of the hall, opposite to
+Mrs. Wigram's sitting-room. Probably, nay I was certain, it had
+another door opening on the passage in which I stood. It would cost me
+but a step or two to confirm my opinion. When John ushered in the
+visitor by one door I had already, by way of the other, ensconced
+myself behind a screen, that I seemed to know would face it. I was
+going to listen. Perhaps I had my reasons. Perhaps--but there, what
+matter? I, as a fact, listened.
+
+The room was spacious, but sombre, wainscoted and vaulted with oak.
+Its only visible occupant was a thin, dark man of middle size, with a
+narrow face, and a stubborn feather of black hair rising above his
+forehead; a man of Welsh type. He was standing with his back to the
+light, a roll of papers in one hand. The fingers of the other,
+drumming upon the table, betrayed that he was both out of temper and
+ill at ease. While I was still scanning him stealthily--I had never
+seen him before--the door was opened, and Mrs. Wigram came in. I sank
+back behind the screen. I think some words passed, some greeting of
+the most formal, but though the room was still, I failed to hear it,
+and when I recovered myself he was speaking.
+
+"I am here at your wish, Mrs. Wigram, and your service, too," he was
+saying, with an effort at gallantry which sat very ill upon him,
+"although I think it would have been better if we had left the matter
+to our solicitors."
+
+"Indeed."
+
+"Yes. I fancied you were aware of my opinion."
+
+"I was; and I perfectly understand, Lord Wetherby, your preference for
+that course," she replied, with sarcastic coldness, which did not hide
+her dislike for him. "You naturally shrink from telling me your terms
+face to face."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Wigram! Now, Mrs. Wigram! Is not this a tone to be
+deprecated?" he answered, lifting his hands. "I come to you as a man
+of business upon business."
+
+"Business! Does that mean wringing advantage from my weakness?" she
+retorted.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "I do deprecate this tone," he repeated. "I
+come in plain English to make you an offer; one which you can accept
+or refuse as you please. I offer you five hundred a year for this
+house. It is immensely too large for your needs, and too expensive for
+your income, and yet you have in strictness no power to let it. Very
+well, I, who can release you from that restriction, offer you five
+hundred a year for the house. What can be more fair?"
+
+"Fair? In plain English, Lord Wetherby, you are the only possible
+purchaser, and you fix the price. Is that fair? The house would let
+easily for twelve hundred."
+
+"Possibly," he retorted, "if it were in the open market. But it is
+not."
+
+"No," she answered rapidly. "And you, having the forty thousand a year
+which, had my husband lived, would have been his and mine; you who, a
+poor man, have stepped into this inheritance--you offer me five
+hundred for the family house! For shame, my lord! for shame!"
+
+"We are not acting a play," he said doggedly, showing that her words
+had stung him in some degree. "The law is the law. I ask for nothing
+but my rights, and one of those I am willing to waive in your favor.
+You have my offer."
+
+"And if I refuse it? If I let the house? You will not dare to enforce
+the restriction."
+
+"Try me," he rejoined, again drumming with his fingers upon the table.
+"Try me, and you will see."
+
+"If my husband had lived----"
+
+"But he did not live," he broke in, losing patience, "and that makes
+all the difference. Now, for Heaven's sake, Mrs. Wigram, do not make a
+scene! Do you accept my offer?"
+
+For a moment she had seemed about to break down, but her pride coming
+to the rescue, she recovered herself with wonderful quickness.
+
+"I have no choice," she said with dignity.
+
+"I am glad you accept," he answered, so much relieved that he gave way
+to an absurd burst of generosity. "Come!" he cried, "we will say
+guineas instead of pounds, and have done with it!"
+
+She looked at him in wonder. "No, Lord Wetherby," she said, "I
+accepted your terms. I prefer to keep to them. You said that you would
+bring the necessary papers with you. If you have done so I will sign
+them now, and my servants can witness them."
+
+"I have the draft and the lawyer's clerk is no doubt in the house," he
+answered. "I left directions for him to be here at eleven."
+
+"I do not think he is in the house," the lady answered. "I should know
+if he were here."
+
+"Not here!" he cried angrily. "Why not, I wonder! But I have the
+skeleton lease; it is very short, and to save delay I will fill in the
+particulars, names, and so forth myself, if you will permit me to do
+so. It will not take me twenty minutes."
+
+"As you please. You will find a pen and ink on the table. If you will
+kindly ring the bell when you are ready, I will come and bring the
+servants."
+
+"Thank you. You are very good," he said smoothly; adding, when she had
+left the room, "and the devil take your impudence, madam! As for your
+cursed pride--well, it has saved me twenty-five pounds a year, and so
+you are welcome to it. I was a fool to make the offer." And with that,
+now grumbling at the absence of the lawyer's clerk, and now
+congratulating himself on the saving of a lawyer's fee, my lord sat
+down to his task.
+
+A hansom cab on its way to the East India Club rattled through the
+square, and under cover of the noise I stole out from behind the
+screen, and stood in the middle of the room looking down at the
+unconscious worker. If for a minute I felt strongly the desire to
+raise my hand and give my lordship such a surprise as he had never in
+his life experienced, any other man might have felt the same; and as
+it was I put it away and only looked quietly about me. Some rays of
+sunshine piercing the corner pane of a dulled window fell on and
+glorified the Wetherby coat-of-arms blazoned over the wide fireplace,
+and so created the one bright spot in the bare, dismantled room, which
+had once, unless the tiers of empty shelves and the yet lingering odor
+of Russia lied, been lined from floor to ceiling with books. My lord
+had taken the furniture; my lord had taken the books; my lord had
+taken--nothing but his rights.
+
+Retreating softly to the door by which I had entered, and rattling the
+handle, I advanced afresh into the room. "Will your lordship allow
+me?" I said, after I had in vain coughed twice to gain his attention.
+
+He turned hastily and looked at me with a face full of suspicion. Some
+surprise on finding another person in the room and close to him was
+natural; but possibly also there was something in the atmosphere of
+that house which threw his nerves off their balance. "Who are you?" he
+cried in a tone which matched his face.
+
+"You left orders, my lord," I explained, "with Messrs. Duggan and
+Poole that a clerk should attend here at eleven. I very much regret
+that some delay has unavoidably been caused."
+
+"Oh, you are the clerk!" he replied ungraciously. "You do not look
+much like a lawyer's clerk."
+
+Involuntarily I glanced aside, and saw in a mirror the reflection of a
+tall man with a thick beard and moustaches, gray eyes, and an ugly
+scar seaming the face from nose to ear. "Yet I hope to give you full
+satisfaction, my lord," I murmured, dropping my eyes. "It was
+understood that you needed a confidential clerk."
+
+"Well, well, sir, to your work!" he replied irritably. "Better late
+than never; and after all it may be preferable for you to be here and
+see it duly executed. Only you will not forget," he continued hastily,
+with a glance at the papers, "that I have myself copied four-well,
+three--three full folios, sir, for which an allowance must be made.
+But there! Get on with your work. The handwriting will speak for
+itself."
+
+I obeyed, and wrote on steadily, while the earl walked up and down the
+room, or stood at a window. Upstairs sat Mrs. Wigram, schooling
+herself, I dare swear, to take this one favor that was no favor from
+the man who had dealt out to her such hard measure. Outside a casual
+passer through the square glanced up at the great house, and seeing
+the bent head of the secretary and the figure of his companion moving
+to and fro, saw, as he thought, nothing unusual; nor had any
+presentiment--how should he?--of the strange scene which the room with
+the dingy windows was about to witness.
+
+I had been writing for perhaps five minutes when Lord Wetherby stopped
+in his passage behind me and looked over my shoulder. With a jerk his
+eye-glasses fell, touching my shoulder.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "I have seen your handwriting
+somewhere; and lately too. Where could it have been?"
+
+"Probably among the family papers, my lord," I answered. "I have
+several times been engaged in the family business in the time of the
+late Lord Wetherby."
+
+"Indeed." There was both curiosity and suspicion in his utterance of
+the word. "You knew him?"
+
+"Yes, my lord. I have written for him in this very room, and he has
+walked up and down, and dictated to me, as you might be doing now," I
+explained.
+
+His lordship stopped his pacing to and fro, and retreated to the
+window on the instant. But I could see that he was interested, and I
+was not surprised when he continued with transparent carelessness. "A
+strange coincidence. And may I ask what it was upon which you were
+engaged?"
+
+"At that time?" I answered, looking him full in the face. "It was a
+will, my lord."
+
+He started and frowned, and abruptly resumed his walk up and down. But
+I saw that he had a better conscience than I had given him the credit
+of possessing. My shot had not struck fairly where I had looked to
+place it; and finding this was so, I turned the thing over afresh,
+while I pursued my copying. When I had finished, I asked him--I think
+he was busy at the time cursing the absence of tact in the lower
+orders--if he would go through the instrument; and he took my seat.
+
+Where I stood behind him, I was not far from the fireplace. While he
+muttered to himself the legal jargon in which he was as well versed as
+a lawyer bred in an office, I moved to it; and, neither missed nor
+suspected, stood looking from his bent figure to the blazoned shield,
+which formed part of the mantelpiece. If I wavered, my hesitation
+lasted but a few seconds. Then, raising my voice, I called sharply,
+"My lord, there used to be here--"
+
+He turned swiftly, and saw where I was. "What the deuce are you doing
+there, sir?" he cried in boundless astonishment, rising to his feet
+and coming towards me, the pen in his hand and his face aflame with
+anger. "You forget--"
+
+"A safe--a concealed safe for papers," I continued, cutting him short
+in my turn. "I have seen the late Lord Wetherby place papers in it
+more than once. The spring worked from here. You touch this knob."
+
+"Leave it alone, sir!" cried the peer furiously.
+
+He spoke too late. The shield had swung gently outwards on a hinge,
+door-fashion, and where it had been, gaped a small open safe lined
+with cement. The rays of sunshine, that a few minutes before had
+picked out so brightly the gaudy quarterings, now fell on a large
+envelope which lay apart on a shelf. It was as clean as if it had been
+put there that morning. No doubt the safe was air-tight. I laid my
+hand upon it. "My lord!" I cried, turning to look at him with
+ill-concealed exultation, "here is a paper--I think, a will!"
+
+A moment before the veins of his forehead had been swollen, his face
+dark with the rush of blood. His anger died down, at sight of the
+packet, with strange abruptness. He regained his self-control, and a
+moment saw him pale and calm, all show of resentment confined to a
+wicked gleam in his eye. "A will!" he repeated, with a certain kind of
+dignity, though the hand he stretched out to take the envelope shook.
+"Indeed, then it is my place to examine it. I am the heir-at-law, and
+I am within my rights, sir."
+
+I feared that he was going to put the parcel into his pocket and
+dismiss me, and I was considering what course I should take in that
+event, when instead he carried the envelope to the table by the window
+and tore off the cover without ceremony. "It is not in your
+handwriting?" were his first words; and he looked at me with a
+distrust that was almost superstitious. No doubt my sudden entrance,
+my ominous talk, and my discovery seemed to him to savor of the devil.
+
+"No," I replied unmoved. "I told your lordship that I had written a
+will at the late Lord Wetherby's dictation. I did not say--for how
+could I know?--that it was this one."
+
+"Ah!" He hastily smoothed the sheets, and ran his eyes over their
+contents. When he reached the last page there was a dark scowl on his
+face, and he stood a while staring at the signatures; not now reading,
+I think, but collecting his thoughts. "You know the provisions of
+this?" he presently burst forth with violence, dashing the back of his
+hand against the paper. "I say, sir, you know the provisions of this?"
+
+"I do not, my lord," I answered. Nor did I.
+
+"The unjust provisions of this will," he repeated, passing over my
+negative as if it had not been uttered. "Fifty thousand pounds to a
+woman who had not a penny when she married his son! Aye, and the
+interest on another hundred thousand for her life! Why, it is a
+prodigious income, an abnormal income--for a woman! And out of whose
+pocket is it to come? Out of mine, every stiver of it! It is
+monstrous! I say it is! How am I to keep up the title on the income
+left to me, I should like to know?"
+
+I marvelled. I remembered how rich he was. I could not refrain from
+suggesting that he had still remaining all the real property. "And," I
+added, "I understood, my lord, that the testator's personalty was
+sworn under four hundred thousand pounds."
+
+"You talk nonsense!" he snarled. "Look at the legacies! Five thousand
+here, and a thousand there, and hundreds like berries on a bush! It is
+a fortune, a decent fortune, clean frittered away! A barren title is
+all that will be left to me!"
+
+What was he going to do? His face was gloomy, his hands were
+twitching. "Who are the witnesses, my lord?" I asked in a low voice.
+
+So low--for under certain conditions a tone conveys much, very
+much--that he shot a stealthy glance towards the door before he
+answered, "John Williams."
+
+"Blind," I replied in the same low tone.
+
+"William Williams."
+
+"He is dead. He was Mr. Alfred's valet. I remember reading in the
+newspaper that he was with his master, and was killed by the Indians
+at the same time."
+
+"True. I remember that that was the case," he answered huskily. "And
+the handwriting is Lord Wetherby's." I assented. Then for fully a
+minute we were silent, while he bent over the will, and I stood behind
+him looking down at him with thoughts in my mind which he could as
+little fathom as could the senseless wood upon which I leaned. Yet I
+too mistook him. I thought him, to be plain, a scoundrel; and--well,
+so he was--but a mean one. "What is to be done?" he muttered at
+length, speaking rather to himself than to me.
+
+I answered softly, "I am a poor man, my lord," while inwardly I was
+quoting "_quem Deus vult perdere_."
+
+My words startled him. He answered hurriedly, "Just so! just so! So
+shall I be when this cursed paper takes effect. A very poor man! A
+hundred and fifty thousand gone at a blow! But there, she shall have
+it! She shall have every penny of it; only," he concluded slowly, "I
+do not see what difference one more day will make."
+
+I followed his downcast eyes, which moved from the will before him to
+the agreement for the lease of the house; and I did see what
+difference a day would make. I saw and understood and wondered. He had
+not the courage to suppress the will; but if he could gain a slight
+advantage by withholding it for a few hours, he had the mind to do
+that. Mrs. Wigram, a rich woman, would no longer let the house; she
+would be under no compulsion to do so; and my lord would lose a cheap
+residence as well as his hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To the
+latter loss he could resign himself with a sigh; but he could not bear
+to forego the petty gain for which he had schemed. "I think I
+understand, my lord," I replied.
+
+"Of course," he resumed nervously, "you must be rewarded for making
+this discovery. I will see that it is so. You may depend upon me. I
+will mention the case to Mrs. Wigram, and--and, in fact, my friend,
+you may depend upon me.
+
+"That will not do," I said firmly. "If that be all, I had better go to
+Mrs. Wigram at once, and claim my reward a day earlier."
+
+He grew very red in the face at receiving this check. "You will not in
+that event get my good word," he said.
+
+"Which has no weight with the lady," I answered politely but plainly.
+
+"How dare you speak so to me?" his lordship cried. "You are an
+impertinent fellow! But there! How much do you want?"
+
+"A hundred pounds."
+
+"A hundred pounds for a mere day's delay, which will do no one any
+harm!"
+
+"Except Mrs. Wigram," I retorted dryly. "Come, Lord Wetherby, this
+lease is worth a thousand a year to you. Mrs. Wigram, as you well
+know, will not voluntarily let the house to you. If you would have
+Wetherby House you must pay me. That is the long and the short of it."
+
+"You are an impertinent fellow!" he repeated.
+
+"So you have said before, my lord."
+
+I expected him to burst into a furious passion, but I suppose there
+was a something of power in my tone, beyond the mere defiance which
+the words expressed; for, instead of doing so, he eyed me with a
+thoughtful, malevolent gaze, and paused to consider. "You are at Poole
+and Duggan's," he said slowly. "How was it that they did not search
+this cupboard, with which you were acquainted?"
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. "I have not been in the house since Lord
+Wetherby died," I said. "My employers did not consult me when the
+papers he left were examined."
+
+"You are not a member of the firm?"
+
+"No, I am not," I answered. I was thinking that, so far as I knew
+those respectable gentlemen, no one of them would have helped my lord
+in this for ten times a hundred pounds. My lord! Faugh!
+
+He seemed satisfied, and taking out a note-case laid on the table a
+little pile of notes. "There is your money," he said, counting them
+over with reluctant fingers. "Be good enough to put the will and
+envelope back into the cupboard. Tomorrow you will oblige me by
+rediscovering it--you can manage that, no doubt--and giving
+information at once to Messrs. Duggan and Poole, or Mrs. Wigram, as
+you please. Now," he continued, when I had obeyed him, "will you be
+good enough to ask the servants to tell Mrs. Wigram that I am
+waiting?"
+
+There was a slight noise behind us. "I am here," said some one. I am
+sure that we both jumped at the sound, for though I did not look that
+way, I knew that the voice was Mrs. Wigram's, and that she was in the
+room. "I have come to tell you, Lord Wetherby," she went on, "that I
+have an engagement from home at twelve. Do I understand, however, that
+you are ready? If so, I will call in Mrs. Williams."
+
+"The papers are ready for signature," the peer answered, betraying
+some confusion, "and I am ready to sign. I shall be glad to have the
+matter settled as agreed." Then he turned to me, where I had fallen
+back, as seemed becoming, to the end of the room, and said, "Be good
+enough to ring the bell if Mrs. Wigram permit it."
+
+As I moved to the fireplace to do so, I was conscious that the lady
+was regarding me with some faint surprise. But when I had regained my
+position and looked towards her, she was standing near the window
+gazing steadily out into the square, an expression of disdain rendered
+by face and figure. Shall I confess that it was a joy to me to see her
+fair head so high, and to read even in the outline of her girlish form
+a contempt which I, and I only, knew to be so justly based? For
+myself, I leant against the edge of the screen by the door, and
+perhaps my hundred pounds lay heavily on my heart. As for him, he
+fidgeted with his papers, although they were all in order, and was
+visibly impatient to get his bit of knavery accomplished. Oh! he was a
+worthy man! And Welshman!
+
+"Perhaps," he presently suggested, for the sake of saying something,
+"while your servant is coming, you will read the agreement, Mrs.
+Wigram. It is very short, and, as you know, your solicitors have
+already seen it in the draft."
+
+She bowed, and took the paper negligently. She read some way down
+the first sheet with a smile, half careless, half contemptuous. Then I
+saw her stop--she had turned her back to the window to obtain more
+light--and dwell on a particular sentence. I saw--God! I had forgotten
+the handwriting!--I saw her gray eyes grow large and fear leap into
+them as she grasped the paper with her other hand, and stepped nearer
+to the peer's side. "Who," she cried, "who wrote this? Tell me! Do you
+hear? Tell me quickly!"
+
+He was nervous on his own account, wrapt in his own piece of scheming,
+and obtuse.
+
+"I wrote it," he said, with maddening complacency. He put up his
+glasses and glanced at the top of the page she held out to him. "I
+wrote it myself, and I can assure you that it is quite right, and a
+faithful copy. You do not think--"
+
+"Think! Think! no, no! This, I mean! Who wrote this?" she cried, awe
+in her face, and a suppliant tone,--strange as addressed to that
+man,--in her voice.
+
+He was confounded by her vehemence, as well as hampered by his own
+evil conscience.
+
+"The clerk, Mrs. Wigram, the clerk," he said petulantly, still in his
+fog of selfishness. "The clerk from Messrs. Duggan and Poole's."
+
+"Where is he?" she cried out breathlessly. I think she did not believe
+him.
+
+"Where is he?" he repeated in querulous surprise. "Why here, of
+course. Where should he be, madam? He will witness my signature."
+
+Would he? Signatures! It was little of signatures I recked at that
+moment. I was praying to Heaven that my folly might be forgiven me,
+and that my lightly planned vengeance might not fall on my own head.
+"Joy does not kill," I was saying to myself, repeating it over and
+over again, and clinging to it desperately. "Joy does not kill!" But
+oh! was it true in the face of that white-lipped woman?
+
+"Here!" She did not say more, but gazing at me with great dazed eyes,
+she raised her hand, and beckoned to me. And I had no choice but to
+obey--to go nearer to her, out into the light.
+
+"Mrs. Wigram," I said hoarsely, my voice sounding to me only as a
+whisper, "I have news of your late--of your husband. It is good news."
+
+"Good news?" Did she faintly echo my words? or, as her face from which
+all color had passed peered into mine, and searched it in infinite
+hope and infinite fear, did our two minds speak without need of
+physical lips? "Good news?"
+
+"Yes," I whispered, "he is alive. The Indians did not--"
+
+"Alfred!" Her cry rang through the room, and with it I caught her in
+my arms as she fell. Beard and long hair, and scar and sunburn, and
+strange dress--these which had deceived others--were no disguise to
+her--my wife. I bore her gently to the couch, and hung over her in a
+new paroxysm of fear. "A doctor! Quick! A doctor!" I cried to Mrs.
+Williams, who was already kneeling beside her. "Do not tell me," I
+added piteously, "that I have killed her."
+
+"No! no! no!" the good woman answered, the tears running down her
+face. "Joy does not kill!"
+
+
+An hour later this fear had been lifted from me, and I was walking up
+and down the library alone with my thankfulness; glad to be alone, yet
+more glad, more thankful still, when John came in with a beaming face.
+"You have come to tell me--" I cried eagerly, pleased that the tidings
+had come by his lips--"to go to her? That she will see me?"
+
+"Her ladyship is sitting up," he replied.
+
+"And Lord Wetherby?" I asked, pausing at the door to put the question.
+"He left the house at once?"
+
+"Yes, my lord, Mr. Wigram has been gone some time."
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Along the Garonne.
+
+
+We ascend the valley of the Garonne on our way to Pau, which we
+intended to use as a base of operations against the Pyrenees. Our
+route, as originally mapped out, lay by sea to Bordeaux, which is
+three days from Liverpool; and thence by rail to our destination, a
+journey merely of hours. But at the last moment we determined to
+postpone our stay at Pau, and instead to wander along the banks of the
+Garonne for a time, familiarizing ourselves with the ways of the
+country. Then, when we had rubbed off our insular corners against the
+Great French Politeness, and perfected our grasp of the language in
+talk with the Agenois villagers, we proposed to drop gently into Pau,
+armed at all points, and scarcely distinguishable from Frenchmen.
+
+So we planned: and so it came about that we were free to enjoy
+ourselves and look about us critically, as the smoky little tender
+bore us up the wide channel of the Gironde from Pauillac, where our
+ship bound for South America had contemptuously dropped us, to
+Bordeaux itself. A little below the city, the Gironde, which is really
+the estuary of the Garonne and Dordogne, shrinks to the Garonne pure
+and simple, but under either name it seems equally a waste of turbid
+clay-laden waters. On our left hand a bright sun--the month was
+November--shone warmly on a line of low hills, formed of reddish
+earth, and broken by great marl quarries. Woods climbed about these,
+and here and there a village or a little town nestled under them. On
+our right the bank lay low, and was fringed with willows, the country
+behind it being flattish, planted as it seemed to us with dead
+thorn-bushes, and dotted sparely with modern castellated houses.
+Nevertheless it was towards this modest, almost dreary landscape
+that we gazed; it was of it we all spoke, and to it referred, as we
+named names famous as Austerlitz or Waterloo, names familiar in our
+mouths--and our butlers'--as household words. For are not more people
+versed in claret than in history? And this commonplace landscape, this
+western bank of the Gironde, a mere peninsula lying between the river
+and the low Atlantic coast, is called Medoc, and embraces all the
+best known Bordeaux vineyards in the world. It seems as if a single
+parish--say St. George's, Hanover Square, for that is a big one--might
+hold them all. There, see, is Château Lafitte. The vineyards of St.
+Estéphe and St. Julien we have just passed. Léoville and Latour are
+not far off. And now we are passing the Château of Margaux itself, and
+gaining experience, are beginning to learn that all those little
+thorn-bushes stuck about the fallows, as though to protect the
+ground-game from poachers' nets, are vines--vines of the _premier
+crû!_ The vintage is over. The grapes, black, sour things, about the
+size of currants, have all been picked. Where we had looked to see the
+endless interlacings of greenery, and swelling clusters dropping
+fatness on a carpet of turf, we find only reddish fallows, and rows of
+dead gooseberry bushes.
+
+But never mind, even though this be but the first of many
+disillusions, and though the "sunny south" become hourly a more
+humorous catchword. To-day the sun _is_ warm, the breeze is soft, the
+custom-house officers are civil. We air--but with the caution due to
+convalescents, or those of tender years--our shaky, tottering French,
+and get English answers. So we stride across the broad quays of
+Bordeaux, our hearts before us, our luggage behind, and ourselves in
+the best of spirits and tempers.
+
+Bordeaux, as we saw it, was a cheerful, busy city, full of wide
+streets and open spaces and handsome buildings; a bright clean, airy,
+city with little smoke, an immense water frontage, and one very fine
+bridge: a pleasant etherealized Liverpool, in fact. The white blouses
+and blue trousers of the workmen, the soldiers' uniforms, the bare
+heads of some women and the gay 'kerchiefs, worn chignon-wise, of
+others, gave picturesqueness to the crowds circling about the
+kiosques, and reminded us, from time to time, that we were in a
+southern city. Not unnecessarily; for the thermometer fell on the day
+after our arrival to fifty degrees; and rain fell too, and we were
+quick to discover the true cause of French vivacity. The French have
+no fires at home. Consequently, when it is cold--and it often is very
+cold, even as far South as Bordeaux--their only resource is to go out,
+and jump about in such faint sunshine as they can find, and so make
+believe to be warm. Every one in Bordeaux seemed to be doing this that
+day.
+
+We saw a number of churches, but I have jumbled them together in my
+mind, and dare not distinguish between the beauties of St. Seurin and
+St. Croix, St. Michel or the Cathedral. Only I attended a service on
+Sunday morning, and, having heard that no Frenchmen now went to
+church, noted with interest that of a large congregation one in every
+four was a man. But then Bordeaux is perhaps the most orthodox city in
+France, and primitive ideas, good and bad, still prevail in this
+southwestern province, peopled by descendants of the Huguenots and
+Albigenses, by devout Basques and simple Navarrese. And two things
+also in Bordeaux I remember--the semi-circular remains of a Roman
+amphitheatre, which no one visiting Bordeaux should omit to see; and,
+secondly, a lofty, detached spire of singular lightness and grace. It
+is called the Peyberland, and was built by Pierre Berland, who must
+have been an English subject.
+
+His name strikes the vein of thought which was uppermost in my mind at
+Bordeaux. I found it impossible to forget that it had been for three
+centuries a half English city, and the capital of a half English
+province, ruled by an English king; or that up the wide Gironde,
+between the marly banks, Edward the Black Prince must many a time have
+sailed in state. Sir John Chandos and Sir Walter Manny, and many
+another English worthy, knew these streets as well as they knew
+Eastcheap or Aldgate. John of Gaunt and Talbot of Shrewsbury dwelt
+here, as much at home and at their ease as in York or Leicester. It is
+impossible not to wonder at those old Englishmen; not to think of them
+with pride, as we remember how firmly, the roving blood of Dane and
+Norman young in their veins, they grasped this prize; how long they
+clung to it, how boldly they flaunted the French lilies in the eyes of
+France; how cheerfully they crowded year by year to cross the bay in
+open boats! And then what cosmopolitans they were, with their manors
+in Devon and Aquitane, their houses in London and Bordeaux; with
+perhaps a snug little box at Calais, and a farm or two in Maine. How
+trippingly French and Provençal, and the rougher English, passed over
+their tongues. They founded no empire--on the contrary they lost one.
+But they were the immediate ancestors of Elizabeth's sea-dogs, for all
+that. In holding Guienne through those three centuries their strength
+was wasted. When they lost it (1451), they turned upon one another,
+and the Wars of the Roses took up half a century. After that they
+needed half-a-century's holiday to recruit themselves; and then out
+flashed the Vikings' spirit again--this time to better purpose--and
+under Drake and Grenville and Hawkins, they, the men of Poitiers and
+Sluys, made the greater England.
+
+Even in Bordeaux they have left some traces of their work. They built
+this cathedral which stands here, in the third city of France. Their
+leopards are not yet effaced from the walls of yonder castle. Their
+dogs--_les dogues des Anglais_, our waiter dubbed them, on seeing us
+fondle them--play about the streets, and sniff with a special
+friendliness at English calves. Indeed, I never saw such a place for
+bull-dogs--chiefly brindled ones--as Bordeaux. We drank a toast after
+dinner the evening before we left. It was, _Les dogues des Anglais!_
+
+Bordeaux, being like London too high on the river to get the
+sea-breeze, has its Brighton at Arcachon. To reach the latter from the
+city, a railway passes some thirty miles westward across a tract of
+light, sandy soil, thinly clothed with woods. As you glide through
+these, now in sunshine, now in shade, you catch a glimpse here and
+there of clearings and wooden shanties, and groups of peasants leaning
+on axes. Then, scarcely descending, you find yourself on the seashore,
+with the Bay of Biscay before you. Nearer, a basin of deepest blue,
+almost cut off from the outer sea by a reef of the dunes, forms a
+glorified harbor. Along this basin runs a broad beach, backed by a row
+of magnificent hotels with spacious terraces; and behind these lie two
+or three streets of rather paltry shops and restaurants. Having seen
+all this--the _plage_, the hotels, the terraces, the streets--you
+fancy you have seen Arcachon, and are inclined to be disappointed. But
+this is not Arcachon proper, which lies at the back of all this, and
+at the back even of that fairy-like Casino that rises on the abrupt
+slope of the sand-dunes behind us, and seemed the rear of all things.
+For on the land-side of the Casino is a forest of pines and larches,
+wild, far stretching, and apparently illimitable: a forest that is
+perpetually running up one sand-hill and down another, as if it were
+trying to get a view of the sea, and were not easily satisfied. And
+amid the vivid greens and dull blues of the foliage, glitter here and
+there and everywhere the daintiest of Swiss chalets or Indian
+bungalows, bright boxes of wood and stucco, colored and painted, and
+fretted and carved so delicately that one would infer that rain never
+fell here; or else that these were not intended for out-of-door wear.
+Mere toys they seem, set in smooth lawns. Flowers glow about them, and
+the scent of the pines is everywhere, and everywhere are shady aisles
+of trees hung with white mosses, and leading into the gloom of the
+forest. Nature and luxury have come together here; the result is
+that soft, languid, southern beauty, Mademoiselle Arcachon--of the
+Théâtre des Folies Bordelaises. Yet is her constitution tolerably
+strong--thanks to the Atlantic breezes, though the sun was bright on
+the day we visited her, the wind was cold and the thermometer scarcely
+above forty degrees. This in early November.
+
+The next evening saw us enter a very different place in a different
+way. For leaving Bordeaux we reached La Réole on foot and at dusk,
+welcomed only by the fantastic rays of a few swinging oil lamps. La
+Réole is the antipodes to Arcachon. It is a small, ancient town,
+which, small as it is, has a great place in Froissart and Davila, and
+still frowns bravely down upon the rich plain of the Garonne. It
+stands on a steep, cloven hill that rises sheer from the wide, yellow,
+rush-bordered river about forty miles above Bordeaux. On the crest
+above the Garonne stands a castle once English, and in size and
+position not unlike that at Chepstow. Beside it are a church, a modern
+château, and a _place_ of modern houses. Upon the second crest, and in
+the cleft between the two, are huddled together the steep alleys and
+crazy tottering houses, all corners and gables, of the old town. A
+stream on which are several mills pours through the ravine, being
+overhung by tall, delapidated houses of three stories, with as many
+sets of wooden balconies and outside stairs. One might almost step
+across the water from one balcony to another, so much do the houses
+bulge. We took infinite delight in the old-world quaintness of this
+scene, in the air of decay that hung about all things, in the
+crumbling coats of arms, the wavy, tiled roofs, the sinking houses,
+the swinging lanterns; above all in the gray walls of the castle,
+brightened here and there by the pure discs of a rose bush, or the
+green of ivy.
+
+Froissart has a very pretty story--and a strange story too--to tell of
+La Réole. He says that Sir Walter Manny being with the English
+besieging it, "was reminded of his father;" that he had heard in his
+infancy that he had been buried there, or in that neighborhood. (Is
+there not a pleasant smack about that "was reminded of," and that
+dubious "he had heard in his infancy"?) The elder Manny, the
+chronicler explains, had unluckily wounded to death in a tournament at
+Cambray a Gascon knight; and by way of penance had agreed to go on a
+pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, at Santiago in
+Spain. On his return he passed near La Réole, and hearing that the
+brother of the King of France was besieging it, stayed to visit him;
+and going home one night from the royal hotel to his lodgings, was
+waylaid and murdered. The Gascon's kinsmen were strongly suspected of
+the foul deed; but they were powerful, "and none took the part of the
+Lord of Manny." So he was buried in a small chapel outside La Réole;
+and was almost forgotten when his son, being in the neighborhood,
+raked up the old story, and offered a reward of a hundred crowns to
+any one who could show him the grave. This an old man volunteered to
+do, and took Sir Walter to a tomb which was further identified by a
+Latin inscription. Thereupon, the son, as pious as brave--a subject of
+Queen Philippa of Hainault, I fear, and not a trueborn Englishman,
+though he died in London, was buried in the Charter House, and left
+his lands "on either side of the sea" to the Earl of Pembroke--had the
+remains conveyed to Valenciennes in Hainault, and buried there.
+
+And so the story ends. But is it not a quaint and pretty story, and
+does it not smack of the times when the knight errant was one day
+tourneying at Cambray, and the next kneeling at Santiago, and on the
+third was waylaid at La Réole? And does it not plaintively suggest
+how, after long days of waiting, the news, still dim and uncertain,
+came through to the quiet castle in Hainault, news so dim, so
+uncertain, that the good son, when chance brought him to the scene of
+his father's death, could but faintly remember that it had happened
+there or thereabouts?
+
+We seemed to be for a few days in a world of dying things. If La Réole
+was old and decadent, and showed few signs of former strength, the
+next place to which we came was still farther gone in decay. Port St.
+Marie is a straggling town lying low in a bend of the river. Most of
+its houses--they are large, with heavy doorways--are built in
+frameworks of wood after the style of our black and white houses, and
+have the spaces between the beams filled with bricks; long, thin
+bricks of close texture and the old Roman shape, set sometimes on end,
+sometimes lengthwise, more often aslant; any way so that they may fill
+the interstices. A large number of these houses are of three stories;
+and each upper story projecting two or three feet beyond the one below
+it, the buildings seem really nodding to their fall. Many were empty,
+with unglazed windows, and flapping shutters, and sinking corners; and
+yet the stout timbers, seasoned perhaps when Simon de Montfort was
+governor of Guienne and had his court in Bordeaux, held together, and
+bound up the crumbling clay. Above one door ran the legend "_Le
+Couronné dut devoir_," a sufficiently chivalrous motto. Above others
+were battered stone shields. On all was the stamp of assured ruin.
+Neglect and poverty were written large everywhere. Time had touched
+the place with no caressing hand, such as
+
+
+              Makes old bareness picturesque,
+              And tufts with grass a feudal tower,
+
+
+but with mean and sordid fingers; and the result was pitifully dreary.
+It made our hearts ache. The very people we saw in the streets looked
+pallid and hopeless, like people going down the hill. Such a town, so
+desolate, so moribund, does not exist, thank heaven, in our more
+populous England. Yet in our way we enjoyed it. We gloated with
+something of the zest of ghouls over its decay, until having cloyed
+our souls with sadness, we got hurriedly away into the sunshine and
+the fields, where the patient, fawn-colored oxen were dragging the
+plough, and the countryman stood leaning on his goad to see us pass
+between the rows of poplars. No doubt he thought us mad to be toiling
+out of St. Marie with our faces set countrywards, when no great
+distance off lay the railway, which would take us in a few hours to
+Bordeaux, to the delights of café and boulevard. "Oh! but they are
+droll, these English!"
+
+Any one leaving St. Marie must remark a singular, conical hill which
+rises abruptly from the plain before him. It is topped by a wooden
+steeple, while the dark outlines of walls and towers form a crown
+about its summit, and a row of cypresses rising solemnly above the
+lower buildings impart something of mystery to the place. It seemed to
+me like nothing so much as Mont St. Michel. In vain we ransacked our
+guide books. We could find no word of this fortress town which looked
+down on road and river; only in our map we discovered that its name
+was Clermont Dessus. Nothing daunted, however, we discovered a field
+path, and, climbing the hill, passed through a ruined gateway into the
+silence of the place. On three sides the walls were yet fairly
+perfect, and within them stood some fifty houses, many in ruins, more
+empty, a few inhabited. The floor of one was on a level with the roof
+of another, and the only means of access was by steep, tortuous
+alleys. The church had been partially restored, but was old and still
+bore marks of violent usage. The graveyard on a terrace displayed
+twenty-four cypresses, and an ancient stone cross. Above all this rose
+the ruins of a castle, smaller than that at La Réole and with traces
+of more recent occupation. Woodwork and iron still remained adhering
+to the walls. What, we wondered, had been its history. A few women and
+children were the only human creatures it held, and we could gather
+nothing from them save that it belonged, or had belonged, to the
+"Seigneur." For our climb, however, we felt amply rewarded by the view
+over the valley of the Garonne, and so ran quickly down the hill and
+stepped out stubbornly for Agen, which we reached after twice losing
+our way through a too ardent desire to cling to a pleasant green path
+by the river.
+
+It was dark when, footsore and tired, we gained the principal street;
+and we failed to discover our hotel. "Would you direct us to the Hôtel
+de St. Jean?" I asked a decent-looking man who was passing.
+
+"How, monsieur?" he replied, after so long a pause that I feared he
+did not understand me; "the Hôtel de St. Jean no longer exists. It has
+been closed a year and more."
+
+We looked at each other in silent disgust; and he looked at us. We
+were fairly tired out. "Would you have the kindness, then, to tell us
+which is the best hotel?" I said with resignation.
+
+"I will conduct you to the Hôtel de St.----," he answered, quickly.
+"It is an hotel of the first class."
+
+But when I saw the Hôtel de St. ----, we knew him for a swindler. It
+was a miserable place, and we would have none of it. We courteously
+said that we did not like it. He insisted. We broke away from him, and
+in a few minutes came upon the Hôtel de St. Jean, its doors open to
+welcome us, and the light pouring ruddily from its windows. The story
+is trivial: I tell it because it was my ill-luck more than once to
+fall into the hands of this kind of tout, and be deceived by the tale
+that the house to which I had been advised to go was shut. On one
+occasion, at Guelmah, in Algeria, I was lured while inquiring for the
+Hôtel d'Orient into the Hôtel Auriol, a miserable place. In the
+morning I looked out of my window, and to my astonishment saw the name
+of the hotel in which I believed myself to be staring me in the face,
+painted up in large letters over the door of a house on the farther
+side of the square. I rubbed my eyes and wondered, and it was not
+until I stood in the open, and read the name of one and the other,
+that I recognized with a hearty laugh how I had been taken in.
+
+From Agen, on a fine, sunny morning, we went by rail to Moissac. Here,
+attached to the church, is the most delightful cloister in the world,
+a cloister rich in arches and capitals of delicate tracery poised on
+slender shafts, and half hidden by luxuriant creepers, through which
+the light falls soft and green-tinged, as in some sea-grotto. It is a
+place for rest and reflection, perfectly adapted to a hot climate;
+whereas, he who has only seen the dull, dank portico enclosing danker
+grave-stones, the play-ground of cats--which in England we call a
+cloister--does not know what the thing is. This church boasted also a
+quaint doorway enriched with the more or less coarse designs in which
+the monks of yore took pleasure: a doorway reputed to be one of the
+most curious in France.
+
+From Moissac we went on foot to Castel Sarrasin, sometimes by the
+Tarn, but for the most part by the side of the great canal; and
+always, whether by the latter or the river, moving in a soft symphony
+of various greens, green streams, green poplars--and oh! such vistas
+of them!--green willows, green banks--all mingled together and fading
+into one another, and harmoniously blending as the evening fell with
+the pale pea-green of the eastern sky. It was a peaceful and silent
+walk through a world of restful hues.
+
+From Castel Sarrasin, once no doubt a stronghold of the Moors, to
+Montauban we went by train. Montauban, on the Tarn, is a busy place,
+but a picturesque one also. Standing on a rough, steep hill, the town
+is seamed and cleft by strange, deep valleys with precipitous sides.
+Crazy houses with roofs of tiles, so time-stained that they have the
+precise appearance of strips of bark, fill these ravines and lean
+against their walls. Gardens cling to the ledges of the rocks. Shrubs
+and flowers clothe the crannies. Wooden balconies hang everywhere--and
+clothes-lines. We were there on market-day, and watched with amusement
+the teams of oxen--all fawn-colored--coming in for sale, or dragging
+into town the lumbering carts (much like timber-wagons, with boxes
+about the middle) in which Madame sat with her produce about her.
+Monsieur walked before the oxen, his goad on his shoulder, and a white
+nightcap on his head. Oxen push, they do not pull. They shove inwards
+against one another, the near legs of the near ox and the off legs of
+the off ox being protruded at a considerable angle to get a good
+purchase. Very frequently only the feet so used are shod. The driver
+always goes before them, and as they follow with lowered heads, they
+are perfect images of patient resignation.
+
+An old farmer, stout and jolly-looking, presently met us loitering on
+the bridge, and after a long period of staring, spoke to us. "Are you
+Germans?" he asked.
+
+"No," I replied with courteous determination, "we are English." He
+still eyed us with some suspicion, and after a pause fell to
+questioning us about our country. Had we bread, and what kind of
+bread? had we any railways?
+
+"Yes," I answered proudly to this last, "we have trains that travel at
+the rate of a hundred _kilomètres_ an hour!" A trifling exaggeration
+it may be, but human and pardonable.
+
+He gravely nodded his head, however, as if he believed it, and meant
+to pose his wife and neighbors with it when he reached home. "You have
+grapes and wine?" he continued.
+
+"We grow grapes under glass," I explained, "in glass houses. In the
+open air it is generally too cold for them."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, his jovial face clouding over as it occurred to
+him that I was not in earnest. "Will you kindly say that again?"
+
+I did as he wished. But when I had made the matter as clear as I
+could, he answered stoutly, "No! It is impossible! Either I do not
+understand you, or you do not understand me!" And he went on his way
+in a passion. He could believe in the Irish Mail; but the cultivation
+of vines under glass was a thing outside his ideas of the world's
+economy.
+
+From the _place_ at Montauban, an open space pleasantly laid out on
+the brow of the hill, it is said that the Pyrenees can be seen on a
+fine day. We had a fine day, but we saw no sign of the mountains--our
+land at Beulah--though we looked long and lingeringly.
+
+Attracted by a name which seemed familiar to us, and had a ring about
+it as of feudal and knightly times, we made a diversion from here to
+Cahors on the Lot, an old city standing in a fertile basin, among
+bare, brown hills. We were disappointed in the first appearance of the
+town. The river still runs round three sides of it, but the ramparts
+have been turned into gardens where they have not been levelled; only
+one tower of the castle survives; and though there are some
+picturesque houses, the town is for the most part modern, and devoted
+to Gambetta who was born in it. The cathedral, surmounted by one heavy
+tower, backed by three domes in a row, is imposing in its bulky
+ugliness. Its floor is much lower than the marketplace without: so
+that on entering through the west door you find a flight of steps
+before you, and the congregation at your feet immersed in candlelit
+gloom. These steps at the Sunday morning service were crowded by
+kneeling hucksters and market-women with their baskets, who had
+quietly entered as a matter of course from the market, which was in
+full swing without, and were devoutly telling their beads, or
+listening to a sermon preached by a bishop--a Count-Bishop, too, whose
+pastoral ring was still a prominent feature in the scene, so skilfully
+did he wave and display it. At Cahors we were much pleased with one of
+the bridges, from which rise three Flemish-looking towers. They form
+as many gateways, and from every point of view are singularly
+picturesque. This bridge may have stood there in its present state
+when Henry of Navarre did at Cahors his most famous deed. A strong
+garrison was at the time holding the city for the Catholic party, but
+Henry, smarting under the loss of La Réole, which had been betrayed by
+its governor, determined to seize Cahors. Accordingly he came to it
+with fourteen hundred men, and leaving one half of this force outside
+to cover his night attack, blew in a gate with a petard and entered
+with the rest, being himself the seventh to pass in. A furious battle
+in the streets ensued, but when day broke, the Huguenots had mastered
+a small part of the city only, and reinforcements for the enemy
+arriving, Henry's followers begged him to retire. "No!" he answered,
+fighting on with his back to a shop, "I will not retire! My only
+retreat from this town shall be the retreat of my soul from my body!"
+He kept his word. Street by street and house by house, he reduced the
+town, neither side asking or giving quarter. But it was not until the
+fifth night after his entrance that he completely mastered the place,
+a feat which is generally allowed to stand highest among his warlike
+exploits.
+
+At Cahors it was that we first came under the influence of his name;
+but thereafter it grew and grew, a bigger factor in the past, a more
+prominent object in our thoughts in the present, the farther south we
+travelled; until at Pau, his birthplace and capital, the son of Jeanne
+d'Albret, _the Béarnais_, the Navarrese, the Protector of the
+Religion, _Henri Quatre_, Henry the Great, seemed to fill all past
+history, and dwarf all other figures. We have in English story no
+royal personage, no prominent life even, at once so picturesque, so
+rich in surprises, so lovable, and so blameworthy. Hot-blooded and
+cool-headed, daring to rashness, astute to meanness, a professor and a
+profligate, merciful, affectionate, yet letting nothing intervene
+between him and his aims--who that is man shall judge him? Surely the
+wine which Henry's father raised to his new-born lips, the cold water
+which was dashed in his hour-old face, the national song his mother
+sang at his birth, did really reproduce themselves in his life.
+
+Leaving Cahors in the evening, we slept at a small village called
+Lelbenque, and were on foot before eight next day, and on our way
+across the hills to Caylus. The country through which we passed in the
+fresh morning air, a range of bleak lime-stone heights sparsely
+covered with oak trees, seemed thinly peopled, and little tilled. Here
+and there in the wooded depths of a valley, we came upon a sparkling
+brook and a few comfortable farm-houses nestling among fruit trees,
+and protected by abrupt limestone walls from the cold winds which
+swept across the uplands. The distance to Caylus was sixteen miles.
+There were no inns, and as we had breakfasted rather meagrely on
+coffee and bread, we were driven to beg something at one of the
+farm-houses. There were only women at home, and these were with reason
+astonished to see foreign tramps in that out-of-the-way district. They
+seemed even a little afraid of us, but we got what we wanted
+notwithstanding the growling of the dogs; and our offer of payment was
+declined with suspicious abruptness. I fancy that they suspected us of
+wanting change.
+
+About mid-day we passed over the last ridge of the uplands, and saw
+below us a narrow fertile valley squeezed in between mountain-walls.
+Halfway through this gorge and in the middle of it, a hill or rock
+rose abruptly almost to the height of a thousand feet. On this,
+lording it over the road, stood Caylus, its houses and gardens
+descending terrace by terrace from the castle-nucleus on the crest
+almost to the road. Very old was the church, about the porch of
+which are carved green animals in the act of nibbling one another's
+tails under the superintendence of St. Michael. We took it for St.
+Michael. Old, too, seemed the great stone house opposite, known as the
+_Maison du Loup_, and bearing uncouth masks and figures of wolves in
+high relief on its front. Older still we judged the market-place to
+be, which built of wood rests on stone pillars; and the heavy Arcade
+or "Row" which stands in the same tiny square with it, and the
+beetle-browed wynds that lead to it--all old, gray, heavy,
+time-stained, but still solid. In the market hall we noticed three
+ancient corn-measures; hollows scooped out in stones that formed part
+of the fabric of the hall, with to each a horizontal outlet or spout
+at the side, through which the grain when measured might escape into
+bag or basket. Even while we were examining these we remarked women
+sitting outside the doors about us, removing the grain from stalks of
+maize, and plaiting various articles with the straw.
+
+The weather-beaten castle belongs to Madame St. Cyr, but was occupied
+when we visited it by Mr. Wilton, an Englishman, who was not at home.
+His housekeeper, however, kindly allowed us to go over the building,
+and we found the view from the leads of the keep--used, I suspect, as
+a smoking-room--very charming. Caylus, to sum up, is difficult of
+access and is not even named in "Murray," but I can highly recommend
+it as a quaint example of a mediæval town, such as cannot now be found
+in England without much searching.
+
+From it we passed by means of a top-heavy, jingling country coach to
+St. Anthonin, and so by rail to Albi on the Tarn, Albi of the
+Albigenses, the unhappy sect whose fate confutes the saying that the
+blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. About Albi, from which
+place they took their name, they grew and flourished in the latter
+half of the twelfth century. But seventy years later, notwithstanding
+the attempt which their feudal lord, Raymond of Toulouse, made to
+protect them, they were virtually extinct. Save that they dissented
+from the Romish Church, their very doctrines are now unknown or to be
+found only in the writings of their enemies, and their story and
+fortunes are too often confounded with those of the Waldenses. Simon
+de Montfort, the father of our Simon de Montfort, took a conspicuous
+part in the cruel deeds which attended their suppression. At the fall
+of Beziers, heretic and churchman were put to the sword together.
+"Slay all--God will know His own," said the gentle Abbot Arnold. And
+in a sense wisely: for it is only the man of half measures who fails
+as a persecutor. To be perfectly ruthless, perfectly thorough in the
+work, is to be successful also. At any rate at Albi, which, like
+Cahors, stands among hills, there are no traces of the Albigenses
+left; not even such a story as rings about the name of Beziers with
+fire. Rather the great cathedral proclaims Rome's victory. Built
+externally of bricks, it is a huge blind oblong with an apsidal end. A
+swelling base and rounded buttresses add to its heavy appearance. Yet
+it is very lofty. The monstrous red tower hung about with giddy
+balconies rises nearly to the height of three hundred feet, while the
+church itself, the lower part of which has no openings or windows,
+seems half that height. In a word, the whole is as much a fortress as
+a cathedral. Lofty flights of steps lead to a raised porch, formed by
+three arches decorated with carvings lately and successfully restored.
+Entering the church through this we find the interior a striking
+sight. In shape it is a vast hall surrounded by chapels in two
+stories, and with a choir screened off at one end. The interior still
+remains in the state to which our Puritans objected, the state
+probably characterized more churches than we now imagine. It is
+covered from ceiling to floor with frescoes and paintings and
+scrollwork, some gaudy, some subdued, some good, some bad. The very
+statues are painted and gilded, and although here and there the effect
+is garish and unpleasing, I do not agree that the appearance of the
+whole, as the vast mass of color presents itself to the eyes, broken
+by the exquisite carvings of the stone screen or a bevy of tinted
+marbles, is absolutely unharmonious. I found it more pleasing than I
+expected. And then what would have been the effect of these plain
+walls in their naked monotony?
+
+The paintings are mainly of the date of Francis I., say about 1520.
+Two frescoes of Hell and the Passions, done by Italian artists, cover
+the west end--cover acres of it as it seems; and in a chapel, among
+other anachronisms is a notable picture of Christ, in which He is
+figured in a hat and feather and the dress of a courtier of the time
+in the midst of Roman soldiers who are kicking Him along. A great
+store of information as to the dresses and customs of the early part
+of the sixteenth century is laid up here, to be ransacked by any one
+who will take the trouble to closely inspect this huge interior. The
+groups painted upon the walls, groups of people fighting, tourneying,
+feasting, dancing, dying--ay, and doing many things scarcely adapted
+to church decoration--are to be counted by thousands; as are the gold
+stars that stud the bright blue ceiling. There is something suggestive
+in the portrayal of these things in this place; they seem to tell of a
+faith which, with all its scandals, abuses, and laxity, was bound up
+intimately with the life of the people, with their joys as well as
+their griefs; and so smacked of One who did not consider the price of
+sparrows as beneath knowledge.
+
+At any rate we were pleased with these things. The interior of Albi
+Cathedral may not be in the best taste. It may be meretricious, it may
+be gilt rather than of gold. But it is curious; it is almost unique;
+it is a museum in itself; and to an Englishman accustomed to the cold
+if correct lines of a Gothic church, its warmth and color afford a not
+unwelcome change.
+
+At Auch we arrived at night, and found it to be an old-fashioned
+archiepiscopal city on the summit and southern slope of a precipitous
+hill. Here we came upon the first traces--a Spanish pedler, a
+Navarrese bonnet--of that strange borderland between Spain and Western
+France in which three languages and a dozen _patois_, French, Spanish,
+Basque, the Langue d'Oc, the Langue d'Or, and Gascon and Provençal and
+the tongue of Andorra, and I know not what others, are fighting for
+the mastery: where two great nations now peaceably march, dividing
+between them the wild country where the kingdom of Navarre once sat
+enthroned on hills with the free Basque communities about her. It is a
+country rich in memories of independence, of strife; of brigandage, of
+romance; of the free life of the hunter; a land of snow-clad peaks and
+deep valleys, and rolling, wooded hills full of creatures elsewhere
+extinct, bears, and izards, and, shall I add, Basques. Here are
+Roncesvalles and the Bidassoa, Fontarabia and Orthez, San Sebastian
+and the Isle of Peacocks. Moor and Paladin, Scot and Spaniard,
+Charlemagne and Wellington, have all passed this way and left deep
+foot-prints.
+
+And Auch stands on the verge of this strange country; an old city, but
+full of energy and with no trace of decay. From the river, flights of
+wide steps with spacious landings, gay with flowers and fountains,
+climb the southern face of the hill, which the best road-maker would
+find impracticable. At the head of these steps and commanding
+extensive prospects stands the cathedral, a beacon to all the country
+between it and the skirts of the mountains. The building is fine, but
+its pride lies in the wood carvings of the unrivalled choir. My guide,
+an ex-soldier, also pointed out with pride some cymbals presented to
+the cathedral by the first Napoleon: trophies, so he told me, of the
+Egyptian campaign.
+
+We wandered out in the afternoon to the brow of a ridge of hills
+lying on the far side of the river, and throwing ourselves down upon
+some heather and bracken--it was a warm and sunny but not very clear
+day--began to cast speculative glances towards Spain. But while we
+thought that we were looking southwards our eyes were really turned
+too much to the east. And presently we discovered this in a strange
+way. For glancing by chance towards the skyline on our right, we saw,
+first, a brown autumnal landscape of woods and hills, and beyond this
+a long, gray cloud, the horizon, as we thought; and above that--ah!
+what was it we saw above that? A line of silvery peaks, gleaming in a
+gray, sheeny atmosphere of their own, so pure, so soft, so far above
+this world of ours, that as the words "The Pyrenees!" broke the first
+moments of astonished silence, we felt that for once the thing long
+looked for had passed our expectations! Our hearts fastened upon the
+distance. The pleasant landscape spread out before us lost its charms.
+It was homely, it was flat, it was commonplace, it was of the earth
+earthy, beside the serene beauty of the snowy crests and untrodden
+wastes that shone and sparkled in that far distance, and anon grew
+cold and dim as the veil of cloud was drawn before them even while we
+watched.
+
+When they were gone, we felt that nothing save the mountains would now
+satisfy us. We had a craving for them, such as I have sometimes felt
+for the sea. A sudden conviction that we were wasting our time in a
+world of small things, while the wonders of the hills lay close at
+hand, overwhelmed us. We hurried homewards, talking of peaks, and
+glaciers, and passes, of Cauteret and Gavarnie, Mont Perdu and the Pic
+du Midi; and packed in the same state of pleasant excitement. The next
+morning saw us passing through the same country, rich in autumn tints,
+in leafy bottoms, and rippling streams, which we had seen stretched
+out before us. And the evening saw us stand on the famous Place
+Royale, hard by the castle where Henry of Navarre was born, feasting
+our eyes on the cold, bright tints of the great mountains, seen sharp
+and clear above the Jurance hills, and listening to the rushing waters
+of the Gave. Our Garonne pilgrimage was over.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When Love Calls, by Stanley J. Weyman
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>When Love Calls</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="Stanley J. Weyman">
+
+<meta name="Publisher" content="Brown and Company">
+<meta name="Date" content="1899">
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Love Calls, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+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: When Love Calls
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39214]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN LOVE CALLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard College Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+http://books.google.com/books?id=1XsNAAAAYAAJ<br>
+(Harvard College Library)</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h1>WHEN LOVE CALLS</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+<h2>STANLEY J. WEYMAN</h2>
+
+<h5>AUTHOR OF &quot;A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE,&quot;<br>
+&quot;THE CASTLE INN,&quot; ETC., ETC.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>BOSTON</h4>
+
+<h3>BROWN AND COMPANY</h3>
+
+<h5>144 Purchase Street</h5>
+
+<h4>1899</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><i>Copyright, 1899</i><br>
+
+<span class="sc">By Brown and Company</span></p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>University Press</h4>
+
+<h5><span class="sc">John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.</span></h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+<br>
+<div style="margin-left:30%">
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01"><span class="sc">When
+Love Calls</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="normal"><a name="div1Ref_01.1" href="#div1_01.1"><span class="sc">I.
+Her Story</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="normal"><a name="div1Ref_01.2" href="#div1_01.2"><span class="sc">II.
+His Story</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02"><span class="sc">A
+Strange Invitation</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03"><span class="sc">The
+Invisible Portraits</span></a></p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04"><span class="sc">Along
+the Garonne</span></a></p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">When Love Calls</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>I.</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_01.1" href="#div1Ref_01.1">HER STORY</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Clare,&quot; I said, &quot;I wish that we had brought some better
+clothes, if
+it were only one frock. You look the oddest figure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she did. She was lying head to head with me on the thick moss that
+clothed one part of the river-bank above Breistolen near the Sogn
+Fiord. We were staying at Breistolen, but there was no moss
+thereabouts, nor in all the Sogn district, I often thought, so deep
+and soft, and so dazzling orange and white and crimson as that
+particular patch. It lay quite high upon the hills, and there were
+great gray boulders peeping through the moss here and there, very fit
+to break your legs if you were careless. Little more than a mile
+higher up was the watershed, where our river, putting away with
+reluctance a first thought of going down the farther slope towards
+Bysberg, parted from its twin brother who was thither bound with
+scores upon scores of puny green-backed fishlets; and instead, came
+down our side gliding and swishing, and swirling faster and faster,
+and deeper and wider, every hundred yards to Breistolen, full of
+red-speckled yellow trout all half-a-pound apiece, and very good to
+eat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But they were not so sweet or toothsome to our girlish tastes as the
+tawny-orange cloud-berries which Clare and I were eating as we lay. So
+busy was she with the luscious pile we had gathered that I had to wait
+for an answer. And then, &quot;Speak for yourself,&quot; she said. &quot;I'm sure you
+look like a short-coated baby. He is somewhere up the river too.&quot;
+Munch, munch, munch!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who is, you impertinent, greedy little chit?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you know,&quot; she answered. &quot;Don't you wish you had your gray plush
+here, Bab?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I flung a look of calm disdain at her; but whether it was the berry
+juice which stained our faces that took from its effect, or the free
+mountain air which papa says saps the foundations of despotism, that
+made her callous, at any rate she only laughed scornfully and got up
+and went off down the stream with her rod, leaving me to finish the
+cloud-berries, and stare lazily up at the snow patches on the
+hillside--which somehow put me in mind of the gray plush--and follow
+or not as I liked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Clare has a wicked story of how I gave in to papa, and came to start
+without anything but those rough clothes. She says he said--and Jack
+Buchanan has told me that lawyers put no faith in anything that he
+says she says, or she says he says, which proves how much truth there
+is in this--that if Bab took none but her oldest clothes, and fished
+all day and had no one to run upon her errands--he meant Jack and the
+others, I suppose--she might possibly grow an inch in Norway. Just as
+if I wanted to grow an inch! An inch indeed! I am five feet one and a
+half high, and papa, who puts me an inch shorter, is the worst
+measurer in the world. As for Miss Clare, she would give all her
+inches for my eyes. So there!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After Clare left, it began to be dull and chilly. When I had pictured
+to myself how nice it would be to dress for dinner again, and chosen
+the frock I would wear upon the first evening, I grew tired of the
+snow patches, and started up stream, stumbling and falling into holes,
+and clambering over rocks, and only careful to save my rod and my
+face. It was no occasion for the gray plush, but I had made up my mind
+to reach a pool which lay, I knew, a little above me, having filched a
+yellow-bodied fly from Clare's hat with a view to that particular
+place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Our river did the oddest things hereabouts--pleased to be so young, I
+suppose. It was not a great churning stream of snow water foaming and
+milky, such as we had seen in some parts, streams that affected to be
+always in flood, and had the look of forcing the rocks asunder and
+clearing their path even while you watched them with your fingers in
+your ears. Our river was none of these: still it was swifter than
+English rivers are wont to be, and in parts deeper, and transparent as
+glass. In one place it would sweep over a ledge and fall wreathed in
+spray into a spreading lake of black, rock-bound water. Then it would
+narrow again until, where you could almost jump across, it darted
+smooth and unbroken down a polished shoot with a swoop like a
+swallow's. Out of this it would hurry afresh to brawl along a gravelly
+bed, skipping jauntily over first one and then another ridge of stones
+that had silted up weir-wise and made as if they would bar the
+channel. Under the lee of these there were lovely pools.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To be able to throw into mine, I had to walk out along the ridge on
+which the water was shallow, yet sufficiently deep to cover my boots.
+But I was well rewarded. The &quot;forellin&quot;--the Norse name for trout, and
+as pretty as their girls' wavy fair hair--were rising so merrily that
+I hooked and landed one in five minutes, the fly falling from its
+mouth as it touched the stones. I hate taking out hooks. I used at one
+time to leave the fly in the fish's mouth to be removed by papa at the
+weighing house; until Clare pricked her tongue at dinner with an
+almost new, red tackle, and was so mean as to keep it, though I
+remembered then what I had done with it, and was certain it was
+mine--which was nothing less than dishonest of her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had just got back to my place and made a fine cast, when there
+came--not the leap, and splash, and tug which announced the
+half-pounder--but a deep, rich gurgle as the fly was gently sucked
+under, and then a quiet, growing strain upon the line, which began to
+move away down the pool in a way that made the winch spin again and
+filled me with mysterious pleasure. I was not conscious of striking or
+of anything but that I had hooked a really good fish, and I clutched
+the rod with both hands and set my feet as tightly as I could upon the
+slippery gravel. The line moved up and down, and this way and that,
+now steadily and as with a purpose, and then again with an eccentric
+rush that made the top of the rod spring and bend so that I looked
+for it to snap each moment. My hands began to grow numb, and the
+landing-net, hitherto an ornament, fell out of my waist-belt and went
+I knew not whither. I suppose I must have stepped unwittingly into
+deeper water, for I felt that my skirts were afloat, and altogether
+things were going dreadfully against me, when the presence of an ally
+close at hand was announced by a cheery shout from the far side of the
+river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Keep up your point! Keep up your point!&quot; some one cried briskly.
+&quot;That is better!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The unexpected sound--it was a man's voice--did something to keep my
+heart up. But for answer I could only shriek, &quot;I can't! It will
+break!&quot; watching the top of my rod as it jigged up and down, very much
+in the fashion of Clare performing what she calls a waltz. She dances
+as badly as a man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, it will not,&quot; he cried back, bluntly. &quot;Keep it up, and let out a
+little line with your fingers when he pulls hardest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We were forced to shout and scream. The wind had risen and was adding
+to the noise of the water. Soon I heard him wading behind me. &quot;Where's
+your landing net?&quot; he asked, with the most provoking coolness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, in the pool! Somewhere about. I am sure I don't know,&quot; I answered
+wildly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What he said to this I could not catch, but it sounded rude. And then
+he waded off to fetch, as I guessed, his own net. By the time he
+reached me again I was in a sad plight, feet like ice, and hands
+benumbed, while the wind, and rain, and hail, which had come down upon
+us with a sudden violence, unknown, it is to be hoped, anywhere else,
+were mottling my face all sorts of unbecoming colors. But the line was
+taut. And wet and cold went for nothing five minutes later, when the
+fish lay upon the bank, its prismatic sides slowly turning pale and
+dull, and I knelt over it half in pity and half in triumph, but wholly
+forgetful of the wind and rain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You did that very pluckily, little one,&quot; said the on-looker; &quot;but I
+am afraid you will suffer for it by and by. You must be chilled
+through.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Quickly as I looked up at him, I only met a good-humored smile. He did
+not mean to be rude. And, after all, when I was in such a mess it was
+not possible that he could see what I was like. He was wet enough
+himself. The rain was streaming from the brim of the soft hat which he
+had turned down to shelter his face, and trickling from his chin, and
+turning his shabby Norfolk jacket a darker shade. As for his hands,
+they looked red and knuckly enough, and he had been wading almost to
+his waist. But he looked, I don't know why, all the stronger and
+manlier and nicer for these things, because, perhaps, he cared for
+them not one whit. What I looked like myself I dared not think. My
+skirts were as short as short could be, and they were soaked: most of
+my hair was unplaited, my gloves were split, and my sodden boots were
+out of shape. I was forced, too, to shiver and shake from cold; which
+was provoking, for I knew it made me seem half as small again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, I am a little cold, Mr.----, Mr.----,&quot; I said, grave, only
+my teeth would chatter so that he laughed outright as he took me up
+with--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Herapath. And to whom have I the honor of speaking?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am Miss Guest,&quot; I said, miserably. It was too cold to be frigid to
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Commonly called Bab, I think,&quot; the wretch answered. &quot;The walls of our
+hut are not soundproof, you see. But, come, the sooner you get back to
+dry clothes and the stove, the better, Bab. You can cross the river
+just below, and cut off half-a-mile that way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I can't,&quot; I said, obstinately. Bab, indeed! How dared he?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes, you can,&quot; with intolerable good-temper. &quot;You shall take your
+rod and I the prey. You cannot be wetter than you are now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had his way, of course, since I did not foresee that at the ford he
+would lift me up bodily and carry me over the deeper part without a
+pretence of asking leave, or a word of apology. It was done so quickly
+that I had no time to remonstrate. Still I was not going to let it
+pass, and when I had shaken myself straight again, I said, with all
+the haughtiness I could assume, &quot;Don't you think, Mr. Herapath, that
+it would have been more--more--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Polite to offer to carry you over, child? No, not at all. It will be
+wiser and warmer for you to run down the hill. Come along!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And without more ado, while I was still choking with rage, he seized
+my hands and set off at a trot, lugging me through the sloppy places
+much as I have seen a nurse drag a fractious child down Constitution
+Hill. It was not wonderful that I soon lost the little breath his
+speech had left me, and was powerless to complain when we reached the
+bridge. I could only thank heaven that there was no sign of Clare. I
+think I should have died of mortification if she had seen us come down
+the hill hand-in-hand in that ridiculous fashion. But she had gone
+home, and at any rate I escaped that degradation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A wet stool-car and wetter pony were dimly visible on the bridge; to
+which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added
+himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman
+sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and
+the little &quot;teste&quot; set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver's
+excellent imitation of &quot;Pss,&quot; the Norse for &quot;Tchk,&quot; that in ten
+minutes we were at home.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I never!&quot; Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance,
+when at last I was safe in our room. &quot;I would not be seen in such a
+state by a man for all the fish in the sea!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more
+provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her, and had to
+find comfort in promising myself, that when we were back in Bolton
+Gardens I would see that Fräulein kept Miss Clare's pretty nose to the
+grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were
+ever so fond of her. Papa was in the plot against me, too. What right
+had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing &quot;his little girl&quot; home safe?
+He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen's
+Counsel--and papa is stout--who was not, any more than a thin one, who
+did not contradict. It is in their patents, I think.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening--if fish and potatoes and
+boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be
+called a dinner--but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my
+wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his
+first impression. It was too bad: he had no eyes! He either could not
+or would not see any one but the draggled Bab--fifteen at most and a
+very tom-boy--whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare,
+who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way,
+Miss Guest, and once at least during the evening dubbed me plain Bab.
+I tried to freeze him with a look then, and papa gave him a taste of
+the pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But
+it was not a bit of use: I could see that he set it all down to the
+grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have
+opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for
+that.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, &quot;I
+don't visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the
+evening.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Here was a chance. I was going to say that that no doubt was the
+reason why I had never met him, when papa ruthlessly cut me short by
+asking, &quot;You are not in the law?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; he replied. &quot;I am in the London Fire Brigade.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet sitting at
+the door of the fire station by St. Martin's Church. Clare turned
+crimson and papa seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The
+moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest,
+but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining
+with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would
+let me with &quot;Good gracious, how nice! Do tell me all about a fire!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It made matters--my matters--worse, for I could have cried with
+vexation when I read in his face next moment that he had looked for
+their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager
+remark to mere childish ignorance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Some time I will,&quot; he said with a quiet smile <i>de haut en bas</i>; &quot;but
+I do not often attend one in person. I am Captain ----'s private
+secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And it turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so
+that papa lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to
+discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small
+as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. It was a
+long time since I had been used to young men talking politics to papa,
+when they could talk--politics--to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was
+almost more than I could bear. He--Mr. Herapath, of course--was always
+about fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house,
+taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy papa's
+society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a
+glimpse of the Sulethid peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and
+softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with color, in a
+far-off atmosphere of its own, beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills,
+that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens
+with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came
+into my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view;
+and said to papa that he feared his little girl was tired as well as
+cold--and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as papa
+and I drove down: he was walking by Clare's carcole and they were
+laughing heartily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a
+thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my
+teeth viciously together and said to myself that if ever we met in
+London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered
+nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so
+rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me
+dislike him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when
+I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I
+felt I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had before his
+coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now
+clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the
+magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and
+contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually
+fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I
+was the more vexed to come suddenly upon him fishing; and fishing
+where he had no right to be. Papa had spoken to him about the danger
+of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet there
+he was, thinking, I dare say, that we should not know. It was a spot
+where one bank rose into quite a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at
+the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water still ran with
+the speed of a mill-race, so fast as to endanger a good swimmer. But
+on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water which
+was tempting enough to have set some one's wits to work to devise
+means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just
+above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, perhaps, which might have
+done, only it did not reach to this end of the cliff. However, that
+foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the
+latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away,
+in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to
+look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not
+stand upright; the first person who got there must surely have learned
+to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were
+short for me. I thought of this oddly enough as I watched him, and
+laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards,
+meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all
+sorts of foolish things would happen. I felt sure that I should have
+no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I
+would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of
+course, he would do it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I lost no time, but ran down the slope smartly and carelessly. My way
+lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It
+is wonderful how quickly an accident happens; how swiftly a thing that
+cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing--oh, so vainly--that
+we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I
+was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I
+stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the
+stone to roll. It was all done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was
+easy enough, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck
+the piece of board which was only resting lightly at either end, and
+before I could take it all in the little bridge plunged end first into
+the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He threw up his hands in affright, for he had turned, and we both saw
+it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was
+impossible; and then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to
+me in the direction of home--again and again. The roar of the falls
+drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him
+myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen,
+rough, rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped
+position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling
+stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no
+better way I could think of; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me
+again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with
+me, but it was not the time for that yet, and I tried to collect
+myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at
+the top set off at a run homewards.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I cannot tell at all how I did it; how I passed over the uneven
+ground, or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning papa
+made afterwards. I can only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I
+panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole,
+breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I
+slipped and dropped down places I should at other times have shrunk
+from, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I
+thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on
+for his life, the clamor of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my
+heart's beating with very fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted
+over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the
+afternoon sunshine, papa's stool-car even then at the door ready to
+take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand in
+broken words that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I
+knew, and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the
+porch, and climbed into the car. Papa was not slow either; he snatched
+a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom
+he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time,
+but so much may happen in so little time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from that part of
+the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even papa,
+as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he let
+escape him when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and
+we all looked. The ledge was empty. Jem Herapath was gone. I suppose
+it startled me. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed
+way, and cry quietly without much feeling that it was my doing; while
+the men, shouting to one another in strange, hushed voices, searched
+about for any sign of his fate--&quot;Jem! Jem Herapath!&quot; So he had written
+his name only yesterday in the travellers' book at the posting-house,
+and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked
+to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, Jem, to hear
+you say &quot;Bab&quot; once more!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Safe and sound! Yes, there he was when I turned, safe, and strong, and
+cool, rod in hand, and a quiet smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen
+him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying &quot;Bab&quot;
+exactly as of old, so that something in my throat--it may have been
+anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was--prevented me saying
+a word until all the others came round us, and a babel of Norse and
+English, and something that was neither, yet both, set in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But how is this?&quot; objected my father when he could be heard, &quot;you are
+quite dry, my boy?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The matter! Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?&quot; papa
+asked, bewildered by this new aspect of the case.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very
+uncomfortable start by nearly doing so.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Every one looked at him for an explanation. &quot;How did you manage to get
+from the ledge?&quot; I said feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not
+dreamed it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure, so that I had to
+walk back round the hill. Still I did not mind, for I was thankful
+that it was the plank and not you that fell in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I--I thought--you could not get from the ledge,&quot; I muttered. The
+possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me,
+and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too
+ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at
+the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to
+one another. But when he laughed too--and he did until the tears came
+into his eyes--there was not an ache or pain in my body--and I had cut
+my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock--that hurt me one-half
+as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not;
+and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and papa drove me
+home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted
+me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an
+ache in every part of me, he was gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He asked me to tell you,&quot; said Clare, not looking up from the fly she
+was tying at the window, &quot;that he thought you were the bravest girl he
+had ever met.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. &quot;No,
+Clare,&quot; I said coldly, &quot;he did not say that exactly; he said 'the
+bravest little girl.'&quot; For indeed, lying upstairs with the window
+open, I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsören. As
+for papa, he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and
+wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You've generally some common-sense, my dear,&quot; he said that day at
+dinner, &quot;and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy
+the man was in danger, I--can--not--imagine!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Papa,&quot; put in Clare, suddenly, &quot;your elbow is upsetting the salt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And as I had to move my seat just then to avoid the glare of the stove
+which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.</p>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+<h3><a name="div1_01.2" href="#div1Ref_01.2">HIS STORY</a></h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my
+acquaintance
+in town was limited, and something too because I cared little for it.
+But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing,
+the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. The
+party had too a holiday flavor about them wholesome to recall in
+Scotland Yard: and as I had thought, play-time over, I should see no
+more of them, I was proportionately pleased to find that Mr. Guest had
+not forgotten me, and pleased also--shrewdly expecting that we might
+kill our fish over again--to regard his invitation to dinner at a
+quarter-to-eight as a royal command.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But if I took it so, I was sadly wanting in the regal courtesy to
+match. What with one delay owing to work that would admit of none,
+and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was
+twenty-five minutes after the hour named, when I reached Bolton
+Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel, that it was plain
+upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me straight into the
+dining-room, where Guest greeted me very kindly, and met my excuses by
+apologies on his part--for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of
+eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, &quot;My
+daughter,&quot; and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair
+at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say &quot;Clear, if
+you please,&quot; and then I was free to turn and apologize to her, being a
+little shy, and, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness--to her younger
+sister--in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for
+her dress and some striking differences. Miss Guest could not be more
+than eighteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, with
+the same child-like, innocent look on her face. She had the big, gray
+eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but in her they were more
+soft and tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming.
+Her hair too was brown and wavy: only, instead of hanging loose or in
+a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was
+coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that was so Greek, and
+in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose, so unlike Bab's. Her
+dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white
+throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and, so far, no more
+recalled my little fishing-mate than the sedate self-possession and
+assured dignity of this girl, as she talked to her other neighbor,
+suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's
+children in her strangely and wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not
+Bab in fact: and yet it almost might have been: an etherealized,
+queenly, womanly Bab. Who presently turned to me--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you quite settled down after your holiday?&quot; she asked, staying
+the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a
+breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My sisters?&quot; she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her
+pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I said rather puzzled. &quot;You know they were with your father
+when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eh?&quot; dropping her fork on the plate with a great clatter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Miss Guest, Miss Clare and Miss Bab.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her color rose, and she looked
+me in the face in a half-proud, half-fearful way as if she resented
+the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion,
+she at length stammered, &quot;Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they
+were! How very foolish of me. They are quite well, thank you,&quot; and so
+was silent again. But I understood now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
+mention my name, and she had taken me for some one else of whose
+holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room
+that the Guests saw a good deal of company, and it was a very natural
+mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear
+that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without,
+if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a
+humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between
+myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting.
+Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of
+Dresden china, she was so frail and pretty.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?&quot; she
+asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved
+in the pluckiest manner--so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that
+the danger was not there to dignify her heroism.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That was like her,&quot; she answered in a tone just a little scornful.
+&quot;You must have thought her a terrible tomboy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">While she was speaking there came one of those dreadful lulls in the
+talk, and Mr. Guest overhearing, cried, &quot;Who is that you are abusing,
+my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it's Clare, I think I can
+name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is no one of whom you have ever heard, papa,&quot; she answered,
+archly. &quot;It is a person in whom Mr.--Mr. Herapath--&quot; I had murmured my
+name as she stumbled--&quot;and I are interested. Now tell me, did you not
+think so?&quot; she murmured, graciously leaning the slightest bit towards
+me, and opening her eyes as they looked into mine in a way that to a
+man who had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was
+sufficiently intoxicating.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. &quot;No, Miss Guest,
+I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little thing,
+rather careless as children are apt to be, but likely to grow into a
+charming girl.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent,
+whether, impossible as it must seem to any one looking in her face,
+there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbor.
+Her tone when she spoke of her sister seemed to impart no great
+goodwill.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So that is your opinion?&quot; she said, after a pause. &quot;Do you know,&quot;
+with a laughing glance, &quot;that some people think I am like her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes?&quot; I answered, gravely. &quot;Well, I should be able to judge, who have
+seen you both and yet am not an old friend. And I think you are both
+like and unlike. Your sister has very beautiful eyes&quot;--she lowered
+hers swiftly--&quot;and hair like yours, but her manner and style were very
+different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture
+you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time--and on many after
+occasions,&quot; I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at
+the queer little figure I had conjured up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you, Mr. Herapath,&quot; she replied, with coldness, though she had
+blushed darkly to her ears. &quot;That, I think, must be enough of
+compliments, for to-night--as you are not an old friend.&quot; And she
+turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our
+acquaintance was as yet in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth
+as to a temperature below zero.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her
+cheek still lingered there, as she swept past me with a wondrous show
+of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place,
+and we talked of the &quot;land of berries,&quot; and our adventures there,
+while the rest--older friends--listened indulgently or struck in from
+time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why they get
+more joy--I am fain to think they do--out of a scrambling tea up three
+pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the very same materials--and
+comfort withal--in their own house. I imagine it is for the same
+reason that the bachelor finds a singular charm in a lady's
+drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A
+charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests'
+drawing-room--a room rich in subdued colors and a cunning blending of
+luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt alone. Mr. Guest had
+passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of
+these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I
+had been in the habit of rather despising &quot;society.&quot; Miss Guest was at
+the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up also
+a keen-faced, dark-whiskered man leaning over her with the air of one
+used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may
+have looked, as well as felt, forlorn, and meeting her eyes could have
+fancied she was regarding me with amusement--almost triumph. It must
+have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment
+she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so
+that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up
+to the schoolroom--Fräulein and Clare are there--and telling Clare,
+that--that--oh, anything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who
+is at home in a house to flaunt his favor in the face of other guests.
+That young lawyer's manner as he left her, and the smile of perfect
+intelligence which passed between them, were such a breach of good
+manners as would have ruffled any one. They ruffled me--yes, me,
+although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he
+conducted himself--so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano
+and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not speak; and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing
+over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She
+had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something
+about which--not its newness--so startled me that I said abruptly:
+&quot;That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked up, saw what I meant, and stopping hastily, put on her
+bracelets; to all appearance so vexed by my thoughtless question, and
+anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, &quot;I asked
+because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day
+when she thought I was in trouble, and the coincidence struck me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, I remember,&quot; looking at me, I thought, with a certain suspicion,
+as though she were not sure that I was giving the right motive. &quot;I did
+this much in the same way. By falling, I mean. Isn't it a hateful
+disfigurement?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No, it was no disfigurement. Even to her, with a woman's love of
+conquest, it must have seemed anything but a disfigurement had she
+known what the quiet, awkward man at her side was thinking, who stood
+looking shyly at it and found no words to contradict her, though she
+asked him twice, and thought him stupid enough. A great longing to
+kiss that soft, scarred wrist was on me--and Miss Guest had added
+another to the number of her slaves. I don't know now why that little
+scar should have so touched me any more than I then could guess why,
+being a commonplace person, I should fall in love at first sight, and
+feel no surprise at my condition, but only a half consciousness
+(seeming fully to justify it) that in some former state of being I had
+met my love, and read her thoughts, and learned her moods; and come to
+know the bright womanly spirit that looked from her frank eyes as well
+as if she were an old, old friend. And so vivid was this sensation,
+that once or twice, then and afterwards, when I would meet her glance,
+another name than hers trembled on my tongue and passed away before I
+could shape it into sound.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">After an interval, &quot;Are you going to the Goldmace's dance?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I answered her, humbly. &quot;I go out so little.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed,&quot; with an odd smile not too kindly; &quot;I wish--no I don't--that
+we could say the same. We are engaged, I think--&quot; she paused, her
+attention divided between myself and Boccherini's minuet, the low
+strains of which she was sending through the room--&quot;for every
+afternoon--this week--except Saturday. By the way, Mr. Herapath--do
+you remember what was the name--Bab told me you teased her with?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wee bonnie Bab,&quot; I answered absently. My thoughts had gone forward to
+Saturday. &quot;We are always dropping to-day's substance for the shadow of
+to-morrow; like the dog--a dog was it not?--in the fable.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, yes, wee bonnie Bab,&quot; she murmured softly. &quot;Poor Bab!&quot; and
+suddenly cut short Boccherini's music and our chat by striking a
+terrific discord and laughing merrily at my start of discomfiture.
+Every one took it as a signal to leave. They all seemed to be going to
+meet her again next day, or the day after that; they engaged her for
+dances, and made up a party for the law courts, and tossed to and fro
+a score of laughing catch-words, that were beyond my comprehension.
+They all did this, except myself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And yet I went away with something before me--that call upon Saturday
+afternoon. Quite unreasonably I fancied I should see her alone. And
+so when the day came and I stood outside the opening door of the
+drawing-room, and heard voices and laughter within, I was hurt and
+aggrieved beyond measure. There was quite a party, and a merry one,
+assembled, who were playing at some game, as it seemed to me, for I
+caught sight of Clare whipping off an impromptu bandage from her eyes,
+and striving by her stiffest air to give the lie to a pair of flushed
+cheeks. The black-whiskered man was there, and two men of his kind,
+and a German governess, and a very old lady in a wheel-chair, who was
+called &quot;grandmamma,&quot; and Miss Guest herself looking, in the prettiest
+dress of silvery plush, to the full as bright and fair and graceful as
+I had been picturing her each hour since we parted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She dropped me a stately courtesy. &quot;Will you play the part of Miss
+Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, Mr. Herapath, while I act honest
+Burchell, and say 'Fudge!' or will you burn nuts and play games with
+neighbor Flamborough? You will join us, won't you? Clare does not so
+misbehave every day, only it is such a wet afternoon and so cold and
+wretched, and we did not think there would be any more callers--and
+tea will be up in five minutes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She did not think there would be any more callers! Something in her
+smile belied the words and taught me that she had thought--she had
+known--that there would be one more caller--one who would burn nuts
+and play games with her, though Rome itself were afire, and Tooley
+Street and the Mile End Road to boot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a simple game enough, and not likely, one would say, to afford
+much risk of that burning the fingers, which gave a zest to the Vicar
+of Wakefield's nuts. One sat in the middle blindfolded, while the rest
+disguised their own or assumed each other's voices, and spoke one by
+one some gibe or quip at his expense. When he succeeded in naming the
+speaker, the detected satirist put on the poke, and in his turn heard
+things good--if he had a conceit of himself--for his soul's health.
+Now this <i>rôle</i> unhappily soon fell to me, and proved a heavy one,
+because I was not so familiar with the others' voices as were the
+rest; and Miss Guest--whose faintest tones I thought to have
+known--had a wondrous knack of cheating me, now taking off Clare's
+voice, and now--after the door had been opened to admit the tea--her
+father's. So I failed again and again to earn my release. But when a
+voice behind me cried with well-feigned eagerness--</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How nice! Do tell me all about a fire!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Though no fresh creaking at the door had reached me, nor warning been
+given of an addition to the players, I had not the smallest doubt who
+was the speaker; but exclaimed at once, &quot;That is Bab! Now I cry you
+mercy. I am right this time. That was Bab!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I looked for a burst of applause and laughter, such as had before
+attended a good thrust home, but none came. On the contrary, with my
+words so odd a silence fell upon the room that it was clear that
+something was wrong, and I pulled off my handkerchief in haste,
+repeating, &quot;That was Bab, I am sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But if it was, I could not see her. What had come over them all?
+Jack's face wore a provoking smile, and his friends were clearly bent
+upon sniggering. Clare looked horrified, and grandmamma gently
+titillated, while Miss Guest, who had risen and half turned away
+towards the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
+was the matter?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg every one's pardon by anticipation,&quot; I said, looking round in a
+bewildered way: &quot;but have I said anything wrong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, dear no,&quot; cried the fellow they called Jack, with a familiarity
+that was in the worst taste--as if I had meant to apologize to him!
+&quot;Most natural thing in the world!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Jack, how dare you?&quot; exclaimed Miss Guest, stamping her foot.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well it seemed all right. It sounded very natural, I am sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you are unbearable! Why don't you say something, Clare?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Herapath, I am sure that you did not know that my name was
+Barbara.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not,&quot; I cried. &quot;What a strange thing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But it is, and that is why grandmamma is looking so shocked, and Mr.
+Buchanan is wearing threadbare an old friend's privilege of being
+rude. I freely forgive you if you will make allowance for him. And you
+shall come off the stool of repentance and have your tea first, since
+you are the greatest stranger. It is a stupid game after all!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She would hear no apologies from me. And when I would have asked why
+her sister bore the same name, and thus excused myself, she was intent
+upon tea-making, and the few moments I could with decency add to my
+call gave me scant opportunity. I blush to think how I eked them out,
+by what subservience to Clare, by what a slavish anxiety to help even
+Jack to muffins--each piece I hoped might choke him. How slow I was to
+find hat and gloves, calling to mind with terrible vividness, as I
+turned my back upon the circle, that again and again in my experience,
+an acquaintance begun by a dinner had ended with the consequent call.
+And so I should have gone--it might have been so here--but that the
+door-handle was stiff, and Miss Guest came to my aid, as I fumbled
+with it. &quot;We are always at home on Saturdays, if you like to call, Mr.
+Herapath,&quot; she murmured carelessly, not lifting her eyes--and I found
+myself in the street.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So carelessly she said it, that with a sudden change of feeling I
+vowed I would not call. Why should I? Why should I worry myself with
+the sight of those other fellows parading their favor? With the babble
+of that society chit-chat, which I had so often scorned, and--and
+still scorned, and had no part or concern in. They were not people
+to suit me, or do me good. I would not go, I said, and repeated it
+firmly on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday only so far modified it
+that I thought at some distant time to leave a card--to avoid
+discourtesy;--on Friday preferred an earlier date as wiser and more
+polite, and on Saturday walked shame-faced down the street and knocked
+and rang, and went upstairs--to taste a pleasant misery. Yes, and on
+the next Saturday too, and the next, and the next; and that one on
+which we all went to the theatre, and that other one on which Mr.
+Guest kept me to dinner. Ay, and on other days that were not
+Saturdays, among which two stand high out of the waters of
+forgetfulness--high days indeed--days like twin pillars of Hercules,
+through which I thought to reach, as did the seamen of old, I knew not
+what treasures of unknown lands stretching away under the setting sun.
+First that one on which I found Barbara Guest alone and blurted out
+that I had the audacity to wish to make her my wife; and then heard,
+before I had well--or badly--told my tale, the wheels of grandmamma's
+chair outside.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush!&quot; the girl said, her face turned from me. &quot;Hush, Mr. Herapath.
+You don't know me, indeed. You have seen so little of me. Please say
+nothing more about it. You are completely under a delusion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is no delusion that I love you, Barbara!&quot; I cried.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is, it is,&quot; she repeated, freeing her hand. &quot;There, if you will
+not take an answer--come--come at three to-morrow. But mind, I promise
+you nothing--I promise you nothing,&quot; she added feverishly, and fled
+from the room, leaving me to talk to grandmamma as best, and escape as
+quickly as, I might.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I longed for a great fire that evening, and failing one, tired myself
+by tramping unknown streets of the East-end, striving to teach myself
+that any trouble to-morrow might bring was but a shadow, a sentiment,
+a thing not to be mentioned in the same breath with the want and toil
+of which I caught glimpses up each street and lane that opened to
+right and left. In the main, of course, I failed: but the effort did
+me good, sending me home tired out, to sleep as soundly as if I were
+going to be hanged next day, and not--which is a very different
+thing--to be put upon my trial.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will tell Miss Guest you are here, sir,&quot; the man said. I looked at
+all the little things in the room which I had come to know well--her
+workbasket, the music upon the piano, the table-easel, her
+photograph--and wondered if I were to see them no more, or if they
+were to become a part of my every-day life. Then I heard her come in,
+and turned quickly, feeling that I should learn my fate from her
+greeting.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bab!&quot; The word was rung from me perforce. And then we stood and
+looked at one another, she with a strange pride and defiance in her
+eyes, though her cheek was dark with blushes, and I with wonder and
+perplexity in mine,--wonder and perplexity that quickly grew into a
+conviction, a certainty that the girl standing before me in the
+short-skirted brown dress with tangled hair and loose neck-ribbon was
+the Bab I had known in Norway; and yet that the eyes--I could not
+mistake them now, no matter what unaccustomed look they might
+wear--were Barbara Guest's!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Guest--Barbara,&quot; I stammered, grappling with the truth, &quot;why
+have you played this trick upon me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is Miss Guest and Barbara now,&quot; she cried, with a mocking
+courtesy. &quot;Do you remember, Mr. Herapath, when it was Bab? When you
+treated me as a kind of toy, and a plaything, with which you might be
+as intimate as you liked; and hurt my feelings--yes, it is weak to
+confess it, I know--day by day, and hour by hour?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But surely, that is forgiven now?&quot; I said, dazed by an attack so
+sudden and so bitter. &quot;It is atonement enough that I am at your feet
+now, Barbara!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are not,&quot; she retorted hotly. &quot;Don't say you have offered love to
+me, who am the same with the child you teased at Breistolen. You have
+fallen in love with my fine clothes, and my pearls and my maid's work,
+not with me. You have fancied the girl you saw other men make much of.
+But you have not loved the woman who might have prized that which Miss
+Guest has never learned to value.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How old are you?&quot; I said, hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Nineteen!&quot; she snapped out. And then for a moment we were both
+silent.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I begin to understand now,&quot; I answered slowly as soon as I could
+conquer something in my throat. &quot;Long ago when I hardly knew you, I
+hurt your woman's pride; and since that you have plotted----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, you have tricked yourself!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And schemed to bring me to your feet that you might have the pleasure
+of trampling on me. Miss Guest, your triumph is complete, more
+complete than you are able to understand. I loved you this morning
+above all the world--as my own life--as every hope I had. See, I tell
+you this that you may have a moment's keener pleasure when I am gone.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't! Don't!&quot; she cried, throwing herself into a chair and covering
+her face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have won a man's heart and cast it aside to gratify an old pique.
+You may rest content now, for there is nothing wanting to your
+vengeance. You have given me as much pain as a woman, the vainest and
+the most heartless, can give a man. Good-by.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And with that I was leaving her, fighting my own pain and passion, so
+that the little hands she raised as though they would ward off my
+words were nothing to me. I felt a savage delight in seeing that I
+could hurt her, which deadened my own grief. The victory was not all
+with her lying there sobbing. Only where was my hat? Let me get my hat
+and go. Let me escape from this room wherein every trifle upon which
+my eye rested awoke some memory that was a pang. Let me get away, and
+have done with it all.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Where was the hat? I had brought it up. I could not go without it. It
+must be under her chair, by all that was unlucky, for it was nowhere
+else. I could not stand and wait, and so I had to go up to her, with
+cold words of apology upon my lips, and being close to her and seeing
+on her wrist, half hidden by fallen hair, the scar she had brought
+home from Norway, I don't know how it was that I fell on my knees by
+her and cried:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Bab, I loved you so! Let us part friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment, silence. Then she whispered, her hand in mine, &quot;Why did
+you not say Bab to begin? I only told you that Miss Guest had not
+learned to value your love.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Bab?&quot; I murmured, my brain in a whirl.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Learned long ago, poor girl!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the fair, tear-stained face of my tyrant looked into mine for a
+moment, and then came quite naturally to its resting place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now,&quot; she said, when I was leaving, &quot;you may have your hat, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I believe,&quot; I replied, &quot;that you sat upon this chair on purpose.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Bab blushed. I believe she did.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">A Strange Invitation</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I have friends who tell me that they seldom walk the streets
+of London
+without wondering what is passing behind the house-fronts; without
+picturing a comedy here, a love-scene there, and behind the dingy cane
+blinds a something ill-defined, a something odd and <i>bizarre</i>. They
+experience--if you believe them--a sense of loneliness out in the
+street, an impatience of the sameness of all these many houses, their
+dull bricks and discreet windows, and a longing that some one would
+step out and ask them to enter and see the play.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, I have never felt any of these things; but as I was passing
+through Fitzhardinge Square about half-past ten o'clock one evening in
+last July, after dining, if I remember rightly, in Baker Street,
+something happened to me which I fancy may be of interest to such
+people.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was passing through the square from north to south, and to avoid a
+small crowd, which some reception had drawn together, I left the
+pavement and struck across the road to the path round the oval garden;
+which, by the way, contains a few of the finest trees in London. This
+part was in deep shadow, so that when I presently emerged from it and
+recrossed the road to the pavement near the top of Fitzhardinge
+Street, I had an advantage over any persons on the pavement. They were
+under the lamps, while I, coming from beneath the trees, was almost
+invisible.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The door of the house immediately in front of me as I crossed was
+open, and an elderly manservant out of livery was standing at it,
+looking up and down the pavement by turns. It was his air of furtive
+anxiety that drew my attention to him. He was not like a man looking
+for a cab, or waiting for his sweetheart; and I had my eye upon him as
+I stepped upon the pavement before him. But my surprise was great when
+he uttered a low exclamation of dismay at sight of me and made as if
+he would escape; while his face, in the full glare of the light, grew
+so pale and terror-stricken that he might before have been completely
+at his ease. I was astonished and instinctively stood still returning
+his gaze; for perhaps twenty seconds we remained so, he speechless,
+and his hands fallen by his side. Then, before I could move on, as I
+was in the act of doing, he cried, &quot;Oh! Mr. George! Oh! Mr. George!&quot;
+in a tone that rang out in the stillness rather as a wail than an
+ordinary cry.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My name, my surname I mean, is George. For a moment I took the address
+to myself, forgetting that the man was a stranger, and my heart began
+to beat more quickly with fear of what might have happened. &quot;What is
+it?&quot; I exclaimed. &quot;What is it?&quot; and I shook back from the lower part
+of my face the silk muffler I was wearing. The evening was close, but
+I had been suffering from a sore throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came nearer and peered more closely at me, and I dismissed my fear;
+for I thought that I could see the discovery of his mistake dawning
+upon him. His pallid face, on which the pallor was the more noticeable
+as his plump features were those of a man with whom the world as a
+rule went well, regained some of its lost color, and a sigh of relief
+passed his lips. But this feeling was only momentary. The joy of
+escape from whatever blow he had thought imminent gave place at once
+to his previous state of miserable expectancy of something or other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You took me for another person,&quot; I said, preparing to pass on. At
+that moment I could have sworn--I would have given one hundred to one
+twice over--that he was going to say Yes. To my intense astonishment,
+he did not. With a very visible effort he said, &quot;No!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eh! What?&quot; I exclaimed. I had taken a step or two.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then what is it?&quot; I said. &quot;What do you want, my good fellow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Watching his shuffling, indeterminate manner, I wondered if he were
+sane. His next answer reassured me on that point. There was an almost
+desperate deliberation about its manner. &quot;My master wishes to see you,
+sir, if you will kindly walk in for five minutes,&quot; was what he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I should have replied, &quot;Who is your master?&quot; if I had been wise; or
+cried, &quot;Nonsense!&quot; and gone my way. But the mind when it is spurred by
+a sudden emergency often overruns the more obvious course to adopt a
+worse. It was possible that one of my intimates had taken the house,
+and said in his butler's presence that he wished to see me. Thinking
+of that I answered, &quot;Are you sure of this? Have you not made a
+mistake, my man?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">With an obstinate sullenness that was new in him he said, No, he had
+not. Would I please to walk in? He stepped briskly forward as he
+spoke, and induced me by a kind of gentle urgency to enter the house,
+taking from me with the ease of a trained servant my hat, coat, and
+muffler. Finding himself in the course of his duties he gained more
+composure; while I, being thus treated, lost my sense of the
+strangeness of the proceeding, and only awoke to a full consciousness
+of my position when he had softly shut the door behind us and was in
+the act of putting up the chain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then I confess I looked round a little alarmed at my precipitancy. But
+I found the hall spacious, lofty, and dark-panelled, the ordinary hall
+of an old London house. The big fireplace was filled with plants in
+flower. There were rugs on the floor and a number of chairs with
+painted crests on the backs, and in a corner was an old sedan chair,
+its poles upright against the wall.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">No other servants were visible, it is true. But apart from this all
+was in order, all was quiet, and any idea of violence was manifestly
+absurd.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same time the affair seemed of the strangest. Why should the
+butler in charge of a well-arranged and handsome house--the house of
+an ordinary wealthy gentleman--why should he loiter about the open
+doorway as if anxious to feel the presence of his kind? Why should he
+show such nervous excitement and terror as I had witnessed? Why should
+he introduce a stranger?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had reached this point when he led the way upstairs. The staircase
+was wide, the steps were low and broad. On either side at the head of
+the flight stood a beautiful Venus of white Parian marble. They were
+not common reproductions, and I paused. I could see beyond them a
+Hercules and a Meleager of bronze, and delicately tinted draperies and
+ottomans that under the light of a silver hanging-lamp?--a gem from
+Malta--changed a mere lobby to a fairies' nook. The sight filled me
+with a certain suspicion; which was dispelled, however, when my hand
+rested for an instant upon the reddish pedestal that supported one of
+the statues. The cold touch of the marble was enough for me. The
+pillars were not of composite; of which they certainly would have
+consisted in a gaming-house, or worse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Three steps carried me across the lobby to a curtained doorway by
+which the servant was waiting. I saw that the &quot;shakes&quot; were upon
+him again. His impatience was so ill-concealed that I was not
+surprised--though I was taken aback--when he dropped the mask
+altogether, and as I passed him--it being now too late for me to
+retreat undiscovered, if the room were occupied--laid a trembling hand
+upon my arm and thrust his face close to mine. &quot;Ask how he is! Say
+anything,&quot; he whispered trembling, &quot;no matter what, sir! Only, for the
+love of heaven, stay five minutes!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave me a gentle push forward as he spoke--pleasant all this!--and
+announced in a loud, quavering voice, &quot;Mr. George!&quot;--which was true
+enough. I found myself walking round a screen at the same time that
+something in the room, a long, dimly-lighted room, fell with a brisk,
+rattling sound, and there was the scuffling noise of a person, still
+hidden from me by the screen, rising to his feet in haste.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Next moment I was face to face with two men. One, a handsome, elderly
+gentleman, who wore gray moustaches and would have seemed in place at
+a service club, was still in his chair regarding me with a perfectly
+calm, unmoved face, as if my entrance at that hour were the commonest
+incident of his life. The other had risen and stood looking at me
+askance. He was five-and-twenty years younger than his companion and
+as good-looking in a different way. But now his face was white and
+drawn, distorted by the same expression of terror--ay, and a darker
+and fiercer terror than that which I had already seen upon the
+servant's features; it was the face of one in a desperate strait. He
+looked as a man looks who has put all he has in the world upon an
+outsider--and done it twice. In that quiet drawing-room by the side of
+his placid companion, with nothing whatever in their surroundings to
+account for his emotion, his panic-stricken face shocked me
+inexpressibly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">They were in evening dress; and between them was a chess-table, its
+men in disorder: almost touching this was another small table bearing
+a tray of Apollinaris water and spirits. On this the young man was
+resting one hand as if but for its support he would have fallen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">To add one more fact, I had never seen either of them in my life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Or wait; could that be true? If so, it must be indeed a nightmare I
+was suffering. For the elder man broke the silence by addressing me in
+a quiet ordinary tone that exactly matched his face. &quot;Sit down,
+George,&quot; he said, &quot;don't stand there. I did not expect you this
+evening.&quot; He held out his hand, without rising from his chair, and I
+advanced and shook it in silence. &quot;I thought you were in Liverpool.
+How are you?&quot; he continued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well, I thank you,&quot; I muttered mechanically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not very well, I should say,&quot; he retorted. &quot;You are as hoarse as a
+raven. You have a bad cold at best. It is nothing worse, my boy, is
+it?&quot; with anxiety.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, a throat cough; nothing else,&quot; I murmured, resigning myself to
+this astonishing reception--this evident concern for my welfare on the
+part of a man whom I had never seen in my life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is well!&quot; he answered cheerily. Not only did my presence cause
+him no surprise. It gave him, without doubt, actual pleasure!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was otherwise with his companion; grimly and painfully so indeed.
+He had made no advances to me, spoken no word, scarcely altered his
+position. His eyes he had never taken from me. Yet in him there was a
+change. He had discovered, exactly as had the butler before him,
+his mistake. The sickly terror was gone from his face, and a
+half-frightened malevolence not much more pleasant to witness had
+taken its place. Why this did not break out in any active form was
+part of the general mystery given to me to solve. I could only surmise
+from glances which he later cast from time to time towards the door,
+and from the occasional faint creaking of a board in that direction,
+that his self-restraint had to do with my friend the butler. The
+inconsequences of dreamland ran through it all: why the elder man
+remained in error; why the younger with that passion on his face was
+tongue-tied; why the great house was so still; why the servant should
+have mixed me up with this business at all--these were questions as
+unanswerable, one as the other.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And the fog in my mind grew denser when the old gentleman turned from
+me as if my presence were a usual thing, and rapped the table before
+him impatiently. &quot;Now, Gerald!&quot; cried he in sharp tones, &quot;have you put
+those pieces back? Good heavens! I am glad that I have not nerves like
+yours! Don't remember the squares, boy? Here, give them to me!&quot; With a
+hasty gesture of his hand, something like a mesmeric pass over the
+board, he set down the half-dozen pieces with a rapid tap! tap! tap!
+which made it abundantly clear that he, at any rate, had no doubt of
+their former positions.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You will not mind sitting by until we have finished the game?&quot; he
+continued, speaking to me, and in a voice I fancied more genial than
+that which he had used to Gerald. &quot;You are anxious to talk to me about
+your letter, George?&quot; he went on when I did not answer. &quot;The fact is
+that I have not read the inclosure. Barnes, as usual, read the outer
+letter to me, in which you said the matter was private and of grave
+importance; and I intended to go to Laura to-morrow, as you suggested,
+and get her to read the news to me. Now you have returned so soon, I
+am glad that I did not trouble her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just so, sir,&quot; I said, listening with all my ears; and wondering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I hope there is nothing very bad the matter, my boy?&quot; he
+replied. &quot;However--Gerald! it is your move!--ten minutes more of such
+play as your brother's, and I shall be at your service.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gerald made a hurried move. The piece rattled upon the board as if he
+had been playing the castanets. His father made him take it back. I
+sat watching the two in wonder and silence. What did it all mean? Why
+should Barnes--doubtless behind the screen listening--read the outer
+letter? Why must Laura be employed to read the inner? Why could not
+this cultivated and refined gentleman before me read his--Ah! That
+much was disclosed to me. A mere turn of the hand did it. He had made
+another of those passes over the board, and I learned from it what an
+ordinary examination would not have detected. He, the old soldier with
+the placid face and light-blue eyes, was blind! Quite blind!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I began to see more clearly now, and from this moment I took up, at
+any rate in my own mind, a different position. Possibly the servant
+who had impelled me into the middle of this had had his own good
+reasons for doing so, as I now began to discern. But with a clue to
+the labyrinth in my hand I could no longer move passively at any
+other's impulse. I must act for myself. For a while I sat still and
+made no sign. My suspicions were presently confirmed. The elder man
+more than once scolded his opponent for playing slowly; in one of
+these intervals he took from an inside pocket of his dress waistcoat a
+small packet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You had better take your letter, George,&quot; he said. &quot;If there are, as
+you mentioned, originals in it, they will be more safe with you than
+with me. You can tell me all about it, <i>viva voce</i>, now you are here.
+Gerald will leave us alone presently.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He held the papers towards me. To take them would be to take an active
+part in the imposture, and I hesitated, my own hand half outstretched.
+But my eyes fell at the critical instant upon Master Gerald's face,
+and my scruples took themselves off. He was eyeing the packet with an
+intense greed, and a trembling longing--a very itching of the fingers
+and toes, to fall upon the prey--that put an end to my doubts. I rose
+and took the papers. With a quiet, but I think significant, look in
+his direction, I placed them in the breast-pocket of my evening coat.
+I had no safer receptacle about me, or into that they would have gone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well, sir,&quot; I said. &quot;There is no particular hurry. I think the
+matter will keep, as things now are, until to-morrow.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure. You ought not to be out with such a cold at night, my
+boy,&quot; he answered. &quot;You will find a decanter of the Scotch whiskey you
+gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some hot water and a
+lemon, George? The servants are all at the theatre--Gerald begged a
+holiday for them--but Barnes will get you the things in a minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you; I won't trouble him. I will take some with cold water,&quot; I
+replied, thinking I should gain in this way what I wanted--time to
+think: five minutes to myself, while they played.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I was out in my reckoning. &quot;I will have mine now too,&quot; he said.
+&quot;Will you mix it, Gerald?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Gerald jumped up to do it with tolerable alacrity. I sat still,
+preferring to help myself, when he should have attended to his
+father--if his father it was. I felt more easy now that I had those
+papers in my pocket. The more I thought of it, the more certain I
+became that they were the object aimed at by whatever devilry was on
+foot; and that possession of them gave me the whip-hand. My young
+gentleman might snarl and show his teeth, but the prize had escaped
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Perhaps I was a little too confident: a little too contemptuous of my
+opponent; a little too proud of the firmness with which I had taken at
+one and the same time the responsibility and the post of vantage. A
+creak of the board behind the screen roused me from my thoughts. It
+fell upon my ear trumpet-tongued: a sudden note of warning. I glanced
+up with a start, and a conviction that I was being caught napping, and
+looked instinctively towards the young man. He was busy at the tray,
+his back to me. Relieved of my fear of I did not know what--perhaps a
+desperate attack upon my pocket, I was removing my eyes, when, in
+doing so, I caught sight of his reflection in a small mirror beyond
+him. Ah!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was he busy about? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, at the moment. He
+was standing motionless--I could fancy him breathless also--a strange
+listening expression on his face; which seemed to me to have faded to
+a grayish tinge. His left hand was clasping a half-filled tumbler: the
+other was at his waistcoat pocket. So he stood during perhaps a second
+or two, a small lamp upon the tray before him illumining his handsome
+figure; and then his eyes, glancing up, met the reflection of mine in
+the mirror. Swiftly as the thought itself could pass from brain to
+limb, the hand which had been resting in the pocket flashed with a
+clatter among the glasses; and turning almost as quickly, he brought
+one of the latter to the chess-table, and set it down unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What had I seen! Nothing; actually nothing. Just what Gerald had been
+doing. Yet my heart was going as many strokes to the minute as a
+losing crew. I rose abruptly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wait a moment, sir,&quot; I said, as the elder man laid his hand upon the
+glass, &quot;I don't think that Gerald has mixed this quite as you like
+it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had already lifted it to his lips. I looked from him to Gerald.
+That young gentleman's color, though he faced me hardily, shifted more
+than once, and he seemed to be swallowing a succession of over-sized
+fives-balls; but his eyes met mine in a vicious kind of smile that was
+not without its gleam of triumph. I was persuaded that all was right
+even before his father said so.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps you have mixed for me, Gerald?&quot; I suggested pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No!&quot; he answered in sullen defiance. He filled a glass with
+something--perhaps it was water--and drank it, his back towards me. He
+had not spoken so much as a single word to me before.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The blind man's ear recognized the tone now. &quot;I wish you boys would
+agree better,&quot; he said wearily. &quot;Gerald, go to bed. I would as soon
+play chess with an idiot from Earlswood. Generally you can play the
+game if you are good for nothing else; but since your brother came in,
+you have not made a move which any one not an imbecile would make. Go
+to bed, boy! Go to bed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had stepped to the table while he was speaking. One of the glasses
+was full. I lifted it with seeming unconcern to my nose. There was
+whiskey in it as well as water. Then <i>had</i> Gerald mixed for me? At any
+rate, I put the tumbler aside, and helped myself afresh. When I set
+the glass down empty, my mind was made up.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gerald does not seem inclined to move, sir, so I will,&quot; I said
+quietly. &quot;I will call in the morning and discuss that matter, if it
+will suit you. But to-night I feel inclined to get to bed early.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Quite right, my boy. I would ask you to take a bed here instead of
+turning out, but I suppose that Laura will be expecting you. Come in
+any time to-morrow morning. Shall Barnes call a cab for you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I will walk,&quot; I answered, shaking the proffered hand. &quot;By the
+way, sir,&quot; I added, &quot;have you heard who is the new Home Secretary?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, Henry Matthews,&quot; he replied. &quot;Gerald told me. He had heard it at
+the Club.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It is to be hoped that he will have no womanish scruples about
+capital punishment,&quot; I said, as if I were incidentally considering the
+appointment. And with that last shot at Mr. Gerald--he turned green, I
+thought, a color which does not go well with a black moustache--I
+walked out of the room, so peaceful, so cosy, so softly lighted, as it
+looked, I remember; and downstairs. I hoped that I had paralyzed the
+young fellow, and might leave the house without molestation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But as I gained the foot of the stairs he tapped me on the shoulder. I
+saw then, looking at him, that I had mistaken my man. Every trace of
+the sullen defiance which had marked his manner throughout the
+interview upstairs was gone. His face was still pale, but it wore a
+gentle smile as we confronted one another under the hall lamp. &quot;I have
+not the pleasure of knowing you, but let me thank you for your help,&quot;
+he said, in a low voice, yet with a kind of frank spontaneity.
+&quot;Barnes's idea of bringing you in was a splendid one, and I am
+immensely obliged to you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't mention it,&quot; I answered stiffly, proceeding with my
+preparations for going out, as if he were not there; although I must
+confess that this complete change in him exercised my mind no little.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I feel so sure that we may rely upon your discretion,&quot; he went on,
+ignoring my tone, &quot;that I need say nothing about that. Of course we
+owe you an explanation, but as your cold is really yours and not my
+brother's, you will not mind if I read you the riddle to-morrow
+instead of keeping you from your bed to-night?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It will do equally well--indeed better,&quot; I said, putting on my
+overcoat, and buttoning it carefully across my chest, while I affected
+to be looking with curiosity at the sedan chair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He pointed lightly to the place where the packet lay. &quot;You are
+forgetting the papers,&quot; he reminded me. His tone almost compelled the
+answer, &quot;To be sure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But I had pretty well made up my mind, and I answered instead, &quot;Not at
+all. They are quite safe, thank you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But you don't--I beg your pardon--&quot; he said, opening his eyes very
+wide, as if some new light were beginning to shine upon his mind and
+he could scarcely believe its revelations. &quot;You don't really mean that
+you are going to take those papers away with you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My dear sir!&quot; he remonstrated earnestly. &quot;This is preposterous. Pray
+forgive me the reminder, but those papers, as my father gave you to
+understand, are private papers, which he supposed himself to be
+handing to my brother, George.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Just so!&quot; was all I said. And I took a step towards the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You really mean to take them?&quot; he asked seriously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do; unless you can satisfactorily explain the part I have played
+this evening. And also make it clear to me that you have a right to
+the possession of the papers.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Confound it! If I must do so to-night, I must!&quot; he said reluctantly.
+&quot;I trust to your honor, sir, to keep the explanation secret.&quot; I bowed,
+and he resumed. &quot;My elder brother and I are in business together.
+Lately we have had losses which have crippled us so severely that we
+decided to disclose them to Sir Charles and ask his help. George did
+so yesterday by letter, giving certain notes of our liabilities. You
+ask why he did not make such a statement by word of mouth? Because he
+had to go to Liverpool at a moment's notice to make a last effort to
+arrange the matter. And as for me,&quot; with a curious grimace, &quot;my father
+would as soon discuss business with his dog! Sooner!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; I said. He had paused, and was absently flicking the blossoms
+off the geraniums in the fireplace with his pocket-handkerchief,
+looking moodily at his work the while. I cannot remember noticing the
+handkerchief, yet I seem to be able to see it now. It had a red
+border, and was heavily scented with white rose. &quot;Well?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; he continued, with a visible effort, &quot;my father has been
+ailing lately, and this morning his usual doctor made him see
+Bristowe. He is an authority on heart-disease, as you doubtless know;
+and his opinion is,&quot; he added in a lower voice and with some emotion,
+&quot;that even a slight shock may prove fatal.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I began to feel hot and uncomfortable. What was I to think? The packet
+was becoming as lead in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; he resumed more briskly, &quot;that threw our difficulties
+into the shade at once; and my first impulse was to get these papers
+from him. Don't you see that? All day I have been trying in vain to
+effect it. I took Barnes, who is an old servant, partially into my
+confidence, but we could think of no plan. My father, like many people
+who have lost their sight, is jealous, and I was at my wits' end, when
+Barnes brought you up. Your likeness,&quot; he added in a parenthesis,
+looking at me reflectively, &quot;to George put the idea into his head, I
+fancy? Yes, it must have been so. When I heard you announced, for a
+moment I thought you were George.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you called up a look of the warmest welcome,&quot; I put in dryly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He colored, but answered almost immediately, &quot;I was afraid that he
+would assume that the governor had read his letter, and blurt out
+something about it. Good Lord! if you knew the funk in which I have
+been all the evening lest my father should ask either of us to read
+the letter!&quot; and he gathered up his handkerchief with a sigh of
+relief, and wiped his forehead.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I could see it very plainly,&quot; I answered, going slowly in my mind
+over what he had told me. If the truth must be confessed, I was in no
+slight quandary what I should do, or what I should believe. Was this
+really the key to it all? Dared I doubt it, or that that which I had
+constructed was a mare's nest,--the mere framework of a mare's nest.
+For the life of me I could not tell!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well?&quot; he said presently, looking up with an offended air. &quot;Is there
+anything else I can explain? or will you have the kindness to return
+my property to me now?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;There is one thing about which I should like to ask a question,&quot; I
+said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ask on,&quot; he replied; and I wondered whether there was not a little
+too much of bravado in the tone of sufferance he assumed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why do you carry--&quot; I went on, raising my eyes to his, and pausing on
+the word an instant--&quot;that little medicament--you know what I mean--in
+your waistcoat pocket, my friend?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He perceptibly flinched. &quot;I don't quite--quite understand,&quot; he began
+to stammer. Then he changed his tone and went on rapidly, &quot;No! I will
+be frank with you, Mr.-- Mr.--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;George,&quot; I said, calmly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah, indeed?&quot; a trifle surprised, &quot;Mr. George! Well, it is something
+Bristowe gave me this morning to be administered to my father--without
+his knowledge, if possible--whenever he grows excited. I did not think
+that you had seen it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Nor had I. I had only inferred its presence. But having inferred
+rightly once, I was inclined to trust my inference farther. Moreover
+while he gave this explanation, his breath came and went so quickly
+that my former suspicions returned. I was ready for him when he said,
+&quot;Now I will trouble you, if you please, for those papers!&quot; and held
+out his hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot give them to you,&quot; I replied, point blank.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You cannot give them to me now?&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No. Moreover the packet is sealed. I do not see, on second thoughts,
+what harm I can do you--now that it is out of your father's hands--by
+keeping it until to-morrow, when I will return it to your brother,
+from whom it came.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He will not be in London,&quot; he answered doggedly. He stepped between
+me and the door with looks which I did not like. At the same time I
+felt that some allowance must be made for a man treated in this way.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am sorry,&quot; I said, &quot;but I cannot do what you ask. I will do this,
+however. If you think the delay of importance, and will give me your
+brother's address in Liverpool, I will undertake to post the letters
+to him at once.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He considered the offer, eyeing me the while with the same disfavor
+which he had exhibited in the drawing-room. At last he said slowly,
+&quot;If you will do that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will,&quot; I repeated. &quot;I will do it immediately.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gave me the direction--&quot;George Ritherdon, at the London and
+North-Western Hotel, Liverpool,&quot; and in return I gave him my own name
+and address. Then I parted from him, with a civil good-night on either
+side--and little liking I fancy--the clocks striking midnight, and the
+servants coming in as I passed out into the cool darkness of the
+square.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Late as it was, I went straight to my club, determined that as I had
+assumed the responsibility there should be no laches on my part. There
+I placed the packet, together with a short note explaining how it came
+into my possession, in an outer envelope, and dropped the whole duly
+directed and stamped into the nearest pillar box. I could not register
+it at that hour, and rather than wait until next morning, I omitted
+the precaution, merely requesting Mr. Ritherdon to acknowledge its
+receipt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, some days passed during which it may be imagined that I thought
+no little about my odd experience. It was the story of the Lady and
+the Tiger over again. I had the choice of two alternatives at least. I
+might either believe the young fellow's story, which certainly had the
+merit of explaining in a fairly probable manner an occurrence of so
+odd a character as not to lend itself freely to explanation. Or I
+might disbelieve his story, plausible in its very strangeness as it
+was, in favor of my own vague suspicions. Which was I to do?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Well, I set out by preferring the former alternative. This
+notwithstanding that I had to some extent committed myself against it
+by withholding the papers. But with each day that passed without
+bringing me an answer from Liverpool, I leaned more and more to the
+other side. I began to pin my faith to the tiger, adding each morning
+a point to the odds in the animal's favor. So it went on until ten
+days had passed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then a little out of curiosity, but more, I gravely declare, because I
+thought it the right thing to do, I resolved to seek out George
+Ritherdon. I had no difficulty in learning where he might be found. I
+turned up the firm of Ritherdon Brothers (George and Gerald),
+cotton-spinners and India merchants, in the first directory I
+consulted. And about noon the next day I called at their place of
+business, and sent in my card to the senior partner. I waited five
+minutes--curiously scanned by the porter, who no doubt saw a likeness
+between me and his employer--and then I was admitted to the latter's
+room.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was a tall man with a fair beard, not one whit like Gerald, and yet
+tolerably good-looking; if I say more I shall seem to be describing
+myself. I fancied him to be balder about the temples, however, and
+grayer and more careworn than the man I am in the habit of seeing in
+my shaving-glass. His eyes, too, had a hard look, and he seemed in
+ill-health. All these things I took in later. At the time I only
+noticed his clothes. &quot;So the old gentleman is dead,&quot; I thought, &quot;and
+the young one's tale is true after all!&quot; George Ritherdon was in deep
+mourning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wrote to you,&quot; I began, taking the seat to which he pointed, &quot;about
+a fortnight ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He looked at my card, which he held in his hand. &quot;I think not,&quot; he
+said slowly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I repeated. &quot;You were then at the London and North-Western
+Hotel, at Liverpool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was stepping to his writing-table, but he stopped abruptly. &quot;I was
+in Liverpool,&quot; he answered in a different tone, &quot;but I was not at
+that hotel. You are thinking of my brother, are you not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I said, &quot;it was your brother who told me you were there.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps you had better explain what was the subject of your letter,&quot;
+he suggested, speaking in the weary tone of one returning to a painful
+matter. &quot;I have been through a great trouble lately, and this may well
+have been overlooked.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I said I would, and as briefly as possible I told the main facts of my
+strange visit in Fitzhardinge Square. He was much moved, walking up
+and down the room as he listened, and giving vent to exclamations from
+time to time, until I came to the arrangement I had finally made with
+his brother. Then he raised his hand as one might do in pain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Enough!&quot; he said abruptly. &quot;Barnes told me a rambling tale of some
+stranger. I understand it all now.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So do I, I think!&quot; I replied dryly. &quot;Your brother went to Liverpool,
+and received the papers in your name?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He murmured what I took for &quot;Yes.&quot; But he did not utter a single word
+of acknowledgement to me, or of reprobation of his brother's deceit. I
+thought some such word should have been spoken; and I let my feelings
+carry me away. &quot;Let me tell you,&quot; I said warmly, &quot;that your brother is
+a--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush!&quot; he said, holding up his hand again. &quot;He is dead.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Dead!&quot; I repeated, shocked and amazed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Have you not read of it in the papers? It is in all the papers,&quot; he
+said wearily. &quot;He committed suicide--God forgive me for it!--at
+Liverpool, at the hotel you have mentioned, and the day after you saw
+him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so it was. He had committed some serious forgery--he had always
+been wild, though his father, slow to see it, had only lately closed
+his purse to him--and the forged signatures had come into his
+brother's power. He had cheated his brother before. There had long
+been bad blood between them, the one being as cold, business-like, and
+masterful as the other was idle and jealous.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told him,&quot; the elder said to me, shading his eyes with his hand,
+&quot;that I should let him be prosecuted--that I would not protect or
+shelter him. The threat nearly drove him mad; and while it was hanging
+over him, I wrote to disclose the matter to Sir Charles. Gerald
+thought his last chance lay in recovering this letter unread. The
+proofs against him destroyed, he might laugh at me. His first attempts
+failed; and then he planned with Barnes's cognizance to get possession
+of the packet by drugging my father's whiskey. Barnes's courage
+deserted him; he called you in, and--and you know the rest.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But,&quot; I said softly, &quot;your brother did get the letter--at Liverpool.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">George Ritherdon groaned. &quot;Yes,&quot; he said, &quot;he did. But the proofs were
+not enclosed. After writing the outside letter I changed my mind, and
+withheld them, explaining my reasons within. He found his plot laid in
+vain; and it was under the shock of this disappointment--the packet
+lay before him re-sealed and directed to me--that he--that he did it.
+Poor Gerald!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Poor Gerald!&quot; I said. What else remained to be said?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It may be a survival of superstition, yet when I dine in Baker Street
+now, I take some care to go home by any other route than that through
+Fitzhardinge Square.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">The Invisible Portraits.</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a
+shoe-lace, having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a
+corner house in St. James's Square, when a man passing behind me
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well!&quot; said he, aloud, after a short pause during which I wondered--I
+could not see him--what he was doing, &quot;the meanness of these rich folk
+is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be
+ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as
+they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the
+house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many
+windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was
+shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too--a little
+red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. &quot;It is just possible,&quot; I suggested,
+&quot;that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ugh! What has that to do with it?&quot; my new friend answered
+contemptuously. &quot;He ought to think of the public.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And your hat?&quot; I asked with winning politeness. &quot;It strikes me, an
+unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cannot afford it!&quot; he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Cannot afford it? But, my good man, you ought to think of the
+public.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!&quot; was his
+kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was about to go mine, and was first falling back to gain a better
+view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the
+presence of a listener, a thin, gray-haired man, who, hidden by a
+pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were
+engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the
+crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our
+eyes met he spoke.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so,&quot; he observed
+with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, &quot;and we are very
+much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid he was,&quot; I answered; &quot;and a fool too.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he
+was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now might I
+ask,&quot; he continued, &quot;if you are an American, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I am not,&quot; I answered; &quot;but I have spent some time in the
+States.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I could have fancied that he sighed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought--but never mind, sir,&quot; he began. &quot;I was wrong. It is
+curious how very much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak.
+Now, I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was inclined to humor the old fellow's mood.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I like a good picture, I admit,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then perhaps you would not be offended if I asked you to step inside
+and look at one or two,&quot; he suggested timidly. &quot;I would not take a
+liberty, sir, but there are some Van Dycks and a Rubens in the
+dining-room that cost a mint of money in their day, I have heard; and
+there is no one else in the house but my wife and myself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was a strange invitation, strangely brought about. But I saw no
+reason for myself why I should not accept it, and I followed him into
+the hall. It was spacious, but sparely furnished. The matted floor had
+a cold look, and so had the gaunt stand which seemed to be a fixture,
+and boasted but one umbrella, one sunshade, and one dog-whip. As I
+passed a half-open door I caught a glimpse of a small room prettily
+furnished, with dainty prints and water-colors on the walls. But these
+were of a common order. A dozen replicas of each and all might be seen
+in a walk through Bond Street. Even this oasis of taste and comfort
+told the same story as had the bare hall and dreary exterior, and laid
+as it were a finger on one's heart. I trod softly as I followed my
+guide along the strip of matting towards the rear of the house.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He opened a door at the inner end of the hall, and led me into a large
+and lofty room, built out from the back, as a state dining-room or
+ball-room. At present it rather resembled the latter, for it was
+without furniture. &quot;Now,&quot; said the old man, turning and respectfully
+touching my sleeve to gain my attention, &quot;now you will not consider
+your labor lost in coming to see that, sir. It is a portrait of the
+second Lord Wetherby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and is judged to be one
+of the finest specimens of his style in existence.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I was lost in astonishment; amazed, almost appalled. My companion
+stood by my side, his face wearing a placid smile of satisfaction, his
+hand pointing slightly upwards to the blank wall before us. The blank
+wall! Of any picture, there or elsewhere in the room, there was no
+sign. I turned to him and then from him, and I felt very sick at
+heart. The poor old fellow was--must be--mad. I gazed blankly at the
+blank wall. &quot;By Van Dyck?&quot; I repeated mechanically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, sir, by Van Dyck?&quot; he replied, in the most matter-of-fact
+tone imaginable. &quot;So, too, is this one;&quot; he moved as he spoke a few
+feet to his left. &quot;The second peer's first wife in the costume of a
+lady-in-waiting. This portrait and the last are in as good a state of
+preservation as on the day they were painted.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Oh, certainly mad! And yet so graphic was his manner, so crisp and
+realistic were his words, that I rubbed my eyes; and looked and looked
+again, and almost fancied that Lord Walter and Anne, his wife, grew
+into shape before me on the wall. Almost, but not quite; and it was
+with a heart full of wondering pity that I accompanied the old man, in
+whose manner there was no trace of wildness or excitement, round the
+walls; visiting in turn the Cuyp which my lord bought in Holland, the
+Rubens, the four Lawrences, and the Philips--a very Barmecide feast of
+art. I could not doubt that the old man saw the pictures. But I saw
+only bare walls.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now I think you have seen them, family portraits and all,&quot; he
+concluded, as we came to the doorway again; stating the fact, which
+was no fact, with complacent pride. &quot;They are fine pictures, sir.
+They, at least, are left, although the house is not what it was.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very fine pictures,&quot; I remarked. I was minded to learn if he were
+sane on other points. &quot;Lord Wetherby,&quot; I said, &quot;I should suppose that
+he is not in London?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not know sir, one way or the other,&quot; the servant answered with a
+new air of reserve. &quot;This is not his lordship's house. Mrs. Wigram, my
+late lord's daughter-in-law, lives here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But this is the Wetherbys' town house,&quot; I persisted. I knew so much.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was my late lord's house. At his son's marriage it was settled
+upon Mrs. Wigram, and little enough besides, God knows!&quot; he exclaimed
+querulously. &quot;It was Mr. Alfred's wish that some land should be
+settled upon his wife, but there was none out of the entail, and my
+lord, who did not like the match, though he lived to be fond enough of
+the mistress afterwards, said, 'Settle the house in town!' in a bitter
+kind of joke like. So the house was settled, and five hundred pounds a
+year. Mr. Alfred died abroad, as you may know, sir, and my lord was
+not long in following him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was closing the shutters of one window after another as he spoke.
+The room had sunk into deep gloom. I could imagine now that the
+pictures were really where he fancied them. &quot;And Lord Wetherby, the
+late peer,&quot; I asked, after a pause, &quot;did he leave his daughter-in-law
+nothing?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;My lord died suddenly, leaving no will,&quot; he replied sadly. &quot;That
+is how it all is. And the present peer, who was only a second
+cousin--well, I say nothing about him.&quot; A reticence which was well
+calculated to consign his lordship to the lowest deep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He did not help?&quot; I asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Devil a bit, begging your pardon, sir. But there! it is not my place
+to talk of these things. I doubt I have wearied you with talk about
+the family. It is not my way,&quot; he added, as if wondering at himself,
+&quot;only something in what you said seemed to touch a chord like.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By this time we were outside the room, standing at the inner end of
+the hall, while he fumbled with the lock of the door. Short passages
+ending in swing doors ran out right and left from this point, and
+through one of these a tidy, middle-aged woman wearing an apron
+suddenly emerged. At sight of me she looked greatly astonished. &quot;I
+have been showing the gentleman the pictures,&quot; said my guide, who was
+still occupied with the door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A quick flash of pain altered and hardened the woman's face. &quot;I have
+been very much interested, madam,&quot; I said softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Her gaze left me to dwell upon the old man with infinite affection.
+&quot;John had no right to bring you in, sir,&quot; she said primly. &quot;I have
+never known him do such a thing before, and--Lord a mercy! there is
+the mistress's knock. Go, John, and let her in; and this gentleman,&quot;
+with an inquisitive look at me, &quot;will not mind stepping a bit aside,
+while her ladyship goes upstairs.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Certainly not,&quot; I answered. I hastened to draw back into one of the
+side passages, into the darkest corner of it, and there stood leaning
+against the cool panels, my hat in my hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the short pause which ensued before John opened the door she
+whispered to me, &quot;You have not told him, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;About the pictures?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, sir. He is blind, you see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Blind?&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, sir, this year and more; and when the pictures were taken
+away--by the present earl--that he had known all his life, and been so
+proud to show to people just the same as if they had been his own,
+why, it seemed a shame to tell him. I have never had the heart to do
+it, and he thinks they are there to this day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Blind! I had never thought of that; and while I was grasping the idea
+now, and fitting it to the facts, a light footstep sounded in the
+hall, and a woman's voice on the stairs; such a voice and such a
+footstep that, as it seemed to me, a man, if nothing else were left to
+him, might find home in them alone. &quot;Your mistress,&quot; I said presently,
+when the sounds had died away upon the floor above, &quot;has a sweet
+voice; but has not something annoyed her?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I never should have thought that you would have noticed that!&quot;
+exclaimed the housekeeper, who was, I dare say, many other things
+besides housekeeper. &quot;You have a sharp ear, sir; that I will say. Yes,
+there is a something has gone wrong; but to think that an American
+gentleman should have noticed it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am not an American,&quot; I said, perhaps testily.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, indeed, sir! I beg your pardon, I am sure. It was just your way
+of speaking made me think it,&quot; she replied; and then there came a
+second louder rap at the door as John, who had gone upstairs with his
+mistress, came down in a leisurely fashion.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That is Lord Wetherby, drat him!&quot; he said, on his wife calling to him
+in a low voice. He was ignorant, I think, of my presence. &quot;He is to be
+shown into the library, and the mistress will see him there in five
+minutes; and you are to go to her room. Oh, rap away!&quot; he added,
+turning towards the door, and shaking his fist at it. &quot;There is many a
+better man than you has waited longer at that door.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Hush, John. Do you not see the gentleman?&quot; interposed his wife, with
+the simplicity of habit. &quot;He will show you out,&quot; she added rapidly to
+me, &quot;as soon as his lordship has gone in, if you do not mind waiting
+another minute.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not at all,&quot; I said, drawing back into the corner as they went on
+their errands; but though I said, &quot;Not at all,&quot; mine was an odd
+position. The way in which I had come into the house, and my present
+situation in a kind of hiding, would have made most men only anxious
+to extricate themselves. But I, while listening to John parleying with
+some one at the door, conceived a strange desire, or a desire which
+would have been strange in any other man, to see this thing to the
+end--conceived it and acted upon it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The library? That was the room on the right of the hall, opposite to
+Mrs. Wigram's sitting-room. Probably, nay I was certain, it had
+another door opening on the passage in which I stood. It would cost me
+but a step or two to confirm my opinion. When John ushered in the
+visitor by one door I had already, by way of the other, ensconced
+myself behind a screen, that I seemed to know would face it. I was
+going to listen. Perhaps I had my reasons. Perhaps--but there, what
+matter? I, as a fact, listened.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The room was spacious, but sombre, wainscoted and vaulted with oak.
+Its only visible occupant was a thin, dark man of middle size, with a
+narrow face, and a stubborn feather of black hair rising above his
+forehead; a man of Welsh type. He was standing with his back to the
+light, a roll of papers in one hand. The fingers of the other,
+drumming upon the table, betrayed that he was both out of temper and
+ill at ease. While I was still scanning him stealthily--I had never
+seen him before--the door was opened, and Mrs. Wigram came in. I sank
+back behind the screen. I think some words passed, some greeting of
+the most formal, but though the room was still, I failed to hear it,
+and when I recovered myself he was speaking.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am here at your wish, Mrs. Wigram, and your service, too,&quot; he was
+saying, with an effort at gallantry which sat very ill upon him,
+&quot;although I think it would have been better if we had left the matter
+to our solicitors.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes. I fancied you were aware of my opinion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was; and I perfectly understand, Lord Wetherby, your preference for
+that course,&quot; she replied, with sarcastic coldness, which did not hide
+her dislike for him. &quot;You naturally shrink from telling me your terms
+face to face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, Mrs. Wigram! Now, Mrs. Wigram! Is not this a tone to be
+deprecated?&quot; he answered, lifting his hands. &quot;I come to you as a man
+of business upon business.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Business! Does that mean wringing advantage from my weakness?&quot; she
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He shrugged his shoulders. &quot;I do deprecate this tone,&quot; he repeated. &quot;I
+come in plain English to make you an offer; one which you can accept
+or refuse as you please. I offer you five hundred a year for this
+house. It is immensely too large for your needs, and too expensive for
+your income, and yet you have in strictness no power to let it. Very
+well, I, who can release you from that restriction, offer you five
+hundred a year for the house. What can be more fair?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Fair? In plain English, Lord Wetherby, you are the only possible
+purchaser, and you fix the price. Is that fair? The house would let
+easily for twelve hundred.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Possibly,&quot; he retorted, &quot;if it were in the open market. But it is
+not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; she answered rapidly. &quot;And you, having the forty thousand a year
+which, had my husband lived, would have been his and mine; you who, a
+poor man, have stepped into this inheritance--you offer me five
+hundred for the family house! For shame, my lord! for shame!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We are not acting a play,&quot; he said doggedly, showing that her words
+had stung him in some degree. &quot;The law is the law. I ask for nothing
+but my rights, and one of those I am willing to waive in your favor.
+You have my offer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And if I refuse it? If I let the house? You will not dare to enforce
+the restriction.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Try me,&quot; he rejoined, again drumming with his fingers upon the table.
+&quot;Try me, and you will see.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;If my husband had lived----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But he did not live,&quot; he broke in, losing patience, &quot;and that makes
+all the difference. Now, for Heaven's sake, Mrs. Wigram, do not make a
+scene! Do you accept my offer?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a moment she had seemed about to break down, but her pride coming
+to the rescue, she recovered herself with wonderful quickness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have no choice,&quot; she said with dignity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am glad you accept,&quot; he answered, so much relieved that he gave way
+to an absurd burst of generosity. &quot;Come!&quot; he cried, &quot;we will say
+guineas instead of pounds, and have done with it!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him in wonder. &quot;No, Lord Wetherby,&quot; she said, &quot;I
+accepted your terms. I prefer to keep to them. You said that you would
+bring the necessary papers with you. If you have done so I will sign
+them now, and my servants can witness them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have the draft and the lawyer's clerk is no doubt in the house,&quot; he
+answered. &quot;I left directions for him to be here at eleven.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not think he is in the house,&quot; the lady answered. &quot;I should know
+if he were here.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not here!&quot; he cried angrily. &quot;Why not, I wonder! But I have the
+skeleton lease; it is very short, and to save delay I will fill in the
+particulars, names, and so forth myself, if you will permit me to do
+so. It will not take me twenty minutes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you please. You will find a pen and ink on the table. If you will
+kindly ring the bell when you are ready, I will come and bring the
+servants.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Thank you. You are very good,&quot; he said smoothly; adding, when she had
+left the room, &quot;and the devil take your impudence, madam! As for your
+cursed pride--well, it has saved me twenty-five pounds a year, and so
+you are welcome to it. I was a fool to make the offer.&quot; And with that,
+now grumbling at the absence of the lawyer's clerk, and now
+congratulating himself on the saving of a lawyer's fee, my lord sat
+down to his task.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A hansom cab on its way to the East India Club rattled through the
+square, and under cover of the noise I stole out from behind the
+screen, and stood in the middle of the room looking down at the
+unconscious worker. If for a minute I felt strongly the desire to
+raise my hand and give my lordship such a surprise as he had never in
+his life experienced, any other man might have felt the same; and as
+it was I put it away and only looked quietly about me. Some rays of
+sunshine piercing the corner pane of a dulled window fell on and
+glorified the Wetherby coat-of-arms blazoned over the wide fireplace,
+and so created the one bright spot in the bare, dismantled room, which
+had once, unless the tiers of empty shelves and the yet lingering odor
+of Russia lied, been lined from floor to ceiling with books. My lord
+had taken the furniture; my lord had taken the books; my lord had
+taken--nothing but his rights.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Retreating softly to the door by which I had entered, and rattling the
+handle, I advanced afresh into the room. &quot;Will your lordship allow
+me?&quot; I said, after I had in vain coughed twice to gain his attention.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned hastily and looked at me with a face full of suspicion. Some
+surprise on finding another person in the room and close to him was
+natural; but possibly also there was something in the atmosphere of
+that house which threw his nerves off their balance. &quot;Who are you?&quot; he
+cried in a tone which matched his face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You left orders, my lord,&quot; I explained, &quot;with Messrs. Duggan and
+Poole that a clerk should attend here at eleven. I very much regret
+that some delay has unavoidably been caused.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, you are the clerk!&quot; he replied ungraciously. &quot;You do not look
+much like a lawyer's clerk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Involuntarily I glanced aside, and saw in a mirror the reflection of a
+tall man with a thick beard and moustaches, gray eyes, and an ugly
+scar seaming the face from nose to ear. &quot;Yet I hope to give you full
+satisfaction, my lord,&quot; I murmured, dropping my eyes. &quot;It was
+understood that you needed a confidential clerk.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, well, sir, to your work!&quot; he replied irritably. &quot;Better late
+than never; and after all it may be preferable for you to be here and
+see it duly executed. Only you will not forget,&quot; he continued hastily,
+with a glance at the papers, &quot;that I have myself copied four-well,
+three--three full folios, sir, for which an allowance must be made.
+But there! Get on with your work. The handwriting will speak for
+itself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I obeyed, and wrote on steadily, while the earl walked up and down the
+room, or stood at a window. Upstairs sat Mrs. Wigram, schooling
+herself, I dare swear, to take this one favor that was no favor from
+the man who had dealt out to her such hard measure. Outside a casual
+passer through the square glanced up at the great house, and seeing
+the bent head of the secretary and the figure of his companion moving
+to and fro, saw, as he thought, nothing unusual; nor had any
+presentiment--how should he?--of the strange scene which the room with
+the dingy windows was about to witness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I had been writing for perhaps five minutes when Lord Wetherby stopped
+in his passage behind me and looked over my shoulder. With a jerk his
+eye-glasses fell, touching my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Bless my soul!&quot; he exclaimed, &quot;I have seen your handwriting
+somewhere; and lately too. Where could it have been?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Probably among the family papers, my lord,&quot; I answered. &quot;I have
+several times been engaged in the family business in the time of the
+late Lord Wetherby.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed.&quot; There was both curiosity and suspicion in his utterance of
+the word. &quot;You knew him?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, my lord. I have written for him in this very room, and he has
+walked up and down, and dictated to me, as you might be doing now,&quot; I
+explained.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His lordship stopped his pacing to and fro, and retreated to the
+window on the instant. But I could see that he was interested, and I
+was not surprised when he continued with transparent carelessness. &quot;A
+strange coincidence. And may I ask what it was upon which you were
+engaged?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At that time?&quot; I answered, looking him full in the face. &quot;It was a
+will, my lord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He started and frowned, and abruptly resumed his walk up and down. But
+I saw that he had a better conscience than I had given him the credit
+of possessing. My shot had not struck fairly where I had looked to
+place it; and finding this was so, I turned the thing over afresh,
+while I pursued my copying. When I had finished, I asked him--I think
+he was busy at the time cursing the absence of tact in the lower
+orders--if he would go through the instrument; and he took my seat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Where I stood behind him, I was not far from the fireplace. While he
+muttered to himself the legal jargon in which he was as well versed as
+a lawyer bred in an office, I moved to it; and, neither missed nor
+suspected, stood looking from his bent figure to the blazoned shield,
+which formed part of the mantelpiece. If I wavered, my hesitation
+lasted but a few seconds. Then, raising my voice, I called sharply,
+&quot;My lord, there used to be here--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He turned swiftly, and saw where I was. &quot;What the deuce are you doing
+there, sir?&quot; he cried in boundless astonishment, rising to his feet
+and coming towards me, the pen in his hand and his face aflame with
+anger. &quot;You forget--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A safe--a concealed safe for papers,&quot; I continued, cutting him short
+in my turn. &quot;I have seen the late Lord Wetherby place papers in it
+more than once. The spring worked from here. You touch this knob.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Leave it alone, sir!&quot; cried the peer furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke too late. The shield had swung gently outwards on a hinge,
+door-fashion, and where it had been, gaped a small open safe lined
+with cement. The rays of sunshine, that a few minutes before had
+picked out so brightly the gaudy quarterings, now fell on a large
+envelope which lay apart on a shelf. It was as clean as if it had been
+put there that morning. No doubt the safe was air-tight. I laid my
+hand upon it. &quot;My lord!&quot; I cried, turning to look at him with
+ill-concealed exultation, &quot;here is a paper--I think, a will!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">A moment before the veins of his forehead had been swollen, his face
+dark with the rush of blood. His anger died down, at sight of the
+packet, with strange abruptness. He regained his self-control, and a
+moment saw him pale and calm, all show of resentment confined to a
+wicked gleam in his eye. &quot;A will!&quot; he repeated, with a certain kind of
+dignity, though the hand he stretched out to take the envelope shook.
+&quot;Indeed, then it is my place to examine it. I am the heir-at-law, and
+I am within my rights, sir.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I feared that he was going to put the parcel into his pocket and
+dismiss me, and I was considering what course I should take in that
+event, when instead he carried the envelope to the table by the window
+and tore off the cover without ceremony. &quot;It is not in your
+handwriting?&quot; were his first words; and he looked at me with a
+distrust that was almost superstitious. No doubt my sudden entrance,
+my ominous talk, and my discovery seemed to him to savor of the devil.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I replied unmoved. &quot;I told your lordship that I had written a
+will at the late Lord Wetherby's dictation. I did not say--for how
+could I know?--that it was this one.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Ah!&quot; He hastily smoothed the sheets, and ran his eyes over their
+contents. When he reached the last page there was a dark scowl on his
+face, and he stood a while staring at the signatures; not now reading,
+I think, but collecting his thoughts. &quot;You know the provisions of
+this?&quot; he presently burst forth with violence, dashing the back of his
+hand against the paper. &quot;I say, sir, you know the provisions of this?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I do not, my lord,&quot; I answered. Nor did I.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The unjust provisions of this will,&quot; he repeated, passing over my
+negative as if it had not been uttered. &quot;Fifty thousand pounds to a
+woman who had not a penny when she married his son! Aye, and the
+interest on another hundred thousand for her life! Why, it is a
+prodigious income, an abnormal income--for a woman! And out of whose
+pocket is it to come? Out of mine, every stiver of it! It is
+monstrous! I say it is! How am I to keep up the title on the income
+left to me, I should like to know?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I marvelled. I remembered how rich he was. I could not refrain from
+suggesting that he had still remaining all the real property. &quot;And,&quot; I
+added, &quot;I understood, my lord, that the testator's personalty was
+sworn under four hundred thousand pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You talk nonsense!&quot; he snarled. &quot;Look at the legacies! Five thousand
+here, and a thousand there, and hundreds like berries on a bush! It is
+a fortune, a decent fortune, clean frittered away! A barren title is
+all that will be left to me!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">What was he going to do? His face was gloomy, his hands were
+twitching. &quot;Who are the witnesses, my lord?&quot; I asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So low--for under certain conditions a tone conveys much, very
+much--that he shot a stealthy glance towards the door before he
+answered, &quot;John Williams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Blind,&quot; I replied in the same low tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;William Williams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He is dead. He was Mr. Alfred's valet. I remember reading in the
+newspaper that he was with his master, and was killed by the Indians
+at the same time.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;True. I remember that that was the case,&quot; he answered huskily. &quot;And
+the handwriting is Lord Wetherby's.&quot; I assented. Then for fully a
+minute we were silent, while he bent over the will, and I stood behind
+him looking down at him with thoughts in my mind which he could as
+little fathom as could the senseless wood upon which I leaned. Yet I
+too mistook him. I thought him, to be plain, a scoundrel; and--well,
+so he was--but a mean one. &quot;What is to be done?&quot; he muttered at
+length, speaking rather to himself than to me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I answered softly, &quot;I am a poor man, my lord,&quot; while inwardly I was
+quoting &quot;<i>quem Deus vult perdere</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">My words startled him. He answered hurriedly, &quot;Just so! just so! So
+shall I be when this cursed paper takes effect. A very poor man! A
+hundred and fifty thousand gone at a blow! But there, she shall have
+it! She shall have every penny of it; only,&quot; he concluded slowly, &quot;I
+do not see what difference one more day will make.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I followed his downcast eyes, which moved from the will before him to
+the agreement for the lease of the house; and I did see what
+difference a day would make. I saw and understood and wondered. He had
+not the courage to suppress the will; but if he could gain a slight
+advantage by withholding it for a few hours, he had the mind to do
+that. Mrs. Wigram, a rich woman, would no longer let the house; she
+would be under no compulsion to do so; and my lord would lose a cheap
+residence as well as his hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To the
+latter loss he could resign himself with a sigh; but he could not bear
+to forego the petty gain for which he had schemed. &quot;I think I
+understand, my lord,&quot; I replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course,&quot; he resumed nervously, &quot;you must be rewarded for making
+this discovery. I will see that it is so. You may depend upon me. I
+will mention the case to Mrs. Wigram, and--and, in fact, my friend,
+you may depend upon me.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;That will not do,&quot; I said firmly. &quot;If that be all, I had better go to
+Mrs. Wigram at once, and claim my reward a day earlier.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He grew very red in the face at receiving this check. &quot;You will not in
+that event get my good word,&quot; he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Which has no weight with the lady,&quot; I answered politely but plainly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How dare you speak so to me?&quot; his lordship cried. &quot;You are an
+impertinent fellow! But there! How much do you want?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A hundred pounds.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A hundred pounds for a mere day's delay, which will do no one any
+harm!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Except Mrs. Wigram,&quot; I retorted dryly. &quot;Come, Lord Wetherby, this
+lease is worth a thousand a year to you. Mrs. Wigram, as you well
+know, will not voluntarily let the house to you. If you would have
+Wetherby House you must pay me. That is the long and the short of it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are an impertinent fellow!&quot; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So you have said before, my lord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I expected him to burst into a furious passion, but I suppose there
+was a something of power in my tone, beyond the mere defiance which
+the words expressed; for, instead of doing so, he eyed me with a
+thoughtful, malevolent gaze, and paused to consider. &quot;You are at Poole
+and Duggan's,&quot; he said slowly. &quot;How was it that they did not search
+this cupboard, with which you were acquainted?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I shrugged my shoulders. &quot;I have not been in the house since Lord
+Wetherby died,&quot; I said. &quot;My employers did not consult me when the
+papers he left were examined.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are not a member of the firm?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, I am not,&quot; I answered. I was thinking that, so far as I knew
+those respectable gentlemen, no one of them would have helped my lord
+in this for ten times a hundred pounds. My lord! Faugh!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He seemed satisfied, and taking out a note-case laid on the table a
+little pile of notes. &quot;There is your money,&quot; he said, counting them
+over with reluctant fingers. &quot;Be good enough to put the will and
+envelope back into the cupboard. Tomorrow you will oblige me by
+rediscovering it--you can manage that, no doubt--and giving
+information at once to Messrs. Duggan and Poole, or Mrs. Wigram, as
+you please. Now,&quot; he continued, when I had obeyed him, &quot;will you be
+good enough to ask the servants to tell Mrs. Wigram that I am
+waiting?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There was a slight noise behind us. &quot;I am here,&quot; said some one. I am
+sure that we both jumped at the sound, for though I did not look that
+way, I knew that the voice was Mrs. Wigram's, and that she was in the
+room. &quot;I have come to tell you, Lord Wetherby,&quot; she went on, &quot;that I
+have an engagement from home at twelve. Do I understand, however, that
+you are ready? If so, I will call in Mrs. Williams.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The papers are ready for signature,&quot; the peer answered, betraying
+some confusion, &quot;and I am ready to sign. I shall be glad to have the
+matter settled as agreed.&quot; Then he turned to me, where I had fallen
+back, as seemed becoming, to the end of the room, and said, &quot;Be good
+enough to ring the bell if Mrs. Wigram permit it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As I moved to the fireplace to do so, I was conscious that the lady
+was regarding me with some faint surprise. But when I had regained my
+position and looked towards her, she was standing near the window
+gazing steadily out into the square, an expression of disdain rendered
+by face and figure. Shall I confess that it was a joy to me to see her
+fair head so high, and to read even in the outline of her girlish form
+a contempt which I, and I only, knew to be so justly based? For
+myself, I leant against the edge of the screen by the door, and
+perhaps my hundred pounds lay heavily on my heart. As for him, he
+fidgeted with his papers, although they were all in order, and was
+visibly impatient to get his bit of knavery accomplished. Oh! he was a
+worthy man! And Welshman!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps,&quot; he presently suggested, for the sake of saying something,
+&quot;while your servant is coming, you will read the agreement, Mrs.
+Wigram. It is very short, and, as you know, your solicitors have
+already seen it in the draft.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She bowed, and took the paper negligently. She read some way down
+the first sheet with a smile, half careless, half contemptuous. Then I
+saw her stop--she had turned her back to the window to obtain more
+light--and dwell on a particular sentence. I saw--God! I had forgotten
+the handwriting!--I saw her gray eyes grow large and fear leap into
+them as she grasped the paper with her other hand, and stepped nearer
+to the peer's side. &quot;Who,&quot; she cried, &quot;who wrote this? Tell me! Do you
+hear? Tell me quickly!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was nervous on his own account, wrapt in his own piece of scheming,
+and obtuse.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I wrote it,&quot; he said, with maddening complacency. He put up his
+glasses and glanced at the top of the page she held out to him. &quot;I
+wrote it myself, and I can assure you that it is quite right, and a
+faithful copy. You do not think--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Think! Think! no, no! This, I mean! Who wrote this?&quot; she cried, awe
+in her face, and a suppliant tone,--strange as addressed to that
+man,--in her voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was confounded by her vehemence, as well as hampered by his own
+evil conscience.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The clerk, Mrs. Wigram, the clerk,&quot; he said petulantly, still in his
+fog of selfishness. &quot;The clerk from Messrs. Duggan and Poole's.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is he?&quot; she cried out breathlessly. I think she did not believe
+him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Where is he?&quot; he repeated in querulous surprise. &quot;Why here, of
+course. Where should he be, madam? He will witness my signature.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Would he? Signatures! It was little of signatures I recked at that
+moment. I was praying to Heaven that my folly might be forgiven me,
+and that my lightly planned vengeance might not fall on my own head.
+&quot;Joy does not kill,&quot; I was saying to myself, repeating it over and
+over again, and clinging to it desperately. &quot;Joy does not kill!&quot; But
+oh! was it true in the face of that white-lipped woman?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here!&quot; She did not say more, but gazing at me with great dazed eyes,
+she raised her hand, and beckoned to me. And I had no choice but to
+obey--to go nearer to her, out into the light.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mrs. Wigram,&quot; I said hoarsely, my voice sounding to me only as a
+whisper, &quot;I have news of your late--of your husband. It is good news.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good news?&quot; Did she faintly echo my words? or, as her face from which
+all color had passed peered into mine, and searched it in infinite
+hope and infinite fear, did our two minds speak without need of
+physical lips? &quot;Good news?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I whispered, &quot;he is alive. The Indians did not--&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Alfred!&quot; Her cry rang through the room, and with it I caught her in
+my arms as she fell. Beard and long hair, and scar and sunburn, and
+strange dress--these which had deceived others--were no disguise to
+her--my wife. I bore her gently to the couch, and hung over her in a
+new paroxysm of fear. &quot;A doctor! Quick! A doctor!&quot; I cried to Mrs.
+Williams, who was already kneeling beside her. &quot;Do not tell me,&quot; I
+added piteously, &quot;that I have killed her.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No! no! no!&quot; the good woman answered, the tears running down her
+face. &quot;Joy does not kill!&quot;</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">An hour later this fear had been lifted from me, and I was walking up
+and down the library alone with my thankfulness; glad to be alone, yet
+more glad, more thankful still, when John came in with a beaming face.
+&quot;You have come to tell me--&quot; I cried eagerly, pleased that the tidings
+had come by his lips--&quot;to go to her? That she will see me?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Her ladyship is sitting up,&quot; he replied.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And Lord Wetherby?&quot; I asked, pausing at the door to put the question.
+&quot;He left the house at once?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, my lord, Mr. Wigram has been gone some time.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_04" href="#div1Ref_04">Along the Garonne.</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">We ascend the valley of the Garonne on our way to Pau, which
+we
+intended to use as a base of operations against the Pyrenees. Our
+route, as originally mapped out, lay by sea to Bordeaux, which is
+three days from Liverpool; and thence by rail to our destination, a
+journey merely of hours. But at the last moment we determined to
+postpone our stay at Pau, and instead to wander along the banks of the
+Garonne for a time, familiarizing ourselves with the ways of the
+country. Then, when we had rubbed off our insular corners against the
+Great French Politeness, and perfected our grasp of the language in
+talk with the Agenois villagers, we proposed to drop gently into Pau,
+armed at all points, and scarcely distinguishable from Frenchmen.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So we planned: and so it came about that we were free to enjoy
+ourselves and look about us critically, as the smoky little tender
+bore us up the wide channel of the Gironde from Pauillac, where our
+ship bound for South America had contemptuously dropped us, to
+Bordeaux itself. A little below the city, the Gironde, which is really
+the estuary of the Garonne and Dordogne, shrinks to the Garonne pure
+and simple, but under either name it seems equally a waste of turbid
+clay-laden waters. On our left hand a bright sun--the month was
+November--shone warmly on a line of low hills, formed of reddish
+earth, and broken by great marl quarries. Woods climbed about these,
+and here and there a village or a little town nestled under them. On
+our right the bank lay low, and was fringed with willows, the country
+behind it being flattish, planted as it seemed to us with dead
+thorn-bushes, and dotted sparely with modern castellated houses.
+Nevertheless it was towards this modest, almost dreary landscape
+that we gazed; it was of it we all spoke, and to it referred, as we
+named names famous as Austerlitz or Waterloo, names familiar in our
+mouths--and our butlers'--as household words. For are not more people
+versed in claret than in history? And this commonplace landscape, this
+western bank of the Gironde, a mere peninsula lying between the river
+and the low Atlantic coast, is called Medoc, and embraces all the
+best known Bordeaux vineyards in the world. It seems as if a single
+parish--say St. George's, Hanover Square, for that is a big one--might
+hold them all. There, see, is Château Lafitte. The vineyards of St.
+Estéphe and St. Julien we have just passed. Léoville and Latour are
+not far off. And now we are passing the Château of Margaux itself, and
+gaining experience, are beginning to learn that all those little
+thorn-bushes stuck about the fallows, as though to protect the
+ground-game from poachers' nets, are vines--vines of the <i>premier
+crû!</i> The vintage is over. The grapes, black, sour things, about the
+size of currants, have all been picked. Where we had looked to see the
+endless interlacings of greenery, and swelling clusters dropping
+fatness on a carpet of turf, we find only reddish fallows, and rows of
+dead gooseberry bushes.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But never mind, even though this be but the first of many
+disillusions, and though the &quot;sunny south&quot; become hourly a more
+humorous catchword. To-day the sun <i>is</i> warm, the breeze is soft, the
+custom-house officers are civil. We air--but with the caution due to
+convalescents, or those of tender years--our shaky, tottering French,
+and get English answers. So we stride across the broad quays of
+Bordeaux, our hearts before us, our luggage behind, and ourselves in
+the best of spirits and tempers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Bordeaux, as we saw it, was a cheerful, busy city, full of wide
+streets and open spaces and handsome buildings; a bright clean, airy,
+city with little smoke, an immense water frontage, and one very fine
+bridge: a pleasant etherealized Liverpool, in fact. The white blouses
+and blue trousers of the workmen, the soldiers' uniforms, the bare
+heads of some women and the gay 'kerchiefs, worn chignon-wise, of
+others, gave picturesqueness to the crowds circling about the
+kiosques, and reminded us, from time to time, that we were in a
+southern city. Not unnecessarily; for the thermometer fell on the day
+after our arrival to fifty degrees; and rain fell too, and we were
+quick to discover the true cause of French vivacity. The French have
+no fires at home. Consequently, when it is cold--and it often is very
+cold, even as far South as Bordeaux--their only resource is to go out,
+and jump about in such faint sunshine as they can find, and so make
+believe to be warm. Every one in Bordeaux seemed to be doing this that
+day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We saw a number of churches, but I have jumbled them together in my
+mind, and dare not distinguish between the beauties of St. Seurin and
+St. Croix, St. Michel or the Cathedral. Only I attended a service on
+Sunday morning, and, having heard that no Frenchmen now went to
+church, noted with interest that of a large congregation one in every
+four was a man. But then Bordeaux is perhaps the most orthodox city in
+France, and primitive ideas, good and bad, still prevail in this
+southwestern province, peopled by descendants of the Huguenots and
+Albigenses, by devout Basques and simple Navarrese. And two things
+also in Bordeaux I remember--the semi-circular remains of a Roman
+amphitheatre, which no one visiting Bordeaux should omit to see; and,
+secondly, a lofty, detached spire of singular lightness and grace. It
+is called the Peyberland, and was built by Pierre Berland, who must
+have been an English subject.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">His name strikes the vein of thought which was uppermost in my mind at
+Bordeaux. I found it impossible to forget that it had been for three
+centuries a half English city, and the capital of a half English
+province, ruled by an English king; or that up the wide Gironde,
+between the marly banks, Edward the Black Prince must many a time have
+sailed in state. Sir John Chandos and Sir Walter Manny, and many
+another English worthy, knew these streets as well as they knew
+Eastcheap or Aldgate. John of Gaunt and Talbot of Shrewsbury dwelt
+here, as much at home and at their ease as in York or Leicester. It is
+impossible not to wonder at those old Englishmen; not to think of them
+with pride, as we remember how firmly, the roving blood of Dane and
+Norman young in their veins, they grasped this prize; how long they
+clung to it, how boldly they flaunted the French lilies in the eyes of
+France; how cheerfully they crowded year by year to cross the bay in
+open boats! And then what cosmopolitans they were, with their manors
+in Devon and Aquitane, their houses in London and Bordeaux; with
+perhaps a snug little box at Calais, and a farm or two in Maine. How
+trippingly French and Provençal, and the rougher English, passed over
+their tongues. They founded no empire--on the contrary they lost one.
+But they were the immediate ancestors of Elizabeth's sea-dogs, for all
+that. In holding Guienne through those three centuries their strength
+was wasted. When they lost it (1451), they turned upon one another,
+and the Wars of the Roses took up half a century. After that they
+needed half-a-century's holiday to recruit themselves; and then out
+flashed the Vikings' spirit again--this time to better purpose--and
+under Drake and Grenville and Hawkins, they, the men of Poitiers and
+Sluys, made the greater England.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Even in Bordeaux they have left some traces of their work. They built
+this cathedral which stands here, in the third city of France. Their
+leopards are not yet effaced from the walls of yonder castle. Their
+dogs--<i>les dogues des Anglais</i>, our waiter dubbed them, on seeing us
+fondle them--play about the streets, and sniff with a special
+friendliness at English calves. Indeed, I never saw such a place for
+bull-dogs--chiefly brindled ones--as Bordeaux. We drank a toast after
+dinner the evening before we left. It was, <i>Les dogues des Anglais!</i></p>
+
+<p class="normal">Bordeaux, being like London too high on the river to get the
+sea-breeze, has its Brighton at Arcachon. To reach the latter from the
+city, a railway passes some thirty miles westward across a tract of
+light, sandy soil, thinly clothed with woods. As you glide through
+these, now in sunshine, now in shade, you catch a glimpse here and
+there of clearings and wooden shanties, and groups of peasants leaning
+on axes. Then, scarcely descending, you find yourself on the seashore,
+with the Bay of Biscay before you. Nearer, a basin of deepest blue,
+almost cut off from the outer sea by a reef of the dunes, forms a
+glorified harbor. Along this basin runs a broad beach, backed by a row
+of magnificent hotels with spacious terraces; and behind these lie two
+or three streets of rather paltry shops and restaurants. Having seen
+all this--the <i>plage</i>, the hotels, the terraces, the streets--you
+fancy you have seen Arcachon, and are inclined to be disappointed. But
+this is not Arcachon proper, which lies at the back of all this, and
+at the back even of that fairy-like Casino that rises on the abrupt
+slope of the sand-dunes behind us, and seemed the rear of all things.
+For on the land-side of the Casino is a forest of pines and larches,
+wild, far stretching, and apparently illimitable: a forest that is
+perpetually running up one sand-hill and down another, as if it were
+trying to get a view of the sea, and were not easily satisfied. And
+amid the vivid greens and dull blues of the foliage, glitter here and
+there and everywhere the daintiest of Swiss chalets or Indian
+bungalows, bright boxes of wood and stucco, colored and painted, and
+fretted and carved so delicately that one would infer that rain never
+fell here; or else that these were not intended for out-of-door wear.
+Mere toys they seem, set in smooth lawns. Flowers glow about them, and
+the scent of the pines is everywhere, and everywhere are shady aisles
+of trees hung with white mosses, and leading into the gloom of the
+forest. Nature and luxury have come together here; the result is
+that soft, languid, southern beauty, Mademoiselle Arcachon--of the
+Théâtre des Folies Bordelaises. Yet is her constitution tolerably
+strong--thanks to the Atlantic breezes, though the sun was bright on
+the day we visited her, the wind was cold and the thermometer scarcely
+above forty degrees. This in early November.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The next evening saw us enter a very different place in a different
+way. For leaving Bordeaux we reached La Réole on foot and at dusk,
+welcomed only by the fantastic rays of a few swinging oil lamps. La
+Réole is the antipodes to Arcachon. It is a small, ancient town,
+which, small as it is, has a great place in Froissart and Davila, and
+still frowns bravely down upon the rich plain of the Garonne. It
+stands on a steep, cloven hill that rises sheer from the wide, yellow,
+rush-bordered river about forty miles above Bordeaux. On the crest
+above the Garonne stands a castle once English, and in size and
+position not unlike that at Chepstow. Beside it are a church, a modern
+château, and a <i>place</i> of modern houses. Upon the second crest, and in
+the cleft between the two, are huddled together the steep alleys and
+crazy tottering houses, all corners and gables, of the old town. A
+stream on which are several mills pours through the ravine, being
+overhung by tall, delapidated houses of three stories, with as many
+sets of wooden balconies and outside stairs. One might almost step
+across the water from one balcony to another, so much do the houses
+bulge. We took infinite delight in the old-world quaintness of this
+scene, in the air of decay that hung about all things, in the
+crumbling coats of arms, the wavy, tiled roofs, the sinking houses,
+the swinging lanterns; above all in the gray walls of the castle,
+brightened here and there by the pure discs of a rose bush, or the
+green of ivy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Froissart has a very pretty story--and a strange story too--to tell of
+La Réole. He says that Sir Walter Manny being with the English
+besieging it, &quot;was reminded of his father;&quot; that he had heard in his
+infancy that he had been buried there, or in that neighborhood. (Is
+there not a pleasant smack about that &quot;was reminded of,&quot; and that
+dubious &quot;he had heard in his infancy&quot;?) The elder Manny, the
+chronicler explains, had unluckily wounded to death in a tournament at
+Cambray a Gascon knight; and by way of penance had agreed to go on a
+pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, at Santiago in
+Spain. On his return he passed near La Réole, and hearing that the
+brother of the King of France was besieging it, stayed to visit him;
+and going home one night from the royal hotel to his lodgings, was
+waylaid and murdered. The Gascon's kinsmen were strongly suspected of
+the foul deed; but they were powerful, &quot;and none took the part of the
+Lord of Manny.&quot; So he was buried in a small chapel outside La Réole;
+and was almost forgotten when his son, being in the neighborhood,
+raked up the old story, and offered a reward of a hundred crowns to
+any one who could show him the grave. This an old man volunteered to
+do, and took Sir Walter to a tomb which was further identified by a
+Latin inscription. Thereupon, the son, as pious as brave--a subject of
+Queen Philippa of Hainault, I fear, and not a trueborn Englishman,
+though he died in London, was buried in the Charter House, and left
+his lands &quot;on either side of the sea&quot; to the Earl of Pembroke--had the
+remains conveyed to Valenciennes in Hainault, and buried there.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And so the story ends. But is it not a quaint and pretty story, and
+does it not smack of the times when the knight errant was one day
+tourneying at Cambray, and the next kneeling at Santiago, and on the
+third was waylaid at La Réole? And does it not plaintively suggest
+how, after long days of waiting, the news, still dim and uncertain,
+came through to the quiet castle in Hainault, news so dim, so
+uncertain, that the good son, when chance brought him to the scene of
+his father's death, could but faintly remember that it had happened
+there or thereabouts?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We seemed to be for a few days in a world of dying things. If La Réole
+was old and decadent, and showed few signs of former strength, the
+next place to which we came was still farther gone in decay. Port St.
+Marie is a straggling town lying low in a bend of the river. Most of
+its houses--they are large, with heavy doorways--are built in
+frameworks of wood after the style of our black and white houses, and
+have the spaces between the beams filled with bricks; long, thin
+bricks of close texture and the old Roman shape, set sometimes on end,
+sometimes lengthwise, more often aslant; any way so that they may fill
+the interstices. A large number of these houses are of three stories;
+and each upper story projecting two or three feet beyond the one below
+it, the buildings seem really nodding to their fall. Many were empty,
+with unglazed windows, and flapping shutters, and sinking corners; and
+yet the stout timbers, seasoned perhaps when Simon de Montfort was
+governor of Guienne and had his court in Bordeaux, held together, and
+bound up the crumbling clay. Above one door ran the legend &quot;<i>Le
+Couronné dut devoir</i>,&quot; a sufficiently chivalrous motto. Above others
+were battered stone shields. On all was the stamp of assured ruin.
+Neglect and poverty were written large everywhere. Time had touched
+the place with no caressing hand, such as</p>
+<div class="poem2">
+<p class="t0">
+Makes old bareness picturesque,<br>
+And tufts with grass a feudal tower,</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="continue">but with mean and sordid fingers; and the result was pitifully dreary.
+It made our hearts ache. The very people we saw in the streets looked
+pallid and hopeless, like people going down the hill. Such a town, so
+desolate, so moribund, does not exist, thank heaven, in our more
+populous England. Yet in our way we enjoyed it. We gloated with
+something of the zest of ghouls over its decay, until having cloyed
+our souls with sadness, we got hurriedly away into the sunshine and
+the fields, where the patient, fawn-colored oxen were dragging the
+plough, and the countryman stood leaning on his goad to see us pass
+between the rows of poplars. No doubt he thought us mad to be toiling
+out of St. Marie with our faces set countrywards, when no great
+distance off lay the railway, which would take us in a few hours to
+Bordeaux, to the delights of café and boulevard. &quot;Oh! but they are
+droll, these English!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Any one leaving St. Marie must remark a singular, conical hill which
+rises abruptly from the plain before him. It is topped by a wooden
+steeple, while the dark outlines of walls and towers form a crown
+about its summit, and a row of cypresses rising solemnly above the
+lower buildings impart something of mystery to the place. It seemed to
+me like nothing so much as Mont St. Michel. In vain we ransacked our
+guide books. We could find no word of this fortress town which looked
+down on road and river; only in our map we discovered that its name
+was Clermont Dessus. Nothing daunted, however, we discovered a field
+path, and, climbing the hill, passed through a ruined gateway into the
+silence of the place. On three sides the walls were yet fairly
+perfect, and within them stood some fifty houses, many in ruins, more
+empty, a few inhabited. The floor of one was on a level with the roof
+of another, and the only means of access was by steep, tortuous
+alleys. The church had been partially restored, but was old and still
+bore marks of violent usage. The graveyard on a terrace displayed
+twenty-four cypresses, and an ancient stone cross. Above all this rose
+the ruins of a castle, smaller than that at La Réole and with traces
+of more recent occupation. Woodwork and iron still remained adhering
+to the walls. What, we wondered, had been its history. A few women and
+children were the only human creatures it held, and we could gather
+nothing from them save that it belonged, or had belonged, to the
+&quot;Seigneur.&quot; For our climb, however, we felt amply rewarded by the view
+over the valley of the Garonne, and so ran quickly down the hill and
+stepped out stubbornly for Agen, which we reached after twice losing
+our way through a too ardent desire to cling to a pleasant green path
+by the river.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was dark when, footsore and tired, we gained the principal street;
+and we failed to discover our hotel. &quot;Would you direct us to the Hôtel
+de St. Jean?&quot; I asked a decent-looking man who was passing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How, monsieur?&quot; he replied, after so long a pause that I feared he
+did not understand me; &quot;the Hôtel de St. Jean no longer exists. It has
+been closed a year and more.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We looked at each other in silent disgust; and he looked at us. We
+were fairly tired out. &quot;Would you have the kindness, then, to tell us
+which is the best hotel?&quot; I said with resignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I will conduct you to the Hôtel de St.----,&quot; he answered, quickly.
+&quot;It is an hotel of the first class.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But when I saw the Hôtel de St. ----, we knew him for a swindler. It
+was a miserable place, and we would have none of it. We courteously
+said that we did not like it. He insisted. We broke away from him, and
+in a few minutes came upon the Hôtel de St. Jean, its doors open to
+welcome us, and the light pouring ruddily from its windows. The story
+is trivial: I tell it because it was my ill-luck more than once to
+fall into the hands of this kind of tout, and be deceived by the tale
+that the house to which I had been advised to go was shut. On one
+occasion, at Guelmah, in Algeria, I was lured while inquiring for the
+Hôtel d'Orient into the Hôtel Auriol, a miserable place. In the
+morning I looked out of my window, and to my astonishment saw the name
+of the hotel in which I believed myself to be staring me in the face,
+painted up in large letters over the door of a house on the farther
+side of the square. I rubbed my eyes and wondered, and it was not
+until I stood in the open, and read the name of one and the other,
+that I recognized with a hearty laugh how I had been taken in.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From Agen, on a fine, sunny morning, we went by rail to Moissac. Here,
+attached to the church, is the most delightful cloister in the world,
+a cloister rich in arches and capitals of delicate tracery poised on
+slender shafts, and half hidden by luxuriant creepers, through which
+the light falls soft and green-tinged, as in some sea-grotto. It is a
+place for rest and reflection, perfectly adapted to a hot climate;
+whereas, he who has only seen the dull, dank portico enclosing danker
+grave-stones, the play-ground of cats--which in England we call a
+cloister--does not know what the thing is. This church boasted also a
+quaint doorway enriched with the more or less coarse designs in which
+the monks of yore took pleasure: a doorway reputed to be one of the
+most curious in France.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From Moissac we went on foot to Castel Sarrasin, sometimes by the
+Tarn, but for the most part by the side of the great canal; and
+always, whether by the latter or the river, moving in a soft symphony
+of various greens, green streams, green poplars--and oh! such vistas
+of them!--green willows, green banks--all mingled together and fading
+into one another, and harmoniously blending as the evening fell with
+the pale pea-green of the eastern sky. It was a peaceful and silent
+walk through a world of restful hues.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From Castel Sarrasin, once no doubt a stronghold of the Moors, to
+Montauban we went by train. Montauban, on the Tarn, is a busy place,
+but a picturesque one also. Standing on a rough, steep hill, the town
+is seamed and cleft by strange, deep valleys with precipitous sides.
+Crazy houses with roofs of tiles, so time-stained that they have the
+precise appearance of strips of bark, fill these ravines and lean
+against their walls. Gardens cling to the ledges of the rocks. Shrubs
+and flowers clothe the crannies. Wooden balconies hang everywhere--and
+clothes-lines. We were there on market-day, and watched with amusement
+the teams of oxen--all fawn-colored--coming in for sale, or dragging
+into town the lumbering carts (much like timber-wagons, with boxes
+about the middle) in which Madame sat with her produce about her.
+Monsieur walked before the oxen, his goad on his shoulder, and a white
+nightcap on his head. Oxen push, they do not pull. They shove inwards
+against one another, the near legs of the near ox and the off legs of
+the off ox being protruded at a considerable angle to get a good
+purchase. Very frequently only the feet so used are shod. The driver
+always goes before them, and as they follow with lowered heads, they
+are perfect images of patient resignation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">An old farmer, stout and jolly-looking, presently met us loitering on
+the bridge, and after a long period of staring, spoke to us. &quot;Are you
+Germans?&quot; he asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; I replied with courteous determination, &quot;we are English.&quot; He
+still eyed us with some suspicion, and after a pause fell to
+questioning us about our country. Had we bread, and what kind of
+bread? had we any railways?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; I answered proudly to this last, &quot;we have trains that travel at
+the rate of a hundred <i>kilomètres</i> an hour!&quot; A trifling exaggeration
+it may be, but human and pardonable.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He gravely nodded his head, however, as if he believed it, and meant
+to pose his wife and neighbors with it when he reached home. &quot;You have
+grapes and wine?&quot; he continued.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We grow grapes under glass,&quot; I explained, &quot;in glass houses. In the
+open air it is generally too cold for them.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What!&quot; he exclaimed, his jovial face clouding over as it occurred to
+him that I was not in earnest. &quot;Will you kindly say that again?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">I did as he wished. But when I had made the matter as clear as I
+could, he answered stoutly, &quot;No! It is impossible! Either I do not
+understand you, or you do not understand me!&quot; And he went on his way
+in a passion. He could believe in the Irish Mail; but the cultivation
+of vines under glass was a thing outside his ideas of the world's
+economy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From the <i>place</i> at Montauban, an open space pleasantly laid out on
+the brow of the hill, it is said that the Pyrenees can be seen on a
+fine day. We had a fine day, but we saw no sign of the mountains--our
+land at Beulah--though we looked long and lingeringly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Attracted by a name which seemed familiar to us, and had a ring about
+it as of feudal and knightly times, we made a diversion from here to
+Cahors on the Lot, an old city standing in a fertile basin, among
+bare, brown hills. We were disappointed in the first appearance of the
+town. The river still runs round three sides of it, but the ramparts
+have been turned into gardens where they have not been levelled; only
+one tower of the castle survives; and though there are some
+picturesque houses, the town is for the most part modern, and devoted
+to Gambetta who was born in it. The cathedral, surmounted by one heavy
+tower, backed by three domes in a row, is imposing in its bulky
+ugliness. Its floor is much lower than the marketplace without: so
+that on entering through the west door you find a flight of steps
+before you, and the congregation at your feet immersed in candlelit
+gloom. These steps at the Sunday morning service were crowded by
+kneeling hucksters and market-women with their baskets, who had
+quietly entered as a matter of course from the market, which was in
+full swing without, and were devoutly telling their beads, or
+listening to a sermon preached by a bishop--a Count-Bishop, too, whose
+pastoral ring was still a prominent feature in the scene, so skilfully
+did he wave and display it. At Cahors we were much pleased with one of
+the bridges, from which rise three Flemish-looking towers. They form
+as many gateways, and from every point of view are singularly
+picturesque. This bridge may have stood there in its present state
+when Henry of Navarre did at Cahors his most famous deed. A strong
+garrison was at the time holding the city for the Catholic party, but
+Henry, smarting under the loss of La Réole, which had been betrayed by
+its governor, determined to seize Cahors. Accordingly he came to it
+with fourteen hundred men, and leaving one half of this force outside
+to cover his night attack, blew in a gate with a petard and entered
+with the rest, being himself the seventh to pass in. A furious battle
+in the streets ensued, but when day broke, the Huguenots had mastered
+a small part of the city only, and reinforcements for the enemy
+arriving, Henry's followers begged him to retire. &quot;No!&quot; he answered,
+fighting on with his back to a shop, &quot;I will not retire! My only
+retreat from this town shall be the retreat of my soul from my body!&quot;
+He kept his word. Street by street and house by house, he reduced the
+town, neither side asking or giving quarter. But it was not until the
+fifth night after his entrance that he completely mastered the place,
+a feat which is generally allowed to stand highest among his warlike
+exploits.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At Cahors it was that we first came under the influence of his name;
+but thereafter it grew and grew, a bigger factor in the past, a more
+prominent object in our thoughts in the present, the farther south we
+travelled; until at Pau, his birthplace and capital, the son of Jeanne
+d'Albret, <i>the Béarnais</i>, the Navarrese, the Protector of the
+Religion, <i>Henri Quatre</i>, Henry the Great, seemed to fill all past
+history, and dwarf all other figures. We have in English story no
+royal personage, no prominent life even, at once so picturesque, so
+rich in surprises, so lovable, and so blameworthy. Hot-blooded and
+cool-headed, daring to rashness, astute to meanness, a professor and a
+profligate, merciful, affectionate, yet letting nothing intervene
+between him and his aims--who that is man shall judge him? Surely the
+wine which Henry's father raised to his new-born lips, the cold water
+which was dashed in his hour-old face, the national song his mother
+sang at his birth, did really reproduce themselves in his life.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Leaving Cahors in the evening, we slept at a small village called
+Lelbenque, and were on foot before eight next day, and on our way
+across the hills to Caylus. The country through which we passed in the
+fresh morning air, a range of bleak lime-stone heights sparsely
+covered with oak trees, seemed thinly peopled, and little tilled. Here
+and there in the wooded depths of a valley, we came upon a sparkling
+brook and a few comfortable farm-houses nestling among fruit trees,
+and protected by abrupt limestone walls from the cold winds which
+swept across the uplands. The distance to Caylus was sixteen miles.
+There were no inns, and as we had breakfasted rather meagrely on
+coffee and bread, we were driven to beg something at one of the
+farm-houses. There were only women at home, and these were with reason
+astonished to see foreign tramps in that out-of-the-way district. They
+seemed even a little afraid of us, but we got what we wanted
+notwithstanding the growling of the dogs; and our offer of payment was
+declined with suspicious abruptness. I fancy that they suspected us of
+wanting change.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">About mid-day we passed over the last ridge of the uplands, and saw
+below us a narrow fertile valley squeezed in between mountain-walls.
+Halfway through this gorge and in the middle of it, a hill or rock
+rose abruptly almost to the height of a thousand feet. On this,
+lording it over the road, stood Caylus, its houses and gardens
+descending terrace by terrace from the castle-nucleus on the crest
+almost to the road. Very old was the church, about the porch of
+which are carved green animals in the act of nibbling one another's
+tails under the superintendence of St. Michael. We took it for St.
+Michael. Old, too, seemed the great stone house opposite, known as the
+<i>Maison du Loup</i>, and bearing uncouth masks and figures of wolves in
+high relief on its front. Older still we judged the market-place to
+be, which built of wood rests on stone pillars; and the heavy Arcade
+or &quot;Row&quot; which stands in the same tiny square with it, and the
+beetle-browed wynds that lead to it--all old, gray, heavy,
+time-stained, but still solid. In the market hall we noticed three
+ancient corn-measures; hollows scooped out in stones that formed part
+of the fabric of the hall, with to each a horizontal outlet or spout
+at the side, through which the grain when measured might escape into
+bag or basket. Even while we were examining these we remarked women
+sitting outside the doors about us, removing the grain from stalks of
+maize, and plaiting various articles with the straw.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The weather-beaten castle belongs to Madame St. Cyr, but was occupied
+when we visited it by Mr. Wilton, an Englishman, who was not at home.
+His housekeeper, however, kindly allowed us to go over the building,
+and we found the view from the leads of the keep--used, I suspect, as
+a smoking-room--very charming. Caylus, to sum up, is difficult of
+access and is not even named in &quot;Murray,&quot; but I can highly recommend
+it as a quaint example of a mediæval town, such as cannot now be found
+in England without much searching.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">From it we passed by means of a top-heavy, jingling country coach to
+St. Anthonin, and so by rail to Albi on the Tarn, Albi of the
+Albigenses, the unhappy sect whose fate confutes the saying that the
+blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. About Albi, from which
+place they took their name, they grew and flourished in the latter
+half of the twelfth century. But seventy years later, notwithstanding
+the attempt which their feudal lord, Raymond of Toulouse, made to
+protect them, they were virtually extinct. Save that they dissented
+from the Romish Church, their very doctrines are now unknown or to be
+found only in the writings of their enemies, and their story and
+fortunes are too often confounded with those of the Waldenses. Simon
+de Montfort, the father of our Simon de Montfort, took a conspicuous
+part in the cruel deeds which attended their suppression. At the fall
+of Beziers, heretic and churchman were put to the sword together.
+&quot;Slay all--God will know His own,&quot; said the gentle Abbot Arnold. And
+in a sense wisely: for it is only the man of half measures who fails
+as a persecutor. To be perfectly ruthless, perfectly thorough in the
+work, is to be successful also. At any rate at Albi, which, like
+Cahors, stands among hills, there are no traces of the Albigenses
+left; not even such a story as rings about the name of Beziers with
+fire. Rather the great cathedral proclaims Rome's victory. Built
+externally of bricks, it is a huge blind oblong with an apsidal end. A
+swelling base and rounded buttresses add to its heavy appearance. Yet
+it is very lofty. The monstrous red tower hung about with giddy
+balconies rises nearly to the height of three hundred feet, while the
+church itself, the lower part of which has no openings or windows,
+seems half that height. In a word, the whole is as much a fortress as
+a cathedral. Lofty flights of steps lead to a raised porch, formed by
+three arches decorated with carvings lately and successfully restored.
+Entering the church through this we find the interior a striking
+sight. In shape it is a vast hall surrounded by chapels in two
+stories, and with a choir screened off at one end. The interior still
+remains in the state to which our Puritans objected, the state
+probably characterized more churches than we now imagine. It is
+covered from ceiling to floor with frescoes and paintings and
+scrollwork, some gaudy, some subdued, some good, some bad. The very
+statues are painted and gilded, and although here and there the effect
+is garish and unpleasing, I do not agree that the appearance of the
+whole, as the vast mass of color presents itself to the eyes, broken
+by the exquisite carvings of the stone screen or a bevy of tinted
+marbles, is absolutely unharmonious. I found it more pleasing than I
+expected. And then what would have been the effect of these plain
+walls in their naked monotony?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The paintings are mainly of the date of Francis I., say about 1520.
+Two frescoes of Hell and the Passions, done by Italian artists, cover
+the west end--cover acres of it as it seems; and in a chapel, among
+other anachronisms is a notable picture of Christ, in which He is
+figured in a hat and feather and the dress of a courtier of the time
+in the midst of Roman soldiers who are kicking Him along. A great
+store of information as to the dresses and customs of the early part
+of the sixteenth century is laid up here, to be ransacked by any one
+who will take the trouble to closely inspect this huge interior. The
+groups painted upon the walls, groups of people fighting, tourneying,
+feasting, dancing, dying--ay, and doing many things scarcely adapted
+to church decoration--are to be counted by thousands; as are the gold
+stars that stud the bright blue ceiling. There is something suggestive
+in the portrayal of these things in this place; they seem to tell of a
+faith which, with all its scandals, abuses, and laxity, was bound up
+intimately with the life of the people, with their joys as well as
+their griefs; and so smacked of One who did not consider the price of
+sparrows as beneath knowledge.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At any rate we were pleased with these things. The interior of Albi
+Cathedral may not be in the best taste. It may be meretricious, it may
+be gilt rather than of gold. But it is curious; it is almost unique;
+it is a museum in itself; and to an Englishman accustomed to the cold
+if correct lines of a Gothic church, its warmth and color afford a not
+unwelcome change.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At Auch we arrived at night, and found it to be an old-fashioned
+archiepiscopal city on the summit and southern slope of a precipitous
+hill. Here we came upon the first traces--a Spanish pedler, a
+Navarrese bonnet--of that strange borderland between Spain and Western
+France in which three languages and a dozen <i>patois</i>, French, Spanish,
+Basque, the Langue d'Oc, the Langue d'Or, and Gascon and Provençal and
+the tongue of Andorra, and I know not what others, are fighting for
+the mastery: where two great nations now peaceably march, dividing
+between them the wild country where the kingdom of Navarre once sat
+enthroned on hills with the free Basque communities about her. It is a
+country rich in memories of independence, of strife; of brigandage, of
+romance; of the free life of the hunter; a land of snow-clad peaks and
+deep valleys, and rolling, wooded hills full of creatures elsewhere
+extinct, bears, and izards, and, shall I add, Basques. Here are
+Roncesvalles and the Bidassoa, Fontarabia and Orthez, San Sebastian
+and the Isle of Peacocks. Moor and Paladin, Scot and Spaniard,
+Charlemagne and Wellington, have all passed this way and left deep
+foot-prints.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And Auch stands on the verge of this strange country; an old city, but
+full of energy and with no trace of decay. From the river, flights of
+wide steps with spacious landings, gay with flowers and fountains,
+climb the southern face of the hill, which the best road-maker would
+find impracticable. At the head of these steps and commanding
+extensive prospects stands the cathedral, a beacon to all the country
+between it and the skirts of the mountains. The building is fine, but
+its pride lies in the wood carvings of the unrivalled choir. My guide,
+an ex-soldier, also pointed out with pride some cymbals presented to
+the cathedral by the first Napoleon: trophies, so he told me, of the
+Egyptian campaign.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">We wandered out in the afternoon to the brow of a ridge of hills
+lying on the far side of the river, and throwing ourselves down upon
+some heather and bracken--it was a warm and sunny but not very clear
+day--began to cast speculative glances towards Spain. But while we
+thought that we were looking southwards our eyes were really turned
+too much to the east. And presently we discovered this in a strange
+way. For glancing by chance towards the skyline on our right, we saw,
+first, a brown autumnal landscape of woods and hills, and beyond this
+a long, gray cloud, the horizon, as we thought; and above that--ah!
+what was it we saw above that? A line of silvery peaks, gleaming in a
+gray, sheeny atmosphere of their own, so pure, so soft, so far above
+this world of ours, that as the words &quot;The Pyrenees!&quot; broke the first
+moments of astonished silence, we felt that for once the thing long
+looked for had passed our expectations! Our hearts fastened upon the
+distance. The pleasant landscape spread out before us lost its charms.
+It was homely, it was flat, it was commonplace, it was of the earth
+earthy, beside the serene beauty of the snowy crests and untrodden
+wastes that shone and sparkled in that far distance, and anon grew
+cold and dim as the veil of cloud was drawn before them even while we
+watched.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">When they were gone, we felt that nothing save the mountains would now
+satisfy us. We had a craving for them, such as I have sometimes felt
+for the sea. A sudden conviction that we were wasting our time in a
+world of small things, while the wonders of the hills lay close at
+hand, overwhelmed us. We hurried homewards, talking of peaks, and
+glaciers, and passes, of Cauteret and Gavarnie, Mont Perdu and the Pic
+du Midi; and packed in the same state of pleasant excitement. The next
+morning saw us passing through the same country, rich in autumn tints,
+in leafy bottoms, and rippling streams, which we had seen stretched
+out before us. And the evening saw us stand on the famous Place
+Royale, hard by the castle where Henry of Navarre was born, feasting
+our eyes on the cold, bright tints of the great mountains, seen sharp
+and clear above the Jurance hills, and listening to the rushing waters
+of the Gave. Our Garonne pilgrimage was over.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When Love Calls, by Stanley J. Weyman
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When Love Calls, by Stanley J. Weyman
+
+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: When Love Calls
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39214]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN LOVE CALLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by
+Google Books (Harvard College Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+   1. Page scan source:
+      http://books.google.com/books?id=1XsNAAAAYAAJ
+      (Harvard College Library)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           WHEN LOVE CALLS
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                          STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+                  AUTHOR OF "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE,"
+                     "THE CASTLE INN," ETC., ETC.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                BOSTON
+
+                          BROWN AND COMPANY
+
+                         144 Purchase Street
+
+                                 1899
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          _Copyright, 1899_
+
+                         By Brown and Company
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           University Press
+
+               John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               Contents
+
+
+       When Love Calls
+
+          I. Her Story
+
+         II. His Story
+
+       A Strange Invitation
+
+       The Invisible Portraits
+
+       Along the Garonne
+
+
+
+
+
+                           When Love Calls
+
+
+
+
+                                  I.
+
+                              HER STORY
+
+
+"Clare," I said, "I wish that we had brought some better clothes, if
+it were only one frock. You look the oddest figure."
+
+And she did. She was lying head to head with me on the thick moss that
+clothed one part of the river-bank above Breistolen near the Sogn
+Fiord. We were staying at Breistolen, but there was no moss
+thereabouts, nor in all the Sogn district, I often thought, so deep
+and soft, and so dazzling orange and white and crimson as that
+particular patch. It lay quite high upon the hills, and there were
+great gray boulders peeping through the moss here and there, very fit
+to break your legs if you were careless. Little more than a mile
+higher up was the watershed, where our river, putting away with
+reluctance a first thought of going down the farther slope towards
+Bysberg, parted from its twin brother who was thither bound with
+scores upon scores of puny green-backed fishlets; and instead, came
+down our side gliding and swishing, and swirling faster and faster,
+and deeper and wider, every hundred yards to Breistolen, full of
+red-speckled yellow trout all half-a-pound apiece, and very good to
+eat.
+
+But they were not so sweet or toothsome to our girlish tastes as the
+tawny-orange cloud-berries which Clare and I were eating as we lay. So
+busy was she with the luscious pile we had gathered that I had to wait
+for an answer. And then, "Speak for yourself," she said. "I'm sure you
+look like a short-coated baby. He is somewhere up the river too."
+Munch, munch, munch!
+
+"Who is, you impertinent, greedy little chit?"
+
+"Oh, you know," she answered. "Don't you wish you had your gray plush
+here, Bab?"
+
+I flung a look of calm disdain at her; but whether it was the berry
+juice which stained our faces that took from its effect, or the free
+mountain air which papa says saps the foundations of despotism, that
+made her callous, at any rate she only laughed scornfully and got up
+and went off down the stream with her rod, leaving me to finish the
+cloud-berries, and stare lazily up at the snow patches on the
+hillside--which somehow put me in mind of the gray plush--and follow
+or not as I liked.
+
+Clare has a wicked story of how I gave in to papa, and came to start
+without anything but those rough clothes. She says he said--and Jack
+Buchanan has told me that lawyers put no faith in anything that he
+says she says, or she says he says, which proves how much truth there
+is in this--that if Bab took none but her oldest clothes, and fished
+all day and had no one to run upon her errands--he meant Jack and the
+others, I suppose--she might possibly grow an inch in Norway. Just as
+if I wanted to grow an inch! An inch indeed! I am five feet one and a
+half high, and papa, who puts me an inch shorter, is the worst
+measurer in the world. As for Miss Clare, she would give all her
+inches for my eyes. So there!
+
+After Clare left, it began to be dull and chilly. When I had pictured
+to myself how nice it would be to dress for dinner again, and chosen
+the frock I would wear upon the first evening, I grew tired of the
+snow patches, and started up stream, stumbling and falling into holes,
+and clambering over rocks, and only careful to save my rod and my
+face. It was no occasion for the gray plush, but I had made up my mind
+to reach a pool which lay, I knew, a little above me, having filched a
+yellow-bodied fly from Clare's hat with a view to that particular
+place.
+
+Our river did the oddest things hereabouts--pleased to be so young, I
+suppose. It was not a great churning stream of snow water foaming and
+milky, such as we had seen in some parts, streams that affected to be
+always in flood, and had the look of forcing the rocks asunder and
+clearing their path even while you watched them with your fingers in
+your ears. Our river was none of these: still it was swifter than
+English rivers are wont to be, and in parts deeper, and transparent as
+glass. In one place it would sweep over a ledge and fall wreathed in
+spray into a spreading lake of black, rock-bound water. Then it would
+narrow again until, where you could almost jump across, it darted
+smooth and unbroken down a polished shoot with a swoop like a
+swallow's. Out of this it would hurry afresh to brawl along a gravelly
+bed, skipping jauntily over first one and then another ridge of stones
+that had silted up weir-wise and made as if they would bar the
+channel. Under the lee of these there were lovely pools.
+
+To be able to throw into mine, I had to walk out along the ridge on
+which the water was shallow, yet sufficiently deep to cover my boots.
+But I was well rewarded. The "forellin"--the Norse name for trout, and
+as pretty as their girls' wavy fair hair--were rising so merrily that
+I hooked and landed one in five minutes, the fly falling from its
+mouth as it touched the stones. I hate taking out hooks. I used at one
+time to leave the fly in the fish's mouth to be removed by papa at the
+weighing house; until Clare pricked her tongue at dinner with an
+almost new, red tackle, and was so mean as to keep it, though I
+remembered then what I had done with it, and was certain it was
+mine--which was nothing less than dishonest of her.
+
+I had just got back to my place and made a fine cast, when there
+came--not the leap, and splash, and tug which announced the
+half-pounder--but a deep, rich gurgle as the fly was gently sucked
+under, and then a quiet, growing strain upon the line, which began to
+move away down the pool in a way that made the winch spin again and
+filled me with mysterious pleasure. I was not conscious of striking or
+of anything but that I had hooked a really good fish, and I clutched
+the rod with both hands and set my feet as tightly as I could upon the
+slippery gravel. The line moved up and down, and this way and that,
+now steadily and as with a purpose, and then again with an eccentric
+rush that made the top of the rod spring and bend so that I looked
+for it to snap each moment. My hands began to grow numb, and the
+landing-net, hitherto an ornament, fell out of my waist-belt and went
+I knew not whither. I suppose I must have stepped unwittingly into
+deeper water, for I felt that my skirts were afloat, and altogether
+things were going dreadfully against me, when the presence of an ally
+close at hand was announced by a cheery shout from the far side of the
+river.
+
+"Keep up your point! Keep up your point!" some one cried briskly.
+"That is better!"
+
+The unexpected sound--it was a man's voice--did something to keep my
+heart up. But for answer I could only shriek, "I can't! It will
+break!" watching the top of my rod as it jigged up and down, very much
+in the fashion of Clare performing what she calls a waltz. She dances
+as badly as a man.
+
+"No, it will not," he cried back, bluntly. "Keep it up, and let out a
+little line with your fingers when he pulls hardest."
+
+We were forced to shout and scream. The wind had risen and was adding
+to the noise of the water. Soon I heard him wading behind me. "Where's
+your landing net?" he asked, with the most provoking coolness.
+
+"Oh, in the pool! Somewhere about. I am sure I don't know," I answered
+wildly.
+
+What he said to this I could not catch, but it sounded rude. And then
+he waded off to fetch, as I guessed, his own net. By the time he
+reached me again I was in a sad plight, feet like ice, and hands
+benumbed, while the wind, and rain, and hail, which had come down upon
+us with a sudden violence, unknown, it is to be hoped, anywhere else,
+were mottling my face all sorts of unbecoming colors. But the line was
+taut. And wet and cold went for nothing five minutes later, when the
+fish lay upon the bank, its prismatic sides slowly turning pale and
+dull, and I knelt over it half in pity and half in triumph, but wholly
+forgetful of the wind and rain.
+
+"You did that very pluckily, little one," said the on-looker; "but I
+am afraid you will suffer for it by and by. You must be chilled
+through."
+
+Quickly as I looked up at him, I only met a good-humored smile. He did
+not mean to be rude. And, after all, when I was in such a mess it was
+not possible that he could see what I was like. He was wet enough
+himself. The rain was streaming from the brim of the soft hat which he
+had turned down to shelter his face, and trickling from his chin, and
+turning his shabby Norfolk jacket a darker shade. As for his hands,
+they looked red and knuckly enough, and he had been wading almost to
+his waist. But he looked, I don't know why, all the stronger and
+manlier and nicer for these things, because, perhaps, he cared for
+them not one whit. What I looked like myself I dared not think. My
+skirts were as short as short could be, and they were soaked: most of
+my hair was unplaited, my gloves were split, and my sodden boots were
+out of shape. I was forced, too, to shiver and shake from cold; which
+was provoking, for I knew it made me seem half as small again.
+
+"Thank you, I am a little cold, Mr.----, Mr.----," I said, grave, only
+my teeth would chatter so that he laughed outright as he took me up
+with--
+
+"Herapath. And to whom have I the honor of speaking?"
+
+"I am Miss Guest," I said, miserably. It was too cold to be frigid to
+advantage.
+
+"Commonly called Bab, I think," the wretch answered. "The walls of our
+hut are not soundproof, you see. But, come, the sooner you get back to
+dry clothes and the stove, the better, Bab. You can cross the river
+just below, and cut off half-a-mile that way."
+
+"I can't," I said, obstinately. Bab, indeed! How dared he?
+
+"Oh, yes, you can," with intolerable good-temper. "You shall take your
+rod and I the prey. You cannot be wetter than you are now."
+
+He had his way, of course, since I did not foresee that at the ford he
+would lift me up bodily and carry me over the deeper part without a
+pretence of asking leave, or a word of apology. It was done so quickly
+that I had no time to remonstrate. Still I was not going to let it
+pass, and when I had shaken myself straight again, I said, with all
+the haughtiness I could assume, "Don't you think, Mr. Herapath, that
+it would have been more--more--"
+
+"Polite to offer to carry you over, child? No, not at all. It will be
+wiser and warmer for you to run down the hill. Come along!"
+
+And without more ado, while I was still choking with rage, he seized
+my hands and set off at a trot, lugging me through the sloppy places
+much as I have seen a nurse drag a fractious child down Constitution
+Hill. It was not wonderful that I soon lost the little breath his
+speech had left me, and was powerless to complain when we reached the
+bridge. I could only thank heaven that there was no sign of Clare. I
+think I should have died of mortification if she had seen us come down
+the hill hand-in-hand in that ridiculous fashion. But she had gone
+home, and at any rate I escaped that degradation.
+
+A wet stool-car and wetter pony were dimly visible on the bridge; to
+which, as we came up, a damp urchin creeping from some crevice added
+himself. I was pushed in as if I had no will of my own, the gentleman
+sprang up beside me, the boy tucked himself away somewhere behind, and
+the little "teste" set off at a canter, so deceived by the driver's
+excellent imitation of "Pss," the Norse for "Tchk," that in ten
+minutes we were at home.
+
+"Well, I never!" Clare said, surveying me from a respectful distance,
+when at last I was safe in our room. "I would not be seen in such a
+state by a man for all the fish in the sea!"
+
+And she looked so tall, and trim, and neat, that it was the more
+provoking. At the moment I was too miserable to answer her, and had to
+find comfort in promising myself, that when we were back in Bolton
+Gardens I would see that Fraeulein kept Miss Clare's pretty nose to the
+grindstone though it were ever so much her last term, or Jack were
+ever so fond of her. Papa was in the plot against me, too. What right
+had he to thank Mr. Herapath for bringing "his little girl" home safe?
+He can be pompous enough at times. I never knew a stout Queen's
+Counsel--and papa is stout--who was not, any more than a thin one, who
+did not contradict. It is in their patents, I think.
+
+Mr. Herapath dined with us that evening--if fish and potatoes and
+boiled eggs, and sour bread and pancakes, and claret and coffee can be
+called a dinner--but nothing I could do, though I made the best of my
+wretched frock and was as stiff as Clare herself, could alter his
+first impression. It was too bad: he had no eyes! He either could not
+or would not see any one but the draggled Bab--fifteen at most and a
+very tom-boy--whom he had carried across the river. He styled Clare,
+who talked Baedeker to him in her primmest and most precocious way,
+Miss Guest, and once at least during the evening dubbed me plain Bab.
+I tried to freeze him with a look then, and papa gave him a taste of
+the pompous manner, saying coldly that I was older than I seemed. But
+it was not a bit of use: I could see that he set it all down to the
+grand airs of a spoiled child. If I had put my hair up, it might have
+opened his eyes, but Clare teased me about it and I was too proud for
+that.
+
+When I asked him if he was fond of dancing, he said good-naturedly, "I
+don't visit very much, Miss Bab. I am generally engaged in the
+evening."
+
+Here was a chance. I was going to say that that no doubt was the
+reason why I had never met him, when papa ruthlessly cut me short by
+asking, "You are not in the law?"
+
+"No," he replied. "I am in the London Fire Brigade."
+
+I think that we all upon the instant saw him in a helmet sitting at
+the door of the fire station by St. Martin's Church. Clare turned
+crimson and papa seemed on a sudden to call his patent to mind. The
+moment before I had been as angry as angry could be with our guest,
+but I was not going to look on and see him snubbed when he was dining
+with us and all. So I rushed into the gap as quickly as surprise would
+let me with "Good gracious, how nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
+
+It made matters--my matters--worse, for I could have cried with
+vexation when I read in his face next moment that he had looked for
+their astonishment; while the ungrateful fellow set down my eager
+remark to mere childish ignorance.
+
+"Some time I will," he said with a quiet smile _de haut en bas_; "but
+I do not often attend one in person. I am Captain ----'s private
+secretary, aide-de-camp, and general factotum."
+
+And it turned out that he was the son of a certain Canon Herapath, so
+that papa lost sight of his patent box altogether, and they set to
+discussing Mr. Gladstone, while I slipped off to bed feeling as small
+as I ever did in my life and out of temper with everybody. It was a
+long time since I had been used to young men talking politics to papa,
+when they could talk--politics--to me.
+
+Possibly I deserved the week of vexation which followed; but it was
+almost more than I could bear. He--Mr. Herapath, of course--was always
+about fishing or lounging outside the little white posting-house,
+taking walks and meals with us, and seeming heartily to enjoy papa's
+society. He came with us when we drove to the top of the pass to get a
+glimpse of the Sulethid peak; and it looked so brilliantly clear and
+softly beautiful as it seemed to float, just tinged with color, in a
+far-off atmosphere of its own, beyond the dark ranges of nearer hills,
+that I began to think at once of the drawing-room in Bolton Gardens
+with a cosy fire burning, and afternoon tea coming up. The tears came
+into my eyes, and he saw them before I could turn away from the view;
+and said to papa that he feared his little girl was tired as well as
+cold--and so spoiled all my pleasure. I looked back afterwards as papa
+and I drove down: he was walking by Clare's carcole and they were
+laughing heartily.
+
+And that was the way always. He was such an elder brother to me--a
+thing I never had and do not want--that a dozen times a day I set my
+teeth viciously together and said to myself that if ever we met in
+London--but what nonsense that was, because, of course, it mattered
+nothing to me what he was thinking, only he had no right to be so
+rudely familiar. That was all; but it was quite enough to make me
+dislike him.
+
+However, a sunny morning in the holidays is a cheerful thing, and when
+I strolled down stream with my rod on the day after our expedition, I
+felt I could enjoy myself very nearly as much as I had before his
+coming spoiled our party. I dawdled along, now trying a pool, now
+clambering up the hillsides to pick raspberries, and now counting the
+magpies that flew across, feeling altogether very placid and good and
+contented. I had chosen the lower river because Mr. Herapath usually
+fished the upper part, and I would not be ruffled this nice day. So I
+was the more vexed to come suddenly upon him fishing; and fishing
+where he had no right to be. Papa had spoken to him about the danger
+of it, and he had as good as said he would not do it again. Yet there
+he was, thinking, I dare say, that we should not know. It was a spot
+where one bank rose into quite a cliff, frowning over a deep pool at
+the foot of some falls. Close to the cliff the water still ran with
+the speed of a mill-race, so fast as to endanger a good swimmer. But
+on the far side of this current there was a bit of slack water which
+was tempting enough to have set some one's wits to work to devise
+means to fish it, which from the top of the cliff was impossible. Just
+above the water was a ledge, a foot wide, perhaps, which might have
+done, only it did not reach to this end of the cliff. However, that
+foolhardy person had espied this, and got over the gap by bridging the
+latter with a bit of plank, and then had drowned himself or gone away,
+in either case leaving his board to tempt others to do likewise.
+
+And there was Mr. Herapath fishing from the ledge. It made me giddy to
+look at him. The rock overhung the water so much that he could not
+stand upright; the first person who got there must surely have learned
+to curl himself up from much sleeping in Norwegian beds, which were
+short for me. I thought of this oddly enough as I watched him, and
+laughed, and was for going on. But when I had walked a few yards,
+meaning to pass round the rear of the cliff, I began to fancy all
+sorts of foolish things would happen. I felt sure that I should have
+no more peace or pleasure if I left him there. I hesitated. Yes, I
+would. I would go down, and ask him to leave the place; and, of
+course, he would do it.
+
+I lost no time, but ran down the slope smartly and carelessly. My way
+lay over loose shale mingled with large stones, and it was steep. It
+is wonderful how quickly an accident happens; how swiftly a thing that
+cannot be undone is done, and we are left wishing--oh, so vainly--that
+we could put the world, and all things in it, back by a few seconds. I
+was checking myself near the bottom, when a big stone on which I
+stepped moved under me. The shale began to slip in a mass, and the
+stone to roll. It was all done in a moment. I stayed myself, that was
+easy enough, but the stone took two bounds, jumped sideways, struck
+the piece of board which was only resting lightly at either end, and
+before I could take it all in the little bridge plunged end first into
+the current, which swept it out of sight in an instant.
+
+He threw up his hands in affright, for he had turned, and we both saw
+it happen. He made indeed as if he would try to save it, but that was
+impossible; and then, while I cowered in dismay, he waved his arm to
+me in the direction of home--again and again. The roar of the falls
+drowned what he said, but I guessed his meaning. I could not help him
+myself, but I could fetch help. It was three miles to Breistolen,
+rough, rocky ones, and I doubted whether he could keep his cramped
+position with that noise deafening him, and the endless whirling
+stream before his eyes, while I was going and coming. But there was no
+better way I could think of; and even as I wavered, he signalled to me
+again imperatively. For an instant everything seemed to go round with
+me, but it was not the time for that yet, and I tried to collect
+myself, and harden my heart. Up the bank I went steadily, and once at
+the top set off at a run homewards.
+
+I cannot tell at all how I did it; how I passed over the uneven
+ground, or whether I went quickly or slowly save by the reckoning papa
+made afterwards. I can only remember one long hurrying scramble; now I
+panted uphill, now I ran down, now I was on my face in a hole,
+breathless and half-stunned, and now I was up to my knees in water. I
+slipped and dropped down places I should at other times have shrunk
+from, and hurt myself so that I bore the marks for months. But I
+thought nothing of these things: all my being was spent in hurrying on
+for his life, the clamor of every cataract I passed seeming to stop my
+heart's beating with very fear. So I reached Breistolen and panted
+over the bridge and up to the little white house lying so quiet in the
+afternoon sunshine, papa's stool-car even then at the door ready to
+take him to some favorite pool. Somehow I made him understand in
+broken words that Herapath was in danger, drowning already, for all I
+knew, and then I seized a great pole which was leaning against the
+porch, and climbed into the car. Papa was not slow either; he snatched
+a coil of rope from the luggage, and away we went, a man and boy whom
+he had hastily called running behind us. We had lost very little time,
+but so much may happen in so little time.
+
+We were forced to leave the car a quarter of a mile from that part of
+the river, and walk or run the rest of the way. We all ran, even papa,
+as I had never known him run before. My heart sank at the groan he let
+escape him when I pointed out the spot. We came to it one by one and
+we all looked. The ledge was empty. Jem Herapath was gone. I suppose
+it startled me. At any rate I could only look at the water in a dazed
+way, and cry quietly without much feeling that it was my doing; while
+the men, shouting to one another in strange, hushed voices, searched
+about for any sign of his fate--"Jem! Jem Herapath!" So he had written
+his name only yesterday in the travellers' book at the posting-house,
+and I had sullenly watched him from the window, and then had sneaked
+to the book and read it. That was yesterday, and now! Oh, Jem, to hear
+you say "Bab" once more!
+
+"Bab! Why, Miss Bab, what is the matter?"
+
+Safe and sound! Yes, there he was when I turned, safe, and strong, and
+cool, rod in hand, and a quiet smile in his eyes. Just as I had seen
+him yesterday, and thought never to see him again; and saying "Bab"
+exactly as of old, so that something in my throat--it may have been
+anger at his rudeness, but I do not think it was--prevented me saying
+a word until all the others came round us, and a babel of Norse and
+English, and something that was neither, yet both, set in.
+
+"But how is this?" objected my father when he could be heard, "you are
+quite dry, my boy?"
+
+"Dry! Why not, sir? For goodness' sake, what is the matter?"
+
+"The matter! Didn't you fall in, or something of the kind?" papa
+asked, bewildered by this new aspect of the case.
+
+"It does not look like it, does it? Your daughter gave me a very
+uncomfortable start by nearly doing so."
+
+Every one looked at him for an explanation. "How did you manage to get
+from the ledge?" I said feebly. Where was the mistake? I had not
+dreamed it.
+
+"From the ledge? Why, by the other end, to be sure, so that I had to
+walk back round the hill. Still I did not mind, for I was thankful
+that it was the plank and not you that fell in.
+
+"I--I thought--you could not get from the ledge," I muttered. The
+possibility of getting off at the other end had never occurred to me,
+and so I had made such a simpleton of myself. It was too absurd, too
+ridiculous. It was no wonder that they all screamed with laughter at
+the fool's errand they had come upon, and stamped about and clung to
+one another. But when he laughed too--and he did until the tears came
+into his eyes--there was not an ache or pain in my body--and I had cut
+my wrist to the bone against a splinter of rock--that hurt me one-half
+as much. Surely he might have seen another side to it. But he did not;
+and so I managed to hide my bandaged wrist from him, and papa drove me
+home. There I broke down entirely, and Clare put me to bed, and petted
+me, and was very good to me. And when I came down next day, with an
+ache in every part of me, he was gone.
+
+"He asked me to tell you," said Clare, not looking up from the fly she
+was tying at the window, "that he thought you were the bravest girl he
+had ever met."
+
+So he understood now, when others had explained it to him. "No,
+Clare," I said coldly, "he did not say that exactly; he said 'the
+bravest little girl.'" For indeed, lying upstairs with the window
+open, I had heard him set off on his long drive to Laerdalsoeren. As
+for papa, he was half-proud and half-ashamed of my foolishness, and
+wholly at a loss to think how I could have made the mistake.
+
+"You've generally some common-sense, my dear," he said that day at
+dinner, "and how in the world you could have been so ready to fancy
+the man was in danger, I--can--not--imagine!"
+
+"Papa," put in Clare, suddenly, "your elbow is upsetting the salt."
+
+And as I had to move my seat just then to avoid the glare of the stove
+which was falling on my face, we never thought it out.
+
+
+
+
+                                  II
+
+                              HIS STORY
+
+
+I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance
+in town was limited, and something too because I cared little for it.
+But these were pleasant people, the old gentleman witty and amusing,
+the children, lively girls, nice to look at and good to talk with. The
+party had too a holiday flavor about them wholesome to recall in
+Scotland Yard: and as I had thought, play-time over, I should see no
+more of them, I was proportionately pleased to find that Mr. Guest had
+not forgotten me, and pleased also--shrewdly expecting that we might
+kill our fish over again--to regard his invitation to dinner at a
+quarter-to-eight as a royal command.
+
+But if I took it so, I was sadly wanting in the regal courtesy to
+match. What with one delay owing to work that would admit of none,
+and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was
+twenty-five minutes after the hour named, when I reached Bolton
+Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel, that it was plain
+upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me straight into the
+dining-room, where Guest greeted me very kindly, and met my excuses by
+apologies on his part--for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of
+eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, "My
+daughter," and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair
+at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say "Clear, if
+you please," and then I was free to turn and apologize to her, being a
+little shy, and, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.
+
+I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness--to her younger
+sister--in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for
+her dress and some striking differences. Miss Guest could not be more
+than eighteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, with
+the same child-like, innocent look on her face. She had the big, gray
+eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but in her they were more
+soft and tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming.
+Her hair too was brown and wavy: only, instead of hanging loose or in
+a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was
+coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that was so Greek, and
+in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose, so unlike Bab's. Her
+dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white
+throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and, so far, no more
+recalled my little fishing-mate than the sedate self-possession and
+assured dignity of this girl, as she talked to her other neighbor,
+suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's
+children in her strangely and wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not
+Bab in fact: and yet it almost might have been: an etherealized,
+queenly, womanly Bab. Who presently turned to me--
+
+"Have you quite settled down after your holiday?" she asked, staying
+the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.
+
+"I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a
+breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well."
+
+"My sisters?" she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her
+pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning.
+
+"Yes," I said rather puzzled. "You know they were with your father
+when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab."
+
+"Eh?" dropping her fork on the plate with a great clatter.
+
+"Yes, Miss Guest, Miss Clare and Miss Bab."
+
+I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her color rose, and she looked
+me in the face in a half-proud, half-fearful way as if she resented
+the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion,
+she at length stammered, "Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they
+were! How very foolish of me. They are quite well, thank you," and so
+was silent again. But I understood now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
+mention my name, and she had taken me for some one else of whose
+holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room
+that the Guests saw a good deal of company, and it was a very natural
+mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear
+that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without,
+if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a
+humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between
+myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting.
+Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of
+Dresden china, she was so frail and pretty.
+
+"You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?" she
+asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.
+
+"Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved
+in the pluckiest manner--so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that
+the danger was not there to dignify her heroism."
+
+"That was like her," she answered in a tone just a little scornful.
+"You must have thought her a terrible tomboy."
+
+While she was speaking there came one of those dreadful lulls in the
+talk, and Mr. Guest overhearing, cried, "Who is that you are abusing,
+my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it's Clare, I think I can
+name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion."
+
+"It is no one of whom you have ever heard, papa," she answered,
+archly. "It is a person in whom Mr.--Mr. Herapath--" I had murmured my
+name as she stumbled--"and I are interested. Now tell me, did you not
+think so?" she murmured, graciously leaning the slightest bit towards
+me, and opening her eyes as they looked into mine in a way that to a
+man who had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was
+sufficiently intoxicating.
+
+"No," I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. "No, Miss Guest,
+I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little thing,
+rather careless as children are apt to be, but likely to grow into a
+charming girl."
+
+I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent,
+whether, impossible as it must seem to any one looking in her face,
+there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbor.
+Her tone when she spoke of her sister seemed to impart no great
+goodwill.
+
+"So that is your opinion?" she said, after a pause. "Do you know,"
+with a laughing glance, "that some people think I am like her."
+
+"Yes?" I answered, gravely. "Well, I should be able to judge, who have
+seen you both and yet am not an old friend. And I think you are both
+like and unlike. Your sister has very beautiful eyes"--she lowered
+hers swiftly--"and hair like yours, but her manner and style were very
+different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture
+you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time--and on many after
+occasions," I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at
+the queer little figure I had conjured up.
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Herapath," she replied, with coldness, though she had
+blushed darkly to her ears. "That, I think, must be enough of
+compliments, for to-night--as you are not an old friend." And she
+turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our
+acquaintance was as yet in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth
+as to a temperature below zero.
+
+A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her
+cheek still lingered there, as she swept past me with a wondrous show
+of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place,
+and we talked of the "land of berries," and our adventures there,
+while the rest--older friends--listened indulgently or struck in from
+time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.
+
+I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why they get
+more joy--I am fain to think they do--out of a scrambling tea up three
+pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the very same materials--and
+comfort withal--in their own house. I imagine it is for the same
+reason that the bachelor finds a singular charm in a lady's
+drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A
+charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests'
+drawing-room--a room rich in subdued colors and a cunning blending of
+luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt alone. Mr. Guest had
+passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of
+these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I
+had been in the habit of rather despising "society." Miss Guest was at
+the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up also
+a keen-faced, dark-whiskered man leaning over her with the air of one
+used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may
+have looked, as well as felt, forlorn, and meeting her eyes could have
+fancied she was regarding me with amusement--almost triumph. It must
+have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment
+she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier:
+
+"There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so
+that I don't want you any longer. Perhaps you won't mind stepping up
+to the schoolroom--Fraeulein and Clare are there--and telling Clare,
+that--that--oh, anything."
+
+There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who
+is at home in a house to flaunt his favor in the face of other guests.
+That young lawyer's manner as he left her, and the smile of perfect
+intelligence which passed between them, were such a breach of good
+manners as would have ruffled any one. They ruffled me--yes, me,
+although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he
+conducted himself--so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano
+and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.
+
+She did not speak; and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing
+over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She
+had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something
+about which--not its newness--so startled me that I said abruptly:
+"That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it?"
+
+She looked up, saw what I meant, and stopping hastily, put on her
+bracelets; to all appearance so vexed by my thoughtless question, and
+anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, "I asked
+because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day
+when she thought I was in trouble, and the coincidence struck me."
+
+"Yes, I remember," looking at me, I thought, with a certain suspicion,
+as though she were not sure that I was giving the right motive. "I did
+this much in the same way. By falling, I mean. Isn't it a hateful
+disfigurement?"
+
+No, it was no disfigurement. Even to her, with a woman's love of
+conquest, it must have seemed anything but a disfigurement had she
+known what the quiet, awkward man at her side was thinking, who stood
+looking shyly at it and found no words to contradict her, though she
+asked him twice, and thought him stupid enough. A great longing to
+kiss that soft, scarred wrist was on me--and Miss Guest had added
+another to the number of her slaves. I don't know now why that little
+scar should have so touched me any more than I then could guess why,
+being a commonplace person, I should fall in love at first sight, and
+feel no surprise at my condition, but only a half consciousness
+(seeming fully to justify it) that in some former state of being I had
+met my love, and read her thoughts, and learned her moods; and come to
+know the bright womanly spirit that looked from her frank eyes as well
+as if she were an old, old friend. And so vivid was this sensation,
+that once or twice, then and afterwards, when I would meet her glance,
+another name than hers trembled on my tongue and passed away before I
+could shape it into sound.
+
+After an interval, "Are you going to the Goldmace's dance?"
+
+"No," I answered her, humbly. "I go out so little."
+
+"Indeed," with an odd smile not too kindly; "I wish--no I don't--that
+we could say the same. We are engaged, I think--" she paused, her
+attention divided between myself and Boccherini's minuet, the low
+strains of which she was sending through the room--"for every
+afternoon--this week--except Saturday. By the way, Mr. Herapath--do
+you remember what was the name--Bab told me you teased her with?"
+
+"Wee bonnie Bab," I answered absently. My thoughts had gone forward to
+Saturday. "We are always dropping to-day's substance for the shadow of
+to-morrow; like the dog--a dog was it not?--in the fable."
+
+"Oh, yes, wee bonnie Bab," she murmured softly. "Poor Bab!" and
+suddenly cut short Boccherini's music and our chat by striking a
+terrific discord and laughing merrily at my start of discomfiture.
+Every one took it as a signal to leave. They all seemed to be going to
+meet her again next day, or the day after that; they engaged her for
+dances, and made up a party for the law courts, and tossed to and fro
+a score of laughing catch-words, that were beyond my comprehension.
+They all did this, except myself.
+
+And yet I went away with something before me--that call upon Saturday
+afternoon. Quite unreasonably I fancied I should see her alone. And
+so when the day came and I stood outside the opening door of the
+drawing-room, and heard voices and laughter within, I was hurt and
+aggrieved beyond measure. There was quite a party, and a merry one,
+assembled, who were playing at some game, as it seemed to me, for I
+caught sight of Clare whipping off an impromptu bandage from her eyes,
+and striving by her stiffest air to give the lie to a pair of flushed
+cheeks. The black-whiskered man was there, and two men of his kind,
+and a German governess, and a very old lady in a wheel-chair, who was
+called "grandmamma," and Miss Guest herself looking, in the prettiest
+dress of silvery plush, to the full as bright and fair and graceful as
+I had been picturing her each hour since we parted.
+
+She dropped me a stately courtesy. "Will you play the part of Miss
+Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, Mr. Herapath, while I act honest
+Burchell, and say 'Fudge!' or will you burn nuts and play games with
+neighbor Flamborough? You will join us, won't you? Clare does not so
+misbehave every day, only it is such a wet afternoon and so cold and
+wretched, and we did not think there would be any more callers--and
+tea will be up in five minutes."
+
+She did not think there would be any more callers! Something in her
+smile belied the words and taught me that she had thought--she had
+known--that there would be one more caller--one who would burn nuts
+and play games with her, though Rome itself were afire, and Tooley
+Street and the Mile End Road to boot.
+
+It was a simple game enough, and not likely, one would say, to afford
+much risk of that burning the fingers, which gave a zest to the Vicar
+of Wakefield's nuts. One sat in the middle blindfolded, while the rest
+disguised their own or assumed each other's voices, and spoke one by
+one some gibe or quip at his expense. When he succeeded in naming the
+speaker, the detected satirist put on the poke, and in his turn heard
+things good--if he had a conceit of himself--for his soul's health.
+Now this _role_ unhappily soon fell to me, and proved a heavy one,
+because I was not so familiar with the others' voices as were the
+rest; and Miss Guest--whose faintest tones I thought to have
+known--had a wondrous knack of cheating me, now taking off Clare's
+voice, and now--after the door had been opened to admit the tea--her
+father's. So I failed again and again to earn my release. But when a
+voice behind me cried with well-feigned eagerness--
+
+"How nice! Do tell me all about a fire!"
+
+Though no fresh creaking at the door had reached me, nor warning been
+given of an addition to the players, I had not the smallest doubt who
+was the speaker; but exclaimed at once, "That is Bab! Now I cry you
+mercy. I am right this time. That was Bab!"
+
+I looked for a burst of applause and laughter, such as had before
+attended a good thrust home, but none came. On the contrary, with my
+words so odd a silence fell upon the room that it was clear that
+something was wrong, and I pulled off my handkerchief in haste,
+repeating, "That was Bab, I am sure."
+
+But if it was, I could not see her. What had come over them all?
+Jack's face wore a provoking smile, and his friends were clearly bent
+upon sniggering. Clare looked horrified, and grandmamma gently
+titillated, while Miss Guest, who had risen and half turned away
+towards the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
+was the matter?
+
+"I beg every one's pardon by anticipation," I said, looking round in a
+bewildered way: "but have I said anything wrong?"
+
+"Oh, dear no," cried the fellow they called Jack, with a familiarity
+that was in the worst taste--as if I had meant to apologize to him!
+"Most natural thing in the world!"
+
+"Jack, how dare you?" exclaimed Miss Guest, stamping her foot.
+
+"Well it seemed all right. It sounded very natural, I am sure."
+
+"Oh, you are unbearable! Why don't you say something, Clare?"
+
+"Mr. Herapath, I am sure that you did not know that my name was
+Barbara."
+
+"Certainly not," I cried. "What a strange thing!"
+
+"But it is, and that is why grandmamma is looking so shocked, and Mr.
+Buchanan is wearing threadbare an old friend's privilege of being
+rude. I freely forgive you if you will make allowance for him. And you
+shall come off the stool of repentance and have your tea first, since
+you are the greatest stranger. It is a stupid game after all!"
+
+She would hear no apologies from me. And when I would have asked why
+her sister bore the same name, and thus excused myself, she was intent
+upon tea-making, and the few moments I could with decency add to my
+call gave me scant opportunity. I blush to think how I eked them out,
+by what subservience to Clare, by what a slavish anxiety to help even
+Jack to muffins--each piece I hoped might choke him. How slow I was to
+find hat and gloves, calling to mind with terrible vividness, as I
+turned my back upon the circle, that again and again in my experience,
+an acquaintance begun by a dinner had ended with the consequent call.
+And so I should have gone--it might have been so here--but that the
+door-handle was stiff, and Miss Guest came to my aid, as I fumbled
+with it. "We are always at home on Saturdays, if you like to call, Mr.
+Herapath," she murmured carelessly, not lifting her eyes--and I found
+myself in the street.
+
+So carelessly she said it, that with a sudden change of feeling I
+vowed I would not call. Why should I? Why should I worry myself with
+the sight of those other fellows parading their favor? With the babble
+of that society chit-chat, which I had so often scorned, and--and
+still scorned, and had no part or concern in. They were not people
+to suit me, or do me good. I would not go, I said, and repeated it
+firmly on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday only so far modified it
+that I thought at some distant time to leave a card--to avoid
+discourtesy;--on Friday preferred an earlier date as wiser and more
+polite, and on Saturday walked shame-faced down the street and knocked
+and rang, and went upstairs--to taste a pleasant misery. Yes, and on
+the next Saturday too, and the next, and the next; and that one on
+which we all went to the theatre, and that other one on which Mr.
+Guest kept me to dinner. Ay, and on other days that were not
+Saturdays, among which two stand high out of the waters of
+forgetfulness--high days indeed--days like twin pillars of Hercules,
+through which I thought to reach, as did the seamen of old, I knew not
+what treasures of unknown lands stretching away under the setting sun.
+First that one on which I found Barbara Guest alone and blurted out
+that I had the audacity to wish to make her my wife; and then heard,
+before I had well--or badly--told my tale, the wheels of grandmamma's
+chair outside.
+
+"Hush!" the girl said, her face turned from me. "Hush, Mr. Herapath.
+You don't know me, indeed. You have seen so little of me. Please say
+nothing more about it. You are completely under a delusion."
+
+"It is no delusion that I love you, Barbara!" I cried.
+
+"It is, it is," she repeated, freeing her hand. "There, if you will
+not take an answer--come--come at three to-morrow. But mind, I promise
+you nothing--I promise you nothing," she added feverishly, and fled
+from the room, leaving me to talk to grandmamma as best, and escape as
+quickly as, I might.
+
+I longed for a great fire that evening, and failing one, tired myself
+by tramping unknown streets of the East-end, striving to teach myself
+that any trouble to-morrow might bring was but a shadow, a sentiment,
+a thing not to be mentioned in the same breath with the want and toil
+of which I caught glimpses up each street and lane that opened to
+right and left. In the main, of course, I failed: but the effort did
+me good, sending me home tired out, to sleep as soundly as if I were
+going to be hanged next day, and not--which is a very different
+thing--to be put upon my trial.
+
+"I will tell Miss Guest you are here, sir," the man said. I looked at
+all the little things in the room which I had come to know well--her
+workbasket, the music upon the piano, the table-easel, her
+photograph--and wondered if I were to see them no more, or if they
+were to become a part of my every-day life. Then I heard her come in,
+and turned quickly, feeling that I should learn my fate from her
+greeting.
+
+"Bab!" The word was rung from me perforce. And then we stood and
+looked at one another, she with a strange pride and defiance in her
+eyes, though her cheek was dark with blushes, and I with wonder and
+perplexity in mine,--wonder and perplexity that quickly grew into a
+conviction, a certainty that the girl standing before me in the
+short-skirted brown dress with tangled hair and loose neck-ribbon was
+the Bab I had known in Norway; and yet that the eyes--I could not
+mistake them now, no matter what unaccustomed look they might
+wear--were Barbara Guest's!
+
+"Miss Guest--Barbara," I stammered, grappling with the truth, "why
+have you played this trick upon me?"
+
+"It is Miss Guest and Barbara now," she cried, with a mocking
+courtesy. "Do you remember, Mr. Herapath, when it was Bab? When you
+treated me as a kind of toy, and a plaything, with which you might be
+as intimate as you liked; and hurt my feelings--yes, it is weak to
+confess it, I know--day by day, and hour by hour?"
+
+"But surely, that is forgiven now?" I said, dazed by an attack so
+sudden and so bitter. "It is atonement enough that I am at your feet
+now, Barbara!"
+
+"You are not," she retorted hotly. "Don't say you have offered love to
+me, who am the same with the child you teased at Breistolen. You have
+fallen in love with my fine clothes, and my pearls and my maid's work,
+not with me. You have fancied the girl you saw other men make much of.
+But you have not loved the woman who might have prized that which Miss
+Guest has never learned to value."
+
+"How old are you?" I said, hoarsely.
+
+"Nineteen!" she snapped out. And then for a moment we were both
+silent.
+
+"I begin to understand now," I answered slowly as soon as I could
+conquer something in my throat. "Long ago when I hardly knew you, I
+hurt your woman's pride; and since that you have plotted----"
+
+"No, you have tricked yourself!"
+
+"And schemed to bring me to your feet that you might have the pleasure
+of trampling on me. Miss Guest, your triumph is complete, more
+complete than you are able to understand. I loved you this morning
+above all the world--as my own life--as every hope I had. See, I tell
+you this that you may have a moment's keener pleasure when I am gone."
+
+"Don't! Don't!" she cried, throwing herself into a chair and covering
+her face.
+
+"You have won a man's heart and cast it aside to gratify an old pique.
+You may rest content now, for there is nothing wanting to your
+vengeance. You have given me as much pain as a woman, the vainest and
+the most heartless, can give a man. Good-by."
+
+And with that I was leaving her, fighting my own pain and passion, so
+that the little hands she raised as though they would ward off my
+words were nothing to me. I felt a savage delight in seeing that I
+could hurt her, which deadened my own grief. The victory was not all
+with her lying there sobbing. Only where was my hat? Let me get my hat
+and go. Let me escape from this room wherein every trifle upon which
+my eye rested awoke some memory that was a pang. Let me get away, and
+have done with it all.
+
+Where was the hat? I had brought it up. I could not go without it. It
+must be under her chair, by all that was unlucky, for it was nowhere
+else. I could not stand and wait, and so I had to go up to her, with
+cold words of apology upon my lips, and being close to her and seeing
+on her wrist, half hidden by fallen hair, the scar she had brought
+home from Norway, I don't know how it was that I fell on my knees by
+her and cried:
+
+"Oh, Bab, I loved you so! Let us part friends."
+
+For a moment, silence. Then she whispered, her hand in mine, "Why did
+you not say Bab to begin? I only told you that Miss Guest had not
+learned to value your love."
+
+"And Bab?" I murmured, my brain in a whirl.
+
+"Learned long ago, poor girl!"
+
+And the fair, tear-stained face of my tyrant looked into mine for a
+moment, and then came quite naturally to its resting place.
+
+"Now," she said, when I was leaving, "you may have your hat, sir."
+
+"I believe," I replied, "that you sat upon this chair on purpose."
+
+And Bab blushed. I believe she did.
+
+
+
+
+
+                         A Strange Invitation
+
+
+I have friends who tell me that they seldom walk the streets of London
+without wondering what is passing behind the house-fronts; without
+picturing a comedy here, a love-scene there, and behind the dingy cane
+blinds a something ill-defined, a something odd and _bizarre_. They
+experience--if you believe them--a sense of loneliness out in the
+street, an impatience of the sameness of all these many houses, their
+dull bricks and discreet windows, and a longing that some one would
+step out and ask them to enter and see the play.
+
+Well, I have never felt any of these things; but as I was passing
+through Fitzhardinge Square about half-past ten o'clock one evening in
+last July, after dining, if I remember rightly, in Baker Street,
+something happened to me which I fancy may be of interest to such
+people.
+
+I was passing through the square from north to south, and to avoid a
+small crowd, which some reception had drawn together, I left the
+pavement and struck across the road to the path round the oval garden;
+which, by the way, contains a few of the finest trees in London. This
+part was in deep shadow, so that when I presently emerged from it and
+recrossed the road to the pavement near the top of Fitzhardinge
+Street, I had an advantage over any persons on the pavement. They were
+under the lamps, while I, coming from beneath the trees, was almost
+invisible.
+
+The door of the house immediately in front of me as I crossed was
+open, and an elderly manservant out of livery was standing at it,
+looking up and down the pavement by turns. It was his air of furtive
+anxiety that drew my attention to him. He was not like a man looking
+for a cab, or waiting for his sweetheart; and I had my eye upon him as
+I stepped upon the pavement before him. But my surprise was great when
+he uttered a low exclamation of dismay at sight of me and made as if
+he would escape; while his face, in the full glare of the light, grew
+so pale and terror-stricken that he might before have been completely
+at his ease. I was astonished and instinctively stood still returning
+his gaze; for perhaps twenty seconds we remained so, he speechless,
+and his hands fallen by his side. Then, before I could move on, as I
+was in the act of doing, he cried, "Oh! Mr. George! Oh! Mr. George!"
+in a tone that rang out in the stillness rather as a wail than an
+ordinary cry.
+
+My name, my surname I mean, is George. For a moment I took the address
+to myself, forgetting that the man was a stranger, and my heart began
+to beat more quickly with fear of what might have happened. "What is
+it?" I exclaimed. "What is it?" and I shook back from the lower part
+of my face the silk muffler I was wearing. The evening was close, but
+I had been suffering from a sore throat.
+
+He came nearer and peered more closely at me, and I dismissed my fear;
+for I thought that I could see the discovery of his mistake dawning
+upon him. His pallid face, on which the pallor was the more noticeable
+as his plump features were those of a man with whom the world as a
+rule went well, regained some of its lost color, and a sigh of relief
+passed his lips. But this feeling was only momentary. The joy of
+escape from whatever blow he had thought imminent gave place at once
+to his previous state of miserable expectancy of something or other.
+
+"You took me for another person," I said, preparing to pass on. At
+that moment I could have sworn--I would have given one hundred to one
+twice over--that he was going to say Yes. To my intense astonishment,
+he did not. With a very visible effort he said, "No!"
+
+"Eh! What?" I exclaimed. I had taken a step or two.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then what is it?" I said. "What do you want, my good fellow?"
+
+Watching his shuffling, indeterminate manner, I wondered if he were
+sane. His next answer reassured me on that point. There was an almost
+desperate deliberation about its manner. "My master wishes to see you,
+sir, if you will kindly walk in for five minutes," was what he said.
+
+I should have replied, "Who is your master?" if I had been wise; or
+cried, "Nonsense!" and gone my way. But the mind when it is spurred by
+a sudden emergency often overruns the more obvious course to adopt a
+worse. It was possible that one of my intimates had taken the house,
+and said in his butler's presence that he wished to see me. Thinking
+of that I answered, "Are you sure of this? Have you not made a
+mistake, my man?"
+
+With an obstinate sullenness that was new in him he said, No, he had
+not. Would I please to walk in? He stepped briskly forward as he
+spoke, and induced me by a kind of gentle urgency to enter the house,
+taking from me with the ease of a trained servant my hat, coat, and
+muffler. Finding himself in the course of his duties he gained more
+composure; while I, being thus treated, lost my sense of the
+strangeness of the proceeding, and only awoke to a full consciousness
+of my position when he had softly shut the door behind us and was in
+the act of putting up the chain.
+
+Then I confess I looked round a little alarmed at my precipitancy. But
+I found the hall spacious, lofty, and dark-panelled, the ordinary hall
+of an old London house. The big fireplace was filled with plants in
+flower. There were rugs on the floor and a number of chairs with
+painted crests on the backs, and in a corner was an old sedan chair,
+its poles upright against the wall.
+
+No other servants were visible, it is true. But apart from this all
+was in order, all was quiet, and any idea of violence was manifestly
+absurd.
+
+At the same time the affair seemed of the strangest. Why should the
+butler in charge of a well-arranged and handsome house--the house of
+an ordinary wealthy gentleman--why should he loiter about the open
+doorway as if anxious to feel the presence of his kind? Why should he
+show such nervous excitement and terror as I had witnessed? Why should
+he introduce a stranger?
+
+I had reached this point when he led the way upstairs. The staircase
+was wide, the steps were low and broad. On either side at the head of
+the flight stood a beautiful Venus of white Parian marble. They were
+not common reproductions, and I paused. I could see beyond them a
+Hercules and a Meleager of bronze, and delicately tinted draperies and
+ottomans that under the light of a silver hanging-lamp?--a gem from
+Malta--changed a mere lobby to a fairies' nook. The sight filled me
+with a certain suspicion; which was dispelled, however, when my hand
+rested for an instant upon the reddish pedestal that supported one of
+the statues. The cold touch of the marble was enough for me. The
+pillars were not of composite; of which they certainly would have
+consisted in a gaming-house, or worse.
+
+Three steps carried me across the lobby to a curtained doorway by
+which the servant was waiting. I saw that the "shakes" were upon
+him again. His impatience was so ill-concealed that I was not
+surprised--though I was taken aback--when he dropped the mask
+altogether, and as I passed him--it being now too late for me to
+retreat undiscovered, if the room were occupied--laid a trembling hand
+upon my arm and thrust his face close to mine. "Ask how he is! Say
+anything," he whispered trembling, "no matter what, sir! Only, for the
+love of heaven, stay five minutes!"
+
+He gave me a gentle push forward as he spoke--pleasant all this!--and
+announced in a loud, quavering voice, "Mr. George!"--which was true
+enough. I found myself walking round a screen at the same time that
+something in the room, a long, dimly-lighted room, fell with a brisk,
+rattling sound, and there was the scuffling noise of a person, still
+hidden from me by the screen, rising to his feet in haste.
+
+Next moment I was face to face with two men. One, a handsome, elderly
+gentleman, who wore gray moustaches and would have seemed in place at
+a service club, was still in his chair regarding me with a perfectly
+calm, unmoved face, as if my entrance at that hour were the commonest
+incident of his life. The other had risen and stood looking at me
+askance. He was five-and-twenty years younger than his companion and
+as good-looking in a different way. But now his face was white and
+drawn, distorted by the same expression of terror--ay, and a darker
+and fiercer terror than that which I had already seen upon the
+servant's features; it was the face of one in a desperate strait. He
+looked as a man looks who has put all he has in the world upon an
+outsider--and done it twice. In that quiet drawing-room by the side of
+his placid companion, with nothing whatever in their surroundings to
+account for his emotion, his panic-stricken face shocked me
+inexpressibly.
+
+They were in evening dress; and between them was a chess-table, its
+men in disorder: almost touching this was another small table bearing
+a tray of Apollinaris water and spirits. On this the young man was
+resting one hand as if but for its support he would have fallen.
+
+To add one more fact, I had never seen either of them in my life.
+
+Or wait; could that be true? If so, it must be indeed a nightmare I
+was suffering. For the elder man broke the silence by addressing me in
+a quiet ordinary tone that exactly matched his face. "Sit down,
+George," he said, "don't stand there. I did not expect you this
+evening." He held out his hand, without rising from his chair, and I
+advanced and shook it in silence. "I thought you were in Liverpool.
+How are you?" he continued.
+
+"Very well, I thank you," I muttered mechanically.
+
+"Not very well, I should say," he retorted. "You are as hoarse as a
+raven. You have a bad cold at best. It is nothing worse, my boy, is
+it?" with anxiety.
+
+"No, a throat cough; nothing else," I murmured, resigning myself to
+this astonishing reception--this evident concern for my welfare on the
+part of a man whom I had never seen in my life.
+
+"That is well!" he answered cheerily. Not only did my presence cause
+him no surprise. It gave him, without doubt, actual pleasure!
+
+It was otherwise with his companion; grimly and painfully so indeed.
+He had made no advances to me, spoken no word, scarcely altered his
+position. His eyes he had never taken from me. Yet in him there was a
+change. He had discovered, exactly as had the butler before him,
+his mistake. The sickly terror was gone from his face, and a
+half-frightened malevolence not much more pleasant to witness had
+taken its place. Why this did not break out in any active form was
+part of the general mystery given to me to solve. I could only surmise
+from glances which he later cast from time to time towards the door,
+and from the occasional faint creaking of a board in that direction,
+that his self-restraint had to do with my friend the butler. The
+inconsequences of dreamland ran through it all: why the elder man
+remained in error; why the younger with that passion on his face was
+tongue-tied; why the great house was so still; why the servant should
+have mixed me up with this business at all--these were questions as
+unanswerable, one as the other.
+
+And the fog in my mind grew denser when the old gentleman turned from
+me as if my presence were a usual thing, and rapped the table before
+him impatiently. "Now, Gerald!" cried he in sharp tones, "have you put
+those pieces back? Good heavens! I am glad that I have not nerves like
+yours! Don't remember the squares, boy? Here, give them to me!" With a
+hasty gesture of his hand, something like a mesmeric pass over the
+board, he set down the half-dozen pieces with a rapid tap! tap! tap!
+which made it abundantly clear that he, at any rate, had no doubt of
+their former positions.
+
+"You will not mind sitting by until we have finished the game?" he
+continued, speaking to me, and in a voice I fancied more genial than
+that which he had used to Gerald. "You are anxious to talk to me about
+your letter, George?" he went on when I did not answer. "The fact is
+that I have not read the inclosure. Barnes, as usual, read the outer
+letter to me, in which you said the matter was private and of grave
+importance; and I intended to go to Laura to-morrow, as you suggested,
+and get her to read the news to me. Now you have returned so soon, I
+am glad that I did not trouble her."
+
+"Just so, sir," I said, listening with all my ears; and wondering.
+
+"Well, I hope there is nothing very bad the matter, my boy?" he
+replied. "However--Gerald! it is your move!--ten minutes more of such
+play as your brother's, and I shall be at your service."
+
+Gerald made a hurried move. The piece rattled upon the board as if he
+had been playing the castanets. His father made him take it back. I
+sat watching the two in wonder and silence. What did it all mean? Why
+should Barnes--doubtless behind the screen listening--read the outer
+letter? Why must Laura be employed to read the inner? Why could not
+this cultivated and refined gentleman before me read his--Ah! That
+much was disclosed to me. A mere turn of the hand did it. He had made
+another of those passes over the board, and I learned from it what an
+ordinary examination would not have detected. He, the old soldier with
+the placid face and light-blue eyes, was blind! Quite blind!
+
+I began to see more clearly now, and from this moment I took up, at
+any rate in my own mind, a different position. Possibly the servant
+who had impelled me into the middle of this had had his own good
+reasons for doing so, as I now began to discern. But with a clue to
+the labyrinth in my hand I could no longer move passively at any
+other's impulse. I must act for myself. For a while I sat still and
+made no sign. My suspicions were presently confirmed. The elder man
+more than once scolded his opponent for playing slowly; in one of
+these intervals he took from an inside pocket of his dress waistcoat a
+small packet.
+
+"You had better take your letter, George," he said. "If there are, as
+you mentioned, originals in it, they will be more safe with you than
+with me. You can tell me all about it, _viva voce_, now you are here.
+Gerald will leave us alone presently."
+
+He held the papers towards me. To take them would be to take an active
+part in the imposture, and I hesitated, my own hand half outstretched.
+But my eyes fell at the critical instant upon Master Gerald's face,
+and my scruples took themselves off. He was eyeing the packet with an
+intense greed, and a trembling longing--a very itching of the fingers
+and toes, to fall upon the prey--that put an end to my doubts. I rose
+and took the papers. With a quiet, but I think significant, look in
+his direction, I placed them in the breast-pocket of my evening coat.
+I had no safer receptacle about me, or into that they would have gone.
+
+"Very well, sir," I said. "There is no particular hurry. I think the
+matter will keep, as things now are, until to-morrow."
+
+"To be sure. You ought not to be out with such a cold at night, my
+boy," he answered. "You will find a decanter of the Scotch whiskey you
+gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some hot water and a
+lemon, George? The servants are all at the theatre--Gerald begged a
+holiday for them--but Barnes will get you the things in a minute."
+
+"Thank you; I won't trouble him. I will take some with cold water," I
+replied, thinking I should gain in this way what I wanted--time to
+think: five minutes to myself, while they played.
+
+But I was out in my reckoning. "I will have mine now too," he said.
+"Will you mix it, Gerald?"
+
+Gerald jumped up to do it with tolerable alacrity. I sat still,
+preferring to help myself, when he should have attended to his
+father--if his father it was. I felt more easy now that I had those
+papers in my pocket. The more I thought of it, the more certain I
+became that they were the object aimed at by whatever devilry was on
+foot; and that possession of them gave me the whip-hand. My young
+gentleman might snarl and show his teeth, but the prize had escaped
+him.
+
+Perhaps I was a little too confident: a little too contemptuous of my
+opponent; a little too proud of the firmness with which I had taken at
+one and the same time the responsibility and the post of vantage. A
+creak of the board behind the screen roused me from my thoughts. It
+fell upon my ear trumpet-tongued: a sudden note of warning. I glanced
+up with a start, and a conviction that I was being caught napping, and
+looked instinctively towards the young man. He was busy at the tray,
+his back to me. Relieved of my fear of I did not know what--perhaps a
+desperate attack upon my pocket, I was removing my eyes, when, in
+doing so, I caught sight of his reflection in a small mirror beyond
+him. Ah!
+
+What was he busy about? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, at the moment. He
+was standing motionless--I could fancy him breathless also--a strange
+listening expression on his face; which seemed to me to have faded to
+a grayish tinge. His left hand was clasping a half-filled tumbler: the
+other was at his waistcoat pocket. So he stood during perhaps a second
+or two, a small lamp upon the tray before him illumining his handsome
+figure; and then his eyes, glancing up, met the reflection of mine in
+the mirror. Swiftly as the thought itself could pass from brain to
+limb, the hand which had been resting in the pocket flashed with a
+clatter among the glasses; and turning almost as quickly, he brought
+one of the latter to the chess-table, and set it down unsteadily.
+
+What had I seen! Nothing; actually nothing. Just what Gerald had been
+doing. Yet my heart was going as many strokes to the minute as a
+losing crew. I rose abruptly.
+
+"Wait a moment, sir," I said, as the elder man laid his hand upon the
+glass, "I don't think that Gerald has mixed this quite as you like
+it."
+
+He had already lifted it to his lips. I looked from him to Gerald.
+That young gentleman's color, though he faced me hardily, shifted more
+than once, and he seemed to be swallowing a succession of over-sized
+fives-balls; but his eyes met mine in a vicious kind of smile that was
+not without its gleam of triumph. I was persuaded that all was right
+even before his father said so.
+
+"Perhaps you have mixed for me, Gerald?" I suggested pleasantly.
+
+"No!" he answered in sullen defiance. He filled a glass with
+something--perhaps it was water--and drank it, his back towards me. He
+had not spoken so much as a single word to me before.
+
+The blind man's ear recognized the tone now. "I wish you boys would
+agree better," he said wearily. "Gerald, go to bed. I would as soon
+play chess with an idiot from Earlswood. Generally you can play the
+game if you are good for nothing else; but since your brother came in,
+you have not made a move which any one not an imbecile would make. Go
+to bed, boy! Go to bed!"
+
+I had stepped to the table while he was speaking. One of the glasses
+was full. I lifted it with seeming unconcern to my nose. There was
+whiskey in it as well as water. Then _had_ Gerald mixed for me? At any
+rate, I put the tumbler aside, and helped myself afresh. When I set
+the glass down empty, my mind was made up.
+
+"Gerald does not seem inclined to move, sir, so I will," I said
+quietly. "I will call in the morning and discuss that matter, if it
+will suit you. But to-night I feel inclined to get to bed early."
+
+"Quite right, my boy. I would ask you to take a bed here instead of
+turning out, but I suppose that Laura will be expecting you. Come in
+any time to-morrow morning. Shall Barnes call a cab for you?"
+
+"I think I will walk," I answered, shaking the proffered hand. "By the
+way, sir," I added, "have you heard who is the new Home Secretary?"
+
+"Yes, Henry Matthews," he replied. "Gerald told me. He had heard it at
+the Club."
+
+"It is to be hoped that he will have no womanish scruples about
+capital punishment," I said, as if I were incidentally considering the
+appointment. And with that last shot at Mr. Gerald--he turned green, I
+thought, a color which does not go well with a black moustache--I
+walked out of the room, so peaceful, so cosy, so softly lighted, as it
+looked, I remember; and downstairs. I hoped that I had paralyzed the
+young fellow, and might leave the house without molestation.
+
+But as I gained the foot of the stairs he tapped me on the shoulder. I
+saw then, looking at him, that I had mistaken my man. Every trace of
+the sullen defiance which had marked his manner throughout the
+interview upstairs was gone. His face was still pale, but it wore a
+gentle smile as we confronted one another under the hall lamp. "I have
+not the pleasure of knowing you, but let me thank you for your help,"
+he said, in a low voice, yet with a kind of frank spontaneity.
+"Barnes's idea of bringing you in was a splendid one, and I am
+immensely obliged to you."
+
+"Don't mention it," I answered stiffly, proceeding with my
+preparations for going out, as if he were not there; although I must
+confess that this complete change in him exercised my mind no little.
+
+"I feel so sure that we may rely upon your discretion," he went on,
+ignoring my tone, "that I need say nothing about that. Of course we
+owe you an explanation, but as your cold is really yours and not my
+brother's, you will not mind if I read you the riddle to-morrow
+instead of keeping you from your bed to-night?"
+
+"It will do equally well--indeed better," I said, putting on my
+overcoat, and buttoning it carefully across my chest, while I affected
+to be looking with curiosity at the sedan chair.
+
+He pointed lightly to the place where the packet lay. "You are
+forgetting the papers," he reminded me. His tone almost compelled the
+answer, "To be sure."
+
+But I had pretty well made up my mind, and I answered instead, "Not at
+all. They are quite safe, thank you."
+
+"But you don't--I beg your pardon--" he said, opening his eyes very
+wide, as if some new light were beginning to shine upon his mind and
+he could scarcely believe its revelations. "You don't really mean that
+you are going to take those papers away with you?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"My dear sir!" he remonstrated earnestly. "This is preposterous. Pray
+forgive me the reminder, but those papers, as my father gave you to
+understand, are private papers, which he supposed himself to be
+handing to my brother, George."
+
+"Just so!" was all I said. And I took a step towards the door.
+
+"You really mean to take them?" he asked seriously.
+
+"I do; unless you can satisfactorily explain the part I have played
+this evening. And also make it clear to me that you have a right to
+the possession of the papers."
+
+"Confound it! If I must do so to-night, I must!" he said reluctantly.
+"I trust to your honor, sir, to keep the explanation secret." I bowed,
+and he resumed. "My elder brother and I are in business together.
+Lately we have had losses which have crippled us so severely that we
+decided to disclose them to Sir Charles and ask his help. George did
+so yesterday by letter, giving certain notes of our liabilities. You
+ask why he did not make such a statement by word of mouth? Because he
+had to go to Liverpool at a moment's notice to make a last effort to
+arrange the matter. And as for me," with a curious grimace, "my father
+would as soon discuss business with his dog! Sooner!"
+
+"Well?" I said. He had paused, and was absently flicking the blossoms
+off the geraniums in the fireplace with his pocket-handkerchief,
+looking moodily at his work the while. I cannot remember noticing the
+handkerchief, yet I seem to be able to see it now. It had a red
+border, and was heavily scented with white rose. "Well?"
+
+"Well," he continued, with a visible effort, "my father has been
+ailing lately, and this morning his usual doctor made him see
+Bristowe. He is an authority on heart-disease, as you doubtless know;
+and his opinion is," he added in a lower voice and with some emotion,
+"that even a slight shock may prove fatal."
+
+I began to feel hot and uncomfortable. What was I to think? The packet
+was becoming as lead in my pocket.
+
+"Of course," he resumed more briskly, "that threw our difficulties
+into the shade at once; and my first impulse was to get these papers
+from him. Don't you see that? All day I have been trying in vain to
+effect it. I took Barnes, who is an old servant, partially into my
+confidence, but we could think of no plan. My father, like many people
+who have lost their sight, is jealous, and I was at my wits' end, when
+Barnes brought you up. Your likeness," he added in a parenthesis,
+looking at me reflectively, "to George put the idea into his head, I
+fancy? Yes, it must have been so. When I heard you announced, for a
+moment I thought you were George."
+
+"And you called up a look of the warmest welcome," I put in dryly.
+
+He colored, but answered almost immediately, "I was afraid that he
+would assume that the governor had read his letter, and blurt out
+something about it. Good Lord! if you knew the funk in which I have
+been all the evening lest my father should ask either of us to read
+the letter!" and he gathered up his handkerchief with a sigh of
+relief, and wiped his forehead.
+
+"I could see it very plainly," I answered, going slowly in my mind
+over what he had told me. If the truth must be confessed, I was in no
+slight quandary what I should do, or what I should believe. Was this
+really the key to it all? Dared I doubt it, or that that which I had
+constructed was a mare's nest,--the mere framework of a mare's nest.
+For the life of me I could not tell!
+
+"Well?" he said presently, looking up with an offended air. "Is there
+anything else I can explain? or will you have the kindness to return
+my property to me now?"
+
+"There is one thing about which I should like to ask a question," I
+said.
+
+"Ask on," he replied; and I wondered whether there was not a little
+too much of bravado in the tone of sufferance he assumed.
+
+"Why do you carry--" I went on, raising my eyes to his, and pausing on
+the word an instant--"that little medicament--you know what I mean--in
+your waistcoat pocket, my friend?"
+
+He perceptibly flinched. "I don't quite--quite understand," he began
+to stammer. Then he changed his tone and went on rapidly, "No! I will
+be frank with you, Mr.-- Mr.--"
+
+"George," I said, calmly.
+
+"Ah, indeed?" a trifle surprised, "Mr. George! Well, it is something
+Bristowe gave me this morning to be administered to my father--without
+his knowledge, if possible--whenever he grows excited. I did not think
+that you had seen it."
+
+Nor had I. I had only inferred its presence. But having inferred
+rightly once, I was inclined to trust my inference farther. Moreover
+while he gave this explanation, his breath came and went so quickly
+that my former suspicions returned. I was ready for him when he said,
+"Now I will trouble you, if you please, for those papers!" and held
+out his hand.
+
+"I cannot give them to you," I replied, point blank.
+
+"You cannot give them to me now?" he repeated.
+
+"No. Moreover the packet is sealed. I do not see, on second thoughts,
+what harm I can do you--now that it is out of your father's hands--by
+keeping it until to-morrow, when I will return it to your brother,
+from whom it came."
+
+"He will not be in London," he answered doggedly. He stepped between
+me and the door with looks which I did not like. At the same time I
+felt that some allowance must be made for a man treated in this way.
+
+"I am sorry," I said, "but I cannot do what you ask. I will do this,
+however. If you think the delay of importance, and will give me your
+brother's address in Liverpool, I will undertake to post the letters
+to him at once."
+
+He considered the offer, eyeing me the while with the same disfavor
+which he had exhibited in the drawing-room. At last he said slowly,
+"If you will do that?"
+
+"I will," I repeated. "I will do it immediately."
+
+He gave me the direction--"George Ritherdon, at the London and
+North-Western Hotel, Liverpool," and in return I gave him my own name
+and address. Then I parted from him, with a civil good-night on either
+side--and little liking I fancy--the clocks striking midnight, and the
+servants coming in as I passed out into the cool darkness of the
+square.
+
+Late as it was, I went straight to my club, determined that as I had
+assumed the responsibility there should be no laches on my part. There
+I placed the packet, together with a short note explaining how it came
+into my possession, in an outer envelope, and dropped the whole duly
+directed and stamped into the nearest pillar box. I could not register
+it at that hour, and rather than wait until next morning, I omitted
+the precaution, merely requesting Mr. Ritherdon to acknowledge its
+receipt.
+
+Well, some days passed during which it may be imagined that I thought
+no little about my odd experience. It was the story of the Lady and
+the Tiger over again. I had the choice of two alternatives at least. I
+might either believe the young fellow's story, which certainly had the
+merit of explaining in a fairly probable manner an occurrence of so
+odd a character as not to lend itself freely to explanation. Or I
+might disbelieve his story, plausible in its very strangeness as it
+was, in favor of my own vague suspicions. Which was I to do?
+
+Well, I set out by preferring the former alternative. This
+notwithstanding that I had to some extent committed myself against it
+by withholding the papers. But with each day that passed without
+bringing me an answer from Liverpool, I leaned more and more to the
+other side. I began to pin my faith to the tiger, adding each morning
+a point to the odds in the animal's favor. So it went on until ten
+days had passed.
+
+Then a little out of curiosity, but more, I gravely declare, because I
+thought it the right thing to do, I resolved to seek out George
+Ritherdon. I had no difficulty in learning where he might be found. I
+turned up the firm of Ritherdon Brothers (George and Gerald),
+cotton-spinners and India merchants, in the first directory I
+consulted. And about noon the next day I called at their place of
+business, and sent in my card to the senior partner. I waited five
+minutes--curiously scanned by the porter, who no doubt saw a likeness
+between me and his employer--and then I was admitted to the latter's
+room.
+
+He was a tall man with a fair beard, not one whit like Gerald, and yet
+tolerably good-looking; if I say more I shall seem to be describing
+myself. I fancied him to be balder about the temples, however, and
+grayer and more careworn than the man I am in the habit of seeing in
+my shaving-glass. His eyes, too, had a hard look, and he seemed in
+ill-health. All these things I took in later. At the time I only
+noticed his clothes. "So the old gentleman is dead," I thought, "and
+the young one's tale is true after all!" George Ritherdon was in deep
+mourning.
+
+"I wrote to you," I began, taking the seat to which he pointed, "about
+a fortnight ago."
+
+He looked at my card, which he held in his hand. "I think not," he
+said slowly.
+
+"Yes," I repeated. "You were then at the London and North-Western
+Hotel, at Liverpool."
+
+He was stepping to his writing-table, but he stopped abruptly. "I was
+in Liverpool," he answered in a different tone, "but I was not at
+that hotel. You are thinking of my brother, are you not?"
+
+"No," I said, "it was your brother who told me you were there."
+
+"Perhaps you had better explain what was the subject of your letter,"
+he suggested, speaking in the weary tone of one returning to a painful
+matter. "I have been through a great trouble lately, and this may well
+have been overlooked."
+
+I said I would, and as briefly as possible I told the main facts of my
+strange visit in Fitzhardinge Square. He was much moved, walking up
+and down the room as he listened, and giving vent to exclamations from
+time to time, until I came to the arrangement I had finally made with
+his brother. Then he raised his hand as one might do in pain.
+
+"Enough!" he said abruptly. "Barnes told me a rambling tale of some
+stranger. I understand it all now."
+
+"So do I, I think!" I replied dryly. "Your brother went to Liverpool,
+and received the papers in your name?"
+
+He murmured what I took for "Yes." But he did not utter a single word
+of acknowledgement to me, or of reprobation of his brother's deceit. I
+thought some such word should have been spoken; and I let my feelings
+carry me away. "Let me tell you," I said warmly, "that your brother is
+a--"
+
+"Hush!" he said, holding up his hand again. "He is dead."
+
+"Dead!" I repeated, shocked and amazed.
+
+"Have you not read of it in the papers? It is in all the papers," he
+said wearily. "He committed suicide--God forgive me for it!--at
+Liverpool, at the hotel you have mentioned, and the day after you saw
+him."
+
+And so it was. He had committed some serious forgery--he had always
+been wild, though his father, slow to see it, had only lately closed
+his purse to him--and the forged signatures had come into his
+brother's power. He had cheated his brother before. There had long
+been bad blood between them, the one being as cold, business-like, and
+masterful as the other was idle and jealous.
+
+"I told him," the elder said to me, shading his eyes with his hand,
+"that I should let him be prosecuted--that I would not protect or
+shelter him. The threat nearly drove him mad; and while it was hanging
+over him, I wrote to disclose the matter to Sir Charles. Gerald
+thought his last chance lay in recovering this letter unread. The
+proofs against him destroyed, he might laugh at me. His first attempts
+failed; and then he planned with Barnes's cognizance to get possession
+of the packet by drugging my father's whiskey. Barnes's courage
+deserted him; he called you in, and--and you know the rest."
+
+"But," I said softly, "your brother did get the letter--at Liverpool."
+
+George Ritherdon groaned. "Yes," he said, "he did. But the proofs were
+not enclosed. After writing the outside letter I changed my mind, and
+withheld them, explaining my reasons within. He found his plot laid in
+vain; and it was under the shock of this disappointment--the packet
+lay before him re-sealed and directed to me--that he--that he did it.
+Poor Gerald!"
+
+"Poor Gerald!" I said. What else remained to be said?
+
+It may be a survival of superstition, yet when I dine in Baker Street
+now, I take some care to go home by any other route than that through
+Fitzhardinge Square.
+
+
+
+
+
+                       The Invisible Portraits.
+
+
+On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a
+shoe-lace, having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a
+corner house in St. James's Square, when a man passing behind me
+stopped.
+
+"Well!" said he, aloud, after a short pause during which I wondered--I
+could not see him--what he was doing, "the meanness of these rich folk
+is disgusting! Not a coat of paint for a twelvemonth! I should be
+ashamed to own a house and leave it like that!"
+
+The man was a stranger to me, and his words seemed as uncalled for as
+they were ill-natured. But being thus challenged I looked at the
+house. It was a great stone mansion with a balustrade atop, with many
+windows and a long stretch of area railings. And certainly it was
+shabby. I turned from it to the critic. He was shabby too--a little
+red-nosed man wearing a bad hat. "It is just possible," I suggested,
+"that the owner may be a poor man and unable to keep it in order."
+
+"Ugh! What has that to do with it?" my new friend answered
+contemptuously. "He ought to think of the public."
+
+"And your hat?" I asked with winning politeness. "It strikes me, an
+unprejudiced observer, as a bad hat. Why do you not get a new one?"
+
+"Cannot afford it!" he snapped out, his dull eyes sparkling with rage.
+
+"Cannot afford it? But, my good man, you ought to think of the
+public."
+
+"You tom-cat! What have you to do with my hat? Smother you!" was his
+kindly answer; and he went on his way muttering things uncomplimentary.
+
+I was about to go mine, and was first falling back to gain a better
+view of the house in question, when a chuckle close to me betrayed the
+presence of a listener, a thin, gray-haired man, who, hidden by a
+pillar of the porch, must have heard our discussion. His hands were
+engaged with a white tablecloth, from which he had been shaking the
+crumbs. He had the air of an upper servant of the best class. As our
+eyes met he spoke.
+
+"Neatly put, sir, if I may take the liberty of saying so," he observed
+with a quiet dignity it was a pleasure to witness, "and we are very
+much obliged to you. The man was a snob, sir."
+
+"I am afraid he was," I answered; "and a fool too."
+
+"And a fool, sir. Answer a fool after his folly. You did that, and he
+was nowhere; nowhere at all, except in the swearing line. Now might I
+ask," he continued, "if you are an American, sir?"
+
+"No, I am not," I answered; "but I have spent some time in the
+States."
+
+I could have fancied that he sighed.
+
+"I thought--but never mind, sir," he began. "I was wrong. It is
+curious how very much alike gentlemen, that are real gentlemen, speak.
+Now, I dare swear, sir, that you have a taste for pictures."
+
+I was inclined to humor the old fellow's mood.
+
+"I like a good picture, I admit," I said.
+
+"Then perhaps you would not be offended if I asked you to step inside
+and look at one or two," he suggested timidly. "I would not take a
+liberty, sir, but there are some Van Dycks and a Rubens in the
+dining-room that cost a mint of money in their day, I have heard; and
+there is no one else in the house but my wife and myself."
+
+It was a strange invitation, strangely brought about. But I saw no
+reason for myself why I should not accept it, and I followed him into
+the hall. It was spacious, but sparely furnished. The matted floor had
+a cold look, and so had the gaunt stand which seemed to be a fixture,
+and boasted but one umbrella, one sunshade, and one dog-whip. As I
+passed a half-open door I caught a glimpse of a small room prettily
+furnished, with dainty prints and water-colors on the walls. But these
+were of a common order. A dozen replicas of each and all might be seen
+in a walk through Bond Street. Even this oasis of taste and comfort
+told the same story as had the bare hall and dreary exterior, and laid
+as it were a finger on one's heart. I trod softly as I followed my
+guide along the strip of matting towards the rear of the house.
+
+He opened a door at the inner end of the hall, and led me into a large
+and lofty room, built out from the back, as a state dining-room or
+ball-room. At present it rather resembled the latter, for it was
+without furniture. "Now," said the old man, turning and respectfully
+touching my sleeve to gain my attention, "now you will not consider
+your labor lost in coming to see that, sir. It is a portrait of the
+second Lord Wetherby by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and is judged to be one
+of the finest specimens of his style in existence."
+
+I was lost in astonishment; amazed, almost appalled. My companion
+stood by my side, his face wearing a placid smile of satisfaction, his
+hand pointing slightly upwards to the blank wall before us. The blank
+wall! Of any picture, there or elsewhere in the room, there was no
+sign. I turned to him and then from him, and I felt very sick at
+heart. The poor old fellow was--must be--mad. I gazed blankly at the
+blank wall. "By Van Dyck?" I repeated mechanically.
+
+"Yes, sir, by Van Dyck?" he replied, in the most matter-of-fact
+tone imaginable. "So, too, is this one;" he moved as he spoke a few
+feet to his left. "The second peer's first wife in the costume of a
+lady-in-waiting. This portrait and the last are in as good a state of
+preservation as on the day they were painted."
+
+Oh, certainly mad! And yet so graphic was his manner, so crisp and
+realistic were his words, that I rubbed my eyes; and looked and looked
+again, and almost fancied that Lord Walter and Anne, his wife, grew
+into shape before me on the wall. Almost, but not quite; and it was
+with a heart full of wondering pity that I accompanied the old man, in
+whose manner there was no trace of wildness or excitement, round the
+walls; visiting in turn the Cuyp which my lord bought in Holland, the
+Rubens, the four Lawrences, and the Philips--a very Barmecide feast of
+art. I could not doubt that the old man saw the pictures. But I saw
+only bare walls.
+
+"Now I think you have seen them, family portraits and all," he
+concluded, as we came to the doorway again; stating the fact, which
+was no fact, with complacent pride. "They are fine pictures, sir.
+They, at least, are left, although the house is not what it was."
+
+"Very fine pictures," I remarked. I was minded to learn if he were
+sane on other points. "Lord Wetherby," I said, "I should suppose that
+he is not in London?"
+
+"I do not know sir, one way or the other," the servant answered with a
+new air of reserve. "This is not his lordship's house. Mrs. Wigram, my
+late lord's daughter-in-law, lives here."
+
+"But this is the Wetherbys' town house," I persisted. I knew so much.
+
+"It was my late lord's house. At his son's marriage it was settled
+upon Mrs. Wigram, and little enough besides, God knows!" he exclaimed
+querulously. "It was Mr. Alfred's wish that some land should be
+settled upon his wife, but there was none out of the entail, and my
+lord, who did not like the match, though he lived to be fond enough of
+the mistress afterwards, said, 'Settle the house in town!' in a bitter
+kind of joke like. So the house was settled, and five hundred pounds a
+year. Mr. Alfred died abroad, as you may know, sir, and my lord was
+not long in following him."
+
+He was closing the shutters of one window after another as he spoke.
+The room had sunk into deep gloom. I could imagine now that the
+pictures were really where he fancied them. "And Lord Wetherby, the
+late peer," I asked, after a pause, "did he leave his daughter-in-law
+nothing?"
+
+"My lord died suddenly, leaving no will," he replied sadly. "That
+is how it all is. And the present peer, who was only a second
+cousin--well, I say nothing about him." A reticence which was well
+calculated to consign his lordship to the lowest deep.
+
+"He did not help?" I asked.
+
+"Devil a bit, begging your pardon, sir. But there! it is not my place
+to talk of these things. I doubt I have wearied you with talk about
+the family. It is not my way," he added, as if wondering at himself,
+"only something in what you said seemed to touch a chord like."
+
+By this time we were outside the room, standing at the inner end of
+the hall, while he fumbled with the lock of the door. Short passages
+ending in swing doors ran out right and left from this point, and
+through one of these a tidy, middle-aged woman wearing an apron
+suddenly emerged. At sight of me she looked greatly astonished. "I
+have been showing the gentleman the pictures," said my guide, who was
+still occupied with the door.
+
+A quick flash of pain altered and hardened the woman's face. "I have
+been very much interested, madam," I said softly.
+
+Her gaze left me to dwell upon the old man with infinite affection.
+"John had no right to bring you in, sir," she said primly. "I have
+never known him do such a thing before, and--Lord a mercy! there is
+the mistress's knock. Go, John, and let her in; and this gentleman,"
+with an inquisitive look at me, "will not mind stepping a bit aside,
+while her ladyship goes upstairs."
+
+"Certainly not," I answered. I hastened to draw back into one of the
+side passages, into the darkest corner of it, and there stood leaning
+against the cool panels, my hat in my hand.
+
+In the short pause which ensued before John opened the door she
+whispered to me, "You have not told him, sir?"
+
+"About the pictures?"
+
+"Yes, sir. He is blind, you see."
+
+"Blind?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, sir, this year and more; and when the pictures were taken
+away--by the present earl--that he had known all his life, and been so
+proud to show to people just the same as if they had been his own,
+why, it seemed a shame to tell him. I have never had the heart to do
+it, and he thinks they are there to this day."
+
+Blind! I had never thought of that; and while I was grasping the idea
+now, and fitting it to the facts, a light footstep sounded in the
+hall, and a woman's voice on the stairs; such a voice and such a
+footstep that, as it seemed to me, a man, if nothing else were left to
+him, might find home in them alone. "Your mistress," I said presently,
+when the sounds had died away upon the floor above, "has a sweet
+voice; but has not something annoyed her?
+
+"Well, I never should have thought that you would have noticed that!"
+exclaimed the housekeeper, who was, I dare say, many other things
+besides housekeeper. "You have a sharp ear, sir; that I will say. Yes,
+there is a something has gone wrong; but to think that an American
+gentleman should have noticed it!"
+
+"I am not an American," I said, perhaps testily.
+
+"Oh, indeed, sir! I beg your pardon, I am sure. It was just your way
+of speaking made me think it," she replied; and then there came a
+second louder rap at the door as John, who had gone upstairs with his
+mistress, came down in a leisurely fashion.
+
+"That is Lord Wetherby, drat him!" he said, on his wife calling to him
+in a low voice. He was ignorant, I think, of my presence. "He is to be
+shown into the library, and the mistress will see him there in five
+minutes; and you are to go to her room. Oh, rap away!" he added,
+turning towards the door, and shaking his fist at it. "There is many a
+better man than you has waited longer at that door."
+
+"Hush, John. Do you not see the gentleman?" interposed his wife, with
+the simplicity of habit. "He will show you out," she added rapidly to
+me, "as soon as his lordship has gone in, if you do not mind waiting
+another minute."
+
+"Not at all," I said, drawing back into the corner as they went on
+their errands; but though I said, "Not at all," mine was an odd
+position. The way in which I had come into the house, and my present
+situation in a kind of hiding, would have made most men only anxious
+to extricate themselves. But I, while listening to John parleying with
+some one at the door, conceived a strange desire, or a desire which
+would have been strange in any other man, to see this thing to the
+end--conceived it and acted upon it.
+
+The library? That was the room on the right of the hall, opposite to
+Mrs. Wigram's sitting-room. Probably, nay I was certain, it had
+another door opening on the passage in which I stood. It would cost me
+but a step or two to confirm my opinion. When John ushered in the
+visitor by one door I had already, by way of the other, ensconced
+myself behind a screen, that I seemed to know would face it. I was
+going to listen. Perhaps I had my reasons. Perhaps--but there, what
+matter? I, as a fact, listened.
+
+The room was spacious, but sombre, wainscoted and vaulted with oak.
+Its only visible occupant was a thin, dark man of middle size, with a
+narrow face, and a stubborn feather of black hair rising above his
+forehead; a man of Welsh type. He was standing with his back to the
+light, a roll of papers in one hand. The fingers of the other,
+drumming upon the table, betrayed that he was both out of temper and
+ill at ease. While I was still scanning him stealthily--I had never
+seen him before--the door was opened, and Mrs. Wigram came in. I sank
+back behind the screen. I think some words passed, some greeting of
+the most formal, but though the room was still, I failed to hear it,
+and when I recovered myself he was speaking.
+
+"I am here at your wish, Mrs. Wigram, and your service, too," he was
+saying, with an effort at gallantry which sat very ill upon him,
+"although I think it would have been better if we had left the matter
+to our solicitors."
+
+"Indeed."
+
+"Yes. I fancied you were aware of my opinion."
+
+"I was; and I perfectly understand, Lord Wetherby, your preference for
+that course," she replied, with sarcastic coldness, which did not hide
+her dislike for him. "You naturally shrink from telling me your terms
+face to face."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Wigram! Now, Mrs. Wigram! Is not this a tone to be
+deprecated?" he answered, lifting his hands. "I come to you as a man
+of business upon business."
+
+"Business! Does that mean wringing advantage from my weakness?" she
+retorted.
+
+He shrugged his shoulders. "I do deprecate this tone," he repeated. "I
+come in plain English to make you an offer; one which you can accept
+or refuse as you please. I offer you five hundred a year for this
+house. It is immensely too large for your needs, and too expensive for
+your income, and yet you have in strictness no power to let it. Very
+well, I, who can release you from that restriction, offer you five
+hundred a year for the house. What can be more fair?"
+
+"Fair? In plain English, Lord Wetherby, you are the only possible
+purchaser, and you fix the price. Is that fair? The house would let
+easily for twelve hundred."
+
+"Possibly," he retorted, "if it were in the open market. But it is
+not."
+
+"No," she answered rapidly. "And you, having the forty thousand a year
+which, had my husband lived, would have been his and mine; you who, a
+poor man, have stepped into this inheritance--you offer me five
+hundred for the family house! For shame, my lord! for shame!"
+
+"We are not acting a play," he said doggedly, showing that her words
+had stung him in some degree. "The law is the law. I ask for nothing
+but my rights, and one of those I am willing to waive in your favor.
+You have my offer."
+
+"And if I refuse it? If I let the house? You will not dare to enforce
+the restriction."
+
+"Try me," he rejoined, again drumming with his fingers upon the table.
+"Try me, and you will see."
+
+"If my husband had lived----"
+
+"But he did not live," he broke in, losing patience, "and that makes
+all the difference. Now, for Heaven's sake, Mrs. Wigram, do not make a
+scene! Do you accept my offer?"
+
+For a moment she had seemed about to break down, but her pride coming
+to the rescue, she recovered herself with wonderful quickness.
+
+"I have no choice," she said with dignity.
+
+"I am glad you accept," he answered, so much relieved that he gave way
+to an absurd burst of generosity. "Come!" he cried, "we will say
+guineas instead of pounds, and have done with it!"
+
+She looked at him in wonder. "No, Lord Wetherby," she said, "I
+accepted your terms. I prefer to keep to them. You said that you would
+bring the necessary papers with you. If you have done so I will sign
+them now, and my servants can witness them."
+
+"I have the draft and the lawyer's clerk is no doubt in the house," he
+answered. "I left directions for him to be here at eleven."
+
+"I do not think he is in the house," the lady answered. "I should know
+if he were here."
+
+"Not here!" he cried angrily. "Why not, I wonder! But I have the
+skeleton lease; it is very short, and to save delay I will fill in the
+particulars, names, and so forth myself, if you will permit me to do
+so. It will not take me twenty minutes."
+
+"As you please. You will find a pen and ink on the table. If you will
+kindly ring the bell when you are ready, I will come and bring the
+servants."
+
+"Thank you. You are very good," he said smoothly; adding, when she had
+left the room, "and the devil take your impudence, madam! As for your
+cursed pride--well, it has saved me twenty-five pounds a year, and so
+you are welcome to it. I was a fool to make the offer." And with that,
+now grumbling at the absence of the lawyer's clerk, and now
+congratulating himself on the saving of a lawyer's fee, my lord sat
+down to his task.
+
+A hansom cab on its way to the East India Club rattled through the
+square, and under cover of the noise I stole out from behind the
+screen, and stood in the middle of the room looking down at the
+unconscious worker. If for a minute I felt strongly the desire to
+raise my hand and give my lordship such a surprise as he had never in
+his life experienced, any other man might have felt the same; and as
+it was I put it away and only looked quietly about me. Some rays of
+sunshine piercing the corner pane of a dulled window fell on and
+glorified the Wetherby coat-of-arms blazoned over the wide fireplace,
+and so created the one bright spot in the bare, dismantled room, which
+had once, unless the tiers of empty shelves and the yet lingering odor
+of Russia lied, been lined from floor to ceiling with books. My lord
+had taken the furniture; my lord had taken the books; my lord had
+taken--nothing but his rights.
+
+Retreating softly to the door by which I had entered, and rattling the
+handle, I advanced afresh into the room. "Will your lordship allow
+me?" I said, after I had in vain coughed twice to gain his attention.
+
+He turned hastily and looked at me with a face full of suspicion. Some
+surprise on finding another person in the room and close to him was
+natural; but possibly also there was something in the atmosphere of
+that house which threw his nerves off their balance. "Who are you?" he
+cried in a tone which matched his face.
+
+"You left orders, my lord," I explained, "with Messrs. Duggan and
+Poole that a clerk should attend here at eleven. I very much regret
+that some delay has unavoidably been caused."
+
+"Oh, you are the clerk!" he replied ungraciously. "You do not look
+much like a lawyer's clerk."
+
+Involuntarily I glanced aside, and saw in a mirror the reflection of a
+tall man with a thick beard and moustaches, gray eyes, and an ugly
+scar seaming the face from nose to ear. "Yet I hope to give you full
+satisfaction, my lord," I murmured, dropping my eyes. "It was
+understood that you needed a confidential clerk."
+
+"Well, well, sir, to your work!" he replied irritably. "Better late
+than never; and after all it may be preferable for you to be here and
+see it duly executed. Only you will not forget," he continued hastily,
+with a glance at the papers, "that I have myself copied four-well,
+three--three full folios, sir, for which an allowance must be made.
+But there! Get on with your work. The handwriting will speak for
+itself."
+
+I obeyed, and wrote on steadily, while the earl walked up and down the
+room, or stood at a window. Upstairs sat Mrs. Wigram, schooling
+herself, I dare swear, to take this one favor that was no favor from
+the man who had dealt out to her such hard measure. Outside a casual
+passer through the square glanced up at the great house, and seeing
+the bent head of the secretary and the figure of his companion moving
+to and fro, saw, as he thought, nothing unusual; nor had any
+presentiment--how should he?--of the strange scene which the room with
+the dingy windows was about to witness.
+
+I had been writing for perhaps five minutes when Lord Wetherby stopped
+in his passage behind me and looked over my shoulder. With a jerk his
+eye-glasses fell, touching my shoulder.
+
+"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "I have seen your handwriting
+somewhere; and lately too. Where could it have been?"
+
+"Probably among the family papers, my lord," I answered. "I have
+several times been engaged in the family business in the time of the
+late Lord Wetherby."
+
+"Indeed." There was both curiosity and suspicion in his utterance of
+the word. "You knew him?"
+
+"Yes, my lord. I have written for him in this very room, and he has
+walked up and down, and dictated to me, as you might be doing now," I
+explained.
+
+His lordship stopped his pacing to and fro, and retreated to the
+window on the instant. But I could see that he was interested, and I
+was not surprised when he continued with transparent carelessness. "A
+strange coincidence. And may I ask what it was upon which you were
+engaged?"
+
+"At that time?" I answered, looking him full in the face. "It was a
+will, my lord."
+
+He started and frowned, and abruptly resumed his walk up and down. But
+I saw that he had a better conscience than I had given him the credit
+of possessing. My shot had not struck fairly where I had looked to
+place it; and finding this was so, I turned the thing over afresh,
+while I pursued my copying. When I had finished, I asked him--I think
+he was busy at the time cursing the absence of tact in the lower
+orders--if he would go through the instrument; and he took my seat.
+
+Where I stood behind him, I was not far from the fireplace. While he
+muttered to himself the legal jargon in which he was as well versed as
+a lawyer bred in an office, I moved to it; and, neither missed nor
+suspected, stood looking from his bent figure to the blazoned shield,
+which formed part of the mantelpiece. If I wavered, my hesitation
+lasted but a few seconds. Then, raising my voice, I called sharply,
+"My lord, there used to be here--"
+
+He turned swiftly, and saw where I was. "What the deuce are you doing
+there, sir?" he cried in boundless astonishment, rising to his feet
+and coming towards me, the pen in his hand and his face aflame with
+anger. "You forget--"
+
+"A safe--a concealed safe for papers," I continued, cutting him short
+in my turn. "I have seen the late Lord Wetherby place papers in it
+more than once. The spring worked from here. You touch this knob."
+
+"Leave it alone, sir!" cried the peer furiously.
+
+He spoke too late. The shield had swung gently outwards on a hinge,
+door-fashion, and where it had been, gaped a small open safe lined
+with cement. The rays of sunshine, that a few minutes before had
+picked out so brightly the gaudy quarterings, now fell on a large
+envelope which lay apart on a shelf. It was as clean as if it had been
+put there that morning. No doubt the safe was air-tight. I laid my
+hand upon it. "My lord!" I cried, turning to look at him with
+ill-concealed exultation, "here is a paper--I think, a will!"
+
+A moment before the veins of his forehead had been swollen, his face
+dark with the rush of blood. His anger died down, at sight of the
+packet, with strange abruptness. He regained his self-control, and a
+moment saw him pale and calm, all show of resentment confined to a
+wicked gleam in his eye. "A will!" he repeated, with a certain kind of
+dignity, though the hand he stretched out to take the envelope shook.
+"Indeed, then it is my place to examine it. I am the heir-at-law, and
+I am within my rights, sir."
+
+I feared that he was going to put the parcel into his pocket and
+dismiss me, and I was considering what course I should take in that
+event, when instead he carried the envelope to the table by the window
+and tore off the cover without ceremony. "It is not in your
+handwriting?" were his first words; and he looked at me with a
+distrust that was almost superstitious. No doubt my sudden entrance,
+my ominous talk, and my discovery seemed to him to savor of the devil.
+
+"No," I replied unmoved. "I told your lordship that I had written a
+will at the late Lord Wetherby's dictation. I did not say--for how
+could I know?--that it was this one."
+
+"Ah!" He hastily smoothed the sheets, and ran his eyes over their
+contents. When he reached the last page there was a dark scowl on his
+face, and he stood a while staring at the signatures; not now reading,
+I think, but collecting his thoughts. "You know the provisions of
+this?" he presently burst forth with violence, dashing the back of his
+hand against the paper. "I say, sir, you know the provisions of this?"
+
+"I do not, my lord," I answered. Nor did I.
+
+"The unjust provisions of this will," he repeated, passing over my
+negative as if it had not been uttered. "Fifty thousand pounds to a
+woman who had not a penny when she married his son! Aye, and the
+interest on another hundred thousand for her life! Why, it is a
+prodigious income, an abnormal income--for a woman! And out of whose
+pocket is it to come? Out of mine, every stiver of it! It is
+monstrous! I say it is! How am I to keep up the title on the income
+left to me, I should like to know?"
+
+I marvelled. I remembered how rich he was. I could not refrain from
+suggesting that he had still remaining all the real property. "And," I
+added, "I understood, my lord, that the testator's personalty was
+sworn under four hundred thousand pounds."
+
+"You talk nonsense!" he snarled. "Look at the legacies! Five thousand
+here, and a thousand there, and hundreds like berries on a bush! It is
+a fortune, a decent fortune, clean frittered away! A barren title is
+all that will be left to me!"
+
+What was he going to do? His face was gloomy, his hands were
+twitching. "Who are the witnesses, my lord?" I asked in a low voice.
+
+So low--for under certain conditions a tone conveys much, very
+much--that he shot a stealthy glance towards the door before he
+answered, "John Williams."
+
+"Blind," I replied in the same low tone.
+
+"William Williams."
+
+"He is dead. He was Mr. Alfred's valet. I remember reading in the
+newspaper that he was with his master, and was killed by the Indians
+at the same time."
+
+"True. I remember that that was the case," he answered huskily. "And
+the handwriting is Lord Wetherby's." I assented. Then for fully a
+minute we were silent, while he bent over the will, and I stood behind
+him looking down at him with thoughts in my mind which he could as
+little fathom as could the senseless wood upon which I leaned. Yet I
+too mistook him. I thought him, to be plain, a scoundrel; and--well,
+so he was--but a mean one. "What is to be done?" he muttered at
+length, speaking rather to himself than to me.
+
+I answered softly, "I am a poor man, my lord," while inwardly I was
+quoting "_quem Deus vult perdere_."
+
+My words startled him. He answered hurriedly, "Just so! just so! So
+shall I be when this cursed paper takes effect. A very poor man! A
+hundred and fifty thousand gone at a blow! But there, she shall have
+it! She shall have every penny of it; only," he concluded slowly, "I
+do not see what difference one more day will make."
+
+I followed his downcast eyes, which moved from the will before him to
+the agreement for the lease of the house; and I did see what
+difference a day would make. I saw and understood and wondered. He had
+not the courage to suppress the will; but if he could gain a slight
+advantage by withholding it for a few hours, he had the mind to do
+that. Mrs. Wigram, a rich woman, would no longer let the house; she
+would be under no compulsion to do so; and my lord would lose a cheap
+residence as well as his hundred and fifty thousand pounds. To the
+latter loss he could resign himself with a sigh; but he could not bear
+to forego the petty gain for which he had schemed. "I think I
+understand, my lord," I replied.
+
+"Of course," he resumed nervously, "you must be rewarded for making
+this discovery. I will see that it is so. You may depend upon me. I
+will mention the case to Mrs. Wigram, and--and, in fact, my friend,
+you may depend upon me.
+
+"That will not do," I said firmly. "If that be all, I had better go to
+Mrs. Wigram at once, and claim my reward a day earlier."
+
+He grew very red in the face at receiving this check. "You will not in
+that event get my good word," he said.
+
+"Which has no weight with the lady," I answered politely but plainly.
+
+"How dare you speak so to me?" his lordship cried. "You are an
+impertinent fellow! But there! How much do you want?"
+
+"A hundred pounds."
+
+"A hundred pounds for a mere day's delay, which will do no one any
+harm!"
+
+"Except Mrs. Wigram," I retorted dryly. "Come, Lord Wetherby, this
+lease is worth a thousand a year to you. Mrs. Wigram, as you well
+know, will not voluntarily let the house to you. If you would have
+Wetherby House you must pay me. That is the long and the short of it."
+
+"You are an impertinent fellow!" he repeated.
+
+"So you have said before, my lord."
+
+I expected him to burst into a furious passion, but I suppose there
+was a something of power in my tone, beyond the mere defiance which
+the words expressed; for, instead of doing so, he eyed me with a
+thoughtful, malevolent gaze, and paused to consider. "You are at Poole
+and Duggan's," he said slowly. "How was it that they did not search
+this cupboard, with which you were acquainted?"
+
+I shrugged my shoulders. "I have not been in the house since Lord
+Wetherby died," I said. "My employers did not consult me when the
+papers he left were examined."
+
+"You are not a member of the firm?"
+
+"No, I am not," I answered. I was thinking that, so far as I knew
+those respectable gentlemen, no one of them would have helped my lord
+in this for ten times a hundred pounds. My lord! Faugh!
+
+He seemed satisfied, and taking out a note-case laid on the table a
+little pile of notes. "There is your money," he said, counting them
+over with reluctant fingers. "Be good enough to put the will and
+envelope back into the cupboard. Tomorrow you will oblige me by
+rediscovering it--you can manage that, no doubt--and giving
+information at once to Messrs. Duggan and Poole, or Mrs. Wigram, as
+you please. Now," he continued, when I had obeyed him, "will you be
+good enough to ask the servants to tell Mrs. Wigram that I am
+waiting?"
+
+There was a slight noise behind us. "I am here," said some one. I am
+sure that we both jumped at the sound, for though I did not look that
+way, I knew that the voice was Mrs. Wigram's, and that she was in the
+room. "I have come to tell you, Lord Wetherby," she went on, "that I
+have an engagement from home at twelve. Do I understand, however, that
+you are ready? If so, I will call in Mrs. Williams."
+
+"The papers are ready for signature," the peer answered, betraying
+some confusion, "and I am ready to sign. I shall be glad to have the
+matter settled as agreed." Then he turned to me, where I had fallen
+back, as seemed becoming, to the end of the room, and said, "Be good
+enough to ring the bell if Mrs. Wigram permit it."
+
+As I moved to the fireplace to do so, I was conscious that the lady
+was regarding me with some faint surprise. But when I had regained my
+position and looked towards her, she was standing near the window
+gazing steadily out into the square, an expression of disdain rendered
+by face and figure. Shall I confess that it was a joy to me to see her
+fair head so high, and to read even in the outline of her girlish form
+a contempt which I, and I only, knew to be so justly based? For
+myself, I leant against the edge of the screen by the door, and
+perhaps my hundred pounds lay heavily on my heart. As for him, he
+fidgeted with his papers, although they were all in order, and was
+visibly impatient to get his bit of knavery accomplished. Oh! he was a
+worthy man! And Welshman!
+
+"Perhaps," he presently suggested, for the sake of saying something,
+"while your servant is coming, you will read the agreement, Mrs.
+Wigram. It is very short, and, as you know, your solicitors have
+already seen it in the draft."
+
+She bowed, and took the paper negligently. She read some way down
+the first sheet with a smile, half careless, half contemptuous. Then I
+saw her stop--she had turned her back to the window to obtain more
+light--and dwell on a particular sentence. I saw--God! I had forgotten
+the handwriting!--I saw her gray eyes grow large and fear leap into
+them as she grasped the paper with her other hand, and stepped nearer
+to the peer's side. "Who," she cried, "who wrote this? Tell me! Do you
+hear? Tell me quickly!"
+
+He was nervous on his own account, wrapt in his own piece of scheming,
+and obtuse.
+
+"I wrote it," he said, with maddening complacency. He put up his
+glasses and glanced at the top of the page she held out to him. "I
+wrote it myself, and I can assure you that it is quite right, and a
+faithful copy. You do not think--"
+
+"Think! Think! no, no! This, I mean! Who wrote this?" she cried, awe
+in her face, and a suppliant tone,--strange as addressed to that
+man,--in her voice.
+
+He was confounded by her vehemence, as well as hampered by his own
+evil conscience.
+
+"The clerk, Mrs. Wigram, the clerk," he said petulantly, still in his
+fog of selfishness. "The clerk from Messrs. Duggan and Poole's."
+
+"Where is he?" she cried out breathlessly. I think she did not believe
+him.
+
+"Where is he?" he repeated in querulous surprise. "Why here, of
+course. Where should he be, madam? He will witness my signature."
+
+Would he? Signatures! It was little of signatures I recked at that
+moment. I was praying to Heaven that my folly might be forgiven me,
+and that my lightly planned vengeance might not fall on my own head.
+"Joy does not kill," I was saying to myself, repeating it over and
+over again, and clinging to it desperately. "Joy does not kill!" But
+oh! was it true in the face of that white-lipped woman?
+
+"Here!" She did not say more, but gazing at me with great dazed eyes,
+she raised her hand, and beckoned to me. And I had no choice but to
+obey--to go nearer to her, out into the light.
+
+"Mrs. Wigram," I said hoarsely, my voice sounding to me only as a
+whisper, "I have news of your late--of your husband. It is good news."
+
+"Good news?" Did she faintly echo my words? or, as her face from which
+all color had passed peered into mine, and searched it in infinite
+hope and infinite fear, did our two minds speak without need of
+physical lips? "Good news?"
+
+"Yes," I whispered, "he is alive. The Indians did not--"
+
+"Alfred!" Her cry rang through the room, and with it I caught her in
+my arms as she fell. Beard and long hair, and scar and sunburn, and
+strange dress--these which had deceived others--were no disguise to
+her--my wife. I bore her gently to the couch, and hung over her in a
+new paroxysm of fear. "A doctor! Quick! A doctor!" I cried to Mrs.
+Williams, who was already kneeling beside her. "Do not tell me," I
+added piteously, "that I have killed her."
+
+"No! no! no!" the good woman answered, the tears running down her
+face. "Joy does not kill!"
+
+
+An hour later this fear had been lifted from me, and I was walking up
+and down the library alone with my thankfulness; glad to be alone, yet
+more glad, more thankful still, when John came in with a beaming face.
+"You have come to tell me--" I cried eagerly, pleased that the tidings
+had come by his lips--"to go to her? That she will see me?"
+
+"Her ladyship is sitting up," he replied.
+
+"And Lord Wetherby?" I asked, pausing at the door to put the question.
+"He left the house at once?"
+
+"Yes, my lord, Mr. Wigram has been gone some time."
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Along the Garonne.
+
+
+We ascend the valley of the Garonne on our way to Pau, which we
+intended to use as a base of operations against the Pyrenees. Our
+route, as originally mapped out, lay by sea to Bordeaux, which is
+three days from Liverpool; and thence by rail to our destination, a
+journey merely of hours. But at the last moment we determined to
+postpone our stay at Pau, and instead to wander along the banks of the
+Garonne for a time, familiarizing ourselves with the ways of the
+country. Then, when we had rubbed off our insular corners against the
+Great French Politeness, and perfected our grasp of the language in
+talk with the Agenois villagers, we proposed to drop gently into Pau,
+armed at all points, and scarcely distinguishable from Frenchmen.
+
+So we planned: and so it came about that we were free to enjoy
+ourselves and look about us critically, as the smoky little tender
+bore us up the wide channel of the Gironde from Pauillac, where our
+ship bound for South America had contemptuously dropped us, to
+Bordeaux itself. A little below the city, the Gironde, which is really
+the estuary of the Garonne and Dordogne, shrinks to the Garonne pure
+and simple, but under either name it seems equally a waste of turbid
+clay-laden waters. On our left hand a bright sun--the month was
+November--shone warmly on a line of low hills, formed of reddish
+earth, and broken by great marl quarries. Woods climbed about these,
+and here and there a village or a little town nestled under them. On
+our right the bank lay low, and was fringed with willows, the country
+behind it being flattish, planted as it seemed to us with dead
+thorn-bushes, and dotted sparely with modern castellated houses.
+Nevertheless it was towards this modest, almost dreary landscape
+that we gazed; it was of it we all spoke, and to it referred, as we
+named names famous as Austerlitz or Waterloo, names familiar in our
+mouths--and our butlers'--as household words. For are not more people
+versed in claret than in history? And this commonplace landscape, this
+western bank of the Gironde, a mere peninsula lying between the river
+and the low Atlantic coast, is called Medoc, and embraces all the
+best known Bordeaux vineyards in the world. It seems as if a single
+parish--say St. George's, Hanover Square, for that is a big one--might
+hold them all. There, see, is Chateau Lafitte. The vineyards of St.
+Estephe and St. Julien we have just passed. Leoville and Latour are
+not far off. And now we are passing the Chateau of Margaux itself, and
+gaining experience, are beginning to learn that all those little
+thorn-bushes stuck about the fallows, as though to protect the
+ground-game from poachers' nets, are vines--vines of the _premier
+cru!_ The vintage is over. The grapes, black, sour things, about the
+size of currants, have all been picked. Where we had looked to see the
+endless interlacings of greenery, and swelling clusters dropping
+fatness on a carpet of turf, we find only reddish fallows, and rows of
+dead gooseberry bushes.
+
+But never mind, even though this be but the first of many
+disillusions, and though the "sunny south" become hourly a more
+humorous catchword. To-day the sun _is_ warm, the breeze is soft, the
+custom-house officers are civil. We air--but with the caution due to
+convalescents, or those of tender years--our shaky, tottering French,
+and get English answers. So we stride across the broad quays of
+Bordeaux, our hearts before us, our luggage behind, and ourselves in
+the best of spirits and tempers.
+
+Bordeaux, as we saw it, was a cheerful, busy city, full of wide
+streets and open spaces and handsome buildings; a bright clean, airy,
+city with little smoke, an immense water frontage, and one very fine
+bridge: a pleasant etherealized Liverpool, in fact. The white blouses
+and blue trousers of the workmen, the soldiers' uniforms, the bare
+heads of some women and the gay 'kerchiefs, worn chignon-wise, of
+others, gave picturesqueness to the crowds circling about the
+kiosques, and reminded us, from time to time, that we were in a
+southern city. Not unnecessarily; for the thermometer fell on the day
+after our arrival to fifty degrees; and rain fell too, and we were
+quick to discover the true cause of French vivacity. The French have
+no fires at home. Consequently, when it is cold--and it often is very
+cold, even as far South as Bordeaux--their only resource is to go out,
+and jump about in such faint sunshine as they can find, and so make
+believe to be warm. Every one in Bordeaux seemed to be doing this that
+day.
+
+We saw a number of churches, but I have jumbled them together in my
+mind, and dare not distinguish between the beauties of St. Seurin and
+St. Croix, St. Michel or the Cathedral. Only I attended a service on
+Sunday morning, and, having heard that no Frenchmen now went to
+church, noted with interest that of a large congregation one in every
+four was a man. But then Bordeaux is perhaps the most orthodox city in
+France, and primitive ideas, good and bad, still prevail in this
+southwestern province, peopled by descendants of the Huguenots and
+Albigenses, by devout Basques and simple Navarrese. And two things
+also in Bordeaux I remember--the semi-circular remains of a Roman
+amphitheatre, which no one visiting Bordeaux should omit to see; and,
+secondly, a lofty, detached spire of singular lightness and grace. It
+is called the Peyberland, and was built by Pierre Berland, who must
+have been an English subject.
+
+His name strikes the vein of thought which was uppermost in my mind at
+Bordeaux. I found it impossible to forget that it had been for three
+centuries a half English city, and the capital of a half English
+province, ruled by an English king; or that up the wide Gironde,
+between the marly banks, Edward the Black Prince must many a time have
+sailed in state. Sir John Chandos and Sir Walter Manny, and many
+another English worthy, knew these streets as well as they knew
+Eastcheap or Aldgate. John of Gaunt and Talbot of Shrewsbury dwelt
+here, as much at home and at their ease as in York or Leicester. It is
+impossible not to wonder at those old Englishmen; not to think of them
+with pride, as we remember how firmly, the roving blood of Dane and
+Norman young in their veins, they grasped this prize; how long they
+clung to it, how boldly they flaunted the French lilies in the eyes of
+France; how cheerfully they crowded year by year to cross the bay in
+open boats! And then what cosmopolitans they were, with their manors
+in Devon and Aquitane, their houses in London and Bordeaux; with
+perhaps a snug little box at Calais, and a farm or two in Maine. How
+trippingly French and Provencal, and the rougher English, passed over
+their tongues. They founded no empire--on the contrary they lost one.
+But they were the immediate ancestors of Elizabeth's sea-dogs, for all
+that. In holding Guienne through those three centuries their strength
+was wasted. When they lost it (1451), they turned upon one another,
+and the Wars of the Roses took up half a century. After that they
+needed half-a-century's holiday to recruit themselves; and then out
+flashed the Vikings' spirit again--this time to better purpose--and
+under Drake and Grenville and Hawkins, they, the men of Poitiers and
+Sluys, made the greater England.
+
+Even in Bordeaux they have left some traces of their work. They built
+this cathedral which stands here, in the third city of France. Their
+leopards are not yet effaced from the walls of yonder castle. Their
+dogs--_les dogues des Anglais_, our waiter dubbed them, on seeing us
+fondle them--play about the streets, and sniff with a special
+friendliness at English calves. Indeed, I never saw such a place for
+bull-dogs--chiefly brindled ones--as Bordeaux. We drank a toast after
+dinner the evening before we left. It was, _Les dogues des Anglais!_
+
+Bordeaux, being like London too high on the river to get the
+sea-breeze, has its Brighton at Arcachon. To reach the latter from the
+city, a railway passes some thirty miles westward across a tract of
+light, sandy soil, thinly clothed with woods. As you glide through
+these, now in sunshine, now in shade, you catch a glimpse here and
+there of clearings and wooden shanties, and groups of peasants leaning
+on axes. Then, scarcely descending, you find yourself on the seashore,
+with the Bay of Biscay before you. Nearer, a basin of deepest blue,
+almost cut off from the outer sea by a reef of the dunes, forms a
+glorified harbor. Along this basin runs a broad beach, backed by a row
+of magnificent hotels with spacious terraces; and behind these lie two
+or three streets of rather paltry shops and restaurants. Having seen
+all this--the _plage_, the hotels, the terraces, the streets--you
+fancy you have seen Arcachon, and are inclined to be disappointed. But
+this is not Arcachon proper, which lies at the back of all this, and
+at the back even of that fairy-like Casino that rises on the abrupt
+slope of the sand-dunes behind us, and seemed the rear of all things.
+For on the land-side of the Casino is a forest of pines and larches,
+wild, far stretching, and apparently illimitable: a forest that is
+perpetually running up one sand-hill and down another, as if it were
+trying to get a view of the sea, and were not easily satisfied. And
+amid the vivid greens and dull blues of the foliage, glitter here and
+there and everywhere the daintiest of Swiss chalets or Indian
+bungalows, bright boxes of wood and stucco, colored and painted, and
+fretted and carved so delicately that one would infer that rain never
+fell here; or else that these were not intended for out-of-door wear.
+Mere toys they seem, set in smooth lawns. Flowers glow about them, and
+the scent of the pines is everywhere, and everywhere are shady aisles
+of trees hung with white mosses, and leading into the gloom of the
+forest. Nature and luxury have come together here; the result is
+that soft, languid, southern beauty, Mademoiselle Arcachon--of the
+Theatre des Folies Bordelaises. Yet is her constitution tolerably
+strong--thanks to the Atlantic breezes, though the sun was bright on
+the day we visited her, the wind was cold and the thermometer scarcely
+above forty degrees. This in early November.
+
+The next evening saw us enter a very different place in a different
+way. For leaving Bordeaux we reached La Reole on foot and at dusk,
+welcomed only by the fantastic rays of a few swinging oil lamps. La
+Reole is the antipodes to Arcachon. It is a small, ancient town,
+which, small as it is, has a great place in Froissart and Davila, and
+still frowns bravely down upon the rich plain of the Garonne. It
+stands on a steep, cloven hill that rises sheer from the wide, yellow,
+rush-bordered river about forty miles above Bordeaux. On the crest
+above the Garonne stands a castle once English, and in size and
+position not unlike that at Chepstow. Beside it are a church, a modern
+chateau, and a _place_ of modern houses. Upon the second crest, and in
+the cleft between the two, are huddled together the steep alleys and
+crazy tottering houses, all corners and gables, of the old town. A
+stream on which are several mills pours through the ravine, being
+overhung by tall, delapidated houses of three stories, with as many
+sets of wooden balconies and outside stairs. One might almost step
+across the water from one balcony to another, so much do the houses
+bulge. We took infinite delight in the old-world quaintness of this
+scene, in the air of decay that hung about all things, in the
+crumbling coats of arms, the wavy, tiled roofs, the sinking houses,
+the swinging lanterns; above all in the gray walls of the castle,
+brightened here and there by the pure discs of a rose bush, or the
+green of ivy.
+
+Froissart has a very pretty story--and a strange story too--to tell of
+La Reole. He says that Sir Walter Manny being with the English
+besieging it, "was reminded of his father;" that he had heard in his
+infancy that he had been buried there, or in that neighborhood. (Is
+there not a pleasant smack about that "was reminded of," and that
+dubious "he had heard in his infancy"?) The elder Manny, the
+chronicler explains, had unluckily wounded to death in a tournament at
+Cambray a Gascon knight; and by way of penance had agreed to go on a
+pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, at Santiago in
+Spain. On his return he passed near La Reole, and hearing that the
+brother of the King of France was besieging it, stayed to visit him;
+and going home one night from the royal hotel to his lodgings, was
+waylaid and murdered. The Gascon's kinsmen were strongly suspected of
+the foul deed; but they were powerful, "and none took the part of the
+Lord of Manny." So he was buried in a small chapel outside La Reole;
+and was almost forgotten when his son, being in the neighborhood,
+raked up the old story, and offered a reward of a hundred crowns to
+any one who could show him the grave. This an old man volunteered to
+do, and took Sir Walter to a tomb which was further identified by a
+Latin inscription. Thereupon, the son, as pious as brave--a subject of
+Queen Philippa of Hainault, I fear, and not a trueborn Englishman,
+though he died in London, was buried in the Charter House, and left
+his lands "on either side of the sea" to the Earl of Pembroke--had the
+remains conveyed to Valenciennes in Hainault, and buried there.
+
+And so the story ends. But is it not a quaint and pretty story, and
+does it not smack of the times when the knight errant was one day
+tourneying at Cambray, and the next kneeling at Santiago, and on the
+third was waylaid at La Reole? And does it not plaintively suggest
+how, after long days of waiting, the news, still dim and uncertain,
+came through to the quiet castle in Hainault, news so dim, so
+uncertain, that the good son, when chance brought him to the scene of
+his father's death, could but faintly remember that it had happened
+there or thereabouts?
+
+We seemed to be for a few days in a world of dying things. If La Reole
+was old and decadent, and showed few signs of former strength, the
+next place to which we came was still farther gone in decay. Port St.
+Marie is a straggling town lying low in a bend of the river. Most of
+its houses--they are large, with heavy doorways--are built in
+frameworks of wood after the style of our black and white houses, and
+have the spaces between the beams filled with bricks; long, thin
+bricks of close texture and the old Roman shape, set sometimes on end,
+sometimes lengthwise, more often aslant; any way so that they may fill
+the interstices. A large number of these houses are of three stories;
+and each upper story projecting two or three feet beyond the one below
+it, the buildings seem really nodding to their fall. Many were empty,
+with unglazed windows, and flapping shutters, and sinking corners; and
+yet the stout timbers, seasoned perhaps when Simon de Montfort was
+governor of Guienne and had his court in Bordeaux, held together, and
+bound up the crumbling clay. Above one door ran the legend "_Le
+Couronne dut devoir_," a sufficiently chivalrous motto. Above others
+were battered stone shields. On all was the stamp of assured ruin.
+Neglect and poverty were written large everywhere. Time had touched
+the place with no caressing hand, such as
+
+
+              Makes old bareness picturesque,
+              And tufts with grass a feudal tower,
+
+
+but with mean and sordid fingers; and the result was pitifully dreary.
+It made our hearts ache. The very people we saw in the streets looked
+pallid and hopeless, like people going down the hill. Such a town, so
+desolate, so moribund, does not exist, thank heaven, in our more
+populous England. Yet in our way we enjoyed it. We gloated with
+something of the zest of ghouls over its decay, until having cloyed
+our souls with sadness, we got hurriedly away into the sunshine and
+the fields, where the patient, fawn-colored oxen were dragging the
+plough, and the countryman stood leaning on his goad to see us pass
+between the rows of poplars. No doubt he thought us mad to be toiling
+out of St. Marie with our faces set countrywards, when no great
+distance off lay the railway, which would take us in a few hours to
+Bordeaux, to the delights of cafe and boulevard. "Oh! but they are
+droll, these English!"
+
+Any one leaving St. Marie must remark a singular, conical hill which
+rises abruptly from the plain before him. It is topped by a wooden
+steeple, while the dark outlines of walls and towers form a crown
+about its summit, and a row of cypresses rising solemnly above the
+lower buildings impart something of mystery to the place. It seemed to
+me like nothing so much as Mont St. Michel. In vain we ransacked our
+guide books. We could find no word of this fortress town which looked
+down on road and river; only in our map we discovered that its name
+was Clermont Dessus. Nothing daunted, however, we discovered a field
+path, and, climbing the hill, passed through a ruined gateway into the
+silence of the place. On three sides the walls were yet fairly
+perfect, and within them stood some fifty houses, many in ruins, more
+empty, a few inhabited. The floor of one was on a level with the roof
+of another, and the only means of access was by steep, tortuous
+alleys. The church had been partially restored, but was old and still
+bore marks of violent usage. The graveyard on a terrace displayed
+twenty-four cypresses, and an ancient stone cross. Above all this rose
+the ruins of a castle, smaller than that at La Reole and with traces
+of more recent occupation. Woodwork and iron still remained adhering
+to the walls. What, we wondered, had been its history. A few women and
+children were the only human creatures it held, and we could gather
+nothing from them save that it belonged, or had belonged, to the
+"Seigneur." For our climb, however, we felt amply rewarded by the view
+over the valley of the Garonne, and so ran quickly down the hill and
+stepped out stubbornly for Agen, which we reached after twice losing
+our way through a too ardent desire to cling to a pleasant green path
+by the river.
+
+It was dark when, footsore and tired, we gained the principal street;
+and we failed to discover our hotel. "Would you direct us to the Hotel
+de St. Jean?" I asked a decent-looking man who was passing.
+
+"How, monsieur?" he replied, after so long a pause that I feared he
+did not understand me; "the Hotel de St. Jean no longer exists. It has
+been closed a year and more."
+
+We looked at each other in silent disgust; and he looked at us. We
+were fairly tired out. "Would you have the kindness, then, to tell us
+which is the best hotel?" I said with resignation.
+
+"I will conduct you to the Hotel de St.----," he answered, quickly.
+"It is an hotel of the first class."
+
+But when I saw the Hotel de St. ----, we knew him for a swindler. It
+was a miserable place, and we would have none of it. We courteously
+said that we did not like it. He insisted. We broke away from him, and
+in a few minutes came upon the Hotel de St. Jean, its doors open to
+welcome us, and the light pouring ruddily from its windows. The story
+is trivial: I tell it because it was my ill-luck more than once to
+fall into the hands of this kind of tout, and be deceived by the tale
+that the house to which I had been advised to go was shut. On one
+occasion, at Guelmah, in Algeria, I was lured while inquiring for the
+Hotel d'Orient into the Hotel Auriol, a miserable place. In the
+morning I looked out of my window, and to my astonishment saw the name
+of the hotel in which I believed myself to be staring me in the face,
+painted up in large letters over the door of a house on the farther
+side of the square. I rubbed my eyes and wondered, and it was not
+until I stood in the open, and read the name of one and the other,
+that I recognized with a hearty laugh how I had been taken in.
+
+From Agen, on a fine, sunny morning, we went by rail to Moissac. Here,
+attached to the church, is the most delightful cloister in the world,
+a cloister rich in arches and capitals of delicate tracery poised on
+slender shafts, and half hidden by luxuriant creepers, through which
+the light falls soft and green-tinged, as in some sea-grotto. It is a
+place for rest and reflection, perfectly adapted to a hot climate;
+whereas, he who has only seen the dull, dank portico enclosing danker
+grave-stones, the play-ground of cats--which in England we call a
+cloister--does not know what the thing is. This church boasted also a
+quaint doorway enriched with the more or less coarse designs in which
+the monks of yore took pleasure: a doorway reputed to be one of the
+most curious in France.
+
+From Moissac we went on foot to Castel Sarrasin, sometimes by the
+Tarn, but for the most part by the side of the great canal; and
+always, whether by the latter or the river, moving in a soft symphony
+of various greens, green streams, green poplars--and oh! such vistas
+of them!--green willows, green banks--all mingled together and fading
+into one another, and harmoniously blending as the evening fell with
+the pale pea-green of the eastern sky. It was a peaceful and silent
+walk through a world of restful hues.
+
+From Castel Sarrasin, once no doubt a stronghold of the Moors, to
+Montauban we went by train. Montauban, on the Tarn, is a busy place,
+but a picturesque one also. Standing on a rough, steep hill, the town
+is seamed and cleft by strange, deep valleys with precipitous sides.
+Crazy houses with roofs of tiles, so time-stained that they have the
+precise appearance of strips of bark, fill these ravines and lean
+against their walls. Gardens cling to the ledges of the rocks. Shrubs
+and flowers clothe the crannies. Wooden balconies hang everywhere--and
+clothes-lines. We were there on market-day, and watched with amusement
+the teams of oxen--all fawn-colored--coming in for sale, or dragging
+into town the lumbering carts (much like timber-wagons, with boxes
+about the middle) in which Madame sat with her produce about her.
+Monsieur walked before the oxen, his goad on his shoulder, and a white
+nightcap on his head. Oxen push, they do not pull. They shove inwards
+against one another, the near legs of the near ox and the off legs of
+the off ox being protruded at a considerable angle to get a good
+purchase. Very frequently only the feet so used are shod. The driver
+always goes before them, and as they follow with lowered heads, they
+are perfect images of patient resignation.
+
+An old farmer, stout and jolly-looking, presently met us loitering on
+the bridge, and after a long period of staring, spoke to us. "Are you
+Germans?" he asked.
+
+"No," I replied with courteous determination, "we are English." He
+still eyed us with some suspicion, and after a pause fell to
+questioning us about our country. Had we bread, and what kind of
+bread? had we any railways?
+
+"Yes," I answered proudly to this last, "we have trains that travel at
+the rate of a hundred _kilometres_ an hour!" A trifling exaggeration
+it may be, but human and pardonable.
+
+He gravely nodded his head, however, as if he believed it, and meant
+to pose his wife and neighbors with it when he reached home. "You have
+grapes and wine?" he continued.
+
+"We grow grapes under glass," I explained, "in glass houses. In the
+open air it is generally too cold for them."
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, his jovial face clouding over as it occurred to
+him that I was not in earnest. "Will you kindly say that again?"
+
+I did as he wished. But when I had made the matter as clear as I
+could, he answered stoutly, "No! It is impossible! Either I do not
+understand you, or you do not understand me!" And he went on his way
+in a passion. He could believe in the Irish Mail; but the cultivation
+of vines under glass was a thing outside his ideas of the world's
+economy.
+
+From the _place_ at Montauban, an open space pleasantly laid out on
+the brow of the hill, it is said that the Pyrenees can be seen on a
+fine day. We had a fine day, but we saw no sign of the mountains--our
+land at Beulah--though we looked long and lingeringly.
+
+Attracted by a name which seemed familiar to us, and had a ring about
+it as of feudal and knightly times, we made a diversion from here to
+Cahors on the Lot, an old city standing in a fertile basin, among
+bare, brown hills. We were disappointed in the first appearance of the
+town. The river still runs round three sides of it, but the ramparts
+have been turned into gardens where they have not been levelled; only
+one tower of the castle survives; and though there are some
+picturesque houses, the town is for the most part modern, and devoted
+to Gambetta who was born in it. The cathedral, surmounted by one heavy
+tower, backed by three domes in a row, is imposing in its bulky
+ugliness. Its floor is much lower than the marketplace without: so
+that on entering through the west door you find a flight of steps
+before you, and the congregation at your feet immersed in candlelit
+gloom. These steps at the Sunday morning service were crowded by
+kneeling hucksters and market-women with their baskets, who had
+quietly entered as a matter of course from the market, which was in
+full swing without, and were devoutly telling their beads, or
+listening to a sermon preached by a bishop--a Count-Bishop, too, whose
+pastoral ring was still a prominent feature in the scene, so skilfully
+did he wave and display it. At Cahors we were much pleased with one of
+the bridges, from which rise three Flemish-looking towers. They form
+as many gateways, and from every point of view are singularly
+picturesque. This bridge may have stood there in its present state
+when Henry of Navarre did at Cahors his most famous deed. A strong
+garrison was at the time holding the city for the Catholic party, but
+Henry, smarting under the loss of La Reole, which had been betrayed by
+its governor, determined to seize Cahors. Accordingly he came to it
+with fourteen hundred men, and leaving one half of this force outside
+to cover his night attack, blew in a gate with a petard and entered
+with the rest, being himself the seventh to pass in. A furious battle
+in the streets ensued, but when day broke, the Huguenots had mastered
+a small part of the city only, and reinforcements for the enemy
+arriving, Henry's followers begged him to retire. "No!" he answered,
+fighting on with his back to a shop, "I will not retire! My only
+retreat from this town shall be the retreat of my soul from my body!"
+He kept his word. Street by street and house by house, he reduced the
+town, neither side asking or giving quarter. But it was not until the
+fifth night after his entrance that he completely mastered the place,
+a feat which is generally allowed to stand highest among his warlike
+exploits.
+
+At Cahors it was that we first came under the influence of his name;
+but thereafter it grew and grew, a bigger factor in the past, a more
+prominent object in our thoughts in the present, the farther south we
+travelled; until at Pau, his birthplace and capital, the son of Jeanne
+d'Albret, _the Bearnais_, the Navarrese, the Protector of the
+Religion, _Henri Quatre_, Henry the Great, seemed to fill all past
+history, and dwarf all other figures. We have in English story no
+royal personage, no prominent life even, at once so picturesque, so
+rich in surprises, so lovable, and so blameworthy. Hot-blooded and
+cool-headed, daring to rashness, astute to meanness, a professor and a
+profligate, merciful, affectionate, yet letting nothing intervene
+between him and his aims--who that is man shall judge him? Surely the
+wine which Henry's father raised to his new-born lips, the cold water
+which was dashed in his hour-old face, the national song his mother
+sang at his birth, did really reproduce themselves in his life.
+
+Leaving Cahors in the evening, we slept at a small village called
+Lelbenque, and were on foot before eight next day, and on our way
+across the hills to Caylus. The country through which we passed in the
+fresh morning air, a range of bleak lime-stone heights sparsely
+covered with oak trees, seemed thinly peopled, and little tilled. Here
+and there in the wooded depths of a valley, we came upon a sparkling
+brook and a few comfortable farm-houses nestling among fruit trees,
+and protected by abrupt limestone walls from the cold winds which
+swept across the uplands. The distance to Caylus was sixteen miles.
+There were no inns, and as we had breakfasted rather meagrely on
+coffee and bread, we were driven to beg something at one of the
+farm-houses. There were only women at home, and these were with reason
+astonished to see foreign tramps in that out-of-the-way district. They
+seemed even a little afraid of us, but we got what we wanted
+notwithstanding the growling of the dogs; and our offer of payment was
+declined with suspicious abruptness. I fancy that they suspected us of
+wanting change.
+
+About mid-day we passed over the last ridge of the uplands, and saw
+below us a narrow fertile valley squeezed in between mountain-walls.
+Halfway through this gorge and in the middle of it, a hill or rock
+rose abruptly almost to the height of a thousand feet. On this,
+lording it over the road, stood Caylus, its houses and gardens
+descending terrace by terrace from the castle-nucleus on the crest
+almost to the road. Very old was the church, about the porch of
+which are carved green animals in the act of nibbling one another's
+tails under the superintendence of St. Michael. We took it for St.
+Michael. Old, too, seemed the great stone house opposite, known as the
+_Maison du Loup_, and bearing uncouth masks and figures of wolves in
+high relief on its front. Older still we judged the market-place to
+be, which built of wood rests on stone pillars; and the heavy Arcade
+or "Row" which stands in the same tiny square with it, and the
+beetle-browed wynds that lead to it--all old, gray, heavy,
+time-stained, but still solid. In the market hall we noticed three
+ancient corn-measures; hollows scooped out in stones that formed part
+of the fabric of the hall, with to each a horizontal outlet or spout
+at the side, through which the grain when measured might escape into
+bag or basket. Even while we were examining these we remarked women
+sitting outside the doors about us, removing the grain from stalks of
+maize, and plaiting various articles with the straw.
+
+The weather-beaten castle belongs to Madame St. Cyr, but was occupied
+when we visited it by Mr. Wilton, an Englishman, who was not at home.
+His housekeeper, however, kindly allowed us to go over the building,
+and we found the view from the leads of the keep--used, I suspect, as
+a smoking-room--very charming. Caylus, to sum up, is difficult of
+access and is not even named in "Murray," but I can highly recommend
+it as a quaint example of a mediaeval town, such as cannot now be found
+in England without much searching.
+
+From it we passed by means of a top-heavy, jingling country coach to
+St. Anthonin, and so by rail to Albi on the Tarn, Albi of the
+Albigenses, the unhappy sect whose fate confutes the saying that the
+blood of martyrs is the seed of the church. About Albi, from which
+place they took their name, they grew and flourished in the latter
+half of the twelfth century. But seventy years later, notwithstanding
+the attempt which their feudal lord, Raymond of Toulouse, made to
+protect them, they were virtually extinct. Save that they dissented
+from the Romish Church, their very doctrines are now unknown or to be
+found only in the writings of their enemies, and their story and
+fortunes are too often confounded with those of the Waldenses. Simon
+de Montfort, the father of our Simon de Montfort, took a conspicuous
+part in the cruel deeds which attended their suppression. At the fall
+of Beziers, heretic and churchman were put to the sword together.
+"Slay all--God will know His own," said the gentle Abbot Arnold. And
+in a sense wisely: for it is only the man of half measures who fails
+as a persecutor. To be perfectly ruthless, perfectly thorough in the
+work, is to be successful also. At any rate at Albi, which, like
+Cahors, stands among hills, there are no traces of the Albigenses
+left; not even such a story as rings about the name of Beziers with
+fire. Rather the great cathedral proclaims Rome's victory. Built
+externally of bricks, it is a huge blind oblong with an apsidal end. A
+swelling base and rounded buttresses add to its heavy appearance. Yet
+it is very lofty. The monstrous red tower hung about with giddy
+balconies rises nearly to the height of three hundred feet, while the
+church itself, the lower part of which has no openings or windows,
+seems half that height. In a word, the whole is as much a fortress as
+a cathedral. Lofty flights of steps lead to a raised porch, formed by
+three arches decorated with carvings lately and successfully restored.
+Entering the church through this we find the interior a striking
+sight. In shape it is a vast hall surrounded by chapels in two
+stories, and with a choir screened off at one end. The interior still
+remains in the state to which our Puritans objected, the state
+probably characterized more churches than we now imagine. It is
+covered from ceiling to floor with frescoes and paintings and
+scrollwork, some gaudy, some subdued, some good, some bad. The very
+statues are painted and gilded, and although here and there the effect
+is garish and unpleasing, I do not agree that the appearance of the
+whole, as the vast mass of color presents itself to the eyes, broken
+by the exquisite carvings of the stone screen or a bevy of tinted
+marbles, is absolutely unharmonious. I found it more pleasing than I
+expected. And then what would have been the effect of these plain
+walls in their naked monotony?
+
+The paintings are mainly of the date of Francis I., say about 1520.
+Two frescoes of Hell and the Passions, done by Italian artists, cover
+the west end--cover acres of it as it seems; and in a chapel, among
+other anachronisms is a notable picture of Christ, in which He is
+figured in a hat and feather and the dress of a courtier of the time
+in the midst of Roman soldiers who are kicking Him along. A great
+store of information as to the dresses and customs of the early part
+of the sixteenth century is laid up here, to be ransacked by any one
+who will take the trouble to closely inspect this huge interior. The
+groups painted upon the walls, groups of people fighting, tourneying,
+feasting, dancing, dying--ay, and doing many things scarcely adapted
+to church decoration--are to be counted by thousands; as are the gold
+stars that stud the bright blue ceiling. There is something suggestive
+in the portrayal of these things in this place; they seem to tell of a
+faith which, with all its scandals, abuses, and laxity, was bound up
+intimately with the life of the people, with their joys as well as
+their griefs; and so smacked of One who did not consider the price of
+sparrows as beneath knowledge.
+
+At any rate we were pleased with these things. The interior of Albi
+Cathedral may not be in the best taste. It may be meretricious, it may
+be gilt rather than of gold. But it is curious; it is almost unique;
+it is a museum in itself; and to an Englishman accustomed to the cold
+if correct lines of a Gothic church, its warmth and color afford a not
+unwelcome change.
+
+At Auch we arrived at night, and found it to be an old-fashioned
+archiepiscopal city on the summit and southern slope of a precipitous
+hill. Here we came upon the first traces--a Spanish pedler, a
+Navarrese bonnet--of that strange borderland between Spain and Western
+France in which three languages and a dozen _patois_, French, Spanish,
+Basque, the Langue d'Oc, the Langue d'Or, and Gascon and Provencal and
+the tongue of Andorra, and I know not what others, are fighting for
+the mastery: where two great nations now peaceably march, dividing
+between them the wild country where the kingdom of Navarre once sat
+enthroned on hills with the free Basque communities about her. It is a
+country rich in memories of independence, of strife; of brigandage, of
+romance; of the free life of the hunter; a land of snow-clad peaks and
+deep valleys, and rolling, wooded hills full of creatures elsewhere
+extinct, bears, and izards, and, shall I add, Basques. Here are
+Roncesvalles and the Bidassoa, Fontarabia and Orthez, San Sebastian
+and the Isle of Peacocks. Moor and Paladin, Scot and Spaniard,
+Charlemagne and Wellington, have all passed this way and left deep
+foot-prints.
+
+And Auch stands on the verge of this strange country; an old city, but
+full of energy and with no trace of decay. From the river, flights of
+wide steps with spacious landings, gay with flowers and fountains,
+climb the southern face of the hill, which the best road-maker would
+find impracticable. At the head of these steps and commanding
+extensive prospects stands the cathedral, a beacon to all the country
+between it and the skirts of the mountains. The building is fine, but
+its pride lies in the wood carvings of the unrivalled choir. My guide,
+an ex-soldier, also pointed out with pride some cymbals presented to
+the cathedral by the first Napoleon: trophies, so he told me, of the
+Egyptian campaign.
+
+We wandered out in the afternoon to the brow of a ridge of hills
+lying on the far side of the river, and throwing ourselves down upon
+some heather and bracken--it was a warm and sunny but not very clear
+day--began to cast speculative glances towards Spain. But while we
+thought that we were looking southwards our eyes were really turned
+too much to the east. And presently we discovered this in a strange
+way. For glancing by chance towards the skyline on our right, we saw,
+first, a brown autumnal landscape of woods and hills, and beyond this
+a long, gray cloud, the horizon, as we thought; and above that--ah!
+what was it we saw above that? A line of silvery peaks, gleaming in a
+gray, sheeny atmosphere of their own, so pure, so soft, so far above
+this world of ours, that as the words "The Pyrenees!" broke the first
+moments of astonished silence, we felt that for once the thing long
+looked for had passed our expectations! Our hearts fastened upon the
+distance. The pleasant landscape spread out before us lost its charms.
+It was homely, it was flat, it was commonplace, it was of the earth
+earthy, beside the serene beauty of the snowy crests and untrodden
+wastes that shone and sparkled in that far distance, and anon grew
+cold and dim as the veil of cloud was drawn before them even while we
+watched.
+
+When they were gone, we felt that nothing save the mountains would now
+satisfy us. We had a craving for them, such as I have sometimes felt
+for the sea. A sudden conviction that we were wasting our time in a
+world of small things, while the wonders of the hills lay close at
+hand, overwhelmed us. We hurried homewards, talking of peaks, and
+glaciers, and passes, of Cauteret and Gavarnie, Mont Perdu and the Pic
+du Midi; and packed in the same state of pleasant excitement. The next
+morning saw us passing through the same country, rich in autumn tints,
+in leafy bottoms, and rippling streams, which we had seen stretched
+out before us. And the evening saw us stand on the famous Place
+Royale, hard by the castle where Henry of Navarre was born, feasting
+our eyes on the cold, bright tints of the great mountains, seen sharp
+and clear above the Jurance hills, and listening to the rushing waters
+of the Gave. Our Garonne pilgrimage was over.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When Love Calls, by Stanley J. Weyman
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