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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42756 ***
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+     1. Page scan source:
+        http://archive.org/details/61248333.2041.emory.edu
+        (Emory University)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                          AN ISLE OF SURREY.
+
+
+
+                               A Novel.
+
+
+
+
+                                  BY
+
+                           RICHARD DOWLING,
+
+                              AUTHOR OF
+
+          "THE MYSTERY OF KILLARD," "THE DUKE'S SWEETHEART,"
+               "UNDER ST. PAUL'S," "MIRACLE GOLD," ETC.
+
+
+
+
+                         * * * * * * * * * *
+                            _NEW EDITION_.
+                         * * * * * * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+                           WARD AND DOWNEY,
+             12, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON, W.C.
+                                1891.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                              PRINTED BY
+            KELLY AND CO., MIDDLE MILL, KINGSTON-ON-THAMES
+             AND GATE STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS, W.C.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS
+
+CHAP.
+         I.--Welford Bridge.
+
+        II.--Crawford's House.
+
+       III.--The Pine Groves of Leeham.
+
+        IV.--The Missing Man.
+
+         V.--A Second Apparition.
+
+        VI.--Crawford's Investigations.
+
+       VII.--A Visitor at Boland's Ait.
+
+      VIII.--Father and Son.
+
+        IX.--Crawford's Home.
+
+         X.--Father and Son.
+
+        XI.--"Can I Play with that Little Boy?"
+
+       XII.--Philip Ray at Richmond.
+
+      XIII.--An Invitation Accepted.
+
+       XIV.--The Fire at Richmond.
+
+        XV.--How William Goddard changed his Name.
+
+       XVI.--At Play.
+
+      XVII.--The Postman's Hail.
+
+     XVIII.--Private Theatricals.
+
+       XIX.--The Tow-path by Night.
+
+        XX.--A Hostage at Crawford's House.
+
+       XXI.--Crawford Sells a Patent.
+
+      XXII.--William Crawford's Nightmare.
+
+     XXIII.--"Man Overboard!"
+
+      XXIV.--Reward for a Life.
+
+       XXV.--A New Visitor at Crawford's House.
+
+      XXVI.--A Bridge of Sighs.
+
+     XXVII.--A Last Resolve.
+
+    XXVIII.--William Crawford's Luck.
+
+      XXIX.--An Intruder upon the Ait.
+
+       XXX.--Hetty's Visit to the Ait.
+
+      XXXI.--By the Boy's Bedside.
+
+     XXXII.--Bramwell finds a Sister.
+
+    XXXIII.--"I must go to fetch her Home."
+
+     XXXIV.--Crawford's Plans for the Future.
+
+      XXXV.--Husband and Wife.
+
+     XXXVI.--Tea at Crawford's House.
+
+    XXXVII.--Crawford Writes Home.
+
+   XXXVIII.--William Crawford Free.
+
+     XXXIX.--Crawford is Sleepless.
+
+        XL.--Crawford Sleeps
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         AN ISLE OF SURREY.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER I.
+
+                           WELFORD BRIDGE.
+
+
+There was not a cloud in the heavens. The sun lay low in the west. The
+eastern sky of a May evening was growing from blue to a violet dusk.
+Not a breath of wind stirred. It was long past the end of the
+workman's day.
+
+A group of miserably clad men lounged on Welford Bridge, some gazing
+vacantly into the empty sky, and some gazing vacantly into the turbid
+water of the South London Canal, crawling beneath the bridge at the
+rate of a foot a minute towards its outlet in the Mercantile Docks, on
+the Surrey shore between Greenwich and the Pool.
+
+The men were all on the southern side of the bridge: they were loafers
+and long-shoremen. Most of them had pipes in their mouths. They were a
+disreputable-looking group, belonging to that section of the residuum
+which is the despair of philanthropists--the man who has nothing
+before him but work or crime, and can hardly be got to work.
+
+One of them was leaning against the parapet with his face turned in
+mere idleness up the canal. He was not looking at anything: his full,
+prominent, meaningless blue eyes were fixed on nothing. Directly in
+the line of his vision, and between him and Camberwell, were
+Crawford's Bay and Boland's Ait. The ait, so called by some derisive
+humourist, lay in the mouth of the bay, the outer side of it forming
+one bank of the canal, and the inner side corresponding with the sweep
+of Crawford's Bay, formed forty feet of canal water.
+
+The man looking south was low-sized, red-bearded, red-whiskered,
+red-haired, with a battered brown felt hat, a neckerchief of no
+determinable colour, a torn check shirt, a dark blue ragged pea-jacket
+of pilot cloth, no waistcoat, a pair of brown stained trousers, and
+boots several sizes too large for him, turned up at the toes, and so
+bagged and battered and worn that they looked as though they could not
+be moved another step without falling asunder. This man would have
+told a mere acquaintance that his name was Jim Ford, but he was called
+by those who knew him Red Jim.
+
+All at once he uttered a strong exclamation of surprise without
+shifting his position.
+
+"What is it, Jim?" asked a tall, lank, dark man by his side.
+
+The others of the group turned and looked in the direction in which
+Jim's eyes were fixed.
+
+"Why," said Red Jim, in a tone of incredulity and indignation,
+"there's some one in Crawford's House!"
+
+"Of course there is, you fool! Why, where have you been? Haven't you
+heard? Have you been with the Salvation Army, or only doing a
+stretch?"
+
+"Fool yourself!" said Red Jim. "Mind what you're saying, or perhaps
+I'll stretch you a bit, long as you are already." The other men
+laughed at this personal sally. It reduced long Ned Bayliss to sullen
+silence, and restored Red Jim to his condition of objectless vacuity.
+
+"I hear," said a man who had not yet spoken, "that Crawford's House is
+let."
+
+"Let!" cried another, as though anyone who mentioned the matter as
+news must be ages behind the times. "Let! I should think it is!"
+
+"And yet it isn't so much let, after all," said Ned Bayliss, turning
+round in a captious manner. "You can't exactly say a place is let when
+a man goes to live in his own house."
+
+"Why, Crawford's dead this long and merry," objected a voice.
+
+"Well," said Ned Bayliss, "and if he is, and if he left all to his
+wife for as long as she kept his name, and if she married a second
+time and got her new husband to change his name instead of _her_
+changing _hers_--how is that, do you think, Matt Jordan?"
+
+It was plain by Ned Bayliss's manner and by the way in which this
+speech was received by the listeners that he was looked up to as a
+being of extraordinary mental endowment, and possessed preëminently of
+the power of lucid exposition.
+
+"True enough," said Matt Jordan humbly, as he hitched up his trousers
+and shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other, and
+coughed a self-deprecatory cough. "And a snug property he has come
+into, I say. I only wish I was in his place."
+
+Jordan was a squat, ill-favoured man of forty.
+
+"Why," said Bayliss derisively, "a man with your points wouldn't throw
+himself away on a sickly widow with only a matter of a thousand a-year
+or thereabouts out of a lot of ramshackle tenement-houses and canal
+wharfs. You'd look higher, Matt. Why, you'd want a titled lady, any
+way. With your face and figure, you ought to be able to do a great
+deal better than an elderly sickly widow, even if she is rich."
+
+Jordan shifted his felt hat, made no reply, and for a while there was
+silence.
+
+Crawford's House, of which the loungers on Welford Bridge were
+speaking, stood a few feet back from the inner edge of Crawford's Bay,
+about three hundred yards from the bridge. Jim Ford, the first
+speaker, had concluded, from seeing all the sashes of the house open,
+and a woman cleaning a window, and a strip of carpet hanging out of
+another, that a tenant had been found for this lonely and isolated
+dwelling, which had been standing idle for years.
+
+"Have you seen this turncoat Crawford?" asked a man after a pause.
+
+No one had seen him.
+
+"He must have a spirit no better than a dog's to change his name for
+her money," said Red Jim, without abandoning his study of Crawford's
+House, on which his vacant eyes now rested with as much curiosity as
+the expressionless blue orbs were capable of.
+
+"It would be very handy for _some_ people to change their names like
+that, or in any other way that wouldn't bring a trifle of canvas and a
+few copper bolts to the mind of any one in the neighbourhood of the
+East India Docks," said Bayliss, looking at that point of the sky
+directly above him, lest any one might fancy his words had a personal
+application.
+
+With an oath, Red Jim turned round, and, keeping his side close to the
+parapet, slouched slowly away towards the King William public-house,
+which stood at the bottom of the short approach to the steep
+humpbacked bridge.
+
+"Nice chap he is to talk of changing a name for money being
+disgraceful!" said Bayliss, when the other was out of hearing. "He was
+as near as ninepence to doing time over them canvas and bolts at the
+East India. Look at him now, going to the William as if he had money!
+_He_ isn't the man that could stand here if he had a penny in his
+rags." The speaker jingled some coins in his own pocket to show how
+he, being a man of intellectual resources and strong will, could
+resist temptation before which common clay, such as Red Jim was made
+of, must succumb.
+
+Red Jim did not enter the William. As he reached the door he stopped
+and looked along the road. A man coming from the western end drew up
+in front of him and said:
+
+"Is that Welford Bridge?" pointing to where the group of loungers
+stood, with the upper portions of their bodies illumined by the
+western glow against the darkening eastern sky.
+
+"Yes," said Jim sullenly, "that's Welford Bridge."
+
+"Do you know where Crawford's Bay is, here on the South London Canal?
+Is that the canal bridge?"
+
+"I know where Crawford's Bay is right enough," said the other
+doggedly. He was not disposed to volunteer any information. "Do you
+want to go to Crawford's Bay? If you do, I can show you the way. I'm
+out of work, gov'nor, and stone broke."
+
+"Very good. Come along and show me Crawford's House. I'll pay you for
+your trouble."
+
+Red Jim led the way back to the bridge.
+
+"Who has he picked up?" asked Bayliss jealously, as the two men passed
+the group.
+
+None of the loungers answered.
+
+"He's turning down Crawford Street," said Bayliss, when the two men
+had gone a hundred yards beyond the bridge.
+
+"So he is," said another. Bayliss was the most ready of speech, and
+monopolised the conversation. His mates regarded him as one rarely
+gifted in the matter of language; as one who would, without doubt,
+have made an orator if ambition had led the way.
+
+"I wonder what Red Jim is bringing that man down Crawford Street for?
+No good, I'm sure."
+
+"Seems a stranger," suggested the other man. "Maybe he wants Jim to
+show him the way."
+
+"Ay," said Bayliss in a discontented tone. "There's a great deal to be
+seen down Crawford Street! Lovely views; plenty of rotting doors. Now,
+if they only got in on the wharf, Jim could show him the old empty
+ice-house there. Do you know, if any one was missing hereabouts, and a
+good reward was offered, I'd get the drags and have a try in the
+ice-house. There's ten feet of water in it if there's an inch, so I'm
+told."
+
+"It is a lonesome place. I wonder they don't pump the water out."
+
+"Pump it out, you fool! How could they? Why, 'twould fill as fast as
+any dozen fire-engines could pump it out. The water from the canal
+soaks into it as if the wall was a sieve."
+
+Nothing more was said for a while. Then suddenly, Bayliss, whose eyes
+were turned towards the bay, uttered an oath, and exclaimed, "We're a
+heap of fools, that's what we are, not to guess. Why, it must be
+Crawford, the new Crawford--not the Crawford that's dead and buried,
+but the one that's alive and had the gumption to marry the sickly
+widow for her money! There he is at the window with that girl I saw
+going into the house to-day."
+
+Bayliss stretched out his long lean arm, and pointed with his thin
+grimy hand over the canal towards Crawford's House, at one of the
+windows of which a man and woman could be seen looking out into the
+dark turbid waters of Crawford's Bay.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II.
+
+                          CRAWFORD'S HOUSE.
+
+
+Crawford Street, into which the stranger and his uncouth conductor had
+turned, was a narrow, dingy, neglected blind lane. The end of it was
+formed of a brick wall, moss-grown and ragged. On the right hand side
+were gates and doors of idle wharves, whose rears abutted on the bay;
+on the left, a long low unbroken wall separating the roadway from a
+desolate waste, where rubbish might be shot, according to a
+dilapidated and half-illegible notice-board; but on the plot were only
+two small mounds of that dreary material, crowned with a few battered
+rusty iron and tin utensils of undeterminable use.
+
+In the street, which was a couple of hundred yards long, stood the
+only dwelling. Opposite the door Red Jim drew up, and, pointing, said,
+"That's Crawford's House. I belong to this neighourhood. I'm called
+after the place. My name is James Ford. I'm called after the place,
+same as a lord is called after a place. They found me twenty-nine
+years ago on the tow-path. Nobody wanted me much then or since. Maybe
+you're the new Mr. Crawford, and, like me, called after the place
+too?" He spoke in a tone of curiosity.
+
+At the question, his companion started, looking at Red Jim out of a
+pair of keen, quick, furtive eyes. "I told you I would pay you for
+showing me the place. Here's sixpence. If you want any information of
+me, you'll have to pay me for it. If you really care to know my name,
+I'll tell it to you for that sixpence." The stranger laughed a short
+sharp laugh, handed Red Jim the coin, and kept his hand outstretched
+as if to take it back.
+
+Jim turned on his heel, and slunk away muttering.
+
+The stranger knocked with his fist on the door, from which the knocker
+was missing. The panels had originally been painted a grass-green, now
+faded down to the sober hue of the sea.
+
+The door was opened by a tall slender girl, whose golden-brown hair
+was flying in wild confusion over her white forehead and red cheeks,
+and across her blue eyes, in which, as in the hair, flashed a glint of
+gold. She smiled and laughed apologetically, and thrust her floating
+hair back from her face with both her hands.
+
+"Miss Layard?" said the stranger, raising his hat and bowing. He
+thought, "What beauty, what health, what spirits, what grace, what
+youth, what deliciousness!"
+
+"Yes," she answered, stepping back for him to enter. "Mr. Crawford?"
+she asked in her turn.
+
+"My name is Crawford," he said going in. "I--I was not quite prepared
+to find you what you are, Miss Layard--I mean so--so young. When your
+brother spoke to me of his sister, I fancied he meant some one much
+older than himself."
+
+She smiled, and laughed again as she led him into the front room, now
+in a state of chaotic confusion.
+
+"We did not expect you till later. My brother has not come home yet.
+We have only moved in to-day, and we are, O! in such dreadful
+confusion."
+
+On the centre of the floor was spread a square of very old threadbare
+carpet, leaving a frame of worn old boards around it. In the centre of
+the carpet stood a small dining-table. Nothing else in the room was
+in its place. The half-dozen poor chairs, the chiffonnier, the one
+easy-chair, the couch, were all higgledy-piggledy. The furniture was
+of the cheapest kind, made to catch the inexperienced eye. Although
+evidently not old, it was showing signs of decrepitude. It had once,
+no doubt, looked bright and pleasant enough, but now the spring seats
+of the chairs were bulged, and the green plush expanse of the couch
+rose and fell like miniature grazing-land of rolling hillocks.
+
+The young girl placed a seat for her visitor, and took one herself
+with another of those bright cheerful laughs which were delicious
+music, and seemed to make light and perfume in the darkening cheerless
+room.
+
+"My brother told me you were not likely to be here until ten; but your
+rooms are all ready, if you wish to see them."
+
+She leant back in her chair and clasped her hands in her lap, a
+picture of beautiful, joyous girlhood.
+
+He regarded her with undisguised admiration. She returned his looks
+with smiling, unruffled tranquillity.
+
+"So," he said in a low voice, as though he did not wish the noise of
+his own words to distract his sense of seeing, concentrated on her
+face and lithe graceful figure, "you got my rooms ready, while you
+left your own in chaos?"
+
+"You are too soon," she answered, nodding her head playfully. "If you
+had not come until ten, we should have had this room in order. As you
+see, it was well we arranged the other rooms first. Would you like to
+see them?"
+
+"Not just now. I am quite content here for the present," he said, with
+a gallant gesture towards her.
+
+"I don't think my brother will be very long. In fact, when you knocked
+I felt quite sure it was Alfred. O! here he is. Pardon me," she cried,
+springing up, and hurrying to the door.
+
+In a few minutes Alfred Layard was shaking hands with the other man,
+saying pleasantly and easily, "I do not know, Mr. Crawford, whether it
+is I ought to welcome you, or you ought to welcome me. You are at once
+my landlord and my tenant."
+
+"And you, on your side, necessarily are my landlord and my tenant
+also. Let us welcome one another, and hope we may be good friends."
+
+With a wave of his hand he included the girl in this proposal.
+
+"Agreed!" cried Layard cheerfully, as he again shook the short plump
+hand of the elder man.
+
+"You see," said Crawford, explaining the matter with a humorous toss
+of the head and a chuckle, "your brother is my tenant, since he has
+taken this house, and I am his tenant, since I have taken two rooms in
+this house. I have just been saying to Miss Layard," turning from the
+sister to the brother, "that when you spoke to me of your sister who
+looked after your little boy, I imagined she must be much older than
+you."
+
+"Instead of which you find her a whole ten years younger," said
+Layard, putting his arm round the girl's slim waist lightly and
+affectionately; "and yet, although she is only a child, she is as wise
+with her little motherless nephew as if she were Methuselah's sister."
+
+The girl blushed and escaped from her brother's arm.
+
+"You would think," she said, "that there was some credit in taking
+care of Freddie. Why, he's big enough and good enough to take care of
+himself, and me into the bargain. I asked Mr. Crawford, Alfred, if he
+would like to look at his rooms, but he seemed to wish to see you."
+
+"And I am here at last," said Layard. "Well, shall we go and look at
+them now? You observe the confusion we are in here. We cannot, I fear,
+offer you even a cup of tea to drink to our better acquaintance."
+
+Crawford rose, and the three left the room and began ascending the
+narrow massive and firm old stairs.
+
+To look at brother and sister, no one would fancy they were related.
+He was tall and lank, with dark swarthy face, deep-sunken small grey
+eyes, not remarkable for their light, dark brown hair, and snub nose.
+The most remarkable feature of his face was his beard--dark dull brown
+which looked almost dun, and hung down from each side of his chin in
+two enormous thin streamers. His face in repose was the embodiment of
+invincible melancholy; but by some unascertainable means it was able
+to light up under the influence of humour, or affection, or joy, in a
+way all the more enchanting because so wholly unexpected.
+
+Alfred Layard was thirty years of age, and had been a widower two
+years, his young wife dying a twelve-month after the birth of her only
+child Freddie, now three.
+
+William Crawford was a man of very different mould; thick-set,
+good-looking, with bold brown eyes, clean-shaven face, close thick
+hair which curled all over a massive head, full lips that had few
+movements, and handsome well cut forehead too hollow for beauty in the
+upper central region. The face was singularly immobile, but it had a
+look of energy and resolution about it that caught the eye and held
+the attention, and ended in arousing something between curiosity and
+fear in the beholder. Plainly, a man with a will of his own, and
+plenty of energy to carry that will out. In all his movements, even
+those of courtesy, there was a suggestion of irrepressible vigour. His
+age was about five or six and thirty.
+
+It was an odd procession. In front, the gay fair girl with azure eyes,
+golden-brown hair, and lithe form, ascending with elastic step. Behind
+her, the thick-set, firm, resolute figure of the elder man, with dark,
+impassive, immobile features, bold dark eyes, and firm lips, moving as
+though prepared to meet opposition and ready to overcome it. Last, the
+tall, lank angular form of the young widower, with plain, almost ugly,
+face, deep-set eyes, snub nose, dull complexion, and long melancholy
+dun beard, flowing like a widow's streamers in two thin scarves behind
+him. Here were three faces, one of which was always alight, a second
+which could never light, and a third usually dull and dead, but which
+could light at will.
+
+"This is the sitting-room," said Hetty, standing at the threshold.
+"You said you would prefer having the back room furnished as the
+sitting-room, Alfred told me."
+
+"Yes, certainly, the back for the sitting-room," said Crawford, as
+they entered. He looked round sharply with somewhat the same
+surprising quickness of glance which had greeted Red Jim's question at
+the door. It conveyed the idea of a man at once curious and on his
+guard.
+
+His survey seemed to satisfy him, for he ceased to occupy himself with
+the room, and said, turning to the brother and sister, with a short
+laugh, "This, as you know, is my first visit to Crawford Street. I had
+no notion what kind of a place it was; and when I am here, two or
+three days in the month, and a week additional each quarter, I should
+like to be quiet and much to myself. I don't, of course, my dear Mr.
+Layard, mean with regard to your sister and you," he bowed, "but the
+people all round. They are not a very nice class of people, are they?"
+with a shrug of his shoulders at people who were not very nice.
+
+"There are no people at all near us," answered Layard cheerfully. "No
+one else lives in the street, and we have the canal, or rather the
+Bay, at the back."
+
+"Capital! capital!" cried Crawford in a spiritless voice, though he
+rubbed his hands as if enjoying himself immensely. "You, saving for
+the presence of Miss Layard and your little boy, whose acquaintance,
+by the way, I have not yet made, are a kind of Robinson Crusoe here."
+
+"O!" cried Hetty, running to the window and pointing out, "the real
+Robinson Crusoe is here."
+
+"Where? I hope he has Man Friday, parrot, and all; walking to the
+window, where they stood looking out, the girl, with her round arm,
+pointing into the gathering dusk. In the window-place, they were
+almost face to face. Instead of instantly following the direction of
+Hetty's arm, he followed the direction of his thoughts, and while her
+eyes were gazing out of the window, his were fixed upon her face.
+
+"There," she said, upon finding his eyes were not in the direction of
+her hand.
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said, "but I can see no one."
+
+He was now looking out of the window.
+
+"But you can see his island."
+
+"Again I beg your pardon, but I can see no island."
+
+"What you see there is an island. That is not the tow-path right
+opposite: that is Boland's Ait."
+
+"Boland's Ait! Yes, I have heard of Boland's Ait. I have nothing to do
+with it, I believe?" he turned to Layard.
+
+"I think not."
+
+"O, no!" said the girl laughing; "the whole island is the property of
+Mr. Francis Bramwell, a most mysterious man, who is either an
+astrologer, or an author, or a pirate, or something wonderful and
+romantic."
+
+"Why," cried her brother in amused surprise, "where on earth did you
+get this information?"
+
+"From Mrs. Grainger, whom you sent to help me to-day. Mrs. Grainger
+knows the history of the whole neighbourhood from the time of Adam."
+
+"The place cannot have existed so long," said Crawford, with another
+of his short laughs; "for it shows no sign of having been washed even
+as far back as the Flood. Is your Crusoe old or young?"
+
+"Young, I am told, and handsome. I assure you the story is quite
+romantic."
+
+"And is there much more of the story of this Man Friday, or whatever
+he is?" asked Crawford carelessly, as he moved away from the window
+towards the door.
+
+"Well," said she, "that is a good deal to begin with; and then it is
+said he has been ruined by some one or other, or something or other,
+either betting on horses or buying shares in railways to the moon, and
+that he did these foolish things because his wife ran away from him;
+and now he lives all alone on his island, and leaves it very seldom,
+and never has any visitors, or hardly any, and is supposed to be
+writing a book proving that woman is a mistake and ought to be
+abolished."
+
+"The brute!" interpolated Crawford, bowing to Hetty, as though in
+protest against any one who could say an unkind thing of the sex to
+which she belonged.
+
+"Isn't it dreadful?" cried the girl in a tone of comic distress.
+She was still standing by the window, one cheek and side of her
+golden-brown hair illumined by the fading light, and her blue eyes
+dancing with mischievous excitement. "And they say that, much as he
+hates women, he hates men more."
+
+"Ah! that is a redeeming feature," said Crawford. "A misanthropist is
+intelligible, but a misogynist is a thing beyond reason, and hateful."
+
+"But, Hetty," said Layard, "if the man lives so very much to himself
+and does not leave his house, how is all this known?"
+
+"Why, because all the women have not been abolished yet. Do you fancy
+there ever was a mystery a woman could not find out? It is the
+business of women to fathom mysteries. I'll engage that before we are
+a week here I shall know twice as much as I do now of our romantic
+neighbour."
+
+"And then," said Crawford, showing signs of flagging interest, and
+directing his attention once more to the arrangement of the room,
+"perhaps Miss Layard will follow this Crusoe's example, and write a
+book against men."
+
+"No, no. I like men."
+
+He turned round and looked fully at her. "And upon my word, Miss
+Layard," said he warmly, "I think you would find a vast majority of
+men very willing to reciprocate the feeling."
+
+Hetty laughed, and so did her brother.
+
+"As I explained," said Crawford, "I shall want these rooms only once a
+month. I shall have to look after the property in this neighbourhood.
+I think I shall take a leaf out of our friend Crusoe's book, and keep
+very quiet and retired. I care to be known in this neighbourhood as
+little as possible. There is property of another kind in town. It,
+too, requires my personal supervision. I shall make this place my
+head-quarters, and keep what changes of clothes I require here. It is
+extremely unlikely I shall have any visitors. By the way, in what
+direction does Camberwell lie?" He asked the question with an
+elaborate carelessness which did not escape Alfred Layard.
+
+"Up there," said Layard, waving his left hand in a southerly
+direction.
+
+Once more Crawford approached the window. This time he leaned out,
+resting his hand on the sill.
+
+In front of him lay Boland's Ait, a little island about a hundred
+yards long and forty yards wide in the middle, tapering off to a point
+at either end. Beyond the head of the island, pointing south, the
+tow-path was visible, and beyond the tail of the island the tow-path
+again, and further off Welford Bridge, lying north.
+
+Hetty was leaning against the wainscot of the old-fashioned deep
+embrasure.
+
+"Does that tow-path lead to Camberwell?" asked Crawford.
+
+"Yes," answered the girl, making a gesture to the left.
+
+"Is it much frequented?" asked he in a voice he tried to make
+commonplace, but from which he could not banish the hint of anxiety.
+
+"O, no, very few people go along it."
+
+"But now, I suppose, people sometimes come from that direction,"
+waving his left hand, "for a walk?"
+
+"Well," said the girl demurely, "the scenery isn't very attractive;
+but there is nothing to prevent people coming, if they pay the toll."
+
+"O, there _is_ a toll?" he said in a tone of relief, as if the
+knowledge of such a barrier between him and Camberwell were a source
+of satisfaction to him.
+
+"Yes; a halfpenny on weekdays and a penny on Sundays."
+
+He leaned further out. The frame of the window shook slightly. "We
+must have this woodwork fixed," he said a little peevishly. "What
+building is this here on your left?--a store of some kind with the
+gates off."
+
+"That's the empty ice-house. It belongs to you, I believe."
+
+"Ah! the empty ice-house. So it is. I never saw an ice-house before."
+
+"It is full of water," said the girl, again drawing on the charwoman's
+store of local information. "It makes me quite uncomfortable to think
+of it."
+
+The man, bending out of the window, shuddered, and shook the
+window-frame sharply. "There seems to be a great deal of water about
+here, and it doesn't look very ornamental."
+
+"No," said Hetty; "but it's very useful."
+
+Crawford's eyes were still directed to the left, but not at so sharp
+an angle as to command a view of the vacant icehouse. He was gazing
+across the head of the island at the tow-path.
+
+Suddenly he drew in with a muttered imprecation; the window-frame
+shook violently, and a large piece of mortar fell and struck him on
+the nape of the neck. He sprang back with a second half-uttered
+malediction, and stood bolt upright a pace from the window, but did
+not cease to gaze across the head of the island.
+
+Along the tow-path a tall man was advancing rapidly, swinging his arms
+in a remarkable manner as he walked.
+
+"No, no, not hurt to speak of," he answered, with a hollow laugh, in
+reply to a question of Layard's, still keeping his eyes fixed on the
+tow-path visible beyond Boland's Ait. "The mortar has gone down my
+back. I shall change my coat and get rid of the mortar. My portmanteau
+has come, I perceive. Thank you, I am not hurt. Good evening for the
+present," he added, as brother and sister moved towards the door.
+
+Although he did not stir further from the window, they saw he was in
+haste they should be gone, so they hurried away, shutting the door
+behind them.
+
+When they had disappeared he went back to the window, and muttered
+in a hoarse voice: "I could have sworn it was Philip Ray--Philip Ray,
+her brother, who registered an oath he would shoot me whenever or
+wherever he met me, and he is the man to keep his word. He lives at
+Camberwell. It must have been he. If it was he, in a few minutes he
+will come out on the tow-path at the other end of the island; in two
+minutes--in three minutes at the very outside--he must come round the
+tail of the island, and then I can make sure whether it is Philip Ray
+or not. He will be only half the distance from me that he was before,
+and there will be light enough to make sure."
+
+He waited two, three, four, five minutes--quarter of an hour, but from
+behind neither end of the island did the man emerge on the tow-path.
+There could be no doubt of this, for from where he stood a long
+stretch of the path was visible north and south beyond the island, and
+William Crawford's eyes swung from one end of the line to the other as
+frequently as the pendulum of a clock.
+
+At length, when half-an-hour had passed, and it was almost dark, he
+became restless, excited, and in the end went down-stairs. In the
+front room he found Layard on the top of a step-ladder. He said:
+
+"I was looking out of my window, and a man, coming from the northern
+end of the tow-path, disappeared behind the island, behind Boland's
+Ait. He has not come back and he has not come out at the other end.
+Where can he have gone? Is there some way of getting off the tow-path
+between the two points?" The speaker's manner was forced into a form
+of pleasant wonder; but there were strange white lines, like lines of
+fear, about his mouth and the corners of his eyes, "Is there a gate or
+way off the tow-path?"
+
+"No. The man _must_ have come off the tow path or gone into the water
+and been drowned," said Layard, not noticing anything peculiar in the
+other, and answering half-playfully.
+
+"That would be too good," cried Crawford with a start, apparently
+taken off his guard.
+
+"Eh?" cried Layard, facing round suddenly. He was in the act of
+driving in a brass-headed nail. The fervour in Crawford's tone caught
+his ear and made him suspend the blow he was about to deliver.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said the other, with one of his short laughs. "A
+bad-natured joke. I meant it would be too much of a joke to think
+a man could be drowned in such a simple way. But this man hid
+himself behind the island and did not come forth at either end for
+half-an-hour, and I thought I'd ask you what you thought, as the
+circumstance piqued me. Good-night."
+
+When he found himself in his own room he closed the window, pulled
+down the blind, hasped the shutters, and drew the curtains. He looked
+round on the simple unpretending furniture suspiciously, and muttered:
+
+"He here--if it were he, and I think it was, appearing and
+disappearing in such a way! He cannot have found me out? Curse him,
+curse her; ay, curse her! Is not that all over now? She was to blame,
+too."
+
+He walked up and down the room for an hour.
+
+"If that was Philip Ray, where did he go to? He seems to have
+vanished. Layard knows every foot of this place. It was Philip Ray,
+and he did vanish! Could he have seen me and recognised me? or could
+he have tracked me, and is he now out on that little quay or wharf
+under my window, _waiting_ for me? Ugh!"
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER III.
+
+                      THE PINE GROVES OF LEEHAM.
+
+
+Below London Bridge, and just at the end of the Pool, the Thames makes
+a sharp bend north, and keeps this course for close on a mile. Then it
+sweeps in a gentle curve eastward for half a mile; after this it
+suddenly turns south, and keeps on in a straight line for upwards of a
+mile. The part of London bounded on three sides by these sections of
+the river is not very densely populated if the acreage is considered.
+Much of it is taken up with the vast system of the Mercantile Docks;
+large spaces are wholly unbuilt on; the South London Canal, its
+tow-path, and double row of wharves and yards, cover a large area; and
+one of the most extensive gasworks in the metropolis and a convergence
+of railway lines take up space to the exclusion of people. There are
+stretches of this district as lonely by night as the top of Snowdon.
+
+Little life stirs by day on the canal; after dark the waters and the
+tow-path are as deserted as a village graveyard. Along the railroad by
+day no human foot travels but the milesman's, and at night the traffic
+falls off to a mere echo of its incessant mighty roar by day. The
+gasworks are busy, and glowing and flaming and throbbing all through
+the hours of gloom and darkness, but people cannot get near them. They
+are enclosed by high walls on all sides except one, and on that side
+lies the South London Canal, which crawls and crawls unhastened and
+unrefreshed by the waters of any lock. The solitude of the tow-path
+after dark is enhanced at the point where it passes opposite the
+gasworks by the appearance of life across the water, and the
+impossibility of reaching that life, touching the human hands that
+labour there, receiving aid from kindly men if aid were needed. The
+tow-path at this point is narrow and full of fathomless shadows, in
+which outcasts, thieves, and murderers might lurk; deep doorways,
+pilasters, and ruined warehouses, where misery or crime could hide or
+crouch.
+
+But of all the loneliness by night in this region which is vaguely
+styled the Mercantile Docks, the deepest, the most affecting, the most
+chilling is that which dwells in the tortuous uninhabited approaches
+leading from the docks to the river north and south, and east and west
+from Deptford to Rotherhithe.
+
+Out of the same spirit of mocking humour which gave the name of
+Boland's Ait to the little island in the canal, these solitary ways
+are called the Pine Groves. The pine-wood which gives them their name
+has ceased to be a landscape ornament many years, and now stands
+upright about ten feet high on either side of the roads, in the form
+of tarred planks.
+
+There are miles of this monotonous black fencing, with no house or
+gate to break the depressing sameness. By day the Pine Groves are busy
+with the rumble of heavy traffic from the docks and wharves; by night
+they are as deserted as the crypt of St. Paul's.
+
+Between the great gasworks and the docks, and at a point upon which
+the canal, the main railway, and three of these Pine Groves converge,
+there is an oasis of houses, a colony of men, a village, as it were,
+in this desert made by man in the interest of trade and commerce.
+This patch of inhabited ground supports at most two hundred houses.
+The houses are humble, but not squalid. The inhabitants are not
+longshore-men, nor are they mostly connected with the sea or things
+maritime. They seem to be apart and distinct from the people found
+within a rifle-shot of the place. Although they are no farther than a
+thousand yards from Welford Bridge, to judge by their manners and
+speech, they are so much better mannered, civilised, and refined, that
+a thousand years and a thousand miles might lie between them and the
+longshore-men and loafers from whom William Crawford had been supplied
+with a guide in Red Jim. This oasis in the desert of unbuilt space,
+this refuge from the odious solitude by night of the Pine Groves, this
+haunt of Arcadian respectability in the midst of squalid and vicious
+surroundings, is honoured in the neighbourhood by the name of Leeham,
+and is almost wholly unknown in any other part of London. It will not
+do to say it has been forgotten, for it has never been borne in
+memory. The taxman and the gasman and the waterman, and the people who
+own houses there, know Leeham; but no other general outsiders. It is
+almost as much isolated from the rest of London as the Channel
+Islands.
+
+It has not grown or diminished since the railway was built. No one
+ever thinks of pulling down an old house or building up a new one.
+Time-worn brass knockers are still to be found on the doors, and
+old-fashioned brass fenders and fireirons on the hearths within.
+Families never seem to move out of the district, and it never recruits
+its population from the outer world. Now and then, indeed, a young man
+of Leeham may bring home a bride from one of the neighbouring tribes;
+but this is not often. A whole family is imported never. It is the
+most unprogressive spot in all Her Majesty's dominions.
+
+At first it seems impossible to account for so respectable a
+settlement in so squalid and savage a district. Who are the people of
+Leeham? And how do they live? When first put, the question staggers
+one. Most of the houses are not used for trade. Indeed, except at the
+point where the three Pine Groves meet, there is hardly a shop in the
+place. Where the East and West and River Pine Groves meet, there
+stands a cluster of shops, not more than a dozen, and the one
+public-house, the Neptune. But the name of this house is the only
+thing in the business district telling of the sea. Here is no maker of
+nautical instruments, no marine-store dealer, no curiosity shop for
+the purchase of the spoil of other climes brought home by Jack Tar, no
+music-hall or singing-saloon, no slop-shop, no cheap photographer.
+
+Here are a couple of eating-houses, noticeable for low prices and
+wholesome food; a butcher's, and two beef-and-ham shops, two grocers',
+and a greengrocer's, two bakers', and an oil-and-colour man's. These,
+with the Neptune, or nucleus, form by night the brightly lighted
+business region of the settlement. This point is called the Cross.
+
+Leeham repudiated the sea, and would have nothing to do with it at any
+price. Down by the docks the sea may be profitable, but it has not a
+good reputation. It is inclined to be rowdy, disreputable. Jack Tar
+ashore may not be worse than other men, but he is more noisy and less
+observant of convention. He is too much given to frolic. He is not
+what any solid man would call respectable.
+
+No one ever thought of impugning the respectability, as a class, of
+gasmen or railway officials. In fact, both are bound to be
+respectable. Leeham had, no doubt, some mysterious internal resources,
+but its chief external dependence was on the enormous gasworks and the
+railway hard by. Hundreds of men were employed in the gashouse and on
+the railway, and Leeham found a roof and food for three-fourths of the
+number. There were quiet houses for those whose means enabled them to
+keep up a separate establishment, and cheap lodgings for those who
+could afford only a single room. No man living in a dwelling-house of
+Leeham was of good repute unless he had private means, or was employed
+at either the railway-yard or the gasworks--called, for the sake of
+brevity, the yard and the works. But it was a place in which many
+widows and spinsters had their homes, and sought to eke out an income
+from the savings of their dead husbands, fathers, or brothers, by some
+of the obscure forms of industry open to women of small needs and very
+small means.
+
+The greengrocer's shop at Leeham Cross, opposite the Neptune, was
+owned by Mrs. Pemberton, an enormously fat, very florid widow of
+fifty. She almost invariably wore a smile on her expansive
+countenance, and was well known in the neighbourhood for her good
+nature and good temper. In fact, she was generally spoken of as "Mrs.
+Pemberton, that good-natured soul." The children all idolised her; for
+when they came of errands to buy, or for exercise and safety and a
+sight of the world with their mothers, Mrs. Pemberton never let them
+go away empty-handed as long as there was a small apple, or a bunch of
+currants, or a couple of nuts in the shop.
+
+On that evening late in May when Red Jim showed Crawford the way to
+Crawford's House, Mrs. Pemberton stood at her shop door. She held her
+arms a-kimbo, and looked up and down the Cross with the expression of
+one who does not notice what she sees, and who is not expecting
+anything from the direction in which she is looking. The stout florid
+woman standing at the door of the greengrocer's was as unlike the
+ordinary Mrs. Pemberton as it was in the power of a troubled mind to
+make her. At this hour very few people passed Leeham Cross, and for a
+good five minutes no one had gone by her door.
+
+Mrs. Pemberton had not remained constantly at the door. Once or twice
+she stepped back for a moment, and threw her head on one side, and
+held her ear up as if listening intently; then, with a sigh, she came
+back to her post at the threshold. There must have been something very
+unusual in the conditions of her life to agitate this placid
+sympathetic widow so much.
+
+Presently a woman of fine presence came in view, hastening towards the
+greengrocery. This was Mrs. Pearse, a widow like Mrs. Pemberton, and
+that good lady's very good friend.
+
+"I needn't ask you; I can see by your face," said Mrs. Pearse, as she
+came up. "She is no better."
+
+"She is much worse," said Mrs. Pemberton in a half-frightened,
+half-tearful way; "she is dying."
+
+"Dying!" said the other woman. "I didn't think it would come to that."
+
+"Well, it hurts me sore to say it, but I don't think she'll live to
+see the morning."
+
+"So bad as that? Well, Mrs. Pemberton, I am sorry. Along with
+everything else, I am sorry for the trouble it will give you."
+
+"O! don't say anything about that; I am only thinking of the poor lady
+herself. She's going fast, as far as I am a judge. And then, what's to
+become of the child? Poor innocent little fellow! he has no notion of
+what is happening. How could he? he's little more than a baby of three
+or four."
+
+"Poor little fellow! I do pity him. Has she said anything to you?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"Not even told you her name?
+
+"No."
+
+"Does she know, Mrs. Pemberton, how bad she is? Surely, if she knew
+the truth of her state of health, she'd say a word to you, if it was
+only for the child's sake. She would not die, if she knew she was
+dying, and say nothing that could be of use to her little boy."
+
+"You see, when the doctor was here this morning, he told her she was
+dangerously ill, but he did not tell her there was no hope. So I did
+my best to put a good face on the matter, and tried to persuade the
+poor thing that she'd be on the mending hand before nightfall. But she
+has got worse and worse all day, and I am sure when the doctor comes
+(I'm expecting him every minute) he'll tell her she's not long for
+this world. It's my opinion she won't last the night."
+
+"Dear, dear, dear!--but I'm sorry."
+
+"Here he is. Here's the doctor!"
+
+"I'll run home now, Mrs. Pemberton, and give the children their
+supper. I'll come back in an hour to hear what the doctor says, and to
+do anything for you I can."
+
+"Thank you! Thank you, Mrs. Pearse! I shall be very glad to see you,
+for I am grieved and half-terrified."
+
+"I'll be sure to come. Try to bear up, Mrs. Pemberton," said
+kind-hearted Mrs. Pearse, hurrying off just as the doctor came up to
+the door.
+
+True to her promise, Mrs. Pearse was back at the Cross. By this time
+the shutters of Mrs. Pemberton's shop were up; but the door stood
+ajar. Mrs. Pearse pushed it open and entered.
+
+Mrs. Pemberton was sitting on a chair, surrounded by hampers and
+baskets of fruit and vegetables, in the middle of the shop. She was
+weeping silently, unconsciously, the large tears rolling down her
+round florid face. Her hands were crossed in her lap. Her eyes were
+wide open, and her whole appearance that of one in helpless despair.
+
+When she saw her visitor come in, she rose with a start, brushed the
+tears out of her eyes, and cried, seizing the hand of the other woman
+and pressing her down on a chair:
+
+"I am so glad to see you, Mrs. Pearse! It is so good of you to come! I
+am in sore distress and trouble!"
+
+"There, dear!" said the visitor in soothing tones. "Don't take on like
+that. All may yet be well. What does the doctor say about the poor
+soul?"
+
+"All will never be well again for her. The doctor says she is not
+likely to see another day, short as these nights are. O my--O my
+heart! but it grieves me to think of her going, and she so young. And
+to think of what a pretty girl she must have been; to think of how
+handsome she must have been before the trouble, whatever it is, came
+upon her and wore her to a shadow."
+
+"And I suppose she has not opened her mind to you even yet about this
+trouble?"
+
+The question was not asked out of idle curiosity, but from deep-seated
+interest in the subject of the conversation. For this was not the
+first or the tenth talk these two kindly friends had about the sick
+woman upstairs.
+
+"She has said no more to me than the dead. My reading of it is, that
+she made a bad match against the will of her people, and that her
+husband deserted her and her child."
+
+"And what about the boy? Does the poor sufferer know how bad she is?"
+
+"Yes; she knows that there's not any hope, and the doctor told me to
+be prepared for the worst, and that she might die in a couple of
+hours. Poor soul! I shall be sorry!"
+
+Mrs. Pemberton threw her apron over her head and wept and sobbed; Mrs.
+Pearse weeping the while, for company.
+
+When Mrs. Pemberton was able to control herself she drew down her
+apron and said:
+
+"I never took to any other lodger I had so much as I took to this poor
+woman. Her loneliness and her sorrow made me feel to her as if she had
+been my own child. Then I know she must be very poor, although she
+always paid me to the minute. But bit by bit I have missed whatever
+little jewellery she had, and now I think all is gone. But she is not
+without money; for, when I was talking to her just now, she told me
+that she had enough in her work-box to pay all expenses. O, Mrs.
+Pearse, it is hard to hear the poor young thing talking in that way of
+going, and I, who must be twice her age, well and hearty!"
+
+Again the good woman broke down and had to pause in her story.
+
+"She told me no one should be at any expense on her account; and as
+for the boy, she said she knew a gentleman, one who had been a friend
+of hers years ago, and that he would surely take charge of the child,
+and that she had sent word to a trusty messenger to come and fetch the
+boy to this friend, and that she would not see or hear from any one
+who knew her in her better days. I can't make it out at all. There is
+something hidden, some mystery in the matter."
+
+"Mystery, Mrs. Pemberton? Of course there is. But, as you say, most
+likely she made a bad match, and is afraid to meet her people, and has
+been left to loneliness and sorrow and poverty by a villain of a
+husband. She hasn't made away with her wedding-ring, has she?"
+
+"No; nor with the keeper. But I think all else is gone in the way of
+jewellery. I left Susan, the servant, with her just now. She said she
+wished to be quiet for a while, as she wanted to write a letter. Now
+that the shop is shut I can't bear to be away from her, and when I am
+in the room I can't bear to see her with her poor swollen red face,
+and I don't think she is always quite right in her mind, for the
+disease has spread, and the doctor says she can hardly last the night.
+Poor, poor young creature!"
+
+Here for the third time, kind sympathetic Mrs. Pemberton broke down,
+and for some minutes neither of the women spoke.
+
+At length Mrs. Pemberton started and rose from her chair, saying
+hastily:
+
+"She must have finished the letter. I hear Susan coming down the
+stairs."
+
+The girl entered the shop quickly and with an alarmed face.
+
+"The lady wants to see you at once, ma'am. She seems in a terrible
+hurry, and looks much worse."
+
+Mrs. Pemberton hastened out of the shop, asking Mrs. Pearse to wait.
+
+In a few minutes she returned, carrying a letter in her hand, and
+wearing a look of intense trouble and perplexity on her honest face.
+
+"I am sure," she said, throwing herself on a chair, "I do not know
+whether I am asleep or awake, or whether I am to believe my eyes and
+my ears. Do you know where she told me she is sending the child
+now--to-night--for she cannot die easy until 'tis done."
+
+"I cannot tell. Where?"
+
+"I heard her say the words quite plainly, but I could not believe my
+ears. The words are quite plain on this letter, though they are
+written in pencil, but I cannot believe my eyes. Read what is on this
+envelope, and I shall know whether I have lost my reason or not.
+That's where she says the child is to go. This is the old friend she
+says will look after the little boy!"
+
+She handed the letter she held in her hand to her friend. Mrs. Pearse
+read:
+
+              "Francis Bramwell, Esq.,
+                   Boland's Ait,
+                        South London Canal."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV.
+
+                           THE MISSING MAN.
+
+
+It was near ten o'clock that night before Alfred Layard and his sister
+gave up trying to get their new home into order. Even then much
+remained to be done, but Mrs. Grainger, the charwoman who had been
+assisting Hetty all day, had to go home to prepare supper for her
+husband, and when she was gone the brother and sister sat down to
+their own.
+
+Alfred Layard was employed in the gasworks. His duties did not oblige
+him to be at business early; but they kept him there until late in the
+evening. He had a very small salary, just no more than enough to live
+on in strict economy. He had rented a little cottage during his brief
+married life, and the modest furniture in the room where the brother
+and sister now sat at supper had been bought for his bride's home out
+of his savings. Just as his lease of the cottage expired he heard of
+this house, and that the owner or agent would be glad to let it at a
+rent almost nominal on the condition of two rooms being reserved and
+kept in order for him.
+
+The place just suited Layard. It was within a short distance of the
+gashouse, and he calculated that the arrangement would save him twenty
+pounds a year.
+
+"Well, Hetty," said he, with one of his surprisingly pleasant smiles,
+as the supper went on, "how do you like the life of a lodging-house
+keeper?"
+
+"So far I like it very much indeed, although I have had no chance of
+pillage yet."
+
+"Never mind the pillage for a while. I must see if there is any
+handbook published on the subject of the 'Lodger Pigeon.' I am not
+quite sure there is a book of the kind. I have a notion the art is
+traditional, handed down by word of mouth, and that you have to be
+sworn of the guild or something of that kind. Before we had our
+knockdown in the world, in father's time, when I lived in lodgings in
+Bloomsbury, I knew a little of the craft--as a victim, mind you; but
+now I have forgotten all about it, except that neither corks nor
+stoppers had appreciable effect in retarding the evaporation of wine
+or spirits, and that fowl or game or meat always went too bad twelve
+hours after it was cooked to be of further use to me. Tea also would
+not keep in the insalubrious air of Bloomsbury."
+
+"Well," said the girl, with a smile, "I suppose I must only live in
+hope. I cannot expect to be inspired. It would, perhaps, be
+unreasonable to expect that the sight of our first lodger for
+half-an-hour would make me perfect in the art of turning him to good
+account. It is a distressing thing to feel one is losing one's
+opportunity; but then, what is one to do?" she asked pathetically,
+spreading out her hands to her brother in comic appeal.
+
+"It is hard," said he with anxiety; then brightening he added, "Let us
+pray for better times, better luck, more light. By the way, Hetty, now
+that we have fully arranged our method of fleecing the stranger, what
+do you think of him? How do you find him? Do you like him?"
+
+"I find him very good-looking and agreeable."
+
+"I hope there is no danger of your falling in love with him. Remember,
+he is a married man," said the brother, shaking a minatory finger at
+the girl opposite him; "and bear in mind bigamy is a seven years'
+affair."
+
+"It's very good of you to remind me, Alfred," she said gravely. "But
+as I have not been married, I don't see how I could commit bigamy."
+
+"You are not qualified _yet_ to commit it yourself, but you might
+become an accessory."
+
+"By the way, Alfred, now that I think of it," said she, dropping her
+playful manner and looking abstracted and thoughtful, with a white
+finger on her pink cheek, "I did notice a remarkable circumstance
+about our new lodger. Did you?"
+
+"No," said the brother, throwing himself back in his chair and
+looking at the ceiling, "except that he has a habit of winking both
+his eyes when he is in thought, which always indicates a man fond of
+double-dealing. Don't you see, Hetty?--one eye winked, single-dealing;
+two eyes, double-dealing. What can be more natural? There is one thing
+about trade I can never make out. Book keeping by double-entry is an
+interesting, respectable, and laudable affair, and yet double-dealing
+is a little short of infamous."
+
+"I don't understand what you are saying, Alfred," said the girl in a
+voice of reproach and despair. "I don't think you know yourself, and I
+am sure it's nonsense."
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"No; I'm not joking," she cried impatiently. "I _did_ observe
+something very remarkable about Mr. Crawford, under the circumstances.
+Did you not notice he never spoke of his wife, or even referred to
+her, although he got all this property through her or from her?"
+
+Layard looked down from the dingy ceiling. "Of course, you are right,
+child. I did not notice it at the time; but now I recollect he neither
+spoke of his wife nor made any reference to her. It was strange. And
+now that I think of it, he did not upon our previous meeting. It is
+strange. I suppose he is ashamed to own he owes everything to his
+wife."
+
+"Well," said the girl hotly, "if he had the courage to take her money
+he might have the courage to own it, particularly as he is aware we
+know all about him."
+
+"All about him?" said the brother in surprise. "Indeed, we don't know
+all about him; we know very little about him--that is, unless this
+wonderful wife of Grainger told you."
+
+"No; she told me nothing about him. But we know that the money
+belonged to Mrs. Crawford and not to him, and that he changed his name
+to marry the widow, as otherwise her property would go somewhere
+else."
+
+"To Guy's Hospital. But it would not go to the hospital if she
+remained unmarried. The fact of the matter is, I believe, that this
+Crawford--I mean the original one--was a self-made man, and very proud
+of his own achievements, and wished to keep his name associated with
+his money as long as possible. You see, when he married he was an
+elderly, if not an old man, and his wife was a young and very handsome
+woman. Now she is middle-aged and an invalid."
+
+"Then," cried Hetty with sprightly wrath, "I think it the more
+shameful for him to make no allusion to her. But you have not told me
+all the story. Tell it to me now, there's a good, kind, dear Alfred.
+But first I'll clear away, and run up for a moment to see how Freddie
+is in his new quarters. He was so tired after the day that he fell
+asleep before his head touched the pillow."
+
+She found the boy sleeping deeply in his cot beside her own bed. She
+tucked him in, although the clothes had not been disarranged, and then
+bent down over him, laying her forearm all along his little body, and,
+drawing him to her side, kissed him first on the curls and then on the
+cheek, and then smoothed with her hand the curl she had kissed, as
+though her tender lips had disturbed it. After this she ran down
+quickly, and, entering the sitting-room, said, as she took her chair,
+"He hasn't stirred since I put him to bed, poor chap. I hope he won't
+find this place very lonely. He will not even see another child here.
+And now, Alfred," she added, taking up some work, "tell me all you
+know about our lodger, for I have heard little or nothing yet."
+
+"Well, what I know is soon told. His old name was Goddard, William
+Goddard. He came to live at Richmond some time ago, and lodged next
+door to Mrs. Crawford's house. She was then an invalid, suffering
+from some affection which almost deprived her of the use of her limbs.
+She went out only in a carriage or Bath-chair. He met her frequently,
+and became acquainted with her, often walking beside her in her
+Bath-chair. Her bedroom was on the first floor of her house; his was
+on the first floor of the next house. One night the lower part of her
+house caught fire. He crept on a stone ledge running along both houses
+at the level of the first floor window. He had a rope, and by it
+lowered her down into the garden and saved her life, every one said.
+The shock, strange to say, had a beneficial effect upon her health.
+She recovered enough strength to be able to walk about, and--she
+married him."
+
+The girl paused in her work, dropping her hands and her sewing, and
+falling into a little reverie, with her head on one side.
+
+"So that he is a kind of hero," she said softly.
+
+"Yes; a kind of hero. I don't think his risk was very great, for he
+could have jumped at any time, and got off with a broken leg or so."
+
+"A broken leg or so!" cried she indignantly. "Upon my word, Alfred,
+you do take other people's risks coolly. I don't wonder at her
+marrying him, and I am very sorry I said anything against him awhile
+ago. The age of chivalry is not gone. Now, if she was young and
+good-looking--but forty, and an invalid----"
+
+"And very rich," interrupted the brother, stretching himself out
+on the infirm couch and blowing a great cloud of smoke from his
+briar-root pipe.
+
+"Your cynicism is intolerable, Alfred. It is most unmanly and
+ungenerous, and I for one have made up my mind to like, to admire
+Mr.----"
+
+A knock at the door prevented her finishing the sentence.
+
+"Come in," cried Layard, springing up and moving towards the door.
+
+"I am afraid it is a most unreasonable hour to disturb you."
+
+"Not at all," said Layard, setting a chair for the lodger. "My sister
+and I were merely chatting. We are not early people, you must know. I
+haven't to be at the works until late, so we generally have our little
+talks nearer to midnight than most people. Pray sit down."
+
+Crawford sat down somewhat awkwardly, winking both his eyes rapidly as
+he did so. He gave one of his short, sharp laughs.
+
+"You will think me very foolish, no doubt," he said, looking from one
+to the other and winking rapidly, "but, do you know, what you said
+about that man going into the canal has had a most unaccountable and
+unpleasant effect upon me. I feel quite unnerved. As you are aware, I
+am not acquainted with the neighbourhood. Would it be asking too much
+of you, Mr. Layard, to go out with me for a few minutes and ascertain
+for certain that no accident has befallen this man--that is, if Miss
+Layard would not be afraid of being left alone for a little while? If
+my mind is not set at rest I know I shall not sleep a wink to-night."
+
+"Afraid? Afraid of what, Mr. Crawford? Good gracious, I am not afraid
+of anything in the world," cried the girl, rising. "Of course Alfred
+will go with you."
+
+Layard expressed his willingness, and in a short time the two men were
+out of the house in the dark lane, where burned only one lamp at the
+end furthest from the main road.
+
+"I do not know how we are to find out about this man," said Layard, as
+they turned from the blind street into Welford Road; "could you
+describe him?"
+
+Layard thought Crawford must be a very excitable and somewhat
+eccentric man to allow himself to be troubled by a purely playful
+speech as to the pedestrian on the tow-path; but he felt he had been
+almost unjust to Crawford when talking to his sister, and he was
+anxious for this reason, and because of a desire to conciliate his
+lodger, to gratify him by joining in this expedition, which he looked
+on as absurd.
+
+"Yes; I can describe him. He wore a black tail-coat, a round black
+hat, a black tie, and dark tweed trousers. He was nearer your height
+and build than mine. The chief things in his face are a long straight
+nose, dark and very straight brows, and dark eyes. He has no colour
+in his cheeks."
+
+Layard drew up in amazement.
+
+"Do you mean to say," he asked with emphasis, "that you could see all
+this at such a distance?"
+
+"I," the other answered with a second's hesitation--"I used a glass."
+
+"O!" said Layard; and they resumed their walk, and nothing further was
+said until they came to the bridge, on which they stood looking up the
+tow-path, along which the pedestrian ought to have come.
+
+Layard broke the silence.
+
+"Unless we are to make a commotion, I don't see what we can do beyond
+asking the toll-man. The gate is shut now. It must be eleven o'clock,
+and this place owns an early-to-bed population."
+
+He was now beginning to regret his too easy participation in his
+lodger's absurd quest.
+
+"Do not let us make any commotion, but just ask the toll-man quietly
+if such a man went through his gate," said Crawford hastily. "I know
+my uneasiness is foolish, but I cannot help it."
+
+They turned from the parapet over which they had been looking, and
+Layard led the way a little down the road, and, then turning sharp to
+the right, entered the approach to the toll-house.
+
+As they emerged from the darkness of the approach, the toll-taker was
+crossing the wharf or quay towards the gate. He passed directly under
+a lamp, and opened the gate which closed the path at the bridge.
+
+Crawford caught Layard by the arm, and held him back, whispering:
+
+"Wait!"
+
+From the gloom of the arch a young man stepped out into the light of
+the lamp. He wore a black tailed-coat, a black tie, a black round hat,
+and dark tweed trousers. His nose was straight, and his brows
+remarkably dark and straight. Upon the whole, a young man of rather
+gloomy appearance.
+
+"It's all right," whispered Crawford quickly into Layard's ear;
+"that's the man. Come away."
+
+He drew his companion forcibly along the approach back to the road.
+
+"It's well I didn't make a fool of myself," he whispered. "Come on
+quickly. I am ashamed even to meet this man after my childish fears."
+
+They were clear of the approach, and retracing their steps over the
+bridge, before the pedestrian emerged from the darkness of the
+approach. When he gained Welford Road he went on straight--that is, in
+a direction opposite to that taken by the two.
+
+"I am greatly relieved," said Crawford, rubbing his perspiring
+forehead with his handkerchief.
+
+"I am not," thought Layard. "I am afraid there is something wrong with
+Crawford's upper storey."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER V.
+
+                         A SECOND APPARITION.
+
+
+When Alfred Layard got back to the house he was far from easy in his
+mind about his lodger. In appearance Crawford was the least
+imaginative man in the world. His face, figure, and manner indicated
+extreme practicalness. No man could have less of the visionary or the
+seer about him. One would think he treated all things in life as a
+civil engineer treats things encountered in his profession. And yet
+here was this man giving way to absurd and sentimental timidity about
+nothing at all.
+
+Of course, Layard himself would have been greatly shocked if he
+thought any harm had come to that solitary pedestrian on the tow-path;
+but not one man in a thousand would have allowed the circumstance of
+the man's non-appearance and the jesting words he himself had used to
+occupy his mind five minutes, to say nothing of suffering anxiety
+because of the circumstance, and sallying out to make inquiries and
+clear it up.
+
+He did not bargain for such eccentricity as this when he agreed to
+live for a few days a month under the same roof with William Crawford.
+He would say nothing to Hetty of his fears, or rather uneasiness; but
+it would be necessary for him to suggest precautions.
+
+When Crawford had bidden the brother and sister good-night finally,
+and the two were again alone in the front sitting-room, and Alfred had
+told Hetty, with no alarming comment, what had occurred since they
+left the house, she cried, "Now, sceptic, what have you to say? Could
+anything be more humane or kind-hearted than the interest he took in
+that unknown man, a man he could absolutely have never seen once in
+all his life? You were in the act of implying that he saved the widow
+because she was rich, and married her because she was rich, when, lo!
+Sir Oracle, down comes Mr. Crawford to see what had happened to that
+man, the unknown man! Tell me, was _he_ rich? Is _he_ going to marry
+_him?_"
+
+"I confess things look very black for my theory," said the brother,
+from the couch, where he lay smoking placidly.
+
+"I do believe," she cried with animation, "that you are rather sorry
+he turned out so nobly. I do believe you would rather he showed no
+interest in that man on the tow-path."
+
+"Candidly, Hetty, I would."
+
+"It is all jealousy on your part, and you ought to be ashamed of
+yourself. Are you?"
+
+"No--o--o," he said slowly, "I can't say I am much ashamed of myself
+on that account."
+
+"Then," she said, "it is worse not to repent than to sin, and your
+condition is something dreadful. Now, my impression is that Mr.
+Crawford never thought of money at all when he married his wife. I
+believe he married her for pure love, and the fact of her being an
+invalid was a reason for his loving her all the more. To me he is a
+Bayard," cried this enthusiastic young person with flushing cheek, and
+eyes in which the gold glinted more than ever.
+
+"He's too stout, my dear," said the brother placidly from his couch.
+
+"What!" cried she indignantly. "Too stout to marry for love! You are
+outrageous!"
+
+"No; not to marry for love, but to be a Bayard. You know as well as I
+do our lodger would not cut a good figure on horseback," said the
+brother with calm decision.
+
+"You are intolerable, Alfred, and I will not speak to you again on the
+subject. Nothing could be in worse taste than what you have been
+saying," said the girl, gathering herself daintily together and
+looking away from him.
+
+"Besides, you do an injustice to our lodger."
+
+"I wish, Alfred, if you find it necessary to refer to Mr. Crawford,
+that you would do so in some other way than by calling him our lodger.
+It is not respectful."
+
+"Not respectful to whom?"
+
+"To me," with a very stately inclination of the gallant little head.
+
+"I see. Well, I will call him Mr. Bayard," said the brother with
+provoking amiability.
+
+"I am sure, Alfred, I do not know how you can be so silly."
+
+"Evil communications, my dear."
+
+"The gentleman's name is Crawford, and why should you not call him
+Crawford?"
+
+"Just to avoid the monotony."
+
+"And, I think, Alfred, to annoy me."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+"Well, I must say that is very good-natured of you."
+
+"But I aim at an identical result."
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"To avoid monotony, too. You are always so good-humoured and
+soft-tempered it is a treat to see you ruffled and on your dignity.
+But there, Hetty dear, let us drop this light-comedy sparring----"
+
+"I'm sure I don't think it's light comedy at all, but downright
+disagreeableness; and I didn't begin it, and I don't want to keep it
+up, and I am sure you have a very clumsy and unkind notion of humour,
+if talking in that way is your idea of it."
+
+"Remember, Hetty," he said, holding up his hand in warning, "you are
+much too big a girl to cry. You are a great deal too old to cry."
+
+"A woman is never too old to cry--if she likes."
+
+"She is, and you are, too old to cry for anything a brother may say to
+you. According to the usage of the best society, you are too old to
+cry because of anything I may say to you. It will be your duty to
+repress your tears for your lover. According to good manners you ought
+not to shed a tear now until you have your first quarrel with your
+lover; and then, mind you, I am to hear nothing about it, or it would
+be my duty to call the scoundrel out, when there is no knowing but he
+might injure or even kill me, and then you couldn't marry him, for he
+would be your brother's murderer; and if I killed him you couldn't
+marry him, because I should be his murderer; and I don't see of what
+use we could be to any one, except to write a tragedy about, and that
+is about as bad a use as you can put respectable people to."
+
+The girl's face had been gradually clearing while Layard spoke, and by
+the time he had finished, all trace of annoyance had vanished from it,
+and she was bright and smiling once more.
+
+"You are a queer old Alfred, and I am a fool to allow myself to grow
+angry with you or your nonsense. I of course said too much. I did not
+mean quite that I thought him a Bayard."
+
+"He's much better-looking than the only portrait of the Chevalier
+I ever saw. I must say the knight, by his portrait, is a most
+repulsive and unchivalrous brute, more fit for the Chamber of Horrors
+than the Hall of Kings. I assure you, Hetty, Mr. Crawford is a much
+better-looking man."
+
+How was he to warn his sister without alarming her? To say he thought
+the man was not quite right in his mind would terrify Hetty, and it
+would not do to leave her without any caution. At last he could think
+of nothing but a most simple and most matter-of-course caution--that
+of locking the door of the room in which she and the child slept.
+"For," thought Layard, "if there is anything wrong with his head,
+although it may now be in the direction of excessive humanity, later
+it may change to be dangerously homicidal."
+
+As they were saying "good-night," he remarked, as carelessly as he
+could:
+
+"Remember, Hetty, although we are in our own house, it still it is not
+all our own."
+
+"Of course I know that, Alfred."
+
+"And if Fred cries, you must quiet him as quickly as possible."
+
+"So that Mr. Crawford may not be disturbed?"
+
+"Yes; and you may as well lock your door?"
+
+"I will."
+
+And thus they parted, and he felt at rest; for even if a paroxysm
+seized Crawford in the night, he could do no serious hurt without
+making noise enough to wake the others.
+
+At the time that Layard was providing against a possible maniac in
+William Crawford, there was not a saner man within the four corners of
+London.
+
+That night passed in perfect peace under the roof of Alfred Layard. So
+far as Layard knew, Crawford had slept the sleep of mental and bodily
+health, and little Freddie had not awakened once, as his aunt
+certified when she came down to breakfast.
+
+Mrs. Grainger, the charwoman whose services were to be enlisted all
+the time Mr. Crawford was in the house, brought up his breakfast, and
+carried down news that the gentleman was arranging his papers and the
+rooms generally, as was only natural and to be expected upon a
+gentleman taking up his residence in a new lodging. Mr. Crawford she
+found very civil, but not inclined at all for conversation. He told
+Mrs. Grainger he should ring for her when he wanted her, and she took
+the liberty of explaining to the gentleman that he could not ring for
+her, because there was no bell. Upon this the gentleman said he should
+put his head over the balustrade and call to her, if she would be good
+enough to favour him with her name; which she accordingly did, giving
+her Christian name and married name, and adding with a view to defying
+fraud or personation, her maiden name (Wantage) also. The only piece
+of information he had volunteered to Mrs. Grainger, _née_ Wantage, was
+that he had no intention of stirring out that day.
+
+Layard did not renew the conversation of the night before. He was
+extraordinarily fond of his beautiful, sprightly, gentle-hearted
+sister, and he knew that his badinage had reduced her almost to tears.
+He was grave and tender, and devoted himself through most of breakfast
+to his lusty, restless, yellow-haired boy of three, little Freddie.
+
+Alfred Layard's duties lay at the works, not the office, of the great
+Welford Gas Company. Hence, although his functions were those of a
+clerk, he had not the hours of a clerk. Years ago the Layards had been
+in a position very different from that occupied by them now. Then
+their father had been a prosperous merchant in Newcastle, but a series
+of disasters had come upon him: a partner failed in another business,
+a bank broke, and the father's health gave way utterly, and he died
+leaving absolutely nothing behind him. Alfred was at Cambridge at the
+time of the crash. He left the University at once, and for some time
+failed to get anything to do. At length an old friend of his father's
+found him a situation worth a hundred and twenty pounds a year in the
+great Welford Gasworks. In a couple of years his salary was increased
+ten pounds a year, upon which joyful encouragement he married Lucy
+Aldridge, the penniless girl he had, before the downfall of his
+father's house, resolved to make his wife.
+
+For a little while he and his wife and sister lived very happily and
+contentedly on his modest hundred and thirty pounds a year. Then came
+little Freddie, and although it was an additional mouth to feed, any
+one of the three would have been without meat and butter from year's
+end to year's end rather than without baby Freddie. And when Freddie
+was a year old and could just syllable his mother's name, the ears of
+the poor young well-beloved mother were closed for ever in this life
+to the voice of her only sweetheart, Alfred, and her only child.
+
+The brother and sister put her to rest with other dead in a great
+cemetery, and never once mentioned her name after that, although often
+when their loss was fresh upon them they would sit hand in hand by the
+widowed hearth, weeping silently for the ease of their full and weary
+hearts.
+
+The day following that on which the brother and sister took possession
+of Crawford's House, Layard felt less anxious about their lodger's
+condition of mind than he had the evening before. In the darkness
+of night and the strangeness of a new house and the loneliness of
+this deserted neighbourhood it had seemed as though Crawford was
+insane--might, in fact at any moment develop into a dangerous maniac.
+In the sweet sunlight of a bright May morning the fears of the night
+before looked preposterous, and at very worst the lodger appeared to
+be no more than a fidgety, nervous, excitable man, with whom it would
+be a bore to live all one's life.
+
+When his usual time came, Layard kissed his little son and his sister,
+and went off to his business at the great gasworks with no fear or
+misgiving in his heart.
+
+Mr. Crawford gave no indication of being a troublesome lodger. He had
+a simple breakfast, consisting of eggs and bacon and coffee, and in
+the middle of the day a simple dinner, consisting of a chop and
+potatoes, with bread-and-cheese and a bottle of stout. At tea he
+hadn't tea, but coffee again, and a lettuce and bread-and-butter. For
+a man with his income he was easily pleased, thought Hetty. He had
+found fault with nothing. In fact, he had said no word beyond the
+briefest ones that would convey his wishes, and when Mrs. Grainger
+asked if the food had been to his liking he had said simply, "It was
+all right, thank you." To that good lady he had imparted the
+impression that he was too much occupied with matters of the mind to
+give much heed to matters of the body, and he had answered all her
+questions in a preoccupied and absent-minded manner.
+
+After tea Mr. Crawford showed no sign of going out. He drew an
+easy-chair to the window, and sat down at the right-hand side of the
+embrasure, so as to command a view of the head of the island across
+which he had seen the man pass the evening before.
+
+He heard Layard's knock and his voice below-stairs, but still he did
+not stir. From the place where he sat, any man coming along the
+tow-path at a walking pace would be in view a minute or a minute and a
+half before passing out of sight behind Boland's Ait. Crawford did not
+remove his eyes from that tow-path for any thirty consecutive seconds.
+
+"I knew him at once," he whispered; "I knew him the minute I saw
+him. I knew his build, his figure, his walk, the way he swings his
+hands--ay, his face, far off as he was--ay, his face, his accursed
+vengeful face."
+
+He leaned forward. He judged, by the dying of the light and the
+shrouded rose-tint on the chimneys and upper walls of the houses in
+view, that it was growing near the hour at which the solitary man had
+appeared on the tow-path last evening.
+
+"I wonder, if he saw me, would he recognise me? He thinks I am not in
+this country. He is not on the look-out for me. I am much changed
+since I saw him last." He passed his hand over his close-shaven face.
+"I had a beard and moustache then, and taking them off makes a great
+difference in a man's appearance--puts him almost beyond recognition.
+Then I have grown stouter--much stouter. I daresay my voice would
+betray me; and then there is that St. Vitus's dance in my eyelids.
+That is an awful drawback. I am horribly handicapped; it isn't a fair
+race. And the worst of that jumping of my eyelids is that it always
+comes on me when I am most excited and least want it, and, moreover,
+when I am mostly unconscious of it until the excitement is over.
+Confound it! I _am_ heavily handicapped."
+
+He rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, and dropped his chin into
+his palm, keeping his eyes all the while fixed on that section of the
+tow-path visible beyond the head of the island.
+
+"I," he went on in a voice so low as to be almost inaudible to
+himself, "was on the look-out for him when I recognised him. I knew he
+lived in Camberwell, and that Camberwell was in the neighbourhood; and
+when I knew that this tow-path goes to that place, I had a
+presentiment he would come along that tow-path into my view. It might
+be called a superstition, I know, but I had the feeling, and it came
+true. He did come along that tow-path--he the man of all others on
+this earth I dread. But where did he delay? Where did he linger? Where
+did he hide himself? Layard said there was no place but in the canal,
+and I can see that the fence is too high for any man to scale without
+the aid of a ladder."
+
+He rose and stood at the window, to command a better view of the
+scene.
+
+"It seems unnatural, monstrous, that I should fear this Philip Ray
+more than Mellor. If I ought to be afraid of any one, it is Mellor;
+and yet I stand in no dread of him, because, no doubt----"
+
+He paused with his mouth open. He was staring at the tow-path.
+
+A tall slender man had come into view beyond the head of Boland's Ait.
+He was walking rapidly north, and swinging his arms as he moved.
+
+"It is he!" whispered Crawford in a tone of fear.
+
+He stood motionless by the window for a while--five, ten, fifteen
+minutes. The man did not reappear.
+
+Crawford wiped his forehead, which had grown suddenly damp.
+
+"At any cost I must find out the explanation of this unaccountable
+disappearance."
+
+He went from the house and into the blind lane at the front of the
+house.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI.
+
+                      CRAWFORD'S INVESTIGATIONS.
+
+
+William Crawford ascended the lane until he reached the high road;
+then, turning sharply to the left, he went at a more leisurely pace
+towards the Welford Bridge.
+
+He kept his eyes fixed ahead, and in every action of his body there
+was that vital alertness which characterised him in motion and even in
+repose. This alertness was more noticeable now than it had been
+before. Frequently, when he put down his foot in walking, he seemed
+dissatisfied with the ground upon which it had alighted, and shifted
+the foot slightly, but briskly and decisively, while resting on it,
+and stepping out with the other leg. He touched one thigh sharply with
+one hand, then the other thigh with the other hand, as though to
+assure himself that his hands and legs were within call, should he
+need their services for some purpose besides that upon which they were
+now employed. He rapped his chest with his fist, and thrust his thumb
+and forefinger into his waistcoat pocket and brought forth nothing. In
+another man this would be called nervous excitement, but in William
+Crawford it did not arise from any unusual perturbation, but was the
+result of unutilised energy.
+
+As he approached the bridge his pace fell to a saunter. He subdued his
+restlessness or manifestations of repressed activity. Nothing but his
+eyes showed extraordinary alertness, and they were fixed dead ahead.
+The houses on his left prevented his seeing the tow-path, and the
+humpbacked bridge prevented his seeing where the approach from the
+toll-house joined the main road.
+
+On the bridge lounged a group of loungers similar to that of the
+evening before. When Crawford had got over the middle of the bridge,
+and the road began to dip westward, he approached the parapet and
+looked up the canal. The long straight line ran off in the distance to
+a vanishing point, seeming to rise as it receded, but not a soul was
+visible from the spot at which he stood to the point at which the path
+disappeared.
+
+Red Jim sidled up to where the stranger had paused, and after drawing
+the back of his hand across his mouth, by way of purifying himself
+before speaking to a man of property, said deferentially:
+
+"Good-evening, guv'nor."
+
+"Good-evening," said Crawford briskly, sharply, in a tone which
+implied he would stand no familiarity or nonsense.
+
+Red Jim pushed his hat over his eyes in token of acknowledging a
+rebuff; but he remained where he was in token of cherishing hope of a
+job, or anyway of money.
+
+Crawford took a few paces further down the slope of the bridge. He did
+not care to speak in the hearing of all these men. Then he beckoned to
+Red Jim. The man came to him with alacrity.
+
+"How long have you been here this evening?"
+
+"Most of the evening. I'm out of work."
+
+"You have been here half-an-hour?"
+
+"Yes. A good bit more."
+
+"Have you seen any one pass along the tow-path this way (pointing) in
+the last half-an-hour?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Did you see any one come along the path in that time?"
+
+"Ay, I did."
+
+Crawford paused a moment in thought. He laughed and said, "I have a
+little bet on. I betted that a man did come along the tow-path, but
+did not come off it at the bridge here. I was looking out of a window
+and saw him. My friend said it was impossible, as the man otherwise
+must go into the canal."
+
+It was plain Crawford did not appear anxious about the man himself. It
+was only about the wager he cared.
+
+"The man went across the canal."
+
+"Across the canal!" cried Crawford in astonishment. "Do you mean over
+the bridge?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then how did he get across the canal?"
+
+"How much have you on it?" asked Red Jim. He was afraid his own
+interests might suffer if he gave all the information he possessed
+before making terms.
+
+"Confound you! what is that to you?" cried Crawford angrily.
+
+"Well, then, I'll tell you how he went across," said Red Jim, looking
+up straight over his head at the sky.
+
+"How did he get over?" cried the other impatiently, as Jim showed no
+sign of speaking.
+
+"He flew," said Jim, suddenly dropping his full prominent blue eyes on
+Crawford. "He flew, that's the way he got across the canal." And,
+thrusting his hands deep into his wide-opened trousers pockets, he
+began moving slowly away.
+
+For a moment Crawford looked as if he could kill Ford. Then, with a
+sudden quick laugh, he said:
+
+"Oh, I understand; I will make it worth a tanner for you."
+
+Red Jim was back by his side in a moment. He stretched out his arm,
+and, pointing towards the tail of the island, said:
+
+"Do you see that floating stage?"
+
+"Floating stage? No. What is a floating stage?"
+
+"Two long pieces of timber with planks across. Don't you see it at the
+tail of Boland's Ait?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Well, that's the way he got over. That was drawn by a chain across
+the canal to the tow-path. He got on it and then drew it back to the
+Ait, do you see? So you've won your money, guv'nor."
+
+Crawford's face grew darker and darker, as the explanation proceeded.
+He handed Jim the promised coin in silence, turned back upon the way
+he had come, and began retracing his steps at a quick rate. His eyes
+winked rapidly, and he muttered curses as he walked.
+
+"Can it be--can it possibly be that Philip Ray is my next-door
+neighbour? Incredible! And yet that was Philip Ray, as sure as I am
+alive, and he went to this island! Can this Robinson Crusoe be Philip
+Ray? If so, I cannot keep on here. I must find some other place for
+my--business. This is not exactly Camberwell, and I heard Ray lives in
+Camberwell; but this is very near it--very near Camberwell!"
+
+When he reached Crawford Street he diminished his speed. It was plain
+he did not want to seem in a hurry. As soon as he gained the house he
+ascended the stairs at once to his own room. He closed the door, and
+began walking up and down, hastily muttering unconnected words. After
+a while he went to the window and looked out on Boland's Ait with an
+expression in which hatred and fear were blended.
+
+The buildings on the island consisted of an old sawmill, from which
+the machinery had been removed, now falling into ruin; a couple of
+dilapidated sheds, with tarred wooden roofs; a yard in which once the
+timber had been piled in stacks higher than the engine-house itself;
+and a small four-roomed house, formerly used as the dwelling-place of
+the foreman. These buildings and the wall of the yard rose between
+Crawford and the tow-path. The island itself was on a level with the
+ground on which Crawford's House stood; and William Crawford's
+sitting-room, being on the first floor, did not overpeer even the wall
+of the yard: hence the view of the tow-path was cut off except at the
+head and the tail of Boland's Ait.
+
+William Crawford bit his under lip and gnawed the knuckle of his left
+forefinger, and plucked at his shaven cheek and upper lip as though at
+whiskers and moustache. At last he dropped his hand, and remained
+motionless, as though an idea had struck him and he was considering
+it. Suddenly he raised his head like one who has made up his mind, and
+walked with a quick step to the door, and, opening it, went out on the
+landing. He leaned over the balustrade and called out:
+
+"Mrs. Grainger, will you come up, please? I want to speak to you for a
+minute."
+
+Mrs. Grainger hastened from the kitchen. She had the sleeves of her
+washed-out lilac cotton dress rolled up above her arms, and an
+enormous apron, once white, now mottled and piebald with innumerable
+marks and stains.
+
+"Will you sit down a moment?" Crawford said, pointing to a chair. He
+walked up and down the room during the interview.
+
+Mrs. Grainger sat down and threw her apron over to her left side, by
+way of qualifying herself for the honour of a seat in Mr. Crawford's
+room and in Mr. Crawford's presence.
+
+"Miss Layard told me last evening some interesting facts you mentioned
+to her about a--gentleman who lives on this island here in the canal."
+
+"Yes, sir. A Mr. Bramwell, who lives all alone on Boland's Ait."
+
+"Exactly. Do you know anything about him? The case is so remarkable, I
+am interested in it merely out of curiosity."
+
+"I know, sir; and he is a curiosity, certainly," said Mrs. Grainger,
+settling herself firmly on her chair, and arranging her mind as well
+as her body for a good long chat, for every minute devoted to which
+she would be receiving her pay.
+
+Crawford caught the import of her gesture and said sharply:
+
+"I do not wish to keep you long, Mrs. Grainger; I have only a few
+questions to ask, and then you may leave me."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the charwoman, instantly sitting upright and on her
+dignity.
+
+"Have you ever seen this strange man?"
+
+"Only twice."
+
+"Would you know him again if you saw him?"
+
+"O, yes, sir, I should know him anywhere."
+
+"Tell me what he is like."
+
+"Quite the gentleman, sir, he looks, but seems to be poor, or he
+wouldn't live in such a place all by himself and wear such poor
+clothes."
+
+"His clothes are poor, then?"
+
+"Very. But not so much poor as worn shabby, sir."
+
+"Ah," said Crawford thoughtfully. (He had not been near enough to that
+man on the tow-path to tell whether his clothes were greatly the worse
+of wear or not.) "Is he dark or light?"
+
+"Dark. Very dark. His hair is jet-black, sir. I was as close to him on
+Welford Road as I am to you now."
+
+Philip Ray was dark. "Did you notice anything remarkable about him?"
+
+"Well, as I said, he is very dark, and he has no colour in his cheek."
+
+"H'm!" said Crawford in a dissatisfied tone. Ray had no colour in his
+cheek. "Did you remark anything peculiar in his walk?" No one could
+fail to observe the way in which Ray swung his hands.
+
+"No, I did not."
+
+Crawford drew up in front of the woman, and stood gnawing his knuckle
+for a few seconds. Then he resumed his pacing up and down.
+
+"Was the gentleman walking fast at the time?"
+
+"No."
+
+Philip Ray, when alone, always went at an unusually rapid pace. He was
+a man quick in everything: quick in speech, in the movements of his
+limbs, quickest of all and most enduring also in his love and--anger.
+
+"Is he a tall man?"
+
+"No."
+
+"What!" cried he in astonishment, drawing up again in front of the
+charwoman, now somewhat cowed by Crawford's abrupt, and vigorous, and
+abstracted manner. "Don't you call six feet a tall man? Have you lived
+among Patagonians all your life?"
+
+"No, sir; I can't say I ever lived with any people of that name," she
+said, bridling a little. She did not understand being spoken to by any
+one in that peremptory and belittling way, and if all came to all it
+wasn't the rich Mr. Crawford who paid her and supplied the food she
+had eaten, but poor Mr. Layard, who gave himself no airs, but was
+always a pleasant gentleman, though he was not in the counting-house
+of the great Welford Gas Company, but in the works, where her own
+husband was employed.
+
+"Why, don't you consider a man four inches taller than I a tall man?"
+cried Crawford, drawing brows down over his quick furtive eyes, and
+looking at the woman as if he was reproaching her with having
+committed a heinous crime.
+
+"Four inches taller than you!" said the woman with scornful asperity.
+"I never said he was four inches taller than you, sir. He isn't four
+inches taller than you, Mr. Crawford."
+
+"He is."
+
+"Excuse me, sir; if you tell me so, of course I have nothing more to
+say," said Mrs. Grainger, rising with severity and dignity. "The
+gentleman that lives on Poland's Ait is a _shorter_ man than you,
+sir."
+
+"Are you sure?" said Crawford, standing for the third time in front of
+the woman.
+
+"Quite certain."
+
+"_Shorter_ than I?" said he, in a tone of abstraction, as he gnawed
+his knuckles, unconscious of her presence--"_shorter_ than I?" he
+repeated, lost in thought. "Then he can't be Philip Ray," he cried in
+a tone of relief. The words were uttered, not for Mrs. Grainger's
+hearing, but for his own. He wanted to have this pleasant assurance in
+his ear as well as in his mind.
+
+"I never said he was, sir; I said he was Mr. Bramwell--Mr. Francis
+Bramwell," said Mrs. Grainger, making a mock courtesy and moving
+towards the door.
+
+With a start Crawford awoke from his abstraction to the fact of her
+presence. "Bless my soul! but of course you didn't! Of course you
+didn't! You never said anything of the kind! You never said anything
+of any kind! Ha, ha, ha, ha!" He laughed his short and not pleasant
+laugh, and held the door open for Mrs. Grainger.
+
+When she was gone he walked up and down the room for some time in deep
+cogitation. Then he went to the window and looked out on the scene,
+now darkening for the short night. His eyes rested on Boland's Ait,
+and he muttered below his breath:
+
+"Whoever my next-door neighbour may be, it is not Philip Ray, and I am
+not afraid of any one else on earth. But who is this Francis Bramwell
+that Philip Ray visits? Who can he be?" Crawford paused awhile, and
+then said impatiently as he turned away from the window, "Bah, what do
+I care who it is? I fear no one but Philip Ray."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VII.
+
+                      A VISITOR AT BOLAND'S AIT.
+
+
+On the evening that Crawford arrived for the first time at the house
+called after his name, and saw the man he recognised as Philip Ray
+hastening along the tow-path, the man of whom he expressed such fear
+was almost breathless when, having passed the head of the Ait, he was
+hidden from view. As soon as he got near the tail of the island he
+suddenly stopped, bent down, and seizing a small chain made fast to an
+iron ring below the level of the tow-path and close to the water, drew
+heavily upon it, hand over hand. Gradually a long low black floating
+mass began to detach itself from the island, and, like some huge snake
+or saurian, stretch itself out across the turbid waters, now darkening
+in the shadows of eve. This was the floating stage of which Red Jim
+had told Crawford.
+
+When the stage touched the bank Philip Ray stepped on it, walked to
+the other end, stooped down to the water, and, catching another chain,
+drew the stage back. Then he stepped ashore on Boland's Ait.
+
+He paused a moment to gather breath and wipe his forehead, for in his
+wild haste he had run half the way from Camberwell. With rapid steps
+and arms swinging he strode to the door of what had once been the
+foreman's cottage, and knocked hastily. Then he made a great effort,
+and forced himself into an appearance of calm.
+
+There was the sound of some one rising inside. The door swung open,
+and a man of thirty slightly under the middle height stood facing the
+failing light of day.
+
+"Philip," he said. "Philip, I did not expect to see you so soon again.
+Come in."
+
+On a table littered with papers a reading-lamp was already burning,
+for even at the brightest hour the light in the small oblong room was
+not good. By the table stood a Windsor armchair; another stood against
+the wall furthest from the door. There was a tier of plain bookshelves
+full of books against one of the walls, a few heavy boxes against
+another, and absolutely nothing else in the place. The cottage stood
+at the head of the island, and the one window of the occupant's study
+looked up the canal in the direction of Camberwell.
+
+"At work, as usual," said Ray, pointing to the papers on the table as
+he shut the door.
+
+"My work is both my work and my play, my meat and my rest. Sit down,
+Philip. Has anything unusual happened? I did not expect to see you
+until Sunday," said the solitary man, dropping into his chair, resting
+his elbows on the arms of it and leaning forward.
+
+"I am out of breath. I ran most of the way," said Ray, avoiding the
+question.
+
+"Ran!" cried the other in faint surprise. "Your walking is like
+another man's running. Your running must be terrific. I never saw you
+run. What made you run this evening?" He smiled very slightly as he
+spoke of Ray's walking and running.
+
+"I am out of breath," said the other, again shirking the question.
+"Give me a minute."
+
+It was not to gain breath Philip Ray paused, but to put in shape what
+he had to say. He had come from Camberwell at the top of his speed
+because he was burning with intelligence which had just reached him.
+He had been so excited by the news that he had never paused to think
+of the form in which he should communicate it, and now he was in great
+perplexity and doubt.
+
+Francis Bramwell threw himself back in his chair in token of giving
+the required respite. He was a pale broad-browed man, with large,
+grave, unfathomable, hazel eyes His hair and moustache were dark
+brown; his cheeks and chin, clean-shaven.
+
+Ray fidgeted a good deal in his chair, and acted very badly the man
+who was out of breath.
+
+"You must have run desperately hard," said Bramwell, at length, in a
+tone half sympathy, half banter.
+
+"Never harder in all my life," said the other, placing his hand on his
+side, as though still suffering from the effects of his unusual speed.
+
+After a while he sat up and said, "I was pretty tired to begin with. I
+had been wandering about all the afternoon, and when I found myself
+near home I made up my mind not to budge again for the night. I found
+a letter waiting for me, and I have come over about that letter." He
+ceased to speak, and suppressed the excitement which was shaking him.
+
+"A letter!" said Bramwell, observing for the first time that something
+very unusual lay behind the manner of the other. "It must have been a
+letter of great importance to bring you out again, and at such a rate,
+too." He looked half apprehensively at his visitor.
+
+"It was a letter of importance."
+
+A spasm of pain shot over the face of Bramwell, and his brows fell. "A
+letter of importance that concerned me?" he asked in a faint voice.
+
+"Well," after a pause, "partly."
+
+Bramwell's lips grew white, and opened. He scarcely breathed his next
+question: "From _her?_"
+
+"O, no!" answered Ray quickly.
+
+"About her?"
+
+"No."
+
+Bramwell fell back in his chair with a sigh of relief. "I thought the
+letter was about her. I thought you were preparing me to hear of her
+death," said he tremulously, huskily.
+
+"I am sorry to say you were wrong. That would be the best news we
+could hear of her," said Ray bitterly.
+
+"Yes, the very best. What does the letter tell you that affects me?"
+
+"It is about _him_," answered Ray, with fierce and angry emphasis on
+the pronoun.
+
+"What does the letter say?"
+
+"That he is in England."
+
+"Ah! Where?"
+
+"In Richmond."
+
+"So near!"
+
+"Who saw him?"
+
+"Lambton."
+
+"Beyond all chance of mistake?"
+
+"Beyond all chance of mistake, although he has shaved off his whiskers
+and moustache. Lambton saw him on the railway platform, and recognised
+him at once. Lambton had no time to make any inquiries, as his train
+was just about to move when he recognised the villain standing alone.
+But _I_ have plenty of time for inquiries, and shall not miss one.
+I'll shoot him as I would a rabid dog."
+
+"The atrocious scoundrel!"
+
+"When I read the letter I only waited to put this in my pocket."
+
+He took out a revolver and laid it on the table.
+
+Then for a while both men sat staring at one another across the table,
+on which lay the weapon. At length Bramwell rose and began pacing up
+and down the room with quick, feverish steps. Ray had not seen him so
+excited for years--not since his own sister Kate, the solitary man's
+wife, had run away, taking her baby, with that villain John Ainsworth,
+whom Edward Lambton had seen at Richmond. After the first fierce agony
+of the wound, the husband had declined to speak of her flight or of
+her to his brother-in-law. He plunged headlong into gambling for a
+time until all his ample means were dissipated, unless Boland's Ait
+are enough to keep body and soul together. Then his grief took another
+turn. He was lost to all his former friends for months, and at last
+took up his residence, under an assumed name--Francis Bramwell instead
+of Frank Mellor--on Boland's Ait, in the South London Canal. To not a
+living soul did he disclose his real name or his place of habitation
+but to Philip Ray, the brother of his guilty wife, and the sworn
+avenger of her shame and his dishonour.
+
+Ray watched Bramwell with flashing, uneasy eyes. By a desperate effort
+he was calming his own tumultuous passions.
+
+At last Bramwell wound his arms round his head, as though to shut out
+some intolerable sight, to close his ears to some maddening sounds, to
+shield his head from deadly, infamous blows.
+
+"Bear with me, Philip!" he cried huskily, at length. "Bear with me, my
+dear friend. I am half mad--whole mad for the moment. Bear with me!
+God knows, I have cause to be mad."
+
+He was staggering and stumbling about the room, avoiding by instinct
+the table on which the lamp burned.
+
+Ray said nothing, but set his teeth and breathed hard between them.
+
+"I did not think," went on Bramwell, unwinding his arms and placing
+his hands before his face, as he went on unsteadily to and fro, "that
+anything could break me down as this has done. I thought I had
+conquered all weakness in the matter. I cannot talk quite steadily
+yet. Bear with me awhile, Philip!"
+
+The younger man hissed an imprecation between his set teeth.
+
+Bramwell took down his hands from his face and tore the collar of his
+shirt open.
+
+"What you told me," he resumed in a gentler voice, a voice still
+shaken by his former passion of wrath, as the sea trembles after the
+wind has died away, "brought it all back upon me again. How I
+worshipped her! How I did all in my power to make her love me! How I
+hoped in time she would forget her young fancy for him! I thought if
+she married me I could not fail to win her love, and then when the
+child was born I felt secure. But the spell of his evil fascination
+was too strong for her feeble will, and--and--and he had only to
+appear and beckon to her to make her leave me for ever; and to go with
+_him_--with such a man as John Ainsworth! O God!"
+
+Ray drew a long breath, brought his lips firmly together, but uttered
+no word. His eyes were blazing, and his hands clutched with powerful
+strenuousness the elbows of his chair.
+
+"I am calmer now," resumed Bramwell.
+
+"I am not," breathed Ray, in a whisper of such fierceness and
+significance that the other man arrested his steps and regarded the
+speaker in a dazed way, like one awakening from sleep in unfamiliar
+surroundings.
+
+"I am not calmer now," went on Ray, in the same whisper of awful
+menace, "unless it is calmer to be more than ever resolved upon
+revenge."
+
+"Philip----"
+
+"Stop! I must have my say. You have had yours. Have I no wrongs or
+sorrow? Am I not a partner in this shame thrust upon us?"
+
+"But----"
+
+"Frank, I will speak. You said a while ago, 'Bear with me.' Bear you
+now with me."
+
+Bramwell made a gesture that he would hear him out.
+
+"In the first wild burst of your anger you would have strangled this
+miscreant if you could have reached his throat with your thumbs--would
+you not?"
+
+He was now speaking in his full voice, in tones charged with intense
+passion.
+
+"I was mad then."
+
+"No doubt; and I am mad still--now. I have never ceased to be mad, if
+fidelity to my oath of vengeance is madness. You know I loved her as
+the apple of my eye, and guarded her as the priceless treasure of my
+life; for we were alone--she was alone in the world only for me. Him I
+knew and loathed. I knew of his gambling, his dishonourableness, his
+profligacy. I knew she was weak and flighty, vain and headlong, open
+to the wiles of a flatterer, and I shuddered when I found she had even
+met him once, and I forbade her ever to meet him again. She promised,
+and although my mind was not at rest, it was quieted somewhat. Then
+you came. I knew you were the best and loyalest and finest-souled man
+of them all. Let me speak. Bear with me a little while."
+
+"My life is over. Let me be in such peace as I may find." Bramwell
+walked slowly up and down the room with his head bowed and his eyes
+cast on the floor.
+
+"And why is your life over--at thirty? Because of him and his ways of
+devilish malice; he cared for her really nothing at all. When he came
+the second time, a year after the marriage, he set his soul upon
+ruining you and her. He thought of nothing else. Do not stop me. I
+will go on. I will have it out for once. You would never listen to me
+before. Now you shall--you shall!"
+
+He was speaking in a loud and vehement voice, and swinging his arms
+wildly round him as he sat forward on his chair.
+
+"Go on."
+
+"Well, I liked you best of all; you had everything in your favour:
+position, money, abilities, even years. You were younger than the
+scoundrel, and quite as good-looking. You had not his lying smooth
+tongue for women, or his fine sentiment for their silly ears. I
+thought all would be well if she married you. She did, and all went
+well for a year, until he came back, and then all went wrong, and she
+stole away out of your house, taking your child with her."
+
+"I know--I know; but spare me. I have only just said most of this
+myself."
+
+"No doubt; but I must say what is in my heart--what has been in my
+heart for years. Well, we know he deserted her after a few months. He
+left her and her child to starve in America, the cowardly ruffian!
+What I have had in my mind to say for years, Frank, is that of all the
+men in this world, I love and esteem you most; that I love and esteem
+you more than all the other men in this world put together, and that
+it drives me mad to think shame and sorrow should have come upon you
+through my blood."
+
+"Do not speak of her, Philip. What has been done cannot be undone."
+
+"No; but the shame which has come upon you through my blood can be
+washed out in his, and by----, it shall! and here I swear it afresh."
+
+With a sudden movement forward he flung himself on his knees and threw
+his open right hand up, calling Heaven to witness his oath.
+
+Bramwell paused in his walk. The two men remained motionless for a
+moment. Suddenly Bramwell started. There was a loud knocking at the
+door.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII.
+
+                           FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Ray rose to his feet and bent forward.
+
+"I did not know you expected any visitor," said he in a tone of strong
+irritation.
+
+"I do not expect any visitor. I never have any visitor but you," said
+Bramwell, looking round him in perplexity, as though in search of an
+explanation of the sound. He was beginning to think that his ears must
+have deceived him, and that the knock had not been at the door. "Did
+you," he asked, "draw back the stage when you got here?"
+
+"Yes, but I did not fasten it. Any one on the tow-path might have
+pulled it across again. I hope no one has been eavesdropping."
+
+"Eavesdropping! No. Who would care to eavesdrop at _my_ door?"
+
+"HE!"
+
+"Philip, you are mad? If you trifle with your reason in this way you
+will hurt it permanently. I do not believe there was any knock at all.
+It may have been a stone thrown by some boy from the tow-path."
+
+"Well, open the door and see. There can be no harm in doing that."
+
+Ray stretched out his hand to recover the revolver which he had placed
+on the table. Bramwell snatched it up, saying:
+
+"What folly, Philip! I will have no nonsense with such tools as this.
+We are in England--not the West of America." He dropped the revolver
+into the pocket of his jacket.
+
+The minds of both men had been so concentrated on the idea of John
+Ainsworth during this interview that neither would have felt much
+surprise to find him on the threshold. Bramwell had repudiated Ray's
+suggestion that Ainsworth was there, but in his heart he was not sure
+of his own assertion. Nothing on earth could be more monstrously
+improbable than that Ainsworth would come and knock at _that_ door;
+but then neither of the men in the room was in full possession of his
+reasoning powers. While Bramwell had lived on Boland's Ait no caller
+but Philip Ray had ever knocked at that door before, and now--now
+there came a knock while Philip Ray was sitting in the room, and as
+they had heard of Ainsworth's presence in England, and at the very
+moment Philip Ray was swearing to take that reprobate's life. Reason
+said it was absurd to suppose Ainsworth could be there. Imagination
+said he might; and if he were found there while Philip was in this
+fury, what direful things might not happen? Now that Bramwell had the
+revolver in his possession he felt more assured.
+
+He moved to the door, opened it, and looked out.
+
+No figure rose between him and the deep dusk of night. The light from
+the lamp on the table passed out through the doorway, and shone upon
+the wall of the old engine-house opposite.
+
+"There is no one. It must have been a stone," said Bramwell, relieved,
+and drawing back.
+
+"A stone cannot hit twice. There were two knocks. I heard two quite
+distinctly. Go out and look around. Or stay, I'll go. Give me back my
+revolver."
+
+"No, no. Stay where you are. I will see."
+
+He was in the act of stepping forth, when, looking down, he suddenly
+perceived the figure of a little child in the doorway. With a cry,
+"What is this?" he sprang back into the middle of the room.
+
+Ray shouted, "Is the villain there? I told you it was Ainsworth!"
+
+Ray was about to pass Bramwell at a bound, when the latter seized him
+and held him back, and, pointing to the child in the doorway,
+whispered, "Look!"
+
+Ray peered into the gloom, and then came forward a pace warily, as
+though suspecting danger. "A child!" he cried in a whisper. "A little
+child! How did he come here? Do you know anything of him?"
+
+"No." Bramwell shuddered and drew back until he could reach the
+support of the table, on which he rested his hand.
+
+Ray advanced still further, and, bending his tall thin figure, asked
+in a muffled voice, "Who are you, my little man? and what have you got
+in your hand?" The child held something white in a hand which he
+extended to Ray.
+
+The child did not answer, but crossed the threshold into the full
+light of the lamp, still offering the white object, which now could be
+seen to be a letter.
+
+"What is your name, my little man?" repeated Ray, with a look of
+something like awe on his face.
+
+"Don't!" whispered Bramwell, backing until he reached his chair.
+"Don't! Can't you see his name?"
+
+"No. I am not able to make out what is on the paper at the distance.
+Give me the paper, my little lad."
+
+Bramwell knew what the name of the child was, and Ray had a tumultuous
+and superstitious feeling that the coming of this child across the
+water in the night to the lonely islet and this solitary man had some
+portentous significance.
+
+Ray took the letter from the child, and read the superscription with
+dull sight. Then he said, turning to Bramwell, "This does not explain
+how you know his name. There is nothing on this but,
+
+
+    'Francis Bramwell, Esq.
+            Boland's Ait,
+                      South London Canal.'
+
+
+What is your name? Tell me your name, my little man."
+
+"Frank," said the child in a frightened voice.
+
+"Yes. What else?"
+
+"Mellor."
+
+"What!" shouted Ray, catching up the boy from the floor and holding
+the little face close to the lamp.
+
+"Did not you see his name on his face? Look! Is it not her face?
+Philip, I am suffocating!"
+
+Ray gazed at the child long and eagerly. Bramwell, swaying to and fro
+by his chair, kept his eyes on the rosy face of the boy. The boy
+blinked at the light, and looked from one man to the other with
+wide-open, unconcerned eyes. At length Ray put the little fellow on
+the floor. The boy went to the table and began looking at the papers
+spread upon it. From his self possessed, unabashed manner, it was
+plain he was well accustomed to strangers.
+
+"Who brought you here?" asked Ray again. The other man seemed bereft
+of voice and motion, save the long swaying motion, which he
+mechanically tried to steady by laying hold of the arm of the chair.
+
+"A man," answered the child, running his chubby young fingers through
+some papers.
+
+"Where did you come from?"
+
+"Mother," answered the child.
+
+"Who is mother?"
+
+The boy looked round in smiling surprise.
+
+"Mother _is_ mother," and he laughed at the notion of grown-up people
+not knowing so simple a thing as that his mother was mother. He was
+thoroughly at his ease--quite a person of the world.
+
+"You had better open the letter," said Ray, holding it out to
+Bramwell. "I did not recognise the writing. It is not like what I
+remember, and it is in pencil."
+
+Bramwell took the letter. His face worked convulsively as he examined
+it. "I should not recognise the writing either, and yet it could be no
+other than hers, once you think of her and look at it." He turned the
+unopened envelope round and round in his hand. "What is the good of
+opening this, Philip? It will make no difference in me. I shall never
+look at her of my own free-will again."
+
+"How can you judge the good of opening it unless you know what it
+contains? You cannot send it back by this messenger. My little lad,"
+he said, turning to the child, who was still moving his dimpled
+fingers through the confused mass of papers on the table, "where is
+the man that brought you here?"
+
+"Gone away," answered the child, without suspending his occupation.
+
+"He left you at the door and knocked and went away?"
+
+The boy nodded.
+
+"He brought you across the water and set you down and knocked, and
+went back across the water?"
+
+"Went back across the water," repeated the boy.
+
+"What did he do then?"
+
+"Ran off."
+
+"You see, Frank," said Ray to the other man, "you cannot send back the
+letter by the messenger who brought it."
+
+"Shall I throw it into the canal? I made up my mind never to know
+anything about her again in this life," said Bramwell.
+
+Ray put his hand on the child's head and said, "Where did you leave
+your mother?"
+
+"At home."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"A long way."
+
+"Do you know where?"
+
+"Yes; in bed."
+
+Bramwell tore open the envelope, read the letter, handed it to Ray,
+and flung himself into his chair. The note, written in pencil like the
+address on the cover, ran:
+
+
+                                                      "May 28.
+
+"Frank,--I have found out where you are after long search. I ask
+nothing for myself--not even forgiveness. But our child, your little
+son, will be alone and penniless when I die, which the doctor tells me
+must be before morning. I have enough money to pay all expenses. It is
+not his money, but money made by myself--by my singing. You may
+remember my voice was good. I shall be dead before morning, the doctor
+tells me. There will be money enough for my funeral, but none for my
+child. He is very young--I forget exactly how old, for my head is
+burning hot, and my brain on fire. He is called after you, for you
+used to be kind to me when I was at Beechley before I was married to
+Frank Mellor. You remember him? This is a question you can never
+answer, because I hear in my ears that I shall die before morning. The
+money for my funeral is in my box. I am writing this bit by bit, for
+my head is on fire, and now and then I cannot even see the paper, but
+only a pool of flame, with little Frank--my baby Frank--on the brim,
+just falling in, and I cannot save him. I am writing my will. This is
+my will. I think I have nothing more to say. I wish I could remember
+all I have said, but I am not able; and I cannot read, for when I try,
+the paper fills with fire. It is easier to write than to read.... I am
+better now. My head is cooler. It may not be cool again between this
+and morning, and then it will be cold for ever. [I have money enough
+for myself when I am dead.] Take my boy, take our child. Take my only
+little one--all that is left to me. I do not ask you to forgive me.
+Curse me in my grave, but take the child. You are a good man, and fear
+and love God. My child is growing dim before my dying eyes. I could
+not leave him behind when I fled your house. I cannot leave him behind
+now, and yet I must go without him. I know you are bound in law to
+provide for him. That is not what I mean. Take him to your heart as
+you took me once. I love him ten thousand times more than I ever loved
+myself, or ever loved you. I can give you nothing more, for I am not
+fit to bless you. The pool of flame again! But I have said all.
+
+                                                 "Kate."
+
+
+Ray had read the letter standing by the table, and with his back to
+the chair into which Bramwell had sunk. When he finished he turned
+slowly round and fixed his gaze on the child. A feeling of delicacy
+and profound sympathy made him avoid the eyes of the other man. The
+dying woman was his sister, but she was this man's wife. A little
+while ago he had said that death would well befit her; and yet now,
+when, as in answer to his words, he read her own account of the death
+sentence passed upon her, he felt a pang of pity for her and remorse
+for his words. For a moment his mind went back to their orphaned
+childhood, and his love and admiration of his sister Kate's beauty. He
+had to banish the pictures ruthlessly from his mind, or he would have
+broken down. Silence any longer preserved would only afford a gateway
+to such thoughts; so he said, as he placed his hand once more on the
+head of the boy:
+
+"She was delirious, or half-delirious, when she wrote this."
+
+"Philip, she was dying."
+
+"Yes. What do you propose to do?"
+
+"Nothing. The boy said he came a long way, and that whoever brought
+him ran away. It is plain she has taken precautions to conceal her
+hiding-place. Let things be as they are. They are best so."
+
+He spoke like a man in a dream. He was half stunned. It seemed to him
+that all this had passed in some dreary long ago, and that he was only
+faintly recalling old experiences, not living among words and facts
+and surroundings subsisting to-day.
+
+"And what about----?" Ray finished the sentence by pointing with his
+free hand at the boy.
+
+"Eh? About what?"
+
+Bramwell's eyes were looking straight before him far away.
+
+"About our young friend here?"
+
+"She has been careful to remind me of my legal responsibility. I have
+no choice. Besides, putting the question of legality aside, I have no
+desire to escape from the charge, though I am ill-suited to undertake
+it, and do not know how I shall manage. He is, of course, a stranger
+to me. He was a mere baby when last I saw him. I cannot think of this
+matter now. I am thick-blooded and stupid with memories and sorrows."
+
+Ray groaned, and began pacing up and down the room. The child, always
+self-possessed, had now gathered courage and was slowly making the
+circuit of the table, holding on by the rim, and now and then turning
+over some of the papers: plainly a child accustomed to amuse himself.
+
+Neither of the men spoke. Bramwell sat stupefied in his chair. Ray
+strode up and down the room with hasty steps.
+
+The child pursued his course round the table. On the table was nothing
+but papers, and the lamp inaccessible in the middle, the pens and an
+ink-bottle unattainable near the lamp. When the circuit of the table
+was completed, and was found to afford nothing but dull papers, with
+not even one picture among them, the little feet ceased to move. One
+hand laid hold of the leaf, the white blue-veined temple was rested on
+the soft pad made by the plump tiny hand, and the young voice said
+with a weary yawn, "Frank's tired. Frank wants to go to mother." As
+the boy spoke he sank down to the floor, overcome by drowsiness and
+fatigue.
+
+Ray hastened to the child and raised him from the ground, and held him
+tenderly in his arms. "Poor little man! Poor tired little motherless
+man!"
+
+"Mother!" murmured the boy, "I want to go to mother!" The child
+smiled, and nestled into the breast of the tall powerful man. "Frank
+wants mother and wants to go to bed."
+
+"Hush, my boy: Frank has no mother."
+
+Then a sudden impulse seized Ray. He crossed the room with the little
+lad in his arms, and placed him in the arms of Bramwell, saying to the
+child:
+
+"You cannot go to your mother: you have no mother any longer. But you
+have a father. Take him, Frank; he is not to blame."
+
+Bramwell caught the boy to his breast, and stooped and kissed his
+round soft young cheek, and pressed him again to his bosom, and then
+all at once handed him back to Ray, saying, in a choking voice:
+
+"I am distracted, overwhelmed. I cannot stand this. What do I want
+here--alive?"
+
+He rose and began stumbling about the room as if on the point of
+falling. Suddenly something heavy in his coat struck the table and
+shook it. A gleam of joy shot over his face, illumining it as though
+he stood within the light of deliverance.
+
+Swift as thought he drew the revolver from his pocket and placed it
+against his forehead. With a cry of horror, Ray struck his arm up,
+dropped the child, and seizing Bramwell's wrist, wrenched the weapon
+from his grasp.
+
+"It is _you_ who are mad now!" he cried angrily. "What do you mean?
+Does all your fine morality vanish at the contact with pain and
+disgrace? For shame, Frank! for shame! You were always a man. What
+unmans you now? This," he added, dropping the revolver into his own
+pocket, "is safer in my keeping than in yours. I intended to do only
+justice with it; you would commit a crime."
+
+"I am calmer now," said Bramwell; "it was only the impulse of a
+moment. Forgive me, Philip! forgive me, Heaven! I was frenzied. I
+hardly remember what passed since--since the boy came and I read that
+letter, and saw her ruin and death, and tasted the ashes of my own
+life upon my lips. I am calm--quite calm now. I will do my duty by the
+child. Trust me, I will not give way again; although I am not much
+safer without the revolver than with it. I have as deadly a weapon
+always at hand."
+
+"What is that? I did not know you kept any weapon in the place."
+
+"I keep no weapon in the place; but," he went to the window looking
+south along the canal, "all around me is--the water."
+
+Shortly after this Philip Ray left, promising to call next evening. It
+was after this interview that Layard and Crawford saw him emerge from
+the gloom of the arch of Welford Bridge, the night that Crawford
+entered upon the tenancy of his rooms in Crawford's House, on
+Crawford's Bay, opposite Boland's Ait, and hard by the flooded
+ice-house, Mrs. Crawford's property.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX.
+
+                           CRAWFORD'S HOME.
+
+
+The third and last day of William Crawford's visit to Welford was
+devoted to the business of his wife's property. The rents had not been
+collected for a couple of months, and before he returned in the
+evening he had upwards of a hundred pounds in his possession. Some of
+the tenants paid quarterly; the rents of the smaller ones were due
+weekly, but it had been the custom of the estate not to apply for the
+latter until four weeks outstanding. The neighbourhood, though poor,
+was for a place of its class eminently solvent, owing to the gas-house
+and the railway. Of course these was no difficulty with the stores, or
+wharves, or yards, or better class of houses; and even the poorer
+tenants could not afford to get into arrears or treat a landlord
+unjustly, for such matters might come to the ears of either of the
+great companies, and do the delinquent harm.
+
+It was almost sundown when Crawford reached his lodgings. Layard had
+come in and gone out again, and Hetty was alone in their sitting-room.
+She had just come down from little Freddie, who, after a valiant fight
+against Billy Winkers, had at last succumbed. Crawford saw Hetty at
+the window, and motioned that he wished to speak with her.
+
+"Mr. Layard out?" asked he, after greetings.
+
+"Yes," said the girl; "the evening was so lovely, he said he'd go for
+a walk."
+
+"The evening is lovely, no doubt," said he; "but is there such a thing
+as a tolerable walk within reasonable distance?"
+
+Hetty had opened the sitting-room door, and now stood on the
+threshold.
+
+"There is no nice walk quite close, but Alfred often goes for a stroll
+to Greenwich Park. That is not far off, you know, and the air there is
+so sweet and pure after the heat and unpleasantness of the works all
+day."
+
+She thought he was speaking merely out of politeness, and, believing
+he wished to be gone, drew back a little into the room.
+
+He was in no great hurry to go upstairs. He knew what her movement
+indicated, but he construed it differently.
+
+"Am I invited to enter?" he asked suavely, bowing slightly, and making
+a gesture of gallant humility with his arms and shoulders.
+
+"Certainly," she said, smiling and making way for him. He did look a
+powerful man, she thought, who could dare danger, and rescue and carry
+out of the flames an invalid woman. He was not very handsome, it was
+true, and there was something unusual about his restless eyes. But
+perhaps that might be quite usual with heroes. She had never before
+met a man who had rescued any one from death. She had not, that she
+could remember, ever met a man, either, who had married a widow.
+According to plays and satirists, the man who married a widow had more
+courage than the man who would do no more than face death in a burning
+house.
+
+"I am sorry to have to trouble you about a little business matter--no,
+thank you, I will not sit down, I shall run away in a minute--but, as
+your brother is out, I fear I must intrude on your good nature, if you
+will allow me."
+
+His voice and manner were exceedingly soft and pleasant and
+insinuating; not in the least like his voice and manner of the former
+evening, when his manner was abrupt and his voice hard, if not harsh.
+This speech somewhat disconcerted the girl. She felt sure he was going
+to ask her to do something altogether beyond her abilities.
+
+"Anything in my power, Mr. Crawford, I shall be very happy to do for
+you."
+
+"Thank you extremely. It is exceedingly kind of you to say so." He
+spoke as though weighed down by a sense of his own unworthiness.
+
+The girl began to feel embarrassed. Such profuse thanks rendered in
+anticipation placed the obligation of gratitude on her shoulders. His
+words and manner and gestures had already thanked her more than
+sufficiently for anything she could do for him.
+
+"I am going out this evening," he said, "and shall not be back until
+very late--an hour too late even to mention to any well-ordered
+person--and I do not wish to disturb any one when I come back."
+
+"We, Alfred and I, always sit up very late."
+
+"My dear Miss Layard, you could have no conception of the time at
+which I may return. It may be three, four, five o'clock. I have to go
+to see an old friend in the West End, and he will, in all likelihood,
+keep me until the cocks have crowed themselves hoarse in full
+daylight."
+
+"Well," said she, gathering her brows and looking very uncomfortable
+as she felt how helpless she was in a case of such mystery and
+difficulty, "what can Alfred or I do for you?"
+
+The grave aspect and manner of apology left his face and gestures all
+at once, and he smiled, and with a light airy, humorous manner said,
+"If there is such a thing as a latchkey, and your brother hasn't it
+with him, will you lend it to me?"
+
+The girl burst out laughing, partly from relief and partly from
+enjoyment of this elaborate joke, and, going to the chimney piece,
+handed him from it a key. "We had to get a new latch. Alfred has one
+key. This is for you."
+
+"Thank you. Good-night." And he went, shutting the door softly after
+him.
+
+William Crawford went to his own room and took off the quiet, sedate,
+and somewhat shabby clothes in which he had arrived at Welford. He
+washed, put on a fresh shirt and elegant laced boots, of much finer
+make and more shiny than he had worn all day. He substituted a
+coloured tie for the one of sober black, a blue frock-coat of
+exquisite make, and over this a dark summer topcoat. When he surveyed
+himself in the glass he looked ten years younger than when he came in
+after the arduous labours of the day.
+
+Of the money he had collected that day most was in notes or gold. He
+dropped all the notes and gold into his pocket, and, having locked a
+few cheques in his portmanteau, left the house quietly, as though not
+wishing to attract attention.
+
+When he reached Welford Road he looked up and down for a minute, and
+muttering, "Pooh! No hope of a hansom in this place, of course!"
+turned his face west, and began walking rapidly with his quick step.
+Now and then he twitched his shoulders with suppressed energy;
+constantly he swung his eyes from left to right, as though it would
+not suit him to miss seeing anything on either side.
+
+After a quarter-of-an-hour's walking he came to the beginning of a
+tram line. He got into a car about to move. He took no notice of the
+destination of the car. The car was going west--that was enough for
+him.
+
+In half-an-hour he reached a busy crossing where hansoms were
+plentiful. He alighted here, hailed a cab, and was driven to a quiet
+street off Piccadilly. He got down here, and proceeded on foot to a
+still quieter cross street, finally entering a modest, unpretentious
+house, the home of the Counter Club, a club which had nothing whatever
+to do with the yard-stick or scales and weights, but where members
+might amuse themselves at games in which no money changed hands at the
+table, and was therefore blameless. All a member had to do before
+beginning to play was to provide himself with counters, to be obtained
+of the secretary for--a consideration. The reason why these counters
+were used and not money, was because the games played here were games
+of chance, and it is illegal to play games of chance for money. Very
+elaborate precautions were taken by the committee to avoid any
+confusion between the counters whose use, after the formality of
+paying, was sanctioned by the secretary, and counters not issued by
+him.
+
+It was, as Crawford had predicted, long after sunrise when he opened
+Layard's door with his latchkey. A good deal of the briskness and
+energy of his manner a few hours ago was abated. When he found himself
+in his sitting-room he flung his overcoat and hat on the table.
+"Cleaned out, by Heavens!" he cried. "Is this accursed luck to last
+for ever?"
+
+Then he changed his clothes, putting on those he had worn the day
+before, and took a chair at the open window of his sitting-room,
+overlooking the canal.
+
+Here he remained motionless, brooding gloomily until six o'clock. Then
+he got up, wrote a line to Layard saying he had to go away early, and
+would be back again on June 27. He left the house noiselessly, and
+made his way partly on foot, partly by tramcar (for here the tramcars
+run early), and partly by cab to Ludgate Hill, whence by train he
+reached Richmond.
+
+It was still early, about eight o'clock, when Crawford gained his own
+home and let himself in. The servants were stirring. "Tell Mrs.
+Crawford when she rings," said he to the housemaid, "that I have been
+up all night, and have gone to lie down. Do not call me for
+breakfast." Then he went to his dressing-room, kicked off his boots
+with a curse, threw himself on the bed, and was asleep in five
+minutes.
+
+Noon came and went, and still he slept peacefully. Just as one o'clock
+struck he awoke with a start, and sprang from the bed, threw off his
+coat and waistcoat, rolled up his shirt-sleeves, washed his face and
+hands, brushed his hair, and, when his coat and waistcoat were once
+more on, opened the door leading to his wife's room and went in.
+
+Mrs. Crawford was sitting in an armchair by the open window. She was a
+pale, fragile, beautiful woman of seven-and-forty. Her eyes were
+large, luminous, violet, and full of gentleness and love. Her lips
+were remarkably beautiful and red for an invalid of her years. Her
+smile was the softest and most engaging and endearing in all the
+world. Nothing could exceed the tender loveliness of her face, or the
+sweet cheerful resignation of her disposition. The mitigation of her
+symptoms following the shock at the fire had not been permanent, and,
+although on the day of her second marriage she had been well enough to
+walk up the whole length of the church, she was now once more
+incapable of moving across the room without help.
+
+Upon the entrance of Crawford she turned her head quickly and smiled,
+holding out her hands, saying:
+
+"O, William, I am glad you're back! I am glad to see you once more. I
+have been lonely. This is the longest time we have been separated
+since our marriage."
+
+He went to her and kissed her affectionately, first her lips and then
+her forehead, and then her hair, now thickly shot with grey, but
+abundant still. He drew a chair beside hers, and sat down, taking one
+of her thin transparent hands in both his, and stroking it as though
+it was made of the most fragile and precious material.
+
+"And how has my Nellie been since?" he asked in a low caressing voice,
+very different from the one Red Jim or Alfred Layard had heard, but
+somewhat akin to the one in which he had apologised to Hetty the
+evening before.
+
+"Well--very well; but lonely. I hoped you would be able to get home,
+dear, last night," she said, lying back in her chair and looking at
+him out of her gentle violet eyes with an expression of absolute rest
+and joy.
+
+"So did I. So, indeed, I should, only for my ill luck. I am greatly
+put out by my first visit to Welford, Nellie," he said, lowering his
+brows and looking troubled.
+
+"Put out, dear! Put out by your visit to Welford! What put you out,
+William? I am very sorry you went. I am very sorry I let you go. I am
+sorry we ever got rid of Blore, if the thing is going to be a bother
+to you." Blore had been the agent before the advent of William
+Crawford.
+
+"O, no! You need not be sorry. I was not put out on account of myself,
+but on account of you." He said this very tenderly, and with a gentle
+pressure on the transparent wax-like fingers between his hands.
+
+"On my account, William?" she said, with a smile rich in love and
+satisfaction. "Why on my account, dear?"
+
+"Well, because I have been disappointed in the results of my own
+efforts. I could get very little money. Out of over two hundred pounds
+overdue, upwards of a hundred of which is arrears, I got no more than
+twenty pounds." He said this ruefully, keeping his gaze fixed out of
+the window, as though ashamed to meet her eyes.
+
+His wife laughed.
+
+"Is that all? I thought you had met some unpleasantness to yourself
+there. My dear William, don't let that trouble you. They will pay next
+month or the month after. They are excellent tenants, taking them all
+together."
+
+"I daresay they _will_ pay next month. But I could not help feeling
+disappointed and depressed in having to come back to you almost
+empty-handed. This is all I succeeded in getting--twenty-seven pounds
+ten."
+
+He held out a little bundle to her.
+
+With a laugh she pushed it away.
+
+"It is yours, William, not mine. What have I to do with money now? You
+know more about money than I do. You take care of me and of the money
+for us. No, no; I will not touch it! Put it in the bank, or do what
+you like with it. I and all that was mine is yours, love."
+
+There was a rapture of self-sacrifice and devotion in the woman's
+voice and manner. There was a prodigal richness of love and faith in
+her eyes. She had not loved her first husband when she married him,
+and during the years they had spent together no passionate love had
+arisen in her heart, though she was fond of her husband and an
+excellent wife. She had passed not only the morning, but the zenith of
+life when she met this man; but to him she had given all that remained
+to her of love and hope and all her faith, never shaken by any shock.
+
+Crawford winced slightly. Even he drew the line somewhere. He would
+rather battle stubbornly against odds for his way than sit still and
+be overwhelmed with free and lavish gifts. He liked to win, but he
+also liked to contend. He was passionately fond of money, and would
+sacrifice almost anything to get it. He would not work for it, but he
+would rather win it at cards than get it for nothing. If he had not
+gambled away those eighty pounds last night, she would have given them
+to him now. He felt a perverse gratitude that he was not beholden to
+her for the eighty pounds. He had, as it were, earned those eighty
+pounds by the deceit he had practised. But this money, which she had
+refused to receive, burnt his fingers.
+
+He took the money, however, and kissed her thin fragile hand, and
+pressed it against his broad powerful chest.
+
+"You are the best woman in the world, Nellie, and the dearest. These
+fellows will, no doubt, pay next month. I wonder, if I asked Blore
+about them, would he give me some information?"
+
+"I always found Mr. Blore the most courteous and honest and
+straightforward of men. If I were you I should see him."
+
+"I will. And now let us drop business and talk about something more
+interesting. Tell me to begin with, all that my good wife has been
+doing while I have been away." He slipped his arm round her waist and
+drew her head down upon his shoulder. His ways with men and women were
+widely different. With the former he was quick, or abrupt, or
+peremptory, or combative. He seemed to value his time at a price so
+high that the speech of other men caused him an intolerable loss, by
+reason of his having to listen to it.
+
+With women he was soft and gentle, and even quietly humorous at times.
+He never was restless or impatient. His manner was that of one who had
+found out the condition of existence in which life could be most
+delightfully passed, that of his companion's society; and if he did
+not absolutely make love to a woman when alone with her, and this was
+but seldom with one under fifty, he invariably implied that he would
+rather have her society than the society of all the men on this earth.
+He varied the details of his style according to the age, condition,
+and disposition of his companion.
+
+He could adopt the melancholic, the enthusiastic, the poetic manner,
+according as circumstances and the subject demanded. Without any
+striking physical advantages, he was a most fascinating man to women.
+There was no false polish, no lacquer about him. He had no airs and
+graces. He did not groan or simper. He never laid aside his manhood
+for a moment. He did not beg so much as expostulate for love. His
+love-making took the form of an irresistible argument. He thought no
+mere about women than he did about hares or rabbits, or flowers. He
+liked most women when they were not a trouble to him. They amused him.
+He liked their graceful ways and their simple loyal hearts. He liked
+their dainty raiment and their soft delicate hands. He liked the
+perfumes they used and the flowers they wore. He liked most women, but
+he had a contempt for all of them.
+
+He hated all men.
+
+He did not repudiate or despise principles, but he had none himself.
+He nourished no theories as to what a man ought or ought not to do. He
+troubled himself about no other men at all. He always did exactly what
+he liked best, or believed to be best for his own interest. He had
+banished everything like religion from his mind long ago. He did not
+bother himself to ask whether there might or might not be a Hereafter.
+He was quite certain there was a Here, and he had made up his mind to
+make the best of it. In some senses of the word, he was no coward. He
+would face a danger, even a risk, so long as he could see his way, and
+all was in the full light of day and commonplace. But he was afraid of
+the unseen: of the dagger or the bullet, of ghosts and supernatural
+manifestations. He was a gambler, and, like all gamblers,
+superstitious.
+
+Twenty years ago he had been placed in the counting-house of a
+first-class Liverpool place of business. His mother was then dead, his
+father living. John Ainsworth--that was the name with which he started
+in life--was an only child. His father had saved a few thousand pounds
+as manager of a line of steamboats.
+
+Young Ainsworth went to the bad before he was twenty-five, and was
+kicked out of his situation. The shock killed his father, who was an
+old man. There was no will, and young Ainsworth got his father's money
+and went betting on the turf, and when there were no races he devoted
+his energies to cards. It was on his way back from a great Sussex
+race-meeting that he came upon the quiet little town of Beechley, and
+first met Kate Ray. He was then past thirty years of age, and had been
+moderately successful on the turf and on the board of green cloth. In
+Beechley he concealed the nature of his occupation, stayed there a
+month or two, and won the giddy heart of the beautiful Kate Ray. But
+her brother would not listen to him, and Kate, who would have a little
+money when she came of age, was a minor and in the hands of guardians,
+who would have nothing to do with him either. So Ainsworth, being by
+no means insensible to the money Kate would come into at twenty-one,
+drew off for a while, promising Kate to come back later.
+
+Two whole years passed before John Ainsworth again appeared at
+Beechley. By this time the flighty and beautiful girl had married
+Frank Mellor, who had just inherited a considerable fortune upon the
+death of an old miserly bachelor grand-uncle, that had lived all his
+life in London, and made money in the Baltic trade.
+
+Then, out of a spirit of pure revenge, Ainsworth secretly pursued
+Kate, and worked upon her fickle and weak nature until she fled with
+him, taking her baby boy, Frank Mellor's child.
+
+After three years that child had been restored to his father, while
+the mother lay dying at good Mrs. Pemberton's, a rifle-shot from
+Boland's Ait and the office of John Ainsworth, who had assumed the
+name of Crawford.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER X.
+
+                           FATHER AND SON.
+
+
+Of all the men in London, there was scarcely one less qualified to
+take charge of a young child than Francis Bramwell, living alone on
+his tiny island in the South London Canal. He was not used to
+children. He had had only one sister, and no brother. His sister,
+twelve years older than himself, had married and gone away to
+Australia before he was eight years of age. His father had been a
+successful attorney in Shoreham, where he died ten years ago, when his
+son was just twenty years old. His mother had been dead many years at
+that time.
+
+When his grand-uncle was buried a few years later, Bramwell became
+rich and left Shoreham. He had been reading for the Bar in a
+half-hearted and dilatory way.
+
+He gave up all thought of the profession, and resolved to lead a life
+of lettered ease and contemplation, to be summed up later, probably in
+a book of one kind or another. In fact, as soon as he found himself
+independent he determined to devote his attention to poetry, and, as
+he did not feel certain of possessing a strong vein of genius, he
+determined to confine himself to translations by way of a beginning.
+
+For quietness he moved out of Shoreham to a cottage a few miles from
+the dull little town of Beechley, and in Beechley, after the first
+visit of John Ainsworth, he made the acquaintance of Philip Ray and
+his beautiful sister Kate.
+
+When he fell in love he threw his books to the winds, and, beyond
+verses addressed to his mistress, had no dealings with the Muse.
+
+He was then a man to all outward appearance of singularly unemotional
+temperament. But under a placid demeanour he concealed a sensitive and
+enthusiastic nature, a nature of fire and spirit, subject to raptures
+and despairs, and desiring rapture almost as a necessity. Prose would
+not satisfy him; he must have the wine of poetry. To love was not
+enough for him; he must adore. Devotion was too tame; he must immolate
+himself.
+
+He had lived most of his years since adolescence apart, and had never
+tried to make himself agreeable to any girl, until he told himself
+that life without Kate Ray would be simply intolerable. After marriage
+he treated his wife more like the goddess of a temple than the young,
+pretty, vain, foolish, flighty mistress of a home.
+
+Kate, who loved flattery and fine clothes, and trivial gaiety, could
+not understand him. She thought him cold and formal at one time; a
+wild man, a lunatic at another. He did not stoop to flattery, or
+condescend to simulation. He was worshipful, not gallant. He praised
+her spirit and her soul, possessions to which she did not attach much
+importance. He said little about her eyes, or her figure, or her hair,
+which she knew to be beautiful, and of which she was inordinately
+vain.
+
+She could not comprehend him. She did not try very hard. She never
+tried very hard to do anything, except dress well and look pretty. He
+was, no doubt, very grand, but she loved John Ainsworth all the while.
+John's ways and manner were perfectly intelligible to her, and when he
+came to her the second time secretly, and threw a romantic light upon
+their stolen meetings--when she heard his flattery and sighs and
+oaths--her weak will gave way, and she fled with him, taking the boy
+with her.
+
+Now, after three years, and when Bramwell had made up his mind he
+should never see wife or child again, the boy had come from his wife's
+death-bed to his door. What was he to do with this helpless being?
+
+He had decreed in his own soul, beyond the reach of appeal, that he
+would never see his wife again. It was plain she had not contemplated
+a meeting with him. It was plain she had put such a thing beyond her
+hopes--beyond, most likely, her desires. For had she not known where
+he lay hidden? and had she not refrained from seeking him, refrained
+even from letting him know she was alive? But when she found herself
+on the point of dissolution, when she had been told she had only a few
+hours to live, when the delirium of death was upon her, she had sent
+the child to him. She had at least the grace to feel her shame, and
+sufficient knowledge of him to be certain that no consideration on
+earth would induce him once more to look on her, the woman he had
+loved, who had betrayed his honour and laid his life in ruin.
+
+But the boy? What was to be done with him?
+
+The night before he had been too stupefied to think. When Philip left
+him he had taken the child to his own room and put him in his own bed,
+and the little fellow, overcome by fatigue and the lateness of the
+hour, had fallen asleep.
+
+Now it was bright, clear, unclouded morning, the morning after the
+boy's advent. The little fellow still slept, but the father was broad
+awake. He had risen at five, and was sitting in the room where Philip
+had found him the evening before. His elbows rested on the table; his
+head leaned upon his hands.
+
+What should he do with the boy? Her child?--the child of the woman who
+had brought infamy on his name, who had taken the heart out of his
+life; leaving nothing but a harsh and battered husk behind?
+
+The child was like her, too. He had known the first moment he looked
+on the little face that this was the baby she had stolen away from his
+home when he thought she was gradually growing to love him, when he
+thought she had forgotten for ever the villain who had induced her
+perfidy!
+
+Like her! Good heavens! was this child to live with him always? Was
+this child, day after day, hour after hour, to remind him by the look
+in his eyes of all his youthful dreams of love and happiness, and the
+wildering blow that for a time drove his reason from him and wrecked
+his life before the voyage was well begun?
+
+That would be intolerable. No man could bear that. Heaven could not
+expect him to endure such a hell on earth.
+
+He rose with a groan, and began pacing the room up and down.
+
+He was a man slightly below the middle height, somewhat uncouth and
+awkward in his motions. His shoulders were broad, his figure thin
+almost to emaciation. He had large and powerful hands, not handsome
+and soft, but muscular and knotty, like those of a man who had done
+much physical labour, although he had never performed a day's manual
+work in all his life. His nose was long and blunt at the end. His
+cheeks were sunken. There were odd grey streaks in his long, straight
+hair. He stooped slightly, and was slovenly in his carriage and dress.
+The colour of his face was dark, almost dusky. His forehead was high
+and pale.
+
+The mere shell of the man was poor, almost mean. He did not look as
+though he could fight or work. Beyond the breadth of his shoulders
+there was no suggestion of bodily strength about him. When he walked
+his tread lacked firmness. He looked as though the push of a child
+would knock him down.
+
+But when you had formed a poor opinion of the man, and set him down as
+a weed, and were prepared to make short work of him morally, or
+mentally, or physically, and came close to him face to face, and he
+looked up at you and spoke, you felt confused, abashed. His eyes were
+dark hazel, large, deep-set, luminous. They seldom moved quickly, they
+seldom flashed, they seldom laughed. They rarely seemed concerned with
+the people or things immediately in front of him. They had the awful
+sadness and far-away look of the Sphinx. They saw not you, nor through
+you, but beyond you. You became not the object of their gaze, but an
+interruption in their range. They made you feel that you were in the
+way. You seemed to be an impertinence interposing between a great
+spirit in its commune with supernatural and august mysteries.
+
+His voice was slow, deliberate, low in ordinary speech. It was not
+musical. It had a breathlessness about it which fixed the attention at
+once of those who heard. It suggested that the words spoken were read
+from the margin of some mighty page, and that the speaker, if he
+chose, could decipher the subject of the scroll.
+
+If he raised his voice above this pitch it became uncertain, harsh,
+grating, discordant. It suggested the unwilling awakening of the man.
+It seemed to say that he lived at peace, and would that he were left
+at peace, and that you came unnecessarily, undesired, to rouse and
+harass him.
+
+But it was when excited beyond this second stage, it was when not only
+awakened but lifted into the expression of enthusiasm, that the
+wonderful qualities of his voice were displayed. Then it became full
+and rich and flexible and organ-toned, at once delicate and powerful.
+It sounded as though not only the words, but the music also, were
+written on the great scroll before his eyes, and he was reading both
+with authority.
+
+It was the spirit in the eyes and the spirit in the voice Philip Ray
+worshipped. He knew the heart of this man was made of gold, but in the
+eyes and the voice he found the spirit of a seer, a hero, a prophet.
+
+The spirit of this man Kate Ray never knew, never even perceived. She
+was too busy with the thought of her own physical beauty to notice
+anything in the man but his plain appearance and unusual ways. He had
+more money than ever she had hoped to share with a husband, but he
+cared nothing for the things she liked or coveted. He would not take a
+house in London: he would not move into even Beechley. The only value
+he set upon a competency was because of the power it gave him over
+books, and because of the privilege it afforded him of living
+far away from the hurly-burly of men. His union with Kate Ray was an
+ill-assorted marriage, and the greatest evil that can arise out of an
+ill-assorted marriage had come of it.
+
+From the day Kate left his house he never opened a volume of verse. At
+first he plunged into a vortex of excitement, from which he did not
+emerge until he had lost in gambling everything but Boland's Ait,
+which brought in no revenue, and an income of about a hundred a year
+from some property in the neighbourhood of the island.
+
+When he regained his senses, and resolved upon retiring into solitude,
+he recognised the importance, the necessity of finding some occupation
+for his mind. He would have nothing which could remind him of the
+past, nothing which could recall to his mind the peaceful days at
+Shoreham or the joy and hope that his sweetheart and wife had brought
+into his life. All that was to be forgotten for ever. His life was
+over. It was immoral to anticipate the stroke of death. Between him
+and death there lay nothing to desire but oblivion, and work was the
+best thing in which to drown thought. He would devote the remainder of
+his life to history, philosophy, science.
+
+Although he had been on the island now more than two years, he had
+still no definite idea of turning his studies to practical account. He
+read and read and made elaborate notes and extracts from books. But
+his designs were vague and nebulous. He called it all work. It kept
+his mind off the past: that was the only result of all his labours. He
+had no object to work for. He shuddered at the bare idea of notoriety
+or fame, and he did not need money, for his means were sufficient for
+his simple wants. Work was with him merely a draught of Lethe. He
+numbed his brain with reading, and when he could read no longer he
+copied out passages from his books or forced himself to think on
+subjects which would not have been bearable three years ago. He was
+not so much conquering himself as dulling his power to feel.
+
+Now, in upon this life had come the boy, bringing with him more potent
+voices from the past than all the verses of all the poets; and, worst
+of all, bringing with him the face of his disgraced, dead wife!
+
+What should he do? Either madness or death would be a relief, but
+neither would come. The two things of which men are most afraid are
+madness and death, and here was he willing to welcome either with all
+the joy of which his broken heart was still capable.
+
+When that baby was born he had felt no affection for it on its own
+account. It seemed inexpressibly dear to her, and therefore it was
+after her the most precious being in all the world to him. Up to that
+time he knew his wife's heart had not gone out to him in love as his
+heart had gone out to her. He believed that the child would be the
+means of winning his beautiful wife's love for him. He had read in
+books innumerable that wives who had been indifferent towards their
+husbands in the early days of marriage grew affectionate when children
+came. For this reason he welcomed with delight the little stranger.
+This baby would be a more powerful bond between them than the promises
+made by her at the altar. It would not only reconcile her to the
+life-long relations upon which they had entered, but endear him to
+her.
+
+But she broke her vow, broke the bond between them, and in fleeing
+from his house took with her the child, the creature that was dearer
+to her than he! Here was food for hopelessness more bitter than
+despair.
+
+Now, when hope was buried for ever, and she was dead, the child had
+come back to remind him every hour of the past, to neutralise the cups
+of Lethe he felt bound to drink, that his life might not be a life of
+never-ending misery, to torture him with his wife's eyes, which had
+closed on him for ever three years ago, and which now were closed for
+ever on all things in death.
+
+What should he do? Would not merciful Providence take his reason away,
+or stop these useless pulses in his veins?
+
+He threw himself once more in his chair, and covered his face with his
+hands.
+
+From abroad stole sounds of the awakening world. The heavy lumbering
+and grating of wagons and carts came from Welford Road, and from the
+tow-path the dull heavy thuds of clumsy horses' feet.
+
+The man sat an hour in thought, in reverie.
+
+At length Bramwell took down his hands and raised his large eyes, in
+which there now blazed the fire of intense excitement. "Light!" he
+cried aloud; "God grant me light!"
+
+He kept his eyes raised. His lips moved, but no words issued from
+them. An expression of ecstasy was on his face. His cry had not been a
+cry for light, but a note of gratitude-giving that light had been
+vouchsafed to him. He was returning thanks.
+
+At length his lips ceased to move, the look of spiritual exaltation
+left his face, his eyes were gradually lowered, and he rose slowly
+from his seat.
+
+He stood a minute with his hand on his forehead, and said slowly, "I
+was thinking of myself only. I have been thinking of myself only all
+my life. I have, thank God, something else, some one else to think of
+now! Who am I, or what am I, that I should have expected happiness,
+complete happiness, bliss? Who am I, or what am I, that I should
+repine because I suffer? Who am I, or what am I, that I should murmur?
+My eyes are open at last. My eyes are open, and my heart too. Let me
+go and look."
+
+He crept noiselessly out of the room to the one in which the boy lay
+still sleeping.
+
+The chamber was full of the broad full even light of morning in early
+summer. The window stood open, the noise of the carts and wagons came
+from Welford Road, and the dull heavy thuds of the clumsy horses'
+hoofs from the tow-path. The sparrows were twittering and flickering
+about the cottage on the island. Dull and grimy as the place usually
+appeared, there was now an air of health and brightness and vigorous
+life about it which filled and expanded the heart of the recluse.
+
+For years he had felt that he was dead, that his fellowship with man
+had ceased for ever. His heart was now opened once more.
+
+Who should cast the first stone, the first stone into an open grave,
+her grave, Kate's grave? His Kate's grave! Not he; O, not he! His
+young, his beautiful, his darling Kate's grave! His young Kate's
+grave!
+
+He turned to the bed on which rested the child.
+
+Yes, there lay young Kate, younger than ever he had known her. The
+beautiful boy! There was her raven hair, there the sweet strange curve
+of the mouth, there the little hand under the cheek, as Kate used to
+lie when she slept.
+
+"God give me life and reason for him who is so like what I have lost!"
+he cried; and circling his arm round the little head, he kissed the
+sweet strange curve about the little mouth, and burst into tears, the
+first he had shed for a dozen long years. In his great agony three
+years ago he had not wept.
+
+The child awoke, smiled, stretched up his little arms, and caught his
+father round the neck.
+
+"I want to go mother," whimpered the boy when he saw whom he held.
+
+"You cannot go just now, child. But you and I shall go to her one
+day--in Heaven."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XI.
+
+                  "CAN I PLAY WITH THAT LITTLE BOY?"
+
+
+Hetty Layard was not sorry when, upon the morning of Mr. William
+Crawford's return from the Counters Club, she found a note for her
+brother Alfred, explaining that he had gone out for an early walk, the
+weather was so lovely, and that he would not be back until next month,
+when he hoped to find her and Mr. Layard very well; and thanking her
+and him for the entertainment afforded him. He, moreover, left her a
+cheque--one collected the previous day--for a couple of sovereigns,
+out of which he begged her to take whatever his food had cost and
+half-a-crown which she was to present from him to Mrs. Grainger.
+
+Miss Layard uttered a little sigh of relief when she put down the
+note. Every one knows that men are a nuisance about a house,
+especially men who have no fixed or regular business hours of absence.
+Men are very well in their own way, which means to the housewife when
+they are not in her way. A man who is six, eight or ten hours away
+from home every day, and goes to church twice on Sunday and takes a
+good long walk between the two services, may not only be tolerated,
+but enjoyed. But a man who does not get up until ten o'clock and keeps
+crawling or dashing about the house all day long is an unmitigated and
+crushing evil. It does not matter whether he wears heavy boots or
+affects the costume of a sybaritic sloven, and wanders about like a
+florid and venerable midday ghost in dressing-gown and slippers.
+
+A woman's house is not her own as long as there is a man in it. While
+enduring the presence of male impertinence she cannot do exactly as
+she likes. There is at least one room she may not turn topsy-turvy, if
+the fit takes her. There is no freedom, no liberty. If the man remain
+quietly in one room, there is the unpleasant feeling that he must be
+either dead or hungry. A man has very little business to be in the
+house during day-time unless he is either dead or hungry. If the man
+does not confine himself to one room he is quite certain to go
+stumbling over sweeping-brushes and dust-pans in passages where he has
+no more right to be than a woman behind the counter of a bank or on
+the magisterial bench. From, say, the o'clock in the morning till four
+in the afternoon you really can't have too little of a man about a
+house. Very practical housekeepers prefer not to see their male folk
+between nine and seven. Undoubtedly, strong-minded women believe that
+two meals a day and the right to sleep under his own roof of nights is
+as much as may with advantage to comfort be allowed to man.
+
+But Hetty Layard was not strong-minded at all. She was not over
+tender-hearted either, though she was as tenderhearted as becomes a
+young girl of healthy body and mind, one not sicklied over with the
+pale cast of sentimentalism. She was as bright and cheerful as spring;
+but all the same, she was not sorry when she found her lodger had
+fled, and that they were to have the place to themselves for a month.
+
+That day Hetty was to enjoy the invaluable service of Mrs. Grainger
+from breakfast to tea-time. From that day until Mr. Crawford's next
+visit Mrs. Grainger was to come only for a couple of hours in the
+forenoon every day to do the rough work. Mrs. Grainger was childless,
+and could be spared from her own hearth between breakfast and supper,
+as her husband took his dinner with him to the works, and had supper
+and tea together.
+
+"So the unfortunate man has succeeded in getting out of your
+clutches," said Alfred Layard at his late breakfast, when Hetty told
+him the news.
+
+"Yes; but he left something behind him. Look." She handed her brother
+the cheque. "I am to take the price of all he has had out of this, and
+give half-a-crown to Mrs. Grainger."
+
+Alfred Layard shook his head very gravely. "Hetty, I had, I confess to
+you, some doubts of this man's sanity; I have no longer any doubt. The
+man is mad!"
+
+"Considering that we are obliged to find attendance, I think he has
+been very generous to Mrs. Grainger."
+
+"As mad as a hatter," said the brother sadly.
+
+"If, Alfred, I tell you how much to take out of this, will you send
+him the change, or is the change to remain over until next time?"
+
+"The miserable man is as mad as a March hare."
+
+"See! This is all I spent for him--twelve and threepence, and that
+includes a lot of things that will keep till he comes again."
+
+"To think of this poor man trusting a harpy, a lodging-house keeper,
+with untold gold! O, the pity of it!"
+
+"There are candles and lamp-oil, and tea and soap, and sugar, and
+other things that will keep, Alfred. You can explain this when you are
+sending him the change. I suppose it will be best to send him the
+change. You have his Richmond address?"
+
+"Freddie," said the father, addressing his flaxen-haired, blue-eyed
+little son at the other side of the table, "when you grow up and are a
+great big man, don't lodge with your Aunt Hetty. She'd fleece you, my
+boy. She'd starve you, and she wouldn't leave you a rag to cover you."
+He shook a warning finger at the boy.
+
+"I shall live always with Aunt Hetty," said the boy stoutly, "and I
+want more bread-and-butter, please."
+
+"See, my poor child, she is already practising. If she only had her
+way, she would reduce you to a skeleton in a week."
+
+"Alfred, I wish you'd be sensible for a minute. This is business. I
+really don't know what to do, and you ought to tell me. Will you look
+at this list, and see if it is properly made out?" she said pouting.
+She had a pretty way of affecting to pout and then laughing at the
+idea of her being in a bad humour.
+
+Her brother took the slip of paper and glanced at it very gravely.
+
+"May I ask," said he, putting down the slip on the breakfast cloth,
+"whether this man has had his boots polished here?"
+
+"Of course he had; twice--three times I think."
+
+"And had he free and unimpeded use of condiments, such as salt,
+pepper, vinegar, mustard?"
+
+"Yes. You don't think he could eat without salt, do you?"
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps he even had PICKLES?"
+
+"I think he had some pickles."
+
+"Then, Hetty"--he rose, and, buttoning up his coat, made signs of
+leaving--"I am going to find an auctioneer to sell up the furniture.
+We are ruined."
+
+"Ah, Alfred, like a good fellow, help me!" she pleaded, coming to him
+and putting her hand on his arm. "What do you mean by asking all these
+silly questions about blacking and vinegar?"
+
+"Not one, Hetty, not one of the items I have named is charged in the
+bill, and I am a pauper, pauperised by your gross carelessness, by the
+shamefully lax way in which you have kept my books. What do you think
+would become of the great corporation I serve if our accounts were
+kept in so criminally neglectful a manner? Why, the Welford Gas
+Company would be in liquidation in a month! Suppose we treated ammonia
+lightly; suppose we gave all our coke to the Mission to the Blacks for
+distribution among the negroes; suppose we made a present of our tar
+to the Royal Academicians to make aniline colours for pictures to be
+seen only by night; suppose we gave all our gas to aeronauts who
+wanted to stare the unfortunate man in the moon out of countenance;
+suppose we supplied all our customers with _dry meters_, Hetty;
+suppose, I say, we supplied all our customers with _dry meters_, where
+should we be? Where on earth should we be?"
+
+"Perhaps not on earth at all, Alfred, but gone up to heaven with the
+aeronauts. Do be sensible for a moment. I want you to tell me if we
+are to keep the change until next time or send it after him?"
+
+"Have you given that half a-crown to Mrs. Grainger?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"O, you prodigal simpleton! What need was there to give it? Why did
+you not keep it and buy a furbelow? No doubt you were afraid that when
+this man came back he would find out all about it. Nonsense! Why, we
+could dismiss Mrs. Grainger, and if she came loafing about the place,
+nothing in the world could be easier than to push her into the canal.
+I like her husband, and it would please me to do him a good turn."
+
+There was a knock at the door, and the charwoman put in her head.
+
+"Come in, Mrs. Grainger. What is it?" said Hetty, going towards the
+door.
+
+Mrs. Grainger, in her lilac cotton dress and large apron, advanced a
+step into the room. Her sleeves were rolled up above the elbows of her
+red thick arms. She was a stout, fair-faced woman of fifty. She had
+not a single good feature in her face. But her expression was wholly
+honest and not unkindly.
+
+Layard could not help looking from her to Hetty and contrasting the
+joyous youth and grace, the fresh colour and golden-brown hair of the
+girl, and the dull, dead, unintelligent drab appearance of the woman.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Layard," said the charwoman, "but you were
+talking to me yesterday and the day before about the poor lonely
+gentleman that lives on Boland's Ait."
+
+"Yes. Well, what about him? Have you found out anything fresh?" said
+Hetty with interest.
+
+"Only that he isn't alone any longer."
+
+"You don't mean to say he has got married and has just brought his
+wife home," said Layard, affecting intense astonishment and
+incredulity.
+
+"No, sir," said the woman, somewhat abashed by his manner. "Not a
+wife, sir, but a child; a little boy about the size of Master Freddie
+there."
+
+"Bless my soul, wonders will never cease! But I say, Hetty, I must be
+off. If the Cham of Tartary and the great sea-serpent came to live on
+that island, and had asked me to swim across and have tiffin and
+blubber with them, I couldn't go now. I must be off to the works.
+Hetty, we'll resume the consideration of the cruet-stand when I come
+back this evening. Let all those matters stand till then. The delay
+will give us an opportunity of charging interest for the money in
+hand."
+
+He hastened from the room, and in a minute was out of the house and
+hastening up Crawford Street, with the long streamers of his beard
+blowing over his shoulders.
+
+"Where did you see the child from, Mrs. Grainger?" asked Hetty, when
+her brother disappeared up the street. "From Mr. Crawford's room?"
+
+"No, miss; you can't see into the timber-yard on the island from Mr.
+Crawford's room on account of the wall. But you can see over the wall
+from your own room, miss; and 'twas from your own room I saw the
+child. And he was carrying on, too, with that child, miss," said the
+woman, coming further into the room, and busying herself about
+clearing away the breakfast-things.
+
+She was not exactly idle or lazy; but no living woman would rather
+scrub and scour than chat, particularly when paid by time and not by
+piece.
+
+"What do you mean by 'carrying on?' What was he doing?"
+
+"Well, he was kissing, and cuddling, and hugging the child, more like
+a mother with her baby than a man with a child. The boy is quite as
+big as little Master Freddie, there, and the poor gentleman seemed to
+be pretending the great boy couldn't walk without help, for he led him
+by the hand up and down the yard, and when he did let go of him for a
+moment he kept his hand over the little chap's head, like to be ready
+to catch hold of him if he was falling or stumbled. A great big boy,
+as big as Master Freddie there; it's plain to be seen he's not used to
+children," said Mrs. Grainger scornfully; for, although she had no
+children of her own, she was sympathetic and cordial with little ones,
+and often looked after a neighbour's roomful of babies while the
+mother went out marketing or took the washing, or mangling, or sewing
+home.
+
+"Perhaps it is his own child," said Hetty, as she helped to put the
+breakfast-things on the tray.
+
+"His own child? Of course it isn't. How could it be? Why, if it was
+his own child he'd be used to it. He'd know better than to go on with
+such foolery as guiding it with his hand along a level yard. He
+doesn't know anything about children, no more than the ground they are
+walking on."
+
+"Perhaps he is afraid it might fall into the water. I'll wash up the
+breakfast things myself, Mrs. Grainger."
+
+"Very well, miss. Afraid it might fall into the water! Why, the child
+couldn't. They're in the timber-yard, and there's a wall all around
+it, and neither of the gates is open."
+
+"Well," said Hetty, as the woman left the room carrying the tray,
+"maybe he is looking after the child for some friend; perhaps the
+child has only come on a visit to him."
+
+"Look after a child for a friend! Is he the sort of man to look after
+a child for a friend?" Mrs. Grainger called out from the kitchen.
+"What friend would ask a man like him to mind a child? I'd as soon ask
+a railway-engine or a mangle to look after a child of mine, if I had
+one. Besides, if the child belongs to a friend, what does he mean by
+kissing and cuddling it?"
+
+"I give it up," said the girl. "I own I can make nothing of it. What
+do you think, Mrs. Grainger? You know more about this strange man and
+his strange ways than I do."
+
+"I think," said Mrs. Grainger, in the voice of one uttering an
+authoritative decision, "the whole thing is a mystery, and I can make
+nothing of it. But you, miss, go up and look. If you want to see him,
+he is in the timber-yard. Go to your room, miss, and have a peep. You
+may be able to make something of it; I can't."
+
+"I will," said the girl; "I shall be down in a few minutes." And she
+ran out of the sitting-room, upstairs with a light springy step, and
+the murmured burden of a song on her lips.
+
+She went to the open window of her own room and looked out.
+
+It was close on noon, and the blazing light of early summer filled all
+the place beneath her. The view had no charms of its own, but the fact
+that she was above the ground and away from immediate contact with the
+sordid earth had a purifying effect upon the scene. Then, again, what
+place is it that can look wholly evil when shone upon by the unclouded
+sun of fresh May?
+
+In front and to right and left the canal flamed in the sunlight. At
+the other side of the water lay a sloping bank of lush green grass,
+beyond that a road, and at the other side of the road a large yard, in
+which a great number of gipsy-vans, and vans belonging to cheap-Jacks
+and to men who remove furniture, were packed.
+
+So far, if there was nothing to delight, there was nothing to
+displease the spectator. In fact, from a scenic point of view the
+colour was very good, for you had the flaming canal, the dark green of
+the grassy bank, and the red and yellow and blue caravans of the
+gipsies and the cheap-Jacks and the people who remove furniture.
+
+Beyond this yard there spread a vast extent of small, mean, ill-kept
+houses which were not picturesque, and which suggested painful
+thoughts concerning the squalor and poverty of the people who lived in
+them.
+
+To the right stretched the tow-path leading to Camberwell, to the left
+a row of stores, and only a hundred yards off was the empty ice-house.
+To the right lay Leeham, invisible from where the girl stood, and
+nearer and visible a row of stores and a stone-yard.
+
+In front of her was Boland's. Ait, and in the old timber-yard of the
+islet Francis Bramwell walking up and down, holding the hand of a boy
+of between three and four in his hands, as though the child had walked
+for the first time within this month of May.
+
+Mrs. Grainger was right. This man, whose face Hetty could not see, for
+he bent low over the child, was treating the boy as though he were no
+more than a year or fifteen months old. He was also displaying towards
+him a degree of affection altogether inconsistent with the supposition
+that the youngster was merely the son of a friend.
+
+The two were walking up and down the yard, the right hand of the child
+in the left hand of the man, the right hand of the man at one time
+resting lightly on the boy's head, at another on the boy's shoulder.
+The man's whole mind seemed centred on his charge. He never once
+raised his head to look around. No doubt the thought that he might be
+observed never occurred to him. For two years he had lived on that
+island, and never until now arose a chance of any one seeing him when
+he was in the yard; for the only windows that overlooked it were those
+of Crawford's House, and that had been unoccupied until three days
+ago.
+
+Suddenly it occurred to Hetty that she was intruding upon this
+stranger's privacy. Of course she was free to look out of her own
+window as long as she liked; but then it was obvious Bramwell thought
+there was no spectator, or, at all events, he had not bargained in his
+mind for a spectator.
+
+A faint flush came into her cheek, and she was on the point of drawing
+back when a loud shrill voice sounded at her side:
+
+"Aunt Hetty, Aunt Hetty, I want to see the little boy!"
+
+The girl started, and then stood motionless, for the recluse below had
+suddenly looked up, and was gazing in amazement at the girl and child
+in the window above him.
+
+The man and boy in the yard were both bare-headed. Bramwell raised his
+open hand above his eyes to shield them from the glare of the sky,
+that he might see the better.
+
+Hetty drew back a pace, as though she had been discovered in a
+shameful act. Her colour deepened, but she would not go altogether
+away from the window. That would be to admit she had been doing
+something wrong.
+
+"Aunt Hetty," cried Freddie, in the same shrill loud voice, "can I
+play with that little boy down there? I have no one to play with
+here."
+
+The upturned face of the man smiled, and the voice of the man said,
+"Come down, my little fellow, and play with this boy. He is just like
+yourself--he has no one to play with. You will let him come, please? I
+will take the utmost care of him."
+
+"I--I'll see," stammered Hetty, quite taken aback.
+
+"You will let him come? O, pray do. My little fellow has no companion
+but me," said the deep, full, rich pleading voice of the man.
+
+In her confusion Hetty said, "If it's safe. If he can get across."
+
+"O, it's quite safe. I will answer for the child. I'll push across the
+stage in a moment, and fetch the child. There is plenty of room for
+them to play here, and absolutely no danger."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XII.
+
+                       PHILIP RAY AT RICHMOND.
+
+
+Once Philip Ray started on any course he was not the man to let the
+grass grow under his feet. All his time was not at his disposal. He
+was in the Custom House, and for several hours a day he was chained to
+his desk.
+
+No sooner were his duties discharged on the day following the arrival
+of the boy at Boland's Ait than he hastened to Ludgate Hill railway
+station and took the first train to Richmond.
+
+He had not worked out any definite plan of search. His mind was not a
+particularly orderly one. Indeed, he was largely a creature of
+impulse, and in setting out he had only two ideas in his head. First,
+to find the man who had caused all the shame and misery; and, second,
+to execute summary vengeance on that man the moment he encountered
+him.
+
+He did not seek to justify himself morally in this course; he did not
+consider the moral aspect of his position at all. When his blood was
+up he was impulsive, headlong. He had made up his mind three years ago
+that John Ainsworth deserved death at his hands for the injury done,
+and neither during any hour of these three years nor now had he the
+slightest hesitancy or compunction.
+
+He had sworn an oath that he would kill this man if ever he could get
+at him, and kill him he would now in spite of consequences. People
+might call it a cowardly murder if they pleased. What did he care?
+This man deserved death, and if they chose to hang him afterwards,
+what of that? He was quite prepared to face that fate. Kate was dying
+or dead; the honourable name of Ray had been disgraced for ever; the
+life of the man he loved best in all the world had been blasted by a
+base, vicious scoundrel, and he would shoot that scoundrel just as he
+would shoot a mad dog or a venomous snake. He was inexorable.
+
+No thought of seeking his sister entered his mind. She was, doubtless,
+dead by this time. From the moment she left her husband's roof she had
+been dead to him. In the presence of Frank, and with that letter
+before him, he had held his tongue regarding her. But his mind was
+completely unchanged. The best thing that could happen to her was that
+she should die. A woman who could do what she had done deserved no
+thought of pity, had no place in the consideration of sane people; a
+woman who could leave Frank Mellor, now known as Francis Bramwell, for
+John Ainsworth, deserved no pity, no human sympathy. She had sinned in
+the most heinous way against loyalty; let him show that all the blood
+of the family was not base and traitorous. He would sin on the other
+side to make matters even.
+
+He knew that such forms of vengeance were not usual in this time and
+country. So much the worse for this time and country. What other kind
+of satisfaction was possible? The law courts? Monstrous! How could the
+law courts put such a case right? By divorcing those who had already
+been divorced! By a money penalty exacted from the culprit! Pooh,
+pooh! If a man shot a man they hanged him, put him out of pain at
+once. But if a man was the cause of a woman's lingering death from
+shame and despair, and imposed a life of living-death on an innocent
+human being, they let the miscreant go scot-free; unless, indeed, they
+imposed a fine such as they would inflict for breach of an ordinary
+commercial contract. The idea that treatment of this sort had even the
+semblance of justice could not be entertained by a child or an idiot!
+
+Before setting out from Ludgate Hill and on the way down to Richmond
+nothing seemed more reasonable than that he should take the train to
+that town, and without any serious difficulty find John Ainsworth. The
+town was not large, and he could give any one of whom he asked aid the
+man's name and a full description of his appearance. He possessed,
+moreover, the additional fact that Ainsworth had shaved his face,
+taken off his beard, whiskers, and moustache. He should be on his
+track in an hour, and face to face with Ainsworth in a couple of hours
+at the outside.
+
+He stepped briskly out of the train at Richmond, and waited until the
+platform was cleared of those who had alighted. Then he spoke to the
+most intelligent porter he could find. First of all he gave the man a
+shilling. He said he was in search of a Mr. John Ainsworth, a
+gentleman of about thirty-five or thirty-seven years of age, five feet
+eight or thereabouts, with a quick restless manner, a clean-shaven
+roundish face, dark hair and dark eyes, in figure well made, but
+inclining to stoutness.
+
+The porter knew no gentleman of the name, he was sorry to say, and
+recalled a great number of gentlemen who corresponded in some respects
+with the description, but none that corresponded with all. As far as
+he was aware, there was no man of the name in Richmond--that is, no
+gentleman of the name. He knew a Charles Ainsworth, a cab-driver, but
+Charles Ainsworth was five feet eleven or six feet, and no more than
+twenty-five years of age. Perhaps the stationmaster might be able to
+help.
+
+The stationmaster knew no one of the name--that is, no one named John
+Ainsworth. He knew Charles Ainsworth the cabdriver. He could not
+identify any one corresponding to Ray's description, but the
+interrogator must remember that a great number of gentlemen passed
+through that station from week's end to week's end. Why not look in a
+directory and find out his friend's address at once?
+
+Of course. That was an obvious course. It had not occurred to Ray
+before.
+
+Accordingly he left the station, and turned into an hotel and asked to
+see the local directory.
+
+No John Ainsworth here.
+
+Another disappointment. But this was not disheartening; for Ainsworth
+in all likelihood was not a householder. At the hotel they suggested
+that the post-office would be the place to learn the address of his
+friend.
+
+Ray smiled grimly as he noticed that the three people of whom he had
+inquired all referred to Ainsworth as his "friend."
+
+His luck at the post-office was bad also. Nothing was known there of
+any Ainsworth but Charles, the cabdriver.
+
+This was becoming exasperating. The man he sought could not have
+vanished into thin air. Edward Lambton, who saw Ainsworth, was quite
+sure of his identity. When a man recognises another who has taken off
+his beard, whiskers and moustache, there is not the slightest room for
+doubt of the identification, particularly if the identification is
+casual, not suggested, spontaneous.
+
+Ray felt more than exasperated now. He was furious. He walked about
+the town for an hour, asking here and there, but could find no trace
+of John Ainsworth. He was no more known in the place than if he had
+never been born.
+
+Suddenly he stopped with an exclamation of surprise and anger. "I am a
+lunatic!" he cried in a low voice, "I'm a born lunatic! Is it because
+Lambton saw Ainsworth on the platform of this place that he must live
+here? Might not ten thousand people have seen me on the platform of
+this place an hour or so ago, and do I live here? Indeed I do not
+think any human being out of Bedlam could be so hopelessly idiotic as
+I have been to feel sure he lived here."
+
+He found his way back to the station and returned to town. He got out
+at Camberwell, and walked from there to Boland's Ait. It was upon this
+occasion that Crawford, sallying from Layard's, learnt from Red Jim
+how the man who had come along the tow-path had failed to emerge from
+the cover of the island.
+
+"And what have you been doing all day?" asked Ray, when he was seated
+in one of the armchairs in the study or dining-room of the cottage.
+
+The boy was seated on the floor, turning over the leaves of a book
+full of pictures.
+
+"We have been busy and playing," said Bramwell, nodding towards the
+child. "I was putting the place to rights, getting in order for my new
+lodger. I thought you would have come sooner." For the first time in
+three years Francis Bramwell spoke in a cheerful tone and looked
+almost happy. There had always been a great deal of reserve in this
+man, but now he seemed more open and free than he had ever appeared
+even before his marriage. Suffering had purified, and the presence of
+his son, whom he had taken into his heart, had soothed and humanised
+the recluse.
+
+Ray paused in doubt as to whether he should tell the other of his
+visit to Richmond. He had taken no notice of the boy upon his
+entrance, but he was pleased and grateful that Bramwell showed an
+awakened interest in life. The child had done this, and his heart
+softened towards the little fellow. Anything that brought light to his
+brother-in-law was an object of thankfulness. If his friend, his
+brother, as he called him, were in better spirits, owing to the coming
+of the child, why should he dissipate them by telling him of his
+search of vengeance. He answered the question of the other by saying:
+
+"I was delayed. I had to attend to something."
+
+Bramwell's face darkened. Philip had no secret from him. He was a man
+who could keep nothing from a friend. Why did he not say what had
+detained him? There could be only one explanation: the delay had been
+caused by something in connection with the letter Philip had received
+the evening before. It was plain to Bramwell what had detained Kate's
+brother. Bramwell said very gravely:
+
+"You have been to Richmond?"
+
+Philip nodded.
+
+"Ah," Bramwell sighed heavily, "I thought so! Did you find out
+anything?"
+
+"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He is not known there. I tried at the
+railway station, in the directory, at the post-office, in a dozen
+shops. No account or trace was to be found of the scoundrel."
+
+"Thank Heaven!"
+
+"I do not believe he lives there. He must have been only in the town a
+little while, visiting some one, or passing through, on some new
+devil's work, I will swear."
+
+"It was a mercy for you that he was not to be found."
+
+"A mercy for him, you mean."
+
+For a few minutes Bramwell seemed plunged in gloomy thought. The two
+men were silent. At length the elder shook himself, rose, and said:
+
+"Come, see the arrangements I have made for the boy. He is to sleep in
+my room. I am going to give him my bed. The stretcher will do
+excellently for me. I have spoken to Mrs. Treleaven--you know the
+woman who brings me what I want every morning. She is to come for an
+hour or two a day and keep matters right for us. Up to this she has
+never been on the Ait, but I could not myself keep the place as tidy
+as I should like now that I am not alone. Early impressions are
+lasting, and I must do the best I can to brighten up this hermitage
+for the sake of the new young eyes. Come!"
+
+The two men went to the bedroom.
+
+"See," said the father, with a sad smile; "I have laid down this bit
+of old carpet, and hung up these prints, and put the stretcher close
+to the bed, so that I may be near him, and also that it may serve as a
+step when he is getting in and out of his own bed. Children, I have
+often read, should sleep in beds by themselves; and, above all, it is
+not wholesome for them to sleep with grown-up people. You don't think
+this place is unhealthy for a child, Philip?"
+
+"O, no! You have enjoyed very good health here."
+
+What a change--what a blessed change had come over this man! He had
+been reborn, re-created by the touch of those chubby fingers and young
+red lips; by the soft, silky hair and the large dark eyes; by the
+fresh, sweet clear voice, and the complete dependency and helplessness
+of the boy.
+
+"But I am a man in the vigour of life," said the father anxiously;
+"and am therefore able to resist influences of climate or situation
+which might be perilous to one so young and delicately formed, eh? You
+don't think there is any danger in the place?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"But so much water that is almost stagnant? You are aware that there
+is hardly any current in the canal, and that there are no locks on
+it?"
+
+"O, yes; but I never heard any complaints of insalubrity, and you know
+the neighbourhood of a gas-house, although it does not make the air
+bright or sweet, purifies it."
+
+"I know; I thought of that. I know that a still more unsavoury
+business--that of candle-making--is a preventive to pestilence; at
+least, it was in the days of the Plague, and chandlers had immunities
+and privileges on that account. But it is the water I fear for him.
+None of your family, Philip, had delicate chests?"
+
+"No, no; I think you may make your mind easy. I am sure the boy will
+thrive marvellously here."
+
+"I am glad to hear you say so. Let us go back. The poor little chap
+must not be allowed to feel lonely. You did not take any notice of him
+when you came in. Philip," he put his hand on his brother's arm, "you
+are not going to visit any anger on the desolate orphan? Remember, he
+is an orphan now; and you must not bear ill-will towards the dead, or
+visit the--the faults of the parent on the child."
+
+"Tut, tut!" said Philip, as they left the room and returned to the
+study; "I am not going to do anything of the kind. I took no notice of
+the child when I arrived because my head was full of other things."
+
+He went to the boy and raised him in his arms, and pinched his cheek,
+and patted his hair and kissed him.
+
+"Thank you," said Bramwell. "I feel new blood in my veins and new
+brains in my head, and a new heart in my body. I intend giving up
+dreaming for ever. I am now going to try to make a little money.
+Presently the child will have to be sent to school--to a good school,
+of course."
+
+"My dear Frank," cried Philip, with tears in his eyes and voice, "it
+is better to listen to you talk in this way than to hear you had been
+made a king."
+
+"I am a king," cried the father in a tone of exultation. "I am an
+absolute monarch. I reign with undisputed sway over my island home,
+and my subject is my own son, whom I may mould and fashion as I
+please, and whom no one will teach to despise me."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIII.
+
+                       AN INVITATION ACCEPTED.
+
+
+"And so," said Alfred Layard to Hetty the evening of the day little
+Freddie, now in bed, had made his first visit to the island, "you have
+absolutely spoken to this Alexander Selkirk. Tell me all about it."
+
+She began, and told him how she went up to her own room and saw
+Bramwell and the boy in the yard on the island, and how Freddie's cry
+had betrayed her presence, and in the confusion at being found out she
+had consented to let their youngster go to play with the other
+youngster.
+
+"You are not annoyed with me, Alfred, for allowing him, are you?" she
+asked in some suspense. The little fellow had never before been so
+long from under her charge.
+
+"Annoyed? Not I. What should I be annoyed at, so long as the people
+are all right, and there is no danger of Freddie tumbling into the
+water?"
+
+"O, there is no danger whatever. A wall runs all round the yard, and
+Mr. Bramwell was in and out all day looking after the boys."
+
+"How did Freddie get across? Swam?"
+
+"Don't be absurd, Alfred." She knew very well her brother did not ask
+her seriously if the child had swum across the waters of Crawford's
+Bay. And she knew equally well that he was not reproaching her for
+letting the boy cross the water. At an ordinary time she would have
+passed by such a question from him in silence, disregarded, but there
+lingered in her mind a vague feeling that she stood on her defence
+about the expedition of the morning, and she felt timid under anything
+like levity. "No; when we got down and out by the back door to the
+wharf we saw Mr. Bramwell pulling a great long floating thing made of
+timber through the water. He pushed this over to where we stood. It
+reached across the water. He told us he had another of the same kind
+on the canal side of the island."
+
+"I know. A floating stage."
+
+"I daresay that is what they call it. I should call it a floating
+bridge. Well, he walked across this and took little Freddie in his
+arms and carried him over. I was a good deal frightened, for the thing
+rocked horribly, but he told me there was no danger."
+
+"Of course, there was no danger while the child was carried by a
+careful man. We had two of these stages at the works, but we had to
+get rid of them, for the men were always either going out for drink or
+getting drink brought in for them."
+
+"And, do you know, Freddie did not cry or seem a bit afraid of the
+water."
+
+"Hetty, take my word for it that from what you tell me there is the
+making of a great naval hero in that boy of ours."
+
+"I wish you would try to be sensible for a while."
+
+"I think I shall call him from this date Frederick Nelson Layard."
+
+"Don't be ridiculous, Alfred."
+
+"Or Frederick Cochrane Layard."
+
+"O, don't, please, Alfred."
+
+"It is well to be prepared for fame, and we should always take care
+that our children are prepared for fame and what more simple and
+inexpensive preparation can a man have for fame than to be suited,
+clothed, I may say, in a name becoming fame? Hetty, my dear, remind me
+in the morning to decide which of these names I shall finally adopt;
+it is a matter that admits of no delay. I would not think of calling
+him Frederick Drake Layard for all the world, because in the first
+place the name Drake in connection with water suggests a whole lot of
+frivolous jests, always an abomination to me; and in the second place,
+there was too much of the buccaneer about Drake. Hetty, don't forget
+to remind me of the matter in the morning. The boy wasn't sea-sick, I
+hope?"
+
+The girl only sighed this time. She had now lost all sense of
+uneasiness about the part she had played in the affair of the morning.
+
+"You know," he went on in a tone of pleasant reverie, "I think
+something ought to be done with the surname too. It would be well to
+be ready at every point. All you have to do is to write in an _n_, and
+you have a distinctly nautical flavour. How do you like Frederick
+Nelson Cochrane Lanyard? But there--there--my girl, don't answer me
+now. It is, you would naturally say, too important a question to be
+decided offhand. Think of the matter to-night. Sleep on the idea, my
+dear Hetty, and let me have your decision in the morning. If in the
+dead waste and middle of the night any difficulties which you think I
+could solve arise in your mind, do not fail to call me. I shall be
+happy to give you any assistance in my power."
+
+"Are you out of breath, Alfred? I hope you are."
+
+"No, but I am out of tea. Another cup, please, and let us dismiss
+business from our minds. Let us unbend. It weakens the bow to keep it
+always bent. Tell me, what is this man, our next-door neighbour, like?
+I have a theory myself that he is a coiner."
+
+"Well, if he is a coiner you must not think he uses much of his
+ill-gotten gold in buying clothes. He's dreadfully shabby. But,
+whatever else he may be, he is a gentleman."
+
+"Good-looking, of course?"
+
+"No, but remarkable-looking. When you see him you could never take him
+for a common man. He seems awfully clever."
+
+"Well, as some philosopher, whose name has escaped me, says, we must
+take him as we find him, though I must say it seems to me that it
+would be very difficult to take him as we do not find him, or as we
+find him not. To be serious, Hetty----"
+
+"O, thank goodness! at last!" cried the girl, with a sigh of relief,
+and raising her eyes in gratitude.
+
+"If you don't take great care," he said, shaking a long thin
+forefinger at her, "you can't tell what may happen. I am not the man
+to submit to bullying at your hands. What I was going to say when you
+threatened me is this, that while I have no objection to Freddie going
+over now and then to play with this boy----"
+
+"He promised to go over again to-morrow," interrupted Hetty.
+
+"All right; let him go over to-morrow. But for two or three reasons he
+must not go over every day. This young--By the way, what's his name?"
+
+"Bramwell. The man told me he was his son, his only child."
+
+"Very good. This young Bramwell must come over, turn and turn about,
+and play with Freddie here. In the first place, I think one of the
+upstairs rooms is a safer place for these young shavers than the
+island, though there is a wall; and in the next place, this Bramwell
+is at work on coining, or whatever it is, all day, and can't be
+expected to look after two mischievous boys of their age. Of course
+you can't have the two of them here when we have Crawford; but that
+will not be for four weeks more. That reminds me: he said he should
+like to see Freddie. Did he ask afterwards for the boy?"
+
+"No. You see he was busy tidying, or rather untidying, his room all
+one day, and he was out a good deal of the time, and went away early
+in the morning."
+
+"Just so. My sister, you are very quick with excuses for your hero,
+your Bayard."
+
+"I still say what I said before."
+
+"Naturally you do. Women always do stick to what they say. They are
+the unprogressive sex. But we will let him go by. I confess, from the
+little I have heard of this Bramwell--solitary now no longer--I am
+interested in him. A man who has kept himself to himself for years
+must, if there ever was anything in him, have something to say worth
+listening to when he speaks. We are solitary enough ourselves,
+goodness knows. Who can tell but this Zimmermann may be induced to
+cross the Hellespont, or, to be more near the situation, cross over
+from his Negropont to the mainland? When you meet him to-morrow, say I
+should be very glad if he would come to us and have a chat and smoke a
+pipe."
+
+"I will, but I'm sure he doesn't smoke."
+
+"Why are you sure of that, my sister?"
+
+"Because he has quite an intellectual look."
+
+"Thank you, Hetty. Very neat indeed. I shall not forget that thrust
+for a while. Now" (he raised his warning finger again and shook it at
+her with a look of portentous meaning) "mind, this is the second man
+you have fallen in love with during the past three days, and the
+horrible part of the matter is that both of them are married."
+
+Whatever might be forgotten next morning, one thing was sure to be
+recollected in Crawford's House. It is a fact that Hetty did not
+remember to draw her brother's attention to the change of name
+projected for Freddie the evening before. Nor, strange to say, did her
+brother revert to the contemplated alteration.
+
+But what was remembered beyond all chance of forgetting was that
+Freddie had promised to go across to the island again to-day. If the
+father and aunt happened by any means to lose sight of the fact, they
+were not allowed to remain a moment in doubt about it. The first thing
+the boy said when he opened his eyes was, "I'm to go to play with
+Frank again to-day, amn't I, Auntie Hetty?"
+
+At breakfast he had most of the talk to himself, and all his talk was
+about Frank and the island, and the boat by which he had gone across,
+and Frank's father, who had given them both sugar on bread-and-butter,
+and the old barrow which was in the yard, and which served them with
+great fidelity as a cab, and a tramcar, and a steamboat, and a house,
+and a canal-boat, and a horse, and a great variety of other useful
+appliances and creatures.
+
+"Are there wheels to that barrow?" asked the father as he got up to
+leave the house for the works.
+
+"No, no wheels. But we play that there are."
+
+"So much the better there are none. And now, my young friend," said
+the father, catching up the boy and kissing him, "take care you do not
+fall out of that barrow and cut your nose, and take care you don't
+hurt the other little boy; for if you do you shall never, never, never
+go over to the island again. Remember that, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," said Freddie, struggling out of his father's arms in order to
+get on a chair and see through the kitchen window if the other little
+boy's father was already coming to fetch him on that long narrow boat
+across those wide waters to the haven of joy, the old timber-yard
+beyond.
+
+Alas! the little boy's father was not there, and to the young eyes the
+place looked desolate, forlorn.
+
+"Will Frank's father come soon, Mrs. Grainger?" asked Freddie, in a
+tone of despair.
+
+"Of course he will. He'll be here in a few minutes," said that good
+woman, who knew absolutely nothing of Hetty's promise of the previous
+afternoon, as she had left the house long before Freddie came back and
+the undertaking for another visit was given. But Mrs. Grainger was
+fond of children, and, if she had had any of her own, would have
+spoiled them beyond hope of reformation.
+
+"Frank said he'd be up very early," said the boy in pensive complaint.
+
+"And very early he'll be," said Mrs. Grainger, as she polished the
+fender with resolute vigour. "He'll be here, I warrant, before you
+have time to say Jack Robinson."
+
+The phrase which Mrs. Grainger used to indicate a very little while
+was new to the boy, and he took it literally, and murmured softly, in
+a voice that did not surmount the sound of Mrs. Grainger's conflict
+with the fender, "Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson, Jack Robinson!" and
+then, finding the soothsaying unfulfilled, he lapsed into a spiritless
+silence, keeping his eyes fixed on the point where he knew Bramwell
+must come round the corner of the yard-wall.
+
+Presently he raised a great shout and clapped his hands, and, getting
+down from the chair on which he had been standing, tore, shouting
+through the house, to discover his Aunt Hetty, and tell her the joyful
+news and fetch his hat.
+
+He found Hetty, and in quick haste the aunt and nephew were out on the
+little quay or wharf, and stretching towards them, drawn by Francis
+Bramwell, was the long, low, black floating stage.
+
+Little Frank was not visible. His father had left him safe behind the
+wall of the yard. It would be unsafe to trust him on the edge of
+Crawford's Bay, and dangerous to carry two boys of so young an age
+across that long, oscillating, crank raft.
+
+Hetty stood at the edge of the water holding the boy in her arms.
+
+"How do you do, Mrs. Layard?" said Bramwell, lifting his battered
+billycock hat as he landed. "I am indebted to your little nephew for
+your name."
+
+He spoke gravely, with an amelioration of the subdued and serious
+lines of his face that was almost a smile. During the past two or
+three days he had not only re-inherited the power of smiling, but had
+absolutely laughed more than once at some speech or action of his
+son's, or when his thoughts took a pleasant turn about the boy. But he
+had been so long out of use in smiling or laughing that he could not
+yet exercise these powers except in connection with the child.
+
+Hetty in some confusion said she was very well, and thanked him.
+Freddie's summons had been sudden, and, at the moment, unexpected, so
+that she felt slightly embarrassed.
+
+"I am sure," the man said, keeping his large, luminous, sphinx-like
+eyes on her, "it is very good of you to allow your little fellow to
+come to play with mine. You do me a great kindness in lending him to
+me. I shall take the utmost care of him, I pledge you my word."
+
+In these few seconds the girl had regained her self-possession, and
+said, with one of those bright sunny smiles of hers, in which golden
+light seemed to dance in her blue eyes, "Understand, I allow him to go
+as a favour."
+
+"Undoubtedly," he said, bowing, and then looking at her with a faint
+gleam of surprise in his eyes.
+
+"And you will repay favour for favour?"
+
+"If I can."
+
+"Well, my brother is a very lonely, home-keeping man, who hardly ever
+has any one to see him, and he told me to ask you if you would do him
+the kindness of coming in this evening for a little while, as he would
+like to meet you, now that our young people are such friends. That is
+the favour I ask. I ask it for my brother's sake. Will you come,
+please?"
+
+The man started, drew back, and looked around him half-scared. The
+notion of going into the house of another man had not crossed his mind
+for two years. The invitation sounded on his ears as though it were
+spoken in a language familiar to him in childhood, but which he had
+almost wholly forgotten. He had come across the water in order to
+secure a companion for his little son: but that any one should think
+he would come across that water and speak to people for an object of
+his own was startling, disconcerting, subversive of all he had held
+for a long time: since his arrival at the Ait.
+
+Hetty saw that he hesitated, and, having no clue to his thoughts,
+fancied her invitation had not been pressing enough.
+
+"You will promise?" she said, holding Freddie out to him. "You said
+you would do me a favour in return for the loan of the boy. You will
+not withdraw. It would really be a great kindness, for my brother is
+alone in the evenings except for me, and he seldom goes out."
+
+"But Mrs. Layard----" said the man, in discomposure and perplexity, as
+he took Freddie in his arms, and hardly knowing what he said.
+
+"Ah," said the girl, shaking her head, and pointing up to the
+unclouded sky, "she went when Freddie was a tiny little baby."
+
+"Dead?" whispered the man, as a spasm passed over his face.
+
+"Yes, more than three years."
+
+"I beg your pardon. I am very stupid. I am afraid I have caused you
+pain. Believe me, I am extremely sorry."
+
+"No, no; you must not say anything more of that. But you will come?"
+
+"It is strange," said he in a tone of profound abstraction; "it is
+strange that the two little motherless boys should take such a liking
+to one another, and that both should come to this district--this
+place--at about the same time."
+
+He had forgotten the girl's presence. Like most men who have lived
+long in solitude, he had contracted the habit of talking aloud to
+himself, and he was now unconscious that he had a listener.
+
+"We may count on you?"
+
+He awoke with a start: he did not know exactly to what the question
+referred. He was aware that he had been keeping the girl waiting for
+an answer, and that she had asked him for a favour in return for the
+loan of a companion for his boy. He blurted out "Certainly," and was
+back on the Ait once more before he realised the nature of the promise
+he had made.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIV.
+
+                        THE FIRE AT RICHMOND.
+
+
+A more devoted husband was not in all Richmond than William Crawford.
+A more trusting and affectionate wife could not be found in all
+England than Ellen, his wife, whom in tones of great tenderness he
+always called Nellie. To her first husband, old Thomas Crawford, whom
+she had married in the zenith of her maiden beauty twenty-five years
+ago, when she was twenty-two, she had ever been Ellen. Her name in his
+mouth had always seemed cold and stately; at home she had always been
+Nellie. But the dignity of marriage, and of marriage with a man forty
+years older than herself, had elevated her into Mrs. Crawford among
+outsiders and Ellen among her own relatives and in her own house.
+
+Her husband, father and mother, and only brother had been dead some
+time before her present husband came to live next door to her at
+Singleton Terrace, Richmond. She was a confirmed invalid, and had been
+unable to move about freely for four years. She had always been the
+gentlest of the good, and rested quite resigned to her fate. She never
+repined, never grumbled, never murmured. Except while in the throes of
+pain, her face wore a placid look, which changed into a smile when any
+one spoke to her or came near her.
+
+Her doctors had told her all along that her case was not beyond hope.
+They spoke of it generally as loss of nerve-power. In hundreds of such
+affections there had been complete cures, and in thousands partial and
+important improvements. They traced her condition to a carriage
+accident, in which the horses ran away, and she had been heavily
+thrown, shortly after her marriage. The injury then received lay
+dormant until developed by the sudden and horrible death of her
+husband.
+
+He was past eighty at the time, but hale and hearty. He ate a good
+breakfast on the day of his death, and had gone out to look at some
+new machinery a friend of his had got in a sawmill.
+
+An hour after leaving his own door he was carried back over the
+threshold, a palpitating, bleeding mass, torn and ground and mangled
+out of all human shape. His coat had caught in the machinery, and he
+had been drawn in among the ruthless wheels and killed. His wife
+happened to be looking out of the dining-room window as the bearers
+came along the road and up the front garden. Owing to brutal
+thoughtlessness, no one had been sent on to break the awful news to
+her. She rushed into the hall as the four men bearing the stretcher
+entered.
+
+They had placed a cloak over the body. She knew by the face being
+covered that all was over.
+
+"Is he dead?" she shrieked, and raised the cloak before any one could
+stay her. She saw the mangled horror which an hour ago had been sound
+and hearty and--whole.
+
+Without a sound she sank to the floor in a swoon. When she recovered
+consciousness she could not stand without aid. The strength of her
+lower limbs was gone. A double blow had fallen on that house, and
+although people expressed and felt sorrow for the old man, and horror
+at his sudden and terrible death, all the tears were for the lovely
+soft-mannered wife, who seemed to think less of herself than another
+woman of her own shadow.
+
+After the awful death of her husband followed years of lonely
+widowhood, in which she was as helpless to get about as a little child
+Then came this suave and low-voiced man to lodge next door. He made no
+advances to her whatever. To do anything of the kind would have been
+revolting. It would have been plain to the most credulous that he
+sought her money, and not herself. He was not even a friend. He did
+not affect to be on terms of intimacy with her. He comported himself
+as an acquaintance who had great interest in her and sympathised much
+with her in the unhappy condition of her health.
+
+Later occurred the fire and the rescue. The cause of the fire had
+never been ascertained. It arose in the kitchen under Mrs. Crawford's
+room, and in the back of the house. Because of her malady, the widow
+occupied a room on the first floor, the kitchen being a sunken story.
+
+At that time Mrs. Crawford had a companion--a widow also--who usually
+slept in the same room with the invalid, but who on the night of the
+fire was absent from the house. The companion went for a day and a
+night every month to visit her brother at Rochester. All the other
+nights the lady companion had been away the cook passed in her
+mistress's room. But at this time a change of the two servants, cook
+and housemaid, had just taken place, and both being strangers, Mrs.
+Crawford decided to have neither in her room that night; she resolved
+to sleep alone. Mrs. Farraday on her way to the station had met the
+next-door lodger and told him these facts, expressing a sincere hope
+that Mrs. Crawford would pass a comfortable night, and adding that
+though the poor lady often found a great difficulty in going to sleep,
+once she went off she never woke till morning, and required no help in
+the night, but had some one in her room merely for companionship.
+
+All this Mrs. Farraday told the sympathetic next-door lodger, who
+joined with her in the expression of a hope--nay, a conviction--that
+the invalid would pass a peaceful and untroubled night.
+
+The sympathetic lodger next door was not, of course, then called
+William Crawford. He took that name when some months later he married
+the widow. He was not known by the name of John Ainsworth either. For
+a very simple and sufficient reason he wished to forget John
+Ainsworth. Philip Ray had sworn never to forget John Ainsworth, and
+had, moreover, sworn to shoot John Ainsworth if ever they met.
+
+John Ainsworth had as many names as a royal prince. He cared very
+little for names. He cared a great deal for pretty faces just for a
+while; or, rather, he cared for pretty faces always, but liked change.
+Better even than pretty faces, he cared for money. The older he grew
+the more enamoured he became of money. When a man of spirit cares
+greatly for pretty faces, and still more greatly for money, what
+matters how people may call him so long as he may gaze on beauty and
+rattle guineas in his pocket? One of the most useful qualities of a
+pretty face is that you can turn your back upon it when you are tired
+of it. One of the most delightful qualities of money is that you can,
+if you only know where to seek, always find men willing to gamble with
+you.
+
+When John Ainsworth left Beechley suddenly and not alone three years
+ago he and the companions of his flight changed trains at Horsham. At
+the same time he altered his name. He became of his own free action,
+unchallenged by any one, Mr. George Hemphill. When he left the train
+and went on board the steamer for New York he described himself and
+his party as Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Plunkett and child. When he took
+steamer back to England he travelled alone as Mr. Walter Greystones.
+
+Mrs. Crawford's sympathetic next-door lodger was known to her and to
+Richmond as Mr. William Goddard.
+
+In Mrs. Crawford's house the only servants, the cook and housemaid,
+slept in a front top room.
+
+At about four o'clock in the morning, after Mrs. Farraday's departure
+for Rochester, Mrs. Crawford was awakened by an awful sense of
+suffocation. The room was full of smoke. She could see this by the
+night light. She called out as loudly as she was able, but there were
+two doors, three floors, and three pair of stairs between her and the
+maids. She rang the little handbell placed at the side of her bed by
+Mrs. Farraday before setting out for the train. The voice was very
+thin and weak, and the bell no better than a toy. The voice could be
+heard no further off than the next room and hall. The sound of the
+bell might reach the kitchen and the drawing-room overhead, no
+farther.
+
+The smoke in the room increased. It had a thick, oppressive, oily
+taste and smell, something like the smell of paraffin. Mrs. Crawford
+was not aware of any paraffin being in the house. She had a horror of
+paraffin, and none could be in the house with her approval.
+
+She lay in her bed perfectly helpless. It was awful to lie here
+awaiting the approach of death, seeing the great clouds of smoke rise
+thicker and thicker every minute, and know that soon insensibility
+would fall upon her, and then death.
+
+If she could but get to the window and fling herself out, she might be
+maimed for the remainder of her days, still she would be almost
+certain to escape with life. But she could not move from that bed to
+save her life. Her arms were as strong and capable as ever; but her
+lower limbs were as much beyond her control as the limbs of the dead.
+
+She had often pictured to herself the horrors of being buried alive.
+She had often fancied to herself the soul-distracting awakening in the
+tomb, the confined space, the damp cerecloths, the cold planks, the
+stifling air, the maddening certainty that above were space and
+sunshine and warmth, the songs of birds and the voices of kindly
+people going blithely to and fro.
+
+Her own situation was as bad, nay worse. In the tomb there would be no
+light to show the sombre robes of death gradually closing down upon
+her. There would be no danger of the fierce fiery agony of flame
+before all was over. There would be from the first no hope of
+deliverance.
+
+Here she was helpless, and could see the smoke growing denser and
+denser every moment, the weight upon her chest increasing with every
+tumultuous inspiration. Around her head, across her brow, a band of
+burning hot metal seemed gradually tightening and bursting in upon her
+brain.
+
+She could hear the sound of the flames flapping and beating in muffled
+distant riot below, and yet she could not move.
+
+She had read once of a man buried up to the head in the sand of the
+seashore for scurvy, powerless to stir, and so left by his companions
+while they went away for an hour. Towards this miserable man presently
+glides a serpent out of some sedges above high-water mark. That
+situation had filled her mind with ineffable horror. Her case now was
+still more terrible, for there was no companion who might chance to
+return in time. Besides, until the last moment the man in the sand
+might hope the serpent would not strike, that the reptile was not
+hungry. Here the fire would strike infallibly; flames were always
+hungry, voracious, in satiable.
+
+The oppression grew more suffocating. She was lying on her back, and
+she felt as though an intolerable mass of lead were crushing in her
+chest. The band across her forehead tightened, and she could not
+persuade herself that the bone of her skull had not been driven in
+upon her beating brain. Her hands seemed as though they were swollen
+to ten times their size. She could no longer move her arms with ease.
+
+At length she felt as if the inexorable hand of death had seized her
+throat and was squeezing and closing up her windpipe.
+
+She kept her eyes fixed on the light. This was the only thing that
+told of life. She could see nothing else.
+
+It was not a light now, but a blue blur upon the darkness. It faded to
+a patch of faintly luminous smoke. She closed her eyes for a moment to
+clear her sight. The motion of the lids pained her exquisitely, and
+made the redhot band across her beating forehead burn more fiercely,
+more crushingly than ever into her brain.
+
+With a groan she opened her eyes.
+
+All was dark! The light had gone out, extinguished by the smoke.
+
+She knew that where lights went out life soon followed This light had
+illumined dimly the way to the tomb. This bed was her grave.
+
+She summoned all her courage, and drew a long breath. She summoned all
+her strength, and uttered one cry:
+
+"Help!"
+
+There was a loud crash, a sound of breaking glass, a rush of fresh
+cool air. She fainted.
+
+When she recovered consciousness she was out of the burning house, in
+her own garden, and standing by her was William Goddard, who had
+rescued her from the burning house.
+
+That was the beginning of close acquaintance between the man and the
+widow. She regarded him as one who had delivered her from death, and
+all Richmond and all the world who read an account of the fire looked
+upon him in the same way. There was no doubt in the mind of any one
+that had not this William Goddard crept along the ledge running round
+both houses and taken the helpless woman out of the burning house that
+night, she would never have seen the dawn of another day.
+
+Before the fire had time to spread beyond the kitchen and Mrs.
+Crawford's room, help had arrived, and the maids were roused and taken
+to a place of safety.
+
+When Mrs. Farraday came back she received nearly as great a shock as
+if she too had been in that threatened room the night before. She
+loved the gentle, kindly Mrs. Crawford as she loved no other living
+woman. Her first impulse was to fall on her knees and give thanks that
+her life had been spared. She kissed and embraced the invalid, and
+vowed that not to see all the relatives in the world would she ever
+leave her dear friend alone again.
+
+"Every one is too good to me," said Mrs. Crawford, kissing the other
+woman, with tears in her eyes; "and, for all we know to the contrary,
+the terror of last night may have been designed by Heaven for my good
+only."
+
+"Your good only! How could such an awful fright and such awful
+suffering have been only for your good? You are not one who needs to
+be made pious by terror. You are a saint!"
+
+"Hush! Do not say such a foolish thing, Mrs. Farraday. I am nothing of
+the kind. I am only weak clay. But I was not speaking of spiritual
+benefits, but of bodily."
+
+"Bodily benefits! Why, I wonder you did not die. If I had gone through
+what you suffered last night I do believe I should lose the use of my
+reason."
+
+"And, owing to the fright I got last night, I have recovered the use
+of my limbs. Look!"
+
+And she rose and walked across the room.
+
+"Merciful Heavens!" cried the other. "This is indeed a miracle!"
+
+The house in which the fire had occurred was Mrs. Crawford's own
+property, so she did not leave it, but had the requisite repairs done
+while continuing to occupy it. The widow now no longer required a room
+on the first floor. She was able to go up and down stairs. She could
+not walk so fast or so far as before the day her husband was carried
+in dead, but for all the purposes of her household she was as
+efficient as ever. The very fact that she was obliged to walk more
+slowly than other women added a new gentleness, a new charm to her
+graciousness. Her gratitude for deliverance from the fire and the
+thraldom of her wearying disease added a fresh softness to her smile
+and manner. It seemed as though youth had been restored to her. The
+whole world was beautiful to her, because it had been given back to
+her after she had made up her mind she should see it no more. All the
+people she met were her friends; for had not one of them snatched her
+from death, and restored her to the holy brotherhood of mankind?
+
+And what more natural than that among all the brotherhood of mankind
+she should look with most favour and gratitude on the man who had
+risked his life for hers, and restored her again to intimacies with
+the sunshine and the birds and the flowers?
+
+That surely was enough for one man to do for any mortal.
+
+But this man had done more for her. He had performed a miracle,
+wrought a charm. Doctors might say it was the shock which had cured
+her. All she knew was that when she lay there in the throes of death
+she had been helpless, that she had been helpless for years; that he
+came and snatched her from the choking deadly vapour, and that when
+she awoke to consciousness she was healed.
+
+She had no more thought of love or marriage then than she had of
+wearing the Queen of England's crown.
+
+But William Goddard had thoughts of marriage, and although he fancied
+he managed very skilfully to hide his designs, they were plain enough
+to Mrs. Farraday long before he did more than offer what might pass
+for considerate courtesies to Mrs. Crawford.
+
+It was not without pain that Mrs. Crawford found she had no longer any
+need of Mrs. Farraday. But the pain was more than compensated for by
+the invigorating knowledge that she who had been a helpless invalid
+was now able to look after her own house. It is doubtful if she would
+ever have been able to suggest the idea of her companion's leaving.
+But the other woman began by seeing that she was not wanted, and ended
+by feeling that she was in the way. Accordingly, she anticipated what
+she perceived to be inevitable, and dismissed herself. She was
+sincerely attached to the amiable woman with whom she had lived so
+long, and whom no one could know well without loving dearly. But she
+felt it would be an injustice for her to tarry longer; and besides,
+she had duties of her own to look after in Rochester, for her brother
+living there had just lost his wife, and had asked her to come to him
+and keep house for him and look after his little children.
+
+"If ever you have any need of me, you know where to send; and although
+I suppose I must consider myself as belonging to my brother, I will
+come to you for all the time I can. I hope and trust and pray that
+your health may never make you want any one in the house such as I
+have been. Who knows but you may soon find a more suitable _companion_
+than I could ever make."
+
+The other blushed like a girl, and said:
+
+"You are very, very kind, and you must come to see me often. Rochester
+is not so far away."
+
+"No, not so far. I will come, you may be sure."
+
+They embraced and kissed and wept; and so these two good women parted
+with mutual love and respect.
+
+By this time William Goddard's attentions had become unmistakable.
+Mrs. Crawford could not deny that something was going on between
+her and her hero, her rescuer, the quiet-mannered, low-voiced,
+kind-hearted man who lived next door.
+
+Mrs. Crawford was as simple as a child. She had not married her first
+husband for love. She married him because he had asked her and had
+treated her with respectful admiration and with a kind of rough
+gallantry, and, above all, because her father had told her that if she
+did marry Thomas Crawford it would relieve him of dire distress and
+put him on the high road to fortune. But, alas! for him, although he
+was somewhat relieved by Crawford on his marriage with Ellen, he never
+touched fortune. There was nothing like buying the girl on Crawford's
+side or compulsion on the father's. The girl was heart-whole and
+fancy-free, and would have laid down her life for her father.
+
+She had never, in the romantic sense of the phrase, loved her husband;
+but from the day she was married until he died he was the first of all
+men in her consideration and esteem. She did her duty by him to the
+utmost of her power without having any irksome feeling of duty. He was
+a good, kind, indulgent husband--a man who, although hard in business,
+was amiable and good-natured at home, and who had aroused her
+enthusiastic gratitude, not by what he gave her, but by the services
+he had willingly rendered her father.
+
+We read little of such lives in books. No doubt the beauty and
+sacredness that inhabit them make writers loth to invade their holy
+peace.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XV.
+
+                HOW WILLIAM GODDARD CHANGED HIS NAME.
+
+
+This gentle woman, who had long since left youth behind her, was
+experiencing for the first time the influence of romantic love. She
+was in her forty-seventh year, a widow who had been a faithful and
+devoted wife, and yet her heart was the heart of a girl. The age of
+passion was passed. The fact that up to the time of her marriage she
+had had no sweetheart, had never once found her heart dwelling on any
+young man of her acquaintance, may prove that she was never capable of
+the passion of love. There was at present no passion in her soul. But
+the overpowering and self-annihilating sentiment of love filled her
+now, and for the first time in her life she felt that she lived.
+
+With her, as in all true love worthy of the name, she wished to get
+nothing; the desire, the insatiable desire, to give was paramount,
+with no rival feeling near its throne. There was no coquetry of
+concealment in her words or manner. When this man asked her to be his
+wife she took him tenderly by the hand and placed before him all the
+reasons why she was not worthy of him.
+
+She was, she told him, older than he by many years. She was a widow.
+She had suffered long ill-health, was not now quite recovered, and had
+been cautioned by the doctors that her extraordinary respite from
+helplessness might be ended any moment. She could never hope to be an
+active woman again. She could not go about with him as his wife
+should. He was a young man. A man of five-and-thirty was young enough
+to marry a girl thirty years younger than she was. He had told her he
+had found a wonderful plant in South America, a plant which would
+yield a fibre of inestimable value, a fibre that one day might be
+expected to supersede cotton and wool. He had told her that as soon as
+he had secured his patent and got up a company he should be one of the
+richest men in England, in the world. Why should he, whose star was
+rising, link himself to her, whose star was sinking fast, who could
+not hope to live very long, and who must not expect that even the
+short span allowed to her would be unbroken by a return of infirmity
+and helplessness? If he wanted money to carry out his great scheme, if
+he wanted not to share the harvest of his discovery with strangers,
+she was not without means, and every penny she could command was most
+heartily and humbly at his service.
+
+He listened to her without any show of impatience, without a single
+interruption. When she had done he went on as though she had said
+nothing.
+
+"I have everything on earth I want but one, and that one is more
+important to my happiness than all the rest put together. I want you
+for my wife. Will you marry me, Nellie?"
+
+She smiled, and gazed at him out of eyes that told him he was
+unspeakably dear to her. "If you will have me you may," she said, and
+smiled again. Her husband had never in all their joint lives called
+her anything but Ellen. It touched her tender and confiding heart to
+be, as it were, drawn by that dear and familiar form of her name into
+the heart and nature of this man.
+
+"I must and will," he said, and kissed her.
+
+"If you care for me," she said, taking one of his hands in both her
+own, "I am yours to take by reason of my love for you, and by reason
+of your having restored my life when I had given it up. When I gave it
+up it was no longer mine. It became yours when you gave it back to me.
+What is left of it is yours, and everything else I have. Even my very
+name must be yours if you claim me."
+
+"I do claim you, and no power on earth shall take you from me."
+
+"Or you from me?"
+
+"Or me from you, I swear."
+
+He kissed her again. That was the betrothal.
+
+There was nothing violent in the scene. Except for the two kisses and
+the beautiful light in the eyes of the woman and the clasping hands,
+any one seeing it and hearing nothing would have had no reason to
+suspect that it was a love scene. He was calm, firm, persistent,
+grave. He did not smile once. He indulged in no heroics, no
+extravagances, no transports. She admired him all the more for this.
+Anything of the kind would have been out of place, shocking. She was
+no young girl, to be won by rhapsodies or carried away by transports.
+She knew that although her youth had left her all her good looks were
+not yet gone. But he never said a word about her beauty. He was too
+sensible, and too noble, and too chivalrous, she told herself, to
+think she, a woman of forty-seven and in weak health, could be pleased
+by flippant flattery.
+
+They sat hand in hand for a while, she in a dream of contented
+happiness. To her this was not the aftermath of love gathered off an
+autumn land; it was the first growth, which had never come above the
+soil until now, because no sun had shone on the field before.
+
+There came no let or hindrance in the course of William Goddard's
+wooing. He had only been a few months in Richmond, but during that
+time his conduct there had been above reproach. At first, it is true,
+he had not been a regular attendant at church on Sunday. He had gone
+now and then, but not every Sabbath. From the beginning of his
+love-making he never missed the forenoon, and often attended the
+evening, services. He kept much to himself, and made no friends. He
+was a strict teetotaler, and frequented no such profitless places as
+clubs or billiard-rooms. When people heard of the engagement between
+Mrs. Crawford and William Goddard they said she was a lucky woman, and
+that her second husband would be even better, if such a thing were
+possible, than her first. If there had been in the whole town a rumour
+to his disadvantage it would have swelled into a howl, for those who
+knew the gentle widow felt a personal interest in her, a love for her,
+as though she had been a mother or sister.
+
+When Mrs. Farraday went finally to take the head of her brother's
+(Edward Chatterton's) house at Rochester she naturally told him all
+the news of Richmond, of the fire, the rescue, the love-making, the
+engagement or understanding between the widow and the heroic next-door
+lodger. She told him everything she knew, and minutely described the
+two people and the two houses.
+
+Her brother seemed interested. He was a florid, well conditioned,
+good-humoured, shrewd man of fifty, not averse from gossip in the
+evening when he sat in front of his own fire, with his legs stretched
+out before him, smoking his pipe.
+
+"What is known of this man? You say he has been only a few months in
+Richmond?"
+
+"That is all. I believe he has spent most of his life in South
+America. For a while he was in a gold mine, and he was for a while a
+farmer, I think."
+
+"And what brought him back to England? South America is a fine
+place--that is, parts of it--if you are any good and have an opening.
+What did he come back to England for? Has he made his fortune?"
+
+"I don't think he has made his fortune. He is not an old man, not even
+middle-aged. He is almost young--not more than thirty-five or so."
+
+"Then _why_ did he come back, and what is he losing months of his time
+in England for--at his time of life, too, when he ought to be working
+his hardest?"
+
+"I don't know exactly. I think he has found some plant in the llanos
+out of which he can make cloth, and has come over about starting a
+company and taking out a patent. He says the plant is more valuable
+than flax or wool or cotton."
+
+"Or all together?"
+
+"Yes, I think he said that, but I am not sure. I haven't a good memory
+for this sort of thing."
+
+"Kitty?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I have a fixed idea that every man who wants to take out a patent and
+start a company, and is months about the job, is either a born idiot
+or a consummate rogue. I have a very poor opinion of this Mr. Crawford
+Number Two."
+
+"Good gracious, John! aren't you very hard on a man you never saw?"
+
+He nodded his head gravely at the fire, but took no other notice of
+her question. He puffed at his pipe a minute in silence, blowing the
+smoke straight out in front of him, as if in pursuit of some design.
+Then he took his pipe out of his mouth with one hand, waved away the
+banks of smoke lying before him with the other, and turning round to
+her, said:
+
+"And, Kitty, I should not be at all surprised to find that he set fire
+to the house and then rescued the fool of a woman for reasons best
+known to himself."
+
+Mrs. Farraday started to her feet aghast.
+
+"Do you know, John, that you are saying the most awful things a man
+could say? You horrify me!"
+
+"I mean," he went on, looking once more lazily into the fire, "that I
+think he set fire to the house and rescued the woman in order that he
+might have a claim upon her, and that he doesn't care a ---- for her,
+and that all he wants, or ever thought of, is her money."
+
+"John, you do not know the man, and it is shameful of you to say such
+things, and you could be put in prison for saying them; and then to
+think of your calling the dearest creature alive 'that fool of a
+woman,' is worse than any libel you could speak of think of!"
+
+The tears were in Mrs. Farraday's eyes, and she could hardly command
+her voice.
+
+"Think over the matter. He knows this fool of a woman is a helpless
+invalid. He knows from you that you are coming here. He learns from
+you that there are two strange servants who sleep in the top of the
+house; and on the very night you are away, and the first night for
+years this elderly woman is sleeping alone, the house next door to
+which he lives takes fire; the kitchen over which she sleeps takes
+fire, and there is a great smell of paraffin oil in the place,
+although no one knew of any being in the house. And lo and behold you!
+when the woman is just dead, he comes, bursts in her window, and
+rescues her, and makes love to this well-off invalid woman--he who has
+come back to England at the age of thirty-five, without a fortune, and
+with a cock-and-bull story about a patent and a fibre."
+
+"Good-night. I will listen to no more such awful talk."
+
+"Good-night, Kitty; yet, take my word for it, he set fire to that
+house."
+
+But then, as Mrs. Farraday had remarked, her brother did not know the
+man; nor, moreover, did he live at Richmond.
+
+No one suggested that there was any reason for delaying the marriage
+between Goddard and the widow. He had not yet secured his patent, and
+therefore could not start his company. Now and then he had to go up to
+London for a day or two to see the artificers who were carrying out
+his designs for the machines to be employed in converting his plant
+into cloth. When he returned to Singleton Terrace after these brief
+absences, he made up for lost time by increased tenderness and
+devotion.
+
+He never came back empty-handed, and he never brought any splendid
+present; always a book, or a bouquet, or a basket of fruit--nothing
+more. He had bought her a ring, of course; but even that was
+inexpensive and simple--three small diamonds in a plain gold band.
+
+"I shall be poor, Nellie, until I am rich; and I shall not be rich in
+money until my patent and my company are all right."
+
+"But when you get your patent and your company, you will not want to
+go away again to America?" she asked anxiously. "I do not think I
+could face so long a voyage."
+
+"O, no! There will be no need for me to go out again. I have all
+arranged over there. I have an intelligent and energetic agent there.
+I will remain at home attending to the interests of the company (of
+which I shall, of course, be chairman), and hunting up markets for my
+fibre. We shall very likely have to leave this place and live in town,
+take a good house in Bayswater or Kensington, for we must do a little
+entertaining. You would not mind changing Richmond for Bayswater or
+Kensington?"
+
+"Nothing could please me better than to be of any use I can to you;
+and if my health keeps good, as good as it is now, I could manage the
+entertaining very well indeed."
+
+"You grow stronger every day. I have not a particle of fear on the
+score of your health. I dare not have any fear of that, Nellie. You
+must not even refer to such a thing again. When we have taken that new
+place I lay you a bunch of roses you will dance at our house-warming,
+ay, out-dance all the young girls in the place."
+
+She sighed, and took one of his hands in both hers and smiled. She had
+never dreamed of a lover, but if she had dreamed of one in her latter
+years he surely would be such a one as this. How sensible and
+considerate and affectionate he was! If he had been more ardent, more
+enthusiastic, she might fear his displays were insincere, that
+although he loved her then, he would tire of her soon after they were
+married, and, she being so much older than he, take his ardours and
+transports to the feet of younger and more beautiful goddesses.
+
+But with such as he there could be no such fear. Raptures might please
+a girl, and be excused in a young man towards a girl, but from any man
+to her they would be absurd and repulsive. It would be impossible to
+believe them sincere, and the mere idea that a lover's words and
+actions were not the outcome of candid feeling would be shocking,
+destructive of all sympathy and self-respect.
+
+But William, her William, as she now called him, was perfect in all he
+said and all he did; and of one thing she felt quite sure: that if
+ever a cloud came between them in their married life, it would arise
+from some defect in her nature, not in his.
+
+When old Crawford made his will a couple of years before his death he
+did not wish to place any restraint upon her as to marriage after he
+had gone, except that she was to keep his name. He had made all his
+money himself; he had worked hard for it, allowing himself no luxuries
+and little comfort for the best part of life, and deferring marriage
+until he was well on in years and had given up active business. He had
+no child, no relative he knew of in the world. He would have welcomed
+a son with joy. Nothing would have pleased him more than to think that
+the name which he had raised up out of poverty into modest affluence
+would survive and flourish when he was no more.
+
+But a son was denied to him. All hope of an heir was gone. He loved
+his wife in his own way, and he would not fetter her future with an
+imposed lifelong widowhood. She was to be left free to wed again if
+her choice lay that way. She had been a true and tender wife to him,
+the one source of peaceful happiness in his old age. She should not
+feel the dead hand of a niggard; she should have all his money, but
+she should keep his name. His name should not die out wholly even when
+she ceased to be. He should leave her all the income from his property
+for her life, or as long as she retained the name he had given her. If
+she changed that name the name should not die. His money should go to
+Guy's Hospital, and be known, while that great handmaiden of the sick
+poor survived, as the Crawford Bequest. When she followed him to the
+grave the money should go finally to the hospital, and be of bounteous
+service to the indigent sick and a perpetual living monument to his
+name.
+
+"Mrs. Crawford," said Mr. Brereton, her lawyer, when he came to draw
+up the necessary documents in connection with the marriage of the
+widow and Goddard, "has only a life interest in the estate. It goes to
+Guy's Hospital upon her death."
+
+"Is it necessary for us to take further into consideration that remote
+and most melancholy contingency?" asked Goddard.
+
+"No, no," said Mr. Brereton hastily. "But business is business, and I
+thought it only right to mention the matter to you."
+
+Goddard merely bowed, as though dismissing the horrible thought from
+amongst them.
+
+Goddard settled upon her ten thousand pounds.
+
+"I did not know you had so much money, William," said she, "but surely
+it is a waste of law expenses to settle anything on me? In the course
+of nature, even if I were not ailing, I must go first."
+
+When he told her of the settlement he had made they were alone.
+
+"I haven't the money now, but it will come as a first charge on my
+general estate when the company is floated. As to my outliving you, we
+do not know. Who can tell? It is well always to be prepared for the
+unforeseen, the unforeseeable. And as to which of us shall live the
+longer, let us speak or think no more of that. Let us tell ourselves
+that such a consideration belongs to the remote future. Let us devote
+ourselves to the happy"--he kissed her--"happy present."
+
+At the time William Crawford, lately William Goddard, returned from
+his first visit to Welford they had been about three months married,
+and Mrs. Crawford's old affliction had gradually been stealing back
+upon her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVI.
+
+                               AT PLAY.
+
+
+When Francis Bramwell, on the morning Crawford left Welford for
+Richmond, found himself with little Freddie in his arms inside the
+gate of the timber-yard he set the child down, and having closed the
+gate, fetched little Frank out of the cottage.
+
+The two children ran to one another. If they had been girls they would
+have kissed; being boys, they had things too weighty on their minds to
+allow of wasting time over such a frivolous and useless thing as
+kissing.
+
+"Come into the van," cried Frank, leading the way at a trot to the old
+wheelless barrow.
+
+"It's not a van, but a boat," said Freddie, as they scrambled into it.
+
+"It's a van," said the host, who was dark and small, and wiry; while
+the other was tall and fair, and rounded. "Look at the horse,"
+pointing between the shafts or handles at nothing.
+
+"But a boat has a horse, too," cried Freddie, "and this is a boat.
+Look at the smoke coming up the funnel!" He held his arm erect to do
+duty as a funnel.
+
+"It's a van and a boat together," said Frank, trying to compromise
+matters in any way so that they might get on, and not keep vegetating
+there all day.
+
+"But if it's a van," said Freddie, lowering the funnel, "it will sink
+in the water, and we shall get drowned in the canal; and I'm not
+allowed to get drowned. Aunt Hetty says I mustn't, and Mrs. Grainger
+says I can't, for it is only dead dogs that get drowned in the canal."
+Freddie knew more about boats and the canal than he did about vans.
+They had lived near the canal before coming to their new house.
+
+Frank, on the other hand, knew very little of boats or canals. "Well,
+let us play it's an elephant," suggested he, making a second attempt
+to arrange matters and get to work. Time was being wasted in a barren
+academic dispute, and time was precious.
+
+"But you can't get into an elephant."
+
+"Well, a whale." He was desperate, and drew on his memory of a
+Scripture story-book with coloured plates.
+
+"What's a whale?" Freddie's library did not contain that book.
+
+"A great big fish, with a roar as big as a steamboat whistle." Frank
+was combining imagination and experience of a voyage across the
+Atlantic.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Freddie wildly. "It's a steamboat; and I'm the man
+that whistles," and he uttered a shrill scream.
+
+"We're off!" shouted the other boy, frantically seizing his cap and
+waving it like mad. The fact that you ought to shriek, and shriek
+frequently, when playing at steamboat, and that there was no
+satisfactory precedent for shrieking when you were in a whale's
+inside, overcame Frank completely, and he at once handselled his new
+craft with a shriek of overwhelming vigour and piercing force.
+
+Bramwell leaned against a wall at the further end of the yard, and
+watched the children at play. He had no fear or concern for their
+safety. No danger could befall them here; the walls were high, and he
+had seen that the doors were firm and secure. He was experiencing the
+birth of a new life. Every word and shout and cry of his boy seemed to
+put fresh strength and motive into his body and brain.
+
+A week ago he had had absolutely nothing to live for.
+
+Now he was gradually recovering the zest of life. He felt that he had
+not only to eat and breathe, but to work and plan as well. He had
+regarded that islet as a graveyard, and that cottage as a tomb. The
+islet had now become the playground of his child, and the cottage the
+home and sanctuary of his boy.
+
+A week ago he had had nothing to think of but his miserable and
+wrecked self. Now he had nothing to think of but his young and
+innocent and beautiful son. Himself and his own wretched life had died
+and been buried, and from the ashes of his dead self had risen the
+child full of youth and health and vital comeliness.
+
+A week ago he had felt old beyond the mortal span of man, and worn
+beyond the thought of struggle, almost beyond the power of endurance.
+Now he felt less old than his years, with dexterity and strength for
+the defence of his child, an irresistible athlete.
+
+He had not begun to plan for the future yet, but plans seemed easy
+when he should will to consider them. His spirit was in a tumult of
+delight and anticipation. He did not care to define his thoughts, and
+he could not express them in words. He had been raised from a vault to
+a hilltop; and the magnificence and splendour of the prospect overcame
+him with joy. He sat upon his pinnacle, satisfied with the sense of
+enlargement and air. He knew that what he contemplated was made up of
+details, but he had no eye for detail now. It would be time enough to
+examine later. The vast flat horizon and the boundless blue above his
+head, and the intoxicating lightness and purity of the atmosphere,
+were all that he took heed of now.
+
+A week ago the present had been a dull, dark, straight, unsheltered
+road, leading nowhere, with no spot of interest, no resting-place, no
+change of light. His thoughts had been an agony to him. The present
+then weighed him down like a cope of lead. To-day he dallied in a land
+of gardens and vineyards, and arbours and fountains, and streams and
+lakes, and statues and temples, where the air was heavy with perfumes
+and rich with the waverings of melodious song. Through this land he
+would wander for a while, healing his tired eyes with the sight of the
+trees and the flowers and the temples, soothing his weary travel-worn
+feet with the delicious coolness of the water of the streams, and
+drinking in through his hungry ears the voices of the birds and the
+tones of the harpists and the words of the unseen singers in the green
+alleys and marble fanes.
+
+He had eschewed poetry as an art; he was enjoying it now as a gift.
+
+At last he awoke from his reverie, shook himself, and went up to the
+old barrow, in which the children were still playing with unabated
+vigour.
+
+"Well," he said, "where is the steamboat going now?"
+
+"'Tisn't a steamboat now," said Freddie, who was the more ready and
+free of speech; "it's a gas-house, and I'm charging the retorts. Frank
+never saw them charging the retorts, but I did often with my father."
+
+"Then Frank shall go one day and see."
+
+"I'll take him," said Freddie, "I know Mr. Grainger and nearly all the
+men. When they draw the retorts they throw water on the coke, and then
+such steam! Aunt Hetty won't let me throw water on the fire. If she
+did, I could make as good steam as the men, and then we'd have plenty
+of gas. Shouldn't we?"
+
+"Plenty, indeed. It seems to me your Aunt Hetty is very good to you."
+
+"Sometimes," said the boy cautiously. "But she won't let me make gas.
+Mrs. Grainger let me throw some water on the fire last night before I
+went to bed."
+
+"And did you get any gas?"
+
+"Lots, only it all went up the chimney and about the kitchen; and
+there are no pipes for it in our new house. There were in the old
+house. If you haven't pipes there's no use in making gas, for it gets
+wet and won't burn. Have you pipes?"
+
+"No."
+
+"If you had pipes I'd make some for you. They make tar at the works,
+too."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"I can make tar."
+
+"Can you? And how do you make tar, Freddie?"
+
+"With water, and blacklead and soap. Only Aunt Hetty won't let me.
+I'll show Frank how to make tar."
+
+"I'd be very much obliged to you if you would."
+
+"I can make lots of things, and I'll show Frank how to make all of
+them. Have you got a cat?"
+
+"I'm sorry to say we have not. Perhaps you could make one for us?"
+
+"Make a cat! No; I couldn't. Nobody could make a cat."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because they scrape you awfully. We had a cat in the other house, and
+we took it to this house and it ran away, and Mrs. Grainger says it
+will never come back. And it needn't have run away, because when I
+grow big I am going to fish in the canal and catch fish for it. Cats
+like fish."
+
+"And can you make fish?"
+
+"I never tried. The water in our house is clean water, and no use for
+making fish. You can only make fish out of canal water."
+
+"O, I see."
+
+"Have you a canary?"
+
+"No."
+
+"We had; but Jack, that was our cat's name, ate the canary's head off,
+and then he couldn't fly, although his wings were all right. Jack
+never ate his wings. I think Jack is gone back to eat the wings."
+
+"He must have been a wicked cat to eat the poor bird!"
+
+"No, he wasn't wicked, for he was all black except his nose, and that
+was white; and Mrs. Grainger says a black cat isn't wicked when he has
+a white nose."
+
+"And did you cry when Jack went away?"
+
+"No, I didn't; but I often cried when we had him, for he used to
+scrape me when I wanted to make a horse or him to tow my Noah's ark."
+
+"And did you ever get him to tow it?"
+
+"Only once, and then he towed it only a little bit. And then he jumped
+out of the window with it, and we could not find my Noah's ark ever
+again. And father said he must have eaten the Noah's ark as well as
+the canary, and that was how he got his nails!"
+
+"But he scraped you before he ate your ark?"
+
+"Yes, but there was a toy-shop near our other house, and Jack would
+steal anything. I told Mrs. Grainger, and she said that she once knew
+a toy-shop cat, and the toy-shop people gave it away, and it wouldn't
+eat anything but monkeys on sticks and hairy lambs, and the people had
+to choke it, as they were too poor to get it its proper food."
+
+"Mrs. Grainger seems to be a very remarkable person."
+
+"She isn't; she's Mr. Grainger's wife. Grainger has no clothes on him
+when he's at the works, and Mrs. Grainger has a wart on her forehead.
+Mrs. Grainger told me the reason Mr. Grainger doesn't wear any
+clothes, or hardly any, when he's at the works is because he's so
+proud of his skin; he doesn't wear suspenders, but keeps his trousers
+up with a belt when he's not at the works. But at home, you would
+think he's an African black; but Mrs. Grainger says he isn't. Father
+gives Mrs. Grainger his old boots----"
+
+"That is very good of your father."
+
+"When they're worn out."
+
+"Well, is the retort charged?"
+
+All this time the boy was working hard at filling an imaginary scoop
+with coal, and pouring the coal from it into imaginary retorts. Frank
+was sitting on the edge of the barrow watching him intently.
+
+"O, yes. They're all charged now."
+
+"Well, I must leave you for a little while. You will be good boys when
+I am away. Take care of yourselves."
+
+"O, yes!"
+
+"And, Freddie, you will teach Frank to be a good boy?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I'll teach him that, too! But I must have a book."
+
+"Must have a book? You don't mean to say you know how to read?"
+
+"No, but the way to be a good boy is to sit down on a chair at a table
+and look at pictures in a book. I hate books. Frank, it's Noah's ark
+now and we're the beasts."
+
+The man moved away, and entered the cottage. He felt elated to an
+extraordinary degree.
+
+For more than two years he had been dwelling alone with blighting
+memories. Yesterday and to-day he was experiencing sensations.
+Something was now entering his life. Formerly everything had been
+going out, going out from a life already empty.
+
+That day he had been confused and put out by so simple a thing as that
+girl's invitation to spend an hour in a house not a hundred yards from
+his own. It was the first invitation of the kind he had received since
+his voluntary exile from the world. The world had been dead to him. He
+had almost forgotten there was such a state of existence as that in
+which ordinary people live. All his own experience seemed no more real
+than the memory of a dream, out of which the light and colour were
+fading slowly but surely.
+
+The invitation to Crawford's House had for him made the fading
+half-forgotten world spring out of its dim retirement into light
+before his eyes. It suddenly forced upon his mind the fact that there
+were bright and happy people still moving about in the streets and
+fields. She, for instance, the girl who had spoken to him, was bright
+and seemed happy; very bright and very happy, now that he recalled her
+face and words and manner.
+
+There were thousands in the world as bright and happy as she.
+Thousands, nay, millions.
+
+Were there millions in the world as bright and happy as she? Hardly;
+for she was as bright a being as he had ever met in his life. No doubt
+he thought this because hers was the first sunny face of woman he had
+seen for a long time. For a time, that looking back now seemed
+immemorial: he had been dwelling in the gloomy caverns of Pluto; the
+voice of his boy called him forth from the hideous bowels of the
+earth, and, lo! no sooner did he emerge from darkness than the first
+being he saw was this Hebe.
+
+But stay! What was this she had said to him? He had been confused and
+dull-headed at the time. She had confused him by asking him to do her
+a favour. Of late he had not been asked by any one to grant a favour.
+He had lost all intercourse with gracious ways.
+
+O, yes! he remembered now. She had invited him to go over and spend an
+hour with her brother. And what folly! he had promised. He must have
+been stupid when he told her he would go. Why, if he went, who would
+mind Frank? The child could not be left in the cottage by himself.
+
+In due time, Mrs. Grainger, whose services had been engaged for that
+day, called for young Freddie. Bramwell bore the boy along the stage
+and placed him gently in that good woman's arms. While crossing the
+bay he left Frank in the timber-yard; but when he came back he took
+his own son in his arms and carried him into the cottage.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVII.
+
+                         THE POSTMAN'S HAIL.
+
+
+What had formerly been the dwelling of the foreman of Boland's Ait
+consisted of four rooms, all on the ground floor. It stood at the
+southern extremity of the islet, the end windows looking south, in the
+direction of Camberwell. There were three of these windows: one in
+what had been the kitchen, now used by Bramwell as a sitting-room,
+dining-room and study; another in what had been the sitting-room, now
+empty; and one in what had been and was a bedroom. The present study
+and the room now unfurnished ran right through the cottage, were
+oblong, and comparatively large. The room used as a bedroom was small,
+being only half the depth of the cottage and the same width as the
+study and empty room, and only half the length. The other half of the
+length was occupied by what had been a bedroom, now used by Bramwell
+as a kitchen.
+
+There was no passage in the house. The door from the study opened
+directly upon an open space lying between the cottage and the old
+sawmill. Out of the study a door opened into the unfurnished room, and
+from that one door opened into the kitchen, another into the bedroom.
+Thus the two larger rooms ran side by side from north to south, and
+the two smaller, each being half the size of one of the larger, lay at
+the western end.
+
+Up to this time Bramwell had spent nearly all his waking hours in the
+study. Now and then he went into the yard, and there, concealed from
+observation, walked up and down for exercise. Once in a month,
+perhaps, he left the islet to buy something he needed. Otherwise he
+lived in the study from month's end to month's end, retiring to the
+bedroom to rest, when sleep overcame him, far in the night.
+
+This was the last day of May. The sun had risen in a cloudless sky,
+and shone out of a heaven of nameless blue from dawn to dusk.
+
+When Bramwell entered the cottage with his boy in his arms it was
+getting late in the afternoon. The Layards did not breakfast early,
+and Hetty and the boy had dinner at three o'clock. It was to assist at
+that indispensable function that Freddie had been recalled from the
+timber-yard. Bramwell had not thought of dinner until Mrs. Grainger
+had summoned Freddie to his. Then the father was seized with sudden
+panic at his own forgetfulness, and the possible peril to his son's
+life. He knew from books that young children should eat more
+frequently than grown-up people; but whether a child of his son's age
+should be fed every hour, or every two hours, or every half-hour, or
+every four, he could not decide. In the kitchen was an oil-stove which
+he had taught himself to manage. Mrs. Treleaven left everything ready
+for dinner on a small tray. All he had to do was to light his stove
+and wait half-an-hour, and dinner would be ready for him and the
+child. A tray stood on the kitchen table, and on the tray all things
+necessary for the meal, saving such as were awaiting the genial
+offices of the stove.
+
+Mrs. Treleaven never carried that tray to the study. She had orders
+not to do so, lest she might reduce the papers on the table to
+irretrievable confusion.
+
+There was the half-hour to wait, and Bramwell, having ascertained by
+inquiry that the boy was in no immediate danger of death from hunger,
+cast about him to find something to do which would fill up the time
+and interest Frank, who was hot and tired after his harassing labours
+in the yard.
+
+"It is fine to-day," he thought, "but it will not be fine every day,
+all the year round. On the wet days, and in the winter, where are
+Frank and Freddie to play? In this room, of course." He went into the
+empty one next his own. "Here they will be under cover, and will not
+interfere with my work. I can look in on them now and then, and in
+case they want me I shall be near at hand."
+
+"Frank," said he aloud to the child, "I shall make this room into a
+play-room for you."
+
+"What's a play-room?" asked the boy. He had had no experience of any
+kind of life but that spent in poor lodgings.
+
+"Where you and little Freddie can play if the weather is wet or cold."
+
+"And may we bring in our steamboat?" asked the boy anxiously.
+
+"We shall see about that. You would like a ball to play with in this
+room and in the yard?"
+
+"O, yes! I have a ball at home."
+
+"Frank, my boy, this is your home. You are to live here now. You are
+not going back."
+
+"But I want my ball, and I want mother."
+
+"You shall have a ball; but your mother is gone away for ever."
+
+"Will the ball be all red and blue?" His own had been dull white,
+unrelieved by colour.
+
+"I think so," said the father gravely, and grateful for the suggestion
+contained in the boy's words. He had forgotten that splendid balls
+such as are never used in fives, or tennis, or cricket, or racket
+could be got in the toy-shops.
+
+The boy was satisfied.
+
+Then Bramwell took a brush and began sweeping the empty room with
+great vigour and determination, chatting all the while to the boy
+about the wonderful adventures encountered by Frank and Freddie that
+day in their many journeys by sea and land.
+
+By the time the room was swept the dinner was ready, and Bramwell, who
+had learned to wait upon himself, carried in the tray, cleared away
+half the table of papers, spread the folded-up cloth, and the two sat
+down.
+
+Moment by moment the father was waking up to a sense of his new
+position. He felt already a great change in the conditions of his
+life. He was no longer free to read and muse all day long, eating his
+solitary meals when he pleased. He must now adopt some sort of
+regularity in his management. The hours of breakfast, dinner, and tea
+should be fixed; and it would be advisable to tell Mrs. Treleaven to
+bring all things necessary and advantageous for children Mrs.
+Treleaven had a large family, and would know what was proper to be
+done.
+
+When dinner was over, he gave Frank the run of the house, carried the
+tray back to the kitchen, and sat down in his chair to think.
+
+Yes, he should have to work now in earnest. He would no longer dawdle
+away his time in fancying he was preparing for the beginning. He would
+begin at once. He should add to his income by his pen. When he had
+more money than he needed years ago, he had always told himself that
+he would write a book--books. Now, perhaps, he could hardly spare time
+for so long an undertaking as a book. He should write articles,
+essays, poems, perhaps; anything to which he could turn his hand, and
+which would bring in money.
+
+The change of name he had adopted two years ago would be convenient.
+He had then used it to obliterate his identity; he should now use it
+to establish a new identity. He had no practical experience of writing
+for magazines or newspapers, but he believed many men made good
+incomes by the pen of an occasional contributor. Of course, he could
+take no permanent appointment, even if one offered, for it would
+separate him from his boy.
+
+The afternoon glided into evening. Philip Ray had been at the island
+every night of late. He was coming again this evening.
+
+Between the news of Ainsworth and the arrival of the boy he could not
+keep away. He was strangely excited and wild. Philip was the best
+fellow in the world, but very excitable--much too excitable. No doubt
+he would quiet down in time.
+
+If it should chance Philip met a good, quiet, sensible girl, it would
+be well for him to marry. The sense of responsibility would steady
+him. He was one of those men to whom cares would be an advantage. Not
+cares, of course, in the sense of troubles. Heaven keep Philip from
+all such miseries! but it would do Philip good to be obliged to share
+his confidences and his thoughts with a prudent woman whom he loved,
+and upon whose disinterested solicitude for his welfare he could rely.
+
+"Yes; it would be well for Philip, dear, good, unselfish Philip, to
+marry, even if he and his wife had to pinch and scrape on his small
+income."
+
+Some one was drawing the stage across the canal. Here was Philip
+himself.
+
+"I was just thinking of you, Philip," said Bramwell. "I want you to do
+something for me."
+
+The other looked at him in blank astonishment. This was the first
+admission for two years made by Bramwell that anything could be done
+for him.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He was almost afraid to speak lest he should make the other draw back.
+He would have done anything on earth for Frank--anything on earth
+except forgive John Ainsworth, otherwise William Goddard, otherwise
+William Crawford.
+
+The _aliases_ of Mrs. Crawford's husband were known to neither of
+these men. These two _aliases_ were unknown as _aliases_ to any one in
+the world.
+
+"You need not be afraid. It is not anything very dreadful or very
+difficult."
+
+"If it were impossible and infamous, I'd do it for you, Frank."
+
+"Fortunately it is neither. To-day that little boy came to play with
+Frank again, and his aunt asked me to go over to-night and chat for an
+hour with her brother. In a moment of thoughtlessness and confusion I
+promised to go. Of course I can't, and I want you to walk round and
+apologise, and explain matters to the aunt and father of Freddie. You
+see, I would not like to seem rude or inconsiderate. I don't know what
+I should do if they withdrew their leave from the coming over of their
+boy."
+
+"But why won't you go?" asked Philip eagerly. "It would do you all the
+good in the world."
+
+"My dear Philip, I am astonished at you. Out of this place I have not
+gone into a house for two years."
+
+"So much the more reason why you should go. I suppose you do not
+intend living the same life now as during those two years?"
+
+"No. I intend making a great change in my manner of life. But I can't
+do it all at once, you know."
+
+"But surely there is nothing so terrible in spending an hour with a
+neighbour. That would seem to me the very way of all others in which
+you might break the ice most easily. Do go."
+
+"I can't, for two reasons."
+
+"When a man says he has two reasons, one of them is always insincere.
+He advances it merely as a blind. The likelihood is that both those he
+gives are insincere, and that he keeps back the real one. What are
+your two reasons for not going?" Ray did not say this in bitterness,
+but in supposed joy. It delighted him beyond measure to see how alert
+and bright Bramwell's mind had become already after only a few days'
+contact with the boy. In his inmost heart he had come to believe that
+his brother-in-law's emancipation from the Cimmerian gloom in which he
+had dwelt was at hand, and would be complete.
+
+"Which reason would you like to have: my real or invented one? Or
+would you like both, in order that you may select?" asked Bramwell,
+with a look of faint amusement.
+
+"Both," said Ray.
+
+"In the first place, Frank can't be left alone."
+
+"I'll stay here and see that he is all right; so that needn't keep you
+here. Number two?"
+
+"Look at me; am I in visiting trim? and I have no better coat."
+
+"You don't mean to say that _you_ care what kind of a coat you wear.
+This is grossly absurd--pure imposture. It does not weigh the
+millionth of a grain in my mind. _You_ care about your coat?"
+
+"But they may. How can I tell that they are not accustomed to the
+finest cloth and the latest fashion?"
+
+"And live in that ramshackle old house down that blind alley? O, yes!
+I am sure they are fearfully stuck-up people. Does the aunt take in
+washing or make up ladies' own materials? Ladies who look after their
+brothers' children generally wear blue spectacles or make up ladies'
+own materials, when they live in a place like Crawford's House."
+
+"Besides, Philip, I'd rather not leave the child behind me. I feel I
+could not rest there a moment. I should be certain something had
+happened to him."
+
+"What did I tell you a moment ago about men with two reasons? You see
+I was right. It wasn't because you won't leave Frank alone, since my
+offer obviates that, and it wasn't because you aren't clothed in
+purple and fine linen. Your real reason for not going is a woman's
+reason--you won't go, because you won't go."
+
+"Well, let it stand at that, if you will."
+
+"But really, Frank, you must change all this."
+
+"I engage to reform, but you do not expect a revolution. You will call
+and apologise for me, Philip? I can't go, and I don't want to seem
+ungracious to them. You need only say that when I promised to see them
+this afternoon I completely forgot that there would be no one here
+with the boy. Of course, I could not have foreseen your offer to stay
+with him."
+
+Ray muttered and growled, but on the whole was well satisfied.
+Bramwell had not been at any time since he came to the islet so lively
+as this evening. If he progressed at this rate he would soon be as
+well as ever--ay, better than ever.
+
+He said he would take the message round to Crawford's House.
+
+As he was leaving the room Bramwell said gravely:
+
+"Don't be unkind to little Freddie's aunt, even if she does make up
+ladies' own materials and wear glasses. All people have not their fate
+in their own hands."
+
+"Pooh!" cried Ray scornfully, as he disappeared.
+
+Bramwell got up and began pacing the room. Of old he used to sit and
+brood over the past, when he could no longer busy himself with his
+papers and books. This evening he walked up and down and thought of
+the future.
+
+"Now that I recall the girl to my mind, Miss Layard is very beautiful.
+I do wish Philip would get married. That would get all this murderous
+vengeance out of his head. A single man may be willing to risk his own
+neck to avenge a wrong; but a man with a wife whom he loved would
+think twice before handing himself over to the hangman, and leaving
+the woman he loved desolate.
+
+"I do hope he will fall in love with this girl. I know his present
+contempt for the sex, and I know the source from which that contempt
+springs. But all women are not alike. I have known only my mother and
+my sister and another, and out of the three, two are the salt of the
+earth and the glory of Heaven. A good woman is life's best gift, and
+there are a thousand good women for the one bad. It was my misfortune
+to--But let me not think of that.
+
+"I know Philip would scout the idea of falling in love and marrying.
+Two facts now keep him from any chance of love or marriage. First, his
+revulsion from the whole sex because of the fault of one; and, second,
+because he does not meet any young girl who might convert him to
+particular exemption from his general scorn.
+
+"And yet, although I have had little opportunity of judging, for I saw
+this girl only twice, perhaps she is not exactly the kind of wife that
+would be best for him. She is bright and gay, and beautiful enough, in
+all conscience. What a brilliant picture she made at that window! I
+seem to see her now more distinctly than I did at the time. There is
+such a thing as the collodion of the eye. And now that I think of the
+day, of the time she brought down the little fellow to the brink of
+the bay and handed him to me, how charming she looked! There was such
+colour in her face and hair, and such light in her eyes, and her voice
+is so clear and sympathetic! Ah, there are many, many, many good women
+in the world who are beautiful, supremely beautiful also, and she, I
+am sure, is one of them!
+
+"But I fancy the wife for Philip ought to be more sedate. He is too
+excitable, and this Miss Layard is bright and quick. His excitement
+almost invariably takes a gloomy turn; hers, I should fancy, a gay
+direction. They would be fire and tow to one another. He ought to
+marry a woman of calm and sober mind, and she a man of sad and
+melancholy disposition like----"
+
+He did not finish the sentence, even in his mind. He had almost said
+"like me."
+
+"No, I don't think she would be the wife for him. But there! How
+calmly and solemnly I am disposing of the fate of two people! I had
+better do that thing which our race are so noted for doing well--mind
+my own business."
+
+His meditations were broken in upon by a voice hailing the island from
+the tow-path.
+
+"Boland's Ait, ahoy!" sang the voice.
+
+Bramwell rose and left the cottage by the door from the study. Abroad
+it was growing dark. "Philip has been gone a long time," he thought.
+"But this cannot be he, for he knows how to come over."
+
+In the dusk he saw a man on the opposite side of the canal, with a
+canvas bag thrown over his shoulder. The man wore a peaked cap, and
+was in uniform.
+
+"A newspaper for you, Mr. Bramwell," sang out the man.
+
+Bramwell, in great surprise, hastened to the floating stage, and,
+seizing the chain, pulled the stage athwart the water.
+
+He took the newspaper from the postman's hand. It was too dark to read
+the superscription.
+
+He hastened back to the study, where the lamp was burning.
+
+He examined the cover in the light of the lamp.
+
+He could not recognise the writing. He had never seen it before.
+
+He broke the cover and spread the paper out before him. It was a copy
+of the _Daily Telegraph_, dated that day.
+
+On the front page a place was marked. It was in the column devoted to
+births, marriages, and deaths. The mark was against an item among the
+deaths.
+
+With a shudder and a sick feeling of sinking, he read:
+
+"On the 28th inst., at her residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis
+Mellor (_née_ Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex."
+
+He raised his head slowly from the table, threw himself into a chair,
+and burst into a passion of tears and sobs.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+                         PRIVATE THEATRICALS.
+
+
+While the owner of Boland's Ait was weeping over the brief
+announcement of his wife's death in the newspaper, the owner of a
+house in Singleton Terrace, Richmond, was sitting in his wife's
+drawing-room in a comfortable easy-chair, reading a novel. Mrs.
+Crawford, in her invalid's wheeled chair, sat at the other side of the
+table, languidly looking over a newspaper.
+
+Mr. Crawford was a model of domestic virtue. He spent most of his time
+in the house, and the greater part of the hours he was at home were
+passed in the society of his wife. He did not drink, or smoke, or
+swear, or indulge in any other vice--in Richmond. As to gambling, or
+anything worse, the good people of the town would as soon think of
+hearing the rector accused of such practices. He went to church once
+on Sunday regularly; but made not the least claim to piety, not to say
+anything of godliness. The few claims that charity or religion had
+made upon his purse had been responded to with alacrity and modest
+gifts; but the most censorious could not accuse him of ostentation.
+
+In fact there was a complete absence of anything approaching
+ostentation in the man. He seemed to care nothing for society, except
+the society of his elderly ailing wife. The conduct of the man was
+inexpressibly meritorious. He afforded many estimable matrons with an
+exemplar of what a good husband ought to be.
+
+"_He_ never goes out anywhere," they said. "He does not even want
+company at his own house (though that is not only harmless, but
+advantageous), for the society of the woman he loves is enough for
+_him_. Of course, he has to go up to town every now and then to see
+the workmen who are preparing his wonderful machine for making cotton
+out of dock-leaves, or something of that kind; but, then, that is only
+for a day, and when he returns does he come empty-handed? Not he! He
+always thinks of his wife even in the little while he is away, and
+brings her some pretty present to show his love. Ah, if every husband
+were only like _him!_"
+
+Of course, an inventor who is taking out a patent and getting models
+of machinery made must often see the artificers employed, and before,
+as well as after, his marriage, Crawford ran up to London for one day
+in the week; that is, he went up on the evening of one day, and
+returned in the morning of the next. Indeed, it was not, when put
+together, quite a whole day of four-and-twenty hours; for he did not
+leave until late in the afternoon, and was back next morning.
+
+Now, an inventor is known to be a dreadful bore, for he is always
+trying to explain how the machine works, and no woman that ever lived
+could take a particle of interest in machinery, or even understand how
+one cogwheel moves another, or how a leather band can make an iron
+wheel revolve. Crawford did not make his house odious with plans of
+his models and disquisitions on his plans. If you asked him a question
+he answered it in the most explicit and kindest manner possible, and
+said no more about the thing, but told you that the moment it was in
+working order you should come and see his model at work. The kindness
+of the man's manner almost made people think they understood him.
+
+On the table between the husband and wife lay a lot of papers, but
+they had nothing to do with the great invention. They related to the
+Crawford property in the neighbourhood of the South London Canal. Some
+of them were in Mr. Blore's handwriting, some of them in Crawford's.
+Mrs. Crawford had, at her husband's request, been looking over them
+before taking up the newspaper. She had glanced at the sheets, and
+when her brief inspection was finished put them down, and, seeing him
+deeply absorbed in his book, said nothing, but took up the newspaper
+to look at it, so that he might not think she had been waiting for
+him.
+
+At last his chapter was finished. He put away his book and glanced
+across the table. "Well, Nellie, isn't it very extraordinary these
+people were so backward in paying?"
+
+"It is a little strange," she said with a gentle smile; "but you must
+not be disheartened by it. They are sure to pay next month." She took
+up the list of the tenants and ran her eyes over it, that he might not
+fancy she under-estimated his efforts and anxiety respecting the
+rents.
+
+"I'll tell you what I think, Nellie. I fancy that, although we issued
+the circular about my collecting instead of Blore, and although I had
+full credentials with me, they did not believe they would be quite
+safe in paying me."
+
+"But they knew you were my husband," she said softly, "did they not?
+Was not that enough for them? It is more than enough for me." There
+were infinite confidence and tenderness in her voice and look.
+
+"Of course, dear. But they could not be certain of my identity. How
+were they to be sure the man who called on them was the William
+Crawford of the notice. The man who called upon them might be an
+impostor, who obtained the credentials by fraud. Don't you see?"
+
+"O, yes. That's it. Quite plainly they were afraid to pay you, lest
+there might be something wrong about you. Fancy something wrong about
+_you_, William!" and she leaned back in her chair and laughed with her
+eyes closed, as if the thought was too deliciously droll to be
+contemplated with open eyes. After a brief period of enjoying the
+absurdity of these people, she looked at her husband and said, "But I
+hope you are not angry with those people, William? They are mostly
+poor and ignorant."
+
+"Angry with them! Good gracious, no! The only thing that put me out
+was that I could not bring the money home to you, dear."
+
+"But I don't want any money just now."
+
+"You never want anything for yourself, dear," he said in a tone of
+affectionate admiration; "yet a little money would be very handy at
+present. We have only a few pounds at the bank."
+
+"But we don't want more than pocket-money until next month. There is
+nothing of any consequence to pay; the monthly bills have been all
+settled as usual." It was a great comfort to her to feel that he need
+not bother himself about anything so insignificant as money.
+
+"Yes, but----" and he paused, and a look of pain and perplexity came
+over his face. He leaned his elbow on the table and his head upon his
+hand.
+
+For a moment there was no word spoken, but a dull, heavy, low,
+continuous noise filled the room.
+
+The noise ceased, and then her infinitely sympathetic voice said,
+"Dear, what is it?"
+
+She was at his side. She had wheeled her invalid's chair round to him
+and had taken his hand in hers.
+
+"Those workmen," he said. "They have swallowed up all I had." He did
+not take down his hand. He sighed heavily.
+
+"But you are not grieving about that? It will all come back a
+hundredfold one day."
+
+"Ay," he said in a tone of oppression and care, "a thousandfold--ten
+thousandfold. But there is the present----" He paused.
+
+Suddenly a light broke in upon her.
+
+"O," she cried, "how stupid I was not to guess! Why did you not speak
+out at once? William, dear, excuse me for not guessing. You will
+pardon me, dear, won't you, for not seeing what depressed you? If you
+want money, and there is none at the bank, why did you not sell out
+Consols? Mr. Brereton told me that all my Consols were as much my own
+as the income of the property, since they are my savings."
+
+"No, no! I could not think of doing such a thing as take your
+savings."
+
+"But yes, William, dear, yes. For my sake sell out whatever you want.
+Why not? They are not mine. They became yours on our marriage, dear.
+Why did you not sellout?"
+
+"No, they were yours, and are yours. There is a new law."
+
+"Then it is a bad law. Take down your hand and look at me and say you
+will sell what you want to-morrow. Do it to oblige me--for my sake. I
+cannot bear to see you in this state. I'll sign anything this foolish
+law obliges me to sign. If they are mine I surely can give them to
+you. You must take what you want if you won't take all. If they are
+mine I surely can give them to my husband as well as to any other
+person. If you do not consent to take what you want, I'll sell all out
+and give you the money."
+
+She was pleading for the highest favour he could do her--to let her
+help him.
+
+"No," he said in a tone of authority, "I will not allow you to do
+_that_."
+
+"Well, take what you want. How much do you want?"
+
+"Two hundred would be enough. But I can't--I can't."
+
+"I'll write to Mr. Brereton to-morrow and ask him to sell out two
+hundred for myself, and tell him I want the money for a private
+purpose of my own. Take down your hand, dear, and let us go on with
+the accounts. I have looked over the list and the remarks." She cared
+nothing for the accounts, but she wanted the husband whom she loved to
+be his old self again.
+
+He took down his hand and pressed hers, and stroked her smooth hair.
+
+"I am sorry and ashamed," he said, "but I am awfully hard pressed, and
+you have delivered me."
+
+"Let us go on with the list now, William, and say no more of this
+matter. Give me the list."
+
+He handed her the papers without a word. Before sitting down he bent
+over and patted her hair and kissed her forehead.
+
+"I know nearly all the names," she said, "but, of course, I have never
+seen any of the people."
+
+"You have not missed much by that, Nellie," he said in tremulous
+tones, as though rendered almost tearful by her generosity. "They are
+a rough lot."
+
+At the same time he was thinking how much more delightful it would be
+to have Hetty Layard, with all her buoyant youth, sitting by his side
+than this faded elderly invalid. But then Hetty had no money. A man
+ought to be allowed two wives: one with money, who need not be young
+or beautiful, and one with beauty, who need not be rich.
+
+Mrs. Crawford ran her finger down the names of her tenants, and the
+houses which were tenantless, commenting as she went, and trying to
+make her own remarks bear out his theory that the tenants did not pay
+because they were not sure he was her husband.
+
+"Mrs. Pemberton has not paid, I see. I don't wonder at all at that.
+Poor soul, she has had a great struggle for years, ever since her
+husband's death. She has tried to help herself along by letting
+lodgings, Mr. Blore told me, but that won't come to much in such a
+poor neighbourhood. I'm sure I don't know what could induce any one to
+lodge in such a district."
+
+"People are often obliged to lodge near their place of business, no
+matter how objectionable their place of business may be," said he
+sententiously. Then he added with a smile, "Why, recollect, Nellie,
+that I myself am a lodger for business purposes in the locality."
+
+"Of course you are, dear. I quite forgot that. And what kind of people
+are you lodging with?" she asked cheerfully, anxious to get his mind
+as far away as possible from those wretched Consols and rapacious
+artificers.
+
+"O, they seem to be quiet respectable people enough. A little slow,
+you know, but perhaps none the worse for that when they have for a
+lodger such a gay young spark as I." He smiled.
+
+She looked lovingly at him, and laughed at the enormity of the joke of
+his calling himself gay and fancying any society could harm _him_.
+"And now you must tell me what your landlord and landlady are like."
+He seemed to have forgotten about the wretched Consols and rapacious
+artificers.
+
+"Well, Layard is a man who has something to do in the gas-house. The
+chief thing about him is a long beard. He's rather like a monkey with
+a beard."
+
+"And what is Miss Layard like?"
+
+"She's like a monkey without a beard," he said, with one of his short
+quick laughs. "As I thought before I went there, she's about ten or
+twelve years older than he. She's one of those dowdy little women,
+don't you know, dear, whose new clothes always look second-hand."
+Again came his short quick laugh. "She belongs to what geologists
+would call the antimacassar era. There's a dreadful Phyllis, or
+somebody else, in tapestry, framed over their sitting-room
+mantelshelf. She told me she worked it when she was young. But I ought
+not to laugh at the worthy soul. It is ungrateful of me; for I never
+tasted a more delicious omelette than she made for my breakfast. I
+must get her next time to give me the recipe for you, Nellie." He put
+his arms round his wife's shoulder and pressed his lips upon her
+smooth hair.
+
+"I think, William," said she, "we are the happiest couple in England."
+
+"And I'm sure of it," said he in a tone of full conviction.
+
+She sighed a sigh of perfect contentment.
+
+He sighed, thinking of Hetty Layard and her golden hair and luminous
+blue eyes, and her lithe round figure, and her fresh young voice, and
+the sweet red young lips through which that voice came to make
+sunshine and joy in the air.
+
+"Shall I go on with the list, dear?" she asked.
+
+She took no interest on her own part in this list; but then the
+interest of him and her was bound together in it, and there was a
+charm for her in the bond--not the thing binding them.
+
+"Yes, dear," he answered, wishing the list at the bottom of the Red
+Sea among the chariots of Pharaoh.
+
+She ran threw a few more items on the paper, and then paused, and said
+with a laugh:
+
+"Here is one store, I see, from which you got neither money nor
+promise."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Ice-house, Crawford's Bay."
+
+"O, ay. I examined the place with much interest. I believe it is in
+ruins. The gates are off, the lower part of it is full of water. I am
+told there are eight or ten feet of water in it."
+
+"The place has not been let for ever so many years. I never saw an
+ice-house. I wonder what one is like."
+
+"I'll tell you. It's exactly like a huge room of brick, lined with
+thick boards, and one-third below the ground. I examined this one very
+closely, thoroughly. There are no floors in it but the one at the
+bottom of the tank--no ladders--nothing. It is like a great empty tank
+lined with wood."
+
+"And you say the one at Crawford's Bay is full of water?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She shuddered and drew the light shawl she wore tightly round her
+shoulders.
+
+"How dreadfully dark and cold it must be there, William?"
+
+"Yes; but bless me, Nellie, no one _lives_ in an ice-house, and this
+one isn't even let!" he cried in surprise.
+
+"I know. But suppose some one should fall into it? Don't you think the
+doors ought to be put up?"
+
+"My dear Nellie, there isn't the least occasion to waste money on a
+useless place like that. Of course if we should let it we would be
+only too happy to put it into good repair. But what is the good of
+throwing money away?"
+
+"But the danger?"
+
+"Well, as far as that goes, you may make your mind perfectly easy. No
+one has access to the little quay or wharf but the people in
+Crawford's House. The rest of the property is lying idle, and from
+what I have seen of the Layards they are not the people to go
+wandering about on the wharf after dark. Besides, they know that the
+ice-house is full of water. It was Layard's maiden sister first told
+me."
+
+He laughed at the idea of calling blooming young Hetty Layard's maiden
+sister.
+
+"But the child, William--the child!" persisted the invalid. "Suppose
+by some misfortune the child should stray that way and fall in?"
+
+"Nellie, no person with an atom of sense would think of permitting a
+child out on that wharf. Why, the canal, the waters of Crawford's Bay,
+are only a few steps from the back door of Crawford's House, and who
+would let a child play on the banks of a canal? I mean, of course, no
+people like the Layards would allow their child to play there."
+
+"But this awful dark huge tank you tell me of is a thousand times
+worse than the open canal. If a child fell into the open canal people
+would see him, but if he fell into that dreadful tank he would be
+drowned, poor little fellow, before any one missed him. I do wish,
+William, you would get the doors put up. You see, as you tell me,
+there was no danger up to this, for no one could get near it; but now
+there is a child."
+
+She pleaded with gestures and her eyes and her voice, as though a
+child of her own were menaced.
+
+He held out his hand to her and took hers in his.
+
+"There, Nellie, I will. I'll see the place made quite safe. Of course
+I'll go down and arrange about it if you wish it."
+
+She raised the hand she held and kissed it.
+
+He thought what a chance this would give him of meeting the
+Layards--Hetty--before the month was out!
+
+"Shall I roll you round to your own place now, and you can go on with
+your paper and I with my book?"
+
+"Thank you, dear."
+
+He took up the volume, but he did not read. He fell into a profound
+reverie. First of all, he began to think of how pleasant it would be
+to tell Hetty that he had become alarmed for the safety of her little
+nephew, and had come back before his time to see about putting doors
+upon the ice-house. Hetty and he would go out on the quay, and look at
+the place and talk the matter over.
+
+There was one good thing, the quay on which the icehouse stood was not
+visible from the tow-path, so that even if Philip Ray should chance to
+pass by he could not be seen.
+
+Then his thoughts took another turn, and became concentrated on Philip
+Ray. He mused a long time upon his sworn enemy. Suddenly he shook all
+over, as if a chill had struck him. His blood seemed to thicken in his
+veins. His eyes stood in his head, staring straight out before him,
+perceiving nothing present in that room, but seeing a ghastly awful
+sight in that dim dark ice-house.
+
+On the surface of the cold secret waters of the huge tank he saw a
+hideous object: the upturned face of a dead man, the face of Philip
+Ray.
+
+Crawford's breath came short, and he panted. His mouth opened, his
+eyes dilated.
+
+Philip Ray, lying drowned in that hideous lonely water where no one
+would ever think of looking for him! It was a perfect way out of the
+terror of Philip Ray's anger which beset him. It was a thing to think
+upon for ever. _A thing that might come to pass!_
+
+"William," said the sweet low voice of his wife, "here is a strange
+thing in the paper to-day. You remember the awful nightmare you had,
+in which you thought two of your schoolfellows long ago were going to
+shoot you?"
+
+"Yes," he answered hoarsely, but he did not know what she had said. He
+knew she had asked a question, and he answered "Yes." He was in a
+trance.
+
+"Well, here in to-day's _Telegraph_ are the two names together.
+Listen: 'On the 28th inst, at her residence, London, Kate, wife of
+Francis Mellor (_née_ Ray), late of Greenfield, near Beechley,
+Sussex.'"
+
+"Eh?" he cried, suddenly starting up from his chair and looking wildly
+at his wife. "Read that again."
+
+In dire alarm at his manner she read again: "'On the 28th inst, at her
+residence, London, Kate, wife of Francis Mellor (_née_ Ray), late of
+Greenfield, near Beechley, Sussex.'"
+
+"What is the good of your playing with me, you fool Her death is no
+good to me. I am done with her. It's his life I want, and, by ----, I
+shall have it too!"
+
+"William!" cried the terrified wife. "My William! Come to me. I cannot
+go to you. What is the matter? You look strange, and you are saying
+dreadful things, and you have sworn an awful oath. What is the matter?
+Are you unwell? Come to me."
+
+A sudden tremor passed through him, and with a dazed expression he
+looked round him.
+
+With his short laugh he said, "I hope I didn't frighten you, Nellie,
+dear. I was only going over a passage of a play we used to act at
+school. I was always good at private theatricals."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIX.
+
+                        THE TOW-PATH BY NIGHT.
+
+
+It was now the second week in June. The weather had been without a
+flaw. From dawn to evening the sun had moved through almost cloudless
+skies. It was a splendid time for children to enjoy themselves out of
+doors, and every day Freddie was carried from the back door of
+Crawford's House by his Aunt Hetty, handed into the arms of Francis
+Bramwell, and borne across to Boland's Ait, there to spend his time in
+riotous fancy and boisterous play with Frank Bramwell till the dinner
+hour.
+
+The two boys got on famously together. Freddie was the taller and
+lustier of the two, with plenty of animal spirits and enterprise in
+him, full of indulgent good-humour and patronising protection for his
+companion. Frank was more sedate and thoughtful. He had a closer and a
+keener mind, and as such minds are generally fascinated by the gifts
+of physical exuberance and mental intrepidity, he gave in to his gayer
+and more adventurous playmate. Each was the complement of the other.
+Freddie took after his Aunt Hetty in person and mind, and Frank after
+his father in disposition and his mother in appearance.
+
+The fortnight had wrought a marvellous change in Francis Bramwell. In
+his youth he had been a dreamer, a poet. When he met Kate Ray he
+became a lover of her, at times austere and lofty, at times
+tempestuous. When he married he remained the lover still. After the
+flight of his wife he plunged headlong into all the fierce excitement
+of gambling, and led a completely reckless life. Then all at once he
+rushed into the direct opposite, took up his abode on the last rod of
+his property, Boland's Ait, and lived there the severe life of an
+anchorite, lived face to face with the ruins of the past and possessed
+his soul in silence, and mused upon the ways of Providence, and broke
+his spirit to the Christian law of patient endurance.
+
+Now, for the first time in his life, he was confronted with material
+duties which had to be performed with his own hand. His income he now
+considered inadequate, and it could be increased only by his own
+labour. He had already planned and partly written a few articles which
+he hoped to get accepted by papers or magazines. He had been ashore
+twice and made some simple additions to the furniture of the cottage,
+and bought toys for Frank and Freddie to play with. He had levelled
+and smoothed and swept the old timber-yard for the boys, and put the
+play-room in order against a rainy day. For the two years he had dwelt
+alone on the Ait he had lived most frugally, and had not used up all
+his slender income, so that these little expenses did not come out of
+revenue.
+
+It cheers the heart to have anything to do, and it soothes and
+sustains the heart when we have the result of our activity always at
+hand under our eyes.
+
+Of mornings he had to dress Frank, an operation he at first executed
+with clumsiness and in despair. He had to get the boy his breakfast
+and watch him while he ate it. After that he had to fetch Freddie, set
+the two young people safely in the timber-yard, and, having secured
+the gate, go back to his sitting-room and write or meditate his
+articles until it was time for Freddie to go home. The boy's dinner
+had to be got ready, and then after the departure of Mrs. Treleaven he
+shut the outer door, gave Frank the run of the house, and sat down to
+his papers once more till tea. This meal he prepared without the aid
+of Mrs. Treleaven, and shortly after tea he had to undress little
+Frank and put him to bed.
+
+He had been a dreamer, a poet, a lover, a gambler, a recluse. Now he
+was becoming a man. His duties were humanising him. When he lay down
+at night it was not, as of old, to live over again the hideous past
+with its vast calamity; but to dwell on the events of the day with
+restful complacency, and to contemplate with gentle satisfaction the
+cares and duties of the morrow. In the old days of his isolation his
+veins seemed filled with acrid juices, with vinegar and gall. In these
+nights, as he lay feeling the balm of slumber coming down upon him
+through the bland summer air, the milk of human kindness beat within
+his pulses.
+
+In the old days his prayers were for deliverance and for a spirit of
+charity. But he prayed for that spirit of charity because charity was
+enjoined by the Great Teacher. He did not pray for deliverance in the
+form of death now. He prayed that he might be spared to look after his
+boy. He had no need to pray for charity now; for was not his child
+lying there beside him safe and sound and full of rosy health, and was
+not the child's mother forgiven by him and by a Greater, and in
+Heaven?
+
+He never thought of Ainsworth. Why should he? Kate was dead, and he
+had his child, and what was all the rest of the world to him? Nothing.
+
+To himself he admitted the situation was anomalous, and that he was
+ill-qualified to take care of so young a child. Of course it would be
+worse than folly to think of his sister in Australia. She had her
+husband and her own children, and was prosperous there. It never
+occurred to him once to send his boy to her. The idea that she might
+come over to take charge of his Frank had only arisen to his mind in
+dreams, to be laughed at upon waking. Of course a woman, not a man,
+was the natural guardian of a child of little Frank's age. Look at the
+care Miss Layard took of Freddie. What a lucky fellow Layard was to
+have such a sister to mind his boy!
+
+Then in a dream, just as he had the idea of his sister travelling all
+the way from Australia to rear Frank, the idea came to him that it
+would be a good thing if Miss Layard would take charge of Frank; this,
+too, was only to be laughed at upon waking. Miss Layard was not a
+servant whom he could employ, or a sister of whom he could expect such
+a service. The thing was an absurdity worthy of midsummer madness, but
+what a pity it should be absurd!
+
+He had dreamed the dream only once about his sister. He had dreamed
+the dream more than once about Miss Layard. This would be accounted
+for, no doubt, by the fact that he saw and spoke to Miss Layard every
+day.
+
+The thought of leaving the Ait and taking a lodging ashore had
+presented itself to his mind, only to be dismissed after a few
+moments' consideration. By this time, after his two years of solitude,
+he had become accustomed to attending upon himself, and felt no more
+awkwardness in this respect than a sailor. He could cook his food and
+light his fire and make his bed as though he had been accustomed to
+shift for himself all his life. For two years he had been accustomed
+to all these services, and now he had the advantage of Mrs.
+Treleaven's daily visit, which relieved him of much of the drudgery. A
+lodging such as his present means could command would be unbearable.
+All his life, until the beginning of his reckless year, he had been
+accustomed to elegance and refinement. And all his life, until his
+retirement to the islet, he had lived in comfort, and part of his life
+in affluence. He could not endure the thought of contact with vulgar
+grasping landladies, and above all, he could not entertain the idea of
+exposing this child to the dulling and saddening intercourse with the
+unrefined folk to be found in such houses. He should be able to afford
+but one room, and how could he pursue literary studies or labours with
+little Frank at his very elbow? To let the child consort with those
+around them would be worse than all the inconveniences of this place.
+
+No. He must stay where he was until he had mended his fortunes with
+his pen. The old timber-yard was a capital playground for Frank and
+Freddie in the fine weather, and when it rained there was the room he
+had prepared for them in the cottage. Besides----
+
+Besides, if he went to live ashore Frank would no longer have so
+suitable a playmate as Freddie. He himself should certainly miss
+the cheerful, vivacious little chap who lived at Crawford's House,
+and--yes, and the brief meetings morning and afternoon with the gay
+and beautiful and sympathetic girl, Miss Layard. Let things be as they
+were.
+
+Miss Layard had more than once repeated her brother's invitation to
+Bramwell that he should go over for an hour in the evening. He always
+pleaded in excuse the reason given for him by Philip Ray on the
+occasion of his hastily and unthinkingly accepting the first
+invitation. He could not leave the boy. Then she asked him to bring
+the boy. This could not be done either. Why? Well, because it would be
+giving them too much trouble. Nothing of the kind. They would be only
+too delighted to have Frank. Well, then, if that reason would not
+serve, it would not be good for the child to keep him up so late; he
+was always in bed a little after seven o'clock.
+
+But Philip Ray had gone over often, and brought back word that they
+were very nice people, and he liked to talk a great deal about them,
+particularly the brother, to Bramwell, and Bramwell thought that when
+Philip came back from Crawford's House he was always more cool and
+rational, and so he was always glad when his brother-in-law went.
+
+It is one of the curious regulations of the South London Canal that,
+while you have to pay toll if you wish to walk along the tow-path by
+day, you are free to use it by night for nothing. This rule would seem
+to be made out of a benevolent view to suicides. A more dreary and
+dangerous and murderous-looking place there is not in all London than
+that tow-path by night. To think, merely to think, in the daytime of
+walking under one of those low arches in the dark is enough to make
+one shudder.
+
+The distance from the base of the arch to the edge of the water is not
+more than six feet. If you keep near the wall you have to bend towards
+the water; if you keep near the water it seems as though some hideous
+and terrifying influence will draw you into the foul, dark, stagnant,
+sinister flood. It appears to be waiting for you, passively waiting
+there for you, with the full knowledge that you must come, that you
+are coming, that you are come. It seems to have a purpose apart from
+all other things about it, and that purpose is to draw you. It seems
+to say in an unuttered voice, "I am Death and Silence."
+
+If, as you stood under one of those odious arches, you stooped slowly,
+slowly until your hand touched the brink, you would have to thrust
+your fingers down an inch further to touch the water itself. And then
+you would find it was dead--that it had no motion; that by the sense
+of touch alone you could not tell which way the canal flows, the
+current is so slow--so deadly slow. In the plutonian darkness under
+the bridge you could see nothing, and from the dead water a peculiar
+and awful silence seems to rise like an exhalation.
+
+You would not utter a word there to save your life. You would feel you
+had no life to save, that it already belonged to the water. If, then,
+as you stooped you slipped, you would roll into the water without a
+splash, for you would be on a level with the surface. You could not
+utter a cry, for the terrible, the odious influence of the place would
+be upon you. Even if you called out your voice would be of no avail,
+for no human being could hear you, and it would only infuriate the
+obscene genius of the place. Then, if the terror did not kill you
+instantly, the waters would--slowly--surely, for there is nothing to
+lay hold of but those flat slippery stones, and you would be in the
+stagnant water against a perpendicular wall. The sharp pains of the
+most perfect torture-chamber ever designed would not be equal to dying
+there alone upright against that wall, holding on by those smooth
+slippery flat stones on a level with your chin, and as you were
+gradually pulled down, down, down, inch by inch, by the loathsome
+genius of these waters.
+
+But the horrors of this place are seldom invaded at night by human
+foot. Often from summer dark to summer dawn no tread of man beats upon
+that forlorn tow-path. After nightfall the place has an evil
+reputation in the neighbourhood. More than a dozen times in the memory
+of living people cold and clammy things, once men and women, have been
+drawn slowly, laboriously, with dripping clothes, out of these turbid
+waters. No man but one sorely pressed by necessity would think of
+taking that path at midnight: and even when in dire haste he would
+have need of strong nerves to face it, to set out upon it, to plunge
+into it. For, unlike the streets and roadways that go by the dwellings
+of kindly men, once upon it there is no way from it, no crossroad or
+byway until the stretch of half-a-mile or a mile is accomplished. If
+any supreme terror or danger menaced the traveller on that path, he
+has only one refuge, one means of escape, one sanctuary to seek--the
+canal itself.
+
+In the ditch, on the inner side of the path, you cannot know what may
+be crouching. Shapes and forms and monsters too hateful for sanity to
+endure may be lurking in that ditch, and may spring out on you, on
+your unprotected side, at any moment as you walk along. If this should
+happen would not it be better for you to seek blindness and extinction
+in the waters?
+
+Or may there not lie in wait some shapes in human form more appalling
+than gorgon or chimera dire, some human ghouls who have committed
+crimes never dreamt of by the soul of affrighted man? May not these
+come forth and whisper at your ear as you go by, and tell you what
+they have done in tombs and charnel houses until the flesh falls off
+your bones with dread, and you take these waters of forgetfulness at
+your side to be not a river of Orcus, but of blissful deliverance?
+
+And what a place is this for a woman by night!
+
+She has crept cautiously out of Leeham and struck the canal at Leeham
+Bridge. At that time all Leeham is asleep in bed or at work in the
+great gasworks. Not a soul is abroad but two or three people moving to
+or from the Neptune at the end of the Pine Groves.
+
+The woman creeps cautiously from the road down the approach leading to
+the canal. There is not a soul on the tow-path; the place is as still
+as a cave. She can hear the beating of her own heart distinctly as she
+walks along, keeping in the shadow.
+
+But she will have to come out of the shadow in a moment, or rather she
+will have to enter the sphere of light, for on the tow-path to her
+left there is a gas-lamp.
+
+She darts quickly through the patch of light and into the cavernous
+darkness of the bridge.
+
+In that brief period of illumination all that could be seen was that
+she did not exceed the average height of woman, might be a little
+below it; that she was poorly clad; that she wore a bonnet and thick
+impenetrable veil; that she was covered from neck to heel with a long
+dark cloak, and that the ungloved hand which grasped the cloak in
+front and held it close was thin and white.
+
+She did not seem conscious of any of the horrors of that dismal arch;
+while under it she was more free from the chance of observation than
+on the road or approach. She drew herself more upright, and slackened
+her pace for a moment. Then with another shudder she walked swiftly
+from under the arch and set off for Welford Bridge.
+
+On her right lay a ditch neither wet nor dry; on her left the
+voiceless waters of the canal, and beyond the canal a line of mute,
+uninhabited, inscrutable wharves which looked like dead parts of a
+living city which had drifted away, leaving this rack behind.
+
+She sped on, unheeding her surroundings. She did not look to left or
+right. She kept the edge of the canal, as though the water were the
+best friend she had there. Now and then with her white ungloved hand
+she drew her cloak closer round her, rather as though to preserve her
+own resolution within it, to prevent her purpose from escaping, than
+to protect her from observation from without.
+
+She came within the shadow of the mighty gas-house, which, too, was
+silent, save now and then a startling and alarming clamour of metal,
+as though the summons of Titan to witness some overwhelming disaster.
+Against the blue sky and pallid stars of early summer the huge
+chimneys, and cranes, and pillars, and tanks, and viaducts, and
+scaffolding, and shoots, and the enormous and towering masses of the
+gasometers, stood up in a piece like some prodigious engine of one
+motive, some monstrous machine used in the building of mountains or
+hollowing out of seas. Now and then, through apertures low down in
+this prodigious engine, small living things, no bigger than insects in
+comparison with the mass, came and stood clearly visible, pricked out
+in the darkness against the glow within. These were men flying for a
+moment from the fiery heat of the huge instrument to cool their bodies
+and their lungs in the open air.
+
+The woman took no more note of all this wonderful work of man than to
+draw her cloak to her on that side, lest it might distract her from
+her purpose.
+
+At length, as she kept on her way undismayed, she approached a black
+mass of shadow, stretching across the canal and tow-path, as though to
+bar her further progress.
+
+As she drew nearer, an arc of light appeared in the centre of this
+dark barrier, and beyond, or rather in the middle of the arc a speck
+of brighter light still.
+
+The dark barrier was Welford Bridge; the larger and duller light in
+the middle of it was the eye of the bridge; and the central ray, like
+the light on the pupil of an eye, was the lamp in the bedroom of
+Boland's Ait.
+
+The woman paused when she saw this latter light, and, leaving the
+margin of the canal, crossed the tow-path to a low warehouse and
+leaned against the wall in the shadow to rest.
+
+From the point at which she now stood resting against the wall she
+could see the light in the open window of the cottage.
+
+Presently the spark formed by the lamp waved. The lamp had been
+removed from the window-sill. The sash of the window was allowed to
+remain up. There was a sudden flicker of light, and then all in the
+cottage was dark. The lamp had been extinguished.
+
+The woman withdrew her shoulder from the wall, gathered her cloak
+round her, and resumed her way along the edge of the tow-path, going
+south. She walked more slowly now, as if in thought or to give time.
+She walked as though she must, because of her inclination, make
+progress, but must not for some reason make too quick an advance.
+
+Presently she stepped into the profound gloom under Welford Bridge,
+and in a few seconds emerged upon the other side. Here she made
+another pause.
+
+Not a soul was in sight. She had met no one since taking the tow-path
+at Leeham. The night was perfectly still. She looked around at the
+bridge, and then moved rapidly along the path, as though wishing to
+get beyond the point at which she might attract the attention of any
+one looking over the parapet.
+
+When about two hundred yards from the bridge she paused once more.
+Here was no building against which she could lean, but instead a
+sharply sloping bank surmounted by a wall. Opposite where she stood a
+large log of wood reclined against the slope. She crept over and
+leaned against the bank beside the log. In this position she would be
+perfectly invisible to any one looking over the parapet, or even
+passing along the tow-path carelessly. Here the horse-track was more
+than twice its ordinary width, and between the trodden part of the
+path and the bank spread a space of grass-grown waste of equal width.
+
+Directly opposite to her stood Crawford's House, and a little further
+to the left Boland's Ait. She put her hollowed right hand behind her
+ear, leaned her head towards the islet, and listened intently. Not a
+sound. She closed her eyes and concentrated all her faculties in the
+one of hearing. The tranquillity of the cloudless night was unbroken
+by any murmur but the dull dead murmur that always hangs over the
+city, and is faintly perceptible even here.
+
+Suddenly a soft gentle sound stole upon her ears, but not from the
+desired quarter. The voice of a woman singing reached her. She opened
+her eyes. A light burned now in the top room of Crawford's House.
+
+The wayfarer on the tow-path could make nothing out, owing to the
+distance and to the light being behind the singer, save that a woman
+was standing at the open window and humming in a very low voice an old
+lullaby song. The light of the lamp came through the hair of the
+singer, and the listener saw that the colour of the hair was golden.
+
+The watcher leaned back against the bank, closed her eyes, and put her
+hands over her ears. She remained so a considerable time. When she
+opened her eyes the light had been extinguished. She took her hands
+down from her ears--all was still once more.
+
+She looked up and down the track carefully, and strained her ear to
+catch footfalls; but no one was in view, and no noise of feet broke
+the frozen monotony of the silence. Gathering her cloak around her,
+she left her resting-place, and, having gained the edge of the water,
+resumed her way at a rapid rate in a southerly direction until she got
+opposite the tail of Boland's Ait.
+
+Here she reduced her pace, and kept on with her eyes fixed eagerly on
+the ground at her feet. She bent forward, and as low as she could.
+Apparently, she was looking for some mark.
+
+There gleamed the full light of unclouded June night and unsullied
+faint blue June stars, but no moon aided her search.
+
+At length she stopped and examined the ground very closely. Then she
+stooped lower still and thrust her hand down, passing it outside the
+bank until it touched the water.
+
+She seized some object first with one hand, and then with both, and
+drew back from the bank softly, cautiously, as though her very life
+depended on the care she took. Something stretched from her hands--a
+line, a chain. It was fast to the bank, and reached from her hands out
+into the water a few feet from where she stood.
+
+She had in her hands the chain by which the floating stage was drawn
+from Boland's Ait across the canal when any one wanted to go from the
+tow-path to the island. The chain yielded with her a little, and then
+would come no more. She drew upon it with all her might, but it simply
+rose out of the water at a slightly increased distance from the bank.
+She became desperate, and pulled with all her might and main. She dug
+her heels into the ground, and threw the whole weight of her body
+backward. To no avail.
+
+She tore off her cloak and flung it on the ground that she might have
+greater freedom. She dragged at the chain, now pulling it from one
+side, now from the other. The stage did not move. Her hands were cut
+and bleeding.
+
+She stooped low and got the chain over her shoulder, and flung the
+whole weight of her body over and over again into the loop.
+
+The harsh ragged chain tore the skin and flesh of her soft delicate
+shoulder until it too bled. But the stage remained motionless.
+
+She sank down on the ground half insensible from despair and pain.
+
+She rose up and put the chain on the uninjured shoulder, and wrenched
+and tore and struggled at it, whispering to herself, "I will--I
+must--I tell you I must see my child once more before I die. I only
+want to see him asleep, through the window, any way, once. Do you hear
+me? I _will_ see my child before I die. A mother has a right to see
+her child before she dies. Mercy, mercy, mercy! One look, only one
+before I go away for ever!"
+
+She sank to the ground again. The chain slipped from her shoulder, and
+with a moan she spread out her torn and bleeding hands on the rugged
+ground and lay still.
+
+The first faint streaks of dawn were in the sky before she recovered
+consciousness. She rose, put on her cloak, and with dejected head and
+tattering steps turned her back upon the Ait and walked in the
+direction of Leeham.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XX.
+
+                    A HOSTAGE AT CRAWFORD'S HOUSE.
+
+
+The failure of Philip Ray's expedition to Richmond had dispirited him
+in the pursuit of the man whom he called John Ainsworth, but whom
+Richmond knew as William Crawford. He was an impulsive man in action,
+but when action was denied to him, he could make little or no
+progress. He was a man of devices rather than plans. In the heat of
+action he could invent, but he needed the stimulus of present
+necessity or expediency before he could design. He could carry out a
+plan, not invent one. He was a good captain, but no general.
+
+Hence, when he found himself baffled at Richmond, he did not know in
+what direction to turn for a clue to Ainsworth. He chafed under his
+impotency; but he could not remove it. The conclusion to which he came
+was that Ainsworth did not live at Richmond, and he hated that town
+because of the disappointment he had experienced in it. His
+determination to take vengeance on Ainsworth was still unshaken; but
+he felt that, having missed his man once, the likelihood of
+encountering him again was diminished. Say, according to the law of
+chances, they should be fated to meet twice in ten years: one of those
+meetings had been missed, owing to the ill-luck of his not being in
+Richmond the day Lambton saw Ainsworth there. This, of course, was not
+logical, but then no one who knew Ray ever expected him to be
+influenced by pure reason. It was not according to the law of chances,
+for he had had no chance of seeing Ainsworth in Richmond, since he
+himself had not been in the town that day.
+
+On the evening of his return from Richmond he had been asked by
+Bramwell to go and apologise to Layard for the postponement or
+abandonment of his brother-in-law's visit. Layard had opened the door
+for him, and, seeing a young man he did not know, and having heard
+from Hetty that Bramwell had promised to call, he concluded that this
+was the promised visitor; held out his hand, and had drawn Philip
+inside the door before the latter could explain. As soon as Ray had
+told Layard he was not the expected man, and that he was only a
+relative of the desired guest, "Well," said Layard with one of his
+unexpected bright smiles on his homely face, "since you have ventured
+into the bandit's cave, I must hold you as hostage until he comes to
+release, or reclaim, or redeem you. Sit down."
+
+"But he will not come. He cannot come, he expects me back. He is
+unable to come because he cannot leave the boy alone," said Ray,
+somewhat disarmed and drawn towards this ugly man with the kind voice
+and surprising smile.
+
+"Well, now, you cannot plead the same excuse. You are here, in the
+first place, and, in the second place, the boy's not alone now. Do sit
+down, pray. I do not make a new acquaintance once in a year, and I
+haven't a single companionable neighbour. You won't miss half-an-hour
+out of your life, and I should take it as a favour if you gave me
+one."
+
+What could Ray do but sit down?
+
+"Do you smoke?" asked Layard.
+
+"Yes.
+
+"For," said Layard, as they lit their pipes, "my sister says she is
+certain Mr. Bramwell doesn't smoke; and her reason for thinking so is
+because he seems not to be a fool."
+
+"Then," said Ray, putting down his pipe, "perhaps Miss Layard objects
+to smoking."
+
+"Not she," said Layard; "it is only her disagreeable way of rebuking
+me. Please go on with your pipe."
+
+"Old maids," thought Ray, "invariably do object to smoking. I'm sorry
+I sat down, and now I can't in decency get up for a while. An elderly
+female edition of this man would be a dreadful sight."
+
+His own handsome face, with its straight brows and straight nose, was
+reflected behind Layard's back in the little mirror of the chiffonier.
+
+"You do not live in this neighbourhood?" asked Layard, when Ray had
+resumed his pipe.
+
+"No. I live in Camberwell."
+
+Layard straightened himself in his chair, and looked hard at the other
+for a few seconds.
+
+"That receding forehead," thought Ray, "indicates a weak intellect. I
+hope I am not face to face alone with a madman. What on earth is the
+ape looking at! I wish this gorgon sister, however hideous she may be,
+would come in."
+
+The door opened, and, in response to his thought, the gorgon entered.
+
+"My sister, Mr. Ray. Hetty, Mr. Ray has called to say that Mr.
+Bramwell cannot come this evening; he must not leave his little boy
+alone, and I have impounded Mr. Ray."
+
+Ray bowed, and took in his hand the slender hand that was held out to
+him with a smile, took in his eyes the smile and the beauty of the
+girl, and said to himself, "Are they real?"
+
+He was disposed to think some trick was being played upon him, for,
+from what Frank said, he had been prepared for age and ugliness; and
+what Layard had said about the smoking had prepared him for sourness
+and sarcastic eyes, and here----!
+
+Hetty sat down quite close to Philip, and he felt very strangely at
+this, because still he had the feeling that there must be some trick
+in the affair; since he was prepared for blue spectacles, and a blue
+nose, and a front, perhaps, and prominent teeth. And here, instead,
+were the brightest and bluest and most cheerful eyes he had ever seen,
+instead of spectacles; and a lovely delicate, shapely nose, with the
+least suggestion of an aquiline curve in it, and of the colour of the
+petal of a white rose that lies over the petal of a red rose, and hair
+that was like amber against the sun, and teeth as even as a child's
+and as white as a fresh cut apple. Was it all real?
+
+"Won't you go on smoking, Mr. Ray?" said the apparition at his side.
+
+"I will," said Ray, not knowing what he said, but putting the pipe
+mechanically into his mouth. He didn't even say "Thank you." He had
+still some notion of unreality in his mind. Was it a dream, if it
+wasn't a trick? Anyway, it would be best to be on his guard, so he
+only said "I will," without even "Thank you." He was waiting to see
+what would happen next.
+
+The next thing that happened was nothing to astonish an ordinary
+mortal, but it filled Philip Ray with such a feeling of at once
+disappointment and joy that he was afterwards certain he must have
+spoken incoherently for a few minutes.
+
+Said Layard to Hetty, "I was just on the point of saying to Mr. Ray
+when you came in that if, by any misfortune, another quarter of an
+hour went by without my getting food, all would be up with me."
+
+With a laugh Hetty rose and left the room.
+
+Ray thought, "That strange look I saw in his eyes must have been the
+bale fire of cannibalism. He must have been thinking of eating me!"
+
+Then in a few minutes the strangest thing in this dream happened
+before Philip's eyes. The girl of whose reality he had such doubt
+carried in the supper-things like the simplest maiden that ever
+ministered to man. Philip rose and stood with his back against the
+mantelpiece, looking on, while Layard helped his sister to spread the
+feast and kept up a running commentary on the various articles as they
+were placed on the table.
+
+When all was ready they sat down, Philip still feeling dull and heavy,
+like one in a dream. Could it be that this incomparable being was no
+more in that household than the sister of the host? Could it be that
+she busied herself with plates and knives and forks, and beef and
+salad and cress, just like other girls he had seen? Incredible! And
+yet if he had not been dreaming, so it was.
+
+"Pepper, mustard, vinegar, oil! I see only four cruets, Hetty," said
+Alfred Layard reproachfully. "What is the meaning of only four cruets?
+Where is the fifth?"
+
+"There are only four bottles. What do you want, Alfred?"
+
+"I do not want anything, but Mr. Ray does. Mr. Ray, do you take your
+arsenic with your beef or in the salad?"
+
+Philip looked from one to the other with a stupid smile. He felt more
+than ever that the whole thing was unreal, notwithstanding the fact
+that he was eating and drinking.
+
+"When you know Alfred better, you won't mind anything he says," said
+the girl, addressing the guest.
+
+"Speak for yourself," said Layard solemnly and in a warning voice.
+"Listen to me! Just as you came into the room, Hetty----"
+
+"O, I know! You told us that before. You were on the point of fainting
+from hunger."
+
+"No! That was only my way of putting it. What I really meant was that
+I did not feel myself able to face the discovery I had made without
+the aid of food instantly applied, and in ample quantities."
+
+"But what about the arsenic?" she asked, with a look of perplexed
+amusement.
+
+"I'm coming to the arsenic."
+
+"I thought you intended it for Mr. Ray. What has he done?"
+
+"Hetty, you are flippant. What has he done? Why, do you know that he
+lives at Camberwell?" cried Layard, putting down his knife and fork,
+and glaring at his sister with a horrified expression.
+
+"Is that a capital offence at Welford?" asked Ray, trying to rouse
+himself.
+
+"In the present connection it is ten thousand times a worse crime than
+slaying the sacred Ibis. You live at Camberwell. You walk along the
+tow-path. You get by a floating-stage from the tow-path to Boland's
+Ait. Confess! You may as well confess. I see it all now. Were you on
+Boland's Ait within the past week?"
+
+"Certainly; I confess I was. Is that a still greater offence than
+living at Camberwell?"
+
+"It makes parts of the stupendous crime."
+
+"And what is the stupendous crime?"
+
+"Our sometime lodger, Mr. Crawford, saw you come along the track, saw
+you disappear behind the head of the island, and saw you did not
+reappear at the other end. Being thus unable to make head or tail of
+you, he thought you were drowned, and insisted on my going out at a
+most untimely hour in order that we might make certain of your fate.
+As we just got under Welford Bridge you stepped out from under it,
+looking not a penny the worse; I say you deserve death for these
+abnormal aquatic habits of yours, by which you disturb a quiet
+household, and take a peaceful citizen like me away from his warm
+fireside into the bleak winds of December close on midnight."
+
+"I'm very sorry, I'm sure," said Ray, with a smile, "and I am very
+much indebted to Mr. Crawford for the interest he took in me. He must
+be a very kind-hearted man."
+
+"He's a hero!" cried Hetty enthusiastically. "A Bayard!"
+
+"But, as I told you before, rather fat for the part," said her
+brother. "Mr. Ray, he is our lodger and our landlord, and hence he
+must be above all reproach. Our association with him would put him all
+right if he was a Thug. But my sister is really too much carried away
+by her admiration for this Bayard because he married a rich woman----"
+
+"Who is a hopeless invalid," broke in Hetty.
+
+"Who owns a good deal of property in this neighbourhood----"
+
+"And is ever so much older than he. I call him a most heroic man."
+
+"And large savings out of her income."
+
+"Mr. Ray, don't mind Alfred. He is only joking. In his secret heart he
+admires Mr. Crawford as much as I do; but he will not give in. This
+man saved Mrs. Crawford from being burned in her house. She is ever so
+much older than he, and he married her out of a wish to make her happy
+after saving her life at the risk of his own." The girl became quite
+excited as she spoke. Her lips quivered, her cheeks flushed, the
+golden light blazed in her blue eyes.
+
+Her brother looked at her with admiration.
+
+Philip Ray looked at her, and for the first time in his life realised
+ecstasy. He had never tasted the wine of love before, and now he was
+drinking the most potent and intoxicating of all kinds--love at first
+sight.
+
+"I consider," he said, at last fully awake, "Mr. Crawford a very lucky
+man." He meant in having so beautiful an advocate.
+
+"So do I," said Layard, meaning in a worldly sense.
+
+"And does he live with you always?" asked Ray, who had some confused
+memory of the phrase, "sometime lodger."
+
+"No," said Hetty. "He is to come to us for only a couple or three days
+a month. He has his offices for the property upstairs."
+
+"O, I see," said Ray, much relieved. He did not want this object of
+her admiration to be near her. He was now interested no more in Mr.
+Crawford. To keep the conversation going, he said, "And where does Mr.
+Crawford live the rest of the time?"
+
+"At Richmond."
+
+He started. The name of the town was a harsh, discordant note; but he
+said nothing, and shortly after took his leave, promising to call
+again.
+
+From that night he visited almost every evening at Crawford's House.
+When he was not there he pitied himself with a pathetic, desperate
+pity. When he was there he wondered how all the rest of the world
+could be content to dwell so far apart from her.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXI.
+
+                       CRAWFORD SELLS A PATENT.
+
+
+A few days after William Crawford's return from Welford, and the scene
+in which he gave his wife a specimen of his quality as the player of a
+part in private theatricals, he went up to London with one of the
+hundred pounds in his pocket. He told her he could not dream of taking
+the money from her except to pay the men working on the models and
+machines for his great patent, and in the interest of their joint
+worldly welfare.
+
+He set off, as usual, in the afternoon, taking with him half the
+money. He was a gambler, but no plunger. He played for the excitement
+of the game, rather than for the sake of gaining. He had no idea that
+he should win a fortune. His luck was usually bad, but this did not
+keep him back; nor did he play on in the hope or expectation that it
+would turn so as to recoup him. Every gambler is entitled to curse his
+luck, and Crawford cursed his with no bated breath. But he would
+rather have bad luck than no play. He was not a mean man with money
+when he had it, but he was a desperate man when he wanted it.
+
+Cards and pretty faces were his weaknesses. With regard to cards, he
+recognised the laws of honour; with regard to pretty faces, he
+regarded no law but the law of his wishes. He had never been in love
+in his life. He admired pretty women, and made love to every pretty
+woman he met, if occasion served. But he was completely wanting in any
+feeling of self-sacrifice or devotion. He was, as he told his wife,
+good at private theatricals. He could play the heroic, or romantic, or
+sentimental lover, according as circumstances demanded, to the utmost
+perfection; but his heart was never once touched. He looked on women
+as inferior creatures, the natural prey of man. With them he had no
+mercy or compunction. He made love automatically to the owner of every
+pretty face he came across, provided there was no great risk from male
+friend or relative; for, though he could assume the air and words of a
+hero in the presence of a woman, he fought shy of men in their anger,
+and was of that prudent disposition that prefers flight to fight.
+
+On going to town this afternoon, he left half the money he had got
+from his wife behind him. One hundred pounds was quite enough for one
+night; one hundred pounds was quite as good as two. Playing for
+certain stakes, one hundred pounds would last him the whole night,
+even if luck were dead against him. Two hundred pounds would enable
+him to play for stakes of double the amount: that was all. He would
+rather play two nights for small stakes than one night for stakes of
+double the value.
+
+William Crawford was a cautious, not to say cowardly, man. This talk
+of the artificers engaged in making a machine for him was not wholly
+illusory. From time to time he ordered inexpensive portions of
+machinery at a mechanical engineer's in the Blackfriars Road. He never
+took the parts of the machine away; but left them in the workshops,
+saying he would not remove them until it was all ready to be put
+together. He had no fear that he might one day be driven to make good
+his words about this wonderful machine in course of construction; but
+if he were, there lay the wheels and racks and drums in the workshop.
+Of course the manner in which they were to be put together remained
+his secret. It was not likely he would divulge that until he had
+secured his patent, and, for aught you could know or should know from
+him to the contrary, he might have other portions of the machine in
+course of manufacture for him in other workshops.
+
+When he arrived in town this early day in June he went first to the
+Blackfriars Road and gave an order for two cog-wheels of peculiar
+make. He handed in a paper with the specification, paid a bill of a
+couple of pounds, and then betook himself to the Counter Club.
+
+Here he dined, and from the dinner-table went to the card-room, which
+he did not leave until seven o'clock the next morning. He breakfasted
+at the club, and after breakfast fell asleep in a chair in the
+deserted smoking-room, and did not wake for a couple of hours. Then he
+went out, and, turning into Bond Street, did a little shopping, and
+got back to Richmond at about noon.
+
+He found his wife in the drawing-room with some fancy work in her
+hand. After an affectionate greeting, he sat down beside her and took
+her hand as usual. Contrary to his custom, he had brought no book, or
+flowers, or basket of fruit.
+
+"And how did you get on in town, William?" she asked, giving no time
+for him to notice, if he had not already noticed, the omission of his
+customary little present.
+
+"Very well indeed, Nellie. Better than I could have hoped. Better than
+I deserved."
+
+"Not better than you deserved, surely, dear," she said fondly. "That
+could not be."
+
+"Well, better than I could have hoped. I am afraid, Nellie, I got on
+so splendidly that success has turned my head."
+
+She looked at him in surprise and pressed his hand. "I know you better
+than to think success could turn your head."
+
+"Nevertheless, my success has had such an effect on me that I have not
+brought you any flowers, or fruit, or a book. Does not that look like
+being spoiled by success? Should I not be spoiled by prosperity when I
+forgot you?"
+
+"It does not follow," she said tenderly, as though she were excusing
+herself, not him, "that because you did not bring me something that
+you forgot me."
+
+He put his hand in his pocket, took something out of it, and before
+she knew what he was doing she found a gold bracelet, having a circle
+of pearls round a large diamond, clasped upon her arm.
+
+She gave a little cry of wonder and pleasure. "Why, what is this?
+Where did you get it? Whom is it for?"
+
+"It is for my own wife Nellie. I bought it for her in Bond Street
+to-day, to show her that I did not forget her when away. And I did not
+buy it out of the money she lent me yesterday--for, look!" He threw
+into her lap a lot of gold and notes. "There's the hundred pounds I
+took with me to town--and look!" He held out towards her more gold and
+notes. "Here is another hundred I have got over and above what she
+lent me, and the price of the bracelet."
+
+"Wonder upon wonder!" she cried with a laugh and a simple childlike
+joy in her husband's success. "Tell me all about the affair. Have you
+met fairies?"
+
+"No, dear. Only a good angel, and you are she," he said, and kissed
+the hand below the gleaming bracelet.
+
+"But I did not give you this. You got this yourself."
+
+"No, you did not give me this money directly, but you gave me the
+means of getting it."
+
+"But tell me all, dear. I am dying to hear."
+
+"You must know, then, that in designing some machinery for preparing
+my fibre I hit upon an immense improvement in the scutching machine
+now in use. I patented my improvement, and sold my patent last evening
+for two hundred and fifty pounds."
+
+She was overwhelmed with gratitude and joy. This was the first-fruit
+of his genius, the earnest of his great triumph.
+
+For half-an-hour they sat and chatted, he telling her his schemes for
+the future, and she listening, full of delight and pride and love.
+Then he said he had some writing to do, and went to his room.
+
+The fact was that he could hardly keep his eyes open. It had been a
+very hot night at the Counter Club, and he had come away the winner of
+close upon three hundred pounds. He locked the door, drew down the
+blind, threw himself on a couch, and was fast asleep in a few minutes.
+
+Mrs. Crawford always breakfasted in her own room, and had her other
+meals brought to her in the drawing-room. She had gradually sunk back
+almost to the helpless condition in which she had lived so long before
+the fire. She suffered no pain, but she was nearly as helpless as a
+year ago. If necessity required it, she could creep about the room by
+resting her hands on the furniture, but as a rule she went from one
+place to the other by means of her invalid's chair. She never ventured
+down-stairs now. She lived upon the first-floor. Here were her
+bedroom, the drawing-room, her husband's study--which he called his
+own room--and the dressing-room where he slept, so as to be within
+call if she needed assistance in the night.
+
+The doctors told Crawford that his wife was, if anything, rather worse
+than she had been before the fire, and that any other such shock would
+in all likelihood kill her.
+
+"Is there no chance of it producing an effect like the former one?"
+Crawford had asked.
+
+Well, there was no saying for certain. This, however, was sure, that
+if she sustained another shock and by chance she once more regained
+the use of her limbs, the relief would be only temporary, and the
+reaction would leave her in a very critical condition indeed--the
+chances were ten to one she would die.
+
+A shock, then, was to be avoided at any cost.
+
+With Mrs. Crawford's life all William Crawford's interest in the
+property would pass away. This property brought in more than Ned
+Bayliss, or Jim Ford, or Matt Jordan, or any of the other loafers on
+Welford Bridge imagined. The income was nearer to two than one
+thousand a year, and Mrs. Crawford's savings exceeded three thousand
+pounds. These savings would become Crawford's absolute property upon
+his wife's death. She had practically put them at his disposal
+already. They were his own, she told him, and he took her word for it.
+But that was a good reason why he should be moderately careful of
+them. As long as she lived he had not only these savings at his
+disposal, but the lion's share of the income as well. If he did not
+blunder, nothing could take the savings away from him; if she died he
+would lose all participation in the fine income.
+
+A shock was to be avoided at any cost.
+
+One morning after breakfast, in the middle of June, Crawford came into
+the drawing-room, and said to his wife:
+
+"I have slept so badly! I do not know when I had so little sleep, and
+the little I got so disturbed."
+
+She looked at him anxiously. "You are not unwell? You don't feel
+anything the matter, do you?"
+
+"O, no! I am quite well. But I have had such horrid nightmares. What
+you said to me a fortnight ago about the want of gates on that
+ice-house all came back to me in sleep last night, and I had the most
+awful visions of that young Layard drowning in it while I was looking
+on, unable to stretch out my hand to save him." He made a gesture as
+though to sweep away the spectacle still haunting him.
+
+"I am so sorry, William, I said anything about the place. I am,
+indeed. I spoke foolishly, no doubt. You are not so superstitious as
+to fancy anything dreadful has happened?" she asked, losing colour and
+leaning back in her chair.
+
+"Dear me! No. And I don't think you spoke foolishly at all. I now see
+that what you said was quite right. I own it's very selfish of me, but
+I do not feel disposed to go through another such night as last. That
+brought home to me the danger you saw at once, and instinctively."
+
+She could not help smiling and feeling gratified at these candid and
+gracious words from so clever a man--from a man who got two hundred
+and fifty pounds the other day for the pure brain-work of a couple of
+hours.
+
+"And what do you think of doing?"
+
+"Well, I feel that the surest way to lay the ghost that haunted me
+last night, and provide against all danger, would be for me to go down
+to Welford and get these gateways boarded up."
+
+"Indeed, indeed! I'm sure that would be the best thing to do. When did
+you fancy you would go?"
+
+"I could go to-day. I am not doing anything particular. Do you want me
+for anything?"
+
+He asked the question in a soft submissive voice.
+
+"I!" she cried, flushing with pleasure at his deference to her. "Not
+I, William! I am all right, and feel as well as usual. You could do
+nothing that would please me more."
+
+"Very well, then; I'll go at once. I shall not want more than an hour
+or so there. I need not wait to see the thing done. All I shall have
+to do is to get hold of a carpenter, and put the job into his hands."
+
+And so he set out for Welford.
+
+The fact is he had dreamed last night of Hetty Layard's bright face
+and wonderful golden hair, and he was getting tired of Richmond
+and--the house.
+
+It would be very pleasant to go down to Welford, knock at the door,
+and find Hetty alone. Her brother would be at the gasworks. Philip Ray
+was in some public office or other, and could not come to make that
+tow-path horrible with his presence at that hour of the day. He should
+be able to reach Crawford's House at about eleven, and get away at
+about one or two. Thus he would run no risks, and he should see again
+the prettiest girl he had now in his memory.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXII.
+
+                    WILLIAM CRAWFORD'S NIGHTMARE.
+
+
+"Hetty," said Alfred Layard to his sister at breakfast that same
+morning, "you know I am not a discontented man."
+
+"Indeed, I know that very well, Alfred. See how you put up with me!"
+
+"Hetty," said he severely, "in this house jokes are _my_ prerogative."
+
+"I am not joking in the least, Alfred. I know I am not anything like
+as good as I ought to be to you. But I'll try to be better in future,
+Alfred. Indeed I will!"
+
+Her tone was full of sorrow.
+
+"Hetty," said he sternly, "in this house pathos is _my_ prerogative
+also. Mind what you're about. If you make me laugh or yourself cry you
+will oblige me to do something I should be extremely loath to do."
+
+"And what is that?" she asked, struggling to repress a smile.
+
+"Hold my tongue. Bad as my loquacity is, my silence would be a
+thousand times worse. How would you like me to sit at the table and
+only point at the things I wanted? Suppose there was some one here,
+how would you like me to make a motion for a slate, and write on it
+with a squeaking pencil, 'Hetty, your hair is down!' You would
+not like it a bit. No, Hetty; I was not thinking of you when I
+said I was not a discontented man. I was thinking of Crawford, our
+landlord-tenant."
+
+"Of Mr. Crawford! O, what were you thinking of him?"
+
+"I was thinking that I am not too well satisfied with our arrangements
+about this house. I fancy I am almost sorry I entered into the
+agreement at all."
+
+"But why? Surely we are saving money: twenty pounds a year or more by
+the house, and Mr. Crawford is no trouble, or next to none."
+
+"He's very little trouble in the house, I own. But he troubles me in
+my mind. There is something about the man I don't like. I can't tell
+you for certain what it is, but I think it is because he is a coward."
+
+"A coward, Alfred! A coward! Good gracious! is it the man who saved
+Mrs. Crawford from the burning house at the risk of his own life?
+Don't you think you are very unjust?"
+
+"Perhaps. But for goodness' sake, don't say anything about Bayard!"
+
+"It was you who called him a Bayard."
+
+"I don't think it was; and if it was, I meant it sarcastically. That
+man is in good bodily health, and yet he is afraid of something or
+some one. Now, when a man in good bodily health goes about in fear you
+may be certain he has good cause for being afraid, and you may be
+equally sure that whatever he is afraid of is not to his credit."
+
+Layard rose to go. Freddie was in the kitchen with Mrs. Grainger.
+
+"Isn't a good deal of, or all, this fancy?" asked Hetty, as she too
+rose.
+
+"It may be fancy that he is afraid of something discreditable; but I
+am certain he is afraid."
+
+"How can you tell that?" asked the girl, in incredulous wonder.
+
+"By his eyes and the motion of his hands. That man could not for a
+thousand pounds sit in a room the door of which had opened at his back
+without turning round."
+
+"Upon my word, you are growing quite fanciful, Alfred. And did you
+notice that he was very much afraid of us?" she said in a bantering
+tone.
+
+"He is afraid of every one until he is assured of what that person
+is."
+
+"Of Mrs. Grainger and me, for instance?"
+
+"Yes, he would be afraid of you until he saw your face and discovered
+who you were."
+
+"Alfred, I never felt so proud in all my life before. To think that a
+strong man like him should go about shaking in his shoes at sight of
+me is quite romantic. I must cultivate all kinds of dark and
+forbidding looks. I feel that I could act the bravo if I only had a
+cloak and a dagger and the divided skirt."
+
+"Well, good-morning, Hetty. I am glad you will have no chance of
+terrifying him for a fortnight, anyway;" and off he went.
+
+"That brother of mine," thought the girl, as she prepared to remove
+the breakfast-things, "is the very best man in the world. He is the
+most kind-hearted and generous fellow that ever breathed. But with
+respect to this Mr. Crawford, he has some strange prejudice which I
+cannot understand. I never knew him absolutely dislike a man before.
+He has not gone so far as to say that he absolutely dislikes him, but
+I feel sure he does."
+
+As soon as the breakfast-things were removed and washed up, it was
+time to go out on the wharf and hand Freddie to Bramwell. This was
+now so well-established a custom that it created little excitement
+even in Freddie's mind. At about half-past ten Bramwell pushed the
+floating-stage across the bay, went over, said a few words to Hetty,
+took the boy, and returned with him. Then he hauled the stage back to
+its moorings on the Ait, put Freddie into the timber-yard, where Frank
+was already, fastened the gate, and went to his work in his study. At
+half-past two he restored the boy to Hetty. The Layards breakfasted
+late, and had not their midday meal till three. For the convenience of
+the children, Bramwell adopted the same hour for his midday meal.
+
+"Mr. Bramwell," said Hetty that day as she handed the boy to him, "I
+am sure I do not know how we are to allow this to continue longer.
+Freddie goes over to you every day, and you will not let Frank come
+over to us once even. I am afraid either of us is selfish."
+
+"Selfish? How, selfish?" He smiled as he looked up from the stage into
+the girl's face.
+
+"Well, we seem to give you all the trouble of these two boys, which
+makes us seem selfish in one way, and you seem to wish to take all the
+trouble of them, which is selfish in another way. I am afraid we are
+both very bad. I give you one more chance," she said, shaking a
+warning finger at him. "To-morrow I am going to a toy-shop a little
+bit down the Welford Road, and I intend to take Freddie with me to buy
+him a Noah's ark in place of the one he lost----"
+
+"The cat flew away with it and ate the elephant and lion," said
+Freddie.
+
+"And, of course, Freddie can't go over----"
+
+"Not even after dinner?" cried the boy.
+
+"No. Nor must you go over again unless Frank is allowed to come with
+us to the toy-shop."
+
+"I'll bring him," said the boy confidently. "Frank will come with me.
+We'll play Frank is a canal boat, and that I'm a horse, and I'll tow
+him all the way."
+
+"But if his father won't give him leave?" said Hetty.
+
+"O, he'll come!" said Freddie, with decision. "Frank always plays what
+I ask him. And will you get a Noah's ark for Frank too, Aunt Hetty?"
+
+"Of course. Mr. Bramwell, you will let the child come? You will, won't
+you?" She held both her hands out to him pleadingly.
+
+His eyes were still upon her face. She looked so bright and strong and
+full of spirits, it appeared as though the touch of her hand upon his
+boy must benefit the child. He hesitated for a moment, and said, "Very
+well, and thank you heartily, Miss Layard," and so the interview
+ended.
+
+Bramwell carried the boy along the stage and put him into the yard,
+where Frank was impatiently waiting. Then he came back, drew the stage
+to its position alongside the islet, and moored it to the ring in the
+ground. After this he went back to the cottage and buried himself in
+his work. Unless something unusual occurred in the yard he might count
+on three-and-a-half uninterrupted hours. From where he sat he could
+hear the voices of the children at play. If anything went amiss he
+would be at once apprised by his ears.
+
+As Hetty got into the small back hall from which the door opened on
+the quay there was a sound at the front-door. A key had been thrust
+into the latch and was being turned.
+
+"Alfred coming back for something he has forgotten," thought Hetty,
+hurrying to meet him.
+
+The door swung open and Mr. William Crawford pulled out his key, took
+off his hat, and bowed.
+
+Hetty stepped back with an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"You are surprised to see me, Miss Layard. Of course you are
+surprised; but I hope you are not displeased?"
+
+He bowed with grave deference to her.
+
+"Displeased?" she said, with a gallant attempt at a smile. "O dear,
+no! Why should I be displeased? When I heard the key in the door I
+made sure it was my brother coming back for something he had
+forgotten; and you know I had no reason to expect you." She now smiled
+without effort. She had recovered self-possession. "Will you come in
+here, or would you prefer going to your own rooms?"
+
+"I do not want to go to my own lair to-day, Miss Layard," he said, as
+he followed her into their own sitting-room. "In fact, I am here by
+the merest accident, and I do not know that you will not laugh at me
+when I tell you why." He thought, "By Jove! what a contrast to some
+one in Singleton Terrace, Richmond! She is much more lovely than I
+thought her. I never saw her look so beautiful. Exquisite, exquisite
+Hetty!"
+
+"Why do you think I shall laugh?" she asked.
+
+"Because I came here owing to a dream I had last night. A most
+horrible dream! I am not superstitious, but this dream impressed me."
+Crawford did not act on the principle that all women are alike. He
+always considered every woman who interested him as a being the like
+of whom he had never met before, one requiring special study and
+special treatment. When he wooed his wife he always kept before him
+the idea that she was tender and affectionate. Of Hetty he said to
+himself, "She is imaginative and ardent."
+
+"A dream? It must have been a very remarkable dream that made you come
+so far."
+
+"Yes, a most remarkable and unpleasant dream. I thought in my sleep
+that some one--I knew not whom at first--had wandered out of the house
+through the door on the Bay by night, and, turning to the left, went
+near the open door of that flooded ice-house. There are two doorways
+to the ice-house and no door. I thought I was standing at the further
+one from this. The figure drew close to the nearer doorway, and I saw
+that the wanderer was a somnambulist, and was quite unaware of any
+danger. I thought I tried to cry out, but could not utter a sound. I
+thought I tried to rush forward, but could not move. I was half mad
+with terror, for as the figure drew near me I recognised who it was.
+The figure kept on until it reached the raised threshold of the
+ice-house. It stepped upon the sill of the doorway, and all at once I
+heard a scream and a splash; and I looked in and saw the figure
+struggling in the water. I strove with all my might to wrest myself
+free from the leaden weights that held my feet. The face of the figure
+was turned up to me, and I could see the golden hair and the lovely
+cheek and the wonderful blue eyes, and I heard a voice, the sweetest
+and dearest voice I ever heard, cry out in agony, 'Save me! Save me!
+O, Mr. Crawford, won't you try to save me?' and I wrenched and
+struggled, and at last I tore myself free, and with a great shout I
+awoke, terrified and trembling, and in a cold perspiration. And I
+could not sleep again."
+
+"What a horrible dream!" cried the girl, with blanched face, and eyes
+wide open with dismay.
+
+"It was terrible, indeed. But, Miss Layard, all I have told you was to
+me nothing compared with what I have yet to tell."
+
+She drew back trembling, and feeling faint.
+
+"Do you know who the drowning person that I could not succour was?"
+
+"No," whispered the girl.
+
+"You."
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes; you!"
+
+The girl drew back another pace, and shuddered; she seemed about to
+faint.
+
+"It was your face I saw, and you were in peril of death! and I--_I_
+was looking on and could not help you. Great heavens! fancy my finding
+you in want of aid in my view, and I not able to help you! All the
+horrible dreams of my life put together would not equal the anguish,
+the insupportable agony, of that."
+
+He took out his handkerchief, breathed heavily--as though the memory
+of his nightmare was almost as bad as the nightmare itself--and then
+wiped his forehead laboriously with the handkerchief. After this he
+sat for a while, leaning back in his chair with a hand resting on each
+knee, as though to recover himself. In a few seconds he rose with the
+affectation of an affected briskness, intended to convey that he was
+struggling against emotions that overcame him. He said, with a wan
+smile:
+
+"So I came straight here to have doors put on those hateful doorways.
+I knew you would laugh at me."
+
+"Indeed, I do not laugh at you! That dream was enough to upset any
+one."
+
+He shook his head, conveying by the shaking of his head and the
+expression of his face the idea that, great as might be her power of
+realising his sufferings, they were infinitely greater than she could
+imagine.
+
+Then he shook the whole of his body to rouse himself out of his
+lethargy, and establish himself in her mind as a man of action. He
+begged of her to get him a piece of string, and when she had found him
+some he asked her to favour him by accompanying him to the ice-house,
+and aid him in taking measurements for the doors to block up the
+yawning death traps, as he called the doorways.
+
+He could not reach the lintel of the doors without something on which
+to stand. He asked her to hold the string for him till he came back,
+and went to the kitchen and fetched a chair. He mounted on the chair,
+and asked her to draw the string taut to the ground, and knot the
+point at which the string touched the raised threshold.
+
+"There were double doors here once, but single doors will do now," he
+said.
+
+When he had completed his measurement he said:
+
+"I shall go from this to the carpenter and leave orders for the doors.
+I shall come back in a week to see them put up."
+
+For a few minutes he seemed to fall into a profound reverie, and then,
+waking up all at once, looked at her with eyes full of terror, and,
+pointing into the flooded ice-house said hoarsely:
+
+"Hetty, it was in there I saw you drowning! Do you know what that
+sight meant to me, girl?" He bent close to her ear and answered his
+own question in a whisper:
+
+"Madness!"
+
+Then, without another word, he hurried away, leaving her amazed,
+breathless, not knowing what to think of him, and all he had been
+saying, and not able to think of anything else.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+                           "MAN OVERBOARD!"
+
+
+When Hetty recovered from the astonishment into which Mr. William
+Crawford's words and manner had cast her, the first fact which struck
+her memory was that he had called her Hetty. That might, no doubt, be
+excused in a man of his time of life to a girl of hers (she considered
+his thirty-six years entitled him to be considered quite middle-aged).
+But she would have felt more comfortable if the question had not been
+raised at all. It was, she urged in mitigation, to be taken into
+account that he spoke under great excitement and in haste. But, after
+all, the thing was not worth a moment's thought.
+
+There was, however, a fact worth considering. This man, sleeping or
+waking, did seem to have a special care of the lives of others. Had he
+not rescued his wife from fire?--and here now was this dream, this
+dreadful dream about the odious old ice-house. No doubt some men were
+born with a natural taste for encountering risks, but her inclination
+did not lead her to plunge into burning houses or flooded ice-houses.
+For her part she would rather run away twenty miles.
+
+And then what were these words he had said about herself? Now that
+they came back to her they seemed foolish, impertinent, and she ought
+to have been angry with him for laughing at her. But no; he had not
+been laughing at her. He could not laugh at anything on earth after
+having such an awful dream, and no doubt what he had said of herself
+was only his exaggerated way of describing how terribly hard he had
+wanted to save the drowning woman. But there was no person really
+drowning, and it would be nonsense not to forget the whole interview
+with him.
+
+Yet it could hardly be got rid of in that way, for how would Alfred
+take it? The whole affair was very provoking and horrible, and she
+felt disposed to cry. Perhaps Alfred was right in his first estimate
+of Crawford, and he was a little mad.
+
+Yes, clearly the man ought to be in a lunatic asylum, and not allowed
+to go about the country dreaming and terrifying people.
+
+She had no doubt that in a few minutes a procession of men, carrying
+planks on their shoulders and bags of tools in their hands, would
+arrive and make the place unbearable with noise and chips.
+
+Hetty would have made her mind quite easy on the last score if she
+could have seen into the mind of William Crawford as he left the door.
+For he had no more notion of going to any carpenter that day about the
+job than he had of flinging himself off Welford Bridge into the South
+London Canal. What he did intend doing was, to come back in a week and
+say he found the wretched carpenters to whom he had given the order
+had wholly misunderstood him and botched the job. This would be
+economical as far as the doors were concerned, and would give him
+another interview with Hetty.
+
+He had no notion of keeping his promise to his wife either. What could
+be easier and more pleasant than to enjoy a few hours' freedom in
+town, and tell her on his return to Richmond that the difficulties to
+be overcome at the ice-house were much greater than he had
+anticipated, and that he had been most grievously delayed against his
+will.
+
+From a map he had discovered, since his former visit, that he could
+come or go by water. At the end of one of the Pine Groves lay the
+Mercantile Pier, and Crawford turned in that direction, resolved to
+get to town by river.
+
+It pleased him to know that there were two ways of approaching his
+office, and the line from Crawford's House to the Mercantile Pier was
+directly away from Camberwell, whereas the route by road was only at
+right angles to it.
+
+"I think what I said to Hetty must create some effect," he thought, as
+he walked with brisk footstep and alert body. "It did all I intended
+anyway. She may, when she gets over her surprise, be either pleased or
+indignant; but she cannot be indifferent, she is too imaginative for
+that."
+
+He passed by the Neptune public-house, and entered the Pine Grove
+leading to the Mercantile Pier. He had no need to ask his way: he
+carried the map of the place in his head.
+
+Here on either side of him rose the tall black palings. The path
+between them was only a footway, and wound along sinuously for half a
+mile between the great docks on either side. The path bent so acutely
+that it was impossible to see further than a hundred yards before or
+behind.
+
+To Crawford, who was always expecting to find Philip Ray spring forth,
+feel a burning sting, hear a report, and know that vengeance had
+overtaken him at last, this characteristic had one great advantage: it
+left both his sides protected. He could be approached only from the
+front or rear.
+
+The place was very secret and retired. There was not a sound beyond
+the far-off hum of the city. Spying through the chinks in the palings
+one could see nothing but broken dark grey ground littered with all
+kinds of odds and ends of timber and metal objects, looking as dreary
+and deserted and forlorn as a locked-up and deserted graveyard.
+Overhead spread the faint blue sky, with the sun behind a dull grey
+cloud, and above the paling to right and left, and, as it were, rising
+from hulls lying far off inland, the lofty motionless spars of great
+ships in the stillness of the upper air.
+
+From the time Crawford entered the Pine Grove until he had got more
+than half-way through he encountered no one. Then all at once he
+became aware that he was gradually overtaking a woman who was walking
+in front, and that footsteps which he had heard for some time behind
+him were gradually gaining upon him.
+
+With him every unknown woman was an object of curiosity: every unknown
+man Philip Ray. The woman in front was poorly clad, and walked with
+lagging step and dejected head. She did not promise to interest him.
+He turned round. The man was not Philip Ray. Without further thought
+of either he continued his walk.
+
+Presently the man was level with him, and said, "Beg pardon, sir, but
+I saw you pass the Neptune, and I thought I'd ask you if you had any
+odd job hereabout on your property."
+
+Crawford started and looked sharply at the man out of his dark furtive
+eyes. The speaker he recognised as the man who had acted as his guide,
+and explained to him the means of Philip Ray's mysterious
+disappearance from the tow-path.
+
+"No," he said sharply, "I have no job," and turned away to show he did
+not wish to be spoken to again.
+
+"Perhaps, sir, you don't know the stage is off?"
+
+"What!" cried Crawford, stopping and confronting the man. "What do you
+mean by the stage being off?" He remembered that Red Jim had told him
+about the floating stage at Boland's Ait. Could it be that the
+floating bridge had been removed, and that Ray's visit to the islet
+and its idiotic owner had ceased? or that the owner had taken himself
+away?
+
+Jim pointed down the Grove. "The stage that goes from the land to the
+pier had to be taken away for repairs, and you have to get from the
+shore to the pier in a small boat, and when the tide is low, as it is
+now, you have to go down a long ladder so as to get to the bed of the
+river, and from the bed of the river to the small boat; and people
+with plenty of money don't care about doing that. So when I saw you
+turn into the Grove I thought I'd come and tell you, as I felt sure if
+you knew you wouldn't think of going by boat, and I remembered you
+gave me two tanners a fortnight ago."
+
+"Then I won't give you anything now," said Crawford sharply, as he
+resumed his way. His anger had been aroused by the hopes raised and
+cast down by Red Jim's two speeches about the stage.
+
+"Not as much as a tanner?"
+
+"Not as much as half a farthing. I made a very bad bargain the last
+time, and this must be given in with what you did before. Besides,
+this is no use to me, for I intend going by boat all the same.
+Good-day. If you beg again I shall call the police."
+
+The man abated his pace with a malediction, and Crawford went on, Red
+Jim followed him slowly, cursing his own luck.
+
+The delay caused by the dialogue with Red Jim had given the woman a
+good start, and by the time Crawford reached the head of the ladder
+the woman was in the act of being handed into the small boat.
+
+When Crawford looked down he was very sorry he had not given Red Jim
+sixpence for his news and advice, and gone back by land. But it was
+too late to retrace his steps. He felt a dogged determination not to
+give Jim anything or be jeered at by him.
+
+Half the descent was easy enough, as it was by rude wooden stairs; but
+the other half had to be accomplished by means of a broad ladder of
+very muddy, slippery, and rotten looking steps. The foreshore, too,
+looked muddy, slimy, uninviting, and here and there was steaming in an
+unpleasant manner under the influence of the sun, now shining clearly
+between vast plains of pale grey clouds.
+
+Crawford hated boats for two reasons. First, he couldn't pull; and,
+second, he always felt nervous in them, and he could not swim.
+
+However, there was not much time for liking or disliking, for the men
+in the small boat beckoned him to come on. There were already in the
+boat the crew of two men, the woman who had preceded him down the
+lane, and six other women.
+
+With repugnance he descended to the foreshore, and with repugnance and
+difficulty got into the boat. All the passengers except one were aft.
+
+Crawford took a seat on the starboard side, next to the woman who had
+preceded him down the Grove.
+
+She took no notice of his coming aboard. She appeared unconscious of
+everything round her. She wore a thick black veil, and kept her head
+bowed upon her chest, giving him the idea that she suffered from some
+deformity, or disease, or dire calamity. She clasped her elbow in one
+hand, her arm across her chest, and her other hand across her eyes.
+The moment she entered the boat she had assumed this posture, and had
+not moved since.
+
+Her attitude was the result of two causes: her eyes were weak from
+recent illness, and she was suffering from incurable sorrows.
+
+Her clothes were worn and betokened poverty, her purse penury. Under
+her thin frayed dress her shoulders bore marks of recent scratches;
+under the bosom of her dress her heart bore open wounds of anguish.
+She was on her way to a free hospital about her eyes.
+
+Disease had lately threatened her life, but even Death refused to have
+her. At what she believed to be her last hour she provided for her
+only child, the apple of her eye, her solitary joy, by placing him in
+safety, but beyond the power of a recalling cry from her lips. She had
+then put aside money for her sepulchre.
+
+Death had disdained her, and she was now wandering about alone with
+the vast world as a tomb and a solitude, and a broken heart and the
+fate of an outcast, and the undying gnawing remorse for company, with
+for the sustentation of her living body the money she had devised for
+its decay. An illness had taken away her voice, which was her bread.
+
+Just as the boat shoved off, Red Jim reached the head of the stairs,
+and stood there regarding the progress of his patron. He noticed that
+the ebb tide was running very fast, and that the men kept the boat
+heading a little up stream to make allowance for leeway. He noticed
+that Crawford was the last passenger on the starboard side, and that,
+therefore, he would be on the inside when the boat got alongside. "I
+hope," thought Red Jim, "that there's some nice fresh paint or a nice
+long nail waiting for him when he's going up the side."
+
+He saw the boat touch the side, and Crawford stagger instantly to his
+feet. He saw him sway to and fro, and then suddenly fall back against
+the hulk, boom the boat off with his legs, and drop overboard between
+the boat and the hulk.
+
+Red Jim uttered a loud shout of triumph, and then began shouting and
+dancing like mad for joy.
+
+"He'll shoot in under the hulk and be drowned!" cried Red Jim
+exultingly.
+
+Then an oath:
+
+"That ---- woman's got him!
+
+"Catch him! Hold him!" cried the boatmen. "Hold on for your life or
+he'll be sucked under!"
+
+The veiled woman had seized the sinking man and thrown herself on her
+knees--was holding on with all the power of her enfeebled arms.
+
+"Trim the boat! Trim the boat, ---- you, or she'll capsize! On deck,
+there!" shouted the boatman to the hulk.
+
+By this time aid had come from the deck, and the submerged man had
+been seized by the hooks and had hold of a line. Up to this the
+boatmen had been completely powerless, for all the women had crowded
+to the starboard side, and bore down the boat's gunwale until it
+washed level with the water, and if the men attempted to get near the
+starboard side aft the boat must have gone over at once. And now the
+passengers went on board the hulk.
+
+When the woman who had saved him was relieved of his weight, she gave
+a loud cry, and fell back fainting in the boat.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+                          REWARD FOR A LIFE.
+
+
+Two men came down from deck and carried the fainting woman up, and
+brought her into the pier-master's little room, and left her to the
+kindly offices of some sympathetic women; while the two boatmen
+dragged the half-stunned, half-drowned Crawford out of the river over
+the stern of the boat, and then, after allowing some of the water to
+run out of his clothes, helped him up the accommodation-ladder to the
+deck of the hulk.
+
+Here men squeezed his clothes and rubbed him down, and told him how
+thankful he ought to be that he had not been drowned, as he was within
+an ace of being drawn under the hulk, and if once that had happened
+his chance of ever seeing daylight again would have been small indeed.
+Was he a good swimmer?
+
+No, he could not swim a yard.
+
+Well, then, he had better for the future keep out of the water. Yes,
+of course he had lost his hat; but a sou'wester of the pierman's was
+at his service temporarily. No? He wouldn't have it? Very well. Better
+any day lose one's hat than one's life. He was very wet indeed; but,
+then, when a man has been in the river one must expect to turn out wet
+upon fetching port.
+
+Why had his position been so very dangerous? Was it more dangerous
+than that of a man falling overboard under ordinary circumstances?
+
+A thousand times. For he had fallen against the hulk and boomed off
+the boat, and in booming her off his back had slid down the side of
+the hulk until his heels were higher than his head, and as he left the
+boat his heels, driven by the force of the tide on the sheer of the
+boat, would thrust him inward and downwards and so under the bottom of
+the hulk, and then good-bye to him, particularly as he could not swim.
+
+And how then came he to be saved?
+
+Why, by the woman laying hold of him just as he slipped out, and
+sticking to him; for, owing to the list to starboard the passengers
+gave the boat, the boatmen durst not move, or she'd capsize for
+certain.
+
+The woman laying hold of him? It was all dark to him.
+
+Of course it was all dark to him, and a good job it had ever come
+light to him again. Why, the woman who had sat beside him! A poor
+sorrowful-looking creature, who wore a veil and kept her hands across
+her eyes.
+
+He had noticed her. And where was she now?
+
+In the master's room in a dead faint. She had fainted the moment they
+told her she might let him go. She looked a poor soul that had had her
+troubles, and if he thought well of doing such a thing, perhaps he
+might do worse than give her a trifle by way of reward.
+
+A trifle! A trifle for saving his life! He could and he would reward
+her most handsomely. Had she recovered yet?
+
+It was believed not. And now they had squeezed all they could out of
+him--unless he'd like to give them something for their trouble, for
+they had to go back at once.
+
+He handed a wet and clammy five-pound note to be divided as they
+thought best among themselves.
+
+He was generous, for had not a great life been at stake?
+
+Was he going ashore, or going on? He had better get dry clothes.
+
+He should stay until that woman was well enough to receive the reward
+for the great services she had rendered him.
+
+The boatmen descended the accommodation-ladder, and Crawford, partly
+to keep off a chill and partly to prevent the people on the pier from
+accosting him, began walking up and down the deck at a brisk rate.
+
+He had two reasons for not going to Welford for dry clothes. First, he
+did not wish to weaken the effect of his visit and words of that
+morning by so early a reappearance; and second, he did not care to
+present himself to Hetty in his miserable and undignified plight.
+
+When he had money he liked carrying large sums about with him, for he
+never felt so sure of the possession of it as when he could tap a
+pocket-book containing a sheaf of notes.
+
+He made up his mind to give this woman fifty pounds, for had she not
+done him the greatest service any man, woman or child ever performed
+towards him? had she not saved his life, and was she not worthy of the
+highest reward he could pay? He had no more than fifty pounds and some
+broken money.
+
+In a few minutes the pier-master, who had heard him speak of the
+reward, came and said the poor woman had fully recovered, and asked if
+Crawford would wish to see her.
+
+"By all means. I must get these wet clothes off as soon as possible.
+When is the next boat up?"
+
+"In about five or ten minutes." The pier-master moved off, and
+returned immediately to say the woman was ready and willing to receive
+him. Adding, "It's a kind of thing we'd like to see done, as we saw
+her save your life, and know you are open-handed and have a good
+heart; but she says she'd rather there was only you two."
+
+"Alone!" said Crawford in a tone of surprise. "It is a kind of thing
+generally done openly. Did you tell her I wished to give her a
+reward?"
+
+"Yes, sir. She said you would know before you left her why she
+preferred no one should be present."
+
+"Well," said Crawford, who felt that this was an attempt to keep the
+generosity of his gift from the eyes of others, "I am going to give
+her these five tenners." He held out the notes in his hand and turned
+them over, and then, still keeping them in his hand lest some one
+might suspect a trick, stepped into the pier-master's private room or
+cabin.
+
+It was a very tiny room, with a small table in the middle, a
+writing-table in one of the two windows, and three chairs. There
+seemed to be no space for moving about. Even if the chairs were out of
+the way, two people could not walk abreast round the centre table.
+
+Standing with her back to the second window Crawford found the woman
+who had saved his life less than half-an-hour ago. Her veil, which had
+been disarranged in the struggle, was now close drawn.
+
+With the notes in one hand and holding out the other to grasp hers in
+his gratitude, he was about to advance, when she held up her hand and
+said in a hoarse dull voice, "No nearer. I have been very ill. It is
+safer our hands should not meet."
+
+He sprang back as far as the walls would allow. He had the most
+intense horror of contagious diseases. He was now in the most fervent
+haste to bring the interview to an end. He would freely have given
+another fifty to be out of that room.
+
+"I merely wished to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the
+noble manner in which you snatched my life from death, to offer you
+this fifty pounds as a small token of the esteem in which I hold the
+services you have rendered me;" he shook the notes, but did not
+advance his hand any nearer to the centre of contagion; "and to say
+that my everlasting gratitude must be yours." He could always make a
+little speech.
+
+"There was a time," she said in her peculiar hoarse, dull voice, "when
+I should have been very glad to take those fifty pounds--ay, as many
+shillings--from you, but I cannot take them now."
+
+"There was a time!" said he, surprised, and interested notwithstanding
+his fear of disease; "surely I could not have had the privilege of
+offering them to you longer ago than an hour."
+
+"You could," she said, "and you ought."
+
+"May I ask," said he, fairly carried away by curiosity, "if the
+disease of which you speak was of a nervous character?"
+
+"You mean, was my mind affected?"
+
+"Yes, if you choose to put it that way?"
+
+"It was, but unfortunately I have not been in an asylum; even the
+grave that they told me was gaping for me closed of its own accord. It
+was the last door open to me, and it is shut now."
+
+"But if your disease was mental, I cannot understand why we might not
+shake hands; why I might not shake the hand of my rescuer."
+
+"Because she could not touch yours. It is in _your_ hand the
+contamination lies."
+
+"Poor creature!" he thought, "mad!--quite mad! To say such a thing of
+me, who am never ill--of the soundest man in London! I, who take such
+care not to be ill!" He laughed one of his short sharp laughs, and
+said aloud, "Contagion in my hand! And who am I?"
+
+"I do not know who you are _now_." At the emphasised word he sprang
+into the air off the ground as though he had been shot, and then took
+a pace towards her, and paused and looked furtively at the door.
+
+Was she, too, armed?
+
+She also took a pace forward. They were not now two yards apart. With
+a scornful gesture she tore the veil from before her face and, looking
+into his, cried, "And who am _I?_"
+
+The face was haggard and blotched.
+
+He sprang back against the wall, crying:
+
+"Good heavens, Kate, this is not you!"
+
+"Yes, this is Kate. I saved your life to-day, and you offer me fifty
+pounds. How glad I should have been to get as many shillings when you
+left me and my child to starve in America! I saved your life to-day,
+and you offer me a reward. I will take it----"
+
+He held out the notes to her.
+
+She pushed his hand aside with a laugh.
+
+"The reward I want you to give me cannot be bought for money--not even
+for your splendid fifty pounds. I saved your life to-day; give me for
+reward my husband and my child, and my innocence. It is a fair demand.
+You cannot give me less, John Ainsworth."
+
+She thrust her hand suddenly into her pocket.
+
+"She is armed!" he cried, and, bursting from the room, he leaped
+aboard a steamer then a foot from the pier on its way up to London.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXV.
+
+                  A NEW VISITOR AT CRAWFORD'S HOUSE.
+
+
+When Red Jim saw Crawford hauled out of the water and aided up the
+side of the hulk his interest in maritime affairs was over. He had
+gone down to the end of the Pine Grove in the hope that Crawford would
+change his mind, and adopt the land route when he saw how uninviting
+the means of getting to the steamboat looked. In case Crawford came
+back he might fairly count on getting sixpence, surly as the other had
+been to him. But now there was no chance of anything good, not even of
+Crawford being drowned. Red Jim looked up at the sky as though
+reproaching heaven with doing him ill-turns, faced right about and
+began retracing his fruitless steps.
+
+As he walked he reflected that it was not every day one saw a
+gentleman fall into the river and rescued. He had seen this sight
+to-day, and, moreover, as far as the shore was concerned, he had had
+the monopoly of the spectacle. Then after a long pause he asked
+himself was it not possible to convert his unique position into a
+little money?
+
+Once more he turned those vacant blue eyes of his up to the sky, not
+this time, however, in reproach, but in appeal for light.
+
+Suddenly he shook his head with the quick short jerk of determination,
+and quickened his pace. "Why, of course," he said out loud, "I'll go
+to Crawford's House, and tell them about it, and they'll give me a
+tanner for my kindness." So he hastened along until he arrived at the
+shabby green door, and then he knocked.
+
+Hetty opened the door, and seeing a strange man, who looked as though
+he had a right to come there, concluded he had called about the
+ice-house. "O!" said she, "you've called about those gates, have you?"
+
+"Hallo!" thought Jim, "there may be another tanner in this. Let's
+see." All Jim's thoughts ran on tanners. A shilling was two tanners,
+half-a-crown five, a sovereign ever so many. In the case between him
+and the young lady at the door caution was the great thing. He must
+take care not to commit himself. So he said nothing, but looked round
+as though in search of the gates.
+
+"Come this way," said Hetty, observing the glance of search, "and I
+will show you the place."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Red Jim, entering the house and following Hetty
+through it to the little quay beyond.
+
+"These are the doorways that Mr. Crawford wishes to have boarded up,"
+said Hetty, pronouncing the name with an effort, for she was still in
+tumult and perplexity about his visit and words.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Red Jim with extreme deference, and looking full at
+her with his wide, open expressionless blue eyes, but moving no
+muscle, showing no sign of taking action.
+
+The girl was highly strung, and his impassive stolidity irritated her.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do?" she asked briskly.
+
+"Whatever you like, ma'am," he answered with gallantry and
+impartiality.
+
+"Whatever _I_ like!" she cried impatiently. "I have nothing to do with
+it. What did Mr. Crawford say to you about this place. There can be no
+mistake, I suppose--you saw him to-day?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"And what did he say to you about this?" pointing to the gaping
+gateway.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+The girl stared at him in angry surprise. "Then why did you come
+here?"
+
+"To tell you, ma'am, that Mr. Crawford fell in the river. I thought
+you'd like to know that."
+
+"Mr. Crawford fell into the river! You thought _I_ would like to know
+_that!_ What do you mean?" Hetty was beginning to get confused and a
+little frightened. There was first of all Crawford's visit, then his
+account of his horrible dream of her drowning, then his strange,
+impudent words to her; now came this dreadful-looking man to say that
+_Crawford_ had fallen into the river, and, last of all, she would be
+glad to hear he had fallen into the river? "Why do you think I would
+be glad to hear that Mr. Crawford fell into the river?"
+
+"Well, he lives here, and when people fall into the river the folk
+they live with are mostly glad to hear of it."
+
+"O," thought the girl, with a feeling of relief at finding that no
+mysterious net was closing round her, "so you only came to tell me the
+news?"
+
+"And to tell you more news."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That he was got out again."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But you didn't know until I told you."
+
+"Certainly I did. If he hadn't been taken out you would have said he
+was drowned."
+
+This was a sore blow to Red Jim. It had occurred to him as a brilliant
+idea to split up his news into two parts. First, that Crawford had
+fallen in; second, that Crawford had been dragged out. He had a vague
+hope that, treated in this way, the news might be worth two tanners,
+as it consisted of two items. It now occurred to him that in future he
+ought to say a man was drowned, get his reward, and then, as a second
+item, say that it had been for a long time believed he was drowned,
+but that it was at last found out he wasn't. In the present case,
+however, he thought he had better make the best of things as they
+were. He told her then exactly what had happened as far as he had been
+able to see, and assured her he had run every step of the way and was
+mortal dry, and he hoped she'd consider his trouble and good
+intentions.
+
+She gave him sixpence.
+
+"And how much this job, ma'am? he asked, pointing to the gateways.
+
+"I have nothing to do with that. When you knocked I thought Mr.
+Crawford had sent you."
+
+"Well, he as good as sent me. Only he fell in, I'd never have come
+here."
+
+"But you have done nothing, and you are to do nothing, and I have
+nothing to do with it," said the girl, a little apprehensively. They
+were alone on the quay at the back of the house, and there was not a
+soul in the house but herself and this ragged, rugged, red-bearded,
+rusty-necked man, who was asking her for money he had no claim to, and
+asking her for it on, no doubt, the knowledge of their isolation.
+
+"There's my time, though, ma'am," said Red Jim firmly. "You call me
+in, and you say there's the gate, and I do all I can for you."
+
+"But you have done nothing at all. Why should I pay you for doing
+nothing? I thought you were Mr. Crawford's man."
+
+The girl was now becoming fairly alarmed. Suppose this horrible man
+should become violent?
+
+"Some one must pay me for my time, ma'am. I'm only a poor labouring
+man trying to earn his bread, and if people go and take up my time,
+how am I to earn my bread by the sweat of my brow, or any other way?
+That's what I want to know."
+
+He stood in front of her: between her and the door of the house.
+
+The girl now became fairly frightened. She was by no means timid by
+nature. But here was she hidden from the view of any one, alone with
+this rugged, threatening, desperate man. No one on the tow-path could
+see them, because Boland's Ait intervened. Worst of all, she had not
+any money. The sixpence she had given him was the last coin in her
+possession; still, she tried to look brave.
+
+"If you want any money for this job as you call it, go to Mr. Crawford
+for it."
+
+"How do I know where to find Mr. Crawford?"
+
+"He lives at Richmond."
+
+"He lives here, and my principle is cash--no tick. A nice thing,
+indeed, to expect a poor labouring man to give his time and anxiety of
+mind to jobs, and then tell him to go to Richmond for his money! Is
+that justice or fair-play?"
+
+"Well, I tell you that you must go to him. I have no money." She was
+beginning to feel faint and giddy.
+
+"No money, and live in a house like that!" he cried, pointing up to
+the old dilapidated habitation to which the late owner of the place
+had given his name. "Why, how could any one keep up a house like that
+without lots of money?"
+
+Red Jim's notion of the probable financial result of this interview
+had enlarged considerably since it had begun. He had talked himself
+into the conviction that he had an honest claim for compensation for
+loss of time, and he saw that they were in a lonely place, that this
+girl was frightened, and that there was no succour for her near at
+hand. He now put down the result of his inspection of the ice-house at
+four tanners.
+
+"I tell you I have no money," she repeated, feeling sick, "and you
+must go away at once."
+
+"Look here, ma'am; what am I going to do with the rest of my day if I
+get nothing for this?" He hadn't done a day's work for months. "The
+rest of my day is no sort of use to me. I own I haven't been here half
+a day, but half a day is gone, all the same, and I couldn't think of
+taking less than two shillings; it's against the rules of my Society
+to take less that two shillings for half a day, anyhow."
+
+"I tell you once for all, I have no money."
+
+She began to tremble. She had never before been in such an alarming
+situation as this. She was afraid to threaten lest he should at once
+seize her and fling her headlong into the ice-house, where there would
+be no William Crawford or anybody else to rescue her. She could have
+borne the thought of death with comparative fortitude, but the girl's
+dainty senses revolted from the notion of contact with this foul and
+hideous being. She felt that if he touched her she should die.
+
+"Nice thing for you to say!" cried the man angrily. "Take a poor man
+in here and steal--yes, steal--half a day from him, and then say you
+have no money!"
+
+Up to this he had been importunate, then angry, but he had not
+threatened. Now he advanced a step, and shaking his fist at her, said:
+
+"Look here, if you don't just pay me what you owe me I'll----"
+
+The girl screamed, and at the same time, as if by magic, Red Jim
+disappeared from her sight.
+
+She looked down.
+
+Red Jim was rolling and writhing on the ground, felled by a blow from
+behind.
+
+She looked up. Francis Bramwell stood before her, pallid with
+indignation.
+
+"This blackguard has been annoying you, Miss Layard," said he,
+spurning the prostrate man with his foot.
+
+"O, thank you, Mr. Bramwell! I thought he was going to kill me."
+
+"I came out to fetch Freddie back, but found it wasn't quite time, and
+then I heard your voice and this wretch's angry words, and came round
+and crossed. He hasn't _touched_ you?" asked Bramwell fiercely. The
+whole man was roused now, and he looked large in stature and
+irresistible in force.
+
+"O, no! He has not touched me, but he threatened me, and I felt as
+though I should die."
+
+"What shall I do with him. Give him to the police?"
+
+"Don't do that, guv'nor," said the prostrate man. He had made no
+attempt to rise. He did not want to have his other ear deaf and the
+inside of his head at the other side ringing like a sledge-bell.
+"Don't do that, guv'nor, for they have something against me about a
+trifle of canvas and a few copper bolts I never had anything to do
+with."
+
+"Very well. Now, Miss Layard, if you will go into the house, I'll
+attend to this gentleman. I shall take him across my place to the
+tow-path, and then come back to see how you are."
+
+"But you won't harm him, Mr. Bramwell?" asked Hetty in a tremulous
+voice as she moved away.
+
+"You hear what the lady says?" whined Jim. "Good, kind lady, don't go
+away and leave me to him. He has half killed me already, and if you
+leave me to him he'll murder me. Do let me go through your house. I
+was only joking. Indeed, it was only a little joke, and I only went on
+as I did to make your beautiful face smile. That's all, indeed."
+
+"I promise you, Miss Layard, not to hurt him in the least. He shall be
+much better off when he leaves me than he is now."
+
+Hetty went into the house.
+
+"He's going to pay me the half day's wages," thought Jim, as at
+Bramwell's bidding he rose from the ground and crossed over to
+Boland's Ait. Bramwell led the way to the canal side of the islet.
+
+"How much did you claim from that lady?" asked Bramwell, who knew
+nothing of the justness of the demand.
+
+"Two shillings, fairly earned and fairly due," answered Jim, his heart
+expanding under the hope of tanners. "You will not keep a poor working
+man out of his own?"
+
+"I'll pay you. But first you must answer me one question: Can you
+swim?" He took a two-shilling piece out of his pocket.
+
+"I can, sir," said Jim eagerly. "I can do almost anything."
+
+Bramwell flung the coin across the canal to the tow-path, crying,
+"Then swim for that."
+
+"But, sir----"
+
+"In you go, clothes and all, and if ever I find you here again I'll
+hand you over to your friends the police. Don't keep standing there,
+or I'll heave you in. Do as you are told, sir. The washing and cooling
+will do you good."
+
+And seeing there was no chance of escape, and fearing some one might
+come by and steal the coin, Red Jim dived into the dark turbid waters
+and crossed to the opposite shore.
+
+When Bramwell saw the man safely out of the canal he turned away, and,
+having crossed by the stage, entered for the first time Crawford's
+House--the house of the man who had wrecked his home and his happiness
+and his life three years before.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+                          A BRIDGE OF SIGHS.
+
+
+When Bramwell entered Crawford's House the first sight that met his
+eyes was the form of Hetty Layard lying prone on the floor of the
+passage.
+
+With a cry of dismay he sprang to her and raised her. He looked round
+for help and called out, but there was no succour in sight; no
+response came to his cry. He took her up and carried her into the
+sitting-room, and laid her on the couch.
+
+"I might have guessed she would faint," he moaned; "and now what am I
+to do?"
+
+There was water on the table laid for dinner. He sprinkled some on her
+face. "What am I to do? Shall I run for help?" he cried, looking
+frantically round the room.
+
+At that moment there was the sound of a latch-key in the door.
+Bramwell rushed out eagerly into the passage, saying to himself, "This
+must be either her brother or Mr. Crawford; Philip told me there are
+only two keys."
+
+If instead of going up the river in the steamboat Crawford had come
+back to Welford, he would have arrived at about this time.
+
+The front door opened, and a man with a remarkably long beard entered,
+and for an instant stood looking in speechless amazement at the other
+man.
+
+"My name is Bramwell. Your sister has fainted. She is in the front
+room."
+
+"Fainted!" cried Alfred Layard in alarm, as he dashed past the other.
+
+At that moment Hetty opened her eyes and sighed.
+
+"Hetty, Hetty, dear Hetty! what is this. What is the matter?"
+
+Bramwell remained in the passage. He walked up and down in great
+agitation.
+
+"I don't know what happened," said the girl, in a weak, tremulous
+voice.
+
+Her brother got some wine, and made her drink a little.
+
+"Try and remember, dear," said Layard with passionate tenderness. "Did
+any accident occur? Drink just a little more. Did you get a fright,
+dear? Has anything happened to the boy?"
+
+"No, Alfred. O, I am better now. I remember it all. A dreadful man
+terrified me, and Mr. Bramwell came to my assistance, and I ran into
+the house; and I can remember no more."
+
+Bramwell, hearing voices, knew that Hetty had recovered, and that he
+could be of no further use; so he stole quietly out of the house, and
+returned to his own island domain.
+
+He did not seek the boys, who were playing in the timber-yard that the
+old barrow was a Punch-and-Judy show. He took the canal side of the
+wharf, and began pacing up and down hurriedly.
+
+His condition was one of extreme exultation; he knew not, inquired
+not, at what. He trod the clouds, and surveyed below his feet a
+subjugated and golden world. The air was intoxication, and life a
+dream of jocund day. He did not pause to ask a reason for these
+feelings and sensations; they were his; that was enough.
+
+Of late the hideous gloom in which he had lived for two years, a
+solitary upon that lonely and unlovely islet, had been leaving him as
+darkness leaves a hill at the approach of day. Now from the summit to
+the base, his nature seemed bathed in an extraordinary midday
+splendour. His soul was shining among the stars. He was a blessed
+spirit amid the angels. He was the theme to which all the rest of the
+world answered in harmonious parts.
+
+It was not passion or love, but a spiritual effulgence. It was like
+the elation induced by a subtle perfume. He would have been satisfied
+to be, and only to be, if he might be thus. He was in clear air at a
+stupendous height of happiness, and yet did not feel giddy. He could
+think of no higher earthly joy than he experienced. It was a joy
+the very essence of which seemed of the rapture of heaven. It was
+a kind of ecstatic and boundless worship from a self-conscious and
+self-centred soul. It idealised the world, and restored Paradise to
+earth.
+
+In his mind was no thought, no defined thought, of love for his
+beautiful neighbour, Hetty Layard. He was in the delicious spiritual
+experiences of that hour merely celebrating his emancipation from
+bondage. The note from Kate which had come with Frank and the
+subsequent announcement of Kate's death in the newspapers had left him
+no room to doubt that he was free. That day he had struck a man an
+angry blow for the first time in all his life. And he had struck that
+blow in defence of this beautiful girl, who was so good and so devoted
+to the little orphan boy, the son of her brother. He had an orphan boy
+too, and she was very gentle to his son. He had known for some time
+that he was a free man, free to look upon the face of woman with a
+view to choosing another wife; but until this day, until this hour, he
+had not realised what this freedom meant.
+
+The notion that he might take another companion for life had not taken
+concrete form since Frank's coming, and now the only way in which it
+presented itself to him was that he might smile back to Hetty's smile,
+and glory in her beauty.
+
+He was startled by hearing a voice saying behind him, "Mr. Bramwell, I
+have taken the liberty of coming over uninvited to thank you from the
+bottom of my heart for your timely and much-needed aid to my sister."
+
+Bramwell coloured, and became confused. He was unaccustomed to new
+faces, unaccustomed to thanks, unaccustomed to pleasant thoughts of
+woman.
+
+"I--I did nothing," he said. "It was merely by accident I knew about
+it."
+
+To be thanked made him feel as though he had done something shameful.
+
+"However it happened," said Layard, taking his hand in both his own
+and shaking it cordially, "you have placed me under a deep debt of
+gratitude to you."
+
+"If you do not wish to make me very uncomfortable, you will not say
+another word about it. I hope Miss Layard is nothing the worse of the
+affair?"
+
+"My sister is all right. Of course it gave her an ugly turn. It isn't
+a nice place to encounter a bullying rowdy alone. Since you ask me to
+say no more about your share in the business, I shall be dumb."
+
+The two men were now walking up and down side by side along the tiny
+quay of the tiny islet.
+
+A thin film of cloud dulled the glare of the afternoon sun. The whole
+expanse of heaven was radiant with diaphanous white clouds; a barge
+laded with wood indolently glided by to the clank-clank of the horse's
+hoofs on the tow-path; the sounds from Welford Bridge, which in the
+mornings came sharp and clear, were now dulled by the muffled hum of
+larger noises from afar. There was an air of silence and solitude over
+Boland's Ait. Notwithstanding the griminess of the surroundings and
+the dilapidations of the buildings on the holm, there was an aspect of
+peace and retirement in the place.
+
+Hetty had not told her brother anything of Crawford's visit save as
+much as was necessary to explain the admission of Red Jim to the house
+and quay.
+
+After a few sentences, Layard said, "You must know, Mr. Bramwell, I
+don't think I shall stay in this house a minute longer that I can
+possibly help."
+
+"Indeed!" said Bramwell, feeling as though the sunlight from the sky
+had been suddenly dulled, and the things upon which his eyes fell had
+grown more squalid.
+
+"To be candid with you, I don't care about my landlord. He is, to say
+the least of it, eccentric; and after the affair of to-day I shall
+never be easy. You see, the house is quite isolated, and no one ever
+by any chance passes the door."
+
+"It must be very lonely for Miss Layard," Bramwell said, forgetting in
+his sympathy for the girl his own two years of absolute seclusion.
+
+"She says, and I believe her, that she does not feel the want of
+company; but after to-day she will, I am afraid, dread the place. Of
+course, I must get some person to stay with her all the time I am out
+of the house. Could any one have been more helpless than she was
+to-day?"
+
+"What you say has a great deal of force in it; but," said he, trying
+to restore the full complement of sunlight to the sky, "don't you
+think with a second person in the house all would be safe?"
+
+"Well, I should imagine so; but one does not like to be continually
+saying, 'all is safe.' One likes to take it for granted, as one takes
+the sufficiency of air or the coming of daylight with the sun."
+
+They walked for a few seconds in silence, and then Bramwell said, "No
+barge ever comes through the Bay now, but, owing to my habit with the
+floating-stage on the canal, I moor the second stage to the Ait every
+afternoon when Freddie has gone home, and haul it across in the
+morning. For the future I shall leave it across permanently, so that
+Miss Layard may feel I am as near to her as some one living next door.
+I hope and trust, and believe, she will never have any need of my
+help, but it may give her a little confidence to know that I can be
+with her instantly in case of need."
+
+"It is extremely kind of you to think of that. It seems you are
+determined to place me under obligations I can never discharge. The
+worst of it is that when I came over here I had it in my mind to ask
+you a favour, and now you have offered to do one unasked."
+
+"If what you came to ask is anything in the world I can do, you may
+count on me, Mr. Layard. For, remember, that although this is the
+first time we have met, I am quite well acquainted with you through
+Philip Ray."
+
+"And I with you, through him also, or I should not speak so freely."
+
+"Isn't Ray a fine fellow?" asked Bramwell enthusiastically.
+
+"The finest fellow I know," answered Layard cordially.
+
+"He is a little enthusiastic, or hot-headed, or fierce, I know, but he
+will calm down in years. Indeed, I find that of late he is calming
+down a good deal. As I said before, I treat you as an old friend. I
+suppose I have been so long an eremite that once I come forth and open
+my mouth I shall never stop talking. What I have in my mind about
+Philip, who was the only friend of my solitude, is that if he got a
+good sensible wife it would be the making of him."
+
+"I have no doubt it would."
+
+"But the worst of it is that I don't think he ever once regarded one
+woman with more favour than another. In fact, I have always put him
+down as a man who will never marry."
+
+"Indeed!" said Layard. "I wonder does Ray himself share that notion.
+If he does, he is treating Hetty badly," he thought.
+
+"And the pity of it is, that if he would only marry he would make the
+best husband in England."
+
+"It is indeed a pity," said Layard, but he did not say what
+constituted the pity. To himself, "I don't think anything has been
+said between them yet, but it seems to me Hetty or he will have some
+news for me very soon." He said aloud, "The little favour I told you I
+had to ask----"
+
+"Of course; and I told you if it lay within my power I'd do it."
+
+"Yes; and it does lie easily within your power, and I will take no
+excuse. Come over and spend an hour with us this evening."
+
+"But I cannot!" cried Bramwell.
+
+"But you must. We will take no excuse."
+
+He wavered. His views of all things had greatly altered since he was
+first invited to Crawford's House. "Still the boy. I cannot leave him
+alone." He felt half inclined to go.
+
+"The boy will not be alone. Why, now that you have decided to leave
+the stage across all night, your house and ours may be looked on as
+one."
+
+What a pleasant fancy it was that Crawford's House, where she lived,
+and Boland's Ait, where he lived, might be looked on as one!
+
+"If," went on Layard, "you are uneasy about your boy, at any moment
+you can run across and see him. You really have no excuse. Our sons
+have been friends some time, and now you have placed me under a great
+obligation to you, and you refuse to make the obligation greater. Is
+that generous of you?"
+
+Bramwell smiled. "I am conquered, fairly conquered."
+
+"Very well; and mind, not later than eight o'clock. Now, where's this
+young savage of mine? His aunt will imagine you have sold the two of
+us into slavery."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+                           A LAST RESOLVE.
+
+
+"Good gracious, Mrs. Mellor, you don't mean to say you have been to
+the hospital and got back again since! But why do I say such a thing?
+If you had wings you couldn't do it," exclaimed kind-hearted Mrs.
+Pemberton as Kate Mellor walked into the greengrocer's shop in Leeham,
+hard by Welford, the same day William Crawford jumped aboard the
+moving steamboat after his immersion and scene with the invalid woman
+at the Mercantile Pier.
+
+"No," answered Mrs. Mellor wearily. She did not remove her veil on
+entering the shop. "I hadn't the heart to go to-day. I got as far as
+the pier and then turned back." She did not care to enter into any
+further explanation.
+
+"Hadn't the heart, dear child! And why hadn't you the heart?" said the
+sympathetic woman, raising her ponderous bulk with deliberation from
+the chair, and going quickly with outstretched hands to her
+unfortunate lodger.
+
+"I didn't feel equal to it, and so I came back."
+
+"Well, dear if you didn't go to the hospital I'm very glad you came
+back here straight, for the house seems queer and lonesome when you're
+not in it. You don't feel any worse, do you, dear?"
+
+"No worse, thank you, Mrs. Pemberton, but I think the heat tired me a
+little, and that I'll go up and lie down awhile."
+
+"The very best thing you could do, dear. There's nothing to freshen
+you up when you're hot and tired like a nice quiet rest in a cool
+room; and the sun is off your room now. I was just saying to Mrs.
+Pearse here, that I was sure you'd come in half-dead of the heat. Is
+there anything I could get you, dear, before you lie down?"
+
+"No, thank you, Mrs. Pemberton," and Kate Mellor passed out of the
+shop and up to her bedroom on the first floor.
+
+"That's just the way with her always," said Mrs. Pemberton to Mrs.
+Pearse. "She never complains of anything but being tired, and she
+never wants anything. If ever there was a broken heart in this world
+it's hers. She has said to me over and over again it was a mistake
+that she recovered. What makes me so uneasy about her is that I am
+afraid her money won't last her much longer, and that when it's gone
+she'll run away. Though, goodness knows, she's welcome to stay as long
+as she likes, for she's a real lady, and it's almost as easy to keep
+two as one, particularly as she isn't a bit particular about what she
+eats or drinks; and I don't want to let her room unless I could get
+some one as nice as she, and I'd go far before I could find her
+equal."
+
+"The loss of the child is preying upon her mind," said Mrs. Pearse. "I
+remember when I lost my little Ted, I thought I should never be able
+to lift my head again."
+
+"Ah, but you lost your little Ted in a natural though a sad way; but
+poor Mrs. Mellor lost her boy by an accident, as it were, and by her
+own act, too. You know, she is very close, and although she's as
+friendly as can be, she never says anything about the past. Whoever
+she sent the boy to will not give him back to her again."
+
+"And you don't know to what person she sent the child?"
+
+"He went first to Boland's Ait, but of course not to stop there. Why,
+there's no woman on the Ait to look after a child. The boy must be
+gone to some of his father's people. O, it's a sad, sad case! and I
+have a feeling--you can't help your feelings--that she's not long for
+this world, poor thing; and it breaks my heart to think of that, for I
+do love her as if she was my own child, though it was never given to
+me to know the feelings of a mother. I expect that private detective
+knew all about the case."
+
+Meanwhile Kate Mellor had taken off her bonnet and cloak, and lain
+down on her bed, to rest and think. Up to that day she had lived hour
+by hour, since the loss of her boy and her recovery, with no definite
+purpose. At first she had been too ill and weak to consider her
+position or determine upon any course of action. She had drifted down
+to this hour without any plan or purpose. She knew the law would not
+enable her to recover her child, and she felt certain that her husband
+would see the child dead rather than restored to her arms. She had
+inserted the announcement of her death partly that her husband might
+not be fettered in anything he might design for the welfare of their
+child by considerations of her, and partly out of a pathetic craving
+for pain and self-sacrifice. She had bought the paper, and had cried a
+score of times over the bald, cold intimation that the world was over
+for her: for her the once beautiful and beloved bride of Frank Mellor,
+now the deserted, marred outcast of shame. She had wept that she, Kate
+Ray, Kate Mellor, was dead and buried before thirty--when she was not
+twenty-five. She had wept that she was poor. She had wept that her
+voice, her only means of earning a living, had been destroyed. She had
+wept longest of all that her beauty was gone from her for ever. Her
+beauty had been her greatest gift, her greatest curse, and she wept
+for it as though it had been an unmixed blessing.
+
+Lying on her bed here to-day, she had no tears to shed. The scene on
+the pier had in some mysterious way calmed her spirits. She had read
+the announcement of her death in the paper, and now she was dead in
+verity.
+
+Why should she live? What had she to live for? Everything woman could
+hold dear was gone--husband, child, reputation, beauty. In material
+affairs her destitution could scarcely be greater than it was at this
+moment. She had a little money still left, but when that was gone
+where should she find more? _He_, the betrayer, had been overjoyed to
+get his life back from the jaws of death that day; she, the victim,
+would enter those awful jaws freely, But she must see her child, her
+little Frank, the sweet baby she had held at her breast and cherished
+with the warmth of her embraces.
+
+She was afraid of only one person in the world, and that was Frank
+Mellor, who had changed his name to Francis Bramwell for shame of her.
+If he found her he would kill her, and she owned that at his hands she
+deserved death; she had robbed him of everything he held dear.
+
+She had resolved upon death, but she could not take it at his hands.
+It was too awful to think of a meeting between them. That would be ten
+times worse than the most painful form of quitting life. That would be
+an agony of the spirit ten thousand times transcending any possible
+agony of the body.
+
+Frank, her husband, had always been a man of strong feeling. At times
+this strong feeling had exhibited itself to her in profound
+taciturnity, at times in overwhelming ecstasy. If she should encounter
+him now, he would be possessed by the demon of insatiable revenge; he
+would strike her to the ground and murder her cruelly, and mangle her
+dead body. While he was beating the life out of her he would revile
+and curse her. He would heap coals of fire on her head, and crush out
+of her the last trace of self-respect. And in all this he would,
+perhaps, be justified--in much of it certainly.
+
+How good and indulgent he had been to her! She had not understood him
+then. She had eyes for nothing then but admiration and finery. To-day
+she had nothing to call forth admiration--no finery; and yet, if she
+had not hearkened to that other man, could she believe that Frank
+would not love and shield and cherish her now as he had then? Frank
+was the very soul of honour. He would not hurt a brute or wrong any
+living being. She had not known, had not understood, him then as she
+did now, judged by the light of subsequent experience.
+
+She must see the boy once more--just once more before she died. She
+would not look upon another day. By some means or other she would see
+her child, and then bid good-bye to the world. When she saw her child,
+there would be the canal close at hand. But that would not do. It
+would not do to pollute with the last crime of her life the presence
+of her child. No; the river of which that other man had stood in such
+terror would be the fitting ending place for such a wicked life as
+hers.
+
+"O, how different would all have been if only that man had not tempted
+her with lies, and she had not listened through vanity! Frank would
+have been good and kind to her, and by this time she should have grown
+to love him as she had never loved the other; and her boy, her
+darling, her little Frank, her baby, would be with her, his arms round
+her neck, his soft, round, warm cheek against her own!
+
+"But, there, there, there!" she moaned, putting her hand before her
+blotched, disfigured, worn face. "It is all over! I have lost
+everything, and no one is to blame but myself and the other. Only I
+must suffer all. Yet it will not be for long. I _will_ see my boy
+to-night, even if I die there and then. I don't care about dying.
+Death has refused me once, but it shall not this time. O, my little
+Frank! my little innocent Frank! my baby that I warmed against my
+breast!"
+
+She lay in a kind of torpor for a few hours; then having got up and
+made some small arrangements, she wrote a note for Mrs. Pemberton,
+placed it in her trunk, and, putting a lock of hair and an old worn
+glove of her boy's in her bosom, went down-stairs and slipped out by
+the private door beside the shop.
+
+
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+                       WILLIAM CRAWFORD'S LUCK.
+
+
+When William Crawford found himself safe aboard the moving steamboat,
+he uttered an exclamation of intense relief and satisfaction. He
+looked quickly behind him, and noticed with a laugh that pursuit was
+out of the question. He was safe! His life had been twice imperilled
+that day, and he had escaped with nothing worse than a wetting. He had
+been in imminent danger of death from drowning, had been saved by a
+woman whom he had ruined, and then escaped from her deadly demoniacal,
+maniac wrath. After all this, who could say that there was not luck in
+the world? and who could deny that luck had befriended him in a
+phenomenal manner?
+
+Yes, he was lucky; he had been lucky all his life up to this, except
+at cards, and he should be lucky to the end. If Fate had meant ever to
+do him an ill turn, surely it would not have let slip two such
+remarkable opportunities. No, he was born to good fortune; and the
+saying was true that it was better to be born lucky than rich. And,
+thinking of riches, this day's mishaps had not even cost him the fifty
+pounds, for he still held the notes in his hand. What a fool that
+woman was not to take them! But then she had always been a fool.
+
+And with this generous thought of the woman who had sacrificed
+everything for him, he dismissed her from his mind.
+
+He was hatless, and his clothes were all rumpled and creased; and the
+water dripped from the ends of his trousers, making a wet patch on the
+deck wherever he stepped.
+
+The people on the steamboat had noticed the hasty manner of his coming
+aboard, his rush out of the pier-master's room, and his leap from the
+hulk. They also observed that his clothes were wet, and that he was
+without any covering for his head. They were observing him with
+interest and curiosity. Becoming conscious of this, and feeling a
+slight shiver pass through him, he turned to one of the crew and said:
+
+"In coming from the shore to the pier I fell into the water. Is there
+any brandy aboard?"
+
+"Plenty, sir, in the fore-cabin."
+
+To the fore-cabin he went forthwith, and drove off the chill with
+brandy, and escaped the curious eyes of the passengers.
+
+He remained below until the boat arrived at Blackfriars Bridge. Here
+he went ashore, and, hailing the first hansom, drove to a tailor and
+outfitter's, where he got everything he wanted except boots, and these
+the obliging shopkeeper procured for him.
+
+It was now four o'clock. He had had two great shocks that day, each of
+which was more severe than any other he had endured in his life. He
+felt that something in the way of compensation was due to him. Play
+went on all day long and all night long at the Counter Club. What
+better could he do with himself than have a few quiet games before
+going back to his dull Richmond home? He did not like appearing at the
+club in a suit of ready-made clothes, but, then, all kinds of men, in
+all kinds of costumes, went to the Counter; and he had never been a
+great dandy.
+
+Accordingly to the Counter he drove, with four of the damp ten-pound
+notes in his pocket and some broken money. It was not as much as he
+should have liked, but then, he had no intention of making a night of
+it. He would get back to Richmond about dusk.
+
+He left the club just in time to catch the last train for home. He
+found an empty compartment, and, as he threw himself into a corner,
+cried softly to himself:
+
+"Luck! Why, of course, there never was such luck as mine! I used to be
+unlucky at cards. Unlucky at cards, lucky in love, they say. Well, I
+have been more lucky than most men in love, and here now are cards
+turning in my favour. I have now won twice running. I have a hundred
+and twenty pounds more in my pocket than when I came to town this
+morning. There seems to be absolutely no end to my luck. If that fool
+Kate had taken the fifty, of course I could not have played, and, of
+course, if I had not played I could not have won. My good fortune is
+almost miraculous. If any other person but Kate had rescued me, he
+or she would have taken the money, and there would have been no play;
+and if I had not fallen into the water it is very likely I should not
+have thought of treating myself to a game. Upon my word, it _is_
+miraculous--nothing short of miraculous."
+
+His eyes winked rapidly, and he stroked his smoothly-shaven chin with
+intense satisfaction.
+
+"But," he went on, "the whole thing is due to that delightful Hetty,
+for if I had not wanted to see that charming girl again I should not
+have gone to Welford to-day, and, of course, should not have played
+this afternoon. Like all other gamblers, I am a bit superstitious, and
+I do believe that she has brought me luck. Now twice out of three
+times that I have played since I saw her I have won, and that never
+happened in all my life before. Yes, she has undoubtedly brought me
+luck. Suppose this luck continued, I should be a rich man in a short
+time. I should be quite independent of Welford and Singleton Terrace,
+Richmond, and although I am good at private theatricals, I am getting
+a bit sick of Singleton Terrace, Richmond. A man gets tired of a
+goody-goody part sooner than of any other kind. I do believe, after
+all, that if I had that three thousand pounds for capital and Hetty
+for luck, I should be better off without Singleton Terrace, Richmond.
+That is an aspect of the future well worth thinking over."
+
+When he got home he found to his surprise and disgust that his wife
+had not yet gone to bed. He put his arm round her and kissed her
+tenderly, and chid her gently for sitting up. She said she was anxious
+about him, as he had said he should be back early.
+
+"The fact of the matter is, Nellie, I had a great deal more trouble
+about those gates than I anticipated. You have no notion of how stupid
+workmen can be. They always want to do something or other you have
+said distinctly you do not want to have done. I told the creature I
+went to as plainly as I am telling you that I did not wish to have
+ice-house doors, but simply gates sufficiently strong and well secured
+to prevent anyone falling into the water. I told him to go see the
+place, and that I should come back in an hour to hear what he had to
+say about price; and would you believe it? the animal had made out an
+estimate for double doors! I could hardly get him to adopt my views.
+He said an ice-house ought to have ice-house doors, and that to put up
+any others would not be workmanlike, and would expose him to contempt
+and ridicule in the neighbourhood! Did you ever hear anything so
+monstrously absurd in all your life?"
+
+"It was very provoking, William, and I am sorry that my foolish fears
+caused you so much trouble," she said in a tone of self-reproach,
+softly stroking his hand held in both hers.
+
+"Not at all, dear! Not at all! I am very glad I went. But of course
+the work about the gates did not keep me till now. I have had a little
+adventure."
+
+She looked up at him in alarm, and glanced in fear at the unfamiliar
+clothes he wore. "A little adventure?" she cried faintly.
+
+"Yes," he said, with one of his short quick laughs, "but you need not
+be uneasy; I am not the worse of it, and there was no fair lady in it
+to make you jealous."
+
+"Jealous!" she cried, with a rapturous smile of utter faith. "Not all
+the fair ladies in the world could make me jealous, William. I know
+you too well."
+
+"Thank you, Nellie," he said in a grateful, serious tone, raising one
+of her hands and kissing it. "No. The fact is, as I was waiting on the
+pier for the steamer, a little boy, about the age of the one I saw in
+my dream, about the age of young Layard, fell into the river, and as
+he was beyond the reach of the poles and too young to catch a line or
+lifebuoy, and was in great danger of drowning, I jumped in and got him
+out."
+
+With a sigh of horror she lay back in her chair unable to speak.
+
+"It was a strange fulfilment of my dream. As you know, I am not in the
+least superstitious, but it seems to me that the nightmare I had last
+night was sent to me that I might be on the spot to save that poor
+little chap from a watery grave. Don't look so terrified, Nellie.
+There was great danger for the little fellow, but not the slightest
+for me. I am as much at home in the water as a duck, and you see,
+being stout, I am buoyant and swim very high."
+
+"O, but 'tis dreadful to think of you, William, in the water!" she
+whispered in a voice breathless with a combined feeling of dread of
+the peril he had been in and thankfulness for his present security.
+
+"Well, it's all over now, and you needn't be afraid of my doing
+anything of the kind again. When I got out of the water I went and
+bought a dry suit of ready-made clothes, and I think you must admit I
+am quite a swell in them."
+
+She forced a smile. He went on:
+
+"Well, even all this wouldn't account for my being so late. You must
+know there is nothing I hate so much as notoriety, and I had
+absolutely got to Waterloo on my way home when it suddenly occurred to
+me that as two or three hundred people saw the rescue some one might
+go to the newspapers with an account of it. Nothing could make me more
+shamefaced than to see my name in print in connection with this
+affair. I had experience of something of the kind at the time of the
+fire--you remember, dearest?"
+
+She pressed his hand and said, "My own, my own, my own!"
+
+"So I took a cab and drove round to all the newspaper-offices to bar a
+report going in. That was what kept me till this hour."
+
+They sat talking for a little while longer, and then she rang for the
+maid and he went to the dressing-room.
+
+The anxiety caused by his unexpected delay in town, or by the tale he
+had told her, may have had an injurious effect on the invalid, or it
+may be that, without any exciting cause, the aggravation would have
+taken place; but at all events, that night, or, rather, early in the
+morning, Mrs. Crawford rang her bell, and upon her husband coming to
+her he found her so much worse that he set off at once for the doctor.
+
+As he closed the front-door after him he whispered to himself, "I
+wonder is this more of my luck?"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+                      AN INTRUDER UPON THE AIT.
+
+
+When Kate Mellor found herself in the streets of Leeham that evening
+the light was beginning to fail. The clouds, which during the day had
+been thin and fleecy, had, as the hours went by, grown in extent and
+mass. They now hung above, fold over fold, dark, gloomy, threatening.
+The air was heavy, moist, oppressive. Not a breath of wind stirred.
+
+The woman turned to the left, and, taking the tow-path, as she had one
+night before, set out in the direction of Welford. She wore her veil
+closely drawn over her disfigured face. Her step was more firm and
+elastic than in the afternoon. Then she had been on her way to seek
+physical relief; now she was on her way to alleviate her heart.
+
+She left the tow-path by the approach at Welford, and gained the
+bridge. The usual group of loungers and loafers were there, but they
+took no notice of her. They could see by a glance at her that she was
+poor and miserable, and to be poor and miserable at Welford Bridge
+insured one against close observation or inquisitive speculation--it
+was to wear the uniform of the place.
+
+She leaned against the parapet, and gazed at the canal side of
+Boland's Ait. Everything there was as usual: the floating-stage being
+moored by the side of the islet, as it had been on the night she tried
+to draw it across the water.
+
+She turned her eyes on the other side of the island, and started. She
+saw what she had never seen before: the floating-stage stretching
+across the water of the bay, making a bridge from one bank to the
+other. This discovery set her heart beating fast, for if one could
+only get on Crawford's Quay one could cross over the stage to the Ait.
+
+Hitherto all her hopes had been centred on the stage lying along the
+islet on the canal side. Now the best chance of gaining the holm lay
+on the side of the bay.
+
+Crawford's Quay was not used for purposes of trade now, all the
+buildings being vacant except the house in which Layard lived.
+
+The daylight was almost gone, and the heavy banks of cloud shrouded
+earth in a dull deep gloom--a gloom deeper than that of clear midnight
+in this month of June.
+
+Kate Mellor turned again to her left and walked to the top of Crawford
+Street. She looked down it. All was dark except the one lamp burning
+like an angry eye at the bottom. As she was perfectly certain no one
+could recognise her, she went into Crawford Street without much
+trepidation. She kept on the left-hand side: the one opposite to
+Crawford's House.
+
+The window of the sitting-room was fully open for air. In the room
+were four people: a man with a long beard, whom she did not know; a
+girl with golden-brown hair, whom she had more than once seen take
+Freddie from her husband at the end of the stage; and a second man
+whom she could not see, for his back was towards her. And her husband.
+They were all just in the act of sitting down to supper.
+
+She knew the place and the ways of the people thoroughly. She had
+studied nothing else for days and days.
+
+"There is no one now on the island but the child, and they will be
+half-an-hour at supper; they will not stir for half-an-hour! Now is my
+chance, or never!"
+
+Her heart throbbed painfully; she was so excited that she tottered in
+her walk. She was afraid to run lest she should attract the attention
+of people passing along Welford Road at the top of the street.
+
+Everything depended on speed. She had been down here twice before, and
+found that one of the staples of a padlock securing a gate had rusted
+loose in the jamb. Without the floating-stage for a bridge, this
+discovery was useless; without the absence of her husband from the
+island, or unless he was sunk in profound sleep, the loose staple and
+the stage-bridge would be of little avail. But here, owing to some
+extraordinary and beneficent freak, all three combined in her interest
+to-night!
+
+Not a second was to be lost. Already she was working fiercely at the
+loose staple. It was rusted and worn, and the wood was decayed all
+round it, but still it clung to the post, as a loose tooth to the gum.
+
+She seized it with both her hands, although there was hardly room for
+one hand, and swayed it this way and that until her breath came short
+and the blood trickled from her fingers.
+
+No doubt it was yielding, but would it come away in time? She had not
+hours to accomplish the task. She had only minutes, and every minute
+lost was stolen from the time she might bend over her darling,
+watching, devouring his lovely face, and listening to his innocent
+breathing, and feeling his sweet baby breath upon her cheek!
+
+O, this was horrible! Break iron! break wood! break fingers! break
+arm! but let this poor distracted outcast mother into the presence of
+her child for the last time, for one parting sight, one parting kiss,
+in secret and fear!
+
+At last the staple yielded and came away in her hand, and in another
+moment, after a few gratings and squealings, which turned her cold,
+lest they should be heard, the unhappy mother forced open the door and
+passed through.
+
+In another moment she was across the bridge and on the land which her
+love for her little one had made dearer to her from afar off than ever
+Canaan was to the desert-withered Israelites of old.
+
+There was light enough to walk without stumbling. She knew the lie of
+the place as well as it could be learned without absolutely treading
+the ground. She took her way rapidly round the wall of the old
+timber-yard and then across the little open space to the cottage. She
+observed no precaution now, but went on impetuously, headlong.
+
+The door of the cottage was shut. She opened it by the latch, and,
+having entered, closed it after her. She did not pause to listen; she
+did not care whether there was any one in the place or not. She knew
+she was within reach of her child, and that she should be able to see
+him, to touch him, before she died. She was within arm's length of
+him, and she would touch him, though he was surrounded by levelled
+spears. The spears might pierce her bosom, but even though they did
+she could stretch out her hand and caress his head before the sense
+left her hand, the sight her eye.
+
+She knew where to find the door of the room in which he slept, for the
+light she had seen the other night through the eye of Welford Bridge
+as she came along the tow-path was burning, much dimmed, on the same
+window-sill now.
+
+She opened the door and entered the room.
+
+In the middle of the bed lay the child, half-naked. The heat of the
+night had made him restless, and he had kicked off the clothes.
+
+With a long tremulous moan she flung herself forward on the bed, and,
+penning his little body within the circle of her arms, laid her
+disfigured face against his head and burst into tears.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXX.
+
+                      HETTY'S VISIT TO THE AIT.
+
+
+"And so we have got you at last, and here is Mr. Ray, who will hardly
+believe you are really coming," said Layard that evening, as Bramwell
+knocked at the back door and entered Crawford's House. "It is very
+good of you to make an exception in our favour."
+
+"All the goodness is on your side in inviting one who has been out of
+the world for so long a time. I know you will believe me when I say
+that now we are known to one another I am very glad to come."
+
+"There is nothing like breaking the ice, and let us hope for a
+phenomenon that the water below may be warm. You have no notion of
+what it is to be at the works all day long and never exchange a word
+with a congenial soul. Then when I come home I do not think it fair to
+my sister to leave her alone. So my life is a little monotonous and
+dull; but now that I have made the acquaintance of you and Mr. Ray I
+mean to lead quite a riotous existence."
+
+"You will, I know, excuse me if I do not stay long tonight. I must go
+back to the boy."
+
+"You may go back now and then to see that all is well. But, after all,
+what is there to be afraid of?"
+
+"Well, you know, I made an enemy to-day, and it might occur to him to
+revenge himself upon the child."
+
+"But he can't get near the child. Your stage on the canal side is
+moored, Mr. Ray tells me, and we are here at this end of the other
+stage, and I don't think there is a small boat he could get on the
+whole canal. Besides, how is he to know but you are at home? I am sure
+you may make your mind quite easy."
+
+"Still, if you allow me, I shall go early."
+
+"You may go early to see that all is safe, but we will not let you say
+good-night until you are quite tired of us. Come in: Mr. Ray and my
+sister are in the front room."
+
+Layard had purposely delayed a little while in the passage. He was a
+most affectionate and sympathetic brother, and he did not know but
+that the two people in the front room might have something to say to
+one another.
+
+They had, but it did not seem matter of great interest or importance.
+
+"Miss Layard," said Philip Ray when her brother had left the room,
+"you told me you never were on Boland's Ait."
+
+"Never," she answered.
+
+"Mr. Bramwell is certain to be anxious about the boy, and it would be
+a great kindness if you would go over the stage and see that all is
+well."
+
+"I! what? Do you mean in the dark?" she said, looking at him in
+astonishment.
+
+"Well, Miss Layard, I thought you had more courage than to be afraid
+of a little darkness; but if you did feel anything like timidity,
+rather than that Mr. Bramwell should remain uneasy, I would go with
+you and show you the way. What do you say to that?"
+
+She said nothing, but, bending her head over her stitching, blushed
+until her bent neck grew pink under her golden-brown hair.
+
+He did not insist upon an answer. Apparently he felt satisfied. In a
+moment the door opened, and Layard and Bramwell came in.
+
+Although the lamp-light in the room was not particularly strong, for a
+moment Bramwell was dazzled and confused. He had not been in so bright
+a room since his retirement from the world. Although the furniture was
+faded and infirm, it was splendid compared with that in his cottage.
+Then there were a few prints upon the walls in gilt frames, and
+curtains to the window, and pieces of china and an ornamental clock on
+the chimney-piece, and a square of carpet in the middle of the floor,
+and a bright cover on the table, not one thing of the like being on
+Boland's Ait.
+
+There was, too, an atmosphere of humanity about the place which did
+not find its way to the island; here was a sense of human interest,
+human contact, human sympathy wholly wanting in his home. Bramwell had
+come from the cell of an anchorite to a festival of man.
+
+But above all else and before all else was the tall, lithe,
+bright-faced, blooming girl, with plenteous hair and blue eyes, in
+which there were glints of gold, and the ready smile and white teeth
+that showed between her moist red lips when she spoke. This was the
+first lady Bramwell had spoken to or met since his exile from the
+world, and she was beautiful enough for a goddess--a Hebe.
+
+Was this, he asked himself, the dream of a captive, and should he wake
+to find himself once more mured between his white washed walls,
+environed by silence and bound by the hideous fetters of a bond which
+was a horror and a disgrace? Should he wake up as he had awakened
+every morning for three years, to think of his ruined home, his
+blighted life, and his wife, who, though living, was dead for ever to
+him, and yet with her dead and infamous hand held him back from taking
+a new companion, to be to him what he had hoped she would be when he
+took her in all love and faith?
+
+No--all this was true. The talk and the laughter were true. His own
+talk and laughter were true; and, above all, this radiant girl, with
+her quick wit and beautiful intelligence and sympathy, was true. All
+true--and he was no more than thirty years of age! A young man. A man
+no older than the youngest girl might marry. Philip had told him that
+this girl was twenty. Why, twenty and thirty were just the ages for
+bride and bridegroom!
+
+And how different was this girl from the other! Here was no vanity, no
+craving for admiration, no airs and graces, and, above all, here were
+the swift responsive spirit, the keen sympathy, the aspiring spirit,
+the exquisite sensibility!
+
+Ay, and it was all true, and it was allowable for him to dream, for he
+was free. Free as he had been when, carried away by the mere beauty of
+face and form, he had asked nothing but physical beauty, believing
+that he could inform it with the soul of a goddess, until he found
+that the physical beauty was clay, which would commingle with no noble
+essence, which preferred a handful of trinkets or an oath of hollow
+homage to all the stirring tumults of the poets or the intense
+aspirings of the lute! Yes, he could be a poet under the influence of
+such a deity. He could sing if those ears would only listen; he could
+succeed if those lips would only applaud!
+
+He took no heed of time; it slipped away like dry sand held in the
+hand. He never could tell afterwards what the conversation had been
+about, but he knew he was talking fast and well. Never in all his life
+had he spoken under such an intoxicating spell as that of new hope
+springing in the presence of this girl. It was intoxication on an
+intellectual ether. His blood was fire and dew. His ideas were flame.
+The human voices around him were the music of eternal joy. There was
+in his spirit a sacred purpose that defied definition. He seemed to be
+praying in melody. He was upheld by the purpose of an all-wise
+beneficence now revealed to him for the first time; he was transported
+out of himself and carried into converse with justified angels.
+
+Philip Ray sat in amazed silence at the transformation. It was more
+wonderful than the miracle of Pygmalion's statue: it was the
+enchantment of emancipation, the delirium of liberty. He had known and
+honoured--nay, worshipped--this man for years, but until to-night he
+had never suspected that he was a genius and a demi-god. He had known
+him as a martyr, but until this night he had never realised that he
+was a saint.
+
+"I must go," at length said Bramwell, rising. "I have already stayed
+too long."
+
+"No, no," said Philip Ray, springing up, "you must not stir yet. This
+is doing you all the good in the world. I have asked Miss Layard to
+have a look at the island, and she will see to the boy. You cannot
+deny her this little gratification. We arranged it before you came.
+You are here now, and you must do what you are told. I will take her
+safely over the bridge and back, and then we shall have another chat."
+
+Hetty rose with a heightened colour.
+
+"Pray sit down, Mr. Bramwell; we will bring you back news of the boy.
+It is much too early to think of leaving, and we are afraid that if
+once you went across to-night you would not come back again. Now that
+we have got you we will not let you go."
+
+Layard passed his hand over his bearded mouth to conceal a smile. He
+guessed the object of Ray's proposal.
+
+"Mr. Bramwell," he said earnestly, "you must not think of stirring."
+
+He rose, and, placing his hands on the other's shoulders, gently
+forced him back on his chair.
+
+"I am giving you too much trouble, Miss Layard," Bramwell said, with a
+smile; "but if I must stay and you will go, there is nothing for it
+but to submit."
+
+His real reason for yielding so readily was the intense pleasure it
+gave him to find that she took such an interest in his boy.
+
+"Put the lamp in the kitchen-window, Miss Layard," said Philip, when
+the two found themselves in the back passage. "The light will be
+useful in crossing the stage."
+
+She did as she was bidden, and rejoined him on Crawford's Quay, just
+outside the back door, which they left open so as to get the benefit
+of the hall-light.
+
+"Give me your hand now," said he, and he led her across the floating
+bridge. "You had better leave me your hand still," he said when they
+were on the Ait. "It is very dark, and I know the place thoroughly.
+What do you think of Mr. Bramwell?"
+
+"I think him simply wonderful. I never heard anything like him before.
+Does he always talk as he did to-night?"
+
+"No; still he usually talks well. But though I have been very intimate
+with him for many years I never heard him talk so well. As a rule he
+speaks with great caution, but to-night he threw reserve to the winds
+and let himself go."
+
+"I think I can manage now without your help," she said, endeavouring
+to withdraw her hand.
+
+"I should be very sorry to believe anything of the kind," said he,
+preventing her. "You had better leave me your hand for a little
+while."
+
+She bent her head and ceased her effort.
+
+"Miss Layard," he said, after a moment's pause, "I want you to do me a
+great favour. Will you?"
+
+"If I can," she said in a very low voice, so low that he had to bend
+towards her to catch it.
+
+"In the dark and the daylight leave me your hand. Give it to me for
+ever."
+
+"But the boy?" she said. "We must go see the boy."
+
+She made a slight attempt to release her hand. He closed his fingers
+round it.
+
+"We shall go see the boy presently." They were now standing at the
+tail of the Ait "I have your hand now, Hetty darling, and I mean to
+keep it. I have loved you since the first time I saw you, and I never
+loved any other woman. You will give me your hand, dear, and yourself,
+dear, and I will give you my heart and soul for all my life. You will
+give me your hand, dear?"
+
+She did not take it away.
+
+Then he let it go himself, and, putting his arms carefully round her,
+folded her gently to his breast, and said, with a broken sob:
+
+"Merciful Heaven, this is more than any man deserves. May I kiss you,
+dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Her head was leaning on his shoulder. He bent down and kissed her
+forehead.
+
+"I'm glad there's no light, dear."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because if I saw you I could not believe this is true. Hetty."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Nothing, dear. I only wanted to hear your voice, so that I might be
+sure this is you."
+
+He put his hand on her head.
+
+"Is that your hair, dear?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I can't believe it. And do you think you will grow fond of me?"
+
+"No fonder than I am, Philip. I could not be any fonder than I am."
+
+"This is not to be believed. So that when I come into the room where
+you are it makes you glad?"
+
+"It gives me such gladness as I never knew before, nor ever thought
+of."
+
+"This is not to be believed."
+
+"And when you go away I feel so lonely and desolate."
+
+"Do not tell me any more, or I shall hate myself for causing you
+pain."
+
+"But I would rather feel the pain than be without it. And I'd give you
+my life, Philip, if you wanted it. I mean I'd go to death for you,
+Philip; and I'd follow you all round the world, if you wanted it--all
+round the world, if you would only look back at me now and then."
+
+"You must not say such things, child."
+
+"But they are true."
+
+"I had hoped, dear, but I had not hoped so much as this--nothing like
+so much as this, and I cannot bear to hear you say so much. Listening
+to it makes me seem to have done you an injury."
+
+"And I'd do everything that you told me. I'd even go away."
+
+"Hush, child, hush! It is not right to say such things."
+
+"But they are true. I'd go away and live alone with my heart if you
+told me, Philip. Now don't you see that I love you?"
+
+"I do, dear. But now I see how much less my love is than yours, for I
+could not go away and live alone with my heart."
+
+"I could. Shall we see to the boy now?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+                        BY THE BOY'S BEDSIDE.
+
+
+Kate Mellor, lying beside her child on the bed, suddenly became aware
+of footsteps approaching the cottage along the canal face of the
+island. She had been fondling and talking to Frank, and he was now
+half awake.
+
+Between the bed and the wall there was the space of a foot. The mother
+slipped down through this space to the floor, and there lay in terror,
+trying to hush her breathing and still the beatings of her heart. She
+could not tell herself exactly what it was she dreaded more than
+discovery. Her fears took no definite form.
+
+The footsteps came up to the cottage, and then stopped. Through the
+open window sounded voices, the voices of a man and a girl. As the
+concealed woman listened her heart stood still, for she recognised the
+male voice as that of her brother.
+
+"Go in, Hetty," said the male voice, "and I'll wait for you here. The
+room is on the left-hand side."
+
+"You won't come in?" asked the girl.
+
+"No. Of course all is right. If you speak in the room I shall hear
+you."
+
+The girl came into the cottage, opened the door of the sleeping-room,
+and approached the bed.
+
+"Mother," said the boy, who was now covered up.
+
+The concealed woman grew cold with fear.
+
+"Are you awake, Frank?"
+
+"Yes, mother," said the boy, stretching himself, yawning, and rubbing
+his eyes. "Are you going to take me away again? If you do, take
+Freddie too."
+
+"I'm not your mother, Frank. Don't you know me?" said the girl.
+
+"You said you were my mother, and I know you are, though you have
+spots on your face."
+
+"Rouse up, Frank," said the girl in a tone of alarm. "Look at me. Who
+am I? Don't you know me?"
+
+"You're mother, and you said you'd take me away to Mrs. Pemberton's,
+only father wouldn't let you," said the boy, with another yawn.
+
+There sounded a tumult in the ears of the mother, and she thought she
+should go mad if she did not scream out.
+
+The visitor went to the window and spoke to the man outside. "The
+child has been dreaming, and fancies I'm his mother."
+
+"Heaven forbid!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"His mother is not to be spoken of. His mother was the basest, the
+worse woman that ever lived. She, fortunately for herself and every
+one else, died a little while ago. You are not to mention her name,
+dear. It sullies wherever it is uttered."
+
+The hiding woman shrank into herself as if struck by an icy blast.
+Was it thus she deserved to be spoken of by her only brother?
+Yes--yes--yes! As the basest, the worst woman who ever lived? whose
+name sullied the place in which it was uttered? O yes--yes--yes! It
+was true! Too true.
+
+The boy's eyes were now wide open, and he was looking at the tall
+slender figure of the girl standing out black against the lamp in the
+window.
+
+"Aunt Hetty."
+
+"That's my own boy. Now you know me," said the girl in a soothing and
+encouraging tone as she went back to the bed.
+
+"Aunt Hetty, where's mother gone?"
+
+"She wasn't here, Frank. You were only dreaming."
+
+"O, but I wasn't. I saw her. She lay down beside me on the bed, and
+she had red spots on her face."
+
+The girl shuddered.
+
+The woman gasped and felt as if her heart would burst through her
+ribs.
+
+"Philip," said the girl, once more going to the window, "I don't like
+this at all. I think the child must be a little feverish. He says his
+mother was here, and that she lay down beside him on the bed, and that
+she has spots on her face. What do you say ought to be done?"
+
+"Nothing at all. Get the child to sleep if you can. As you say, he has
+been dreaming."
+
+"But, indeed, I don't like it. He's so very circumstantial. He says
+his mother told him she'd take him back to Mrs. Pemberton's, only his
+father won't let her. Who is Mrs. Pemberton?"
+
+"I don't know. Some lodging-house keeper, no doubt."
+
+"Well, I don't know what ought to be done. There is no chance of the
+child going to sleep soon, and either he is raving or--or--or--" the
+girl's voice trembled--"something very dreadful indeed has occurred
+here. The child cannot certainly be left alone now." She looked around
+her with apprehension. She was pale and trembling.
+
+"You seem uneasy, Hetty."
+
+"I am terrified."
+
+"I assure you the child has been dreaming, that is all. It is quite a
+common thing, I have read, for children to believe what they see in
+dreams has real existence."
+
+"O, talking in that way is no use. I am miserable and frightened out
+of my wits, Philip."
+
+"What would you wish me to do?"
+
+"I think you had better go for Mr. Bramwell."
+
+"Very well."
+
+"But no--no--no, I should die of fright. What should I do if _that_
+came again and lay down on the bed beside the child?" moaned the girl
+in terror and despair.
+
+"You really ought not to think of anything so much out of reason.
+There was nothing in it but the uneasy dream of a child."
+
+"Indeed, indeed I shall go frantic. Can nothing be done?"
+
+"Well, you know, I could not think of letting you cross over the stage
+by yourself. Nothing on earth would induce me to let you attempt such
+a thing. And you do not wish me to go away, and you will not have the
+two of us go. I cannot see any way out of the difficulty."
+
+"O dear, O dear, O dear!" cried the girl. "I shall go crazy! Stop! I
+have it. Didn't we leave the back door open?"
+
+"We did, so as to have the benefit of the hall-lamp."
+
+"Well, you stay here and watch the boy, and I'll go and call for Mr.
+Bramwell across the bay. They will hear my voice easily in the
+dining-room. That's the best plan, isn't it."
+
+"Yes, if any plan is wanted, which I doubt."
+
+The girl ran out of the room with a shudder.
+
+The concealed woman had fainted. She lost consciousness when it was
+decided to summon her husband without watch being removed from the
+room.
+
+As Hetty passed Ray he caught her for a moment and said, "Mind, on no
+account whatever are you to attempt to cross the stage by yourself. If
+you cannot make yourself heard, dear, won't you come back to me?"
+
+"O, I promise; but please let me go. I am beside myself with terror."
+
+He loosed his hold, and in a minute she disappeared round the corner
+of the old timber-yard. Philip Ray went up to the window, and with his
+face just above the sill kept guard. He heard her call eagerly two or
+three times, and then he caught the sound of a response. After that he
+knew a brief and hurried conversation was held, and then came
+footsteps, and the form of Bramwell hastening along the wharf.
+
+"You are to go to Miss Layard at once and take her over. She would
+not come back. She is fairly scared. She told me all that has
+happened here. Run to her, and get her away from this place quickly.
+Good-night."
+
+"It is nothing at all. The boy has had a nightmare."
+
+"Nothing more? Do not delay. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."
+
+The father then went into the cottage, and, having bolted the outer
+door, stole softly to the room where little Frank lay.
+
+The child was wide awake.
+
+"Well, my boy," said the father, kissing him tenderly, and smoothing
+the child's dark hair with a gentle hand. "So your Aunt Hetty has been
+to see you."
+
+"Yes, and mother too."
+
+"That was a dream, Frank, and you mustn't think any more about it."
+
+The boy shook his head on the pillow. "No dream," he said. "She lay
+down on the bed there beside me, and put her arms round me like at
+Mrs. Pemberton's, where we lived before I came here; and she cried
+like at Mrs. Pemberton's, and I asked her to take me back to Mrs.
+Pemberton's, and she said she would, only you wouldn't let me go.
+Won't you let me go?"
+
+"We'll see in the morning."
+
+"And won't Aunt Hetty let Freddie come too? for I had no little boy to
+play with at Mrs. Pemberton's."
+
+"We'll talk to Aunt Hetty about it."
+
+"And mother has spots, red spots, on her face now, and there used to
+be no spots. And why won't you let me go? for I love my mother more
+than I love you."
+
+"We'll talk about all that in the morning; but it is very late now,
+and all good little boys are asleep."
+
+"And all good fathers and mothers asleep too?"
+
+"Well, yes; most of them."
+
+"And why aren't you asleep?"
+
+"Because I'm not sleepy. But as you have had a dream that woke you
+I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll move the stretcher away, and sit down
+beside you and hold your hand until you go to sleep again." He did as
+he said, and when he had the little hand within his own he said, "Now,
+shut your eyes and go to sleep."
+
+"Father."
+
+"Yes, my child?"
+
+"Didn't you know mother once?"
+
+"Yes, my boy."
+
+"A long time ago?"
+
+"A long time ago."
+
+"And when you knew her she had no ugly red spots over her face?"
+
+"No, child."
+
+"Well, she has now--all over her face."
+
+"Go to sleep like a good boy. I will not talk to you any more.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night;" and with one little hand under his cheek and the other
+clasped lightly in his father's, little Frank lay still awhile, and
+then fell off into tranquil slumber.
+
+For a long time the father sat motionless. He was afraid to stir lest
+he might wake the little fellow. His mind went back to the evening he
+had just spent. How bright and cheerful it had been compared with the
+loneliness and gloom of those evenings with which he had been so long
+sadly familiar!
+
+What a charming girl that was, and how she had brightened up the whole
+evening with her enchanting presence! What a home her presence would
+make! He had admired her as he had seen her on Crawford's Quay with
+little Freddie, but then she was bending her mind down to a child's
+level. That night he had seen her among men, the perfect complement of
+them, and the flower of womanhood. He felt his face, his whole being
+soften when he thought of her. Even to think of her was to feel the
+influence of a gracious spirit.
+
+She was twenty and he was only thirty--who knows!
+
+And then his head fell forward on his chest, and he slept. But Hetty
+followed him into his sleep--into his dreams.
+
+He was walking along a country road in May, dejected and
+broken-spirited, thinking of the miserable past three years, when
+suddenly at a turning he met Hetty holding his boy by the hand and
+coming to meet him. And then, with a laugh, he knew that all these
+three years which tortured him so cruelly had been nothing but a
+dream, and that this sweet and joyous and perfect Hetty had been the
+wife of his young manhood. With outstretched arms and a cry he rushed
+to meet her.
+
+The cry awoke him, and he looked up.
+
+Between the bed and the wall rose a thin black figure sharp against
+the white of the wall, and above the figure a pale haggard face
+dabbled with large red spots like gouts of blood.
+
+With a shriek of horror he sprang to his feet and flung himself
+against the wall farthest from this awful apparition.
+
+"In the name of God, who or what are you?"
+
+"Nothing to you, I know, except a curse and a blight, but _his_
+mother," pointing to the child.
+
+"Living?"
+
+"I could not die."
+
+He thrust both arms upward with a gesture of desperate appeal.
+"Merciful God! am I mad?"
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+                       BRAMWELL FINDS A SISTER.
+
+
+The sound of the voices had awakened the child, and he sat up in the
+bed, looking with wide-open eyes from father to mother, from mother to
+father.
+
+Bramwell stood with his back against the wall, staring at his wife and
+breathing hard. He was stunned, overwhelmed. He felt uncertain of his
+own identity, of the place around him, and of the child. The only
+thing of which he felt sure was that he stood face to face with his
+wife, who had risen from the tomb.
+
+"I did not come," she said, moving out from her position between the
+bed and the wall, "to see you or to ask mercy or forgiveness of you.
+You need not reproach me for being alive; because only I fainted, you
+should not have seen me to-night; you should never have seen me again,
+for I was on my way to my grave, where I could not go without looking
+on my child once more. The announcement of my death came only a little
+while before its time. I shall not see another day."
+
+Her voice was dull and hoarse, the features wasted and pinched, and
+mottled with marring blotches of scorbutic red.
+
+"This is no place for us to talk," he said, pointing to the child on
+the bed. "Follow me."
+
+She hesitated.
+
+"I do not want to talk with you; I wish to spare you. I know you would
+be justified in killing me. But I would not have you suffer because
+you wish me dead. I shall not trouble you or the world with another
+day of my wretched life. Cover your face, and let me kiss the boy
+again, and I will go. I know my way to the river, and I would spare
+you any harm that might come to you of my dying here--at your hands."
+
+"This is no place, I say, for such a scene or for such words. Follow
+me."
+
+"You will not kill me?"
+
+"I will not harm you, poor soul."
+
+"Your pity harms me worse than blows."
+
+"Then I will not pity you. Come."
+
+"May I kiss the child once more before I leave the room? You may cover
+your eyes, so that you may not see your child polluted by my touch."
+
+"You will be free to kiss him when we have done our talk. I shall not
+hinder you."
+
+He held the door open for her, and with tottering steps and bent head,
+she went out into the dark and waited for him.
+
+"Lie down now, my child, and try to go to sleep. Mother will come to
+you later."
+
+The child, overawed, covered himself up and closed his eyes.
+Bramwell took the lamp off the window-sill, and led the way into the
+sitting-room.
+
+He shut the door behind them, put the lamp on the table, and, setting
+a chair for her by it, bade her sit down. She complied in silence,
+resting her elbow on the table, and covering her face with her hand.
+
+"You said you fainted," he said, "do you feel weak still?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"I keep some brandy in case of sudden illness, for this is a lonely
+place." It was a relief to him to utter commonplaces. "And there are,
+or at least were until lately, no neighbours of whom I could borrow."
+
+He poured some out of a pocket-flask, and added water, and handed the
+glass to her. "Drink that."
+
+"What! you will give me aid under your roof?"
+
+"Under the roof of Heaven. Drink."
+
+She raised the glass to her lips, and swallowed a small quantity.
+
+"All. Drink it all. You have need of it."
+
+She did as she was told.
+
+He began walking up and down the room softly.
+
+"You sent me the boy when you believed you were dying, and when the
+crisis turned in favour of life you inserted the announcement of your
+death in order that I might believe myself free of you for ever?"
+
+"Yes. I intended you should never see me or hear of me again."
+
+"That I might be free to marry again if I chose?"
+
+"That was my idea."
+
+"And then you came to bid good-bye to your child before going to the
+river?"
+
+"Yes; they never would have found out who I was. I left all papers
+behind me, and cut the marks off my clothes."
+
+"But the love of your child was so strong, you risked everything to
+bid him a last farewell?"
+
+"I am his mother, and all that is left to me of a heart is in my
+child. I do not ask you to forgive me for the past. I do not ask your
+pardon for what I did three years ago; but I do entreat you, as you
+are a just and merciful man, to forgive me for coming to see my
+innocent little child!"
+
+"She took her hand from before her face, and, clasping both her hands
+together, raised them in passionate supplication to him as he passed
+her in his walk. Her thick, dull voice was full of unutterable woe.
+
+"I forgive you the past and the present utterly. Say no more in that
+strain. My head is very heavy, and I am trying to think. Do not excite
+yourself about forgiveness. I am endeavouring to see my way. This has
+come suddenly and unexpectedly, and my brain seems feeble, and it will
+not work freely. In a little while all will be plain to me. In the
+meantime keep quiet."
+
+He spoke very gently.
+
+She groaned and covered her face again. She would have preferred the
+river to this, but the manner of the man compelled obedience as she
+had never felt obedience compelled before, and it was obvious he did
+not wish her to go to the river--yet, at all events.
+
+"It was a terrible risk to run--a terrible risk. Suppose I had
+married?"
+
+"But I never would have interfered with you, or come near you, or let
+you know I was alive. You were the last being on earth I wanted to
+see." She took her hand down from before her face and looked at him
+earnestly.
+
+"I am sure of that, but you see what has fallen out to-night."
+
+"O, forgive me, and let me go! My lot is bitter enough for what has
+happened, without reproaches for something that has not occurred. You
+have not married again? Have you?"
+
+He shook his head, and said with a mournful smile, "No. I have not
+married again. Well, let that pass. Let that pass. Mentioning it helps
+me to clear up matters--enables me to see my way."
+
+"May I go now?"
+
+"Not yet. Stay awhile."
+
+"I would rather be in the river than here."
+
+"So would I; but I must not go, for many reasons. There is the child,
+for example, to go no Higher."
+
+"But I can be of no use to the child. Your coldness is killing me. Why
+don't you rage at me or let me go? Are you a man of stone? or do you
+take me for a woman of stone?" she cried passionately, writhing on her
+chair.
+
+He waved her outburst aside with a gentle gesture. "Nothing can be
+gained by heat or haste."
+
+"Let me say good-bye to my child and go," she cried vehemently.
+
+"The child and the river can bide awhile; bide you also awhile. It is
+a long time since we last met."
+
+She grasped her throat with her hand. She was on the point of breaking
+down. His last words pierced her to the soul. With a superhuman effort
+she controlled herself and sat silent.
+
+For a minute there was silence. He continued his walk up and down.
+Gradually his footfalls, which had been light all along, grew fainter
+and fainter until they became almost inaudible. Gradually his face,
+which had been perplexed, lost its troubled look and softened into a
+peaceful smile. It seemed as though he had ceased to be aware of her
+presence. He looked like a solitary man communing with himself and
+drawing solace from his thoughts. He looked as though he beheld some
+beatific vision that yielded heavenly content--as though a voice of
+calming and elevating melody were reaching him from afar off. When he
+spoke his tones were fine and infinitely tender, and sounded like a
+benediction. He saw his way clearly now.
+
+"You risked everything to-night to get a glimpse of your child, a
+final look, to say a last farewell. You were willing to risk
+everything here; you were willing to risk hereafter everything that
+may be the fate of those who lay violent hands upon their own lives.
+Why need you risk anything at all, either for the boy's sake or in the
+hereafter, because of laying violent hands upon your life?"
+
+"I do not understand you," she whispered, looking at him in awe. His
+appearance, his manner, his voice, did not seem of earth.
+
+"Why not stay with your boy and fill your heart with him?"
+
+"What?" she whispered, growing faint and catching the table for
+support.
+
+"Why not stay with your boy and fill your heart with ministering to
+him?"
+
+"What? Here? In this place?" she cried in a wavering voice, still no
+louder than a whisper.
+
+"In this place. Why should you not stay with your child? There is no
+one so fit to tend and guard a little child as a mother."
+
+"And you?" she asked in a wild intense whisper. "Will you go to the
+river to hide the head I have dishonoured?"
+
+"No. I too will stay and help you to shield and succour the child.
+Mother and father are the proper guardians of little ones."
+
+"Frank Mellor, are you mad?" she cried out loud, springing to her feet
+and dashing her hand across her face to clear her vision.
+
+"No; there isn't substance enough in me now to make a madman."
+
+"And," she cried, starting up and facing him, "Frank Mellor, do you
+know who I am? Do you know that three years ago I left your house
+under infamous circumstances, and that I brought shame and sorrow and
+destruction upon your home and you? Do you know that I have made you a
+byeword in Beechley and London, and wherever you have been heard of?
+Do you know that I am your _wife?_"
+
+She had raised her hoarse voice to its highest pitch. Her eyes
+flashed. She brandished her arms. Her face blazed red in the
+undisfigured parts, and the red spots turned purple and livid. She was
+frantically defending the magnanimity of this man against the baseness
+of her former self, against the evil of her present reputation,
+against contact with the leprosy of her sin.
+
+"All that needs to be known, I know," he said, in the same calm,
+gentle voice. "Years ago I lost my wife. I lost sight of her for a
+long time. To-night I find a sister."
+
+"Sister!" she cried in a whisper, sinking on a chair, and losing at
+once all her fierce aspect and enhanced colour.
+
+"To-night I find a sister who is in despair because of the loss of her
+child. I restore her child to her empty arms, and I say, 'My roof is
+your roof, and my bread is your bread.'" He lit a candle, and handed
+it to her. "Go to your room where the boy is, and take him in your
+arms, for it comforts a mother to have her child in her arms. I shall
+stay here. It is dawn already, and I have work to do. Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+                    "I MUST GO TO FETCH HER HOME."
+
+
+When Philip Ray left Crawford's House that night he felt anything at
+all but the elation supposed to be proper in the accepted suitor of a
+beautiful girl. He had, indeed, a great many troubles in his mind, and
+as he walked home to his lonely lodgings in Camberwell he was nearly a
+miserable man. It would not be true to say he was out and out
+miserable, but he was perilously close to it.
+
+In the first place, he had to leave Hetty behind him, a thing almost
+beyond endurance. Then, when removed from the intoxicating influence
+of her presence and undistracted by the magic of her beauty, he
+began to turn his eyes inward upon himself, and investigate his own
+unworthiness with brutal candour--nay, with gross injustice.
+
+What on earth was he that a faultless, an exquisite creature like
+Hetty should give herself to him? That was a question he asked himself
+over and over again, without being able to find any reason whatever
+for her sacrifice. More than once he felt inclined to go back, make a
+clean breast of it by telling her that as a friend he would recommend
+her to have nothing whatever to do with himself. The words of love and
+devotion she had spoken to him on the island were a source of intense
+pain to him. A nice kind of fellow _he_ was indeed for her to say
+_she_ would follow round all the world! He was obtaining love under
+false pretences, that's what he was doing. And such love! and from
+such a perfect creature! It was simply a monstrous fraud! There was
+something underhand and dishonourable about it; for if she had only
+known him for what he was, she would flee out of the very parish away
+from him. He must have been mad to ask her to marry him.
+
+It had all come on him suddenly. When he suggested that she should go
+to the island with him on the excuse of seeing how the boy got on, he
+had no intention of proposing to her; and, nevertheless, no sooner had
+he set foot on the Ait than he must retain her hand and ask her to
+give it to him for ever! Could he have meant the whole thing as a
+joke, or was the Master of all Evil at the bottom of it?
+
+But the full turpitude of his act did not appear until he considered
+ways and means. At present his salary was barely enough to keep
+himself in the strictest economy. He could not, after paying for food,
+lodgings, and clothes all on the humblest scale, save five pounds a
+year. It is true he had a yearly increase of salary, and by-and-by
+would have the chance of promotion. But at the most favourable
+estimate he could not hope to have an income on which he might
+prudently marry sooner than between twenty and thirty years. Say, in
+twenty-five years, when his salary would be sufficient, he would be
+fifty-two and she forty-five! If he had any hair left on his head then
+it would be snow-white, and he would be sure to have rheumatism and
+most likely a touch of asthma as well. He would have confirmed
+bachelor habits and exacting notions about his food and an abject
+horror of the east wind. He would tell old stories as new, and laugh
+at them, and the younger men in the office would laugh at him for
+laughing at these old tales, and mimic him behind his back, and call
+him an old fossil and other endearing names, indicative of pity in
+them and senility in him! What a poor idiot he had been to speak to
+the girl!
+
+It was true the Layards were not very well off themselves now; but
+they had once been rich, and naturally Hetty ought to be raised by
+marriage far up above their present position. She was a lady and a
+beauty, and the most enchanting girl that ever the sun shone on, and
+ought to wear a coronet if such things went by charm; and here was he,
+a pauper junior clerk in one of the most miserably-paid branches of
+the Civil Service, coolly asking her to be his wife! His conduct had
+been criminal, nothing short of it.
+
+What on earth would Frank say when he told him of it? If Frank was an
+honourable man he would go over to Layard, and advise the brother to
+forbid the suitor his house.
+
+Suitor, indeed! Pretty suitor he was to go wooing such a girl as
+Hetty!
+
+But then Hetty had told him she loved him and would follow him to the
+ends of the earth, and he'd just like to hear any man in _his_
+presence say Hetty wasn't to do what she pleased, even if her pleasure
+took such a preposterous form as love for him. Now that he came to
+think of it in that way, if it pleased Hetty to love him she should
+love him, in spite of all the Franks and all the brothers in
+Christendom; for wasn't Hetty's happiness and pleasure dearer to him
+than the welfare of empires? And if he hadn't quite a hundred a year,
+he could make it more by coaching fellows for the Civil Service and in
+a thousand other ways.
+
+Philip Ray having arrived at this more hopeful and wholesome view of
+his affairs went to bed, and lay awake some time trying to compose a
+poem in his sweetheart's praise. Having found, however, that he could
+not keep the lines of equal length, and that the rhymes came in now at
+the wrong places and anon not at all, he abandoned poetry as an
+occupation with which he had no familiarity, and took to one in which
+he had experience--sleep.
+
+When he awoke next morning all his troubles and doubts had cleared
+away. The lead of the night before had been transmuted into gold by
+the alchemy of sleep. He seemed to himself really a fairly good fellow
+(which was no egotistical over-estimate, but a very fair appraisement
+of his value). No insuperable difficulties presented themselves in his
+mind to the making thirty, forty, fifty pounds a year more than his
+salary. He knew Hetty loved him, and he simply adored his exquisite
+jocund Hebe with the rich heart and frank avowal of love. A fig for
+obstacles with such a prize before him! If any considerable sum of
+money was attached to the setting of the Thames on fire here was your
+man able and willing to undertake the feat.
+
+When the afternoon came, and he found himself released from the
+drudgery of his desk, he hastened to Welford. Alfred Layard did not
+get home in the evening until eight o'clock, and, of course, Ray could
+not call at Crawford's House until after that hour. But he could go to
+the Ait, and who could say but Hetty might appear at the window, or
+even come out on Crawford's Quay? In any case he wanted to see Frank
+and tell him what he had done, for he would as soon have thought of
+picking a pocket as of keeping a secret from his brother-in-law.
+
+Philip Ray hastened along the canal with long quick strides, swinging
+his arms as he went. Now that the prospect of seeing Hetty again was
+close upon him he had not only lost all his gloom, but was in a state
+of enthusiastic hopefulness. He hailed the island three times before
+Bramwell answered.
+
+"I thought you were never coming," said he, as the two shook hands
+upon his landing.
+
+"I was busy when you hailed," said Bramwell, "and I could not
+believe it was you so early." Then noticing the excitement of his
+brother-in-law, he said, "What is the matter? Has anything happened?"
+
+"Yes. Let us go in. I want to talk to you most particularly," said
+Ray. Then in his turn noticing the appearance and manner of the other,
+he said, "What is the matter with _you?_ _You_ too look as if
+something had happened."
+
+"I have been up all night at work," he answered, as they entered the
+cottage.
+
+Ray's sister had gone to Mrs. Pemberton's to get the luggage she had
+left there.
+
+They went into the sitting-room. Frank was playing by himself in the
+old timber-yard.
+
+"Now, what is your news?" asked Bramwell, feeling sick at the thought
+that it must be something about Ainsworth.
+
+Ray fidgeted on his chair. He found it more easy to say to himself, "I
+must tell Frank at once," than to accomplish the design now that the
+two were face to face. He hummed and hawed, and loosed his collar by
+thrusting his finger between his neck and the band of his shirt, but
+no words came. At last he got up and began walking about nervously.
+
+"What is it, Philip? Can I do anything for you?" asked Bramwell, in a
+placid voice and with a quiet smile.
+
+"No, thank you, Frank, I've done it all myself. I've done all that man
+could do."
+
+Bramwell turned pale; seizing the arms of his chair, he said
+apprehensively, "You don't mean to say have met Ainsworth, and----"
+
+"No--no--no!"
+
+Bramwell threw himself back, infinitely relieved.
+
+"The fact is I have made a fool of myself."
+
+"In what way, Philip?"
+
+"You know my income?"
+
+Bramwell nodded.
+
+"Well, it may as well come out first as last. I--don't start, and
+pray, pray don't laugh at me--I've fallen in love."
+
+Bramwell nodded again and looked grave.
+
+"And I have proposed."
+
+Bramwell looked pained.
+
+"And have been accepted."
+
+"There is no chance whatever of my knowing anything of the lady?" said
+Bramwell in a tone implying that the answer must be in the negative.
+
+"There is. You do. I proposed last night on this island to Miss
+Layard, and she has accepted me."
+
+"Merciful heavens!" cried the other man, springing to his feet.
+
+Ray paused and stared at his brother-in-law. "Why, what on earth is
+the matter with you, Frank? There is nothing so very shocking or
+astonishing in it, is there? I know for a man in my position it was
+rash, almost mad, to do such a thing. But there is nothing to make you
+look scared. Tell me why you are so astonished and shocked? If I told
+you I had shot Ainsworth you couldn't look more alarmed."
+
+"I'll tell you later--not now. Go on with your story, Philip. When you
+know all you will see why I was startled. It has nothing to do with
+you. I wish you and Miss Layard all the happiness that can fall to the
+lot of mortals; but I need scarcely tell you that, my dear, dear
+Philip."
+
+"I know it, Frank. You need not tell me you wish me well. You're the
+most-generous-hearted fellow alive. You have suffered cruel wrong
+through my blood, but never through me personally. Yet I believe if I
+had done you a personal wrong you would shake my hand and wish me well
+all the same. I believe if you yourself had thought of Hetty, and she
+chose me, you would be just as cordial in your good wishes as you are
+now."
+
+"I should indeed," said Bramwell, with a strange light in his eyes.
+"And now tell me the rest of your story."
+
+Again he shook his brother-in-law warmly by both hands, and then sat
+down.
+
+"There is nothing else to tell. When we came over here to see about
+the boy last night I asked her to be my wife, and she consented. By
+the way, how did he get on after I left?"
+
+"For a while his rest was broken," said Bramwell, with a wan smile,
+"but after that he slept perfectly till it was time to get up."
+
+"I knew the child was only dreaming. But Hetty"--yes, he had called
+her Hetty to his brother-in-law: how incomparably rich this made him
+feel!--"but Hetty was fairly terrified, and I thought it better to
+give way to her. It was nothing but a nightmare or a dream."
+
+"Do you know, I am not so sure of that, Philip?"
+
+"So sure of what?" asked the other man, drawing down his straight
+eyebrows over his eyes, and peering into Bramwell's face, looking for
+symptoms of incipient insanity.
+
+"That it was all a dream," answered the other, returning his gaze.
+
+"Are you mad?" cried Ray, drawing back, and regarding his companion
+with severe displeasure.
+
+"That is the second time I have been asked the same question within
+the past twenty-four hours. Do you know who the other person was who
+asked me that question?"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Kate."
+
+"O, he is mad!" cried Ray, stopping in his walk and surveying Bramwell
+with pity and despair.
+
+The other went on, quietly looking his brother-in-law in the face
+steadily.
+
+"The crisis of that disease went in her favour. She inserted that
+announcement of her death in order that I might feel myself free to
+marry if I chose. On her way to the River she came to this place to
+get one more sight of her child. I found her here----"
+
+"And you forgave her?" said Ray, in a breathless voice.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?" fiercely.
+
+"Because I thought it would be well for her to be near her child. And
+she is to stay here----"
+
+"Here? With you? You do not mean to say you will meet her day after
+day for evermore?"
+
+"Why not? She had nowhere else to go to--except the River."
+
+"But he will come again, and she will leave you."
+
+"No, no. He will not come again. Her beauty is gone for ever."
+
+"Her beauty gone for ever! How came that to be?"
+
+"The illness marked her for life."
+
+"And yet she may stay?"
+
+"Why not? Will it not comfort her to be near her child?"
+
+"O, Frank, you make all other men look small!"
+
+"I said I would tell you why I started and cried out a while ago. Last
+night, when I believed myself free, I thought I might speak to Miss
+Layard----"
+
+"O, my brother! O, this is the cruellest blow that ever fell on man!
+My heart is breaking for you."
+
+"I did not know last night that your mind was set on Miss Layard."
+
+"Do not speak of me."
+
+"Boland's Ait!" cried a voice from without.
+
+"Hark!" said Bramwell, holding up his finger. "That is Kate's voice. I
+must go to fetch her home."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+                   CRAWFORD'S PLANS FOR THE FUTURE.
+
+
+Dr. Loftus pronounced Mrs. Crawford's condition to be very serious. He
+told her husband he did not expect a fatal termination immediately,
+but that in such cases there was no knowing what might happen, and it
+would be prudent that all preparations should be made for the worst.
+Above all, any violent shock was to be guarded against. There was now,
+he thought, absolutely no hope of improvement. If she felt equal to
+it, she might get up, and be wheeled about in her chair. In reply to
+Crawford's inquiry, the doctor could not tell how far off the end
+might be--hours, days, weeks.
+
+"Months?"
+
+"Scarcely."
+
+When the doctor was gone Crawford sat a long time in deep thought. It
+was daylight now, and he lay down on a couch in his own room to ponder
+over the whole affair. The income of the property would be lost to him
+on her death. The three thousand pounds of savings would come to him.
+But how, and after what delay? There would be legal formalities and
+bother, and he hated both. That fool the doctor either could not or
+would not say how long the present state of things was likely to last.
+Yet, as he had said, it was wise to be ready for anything, for
+everything. Plainly, the best plan for him to adopt would be to induce
+his wife to make him a deed of gift of the three thousand pounds. That
+would diminish trouble in case of her death. There was no need of
+cruelty in asking her to do this. The only thing absolutely necessary
+was success. He need not even hint to her that he was taking the
+precaution because of the fragility of her life. He could manage to
+make the deed of gift seem desirable because of some other reason. One
+should seldom tell men the truth, and women never. The truth was too
+strong for women. Their delicate natures were not constructed to bear
+it with advantage to themselves, and if you told the truth to men they
+were likely to use it to their own advantage. Quite right: truth was a
+jewel, but, like any other jewel, it was fit only for holiday wear.
+
+As soon as he got that deed of gift executed there would not be much
+more for him to do at Singleton Terrace. Viewed as a place of mere
+free board and lodgings, it was not of much consequence. With three
+thousand pounds and his present turn of luck he should be well off.
+Viewed as the home of a confirmed invalid who doted on him, Singleton
+Terrace was distasteful.
+
+There would not be the least necessity for brutality or unkindness.
+Unkindness and brutality were always cardinal mistakes. He believed he
+could manage the whole matter with his wife, and appear in it greatly
+to his own advantage. He'd try that very day to arrange matters, so
+that at any hour he could quit Richmond for ever. What a merciful
+deliverance that would be for him! During the past few months he had
+scarcely dared to call his soul his own. Yes, if that deed could be
+got ready and executed in twenty-four hours, there was no reason why
+he should not shake the dust of Richmond off his feet in twenty-five.
+
+Whither should he go? Ultimately back to the States, no doubt; but in
+the first instance to Welford. The latter place would be perfect only
+for two circumstances: first, that infernal Philip Ray visited
+Boland's Ait close by, and, second, Hetty--that charming Hetty--had a
+brother, a most forbidding and ruffianly-looking man, who might make
+himself intensely disagreeable. But it would be delightful to be under
+the same roof with that beautiful girl and saying agreeable things to
+her when they met. In all his life he never saw any girl so lovely as
+Hetty; and then look at the luck she had brought him! He would try
+Welford for a week or two--try the effect of Hetty's luck by playing
+every night for a fortnight. If he had won a good sum at the end of
+his trial, he should then be certain it was owing to Hetty. It would
+be easy to avoid Ray. He was engaged at his office until the
+afternoon. Every afternoon Crawford could leave Welford, go to the
+Counter Club, dine there, and not come back till morning. The affair
+was as simple as possible.
+
+Then he thought of his escape from drowning and his meeting with Kate.
+But these were unpleasant memories, and he made it a rule never to
+cherish any reminiscences which could depress him, so he banished them
+from his mind and fell into a peaceful sleep.
+
+It was late when he awoke. Some letters had come for him, and, after
+reading them, he went to his wife's room, and put them down
+impressively on a small table by the bedside. His inquiries were
+exhaustive, sympathetic, affectionate. He kissed her tenderly, and sat
+by her, holding her hand in his, and patting it. He said all the
+soothing words he could think of, and assured her of his conviction
+that in a few days she would be as well as she had been when they were
+so happily married.
+
+She smiled, and answered him in gentle words, and in her soft sweet
+voice. She thanked him for his encouraging sayings, but told him
+with a shake of her head that she felt certain she should never be
+better--that this was the beginning of the end.
+
+"But, indeed, you must get well," he said. "You must get well for my
+sake. Look, what glorious news I have had this morning! Here is a
+letter from my place in South America. It is, unfortunately, full of
+technicalities. Shall I read it to you? or tell you the substance of
+it?" He held up a bulky envelope, with several foreign stamps on it.
+
+"O, tell me the substance, by all means! I am not clever like you over
+technicalities."
+
+"It is, in effect, that my manager there has himself invented a
+machine quite capable of dealing with the fibre, and that we are now
+in a position to set about manufacturing."
+
+"What splendid news, William!" she cried, with gentle enthusiasm,
+pressing the hand she still retained. "You did not expect anything of
+this kind?"
+
+"No. But excellent as the news is, it has a drawback; and that
+drawback is one of the reasons why you must get well at once."
+
+"Why, what has my recovery to do with the affair, and what is the
+drawback?"
+
+"Well, the fact of the matter is we cannot get the machinery made
+without some money, and the little I have isn't nearly enough."
+
+"But I have some. Take the savings. I have told you over and over
+again that they are yours. Would what I have be enough?"
+
+"Well, with what I have and what I can raise I think it would; but you
+must get well first. It is only sentiment, no doubt; but I could not
+bear to take your money while you are not as well as you were a little
+while ago. The only interest or object I now have in this discovery is
+that you may share the great benefit of it with me."
+
+"Indeed, indeed, you must not think of me in this way. It is like your
+dear kind self to say what you have just said; but it is not
+businesslike, and you must take the money. I am only sorry it is not
+ten times as much."
+
+"No, no! Not, anyway, until you are as well as you were a couple of
+months ago, dear Nellie."
+
+"But you must. I will listen to no denial. Fancy, allowing my illness
+to stand in the way of your success!"
+
+For a good while he resisted, but in the end she prevailed, and he
+reluctantly consented to accept the money, and settle about the
+transfer from her to him that very day.
+
+Accordingly, he went to town after breakfast, armed with a letter from
+his wife to Mr. Brereton, Mrs. Crawford's lawyer.
+
+He came back early in the afternoon somewhat disappointed: it would
+take a day to complete the business.
+
+"After all," he thought, "I must not grumble about the delay. The
+direct transfer of the money will be better for me than the deed of
+gift. In the one case I shall have the money, in the other I should
+have only a document."
+
+He had abstained from going to the Counter Club that day for two
+reasons: first, he did not wish to risk discovery of his taste for
+play while the three thousand pounds were hanging in the clouds; and,
+second, he wished to believe the luck born of his acquaintance with
+Hetty prevailed most on the days he saw her, and should, to operate
+daily, be daily renewed by sight of her.
+
+"When all is settled I'll write for Mrs. Farraday to come back and
+stay here. She promised she would in case of need. Then I'll tell my
+wife that my personal presence is absolutely necessary in America, and
+I'll say good-bye to her and go down to Welford. I must arrange with
+my wife that Blore, the former agent, is not set to work collecting
+for a month or six weeks, so that I may have time to get out of the
+country, or away from Welford at all events. I don't think I shall
+require more than three weeks at Welford. I can get those gates put up
+and taken down again, and stay there on pretence of superintending the
+work."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+                          HUSBAND AND WIFE.
+
+
+The meeting between Philip Ray and his sister was full of pain and
+shame to him and the acutest agony to her. Few words were spoken.
+Bramwell was not in the room. He tarried behind on the pretence of
+mooring the stage, so that the two might not be restrained or
+embarrassed by any consideration of him. But the presence of the
+husband seemed to haunt the place, and was felt by both as a
+restraining influence.
+
+"If he can forgive her and take her back, what have I to say in the
+affair?" asked Philip of himself.
+
+"No matter how much he may reproach me, I will not answer," thought
+the unhappy woman. "Anything Philip could say to me would not hurt me
+now."
+
+So beyond a few formal words no speech was exchanged between the two,
+and shortly after Bramwell came back Philip went away.
+
+"May I stay in this room? This is your room, I know," said Kate
+meekly, when they were alone. "I do not wish to intrude. I know you
+have writing to do, and that I may be in the way."
+
+There was no tone of bitterness or complaint in her voice. She simply
+wanted to know what his wishes were.
+
+"While you were out," he said, "I arranged the room I had intended to
+be a play-room for the boy as my own. Yours will be the one you used
+last night, and this will be common to all of us. I shall shift my
+books into my own room and write there."
+
+"And the boy?" said she, with a tremble in her hoarse, dull voice.
+"Which room will be the boy's?"
+
+"Yours, of course."
+
+She moved towards him as if to catch his hand in gratitude. He stood
+still, and made no responsive sign.
+
+"When I came here two years ago," he said quietly, "I changed my name
+from Mellor to Bramwell. I shall retain the name of Bramwell, and you
+will take it."
+
+He did not request her to do it or command her to do it. He told her
+she would do it.
+
+"As no doubt you are aware, I am very badly off now compared with the
+time--compared with some years ago." He was going to say "compared
+with the time I married you," but he forebore out of mercy. "I have
+little more than a hundred a year and this place rent-free; it is my
+own, but I cannot let it. I hope soon to be able to add to my income.
+If my anticipations are realised I may double my income; but at
+present I am very poor."
+
+"And I am bankrupt," said she with passionate self-reproach, "in
+fortune, in appearance, and in reputation."
+
+He held up his hand in deprecation of her vehemence.
+
+"Understand me clearly. Mrs. Bramwell may not have any money, and may
+not be as remarkable for beauty as some other women. But recollect,
+she has no reputation, good or bad. She did not exist until this
+present interview began. The past can be of no use to us. I shall
+never refer to it again; you will never refer to it again. There may
+have been things in the life of Kate and Frank Mellor which each of
+them contemplates with pain. No pain has come into the life of
+Francis Bramwell during the two years of his existence. No pain can
+have come into the life of Kate Bramwell during the few minutes she
+has existed. It will be wisest if we do not trouble ourselves with the
+miseries of the Mellors. Do you understand?" he asked in his deep,
+full, organ-toned voice.
+
+"I think I do," she answered. "You mean that we are to forget the
+past."
+
+"Wholly, and without exception."
+
+"And you will forget that you ever cared for me?"
+
+"Entirely."
+
+His voice was full and firm, but when he had spoken the word his lip
+trembled and his eyelids drooped.
+
+He was walking softly up and down the room. She was sitting by the
+table in the same place as she had sat last night. Her arms hung down
+by her side, her head was bowed on her chest, her air one of infinite,
+incommunicable misery.
+
+"And you will never say a kind word to me again?" she said, her voice
+choked and broken.
+
+"I hope I shall never say any word to you that is unkind."
+
+"That is not what I mean. You will never change towards me from what
+you are now this minute? You will never say a loving word to me as you
+used--long ago?"
+
+She raised her face and looked beseechingly at him as he passed her
+chair.
+
+"I shall, I hope, be always as kind-minded to you as I am now."
+
+"And never any more?"
+
+"I cannot be any more."
+
+"Is there--is there no hope?" She clasped her hands and looked up at
+him in wild appeal.
+
+He shook his head. "I loved you once, but I cannot love you again."
+
+"You say you forgive me. If you forgive me, why cannot you love me?
+for I love you now as I never loved any one before."
+
+"Too late! Too late!"
+
+"Is it because my good looks are gone? Why, O, why cannot you love me
+again, unless it is because my good looks are gone?"
+
+"No; your good looks have no weight in the matter. I could not forgive
+you if I loved you in the old way."
+
+"Then," she cried, rising and stretching forth her arms wildly towards
+him, "do not forgive me; revile me, abuse me, yes, beat me, but tell
+me you love me as you did long ago; for I love you now above anything
+and all things on earth. Yes, ten thousand times better than I love my
+child! I never knew you until now. I was too giddy and vain and
+shallow to understand you. I have behaved to you worse than a
+murderess. But, Frank, I would die for you now!" She flung herself on
+her knees on the floor, and raised her clasped hands above her
+streaming face to him. "On my knees I ask you in the name of merciful
+Heaven to give me back your love, as I had it once! Give it to me for
+a little while, and then I shall be content to die. You are noble
+enough to forgive me and to take me back into your house. Take me back
+into your heart too. Raise me up and take me in your arms once, and
+then I will kill myself, if you wish it; I shall then die content.
+Refill my empty veins with words of love and I will trouble you no
+more. I have been walking blindfold in the desert all my life, and now
+that the bandages are taken off my eyes and I can see the promised
+land, am I to find I can never enter it? I am only a weak, wicked
+woman. You have extended to me forgiveness that makes you a god. Have
+for me, a weak woman, the pity of a god."
+
+"I am no longer a man," he said, leaning against the wall. "I am
+smoke, an abstraction, a thing, an idea, a code. You are my wife and I
+will not cast a stone at you. You are my wife, and you are entitled to
+the shelter of my roof and the protection of my name. I make you free
+of both. But when you ask for love such as once was yours, I fail to
+catch the meaning of your words. You are speaking a language the
+import of which is lost to me. It is not that I will not, but that I
+cannot, give you what you ask. There would have been no meaning in the
+love I offered you years ago if I could offer you love now. Get up. It
+was with a view to avoiding a scene I spoke."
+
+"I will not get up until you tell me there is hope--that some day you
+may relent."
+
+"There is no question of relenting. When you left me you destroyed in
+me the faculty of loving you. Now get up. We have had enough of this.
+We must have no more. I have been betrayed into saying things I
+determined not even to refer to. Get up, and, mind, no more of this."
+With strong, firm arms he raised her from her knees.
+
+She stood for a moment, leaning one hand on the table to steady
+herself. Then in a low quavering whisper, she said, "Is there any, any
+hope?"
+
+"There is none."
+
+She raised herself, and moved with uncertain feet to the door. "It
+would have been better I went to the river last night."
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+                       TEA AT CRAWFORD'S HOUSE.
+
+
+When Philip Ray left Boland's Ait he crossed over to the tow-path, and
+not to Crawford's Quay. It was still too early to call at Layard's.
+There was nothing else for it but to kill time walking about. Under
+ordinary circumstances when greatly excited he went for a very long
+walk. If nothing else but the startling and confounding affairs at
+Boland's Ait had to be considered, he would have dashed off at the top
+of his speed and kept on straight until he had calmed himself or worn
+himself out. But there was Crawford's House to be thought of. That
+must not be left far behind. Even now when he intended circling it he
+could not bear to think he was turning his face away from it, although
+he knew it was necessary to make a radius before he could begin his
+circle.
+
+His mind was in a whirl, and he could see nothing clearly. The
+astounding return of his sister from the grave, and the still more
+astounding pardon extended to her by her husband, threw all his ideas
+into phantasmagoric confusion. Images leaped and bounded through his
+brain, and would not wait to be examined. Of only one thing was he
+certain: that Frank was the noblest man he had ever met. Although he
+repeated over and over to himself Bramwell's words about Kate,
+although over and over again he called up the vision of Kate in that
+room on the islet, he could not convince his reason that forgiveness
+had been extended to her. In his memory he saw the figures and heard
+the voices, and understood the words spoken, but a dozen times he
+asked himself, could it be true? or had his imagination played him
+false?
+
+The affairs at the Ait dwarfed his own concerns, and made them seem
+tame and commonplace. That a young man should fall desperately in love
+with a beautiful girl like Hetty was the most natural thing in the
+world; but that a hermit, a young man of scrupulous honour like Frank,
+should take back an errant wife, whose former beauty had now turned
+almost to repulsiveness, transcended belief. It was true, but it was
+incredible.
+
+As time went on, and the walking allayed the tumult in his mind, his
+thoughts came to his own position in the circumstances. He had not
+told Layard or Hetty any of Frank's history beyond the fact that it
+was a painful one, and a subject to be avoided. He had not told them
+that he was Bramwell's brother-in-law. He had never said a word about
+Bramwell's wife.
+
+Now all would have to be explained. Of course, he had intended telling
+when he spoke to Layard about Hetty; things had changed beyond
+anticipation, beyond belief, since last night. Had he known what was
+going to happen on the Ait last night, what had absolutely happened
+when Hetty and he landed there, he would not have said a word of love
+to the girl. He would have told her the facts about Kate before asking
+Hetty to marry Kate's brother, before asking Hetty to become the
+sister of this miserable woman.
+
+He knew he was in no way responsible for his sister's sins, but some
+people considered a whole family tainted by such an act in one of its
+members. Some people believed conduct of this kind was a matter of
+heredity, and ran in the blood. Some people would ask, If the sister
+did this, what could you expect from the brother?
+
+Would the painful tale he had to tell Layard influence Hetty's brother
+against his suit? There were thousands of people who would consider
+that he himself was smirched by his sister's fault. Was Layard one of
+these?
+
+The best thing for him to do was to relate the story at once; the most
+honourable and straightforward way for him to proceed would be to
+speak to Layard before he again saw Hetty. If Layard raised an
+objection, and that objection was insuperable, the most honourable
+course for him to pursue would be to give up all pretensions to Hetty.
+
+Yes, but could he? And would he be justified in renouncing her now
+that he knew she loved him? It would be all very well if he had not
+made love to her and gone so far as to ask her to marry him. If only
+his happiness were concerned the path of duty would be plain enough.
+But Hetty and he were now partners in love, and had he the power or
+the right to dissolve the partnership without consulting her? Clearly
+not. However he looked at the situation doubts and difficulties arose
+before his mind. There was only one matter clear--he ought to speak to
+Layard at once.
+
+It was now half-past seven. Layard left the gasworks at eight. Why
+should he not intercept him on his way home and put him in possession
+of all the facts? Upon what Layard said, the course to be adopted
+could be based.
+
+He got to the gas-house, and was walking up and down impatiently when
+Alfred Layard came out of the gateway and saw him.
+
+"Anything the matter?" asked Layard apprehensively when Ray came up to
+him.
+
+"At your place? O, no! I wanted a few minutes' talk with you, so I
+came to meet you."
+
+"All right," said Layard, with a smile. He thought he could guess what
+the talk would prove to be about. He was the incarnation of
+unselfishness, and it never occurred to him for a moment to consider
+how awkward it would be for him if Hetty married and left him.
+
+"I want first of all to tell you a very painful piece of family
+history," said Ray, anxious to get the worst over as soon as possible.
+
+"But why should you, Ray? I am the least curious man alive."
+
+"You will know why I wish to tell you before I have finished."
+
+Then, without further preface, he narrated the history of Kate, her
+marriage, her flight, her supposed death, her appearance last night at
+the Ait, and her husband's forgiveness.
+
+Layard was greatly interested and excited by the story. When it was
+finished, he said:
+
+"There is enough Christianity in that man Bramwell to make a bishop."
+
+"To make the whole bench of bishops," cried Ray enthusiastically. "I
+always knew he was a hero, but I was not prepared to find the spirit
+of a martyr as well. And yet I ought to have been prepared for
+anything noble and disinterested in him. He does what he believes to
+be right without any view to reward here or hereafter. He has had his
+wild days when he plunged, under his great trouble, into the
+excitement of gambling, but even in that he was unselfish; he injured
+no one but himself. Once he pulled up, he stopped for good and all.
+And now I come to the reason for taking you into confidence and
+telling you what you need never have known only for something which
+concerns myself more deeply than all else which has happened to me in
+my life."
+
+Then in a few words he explained his position, his feelings towards
+Hetty, and his belief that his feelings were reciprocated.
+
+"You have three matters to weigh," he said, in conclusion; "first, the
+family history I have told you; then my financial position, taking
+into account the chance of my getting the tuitions; and, last, whether
+you would object to me personally. In the short time I have known you,
+I have taken to you more than to any other man I ever met except
+Frank. I am speaking to you as much as a friend as Hetty's brother. If
+I did not look on you as a friend, I should not care greatly to take
+you into my confidence and defer to you. But the notion of doing
+anything underhand or behind your back would seem to me intolerable
+treason."
+
+"I'll be as straightforward with you as you have been with me. I have
+liked you from the first moment of our short acquaintance. The way in
+which you have spoken to me this evening strengthens ten thousand
+times my good opinion of you. The miserable family history you have
+told me has no bearing whatever on you, and I see nothing to stop you
+but the getting of those tuitions. Why, I married on little more than
+your salary; and during my short married life I never for one moment
+repented, nor did my poor girl. Contented and willing hearts are the
+riches of marriage, not money."
+
+Ray was too much moved to say more than "Thank you, Layard;" but he
+stopped in his walk, and, with tears in his eyes, wrung the hands of
+the other man.
+
+"And now," said Layard, as they resumed their way, "let us get home to
+tea."
+
+That was his way of telling Ray that there was no need of further
+words either in explanation or of thanks.
+
+"I thought we were going to have a thunderstorm last night, and
+to-night it looks like it too. I always feel a coming storm in the
+muscles of my arms, and they are tingling this evening."
+
+Layard opened the door with his latch-key. The two men went into the
+front room, and in a few minutes Hetty appeared with the tea-pot. She
+coloured deeply on seeing Ray with her brother. She had not heard the
+footfalls of two people, and was not prepared to find him there. He
+had never before come in with Alfred, and a suspicion of what had
+occurred flashed through her mind.
+
+She did not speak to Ray. She felt confused, and half-pretended, even
+to herself, that she did not know he was present. Her brother went to
+her and put his arm round her waist and kissed her cheek, and then
+drew her over to the chimney-piece, where Ray stood, feeling somewhat
+like a thief.
+
+"You forgot to say good-evening to Ray," said the brother.
+
+"Good-evening," said she, in a low voice, holding out her hand.
+
+Ray took the long slender hand, feeling still more dishonest and
+shamefaced and miserable.
+
+When the fingers of the lovers touched, Layard caught the joined hands
+in both his, and pressed them softly and silently together; then,
+turning away, he stepped quickly to the window, and stood a long time
+looking at the dead wall opposite through misty eyes.
+
+"I don't think we shall have that storm," said Ray at length.
+
+Layard turned round. Hetty was pouring out the tea, and Ray was
+standing with his back to the chimney-piece.
+
+"No," said Layard, "I fancy it is passing away. My arms feel easier."
+
+Hetty was smiling, but looking pale.
+
+"Do you take sugar and milk, Mr. Ray?" said she.
+
+"Dear me, Hetty," said her brother, "what a lot you have to learn
+yet!"
+
+She coloured violently, and shook her head at him.
+
+"I wish you would sit down, Alfred. You are keeping all the light out
+of the room; I can't see what I'm doing."
+
+"No," said he, looking meaningly from her to Ray; "but, bad as the
+light is, I can see what you have done."
+
+At this Hetty and Ray laughed a suppressed laugh, and looked at one
+another with joyous glances.
+
+
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+                        CRAWFORD WRITES HOME.
+
+
+The morning after Mrs. Crawford's relapse and Crawford's visit to town
+about the three thousand pounds, the husband was sitting by his wife's
+bedside. He was in a particularly cheerful and hopeful humour, and
+insisted that she had already begun to mend, and would in a week be
+better than she had been for months.
+
+She shook her head with a sad smile, but said nothing. She did not
+wish to sadden the being she loved above all other living creatures by
+the thought of a final separation between them, a separation which she
+felt was inevitable, and to which she could not reconcile her mind.
+When alone she would cry out in despair to her gentle heart, "To be so
+loved, and to be so loving, and to be separated so soon!"
+
+He went on affecting undiminished confidence in her recovery. "I tell
+you, I am certain you must, you will, get well, and that much sooner
+than even the doctor thinks." (The doctor had told him again that day
+there was little hope of her rallying.) "What good would my luck be if
+you were not by my side to share it? My Nelly comforted and sustained
+me in my days of doubt and difficulty. Do you mean that she is not to
+share my triumph? I will take very good care she shall. And now I want
+to tell you what I insist upon doing. I will take no denial, for I
+look on it as essential to your recovery."
+
+"I will do anything you tell me," she said with meek devotion. "I will
+do all I can to get well. For, William, I am the happiest and most
+blessed woman in England, and I do not want to leave you, dear."
+
+"That's my own brave wife," said he, winking his eyes quickly and
+patting her arm. "I don't think you will raise much, if any, objection
+to what I am about to do. I am going to write to Mrs. Farraday to come
+back and stay with you. She promised she would come if you needed her,
+and she will be a great source of comfort and confidence to you."
+
+"But her brother?"
+
+"Oh, her brother can do without her for awhile. You will be all right
+again in less than no time, and then, if she wishes, she can go back
+to her brother. And now I am off to write to Rochester for her by this
+very post, for a good thing cannot be done too soon, and I am sure
+this is a good thing for you."
+
+He left her, went to his own room, wrote the letter, and posted it
+immediately himself. Then he came back to the house, and having
+entered the dining-room on the ground-floor, began walking up and down
+with brows lowered in deep meditation.
+
+"I had better get it over me before Mrs. Farraday comes," he thought
+as the result of his cogitations. "I can't stay here any longer. I am
+not a sick-nurse to philander after an ailing woman, and dally in an
+invalid's room. She was a fool to marry me. Did she think for a moment
+I fell a victim to her ancient charms? If she did she ought to be in a
+lunatic asylum. Of course I told her I wanted to marry her for love,
+but is there in the history of the whole human race a single case of a
+man saying to a woman, 'I want to marry you for your money'? Not one.
+
+"I can't stand this house any longer; it suffocates me. The doctor
+says there is no hope. Why should I wait to see the end? The approach
+of death and the presence of death are abhorrent to all healthy
+people. I can do no good by staying, and I have to think of myself.
+There are very few men living who would have been as good to her as I
+have been. She cannot expect me to do more, and," with one of his
+short laughs and a quick winking of his eyes, "my affairs in South
+America urgently demand my presence. I'll get the business over me at
+once. Brereton told me I could have the money early this afternoon."
+
+Here his mind became so intensely occupied that his legs ceased to
+move, and he stood in the middle of the room lost in thought. He was
+contemplating scenes in his imagination: not proceeding by words.
+Presently words began to flow through his brain again, and he resumed
+his pacing up and down.
+
+"If there should be any hitch about that money I should be in a nice
+mess." He shook his head gravely and repeated this contingency to
+himself two or three times. "That would never do. It would look weak
+and foolish. When I act I must act with firmness and decision. No, I
+had better make sure of the cash first."
+
+He put all the money he had in his pocket, left the house, and took
+the first train to town. At Waterloo he jumped into a hansom and drove
+straight to the office of Mrs. Crawford's solicitor. He found Mr.
+Brereton in, and everything ready. The solicitor handed him an open
+cheque for £3,270, saying gravely as he did so:
+
+"And you are fully resolved to put this money in that South American
+speculation?"
+
+"My dear sir, there's a vast fortune in that fibre of mine; and now
+that the machinery has been perfected, it is only stretching out one's
+hands to gather in hundreds of thousands of pounds."
+
+Brereton shook his head.
+
+"The best place in which to put money is English Consols."
+
+"What, less than three per cent.! For you can't buy even at par now.
+Why, my dear sir, it's letting money rust."
+
+"It's keeping money safe."
+
+Crawford shrugged his shoulders and made a grimace of dissatisfaction.
+
+"Over-prudence, my dear Mr. Brereton. Who never ventured never got."
+
+"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; and of all the uncertain
+things I know of there is only one worse than putting money in South
+American speculations, and that is putting it in Central American
+ones."
+
+"Ah, but you have never been in South America!" said he triumphantly,
+and his eyes winked quickly, and he laughed a short unpleasant laugh,
+and thought to himself, "Nor have I either." Then he continued aloud,
+"I am aware that it is most unwise of any one who does not know the
+ground to dabble in South American speculations, but, you see, I am
+well acquainted with the place, and know the ropes."
+
+"The last client I had who touched anything in South America blew his
+brains out. But, of course, it is no affair of mine. I have only to do
+what I am asked by Mrs. Crawford in her letter to me. The cheque is an
+open one, as you requested. They will pay you across the counter. I
+hope you will not think of keeping such a sum as that in your house?"
+
+"O, dear, no! I am going to remit it at once to my agent. When you see
+me next, Mr. Brereton," laughing and winking his eyes, "you will
+congratulate me upon my spirit and success."
+
+"I hope so," said the lawyer drily, and in a tone and manner which
+plainly said he believed nothing of the kind would occur.
+
+Crawford said good-bye and went straight to the bank, where he got
+thirty-two one-hundred pound notes and seventy in fives.
+
+He had never had so much money in his possession before. He had never
+had any sum approaching it. Once or twice after a good racing week in
+the old times he had been master of five or six hundred, but three
+thousand two hundred pounds! It was almost incredible! And it was all
+in cash! It did not lie in the cold obstruction of any bank. It was
+not represented by doubtful I.O.U.'s. It was not represented by
+shadowy entries in a betting-book. It was not invested in any shaky
+securities. It was not manifested by abstract entries in a ledger. The
+money was concrete and tangible, and lying safely in his breast-pocket
+under the stout cloth of his coat. He could take it out and count it
+now if he liked. That minute he could start for Monte Carlo or St.
+Petersburg, Australia or Norway.
+
+As he walked along the streets he held his head high. He felt
+independent of all men, independent of fortune, of Fate. He had
+married for money, he had realised the prize, and it was now safe in
+his pocket. These notes were as much legally his own as his hands or
+his teeth. No one could take them from him except by force, and he
+took pride in thinking that few men who passed him in the street would
+be able to cope with him single-handed. He had as much thought of
+risking his money in anything so far off and tame as South American
+speculations as he had of buying a box of matches and burning it note
+by note.
+
+Of course, Brereton had been right in saying it would be a dangerous
+thing to keep such a tempting sum in an ordinary house. There might
+even be danger in walking about the streets with it in his pocket.
+Some dishonest person might have seen him draw it out of the bank and
+might be following him. He might be a match for more than an average
+man, but he would be no match for two or three. Garrotting had gone
+out of use, but it might be revived even in midday in London by men
+who knew the prize he carried, and were bold and prompt. If in a quiet
+street he were seized from behind and throttled so that he could not
+cry out, and if a man in front cut the pocket out of his coat, the
+thieves might be off before passers-by knew what was going on or
+suspected anything being wrong. He had a horror of revolvers, but
+plainly he ought to be armed. He did not yet know where he should keep
+his hoard, but in any case it would be well to possess the means of
+defending it.
+
+Crawford had by this time got out of the City and was strolling
+through Regent Street. He turned into a gunsmith's shop and bought a
+short large-bore revolver and some cartridges. The man showed him how
+to load the weapon. Crawford explained that he was about to leave the
+country for Algiers, and wished to have all the chambers charged, as
+he was going in a vessel with a crew of many nationalities, and was
+taking out a lot of valuable jewellery.
+
+Lying was a positive pleasure to him, even when it was not necessary.
+"It keeps a man's hand in," he explained the habit to himself.
+
+It was now about two o'clock, and he began to feel the want of
+luncheon. There was no place where better food could be got or where
+the charges were more moderate than at the Counter Club. He was only a
+short distance from it. What could be more reasonable than that he
+should go and lunch there? Nothing. So he turned into an off street on
+the left, and in a few minutes was seated in a luxurious armchair in
+the dining-room, waiting for the meal he had ordered of the obsequious
+waiter.
+
+He was somewhat tired by his walk, and found rest in the
+well-cushioned chair grateful and soothing.
+
+Could anything be more comfortable and cheering than to sit at ease in
+this well-appointed club, with a small fortune in notes under one's
+coat? Here was no suggestion of illness or approaching death. All the
+men present were in excellent health and spirits. They were talking of
+cheerful subjects--horses, theatres, cards, the gossip and scandal of
+the town. They spoke of nothing that was not a source of enjoyment;
+and though all they said ran on assumption that they did not
+contemplate the idea of any man denying himself pleasure or being
+unable to obtain pleasure owing to the want of money, they were not
+all rich men, but all spoke as if they were. It was so much pleasanter
+to sit here, listening to this talk and taking part in it, than to
+wander about that cold-mannered house in Singleton Terrace at
+Richmond, or to sit by the sick-bed of a wife ten years older than
+himself and whine out loving phrases and indulge in distasteful
+private theatricals.
+
+Then the obsequious and silent-footed waiter brought in his cutlets,
+and whispered that his luncheon was ready. Everything was very nice at
+Singleton Terrace, but somehow cutlets there and here were two widely
+different matters. It was no doubt easy to explain the reason of the
+difference. In one place the cook got twenty, in the other a hundred,
+pounds a year. But though that explained the difference, it made the
+cutlets at Singleton Terrace no better.
+
+He had had enough of Richmond. Why should he go back there? As he had
+always held, there was no advantage in being brutal, and he would not
+undeceive his elderly wife. He would not tell her in plain words that
+he had never cared in the least for her, that he had married her
+merely for her money, and now that she was dying and her income would,
+for him, die with her, and that he had got all the money she had, that
+his whole mind was occupied with the image of a beautiful young girl
+whom he was about to make love to and ask to fly with him on her
+(his wife's) money. No. It would be uselessly unkind to tell that
+middle-aged silly invalid any of these things. But why should he go
+back to Richmond?
+
+If he went back to say good-bye he would have to play a long scene in
+private theatricals to which no salary was now attached, since he had
+all the savings in his pocket. Besides, he would find it hard,
+credulous as his elderly wife was, to make her believe there could be
+any urgent necessity for his immediate departure to South America.
+There would be a scene and tears--and he hated scenes and tears--and
+then if the surprise or shock made her worse, who could tell the
+consequences, the unpleasant consequences, which might arise?
+
+In the next room were pen, ink, and paper. Why should he not write
+instead of going back? That was it! He'd write explaining, play at the
+club to-night, and go on to Welford in the morning. That was a better
+programme than crawling back to that silly old invalid and acting
+sorrow at parting when his heart was overrunning with joy.
+
+He went into the next room and wrote his first letter to his wife. He
+used a sheet of unheaded paper, and did not date or domicile it.
+
+
+My dearest Nellie,--Upon coming to town I found waiting for me a
+telegram from Rio Janeiro to the effect that if I did not reach that
+city at the very earliest moment possible--in fact, by a steamer
+sailing from London to-day--my title to the estate on which the fibre
+grows would lapse. Nothing but my personal presence could save it. So,
+much against my will, I was obliged to drive in hot haste to the boat
+without the satisfaction of bidding you good-bye. Indeed, I have
+barely time to write this scrawl, and shall have to intrust it to a
+waterman for post. Be quite sure all will go well with me, and that I
+shall telegraph you the moment I land. I am so glad I wrote for Mrs.
+Farraday before leaving home this morning. I know she will take every
+care of my Nellie while I am away, and I am sure my Nellie will take
+every care of herself, and be quite well long before the return of her
+loving husband,
+
+                                   William Crawford.
+
+
+"Thank heaven that's the end of this ridiculous connection!" he said
+to himself as he dropped the letter into a pillar-box in front of
+the club. "My mind is now easy, and I can enjoy myself. I can play
+to-night as though I were still a bachelor with no thought of the
+morrow. Ah, but I have thought of the morrow! What delightful thought,
+too! delightful Hetty."
+
+It was late in the evening when this letter was delivered at Singleton
+Terrace. Nothing else came by that post. Although Mrs. Crawford had
+often seen her husband's writing, this was the first letter she had
+got from him, and she had never before seen her name and the address
+of that house in his writing. She did not recognise the hand, and
+thinking the letter must be connected with routine business about the
+Welford property, she put it on the table by her bedside unopened. He
+attended to all such matters.
+
+When the maid brought in her supper she took up the letter again and
+turned it over idly in her hands. All at once it struck her that the
+writing was familiar, but whose it was she could not guess.
+
+With a smile at her own curiosity, she broke the cover and drew out
+the sheet of paper.
+
+She looked at the signature languidly until she read it. Then hastily,
+tremulously she scanned the first few lines. When she gathered their
+import she uttered a low wailing sob and fell back insensible on the
+pillow.
+
+
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+                        WILLIAM CRAWFORD FREE.
+
+
+When William Crawford had posted his letter to his wife he felt ten
+years younger than an hour before. He enjoyed an extraordinary
+accession of spirits. The day had grown heavy and cloudy, but to him
+it was brighter than the flawless blue of Mediterranean summer.
+Richmond and Singleton Terrace were done with for good and all. There
+were to be no more private theatricals played for board and lodgings.
+Instead of simulating love for an elderly woman, he was at liberty to
+make real love to the most charming young girl he had ever met. His
+notions of right and wrong were clear and simple: what he liked was
+right, what he did not like was wrong. Since he had come to man's
+estate he had acted upon the code, and it never once occurred to him
+to question it. He did not object to other men being pious or just or
+modest; he did not object to their even preaching a little to him
+about the merit of these or any other virtues. All he asked was to be
+let go his own gait unmolested.
+
+He was now at liberty to take what path he chose and adopt what sport
+pleased his humour. He had played for a small fortune and won. He felt
+proud of his success, and sorry that the nature of it forbade him
+glorying in it. He was aware that the most disreputable and
+unprincipled blackleg in the Counter Club would scorn to get money
+as he had acquired his. But this did not matter to him. He was
+not going to tell any one at the club how he came by the money;
+that was an irksome self-restraint imposed upon himself out of
+deference to ridiculous conventional ideas. But he had the money in
+his pocket--that was the great thing.
+
+As he intended playing all through the night, if the game were kept
+up, it was too early to begin at three o'clock in the afternoon. He
+should be fagged out before morning if he sat down now. He was neither
+so young nor so impetuous that he could not discipline desire to
+delay.
+
+All at once he remembered that in abandoning Singleton Terrace so
+suddenly he had lost his kit. The value of his baggage was not very
+great, and with the sum now in his possession he would not for three
+times its value go back to Richmond for it. He had now no personal
+belongings but the clothes he stood in and a portmanteau at Welford.
+He would go to a tailor and an outfitter and order what he wanted.
+That would amuse him and help to kill time. He should get back to the
+club about seven, and devote the rest of the evening and all the night
+to cards.
+
+He did not go to the tailor with whom he had dealt since he came to
+live at Richmond. He wanted to cut himself off from that place as
+completely as possible.
+
+At the tailor's he ordered three suits of clothes to be ready in three
+days and forwarded to Crawford's House, Crawford Street, Welford. What
+he bought at the outfitter's were to be sent to the tailor's and to
+accompany the parcel of the latter. He paid in advance for all. Then
+he went to another shop, purchased a portmanteau, and directed it to
+be delivered at the tailor's, and sent a note with it, asking him to
+put the outfitter's parcel and the clothes into it and send it to the
+address already given.
+
+Then he bethought him of a dressing-bag, and he bought a handsome one
+with silver-mounted bottle and ivory-backed brushes. The bag, being of
+leather, reminded him that he had no boots but those on his feet. So
+he purchased a couple of pairs and a pair of slippers, and the
+slippers put him in mind of a dressing-gown.
+
+He directed all these things to be sent to the tailor's, and wrote to
+the tailor to let them all be forwarded at the one time--that is, when
+the clothes were finished, in three days.
+
+He enjoyed this shopping greatly. He had never before spent so much
+money on himself in one day. It was so pleasant to buy these articles
+without worrying about the price, to be in doubt as to whether he
+should have a dressing-bag at thirty or thirty-five pounds, and to
+decide in favour of the thirty-five-pound one merely because it had
+prettier bottles and a greater number of pockets.
+
+When he could think of nothing else which he wanted, he said to
+himself, "And now what shall I take Hetty? I must get the very
+handsomest present I can light upon."
+
+This set him off calling Hetty up to mind. He looked into the windows
+of a dozen jewellers' and shops where fancy articles were sold. He
+failed to find an article to his liking. He could not realise Hetty
+accepting any of the costly gifts presented to his view. At length
+with a sudden start he cried out to himself, "What an idiot I have
+been! Of course, she would not accept any of these things from me now.
+A few simple flowers from Covent Garden to-morrow morning on my way to
+Welford will be the very thing."
+
+It never once occurred to him during the day that the money he was
+spending belonged to his wife, and was being laid out in a way and
+under conditions not contemplated by her in giving it to him. When he
+decided on taking flowers to Hetty, it never once occurred to him that
+this would be spending his wife's money to conciliate a rival of hers,
+and that twenty-four hours ago he would have bought these same flowers
+for his deserted wife.
+
+"Hetty," he said, formulating his theory, "is to be won through her
+imagination, not by pelf."
+
+When he got back to the club he reckoned up what he had spent.
+It was an agreeable surprise to find that although he had treated
+himself with great liberality, all his purchases did not absorb the
+hundred-pound note he had changed at the tailor's. He had got a
+moderate outfit and a very handsome dressing-case, with cut-glass
+bottles silver-mounted, and ivory-backed brushes, for less than one
+thirty-second part of the money received from Mr. Brereton that
+afternoon. He sat down to an excellent dinner with the conviction that
+he had done a fair day's work, and that he was entitled to enjoy
+himself for the remainder of the evening, and as far into the morning
+as he chose.
+
+The dinner was excellent; his shopping had given him zest for it, and
+when he stood up from the table he felt in the most excellent humour
+with himself and all the world.
+
+He looked at his watch.
+
+"She has my letter by this time," he said to himself, thinking of his
+wife. "If she is not a greater fool than I take her for, she will know
+from it that she has seen the last of me."
+
+When he wrote the letter he had no intention of conveying any such
+idea to her, but his shopping and thoughts of Hetty had hardened his
+heart since then towards his unhappy wife, and now he wanted to
+believe that his letter would leave her no loophole of hope.
+
+"Dr. Loftus said any shock might bring on the end. Perhaps my
+letter----" He paused and did not finish the sentence, but began
+another: "When a case is hopeless the greatest mercy which can be
+shown to the sufferer is, of course, to put an end to the struggle.
+She could not have fancied for a moment that I was going to spend all
+my life in the sick-room of a woman almost old enough to be my mother.
+Anyway, I need not bother my head any more about the matter. She
+cannot say that while our married life lasted I was not a kind and
+considerate husband. Turn about is fair play, and I am going to be a
+little kind and considerate to myself now. I'll put the past away from
+my mind. 'Gather we rosebuds while we may' is my version. Now to lose
+for the last time."
+
+At the Counter Club there were men every night who did not mind how
+far into the morning they sat so long as they were winning. From the
+moment Crawford touched the cards until he rose at half-past six he
+had lost steadily. Though he had played for higher stakes than usual,
+he had been as careful of his game as if he had no more than a few
+hundred pounds with him. He had not been reckless. He had not plunged.
+Luck had simply been dead against him, and when, while eating his
+early breakfast, he counted up the cost, he found he was close on
+three hundred pounds the worse for his night's experience.
+
+Mentally he cursed his bad luck.
+
+"But I deserve no better," he thought. "I told myself that I should
+have good luck only when I had come from Welford. The luck I played
+with last night was my wife's or my own, and both have been invariably
+bad. I shall go to Welford to-day, and play to-night with Hetty's
+luck, and win back all I have lost and more besides. And now to get a
+bouquet for Hetty--for the loveliest girl in the whole of England. But
+the bouquet must not be too splendid. It must be simple and cheap, or
+it might do more harm than good."
+
+At Covent Garden he bought some simple blossoms, and had them tied
+carelessly together.
+
+"She will not value them for what they cost, but for my remembering
+her."
+
+He was full of confidence in his power to fascinate and win. It never
+for a moment occurred to him that Hetty might not care for him or his
+memory of her. The notion of a rival had never entered his head, and
+if any one had suggested such a thing he would have laughed the
+consideration of it to scorn. He admired Hetty intensely, and he meant
+to succeed, and succeed he would.
+
+He lounged about Covent Garden for a good while, for he did not want
+to reach Welford until Layard had gone to the gasworks. Of course he
+should say his visit to Crawford's House was made with the purpose of
+seeing what progress had been made with the gates for the flooded
+ice-house.
+
+It was about eleven o'clock when he got to Welford Bridge.
+
+"The coast will be quite clear till one or two o'clock," he thought,
+with a sense of satisfaction. "Layard has gone to the works and Philip
+Ray is in his office, curse him!"
+
+When Hetty heard the latch in the door that day she came to no hasty
+conclusion that it was her brother come back for something he had
+forgotten. She was in the kitchen with Mrs. Grainger at the moment,
+and guessed immediately it was Crawford, although the week was not yet
+up. If Philip Ray had not spoken out to her, that sound at the door
+and the likelihood of the visitor being the landlord of the house
+would have thrown her into unpleasant excitement bordering on panic;
+but now she felt as calm and as much at ease as though certain it was
+Alfred himself.
+
+"I shall say nothing of what that dreadful man said about his falling
+into the river," she resolved hastily. "If he chooses to speak of it,
+well and good; if he does not, well and good also. We are to leave
+this house as soon as Alfred can make arrangements for doing so. The
+quieter and the smoother everything goes in the meantime the better."
+
+Crawford paused in the hall. Mrs. Grainger appeared "Is Mr. Layard
+in?" he asked, well-knowing he was not.
+
+"No, sir, he's gone to the works."
+
+"Then will you tell Miss Layard I should be glad to see her for a few
+minutes?" he said, taking off his hat and putting it on the table.
+
+Hetty came at once, and held out her hand with a smile.
+
+"She looks lovelier than ever," he thought, as he took the long
+slender hand and retained it. "I know I have come before my time, but
+I have been bothered again in my sleep about that ice-house and you. I
+will stay a day or so in order to see the gates put up--that is, of
+course, if you do not object?"
+
+"Object!" she said, withdrawing her hand. "Why on earth should we
+object?"
+
+"Well, I don't know," said he. "It may seem to you that I am unduly
+anxious about the matter. But upon my word, my anxiety about you has
+deprived me of all peace since I saw you last, and that scoundrel to
+whom I gave the order for the gates has not begun them yet. I assure
+you I had to exercise all my self-restraint to keep my hands off the
+fellow when I forced the truth from him. Will you accept a few simple
+flowers as a peace-offering and in lieu of the gates?"
+
+"O, thank you," she said. "They are beautiful! But you give yourself a
+great deal of unnecessary anxiety and trouble about that ice-house. We
+never allow little Freddie on the Quay by himself, and of course there
+is no danger for a grown-up person, because no grown-up person ever
+goes near it. How on earth," she asked, with a laugh, "do you fancy a
+grown-up person could fall into such a place?" She wondered was he
+going up to his own room, or did he intend to remain standing there
+all day?
+
+"I daresay I should not mind it if my dream happened to be about any
+one else. But the mere hint that any danger could threaten you is
+enough to drive me distracted. It is indeed," he said, looking at her
+intently, and with a pained expression on his usually passive face. "I
+assure you I did not sleep a wink last night; I could not, and I feel
+quite worn out and ill this morning. I have been wandering about,
+trying to kill time until I thought it was not too early to call here.
+I am hardly able to stand with anxiety, want of sleep, and fatigue."
+
+"Would you not like to go to your own room and rest awhile? I will
+send Mrs. Grainger up with something nice for you."
+
+"Mrs. Grainger could bring up nothing that I'd care for, and I hate
+the notion of going to that lonely room. I am quite nervous and
+unstrung." He sighed faintly and leaned against the wall for support.
+
+"Well," she said, "will you come into our room and rest there?"
+Plainly, after his reference to the loneliness of his own place and
+the declaration of his exhausted condition, there was nothing but to
+offer him their front-room.
+
+"Thank you," he said, "I shall very gladly accept your offer. I am
+thoroughly ashamed of seeming so weak and unmanned, but indeed I have
+had an awful time of it."
+
+He sank on a chair as though completely exhausted. She stood by the
+door and said, "Cannot I send you something, Mr. Crawford?"
+
+"If you would be so good as to get me a glass of water and then not
+leave me for a little while I should feel very grateful to you."
+
+She hastened away and returned in a few seconds with the water.
+
+"Miss Layard, I cannot tell you how ill I felt as I came along here. I
+really thought I should not have had courage to open the front door. I
+was full of the direst imaginings. I fancied that no sooner should I
+raise the latch than some awful form of bad news about you would
+strike me dumb with horror, paralyse me with despair." He took out his
+handkerchief and rubbed his forehead, which, however, was perfectly
+free from moisture.
+
+"I am very sorry to be the cause of so much trouble to you, Mr.
+Crawford," said Hetty with some concern, though she had a vague kind
+of feeling that there was something wrong with the man--that he was
+either acting or of weak intellect. It never once occurred to her that
+he was thinking of making love to her. How could it? Was not he a
+married man? And did he not know that they were aware the owner of the
+Welford and Leeham property was his wife? She thought he had been a
+good deal too impulsive and a little impertinent on the former
+occasion when he told her of his dream, but now she was almost
+convinced that his violence of language on the former occasion and his
+physical collapse now were the result of a weak mind under strong
+excitement.
+
+For a while after drinking the water he sat still and did not speak.
+Apparently he was gradually recovering, for he sighed once or twice,
+and once or twice straightened himself and sat upright on his chair.
+"I shall be all right in a few minutes. The sight of you is doing me
+good."
+
+"Well, of course you know now nothing dreadful has happened?"
+
+"To you--yes; I know that, thank Heaven! but to me, yes."
+
+"Something dreadful has happened to you?" cried Hetty. "I am sorry to
+hear you say so. Nothing, I hope, that can't be mended?"
+
+"Well, I do not know about that. If my condition were very desperate,
+Miss Layard, and it was in your power to mend it, and I asked you to
+help me, would you do so?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Crawford, if I possibly could." He rose and went to
+her where she sat by the table, and bent over her, and said in a low,
+tremulous, tender voice, "Thank you--thank you a thousand times, my
+dear Miss Layard, my dear Hetty--may I call you Hetty?"
+
+She coloured and looked uncomfortable, and this made her shine in his
+eyes with ineffable beauty. "It is not usual," she said at last.
+
+"No, it is not usual, but I would deem it a great privilege. I of
+course would not call you by your dear Christian name when any one was
+by, but when you and I were having a little chat by ourselves I might,
+might I?"
+
+Her colour and her confusion increased. "It is not usual," she
+repeated. "There is no reason why you should call me one thing now and
+another thing at another time." She raised her eyes, drew away a
+little from him, and pointing to the chair, said with steady emphasis
+which surprised herself, and showed him he must go no further--now,
+anyway: "I am afraid you are not yet rested enough to stand so long.
+Will you not sit down again?"
+
+"You are right," he said with a deep sigh. "You are quite right. I am
+completely worn out, and my head is confused."
+
+"There is no couch in your own room--perhaps you would like to rest on
+the one here? You will not be disturbed for some hours yet. My brother
+does not come in till three."
+
+"Thank you very much, Miss Layard," he said, without any emphasis on
+her name. "But I think I'll go to my own room and lie down now. If I
+could get an hour's sleep I should be all right."
+
+When he stood alone in his own room he said to himself, "I have not
+made much progress with her yet. I durst not go any further to-day
+than I went. Next time I ask her I'd bet a thousand pounds to a penny
+she'll give me leave to call her Hetty when we're alone. Once let her
+give me leave to call her Hetty when we are alone while I am to call
+her Miss Layard when any one else is present, and the rest is simple.
+My dreams"--he uttered his short sharp laugh and winked his eyes
+rapidly--"my dreams and my enormous solicitude for her welfare _must_
+tell in the end."
+
+He went to the open window and looked out at the canal and the Ait and
+the tow-path. Then he turned his eyes downward.
+
+With a cry of terror he sprang back, as though a deadly weapon or
+venomous snake in act to strike were a hand's breadth from his breast.
+
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+                        CRAWFORD IS SLEEPLESS.
+
+
+What startled Crawford and made him draw back in terror from the
+window was the sight beneath him of the stage reaching from Boland's
+Ait to Crawford's Quay across the murky waters of Crawford's Bay.
+
+Involuntarily he put his hand behind and felt for the revolver in his
+pocket. It was reassuring to find it safe and within easy reach.
+
+It had been bad enough to know that Philip Ray visited the idiotic
+recluse, Bramwell, on this accursed island; but to find a means of
+communication established between the Ait and the Quay was alarming in
+the extreme.
+
+What could be the object of this floating bridge? Of course it was not
+there merely by accident. It was there with the consent of the Layards
+and the poor drivelling creature who lived on the holm.
+
+William Crawford was not an intrepid man. Layard was near the truth
+when he called him a coward. Crawford never courted danger. His
+instinct was to flee from it. If he could not run away, he preferred
+thrusting his head into the sand to looking menace straight in the
+face. If a person or a place became obnoxious to him he simply went
+away or stayed away.
+
+In the present case the thing he would like best was that Philip Ray
+might die, or be killed, or stop away from Boland's Ait because of
+some sufficient and final reason, death being the most satisfactory of
+all. After the cessation of Ray's visits to the Ait for fully
+sufficient reason, what he would have liked was his own absence from
+the neighbourhood. The latter means of terminating the difficulty lay
+in his own hands, but two considerations operated against his adopting
+it. In the first place, he could use the precaution of not being in
+the house, or even district, during the hours when Ray was likely to
+be free from his office; and, in the second place, he could not bring
+himself to abandon his pursuit of Hetty. He was willing to run a
+moderate risk for her sake.
+
+"I think," he had said to himself that day on his way to Welford,
+"that if Nellie were to die, and I found Hetty continued to bring me
+luck, I should marry her."
+
+He had never asked himself whether it was likely Hetty would marry him
+or not. He always considered that women should be allowed little or no
+voice in such matters.
+
+From the shock of seeing the stage connecting the Ait and the Quay he
+recovered quickly. He went back to the window and looked out again.
+
+There was not a cloud in the heavens. The noonday sun of mid-June
+blazed in the sky. There was no beauty in the scene, but it was
+looking its best and brightest. Under the broad intense light of day
+the waters of the Bay and the Canal shone like burnished silver, all
+their turbidity hidden from sight by the glare, as the darkness in the
+heart of steel is masked by the polished surface. Now and then a stray
+wayfarer passed along the tow-path. A barge, piled up high with yellow
+deals, trailed with slackened rope after the leisurely horse. The
+grass on the slope up from the tow-path was still green and fresh with
+the rains of recent spring. Beyond the wall at the top of the bank
+burned a huge vermilion show-van with golden letters naming in the
+light. The tiles of Bramwell's cottage glowed a deep red under the
+blue sky. Afar off factory chimneys, like prodigious columns of some
+gigantic ruined fane, stood up against the transparent air with
+diaphanous capitals of blue smoke uniting them to the blue vault
+above. From Welford Bridge came the dull sound of heavy traffic, and
+faintly caught from some deep distance came the faint napping beat of
+heavy hammers driving metal bolts through the stubborn oak of lusty
+ships. Sparrows skipped on the ground and twittered in the air. High
+up in the blue measures of the sky a solitary crow sailed silently by
+unheeding. All the world appeared dwelling in an eternal calm of vital
+air and wholesome light. All abroad seemed at peace under the spell of
+a Sabbath sky.
+
+Suddenly he became conscious of voices near and beneath him. He looked
+out, but could see no one.
+
+"They seem to come from the island," he thought, "and to be children's
+voices."
+
+"It's a 'bus," said one of the young voices, "and I'm the driver."
+
+"No," said another young voice, but a more resonant one than the
+former; "it's a tramcar, and I'm the driver."
+
+"And I'm the conductor."
+
+"No; I'm the conductor too."
+
+"And what am I?"
+
+"O, you're the people in the car. Fares, please. Here, give me this
+piece of slate. That's your fare. O, I say, there's a coal wagon on
+the line before us!"
+
+The other boy uttered a shrill cry.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The whistle for the coal-van to get out of the way."
+
+"But I am the driver, and you are not to whistle."
+
+"Then I am the conductor, and the conductor rings the bell."
+
+"No, you're not. I am the driver and the conductor, and you are the
+people in the tramcar, and all you have to do is to sit still and pay
+your fare. Fares, please."
+
+"I am not to pay my fare twice. I don't like to be the people."
+
+"O, but you are to pay your fare again, for we are coming back now,
+and you are different people."
+
+"I don't like this game. Let us play something else."
+
+"Very well. We'll play it's a boat, and that you fall into the river,
+and I catch you and pull you out, and----"
+
+"Curse the brats, whoever they are!" cried Crawford fiercely, as he
+put his hand on the sash and drove the window down violently.
+
+Freddie's words were purely accidental. For neither he nor any one
+else had heard from Hetty about Crawford's accident at the Mercantile
+Pier. She had said no more to her brother than that the landlord had
+come about the gates for the ice-house, and the subsequent alarming
+attempt at extortion by Red Jim had driven curiosity regarding
+Crawford's visit out of Layard's mind. Now that the latter had made up
+his mind to get out of this house as soon as possible, he cared little
+or nothing about the doings of the owner, so long as the owner kept
+his eccentricities within reasonable limits. The talk which Layard had
+with Bramwell on the subject of leaving Crawford's house had made no
+lasting impression on the brother. When he was by himself that night
+he made up his mind finally on two points. First, he would have Mrs.
+Grainger all day in the house; and, second, he would find a new home
+as soon as he could get rid of the present one.
+
+The words of the child playing in the old timber-yard of the Ait had
+an unpleasant effect on Crawford. He did not know who the child was,
+nor could he bring himself to believe that this mishap at the
+Mercantile Pier had anything to do with the words overheard, and yet
+the coincidence vexed him. He told himself it was ridiculous to allow
+the circumstance to disturb him, but he could not help himself.
+
+"I begin to think," he muttered, "that sitting up does not agree with
+me. I must be growing nervous. I ought to have some sleep if I am to
+try my luck again to-night--my luck and Hetty's," he added. "But if I
+sleep I must take care not to overdo it. I don't want to be here when
+that bearded ape of a brother of hers comes in to dinner." He went to
+the head of the stairs and called out to Mrs. Grainger to knock at his
+door and tell him when it was half-past two. Then he took off his
+coat, waistcoat, and boots, and lay down on his bed.
+
+It was not quite as easy to go to sleep as he imagined it would be.
+The words of the child kept ringing in his ears. If by any chance the
+story of his fall into the water reached Hetty's ears, it would not
+improve his position in her mind. It might, in fact, cover him with
+ridicule. The bare thought of being laughed at made him writhe and
+curse and swear.
+
+Well, if he wanted to get any sleep, he must put this nonsensical
+trouble out of his head. He ought to be very sleepy, and yet he felt
+strangely wakeful.
+
+Then he could not say seriously to himself that he had made much
+progress with Hetty. Had he made any? He did not, of course, expect to
+find her in love with him all at once, but he had hoped she would show
+a little interest in him. If he must tell himself the truth, the only
+interest she showed in him was a desire to get him away from herself
+or to get away from him. In a week or so that would be all changed,
+but it was not pleasant just now.
+
+"Confound it!" he muttered, turning over on his other side, "if I keep
+going on this way I shall not get a wink of sleep."
+
+There was no more virtue in lying on one side than the other. He
+successfully banished from his mind any reflections that might disturb
+him. He thought of all the pleasant features of his present condition.
+He had for ever cut himself adrift from Singleton Terrace and the
+slavery to that infatuated old fool, his wife. He had now in his
+pocket, even after his losses of last night, four times more money
+than ever he had owned at one time in all his life before, and he had
+a weapon to defend himself and his money. He had never possessed a
+revolver or a pistol of any other kind until now. He was absolutely
+secure against all danger. No harm could come to him or his money. He
+was afraid of nothing in the world now, of no one----Curse that Philip
+Ray!
+
+But he must remember that Philip Ray could have nothing more than a
+revolver, and that he himself had one, and at close quarters such a
+weapon was as effective in the hands of a man unaccustomed to its use
+as in those of one who had practised shooting hours a day for years.
+
+No; sleep would not come. Perhaps if he put the revolver under his
+head the sense of security its presence afforded would soothe him into
+slumber.
+
+He got up and took the weapon out of the back pocket of his coat. He
+poised it in his hand, and looked at it with mingled feelings of
+timidity and admiration. He cocked it, and took aim at spots on the
+wall paper a few inches above the level of his own eye. "If Ray were
+there now, and I pulled this trigger, he would be a dead man in less
+than a minute. I do not want to kill him. I should not fire except in
+self-defence. But if I thought he meant any harm, I'd save my life and
+put an end to his--the murderous-minded scoundrel!"
+
+With the utmost care he lowered the hammer and, thrusting the revolver
+under his pillow, lay down again.
+
+No; he did not feel any inclination to sleep. He counted a thousand;
+he watched a large flock of sheep go one by one through a gap; he
+repeated all the poetry he knew by rote, and found himself as wakeful
+as ever.
+
+He tumbled and tossed about, and poured out maledictions on his
+miserable condition. He had not had experience of such a state before.
+Until to-day he had possessed the power of going to sleep at will. He
+had never lain awake an hour in his life. This was most tantalising,
+most exasperating. He should not be fresh for the cards to-night. He
+should be heavy and drowsy when he wanted to be clear and bright. How
+could he be fresh enough to play if he did not get rest?
+
+Could it be the burden of this money was too great for him? Was he
+really apprehensive of being robbed? Brereton had told him it was
+dangerous to carry so large an amount in cash about with him. Had
+Brereton's words sunken into his mind, and were they now working on
+him unawares? No one could gainsay the wisdom of Brereton's caution.
+It was a dangerous thing to go about the streets of London with three
+thousand pounds in one's pocket. But there was nothing else for it. He
+would not put the money in an English bank, for he could not get an
+introduction without betraying himself, his presence in London, and
+telling more of his affairs than he desired. Lodging it in the
+Richmond bank was quite out of the question.
+
+It was maddening to feel he could not sleep. Could it really be he
+was, unknown to himself, in dread of being plundered if he lost
+consciousness?
+
+He opened his eyes and looked around him. Then, with an angry
+exclamation, he sprang up.
+
+"What an idiot I have been," he cried, "to leave the door unlocked! My
+reason must be going when I could be guilty of such folly."
+
+He turned the key in the lock. He looked around the room. He had shut
+the window to keep out the voices of the children, but he had omitted
+to fasten it down. He hasped it now. Then he went to the chair on
+which his coat lay, took the bundle of notes out of his breast-pocket,
+and thrust it under the pillow of the bed beside the revolver. He
+looked at his watch. "One o'clock," he muttered. "Now for an hour and
+a half's sleep. I shall wake fresh, and then be off to town."
+
+Now and then he thought his desire was about to be realised. Now and
+then for a moment a confusion arose in his senses, and he lost the
+sharp outlines of reality, only to return to intense wakefulness and
+renewed despair.
+
+"I shall go mad!" he cried in his heart. "Something tells me I
+shall go mad. Between Ray, and the Club, and Singleton Terrace, and
+Hetty, and the money, and this want of sleep, I know I shall go mad.
+Insomnia is one of the surest signs of coming insanity. O, it would be
+cruel--cruel if anything happened to me now that I have just won all!
+I am free of Nellie; I have the money; I have felt the influence of
+Hetty's luck, and will feel it again to-night. If Hetty would only
+come with me I should be out of the way of Kate's brother. Curse him a
+thousand times! And now I feel my head is going, my brain is turning.
+It isn't fair or just after all the trouble I have taken. It is
+horrible to think of losing everything now that I have so much within
+my grasp. I think that fall into the river and the meeting with Kate
+afterwards must have hurt my brain. And this sleeplessness, this
+wearing sleeplessness, will finish the work! O, it is too bad, too
+cruel! It is not fair!"
+
+With a cry of despair he rose and began pacing up and down the room,
+frantically waving his hands over his head, and moaning in his misery.
+
+Mrs. Grainger knocked at the door.
+
+"It's half-past two, sir."
+
+"All right."
+
+The voice of the woman acted like a charm.
+
+"What on earth," he asked himself, pausing in his walk, "have I been
+fooling about? I daresay that ducking and the fright of it, and the
+meeting with Kate, and the long repression at Singleton Terrace, and
+the cards, and finding myself so near Ray, and this bridge from the
+island to the Quay, and having the anxiety of the money on my mind,
+have all helped to put me a little out of sorts, and therefore, like
+the fool that I am, I must think I am going mad. The only sign of
+madness there is about me is that I should fancy such a thing. Why,
+the mere lying down has made me all right. I feel quite refreshed and
+young again. And now I must off. I don't want to meet that grinning
+bearded oaf."
+
+Crawford put on his coat, waistcoat, and boots, replaced the money and
+the revolver in his pockets, and went downstairs. He could see Hetty
+through the open door of the sitting-room, arranging the table for
+dinner.
+
+"I perceive," he called out to her in a blithe voice, "that you have
+opened up communications with your Robinson Crusoe. You have got a
+plank, or a stage, or something, from the Quay to the Ait."
+
+"O," said Hetty, "Robinson Crusoe has a little boy the same age as our
+Freddie, and Freddie goes over every day to play with young Crusoe,
+and that's why the stage is there."
+
+"I heard children's voices from my room. I suppose they belonged to
+Freddie and his young friend?"
+
+"Yes. You couldn't be within a mile of the place without hearing
+Freddie's voice."
+
+"Good-day."
+
+"Good-day." Crawford went to the door and opened it. Suddenly a
+thought struck him, and he closed the door and ran upstairs. When he
+found himself in his own room he shut the door, and said to himself in
+a tone of reproach, "How stupid of me not to think of that before. Why
+need I carry all this money about with me when I can leave the bulk of
+it here?"
+
+He counted out twenty-five one hundred-pound notes and locked them in
+a drawer. He turned the key in the lock of the door on the outside,
+and dropped it into his pocket. Then he slipped down the stairs
+noiselessly and gained the street without seeing either Hetty or Mrs.
+Grainger.
+
+"I feel a new man now," he said to himself. "There is about as much
+chance of my going mad as of my being made Archbishop of Canterbury.
+And now we shall see if there is anything in my notion about Hetty's
+luck. Tonight will be the test."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XL.
+
+                           CRAWFORD SLEEPS.
+
+
+William Crawford was in a hurry away from Welford, not in a hurry to
+the Counter Club. His design was more to escape a meeting with Layard,
+than to pick up any of his gambling associates. "A walk," he thought,
+"will do me good." So, instead of taking the steamboat or any wheeled
+conveyance, he crossed Welford Bridge at a quick pace and kept on,
+heading west.
+
+He felt that this day made an epoch in his life. He had bidden
+good-bye to his wife for ever. He had realised the fortune for which
+he had schemed. He had put himself under the tutelage of Hetty's luck.
+He would shortly cut the past adrift. If Nellie died soon--a thing
+almost certain--he would marry Hetty, leave the country and settle
+down. Of course, whether his wife died or not, Hetty must be his. That
+was settled, both because he admired her more than any other woman he
+had ever met and because she had brought him luck, and would bring him
+more. He knew, he felt as sure he should win that night as he did that
+the sun was shining above him. If he did not win that night he should
+be more astonished than if the sky now grew dark and night came on
+before sunset. O, how delightful and fresh would life be in the new
+world with Hetty and good luck present, and all the dangers and
+troubles and annoyances of the old world left behind here, and
+banished from his mind for ever!
+
+He had not felt so light and buoyant for many a long day. What an
+absurd creature he had been half-an-hour ago, with his fears of going
+mad just because he had been a little upset and deprived of sleep for
+twenty-four hours!
+
+He crossed the river by London Bridge and loitered about the City for
+a couple of hours. He felt that sensation of drowsiness coming on him
+again. He knew he could sleep no more now than when at Welford. Again
+his mind became troubled, and, shaking himself up, he exclaimed, "I
+will not suffer this again. There is nothing to rouse one up like the
+cards. Now to test my theory of Hetty's luck." He hailed a hansom and
+drove to the Counter Club.
+
+The dinner at the club was excellent, but he had little or no
+appetite. As a rule he drank nothing but water. This evening he
+felt so dull and out of sorts he had a pint of champagne. It roused
+and cheered him at first, and after a cup of coffee he felt much
+better than he had all day. Not giving himself time to fall back
+into his former dull and depressed condition, he went straight to the
+card-room, where he found more men than usual, and the play already
+running high.
+
+That night remains immemorable in the annals of the Counter Club. Play
+had been going on from early in the afternoon. Three brothers named
+Staples, members of the club, had lately come into equal shares of a
+large fortune left by a penurious old uncle. This was the first
+evening they had been at the Counter since they had got their
+legacies, and they had agreed among themselves to make a sensation. Up
+to this night they had been obliged to shirk high play, as their means
+were very limited and no credit was given at the card-tables. They
+were flush now, and had made up their minds to play as long as they
+could find any one to sit opposite them. When they came into the
+card-room an hour before Crawford they told a few friends their
+intention. The news spread, and the room filled to see the sport.
+Owing to the high stakes there were fewer players and a much greater
+number of spectators than usual.
+
+"Now," thought Crawford, when he had heard the news, "this will be a
+good test. I am in no hurry, and I will give my luck, Hetty's luck, a
+fair trial. I have about five hundred pounds, and I'll play as long as
+they play if my money holds out."
+
+There were six tables in the room, and at each of three one of the
+brothers sat. Crawford took his place at the table where the eldest
+was playing.
+
+At midnight Crawford was ten pounds better off than at the beginning.
+This was worse than to have lost fifty. It was stupefying. It was more
+like earning money at a small rate an hour than winning money at
+cards.
+
+As the men at Crawford's table had resolved to make a night of it,
+they adjourned for half-an-hour at one o'clock for supper. Crawford
+was still further disgusted to find that now he had eight pounds more
+than at starting. Eight pounds after five hours! Why, verily, the game
+did not pay for the candle. And worse than the paltriness of his
+winnings was this feeling of drowsiness which had come on him again.
+He now blamed the champagne for it. He drank water this time.
+
+At half-past one play was resumed. The dull heavy feeling continued,
+and at times Crawford hardly knew what he was doing. The night flew
+by. By four o'clock all the lookers-on had left, and the room
+contained only players. All the tables but one were now deserted. At
+this one six men sat, Crawford, the three Staples, and two other
+members of the club.
+
+By some extraordinary combination of luck no money worth speaking of
+had changed hands. All the players declared they had never seen
+anything so level in their lives. At this time there was a pause in
+the play for light refreshment. Five of the men had brandies and
+sodas, Crawford had coffee. He looked at the counters before him, and
+counted them with his eye. He had been making money at something like
+the rate of a day labourer. He had won two or three sovereigns! This
+wasn't play, but slavery.
+
+The other men had nothing sensational to say; they all declared they
+were pretty much as they had started. No one had gained much, and no
+one was much hurt.
+
+"Never saw such a thing in my life!" said the eldest Staples in
+amazement.
+
+"Nor I," said Crawford.
+
+"Shall we say seven for breakfast, and then, if there is no change,
+we'll chuck it?"
+
+"All right," chorussed the others.
+
+At seven, however, there was a very marked change: Crawford had won a
+hundred and fifty pounds.
+
+"That's better," said the eldest Staples. "I vote we go on."
+
+He was two hundred and fifty to the bad.
+
+"Agreed," said the others.
+
+"Is any one sleepy?"
+
+"I'm not, at all events," said Crawford.
+
+He could hardly keep his eyes open, and his head and limbs felt like
+lead.
+
+At eight o'clock play was resumed, and Crawford's good luck continued.
+But he went on like a man in a dream. Now and then he lost all
+consciousness of his surroundings for a moment, and even when aroused
+he seemed only half awake; but though he was playing automatically,
+his good fortune kept steadily increasing the heap of counters at his
+left elbow.
+
+At noon a few of the men who had been spectators the evening before
+came in to learn how the sitting had ended. They were overwhelmed with
+astonishment and envy when they heard that play had been continued all
+through the night and was still going on. They dropped into the
+card-room to see how the company bore the wear and tear of the night,
+and to gather how matters stood.
+
+At one o'clock another halt was called for luncheon. The position of
+the players was then ascertained approximately. Two of the Staples and
+one of the other men had lost heavily, the youngest Staples had won a
+trifle, the other man was fifty pounds to the good, and William
+Crawford found himself in possession of sixteen hundred pounds, or
+eleven hundred more than when he sat down.
+
+"Have we not had enough of it?" he asked of the eldest Staples; "I
+feel very tired."
+
+"O," cried Staples, "let us go on till one of us gives in. If luck
+keeps on as it has been running I shall be dished soon. Then we can
+stop."
+
+"All right," said Crawford. To himself he said, "If the play leaves
+off before midnight I know I shall increase my winnings, for Hetty's
+luck will be with me till then."
+
+At seven o'clock young Staples said, "What about dinner?"
+
+"O, hang dinner!" cried his brother. "Let us play until I'm cleaned
+out. I mean to stop at another hundred."
+
+Crawford felt himself nod more than once between that and nine
+o'clock. He could no longer readily distinguish hearts from diamonds
+or spades from clubs. He heard noises in his ears, and every now and
+then he had to shake himself up sharply to make himself realise where
+he was.
+
+"Crawford, you're falling asleep," said the eldest of the brothers,
+"and I've got beyond that hundred. Shall we stop? We've been at it
+twenty-four hours."
+
+"I've been at it nearly thirty-six," said Crawford, rising. "I have
+had no sleep for forty-eight hours. I cannot see the cards."
+
+"Shall we all dine together?" asked Staples. "This is an occasion
+which we ought to mark in some way or other."
+
+"For my part," said Crawford, "I could eat nothing. I could not
+swallow a morsel until I sleep. I shall take a hansom and drive home."
+
+As he stumbled stupidly into the cab that evening he carried away from
+the Counter Club two hundred pounds in gold, four hundred in notes,
+and sixteen hundred in cheques, making in all twenty-two hundred
+pounds, or seventeen hundred pounds more than he had brought into it
+the evening before. He directed the man to drive to Welford Bridge,
+and then settled himself comfortably in a corner to sleep on the way.
+
+Before falling asleep he put his hand into his back pocket to
+ascertain if the revolver was there. "It's all right," he muttered.
+"After all, it's a great comfort to have it and to know I can defend
+myself and protect my money. But in reality, it isn't my money, but
+Hetty's. She brought me the luck. That's as plain as--" He started and
+stopped for a moment. A vivid flash of lightning had roused and
+stopped him for a second. "That's as plain as the lightning I have
+just seen." Before the long roll of the distant thunder died in the
+east he was asleep.
+
+In little over an hour the cab reached the South London Canal. The
+driver raised the trap in the roof, and shouted down:
+
+"Welford Bridge, sir."
+
+"O, ay," said Crawford, half awake. "What is it?"
+
+"This is Welford Bridge, sir."
+
+"Very good; I'll walk the rest of the way."
+
+He got out and paid the man. Rain was now falling in perpendicular
+torrents. Every minute the sky was filled with dazzling pulses of
+swift blue flame. The crash and tear and roar of thunder was almost
+continuous.
+
+Crawford was conscious of flashes and clash and crash overhead, and
+rain descending like a confluence of waterspouts, but he did not feel
+quite certain whether all was the work of his imagination in dreams or
+of the material elements.
+
+Dazed for want of sleep, and half-stunned by the clamour of the sky,
+and rendered slow and torpid by the clinging warm wetness of his
+clothes, he staggered along Welford Road and down Crawford Street.
+
+"I shall sleep well to-night," he thought, grinning grimly at his
+present uncomfortable plight.
+
+Arrived at the door, he opened it with his latch-key. He stumbled
+along into the back hall with the intention of shaking the rain off
+his clothes before going up to his room.
+
+The door on the quay from the back hall was wide open. He stood at it
+and looked out. The light from the kitchen pierced the gloom, and the
+rain streamed across the wet and glittering floating-stage.
+
+At that moment three pulses of fierce blue light beat from sky to
+earth, illumining vividly everything which distance or the rain did
+not hide.
+
+William Crawford saw by the swift blue light from heaven the form of a
+woman advancing towards him across the stage. He saw that she held and
+umbrella open above her head. He saw that she had red spots on her
+thin and worn face. He knew that this woman was Kate Mellor of three
+years back, the woman who had rescued him from death a few days ago.
+
+It was plain she did not recognise him, he standing between her and
+the light in the hall. She said, shaking the umbrella:
+
+"I brought this for you, Philip."
+
+Philip! Her brother! Philip Ray, her brother, who had sworn to kill
+him, must therefore be absolutely in the house under whose roof he now
+stood. Monstrous!
+
+He turned swiftly round with a view to gaining the foot of the stairs
+and dashing up before he could be recognised.
+
+Under the light of the hall-lamp, and advancing towards him, was
+Philip Ray, Kate's brother. For a moment Philip stood stock still,
+regarding the other fixedly. Then with a yell the brother sprang
+forward, crying:
+
+"By ----, 'tis he at last! 'Tis Ainsworth!"
+
+With a shriek of terror and despair Crawford bounded through the open
+door out on the narrow quay, and turned sharply to the left. In a
+second Ray sprang out on the quay in pursuit. The darkness was so
+intense he could not see which way Crawford had taken. For a moment he
+stood in the light coming through the doorway.
+
+It was at this instant Kate Bramwell stepped ashore off the stage. As
+she did so two flashes in quick succession burst from the heavens. By
+this light she perceived Crawford standing half-a-dozen paces to the
+left of the back-door. She recognised him instantly. She saw that he
+had his right arm raised and extended on a line with his shoulder in
+the direction of her brother. She saw in his hand something metallic
+gleam in the lightning. With one bound she clasped her brother and
+strove with all her power to drag him down to the ground out of the
+line of the weapon. There was a snap, a loud report, and with a pang
+of burning pain in her shoulder, she fell insensible to the ground.
+
+The thunder burst forth in a deafening roar.
+
+The man who had fired the shot turned and fled headlong, he knew not,
+cared not, whither.
+
+Suddenly he tripped over something and shot forward. He thrust out his
+hands to break his fall. They touched nothing. His whole body seemed
+to hang suspended in air for an instant. Then his hands and arms shot
+into water. His face was dashed against the smooth cold surface, and a
+boisterous tumult of water was in his ears, and his breathing ceased.
+
+"The ice-house! No gates! Why do I not rise? If I do he will kill me.
+I cannot get out of this without help, and he is the only one near who
+could help, and he would kill me, would with pleasure see me drown a
+thousand times. When I rise I shall shout, come what may. I wonder is
+he dead? Why do I not rise? Yes, now I know why I do not rise. The
+gold, the two hundred pounds in gold; and my clothes are already
+soaked through. I shall never rise. I need struggle no more. I am
+going, going red-handed before the face of God."
+
+That night William Crawford slept under ten feet of water, on the bed
+of ooze and slime, at the bottom of the flooded ice-house on
+Crawford's Bay.
+
+The wounded woman never spoke again, never recovered consciousness.
+She passed peacefully away in the fresh clear light of early day.
+
+It was not until the evening after the fatal night that, at the
+suggestion of Bayliss, the water of the flooded ice-house was dragged,
+and the body of William Crawford discovered. In the case of Kate
+Bramwell, a verdict of wilful murder was brought in by the coroner's
+jury against William Crawford. In his own case the jury said that he
+was found drowned in the flooded ice-house, but how he happened, to
+get into the water there was no evidence to show.
+
+Mrs. Farraday, who came at once to Richmond on receiving Crawford's
+letter, was careful to let no newspaper containing any account of the
+Welford tragedy near Mrs. Crawford. The patient and gentle invalid was
+gradually sinking. She never complained to any one of his desertion.
+She never told a soul of the money she had given him. Whatever she
+thought of his letter to her she kept to herself. Her evidence, no
+doubt, would have been required at the inquest if her health had been
+ordinary. But Dr. Loftus certified that the mere mention of his death
+would in all likelihood prove fatal to her.
+
+About a month after his death she said one evening to Mrs. Farraday:
+
+"I should like to get one letter from my husband, announcing his safe
+arrival, before I go on my long journey. But it is not to be. I shall
+not be here when the letter comes. Let no one open it. Let it be burnt
+unopened. The letters between a husband and wife ought to be sacred."
+
+She was afraid something in it might militate against the good opinion
+in which those who had met Crawford in Richmond had held him.
+
+One morning, about six weeks after the inquest, Mrs. Farraday thought
+the stricken woman was sleeping longer than usual as she had not rung
+her bell by half-past nine o'clock. Mrs. Farraday went to the bed and
+found the poor sufferer had glided from the troubled sleep of life
+into the peaceful sleep of eternity.
+
+"It is a mercy," said the good and kind-hearted woman, "that she never
+knew the truth."
+
+It is now two years since that awful night. Once more Boland's Ait is
+uninhabited; once more no one dwells on the shore of Crawford's Bay.
+But in a very small but comfortable and pretty house in one of the
+leafy roads of the south-east district, and not far from the great
+Welford Gasworks, live in amity and cheerful concord two small
+families consisting of Alfred Layard and his little son Freddie, and
+Philip Ray, his wife Hetty, and their tiny baby girl, who is called
+after the mother, but always spoken of as Hesper by the mother,
+because of the great seriousness with which young mothers ever regard
+their first little babes. Hetty declares Hesper to be the wisest child
+in all the realms of the empire, for she never by any chance utters a
+sound during the two hours each evening that Philip is busy with his
+pupils.
+
+Bramwell lives with his boy in a cottage at Barnet, where he is
+preparing for the press a selection from articles written by him in
+magazines during the past two years.
+
+
+
+
+                               THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Isle of Surrey, by Richard Dowling
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42756 ***