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PAUL MASS IE.
A ROMANCE.
BY
JUSTIN  MoCARTHY,
AUTHOR OF "LAIY JUDITH,"I  "A FAIR BSAXON," AND " INUIY BOCHFORD."
NEW YORK:
SHELDON  & COMPANY,
677 BROADWAY.








PUBLISHER'S NOTICE.
THIS  story  was published  in England, anonymously,
and   was very  successful.  It  received  from   the  Press
most flattering  notices, and  had  a  wide  sale.   All of
which  was very  pleasing  to  the  Author, as its success
was purely the result of merit, and was not influenced
by the Author's brilliant reputation as a novelist and
essayist. It is now, for the first time, published in this
country, and  over the  Author's  name, at his own  suggestion.
The following  notices appeared  in  the London  "Pall
Mall Gazette"  and  "Saturday  Review":
(From the Pall Mall Gazette.)' This book has the very unusual merit of uniting, without incongruity, the
interest of romantic incident with the interest of striking sketches of natural
character....  We have here all the usual elements of a sensational novel, and
we have actors who are neither puppets nor monsters, but specimens of ordinary
humanity, and the sensational incidents serve only to develop the naturalness of
the characters... We may say that altogether we have not read many books so
full of promise as' Paul Massie.' "
(FProm the Saturday Reviewv.)
"This is the story of' Paul Massie,' the latest romance of the sensational
kind, and we think it exceeds in merit the greater number of its predecessors.
The story is well told, and the style is bright and effective. The sketches of the
various foreign refugees are good, and the characters of Salome and Mrs. Massie
are well drawn and well contrasted...   There is much keen discrimination of
character throughout the book generally."








CONTENTS.
CHAP.                                              PAGE.
PROLOGUE...    5
I. A LITTLE MORE THAN KIN....   9
II. A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.  15
III. SEABOROUGH AND SALOME...  30
IV. UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.                     46
V. THE MASSIES..... e                         58
VI. SALOME AND ALICE   -....71
VII. SARAH.......  83
VIII. THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM..  94
IX. PAUL IS ACCUSED...... 108
X. "LEON, WHY DID YOU COME HERE?".. 128
XI. SO HAB' ICH NUN DIE STADT VERLASSEN            131
XII. MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS... 138
XIII. MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA'S FRIENDS.. 155
XIV. THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.. 169
XV. SALOME ADAMS...           186
XVI. THE MASSIES IN TOWN...  194
XVII. MR. WYNTER, M.P.....207
XVIII. THE WEERE-WOLF..               216
XIX. PERPLEXED IN THE EXTREME... 224
XX. SEABOROUGH REVISITED...    232
XXI. THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN            2..   50
XXII. SARAH KNOWS HERSELF..                      265




vi                      CONTENTS.
CIHAP.                                             PAGE.
XXIII. "BROKEN"...                         2. 271
XXIV. THE WnVEHR-WOLF IN THE FOREST.. 285
XXV. TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.. 296
XXVI. THE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED...         312
XXVII. SALOME KNOWS ALL... 325
XXVIII. BE SURE THY SIN WILL FIND THEE OUT.. 337 
XXIX. TWESTMINSTER-PALACE...           345
XXX. CATASTROPHE.....                           359
XXXI. AUSTRIAN PLOTS..... 370
XXXII. PAUL AND SARAH.....   374
XXXIII. THE DRIFTING VESSEL AND THE WRECKER.. 380
XXXIV. THE LAST....                  389




PAUL MASSIE.
PROLO GUE.
TO help towards the understanding of the story about
to be told, something in the nature of a preliminary
chapter or prologue is necessary. This story, be it observed, is called a romance. If, therefore, any reader should
hereafter be inclined to grumble because in the course of the
following chapters he may meet with incidents or people, or
even mysteries, the like whereof do not encounter him every
day, when he takes his walks abroad, or rides to the Bank
on his omnibus, let him not say that he has not been forewarned. Perhaps what he may read here is none the less
true for being called romance; but even if it be untrue
and impossible, it at least shall have the merit of presenting itself from the beginning fiankly and without false
pretences.
One glimpse into events occurring a whole generation
before the opening of our story will perhaps be a convenient means of anticipating some conjectures and questions.
We hold up a torch for a moment to illumine a group
in a far background of the picture, and then pass on.
Seven or eight-and-twenty years and an ocean divide
the scene of the prologue from the scene of the romance.
A night of almost tropical heat lies upon the landscape;
and the principal object we see is a villa of Spanish construction, in the midst of neglected but still beautiful
grounds on the outskirts of a town in a disturbed country.




~~6  ~PAUL MASSIE.
If it were day, one might see that a vast and noble mountain-peak dominated the scene; the region all around was
rich with orange-orchards and cotton and maize, bedecked
here and there with the wild rose, and made musical by
the tinkle of unnumbered streamlets.
One of the windows of the villa was open, and a light
streamed from  it on the balcony. In the room within
a fair-haired Englishwoman, young and timid and tearful,
half in passion, half in fear, was bidding farewell to one
she was never to see more. He whom she was urging to
go, yet by her very entreaty compelling to stay, was darkhaired and dark-eyed, with sallow cheeks, a lithe sinewy
form, and tender caressing ways.
A charming love-scene, no doubt. Sweet young hearts
about to be rudely rent asunder. Romeo and Juliet on
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.
A  door opens suddenly, and another woman stands
in the room. She is fair and English, like the first; to
whom, indeed, she bears a striking resemblance. But there
is decision in her manner, and strength of character in
her expression.
" For shame! " she says in a stern tone; and the pair
of lovers fall asunder, and one of the pair looks aghast.
A great actress has been seen to look just so when the
screen is flung down and she stands a discovered Lady
Teazle.
" How did you dare to come here?"  asks the severe
intruder, turning upon the young man.
He was disconcerted, but not abashed. He began, in
broken English, and with a wonderfully musical voice,
some inflated platitude about love daring everything;
but she cut him short with a look of the most absolute
scorn.
" Love!" she said. " Love, that steals in at night like
a robber"-he smiled-" to destroy that wretched girl 
like a robber and a coward! 
"Nay, Madame Massie-pardon; not a coward. I




PROLOGUE.s                    7
care not for my life; I have shown it once and again. If
I were a coward, I were not now here. And I only came
to say the one farewell-the very last."
The other lady now plucked up a little courage, and
came forward:
"Indeed it is true, Agnes," she said. "He, Leon, has
not been five minutes here. I did not know of his coming;
I did not let him in: he climbed up by that balcony. He
might have been killed. And he was going away the moment, the very moment you came in. Perhaps we shall,never see him again."  Her tears came anew.
" Have you no pity?" asked Leon, looking again at the
elder sister, and this time speaking in French, which,
though still a foreign tongue to him, was far more familiar
than English. " You are not-you cannot be-hard of
heart: you so young, so fair, so incomprise; nay, more
than misunderstood —"
" Deserted, you were going to say," she calmly added.
f' Yes, deserted by my husband; else you were not here now.
But though deserted by my husband, not deserted by my
principles, by my conscience, or by God. I can still protect myself and her. Go, Leon. You are not heartless or
wicked, I know. Go, and never, if you have a man's honor,
look upon her again.'
" It is not likely," he said with emotion, " that we shall
meet ever more. She soon returns to Europe-is it not?and I-I follow my star. But you do me justice; I am
not bad. I love her-yes, do not stop me-I must say it,
even to you; and I cannot wish that we had never met.
Adieu! Will you not give me your hand? "
" No; if we meet again, perhaps I may give it to you
then. Now I can only think of the danger you have
brought upon her weakness. Good-by."
He then turned to the younger sister. The elder put
her arm on her shoulder to draw her away. Leon seized
the girlPs hand, and pressed it to his lips. Then lie quickly
drew something from one of the fingers, kissed the hand




8                    PAUL MASSIE.
again, sprang into the balcony, looked back for the last
time, and was gone.
That was truly the last time the sisters saw him in life.
Next day his body, pierced through the heart by a pistolbullet, was found in a little plantation outside the limits of
the grounds belonging to the house. A card was found
thrust under his vest, and on it were some words in English. Those who discovered the body could not read the
writing; but the card was brought to Agnes Massie.
Self-controlled as she was, she nearly swooned as she read
the words:
" Done in fair fight.-PAUL MAssIE."




CHAPTER  I.
A LITTLE MIORE THAN KIN.
EARLY in the month of February, a few years back, the
iMassies of Seaborough-house, Seaborough, were expecting a visitor, whose coming was anticipated with no
little anxiety and curiosity. If a stranger could have
looked into one of the rooms of the house where this story
opens, one wild and wet night at the time just mentioned,
he must have perceived at a glance that the occupants of
the apartment were waiting in expectation of somebody or
something to arrive. The Rev. Eustace NealeMassie, rector of Seaborough parish and owner of Seaborough-house,
was walking up and down the room, every now and then
looking at his watch: occasionally taking up the Tines,
and glancing for the twentieth time over the- leading articles on the American question, the coming Budget, the expected Church-rate debate, and the policy of the French
Emperor. His mother, Mrs. Massie, was looking silently
and anxiously through the half-opened curtains into the
wild dreary night. Lydia Massie, her daughter, lay on a
sofa, and sometimes tried hard not to yawn. Sarah Massie,
second cousin and bride-elect of the clergyman, was occupying herself in making up papers and letters for the post.
Dinner had been kept waiting for some time-an unusual
occurrence in Seaborough-house, where the inmates were
generally ruled by a punctilious regularity.
"Perhaps he will not come to night," said Mrs. Massie,
closing the curtains and turning away. "I almost wish
he did not; it is so wet and wild. How cold it grows!"
She drew a shawl round her shoulders and took a chair
I*




10                   PAUL MIASSIE.
close by the fire. She shuddered, indeed, as if with cold,
and looked anxious and uncomfortable.
"Cold, mamma? I think it is rather warm; and I don't
believe he is coming to-night," said her daughter, who
was unmistakably tired of waiting. " The dinner, I should
think, will be cold enough."
"He is certain to come," said the clergyman decisively.
"But the weather-such winds!' suggested Mrs. Massie.
"He has made voyages a good deal longer in weather a
great deal worse," replied Eustace.  "I don't suppose a
few hours of the Channel would distress him much, or put
him in fear."
"One thing certain," said Lydia, "is, that if he should
not come, mamma will never sleep to-night. I can see
that her mind is filled with dreadful visions of wrecks, and
orphan boys flung ashore tied to broken spars. I am sure
she only sees in cousin Paul an interesting blue-eyed child,
who deserves our pity because he has been sent out into
the wide world, travelling all alone without his governess."
" I think he is coming now," said Sarah Massie, looking
up from  her papers.  "Somebody certainly is; I have
heard the sound of wheels these some moments."
" Sarah has ears like Jessie Brown, or Jenny Jones, or
whatever her name was, at Lucknow," said Lydia. "I am
sure I heard no sound but the wind."
The sound of wheels; however, soon became quite distinct. Then the gravel before the hall-door was heard to
crash under a carriage. Eustace ran out.
"Eustace, take care of yourself," said Lydia. " You will
certainly take cold, if you go to the door without hat or coat."
Sarah followed the clergyman, to make sure that he
did not rush too rashly, and without protection, into the
jaws of night. M1rs. Massie had risen when the sound
of the wheels was first heard; but she sat down again, and
looked very pale. Indeed, she visibly trembled. Lydia
gave a quick glance at herself in the mirror, and prepared
to receive a visitor in becoming attitude.




A LITTLE MORE THAN KIN.                 1I
Voices were heard outside in eager friendly talk; and
then Eustace and Sarah Massie reentered the room, conducting the long-expected visitor, the cousin to be seen
for the first time.
"Mother," said Eustace, "here, at last, is our cousin
Paul."
"Stay," said Lydia in a tone of sudden alarm;  mamma
is not welL"
Indeed, the moment the new-comer presented himself
within the threshold of the room, Mrs. M!assie's agitation
reached such a point, that she sank back in her chair,
turned perfectly white, and seemed to become positively
unconscious.  There was for a moment so much alarm that
all courtesy of welcore, all interchange of greeting, was
forgotten.  Only for a mnoment, however. Mrs. Massie
almost instantaneously revived, and although still in somewhat of a tremor, advanced and gave her nephew an affectionate greeting.
" Mamma  is so nervous,' said Lydia, " and has not been
very well lately; and then she so alarmed herself about
the weather and the danger of crossing the Channel."
Mrs. Massie added a few gentle words about her nephew's resemblance to his poor dear mother, and the emotion which was called up by seeing him and by the memories which were thus brought to her mind.  Paul had
then some opportunity of offering a formal greeting to the
family, and did not neglect the privilege of kissing both his
fair cousins.  Sarah received him with frank and friendly
welcome. Lydia on the other hand turned her eyes upward, and endeavored to look slightly alarmed.
Paul Massie was not like any of his relatives in personal appearance. Mrs. Massie was pale, although not thin,
-rather plump indeed,-with soft blue eyes and thick fair
hair. Her daughter was strikingly like her.  Eustace was
a handsome dignified young man of some six-and-twenty,
with white forehead, soft auburn curls, and luxuriant auburn whiskers cut in the approved clerical fashion, delicate




12                   PAUL MASSIE.
complexion, small hands and feet, graceful figure-almost
a model High-Church clergyman  in appearance.  The
new cousin had nothing of the family type or tinge. He
was rather tall, very muscular and sinewy; slender, save
for his broad chest and shoulders. He had thick black
hair, had neither beard nor whiskers, but wore a long
moustache drooping below his chin on either side. His
face showed a complexion of almost tropical darkness.
Sun-scorched and worn, he looked several years older.than
Eustace Massie. He would have had a grave and perhaps
even melancholy expression, but for the restless glitter of
his black eyes. He was entirely unlike what Eustace at
least expected to see. The graceful clergyman stole sideglances of amazement at the new-comer, and looked as if
he found it no easy task to repress a shudder.
But Eustace was all polite welcome. He presently took
his cousin away to show him the arrangements which had
been made for his accommodation.
"You only passed through France, I suppose?" remarked the clergyman, as the pair were leaving the room.
Passed through?" replied Paul.  "I had to remain
four, nearly five months in Paris."
"But you never told us?"
"No; I feared to alarm  you; and I knew that my
detention could not last long."
" Your detention?"
Paul laughed. "Yes," he replied; "I was in France as
a prisoner. I can tell you all in five minutes; it is not a
long story."
"I like our cousin very much," said Lydia, when Eustace and Paul had left the room. "l Ie will create quite a
sensation at church next Sunday. He looks like Don
Caesar de Bazan. I wish he had not frightened poor
mamma, though.-Better now, mamma, are you not? "
But the mamma made a very faint and wan attempt at
a smile. She left the room presently, her eyes brimming
over with tears.




A LITTLE MORE THAN KIN.               13
This was Paul Massie's first visit to England. Born in
Vera Cruz, he had been brought up principally in the
United States, receiving such education as he had in one of
the State colleges. He had had some training in a great
New York shipping house, and being quick, clever, and
energetic, was sent to establish new branches of the firm's
trade in California, in Australia, in Russia, and in India.
He had been nearly all over Europe, had spent at different
times months and months in Paris, but had never crossed
the English Channel to see the country which he always
called his home, after the genial, loving fashion of people
who hail in any way, however distant, from the old land.
None of the Massie family ever came to see him. He had
himself only a faint memory of a fair grave woman, whom
he now assumed to have been his mother; but he had
never seen his father. _Evidently his uncle the late Mr.
Eustace Massie never had any wish to look upon his
nephew. The nephew always understood that there had
been some family quarrel about a marriage, and troubled
himself no farther on the subject. He had led a happy,
varied, active life, which suited his energetic, restless temperament. He was not a thorough business-man by any
means, but he had perhaps a sort of genius for developing
new branches of commerce, and discovering fresh unexpected fields of enterprise, which might be made profitable
by the patient, careful labor of others. The death of his
uncle left him the inheritor of a considerable sum of
money; it procured him, too, a pressing, brotherly invitation from his cousin Eustace (now a man of some fortune)
to pay England and his family a visit, with the view, perhaps, of settling in the old country altogether. At the
time the invitation reached the New World, Paul was once
again in Mexico. The letter followed him from New York
to New  Orleans; from  thence to Vera Cruz; and, not
finding him there, it fell into hands which took care of it,
and when Paul was attainable once more, forwarded it to
his address. For while Paul was in Mexico there suddenly




14                   PAUL MASSIE.
turned up the famous Mexican expedition of England,
France, and Spain, to obtain satisfaction for wrongs done
to European subjects. Paul was thoroughly Mexican in
his views; and  when Elngland and Spain had  drawn
back, and France proceeded alone on a path of avowed and
ostentatious conquest, he abandoned his commercial mission and joined the Mexican forces. He had for some time
been a fiiend of the brave and ill-fated General Zaragoza,
and under that gallant soldier (too early cut off) he accepted
a commission. His military career was very short; he
was made a prisoner before Puebla, and conveyed with
many others to France. It was while lodging in Paris,
under a sort of honorable custody, that he at length
received the news of his uncle's death and cousin's invitation. He understood that the ban which kept him out of
the Massie circle was at an end; that it had died with his
uncle. His captivity was not difficult to bring to a conclusion, and he came to England.
Paul and his kinsfolk were very happy the first night
of his visit. The two young women enjoyed his conversation immensely, and the Rev. Eustace was pleased, puzzled,
and amused. Paul had the fresh, unconstrained manners of
one who has gone much about the world and mixed with
all sorts of people. He certainly wanted that which an
English drawing-room would call manner; but he showed
an originality and a variety in his style and his conversation which would probably have proved a great deal more
attractive to most women, and to all rational men, than
the conventional urbanity and cold grace of regular social
life. Eustace Massie became more and more reconciled to
his cousin, although he would not perhaps have much
liked the bishop, or even the dean, to be one of the party.
Paul,could talk of everything and every place,-of India,
Persia, and the Greek islands; of the Crimea, where he
had actually arrived in time to see the great day of Balaklava; of Mexico and Texas, and Santa Anna and General
Scott; of Juarez and Zaragoza and General Forey. He




A MESSAGuE FROM THE SEA.              15
could explain the most difficult points of the American
question to Eustace, who, like every respectable English
clergyman, was given to political discussion. He sang and
played-sang Spanish songs, French songs, and had he
been asked or encouraged, could even have sung negro
melodies. But Eustace heard in silent grief that his cousin was a believer in spiritualism, mesmerism, and other
abhorred superstitions; and Mrs. Massie was not pleased
to learn, that when left to himself her nephew hardly ever
desisted from smoking.
CHAPTER II.
A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.
MRS. MASSIE sat in her bedroom alone. She was quite
dressed, and was seated in an arm-chair before a bright
fire, which seemed just now to have little power to warm
her pale cheeks and shivering form. She had once been
a beautiful woman, and indeed was still too young to part
with her claims to beauty.  Fair, soft, now  somewhat
inclined to plumpness, she betrayed a peculiar character
of weakness and indecision about her pale blue eyes and
her sensitive, tremulous lips. She was a- woman to be
happy and sunny in happiness and the sun; to shrink
up and wither before the first chilling blast. Adversity is
a medicine which people are rather fond of recommending
indiscriminately as a panacea for their neighbors. Like
other medicines, it only agrees with certain constitutions.
There are nerves which it braces, and nerves which it
utterly shatters.  There are people whose good qualities
shine brightest in the darkness, like the ray of a diamond;
but there are others whose virtues are only brought out by
the light, like the colors of a silk. Mrs. Massie's nature
shone in the light of serene happiness. She was loved
by her son and daughter; and she was happy while they




16                   PAUL MASSIE.
were near her, and peace was around them. Thus they
had lived since the death of her husband.
Had her married life been'unhappy? People supposed
so. Her late husband had been a little wild in his youth;
but the utter break-down of his elder brother's conduct
and chances would have made him the good boy of the
family and his father's favorite, only for his sudden and
secret marriage. This led to quarrels: and he was only
too glad to get the chance of making a career by endeavoring to turn to account some property the family had long
possessed in Mexico and California, and which his elder
brother had utterly failed to manage. His young wife
(a stranger to Seaborough) had followed him to Vera Cruz.
She was accompanied by her sister-Paul's mother, as people afterwards learned. Mr. Massie did not prosper much
in Mexico: but his father soon died, and left him in trust
the family property, which was considerable. So Eustace
Massie the late came back to England. But he was broken
in health, and led a sickly, complaining, indeed morose and
maundering kind of life; letting the estate and all about
it fall into neglect, and displaying commonly the very
worst of his temper to his wife. There was nothing very
distinct to be said against him, but people did not like
him; and there was a vague notion that he was a harsh,
unkind, and jealous husband. Those who visited the house
saw indeed no greater unkindness than was conveyed by
somewhat cynical manners, and an objection to go into
society, or to permit his wife to go there. At all events,
Mrs. MIassie rather withered under her husband's influence,
and concentrated all the love of a very loving soft nature
upon her children,-thereby rendering Mr. Massie more
cynical still.
One person in the world Mr. Massie never would hear
mentioned, and that was his nephew Paul. This was the
more surprising, as there was a double relationship. Mr.
Massie's wife's sister, unhappily for herself-for all parties
— met Mr. Massie's elder brother in Mexico. The latter




A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.               1'
was a handsome, wild, reckless ne'er-do-well, whom his
father exiled to the management of the Mexican property,
after he had sold out of the army here somewhat in disgrace. The exile did not manage the property, but joined
Santa Anna; and during the short interval between one
revolution and another, found means to fall in love with
Mrs. Massie's sister, and persuaded her to marry him.
They had not been long married before he deserted her
altogether, and disappeared. His wife never saw  him
again, and it was supposed that he must have fallen in one
of the thousand revolutionary conflicts of which Mexico
became for years the cockpit. Paul was born after his
disappearance, and during the absence of Eustace in California. Soon the sisters, who had up to this time kept
together, separated. Eustace Massie brought his wife
back to Europe, and her sister went to live in the United
States, where she applied herself to the bringing up of
her boy. She died while he was yet but a child, having
written with her dying hand a letter bequeathing the care
of him to her sister and brother-in-law.
Now every one who talked of the matter in Seaborough
said that Mr. Massie had for some reason forbidden his
wife to hold any communication with her sister during the
later years of the latter's life; and that even her dying
appeal did not induce him to do more than make formal
provision, through an agent, for the child's education and
maintenance in America.  It was undoubted that Mr.
Massie did not accept with willingness, or discharge with
energy, even the formal and technical duties of guardianship. It must be owned that although there was sincere
sorrow when Mr. Massie's breaking health at last broke
altogether, the house became much more cheerful after his
death. The air seemed clearer when his melancholy footfall could no longer be heard echoing for hours as he paced
slowly up and down the long hall: when his voice no more
reproved or sneered or maundered by the hearth. Yet
every one supposed that his marriage had been one of love,




18                  PAUL MASSIE.
at least on his side. But people remarked too that throughout the different branches of the family of the Seaborough
Massies, the sons of every second generation were always
good for nothing, and were certain to have a wild youth
followed by a broken-down manhood and an early death.
The night of her nephew's arrival, Mrs. Massie sat, as
has been stated, in her room alone. She had been very
happy all the evening, after the first sudden shock and
burst of involuntary tears. She had engaged and joined
in the bright vivacious conversation, and had listened in
wonder and admiration while Paul poured out his rapid,
dashing, sometimes even brilliant talk. Now that she was
alone, the tearful mood seemed to have come back again.
Was she thinking of her lost husband?  Was she thinking
of the sister sleeping in a far-off western grave-the sister
with whom she had made the dreary voyage to New York,
and the long journey over prairies and mountains, and
through half-built towns and among the log-huts of scattered settlers? Surely Mrs. Massie was not thus mourning
even for her sister; for indeed they hardly got on well
together in life, the one being gentle and rather weak, the
other strong and perhaps rather stern. Or did the coming
of her nephew merely sadden her because it so inexorably
recalled days of youth and scenes lost sight of since youth?
Those Mexican days were a period of struggle, which, if
not very hard, was yet trying to a gentle, orderly nature;
and Mrs. Massie had no great cause, one might think, to
remember them with any regret. Certainly the coming
of her nephew, disturbing as it did the tranquil current of
her monotonous life, had affected her spirits to a degree
which she could not resist.
After awhile she rose and looked out of the window,
vacantly, upon the leafless boughs and the moonlit lawn.
Suddenly a sound struck upon her ear, which, although
only caused by the opening of a window, startled her. A
shadow fell across the balcony, which ran along the front
of the house immediately under her window. She looked




A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.               19
out, and saw a man's figure on the balcony, just before the
room which had been given to Paul Massie. Instantly she
put out her light.
What she saw ought not to have been very startling
even to her; and when the explanation of it appears, it will
show itself less startling still. But it produced upon Mrs.
Massie all the effect of some ghastly supernatural visitation. It was merely the lithe form of a sinewy young man
descending from the balcony to the lawn by clinging
around one of the light iron supporting pillars. It was no
robber or murderer, for the figure was that of Paul Massie.
The young man's face was turned towards Mrs. Massie's
window, and his black hair, dark complexion, and gleaming eyes, were clearly visible just for an instant-for the
duration of a flash of lightning. His mode of getting
down to the lawn was a little irregular, but there was
nothing very frightful in the action. It must have been
something about the look, the features, the position, something recalling a painful or fearful memory, which alarmed
the lady who happened to look from her window. For she
literally started back-almost sprang back, and hardly kept
down the scream which was rising to her lips. She buried
herself in her chair once more, and covered her face with
her hands. She spoke to herself in a broken kind of way,
as weak nervous people when affrighted often do. "It was
his very look," she murmured,-" his very look! just like
that night. I was happy, nearly happy, until this poor
boy came here; and now I am wretched! "
Thus she groaned, weeping, for a few minutes repeating
her half-articulate words over and over again. When she
1had recovered a little from her passion of fear or grief, she
approached the window once more, and looked timorously
out. But the object of her sudden emotion was gone.
There was no human form to be seen anywhere on the
quiet lawn.
"I could not have been mistaken," she murmured.  "It
was not fear or fancy. I am not going mad."




20                   PAUL MASSIE.
Nothing could be simpler or more easy of explanation
than the cause of the unexpected appearance and descent
which Mrs. Massie had found so full of terror.
Paul Massie's room was on the same floor with that of
his aunt, and looked, like it, upon the balcony, which ran
along the whole front of the house, and, supported, as has
been said, by iron pillars, formed the roof of a veranda.
Beneath was the lawn, once waste and dreary, now freshened up, trim, well cared for, and bright. The tastes of
the Rev. Eustace Massie all led to neatness and smooth
finish. Small regard for the picturesque had he where the
picturesque was not consistent with the clean and the
orderly. Everything around and inside Seaborough-house
now indicated its change from the careless ownership of the
sickly, cynical, melancholy man to whom the present occupant had succeeded. Below the wall of the demesne ran
a line of rugged strand, on which this night the surf
was dashing heavily. There had been a sharp gale, and
although it had nearly passed away, the sea still chafed and
heaved, and broken clouds drifted across a watery moon.
It was a cheerless, cold, wet spring night, drawing on towards midnight; and the moon shining out now and then
upon white waves, or shingle, or patches of sodden grass,
gave but a more dreary aspect to the scene. Paul Massie,
when he got to his room, might surely have gone to bed
and rested in comfort, after weeks of a sort of half-disguised incarceration. But he did not. He might, had he
owned the proper amount of sentiment, have "flung himself" into a chair, and thought of the beaming eyes of his
cousin Lydia. But he did not-his life had been too
rough and active and varied to encourage much of the sentimental in his nature. IHe simply lit a cigar-a strong,
pungent, full-favored, one might almost add, able-bodied
Havana-and smoked. The enjoyment was delicious, but
the smoke soon began to perfume the room terribly.
"This will never do," thought the novus hospes. "My
aunt will never endure me if I begin in this way the very




A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.               21
first night. These curtains are very pretty, and I daresay
costly; and I have not had the society of relatives so long
that I can afford to be expelled from it all at once."
He was not afraid of February night air, not being in
the habit of taking cold. So he put on a wideawake, opened
the window, and stepped out on the balcony, carefully closing the window behind him to prevent the smoke from
getting in again.
It was very pleasant despite the cold, and the sound of
the surge was fascinating to Paul.  He was in a restless
mood too, partly caused by the novelty of being for the
first time in his life "at home," and his uncertainty as
to whether the long desired situation would suit him after
all. He thought it would be very agreeable to smoke
by the edge of the sea. So he bit his cigar tightly, pressed
his hat firmly on his head, and unhesitatingly committed
an act which his clerical cousin would hardly have done to
procure himself a bishopric. He stepped over the balcony,
clung round one of the pillars, and slided easily to the
ground.  Then he strode rapidly down the lawn, and made
for the sounding sea. As he descended by the pillar, he
thought he observed light in one of the windows; but
it was immediately extinguished.
Paul soon reached the strand, and walked slowly along
the edge of the sea. He was in a kind of dreamy delight.
He looked vacantly along the shining track of light which
sparkled on the waves, and his eyes lost their restless glitter, and became calm and melancholy.' There was something very odd about this man's eyes. That restless glitter
just mentioned was not always pleasant to look upon.
In general the story-teller's comments upon  the eyes
of his hero or heroine are a bore, and  an unpardonable, unnecessary bore, because every reader takes for
granted tie lustre and the beauty of the orbs in ques.
tion. Bright eyes, even if only green, like Becky Sharp's,
are positively the one essential which the most audacious
innovator among novelists has never dared to disregard.




22                   PAUL MASS1E.
Of late we have had plenty of ugly heroes and heroines;
heroines not very young or externally yery attractive;
heroines who were not fashionable or romantic, or touchingly poor, or deeply wronged, or even in certain instances
scrupulously virtuous; heroes with red whiskers and large
feet; stupid heroes and heroes with dreadfully vulgar
names. We have had for heroes the consumptive, the
insane, the inane, the hunch-backed, the lame, and the
blind; the tailor, the shoemaker, the groom: we have
absolutely abandoned most of the dear old conventional
tracks chalked out by precedent for the heroic and the
romantic. But what novelist has yet ventured to give his
heroes and heroines, when he left them the enjoyment of
sight at all, any eyes which were not bright? In real life
it may be that there are some good, gifted, and even
heroic men and women, whose eyes only beam with a dullish lustre. There have been poets of late the fine frenzy of
whose eyes was concealed by blue spectacles; nor has our
own age been without daring adventurers and renowned conquerors whose organs of sight showed scarcely more brilliant than the proverbial boiled gooseberries. But heroes
of this kind have not yet had their physical realities all
acknowledged in romance; and therefore, as Paul Massie
is the hero of a romance, it might be assumed that rational
readers would understand him to be endowed, ipso facto,
with eyes of the regulation brightness. The peculiar glitter of his eyes has only been mentioned because the peculiarity really has some sort of connection with the clue of
the mystery which, it has already been acknowledged, does
somehow lie along the foundation of this story.
Paul Massie walked slowly along the edge of the shore,
smoking. It had been a week of storms and wrecks; and
stray fragments of timber still came floating in almost upon
every surge. Only the evening before a fine bark had
gone down within sight of some rocks, the peaks of which
might almost be discerned from where Massie now walked.
Paul continued his promenade, until it brought him to a




A  tMESAGES FROM THE SEA.             23
long sharp promontory of bare rock, which ran far out
into the surf. At this point he might very well have
given up his midnight ramble and turned back. But who
comes to a barrier without desiring to see what is on the
other side? Paul chose to scramble over the wall of
rock, wet and slippery though it was. He had no great
difficulty in getting over, and he leaped down upon the
sand of a little creek, where the water flowed less noisily
in. Here he found that he was not alone.
A few paces off, showing darkly in the moonlight, close
to the edge of the strand, he saw the stooping figure of a
man, bent over some object which his form concealed,
The man started hastily up as Paul leaped on the sand,
and Paul could see plainly enough that the object he bent
over was a corpse.
Paul approached rapidly, and the man got up.
"It's no use," said the latter, in a tone of embarrassed
gruffness —" she's dead."
So she was; quite dead. Evidently the sea had tossed
ashore in this little creek one of the many victims of
yesterday's wreck-from  which so few had been saved.
Paul looked down upon the body of a woman, well-dressed,
black-haired; the black hair clinging round her like seaweed.
She came ashore just now,' said the man in explanation; "just with the turn of the tide. I thought she might
be alive; and I did my best to bring her to; but she's as
dead as a stone, ain't she, sir?"
Quite dead, poor creature," said Paul, looking down
at the ghastly face and the long lank hair. " No use leaving her to lie here; we must have the body removed somewhere out of this. But I say, my friend," Paul suddenly
said, looking up at the man, " are you a fisherman or a
sailor? "
" No, I ain't," was the gruff reply.
"Have you nothing at all to do with the sea?"
" Nothing at all."




24                   PAUL MASSIE.
"I thought as much.  You must know  very little
indeed of the sea, if you supposed that woman could be
still alive after lying in the water since yesterday's wreck."
"How was I to know it was yesterday's wreck?"
"There was no wreck since yesterday. Do you live
here? If you do, you must have known that."
"Supposing I do and supposing I don't, what then?
What does it matter? I live where I like. I suppose it's
no affair of yours. If you know all about her, look after
the body for yourself."
He turned away whistling.
" Don't go just yet," said Paul; "I should like to know
what you have been doing with this body."
"You don't-fancy I have been murdering the woman?"
said the man, turning round with a defiant and very unpleasant sneer.
"No, I don't. I can see well enough that the woman
has been dead of salt water these twenty-four hours; but I
do suppose that you've have been robbing her."
"Do you? Where's your proof then? I'm as much above
robbery as you are, or any damnation foreigner like you."
"That's a magnificent diamond ring you have on your
finger, my friend," said Paul.  "Pray where did you get
that?"
The man suddenly thrust his hand into his pocket.
Paul as suddenly seized his wrist, and, despite his struggle,
drew the hand completely out. Yes, there was a very remarkable ring on one finger; a central diamond set in
a circlet of small brilliants.
"I'll take my oath," said Paul, "that ring once belonged to that dead woman."
" No, it didn't," replied the other fiercely. " My sweetheart lent it to me, if you want to know. But what the
devil does it matter to you? "
" Just that I must know who you are before you go.
This body must be removed, and we must see who owns
this diamond ring your sweetheart gave you."




A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.              25
Paul's antagonist was a young man, tall and strong,
with shoulders a little stooped and rounded. He was a
hulking fellow, looking an indescribable compound of
groom, blacksmith, and fisherman; a sort of figure almost
always to be seen lounging about the doors of publichouses at sea-ports and watering-places. He had a face
which was not ill-looking, but certainly was unpleasant;
light eyelashes, sandy, scrubby whiskers, a heavy lower jaw,
sharp white teeth, and eyes which always wandered away
to the sea or the shore or the sky, or anywhere from the
face of a questioner. These were the chief characteristics,
of the person with whom Paul was thus brought into unexpected collision. The man was sinewy and powerful; he
suddenly disengaged his hand, thrust it into a breastpocket, and in a moment the blade of a knife gleamed in
the moonlight.
"What's to hinder me," he said in a savage under-tone,
"from driving six inches of this into your ribs? Let me
go, I tell you-you had better! What's to hinder me from
having your life?"
" Only this," replied Paul, suddenly seizing the threatening wrist with one hand, while he flung his other arm
across his antagonist's chest, and with a movement of indescribable rapidity, in which one arm  and knee were
brought simultaneously into action, he bent the man backwards in a position almost exactly the reverse of that which
is familarly described as chancery. The wrist which held
the knife Paul wrenched forcibly round until the weapon
clattered on the stones. The fellow struggled powerfully,
but in vain. Paul kept the hold he had got for some
seconds.
"That," he said very coolly, "is a lesson for nothing
for you.  That is the reason why you cannot have my life
-at least when you give me warning of danger. You
need not struggle-I could hold you there for half an
hour. -If I don't keep you any longer-so, it is only because
I don't want you to learn the trick and practise it at some
2




26                   PAUL MASSIE.
honest man's expense. That will do; you may go. I don't
want your name now. I shall know you again."
".You'll know nothing bad of me," said the other,
getting on his feet, and slowly rubbing his strained limbs,
while he endeavored to- smooth his face into a good-tempered expression.  "My name's Jem Halliday, and you're
about the strongest gentleman I have met in this part of
the country. I'm not from here myself, no more than you.
You've a powerful grip, wherever you came from. May I
take my knife-? I'm a bad-tempered chap sometimes, but
I never meant to hurt you. I needn't have gave you warning if I did-you said so yourself."
He picked up his knife and put it in his pocket. Paul
began to think he had been rather abrupt in his suspicions
and actions, and felt half ashamed of his impetuosity. Still
the diamond ring gleamed even now with a very sinister
lustre on the coarse hard finger of Mr. Halliday.
"We must have something done with this body," said
Paul, looking down at the drowned woman. "Is there a
village near?"
"Just up the cliff a bit, and the public-house will be
open yet. I'll go up and send some one down."
" Do," replied Paul; " I'll wait here. Stay-you smoke?
Have a cigar."
Jem  took a cigar from  the extended case, lighted it
with the fire of Massie's Havana, and after two or three
heavy puffs, uttered the satisfactory ejaculation, " Prime!'"
" You're a stranger here, sir?" observed Halliday,
while still bringing his cigar into full play.  " Come from
over sea, perhaps?  Can I show you some of the place
to-morrow?"
"Thank you," replied Paul, still not quite certain about
his companion. " I am staying with my cousins-yonder,
at Seaborough-house."
" A cousin of Mr. Massie, sir?"
"Yes."
"Then you're Mr. Paul Massie, perhaps?'




A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.               27
"I am."
" Thankee, sir; glad to see you."
Had Paul been paying a close attention to the expression of Halliday's face, he might have seen a singular
blending of surprise, cunning, and satisfaction depicted in
it. But he paid little heed, and there was nothing surprising in the fact of his name being known to Halliday.
Seaborough was a small place, and half the parish might
have known beforehand the nanme of the rector's expected
visitor.
Halliday went up the cliff. Ile stopped a little, and
looked back every now and then, and chuckled queerly,
noiselessly to himself: "Well, of all the games," he muttered, "this does beat! Paul Massie, Esquire, here!" and
he thrust his hand into his jacket-pocket; " and Paul Massie, Esquire, there! " and he jerked his head backwards in
the direction of the strand, and softly chuckled again. He
soon reached the height of the cliff, and presently disappeared.
Paul paced slowly up and down beside the dead body.
He had nearly forgotten all about the diamond ring —the
cause of his recent struggle. He had now to wait some considerable time, and the night was cold. The excitement
of his little adventure having long since exhaled, it became
dreary and cheerless work the standing  sentinel over
a corpse on a wet strand; and Paul almost wished he had
not chosen to enjoy his cigar outside the precincts of Seaborough-house. He had had many odd adventures in his
career, and had stood sentry, during his short campaign as
a Mexican volunteer, where there were corpses enough
within sight, and living enemies more than enough within
hearing. But the presence of this one corpse now filled him
with a chilling and ghastly sensation. He was a stanch
believer in spiritualistic influences and mesmeric forces, and
had many faint shadows of Mexican superstitions still floating vaguely over memory and mind. Every time that in
his narrow walk he turned round, it seemed to him as if




28                   PAUL  IASSIE.
the body had taken a new position: sometimes he thought
he saw the eyes open, and look sadly at him; sometimes
he fancified that a voice of melancholy warning, wild and
sad as the wind which was now dying over the sea, murmured his name. He will never, perhaps, get over the
superstitious notion that some mysterious influence exhaled
from that dead body upon Seaborough beach, and appealed
to his intelligence and sympathies in vain.
It was a great relief to him when at last there came
down the cliff a village police-officer and a couple of coastguardsmen. Paul gave up his charge, and promised to
call next day at the magistrate's or coroner's office to state
all he knew about the finding of the body. He did not fail
to mention his suspicion about the diamond ring, which,
forgotten for a moment, now  again came back to him.
Halliday's not having returned chiefly recalled his doubts;
and on putting one or two questions regarding him, Paul
received answers which confirmed his original suspicions
as to the antecedents and the doubtful character of his
late antagonist. Official report described Mr. Halliday as
an idler-perhaps a smuggler; certainly a ne'er-do-well.
Great civility was shown to Paul when he explained that
he was a relative of Mr. Massie of Seaborough-house.
Two o'clock in the morning as Paul looked at his watch.
Quite time to return, and steal as quietly as he might into
his bedcharnber. Happily for him the Massies kept no dogs
and no gamekeeper, and took little heed of village stories
about poachers and robbers. He had therefore no need to
fear a night alarm and the contents of a hasty blunderbuss.
He made his way quickly enough along the strand, where
the receding tide had left the long seaweeds all bare. He
clambered over the wall of the demesne, and threaded his
way in moonlight and shadow to the house; climbed the
slender pillar again, and got upon the balcony. He peered
in through the window to make sure that the room was his;
and at the first glance he fancied, nay felt almost certain,
that he saw a figure there which suddenly crossed the floor
1*




A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA.              29
towards the door and disappeared. Yet it was his room;
the window was unfastened; the embers of the fire were
burning down; his luggage was stowed in one corner; a
cream-colored volume of railway reading he had bought at
the terminus of the Northern line in Paris lay upon the
table. So he entered, fastened the window, drew the curtains, and determined to get to bed at once and have a
good sleep.
Tired though he was, that sleep did not come soon;
nor when it came, was it deep and dreamless. His arrival
and his night's adventure had excited his mind, aud however the weary body pleaded for rest, the aroused imagination refused to settle into quietness. For hours he was
haunted by half-waking dreams, in which dead women
brought him  ghostly messages from  the deep; white
figures entered his room with noiseless and spectral tread,
drew aside the curtains of his bed, bent over him and
whispered unintelligible words into his startled ear. Once
or twice the illusion retained so strong a power over him
that he leaped out of bed, broad awake, and searched the
room, and tried the lock, which he had himself made fast.
All was as it had been. No sound was to be heard except,
from without, the distant moan of the waves on the shore.
He returned to bed, again to be vexed by goblin messages
and melancholy female forms, now in some confused manner seeming to glide through the brilliant mazes of Mexican woods, and surrounded by ever-dissolving groups of
dusky figures; half-waking dreams of a wearied man on
whose mind a very slight surprise following so much
novelty had acted with unwonted power. Paul heeded
them little, except as regarded the irritating wakefulness
to which they so often recalled him. At last he grew less
and less conscious of their power; the phantoms and the
forests were no longer provokingly clear, but faded into a
dim dreamy background; then sank away altogether, and
he fell fast asleep.




30                   PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER III.
SEABOROUGH AND SALOME.
PAUL MASSIE might well have been excused, even by
the most inveterate and objectionable advocate of early
rising, if he slept until an advanced hour of the following
morning.  When he had thoroughly  awakened, and
obtained a complete consciousness of where he was (which
was not achieved until after some moments of vague and
hazy conjecture), he raised the blind and looked out of the
window. The morning, or day, was fresh, crisp, and bright,
and the rime of a hoar-frost had not yet wholly left the
boughs of the poplars and the glass of the conservatory.
He saw the figure of Mrs. Massie pass across the lawn and
enter the house. He looked at his watch; it was eleven
o'clock. In a few minutes he had dressed, and was hastening to the breakfast-room, wondering whether he was
guilty of keeping the family waiting. Only Lydia was in
the room, looking bright, fresh, and pretty. She gave him
a warm greeting.
" Every body is gone," she said. " We knew you were
tired, and did not think of having you called. Mamma is
not very well, and has not left her room. Eustace and
Sarah have gone into Seaborough to find out all about the
wreck, and whether any body has been saved. I am sure
I hope somebody has been saved; don't you, cousin Paul?
I may call you Paul, may I not? Eustace is so good;
whenever anything of the kind happens, he can never rest
until he is on the spot. Sarah has gone with him, of course;
he likes her to be with him. Eustace and Sarah are engaged, you know. So I remained at home to keep you
company."
Was Paul rather awkward in expressing his delight?
In truth, he was a little puzzled. Mrs. Massie he had just




SEABOROUGH AND SALOME.               31
seen entering the house, shawled and furred; yet he was
now told that she could not leave her room. "White lies,
I suppose, are permitted to fashionable people," thought our
Mexican inzgenu; "but if I were a clergyman, they should
not be told in my house."  The Massies were not at all
fashionable people; but they were, in their calm and easy
gentility, the nearest approach to fashion Paul had known.
"Don't thank me," Lydia broke in upon his thoughts;
"and don't feel flattered; for I really wanted to go with
Eustace; only he would not let me. He asked me if I meant
to leave you all alone the first morning of your coming; and
when I said,' Couldn't Sarah stay?'he made no answer.
Indeed he doesn't think I am as usefil as Sarah; and he
is quite right. Eustace likes us to be very useful-' efficient' is his word."
"I don't believe I shall get on well with my cousins,"
Paul was thinking all this time. He plunged into conversation, however; and once started, kept briskly on. They
conversed about the weather, the place, the wreck, London,
Paris, music, and anything else that offered. Paul began
to feel rather genial and pleasant under the influence of
his fair breakfast-maker's vivacious talk.  A pretty girl
must be very uninteresting indeed if a tete-d-tete with her
does not animate a young unmarried man. Lydia was
able to say something on every subject; whether she understood the matter-which was not always, or did not understand it-which was very often.
" What an adventurous life you have led! " she remarked. "You will find it dreadfully dull, living here;
this place is utterly commonplace. Did you ever read
Disraeli's Ixion in Heaven?? No! Well, Ixion writes in
Juno's or somebody's album (you must write something in
my album, cousin Paul),' Adventures are to the adventurous.' But I am sure Ixion could never have discovered
any adventure in Seaborough."
"And yet," said Paul, "I have not been here twentyfour hours, and I have had a sort of adventure already."




32                   PAUL MASSIE.
"You  an adventure here! Why, you have not crossed
the door-step yet-outwards I mean."
" No, I have not exactly crossed the door-step; but I
have been to the sea."  Paul told his little adventure,
which was not much after all; and added, that he must
presently go into the town to complete his share of the
story.
" Pray take me with you, and I will show you the way.
It is only a few minutes' walk; and I like being a guide."
Paul was quite delighted with the companionship.
"I shall be ready in five minutes," said Lydia." Alice" (to a pretty, dark-haired girl who had been waiting at table, and coming into and out of the room), "give
Mr. Massie the Times. It has come; I saw it in the hall
Just now."
Paul had quite time to range over all the news, political, social, and maritime, in the leading journal; to
glance at the points of the articles; to observe with what
astounding inaccuracy localities were described in the
Mexican telegrams, and in what he would have called the
"editorials," before Lydia again made her appearance.
Paul put away the paper, walked up to the fireplace, and
having looked at the pretty little bijou of a clock which
stood there, and found that if it was right his watch must
be dreadfully wrong, he glanced into the large, somewhat
old-fashioned mirror above it, and saw the smiling face of
his cousin reflected there. By the expression of her eyes
she seemed to say'that she had caught him in the act of
admiring himself-in which she certainly was mistaken.
Possibly she stood a little to be admired herself. In her
walking-dress-furred, shawled, petticoated in the manner
most charmingly " suitable to the season "-she was quite
worthy of a more enraptured glance than that which she
received. In the matter of feminine dress, at least, Paul
was a very savage.
In the matter of masculine dress he was not a D'Orsay,
and he presently put on a rough poncho and a wideawake.




SEABOROUGH AND SALOME.                33
But he was a remarkable-looking  man, and therefore
Lydia liked the idea of walking into the town leaning on
the arm  of a brown-cheeked stranger, with a Spanish
moustache, whom she might introduce on the way to any
chance fiiend as her cousin from Mexico.
They had a pleasant walk over the crisp lawn, and
then along the fiosty road, one side of which was almost
entirely open to the cliff. The sea heaved beneath, no
longer stormy, but not yet calm.
Seaborough town, or village, was not exactly a seaport,
and not exactly a bathing-place, but it was a kind of blending of two failures. It might have been a seaport, only
that so very few ships found it worth their while to come
there, except as an occasional and very precarious refuge
-statio malefida-against stress of weather. It might
have been a bathing-place, only that people somehow did
not find out its attractions generally, and passed it eastward and westward to get to more fashionable and crowded,
or even to more peaceful and secluded places; for if it was
not fashionable and full even in August, it was not lonely
and peaceful even in December. It had photographers'
shops and Paris bonnet-shops with plate-glass windowsat least, it had two of the latter establishments-and a
Young Men's Christian Association, where lecturers from
London addressed audiences on the discovery of America,
John Bunyan, the Planetary System, Popular Novelists,
and Tennyson. Its walls were frequently placarded with
programmes' of entertainments in which Mr. and Mrs.
Walter de Lancy illustrated by lecture, piano, and song
the Minstrelsy of Scotland, ori the Naval Victories of England. It had its controversial meetings and lectures; its
announcements of orations on the crimes of the Popes and
the Mysteries of Iniquity; on the other hand, its proclamations of philippics against Luther and Henry VIII. It had
sometimes, but only rarely, and in the very best season, its
theatrical company, or perhaps its circus. It had a bookseller who kept a circulating library, and had published a
2*




34                   PAUL MASSIE.
guide book containing a good deal about the principal families of the locality, and, among the rest, about the family of
the Massies,-for which reason Lydia always kept a copy,
and often studied these particular passages,-and containing also a list of subscribers in the beginning, the list comprising every one in or near the town whose name, or
whose estate, or whose shop, or any of whose relatives and
friends found honorable mention in the body of the work.
There were views sold in this and the stationer's shop;
views separate or on the top of letter-paper,-" the Harbor of Seaborough," "Seaborough Pier," "Ruins of Seaborough Abbey," "Townhall, Seaborough," etc., etc. In
summer there were a few bathing-boxes wheeled out upon
the edge of the sea, and a German band occasionally
played at evenings on the gusty pier. The principal street
ral along the crest of the cliff over the shore; and through
every lane, and indeed through every window on the seaward side, the passer caught delicious glimpses of the
water in summer, and of dreary wild waves in winter.
There was only one pretentious street in the town, the
remainder being rather squalid and rickety, made up of
boatmen's and fishermen's cottages, small public-houses,
dingy, doubtful looking tenements with " Board and Lodg
ing" on little signs over their windows, some rope-makers'
and block-makers' workshops, and a few dismal, very dismal, tea-gardens.
There was, further, an indescribable aspect of smuggling about the whole place, and many of thie inhabitants
had an odd way of haunting the strand at queer hours, and
looking anxiously out seaward. People who carried on no
particular business that any one could observe succeeded
in making fortunes somehow;. and there was invariably an
overwhelming popular resistance to any attempt at the
introduction of that part of the Towns' Improvement Act
which relates to the lighting of the streets with gas. Even
a Library and Museum Rate, feared and hated by the community, they would gladly have endured rather than the




SEABOROUGH AND SALOME.                35
detested gas-lighting innovation. There were rarely any
public assemblies, except religious tea-meetings and the
gatherings of the Branch Missionary Association.. I
ancient days Seaborough had been highly reputed for
sound Protestantism and wrecking.- Legends ascribed to
its ingenious inhabitants the oft-to-ld story of the lame
horse with the lantern sent stumbling along the strand, to
beguile the mariner into the delusion that he beheld a floating light, and might port his helm with safety. A dash of
the sla.ve-trade too, had once highly flavored the commercial pursuits' of Seaborough; and when, on the outbreak
of the American war, a vehement pro-northern lecturer
came to the town and denounced the horrors of slavery,
the bulk of the population, still remembering the pursuits
of other days, regarded his allusions as personal, and rising
in their might, they mobbed him. Perhaps when it is
remarked that the men who did not keep shops seemed to
have nothing whatever to do all day long but to lounge at
the doors of public-houses, even when not able or not desiring to enter and pay for drink, enough will have been said
to convey    to the intelligent mind a reasonable notion of
the outward social aspect of Seaborough.
It was into this promising abode of men that Paul
Massie and his cousin walked through roads lightly covered with frost and by little icy pools, where urchins
endeavored to find surface hard enough for sliding, and
failing in the attempt, tried to. get fluid space enough to
swim boats.
"You will find it very dull in Seaborough," said Lydia;
"it is veiry -little better than this even in summer.  I
thought "-  dreadful when I came back from  school in
Paris. ADon't you love Paris?"::'4 I don't quite think that I do. I feel delighted when
I enter it, and quite happy for a few days or weeks. But
somehow it wearies me after awhile."
"Perhaps you cannot easily make up your mind to stay
anywhere. I am sure I could not, if I were a man, But I




36                   PAUL- MASSTE.
think I should like to live in Paris best. Where did you
live in Paris? Our school was in the Faubourg St. Germain. Such a fine old house, with a court and a great
gate: some great person-a king, or a dauphin, or a duke
-lived there once."
" For me," said Paul, smiling, "I think when in Paris
I generally find myself living in Bohemia, and herding
among the Bohemians."
"Bohemia?  What is that?  Is there a place called
Bohemia in Paris? " 
Paul had many a time been drawn by his affinities, led
by his star, into the heart of wild Bohemia, and had often
shaken the hot hand of the last brilliant chieftain of the
dispersing Bohemian bands-the generous, reckless, goodfor-nothing, gifted Henri MiUrger.  But he entered into no
description of his Paris life. The Massies had never heard
of Mtirger; and if they had known anything about him,
would as soon have- associated with the lieutenant of the
Forty Thieves as with the friend and companion of such a
personage.
His cousin soon ran on to other questions about Paris,
which exacted only very brief, and generally negative replies. Did he know  the Duc de Millefleurs? No, he
didn't.  Had he never met the Marquise de Turlupin?
No, he hadn't. Had he never attended any of the receptions of Madame de TVieillenoblesse?  Never. Had he
never met the brilliant and eccentric Princesse de la Tour
d'Ivoire? Never met, never heard of the lady in his life.
Surely he must have known Lord Cowley, the English ambassador? Well, yes, he did-a little. In fact, application had been made to Lord Cowley about him when he
was brought to Paris a Mexican prisoner, and Lord Cowley had offered to use his influence for him, if Paul would
petition the Emperor and declare himself a British subject,
which Paul declined to do; but, on being released, he had
felt bound to call and thank his lordship.
Lydia began to think her cousin a very odd sort of




SEABOROUGI AND SALOME,               37
person. Aly difficulty with the constituted authorities
only suggested to her mind a participation in burglary.
She began to fear that this was not at all the sort of cousin
she had expected; whom she had pictured as wild, handsome, and romantic, but likewise very genteel, and mixing
always in the best society. Paul had not the least idea
that he was sinking so rapidly in her estimation.
As they passed through the street they met two ladies
who had just stepped out of a carriage, and were going
from shop to shop of the few pretentious establishments in
the town. These were two of the very persons to whom
Lydia had but a few hours before longed to present her
foreign cousin; but she changed her mind, or her heart
failed her. She only bowed and smiled a smile of the
sweetest friendship, and passed on.
" Who is that with Lydia Massie? " said one lady to
the other, as they stood upon the threshold they were
about to cross to look after our pair.
"I don't know at all," the other replied; "a distinguished-looking man too."
"Handsome, I think. lie looks like a Spaniard. Perhaps he will marry her."
Ladies, it may be observed, generally talk of the gentleman marrying the lady. They always seem to assume that
the woman is to be married whenever, and only whenever,
the man chooses to have her for his wedded wife. Men,
on the other hand, commonly throw the right and responsibility of choice upon the lady.
Presently a light pony-carriage, drawn by two pretty
gray animals, drove up and passed Lydia and her cousin.
In the carriage sat two ladies, one of whom held the reins.
Paul had only a glimpse of them as they passed, but could
see that she who drove was younger than the other, and
wore a pretty Amazonian hat and feather. As they passed
she looked fixedly at Lydia. Lydia looked in return, and
seemed first surprised, then doubtful, then confused, and
then saluted with a blush the lady in the carriage, who




38                   PAUL MASSIE.
returned the salute with a graceful bow. The lady in the
carriage seemed as if she were inclined to stop the ponies;
but Lydia passed on, and the carriage went its way likewise.
"So you know some of our people?" said the elder
lady in the carriage.
0 yes; I know the Massies well enough.  I knew
them  better long ago.  My dear Mrs. Charlton, it's no
secret-I was a governess there once. Lydia grows a very
pretty girl. I have not seen her for some years."
" Ier brother is a handsome man. I wonder who can
that person be-the foreign-looking gentleman with her."
" I presume it is her cousin Paul. I am quite sure it is.
He comes fiom Mexico. I have heard of him."
Is he likely to marry her?"
"I don't know. I have been told that he is rather a
remarkable man; and I don't think Lydia has any brains."
The carriage disappeared.  We follow it no farther
just Row. One of its occupants at least we shall often
meet again.
It was necessary for Paul to visit the coroner's court,
to give such very slight and unimportant information as he
could contribute touching the finding of the drowned
w6onai's body. Lydia had to make some purchases in the
town, and she offered to wait for him at the music-shop.
Paul easily found the place where the inquest was to be
held. When passing one of the.many alehouses on the
way, he saw his friend Halliday lounging at the door, and
the latter made an awkward kind of bow in token of
recognition.
"Found drowned." There was no other verdict mortal
jury could arrive at. The woman had been drowned, and
then washed ashore, and there was an end of her. She
seemed -by her face to have been English, and her clothes
were English in make and material. There was no means
of identifying the body, except indeed the initial " L " upon
some of her garments; nothing more.  There had been




SEABOROUGH AND SALOME.               39
two vessels wrecked within the past few days off the coast:
one a small brig, none of the crew of which had been saved;
the other a passenger-ship from New Orleans to London,
some of the crew and passengers of which were safely
housed in the town.  Some of the latter attended the
inquest, but were unable to give any information about
the woman. It did not seem to matter much; the sea
would soon, no doubt, wash in other bodies as well, and
this first dead waif of the deep would be forgotten. It has
been said that Paul was tinged with much of superstitious
fancy.  He had felt persuaded that something affecting
himself was to arise from the incident which flung this
corpse across his path the very first night of his arrival in
the long-looked-for home. Ile felt dissatisfied and disappointed when it became evident that all clue to the identity
of the dead woman seemed lost forever. As he came down
the stairs of the house where the inquest had been held, he
jostled against Halliday.
He rejoined his cousin, who had not had long to wait
for him. As they passed through the street, they presently
met Eustace and Sarah. Eustace came eagerly up to Paul,
and made many inquiries as to how he had slept, and how
he felt, and so forth; and apologized for having had to
hurry out of the house the first morning after his arrival.
The wreck and the distressed condition of the poor people
who had been saved fully explained the necessity for his
leaving home so early.
"I ought to have gone with you," said Paul; " I might
have rendered some assistance. I feel quite ashamed of
having been so lazy and sleepy."
"Nay," interposed Sarah, "but you were doing good
by stealth while we were asleep. We heard all about you
this morning, and how you were trying to save a poor
drowning woman among the rocks last night."
"Come now," said Lydia, "you never told me a word
of that. Then you were quite a hero. I thought you only
found the poor creature's body washed ashore."




40                   PAUL MASSIE.
"That was indeed the whole story," Paul replied;
" there wasn't a shade of the heroic about the affair. I
went out on the st:rand to smoke, and I stumbled over a
living man and a dead body. That was the adventure, and
nothing more."
But they would cling to the heroic aspects of the story,
and would have it that Paul had performed some wondrous feat of personal daring. Lydia in especial thought
this quite delightful, and pressed involuntarily the arm
which she was pleased to believe had battled with seas and
winds the night before in striving to rescue endangered
womanhood. Paul was again romantic and charming in
her eyes.
While the clergyman and the ladies were engaged in
showing Paul some of the remarkable aspects of the town,
and the cliffs and the sea, Lydia suddenly bethought her
of one of the morning's incidents.
"Eustace," she exclaimed, "I have news for you. Do
you know who is in town? Do you know whom Paul and
I met this morning?"
" No, indeed —  ho was it? "
"Guess. I will give you three guesses."
My dear, I couldn't guess anything; Sarah will guess
for me."'"I don't think it needs much guessing," said Sarah.
" I am sure I know already."
" Then have you seen her?"
" Yes, we have seen her."
"And Eustace too?"
"Certainly; Eustace too."
"What, Eustace-you actually saw her?  How did
you bear it?"
"My dear, of whom are you speaking?"
" 0, come, you know very well. Of course I am speaking of Salome. Paul and I met her this morning,-an old
flame of my brother's, Paul,-and she looked charming.
Such a pretty hat and feathers; and such sweet gray




SEABOROUGH ANI) SALOME.               41
ponies! I declare she hasn't grown a day older. What
did you think of her, Paul? Was she not pretty? "
" Really I had scarcely time to observe, I saw only a
feather and two bright eyes. I might have observed the
lady more closely if you had given me warning in time."
"But I never knew she was in town until she suddenly
flashed upon me, gray ponies, and feather, and all. What
can she be doing here?  What a charming mystery!"
"Lydia, my  dear," interposed  Eustace  somewhat
gravely, "there is not the slightest mystery about the
matter. The lady you speak of is on a visit with the
Charltons.  Mr. Charlton is the member'for Seaborough,
Paul. He is a very wealthy man, although not perhaps
just the kind of man I should desire to see representing a
borough like this in parliament at a time when dissent is
growing so very strong and bold, and the House seems
likely to be soon unchristianized altogether. But otherwise he is, I believe, a very respectable man, and is willing
to cooperate in any good work.  Of course many of us
here would prefer to see the town represented by a gentleman, and a member of the Church of England. Mr. Chariton began life as a working engineer, and is now a great
railway contractor."
"His name," said Paul, "is perfectly familiar to me.
It is quite well known in the States. I should like to meet
him very much."
"I wish I could be the means of gratifying you. But
we are not very friendly; and the acquaintances he generally brings down from London are of an extremely Radical and almost (I hope I don't wrong them)-almost, I
regret to say, of a free-thinking character. Mr. Charlton,
I believe, intends to retire from  parliament very soon;
and then we hope to haveSeaborough represented by some
member whose opinions and position will be more in
accord with the reputation this town has always maintained."
"But about Salome, Eustace?"  asked Lydia, wh)




42                   PAUL MASSIE.
did not care much for the political considerations. Perhaps Paul, too, had not been a very attentive listener;
perhaps he did not quite understand what his cousin had
been talking about.
"I believe," Eustace replied, "that Mrs. or Madame
de Luca is one of the company who have been staying
with the Charltons these few days back. A gentleman
named Wynter is there-we met him in town to-day-a
very, very Radical member of parliament; and I have
no doubt Mr. Wynter's visit has something to do with the
next election."
"Wynter-Wynter," said Paul; "I knew  a man of
that nanme. I met him in Mexico, and in New Orleans,
and in Paris. He was a member of parliament, I understood, and rather a great one, if I might believe his own
stories, which I didn't always. He knew some Hungarians
and Poles and Italians in Paris, whom I knew very well.
I have no doubt it is the same man."
" I have no doubt it is. I dare say he is a very respectable man; but, of course, our political and religious opinions are very different."
"Did you speak to Salome, Eustace?" Lydia asked.
" Certainly, Lydia. Why not? "
" Salome put us all to shame to-day, Lydia," said Sarah.
" She was in town hours before we got there, and was making herself most useful in getting up clothes, and food, and
everything for some of the poor people; many of them
are in a miserable state. She was up half the night, we
heard, and she has been going about unceasingly all the
day. Eustace very much admired her, and good Mrs.
Charlton too."
"Especially good Mrs. Charlton, no doubt," said Lydia.
"Does that good lady aspirate still?"
" Nonsense, Lydia; she talked very well and very sensibly indeed. And Salome is not the least in the world
changed, as I told her to-day; and I think she one of the




SEABOBOUGH AND SALOME.                43
cleverest and best-hearted women I ever knew; and I don't
believe one single word that is said against her."
" Sarah, you are the most generous of creatures! I am
sure I always liked Salome very much-that is, very well;
but I think, if I were you-"
"My dear Lydia," said Eustace, "we need not entertain our cousin with all the gossip of the neighborhood.
He does not want to hear any more about Salome just
now."
"Pray who is Salome? "  asked Paul, "for I do begin
to grow curious."
" I am delighted to hear it," said Lydia; "but restrain
your curiosity for the present. I will tell you all about
her by and by; only spare Eustace just now. Though he
is a clergyman, yet you see he is not very old and venerable, and he has his feelings."
Eustace, to do him justice, did not seem as if his feelings on that particular subject were very acute. Paul
might have forgotten all about the matter, but that when
at dinner that day Lydia suddenly revived it by eagerly
calling to her mother, " Mamma, have you heard whom we
saw in town to-day?  Has Eustace been telling you?
We saw Salome."
" Salome?  What Salome, my dear?"
"Why, mamma, did we ever know any Salome but the
one? Our Salome, of course."
"Salome Adams?  Salome who married the Italian?"
"Yes, certainly. I only saw  her in the street, but
Eustace and Sarah met her and spoke to her. She looks
charming, and not a month older."
" What can she be doing here?"
" She is staying with the Charltons," interposed Sarah.
"And Eustace thinks she is electioneering," added
Lydia. "Had we not better go to see her? "
"No, my dear, I think not. I should be glad to hear
that she is happy, and glad still more to hear that she is
passing a quiet useful life; but I do not much desire to see




44                   PAUL MASSIE.
her. If she wishes to call upon us, we are of course ready
to receive her."
"Indeed I don't think she would much care to see us,"
said Sarah. " She's very clever and brilliant, and I believe
quite a celebrity in London. She would find us and our
ways rather dull."
There seemed the faintest dash of irony in Sarah's tone
as she spoke.
Rather for the sake of talking of something which
seemed to interest her, and about which she apparently
loved to keep up a little mystery,-than because he really
felt any keen personal curiosity on the subject, Paul afterwards found an opportunity of asking Lydia who Salome
was, and what was the secret which appearel to attach to
her. The story, after all, was a very trifling one. Salome
was first met by the Massies ten years before in Paris,
where she was teaching in the school at which the two
girls spent some time: She was several years older than
either of them. She came home with them, and remained
with them as teacher, or governess, or companion. Eustace, being then at the very age when a youth delights to
fall in love with a woman older than himself, plunged into
a frantic passion for the fair Salome. Mrs. Massie was
indignant with her, although it did not quite seem that
the fair Salome was in the least to blame. Oddly enough,
Mr. Massie was only angry with Eustace, who was forthwith despatched back to college, whence he had come for
a long holiday. Mr. and Mrs. Massie did not agree upon
the subject, and Salome cut short the quarrel by promptly
leaving the house and returning to Paris. There she married, as the Massies learned, not long after, a young
Italian gentleman of property, who was killed in some
Italian battle (Lydia had not the faintest idea when,
where, or how-it might have been Pharsalia, for all she
knew); and Salome, left a widow a year after her marriage,
had since been living a life of ease and enjoyment, principally in London. Mamma did not like her at all; and she,




SEABOROUGH AND SALOME.               45
Lydia, thought it was wrong of Salome to have encouraged
Eustace, if she did encourage him. But Eustace had long
ago ceased to think anything about her-only mamma
still did not seem to like her-and that was all.
Not much. Paul had some difficulty in picturing to
himself the handsome, formal, cold young clergyman under
the influence of a grand passion. Still there must have
been something in the matter; for nothing could well have
been more constrained, uneasy, and reluctant than Mrs.
Massie's manner when the few words of allusion were made
to the absent Salome.
Paul made several attempts to induce his aunt to enter
into conversation upon the subject of her Mexican life;
but he found it very difficult indeed to draw her into any
talk on the subject. He expected that she would have delightedly poured out reminiscences of places and scenes
and days, which must have been strange and interesting
to her, which would have been deeply interesting to him.
He expected to have heard much of his mother and of his
father, of whom he knew so little and remembered still
less. Yet he could not induce Mrs. Massie to say more
than a few words, and these, he could not help thinking,
somewhat embarrassed, upon the subjects which naturally
lay deeply at his heart. True, he was as yet but a stranger
to his aunt, and he knew well enough that English people
do not warm to the stranger at once and pour out their
feelings readily to him, as so many Americans, and French,
and Irish people do; so he resolved to be contented, and
to wait. He felt convinced that Mrs. Massie had a kindly
and feeling heart; for he often observed that her eyes
turned towards him, and rested on him with an expression
of tenderness and melancholy; to be withdrawn indeed
with an alarmed suddenness whenever she became aware
that his glance was conscious of hers. On the whole, the
evening passed somewhat heavily away. There was no
one at dinner except the family, and it was a relief when
two or three friends from the neighborhood came in during




46                   PAUL MASSIE.
the evening. This the second night of his home life Paul
began involuntarily to wonder how he should pass his
time, how long he should remain in Seaborough, when he
could have some talk over family affairs, why the Massies
talked so much of purely local matters, and how soon he
could conveniently remove to London. What to do when
he got there, it was too early yet to consider; but after two
days in a calm English country residence he began to yearn
for a great city. He feared he should never be able to abide
by the crib.
CHAPTER IV.
UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.
11HILE the Massie family were quietly dining and talking one evening in the first week of Paul's stay, a little meeting took place within a few yards of their windows
-a meeting about which none of them knew anything,
about which they would hardly have cared anything if
they knew, and yet which had its influence too upon the
fortunes of some of them. When the evening had darkened down, one of the small back gates which led into
Eustace's modest demesne was opened by Paul's acquaintance, Mr. Jem Halliday, who entered and made his way
in the direction of the house. IHe did not reach the house,
however, but turned a little to the left of it, and passed
into a side walk which conducted to a little shrubbery and
a tiny moss-house, or summer-house, or kiosk, with the
locality of which he seemed quite familiar. It was a pretty
little structure of dried and split branches, moss, shells, and
scraps of'glass for windows, with a floor inlaid of pebbles
divers-colored, and some rustic seats and a central table.
It must have been no doubt a very pleasant and romantic
place in summer or in autumn; but just now, with plashy
floor and thaw-dripping eaves, it was about as cheerless a
tenement as the heir of Linn himself could have met with.




UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.             47
Halliday entered it with a shrug and a muttered grumble.
He should dearly have liked to light his pipe and smoke;
but one of the special horrors of the clergyman's house
was the odor of tobacco, which was associated inextricably
in Eustace's mind with drunkenness, laziness, irreligion,
and absence from church on Sundays. Therefore Halliday
did not dare to smoke, and refreshed his mind instead with
a muttered grumble. He had not long to wait, however;
at least, to wait in loneliness. A light step was soon heard
on the gravel, and a girl entered the little summer-house.
She dropped to her shoulders, as she entered, the cloak
with which her head had been covered. It was Alice the
waiting-woman, who has been casually mentioned already.
This Seaborough-house was a pattern of propriety to all
the country round.  Religion and order were the twin
guiding-stars to which its master in all honesty and good
faith directed his own course, and firmly believed that all
under his roof were directing theirs. He believed himself
literally responsible for the morals and the happiness of
all whom the slates of Seaborough-house sheltered against
the world. One of his great sources of regret and trial
was, that among the Seaborough population, especially of
the humble classes, there were so many who could by no
means be brought within the influence of himself or of his
two curates. If he could have a genuine aversion to any
people on earth, it was just to such men as rough, goodfor-nothing, godless Jem  Halliday. Yet here was Jem
Halliday having a secret interview, within the precincts of
Seaborough-house itself, with his mother's maid, Alice
Crossley, daughter of honest and pious Dan Crossley the
boatman; Alice Crossley, who had been taken into the
house because of the honesty and piety of her parents and
her own exemplary behavior at Sunday-school. Eustace
Massie liked good people. He was not given to indulging
the doubtful, or even seeking to reclaim the bad. Unconsciously, although not professedly, he divided humanity
into two classes-the good and the bad, or rather the reli



48                   PAUL MASSIE.
gious and the irreligious. He liked to have to deal only
with the religious; and these he generally regarded as
immutable in their principles, unvarying in their good
conduct. Alice Crossley was simply an inmate of Seaborough-house, and therefore of necessity pious, truthful, and
orderly. Yet she was now having a stolen interview with
one who was not only of the irreligious and disorderly
classes, but who had evidently not long since been drinking rum, and who had at that very moment a short black
pipe in his pocket. Eustace would have been shocked at
the bare notion that anything secret and clandestine could
go on beneath his well-ordered roof. Yet here was one
little secret, at all events, which the walls of Seaboroughhouse considerately refused to prate of.
Jem Halliday, then, was the "sweetheart " of Alice
Crossley, the pretty and rather dainty-looking waitingmaid?  Perhaps; but he certainly did not seem to be a
sweetheart much in favor just now, for the girl's first
words to him were sharp and unloving.
"I'm glad you've come, James Halliday," she said;
"for I'm not going to have any of this sort of thing any
more. You've brought me into trouble enough to-day
already, and I won't have any more of it-won't, I tell you.
I won't have it."
"Why, Ally, what's to do with you? What's the
matter? You take a fellow's breath away.  I haven't
been drinking; no-by-by George! only one half-"
"I don't care whether you've been drinking or not;
it isn't for that; and it's nothing to me. There's your
diamond ring. Take it back at once, or I'll throw it on
the floor. I've had enough of annoyance to-day about it."
"What's annoyed you? who's annoyed you?  Have
they been blowing you up for taking it? Why shouldn't
you? It's my own, girl, to give it as I like."
"How did you get it, then? Where did you get it?"
"Why, what does that matter to any one? I didn't




UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.             49
steal it. If any one thinks he owns it, let him come forward and say the word. Nobody can dare to say it."
" Yes, though; somebody has dared to say it."
"To who?"
"To me?"
"Somebody? What somebody? Who's been talking
about the ring to you? It can't have been-no, it can'twhat right would he have?-you weren't talking to him? "
" Him? Who is him?  I was talking to her, or she
was talking to me."
"Who was it, Ally? tell me. Don't keep a fellow
guessing that way."
"It was my mistress-Mrs. Massie. When she saw
the ring with me to-day, she started, and nearly screamed
out.' Where did you get that ring?' she cried out; and
really I turned red all over, as if I were a thief. I'm sure
I wish I had never seen the ring.  I do believe she
thought I had stolen it somewhere. She said it was hers
once, and that she gave it away to a person, and that she
must find out where the person was, and how it came into
my hands."
"And what did you tell her?"
"Well, I told her just the whole truth. I couldn't
think of anything else to say, except that I didn't tell her
you gave it to me. I said that you showed it to me just
to know whether it was worth anything, and that I didn't
know how you had come by it; but I was sure it was
honestly."
"That's a good lass! that's a regular good one."
"Now, don't, Jem-I tell you I won't; for listen: I
am not sure how you came by it; and you won't tell me.
But Mrs. Massie is going to send for you, and so you may
make the best excuse you can for yourself. I have no more
to do with the matter. Something bad will come of it,
I'm sure. Mrs. Massie is in a dreadfill way about its"
"Listen, Ally: did she say anything to any one else
but you?"
3




50                   PAUL MASSIE.
" No, she didn't; and she cautioned me not to say a
word about it to anybody. If she knew I was here now
with you, 0, what would she say   And quite right too.
I have no business to be going on this way with such as
you. I'll have no more of it, Jem Halliday; that I'm
resolved on."
lIaliday had evidently not been paying any attention
to this declaration. Heavily, slowly he was trying to forge
together some chain of reasoning in his deadened intellect.
" Listen, Ally," he said. "Are you sure and certain
she told you to keep this quiet?"
"Yes; quite sure and certain."'"There's something about all this that I don't quite
understand. There's something that it might be well for
us to make out. Ally, you're a scholar; I suppose you can
read thct?"
He fumbled in his pocket, and produced an old piece
of newspaper which he carefully unfolded. From it he
took a letter in an envelope; he put the piece of newspaper back into his pocket again, then took the letter between
his teeth, while he pulled out a box of lucifer-matches. He
tried several times to light one inside his cap; the cold
wind blew it out each time. At last one blazed pretty
steadily, and long enough for him to hold the letter just
beneath its light. " Can you read that? " he asked. The
girl all the time had been shivering with cold while he was
trying to light his match and mumbling an oath at each
successive failure. "Can you read that?"
" Of course I can."
The match went out; and he put up the box.
What do you make of it?"
"'Paul Massie, Esquire.' It's plain enough."
" But what do you make of it? What do you think it
is?"
"I suppose it's a letter for Mr. Eustace's cousin up at
the house."
"I suppose so too."




UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.             51
"Then why don't you give it to him? "
"I have a reason. Perhaps it isn't for him, after all.
Where I got the ring I gbt that. It came open in my
hand; it did indeed; and though I'm  not much of a
scholar, I tried to read it. I didn't know then who it was
for."
"Didn't the person that gave it to you tell you who it
was for?"
"No, not exactly. The person only found it-andand-couldn't read, and gave it to me to find out something about it. Now, will you read it over, like a good
lass, and tell me what you make of it? and be sure you
keep it safe. Don't let it go for your life. I think it will
astonish you a bit; and if you help me out, we may follow
it up; and it may do us good."
"; Us!"  The girl tossed her head contemptuously at
the word; but she did not resist the temptation to get
at something secret, and she took the letter, promising to
read it and faithfully to give it back. He took care not to
give her the envelope.
"It mayn't be for Mr. Massie at all'" said Halliday;
"and if it isn't, he oughtn't to get it. If it is, why it's
some news for him perhaps, and maybe we can tell it to
him in some better way. 1 can't make all out myself, for
it's small writing, and I'm a bad reader."
"I think there's somebody coming," said Alice suddenly; "I must go."
There was nobody coming, as she well knew, having
hearing power nearly as quick as Fine Ear's in the fairy
story. But she was curious about the letter she held
in her hand, and she wanted, moreover, to get away from
her admirer as fast as possible. She did not, after all,
insist any more upon his taking back the diamond ring.
Halliday gave vent to something like a sigh as she
broke away from  him  in his effort to detain her. He,
too, knew there was nobody coming; and he knew that
she had only made a feint just to get away from  him




b2                   PAUL MASSIE.
and she knew that he knew this; and he knew that she
knew that he knew  it. There was the most complete,
although tacit, understanding between them on that head.
I-Ie was well aware that she shrank from him, despised him
and his ways; that she had ceased to feel sufficient interest in him even to coquette with or torment him any
longer, as once she used to do; that she only wanted absolutely to get rid of him. Yet he clung about her, awkwardly, roughly, making himself more and more odious to
her. Once she had allowed him to make love to her, and
rather liked it, before she learned to give herself airs, and
to wear earrings, and to make a fine lady of herself-as he
often secretly grumbled-with a cast-off dress of Miss
Lydia's. Once she did not object to his pipe; and on one
memorable occasion, when there was some kind of merrymaking at her father's cottage, she actually condescended
to take a sip out of Halliday's glass of rum-and-water, and
grinned so prettily at the nasty taste that Jem scarcely knew
whether he was on his head or his heels with admiration.
To be sure, since that time Halliday had rather fallen into
evil ways, and Dan Crossley did not much care now to see
that awkward shadow darkening his doors. The taste for
rum-and-water, always rather marked, had strongly developed itself as regarded the rum, and diminished as regarded
the water. -The taste for loafing about and doing nothing,
or at least nothing good, had been steadfastly growing;
and now people hardly knew how Halliday lived at all.
He was rapidly approaching that stage of idleness when it
seems almost inevitable that a prison must be the first halt
in the career, and a transport-ship its grand climateric.
Meanwhile Alice had been installed under the clergyman's roof, and was, in good truth, trying to make a sort
of lady of herself, and was giving herself airs, and was
very fond of fine clothes, and spoke good English, and
hated pipes, and! would have turned almost sick at the
faintest smell of rum-and-water. Wretched Halliday knew
all this perfectly well, having a pretty keen sort of instinct




UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.           53
of his own, which a little of early training, and occupation,
and ignorance of rum, might even have developed into
intelligence. But he clung on to Alice's skirts, when he
could, like grim death; and it was something like rapture
to him when he saw how the first glimpse of the diamond
ring made her eyes sparkle. Providence seemed to have
sent that diamond ring in his way. That was something
which nobody but he would have given to her! Miss
Lydia might have given her a dress; Miss Sarah might
make over on her the reversion of a crinoline; but there
were no diamond rings given away except by poor Jem
Halliday.
Now poor Jem Halliday fancied he had got hold of a
mystery, and thought he discerned a small bright path to
prosperity and to Alice shining through it.  He had
plucked the ring with little scruple off the cold finger of a
dead woman (what good are rings to the dead?), and in the
pocket of the dead woman's dress he had found a pocketbook with one or two old, wet, sea-stained letters. He was
not going to trouble himself about these at first, until in
one of the wild bright glimpses of moonlight that night he
read clearly enough the name on the back of one of the
letters. He had always a taste for secrets and quiet dodges
of various kinds, and he thought there might be something
to find out in a letter addressed to a name which he knew.
Furthermore, with the instinct already mentioned, it
flashed upon him that there might be decided inconvenience to him in calling too much attention to the identity
of the person off whose finger he had plucked the ring
which he was determined to keep. So he put the letters
in his pocket. Half an hour after, he chuckled as he went
up the cliff to think that he had just been talking, and
even quarrelling, with the very man to whom one of the
letters was addressed.
When he got home that night, or morning, to the
house of his old mother,-a miserable poor woman, who
washed and let pitiful lodgings to sailors, while he idled




~~54           PnPAUL MASSIE.
and scolded her, —he struggled to read his findings by the
light of an expiring candle. He found that one paper was
only an old money-account, and burned it at once. He
struggled through the letter, and believed he had been
providentially thrown upon the discovery of a secret. A
great secret, hethought. As yet he could make nothing
distinct out of it. But it obviously put him in the way of
discovering something; and he felt convinced that nobody
could help him so well as Alice in discovering the whole.
Therefore Alice must be taken into the secret; but she
must hear nothing about the manner in which he had come
by the letter. If she only knew that, and knew where he
had got the ring, she would turn from him in disgust. Yet
the risk was worth braving; and he felt a hope that it
gave him a last chance.
Now Alice was gone, and he stood in the little summer-house alone. He would have liked to follow her, for
nature had endowed him with a stealthy wish to follow
and dog people in general, and find out whether they were
doing just the thing which they professed or were supposed to be doing. He did not believe that Alice really
had heard somebody coming; and he was anxious to
know whether she actually was returning towards the
house. But he feared to be heard by her, to be detected,
and then detested even more than before. So he remained
where he was for a few seconds, and gave vent to the
sound not wholly unlike a sigh. When the slight echo
of Alice's feet could be heard no longer, he crept with
stealthy step along the walk, knowing that when he reached
its turning, and had the broad path before him, he could
see to the house, and would be in time to ascertain by the
light shining through an open door, or by the sound of
the door's closing, whether Alice really had gone directly
in. When he peered down the walk, however, he could
see nothing-could hear nothing. Alice was not there.
She could not have got into the house before he reached
the corner of the walk? Perhaps-yet it was not likely.




UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.             55
Could she have turned off by a side-path?-and for what?
Presently he heard a sound, a step-unmistakably a step,
and not the light beat of a woman's foot-fall, but the firm
steady tread of a man. Halliday drew back into the darkness. Peering out, he could see that a figure approached;
he could see the glow-worm fire of a cigar. The figure
turned off a side-walk. What mystery was there in that?
Halliday knew the form perfectly well. It was only the
cousin of the house, Paul Massie, walking alone in the
grounds, and smoking the cigar which mortal being dared
not puff within the doors of that well regulated mansion.
Yet Halliday turned livid with suspicion, jealousy, and
rage. Could it be that she had met him —that she had
purposely met him?  Could this be one of the reasons
why she had tired of Jem Halliday, her old sweetheart,
and tried to tarn him adrift? With a pang which almost
rendered him furious, he thought of the letter he had given
her-the secret with which he had hoped to buy her.
Was he himself sold? Had she obtained his precious finding to give it up to that man now walking a few yards
from where Halliday stood? "The witch shall die-to the
young Roman boy she has sold me?"  Rough, vulgar,
dull, bemuddled Halliday was made all in a moment of kin
to the poet's Mark Antony by the one touch of nature and
feeling vibrating through his heart-strings. There was
not the slightest rational ground for his suspicion. He
had no more reason to be jealous of Paul Massie than of
the Lord Chancellor; but the furious impulse of jealousy
smote him at that moment with all the rage and agony of
conviction. He did not know that Massie had been but a
few days in Seaborough; nor, had he known the fact,
could he have remembered it or reflected on it just then.
Among men of the Halliday class the impulse of jealousy
is most strong and overwhelming. Respectable people
somehow get over the emotion: stifle it, or hide it, or do
not feel it; or, at all events, contrive not to make a row
about it.. When a young man of the better classes-a gen



56                   PAUL MASSIE.
teel and educated young man-shot the girl whom he
regarded as faithless, not very long ago, all the world and
divers of the mad doctors pronounced him, ipso facto, a
lunatic. But in Halliday's class men shoot their fickle
sweethearts, or cut the throats of their faithless wives, day
after day almost unnoticed by the doctors, the writers, and
the public. Every London paper tells the story daily.
Across Halliday's. dulled  brain and embruted heart a
vague, heavy, darksome thought had often brooded-the
thought that if Alice utterly cast him off for somebody
else, he would kill that somebody or her. He felt somehow as if he should have to do it. He thought of it now'
again.
But this time, at least, his suspicions found no distinct
realization. He did not venture at once to follow Paul,
being reluctant to make any noise. But he gradually
crept to a convenient angle from which he could peer down
the whole of the sidewalk. Thus, even when he could no
longer see Paul, he could be quite certain that Paul was
alone. Alone Paul continued to be. He paced up and
down, until his cigar had nearly burnt itself out; then
flung the last flaming fragment among the dark and wet
bushes, and returned to the house.
Meanwhile Alice was safely in the house. She too had
heard Paul's footstep, and not knowing who approached,
ensconced herself behind some bushes until the way was
clear, and then got easily under cover of the house, while
her jealous admirer watched in vain the movements of the
unconscious Massie. Alice was not long without reading
the letter. She hid herself in her room, and spread the
faded, stained document on her little bed, while kneeling
beside it she spelled out its contents. They were vague even
to her. They must have been vague indeed to Halliday.
They told nothing distinctly. But they proved-proved
clearly as a revelation could have done-to Alice, that
somebody in Seaborough-house had a secret, a secret which
the world was never to have known, a mystery which one at




UNCONGENIAL CONSPIRATORS.             57
least would not have had exposed to keen conjecture-no,
not for the house and grounds and the money, and all the
silk dresses and diamond rings in the universe. But what
was the mystery? That the contents of the letter did not
disclose, scarcely even hinted, to any one not previously
prepared by suspicion to guess. Alice thought with some
complacency that her lover Halliday was wholly dependent upon her for any clue to the mystery; and she was quite
resolved that he never should have even a glimpse of the
clue, for the letter was to her not a first disclosure, but a
confirmation. She had had her suspicions. Now she felt
satisfied that she saw her way to a full comprehension of
the mystery. She felt herself mistress of the situation.
In good truth, she was not so, and her conjectures were
utterly wrong; but she had no doubt about them as yet,
and her eyes sparkled and her bosom heaved at the thought
of the secret she held, and the power it might give her.
A bell rang, and she thrust the paper into her bosom
and hurried away.
That night she was with Mrs. Massie in her room.
Alice had once or twice thought of playing a generous
part, of showing the letter to her mistress, of telling her
how she had come by it, and frankly unburdening herself
of all she knew, or suspected that she knew. But that
night in particular Mrs. Massie was querulous, petulant,
discontented-not in a mood to invite confidences, not in
a temper to conci.liate servants. Alice came in for a sharp
word or two-perhaps for several sharp words-and she
resolved to keep her secret to herself. She had been told
to hold her tongue, and she determined to prove that she
could do so. Once she held some silk on her wrists while
Mrs. Massie unwound it, and the crumpled letter was all
the while lying in her bosom; only a few folds of muslin
between it and one who would gladly have grasped it,
could she but have known of its existence and its whereabouts.  In one of the late Eugene Sue's cheerful and
healthy stories of crime and misery, there is a married lady
3*




5    ~~8 ~      PAUL MASSIE.
who receives a letter which she ought not to accept, and
who places it for safety in her excellent white bosom.
There is a mother-in-law, fierce, penetrating, and relentless, who suspects the charmer when the charmer's husband
is all credulity and fond guilelessness. And one night, by
the domestic fireside, while the circle of family and friends
are happy,,the mother-in-law asks her son's wife to hold a
little silk for her on her pretty wrists. The unsuspecting
lady complies; and while she is thus manacled with the
skein the cruel mother-in-law suddenly thrusts her bony
hand down into that beautiful bosom, plucks out its secret
of shame, and holds it up to the horrified spectators. Why
did not some kind inspiration tell Mrs. Massie that there
lay secreted inside the dress of the demure-looking girl
before her some crumpled paper which it deeply, deeply
concerned her to have and to read?  Had she but known!
had she but seized the letter!
HTad she discovered the letter at that moment, it might
have saved much trouble and some grief. But it would
likewise have obviated any necessity for writing the story
of Paul Massie's visit to England.
CHAPTER V.
THE MASSIES.
A  FEW  days passed away quietly, and not disagreeably,
~with Paul; but he did not find home so delightful a
place as he had anticipatedc  He had dreamed of home and
family since the boyish time when first he learned to appreciate the fact that he had neither one nor the other. In
the American college, in the New-York counting-house, in
the western log-hut and by the Mexican camp-fire, in the
mud of Balaklava and among the heights of Simla, in the
Latin Quarter and on the Pincian Hill, he had dreamed of
home. Now at last he finds something which at least




TIIE MASSIES.                    59
professes to be home; something which comes nearer to
the nature of the sacred institution than anything he ever
knew before. Is he satisfied, tranquil, delighted? Not at
all.  He was already beginning to feel something of the
cheerless sensation which sinks upon the wretched bachelor when, returning late to his chambers after a long and
weary day and evening, still consoling himself with the
thought of at least a pleasant hour with book and pipe
over a bright fire, he enters his room and finds his grate
filled with white and desolate ashes, and, spiritless, he
pronounces it too late to think of reviving the extinguished glow.
The Massies were all very kind to Paul and very
friendly; but the house had no warmth in it. As the
family talked to their stranger cousin the first night of his
arrival, so they continued to talk, in friendly tones and on
general subjects.
Paul and his family did not get on. He had had expectations of long, intimate, and ]oving conversations
about his early life, about his father and mother, and the
causes of their separation, and of his own long divorce
since boyhood from the living members of his family.  He
heard nothing of the kind. When he opened such a course
of conversation with his aunt, she at once changed the
subject. He could easily see that Eustace felt no interest
whatever in the matter.  He did not expect that Lydia
could feel any; and he had for the first few days little
opportunity of conversing with Sarah.  In truth, there
could hardly be any common subject of interest or association binding the cousins to the cousin. Their ways
were not his; their thoughts seemed to be as unlike his as
their lives had been.
Eustace was a sort of model clergyman. His heart was
in his work; or at least in the routine of it.  His church
and its decorations, its rood-screen, its flowers, its choir,
its pulpit, and its schools, filled his soul and often emptied
his purse.  He was a strict disciplinarian; he was a wor



60                   PAUL MASSIE.
shipper of the externals of religion, while not in the least
a hypocrite, but simply a man who honestly confounded
the means with the end, the outside with the inside. Eustace Massie would be called by most people a good man.
He would not have done a mean, a wrong, or a cowardly
thing for the world; but neither would he have smoked a
pipe, nor worn a moustache, nor gone to a theatre. He
loved his church-that is, the building-with as much of
love as so very proper a heart was capable of conceiving.
He was humane and gave largely in charity, but he did
not pretend to like poor people who had frailties; and he
sincerely believed that the only cure for all human error
was to have a pew and to attend regularly in a well-built
church of the class recognized as High. He would not
have persecuted any one for religion's sake; but he certainly did not regard a Dissenter as a respectable person;
and in his heart he considered infidelity of any kind as
something socially disreputable, and chiefly belonging to
Chartist tailors.
It may be an inexplicable association of ideas, but if you
spoke to Eustace Massie of anybody afflicted with doubts
on the subject of religion, the clergyman at once pictured
in his mind a sallow person, with dirty hands and a scrubby moustache. Respectability and  regularity were to
him the golden rules of life. Varieties of thought and
character he considered unnecessary and dangerous,-indeed he set them  down as mere mental diseases. The
problem which he understood the Church to have to solve
was to bring all men to think, act, worship, and perhaps
finally even dress alike,-each, that is to say, dressing like
his equals in station. He was not fond of literature, and
only praised Shakespeare because he accepted that dramatist as a sort of necessity to which it was proper now to
conform. Dickens he endured because of his generally
commendable moral, although he thought several of his
characters terribly vulgar; but he supposed that certain
natures needed such entertainment, and he gently bore




THE MASSIES.                    61
with the existence of such a craving, as he would have excused children for liking Punch and Judy. Thackeray used
to puzzle him thoroughly. He could not understand how
any man of character and social position could be in earnest when he selected such people heroes and heroines, and
propounded such doctrines as lessons of life. For whatever people of intelligence might think regarding certain
social institutions and ways of existence, the Rev. Eustace
Massie always held that no doctrine ought to be preached
but that of universal content with everything. While
laboring honestly and earnestly to change for the better all
things around him, Eustace Massie preached through life
that everything was exactly what it ought to be, and had
been purposely planned and ordered by Supreme Intelligence to be precisely that and nothing else. If a new astronomical discovery were made, Eustace would have lectured
to the Young Men's Association of the town for the purpose of pointing out how that precise discovery demonstrated the fitness of things, and the divine adaptation of
everything  to everything  else. Had the "discovery"
been next day proved to be an entire mistake, and had
some reality of a directly opposite tendency been established, the clergyman would at once have accepted the
new  truth, and demonstrated how that and that alone
could harmonize with the supreme adaptation of every
thing to everything else. He was induced once to read
Mill's Essay on Liberty, and he merely smiled the smile
of compassion over a writer said to have great intellect
and influence, who actually wanted people to be independent in thought, and positively encouraged eccentricity.
Life to Eustace Massie was a great school of order, wherein all training was to direct itself, after one plan, to the
universal realizing of one pattern. Indeed his own chief
interest was not in life at all, but in training: not in
religion, but in the Church.
How could such a man feel any warm sympathy with a
being like Paul Massie? What was Paul's religion? No




62                   PAUL MASSIE.
doubt he called himself a member of the Church of England; but it is probable that he could no more have
explained the difference between High Church and Low
Church, or even between one form of Dissent and another,
or any form of Dissent (save Mormonism) and the strictest
orthodoxy, than he could have expatiated on the difference
between the doctrines of Kant and the doctrines of Hegel.
It was a considerable stretch of good-nature on the part of
Eustace Massie not to feel an objection to a cousin who
smoked; and the horror with which he regarded all laxity
of religious opinion was only evaded in this instance by a
charitable determination on his part to believe Paul a perfectly orthodox and even pious man despite of whatever
presumptive evidence to the contrary.  But this.very
resolve only served of itself to restrict still more the narrow circle within which the conversation and the intimacy
between Paul and his cousin were necessarily circumscribed. Paul was a cosmopolitan who had no particular
opinions upon anything. Eustace had a mind essentially
parochial and clerical, which never recognized the possibility of a vague opinion or a second opinion upon anything.
In truth the Massie family appeared to Paul intensely
egotistical. A more reflecting personage would have made
allowance for their circumstances, and remembered that
they could hardly be anything else. How could people
who lived all their lives in one place, and had whatever
exertions and occupations they undertook limited by the
opportunities and interests of that one place, be anything
but egotistic?  The range of Eustace's parish seemed the
universe of the quiet group to which he was the central
sun. Paul grew  very weary of the eternal talk about
the church and the curates, and the curates' wives; about
the schools, the bishop's visit, the confirmation-day, the
Dorcas meeting, the iniquities of the town, the growing
number of public-houses, the spread of Popish opinions,
of Dissent, of Methodism, and of cock-fighting; the branch
Missionary Society, the annual charitable bazaar, and all




THE MASSIES.                   63
the rest of the interests which absorbed the attention of
Seaborough-house. He could not bring his roving intellect
to apply itself to these domestic questions, and he knew
full well that the Massies saw his inability; and he suspected that they rather pitied it, and bore with his lack of
interest in their sacred topics as a duty which for the time
they owed to kindred and the rights of hospitality. Like
all men who have travelled and knocked about much, he
was inclined to set rather too high a value on mere locomotion, and to regard quiet untravelled domestic ways and
home-keeping youths with a feeling approaching to contempt. He liked much to talk; partly because it relieved
his now-repressed energy and restless mind, and partly too
because, being conscious that he could talk vivaciously,
forcibly, and sometimes even brilliantly, it gave him pleasure to exercise his faculty. But he soon began to think
that the Massies did not know enough about the world to
care about knowing any more; and that Mrs. Massie in
especial had a positive objection to any conversation which
recalled even momentarily the memories of far-off days
and the associations of a distant land.
Therefore Paul sometimes walked on the sea-shore
alone and rather melancholy; therefore when the young
ladies would not venture out in a boat on the rough waves
-now very often rough-Paul sometimes pushed off his
boat alone, spread his sail even in the roughest spring
weather, sat in the stern, managed the sheet, ran recklessly
out to sea, was in danger, and for the time happy. He very
soon made the acquaintance of divers fishermen and boatmen, and had excursions with them wherein he displayed
himself so stout a seaman, with so cool a head and so
strong an arm, that he won their universal admiration.
Before a week he knew all their houses, and would walk
in and chat with the men or their wives or their children
with the ease of an old acquaintance. Alice's father he
knew among the rest, and Alice's father greatly admired
him; and Alice did somehow happen more than once to




64                   PAUL MASSIE.
come down to see the honest boatman just when Paul
chanced to be in the cottage.
Paul could give advice and assistance upon almost every
subject, and had strange new ways of doing everything,
from the rig of a boat to the shoeing of a pony. He could
climb any cliff, could steer in any sea, could knot a rope in
any possible way that emergency of whatever kind could
require. He always had cigars to give to everybody, and
would accept a piece of smuggled cavendish with the
utmost frankness: He had not hesitated to take a dripping
boatman into a public-house and treat him to a glass of
rum there. He had taken the dirtiest little urchins into
his boat; and more than that, there was a wild tomboy of
a girl, a boatman's daughter, full fifteen years old, brownskinned and bright-eyed, and this young person had actually sat in Paul's boat and held the sheet several times
while he dropped his nets, to the pride and delight of the
lassie's honest father and mother, and the scandal of one
or two religious neighbors. Paul thought no harm, and
suspected no one else of thinking  any. But all this,
although it helped to make his time pass pleasantly away,:and to constitute him a very popular personage among the
people about the strand, did by no means tend to render
his stay very agreeable to the rector of Seaborough. Indeed, if Eustace could have allowed so unfriendly a thought
to enter his well-regulated bosom, he would perhaps have
wished his cousin safely established in London (whither
Paul was presently bound), or in Paris, or in Vera Cruz,
or in Jericho.
One day Paul had arranged with the two young ladies
of the house for a ride to some neighboring ruins. Unluckily, Lydia got a headache, or a sore-throat, or something,
and could not go; and Sarah, with whom Paul would
much have enjoyed the excursion, would not, or at all
events did not, go. Paul rode out alone, and clearing the
town, cantered along a road which mounted pleasantly over
the cliffs, and commanded a delightful view of the sea, and




THE MASSIES.                   65
even of the French shore. He turned to the right after
awhile, attracted by the charms of a rugged, straggling
green lane, which climbed over height and dipped into
hollow, and so promised to lead away from the sea and the
surge and the cliffs into quiet inland nature. Although
the trees were leafless yet, there was a greenness and
soft beauty on this landward side which irresistibly invited
an explorer. Paul rode on and on in perfect solitude, the
road growing narrower and more straggling. Suddenly he
heard the sound of approaching horses and many voices.
It was not long before he had to draw up quite to the side
of the lane, his horse's feet trampling into the bed of one of
those charming brooklets which are as common as wild
flowers in Ireland and Scotland and Germany, and unfortunately as rare as a four-leaved shamrock in England. If
he had not thus pulled up to the side, nobody could say
how the party of two ladies and three gentlemen who
came riding down could ever have got past; and even
as it was, the procession, in Indian file, had to pick their
steps as they went past. The last of the party, as he
approached, looked at Paul, and then pulling up his horse,
exclaimed, "Why, it's Massie-Paul Massie!"  And Paul
returned the recognition by exclaiming, "Wynter!" And
a bluff dark-bearded man of some forty-five years endeavored to rein-in a kicking and stamping horse while he
grasped in friendly eagerness the hand of our hero.
" Why, Massie, who on earth ever thought of seeing
you here? I'thought you were at least three thousand
miles away. How long have you been here? When did
you leave New Orleans, Vera Cruz, Calcutta-where was
it I saw you last?"
Paul was really glad to meet Mr. Wynter, M. P., and
frankly told him so. Mr. Wynter was a gentleman who
bustled about the world a good deal, delighted in supposing himself deeply concerned in the political affairs of
divers foreign countries; and  was a bouncing, goodnatured, exuberant personage, given to boasting,-utterly




66                   PAUL MASSIE.
unreliable as to personal narrative, but in the depth (easily
sounded) of his character honorable, sincere, and truthful.
Paul and he had often met, and had contracted rather a
liking for each other, and it was a relief to Paul to be
hailed by him at the present moment.
"I heard of you only the other day," said Paul; "at
least, I heard your name, and I thought it must be you."
"Then why didn't you make me out?  I'm staying
with Charlton, the member for Seaborough, Tunnel-hall,
down there where you see the wood. Capital preserve!
You must know my friend Charlton. Hallo, Charlton!
This is a particular friend of mine-Mr. Paul Massie, ofWell, I really don't quite know of what place —Europe,
Asia, Africa, or America. He's a cosmopolitan-a citizen
of the world-like myself, begad!"
Introductions were not easy in so narrow a passage;
but the member for Seaborough raised his hat, and then
Paul was presented to the member's wife, and then to the
lady who accompanied her, in whom Paul had no difficulty
abolt recognizing the much-talked-of Salome.
"Turn your horse round and ride with us," said
Wynter.
Paul complied, and they wended down the lane again,
Wynter talking for all, asking scores of questions, to which
he seldom waited for answers, and pouring out voluminous
extracts from his own personal experiences and adventures.
At last they came to the open road, and here their
ways diverged. Mr. Charlton invited Paul to dine at
Tunnel-hall that day; but Paul had to dine at home and
so must decline.
" Your cousin and I are not very good friends, I believe, Mr. Massie," said the railway contractor with a frank
and kindly smile, which well became his large, intelligent,
and not undignified face; "at least I have heard so, for I
really know of nothing which should make us anything but
good neighbors."
"Except that you differ in religion and politics," inter



THE MASSIES.                   67
rupted Wynter. "Do you think that isn't enough, or do
you hope to be better than all the rest of the world?"
"Still," continued Mr. Charlton, "I hope you and I
may meet again, Mr. Massie. We are returning to town
very soon; but I should be glad to see you even before we
go, and I hope we shall meet in London."
The much-talked-of Salome here joined in the conversation.
" I have often heard of Mr. Massie," she said; " and indeed know him by repute already; but I hope to have the
pleasure of meeting him. I live in London, Mr. Massie,
and shall be happy to see you when you come to town.
You are coming to London, are you not?"
"I hope to be in London in two or three weeks; indeed
I am anxious to get there."
" Then I trust that we may meet there; and I shall lay
all the blame on Mr. Wynter if I do not soon have the
pleasure of seeing you."
Paul rode homeward. He had not seen Salome's face
very distinctly, for she wore a veil; but her form was
graceful and remarkable, and her voice, somewhat deeper
perhaps than that of most women, was sweet and clear in
its tones. There was something peculiarly agreeable to
him in her frank, unconstrained, and genial manner; it
impressed him, especially after the colder style which belonged to the Massie family. One better accustomed to
the polite world would probably have set down Salome as
a good deal too prononcee in tone and style; but to Paul
this would have been incomprehensible, and would have
mattered little, even if he had understood it. He only felt
that he should have liked to ride home by-the lady's side,
and talk to her; that it would be pleasant to dine that day
at the same table with her; and he might have acknowledged to a slight touch of genuine regret when he heard
that she was to return to London next morning. Therefore he rode home perhaps rather moodily; and when he
got off his horse, and entered Seaborough-house, it was




GS 3-                PAUL MASSIE.
with the uncomfortable sensation of one who knows himself unsuited to the circle in which he is thrown, and who
begins to be conscious that in that circle there is no
natural place for him.
Why, then, did Paul Massie stay?  Why did he not
cut. short the visit which began to be so disappointing?
One reason was that he had come to stay a month at least
in the first instance, and there seemed no sufficient excuse
for leaving the place in any abrupt manner. He could not
well tell his cousins that he wished to go away because he
was growing tired of them, or because he feared they
were growing tired of him. But there was another reason
for his lingering about Seaborough-house.  An inexplicable fascination or presentiment haunted him  while he
remained there. If the form of Mrs. Massie had been peculiarly charged with electric fire, to which he and he alone
acted as a conductor; if there really had been some spiritualistic or mesmeric rapport, which drew him and her mysteriously together and isolated them  from  all the world
beside, he could not have felt more strangely impressed by
her propinquity and her presence. He scarcely ever approached her that she did not seem to start and flush.
When he touched her hand, he felt that it shivered, or throbbed like that of a girl in the clasp of her lover's. When
he spoke to any one else, he felt and knew that if she was in
the room her eyes were fixed on him. He was, as has been
stated, a firm leliever in spiritualism and its influences,
and he believed himself aided in his observations by mesmeric attraction and perception; while indeed it needed
no supernatural or extranatural influences to impress him
with a knowledge of an obvious fact. Often and often as
he stood behind Lydia at the piano, often as he stooped
over Sarah to explain some Italian or Spanish phrase in
the books which she loved to study, he felt, he knew that
the deep melancholy eyes of Mrs. Massie were fixed on him,
and he looked up and caught her glance before it could
turn startled away.




THE MASSIES.                   69
When was it that he beheld an apparition which impressed him with a painful sensation never to be effaced?
When was it that he first became aware, as if by the ray
of a revelation from the other world, that Seaboroughhouse concealed some secret which must in some way, close
or remote, direct or indirect, be affected by his presence?
It was a wild and' wet evening, and Paul had been
driven home an hour or more before dinner-time. Eustace
was working in his study. Paul entered the drawing-room
and found Lydia alone. She was amusing herself rather
vacuously by playing odd chords and scraps of melodies
and operas on the piano, and she welcomed with obvious
delight the coming of some one to talk to her. She was
particularly gracious and winning that evening to Paul.
She played and sang for him anything and everything he
pleased, and he began to grow unusually happy under the
genial influence of the moment. He was not at all in love
nor getting into love with his cousin; but she was a pretty,
vivacious girl, who could be fond and winning when she
pleased, and this day it seemed to please her to be so.
Paul was joyous and warm by nature, only made a lonely
man thus far by fortune and fate. He felt the influence of
the hour and the presence. Before a warm-hearted man
meets the one to be loved, he meets with many shadows
and fair apparitions, each of which, for the moment, he
welcomes as the true and chosen form. Ixion-like, men
rush to embrace that which is but a cloud, and melts as
they approach. The hour, the place, the circumstances, the
associations often combine to throw a delightful, deceitful
lustre around some face and form which thus shine upon
us as the one ideal vaguely sought so long, and now found
at last. As the ignorant think of the sun, so do men placed
like Paul Massie often mistake for native, all-absorbing,
and immortal fire that which is only the luminous atmosphere surrounding the object. It seemed to Massie as if
he were sinking away into a feeling very like love towards
his cousin. To be so near her was, for the time, delicious;




70                   PAUL MASSIE.
and he drew nearer still, and bent over her shoulder, was
close to her hair, felt his hand almost involuntarily touch
her waist. And it was then that, suddenly looking towards
the fire-place, his eye fell upon the mirror above the chimney, and he saw the apparition.
What was the apparition? Only a face in the mirrora woman's face, pallid, affrighted, ghastly, with lips tremulous, and eyes which burned with the pale fire of fear and
horror. The room  was in dusk, and the glow  on the
hearth chiefly served to keep it from being in darkness.
In the mirror Paul could see nothing. but the face, all outline of form was lost in shadow; the eyes gazed wildly
into his, the lips parted once or twice convulsively, as
if about to utter some cry, or at least to speak some
startled word. Only one moment the apparition lasted.
It was instantly withdrawn from the mirror; but the eyes
had met Paul's, had looked into his with unspeakable, yet
distinct, expression of mingled pity, agony, and terrornay, had returned his surprised and startled glance with
one which seemed to assure him that what he saw was
only too real. Paul must have started palpably; for Lydia
stopped short in her strain, and both looked towards the
door. Yet there was surely nothing there to startle the
weakest nerves. Only Mrs. Massie, who must have chanced
to come to, the threshold unheard during the music, and
who now entered the room. She looked pale, perhaps; and
and when she came in she remarked what a cold dreary
evening it was, and wondered that Lydia had not had the
lamps lighted.
"Mamma, you quite frightened me," said Lydia. "I
never heard you at the door, and you looked like a ghost
as you came in."
"There are no ghosts any longer," said Mrs. Massie;
"we have got rid of ghosts."
"Paul believes in ghosts," observed Lydia.' Don't
you, Paul?"
Paul would have believed in anything just at that




SALOME AND ALICE.                 71
moment. Mrs. Massie urged that the singing should not
be given up because she had come in; she delighted in
singing. But the charm of the moment was gone; the
room did really look very drear and ghastly, and it was a
decided relief when Lydia rang for the lamps, and there was
light enough to see everything, and commonplace talk about
nothing set in.
CHAPTER VI.
SALOME AND ALICE.
TWO or three ladies were seated in the drawing-room of
Tunnel-hall. Mr. Charlton, the host, was over his wine
with Mr. Wynter and another gentleman. Mr. Wynter
liked his wine when it was good, and when dining at Tunnel-hall had no particular anxiety to quit the table for the
pleasure of looking at prints or hearing a voice with piano
accompaniment in the drawing-room.
The ladies were not very lively. Mrs. Charlton was a
good and kind woman, who had risen with her husband
socially, but not mentally; and Salome de Luca was never
much given to the society of owomen, unless when they
were specially clever or distinguished, or in some way
attractive. So the group of ladies were in a fair way to
bore each other-or at least such of them as were capable
of being bored. Nothing could bore Mrs. Charlton, she
was so kindly, simple, and happy. But Salome was tired;
and did not even look forward with much pleasure to the
coming of the gentlemen.  She was relieved, although
much surprised, when a servant announced that a young
woman belowstairs wished particularly to speak to her for
a few moments. "She said you would know her by the
name of Alice," added the servant in explanation.
" Alice! Of course I do," replied Salome quickly.
" One of the servants at Seaborough-house, Mrs. Charlton,
-a special favorite of mine in old days."




72             PAU L MASSIE.
Mrs. Charlton gave directions for Salome's visitor to be
shown into one of the rooms below.  Salome presently
descended. She was glad to have the opportunity of talking to an old acquaintance, though only a lady's-maid. It
was a variety, at all events, from the society of the past
few days; and she could not release herself from a personal
interest in Seaborough-house, which the chance meeting of
that day had done something to quicken.
She found Alice in a small parlor below. The girl
looked flushed and almost alarmed. Salome noted that
she had grown a decidedly pretty girl. Alice made a
somewhat confused curtsey, but Salome, who had not one
gleam of conventionality about her, put out her hand as if
to an old friend.
"Well, Alice, I am glad you have come to see me, and
glad to see you looking so well and happy. How is your
father-and I hope your mother is stronger than she used
to be? I remember well how she used to suffer. I would
have called to see them, but I have been so occupied, and
my stay is very short."
" O, ma'am, you were always so kind, and when I heard
you were here I thought I could not but come to see you
-and besides-"
"Sit down, Alice-you look a little frightened, I think.
Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"No, ma'am-nothing wrong. But I have come to ask
your advice, if you will be good enough-I thought I might
venture-"
"Indeed you might. I only hope I may be able to
advise you. Come, tell me what distresses you."
"I am afraid, ma'am, I have been doing wrong."  She
cast her eyes on the ground. Salome started and looked
fixedly at her. "I mean, that I have been meddling in
matters that don't concern me."
Salome looked greatly relieved, and indeed could not
help smiling.
Alice, looking up, caught a faint gleam of the smile.




SALOME AND ALICE.                 73
There was much of a sunny warmth in it, and it encouraged her.
"Well, Alice, what have you been meddling with? I
don't think you would do anything very wrong, unless you
have greatly changed since old days."
"I want to ask you, ma'am, whether what I have done
is wrong, and how I can put it right; or if I ought to say
anything to anybody about it. Please to read that paper."
Alice took from her bosom  a folded paper. It was
stained, yellow, and crumpled. It smelt of tobacco, and
Salome almost shuddered at the first odor of it. She looked
inquiringly at the girl before her, as if to ask what the
meaning of the whole transaction might be. Alice met her
keen gaze entreatingly.  "Do you read it, ma'am-please
do," she said, "I want some one to read it besides me."
Salome's quiet eyes turned away from the girl's face
to the letter. Our friend was accustomed to study faces
and their expression. She read nothing silly, or frivolous,
or mean in Alice's look; only alarm and anxiety.
Salome drew the lamp close to her and read the letter.
It had no address; it had no signature. It might have been
an extract copied from a book. It contained a statement,
or rather hinted at a revelation, which might be interesting enough if it appeared in its proper place in a
sensation novel, when one knew all about the person who
wrote it, the person to whom it was addressed, and the
people whom it concerned. Presenting itself as it did to
Madame de Luca, it was absolutely devoid of interest. It
could scarcely awaken greater curiosity than the proposition suggested by Mr. John Stuart Mill in his essay on
Sir W. Hamilton-that Humpty-Dumpty is equal to Abracadabra.
The letter-it evidently was a letter-was in a man's
handwriting; a clear firm hand, with deep decided lines;
not the hand of a man of business; not the cramped hand
of a scholar; not the rapid scratches and blotches of a professional literary man. It was the hand of one to whom
4




74                 gPAUIL MASSIE.
writing did not come too easily; who was firmly in earnest
about every stroke; who would not have written if he
could have avoided the labor; one might say without
rashness, the letter of one who meant what he wrote.
This much Salome, not unused to  such speculations,
thought she might venture to conclude. She observed
the handwriting thus keenly, partly perhaps because she
failed to discover anything to arouse her interest in the
contents of the document itself.
Alice watched her expression with anxious eyes.
"Well, ma'am,' the girl said at last, "who do you
think wrote it-what do you think it means?"
" Really, Alice, I don't know. It looks like a scrap out
of some novel. But what is it?  Where did you get it?
And what on earth have you and I to do with it?"
"I got it from one whom I don't want to see any
more, if I can; and where he got it only God knows."
" You don't know who wrote it?"
"I don't know-I don't know at all; I don't guess
even."
Salome grew impatient.
Then in Heaven's name, child, what do you want of
it, or what do I want with it, or what does it all mean?
To whom is it addressed? "
"It's addressed," said Alice, dropping her eyes and
lowering her-voice,' to Mr. Paul Massie."
"To Mr. Paul Mlassie-the gentleman now at Seaborough-house-fiom Mexico? "
" Yes, ma aml."
"Then why on earth did you read it, or bring it to me
to read? What right have you to read anything addressed
to Mr. Massie?"
"It was about that I wanted to speak to you, and to
beg of you for advice. The person who found that letter
means to use it to extort money from Mr. Massie, or from
somebody, and I thought it would be better out of his
hands; but I daren't quarrel with him, for he's violent:and




SALOME AND ALICE.                75
dreadful; and, besides, perhaps that letter ought not to be
talked about. So I thought if I could get it from him
quietly-and-and-pretend to help him, it would be
better; and then I meant to ask somebody's advice, and I
knew no one, ma'am, but you. I thought I was doing all
for the best." Tears were in Alice's eyes.
" But, Alice, this letter is meaningless to me. Perhaps
it is a trumped-up affair altogether. How do you know it
is meant for Mr. Paul Massie? "
"He told me so-the person who found it-yes, he
showed me the address. I remember now, he showed me
the address first."
" But it has no address."
"0 yes, ma'am, it must have had an address, or an
envelope, for the first thing he showed me was Mr. Paul
Massie's name."
"Well, it has no address now. I think this person,
whoever he was, must have been trying to deceive you,
Alice, for some motive or other. It seems to me to be
an absurd affair altogether; and I don't know that anything better could be done than to throw this letter into
the fire, and think no more about it."
"But, ma'am, the person who gave this paper to Halliday-to the person who gave it to me-"
" Yes-well?"
"That person must know all about it, and must be
somewhere here."
"Yes, I suppose so. But what have we to do with
that?"
Only, ma'am, that it would be no use our destroying
this letter. Halliday knows what is in it, and the person
who gave it to him."
"Who is Halliday?"
" He is a young man from the village, ma'am-a sort
of friend of mine-at least he was; but he has taken to bad
ways, and I don't like him, and don't want to have anything more to do with him; and I am afraid he will be




T6                  PAUL MASSIE.
angry and desperate. I want so much to go away from
this place-indeed I do. I should like so much to go to
London."
"Halliday, I suppose, is a discarded sweetheart of
yours."
Alice only said: "I fear he's a bad man; and I don't
know how he came by this letter; but if some one does not
do something to put him off it, he'll try to annoy or injure
some one about it."
" But, Alice, I see nothing in the letter that need affect
any one very much. Somebody, it appears, thinks he has
wronged Mr. Massie-if the letter be really addressed to
him, of which I don't see any proof-and tells him there is
somebody in England who can set the matter right. It
may be some utterly trifling affair."
" 0 no, ma'am, it is not."
" How do you know? You don't even know who the
person in England (I suppose it means in England) is."
" Yes, ma'am, I think I do."
"Then who is it?  But stay-don't tell me, if you
ought not to say it. I do not want to know."
" But if you please, ma'am, I want to tell you, and to
ask your advice, and I hope you will allow me. I can't
bear having it on my mind."
" Well, Alice, say anything you like."
" If you please, I think the person in England who
knows of the wrong, and has something to do with it, and
could set it right, is Mrs. Massie."
For the first time during the whole conversation
Madame de Luca at once abandoned the expression of languid interest which she had hitherto maintained. She had
listened to Alice with little more than indulgence and
patience. She had listened partly to oblige the girl, who
seemed deeply engrossed in the conversation; partly because she had nothing in the way of interesting occupation
to gain by breaking off the dialogue and going upstairs.




SALOME AND ALICE.                 77
But the mention of Mrs. Massie's name aroused a kindling
interest. She looked up eagerly.
"Why do you think Mrs. Massie has had anything to
do with this affair, whatever it is?"
" Because, ma'am, I had a ring, which was given to me
-lent to me, I mean-by a person,-this James Halliday;
and when she saw it she nearly fainted; and then she said
it was hers, and that she must have it; and then she insisted
upon knowing where I got it; and, indeed, she was like
one wild with alarm; and I know that that ring is the
token mentioned in the letter, for I know that the person who
gave Halliday the letter must have given him the ring too."
" Alice, this is a strange story-one of the strangest I
ever heard; I don't understand it in the least, but I am
glad you have come to me."
" Yes, but that, ma'am, is not all: there are other reasons too why I thought of Mrs. Massie."
She stopped as if for permission to speak further.
" Go on."
"When Mrs. Massie was sick, not a long time ago,
Miss Sarah and I nursed her-Miss Lydia is not good for
anything; and Mrs. Massie talked strange things, and raved
of Mr. Paul Massie and of her own son, Mr. Eustace, and
talked of having wronged and deceived and sacrificed some
one, and so went on that Miss Sarah at last would not have
me to nurse her any more. No one could make anything
of it; and I might have forgotten it but for this letter
that Halliday brought me and the ring."
"Have you the ring?"
Alice had it carefully stowed away. She had given up
wearing it. She put it into Salome's hand. It was a beautiful ring, apparently of considerable value, but old-fashioned in the setting. There was nothing very peculiar
about it, indeed, except its setting. The owner of such a
ring might, doubtless, identify it after a considerable lapse
of time; but a chance observer would pass it over with
little notice.




T~7~8         ~ PAUL MASSIE.
"It is quite possible Mrs. Massie may have mistaken
this ring for one that had belonged to her," said Madame
de Luca. "But," she added, rather in pursuance of her
own reflections than as if directly addressing Alice, "that
does not quite explain the strangeness of the apparent connection between the allusion in the letter' and her alarm on
seeing the ring. I should like to speak to the man who
gave you this," she said, looking at Alice.
"Shall I ask him to come to you, ma'am?"
"O no, certainly not; we must approach him in some
other way. It will not be at all difficult. I think, Alice,
you had better give him back his ring at once, and have
nothing to do with it. Have you told Mrs. Massie where
you got it? "
" O yes, ma'am; she asked at once, and I told her all
the truth-"
Salome lifted her eyes, and looked quietly at the girl.
The look had meaning in it.
"All the truth, that is, ma'am, about the ring, and
where I got it. I did not tell her anything about the
letter; but I told her it was Halliday gave me the ring,
and she said she would see him; and she said, too, that
she did not want it talked about. I am afraid you will
think I am acting badly towards her; and indeed I was
just on the point of telling her more than once all I knew,
and giving her up this letter, and leaving Halliday to do
his worst; but she was so sharp and harsh and strange,
that I could not speak to her about it; and it would be no
use; for what is to be done with Halliday?"
" Alice, the best thing you can do is at once to give
back that ring to Halliday; if it is Mrs. Massie's, and she
wishes to recover it, you had better leave her to deal with
him. For the rest, I strongly recommend you not to have
anything more to do with the whole affair. You cannot
wish to injure or annoy your mistress-you are too goodhearted, I think, for that."
" But I don't mean to stay with her; I don't mean to




SALOME AND ALICE.                  9
stay in Seaborough. I must get away out of this, ma'am
-away from Halliday and the whole place; I hate it all.
Do, please, ma'am, help me to leave this horrid place. I
want to go to London; and I will run away and go there,
if I can find no other way. I don't want to injure or
annoy Mrs. Massie-far from  it; perhaps I could if I
chose; but I should like to be able to do a service, if it is
to be done by this letter. I should like, at all events, to
have a share in doing it."
"A service to whom, child?"
" Well, ma'am, a service to any body who is wronged,
you know. We should all help our neighbor if we can."
" How  long does Mr. Paul Massie remain in Seaborough, Alice?"
This question dropped as if without the slightest special
significance; yet Alice colored as she answered:
"I think not very long, ma'am; I don't think he likes
being here much."' Indeed! And he goes from this to London?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Alice's color was still deeper than before.
Salome remained for some time without speaking. At
last she said:
" I confess, Alice, that your story has something about
it which seems extraordinary. But it may be that the
whole affair is of trifling importance, or can be very easily
explained. You will leave this paper with me for the
present-it will be quite safe in my keeping-and I will
read it again, and think about it, and try to see what we
ought to do with it. I am going back to town-to London, that is-almost immediately. I don't advise you,
Alice, to go to London; but if you have made up your
mind about it-"
"Indeed, ma'am, I have. Pray don't tell me not to.
I would rather die than not go there."
"Girls think they would rather die than do or not
do many things,'Alice; but they find they can conquer




80                   PAUL MASSIE.
their feelings easily enough, if they only try. However,
you seem to have determined on leaving Seaborough, and
I think you are too sensible a girl-I hope you are-not
to have some reason for that. If you will come to London,
then, I may be able to assist you."
Alice's eyes flashed with delight, and she was beginning to speak, but the lady waved her interruption away,
and continued:
"You cannot go there without knowing somebody,
though London is not quite such a terrible place as they
make it out in some of the story-books, Alice. Have you
got the consent of your father and mother for your leaving
this place?"
" No, ma'am-and I don't mean to ask for it. I know
my father would not give his consent; and I know that if
he didn't, I would go all the same."
Salome raised her eyebrows. "Comme Pesprit vient
auxfilles," she thought.
" So I think, ma'am, it's best not to say anything about
it until I am gone; and then I'm sure they will easily
make up their minds that it's all for the best."
Salome wrote an address upon a card and gave it to
Alice. There seemed nothing more to be said, and the
girl rose and was taking leave of Madame de Luca in a
formal and respectful manner. Rumor in Seaborough had
immensely magnified the wealth, position, and splendor
of the lady; the very title of Madame, so different from
plain commonplace Mrs., seemed equivalent to a patent of
nobility.
Salome said, as if casually, " I suppose you never remember a time when Mrs. Massie was not in Seaborough,
Alice? I mean, you do not remember when she came
back from abroad?"
"0 no, ma'am, that was ever so long ago-long before I was born, I suppose. But I have heard my mother
speak of it."
"Your mother, then, remembers her c6ming back? "




SALOME AND ALICE.                  81
C I think  my mother remembers her going away,
ma'am. She remembers her a long time."
"Remembers her marriage probably?"
"I don't think so, ma'am-I don't think Mrs. Massie
was married here; indeed I am  sure she was not, for I
asked my mother."
"You asked her whether Mrs. Massie was married
here?"
" Yes, ma'am. I asked her whether she knew anything
about Mrs. Massie's marriage-or where she was married."
" And she did not know? "
" No, ma'am."  The answer was given in a tone of no
little surprise, as if in astonishment that it should have
been so promptly anticipated.
" You asked her that question lately?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Madame de Luca said no more, but looked quite satisfied. She had fully sounded Alice's depth-easily plumbed
was it indeed, for that matter.
Then Alice went away. She tripped  boldly along
while she was within the precincts of Tunnel-hall; but
when she had passed out through the great gate, ornamented at either side by a huge sphinx of stone, and
reached the main road, she seemed to become cautious and
uneasy, and often looked behind and at either side, as if
fearful of being followed or watched. It was a good step
to Seaborough, and Alice was out of breath before she
reached it. She had to pause for awhile at the gate, in
order to recover her composure, before she encountered
lights, and eyes, and orders.
Salome de Luca rejoined her friends in the drawingroom. The gentlemen had made their appearance there,
and Mr. Wynter was in fine talk. The prospect of a
change in the representation was discussed, as Mr. Charlton
only waited a convenient opportunity to get rid of parliamentary duties. Salome entered with great spirit and
sense into the political conversation. She talked with the
4*




82                   PA1UL MASSIE.
ladies too, and humored them, and threw herself heart and
soul into their little ways and interests, for which ordinarily she did not profess to care a great deal. Much
change had come over her since her meeting with Alice.
It may have been that the revival of old associations was
pleasant; or it may have been that a too active mind,
always restless, was delighted with the excitement of something new and unexpected to think about. Certainly her
spirits were now of the brightest.
That night she sat up late. Alone in her bedroom, she
wrote some letters; of which one was addressed to a " General Lefevre, Sabloniere hotel, Leicester-square, London;"
and in which she expressed a great anxiety to see that person immediately on her return to town, having some questions to ask relating to Mexico and its condition some few
years back, whereon she doubted not that he could enlighten her ignorance.
We, the readers and writers of fiction, who follow ladies
fearlessly into their bedrooms, and look over their shoulders while they write, may be allowed to peer into their
secret thoughts.  Salome had studied carefully-over and
over again, and word for word-the paper which Alice
had left in her charge; and perhaps her reflections on it
assumed something of this shape:
" This poor foolish girl has, for all her folly, lighted on
something that is not a mere chimera. There is some
secret lying hid in that quiet self-complacent family of
Pharisees.  Providence has delivered into my hands the
chance of discovering it; I will not throw the opportunity
away. I will protect this poor girl from the dangers of
her own folly and vanity; and I must see what the Mexican cousin is like whom  she is so very anxious to serve.
Can he be like the rest?  If he be, I shall little care
whither for him this clue of mystery leads. Is it possible
that I was really once so silly as to care, or even think I
cared, for that cold and shallow creature whom I met the




SARAH.                     83
other day? He soon forgot me; so did they all. Perhaps
they may yet have reason to remember me."
She opened the window and looked out.
" I cannot see Seaborough-house. It is quiet enough
now no doubt; but a shell might reach its roof even from
this-nay, even from London."
CHAPTER VII.
SARAH.
1AUL MASSIE was an unsuspecting man by nature;
but he had keen powers of observation, well developed
by the peculiar occupations and varieties of his life. He
observed not only that there was an inexplicable strangeness in the manner of Mrs. Massie towards himself, but he
soon became satisfied that the same observation was silently
and habitually made by one other person in the household.
This was Sarah Massie.
Sarah Massie was a very different person indeed from
her pretty cousin Lydia. The latter young lady had a
keen eye for dress and manners, and for little else. She
was not remarkable for placidity or patience or consistency
of character. She was not a magnanimous young woman.
Even her attention to her mother was wholly capricious,
and varied according to her mood, which varied in itself
according to a thousand things, the weather included.
She would fall upon her mother's neck and fondle her;
call her her dear, dear darling mamma one moment, and an
hour after would be all pout and sulk, ready to complain to
any one that her darling mamma did not care about her,
and that every body in the house was thought more of
than she. A wet day could make her utterly depressed and
miserable; a change in the sky, the visit of an acquaintance, a new bonnet, the prospect, or even the chance, of
any novelty, could raise her spirits to effervescence.




84                   PAUL MASSIE.
No one had looked forward so eagerly as she had to
the long-expected visit of Paul: no one had been so disappointed with it. At first she was charmed, and it was
cousin Paul here and cousin Paul there. And she got
a guitar from the music-shop, and learned a Spanish song or
two, and went near to fancying herself a Mexicaine; and
would have longed, only for the sake of that propriety
which domineered over Seaborough, to dance Mexican
dances in picturesquely short petticoats. Then she began
to think Paul inattentive, careless, and uncouth. And she
made no scruple of scolding him behind his back to Alice,
and listening to Alice's scraps of village gossip about him
in return.
The truth was that Paul had not been nearly so devoted
a cavalier as she had expected. And Alice had brought
some ridiculous version of the story about the fisherman's
daughter, in which the brown-skinned young mermaid
played the part of an audacious and designing village
coquette.
Lydia's scorn and wrath flamed out at this story; and
she enlivened every family conversation for two days after
by sharp allusions, which only pierced the ears of the listeners, for the reason that nobody had the least idea what
the allusions meant.
One thing which Eustace Massie never would sanction
or permit, so far as he could prevent it, was an indulgence
in even the most pardonable style of feminine gossip. Therefore Lydia had to confine her open complaints to her maid,
who received and encouraged them, and obtained thereby
many small presents, favors, and graces.
In fact, Miss Lydia was a discontented person. She
was discontented not from any natural morbidness or malevolence, but merely because she really did not know what
to do with herself. Probably she wanted to be admired,
courted, and loved; and there was no one at hand to fill up
the blank, which was opening more and more every day, in
her unoccupied existence.  Of course there was always




SARAH.                      85
plenty for her to do in the way of charitable work; and
despite all her levity and heedlessness, her brother did contrive to get her to render a good deal of assistance to Dorcas institutions and pious bazaars. The latter indeed she
liked very well, because they afforded a scope for display
of dress and fascination, and for the enjoyment of delightflil and harmless flirtation. But she did the Dorcas work,
too, readily enough when not out of humor, and in certain
ill-humored moods even she toiled at it with a positive
fierceness of energy. Still the human mind, especially
when it lodges in a female body, cannot be wholly satisfied
by such useful, practical occupation. A pretty and lively
girl of twenty may be excused if her whole heart and
nature refuse to concentrate themselves upon the charitable
work of making flannel petticoats and calico chemises for
the poor women of the neighborhood.
Perhaps Lydia felt disappointed that Paul had not
made love to her, although she would not have acknowledged such a sensation even to herself. Had she been at all
of the sentimental order, she might have fed her disappointment upon the soothing, almost satisfying, belief that
she was marked out by destiny to be one of the unappreciated and the misprized, whom a cold, fiivolous, and heartless world understands not. Had she been of the BlancheAmory school, she would have composed melancholy poems
about Fate and Disillusions, and woman's heart and the
heedless crowd. But she had not the slightest dash of
sentiment about her-not the least connecting link with
the sentimental, except perhaps the common tendency to
be easily put out of humor. Therefore when anything went
wrong with her, she only fietted and sulked: when one
favorite disappointed her, she turned for consolation to
another. When Paul failed to play the lover, Lydia
became particularly disposed to cherish and make a confederate of her maid Alice.
Sarah Massie was quite a different sort of a person.
Perhaps the position of something like dependency which




816                  PAUL MASSIE.
she had occupied since the death of her parents had helped
to cause much of the difference. Perhaps the fact that she
had found her place in life, and had her future apparently
all chalked out for her, gave her a firmness and serenity
which she would not otherwise have had. Life seemed to
promise no battle for her. It had no expectations; bating
the physical chances of mortality, it appeared to have no
uncertainties. She was to be well cared for in a quiet
home until the time came for making her the wife of a
good husband, whom every body respected. She was then
to lead a life of steady, constant, benevolent, and religious
occupation, and would probably only know of the severer
troubles of the world by endeavoring to mitigate them to
others. Here was surely, one might have thought, an
enviable prospect. Her cousin, younger, prettier, endowed
with a considerable fortune, was liable to divers struggles,
chances, and calamities, from which Sarah seemed to be
specially exempted. Lydia might marry some one unworthy of her; she might make a foolish and miserable match,
or she might make no match at all. The degree of certainty, then, which seemed to attach to her career must no
doubt have tended to render Sarah calm and unexcitable.
She saw the prospect all clear and regular before her, and
could afford to wait calmly. The traveller journeying
through romantic and delightful scenery, where glens, and
rocks, and ravines, and the far purple peaks of mountains
are always producing new effects and exciting new expectations, has a restless time of it: now turning here to catch
a glimpse of this, now twisting suddenly the other way lest
he should lose a sight of that; straining his neck and eyes
in the direction whence comes the roar of a cascade, or
jumping out of his carriage to peer down into a misty valley. But he who jogs along one of the white straight.
French or Belgian roads, and sees the way extending level,
regular, tree-bordered, and dusty, for miles and miles
before him, troubles himself little about the landscape,
and coolly reads his book or smokes his cigar, or buries




SARAH.                      87
himself in his own reflections, unexpectant, unconcerned,
not to be disappointed.
Sarah Massie was in outward appearance always clear,
calm-perhaps a little cold; perhaps, indeed, a little sarcastic. Perhaps to a man she seemed at first to want some
of that exuberant indescribable feminine nature which,
more than youth or beauty, constitutes the captivating.
She did everything fixedly, but very easily. She went
about her work as if all her heart were in the making o'f
the flannel petticoats and calico chemises; but she was at
the same time able to attend to many other things, which
with Lydia could never have been simultaneously carried
on. She read a great deal, and sometimes of books which
Eustace did not much care to encourage; and perhaps she
thought a great deal too. She appeared to form her own
opinion for herself on most subjects, and she held to it 
but as she never contradicted and never disputed, her
household set her down as a yielding and easily-guided
sort of person. She seemed devoted to Mrs. Massie; she
never by any chance quarrelled with Lydia; she anticipated, as if she had already been his wedded wife, all the
wishes of Eustace. The household could not possibly get
on without her. Yet Paul Massie was not long under Seaborough roof without coming to the conclusion that this
girl either had no heart at all, and that her whole nature
merely expressed itself in a quiet monotonous discharge of
duty, or that her heart was not given to the circumstances,
the occupations, and even the people in whose midst her
-life was passed. He was able to observe this simply from
the fact that he came into the house with the fresh perceptions of a stranger, and moreover, that of all the inmates,
except herself, he alone was not wholly absorbed in his
own pursuits and his own personality.
Sarah Massie was not beautiful, although the two
cousins together were commonly called in the neighborhood
the handsome Miss Massies. But individually she was
not much of a beauty; only remarkable for clear features,




88                  ]PAUL MASSIE.
soft gray eyes, and a fine form and figure. In these days
we are not accustomed to anatomize our heroines of
romance, and to set them before the world in full description limb after limb, as authors would freely do in other
times. But it may be remarked that Sarah Massie had a fine
bust, beautiful hands, and firm ankles, set above shapely
feet, which were not too small. Is there not a world of
expression in the feet and ankles? Show me the ankle, and
I will show you the woman. A lady once remarked that
she did not like women who had an unmeaning look about
the heels. Sarah Massie would not have incurred this censure. Her ankle indicated health, clearness, energy, and
self-reliance. It is not nonsense to talk of a woman's
ankle indicating all this. There are women who show
their character in the very way in which they manage
their skirts. One woman allows her clothes to draggle
along the street and lick the dust or mud; another, if she
has but to step over the least perilous of crossings, suddenly and convulsively gathers her petticoats up to her
knees, displaying flannels and fixings not meant for the
public gaze, and then perhaps, affrighted, lets them drop at
one side, while they remain uphoisted on the other. Sarah
Massie was never negligent,.and never affrighted.  Her
skirts were always raised to just the proper height, and
the beholder could therefore appreciate the character expressed in her graceful walk and firm ankle.
Sarah Massie had seen little of the world. A short
visit to London once a year constituted her utmost dissipation. When at school in Paris she had lived, as has
already appeared, in the grave, genteel, and formal Faubourg Saint Germain. She had never, spoken with or seen
a man like Paul Massie until the night when Paul himself
arrived at Seaborough. She had only seen and known
young or old clergyman, young Oxford collegians awaiting
holy orders, and some of the local gentry. These were all
colorless people. No strong individuality marked itself
among them. Paul Massie had a strong, distinct individ



SARAH.                     89
uality. He came out of a fresh, active-living, highlycolored, many-tinted world. He had led a life not indeed
more varied and adventurous than many energetic young
Americans and many Europeans of the emigre class have
led. But Sarah Massie had never met such a man before.
His talk was so vivid; his experiences were so varied;
there was such a healthful vigor of manly life about him,
that he appeared to such a woman a being possessed of far
greater strength and force of character than he really
owned. He was not a scholar; but she had met many
scholars, and he knew much which they did not. He was
not a profound Grecian or Latinist; he had probably forgotten the little of Greek or Latin he ever knew; but he
could speak Italian fluently, and he knew Italy and Greece
from end to end. He had laughed over Don Quixote within
sight of the windmills of La Mancha; he could have explained wherein the Alhambra Court in the Crystal Palace
differed in its excess of gilding from the genuine Alhambra
itself. He had met most men eminent in any active pursuit abroad; he had been shipwrecked, and had looked on
stricken fields; he had been an explorer in Central America, and a soldier in Mexico, and a p)risoner in Paris. He
was not a highly accomplished Goethean critic, but he
could sing any German song any one pleased to ask for.
He had just the education of intelligence and varied
personal observation. Such men are common enough;
and a woman whose life had been brought into contact
with many such might possibly have been more impressed
and delighted by the polished, graceful manners of a London gentleman, or the refined scholarship of a literary
student. But to Sarah Massie Paul's style of character
was all new, fresh, and wonderful. To Eustace Massie
Paul's idiosyncrasies were simply repelling; to Sarah they
were, it must be owned, peculiarly attractive. It was not
a fortunate day for the order and regularity of Seaboroughhouse when Paul Massie came under its roof. It was not
fortunate, but it was very natural, that, as he began to




90                   ru PAUL MASSIE.
sink in the estimation of some other members of the family, he should begin to rise in the consideration of Sarah
Massie.  Indeed, the feelings which his coming awakened were almost the first sensation in her calm monotonous existence. It is not a happy omen for a betrothed
bride when a genuine sensation is awakened for the first
time in her heart by one who is not her destined husband.
It has been said that Paul Massie soon perceived a
nameless something in Sarah's expression which told him
that she too was aware of some peculiarity in Mrs. Massie's
manner towards him.  He saw how  often Sarah's eye
rested anxiously and almost fearfully on her adopted
mother; how promptly she came to the rescue when any
embarrassment arose in conversation or otherwise; how
carefully she watched Mrs. Massie; how tenderly and gently she interposed between her and any troublesome duty
of any kind. Was Mrs. Massie an invalid? Surely she
did not appear so? A strange suspicion sometimes occurred to Paul. Did Mrs. Massie's feeble, fluttering nerves
really indicate something more than mere nervousness?
Was she liable to occasional attacks of mental derangement?  Women not uncommonly were thus affected, and
he had no reason to know that his aunt was not one of the
number. But except for ler fainting on the night of
his arrival, and the alarming and ghastly spectacle she
undoubtedly presented on the occasion of that which we
have called the apparition, there was nothing in her manner sufficiently remarkable to awaken any decided suspicion. Indeed it was only towards himself that Paul thought
her demeanor at all singular. Even this he might perhaps have persuaded himself was the effect of a chimerical
imagination on his part, but for the fact, which he could
not ignore, that he was not the only one whom the same
impression seemed to haunt. IHe longed for the moment
when his stay might fairly be cut short-longed for it,
while yet in his heart a new, vague, impalpable, indefinable sensation was arising which made him wish that he




SARAH.                      91
could linger somewhere near the place for ever. He had
thus far seen but little of Sarah Massie, save as one of the
general household. She was always genial and friendly to
him; but for the first fortnight of his stay in the house
they had scarcely ever had a tete-a-tete of ten minutes' duration. Nor did anything in the heart of either speak clearly
enough to say that such opportunities must not be sought,
but rather avoided.
"Where is your cousin Paul to-day? " asked Mrs. Massie one quiet afternoon, addressing Lydia.  The three
women of the house sat together in the drawing-room.
"Indeed I don't know, mamma," replied her daughter;
" but I daresay he's in the bay, as usual, with his pipe and
his sea-nymph."
"His sea-nymph? What is his sea-nymph? Is that
the name of his boat?"
" 0 dear, no," replied Lydia, with a smile of wondrous
significance. "So mamma has never heard yet of Paul's
sea-nymph! His sole companion in his boating excursions
-when the weather does not allow Sarah and me-that is,
does not allow ladies to go on the water. How odd! Why
every one talks about them! It's quite romantic, I think."
"Pray, Lydia," said Mrs. Massie with an unwonted
sharpness of tone, " do speak rationally, and tell me what
you mean, and what every one talks about. Who or what
is the sea-nymph you are talking about?"
"Only some fisher girl, I believe," said Lydia, delighted
at the opportunity of opening out on the subject. "A
boatman's daughter, I have heard. They say she's very
pretty; I am sure I don't know, for I never saw her. But
I have heard a good deal about her. She's always with
him in his boat, they say."
Mrs. Massie colored, and looked inquiringly, and indeed
very anxiously, at Sarah, as if to solicit some rational
explanation.
"She's a little girl-indeed, quite a child," said Sarah
very composedly; " a daughter of Staples the boatman. I




92                   PAUL MASSIE.
believe Paul has been very kind to all the family, and has
taken the boy and girl in his boat. But I never heard anybody talking about it except Eustace. I believe Staples
told it to Eustace as a proof of Paul's kindness. Eustace
spoke of it to me." Sarah knew that Eustace's opinion was
regarded as a settler in Seaborough-house.
" And what did Eustace say? "
" 0, very little. He remarked to me that Paul had such
a kind and warm heart."
"Then you have seen the girl, Sarah?" asked Lydia,
all eagerness.
"O yes, very often; and so have you, only you probably did not notice her."
"And is she very pretty?"
"No, I think not-I really don't know-I dare say if
the child were well washed and combed, and got some
clean clothes on, she would look well enough."
Lydia's little bit of malicious romance seemed to fall to
pieces in rather a sorry fashion.
"'Who has been telling you these stories, Lydia?
asked her mother.
"Who, mamma? Why, every body."
"But tell me the name of some one of the every bodies."
"Well, there was Alice-and there was-yes, I am
sure Alice told it to me, and of course if somebody did not
say it, she could not have known it."
"Was there no one but Alice who spoke to you of
it? You said every body told you."
"But, mamma, of course I didn't mean every body in
all the world. I don't know every body even in Seaborough. I only just used the word'every body' as we allin fact as every body uses it.  I did think that a great
many people had been speaking about Paul."
" I am not at all satisfied with Alice's conduct and manners of late," said Mrs. Massie. "I must speak to her
father about her."
So the matter dropped, and Lydia felt rather rebuffed,




SARAH.                      93
and therefore inclined to blame " every body." But Mrs.
Massie walked a good deal along the strand for a day
or two after this, and once saw Paul's boat come in and
her nephew get ashore. This time, however, he had neither
nymph nor siren in his company-; but was quite alone, and
looking rather melancholy. He did not see her, but she
looked long and anxiously after him, until tears came into
her eyes.
Was it a dream Paul Massie had that night which
made so singular and deep an impression on him? Falling
asleep, or at least into a condition approaching to sleep
after a long restlessness, it seemed to him that his roomdoor softly opened, and that a timid cautious step glided
over the carpet. He lay still. He thought the form of a
woman, blanched and ghostly in the faint moonlight, stole
into the room and bent sadly over him, and kneeled beside
his bed and remained there hushed for awhile as if in
prayer. He thought he heard faint sobs and moans; and
an inarticulate, irrepressible sound broke from him, and the
figure rose up hastily, and was gone in a moment. Then,
thoroughly awakened, he started up. The room was quite
empty and silent; but as he half opened the door his quick
ears seemed to catch the rustle of a dress, and the faint
sound of a light footfall.
"Somebody in this house," thought Paul, "is surely
mad, or I myself am losing my reason.  If I stay here
much longer, I shall have no reason left."




94                  PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM.
NEXT morning Paul was up earlier than usual, although
an early riser almost always. He could not sleep, and
so got up and walked about the grounds at the back of the
house, and smoked a contemplative cigar, and endeavored
to think what he had best do and what could possibly be
the meaning of the vague, impalpable, yet quite perceptible web of mystery which seemed to be spinning itself
around him. This morning he was destined not to have
any of the web brushed away, but rather a few more complicated meshes added. He had not been long engaged in
smoking and thinking when a back-door of the house
opened, and the figure of a woman appeared in the gray
faint light of the early spring morning. The woman was
shawled and had her bonnet on, and carried a carpet-bag
and a small bundle. It was Alice. Paul gave her a goodhumored salutation.
"You are up early, Alice," he said..
She did not reply in a word, as he expected, and
then go on her way, but stopped short and addressed
him:
"I did not expect to see you, Mr. Massie, or any one;
and I hope, sir, you won't say you saw me. I am going
away, Mr. Massie."
Her voice became rather tremulous.
"Going away, Alice? Where? Are you leaving Mrs.
Massie? I hope nothing unpleasant has happened? "
"   no, sir; it is not that," and she tossed her head a
little; "but I have some reasons for going away, and I
don't want it known; and I'd ask you, sir, as a favor, not
to say a word to any one that you saw me going-at least
until I can't be brought back."




THE EARLY BIRD —AND THE WORM.           95
"But, Alice, this is very odd. Does not your father
know?"
"My father doesn't know, and I don't want him to
know. I am going away for no harm, but for some people's
good, and I can't stay any longer here; and pray don't
ask me any more, sir'"
"Why, Alice, I have no right to ask you anything;
but I think you ought to let your mistress and your father
know of what you are doing. If you are right in going,
they surely would not prevent you."
"Mr. Massie — Mr. Paul-there are others who ought
to go as well as me; there are some who ought not to have
come; there are some who have enemies and don't know
it. I have enemies, and I do know it; and so I am going
away."
There was an extraordinary wildness about the girl's
manner as she talked thus.
Paul was utterly bewildered. He had seen the girl
several times a day for weeks, and he had never thought
of her but as a smart serving-woman, or as one might think
of the toast-rack or the dumb-waiter. Now she too was
becoming part of a mystery.
"Alice," he said at last, "I really cannot even guess at
what you mean, and I ought not to try to guess it."
"Perhaps," she said, "you are not good at guessing;
perhaps you are too honorable to suspect anybody. I suppose I am not, and so I suspect and I guess; and others do
too. Mr. Paul," said she, suddenly changing her tone and
manner, " do you know one Jem Halliday?"
"Yes, surely, I know the man you mean; I have
spoken to him."
" Well, now, listen to me: he thinks he knows something about you that you would give a good deal to know.
He'll want to get money out of you. He knows nothingthat is, nothing more than guess. He has got something
which you ought to have; how he came by it only God
and himself know. He gave it to me, and-and I haven't




96                  PAUL MASSIE.
it. I mustn't say where it is, but I haven't it, and I have
not seen him. He's a bad man, and that's one reason I's
going away; but it is not the only reason. But he knows
nothing-only he may annoy you and others. So take my
advice, Mr. Massie, and buy him off; give him some money
-it will be no loss to you; and then you will soon be
going to London, and you'll find friends there who will
put you in the right way and see that you have your rights.
Good-by, sir, and don't be vexed with me for speaking to
you; and pray, pray don't tell any one to-day that you
saw me."
She ran down the walk, passed out of a little back-gate,
and left Paul as utterly confused and bewildered as a
rational and sane human creature well could be.
There was a railway station at Seaborough, and Alice
made for it as fast as she could. She waited until the uptrain was starting, and then took a ticket for London.
The only noticeable matter about her arrival in the
metropolis was that she did not seem to have the slightest
doubt or difficulty about her destination. The moment
she arrived at the London Bridge terminus she got a cab,
gave an address, and was driven off westward. Certainly
the address which she gave ended with the name of Hyde
Park. So we allow her to disappear for the present, and
to " drop through the tissue " of our story.
It would perhaps have been more fortunate if her
chance meeting with Paul had been entirely unobserved;
but it was not so. Mr. Halliday had been prowling about
the place for days back, partly in the hope of meeting
Paul alone, partly in the hope of getting a secret interview
with Alice. He had not recovered the letter on which
he built so many hopes. Alice had neither given it back
to him  nor told him  anything about it, but steadily
avoided coming near him. He began to think he was
sold. He watched the house morning after morning, determined, if all else failed, to accost Paul on his own account,
and try to sell what conjectures and speculations he might




THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM.            97
have as dearly as he could. Be it said that, according to
his conjecture, he was about to open up the track of a
secret which he held to be of great benefit to Paul, and for
which he hoped to be well repaid.
But this unhappy morning he had scarcely entered the
grounds when he heard voices; and he soon found a point
of observation from which he could see that the talkers
were Paul and Alice.
Blind wild rage almost bewildered him. He believed
himself doubly betrayed and befooled. He caught no
word of the conversation, which indeed had ended just as
he first saw the speakers. He saw Alice go away, but
no idea ever crossed his mind that she might possibly
be leaving Seaborough. Had he dreamed of such a thing,
her journey would have been stayed by some means.
When she was gone, his impulse was to rush out and kill
the man who walked so calmly within half-a-dozen yards
of him. Had he a weapon-hacdhe, above all, firearms-he
might have done a murder then and there: he had all the
heart to do it. But he was not a brave man: he was not
a man in whom even fury supplies the place of courage.
He saw no good in any frantic attack on Paul, which
would probably have ended in his own discomfiture. le
did not care to encounter the strength which he knew
to be so formidable. It so happened that this day he had
not even his knife. He kept, therefore, in his hiding-place,
all the fire of hate burning in his heart. A cunning man,
he believed himself foiled; a strong man, he knew his
strength useless here; a man blindly and wildly steeped in
love, he felt convinced that his passion had been made
a-scorn. Dull drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead, and he wiped them off with a wet, hot, and dirty
hand. Early as it was in the morning, he had already
been drinking, and up to a late hour the night before he
had been drinking; and his whole faculties and senses
were of late becoming bemused and stupefied with drink.
Yet agony of mind now nearly soberized him. 0, how
5




98                   PAUL MASSIE.
bitterly he felt what an abject, unfortunate, befooled wretch
he was! and how in his inmost heart he cursed those who
were superior to him, and who despised him I
It was well for Alice that he did not follow her. He
would have been a dangerous companion just then. She
was not strong, like Paul Massie. No weapon would be
needed in order to enable her ci-cevant lover to avenge
himself for his wrongs on her.
Paul Massie paced slowly up and down the damp walk.
His enemy lay hid within a few yards of him, and he did
not know it-nay, did not know, did not suspect, that he
had an enemy in the world. Alice was speeding down the
road away to the railway which was to carry her to London. In the white house, whose chimneys could be seen by
the two men and the fugitive girl at one moment, there
were two anxious women-waking, thoughtful, fearful, and
unhappy.
All these, and others too, were bound together unconsciously by the tiny imperceptible thread of one little
secret. They are doomed to play at cross-purposes with
that little secret through the whole course of our story.
Some of them will never find it out. It would be better
for others that they had never thought of it, for they will
have to pay a bitter penalty for striving to track it to its
meaning and its source.
One of the women we have spoken of was too restless
to remain in the house just then. She had, moreover, a set
purpose which she has resolved to execute. Not more than
half an hour after Alice had left the demesne, this woman
came out by the same back-door, and was making her way
with hasty timid steps down one of the side-paths lined with
trees and bushes, which, skirting the lawn, led to the gate
and the road.
Meanwhile Halliday was still prowling about the place.
He felt convinced that Alice must soon return, and he was
resolved to wait for her. He was lounging and scowling
among the trees, with his eyes fixed on the gate and his




THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM.            99
heart swelling with anger and hate, when he heard a light
footstep behind him. He would have run away or hidden
himself somewhere, had he not taken it for granted that the
step must be that of Alice. How she could have got into
the demesne again without his knowing it, he never
stopped to think. He saw a woman coming along, and
only when it was too late to draw back did he discover
that it was not Alice. The person approaching saw him,
started at first, and then hurried more eagerly towards him.
Halliday now saw that it was Mrs. Massie.
She signalled to him to stop. He make an awkward
attempt to touch his hat. She was out of breath, and
seemed much excited.
"5 Halliday-Halliday!" she said, and then pausing for
breath and composure; "I wanted to see you. I was
going to your house. Did Alice tell you? I want to
know where you got that ring?  Who gave it to you?
Tell me."
Halliday's first impulse, when asked any question, was
always to evade or lie.
"What ring, ma'am?" he grumbled.
"The ring that you gave to Alice."
"I gev' a ring to Alice? What ring?"
"Halliday, that ring was mine; but I don't say anything against you. I don't suppose you came by it in any
wrong way; I don't want to make any disturbance about
it; I only want to know how you came by it. Who gave
it to you? It is of the utmost importance to me to know.
I should be glad to buy the ring, and I will pay you if you
tell me who gave it to you."
Whatever poor and slender chance Mrs. Massie had of
arriving at the truth was gone. Her own words and manner had killed it. A firm tone, a, stern demand might have
got something like a hint of the truth from Halliday. But
the tremulous conciliatory appeal of the woman who stood
before him satisfied him that she was more in his power




100                  PAUL MASSTE.
than he in hers. He therefore coolly took time to think
what le had better say.
Mrs. Massie tendered him, with white trembling fingers, a sovereign to sharpen his decision. He took it with
a gruff obeisance.
" Well, ma'am," he said, slowly and hesitatingly, "I
suppose I know what you mean. I don't doubt you mean
the little ring I saw with Ally. But as to my giving her
any ring-why, you know, if she said so, she's been telling
you a lie, ma'am."
" Did you not give her that ring? "
" I, ma'am? Why bless you, ma'am, where ever could
I get such a thing? "
" Good heaven, she told me you gave it to her!"
"Did she though? Well, now, whatever did she mean
by that?  I don't have diamond rings, ma'am, brought
from foreign parts-I never was in foreign parts myself,
na'am."
A keen idea of combined evasion and revenge was
shooting through Halliday's brain.
"Then, do you mean to say you know nothing about
the ring? Are you telling me the truth? Speak the
truth, for heaven's sake. Do you know nothing of the
ring?"
"Nothing at all, ma'am-only that I see it on Ally's
finger-and I asked her about it, and she wouldn't tell me.
But I think I can guess who gave it her."
" Then who did? Tell me quickly-I must know."
"Well, ma'am, I think it was the gentleman I see her
talking with here in this very place half an hour ago."
Surprise and pain spread over Mrs. Massie's face.
" Here-half an hour ago," she said, "talking with a
gentleman?"
" Yes, ma'am; I saw her, but she didn't see me. Ask
her, and see if she'll dare to deny of it."
"Whom  was she speaking with-who gave her the
ring?"




THE EARLY BIRD —AND THE WORM.          101
"The gentleman she was just talking with here-the
gentleman who gev' her the ring-is your own nephew,
Mr. Paul Massie!"
A faint cry escaped from her lips.
" He,-Paul Massie! And he gave it to her?"
"Yes, ma'am; he gev' it to her sure enough-and what
he gev' it for, it's not for me to say."
"No," said Mrs. Massie, turning sharply on him, " not
for you to say, nor for you to talk of. Go away-I want
you no more. Be sure that you say nothing of this to any
one. I will find out the whole truth of it soon enough;
and if what you say is not true, depend upon it you shall
suffer for it. If you are telling me lies, then I shall know
that you are a robber as well. Go away."
It was well that Halliday did not want for his own
sake to prolong the interview. Had it continued two minutes longer, Mrs. Massie's suddenly assumed courage must
have broken down. As it was, her lips were quivering with
nervous excitement, and her cheeks were ashy pale.
Halliday only grumbled out something to the effect that
she might believe his word-that he was telling the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth-a form of attestation he
had heard in the police-court; and he then wandered away
down the walk. He did not want to see Alice just now;
he would have thought her premature return highly inconvenient. In his heart he felt convinced that he had done
some mischief, and he delighted in the thought. He saw
how his lie had striken home, and he was glad. To do the
wretch justice, it must be stated that he fully and sincerely
believed Paul Massie had deeply injured him. He never
had but one unselfish passion in all his life, and he now felt
convinced that'this insolent and scornful stranger had
robbed him  in idleness of its object. Halliday would
have ruined all Seaborough to give back even indirectly to
Paul Massie one twinge of the agony which tortured his
own soul.
"What I can't make out," thought Halliday, as he




102                  PAUL MASSIS.
lounged forth of the gate, "is about this ring business.
Whose is it? Who was she that had it? What does it
all mean? If Ally would have helped me to find out-ah,
we might have made our fortunes out of it. But now this
is what she does. One thing I know-I'll have the ring
and the letter, and that before long, or I'll know why."
Mrs. Massie, for her part, walked slowly and feebly
home. She muttered, as was her wont, half-sentences and
scraps of broken meditation.
"At least," she said, "if this be true, then he cannot
know. He could not give it away-give it to such as she,
if he knew. No, no. Thank God for that! If he has
given it away, he does not know."
No  lclaircissement touching Alice's departure took
place that day. Paul fully expected something of the
kind, but was rather relieved when a remark, casually let
fall by some one within his hearing, apprised him that the
girl had asked for a holiday, and was not expected to
return to the house that night. He felt extremely uncomfortable under the burden of an odd sort of secret, which
appeared in nowise to belong to or even to concern him,
but which yet placed him in the awkward position of a
conspirator in a small deception practised on the people
whose guest he was. The whole thing was small and
humiliating; but he did not see how he could undertake
to betray the secret of the girl's departure, which he had
come to know by a purely accidental meeting.
Through the whole of that day Mrs. Massie's manner to
Paul was more strange than it had ever been before.
Sometimes she seemed to draw away in positive repugnance from him. Even Eustace observed this, but quietly
put it down to the natural antipathy which a well-bred and
delicate nature must feel towards one whose habits and
ways of thought were so unlike those of calm and proper
Seaborough.  But there were times, too, when Paul
thought his aunt seemed to approach him as if anxious for
an opportunity to say something to him in private. Once




THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM.             103
or twice they were thrown together for a moment, and a
prompter person than this poor lady might have spoken
many a thrilling word in the ear of the young man. But
though she approached him, caught his eyes, and showed
by her own that she understood his wondering expression
-though he could see some sentence or question forming
on her lips, yet her courage seemed to melt, and the
unspoken words remained all silence. Nay, there was one
moment when the meditated question all but came. Paul
Massie met her in the hall, and again attracted by her
anxious inquiring look, he paused before the barometer
which hung there, and invited her to help him in presaging
as to the weather. Then she drew close to him, made an
effort to speak, and, failing words, laid her hand impatiently on his finger, and tapped sharply, as if to question
him of something that should have been there. This action
so entirely surprised the young man and disarranged all
his expectations, that he turned wild glittering eyes of
amazement on her; and her coherent purpose, if she had
any, vanished.
"The ring," she said, in a faint low tone;  I wanted
to ask you about the ring-O, do not speak! "
Here somebody entered the hall, and then she was gone.
Then Paul began to regard it as certain that his aunt
was simply a woman of disordered brain. For he had of
late begun to think it quite possible that Mrs. Massie had
to make some disclosure to him-perhaps a painful onerelating to his parents or one of them. Knowing that he
had been kept purposely a stranger to his family during the
late Eustace Massie's lifetime, he was not without conjecture that some explanation remained to be given to him,
now a man, which might be necessary and yet painful alike
to give and to receive. He had a vague impression somehow that his father had led a stormy youth, and was therefore not unprepared for some humiliating revelation. Mrs.
Massie's strange demeanor this day he had readily attributed to the sensitiveness of a feeble and tender woman,




104                  PAUL MASSIE.
who having put off to the last the disclosure of a distressing secret, still shrinks in agony from the inevitable utterance. So he had done his best by look and manner to
reassure her, to bring her frankly to the disclosure, to
convey to her that whatever it might be, he was ready to
receive it. What, then, were his sensations when, as the
supreme moment at last seemed to have come, he was
accosted with words and gestures that to him were absolutely meaningless-that appeared indeed to be only the
wayward ebulliti ons of insanity? If ever man was perplexed
in the extreme, Paul Massie was. He would have longed
to leave the house at once, but that the calm eyes and
tranquil self-possessed demeanor of Sarah Massie reassured
him, and shed on him some gleams of happiness. He felt
in her presence as a child awakened from some hideous
dream feels in the presence of the sunlight.
Meanwhile we must return to Mr. James Halliday.
After he had left Mrs. Massie, that gentleman did not
immediately return home. He lounged down to the town,
and finding public-houses already open and doing a quick
morning trade, he changed his sovereign and calmed his
excited energies with drink. When he reached his cottage
an hour or two after, he pushed roughly past his old
mother, sat down in front of the fire on the chair she had
quitted to welcome him, and began to light his pipe.
"Somebody's been here, James," said his mother, in a
tone intended for conciliation. Poor woman! her efforts
at conciliation were usually so elaborate and so obvious,
that they utterly failed of their purpose, and aggravated
still more the temper they were intended to soothe. "It
was the same way with James's father," she always observed.  She generally talked of the  peculiarities of
James's father with a sort of pride. James's father had
often turned her out of the house in her nightgown at
stark midnight, had several times admonished her with a
pewter pint, and was always threatening to " do for her."
Probably he would have done for her in the end, but that




THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM.            105
fate interposed in the shape of an angry and powerful
publican, who once flung the drunken Halliday into the
road, where he got a contusion in the head, which led
to erysipelas, and so' to death. His wife always spoke of
him with pity and regret, and, as we have said, usually
described his little peculiarities, and her own consequent
sufferings, with a kind of pride. Her son seemed to renew
for her the life she had led with her husband, except that
the son was perhaps the more idle and as yet the less savage of the twain. But she accepted it all quite meekly,
and as one who understood that the natural condition of
man was to be frequently intoxicated, and when thus
affected to maltreat woman.
"Somebody's been here, James," she said again, with
an elaborate affectation of gayety, and an endeavor to
appear as if she felt quite sure of being thanked for
her news.
James growled out that somebody might come or go,
as far as he was concerned.
" 0, but this is really somebody," continued the cheerful soother; " somebody you like to hear about."
"Who is it then? Don't be making a fool of yourself."
"Why, it was Ally —Ally Crossley."
James uttered a sound-half-savage growl, half-moan.
"And she's left something for you."
"Give it here then. Why the devil don't you give
it here and stop your jawing?"
He had started from his seat.
"Here it is, James," said the poor woman, fumbling in
her pocket for something. "I'm sure I never opened it,
and don't know what it is-no indeed."
He snatched from her a little thimble-case, or something
of that kind, wrapped up in brown paper. Unrolling the
first covering, he came to white paper with a blot of sealing-wax to fasten it; then to tissue paper; then -to the
thimble-case itself; then, opening this, he saw the wellknown diamond ring. Not a line, not a word accompa5*




106                  PAUL MASSIE.
nied it. He turned the case, the ring, the papers, over and
over again. Not a word.
"What are you staring at?" he asked of his mother
in a savage tone.
"I was not starting at anything, James; I was not
looking at all."  She took up a duster and began with
immense energy to brush down the top of the chest of
drawers, crooning with tremulous old voice a scrap of
a song the while.
"Hold your noise," he said. "And look here: when
did Ally give you this? "'" Well, I think it must be two hours ago; I'm sure the
clock had struck six. I was just standing here when a
knock came to the door; and I went out, and there, of all
people in the world-"
"What did she say when she gave it to you?"
"She said,' Mrs. Halliday,' says she,' would you mind
giving that to James? Be sure you keep it very safe,'
says she,' and give it into his own hand when-when-' I
think that's all."
" When what?"
" 0 nothing, only just-nothing at all."
" When what?'Give it to him,' says she,'when-'
When what did she say? Why don't you speak?"
"Well, I believe she said when he's quite sober. But
she was only joking, I'm sure.'Is there no other message,
Ally?' says I.'No, Mrs. Halliday,' says she;'none at
all.' So she went away then, and she didn't say where she
was going."
He said no more on the subject, but began to smoke
violently. Some vague idea possessed him that the sending back of the ring must mean something more than the
final rejection of his love.  That he knew too well had been
finally rejected long ago. It meant, he dimly thought,
that Alice had fairly gone over to the enemy; that she had
made terms for herself out of his secret, and that he was
utterly cast off. She scorned him so much, and thought




THE EARLY BIRD-AND THE WORM.            107
him so useless, that she disdained even to keep the gewgaw
which once had such value in her foolish eyes. She saw
other ways opening to her, and she flung him back in contempt his one solitary bribe. But he never supposed that
she was actually going away.
Well, he had his ring. There could be money got for
that somehow. He felt quite sure that several guineas
were to be got for that; only he must not attempt to sell
it in Seaborough. There was something to fall back upon.
It would help him to have his revenge upon'somebody;
and then, let what would befall him, he did not much care.
At present he saw a prospect of some drink and some
revenge. He did not want to look any farther.
One thing alone made him rather uneasy about the possession of the diamond ring. He had heard from Alice
before, and he knew now for himself, that Mrs. Massie professed to recognize it, and was anxious to know how it had
been got, and would probably have strict inquiries made
about it. These inquiries he must absolutely forestall by
getting rid of the ring somehow. Inquiries of any kind
did not suit Halliday; and he had rather a special dread
of any which came from Seaborough-house, where he knew
that the inmates had a peculiar aversion to him. His life
had not thus far been that of a criminal. Except for a
pretty constant dealing in Cavendish tobacco, and a frequent assistance and participation in smuggling, he had
done nothing which laid him particularly open to the perquisitions of justice. But he had so long been noted as a
good-for-nothing, as an idle, dissolute, and drunken fellow,
that he knew full well any chance would be eagerly availed
of to rid the place of his undesired presence. He was just
hovering on the verge of lawlessness and crime when the
incident of the ring and the letter seemed to give him, by
one sudden and bold plunge, a chance of redemption.  lie
had made the plunge, and failed; and he now knew that he
was absolutely at odds with law, and could not halt any
]Muaer without the certainty of paying a forfeit. It was




108                  PAUL MASSIE.
clear that he must go on; in any case it probably would
have come to this. He did not indulge in any reflections
about Society, or anathematize that abstraction, or endeavor to lay his sins at its door. He had not the slightest notion of Society in the Paul Clifford or Jean-Valjean
sense; knowing and caring only for concrete and substantial things. But he laid his offences, his dangers, and
his sufferings partly at the door of Alice Crossley, and
partly at that of Paul Massie, having likewise a somewhat old and comprehensive grudge against the whole
Massie family. He thought he had an old score to pay off,
and he fancied that the means of paying it off would yet
be in his power.
CHAPTER IX.
PAUL IS ACCUSED.
THE days followed, and resembled each other; indeed
they were nearly all alike. Save that the buds and
blossoms were coming out, everything looked much the
same when Paul was leaving as when he came. But in
Paul's heart much was different; that short time had given
him  more occasion for thought than he had had in his
whole life before. Perhaps for the first time in his life he
had made acquaintance with genuine disappointment-none
the less real because its source was so vague. Within
the last few weeks a great hope had been extinguished,
and in its place some fierce, unknown fires were beginning
to burn.
The last evening of his stay at Seaborough had comeof his present stay it was then thought; but Paul was not
destined to cross the threshold of that house again.
Paul and his cousin stood in one of the rooms, the
windows of which opened on the lawn.
"You will return soon, I hope?" said the clergyman;




PAUL IS ACCUSED.                  109
the prospect of Paul's immediate departure reviving all his
natural kindness of disposition, and making him feel a little
remorseful that they had not been more often together.
"I must not promise," said Paul; " I am an uncertain
and good-for-nothing sort of fellow; and I don't know yet
what I shall find to do with myself. But you have all been
so kind to me, that I shall certainly feel strongly tempted
to intrude on you once more. I shall be sorry if I cannot
see you all again before I leave England."
Poor Paul!  He hesitated over the words, and felt a
choking sensation. The placid clergyman had no suspicion of the feelings which were agitating his cousin's perplexed heart. There were two great secrets establishing
themselves there-two Aaron's serpents-neither of which
could swallow up the other. One would have been enough
to disturb the best and calmest of us.
" You will not fail us at dinner," said Eustace, as Paul
made demonstrations of preparing to go somewhere. " We
must spend this last night together; and be very happy;
and Sarah and you are to sing duets."
"I am only going down to the village," replied Paul,
in undecided tones. "I want to see some of these poor
fellows-boatmen and people-before I leave."
" Here comes one of your friends-Dan Crossley-and
in hot haste, too. Very likely he has heard of your going,
and is resolved on seeing you."
Eustace afterwards recollected that Paul looked rather
embarrassed at the sight of Crossley's sturdy figure hastening across the lawn. Indeed Paul felt ashamed and
uncomfortable because of his knowledge of Alice's extraordinary flight, and had half made up his mind to go down
to Crossley and tell him all about it.
" He looks alarmed," said Eustace. "I hope nothing
bad has happened to him.-Here, Crossley! Crossley, come
this way."
Crossley looked up, and his brown face turned to purple
and his brows knitted as he saw the cousins. Eustace flung




110                  PAUL MASSIE.
up the window, which opened down to the ground, and the
boatman-puffing, red-faced, and wild-looking-strode into
the room.
" So, you're here," he exclaimed vehemently. "  beg
your pardon, sir,"-turning to Eustace, and pulling off his
hat,-" but I want to know something about my daughter."
"Your daughter?" both the young men echoed.
"Yes, my daughter," fiercely replied the boatman.
"You've got my daughter away from me-you-" and he
made a violent gesture towards Paul.   "You've taken
her fiom me; you've carried her away-you; yes,.you!"
"Man," said Paul, "are you mad, or drunk, that you
talk in this way? What do I know about your daughter?"
" You know where she is now. You know where you've
hidden her. You enticed the poor foolish girl away with
your presents and your lies. Give me up my child; tell
me where she is; or by the Lord above us I'll have your
life!"
He seized Paul furiously by the collar with both hands.
"He's mad!" said Eustace, turning pale as a ghost.
"I'll call the servants;" and he made an effort to reach
the bell.
"No, no," cried Paul, "don't move; don't call any one.
-Crossley, let me go; don't behave like a madman. Tell
me what you mean. All that I know about your daughter
you shall hear in two minutes."
"I'll have my daughter, or I'll have your life! " the
boatman screamed; and he grasped Paul more fiercely than
before. He was strong; but luckily for himself Paul had
sinews of steel. lie stood quite unshaken; and at last
seized the wrists of the boatman and set himself free.
" Crossley," he then said very calmly, " we must have
no more of this. Mr. Massie's house is not a boatman's
tap-room. If you will talk or listen quietly, you shall soon
know all I know; if not, I shall have to remove you from
this house at all events. Listen calmly, man, and be like
a man, while I tell you all I know about your daughter.




.PAUL' IS ACCUSED.              11
It is not much, and I fear will hardly help you to find her,
if she be really gone. I was wrong in not going to you at
once and telling it."
Eustace had now quite recovered from his surprise and
alarm. He had not the least taint of cowardice in him;
but he was a nervous man, unused to violent scenes of any
kind, and he really had thought for a moment that a mere
maniac stood before him. He laid his hand now gently
but firmly on Crossley's arm, and pressed him to speak out
plainly and calmly. " For aught I know," added Eustace,
" your daughter is now in this house, as usual."
"No, no, Mr. Massie," said the poor boatman, "she is
not here; she has not been here these two days. I ask
your pardon humbly, I'm sure. You're a good man, sir,
and I always said it of you, and I knew your father before
you. But you haven't a daughter, sir, and I have, or I had
until she was enticed away from  me. She was always
happy here, and kind the ladies were to her. But, Mr.
3assie, he's taken away my daughter; he has her hiding
somewhere, and she's going away for him-away from her
father and mother."
"This is madness," said Eustace. "Paul, you know
nothing of his daughter-Alice, my mother's maid?"
"Will he say he didn't meet her the morning she was
going away, just at day-break-there, behind this house?
Will he say that to my face?"
No," said Paul, "surely not. I did meet the girl by
accident there. I had scarcely spoken a dozen words to
her before. But I do not know where she was going or
where she is now; and I had no more to do with her going
away than you, Eustace, had."
"Mr. Massie, sir, he knows all about it. She was
always coming to my cottage when he was there. They
were seen meeting in the shrubbery beyond; they were
seen and heard talking there the morning she disappeared.
He was the last person that saw her, except one other who
came and told me."




112                  PAUL MASSIE.
"By Heaven, Crossley," said Paul, "you are cruelly
mistaken. This is the most extraordinary delusion I ever
heard of. I met the girl by the merest accident early in
the morning, and she told me she was going away, and
begged me not to tell; and, like a fool, I promised to say
nothing."
" 0!" ejaculated the clergyman slowly and doubtfully. He began to be sorry now that he could not think
poor Crossley an entire maniac.
"Beyond. that," continued Paul, "I know  nothing
whatever about the girl-nothing, upon my life. Eustace,
you surely don't and can't believe this poor man's mad
notion?"
"Not without" some very convincing reason," said the
clergyman, coldly and slowly, " would I believe any man
guilty of such a crime-least of all a member of my own
family. I am not much used to hearing accusations of
this kind made, except-except in a very different class of
life. But we must not shrink from the question now.
You did, then, meet this girl-this poor servant-and talk
to her?"
" Once, and that by chance."
" By chance. And she told you she was going away
-from this house and from her parents? "
"She did tell me something of the kind, and begged
me, as I had accidentally discovered her intention, not
to say that I had seen her."
"And you became a party to her secret and her running away?"
"I did. Perhaps I did not attach sufficient importance
to it; and I did not know that I had any right to make use
of the knowledge which T had obtained by, such a mere accident.  Observe, I asked her nothing. What she told me
she came up and volunteered, quite unexpectedly. I am very
sorry I consented to have any knowledge of the matter."
"So am I," said the clergyman very slowly; "I am
deeply grieved."




.PAUL IS ACCUSED.                113
"Ask him, Mr. Massie, if she told him nothing else,"
interposed Crossley, who had been listening as eagerly
as a party to a cause listens to his counsel cross-examining
the principal witness against him.
"She did tell me something else," said Paul promptly.
"It was that something else, perhaps, which confused me;
but I cannot tell what it was, only that it had nothing
to do with her own affairs; it only concerned me."
"Yet you had never conversed with her before?" the
clergyman observed inquiringly.
" Never," said Paul-" never, on my honor, on my soul.
I had not then, I have not now, the least notion why she
spoke to me and told me-what she did."
Here, then, was some mystery.  Eustace hated and
despised mysteries; he regarded them as necessarily immoral or disgraceful or vulgar. He grew more and more
sick of the whole affair.
"The first thing to do," he said at last, " is to ascertain
whether the girl has really gone away.  She may have
changed her mind, and returned. My mother was always
so kind to her that I cannot believe Alice would have gone
away without consulting her."
" Not if it was for any good," said Crossley.  "But it
was not for good; it was for evil."
"Let us make some calm inquiry," said Paul.  "I will
go with Crossley and help him  in the search, if he will
allow me."
"No," replied the boatman fiercely; "I don't want
your help. I know what comes of your help. I thought
high of him, I did, Mr. Massie; and I often said-God
forgive me!-how friendly he was to the poor, and how
unlike you, sir. Yes, I did, because I thought he was honest and true: and this is the end of it."
"But, Crossley, you really are judging my cousin
unfairly and harshly," Eustace said. "You have heard
his positive word, and against that you have nothing to
offer but the merest suspicion. I really feared at first that




114                  PAUL MASSIE.
there was something else to be told. But if he were an
utter stranger to me, I could not sanction an accusation
founded on such vague guess-work and suspicion."
"Guess-work! What d'ye call guess-work? D'ye
call presents guess-work? D'ye call money guess-work?
D'ye call diamond rings guess-work?"
"Had she money and rings?"
" Yes, she had money lately-pounds and pounds; and
she told me Mrs. Massie gave it to her; and I didn't believe
it, and I was coming up to ask, when I found that she was
gone. Who gave her that money? Who gave her a
diamond ring?"
"Not I, I am sure," said Paul, quite composed now
that the story was taking what seemed to him an extravagant and absurd turn. " I pledge you my honor, Crossley,
I never gave your daughter anything whatsoever, nor
talked with her for five consecutive minutes; and there
never was or could be a more monstrous and ridiculous
accusation brought against any human being than this
against me."
We had better make some inquiries at once," said
Eustace.  " My mother can perhaps tell us something
which may help us. It is deeply to be regretted that there
should have been any secret whatever confided or kept in
such a matter. It places us all in a false position that any
confidence should have been exchanged between a member
of the family and this poor foolish young woman."
Paul reddened. " There was no confidence exchanged,"
he said fiercely. " You speak as if you half believed this
story already, or wished to believe it; you religious and
virtuous people are only too anxious to believe anything
bad. We, the worldly and wicked, the heretics and the
publicans, or whatever else you choose to call us, are not
so ready to pass judgment on our neighbors."
" Nay, you do me wrong; pray believe me that you
do."
"I know what you think in your secret heart. I wish




PAUL IS ACCUSED.               115
I had never come here.  I will leave the house this
moment."
"Much better," said Eustace coldly, "to remain until
this painful matter is all cleared up. I trust you will not
think of leaving under circumstances which might only
seem to givesome color to a charge which I most anxiously
hope may prove unfounded."
" Your anxious hope," said Paul, "sounds to me very
like an insult."
Eustace shook his head and waved his hands in gentle
deprecation. " I do not mean it so. I should be strange
indeed to my duty as a clergyman if I were guilty of any
such intention."
"Will he give me back my daughter?" interposed
Crossley, who was growing rather impatient of the family
dialogue; " or tell me where she is? That's all I want to
know from him."
"I have already told you I know nothing of your
daughter; I tell you so again. I am ashamed to have to
repeat it. I swear to you I know nothing of her."
" I don't believe you," cried the boatman. "It's a lie,
and you know that you are lying!"
The blood rushed into Paul's dark face, until it became
nearly purple. He clenched his hands spasmodically, and
every limb quivered, while one foot involuntarily beat the
floor.  It was a heavy and terrible effort to keep down the
full outburst of an impetuous nature's rage. Perhaps Paul
had never before tried to control his emotions under so
agonizing a temptation. He did control them, although
something very like tears-tears of anger and humiliation
-sparkled in his eyes.
" Crossley," he said slowly, and with difficulty, "you
will regret this some day; you will find out your mistake.
Just now you are mad, and I am too nearly so to argue
with you."
Eustace had observed the terrible struggle for mastery
which had gone on in his cousin's breast, He could not




116                  PAUL MASSIE.
but respect the successful effort at self-control. He went
over to Paul and laid his hand kindly upon his shoulder.
"You have done well," he said, "to control yourself; you
have acted like a Christian. This poor man is under the
influence of an excitement which we cannot blame. You
have done well to make allowance for his state of mind."
But Paul made no reply; he looked coldly and sternly
at his cousin, and left the room without speaking a word.
"Mr. Massie," said Crossley, " he may carry it off well,
and you may think I have wronged him. God knows I
wish I had. But it's all true, and I have them  that can
prove it."
" You are an impetuous man, Crossley; and indeed you
cannot be expected to reflect much at present. But I
must not believe this story until I have some better proof.
I must see the people who you say can prove it. Who are
they?"
"It's only one, who can prove that he saw them talking
together in the shrubbery the morning the girl left."
" Yes, that my cousin admits; I mean, explains."
"Did he explain it before I charged him with it to his
face? Did he, sir?"
"Is that all your proof?"
"I can prove myself that she had money, and that she
said Mrs. Massie gave it to her; and perhaps Mrs. Massie
will say whether she did or not. I can prove that she had
a diamond ring, and perhaps Mrs. Massie will say if she
gave her that. I can prove that she told me when I
scolded her there was others could take care of her, and
keep her in London like a lady; and isn't he going to
London? I can prove that he saw her last. What more
proof do you want, sir? I was in the court myself when
you were on the bench, time of the murder of Betsy Marlin; and didn't I hear the lawyer say that he that was last
seen with her must account for himself and for her?
Well, your cousin was last seen with my daughter. Let
him account for her."




rPAUL IS ACCUSED.               117
The manner of the old man was more stern and less
respectful to Eustace than at first. He thought the clergyman was disposed to take the matter far too easily. He
thought-perhaps he was not quite mistaken —that Eustace's manner showed rather more concern for the peace
and credit of the Massie family than for the happiness and
honor of the humble Crossleys.
" Well," said Eustace, in rather a perplexed and worried tone, "we must look into the matter calmly. I will
first make some inquiries: go down to the village, and
I will meet you at your house in-let me see-yes, in an
hour exactly."
The boatman muttered some words of half-thankfulness, and went away through the open window, as he
had entered; Eustace motioned him that way. The less
meeting with servants and chances of scandal the better.
Eustace Massie was, in the common acceptation of the
phrase, a benevolent man. He had certainly a sincere
horror of every species of vice. But the sentiment uppermost in his mind just now was not regret for a ruined girl
and a despoiled father; his soul was agonized by the
thought'that his own family was now mixed up in an
odious scandal. He hardly paused to think whether the
charge against Paul might or might not be true: it was
enough for him that the charge had been made. A member of his own family was to be accused by all the blabbing tongues of an idle village of having decoyed away
a boatman's daughter. This abominable scandal was to
become a story in the mouths of his own congregation:
of the Low-Church party, who denounced his rood-screen
and candlesticks as Popish abominations, and who would
scarcely fail to attribute any wrong-doing by the rector's
most distant relative to his own predilection for the mummeries of superstition. There was a newspaper in Seaborough which kept perpetually vexing him  by the publication of letters signed "True Church," "No Popery,"
6 John Knox," etc., etc., coarsely complaining of the cere



118                  PAUL MASSIE.
monials and adornments of the Rev. Eustace N. Massie's
church. What would the vulgar, scurrilous, and malignant print not venture to say upon the new subject?
Could he for a moment suppose that it would forbear
to use so tempting a chance to the most truly unchristian
purpose? 0, how bitterly at that trying moment the
clergyman reflected upon the Christianity of the world's
practice!
Had Mr. Massie never done anything of the kind himself?  Had he never labored to prove the necessary and
intimate connection between heterodoxy of any kind and
vice of every kind? O yes,-this was his cherished theory
and pet theme; as indeed it is the cherished theory and
theme of most of his class. It could be logically demonstrated.'There cannot be morality without religionthat you must all admit. Religion is my religion-that I
can prove to you by chapter and verse, not to speak of the
law of the land. Go to, then; if you are not of my religion you must be a wicked person." Had Eustace Massie
never improved the occasion of a village scandal by demonstrating that it all began in somebody's visiting the wrong
church, or neglecting to attend any church at all? Certainly: he had, in fact, always considered it his duty thus
to interpret the ways of Providence; to point the moral of
the divine ordinances; to act the part of the Greek chorus
as between his immediate neighbors and the Powers above.
There was not a mishap anywhere about the village, not a
fire, a robbery, the seduction of a girl, a family quarrel,
which he did not ascribe in some way to the neglect by
somebody of the duties which the Rev. Eustace Massie
considered exclusively religious. If you yourself did not
neglect your church, then it must have been your father,
or your mother, or your husband.
Eustace Massie had not, therefore, any fair ground to
complain if his own measure were to be meted out to him.
But therefore, of course, he did complain all the more bitterly in his heart by anticipation.




PAUL IS ACCUSED.                119
Eustace's dignity and sanctity were unspeakably humiliated by the whole affair. It was low, vulgar, scandalous.
His idea of his own spiritual position was of something
priestlike, sanctified, elevated above ordinary mortal concerns; something to be screened away in mysticism; to be
shrouded behind a perpetual sanctuary: to guide, instruct,
and illumine, but not to be mixed directly up with any of
the quarrels, wrong-doings, and vulgarities of every-day
life. He had had hard work in bringing his congregation
and flock even to a vague understanding of his notions on
this subject. For his predecessor in the rectory was comparatively a poor man, with a whole drove of children (the
living really was not a fat sinecure, but quite the other
thing), and was very glad to dine now and then with a
farmer, and even to smoke a pipe; and his predecessor
again rode with the hounds, and could sing a good song,
and would have thought nothing of chucking a pretty girl
under the chin. Coming after these divines, Eustace did
not find it easy work to impress his parishioners with a
becoming sense of the dignity and sacredness of his office.
But he was at length succeeding,-having money to spend,
refined and dignified manners, and a really benevolent
spirit,-when now behold this shocking interruption and
scandal breaking in on his labors! It used to be a hard
trial upon his family feeling to know that his cousin Paul
was perpetually smoking cigars and chatting familiarly
with boatmen on the beach. It had cost him many a pang
when on Sundays the congregation were pouring out of the
church, and the three or four carriages which dignified the
entrance were waiting for their owners, and he thought
that those who went along the road that skirted the cliff
might perhaps at that very moment observe the rector's
first cousin seated on a lump of rock just above high-water
mark, with a meerschaum in his mouth and a wideawake
on his head. But what was all this compared to the great
scandal now breaking out?  If such a man could, under
any provocation, have cursed a day, Eustace Massie would




120                  PAUL MASSIE.
have bitterly execrated the evil day which brought his
heedless, rough, Bohemian relative to visit orderly and
reputable Seaborough.
As he walked vaguely down the lawn, Eustace met
Sarah. She was generally his counsel and right arm of
support in all difficulties and emergencies. She never (like
his mother) became wildly alarmed and faint; she never
(like his sister) bewildered him with a torrent of questions.
He at once appealed to her for advice.
"I fear," he said, "a very shocking scandal is about to
be disclosed. It concerns our house; it was hidden under
our very roof. A conversation has been heard, and secret
meetings have taken place, between two persons, which
may throw light upon something distressing and disgraceful
to us all-that is, if what I have heard prove to be true;
but I pray Heaven that the suspicion may be wholly
unfounded and that we may be spared this calamity and
shame."
"Eustace, you terrify me. For Heaven's sake, tell me
what it is!"
" I can hardly do more than hint it to you: it concerns
the relationship of two persons-perhaps the fate of one.
They are-one of them  is my cousin,-I hardly know
whether I may still call him by that name,-Paul MIassie."
" Then I know who the other is," said Sarah, turning
pale as death and trembling all over. "0 Eustace, how
did you come think of this?  I never dreamed that the
wildest thought of it could have found its way into any
mind but my own. Let me sit down a moment."
She sat on a garden-seat near which they had been
standing. Had he been less flustered himself, had he indeed
been thinking less of his own share in the difficulties and
scandal which he anticipated, he must have been struck by
the extraordinary degree of alarm which the woman beside
him-she so calm and rational in general —was now displaying,
"Then you have been suspecting something? " he asked.




PAUL IS ACCUSED.                121
"I have-something-I don't know what. I did not
dare to think. What has happened-what has come to be
known? 
" Something which may confirm your very worst suspicions."
"Eustace, it cannot be. You could not speak so calmly
if it were. Nay, why have you spoken of it at all?"
"Calmness," said Eustace, rather flattered by the tribute to his self-command, " is part of my duty. I have a
duty to do; and I must not allow my feelings, however
shocked, to get the better of me."
" Why speak of it now-here-to me?"
" I speak of it to you, Sarah, because there surely ought
to be nothing hidden between us-"
Between us! She almost winced at the words. Had
she been hiding nothing?
"And you know there is no one else to whom I could
confide it yet. The thing is not yet certain."
" 0, thank Heaven! "
"I should like to make some deeper inquiry before
speaking to my mother" (Sarah started and shuddered);
"and I expect of you, Sarah, some calmness and presence
of mind." He was somewhat put out' indeed by Sarah's
unexpected agitation.
"How  has all this arisen?" she asked with strained
composure.
"They were overheard talking-so I am assured."
"They?"
"Yes, he-and she."
Sarah shivered.
"Indeed, it is asserted that she talked of it openlythat she confessed it to Crossley."
"0, impossible, Eustace-utterly impossible! This is
some wild delusion. There is either falsehood or madness
about it. She never could have talked to him  thustalked, good Heaven! to Crossley-to Crossley the boatman?"
6




122                  PAUIL -ASSIE.
"Yes; what other Crossley do we know?"
"Eustace, I can hardly believe that I am awake. I
cannot have understood you rightly. What has Crossley
to do with this terrible suspicion? why is his name mentioned in connection with it? "
" What has Crossley to do with it?-with the fate of
his own daughter? "
"His daughter?"
" Yes, dear; his daughter. We have spoken of no one
else, Safah. There surely is no other unhappy-no, there
cannot be."
Sarah's face underwent in a moment such a change from
white to red as must have convinced the dullest observer
that there was something at work in her breast which the
fate of the boatman's daughter had not alone excited.
Eustace could not but observe her confusion and alarm.
Tile best of Christian maidens could hardly be thus overmastered by emotion on hearing of a mere serving-woman's
suspected sin.
"I am afraid you are not quite well, Sarah," Eustace
said slowly and coldly.' I should not have spoken of this
to you; but miserable as it is, I scarcely expected that it
would have created such an agitation. Had you not better
go in?"
She caught his hand and pressed it warmly: "Dear
Eustace, do forgive me. I am not very well to-day, and
perhaps more easily alarmed than usual. Your manner, too,
frightened me a little at first. Perhaps I expected something very dreadful, and-and certain-a death, or something of the kind.  I have been in a melancholy and ominous mood all day; only of course you-don't heed such nonsense. Now, dear, I am much better. Pray tell me all."
" There is really nothing more to tell," he replied. "It
is mere suspicion; perhaps it may turn out to be nothing
in the end. I am sure I hope so. Pray go in, Sarah; it
grows:cold. I -am.going -down to:Seaborough. Don't
wait dinner; I may not return very soon."




PAUL IS ACCUSED.                123
He was moving away.
" But, Eustace, I really know nothing of the matter as
yet. You have excited my curiosity to the utmost, and
now you will tell me nothing."
Because, dear, there is nothing to tell. You said that
you had had suspicions: we have now merely reason to
fear that our suspicions may prove well founded. But we
know-at least I know-nothing more as yet. I must see
my mother at once."
"You are angry with me, Eustace, and I do not know
why. Or you distrust me because I showed some foolish
alarm.  But do not be angry, dear-you are not used
to be."
"I am not angry," said Eustace, in rather melancholy
tone; "I surely have no cause to be. Good-by for a
little."
He left-her; his manner still cold and constrained. He
did not pursue his expressed intention of going to confer
with his mother, but went slowly down the lawn.
As he walked to the village his face was covered with
gloom, and his heart beat with unusual quickness. He
could not fail to conclude that some effect wholly unexpected had been produced upon Sarah by the story he had
communicated, and he thought he guessed the meaning of
her emotion only too well.  There was nothing of the
romantic about him; he had read few novels, and fewer
poems, in his life; but still he knew that there was something in the world which people called love, and which was
quite distinct from duty, or principle, or propriety, or
order. With a strange and sudden pang he conjectured,
as he looked on Sarah's crimsoning cheeks and quivering
lips, that this eccentric and unholy influence had taken
possession, and in the most inconvenient manner, of her
quiet and well-ordered mind. He had always taken it for
granted that she loved him, or would love him, quite as
much as it is necessary for a clergyman's wife to love her
husband. It had never.occurred to him for a moment, until




124                  PAUL MASSIE.
that very hour, to entertain the wildest notion of her possibly loving any one else. He never supposed that a lady
of her position, and with so responsible a future before her,
could be guilty of the impropriety of having excitable and
uncontrollable affections. The idea of Sarah's falling in
love with anybody would have seemed as extravagant as
the notion of her turning Roman Catholic or taking to the
stage. Yet he felt bitterly as he walked along that nothing
but some wandering and reprehensible feeling of the kind
could have awakened the agony with which she heard even
a hint of the story about Paul and the boatman's daughter.
Yes, it must be that she loved him-this good-looking,
remarkable, dashing Paul —this eccentric, wild Bohemian
-this "rowdy," Eustace perhaps might have said, had he
ever known the meaning of the word. He felt miserable
as he walked, humiliated and tortured. He felt as if his
faith in everything was invaded. Whom could he trust
— to whom could he look for sympathy, when even Sarah
had turned out so different from all that he had reason to
expect? How helpless he felt himself; how pitiable; how
childishly ignorant of the ways of women! He had his
own purposes and designs in life-certainly none of them
selfish in the word's meaner sense-and he had prepared
for some interruptions and obstructions in carrying them
out; but never for any inconvenient distractions of this
kind. To be vexed and crossed by the women of his own
household was a disturbance he should no more have expected than to find one of them supporting a rival church
and putting up an opposition preacher. What now to do?
How to  ascertain  whether his suspicions were well
founded?  If it should prove so, what then?  Would a
mild remonstrance and lecture settle the matter, or ought
it to cause a breaking-off and an entire disturbance of
family arrangements? Poor Eustace could not yet sufficiently arrange his ideas to come to any conclusion. He
walked along, his heart oppressed by a vague sense of
having been somehow terribly deceived, and having all his



PAUL IS ACCUSED.                125
plans disturbed and confused, and he labored under the
unusual sensation as he might under some sudden attack
of physical pain, whose pangs he had never before felt,
whose presence he could not explain, whose consequences
he could not conjecture.
And Sarah-what were her feelings as she went back
to the house?
First, then, she had not the least suspicion that Eustace
suspected-what he did. She was agitated with the consciousness that she had nearly betrayed some wild secret,
which indeed she herself had scarcely ventured to dream
of, and which she would not of her own will whisper to
any one in the world.  She ascribed Eustace's anger
merely to his impatience at a feminine manifestation of
what must have seemed to him unreasonable alarm. She
did not fear that Eustace might suspect any lurking mystery and ask for an explanation. He was not given to
questioning and cross-examining. His cold, precise, and
orderly temperament had much in it which a partial woman might easily think refined, dignified, and lofty. All
the women of the clergyman's household were of accord in
thus regarding him.
But it must be owned that Sarah felt somewhat like
a guilty person. She had the knowledge that from the
man she was about to marry (and he too a clergyman,
which with most women is a fact of immense account) she
was hiding a secret, and thus entering upon a life of reticence and evasion. Everything bordering upon that secret
must hereafter be dreaded, avoided, evaded. Through their
whole lives that fact would stand a wall of separation
between Eustace and herself. If the secret were never
discovered, it could only be preserved from discovery
because of the noble confidence of a man too honorable to
suspect that his wife hid anything in her bosom which he
might not know.
This was bad enough; but was this really all?  Was
she not vaguely conscious of some other feeling-some



126                  PAUL MASSIE.
thing of which she could not believe that Eustace would
suspect her?
There was a step behind her at that moment. The
evening was darkening down heavily and drearily, and the
poplars on the lawn looked gaunt and ghastly. It may
have been the chilliness of the air which made Sarah
shiver; but she certainly was trembling in every limb.
She could scarcely get on towards the house, and the
step came rapidly behind her. She knew its sound; she
had learned already to distinguish it only too well. In
a moment a hand lightly touched her shoulder; and
although she must have expected to be accosted in some
way, yet she started as if punctured by a sharp instrument.
It was a strong hand that touched her shoulder, but its
touch was gentle and trepid. She did not turn round, but
stopped; and a crimson hue dyed her cheeks which had
never flushed there at the coming of her intended husband.
Paul stood beside her.
"  am going away to-morrow, Sarah," said the young
man, "and perhaps I shall hardly see you again to-night.
Good-by."
" But only for awhile," she stammered, trying to smile;
"only for awhile, Paul? We shall see you very soon
again?"
" Not very soon," he replied slowly and bitterly. " I
am going to stay in London for some time, and then perhaps I shall return to Mexico."
" But you will come back to England?"
"Yes; I shall certainly come back some time-most
certainly-if I live. Nothing but death shall keep me
from coming back, some time."
He paused, seeming unable to proceed.
" England must be your home," Sarah said.
"My home? I wonder where is my home. I have
never found one yet. I don't hope to find one here. No
matter-I should not talk in this way. Good-by, Sarah."
He took her hand.




PAUL IS ACCUSED.               127
You will hear-Eustace or somebody will tell yousome foolish story about me. You will not believe it, Sarah? "
"Not if it be to your disadvantage, Paul, and if you
say it is not true."
"You have heard something of it already then!" he
quickly observed, gathering his conviction from the expression of her face. "They were not long in telling you
of it. Don't believe it, Sarah-it's all false-there is not a
word of truth in it, and it will all be set right before long;
but it would grieve me to think that you believed it even
now-you who have been so kind and good to me when
others-others on whom I had more claim-"
The hand that held hers now grasped it so heavily that
she felt pained, but she did not betray the pain.' I do not believe it, Paul-I did not and could not
believe it-and I don't think any body else will."
" I thought I might rely upon you, Sarah; although I
know you for so short a time. I could wish I had never
come here, but that I can always remember you."
Sarah turned pale. Paul fixed his keen and gleaming
eyes inquiringly on her, and she trembled under the look.
" Then shall we not see you to-night again?" she asked
-asking anything to distract the conversation, and calm,
if possible, the growing excitement which glowed in the
countenance of the young man.
" Not to-night-at least I think not," he answered.'Not for some time. I am going down to Seaborough
now, and I must not keep you longer in the cold. I have
said good-by twice already; but good-by again, and, don't
forget me."
He kissed her on the forehead, and was gone in a
moment.
What did Sarah do? Probably what any other woman
would have done under the circumstances. She went to
her bedroom, locked the door, and cried long and bitterly.
She was a brave and good girl, but not at all of the strongminded class; and she had her feelings.




128                  PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER X.
" LEON, CWHY DID YOU COME HERE? "
WAS it a dream in which Mrs. Massie, weak and melancholy woman, lay plunged before Eustace returned to
consult her? Had she only fallen asleep and had a painful dream and started,up in horror, and so awakened?
Awakened to find herself lying on the sofa in her darkening room, where- the fading flame leaped fitfully in the
chimney, and made the dimness look fantastic and ghastly
-not cheery and warm? Or had she really been visited
by a living being, heard the sound of a human voice, and
fainted as she heard it?
She arose from the sofa, walked feebly across the room,
and looked shuddering out through the window. It was a
grewsome evening of a late spring, dun and cold; the
cypresses looking very black, and whistling mournfully in
a sad breeze. She drew the curtain hurriedly, and nervously lighted the lamp which stood upon the table, and
stirred the fire. The blaze leaped up cheerily enough, and
Mrs. Massie knelt upon the hearth-rug and shivered as she
held her hands open before the grate. The gradual sense
of renewed warmth was encouraging, and the light and
heat banished all dreary aspect from the room. She began
to be less afraid to question the memories which were
growing clearer within her, and so endeavored at last to
recall boldly and distinctly all that happened before she
lost consciousness.
Well, had she heard during the evening something
about Alice's singular disappearance. Lydia had begn telling her of it. She had heard something too of the stories
which had been founded on it; and which seemed to confirm Halliday's disclosure. This, combined with all the
rest, had terribly disturbed her, and she waited impatiently




LEON, WHY DID YOU COME HERE?           129
for Eustace to come in and let her know the whole truth
of the matter. What if Halliday's story should prove true?
What if there should be a quarrel?- she dreaded and hated
quarrels.'What if there should be strange suspicions, followed by stranger disclosures? What if anything should
happen to Paul? In any case Paul was about to go away,
and perhaps she might never see him again. After how
many years-O, how many long weary years!-bhe had
come at last, and they had scarcely ever spoken; and now
he was going away, perhaps in' anger, perhaps not to return
any more! And she had no one to whom she could open
her heart-no one in all the world! Cold, dreary, and
repulsive the world again opened before her, full of fear and
secrecy and mere renunciation. She sat shivering with
chill of body and of heart, thinking over all this-and over
how much more!-in the sharp spring evening. She looked
in the mirror which stood over the chimney-piece, and saw
a wan and wasted face, with anxious eyes looking into hers.
HIer mind went back to days when she was young, beautiful,
and hopeful; and the time seemed hundreds of years ago.
She saw other scenes than those around her; the glass
became to her as a magic mirror, in which there were flickering images and visions and places which had not been
seen by her boldily eyes for years, although present so
often to her sleeping senses. A pang, as of terror, shot
across her breast when one form and face seemed to arise
out of all the rest, far more distinctly seen than any-a face
browned and dark, with gleaming black eyes.
There must have been a knock at the door while she
thus stood and' gazed, a knock which she had not heard;
for now that she did distinctly hear a tapping, it was
rather impatient, as of a person who had tapped in vain
before.  So she hastily called "Come in!" and turned
away fiom the glass, her mind still haunted by the presence of the face and form she had last seen there.
It was with difficulty she kept back a scream when the
opened door showed her, in the fading light, what seemed




130                  PAUL MASSE.
the very face and form of her haunted memory; yes, the very
presence, the browned visage, the dark and glittering eyes.
Only, however, the face and form of Paul Massie.
Then it was that, after a few words had been spoken, to
a purport of which she was scarcely conscious, she began
to feel her strength give way, and her eyes swim and her
ears throb with a strange singing sound. She must have
fallen, but that strong arms bore her up and laid her gently,
even with a sort of tenderness, on the sofa; then came upon
her total silence and darkness, and then again gradual
awakening, reviving consciousness, and light.  But she
scarcely knew even yet whether the whole scene had been
a feverish fainting dream or a mournful reality. Once
before she had felt a doubt almost similar; and that of
which she had doubted proved only too real.
What had Paul Massie heard in that short and strange
interview?  He had come to bid his aunt good-by-had
come with feelings doubtless of no little embarrassment
and anxiety. He thought, "If she be a rational woman,
and has anything to say to me, she will say it now; and
to her at least I can defend myself against the odious, foolish charge pressed upon me." So he was glad, although
embarrassed, when opening the door he saw that Mrs. Massie
was alone. He entered, doubtful how to begin his farewell;
but she sprang towards him with looks of wild alarm.
" 0, Leon! " she exclaimed, " why did you come here?
Go away; for Heaven's sake go away! You will be killed!
Go away before it is too late."
Paul Massie drew back bewildered.  Was he then actually in presence of a maniac? His look of blank dismay
recalled Mrs. Massie to her senses, as a shower of cold
water would awaken a dreamer.
"0, Paul! " she said, "I beg your pardon; I think I
must have been dreaming. Pray do not mind me. O, my
dear, do not mind me-now that you are going away."
And she flung her arms around the neck of the young man,
and kissed him many times.




80 HAB' ICH NUN DIE STADT VERLASSEN.    131
" Do you wish me not to go?" he asked in hesitating
tone.
"0 no," she said, "you must go —you must go forever. Life could not bear this; I could not bear it."
She raised herself from his neck, and her eyes fell upon
his hand, which held hers.
"But the ring?" she asked in a low, piercing voice;
"the ring! have you it? Did you give it away? Where
did you get it? Tell me-tell me."
Then it was that her words became incoherent, and
she fainted. Paul Massie held her in his arms, not daring
to call for help. As she recovered and looked up at him,
she again called him by the name not his, which she had
spoken before; then she rallied, and begged of him in
a few calm words to leave her, and think nothing of her
dreamings; and she kissed him  tenderly and sent him
away.
CHAPTER  XI.
8O HAB9 ICH NUN DIE STADT VERLASSEN.
"So hab' ich nun die Stadt verlassen
Wo ich gelebet lange Zeit;
Ich ziehe ristig meiner Strassen,
Es gibt mir Neimand das Geleit."
THUS does the Bursch, in one of Uhland's simplest,
sweetest ballads (dear old Uhland, last of the gentle
Minnesinger race), describe his lonely exodus from  the
home of youth and of many memories and of one love.
Paul Massie knew little of Uhland; and the Bursch songs
he had heard and chorussed in Leipzig and Heidelberg
were of rougher strain. But he felt some sensation akin to
those of the ballad ashe left the place to which he had
yearned so long to come.. He had returneq home after a




132                  PAUL MASSME.
life of wandering, and now he was an outcast once more.
He was conscious of a queer, choking, sickening sensation
as he stood upon the threshold of the hotel on a beautiful
mild morning, and looked up and down the street-probably he thought for the last time-while he lighted his
cigar and prepared to depart.
IHe had sent his luggage on before; it had crossed the
ferry, and been consigned to a slow heavy goods train, to
jolt along steadily for many hours over the hundred miles
or so of road, and to be shunted at stations while express
and ordinary and parliamentary trains went by. Paul was
about to walk to the ferry, the Boots of the hotel insisting
on carrying thither for him the one small portmanteau
which was to accompany him, and which had already
accompanied him over three-quarters of the globe. He
was departing very quietly, without beat of drum, without
leave-taking, or friends at the station, or pledges to return
soon, or any of the accompaniments which commonly
strive to temper the bitterness of a parting. He felt
chilled and miserable. H-e had been but a short time in
Seaborough; it seemed indeed only a day or two since he
first walked down the street on which he now gazed; he
had often been longer in places of which he now retained
scarcely any recollection; he had made friends in other
places, friends whom he valued, and had had to say goodby to them, and had said it cheerily although sadly. Here
in Seaborough he had no fiiends, and yet he was leaving
the place with bitter pangs, because it seemed to him as if
in leaving it he left behind the one beautiful illusion of hig
life; because a light which had always shone upon him
before, and seemed to beckon him onwards, suddenly went
out, never to beam again. We all know what it is, after a
dreary and melancholy voyage, in which we have been
sick, cold, harassed, and miserable, to see at last the lights
of the port whither we are bound shining across the water.
It seemed to Paul as if the lights which he had all through
life dreamed of seeing had extinguished just as he came




SO  IAB' ICIT NUN DIE STADT VERLASSEN.    133
within their range, and that his voyage must begin over
again. It seemed to him  as if he were shut out of the
world once for all when he turned to leave the town of
Seaborough.
He had always longed to find a home; he had always
pictured it as something like a heaven. He had often stood
admiring upon the hearths of other men, and seen their
happy household fires burn, and wondered whether he
should ever have such a home. The young man brought
up under the ordinary conditions of existence yearns for
independence. Paul was sick of independence, that is, of
the independence of the exile and the outcast. Other
young men feel, even before any woman has gained
possession of their hearts, vague yearnings for another
kind of home than the calm and monotonous maternal circle, the yearning for wife and child. But Paul had to
begin at the very beginning, and to sigh first for the home
of father and mother and sister, which his childhood had
never known. It may be that he was not in reality fitted
to appreciate domestic life; and it may be too that for
this very reason he had longed after it with the deeper
longing. At his age men can usually quit the paternal
home with great composure; most people abandon it
readily and even eagerly years before his time of life; but
then they have had it, they have run their ordinary course,
and at the appointed hour they go their way. Paul had
felt somewhat towards the home which he expected as the
childless man longs for a child: he now felt towards the
home found and lost as a childless man may feel towards
the one child given and taken at the same moment-just
offered to life in order to be snatched by death.
He had always been perplexed by the kind of decree
which during the lifetime of his uncle had seemed to shut
him out from the society of his family. Then when the
news of the elder Massie's death came, it seemed a matter
of course that he should go home; so he was invited, and
he went, He had been entertained by some friends the




134                  PAUL MASSIE.
night before quitting New Orleans, and had talked with
extravagant sentiment about going home. Had his entertainers all been Englishmen (at all events had they been
Englishmen in England), they would have been much
amused by the effusion of their friend; but they were
Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, and one or two longexiled Britons like himself, and the sentiment was accepted
as favorably as it might have been on the Rhine. He could
not help thinking now-now as he stood at the door of the
Seaborough hotel-of the wild nonsense he had talked that
parting night, and he smiled rather bitterly over the recollection.  So he had had his longing, had been raised to
the very height of his ambition, had found his homeand now!
He shrugged his shoulders, took two or three strong
puffs of his cigar, and walked down the street, past the
music-seller's where he had gone with Lydia; past the
saddler's; past the Institution where he had been induced
to deliver a lecture on something or other dealing with
France and Mexico, for which no creature among the audience cared one straw; past the openings in the houses,
through which he could see the beach below, and the boats
lying on the strand, and the nets drying on the shingle, and
the bare-legged children paddling in the surf; past the spot
where he used to go down to the water's edge and launch
his boat; past the police-station, where already a bill stared
at him, offering a reward for any information which could
lead to the discovery of Alice Crossley, aged 19, who had
disappeared from her father's house; past the cottage of
old Crossley himself. The morning was only awakening
as yet, and few faces greeted Paul as he passed along;
and, indeed, he feared that of late the town had been
saying little good of him, and that there would be scant'
friendliness in any greeting now tendered to him as he
went his way.
"Sie konnten's halten nach Belieben: Von Einer aber
thut mir's weh!' So says Uhland's Bursch before men



SO HAB' ICe NUN DIE STADT VERLASSEN.   135
tioned; Paul Massie felt bitterly something like this. Let
all others act towards him, think of him what they would,
but there was one now from whom he could not part without a pang.
Yet he was not wholly swallowed up in thoughts about
himself. The disappearance of Alice, and his involuntary
knowledge of it, remained always a painful presence in his
mind. He stood for a moment at Crossley's door, then
went resolutely up and knocked. Crossley himself opened
the door.
" Crossley," said Paul, "you have not found her?"  It
would have been superfluous to mention the girl's name.
" No," replied the boatman, rather sadly than sullenly;
"I haven't; but I'm obliged to you for asking, and I'm
obliged to you too for the trouble you took in looking for
her last night. I heerd something too that makes me think
I did ye wrong when my blood was up, an' I'm sorry for it
-an' what more can a man say? The person that put me
agen you has gone-run away, like a liar. I don't blame
you anymore, and I believe it was none of your doing; but
I do fancy somehow that if she'd never seen your face, she'd
be at home with her mother now."
Paul made a hasty gesture, and endeavored to speak.
The boatman shook his head, and motioned deprecatingly
with one rough withered hand.
"No, no," he said, "you need not say anything. I don't
blame you. I know it was none of your doing, but I do
wish I'd never seen you."
Paul pitied the man too much to argue idly with a conviction which seemed to him the mere foolishness of grief.
"I don't blame you for what you think," he said,
"although I know you are wrong. But I didn't come
to talk about myself, only I want to say that I am going
to London, and that I will make the strictest search for
your daughter. The first thing I will do when I get there
shall be to put those on the search who can seek better
than you or I could. Rest assured that I will never give




136                  PAUL MASSIE.
up until she is found-that I promise you. I'll write to
you; and there is an address which will find me if you
want to write to me."
"Thankee," said the boatman.  "I used to think that I
could reckon on you for a friend, an' I think so now: an'
perhaps I never would have believed anything agen you,
only for some as put me up to it, and is now gone, not
to have to stand to their words-some as you don't suspect maybe, and as I was an old fool to listen to."
"Never mind all that," said Paul hastily. "All will
come right yet, I am sure; and we shall find your daughter.  One word, Crossley-I am almost afraid to say it,
but if you would really look on me as a friend-and perhaps you may, while we are making this search, have
particular want of a little money."
"No," interrupted the boatman, "not a farden. Don't
offer it again; I'm sorry you offered it; your brotheryour cousin I mean-he offered it too, an' I answered him
sharper than I'm answering you."
"Not another word, then; let us not speak of it any
more. You will hear from me in a few days. Keep up
your spirits; be sure all will come right: and good-by."
Paul held out his hand; the boatman hesitated, looked
Massie full and fixedly in the eyes, and then smote his
brawny palm on that which was extended to him. Paul
grasped the brown and rugged hand with a gripe yet
stronger than its own; then they parted.
"Damn me," said the boatman, looking after Paul, "if
he be'ant a fine honest fellow  I'll take my oath I saw
tears in his eyes."
A few moments and Paul sat in the stern of the lumbering ferry-boat. The sunlight fell brightly upon the white
walls, the green verandas, and the glittering windows of
Seaborough-house. Paul could just see the window of the
room which had been his, and the balcony from which he
descended the first night of his arrival. The house looked
provokingly placid to the disturbed heart of the young




SO HAB' ICH NUN DIE STADT VERLASSEN.    137
man. All its windows were closed. Apparently no sleepless figure kept watch there for him. The quiet beauty of
the whole scene had a painfully unsympathetic aspect.
Nature never did betray the heart that loved her! No,
indeed. While Pygmalion's goddess remained marble, she
greeted him always with the same placid brow and smile
of chill unchanging beauty. Him, under all moods and
passions and sufferings, she greeted thus, as she would have
greeted any body. Nature's beauty is not a little like that
of the marble goddess before her vivification. Nature is,
after all, the real stony-hearted step-mother, who changes
no lineament, veils no ray of her immortal beauty, even
though her poor human step-children writhe in torture
under her cold everlasting smile. To poor Paul Massie's
aching heart the brightness of the sun and the beauty of
the shadows on wave and lawn brought little relief:
indeed he would have gladly welcomed a driving mist, a
tossing sea, a rocky coast, a gale, and a wreck.
He had not much time to. think, for the bump of the
ferry-boat on the shore soon scattered meditation.  lHe
leaped to the little quay, a rudely built structure, which
received but rare passengers from Seaborough to the new
railway station. Involuntarily he turned round and looked
back on the Seaborough shore, the cliffs, the straggling
town, the house.
" I have had enough of sentiment," he thought in bitterness. " There is an end to that illusion. I have wasted
half a life looking for a home: I have come from the other
end of the world to find it, and now I am going away; anywhere away from  the home-anywhere.  I have found
friends who despise me, who are ashamed to own me, and
a woman who must not love me. I must be a lonely, selfdenying outcast, ignorant even of my own identity, that I
may not disturb the happiness and shake the nerves of
those who hate me, and for whom I was a castaway from
my very birth! Exile, loneliness, and secret shame are to
be my share. One thing at least I will do: if there be any




138                  PAUL MASSIE.
secret (and there must be) in all this, I will find it out. I
will know the whole truth, even though -I have to hide it
ever after as my own stigma and disgrace."
He flung the end of his burning cigar into the water,
and waved his hand as if he were tossing a half-defiant
farewell to the whole scene; then he turned away, and in
another moment had reached the railway station.
It was thus that Paul Massie left Seaborough-house;
the house where he had looked for love and found it not;
where love unlooked for had found him.
CHAPTER XII.
MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.
TT was one of Madame de Luca's evenings. This lady
received her friends of a general character on Tuesdays
and Fridays during a certain part of the season, and her
more intimate friends at all times and seasons convenient
to herself.
Who were the lady's friends?
A good catechism  defines our neighbors as mankind
of every description. Salome's friends were of the same
class; blt they were perhaps for the most part those whom
an Englishman, whether he meets them near the Alhambra
in Leicester-square or that in Granada, in Simpson's or the
Hotel du Louvre, on the deck of a Chelsea boat or under
the awning of a Rhine steamer, equally and consistently
describes as foreigners. Salome's friends were mostly foreigners, or English people who willingly take to foreign
ways and society. Most of her friends had been at one
time or other in difficulties with the constituted authorities
of their native lands. Many of them were refugees, against
whom sentence of banishment had been pronounced; some




MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.            139
over whom a sterner edict still hung. Some there were,
too, who desired to be thought objects of suspicion to their
government, but for whom the said government cared no
more than did Sir Richard Mayne himself.  All were of
decided opinions and free of thought.  Most were young;
and a few were wealthy.  Some were princes and dukesoccasionally even princes and dukes de facto as well as de
jure, having real dominions marked on the map, and living
subjects. Many were artists; many were authors; a few
were singers; some were English authors, journalists, and
critics; some were Englishmen of wealth, who in a general
way patronized revolutionary movements abroad,-for of
late there has sprung up among the rich Englishmen of the
upper middle class a select party who take to patronizing
revolutions as they might to patronizing art or high farming.  Some were American citizens seeing the world;
although these latter did not take very kindly to the revolutionists, for by some utterly inscrutable law, it usually
happens that the American citizen abroad delights in
nothing but despotism, and is rarely known to encourage
any rebellion but rebellion against constitutional government. Nearly all were men of talent, at least almost every
one had a distinct, well-marked individuality. Sometimes
the individuality was a crotchet, sometimes it became a
craze.  But there were very few nonentities.  Salome
despised nonentities, who in their turn, being puzzled by
her, rather disliked her.
Such were in general Salome's friends. We know who
Salome herself was. Not a foreigner, but an Englishwoman of energy and talent, who had fallen in love with
and married (yes, the phrase is deliberate, she married him)
a gallant Venetian gentleman, somewhat younger than herself, who loved her dearly, continued to love her still after
she had rather cooled about him, transferred to England
what property he had-and it was not inconsiderable-in
order that she might be secured, and died like a hero in the
campaign of 1859 against the Austrians. Every one who




140                  PAUL MASSIE.
knew anything of the matter said that Salome behaved like
a heroine during the whole of the campaign. She was at
her husband's side soon after he received his death-wound,
and her fair plump arms lifted the frail young Venetian's
slender form into a quiet corner, where he died in peace.
She finally escaped-not easily-out of the hands of the
Austrians, and after living awhile in Genoa (until the
authorities hinted that perhaps the climate did not quite
suit her), and thenremoving to Paris, she returned to England, declaring that she would never marry again, and had
renounced the world. Not many years had passed since
her return, and she had not married, but she had certainly
not renounced the world; for, although she never penetrated or cared to penetrate into the sacred circles of English fashionable life, although the Jorning Post did not
record her receptions, and her name did not figure in the
list of presentations at a drawing-room, yet she played a
distinguished part in her own sphere and with her own
limited means, and she ruled like a queen every season over
crowds of distinguished and brilliant (and some beautiful)
persons, in her rooms on the north side of Hyde Park. If
she did not go to fashion, en revanche fashion, at least in
coats and trousers, not uncommonly came to her.
What did Salome look like?  She was not very young.
Five-and-thirty, perhaps? Ill-natured people gave her even
more years. Common regard for facts would hardly allow
the abatement of one year of this number. There is the less
occasion to apologize or hesitate, seeing that the lady herself never had any scruples on the subject, and indeed
often took a sort of pleasure in puzzling people by exaggerating her age.  "When a woman like me passes forty,"
she would say, "she has at least the consolation of being
able to choose her own company and her own ways in life."
She looked about seven-and-twenty. She had eyes of beautiful lustrous gray; she had thick, not long, hair of rich
light-brown; she had a sweet deep voice, which could be
thrilling or merely tender, as she pleased to modulate it.




MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.,         141
She had fine arms, well-formed hands, the whitest of shoulders, the most shapely of busts. She was a woman indeed
who, although not to be called beautiful, might have fascinated most men, and had an especial charm  for young
men. Her attainments were brilliant: she spoke French
and Italian with thoroughly un-English fluency, and with
an accent which went as near perfection as British organs
of sound could render.  Some people said she was superficial. Perhaps she was. Some people said she was not
sincere. Perhaps she was not. But she was attractive,
brilliant, and generous; she liked amusement, and liked
to be flattered; she was fond of remarkable people, and
could welcome a poor artist, if he had anything in him, as
cordially as if he were the heir to a dukedom. As her
acquaintances were more often men than women, when
anything evil was said of her she did not always hear of it.
This was one of Madame de Luca's fullest receptions.
Her rooms were filled with men and some women, and
every now and then the rattling hansom brought some
addition to the company-generally somebody who flung
away the end of a cigar just as he reached the door.
There were French, Italians, Spaniards, Americans, English. Mlen were there who had played parts in many a
great political game, and dared all and staked heavily, and
lost, and were now swallowed up in the obscurity of a London life. There were some who had flashed out upon
the world in a streak of momentary light, and then, ere
a man had time to say, "Behold! " the jaws of darkness
did devour them up. Names were announced in that drawing-room which once used to be shouted in vivats from the
shores of the Bay of Biscay to those of the Adriatic.
Statesmen were there, now retired from business, and writing for journals, or maybe teaching languages; soldiers who
had gone to the very edge of splendid victory and immortal renown and just failed, and came back to set up military schools in Paris or London. Some were there whose
light has since gone peacefully out for ever, and some whose




142                  PAUL MASSIE.
fire has since flashed up again, and signalled nations the
way to freedom before the astonished eyes of an admiring
world. This gray-bearded man was a hero to the last generation. He will presently die in a lodging in Leicester-square,
and there will be three lines of an obituary in. the London
papers, reminding the world that thirty years ago he did this
or that, and he will be forgotten the day after to-morrow.
This other had the destinies of a nation in his hand ten
years ago, but he let them slip through his fingers, and has
gone mooning about the world ever since, imploring of anybody, everybody, to find them out, and pick them up, and
give them back to him again. That small, infantile-looking person is one whose impassioned and thrilling eloquence used to set in a flame the hearts of bloused and
bearded thousands during that great crisis of the other
day, which history now records in a chapter of a few
pages. He has genius and heart; he is nothing now; he
may be something yet again, as he was before. He who
converses with him is the monomaniac of the Revolution,
the man of the high, thoughtful, brooding intellect, the
earnest conscience, the one solitary purpose; the theorist
doomed to everlasting plot and plan and frustration.
Behind them is a soldier and a patriot; a man all bravery
and gentleness, on whose neck the axe will fall before long,
and whose name will be execrated or despised as that of a
ferocious villain or a maniac. There is another whom few
care about now, but whose praises will be sung by every
voice, whose portrait will be worn on every breast before
many years. Then there are the men of mere crotchetsthis one with his mania about Russia, and that one his
craze about Austria, and this other his chimera about universal revolution-and the few who will afterwards apostatize and become respectable men, and fill loyal posts at
good salaries; ahd there are some too who have not
troubled themselves about politics at all, but have merely
written books, painted pictures, sung or composed operatic
songs, explored distant rivers and deserts, dashed off end



MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.          143;
less columns of vivacious nightly criticism, or perhaps
merely dreamed and smoked through life,-thus far intending to do something, but never quite ascertaining what it
was to be, or making up their minds to set about doing it.
There were some English members of parliament too, —
those who had brought on, or were about to bring on,
motions concerning the Polish, the Hungarian, the Italian,
the Schleswig-Holstein, the Patagonian, the Nova-Zemblan,
the Saharan question.  All these were mixed up very
pleasantly; and the rooms were crowded, brilliant, and
resounding with music and unceasing vivacious talk in
many languages.
Madame de Luca talked to everyone, and  almost
always about the subject which especially interested him
or her. It is not likely that she really understood all the
difficult questions of which she sometimes talked; but she
certainly seemed as if she did. Who could be as wise as
Thurlow looked? Who could be as sympathetic as Salome
de Luca seemed to be? Everyone was at ease in her
presence, and there all were equals. Of course, to say that
Madame de Luca had no favorites would be to say that
Madame de Luca was no woman -and she was every inch
a woman.
This night, in particular, she appeared as if something
were wanting to her enjoyment; she turned her large
deep eyes often towards the door, and looked away disappointed. At last she turned  determinedly away, and
buried herself in conversation with the author of the newest
sensation drama.
A new-comer entered the room and made his way, exchanging a word with almost everybody as he passed, up
to where the lady of the house was seated. He was carelessly dressed. Madame de Luca's only rule with regard
to her evenings was the rigid exclusion of all rule. You
might come in a shooting-jacket if you liked, or in knickerbockers, or in a court dress, if you had been to the Speaker's dinner; or in any sort of costume you pleased. The




144                  PAUL MASSIE.
new-comer, then, was not singular in being carelessly
dressed, nor in having a dark sallow face, nor in having
black eyes and a black moustache. The only peculiarity
which for us distinguishes him from the roomful of people
is, that we have met him before; for it is Paul Massie.
He stood behind the hostess's chair before she was
aware of his presence. She happened to glance at the
mirror opposite, around which the wax-lights burned, and
she saw his face reflected there. She gave an exclamation
of delight, and stood up.
"So you have come at last," she said, holding out her
hand. "I really thought you would never come. Sit here
and tell me what you have been doing, and why you are
so late."
The author of the sensation drama politely gave way,
and found companionship somewhere else.
Paul Massie had been some months in London, and had
been leading a life of apparent idleness. The means which
he possessed were such as might enable an economical
bachelor to make a decent appearance in London life, and
Paul was determined to be very economic. He soon, however, came within the range of Madame de Luca's influence.
She liked him, and told everyone so. Most people indeed
were drawn towards him. They liked his frank unaffected
manners, his vigorous untrained intelligence, and the unstudied vividness of his conversation. He knew something of every plan and every subject. If he had read
little, he had seen a great deal. At Seaborough Paul Massie seemed to pass for a rough Huron, and was only toierated. Here in London, by some odd process; he came to
be thought a man of great natural ability, force of character, and promise. Madame de Luca lost no opportunity
of praising him, and predicting great things for him.
"Why don't you have a foreign secretary who knows
something? " she asked of a distinguished member of parliament. "Your foreign secretary was never anywhere,
and knows nothing. His French, I have heard, is dread



MADAME DE LUCt  ADb HiER FRIENDS.        145
ful; and the Italian attaches make fun of his attempts to
say one or two words of their language. You should have
Mr. Massie; he has been everywhere, and knows everything."
There is no manner of acquirement which makes a
greater impression than intimate knowledge of foreign
countries and fluency in talking half-a-dozen languages.
Paul Massie was a most unskilled politician; and yet politicians talked much to him. Even the member of parliament we have mentioned, although much amused at the
idea of thus creating a foreign secretary by a sort of competitive examination in geography and languages, made
Paul's acquaintance, pronounced him a remarkable man, and
expressed his belief that our friend would get on in the
House, if he could only overcome'his semi-Yankee accent.
To Englishmen everything American is Yankee; or was, at
all events, until the Secession war corrected the error.
Thus Paul soon made many acquaintances, and even some
friends. He had come to London to find out a secret, and
to prepare for a final departure from England. The secret
was certainly not yet discovered; and the departure was
now scarcely thought of. What of the economy of living?
Paul's means were not large, and his prospects were hazy.
He ought to have been living very prudently, and accordingly he was not.
But the secret unfound was not unremembered. It
pressed upon his heart day and night. He liked company
all the more because it sometimes banished this ghost;
although when he entered a drawing-room he felt like an
impostor. Other thoughts and scruples, too, kept him
down. What with anxiety, doubt, and late hours; what
with vexation and with pleasure, he was looking thinner
now than when he arrived at Seaborough. Often he asked
himself why he stayed in England; why he desired to penetrate any further the mystery which hung over him; why
he did not go to America, or India, or anywhere, and take
up an active life and lose himself in it. But he still kept
7




146                  PAUL MASSIE.
vaguely on, living a life of idleness and pleasure in London;
and now he began rather to like it. The atmosphere of
Capua was telling fast upon him.
Did he ever think of Sarah? Many times; but at first
he strove to banish the thought. To what avail thinking
of her? Doubt, if not shame, seemed to hang about him;
and the removal of either from his life might but overwhelm somebody else. In any case, Sarah's fate was fixed.
Therefore he strove not to think too much of her at first;
and perhaps took to society the more eagerly, that he might
forget her. The deeper he plunged into society, the less
right he seemed to have to any memory of her whom he
had seen too early and too late. Meanwhile London life
is pleasant, and Paul has still friends; and Madame de
Luca is a fascinating woman, who makes little scruple of
conveying her predilections through her eyes. Therefore
Paul's unhappiness sometimnes seemed not very unlike
delight. He certainly was not quite broken-hearted; only
at times perplexed in the extreme.
Salome and her guest talked awhile apart. Meanwhile
such conversation as this went on through the room:
"Don't believe a word of it," said Mr. Wynter, M.P.,
in his full jovial voice, which seemed, as you heard it,
exactly to suit with his burly person. "I put it to Palmerston myself this way: you support Austria in Venetia
and Turkey  in  the  Herzegovina; what's the result?
You're playing into the hands of Russia. What's Couza?
An agent of Russia. I know the man who pays him his
salary."
" What's his name, Wynter? " asked a journalist, who
had not the most unlimited faith in the revelations of the
honorable member.
" Do you think I mean to tell you? Do I want to see
it in print in a leading article to-morrow morning?"
"But, my dear sir, you don't comprehend what Austria
is," small Dr. Fleiss, a waif of the Vienna insurrection'
urged upon a somewhat sceptical listener, whom he endeav



MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.           147
ored to hold by his glittering eye.  "You do not comprehend dese Hapsburgs. Dey know everyting dat goes on
all over de globe. Spies every place; yes, in dis very
room. My wort on it."
" My dear Fleiss, if one were to believe all he hears,
he might fancy that our friend yonder " (glancing towards
a distinguished Hungarian refugee) " is a spy of the Hapsburgs."
" How do you know dat he is not? I do not like him.
I have no fait in him. What was his proclamation at Pest?
Who wrote it? Whence came it?"
"You see," said Mr. Grove Grant, M. P., a rising man,
profound on foreign politics, somewhat pragmatic, and
rather dull as a speaker, "I put it in three ways. First,
as a question of secession; next, as a question of local and
popular right; thirdly, as a question of haute politique.
Now, on all these grounds, I contend that Denmark has no
case. I deny that she has any title whatever to Schleswig.
In 1524-"
"Its artistic value may not be very great," observed
Mr. Heywood Ford, a young dramatist; " but I do say,
that just as an acting piece it deserved better treatment.
I know all about the matter. I know that Fanny Trumper
had made up her mind from the very first that it shouldn't
go. She declared at the first rehearsal that she couldn't
see herself in the part, and Bobster is afraid to quarrel
with her, so he took it out of the bill. I am satisfied it
would have made a run, if it only got fair play."
" No, I can put faith in nothing where France is now,"
slowly spoke a grave man, with a sweet sad smile.  " I
love France; but now she is France bewitched-France
under a spell. I grant you the abilities of the man of
December. The Bonapartes never want for talent. But I
cannot believe in those whose vernacular is perjury." He
spoke in French, with an Italian accent.
"But he is sincere in his pledge to the principle of
nationalities," earnestly urged a tall dashing soldier of for



148                  PAUL MASSIE,
tune, an Italianized  Hungarian, half-political intriguer,
half-military adventurer.  "It is not his fault if England
suspects him and thwarts him, and whispers in the ear
of Austria.  England is the stop-gap-the obstruction.
Palmerston rules England, and Lady Palmerston rules him."
"Who's coming in for Seaborough, Wynter? " asked a
member of parliament of his brother senator.
"Don't know, I'm sure. Somebody with more money
than brains, I should think."
"Somebody with more brains than money, I should
think. Men with money are getting sick of parliament.
What does it do for them? "
"Men with brains ought to be getting sick of parliament," struck in a pale, youngish man, with long hair, and
an unmistakable aspect of Radical Dissenter about him.
"Men with brains and hearts ought to be sick of it. It is
empty, frivolous, good-for-nothing-a mere talking club."
"Staines is tired of parliament since they counted him
out on the Circassian question," laughed jovial Wynter,
who never was counted out, because his parliamentary eloquence never carried him beyond a question to the Foreign
Secretary.
"Here is General Lefevre," Salome suddenly said,
breaking off the conversation which she had just been
carrying on with Paul under four eyes. " I wish you to
see him particularly, as he knows Mexico, and is deeply
interested in it-and I think in vou as well."
General Lefevre was a white-haired old Frenchman,
subdued and rather melancholy of voice, but energetic of
gesture. He carried perpetually on his mind the wrongs
of at least two generations of Frenchmen; and it seemed
to have been his perpetual misfortune to have to lend his
courage and his considerable talents to some government
or people at odds with French rulers. He became a voluntary exile when Charles the Tenth was king; he returned
jubilant after the Three Days of July, to retire in disgust
before a twelvemouth; he hailed Lamartine and Ledru




MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.          149
Rollin in 1848, and intrigued for Cavaignac soon after, and
exulted over the return of the Napoleonic Empire, and
plotting immediately against said Empire narrowly escaped
Cayenne. He had been in Mexico several times, and in
Poland and in Hungary, and always quarrelled with the
leaders of a revolution when things looked most prosperous, and so quitted the field in anger. IHe was a brave,
honorable, punctilious French gentleman, much given to
snuff-taking and political eccentricities.
Salome captured General Lefevre.
"This is Mr. Massie, general," she said, "and I wish
you to know him, if indeed you have not already met him,
as you seemed to believe."
"Much honored to be presented to you, Mr. Massie,"
said the general, who spoke English admirably. "No, I
have not had the honor of meeting Mr. Massie before. I
have met in Mexico Captain Paul Massie, but it is twenty
years since we last met. We were friends very intimate,
and I esteemed him much. Indeed we bore arms together.
You are perhaps, a relative?"
" It must have been my father," said Paul. "I-le too
was Paul Massie. Unfortunately I do not remember him;
he died almost immediately after I was born."
"Ah, then, it is not he. The Captain Massie of whom
I speak lives as yet; at least he did live some five or six
years ago, for I had news of him, not direct; and I think
I should have heard if he had died, unless very lately. Besides, he was not like you-not in the least; he was fairhaired and bright-skinned-indeed a true Englishman;
while you, Mr. Massie, pardon-you look not like a son of
Albion."
"Strange, though, the coincidence of name," said Paul.
"Was it at Vera Cruz you met the Captain Massie of
whom you speak, general?"
"At Vera Cruz, yes; but also at the capital, and at
Matamoras and Puebla, and many other places. We trav



150                  PAUL MASSTE.
elled some time together. He told me he was married;
but not of any child."
Salome suddenly' struck in and changed the conversation. Not that she felt no interest in it; on the contrary,
she had followed every word of it. Gradually other talkers
came up, and she drew herself away from Lefevre and
Paul.  These latter conversed long upon subjects connected with the French campaign in Mexico, and the foundation of the new Empire.
The rooms were beginning to thin, when Salome found
an opportunity of exchanging a quiet word with General
Lefevre.
"I must exact a pledge from you, general," she said.
"No plottings, mind, in which my impressionable young
friend is to be engaged. I know your powers of persuasion and your genius for enterprise; and my friend is cast
in your own mould. But I don't want him to throw himself away in any enterprises anywhere.  Vive Maximilian
or d bas Maximilian, or anything or anybody else you
like; but I make it a special request that you will plan no
enterprise with Paul Massie."
" Madame, rest assured of me. Your wish should be a
law to me, even were I preparing any enterprise. Alas, I am
not. My days of enterprise are gone. He is a brave and gallant young man, and I am glad to know him. But that is all."
" I feel much interested, general, in the few words you
spoke about his namesake-about the other Paul Massie.
You would, perhaps, gratify my curiosity a little-some
day when you have time?"
"Any day, my dear madame-any hour you please.
Now, if you will-it is not much to tell."
" No, not now, thank you very much. But you will
visit me some day-perhaps to-morrow?"
"To-morrow, with my whole heart. It will give me
the extremest pleasure to be permitted."
"To-morrow then and many thanks. I shall be at
home, and alone, all the afternoon."




MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.           151
She smiled her sweetest smile upon the general, who
bowed after a fashion that savored more of the Faubourg
St. Germain than of republican manners.
"May I see you to-morrow? " said Paul Massie a few
minutes after, as he took leave of his hostess. He spoke
in a soft deep tone-not meant for many ears.
"No, not to-morrow," she replied, in tones equally
attuned.  "To-morrow I must give to business-to a sort
of business; and I cannot waste friendly hours by mixing
them up with details and dulness. Nay, don't look disappointed-the worst of the loss is mine. Good-night."
" Come with me, Massie," said Wynter.  " My cab is
at the door. We will call at the House, if you don't
mind; and then —
"House is up, Wynter," observed a legislator, who
was lighting a cigar as he stood on the door-step preparing to depart. " It's been up this hour back."
"All the better," said Wynter. "Then we'll go to the
club at once."
Paul rather listlessly entered Wynter's cab, and the
pair drove away. Wynter talked, and Paul smoked.
It was late when Massie reached his own lodgings, in
one of the streets running off Piccadilly. He was weary
and rather out of spirits. He had been drinking wine
pretty freely all the night: it had flushed his cheeks a little,
but sent no excitement to heart or head. In the house
where he lodged, people rarely came home early; and
there was a common understanding that he who on entering found but one candle on the hall-table, should consider himself as last in, and lock the door accordingly. In
the house there lived, besides Paul, two members of parliament for country boroughs, one man about town, one gorgeously-dressed Jewish gentleman, who was interested in
races, and the dramatic critic of a morning paper, who wrote
original comedies from the French. The members of parliament came home generally as soon as the House got up,
the time whereof varied from half-past eight to half-past




152                  PAUL MASSIE.
three. The Jewish gentleman's hours were unknown to
anybody. This time Paul Massie was last of all.
He lighted his gas, sat down in an easy chair, and tried
to think.
"What is to be the end of all this?  vaguely ran the
current of his thoughts. "Am I to waste away here until
I become a beggar as well as an outcast? England is likely
to prove my destruction. I have lost all happiness, and
now excitement gives me no pleasure, scarcely any relief.
I am rusting away. I am  in debt and difficulty. I am
living fast and hard. I am not one step nearer than ever
to the discovery of my secret-my grand secret. Curse on
the day when a thought of it ever crossed my mind! I
might have been happy if I had never come here, and never
filled my thoughts with such folly. Home and relatives!
This is my home "-and he glanced bitterly round the dull
room-" these are the kindly reminders from my relatives! "
There was a little pile of letters lying on the table"'Paul Massie, Esq.," on each of them.  "Paul Massie
Esq.," he thought, "ought to have friends enough, if letters received were testimonials of friendship.  Here is a
pretty crop for one day."
He shuffled the letters through his hands like a pack of
cards. The purport of nearly all of them could be read on
their envelopes.  The wine-merchant, the livery-stablekeeper, the hotel-keeper, the tobacconist, the tailor, the
bootmaker, the jeweller,-these and all the rest of the
fiiendly little appeals familiar to the youth of London.
It must be owned, however, that Paul Massie in debt to
a tailor was something new. But in debt to a jeweller!
Who wore the jewels?
Lying on the table, not mixed with the rest, was a
pretty pink envelope, addressed in a woman's handwriting.
The letter it had contained was now in Paul's pocket. He
had received it that morning. It held a dainty little scroll
from Salome. It was only a note asking why he had not
come last night-would  le come to-night, etc., etc. As




MADAME DE LUCA AND HER FRIENDS.          153
Paul's eyes fell upon the little envelope,, his face, to use an
Americanism, "kind of" quivered. " She is not a relative,"
he thought, " and therefore she is kind to me. I wonder,
if she knew how near I am to being utterly hard up, would
she cease to trouble herself about me? No, by Heaven"
(it may be that he even swore a deeper oath), "I don't
think she would! "
In truth, Paul Massie seemed almost hopelessly swallowed by Capua. He had fallen at once, when he entered
London, into a kind of life which admirably suited people
who had plenty of money, or people who not having it
could live without extravagance. It suited Wynter, who
had means almost unlimited, and who could not get into
what is called good society, and therefore was in point of
wealth a British Triton among the home and foreign minnows with whom he loved to associate. It also suited
General Lefevre, whose source of income lay chiefly in
teaching languages, and occasionally translating for newspapers, and writing articles, and indeed romances, for foreign journals published in London, which paid about four
francs a page for first-class contributions. But it did not
suit Paul Massie, who could live with the poor on next to
nothing, but when mingling with the rich was fain to spend
as they did. He had lived, as we have already heard, in
Bohemia, the genuine and only Bohemia of MArger and the
Latin Quarter (all gone long since, destroyed by time and
change, and common sense, and the Empire, and Baron
Haussman); and he had dined for twelve sous and been
happy like his neighbors. But then he had no money, and
none of those around him had any; and MIrirger once
christened a student "The Capitalist," because he had
been seen to change a louis d'or; and through all that
student's shifts and struggles thenceforward he remained,
as it were, crowned with the splendid title acquired on the
one bright day. But now in London Paul had some money
-just enough to make a thoughtless man try to spend
three times as much; and those with whom he consorted
7*




154                  PAUL MASSIE.
were not poor, or if they were, had no pride in their poverty. Poverty was not the badge of that Bohemian tribe
which Massie found himself almost unconsciously joining
in London. Country houses, opera-boxes, and seats in the
House of Commons, were the pleasant possessions of some
at least of that joyous band. Paul Massie, who had lived
in New York and in San Francisco, found that, despite
their reputation, these were not the places on earth where
money might most easily be spent. Therefore he was sinking into debt and approaching difficulty. But though a
generous, thriftless, often thoughtless man, he hated debts,
duns, and all the meannesses they bring; and his mind
began to be filled with pain and shame as he saw such enemies thickening and darkening round him. Ile resolved
that he would not endure it longer, at least not much
longer.
"I will give up this kind of life," he said; and he smote
his hand upon the table. "I will leave London. I will
see her, and tell her so to-morrow. To-morrow? No. I
am not to see her to-morrow. Well, then, the day after
to-morrow."' I will do the deed to-day," means something; "I will
do it to-morrow," may perchance come to something; but
what of the purpose which has to be postponed until the
day after to-morrow?




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA'S FRIENDS. 
CHAPTER XIII.
MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA'S FRIENDS.
G  ENERAL LEFEVRE, madame," said Salome's maid.
a~ ^' Show the general in."
Salome had been sitting alone, writing letters. She
sat at a stout substantial writing-desk of heavy walnut;
not like the kind of pretty toy on which ladies love to
scribble tiny perfumed notes. She was writing rapidly but
equably; making the most of her time, but not at all in
a hurry: punctuating regularly, underlining nothing; writing, indeed, except for the feminine character, more in the
style of a secretary than as a woman usually writes. She
sat in a handsome ground-floor room, the one large window of which looked on a garden not much exceeding in size
the mainsail of a yacht, but exquisitely kept, glowing with
many flowers, and gleaming with the sparkling spray of a
tiny fountain. The room was elegantly furnished, but not
with any appearance of costliness. It had a few pictures,
most of them the gift of the artists themselves; and it had
a marble Venus, nearly life-size, emerging from  a shell
Over the chimney-piece hung a sword. Its blade was
stained in many places; its edge was dinted. It had
stricken at Solferino and San Martino. It was the sword
of the dead husband-of the Venetian youth who had loved
Salome so well, who had lifted her from poverty, endowed
her with his heart and his fortune, and died in time to become
idealized in her memory. She had not loved him with her
whole soul while he lived; but his early death transfigured
him in her remembrance, and he became as a hero and
a saint.
General Lefevre came in, and was cordially received.
We may pass over the introductory portions of the conversation, and come to that which chiefly interested Salome.




156?PaAUL MASSIE.
"I felt very anxious, my dear general," she said, " to
learn from you a little more about the Captain Massie
whose name you mentioned last night. I have a deep
interest in knowing something about him, and, if possible,
his family. Mr. Paul Massie, whom  you met last night,
is the nephew of a lady with whom I once lived on terms
of intimacy; and I believe-I am confident I heard that
her husband had a missing relative-a cousin, or something —who was supposed to have gone to Mexico or South
America. My impression was rather that South America
was the place, but I may have been mistaken. I should be
so delighted if I could become the means of discovering
his whereabouts."
"My dear madame, all I know is totally at your service.
It was twenty years ago I knew Captain Paul  Massie. He
followed for a time the fortunes of Santa Anna-so did I.
He was drawn perhaps to that daring personage, as I was,
by certain elective affinities-is not that the phrase?-of
character.  We stood by Santa Anna until-in 1846, was
it not?-the flag of the stars and stripes floated in the
capital where now, I shame to say as a Frenchman, the
tricolor of France is flying. When things were coming to
that, it was sauve qui peut. I got back to Europe-my
friend said he would lose himself in the American backwoods. I do not know if he then did; but I know he got
safe away. Never have I seen him since."
"But his character, his habits, his family, his early
life? " Salome was a little impatient of the purely historical part of the narrative, although it was a vigorous condensation, as coming from General Lefevre.
"His character? He was brave, and, to me, friendly
and loyal."
"Yes, no doubt; but-"
"I believe he had had a stormy youth. We interchanged
no particular confidences, but so much I could learn. We
talked not much of our past. Soldiers of fortune and
exiles, madame, love not always to revive the past. But I




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA S FRIENDS.          157
did assuredly understand that he had had a stormy youth,
and that he was somewhat of an outcast-not politicalno, no; your happy England has not political exiles —but
social."
"Did he ever speak of his family?"
"Lightly-scornfully-with  cynicism, I think. No
doubt he had his faults of youth, and his parents, his
family, were strict, and could not make allowance. It is
the common story, madame. I preferred no inquiries.
Allusions he sometimes made, but particulars he gave not
many; or, if he did, I do not remember."
"But you said he told you he was married?"
"Yes; that I can recall quite with certainty. But I
think he had left his wife, or she had left him. He spoke
of her with bitterness. Indeed, he spoke of the sex with
much of scorn and anger. Pardon; I may have wronged
a lady whom I had never the honor to see. But I assumed
that his marriage had been unfortunate, and perhaps his
wife had been-had been-that is, not wise."  The old
Frenchman gave a Frederick-Lemaitre sort of shrug to his
shoulders.
"You never heard him talk of a child-of a son?"
"Assuredly never."
"Yet people who have children from whom they are
separated generally do talk of them."
"Truly yes. I doubt not I talked to my friend Massie
often then of my brave son who is since dead. He never
spoke to me of any child."
"You heard from him not long since, general, I think
you said?"
"Of him, rather than fiomn him. At least the person
who came to me professed to come spontaneously, and not
fiom him."
" With a request on his behalf?"
" Madame, you divine with your usual rapidity. Yes,
a request, which I grieve to say I was not able to concede."




158                  PAUL MASSIE.
"In short, it was a request for money?"
"It was indeed an application for some small loan, for
a passage to Europe. Parbleu, it was what your people
call coming to the house of the goat to seek for wool; I
was looking out anxiously for the means of a passage to
Europe myself."
"Was it in Mexico, then, that you received this application?"
"No, in New Orleans."
"And he was then there?"
"Doubtless he was there, although the personage who
came to me did not say so."
"The gentleman who came to you was a friend of his?"
"The-yes, the personage who came to me professed to
be of his intimate friends."
Salome understood at a glance the meaning of the general's slight embarrassment when he referred to this mysterious messenger. She said quietly,
"In fact, general, the messenger was a woman?"
The general smiled. "The same quickness as ever," he
said. "Yes, the emissary was of the fair sex."
" Another request now. Can you find out for me with
certainty-with complete, undoubted certainty-whether
this man is living now, and where?  Or, if he is dead,
where he died-and when, and how? Something, in short,
distinct and definite about him? "
"I think so. Yes, surely, I may venture to promise
that. Unless he had some motive for withdrawing himself
from the face of civilization, I can discover something of
his fate."
"Within what time?"
" Within, say, six months from this, you shall know all
that I can learn."
"Six months!-a long time."
"Pardon, the ocean rolls between; and both Mexico
and the States are now alike perturbed."
"6It is true, general; but you know what is woman's




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA'S FRIENDS.         159
impatience. Six months then; we can wait. Yet another
question. Do you know the handwriting of this Captain
Massie? "
"I did know it; but many years have passed since I
saw anything written by his hand; nearly twenty years.
If his character of writing had not much changed, I could
assuredly recognize it; but much depends-"
"Do you think that was written by him?"
Salome had been searching in her desk while the careful Frenchman was endeavoring to define his capacity as
an expert in handwriting. She found there a paper carefully made up in a package tied and sealed. The paper
which she took out was soiled and creased. She folded it
so as to present to the general only a few of its lines, and
she looked on with eyes of keen anxiety.
He adjusted carefully his double eye-glass, and inspected
the document with precision.
"I feel convinced that that is his handwriting. Its
general character-its soul, you comprehend-is exactly
that which I remember in the letters of my friend. Something of change there undoubtedly is; but the tone, the
character is his."
Salome drew a quick breath. IHer eyes lighted with
triumph.
" I thank you very much, general. Your information
will, I trust, prove most valuable, and I am greatly indebted
to you for it." (The general made vivacious gestures of
earnest deprecation.) " I need not ask you to regard this
conversation of ours and its subject as entirely a secret?"
"Madame, you may rely with absolute confidence that
the interest you have been gracious enough to show in the
history of my former friend shall never be made the theme
of one sole remark."
"Thank you again. It is not indeed for any purpose
of my own that I wish the matter to be kept a secret. But
for the sake of his family I could wish to discover something of one long lost; and I would not excite hopes which




160                  PAUL MASSIE.
may only prove illusions. And now tell me your latest
political news. How are the chances of empire in Mexico? 
After the general had left, there came what might have
been for Salome an interval of quiet and repose.  She
always kept an hour clear-from  two to three —for the
business of the toilet, she said. But she did not often
trouble her waiting-maid during that interval; she generally read or wrote. She was absolutely never under the
care of Madame Rachel. Her waiting-woman acknowledged that her mistress had literally no secrets of make-up.
"She bears her years well," said this young person to
the cook on one occasion.  "She'don't need to make-up
at all. I do declare-only it would be very improper, of
course-she might dress before a whole room full of company, and they couldn't find out a pin's-worth false about
her. Look at her hair. Isn't it wonderful? I do assure
you she never curls it. I've known her to dress for a ball
iw ten minutes, and reading letters half the time."
Therefore Madame de Luca did not set about dressing
herself after her visitors had gone. She rang her bell, and
her waiting-woman came.
"Did the man who has been looking for the place
come?"
"Yes, ma'am, he's below now."
"Send him up."
Presently there was. introduced-into the room, of which
Madame de Luca was not the least attractive ornament, a
shabbily-dressed, hulking, shambling, not ill:looking young
man. He had been in that room before, and if awkward
now, was not so because of any embarrassment caused by
the richness of any of the objects around him. He looked
carelessly at the elegant furniture, the beautiful curtains,
the flower-vases, the marble Venus in her shell, and turned
his hat round, and round. Then he made an awkward sort
of shambling bow, and looked not in the least abashed at
the lady. There was something unpleasant about his look.
Indeed his glance was never very fascinating, but there was




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA'S FRIENDS.          161
something peculiarly disagreeable about it as he looked at
Madame de Luca. She was perfectly composed, and did
not appear to care in the least about his looks or demeanor.
"This is the man, ma'am," said the maid.
", this is the man; very well.-You say you can
keep a garden?"
Surely this was only spoken for the benefit of the retiring woman. Anybody less like a lady's gardener could not
easily have been seen. The maid was gone.
"I must say," said Madame de Luca, "that if you call
yourself a gardener, you ought to try to look more like one.
To me you seem more like a ticket-of-leave man."
"It wasn't I," grumbled the man, "who said I was a
gardener. It was you-your-" he stammered, uncertain
whether he ought not to say "your ladyship," and at
the same time, perhaps, reluctant to yield too much to
politeness.
" 0, it was I who converted you into a gardener, was
it? A great mistake on my part. I hadn't looked at you
very clearly. Well, now that I look at you again, I am
afraid you will never do for the gardener's place. Besides,
I have heard that the lady has engaged some one else. No,
I can do nothing for you. I think you had better go back
to the country."
Her uncouth visitor gasped at this, and looked as if
perfectly bewildered.
"Don't you understand me?" she said.  "You had
really better go back; London is not the place for you."
" Well," he growled, "if this doesn't beat all! What's
the humor of this? I don't want to be a gardener, and I
never did. I don't want to go back to the country-and
-and  "
"And in fact you can't go back," she quietly remarked.
"Maybe I can't," he said, "and maybe there's others
that can't go back any more than I. Anyhow, I won't go
back."
"Well," replied the lady, with the utmost composlre,




162                 PAUL MASSIE.
"I do not, of course, pretend to regulate your movements;
you are quite as free of London as I am. I only advise
you. London does not seem to me the place for you. But
you can go or stay, as you like; only I do not think it
would be well for you to waste your time by coming here
any more. You are not fit for the duties you offered to
discharge. Good morning."
She put her hand upon the bell-handle.
The man looked, and even murmured, as if a terrible
oath would greatly relieve him. But the immovable composure of the lady was too much for him.
" Am I to go this way? " he gruffly asked.
"This way, or any way you please. I do not require to
detain you any longer."
"And what's this for?  What's the meaning of all
this? What am  I to be turned away for? Am I to
starve? Haven't I done all I said I would?"
" You have done nothing for me that I know of, except
to hang about my steps and look like a burglar."
He interjected a sort of grunt-it might be anger, it
might be mere deprecation.
"You said you could tell me a grand secret about a
gentleman in whom I have some interest-a secret which
it would serve him to know-and you can tell me nothing
at all."
"Nothing!" he grumbled. "Do you call that nothing,
ma'am? Haven't I told you about the letter? Haven't I
told you how I came by it? Haven't I told you what I
suspected? Haven't I told you that I could find the whole
thing out for you, or for him, if he liked?"
"Yes," said Madame de Luca; " but you never told me
who gave you all this information. You told me you found
it all out yourself. Now I happen to know that you did
not. I know who told you the whole story; and that you
know no more about the matter yourself than I do. Therefore if you can find out nothing better than this, your story
is no use to me, or to anybody else. I think the whole




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA'S FRIENDS.        163
tale is some trumped-up invention. Where is the girl who
made up all this tale? Where is Alice Crossley?"
" I don't know," he said in sullen tone.
"So I thought."
" I've tried to find her out on my own account, and
can't."
"Is there such a person at all? or have you only
invented her?"
" Ask him if there isn't; ask him if he didn't know her?
Perhaps he can tell you where she is now."
"If he could, we should hardly want your services.
That will do; you can go now. Come back to me this
day week. Stay-let me see; this is Wednesday. No;
come back here next Tuesday, if you have anything to tell
me; and if not, don't trouble yourself to come back any
more. Here, you may take that in the meantime, and keep
yourself sober if you can."
She took out a tiny purse, and put some money on the
table. He took it up, clawing it into a shaking hand,
and looking anything but grateful.
Then Madame de Luca moved as if to ring the bell.
Apparently recollecting something suddenly, she checked
herself, and said, " 0, stay; I had almost forgotten. You
say you have a ring that was given you by the person who
gave you the letter. Where is the ring? "
" The ring, ma'am? Yes; I have the ring, or I had it
awhile ago; but-"
"But you have not got it now? I quite expected as
much. You talked of having a letter. I ask you for it,
and it appears you have not got it. You tell me of a ring;
I ask you where that is, and I receive the same answer —
you have not got it."
She shrugged her shoulders, and again turned towards
the bell.
"But listen, ma'am. I always told you Ally Crossley
had the letter. I gave it to her, like a fool as I was, and
now I can't find her. I've sought for her high and low-"




164                  PAUL MASSIE.
Yes, yes; you said all that before."
" But I have the ring. I'm-I'm blessed if I haven't-"
Why, you said just now you had not."
"Well, ma'am; but let me explain. I can get it. I
can put my hand upon it. I only lent it. I got money on
it. You see I was knocking about London without a friend
or a home, and I must starve if I didn't get money somehow, so I pawned the ring. Look here, ma'am."
He had been fumbling in his pocket, and he now drew
out a dirty scrap of paper, which he unfolded, and which
showed some lines of print, with names, dates, and other
words written in.
What is that filthy scrap of paper?" asked the lady,
eyeing it with very unfavorable glance.
He scowled. "It's a pawn-ticket, ma'am-a ticket for
the ring. If you take that to the place an' pay the money
marked down there, they'll hand you the ring."
" O, if I go to the place and pay the money, they'll
hand me the ring, will they? It must be a nice place, I
should think? Do the police know anything about it?"
fMadame s'amuse. Salome was rather enjoying the embarrassment and suppressed anger of her visitor.
"And that's a pawn-ticket, you tell me? What a
dirty-looking thing! "
There was a time when Salome, then a little girl prematurely sharpened by the world, knew  something of
pawn-tickets. Nor would she have shrunk from owning
the fact now, but it suited her to treat her present visitor
with ostentatious contempt. She was keen-eyed enough
to see that his was one of those natures which can only be
kept in check by those who show that they despise them.
Doubtless, too, she rather enjoyed the little excitement of
the encounter.
" Well," she said, after a moment's pause, " this trinket
can be of no earthly use to you. You don't, I suppose,
intend to wear it? You know best yourself how you came
by it; and perhaps you don't want to explain that little




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCOA'S FRIENDS.         165
matter to the police. You are in need of money. If you
sell me this thing, I will give you some money —not much,
mind-for it. If not, you can go."
He was only too glad of the offer.
"One word," he said, "is as good as twenty; take it
for a fiver. That won't break you; and I won't take no
less."
She opened her purse, and took out a bank-note.
"No, no," he said, "not paper; gold's the thing for
me."
She went to her desk and took out five sovereigns, which
she laid on the table. He clutched them. She allowed
the dirty pawn-ticket to remain where he had laid it.
"Now," he growled, "that's done for. The ring's
gone. Once I meant not to sell it, but to give it-to her."
Salome looked up at him with, for the first time, a sort
of pitying interest.
" To the girl Alice? "' she asked.
"Yes, ma'am; I was fond of her, and she made a fool
of me, and laughed at me, and cast me off; and now I'm
growing to be a devil.  But it don't matter; and you
don't care about such nonsense."
"Half the world," said she, "plays at cross-purposes
in the same way. Why should you expect to escape?
But I am sorry for you, in good truth. Forget her, if you
can. "
I can't," he said; "but if I only find her, I'll take
care that if I don't have her nobody else shall. Thankee,
ma'am; I am obliged to you for being civil."
There was a singularly sinister expression about his
face as he spoke of Alice. Salome showed no more inclination to amuse herself with him. She rose from her seat
to mark decisively that the interview was over. She rang
the bell, and her disagreeable visitor was shown out. The
lady immediately opened all the windows, and scattered
the contents of a scent-bottle over the room.
The visitor shambled down the steps and out into the




166                  PAUL MASSIE.
street. He shambled in an edgewise sort of fashion along
Connaught-place and past the Marble Arch and the Edgeware-road, and down Oxford-street. He was, as has been
already mentioned, a young man-some eight-and-twenty
perhaps-tall, strongly built, not ill-looking, but very unpleasant of aspect, with light eyebrows, and sandy hair
short behind and leaving the broad thick back of his neck
disagreeably displayed. He had rounded shoulders, long
swinging arms, and the often-mentioned shambling gait.
There was an expression which might be either habitual
sullenness or habitual sottishness about his face. He was
not a sailor, he was not a stable-man, he was not a regular
London ticket-of-leave man, he was not a costermonger.
He seemed a blending of some of the external peculiarities
of each and all. He rolled in his gait a little, like a sailor;
the back of his head suggested ticket-of-leave; his arms and
shoulders reminded of the stable; his ankle-jacks were
peculiarly costermongerish. Taken altogether, he was the
sort of man who is generally found lounging about the
door of a gin-palace, a betting-house, or a police-office.
Perhaps it is hardly necessary to say that his name was
James Halliday, and that he came from Seaborough. He
shambled down Oxford-street, glancing into the open bars
of- many public-houses as he passed. Whenever he met a
policeman, the guardian of society invariably turned right
round, and looked keenly after our Seaborough friend. In
more than one instance the policeman followed him some
little distance down the street. But while Halliday was
shouldering his way among a little crowd of ladies, or
peeping over somebody's shoulder into a shop-window, the
policeman never troubled himself to watch his movements.
Whatever unflattering suspicions official misconstruction
might attach to this young man from the country, he was
evidently deemed incapable of picking a pocket. Those
brawny, knuckly hands were obviously guiltless of any
fumbling among the silken skirts of the fair sex.
Halliday had in his hand when he left Madame de




MORE OF MADAME DE LUCA S FRIENDS.        167
Luca's several pieces of gold. IHe sniffed at them rather
contemptuously. Then, with the memory of his sea-side
ways on him, he untied the knot of his neckerchief and
made them  carefully up in it, except for one small gold
coin, which he carried sometimes in his hand and sometimes in his mouth, until he reached a public-house.
There he changed it; had a pretty. long draught of Scotch
whiskey, very mildly diluted with water, and went on.
Midway down Oxford-street, he stepped aside and had
another draught. Then he began to talk and grumble to
himself.
" What the devil good's these few shiners to me?" was
the burden of his complaint. " That  - woman was only
making a fool of me. I ought to have got more out of her.
If I could only find that girl, I'd make her pay for all this
-I'd make her pay. If she's above ground, I'll get hold
of her some time; and then if she doesn't come with me and
share with me, and help me to get paid for all this, and
keep me comfortable-I'll be hanged for her, that's all."
He did not deliver himself of all these sentiments, as
they have been here put forth, in the fashion of a confidential speech addressed to himself. IHe jerked them out in
broken incoherent fragments of sentences,-sometimes
between the teeth, which held now a shilling, and now a
black short pipe; he sometimes turned them over with the
quid which he chewed, or spat them out on the pavement
with the tobacco-juice. He grumbled them out into the
whiskey-noggin which he raised to his moist shining lips
at many a public-house counter; he mumbled them as he
rolled up the tobacco in the hollow of his hand to make a
fresh pipeful; he edged them out sideways as he lighted his
pipe; he delivered them word by word as he counted over,
sixpence by sixpence and penny by penny, the change he
received. As he looked over people's shoulders into picture-shops, they heard him disagreeably muttering something, and presently got away from his immediate vicinity.
He did not exchange any civilities with the landlords of




168                  PAUL MASSIE.
the many public-houses he visited, nor chaff with fat landladies, nor call any of the barmaids "Polly," and attempt
to chuck them under the chin. He stopped everywhere,
and on any pretext. He looked on at a Punch performance for a few minutes, and seemed highly to relish Punch's
treatment of his wife, and to enjoy the subsequent hanging process. He looked into a phrenologist's window, and
stared with deep interest, and with a sort of sympathizing
approbation, at the plaster heads of various worthies, such
as Greenacre, Rush, and Manning. Seeing a group of persons at another shop-front, he elbowed his way in; but
observing that the attraction was only a Parian Greek
Slave, or Venus, or something of the kind, he turned away
with a contemptuous shrug, and grumbled words about it
being "only a woman."  In this slow and desultory way
he got somehow down the whole length of Oxford-street.
Arrived at Holborn, he shambled up a street to the right,
and then took a turn to the left. He reached a publichouse, whose very panes of glass seemed somehow to suggest incipient burglary and systematic dog-fighting. Evidently he was known here. He entered with a sort of
grumbling demi-salutation to the woman behind the counter, and one or two nods and growls to some of a little
group who were drinking in the bar. Then he made his
way into a kind of a tap-room, flung himself on a seat,
stretched out his head and arms over a little table that
stood close beside, grunted again, and presently fell fast
asleep.




THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.            169
CHAPTER XIV.
THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.
FTHERE is a story told, somewhere or other, of a man
who was persecuted by the affection of a goose, which
persisted in following him wherever he went, making him
ridiculous in the eyes of his friends and occasionally even
tripping him up on the public way by its misplaced and
awkward demonstrations of regard. The story went on to
say that the persecuted man, driven to fury, attempted at
last to kill his inconvenient admirer, probably with the
view of eating him likewise; but the effort failed; the
goose survived, and by renewed and increased exhibitions
of love so completely conquered the regard of its idol, that
the man at last consented to be followed and adored by
the tender-hearted bird to the close of its days. Something of the same kind is told of one who had a seal for
his worshipper; and, indeed, La Fontaine has a nouvelle
which may be said to rest on quite a similar foundation,
except that the patient and long misprized worshipper is a
woman, and not a goose or a phoca. In these stories,
however, and the many others which doubtless point the
same moral, the ungracious hero is always fully aware of
the homage he excites, it is ostentatiously and painfully
pressed upon his attention, he cannot possibly evade it,
and he must make up his mind either to repulse it as
roughly as St. Kevin flings off the young woman in the
Irish legend, or accept it graciously and make the best of
it. Perhaps it was fortunate for Paul lassie that if he
was followed during one passage of his life by an admiration equally full and futile, he at least did not know anything about its source, even when it most impeded and
embarrassed him. Certainly he was not wholly without
hints that some good-natured personage was kindly watch8




170                  PAUL MASSIE.
ing over his fortunes, and taking an interest in him. Sometimes, on returning to his lodgings at night, he found little
anonymous letters awaiting him; now conveying a warning of some rather undefined danger, now urging him not
to neglect the recovery of "his rights," and more than
once asking him pertinently if he really knew who he was.
At first these missives did actually interest our hero. He
was puzzled by them  almost as much as Antipholus of
Syracuse when he found citizens of Ephesus, whom he had
never seen before, lavishing chains of gold and other such
gifts upon him. Perhaps for a short time he even fancied
that the hints and warnings came from  his new friend
Salome; for they were obviously in a woman's hand, and
of woman's concoction, as indeed three-fourths of the anonymous letters forwarded through the British Post-office
generally are..No man who has the slightest claim whatever to be considered a public character, no man who ever
wrote a book, or delivered a speech, or figured in some
remarkable case in a court of law, or edited a newspaper,
but has received sheaves of such documents. No such
person of course is surprised, at least after the first letter
or two; he accepts the fact that there really are persons
upon earth who have so active an interest in other people's
affairs as to sit down, unsolicited, and even unrecognized,
and address to them  long letters of commendation, or
appeal, or remonstrance, or denunciation, to which, in the
nature of things, no answer is expected. But Paul Massie
was not before the public in any way, and was only known
at -all to a very few people, comparatively speaking, in
England. It is not wonderful, therefore, if he was a little
surprised at first that anybody should take the trouble to
write letters to him which bore no signature, and were not
to be answered; and perhaps it was natural enough that,
seeing they undoubtedly came from a woman, he should at
first associate them with the only woman in London who
appeared to take any interest in him. But he very soon
gave up the idea. There could be no earthly motive for




THE HEART OF HTS MYSTERY.            171
Salome's taking such a roundabout and mysterious way of
communicating with one whom she was in the habit of
meeting face to face several times a week; and when once
or twice he ventured upon a slight hint or leading question tending towards the authorship of the letters, he
was met by such an expression of obviously genuine unconsciousness that he abandoned the notion altogether,
and felt a little ashamed of having even half entertained it.
Paul was not much of a scholar or a literary man; nor
had he been in the habit of reading the London Journal.
The style, therefore, of the letters did not convey to him
any suggestion as to the education and class of the writer.
Perhaps he thought them at first rather fine than otherwise.
For example, one letter would run thus:
"Time is passing away, and you still take no heed of
the advice of one who can serve you, and is resolved that
you shall not be wronged. You have rights, and you
do not claim  them; you have friends, and you do not
know them; you have enemies, and you do not avoid them.
Find out who you are; you have but to ask, and the truth
will all appear. I am near you when you least suppose
it. We have met, and you know me not."
Or again:
"Last night we met. You saw me, but knew not. I
would have warned you of danger, but could not. Do not
seek to know me. When the hour comes, I will appear."
And much more of the same sort, which at last Paul
grew to regard with slender interest, seeing that nothing came of it.  The one consideration, however, connected with this nonsense, which did really give him any
concern was, that it was quite evident somebody was,
or believed herself to be, in possession of some knowledge
about him and his family which could not be made known
without disturbance or scandal of some kind.
Now it has already been shown that Paul was long convinced of the existence of some uncomfortable secret con



172                  PAUL MASSIE.
nected with his own relationship to the Seaborough family.
But he shrank instinctively from investigating it. His
strong manly common sense, untinctured by unhealthy elements of any kind, rejected at once the notion which his
anonymous correspondent was evidently trying to force
upon him, that some sort of wrong was being done him
with regard to the property of his family. The idea of a
fraud of any kind being carried on by such people as the
Massies, in regard to an inheritance the whole adjustment
of which could be ascertained by half an hour's visit to
Doctors' Commons, seemed too absurd to be entertained
by him. Indeed, the conventionally romantic and worn-out
nature of any such mystery and conspiracy would of itself
have made Paul reject it as utterly unsuited to real and
practical life. But he did not doubt that there was some
painful story or other mixed up with the family history in
relation to his father and his own early years. Many
slight indications and circumstances had of late led him to
believe that his father, whom he had since boyhood supposed to be dead, must have been living up to a very
recent period at least. That fact alone prepared him to
accept the conclusion, that there was something strange
and painful to be learned which he should probably one
day have to hear, and of which, meantime, he shrank sensitively from anticipating or hastening the disclosure.  It
may be imagined, therefore, how little he relished the consciousness that somebody, at whose identity he did not
guess, and over whose movements he could have no possible control, was claiming a knowledge of the family history which he did not possess, and arrogating a right to
the direction of his affairs. It was a vexation all the more
because he could not well confide it to any one.
Sometimes these letters were dropped into the box at
his door. He found them as he came in at night; or just
as he was about to go out in the evening, the servant
brought him one which had that instant been put in. So
he had the comfort of knowing that if he had but been going




THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.            173
out, or even looking out of the window at the right momient, he might at least have seen the bearer of these confidential appeals and remonstrances. But he never hit upon
the appropriate moment. And much to his relief, after
a time the letters became fewer and fewer.
Once, in talking with Madame de Luca, the conversation turned in some way upon anonymous letters.
"Do you ever receive such things?" he asked.
"O  yes; very often. Generally abusive; sometimes
grateful and affectionate. I suppose everybody does, more
or less. I cannot imagine who the people are who write
them; but there evidently are persons who have feelings
which cannot be relieved unless they write an anonymous
letter to somebody, announcing that they adore or detest
him or her. One of my friends, who is a successful author,
tells me he commonly receives whole packages of closelywritten manuscript, containing elaborate criticisms of his
works."
" But anonymous letters about people's private affairs
must be still more unpleasant."
" Have you been receiving any?"
The promptness and directness of the question made
Paul smile.
" Yes, I have been a good deal favored of late by the
attentions of a correspondent who insists upon knowing
more about me than I do about myself. But it does not
matter; it's all nonsense and rubbish, and I dare say she
will soon get tired."
"She? It is a woman, then. But, indeed, I need hardly
have asked such a question. Men do not usually take such
an interest in each other as to write letters which can be
avoided."
" Yes. I think, indeed I have no doubt, my correspondent is a woman."
So the matter dropped, Paul not caring to carry it any
further, and, indeed, having almost unconsciously put the




174                  PAUL MASSTE.
opening question which led it thus far. Salome showed no
further curiosity, but felt a little, nevertheless.
The day when James Ialliday visited her was not long
after this short conversation.  When her visitor had departed, and while he was yet shuffling and shambling his
way down Oxford-street, Salome went out of the room into
a little corridor, and stopping at the foot of a staircase,
called " Alice."
She called twice, not very loudly perhaps, and got no
answer. Then she went up the stairs, opened a door on
the next flight, and looked into a pretty little room. A
girl was there, seated at a table, bent over it and writing.
She started when Salome entered, and seemed as if about
to huddle away what she had been doing. Salome's keen
gray eyes beamed brightly, and an irrepressible smilehalf pitying, wholly good-humored-rippled over her face.
" I don't want to disturb you, Alice. I see you have
been writing. To your father and mother, I hope?"
"Well, no, ma'am, not exactly; not to-day, that is.
But I mean to write to them at once."
"Yes, we must not leave them in any doubt about you.
Of course my letter would satisfy them that you were well
and safe; but they will like to hear from yourself, and
they will not be angry with you any more. But I wanted
to tell you now that I have just seen your old friend, James
Ilaliday."
Alice started in genuine fear, and grew quite white.
" Why, you foolish girl, you are quite afraid of that man!
Why do you fear him? What claim has he upon you?"
"None indeed; none at all. But I am so much afraid
of him. He is very desperate and cruel, and he thinks I
have not acted fairly by him; and indeed, indeed, madame,
I know he will do some harm to me, or to somebody; I
know he will. I have dreamed of it, and I have had it
foreshown to me when awake, and I know it will happen
some time."
" He cannot do any harm to you, Alice, as long as you




THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.            175
remain here; and I hope the somebody who you think is in
danger can take care of himself. But although I don't
think Halliday quite so terrible a person as you do, yet
I do think that while he remains in London you had better not go out much, unless with somebody. He spoke of
you harshly just now. You need not go out alone, Alice;
especially at night. If you want to have letters posted,
they can be sent with mine. That is the better way,
is it not?"
Alice grew  red and hot. An eye less bright than
Salome's could have read her embarrassment as if written
in the largest print.
" That letter you -have been writing now, is it for the
post? I shall be sending some letters just now, and it can
go with them."
"No, ma'am, thank you very much; it's not for the
post; in fact it's not exactly a letter."
Alice was uncomfortable, and Salome did not want to
increase her discomfort. So she changed the subject at
once.
"I don't well know what we had better do with your
friend Halliday. I don't want quite to quarrel with himjust yet, at least. Indeed, I cannot help pitying the unfortunate creature."
Alice tossed her head slightly and slightingly with
regard to Halliday, as if to deprecate the idea of a lady's
pity being wasted on so good-for-nothing an object. Alice
had quite forgotten, or wanted quite to forget, the time
when she condescended to sip his rum and water. Cet dge
est sanspitie —in women at least. To Alice at present her
quondam lover was simply detestable and dreadful.
"Yes; I pity him rather," continued Salome, who had
no fear of his ever paying attention to her, and therefore could afford to be compassionate and magnanimous.
"I wish anything could be done for him-that he could
be got to keep at some decent and honest employment;
but I suppose that's past praying for."




176                  PAUL MASSIE.
" 0 yes, madame; there's nothing he could do or would
do. For years back he has not done a stroke of honest
work, or work of any kind, in fact. I wish he would go to
America, or New  South Wales, or the gold-diggings, or
somewhere of that kind. Perhaps he would, if somebody
would pay his passage."
"I would pay his passage readily enough to America,
at all events, for the sake of getting rid of him."
"It would be money well laid out, mfa'am. Depend
upon it, Jem Halliday will do some harm  if he isn't got
out of the way before long."
" Well, Alice, I am not so much afraid of him as you
are. I don't know that his wolf-like anger and hatred
of the whole human race does not rather please me. At
all events, it interests me. While he was talking to me
to-day, I thought several times he was exactly like a
wolf in expression. Do you know what a wehr-wolf is,
Alice?"
" O yes, ma'am." Alice brightened up with the delight
of displaying her accomplishments. "I read all about it
in a story. It's a man who has the power of transforming
himself into a wolf, and then rushing wild about the forest,
and tearing people to pieces, and drinking their blood.
It's a dreadful story."
"Well, I thought your friend Halliday looked just one
of the sort of men who might have put the notion of a
wehr-wolf into people's heads; but I don't know that I
liked himnmuch the less for it. Society does somehow
seem to make a set against some persons, and hunt them
out into the forest; and some of the hunted people become
sheep or hares, aud some become wolves or wehr-wolves.
I like the wolves best."
" Halliday is one of the wolves, indeed. I do so wish he
were away, far out of this —somewhere from which he never
could return."
"I will think it over, Alice, and see what can be done.
If he is willing to go to America, there will probably be no




THE HEART OF HIS  nYSTERY.            177
difficulty. When I have made up my mind on the matter,
I will send for him."
"Send for him!-here, ma'am?"
"Yes, here; why not? I am not afraid."
"No, ma'am-madame. I wish you were a little more
so, for he is dangerous."
" In any case, Alice, I don't see how the danger threatens
me; and it cannot threaten you, if you simply take a little
care, and don't go out alone for the present, especially at
night; with letters, for instance."
These last words were spoken with the slightest possible emphasis. Still there was emphasis enough to make
Alice color and tremble, and bend over what she had been
writing, as if she must at any risk guard it against being
looked at. Not otherwise, perhaps, looked and felt Diana's
nymph-what was her name?-when sternly ordered to
bathe under the keen eyes of her suspicious mistress, and
only too conscious of the revelation which obedience must
make, and disobedience could not avert. But Alice's secret
was not quite so serious, and Alice's mistress was not quite
so stern.
Salome pressed the matter no further. She knew all
she wanted to know.
"Little fool!" so, as she returned to her own room,
ran the current of her criticism,-"little fool and little
traitress! All this she would do and has done without my
knowledge, and, perhaps she flatters herself in her heart,
to my disadvantage. These miserable poor girls have not
a particle of gratitude about them; at least, where women
are concerned. Poor little creature! I dare say she would
go near to laying down her life for me, too; but where
this nonsensical notion of hers is concerned she would sacrifice me, or deceive me, or betray me, if it were in her
power, without a grain of compunction. I wonder if, under
the same circumstances, I should be found ready to do the
same. Perhaps so. Little unfortunate! I don't like her
8*




178                  PAUL MASSIE.
any the less for her childish self-conceit and her folly.
Heaven help us all! We are all fools alike."
Nothing amused and delighted Salome more than to
observe and moralize over the weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of her own sex. She criticised them  and was
amused by them, even in herself. She had a fine contempt, pity, and affection for women, or perhaps rather
for womanhood. She scourged it with her tongue; and
always, where questions arose between it and its idol, worshipper, and immemorial enemy, man, Salome pronounced
dead against the offender or complainant in petticoats.
But her heart was, nevertheless, all full of pity, and yearned
towards her own sex; and where women could be helped
and served by her, she never failed to help and serve
them. So she scolded at poor little Alice in her mind, and
pitied her in her heart; saw her weaknesses and even her
diminutive treacheries, and, scorning them, felt compassion for the harmless traitress.
Indeed, Alice deserved some pity. Her life was a miserable, scared, foolish, ambitious, self-conceited, unselfreliant sort of existence. She was in painful terror of her
discarded lover, to whom she was conscious of not having
acted very honestly. She was occasionally tormented by
remorse for the equivocal part she had played towards
the Massie family, who had been so good to her. She
dreaded to see her own family, whose simple honest truthfulness and scorn of deceit always humbled and accused
her. She was now beginning to discover that her conduct,
even towards her latest benefactress, was far from irreproachable. And all this for what? For an object which
began to seem more and more utterly hopeless day after
day-an object which she would now scarcely have had
the courage to acknowledge, even to herself.
Salome's parting words filled her with fear. She knew
that something had been discovered, or was in the way to
being discovered, which might compromise her in the eyes
of one who had so generously befriended her; and plung



THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.            1T9
ing, like all small-minded and feeble people, at the merely
material consequences of the false step at once, she forthwith pictured herself as turned from Salome's house, and
wandeiing, hungry and homeless, in the London streets,
with Halliday, vengeful and murderous, lying in wait for
her at some dark corner. So Alice found relief in tears
and in bitter regrets that she had ever left Seaborough.
Meanwhile Salome congratulated herself that she had
probably put a stop to Alice's letter-writing, for a time at
least.
Several days after, when talking with Paul Massie' under four eyes " and yet in a crowd, she suddenly reverted
to the subject which they had passingly talked of before.
"I suppose you don't receive any more anonymous
letters just now? " she said.
" No," he answered, a little surprised at the correctness
of her conjecture; "I have not had any these several days.
But how did you guess that they had ceased to come? "
"Nay, you really don't expect me to tell you how I
come to know things? Did you notice what Lord Palmerston said the other night, when he was asked where he got
some piece of information or other? He said,'If I told
where I got my information, I should very soon have no
information at all.' Take that as my answer too."
" But was it information, or was it only a guess? I am
really anxious to know that much."
"It was not exactly information, and yet it was not
only a guess."
"Then you do know something about the matter? 
"Well, I have divined something, but it is not to be
told; and if I did tell it, it would only spoil whatever of
romantic interest may be in the affair. So ask me no more.
Be sure I did not write the letters, and had nothing to
do with them. I don't deal in the anonymous."
So Paul had to be contented; and indeed the subject
was one from which he was perhaps only too willing to
escape on any conditions.




180                  PAUTL MASSIE.
Salome thought a good deal over the advantages of
getting finally rid of James Halliday by sending him off to
America, and caame to the conclusion that nothing better
could be done with him.. But Halliday did not come il
her way for many days, and she had lost any clue to his lair.
In fact, he had money, and he was busily engaged in spending it after his own fashion; and while that occupation
lasted there was not much chance about his troubling himself with anything else.
Salome, who really did feel towards him the odd sort
of half-interest she had described, was bent on finding out
some honest way of living for him, which should be open
to him  the moment he reached the other shore of the
Atlantic, and which should give him a chance of redemption. Had she seen him within a few days after her conversation with Alice, this might even then have been done.
He might have accepted her offer; he might even have
been touched by her generosity; he might-who shall say?
-have been conducted by her hand to a path of honest
and creditable industry. But Halliday did not suspect her
of any kindly or charitable feeling towards him. It was
not his way to suppose that anybody entertained such sentiments towards even a neighbor; and he had too long
had practical evidence that most people regarded him as a
mere nuisance to expect compassion or toleration from a
stranger. He certainly did not mean to let Madame de
Luca off without some time or other exacting more money
from her; but just for the present he had enough, and was
not inclined to consider the future.
The London season, meanwhile, was touching to its highest noon. Soon the sun of fashion would begin to descend
towards the verge of the horizon; the roses of the season,
having put forth their fullest leaves, would begin to wither.
Rotten-row was crowded every day; the rival opera-houses
were straining their utmost to bring matters to a triumphant close; the flowers in the Temple-gardens were in the full
glory of their bloom; the debates in the House of Commons




THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.            181
were beginning to languish and drag, the business of the
Budget having been finally cleared off; and political friends
and even political enemies were arranging for pleasanter
meetings at each other's country-seats and shooting-boxes
during the recess. Paul Massie had had several invitations
for the autumn,-to shoot in Scdtland, to fish in Norway,
to cruise in the Mediterranean or round the Devon coast;
to chase the wild-boar in continental forests. He had
become very popular among many sets; his name was put
up for this and that club; meanwhile he was a frequentlyintroduced visitor at many clubs. Nor were the invitations he received at all confined to autumnal shootings or
pleasure-makings. He might, if he liked, have become a
member of secret conspiracies directed against almost every
throne in Europe, and against the one bran-new throne in
America which was offensive to democracy. By Salome's
advice, however, he kept from  anything stronger than a
platonic connection with democratic conspiracy. General
Lefevre, too, born conspirator as he was, obeyed implicitly
the injunctions which his patroness had given him, and did
his best to keep Paul safe. So our hero's cooperation with
the cause of continental revolution was confined principally
to visiting the lobby of the House of Commons along with
a deputation representing this or that oppressed people or
outraged nationality, and cramming some one of the halfdozen or so of members who are always ready to raise a
debate on such questions.
Naturally Paul saw a good many Mexican exiles, and
made their cause his own, and pushed them and pleaded
for them with all his energy and ability. At this time the
French government had it all its own way in Mexico, and
was banishing suspected Juarists with full-handed vigor.
They, the suspected Juarists, were literally streaming out
of the country, most to find refuge in the United States,
but not an inconsiderable number to England. Men who
had lived and intrigued there for thirty years unharmed,
who had taken part one way or.the other in every revolu



182                 PAUL MASSIE.
tion and revolutionary effort since the first appearance of
Santa Anna, and who had yet contrived to remain in the
country through all changes and convulsions, were now
being ferreted out by the eagle eye of Marshal Forey or
General Bazaine, and hunted out of Mexico, to intrigue
against the new government with infinitely more effect
abroad. An enemy perfectly harmless in the next street to
Maximilian's palace becahme dangerous the moment he
landed in Havana or in London, and a most formidable foe
if he established himself in New York.
Paul Massie saw and mingled with all, or nearly all, of
the exiles who found their way to London. Some of them
had known him  personally in Mexico; some of them remembered his father's name; to not a few his purse,
scantily furnished as it was, he freely opened.
Lefevre of course did not neglect, while talking with
each new arrival from the distracted land of the Montezumas, to make inquiry into the subject which Madame de
Luca had intrusted to his confidence. For the most part
the inquiries were fruitless. Paul Massie the elder had
disappeared from Mexico for many a year, and people there
did not usually concern themselves much to follow the fortunes of a comrade who had vanished from their midst.
But an incident did occur which gave General Lefevre
some food for perplexing cogitation.
He found an old friend and companion-in-arms among
the refugees; a Spaniard who had sided with the cause of
Mexican independence; a man who had seen many vicissitudes, and dared much, and lost and suffered much too,
and upon whose character and demeanor a deep, calm, melancholy gravity had been stamped and burnt by fate. To
this man Lefevre talked, at the earliest opportunity, of Paul
Massie. They spoke in French; they were conversing in
one of the hotels near Leicester-square, then a sort of headquarters for Mexicans at odds with fortune and the government of France.
"You have not seen Massie yet? " Lefevre began.




THE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.            183
"Massie? No. What is he, that Massie?"
"Paul Massie. He fought under Zaragoza, and, I believe, well. I thought you had perhaps known him idbas."  And Lefevre pointed over his shoulder in the
direction of the Mexican Republic.
"No. You do not surely mean Paul Massie the Englishman of Santa Anna's day? They told me he was
dead."
"Not him, but his son."
"Indeed! No, I have not met him."
"But you will be glad to meet him. Is it not so? 
"No, not glad."
"What have you against him?"
"Nothing, surely nothing. He is of your friends, my
old comrade-that is enough to speak him an honorable and
brave gentleman. But his name is not of agreeable sound
to me. I knew his father, and I have a painful memory
attached to him."
" Is it a secret?"
"But, no-not at all. He killed one of my closest
friends."
" Massie killed him?-in a duel?"
"Yes."
"But duels, you know, we. all fought in those days.
Mon Dieu! you were sharp with the sword yourself in
those times, mon vieux."
"It is true: and I believe Massie fought the poor
youth-he was very young, and I fear heedless-quite
fairly. But Massie forced the fight on him: and it was
done alone, at night, in the darkness."
" No witnesses? 
" Only the stars and the trees-and le bon Dieu."
"Then how do you know that it was Massie's act?"
"My poor young friend was found dead in the woods
near Massie's home. For a time it was to me a mystery.
I thought but of clericals or brigands. But Massie came
to me himself-himself, do you understand?-and told me




184                  PAUL MASSTE.
it was his deed; and told me he forced my friend to fight;
that he was resolved to kill him, and did kill him."
"Did he tell you the cause of the quarrel?"
" No; he declared that nothing on earth should induce
him. I demanded to avenge my friend then and there.
He refused; he vowed by his word of honor that his provocation was such as must justify him even to me did I
know it. I refused to listen; I forced him to fight. He
was a marvel with the sword, and he disarmed me, and
then flung away his own weapon. It is but just to say
that he behaved like a brave man. But I could not endure
to see him any more, and we never met again. Therefore
I do not wish to see his son."
"And you never heard what the cause of quarrel was?"
"No; I may have suspected something, but it was only
guesswork. My friend was young, handsome, loving, reckless; reckless of himself, and perhaps of others. Massie
was wild and reckless too; fiercer and sterner nature,
scarcely then emerging from the storms of a very stormy
youth. I heard that after the tragedy Massie left his home,
and never returned there."
A friendly hand was here extended to Lefevre, who
looked up, seemed a little confused, but pressed the hand
warmly, and the new-comer passed on to another part of
the room. Lefevre's companion had not looked up. A
moment's silence followed; then Lefevre spoke.
"I am sorry, after what you have said, to keep up painful memories; but that is Paul Massie the younger who:has just entered the room."
"Where is he?"
" There; in that corner." Lefevre motioned to the place.
His friend turned his eyes thither, and something almost
like a flush passed over his sallow face. He gazed long in
silence, like one bewildered. At last he said,
"Are you sure you are not being imposed upon? Are you
sure this is not some strange mistake or delusion or cheat?
Does that young man call himself Paul Massie's son?"




TIE HEART OF HIS MYSTERY.             185
"Assuredly he does."
"And you are convinced he is not an impostor?"
"LMon Dsieu, if I am convinced! Without doubt I am.
Madame de Luca knows him; M. Wynter, deputy of parliament, knows him. He has lived but now in the house
of his cousin, who is a man of fortune and a divine of the
Church. And for me, I have seen letters from poor General
Zaragoza to him; and I know that he was brought to Paris
from  Puebla a prisoner, and released by the exertions of
his family. My own identity is not to me an affair of more
absolute and positive assurance."
c" Then a veil is lifted from my eyes and I know something of the past, and I blame no longer the elder Paul
Massie. Pass for the rest: I was mistaken; I was confused;
my question was a foolish one. Let us speak of it no more."
Lefevre did not press the subject, nor did he manifest
any curiosity. Whatever he may have felt, however he may
have wondered at his friend's words and demeanor, or mentally racked himself afterwards to put a meaning to them, he
asked no question and betrayed no emotion. Nor when his
friend, having apparently abandoned his original determination, expressed a wish to speak to Paul Massie, and did
converse a few minutes with him, eyeing him keenly and
sadly the while, did Lefevre make any remarks. The old
Frenchman had been intrusted with so many secrets in his
lifetime, that he had come to regard social life as all made
up of-secrets; and he had in general little curiosity to penetrate into any recesses where he was not invited or permitted to enter. Besides, in this instance he had a deliberate
reason for desiring to be told nothing. His commission
from Salome was to ascertain something of the fate of the
elder Massie; and on that point his present companion
could in no way assist him. Confidence on other chapters
of the Massie family history might place him in the dilemma
of having either to conceal fiom Salome or to divulge to her
unpleasant news. He preferred to avoid the alternative;
he shrugged his shoulders, and asked no questions.




186                  PAUL MASSIE.
Lefevre's friend did not long remain in England, where
the chances of Mexican revolution and counter-revolution
found little help, or even encouragement. He went to New
York, and worked not ineffectually the long arm  of the
lever there which was meant to hoist Emperor Maximilian
from his throne. Before he left, he had one or two interviews with Paul Massie, who was not a little impressed,
and indeed puzzled, by the strange and sad, but evidently
deep and genuine, interest which one of whom he knew so
little appeared to take in him.
" You knew my father? " Paul said to him the last day
they met.
The other seemed disturbed by the question, and a few
embarrassed seconds passed before he could reply calmly.
"Yes, I knew him-long ago, very long ago."  And he
instantly spoke of something else.
" Strange!" thought Massie; "my father's name imposes silence on all who knew him. There is something
painful which I shall yet have to learn. I ought to know
it; I ought to insist on hearing the full truth from those
who could tell it tome; but I am a coward just now, and I
shrink from the discovery."
CHAPTER XV.
SALOME ADAMS.
THAT was rather a heavy day when (some years before
the opening of this) Salome Adams left Seaboroughhouse never to cross its threshold again. The passionate
friendship which had been formed in Paris, and under the
influence of which Lydia Massie found life insupportable
without her dear, darling Salome, and Mrs. Massie hoped
to find a new and firm arm to lean on and a new head to
council-all that dream, obeying which Salome had come




SALOME ADAMS.                  187
from the Faubourg St. Germain to the English seacoast
village, had faded drearily away.
Salome was out upon the world again-a world which
it soothed her to regard as peculiarly unsuited to her, and
incapable of comprehending her. There had been, perhaps,
no actual quarrel between her and her patrons; but her
stay in the house had simply become unbearable to all
parties, herself included, and she went away voluntarily, so
far as words go, but feeling exactly as if she had been
driven out.
Ladies, especially when they have vowed eternal fiiendship, soon grow tired of each other; and perhaps in no
case could the friendship of Lydia have long retained its
early warmth for her darling Salome. But there was
something else operating to produce the estrangement.
Salome had a fatal facility in the attracting of all members
of the male sex, fiom old gentlemen to small boys; and
she exercised her powers with a boldness and perseverance
which might have been innocent unconsciousness, if you
chose to regard it in one light, or unscrupulous audacity,
if you thought fit to look at it in another. Mrs. Massie
took the latter course; her son took the former. What
was worse still, Mr. Massie senior was of his son's way of
thinking, and blamed his wife and openly petted Salome,
who  allowed' herself to be petted very complacently.
Who was in the wrong?  Perhaps everybody; perhaps
nobody. Salome Adams was at this time only a thoughtless, goodnatured, well-meaning, sentimental young woman, conscious of her powers of fascination, and a little
unscrupulous but not in the least evil-minded in her use of
them. She might have acted much more prudently; and
she was not even at this time, be it observed, very young;
but then let it likewise be remarked that her mother was a
Frenchwoman and her father an Irishman, and both had
left poor Salome at a very early age to teach her way
through pensions and existence. It pleased Salome to
regard her dead father as a sort of Irish brigade hero-a




188                  PAUL MASSIE.
Thomond or a Beau Dillon-and her mother as a saint.
But the Irish gentleman was only exiled by the civil laws
of the Saxon-he preferring not to pay any debts; and he
died a victim rather to fast living than to foreign rule.
The mother was a weak and harmless little woman, who
married under age, and in spite of the laws of her country;
was nevertheless forgiven, and soon spent all her dot upon
the husband she adored. He was very fond of her, when
he had time, and was not engaged in training horses, playing billiards, writing for French sporting journals (which
had just begun to exist), or drinking cognac.
Salome wept over her parents' memory annually; and
while near the spot always took care on the proper days
to lay a fresh immortelle upon their grave. She cherished
in her bosom  a deep conviction that their fate much
resembled that of Abelard and Heloise, whose tomb she
loved to gaze upon.
She was, then, thrown upon life too young. Her sole
relative was a priest of a Paris church, who was of Irish
extraction, and of kindred with her father, and who kindly
procured her engagements to teach and be taught at
pensions kept for the instruction of English demoiselles. It
was thus that she met the Massie girls and their mother,
that she vowed an eternal friendship with Lydia (much
younger than herself), and was formally invited by Mrs.
Massie to make Seaborough her home.
In bitter spirit, then, did she leave Seaborough. The
servants were sorry for her going: she was always genial
and friendly to them, and gave little trouble. Many of
the village people were deeply grieved to lose her. Dan
Crossley and his wife were among her devoted friends;
and Alice, then recently installed as Mrs. Massie's maid,
shed plenteous tears.  Sarah Massie sympathized  with
Salome for many reasons; they were both orphans, and in
some sort dependents. But there was little of congeniality
in their natures, and Sarah, of course, was much the younger.




SALOME ADAMS.                 189
Salome went away regarding Mrs. Massie as her especial
enemy.
Her life was hard enough for some time, but she was
never without lovers. The best of them in every sense was
the young Venetian exile (his father was killed in 1848,
a devoted follower of Daniel Manin), and him she married,
In company of him and of his friends she unlearned quickly
enough the politics and the ways of the Faubourg St. Germain, and was drawn under the shadow of the Palais Royal.
She began to develop a fine genius for political intrigue,
and her receptions in Paris were always full of interest for
the Prefect of Police. She flung her old life wholly behind
her and became luxurious, brilliant, and distinguished all
at once. The poor little grub had changed into a gaudy
butterfly. The 1st of January, 1859, came, and brought
with it the imperial trumpet-call which aroused the nations.
Our Salome too went to the wars, and rendered gallant
assistance to the sick and wounded. Among the latter
was her generous husband, and he died, as has already
been mentioned, in her arms.
Then Salome thought for awhile that the gates of
the tomb had closed over her and severed her from the living. She thought to pass her life away a lone watcher by
her husband's grave. But she was still young and full
of fiery energy, and, although she did not then know it, of
deep unsatisfied love. So she rose from her prostration by
the grave, and went back to the living. She was soon
absorbed in political intrigue again.  Such occupation
seemed a sort of duty-a legacy left by her husband.
She had no children.
After 1859 came the imperial desire for peace, and the
wish to conciliate established powers. Paris became an
inconvenient place of residence for persons occupied like
Salome; and so the widow transferred herself to London.
In the whirl and brilliant excitement of her married
life, and in the pain of her widowhood, she had nearly forgotten the Massies. While she was a poor and struggling




190                  PAUL MASSIE.
teacher, she remembered them bitterly enough, and, with
all a woman's unreasoning anger, seemed to regard Mrs.
M/assie as the cause of her loneliness and trials. In the
light of prosperity, these feelings faded out; and it was
only a pressing invitation to pay a visit to the Charltons
near Seaborough which renewed to Salome the memory of
what she called her wrongs.  She could not resist the
temptation to look upon the old scenes again. It takes a
vast amount of philosophy not to acknowledge a desire to
make a display and create a brilliant impression in a place
where one has been poor and humble, and perhaps despised.
Salome had left Seaborough in lowly style-almost like a
menial dismissed from  her place. When she left it, she
carried all her little property with her in a small portmanteau and a slender purse. She was returning to be the
distinguished guest of the new potentate of the place;
with a romantic and mysterioussort of reputation preceding her, with a foreign name, with money, and with style.
She drove her hostess's ponies and rode her hostess's horses
through the town with the air of one quite used to such possessions. She visited many of her old friends; and being
really most generous and kind-hearted, she gave substantial proofs of her regard to those who were poor. The
wreck which was mentioned in our opening chapters gave
her a brilliant opportunity for displaying in the most
impressive light her energies, her talents, and her benevolence.  She delighted every one, and herself more than
any. She met the Reverend Eustace Massie and patronized him kindly, and wondered in her heart whether she
ever could have been for one moment inclined to feel any
warmer interest in him. After all this, however, the visit
to Seaborough might have grown very dull, but that, to
give Salome's mind a new occupation, she suddenly had
her attention aroused to the existence of Paul Massie.
In the first instance, Salome felt curious to know what
sort of being the Paul Massie might be whose name she
well remembered having heard in old days fiom the lips




SALOME ADAMS.                  191
of Lydia, and about whom she had once or twice asked
Mrs. Massie some question, without receiving any satisfactory answer. Then she was quickened into peculiar interest by the news that Paul had been in the Mexican war,
and had been a prisoner in Paris; for the anti-Bonaparteau
sentiments, banished for a moment by the Lombardy campaign, but revived by Villafranca, burned strongly in
Salome's breast.  Then she met Paul himself, and was
taken with a personal interest in him. It must be owned
that from that moment she endeavored to captivate him,
if she could. Nothing could be a more delightful mode of
vexing the Massies and of pleasing herself. Providence
seemed to have delivered into her hands this delicious
opportunity of revenge.
Providence, or some other power, did more to encourage this fatal notion of revenge than Salome-had anticipated; for it sent Alice Crossley, full of embarrassment
and resentment, to consult her about the perplexities and
temptations which had just then arisen.  Salome had
always been Alice's friend, and the girl hailed her presence
in Seaborough as the most fortunate coincidence. From
Alice, Salome heard, as we know, in five minutes enough to
convince her that there was some secret or other in the
Massie family which concerned the newly returned cousin.
It took her little trouble to obtain through Alice and
through Halliday the custody of such evidences, other
than oral, as the situation could offer. Salome determined
that, as far as possible, the secret should be wholly in her
own keeping: a weapon with.which to smite, or a treasure
with which to reward. She did not see her way to the
meaning of the mystery.  All the obvious theories of
solution she tried and found absurdly wanting; she invented divers fantastic solutions, and had to reject them
with equal contempt. Still there was one grand fact clear
and indisputable. A secret of some kind attached to the
Massie family, and especially hung around Paul. Salome
would have loved the little mystery at any time, for its




192                  PAUL MASSIE.
own romantic and exciting charms. It was now inestimably precious to her. Of course she ought not to have condescended to cabal with a maid-servant, and to read a
document never meant for her eyes, and not obtained
through any creditable channel. Obviously all this was
very.improper. A man of honor would never have done
it; and although women are not much affected by what we
call honor, let us hope there are many women who would
have yielded to no temptation of curiosity, spite, or any
other impulse which offered gratification by such a course.
We are not defending what Salome did; we are only stating what she did. We are not contending that this was
what she ought to have done; we only say that this was
exactly what she did.
Salome returned to London in the highest animation.
We know that Alice Crossley soon went to London likewise. We know that Paul Massie became a visitor, then
a frequent, finally a constant visitor, at Salome's house.
Her interest in him deepened. She was charmed by his
simplicity, his frankness, his vigorous natural ability, his
fresh, unsophisticated, manly ways. "Don't you admire.Mr. Massie very much? " she once said to one of her few
female friends. "Ido; I cannot quite tell you why, but
he seems to me different from most other men I know. He
seems to me at once a boy and a man. Indeed, I suppose
that is the charm of perfect manhood-and I think he has
it."  And Salome involuntarily sighed and her friend
looked knowing, and smiled.
For awhile Salome felt more anxious to conceal from
Paul than from any one else the existence of the secret
which she suspected. Perhaps if it was to prove "something to his advantage," she wished to have all the merit
of the discovery for herself, and to reserve it for a grand
final moment. Perhaps she feared that his generosity and
his manly frankness would scorn all concealment, and bring
about an eclaircissement by precipitate measures. It is
certain that she did not yet admit into her confidence the




SALOME ADAMS.                 193
man most deeply interested in her speculations, and always
uppermost in her thoughts.
One result of the acquaintance had been as unexpected
as uncontrollable. It threatened perhaps at some moment
to baffle all her calculations. Salome had made up her
mind to fascinate the Mexican ingenu. She had assumed
that this would be an easy task. She was a perfect
mistress of the weapons of fascination, and the ingenvu was
but an overgrown child. But we have all heard how the
best of fencers has sometimes been utterly baffled by the
absolute ignorance of an opponent. Was it so in this
instance?  Paul was obviously and avowedly the most
attached friend to Madame de Luca. But was their nothing more than friendship denoted by his manner? Salome
looked with her whole soul into his open heart, and seemed
disappointed. What of herself? She had lived, one might
say, many lives. She had been loved many times. She
thought she herself had loved more than once. She had
suffered and struggled; married, and been widowed, and
mourned; and after a perturbed and much-varied life,
found herself-no longer youthful-the victim for the first
time of a sensation which in this instance she had not
sought. For "she grew acquainted with her heart, and
searched what stirred it so. Alas, she found it love."
9




194                 PAUL MASSIEo
CHAPTER XVL
THE MASSIES IN TOWN.
THE Massies of Seaborough were in town; that is, Eustace and Lydia and Sarah. Mrs. Massie never left Seaborough; but the rest of the family always paid a visit to
town in the season. This time there were special promptings. Whatever may have been the reason, the serenity
of Seaborough-house seemed to have been quite broken up
by Paul Massie's ill-omened visit. Nor did his sudden
departure tend to make matters any better. Eustace
feared that he himself had acted ungenerously,-how he
hardly knew; and little skilled as he was in observing the
ways of those around him, he could not help thinking he
had somewhat fallen in the eyes of his mother and of
Sarah. Thus, at least, he construed the increased nervousness and agitation of the one, the constraint and coldness
of the other. So the place became unhappy to him, and
he longed for a little change. Lydia openly and incessantly grumbled at the dulness of everything and everybody, and demanded variety and London. So they came
to town, and went solemnly to work at amusing themselves.
Eustace always did the same things when in town in
the season. He made the usual and proper round of visits;
went to see the Academy's Exhibition, dined with a bishop, took his feminine companions to a flower-show, and
one or two evening parties of a mild kind in a good quarter of the West-end. Lydia and Sarah went, in company
of some more secular friends, to the Italian Opera; which
Eustace did not discourage, because the Queen patronized
the Opera, and therefore it must, of course, be a proper
sort of place. He himself went to one or two religious
meetings, and heard a debate in the House of Lords. For
the Commons he did not so much care; he thought it




THE MASSIES IN TOWN.              195
rather noisy, irreverent, and radical. He had not been
there since his county member, young Evelyn St. Vane,
made his maiden speech, —a very fine piece of eloquence
indeed, Eustace thought, which unfortunately the next
morning's papers disposed of in six lines. During this
present visit to London, however, Eustace had a little personal concern with the affairs of the House of Commons,
for the actual representative of the important borough of
Seaborough itself, Mr. Charlton, the dissenting railway
contractor, was notoriously about to accept the Chiltern
Hundreds, in consequence of a large contract he had made
with the government of Russia; and Eustace and all his
friends were very anxious that some one of genteeler birth
and Church connections should be found to represent the
place in parliament. This, however, is anticipating.
Perhaps there could be found on earth no sight more
dear to the heart of the pretty Lydia Massie than Rottenrow. She thirsted to be there. So as General and Mrs.
Trenton (London friends of the Massies) always went there,
Lydia found a seat in their carriage. Sarah did not usually
much care to go; but one particular day, being pressed
to accompany her friends, and Eustace being otherwise
occupied, she went.
Of course she enjoyed the sight when there. Man or
woman must be very philosophic, or cynical, or stupid,
who does not enjoy that wonderful scene, that kaleidoscope
of faces and dresses, that ever-changing panorama of carriages and silks, fine horses and fine women. Lydia was in
serene delight, and felt as if Heaven itself could offer no
higher reward to the good than a Rotten-row stretching
out to all eternity, and from which there was no going
home. The Trentons knew a great many people-ladies
who bowed so gracefully, handsome dashing officers with
thick moustaches, who bent to Mrs. Trenton and looked so
fixedly at Lydia.
Mrs. Trenton had a thirst herself for acquaintances and
salutes. Therefore when, just as they had left the Park




196                  PAUL MASSIE.
and were reentering Piccadilly, she suddenly saw  some
one approach, who looked very fixedly indeed at Lydia,
and had already raised his hat, she cried out, "Lydia,
there is some one bowing to you."
Lydia and Mrs. Trenton sat together in the principal
seat; Sarah and one of the young Trentons faced them.
A gentleman it was who came riding upon a stylish-looking black horse, and beside a pretty low carriage, in which
two ladies sat, one of whom held the reins. The gentleman was dark-eyed and dark-mdustached, but his face
flushed as he saw Lydia,-flushed and burned for a moment.
" O," exclaimed Lydia, " Sarah, it's cousin Paul  "
Cousin Paul bowed a familiar farewell to the two ladies
near whom he had been riding, and rode up to the carriage
where the Massies sat. He flushed again on seeing Sarah.
The greeting was certainly warm, but somewhat embarrassed. Sarah's hand trembled in that of the young man;
and yet perhaps his strong fingers quivered more palpably still.
Mrs. Trenton was most friendly, and pressed Mr. Paul
to dine.with the cousins at her house that evening. Paul
had unfortunately another engagement; but he would do
himself the pleasure of calling next day, if that would
be convenient.
Yes; to-morrow they would certainly be all at home in
the early part of the day; and the general would be
delighted.
Paul rode away, and Sarah fell into the deepest silence.
The whole scene floated and swam before her eyes.
" You don't know who the ladies were your cousin was
speaking to, dear  "  asked Mrs. Trenton.
Lydia had not noticed either of them.
" One. of them," said the elder lady, "was very handsome."
Indeed! Lydia had not observed.
S.arah said nothing; but she knew one of the ladies,
who was very handsome.




THE MASSIES IN TOWN.              197
"Foreign  looking, I thought," said Mrs. Trenton.
"Odd-looking, at all events."
"I think my cousin's acquainances are mostly foreign,"
said Lydia, adopting a tone slightly scornful. "He has
been so much abroad."
"A handsome young man," said Mrs. Trenton, "but
wants manner. London will improve him-in manner,
that is. I don't know that it does much to improve young
men in any other way." Then followed one or two appropriate and exemplary anecdotes.
At dinner that evening there were only the Trentons
and Massies and the general's nephew, a captain of cavalry and man about town; a good-natured, harmless, and
not too irregular young man, who came to dinner just now
at what he considered a slow house, because he had been
rather struck by Lydia's bright eyes and attractive ways.
Of course, during dinner the meeting with Paul Massie
was talked of. Eustace did not care to hear much on the
subject, but could not decently stop it up.
"Why, don't mean to say," asked Captain Trenton,
suddenly breaking into the conversation, "that Paul Massie's your cousin? How odd the name never struck me
before! Wouldn't now, if you hadn't called him Paul."
"Do you know the gentleman, George?" asked his
aunt.
"Know him? I should think I do. It must be the
same; there can't be two Paul Massies. Dark man, black
moustache, American accent?"
Of course that was he.
" 0 yes, I know him very well. He often comes to our
club with Grigsby and Morton. A very good fellow too,
they say. I am very glad he is your cousin," said the
young officer, bowing expressly to Miss Lydia. "I'll be
sure to come here to-morrow to meet him. He's rich, I
suppose? Lives rather fast, I hear."
"I should be sorry to hear that," said Eustace rather
gravely, " for my cousin is not rich.




198                  PAUL MASSIE.
" 0, pray, Mr. Massie, don't take it on my word, for I
only repeat what I have a vague recollection of hearing
somebody say somewhere. I dare say it isn't true at all."
"I dare say none of you live fast in London, George,"
said the general jocosely.
"Some of us haven't the'chance, uncle, and can't help
ourselves. I dare say we all would, if we could."' O, for shame! " articulated Lydia in tones of dulcet
reproach.
"There were two ladies with Mr. Massie," said Mrs.
Trenton. " One of them I thought handsome and odd-looking. I wonder who she is-I think I have seen her face
before."
"I haven't the least doubt it's Madame de Luca," said
the nephew.  "  assie is always with her. Some people
say-but really it's no use minding what fellows say."
" But what do they say? " asked Eustace earnestly.
" We know that lady, or did know her very well."
"0, nothing-only that perhaps Massie would marry
her. She's a handsome woman, and rich, I believe, and a
widow; and she certainly appears to have taken a great
fancy to him."
"A  foreigner?" said Mrs. Trenton, with a shade of
contempt and wonder in her voice.
" No, an Englishwoman; but her husband was an Italian,
or Venetian, or something. They say she fought in a battle, or a siege, or a something of the kind. Precis of the Foreign Office says he saw her somewhere-Milan, I believein'59, with pistols at her belt, and dressed like a vivandizre,-short skirts and trousers, and that sort of thing."
"Really, Mr. Massie," observed Mrs. Trenton, "I think
the sooner you get your cousin back into the country again
the better."
The general laughed. How should the young ladies
like a new cousin dressed like Jenny Lind in the Figlia
del JBeggimento, he asked. "I think it rather a becoming
costume myself."




THE MASSIES IN TOWN.               199
" 0, nonsense, general? " observed his wife. "I don't
mind what George has been saying-it's all his club gossip."
Eustace had been growing so manifestly uneasy, that
this last remark was made with the good-natured hope of
soothing his trouble.  Sarah had not spoken a word all the
time. When the ladies had left the room, the clergyman
talked a good deal more on the same subject with the
young soldier, and extracted not much-indeed there really
was nothing of any consequence to be said-but enough to
make him wish that the respectable and religious Massie
family had no cousin in London.
Yet Paul kept his appointment, and went next day to
the house of Mrs. Trenton, Cumberland-street, Hyde-park.
It must be owned too that he dressed with unwonted care
in order to get there. He was received in very friendly
fashion by Mrs. Trenton, and had the pleasure of " assisting " at a lively conversation between Captain Trenton and
his cousin Lydia. That bright-eyed young lady received
Paul with great good-humor and courtesy when he presented himself, and presently dropped him out of notice
altogether.  The Rev. Eustace Massie had left an apologetic message, expressing  his regret that sudden and
important business compelled him  to go into town; and
Sarah was unfortunately rather unwell, and could not be
seen. Mrs. Trenton, with whom Paul's conversation was
principally carried on, did not ask him to dinner or press
him to return. He received from her the most gracious
farewell. Lydia rose as he was going, and held out her
hand, talking all the time to Captain Trenton. There was
no mistaking all this. Paul Massie was "cut."  His cousins would have no mole to do with him. He left the
house with the feelings of one who is conscious of having
obtruded himself where he is no longer welcome, and having
been turned from the door. It was with a bursting heart
that he mounted his horse and rode into Hyde-park. He was
almost choking with humiliation and anger. He felt that




200                  PAUL MASSIE.
his passion must be glowing through his cheeks and eyes
He was an'untutored, ahnost an uncouth man-born with
an ardent impetuous nature, unused to endure calmly anything but climate and hard life. Here, in London, drifting vaguely about, he felt like a child; scorned and rejected by those on whom he had relied, he felt all a child's
fever of disappointment and passion.
He rode up and down under the trees, plucked a few
leaves from-stooping branches and bit them, lighted a
cigar and smoked it with vehement fierce puffs. Perhaps
he was turning over in his mind furious incoherent plans
of vengeance. Perhaps if one of the poodles following
their mistresses in the Park had taken to pursuing Paul's
movements-had accompanied him to his lodgings, and
there grown bigger and bigger, at last changing into
Mephistopheles, and offering a contract for his soul, Paul,
like Faust, might, on certain  conditions, have cried
" Topp!" and closed -with the bargain.  But no such
tempter appeared. The vagaries of Paul's exercise, however, brought him soon in front of the street running at
right angles to the railing of the Park, where Madame de
Luca lived. After a moment or two of doubt, he crossed,
dismounted, and knocked at the door. The lady of the
house was at home to him.
"You left us very abruptly last evening," she said,
" and broke your appointment too. Never returned, never
went narl the theatre; we lost the overture, and half the
first act, by waiting for you and you did not come after
all. Have I not a right to scold you now? I took another
escort, and was quite determined, if you came, to make you
jealous; but you didn't come; and I don't think you
would have been very jealous in any case."
"Indeed," said Paul, " I am quite ashamed. The truth
is that I was not altogether well; and I forgot that I had
a very particular appointment, and-"
" My dear friend," and she smiled significantly, " one
of the few things you really cannot do is to make an




THE MASSIES IN TOWN.               201
excuse or invent a story. Don't place yourself at such a
disadvantage. If you want to make an excuse to any one
else, always tell me and I will invent a tale for you; only
even then I don't think you could deliver it in such a way
as to make people believe you. Don't I know very well
why you did not present yourself last night? And I am
so good that I pardon you. So take it for granted that
I know all, and come and tell me something about your
pretty cousins."
Paul grew red, and almost started.
"Ah, so I really have touched you! I thought so.
Which of the two-the lively laughing one, or the graver
and paler? I think, if I were a man, I should be for
sentiment; but you used not to be sentimental.  Come,
confess all."
" Indeed I have nothing to confess," said Paul, " except-except that I am in a bad humor."
"Then I must try to win you into a good one. Bid
me discourse; I will enchant thine ear. Seriously, you do
look vexed and distressed.  What is the matter? Tell me
and I may set everything right. Have you had a quarrel
with one of the pretty cousins? Or has the reverend brother been lecturing you about the good-for-nothing life
you have been leading in London? Shall I go as an ambassadress on your behalf? Or shall I have a certificate
of good conduct drawn up for you, and signed by all
Bohemia?"
"No," said Paul, "I fear no one can help me; I cannot
even help myself. I fear I have been making a fool of
myself, Madame de Luca, and you would have good reason
to laugh at me, if you knew but half."
" If you have only been making a fool of yourself, you
have been merely imitating the wisest of men, especially
if the folly has been about a woman.  Be consoled upon
that point. But tell me what particular freak of folly
you have been committing-there are so many ways of
being foolish: and I don't know whether I ought to pity
9*




202                 PAUL MASSIE.
you just yet, for there are so many ways of being foolish
which are very, very pleasant."
"Mine are not pleasant," said Paul rather bitterly.
As yet Madame de Luca had spoken to him somewhat
coldly, or else in a tone which was not without its sarcastic
sharpness. She now turned her eyes, which before she had
kept averted, fixedly on the young man, and she saw that
pain, genuine pain of some kind, was written on every line
of his face. The expression of her countenance, the tone
of her voice, changed in a moment.
"You are really disturbed," she said gently. "I did
not know it, or I would not thus have trifled with you,
I fear there is something more in this than the anger of
the pretty cousin. For all you men say about us, I doubt
whether we are so necessary to your happiness as to cause
you very much pain. Tell.me what vexed you-see, I
have dropped my teasing mood."
She touched his hand kindly.
"I cannot indeed-I wish I could. It would relieve
me to tell you; but you do not, you cannot know."
" What if I know much more than you think?" she
said very quietly, and slowly fixing her eyes full upon him.
He started, and a sudden thrill passed visibly over him.
"You!" he stammered; "can it be?  No-you can't
know. Impossible."
"I know many things about many people. I know
some things about some which they hardly know themselves;
perhaps you are one of those. I have asked you to give me
your confidence. How if you could tell me nothing I do not
know, but I could tell you much which you long to hear?"
Paul started to his feet. " 0, Madame de Luca! " he
exclaimed, " if you can really tell me anything-if you
know anything which would relieve me from the torture
of doubt I have so long felt, give me some hint, I beseech
you. I received hints before, but they only tormented and
maddened me. They did not come from you. Tell me
something, and I will-"




TIE MASSIES IN TOWN.              203
"Will what?" she said, looking calmly at him.
" Will thank you from my very heart-will be grateful
to you for my life."
"So many people have been grateful to me for their
lives," she said, "that I shall scarcely know you from all
the rest. But it does not matter. All I know you shall
know-only not all at once-and you must not ask any
questions about my source of knowledge. Now, then, what
do you wish to ask?"
Paul still hesitated. He hardly knew how to begin.
Suppose, after all, they were speaking of different things?
Suppose that on which he really sought knowledge he
should only be betraying in vain by a question.
" Come," she said, " I understand your silence. I might
be offended by it, and leave you to pursue your own course
unaided. But I am not easily offended, and I desire to
help you. You are afraid that I really know nothing, and
that you may only betray yourself by asking a question.
I can easily convince you that I am not now talking in
woman's true style of things that I don't understand.
Stay a moment."
She went to a table which stood in a corner, opened a
beautifully inlaid bijou of a writing-desk, and sought for
something.
Paul had taken a flower out of a glass vase, and was
assiduously plucking it to pieces. Madame de Luca glanced
at him and smiled. "Loves you, or loves you not? " she
asked; " which is it? "
He looked up amazed, not in the least understanding
the question.
"I thought you were working Margaret's charm," she
said.  "But perhaps you do not need any such spell. No
matter. You will not speak out until you understand
what knowledge I have of your affairs. Cast a glance over
that letter."
She put into his hand a stained and creased piece of




204                   PAUL MASSIE.
paper, faded and yellowing. It was covered with writing
in a clear bold hand.
"Stay," she said; " one word before you read it. Do
you know the writing?"
"No, I think not. I don't think I ever saw it before."
" Read it, please."
He read it. It appeared to carry with it no particular
meaning, for Paul glanced up at her inquiringly more than
once; and receiving no explanation, looked perplexedly at
the letter.
"I have read it," he said; "but really I can make
nothing of it. To whom is it addressed?"
"Suppose it were addressed to yourself; would it then
be more intelligible?"
"Suppose it were; but then-"
" It is, or it was, addressed to you. It was meant for you."
" Who wrote it?"
"Nay, that I must not tell; just now, at least. Assume
it to be addressed to yourself, and read it over again; and
then say if you think it of no interest."
With a flushed cheek the young man read the letter.
Why did he keep one hand above his eyes as he read, so as
to hide the expression of his face from Salome's earnest
gaze, as she stood near him?
WVhen he had read it through, he looked up and said,
"I don't understand it still; I don't, indeed. But I will
not pretend to say that things have not occurred which convinced me that some family secret of a disagreeable nature
is hanging over me. That I have long thought. I will
not say that I have not even had conjectures-although
only the wildest-as to its possible nature. Madame de
Luca, I have never seen or known my father; and yet of
late I have come to think that he is not dead, as I was told;
and if he be living, and that letter is addressed to me, it
comes from him. But what it means I cannot guess."
"I conjecture that the writer of that letter is dead.
But you shall know; and perhaps before long."




THE MASSIES IN TOWN.              205
"Was it sent to me through you? "
" Assuredly not. How can you ask me such a question? If it had been sent to me for you, do you think
I would have delayed in giving it to its rightful owner? It
has simply fallen into my hands, and I have only just
received the information which confirms my conjecture
that it was meant for you."
"How did it come into your hands?" he asked, in
slow and unsteady accents.
"That is my secret. That I kn6w  all about your
affairs does not entitle you to know all about mine. No,
no. I am the great wonder; I am the woman who keeps a
secret. Perhaps I am  a spiritualist, and have messages
from the other world through tables; perhaps I am at the
head of the secret police. But I think I can serve you,
if you will be guided by me, and will promise to do what I
order, and to ask no questions. You believe I am your
friend, Paul Massie, do you not? "
The young man impetuously seized her hand and kissed
it. I do believe she blushed.
"Friend!" he said, "you have been my only friend
here. You have been to me more than-"
" More than a mother!" she exclaimed laughing, and
drawing away her hand. "Yes, that is what you were
just going to say. More than a mother! You might
have finished the sentence. I should not have been at
all offended, and we could have concerted our arrangements with all the more propriety. If I were the age of
one of the fair cousins, then indeed there might be danger in our conferences. But we who have free souls, it
touches us not."
Nevertheless, the lady glanced at one of the mirrors,
which indeed reflected a fine face and full form; eyes that
might have moved many a young heart, and hair in whose
meshes many an affection might have been caught. But she
looked at Paul, and he was poring over the document, spelling out its every word. She smiled perhaps rather bitterly.




206                  PAUL MASSTE.
"Do you really know the meaning of this?" he asked.
"Perhaps I know it; perhaps I only guess it. But be
sure that where so much has been discovered, the rest will
be made clear."
"But I doubt, I much doubt, whether I should inquire
any farther. Perhaps I may only learn that which I have
no right to know, and should be the better for not knowing. Something tells me that I ought to tear up this old
sea-stained rag and think, or try to think, no more of its
pretended secrets."
"Perhaps so; but let me see the letter again."
He handed it to her. She calmly took it and relocked
it in her desk. Paul looked surprised.
"My good Paul," she said, "do you really think I
would have taken all the trouble to obtain this knowledge
of your history in order that you might perform a feat of
romantic generosity and give up the pursuit? That letter
I keep for quite a different purpose. It may be of infinite
importance. Don't you see that somebody besides yourself or me has been all along looking over the cards?
Don't you think it will be important to know who that
person is?"
"I have received," said Paul slowly, "one or two
strange hints."
Yes, and so have I. You see the mysterious agent
has chosen to mix me up in your affairs. I have not obtruded. Now that I am in the business, I am not to be
got out-no, not even by you; although I can very well
see, my poor Paul, that you don't relish the prospect of a
woman's interference in your affairs. But you are not
able to manage them  for yourself,-that is clear enough;
and I am an old and practised intriguer, who have had to
do with more complicated and dangerous transactions
than this. And I take an interest in you, Paul, which L
cannot help, and I like you well, and I will try, as you
have said, to be even more than a mother to you.'Now
good-by for the present. Ask me no questions, for I shall




MR. WYNTER, M.P.                207
answer none; impose no pledge, for I shall promise nothing. I will see you to-night, if you like. Good-by."
She extended her hand. He took it, and looked with
embarrassed air and in silence into her face.
"You look," said she, "as if you were in doubt whether
you ought not to  kiss me. Foolish boy! never have
any doubt on such a point; especially where you only
mean gratitude, and are thinking of a mother."
He did kiss her on the forehead, and went away without speaking. He mounted his horse, and rode rapidly
away. She looked out of the window; he did not turn in
his saddle. He was gone in a moment.
" He will ride where he thinks they will be," she murmured. " I know it. What matter? Men in love have no
spirit; nor women either."
Madame de Luca sighed, and looked as if she were not
quite so contented and resigned as her words gave out.
But she had visitors soon. Not often was she left alone
after noon had set in; and she was presently rapid, vivacious, and joyous in her conversation.
CHAPTER XVII.
MR. WYNTER, M. P.
M R. WYNTER, M. P., was one of the happiest of men.
He had all he wanted in life. At least, if he had not
in his actual possession every object of his ambition, he
imagined he had it, and was satisfied. If Fortune denied
him anything, he took it for himself in imagination. Many,
however, of his gifts of fortune were goodly, solid reality.
He had plenty of money. His father had been in business,
and left him a fortune. He himself continued in business
until he made another fortune; and then he deliberately




208                  PAUL MASSIE.
and wisely gave up money-making, and betook himself to
the task of being happy. He did not marry, for his notion
of happiness by no means consisted in domesticity; and if
any man could have been born purposely for old bachelorhood, Mr. Wynter was that man. He liked club life, club
society, incessant motion, change, and bustle; and he liked
to fancy himself a statesman. These enjoyments seemed
to him hardly compatible with married life. Perhaps the
fond delusion which he cherished could least easily be
made consistent with the silken bands of matrimony.  For
it would have been hardly possible to get a wife so foolish,
or so sublimely wise and superhumanly forbearing, as to
refrain from endeavoring some time or other to open Mr.
Wynter's eyes to the reality of his position as a statesman.
Mr. Wynter was indeed in parliament, and meant always
to continue there. By never-failing subscriptions to local
charities, by generous dinner-giving (at the club and in the
House), and by his genial and genuine bonhomie and kindliness of heart, he had made the support of his constituents
certain.  But his parliamentary displays were entirely
limited to the putting of an occasional question to the foreign secretary touching the attitude of England in relation
to the affairs of this or that oppressed nationality, or the
treatment of some political refugee. Among the members
of the House, in the dining-room, the tea-room, and the
smoking-room, Mr. Wynter was a general favorite. Those
who did not care about him personally, liked to draw him
out and chaff him. Good-natured members lent themselves
to his harmless fussiness and innocent self-inflation; and
the Premier himself had many a time, out of pure kindness
of heart, and a genial twinkle of his knowing eye, drawn
his friend Wynter into a specially conspicuous corner of
the lobby, and there gravely and ostentatiously plunged
into deep converse and council with him on the weightiest
questions of foreign politics. There were indeed, some few
grave and reverend seniors in the House, and some few
dull and grand young prigs, who, taking everything au




MIR. WYNTER, M. P.               209
serieUx, declined to humor or even to acknowledge Wynter.
But that happy individual never observed their demeanor
towards him. He was too good-natured to expect offence,
and not sharp enough to notice it, unless in its very
broadest expression.
Foreign politics were Mlr. Wynter's hobby.  Some people may think such a study rather difficult; but they only
show their innocence when they acknowledge the thought.
Rising young member of parliament, or ambitious old personage entering the House late in life, let foreign politics
be, your pursuit. Difficult, weary, perplexing, and unproductive is the study of home affairs. Every one about you
knows as much of Church questions and land questions and
legal questions as you are likely ever to know; and there
are sure to be people always at hand who have a dreadfully
intimate and practical knowledge of them which will horribly confound you in your hour of fancied triumph. But who
knows or cares anything about Montenegro and Servia, and
the Herzegovina and Uruguay and the Annamite Empire?
Suppose you make a speech, the result of vast labor and daring cram, on the Law of Settlement or the Bank Charter,
and some one from a back bench, who knows all about it,
and has had it forced upon his practical attention for years,
gets up and demolishes all your facts, the unhappy result is
that the House generally understands quite enough of the
question to see that he is right and you are wrong; that he
is a sensible man, and you are an ass; and you are written
down an ass accordingly. But suppose you talk nonsense
about the condition and internal politics of Roumania, and
that some member, superfluously blessed with a complete
knowledge of the question, springs to his feet to confute
you, who is to know which is right and which is wrong?
Your facts seem just as good as his facts; your conclusions
sound quite as plausible as his conclusions, and your parliamentary reputation is secure. Besides, all home questions
are complicated; but all foreign questions are to British
eyes perfectly simple. If you are a Liberal, you are always




210                   PAUL MASSIE.
on the side of the people, the oppressed nationality.  If
you are a Conservative, you are against the revolutionists.
There is the whole secret. Your ground is marked out for
you, and nobody concerns himself to catechise you as to
the soundness of your reasons for taking your stand there.
3Mr. Wynter had chosen his ground and his action.  He
took his stand on foreign politics, and he acted for the
Nationalities. So he obtained a sort of reputation as a
man conversant with continental affairs. Politicians from
abroad always had letters of introduction to him; and
there were even some far-off foreign journals (in Servia or
Wallachia perhaps) by which Mr. Wynter was treated as a
great British statesman, who was only kept out of office by
the English aristocracy because of his friendship for the
oppressed-a sort of Ormuzd to the ministerial Ahriman.
Mr. Wynter walked into the library of the House one
evening, and met his friend Mr. Charlton.
" Well, Charlton, so you really are giving up Seaborough? "
" Yes, I am indeed. I could not attend to the business
any longer; and I don't know that I would, if I could. - I
have not your taste for this sort of life, Wynter; I see
nothing come of it.  Progress moves too slowly here for
me."
" Progress?"
"Well, yes-I came in as a Reformer, and where is
Reform?  The papers are all talking of a Conservative
reaction; I am too old to wait until the Conservative
reaction runs its time out. I came in, hoping to help in
giving the last kick to Church-rates-and Church-rates are
on their feet again. I know this cannot last; but neither
can I; and I prefer my own work."
Mr. Wynter never looked at things in such a light.
He only concerned himself about the rights of fieemen
abroad.  An annual vote against Church-rates, and for the
Ballot, satisfied his conscience as regarded projects of
domestic reform.




MR. WYNTER, M. P.               211
"Who suceeds you, Charlton?"
"Don't know at all. The Tories are putting up a local
man, an eldest son, with good family influence. But we
could return our man, if we had a good one."
"Of course you don't resign until somebody is found."
"Certainly not; I would wait another twelve months
rather. You don't know of anybody?"
"N-no," said Mr. Wynter slowly, and'as if carefully
meditating. "That is, not just at this moment. I dare say
I could find some one though. I'll think the matter over."
"Do.  Once or twice it occurred to me that perhaps
your fiiend Massie would like to try his chance."
" By Jove, and so he would."
"Yes; he's a clever energetic fellow, and his family is
well known down there."
"You are quite right. Indeed I thought of the matter
myself before, but I had not a good opportunity of talking
the thing over with him."
"Talk it over with him then as soon as you can. I
suppose he has money?"
"0  yes, plenty of money," said Wynter, off-hand;
knowing just as much of Paul's finances as he did of Hegel's
philosophy.
"Because if he had not a great deal to spare, and
proved a suitable candidate, I don't know that there would
be any great difficulty about the expenses. The fact is,
that cost what it will, a Tory shan't come in for Seaborough. I wish Massie would come and see me."
"So he shall, when I've talked the matter over with
him."
"Yes, of course, when you've talked the matter over
with him," said Mr. Charlton, with a faint smile. " Goodnight-I'm going home."
Mr. Wynter was charmed with the idea, which had
never presented itself to him before. He liked Paul Massie much, and would have gladly had him for a colleague in
the House. Indeed, Wynter would have liked all his




212                  PAUL  IASSIE.
friends to be in parliament, if only that they might be able
to see and appreciate his position there. He was not in
the least exclusive or jealous. Had he been King Candaules, he would have found it quite natural to invite
Gyges to a full inspection of his treasures of domestic
beauty.
" It's the very thing for Massie," thought Wynter. " If
he has not the money, I dare say the family have; and if
they won't give it, no doubt it will be found somehow.
There's no time to be lost; I'll go and talk to her at once
about it."
To her?  Cherchez la femme!  One might have
thought Paul Massie himself was the proper person to be
consulted.  Mr. Wynter knew  better.  Before he had
spoken a word to Paul on the subject, Wynter wrote a
note to Mr. Charlton, telling him the affair was all right,
and that he might apply for the Chiltern Hundreds as soon
as he pleased. For Wynter had gone straightway to Salome,
and talked to her of the propriety of getting Paul into parliament. Salome rejoiced at the suggestion. In the first
place, she wished that Paul should be prominent and distinguished, and, in true woman's style, took it for granted
that his entering parliament was the great step on the way
to his being at least foreign minister. Then she delighted
in the excitement which a contest promised, he being the
candidate. Finally, she found it imperatively necessary to
do something which would absorb Paul's attention for at
least six months. He was constantly talking of going
away, and endeavoring to resume an active career across
the Atlantic. Salome had determined that he should not
go just yet, but she was often puzzled about the means
of keeping him in England. To get him into parliament
would be to give him a new career, and Salome resolved
that the thing should be done. She never doubted for a
moment of her own powers of persuasion.
Meanwhile where was Paul?  He was haunting Hydepark; he was riding in Rotten-row; he was leaning dis



MR. WYNTER, M. P.               213
mally against the railings of the Drive; he was looking wistfully up and down Piccadilly; he was smoking listlessly,
and anon allowing his cigar to go out, and then lighting
it again, and then flinging it half-smoked away. He was
idling about town with particular fiiends whom he had
met for the first time the week before last or the day
before yesterday; he was looking at pictures in the studios
of jolly, bearded young artists; he was trying horses for
less skilled acquaintances; he was playing billiards, drinking champagne or bitter beer; he was running in debt;
he was growing daily more and more idle, listless, sick of
existence, and unhappy. He longed to see Sarah Massie,
and he knew no good could come of it, and he went persistently wherever there seemed the remotest likehood of his
meeting her; and he was always unsuccessful. He even
found himself pacing backward and forward in the street
where the Trentons lived, and he fancied that every servant
at a door must know what he was hanging about for;
and he felt ashamed, and went away vowing he would never
go there again, and went next day accordingly. It was a
bad thing for Salome that she had broken ground with him
even in jest upon the dangerous theme of his affection for
his cousin. It was a bad thing for her peace of mind that
she had invited his confidence, and talked of herself as one
who might be regarded in the light of a mother. Poor
Paul took all this aupied de la lettre, and did not hesitate
occasionally to  pour his confidence into her bosom.
Salome thrilled and quivered and turned pale under the
ordeal; and poor Paul did not suspect the pain he caused
her. He believed everybody, and he really thought for
no short time that Salome's expressions of maternal regard
were only the simple truth. He sickened of his listless,
hopeless life, and she sickened at the frank acknowledgments which he sometimes made to her. Her very appearance seemed to tell that something was wrong; her manner
grew  more careless and capricious and impulsive; she




214                  PAUL MASSIE.
laughed more loudly; she wrote less; she sat more often
alone and silent and sad.
So the prospect of a new excitement to him was a great
relief to her. Anything to pass over the next few months.
She hoped to do him a great service: to make some grand,
vague discovery. No doubt she hoped too to separate him
utterly from his uncongenial relations. Therefore she expounded to him the parliamentary project as a splendid
scheme, absolutely essential to his prospects and his name.
He accepted the proposal just as he would have agreed to
a distraction which presented itself in the shape of an exploring expedition or a yachting trip. Moreover, he was
by no means as indifferent to political questions as a young.
Englishman of his age and temperament generally is.
Paul had been reared in America, where every man is a
politician; and had lived a good deal in countries where
every man who is not an avowed politician is a conspirator.
Therefore, if he knew but little of the precise bearings of
political parties in England, he had no inconsiderable aptitude for politics in general, and his extensive practical
information might well serve him in better stead in the
House of Commons than a high-class University education.
So he agreed to contest the seat recommended to him.
He was ashamed to tell Salome the condition of his finances;
but this difficulty was removed by a preliminary assurance
that the contest should cost him nothing. The patriotic
electors of Seaborough could not think of allowing their
representative to pay for the privilege of entering parliament on their behalf. Mr. Wynter had, therefore, been
commissioned to arrange for all that part of the business.
So indeed he had. A cheque from Salome had conveniently enabled Seaborough patriotism to dispense with any
pressing demands upon the purse of its candidate.
Salome's friends rallied round (we may appropriately
adopt electioneering phraseology) the new  candidate.
Many of them seriously regarded him as a person likely to
be of service to their views, if in parliament, because of




MR. WYNTER, M. P.                215
his acquaintance with foreign affairs and his democratic
opinions. There was a sort of vague plan just then floating or drifting about certain circles for getting into parliament a few representatives of the continental school of
democracy. Observe that the continental school is composed of very different personages from the British school
of democrats.  The latter follow  Bright and  Cobden
(eheu! did follow Cobden, one should say-may England
long preserve his glorious memory!), and strive for universal peace. The former swear by 3Iazzini or Herzen or
Victor Hugo, hate the Emperor of the French, and place
their first hopes in- universal war. Paul belonged naturally to the 3Mazzini, Herzen, and Hugo school; but his
politics were, of course, rather a feeling than a science.
Perhaps not a few of those who now most eagerly urged
him forward did so because they saw that his political feelings were deep, and that his political science was shallow.
An energetic man who can drive others, and at the same
time can himself be easily led, is a model politician in the
eyes of well-governed political coteries.
The retiring member for Seaborough, Mr. Charlton,
gave Paul his earnest aid and fall interest, partly because
he liked him, partly because he detested High Church, and
partly because himself and his wife had generally been
snubbed by the old-established families of Seaborough.
Some of Salome's friends were delighted at the candidature
solely for the amusement of the thing, and would have
thrown their souls into the contest, if they had the slightest means of being able to render any service thereby. As
for Salome herself, she would have been only too happy if
her life had been cast in the more exciting days when she
might have worn her candidate's colors, driven about in a
coach-and-six to canvass for him, and bribed (not with
fond shekels of the tested gold) the more gallant of the
independent electors, like the famous Duchess.




216                  PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER XVIIL
THE WEHR-WOLF.
I AM to see the wehr-wolf to-day, Alice," said Madame
de Luca one morning to her attendant or protegee.
" You had better go to your room now, unless you would
like to have aninterview with your old friend, and to
renew your acquaintance."
" I, ma'am? 0, no. I should be quite afraid."
" Well, I hope we shall soon be rid of him. He's going
to America."
"6 0, how glad I am!"
"Yes, I have promised to pay his passage, and give
him a trifle to start with. My own advice to him would
be to enlist at once in the Federal army; or in the other
if his natural instincts should conduct him there; and get
honestly and decently shot. I don't think anything better
could possibly happen to him."
" No, indeed, ma'am."
Alice did not much care what army he joined, or what
he did, provided he put himself securely out of the way by
any operation.
" Yes, he is coming here to-day. I saw him by the
merest chance yesterday lounging about near the bettingplace in I-yde-park, under the tree. He was looking wilder
and more out of sorts than ever. I pitied the unfortunate
wretch; and I went up and spoke to him. He seemed quite
amazed that anybody should take the slightest interest in
his movements, or in his existence, poor creature; and I do
believe he thought I must have some sinister motive in offering to do anything for him. I told him if he would go to
America his passage-money could be provided for him; and,
after a few moments' parley, he accepted the offer. Not
gratefully though, or graciously, but as a much-injured




TIE WEIIR-WOLF.                    21 
man consents to accept an instaiment of his rights.  So he
is coming here; will be here soon, in fact; or ought to be,
if he keeps his word."
Salome was soon left alone to wait for her visitor.
It was strange, or at least would have been strange in
any one else, the interest she took in the wehr-wolf, as she
chose to call him.  She pitied the wretch, and was touched
by the kind of instinctive ferocity with which he seemed to
regard the human race as his natural enemies.  This peculiarity would assuredly have repelled and disgusted almost
all other persons; but it had an odd sort of attraction for
her.  She always averred that she liked anything that was
real; and this pleasant attribute of Halliday's was at least
a reality.  There was not much of personal affectation
about him, although he could lie and cheat when it suited
his purpose. To all ordinary eyes he was a low, drunken,
ferocious ruffian; but Salome, who generally preferred the
more romantic aspect of things, transfigured him into a
wehr-wolf, whom  a sense of wrong had driven to sorcery
and the forest.  There was something interesting in trying
to reclaim him; it was like endeavoring to tame a wolf.
It roused her faculties; and she liked it.  But let us not
deny that mere kindliness of heart and pity had much to
do with the interest she felt in llalliday.
-Ier visitor camne true to time.  Iis money was out, and
he would probably have paid her a visit very soon in any
case.'He was looking worse and worse.  The man was
fast fading, and the wolf becoming more and more conspicuous.  His walk even had now something stealthy and
wolf-like about it; and his eyes, reddened by drink, had
that distrustful restlessness which the animal-tamer despairs
to remove.  When he enter'ed the room, Salome sat at her
desk, and did not at first look up or speak; she was curious
to find out how he would open the conversation.
Halliday stood silent a moment or two, and turned his
old cap about in his hands.  Thern he made some guttural
sound, which he probably intencede as a delicate hint that
10




218                  PAUL MASSIE.
he was waiting. This producing no effect, he spoke at
last.
"Well, ma'am, you see —I've come, you know, as you
told me."
Yes, I see," said Salome, looking up and laying down
her pen; s"and I am  sorry to see that you have been
going on badly."
"What's it matter how I've been going on? I'll not
be any the better for talking of it."
" No, I dare say not. I don't suppose anything I could
say would do you any good."
"It wouldn't!" exclaimed Halliday, with a positive
fierceness of sudden energy; "it wouldn't, ma'am, do me
any good in the world; and where a word from  you
wouldn't serve me, a day's preaching out of the pulpit from
nobody else wouldn't do me any good. I'm past all that.
You're just about the only one in the world that I'd do
anything for; and why? Just because you're about the
only one in the world that ever offered to do anything for
me. But you can't do me any good; you nor nobody else.
I'm in the way here, and you'd like to get rid of me; and
you're quite right. Very well. I'll go. I can't do anything by staying here; and I'm ready to go. To America,
or anywhere else; it's all the same to me. I suppose
there's drink in America, and tobacco; and I don't care
much about anything else-now."
" No; but once you did care about something else."
"What signifies? What's the use of talking of that?"
" Because I think there may be some good in you yet,
Halliday; and I don't like to give you up as quite beyond
hope.  You did care for something besides drink and
tobacco once; and not so long ago. I think you do still."
"No, I don't. If youmean Ally Crossley-"
"Yes, I mean her."
" Then I don't care about her; what you call care
about her. I'd like to see her-I'd like some one told me
she was in this house."




THE WEHR-WOLF.                 219
Salome was almost betrayed into a start, and an expression of alarm.
"Why do you wish to see her?"
"Because if once I see her, I'd never let her go again.
I'd drag her with me, or I'd kill her. She's ruined me,
and made a fool of me, and laughed at me; and I'd make
her come with me, ay, and make her as bad as myself, just
to punish her and have my revenge. Yes, I would; or I'd
kill her."
" Why," said Salome, "you poor fellow, you are madly
in love with her still. I am really sorry for you; but
I don't believe you are half as bad as you give yourself out
to be, and I am glad to find you have so much of feeling left in you which has nothing to do with whiskey and
tobacco. Pluck up some courage, man, and begin a new
life. Go outto America; and I will take care to put you
in the way of getting employment there; and you will
soon make your way. You are too young not to be able to
get rid of your drinking habits."
Halliday shook his head.
"I don't know now," he said. "My father died drunk;
and so, I've heard him say many a time, did his father. I
think if things had gone differently, I might have got over
it perhaps, and pulled out all right; but now everybody
is against me, and I don't care. But I'm obliged to you,
ma'am, and I don't want to trouble you. You offer to
send me out to America?"
" Yes, to New York; and from that on to the West. I
don't yet quite know to what place; but you are not to
stay in New York, not a day. It shall be arranged so that
somebody will meet you in New York, and pay your fare on
to some other place, where employment will be ready for
you."
"Will you give me the price of my passage in the ship?"
"No, not a penny of it., You know very well what
would come of it if I did."
Halliday smiled grimly.




220                  PAUL MASSIE.
"You're right," he said. " But what am I to do, then?"
"You are to come here again in two or three dayssay three days-and you shall then be told what ship you
are to go in, and what you are to do. You will have
to leave from  Liverpool, I fear; but we must arrange
to have your safety looked after on the way from the train
to the docks-a perilous journey, I hear. And for the meantime, I must give you a little money; but it shall be very
little-just enough to keep you without drinking. I must
trust to you, Halliday, not to spend it in drink. May
I trust you so far?  Will you promise me? Come, now, I
am doing something for you; will you promise me this?"
-lalliday hesitated, moved uneasily from one foot to the
other, and twisted his cap many times.
"I think," continued Salome, "I see a great chance for
you, if only we can manage to transfer you to some fresh
western town of America, with an interval of sobriety
between. But to do any good you must begin well. Now,
promise me that you will not spend in drink what I am
going to give you."
"Well," said Halliday, after a little more hesitation
and shuffling, "I'll promise. Yes, I'll promise. And what's
more, I'll do my best to keep my word.'
"Come, that's right; and I will trust you. Here."
She gave him a small sum of money-only a few shillings
indeed.
"You will come back," she repeated, "in three days;
and then I will tell you what has been done for you, and
where you are to go. We shall make something of you
yet. And America is a broad place, Halliday, where people do not know a great deal about the gossip of Seaborough;
and it will be your own fault if any one learns that you
were foolish in England. There are pretty girls there too,
I am told; and I dare say you will contrive some day to
~forget all the past, and find a good wife, and make her
a good husband. Now; good-morning."
Halliday lingered a moment.




THE WEHR-WOLF.                  221
"Well? " said Salome, looking inquiringly at him.
"'I don't know," he said slowly, and evidently trying
to follow out the thread of some idea in his puzzled brain.
"You are very good to me-very.  I can't well make it
out. There isn't any dodge in all this, is there, ma'am?'
"Any dodge? In what?"
It isn't anything, you know, just to get me out of the
way? It isn't anything that Ally Crossley is mixed up
in? It isn't because I threatened about her, is it, ma'am?"
The shrewdness of the suspicion a little surprised
Salome. The instinctive and rooted distrust of all human
kindness was something to  think  over and to study.
Salome had to own to herself that in this instance the distrust was not altogether unfounded.
"There is no dodge, I-alliday, as you call it, unless a
dodge to try to do you good. It is quite true that your
threats did make me a little anxious to get you out of the
way; but that consideration alone would never induce me
to take any trouble about sending you to America. I should
rather have you handed over to the police, who would take
good care that you did no harm to any one-even to yourself. No; I really want to save you, if I can; and if you
act like a man, I at least will always be your fiiend, and
will hope to hear that you do well, and are happy."
"Thankee, ma'am. I believe all you say; and I hope,
once I'm  off, that you'll never hear of me again. That's
about the best wish I could give.  Good-by, ma'am.
Would you mind just-just shaking hands with me?"
Salome put out her hand without hesitation, and it was
held for a moment in the hot dirty fingers of Jem Halliday.
Then her visitor was gone-to return in three days.
"I think I have brought the wehr-wolf back to his old
shape of man, for the hour, at least," thought Salome.
"Perhaps-who knows?-I may succeed in restoring him
altogether at last. It would be something to accomplish.
It would brighten one's life a little if one could feel sure of
having done so much. Poor wretch!  It will be a good




222                  PAUL MASSIE.
thing for Alice when he is fairly out of the country; for I
do think the girl is not perhaps altogether so foolish in
her dread of him. He looked wonderfully dangerous when
he spoke of her. Well, after three days she may breathe
freely, and my experiment in human reclamation begins."
Alice knew  when her discarded lover was leaving
Salome. She heard his heavy tread upon the stairs. She
became possessed with a sudden and unconquerable curiosity to have a look, a safe look, only one, at him. So she
ran to the window of her room, drew aside cautiously one
corner of the blind, and peeped out. She heard the halldoor close behind him, and saw  him  shamble into the
street. He crossed the road to the other footpath, and
then, turning back, looked up at the house.
Alice dropped the curtain in haste, and did not venture
to peep out again for several seconds. When she did cautiously and timorously look from the window, there was
no one visible anywhere in the sunny little street, except a
page who held the heads of a pair of ponies attached to a
basket-carriage.  Halliday was gone, then; must have
gone straight away, and could not have seen her. What a
lucky escape! Who could ever have thought of his crossing the road at once, and looking up? So odd; but just
like him; his prying eyes were always where no one expected to meet them. This time, however, it didn't matter; Jem hadn't seen her. Indeed, he could hardly have
recognized her up so high. Still it was an escape; and
Alice laughed with satisfaction, although her little heart
palpitated still pretty smartly with the fright she got when
Halliday looked up.
A few moments afterwards, she heard from Madame de
Luca that Halliday had pledged himself to go to America,
and she began to breathe freely once again.
Had she, however, seen a little more of Halliday; had
she been able to note the expression which came over him
when he looked back at the house, —she would have had
less cause for satisfaction. He gave only one glance back.




THE WEHR-WOLF.                  223
She only peeped for two seconds from the window; yet he
saw enough in the time. He had eyes like a cat or a lynx;
and he saw Alice, and knew her, and took in, or thought
he took in, the-whole of the situation in a moment. He
felt as if he had had a sun-stroke. Something seemed to
to have pierced his brain, and to keep throbbing in his
head. The pavement and the houses danced before him,
and he put his hands out as one who has to clutch something to save himself from  falling. Yet he had wit
enough, and self-control enough, to suppress in a moment
any outward demonstration of surprise and anger; and
though in the first flash of his fury he had some wild
notion of rushing back, dashing at the door, and forcing
his way to Alice, he saw in an instant that such a mad
proceeding could only end in his utter discomfiture.'So he
held his way down the street just as if nothing had happened; and before Alice ventured to look out again, the
place, as has been said, was clear of his presence.
But his heart was full, and his brain was maddened.
He now saw in Salome's kindness only what he would
have called "a plant."  He had been deceived, "done,"
from  first to last, and by "a pack of women."  How
many a day and night had he turned himself into a
human  ferret to  find out Alice Crossley!  And  she
was there all the time! Why, Madame de Luca had
scolded him for not finding out something about the girl,
had coolly asked him whether there was really such a person in existence! And she was upstairs in the same house
while they were talking! This was why he was to be sent
out of the way, anywhere and anyhow; this was why
they wanted to ship him off to America! They had been
laughing at him all the time; they were laughing at him
now. Perhaps some of them would laugh another way
before all was done.
Probably that was a crisis, a turning-point in Halliday's existence, when Alice looked so unluckily out of her
window. He was actually on the verge of believing in




224                  PAUL MASSIE.
human sincerity and kindness.  A little more, and he
might have known what it was to have hope. Now faith
and hope were suddenly blown out of his nature, and for
ever. The wehr-wolf loses his old power of returning to
his original shape. He howls and ravens in the forest, to
be a man no more.
CHAPTER XIX.
PERPLEXED IN THE EXTREME.
TIHERE were few men of his class and character in Lon-[ don more uncomfortable than the Rev. Eustace Massie.
Everything seemed of late to have gone wrong with him,
more especially during the few weeks of his present stay
in London. There could be no doubt that three-fourths,
five-sixths of his vexations were to be traced to the unlucky
propinquity of his cousin Paul. As Fitzjames, in Scott's
poem, is pursued everywhere by some association of the
Douglas, so poor Eustace could not turn to right or left
without being encountered by something which disagreeably reminded him of Paul Massie. It made his situation
more uncomfortable that he had no confidant. When he
thought of speaking on the subject to Sarah, a keen twinge,
agonizing as a dart of neuralgia, passed through him. To
talk of it to Lydia would have been a pure waste of time
and breath. He heard everywhere of Paul's fast life, of
his odd manners, of his queer companions, of his one especial friend, the lady with the Italian name, of his expenditure and of his debts.  All this did not come to him in the
way of slander.  Good-natured people sometimes spoke to
him of his cousin in words of praise, called Paul a fine
fellow, and asked Eustace to bring him to their houses.
Ladies sometimes put'direct questions to Lydia that amused




PERPLEXED IN TIE EXTREME.              225
or confused her, and much annoyed Eustace. But this
was not all. Nay, all this, vexing enough in its way, was
nothing to some other new and mysterious sources of
vexation.
Letters from Eustace's man of business at Seaborough
began utterly to perplex him. They talked about queer
rumors afloat in the town, odd inquiries being made, inysterious ransackings of old parish books and records, singular visitations of persons whom the man of business
thought he knew to be connected with the office of a London attorney. These odd persons had been to Crossley the
boatman, and to Crossley's wife. It was given out too
that Crossley's mind was quite at rest about the safety
of his daughter Alice; and that she was somewhere in a
good place inLondon; and in a vague way the man of
business, suspicious no doubt, connected her disappearance
with the subsequent setting on foot of queer inquiries all
about the town. What the precise nature of the inquiries
was, he did not say;but from the tone of his letter it
might be inferred that he presumed that they ought in
some way to be of interest to Eustace Massie.
Eustace could make nothing of all this; but he had
been stopped in the Strand one day by a half-drunken,
dissolute ne'er-do-well from Seaborough, whose name he
remembered to be Halliday, who asked him for money, and
on getting a shilling or two out of charity and shame,
offered for a five-pound note to put the clergyman up to
something that would open his eyes, and put him in a way
to prepare for squalls. To this metaphorical warning the
clergyman would have paid little attention; but Halliday
endeavored to make his meaning clearer by intimating in
a thick whisper that Eustace's cousin and "lher" were
plotting against Eustace, and trying to do him a bad turn,
and that he, Halliday, knew what it all meant, and could
open their eyes. VWhereupon Eustace indignantly declined
to have his eyes opened, and turned scornfully away from
his fellow-townsman, whom he set down as mad, either by
1 0*




226                  PAUL MASSIE.
providential or spirituous deprivation of senses. And now
Eustace remembered clearly enough that he had heard this
dissolute creature described as the discarded lover of Alice
Crossley; and idiotic as his talk appeared to be, he could
not help connecting it in some inexplicable way with the
perplexing hints he had just been receiving from Seaborough.
Vexations come in battalions. It has been said that
part of Eustace's business in town was to assist in finding
a candidate for Seaborough.  A fit and proper person had
been found. The eldest son of a peer-a young man of the
most strictly orthodox character, brought up in the best
school, who used to make the prettiest speeches on the
platforms of various Church societies; a Conservative of
mild propensities; on the whole, the very nonpareil of
candidates-had kindly consented to stand for Seaborough.
Eustace exulted, in his decorous -way. There would be,
could be, he felt sure, no opposition. Eustace hated a
contested election, with its riot, its coarsenesss, its vulgarity, its bribery, and its drink.  Some of the London
papers already spoke of the affair as settled-a quiet walk
over. The local paper on Eustace's side congratulated the
electors of the borough on the prospect of Seaborough's at
last assuming its proper place in the councils of the nation.
The opposite party kept very quiet; gave absolutely no
sign. Eustace himself, sitting under the gallery of the.House of Commons, had heard a gentleman, who rose up
from one of the ministerial seats, mumble something in
which the word " Seaborough " occurred; and it was
explained to him that this meant moving for the writ. So
the affair was apparently all right, and there were only
three or four days to run.
The very next day Eustace was passing down St.
James's-street, when he was hailed rather impetuously
from the steps of a club. The hail came from the lips of
one for whom  Eustace had a high respect-the senior
member for his county, who had been a prime mover in




PERPLEXED IN THE EXTREME.             227
discovering the fitting candidate to rescue Seaborough
from  its degrading position in the councils of the nation.
Eustace had to shade his eyes from the early morning sun
of London (half-past twelve r. s.), as it fell glowing on
the pavement. Thus he recognized the utterer of the
vehement call.
"Hallo, Massie," said the senator, "this is a devilish
queer business about Seaborough! Very glad I met you.
What does it all mean?"
" What is it, Sir John? I have not heard of anything
particular."
"Not heard of anything? On your honor, Massie,
don't you know anything about it?"
"Really, Sir John, I don't even know what you are
alluding to-and I think my word will be enough without
any other pledge.  What's the matter? "
"Well, Massie, I'm  glad to hear what you say. I
couldn't believe that you had anything to do with it-I
couldn't believe it, sir; and so I have been telling Stokes
and Freshman."
"Do, pray, tell me what you are speaking of?"
" Why, man, we're going to be opposed in Seaborough
after all, and by somebody who they tell me is a cousin of
yours,-some Mr. Paul Massie."
"Good heavens!-what is the meaning of this? Are
you sure?  Paul Massie! It can't be serious; it must be a
joke, Sir John; this is sheer stuff and nonsense."
" Stuff and nonsense it may be, but I can tell you it's
devilish serious stuff and nonsense. It's all over the clubs
to-day, and little Tellers of the Reform told me just now
that he met Brand this morning, and Brand told him the
thing was quite serious, and Mr. Peter-Paul-what's his
name?-Massie was to have the Government support. I
saw the address. Supports miniisters powerfully on the
foreign policy-pitches strong into Tories-talks ever so
much about local interests, and making Seaborough a port,
or a dockyard, or an island, or I don't know what-and




22 8                  PAUL MASSIE.
insists upon having the place represented by a member of
a family always identified with its progress.  That's the
whole dodge, in fact. Foreign policy, local interests, no
strangers,-these are the points to touch up the rabble. I
hear that Massie started last night for Seaborough, and
that old Charlton went down to introduce him.  It's very
vexing."
"Vexing, Sir John! It is indeed vexing to me; and
I have only too much reason to fear that it is done
chiefly to vex and insult me. It is a heavy insult, and one
which I did not deserve.  But it is not the only one I have
received from the same quarter."
" If I were you, I should make a point of running down
at once, else you'll find half your voters pledged against
you, under the impression that they are voting for youthinking that they are supporting your candidate when
they are supporting your cousin. I bet anything the fellow will tell them so.  A fellow capable of such a trick as
that is capable of anything.  I'm  going down at once;
come with me."
"It's a very painful position for me," murmured poor
Eustace; "but I ought not to shrink."
" Certainly not-certainly not. Don't you see the awkward position it places you- in with our men, having a fellow of your own name-a member of your own familyopposing the candidate you yourself invited to come forward?  Would you think of seeing him, and having some
sort of explanation? "
"Seeing him! — seeing whom?"
"Why, your cousin-this Massie; perhaps you could
persuade him to retire, and not make a fool of himself."
"No, I'll never see him.  I'll never make any appeal
to him.  I wish I had never seen his face."
Do you know anything about his means?  Where does
he get the money?  People tell me that he lives fast; but
they say that there's some woman with plenty of cash-"
6 Sir John, I really know nothing of my cousin's ways




PERPLEXED IN THE EXTREME.              229
or means. I have certainly no reason to suspect him of anything dishonorable, or of living upon anybody's money
but his own. He may wish to vex and grieve me; but he
belongs to a family which does nothing disgraceful."
After all, blood is thicker than water; and a cousin is
the son of one's father's or mother's sister or brother; and
Eustace Massie was not a bad sort of a Christian for a
clergyman, and he did not like the tone in which his friend
spoke of his misguided relative.
-Even while these two were talking came up several who
knew them  both-among the rest little Captain Trentbn;
and some congratulated Eustace in good faith upon his
cousin's candidature; and some who understood the state
of affairs rather better, sympathized with his unpleasant
position. But no one seemed to have any doubt about
the genuineness of the candidature. Everybody had seen
somebody else who told him something which led him to
believe that the new candidate and his friends were really
doing their very best to win.
Eustace drove frantically home in a hansom, left a very
hasty note for his womankind, who were out somewhere,
and caught the next train for Seaborough.  We shall not
attempt any analysis and exposition of the feelings of that
clergyman as he sat in the railway train and tried to read
the paper.
When he reached Seaborough, he found the contest
already raging. Happily for the peace of the neighborhood,
it had not long to rage. Both sides were haranguing incessantly; the speaking was on both sides very vehement, and,
for the most part, untrained. There were some great foreign
questions stirring even the minds of villagers at the time,
which gave Paul and Paul's supporters an immense advantage.  All the Dissenters and Democrats, of whatever
kind, rallied around him. Men came down fiom London
-men with names which had reached even Seaboroughand delivered harangues full of epigram and splendid sentirnent in his behalf. All the wrongs ever done to peoples




230                  PAUL MASSIE.
by despots, from Macedonia's madman to the Swede, were
flung tauntingly in the faces of Paul Massie's opponents.
The misdeeds of every Government, from that of the Tuileries to that of St. Petersburg, were made a bill of indictment against the Tory candidate. You might have thought
that Seaborough had a special mission to chastise tyrants;
that the aristocratic candidate was the nominee of every
reigning autocrat and the secret agent of every dethroned
despot; and that the universal brotherhood and solidarity
of nations all the world over had chosen out Paul Massie
for their prime spokesman and representative.
On the other side, be sure that hyperbole did not lack.
The friends of aristocracy painted a ghastly picture of the
results which must follow, as the night the day, if in
evil hour Paul Massie should be returned for Seaborough,
The throne overturned; the crown flung into a ditch, like
the diadem in Uhland's pretty poem, or hung on a hedge
like the regal coronal of Bosworth; the Church profaned
and destroyed; the laws of property and marriage abolished;
the English language prohibited; British beer cruelly taxed
to favor sour and rancid foreign mixtures; Communism,
Socialism, Chartism, Red Republicanism, Yankeeism, Italian Revolutionism; flat burglary and flat blasphemy tlampant everywhere: these were a few, and indeed only a few,
of the hideous consequences which must follow if poor Paul
Massie should be returned for Seaborough. The crisis was,
in short, a death-grapple between the British Constitution
and Paul Massie: the hour had come to end the reign of
the Church of England or of Paul Massie. Two stars keep
not their motion in one sphere; nor could one England
brook the double rule of the wisdom of our ancestors and
Paul Massie. The moment was supreme: the destiny of
Britain was in the hands of the Seaborough electors. Elect
Paul Massie, and the British Lion would have roared its
last, and the battle and the breeze would never more be
braved by the Union Jack.
It was sore for Eustace Massie to have to bear oppo.




PERPLEXED IN THE EXTREME.              231
sition to the candidate of his choice. He had himself
assured the young nobleman that the affair would certainly be a walk over. Eustace liked influence, and the
repute of possessing influence; nor did he, a Christian
minister, hate the sons of peers. He felt as if his personal
credit and honor were assailed the moment his candidate
was opposed.  Clergymen are generally as impatient and
illogical politicians as women. Eustace felt that any opposition was hard to bear. But it was harder still that the
candidate of his choice should be opposed by one who bore
his own name, and on whom Eustace had quite made up
his mind that he had showered unmerited kindnesses.
Yes; that was a heavy dispensation.  But there came
something far harder still; for the British Lion was left to
howl in vain; the Union Jack was furled and flung in the
dust; the son of the great British peer, the orthodox scion
of England's proud nobility, the member and the ornament
of so many religious societies, the chosen candidate of Eustace Massie, was defeated! Leicester-square had triumphed
over Belgravia; Runnymede was left nowhere by Bohemia!
The close of the poll came amid storm and stress; and the
returning officer, serene amid a rain of eggs and brickbats,
proclaimed Paul Massie, Esq., duly elected to serve in parliament for Seaborough.
As Eustace Massie walked home on the evening of this
final day, he had to pass through many excited groups, and
had been favored by some cheering and not a little hissing.
He was determined to show that he could bear any obloquy
and misconstruction, even where the scandal of a family
quarrel was concerned, in the discharge of his duty. Therefore he took fortune's buffets and rewards with equal favor
outwardly; but he did feel a pang when, passing one of
the public-houses, he saw a huge painted caricature hung
out, purporting to represent himself, Eustace Massie, in the
act of selling the borough to the aristocratic candidate's
father; himself, Eustace Massie, on his knees receiving a




23'2                 PAUL MASSIE.
huge bag of money from that nobleman-a peer on whom
he had never once set eyes in all his existence.
But something took place the night before the polling
which must be told in another chapter.
CHAPTER XX.
SEABOROUGH REVISITED.
IN compiling the natural history of ghosts there appears
-to be one peculiarity of those uncomfortable creatures
upon which all poets, romancists, and philosophers, from
Virgil and Dante to Defoe and Mrs. Crowe, seem  to be
quite agreed-that is, their habit of hanging perpetually,
and for no apparent purpose whatever, round the places or
the ruins of the places in which they once lived and loved
and hated and were happy and suffered.  Your ghost is
no adventurer or explorer: he clings like a cat to the old
hearth, though its fire may have been extinguished for
generations; he wanders about the old home, even after
successive races of men and strange guests have been sheltered beneath its roof-tree. Therein the ghost, after all,
only gives the clearer proofs of his earthly origin, or shows
perhaps how truly a subjective creature he is whom we
have evolved out of the depths of our moral consciousness;
for there is no foolishness more common to living humanity
than the tendency still to linger and hang about places
between which and ourselves Fate has interposed her
wand of inexorable separation, and with which we kinow
that we have no longer anything to do. The murderer in
all the old stories comes back for no practical purpose
whatever to the scene of his crime, and of course gets captured there for his pains; and the discarded lover clings




SEABOROUGIH REVISIrED.               233
about the place which once was full of hope and brightness
to him, but which can never shine for him again; and indeed sentiment of one sort or other thus sometimes sways
the most practical of us, and renders of no account the calculations of the knowing, who always assume that men will
only act as their substantial interest directs them. No
ghost ever took a moonlit walk around a ruin to less practical purpose than Paul Massie had in his mind when, the
night immediately before his polling-day, he set out alone
to haunt the precincts of Seaborough-house and the shore
which lay beneath its windows.
He had thrown himself into the business of the election
contest with quite a feverish energy, and had canvassed
and made speeches and discussed plans of action with all
the zeal of the most devoted politician thirsting for a
parliamenltary position to serve his country or to satisfy
his wife.  He worked all the harder, perhaps, because of a
vague drea-l that if he were to leave off for the moment,
he might become  suddenly disgusted with the whole
affair, and inclined at any risk to back out of it.  But the
night before the polling he became seized with an unconquerable desire to escape for a few  moments from  the
excited atmosphere of electioneering, and to. breathe a
purer air.  So he contrived to accomplish a strategic movement which enabled him  to free himself from  his friends
and backers and agents at the head-quarters in Seaborough
and at Mr. Charlton's house, and, once clear of pursuit, he
directed his steps towards his cousin's residence.
He had no business there.  Nobody wanted him. He
had not known before reaching the scene of the election
how directly and completely his position in the contest
placed him  in opposition to his cousin.  An hour in the
town showed him  this unpleasant fact.  Eustace Massie,
who would gladly, at almost any personal sacrifice, have
avoided anything like a family scandal, conceived himself
bound in honor and conscience not to draw back from the
prominent position which le had pledged himself to take




234                  PAUL MASSIE.
in the support of the noble candidate of his choice. The
affair, therefore, began to assume quite a Polynices and
Eteocles appearance-a sort of family fight, in which the
closest relatives were marshalled  upon opposite  sides,
prepared to cut each other's throats. A set of supporters, too, rallied to Paul, of whom he was himself much
ashamed, and who threw into the struggle a vehemence of
personal hostility quite superfluous to the actual issue, and
indeed made it indisputably evident that they supported
Paul Massie only because they hated Eustace Massie.
These were the Low-Church men and the most uncompromising of the No-Popery Dissenters.  In the eyes of these
stern sectarians poor Eustace, who hated Popery as sincerely as the most virtuous Protestant ought to do, and
who was as firmly convinced that poverty and Romanism
go together as Exeter-hall itself could desire-poor Eustace was regarded as not one whit less odious than Cardinal Wiseman or Judas Iscariot. Therefore, had Paul
Massie been the Rev. Dr. M'Neile or Father Gavazzi, his
No-Popery supporters could not more aggressively have
insisted on the fact that he came to put down Romanism,.
altars, candlesticks, auricular confession, and ritualistic
practices. They placarded the town with oracular announcements in big print, to the effect that " The Rev. E. N.
Massie is a Papist in disguise;" or proclamations of "No
candlesticks! " which publications, though they might seem
to the superficial mind widely removed from the questions
at issue in the contest, yet were supposed to have a tremendous effect in working up the slumbering Protestantism of
the constituency, and directing its mighty energies into
the true channel.
All this, of course, Eustace supposed to be directed, or
at least encouraged, by Paul Massie, who had nothing whatever to do with it, and indeed had nearly forfeited all
chance of his election more than once by the angry emphasis with which he repudiated and condemned it.
Paul well knew that these incidents of the contest must




SEABOROUGH REVISITED.               235
contribute heavily to make his name odious in Seaboroughhouse. He would not for anything have had to meet his
cousin Eustace alone and face to face; he would have
dreaded equally, but for different reasons, a meeting with
Mrs. Massie. He knew well enough that Sarah and Lydia
were still in London; yet his feet bore him in the direction of Seaborough-house.
He walked along the strand, on which the moon shone
softly and sadly. The sweet air of the summer flowers
rested even on the sea, and the lazy waves hardly throbbed
upon the still glowing shingle.  He soon reached that
part of the shore which ran beneath his cousin's demesne,
and was only divided from it by the little wall he scrambled
over the first night of his visit to England. He could see
the roof and chimneys of the house, and he could not resist
the temptation to draw a little nearer; to cross the wall
and lose himself for a moment among the trees and the
walks. The house, as he approached it, seemed all dark, as
if no life whatever were stirring there; and indeed it seemed
to repel him as most of its inmates had done. He came
to just the spot where he had parted from Sarah-where he
might almost say that he last saw her, for he could hardly
call the momentary glimpse of her in London a meeting.
He was not a sentimental man, but he remained fixed to
that spot for some time: he clung to it as one clings to a
cherished grave. He stooped, gathered some leaves from
the spot, and laid them carefully in his pocket-book, among
electioneering accounts, and heads of speeches, and names
of pledged supporters, and other such rubbish.
A sound startled him while he was thus engaged. It
was the sound of a footstep, and nothing could well have
seemed to him a more untoward event just then than to be
seen byanybody while he was thus secretly as it were
within the. precincts of Eustace Massie's demesne.  He
grew hot with vexation.  It was too late, however, to
retreat or to escape observation; the footstep, which was
that of a woman, came liearer and nearer. Paul drew




236                  PAUL MASSIE.
back and leaned against the tree near which he had been
standing. In a moment the figure of Mrs. lassie entered
the walk.
Evening had by this time given place to night, and, but
for the moon, darkness would have concealed our friend
from anyone passing hastily along the walk, for the tree
under which Paul stood was some yards away and many
shrubs grew  between. Paul still hoped that he might
escape unobserved. - Mrs. Massie was walking  slowly
along, her eyes fixed on the ground, and Paul could hear
distinctly that she was speaking or murmuring to herself,
as she passed. She wore no bonnet or cloak, but had a
dark shawl thrown, mantilla-fashion-perhaps a memory
of the old ways of the Mexican life-over her head, and falling down her shoulders.  The paleness of her face showed
all the whiter fiom the frame of black in which it thus was
set. Her figure looked wonderfully youthful; despite of
the dream-like vacillation which seemed to characterize all
her movements, she might have passed in the eyes of anyone who stood where Mlassie was then standing for a girl
of twenty. She passed on without seeing him, and Paul
began to breathe a little more freely. The walk was
almost circular, and, after fringing the grass on which he
stood, curved away in the direction of the house; therefore, when she passed him, he hoped she would follow the
path, and that he might then be able to retreat altogether.
But he was mistaken. After she had gone a few steps he
knew that she stopped, and then he heard her slowly returning. Still it was not beyond hope that she might
again fail to see him. She came on; she was walking
very slowly. As she approached the tree, she turned her
face in that direction, and the moon fell full upon it.
There are legends of mysterious beings who assume the
form of young and lovely women, and beguile men, but
whose real nature is revealed at a flash to him who has the
fortune to see their faces under the earliest beams of a new
moon. Then the purple light of youth fades from the




SEABOROUGH REVISITED.               237
cheeks, and the flesh withers and looks shrivelled, and the
eyes are sunken and gleam  with a baleful fire, and the
whole illusion melts under the exorcising ray.  So it
might have seemed in one sense with poor Mrs. Massie.
The figure, the step, the shape of the head, the contour of
the face, the fair locks that escaped from under the shawl
-all these spoke of freshness and youth.  But the face on
which the moonlight now fell with so disenchanting a
lustre looked withered and worn and hopeless and old.
Paul thought he had never seen an expression of sorrow
and pain and fear so completely congealed upon a human
face as that which was stamped in livid colors upon the
features now turned towards him. Absorbed and almost
fascinated by the sight, he forgot for the moment his own
position. At first he was unseen. The eyes which were
turned towards him  seemed to have no sight for any
earthly object around. They looked into the past, or into
the future. But as she was turning her face away, and the
shadow was again about to fall on it, Paul made some
involuntary movement of his arm, and disturbed a branch
of the tree. The sound reached Mrs. Massie's ears; she
stopped, looked towards the spot where Paul was standing, and saw him. She looked wildly at him. He remained perfectly motionless an instant under the embarrassment of the situation.  Her lips opened, and she
seemed as if she were about to scream, but she suppressed
any sound more penetrating than a long, deep, agonized
moan. A moment yet she looked at himn then, still moaning and shivering from head to foot, she fell upon her
knees on the ground, and pressed her hands over her eyes,
as one whose only present thought is to shut out some
sight too fearful for human nerves to bear.
Paul had expected some manifestation of surprise or
displeasure, but.assuredly nothing like this. The very
strangeness of it served at once to rally his composure
and self-control, as a sudden shock sometimes recalls to




238                  PAUL MASS1E.
firmness the trembling nerves. He sprang to Mrs. Massie's
sicle, and lifted her from the ground.
"Dear Mrs. Massie, dear aunt," he said, " I have alarmed
you dreadfully, and I do not know how to apologize. I
ought not to be here; but pray do not be alarmed. It is
only I-your very unlucky nephew, Paul Massie, of whom
I hope you do not think too hardly."
She pushed him sharply, angrily, from her, and said, in
tones that quivered partly with fear and partly with
vexation:
" You have no right to come here, and-and frighten
me. I cannot bear it. This is not the first time. You
torture me. Why-why have you come here? Why did
you stand that way-here, at night-when all is lonely and
ghastly, and look so, and terrify me?"
" Indeed I had no notion of doing anything of the kind.
I never expected to see you; and I came in merely by
chance. I am sure I don't know why, but because in passing the place something seemed to draw me in. But I
know well I ought not to be here, and I will go, and not
return any more. Pardon me for having alarmed you;
and good-night."
He was half offended, and yet ashamed to show any
feeling of bitterness when talking with one of whose full
sanity he felt no small doubt. He did not turn immediately
to go; he hoped she would say some kindly word, or at
least some word which might reassure him as to her mental
condition.
"I wish you had not come," she went on. "0, how
much I wish you had not come  "
This was too much. He raised his hat, bowed coldly,
and was turning to leave the place, when she caught him by
the arm:
"Paul, Paul," she said, "you must not go-not now, not
this way. Don't mind —0, my dear, don't mind what I was
saying. Indeed I hardly knew myself what it was. My
nerves are wretched, and I have been much alone all the day,




SEAlOROUGH REVISITED.             239
and I am easily frightened; and I scarcely know now what
I thought when first I saw you. Perhaps I took you for a
ghost. Some people believe there are ghosts, don't they?
But I am glad, very glad, to see you. and it was kind of you
to come. It was very kind; only you shouldn't frighten
timid people late at night. Come, give me your arm."
She talked now with a forced vivacity not pleasant to
listen to. When she took his arm, Paul could feel that she
was still shivering all over.
"You will come in," she continued. " Eustace is not at
home; that is, he is in the town, in Seaborough, busy
about this unfortunate election. But he would be very
glad to see you if he were here, and perhaps he may be
back soon. Come in."
" No, aunt, I cannot go in; and you must not ask me.
I did not come to see you, or anyone here; I must tell you
that. And I cannot enter Eustace's house. We are not
friends; why, I do not know; but he, I suppose, thinks very
badly of me, and thinks me his enemy, which Heaven knows
I am not, nor anybody else's."
" I do not know," Mrs. Massie said hesitatingly, " why
Eustace and you should have quarrelled. It was my dearest wish that you should have been friends, and lived like
-like cousins; as cousins ought to live. It was my earnest
wish that you should come to this country; but I don't
believe our dearest wishes ever are fulfilled in life. Mine
have all gone wrong. Why have you and Eustace
quarrelled?"
" In truth we have not quarrelled. But I think he never
liked me; and he was too ready to believe anything bad of
me, or at least to put the worst construction upon everything."
"But why have you opposed him in this unfortunate
election? Why make a public scandal here for the sake of
thwarting him? "
" Indeed you do me wrong, as well as he does, by suspecting me of having done anything for the sake of thwarting




240                   PAUL MASSIE.
him.  I never knew, or had the least reason to suppose, that
he had any interest in the matter-any real and personal
interest, that is-one way or the other, until after I had
pledged myself to stand, and put myself and my friends
prominently before the public. Half-a-dozen friendly words
from him, or from anyone on his behalf, would have settled
the whole matter. Had he come to me, or written, or sent
to me, and frankly explained his position, the thing could
not have occurred. But I never knew that Lord-I forget
his name-was Eustace's candidate, until Eustace rushed
down here and flung himself into the ranks of the opposite
party.  lie made the scandal-not I. What could I do?
I was pledged to my friends. I could not throw them over."
"Is it true that Salome Adams is one of your friends?"
" Yes.  Salome Adams-Madame de Luca-is one of
my friends, one of my best and kindest and most valued
friends."
" Is she your friend because she is our enemy?"
"'My dear aunt, these are mere dreams and delusions.
She is no more your enemy than I am. Why should she
be? I don't believe she is or could be the enemy of any
human being. Certainly she has been —kind to me-as no
one else has."
I-ie spoke these latter words with slow and deep emphasis. Mrs. Massie appeared not to notice it.
" Do vou mean to marry he? "
The abruptness of the question startled him, and somewhat embarrassed him too. He had rather a dark complexion for blushes, and yet it is not unlikely that he blushed.
But he answered in as careless a manner as he could assume:
" Madame de Luca is only a friend, and is quite unlikely
ever to be anything more, so far as I am concerned.  I am
not in a position to marry anybody; and I am sure Madame
de Luca never bestowed a thought on the subject."
"Paul Massie, I don't like Salome de Luca; I fear and
dislike her both; and she has little friendly feeling to me.
But if you loved her, I had rather hear that you married




SEABOIOUGH REVISiTED.             241
her than that you were married to a queen on a throne.
Do anything-commit any folly; but never, never marry
unless for pure love alone. Kill yourself, rather than
marry anyone to whom youdo not give your whole heartor who does not give her whole, whole heart to you. All
other marriages are curses. There are those who know it
-who have the knowledge written on their hearts in fireay and on their lives in blood."
Her manner was so wild and earnest-so unreasonably,
unnaturally earnest as it seemed to Paul, that all his doubts
about her reason began to return. She clutched his arm
with all her force as she was speaking. They were now
slowly pacing up and down along the walk where Paul had
first seen her.
He was anxious to turn the conversation into any other
channel, and so said with an assumed lightness of manner:
" Well, aunt, I am not a marrying man just yet, nor likely
to be soon. It would be hard indeed to find anyone to
marry me; and I really don't mean to marry for money at
any time. But I am much grieved about this confounded
election business. It never ought to have come to this; it
never would if I had been frankly, or indeed fairly, dealt
with. I am very glad that you give me an opportunity of
explaining myself on the subject, and showing that whatever unpleasantness may have airisen, I am not to blame
for it."
Mrs. Massie's mind was not deeply fixed upon the subject
of the election. She only answered vaguely, " I am glad of
it-I am sure of it; and I think Eustace will be glad of it
too. He is very good and just, Eustace is-he would not
wrong anyohe: and then he is firm and strong. You must
see him, and this must all be settled."
"I am anxious for a reconciliation as much as anyone
can be. I do not know why we should be anything but
friends. But there is something strange which I cannot understand. Aunt, can you tell me anything about
my father? 
11




242                  PAUL MASSIE.
Mrs. Massie's fingers grasped his arm more tightly and
feverishly than before.
"About your father? 
"Yes. You knew him, did you not? 
"I knew him? 0, yes, I knew him."
" In Mexico? "
"Yes, in Mexico. But I never saw him since you were
born,-I believe he died soon after,-I do not know. How
cold it is! "
It was a very warm night; the atmosphere still glowed
with the embers of the fiery heat which had bulnt on the
landscape and on the sea all the day.
" Had we not better come in?" Mrs. Massie continued;
I begin to feel it quite chilly. I do not often walk here
so late; but this evening the house was so dull, with the
girls in London and Eustace not at home, that I thought it
would brighten me to walk here a little? so I came, and I
saw you."
No, aunt, I must not go into the house, and cannot;
but I will not keep you here any longer. Only, I may not
see you soon again; and I know there is some painful secret
about my father which ought to be told to me. I know
there is. People are even now guessing at it and hinting
at it-people whose very names I do not know; and I am in
utter ignorance of it. What is it? If there's anything to
be told, you must know it. Better I learned it from your
lips than from those of a stranger. Tell me-I beg of you,
tell me."
"'I can tell you nothing," she replied after a pause,
during which she had more than once, it appeared, begun
to speak and stopped, or tried to speak and failed. "I can
tell you nothing: your mother and father "-another pause
-" were not happy, I believe-and were separated at last."
"But that is not all. Is there nothing more?"
" What else could there be?"
"Is my father dead?-can I not know even that for
certain? "




SEABOROUGIH REVISITED.             243
"He is dead."  The words were faint-indeed almost
inaudible.
" I see that my questions torture you; but, good heaven!
how can I avoid asking them? Useless my cross-examining
and distracting you,-I do not even know what to ask. If
there is anything which I ought to know, do, I pray you, tell
me of it. No matter how painful it may be, let me hear it,
let me know the worst at once. I feel that your motive is
kindly and good, and that you only wish to save me from
pain; but, believe me, the pain of knowing it-be it what
it will-is slight compared to the torment of guessing. I
beseech you to be frank and tell me all."
There was no answer: Paul bent down to look in Mrs.
Massie's face. A strange conflict of cruel emotions was
working there. Neither spoke for a moment.
" Once more, aunt, and I will trouble you no more. Is
there nothing-is there really nothing which you have to
tell me?"
" 0, Paul, Paul! " she said, and she broke into bitter
tears, "why have you asked me? Why have you come
here-why did I bring you here?  I strove with all my
power to avoid this; but it has come on me at last."
Paul braced his nerves and feelings for the painful disclosure of some kind which he now expected to hear. Mrs.
Massie drew her arm from his, stopped, and fixed her eyes
upon the ground, while she interlaced with feverish restlessness her quivering fingers. Was she making up her mind
-was he about to know all?
Perhaps so. Another moment, and all might have been
told. But the gravel of one of the walks crashed at that
moment under a quick footstep. Mrs. Massie heard it and
started. Her whole expression changed.
" No," she said, in faint and broken tones, "there is nothing to be told; I know nothing, nothing at all. Hush! here
is Eustace."
And Eustace that moment entered the walk, and looked




244                  PAUL MASSIE.
amazed indeed when he saw his mother in such company.
He raised his hat with a cold and distant courtesy.
" Have you long returned?' asked his mother, asking
any question to break the embarrassing silence.
"Only this moment," he said; " and I came to find
you, surprised  that you  should be out of doors so
late."
" It is late," she replied; "I was going in. But do you
not see your cousin Paul? "
"Yes, 0 yes; certainly. I hardly expected the pleasure
of a visit. I am surprised, under the circumstances-"
Paul was embarrassed at first; but rather because of the
embarrassment of Mrs. Massie than on his own account.
He was not conscious of any cause to be ashamed, and
he scorned conventional hypocrisies and meannesses of
any kind.
" I did not come to see you, Eustace," he said, "or
indeed anybody. I wandered in here out of a mere impulse,
and I met your mother. I am very glad I did; for it gives
us all the chance of an explanation which may remove misuinderstandings. I am sure you have misunderstood me; I
dare say I have misunderstood you. Let us talk the matter
over, and be friends. It can all be settled even now; at least
so fal as this absurd election affair is concerned."
Paul was quite making up his mind that, no matter what
might be said, he would not carry on a contest which placed
him in direct antagonism to his only relatives. Let some
one else be found-Wynter could easily find some one even
now, at the last moment-to take his place, and fight the
battle of liberty unfettered by the thought that his blood
relations were in the opposite ranks.
But Eustace answered very coldly. "I don't know that
there is any misunderstanding, or anything to explain. I
am doing what I feel to be my duty; I assume, of courseindeed, I do not doubt, that you are acting upon a similar
conviction. I regret that we should be opposed; but I am
not aware of any course which could now avoid the neces



SEABOROUGH REVISITED.             245
sity. All that could now be said ought to have been
thought of and said before."
For in truth Eustace did not want reconciliation, and
moreover did not believe it possible. Eustace conceived
that between Paul and himself there lay a far wider gulf than
any election compromise could bridge over. He was a good
man-a terribly good man was Eustace; and he did not see
how he or his could possibly associate with any but good
men. He had-the truth must be spoken-got it firmly into
his head that Paul Miassie was not a good man. He felt
convinced that Paul seldom, if ever, went to church; he had
no doubt that he gambled, and heard the chimes at midnight, and consorted, if not with a wild prince, at least with
many a Poins; and he did not like the stories he had heard
about his friendship for Madame de Luca. Paul's appearance in the electioneering contest he only regarded as a
natural and consistent proceeding on the part of one who
had no fixed principles, and from whom, therefore, nothing
was to be expected. He had no very angry feeling towards
his cousin; but he regarded it as simply impossible that he
could associate with him. And so his words and his manner
very plainly showed.
So Paul felt his overtures of reconciliation thrust' back
upon him, and his cheek grew hot while his heart grew cold.
Another woman than Mrs. Massie-a woman with some
glow  and force of character-might nevertheless have
brought these two natures together then and there. She
might, with the warmth of love and womanly confidence,
have forced Eustace to thaw, and thus brought the waters
of human affection gushing forth. But she was incapable
even of such an effort. She looked from one to the other
with an expression of fearful and almost abject misery.
Indeed, she seemed positively afraid of Eustace. He was
not by any means a strong man-had little real vigor of
character; but he had just that amount of egotism and
superficial firmness of manner which, when they are combined with any fair degree of high principle, and more




246                  PAUL MASSIE.
especially when they are sustained by any appearance
of religious inspiration, commonly impress women with the
idea of a heaven-sent strength and dignity. Mrs. Massie
quite accepted her son as a spiritual and moral ruler sent to
guide and govern the weak, though himself too strong to
have any share or sympathy in human weakness.
Eustace was firmly convinced that he was doing right
when he thus positively repelled Paul Massie, and bade him
to stand off. Mrs. Massie's heart was pierced, indeed; but
it had been pierced many times, and often bleeding had not
yet bled to death. She bowed to the decree of religion and
justice, and morally abandoned Paul Massie.
He made but a brief and hasty adieu. Mrs. Massie took
his hand, and, after a furtive fiightened side-glance, pressed
it to her lips. He drew it away quickly, almost sharply.
There was a secrecy about her manner which offended him.
She was evidently afraid to acknowledge one gleam of affection for him before her son; she pressed his hand as a timid
girl might demonstrate her affection to her lover while the
watchful eyes of a stern mother were on them. Nay, worse
than that; as a faithless wife might strive to convey.some
acknowledgment of an unlawful confidence in the presence
of her husband.
Paul left the place in bitterness of spirit. He felt
ashamed of himself more than ever he had been before.
Had he been spurned from Eustace's door,he could not
have been steeped in a deeper sense of degradation than that
which penetrated him as he left the place. He went directly
to the comnTttee-rooms of his party in the town, and they
worked there long and late that night. Then they returned
-Paul, that is, and some half a dozen or more of his principal supporters-to Mr. Charlton's, where they were waited
for by a tolerably large gathering of sympathizers. The
dawn of a summer morning was shining on them when they
broke up and went to their bedrooms, after many wild
speeches had been delivered and pledges of success interchanged. Paul did his very utmost to put his supporters in




SEABOROUGH REVISITED.              247
good heart. He was now resolved that no effort of his and
no feeling of his should be spared to defeat the candidate
of the opposition. This was not truly a very magnanimous
resolution, when we consider the cause which lent it special
earnestness. But Paul was not in a humor for magnanimity just then. He was determined to succeed, and full
of confidence. To adopt his own phrase, he was " bound
to win."
But before he reached Seaborough, after leaving his
cousin's demesne, an incident befell him, which, were he in
a cooler mood, might have left something puzzling behind.
Walking towards the town, chewing the cud of very
bitter fancy, he saw approaching him the tall stooping
figure of Dan Crossley the boatman. Paul would rather not
have met him just at that moment. He was not in a temper,
perhaps, for friendly greetings of any kind. But moreover
the sight of Crossley filled him with a sort of penitent feeling. When he was leaving Seaborough for London, it will
be remembered how  earnestly he promised Crossley to
devote himself to the'discovery of Alice, for whose secret
and successful disappearance he could not help holding himself accountable in a sort of indirect way. Now he did not
indeed fail in his promise. He did set inquiries going; but
he very soon heard that the girl had "turned up" somewhere, and was safe, and that her people were satisfied.
Since then he had not troubled himself to make any definite
inquiries as to Alice's whereabouts; and, indeed, once he
was relieved of any doubt as to her safety, very soon forgot
all about her. Therefore the sight of her father made him
feel a little ashamed and compunctious. There was nothing,
indeed, with which he could be reproached. There was
nothing he ought to have done and did not do. In fact, as
it turned out, there was no occasion for any effort of his.
But his own conscience reproached him for the rapid fading
away of his interest in the poor boatman and his family.
And he would now have avoided a meeting with Crossley,
if escape were decently possible.




248                  PAUL MASSIE.
It was impossible, however. Crossley came up, pulled
at his cap with homely courtesy, and warmly greeted Paul.
The latter held out his hand and shook the boatman's
brown fingers.
"Glad to see ye, Mr. Paul-proud to see you, sir. I
hear your chances are very good, sir. You shall have my
vote, never fear. And when you get into parliament-house,
I hope ye'll often come to see us down here."
"Thank you, thank you, Crossley. I am glad to find I
have so many friends here. I hope you are well, Crossley.
You look strong and stout, I am glad to see. And your
wife?"
"Thankee, sir, pretty well, though the times are not
very good."
And your daughter-she too, I hope, is well? "
" Yes, Mr. Paul; I hear she's very well. Much obliged
to you for the trouble you took to find out the foolish girl.
There never was any harm in her; only nonsensical notions
sometimes, I'm afraid."
"She does not live with you, now?"
"   no, sir. She has a place in London, you know, and
doesn't want to come back. I dare say it's all right; but
I'd rather she came back and remained here under my eyes
and her mother's eyes."
Paul's mind was abstracted. He hardly heard Crossley's words; and the boatman kept on for a few moments
in the same strain unheeded. At last he appealed to Paul's
attention by a direct question.
"Pray, Mr. Paul, did you ever happen to meet that fellow  called Halliday-Jem  Halliday, you remember-in
London?"
" No, Crossley, I never saw him there."
" Nor heerd of him? "
"No, indeed. Is he in London?"
"So I'm told, sir. He left here immediately after poor
Ally went. He's a great liar, sir; God forgive him, and
me too for believing his lies like an old fool. He told




SEABOROUGH REVISITED.             24-9
me horrible lies about Ally, and all that. Mr. Paul, I hope
you mayn't meet him. He's an enemy of yours."
"Why, Crossley, I have never done him  any harm,
except some few angry words that I once spoke to him."
" Yes, but he has got something into his drunken goodfor-nothing head; and he's a bad man; he's sure to come to
something bad in the end. Give him a wide berth, Mr.
Mlassie."
" Well, Crossley, if ever I see him I shall give him as
wide a berth as possible. But I cannot imagine what
cause he can have to be my enemy; and I don't see what
possible harm he can do me. I am much obliged to you,
and I hope I shall see you again before I return to London."
Paul again held out his hand, and was going  on
towards the town. The boatman hesitated, and at last
said:
"I'm  told there is to be-a lawsuit, Mr. Paul. I'm
sorry for it. Fam'ly quarrels are always bad things; and
once your in a court of law, there's no saying what mayn't
be brought up. But if it is to be, sir, them that know anything must only speak the truth. We know, my wife and I,
very little. We were never much given to minding other
people's affairs; but of course, whatever we are asked, we
must answer, without fear, favor, or affection. Good-night,
sir; I'm keeping you waiting with my talk. Somebody
must win, sir, and I can't help hoping it will be you."
Paul Massie went on his way, not indeed understanding very distinctly what the boatman was talking about,
but assuming that it bore reference to the election, and the
possibility of a petition following it,-a thing which both
sides were already beginning to anticipate,-and the hunting-up of evidence to support a case of bribery and intimidation. Therefore the words made no impression on him,
and he felt relieved when he had got rid of the boatman,
and could follow his own road and the train of his own
thoughts alone. Not long, however, was this latter luxury
allowed to him. As he approached the suburbs of Seaii*




250                PATTL MASSIE.
borough, the sparks of the unwonted political excitement
already began to shower thick and fast about him. He
was promptly recognized  by little knots of people at
corners, and cheered; and the knots began before long to
form into an  attendant crowd, and follow  him  with
hurrahs. Then other little knots began to groan for him
and his supporters, and to cheer for the other candidate;
and little skirmishes took place here and there, and Paul's
friends, being much the more numerous and obstreperous,
were not very patient of opposition, and Paul had more
than once to exert the utmost of his muscular strength to.
rescue some too demonstrative champion of his enemy from
popular vengeance. So he was the centre of a mob when
he reached his committee-rooms, and then he had to mount
to the window and deliver a speech. Decidedly, wherever else he might be out of favor, Paul was the pet candidate of the Seaborough populace.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.
MADAME DE LUCA had gone to the Opera. The
election was still an incomplete event, and Paul
Massie was not in town. About nine o'clock the door of
Madame de Luca's house opened, and a person came out,
who looked cautiously and timidly up and down the street
before venturing farther. This was a young woman neatly
and smartly dressed, as one might see even in the comparative darkness. She might perhaps have passed at a
hasty glance for Madame de Luca's waiting-maid, but if
looked at with any attention, would be observed to have
something in her movements not at all corresponding with




THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.             251
the way of that Gallicized and peculiar style of person.
Having looked up and down the street, she went forward
and passed into the main thoroughfare. She had seen
nobody, but somebody had been watching her. The somebody was anan who had been skulking in the depths of a
dark portico just opposite. He followed her, still keeping
in the dark, at a considerable distance behind. Once they
were both in the main road it was easy for him to keep her
movements in his eye, without being noticed by her
among so many hurrying passengers. She kept on for
some distance, and then turned into a quiet street. Her
follower only glanced down the street, as if in passing,
then turned back and glanced again. He saw her standing at a door which he knew well. He could see by her
gesture that she had dropped a letter into the box. Perhaps he did not count upon her immediately coming away,
for he had not made any effort to conceal himself, when
the girl turned back and came down the street towards
him. He made two strides to meet her, and stood on the
pavement just before her. She gave utterance to an ejaculation of surprise and alarm which was almost a scream.
"Hallo," said the man, "so we've found you out at
last, and so you ain't drowned at all, nor dead at all, only
living in grand London lodgings all the time, and paying
visits to your swell friends! And ain't he at home, after
your walk? So Mr. Paul Massie ain't in, ain't he? Maybe you'd better wait for him."
"Let me pass," said the girl; " don't attempt to stop
me."
"Am I stopping you? How grand we are! We won't
speak to old friends that have been waiting so long on the
lookout for us! We must cut our old sweethearts, must
we, because we have got grand gentlemen and ladies now?
We must leave our old fathers and mothers too! This'll
be a fine story for Dan Crossley to-morrow, to hear that
his daughter is walking London streets of nights."
"Dan Crossley's affairs and my affairs are nothing to




252                  PAUL MASSIE.
you, I should think," said the girl, recovering, or affecting
to recover, her courage, and tossing her head; " Dan
Crossley and Dan Crossley's daughter are free to do as
they like, I should think. I told you often enough, Jem
Halliday, that I would have nothing to do with you and
nothing to say to you, and I tell you the same now again
once for all. I'm my own mistress, and I'll do as I please."
" No, you ain't," said Halliday with an ugly leer. "I
don't know whose mistress you are, but I've watched for
you long enough, and now I've found you I'll take you
home to your father."
"Don't dare to touch me," cried the girl; "if you do,
I'll call the police."
"Do, and I'll show them the bill offering a reward for
finding of you; I've got it here. Ain't you Alice Crossley?
and haven't I got your height here, and the color of your
hair and your eyes, and isn't your description all right?
Except your clothes-perhaps they weren't quite so fine
when you ran away; but I suppose you can explain to
your father how you came by them."
" I must go," she said, endeavoring to pass him.
"Not a bit-of it;" and he seized her by the wrist.
"Do you think I am going to leave you to Mr. Paul Massie? Do you think I'm not going to have my revenge on
you for the way you treated me? I was good enough for
you once, until you saw him."
"You were good enough for me until you made a
drunkard and a low vulgar fellow of yourself. I wasn't
going to put up with a person like you. Nor Dan Crossley, as you call him, wouldn't let me, even if I would.
And Dan Crossley won't thank you for this."
There was tremor in the girl's voice as she talked this
way, although she strove to speak in an easy and scornful tone.
" Whether Dan Crossley would thank me or no, I'll act
the part of a friend by him, and I won't leave his daughter
to walk London streets. I've watched you now  long




THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.             253
enough. Don't I know that your grand lady would turn
you out of doors if she knew you were running out the
moment she turned her back, to pay visits to her own
sweatheart? A  nice lot you've got into! If I told the
lady of this, where would you be to-morrow? Yes, I've.
had my eyes on you when you didn't think it. I've seen
you from across the way. and through the blinds in the
lady's bedroom, and fitting on her bracelets and things,
and fancying you looked a fine lady yourself. -0O, I found
you out, when you thought I didn't see you! And the
lady herself, she thinks she has me under her thumb.
Blut I'll let her see she hasn't; and now come away."
"Let me go," she said; "you shall not drag me with
you. I must go."
"Listen, Ally," he said in a growling tone. "Sooner
than let. you go, I'll cut your throat here with my own
hands, if I gev' myself up to the police a moment after. I
wouldn't think twice about it. I've been waiting and
watching and half starving here about London, until I'm
like a mad dog; and I'll have my revenge-you sha'n't
stay here for him."
"I've never seen him; he doesn't know I'm here."
"Gammon. Tell that to the marines. We have had
enough of talk here now; come along with me; we'll talk
on the way."
"Jem," said Alice, " if you only want money, I'll give
you a little. I'm sorry you lost your time here looking for
me. It was very kind of you."
He burst into a rude loud laugh, which made people
passing along the great thoroughfare from  which this
lonely street emerged looked round surprised.
"Gammon again, Ally. I'm  up to  all that now.
Where's your money? Show it to me."
She took out a small purse. He snatched it from her
hand, and chuckled.  "Not much," said he. "Do you
spend all you get? Anyhow,'twill pay for us in the train
home."




254                  PAUL MASSIE.
The girl shuddered. There were tears in her eyes.
She looked vainly up and down the street. A  policeman tramped past the corner. She thought for*an instant
of calling him; but her voice choked  in her throat.
An appeal to a policeman would have been discovery all
the same.
"Come along," said Halliday; "I know a place where
we'll be safe-and quite proper-O yes, quite properuntil the time for the train. And we'll have a cab to the
station-such swells! And we'll send a note to your ladyship to tell her that she needn't trouble about you any
more. Ain't I happy that I've got you at last! Crying too!
Cry away; it doesn't soften me. I'm very glad to see you
crying. I suppose you're crying because you can't come
knocking any more at Mr. Paul Massie's doors of an evening, and leaving such a fine place as London too.! Come
along; perhaps you'd like to take my arm."
The girl started, and made a frantic effort to run away.
Halliday caught her in his strong gripe.
" No, you don't," he growled. "Try that again, and
I'll take you off your feet and carry you. I tell you again,
Ally, it's no use. If I can't take you away alive, I'll take
you away dead, and that's all about it."
He was dragging her away. She scarcely dared to
struggle, and yet looked wildly round for help or chance.
She still would not cry aloud. Anything rather than exposure. Suddenly a hansom cab rattled round the corner.
A man was in it smoking a cigar. There were portmanteaus on the roof. The light of the lamp flashed full in
the face of the passenger as the cab drove into the street.
It was Paul Massie's face. Scarcely knowing what she did,
the bewildered girl shrieked out:
" O, Mr. Massie, Mr. Massie! save me, save me! "
Halliday swore a savage oath, and tried to drag her
away, putting one hand over her mouth and nostrils; but
he was too late. Paul had heard the cry, and not knowing what it meant, leaped from the cab. Just as he rushed




THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.             255
up he saw  something glitter, and heard a wild scream
of terror or pain. Halliday flung the girl to the ground,
and was gone. Paul's first thought was for the woman.
He raised her from the pavement.  She was bleeding
in the neck, and senseless. Of course he knew the face of
Alice Crossley.," Here," he called to the cabman. "Don't let us have
a crowd. Let us get the poor girl out of this. Drive
to -—," and he mentioned the address of Mad'ame de Luca.
It was the only place he knew where he could venture
to carry her.
Only one or two people had gathered round; and their
impression was that a woman had fallen in a fit, and that a
medical man was carrying her to a hospital. By the time
the customary policeman had at last come up, the cab was
half a street off. Paul sat in the cab and held the wounded
girl in his arms, with his handkerchief to her neck. He
could feel that her heart was beating stoutly, and he
did not believe that the wound was serious.
A few moments brought them to Madame de Luca's
door. In that irregular establishment nobody wondered at
anything. Paul deposited his poor burden with Mademoiselle Clotilde, who broke into a thousand little shrieks
at first, but presently subsided, and pledged herself to
have everything done that was needful. Then Paul drove
off himself to the nearest surgeon, and despatched him
to look after Alice. Finally, having ascertained that the
wound was only a sharp stab which would not prove serious, he thought the best thing he could do would be to
drive off and announce to Madame de Luca at the Opera
that he had taken the liberty of converting her house into
a hospital.
Had he thought nothing of the assassin, or attempted
assassin, all this time? At first, very little. Before he
had raised the girl from the ground the man was gone;
and the sight of her face, the discovery of her identity, the
sight of her streaming blood, the imperative necessity of




256                  PAUL MASSIE.
doing something at once for her, drove everything else
out of his mind. Now that cooler reason was beginning to
return, he repented that he had not contrived by some
means, by the help of somebody, to secure the man. As he
drove to the theatre, he tortured his mind with vain cogitation as to the identity of the man, why he had attempted
the deed, and why poor Alice came to be in that place,
and with such a man at all. He never thought of Halliday.
In the excitement of all this, Paul quite forgot his
recent electioneering triumph. Perhaps it was as well
that he forgot it. Already he was beginning to feel painful doubts whether he had acted well in seeking such a triumph under such circumstances; already a sense of shame
and self-reproach had begun to possess him.
He soon found Salome's box.  Traviata was the opera;
and the consumptive fiail one was beginning to fade away
to Verdi's music, when Paul distracted the attention of his
friend and her companions by entering the box.
She, Madame de Luca, welcomed him glowing cheek
and sparkling eyes. Her small gloved hand pressed his
with the softest, warmest, most thrilling pressure.
"Welcome to the honorable member for Seaborough,"
she said aloud. "Welcome, Paul," she added in a lower
tone.
Her friends likewise gave their congratulations. These
were a Hungarian refugee and his wife, a distinguished theatrical critic, and our acquaintance Mr. Wynter.
"How delighted I am that you have come!" she said.
"We wanted you so much to-night.  The prima donna is
coming to sup with me after this, and we should all have
missed you sadly. Besides, there is a Spanish gentleman
coming, and, except you, we have no one to talk to him;
so I am very glad you have come for this reason."  But
she looked, and modulated her voice when speaking, as if
these were not the sole reasons. "And now," she added,
"don't tell me anything about the election until all this
is over."




THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.              257
" But I really have something to tell you-not about the
election-which may startle you."
"Indeed! Startle me! What can it be?"
"I have just been to your house."
"Yes,-well? Did you see-"  She looked a little
uneasy.
"I only saw Clotilde. But I took the liberty of converting her into a hospital-nurse, and leaving her a patient."
"Good heavens! what do you mean?"
I found a wounded girl in the street and brought her
to your house. You will forgive me, I know  particularly
when you know who it is."
" Well, who-who?"
"Why, poor Alice Crossley, who, as you know, has
been missing so long, and whom I unexpectedly lighted on
this night in the most extraordinary fashion."
This conversation had been carried on so far in a sort
of whisper, Paul occupying a seat behind the lady, and
leaning over her shoulder.
"Pray let me collect my senses and understand all this.
-Mr. Levison, will you kindly exchange seats with me?"
She seated herself close to Paul.  "Now then let me hear
all this.  Do I hear that you  found Alice Crossley
wounded in the street, and brought her to my house?"
"Yes, that is my tale."
" Alice Crossley in the street and wounded! In what
street?"
"'In the street where I live. Just as I drove up I
heard a scream, leaped out, and saw her."
"In your street! Who wounded her?"
"That I don't know. Like an idiot as I was, I allowed
the fellow to escape."
A man-of course a man?"
"Yes, a man; I saw him run away."
" Is she badly wounded?"
"Not badly, I think. I brought a surgeon to see her."
"0, I'll attend to her myself; I'm  a better surgeon




258                  PAUL MASSIE.
than half of them. But this is the most extraordinary
story I ever heard."
" Is it not?  I cannot understand it. No doubt she will
be able to tell who the man is."
"Will be able! Then she has told nothing yet?"
"Nothing. She was quite senseless when I brought
her to your house."
" Who took her up stairs? "
I did myself."
"And she was quite unconscious?  Did she not speak
at all?"
" Not a word."
Madame de Luca seemed somewhat relieved.
"Well," she said, "this is one of the strangest adventures I have heard for a long time. Paul Massie, you have
a positive genius for adventure. I only wish you would
make me the heroine of some scrap of romance. And you
say that Alice did not, after all, recognize her deliverer? "
"Poor girl, I was not her deliverer; I only wish I had
been; I came too late. If I have a genius for adventures,
it also seems to me that I have a genius for coming in at
the wrong period of every adventure."
"Then you must not take part in any adventure of
mine. But this was indeed a singular occurrence. What
could have brought the girl there?"
" And who could the man have been?"
" 0, on that point I have very little doubt. I know
the man."
"You know the man! By what extraordinary guess
can you know him?"
" How often must I tell you that I know everything, O
you of little faith?"
"Yet you seem not to know why this poor girl came to
be stabbed just in my street."
"I don't know; but that too I promise you I will very
soon find out. Now let us just hear the last of this, for I
delight in this music.  Verdi may be very noisy and




THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.             259
vulgar, but I like him. Don't you? But I needn't ask
you, who do not know Mozart from Wallace, or Beethoven
from Balfe."
"Nay, you might go a little farther, and say that I
don't know Handel from the great musician who composes.for Christy's Minstrels; for in good truth I don't."
" Yet you have the face to praise my singing, and I
have the folly to be pleased and flattered by your praise."
"I praise your singing because it delights me; because
I like to listen to it. What I say I feel. Believe me, I
never paid a compliment in my life; I am too dull, and
don't know how."
"Well, I believe you don't pay insincere compliments,
and therefore. I will still allow myself to enjoy your praise,
even though it be not critical. I would sing to you tonight, if we had not musical guests. Now do let us listen,
and then we will see to our poor little patient."
It was soon over, but not soon enough for Paul, who
cared little for the opera, and was moreover far too bewildered and excited to care much for any musical performance under such circumstances. Having but just returned
from the confusing triumph of an election contest, into
which he had plunged himself Heaven knows why, and in
which he had succeeded Heaven knows how; having his
brain perturbed by doubts whether, after. all, defeat would
not have been a far better result; and further tortured by
miserable uncertainties and sickening conjectures about
his future and his past, it was rather too much to have the
additional surprise and bewilderment of finding the girl
whom months ago he had vainly sought lying in her blood
near his own door. His head ached; he was tired, sleepy,
hungry no doubt; and the music sounded but faintly in
his ears, like something heard from  a far distance. Perhaps he was actually fading away into sleep. Certainly
the lights and sounds seemed to change; and he was
again upon the beach at Seaborough, and he thought he
saw the face of Sarah Massie gazing upon his, and heard




2G0                  PAUL MASSIE.
her voice whisper into his ear. She touched his hand with
a gentle touch; and he looked up-and it was the soft
white hand of Salome which pressed his, and her voice
which whispered in his ear. But as his eye wandered
suddenly and vaguely around, he saw-or felt sure he saw
-in an opposite box the face of Sarah Massie turned on
him. He saw her eyes; he felt sure he saw her eyes, and
that they met his. Only for a moment: all the people
were leaving their seats now, and in the box where he had
seen or fancied he saw that face, nothing could now be discerned but the retreating backs of some ladies whom one
or two gentlemen were shawling as they went. Yet the
fancy was strong upon him, and he would have stolen fiom
his companions if he might. He felt almost as if he were
captured when Madame de Luca said to him:
"You are quite tired out, my poor Paul; quite weary
and sleepy; and I dare say you have had no dinner. It is
cruel of us to have kept you here for this stuff; Verdi is
dreadful stuff, after all. Come, give me your arm, and let
us get to the carriage and away."
Paul hardly spoke a word on the way; Mr. WVynter and
Mr. Levison did,all the talking.  Salome's beautiful eyes
were fixed on our hero with an anxious interest, which
ought to have bewitched any man, even though half asleep,
if he were not wholly engrossed in his own doubts and
difficulties.
Arrived at Salome's, they supped rather vivaciously.
Paul brightened up immensely under the influence of supper and champagne, of which latter he drank some vast
and stupendous draughts. The lady of the house quietly
visited her patient in the first instance, and reported the
wound not at all dangerous. Few words, however, were
exchanged between her and Paul on this subject. There
was indeed no opportunity. Mr. Wynter told all his
various adventures in all the great political struggles over
the world, in every one of which he had been the prime
mover. Other men have seen everything, know every



THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.             261
thing, are authorities upon everything. But Mr. Wynter
went far beyond these. He had himself personally done,
or at the least initiated, everything. All the monarchs,
statesmen, heroes, and revolutionists in Europe and the two
Americas, to say nothing of Algeria, Georgia, and Afghanistan, were but his pupils or his puppets; and they all
knew and acknowledged the fact to Mr. Wynter. There
was not one of them who had not said over and over again,
" My dear Wynter, I am quite aware that you have done
all this, and that without you," etc., etc.
Mr. Levison, the critic, had a pretty wit of his own,
and drew Mr. Wynter out delightfully, slightly contradicting him' every now and then upon some point of detail,
just to put him  on his mettle. Afterwards Mr. Wynter
took Paul aside to give him a little instruction in the
proper way of beginning and conducting his parliamentary career, and to explain to him the art of obtaining and
retaining the ear of the House, and how. ultimately, if he
thought fit, to secure a seat on the Treasury bench-an
honor which Mr. Wynter indicated had been again and
again offered to him, and declined for reasons which he
considerately remarked need not influence his younger and
less conspicuous friend. It would obviously weaken Mr.
Wynter's influence with various imperial, royal, and republican cabinets and parties, if he were to become an official
organ of the British Government. But there was, of
course, no such reason for Paul's turning his back on promotion; and Mr. Wynter kindly promised not only to keep
an eye upon him, but even to give a hint to the Premier
himself on the subject.
It was at last time to go away, and Paul was terribly
sleepy.  Mr. Wynter reminded him that their roads lay
together for some distance. Adieux were made, and Salome spoke a few quiet words to Paul about her patient's
condition. She promised to explain the whole matter to
him very soon, and meanwhile begged him to speak to no
one on the subject. All this she said in Italian, which she




262                  PAUL MASSIE.
felt quite sure was safe from Mr. Wynter's comprehension,
despite that gentleman's intimate acquaintance with every
uEuropean language and people.
Then Paul and Wynter walked home together, and
smoked their cigars as they went through the silent streets,
where only the rare rattle of a cab and the rarer tramp of a
policeman's boots now told of life. Mr. Wynter explained
to Paul as they walked along how he had enabled the allies
to take Sebastopol by the use of secret maps and plans
which he had received from a Russian officer whom he
once helped to escape from Siberia.
Paul smoked, and did not listen to a word.
As they were parting, the senior M. P. rather abruptly
said, "By the way, what do you mean to do with our
friend yonder?"  He jerked his fat and bearded countenance somewhere towards the west.
"What friend?"
" Why, of course, our friend the Countess, the Duchess
-O, confound it, I mean Madame —yes, Madame de Luca.
She's a fine woman-splendidly preserved; her make-up is
capital; and I know she's got plenty of money. I happen
to know it, sir! I knew her husband. I was close by
when he was killed by a round-shot at Novara. The Duke
of Savoy-that's King Vic now-was near.' Wynter,'
said he,  I'm glad you're at hand. Poor De Luca is down;
you'll see to him.' So I did, of course. I took him out of
the row. I know the Marchioness well; she's safe, as far
as money goes, and she's devilish fond of you. In fact, I
put the question to her myself, and she told me so. She's
older than you; she was born in June'28; but there's
nothing in that. Give me the word whenever you like,
and I'll make it all right."
Paul's impulse was to throw his glove in the face of
his friend; then to turn upon his heel disgusted, and walk
away in the middle of the harangue. But he controlled
himself somehow, and Mr. Wynter would never have perceived the anger and disgust which he was creating unless




THE FIRST BLOOD DRAWN.              263
the most emphatic of overt acts had manifested them. So
he took Paul's silence for gratitude and modesty, pressed
his hand affectionately, and walked away.
So, then, it was settled that Paul was to marry
Madame de Luca. Of course he gave no heed-at least,
he attached no belief to the babble of the self-conceited
and talkative creature who had just left him. He was not
foolish enough to believe that Madame de Luca had ever
spoken confidentially to Mr. Wynter on that or any other
conceivable subject. Wynter was not a bad fellow, and
only cared to represent himself as a person of importance;
otherwise he might, with just as much show of reason,
have described himself as the lady's favored lover. Still,
even babble like that shows too well how the wind of
gossip blows. Therefore Paul saw that it was set down by
some of his friends, that he was the accepted suitor of a
woman to whom he had never spoken one word of love. This
was not pleasant, in one sense at least. lie could not but
feel deeply grateful for the warm kindness he had received
from a woman to whom he could make no return; nay, he
could not but feel a thrill of gratified pride-of something
like delight-when he saw the expression which burned in
her eyes as she sometimes gazed on him. But did he love
her? Could he contemplate with full satisfaction-even
with content or resignation-a life wholly spent with her?
Was this exactly what he had wished for-dreamed of?
She was a beautiful, a clever, a brilliant, and a sincere woman; she was much better than what some people call a
good woman-the mere dull, plodding, soulless mistress
of a household. But was she the woman of his youth and
of his dreams? Nay, was she even the woman of reality
and life whom he had met face to face and felt that he
could love? Paul Massie was not given to mere sighing,
but he almost sighed.
He was drifting-had been drifting blindly and helplessly since he came to London. He seemed to have lost or
abdicated all control over his own existence and his own




264                  PAUL MASSIE.
movements. He had drifted into open enmity with his.
cousins; had drifted into relations with Madame de Luca
which seemed to bode still closer ties; he did not see his
way out, or backward or forward, or in any direction.
He was a poor man, and he had been living like a rich
man; he had no future clear before him, and he had been
playing the part of one for whom  splendid prospects
opened. What next? A failure of some kind must come;
some fiasco, some humiliation, or some feeble compromise with fate, which might be worse than aught else.
Still he could only drift. In all save physical strerngth
and courage, and a certain capacity for personal endurance and enterprise, Paul Massie was a weak, gentle, easilymoulded man. In London he felt himself becoming daily
more and more like a child. He swore mentally at himself
for an imbecile and an idiot. Many times a day he had
lately been vowing that he would steer some clear and
decided course; and stijl he only drifted. He felt that he
could not be happy with Madame de Luca, and yet he felt
quite unable to do without her. He could scarcely call
himself fascinated; he was rather controlled and guided.
She waved her fan, and he obeyed as though it were a
wand; he ceased to be his own master when within earshot of the rustle of her petticoat.




SARAH KNOWS HERSELF.                265
CHAPTER XXIIL
SARAH KNOWS HERSELF.
C DID you see him?"
Lydia spoke in an angry half-whisper to Sarah Massie. They were alone, in one of Mrs. Trenton's rooms, after
their return from the Opera.
"Did you see him, Sarah?"
"See whom?"  most women would probably  have
replied, although knowing perfectly well to whom  the
question referred.
But Sarah answered directly, and rather sadly, "Yes,
I saw him."' And her? "
"Yes, and her."
"Wasn't it shocking?"
Sarah could not help smiling at the fervor of the question.
" I did not think there was anything particularly dreadful about it."
" Not dreadful? Not to see him there openly?"
"4 Well, no. I do not see that there was anything very
alarming about it. I was not surprised to see him in her
box. But I was rather surprised to see him in town at all.
I thought he was still in Seaborough."
"Didn't he look  dreadful-worn-out, and pale, and
that?"
"Yes, he looked very tired."
"Tired?  Dissipated, I thought. Tell me your company! I wonder who were those horrid people with him
-with her I mean."
"One I thought was Mr. Wynter-a very good sort of
man, I believe; the others appeared to be foreigners."
"I hate that woman. So do you, if you would only
speak out."
12




266                  PAUL MASSIE.
" Indeed, Lydia, I do not hate her at all. I always used
to like her, you know. She is very clever, and I always
thought her sincere and kind-hearted."
" Mamma detests her, I know."
Sarah said nothing. She was not always guided by
mamma's dislikings.
" Then, Sarah, do you mean to say that you were glad
to see a cousin of ours, who has been behaving so ungratefully and shamefully towards Eustace and all of us, exhibiting himself in that sort of way in the theatre, as if he had
done nothing in the world? "
" No, I was not glad to see him  there; " and Sarah
undoubtedly sighed. "And I wish he had not crossed
Eustace's purposes in Seaborough."
" I wish he had never come to England at all."
" So do I —sometimes."
Lydia had been looking in the glass. She turned suddenly and sharply round.
" Sarah, you never like to hear a word said against Paul
Massie. I wonder why you are so partial to him? "
" I like Paul Massie very much. I never saw anything
in him that was not kind, and good, and true. I think he
ought not to have opposed and thwarted Eustace; but then
I don't think Eustace acted quite generously towards him.
0, then, you think Eustace was all in the wrong perhaps, and Mr. Paul Massie all in the right?"
" There was not much of wrong or right in the matter.
I think Eustace is rather prejudiced against his cousin, and
does not do him justice, and I am sorry for it-very sorry."
"Do you know, Sarah, I have sometimes thought it
would not take much to make you in love with Paul
Massie?"
Sarah grew very red; but she controlled herself, and
answered very composedly: "I am not so much given to
sudden likings and dislikings as you are, Lydia. I do not
love people without some cause, or dislike and distrust
them without having reason for it."




SARAHI KNOWS HERSELF.               2.67
"But neither does Eustace. Come now, you may say
what you like of me-and, for that matter, of mamma too
-but you know very well that Eustace does not form
hasty likings or dislikings. You know he is very particular never to say anything against anyone, unless he has
good ground for it; and you know that he does not like
Paul Massie of late. He wishes from his heart he had
never left Mexico, Eustace does; and perhaps he may
have better reason to wish it before all is done."
Sarah was in no humor to argue the point. Lydia
could not carry on the discussion alone; but she fired a
Parthian shot in retreating.
" Good-night, Sarah," she said, kissing her cousin with
manner of blended pity and affection-" Poor Eustace!"
And she sighed elaborately, and was gone.
The Seaborough election  had kept the two young
women in town much longer than was originally intended.
Eustace did not choose to take them home to a place where
such an election contest was going forward. The stay was
very agreeable to Lydia, for Captain Trenton's attentions
to her, fully favored as they were by that young gentleman's relatives, appeared destined to lead to a decisive
result in her life. And Sarah liked being in town much
better now than before the dawn of the Seaborough contest.
She liked it for a reason which, while present in full force
to her consciousness every moment of the day, she did not
as yet dare to acknowledge even in the secrecy of self-communion. She liked to be in London now because Eustace
Massie, her intended husband, was not there.
To this it had come. But this condition of feeling
might have passed away. Had Sarah M3assie not gone to
the Opera that night, she might have married Eustace at the
appointed time, and been a good and faithful wife to him,
devoted to his interests and his personal comfort, properly
affectionate in manner, and on the whole perhaps not actually, at least not actively, unhappy. She and Lydia were
to return to Seaborough in a day or two; indeed they




268                  PAUL MASSIE.
were pressed to go to the Opera because that was to be
almost their last night in town. Had she not gone to the
Opera, she would probably have left London without seeing Paul; she would perhaps never have seen him again in
life; hcr existence in Seaborough would have flowed once
more in its old, passionless, monotonous channel. She
would have glided into the quiet pool of married life with
Enstace. She would have attended to his schools, and
looked after his poor, and helped to dress his church, and
reared his children, and entered into all his pursuits, and
would perhaps have scarcely  known-certainly would
never have confessed to herself-that she had got into a
wrong groove; that her life was not what it ought to bethat a breath, and only one, of love had fanned her for a
moment and then gone by her for ever.
This might have been. But truly says Carlyle, that
the Might Have Beens are mostly a vanity.
It was decreed in some mysterious place of decision
that Sarah should not be allowed thus to follow the path
of routine prescribed for her. She did not want to go to
the Opera that night, and probably would not have gone,
but that Lydia pouted and sulked, and said she could not
go without'her; and Sarah at last consented to go.
Of course she had not been there long when she saw
Salone. This in itself was rather a painful sight, although
Sarah tried to persuade herself that she felt no emotion
whatever. For during the progress of the unlucky election, Sarah had many times heard through Captain Trenton
and others that the opposition was all Salome's doing; that
Paul Massie was her devoted slave, and that he was
destined to be her equally devoted husband. What was
this to Sarah, herself engaged to be married? Nothing,
of course nothing; and so she said to herself many times
-except that, in a cousinly way, she would perhaps have
liked Paul not to marry a widow, and one of so pronounced a style; perhaps she would have liked him to
marry a woman with a little mbre of freshness and less of




SARAH KNOWS HERSELF.                 269
the world's enamel and patchouli about her. That was all,
of course. Had Paul only found the sort of woman who
seemed suited to him, Sarah would have-been delightedyes, delighted at the prospect of his happiness. So delighted, that when she thought of such a thing her eyes
involuntarily filled with tears, which somehow did not seem
like drops of joy.
She averted her gaze from Salome's box, and fixedly
looked at the stage. But a woman's eyes will wander.
Hers involuntarily glanced back as the night wore on, and
she saw that Paul Massie was sitting beside Salome: The
glance that revealed him to Sarah revealed also her own
heart. Her inmost soul stood mirrored and bare before
her. No self-deception could hide or deaden the force of
the keen, cruel pang of grief and passion and jealousy which
shot through her. Nature surprised had betrayed herself,
and Sarah knew that she loved Paul Massie.
With the shock and the revelation there arose simultaneously, equally clear and strong, born of the samne
agony of self-detection, one fixed determination. She determined that she would never, never marry Eustace Massie.
Whatever might happen, that she would not do. The
woman who thus throbbing with passion and jealousy at
the sight of one man could deliberately marry another
would be a traitress and a criminal in soul. Sarah left the
theatre in agony of heart, but free.
Agony is not always unhappiness. Your most profound metaphysician or psychologist would perhaps be
sometimes puzzled to analyze his own'emotions under
certain given conditions of excitement, and tell whether
they consist most of the elements of pleasure or the
elements of pain.  Certainly  there are some natures,
quiet, perhaps a little slow, but deep, which always feel
relieved  and  brightened-relieved  of the  burden  of
their ordinary selves, as it were, and brightened  as
by the lifting of some, common-day curtain-when  an
event occurs which thrills them with excitement, though




2  0O                PAUL IMASSIE.
it be little better than that of despair.  Sarah Massie had
a nature somewhat of this mould. The emotions of her
soul had hitherto slumbered a stagnant pool; now for the
first time the storm-breath of passion swept over them, and
tossed them into waves; and the change was the development of a new power-the consciousness of a new existence; nay, perhaps the first true consciousness of existence
itself. Now for the first time she knew that she was a
woman, and not a dumb-waiter, sewing-machine, cookingstove, or other such useful and steadfast piece of domestic
mechanism. The instinctive truthfulness and worth of her
nature told her when she made this discovery she must
never, never be the wife of the man who was not the
source of the revelation.
So she went home, much tormented indeed, but nol
absolutely, drearily unhappy.  Life did not look rosy.
Sarah Massie was poor. The miserable little annual sum
which she could call her own would scarcely, with whatever
economy, enable her to dispense with some occupation for
the earning of money, even if she were the sort of person
who could possibly remain idle; and she knew not where to
turn for the means of living. It was certain that she must
cease to be an inmate of Seaborough-house. It was equally
certain that she would be considered  ungrateful and
unworthy by those who had sheltered her there since her
infancy. She must bear no doubt the plainings of Mrs.
Massie, the angry and scornful reproaches of Lydia, the sad,
solemn, unreproving grief of Eustace.  She must even submiit to the prospect of having the secret of her resolution
guessed at and talked over, and perhaps made an open
reproach to her. She must go away, out into the wide
world, which she had hitherto only read of, or peeped at as
through the bars of a cage; and she must live alone until the
time when she might die alone. Even so: she would go;
and gloomy as the prospect was, it did not yet make her
quite unhappy; it was at least to be something-to have an
individuality, a human nature, to be a woman with a living




BROKEN.                     271
heart. Poor human egotists, we all comfort ourselves in moments of stress by discovering the special guidance and
inspiration of Heaven in our little difficulties; and it now
seemed to Sarah Massie as if through the ceiling of the great
theatre where the huge chandelier hung, and beneath which
Traviata was crooning her consumptive death-plaints, a
distinct ray of providential inspiration had flashed down
upon the box in which she sat, and lighted up for her the
course of duty.
She resolved to act, and had no fear. She bore with
Lydia's hints and sighings quite calmly, and of course
never breathed a word of her fixed determination. That
she resolved should be told first to him whom  it most
concerned, frankly and face to face; then she would take
leave of Mrs. Massie, and make to her just such revelation
of sentiment as would suffice to explain her conduct, if not
in such eyes to justify it. And then she would go away
from Seaborough-to Belgium, she vaguely thought-and
return no more.
CHAPTER XXIII.
" BROKEN.?
SALOME DE LUCA had, as we have seen, many friends,
among the male sex at least. Is it humanly possible
that a woman can have many such friends without having
some lovers? Perhaps there are instances in which this
may be possible; for Nature, among her other exploits, has
certainly accomplished the making of some women whom
no male creature ever can associate with womanhood; and
these may be good and sweet, and even tender and loving,
and have any number of male friends, not one of whom is
ever likely to degenerate or become exalted into the charac



272                  PAUL MASSIE.
ter of a lover. But Salome was not one of these, and she
was therefore an exceedingly difficult sort of person to keep
on terms of friendship with. She had had since her widowhood many lovers and many pressing offers of marriage.
But she resolutely, good-humoredly, declined them  all;
and at last those who came within her circle began to
make up their minds to the fact that she really did not
intend to marry, and that they must be content with
friendship or nothing. The appearanee on the scene of
Paul Massie, however, disturbed this calm conviction. He
was so much with her, she was so markedly partial to him,
that people could or would see only one end to the business, and many of Salome's rejected suitors became angry,
and regarded themselves as injured and outraged beings.
Perhaps some women might have consoled them by the
assurance that, if Salome really felt any deep and genuine
emotion towards Paul, she never would have allowed herself to exhibit an open preference for him. Judging by
their own ways, which are doubtless the ways of women
generally, they would have been quite right. But Salome
had none of the small arts of her sex, and what she really
was, for good or otherwise, that she showed herself-that
and nothing else.
It may be that for a long time she did not fully see her
own love face to face; know it and call it by its name. It
may be that she even yet occasionally tried to persuade herself that she felt only a warm friendship for Paul Massie.
But some of those who watched and studied her most
keenly had long given up all doubt. One of these was
our old friend Lefevre; another of course was Wynter,
who indeed took the thing quite for granted, and spoke of
it everywhere as settled. So it got talked about very commonly in the circle which Paul Massie frequented, and even
in circles where he was not known; and though he knew
nothing about the matter himself, yet his friends and neighbors were acquainted with its whole progress, purpose, and
details. Therefore it is not surprising that, on the very




BROKEN.                      273
first night of his return to England, after several months'
absence in Italy, wild Charley 3Millton should hear that
Salome de Luca was about to be married to a man named
Paul Massie, who had turned up somehow while Millton
was roving about Lombardy, and Florence, and the Two
Sicilies-now the kingdom of Italy.
Who was wild Charley Millton?  His career is easily
told. Alfred de Musset, in one of his splenetic moods, called
Italy a Messalina, and described her as hot with the kisses
of.many lovers. If anything of the kind is to be said of her,
we might surely compare her more fairly to that famous
bride of the King of Garbe, whom La Fontaine sings, and
whose mishap it was to have to submit in turn to so many
rough wooers before she was fortunate enough at last to
find her way to her rightful husband and master. But
Italy —Messalina. or not-has surely had a marvellous
power of attracting lovers to her; and- not kings and conquerors merely, but humble, passionate, devoted lovers
from far-off lands, who held it their highest happiness to
labor and brave danger unrewarded, even unrecognized, in
her cause, and who would have longed to die in her service.
Our England, with all its smooth good sense and practical
selfishness, has furnished more enthusiasts to that fascinating cause than any other land in the world after Italy herself.  One of the noblest maladies, the most splendid madnesses of any age, has been this Italian fever, which has
seized the cold Englishman of our generation, and dragged
him from his college and his counting-house, from his eastend shop and his west-end drawing-room, and sent him to
risk his life for Italy.  Some years before 1860, the mania,
if less common than in the time of Garibaldi's great success,
burned where it struck with a yet fiercer intensity.  One
of its victims was Charley Millton, the son of a man who
had made a fortune in business, which fortune Millton had
well-nigh spent in striving to serve Italy.  He had labored,
and intrigued, and flung away thousands, and risked over
and over again his gallant life in the old days when the
12o




274                  PAUL MASS1E.
white-coats were in Milan; he had exulted over Solferino,
and been dashed to the ground by Villafranca; he had
been a Garibaldian volunteer at the Volturno; he had
been profoundly disappointed by the annexation of Naples
to Piedmont. For Charley was of the Mazzini school, and
dreamed impassioned dreams of a republic, and he hated
the statesmanship of Cavour with all the hatred of generous fanaticism; and he'had only just now been engaged
in a long course of fruitless intrigue against the supremacy
of that northern monarchical province of Piedmont, and
that House of Savoy which he had helped, in his wild,
humble way, to raise to the place of pride.
Salome's late husband was one of Charley's dearest
friends; and while that husband lived Charley never
allowed mortal to know, never acknowledged even to himself, how tenderly and passionately he, De Luca's friend,
loved De Luca's wife. But when De Luca had been some
time dead, then he spoke, poured out his whole heart and
its secret, pleaded with all the fervor of his passionate
nature, and was tenderly, lovingly, resolutely.rejected.
He was given firmly to understand that his pleading was
hopeless; and he took his rejection like a man and a gentleman, and went away. He gave himself and his fortune
up more than ever to what he believed the cause of Italy,
and lent his aid to organize movements here in Venetia
against the Austrian, there in Rome against the French
and the Pope; and again, we grieve to confess, in Naples
and in Tuscany against Piedmontese preeminence and the
House of Savoy. Some few years ago there was-most of
our readers have perhaps forgotten it-a poor little futile
insurrection, or armed demonstration, in Friuli against the
Austrian. It ended in the loss of a few brave lives, and
nothing more; it was over so soon that Venetia hardly
throbbed in recognition of it. Charley Millton bore a
part in this attempt, and escaping the Austrian' now
arrived in London.
Salome received a few lines of a note from him next




BROKEN.                     275
morning, in which he announced that he meant to pay
her a visit that day, and hoped she could spare him half
an hour of quiet conversation.
She would rather not have seen him. Memories centred around him which she did not care to revive, and
which perhaps she feared that he might attempt to revive
all too fervently. Besides, she had of late begun to lose
her zest for political and foreign intrigue. Not often are
politics anything but a distraction for a woman, unless
indeed when the cause to which she devotes herself is personified to her in the form of the man she loves. Salome
was growing listless and sad of late. It was becoming
more and more difficult to rouse her to a genuine interest
in the old subjects and the old way. She often leaned
upon her desk with paper spread before her, and wrote or
read nothing; only looked into vacancy, and was steeped
in thought. She did not wish to see Charley Millton.
His presence would be a reproach to her in a double sense,
even if he should have left his foolish passion wholly behind him.
One only compensating reflection there was. She did
not want to see Paul Massie either that day-at least to
see him alone. This was the day after Jem Halliday's
attempt; and she could not meet Paul tete-d-tete without
having an explanation forced upon her, which she had yet
hardly made up her mind how to give. Her plan for the
reclamation of the wehr-wolf she acknowledged to herself
had wholly failed; but she did not quite see whether even
now it would be wise or well to abandon the wehr-wolf
to his pursuers, have him torn from his lair in the forest,
and given over to open human vengeance. In plain words,
she did not exactly desire that Halliday should be discovered just then, until she at least should begin to see her
way out of the complication of embarrassment and small
secrecies in which she had been entangling herself; and
she feared that if Paul were once made certain as to the
identity of Alice's assailant, it would be difficult indeed to




276                  PAUL IMSSIE.
induce him to delay or compromise with the obvious duty
of putting criminal law upon IHalliday's track. For this
one reason, then, she welcomed any visitor, even wild
Charley Millton.
The latter came strictly punctual to the hour he had
appointed.  Salome and he had not met for more than a
year; and he was considerably changed.
In Gustave Dore's illustrations to Balzac's witty, scandalous Contes drolatiques is a sketch of a brave and ruined
cavalier, the hero of a story the name of which this writer
has forgotten. But to identify the picture for any reader
who cares to look at it, perhaps it is enough to say that the
story is of a lady whose lover is about to be decoyed into an
ambush and slain on her account, and who endeavors in her
despail to save his life by a cruel stratagem. There is a poor
broken cavalier who long has adored her in silence and at a
distance, and him she resolves to decoy by looks of feigned
encouragement to follow her, and thus to lead him into the
trap that he may be mistaken for her lover, and so slain.
Now Dore has drawn the faceof the devoted and unsuspecting victim; and the drawing is a masterpiece. It is a gaunt,
long, noble face, with deep dark eyes and lank falling hair;
a face all bravery and unselfishness and consuming passion,
and profound disappointment which has yet too much of
manhood left in it to acknowledge despair. That face may
be studied for hours as a very picture-history of ruined nobleness and wasted passion and dignity that nothing can subdue. Such a face and expression exactly had wild Charley
Millton when he stood waiting for Salome. Such a facealthough he was no cavalier, no hero of romance, but only
the son of a London business man, who had flung away his
father's property on mad political ventures, and had reached
the age of forty to know himself in politics and in passion a
disappointed man.
Salome welcomed her former lover with a genuine
warmth.  Her cheek colored.deeply as he touched her
hand.  He might have kissed her doubtless unreproved;




BROKEN.                     277
but he did not. In Balzac's story the lady actually offers
a kiss to the betrayed cavalier when she has confessed that
he is brought to his death; and he refuses it. He does not
want to have life made sweet lest he should become less
willing to die for her pleasure.
They talked for awhile of the state of Italy, and the
failure of the attempt in which he had just been engaged.
"How happy that you escaped!" said Salome.
"Yes, in one sense," he replied.  "I should not have
liked to die in so miserable and hopeless an affair. I
should like another try at it yet. Good heavens! we cannot always fail; and yet it looks horribly like it sometimes.
If nothing better can be done, then I shall be sorry I was
not killed even there. I begin to despair sometimes, and
to think there is nothing but failure in store for Italy.
Do you know that I get so sick of the everlasting hopes
and everlasting disappointments, that I sometimes wish I
had never known where to find Italy on the map? I sometimes begin to think we are all idiots for our pains. Do
you never think so? But you, I understand, have begun to
draw out of all this sort of thing of late. Is that true?"
" No; that is not perhaps exactly true. But of course I
have little opportunity here of knowing what is going on;
and time, perhaps, makes us all less sanguine and more cautious. If I were like you, and could actually bear a hand,
perhaps I should still be as foolish as you, Charley, and
should be found risking my life for nothing. But what
can a woman do?"
She spoke in a tone of embarrassment, for she knew
well by his looks what he was coming to.
" But you have given up politics altogether, or you are
going to do so-I mean, of course, Italian politics? I heard
so at least."
"I am in no way changed," she answered coldly.
He rose and stood on the hearth-rug. His eyes sought
a place just over the chimney-piece.
"So you keep De Luca's sword there still?" he said.




278                  PAUL MASSIE.
"How well I remember it! Indeed I ought to recollect
it. I am glad you have not taken it down-yet."
Still Salome was resolved to avert as long as she possibly could-altogether, if that should be in her power-the
explanation which she felt that Milton was endeavoring to
compel her to make.
"It is not so long there," she quietly remarked, " that
either of us could fail to recollect it; 1859 is not so very far
gone by."
" 0, then, you do remember the date? " he said, turning sharply on her. "I really thought you had forgotten
all about it. Yes, it was in 1859 that sword was left to
you; and it is now-let me see; what year is this? I get
confused in my dates. And you keep De Luca's sword
still! How long is it to remain there?"
Impossible to bear this any longer.
" I don't know what you mean, Charley Millton," said
Salome, in a voice of undisguised anger; "I cannot believe
that you have come here to insult me. Why should my
husband's sword not remain there?"
"Ah, you should know-not I. Is it not true what
I have heard even already? Can you venture to deny it? 
"Deny what? I do not mean to quarrel with you,
or to be angry; but you try my good-nature a little too
much.  What am I not to deny? "
"You know well what I mean, Madame de Luca; but I
will make my meaning clear beyond all doubt. I asked you
why you still keep your husband's sword as a relic, when
you have already resolved to fill his place?"
"This is positive insult," said Salome; "but I am
quite resolved not to be offended. You shall not make me
quarrel with you, Charley Millton; but neither shall you
suppose that you have the slightest authority over me,
or right to question me. Nobody has. Let us speak of
something else, or let us not speak together any more."
"It is true, then," he said sadly. "I was your hus



BROKEN. -279
band's closest friend, and I could not hear of it without
being sorry. It is soon-very soon."
His tone of sadness vexed and offended Salome even
more than his tone of anger had done.
" Soon!" she said-" soon! And you tell me so? How
long has this tenderness for the memory of my husband and
your friend grown up? It is a full year, I think, and more
since here in this very room you begged me to fill his place.
Where was your sensitive regard for his memory then,
when you entreated his widow to take you. for her husband? For shame, Charles Millton! You make me ashamed
of myself when I bring up recollections like these; but you
force me to it. I never before thought there was any selfishness in you; now I see that there is, and that you are
much like all the rest-selfish, yes, and mean."
"Call me anything you please. Selfish I am  and
always was where you are concerned, and mean too, or I
should not now be here arguing hopelessly with you. Yes,
you are right: I did think little of poor De Luca's memory
when I thought there was any chance or hope for myself.
But, let it be selfishness or not, I cannot bear the thought
of your marrying some one else-a stranger-Heaven
knows who he is. Where does he come from? What has
he done? What sort of man is he that is thought fit to
succeed De Luca, when —"
" When somebody else more worthy is not thought fit,"
Salome interposed with a bitter smile. An ungenerous
retort, but she was vexed out of her generosity.
He waved his hand, as if he put away all irrelevant
remark, personal taunt or otherwise.
"You told me yourself," he said, —"you assured me
here in this room, that time, that you never would marry.
You pledged yourself to that, did you not?"
" I did not, because I never condescended to make any
pledge or promise to you or to anybody on such a subject.
I told you I never meant to marry again, and I told you
truly. How do you know that if you had come with the




280                  PAUL MASSIE.
manner of an old and valued friend, and put,;he same
question to me to-day, I should not have given the same
answer? "
A gleam of brighter light flashed for a mom Jnt across
M1illton's face; but the expression of hers served in some
way to deny the meaning which her words might have
implied. The brighter light soon went out.
"No, your very look tells me the whole truth, even if
you would conceal it."
" Conceal it! I have nothing to conceal. People conceal when they have done something wrong, or are afraid
of somebody. I have done nothing wrong, and there is
nobody of whom I have need to be afraid. Come, Charley
Millton, we are old friends; let us not quarrel: wvhy should
we? All that you have been talking of and scolding me
for is mere nonsense-I don't mind being good-natured
and telling you that much-mere nonsense and talk. It is
nothing but gossip; and you used not to be in the habit
of paying attention to such stuff."
" But you are about to be married?"
"You will, then, go on as if you were really determined
to vex me? Must you have the whole truth out? Another woman would die before she confessed it; but I am
not proud, and I cannot continue to be angry with you.
Well then, perhaps this full confession will satisfy you:
no man has ever asked me to marry him since you yourself
were silly enough to do so. Come now, will that satisfy
you?"
He shook his head.
"The day before I asked you to marry me, I too had
not done so; but you had seen to the depths of my heart
months before. No, Salome; I would rather hear the
worst at once. You are in love. All your friends talk of
it, and you are certain to marry."
"If you choose to listen to the stories of people whom
you call my friends, I cannot answer for what you may
hear; but there was a time, I think, when you would not so




BROKEN.                    281
have listened. And if that were true which you say, it
would not still be a shame. I should not expect that it
would change Charles Millton from  my friend into my
enemy."
"I am too selfish, as you have rightly said, to bear the
thought; I know it. I have loved you, Salome, long and
deeply, as you know. I did hope that you might have
loved me in return, and you would not."
"Don't say would not."
" Well then, let me say could not. Does that make it any
better? You tried hard then, let me say, and you could not
-could not love me; hated me, I suppose. I could have
borne even that —yes, so selfish am I-so long as I saw your
love given to no one else. I am nQt generous enough not
to hate the man, whoever he is, who has stepped in between you and me. You might have loved me in the end
but for him."
" Charley, it pains me more than I could say to hear you
speak so strangely and so unkindly. Have you no feeling
for me when you talk thus? Do you not care what pain you
are giving me? We are not young enough, either of us, to
talk in this wild and foolish way. We are not boy and girl
any longer, and we must have some sense and self-control.
Are we not fiiends?"
" No; I can never be a friend of yours; never. Between
us there could be no such thing as friendship."
"At least we are not enemies? You could not be my
enemy."
" Your enemy perhaps, rather than your friend."
"I don't believe it, and I don't fear you in the least.
Why, I know you better than you do yourself, and I know
you to be as chivalrous as a Paladin, as Roland of Roncesvalles himself. If I were to be married next week, I
should expect you to fight meantime by the side of my intended husband, and stand between him and the enemy's
sword or bullet for my sake. But let us talk no more of
this folly. We have not met for a year. Can we find noth



282.PAUL MASSIE.
ing better to talk about than idle gossip or romantic nonsense?"
Some of Salome's words, spoken with a too palpable effort
at gayety, sent Millton's mind wandering in another track.
His eyes were again fixed upon the sword which hung above
the chimney-piece. He stretched out his arm and took the
weapon down, and poised it in his brown sinewy hand, on
which the glowing veins stood out.
" I have fought by your husband's side," he said, " and
I often endeavored to shield him from blade and bullet,
though I loved you madly all the while, and fancied perhaps
sometimes, like an idiot that I was, that he alone-his life
-stood between you and me. For I saw into your heart,
Salome, and I knew you did not love him, no, not with your
whole soul."
" 0 Charley, for shame! You must not and shall not
talk in this way. I will not listen to it; I have borne with
too much."
"Forgive me this once," he said in an impatient tone;
"I shall not be here again to offend you. Let us say no
more of that. I stood by your husband's side, but not that
last day. I wish I had been there. I wish to God I had
been cut down with him! But I helped to bury him, and
it was I who took this sword fromr his hand, and I brought
it to you as his last bequest. I did; did I not?"
" Yes, it is quite true."
Salome's tears were flowing fast; but she strove to
humor her wild lover, of whose sanity horrible suspicions
were growing up in her mind.
"That sword you had from me; is it not true?"
" Quite true, indeed."
"Then, as I gave it to you, I take it away from you
again. It shall pass into no other man'shand; it shall
ornament no woman's hearth who has ceased to be De
Luca's wife."
Before she could even guess what he was about to
do, not to speak of the possibility of her preventing the




BROKEN.                     283
action, he had shattered the weapon into fragments across
his knee, breaking it again and again with a fierce energy
until the floor was strewn with twenty gleaming splinters
of steel. In the vehemence of his action he had cut his
hand, and the blood trickled to the carpet.
"See," he said, "there's blood! An evil omen for a
coming marriage!"
Salome's courage and endurance wholly  gave  way
before such a display as this.  She was grieved, offended,
humiliated, frightened all at once, and the whole conversation had been a terrible strain upon her nerves. She sank
on the sofa, covered her face with her hands, and burst into
a passion of tears. Her weakness, however, proved her
strength in this instance, for it recalled wild Charley Millton to himself.  He knelt on the ground beside her; he
seized her hand and kissed it; he begged pardon of her in
tones of the deepest sincerity and sorrow over and over
again. He denounced himself as a brute and a coward; he
vowed he would not leave the room until she had promised
to forgive him; and he pledged himself never to intrude
upon her presence again. For awhile Salome really could
not rally; the whole scene had been far too much for her
to bear. At last, seeing the imperative necessity of bringing the painful interview to a close, she sat up, smiled as
well as she could through her tears, and declared that she
forgave him.
"Then," he said, "I have no more to ask, and I will
stay no longer.  It is like yourself, your old self, to forgive me; for you were always kind and generous, and loving too-except to me."
"Yes, loving to you too, Charley,-always loving to
you,-though not as you would have had me to be. If I
were not loving to you, how could I now forgive you for
your extraordinary conduct, your strange violence to-day?
But we must not often meet-for a time at least. We shall
* be wiser and calmer as years go on; and some time or other
you may be able to call me your friend."




28:                  PAUL MASSIE.
"May I not return?"  He stood disconsolate-a strong
man made craven by love.
" When you can feel you are my friend," she replied,
gently but decisively.
"Then good-by, Salome," was all he said; "good-by
for ever."
She made no effort to detain him, but only held out her
hand. He touched it lightly to his lips as he bent over it,
and left the room without a word.
Salome did not look after him. She remained sitting
on the sofa just as he had left her, except that, with her
chin resting upon her hands, she looked fixedly upon the
fragments of the broken sword and the blood-stains, which
were distinctly visible upon the bright carpet.  She gazed
long in silence, until at last a deep involuntary sigh seemed
to break the chain of thought, and to arouse her fiom
her reverie.
"Poor Charley," she murmured; "poor wild loving
fellow! How deeply he loved me! Ah, I shall never be
loved so again, never; and I might perhaps have loved him
in time; but now it cannot be. Ah, I might have thought
more of him if he had thonght less of me! If he only knew
all, he would pity me, not blame me. Like himself, I am
made a clinging coward, and throw myself at the feet of the
conqueror who cares nothing."
Her eyes again fell on the carpet. She gathered up
the fragments of the sword.
"Yes, there is blood,' she said; "and it is a bad omenas he told me."




THE WEHR-WOLF IN THE FOREST.            285
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE WEHR-WOLF IN THE FOREST.
ET us follow for a few hours the steps of the wretched
man whose attempt at murder had so signally failed;
let us see what became of James Halliday.
There was no pursuit of course; and he had hardly turned
the corner of the street when he became satisfied of that
fact. But just now it brought him little comfort-indeed
he cared nothing about it. He had attempted to kill Alice,
and he had failed. He knew perfectly well that he had
failed. He knew too that he had left her in the arms
of the one man whom, on her account, he hated more
than any other man on earth. To her he was henceforth
but the assassin from whom Paul Massie had rescued her.
His miserable failure had brought about the crown of his
enemy's triumph. In a few days, let him hide where he
would, he must be hunted down like a rat and dragged into
daylight. And then!
Yet it was not this last thought that troubled him most.
The thirst for revenge had for the moment transformed him,
as the passion for glory or for country, or the love of a
woman, sometimes transfigures other selfish beings; and he
was for the hour no longer selfish. He hardly bestowed
a thought upon his own safety. He thought only of
redeeming his failure by another attempt to end in success.
This hope, nay this firm implacable resolution, sustained
him, and made freedom and life still something of an
object to him.
He did not wander far from the scene of his attempt.
He lounged slowly and listlessly along Oxford-street, and
sometimes stopped and looked in at shops, as if he was
deeply absorbed in considering the value and the prices of
the objects exposed for sale. Not many shops indeed were
then open; and it was somewhat odd to see this great hulk



286                  PAUL MASSIE,
ing fellow, with a listless straw in his mouth, gazing for
several moments together upon a white horse of plaster or
a flaring red bottle in a chemist's shop. Perhaps some
observant persons as they passed set him down for a raw
country youth fresh come to Lunnun town, and were
amused at the rustic innocence of his curiosity. When
anyone stopped and looked in at the same shop-and
nobody ever did look at anything in London without
attracting somebody else to stop and look in likewiseHalliday at once became recalled to himself, and moved
on. At last he straggled to one of the gates of Hyde-park,
and lounged in.
Was he mentally vowing vengeance? Not at all.
He was vowing nothing, mentally or in any other way.
When a man leaves his business in the evening and mounts
his omnibus-or one ought to say perhaps, in deference to
the finer tone of modern literature, steps into his carriage
-to go home, he does not keep mentally vowing all the
way that he will eat his dinner. When a man is madly in
love with a girl, he does not mentally vow that he will try
to keep on loving her. When a man learns that he has
been elected to parliament, he does not mentally vow that
he will walk down some evening to Westminster and take
his seat. A vow of any kind suggests the possibility of
the person who vows taking some other course than that
to which he pledges himself; and Halliday's mind just
now had no room for the reception of any other possibility
but the one. His life now was only to have revenge. He
had no other object; that done, let what would follow.
He strolled about the park for awhile. It was too
early yet for the nightly camp-life of scoundrelism to have
begun its bivouac there, and Halliday found or fell upon a
lonely place where he could walk up and down or lie on
the ground, and, in his wild incoherent way, review the
situation. Presently he left the park again, and made his
way into the street where Madame de Luca lived. He
walked up and down, and took the bearings of the rooms




THE WEIIR-WOLF IN TIE FOREST.          287
and the windows very carefully. There was a light in the
window, which he knew to be Alice's. The rest of the
house was dark. He went round to the back. A little
lane ran down between the row of houses in which Salome
lived and that which stood dos-d-dos with it. Each house
had a small gaiden and a little back-door, the latter of
course opening into the lane or avenue. Halliday well
knew that the room into which he had been admitted when
he was received by Salome opened upon the tiny garden;
and he knew too that that window was rarely closed. He
lightly touched the back-door, as if in passing, and found
that it was locked or barred. But the garden-wall was
not the height of even a medium-sized man. Standing on
his toes, Halliday could look quite over it now, and could
distinctly see the little fountain which he had noticed as
it sparkled and leaped in the sunlight each day that he
stood in Salome's room. What was to hinder him fiom
climbing over that wall some night,-late of course, very
late,-and then? Of course Alice had been brought there.
Of course; but he must make himself absolutely sure and
certain of this. Easy to do that. A sharp lookout to-morrow would soon settle that question. To-night he could
attempt nothing; people would be on their guard. Perhaps Alice would have to be removed to the hospital or
somewhere else, and another blundering attempt on his
part would spoil all. No; he must wait. He was becoming more cool and collected, for he began to see his way.
He would not return that night-perhaps not any more
-to his old quarters. They were far off-down somewhere in the regions lying off Holborn; and if any search
were made for him, some track might be found to guide the
pursuers there. Besides it was too far; he must keep
fixedly on the ground where he had to play his part.
And he owed money to the people down Holborn way, and
they would perhaps be little inclined to run any risks on
his account. No; he had  often heard that men and
women and children found good and gratuitous lodgings




288                  PAUL MASSIE.
in Hyde-park: he would take up his quarters there too.
It would not be worth his while going far out of the way
-now.
There was a public-house at the farther extremity of
the little avenue in which he was now skulking. He went
in there, and spent three-quarters of an hour in drinking as
much spirit as he could afford to pay for. It cannot be
said that it gave him courage-he did not want for courage now-but it brightened up his faculties and steadied
his nerves. As he passed up the lane again, a policeman,
who came tramping down, looked at him  rather suspiciously. But policemen generally did this, and Halliday
did not mind. Hie was used to it now, and did not believe
anything would come of it. As he passed in front of Salome's house, it was all lighted up, and he could hear many
voices-and men's voices too-in animated talk. How
lucky he had not made any foolish attempt! But he
knewbetter than that. Not such a fool! Hallidayalmost
chuckled. He felt quite bright and happy. You see his
mind was made up.
The park-gates were now closed; but Halliday soon
found an easy place to climb over. It is easier for robbers
or murderers to hold meetings there than for Mr. Beales's
friends of the Reform League. So Halliday had no occasion to break down any railings. He got in, and at first
felt almost elate, and began to whistle. He lay down
under a tree, and thought he could hardly be better off.
This was while the influence of the whiskey lasted, and
while the night was fine. But the strength of the one gradually faded, and the beauty of the other suddenly disappeared. A sharp wind began to blow the dust about
Halliday's ears and eyes and hair, and presently rain descended. His tree was a tolerably good shelter, and
wretched creatures speedily found their way there and
swarmed around him. He hoped it would soon get fine
again; but it did not get fine. It began to rain harder
and harder; at last became a drenching  down-pour.




THE WEIIIR-WOLF IN THE FOREST.        289
Some of those who were near Halliday got up and ran
from the rain, as if out of the mere instinct of running
rather than because they hoped to find any better shelter
elsewhere. They were new and raw to the business as yet,
and had evidently been until very lately accustomed to
expect shelter of some kind when rain came on. The experienced had chosen their places from the beginning, and
knowing they could get nothing by changing their ground
remained where they were. Some of them grumbled and
some of them blasphemed, and one or two women gathered
their clothes more tightly about them and giggled; and
some took it as a matter of course, and did not seem to care
whether it rained or left off. Halliday made no move. He
had nowhere else to go; and to have got up and left the
spot would moreover have involved the disturbing of some
of his neighbors, and an almost inevitable interchange of
talk, and he was in no humor for talk just then. The rain
plashed down upon his wreched clothes, and he hated to feel
it streaming on him-he had always a keen objection to
physical discomfort; and he associated in his mind this
other suffering with the beings who, he firmly believed,
had already wreaked so many wrongs on him. lie was
lying there under that rain that he might be the better able
to keep watch upon his enemies; and was not this misery
therefore another count in the indictment against them,
another item in the long catalogue of his grievances?
Why, if there could have been required any possible motive to prick the sides of his revengeful intent, the rain
which now streamed down upon his homeless form would
have supplied it.
He lay still and tried to sleep. IIe did at last fall into
a dull doze; but the moment his faculties began to lose
themselves in dreams, he must have begun also to rave and
talk rather loudly, for one of his near neighbors gave him
a friendly drive in the ribs with his elbow, and said: "I
say, mate, can't you manage somehow to hold your noise?
Can't you let any fellow sleep but yourself?"  And Halli13




290                  PAUL MASSIE.
day leaped up wildly at the thrust, and began fumbling in
his pocket, and clutching around him; and some of his companions burst into laughter at the sight, and mastering the
meaning of the demonstration at once chaffed him for his
fear of the bobbies.  He tried to exchange a little gruff
banter with his pleasant companions; but he was never
much of a wit, and his country accent supplying a fiesh
theme for mirth to his assailant, Halliday speedily withdrew from the game and tried to go to sleep again.
i' Vot have you been doing, mate?'> inquired his friend
again, giving him a second dig in the ribs just as he prepared himself to undertake another doze.
" What d'ye mean? " Halliday fiercely demanded, sitting up, amid the titters of some of the women encamped
near him.
"Vy, you're like a man a expecs to be took alive or
dead, and is going to fight it out.  Something vorse than
burglary, I should say. Vere's your ticket-of-leave? I'm
a perliceman in disguise, I am."
New laughter followed this sally. Halliday jumped to
his feet, shuffled his way among the forms, some of them
sleeping around him, and made for some quieter restingplace.  Curses from  those he had disturbed and yells
of laughter from others pursued him as he went.
He trudged through plashing grass, trampled  with
reckless hoofs over flower-beds, and strode across rail.
ings, going he knew not whither. It streamed with rain;
and yet even on the open turf, almost everywhere he went,
he could see through the darkness some figure huddled or
stretched on the ground. The park was cotted all over
with crouching forms. If the dead could have risen from
their graves in some populous churchyard, each one to
brood, like the ghosts of the heroes. in Ossian, over the spot
of earth which lately received his bones, the cemetery could
hardly have been more thickly sown with shapes of humanity or looked more drear and ghastly than Hyde-park was




THE WEHR-WOLF IN TIIE FOREST.           291
that wild and dismal summer night when Halliday tried
to sleep there.
He sat down at last, tired of purposeless tramping,
near a cluster of shrubs, and after awhile closed his eyes.
He was soon disturbed by a thick breathing near him, and
looking up saw a miserable old woman, apparently a mere
heap of rags, had squatted on the ground at his side. She
was looking at him with curious gaze when he opened his
eyes, and half-sleepy and much confused as he was, he positively thought at first it was his poor old mother, and he
grunted fiercely, and tried to turn on the other side, as
he used to do long ago, at the opening of his drunken
career, when on awaking in the morning he heard his
mother groaning and lamenting over him, and endeavored
to close his ears to her feeble plaints.
" Faith, ye're in the right of it to go to sleep, if yez can,"
said the woman, in a tight South-Munster brogue; "on'y
I'm afeerd yez have bad dhrames by your groanin'. It's
a terrible night, agra, isn't it? I'd like a penn'orth o'
coffee to warm me.  Will you stand a penn'orth? A dhrop
o' whiskey'ud be more in your way, I'm thinking. Wouldn't
it, alanna?"
Halliday growled something unintelligible, and began
to move farther off.
" 0, ye're not in the humor for company, maybe? Bedad,
an' ye're right enough there. Ye seems to me just the sort
o' chap that's maybe been cuttin' somebody's throat. I don't
like the looks of yez. Ye won't stand the coffee? Maybe
ye'd do the other thing-lave it alone. Good-night, and
pleasant dhrames and better humor to yez."
He saw no more of her, for he kept his eyes resolutely
shut for some time, and when he opened them again she was
gone. But he never once fell asleep without presently waking up to find somebody or several people near him who
were not there when he closed his eyes. A hideous restlessness seemed to take possession of many of the campers in
that region. What with his fatigue and the perpetual pres



292                  PAUL MASSIE.
sure on his mind, the whole thing began at last to change
into a sort of phantasmagoria, which he only looked at now
and then with a languid and vacuous curiosity, but in which
he saw no meaning or coherence.  Strange figures were
always near him and always changing-that was all.
The rain never ceased. All through that dreary night,
the dark hours of which seemed so many and which yet
must have been so few, the torrent streamed down thick
and merciless. Halliday was conscious of no longing for
morning or definite desire of any kind. His mind had sunk
into that sodden state which accepts everything as it comes,
and cannot rouse itself to wonder, or hope, or wish of any
sort. He bore the rain and the night and the discomfort
now as a snail might have done; and had scarcely faculties
enough left in activity to be sure whether life was or was
not all a perpetual lying on soaking grass under heavy rain,
with strange people always coming to crouch beside one.
At last he fell fast asleep, and the curtain of life was down
for the time.
When he awoke, it was gray morning, and the rain at
last had nearly ceased. Over in the east might be seen a sort
of livid attempt at brightness, which foretold the struggle
of the sun to make his way through the one cloud which
covered the whole sky. Halliday rubbed his eyes and sat
up. Near him on the grass sat a young woman who was
endeavoring to squeeze the rain out of her shawl and skirts,
and to put herself into something like order for the approach
of day. Halliday was still half asleep, and perhaps not much
better than half insane. The face and figure of a young
woman produced a wild effect upon him. He cried out
"Ally!" in a fierce savage tone, and seized the girl by the
shoulder.
She slipped out of her shawl in a moment, and leaped to
her feet.
" Ay name isn't Ally," she said; " and you'd much better
let me alone. Who are you and what are you about, that




TIE WEIR-WOLF IN THE FOREST.          2 3
you catch hold of people in that sort of way?  Are you
drunk? Take care you don't get locked up."
She was not in the least afraid, and she took up her
shawl, and began to shake it out before putting it on.
Halliday had his eyes and his senses open now. "I
didn't mean anything, I'm  sure," he said; "and I beg
pardon if I gev' offence. I was asleep I suppose, and I
thought you were-"
"Your wife, I dare say," said the girl with a shrill
laugh, " or your sweetheart-and very pretty notion of a
good-morning you seem to have too. I shouldn't like to
be your sweetheart, I know, if you go to choke her the
moment you see her. Perhaps she's been throwing you
over, and you're a jealous fellow. Well, if I see her, I'll
tell her to look out, for I'm sure her life isn't safe when
you're near. Good-morning. Pleasant night, wasn't it?
I never was so wet in my life. Have you anywhere to
go to? I haven't; but I've had enough of this for
one night."
He made no answer of any kind, and she went away,
after paying some compliment to his pleasant manners and
cheerful disposition.
Halliday was shivering all over when he rose from the
grass. He stamped up and down for awhile to get a little
warmth; but he knew that nothing could restore him to
anything like his usual condition save the fire-water which
had long been his only cordial. He had still some of
Alice's money left. His one set purpose had given him a
self-control which in life before he had never been able to
exercise; and he had taken resolute care the previous
evening not to have more drink than the fair share which
he had allotted to himself as one evening's allowance. Determined not to leave himself unprovided for the coming
day or two, he had put aside all temptation, and husbanded his resources as firmly as a provident commander
in a siege, or captain of a becalmed and dismasted vessel,
measures out the proportion for each day's sustenance.




294                  PAUL MASSIE.
So Halliday's first feeling was one of satisfaction that he
was not without something to enable him  to begin the
morning, and to weather through the day until the night
came on again.
With the morning too returned all the clearness and
firmness of his purpose. Gray and drear lay the park
around him now, and the spectres of the night were everywhere preparing for a flitting.  Like obscene birds, they
seemed unable to endure the face of day. It wanted
hours yet to the time when the park-gates were to be
opened and the day-side of nature was to reign, with its
traffic, its noise, and its brightness. The creatures who
had lodged gratuitously within the precincts of the crown
demesne might have lodged there undisturbed for a good
time yet. No policeman threatened to invade them; no
summons to " move on" vexed them; no park-keeper
troubled his head about them. But they were all gathering their rags around their limbs, and preparing to
do their only homage to the god of day by disappearing
from  his presence.  It seemed as if they could  not
bear to encounter the sight of each other with the light
of morning, such as it was, upon their faces. Even the
beauties at a ball, indeed, do not, after their night of
pleasure, bear very well to meet each other's eyes, and to
look in the face of the cold morning, as they stand upon
the steps in the dawn, and await impatiently the carriage
which is to hide their faded cheeks, hollow eyes, lank curls,
and collapsed garments. Some of the wretched creatures
in the park, now wringing the rain from their draggled
clothes and trying to put back their soppy hair under
their shapeless bonnets, were animated, doubtless, by feelings very much akin to those of their silken-clad sisters on
the steps of the houses in Connaught-place, and Park-lane,
and Tyde-park-gardens, not far away.
Halliday too prepared to go, but did not trouble himself about the appearance of his hair or the condition of his
clothes. Nor did he care for the fact that he had no place




THE WEIHR-WOLF IN TITE FOREST.         295
to go to. Beyond a sentiment of physical satisfaction that
the night of rain was done, the approach of morning and
the abandonment of his sleeping-place brought to him no
particular emotion of any kind. "He was not all unhappy," says Tennyson of Enoch Arden; "his resolve
sustained him."  A bad resolve has sometimes as much of
a sustaining power as a good one. His resolve sustained
Halliday through hunger and cold and wet and homelessness. He felt himself true unto death. But he had learned
a little lesson too during the broken sleep of the night.
He had learned that something of his purpose must have
been expressing itself in his face. Not one who addressed
a word to him, even in the mid-darkness of that hideous
night, but hinted, or broadly declared, that his countenance and his manners bespoke some fierce and felon resolution. Now Halliday knew that he must not meet the
day, and the ordinary life of the streets, with that purpose
stamped upon him. Therefore he must keep out of people's observation when he could; and when he could not
accomplish this, he must at least endeavor to look like an
ordinary human creature.  So he resolved to go at once
to some small public-house or coffee-shop and get himself
dried and washed, and put a smooth expression on his face,
and not drink too much. He told over his money. It was
very little; but, carefully managed, it would carry him
through that day and the next. It might easily be two
days before he could do anything, and therefore he must
be very cautious in the meantime. The wolf's rage would
not be so formidable but for the wolf's cunning and
patience and steady stealthy step.
The day began to brighten as he left the parkl; and
even the sweet scents of the flowers, which the rain of the
night had drenched and beaten down, were beginning to
be a delicious influence to the senses of many an early
milliner and workman going to the morning's toil. Halliday hastily crossed the road, and buried himself in a
public-house and a glass of raw spirits.




296                  PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER XXV.
TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.
HE perplexity of Eustace Massie did not disappear with
the turmoil of the election contest; it did not even
diminish. Nay, in some respects, it absolutely increased.
I-e had some consultations with his man of business touching the hints which he had received from the latter about
mysterious inquiries going forward in the town; and he
could receive no satisfactory explanation.  Indeed,'the
man of business had none to give. The inquiry, whatever it was, was conducted with the utmost secrecy and
skill. All that he could say was, that he felt sure it had
some sort of relation to the Massie family and the Massie property. In the most vague and delicate way possible
he hinted at a conjecture he had formed, begging at the
same time to guard against being supposed to have any
ground whatever for such surmise, or even for the notion
that anybody entertained such surmise-any ground, that
is, beyond the mere conjecture of one who, finding that
a mysterious and secret inquiry is going on, and that
money is actually being spent on it, is compelled to set
about conjecturing some sane motive for it. Now, the
man of business could only think of one possibility which
had any aspect whatever of sanity behind it. What was
this? Eustace irmly pressed for an explanation. Well,
Mr. Massie's grandfather was a little wild in his day. He
brought home his wife from abroad, and she did not seem
a person of very high station. Suppose-he only said suppose-some foolish busybodies took it into their heads that
the pair never were legally married at all? There were
Massies in existence to whom the proof of such a thing
might bring benefit.
Eu:stace scouted the idea. HIe was a good deal shocked




TROUBLES CROWD ON RUSTACE.            297
at first, but soon recovered. A man may easily manage to
discuss with tolerable calmness a question concerning the
virtue of his grandmother, who died long years before
he saw the light. Besides, it at once occurred to himand he wondered it had not occurred to a business man
before-that whatever the result of such an inquiry, it
could not in the least degree benefit Paul Massie. It
seemed to be beyond doubt that whatever inquiries were
afloat were made on behalf of Paul Massie. What possible
object could he have in endeavoring to prove that his own
father was an illegitimate child?
The man of business looked embarrassed; and, indeed,
even reddened a little. He changed the subject quickly,
remarking that it was quite a sudden conjecture of his, and
one which had obviously nothing in it.
But there was something about his manner, his hesitating speech, his averted eye, which struck Eustace, and
presently caused his cheek to flush with a deep flame of
crimson. Eustace made no further allusion to the subject,
and somewhat suddenly took his leave.
For the conjecture really formed by the man of business
was not the chimerical and utterly unmeaning speculation
which even Eustace Massie could dismiss without hesitation. He had merely made the suggestion because he
thought it might delicately serve to convey to Eustace
a hint of the true nature of his conjecture, which he
shrank from conveying in plainer form of speech.
Mr. Freestun, the man of business, well remembered
the wild youth of Eustace's father. He remembered the
suddenness of his supposed marriage, and his Mexican journey; and he had had opportunities of seeing the terms on
which, for many years before his death, he lived with the
mother of his children. What if his legal marriage with
her had been a late and a reluctant one? He was just
the sort of man who had virtue enough not to cast away a
woman who had been to him as a wife-not virtue enough
to accept his duty without compunction and complaint.




298                  PAUL MASSIE.
What if some people were thereby led to suppose that the
marriage was an act of reparation? Mr. Freestun did not
believe this; and knowing all the circumstances of Mr.
Massie's death, and the disposition of his property, did not
see how it could legally affect the existing condition of things,
even if it were true. But he could easily understand how the
next heirs to the property might suppose they could secure a
vast advantage for themselves by the proof of such a thing.
Besides, a discovery of that kind could be most effectively
used as a means of extorting money. Mr. Freestun thought
this a very likely object. In his eyes Paul Massie was a
mere adventurer, of whom  anything might be believed.
Mr. Freestun vaguely regarded him  as a sort of cross
between the traditional Polish Count who runs off with
school-girls and writes begging-letters,> and the Yankee
swindler who hawks hickory hams and wooden nutmegs.
On his way home Eustace encountered Dan Crossley the
boatman. He had been much amazed to find that during
the contest Crossley was one of the most demonstrative supporters of Paul Massie. When the clergyman remembered
what he had seen one day, as these two men stood face to
face, he marvelled to find Crossley doing henchman for his
cousin. Such a course seemed full of ingratitude to the
Seaborough family, who had been always so kind to the
Crossleys. But Eustace wasjust now more surprised at the
inconsistency than angered by the ingratitude.
Crossley saluted Mr. Massie respectfully enough, but
not very cordially; perhaps with the air of one who was
not quite certain whether a salute from him would not be
resented as a piece of impertinence.
Mr. Massie stopped.
"So I hear you have found your daughter, Crossley?"
he said.
"Yes, Mr. Massie; I've heerd from her, that is."
"I hope she is well placed; and with your full approval?"
" Yes, sir; she's well enough. I'm not badly pleased




TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.             299
that she's out of here.  She's in the care of a good
lady."
" Why did she go away in that strange and sudden
manner? And why did you not tell us when she was
found?"
"Well, Mr. Massie, to own the truth, it was a sort of a
secret-not mine, sir; for I don't have any secrets, an' I
don't like'em; but anether person's; an' my wife thought
we oughtn't to say anything about it. Then there was
the affair of the election; an' I thought perhaps you
wouldn't take it quite friendly of me that I went with your
cousin. I went with him, sir, partly because I wronged
him before, and partly because I like him better than
t'other candidate."
" You have quite a right, Crossley, to vote for whom
you please. If your conscience told you to vote as you
did, I could not find fault with you. I am glad you have
found your daughter, and that you are satisfied with her
position. Good-morning."
Eustace was moving coldly away. Despite his own
declaration, he still thought in his heart that he had a
good right to blame Crossley. It is very hard to get it
thoroughly into the mind of a certain class that a poor
man really ought to have a political conscience, and to
obey it, independently of his local superiors.
Crossley saw the coldness of Mr. Massie's manner.
" I'm afeerd, Mr. Massie," he began, in a low, awkward,
hesitating tone, " that you think I'm against you, and giving evidence against you. But you mustn't believe it, sir,
for I haven't."
" What do you mean by giving evidence against me?
asked Eustace sharply.
" Answering questions, sir, that was put to me,-to me
an' my wife,-about what we remember here-about old
times and Mr. Massie your father-an'-an' all that. A
man couldn't help answering, sir, as he knew-and right
is right, an' I don't want to help one side or the other, but




300                  PAUL MASSIE.
only to let the right be done-an' I'm sure, Mr. Massie,
that's all you ever want or wish for yourself."
" Crossley," said Massie, "what you are talking of is
utterly without meaning for me. I do not try-I do not
want-to know what it means, or if it means anything.
Neither you nor any other being in the world can injure
me by telling the truth about anything. I have no secrets
to hide; and until within the last week or two I did not
know that I had any concealed enemies to guard against.
Not another word; I won't hear any more on the subject."
Abruptly he walked away, and left Crossley perplexed
and half-ashamed.
"Doesn't he really know  anything?" the boatman
asked of himself.  "And have I been saying something I
oughtn't to say that offends him?"
But if Crossley was bewildered, Eustace Massie was far
more so. Some mysterious investigation then was going
forward, some scrutiny into the past history of his family!
The very notion of such a thing made his cheek flame with
anger. He would not allow his mind to dwell for a
moment upon the horrible suggestion conveyed by Mr.
Freestun's manner. The remotest gleam of such a thought
was an insult and outrage to the sacred memory of the
dead, and the yet more sacred reputation of the living.
"Are such things allowed? "thought Eustace, as he
chafed and fretted on his homeward walk.  "Is there any
law in this country? Have we no protection against the
base artifices of enemies? Are the private histories of the
oldest and the most unsullied families not to be sacred
from prying investigations which can have no rdal object
but to insult, and from the whispered calumny, deliberately and knowingly concocted for evil purposes?  Why
are there laws to protect society from robbers, and none
to save religious people of social position from the outrage
of such infamous speculations? "
He reached his home at last, and made for his study.




TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.           301
There he sat down, leant his head upon his hand, and
tried to think.
Was he really going to alarm and vex himself about
the ignorant gossip of a village boatman? Was he to
attach any importance to the coarse and vulgar insults
which were got up in connection with a contested election,
and only in the hope of somehow influencing its result?
Why, there would be nothing surprising if there had been
a charge of robbery or infidelity, or even atheism, got up
against him or any member of his family at such a moment. Sensible men, accustomed to politics, never, he had
heard, pay the slightest attention to such things. They
take them as a matter of course, as the common and characteristic incidents of an election contest, just like the
banners and the beer-drinking. Had he not himself been
charged with selling the borough to the noble father of
the defeated candidate? Eustace positively tried to smile
the smile of pity and scorn. This was what people got by
mixing up in such squabbles. After all, a clergyman
should have nothing to do with political wranglings.
Henceforward-!
And yet-and yet? What bodings had he had of late
which made Crossley's words seems not unexpected?
What had Mr. Freestun written to him and spoken to
him? What did drunken Halliday tell him in the Strand
-of people plotting against him?  Why, had not even
Lydia heard something vaguely to the same effect? In
Heaven's name, what did it all mean? Had Eustace been
a guilty and conscious schemer, instead of a pure and honorable man, he could not have felt more keenly'thrilled
through than he now was by the bare suspicion that somebody was plotting something, he knew not what, for his
humiliation. He did not care to conjecture what the plan
might be. I-e scorned even to admit the idea of there
being any possible foundation for reproach against his
house. No thought even for a moment intruded itself upon
his mind of the scheme, whatever it might prove, being




302                  PAUL MASSIE.
other than a base plot to disturb or intimidate him. Yet
he literally shuddered at the prospect of any such plot
being put into practical operation, although it must end in
its own discomfiture and defeat. It would at the very best
be a family quarrel, an exposure, and a public scandal. In
a well-regulated household-especially that of a clergyman-there should be no exposures and family disputes.
Such things were nearly as disgraceful to those in the
right as to those in the wrong. Eustace sighed as he contemplated the prospect opening before him.
Only one person in. the world, so far as he knew, could
give him the slightest information which might guide him
to understand even what his persecutors meant. That person, of course, was his mother. If there were anything
whatever in the nature of a mystery, or a supposed mystery, anywhere lying half hidden among the family traditions, she must know of it. She was about the last person
he would have willingly consulted in any ordinary case on
any such subject, but in this instance he had no choice.
He could not help remembering with what painfully evident reluctance his mother had always approached any
subject bearing on Paul Massie's birth and parentage; and
he felt that any inquiry he now might make must be productive of uneasiness. He did not feel quite sure that
he might not have to encounter a scene. But he relieved
himself with a sigh, made up his mind for the encounter,
and went to seek his mother.
Mrs. Massie was alone. The girls had not yet returned
from London. She was seated in an arm-chair, and had
been reading; the chair drawn to the window, where the
warmth of the evening sun might be fully enjoyed. Mrs.
Massie loved warmth and the sun. Eustace thought she
was looking out upon the pleasant lawn; but as he came
nearer, he saw that she was asleep. He could hardly avoid
being struck by the singularly youthful appearance which
she still preserved. Her fair thick clusters of hair, her delicate complexion, the youthful outline of her face and fig



TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.            303
ure, produced quite an illusory effect upon the eye. At
a little distance you saw a fair and graceful young woman
sleeping, and smiling in her sleep. Only when you approached quite near did you begin to see that the skin was
slightly loosening and wrinkling; that there were hollows
under the eyes; that the hands were thin and withering;
that there was an ominous transparency in the flesh. But
the hair had not one shade or streak of gray, though the
smiling expression changed on a near approach to one
of feebleness and sadness.
Eustace had a great affection and a sort of protecting sentiment towards his mother, as nearly approaching to tenderness as such a nature might feel. He would
not on any account have disturbed her, and was therefore about to steal softly away. But she was the lightest of sleepers, and she awakened in an instant.
" Dear Eustace, I did not know you had come in. I
was reading a novel-a very dull one-and I fell asleep.
I am glad you have come in. You look perplexed. What
is the matter?"
"The fact is, I am perplexed. I don't want to annoy
you about these matters; but really I want to ask you
to enlighten me a little about a very puzzling and rather
unpleasant affair."
" What is it, Eustace? Tell me quickly, please."
"Well, it is about-in fact, it is about my cousin, Paul
Massie."
She turned deadly pale. All the youthful expression
had faded away from her face. Her very figure seemed to
shrink and cower. She was quite an elderly woman now.
She drew back into her chair, away from the questioner,
and placed across her lips and chin the hand which had
just been laid so tenderly on his.
"What about Paul Massie? "
"Indeed, mother, I hardly know what I want to ask.
But there is idle talk everywhere of some claim he, or
somebody on his behalf, means to set up against us; there




304                  PAUL MASSIE.
are odd inquiries being carried on in Seaborough-Dan
Crossley the boatman is mixed up in it; or if not he, at
least his daughter is-that unfortunate and ungrateful
Alice; and I can make nothing of the whole affair, except
that it is unspeakably vexatious and offensive. What do
these people mean?"
"I do not know. How should I?"  Words spoken
with compressed lips, and in a low hollow  voice, without cadence or body in it; words sounding as if they
came through some tube or passage, and were spoken
in another room.
"No," said Eustace perplexedly; "of course you.do
not know. But do you know anything at all about Paul
Massie which might lead to the supposition that he could
think or fancy he has any unfulfilled claim of any sort
against my father or me?'
" Does he fancy he has any claim?"
" Why, mother dear, I have said already that I really
don't know what he fancies. But if he does not fancy
something of this sort, I cannot understand for the life
of me what he and his friends mean. Is there anything
about him and us which I do not know? Is there any
secret of any kind? If there is, it ought at least to be told
to me."
" Eustace, I do not believe Paul Massie ever did or ever
will urge any claim against you-against us. He could not.
He cannot."
"But is there any claim, mother? Is there?"
"He had no claim on your father. He has none on you,
except the claim of blood."
She still spoke in her cold, low, almost toneless way.
She continued: "Your father dealt with him generously,
magnanimously. Much more so than I-than he-could
have asked or hoped for. If any claims of any kind are
being raised, be sure it is not Paul Massie who raises
them."
"But, mother, somebody is moving secretly in the mat



TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.            305
ter, and it must be on his behalf. Tell me something more
about him and about my father. I know my father would
not see him. Tell me why."
"I cannot tell you; how should I know? Pray do not
ask me any more about it."
"There is, then, some family secret?" said Eustace fretfully; and rising from his chair, he paced the room.
"There is some mystery or other; some scandal which somebody is bent on ferreting out, if indeed he does not know
it to the full already! And I have been kept in ignorance
of itamn not suffered to know anything about it now.
Crossley the boatman, and the serving-girl his daughter,
may gossip and speculate over it, and make money out of it;
and I am left in darkness. Mother, if you knew of this, and
did not tell me, you have not used me well."
"Eustace, Eustace, do not reproach me! "
" I cannot help reproaching you. What is to come of
all this?  What is it?  In the name of Heaven, tell me
what it is all about?"
She drew herself together as if collecting what of firmness there was in her weak and sensitive frame, and looking
calmly at her son, she answered:
"Eustace, I can tell you nothing now. Some time you
may perhaps know whatever poor secret remains to be
known, whatever miserable memorial of days with which
you have had happily no concern has been preserved a
secret by me. Then you will wish you had not known it.
But believe me that for the present it cannot concern you.
I can arrange for that. I am going to London."
"Going to London! You?"
"Why not?" she asked with a pallid and a ghastly
smile. "Am I too old to make a pleasure-trip? London
must be a good deal changed since I last saw it."
" I will go with you if you really want to go."
"No, Eustace, I would much rather go alone."
"You will at least take a servant, or wait until Sarah
comes back, and let her go with you  "




306                  PAUL MASSIE.
"No, I want to go alone. I want no one with me.
Am I child, Eustace, that you think I cannot be trusted to
go alone on a journey to London? "
"No, no; but I only thought, as you are not in the
habit-"
"' Pray don't tease yourself and me by raising foolish
objections. It is convenient that I should go alone for a
day or two, and I hope I am mistress of my own movements."  She spoke with a sort of petulant feebleness
painful to observe.
" Surely, dear mother, no one thinks of preventing you
from doing as you please. I was only anxious for your
comfort. And I own I am a little surprised and confused
by the discovery that there really are secrets of some kind
connected with our family which have been kept purposely
from my knowledge."  He rose and was leaving the room.
His mother called to him in a faint voice; he returned
and came towards her rather coldly.
"Eustace, my dear son, do not be angry with me if I
am a little petulant. I am much tried, and have long been
so. You cannot understand it, dear. Forgive me for my
manner-ah, if that were all! "
She kissed him tenderly and sadly. The poor clergyman left the room like one who walks in a dream. Life
was to him now only one great enigma. Order was nowhere.  Ill-regulated feeling  and  inscrutable mystery
seemed to rule over all. The little world which he believed he had constructed around him, to move according
to his own wise laws, had suddenly begun to whirl with
the most eccentric movements, and threatened to become
chaos once again.
It was with a thrill of joy that he welcomed that evening the return of Sarah and Lydia. The one might give
him sympathy and even counsel; the other at least would
help to make the place look like itself again.
He had to go into the village after dinner. Sarah
asked him when he would return, and by what way; she




TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.            307
said she would go to meet him. He was glad of it, and
he resolved to take her into his confidence, in the hope
that the light of her quick intelligence might guide him
out of his perplexities.
He loitered on the way home that he might have the
greater distance left to walk in her company. He had
hardly ever done anything before with so much of design
in it. His uneasiness and hig need of sympathy were converting him into something almost like a lover.
He turned slowly round a corner, and he saw Sarah
Massie approaching. His sober heart did not indeed beat
with the wild and half-painful ecstasy which thrills the
breast of passionate and ill-regulated youth at the sight
of the one only and chosen being. Such passion his calm
and steady temperament little knew; but he was glad, very
glad, and his heart softened, and the world seemed less
lonely and less perplexing.
"I am so glad you came, Sarah-Sarah dear," he said in
a burst of unwonted demonstrativeness; "I wanted very
much to speak to you alone."  He got out the last word
with a sort of effort; it seemed like the confession of a kind
of impropriety.
She looked up to him with a startled expression. She
paused, hesitated, then summoned courage.
"Eustace, I wanted very, very much to speak to you
alone. I have something to say that deeply concerns-us.
I ought to have said it before now."
She faltered. He came to a stand on the road and looked
into her face. Little read as he was in the language of
woman's eyes, he knew what was coming.
"Eustace, we can never be married-never."
It was all out now; the die was cast.
He made one or two efforts to speak collectedly. "Why
so? " was all he could articulate.
Sarah had gathered courage and calmness now.
Because, dear Eustace-dear brother, I ought not to




308                  PAUL MASSIE.
marry you. I love you, but not in that way; and, and —
don't think you love me as I would have myself loved."
"But why," he stammered, pale and pulseless,-" why
did you think of all this now? "
"I have thought of it a long time, but not clearly, and
I could not decide; and I feared to pain you and aunt."
You and aunt! The very coupling of the names in such
a manner, as if the revelation concerned the one quite as
much as the other, showed painfully how little Sarah
counted on the element of love having any share in the
transaction.
"No," said Eustace slowly, and speaking with teeth
firmly set, "it was not that which prevented you; and I
don't believe you have thought of this for a long time.
You never thought of it until last February; you never
thought of it until you saw Paul Massie."
"0, Eustace "  She turned on him her eyes full of
reproach.'For shame; be generous."
" Generous! Who has any right to expect generosity
of me? Is it he? What has he brought but misery into
this house? Since he came, nothing is as it was. You, you,
Sarah, are casting me off for him. You know it —you dare
not deny it. You would if you could. Deny it now if
you can."
He would have given much to hear a denial from her,
even though it were extorted by anger. Her face grew
crimson as he looked searchingly at her, and laid his cold
fingers on her wrist.
" I do not deny it," she said, with a thrill of indignation
in her tones, "though it is unmanly of you to press me to
it. I do not deny it. I might never have known how little
we were suited for each other had I not seen him. I am not
ashamed to acknowledge it, although you might well be
ashamed of forcing the acknowledgment from me. But
listen; and as you know so much, know all. I do love Paul
Massie; but he and I never exchanged one word or look of
love in all our lives, and never shall. Iear the whole.




TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.            309
He cares as little for me as I do for-" and she was going
to speak a cruel word, but happily checked her tongue, and
only said, " as I do for the merest stranger who passes us on
this road."
Yes, she was at the moment on the point of saying bitterly: " He cares as little for me as I do for you."  Women
are cruel in their love, and are specially pitiless to the egotists who would fain have assumed sovereignty over them
without taking thought to win the allegiance of their hearts'
affections. Eustace would have found it hard to believe
even then how bitter and hostile were the sentiments
towards him which now inflamed the heart of that once
patient and docile creature whom he thought to have
moulded in all things to his will.
But he too had his transfiguration. Passion burned in
his heart at last. He broke out into an uncontrollable storm
of anger.
"I hate him!" he exclaimed. "I hate that heartless,
abandoned, ungrateful, scheming villain! Why did he
come here to torture and destroy us all? We were happy
until he came with his brutality; and now with his plots and
schemes he has made us miserable. You would have loved
me-yes, you would!-but for him; and now you cast me
off for him who has not even the heart to see your love and
to be grateful. He is sunk in debt and dissipation, and he
tries to redeem himself by low tricking and lying and swindling; and you-you love him, and you fling me away for
him-me, though I have loved you and clung to you since
you were a little girl. For him, for him-for such a
wretch."
"Shame, Eustace, Shame! You do him a cruel wrong,
and you do yourself a worse wrong to talk in that way, and
to believe the mean calumnious stories which were told to
set you against him. You speak like a madman."
" What wonder if I did? Is there not enough to set
me mad? Do you not know that he is plotting against
me, against my mother? Do you not know the vile lies




310                  PAUL MASSIE.
that he and his associates are trumping up? No, you do
not know them; for if you did, even you would turn from
him in disgust."
Sarah looked aghast at him. What did he mean?
What could he have heard or guessed? For him, he misinterpreted the look of alarm in her face, and thought he
caught from it a wild gleam of hope for himself.
"Yes," he said eagerly, "if you only knew, you would
abhor the thought of him. Listen, Sarah, and I will tell
you-all."
Poor Eustace! He saw before him a woman in love;
and he was simple enough to fancy that all he had to do
was to prove her lover unworthy, and she would forthwith
renounce him; nay, more than renounce-forget him.
Sarah stopped him.
"It would be useless, Eustace," she said with a faint
smile. " Even if I could believe all you might have to tell,
and see it all with your eyes, it would make no difference
in our position. I had rather not hear anything against him.
I had rather not believe him bad. Were he noble and generous, as I think or thought him; or mean and wicked, as you
believe him,-he and I can never be anything to each other;
and you and I can never be more than we now are."
"No, no," he exclaimed; "do not say so. You will
think more of this; you will think of it again. I will wait
-I can be patient. You will not always remain under this
fatal influence. You will forget one who, believe me, does
not deserve a thought- from you, and you will turn to me
who always loved you and appreciated you. Give me time
-give yourself time; will you not? "
" Eustace, I beseech of you to spare me. It is in vainall in vain. I never, never can feel otherwise than as I feel
at this moment."
"And you leave me lonely and miserable-here, with
no one to understand me, to care for me? "
"I leave you, indeed. Heaven knows I leave you to be
lonely and miserable myself. I go from this place, which




TROUBLES CROWD ON EUSTACE.             311
was always my home-go, I do not know where; to live
alone, work alone, and in the end to die alone."
"But whywhyhy do so? Why thus cut yourself off from
us? Is my mother not as a mother to you? You have told
me frankly what you feel to-to him. Well, I will bear
with that, and will trust to your heart changing in time and
coming round to me. You cannot and would not marry
him."
She made an impatient gesture.
"Then why not marry me? I do not ask your loveat least not at the first.  I will wait for it, and woik for it,
and deserve it-and perhaps it will come at last. Do, do,
Sarah. I ask, I beg of you; do think of this, and remain
with us-with me."
" O, Eustace, Eustace!" she said, with streaming eyes,
" you do not know what love is at all, or you would never
talk in such a way. Do not ask me to commit so great a
sin. I can never marry you. Were I to consent for a
moment to such a thing, your own hand ought to be the
first to fling me away. Let us be friends; we can never be
anything else to each other."
His passion raved a little longer. She had never supposed him capable of so deep an emotion. Perhaps she
liked him the better for it; perhaps she never in her years
of close and constant association with him had gone so near
to loving him as in this moment when she cast him off for
ever. But her resolution was unchangeable. HIe calmed
himself at last, and quitted her side in cold and sullen
silence. Indeed he knew not whither he went. The firm
earth seemed to tremble under his feet. Nay, the whole
of his microcosm, once so orderly and fast, was shattered
into pieces, and he was falling, falling into unknown depths,
where strange lights and wild darknesses alternate swallowed him and bewildered his whole sense.




312                  PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED.
SARAH had perhaps even a greater repugnance to the
necessary and inevitable scene of farewell with Mrs.
Massie than to that which had just been accomplished with
poor Eustace. Her aunt had always been kind and loving
to her, and indeed had literally treated her as if she were a
daughter. Left, as Sarah had been, from her very infancy
in a condition somewhat approaching to that of dependence,
she had never been allowed to feel for a moment any of the
humiliations that even under the most favorable auspices
almost invariably attach themselves to such a position.
The late Mr. Massie was very fond of her, and had so high
an opinion of her intelligence and of her superiority to women in general, whom he had come to distrust, that he
talked with her and confided to her more than to any other
member of the family. Mrs. Massie never showed the slightest jealousy because of this preference, but indeed, on the
contrary, seemed to regard her husband's high opinion of
Sarah only as another reason to justify her own regard and
esteem for the girl. It was hard, therefore, to have to break
up the domestic plans of a family to whom she owed so
much. It was hard to announce that she who was bound
by so many ties of gratitude to that home was the first and
the only one to destroy voluntarily its whole future. It is
a peculiarly hard thing too to have to tell a mother that you
do not and cannot love her son. Mothers generally have
their minds made up that an angel from heaven ought to
feel honored by the preference of their sons. But Sarah had
to do all this, and to do it quickly; and it was with a beating heart that she prepared for the ordeal.
Moreover she had long ceased to esteem her aunt. She
had heard and seen and guessed enough to know that Mrs.




THE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED.               313
Massie must in her early life have been guilty at least of
some fatal weakness, the shadow of which still hung over
her existence. She had seen with pity her aunt's miserable
mental struggles, and she knew that some sad secret was
weighing on the worn woman's heart, and that her life was
a long concealment. Perhaps Sarah might have learned all,
had she sought, to arrive at the knowledge. But she
endeavored, on the contrary, to shut her mind against even
conjecture. Something there had been which she could not
fail to hear, and which must make a deep and painful impression; and this was quite enough to make Sarah feel her
position in the household a trying one. It was not always
possible for her, do what she would, to keep from interpreting many of Mrs. Massie's subsequent acts, and some of the
incidents which otherwise would have been utter puzzles,
by the light of the strange half-revelation that the delirium
of fever once allowed to escape from the lips of her aunt.
Therefore Sarah felt almost like a spy in that household,
and would, in any ease, had Eustace's engagement never
been made and broken, have longed for a purer air, and
some time or other sought it. But the very consciousness
of what she knew only made her parting with Mrs. Massie
more trying.  Suppose her aunt should suspect that the
cause of her leaving was something not directly connected
with Eustace? Suppose she should question her? Suppose,
still worse, that she should confide in her, and implore
help and counsel?  Sarah knew too well how completely
Mrs. Massie had been accustomed to lean on her, and how
utterly incapable she was of walking alone in the world.
She dreaded a wild and wailing appeal; the appeal of the
affrighted child about to be left alone in the darkness-of
the weakly traveller who has fallen in the desert, and whose
last companion prepares to abandon him.
There was no help for it, however. Sarah walked slowly
home, in order to gain time to calm her nerves and dry her
eyes. She was thinking far more now of the parting scene
she had to go through than of that she had got over. She
14




314                  PAUL MASSIE.
was by that very consciousness, however, beginning to learn
more and more clearly how little hold Eustace had ever had
upon her heart; and the knowledge helped to strengthen
her and to justify her determination.
Was it not natural that coming to the tree beneath
which she had stood when she parted from Paul, Sarah
should rest a moment there? She ventured now to think
of him. Her late interview with Eustace had not merely.
set her free, but had quite broken down any poor attempt
at shutting Paul out from her mind, which before she might
have endeavored to maintain. Eustace had openly and vehemently accused her of loving Paul, and in the heat of the
moment she had actually confessed to him-to Eustace —
there in the open day, with her own lips, what she had never
before dared to acknowledge to her own heart under the
protecting shadow of night and silence. Here then, on the
spot where she parted from him, it was a compensation and
a luxury to be able to think that she loved Paul. She
almost revelled in the thought. She had never known one
gleam of the higher joys and capabilities of life until she
came to know and own that she loved him. What though
he must never know it, it was something to make life worth
bearing that she need no longer shrink from feeling, and in
her heart acknowledging, her love.
Perhaps she might have been beguiled into remaining
long on that spot, and thus postponing her unpleasant,
unavoidable duty. But she presently heard voices, and
she started from the place as hastily and confusedly as if
anybody.-finding her there could possibly have divined the:
secret attraction which made these few square yard of greent
sward so dear to her. Continuing her walk towards the
house, she came nearer to the voices, and at last into the
presence of Mrs. Massie and Lydia.
Lydia began: "0 Sarah, do you know-mamma is going
to London to-morrow? 
Sarah was really surprised. A snail making up his
mind to be off with the swallows could hardly seem a more




THE FOUNTAM  UNSEALED.             315
unlikely project to any of the Massie family than that of
"mamma" undertaking a journey. But Sarah caught at
the idea with alacrity. If she might go with her! It would
be so much easier to explain all when once outside the
precincts of Seaborough.
" Yes, and she won't let me go with her! Did you ever
hear of such a thing? And I should so like to go back.".
"I cannot take you, Lydia," said her mother. "You
will soon, I suppose, see enough of London. You might
surely remain here for the rest of the time with Eustace
and Sarah."
Lydia slightly reddened at the allusion conveyed in Mrs.
Massie's words about the probability of her future residence
in London; but she said nothing.
Sarah had not the nerve to ask composedly what Mrs.
Massie was going to London for. She felt that it must be
a serious object which could draw her aunt from the shelter
of her home. But she caught at the chance which seemed
to open for her own escape. "May I go with you, aunt?"
Once away from  Seaborough, once in London, the rest
would be comparatively easy.
"No, Sarah, my dear. I don't want anybody. It is not
a very dreadful undertaking."
"Only, mamma,". broke in Lydia, " you never go anywhere alone, and I don't understand why you should do so
now. I really think if you won't take me, you had much
better take Sarah."
"I think Sarah had much better remain-and you tooto keep Eustace company. He has been much troubled and
vexed of late; and he ought not to be left now without companionship here, in this lonely place."  Mrs. Massie positively shuddered as she spoke of the lonely place.
Sarah felt that she could not much longer put off her
explanation. Perhaps too Lydia's presence, embarrassing
as it was, might be a protection against yet deeper embarrassment. So she took her courage in two hands, to adopt
the-French phrase,




816                  PAUL MASSIE.
"But, aunt, I think I had better go with you. I am
going to London to-morrow."
" You, Sarah, going to London?"
"Yes, aunt, I am going."
Lydia opened wide round eyes, and holding her mother's
arm brought all the party to a stand-still. They had fallen
back, strangely enough, to the spot just in front of the wellknown tree, and the sight of the place gave Sarah new
courage. She could go through it all now.
"Only just returned from London, Sarah, and going
back again at once   Does Eustace know that you are
going?"
I think he does."
"Think he does!" interjected Lydia with expressive
emphasis.
"Does he know what you are going for?"
" I think he does, aunt. At least he will easily guess it."
" 0-mysteries! " said Lydia, shrugging her shoulders.
"And what on earth are you going for, child? It is not
a secret, I hope."
" O, no, aunt; but I think Eustace can tell you-"
" You have not quarrelled? "' No, we have not quarrelled; but it is better I should
go away; I must go indeed."' 0, yes, I am sure you have been quarrelling. What
nonsense! I thought you both had more sense. But you
will soon settle it. Can I help to make a reconciliation?"
"I think not, mamma," interposed Lydia in a low tone.
Her intelligence was quicker in this affair than was usual
with her, and she saw at a glance that Eustace and Sarah
were parted.
Her mother did not notice the interruption.
" Come, Sarah," she said rather impatiently, "tell me all
about this. I don't like mysteries."
What a relief to Sarah were these few words! Mrs.
Massie, then, never knew that any expressions of hers had
betrayed to Sarah her own involvement in a lifelong mys



THE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED.              817
tery. Had she suspected anything of the kind, she never
would have ventured to make such a declaration.
"Why are you going to London; and how long do you
mean to stay?"
"Not long in London, aunt."
" And when are you coming back here?"
"Never, never." Sarah's eyes filled with tears, and her
voice broke down.
"Never coming back here! 0, my dear, this is impossible; this is utter folly. Why, what has Eustace said or
done?"
"Dear mamma," Lydia broke in, "you quite surprise
me. Can you not see it all? Sarah has made up her mind
not to marry Eustace; and she has told him so, and told
him she does not care about him any more. I saw this
long ago."
Sarah felt grateful to Lydia for cutting the whole matter
short and setting the truth nakedly out, although there was
little of tenderness or generosity in Lydia's way of doing it.
But it was all out now, and the worst was over.
Mrs. Massie turned very pale.
" This is not true, Sarah," she said. " This surely cannot
be true, my dear."
"It is true, aunt; it is true indeed, every word! 0,
forgive me, and beg of Eustace to forgive, and try to make
him forget me. I would not have told it to you here or now
if I could. If I might have go-e with you to London, I
could have told you the whole; and then-"
"And then you would not have had to tell it before me,
I suppose?" said Lydia. "But, my dear Sarah, you told
me no news. Isaw it long ago. I think too you need not
want to keep it a secret from me any more than from
mamma. We have always been like sisters-people thought
we were sisters often-and I did not think there could be
any secrets between us; I did not expect it of you, Sarah."
And Lydia plunged her face in her pocket-handkerchief.
Her tears were always ready to flow.




318                 PAUL MASSIE.
"Indeed, Lydia, I did not mean to keep any secret from
you; and I was only going to say that, if I could have gone
to London with aunt, I might have broken it to her gently,
and then it would not have come so strangely upon her.
But it is true, aunt, and there is no help for it. 0, how
much it grieves me that I should appear ungrateful to you
and to Eustace, and to all who have been so kind and loving
to me since I was a little child! But I have thought of it
long; and I cannot help it. Aunt, I can never, never marry
Eustace. I should be doing him the cruellest wrong if I did."
"You do not love him?"
"Not as he ought to be loved. 0, not as somebody
far more worthy of him than I will love him some day
-for indeed he deserves to be loved. But I could not; I
feel, I know, I never could; and so I must leave you all and
go away."
" Poor Eustace  " sighed Lydia.
"Poor Eustace!" echoed Mrs. Massie in tones of far
deeper sadness. " Does he know of this, Sarah?"
"He does, aunt."
"And bears it."
Sarah could make no answer.
"How  unhappy we all are!"  Mrs. Massie went on.
"Nothing goes well with us! How miserable I shall be
here for the rest of my life when Lydia is gone and you are
gone! Every one leaves me. I do not know what has
befallen us lately-",
" Iknow," Lydia interposed,-" I know what has made
us all miserable, and put us out in every way. We were all
very happy always-except, of course, when poor papa died,
and that-until last February. I know what happened then;
and the house has never been the same since, and nobody
has been the same. 0, I saw it long ago."
Of course everybody understood this allusion, but it
passed without remark. Neither Mrs. Massie nor Sarah felt
inclined to accept the challenge. Poor Paul Massie! he
had no evil intentions to anyone, and yet here and there




THIE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED.              819
disappointed people were laying on his head the murder of
some cherished hope.
"If your mind is made up in this matter, Sarah," said
Mrs. Massie, after awhile, " there is no use in our endeavoring to reason with you. But I do not see why you should
leave us, my dear. I do not know how I can live without
you. Surely you may remain with me. Soon I shall be
alone here, if you do not remain. Lydia, I suppose, will be
married almost immediately to Captain Trenton" (the
coming of this event has not, we believe, been formally announced before); "and Eustace will probably travel somewhere, and I shall be all alone if you leave me. There cannot be any occasion for your rushing out of the house and
flinging us all away. I am sorry you cannot marry Eustace,
my dear; and it is a heavy disappointment to us all, after
all these years; but I do not the less love you; and you have
always been a daughter to me. You will not leave me, Sarah
-not yet at least-not just yet, my dear? "
She leaned on Sarah's arm, and looked piteously into the
girl's flushed face.
" I am sure, Sarah, you need not go," Lydia added.  6 I
don't see the slightest necessity for it; and what on earth
you can want in London, I cannot imagine."
" I am not going to stay in London, Lydia. I mean to
go to Belgium."
" But I don't see why you should not stay with poor
mamma. I don't see why she should be left alone. But
she sha'n't be left alone. I'll stay with you, mamma. I
don't care for anybody, or what anybody wants or says, if
I may not stay with you. Yes; I'll stay, since Sarah won't."
Lydia's self-sacrifice was cheap, for she knew perfectly
well there was no chance of her magnanimous offer being
accepted.
" My dear, you know you cannot stay; and I would not
have you to stay. The circumstances are quite different.
I ask Sarah to stay with me because I see no reason for her
going away. I do not know of any tie which is stronger




320                  PAUL MASSIE.
to her than that between her and me-since she will not
marry Eustace."
"O, very well, mamma.  Of course, if you don't want
me, and only care about Sarah, I have nothing more to say.
I hope there is somebody in the world who does care about
me, and who wants me."  And Lydia wept afresh. She
was determined to be the martyr of the situation.
"At all events, Sarah, you will wait until I come back.
This much you must do. I shall not be long: and then we
can speak more fully and more calmly about what you have
told me. Now it has come with a shock upon us all, and
we cannot collect our senses at once, and look quietly at it.
We must not part in this hurried way, my dear: and you
will wait-only a day or two-before you make up your
mind to anything."
Sarah had no reason for refusing to promise this much,
painful as the prospect of the coming day or two might be.
She did promise; and Mrs. Massie thanked her with a
tenderness which was sad to observe.
They walked home, and said not another word on the
subject. Lydia kept in fiont, still choosing to be offended
at something, and really much vexed with Sarah for two
things; first, for having the impertinence not to be glad
to marry her (Lydia's) brother; and next for having, even
during an hour or two, caused a sensation in which she
(Lydia) had no part.
That evening dragged wearily through. Eustace did
not return until late at night, and was seen by neither Sarah
nor Lydia. The three women were very silent and dull.
Sarah left the drawing-room early and went to her own
room.
She sat up some time writing letters, chiefly to one or
two school-fiiends in Belgium, who had often invited her
to pay them a visit, and with whom she now intended to
pass a few weeks while arranging for her future course of
life. It was late when she put aside her paper and began
to undress.




TIHE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED.            321
A low slight tap was heard at the door. She threw a
dressing-gown over her shoulders, and opened the door to
Mrs. Massie.
"I wanted to speak to you, Sarah dear," said the latter,
"and not before Lydia, who is very foolish, though goodhearted. So I remained up, that we might be alone for a
few minutes. I suppose your mind is quite made up about
your future course-about Eustace? "
"It is quite made up, aunt, quite; nothing on earth
could induce me-"
" My dear, do not be afraid that I would try to alter
your resolution. Heaven knows how dearly I love Eustace,
and how I lament over anything that disturbs his happiness.
But if I had known before that you did not love him, I
would myself have bade you never to marry him. I have
seen what comes of marriages where the wife has not given
up her whole heart to her husband. Yes, I have; and though
you are not like weak and vain and thoughtless women, yet
you had better be dead than married, if you do not love
your husband with all the love you have."
" You relieve me much, aunt, when you speak to me in
this way. iMy own conscience and heart told me I was
doing right; but something seemed to reproach me too, and
to whisper that I was acting ungratefully to you all. Now
you give me new courage to do what is right. It is very,
very kind and generous of you."
And Sarah took her aunt's hand and pressed it-a slight
demonstration of affection, but one which, poor as it was,
Sarah had not made towards her for more than a year.
" I don't mean to talk yet of your future plans, my dear;
we will leave that until I come back from London; but I
feel there is something else I ought to ask you. Lydia is
often very foolish, but she said something to-day which
startled me. Sarah, may I have your full confidence? Will
you speak to me as if I were your mother?'
Involuntarily Sarah drew away her hand. Mrs. Massie's
face flushed.
14*




322                  PAUL MASSIE.
"I have not offended you, my dear!"
"0 no, aunt; how could I feel offended by your kindness?"  Sarah had already repented of the sudden impulse
which made her withdraw her hand, and she again pressed
her aunt's thin and delicate fingers. Mrs. Massie had no
suspicion of the nature of the thought which had flashed
through Sarah's breast. She assumed that the girl only
shrank with a girl's natural modesty from revealing a heartsecret. But that was not the cause.
" I do not want to press you to tell me anything, Sarah,
which you think you ought to keep to yourself. But you
heard what Lydia said to-day; at least, you knew what she
meant. She talked of having known this some time why
you would not marry Eustace. Is it true, dear? You may
tell me."
"Yes, aunt, I knew what Lydia meant. And Eustace
himself-he too spoke of it to-day; and he spoke harshly,
and I am afraid that I answered him rather bitterly, and so
we parted in anger. Yes, it is true."
Sarah stood up and leaned against the window, turning
her face away for a moment. Then she looked round again
and said in a firm voice:
" I do not want to hide it from you  It is true, quite
true. I never knew whether I loved Eustace or not until
the time she spoke of to-day-until Paul Massie came here.
Then, after awhile, I found that I did not feel towards
Eustace as I ought to do if I could be his wife."
" But why, then, not speak before?"
"Aunt, I do not know, except that I was not sure. It
may look strange and bad; but indeed I was not sure. No,
not until the other night, and then I saw him in the theatre;
and I knew it all, and I made up my mind."
There was something of positive pride in tone of her
voice.
Mrs. Massie smiled sadly. She admired and pitied and
envied the girl. Envied her above all. To love, and not
to be ashamed! To see the right path, and have the nerve




THE FOUNTAIN UNSEALED.              323
to follow it, even though it led through pain! Ah, these
were triumphs this poor woman had never had, and she
looked back to a crisis in her own life, and thought with
grief and shame of the contrast. She sighed deeply.
"Ah," she said, in a low voice full of tenderness, "you
have disappointed us sadly, and you do not even give us
the relief of being able to blame you! No, Sarah, you have
done right, and I can only love you the more, and be the
more sorry when you are gone, and I am left alone. I will
not try to keep you, my dear. What sort of counsellor for
such as you would be a creature like me? But I wish I
had known of this before. I might have done something.
One word more, my dear, and then I will keep you from
your rest no longer. Does he know of this? "
"He-Eustace?"
"  o; Paul."
Sarah bent her head, and said, in a faint low voice,
" 0 no, nothing."
"Does he-do you think-pray don't be angry if I ask
it-does Paul Massie love you? 
Sarah burst into tears.
"0, I don't know, I don't know; and I don't want to
know. It is enough for me that I love him, and always
shall until I die-yes, and after death too, if our souls can
love. But I never want to see him again; I never want him
to see me. He will be happy, and I will not come in his
way. I will live alone and far off, and I will think of him."
The rod had touched the rock indeed, and the living
waters were flowing. This had always seemed the calmest,
coldest, wisest of girls, this passionate creature; who now
buried herself sobbing among the cushions of the sofa she had
been sitting on, and thus, in hysterical accents relieved her
heart of its burden by pouring out the assurances of its love.
Mrs. Massie's own tears flowed, partly from mere sympathy, but partly because she fully believed that Paul's
destiny was otherwise cast, and that Sarah's love was
doomed to be wasted.




324                  PAUL MASSIE.
" Unhappiness pursues us all, " she said. "You have
at least some consolations which others cannot hope for;
you can look into your-own heart and not feel remorse
or shame. Good-night, dear; you are better now alone.
And I can only love you and envy you."
Mrs. Massie stooped over the poor girl, and kissed
her shoulder, which was bare. She kissed her in a tearful
and humble sort of way, as if conscious of inferiority and
unworthiness, and acknowledging the consciousness by the
very action. The Bayadere in the great lyric might thus
have approached the pile whereon lay the assumed form of
her immortal lover. A Magdalen might thus lay some
poor flower-wreath in a shrine dedicated to the Virgin.
Descending the stairs to reach her own room, Mrs. Massie passed the door of Eustace's chamber, and heard him
pacing up and down. She paused for a moment and listened. He must have known she was there, for he opened
the door at once and came out. He was looking strange and
worn; and Mrs. Massie noticed that his dress was disordered and soiled, as if, in his grief and anger, he had flung
himself somewhere on the ground. That must indeed have
been emotion which drove the lover of order and propriety
to any such demonstration.
" Mother, you have heard it all?" he said.
"Yes, Eustace, I have heard it; I know all."
" But you will speak to her? you will reason with her?
you will entreat her to change her mind?"
" No, Eustace, my dear son, I cannot; I cannot indeed.
She sees what is right; she follows where her conscience
guides her, and it is not for us to try to lead her away. No;
I have seen much wrong in life, and done wrong too, for
want of that sense of right which she has; and even for you
I would not say one word to weaken it. No; God forbid.
I am not so wholly weak and bad."
He took no heed of her last words, but drew back into
his room and shut the door.




SALOME KNOWS ALL.                 325
CHAPTER XXVII.
SALOME KNOWS ALL.
SALOME sat in her room, at her desk, alone. She had a
packet of correspondence before her, and she was trying
to interest herself in the contents of the letters. Some of
them were from Italy, and (as we who have the privilege
of reading over her shoulder may know) were filled with
the hopes and plans and wild chimeras of the party of action.
Something was about to be done immediately in Venice:
Garibaldi had all but promised his assent; this or that member of the Italian cabinet had been understood mysteriously
to intimate that if the thing were not done quite too openly
and roughly, the government would contrive not to see more
than might be convenient. On such hints and hopes lives
always that undespairing, unresting, unrewarded party of
action; on such air it feeds, promise-crammed.  Salome
glanced at some of the letters, and tried to fix her attention
on them. But her thoughts soon wandered away, and the
paper presently was allowed to fall from her hand and lie
unnoticed on the table.
" I used to take an interest in this sort of thing once,"
she said half aloud. " It is not so long ago. And now-"
She leaned her forehead on her hands, pushing back the
hair which shaded her temples.
"I can't answer these letters to-day," she murmured.
"I am in no humor for writing, or for politics, or for anything. I don't wonder that so many women poison or
drown themselves, or try the effects of charcoal. I am sick
of life."
She pushed away the letters with her hand, as one puts
away some object suggestive of special weariness and pain,
and she remained with her forehead held between her
hands, still thinking or dreaming.




326                  PAUL MASSIE.
A light knock at the door did not appear to rouse her
from her dream. The knock was repeated.  Salome heard
it, but did not look round.
" Come in, Clotilde," she said.
"It is not Clotilde," a voice replied; "it is George."
" Then come in, George," said Salome, still in a halfinattentive tone.
George came in, crossed the room, gently encircled
with arms Salome's neck, and kissed her twice on the
cheek. There was nothing very shocking in the transaction. George wore petticoats, and was only a pretty,
black-eyed, crisp-haired, slender girl.
" George has not seen you this long time," said the
latter, " and he grows jealous. You might have come to
him, or sent for him. And I have been so vexed and
grieved and worried in ever so many ways, that I came to
get courage and counsel from you."
Salome looked up and smiled.  "Well, my dear, I am
truly glad to see you. I ought to have looked after you;
but I was much occupied.'"
"Much occupied! Nay, I think you were not quite
well. You look very pale and thin-and sad too. Something is wrong with you. How I wish I had come before 
Pray, pray tell me what made you ill and sad."
The girl sat on the carpet at Salome's feet, and laid her
hand upon her knee, looking up into her face with a wistful, childish expression of anxious affection.
"No, my dear, I was not ill-not in the least, and not
sad; that is, not particularly, not for any special cause.
But you said you were vexed and grieved yourself. Come,
tell me of your troubles."
"0, mine are nothing-mere nonsense. I have been
just a little cut-up in one or two of the papers-ill-naturedly, I think-called masculine and hoydenish, and I
believe indelicate, and I don't know what else, because I
can't play women's parts. And I cried a little over all this
the other day. For the people read this in the papers, and,




RALOME KNOWS ALL.                 327
they form a dreadful opinion of me. And I have no friend
but you; and 0, how I wish I were really a man! "
Miss Georgina Renville (her real name was Renn) was
the daughter of a very, very small litterateur, who was
once rather in the amateur revolutionary line, and whom
Salome had befriended. Dying, he left Georgina alone;
and Georgina would be nothing but an actress. Salome,
through her dramatic-author friends, had no trouble in
getting the girl an engagement. Georgina soon displayed
a wonderful talent for the playing of all vivacious vaudeville, or farce, or burletta parts which required the wearing
of doublet and hose. She was the Prince of the Fairy
Islands, the Midshipman, the Little Pickle, the Pet of the
Petticoats, the Fortunio-anything which was boyish and
smart and saucy. She looked the parts she assumed to
piquant theatric perfection; that is, she never was so exuberantly feminine as to render her costume ridiculous; and
yet in her best disguise, and with her most swaggering
gait, she always retained the grace and charm of womanhood. Honestly, her great grief in life was, that she could
not help being a woman; her chief delight, to be even
dressed like a man. Those who only saw her on the stage
never by any chance saw her in feminine garb. She was
a true, affectionate, simple-minded girl, thoroughly modest
in spite of her familiarity with pantaloons, and in spite of
the occasionally sharp remarks of some critic in a fit of
virtuous indignation.  Salome was always fond of her, and
glad to see her, although George knew no more of foreign
politics or revolutionary secrets than a robin-redbreast.
So much for George's past. We shall perhaps take up
her story one day on its own account, and for its own sake.
Now she comes in by chance, merely an incidental and unimportant figure.
" Now these are all my troubles. Not much, you will
say; but I wish I could tell you how these papers vex me,
when they don't praise me. I was in bed the other day
when a paper came, addressed to me, and with such ill-na



328                  PAUL MASSIE.
tured remarks about me, that I assure you I cried over it,
and could hardly bring myself to get up even to rehearsal.
I shall never get over such folly. I don't think any of us
ever does. Haven't I seen our greatest stars over and over
again bursting with rage because somebody in a paper
found fault with them? You don't know what it is to do
your very best, and study hard, and look your best, and
dress your best, and then to be cut up after all; and your
bread depending on it, to say nothing of your ambition.
Yes, I do so wish I were a man."
"What could you do if you were a man? " asked Salome,
smiling.
"Could I not challenge my critics? This sort of thing."
She started up and threw herself into fencing attitude, her
left arm flung back, her right as if making a tremendous
lunge with the rapier.  "Or I suppose that's all out of
fashion now —n England at least. This, then: twelve
paces; one, two, three-fire! " She had changed her attitude and stood in profile, an imaginary hair-trigger in her
outstretched hand.
" But I fear that is out of fashion in England too," said
Salome. "And you know, George, you really could not
shoot all your hostile critics. You would not desolate the
London press?"
George laughed merrily.
"Come now," she said, "I am glad to hear you say
something like that; for it shows that you are not wholly
out of spirits. But indeed some of the critics are very
kind to me. Mr. Levison spoke so warmly of me last
week. I know very well who sent him to see me-it was
you, who are always doing me some good turn. I know he
never would have thought of coming to look at me, and to
write about me, but for you-such a great literary swell as
he is. I can tell you some of our people were very angry
and jealous. I saw him in the stalls; and do you know
who was with him?"
"No, indeed; who was it?"




SALOME KNOWS ALL.                 329
"You surely ought to know. It was your friend Mr.
Massie.  I saw him the moment I came on, and he smiled,
and I could not help recognizing him, and it nearly put me
out. You must tell him not to expect recognitions or to
claim acquaintanceship under such circumstances. But I
like him very much. I think I should like to be such a
man."
"Why such a man?"
"Well, it is not that he is so very handsome, but he is
manly and strong, and has such a fine frank way, and a
sweet smile.  What bright eyes he has! Don't you like
his eyes? Ah, yes, you do. But your own eyes look quite
weary and worn to-day, as if you had not slept..More than
that-they are red too, as if you had been crying. Something, I know, has distressed you. Do tell me-do, dear, dear
Madame de Luca, I know you are unhappy; and I am
miserable when I see it."
"Which of us is happy, George?  Have you not just
been telling me of your own grievances? "
"Yes; but mine are mere nonsense; they are not
grievances that any sensible person would care about.
They are only petty spites and vexations; a kind of gamegiving that would trouble a woman-there's Shakespeare.
These are not the kind of things that would affect you.
You are -not likely to be cast down because some man does
not think as highly of you as you could wish."
Salome smiled sadly and shook her head. George had
keen eyes and senses of her own, and did not fail to note
the expression which passed like a shadow over the face she
was studying.
"Yes," she said, half-soliloquizing, "you are not
happy."
" Well, George, I am not very happy-not just now."
" Is it past help, past hope?"
"Past help, certainly; past hope, I fear."
"May it be told; may it be talked of?  My sorrows
are always lightened by talking of them."




330                  PAUL MASSIE.
"This may not be talked of or told; and no confidence
could lighten it. It will pass away-perhaps-in time."
"And I cannot help you-in any way?  Not in any
way?"
"Not in any way."
" Not even if I could partly guess what it was?"  This
was said in a tone of gentle childlike affection, very tender
and full of feeling. Prince Paragon was a true woman.
Salome's cheek flushed, and her eyes did not venture to
meet those which were turned upon her. She made no
reply for a moment; only shook her head.
" I am a little tired and out of spirits to-day, George,"
she said at last, "and I exaggerate my trials and see everything in a gloomy light., Things are not going very well,
you know, in Italy-and-and-in America."
George was not in the least deceived by the attempt at
explanation founded on political difficulties. But she did
not pursue the subject.
" Will you sing me something, George,-something
bright and vivacious-something like yourself?"
"Delighted, if I can do anything to please you. What
shall it be?"
She rattled some lively notes on the piano, and, without
waiting for any answer, dashed into some vivacious ballad.
But she glanced every now and then over her shoulder
anxiously at her friend. Salome still sat at her desk with
her forehead pressed between her hands. She was not
listening to a note of the music. George did not fail to notice
that at every sound of the street-door, at every footstep,
every wheel, every dash of a horse's hoofs on the pavement,
Salome started, and then sank down again disappointed.
"She expects him," thought the girl; "and he is not
coming."
Having finished one song-of which she sang, quite
unnoticed, each verse twice over-George straightway
called on herself for another, and went on with it unhesitatingly. It was all the same to Salome.




SALOME KNOWS ALL.                331
A knock and ring at the door. Salome started up. But
the first sound of a foot-step in the hall made her sink
down again.'C Don't go, my dear," she said to George, who was rising
from the piano. "It is not anyone to see me;it is only
the doctor to see Alice, one of my maids, who was hurt the
night before last. That is a charming song of yours; pray
go on with it."
George began a third ballad. Presently another knock,
another eager glance, another expression of disappointment.
"General Lefevre to see Madame," said Clotilde, entering.
"Yes; I will see him," said Salome eagerly. "Show
him  into the drawing-room.-Don't go, dear: I shall be
back presently." This to George.
"0, yes, I must go," said George. "You will have to
see many people soon, and you will want me away. But I
will soon come to see you again-may I not?"
She kissed Salome affectionately.  "Ah," she said to
herself, as she received a warm farewell from her friend, "I
wish I were a man-at least one particular man-for your
sake."
As George left the house, she observed an odd rowdylooking man at the other side of the street, who, the moment she passed out, began to move as if towards or after
her. Was he a beggar? Did he mistake her for somebody
to whom he wanted to speak? No matter. The moment
he saw her face he dropped behind, and she thought no more
of him just then.
She passed through the Park and went along by the
railings to see the crowd of ladies on horseback. George,
with all her wish to be a man, or perhaps because of it, dearly loved to see a line woman on horseback. As she walked
slowly on, she was aware, as the old ballad-phrase is, of the
propinquity of Paul Massie. He was lounging along, listless and weary-looking; his face rather haggard, his dress
careless.




332                 PAUL MASSIE.
George promptly accosted him, and they exchanged
some cordial words.
"Why do you linger here, Mr. Massie?" said the girl,
after a moment or two; " why don't you cross the Park and
go that way?"  She nodded towards the north. "Don't
you know you are waited for and wished for?"
She spoke not quizzingly or even playfully, but in pure
frank and simple earnest.
Paul began to stammer out some reply.
" Now don't pretend you don't know what I mean," she
said; "you do know well enough. Why don't you go, or
remain away altogether and never go there any more?
Don't be offended with me; I think about her; I love her;
I would die for her; and what ought not you to do for
her?"
"Miss Renville, I only wish I could deserve-I only wish
I were worth thinking of."
" Bah! stuff!  Who ever said you were worth thinking
of-by her?  I don't believe any man is worth many
thoughts from her. But if she does not think so? I beg
your pardon, Mr. Massie; do you know that man, that
fellow there, who has just passed us? There-just near
that tree."
Paul looked-with the eyes of his body, not his mind.
He just saw some hulking, shabby-looking fellow lounging
away. The man's back was turned. No, Paul did not know
anything of him-at least did not observe him-had not
seen his face. Who was he?
"Really I don't know. It's no matter. I thought I
saw him a few minutes ago at the door yonder, just as I
came out, and he seemed to be watching somebody. "
Assuredly if Paul had had his wits about him, even this
slight observation would have led him to make some effort
to see the man. But he was thinking of something quite
different, and George's words made no impression on him.
"Good-by, Mr. Massie. Pray think of what I have
said, and forgive me for saying it."




SALOME KNOWS ALL.                333
" Forgive you for having been kind and generous; forgive you for-"
" Well, forgive me in any case; and good-by."
When George left Salome's house, Salome hastened to
receive General Lefevre. She was eager to see him, and
yet hardly expected any " news " so soon. " Six months"
he had asked for. Even Salome's impatience could not
overlook the fact that scarcely so many weeks had passed.
The General rose at her entrance, and made the most
profound of bows.
"Dear General, I am glad to see you; but I don't of
course expect-" and she hesitated, and looked expectant.
"Madame, I have had the fortune to fulfil my commission before my time. I know all we can ever know."
" 0, how I thank you! how good you were! "
" Nay, I would of course do my possible to expedite the
discharge of the commission; but chance, not merit, has
done it so soon. A Mexican prisoner fiom Paris, an old
friend and follower, fell in my way when least expected;
and from him I know-"
"What? "
" The fate of Captain Massie."
"Yes, yes; what of him?"
"Madame, my old friend is dead."
" Is that certain? "
"Madame may rely that it is perfectly certain."
Salome was somewhat relieved. She had already heard
enough of the antecedents of this Captain Paul Massie to
know that no human creature, this side of the Atlantic at
least, cared to have him alive.
" Did you learn anything of the facts and circumstances
of his death?"
" Yes; some little. HIe had for some time before been
in companionship with a person of whom I spoke to you,
who came to me on his behalf in New Orleans. Did I
say it was in New Orleans he died?  Yes, it was. This
person of whom I spoke had once been the confidential




334;                 PAUL MASSIE.
serving-woman of his wife. Pardon if I tell you these
things-such things will happen; he was very wild and
reckless at one time."
"Yes; go on, please."
" I believe she was in part the cause of their separation.
They had met by chance again after many years, and she
was kind to him in his broken fortunes."
" Do you mean his wife?"
" No, no; this woman. His wife he never saw after their
separation. He did not know, until after he met with the
other woman for the second time in New Orleans, that
soon after his leaving his wife she bore a son. He did not
ever try to see the son, perhaps feeling that he had little
claim on a son's love after such long desertion of his family,
perhaps for other reasons-who knows? But it is certain
that before he died he wrote a letter which he wished to be
given to the son. The woman was to come to Europe, and
she was to bear it. Also she was to see his brother's wife,
and to give her a diamond ring which he had long kept. I
have often seen such a ring on his finger."
"Pray, General,.excuse me for putting such a question,
but how do you know all this?"
The General smiled. " My Mexican prisoner has many
friends in New Orleans who knew Massie," he said, "and he
knows who sent the doctor to attend him in his last illness,
and who found the money to send this woman to Europewithout doubt to get rid of her. But I know little more save
that he died, and she sailed for Europe. There I have lost
her. No doubt she is here, and can be found, if any occasion
or need should be for finding her. I question much myself
whether she can have anything to communicate to any
relative of Captain Massie's, which it would be very agreeable to hear. Perhaps she has already fulfilled her mission.
I have my reasons to dread that she came rather to extort
money than to fulfil the request of a'dying man."
"And so the story ends," said Salome, in a musing
way.




SALOME KNOWS ALL.                 335
"And so the story ends, -o far as I. can tell it. I would
I could tell you more; but this much dries up my sources
of information."
"General, I am deeply indebted to you. You have told
me all I wish to know. Captain Paul Massie is dead, and
there does not seem any end to be gained by reviving his
memory in the minds of those who knew him."
The General shook his head gravely.
"One word, General. Did you happen to hear any
thing of her-of Captain Massie's wife?"
"'Something-very little; vague, and perhaps untrue.
It is so long that she is dead."
"But you did hear something?"
"Yes, something. That her husband believed he had
found some proofs against her; proofs of want of sagesse in
fact, and that there was a violent scene, and perhaps even
-1 am not sure-a duel."
" Her husband! Then was that the cause of their separation? 
"No; whatever of truth was in this, it was after her
husband had already deserted her. But remember, all this
is rumor and recollection of the vaguest, and whatever happened was done in Mexico, then profoundly disturbed.
What I tell you of my old friend's death is exact, and, so to
speak, of yesterday; but the other events are-ah, perhaps,
near thirty years ago. I think it is certain or probable that
there was a quarrel; that is all one can rely on."
Salome thanked the General again for his information.
He put no question himself. He must have known quite
well that she had more than the interest of curiosity in
seeking back into the past of the Massie family; and he
could have had no doubt that the Paul Massie now in London was the son to whom a letter had been despatched by
the Paul Massie dying in New Orleans. It will be remembered that he had actually seen and read part of a document presumed to be that very letter. But he asked no
questions, dropped no hints, formed ho conjectures.  A true




336                 PAUL MASSIE.
gentleman of the gallant old school, it would never have
occurred to him to seek to know anything which was, or
seemed to be, anybody's secret. He had taken some pains
to procure certain information to oblige a lady,-voild tout;
there his share in the business ended. Why the lady sought
the information, or what inferences she could deduce from
it, he never thought to inquire.
"I need not, General, ask you again to consider our
little conversation as entirely private."
" Madame, indeed you need not, on the honor of a very
poor gentleman."
" And if I ever can acknowledge your kindness-"
" It is already acknowledged, and far too highly valued."
After he had gone Salome sat down alone, and thought.
"This, then, is all."- So ran the stream of her reflections.
" This is all; and it is nothing. All clew to anything like
a solution of the secret is lost. The dead body found-and
robbed-upon the Seaborough beach was that of the only
person, save one, who could have told us anything. And
I fear-I fear enough has been told to warn me off any
further pursuit. I fear nothing remains to be found which
would bring aught but reproach to the finder. I thought,
like a fool, to have bought even his gratitude with a precious discovery. I seem more likely to have exposed him
to shame. My folly,-my old, romantic, idiotic folly! And
he cares nothing for me; nothing, nothing! He loves that
cold inanimate creature, who will coolly marry another man
because she is bidden to, and will walk stupidly through
her dull life and never think of him or of anything but what
she will call her duty. And I, who at my age know now,
for the first time and the last, what love really is-I, who
would die for him-must plot and scheme to buy his love;
and plot and scheme in vain!"
She did not talk all this aloud, or half aloud. Only the
heroines of romance and the drama, and occasionally some
deaf and decaying old charwomen, thus commune with
themselves in audible words. But her heart spoke, and so




BE SURE THY SIN WILL FIND THEE OUT.    33T
did her eyes, from which at last there fell some drops of
passion, disappointment, and grief.
No woman on earth," she thought in her bitterness,
"is so unhappy as I."
"' A lady wishes particularly to speak to Madame," said
Clotilde, entering.
"A lady! what lady?  Let her give   e her name,"
Salome replied sharply. In all her grief she was vexed to
have been found with tears in her eyes.
"She does not wish to give her name, but she begs you
will see her. She says she cannot leave until she has seen
you."
" Show her in, then," said Salome, in a sort of defiant
tone, and quite determined to greet the intruder in a manner
which would convince her that she had intruded.
She sat to her desk and affected-indeed, it was pure
affectation-to be engaged in writing. The lady was shown
in, and the door closed behind her. Salome did not yet
look up. When at last she raised her eyes, they met, not
without a start, the eyes of Mrs. Massie,
CHAPTER  XXVIIIo
BE SURE THY SIN WILL FIND THEE OUT.
s TJAST thou found me out, 0 mine enemy?"
Salome did not thus accost the visitor who had so
unexpectedly intruded upon her, nor did she even think of
the words; but assuredly her face seemed to put some such
question, and her heart might have suggested it. She
looked bewildered into Mrs. Massie's pale face, where haggard anxiety met her look of surprise, but she seemed unable
to speak a word.
"Salome Adams!"
15




338                  PAUL MNSSTE.
Mrs. Massie spoke. It was the first time for years that
Salome had been addressed by those lips or by that name.
"You are surprised to see me here, and I am surprised
to find myself here; but I felt that I must come and see
you, and speak to you."
Salome had risen before this; she now motioned towards
a chair. Her visitor took no heed of the gesture.
"I have come to ask you why you persecute me and
my family? "
She put the question earnestly and gravely; as a question strictly, and not as a taunt or even an appeal.
"How have I persecuted you?  Why do you accuse
me?"
" I have not accused you; I only asked you a question.
You are our enemy, and are striving to injure us. Why?
We once were friends."
"Once,' said Salome with emphasis.
"I was harsh and unjust to you; I know it. I knew
it then'; but I could not help it. Many, many things had
embittered me, and rendered me suspicious. But what if
we quarrelled then?-most women do quarrel-why should
it have made us enemies for life? We have both grown
older; we have both suffered; we are both widows; more
than that-we are bound together, Salome Adams, by a tie
you do not dream of, and I have come to tell you of it."
Then she sat down and loosed her bonnet-strings, as if
to free her breathing, and threw back her shawl. Her face
was pale as are the dead.
" But why, " said Salome, now recovering her composure, and resolving to speak like a woman of the world,-' why do you accuse me of persecuting you? How could
I? What power have I?"
"You are making yourself the source and impulse of
secret inquiries which are designed to bring exposure and
trouble upon us. I know  that they come from you; I
know that you think you have discovered some secret which




BE SURE THY SIN WILL FIND THEE OUT.    339
gives you power over us; and I know that you are endeavoring to use it to our injury."
"Then you are wrong," replied Salome coldly. " I have
no wish to injure you, or any of you; but I take a deep interest in one of your family; I have a strong friendship for
him; and I have reason to believe that while you all cast
him out from among you, he has legal rights of which he
himself knows nothing, and which give him a heavy claim.
I confess-what need of hiding it?-that I have endeavored
to find out and secure those rights; and I think I have been
successful."
" What are the rights?"
Salome smiled significantly.
" Nay, I don't care to know what is the delusion under
which you are acting: enough that it is the most vain of
delusions. Salome Adams, every step you take, every
question you ask in this most miserable business, is but heaping shame on Paul Massie's head. God help him! he has
no rights. Such unfair dealings as has been done is for his
sake, on his behalf; to preserve for him a name to which he
has little claim, and to keep him from being an utter outcast.
I tell you once again, Paul Massie has no rights."
" Is he not your nephew? is he not the only son of your
husband's brother?"
" He is not my nephew; he is not the son of my husband's
brother."
Salome's face now assumed a startled expression. Mrs.
Massie looked fixedly downward. There was a moment's
profound silence.
"Then," Salome asked, "of what family is he a member?"
Mrs. Massie did not seem to hear the question, but she
laid her hand softly on Salome's-the first friendly movement made on either side-and asked in a low clear tone,
"Do you love him-Paul Massie?"
And Salomne looked up with calm eyes, although with
cheeks no longer bloodless, and replied firmly,




340                  PAUL MASSIE.
" I do."
"If I had not known it, I could never have come here.
This is the tie between us. Paul Massie is dearer to you
than all the world besides: is he not?"
" He is indeed."
" So he is to me."
Seldom have words so few, spoken in a tone so calm,
produced a more thrilling impression on a listener's ear.
Salome started from her seat.
"Stay, Salome Adams, and listen. Think how I trust
you, you who have been my enemy. To you I tell what I
never before told to mortal but one who is in the grave.
Paul Massie is my son."
Evening was approaching, and Salome sat in gloomgloom of heart as well as of atmosphere. The parting
words of he half-distracted woman who had just left her
rang in her ears: "Whatever may happen, let us never
meet again. Forgive me, as you are a Christian woman,
for the weakness which was worse than crime, and has
brought so much misery; and I forgive you for having
forced this confession on me. It is not right that we should
ever look upon each other again. Do not, 0, do not tell
him all!"
Before she went, Salome, saying no word, put into her
hand the ring-the ring whose tiny spark had lighted the
way to the whole disclosure. Mrs. Massie took it with a
new thrill of pain. " It was not mine," she murmured; " it
was my sister's. I wore it sometimes out of folly and
vanity; and I wore it once too often. The night I lost it, it
cost a man his life, and the best of women her reputation and
her happiness. All my wickedness and weakness,-all' "
Weakness which was worse than wickedness; weakness
which had poisoned many lives for the sake of preserving
one from shame, and had not succeeded even in that; weakness which had accepted so many sacrifices from  more
generous natures. and was ready to the last to suggest and




BE SURE THY SIN WILL FIND THEE OUT.    341
exact new surrenders and abnegations; weakness full of
cruelty; weakness like that which made the woman in the
story fling her infant to the wolves to save her own miserable life. The last words of Mrs. Massie to Salome prayed
for more secrecy and one final sacrifice of just human claim
for the sake of her own ruined life.
Now Salome saw it all. She was enabled, by the fitful
light of the half-revelations given to her in gleams ^.'
flashes, to read the whole mournful story of that feeble and
cowardly life. She iead therein of a woman not wholly
selfish, not in anywise naturally bad, but too weak to be
true, and therefore destructive by her weakness. Too weak
to refuse an unsuitable, uncongenial marriage when passionately pressed upon her; too weak to be faithful even to
that when the presence of a stronger elective affinity drew
her away; too weak even to stand by her sin and atone for
it; too weak to refuse the generous, improvident sacrifice
of a sister's fame. The retrospect was sickening. Salome
tried to turn away from it, and contemplate her own painful and humiliating share in the miserable business.
She had been deluded, self-deluded in great measure;
and had well-nigh committed herself and him whom she
valued far more than herself to the uttermost folly, to the
most shameful exposure. Deep self-reproach stung her
heart. She had too generous a nature not to acknowledge
with pain and shame the meanness of the motives which
first prompted her to spy into the secrets of the Massie
family. What had been the spring of her first movements
but petty feminine spite and morbid curiosity?  She had
gone about with menials and vagabonds to discover a secret
which now came crushingly on her own head and her own
hopes. Refined and purified by her disinterested love, she
looked back with bitter regret and self-condemnation on
all that she had done. And the end had not yet come.
She arose after awhile from the table at which she had
been sitting, and going to her desk took out a faded,
wrinkled, stained old rag of paper. She opened it, laid it




842                 PAUL MAFSSIE.
on the table, and unconsciously struck her clenched hand
heavily on it, as if she found in it the cause of her-folly and
and fault. It was the letter to which so many an allusion
has been made; the letter found by Halliday on the Seaborough beach; the letter believed to have been written by
the lost and dying outcast, Paul Massie, in New Orleans.
It was addressed, as we know, to Paul Massie-our Paul
Massie. It ran thus:
"I am dying: and I am conscious of having led an idle
and worthless life. I neglected and deserted my wife; and
I believe now that I wronged her by suspicions which were
unjust. But Heaven will bear me witness that I did not
know till lately I had a son. If I have a son and you are
he, forgive me, and when you can, forget me. If justice
has been done, you must already have the fortune which,
but for my own folly, I should have had. The bearer of
this will tell you all, if you want explanation. If any wrong
has been done you-and there has been long deceit already
-there is a person in England who can put it right: show
her the token I send with this by a sure hand. She will
know how I got it, and what a price was paid for it. It has
been a curse so far to every one who wore it; let it be so
once more to her if it does not remind her that she owes an
atonement to me-and to you. I cannot feel to you as a
father ought to a son. I suppose my own wrong-doing and
my desertion of my home are thus punished, and I am
denied, even in death, the sweetness of a natural affection.
You are to me only a name; but I feel that if you have not
been fairly dealt with, and I can help you to your right, I
make some atonement for the past. I do not sign my name.
If this reaches you, you will know it; if not, then it is
better unknown. Good-by-and forgive me."
The waves brought to Seaborough strand only a wreck
and a dead woman's body. The letter and the ring were
found as we know. One of the strange chances of human
fate brought the bearer and the message to the very feet of




BE SURE THY SIN WILL FIND THEE OUT.    343
him whom they sought, and brought them in vain. The
letter reached Salome.
The inquiry which it suggested revealed the fact that
the grandfather of the present Eustace Massie had been
offended with both his sons,-the one for his wildness, the
other for his sudden and secret marriage; that he had
successively banished, as it were, each to Mexico, where
the elder fell in love with, married, and soon deserted his
brother's sister-in-law; that the younger, Eustace, in some
measure redeemed his credit by endeavoring steadily to
retrieve the Mexican property. Finally, the father dying
left his fortune to his younger son, but only in trust. It
was to be divided equally between the "legitimate" elder
son, of Eustace and the elder son of Paul, after these should
have come of age. There was stress laid in each case on
the word "legitimate."  If only one of the brothers had a
son, then to him alone. If neither, to daughters or more
distant relatives. Paul the elder was wholly cut off from
share of any kind.
And on this false scent had poor Salome gone astray.
The word " legitimate," and the uncertainty about the date
of Mrs. Massie's marriage, sent her wildly wrong. She
now at last reflected that the very audacity which would
have been requisite thus coolly to deprive a co-heir of his
just rights, and assume that he could never come to know
of them, might of itself have warned her of the futility of
her speculations. Her quick intriguing genius had only
proved an ignis fatuus, and led her on a wild chase of a
phantom ending in a dreary marsh.
She was not long left to the luxury of her sad reflections. The door soon began to resound with the knocks of
visitors. For some time she struggled against the infliction,
and pertinaciously declined to see the comers; but the tantalizing interruption to her thoughts occasioned by this
very struggle seemed worse than absolute surrender to the
oppression. She had, for long years and of her own choice,
given up all habit of home life. She could command little




344                  PAUL MASSIE.
more bf privacy than a prime minister or the representative of a metropolitan constituency,  A  weary life that
soon becomes where your house-door has to stand as constantly open as that of the good Axylus in Homer-a martyr surely to his hospitality, did we know but all. To a
woman-at least to a woman with something better than a
mere integument for a heart and a vapor-filled shell or
pumpkin for a head-such a life becomes at last the heaviest and dreariest of inflictions. Salome's heart sank
within her, and she sickened at the prospect of an evening
spent among her ordinary guests. She thought of loneliness
as a balm-refreshing as sleep to the weary, as the spring
to the dusty wayfarer. Of aught better than loneliness
she hardly  ventured  to think. But if that could be
which she now scarcely allowed herself to hope for, how
gladly she would give up London and the vanity and nothingness of idle playings at political intrigue; how gladly
would she steep her life in the quiet happiness of some
secluded home! Thirty years of poverty and hardship and
toil and vexation; five or six years of weary, mechanical
chase after distraction-was it not time that rest and happiness should come at last 9 And, indeed, the rest was near.
While Salome at last girt up her energies, and made
haggard preparations to meet her guests, Mrs. Massie was
already returning to Seaborough, with throbbing head and
beating heart and brain all confused. And Sarah Massie
was preparing to leave Seaborough to see it no more. And
Paul Massie was turning away from the familiar door near
Hyde-park, resolved not to enter and greet the mistress of
the house, whom we have just seen so sad and lonely. And
in an upper room of that house, poor Alice Crossley tossed
about sick and anxious, and distracted by shapeless fears.
And about the house, in the deepening shadow of the evening,-now in the little lane, or passage, or court at the back,
where the wall was so low that a tall man might almost
look into the garden; now in the street, on which the front
windows looked; now in the portico of an opposite house,




WESTMINSTER PALACE.              345
the closed shutters of which proclaimed the family out of
town; and now in the public-house at the corner-there
lurked through all the evening and night the awkward,
slouching form of James Halliday. Lapse of days and
nights, and disappointment and drink and the thirsty passion for revenge, had wholly developed the wolf-nature in
this outcast wretch; and his very shadow had in it something crouching, ominous, and cruel, as it fell upon the
-pavement.
CHAPTER XXIX.
WESTMINSTER PALACE.
P AUL MASSIE did not act upon the advice of little
George the actress. Man's nature is waywardness;and
there are few men so docile and good, as at once to accept
the boon of affection which all their neighbors seem determined to think they ought to welcome with a grateful heart.
In the ordinary course of things, he would probably have
gone straightway to Madame de Luca's, but now he felt as
if he ought to turn his steps in another direction. The
words of Mr. Wynter had produced an unpleasant effect
upon himn-more, indeed, than he would have acknowledged
even to himself. He began to feel ashamed of having his
destiny thus cut out for him, without any intervention of
this own, or even consultation of his wishes. People who
lack natural force of resolution are in the habit of doing
something every now and then to convince themselves that
they are really independent, and can act with decision; and
it generally happens that, when thus prompted, they only
do something which shows more than ever their dependence
upon the impulse of others. Paul Massie thought he was
doing a right thing and a manly thing, in endeavoring to
resist, so far, the growing influence of Salome as to remain




346                  PAUL MASSIE.
away from her side for a day at least; but perhaps beneath
all other and better motives was a desire to show to those
around him, that he was not literally bound to her and
under her spells. After casting some doubting glances
therefore in the direction of the house where he was always
so welcome, he turned his steps resolutely the other way;
and he wished all the while that he could meet her as he
went.
Besides, had he not a public duty to perform? Was he
not to go down that evening to Westminster to take his
seat? Had he not promised Wynter to do so? Of course
he had; and Wynter, backed by another friend, was to
introduce him to the House. He was to be escorted up the
floor of the House between the twain, like a captive between
two policemen; and he was to be thus brought to the clerk's
table, where he was to take the oaths; and then he was to
be solemnly shaken hands with by Mr. Speaker, and so proclaimed to all the world a member of the British House of
Commons. Paul was not anxious for the glorious hour.
He felt as if he were only playing a part, or trying to play
one, for which he was not fitted; nay, he could hardly help
at times regarding himself in the light of an impostor. For
months back, indeed, he had had this hideous feeling strong
upon him, and he sought excitement after excitement to
shake it off.
Well, here at all events was the promise of a new excitement for a few hours. He walked rapidly through Hydepark until he reached Piccadilly, then called a cab, and
drove to Westminster, where he felt confident of meeting
his friend Wynter, who haunted the House of Commons as
faithfully and patiently as one of the government whips.
Now, if this had been a government night-a night,
that is, devoted to ministerial business, and when, therefore,
the Ministry take good care to keep a House —the course
of this story might have been much altered. For Paul went
to Westminster fully resolved to remain during the whole
of whatever debate, or long succession of debates, might




WESTMINSTER PALACE.               347
take place, and thus endeavor to discipline his mind into a
more business-like and less morbid tone than it had lately
owned. If he had stayed there, sitting out whatever wearisome length of talk, there would have been at least one
occupant found in the ladies' gallery until a tolerably advanced hour of the morning; and so, if Ve had any story
whatever to tell, it would, in all probability, have quite a
different ending from that which must presently be told.
But it was not decreed that Paul should take his seat
that night, or that he should have the gratification of discharging a conscientious duty by listening to a long debate. For this was not a government night, but one of the
nights, lately growing fewer and fewer, when ordinary
members have the field to themselves, when small politicians put motions on the books, when you ballot for your
turn, and, having won your chance, may talk away on your
pet theme for hours and hours, if you can only get the
House to remain and listen to you. This night there were
several such motions on the paper. The son of a peer had
a long speech to make about Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein,
and the protocol of London; a ship-owner had to move for
papers regarding the treaty of commerce and navigation
which had been under negotiation for years back between
Great Britain and Guatemala; there was a resolution to be
proposed touching the propriety of reducing the present
rate of duty on nutmegs; and there was a proposal for
inquiry into the mode of appointing sheriffs for the county
Tyrone. None of these subjects unfortunately could lead
to anything whatever; and everybody, even the gentlemen
about to propose the motions, knew the fact perfectly well.
Neither the government nor the Opposition had the slightest
interest in keeping a House. Nay, not any one of the gentlemen with the motions had any interest in such an object,
except the youthful nobleman who had precedence. For
everybody knew that, once he got fairly into his topic, he
would keep stammering and muddling over it, making mistakes in dates and names, and going back to set himself




348                  PA-UL MASSIE.
right; stopping to hunt through his bundle of papers for
some particular quotation or reference, and failing to find
it; but in the vain search so mixing up and confusing all
his documents, as to render any further search for anything among them utterly hopeless.  Everyone knew that
he would go on this way for hours, and might, indeed, so
go on until the crack of doom, if not pulled up by some
accident or influence over which he could have personally
no control. Therefore, when this noble youth actually got
possession of the House, and rose on his legs to speak, the
result was foreshadowed in every face. Members came to
the door and looked in, to find out what was going on, having up to the last a faint hope that Lord Rupert de Capulet
might have caught a cold, or had to leave town, or lost his
manuscripts, or in some other providential way been prevented from attempting his speech. But a glance showed,them the drear waste of green leather benches untenanted;
another glance showed them  Lord Rupert on the Tory
benches, pertinaciously  and powerfully  addressing the
Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and the Junior
Lord of the Treasury, who represented for that occasion
the whole strength of her Majesty's Ministry. So the peeping members fled in despair, and got their carriages or
their cabs, and went to the Opera, or the club, or home;
and only a few who had some special interest in any of the
motions on the paper lingered about the library and the
smoking-room  and the terrace, impelled by the sternest
sense of duty to wait to the last, on the almost hopeless
chance of Lord Rupert getting fairly through somehow, and
the other business, then proceeding. So dismal was the
whole affair, that the ladies' gallery, which seems to have a
few silken tenants even while poor-rates and main-drainage
are being discussed, had this evening but two inmates, and
these were Salome de Luca and Mrs. Charlton.
Salome often went to the gallery of the House. She
belonged to that class who regard an occasional s.eat in the
ladies' gallery as a part of the season's round of entertain



WESTMINSTER PALACE.                349
ment quite as indispensable as a box at the Opera; and she
was never at a loss for friendly offers to put down her name
in the book, or to give up their chances in her favor, or to
ballot for a seat on her behalf for some tremendously important debate ever so far off. Many days before this it had
been arranged that she was to go to the House, if Paul
should be returned, the night he went to take his seat, and
that Mrs. Charlton, who was still in town, should bring her
tarriage for her. When the day came, it found Salome
little inclined for political debate. Mrs. Charlton's carriage
rattled up to the door not long after Mrs. Massie had left
-not long after Salome's nerves had been shattered by the
revelation which turned her schemes to nothingness. Yet
she went. She could do nothing else just then. She could
neither write, nor read, nor think. She was glad to find
distraction of any kind; and then, if she remained at home,
perhaps he would not come. Yesterday morning she had
avoided him; last night he had not come. Perhaps to-night
he might remain away too; and unless she bore with good
Mrs. Charlton's company, and quiet, genial, harmless talk,
and went to the ladies' gallery, she might perhaps not see
him this night.
So she went. But before going she paid a visit of a few
moments to Alice, who was somewhat restless, feverish, and
frightened -why, Salome could not understand, for she
did not seem to be at all seriously unwell, and the medical
man spoke very favorably of her condition.  Salome's
kindly heart found some relief in cheering and comforting
the poor girl.
"I don't know  what can be the matter with me,
madame," said Alice, "but I feel as if something dreadful
was going to happen."
"Your nerves are all unstrung, poor child," replied
Salome soothingly, as if she were really speaking to a child;
"but you are going on admirably, the surgeon says, and
you will be up and well in a few days. It was only a little
wound-just a scratch. Ah, if you had been where I was




35x)                 PAUL MASSIE.
a few years ago, you would have seen wounds of a different
kind."
"But it's not about the wound I was thinking; indeed,
ma'aln, I don't care about it. I suppose it's nothing; but
I am afraid of something-I don't know what; I am afraid
that something is going to happen."
"Nothing can happen, Alice; you are perfectly safe
here. What could happen? Foolish girl, if you had only
taken my advice and kept within doors a few days longer,
nothing would have happened."
" Ah, it is true; and how good and kind you are to bear
with me at all when I acted so badly! And I am here in
your room, ma' am, all this while, and you are put out. 0,
I wish I could get up! I could get up, indeed, madame,
and go up stairs."
"No, no, Alice; the surgeon says you are not to be
removed for a day or two; and I do not mind in the least;
but do not give way to any foolish fears; you are perfectly
safe here."
"Yes, ma'am; but perhaps there may be danger for
somebody else."
" For whom, Alice? Not for me, I am sure; at least
I don't feel in the least afraid."
"0 no, ma'am, not for you! 0 no! even he would
not think of harming you."
" He! You mean that wretched man-that unfortunate
Halliday?"
"Yes, ma' am."
"Well, Alice, he is a bad and a wretched man. I hope,
perhaps, that, wicked as he is, he did not mean to do more
than hurt you. But depend upon it, he will keep far away
from this. I feel that I have done wrong in not having
taken steps long before this to have him discovered and
arrested; but I do not think he will attempt to come in
this direction again. Nor even if he did, do I see what
harm he could do."
"But he hates Mr. Massie, ma'am."




WESTMINSTER PALACt.                351
The allusion somehow vexed or offended Salome for a
moment.
"Mr. Massie, Alice, can quite take care of himself. I
don't suppose he is much afraid of Halliday, or that Halliday would attempt to attack him. Don't keep nourishing
these foolish fears. Now I mfist leave you. I hope every
attention is paid to you? "
"0, yes, ma'am; yes, indeed."
"Well, I shall see you again to-night; and I shall
probably not be long away. Sleep as much as you can, and
don't keep thinking of Halliday, or anything foolish."
So Salome left her patient, a little put out, perhaps, by
the girl's foolishness and the perpetual iteration of her recurrence to one subject. She got up as much cheerfulness
as she could in order to meet Mrs. Charlton in a genial and
appropriate spirit; and the two ladies drove to Palaceyard, where Mr. Wynter, who had secured seats for them,
was waiting at the entrance of Westminster-hall to receive
them.
"It's a dreadful business," said the senator; "Rupert
de Capulet is up, and he's going over the whole story of
the Schleswig-Holstein affair, from beginning to end. He's
not much further down than the year 1600 now, and he's
making a terrible mess of it. He knows no more about it
than the man in the moon; and whoever coached him,
coached him very badly, or perhaps could not succeed in
cramming anything into his head, I shouldn't wonder. I
tried to cram him once myself; but I couldn't do anything
with him. The House will never stand it. There's sure to
be a count'presently.  If Massie came soon, and got
introduced, I'd get away from this; for there will be no
business done to-night, even if Capulet should get through
safely. It's a night given up to bores, I think. I wish
Massie would come."
The carrying of the Seaborough election had been an
immense triumph to Wynter. He crowed over it all about
the House, and took the whole merit of the success to him



352                  PAUL MASSIE.
self. Charlton's interest, Salome's money, the support of
Government, and the influence of "No Popery," he resolutely ignored, and represented the victory as entirely
due to his own energy, resource, and presence of mind. He
was longing to introduce Paul; and to go from library to
tea-room, and from tea-room to smoking-room, presenting
him  to members as the member he (Wynter) had made.
The returned convict, in Dickens's Great iEpectattions, was
not more anxious to gaze upon "his gentleman," than
Wynter to contemplate his member of parliament.
The words Wynter spoke to Mirs. Charlton and Salome
were spoken in the lone twilight of the ladies' gallery as
he leaned over them and handed them to their seats. A
forlorn sight was the gallery-empty and gray. A solitary member stretched in the side-gallery just beneath, and
trying to go to sleep, pricked up his ears as he heard the
rustling of silk, and fixing his eye-glass, endeavored to get
a view of the ladies.
"Hallo," said Wynter, peering over, "there's something up! There's going to be a count. Too soontoo soon! I want to bring in MIassie. I'll see if I can't
stop it."
The Speaker's summons to members to come in and
take their places was tingling through the House. If
within the next minute or so there are not forty seats occupied in the legislative chamber, Lord Rupert de Capulet's
grand effort is lost labor! And the too ambitious youth
had counted himself-committed suicide, in a parliamentary sense. For, made angry by the disrespect and indifference which the steadily thinning benches conveyed, he
complained, in one unlucky sentence, of the frivolity and
want of public spirit which left him to dilate on one of the
gravest European questions in a House with hardly a dozen
members present.  Whereupon the Speaker, who thus
found his official attention called:to the fact that there
were not forty members in the House, rose to his feet, cried
out " Order, order!" and proceeded to the usual prelimi



WESTMINSTER PALACE.                353
naries of "counting;" while the luckless Lord Rupert,
dumb-foundered and crushed, sat down amid and upon his
piles of papers, pulled his hat over his brows, and waited
the fiat of destiny. The fiat presently came, when the
Speaker, unable to count more than eight-and-twenty members, announced the adjournment of the House.
Paul Massie had not appeared to take his seat. Salome
and her friend left the gallery. They were presently met
by Mr. Wynter, who, failing in his public-spirited attempt
to keep a House, now came hurrying up to take charge of
the ladies. Salome's eyes sought everywhere for Paul.
She felt disappointed and miserable.
"Pity Massie didn't come in time," said Wynter.
"Can't be helped now; but I'm very sorry you should be
disappointed, ladies. I dare say we shall have a stirring
debate next Monday night, and perhaps that would repay
for this sell. I'll see after your carriage, Mrs. Chariton.Why, here is Massie! Just the day after the fair, isn't it? "
For as they approached the threshold of Westminster-'hall. they saw Paul stepping out of the hansom which had
brought him  down. He had come just in time to be too
late for the Iouse, and just in time to meet Salome.
Salome's cheek flushed when she saw him, and she felt
as if the eyes of her companions could not fail to discover
her emotion.  Her self-control was clearly going, she
thought with some sadness.  Time was-and that not long
since-when the approach of no man could thus have
caused her face to crimson and lier limbs to tremble.
" I-low is it with me when every noise appals me? "  How
is it with a woman when she flushes and thrills at the approach of one man, and of him alone? " I am like a beaten
army," thought Salome, scanning as usual, her own weakness, and scorning it. "I am fast becoming demoralized."
Paul had to undergo some good-humored chaff from his
friend Wynter, touching his neglect and want of punctu-'
ality in regard to his parliamentary duties.
"A bad beginning, Massie; and one of your constitu



354                  PAUL MASSIE.
ents in the gallery too. O yes, it's quite true! I mean
Mrs. Charlton. And you won't be long in parliament before you find out that you had much better displease the
electors themselves than the electors' wives.-Forgive him
this once, Mrs. Charlton; I promise for his more faithful
attendance another time."
Paul made such excuses as he could conjure up at the
moment. His hearers were not apparently much inclined
to deal severely with him. Paul was one of the special
favorites of good Mrs. Charlton.
The carriage had not come, and they loitered, first up and
down one of the corridors leading from Palace-yard into
the Houses, and then along the terrace by the river. Mrs.
Charlton leaned on Wynter's arm, and Paul had already
given his to Salome. The evening had grown fairer towards its fall, and everything looked bright and glowing
after the heavy twilight which reigned under the amber
ceilings and painted windows of the House of Commons.
A soft summer evening, mellowing beautifully upon the
brown square towers of the Lambeth-palace and the dome
of the more distant St. Paul's, which, owing to the river's
sudden bend, looked as if it were set somewhere in the
heart of the Surrey side. The air, the sky, the water, the
setting sun, conveyed to the mind of Salome an impression
of unwonted and touching beauty. She had not been used
to associate the idea of beauty with anything about London,
except perhaps a few vistas of the parks; but the scene now
before her, so often looked upon, apparently so commonplace, showed strangely fascinating and fair. Doubtless the
light that fell upon it was like to that which never was on
sea or shore, and came from within; for Salome, at that
moment, was almost happy. Seizing the enjoyment of the
hour, as a child might, she was delighted to lean on his arm
again, and to feel the influence of his presence. After the
trying scenes and disappointments of the last day or two, it
was unspeakable pleasure to walk thus quietly and almost
alone by his side; and she enjoyed the present hour, and




WESTMINSTER PALACE.               355
would fain have entreated it to stay, because it was so fair.
Did not Baron Trenck, or some other famous prisoner,
declare that, after all, there was as much of happiness in
his prisoned days as in any equal length of his life?  Because the smallest variations of the day's monotony-the
sight of a stray sunbeam, the faint breath of a spring
breeze, the efforts of a spider to weave his web, the expected visit of the gaoler,-all these little things delighted
the mind, and were as much of refreshment to it as some
great and solid gratification would have been to a free man
leading an ordinary sort bf life in the outer world.
It was in this sense, perhaps, that Salome was now
happy. The mere disappointment of not seeing Paul, following as it did on the heels of other vexations, had been
so bitter, that the unexpected joy of meeting him was
enough to brighten all existence for the hour.
A new feeling too had sprung up in her breast, which
strengthened and sweetened her love. Before, she had only
loved Paul; now, she loved and pitied him. He was
an outcast-a man almost without a name. Secret disgrace
hung over him; the story of his life began in shame; his
birth was, indeed, his first misfortune. England could be
no home to him, if once he came to learn the truth; all
thought of pursuing a career there he must abandon. It
would be impossible that anyone who loved him could allow
him unwarned to remain in England, where so many suspicious eyes were already tracking out his history. Salome
thought with bitter compunction of the part she herself
had taken in turning those eyes upon him. Well, all this
marked him for an outcast. And what passionate woman
who loves does not love all the more deeply and tenderly
if the object of her affection is likely to be at odds with the
world and in disgrace with fortune? Perhaps the ray of a
new hope too was beginning to light up Salome's heart.
The darker his fortunes, the more must he need, the higher
surely must he prize, a woman's disinterested devotion.
In the sky, to which Salome sometimes turned her eyes,




356                  PAUL MASSIE.
only the latest beams of the sun were now shining. Soon
that great light would be gone; but already the faint pale
summer moon could be seen growing into distinctness and
beauty in the blue heaven. So, after the going down of
one hope in her heart, another, paler but purer, was already
rising.
What did Paul and Salome speak of, as they paced up
and down the terrace of Westminster-palace?  Of nothing;
at least of commonplace things and people. Even with
lovers -acknowledged lovers -the moments when they
indulge in the sort of rapturous, passionate, transcendental
rhapsodies, which are their ordinary vernacular in books,
are rare moments of exaltation. Even passion seldom in
life succeeds in flooding over and sweeping away the barriers of conventional speech. And Paul and Salome were
not lovers in any sense, unless after the satirical definition
which avers that one always loves and the other submits to
be loved; so they talked little more than commonplaces,
which need not be translated into print. But she was
happy, and her presence always was a gladness to him.
"It was a joy to meet her; it was no great grief to
part," says Colonel Henry Esmond, when explaining what
his feelings were towards his future wife.
It was always a joy to Paul to meet Salome; and if he
could bear parting calmly, it must be remembered that he
always left her with the expectation of a speedy and easy
reunion. Only deep and passionate love makes a separation
of twelve hours a misery. Paul was refreshed and brightened for the present hour; his gloom and his scruples and
strong resolves alike vanished when Salome took his arm;
and he was sorry when at last the carriage came to take
her away.
" I shall see you by and by, shall I not? " she said as
she was leaving.
Perhaps he seemed to hesitate, for she added, with
something of her old tone of genial peremptoriness, "Yes,
yes, I must see you; I really have something to say to you;




WESTMINSTER PALACE.              357
and there are one or two people likely to come, in whom I
think you will feel interested. You must come, in short."
So Paul promised, veiy glad to be thus decidedly shaken
out of his doubts and resolutions.
The ladies drove away, and Paul and Wynter dined together. Wynter was not to be shaken off; and Paul, who on
the whole rather liked him, and was never very much addicted to the society of self alone, accepted his companionship unresistingly. Not merely did they dine together, but
Wynter announced his intention of accompanying his friend
to Madame de Luca's, where, indeed, he was, under ordinary circumstances, always welcome. So, when they had
dined and smoked, and talked a little with this fellow and
that, and when Paul had received many congratulations
upon his success at Seaborough, and answered divers questions as to the probabilities of a petition, they set out to
walk towards Hyde-park.
Salome had not counted on Mr. Wynter that night.
Indeed she had not counted on anybody except Paul and
the one or two persons of whom she spoke-comparative
strangers who were not likely to stay long. But Mr. Wynter came; and, as chance would have it, several others came
too, and Salome found it almost impossible to exchange six
words with Paul. She was now especially anxious to speak
to him about Alice, and about Halliday, if of nothing else;
for when she returned home she went to see the wounded girl,
and found that she had got her brain filled with fantasies
and alarming ideas. Alice declared that she had dreamed
of nothing but Halliday, and that she knew he meant to
kill somebody. Then she fancied that she was about to
die. Then she begged of Salome to send for Mr. Paul Massie, declaring that she must see him; and she positively
affirmed that she had something to tell him which he ought
to have known long ago. Once or twice she said she was
sure Halliday was somewhere in the house-hiding-to kill
her; and Salome began to think that she was really going
distraught with weakness, and fear, and romantic nonsense,




358                  PAUL MASSIE.
all combined, and so sent at once for the doctor, who came
and pronounced her not seriously feverish, or likely to be
in any dangerous condition. She spoke indeed quite rationally and gently on every subject but the one or two, and
of these in the doctor's presence she did not speak at all;
so there was nothing to be done, and Salome resolved to
soothe and humor the poor girl as far as she could. Indeed she felt bound to undergo any discomfort on Alice's
account when she remembered how her own eagerness to
tamper in matters with which she ought to have had no
concern was one of the principal influences which had
brought the girl from her village and her parents' home.
But Salome had with all this not a cheerful time of it,
and it is no wonder that she longed for the sunny intervals
of Paul's presence.
She was standing by Alice's bedside when a knock came
which she knew well. Alice knew it too.
" That is Mr. Massie, madame, " said Alice. "0, how
glad I am!"
"Indeed!" Salome answered rather coldly. "Why
glad  "
"Because I have been in such fear that Halliday might
meet him or follow him to-night. Will you ask him to see
me, and let me say just a few words to him to-night before
he goes?  0, don't refuse me! I am sure you will not
refuse, for you are so kind; and if I were to die, and not
see him, I don't know what might happen."
Perhaps, if Salome hlad followed her first and not unnatural impulse, her prompt reply would have been, " Stuff and
nonsense!" or some words to a like effect; but she controlled her feelings, and fell back upon her recollection of
her own copartnership in the girl's folly, and of the impulse
she had given to it; and she answered gravely and kindly,
"WVell, Alice, I will tell Mr. Massie that you wish so
much to see him, and I have no doubt that he will readily
consent. But I would much rather that you put aside all
these thoughts for the present, and took the doctor's word




CATASTROPHE.                  359
that you are not in the slightest danger. If you cannot
compose yourself to this, there is no harm whatever in what
you ask, and I dare say it can be easily accomplished."
As she went to meet Paul, Salome reflected that, once he
saw Alice, and that Alice spoke to him, as she seemed
likely to do, of Halliday and Halliday's doings, and her own
share in them, an eclaircissement must be inevitable. One
acknowledgment must lead to others, and so much must be
known as would compel Paul to seek a final and full revelation. "Then I must speak to-night?" she thought.
"Better so than otherwise-better now than later. All I
can now do to soften the shock to him is to save him from
having to seek the truth elsewhere. He must seek it now;
and the worst that could happen to him or to her would be
to leave him to demand it from the same lips which confessed it to me."
CHAPTER XXX.
CATASTROPHE.
THAT night Salome soon got rid of her visitors. She
- gave out that she was unwell: indeed she was unwell;
but that was not her motive for desiring to be free of company. She had a special reason: Paul Massie learned it
soon. As he was about to leave the house in company with
Mr. Wynter, M. P., the inevitable and irrepressible, Salome
spoke a few words to him in a low tone and in Italianwhich, it has already been remarked, was a means of communication quite safe from the comprehension of the British friend of King Victor Emmanuel. The words were
imperative: " Come back at once, here, after you have got
rid of him; I must see you again to-night."
" To-night-here? " asked Paul, as he looked into her
face for a confirmation of her words.




360                 PAUL MASSIE.
" S, si," she added peremptorily; " you are under
orders, and you must obey without murmuring."
Paul wondered, but asked no further questions. He
walked away with Mr. Wynter, and at last got rid of that
gentleman. Then he turned into a by-street, and walked
up and down there for a few minutes. Finally he returned
to Salome's house. The street was silent and solitary. No
evil-boding form anywhere flung its shadow across his path.
The door was opened by Mademoiselle Clotilde, who as
usual smiled upon existence in general, and rarely evinced
the least surprise at anything. She received Paul as composedly as though it were his first visit that day, and the
hour two o'clock in the afternoon. She ushered him into a
drawing room, whither presently came Salome rustling
down the stairs.
"Good Paul," she said, "good boy, I thought you
would come! But I have not brought you back here at
this hour to gratify myself; it was only to satisfy the
poor creature up stairs. Indeed I had to promise her that
you should not leave the house at all. She says she must
see and speak to you to-night. She fancies she is dying,
poor child, and she evidently thinks death a calamity.
Well, well-she is so young."
This was spoken as Paul ascended the stairs with her.
Madame de Luba preceded him into the room where Alice
lay. She lay neatly and carefully disposed of in Salome's
own room, and in a pretty tiny French bed. She looked
pale and wild, her hair flung over her shoulders, her arms
wandering restlessly. Madame de Luca dragged Paul forward. He took the woundedgirl's hand, and murmured
some sentences about his sorrow to see her there-his hope
that she would soon recover.
"No, no," she said, "I don't want to recover-I don't
now; and besides, if I did he would find me out again and
kill me."
"He!-who?
"Halliday!- J em Halliday."




CATASTROPHE.                 361
Paul started. Madame de Luca motioned to himn to
express no surprise.
"Take care of him, Mr. Paul," said the girl,-" O, take
c:lre of him! He's dreadfully bad, and he swore to be
revenged upon you."
" Why, Alice, I never did him any harm."
"No-but-but then he thinks you did. 0, don't
leave the house to-night!- Don't let him, ma'am! Andand-I wanted to tell you something, but first promise to
forgive me."
" My poor girl, what have I to forgive?"
" 0, but promise, promise!"
I do, I do indeed. I promise fully and sincerely."
"' Then listen to me, and I'll tell you all."
"Shall I go? " said Madame de Luca softly.
" N, no, ma'am; please don't go. I'd rather you remained; you have been my best of friends: only for you I
don't know what might have become of me."
Paul was too deeply agitated and surprised to heed
these words.
"Mr. Paul-Mr. Massie-it was I who did it all  It
was I who first thought I found out something about you
before ever you came to Seaborough. It was I told it to
Halliday and set him on; and I got the letter from him,
and he gave me a diamond ring. It was I first read the
letter, and I knew well enough that he robbed the dead of
it as he did of the diamond ring. HIe set me on to find
out all about it; he said we should get plenty of money from
you, and he wanted me to marry him. But I would not
marry him then, and I told him I would have nothing more
to do with him; and then he said he would kill me if anyone
found out that we had anything to do with it; and I was
frightened and ran away and came here; and that's all. I
have made all this unhappiness between you and your family; and Mr. Eustace knows not a word about the whole
"story, no more than the child unborn. No one knew a word
about it but me and Miss Sarah, because we attended
16




362                 PAUL MASSIE.
Mrs. Massie night and day when she had the fever, and
then we heard something strange. She never breathed a
word to me-Miss Sarah didn't-nor I to her; but she
knew that I was thinking about it; only she never thought
that I would make such use of it. And I know something
about her which, perhaps, she thinks I don't know, and I
should like to tell it; but I must not. 0, I have done a
great deal of harm, and all because I wanted to have
money and to be a lady, and to live in London and-andwell, it's no matter now. I ran away from my father and
mother; and now I'm punished. But if I die, you'll tell
them I was sorry, very, very sorry, won't you, Mr. Paul?
my poor father was fond of you."
Paul was deeply moved. Tears stood in his eyes, and
his hand trembled like that of a woman. He tried to speak,
but his voice failed.
" My poor child," said Madame de Luca, coming to the
head of the bed, and settling the clothes and the hair of
the tossing patient, " why do you talk of dying? You will
be well in a few days, and you will return and be happy in
Seaborough. We can have your father here, if you like, in
a day, as soon as you are a little stronger."
" No; I had, rather, if you please, not see my father just
yet. But 0, Mr. Paul, take care of Halliday; he's a desperate man, and he'd do anything. I thought I saw him
stealing past that door this very night. Don't go home tonight, please; please don't go home. Say you won't.":
"Promise, promise to please her," whispered Madame
de Luca in Italian.
Paul promised.
"Now," said the lady of the house cheerfully, "I think
we must not talk any more to-night. This poor girl is
quite weak and exhausted ^ she has been upset by some
foolish dream, and the surgeon says she must sleep. You
are wearied too, Mr. Massie, and must get rest,-You will
be better to-morrow, Alice, and then Mr. Massie will see
you again'




CATASTROPHE.                  363
They left the room, and came down stairs; Paul silent,
and quite like one who walks in his sleep.
"Do this poor girl's revelations help you into light?"
asked Madame de Luca anxiously.
" Scarcely," said Paul. " They do a little clear up some
points which seemed utterly bewildering before; but they
confuse and perplex others.  Why did I allow that scoundrel to escape, when he must have been within my grasp?
O, if I only had the chance again! Let me once come
within sight of him, and see if he escape me."
"Don't think of him. He can be found, and shall be
found, if it be needful. I think I should rather he escaped
and got out of the country. But what of yourself andand "-she hesitated-" your people? "
"I don't know. I am too confused and bewildered to
think of anything but of what an idiot I have been. We
must get this poor girl back again to her home. Surely,
surely she will not die?"
"O no, certainly not. I am  sure not. She is only
somewhat feverish, and has had some startling dream about
this fellow. All that we can do for her shall be done.
At present, she does not seem to me to be in any danger;
only her terror of this man paralyzes her."
" Why on earth did she ever come to London?"
"Can you not guess?"
"I cannot indeed. Why did she leave her home to
come here?"
" Just because she is a woman and a fool, like the rest
of us," said Salome, her eyes lighting up with a sudden
and half scornful flash. "Because, having a human heart,
she was silly enough to think of loving somebody. I have
no patience with such creatures. Why have they not sense
and calmness and spirit like me?" she added bitterly.
Did Paul understand her now? He leaned his head
upon his hand.
"She said you had been her best friend," he said, sud-'denly looking upwards.




364                  PAUL MASSIE.
"Perhaps I have, although not in the sense she thinks.
I have kept her here these some weeks back, safe from
temptation and danger of every kind. Had she not foolishly ventured out, she might have been safe still."
" Safe here for weeks?"
"' Here, on this groundI-Denmark, where I have been
cexton-'"
" Here! and you never told me?"
"Nay, that was my secret. I am ashamed and penitent enough now. I too have been meddling in your
affairs, as you will presently find, and I have helped to mar
what I could not make. You will have little reason to
thank me. I meant to serve you, Paul, and I have only
done you harm. There, let the whole story be out:'twas
I who tampered in your history, and made all the inquiries,
-O, you don't know how many and how!-and terrified
your good people until they hate and dread you. Say
anything you like to condemn me. I have always been an
intriguer, and had my head early crammed with romance
and stuff. I thought to make you a hero, and myself your
unknown protectress and benefactress. You have come tonight to listen to revelation; then listen to this now."
Her voice grew deep and thrilling, her cheeks were red as
flame, her eyes had an unmoving light in them as she
spoke.
"I do not care what you have done," Paul exclaimed
passionately; "all that you did or could do was for the
best. You were a friend to me when others cast me away.
You have not injured me. What on earth could add to
my ruin and shame? But if you had, I welcome the hurt
-indeed I do-which comes fromthe'kindly hand of-of
a fiiend."
He took her hand; she withdrew it.
" Listen, Paul; I have more to tell you. I once urged
you to stay in London. Now I urge you leave it-tomorrow, if you can. I thought to have made of you a
hero restored to his rights and master of a splendid career:




CATASTROP! E.                365
I tell you now that you have no rights; that you are a
pauper-a very outcast; that you have not a penny in
the world; that your only hope here is gone, unless you
care to accept the alms flung to a ruined claimant-to a
misguided poor relation."
"I have long thought it," he said, in a low gloomy
tone; "long thought it. Little skill as I have in guessing,
yet I have been able this sometime back to guess so much.
I am not blind. But why do you tell me this? Why
speak of it? Do you exult in my ruin?"
"I do."
She spoke the words with the utmost calmness.
He sprang to his feet and looked wildly at her.
"I do, Paul: yes, it is true. I do rejoice in what you
call your ruin. I exult in your being poor, nameless, hopeless. I do, as surely as Heaven hears us. And you know
why."
Paul sat down again, and covered his face with his hand.
" Yes, you understand me now. I have had to speak
but at last. I am glad of your poverty because I am rich;
of your doubtful name because, since it is doubtful, I may
offer to bear and share it. Paul, Paul, I love you, and you
know it. See how I unfold my whole heart; ay, and abase
myself before you."
She knelt by his side, took his hand and kissed it passionately.
" I never felt love before," she murmured; "never,
never until I saw you. I would have died for you. 0,
what I would have given to be young again-to be twenty
years younger than I am! Never should you have known of
this-in words at least-had that which I imagined for you
come true. But it did not, and cannot; and now that you
are poor and outcast, I may tell you how much I love you,
may I not, Paul? "
She smiled a wild and wan smile, and tried to draw
away his hand, and catch one answering gleam of love
from his eyes.




366                  PAUL MASSIE.
He bent over her at last. "O Madame de Luca-"
"No, not Madame de Luca; call me by my name "
"Salome, Salome, you are too good, too kind, too generous. You have been all the world to me, when those to
whom I came cast me off. What can I say to you? How
can I accept such a sacrifice? "
" Don't talk to me of sacrifice; I will not listen to it.
You are the only man I ever loved, or could have loved.
I am ashamed of myself for loving you so, and telling you
so. I thought I could have had the generosity to keep
this to myself, and leave you free to act, and perhaps you
would have loved me of yourself. Listen, Paul; I will go
anywhere with you, do anything you like, if you will only
not talk of sacrifice. The sacrifice is yours. Am I not
growing old and fading? Nay, look at me."
She stood up, and he gazed at her. Natural unconquerable coquetry and pride were in her attitude, her eyes,
her tossed and streaming hair. Paul had never seen anyone so beautiful. There seemed something wild, weird, and
yet glowing in that lustrous beauty. If she was not in her
spring, she was certainly in her Indian summer. No man
could have gazed on such a woman, and heard her say she
loved him, without an enraptured soul. Paul seized her
hand and pressed it to his hot lips.
"While we both live," he said, " we will not separate."
For a moment neither spoke.
"You will not go home to night?" she then said. "You
promised Alice that you would not."
"If I may lie upon the sofa until morning," he said.
"It will soon be dawn."
"Remain there," she replied. "We have no bedroom
to give you. Alice has been put in my room-to my maid's
great discomfort. She shall be seen to all night; indeed I
will look after her myself. I shall not sleep, except perhaps for half an hour in the room which is usually hers.
Good-night, Paul I shall not in any case see you again
until bright morning, when all the world is astir. We




CATASTROPHE.                   367
are outraging the proprieties a good deal already. But we
must not set the household wondering. Good-night."
He drew her towards him and kissed her. This was
the first kiss he had ever of his own free motion pressed
upon her lips.
"Are you happy?" he asked.
"So happy," she replied, "that I could now, for the
first time in all my life, wish to die. I fear to'awaken from
this happy dream."
Her eyes were calm a moment as they rested on his;
then she was gone.
He lay upon the sofa. - He ought, one would think, to
have been full of anxious, conflicting thoughts, such as
scare sleep away. But his senses were outwearied, and
refused any longer to sustain themselves. He slept. He
dreamed a thousand wild and incoherent dreams in the
short hour or two of his sleep. At last he dreamed that
some woman-perhaps his mother-came into the room,
bent over him, recognized him, and screamed his name.
So wild and piercing was the shriek that it seemed to ring
in his ears even as he awoke. For he started up, hardly
knowing in his excitement where he was. The gray of
morning already made half visible the objects in the drawing room. He had not nearly collected his senses when the
house rang to another shriek: no dream but a reality.
" Paul, Paul! " rang in his ears. Then a fall and a
gurgling groan.
He leaped from the sofa and dashed wildly up the stairs.
Rushing upward he passed a room where a light was burning, and where he knew that Alice lay. The French servant came out of that room half undressed and screaming.
She sprang up the higher flight of stairs whence the shrieks
seemed to have come. Paul rushed past her, nearly flinging her down in his excitement. Not a word was exchanged
between them. They reached an open corridor. Before
them was a bedroom-door. Inside there was somebody




368                  PAUL MASSIE.
trying to open it. A hoarse voice was heard to say, with
an oath: "' Damn me, but I thought'twas Ally I "
The' door was locked inside  it was a frail painted
thing. Paul's hand'and foot drove it in while a man might
have breathed. But his furious push displaced an obstacle
which lay against it. That object was the body of Salome
de Luca, half-dressed, and covered with blood-dead,
The murderer had been bending over his victim. He
sprang back when the door gave way. The window behind
him, looking into the garden, was open, but he had not
time to turn towards it. He drew back, and stood in an
attitude of defiance, brandishing a knife.
"Keep away 1.  he cried. "Don't come near me!  I
didn't mean to kill her; but I'll kill anyone else that
touches of me. I'm as good as a madman."
Paul sprang at him. The murderer struck a savage
blow, which Paul caught in his left arm. Then there was
a short struggle. The maid who stood on the threshold,
aghast and shrieking, declared afterwards that it did not
last one single minute. The knife was not used again. It
fell clattering on the floor. Neither of the men spoke.
Halliday had backed to the window, either with some
vague notion of escape, or forgetful of the danger open
behind him. Paul seized him with an iron grip; the murderer was a strong man, but he struggled in vain to free
himself. Did Paul merely design to secure him, or to slay
him then and there?  That none, not even Paul himself,
might know. The struggling wretch disengaged his right
hand by a supreme effort, and struck Paul a furious blow
on the face. That was his own death-blow. For Pau
instinctively let go his hold, and struck at his enemy a
return blow with a force like that of a steam-engine.
Hurled against the half-open window, senseless from  the
paralyzing blow, the man's body went crashing through
the frail framework. He fell thirty feet into the garden
below.
A  second servant had fled screaming into the street.




CATASTROPHE.                  369
The surgeon, who was just arriving, a policeman, and an
unconcerned passenger, hurried into the house. Surgical
aid could do nothing for Salome, nor preserve her murderer
for the hand of justice. They laid her beautiful body
decently on the bed which she had scarcely occupied. Her
maid emphatically refused to allow her mistress's corpse to
remain on the floor, that law might come and take heed of
it as it fell. She shrieked in wild grief over it, and at last
exhausted herself down to a feeble moaning.
But Paul was-found in a raving condition. The policeman who first entered the room straightway assumed him
to be the murderer, but did not at all like his looks; and
being cautiously unwilling to plunge into danger, hung
back on the threshold of the room, and thus allowed the
surgeon, who better comprehended the situation, to come
forward and take order. Paul was indeed a spectacle
to shrink from. His eyes flashed as with the fire of madness. His dark skin, his tossing hair, his wild gestures, his
eyes gleaming like those of the serpent, had, when seen in
the cold gray light, something peculiarly strange and startling. The policeman afterwards explained his hesitation
by confidentially remarking to one of those near him, that
the gentleman looked like a wild Indian savage. Perhaps
the remark was not utterly meaningless; perhaps the
Indian blood which had sunk into Mexican earth was then
at last crying out and asserting its supremacy in the excited
veins of Paul Massie.
16*




370                  PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER XXXI.
AUSTRIAN PLOTS.
"E XTRAORDINARY affair that of poor Madame de
Luca," said Shavers, M. P., to Wynter, M. P., at
the Cosmopolitan Club.
" Very extraordinary-very," replied Wynter. " Shocking, dreadful business! I always told Salome de Luca
that she left her jewels and plate and money and things
quite too much about. Kept no man on the premises.
These things get about you know-servants talk of it, and
that sort of thing. Ticket-of-leave man, I hear-seven
times transported for life. I told Grey this morning that
I should put a question to him about it to-night in the
House.' Be ready, Sir George,' I said,'for I'm going to
be down on you and on your pets."'
"But the man is dead, isn't he? " said Shavers.
"Leaped out of the window," replied Wynter, " when
he heard the police coming. Smashed on the pavement.
Sorry he didn't live to be hanged. Grey isn't though, for
it gets him out of a fix."
" Very odd affair altogether," said Shavers, M. P.,
again looking curiously at his friend.
"Very odd indeed," said Wynter, not in the least
disconcerted.
"I hear your friend Massie won't take his seat after
all," remarked Shavers, trying a new tack.
"Stuff!" replied Wynter. "Of course he'll take his
seat. He's cut up of course about poor Salome de Luca;
so are we all. She was deucedly fond of him, no doubt.
But he'll come all right. Of course he'll take his seat."
"Hasn't he been hurt somehow?" inquired Shavers
in a significant tone.
" Not seriously," replied Wynter.  "Blow of a stone,




AISTRIAN PLOTS.                371
I believe from a Seaborough elector of the opposite side;
nothing to speak of."
"Then he wasn't in her house the night of the murder? " said Shavers, coming more bodily to the point.
"Of course he was. Didn't you know? So was I, so
was Levison, so were two or three more."
"But not when the murder took place?"
" Not at all. How could he be there? It was at three
or four in the morning. Massie and I walked home together that night."
"Deuce you did! People talk such odd things."
" Do they? That's because they know nothing about it."
"Then you really believe, Wynter," said Shavers, growing confidential and bold, " that this was only a common
housebreaking-and-murder business?"
"Believe it? Of course I do. Don't I know all about it?"
" You really belief all dat, Mr. Wynter? " intruded Dr.
-Fleiss, who had just come in. "You really belief dat nonsense? A man like you too dat really knows something
of affairs!"'
"And pray what do you believe, Dr. Fleiss?"
Dr. Fleiss shrugged his shoulders and looked cautiously
all around.
" Mine goot friend, we had better not talk of dese tings
too much. She was a brave woman; but I have often
told her dere were eyes upon her, and dat she risk far too
much. Do you tink the Austrian Government did not
always overlook what she did? Do you tink it had not
its spies about her? Do you tink it does not watch meyou even, perhaps? So! One day there will be found a
dagger in my heart too; and denn Mr. Wynter will say,
it is a housebreaker. She was a brave woman, too brave
and too kind; and she loved de Revolution; and now she is
dead! Also. Ask your Foreign Office about it. Ask
your Civis-Romanus Palmerston! You shall find dere will
be no prosecution, no trial; noting of the sort. De murderer is dead, is he? Of course he is —understands itself.




37 2                 PAUL MASSIE.
It is not convenient for him  to be forthcoming. IIa!
Mind my vorts."
Wynter rarely endured anyone who professed to know
the secret history of anything better than he did. But in
this instance he showed a surprising inclination to adopt
the solution propounded.
"Tell you what, Fleiss," he said, in a tone of sudden
conviction; "there's something in what you say. I'll
change my tactics. I'll put my question to the Foreign
Secretary, and I'll drop a private note to the papers. It's
a capital case against the Austrian Government."
WVynter walked away, as if in a dreadful hurry to put
his threat into execution.  Fleiss hung on like grim  death
to Shavers, whom he talked into believing that the very
air they breathed was impregnated with Austrian, Prussian,
Russian, and French espionage.
Wynter was a good-hearted creature. He knew as little as anybody else what to make of the affair. But he
knew that Paul was in Salome's house at the time of her
murder. It may be that he had formed a conjecture to
account for Paul's mysterious return to the house; and it
is certain that the conjecture he might have formed was
entirely wrong. But he made up his mind that the public
should know nothing about the matter. He attended the
inquest, and gave a full and circumstantial account of the
hour at which he left Salome's house; and he took care to
mention several times the unimportant fact that he was
accompanied in leaving it by a brother member of parliament, Mr. Paul Massie. He suggested privately to the
coroner that it would be only proper to have the name of
the gentleman who, when passing by the house, ran to the
rescue and gave the alarm, kept private. To the coroner
himself he gave a sufficient hint; and indeed there seemed
no occasion for publicity. The gentleman had seen no more
than everybody else-the maid, the surgeon, the policeman.
This discretion, however, as to the other witness, did not
prevent much conjecture in certain circles about the iden



AUSTRIAN PLOTS.                 373
tity of the gentleman in question. But the general impression was, that it was some very illustrious personage, who
simply did not care to have himself, or even his name,
mixed up with the witnesses at an inquest. Some people
said it was the Duke of Cambridge, others suggested the
name of Mr. Disraeli. Dr. Fleiss smiled sardonically when
he heard such suggestions, and darkly hinted that it was
the Austrian ambassador, who had gone in person to see
that the work was accomplished in properly effective style.
But Wynter's little stratagem succeeded as far as he wished
it to succeed.. The general public did not suppose that the
individual whose name was freely mentioned by one of the
witnesses in connection with the case could be the mysterious personage who turned up at the climax. Therefore,
whatever a few suspicious individuals may have conjectured,
the eye of common speculation never fixed upon Paul Massie.
He had walked home early that night with Mr. Wynter,
M.P.; and there ended his share in the business.
The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against
some person unknown, and likewise found that that person
unknown had been killed by falling from a window in the
endeavor to escape.
Wynter never propounded his question to the Foreign
Secretary; and the secret share which the Austrian Government may have had in that murder remains unexposed to
this day. Dr. Fleiss openly insinuated that fears for his
personal safety had alone induced Wynter to desist from
following up the track. Dr. Fleiss addressed several letters
to the papers on the subject; but each journal having in
turn declined to insert any of them, he denounced everywhere the entire English press as the paid creature of the
Austrian Government. He was preparing a pamphlet on
the subject, but was discouraged completing it by the fact
that the various printers to whom he applied stipulated for
a payment in advance as a condition of proceeding to work.
Other grievances soon arose. New  international and




3 74                 PAUL MASSIE.
ministerial conspiracies were discovered, and Dr. Fleiss
presently forgot the case of Salome de Luca and the purchased press of England.
CHAPTER  XXXII.
PAUL AND SARAH.
THE first resolution which Paul Massie formed on recovering sense and judgment was to leave England and
to return there no more.
He awakened first to consciousness in the house of his
acquaintances, the Trentons. Mr. Wynter, M.P., had considerately taken care that those whom he understood to be
Paul's friends should know of his precarious condition.
" If I had a house and a family myself," said the worthy
man, " he should be cared for there; but one can't do much
for a poor sick fellow in Albany-chambers."  The Trentons behaved with great kindness and promptitude. It is
a fact that thoroughly worldly people often have good
hearts, and that a passion for gentility does not always
exclude every other human feeling. In this instance, as
young Trenton was positively to marry Lydia, the removal
of poor Paul to the shelter of the Trenton roof seemed in
the eyes of respectability quite a proper family sort of
affair, and Mrs. Trenton did not incur among her friends a
damaging reputation for eccentric beneficence.
For Paul had need of special care. He did not speak a
word for hours after his removal from  Salome's house
and the sight of her dead body. No one at first knew
what to do with him. At last the doctors ventured upon a
powerful exhibition of chloroform, and then had him conveyed to his lodgings, where next day he awoke-if that
could be called awaking-in brain-fever. No gleam of




PAUL AND SARAH.                375
true consciousness visited him until many days after the
body of her who so deeply loved him, and whom he had so
suddenly and wildly avenged, had been laid to rest under
the quiet earth of the grave-yard.
Indeed, at one period the grave-yard seemed to be only
waiting to receive Paul himself. But he was well nursed
and cared for.
The very day after the inquest, while Wynter was seeing after Paul in Paul's lodgings, and endeavoring to bribe
the landlady into contented endurance of a lodger in brainfever, there was a visitation there of a handsome melancholy lady, who announced herself as a cousin of the invalid's, and calmly declared her intention not to leave him
until his recovery-or his death.
Mr. Wynter, being a man of the world, thought that,
under the circumstances, it became more necessary than
ever to have Paul removed to some other shelter. He
learned from the new visitor all about her friends in town;
and he urged that Paul should be conveyed, if possible, to
the house of the Trentons. Indeed, as the lady obviously
shrank from the suggestion, he insisted on acting as the
negotiator, and promptly arranged the whole affair.
Paul, still unconscious, was soon transferred to better
quarters, where Sarah Massie could at least watch over him
unseen by the prying eyes of strangers, and safe from the
gossiping speculations of babbling tongues.
She had little heart to enter the Trentons' house; but
she would not leave Paul in his danger. So she watched
over him  and nursed him, and heeded not, although it
soon ceased to be a secret to all people, that her feelings
towards him were not merely those of a cousin.
Hers was not a happy part.  Except for the womanly
delight of watching over the man she loved, she had no
happiness. The dread of meeting Eustace or Lydia was
always fresh, and never wore of, however fiequently she
had to encounter each. The one was silently reproachful,
the other full of vivacious condolence, comment, and curi



376                  PA TL MASSIE.
osity. Nor were the utterances of Paul's delirium always
consoling to the listener's ears. Many nights passed away
before any name save one issued from his hot lips. He
raved of Salome living and of her as dead. He wept over
her body; he tore her from the grasp of her murderer; he
saved her, and exulted over her safety; he call upon her to
come back, and vowed that he would always love her.
It was long before he breathed a word which denoted
even a vague memory of the existence of her who sat beside him. Then gradually she seemed to become a part of
his dreams-to be always present to his consciousness.'When the fever of disease had passed away, and the
"fever called living" had conquered, the presence of Sarah
had so gradually blended itself into his perception, that he
felt no surprise on awaking at last to clear consciousness,
and seeing her beside him. He was weak and broken for a
long time. Over-excitement and much exhaustion, culminating in a fearful shock, had well-nigh crushed him.
When he first became thoroughly aware of the sweet and
tender care which was nursing him, he felt, in his prostrate
condition of nerves and strength, less like a lover who finds
his mistress beside him, than like a child which awakes
from  a hideous nightmare, and sees its smiling mother
bending over it. And Sarah, who had always meant to
leave him-for ever-before he returned to consciousness,
found her presence discovered before she knew of it-and
remained.
What of Mrs. Massie? Did she not sit by Paul's bedside? No. She never saw him after their parting at Seaborough. She wept over him at home; and she wrote him
a letter, which, when he had quite recovered, he read in
silence and alone, and destroyed. He had evinced no wish
to see her; and they who best understood her knew well
that hers was a nature which would at any risk spare itself
a shock. There was no eclaircissement; none whatever.
What Paul knew became known to Sarah, whom it did not
surprise. The rest was silence. Eustace Massie never sus



PAUL AND SARAIT.                 377
pected the relationship that subsisted between him and
Paul. He always supposed Paul to have been at one time
made the instrument of a stupid money-extorting plot aimed
only against the genuineness of Mrs. Massie's marriage;
and he ascribed Paul's delusion to the easily-gulled simplicity of one unused to the crafts of British sharpers. And
he regarded himself as very magnanimous in so readily
endeavoring to forgive and forget the whole transaction.
In other respects Eustace bowed meekly, not without a
pang, to fate. He was a religious man, but still a man;
a model clergyman, but yet with some of the weaknesses of
the human race. The break-up of his plans, the defection
of Sarah, had tried him sorely. It was highly fortunate for
him that a great theological controversy broke out just then.
He rushed into it, eager, like a love-crossed knight of old, to
work off his grief by doing battle with the infidels. IIe
wrote letter after letter, and subsequently published the
whole of the agitating correspondence in a volume. No
ordinary reader would have supposed that the reverend
champion who penned those spirited controversial arguments-who ransacked to exhaustion all the Greek and
Hebrew texts; who polished so carefully those beautiful
periods-could all the time have had his heart smarting
with the untheological anguish of disappointed earthly affection. Yet we who know the story may perhaps detect here
and there between the lines some little tinge of personal feeling. In that fine passage-some people think it a little of a
platitude-about the perishableness of earthly affections and
the inevitable disppointment of worldly hopes; in that
exhortation to his opponents to lay down all personal pride
and become submissive and bow their heads,-there are
vague tremulous shades and touches which may hint to the
initiated that even in the very thick of the controversy
Eustace Massie's mind would wander off occasionally to
dwell upon the sharp little trial which had been appointed
for himself. But he will recover; nay, he has recovered.
He will probably marry yet, and be calmly happy.




378                  PAUL MASSIE.
Meanwhile, he is not grieved to hear that the cousin
whose long-expected visit brought so many strange consequences is soon to go back into the darkness and the
Night's Plutonian shore which lie somewhere across the
Atlantic. Mexico begins to offer a fresh field for energy
and talent; and Mr. Charlton has railway schemes there;
and thither is Paul Massie going to push them. After a
very few formal sittings, put in to divert attention from
recents events, the hon. member for Seaborough has accepted the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds; and the
Rev. Eustace Neale Massie may return anybody he pleases
for that constituency.
This is not a story of sentiment; neither was poor Paul
Massie a sentimental man. There shall be no pathetic
pictures of his visits to the grave of Salome de Luca;
although he stood there many a time, and gave vent to his
own deep feelings in his own way. She is buried in
Kensal-green; and there was a great concourse of bearded
men there on the day of her funeral; and it was with
no little difficulty that Charlton and Wynter, having an
eye to the prejudices of the British public, averted the
delivery of a funeral oration by one of the most eloquent
of exiles. Poor Salome's property, for the disposal of
which she had made no provision, passed to the old
Franco-Irish priest who was her only surviving relative,
and who got rid of most of it in the forwarding of schemes
to counteract the destinies of United Italy, and to argue
with the inexorable on the subject of the temporal power.
He did not lament for Salome, whom he had long regarded
as the most lamentable of renegades and conspirators.
Perhaps the one heart in the world whicl most sincerely
mourned her death was, after Charley Millton's, or after
Paul Massie's own, that which throbbed in the little bosom
of poor George the actress.
But though Paul Massie was not a sentimental man,
yet he had far too much heart even to think of new human
ties soon after those which, so nearly formed, were so sud



PAUL AND SARAH.                 379
denly broken. His sharpest pain, when he awoke to clear
consciousness, was the regret that he had not loved Salome
more deeply; that he had not known her earlier; that it
had  not been given to him  to make her happy. He
mourned for her, taken so soon from a world that, to her,
was full of life and action and brightness. But he mourned
with grief unspeakably bitter because he could not help
feeling that, only for him, she would not thus and then
have died. Many times his agony of grief became almost
unendurable, and his wild nature literally swept him away.
In his sorrow he undervalued, almost scorned, everything
-every human friendship, love, and hope, but the friendship, love, and hope which he persisted in saying had been
offered to him when all the world rejected him.
Sarah required some self-control and resignation to
listen without outward manifestation of suffering to his
wild outbreaks of grief and passion. He spoke to her as
freely as if she had been his sister  and it was long before
he talked of anything but the generosity, the goodness,
the nobleness, the terrible fate of Salome.
Perhaps it is not any disparagement to so good a woman
as Sarah to admit that she felt the more sympathy with
this deep and stormy grief because throughout the whole
poor Paul never ceased to accuse himself of the blackest
ingratitude.
" 0 Sarah," he said one day, after one of the usual outbursts of grief, "I can never be happy; I can never forgive myself."
"     Why never forgive yourself, Paul?"
" Because, with all her goodness to me, I had not the
heart of a man, and I did not love her as-as-a woman
like her ought to have been loved."
Sarah's heart throbbed, but she said nothing.




380                 PAUL MASSIE.
CHAPTER  XXXIII.
THE DRIFTING VESSEL AND THE WRECKER.
ONE bright morning very early, little George made an
expedition, or pilgrimage, to Salome's grave. She
went to lay a wreath of flowers there, and to relieve her
feelings-poor little comic actress and pantomime prince!
-by unobserved and copious tears. But when she drew
near the grave, she began to fear that she was not to be
alone there.  For a gentleman was seated, or stretched
rather, on the grass beside the little hillock. His hat lay
near him; his hand was over his eyes. When the rustle
of the actress's dress announced her coming, he looked up,
but did not move from his place. There was something
of embarrassment on both sides. The gentleman was yet
uncertain whether George was not a mere passer-by, and
George was reluctant to approach the grave until he had
gone. As he did not seem about to go, she came up. Then
he rose from the ground and took up his hat, which he kept
in his hand. He was a tall man with long black hair, deep
hollow eyes, and worn, lined, handsome face. George had
now reached the grave, and his eyes fell upon the wreath
she held in her hand. There was a moment's embarrassment: George looked again at the stranger to make sure
that it was not some one she knew. No; she had never
seen him before. Their eyes met, and he spoke.
"Did you know the lady who is buried here,-Madame
de Luca? " he asked.
" I did," the girl replied, and her tears were rising; " I
knew her a long time."
A long time! George was some eighteen years old.
"I knew her too," he said; " not perhaps a very long
time, but long enough to make me remember her forever."




THE DRIFTING VESSEL AND THE WRECKER.   381
"0, she was so good and kind to me! " sobbed poor
George. "I loved her; and she was very fond of me."
" I loved her too," said wild Charley Millton; " and she
was more kind to me than I deserved."
George was used to hearing emotion expressed in tragic
tones and fine-sounding words; but there was so deep and
genuine a sorrow in the voice and the sentence or two she
now heard, that she looked fixedly at the speaker, and
opened eyes of wonder.
"I was often at her house lately," she said-hardly
knowing what she did say-" and I do not remember seeing you there."
The question was not put in a tone of doubt, but only
of mere surprise.
"No-I was away; I was in Italy, and only came back
the other day, and saw her but once before-before this."
He waved his hand over the -grave, and for a moment did
not venture to speak. Then he said, "My name is Millton,
Charles Millton-you may have heard her speak of me."
"0, yes, very often. She showed me your name in
Italian newspapers different times, and she told me you
were one of her dearest friends."
" She spoke of me kindly?"
"Yes, always kindly-always. More than kindly indeed; she would have spoken kindly of anyone."
He seemed as if about to ask something more, but
stopped, and gave up the attempt. Both stood silent
by the grave. Then he bowed to George, and turned to go
away, but, suddenly looking back, he said: "May I ask
your name?"
"My name is Georgina Renville, and I am an actress."
There was so much of seriousness and sadness about
every line of his face that George-she could not tell why
-assumed that he must be a very religious and puritanical person, and like an honest little girl resolved that he
should know the worst at once with regard to the person
he was addressing, and then express his horror if he chose.




382                  PAUL MASSIE.
"I am glad to have had the honor of making your acquaintance," he said, "and I hope we may meet again."
She stood indeed on what was to him truly consecrated
ground, and he reverenced the little actress because she
was laying her flower-wreath on Salome's grave.
He then bowed and went away. But as she left the
place, she saw him still waiting among the tombstones.
He did not see her. She doubted not that when he found
she had gone, he would return to the grave. She walked
home to her lodgings in Newman-street, much thinking all
the way of the melancholy eyes and deep tones of Charley
Millton.
But Charley Millton soon left England again, and was
lost to the eyes of his fiiends for awhile. He has since reappeared. He rose to the surface the moment it became
certain that Italy and Prussia were to fight against Austria. He joined the Italian volunteer corps, and served in
the exasperatingly short campaign  in the Tyrol. He
rallied many a fluctuating band of ill-armed, undisciplined youths against the soldiers of the Kaiser. Perhaps Fate could not have dealt more kindly with him than
if, as he waved his cap and shouted "Avanti!" at some
critical moment, she had sent an Austrian bullet through
his breast. But the bullets passed him  by, and wild
Charley Millton still lives.
The news of Salome de Luca's death was not long in
reaching even quiet Seaborough. Several copies of the
daily papers left London every morning for that community, and therefore of course the story was soon eagerly
read; and all who had ever seen or spoken to the victim
of the murder were proud to exaggerate their reminiscences. There were  some  too who  suspected  their
wretched townsman Halliday of having had something to
do with it.  Crossley and his wife indeed soon came to
know the truth, and did not take much trouble to conceal
it. So Halliday became after awhile a sort of local renown of the grisly kind, and glad was the man or woman




THE DRIFTING VESSEL AND THE WRECKER.   383
who could remember anything of what he or she said to or
of the outcast the last time he was seen hanging about the
public-house doors. His mother had been for some time
bedridden in the work-house hospital, and may probably be
fortunate enough to die without hearing any of the fearful
reports which attached the guilt of murder to her son.
Eustace preached an affecting and powerful sermon one
Sunday, in which, while of course naming no names, he
drew the clear moral of the whole tragedy in a manner
which none of his hearers could possibly fail to understand.
He attributed the whole calamity to a want of proper religious elevation on the part of the unknown but suspected
author of the crime; and indeed no one can gainsay the
fact that a man of properly religious character would never
have committed murder. How to infuse true religious
principles into the minds of the sort of people who usually
keep up the crop of murderers, was a problem which the
preacher did not solve.
Mrs. Massie was not one of the first who heard of what
had happened. When she did hear of it, was she greatly
shocked?  Shocked assuredly; but very much grieved?
That is another question. Rousseau tells us in his Comnfessions that when he heard of the death of a particular friend,
his first impulse was one of gladness; because there was a
certain coat, or garment of some kind, belonging to the
friend, which had often excited his envy, and which now
he hoped to find bequeathed to him. Yet he insists that he
was fond of the friend, and grieved at his death; but that
the first impulse which leaped to the surface of his mind
was an-impulse to rejoice over the one good thing which
the death was likely to do for him. Mrs. Massie was a
selfish woman in the passive sense; endowed with a selfishness indeed which, somewhat like Rousseau's, sprang in
great part fiom constitutional weakness of character, and
it would not have been possible to afflict her deeply
with any grief which did not concern either herself directly,
or some one of the few whom she closely held to her heart.




384:                 PAUL MASSIE.
Therefore, if she had analyzed boldly the sentiment which
first filled her when she heard of Salome's death, it would
probably have shown itself to be one of relief and hope.
There was relief upon her own account-one of the possessors of the secret gone forever! There was hope on another's account, for Mrs. Mlassie instantly said to herself,'" Now he is free-now he can marry Sarah; and they will
both be happy; and they will forgive me."
It would be needless to say that the event had a deep
effect upon the character of Paul Massie-a deep and a
lasting effect. People fond of interpreting the decrees of
Providence might have seen in the gradual development
and elevation of his whole nature the specially ordained
result which the calamities that fell on him were arranged
to bring about. Let us not attempt to conjecture how
often or how far one human creature is providentially sacrificed to do good to another. I knew a good man who,
having lost a daughter whom he dearly loved, always in
after years declared his conviction that Providence had
removed her in order that his own moral nature might be
elevated and purified by the grief. It was a very sincere
sentiment, and seemed pious, and people generally approved
of it; and he would have been a bold questioner who ventured to doubt whether a sweet budding girl was cut off,
and the heart of a mother broken, merely for the sake of
improving the good father's chances of salvation. But
without expressing any clear views on the subject either
way, and indeed having none such to express, the writer
may be allowed to dwell upon the fact that the events, all
more or less painful, which culminated in Salome's death,
did produce a healthful and elevating effect upon Paul
Massie's nature, which, let us l:ope, is not to be effaced
during his life. Reviewing in calmer hours the changes
which had taken place since he left Mexico, he could not
but see that no small share in such calamities as had befallen was to his own blame. Had he firmly and steadfastly
shaped his own course, things must have gone differently




THE DRIFTING VESSEL AND THE WRECKER.   385
-must, in all human probability, have gone better. He
felt that he had played a poor and weak part; and he was
acquiring moral sense enough to know  that, in another
meaning than that of the fallen angel in the great poem,
"to be weak is miserable."  To be weak in life is to be the
source of misery. Little good ever was or can be done by
those who do not persistently, like the strong man and the
waterfall in somebody's lines, fashion their own channel.
One of the evenings of Paul's convalescence, and when
indeed his course of life was beginning to grow clear before
him, he sat with Sarah and one of the little Trenton girls.
The sun was sinking, and its mild autumnal light fell calm,
beautiful, and melancholy on the room. Paul lay on a sofa
contemplating the rays, and thinking. His companions
probably thought he was asleep.
Suddenly he spoke.
"Sarah, have you ever observed the ships and steamers
going up and down a river,-the Thames, for instance,or in the sea outside Seaborough?"
"No, Paul-at least I have observed them, of course;
but I don't know that I ever watched them very closely."
"Well, you may have seen that, however crowded
together they may be, yet they pass each other here and
there, and get no harm. If you were looking down from
London-bridge, for instance, I dare say you might feel
alarmed, thinking that every moment some of the vessels
going down that narrow miserable stream must run together and destroy each other."
" Yes, Paul, I dare say I should."
She was merely humoring him, and had not the least
idea of what he was coming to. The little Trenton girl
was listening with open ears and eyes, expecting that some
story was about to follow.
"Yet nothing happens, Sarah; or very seldom at least
does any accident happen. The same scene may be looked
at every day in the year, and for a twelvemonth no collision be seen.-  Do you know why?"'
17




386                  PAUL MASSIE.
"I suppose because the vessels are well steered."
"Exactly. Everyone at the helm looks out and takes
care to go the way which suits him, and which keeps him
out of danger. But suppose there is one vessel which is
drifting. Suppose the steersman does not trouble himself,
or is asleep, and she is allowed to drift down. What happens? She destroys perhaps the course of every vessel in
the stream. She runs against this one, and drives it back
upon another; and this third one carries away the bowsprit
of a fourth, and the rudder of a fifth; and the whole is confusion, and perhaps many lives are lost. And the man in
the drifting vessel may not have meant any harm all the
time: he may have been a very good-natured sort of fellow, may he not, wishing well to everyone, very likely? "
" Yes; but he ought not to have allowed his vessel to
drift. He must have known what would happen."' I think he must have been a very lazy, idle, naughty
man," said the little girl.
" Sarah," said Paul, "I have been the thoughtless, idle
steersman. I have been drifting; I have allowed myself to
drift. I have caused the collision; I have destroyed life."
The little girl started in wonder. Sarah raised her
hand warningly, and endeavored to check the young man's
words.
" Yes," he continued, not heeding her attempt at interruption, "I have been looking back, and I see it all only
too clearly. Nothing that has happened lately might not
have been avoided, if I had but taken and kept my own
course. My life so far has been only drifting, and I have
done nothing but harm. Please Heaven I will drift no
more."
Sarah did not attempt to convince him that he was
wronging himself when he charged his  drifting " with any
of the misfortunes which had happened. She thought it
better to let him indulge himself in a frame of mind which at
least enclosed a healthy and manly resolved for the future.
If a woman in love ever can see a defect in the character of




THE DRIFTING VESSEL AND THE WRECKER.    387
the man she loves, perhaps Sarah did think there was some
truth in the view which Paul took of his past weakness.
Perhaps too, while he was speaking, she thought of a life
which, beginning to drift long before he was born, had
drifted always, and helped to carry his fortunes and purposes away into ill-omened collisions with existences around
him. And Sarah too felt her own moments of self-reproach.
Just now she thought herself like the wrecker, who, out of
the ruin and death lying scattered on the beach before
him, gathers up handfuls of treasure for himself, and runs
home with it and hugs it, and is happy.. For out of the
broken lives and ruined hopes, and the loves that went
down in sight of the shore and the port, she was carrying
away the means by which to satisfy her own heart, and
make her life one of brightness. How should she with sincere lips speak in stern condemnation even of the drifting
which had brought about the wreck that was to supply the
spoils for her happiness?  She nourished this idea for a
few moments in silence. The little girl suddenly left the
room. The evening was darkening now.
" Paul," said Sarah, in a low tone.
He looked up and answered.
"You spoke of the steersman who allows his vessel to
drift and cause collisions, and destroy other ships. You
blame him, of course. What do you think, though, of the
wrecker, who, when the ships are broken up, carries off as
much of the property as he can pick up, and keeps it for
himself?  Is not he a great deal worse than even the drifting steersman?"
" I don't know, dearest, what you mean."
" You speak of yourself as the one who drifted. But I
am worse, a great deal worse-for I am the wrecker."
" Dearest Sarah, how can you say so? What can your
meaning be?"
" Ah, you see it, I am sure, only too well. If it be
true that you have had any part in causing the wreck of
poor Eustace's hopes, and-and —the ruin of others, you at




t8,>SS  8PAUL MilASSIE.
least never meant it, and you lament over it, and cannot
forgive yourself that you have had even an innocent part in
it. But what can I say of myself? I have seen all this
unhappiness, and yet I am selfish enough, like the wrecker,
to consent to gather my own happiness out of it. 0 Paul,
I have more, far more, to condemn myself for than you
have. I have been cruelly selfish. I am ashamed to confess it, but I have not grieved half so deeply as I ought
over all the dreadful things that have happened, because
out of the wreck I seem to have snatched your love and
my own happiness."
What could Paul say in answer? He could indeed say
nothing. He could only draw her towards him and clasp
her to his heart. It had indeed this some time been settled
for certain between them that they were to play what she
now called the wrecker's part, and rescue what sources of
happiness they might out of the ruins of the past. But it
was not until Paul began to reproach himself for his
"drifting," that the image of the wrecker arose in Sarah's
mind, and she stood accused of selfishness. Was it selfishness? Not unless love stronger than death-the love
which makes us hope and believe that one who has been
ours and ours alone this side the grave shall be ours too
on the other shore-can be said to deserve the name.
Meanwhile young Miss Trenton had returned to the
room, and presently good-natured visitors came to see
Paul, who was now quite well enough to be looked upon
and talked to; and the lamps were lighted, and the gloomier shadows of the past were banished.




THE LAST                  389
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE LAST.
PAUL MASSIE left England; and Sarah lived only a
short time in London. She then removed to a quiet
home with some old school-friends on the outskirts of
Ghent, and there she taught English to the daughters of
substantial Belgian manufacturers.
Alice recovered, but she did not return to Seaborough.
She remained with Lydia; was a smart lady's-maid; and
held her tongue.
Eustace Massie went abroad after his controversy, and
travelled through Italy. His book on "The External
Aspects of the Church of Rome " will soon be published.
Fourteen or fifteen months passed away. Sarah has
only just received a letter, which concludes thus:
" I am coming, then, by the next steamer. We will go
through Germany and Italy before we leave Europe. Can
you be happy away from Europe? I think you will like
this beautiful place, with its glorious scenery and its tropical air. But if you do not, we will find a home elsewhere.
I love Mexico from old association, but I could not continue
to love any place which you too did not love. Anywhere,
dearest, except in England! I can hardly write these lines,
so great is my joy at the thought of seeing you again, and
so soon, and of making you my wife-to live with me
always!"
And then followed rapturous expressions of love and
devotion, which need not be quoted here.
About the same time there came, in the same writing,
a few lines to Seaborough House, which were addressed to
Mrs. Massie. With a trembling hand the widow opened
the paper and read:
" You pledged me to write when I could say I fully fors




890                 PAUL  MASSIE.
gave you, and not before. At last I write. I am angry
and ashamed that so long a time should have passed; but
1 am a bad Christian, bitter of heart, and perhaps even
now only softened by the prospect of a great happiness.
Forgive you! Yes, indeed I do-if I have anything to
forgive who have been the cause of so much misery. You
might have been happy, had I never come to Europe.
Henceforth you may rest in security. What we know is
known only to one other in the world, and will remain a
secret always. Good-by. Heaven has dealt with me far
more kindly than I expected or ever deserved. I know you
will be glad to hear of my happiness. It will add to it if I
can think that you too may be happy, and may find in the
peace of coming years some compensation for the past."
The writer, in signing himself, began with the word
"Your —   But he dashed his pen across it, and simply
wrote;  "PAUL MASSIE."
THEB END.