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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Stratagem and Other Stories, 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: The King's Stratagem and Other Stories
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39217]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING'S STRATAGEM, OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
+Web Archive (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+no gutcheck/jeebies/gutspell
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+  1. Page scan source:
+
+     http://www.archive.org/details/kingsstratagema00weymgoog
+     (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "HE WAS ALONE WITH HIS TRIUMPH."]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                THE
+
+
+                          KING'S STRATAGEM
+
+
+                        _AND OTHER STORIES_
+
+
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+
+                         STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+
+     _Author of "A Gentleman of France," "Under the Red Robe,"
+
+                    "My Lady Rotha," etc., etc_.
+
+
+
+
+                             *   *   *
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+
+                       A. E. CLUETT & COMPANY
+
+                          70 Fifth Avenue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1891,
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+
+                      A. E. CLUETT & COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+  The King's Stratagem,
+
+
+  The Body-birds Of Court,
+
+
+  In Cupid's Toils,
+
+
+  The Drift Of Fate,
+
+
+  A Blore Manor Episode,
+
+
+  The Fatal Letter,
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE KING'S STRATAGEM.
+
+
+In the days when Henry IV. of France was King of Navarre only, and in
+that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the southwest
+corner of the larger country, was with difficulty supporting the
+Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic League--in
+the days when every isolated castle, from the Garonne to the Pyrenees,
+was a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty
+queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these notable
+personages took place in the picturesque town of La Réole.
+
+La Réole still rises gray, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty cliff
+above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from
+Bordeaux. But it is a small place now. In the days of which we are
+speaking, however, it was important, strongly fortified, and guarded
+by a castle which looked down on a thousand red-tiled roofs, rising in
+terraces from the river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns it
+was for the time as gay as Paris itself, Catherine having brought with
+her a bevy of fair maids of honor, in the effect of whose charms she
+perhaps put as much trust as in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful
+appearance of the town was delusive, for even while every other house
+in it rang with music and silvery laughter, each party was ready to
+fly to arms without warning, if it saw that any advantage was to be
+gained thereby.
+
+On an evening shortly before the end of the conference two men sat at
+play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of which looked down from a
+considerable height upon the river. The hour was late, and the town
+silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure on sleeping fields
+and long, straight lines of poplars. Within the room a silver lamp
+suspended from the ceiling threw light upon the table, leaving the
+farther parts of the room in shadow. The walls were hung with faded
+tapestry. On the low bedstead in one corner lay a handsome cloak, a
+sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the period. Across a chair lay
+another cloak and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of
+saddlebags, were strewn half a dozen such trifles as soldiers carried
+from camp to camp--a silver comfit-box, a jeweled dagger, a mask, and
+velvet cap.
+
+The faces of the players, as they bent over the dice, were in shadow.
+One--a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin, and a
+mouth as weak, but shaded by a dark mustache--seemed, from the
+occasional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily. Yet his
+opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a sword-cut across his left
+temple, and that swaggering air which has at all times marked the
+professional soldier, showed no signs of triumph or elation. On the
+contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal word or two,
+there was a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in his eyes,
+and more than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if to judge
+of his feelings or learn whether the time had come for some experiment
+which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in through the
+window would have taken the two for only one more instance of the hawk
+and pigeon.
+
+At last the younger player threw down the caster, with a groan.
+
+"You have the luck of the Evil One," he said bitterly. "How much is
+that?"
+
+"Two thousand crowns," replied the other without emotion. "You will
+play no more?"
+
+"No! I wish to Heaven I had never played at all!" was the answer. As
+he spoke the loser rose, and going to the window stood looking moodily
+out.
+
+For a few moments the elder man remained seated, gazing at him
+furtively, but at length he too rose, and, stepping softly to his
+companion, touched him on the shoulder. "Your pardon a moment, M. le
+Vicomte," he said. "Am I right in concluding that the loss of this sum
+will inconvenience you?"
+
+"A thousand fiends!" exclaimed the young vicomte, turning on him
+wrathfully. "Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns
+would not inconvenience? As for me----"
+
+"For you," continued the other, smoothly filling up the pause, "shall
+I be wrong in saying that it means something like ruin?"
+
+"Well, sir, and if it does?" the young man retorted, drawing himself
+up haughtily, his cheek a shade paler with passion. "Depend upon it
+you shall be paid. Do not be afraid of that!"
+
+"Gently, gently, my friend," the winner answered, his patience in
+strong contrast with the other's violence. "I had no intention of
+insulting you, believe me. Those who play with the Vicomte de
+Lanthenon are not wont to doubt his honor. I spoke only in your own
+interest. It has occurred to me, vicomte, that the matter might be
+arranged at less cost to yourself."
+
+"How?" was the curt question.
+
+"May I speak freely?" The vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the
+other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: "You, vicomte, are
+Governor of Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I, of Créance, for the
+King of France. Our towns lie only three leagues apart. Could I, by
+any chance, say on one of these fine nights, become master of Lusigny,
+it would be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"No," the young man answered slowly, "I do not."
+
+"Think over what I have said, then," was the brief answer.
+
+For a full minute there was silence in the room. The vicomte gazed out
+of the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his
+companion, sitting down, leaned back in his chair, with an air of
+affected carelessness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices
+told that the watch were passing through the street. The church bell
+struck one. Suddenly the vicomte burst into a hoarse laugh, and,
+turning, snatched up his cloak and sword. "The trap was very well
+laid, M. le Capitaine," he said almost jovially; "but I am still sober
+enough to take care of myself--and of Lusigny. I wish you good-night.
+You shall have your money, never fear."
+
+"Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly," the captain answered, as
+he rose and moved toward the door to open it for his guest. His hand
+was already on the latch when he paused. "Look here," he said, "what
+do you say to this, then? I will stake the two thousand crowns you
+have lost to me, and another thousand besides against your town. Fool!
+no one can hear us. If you win, you go off a free man with my
+thousand. If you lose, you put me in possession one of these fine
+nights. What do you say to that? A single throw to decide."
+
+The young man's pale face reddened. He turned, and his eyes sought the
+table and the dice irresolutely. The temptation indeed came at an
+unfortunate moment, when the excitement of play had given way to
+depression, and he saw nothing before him outside the door, on which
+his hand was laid, but the cold reality of ruin. The temptation to
+return, and by a single throw set himself right with the world was too
+much for him. Slowly he came back to the table. "Confound you!" he
+said irritably. "I think you are the devil himself, captain."
+
+"Don't talk child's talk!" said the other coldly, drawing back as his
+victim advanced. "If you do not like the offer you need not take it."
+
+But the young man's fingers had already closed on the dice. Picking
+them up he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes
+gleaming with the play-fever. "If I win?" he said doubtfully.
+
+"You carry away a thousand crowns," answered the captain quietly. "If
+you lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me
+before next full moon. That is all."
+
+"And what if I lose, and not pay the forfeit?" asked the vicomte,
+laughing weakly.
+
+"I trust to your honor," said the captain. And, strange as it may
+seem, he knew his man. The young noble of the day might betray his
+cause and his trust, but the debt of honor incurred at play was
+binding on him.
+
+"Well," said the vicomte, "I agree. Who is to throw first?"
+
+"As you will," replied the captain, masking under an appearance of
+indifference a real excitement which darkened his cheek, and caused
+the pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.
+
+"Then do you go first," said the vicomte.
+
+"With your permission," assented the captain. And taking the dice up
+in the caster he shook them with a practiced hand, and dropped them on
+the board. The throw was seven.
+
+The vicomte took up the caster and, as he tossed the dice into it,
+glanced at the window. The moonlight shining athwart it fell in
+silvery sheen on a few feet of the floor. With the light something of
+the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and appealed to
+him. For a few seconds he hesitated. He even made as if he would have
+replaced the box on the table. But the good instinct failed. It was
+too late, and with a muttered word, which his dry lips refused to
+articulate, he threw the dice. Seven!
+
+Neither of the men spoke, but the captain rattled the cubes, and again
+flung them on the table, this time with a slight air of bravado. They
+rolled one over the other and lay still. Seven again.
+
+The young vicomte's brow was damp, and his face pale and drawn. He
+forced a quavering laugh, and with an unsteady hand took his turn. The
+dice fell far apart, and lay where they fell. Six!
+
+The winner nodded gravely. "The luck is still with me," he said,
+keeping his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had
+suddenly leapt into them might not be seen. "When do you go back to
+your command, vicomte?"
+
+The unhappy man stood like one stunned, gazing at the two little cubes
+which had cost him so dearly. "The day after to-morrow," he muttered
+hoarsely, striving to collect himself.
+
+"Then we shall say the following evening?" asked the captain.
+
+"Very well."
+
+"We quite understand one another," continued the winner, eyeing his
+man watchfully, and speaking with more urgency. "I may depend on you,
+M. le Vicomte, I presume?"
+
+"The Lanthenons have never been wanting to their word," the young
+nobleman answered, stung into sudden haughtiness. "If I live I will
+put Lusigny into your hands, M. le Captaine. Afterward I will do my
+best to recover it--in another way."
+
+"I shall be entirely at your disposal," replied the captain, bowing
+lightly. And in a moment he was alone--alone with his triumph, his
+ambition, his hopes for the future--alone with the greatness to which
+his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step, and which he should
+enjoy not a whit the less because as yet fortune had dealt out to him
+more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score of
+years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.
+
+Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets the vicomte was
+making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair and unhappiness
+most difficult to describe. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked
+back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved
+the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had
+seen a way of escape and lost it forever! No wonder that as he trudged
+alone through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath
+came quickly and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side as
+a hunted animal might, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could only have
+retraced the last three hours!
+
+Worn out and exhausted, he entered his lodging, and, securing the door
+behind him, stumbled up the stone stairs and entered his room. The
+impulse to confide his misfortunes to someone was so strong upon him
+that he was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a
+chair before the dying embers of a wood fire. In those days a
+man's natural confidant was his valet, the follower, half-friend,
+half-servant, who had been born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at
+the foot of his bed, who carried his _billets-doux_ and held his cloak
+at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and nursed him in
+illness, who not seldom advised him in the choice of a wife, and lied
+in support of his suit.
+
+The young vicomte flung his cloak over a chair. "Get up, you rascal!"
+he cried impatiently. "You pig, you dog!" he continued, with
+increasing anger. "Sleeping there as though your master were not
+ruined by that scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!" he added, gazing bitterly
+at his follower, "you are of the _canaille_, and have neither honor to
+lose nor a town to betray!"
+
+The sleeping man moved In his chair and half turned. The vicomte, his
+patience exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on
+the ground. "Will you listen?" he said. "Or go, if you choose look for
+another master. I am ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil! I have lost
+all--money, land, Lusigny itself, at the dice!"
+
+The man, aroused at last, stooped with a lazy movement, and picking up
+his hat dusted it with his hand, and rose with a yawn to his feet.
+
+"I am afraid, vicomte," he said, his tones, quiet as they were,
+sounding like thunder in the vicomte's astonished and bewildered ears,
+"I am afraid that if you have lost Lusigny, you have lost something
+which was not yours to lose!"
+
+As he spoke he struck the embers with his foot, and the fire, blazing
+up, shone on his face. The vicomte saw, with unutterable confusion and
+dismay, that the man before him was not Gil at all, but the last
+person in the world to whom he should have betrayed himself. The
+astute smiling eyes, the aquiline nose, the high forehead, and
+projecting chin, which the short beard and mustache scarcely
+concealed, were only too well known to him. He stepped back with a cry
+of horror. "Sire!" he said, and then his tongue failed him. He stood
+silent, pale, convicted, his chin on his breast. The man to whom he
+had confessed his treachery was the master whom he had conspired to
+betray.
+
+"I had suspected something of this," Henry of Navarre continued, after
+a pause, a tinge of irony in his tone. "Rosny told me that that old
+fox, the Captain of Créance, was affecting your company a good deal,
+M. le Vicomte, and I find that, as usual, his suspicions were well
+founded. What with a gentleman who shall be nameless, who has bartered
+a ford and a castle for the favor of Mlle. de Luynes, and yourself, I
+am blest with some faithful followers! For shame!" he continued,
+seating himself with dignity, "have you nothing to say for yourself?"
+
+The young noble stood with his head bowed, his face white. This was
+ruin, indeed, absolutely irremediable. "Sire," he said at last, "your
+Majesty has a right to my life, not to my honor."
+
+"Your honor!" quoth Henry, biting contempt in his tone.
+
+The young man started, and for a second his cheek flamed under the
+well-deserved reproach; but he recovered himself. "My debt to your
+Majesty," he said, "I am willing to pay."
+
+"Since pay you must," Henry muttered softly.
+
+"But I claim to pay also my debt to the Captain of Créance."
+
+"Oh," the king answered. "So you would have me take your worthless
+life, and give up Lusigny?"
+
+"I am in your hands, sire."
+
+"Pish, sir!" Henry replied in angry astonishment. "You talk like a
+child. Such an offer, M. de Lanthenon, is folly, and you know it. Now
+listen to me. It was lucky for you that I came in to-night, intending
+to question you. Your madness is known to me only, and I am willing to
+overlook it. Do you hear? Cheer up, therefore, and be a man. You are
+young; I forgive you. This shall be between you and me only," the
+young prince continued, his eyes softening as the other's head
+drooped, "and you need think no more of it until the day when I shall
+say to you, 'Now, M. de Lanthenon, for France and for Henry, strike!'"
+
+He rose as the last word passed his lips, and held out his hand. The
+vicomte fell on one knee, and kissed it reverently, then sprang to his
+feet again. "Sire," he said, standing erect, his eyes shining, "you
+have punished me heavily, more heavily than was needful. There is only
+one way in which I can show my gratitude, and that is by ridding you
+of a servant who can never again look your enemies in the face."
+
+"What new folly is this?" said Henry sternly. "Do you not understand
+that I have forgiven you?"
+
+"Therefore I cannot give up Lusigny, and I must acquit myself of my
+debt to the Captain of Créance in the only way which remains," replied
+the young man, firmly. "Death is not so hard that I would not meet it
+twice over rather than again betray my trust."
+
+"This is midsummer madness!" said the king hotly.
+
+"Possibly," replied the vicomte, without emotion; "yet of a kind to
+which your Majesty is not altogether a stranger."
+
+The words appealed strongly to that love of the chivalrous which
+formed part of the king's nature, and was one cause alike of his
+weakness and his strength, which in its more extravagant flights gave
+opportunity after opportunity to his enemies, in its nobler and saner
+expressions won victories which all his astuteness and diplomacy could
+not have compassed. He stood looking with half-hidden admiration at
+the man whom two minutes before he had despised.
+
+"I think you are in jest," he said presently.
+
+"No, sire," the young man answered gravely. "In my country they have a
+proverb about us. 'The Lanthenons,' say they, 'have ever been bad
+players, but good payers.' I will not be the first to be worse than my
+name!"
+
+He spoke with so quiet a determination that the king was staggered,
+and for a minute or two paced the room in silence, inwardly reviling
+the generous obstinacy of his weak-kneed supporter, yet unable to
+withhold his admiration from it. At length he stopped, with a low,
+abrupt exclamation.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "I have it! _Ventre Saint Gris_, man, I have it!"
+His eyes sparkled, and, with a gentle laugh, he hit the table a
+sounding blow. "Ha! ha! I have it!" he repeated joyously.
+
+The young noble gazed at him in surprise, half sullen, half
+incredulous. But when Henry, in low, rapid tones, had expounded his
+plan, the vicomte's face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang into
+it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a
+moment he was on his knee, mumbling the king's hand, his eyes full of
+joy and gratitude. After that the two talked long, the murmur of their
+voices broken more than once by the ripple of low laughter. When they
+at length separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the folds of his
+cloak, had stolen away to his lodgings, where, no doubt, more than one
+watcher was awaiting him with a mind full of anxious fears, the
+vicomte threw open his window and looked out on the night. The moon
+had set, but the stars still shone peacefully in the dark canopy
+above. He remembered on a sudden, his throat choking with silent
+repressed emotion, that he was looking toward his home--the stiff gray
+pile among the beech woods of Navarre which had been in his family
+since the days of St. Louis, and which he had so lightly risked. And
+he registered a vow in his heart that of all Henry's servants he would
+henceforth be the most faithful.
+
+Meanwhile the Captain of Créance was enjoying the sweets of coming
+triumph. He did not look out into the night, it is true, but pacing up
+and down the room he planned and calculated, considering how he might
+make the most of his success. He was still comparatively young. He had
+years of strength before him. He would rise. He would not easily be
+satisfied. The times were troubled, opportunities many, fools many;
+bold men with brains and hands few.
+
+At the same time he knew that he could be sure of nothing until
+Lusigny was actually his, and he spent the next few days in
+considerable suspense. But no hitch occurred. The vicomte made the
+necessary communications to him; and men in his own pay informed him
+of dispositions ordered by the governor of Lusigny which left him in
+no doubt that the loser intended to pay his debt.
+
+It was, therefore, with a heart already gay with anticipation that the
+Captain rode out of Créance two hours before midnight on an evening
+eight days later. The night was dark, but he knew the road well. He
+had with him a powerful force, composed in part of thirty of his own
+garrison, bold, hardy fellows, and in part of six score horsemen, lent
+him by the governor of Montauban. As the vicomte had undertaken to
+withdraw, under some pretense or other, one-half of his command, and
+to have one of the gates opened by a trusty hand, the captain trotted
+along in excellent spirits, and stopped to scan with approval the dark
+line of his troopers as they plodded past him, the jingle of their
+swords and corselets ringing sweet music in his ears. He looked for an
+easy victory; but it was not any slight misadventure that would rob
+him of his prey. As his company wound on by the riverside, their
+accouterments reflected in the stream, or passed into the black shadow
+of the olive grove which stands a mile to the east of Lusigny, he felt
+little doubt of the success of his enterprise.
+
+Treachery apart, that is; and of treachery there was no sign. The
+troopers had scarcely halted under the last clump of trees before a
+figure detached itself from one of the largest trunks, and advanced to
+their leader's rein. The captain saw with surprise that it was the
+vicomte himself. For a second he thought something had gone wrong, but
+the young noble's first words reassured him. "It is all right," M. de
+Lanthenon whispered, as the captain bent down to him. "I have kept my
+word, and I think that there will be no resistance. The planks for
+crossing the moat lie opposite the gate. Knock thrice at the latter,
+and it will be opened. There are not fifty armed men in the place."
+
+"Good!" the captain answered, in the same cautious tone. "But you----"
+
+"I am believed, to be elsewhere, and must be gone. I have far to ride
+tonight. Farewell."
+
+"Till we meet again," the captain answered; and with that his ally
+glided away and was lost in the darkness. A cautious word set the
+troop again in motion, and a very few minutes saw them standing on
+the edge of the moat, the outline of the gateway tower looming above
+them, a shade darker than the wrack of clouds which overhead raced
+silently across the sky. A moment of suspense, while one and another
+shivered--for there is that in a night attack which touches the nerves
+of the stoutest--and the planks were found, and as quietly as possible
+laid across the moat. This was so successfully done that it evoked no
+challenge, and the captain crossing quickly with some picked men stood
+almost in the twinkling of an eye under the shadow of the gateway.
+Still no sound was heard save the hurried breathing of those at his
+elbow or the stealthy tread of others crossing. Cautiously he knocked
+three times and waited. The third rap had scarcely sounded, however,
+before the gate rolled silently open, and he sprang in, followed by
+his men.
+
+So far so good. A glance at the empty street and the porter's pale
+face told him at once that the vicomte had kept his word. But he was
+too old a soldier to take anything for granted, and forming up his men
+as quickly as they entered, he allowed no one to advance until all
+were inside, and then, his trumpet sounding a wild note of defiance,
+his force sprang forward in two compact bodies and in a moment the
+town awoke to find itself in the hands of the enemy.
+
+As the vicomte had promised, there was no resistance. In the small
+keep a score of men did indeed run to arms, but only to lay them down
+without striking a blow when they became aware of the force opposed to
+them. Their leader, sullenly acquiescing, gave up his sword and the
+keys of the town to the victorious captain, who, as he sat his horse
+in the middle of the market-place, giving his orders and sending off
+riders with the news, already saw himself in fancy governor of a
+province and Knight of the Holy Ghost.
+
+As the red light of the torches fell on steel caps and polished
+hauberks, on the serried ranks of pikemen, and the circle of
+white-faced townsmen, the picturesque old square looked doubly
+picturesque. Every five minutes, with a clatter of iron on the rough
+pavement and a shower of sparks, a horseman sprang away to tell the
+news at Montauban or Cahors; and every time that this occurred, the
+captain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power and
+triumph.
+
+Suddenly the low murmur of voices was broken by a new sound, the
+hurried clang of hoofs, not departing but arriving. There was
+something in the noise which made the captain prick his ears, and
+secured for the messenger a speedy passage through the crowd. Even at
+the last the man did not spare his horse, but spurring to the
+captain's side, then and then only sprang to the ground. His face was
+pale, his eyes were bloodshot. His right arm was bound up in
+bloodstained cloths. With an oath of amazement, the captain recognized
+the officer whom he had left in charge of Créance and thundered out,
+"What is it?"
+
+
+[Illustration: "THEY HAVE GOT CRÉANCE!"]
+
+
+"They have got Créance!" the man gasped, reeling as he spoke. "They
+have got Créance!"
+
+"Who?" the captain shrieked, his face purple with rage.
+
+"The little man of Béarn! He assaulted it five hundred strong an hour
+after you left, and had the gate down before we could fire a dozen
+shots. We did what we could, but we were but one to seven. I swear,
+captain, we did all we could. Look at this!"
+
+Almost black in the face, the captain swore another frightful oath.
+It was not only that he saw governorship and honors vanish like
+will-o'-the-wisps, but that he saw even more quickly that he had made
+himself the laughing-stock of a kingdom! And he had. To this day among
+the stories which the southern French love to tell of the prowess and
+astuteness of the great Henry, there is none more frequently told, or
+more frequently laughed over, than that of the famous exchange of
+Créance for Lusigny.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE BODY-BIRDS OF
+                                COURT.
+
+
+"Eighty-eight when he died! That is a great age," I said.
+
+"Yes indeed. But he was a very clever man, was Robert Evans, Court,
+and brewed good beer," my companion answered. "His home-brewed was
+known, I am certain, for more than ten miles. You will have heard of
+his body-birds, sir?"
+
+"His body-birds?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, to be sure. Robert Evans Court's body-birds!" And he looked at
+me, quick to suspect that his English was deficient. He had learned it
+in part from books; and hence the curious mixture I presently noted of
+Welsh idioms and formal English phrases. It was his light trap in
+which I was being helped on my journey, and his genial chat which was
+lightening that journey; which lay through a part of Carnarvonshire
+usually traversed only by wool merchants and cattle dealers--a country
+of upland farms swept by the sea breezes, where English is not spoken
+even now by one person in a hundred, and even at inns and post-offices
+you get only "_Dim Sassenach_," for your answer. "Do you not say," he
+went on, "body-birds in English? Oh, but to be sure, it is in the
+Bible!" with a sudden recovery of his self-esteem.
+
+"To be sure!" I replied hurriedly. "Of course it is! But as to Mr.
+Robert Evans, cannot you tell me the story?"
+
+"I'll be bound there is no man in North or South Wales, or
+Carnarvonshire, that could tell it better, for Gwen Madoc, of whom you
+shall hear presently, was aunt to me. You see Robert Evans"--and my
+friend settled himself in his seat and prepared to go slowly up the
+long, steep hill of Rhiw which rose before us--"Robert Evans lived in
+an old house called Court, near the sea, very windy and lonesome. He
+was a warm man. He had Court from his father, and he had mortgages,
+and as many as four lawsuits. But he was unlucky in his family. He had
+years back three sons who helped on the farm, or at times fished; for
+there is a cove at Court, and good boats. Of these sons only one was
+married--to a Scotchwoman from Bristol, I have heard, who had had a
+husband before, a merchant captain, and she brought with her to Court
+a daughter, Peggy, ready-made as we say. Well, of those three fine
+men, there was not one left in a year. They were out fishing in a boat
+together, and Evan--that was the married one--was steering as they
+came into the cove on a spring tide running very high with a south
+wind. He steered a little to one side--not more than six inches, upon
+my honor--and pah! in an hour their bodies were thrown up on Robert
+Evans' land just like bits of seaweed. But that was not all. Evan's
+wife was on the beach at the time, so near she could have thrown a
+stone into the boat. They do say that before she was pining away at
+Court--it was bleak and lonesome and cold, in the winters, and she had
+been used to live in the towns. But, however, she never held up her
+head after Evan was drowned. She took to her bed, and died in the
+short month. And then of all at Court there were left only Robert
+Evans and the child Peggy."
+
+"How old was she then?" I asked. He had paused, and was looking
+thoughtfully before, as striving, it would seem, to make the situation
+quite clear to himself.
+
+"She was twelve, and the old man eighty and more. She was in no way
+related to him, you will remember, but he had her stop, and let her
+want for nothing that did not cost money. He was very careful of
+money, as was right. It was that made him the man he was. But there
+were some who would have given money to be rid of her. Year in and
+year out they never let the old man rest but that he should send her
+to service at least--though her father had been the captain of a big
+ship; and if Robert Evans had not been a stiff man of his years, they
+would have had their will."
+
+"But who----"
+
+By a gesture he stopped the words on my lips as there rose
+mysteriously out of the silence about us a sound of wings, a chorus
+of shrill cries. A hundred white forms swept overhead, and fell a
+white cluster about something in a distant field. They were sea gulls.
+"Just those same!" he said proudly, jerking his whip in their
+direction--"body-birds. When the news that Robert Evans' sons were
+drowned got about, there was a pretty uprising in Carnarvonshire.
+There seemed to be Evanses where there had never been Evanses before.
+As many as twenty walked in the funeral, and you may be sure that
+afterward they did not leave the old man to himself. The Llewellyn
+Evanses were foremost. They had had a lawsuit with Court, but made it
+up now. Besides there were Mr. and Mrs. Evan Bevan, and the three
+Evanses of Nant, and Owen Evans, and the Evanses of Sarn, and many
+more, who were all forward to visit Court and be friendly with old
+Gwen Madoc, Robert's housekeeper. I am told they could look black at
+one another, but in this they were all in one tale, that the foreign
+child should be sent away; and at times one and another would give her
+a rough word."
+
+"She must have had a bad time," I observed.
+
+"You may say that. But she stayed, and it was wonderful how strong and
+handsome she grew up, where her mother had just pined away. The
+sailors said it was her love of the sea; and I have heard that people
+who live inland about here come to think of nothing but the land--it
+is certain that they are good at a bargain--while the fishermen who
+live with a great space before them are finer men, I have heard, in
+their minds as well as their bodies; and Peggy _bach_ grew up like
+them, free and open and upstanding, though she lived inland. When she
+was in trouble she would run down to the sea, where the salt spray
+washed away her tears and the wind blew her hair, that was of the
+color of seaweed, into a tangle. She was never so happy as when she
+was climbing the rocks among the sea gulls, or else sitting with her
+books at the cove where the farm people would not go for fear of
+hearing the church bells that bring bad luck. Books? Oh, yes, indeed!
+next to the sea she was fond of books. There were many volumes, I have
+been told, that were her mother's; then Robert Evans, though he was a
+Wesleyan, went to church because there was no Wesleyan chapel, the
+Calvinistic Methodists being in strength about here; and the minister
+lent her many English books and befriended her. And I have heard that
+once, when the Llewellyn Evanses had been about the girl, he spoke to
+them so that they were afraid to drive down Rhiw hill that night, but
+led the horse; and I think it may be true, for they were Calvinists.
+Still, he was a good man, and I know that many Calvinists walked in
+his funeral."
+
+"_Requiescat in pace_," said I.
+
+"Eh! Well, I don't know how that may be," he replied, "but you must
+understand that all this time the Llewellyn Evanses, and the Evanses
+of Nant, and the others would be over at Court once or twice a week,
+so that all the neighborhood called them Robert Evans' body-birds; and
+when they were there Peggy McNeill would be having an ill time, since
+even the old man would be hard to her; and more so as he grew older.
+But, however, there was a better time coming, or so it seemed at
+first, the beginning of which was through Peter Rees' lobster pots. He
+was a great friend of hers. She would go out with him to take up his
+pots--oh! it might be two or three times a week. So it happened one
+day, when they had pushed off from the beach, and Peggy was steering,
+that old Rees stopped rowing on a sudden.
+
+"'Why don't you go on, Peter?' said Peggy.
+
+"'Bide a bit,' said old Rees.
+
+"'What have you forgotten?' said she, looking about in the bottom of
+the boat. For she knew what he used very well.
+
+"'Nought,' said he. But all the same he began to put the boat about in
+a stupid fashion, afraid of offending her, and yet loath to lose a
+shilling. And so, when Peggy looked up, what should she see but a
+gentleman--whom Rees had perceived, you will understand--stepping into
+the boat, and Peter Rees not daring to look her in the face because he
+knew well that she would never go out with strangers.
+
+"Of course the young gentleman thought no harm, but said gayly, 'Thank
+you! I am just in time.' And what should he do, but go aft and sit
+down on the seat by her, and begin to talk to Rees about the weather
+and the pots. And presently he said to her, 'I suppose you are used to
+steering, my girl?'
+
+"'Yes,' said Peggy, but very grave and quiet-like, so that if he had
+not determined that she was old Rees' daughter he would have taken
+notice of it. But she was wearing a short frock that she used for the
+fishing, and was wet with getting into the boat, moreover.
+
+"'Will you please to hold my hat a minute,' he said, and with that he
+put it in her lap while he looked for a piece of string with which to
+fasten it to his button. Well, she said nothing, but her cheeks were
+scarlet, and by and by, when he had called her 'my girl' two or three
+times more--not roughly, but just off-hand, taking her for a
+fisher-girl--Peter Rees could stand it no longer, shilling or no
+shilling.
+
+"'You mustn't speak that fashion to her, master,' he said gruffly.
+
+"'What?' said the gentleman, looking up. He was surprised, and no
+wonder, at the tone of the man.
+
+"'You mustn't speak like that to Miss McNeill, Court,' repeated old
+Rees more roughly than before. 'You are to understand she is not a
+common girl, but like yourself.'
+
+"The young gentleman turned and looked at her just once, short and
+sharp, and I am told that his face was as red as hers when their eyes
+met. 'I beg Miss McNeill's pardon--humbly,' he said, taking off his
+hat grandly, yet as if he meant it too; 'I was under a great
+misapprehension.'
+
+"After that you may believe they did not enjoy the row much. There was
+scarcely a word said by anyone until they came ashore again. The
+visitor, to the great joy of Peter, who was looking for a sixpence,
+gave him half a crown; and then walked away with the young lady, side
+by side with her, but very stiff and silent. However, just as they
+were parting, Peter could see that he said something, having his hat
+in his hand the while, and that Miss Peggy, after standing and
+listening, bowed as grand as might be. Upon which they separated for
+that time.
+
+"But two things came of this; first, that everyone began to call her
+Miss McNeill, Court, which was not at all to the pleasure of the
+Llewellyn Evanses. And then that, whenever the gentleman, who was a
+painter lodging at Mrs. Campbell's of the shop, would meet her, he
+would stop and say a few words, and more as the time went on.
+Presently there came some wet weather; and Mrs. Campbell borrowed for
+his use books from her, which had her name within; and later he sent
+for a box of books from London, and then the lending was on the other
+side. So it was not long before people began to see how things were,
+and to smile when the gentleman treated old Robert Evans at the Newydd
+Inn. The fishermen, when he was out with them, would tack so that he
+might see the smoke of Court over the cliffs; and there was no more
+Peggy _bach_ to be met, either rowing with Peter Rees or running wild
+among the rocks, but a very sedate young lady who yet did not seem to
+be unhappy.
+
+"The old man was ailing in his limbs at this time, but his mind was as
+clear as ever, and his grip of the land as tight. He could not bear,
+now that his sons were dead, that anyone should come after him. I am
+thinking that he would be taking everyone for a body-bird. Still the
+family were forward with presents and such like, and helped him
+perhaps about the farm; so that though there was talk in the village,
+no one could say what will he would make.
+
+
+[Illustration: "YOU HAVE BEEN COURTING."]
+
+
+"However, one day toward winter Miss Peggy came in late from a walk,
+and found the old man very cross. 'Where have you been?' he cried
+angrily. Then without any warning, 'You have been courting,' he said,
+'with that fine gentleman from the shop?'
+
+"'Well,' my lady replied, putting a brave face upon it, as was her
+way, 'and what then, grandfather? I am not ashamed of it.'
+
+"'You ought to be!' he cried, banging his stick upon the floor. 'Do
+you think that he will marry you?'
+
+"'Yes, I do,' she replied stoutly. 'He has told you so to-day, I
+know.'
+
+"Robert Evans laughed, but his laugh was not a pleasant one. 'You are
+right,' he said. 'He has told me. He was very forward to tell me. He
+thought I was going to leave you my money. But I am not! Mind you
+that, my girl.'
+
+"'Very well,' she answered, white and red by turns.
+
+"'You will remember that you are no relation of mine!' he went on
+viciously, for he had grown very crabbed of late. 'And I am not
+going to leave you money. He is after my money. He is nothing but a
+fortune-catcher!'
+
+"'He is not!' she exclaimed, as hot as fire, and began to put on her
+hat again.
+
+"'Very well! We shall see!' answered Robert Evans. 'Do you tell
+him what I say, and see if he will marry you. Go! Go now, girl, and
+you need not come back! You will get nothing by staying here!' he
+cried, for what with his jealousy and the mention of money he was
+furious--'not a penny! You had better be off at once!'
+
+"She did not answer for a minute or so, but she seemed to change
+her mind about going, for she laid down her hat, and went about the
+house place getting tea ready--and no doubt her fingers trembled a
+little--until the old man cried, 'Well, why don't you go? You will get
+nothing by staying.'
+
+"'I shall stay to take care of you all the same,' she answered
+quietly. 'You need not leave me anything, and then--and then I shall
+know whether you are right.'
+
+"'Do you mean it?' asked he sharply, after looking at her in silence
+for a moment.
+
+"'Yes,' said she.
+
+"'Then it's a bargain!' cried Robert Evans--'it's a bargain!' And he
+said not a word more about it, but took his tea from her and talked of
+the Llewellyn Evanses, who had been to pay him a visit that day. It
+seemed, however, as if the matter had upset him, for he had to be
+helped to bed, and complained a good deal, neither of which things
+were usual with him.
+
+"Well, it is not unlikely that the young lady promised herself to tell
+her lover all about it next day, and looked to hear many times over
+from his own lips that it was not her money he wanted. But this was
+not to be, for early the next morning Gwen Madoc was at her door.
+
+"'You are to get up, miss,' she said. 'The master wants you to go to
+London by the first train.'
+
+"'To London!' cried Peggy, very much astonished. 'Is he ill? Is
+anything the matter, Gwen?'
+
+"'No,' answered the old woman very short. 'It is just that.'
+
+"And when the girl, having dressed hastily, came down to Robert Evans'
+room, she found that this was pretty nearly all she was to learn. 'You
+will go to Mrs. Richard Evans, who lives at Islington,' he said, as if
+he had been thinking about it all night. 'She is my second cousin, and
+will find house room for you, and make no charge. A telegram shall be
+sent to her this morning. To-morrow you will take this packet to the
+address upon it, and the next day a packet will be returned to you,
+which you will bring back to me. I am not well to-day, and I want to
+have the matter settled and off my mind, Peggy.'
+
+"'But could not someone else go, if you are not well?' she objected,
+'and I will stop and take care of you.'
+
+"He grew very angry at that. 'Do as you are bidden, girl,' he said. 'I
+shall see the doctor to-day, and for the rest, Gwen can do for me. I
+am well enough. Do you look to the papers. Richard Evans owes me
+money, and will make no charge for your living.'
+
+"So Miss Peggy had her breakfast, and in a wonderfully short time, as
+it seemed to her, was on the way to London, with plenty of leisure on
+her hands for thinking--very likely for doubting and fearing as well.
+She had not seen her sweetheart, that was one thing. She had been
+dispatched in a hurry, that was another. And then, to be sure, the big
+town was strange to her.
+
+"However, nothing happened there, I may tell you. But on the third
+morning she received a short note from Gwen Madoc, and suddenly rose
+from breakfast with Mrs. Richard, her face very white. There was news
+in the letter--news of which all the neighborhood for miles round
+Court was by that time full. Robert Evans, if you will believe it, was
+dead. After ailing for a few hours he had died, with only Gwen Madoc
+to smooth his pillow.
+
+"It was late when she reached the nearest station to Court on her way
+back, and found a pony trap waiting for her. She was stepping into it
+when Mr. Griffith Hughes, the lawyer, saw her, and came up to speak.
+
+"'I am sorry to have bad news for you, Miss McNeill,' he said in a low
+voice, for he was a kind man, and what with the shock and the long
+journey she was looking very pale.
+
+"'Oh, yes!' she answered, with a sort of weary surprise; 'I know it
+already. That is why I am come home--to Court, I mean.'
+
+"He saw that she was thinking only of Robert Evans' death, which was
+not what was in his mind. 'It is about the will,' he said in a
+whisper, though he need not have been so careful, for everyone in the
+neighborhood had learned all about it from Gwen Madoc. 'It is a cruel
+will. I would not have made it for him, my dear. He has left Court to
+the Llewellyn Evanses, and the money between the Evanses of Nant and
+the Evan Bevans.'
+
+"'It is quite right,' she answered, so calmly that he stared. 'My
+grandfather explained it to me. I fully understood that I was not to
+be in the will.'
+
+"Mr. Hughes looked more and more puzzled. 'Oh, but,' he replied, 'it
+is not so bad as that. Your name is in the will. He has laid it upon
+those who get the land and money to provide for you--to settle a
+proper income upon you. And you may depend upon me for doing my best
+to have his wishes carried out, my dear.'
+
+"The young lady turned very red, and raised her eyes sharply.
+
+"'Who are to provide for me?' she asked.
+
+"'The three families who divide the estate,' he said.
+
+"'And are they obliged to do so?'
+
+"'Well--no,' said he unwillingly. 'I am not sure that they are exactly
+obliged. But no doubt----'
+
+"'I doubt very much,' she answered, taking him up with a smile. And
+then she shook hands with him and drove away, leaving him wondering at
+her courage.
+
+"Well, you may suppose it was a dreary house to which she came home.
+Mr. Griffith Hughes, who was executor, had been before the Llewellyn
+Evanses in taking possession, so that, besides a lad or two in the
+kitchen, there were only Gwen Madoc and the servant there, and they
+seemed to have very little to tell her about the death. When she had
+heard what they had to say, and they were all on their way to bed,
+'Gwen,' she said softly, 'I think I should like to see him.'
+
+"'So you shall, to-morrow, honey,' answered the old woman. 'But do you
+know, _bach_, that he has left you nothing?' and she held up her
+candle suddenly, so as to throw the light on the girl's tired face.
+
+"'Oh!' she answered, with a shudder, 'how can you talk about that
+now?' But presently she had another question ready. 'Have you seen Mr.
+Venmore since--since my grandfather's death, Gwen?' she asked timidly.
+
+"'Yes, indeed, _bach_,' answered the housekeeper. 'I met him at the
+door of the shop this morning. I told him where you were, and that you
+would be back tonight. And about the will, moreover.'
+
+"The girl stopped at her own door and snuffed her candle. Gwen Madoc
+went slowly up the next flight, groaning over the steepness of the
+stairs. Then she turned to say good-night. The girl was at her side
+again, her eyes shining in the light of the two candles.
+
+"'Oh, Gwen,' she whispered breathlessly, 'didn't he say anything?'
+
+"'Not a word, _bach_,' answered the old woman, stroking her hair
+tenderly. 'He just went into the house in a hurry.'
+
+"Miss Peggy went into her room much in the same way. No doubt she
+would be telling herself a great many times over before she slept that
+he would come and see her in the morning; and in the morning she would
+be saying, 'He will come in the afternoon;' and in the afternoon, 'He
+will come in the evening.' But evening came, and darkness, and still
+he did not appear. Then she could endure it no longer. She let herself
+out of the front door, which there was no one now to use but herself,
+and with a shawl over her head ran all the way down to the shop. There
+was no light in his window upstairs: but at the back door stood Mrs.
+Campbell, looking after someone who had just left her.
+
+"The girl came, strangely shrinking at the last moment, into the ring
+of light about the door. 'Why, Miss McNeill!' cried the other,
+starting visibly at sight of her. 'Is it you, honey? And are you
+alone?'
+
+"'Yes; and I cannot stop. But oh, Mrs. Campbell, where is Mr.
+Venmore?'
+
+"'I know no more than yourself, my dear,' said the good woman
+reluctantly. 'He went from here yesterday on a sudden--to take the
+train, I understood.'
+
+"'Yesterday? When? At what time, please?' asked the young lady. There
+was a fear, which she had been putting from her all day. It was
+getting a footing now.
+
+"'Well, it would be about midday. I know it was just after Gwen Madoc
+called in about the----'
+
+"But the girl was gone. It was not to Mrs. Campbell she could make a
+moan. It was only the night wind that caught the 'Oh, cruel! cruel!'
+which broke from her as she went up the hill. Whether she slept that
+night at all I am not able to say. Only that when it was dawn she was
+out upon the cliffs, her face very white and sad-looking. The
+fishermen who were up early, going out with the ebb, saw her at times
+walking fast and then standing still and looking seaward. But I do not
+know what she was thinking, only I should fancy that the gulls had a
+different cry for her now, and it is certain that when she had
+returned and came down into the parlor at Court for the funeral, there
+were none of the Evanses could look her in the face with comfort.
+
+"They were all there, of course. Mr. Llewellyn Evans--he was an
+elderly man, with a gray beard like a bird's nest, and very thick
+lips--was sitting with his wife on the horsehair sofa. The Evanses of
+Nant, who were young men with lank faces and black hair combed upward,
+were by the door. The Evan Bevans were at the table; and there were
+others, besides Mr. Griffith Hughes, who was undoing some papers when
+she entered.
+
+"He rose and shook hands with her, marking pitifully the dark hollows
+under her eyes, and inwardly confirming his resolution to get her a
+substantial settlement. Then he hesitated, looking doubtfully at the
+others. 'We are going to read the will before the funeral instead of
+afterward,' he said.
+
+"'Oh!' she answered, taken aback--for in truth she had forgotten all
+about the will. 'I did not know. I will go, and come back later.'
+
+"'No, indeed!' cried Mrs. Llewellyn Evans, 'you had better stop and
+hear the will--though no relation, to be sure.'
+
+"But at that moment Gwen Madoc came in, and peered round with a grim
+air of importance. 'Maybe someone,' she said in a low voice, 'would
+like to take a last look at the poor master?'
+
+"But no one moved. They sighed and shook their heads at one another as
+if they would like to do so--but no one moved. They were anxious, you
+see, to hear the will. Only Peggy, who had turned to go out, said,
+'Yes, Gwen, I should,' and slipped out with the old woman.
+
+"'There is nothing to keep us now?' said Mr. Hughes briskly when the
+door was closed again. And everyone nodding assent the lawyer went on
+to read the will, which was not a long one. It was received with a
+murmur of satisfaction, and much use of pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+"'Very fair!' said Mr. Llewellyn Evans, 'He was a clever man, our old
+friend.' All the legatees murmured after him 'Very fair!' and a word
+went round about the home-brewed, and Robert Evans' recipe for it.
+Then Llewellyn, who thought he ought to be taking the lead at Court
+now, said it was about time to be going to church.
+
+"'There is one matter,' put in Mr. Griffith Hughes, 'which I think
+ought to be settled while we are all together. You see that there is
+a--what I may call a charge on the three main portions of the property
+in favor of Miss McNeill.'
+
+"'Indeed, but what is that you are saying?' cried Llewellyn sharply.
+'Do you mean that there is a rent charge?'
+
+"'Not exactly a rent charge,' said the lawyer.
+
+"'No!' cried Llewellyn with a twinkle in his eyes. 'Nor any obligation
+in law, sir?'
+
+"'Well, no,' assented Mr. Hughes grudgingly.
+
+"'Then,' said Llewellyn Evans, getting up and putting his hands in his
+pockets, while he winked at the others, 'we will talk of that another
+time.'
+
+"But Mr. Hughes said, 'No!' He was a kind man, and very anxious to do
+the best for the girl, but he somewhat lost his temper. 'No!' he said,
+growing red. 'You will observe, if you please, Mr. Evans, that the
+testator says, "Forthwith---forthwith." So that, as sole executor, it
+is my duty to ask you to state your intentions now.'
+
+"'Well, indeed, then,' said Llewellyn, changing his face to a kind of
+blank, 'I have no intentions. I think that the family has done more
+than enough for the girl already.'
+
+"And he would say no otherwise. Nor was it to any purpose that the
+lawyer looked at Mrs. Llewellyn. She was examining the furniture, and
+feeling the stuffing of the sofa, and did not seem to hear. He could
+make nothing of the three Evanses, Nant. They all cried, 'Yes,
+indeed!' to what Llewellyn said. Only the Evan Bevans remained, and he
+turned to them in despair.
+
+"'I am sure,' he said, addressing himself to them, 'that you will do
+something to carry out the testator's wishes? Your share under the
+will, Mr. Bevan, will amount to three hundred a year. This young
+lady has nothing--no relations, no home. May I take it that you will
+settle--say fifty pounds a year upon her? It need only be for her
+life.'
+
+"Mr. Bevan fidgeted under this appeal. His wife answered it.
+'Certainly not, Mr. Hughes. If it were twenty pounds now, once for
+all, or even twenty-five--and Llewellyn and my nephews would say the
+same--I think we might manage that?'
+
+"But Llewellyn shook his head obstinately. 'I have said I have no
+intentions, and I am a man of my word!' he answered. 'Let the girl go
+out to service. It is what we have always wanted her to do. Here are
+my nephews. They won't mind a young housekeeper.'
+
+"Well, they all laughed at this except Mr. Hughes, who gathered up his
+papers looking very black, and not thinking of future clients.
+Llewellyn, however, did not care a bit for that, but walked to the
+bell, masterful-like, and rang it. 'Tell the undertaker,' he said to
+the servant, 'that we are ready.'
+
+"It was as if the words had been a signal, for they were followed
+almost immediately by an outcry overhead and quick running upon the
+stairs. The legatees looked uncomfortably at the carpet: the lawyer
+was blacker than before. He said to himself, 'Now that poor child has
+fainted!' The confusion seemed to last some minutes. Then the door was
+opened, not by the undertaker, but by Gwen Madoc. The mourners rose
+with a sigh of relief; to their surprise she passed by even Llewellyn,
+and with a frightened face walked across to the lawyer. She whispered
+something in his ear.
+
+"'What!' he cried, starting back a pace from her, and speaking so that
+the wine-glasses on the table rattled again. 'Do you know what you are
+saying, woman?'
+
+"'It is true,' she answered, half crying, 'and no fault indeed of mine
+neither.'
+
+"Gwen added more in quick, short sentences, which the family, strain
+their ears as they might, could not overhear.
+
+"'I will come! I will come!' cried the lawyer. He waved his hand to
+them as a sign to make room for her to pass out. Then he turned to
+them, a queer look upon his face; it was not triumph altogether,
+for there was discomfiture and apprehension in it as well. 'You
+will believe me, he said, 'that I am as much taken aback as
+yourselves--that till this moment I have been honestly as much in the
+dark as anyone. It seems--so I am told--that our old friend is not
+dead.'
+
+"'What!' cried Llewellyn in his turn. 'What do you mean?' and he
+raised his black-gloved hands as in refutation.
+
+"'What I say,' replied Mr. Hughes patiently. 'I hear--wonderful as it
+sounds--that he is not dead. Something about a trance, I believe--a
+mistake happily discovered in time. I tell you all I know; and however
+it comes about, it is clear we ought to be glad that Mr. Robert Evans
+is spared to us.'
+
+"With that he was glad to escape from the room. I am told that their
+faces were very strange to see. There was a long silence. Llewellyn
+was the first to speak: He swore a big oath and banged his great hand
+upon the table. 'I don't 'believe it!' he cried. 'I don't believe it!
+It is a trick!'
+
+"But as he spoke the door opened behind him, and he and all turned to
+see what they had never thought to see, I am sure. They had come to
+walk in Robert Evans' funeral; and here was the gaunt, stooping form
+of Robert Evans himself coming in, with an arm of Gwen Madoc on one
+side and of Miss Peggy on the other--Robert Evans beyond doubt, alive.
+Behind him were the lawyer and Dr. Jones, a smile on their lips, and
+three or four women half frightened, half wondering.
+
+"The old man was pale, and seemed to totter a little, but when the
+doctor would have placed a chair for him, he declined it, and stood
+gazing about him, wonderfully composed for a man just risen from his
+coffin. He had all his old grim aspect as he looked upon the family.
+Llewellyn's declaration was still in their ears. They could find not a
+word to say either of joy or grief.
+
+"'Well, indeed,' said Robert, with a dry chuckle, 'have none of you a
+word to throw at me? I am a ghost, I suppose? Ha!' he exclaimed, as
+his eye fell on the papers which Mr. Hughes had left upon the table,
+'so! so! That is why you are not overjoyed at seeing me. You have been
+reading my will. Well, Llewellyn! Have not you a word to say to me now
+you know for what I had got you down?'
+
+"At that Llewellyn found his tongue, and the others chimed in finely.
+Only there was something in the old man's manner that they did not
+like; and presently, when they had all told him how glad they were to
+see him again--just for all the world as if he had been ill for a few
+days--Robert Evans turned again to Llewellyn.
+
+"'You had fixed what you would do for my girl here, I suppose?' he
+said, patting her shoulder gently, at which the family winced. 'It was
+a hundred a year you promised to settle, you know. You will have
+arranged all that.'
+
+"Lewellyn looked stealthily at Mr. Hughes, who was standing at
+Robert's elbow, and muttered that they had not reached that stage.
+
+"'What?' cried the old man sharply. 'How was that?'
+
+"'I was intending,' Llewellyn began lamely, 'to settle----'
+
+"'You were intending!' Robert Evans burst forth in a voice so changed
+that they all started back. 'You are a liar! You were intending to
+settle nothing! I know it well! I knew it long ago! Nothing, I say! As
+for you,' he went on, wheeling furiously round upon the Evanses of
+Nant, 'you knew my wishes. What were you going to do for her? What, I
+say? Speak, you hobbledehoys!'
+
+"For they were backing from him in absolute fear of his passion,
+looking at one another or at the sullen face of Llewellyn Evans, or
+anywhere save at him. At length the eldest blurted out, 'Whatever
+Llewellyn meant to do we were going to do, sir.'
+
+"'You speak the truth there,' cried old Robert bitterly; 'for that was
+nothing, you know. Very well! I promise you that what Llewellyn gets
+of my property you shall get too--and it will be nothing! You, Bevan,'
+and he turned himself toward the Evan Bevans, who were shaking in
+their shoes, 'I am told, did offer to do something for my girl.'
+
+"'Yes, dear Robert,' cried Mrs. Bevan, radiant and eager, 'we did
+indeed.'
+
+"'So I hear. Well, when I make my next will, I will take care to set
+you down for just so much as you proposed to give her! Peggy, _bach_,'
+he continued, turning from the chapfallen lady, and putting into the
+girl's hands the will which the lawyer had given him, 'tear up this
+rubbish! Tear it up! Now let us have something to eat in the other
+room. What, Llewellyn, no appetite?'
+
+"But the family did not stay even to partake of the home-brewed. They
+were out of the house, I am told, before the coffin and the
+undertaker's men. There was big talking among them, as they went, of a
+conspiracy and a lunatic asylum. But though, to be sure, it was a
+wonderful recovery, and the doctor and Mr. Hughes, as they drove away
+after dinner, were very friendly together--which may have been only
+the home-brewed--at any rate the sole outcome of Llewellyn's talking
+and inquiries was that everyone laughed very much, and Robert Evans'
+name for a clever man was known beyond Carnarvon.
+
+"Of course it would be open house at Court that day, with plenty of
+eating and drinking and coming and going. But toward five o'clock the
+place grew quiet again. The visitors had gone home, and Gwen Madoc was
+upstairs. The old man was sleeping in his chair opposite the settle,
+and Miss Peggy was sitting on the window-seat watching him, her hands
+in her lap, her thoughts far away. Maybe she was trying to be really
+glad that the home, about which the cows lowed and the gulls screamed
+in the afternoon stillness and made it seem home each minute, was hers
+still; that she was not quite alone, nor friendless, nor poor. Maybe
+she was striving not to think of the thing which had been taken from
+her and could not be given back. Whatever her thoughts, she was
+aroused by some sound to find her eyes full of hot tears, through
+which she could dimly see that the old man was awake and looking at
+her with a strange expression, which disappeared as she became aware
+of it.
+
+"He began to speak. 'Providence has been very good to us, Peggy,' he
+said, with grim meaning. 'It is well for you, my girl, that our eyes
+are open to see our kind friends as they are. There is one besides
+those who were here this morning that will wish he had not been so
+hasty.'
+
+"She rose quickly and looked out of the window. 'Don't speak of him.
+Let us forget him,' she pleaded, in a low tone.
+
+"But Robert Evans seemed to take a delight in the--well, the goodness
+of Providence. 'If he had come to see you only once, when you were in
+trouble,' he went on, as if he were summing up the case in his own
+mind, and she were but a stick or a stone, 'we could have forgiven
+him, and I would have said you were right. Or even if he had written,
+eh?'
+
+"'Oh, yes, yes!' sobbed the girl, her tears raining down her averted
+face. 'Don't torture me! You were right and I was wrong--all wrong!'
+
+"'Well, yes, yes! Just so. But come here, my girl,' said the old man.
+'Come!' he repeated imperiously, as, surprised in the midst of her
+grief, she wavered and hesitated, 'sit here,' and he pointed to the
+settle opposite to him. 'Now, suppose I were to tell you he had
+written, and that the letter had been--mislaid, shall we say? and come
+somehow to my hands? Now, don't get excited, girl!'
+
+"'Oh!' cried Peggy, her hands fallen, her lips parted, her eyes wide
+and frightened, her whole form rigid with questioning.
+
+"'Just suppose that, my dear,' continued Robert, 'and that the letter
+were now before us--would you abide by its contents? Remember, he must
+have much to explain. Would you let me decide whether his explanation
+were satisfactory or not?"
+
+"She was trembling with expectation, hope. But she tried to think of
+the matter calmly, to remember her lover's hurried flight, the lack of
+word or message for her, her own misery. She nodded silently, and held
+out her hand.
+
+"He drew a letter from his pocket. 'You will let me see it?' he said
+suspiciously.
+
+"'Oh, yes!' she cried, and fled with it to the window. He watched her
+while she tore it open and read first one page and then another--there
+were but two, it was very short--watched her while she thrust it from
+her and looked at it as a whole, then drew it to her and kissed it
+again and again.
+
+"'Wait a bit! wait a bit!' cried he testily. 'Now, let me see it.'
+
+"She turned upon him almost fiercely, holding it away behind her, as
+if it were some living thing he might hurt. 'He thought he would meet
+me at the junction,' she stammered between laughing and crying. 'He
+was going to London to see his sister--that she might take me in. And
+he will be here to fetch me this evening. There! Take it!' and
+suddenly remembering herself she stretched out her hand and gave him
+the letter.
+
+"'You promised to abide by my decision, you know,' said the old man
+gravely.
+
+"'I will not!' she cried impetuously. 'Never!'
+
+"'You promised,' he said.
+
+"'I don't care! I don't care!' she replied, clasping her hands
+nervously. 'No one shall come between us.'
+
+"'Very well,' said Robert Evans, 'then I need not decide. But you had
+better tell Owen to take the trap to the station to meet your man.'"
+
+
+
+
+                          IN CUPID'S TOILS.
+
+
+                                  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 bowlders 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 toward
+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 hackle, 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!" someone 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 gravely,
+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 sound-proof, 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
+pretense 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!"
+
+
+[Illustration: "BAB."]
+
+
+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 anyone 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,
+aid-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 cozy 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 afterward 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 hill-sides 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 millrace, 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 someone'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
+was 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
+signaled 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 homeward.
+
+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 afterward. 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. 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 travelers' 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 around 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."
+
+Everyone 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 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 somewhat 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, playtime 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 modeled 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 halfway 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 understand now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
+mention my name, and she had taken me for someone 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 terrible 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 toward me, and
+opening her eyes as she 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 anyone 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 import no great good
+will.
+
+"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 overwarmth
+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 center 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. Everyone 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 anyone. 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, 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 afterward, 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 Goldmaces' 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
+tomorrow; 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.
+Everyone 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 catchwords, 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 blind-folded, 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 other's 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 of 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
+toward the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
+was the matter?
+
+"I beg everyone'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 theater, and that other one on which Mr. Guest kept
+me to dinner. Aye, 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 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
+work basket, 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 everyday life. Then I heard her come in,
+and turned quickly, feeling that I should learn my fate from her
+greeting.
+
+"Bab!" The word was wrung 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.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE DRIFT OF FATE.
+
+
+On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoelace,
+having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a corner house
+in St. James' 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 wining 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 sparsely 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 toward 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
+ballroom. 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 upward 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 afterward, 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?"
+
+
+[Illustration: "LORD 'A' MERCY! THERE IS THE MISTRESS'S KNOCK."]
+
+
+"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 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 toward 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
+someone 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 somber, 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 his 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 & 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 mustaches, gray eyes, and an ugly scar
+seaming the face from ear 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 were 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 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 toward 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 outward 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 airtight. 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! Ay, 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 marveled. 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 toward 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 continued 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
+Duggan & Poole'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 notecase 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 & 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 someone. 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 toward 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 leaned 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, wrapped 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 & 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 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."
+
+
+
+
+                            A BLORE MANOR
+                               EPISODE.
+
+
+Not very remarkable was this courtship: there was nothing very strange
+about it, or more romantic than is apt to be the case with such
+things. I doubt not that since the daughters of the children of men
+were wooed, there have been many millions of such May-time passages of
+greater interest, and that countless Pauls and Virginias have plucked
+the sweet spring flowers together amid more picturesque surroundings.
+Every matron--and some maids, if they will, though we deprecate the
+omen--can recall at least one wooing which she can vouch as a thousand
+million times more extraordinary than that of my commonplace hero and
+heroine. That is so: but for that very reason let her read of this
+one, and taking off the cover of her own potpourri savor some faint
+scent of the dewy roses of the past springtime.
+
+It had its origin in the 12:10 down train from Euston to Holyhead,
+which carried, among other passengers, Charles Maitland of the Temple,
+barrister by theory and idler by, or for want of, practice. He
+traveled first-class. When you come to know him better you will
+understand how superfluous was this last piece of information. Ten
+minutes before the train was due out, he arrived at the station
+in a hansom. A silk hat, a well-fitting light overcoat--the weather,
+for March, was mild--gray trousers, and brown gaiters over his
+patent-leather boots were the most salient details of a costume of
+which the chief characteristic was an air of perfect correctness. At
+the bookstall he did not linger, culling with loving eyes the backs of
+many books, and reveling in his choice with florin in hand, as do
+second-class passengers, but without hesitation he purchased a
+_Saturday Review_ and a _Cornhill Magazine_. After he had taken his
+seat a Smith's boy invited him to select from a tray, upon which
+glowed half a dozen novels; but he gazed sublimely into vacancy over
+the boy's head; who soon left him, and prompted by a vengeful spirit
+only inferior to his precocious knowledge of passenger nature,
+directed upon him the attacks of two kindred sprites with Banbury
+cakes and British sherry. The window was slight protection against
+their shrill voices, but soon the train started and freed him from
+them. He changed his hat for a brown deer-stalker, and having the
+compartment to himself, had recourse to his own thoughts. It was not
+unlikely, he told himself, that he had been precipitate in undertaking
+this journey. An Easter, coming somewhat early, seemed to have
+forestalled his wonted invitations for that season: and, to stay in
+London being out of the question, he had accepted Tom Quaritch's
+offer. He began to have doubts of the wisdom of this course now, but
+it was too late. He was bound for Tom Quaritch's. He had known
+something of Tom at college; and recently he had done him a slight
+service in town. No more genial soul than the latter existed, and he
+did not rest satisfied until he had won from Maitland a half promise
+to come and see his beagles at Easter. At the time our traveler had
+but the remotest idea of doing so. He did not know enough of Tom's
+people, while to have the acquaintance of the right people and of no
+one else was part of his creed. But now he was between the horns of a
+dilemma. These people, of whom he knew nothing, might not be the right
+people; that was one horn. The other consisted in the fact that to
+spend a vacation in town was not the thing. When we have chosen our
+horn it is natural it should seem the sharper of the two. Mr. Charles
+Maitland frowned as he cut the pages of his _Cornhill_. And then he
+made up his mind to two things. Firstly, to bring his stay at Blore
+Manor within the smallest possible limits, and secondly, to comport
+himself while there with such a formal courtesy as should encourage
+only the barest familiarity.
+
+At Stafford he had to change into another train, which he did, even as
+he cut his magazine, with characteristic precision and coolness. And
+so he reached Blore Station about half-past five, still neat and
+unsullied, with all the aroma of the street of scents about him.
+
+He let down the window and put out his head. The country thereabouts
+was flat and uninteresting, the farming untidy, the fences low, yet
+straggling. A short distance away a few roofs peeping forth from a
+clump of trees, above which the smoke gently curled, marked the
+village. The station consisted of a mere shed and a long, bare
+platform. There were but five persons visible, and of these one was a
+porter, and one a man servant in a quiet, countrified livery. The
+latter walked quickly toward him, but was forestalled by three girls,
+the other occupants of the platform, who, at sight of the stranger,
+came tearing from the far end of it at a headlong pace.
+
+"Here he is! Here he is!" cried the foremost, her shrill voice drawing
+a dozen heads to the windows of the train. She owed her success to an
+extempore tug in the form of an excited bull terrier, which, dragging
+violently at a strap attached to her wrist, jerked her after him much
+as if she had been a kettle tied to his tail. She might be anything
+between twenty and five-and-twenty--a tiny little creature of almost
+fairylike proportions. Her color was high and her hair brown; she had
+curiously opaque brown eyes, bright as well as opaque. Gloves she had
+none, and her hair was disordered by her struggles with the dog. But,
+after all, the main impression she made upon Maitland was that she was
+excessively small. He had no eyes for the others at present. But one,
+owing to the reckless method of her progression, gave him a dim notion
+of being all legs.
+
+"You are Mr. Maitland, are you not?" the first comer began volubly,
+though loss of breath interfered a little with the symmetry of her
+sentences. "Tom had to attend a meeting of the fox committee at
+Annerley. I'm Maggie Quaritch, and this is Dubs--I beg your pardon,
+how silly of me--Joan, I mean, and this is Agnes. Why, child, what
+have you done with your hat? Pick it up at once! What wild things Mr.
+Maitland will think us!"
+
+The youngest girl, whose hat was lying upon the platform some distance
+away, hung her head in a very pretty attitude of shy _gaucherie_. She
+was about fifteen--rising sixteen in her brother's phrase--and taller
+than the elder girls, with a peculiarly pale complexion, greenish-gray
+eyes, and a mass of brownish-red hair. Her loosely made dress was more
+in consonance with her style than Maitland, staggering under the shock
+of such a reception, had time or mind to observe. He formally
+acknowledged the introductions, but words did not come easily to him.
+He was dumfounded. He was so unaccustomed to this, or to people like
+these.
+
+"And we must not forget Bill," resumed Miss Quaritch, if possible,
+faster than before. "Isn't he a beauty now, Mr. Maitland? Look at his
+chest, look at his head, look at his eyes. Yes, he lost that one in a
+fight with Jack Madeley's retriever, and I'm afraid the sight of the
+other is going, but he's the most beautiful, loveliest, faithfullest
+dog in the whole world for all that, and his mother loves him, she
+does!" All in a shrill tone, rising a note perhaps with the final
+words.
+
+The train was moving out. The last that the twelve faces, still glued
+to the carriage windows, beheld of the scene was Miss Quaritch
+rapturously kissing and hugging the bull terrier, while the Londoner
+looked on sheepishly. He was horribly conscious of the presence of
+those grinning faces and suffered as much until the train left as if
+the onlookers had been a dozen of his club comrades. Whereas the fact
+was that they found whatever amusement the scene afforded them not in
+the girl's enthusiasm--she was young enough to gush prettily--but in
+the strange gentleman's awkward consciousness.
+
+"Now, Mr. Maitland, shall Abiah drive you up in the dog cart, or will
+you walk with us? Agnes!" this suddenly in a loud scream to the
+youngest girl, who had moved away, "you can let out the dogs! Down,
+Juno! Go down, Jack o' Pack! Roy, you ill-conditioned little dog, you
+are always quarreling! I'm afraid they will make you in a dreadful
+pickle."
+
+Indeed it seemed to Maitland that they would. An avalanche of
+scurrying dogs descended upon him from some receptacle where they had
+been penned. He had a vision of a red Irish setter with soft brown
+eyes, not unlike to, but far finer than Miss Maggie's, with its paws
+momentarily upon the breast of his overcoat; of a couple of wiry fox
+terriers skirmishing and snarling round his trousers, and of a shy,
+lop-eared beagle puppy casting miserable glances at them from an
+outside place. And then the party got under way in some sort of order.
+At first Maitland had much ado to answer yes and no.
+
+He was still bewildered by these things, crushed, confounded.
+
+He could have groaned as he sedately explained at what time he left
+Euston, and where he changed. He was conscious that when their
+attention was not demanded by the pack of dogs, the girls were
+covertly scrutinizing him; but in his present state of mind, it
+mattered not a straw to him whether they were calling him a prig, and
+a "stick," and affected, and supercilious, or were admiring half in
+scorn the fit of his clothes and boots, and his lordly air. All these
+remarks were in fact made by some one or other of them before the day
+was over. But he was, and would have been, supremely indifferent to
+their criticisms.
+
+The weight of the conversation did not fall heavily upon him: indeed,
+when Miss Quaritch had a share in it, no one else was overburdened.
+And from time to time they met upon the road old women or children to
+whom the girls had always something to say. It was, "Well, Mrs.
+Marjoram, and so the donkey is better," or, "Now, Johnny, get along
+home to your mother," or, "How are you, daddy?" in the high-pitched
+key so trying to the cockney's ear.
+
+In these parleys Joan, the second girl, was foremost. Maitland glanced
+at her. A young man may be very fastidious, but neck-ribbons awry and
+brown hair in rich disorder do not entirely close his eyes to a
+maiden's comeliness. It would be strange if they did, were she such an
+one as Joan Quaritch. Not tall, yet tall enough, with a full, rounded
+figure, to which her dress hardly did, hardly could do, justice, she
+moved with the grace and freedom of perfect health. Her fair
+complexion could afford to have its clearness marred by a freckle or
+two, such as hers, mere clots in cream; and if her features were not
+perfect, yet a nose too straight and a chin too heavy were more than
+redeemed by great gray eyes that, sunny or tearful, could be nothing
+but true--eyes whose frankness and good fellowship aggravated the
+wounds they inflicted. Why she was called "Dubs" I cannot tell.
+Perhaps no one can. But, in her good nature and her truth, her simple
+pride and independence, it suited her.
+
+He had just, to quote the language of this cynic's thoughts,
+catalogued the last of the Graces, when the party reached the house,
+which stood some way back from the road. Tom Quaritch had just
+returned, and welcomed the guest warmly; his mother met Maitland at
+the drawing-room door. She was a singularly comely woman, stately and
+somewhat formal. Her greeting so differed from that of her daughters
+that the visitor found himself speculating upon the extraordinary
+flightiness of the late Mr. Quaritch. Wherein I doubt not he did him
+injustice.
+
+At dinner our hero had in some degree recovered himself, and he told
+them the latest news of the theaters, the clubs, and the book world,
+and while their ignorance filled him with a wonder he did not hide,
+their attention propitiated him. He talked well, and if he was
+inclined to lord it a little, a shrewd word from Mrs. Quaritch, or a
+demure glance from Miss Joan's eyes, would lower his didactic tone.
+The youngest girl promised to be an especial thorn in his side.
+
+"Does everyone in London wear shiny boots in the daytime, Mr.
+Maitland?" she asked suddenly, _à propos des bottes_, and nothing
+else.
+
+"A considerable number do, Miss Agnes."
+
+"What sort of people? No, I'm not being rude, mother."
+
+"Well, I hardly know how to answer that. The idle people, perhaps." He
+smiled indulgently, which aggravated the young lady. She replied,
+crumbling her bread the while in an absent, meditative way, her eyes
+innocently fixed on his face:
+
+"Then you are one of the idle people, Mr. Maitland? I don't think I
+like idle people."
+
+"How singularly unselfish of you, my dear Agnes!" put in Joan
+vigorously--more vigorously than politely.
+
+Maitland's last reflection as he got into bed was that he was quite
+out of place here. These might be very nice people in their way, but
+not in his way. He must make his visit as short as possible, and
+forget all about it as quickly as he could. The girls would be
+insufferable when they came to know him familiarly. Good gracious!
+fancy young ladies who had never heard of "John Inglesant," or of W.
+D. Howells' books, and confused the Grosvenor Gallery with the Water
+Color Exhibition! and read Longfellow! and had but vague ideas of the
+æsthetic! Miss Joan was pretty too, yes, really pretty, and had fine
+eyes and a pleasant voice, and fine eyes--yes, fine eyes. And with
+this thought he fell comfortably asleep.
+
+He came down next morning to find her alone in the breakfast room. A
+short-skirted beagling costume of scarlet and blue allowed him a
+glimpse of neat ankles in scarlet hose. She was kneeling before the
+fire playing with Roy. Her brown wavy hair fell in a heavy loose loop
+upon her neck, and there was something wonderfully bright and fresh in
+her whole appearance.
+
+"How quickly you have fallen in with our barbarous ways!" she said
+with a smile, as she rose. "I did not expect you to be up for hours
+yet."
+
+"I generally breakfast at nine, and it is nearly that now," he
+answered, annoyed by some hint of raillery in her tone, and yet unable
+to conceal a glance of admiration. "I think I must adopt the Blore
+breakfast hour; it seems, Miss Joan, to agree with you all so well."
+
+"Yes," was the indifferent reply; "we get the first of the three
+rewards for early rising. The other two we leave for our betters."
+
+And she turned away with a little nod as the others came in. In five
+minutes a noisy, cheerful breakfast was in progress, and the chances
+of finding a hare formed the all-engrossing subject of conversation.
+
+On this calm gray morning, warm rather than cold, the little pack, to
+the great delight of the household, found quickly, and found well. No
+October leveret was before them, but a good, stout old hare, who gave
+them a ringing run of two hours, the pleasure of which was not
+materially diminished when she baffled them at last in the mysterious
+way these old hares affect and huntsmen fail to fathom. The visitor
+performed creditably, though in indifferent training. At Oxford he had
+been something of a crack, and could still upon occasion forget to
+keep his boots clean and his clothes intact.
+
+Returning home, Maitland found himself again with Joan. The heat and
+pleasure of the chase had for the time melted his reserve and thawed
+his resolution. He talked well and freely to her of a great London
+hospital over which one of the house surgeons had recently taken him;
+of the quiet and orderliness of the lone, still wards; of the feeling
+that came over him there that life was all suffering and death; and
+how quickly in the bustle of the London streets, where the little
+world of the hospital seemed distant and unreal, this impression faded
+away. She listened eagerly, and he, tasting a stealthy and stolen
+pleasure in seeing how deep and pitiful the gray eyes could grow,
+prolonged his tale.
+
+"I have enjoyed hearing about it so much," she said gratefully, as
+they entered the village. And indeed she had passed several people
+upon the road without a word of greeting. "I hope to be a nurse soon.
+The dear mother does not think me old enough yet."
+
+"You are going to be a nurse!" he said in tones of such incredulous
+surprise that the amusement which first appeared in her face changed
+to annoyance.
+
+"Why not? One does not need a knowledge of art and the newest books
+for that," she sharply answered.
+
+"Perhaps not," he said feebly. "But after such a life as this, it--the
+change I mean--would be so complete."
+
+She looked at him, an angry gleam in her eyes, and the color high in
+her cheeks.
+
+"Do you think, Mr. Maitland, that because we run wild--oh, no, you
+have not said so--and seem to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, we are
+incapable of anything beyond hunting and playing tennis, and feeding
+the dogs and the hens and the chickens? That we cannot have a thought
+beyond pleasure, or a wish to do good like other people--people in
+London? That we can never look beyond Blore--though Blore, I can tell
+you, would manage ill without some of us!--nor have an aspiration
+above the kennels and the--and the stables? If you do think so, I
+trust you are wrong."
+
+He would have answered humbly, but she was gone into the house in huge
+indignation, leaving our friend strangely uncomfortable. It was just
+twenty-four hours since his arrival: the opinion of one at least of
+the madcaps had ceased to be a matter of indifference to him. The
+change occurred to himself as he mounted the stairs, so that he
+laughed when alone in his room and resolved to keep away from that
+girl for the future. How handsome she had looked when she was flying
+out at him, and how generous seemed her anger even at the time!
+Somehow the prospect of the four days he had still to spend at Blore
+was not so depressing as at first. Certainly the vista was shortened
+by one day, and that may have been the reason.
+
+Meanwhile Maggie, in her sister's bedroom, had much to say of the
+day's doings. "Didn't he go well? My word! he is not half so stiff as
+I thought him. I believe he'd be a very good fellow if he had some of
+the conceit taken out of him."
+
+"I think he's insufferable," was the chilling answer from Joan; "he
+considers us savages, and treats us as such."
+
+"He may consider us fit for the Zoo, if he likes; it won't hurt us,"
+quoth Maggie indifferently. With which Joan expressed neither assent
+nor dissent, but brushed her hair a little faster.
+
+Maitland did not for a moment abandon his fresh resolution. Still he
+thought he owed it to himself to set the matter right with the young
+lady before he stiffened anew. As he descended he met her running up
+two steps at a time.
+
+"Miss Joan, I am afraid I vexed you just now," he said, with grave
+humility. "Will you believe it unintentional--stupid, on my part, and
+grant me your pardon?"
+
+"Oh, dear!" she cried gayly. "We are not used to this here. It is
+quite King Cophetua and the beggar maid." She dropped him a mock
+courtesy, and held out her hand in token of amity, when the full
+signification of what she had said rushed into her mind and flooded
+her face with crimson. Without another word or look she fled upstairs,
+and he heard her door bang behind her.
+
+Mr. Charles Maitland, after this _rencontre_, went down smiling
+grimly. In the hall he stood for a moment in deep thought; then sagely
+shook his head several times at a stuffed fox and joined the party in
+the drawing room.
+
+
+[Illustration: MR. CHARLES MAITLAND, AFTER THIS RENCONTRE, WENT DOWN
+SMILING GRIMLY.]
+
+
+The next day and the next passed with surprising quickness, as the
+latter days of a visit always do. In another forty-eight hours
+Maitland's would be over. Yet singularly enough his spirits did not
+rise, as he expected they would, at the near prospect of release. As
+he closed his bedroom door he had a vision of a pair of gray eyes
+smiling into his, and his palm seemed still to tingle with the touch
+of a soft, warm hand. He had kept his resolution well--small credit to
+him. Joan had seemed to avoid him since her unlucky speech upon the
+stairs; when she did speak to him her words, or more often her tone,
+stung him, and he smarted under a sense that she repaid with interest
+the small account in which he was inclined to hold the family
+generally. He resented her veiled contempt with strange bitterness, so
+that Agnes remarked with her usual candor that he and Joan never spoke
+to one another save to "jangle." Afterward, walking on the lawn, some
+line about "sweet bells jangled out of tune," ran in his head. The
+girl was a vixen, he said to himself, yet he tried to imagine how
+tender and glorious the great gray eyes, that he only knew as cold or
+saucy or defiant, could be when their depths were stirred by love. But
+his imagination failing to satisfy even himself, he went to put on his
+beagling dress in the worst of humors.
+
+Possibly this made him a trifle reckless, for a promising run ended in
+ten minutes so far as he was concerned, in a sprained ankle. In
+jumping over a low fence into a lane his one foot came down sideways
+on a large stone upon which some pauper had scamped his work, and the
+mischief was done. The ominous little circle that hunting men know so
+well soon gathered round him, and he was helped to his feet, or rather
+foot. Then Agnes fetched the carriage, and he was driven back to
+Blore. Now, under the circumstances, what could Mrs. Quaritch, without
+an _arrière pensée_ in the world, do but press him to stay until at
+least he could put the foot to the ground? Nothing. And what could he
+do but consent? At any rate, that is what he did.
+
+So he was established in the drawing room, a pretty, cozy room, and
+told himself it was a terrible nuisance. But, for a cripple confined
+to a couple of rooms, and surrounded by uncongenial people, without a
+single new magazine or a word of the world's gossip, he kept up his
+spirits wonderfully well. The ways of the three girls, and the calm
+approval of their sedate mother, could not fail to amuse him. Lying
+there and seeing and hearing many things which would not have come to
+his knowledge as a mere visitor, he found them not quite what he had
+judged them to be. He missed Joan one morning, and when with an
+unconscious fretfulness he inquired the reason, learned that she had
+been sitting up through the night with an old servant who was ill in
+the village. He said some word about it to her--very diffidently, for
+she took his compliments but ill at all times; now she flamed out at
+him with twice her ordinary bitterness and disdain, and punished him
+by taking herself out of the room at once.
+
+"Confound it!" he cried, beating up his pillow fiercely, "I believe
+the girl hates me."
+
+Did he? and did she?
+
+Then he fell into a fit of musing such as men approaching thirty, who
+have lived in London, are very apt to indulge in. A club was not
+everything, be it as good as it might be. And life was not a lounge in
+Bond Street and Pall Mall, and nothing more. He thought how dull a
+week spent on his sofa in the Adelphi would have been, even with the
+newest magazines and the fifth and special _Globes_. In three days was
+his birthday--his twenty-ninth. And did the girl really hate him? It
+was a nice name, Joan; Dubs, umph! Dubs? Joan? And so he fell asleep.
+
+How long he slept and whether he carried something of his dreams into
+his waking he could only guess, but he was aroused by a singular
+sensation--singular in that, though once familiar enough, it was now
+as strange to him as the sight of his dead mother's face. If his
+half-recalled senses did not deceive him, if he was not still dreaming
+of Joan, the warm touch of a pair of soft lips was yet lingering upon
+his forehead, the rustle of a dress very near his ear yet sounded
+crisply in it. And then someone glided from him, and he heard a hasty
+exclamation and opened his eyes dreamily. By the screen which
+concealed the door and sheltered him from its draughts was standing
+Joan, a-tiptoe, poised as in expectation, something between flight and
+amusement in her face, her attitude full of unconscious grace. He was
+still bewildered, and hardly returned from a dreamland even less
+conventional than Blore. Without as much surprise as if he had thought
+the matter out--it seemed then almost a natural thing--he said:
+
+"You shall have the gloves, Dubs, with pleasure."
+
+The girl's expression, as he spoke, changed to startled astonishment.
+She became crimson from her hair to her throat. She stepped toward
+him, checked herself, then made a quick movement with her hand as if
+about to say something, and finally covered her face with her hands
+and fled from the room. Before he was wide awake he was alone.
+
+At first he smiled pleasantly at the fire, and patted Roy, Joan's
+terrier, who was lying beside him, curled up snugly in an angle of the
+sofa. Afterward he became grave and thoughtful, and finally shook his
+head very much as he had at the stuffed fox in the hall. And so he
+fidgeted till Roy, who was in a restful mood, retired to the
+hearthrug.
+
+It would be hard to describe Joan's feelings that afternoon. She was
+proud, and had begun by resenting for all of them the ill-concealed
+contempt of Tom's London friend--this man of clubs and chit-chat. She
+was quite prepared to grant that he was different from them, but not
+superior. A kind of contempt for the veneer and polish which were his
+pride was natural to her, and she showed this, not rudely nor
+coquettishly, but with a hearty sincerity. Still, it is seldom a girl
+is unaware of admiration, and rare that she does not in secret respect
+self-assertion in the male creature. This man knew much too, and could
+tell it well, that was strange and new and delightful to the country
+maiden. If he had any heart at all--and since he was from London town
+she supposed he had not, though she granted him eyes and fine
+perceptions of the beautiful--she might have, almost, some day,
+promised herself to like him, had he been of her world--not reflecting
+that this very fact that he was out of her world formed the charm by
+which he evoked her interest. As things were, she more than doubted of
+his heart, and had no doubt at all that between their worlds lay a
+great, impassable, unbridgeable abyss.
+
+But this afternoon the dislike, which had been fading day by day along
+with those feelings in another which had caused it, was revived in its
+old strength upon the matter of the kiss. Alone in her own room the
+thought made her turn crimson with vexation, and she stamped the floor
+with annoyance. He had made certain overtures to her--slender and
+meaningless in all probability. Still, if he could believe her capable
+after such looks and words as he had used--if after these he thought
+her capable of this, then indeed, were there no abyss at all, he could
+be nothing to her. Oh, it was too bad, too intolerable! She would
+never forgive him. How indeed could she be anything to him, if she
+could do such a thing, as dreadful, as unmaidenly to her as to the
+proudest beauty among his London friends. She told herself again that
+he was insufferable; and determined to slap Roy well, upon the first
+opportunity, if that mistaken little pearl of price would persist in
+favoring the stranger's sofa.
+
+Until this was cleared up she felt her position the very worst in the
+world, and yet would not for a fortune give him an opportunity of
+freeing her from it. The very fact that he addressed her with, as it
+seemed, a greater show of respect, chafed her. Agnes, with a
+precocious cleverness, a penetration quite her own, kept herself and
+her dog, Jack o' Pack _alias_ Johnny Sprawn, out of her sister's way,
+and teased her only before company.
+
+But at last Maitland caught Miss Joan unprotected.
+
+"I hope that these are the right size, Miss Joan--they are six and a
+quarter," he said boldly, yet with, for a person of his disposition
+and breeding, a strange amount of shamefacedness; producing at the
+same time a pair of gloves, Courvoisier's best, many-buttoned, fit for
+a goddess.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" she said, breathing quickly. But she guessed what
+he meant.
+
+"Let me get out of your debt."
+
+"Out of my debt, Mr. Maitland?" taking the gloves mechanically.
+
+"Please. Did you think I had forgotten? I should find it hard to do
+that," he continued, encouraged and relieved by having got rid of the
+gloves, and inattentive at the moment to her face. Yet she looked long
+at him searchingly.
+
+"I have found it hard to understand you," she said at last, with
+repressed anger in voice and eye; "very hard, Mr. Maitland; but I
+think I do so now. Do you believe that it was I who kissed you
+when you were asleep on Wednesday afternoon? Can you think so? You
+force me to presume it is so. Your estimate of my modesty and of your
+own deserts must differ considerably. I had not the honor. Your
+gloves"--and she dropped them upon the floor as if the touch
+contaminated her, the act humiliating the young gentleman at least as
+much as her words--"you had better give to Agnes, if you wish to
+observe a silly custom. They are due to her, not to me. I thank you,
+Mr. Maitland, for having compelled me to give this pleasant
+explanation."
+
+She turned away with a gesture of such queenly contempt that our poor
+hero--now most unheroic, and dumb as Carlyle would have had his, only
+with mortification and intense disgust at his stupidity--amazed that
+he could ever have thought meanly of this girl, "who moved most
+certainly a goddess," had not a word to express his sorrow. A hero
+utterly crestfallen! But at the door she looked back, for some strange
+reason known perchance to female readers. The gloves were on the
+floor, just beyond his reach--poor, forlorn, sprawling objects, their
+fingers and palms spread as in ridiculous appeal. As for him, he was
+lying back on the sofa, in appearance so crushed and helpless that the
+woman's pity ever near her eyes moved her. She went slowly back, and
+picked up the gloves, and put them on the table where he could take
+them.
+
+"Miss Joan," he said, in a tone of persistence that claimed a hearing,
+and, starting far from the immediate trouble, was apt to arouse
+curiosity; "we are always, as Agnes says, jangling--on my side, of
+course, is the false note. Can we not accord better, and be better
+friends?"
+
+"Not until we learn to know one another better," she said coldly,
+looking down at him, "or become more discerning judges."
+
+"I was a fool, an idiot, an imbecile!" She nodded gravely, still
+regarding him from a great height. "I was mad to believe it possible!"
+
+"I think we may be better friends," she responded, smiling faintly,
+yet with sudden good humor. "We are beginning to know--one another."
+
+"And ourselves," almost under his breath. Then, "Miss Joan, will you
+ever forgive me? I shall never err again in that direction," he
+pleaded. "I am humiliated in my own eyes until you tell me it is
+forgotten."
+
+She nodded, and this time with her own frank smile.
+
+Then she turned away and did leave the room, this time taking Roy with
+her. Her joyous laughter and his wild, excited barking proclaimed
+through the length and breadth of Blore that he was enjoying the rare
+indulgence of a good romp on the back lawn. It was Roy's day.
+
+And can a dog ever hope for a better day than that upon which his
+mistress becomes aware that she is also another's mistress: becomes
+aware that another is thinking of her and for her, nay, that she is
+the very center of that other's thoughts? What a charming, pleasantly
+bewildering discovery it is, this learning that for him when she is in
+the room it is full, and wanting her it is empty, be it never so
+crowded; that all beside, though they be witty or famous, or what they
+will, or can or would, are but lay figures, _umbræ_, shadow guests in
+his estimation. She learns with strange thrills, that in moments of
+meditation will flash to eye and cheek, that her slightest glance and
+every change of color, every tone and smile, are marked with jealous
+care; that pleasure which she does not share is tasteless, and a
+dinner of herbs, if she be but at a far corner, is a feast for
+princes. That is her dog's day, or it may be his dog's day. It is a
+pleasant discovery for a man, _mutatis mutandis_; but for a girl, a
+sweet, half fearful consciousness, the brightest part of love's young
+dream--even when the kindred soul is of another world, and an abyss,
+wide, impassable, unbridgeable lies between.
+
+But these things come to sudden ends sometimes. Sprains, however
+severe, have an awkward knack of getting well. Swellings subside from
+inanition, and doctors insist for their credit's sake that the stick
+or ready arm be relinquished. Certainly a respite or a relapse--call
+it which you will--is not impossible with care, but it is brief. A
+singular shooting pain, not easily located with exactness, but
+somewhere in the neighborhood of the calf, has been found useful; and
+a strange rigidity of the tendon Achilles in certain positions may
+gain a day or two. But at last not even these will avail, and the
+doubly injured one must out and away from among the rose leaves. Twice
+Maitland fixed his departure for the following morning, and each time
+when pressed to stay gave way, after so feeble, so ludicrous a
+resistance, if it deserved the name, that Agnes scarcely concealed her
+grimace, and Joan looked another way. She did not add anything to the
+others' hospitable entreaties. If she guessed what made Maggie's
+good-night kiss so fervent and clinging, she made no sign and offered
+no opening.
+
+In the garden next morning, Maitland taxed her with her neutrality. It
+was wonderful how his sense of humor had become developed at Blore.
+
+"I thought that you did not need so much pressure as to necessitate
+more than four people's powers of persuasion being used," she
+answered, in the same playful spirit. "And besides, now you are well
+enough, must you not leave?"
+
+"Indeed, Miss Joan?"
+
+"And go back to your own way of life? It is a month since you saw the
+latest telegrams, and there is a French company at the Gaiety, I learn
+from the _Standard_. We have interests and duties, though you were so
+hard of belief about them, at Blore, but you have none."
+
+"No interests?"
+
+She shook her head. "No duties, at any rate."
+
+"And so you think," he asked, his eyes fixed upon her changing
+features, "that I should go back to my old way of life--of a century
+ago?"
+
+"Of course you must!" But she was not so rude as to tell him what a
+very foolish question this was. Still it was, was it not?
+
+"So I will, or to something like it, and yet very unlike. But not
+alone. Joan, will you come with me? If I have known you but a month, I
+have learned to love your truth and goodness and you, Joan, so that if
+I go away alone, to return to the old life would be bitterly
+impossible. You have spoiled that; you must make for me a fresh life
+in its place. Do you remember you told me that when we knew one
+another we might be better friends? I have come to know you better,
+but we cannot be friends. We must be something more, more even than
+lovers, Joan--husband and wife, if you can like me enough."
+
+It was not an unmanly way of putting it, and he was in earnest. But so
+quiet, so self-restrained was his manner that it savored of coldness.
+The girl whose hand he held while he spoke had no such thought. Her
+face was turned from him. She was gazing over the wall across the
+paddock where Maggie's mare was peaceably and audibly feeding, and so
+at the Blore Ash on its mimic hill, every bough and drooping branchlet
+dark against the sunset sky; and this radiant in her eyes with a
+beauty its deepest glow had never held for her before. The sweetest
+joy was in her heart, and grief in her face. He had been worthy of
+himself and her love. While he spoke she told herself, not that some
+time she might love him, but that she had given him all her true heart
+already. And yet as he was worthy, so she must be worthy and do her
+part.
+
+"You have done me a great honor," she said at last, drawing away her
+hand from his grasp, though she did not turn her face, "but it cannot
+be, Mr. Maitland. I am very grateful to you--I am indeed, and sorry."
+
+"Why can it not be?" he said shortly; startled, I am bound to say, and
+mortified.
+
+"Because of--of many things. One is that I should not make you happy,
+nor you me. I am not suited to your way of life. I am of the country,
+and I love to be free and unconstrained, while you are of the town.
+Oh, we should not get on at all! Perhaps you would not be ashamed of
+me as your wife, but you might be, and I could not endure the chance
+even of it. There," she added, with a laugh in which a woman's ear
+might have detected the suppression of a sob, "is one sober reason
+where none can be needed."
+
+"Is that your only reason?"
+
+She was picking the mortar out of the wall. "Oh, dear me, no! I have a
+hundred, but that is a sufficient one," she answered almost
+carelessly, flirting a scrap of lime from the wall with her
+forefinger.
+
+"And you have been playing with me all this time!" cried he, obtusely
+enraged by her flippancy.
+
+"Not knowingly, not knowingly, indeed!"
+
+"Can you tell me that you were not aware that I loved you?"
+
+"Well, I thought--the fact is, I thought that you were amusing
+yourself--in West End fashion."
+
+"Coquette!"
+
+"Mr. Maitland!" she cried vehemently, "how dare you? There is proof,
+if any were needed, that I am right. You would not have dared to say
+that to any of your town acquaintances. I am no coquette. If I have
+given you pain, I am very sorry. And--I beg that we may part friends."
+
+She had begun fiercely, with all her old spirit. He turned away, and
+she ended with a sudden, anxious, pitiful lameness, that yet, so angry
+and dull of understanding was he, taught him nothing.
+
+"Friends!" he cried impatiently. "I told you that it was impossible.
+Oh, Joan, think again! Have I been too hasty? Have I given you no time
+to weigh it? Have I just offended you in some little thing? Then let
+me come to you again in three months, after I have been back among my
+old friends?"
+
+"No, don't do that, Mr. Maitland. It will be of no use and will but
+give us pain."
+
+"And yet I will come," he replied firmly, endeavoring by the very
+eager longing of his own gaze to draw from her fair, downcast face
+some sign of hope. "I will come, if you forbid me a hundred times. And
+if you have been playing with me--true, I am in no mood for soft words
+now--it shall be your punishment to say me nay, again. I shall be
+here, Joan, to ask you in three months from to-day."
+
+"I cannot prevent you," she said. "Believe me, I shall only have the
+same answer for you."
+
+"I shall come," he said doggedly, and looked at her with eyes
+reluctant to quit her drooping lashes lest they should miss some
+glance bidding his heart take courage. But none came, only the color
+fluttered uncertainly in her face. So he slowly turned away from her
+at last and walked across the garden, and out of sight by the gate
+into the road. He saw nothing of the long, dusty track, and straggling
+hedges bathed in the last glows of sunset. Those big gray eyes, so
+frank and true, came again and again between him and the prospect, and
+blinded his own with a hot mist of sorrow and anger. Ah, Blore, thou
+wast mightily avenged!
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+It is a hot afternoon in August, laden with the hum of dozing life.
+The sun has driven the less energetic members of the Quaritch family
+into the cool gloom of the drawing room, where the open windows are
+shaded by the great cedar. Mrs. Quaritch, upon the sofa, is nodding
+over a book. Joan, in a low wicker seat, may be doing the same; while
+Agnes, pursuing a favorite employment upon the hearthrug, is now and
+again betrayed by a half stifled growl from one or other of the dogs
+as they rise and turn themselves reproachfully, and flop down again
+with a sigh in a cool place.
+
+"Agnes," cries her mother, upon some more distinct demonstration of
+misery being made, "for goodness' sake leave the dogs alone. They have
+not had a moment's peace since lunch."
+
+"A dog's life isn't peace, mamma," she answers, with the simple air of
+a discoverer of truth. But, nevertheless, she looks about for fresh
+worlds to conquer.
+
+"Even Mr. Maitland was better than this," she announces, after a long
+yawn of discontent, "though he was dull enough, I wonder why he did
+not come in July. Do you know, Joan?"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, do let us have a moment's peace for once! We are not
+dogs," cried Joan fretfully.
+
+Wonder! she was always wondering. This very minute, while her eyes
+were on the page, it was in her mind. Through all those three months
+passing hour by hour and day by day, she could assure herself that
+when he had come and gone, she would be at rest again; things would be
+as before with her. Let him come and go! But when July arrived, and he
+did not, a sharper pain made itself felt. Bravely as she strove to
+beat it down, well as she might hide it from others, the certainty
+that it had needed no second repulse to balk his love sorely hurt her
+pride. Just her pride, she told herself; nothing else. That he had not
+stood the test he had himself proposed; that any unacknowledged
+faintest hope she might have cherished, deep down in her heart, that
+he might master her by noble persistence, must now be utterly
+quenched; these things of course had no bitterness for her through the
+hot August days; had nothing to do with the wearied look that
+sometimes dulled the gray eyes, nor with the sudden indifference or as
+sudden enthusiasms for lawn tennis and dogs and pigeons, that marked
+her daily moods.
+
+Agnes' teasing, by putting her meditations into words, has disturbed
+her. She gets up and moves restlessly about, touching this thing and
+that, and at last leaves the room and stands in the hall, thinking.
+Here, too, it is dark and cool, and made to seem more so--the door
+into the garden being open--by the hot glare of sunshine falling upon
+the spotless doorstep. She glances at this listlessly. The house is
+still, the servants are at the back; the dogs all worn out by the
+heat. Then, as she hesitates, a slight crunching of footsteps upon the
+gravel comes to her ear, breaking the silence. A sudden black shadow
+falls upon the sunny step and tells of a visitor. Someone chases away
+his shadow, and steps upon the stone, and raises his gloved hand to
+the bell. Charles Maitland at last!
+
+Coming straight in from the sunshine he cannot see the swift welcome
+that springs to eye and cheek, a flash of light and color, quick to
+come and go. He is too much moved himself to mark how her hand shakes.
+He sees no difference in her. But she sees a change in him. She
+detects some subtle difference that eludes her attempt to define its
+nature and only fills her with a vague sense that this is not the
+Charles Maitland from whom she parted.
+
+It is a meeting she has pictured often, but not at all like this. He
+signs to her to take him into the dining room, the door of which
+stands open.
+
+"I have come back, Miss Joan."
+
+"Yes?" she answers, sitting down with an attempt to still the tumult
+within, with such success that she brings herself for the moment
+nearly to the frame of mind in which they parted, and there is the
+same weary sufferance in her tone.
+
+"I have come back as I said I would. I have overstepped the three
+months, but I had a good reason for my delay. Indeed I have been in
+doubt whether I ought to see you again at all, only I could not bear
+you to think what you naturally would. I felt that I must see you,
+even if it cost us both pain." There is a new awkwardness in his tone
+and pose.
+
+"I told you that it was--quite unnecessary--and useless," she answers,
+with a strange tightening in her throat.
+
+"Then it can do you no harm," he assents quietly. "I have come back
+not to repeat my petition, but to tell you why I do not and cannot."
+
+"I think," she puts in coldly, "that upon the whole you had better
+spare yourself the unpleasantness of explaining anything to me. Don't
+you think so? I asked you for no proof, and held out no hope. Why do
+you trouble me? Why have you come back?"
+
+"You have not changed!"
+
+For the first time a ring of contempt in her voice takes the place of
+cold indifference. "I do not change in three months, Mr. Maitland. But
+there! my mother will wish to see you, and so will Agnes, who is
+hankering after something to happen. They are in the drawing room."
+
+"But, Miss Joan, grant me one moment! You have not heard my reasons."
+
+"Your reasons! Is it absolutely necessary?" she asks, half fretfully,
+half scornfully; her uppermost thought an intense desire to be by
+herself in her own room, with the door safely locked.
+
+"I think so, at any rate. Why, I see! By Jove! of course you must
+be thinking the worst of me now! Oh, no! if you could not love me,
+Joan--pray pardon me, I had no right to call you by your name--you
+need not despise me. I cannot again ask you to be my wife, because,"
+he laughs uneasily, "fortune has put it out of my power to take a
+wife. My trustee has made ducks and drakes of my property, or rather
+bulls and bears. I have but a trifle left to begin the world upon, and
+far too little to marry upon."
+
+"I read of it in the papers. I saw that a Mr. Maitland was the chief
+sufferer, but I did not connect him with you," she says, in a low
+voice.
+
+"No, of course not. How should you?" he answers lightly. But
+nevertheless her coldness is dreadful to him. He had thought she would
+express some sympathy. And gayly as he talks of it, he feels something
+of the importance of a ruined man and something of his claim to pity.
+
+"And what are you going to do?"
+
+"Do? We've arranged all that. They say there is a living to be made at
+the Bar in New Zealand, if one does not object to riding boots and
+spurs as part of the professional costume. Of course it will be a
+different sort of life, and Agnes' favorite patent leathers will
+be left behind in every sense. This would have been a bad blow to
+me"--there is a slight catch in his voice, and he gets up, and looks
+out of one of the windows with his back to her--"now I have learned
+from you that life should not be all lounging round the table and
+looking over other people's cards. It has been a sharp lesson, but
+very opportune as things have turned out. I am ready to take a hand
+myself now--even without a partner."
+
+He does not at once turn round. He had not fancied she would take it
+like this, and he listens for a word to tell him that at any rate she
+is sorry--is grieved as for a stranger. Then he feels a sudden light,
+timid touch upon his arm. Joan is standing quite close to him, and
+does not move or take away her hand as he turns. Only she looks down
+at the floor when she speaks:
+
+"I think I should be better than--than dummy--if you will take me to
+New Zealand."
+
+Half laughing, half crying, and wholly confused, she looks up into his
+astonished face with eyes so brimful of love and tenderness that they
+tell all her story. For just an instant his eyes meet hers. Then, with
+a smothered exclamation, he draws her to him--and--in fact smothers
+the exclamation.
+
+"I am so glad you've lost your money," she sobs, hiding her face,
+as soon as she can, upon his shoulder. "I should not have done at
+all--for you--in London, Charley."
+
+There let us leave her. But no, another is less merciful. Neither of
+them hears the door open or sees Agnes' face appear at it. But she
+both sees and hears, and says very distinctly and clearly:
+
+"Well!"
+
+But even Agnes is happy and satisfied. Something _has_ happened.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE FATAL LETTER.
+
+
+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 someone 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 around 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 man servant 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
+spake, 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-paneled, 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 mustaches 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 indeed have been 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 toward 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 you 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 clew 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 package.
+
+"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 toward 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 eying 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 whisky you
+gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some with hot water
+and a lemon, George? The servants are all at the theater--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 of 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 deviltry 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 toward 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 oversized
+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 toward 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 anyone 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
+whisky 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 tomorrow 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 mustache--I
+walked out of the room, so peaceful, so cozy, 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'
+idea of bringing you in was a splendid one, and I am immensely obliged
+to you."
+
+
+[Illustration: "YOU ARE FORGETTING THE PAPERS," HE REMINDED ME.]
+
+
+"Don't mention it," I answered stiffly, proceeding with my
+preparations for going out as if he had not been 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 toward 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 tonight, 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 nicking 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 that 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, eying 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
+Northwestern 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 Northwestern
+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 acknowledgment 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, businesslike, 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' cognizance, to get
+possession of the packet by drugging my father's whisky. Barnes'
+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 inclosed. 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, resealed 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 END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Stratagem and Other Stories, by 
+Stanley J. Weyman
+
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+<title>The King's Stratagem and Other Stories</title>
+<meta name="Author" content="Stanley J. Weyman">
+
+<meta name="Publisher" content="A. E. Cluett &amp; Company">
+<meta name="Date" content="1891">
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Stratagem and Other Stories, 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: The King's Stratagem and Other Stories
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39217]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING'S STRATAGEM, OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
+Web Archive (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="hang1">Transcriber's Notes:<br>
+<br>
+1. Page scan source:<br>
+<br>
+http://www.archive.org/details/kingsstratagema00weymgoog<br>
+(Harvard University)</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p class="center"><img src="images/front.png" alt="front"><br>
+&quot;HE WAS ALONE WITH HIS TRIUMPH.&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>THE</h3>
+<br>
+
+<h1>KING'S STRATAGEM</h1>
+<br>
+
+<h3><i>AND OTHER STORIES</i></h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h5>BY</h5>
+
+
+<h2>STANLEY J. WEYMAN</h2>
+
+
+<h5><i>Author of &quot;A Gentleman of France,&quot; &quot;Under the Red Robe,&quot;<br>
+
+&quot;My Lady Rotha,&quot; etc., etc</i>.</h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr class="W10">
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>NEW YORK</h4>
+
+<h3>A. E. CLUETT &amp; COMPANY</h3>
+
+<h5><span class="sc">70 Fifth Avenue</span></h5>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4><span class="sc2">Copyright, 1891,<br>
+
+BY</span><br>
+
+A. E. CLUETT &amp; COMPANY.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<div style="margin-left:30%">
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_01" href="#div1_01"><span class="sc">The King's Stratagem</span></a>,</p>
+
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_02" href="#div1_02"><span class="sc">The Body-birds Of Court,</span></a>,</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_03" href="#div1_03"><span class="sc">In Cupid's Toils,</span></a>,</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_04" href="#div1_04"><span class="sc">The Drift Of Fate,</span></a>,</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_05" href="#div1_05"><span class="sc">A Blore Manor Episode,</span></a>,</p>
+
+<p class="continue"><a name="div1Ref_06" href="#div1_06"><span class="sc">The Fatal Letter</span></a>,</p>
+</div>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+<h2><a name="div1_01" href="#div1Ref_01">THE KING'S STRATAGEM.</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">In the days when Henry IV. of France was King of Navarre only, and in
+that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the southwest
+corner of the larger country, was with difficulty supporting the
+Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic League--in
+the days when every isolated castle, from the Garonne to the Pyrenees,
+was a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty
+queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these notable
+personages took place in the picturesque town of La Réole.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">La Réole still rises gray, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty cliff
+above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from
+Bordeaux. But it is a small place now. In the days of which we are
+speaking, however, it was important, strongly fortified, and guarded
+by a castle which looked down on a thousand red-tiled roofs, rising in
+terraces from the river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns it
+was for the time as gay as Paris itself, Catherine having brought with
+her a bevy of fair maids of honor, in the effect of whose charms she
+perhaps put as much trust as in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful
+appearance of the town was delusive, for even while every other house
+in it rang with music and silvery laughter, each party was ready to
+fly to arms without warning, if it saw that any advantage was to be
+gained thereby.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On an evening shortly before the end of the conference two men sat at
+play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of which looked down from a
+considerable height upon the river. The hour was late, and the town
+silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure on sleeping fields
+and long, straight lines of poplars. Within the room a silver lamp
+suspended from the ceiling threw light upon the table, leaving the
+farther parts of the room in shadow. The walls were hung with faded
+tapestry. On the low bedstead in one corner lay a handsome cloak, a
+sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the period. Across a chair lay
+another cloak and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of
+saddlebags, were strewn half a dozen such trifles as soldiers carried
+from camp to camp--a silver comfit-box, a jeweled dagger, a mask, and
+velvet cap.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The faces of the players, as they bent over the dice, were in shadow.
+One--a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin, and a
+mouth as weak, but shaded by a dark mustache--seemed, from the
+occasional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily. Yet his
+opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a sword-cut across his left
+temple, and that swaggering air which has at all times marked the
+professional soldier, showed no signs of triumph or elation. On the
+contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal word or two,
+there was a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in his eyes,
+and more than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if to judge
+of his feelings or learn whether the time had come for some experiment
+which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in through the
+window would have taken the two for only one more instance of the hawk
+and pigeon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At last the younger player threw down the caster, with a groan.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have the luck of the Evil One,&quot; he said bitterly. &quot;How much is
+that?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Two thousand crowns,&quot; replied the other without emotion. &quot;You will
+play no more?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No! I wish to Heaven I had never played at all!&quot; was the answer. As
+he spoke the loser rose, and going to the window stood looking moodily
+out.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a few moments the elder man remained seated, gazing at him
+furtively, but at length he too rose, and, stepping softly to his
+companion, touched him on the shoulder. &quot;Your pardon a moment, M. le
+Vicomte,&quot; he said. &quot;Am I right in concluding that the loss of this sum
+will inconvenience you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A thousand fiends!&quot; exclaimed the young vicomte, turning on him
+wrathfully. &quot;Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns
+would not inconvenience? As for me----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For you,&quot; continued the other, smoothly filling up the pause, &quot;shall
+I be wrong in saying that it means something like ruin?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, sir, and if it does?&quot; the young man retorted, drawing himself
+up haughtily, his cheek a shade paler with passion. &quot;Depend upon it
+you shall be paid. Do not be afraid of that!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gently, gently, my friend,&quot; the winner answered, his patience in
+strong contrast with the other's violence. &quot;I had no intention of
+insulting you, believe me. Those who play with the Vicomte de
+Lanthenon are not wont to doubt his honor. I spoke only in your own
+interest. It has occurred to me, vicomte, that the matter might be
+arranged at less cost to yourself.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How?&quot; was the curt question.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;May I speak freely?&quot; The vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the
+other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: &quot;You, vicomte, are
+Governor of Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I, of Créance, for the
+King of France. Our towns lie only three leagues apart. Could I, by
+any chance, say on one of these fine nights, become master of Lusigny,
+it would be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you
+understand?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No,&quot; the young man answered slowly, &quot;I do not.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Think over what I have said, then,&quot; was the brief answer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For a full minute there was silence in the room. The vicomte gazed out
+of the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his
+companion, sitting down, leaned back in his chair, with an air of
+affected carelessness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices
+told that the watch were passing through the street. The church bell
+struck one. Suddenly the vicomte burst into a hoarse laugh, and,
+turning, snatched up his cloak and sword. &quot;The trap was very well
+laid, M. le Capitaine,&quot; he said almost jovially; &quot;but I am still sober
+enough to take care of myself--and of Lusigny. I wish you good-night.
+You shall have your money, never fear.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly,&quot; the captain answered, as
+he rose and moved toward the door to open it for his guest. His hand
+was already on the latch when he paused. &quot;Look here,&quot; he said, &quot;what
+do you say to this, then? I will stake the two thousand crowns you
+have lost to me, and another thousand besides against your town. Fool!
+no one can hear us. If you win, you go off a free man with my
+thousand. If you lose, you put me in possession one of these fine
+nights. What do you say to that? A single throw to decide.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man's pale face reddened. He turned, and his eyes sought the
+table and the dice irresolutely. The temptation indeed came at an
+unfortunate moment, when the excitement of play had given way to
+depression, and he saw nothing before him outside the door, on which
+his hand was laid, but the cold reality of ruin. The temptation to
+return, and by a single throw set himself right with the world was too
+much for him. Slowly he came back to the table. &quot;Confound you!&quot; he
+said irritably. &quot;I think you are the devil himself, captain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't talk child's talk!&quot; said the other coldly, drawing back as his
+victim advanced. &quot;If you do not like the offer you need not take it.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But the young man's fingers had already closed on the dice. Picking
+them up he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes
+gleaming with the play-fever. &quot;If I win?&quot; he said doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You carry away a thousand crowns,&quot; answered the captain quietly. &quot;If
+you lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me
+before next full moon. That is all.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what if I lose, and not pay the forfeit?&quot; asked the vicomte,
+laughing weakly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I trust to your honor,&quot; said the captain. And, strange as it may
+seem, he knew his man. The young noble of the day might betray his
+cause and his trust, but the debt of honor incurred at play was
+binding on him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well,&quot; said the vicomte, &quot;I agree. Who is to throw first?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;As you will,&quot; replied the captain, masking under an appearance of
+indifference a real excitement which darkened his cheek, and caused
+the pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then do you go first,&quot; said the vicomte.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With your permission,&quot; assented the captain. And taking the dice up
+in the caster he shook them with a practiced hand, and dropped them on
+the board. The throw was seven.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The vicomte took up the caster and, as he tossed the dice into it,
+glanced at the window. The moonlight shining athwart it fell in
+silvery sheen on a few feet of the floor. With the light something of
+the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and appealed to
+him. For a few seconds he hesitated. He even made as if he would have
+replaced the box on the table. But the good instinct failed. It was
+too late, and with a muttered word, which his dry lips refused to
+articulate, he threw the dice. Seven!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Neither of the men spoke, but the captain rattled the cubes, and again
+flung them on the table, this time with a slight air of bravado. They
+rolled one over the other and lay still. Seven again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young vicomte's brow was damp, and his face pale and drawn. He
+forced a quavering laugh, and with an unsteady hand took his turn. The
+dice fell far apart, and lay where they fell. Six!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The winner nodded gravely. &quot;The luck is still with me,&quot; he said,
+keeping his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had
+suddenly leapt into them might not be seen. &quot;When do you go back to
+your command, vicomte?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The unhappy man stood like one stunned, gazing at the two little cubes
+which had cost him so dearly. &quot;The day after to-morrow,&quot; he muttered
+hoarsely, striving to collect himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then we shall say the following evening?&quot; asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Very well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;We quite understand one another,&quot; continued the winner, eyeing his
+man watchfully, and speaking with more urgency. &quot;I may depend on you,
+M. le Vicomte, I presume?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The Lanthenons have never been wanting to their word,&quot; the young
+nobleman answered, stung into sudden haughtiness. &quot;If I live I will
+put Lusigny into your hands, M. le Captaine. Afterward I will do my
+best to recover it--in another way.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall be entirely at your disposal,&quot; replied the captain, bowing
+lightly. And in a moment he was alone--alone with his triumph, his
+ambition, his hopes for the future--alone with the greatness to which
+his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step, and which he should
+enjoy not a whit the less because as yet fortune had dealt out to him
+more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score of
+years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets the vicomte was
+making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair and unhappiness
+most difficult to describe. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked
+back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved
+the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had
+seen a way of escape and lost it forever! No wonder that as he trudged
+alone through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath
+came quickly and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side as
+a hunted animal might, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could only have
+retraced the last three hours!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Worn out and exhausted, he entered his lodging, and, securing the door
+behind him, stumbled up the stone stairs and entered his room. The
+impulse to confide his misfortunes to someone was so strong upon him
+that he was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a
+chair before the dying embers of a wood fire. In those days a
+man's natural confidant was his valet, the follower, half-friend,
+half-servant, who had been born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at
+the foot of his bed, who carried his <i>billets-doux</i> and held his cloak
+at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and nursed him in
+illness, who not seldom advised him in the choice of a wife, and lied
+in support of his suit.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young vicomte flung his cloak over a chair. &quot;Get up, you rascal!&quot;
+he cried impatiently. &quot;You pig, you dog!&quot; he continued, with
+increasing anger. &quot;Sleeping there as though your master were not
+ruined by that scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!&quot; he added, gazing bitterly
+at his follower, &quot;you are of the <i>canaille</i>, and have neither honor to
+lose nor a town to betray!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The sleeping man moved In his chair and half turned. The vicomte, his
+patience exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on
+the ground. &quot;Will you listen?&quot; he said. &quot;Or go, if you choose look for
+another master. I am ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil! I have lost
+all--money, land, Lusigny itself, at the dice!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The man, aroused at last, stooped with a lazy movement, and picking up
+his hat dusted it with his hand, and rose with a yawn to his feet.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am afraid, vicomte,&quot; he said, his tones, quiet as they were,
+sounding like thunder in the vicomte's astonished and bewildered ears,
+&quot;I am afraid that if you have lost Lusigny, you have lost something
+which was not yours to lose!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As he spoke he struck the embers with his foot, and the fire, blazing
+up, shone on his face. The vicomte saw, with unutterable confusion and
+dismay, that the man before him was not Gil at all, but the last
+person in the world to whom he should have betrayed himself. The
+astute smiling eyes, the aquiline nose, the high forehead, and
+projecting chin, which the short beard and mustache scarcely
+concealed, were only too well known to him. He stepped back with a cry
+of horror. &quot;Sire!&quot; he said, and then his tongue failed him. He stood
+silent, pale, convicted, his chin on his breast. The man to whom he
+had confessed his treachery was the master whom he had conspired to
+betray.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I had suspected something of this,&quot; Henry of Navarre continued, after
+a pause, a tinge of irony in his tone. &quot;Rosny told me that that old
+fox, the Captain of Créance, was affecting your company a good deal,
+M. le Vicomte, and I find that, as usual, his suspicions were well
+founded. What with a gentleman who shall be nameless, who has bartered
+a ford and a castle for the favor of Mlle. de Luynes, and yourself, I
+am blest with some faithful followers! For shame!&quot; he continued,
+seating himself with dignity, &quot;have you nothing to say for yourself?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young noble stood with his head bowed, his face white. This was
+ruin, indeed, absolutely irremediable. &quot;Sire,&quot; he said at last, &quot;your
+Majesty has a right to my life, not to my honor.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your honor!&quot; quoth Henry, biting contempt in his tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young man started, and for a second his cheek flamed under the
+well-deserved reproach; but he recovered himself. &quot;My debt to your
+Majesty,&quot; he said, &quot;I am willing to pay.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Since pay you must,&quot; Henry muttered softly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But I claim to pay also my debt to the Captain of Créance.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh,&quot; the king answered. &quot;So you would have me take your worthless
+life, and give up Lusigny?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am in your hands, sire.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Pish, sir!&quot; Henry replied in angry astonishment. &quot;You talk like a
+child. Such an offer, M. de Lanthenon, is folly, and you know it. Now
+listen to me. It was lucky for you that I came in to-night, intending
+to question you. Your madness is known to me only, and I am willing to
+overlook it. Do you hear? Cheer up, therefore, and be a man. You are
+young; I forgive you. This shall be between you and me only,&quot; the
+young prince continued, his eyes softening as the other's head
+drooped, &quot;and you need think no more of it until the day when I shall
+say to you, 'Now, M. de Lanthenon, for France and for Henry, strike!'&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He rose as the last word passed his lips, and held out his hand. The
+vicomte fell on one knee, and kissed it reverently, then sprang to his
+feet again. &quot;Sire,&quot; he said, standing erect, his eyes shining, &quot;you
+have punished me heavily, more heavily than was needful. There is only
+one way in which I can show my gratitude, and that is by ridding you
+of a servant who can never again look your enemies in the face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What new folly is this?&quot; said Henry sternly. &quot;Do you not understand
+that I have forgiven you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Therefore I cannot give up Lusigny, and I must acquit myself of my
+debt to the Captain of Créance in the only way which remains,&quot; replied
+the young man, firmly. &quot;Death is not so hard that I would not meet it
+twice over rather than again betray my trust.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;This is midsummer madness!&quot; said the king hotly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Possibly,&quot; replied the vicomte, without emotion; &quot;yet of a kind to
+which your Majesty is not altogether a stranger.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The words appealed strongly to that love of the chivalrous which
+formed part of the king's nature, and was one cause alike of his
+weakness and his strength, which in its more extravagant flights gave
+opportunity after opportunity to his enemies, in its nobler and saner
+expressions won victories which all his astuteness and diplomacy could
+not have compassed. He stood looking with half-hidden admiration at
+the man whom two minutes before he had despised.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think you are in jest,&quot; he said presently.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, sire,&quot; the young man answered gravely. &quot;In my country they have a
+proverb about us. 'The Lanthenons,' say they, 'have ever been bad
+players, but good payers.' I will not be the first to be worse than my
+name!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He spoke with so quiet a determination that the king was staggered,
+and for a minute or two paced the room in silence, inwardly reviling
+the generous obstinacy of his weak-kneed supporter, yet unable to
+withhold his admiration from it. At length he stopped, with a low,
+abrupt exclamation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Wait!&quot; he cried. &quot;I have it! <i>Ventre Saint Gris</i>, man, I have it!&quot;
+His eyes sparkled, and, with a gentle laugh, he hit the table a
+sounding blow. &quot;Ha! ha! I have it!&quot; he repeated joyously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The young noble gazed at him in surprise, half sullen, half
+incredulous. But when Henry, in low, rapid tones, had expounded his
+plan, the vicomte's face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang into
+it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a
+moment he was on his knee, mumbling the king's hand, his eyes full of
+joy and gratitude. After that the two talked long, the murmur of their
+voices broken more than once by the ripple of low laughter. When they
+at length separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the folds of his
+cloak, had stolen away to his lodgings, where, no doubt, more than one
+watcher was awaiting him with a mind full of anxious fears, the
+vicomte threw open his window and looked out on the night. The moon
+had set, but the stars still shone peacefully in the dark canopy
+above. He remembered on a sudden, his throat choking with silent
+repressed emotion, that he was looking toward his home--the stiff gray
+pile among the beech woods of Navarre which had been in his family
+since the days of St. Louis, and which he had so lightly risked. And
+he registered a vow in his heart that of all Henry's servants he would
+henceforth be the most faithful.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile the Captain of Créance was enjoying the sweets of coming
+triumph. He did not look out into the night, it is true, but pacing up
+and down the room he planned and calculated, considering how he might
+make the most of his success. He was still comparatively young. He had
+years of strength before him. He would rise. He would not easily be
+satisfied. The times were troubled, opportunities many, fools many;
+bold men with brains and hands few.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At the same time he knew that he could be sure of nothing until
+Lusigny was actually his, and he spent the next few days in
+considerable suspense. But no hitch occurred. The vicomte made the
+necessary communications to him; and men in his own pay informed him
+of dispositions ordered by the governor of Lusigny which left him in
+no doubt that the loser intended to pay his debt.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was, therefore, with a heart already gay with anticipation that the
+Captain rode out of Créance two hours before midnight on an evening
+eight days later. The night was dark, but he knew the road well. He
+had with him a powerful force, composed in part of thirty of his own
+garrison, bold, hardy fellows, and in part of six score horsemen, lent
+him by the governor of Montauban. As the vicomte had undertaken to
+withdraw, under some pretense or other, one-half of his command, and
+to have one of the gates opened by a trusty hand, the captain trotted
+along in excellent spirits, and stopped to scan with approval the dark
+line of his troopers as they plodded past him, the jingle of their
+swords and corselets ringing sweet music in his ears. He looked for an
+easy victory; but it was not any slight misadventure that would rob
+him of his prey. As his company wound on by the riverside, their
+accouterments reflected in the stream, or passed into the black shadow
+of the olive grove which stands a mile to the east of Lusigny, he felt
+little doubt of the success of his enterprise.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Treachery apart, that is; and of treachery there was no sign. The
+troopers had scarcely halted under the last clump of trees before a
+figure detached itself from one of the largest trunks, and advanced to
+their leader's rein. The captain saw with surprise that it was the
+vicomte himself. For a second he thought something had gone wrong, but
+the young noble's first words reassured him. &quot;It is all right,&quot; M. de
+Lanthenon whispered, as the captain bent down to him. &quot;I have kept my
+word, and I think that there will be no resistance. The planks for
+crossing the moat lie opposite the gate. Knock thrice at the latter,
+and it will be opened. There are not fifty armed men in the place.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Good!&quot; the captain answered, in the same cautious tone. &quot;But you----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am believed, to be elsewhere, and must be gone. I have far to ride
+tonight. Farewell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Till we meet again,&quot; the captain answered; and with that his ally
+glided away and was lost in the darkness. A cautious word set the
+troop again in motion, and a very few minutes saw them standing on
+the edge of the moat, the outline of the gateway tower looming above
+them, a shade darker than the wrack of clouds which overhead raced
+silently across the sky. A moment of suspense, while one and another
+shivered--for there is that in a night attack which touches the nerves
+of the stoutest--and the planks were found, and as quietly as possible
+laid across the moat. This was so successfully done that it evoked no
+challenge, and the captain crossing quickly with some picked men stood
+almost in the twinkling of an eye under the shadow of the gateway.
+Still no sound was heard save the hurried breathing of those at his
+elbow or the stealthy tread of others crossing. Cautiously he knocked
+three times and waited. The third rap had scarcely sounded, however,
+before the gate rolled silently open, and he sprang in, followed by
+his men.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So far so good. A glance at the empty street and the porter's pale
+face told him at once that the vicomte had kept his word. But he was
+too old a soldier to take anything for granted, and forming up his men
+as quickly as they entered, he allowed no one to advance until all
+were inside, and then, his trumpet sounding a wild note of defiance,
+his force sprang forward in two compact bodies and in a moment the
+town awoke to find itself in the hands of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the vicomte had promised, there was no resistance. In the small
+keep a score of men did indeed run to arms, but only to lay them down
+without striking a blow when they became aware of the force opposed to
+them. Their leader, sullenly acquiescing, gave up his sword and the
+keys of the town to the victorious captain, who, as he sat his horse
+in the middle of the market-place, giving his orders and sending off
+riders with the news, already saw himself in fancy governor of a
+province and Knight of the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">As the red light of the torches fell on steel caps and polished
+hauberks, on the serried ranks of pikemen, and the circle of
+white-faced townsmen, the picturesque old square looked doubly
+picturesque. Every five minutes, with a clatter of iron on the rough
+pavement and a shower of sparks, a horseman sprang away to tell the
+news at Montauban or Cahors; and every time that this occurred, the
+captain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power and
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Suddenly the low murmur of voices was broken by a new sound, the
+hurried clang of hoofs, not departing but arriving. There was
+something in the noise which made the captain prick his ears, and
+secured for the messenger a speedy passage through the crowd. Even at
+the last the man did not spare his horse, but spurring to the
+captain's side, then and then only sprang to the ground. His face was
+pale, his eyes were bloodshot. His right arm was bound up in
+bloodstained cloths. With an oath of amazement, the captain recognized
+the officer whom he had left in charge of Créance and thundered out,
+&quot;What is it?&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p24.png" alt="p24"><br>
+&quot;THEY HAVE GOT CRÉANCE!&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They have got Créance!&quot; the man gasped, reeling as he spoke. &quot;They
+have got Créance!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Who?&quot; the captain shrieked, his face purple with rage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The little man of Béarn! He assaulted it five hundred strong an hour
+after you left, and had the gate down before we could fire a dozen
+shots. We did what we could, but we were but one to seven. I swear,
+captain, we did all we could. Look at this!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Almost black in the face, the captain swore another frightful oath.
+It was not only that he saw governorship and honors vanish like
+will-o'-the-wisps, but that he saw even more quickly that he had made
+himself the laughing-stock of a kingdom! And he had. To this day among
+the stories which the southern French love to tell of the prowess and
+astuteness of the great Henry, there is none more frequently told, or
+more frequently laughed over, than that of the famous exchange of
+Créance for Lusigny.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_02" href="#div1Ref_02">THE BODY-BIRDS OF
+COURT.</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eighty-eight when he died! That is a great age,&quot; I said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes indeed. But he was a very clever man, was Robert Evans, Court,
+and brewed good beer,&quot; my companion answered. &quot;His home-brewed was
+known, I am certain, for more than ten miles. You will have heard of
+his body-birds, sir?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;His body-birds?&quot; I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes, to be sure. Robert Evans Court's body-birds!&quot; And he looked at
+me, quick to suspect that his English was deficient. He had learned it
+in part from books; and hence the curious mixture I presently noted of
+Welsh idioms and formal English phrases. It was his light trap in
+which I was being helped on my journey, and his genial chat which was
+lightening that journey; which lay through a part of Carnarvonshire
+usually traversed only by wool merchants and cattle dealers--a country
+of upland farms swept by the sea breezes, where English is not spoken
+even now by one person in a hundred, and even at inns and post-offices
+you get only &quot;<i>Dim Sassenach</i>,&quot; for your answer. &quot;Do you not say,&quot; he
+went on, &quot;body-birds in English? Oh, but to be sure, it is in the
+Bible!&quot; with a sudden recovery of his self-esteem.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;To be sure!&quot; I replied hurriedly. &quot;Of course it is! But as to Mr.
+Robert Evans, cannot you tell me the story?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I'll be bound there is no man in North or South Wales, or
+Carnarvonshire, that could tell it better, for Gwen Madoc, of whom you
+shall hear presently, was aunt to me. You see Robert Evans&quot;--and my
+friend settled himself in his seat and prepared to go slowly up the
+long, steep hill of Rhiw which rose before us--&quot;Robert Evans lived in
+an old house called Court, near the sea, very windy and lonesome. He
+was a warm man. He had Court from his father, and he had mortgages,
+and as many as four lawsuits. But he was unlucky in his family. He had
+years back three sons who helped on the farm, or at times fished; for
+there is a cove at Court, and good boats. Of these sons only one was
+married--to a Scotchwoman from Bristol, I have heard, who had had a
+husband before, a merchant captain, and she brought with her to Court
+a daughter, Peggy, ready-made as we say. Well, of those three fine
+men, there was not one left in a year. They were out fishing in a boat
+together, and Evan--that was the married one--was steering as they
+came into the cove on a spring tide running very high with a south
+wind. He steered a little to one side--not more than six inches, upon
+my honor--and pah! in an hour their bodies were thrown up on Robert
+Evans' land just like bits of seaweed. But that was not all. Evan's
+wife was on the beach at the time, so near she could have thrown a
+stone into the boat. They do say that before she was pining away at
+Court--it was bleak and lonesome and cold, in the winters, and she had
+been used to live in the towns. But, however, she never held up her
+head after Evan was drowned. She took to her bed, and died in the
+short month. And then of all at Court there were left only Robert
+Evans and the child Peggy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How old was she then?&quot; I asked. He had paused, and was looking
+thoughtfully before, as striving, it would seem, to make the situation
+quite clear to himself.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She was twelve, and the old man eighty and more. She was in no way
+related to him, you will remember, but he had her stop, and let her
+want for nothing that did not cost money. He was very careful of
+money, as was right. It was that made him the man he was. But there
+were some who would have given money to be rid of her. Year in and
+year out they never let the old man rest but that he should send her
+to service at least--though her father had been the captain of a big
+ship; and if Robert Evans had not been a stiff man of his years, they
+would have had their will.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But who----&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">By a gesture he stopped the words on my lips as there rose
+mysteriously out of the silence about us a sound of wings, a chorus
+of shrill cries. A hundred white forms swept overhead, and fell a
+white cluster about something in a distant field. They were sea gulls.
+&quot;Just those same!&quot; he said proudly, jerking his whip in their
+direction--&quot;body-birds. When the news that Robert Evans' sons were
+drowned got about, there was a pretty uprising in Carnarvonshire.
+There seemed to be Evanses where there had never been Evanses before.
+As many as twenty walked in the funeral, and you may be sure that
+afterward they did not leave the old man to himself. The Llewellyn
+Evanses were foremost. They had had a lawsuit with Court, but made it
+up now. Besides there were Mr. and Mrs. Evan Bevan, and the three
+Evanses of Nant, and Owen Evans, and the Evanses of Sarn, and many
+more, who were all forward to visit Court and be friendly with old
+Gwen Madoc, Robert's housekeeper. I am told they could look black at
+one another, but in this they were all in one tale, that the foreign
+child should be sent away; and at times one and another would give her
+a rough word.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She must have had a bad time,&quot; I observed.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You may say that. But she stayed, and it was wonderful how strong and
+handsome she grew up, where her mother had just pined away. The
+sailors said it was her love of the sea; and I have heard that people
+who live inland about here come to think of nothing but the land--it
+is certain that they are good at a bargain--while the fishermen who
+live with a great space before them are finer men, I have heard, in
+their minds as well as their bodies; and Peggy <i>bach</i> grew up like
+them, free and open and upstanding, though she lived inland. When she
+was in trouble she would run down to the sea, where the salt spray
+washed away her tears and the wind blew her hair, that was of the
+color of seaweed, into a tangle. She was never so happy as when she
+was climbing the rocks among the sea gulls, or else sitting with her
+books at the cove where the farm people would not go for fear of
+hearing the church bells that bring bad luck. Books? Oh, yes, indeed!
+next to the sea she was fond of books. There were many volumes, I have
+been told, that were her mother's; then Robert Evans, though he was a
+Wesleyan, went to church because there was no Wesleyan chapel, the
+Calvinistic Methodists being in strength about here; and the minister
+lent her many English books and befriended her. And I have heard that
+once, when the Llewellyn Evanses had been about the girl, he spoke to
+them so that they were afraid to drive down Rhiw hill that night, but
+led the horse; and I think it may be true, for they were Calvinists.
+Still, he was a good man, and I know that many Calvinists walked in
+his funeral.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;<i>Requiescat in pace</i>,&quot; said I.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Eh! Well, I don't know how that may be,&quot; he replied, &quot;but you must
+understand that all this time the Llewellyn Evanses, and the Evanses
+of Nant, and the others would be over at Court once or twice a week,
+so that all the neighborhood called them Robert Evans' body-birds; and
+when they were there Peggy McNeill would be having an ill time, since
+even the old man would be hard to her; and more so as he grew older.
+But, however, there was a better time coming, or so it seemed at
+first, the beginning of which was through Peter Rees' lobster pots. He
+was a great friend of hers. She would go out with him to take up his
+pots--oh! it might be two or three times a week. So it happened one
+day, when they had pushed off from the beach, and Peggy was steering,
+that old Rees stopped rowing on a sudden.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Why don't you go on, Peter?' said Peggy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Bide a bit,' said old Rees.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'What have you forgotten?' said she, looking about in the bottom of
+the boat. For she knew what he used very well.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Nought,' said he. But all the same he began to put the boat about in
+a stupid fashion, afraid of offending her, and yet loath to lose a
+shilling. And so, when Peggy looked up, what should she see but a
+gentleman--whom Rees had perceived, you will understand--stepping into
+the boat, and Peter Rees not daring to look her in the face because he
+knew well that she would never go out with strangers.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course the young gentleman thought no harm, but said gayly, 'Thank
+you! I am just in time.' And what should he do, but go aft and sit
+down on the seat by her, and begin to talk to Rees about the weather
+and the pots. And presently he said to her, 'I suppose you are used to
+steering, my girl?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yes,' said Peggy, but very grave and quiet-like, so that if he had
+not determined that she was old Rees' daughter he would have taken
+notice of it. But she was wearing a short frock that she used for the
+fishing, and was wet with getting into the boat, moreover.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Will you please to hold my hat a minute,' he said, and with that he
+put it in her lap while he looked for a piece of string with which to
+fasten it to his button. Well, she said nothing, but her cheeks were
+scarlet, and by and by, when he had called her 'my girl' two or three
+times more--not roughly, but just off-hand, taking her for a
+fisher-girl--Peter Rees could stand it no longer, shilling or no
+shilling.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You mustn't speak that fashion to her, master,' he said gruffly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'What?' said the gentleman, looking up. He was surprised, and no
+wonder, at the tone of the man.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You mustn't speak like that to Miss McNeill, Court,' repeated old
+Rees more roughly than before. 'You are to understand she is not a
+common girl, but like yourself.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The young gentleman turned and looked at her just once, short and
+sharp, and I am told that his face was as red as hers when their eyes
+met. 'I beg Miss McNeill's pardon--humbly,' he said, taking off his
+hat grandly, yet as if he meant it too; 'I was under a great
+misapprehension.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;After that you may believe they did not enjoy the row much. There was
+scarcely a word said by anyone until they came ashore again. The
+visitor, to the great joy of Peter, who was looking for a sixpence,
+gave him half a crown; and then walked away with the young lady, side
+by side with her, but very stiff and silent. However, just as they
+were parting, Peter could see that he said something, having his hat
+in his hand the while, and that Miss Peggy, after standing and
+listening, bowed as grand as might be. Upon which they separated for
+that time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But two things came of this; first, that everyone began to call her
+Miss McNeill, Court, which was not at all to the pleasure of the
+Llewellyn Evanses. And then that, whenever the gentleman, who was a
+painter lodging at Mrs. Campbell's of the shop, would meet her, he
+would stop and say a few words, and more as the time went on.
+Presently there came some wet weather; and Mrs. Campbell borrowed for
+his use books from her, which had her name within; and later he sent
+for a box of books from London, and then the lending was on the other
+side. So it was not long before people began to see how things were,
+and to smile when the gentleman treated old Robert Evans at the Newydd
+Inn. The fishermen, when he was out with them, would tack so that he
+might see the smoke of Court over the cliffs; and there was no more
+Peggy <i>bach</i> to be met, either rowing with Peter Rees or running wild
+among the rocks, but a very sedate young lady who yet did not seem to
+be unhappy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The old man was ailing in his limbs at this time, but his mind was as
+clear as ever, and his grip of the land as tight. He could not bear,
+now that his sons were dead, that anyone should come after him. I am
+thinking that he would be taking everyone for a body-bird. Still the
+family were forward with presents and such like, and helped him
+perhaps about the farm; so that though there was talk in the village,
+no one could say what will he would make.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p36.png" alt="p36"><br>
+&quot;YOU HAVE BEEN COURTING.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;However, one day toward winter Miss Peggy came in late from a walk,
+and found the old man very cross. 'Where have you been?' he cried
+angrily. Then without any warning, 'You have been courting,' he said,
+'with that fine gentleman from the shop?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well,' my lady replied, putting a brave face upon it, as was her
+way, 'and what then, grandfather? I am not ashamed of it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You ought to be!' he cried, banging his stick upon the floor. 'Do
+you think that he will marry you?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yes, I do,' she replied stoutly. 'He has told you so to-day, I
+know.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Robert Evans laughed, but his laugh was not a pleasant one. 'You are
+right,' he said. 'He has told me. He was very forward to tell me. He
+thought I was going to leave you my money. But I am not! Mind you
+that, my girl.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Very well,' she answered, white and red by turns.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You will remember that you are no relation of mine!' he went on
+viciously, for he had grown very crabbed of late. 'And I am not
+going to leave you money. He is after my money. He is nothing but a
+fortune-catcher!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'He is not!' she exclaimed, as hot as fire, and began to put on her
+hat again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Very well! We shall see!' answered Robert Evans. 'Do you tell
+him what I say, and see if he will marry you. Go! Go now, girl, and
+you need not come back! You will get nothing by staying here!' he
+cried, for what with his jealousy and the mention of money he was
+furious--'not a penny! You had better be off at once!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She did not answer for a minute or so, but she seemed to change
+her mind about going, for she laid down her hat, and went about the
+house place getting tea ready--and no doubt her fingers trembled a
+little--until the old man cried, 'Well, why don't you go? You will get
+nothing by staying.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I shall stay to take care of you all the same,' she answered
+quietly. 'You need not leave me anything, and then--and then I shall
+know whether you are right.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Do you mean it?' asked he sharply, after looking at her in silence
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yes,' said she.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Then it's a bargain!' cried Robert Evans--'it's a bargain!' And he
+said not a word more about it, but took his tea from her and talked of
+the Llewellyn Evanses, who had been to pay him a visit that day. It
+seemed, however, as if the matter had upset him, for he had to be
+helped to bed, and complained a good deal, neither of which things
+were usual with him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, it is not unlikely that the young lady promised herself to tell
+her lover all about it next day, and looked to hear many times over
+from his own lips that it was not her money he wanted. But this was
+not to be, for early the next morning Gwen Madoc was at her door.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You are to get up, miss,' she said. 'The master wants you to go to
+London by the first train.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'To London!' cried Peggy, very much astonished. 'Is he ill? Is
+anything the matter, Gwen?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'No,' answered the old woman very short. 'It is just that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And when the girl, having dressed hastily, came down to Robert Evans'
+room, she found that this was pretty nearly all she was to learn. 'You
+will go to Mrs. Richard Evans, who lives at Islington,' he said, as if
+he had been thinking about it all night. 'She is my second cousin, and
+will find house room for you, and make no charge. A telegram shall be
+sent to her this morning. To-morrow you will take this packet to the
+address upon it, and the next day a packet will be returned to you,
+which you will bring back to me. I am not well to-day, and I want to
+have the matter settled and off my mind, Peggy.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'But could not someone else go, if you are not well?' she objected,
+'and I will stop and take care of you.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He grew very angry at that. 'Do as you are bidden, girl,' he said. 'I
+shall see the doctor to-day, and for the rest, Gwen can do for me. I
+am well enough. Do you look to the papers. Richard Evans owes me
+money, and will make no charge for your living.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So Miss Peggy had her breakfast, and in a wonderfully short time, as
+it seemed to her, was on the way to London, with plenty of leisure on
+her hands for thinking--very likely for doubting and fearing as well.
+She had not seen her sweetheart, that was one thing. She had been
+dispatched in a hurry, that was another. And then, to be sure, the big
+town was strange to her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;However, nothing happened there, I may tell you. But on the third
+morning she received a short note from Gwen Madoc, and suddenly rose
+from breakfast with Mrs. Richard, her face very white. There was news
+in the letter--news of which all the neighborhood for miles round
+Court was by that time full. Robert Evans, if you will believe it, was
+dead. After ailing for a few hours he had died, with only Gwen Madoc
+to smooth his pillow.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was late when she reached the nearest station to Court on her way
+back, and found a pony trap waiting for her. She was stepping into it
+when Mr. Griffith Hughes, the lawyer, saw her, and came up to speak.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I am sorry to have bad news for you, Miss McNeill,' he said in a low
+voice, for he was a kind man, and what with the shock and the long
+journey she was looking very pale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh, yes!' she answered, with a sort of weary surprise; 'I know it
+already. That is why I am come home--to Court, I mean.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He saw that she was thinking only of Robert Evans' death, which was
+not what was in his mind. 'It is about the will,' he said in a
+whisper, though he need not have been so careful, for everyone in the
+neighborhood had learned all about it from Gwen Madoc. 'It is a cruel
+will. I would not have made it for him, my dear. He has left Court to
+the Llewellyn Evanses, and the money between the Evanses of Nant and
+the Evan Bevans.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'It is quite right,' she answered, so calmly that he stared. 'My
+grandfather explained it to me. I fully understood that I was not to
+be in the will.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Hughes looked more and more puzzled. 'Oh, but,' he replied, 'it
+is not so bad as that. Your name is in the will. He has laid it upon
+those who get the land and money to provide for you--to settle a
+proper income upon you. And you may depend upon me for doing my best
+to have his wishes carried out, my dear.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The young lady turned very red, and raised her eyes sharply.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Who are to provide for me?' she asked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'The three families who divide the estate,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'And are they obliged to do so?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well--no,' said he unwillingly. 'I am not sure that they are exactly
+obliged. But no doubt----'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I doubt very much,' she answered, taking him up with a smile. And
+then she shook hands with him and drove away, leaving him wondering at
+her courage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, you may suppose it was a dreary house to which she came home.
+Mr. Griffith Hughes, who was executor, had been before the Llewellyn
+Evanses in taking possession, so that, besides a lad or two in the
+kitchen, there were only Gwen Madoc and the servant there, and they
+seemed to have very little to tell her about the death. When she had
+heard what they had to say, and they were all on their way to bed,
+'Gwen,' she said softly, 'I think I should like to see him.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'So you shall, to-morrow, honey,' answered the old woman. 'But do you
+know, <i>bach</i>, that he has left you nothing?' and she held up her
+candle suddenly, so as to throw the light on the girl's tired face.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh!' she answered, with a shudder, 'how can you talk about that
+now?' But presently she had another question ready. 'Have you seen Mr.
+Venmore since--since my grandfather's death, Gwen?' she asked timidly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yes, indeed, <i>bach</i>,' answered the housekeeper. 'I met him at the
+door of the shop this morning. I told him where you were, and that you
+would be back tonight. And about the will, moreover.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The girl stopped at her own door and snuffed her candle. Gwen Madoc
+went slowly up the next flight, groaning over the steepness of the
+stairs. Then she turned to say good-night. The girl was at her side
+again, her eyes shining in the light of the two candles.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh, Gwen,' she whispered breathlessly, 'didn't he say anything?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Not a word, <i>bach</i>,' answered the old woman, stroking her hair
+tenderly. 'He just went into the house in a hurry.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Peggy went into her room much in the same way. No doubt she
+would be telling herself a great many times over before she slept that
+he would come and see her in the morning; and in the morning she would
+be saying, 'He will come in the afternoon;' and in the afternoon, 'He
+will come in the evening.' But evening came, and darkness, and still
+he did not appear. Then she could endure it no longer. She let herself
+out of the front door, which there was no one now to use but herself,
+and with a shawl over her head ran all the way down to the shop. There
+was no light in his window upstairs: but at the back door stood Mrs.
+Campbell, looking after someone who had just left her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The girl came, strangely shrinking at the last moment, into the ring
+of light about the door. 'Why, Miss McNeill!' cried the other,
+starting visibly at sight of her. 'Is it you, honey? And are you
+alone?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yes; and I cannot stop. But oh, Mrs. Campbell, where is Mr.
+Venmore?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I know no more than yourself, my dear,' said the good woman
+reluctantly. 'He went from here yesterday on a sudden--to take the
+train, I understood.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yesterday? When? At what time, please?' asked the young lady. There
+was a fear, which she had been putting from her all day. It was
+getting a footing now.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well, it would be about midday. I know it was just after Gwen Madoc
+called in about the----'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the girl was gone. It was not to Mrs. Campbell she could make a
+moan. It was only the night wind that caught the 'Oh, cruel! cruel!'
+which broke from her as she went up the hill. Whether she slept that
+night at all I am not able to say. Only that when it was dawn she was
+out upon the cliffs, her face very white and sad-looking. The
+fishermen who were up early, going out with the ebb, saw her at times
+walking fast and then standing still and looking seaward. But I do not
+know what she was thinking, only I should fancy that the gulls had a
+different cry for her now, and it is certain that when she had
+returned and came down into the parlor at Court for the funeral, there
+were none of the Evanses could look her in the face with comfort.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;They were all there, of course. Mr. Llewellyn Evans--he was an
+elderly man, with a gray beard like a bird's nest, and very thick
+lips--was sitting with his wife on the horsehair sofa. The Evanses of
+Nant, who were young men with lank faces and black hair combed upward,
+were by the door. The Evan Bevans were at the table; and there were
+others, besides Mr. Griffith Hughes, who was undoing some papers when
+she entered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He rose and shook hands with her, marking pitifully the dark hollows
+under her eyes, and inwardly confirming his resolution to get her a
+substantial settlement. Then he hesitated, looking doubtfully at the
+others. 'We are going to read the will before the funeral instead of
+afterward,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh!' she answered, taken aback--for in truth she had forgotten all
+about the will. 'I did not know. I will go, and come back later.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'No, indeed!' cried Mrs. Llewellyn Evans, 'you had better stop and
+hear the will--though no relation, to be sure.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But at that moment Gwen Madoc came in, and peered round with a grim
+air of importance. 'Maybe someone,' she said in a low voice, 'would
+like to take a last look at the poor master?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But no one moved. They sighed and shook their heads at one another as
+if they would like to do so--but no one moved. They were anxious, you
+see, to hear the will. Only Peggy, who had turned to go out, said,
+'Yes, Gwen, I should,' and slipped out with the old woman.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'There is nothing to keep us now?' said Mr. Hughes briskly when the
+door was closed again. And everyone nodding assent the lawyer went on
+to read the will, which was not a long one. It was received with a
+murmur of satisfaction, and much use of pocket-handkerchiefs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Very fair!' said Mr. Llewellyn Evans, 'He was a clever man, our old
+friend.' All the legatees murmured after him 'Very fair!' and a word
+went round about the home-brewed, and Robert Evans' recipe for it.
+Then Llewellyn, who thought he ought to be taking the lead at Court
+now, said it was about time to be going to church.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'There is one matter,' put in Mr. Griffith Hughes, 'which I think
+ought to be settled while we are all together. You see that there is
+a--what I may call a charge on the three main portions of the property
+in favor of Miss McNeill.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Indeed, but what is that you are saying?' cried Llewellyn sharply.
+'Do you mean that there is a rent charge?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Not exactly a rent charge,' said the lawyer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'No!' cried Llewellyn with a twinkle in his eyes. 'Nor any obligation
+in law, sir?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well, no,' assented Mr. Hughes grudgingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Then,' said Llewellyn Evans, getting up and putting his hands in his
+pockets, while he winked at the others, 'we will talk of that another
+time.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Mr. Hughes said, 'No!' He was a kind man, and very anxious to do
+the best for the girl, but he somewhat lost his temper. 'No!' he said,
+growing red. 'You will observe, if you please, Mr. Evans, that the
+testator says, &quot;Forthwith---forthwith.&quot; So that, as sole executor, it
+is my duty to ask you to state your intentions now.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well, indeed, then,' said Llewellyn, changing his face to a kind of
+blank, 'I have no intentions. I think that the family has done more
+than enough for the girl already.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And he would say no otherwise. Nor was it to any purpose that the
+lawyer looked at Mrs. Llewellyn. She was examining the furniture, and
+feeling the stuffing of the sofa, and did not seem to hear. He could
+make nothing of the three Evanses, Nant. They all cried, 'Yes,
+indeed!' to what Llewellyn said. Only the Evan Bevans remained, and he
+turned to them in despair.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I am sure,' he said, addressing himself to them, 'that you will do
+something to carry out the testator's wishes? Your share under the
+will, Mr. Bevan, will amount to three hundred a year. This young
+lady has nothing--no relations, no home. May I take it that you will
+settle--say fifty pounds a year upon her? It need only be for her
+life.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Bevan fidgeted under this appeal. His wife answered it.
+'Certainly not, Mr. Hughes. If it were twenty pounds now, once for
+all, or even twenty-five--and Llewellyn and my nephews would say the
+same--I think we might manage that?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Llewellyn shook his head obstinately. 'I have said I have no
+intentions, and I am a man of my word!' he answered. 'Let the girl go
+out to service. It is what we have always wanted her to do. Here are
+my nephews. They won't mind a young housekeeper.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, they all laughed at this except Mr. Hughes, who gathered up his
+papers looking very black, and not thinking of future clients.
+Llewellyn, however, did not care a bit for that, but walked to the
+bell, masterful-like, and rang it. 'Tell the undertaker,' he said to
+the servant, 'that we are ready.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;It was as if the words had been a signal, for they were followed
+almost immediately by an outcry overhead and quick running upon the
+stairs. The legatees looked uncomfortably at the carpet: the lawyer
+was blacker than before. He said to himself, 'Now that poor child has
+fainted!' The confusion seemed to last some minutes. Then the door was
+opened, not by the undertaker, but by Gwen Madoc. The mourners rose
+with a sigh of relief; to their surprise she passed by even Llewellyn,
+and with a frightened face walked across to the lawyer. She whispered
+something in his ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'What!' he cried, starting back a pace from her, and speaking so that
+the wine-glasses on the table rattled again. 'Do you know what you are
+saying, woman?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'It is true,' she answered, half crying, 'and no fault indeed of mine
+neither.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Gwen added more in quick, short sentences, which the family, strain
+their ears as they might, could not overhear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I will come! I will come!' cried the lawyer. He waved his hand to
+them as a sign to make room for her to pass out. Then he turned to
+them, a queer look upon his face; it was not triumph altogether,
+for there was discomfiture and apprehension in it as well. 'You
+will believe me, he said, 'that I am as much taken aback as
+yourselves--that till this moment I have been honestly as much in the
+dark as anyone. It seems--so I am told--that our old friend is not
+dead.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'What!' cried Llewellyn in his turn. 'What do you mean?' and he
+raised his black-gloved hands as in refutation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'What I say,' replied Mr. Hughes patiently. 'I hear--wonderful as it
+sounds--that he is not dead. Something about a trance, I believe--a
+mistake happily discovered in time. I tell you all I know; and however
+it comes about, it is clear we ought to be glad that Mr. Robert Evans
+is spared to us.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;With that he was glad to escape from the room. I am told that their
+faces were very strange to see. There was a long silence. Llewellyn
+was the first to speak: He swore a big oath and banged his great hand
+upon the table. 'I don't 'believe it!' he cried. 'I don't believe it!
+It is a trick!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But as he spoke the door opened behind him, and he and all turned to
+see what they had never thought to see, I am sure. They had come to
+walk in Robert Evans' funeral; and here was the gaunt, stooping form
+of Robert Evans himself coming in, with an arm of Gwen Madoc on one
+side and of Miss Peggy on the other--Robert Evans beyond doubt, alive.
+Behind him were the lawyer and Dr. Jones, a smile on their lips, and
+three or four women half frightened, half wondering.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;The old man was pale, and seemed to totter a little, but when the
+doctor would have placed a chair for him, he declined it, and stood
+gazing about him, wonderfully composed for a man just risen from his
+coffin. He had all his old grim aspect as he looked upon the family.
+Llewellyn's declaration was still in their ears. They could find not a
+word to say either of joy or grief.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well, indeed,' said Robert, with a dry chuckle, 'have none of you a
+word to throw at me? I am a ghost, I suppose? Ha!' he exclaimed, as
+his eye fell on the papers which Mr. Hughes had left upon the table,
+'so! so! That is why you are not overjoyed at seeing me. You have been
+reading my will. Well, Llewellyn! Have not you a word to say to me now
+you know for what I had got you down?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;At that Llewellyn found his tongue, and the others chimed in finely.
+Only there was something in the old man's manner that they did not
+like; and presently, when they had all told him how glad they were to
+see him again--just for all the world as if he had been ill for a few
+days--Robert Evans turned again to Llewellyn.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You had fixed what you would do for my girl here, I suppose?' he
+said, patting her shoulder gently, at which the family winced. 'It was
+a hundred a year you promised to settle, you know. You will have
+arranged all that.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Lewellyn looked stealthily at Mr. Hughes, who was standing at
+Robert's elbow, and muttered that they had not reached that stage.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'What?' cried the old man sharply. 'How was that?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I was intending,' Llewellyn began lamely, 'to settle----'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You were intending!' Robert Evans burst forth in a voice so changed
+that they all started back. 'You are a liar! You were intending to
+settle nothing! I know it well! I knew it long ago! Nothing, I say! As
+for you,' he went on, wheeling furiously round upon the Evanses of
+Nant, 'you knew my wishes. What were you going to do for her? What, I
+say? Speak, you hobbledehoys!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;For they were backing from him in absolute fear of his passion,
+looking at one another or at the sullen face of Llewellyn Evans, or
+anywhere save at him. At length the eldest blurted out, 'Whatever
+Llewellyn meant to do we were going to do, sir.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You speak the truth there,' cried old Robert bitterly; 'for that was
+nothing, you know. Very well! I promise you that what Llewellyn gets
+of my property you shall get too--and it will be nothing! You, Bevan,'
+and he turned himself toward the Evan Bevans, who were shaking in
+their shoes, 'I am told, did offer to do something for my girl.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Yes, dear Robert,' cried Mrs. Bevan, radiant and eager, 'we did
+indeed.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'So I hear. Well, when I make my next will, I will take care to set
+you down for just so much as you proposed to give her! Peggy, <i>bach</i>,'
+he continued, turning from the chapfallen lady, and putting into the
+girl's hands the will which the lawyer had given him, 'tear up this
+rubbish! Tear it up! Now let us have something to eat in the other
+room. What, Llewellyn, no appetite?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But the family did not stay even to partake of the home-brewed. They
+were out of the house, I am told, before the coffin and the
+undertaker's men. There was big talking among them, as they went, of a
+conspiracy and a lunatic asylum. But though, to be sure, it was a
+wonderful recovery, and the doctor and Mr. Hughes, as they drove away
+after dinner, were very friendly together--which may have been only
+the home-brewed--at any rate the sole outcome of Llewellyn's talking
+and inquiries was that everyone laughed very much, and Robert Evans'
+name for a clever man was known beyond Carnarvon.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course it would be open house at Court that day, with plenty of
+eating and drinking and coming and going. But toward five o'clock the
+place grew quiet again. The visitors had gone home, and Gwen Madoc was
+upstairs. The old man was sleeping in his chair opposite the settle,
+and Miss Peggy was sitting on the window-seat watching him, her hands
+in her lap, her thoughts far away. Maybe she was trying to be really
+glad that the home, about which the cows lowed and the gulls screamed
+in the afternoon stillness and made it seem home each minute, was hers
+still; that she was not quite alone, nor friendless, nor poor. Maybe
+she was striving not to think of the thing which had been taken from
+her and could not be given back. Whatever her thoughts, she was
+aroused by some sound to find her eyes full of hot tears, through
+which she could dimly see that the old man was awake and looking at
+her with a strange expression, which disappeared as she became aware
+of it.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He began to speak. 'Providence has been very good to us, Peggy,' he
+said, with grim meaning. 'It is well for you, my girl, that our eyes
+are open to see our kind friends as they are. There is one besides
+those who were here this morning that will wish he had not been so
+hasty.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She rose quickly and looked out of the window. 'Don't speak of him.
+Let us forget him,' she pleaded, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But Robert Evans seemed to take a delight in the--well, the goodness
+of Providence. 'If he had come to see you only once, when you were in
+trouble,' he went on, as if he were summing up the case in his own
+mind, and she were but a stick or a stone, 'we could have forgiven
+him, and I would have said you were right. Or even if he had written,
+eh?'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh, yes, yes!' sobbed the girl, her tears raining down her averted
+face. 'Don't torture me! You were right and I was wrong--all wrong!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Well, yes, yes! Just so. But come here, my girl,' said the old man.
+'Come!' he repeated imperiously, as, surprised in the midst of her
+grief, she wavered and hesitated, 'sit here,' and he pointed to the
+settle opposite to him. 'Now, suppose I were to tell you he had
+written, and that the letter had been--mislaid, shall we say? and come
+somehow to my hands? Now, don't get excited, girl!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh!' cried Peggy, her hands fallen, her lips parted, her eyes wide
+and frightened, her whole form rigid with questioning.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Just suppose that, my dear,' continued Robert, 'and that the letter
+were now before us--would you abide by its contents? Remember, he must
+have much to explain. Would you let me decide whether his explanation
+were satisfactory or not?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She was trembling with expectation, hope. But she tried to think of
+the matter calmly, to remember her lover's hurried flight, the lack of
+word or message for her, her own misery. She nodded silently, and held
+out her hand.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He drew a letter from his pocket. 'You will let me see it?' he said
+suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Oh, yes!' she cried, and fled with it to the window. He watched her
+while she tore it open and read first one page and then another--there
+were but two, it was very short--watched her while she thrust it from
+her and looked at it as a whole, then drew it to her and kissed it
+again and again.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Wait a bit! wait a bit!' cried he testily. 'Now, let me see it.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;She turned upon him almost fiercely, holding it away behind her, as
+if it were some living thing he might hurt. 'He thought he would meet
+me at the junction,' she stammered between laughing and crying. 'He
+was going to London to see his sister--that she might take me in. And
+he will be here to fetch me this evening. There! Take it!' and
+suddenly remembering herself she stretched out her hand and gave him
+the letter.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You promised to abide by my decision, you know,' said the old man
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I will not!' she cried impetuously. 'Never!'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'You promised,' he said.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'I don't care! I don't care!' she replied, clasping her hands
+nervously. 'No one shall come between us.'</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;'Very well,' said Robert Evans, 'then I need not decide. But you had
+better tell Owen to take the trap to the station to meet your man.'&quot;</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_03" href="#div1Ref_03">IN CUPID'S TOILS.</a></h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>I.</h3>
+<h3>HER STORY.</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 bowlders 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 toward
+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 hackle, 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; someone 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 gravely,
+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 sound-proof, 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
+pretense 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="center"><img src="images/p72.png" alt="p72"><br>
+&quot;BAB.&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 anyone 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,
+aid-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 cozy 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 afterward 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 hill-sides 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 millrace, 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 someone'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
+was 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
+signaled 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 homeward.</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 afterward. 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. 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 travelers' 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 around 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">Everyone 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.&quot;</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 <i>he</i> 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 <i>he</i> 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 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>HIS STORY.</h3>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">I was not dining out much at that time, partly because my acquaintance
+in town was limited, and somewhat 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, playtime 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 modeled 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 halfway 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 understand now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
+mention my name, and she had taken me for someone 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 terrible 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 toward me, and
+opening her eyes as she 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 anyone 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 import no great good
+will.</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 overwarmth
+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 center 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. Everyone 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 anyone. 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, 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 afterward, 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 Goldmaces' 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. We are always dropping to-day's substance for the shadow of
+tomorrow; like the dog--a dog was it not?--in the fable.</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.
+Everyone 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 catchwords, 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 blind-folded, 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 other's 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 of 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
+toward the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
+was the matter?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg everyone'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 theater, and that other one on which Mr. Guest kept
+me to dinner. Aye, 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 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
+work basket, 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 everyday 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 wrung 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_04" href="#div1Ref_04">THE DRIFT OF FATE.</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoelace,
+having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a corner house
+in St. James' 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 wining 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. &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 sparsely 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 toward 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
+ballroom. 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 upward 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 afterward, 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?&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p120.png" alt="p120"><br>
+&quot;LORD 'A' MERCY! THERE IS THE MISTRESS'S KNOCK.&quot;</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 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 toward 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
+someone 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 somber, 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 his 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 &amp; 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 mustaches, gray eyes, and an ugly scar
+seaming the face from ear 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 were 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 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.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What the deuce are you doing there, sir?&quot; he cried, in boundless
+astonishment, rising to his feet and coming toward 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 outward 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 airtight. 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! Ay, 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 marveled. 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 toward 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 continued 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.&quot;</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
+Duggan &amp; Poole'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 notecase 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 &amp; 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 someone. 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 toward 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 leaned 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, wrapped 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 &amp; 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 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_05" href="#div1Ref_05">A BLORE MANOR
+EPISODE.</a></h2>
+<br>
+
+<p class="normal">Not very remarkable was this courtship: there was nothing very strange
+about it, or more romantic than is apt to be the case with such
+things. I doubt not that since the daughters of the children of men
+were wooed, there have been many millions of such May-time passages of
+greater interest, and that countless Pauls and Virginias have plucked
+the sweet spring flowers together amid more picturesque surroundings.
+Every matron--and some maids, if they will, though we deprecate the
+omen--can recall at least one wooing which she can vouch as a thousand
+million times more extraordinary than that of my commonplace hero and
+heroine. That is so: but for that very reason let her read of this
+one, and taking off the cover of her own potpourri savor some faint
+scent of the dewy roses of the past springtime.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It had its origin in the 12:10 down train from Euston to Holyhead,
+which carried, among other passengers, Charles Maitland of the Temple,
+barrister by theory and idler by, or for want of, practice. He
+traveled first-class. When you come to know him better you will
+understand how superfluous was this last piece of information. Ten
+minutes before the train was due out, he arrived at the station
+in a hansom. A silk hat, a well-fitting light overcoat--the weather,
+for March, was mild--gray trousers, and brown gaiters over his
+patent-leather boots were the most salient details of a costume of
+which the chief characteristic was an air of perfect correctness. At
+the bookstall he did not linger, culling with loving eyes the backs of
+many books, and reveling in his choice with florin in hand, as do
+second-class passengers, but without hesitation he purchased a
+<i>Saturday Review</i> and a <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>. After he had taken his
+seat a Smith's boy invited him to select from a tray, upon which
+glowed half a dozen novels; but he gazed sublimely into vacancy over
+the boy's head; who soon left him, and prompted by a vengeful spirit
+only inferior to his precocious knowledge of passenger nature,
+directed upon him the attacks of two kindred sprites with Banbury
+cakes and British sherry. The window was slight protection against
+their shrill voices, but soon the train started and freed him from
+them. He changed his hat for a brown deer-stalker, and having the
+compartment to himself, had recourse to his own thoughts. It was not
+unlikely, he told himself, that he had been precipitate in undertaking
+this journey. An Easter, coming somewhat early, seemed to have
+forestalled his wonted invitations for that season: and, to stay in
+London being out of the question, he had accepted Tom Quaritch's
+offer. He began to have doubts of the wisdom of this course now, but
+it was too late. He was bound for Tom Quaritch's. He had known
+something of Tom at college; and recently he had done him a slight
+service in town. No more genial soul than the latter existed, and he
+did not rest satisfied until he had won from Maitland a half promise
+to come and see his beagles at Easter. At the time our traveler had
+but the remotest idea of doing so. He did not know enough of Tom's
+people, while to have the acquaintance of the right people and of no
+one else was part of his creed. But now he was between the horns of a
+dilemma. These people, of whom he knew nothing, might not be the right
+people; that was one horn. The other consisted in the fact that to
+spend a vacation in town was not the thing. When we have chosen our
+horn it is natural it should seem the sharper of the two. Mr. Charles
+Maitland frowned as he cut the pages of his <i>Cornhill</i>. And then he
+made up his mind to two things. Firstly, to bring his stay at Blore
+Manor within the smallest possible limits, and secondly, to comport
+himself while there with such a formal courtesy as should encourage
+only the barest familiarity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At Stafford he had to change into another train, which he did, even as
+he cut his magazine, with characteristic precision and coolness. And
+so he reached Blore Station about half-past five, still neat and
+unsullied, with all the aroma of the street of scents about him.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He let down the window and put out his head. The country thereabouts
+was flat and uninteresting, the farming untidy, the fences low, yet
+straggling. A short distance away a few roofs peeping forth from a
+clump of trees, above which the smoke gently curled, marked the
+village. The station consisted of a mere shed and a long, bare
+platform. There were but five persons visible, and of these one was a
+porter, and one a man servant in a quiet, countrified livery. The
+latter walked quickly toward him, but was forestalled by three girls,
+the other occupants of the platform, who, at sight of the stranger,
+came tearing from the far end of it at a headlong pace.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Here he is! Here he is!&quot; cried the foremost, her shrill voice drawing
+a dozen heads to the windows of the train. She owed her success to an
+extempore tug in the form of an excited bull terrier, which, dragging
+violently at a strap attached to her wrist, jerked her after him much
+as if she had been a kettle tied to his tail. She might be anything
+between twenty and five-and-twenty--a tiny little creature of almost
+fairylike proportions. Her color was high and her hair brown; she had
+curiously opaque brown eyes, bright as well as opaque. Gloves she had
+none, and her hair was disordered by her struggles with the dog. But,
+after all, the main impression she made upon Maitland was that she was
+excessively small. He had no eyes for the others at present. But one,
+owing to the reckless method of her progression, gave him a dim notion
+of being all legs.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are Mr. Maitland, are you not?&quot; the first comer began volubly,
+though loss of breath interfered a little with the symmetry of her
+sentences. &quot;Tom had to attend a meeting of the fox committee at
+Annerley. I'm Maggie Quaritch, and this is Dubs--I beg your pardon,
+how silly of me--Joan, I mean, and this is Agnes. Why, child, what
+have you done with your hat? Pick it up at once! What wild things Mr.
+Maitland will think us!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The youngest girl, whose hat was lying upon the platform some distance
+away, hung her head in a very pretty attitude of shy <i>gaucherie</i>. She
+was about fifteen--rising sixteen in her brother's phrase--and taller
+than the elder girls, with a peculiarly pale complexion, greenish-gray
+eyes, and a mass of brownish-red hair. Her loosely made dress was more
+in consonance with her style than Maitland, staggering under the shock
+of such a reception, had time or mind to observe. He formally
+acknowledged the introductions, but words did not come easily to him.
+He was dumfounded. He was so unaccustomed to this, or to people like
+these.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And we must not forget Bill,&quot; resumed Miss Quaritch, if possible,
+faster than before. &quot;Isn't he a beauty now, Mr. Maitland? Look at his
+chest, look at his head, look at his eyes. Yes, he lost that one in a
+fight with Jack Madeley's retriever, and I'm afraid the sight of the
+other is going, but he's the most beautiful, loveliest, faithfullest
+dog in the whole world for all that, and his mother loves him, she
+does!&quot; All in a shrill tone, rising a note perhaps with the final
+words.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The train was moving out. The last that the twelve faces, still glued
+to the carriage windows, beheld of the scene was Miss Quaritch
+rapturously kissing and hugging the bull terrier, while the Londoner
+looked on sheepishly. He was horribly conscious of the presence of
+those grinning faces and suffered as much until the train left as if
+the onlookers had been a dozen of his club comrades. Whereas the fact
+was that they found whatever amusement the scene afforded them not in
+the girl's enthusiasm--she was young enough to gush prettily--but in
+the strange gentleman's awkward consciousness.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Now, Mr. Maitland, shall Abiah drive you up in the dog cart, or will
+you walk with us? Agnes!&quot; this suddenly in a loud scream to the
+youngest girl, who had moved away, &quot;you can let out the dogs! Down,
+Juno! Go down, Jack o' Pack! Roy, you ill-conditioned little dog, you
+are always quarreling! I'm afraid they will make you in a dreadful
+pickle.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Indeed it seemed to Maitland that they would. An avalanche of
+scurrying dogs descended upon him from some receptacle where they had
+been penned. He had a vision of a red Irish setter with soft brown
+eyes, not unlike to, but far finer than Miss Maggie's, with its paws
+momentarily upon the breast of his overcoat; of a couple of wiry fox
+terriers skirmishing and snarling round his trousers, and of a shy,
+lop-eared beagle puppy casting miserable glances at them from an
+outside place. And then the party got under way in some sort of order.
+At first Maitland had much ado to answer yes and no.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He was still bewildered by these things, crushed, confounded.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He could have groaned as he sedately explained at what time he left
+Euston, and where he changed. He was conscious that when their
+attention was not demanded by the pack of dogs, the girls were
+covertly scrutinizing him; but in his present state of mind, it
+mattered not a straw to him whether they were calling him a prig, and
+a &quot;stick,&quot; and affected, and supercilious, or were admiring half in
+scorn the fit of his clothes and boots, and his lordly air. All these
+remarks were in fact made by some one or other of them before the day
+was over. But he was, and would have been, supremely indifferent to
+their criticisms.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The weight of the conversation did not fall heavily upon him: indeed,
+when Miss Quaritch had a share in it, no one else was overburdened.
+And from time to time they met upon the road old women or children to
+whom the girls had always something to say. It was, &quot;Well, Mrs.
+Marjoram, and so the donkey is better,&quot; or, &quot;Now, Johnny, get along
+home to your mother,&quot; or, &quot;How are you, daddy?&quot; in the high-pitched
+key so trying to the cockney's ear.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In these parleys Joan, the second girl, was foremost. Maitland glanced
+at her. A young man may be very fastidious, but neck-ribbons awry and
+brown hair in rich disorder do not entirely close his eyes to a
+maiden's comeliness. It would be strange if they did, were she such an
+one as Joan Quaritch. Not tall, yet tall enough, with a full, rounded
+figure, to which her dress hardly did, hardly could do, justice, she
+moved with the grace and freedom of perfect health. Her fair
+complexion could afford to have its clearness marred by a freckle or
+two, such as hers, mere clots in cream; and if her features were not
+perfect, yet a nose too straight and a chin too heavy were more than
+redeemed by great gray eyes that, sunny or tearful, could be nothing
+but true--eyes whose frankness and good fellowship aggravated the
+wounds they inflicted. Why she was called &quot;Dubs&quot; I cannot tell.
+Perhaps no one can. But, in her good nature and her truth, her simple
+pride and independence, it suited her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He had just, to quote the language of this cynic's thoughts,
+catalogued the last of the Graces, when the party reached the house,
+which stood some way back from the road. Tom Quaritch had just
+returned, and welcomed the guest warmly; his mother met Maitland at
+the drawing-room door. She was a singularly comely woman, stately and
+somewhat formal. Her greeting so differed from that of her daughters
+that the visitor found himself speculating upon the extraordinary
+flightiness of the late Mr. Quaritch. Wherein I doubt not he did him
+injustice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At dinner our hero had in some degree recovered himself, and he told
+them the latest news of the theaters, the clubs, and the book world,
+and while their ignorance filled him with a wonder he did not hide,
+their attention propitiated him. He talked well, and if he was
+inclined to lord it a little, a shrewd word from Mrs. Quaritch, or a
+demure glance from Miss Joan's eyes, would lower his didactic tone.
+The youngest girl promised to be an especial thorn in his side.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Does everyone in London wear shiny boots in the daytime, Mr.
+Maitland?&quot; she asked suddenly, <i>à propos des bottes</i>, and nothing
+else.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A considerable number do, Miss Agnes.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;What sort of people? No, I'm not being rude, mother.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I hardly know how to answer that. The idle people, perhaps.&quot; He
+smiled indulgently, which aggravated the young lady. She replied,
+crumbling her bread the while in an absent, meditative way, her eyes
+innocently fixed on his face:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then you are one of the idle people, Mr. Maitland? I don't think I
+like idle people.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How singularly unselfish of you, my dear Agnes!&quot; put in Joan
+vigorously--more vigorously than politely.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Maitland's last reflection as he got into bed was that he was quite
+out of place here. These might be very nice people in their way, but
+not in his way. He must make his visit as short as possible, and
+forget all about it as quickly as he could. The girls would be
+insufferable when they came to know him familiarly. Good gracious!
+fancy young ladies who had never heard of &quot;John Inglesant,&quot; or of W.
+D. Howells' books, and confused the Grosvenor Gallery with the Water
+Color Exhibition! and read Longfellow! and had but vague ideas of the
+æsthetic! Miss Joan was pretty too, yes, really pretty, and had fine
+eyes and a pleasant voice, and fine eyes--yes, fine eyes. And with
+this thought he fell comfortably asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He came down next morning to find her alone in the breakfast room. A
+short-skirted beagling costume of scarlet and blue allowed him a
+glimpse of neat ankles in scarlet hose. She was kneeling before the
+fire playing with Roy. Her brown wavy hair fell in a heavy loose loop
+upon her neck, and there was something wonderfully bright and fresh in
+her whole appearance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;How quickly you have fallen in with our barbarous ways!&quot; she said
+with a smile, as she rose. &quot;I did not expect you to be up for hours
+yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I generally breakfast at nine, and it is nearly that now,&quot; he
+answered, annoyed by some hint of raillery in her tone, and yet unable
+to conceal a glance of admiration. &quot;I think I must adopt the Blore
+breakfast hour; it seems, Miss Joan, to agree with you all so well.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes,&quot; was the indifferent reply; &quot;we get the first of the three
+rewards for early rising. The other two we leave for our betters.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And she turned away with a little nod as the others came in. In five
+minutes a noisy, cheerful breakfast was in progress, and the chances
+of finding a hare formed the all-engrossing subject of conversation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">On this calm gray morning, warm rather than cold, the little pack, to
+the great delight of the household, found quickly, and found well. No
+October leveret was before them, but a good, stout old hare, who gave
+them a ringing run of two hours, the pleasure of which was not
+materially diminished when she baffled them at last in the mysterious
+way these old hares affect and huntsmen fail to fathom. The visitor
+performed creditably, though in indifferent training. At Oxford he had
+been something of a crack, and could still upon occasion forget to
+keep his boots clean and his clothes intact.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Returning home, Maitland found himself again with Joan. The heat and
+pleasure of the chase had for the time melted his reserve and thawed
+his resolution. He talked well and freely to her of a great London
+hospital over which one of the house surgeons had recently taken him;
+of the quiet and orderliness of the lone, still wards; of the feeling
+that came over him there that life was all suffering and death; and
+how quickly in the bustle of the London streets, where the little
+world of the hospital seemed distant and unreal, this impression faded
+away. She listened eagerly, and he, tasting a stealthy and stolen
+pleasure in seeing how deep and pitiful the gray eyes could grow,
+prolonged his tale.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have enjoyed hearing about it so much,&quot; she said gratefully, as
+they entered the village. And indeed she had passed several people
+upon the road without a word of greeting. &quot;I hope to be a nurse soon.
+The dear mother does not think me old enough yet.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You are going to be a nurse!&quot; he said in tones of such incredulous
+surprise that the amusement which first appeared in her face changed
+to annoyance.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why not? One does not need a knowledge of art and the newest books
+for that,&quot; she sharply answered.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Perhaps not,&quot; he said feebly. &quot;But after such a life as this, it--the
+change I mean--would be so complete.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She looked at him, an angry gleam in her eyes, and the color high in
+her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do you think, Mr. Maitland, that because we run wild--oh, no, you
+have not said so--and seem to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, we are
+incapable of anything beyond hunting and playing tennis, and feeding
+the dogs and the hens and the chickens? That we cannot have a thought
+beyond pleasure, or a wish to do good like other people--people in
+London? That we can never look beyond Blore--though Blore, I can tell
+you, would manage ill without some of us!--nor have an aspiration
+above the kennels and the--and the stables? If you do think so, I
+trust you are wrong.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He would have answered humbly, but she was gone into the house in huge
+indignation, leaving our friend strangely uncomfortable. It was just
+twenty-four hours since his arrival: the opinion of one at least of
+the madcaps had ceased to be a matter of indifference to him. The
+change occurred to himself as he mounted the stairs, so that he
+laughed when alone in his room and resolved to keep away from that
+girl for the future. How handsome she had looked when she was flying
+out at him, and how generous seemed her anger even at the time!
+Somehow the prospect of the four days he had still to spend at Blore
+was not so depressing as at first. Certainly the vista was shortened
+by one day, and that may have been the reason.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Meanwhile Maggie, in her sister's bedroom, had much to say of the
+day's doings. &quot;Didn't he go well? My word! he is not half so stiff as
+I thought him. I believe he'd be a very good fellow if he had some of
+the conceit taken out of him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think he's insufferable,&quot; was the chilling answer from Joan; &quot;he
+considers us savages, and treats us as such.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;He may consider us fit for the Zoo, if he likes; it won't hurt us,&quot;
+quoth Maggie indifferently. With which Joan expressed neither assent
+nor dissent, but brushed her hair a little faster.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Maitland did not for a moment abandon his fresh resolution. Still he
+thought he owed it to himself to set the matter right with the young
+lady before he stiffened anew. As he descended he met her running up
+two steps at a time.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Joan, I am afraid I vexed you just now,&quot; he said, with grave
+humility. &quot;Will you believe it unintentional--stupid, on my part, and
+grant me your pardon?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, dear!&quot; she cried gayly. &quot;We are not used to this here. It is
+quite King Cophetua and the beggar maid.&quot; She dropped him a mock
+courtesy, and held out her hand in token of amity, when the full
+signification of what she had said rushed into her mind and flooded
+her face with crimson. Without another word or look she fled upstairs,
+and he heard her door bang behind her.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Mr. Charles Maitland, after this <i>rencontre</i>, went down smiling
+grimly. In the hall he stood for a moment in deep thought; then sagely
+shook his head several times at a stuffed fox and joined the party in
+the drawing room.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p164.png" alt="p164"><br>
+MR. CHARLES MAITLAND, AFTER THIS RENCONTRE, WENT DOWN<br>
+SMILING GRIMLY.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">The next day and the next passed with surprising quickness, as the
+latter days of a visit always do. In another forty-eight hours
+Maitland's would be over. Yet singularly enough his spirits did not
+rise, as he expected they would, at the near prospect of release. As
+he closed his bedroom door he had a vision of a pair of gray eyes
+smiling into his, and his palm seemed still to tingle with the touch
+of a soft, warm hand. He had kept his resolution well--small credit to
+him. Joan had seemed to avoid him since her unlucky speech upon the
+stairs; when she did speak to him her words, or more often her tone,
+stung him, and he smarted under a sense that she repaid with interest
+the small account in which he was inclined to hold the family
+generally. He resented her veiled contempt with strange bitterness, so
+that Agnes remarked with her usual candor that he and Joan never spoke
+to one another save to &quot;jangle.&quot; Afterward, walking on the lawn, some
+line about &quot;sweet bells jangled out of tune,&quot; ran in his head. The
+girl was a vixen, he said to himself, yet he tried to imagine how
+tender and glorious the great gray eyes, that he only knew as cold or
+saucy or defiant, could be when their depths were stirred by love. But
+his imagination failing to satisfy even himself, he went to put on his
+beagling dress in the worst of humors.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Possibly this made him a trifle reckless, for a promising run ended in
+ten minutes so far as he was concerned, in a sprained ankle. In
+jumping over a low fence into a lane his one foot came down sideways
+on a large stone upon which some pauper had scamped his work, and the
+mischief was done. The ominous little circle that hunting men know so
+well soon gathered round him, and he was helped to his feet, or rather
+foot. Then Agnes fetched the carriage, and he was driven back to
+Blore. Now, under the circumstances, what could Mrs. Quaritch, without
+an <i>arrière pensée</i> in the world, do but press him to stay until at
+least he could put the foot to the ground? Nothing. And what could he
+do but consent? At any rate, that is what he did.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">So he was established in the drawing room, a pretty, cozy room, and
+told himself it was a terrible nuisance. But, for a cripple confined
+to a couple of rooms, and surrounded by uncongenial people, without a
+single new magazine or a word of the world's gossip, he kept up his
+spirits wonderfully well. The ways of the three girls, and the calm
+approval of their sedate mother, could not fail to amuse him. Lying
+there and seeing and hearing many things which would not have come to
+his knowledge as a mere visitor, he found them not quite what he had
+judged them to be. He missed Joan one morning, and when with an
+unconscious fretfulness he inquired the reason, learned that she had
+been sitting up through the night with an old servant who was ill in
+the village. He said some word about it to her--very diffidently, for
+she took his compliments but ill at all times; now she flamed out at
+him with twice her ordinary bitterness and disdain, and punished him
+by taking herself out of the room at once.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Confound it!&quot; he cried, beating up his pillow fiercely, &quot;I believe
+the girl hates me.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Did he? and did she?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then he fell into a fit of musing such as men approaching thirty, who
+have lived in London, are very apt to indulge in. A club was not
+everything, be it as good as it might be. And life was not a lounge in
+Bond Street and Pall Mall, and nothing more. He thought how dull a
+week spent on his sofa in the Adelphi would have been, even with the
+newest magazines and the fifth and special <i>Globes</i>. In three days was
+his birthday--his twenty-ninth. And did the girl really hate him? It
+was a nice name, Joan; Dubs, umph! Dubs? Joan? And so he fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">How long he slept and whether he carried something of his dreams into
+his waking he could only guess, but he was aroused by a singular
+sensation--singular in that, though once familiar enough, it was now
+as strange to him as the sight of his dead mother's face. If his
+half-recalled senses did not deceive him, if he was not still dreaming
+of Joan, the warm touch of a pair of soft lips was yet lingering upon
+his forehead, the rustle of a dress very near his ear yet sounded
+crisply in it. And then someone glided from him, and he heard a hasty
+exclamation and opened his eyes dreamily. By the screen which
+concealed the door and sheltered him from its draughts was standing
+Joan, a-tiptoe, poised as in expectation, something between flight and
+amusement in her face, her attitude full of unconscious grace. He was
+still bewildered, and hardly returned from a dreamland even less
+conventional than Blore. Without as much surprise as if he had thought
+the matter out--it seemed then almost a natural thing--he said:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You shall have the gloves, Dubs, with pleasure.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">The girl's expression, as he spoke, changed to startled astonishment.
+She became crimson from her hair to her throat. She stepped toward
+him, checked herself, then made a quick movement with her hand as if
+about to say something, and finally covered her face with her hands
+and fled from the room. Before he was wide awake he was alone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">At first he smiled pleasantly at the fire, and patted Roy, Joan's
+terrier, who was lying beside him, curled up snugly in an angle of the
+sofa. Afterward he became grave and thoughtful, and finally shook his
+head very much as he had at the stuffed fox in the hall. And so he
+fidgeted till Roy, who was in a restful mood, retired to the
+hearthrug.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It would be hard to describe Joan's feelings that afternoon. She was
+proud, and had begun by resenting for all of them the ill-concealed
+contempt of Tom's London friend--this man of clubs and chit-chat. She
+was quite prepared to grant that he was different from them, but not
+superior. A kind of contempt for the veneer and polish which were his
+pride was natural to her, and she showed this, not rudely nor
+coquettishly, but with a hearty sincerity. Still, it is seldom a girl
+is unaware of admiration, and rare that she does not in secret respect
+self-assertion in the male creature. This man knew much too, and could
+tell it well, that was strange and new and delightful to the country
+maiden. If he had any heart at all--and since he was from London town
+she supposed he had not, though she granted him eyes and fine
+perceptions of the beautiful--she might have, almost, some day,
+promised herself to like him, had he been of her world--not reflecting
+that this very fact that he was out of her world formed the charm by
+which he evoked her interest. As things were, she more than doubted of
+his heart, and had no doubt at all that between their worlds lay a
+great, impassable, unbridgeable abyss.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But this afternoon the dislike, which had been fading day by day along
+with those feelings in another which had caused it, was revived in its
+old strength upon the matter of the kiss. Alone in her own room the
+thought made her turn crimson with vexation, and she stamped the floor
+with annoyance. He had made certain overtures to her--slender and
+meaningless in all probability. Still, if he could believe her capable
+after such looks and words as he had used--if after these he thought
+her capable of this, then indeed, were there no abyss at all, he could
+be nothing to her. Oh, it was too bad, too intolerable! She would
+never forgive him. How indeed could she be anything to him, if she
+could do such a thing, as dreadful, as unmaidenly to her as to the
+proudest beauty among his London friends. She told herself again that
+he was insufferable; and determined to slap Roy well, upon the first
+opportunity, if that mistaken little pearl of price would persist in
+favoring the stranger's sofa.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Until this was cleared up she felt her position the very worst in the
+world, and yet would not for a fortune give him an opportunity of
+freeing her from it. The very fact that he addressed her with, as it
+seemed, a greater show of respect, chafed her. Agnes, with a
+precocious cleverness, a penetration quite her own, kept herself and
+her dog, Jack o' Pack <i>alias</i> Johnny Sprawn, out of her sister's way,
+and teased her only before company.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But at last Maitland caught Miss Joan unprotected.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I hope that these are the right size, Miss Joan--they are six and a
+quarter,&quot; he said boldly, yet with, for a person of his disposition
+and breeding, a strange amount of shamefacedness; producing at the
+same time a pair of gloves, Courvoisier's best, many-buttoned, fit for
+a goddess.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I beg your pardon?&quot; she said, breathing quickly. But she guessed what
+he meant.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Let me get out of your debt.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Out of my debt, Mr. Maitland?&quot; taking the gloves mechanically.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Please. Did you think I had forgotten? I should find it hard to do
+that,&quot; he continued, encouraged and relieved by having got rid of the
+gloves, and inattentive at the moment to her face. Yet she looked long
+at him searchingly.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have found it hard to understand you,&quot; she said at last, with
+repressed anger in voice and eye; &quot;very hard, Mr. Maitland; but I
+think I do so now. Do you believe that it was I who kissed you
+when you were asleep on Wednesday afternoon? Can you think so? You
+force me to presume it is so. Your estimate of my modesty and of your
+own deserts must differ considerably. I had not the honor. Your
+gloves&quot;--and she dropped them upon the floor as if the touch
+contaminated her, the act humiliating the young gentleman at least as
+much as her words--&quot;you had better give to Agnes, if you wish to
+observe a silly custom. They are due to her, not to me. I thank you,
+Mr. Maitland, for having compelled me to give this pleasant
+explanation.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She turned away with a gesture of such queenly contempt that our poor
+hero--now most unheroic, and dumb as Carlyle would have had his, only
+with mortification and intense disgust at his stupidity--amazed that
+he could ever have thought meanly of this girl, &quot;who moved most
+certainly a goddess,&quot; had not a word to express his sorrow. A hero
+utterly crestfallen! But at the door she looked back, for some strange
+reason known perchance to female readers. The gloves were on the
+floor, just beyond his reach--poor, forlorn, sprawling objects, their
+fingers and palms spread as in ridiculous appeal. As for him, he was
+lying back on the sofa, in appearance so crushed and helpless that the
+woman's pity ever near her eyes moved her. She went slowly back, and
+picked up the gloves, and put them on the table where he could take
+them.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Miss Joan,&quot; he said, in a tone of persistence that claimed a hearing,
+and, starting far from the immediate trouble, was apt to arouse
+curiosity; &quot;we are always, as Agnes says, jangling--on my side, of
+course, is the false note. Can we not accord better, and be better
+friends?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not until we learn to know one another better,&quot; she said coldly,
+looking down at him, &quot;or become more discerning judges.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I was a fool, an idiot, an imbecile!&quot; She nodded gravely, still
+regarding him from a great height. &quot;I was mad to believe it possible!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think we may be better friends,&quot; she responded, smiling faintly,
+yet with sudden good humor. &quot;We are beginning to know--one another.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And ourselves,&quot; almost under his breath. Then, &quot;Miss Joan, will you
+ever forgive me? I shall never err again in that direction,&quot; he
+pleaded. &quot;I am humiliated in my own eyes until you tell me it is
+forgotten.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She nodded, and this time with her own frank smile.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Then she turned away and did leave the room, this time taking Roy with
+her. Her joyous laughter and his wild, excited barking proclaimed
+through the length and breadth of Blore that he was enjoying the rare
+indulgence of a good romp on the back lawn. It was Roy's day.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">And can a dog ever hope for a better day than that upon which his
+mistress becomes aware that she is also another's mistress: becomes
+aware that another is thinking of her and for her, nay, that she is
+the very center of that other's thoughts? What a charming, pleasantly
+bewildering discovery it is, this learning that for him when she is in
+the room it is full, and wanting her it is empty, be it never so
+crowded; that all beside, though they be witty or famous, or what they
+will, or can or would, are but lay figures, <i>umbræ</i>, shadow guests in
+his estimation. She learns with strange thrills, that in moments of
+meditation will flash to eye and cheek, that her slightest glance and
+every change of color, every tone and smile, are marked with jealous
+care; that pleasure which she does not share is tasteless, and a
+dinner of herbs, if she be but at a far corner, is a feast for
+princes. That is her dog's day, or it may be his dog's day. It is a
+pleasant discovery for a man, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>; but for a girl, a
+sweet, half fearful consciousness, the brightest part of love's young
+dream--even when the kindred soul is of another world, and an abyss,
+wide, impassable, unbridgeable lies between.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But these things come to sudden ends sometimes. Sprains, however
+severe, have an awkward knack of getting well. Swellings subside from
+inanition, and doctors insist for their credit's sake that the stick
+or ready arm be relinquished. Certainly a respite or a relapse--call
+it which you will--is not impossible with care, but it is brief. A
+singular shooting pain, not easily located with exactness, but
+somewhere in the neighborhood of the calf, has been found useful; and
+a strange rigidity of the tendon Achilles in certain positions may
+gain a day or two. But at last not even these will avail, and the
+doubly injured one must out and away from among the rose leaves. Twice
+Maitland fixed his departure for the following morning, and each time
+when pressed to stay gave way, after so feeble, so ludicrous a
+resistance, if it deserved the name, that Agnes scarcely concealed her
+grimace, and Joan looked another way. She did not add anything to the
+others' hospitable entreaties. If she guessed what made Maggie's
+good-night kiss so fervent and clinging, she made no sign and offered
+no opening.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">In the garden next morning, Maitland taxed her with her neutrality. It
+was wonderful how his sense of humor had become developed at Blore.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I thought that you did not need so much pressure as to necessitate
+more than four people's powers of persuasion being used,&quot; she
+answered, in the same playful spirit. &quot;And besides, now you are well
+enough, must you not leave?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Indeed, Miss Joan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And go back to your own way of life? It is a month since you saw the
+latest telegrams, and there is a French company at the Gaiety, I learn
+from the <i>Standard</i>. We have interests and duties, though you were so
+hard of belief about them, at Blore, but you have none.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No interests?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She shook her head. &quot;No duties, at any rate.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And so you think,&quot; he asked, his eyes fixed upon her changing
+features, &quot;that I should go back to my old way of life--of a century
+ago?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Of course you must!&quot; But she was not so rude as to tell him what a
+very foolish question this was. Still it was, was it not?</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;So I will, or to something like it, and yet very unlike. But not
+alone. Joan, will you come with me? If I have known you but a month, I
+have learned to love your truth and goodness and you, Joan, so that if
+I go away alone, to return to the old life would be bitterly
+impossible. You have spoiled that; you must make for me a fresh life
+in its place. Do you remember you told me that when we knew one
+another we might be better friends? I have come to know you better,
+but we cannot be friends. We must be something more, more even than
+lovers, Joan--husband and wife, if you can like me enough.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It was not an unmanly way of putting it, and he was in earnest. But so
+quiet, so self-restrained was his manner that it savored of coldness.
+The girl whose hand he held while he spoke had no such thought. Her
+face was turned from him. She was gazing over the wall across the
+paddock where Maggie's mare was peaceably and audibly feeding, and so
+at the Blore Ash on its mimic hill, every bough and drooping branchlet
+dark against the sunset sky; and this radiant in her eyes with a
+beauty its deepest glow had never held for her before. The sweetest
+joy was in her heart, and grief in her face. He had been worthy of
+himself and her love. While he spoke she told herself, not that some
+time she might love him, but that she had given him all her true heart
+already. And yet as he was worthy, so she must be worthy and do her
+part.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have done me a great honor,&quot; she said at last, drawing away her
+hand from his grasp, though she did not turn her face, &quot;but it cannot
+be, Mr. Maitland. I am very grateful to you--I am indeed, and sorry.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Why can it not be?&quot; he said shortly; startled, I am bound to say, and
+mortified.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Because of--of many things. One is that I should not make you happy,
+nor you me. I am not suited to your way of life. I am of the country,
+and I love to be free and unconstrained, while you are of the town.
+Oh, we should not get on at all! Perhaps you would not be ashamed of
+me as your wife, but you might be, and I could not endure the chance
+even of it. There,&quot; she added, with a laugh in which a woman's ear
+might have detected the suppression of a sob, &quot;is one sober reason
+where none can be needed.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Is that your only reason?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She was picking the mortar out of the wall. &quot;Oh, dear me, no! I have a
+hundred, but that is a sufficient one,&quot; she answered almost
+carelessly, flirting a scrap of lime from the wall with her
+forefinger.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And you have been playing with me all this time!&quot; cried he, obtusely
+enraged by her flippancy.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Not knowingly, not knowingly, indeed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Can you tell me that you were not aware that I loved you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well, I thought--the fact is, I thought that you were amusing
+yourself--in West End fashion.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Coquette!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Mr. Maitland!&quot; she cried vehemently, &quot;how dare you? There is proof,
+if any were needed, that I am right. You would not have dared to say
+that to any of your town acquaintances. I am no coquette. If I have
+given you pain, I am very sorry. And--I beg that we may part friends.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">She had begun fiercely, with all her old spirit. He turned away, and
+she ended with a sudden, anxious, pitiful lameness, that yet, so angry
+and dull of understanding was he, taught him nothing.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Friends!&quot; he cried impatiently. &quot;I told you that it was impossible.
+Oh, Joan, think again! Have I been too hasty? Have I given you no time
+to weigh it? Have I just offended you in some little thing? Then let
+me come to you again in three months, after I have been back among my
+old friends?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, don't do that, Mr. Maitland. It will be of no use and will but
+give us pain.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And yet I will come,&quot; he replied firmly, endeavoring by the very
+eager longing of his own gaze to draw from her fair, downcast face
+some sign of hope. &quot;I will come, if you forbid me a hundred times. And
+if you have been playing with me--true, I am in no mood for soft words
+now--it shall be your punishment to say me nay, again. I shall be
+here, Joan, to ask you in three months from to-day.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I cannot prevent you,&quot; she said. &quot;Believe me, I shall only have the
+same answer for you.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I shall come,&quot; he said doggedly, and looked at her with eyes
+reluctant to quit her drooping lashes lest they should miss some
+glance bidding his heart take courage. But none came, only the color
+fluttered uncertainly in her face. So he slowly turned away from her
+at last and walked across the garden, and out of sight by the gate
+into the road. He saw nothing of the long, dusty track, and straggling
+hedges bathed in the last glows of sunset. Those big gray eyes, so
+frank and true, came again and again between him and the prospect, and
+blinded his own with a hot mist of sorrow and anger. Ah, Blore, thou
+wast mightily avenged!</p>
+
+<p class="center" style="letter-spacing:20pt">* * * * *</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is a hot afternoon in August, laden with the hum of dozing life.
+The sun has driven the less energetic members of the Quaritch family
+into the cool gloom of the drawing room, where the open windows are
+shaded by the great cedar. Mrs. Quaritch, upon the sofa, is nodding
+over a book. Joan, in a low wicker seat, may be doing the same; while
+Agnes, pursuing a favorite employment upon the hearthrug, is now and
+again betrayed by a half stifled growl from one or other of the dogs
+as they rise and turn themselves reproachfully, and flop down again
+with a sigh in a cool place.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Agnes,&quot; cries her mother, upon some more distinct demonstration of
+misery being made, &quot;for goodness' sake leave the dogs alone. They have
+not had a moment's peace since lunch.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;A dog's life isn't peace, mamma,&quot; she answers, with the simple air of
+a discoverer of truth. But, nevertheless, she looks about for fresh
+worlds to conquer.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Even Mr. Maitland was better than this,&quot; she announces, after a long
+yawn of discontent, &quot;though he was dull enough, I wonder why he did
+not come in July. Do you know, Joan?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Oh, Agnes, do let us have a moment's peace for once! We are not
+dogs,&quot; cried Joan fretfully.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Wonder! she was always wondering. This very minute, while her eyes
+were on the page, it was in her mind. Through all those three months
+passing hour by hour and day by day, she could assure herself that
+when he had come and gone, she would be at rest again; things would be
+as before with her. Let him come and go! But when July arrived, and he
+did not, a sharper pain made itself felt. Bravely as she strove to
+beat it down, well as she might hide it from others, the certainty
+that it had needed no second repulse to balk his love sorely hurt her
+pride. Just her pride, she told herself; nothing else. That he had not
+stood the test he had himself proposed; that any unacknowledged
+faintest hope she might have cherished, deep down in her heart, that
+he might master her by noble persistence, must now be utterly
+quenched; these things of course had no bitterness for her through the
+hot August days; had nothing to do with the wearied look that
+sometimes dulled the gray eyes, nor with the sudden indifference or as
+sudden enthusiasms for lawn tennis and dogs and pigeons, that marked
+her daily moods.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Agnes' teasing, by putting her meditations into words, has disturbed
+her. She gets up and moves restlessly about, touching this thing and
+that, and at last leaves the room and stands in the hall, thinking.
+Here, too, it is dark and cool, and made to seem more so--the door
+into the garden being open--by the hot glare of sunshine falling upon
+the spotless doorstep. She glances at this listlessly. The house is
+still, the servants are at the back; the dogs all worn out by the
+heat. Then, as she hesitates, a slight crunching of footsteps upon the
+gravel comes to her ear, breaking the silence. A sudden black shadow
+falls upon the sunny step and tells of a visitor. Someone chases away
+his shadow, and steps upon the stone, and raises his gloved hand to
+the bell. Charles Maitland at last!</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Coming straight in from the sunshine he cannot see the swift welcome
+that springs to eye and cheek, a flash of light and color, quick to
+come and go. He is too much moved himself to mark how her hand shakes.
+He sees no difference in her. But she sees a change in him. She
+detects some subtle difference that eludes her attempt to define its
+nature and only fills her with a vague sense that this is not the
+Charles Maitland from whom she parted.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">It is a meeting she has pictured often, but not at all like this. He
+signs to her to take him into the dining room, the door of which
+stands open.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have come back, Miss Joan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Yes?&quot; she answers, sitting down with an attempt to still the tumult
+within, with such success that she brings herself for the moment
+nearly to the frame of mind in which they parted, and there is the
+same weary sufferance in her tone.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I have come back as I said I would. I have overstepped the three
+months, but I had a good reason for my delay. Indeed I have been in
+doubt whether I ought to see you again at all, only I could not bear
+you to think what you naturally would. I felt that I must see you,
+even if it cost us both pain.&quot; There is a new awkwardness in his tone
+and pose.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I told you that it was--quite unnecessary--and useless,&quot; she answers,
+with a strange tightening in her throat.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Then it can do you no harm,&quot; he assents quietly. &quot;I have come back
+not to repeat my petition, but to tell you why I do not and cannot.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think,&quot; she puts in coldly, &quot;that upon the whole you had better
+spare yourself the unpleasantness of explaining anything to me. Don't
+you think so? I asked you for no proof, and held out no hope. Why do
+you trouble me? Why have you come back?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;You have not changed!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">For the first time a ring of contempt in her voice takes the place of
+cold indifference. &quot;I do not change in three months, Mr. Maitland. But
+there! my mother will wish to see you, and so will Agnes, who is
+hankering after something to happen. They are in the drawing room.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;But, Miss Joan, grant me one moment! You have not heard my reasons.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Your reasons! Is it absolutely necessary?&quot; she asks, half fretfully,
+half scornfully; her uppermost thought an intense desire to be by
+herself in her own room, with the door safely locked.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think so, at any rate. Why, I see! By Jove! of course you must
+be thinking the worst of me now! Oh, no! if you could not love me,
+Joan--pray pardon me, I had no right to call you by your name--you
+need not despise me. I cannot again ask you to be my wife, because,&quot;
+he laughs uneasily, &quot;fortune has put it out of my power to take a
+wife. My trustee has made ducks and drakes of my property, or rather
+bulls and bears. I have but a trifle left to begin the world upon, and
+far too little to marry upon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I read of it in the papers. I saw that a Mr. Maitland was the chief
+sufferer, but I did not connect him with you,&quot; she says, in a low
+voice.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;No, of course not. How should you?&quot; he answers lightly. But
+nevertheless her coldness is dreadful to him. He had thought she would
+express some sympathy. And gayly as he talks of it, he feels something
+of the importance of a ruined man and something of his claim to pity.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;And what are you going to do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Do? We've arranged all that. They say there is a living to be made at
+the Bar in New Zealand, if one does not object to riding boots and
+spurs as part of the professional costume. Of course it will be a
+different sort of life, and Agnes' favorite patent leathers will
+be left behind in every sense. This would have been a bad blow to
+me&quot;--there is a slight catch in his voice, and he gets up, and looks
+out of one of the windows with his back to her--&quot;now I have learned
+from you that life should not be all lounging round the table and
+looking over other people's cards. It has been a sharp lesson, but
+very opportune as things have turned out. I am ready to take a hand
+myself now--even without a partner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">He does not at once turn round. He had not fancied she would take it
+like this, and he listens for a word to tell him that at any rate she
+is sorry--is grieved as for a stranger. Then he feels a sudden light,
+timid touch upon his arm. Joan is standing quite close to him, and
+does not move or take away her hand as he turns. Only she looks down
+at the floor when she speaks:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I think I should be better than--than dummy--if you will take me to
+New Zealand.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">Half laughing, half crying, and wholly confused, she looks up into his
+astonished face with eyes so brimful of love and tenderness that they
+tell all her story. For just an instant his eyes meet hers. Then, with
+a smothered exclamation, he draws her to him--and--in fact smothers
+the exclamation.</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;I am so glad you've lost your money,&quot; she sobs, hiding her face,
+as soon as she can, upon his shoulder. &quot;I should not have done at
+all--for you--in London, Charley.&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">There let us leave her. But no, another is less merciful. Neither of
+them hears the door open or sees Agnes' face appear at it. But she
+both sees and hears, and says very distinctly and clearly:</p>
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Well!&quot;</p>
+
+<p class="normal">But even Agnes is happy and satisfied. Something <i>has</i> happened.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2><a name="div1_06" href="#div1Ref_06">THE FATAL LETTER.</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 someone 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 around 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 man servant 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
+spake, 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-paneled, 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 mustaches 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 indeed have been 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 toward 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 you 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 clew 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 package.</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 toward 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 eying 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 whisky you
+gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some with hot water
+and a lemon, George? The servants are all at the theater--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 of 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 deviltry 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 toward 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 oversized
+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 toward 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 anyone 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
+whisky 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 tomorrow 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 mustache--I
+walked out of the room, so peaceful, so cozy, 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'
+idea of bringing you in was a splendid one, and I am immensely obliged
+to you.&quot;</p>
+
+
+<p class="center"><img src="images/p211.png" alt="p211"><br>
+&quot;YOU ARE FORGETTING THE PAPERS,&quot; HE REMINDED ME.</p>
+
+
+<p class="normal">&quot;Don't mention it,&quot; I answered stiffly, proceeding with my
+preparations for going out as if he had not been 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 toward 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 tonight, 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 nicking 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 that 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, eying 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
+Northwestern 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 Northwestern
+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 acknowledgment 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, businesslike, 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' cognizance, to get
+possession of the packet by drugging my father's whisky. Barnes'
+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 inclosed. 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, resealed 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>
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Stratagem and Other Stories, by 
+Stanley J. Weyman
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Stratagem and Other Stories, 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: The King's Stratagem and Other Stories
+
+Author: Stanley J. Weyman
+
+Release Date: March 20, 2012 [EBook #39217]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KING'S STRATAGEM, OTHER STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the
+Web Archive (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+no gutcheck/jeebies/gutspell
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+  1. Page scan source:
+
+     http://www.archive.org/details/kingsstratagema00weymgoog
+     (Harvard University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "HE WAS ALONE WITH HIS TRIUMPH."]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                                THE
+
+
+                          KING'S STRATAGEM
+
+
+                        _AND OTHER STORIES_
+
+
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+
+                         STANLEY J. WEYMAN
+
+
+     _Author of "A Gentleman of France," "Under the Red Robe,"
+
+                    "My Lady Rotha," etc., etc_.
+
+
+
+
+                             *   *   *
+
+
+
+
+                              NEW YORK
+
+                       A. E. CLUETT & COMPANY
+
+                          70 Fifth Avenue
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          Copyright, 1891,
+
+
+                                 BY
+
+
+                      A. E. CLUETT & COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                             CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+  The King's Stratagem,
+
+
+  The Body-birds Of Court,
+
+
+  In Cupid's Toils,
+
+
+  The Drift Of Fate,
+
+
+  A Blore Manor Episode,
+
+
+  The Fatal Letter,
+
+
+
+
+
+                       THE KING'S STRATAGEM.
+
+
+In the days when Henry IV. of France was King of Navarre only, and in
+that little kingdom of hills and woods which occupies the southwest
+corner of the larger country, was with difficulty supporting the
+Huguenot cause against the French court and the Catholic League--in
+the days when every isolated castle, from the Garonne to the Pyrenees,
+was a bone of contention between the young king and the crafty
+queen-mother, Catherine de Medicis, a conference between these notable
+personages took place in the picturesque town of La Reole.
+
+La Reole still rises gray, time-worn, and half-ruined on a lofty cliff
+above the broad green waters of the Garonne, forty odd miles from
+Bordeaux. But it is a small place now. In the days of which we are
+speaking, however, it was important, strongly fortified, and guarded
+by a castle which looked down on a thousand red-tiled roofs, rising in
+terraces from the river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns it
+was for the time as gay as Paris itself, Catherine having brought with
+her a bevy of fair maids of honor, in the effect of whose charms she
+perhaps put as much trust as in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful
+appearance of the town was delusive, for even while every other house
+in it rang with music and silvery laughter, each party was ready to
+fly to arms without warning, if it saw that any advantage was to be
+gained thereby.
+
+On an evening shortly before the end of the conference two men sat at
+play in a room, the deep-embrasured window of which looked down from a
+considerable height upon the river. The hour was late, and the town
+silent. Outside, the moonlight fell bright and pure on sleeping fields
+and long, straight lines of poplars. Within the room a silver lamp
+suspended from the ceiling threw light upon the table, leaving the
+farther parts of the room in shadow. The walls were hung with faded
+tapestry. On the low bedstead in one corner lay a handsome cloak, a
+sword, and one of the clumsy pistols of the period. Across a chair lay
+another cloak and sword, and on the window seat, beside a pair of
+saddlebags, were strewn half a dozen such trifles as soldiers carried
+from camp to camp--a silver comfit-box, a jeweled dagger, a mask, and
+velvet cap.
+
+The faces of the players, as they bent over the dice, were in shadow.
+One--a slight, dark man of middle height, with a weak chin, and a
+mouth as weak, but shaded by a dark mustache--seemed, from the
+occasional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily. Yet his
+opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a sword-cut across his left
+temple, and that swaggering air which has at all times marked the
+professional soldier, showed no signs of triumph or elation. On the
+contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only a formal word or two,
+there was a gleam of anxiety and suppressed excitement in his eyes,
+and more than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if to judge
+of his feelings or learn whether the time had come for some experiment
+which he meditated. But for this, an observer looking in through the
+window would have taken the two for only one more instance of the hawk
+and pigeon.
+
+At last the younger player threw down the caster, with a groan.
+
+"You have the luck of the Evil One," he said bitterly. "How much is
+that?"
+
+"Two thousand crowns," replied the other without emotion. "You will
+play no more?"
+
+"No! I wish to Heaven I had never played at all!" was the answer. As
+he spoke the loser rose, and going to the window stood looking moodily
+out.
+
+For a few moments the elder man remained seated, gazing at him
+furtively, but at length he too rose, and, stepping softly to his
+companion, touched him on the shoulder. "Your pardon a moment, M. le
+Vicomte," he said. "Am I right in concluding that the loss of this sum
+will inconvenience you?"
+
+"A thousand fiends!" exclaimed the young vicomte, turning on him
+wrathfully. "Is there any man whom the loss of two thousand crowns
+would not inconvenience? As for me----"
+
+"For you," continued the other, smoothly filling up the pause, "shall
+I be wrong in saying that it means something like ruin?"
+
+"Well, sir, and if it does?" the young man retorted, drawing himself
+up haughtily, his cheek a shade paler with passion. "Depend upon it
+you shall be paid. Do not be afraid of that!"
+
+"Gently, gently, my friend," the winner answered, his patience in
+strong contrast with the other's violence. "I had no intention of
+insulting you, believe me. Those who play with the Vicomte de
+Lanthenon are not wont to doubt his honor. I spoke only in your own
+interest. It has occurred to me, vicomte, that the matter might be
+arranged at less cost to yourself."
+
+"How?" was the curt question.
+
+"May I speak freely?" The vicomte shrugged his shoulders, and the
+other, taking silence for consent, proceeded: "You, vicomte, are
+Governor of Lusigny for the King of Navarre; I, of Creance, for the
+King of France. Our towns lie only three leagues apart. Could I, by
+any chance, say on one of these fine nights, become master of Lusigny,
+it would be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do you
+understand?"
+
+"No," the young man answered slowly, "I do not."
+
+"Think over what I have said, then," was the brief answer.
+
+For a full minute there was silence in the room. The vicomte gazed out
+of the window with knitted brows and compressed lips, while his
+companion, sitting down, leaned back in his chair, with an air of
+affected carelessness. Outside, the rattle of arms and hum of voices
+told that the watch were passing through the street. The church bell
+struck one. Suddenly the vicomte burst into a hoarse laugh, and,
+turning, snatched up his cloak and sword. "The trap was very well
+laid, M. le Capitaine," he said almost jovially; "but I am still sober
+enough to take care of myself--and of Lusigny. I wish you good-night.
+You shall have your money, never fear."
+
+"Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly," the captain answered, as
+he rose and moved toward the door to open it for his guest. His hand
+was already on the latch when he paused. "Look here," he said, "what
+do you say to this, then? I will stake the two thousand crowns you
+have lost to me, and another thousand besides against your town. Fool!
+no one can hear us. If you win, you go off a free man with my
+thousand. If you lose, you put me in possession one of these fine
+nights. What do you say to that? A single throw to decide."
+
+The young man's pale face reddened. He turned, and his eyes sought the
+table and the dice irresolutely. The temptation indeed came at an
+unfortunate moment, when the excitement of play had given way to
+depression, and he saw nothing before him outside the door, on which
+his hand was laid, but the cold reality of ruin. The temptation to
+return, and by a single throw set himself right with the world was too
+much for him. Slowly he came back to the table. "Confound you!" he
+said irritably. "I think you are the devil himself, captain."
+
+"Don't talk child's talk!" said the other coldly, drawing back as his
+victim advanced. "If you do not like the offer you need not take it."
+
+But the young man's fingers had already closed on the dice. Picking
+them up he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the table, his eyes
+gleaming with the play-fever. "If I win?" he said doubtfully.
+
+"You carry away a thousand crowns," answered the captain quietly. "If
+you lose you contrive to leave one of the gates of Lusigny open for me
+before next full moon. That is all."
+
+"And what if I lose, and not pay the forfeit?" asked the vicomte,
+laughing weakly.
+
+"I trust to your honor," said the captain. And, strange as it may
+seem, he knew his man. The young noble of the day might betray his
+cause and his trust, but the debt of honor incurred at play was
+binding on him.
+
+"Well," said the vicomte, "I agree. Who is to throw first?"
+
+"As you will," replied the captain, masking under an appearance of
+indifference a real excitement which darkened his cheek, and caused
+the pulse in the old wound on his face to beat furiously.
+
+"Then do you go first," said the vicomte.
+
+"With your permission," assented the captain. And taking the dice up
+in the caster he shook them with a practiced hand, and dropped them on
+the board. The throw was seven.
+
+The vicomte took up the caster and, as he tossed the dice into it,
+glanced at the window. The moonlight shining athwart it fell in
+silvery sheen on a few feet of the floor. With the light something of
+the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and appealed to
+him. For a few seconds he hesitated. He even made as if he would have
+replaced the box on the table. But the good instinct failed. It was
+too late, and with a muttered word, which his dry lips refused to
+articulate, he threw the dice. Seven!
+
+Neither of the men spoke, but the captain rattled the cubes, and again
+flung them on the table, this time with a slight air of bravado. They
+rolled one over the other and lay still. Seven again.
+
+The young vicomte's brow was damp, and his face pale and drawn. He
+forced a quavering laugh, and with an unsteady hand took his turn. The
+dice fell far apart, and lay where they fell. Six!
+
+The winner nodded gravely. "The luck is still with me," he said,
+keeping his eyes on the table that the light of triumph which had
+suddenly leapt into them might not be seen. "When do you go back to
+your command, vicomte?"
+
+The unhappy man stood like one stunned, gazing at the two little cubes
+which had cost him so dearly. "The day after to-morrow," he muttered
+hoarsely, striving to collect himself.
+
+"Then we shall say the following evening?" asked the captain.
+
+"Very well."
+
+"We quite understand one another," continued the winner, eyeing his
+man watchfully, and speaking with more urgency. "I may depend on you,
+M. le Vicomte, I presume?"
+
+"The Lanthenons have never been wanting to their word," the young
+nobleman answered, stung into sudden haughtiness. "If I live I will
+put Lusigny into your hands, M. le Captaine. Afterward I will do my
+best to recover it--in another way."
+
+"I shall be entirely at your disposal," replied the captain, bowing
+lightly. And in a moment he was alone--alone with his triumph, his
+ambition, his hopes for the future--alone with the greatness to which
+his capture of Lusigny was to be the first step, and which he should
+enjoy not a whit the less because as yet fortune had dealt out to him
+more blows than caresses, and he was still at forty, after a score of
+years of roughest service, the governor of a paltry country town.
+
+Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets the vicomte was
+making his way to his lodgings in a state of despair and unhappiness
+most difficult to describe. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he looked
+back and saw how he had thrown for all and lost all, how he had saved
+the dregs of his fortune at the expense of his loyalty, how he had
+seen a way of escape and lost it forever! No wonder that as he trudged
+alone through the mud and darkness of the sleeping town his breath
+came quickly and his chest heaved, and he looked from side to side as
+a hunted animal might, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could only have
+retraced the last three hours!
+
+Worn out and exhausted, he entered his lodging, and, securing the door
+behind him, stumbled up the stone stairs and entered his room. The
+impulse to confide his misfortunes to someone was so strong upon him
+that he was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in a
+chair before the dying embers of a wood fire. In those days a
+man's natural confidant was his valet, the follower, half-friend,
+half-servant, who had been born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at
+the foot of his bed, who carried his _billets-doux_ and held his cloak
+at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and nursed him in
+illness, who not seldom advised him in the choice of a wife, and lied
+in support of his suit.
+
+The young vicomte flung his cloak over a chair. "Get up, you rascal!"
+he cried impatiently. "You pig, you dog!" he continued, with
+increasing anger. "Sleeping there as though your master were not
+ruined by that scoundrel of a Breton! Bah!" he added, gazing bitterly
+at his follower, "you are of the _canaille_, and have neither honor to
+lose nor a town to betray!"
+
+The sleeping man moved In his chair and half turned. The vicomte, his
+patience exhausted, snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on
+the ground. "Will you listen?" he said. "Or go, if you choose look for
+another master. I am ruined! Do you hear? Ruined, Gil! I have lost
+all--money, land, Lusigny itself, at the dice!"
+
+The man, aroused at last, stooped with a lazy movement, and picking up
+his hat dusted it with his hand, and rose with a yawn to his feet.
+
+"I am afraid, vicomte," he said, his tones, quiet as they were,
+sounding like thunder in the vicomte's astonished and bewildered ears,
+"I am afraid that if you have lost Lusigny, you have lost something
+which was not yours to lose!"
+
+As he spoke he struck the embers with his foot, and the fire, blazing
+up, shone on his face. The vicomte saw, with unutterable confusion and
+dismay, that the man before him was not Gil at all, but the last
+person in the world to whom he should have betrayed himself. The
+astute smiling eyes, the aquiline nose, the high forehead, and
+projecting chin, which the short beard and mustache scarcely
+concealed, were only too well known to him. He stepped back with a cry
+of horror. "Sire!" he said, and then his tongue failed him. He stood
+silent, pale, convicted, his chin on his breast. The man to whom he
+had confessed his treachery was the master whom he had conspired to
+betray.
+
+"I had suspected something of this," Henry of Navarre continued, after
+a pause, a tinge of irony in his tone. "Rosny told me that that old
+fox, the Captain of Creance, was affecting your company a good deal,
+M. le Vicomte, and I find that, as usual, his suspicions were well
+founded. What with a gentleman who shall be nameless, who has bartered
+a ford and a castle for the favor of Mlle. de Luynes, and yourself, I
+am blest with some faithful followers! For shame!" he continued,
+seating himself with dignity, "have you nothing to say for yourself?"
+
+The young noble stood with his head bowed, his face white. This was
+ruin, indeed, absolutely irremediable. "Sire," he said at last, "your
+Majesty has a right to my life, not to my honor."
+
+"Your honor!" quoth Henry, biting contempt in his tone.
+
+The young man started, and for a second his cheek flamed under the
+well-deserved reproach; but he recovered himself. "My debt to your
+Majesty," he said, "I am willing to pay."
+
+"Since pay you must," Henry muttered softly.
+
+"But I claim to pay also my debt to the Captain of Creance."
+
+"Oh," the king answered. "So you would have me take your worthless
+life, and give up Lusigny?"
+
+"I am in your hands, sire."
+
+"Pish, sir!" Henry replied in angry astonishment. "You talk like a
+child. Such an offer, M. de Lanthenon, is folly, and you know it. Now
+listen to me. It was lucky for you that I came in to-night, intending
+to question you. Your madness is known to me only, and I am willing to
+overlook it. Do you hear? Cheer up, therefore, and be a man. You are
+young; I forgive you. This shall be between you and me only," the
+young prince continued, his eyes softening as the other's head
+drooped, "and you need think no more of it until the day when I shall
+say to you, 'Now, M. de Lanthenon, for France and for Henry, strike!'"
+
+He rose as the last word passed his lips, and held out his hand. The
+vicomte fell on one knee, and kissed it reverently, then sprang to his
+feet again. "Sire," he said, standing erect, his eyes shining, "you
+have punished me heavily, more heavily than was needful. There is only
+one way in which I can show my gratitude, and that is by ridding you
+of a servant who can never again look your enemies in the face."
+
+"What new folly is this?" said Henry sternly. "Do you not understand
+that I have forgiven you?"
+
+"Therefore I cannot give up Lusigny, and I must acquit myself of my
+debt to the Captain of Creance in the only way which remains," replied
+the young man, firmly. "Death is not so hard that I would not meet it
+twice over rather than again betray my trust."
+
+"This is midsummer madness!" said the king hotly.
+
+"Possibly," replied the vicomte, without emotion; "yet of a kind to
+which your Majesty is not altogether a stranger."
+
+The words appealed strongly to that love of the chivalrous which
+formed part of the king's nature, and was one cause alike of his
+weakness and his strength, which in its more extravagant flights gave
+opportunity after opportunity to his enemies, in its nobler and saner
+expressions won victories which all his astuteness and diplomacy could
+not have compassed. He stood looking with half-hidden admiration at
+the man whom two minutes before he had despised.
+
+"I think you are in jest," he said presently.
+
+"No, sire," the young man answered gravely. "In my country they have a
+proverb about us. 'The Lanthenons,' say they, 'have ever been bad
+players, but good payers.' I will not be the first to be worse than my
+name!"
+
+He spoke with so quiet a determination that the king was staggered,
+and for a minute or two paced the room in silence, inwardly reviling
+the generous obstinacy of his weak-kneed supporter, yet unable to
+withhold his admiration from it. At length he stopped, with a low,
+abrupt exclamation.
+
+"Wait!" he cried. "I have it! _Ventre Saint Gris_, man, I have it!"
+His eyes sparkled, and, with a gentle laugh, he hit the table a
+sounding blow. "Ha! ha! I have it!" he repeated joyously.
+
+The young noble gazed at him in surprise, half sullen, half
+incredulous. But when Henry, in low, rapid tones, had expounded his
+plan, the vicomte's face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang into
+it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole aspect softened. In a
+moment he was on his knee, mumbling the king's hand, his eyes full of
+joy and gratitude. After that the two talked long, the murmur of their
+voices broken more than once by the ripple of low laughter. When they
+at length separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the folds of his
+cloak, had stolen away to his lodgings, where, no doubt, more than one
+watcher was awaiting him with a mind full of anxious fears, the
+vicomte threw open his window and looked out on the night. The moon
+had set, but the stars still shone peacefully in the dark canopy
+above. He remembered on a sudden, his throat choking with silent
+repressed emotion, that he was looking toward his home--the stiff gray
+pile among the beech woods of Navarre which had been in his family
+since the days of St. Louis, and which he had so lightly risked. And
+he registered a vow in his heart that of all Henry's servants he would
+henceforth be the most faithful.
+
+Meanwhile the Captain of Creance was enjoying the sweets of coming
+triumph. He did not look out into the night, it is true, but pacing up
+and down the room he planned and calculated, considering how he might
+make the most of his success. He was still comparatively young. He had
+years of strength before him. He would rise. He would not easily be
+satisfied. The times were troubled, opportunities many, fools many;
+bold men with brains and hands few.
+
+At the same time he knew that he could be sure of nothing until
+Lusigny was actually his, and he spent the next few days in
+considerable suspense. But no hitch occurred. The vicomte made the
+necessary communications to him; and men in his own pay informed him
+of dispositions ordered by the governor of Lusigny which left him in
+no doubt that the loser intended to pay his debt.
+
+It was, therefore, with a heart already gay with anticipation that the
+Captain rode out of Creance two hours before midnight on an evening
+eight days later. The night was dark, but he knew the road well. He
+had with him a powerful force, composed in part of thirty of his own
+garrison, bold, hardy fellows, and in part of six score horsemen, lent
+him by the governor of Montauban. As the vicomte had undertaken to
+withdraw, under some pretense or other, one-half of his command, and
+to have one of the gates opened by a trusty hand, the captain trotted
+along in excellent spirits, and stopped to scan with approval the dark
+line of his troopers as they plodded past him, the jingle of their
+swords and corselets ringing sweet music in his ears. He looked for an
+easy victory; but it was not any slight misadventure that would rob
+him of his prey. As his company wound on by the riverside, their
+accouterments reflected in the stream, or passed into the black shadow
+of the olive grove which stands a mile to the east of Lusigny, he felt
+little doubt of the success of his enterprise.
+
+Treachery apart, that is; and of treachery there was no sign. The
+troopers had scarcely halted under the last clump of trees before a
+figure detached itself from one of the largest trunks, and advanced to
+their leader's rein. The captain saw with surprise that it was the
+vicomte himself. For a second he thought something had gone wrong, but
+the young noble's first words reassured him. "It is all right," M. de
+Lanthenon whispered, as the captain bent down to him. "I have kept my
+word, and I think that there will be no resistance. The planks for
+crossing the moat lie opposite the gate. Knock thrice at the latter,
+and it will be opened. There are not fifty armed men in the place."
+
+"Good!" the captain answered, in the same cautious tone. "But you----"
+
+"I am believed, to be elsewhere, and must be gone. I have far to ride
+tonight. Farewell."
+
+"Till we meet again," the captain answered; and with that his ally
+glided away and was lost in the darkness. A cautious word set the
+troop again in motion, and a very few minutes saw them standing on
+the edge of the moat, the outline of the gateway tower looming above
+them, a shade darker than the wrack of clouds which overhead raced
+silently across the sky. A moment of suspense, while one and another
+shivered--for there is that in a night attack which touches the nerves
+of the stoutest--and the planks were found, and as quietly as possible
+laid across the moat. This was so successfully done that it evoked no
+challenge, and the captain crossing quickly with some picked men stood
+almost in the twinkling of an eye under the shadow of the gateway.
+Still no sound was heard save the hurried breathing of those at his
+elbow or the stealthy tread of others crossing. Cautiously he knocked
+three times and waited. The third rap had scarcely sounded, however,
+before the gate rolled silently open, and he sprang in, followed by
+his men.
+
+So far so good. A glance at the empty street and the porter's pale
+face told him at once that the vicomte had kept his word. But he was
+too old a soldier to take anything for granted, and forming up his men
+as quickly as they entered, he allowed no one to advance until all
+were inside, and then, his trumpet sounding a wild note of defiance,
+his force sprang forward in two compact bodies and in a moment the
+town awoke to find itself in the hands of the enemy.
+
+As the vicomte had promised, there was no resistance. In the small
+keep a score of men did indeed run to arms, but only to lay them down
+without striking a blow when they became aware of the force opposed to
+them. Their leader, sullenly acquiescing, gave up his sword and the
+keys of the town to the victorious captain, who, as he sat his horse
+in the middle of the market-place, giving his orders and sending off
+riders with the news, already saw himself in fancy governor of a
+province and Knight of the Holy Ghost.
+
+As the red light of the torches fell on steel caps and polished
+hauberks, on the serried ranks of pikemen, and the circle of
+white-faced townsmen, the picturesque old square looked doubly
+picturesque. Every five minutes, with a clatter of iron on the rough
+pavement and a shower of sparks, a horseman sprang away to tell the
+news at Montauban or Cahors; and every time that this occurred, the
+captain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power and
+triumph.
+
+Suddenly the low murmur of voices was broken by a new sound, the
+hurried clang of hoofs, not departing but arriving. There was
+something in the noise which made the captain prick his ears, and
+secured for the messenger a speedy passage through the crowd. Even at
+the last the man did not spare his horse, but spurring to the
+captain's side, then and then only sprang to the ground. His face was
+pale, his eyes were bloodshot. His right arm was bound up in
+bloodstained cloths. With an oath of amazement, the captain recognized
+the officer whom he had left in charge of Creance and thundered out,
+"What is it?"
+
+
+[Illustration: "THEY HAVE GOT CREANCE!"]
+
+
+"They have got Creance!" the man gasped, reeling as he spoke. "They
+have got Creance!"
+
+"Who?" the captain shrieked, his face purple with rage.
+
+"The little man of Bearn! He assaulted it five hundred strong an hour
+after you left, and had the gate down before we could fire a dozen
+shots. We did what we could, but we were but one to seven. I swear,
+captain, we did all we could. Look at this!"
+
+Almost black in the face, the captain swore another frightful oath.
+It was not only that he saw governorship and honors vanish like
+will-o'-the-wisps, but that he saw even more quickly that he had made
+himself the laughing-stock of a kingdom! And he had. To this day among
+the stories which the southern French love to tell of the prowess and
+astuteness of the great Henry, there is none more frequently told, or
+more frequently laughed over, than that of the famous exchange of
+Creance for Lusigny.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE BODY-BIRDS OF
+                                COURT.
+
+
+"Eighty-eight when he died! That is a great age," I said.
+
+"Yes indeed. But he was a very clever man, was Robert Evans, Court,
+and brewed good beer," my companion answered. "His home-brewed was
+known, I am certain, for more than ten miles. You will have heard of
+his body-birds, sir?"
+
+"His body-birds?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, to be sure. Robert Evans Court's body-birds!" And he looked at
+me, quick to suspect that his English was deficient. He had learned it
+in part from books; and hence the curious mixture I presently noted of
+Welsh idioms and formal English phrases. It was his light trap in
+which I was being helped on my journey, and his genial chat which was
+lightening that journey; which lay through a part of Carnarvonshire
+usually traversed only by wool merchants and cattle dealers--a country
+of upland farms swept by the sea breezes, where English is not spoken
+even now by one person in a hundred, and even at inns and post-offices
+you get only "_Dim Sassenach_," for your answer. "Do you not say," he
+went on, "body-birds in English? Oh, but to be sure, it is in the
+Bible!" with a sudden recovery of his self-esteem.
+
+"To be sure!" I replied hurriedly. "Of course it is! But as to Mr.
+Robert Evans, cannot you tell me the story?"
+
+"I'll be bound there is no man in North or South Wales, or
+Carnarvonshire, that could tell it better, for Gwen Madoc, of whom you
+shall hear presently, was aunt to me. You see Robert Evans"--and my
+friend settled himself in his seat and prepared to go slowly up the
+long, steep hill of Rhiw which rose before us--"Robert Evans lived in
+an old house called Court, near the sea, very windy and lonesome. He
+was a warm man. He had Court from his father, and he had mortgages,
+and as many as four lawsuits. But he was unlucky in his family. He had
+years back three sons who helped on the farm, or at times fished; for
+there is a cove at Court, and good boats. Of these sons only one was
+married--to a Scotchwoman from Bristol, I have heard, who had had a
+husband before, a merchant captain, and she brought with her to Court
+a daughter, Peggy, ready-made as we say. Well, of those three fine
+men, there was not one left in a year. They were out fishing in a boat
+together, and Evan--that was the married one--was steering as they
+came into the cove on a spring tide running very high with a south
+wind. He steered a little to one side--not more than six inches, upon
+my honor--and pah! in an hour their bodies were thrown up on Robert
+Evans' land just like bits of seaweed. But that was not all. Evan's
+wife was on the beach at the time, so near she could have thrown a
+stone into the boat. They do say that before she was pining away at
+Court--it was bleak and lonesome and cold, in the winters, and she had
+been used to live in the towns. But, however, she never held up her
+head after Evan was drowned. She took to her bed, and died in the
+short month. And then of all at Court there were left only Robert
+Evans and the child Peggy."
+
+"How old was she then?" I asked. He had paused, and was looking
+thoughtfully before, as striving, it would seem, to make the situation
+quite clear to himself.
+
+"She was twelve, and the old man eighty and more. She was in no way
+related to him, you will remember, but he had her stop, and let her
+want for nothing that did not cost money. He was very careful of
+money, as was right. It was that made him the man he was. But there
+were some who would have given money to be rid of her. Year in and
+year out they never let the old man rest but that he should send her
+to service at least--though her father had been the captain of a big
+ship; and if Robert Evans had not been a stiff man of his years, they
+would have had their will."
+
+"But who----"
+
+By a gesture he stopped the words on my lips as there rose
+mysteriously out of the silence about us a sound of wings, a chorus
+of shrill cries. A hundred white forms swept overhead, and fell a
+white cluster about something in a distant field. They were sea gulls.
+"Just those same!" he said proudly, jerking his whip in their
+direction--"body-birds. When the news that Robert Evans' sons were
+drowned got about, there was a pretty uprising in Carnarvonshire.
+There seemed to be Evanses where there had never been Evanses before.
+As many as twenty walked in the funeral, and you may be sure that
+afterward they did not leave the old man to himself. The Llewellyn
+Evanses were foremost. They had had a lawsuit with Court, but made it
+up now. Besides there were Mr. and Mrs. Evan Bevan, and the three
+Evanses of Nant, and Owen Evans, and the Evanses of Sarn, and many
+more, who were all forward to visit Court and be friendly with old
+Gwen Madoc, Robert's housekeeper. I am told they could look black at
+one another, but in this they were all in one tale, that the foreign
+child should be sent away; and at times one and another would give her
+a rough word."
+
+"She must have had a bad time," I observed.
+
+"You may say that. But she stayed, and it was wonderful how strong and
+handsome she grew up, where her mother had just pined away. The
+sailors said it was her love of the sea; and I have heard that people
+who live inland about here come to think of nothing but the land--it
+is certain that they are good at a bargain--while the fishermen who
+live with a great space before them are finer men, I have heard, in
+their minds as well as their bodies; and Peggy _bach_ grew up like
+them, free and open and upstanding, though she lived inland. When she
+was in trouble she would run down to the sea, where the salt spray
+washed away her tears and the wind blew her hair, that was of the
+color of seaweed, into a tangle. She was never so happy as when she
+was climbing the rocks among the sea gulls, or else sitting with her
+books at the cove where the farm people would not go for fear of
+hearing the church bells that bring bad luck. Books? Oh, yes, indeed!
+next to the sea she was fond of books. There were many volumes, I have
+been told, that were her mother's; then Robert Evans, though he was a
+Wesleyan, went to church because there was no Wesleyan chapel, the
+Calvinistic Methodists being in strength about here; and the minister
+lent her many English books and befriended her. And I have heard that
+once, when the Llewellyn Evanses had been about the girl, he spoke to
+them so that they were afraid to drive down Rhiw hill that night, but
+led the horse; and I think it may be true, for they were Calvinists.
+Still, he was a good man, and I know that many Calvinists walked in
+his funeral."
+
+"_Requiescat in pace_," said I.
+
+"Eh! Well, I don't know how that may be," he replied, "but you must
+understand that all this time the Llewellyn Evanses, and the Evanses
+of Nant, and the others would be over at Court once or twice a week,
+so that all the neighborhood called them Robert Evans' body-birds; and
+when they were there Peggy McNeill would be having an ill time, since
+even the old man would be hard to her; and more so as he grew older.
+But, however, there was a better time coming, or so it seemed at
+first, the beginning of which was through Peter Rees' lobster pots. He
+was a great friend of hers. She would go out with him to take up his
+pots--oh! it might be two or three times a week. So it happened one
+day, when they had pushed off from the beach, and Peggy was steering,
+that old Rees stopped rowing on a sudden.
+
+"'Why don't you go on, Peter?' said Peggy.
+
+"'Bide a bit,' said old Rees.
+
+"'What have you forgotten?' said she, looking about in the bottom of
+the boat. For she knew what he used very well.
+
+"'Nought,' said he. But all the same he began to put the boat about in
+a stupid fashion, afraid of offending her, and yet loath to lose a
+shilling. And so, when Peggy looked up, what should she see but a
+gentleman--whom Rees had perceived, you will understand--stepping into
+the boat, and Peter Rees not daring to look her in the face because he
+knew well that she would never go out with strangers.
+
+"Of course the young gentleman thought no harm, but said gayly, 'Thank
+you! I am just in time.' And what should he do, but go aft and sit
+down on the seat by her, and begin to talk to Rees about the weather
+and the pots. And presently he said to her, 'I suppose you are used to
+steering, my girl?'
+
+"'Yes,' said Peggy, but very grave and quiet-like, so that if he had
+not determined that she was old Rees' daughter he would have taken
+notice of it. But she was wearing a short frock that she used for the
+fishing, and was wet with getting into the boat, moreover.
+
+"'Will you please to hold my hat a minute,' he said, and with that he
+put it in her lap while he looked for a piece of string with which to
+fasten it to his button. Well, she said nothing, but her cheeks were
+scarlet, and by and by, when he had called her 'my girl' two or three
+times more--not roughly, but just off-hand, taking her for a
+fisher-girl--Peter Rees could stand it no longer, shilling or no
+shilling.
+
+"'You mustn't speak that fashion to her, master,' he said gruffly.
+
+"'What?' said the gentleman, looking up. He was surprised, and no
+wonder, at the tone of the man.
+
+"'You mustn't speak like that to Miss McNeill, Court,' repeated old
+Rees more roughly than before. 'You are to understand she is not a
+common girl, but like yourself.'
+
+"The young gentleman turned and looked at her just once, short and
+sharp, and I am told that his face was as red as hers when their eyes
+met. 'I beg Miss McNeill's pardon--humbly,' he said, taking off his
+hat grandly, yet as if he meant it too; 'I was under a great
+misapprehension.'
+
+"After that you may believe they did not enjoy the row much. There was
+scarcely a word said by anyone until they came ashore again. The
+visitor, to the great joy of Peter, who was looking for a sixpence,
+gave him half a crown; and then walked away with the young lady, side
+by side with her, but very stiff and silent. However, just as they
+were parting, Peter could see that he said something, having his hat
+in his hand the while, and that Miss Peggy, after standing and
+listening, bowed as grand as might be. Upon which they separated for
+that time.
+
+"But two things came of this; first, that everyone began to call her
+Miss McNeill, Court, which was not at all to the pleasure of the
+Llewellyn Evanses. And then that, whenever the gentleman, who was a
+painter lodging at Mrs. Campbell's of the shop, would meet her, he
+would stop and say a few words, and more as the time went on.
+Presently there came some wet weather; and Mrs. Campbell borrowed for
+his use books from her, which had her name within; and later he sent
+for a box of books from London, and then the lending was on the other
+side. So it was not long before people began to see how things were,
+and to smile when the gentleman treated old Robert Evans at the Newydd
+Inn. The fishermen, when he was out with them, would tack so that he
+might see the smoke of Court over the cliffs; and there was no more
+Peggy _bach_ to be met, either rowing with Peter Rees or running wild
+among the rocks, but a very sedate young lady who yet did not seem to
+be unhappy.
+
+"The old man was ailing in his limbs at this time, but his mind was as
+clear as ever, and his grip of the land as tight. He could not bear,
+now that his sons were dead, that anyone should come after him. I am
+thinking that he would be taking everyone for a body-bird. Still the
+family were forward with presents and such like, and helped him
+perhaps about the farm; so that though there was talk in the village,
+no one could say what will he would make.
+
+
+[Illustration: "YOU HAVE BEEN COURTING."]
+
+
+"However, one day toward winter Miss Peggy came in late from a walk,
+and found the old man very cross. 'Where have you been?' he cried
+angrily. Then without any warning, 'You have been courting,' he said,
+'with that fine gentleman from the shop?'
+
+"'Well,' my lady replied, putting a brave face upon it, as was her
+way, 'and what then, grandfather? I am not ashamed of it.'
+
+"'You ought to be!' he cried, banging his stick upon the floor. 'Do
+you think that he will marry you?'
+
+"'Yes, I do,' she replied stoutly. 'He has told you so to-day, I
+know.'
+
+"Robert Evans laughed, but his laugh was not a pleasant one. 'You are
+right,' he said. 'He has told me. He was very forward to tell me. He
+thought I was going to leave you my money. But I am not! Mind you
+that, my girl.'
+
+"'Very well,' she answered, white and red by turns.
+
+"'You will remember that you are no relation of mine!' he went on
+viciously, for he had grown very crabbed of late. 'And I am not
+going to leave you money. He is after my money. He is nothing but a
+fortune-catcher!'
+
+"'He is not!' she exclaimed, as hot as fire, and began to put on her
+hat again.
+
+"'Very well! We shall see!' answered Robert Evans. 'Do you tell
+him what I say, and see if he will marry you. Go! Go now, girl, and
+you need not come back! You will get nothing by staying here!' he
+cried, for what with his jealousy and the mention of money he was
+furious--'not a penny! You had better be off at once!'
+
+"She did not answer for a minute or so, but she seemed to change
+her mind about going, for she laid down her hat, and went about the
+house place getting tea ready--and no doubt her fingers trembled a
+little--until the old man cried, 'Well, why don't you go? You will get
+nothing by staying.'
+
+"'I shall stay to take care of you all the same,' she answered
+quietly. 'You need not leave me anything, and then--and then I shall
+know whether you are right.'
+
+"'Do you mean it?' asked he sharply, after looking at her in silence
+for a moment.
+
+"'Yes,' said she.
+
+"'Then it's a bargain!' cried Robert Evans--'it's a bargain!' And he
+said not a word more about it, but took his tea from her and talked of
+the Llewellyn Evanses, who had been to pay him a visit that day. It
+seemed, however, as if the matter had upset him, for he had to be
+helped to bed, and complained a good deal, neither of which things
+were usual with him.
+
+"Well, it is not unlikely that the young lady promised herself to tell
+her lover all about it next day, and looked to hear many times over
+from his own lips that it was not her money he wanted. But this was
+not to be, for early the next morning Gwen Madoc was at her door.
+
+"'You are to get up, miss,' she said. 'The master wants you to go to
+London by the first train.'
+
+"'To London!' cried Peggy, very much astonished. 'Is he ill? Is
+anything the matter, Gwen?'
+
+"'No,' answered the old woman very short. 'It is just that.'
+
+"And when the girl, having dressed hastily, came down to Robert Evans'
+room, she found that this was pretty nearly all she was to learn. 'You
+will go to Mrs. Richard Evans, who lives at Islington,' he said, as if
+he had been thinking about it all night. 'She is my second cousin, and
+will find house room for you, and make no charge. A telegram shall be
+sent to her this morning. To-morrow you will take this packet to the
+address upon it, and the next day a packet will be returned to you,
+which you will bring back to me. I am not well to-day, and I want to
+have the matter settled and off my mind, Peggy.'
+
+"'But could not someone else go, if you are not well?' she objected,
+'and I will stop and take care of you.'
+
+"He grew very angry at that. 'Do as you are bidden, girl,' he said. 'I
+shall see the doctor to-day, and for the rest, Gwen can do for me. I
+am well enough. Do you look to the papers. Richard Evans owes me
+money, and will make no charge for your living.'
+
+"So Miss Peggy had her breakfast, and in a wonderfully short time, as
+it seemed to her, was on the way to London, with plenty of leisure on
+her hands for thinking--very likely for doubting and fearing as well.
+She had not seen her sweetheart, that was one thing. She had been
+dispatched in a hurry, that was another. And then, to be sure, the big
+town was strange to her.
+
+"However, nothing happened there, I may tell you. But on the third
+morning she received a short note from Gwen Madoc, and suddenly rose
+from breakfast with Mrs. Richard, her face very white. There was news
+in the letter--news of which all the neighborhood for miles round
+Court was by that time full. Robert Evans, if you will believe it, was
+dead. After ailing for a few hours he had died, with only Gwen Madoc
+to smooth his pillow.
+
+"It was late when she reached the nearest station to Court on her way
+back, and found a pony trap waiting for her. She was stepping into it
+when Mr. Griffith Hughes, the lawyer, saw her, and came up to speak.
+
+"'I am sorry to have bad news for you, Miss McNeill,' he said in a low
+voice, for he was a kind man, and what with the shock and the long
+journey she was looking very pale.
+
+"'Oh, yes!' she answered, with a sort of weary surprise; 'I know it
+already. That is why I am come home--to Court, I mean.'
+
+"He saw that she was thinking only of Robert Evans' death, which was
+not what was in his mind. 'It is about the will,' he said in a
+whisper, though he need not have been so careful, for everyone in the
+neighborhood had learned all about it from Gwen Madoc. 'It is a cruel
+will. I would not have made it for him, my dear. He has left Court to
+the Llewellyn Evanses, and the money between the Evanses of Nant and
+the Evan Bevans.'
+
+"'It is quite right,' she answered, so calmly that he stared. 'My
+grandfather explained it to me. I fully understood that I was not to
+be in the will.'
+
+"Mr. Hughes looked more and more puzzled. 'Oh, but,' he replied, 'it
+is not so bad as that. Your name is in the will. He has laid it upon
+those who get the land and money to provide for you--to settle a
+proper income upon you. And you may depend upon me for doing my best
+to have his wishes carried out, my dear.'
+
+"The young lady turned very red, and raised her eyes sharply.
+
+"'Who are to provide for me?' she asked.
+
+"'The three families who divide the estate,' he said.
+
+"'And are they obliged to do so?'
+
+"'Well--no,' said he unwillingly. 'I am not sure that they are exactly
+obliged. But no doubt----'
+
+"'I doubt very much,' she answered, taking him up with a smile. And
+then she shook hands with him and drove away, leaving him wondering at
+her courage.
+
+"Well, you may suppose it was a dreary house to which she came home.
+Mr. Griffith Hughes, who was executor, had been before the Llewellyn
+Evanses in taking possession, so that, besides a lad or two in the
+kitchen, there were only Gwen Madoc and the servant there, and they
+seemed to have very little to tell her about the death. When she had
+heard what they had to say, and they were all on their way to bed,
+'Gwen,' she said softly, 'I think I should like to see him.'
+
+"'So you shall, to-morrow, honey,' answered the old woman. 'But do you
+know, _bach_, that he has left you nothing?' and she held up her
+candle suddenly, so as to throw the light on the girl's tired face.
+
+"'Oh!' she answered, with a shudder, 'how can you talk about that
+now?' But presently she had another question ready. 'Have you seen Mr.
+Venmore since--since my grandfather's death, Gwen?' she asked timidly.
+
+"'Yes, indeed, _bach_,' answered the housekeeper. 'I met him at the
+door of the shop this morning. I told him where you were, and that you
+would be back tonight. And about the will, moreover.'
+
+"The girl stopped at her own door and snuffed her candle. Gwen Madoc
+went slowly up the next flight, groaning over the steepness of the
+stairs. Then she turned to say good-night. The girl was at her side
+again, her eyes shining in the light of the two candles.
+
+"'Oh, Gwen,' she whispered breathlessly, 'didn't he say anything?'
+
+"'Not a word, _bach_,' answered the old woman, stroking her hair
+tenderly. 'He just went into the house in a hurry.'
+
+"Miss Peggy went into her room much in the same way. No doubt she
+would be telling herself a great many times over before she slept that
+he would come and see her in the morning; and in the morning she would
+be saying, 'He will come in the afternoon;' and in the afternoon, 'He
+will come in the evening.' But evening came, and darkness, and still
+he did not appear. Then she could endure it no longer. She let herself
+out of the front door, which there was no one now to use but herself,
+and with a shawl over her head ran all the way down to the shop. There
+was no light in his window upstairs: but at the back door stood Mrs.
+Campbell, looking after someone who had just left her.
+
+"The girl came, strangely shrinking at the last moment, into the ring
+of light about the door. 'Why, Miss McNeill!' cried the other,
+starting visibly at sight of her. 'Is it you, honey? And are you
+alone?'
+
+"'Yes; and I cannot stop. But oh, Mrs. Campbell, where is Mr.
+Venmore?'
+
+"'I know no more than yourself, my dear,' said the good woman
+reluctantly. 'He went from here yesterday on a sudden--to take the
+train, I understood.'
+
+"'Yesterday? When? At what time, please?' asked the young lady. There
+was a fear, which she had been putting from her all day. It was
+getting a footing now.
+
+"'Well, it would be about midday. I know it was just after Gwen Madoc
+called in about the----'
+
+"But the girl was gone. It was not to Mrs. Campbell she could make a
+moan. It was only the night wind that caught the 'Oh, cruel! cruel!'
+which broke from her as she went up the hill. Whether she slept that
+night at all I am not able to say. Only that when it was dawn she was
+out upon the cliffs, her face very white and sad-looking. The
+fishermen who were up early, going out with the ebb, saw her at times
+walking fast and then standing still and looking seaward. But I do not
+know what she was thinking, only I should fancy that the gulls had a
+different cry for her now, and it is certain that when she had
+returned and came down into the parlor at Court for the funeral, there
+were none of the Evanses could look her in the face with comfort.
+
+"They were all there, of course. Mr. Llewellyn Evans--he was an
+elderly man, with a gray beard like a bird's nest, and very thick
+lips--was sitting with his wife on the horsehair sofa. The Evanses of
+Nant, who were young men with lank faces and black hair combed upward,
+were by the door. The Evan Bevans were at the table; and there were
+others, besides Mr. Griffith Hughes, who was undoing some papers when
+she entered.
+
+"He rose and shook hands with her, marking pitifully the dark hollows
+under her eyes, and inwardly confirming his resolution to get her a
+substantial settlement. Then he hesitated, looking doubtfully at the
+others. 'We are going to read the will before the funeral instead of
+afterward,' he said.
+
+"'Oh!' she answered, taken aback--for in truth she had forgotten all
+about the will. 'I did not know. I will go, and come back later.'
+
+"'No, indeed!' cried Mrs. Llewellyn Evans, 'you had better stop and
+hear the will--though no relation, to be sure.'
+
+"But at that moment Gwen Madoc came in, and peered round with a grim
+air of importance. 'Maybe someone,' she said in a low voice, 'would
+like to take a last look at the poor master?'
+
+"But no one moved. They sighed and shook their heads at one another as
+if they would like to do so--but no one moved. They were anxious, you
+see, to hear the will. Only Peggy, who had turned to go out, said,
+'Yes, Gwen, I should,' and slipped out with the old woman.
+
+"'There is nothing to keep us now?' said Mr. Hughes briskly when the
+door was closed again. And everyone nodding assent the lawyer went on
+to read the will, which was not a long one. It was received with a
+murmur of satisfaction, and much use of pocket-handkerchiefs.
+
+"'Very fair!' said Mr. Llewellyn Evans, 'He was a clever man, our old
+friend.' All the legatees murmured after him 'Very fair!' and a word
+went round about the home-brewed, and Robert Evans' recipe for it.
+Then Llewellyn, who thought he ought to be taking the lead at Court
+now, said it was about time to be going to church.
+
+"'There is one matter,' put in Mr. Griffith Hughes, 'which I think
+ought to be settled while we are all together. You see that there is
+a--what I may call a charge on the three main portions of the property
+in favor of Miss McNeill.'
+
+"'Indeed, but what is that you are saying?' cried Llewellyn sharply.
+'Do you mean that there is a rent charge?'
+
+"'Not exactly a rent charge,' said the lawyer.
+
+"'No!' cried Llewellyn with a twinkle in his eyes. 'Nor any obligation
+in law, sir?'
+
+"'Well, no,' assented Mr. Hughes grudgingly.
+
+"'Then,' said Llewellyn Evans, getting up and putting his hands in his
+pockets, while he winked at the others, 'we will talk of that another
+time.'
+
+"But Mr. Hughes said, 'No!' He was a kind man, and very anxious to do
+the best for the girl, but he somewhat lost his temper. 'No!' he said,
+growing red. 'You will observe, if you please, Mr. Evans, that the
+testator says, "Forthwith---forthwith." So that, as sole executor, it
+is my duty to ask you to state your intentions now.'
+
+"'Well, indeed, then,' said Llewellyn, changing his face to a kind of
+blank, 'I have no intentions. I think that the family has done more
+than enough for the girl already.'
+
+"And he would say no otherwise. Nor was it to any purpose that the
+lawyer looked at Mrs. Llewellyn. She was examining the furniture, and
+feeling the stuffing of the sofa, and did not seem to hear. He could
+make nothing of the three Evanses, Nant. They all cried, 'Yes,
+indeed!' to what Llewellyn said. Only the Evan Bevans remained, and he
+turned to them in despair.
+
+"'I am sure,' he said, addressing himself to them, 'that you will do
+something to carry out the testator's wishes? Your share under the
+will, Mr. Bevan, will amount to three hundred a year. This young
+lady has nothing--no relations, no home. May I take it that you will
+settle--say fifty pounds a year upon her? It need only be for her
+life.'
+
+"Mr. Bevan fidgeted under this appeal. His wife answered it.
+'Certainly not, Mr. Hughes. If it were twenty pounds now, once for
+all, or even twenty-five--and Llewellyn and my nephews would say the
+same--I think we might manage that?'
+
+"But Llewellyn shook his head obstinately. 'I have said I have no
+intentions, and I am a man of my word!' he answered. 'Let the girl go
+out to service. It is what we have always wanted her to do. Here are
+my nephews. They won't mind a young housekeeper.'
+
+"Well, they all laughed at this except Mr. Hughes, who gathered up his
+papers looking very black, and not thinking of future clients.
+Llewellyn, however, did not care a bit for that, but walked to the
+bell, masterful-like, and rang it. 'Tell the undertaker,' he said to
+the servant, 'that we are ready.'
+
+"It was as if the words had been a signal, for they were followed
+almost immediately by an outcry overhead and quick running upon the
+stairs. The legatees looked uncomfortably at the carpet: the lawyer
+was blacker than before. He said to himself, 'Now that poor child has
+fainted!' The confusion seemed to last some minutes. Then the door was
+opened, not by the undertaker, but by Gwen Madoc. The mourners rose
+with a sigh of relief; to their surprise she passed by even Llewellyn,
+and with a frightened face walked across to the lawyer. She whispered
+something in his ear.
+
+"'What!' he cried, starting back a pace from her, and speaking so that
+the wine-glasses on the table rattled again. 'Do you know what you are
+saying, woman?'
+
+"'It is true,' she answered, half crying, 'and no fault indeed of mine
+neither.'
+
+"Gwen added more in quick, short sentences, which the family, strain
+their ears as they might, could not overhear.
+
+"'I will come! I will come!' cried the lawyer. He waved his hand to
+them as a sign to make room for her to pass out. Then he turned to
+them, a queer look upon his face; it was not triumph altogether,
+for there was discomfiture and apprehension in it as well. 'You
+will believe me, he said, 'that I am as much taken aback as
+yourselves--that till this moment I have been honestly as much in the
+dark as anyone. It seems--so I am told--that our old friend is not
+dead.'
+
+"'What!' cried Llewellyn in his turn. 'What do you mean?' and he
+raised his black-gloved hands as in refutation.
+
+"'What I say,' replied Mr. Hughes patiently. 'I hear--wonderful as it
+sounds--that he is not dead. Something about a trance, I believe--a
+mistake happily discovered in time. I tell you all I know; and however
+it comes about, it is clear we ought to be glad that Mr. Robert Evans
+is spared to us.'
+
+"With that he was glad to escape from the room. I am told that their
+faces were very strange to see. There was a long silence. Llewellyn
+was the first to speak: He swore a big oath and banged his great hand
+upon the table. 'I don't 'believe it!' he cried. 'I don't believe it!
+It is a trick!'
+
+"But as he spoke the door opened behind him, and he and all turned to
+see what they had never thought to see, I am sure. They had come to
+walk in Robert Evans' funeral; and here was the gaunt, stooping form
+of Robert Evans himself coming in, with an arm of Gwen Madoc on one
+side and of Miss Peggy on the other--Robert Evans beyond doubt, alive.
+Behind him were the lawyer and Dr. Jones, a smile on their lips, and
+three or four women half frightened, half wondering.
+
+"The old man was pale, and seemed to totter a little, but when the
+doctor would have placed a chair for him, he declined it, and stood
+gazing about him, wonderfully composed for a man just risen from his
+coffin. He had all his old grim aspect as he looked upon the family.
+Llewellyn's declaration was still in their ears. They could find not a
+word to say either of joy or grief.
+
+"'Well, indeed,' said Robert, with a dry chuckle, 'have none of you a
+word to throw at me? I am a ghost, I suppose? Ha!' he exclaimed, as
+his eye fell on the papers which Mr. Hughes had left upon the table,
+'so! so! That is why you are not overjoyed at seeing me. You have been
+reading my will. Well, Llewellyn! Have not you a word to say to me now
+you know for what I had got you down?'
+
+"At that Llewellyn found his tongue, and the others chimed in finely.
+Only there was something in the old man's manner that they did not
+like; and presently, when they had all told him how glad they were to
+see him again--just for all the world as if he had been ill for a few
+days--Robert Evans turned again to Llewellyn.
+
+"'You had fixed what you would do for my girl here, I suppose?' he
+said, patting her shoulder gently, at which the family winced. 'It was
+a hundred a year you promised to settle, you know. You will have
+arranged all that.'
+
+"Lewellyn looked stealthily at Mr. Hughes, who was standing at
+Robert's elbow, and muttered that they had not reached that stage.
+
+"'What?' cried the old man sharply. 'How was that?'
+
+"'I was intending,' Llewellyn began lamely, 'to settle----'
+
+"'You were intending!' Robert Evans burst forth in a voice so changed
+that they all started back. 'You are a liar! You were intending to
+settle nothing! I know it well! I knew it long ago! Nothing, I say! As
+for you,' he went on, wheeling furiously round upon the Evanses of
+Nant, 'you knew my wishes. What were you going to do for her? What, I
+say? Speak, you hobbledehoys!'
+
+"For they were backing from him in absolute fear of his passion,
+looking at one another or at the sullen face of Llewellyn Evans, or
+anywhere save at him. At length the eldest blurted out, 'Whatever
+Llewellyn meant to do we were going to do, sir.'
+
+"'You speak the truth there,' cried old Robert bitterly; 'for that was
+nothing, you know. Very well! I promise you that what Llewellyn gets
+of my property you shall get too--and it will be nothing! You, Bevan,'
+and he turned himself toward the Evan Bevans, who were shaking in
+their shoes, 'I am told, did offer to do something for my girl.'
+
+"'Yes, dear Robert,' cried Mrs. Bevan, radiant and eager, 'we did
+indeed.'
+
+"'So I hear. Well, when I make my next will, I will take care to set
+you down for just so much as you proposed to give her! Peggy, _bach_,'
+he continued, turning from the chapfallen lady, and putting into the
+girl's hands the will which the lawyer had given him, 'tear up this
+rubbish! Tear it up! Now let us have something to eat in the other
+room. What, Llewellyn, no appetite?'
+
+"But the family did not stay even to partake of the home-brewed. They
+were out of the house, I am told, before the coffin and the
+undertaker's men. There was big talking among them, as they went, of a
+conspiracy and a lunatic asylum. But though, to be sure, it was a
+wonderful recovery, and the doctor and Mr. Hughes, as they drove away
+after dinner, were very friendly together--which may have been only
+the home-brewed--at any rate the sole outcome of Llewellyn's talking
+and inquiries was that everyone laughed very much, and Robert Evans'
+name for a clever man was known beyond Carnarvon.
+
+"Of course it would be open house at Court that day, with plenty of
+eating and drinking and coming and going. But toward five o'clock the
+place grew quiet again. The visitors had gone home, and Gwen Madoc was
+upstairs. The old man was sleeping in his chair opposite the settle,
+and Miss Peggy was sitting on the window-seat watching him, her hands
+in her lap, her thoughts far away. Maybe she was trying to be really
+glad that the home, about which the cows lowed and the gulls screamed
+in the afternoon stillness and made it seem home each minute, was hers
+still; that she was not quite alone, nor friendless, nor poor. Maybe
+she was striving not to think of the thing which had been taken from
+her and could not be given back. Whatever her thoughts, she was
+aroused by some sound to find her eyes full of hot tears, through
+which she could dimly see that the old man was awake and looking at
+her with a strange expression, which disappeared as she became aware
+of it.
+
+"He began to speak. 'Providence has been very good to us, Peggy,' he
+said, with grim meaning. 'It is well for you, my girl, that our eyes
+are open to see our kind friends as they are. There is one besides
+those who were here this morning that will wish he had not been so
+hasty.'
+
+"She rose quickly and looked out of the window. 'Don't speak of him.
+Let us forget him,' she pleaded, in a low tone.
+
+"But Robert Evans seemed to take a delight in the--well, the goodness
+of Providence. 'If he had come to see you only once, when you were in
+trouble,' he went on, as if he were summing up the case in his own
+mind, and she were but a stick or a stone, 'we could have forgiven
+him, and I would have said you were right. Or even if he had written,
+eh?'
+
+"'Oh, yes, yes!' sobbed the girl, her tears raining down her averted
+face. 'Don't torture me! You were right and I was wrong--all wrong!'
+
+"'Well, yes, yes! Just so. But come here, my girl,' said the old man.
+'Come!' he repeated imperiously, as, surprised in the midst of her
+grief, she wavered and hesitated, 'sit here,' and he pointed to the
+settle opposite to him. 'Now, suppose I were to tell you he had
+written, and that the letter had been--mislaid, shall we say? and come
+somehow to my hands? Now, don't get excited, girl!'
+
+"'Oh!' cried Peggy, her hands fallen, her lips parted, her eyes wide
+and frightened, her whole form rigid with questioning.
+
+"'Just suppose that, my dear,' continued Robert, 'and that the letter
+were now before us--would you abide by its contents? Remember, he must
+have much to explain. Would you let me decide whether his explanation
+were satisfactory or not?"
+
+"She was trembling with expectation, hope. But she tried to think of
+the matter calmly, to remember her lover's hurried flight, the lack of
+word or message for her, her own misery. She nodded silently, and held
+out her hand.
+
+"He drew a letter from his pocket. 'You will let me see it?' he said
+suspiciously.
+
+"'Oh, yes!' she cried, and fled with it to the window. He watched her
+while she tore it open and read first one page and then another--there
+were but two, it was very short--watched her while she thrust it from
+her and looked at it as a whole, then drew it to her and kissed it
+again and again.
+
+"'Wait a bit! wait a bit!' cried he testily. 'Now, let me see it.'
+
+"She turned upon him almost fiercely, holding it away behind her, as
+if it were some living thing he might hurt. 'He thought he would meet
+me at the junction,' she stammered between laughing and crying. 'He
+was going to London to see his sister--that she might take me in. And
+he will be here to fetch me this evening. There! Take it!' and
+suddenly remembering herself she stretched out her hand and gave him
+the letter.
+
+"'You promised to abide by my decision, you know,' said the old man
+gravely.
+
+"'I will not!' she cried impetuously. 'Never!'
+
+"'You promised,' he said.
+
+"'I don't care! I don't care!' she replied, clasping her hands
+nervously. 'No one shall come between us.'
+
+"'Very well,' said Robert Evans, 'then I need not decide. But you had
+better tell Owen to take the trap to the station to meet your man.'"
+
+
+
+
+                          IN CUPID'S TOILS.
+
+
+                                  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 bowlders 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 toward
+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 hackle, 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!" someone 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 gravely,
+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 sound-proof, 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
+pretense 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!"
+
+
+[Illustration: "BAB."]
+
+
+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 anyone 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,
+aid-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 cozy 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 afterward 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 hill-sides 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 millrace, 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 someone'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
+was 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
+signaled 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 homeward.
+
+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 afterward. 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. 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 travelers' 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 around 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."
+
+Everyone 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 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 somewhat 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, playtime 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 modeled 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 halfway 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 understand now. Mr. Guest had omitted to
+mention my name, and she had taken me for someone 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 terrible 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 toward me, and
+opening her eyes as she 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 anyone 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 import no great good
+will.
+
+"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 overwarmth
+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 center 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. Everyone 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 anyone. 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, 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 afterward, 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 Goldmaces' 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
+tomorrow; 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.
+Everyone 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 catchwords, 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 blind-folded, 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 other's 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 of 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
+toward the windows, seemed to be in a state of proud confusion. What
+was the matter?
+
+"I beg everyone'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 theater, and that other one on which Mr. Guest kept
+me to dinner. Aye, 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 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
+work basket, 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 everyday life. Then I heard her come in,
+and turned quickly, feeling that I should learn my fate from her
+greeting.
+
+"Bab!" The word was wrung 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.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE DRIFT OF FATE.
+
+
+On a certain morning in last June I was stooping to fasten a shoelace,
+having taken advantage for the purpose of the step of a corner house
+in St. James' 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 wining 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 sparsely 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 toward 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
+ballroom. 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 upward 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 afterward, 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?"
+
+
+[Illustration: "LORD 'A' MERCY! THERE IS THE MISTRESS'S KNOCK."]
+
+
+"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 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 toward 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
+someone 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 somber, 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 his 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 & 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 mustaches, gray eyes, and an ugly scar
+seaming the face from ear 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 were 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 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 toward 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 outward 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 airtight. 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! Ay, 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 marveled. 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 toward 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 continued 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
+Duggan & Poole'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 notecase 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 & 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 someone. 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 toward 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 leaned 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, wrapped 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 & 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 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."
+
+
+
+
+                            A BLORE MANOR
+                               EPISODE.
+
+
+Not very remarkable was this courtship: there was nothing very strange
+about it, or more romantic than is apt to be the case with such
+things. I doubt not that since the daughters of the children of men
+were wooed, there have been many millions of such May-time passages of
+greater interest, and that countless Pauls and Virginias have plucked
+the sweet spring flowers together amid more picturesque surroundings.
+Every matron--and some maids, if they will, though we deprecate the
+omen--can recall at least one wooing which she can vouch as a thousand
+million times more extraordinary than that of my commonplace hero and
+heroine. That is so: but for that very reason let her read of this
+one, and taking off the cover of her own potpourri savor some faint
+scent of the dewy roses of the past springtime.
+
+It had its origin in the 12:10 down train from Euston to Holyhead,
+which carried, among other passengers, Charles Maitland of the Temple,
+barrister by theory and idler by, or for want of, practice. He
+traveled first-class. When you come to know him better you will
+understand how superfluous was this last piece of information. Ten
+minutes before the train was due out, he arrived at the station
+in a hansom. A silk hat, a well-fitting light overcoat--the weather,
+for March, was mild--gray trousers, and brown gaiters over his
+patent-leather boots were the most salient details of a costume of
+which the chief characteristic was an air of perfect correctness. At
+the bookstall he did not linger, culling with loving eyes the backs of
+many books, and reveling in his choice with florin in hand, as do
+second-class passengers, but without hesitation he purchased a
+_Saturday Review_ and a _Cornhill Magazine_. After he had taken his
+seat a Smith's boy invited him to select from a tray, upon which
+glowed half a dozen novels; but he gazed sublimely into vacancy over
+the boy's head; who soon left him, and prompted by a vengeful spirit
+only inferior to his precocious knowledge of passenger nature,
+directed upon him the attacks of two kindred sprites with Banbury
+cakes and British sherry. The window was slight protection against
+their shrill voices, but soon the train started and freed him from
+them. He changed his hat for a brown deer-stalker, and having the
+compartment to himself, had recourse to his own thoughts. It was not
+unlikely, he told himself, that he had been precipitate in undertaking
+this journey. An Easter, coming somewhat early, seemed to have
+forestalled his wonted invitations for that season: and, to stay in
+London being out of the question, he had accepted Tom Quaritch's
+offer. He began to have doubts of the wisdom of this course now, but
+it was too late. He was bound for Tom Quaritch's. He had known
+something of Tom at college; and recently he had done him a slight
+service in town. No more genial soul than the latter existed, and he
+did not rest satisfied until he had won from Maitland a half promise
+to come and see his beagles at Easter. At the time our traveler had
+but the remotest idea of doing so. He did not know enough of Tom's
+people, while to have the acquaintance of the right people and of no
+one else was part of his creed. But now he was between the horns of a
+dilemma. These people, of whom he knew nothing, might not be the right
+people; that was one horn. The other consisted in the fact that to
+spend a vacation in town was not the thing. When we have chosen our
+horn it is natural it should seem the sharper of the two. Mr. Charles
+Maitland frowned as he cut the pages of his _Cornhill_. And then he
+made up his mind to two things. Firstly, to bring his stay at Blore
+Manor within the smallest possible limits, and secondly, to comport
+himself while there with such a formal courtesy as should encourage
+only the barest familiarity.
+
+At Stafford he had to change into another train, which he did, even as
+he cut his magazine, with characteristic precision and coolness. And
+so he reached Blore Station about half-past five, still neat and
+unsullied, with all the aroma of the street of scents about him.
+
+He let down the window and put out his head. The country thereabouts
+was flat and uninteresting, the farming untidy, the fences low, yet
+straggling. A short distance away a few roofs peeping forth from a
+clump of trees, above which the smoke gently curled, marked the
+village. The station consisted of a mere shed and a long, bare
+platform. There were but five persons visible, and of these one was a
+porter, and one a man servant in a quiet, countrified livery. The
+latter walked quickly toward him, but was forestalled by three girls,
+the other occupants of the platform, who, at sight of the stranger,
+came tearing from the far end of it at a headlong pace.
+
+"Here he is! Here he is!" cried the foremost, her shrill voice drawing
+a dozen heads to the windows of the train. She owed her success to an
+extempore tug in the form of an excited bull terrier, which, dragging
+violently at a strap attached to her wrist, jerked her after him much
+as if she had been a kettle tied to his tail. She might be anything
+between twenty and five-and-twenty--a tiny little creature of almost
+fairylike proportions. Her color was high and her hair brown; she had
+curiously opaque brown eyes, bright as well as opaque. Gloves she had
+none, and her hair was disordered by her struggles with the dog. But,
+after all, the main impression she made upon Maitland was that she was
+excessively small. He had no eyes for the others at present. But one,
+owing to the reckless method of her progression, gave him a dim notion
+of being all legs.
+
+"You are Mr. Maitland, are you not?" the first comer began volubly,
+though loss of breath interfered a little with the symmetry of her
+sentences. "Tom had to attend a meeting of the fox committee at
+Annerley. I'm Maggie Quaritch, and this is Dubs--I beg your pardon,
+how silly of me--Joan, I mean, and this is Agnes. Why, child, what
+have you done with your hat? Pick it up at once! What wild things Mr.
+Maitland will think us!"
+
+The youngest girl, whose hat was lying upon the platform some distance
+away, hung her head in a very pretty attitude of shy _gaucherie_. She
+was about fifteen--rising sixteen in her brother's phrase--and taller
+than the elder girls, with a peculiarly pale complexion, greenish-gray
+eyes, and a mass of brownish-red hair. Her loosely made dress was more
+in consonance with her style than Maitland, staggering under the shock
+of such a reception, had time or mind to observe. He formally
+acknowledged the introductions, but words did not come easily to him.
+He was dumfounded. He was so unaccustomed to this, or to people like
+these.
+
+"And we must not forget Bill," resumed Miss Quaritch, if possible,
+faster than before. "Isn't he a beauty now, Mr. Maitland? Look at his
+chest, look at his head, look at his eyes. Yes, he lost that one in a
+fight with Jack Madeley's retriever, and I'm afraid the sight of the
+other is going, but he's the most beautiful, loveliest, faithfullest
+dog in the whole world for all that, and his mother loves him, she
+does!" All in a shrill tone, rising a note perhaps with the final
+words.
+
+The train was moving out. The last that the twelve faces, still glued
+to the carriage windows, beheld of the scene was Miss Quaritch
+rapturously kissing and hugging the bull terrier, while the Londoner
+looked on sheepishly. He was horribly conscious of the presence of
+those grinning faces and suffered as much until the train left as if
+the onlookers had been a dozen of his club comrades. Whereas the fact
+was that they found whatever amusement the scene afforded them not in
+the girl's enthusiasm--she was young enough to gush prettily--but in
+the strange gentleman's awkward consciousness.
+
+"Now, Mr. Maitland, shall Abiah drive you up in the dog cart, or will
+you walk with us? Agnes!" this suddenly in a loud scream to the
+youngest girl, who had moved away, "you can let out the dogs! Down,
+Juno! Go down, Jack o' Pack! Roy, you ill-conditioned little dog, you
+are always quarreling! I'm afraid they will make you in a dreadful
+pickle."
+
+Indeed it seemed to Maitland that they would. An avalanche of
+scurrying dogs descended upon him from some receptacle where they had
+been penned. He had a vision of a red Irish setter with soft brown
+eyes, not unlike to, but far finer than Miss Maggie's, with its paws
+momentarily upon the breast of his overcoat; of a couple of wiry fox
+terriers skirmishing and snarling round his trousers, and of a shy,
+lop-eared beagle puppy casting miserable glances at them from an
+outside place. And then the party got under way in some sort of order.
+At first Maitland had much ado to answer yes and no.
+
+He was still bewildered by these things, crushed, confounded.
+
+He could have groaned as he sedately explained at what time he left
+Euston, and where he changed. He was conscious that when their
+attention was not demanded by the pack of dogs, the girls were
+covertly scrutinizing him; but in his present state of mind, it
+mattered not a straw to him whether they were calling him a prig, and
+a "stick," and affected, and supercilious, or were admiring half in
+scorn the fit of his clothes and boots, and his lordly air. All these
+remarks were in fact made by some one or other of them before the day
+was over. But he was, and would have been, supremely indifferent to
+their criticisms.
+
+The weight of the conversation did not fall heavily upon him: indeed,
+when Miss Quaritch had a share in it, no one else was overburdened.
+And from time to time they met upon the road old women or children to
+whom the girls had always something to say. It was, "Well, Mrs.
+Marjoram, and so the donkey is better," or, "Now, Johnny, get along
+home to your mother," or, "How are you, daddy?" in the high-pitched
+key so trying to the cockney's ear.
+
+In these parleys Joan, the second girl, was foremost. Maitland glanced
+at her. A young man may be very fastidious, but neck-ribbons awry and
+brown hair in rich disorder do not entirely close his eyes to a
+maiden's comeliness. It would be strange if they did, were she such an
+one as Joan Quaritch. Not tall, yet tall enough, with a full, rounded
+figure, to which her dress hardly did, hardly could do, justice, she
+moved with the grace and freedom of perfect health. Her fair
+complexion could afford to have its clearness marred by a freckle or
+two, such as hers, mere clots in cream; and if her features were not
+perfect, yet a nose too straight and a chin too heavy were more than
+redeemed by great gray eyes that, sunny or tearful, could be nothing
+but true--eyes whose frankness and good fellowship aggravated the
+wounds they inflicted. Why she was called "Dubs" I cannot tell.
+Perhaps no one can. But, in her good nature and her truth, her simple
+pride and independence, it suited her.
+
+He had just, to quote the language of this cynic's thoughts,
+catalogued the last of the Graces, when the party reached the house,
+which stood some way back from the road. Tom Quaritch had just
+returned, and welcomed the guest warmly; his mother met Maitland at
+the drawing-room door. She was a singularly comely woman, stately and
+somewhat formal. Her greeting so differed from that of her daughters
+that the visitor found himself speculating upon the extraordinary
+flightiness of the late Mr. Quaritch. Wherein I doubt not he did him
+injustice.
+
+At dinner our hero had in some degree recovered himself, and he told
+them the latest news of the theaters, the clubs, and the book world,
+and while their ignorance filled him with a wonder he did not hide,
+their attention propitiated him. He talked well, and if he was
+inclined to lord it a little, a shrewd word from Mrs. Quaritch, or a
+demure glance from Miss Joan's eyes, would lower his didactic tone.
+The youngest girl promised to be an especial thorn in his side.
+
+"Does everyone in London wear shiny boots in the daytime, Mr.
+Maitland?" she asked suddenly, _a propos des bottes_, and nothing
+else.
+
+"A considerable number do, Miss Agnes."
+
+"What sort of people? No, I'm not being rude, mother."
+
+"Well, I hardly know how to answer that. The idle people, perhaps." He
+smiled indulgently, which aggravated the young lady. She replied,
+crumbling her bread the while in an absent, meditative way, her eyes
+innocently fixed on his face:
+
+"Then you are one of the idle people, Mr. Maitland? I don't think I
+like idle people."
+
+"How singularly unselfish of you, my dear Agnes!" put in Joan
+vigorously--more vigorously than politely.
+
+Maitland's last reflection as he got into bed was that he was quite
+out of place here. These might be very nice people in their way, but
+not in his way. He must make his visit as short as possible, and
+forget all about it as quickly as he could. The girls would be
+insufferable when they came to know him familiarly. Good gracious!
+fancy young ladies who had never heard of "John Inglesant," or of W.
+D. Howells' books, and confused the Grosvenor Gallery with the Water
+Color Exhibition! and read Longfellow! and had but vague ideas of the
+aesthetic! Miss Joan was pretty too, yes, really pretty, and had fine
+eyes and a pleasant voice, and fine eyes--yes, fine eyes. And with
+this thought he fell comfortably asleep.
+
+He came down next morning to find her alone in the breakfast room. A
+short-skirted beagling costume of scarlet and blue allowed him a
+glimpse of neat ankles in scarlet hose. She was kneeling before the
+fire playing with Roy. Her brown wavy hair fell in a heavy loose loop
+upon her neck, and there was something wonderfully bright and fresh in
+her whole appearance.
+
+"How quickly you have fallen in with our barbarous ways!" she said
+with a smile, as she rose. "I did not expect you to be up for hours
+yet."
+
+"I generally breakfast at nine, and it is nearly that now," he
+answered, annoyed by some hint of raillery in her tone, and yet unable
+to conceal a glance of admiration. "I think I must adopt the Blore
+breakfast hour; it seems, Miss Joan, to agree with you all so well."
+
+"Yes," was the indifferent reply; "we get the first of the three
+rewards for early rising. The other two we leave for our betters."
+
+And she turned away with a little nod as the others came in. In five
+minutes a noisy, cheerful breakfast was in progress, and the chances
+of finding a hare formed the all-engrossing subject of conversation.
+
+On this calm gray morning, warm rather than cold, the little pack, to
+the great delight of the household, found quickly, and found well. No
+October leveret was before them, but a good, stout old hare, who gave
+them a ringing run of two hours, the pleasure of which was not
+materially diminished when she baffled them at last in the mysterious
+way these old hares affect and huntsmen fail to fathom. The visitor
+performed creditably, though in indifferent training. At Oxford he had
+been something of a crack, and could still upon occasion forget to
+keep his boots clean and his clothes intact.
+
+Returning home, Maitland found himself again with Joan. The heat and
+pleasure of the chase had for the time melted his reserve and thawed
+his resolution. He talked well and freely to her of a great London
+hospital over which one of the house surgeons had recently taken him;
+of the quiet and orderliness of the lone, still wards; of the feeling
+that came over him there that life was all suffering and death; and
+how quickly in the bustle of the London streets, where the little
+world of the hospital seemed distant and unreal, this impression faded
+away. She listened eagerly, and he, tasting a stealthy and stolen
+pleasure in seeing how deep and pitiful the gray eyes could grow,
+prolonged his tale.
+
+"I have enjoyed hearing about it so much," she said gratefully, as
+they entered the village. And indeed she had passed several people
+upon the road without a word of greeting. "I hope to be a nurse soon.
+The dear mother does not think me old enough yet."
+
+"You are going to be a nurse!" he said in tones of such incredulous
+surprise that the amusement which first appeared in her face changed
+to annoyance.
+
+"Why not? One does not need a knowledge of art and the newest books
+for that," she sharply answered.
+
+"Perhaps not," he said feebly. "But after such a life as this, it--the
+change I mean--would be so complete."
+
+She looked at him, an angry gleam in her eyes, and the color high in
+her cheeks.
+
+"Do you think, Mr. Maitland, that because we run wild--oh, no, you
+have not said so--and seem to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, we are
+incapable of anything beyond hunting and playing tennis, and feeding
+the dogs and the hens and the chickens? That we cannot have a thought
+beyond pleasure, or a wish to do good like other people--people in
+London? That we can never look beyond Blore--though Blore, I can tell
+you, would manage ill without some of us!--nor have an aspiration
+above the kennels and the--and the stables? If you do think so, I
+trust you are wrong."
+
+He would have answered humbly, but she was gone into the house in huge
+indignation, leaving our friend strangely uncomfortable. It was just
+twenty-four hours since his arrival: the opinion of one at least of
+the madcaps had ceased to be a matter of indifference to him. The
+change occurred to himself as he mounted the stairs, so that he
+laughed when alone in his room and resolved to keep away from that
+girl for the future. How handsome she had looked when she was flying
+out at him, and how generous seemed her anger even at the time!
+Somehow the prospect of the four days he had still to spend at Blore
+was not so depressing as at first. Certainly the vista was shortened
+by one day, and that may have been the reason.
+
+Meanwhile Maggie, in her sister's bedroom, had much to say of the
+day's doings. "Didn't he go well? My word! he is not half so stiff as
+I thought him. I believe he'd be a very good fellow if he had some of
+the conceit taken out of him."
+
+"I think he's insufferable," was the chilling answer from Joan; "he
+considers us savages, and treats us as such."
+
+"He may consider us fit for the Zoo, if he likes; it won't hurt us,"
+quoth Maggie indifferently. With which Joan expressed neither assent
+nor dissent, but brushed her hair a little faster.
+
+Maitland did not for a moment abandon his fresh resolution. Still he
+thought he owed it to himself to set the matter right with the young
+lady before he stiffened anew. As he descended he met her running up
+two steps at a time.
+
+"Miss Joan, I am afraid I vexed you just now," he said, with grave
+humility. "Will you believe it unintentional--stupid, on my part, and
+grant me your pardon?"
+
+"Oh, dear!" she cried gayly. "We are not used to this here. It is
+quite King Cophetua and the beggar maid." She dropped him a mock
+courtesy, and held out her hand in token of amity, when the full
+signification of what she had said rushed into her mind and flooded
+her face with crimson. Without another word or look she fled upstairs,
+and he heard her door bang behind her.
+
+Mr. Charles Maitland, after this _rencontre_, went down smiling
+grimly. In the hall he stood for a moment in deep thought; then sagely
+shook his head several times at a stuffed fox and joined the party in
+the drawing room.
+
+
+[Illustration: MR. CHARLES MAITLAND, AFTER THIS RENCONTRE, WENT DOWN
+SMILING GRIMLY.]
+
+
+The next day and the next passed with surprising quickness, as the
+latter days of a visit always do. In another forty-eight hours
+Maitland's would be over. Yet singularly enough his spirits did not
+rise, as he expected they would, at the near prospect of release. As
+he closed his bedroom door he had a vision of a pair of gray eyes
+smiling into his, and his palm seemed still to tingle with the touch
+of a soft, warm hand. He had kept his resolution well--small credit to
+him. Joan had seemed to avoid him since her unlucky speech upon the
+stairs; when she did speak to him her words, or more often her tone,
+stung him, and he smarted under a sense that she repaid with interest
+the small account in which he was inclined to hold the family
+generally. He resented her veiled contempt with strange bitterness, so
+that Agnes remarked with her usual candor that he and Joan never spoke
+to one another save to "jangle." Afterward, walking on the lawn, some
+line about "sweet bells jangled out of tune," ran in his head. The
+girl was a vixen, he said to himself, yet he tried to imagine how
+tender and glorious the great gray eyes, that he only knew as cold or
+saucy or defiant, could be when their depths were stirred by love. But
+his imagination failing to satisfy even himself, he went to put on his
+beagling dress in the worst of humors.
+
+Possibly this made him a trifle reckless, for a promising run ended in
+ten minutes so far as he was concerned, in a sprained ankle. In
+jumping over a low fence into a lane his one foot came down sideways
+on a large stone upon which some pauper had scamped his work, and the
+mischief was done. The ominous little circle that hunting men know so
+well soon gathered round him, and he was helped to his feet, or rather
+foot. Then Agnes fetched the carriage, and he was driven back to
+Blore. Now, under the circumstances, what could Mrs. Quaritch, without
+an _arriere pensee_ in the world, do but press him to stay until at
+least he could put the foot to the ground? Nothing. And what could he
+do but consent? At any rate, that is what he did.
+
+So he was established in the drawing room, a pretty, cozy room, and
+told himself it was a terrible nuisance. But, for a cripple confined
+to a couple of rooms, and surrounded by uncongenial people, without a
+single new magazine or a word of the world's gossip, he kept up his
+spirits wonderfully well. The ways of the three girls, and the calm
+approval of their sedate mother, could not fail to amuse him. Lying
+there and seeing and hearing many things which would not have come to
+his knowledge as a mere visitor, he found them not quite what he had
+judged them to be. He missed Joan one morning, and when with an
+unconscious fretfulness he inquired the reason, learned that she had
+been sitting up through the night with an old servant who was ill in
+the village. He said some word about it to her--very diffidently, for
+she took his compliments but ill at all times; now she flamed out at
+him with twice her ordinary bitterness and disdain, and punished him
+by taking herself out of the room at once.
+
+"Confound it!" he cried, beating up his pillow fiercely, "I believe
+the girl hates me."
+
+Did he? and did she?
+
+Then he fell into a fit of musing such as men approaching thirty, who
+have lived in London, are very apt to indulge in. A club was not
+everything, be it as good as it might be. And life was not a lounge in
+Bond Street and Pall Mall, and nothing more. He thought how dull a
+week spent on his sofa in the Adelphi would have been, even with the
+newest magazines and the fifth and special _Globes_. In three days was
+his birthday--his twenty-ninth. And did the girl really hate him? It
+was a nice name, Joan; Dubs, umph! Dubs? Joan? And so he fell asleep.
+
+How long he slept and whether he carried something of his dreams into
+his waking he could only guess, but he was aroused by a singular
+sensation--singular in that, though once familiar enough, it was now
+as strange to him as the sight of his dead mother's face. If his
+half-recalled senses did not deceive him, if he was not still dreaming
+of Joan, the warm touch of a pair of soft lips was yet lingering upon
+his forehead, the rustle of a dress very near his ear yet sounded
+crisply in it. And then someone glided from him, and he heard a hasty
+exclamation and opened his eyes dreamily. By the screen which
+concealed the door and sheltered him from its draughts was standing
+Joan, a-tiptoe, poised as in expectation, something between flight and
+amusement in her face, her attitude full of unconscious grace. He was
+still bewildered, and hardly returned from a dreamland even less
+conventional than Blore. Without as much surprise as if he had thought
+the matter out--it seemed then almost a natural thing--he said:
+
+"You shall have the gloves, Dubs, with pleasure."
+
+The girl's expression, as he spoke, changed to startled astonishment.
+She became crimson from her hair to her throat. She stepped toward
+him, checked herself, then made a quick movement with her hand as if
+about to say something, and finally covered her face with her hands
+and fled from the room. Before he was wide awake he was alone.
+
+At first he smiled pleasantly at the fire, and patted Roy, Joan's
+terrier, who was lying beside him, curled up snugly in an angle of the
+sofa. Afterward he became grave and thoughtful, and finally shook his
+head very much as he had at the stuffed fox in the hall. And so he
+fidgeted till Roy, who was in a restful mood, retired to the
+hearthrug.
+
+It would be hard to describe Joan's feelings that afternoon. She was
+proud, and had begun by resenting for all of them the ill-concealed
+contempt of Tom's London friend--this man of clubs and chit-chat. She
+was quite prepared to grant that he was different from them, but not
+superior. A kind of contempt for the veneer and polish which were his
+pride was natural to her, and she showed this, not rudely nor
+coquettishly, but with a hearty sincerity. Still, it is seldom a girl
+is unaware of admiration, and rare that she does not in secret respect
+self-assertion in the male creature. This man knew much too, and could
+tell it well, that was strange and new and delightful to the country
+maiden. If he had any heart at all--and since he was from London town
+she supposed he had not, though she granted him eyes and fine
+perceptions of the beautiful--she might have, almost, some day,
+promised herself to like him, had he been of her world--not reflecting
+that this very fact that he was out of her world formed the charm by
+which he evoked her interest. As things were, she more than doubted of
+his heart, and had no doubt at all that between their worlds lay a
+great, impassable, unbridgeable abyss.
+
+But this afternoon the dislike, which had been fading day by day along
+with those feelings in another which had caused it, was revived in its
+old strength upon the matter of the kiss. Alone in her own room the
+thought made her turn crimson with vexation, and she stamped the floor
+with annoyance. He had made certain overtures to her--slender and
+meaningless in all probability. Still, if he could believe her capable
+after such looks and words as he had used--if after these he thought
+her capable of this, then indeed, were there no abyss at all, he could
+be nothing to her. Oh, it was too bad, too intolerable! She would
+never forgive him. How indeed could she be anything to him, if she
+could do such a thing, as dreadful, as unmaidenly to her as to the
+proudest beauty among his London friends. She told herself again that
+he was insufferable; and determined to slap Roy well, upon the first
+opportunity, if that mistaken little pearl of price would persist in
+favoring the stranger's sofa.
+
+Until this was cleared up she felt her position the very worst in the
+world, and yet would not for a fortune give him an opportunity of
+freeing her from it. The very fact that he addressed her with, as it
+seemed, a greater show of respect, chafed her. Agnes, with a
+precocious cleverness, a penetration quite her own, kept herself and
+her dog, Jack o' Pack _alias_ Johnny Sprawn, out of her sister's way,
+and teased her only before company.
+
+But at last Maitland caught Miss Joan unprotected.
+
+"I hope that these are the right size, Miss Joan--they are six and a
+quarter," he said boldly, yet with, for a person of his disposition
+and breeding, a strange amount of shamefacedness; producing at the
+same time a pair of gloves, Courvoisier's best, many-buttoned, fit for
+a goddess.
+
+"I beg your pardon?" she said, breathing quickly. But she guessed what
+he meant.
+
+"Let me get out of your debt."
+
+"Out of my debt, Mr. Maitland?" taking the gloves mechanically.
+
+"Please. Did you think I had forgotten? I should find it hard to do
+that," he continued, encouraged and relieved by having got rid of the
+gloves, and inattentive at the moment to her face. Yet she looked long
+at him searchingly.
+
+"I have found it hard to understand you," she said at last, with
+repressed anger in voice and eye; "very hard, Mr. Maitland; but I
+think I do so now. Do you believe that it was I who kissed you
+when you were asleep on Wednesday afternoon? Can you think so? You
+force me to presume it is so. Your estimate of my modesty and of your
+own deserts must differ considerably. I had not the honor. Your
+gloves"--and she dropped them upon the floor as if the touch
+contaminated her, the act humiliating the young gentleman at least as
+much as her words--"you had better give to Agnes, if you wish to
+observe a silly custom. They are due to her, not to me. I thank you,
+Mr. Maitland, for having compelled me to give this pleasant
+explanation."
+
+She turned away with a gesture of such queenly contempt that our poor
+hero--now most unheroic, and dumb as Carlyle would have had his, only
+with mortification and intense disgust at his stupidity--amazed that
+he could ever have thought meanly of this girl, "who moved most
+certainly a goddess," had not a word to express his sorrow. A hero
+utterly crestfallen! But at the door she looked back, for some strange
+reason known perchance to female readers. The gloves were on the
+floor, just beyond his reach--poor, forlorn, sprawling objects, their
+fingers and palms spread as in ridiculous appeal. As for him, he was
+lying back on the sofa, in appearance so crushed and helpless that the
+woman's pity ever near her eyes moved her. She went slowly back, and
+picked up the gloves, and put them on the table where he could take
+them.
+
+"Miss Joan," he said, in a tone of persistence that claimed a hearing,
+and, starting far from the immediate trouble, was apt to arouse
+curiosity; "we are always, as Agnes says, jangling--on my side, of
+course, is the false note. Can we not accord better, and be better
+friends?"
+
+"Not until we learn to know one another better," she said coldly,
+looking down at him, "or become more discerning judges."
+
+"I was a fool, an idiot, an imbecile!" She nodded gravely, still
+regarding him from a great height. "I was mad to believe it possible!"
+
+"I think we may be better friends," she responded, smiling faintly,
+yet with sudden good humor. "We are beginning to know--one another."
+
+"And ourselves," almost under his breath. Then, "Miss Joan, will you
+ever forgive me? I shall never err again in that direction," he
+pleaded. "I am humiliated in my own eyes until you tell me it is
+forgotten."
+
+She nodded, and this time with her own frank smile.
+
+Then she turned away and did leave the room, this time taking Roy with
+her. Her joyous laughter and his wild, excited barking proclaimed
+through the length and breadth of Blore that he was enjoying the rare
+indulgence of a good romp on the back lawn. It was Roy's day.
+
+And can a dog ever hope for a better day than that upon which his
+mistress becomes aware that she is also another's mistress: becomes
+aware that another is thinking of her and for her, nay, that she is
+the very center of that other's thoughts? What a charming, pleasantly
+bewildering discovery it is, this learning that for him when she is in
+the room it is full, and wanting her it is empty, be it never so
+crowded; that all beside, though they be witty or famous, or what they
+will, or can or would, are but lay figures, _umbrae_, shadow guests in
+his estimation. She learns with strange thrills, that in moments of
+meditation will flash to eye and cheek, that her slightest glance and
+every change of color, every tone and smile, are marked with jealous
+care; that pleasure which she does not share is tasteless, and a
+dinner of herbs, if she be but at a far corner, is a feast for
+princes. That is her dog's day, or it may be his dog's day. It is a
+pleasant discovery for a man, _mutatis mutandis_; but for a girl, a
+sweet, half fearful consciousness, the brightest part of love's young
+dream--even when the kindred soul is of another world, and an abyss,
+wide, impassable, unbridgeable lies between.
+
+But these things come to sudden ends sometimes. Sprains, however
+severe, have an awkward knack of getting well. Swellings subside from
+inanition, and doctors insist for their credit's sake that the stick
+or ready arm be relinquished. Certainly a respite or a relapse--call
+it which you will--is not impossible with care, but it is brief. A
+singular shooting pain, not easily located with exactness, but
+somewhere in the neighborhood of the calf, has been found useful; and
+a strange rigidity of the tendon Achilles in certain positions may
+gain a day or two. But at last not even these will avail, and the
+doubly injured one must out and away from among the rose leaves. Twice
+Maitland fixed his departure for the following morning, and each time
+when pressed to stay gave way, after so feeble, so ludicrous a
+resistance, if it deserved the name, that Agnes scarcely concealed her
+grimace, and Joan looked another way. She did not add anything to the
+others' hospitable entreaties. If she guessed what made Maggie's
+good-night kiss so fervent and clinging, she made no sign and offered
+no opening.
+
+In the garden next morning, Maitland taxed her with her neutrality. It
+was wonderful how his sense of humor had become developed at Blore.
+
+"I thought that you did not need so much pressure as to necessitate
+more than four people's powers of persuasion being used," she
+answered, in the same playful spirit. "And besides, now you are well
+enough, must you not leave?"
+
+"Indeed, Miss Joan?"
+
+"And go back to your own way of life? It is a month since you saw the
+latest telegrams, and there is a French company at the Gaiety, I learn
+from the _Standard_. We have interests and duties, though you were so
+hard of belief about them, at Blore, but you have none."
+
+"No interests?"
+
+She shook her head. "No duties, at any rate."
+
+"And so you think," he asked, his eyes fixed upon her changing
+features, "that I should go back to my old way of life--of a century
+ago?"
+
+"Of course you must!" But she was not so rude as to tell him what a
+very foolish question this was. Still it was, was it not?
+
+"So I will, or to something like it, and yet very unlike. But not
+alone. Joan, will you come with me? If I have known you but a month, I
+have learned to love your truth and goodness and you, Joan, so that if
+I go away alone, to return to the old life would be bitterly
+impossible. You have spoiled that; you must make for me a fresh life
+in its place. Do you remember you told me that when we knew one
+another we might be better friends? I have come to know you better,
+but we cannot be friends. We must be something more, more even than
+lovers, Joan--husband and wife, if you can like me enough."
+
+It was not an unmanly way of putting it, and he was in earnest. But so
+quiet, so self-restrained was his manner that it savored of coldness.
+The girl whose hand he held while he spoke had no such thought. Her
+face was turned from him. She was gazing over the wall across the
+paddock where Maggie's mare was peaceably and audibly feeding, and so
+at the Blore Ash on its mimic hill, every bough and drooping branchlet
+dark against the sunset sky; and this radiant in her eyes with a
+beauty its deepest glow had never held for her before. The sweetest
+joy was in her heart, and grief in her face. He had been worthy of
+himself and her love. While he spoke she told herself, not that some
+time she might love him, but that she had given him all her true heart
+already. And yet as he was worthy, so she must be worthy and do her
+part.
+
+"You have done me a great honor," she said at last, drawing away her
+hand from his grasp, though she did not turn her face, "but it cannot
+be, Mr. Maitland. I am very grateful to you--I am indeed, and sorry."
+
+"Why can it not be?" he said shortly; startled, I am bound to say, and
+mortified.
+
+"Because of--of many things. One is that I should not make you happy,
+nor you me. I am not suited to your way of life. I am of the country,
+and I love to be free and unconstrained, while you are of the town.
+Oh, we should not get on at all! Perhaps you would not be ashamed of
+me as your wife, but you might be, and I could not endure the chance
+even of it. There," she added, with a laugh in which a woman's ear
+might have detected the suppression of a sob, "is one sober reason
+where none can be needed."
+
+"Is that your only reason?"
+
+She was picking the mortar out of the wall. "Oh, dear me, no! I have a
+hundred, but that is a sufficient one," she answered almost
+carelessly, flirting a scrap of lime from the wall with her
+forefinger.
+
+"And you have been playing with me all this time!" cried he, obtusely
+enraged by her flippancy.
+
+"Not knowingly, not knowingly, indeed!"
+
+"Can you tell me that you were not aware that I loved you?"
+
+"Well, I thought--the fact is, I thought that you were amusing
+yourself--in West End fashion."
+
+"Coquette!"
+
+"Mr. Maitland!" she cried vehemently, "how dare you? There is proof,
+if any were needed, that I am right. You would not have dared to say
+that to any of your town acquaintances. I am no coquette. If I have
+given you pain, I am very sorry. And--I beg that we may part friends."
+
+She had begun fiercely, with all her old spirit. He turned away, and
+she ended with a sudden, anxious, pitiful lameness, that yet, so angry
+and dull of understanding was he, taught him nothing.
+
+"Friends!" he cried impatiently. "I told you that it was impossible.
+Oh, Joan, think again! Have I been too hasty? Have I given you no time
+to weigh it? Have I just offended you in some little thing? Then let
+me come to you again in three months, after I have been back among my
+old friends?"
+
+"No, don't do that, Mr. Maitland. It will be of no use and will but
+give us pain."
+
+"And yet I will come," he replied firmly, endeavoring by the very
+eager longing of his own gaze to draw from her fair, downcast face
+some sign of hope. "I will come, if you forbid me a hundred times. And
+if you have been playing with me--true, I am in no mood for soft words
+now--it shall be your punishment to say me nay, again. I shall be
+here, Joan, to ask you in three months from to-day."
+
+"I cannot prevent you," she said. "Believe me, I shall only have the
+same answer for you."
+
+"I shall come," he said doggedly, and looked at her with eyes
+reluctant to quit her drooping lashes lest they should miss some
+glance bidding his heart take courage. But none came, only the color
+fluttered uncertainly in her face. So he slowly turned away from her
+at last and walked across the garden, and out of sight by the gate
+into the road. He saw nothing of the long, dusty track, and straggling
+hedges bathed in the last glows of sunset. Those big gray eyes, so
+frank and true, came again and again between him and the prospect, and
+blinded his own with a hot mist of sorrow and anger. Ah, Blore, thou
+wast mightily avenged!
+
+                          *   *   *   *   *
+
+It is a hot afternoon in August, laden with the hum of dozing life.
+The sun has driven the less energetic members of the Quaritch family
+into the cool gloom of the drawing room, where the open windows are
+shaded by the great cedar. Mrs. Quaritch, upon the sofa, is nodding
+over a book. Joan, in a low wicker seat, may be doing the same; while
+Agnes, pursuing a favorite employment upon the hearthrug, is now and
+again betrayed by a half stifled growl from one or other of the dogs
+as they rise and turn themselves reproachfully, and flop down again
+with a sigh in a cool place.
+
+"Agnes," cries her mother, upon some more distinct demonstration of
+misery being made, "for goodness' sake leave the dogs alone. They have
+not had a moment's peace since lunch."
+
+"A dog's life isn't peace, mamma," she answers, with the simple air of
+a discoverer of truth. But, nevertheless, she looks about for fresh
+worlds to conquer.
+
+"Even Mr. Maitland was better than this," she announces, after a long
+yawn of discontent, "though he was dull enough, I wonder why he did
+not come in July. Do you know, Joan?"
+
+"Oh, Agnes, do let us have a moment's peace for once! We are not
+dogs," cried Joan fretfully.
+
+Wonder! she was always wondering. This very minute, while her eyes
+were on the page, it was in her mind. Through all those three months
+passing hour by hour and day by day, she could assure herself that
+when he had come and gone, she would be at rest again; things would be
+as before with her. Let him come and go! But when July arrived, and he
+did not, a sharper pain made itself felt. Bravely as she strove to
+beat it down, well as she might hide it from others, the certainty
+that it had needed no second repulse to balk his love sorely hurt her
+pride. Just her pride, she told herself; nothing else. That he had not
+stood the test he had himself proposed; that any unacknowledged
+faintest hope she might have cherished, deep down in her heart, that
+he might master her by noble persistence, must now be utterly
+quenched; these things of course had no bitterness for her through the
+hot August days; had nothing to do with the wearied look that
+sometimes dulled the gray eyes, nor with the sudden indifference or as
+sudden enthusiasms for lawn tennis and dogs and pigeons, that marked
+her daily moods.
+
+Agnes' teasing, by putting her meditations into words, has disturbed
+her. She gets up and moves restlessly about, touching this thing and
+that, and at last leaves the room and stands in the hall, thinking.
+Here, too, it is dark and cool, and made to seem more so--the door
+into the garden being open--by the hot glare of sunshine falling upon
+the spotless doorstep. She glances at this listlessly. The house is
+still, the servants are at the back; the dogs all worn out by the
+heat. Then, as she hesitates, a slight crunching of footsteps upon the
+gravel comes to her ear, breaking the silence. A sudden black shadow
+falls upon the sunny step and tells of a visitor. Someone chases away
+his shadow, and steps upon the stone, and raises his gloved hand to
+the bell. Charles Maitland at last!
+
+Coming straight in from the sunshine he cannot see the swift welcome
+that springs to eye and cheek, a flash of light and color, quick to
+come and go. He is too much moved himself to mark how her hand shakes.
+He sees no difference in her. But she sees a change in him. She
+detects some subtle difference that eludes her attempt to define its
+nature and only fills her with a vague sense that this is not the
+Charles Maitland from whom she parted.
+
+It is a meeting she has pictured often, but not at all like this. He
+signs to her to take him into the dining room, the door of which
+stands open.
+
+"I have come back, Miss Joan."
+
+"Yes?" she answers, sitting down with an attempt to still the tumult
+within, with such success that she brings herself for the moment
+nearly to the frame of mind in which they parted, and there is the
+same weary sufferance in her tone.
+
+"I have come back as I said I would. I have overstepped the three
+months, but I had a good reason for my delay. Indeed I have been in
+doubt whether I ought to see you again at all, only I could not bear
+you to think what you naturally would. I felt that I must see you,
+even if it cost us both pain." There is a new awkwardness in his tone
+and pose.
+
+"I told you that it was--quite unnecessary--and useless," she answers,
+with a strange tightening in her throat.
+
+"Then it can do you no harm," he assents quietly. "I have come back
+not to repeat my petition, but to tell you why I do not and cannot."
+
+"I think," she puts in coldly, "that upon the whole you had better
+spare yourself the unpleasantness of explaining anything to me. Don't
+you think so? I asked you for no proof, and held out no hope. Why do
+you trouble me? Why have you come back?"
+
+"You have not changed!"
+
+For the first time a ring of contempt in her voice takes the place of
+cold indifference. "I do not change in three months, Mr. Maitland. But
+there! my mother will wish to see you, and so will Agnes, who is
+hankering after something to happen. They are in the drawing room."
+
+"But, Miss Joan, grant me one moment! You have not heard my reasons."
+
+"Your reasons! Is it absolutely necessary?" she asks, half fretfully,
+half scornfully; her uppermost thought an intense desire to be by
+herself in her own room, with the door safely locked.
+
+"I think so, at any rate. Why, I see! By Jove! of course you must
+be thinking the worst of me now! Oh, no! if you could not love me,
+Joan--pray pardon me, I had no right to call you by your name--you
+need not despise me. I cannot again ask you to be my wife, because,"
+he laughs uneasily, "fortune has put it out of my power to take a
+wife. My trustee has made ducks and drakes of my property, or rather
+bulls and bears. I have but a trifle left to begin the world upon, and
+far too little to marry upon."
+
+"I read of it in the papers. I saw that a Mr. Maitland was the chief
+sufferer, but I did not connect him with you," she says, in a low
+voice.
+
+"No, of course not. How should you?" he answers lightly. But
+nevertheless her coldness is dreadful to him. He had thought she would
+express some sympathy. And gayly as he talks of it, he feels something
+of the importance of a ruined man and something of his claim to pity.
+
+"And what are you going to do?"
+
+"Do? We've arranged all that. They say there is a living to be made at
+the Bar in New Zealand, if one does not object to riding boots and
+spurs as part of the professional costume. Of course it will be a
+different sort of life, and Agnes' favorite patent leathers will
+be left behind in every sense. This would have been a bad blow to
+me"--there is a slight catch in his voice, and he gets up, and looks
+out of one of the windows with his back to her--"now I have learned
+from you that life should not be all lounging round the table and
+looking over other people's cards. It has been a sharp lesson, but
+very opportune as things have turned out. I am ready to take a hand
+myself now--even without a partner."
+
+He does not at once turn round. He had not fancied she would take it
+like this, and he listens for a word to tell him that at any rate she
+is sorry--is grieved as for a stranger. Then he feels a sudden light,
+timid touch upon his arm. Joan is standing quite close to him, and
+does not move or take away her hand as he turns. Only she looks down
+at the floor when she speaks:
+
+"I think I should be better than--than dummy--if you will take me to
+New Zealand."
+
+Half laughing, half crying, and wholly confused, she looks up into his
+astonished face with eyes so brimful of love and tenderness that they
+tell all her story. For just an instant his eyes meet hers. Then, with
+a smothered exclamation, he draws her to him--and--in fact smothers
+the exclamation.
+
+"I am so glad you've lost your money," she sobs, hiding her face,
+as soon as she can, upon his shoulder. "I should not have done at
+all--for you--in London, Charley."
+
+There let us leave her. But no, another is less merciful. Neither of
+them hears the door open or sees Agnes' face appear at it. But she
+both sees and hears, and says very distinctly and clearly:
+
+"Well!"
+
+But even Agnes is happy and satisfied. Something _has_ happened.
+
+
+
+
+                          THE FATAL LETTER.
+
+
+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 someone 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 around 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 man servant 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
+spake, 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-paneled, 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 mustaches 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 indeed have been 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 toward 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 you 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 clew 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 package.
+
+"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 toward 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 eying 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 whisky you
+gave me last Christmas on the tray. Will you have some with hot water
+and a lemon, George? The servants are all at the theater--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 of 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 deviltry 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 toward 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 oversized
+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 toward 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 anyone 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
+whisky 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 tomorrow 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 mustache--I
+walked out of the room, so peaceful, so cozy, 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'
+idea of bringing you in was a splendid one, and I am immensely obliged
+to you."
+
+
+[Illustration: "YOU ARE FORGETTING THE PAPERS," HE REMINDED ME.]
+
+
+"Don't mention it," I answered stiffly, proceeding with my
+preparations for going out as if he had not been 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 toward 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 tonight, 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 nicking 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 that 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, eying 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
+Northwestern 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 Northwestern
+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 acknowledgment 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, businesslike, 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' cognizance, to get
+possession of the packet by drugging my father's whisky. Barnes'
+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 inclosed. 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, resealed 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 END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The King's Stratagem and Other Stories, by
+Stanley J. Weyman
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