THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 ENDOWED BY THE 
 DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC 
 SOCIETIES 
 
 PRU989 
 R3 
 
 1890 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 * 
 
 https://arGhive.org/details/ralphbailiffotheOObrad 
 
RALPH THE BAILIFF 
 
 AND OTHEE STOEIES 
 
 no 
 
 JB¥ THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "LADY AUDLEYS SECEET," "AURORA FLOYD," 
 44 VIXEN," "ISHMAEL," " WYLLARD'S WEIRD" 
 
 ETC. ETC. ETC, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SPENCEE BLACKETT 
 (Successor to 3. $? Hftaxfoeil) 
 MILTON HOUSE, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C. 
 
 [JU rights reserved] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Hal**^ the Baxuvv: 
 
 Ch. I. The Funeral of the Elder Son 1 
 
 II. A Shadow that Hears . . 7 
 
 III. The Visitor at the Rectory . 15 
 
 IV. The Wedding-Day . . .IS 
 
 V. A Cheerless Hearth . . 22 
 VI. In the Dead of the Night . 28 
 
 VII. Master and Slave ... 80 
 
 VIII. The Last Chanco . . . 87 
 
 Captain Thomas . . 44 
 
 The Cold Embrace . . . .55 
 
 My Daughters . . . . C3 
 
 The Mystery at Fernwool» , . 70 
 
 Samuel Lowgood's Revenge . . QQ 
 The Lawyer's Secret : 
 
 Cn. I. In a Lawyer's Office . .110 
 II. In which a Secret is Revealed 117 
 
 III. After the Honeymoon . .121 
 
 IV. At Baldwin Court . . .127 
 V. From London to Paris . .131) 
 
 VI. Horace Margrave's Confes- 
 
 sion 145 
 
 j|r First Hatty Christmas . . 160 
 xliOST and Found : 
 
 Ch. I. Picture-dealing . . .171 
 
 II. Gin 177 
 
 HI. The Mark uion Georgey's 
 
 Arm . . . . .183 
 
 Cn. IV. The Foster-Brothers . . 190 
 V. The Gentleman Jockey who 
 
 Rode Devilshoof . . 198 
 VI. The King i3 Dead: Losg 
 
 Live the Kixjg . . . 205 
 VII. Lost . . . . .210 
 VIII. A New Life and a Nov/ Love 215 
 IX. A Precautionary Step . „ 222 
 X. The Die is Cast . . . 225 
 XI. -Before the Wedding . .220 
 XII. Gervoise Palgrave's Curse . 229 
 
 XIII. The Sound of the Waterfall 235 
 
 XIV. An Uninvited Guest . 1 . 243 
 XV. Hidden hi the Dead Woman's 
 
 Hand 249 
 
 XVI. The Detective Science . . 257 
 XVII. Hunting up the Past . . 203 
 XVIII. Ethel's Visitor . . . 274 
 XIX. A Friend in Need . . 278 
 XX. Humphrey's Confession . 2S5 
 XXI. Identified . . . .294 
 XXII. The Parting of the Foster- 
 Brothers . . . .298 
 .XXIII. The Last of Gervoise Pal- 
 grave . . * , .303 
 
 Eveline's Visitant . 308 
 Found in the Muniment Chest „ 31? 
 How I Heard my own Will Read. 332 
 The Scene-Painter's Wife , , 343 
 
RALPH THE BAILIFF* 
 
 CHAPTEB L 
 
 THE FUNERAL OP THE ELDER SON. 
 
 A. drizzling ram fell upon the long grass and the moss-grown 
 tombstones of the churchyard of Olney, a village in Lincolnshim 
 
 Every now and then, beaten down by this incessant rain, a 
 dead leaf fell from one of a row of sycamores, which bordered 
 the low churchyard wall, and dropped heavily upon the graves 
 beneath the trees. 
 
 No gleam of sunshine relieved the dull gray of the September 
 sky. 
 
 A cluster of villagers and village children, grouped together 
 at one angle of the irregular stone wall, drew their wet clothes 
 closer round them, and shivered as if this September had been 
 January. 
 
 From one side of the churchyard sounded the monotonous 
 voice of the curate, reading the funeral service. 
 
 At the white gate, on the other side of the church, waited 
 three mourning-coaches, surrounded by another group of village 
 children, who, regardless of the perpetual rain, stood staring 
 open-mouthed at the long-tailed black horses and the solemn- 
 visaged charioteers. 
 
 The funeral service ended, the chief mourner walked slowly 
 through the churchyard, followed by the seven or eight gentle- 
 men who had been present at the ceremony. 
 
 The grief of that chief mourner was evident to all ; his hollow 
 eyes were dry and tearless, and he walked along the narrow path, 
 looking straight before him, with an air of gloomy abstraction. 
 He took his seat in one of the coaches, accompanied by his 
 uncle, a gray -haired old farmer, and the village attorney. 
 
 " You must bear up — you must bear up, my dear Dudley," 
 said the gray-haired man, as the mourning- coach lumbered along 
 the uneven paving of Olney High- street. 
 
2 
 
 Ralph the Baihg. 
 
 " I will, Uncle Richard ; but it's harder to bear than I ev«?T 
 thought it would be," said the chief mourner; and to the 
 surprise of his companions he let down the window at his side, 
 and, putting out his head, looked back at the churchyard they 
 had left. He remained in this position till a turn in the street 
 completely hid the burial-ground from his view, and then, 
 drawing in his head, he closed the window with a short sigh. 
 
 "Poor boy, he wants to have a last look at his brother's 
 grave," said the gray-haired man to the lawyer, while his nephew 
 looked out of the carriage-window. 
 
 After this the chief mourner sat silent and motionless, looking 
 fixedly out at the flat high-road, and the dripping leaves and 
 shivering cattle in the wet fields. 
 
 He was a man of one-and-twenty, but looked much older. 
 
 He had a fair complexion, a small straight nose, very red, 
 womanish lips, a slightly-receding chin, a low forehead, large 
 blue eyes, and light auburn hair. He was rather handsome, 
 and was generally said to have a most prepossessing coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 He was the younger son of the late Arthur Carleon, gentle- 
 man farmer, and proprietor of the Grey Farm, an estate of some 
 importance in the estimation of the simple Olney folks. 
 
 The dwelling-house of this Grev Farm stood a mile away fron: 
 the high-road, and tne pathway leading to it lay by the side of 
 a river — a narrow, dismal river, on which coal-barges went up 
 and down between Grimsby and Lincoln. 
 
 The lands of the farm, which consisted of three hundred and 
 eighty acres, lay flat and low on the border of this river, 
 stretching down to the shelving bank, and only divided by this 
 bank from the water, which constantly overflowed the meadows 
 nearest to the river- side. 
 
 Along this bank the three mourning-coaches drove slowly and 
 carefully, — a road dangerous at the best of times; at night 
 doubly dangerous. 
 
 Half-an-hour's driving brought the dismal cortege to the 
 gates of the garden in front of the farmhouse. The mourners 
 alighted, and silently assembled in a long, low, oak-panelled 
 apartment, furnished in the ponderous fashion of half a century 
 ago. 
 
 The Carleons were one of the oldest families in Lincolnshire. 
 The house of the Grey Farm was filled with portraits of fine 
 gentlemen, in doublets and hose; soldiers who had fallen at 
 Bos worth and Flodden; cavaliers who had fought at Worcester, 
 and brave soldiers and loyal gentlemen who had helped to beat 
 the rebels on Marston Moor ; but for the last hundred and fifty 
 years the sword had been exchanged for the ploughshare, and 
 Otr Carleons had been farmers from father to son. 
 
TJie Funeral of the Elder Son. 
 
 8 
 
 The estate of the Grey Farm — which was so called from having 
 originally belonged to a body of the order of Grey Friars, who 
 built an abbey upon the land — was bought, in 1700, by a younger 
 •on of the house of Carleon, the elder branch of which becoming 
 extinct, all other estates belonging to the family had fallen into 
 Chancery, and the Carleons had sunk into simple gentlemen 
 formers. 
 
 Dudley Carleon walked to the wide fireplace, in which a dull 
 flame struggled with the thick smoke from a mass of black coal. 
 The young man leant against the angle of the high chimney- 
 piece, and turned his face away from the other gentlemen, whon: 
 his gloomy silence considerably embarrassed. 
 
 A young woman, the principal female servant, dressed, like 
 her master, in the deepest mourning, busied herself in handing 
 about wine and cake. After taking it to the visitors, she offered 
 it to Dudley Carleon ; but the young man, hearing the jingle of 
 the glasses at his elbow, looked up suddenly, and shook his head 
 with an impatient gesture. He was very pale, and his eyes 
 were surrounded by dark circles, which gave the light-blue eyes 
 a strangely-haggard appearance. 
 
 One of the gentlemen, an attorney from Olney, read the will 
 of the deceased. It was very simple. Martin Carleon had had 
 nothing to bestow but the farm and homestead, on which he 
 was born, and on which he had lived his short life of three- and- 
 twenty years. He had died of an ague, produced, according to 
 the doctors, by the fatal dampness of the Grey Farm. Young, 
 handsome, vigorous, and athletic, the farmer had succumbed, 
 after a lingering illness, under this painful and exhausting 
 disease. He had never married, and Dudley was his only brother; 
 so no one had ever felt any doubt as to who would inherii 
 his property. The estate, though it had gone straight down 
 from father to son for a hundred and fifty years, had never been 
 entailed, and the will of Martin's father had left no provision 
 I for the event of the young man's dying childless ; but the 
 * attachment between the brothers was known to have been so 
 sincere, that this will was looked upon as a mere form. It was 
 worded as every one had expected : — 
 
 i *' I, Martin Carleon, being at this time of sound mind, though 
 » weak in bodily health, do hereby give, will, and bequeath to my 
 beloved brother, DudLey Carleon, all those lands, tenements, and 
 out-buildings, known as the Grey Farm, together with all live 
 stock, farming implements," &c. &c. 
 
 A few trifling legacies followed : a gold snuff-box to his uncle, 
 R ichard Weston, the gray-haired old man present at the reading 
 of the will ; his watch and chain to a young lady to whom he 
 had been engaged to be married; and some bequests to the 
 servants. 
 
4 
 
 .Ralph the Bail if. 
 
 During the reading of the will the young man had never once 
 lifted his head from its recumbent position against the angle 
 of the chimney-piece ; but when it was quite finished, and the 
 visitors rose from their chairs, and approached Dudley, prior 
 to taking their departure, he looked up at them with the same 
 expression his face had worn at the gate of the churchyard 
 — an expression that seemed to say, " What ought I to do 
 next?" 
 
 " You are very kind," he stammered in answer to the consola- 
 tory speeches addressed to him. " Yes, I will do my best to 
 bear his loss." 
 
 He said these words again and again, in an absent, helpless 
 mawJ€ r ; and breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed upon 
 the feieral party, and he was left alone with his uncle. For 
 some time he remained silent, his face buried in his hands, while 
 the old man sat looking at him furtively, as if almost afraid 
 tc »peak. Presently he looked up and said, with strange 
 abruptness, — 
 
 " Do you know if Agnes Marlow is very sorry ?" 
 
 Agnes Marlow was the daughter of the Rector of Olney, and 
 had been the promised wife of Martin Carleon. 
 
 " They say so at Olney," answered Mr. Weston. " They say 
 that she is verv ill, and has seen no one but her father since 
 your brother's death." 
 
 " She came here the night before he died. When her father 
 was sent for, she heard the message, and stole out of the house 
 after him, and followed him down here. I shall never forget 
 her white face as she stood at the door of Martin's room. I 
 shall never forget her white face — it haunts me to-day more 
 than his." 
 
 * My poor boy, these are silly fancies. Agnes Marlow's grief 
 has nothing to do with you. You did your duty to your poor 
 brother from the first to the last." 
 
 " That's something," muttered Dudley. 
 
 " Something ! Everything. Martin was a good brother to 
 you " 
 
 Dudley Carleon shivered involuntarily. 
 
 " A very good brother. He had hard work to keep up your 
 allowance at college, I can tell you, Dudley. But he always 
 said that one farmer at a time was quite enough in the Carleon 
 family, and that you should be a man of education, and a 
 polished gentleman." 
 
 "And a dependent on my brother's bounty," said Dudley 
 bitterly. 
 
 M No, Dudley. Martin never thought anything he did for yon 
 a bounty or a favour." 
 
 Not Martin, perhaps ; but other people thought so/* 
 
Tn<3 Mineral of the Elder Son. 
 
 Mr. Weston gave a little murmur of deprecation, ana then, 
 not knowing what further remark to make, lapsed into silence. 
 
 The old man was to dine, and spend the night at the Grey 
 Farm, as Thorpe Grange, his own house, was ten miles on the 
 other side of Olney. The uncle and nephew dined in a room 
 adjoining the oak parlour in which the will had been read, and 
 were waited on by a maid- servant. 
 
 "Then you will manage the farm yourself, Dudley?" said 
 Mr. Weston, as they sat over their wine, the room only lighted 
 by a blazing fire, and the sky outside the windows darkening 
 with the September twilight. 
 
 "Yes. I may not know as much of agriculture as poor 
 Martin, but I know a little, and I can learn more. In short, 
 I'll accept the fate of the Carleons, and turn gentleman farmer." 
 
 " There's only one thing I'm afraid of, Dudley " 
 
 "And that is " 
 
 " Your chance of falling ill of the ague and fever that killed 
 Martin, The doctors attribute his illness to the air of the Grey 
 Farm." 
 
 " Ther why is it that the men who live upon the premises, and 
 are at work in the fields from sunrise to sunset, from the first of 
 January to the thirty-first of December, have never fallen ill of 
 the ague that killed poor Martin P Take my word for it, it was 
 not the Grey Farm that caused my brother's death ; his consti- 
 tution could not have been a strong one." 
 
 " But such a tall, broad-chested, powerful young man," said 
 his uncle. 
 
 " Is often the first to sink under an illness which the ignorance 
 Oi his medical attendant attributes to a wrong cause. Martin 
 had lived on the Grey Farm for three-and-twenty years, and if 
 this autumn has been cold and rainy, other autumns have been 
 cold and rainy ; if the farm has been half under water this year, 
 k has been half under water many a year. It's my opinion, 
 Uncle Weston, that Martin's life might have been saved if his 
 doctor had not been an inefficient blockhead. That's partly the 
 cause of my grief for my brother. I consider him a sacrifice to 
 the ignorance of two medical practitioners, and I shall never 
 ft^oive myself for not having sent to London for a physician 
 before it was too late." 
 
 " What, you did send, then ? " 
 I telegraphed to London half an hour before he died." 
 
 " My dear boy, you have done your duty. But tell me, 9 ' con- 
 tinued the old man, anxious to change the conversation, " about 
 your domestic arrangements. You retain all the servants ?" 
 
 "Every labourer on the farm, every maid-servant in tha 
 krichen. ISTo servant ever leaves the Uarleons— -except for tho 
 churchyard." 
 
6 
 
 Jtiaipti the Bailiff. 
 
 " That young woman who handed the wine round aftei the 
 funeral — she looks rather superior to the rest — who is she ? 99 
 
 " 0, I suppose it was Martha. She was my brother's house- 
 keeper. She is the sister of my bailiff, a very clever young 
 man." 
 
 " She is rather a handsome girl." 
 
 "You think so? Too pale, too dark, too heavy. She has 
 never been young, I think, that girl; I can always remember 
 her equally grave and puritanical, with a pale solemn face and 
 straight hair plastered over her forehead ; bat she is an excellent 
 housekeeper." 
 
 " She is a very young housekeeper, Dudley. I should be 
 rather afraid of her, if I were you. Bachelor farmers sometimes 
 marry their housekeepers nowadays. It has grown into a 
 fashion ; and the women know it, and play their cards accord- 
 ingty." 
 
 " She must play a deeper game than I give her credit for, 
 clever as she is, if she wants to catch me," said Dudley. " I 
 have a little of the ambition of the old Carleons, and there is no 
 record of any of them having married their servants." 
 
 A little after ten o'clock Dudley Carleon led his uncle up the 
 wide oak staircase to the apartment prepared for him. 
 
 To reach this room they had to pass through a long corridor, 
 on one side of which was a row of solid oak doors, leading into 
 the bedrooms. Before the first of these doors Dudley Carleon 
 stopped, with a ghastly face, and leaned for support against the 
 wall behind him. 
 
 "Martin's room," he muttered hoarsely; "the room he died 
 in. This is the very spot on which Agnes Marlow stood on the 
 night of my brother's death. Talk of ghosts," he said with a 
 aollow laugh ; " if you can fancy a corpse galvanised into life, 
 you can fancy how she looked " 
 
 " Come, come, my dear boy " 
 
 " Don't pity me. I am a coward — a miserable, superstitious 
 coward. I never thought this was in me." 
 
 The young man brushed his hand across his forehead, drew 
 himself to his fullest height, and walked before his uncle to the 
 end of the corridor. He opened a door, led the way into 
 a comfortable, old-fashioned apartment, communicating with 
 another room of about the same size. Fires had been lighted 
 in both bedchambers, and a cheerful blaze was reflected in every 
 panel of the wainscot. Bichard Weston, farmer, slept as well 
 on the night after his eldest nephew's funeral as he always slept 
 ander his own roof at the Grange. Once or twice, however, in 
 the dismal hours of the long autumnal night, he was awoke by 
 the monotonous step of the new owner of the Grey Farm, pacing 
 up and down the oak floor of his bedroom. " Poor fellow." 
 
'Tfie Funeral of the Elder Son. 
 
 7 
 
 muttered the old man, as he buried his head in the pillows and 
 aropped off again to sleep — " poor fellow, what a sincere affec- 
 tion there has been between those two boys !" 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A SHADOW Til AT HEARS. 
 
 Fob a considerable time there was a great deal of curiosity felt 
 in Olney about Dudley Carleon, and the way in which he would 
 manage his newly-acquired property. Everj^body knew that the 
 Carleons were not rich, and that the Grey Farm required a great 
 amount of expenditure before it would produce much money. 
 The land wanted draining, but poverty had prevented this being 
 ever effectually done ; and the owners of the land had dragged 
 on, through good harvests and bad harvests, without ever 
 enriching themselves or their children, and only too glad if they 
 could pay their way. " How, then," asked the inhabitants of 
 Olney, " would Dudley Carleon succeed with the property out 
 of which his father and his brother had obtained so little ? " 
 
 But the Olney people soon confessed that Dudley Carleon 
 was by no means a bad farmer. He set vigorously to work, 
 and with small expenses contrived to make great improvements. 
 Useless hedges and old trees were ruthlessly done away with ; 
 ditches were dug in the low fields, and the water carried back 
 to the river from which it came, while a superior breed of cattle 
 fed in the dry pastures to those that had grazed in the sloppy 
 meadows during Martin's management. In short, to the sur- 
 prise of everybody, the young Cantab seemed to be a better 
 farmer than his brother had been. 
 
 But when complimented on his good management, Mr. Car- 
 leon was wont to say that he himself had very little part in the 
 improvements on the Grey Farm, since they were the work of 
 Ralph, his bailiff, and his greatest treasure. 
 
 If this remark happened to be made by Dudley while show- 
 ing a neighbour over the farm, a closely- cropped black head, a 
 pale face, and two gray eyes would generally emerge from behind 
 some barn or out-building, or look down from the top of sow* 
 haystack, and Ralph, the farm-bailiff, himself would appei.^, 
 tugging at the close-cropped black hair in acknowledgment of 
 his master's praise. 
 
 It seemed to Dudley Carleon's acquaintance rather a pecu- 
 liarity in the manners and customs of this farm-bailiff that 
 wherever his master happened to be there he was to be found. 
 This was, of course, purely accidental ; but it was an accident 
 of such frequent occurrence that it became a subject for obser- 
 vation. If Dudley Carleon gave a dinner-party, Ralph th* 
 
8 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff. 
 
 bailiff toot upon himself the office of butler, and waited &) 
 table, bringing with him into the dining-room a powerful odoui 
 of hay and beans, and generally doing some small damage tf 
 the service of old china which had belonged to his master'* 
 great-grandmother. It was perfectly obvious that the awkward- 
 ness of the farm-servant gave considerable annoyance to the 
 polished host ; it was still more obvious that he hesitated to 
 show such annoyance ; he appeared, indeed, to consult the feel- 
 ings of his bailiff before those of his guests or himself. 
 
 Sleek, dark, and pale, Ralph, the treasure of servants, would 
 stand behind his master's chair, listening attentively to every 
 word that was said. 
 
 If on a summer's evening Dudley lounged with a friend 
 smoking his cigar on the grass-plot in front of the house, the 
 farm-bailiff suddenly became a gardener, and was busy trans- 
 planting geraniums or setting cuttings of pinks. If, on a dark 
 night, the young man accompanied an acquaintance part of the 
 way back to Olney, the farm -bailiff was always at his heels 
 ready to open the gates or show the way with a lantern. If 
 Dudley, on a Sunday, after church, stopped to talk to hi3 
 neighbours in the churchyard, Ralph the bailiff with his sister 
 Martha on his arim was generally to be seen looking at a tomb- 
 stone, or reading an epitaph, a few paces from his master. But 
 the young farmer was constantly praising his servant's fidelity 
 and usefulness, and generally wound up his encomiums by 
 declaring that if Ralph were ever to take it into his head to 
 leave the Grey Farm, he should be a ruined man. 
 
 Ralph the bailiff, always appearing at this juncture, would 
 generally say, as he pulled off his hat and tugged at his sleek 
 black hair, — 
 
 " Lord, Muster Dudley, I'll never leave 'ee." 
 
 Ralph, his master said, was very much above his station. He 
 could read and write ; and when the other labourers were lolling 
 of a night over the kitchen-fire, smoking their pipes, or pulling 
 the ears of the great sheep-dog, the bailiff would shut himself 
 up in his own room and devote himself to his education. 
 Dudley and Martin had taught him a good deal, when as boys 
 they had lounged together on summer evenings watching the 
 labourers at their work ; for Ralph the bailiff had been born on 
 the estate, as well as his sister Martha, Dudley's housekeeper. 
 
 The new master of the farm had given a little sitting-room 
 in the servant's wing to Martha and her brother as their own 
 peculiar property, and here of an evening, after dark, the two 
 used to sit, she at her needlework, he seated before a great old- 
 fashioned desk that had been his mother's, writing or reading. 
 
 The brother and sister were much alike, both in person and 
 manners. Both pale and dark, with heavy features, straight 
 
A Shadow that Hears, 
 
 9 
 
 sleek black hair, and cleep-set gray eyes; both, tall and slim; 
 both grave, reserved, and silent; orderly in their habits; precise 
 in their way of speaking. They were not much liked by the 
 other servants, but they were very much respected, and every 
 one of the farm-labourers knew that it was wiser to offend Mr. 
 Dudley Oarleon than to run the risk of displeasing Ealph the 
 bailiff. 
 
 Actual master of all the men, possessed of unlimited execu- 
 tive power, Ealph Purvis, the bailiff, walked with a steady and 
 a stealthy step, day by day, over the Grey Farm. 
 
 "Wherever the owner of the land went, full across his path , 
 fell the shadow of his confidential servant; whomsoever he 
 spoke to, or whomsoever he saw, there was Ealph the bailiff to 
 hear his words and to watch his looks. 
 
 As time went by the inhabitants of Olney began to say that 
 Dudley Carleon had changed month by month, week by week, 
 day by day, and hour by hour, since the September morning on 
 which his elder brother had been buried. He had grown thin 
 and pale, fitful and moody in his manners, reserved and uncer- 
 tain in his address. 
 
 " His grief for his brother's death is really absurd," said the 
 gentlemen. 
 
 " He ought to form a new attachment — and marry/' eaid the 
 ladies. 
 
 But nothing seemed further from the young farmer's thoughts 
 than the holy state of matrimony. Secluded in the great stone 
 mansion, he saw very little society of any kind, but sat moodily 
 over his solitary hearth when the weather was bad, or, on fine 
 evenings, strolled listlessly about the farm, talking over the 
 business of the next day with Ealph the bailiff. 
 
 Three years had passed since the funeral of Martin Carleon; 
 and the third September after that on which the drizzling rain 
 had drenched the scarves and hatbands of the mourners, and 
 the thin garments of the village children, drew to a cold and 
 dismal close. f 
 
 On the last day of the month, Mr. Theodore Broughton, the ; 
 only solicitor resident in Olney, dined with Dudley Carleon. 
 He had ridden over to the Grey Farm, to talk about some law- 
 business he had on hand for the young farmer, and Dudley had 
 -persuaded him to stop to dinner. The two gentlemen dined at 
 five o'clock, in the oak dining-room — a cold and draughty apart- 
 ment, which the largest fire that could be piled up in the wide 
 grate could never thoroughly warm. This oak dining-room was 
 lighted, like the drawing-room, by three windows, two of which 
 were situated in the front of the house, opening into the garden, 
 while the third faced the river, and looked straight into the 
 farmyard. There was very little attempt at refinement in the 
 
10 
 
 EaTjjTi the Baihff. 
 
 arrangements of this great, dreary, rambling farmhouse ; a litter 
 
 of noisy pigs ran about close under the dining-room window, 
 and three or four huge draught-horses stood pastern deep in 
 wet straw a few paces from where the gentlemen sat at dinner. 
 
 According to the usual custom when there was company at 
 the Grey Farm, Ralph the bailiff made his appearance, wearing 
 an old dress»coat of his master's, and carrying a napkin ovei 
 his arm. This apparent attempt at style was so entirely 
 foreign to the ordinary habits of the Carleons, who had always 
 lived in the most unpretending manner, that everybody won- 
 dered at and disliked it. 
 
 " That awkward, dark-faced bailiff never came into the house 
 in Martin Carleon's time," the visitors at the Grey Farm would 
 say, " and now he's always sneaking about the premises." 
 
 This evening of the 30th of September the bailiff's presence 
 seemed peculiarly disagreeable to Theodore Broughton, the 
 lawyer. He wished to talk of business, and he disliked doing 
 so while Ralph stood with a listening countenance at his 
 master's elbow. He suggested to Dudley that they should 
 wait upon themselves, as no doubt the bailiff's presence was 
 needed about the farm ; but neither Ealph's master nor Ralph 
 himself would take the hint. The young man was evidently 
 embarrassed, and the bailiff held his ground at his master's 
 elbow with a dogged and determined look in his dark face. 
 
 "The truth of the matter is," said the lawyer, "that I want 
 to have a few words with you, about that business — and——" 
 
 " O, ah ! to be sure. — You hear, Purvis, Mr. Broughton wants 
 a little private conversation with me. Leave us." 
 
 Ralph the bailiff stood quite still, twisting the dinner-napkin 
 round and round upon his arm, and looking from his master to 
 the visitor, and from the visitor back to his master. 
 
 " You hear," repeated Dudley Carleon, turning very pale, but 
 \*rth a vivid flash of anger in his large blue eyes ; " leave us !" 
 
 " Yery well, sir ; 99 and with a stiff* bow to his master, Ralph 
 the bailiff left the room. He shut the door after him rather 
 loudly as he went out ; but two minutes afterwards Theodore 
 Broughton, who sat opposite to it, saw it reopened by a cautious 
 nand and set a little ajar. 
 
 " You have listeners in this house, Carleon," said the lawyer, 
 as he rose from the table, and going over to the door, shut it 
 securely. " I don't like speaking against another man's ser- 
 vants, but I really can't help saying that I've a great dislike to 
 your bailiff." 
 
 " What, Ralph Purvis ? My dear Broughton, he's an inesti- 
 mable fellow. The best bailiff in the county, and faithful to a 
 degree.* 
 
 " Faithful to tho degree of officiousness, I think," mutt:red 
 
A. S?iadi/w that Hears. 
 
 11 
 
 the lawyer, shrugging his shoulders ; and then, changing the 
 conversation, he discussed with his client the business that had 
 brought him to the farm. After this had been satisfactorily 
 settled, they spoke of indifferent topics, and the lawyer by and 
 by told Dudley of the many speculations made by the feminine 
 inhabitants of Olney as to the causes of his determined bachelor- 
 hood. " In short, my dear Carleon," he said laughing, " you 
 ought to make an excellent match ; and that reminds me of an 
 idea that has often occurred to me, which idea is, that Agnes 
 Marlow, the rector's daughter, would be the very girl to make 
 you a good wife." 
 
 Dudley Carleon started as if he had been stung. A cold 
 perspiration broke out upon his forehead, which he wiped w ith 
 a trembling hand, as he said hesitatingly, " 0 no, no. Agnes 
 Marlow is the very last person — the very last. Didn't you 
 know of her engagement to my poor brother Martin ? " 
 
 " Yes, I was perfectly aware they were to have been married ; 
 that appears to me the very reason why she would be a suitable 
 match for you. It would seem as if you were fulfilling your 
 poor brother's wish in making her mistress of the Grey Farm." 
 
 " Agnes Marlow's heart is buried in Martin Carleon's grave. 
 Do you know, Broughton, I have a very strong suspicion that 
 her grief for my brother's death had a fatal effect upon her 
 intellect, and that she — that she has not — been — quite right — 
 in her mind since — that — occurrence." 
 
 Dudley Carleon said these words slowly, and as if with an 
 effort. 
 
 " What in mercy's name has given you this idea ? " 
 
 " Because she has evinced such an evident dislike to me ever 
 since I have been owner of the property. As if — as if — really-*- 
 she hated me for being master of the Grey Farm." 
 
 ** Pshaw, my dear Carleon ; pure fancy on your part, I am 
 sure." 
 
 " Be it how it may, Agnes Marlow is the last person I should 
 ever dream of marrying." 
 
 " As you will. I can't attempt to choose a wife for you ; but 
 what I say, and what everybody else says, is, that you decidedly 
 ought to marry. What a dreary life you must lead in this 
 dismal old house, with not a soul to speak to but that sleek 
 black bailiff of yours, and his equally sleek and black sister, 
 your housekeeper ! Only think, man, how the cheerful face of 
 a pretty young wife would brighten the head of this long 
 dining-table ! " 
 
 "Well, well; I'll see about it," said Dudley, as he and hig 
 friend rose from the table. As they were about to leave the 
 room, Mr. Carleon poured out a glass of brandy from a bottle 
 on the sideboard, and drained it at a draught. While he waa 
 
12 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff: 
 
 doing this, Theodore Broughton's eyes wandered carelessly 
 round the walls of the room, looking at the old pictures. In 
 doing this, his glance happened to rest for a moment on the 
 window opening into the farmyard. It was quite dark, but in 
 the gray obscurity he distinctly saw a pair of gleaming eyes 
 staring in through a pane of glass, and he saw also a coarse red 
 hand, which had lifted the window-sash about three inches from 
 the sill. 
 
 " I told you, Carleon, that you had listeners about the place," 
 he said, raising his voice so as to be heard by the person with* 
 out ; " look at that window." 
 
 But when the lawyer and Dudley Carleon reached the win- 
 dow in question, there was nothing to be seen, only in the half- 
 darkness of the farmyard a figure was visible, leading the draught* 
 horses to the stable. 
 
 " I thonght so," said Theodore Broughton ; " the listener was 
 your bailiff, Ealph Purvis. I thought I could not be mistaken 
 in the glitter of those eyes. Dudley Carleon, my profession is 
 one which throws me into contact with strange people ; it may 
 have made me suspicious ; it may have made me only cautious. 
 All I say to you, as your friend and legal adviser, is this— 
 beware of that man!" 
 
 " My dear fellow, I have every respect for your legal acumen, 
 but you are quite wrong. I would trust Ealph Purvis with untold 
 gold'." 
 
 " Trust him with all the mines of California if you like ; but 
 do not trust him with your secrets." 
 
 Dudley Carleon' s face, pale before, suddenly flushed scarlet. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said the lawyer, " do you know that I con- 
 sider the fellow such a listener and a sneak, that did I not see 
 him yonder, out of reach of hearing, leading in those horses, I 
 should expect to turn round and find him at my elbow ? " 
 
 "Martha has taken coffee into the drawing-room, sir," said a 
 voice a few paces behind the two gentlemen. 
 
 Dudley and the lawyer turned sharply round. Ralph the 
 bailiff was standing a little way within the open door at the 
 other end of the room. 
 
 <; I was leading the horses in, sir, when I saw you two gentle- 
 men at the window ; so I gave them to William to hold, and ran 
 round here to tell you coffee was waiting." 
 
 When Dudley and his visitor went into the drawing-room 
 they found Martha Purvis busy with the cups and saucers on a 
 little table near the fire. Prim and demure, dressed in sombre 
 gray, and with straight black hair banded tightly under her 
 white cap, she moved about in the fire-lit room as softly as if 
 she had been the ghostly reproduction of one of the dark pic- 
 tures on the wainscoted wall. Wherever she moved in the 
 
A Shadow that Hears 
 
 13 
 
 ilickering light, she threw a shadow on the floor or the walls ; 
 and grim and distorted as this shadow always looked whereve? 
 it fell, it seemed to Dudley Carleon to have a deeper blackness 
 when it was cast npon him, the master of the Grey Farm. 
 
 The lawyer's horse was brought round to the front-door as 
 the timepiece in the drawing-room struck eight. Dudley fol- 
 lowed his friend out into the garden ; Ealph Purvis stood hold- 
 ing the bridle in his hand. 
 
 Theodore Broughton shrugged his shoulders at the sight of the 
 farm-bailiff, but sprang into the saddle without saying a word. 
 
 ** I will walk a little way with you, Broughton," said Dudley, 
 &3 the lawyer bade him good-night. 
 
 "Shall I come with you to open the gate, sir?" asked the 
 bailiff. 
 
 " No, I can do it myself." 
 
 It was quite dark, and a thick mist rose from the river by 
 which the two men went, the lawyer walking his horse, and 
 Dudley Carleon holding the rein as he guided the animal along 
 the narrow bank. 
 
 When they had reached the gate which marked the boundary 
 of the farm on the Olney side, the young man bade his friend 
 good-night, and walked slowly homewards. 
 
 A dark figure rose from the shelving river-bank, and stood by 
 his side. 
 
 "Can I have a word with thee, muster?" asked Ralph the 
 bailiff. . 
 
 "You can speak, I suppose?" said Dudley, without looking 
 up or evincing the least surprise at his servant's sudden aj)pear 
 ance on the bank. 
 
 But will 'ee listen?" 
 
 "Yes," answered his master, walking slowly oil, his head 
 bent down, and his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " And will 'ee answer what I ask thee ? " 
 
 " Perhaps!" 
 
 " Maybe I'd better not speak here ; one of the men might V 
 in yon fields, and listen " 
 
 " True, that might spoil jouv market." 
 
 "Where shall I speak, then, Muster Carleon p" 
 
 " In your own room, at the top of the back-stairs. But what 
 can you have to say to me to-night ? " 
 
 "Never thee mind what it be, Muster Carleon. Will 'ee hear 
 it ? Yes or no ; or shall I go into Olney and say it to yon 
 young lady, that " 
 
 " Do you want me to throw you into that river?" 
 
 "I'm not afeard, sir," said Ealph Purvis, with a grin; "it'd 
 make too much noise in the neighbourhood." 
 
 Dudley Carleon was silent for the rest of the way back to the 
 
14 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff. 
 
 house. He walked slowly, with his hat slouched over his eyes, 
 looking neither to the right nor the left ; the bailiff, keeping a 
 few Daces in advance of him, opened the gates as he approached, 
 and tell back respectfully for him to pass. As the owner of the 
 Grey Farm crossed the hall and opened the drawing-room door, 
 he turned round and said to his bailiff, in a voice loud enough to 
 lie heard by the domestic servants about the place, — 
 
 - Before you go to bed, Purvis, get your accounts ready for 
 me ; I'll come to your room and look them over." 
 
 The autumn winds swept with dismal voices, and strange, 
 inarticulate, complaining ciies, over the long flat stubbled fields 
 of the Grey Farm. The autumn mists rose in these bare fields 
 and the low meadows, and spread a ghostly veil over the land, 
 under which the slow river crawled onwards to the distant sea. 
 There seemed to be, in the nature of this deep and quiet river, 
 something akin to that of Ealph Purvis the bailiff. Like him, it 
 was dark and silent; like him, stealthy of foot and changeless in 
 purpose, it dogged your heels when you were unaware, and crept 
 stealthily after you through the obscurity of the night. Winding 
 and tortuous in its ways, like him, you came upon it as you 
 often came upon him, where you least expected to meet it ; and 
 the aspect of it, as the aspect of the dark-faced bailiff, filled 
 you with an instinctive and unreasonable distrust. Wretched 
 countrywomen had stolen down to the dismal bank and drowned 
 themselves quietly in reedy inlets where the water was deepest ; 
 twenty miles from the Grey Farm a son had stabbed his father 
 to the heart, and thrown the body, under the thick darkness, 
 into the treacherous tide, that rolled back the corpse and left it 
 in the morning light lying stark and ghastly upon the river-bank. 
 Horrible things were associated with this dismal water, and as 
 it wound and twisted close under the walls of the gaunt storae 
 mansion, it seemed to give a gloomier aspect even to the dark 
 pile of buildings that composed the dwelling-house of the Grey 
 Farm. 
 
 In the dead of the night, a light was visible to the bargemen 
 drifting with the tide down the winding river, a light burning in 
 a small window at the back of Dudley Carleon's house. 
 
 That lighted window belonged to the sitting-room of Ealph 
 Purvis the bailiff. 
 
 On the floor of this room lay a man with his pale face 
 splashed and smeared with the blood oozing from a cut on his 
 forehead. Another man, with a white face and angry blue eyes, 
 bent over him, with his knee upon his chest, and one hand 
 twisted in the folds of his coarse woollen neckerchief. 
 
 " You may kill me, and welcome, Muster Carleon," gasped 
 Balph the bailiff; "but so sure as I live that's the price of my 
 
A Shadow that Hears* 
 
 15 
 
 M Spy, sneak, listener ! get up and wash your face. To 
 uorrow you and your sister shall start for London. I'll 
 ow you in a week. " 
 
 "And you'll give us our price, Muster Carleon?" asked 
 Ralph Purvis, picking himself up, and deliberately wiping the 
 Dlood from his face with a red cotton handkerchief. 
 
 " To the uttermost farthing, extortioner, " said Dudley 
 fJarleon, as he opened the door of the little sitting-room with 
 a cautious hand, and stole down the flight of stairs leading to 
 uis own side of the house, 
 
 CHAPTER, III. 
 
 THE VISITOR AT THE EECTORY. 
 
 The June sunshine gilded the dingy bosom of the river, and 
 the grass grew long and luxuriant in the meadows of the Grey 
 Farm, when Dudley Carleon returned from a long visit to the 
 metropolis, and resumed his quiet and monotonous life of gen- 
 tleman farmer. He had been away from home for the best 
 part of the winter and of the spring, only coming down to 
 Lincolnshire now and then for a few days, or sometimes for a 
 week at a time, and then returning to London. The bailiff's 
 sister had left the farm for a situation, in York, of a lighter 
 character, as her brother said she had overworked herself in 
 that great house; and an old woman from Olney had been 
 elevated into the post of housekeeper at the Grey Farm. 
 
 Dudley Carleon appeared, if possible, more gloomy when he 
 returned than before he went away, and he certainly seemed 
 more than ever under the thrall of his inseparable retainer, 
 Ralph the bailiff. 
 
 Side by side the master and man walked slowly along the 
 river's bank, or round the great corn-fields, or paused at a gate 
 leading into a meadow shut up against the hay harvest, to 
 calculate the value of the crops. Side by side they loitered o* 
 an evening, watching the cattle grazing by the water-side, and 
 whoever happened to hear their conversation would generally 
 near Ealph the bailiff telling his master what a valuable pro- 
 perty he could make of the farm if he had only money enough 
 lor improvements. 
 
 A few days after Dudley's return Ealph was for onee in a 
 vay absent from the premises. His master had sent him to 
 the market- town, ten miles distant, to transact some business 
 delating to the farm, and he was not likely to get back till 
 aightfaH 
 
16 
 
 Ralph tlie Bailiff. 
 
 There was a public right of way through some green lanes, 
 and across some corn-fields and meadows on the farm. This led 
 from a village at a little distance into Olney. In one of these 
 green lanes, in which some of the dranght-horses on the farm 
 were tethered, Dudley Carleon sauntered, book in hand, as the 
 clocks of the distant village churches struck three. 
 
 The master of the Grey Farm, always looking downwards as 
 he walked, took no notice whatever of the wild roses in the 
 hedges, nor of the cowslips upon the grassy banks ; but he was 
 suddenly startled into looking up by the sound of the barking 
 of a dog a few hundred yards from him. 
 
 Following with his eyes the direction of this sound, he saw 
 
 Eerched upon a green mound, under the hawthorn bushes near 
 im, something so bright in colour, so radiant in appearance, so 
 airy and fluttering in motion, that he might almost have mis- 
 taken the something for a new and luxuriant sister of the gay 
 wild-flowers in the hedge. But coming a little nearer to the 
 strange blossom, he found himself face to face with a young 
 lady, dressed in pink muslin and a gipsy hat. 
 
 She was almost childlike in appearance, and excessively 
 pretty. She was brilliantly fair, and her pink cheeks were set 
 in a framework of showery golden curls, which trembled and 
 glistened in the summer breezes and the bright June sunshine. 
 Her eyes were of a tender blue, large and soft, and expressive 
 of the most innocent candour. She was very small, and all 
 she wore, from the lace which fell about her tiny straw hat to 
 the flowers of her sofb and airy muslin dress, floated about her 
 with a peculiar grace. A fairy dressed by a Parisian milliner 
 could not surpass this exquisite, fragile creature. 
 
 " Would you be so good," she said, " as to tell me the way to 
 Olney ? I insisted on rambling out to-day by myself, and have 
 been sufficiently punished for my obstinacy in having lost my 
 way. I have been sitting here very patiently for the last hour, 
 hoping to see some one pass." 
 
 Her voice was music itself, and her smile when she spoke 
 made her as bewitching as she was lovely. 
 
 Dudley told her that he was going towards Olney, and begged 
 to be allowed to escort her part of the way there. There was 
 something so unmistakably gentlemanly in his address, that 
 after one brief moment of hesitation the young lady accepted 
 his offer; and they strolled on side by side, the dog running 
 backwards and forwards before them, barking merrily. 
 
 She told him, in the course of their walk, that she was visit- 
 ing at the rectory, that her name was Jenny Trevor, that she 
 was an orphan, that Mr. Marlow was her guardian, and Agnea 
 Mariow her dearest friend. 
 
A Visitor at tlie Rectory. 
 
 17 
 
 They had to pass through a field close to Dudley Carleon 's 
 house, and then out to the river-bank which led to Olney. 
 
 As they came to the first gate, by the waterside, a man 05 
 horseback came slowiy towards them, and on approaching them 
 proved to be Ealph the bailiff. 
 
 He slid off his horse on seeing his master, and leading the 
 animal by the bridle, came up to the gate, which he opened for 
 Dudley and Miss Trevor. 
 
 " You are home early, Purvis," said Dudley. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; matters were managed quicker than I thought for, 
 and I wouldn't loiter. I 've settled with the haymakers for next 
 week, sir." 
 
 " That's right." 
 
 Ealph the bailiff still lingered, bridle in hand, by the open 
 gate; and from under his black lashes the gray eyes looked 
 furtwely, but searchingly, at Jenny Trevor. 
 
 Dudley seemed strangely embarrassed. He glanced from the 
 bailiff to the young girl, as if hesitating what to do ; and then 
 said, with considerable confusion of manner, — 
 
 " I think, Miss Trevor, I need scarcely bore you with my 
 society any longer. The next gate but one opens into the high- 
 road, and then you are in a straight line with Olney." 
 
 He raised his hat, and, with a glance of surprise, she bowed, 
 wished him good-day, and walked onwards. 
 
 " Now then," he said to Ealph the bailiff as soon as Miss 
 Trevor was out of hearing. 
 
 " Now then, Muster Carleon," echoed Ealph : " what a pretty 
 young lass yon is ! " 
 
 His master made no reply to this observation, but leaned list- 
 lestly with his elbows on the top bar of the gate and his chin in 
 his hands. 
 
 " Thee and her seemed mighty friendly, too," said Ealph pre* 
 gently, with a grin. 
 
 "What's that to you?" 
 
 " Maybe nothing — maybe something." 
 
 " She is a young lady staying at the rectory," said Dudley, 
 sulkily, and as if every word were being wrung from him 
 perforce ; " and I never saw her in my life till this afternoon. 
 She asked me to show her the way to Olney, and I did so. Will 
 that do?" 
 
 " Pretty near. She must be rather a forward lass, though, to 
 be so uncommon friendly." 
 
 A week after this Ealph Purvis left the Grey Farm, and 
 Dudley Carleon became a constant visitor at Olney Eectory. 
 It was strange that in his visits to the rectory he rarely met 
 with Agnes Mario w. If by any chance he happened to find 
 her at home, she would sit staring vacantly out at the window, 
 
18 
 
 "Ralph the Bailiff*. 
 
 never addressing him, and only answering by monosyllables 
 when he spoke to her, and she always took the earliest oppor- 
 tunity of leaving the room on some pretext or other. Jenny 
 Trevor at first complained to her friend of this ; but Agnes was 
 so reserved upon this subject, that Jenny — who was always a 
 little overawed by the rector's daughter, with her cold serious 
 black eyes and her careworn face — dared not press it further. 
 
 " We are not accountable for our prejudices, Jenny," shu 
 would say ; " I do not like Dudley Carleon." 
 
 " But you have no reason to dislike him, have you, Agnes ?" 
 
 " None — that I can reconcile with my duty as a Christian. 
 I am the daughter of a minister of the Gospel of Christ ; I go 
 to church three times on a Sunday ; I visit the sick, and I give 
 my money to the poor; but for all that I may not be a 
 Christian ; perhaps I am not, when Dudley Carleon is con- 
 cerned. Do not talk to me — do not question me, Jenny. I 
 hate him ! " 
 
 Her dark eyes shone with a feverish lustre, and she clenched 
 her slender wasted hand as she repeated, " God have mercy 
 upon me, and upon his soul ! I hate him ! " 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE "WEDDING-DAY. 
 
 The Olney people were surprised to miss the dark face of 
 Ralph Purvis from among the haymakers in Dudley Carleon'a 
 meadows; but the young man told his acquaintance that he 
 had been induced to purchase a small farm in Buckinghamshire, 
 and that he had intrusted his bailiff with the management 
 of it. 
 
 Ralph had been a hard and a churlish taskmaster; he waa 
 regretted by no one, unless indeed by his employer, who received 
 about once a. week a letter, directed in a small, cramped hand, 
 bearing the postmark of a village in Buckinghamshire. Every 
 week, too, Dudley Carleon rode into Olney for a post-office 
 order, payable to Ralph Purvis; and those who watched the 
 young man's movements began to say that his new farm was 
 cos&ng him more money than it would ever bring him back. 
 But before the harvest there was a talk of his marrying a young 
 lady with a fortune, or at least what was called a fortune in 
 Olney. Jenny Trevor had six thousand pounds. She would be 
 of age in September, and she was, people said, engaged to be 
 married to Dudley Carleon. 
 
 Was she engaged to him ? No. She su&dred him to follow 
 ner about as some sulky but faithful dog follows a beloved 
 paster. Sfoe allowed herself to fall into a sort of tacit com met 
 
i v ne Wedding -Day 
 
 19 
 
 with him ; she neither repelled his silent attentions, nor with- 
 drew herself from his society, however often he came to the 
 rectory. 
 
 " I cannot help it," she said one day to Agnes; " he is in the 
 drawing-room at this moment ; I know it, though I have neither 
 seen nor heard him come in ; and I must go to him, though I do 
 not wish to go. What am I to do, Agnes ? " 
 
 " Come with me to Scarborough ; you know that I am going 
 to-morrow, and shall not return here for two or three months. 
 Choose, Jenny, whether you will come with me, or stay here 
 with papa to become the wife of that man." 
 
 " Agnes, I will go with you ! " 
 
 The two girls set to work immediately to pack their trunks, 
 and made all their arrangements for starting by the next 
 morning's express for Scarborough; but that evening, seated 
 in the dusky twilight in the deep bow-window of the rectory 
 drawing-room, Dudley Carleon made Jenny Trevor promise that 
 sne would be his wife the very day on which she came of age. 
 
 After he had left the house, Agnes Mario w found her friend 
 sobbing hysterically, with her head upon the sill of the open 
 window, and the scented blossoms of a clematis trailing over 
 her curls. 
 
 "Jenny, what is the matter ? " 
 
 " I must stay here, Agnes ; I cannot go with you to-morrow." 
 
 "You are your own mistress, Jenny, and must choose for 
 yourself. God help you, if you forget what I have said." 
 
 Jenny's loud sobs were her only answer to these ominous 
 words. 
 
 Before a sheaf of golden corn had fallen under the sickle, 
 Mr. Marlow had married Dudley Carleon and Jenny Trevor in 
 Olney Church. 
 
 Her wedding-day was that on which she came of age, as she 
 had promised her lover. Everything was arranged very quietly, 
 not to say secretly, and by Dudley Carleon's wish no intimation 
 of the event had been sent to Agnes Marlow. 
 
 It was one of the glorious and burning summer days so often 
 seen at the beginning of autumn. The lazy cattle slept in the 
 flat meadows, and the narrow river dragged its slow course 
 under a hot yellow haze. The corn-fields were gaudy with vivid 
 patches of purple and scarlet, and the golden grain scarcely 
 stirred in the still air. The bride looked lovely, with her simple 
 robes of lace and muslin frittering round her, and with her 
 golden ringlets shining in the sun. 
 
 "A handsome couple!" said the villagers grouped about the 
 church-porch. Every one seemed in high spirits. Even the 
 bridegroom had thrown off his habitual moodiness, and pride 
 >nd triumph shone m his sombre blue eyes. One sinister event. 
 
20 
 
 Balph the Bailiff, 
 
 however, threw a cloud over the conclusion of the ceremony. 
 
 As Dudley Carleon turned from the altar to lead his young bride 
 into the vestry, he found himself face to face with a glistening 
 tablet of white marble — a tablet so newly put up upon the wall 
 ihat the mortar at the edges was still damp, and the workman's 
 fools lay in the pew beneath : — 
 
 *' Sacred to the Memory of Martin Carleok, 
 Obiit September 24, 1849, setat. 23. 
 This monument is erected by his affectionate and sorrowful brother, 
 Dudley Carleon." 
 
 The village stonemason, an idle and dilatory man, had received 
 the order for this tablet nearly a year before, and had only com- 
 pleted his work upon the eve of Mr. Carleon's wedding-day. 
 
 When the wedding-party returned to the rectory, they found 
 a fly from the station standing at the gate. 
 
 " Can Agnes have returned ? " said Mr. Marlow. 
 
 Dudley's face had paled at the sight of the tablet upon the 
 church wall, but it grew still whiter now. 
 
 " Jenny," he said, clutching the little gloved hand that lay 
 upon his strong arm, " Agnes Marlow is a madwoman ; what- 
 ever she says to you, remember that." 
 
 " Dudley, what do you mean ?" 
 
 " Good heavens ! How do I know what she may not say ? 
 Do you suppose that I have not perceived her prejudice against 
 meP" 
 
 Pale and careworn, with her dress dusty and disordered from 
 her hasty journey, and her long dark hair falling loosely about 
 her thin face, Agnes Marlow met the bridal party in the sunlit 
 hall. 
 
 She did not speak either to her father or to Dudley, but 
 grasping the bride's slender wrist with a convulsive strength, 
 she said, — 
 
 " Am I too late — am I too late, after all ? Are you married ? " 
 " Yes," said Dudley firmly, looking at her with an impatient 
 frown. 
 
 She seemed neither to hear nor to see him. 
 
 " Jenny," she repeated, *' are you married? 5 ' 
 
 " Yes," answered the terror-stricken girl. 
 
 " 0, that I should be too late ; that I should not be told of 
 this in time ! But come, come with me, J enny, to my room." 
 
 "Jenny, Mrs. Carleon, I forbid you to do so!" cried her 
 husband. 
 
 " Forbid her !" echoed Agnes, with a harsh, discordant laugh, 
 turning her large lustrous eyes for the first time towards Dudley 
 Carleon. " Shall I tell her here, at the foot of these stairs, 
 before the servants — those people round the door — before my 
 
The Wedding -Day. 
 
 21 
 
 father — before you ? Shall I tell her that which I have to tell 
 her before a crowd of witnesses, Dudley Carleon ? " 
 
 He turned away from the wan and burning eyes, and taking 
 her father aside, whispered to him. 
 Come, Jenny, come I" cried Agnes. 
 
 She dragged rather than led the wretched girl up the stairs 
 into her own room, locked the door, and then sank exhausted 
 into a chair by the bed. The windows were open, the birds 
 singing loudly among the honeysuckle and jasmine clustering 
 round the house ; and through the open windows a flood of sun- 
 shine streamed upon the pale faces of the two girls. 
 
 Jenny fell on her knees sobbing, and clinging to the rector's 
 daughter, 
 
 " 0, Agnes, have pity upon me ! remember it is my wedding- 
 day." 
 
 " I cannot pity you, Jenny. I can remember nothing. I tell 
 you my heart is not wide enough to hold anything but hatred-^ 
 hatred of him." 
 
 "Agnes!" 
 
 " If I crush out your heart as my heart has been crushed — if 
 I am to blight your life as mine has been blighted — if he is as 
 dear to you as his dead brother was to me, still I must speak, 
 Do you know what he is — this man — whom you have sworn to 
 love and cherish ? " 
 
 "Agnes !" 
 
 " J enny Carleon — 0, misery, that I should have to call you 
 by that name ! — when I received my father's letter this morning, 
 telling me of your purposed marriage, I thought I should gd 
 mad ; but do not judge me by my disordered looks or by my 
 bewildered manner. Listen to me, you most ill-advised, un- 
 happy girl. I cannot tell you what I know, I can only tell you 
 what I believe so firmly, that if my words were to lay you dead 
 at my feet, I would say them rather than see you pass over the 
 threshold of that man's house." 
 
 " 0, Agnes ! my wedding-day — my wedding-day !" 
 
 She held out her entreating hands as if she would have 
 warded off the cruel words as she would ward a blow. 
 
 " Dudley Carleon poisoned his brother Martin ! " 
 
 One long piteous wail escaped from the white lips of the bride, 
 as she fell prostrate at the feet of Agnes. 
 
 " I have no proof of this, or I would have made that pro(K 
 ring through the length and breadth of the land. I have nt? 
 proof, but I have— conviction ! " 
 
 Jenny lifted her white face from the floor, and dragging her* 
 eelf on to her knees, once more looked up at the speaker. 
 
 " No proof?" 
 
 "None. But I know it— I know it! I was at the Grey 
 
22 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff'. 
 
 Farm on the night of Martin Carleon's death. I saw that 
 man's ghastly face and shaking hand as he stood by his brother's 
 bedside meddling with the medicine-bottles. It was from his 
 hand the draught was taken which was to allay, but which only 
 increased, the mortal sickness, and tormenting thirst, and 
 turning fever. His dark shadow was never lifted from that 
 weary bed. Fidelity! Devotion! Yes, the fidelity of a mur- 
 derer to his deadly purpose ; the devotion of the executioner to 
 his unconscious victim. I tell you, child, our eyes met only once 
 upon that awful night, and in that one glance I saw and knew 
 his guilt. I know it : and he knows that I know it." 
 " Agnes, Agnes !" 
 
 " Martin Carleon died from the effects of slow poison adminis- 
 tered by his brother. JS~ow go back to your husband. I have 
 done with you, Mrs. Carleon !" 
 
 "0, Agnes! how cruel, how heartless, how pitiless and 
 unchristian! And is it by a vague suspicion — an idea as 
 unfounded as it is hideous — that you would brand an innocent 
 man ? I pity you, Agnes, for being the victim to so horrible a 
 delusion." 
 
 She rose from her knees, and going to the toilet-table, wiped 
 away her blinding tears, and rearranged her hair with a hand 
 that scarcely trembled. As she did this, she watched the reflec- 
 tion of Agnes Marlow's haggard face in the glass before which 
 she stood. She began to think that Dudley Carleon must indeed 
 be right, and that grief had driven the rector's daughter mad. 
 Agnes sat on the little white- curtained bed, with hollow eyes, 
 following Jenny's rapid movements at the dressing-table. 
 
 " God help us both !" she murmured, clasping her attenuated 
 hands; " God help us," and lend us His light to guide us in this 
 blind, dark world. Something stronger than myself possessed 
 me, and I cvvld not keep silence." 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 A CHEERLESS HEARTH. 
 
 Agnes Marlow returned to Scarborough. Her health wa& 
 broken, her spirits gone, and there were people in Olney who 
 shared Duv^y Carleon'3 opinion, and believed that her reason 
 had been in some degree unsettled by her lover's untimely 
 death. 
 
 The first four months of Jenny Carleon's married life passed 
 peacefully away. Dudley was a kind and an attentive husband, 
 and there was no fault whatever to be found with him in his 
 new position. The Grey Farm was certainly rather a dull 
 abode for Jenny, whose life had been chiefly spent at a board- 
 
A Cheerless Hearth. 
 
 23 
 
 ing-school at the West-end of London; but she had her piano, 
 her oooks and drawing-materials, a pet dog, and an old gray 
 pony, on which she rode abont her husband's fields while he 
 superintended the men; for since Ralph's departure Dudley 
 Darleon had devoted himself entirely to the management of his 
 farm. 
 
 Not a word had ever been uttered by Mrs. Oarleon on the 
 subject of that stormy interview between herself and Agnes 
 Marlow. Often in the dead of the night she awoke suddenly 
 by the side of her sleeping husband, with the echo of those 
 terrible words ringing in her ears, as if some one had just 
 spoken them at her pillow. She had never for one moment 
 thought of them except as of the hallucination of an enfeebled 
 mind ; but she could nc more forget them than she could forget 
 her own name. 
 
 Sometimes seated alone in the twilight, by the fire in the low 
 oak parlour, surrounded by the distorted shadows of the furni- 
 ture upon the dark panelled walls, thinking of things as far 
 away from the scene of her bridal morning as it is possible for 
 one thing to be from another— in a moment, in a breath, a 
 hissing whisper at her ear would shape with supernatural dis- 
 tinctness these two horrible sentences, — 
 
 " Dudley Carleon poisoned his brother Martin." 
 
 " Martin Carleon died from the effects of slow poison admin- 
 istered by his brother." 
 
 But this was not the worst; for she could find that by 
 degrees she grew to be perpetually repeating these words to 
 herself involuntarily, as one repeats a line of verse from mere 
 absence of mind. At her needlework, busy with her pencils 
 and colours — even at the piano — she caught herself silentJy 
 reiterating these hateful phrases. They would fit themselves 
 to the notes of her favourite pieces of music, and she trembled 
 to think that one day she might unconsciously utter them 
 aloud. 
 
 The new year came, cold and rainy. The weather kept Jenny 
 a prisoner to the house. Dudley was often out. She had few 
 visitors, for her Olney acquaintances dreaded the wet walk on 
 the muddy bank of the river. 
 
 " Why had she married Dudley Carleon ?" 
 
 She sometimes asked herself this question, as if she had 
 suddenly awoke from a long sleep to find herself in a strange 
 country. 
 
 She did not love him, she did not even admire him, but 
 she had allowed him to gain so strong an influence over her, 
 that it was only now and then she remembered this, — only 
 now and then she asked herself wonderingly, "Why did I 
 marry him ? " 
 
24 
 
 Balph the Bailiff. 
 
 She was not unhappy, — only sometimes lonely and dreary k M 
 the gaunt stone house, with its great comfortless rooms and low 
 oaken ceilings, that always seemed to her as if they would some 
 day slowly descend and crush her to death. 
 
 The light-hearted girl grew grave and quiet amongst the 
 shadows of the solemn farmhouse. Dudley, kind as he was, 
 was silent and reserved, and had fits of such strange abstrac- 
 tion, of pre- occupation so intense and gloomy, that his wife 
 shrank from addressing him. She would sit at her drawing- 
 board with the pencil in her hand, and the colours drying on 
 her palette, watching his rigid face as he sat by the hearth with 
 an unread book open in his hand. 
 
 There were times when his silence would exercise so op- 
 pressive an influence upon her, that she was fain to steal 
 quietly from the room, and remain away for hours ; only to find 
 him, perhaps, on her return, in the same attitude, with un- 
 changed countenance, sitting brooding over a heap of black 
 cinders. 
 
 He would apologise for these long reveries by saying he was 
 tired, that he overworked himself, that the farm gave him a 
 great deal of trouble, or that he was anxious about his Buck- 
 inghamshire property. 
 
 One morning, towards the end of J anuary, he found a letter 
 lying on the breakfast-table in the stiff handwriting of hia 
 bailiff. It was a much longer letter than usual, and Jenny saw 
 by her husband's face that its contents were not agreeable. 
 
 " Jenny, I shall have to go to Buckinghamshire," said Dudley. 
 
 " To Buckinghamshire ! Why ? " 
 
 " Kalph's letter tells me he is in a difficulty about the farm, 
 and must have my advice before he stirs a step ; I must go this 
 very morning." 
 
 Before she could answer him he had crumpled the letter in 
 his hand, flung it into the fire, and left the room. She heard 
 him ordering his horse to be brought round immediately. He 
 came in hurriedly to wish her good-bye, promised to return to 
 Lincolnshire in a day or two, and galloped off to catch the 
 London express. 
 
 Beserved and silent as her husband was, J enny felt unhappy 
 in this his first absence. The servants, and the great rough 
 farming-men about the place, were strange to her, — their very 
 dialect almost unintelligible. She was lonely and uncomfortable 
 among them, and she wandered in and out of the solitary rooms 
 in which the great bare windows opened upon the chill winter 
 sky, longing for Dudley's return. 
 
 Two days and two nights, and the best part of the third day 
 dragged themselves out, and he had not returned. 
 
 "He will come to-night/' she said; and she ordered huge 
 
A Cheerless Hearth. 
 
 25 
 
 fires to be piled in the grates, till the flames went roaring up 
 the wide chimneys, and a red reflection shone in every panel of 
 the dark wainscot. 
 
 It was a bitter evening; but at five o'clock, the hour at 
 which a London train came in, she went out with a shawl 
 thrown loosely over her head, and stood for a long time, looking 
 anxiously down the dim pathway by the river-bank. She did 
 not return to the honse until the Olney clocks chimed the three- 
 quarters after five. 
 
 "He will be here by the nine-o'clock train," she said; but 
 seven, eight, nine^ ten o'clock struck ; the fire burned low, and 
 her heart sank with a weary feeling of loneliness, for still he 
 did not come. 
 
 The old housekeeper, and the parlour-maid who waited upon 
 Mrs. Carleon, recommended her to go to bed, for ten o'clock was 
 considered a late hour at the Grey Farm; but there was a 
 mail-train that came into Olney at half-past one in the morning, 
 and Jenny insisted on sitting up in case her husband should 
 come by that. She sent the servants to bed after having made 
 one of them instruct her in the mysteries of the bolts, bars, 
 and chains of the hall-door; and, the fires having been once 
 more replenished, she sat down in her low chair by the hearth 
 to wear out the three hours which must elapse before her hus- 
 band's return. 
 
 She drew closer and closer to the blazing fire, she wrapped 
 herself in a thick shawl, but in spite of all she shivered 
 violently. 
 
 " I have caught Martin Carleon's ague," she said, " on the 
 bank of that dismal river." 
 
 The words seemed to strike a chill to her heart, for they 
 brought back the scene of her wedding-day, and Agnes Marlow's 
 horrible accusation. 
 
 A portrait of the last owner of the farm hung in the shadow 
 at the end of the room — a frank, genial face, with waving chest- 
 nut hair and bright blue eyes. The thought of the dead man 
 haunted her in the dreary silence. She tried not to look at his 
 picture; she turned her back to the panel where it' hung. 
 What if his likeness should descend from the shadowy panel, 
 and, stealing noiselessly behind her, lay an impalpable hand 
 upon her shonlder? She was not superstitious, but her mo- 
 notonous life had weakened her nerves, and she felt as if sho 
 were alone with the dead. What if this painted image should 
 shape itself into a phantom, and approach her ? What if on 
 rushing to the door to escape the phantom, she should find it 
 locked, and herself a prisoner with this ghastly companion P 
 What if those painted lips were to be miraculously unsealed. 
 
£6 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff. 
 
 and an unearthly voice were to tell her that the words uttered 
 by Agnes Mario w were an awful truth ? 
 
 The cold perspiration broke out in great beads upon her 
 forehead. 
 
 " I shall go mad," she said, " if I am long alone." 
 
 Once she rose from her seat, determined to call up one of the 
 servants, but she had not the courage to traverse the dark hall 
 and the back staircase leading to their rooms — scarcely courage 
 to pass the picture hanging between the fireplace and the door. 
 
 What, she thought, if she had indeed caught the ague or the 
 fever that had killed her husband's brother? ^That if she lay for 
 weeks upon a weary bed, tended and watched by Dudley 
 Carleon P Every syllable spoken by Agnes came back to her, 
 and she seemed to see her husband, with a quiet step and a 
 white, tremulous hand, jingling the thin glass of the medicine- 
 bottles. The slow hands of the clock above the chimney-piece 
 went silently round. She heard the distant chimes of Olney 
 church, each several quarter seeming an hour to her impatience. 
 
 One — a quarter past — half-past — three-quarters : two — a 
 quarter past two. The last white ashes dropped through the 
 lowest bars of the grate. Three loud blows resounded upon the 
 stout panel of the hall-door. 
 
 "0, thank Heaven, thank Heaven !" she said, springing from 
 her seat ; " how stupid have I been, and how I can afford to 
 laugh at myself now that he has come ! " 
 
 She caught up a candle from the table, flew into the hall, 
 and began to unfasten the door, holding the candle still in one 
 hand, and fumbling with the bolts, in her nervous but joyful 
 agitation. 
 
 "Dudley," she said, " Dudley, I won't be long; be patient, I 
 won't be long." But the heavy blows were repeated upon the 
 door, and a gruff voice, muffled by the thick oak, uttered some 
 impatient words. 
 
 A sudden terror seized her. 
 
 "Can he have been drinking?" she thought, "his voice 
 pounds so thick and strange." 
 
 " Dudley — now, now I have managed it." 
 
 She turned the key with a great effort, and, letting down the 
 chain, opened the door to its utmost width. 
 
 She felt for the first time in her life as if she really loved 
 Dudley Carleon. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, 
 to cling to him for protection and shelter. 
 
 A man in a slouched felt hat, a dark smock-frock, leathern 
 gaiters, and great hob-nailed boots, strode across the threshold. 
 
 The lower part of his face was muffled in a coarse woollen 
 handkerchief, but two sinister gray eyes looked out from under 
 the shade of his hat 
 
A Cheerless Hearth. 
 
 27 
 
 Jenny did not remember having seen this man before, but 
 the shock she experienced in meeting a stranger instead of her 
 husband gave her an unwonted courage. She caught hold of a 
 rope hanging near the doorway, a rope communicating with a 
 great bell on the roof of the house, which was used to summon 
 the men to their meals and to wake them in the morning. 
 "Who are you?" she said, as the man flung down a knotted 
 stick and a bundle in a red cotton handkerchief, and was about 
 to pass her in the direction of the kitchen." 
 
 "Who are you?" she asked. 
 
 " Muster Carleon's bailiff, and maybe with as good a right to 
 come into this house as Muster Oarleon himself," said the man 
 insolently. 
 
 " 0, you are Purvis the bailiff, are you ? Has your master 
 sent you home ? " 
 
 "Yes, I am Purvis; but my master ha'n't sent me home. 
 And pray, my pretty curly-haired Miss, who may you be ? " 
 
 " Your master's wife," said Jenny haughtily. 
 
 The man stared at her rudely for two or three moments before 
 he spoke. 
 
 " My master's what ?" 
 
 " His wife — Mrs. Oarleon," she said, looking him full in the 
 face, terrified, but not daunted, by his insolence. 
 
 The bailiff burst into a loud hoarse laugh. 
 
 " Mr. Dudley Carleon's wife ! His right-down lawful wife ! 
 O, you're that, are you ? Give me the light," he said, snatching 
 the silver candlestick from her hand ; " let's have a look at you, 
 then, for you're a bit of a curiosity." 
 
 Jenny's hand had never left the rope ; she pulled it violently, 
 and the bell upon the roof clamoured and shook through the 
 winter night. 
 
 Three or four half-dressed men came tumbling down the back 
 staircase before the bell had ceased ringing. 
 
 " This man says he is my husband's bailiff," said Jenny, as 
 they crowded round her; " take him to his room and look after 
 him. He has insulted me ; but as he is evidently tipsy, I shall 
 ask no explanation until Mr. Carleon's return. Send Sarah to 
 my room, James," she added to one of the farm-servants, whose 
 face she knew ; " I will not sleep in the house alone while that 
 man is under this roof." 
 
 " 0, indeed, my lass ; do you think I'd murder you ?" 
 
 " I think you are a bad man," said Jenny, looking back at the 
 bailiff as she slowly ascended the broad staircase. 
 
 " I wouldn't stay here at all, if you're so timid, Miss," said 
 Ralph, with a sneering laugh ; " there's others besides me, per- 
 haps, to be afraid of at the Grey Farm." 
 
23 Ralph the Bailiff. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Ill THE DEAD OE THE NIGHT. 
 
 Dudley Carleon came home early the next day, and found his 
 wife confined to her room by a violent cold, while Ralph Purvis 
 Bat smoking his pipe over the kitchen-fire. 
 
 The young man was evidently unprepared for his bailiff's 
 arrival. 
 
 " What brought you down here ? " he asked angrily. 
 
 "My business, and yours," muttered Ealph, without taking 
 his pipe from his mouth. 
 
 Dudley Carleon did not answer, but led the way into the 
 dining-room, where he and Purvis were closeted together for 
 nearly two hours. 
 
 In the course of this long interview the servants heard their 
 master's voice raised several times as if in anger, but the bailiff's 
 not once. 
 
 Mrs. Carleon came downstairs in the evening to her favourite 
 seat by the fireplace in the oak-parlour. She had told her 
 husband of Ralph's conduct on his arrival ; she had told him, 
 indeed, that she could not live happily while the bailiff was in 
 the house. 
 
 " My dear Jenny, the man is unfortunately so useful to me 
 that I cannot afford to get rid of him," said Dudley ; " but I 
 shall send him back to Buckinghamshire in a week, at the 
 latest; in the meantime he must apologise to you." He rang 
 the bell, and the bailiff came in, turning his hat round in his 
 two great hands ; sleek, humble, and respectful ; utterly different 
 from what he had been at half-past two o'clock that morning. 
 
 He made an elaborate and rambling apology, with a cringmg 
 politeness of manner, but with a sulky face and an ominous 
 glitter in his deep- set gray eyes. He seemed as if he had been 
 tutored in what he was to say ; or almost as if he had been 
 repeating something learned from a book. But the ground of 
 his excuse was, that he had been drinking on the previous night, 
 and was a little off his head, as he called it. 
 
 Mrs. Carleon bowed gravely when he had finished. 
 
 u Then you will look over it, Jenny ? " asked her husband 
 
 " 0, certainly," she replied coldly, turning away her head, for 
 she hated to feel the glittering eyes of the bailiff fixed upon her 
 face. 
 
 "If Agnes had told me that man was a poisoner, I could 
 almost have believed her," she thought, as Ralph left the room. 
 
 Jenny's cold lasted for some days, and at her husband's 
 request the surgeon from Olney rode r»w on© morning to sea 
 her. 
 
In the Dead of the Night. 
 
 2d 
 
 " A slight attack of influenza," he said, " nothing more ; Mrs. 
 Carleon is a little debilitated ; I will send her some strengthen- 
 ing medicine." 
 
 " It is not ague, is it ? 99 asked J enny anxiouslj. 
 
 " Ague ! 0 dear no, nothing of the kind." 
 
 "Nor fever?" 
 
 "No; you are not in the least feverish." 
 
 u Why, Jenny, what are you thinking of P " asked her husband. 
 
 " I was thinking of your brother Martin's death, and wonder- 
 ing whether any of my symptoms resembled his." 
 
 Dudley Carleon started half out of his chair, and looked 
 earnestly at his wife's face ; then, sighing deeply, he said, as he 
 reseated himself, — 
 
 " Heaven forbid, Jenny ! One such death as poor Martin's ia 
 enough in a family." 
 
 Mrs. Carleon was seated opposite to one of the windows ; and 
 looking up at this moment, she saw the dark face of the bailiff 
 between herself and the winter sky. 
 
 He was standing on a short ladder, busy pruning a creeping 
 plant that grew over the house ; and she saw that he had opened 
 the window a couple of inches at the top, in order to extricate a 
 branch that had been shut in. 
 
 " I wish you would send that man back to your other farm, 
 Dudley," she said ; " he is always hanging about the house." 
 
 The medicines did not come till rather late in the evening. In 
 spite of herself, Jenny could not forget what Agnes Marlow had 
 said, and she wondered whether her Lusband would offer to ad- 
 minister them to her. 
 
 He was seated at his desk, writing, when the maid-servant 
 brought in the beetles ; and he did not even look up as Jennr 
 took them from their paper coverings. 
 
 "I am going to take my medicine, Dudley," she said. 
 
 " That's right, Jenny," he answered, without raising his heat 
 
 She felt an intense relief at finding him so indifferent ; she 
 had never confessed to herself that she could possibly be brought 
 to suspect him ; but a load seemed lifted from her mind by this 
 most simple circumstance. 
 
 ^ The next day, and the next, she continued to take her medi- 
 cines without the slightest notice from her husband. He was 
 kind and attentive, asked often after her health, but said nothing 
 about the medical treatment ; he evidently attached very little 
 importance to the slight attack of influenza. 
 
 On the third day the surgeon called again at the Grey Farm, 
 He found Jenny in her old place by the fire, Dudley reading the 
 newspaper opposite to he*, and Ralph Purvis mending the lock 
 of the door. 
 
 The bailiff was very handy as a smith, carpenter, or painte 
 
80 
 
 Balph the Bailiff*. 
 
 and there always seemed something for him to do about the honsc 
 now. 
 
 This time the surgeon looked grave, as he felt his patient'8 
 pulse, 
 
 " You have not been taking my medicines, Mrs. Carleon," he 
 said. 
 
 " Yes, indeed, I have taken them very regularly; have I not, 
 Dudley ?" 
 
 " Why, to tell you the truth, I haven't watched you closely 
 enough to be able to vouch for your integrity, Jenny," said her 
 husband. 
 
 " Then there is more debility than I thought, Mrs. Carleon. 
 We must try and set you up again, however." 
 
 Jenny's eyes wandered involuntarily to the portrait of Martin 
 Carleon. 
 
 "Is there any fever?" she asked, looking up anxiously at 
 thejsurgeon's face, as he stood before her, with his fingers on her 
 wrist. 
 
 " Why — yes, you are rather more feverish than you were a day 
 or two ago," he said with some hesitation. 
 
 Her face grew suddenly white ; but she said nothing. When 
 the surgeon had taken his departure, she rose from her chair, and 
 seemed as if she was going to run out of the room. Ralph the 
 bailiff, on his knees at the threshold of the half- open door, rattled 
 away at the lock he was mending. Kneeling where he did, he 
 seemed to present an impassable barrier between the mistress of 
 the Grey Farm and the world without. 
 
 Dudley Carleon dropped the newspaper, as he started to his feet. 
 
 " Jenny ! Jenny ! what is the matter with you. P " 
 
 "I want to get out of the house," she said, looking about her 
 wildly ; " I want to run away. I know that if I stay here I shall 
 die as he did !" 
 
 She pointed to Martin's picture on the wall before her, 
 
 "Jenny!" 
 
 " 0, forgive me ! forgive me, Dudley ! " she said, throwing her* 
 self into her husband's arms, and sobbing hysterically : " I dfc 
 not doubt you — I esteem, respect, and love you. I know ho?* 
 foolish I am, and hate myself for my folly ; but I am frighten.^' 
 - -X am frightened ! " 
 
Master and Slave. 
 
 31 
 
 CHAPTER YI1. 
 
 MASTER. AND SLAVE. 
 
 In spite of the doctor's attention, in spite of her own care, Jenny 
 Carleon did not regain her health. She felt herself gradually 
 growing weaker ; she felt that, by such slow degrees as were 
 almost imperceptible, her strength was ebbing away from her. 
 It was only by looking back at the end of a week, and remem- 
 bering that seven days before she had been able to do this or that, 
 which she was utterly powerless to do now, that she discovered 
 how much she had changed. She struggled hard against this 
 daily diminution of her strength, for she seemed to have an 
 unreasonable horror of being confined to her room; but she 
 succumbed at last, and kept her bed day after day. A good- 
 tempered maid-servant waited upon her, and brought her medi- 
 cines, which she poured out herself. 
 
 Her husband came into her room several times a day to ask 
 after her health. He brought her piles of novels obtained for her 
 from a circulating library in the market-town; but he still ap- 
 peared to make light 01 her illness, and was so much occupied 
 about the farm that he could seldom stay with her for any length 
 of time. 
 
 She used to ask every morning whether Ealph the bailiff was 
 going away that day, always to be told that he was not, but that 
 he would leave in a day or two at the latest. Once, after having 
 received this answer, she turned her head round impatiently upon 
 her pillow, and, with her face to the wall, burst into tears. 
 
 " Jenny, what is the matter with you ? " asked her husband. 
 
 She did not answer ; but he could see that her slight fram# 
 was shaken by her sobs. 
 
 " Jenny, I insist upon knowing the meaning of this." 
 
 She lifted her head from the pillow, supported herself upoa 
 her elbow, and, putting her hair away from her tear-stained face, 
 said to him solemnly, " Dudley Carleon, the presence of that man 
 is killing me, day by day, and hour by hour. Shut up in thi@ 
 room, I cannot see him ; but I can feel and know that an unseen 
 influence is sapping my very life, and that influence is his. If 
 you are not his slave, if you are not bound to him by some tie 
 too fearful to be broken, send him from this house ; or, if I have 
 strength to crawl out of it, I will go myself." 
 
 "Jenny, Jenny, this is an invalid's fancy. Don't give *na 
 reason to think you are as mad as Agnes Mario w." 
 
 " Dudley Carleon, will you send that man away P " 
 
 " Since you are so silly, yes. He shall go to-night." 
 
 She held out her wasted little hand to him with a smile. 
 
 "Do this, Dudley," she said, "and I shall think that jm 
 lovem*-* 
 
82 
 
 Halph the Bailiff. 
 
 Something in the tone of her voice, in the sad but gentle ex* 
 pression of her face, touched his reserved and undemonstrative 
 nature. Dudley Carleon clasped her suddenly to his breast, 
 and, hiding his face upon her shoulder, sobbed aloud. 
 
 u 0, my poor little wife," he said, " what is to become of us- 
 what is to become of us ? " 
 
 f< Dudley, Dudley, don't cry. You terrify — you grieve me ! " 
 
 He rose from his seat by the bedside, and brushed the tear?, 
 from his eyes. 
 
 "I am a fool, Jenny; for I distress you and myself. But 
 make your mind easy, Ralph shall go to-night. As there is f\ 
 heaven above us, he shall go to-night !" 
 
 He turned out of the room as he finished speaking. It was 
 now late in February; there had been continued wet weather for 
 upwards of a week, and on this day the rain beat incessantly 
 against the windows of Jenny's room. The sky without was 
 dull and leaden, and the wind whistled in the long corridor out- 
 side the door. Jenny found her novels very uninteresting. The 
 volumes were too heavy for her to hold, and they dropped out of 
 her weak hands and slid off the counterpane on to the floor. 
 She lay, hour after hour, listening to every sound in the house 
 — to the servants passing now and then across the hall below, to 
 the occasional opening and shutting of a door, to the striking 
 of the clocks, and to the barking of the sheep-dog in the back 
 premises. The day was long and dreary, and the invalid welcomed 
 the winter twilight and the maid- servant who brought her tea. 
 
 "Who makes my tea, Mary?" Jenny asked, as the girl 
 arranged the things on a table by the bed. 
 
 " I do, ma'am." 
 
 " And* nobody ever touches it but yourself?" 
 
 "Nobody as I knows of, ma'am. I leave the teapot on the 
 oven-top when I ve mashed the tea, for it to draw. I 'm some- 
 times out of the kitchen ; but I don't suppose any one would 
 touch it." 
 
 " Is Ealph Purvis ortaa in the kitchen ?" 
 
 "Well, he is> ma- am, pretty well always about there. The 
 weather's too bad for him to be much about the farm now, and 
 he's very handy indoors." 
 
 Half an hour afterwards, when the girl came to take the tray, 
 she found the tea untouched ; and her mistress told her to remove 
 the tea-things, as she had do inclination either to eat or drink. 
 
 The ceaseless and monotonous rain seemed to Jenny as if it 
 Trere bent on flooding the Grey Farm that evening. The cold 
 wind crept under the door of her room till the stiff folds of the 
 heavy damask bed-curtains rustled. The sashes of the windows 
 rattled every now and then, as if an angry hand had beeo 
 beating at them from without, 
 
Master and Slave. 
 
 S3 
 
 The shaded lamp by the bedside left the corners of the room 
 in obscurity, and Jenny's disordered fancy conjured up tha 
 glittering eyes of the bailiff leering at her out of the shadow. 
 
 " 0, this dreary, dismal place !" she said, over and over again. 
 "Why does Dudley leave me here to die alone ?" 
 
 She could see her face in an oval mirror hanging upon the 
 wall opposite to her bed. The dim reflection in the depths of 
 this glass showed her a wan, pale, wasted face, and hollow, 
 fever-bright eyes. It seemed strange to her ; and she shuddered 
 to know it was her own. 
 
 "I shall look like that in my coffin," she said, "except that 
 my eyes will be closed." 
 
 Eleven o'clock struck before her husband came to his room. 
 He had slept in an adjoining apartment during Jenny's illness. 
 
 She had in the course of the evening fallen several times into 
 a feverish slumber, and could hardly help fancying she had 
 slept for hours, and that the night must be far advanced. As 
 the clock struck eleven, she fell asleep once more ; but her rest 
 was broken by troubled dreams. 
 
 She dreamt that she was out upon the river-bank, with the 
 rain falling upon her uncovered head, and drenching her thin 
 night-dress. She was watching for Dudley, as she had watched 
 for him upon the night of the bailiff's return. Suddenly she 
 found that she had a child in her arms — a miserable, puny 
 baby, that clung to her convulsively, and twisted its tiny 
 hands in the lace about her throat, as if it were trying t." 
 strangle her. She strove to release herself, but it hung about he* 
 with a heavy leaden weight that almost dragged her to the 
 ground. 
 
 The rain beating in her face blinded her; her naked feet 
 slipped upon the river-bank ; the low wail of the child rose to 
 a shrill scream of terror, and she awoke, with the cold per- 
 spiration streaming down her forehead, to hear the Olney clock 
 chime the quarter, and to hear, in the direction of the servants' 
 rooms, the same pitiful wail she had heard from the child in her 
 dream. 
 
 What did it mean? There were no children at the Grey 
 Farm ; and there never had been since her marriage. 
 
 The house was said to be haunted. She had heard of more 
 than one ghost- story attached to the dismal pile of building; 
 but she had laughed at them as absurd. What if one of them 
 were true ? 
 
 A strange, mad desire to encounter the supernatural terror — 
 if terror there were — took possession of her. Sue crept out aft 
 her bed, wrapped herself in a shawl, and stole into the corridor 
 She was so weak that she could scarcely stand, but she sup- 
 ported herself by clinging to the wall* and contrived to reach 
 
Ralph the Bailiff. 
 
 the landing of the principal staircase, on the other side of which 
 was a door communicating with the servants' rooms. 
 
 This door was ajar, and she conld hear that the child's cries 
 proceeded from the other side. 
 
 She passed into the servants' corridor, and traced the sound 
 to the little sitting-room that had once been occupied by Ealph 
 and his sister. A light shone through the crevice under the 
 door of this room, and through a key-hole which had been 
 roughly cut in the wood. 
 
 There had never heen a lock to the door, which was only 
 fastened by a latch and an iron bolt. 
 
 She could hear the low pitiful wail of the child, and the voice 
 of a woman trying to hush it to sleep. She fell on her knees at 
 the top of the little flight of steps leading to the door, and 
 looked through the key-hole into the room. Her husband was 
 seated, writing, at a small table, by the light of one candle. 
 Behind his chair, and looking over him as he wrote, stood Ealph 
 Purvis the bailiff. A woman dressed in a black gown and a 
 thick gray shawl sat by the little fireplace with a child in her 
 arms — a pale-faced, puny baby, that kept up an incessant wail. 
 The woman had taken off her bonnet, and had fastened it by 
 the strings to the back of her chair. 
 
 Jenny knew this woman, by her likeness to the bailiff, to be 
 his sister Martha, Dudley's old housekeeper. 
 
 Neither of the three uttered a word, and the silence was only 
 broken by the scratching of Dudley's pen over the paper, and 
 the smothered crying of the child, muffled in the woman's 
 shawl. When Dudley's pen had reached the bottom of the 
 page he stopped, glanced over what he had written, and then 
 signed his name. 
 
 " Now, your signature as witness," he said, handing the pen 
 to Ealph. 
 
 "I shan't sign!" answered the bailiff. 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because, I tell you again, it won't do. 
 "Have you read it?" 
 
 " Yes. You settle this place on your lawful son and heir, 
 Dudley Carleon, junior, crying there in the lap of his mother, 
 your lawful wife, Martha Carleon, You settle this property on 
 my sister's child, provided we renounce all claim upon you and 
 keep your secret, and you go off to Australia with that curly- 
 haired Miss who calls herself your wife ! I tell you it won't do. 
 It's not* enough. I want the farm; but I want money to 
 improve the farm — I want that six thousand pounds ; and IJB 
 have that, or nothing." 
 
 "Six thousand pounds I " Jenny mechanically repeated the 
 mnxds with a shudder. It was her fortune, no doubt, that thia 
 
Master and Slave. 
 
 man wanted. Her fortune, which, should she die childless, 
 would go to Dudley Oarleon ; such had been the condition in the 
 marriage settlement to which she had consented. 
 
 The woman sitting over the fire never once looked up during 
 til lis brief dialogue. Dudley buried his face in his hands, with a 
 loud groan, and let his head fall upon the writing before him. 
 
 Ealph Purvis struck his clenched fist upon the table, and 
 said, — 
 
 " Look ye here, Muster Carleon. Go back a bit ; go back *U 
 four, or nigh upon five years ago, when you was a stripling 
 just come home from college, and Muster Martin was alive, and 
 well and strong, and promising to make older bones than you, 
 any day. Do you remember moping about the place, looking 
 miserable; or making believe to be happy, and looking more 
 miserable still for making believe ? Do you remember one after- 
 noon, when they was making hay in one of the river-side 
 meadows, and you was lying upon the ground pretending to 
 read your book — do you remember my coming up behind you 
 sudden, and hearing you groan ? I asks you what's the matter, 
 and what it is that's on your mind; and after a deal of talk, 
 you tells me it's college debts; debts as you dare not mention 
 to Muster Martin, because he's been so kind to you already ; and 
 you're afraid of an exposure, and of being expelled, perhaps, and 
 all sorts of things; and you're very proud, you say, and you'll 
 gut your throat sooner than you'll ]ive to be disgraced. I told 
 you I was very sorry for you, and said that if you'd only been the 
 eldest son instead of the youngest, things would have been easy 
 enough, for then you could have raised the money upon a mort- 
 gage. We spoke about it again the next day, and the next, and 
 the next after that, till we came, somehow, to be always talking 
 of it, and we grew quite friendly — a'most like equals. " 
 
 " Curse you !" groaned Dudley, with his face still hidden. 
 
 " At Hie end of a month, Muster Oarleon, I was awoke one 
 moonlight night by you standing by my bedside. If I'd ever 
 believed in ghosts, I should have thought you was one. If a 
 ghost's horrid to look at, it can't be more horrid to look at that 
 you was that night. You had a slip of paper in your hand 
 with something wrote upon it — wrote small and backwards, an# 
 not like your own handwriting. ' Ealph,' you said, 6 you're going 
 to the market- town to-morrow ; get me some of the stuff that' a 
 written down here, at a chemist's, and don't tell anybody whc 
 you're getting it for ! ' That was every word as passed between 
 us. I got the stuff the next day ; but I told the chemist's lad 
 to give me double the quantity that was written on the papen 
 and to give it me in two packets, labelled alike and sealed alikq 
 and to sign his name and write the date upon one of 'em. The 
 shop was crowded, being market-day, and the master of it took 
 
33 
 
 Halph the Bailiff. 
 
 no notice of me, or what I was buying. I kept the packet that 
 
 was signed and dated, and I gave yon the other. This was early 
 in August. Muster Carleon died on the 24th of September. 
 Well, things went smooth enough for a time ; you got out of 
 your debts by means of a mortgage, which was kept pretty dark 
 until the farm improved under my care, and you paid it off. 
 Now, all this time I hadn't asked you a favour, not so much as 
 for a sixpence over my wages; but it isn't strange that I 
 expected to gain something by having served you faithful." 
 
 " Served me ! Yes, as the devil serves his bonded slaves." 
 
 " I served you faithful, anyhow ; and I said to you at last, 
 • Come, Muster Carleon, you're beholden to me for many things, 
 but most of all you're beholden to me for having kept a still 
 tongue. Marry my sister, and make her mistress of the Grey 
 Farm.' You laughed in my face, and refused me what I asked. 
 I could afford to bide my time. Three years after your brother's 
 death I had an explanation with you in this very room. You 
 knocked me down and split my head open; but you came to 
 terms, and, a month after, you married my sister by bans at the 
 Borough Church, London. You were ashamed of your wife, 
 and you were ashamed of what you had done. So you buried 
 her down in a country village, and as soon as you set eyes upon 
 that fine curly-headed Miss of yours, you packed me off to keep 
 company with my sister. But I wasn't quite such a fool as you 
 took me for, Muster Carleon. I had my spies in Olney, and I 
 heard all about you from them. I heard of your marriage, and 
 I heard of your wife's fortune; but I determined to bide my 
 time, and to make things work round to my own advantage. I 
 waited three or four months after your marriage, and then, 
 having sent for you to throw you off your guard, I stole a march 
 upon you, and came down here to look about me. I found poor 
 Miss slightly ailing. Since then she's got worse ; and yesterday 
 I wrote to my sister, telling her to come down here, as I thought 
 it likely she might have her rights before long." 
 
 Dudley Carleon lifted his ghastly face from his hands, stag- 
 gered out of his chair, and fell on his knees at the bailiff's feet. 
 
 " Look at me," he said in a thick choking voice ; " look at me ; 
 I am so degraded and lost a wretch that I kneel to you, and ask 
 you to pity me ! No, not to pity me, to pity her — the helpless 
 woman I have deceived. Save her, and I will surrender this 
 place, and every farthing I have in the world. Save her, a*id I 
 will go out of this house, penniless and shelterless, to beg my 
 bread or to die of starvation. Save her, and there is nothing I 
 am not prepared to endure." 
 
 " Will you endure the gallows P" asked Ealph with a sneer. 
 
 Dudley groaned aloud, but did not answer. 
 
 w No, I thought not," said the bailiff. " Now, listen to ma 
 
Master and k : lat>e. 
 
 87 
 
 Let me alone, and I'll keep your secret to the day of my death* 
 Interfere with me, or try to thwart my plans, or pry into my 
 business, and I'll let people know what you are, and how you 
 poisoned your brother Martin." 
 
 Jenny Carleon, crouching at the threshold of the door, had 
 heard every word spoken by Ealph Purvis. But at this hideous 
 climax her senses left her, and she fell down the steps leading 
 from the corridor. 
 
 CHAPTER Tin 
 
 THE LAST CHANCE. 
 
 When Jenny recovered her senses, she found herself lying in he* 
 own room, with a bandage round her forehead. It was broad 
 daylight, and her husband was seated at the bedside. 
 
 She put her hand to her head, looked round helplessly, and 
 asked, — 
 
 " What have I been doing ? " 
 
 " We found you in the corridor leading to the servants' rooms 
 What, in Heaven's name, had taken you there, Jenny ? " 
 
 The scene of the night before flashed upon her. She felt that 
 her only chance of escape was to affect ignorance of what she 
 had discovered. 
 
 " I thought I heard a child cry, and I went to ascertain, but I 
 was so weak that I could scarcely reach the stairs. I suppose I 
 fainted in trying to do so." 
 
 Her husband looked at her with a searching glance, and then 
 said, — 
 
 "Foolish girl, the child you heard was Martha's. My old 
 housekeeper has been married a year and a half, and she has 
 come down here to see if her brother can get her a place. Try 
 and go to sleep, Jenny; you did yourself harm by getting up 
 last night." 
 
 She listened to the sound of her husband's receding footsteps 
 as he left the room. She heard him go along the corridor, down 
 the stairs, across the hall, and into the back premises. As the 
 doors closed behind him, she crept from her bed, and began 
 hurriedly to dress herself in the warmest garments she could 
 find. She was dizzy from the cut on her forehead, and so weaii 
 that she was compelled to support herself by holding on to tke 
 furniture as she dressed. 
 
 " 0 God, grant me strength to crawl from this horrible place," 
 fihe said, " or I shall never leave it till I am carried out in my 
 3omn." 
 
 She put on her bonnet, and nraflled herself in a great woollen 
 
Ralph the Bailiff, 
 
 shawl, tlieii crept along the corridor, and slowly deseeded the 
 stairs. To her unspeakable relief she found the hall deserted- 
 She stole out of the front door amd closed it behind her. The 
 cold winter air blew upon her face and revived her. She looked 
 tip at the long rows of windows and the dreary stone-frontage of 
 the house,,as some wretched criminal might look back at a prison 
 from which he hadj ust escaped. 
 
 She had tied a thick veil over her plain straw bonnet. " If 
 any of the men are about they will take me for one of the 
 servants," she thought. 
 
 She hurried across the garden, through the gate, and on to 
 the river-bank, without meeting any one in her way. The tide 
 was high, the river swollen by the rains, the meadows by the 
 bank half-hidden by the standing water. She seemed to have a 
 superhuman strength as she walked rapidly along the narrow 
 pathway. 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " she said. " If I can but reach the high- 
 road I may get a lift in some market-cart going to Olney." 
 
 But when she came to the first gate she stopped suddenly. 
 On the other side of it two men were hard at work with spades 
 and pickaxes. They had just finished cutting a drain straight 
 across the bank — a channel through which the water off the 
 meadows was pouring down into the river. 
 
 This open drain presented an impassable barrier between the 
 Grey Farm and the outer world. To reach the high road by 
 any other way Jenny must traverse half-a-dozen fields, and walJ: 
 a distance of two miles. 
 
 Her heart seemed to stop beating. 
 
 "I must stay here to be murdered," she said; " for escape is 
 impossible." 
 
 But what if she were to appeal to one of the men ? Wide as 
 the drain was, they might lift her over it if they pleased. She 
 crawled on until she came up to the spot where they were at 
 work. One of them had his back towards her as she approached, 
 but at the sound of her footsteps he turned round. That man 
 was Ralph the bailiff. 
 
 .The fact of his presence revealed to her the terrible truth. 
 This barrier between herself and Olney was a part of the 
 hideous plot, the end of which was her death. 
 
 " I want to go into Olney," she said resolutely ; " put a board 
 over that drain, that I may cross it." 
 
 " I'm sorry, ma'am," answered Balph, indifferently, " that it 
 can't be done. Mrst and foremost, there isn't a board to be had ; 
 and as to going into Olney, I'm afraid you're acting against the 
 doctor's orders in coming out at all, ma'am — and I'm sure 
 Muster Caiieon would break his heart to see you run the risk 
 
The Last Chance. 
 
 39 
 
 0f catching cold. Here lie comes, though, bo he can settle the 
 question himself." 
 
 Her husband rode up to them as the man spoke. 
 
 " Jenny ! " he said. " You out of doors this bitter morning^ 
 Are you mad? For Heaven's sake come back to the house ! " 
 
 " Dudley Carleon," J enny said, looking her husband full in 
 the face, " I want to escape from this place. I want to go into 
 Olney." 
 
 "My dear girl, you are not in a fit state to be out at all. 
 Why, you can scarcely stand ! — Lift your mistress up to me, 
 Ralph," he said. 
 
 The bailiff lifted Jenny in his arms, and her husband seated 
 her before him upon his horse. 
 
 " Why, Jenny, you tremble like a leaf ; you will catch your 
 death!" 
 
 She looked round at him with grave sorrowful eyes. 
 
 " 0, Dudley, Dudley, when I came to this place, I came to 
 meet my death. I was warned, but I would not listen." 
 
 Ralph the bailiff looked significantly at his master. 
 
 "This work must be finished to-night," he said, taking up his 
 spade. " If you want to go into Olney to-morrow, ma'am," he 
 added, " you can go and welcome. We shall have laid down 
 the pipes and filled in this dyke before ten o'clock to-night." 
 
 Dudley rode slowly back to the house and carried his wife 
 into the hall. He was about to take her upstairs, but she 
 stopped him. 
 
 "Let me lie on the sofa in the parlour," she said. "I hate 
 those dreary upstairs rooms." 
 
 He took her into the parlour, drew the sofa close to the fire, 
 covered her with a thick railway-rug, and left her. She lay, 
 hour after hour, repeating to herself again and again, " What 
 am I to do? 99 
 
 Should she appeal to the servants for protection from Ralph 
 Purvis and his accomplice — her guilty husband ? They would 
 not believe her. Very likely Ralph had taught them to think 
 ner mad — had prepared them to set down every word she could 
 say to the raving of a disordered mind. They would no doubt, 
 refuse to credit her accusations, as she had refused to credit \ 
 those of Agnes Mar-low. In that case they might betray her, 
 and she would be only hastening her doom. 
 
 All communication between Olney and the farm had been 
 purposely cut off. The doctor could not pay his accustomed 
 risit. She was utterly friendless and alone. She knew that 
 she had been taking slow poison for weeks — that her murderer 
 was lying in wait to give her the final dose, and, that failing, 
 that he would not scruple to have recourse to more violent 
 means. He might force the deadly draught down her throat. 
 
€0 
 
 Ealph the Bailiff. 
 
 How could she resist ? A strong hand over her month, anJ hei 
 cries wonld be stifled nntil they grew still in death. They 
 would bury her, as they had buried Martin Carleon, without a 
 shadow of suspicion arising in the mind of the doctor, and no 
 one outside that lonely house would ever know the truth. To- 
 day the hours were but too swift. This day flew by with terrible 
 rapidity. It grew dark ; the hour approached at which the men 
 were accustomed to go to bed. This was the hour she dreaded 
 above all others, for she felt she would then be left alone with 
 Dudley Carleon and his bailiff. 
 
 She watched the clock intently, listening as she did so f*_r 
 the first clang of the bell which rang at the servants' bed-time. 
 It rang every night with unvarying punctuality as the clock 
 struck nine. It was five-and-twenty minutes past eight. There 
 were flve-and -thirty minutes left, and during those five-and- 
 thirty minutes she must think of some means of escape. Five- 
 and-thirty minutes ! She counted the seconds by the tumultu- 
 ous beating of her heart. The hand of the clock had just 
 reached the half-hour, when, to her horror, the bell rang vio- 
 lently. She started up from her sofa. She heard a hurried 
 trampling of feet in the hall, and the men rushing out of the 
 front door. Ralph Purvis was shouting to them to be quick — 
 to look alive — look alive ! or they would be too late. 
 
 What could it mean ? She ran to one of the windows, drew 
 up the blind, and looked out. A hayrick in a field at some 
 distance had taken fire. It was one of several standing near 
 together, and the men were hurrying to extinguish it, so as to 
 save the others. 
 
 Her brain reeled, as the thought flashed upon her that this 
 unlooked-for accident had taken Ealph from the house. She 
 was free — free to attempt once more to escape. But how ? 
 
 The hall-door had been left open by the men hurrying out. 
 A sudden inspiration made the hot blood rush from her heart 
 into her face. The river! There was the river — the river, 
 which crept clgse behind the house, and down which the barges 
 were often passing to Olney. Too desperate to remember her 
 weakness, she stole round to the back premises across the farm- 
 yard, and on to the bank. It was pitch dark. She looked 
 about her wildly. " A dozen barges might pass me," she thought, 
 " and I should not see one of them." 
 
 She could hear the voices of the men trying to extinguish the 
 hayrick in the field in front of the house. She awaited about 
 ten minutes — ten interminable minutes — and at the end of that 
 time she saw a feeble light creeping along the river. As it ap- 
 proached her, she perceived that it came from a lantern tied to 
 the mast of a coal- barge. 
 
 She called to the men on board this barge. Her voice was 
 
The Last Chance. 
 
 41 
 
 feeble from the effects of her long illness, but he* Repeated cries 
 at last attracted their attention. " What's the matter there ? " 
 asked the man who was steering the barge. 
 
 At that moment the flames of the burning hayrick, which had 
 before been hidden by the house, shot above the roof, and cast a 
 in rid glare upon the river-bank. 
 
 " Why, the house must be on fire ? " the man said to his com- 
 rade. " Get ashore, Bill, and see what's amiss." 
 
 One of the men jumped into a boat at the stern of the barge 
 and pushed it to the bank on which Jenny was standing. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " he asked ; " is the house a-fire ? " 
 
 " No, no, take me to Olney," she cried imploringly. " I'll 
 give you ten pounds if you'll take me to Olney." 
 
 The man thought she was one of the servants belonging to 
 the bouse. 
 
 " Why, what is it, lass ? " he said ; " has your master been ill- 
 using you ? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered eagerly, " take me to Olney, for pity's 
 sake ! 
 
 " All right, my lass ; give us your hand, then." 
 
 The man lifted her into the boat, and from the boat into the 
 barge ; his companion wrapped her in a great- coat, and seated 
 her against the chimney of the little cabin. 
 
 " It's warm there, my lass," he said ; " we shall be nigh upon 
 an hour getting into Olney." 
 
 She never took her eyes from the red light in the sky, which 
 revealed the sharp outline of the roof-tops and chimneys of the 
 Grey Farm, till a curve of the river hid the gaunt building from 
 her view. Then she lifted her voice to heaven and thanked God 
 for her deliverance from peril and death. 
 
 One of the men from the barge carried her to the Rectory, 
 and placed her in Mr. Marlow's arms. 
 
 The worthy Eector was bewildered and amazed at her appear* 
 ance ; but she only told him that her husband had treated her 
 unkindly, and that she had come to throw herself upon her old 
 guardian for shelter and protection. 
 
 The terrors of the awful night and day through which she 
 had passed had been too much for a constitution undermined as 
 hers had been. She had an attack of brain-fever, in which she 
 lay for weeks upon a sick bed; in her delirium perpetually 
 reacting the scenes through which she had passed. Agnes 
 Marlow came from Scarborough on hearing of her friend's 
 illness, and nursed her with a sister's devotion. 
 
 As soon as Jenny was strong enough to be moved, they 
 carried her to Burlington for change of air. 
 
 They had never asked her any questions about her husband's 
 conduct to her, and she had made no inquiries as to what had 
 
42 
 
 Ralph the Bailiff. 
 
 taken place coring her illness. She felt a strange serenity <J 
 mind in the society of these dear and devoted friends, and she 
 had scarcely sufficient conrage to allude to the past. She had 
 noticed, however, that on the first occasion of her rising from 
 her bed, Agnes, and the servant who helped to nnrse her, had 
 dressed her in mourning, and that they still continued to bring 
 her this black dress every day. It was simply made, but 
 trimmed with a deep border of crape. On the third day after 
 her arrival at Burlington, as she sat alone with Agnes, she said 
 very quietly, — 
 
 " Agnes, why am I in mourning ? "Who is dead ? " 
 
 " Can you bear to hear, Jenny? Are you strong enough to 
 bear something that may perhaps shock you? " 
 
 "Yes, tell me the worst. Who is dead? 
 
 " Dudley Carleon." 
 
 Jenny's cheeks grew white, but she did not utter one excla- 
 mation of either surprise or sorrow. "May a merciful God 
 forgive him his sins ! " she said solemnly. 
 
 It was not until she had quite recovered that she was told the 
 entire truth — Dudley Carleon had drowned himself in the river 
 behind his house on the night of Jenny's escape ; and Ealph 
 Tpurvis the bailiff had proved a will of Dudley's which left the 
 Grey Farm estate to himself and his sister conjointly. 
 
 As soon as Balph and Martha were placed in possession of 
 the estate, they sold the Grey Farm and all appertaining to it, 
 and the brother and sister, with Dudley's infant son, sailed foi 
 Australia. 
 
 To none but these two people and Jenny Trevor was the real 
 cause of Dudley's suicide ever known. It was supposed by 
 most people to have been caused by financial difficulties, and 
 that the burning of several valuable hayricks had gone some 
 way to drive the young farmer to this terrible deed. It was 
 some time afterwards discovered that the ricks had been fired 
 by a young man who had been dismissed from the farm a few 
 days before, under circumstances of peculiar cruelty, by Ealph 
 Purvis. 
 
 >^ %f 
 
 Far away in the Bush there is a rich sheep-farm, stretching 
 over many miles of fair and luxuriant country. The master 
 counts his cattle by hundreds, and bids fair to become a wealthy 
 and a respected citizen of that distant world. Grim, sleek, dark, 
 and silent, be stalks about amongst his farm-servants, always 
 near them when they least expect to see him — always watching 
 them when they fancy themselves most unobserved. 
 
 Dark and silent as himself, his sister, dressed in widow's 
 weeds, sits nursing her sickly child at the door of their roughly* 
 Duilt, but comfortable, dwelling. They are neither of them liked 
 
The Last Chance. ^ 
 
 by their dependents ; but they are feared, and are better nerved 
 than a better master and mistress might be. 
 
 Jenny Trevor has kept Dudley Uarleon's secret, and has lived 
 to marry happily, but not to forget either her terrible sufferings, 
 or her merciful deliverance out of the murderous hand* of Balph 
 the bailiff. 
 
CAPTAIN THOMAS 
 
 I hold it as a rule, that nine men out of ten are unforttmate in 
 their first attachments ; and I hold it as another rule, that it 'a 
 a very good thing for them that they are. If fortune had 
 smiled upon my first wooing, I should have united myself to a 
 joung lady of thirty-five, assistant at a pastrycook's in the 
 neighbourhood of the academy where I was educated, with 
 whom I became enamoured at the age of nine and three- 
 quarters. Naturally, the lady repulsed my advances on account 
 of my tender years; though I had two Latin Grammars; a 
 book of French Exercises ; a penknife ; Telemachus, with the 
 verbs in Italics ; and a new pair of boots ; with which I offered 
 to endow her upon my marriage. I wept when she refused me ; 
 whereupon, out of the tenderness of her heart, she gave me a 
 stale Bath bun, which had the effect of choking rather than of 
 consoling me. I believe she was a fat woman with red hair; 
 but I saw her then with the glamour of first love about her, and 
 I thought she was a happy combination of Mary Qu«pn of Scots 
 (I was familiar with that ill-used potentate through aa itinerant 
 exhibition of waxwork) and a young lady I had seen at Richard- 
 son's, dancing the Highland Ming. 
 
 So I, being one of the nine men out of the ten above alluded 
 to, was unlucky in my first attachment. 
 
 I can't say that I was any more fortunate in my second, which 
 flame was illumined by the bright eyes of a cousin three years 
 older than myself, who boxed my ears on my declaring myself 
 in the back-parlour on a wet Sunday. I knew to what cause 
 to attribute this repulse : I was not yet out of jackets, and I 
 
 f lanced behind me in the direction where my coat-tails ought to 
 ave been, and felt that my enemy was there. 
 My third passion was equally luckless ; my fourth no more 
 
Captain Tliomas. 
 
 45 
 
 successful; and I really think I had had the honour of having 
 my hand in marriage refused seventeen times, counting fro* 
 the pastrycook, when my happy stars (I said happy stars then 
 I know now that the hand of a malignant genius was in the 
 business) threw me across the path of Rosa Matilda. I met her 
 at a tea-party at Somers Town, whither my sisters had taken 
 me in a cab — for which I had to pay — tight boots, and a white 
 waistcoat. Now, I have always considered that the end and 
 aim of that snare and delusion which is popularly called a 
 friendly cup of tea is to sit in an uncomfortable position in an 
 uncomfortable chair; drink hot weak tea, which afflicts you 
 with temporary dropsy ; eat spongy preparations of the genus 
 Lunn or Muffin, admirably adapted to impair your digestive 
 organs; and utter articulate inanities. I am not a brilliant 
 man, I believe, at the very best of times. I never remember 
 throwing an assembly into convulsions of laughter with my 
 wit, or electrifying it with my eloquence. I may have done so 
 often, but my modesty has prevented my being conscious of 
 the fact. But 0, let me be so luckless as to be invited to join 
 " a few friends " to tea between seven and eight, and the veriest 
 phantasm of a " phantasm captain " is a Chamier, Marryat, or 
 Basil Hall, in powers of amusing conversation, compared to 
 me. 0, how I hate the simpering hostess in her best gown ! 
 But I know that she is fidgety about that eighteenpenn'orth 
 of cream, that won't go all round with the third cup, and that 
 her heart sinketh at the sight of a three-cornered bit of muffin 
 dropped, greasiest side downwards, on the new Brussels ; yes, 
 I know she is wretched, and I could almost pity her. But O, 
 my hatred for the " few friends " ! I hope that young man 
 from the War-office has tight boots on too ; there is a look 
 about the corners of his mouth that can come from nothing 
 but corns. Yes ; I am neither physiognomist nor physiologist, 
 if that nervous twitch of the facial muscles doesn't denote the 
 presence of corns, and the patent leather is drawing them. He 
 and I, in all that heartless throng, are friends and brothers. 
 But for the rest — who seem to have not a care on earth ; whose 
 proper element seems hot weak tea with too much sugar in it ; 
 and to whom semi- baked batter in a spongy condition appears 
 to be wholesome and invigorating food — for them my hatred 
 is unsoftened by any touch of sympathy. We are foes — foes 
 to the death, or rather to the door-mat; for once out of the 
 abominable Castle of Despair — when once their cabs have driven 
 them off to the " Supreme Silences," and mine has driven me 
 to my lodgings — I think of them no more. 
 
 I digress. Revenons a nos moutons : that is to say, Bosa 
 Matilda. I met her at a tea-party. O, that so lovely ax* 
 
id Captain Tkonuu. 
 
 Aphrodite could rise out of the mud-ocean of " a few friends " I 
 I think I was more than usually "brilliant that evening. I asked 
 her if she had seen MfllaiVs "Vale of Rest," and if she didn't 
 think the nuns were ugly. I knew I was safe in saying this ; 
 I 'd heard the remark made so often. I asked her if she liked 
 mntTm 3, and if s"he didn't consider them indigestible ; and if she 
 didn't think they were always administered to people at a tea- 
 party to incapacitate them for eating any supper. She said I 
 was a quiz, she was sure. I was glad she was sure, because I 
 was myself by no means so convinced of the fact. I asked hei 
 if she'd read the Tale of Two Cities, and if she didn't think it 
 more affecting than Pickwick. I asked her which she liked 
 best, Frederick the Second, or the Virginians, and which of the 
 heroines of the Idyls she thought would have made the best 
 housekeeper for a young man who married on two hundred 
 a-year. Enid, no doubt, because she didn't mind wearing faded 
 silk. She told me she thought Geraint a perfect brute of a hus- 
 band, and that Lancelot was the only man in the book worth 
 anything ; and that Guinivere was very silly in throwing away 
 the diamonds, even if she threw off the lover. She thought 
 Elaine a very forward young person, who couldn't leave off rim- 
 ning after the men, even when she was dead. This, and much 
 more, she said, which I to hear, of course, did seriously incline ; 
 in fact, so seriously, that I ran some risk of shding off my 
 hostess's slippery embroidered chair in bending over the scented 
 tresses of the lovely being who was seated on a low prie-dieu by 
 my side. Rapturous moments ! I remarked on the opposite 
 side of the room the female parent of my charmer, who from 
 time to time cast uneasy glances in the direction of her daughter 
 and myself. Presently she addressed some few whispered words 
 to our hostess, and either my eyes deceived me, or that lady'a 
 lips shaped the syllables, "five hundred a-year, and expectations 
 from an uncle." At any rate, the effect of the communication 
 was pleasing, and the mamma of my loveliest smiled upon her 
 child. After tea this divine being sang, and I turned over the 
 leaves of her music — delightful task ! I believe I always turned 
 them over in the wrong place. Who could keep his eyes upon 
 inanimate crotchets and quavers while she was singing? In 
 short, my time was come ! I beheld my first love, all but seven- 
 teen. The evening was a dream ; she sang — I didn't know what 
 she sang ; she played — it may have been a sonata by Sebastian 
 Bach, or it might be variations on a Christy-AIinstrel melody 
 but it was to me the music of the spheres, and would have beet 
 had it been the merest domestic request to u Polly " to make the 
 ordinary preparations for the evening meal. I took her in to 
 supper. I sat next her at supper, and we were crowded. I pro* 
 
Captain Ttioma&. 
 
 47 
 
 cured hex chicken, and I carved a tongue for nor. I sent a lot 
 of particoloured jujubes, which adorned that comestible, into her 
 
 lap in my enthusiasm ; but Amare et sa/pere -the proverb its 
 
 somewhat musty, — but nobody ever did, you know r 
 
 0, the nectar that those dismal liquids, the two-shilli ag Cape 
 and the two- and- sixpenny Marsala, to say nothing of the African 
 sherry, became, when you quaffed them by her side ! I intro- 
 duced her to my sisters. They said afterwards in the cab, going 
 home, that she was an affected thing, and that her crinoline set 
 vilely. What did I care for her crinoline ? And if that silk, as 
 they said, had been evidently run ned from the top to the bottom, 
 what did I care ? My Enid was lovelier than all the world ; and 
 as to her faded silk — why, I 'd buy her a new one — 01 she should 
 \ave it dyed — and so and so. Mamma — her mamma — she wore 
 a front ; but she was her mamma ; and it was a mighty effort, 
 but I always looked as if I believed in it — her mamma asked me 
 to call ; and I said I knew most of the managers of the "West-end 
 theatres (I hope those gentlemen will forgive me ; and I believe 
 they will, for they must have been in love themselves at some 
 remote period of their existences), and that I could get " orders,'* 
 and might I bring them to the Pocklintons ? [Pocklinton was 
 my Eosa Matilda's surname. Feu Pocklinton (Mrs. P. was a 
 widow) had been in a Post-office— I never disked what ; he might 
 have been a " twopenny," or a " general," for aught I cared.] 1 
 might bring the orders. I did. I got them from my old friend 
 Scrauncher, who does the theatricals for the Daily Scarifier; 
 and I treated him to uncountable " bitters " at the hostelry 
 where he broke covert. So Eosa Matilda, Mrs. P., and myself 
 went in a cab ; I with my back to the horses, of course ; but cabs 
 are narrow, and she was opposite ; I didn't think the fare from 
 Mornington-place to the Olympic too much. 
 
 O, my Eosa, "hollow-hearted"! where, where are the half* 
 crowns I used to spend on thos$ dear deluding hansoms, that 
 were always beckoning to me in the Strand, and that would 
 draw me up to the Hampstead-road, spite of myself? 
 
 Well, my eighteenth venture seemed to be a fortunate one ; 
 Rosa Matilda and I were engaged. Yes ; I had said one day in 
 the drawing-room (mamma had a call to make, and would I 
 excuse her?), — we were alone, — I had said that "the happiness — 
 future life — depended — one word — render —happy or miserable.* 
 And Eosa Matilda had said, "Lor, Mr. Strothers !" (I forgot to 
 mention, by-the-bye, that my name is Strothers — Christian 
 name, Benjamin — and that has told against me on some occa- 
 sions) — " Lor, Mr. Strothers, what can I say to make you happy 
 
 or miserable ? " " What can you say ? " and then, and then — 
 
 there followed the old, old, pitiful, hackneyed, worn-out, new and 
 griF^al, eminently-successful &u:ce! — the blushes, the Rmiless 
 
 u 
 
Captain fliornas. 
 
 the tears, the little trembling hand, the surprise, and afl the 
 shabby old properties thereunto belonging ; and I found 1 ay self 
 accepted. Seventeen performances had, perhaps, taken a little 
 of the freshness out of the said cosmopolitan farce. Seventeen 
 wakings from the same dream made it, perhaps, rather hard to 
 forget that the dream was a dream. Perhaps there was an 
 currier e pensee even in that gush of rapture, and I may have 
 thought that I was only playing at being happy after all. But, 
 twjpe diem,- and. here is Mrs. Pocklinton come home ; and "Well, 
 she never! — and of all the surprising things — and Bosey, 
 naughty girl, to be so sly — and how strange that she should never 
 have had the least idea !" And I have not the slightest doubt 
 that this woman and her daughter had talked over me and my 
 prospects, and the advantages of a marriage with me, and the con- 
 flicting advantages of that offer of Brown's, and that possible offer 
 of Jones's, with the strong probability that before long Bobin- 
 Bon himself might " pop," these hundred times by their bedroom 
 fires during our brief acquaintance. But better, as the poet 
 says, " to have loved and lost " — better to be the weakest of fools 
 than to lose the capability of being made a fool of — better the 
 maddest dream earth can give than that sober waking which 
 tells us we can dream no more. So I was, upon the whole, glad 
 that Bosa Matilda accepted me ; and I bought her a diamond 
 ring at Hancock and Burbrook's that afternoon, and I put it 
 upon her finger after tea. 
 
 So we were engaged. Time passed. I had taken a house and 
 furnished it, guided by my future mother-in-law. The day was 
 fixed for our marriage. It was to take place in December. We 
 were now in November ; yes, we were in that dreary and suicidal 
 month, when I for the first time heard Ms name — the name of 
 my unknown and mysterious rival — the name of the being on 
 whom, for some months of my life, I poured the inarticulate 
 anathema, the concentrated hate, of a hitherto-peaceful mind. 
 It was in this wise : we had been to the theatre ; we had seen a 
 farce, — I forget the title, but I know Mr. Buckstone had his 
 coat split up the back, and that everybody took everybody for 
 somebody else ; so, as I daresay these incidents only occur in one 
 piece, my readers will recognise the dramatic production of 
 which I have forgotten the name ; — we had been to the theatre, 
 and I had returned to the Pocklintons' to supper. We had 
 scalloped oysters ; I was helped twice : the bottled ale was 
 peculiarly delicious. Life seemed that night one bright and 
 golden dream. I little knew the Damoclesian sword which was 
 at that very moment dangling from the whitewashed medallion 
 in the centre of the ceiling. I little knew that the Thunderer 
 had his bolt in his hand, and was only waiting the most con- 
 venient moment for launching that instrument at the devoted 
 
Captain Thomas* 
 
 49 
 
 head ( £ Benjamin Strothers, of the Inner tPemple. I had my 
 fork midway between my plate and my month ; the moderator- 
 lamp was burning brightly ; that nightmare of a young woman 
 in a rustic dress was asking that eternal " Momentous Question" 
 of that Frankenstein of a young man in chains, on the wall 
 opposite me ; the fire was fierce and glowing, — a cinder fell out 
 into the fender ; I remember (so, in the great epochs of our lives, 
 do the most trivial things impress us !) I wondered whether the 
 housemaid would use that cinder in the morning to light the fire, 
 or whether she would throw it on the ash-heap in the back- 
 garden, when Mrs. Pocklinton remarked, " You are fond of fish, 
 Mr. Strothers ? " I thought this was a hit at me for having been 
 helped twice ; if it was, it was mean : for were not those very 
 oysters part of a barrel of Colchesters of my own presenting ? — ■ 
 " You are fond of fish. Ah, Eosey, wasn't Captain Thomas 
 fond of fish?" 
 
 The sword had dropped — the bolt was launched ; the Thun- 
 derer put his hands in his pockets, and I daresay resumed that 
 little skirmish with the Ox-eyed about his predilection for late 
 hours and fancy dress. The blow was struck ! Captain Thomas! 
 
 The reader will naturally observe, " Well, what then ? What 
 then? There is nothing in the mere mention of the name of 
 Captain Thomas; there is nothing even in Captain Thomas 
 being fond of fish." But I think there is a great deal in Rosa 
 Matilda's starting from her seat at the mention of that name, 
 putting her handkerchief to her eyes, and darting hurriedly from 
 the room. 
 
 "Sensitive child!" said Mrs. Pocklinton. "It is very odd: 
 * but we actually daren't mention his name before her. It was a 
 most extraordinary infatuation!" 
 
 Extraordinary infatuation ! Now this was pleasant ior me 3 
 wasn't it ? 
 
 "And pray, madam," I said, not without some degree of 
 severity, "may I be allowed" (I laid a sarcastic stress upon 
 "allowed") "to inquire who" (another sarcastic stress upoi; 
 " who," and then I was done up in the way of breath) " Cap tail) 
 Thomas may be ?" 
 
 " 0," said Mrs. P., "the dearest creature ! He was- — M 
 
 And she didn't say what he was, for at this very moment 
 reenter Eosa Matilda with red eyes. 
 
 " Forgive me, dear Benjamin, for being so silly," she mur- 
 mured; " I know it's very, very weak and childish ; but he loved 
 me so, poor dear — and I — I — " (symptoms of more tears)^— " I'd 
 had him so long." 
 
 She'd had him so long ! He couldn't have been — — No-, 
 tbat was too horrible! And, besides, he was a captain — a 
 warrior — a man of mature years— an accepted lover, of course—- 
 
50 
 
 Captain Thomas* 
 
 my predecessor in the affections of this false girl and Mr3. P.'s 
 scalloped oysters. 
 
 Well, what was to be done ? Discard Rosa Matilda, and get 
 the upholsterer to take back the furniture at a reduction* like 
 that dear, volatile hero of M. de Kock's romance, Ge Monsieur, 
 fho was always furnishing apartments, and always selling his 
 £iovables and garnitures ? No ; prudence whispered that I should 
 lose by the transaction ; and I loved Rosa Matilda. This Cap- 
 tain Thomas, this military or naval commander, as the case 
 might be, was a being of the past. I, I was the conqueror; 
 and I registered an inward vow, that once married to Rosa 
 Matilda, it should be my care to provide her with more substantial 
 causes for red eyes than phantasm Captain Thomases. 
 
 So I let it pass ; and I had hot brandy-and- water after supper, 
 and Rosa Matilda had spoonfuls out of my glass, and she 
 burnt my hand with the bowl of the spoon in fascinating play- 
 fulness, and we behaved with the infantine simplicity of a pair 
 of turtle-doves, to whom sorrow and sighing and Captain 
 Thomases were unknown. 
 
 The first time, I have said before, it was in this wise; the 
 second time it was in another wise. 
 
 Our house was furnished, and we went one afternoon to look 
 at it. The Brussels was down in the dining-room, the tapestrj' 
 in the drawing-room. It was Mrs. P.'s taste. I don't believe 
 in sky-blue roses on a primrose ground ; but I daresay she did, 
 and she would have the carpet. The Kidderminsters upstairs 
 were the most innocent, gushing, simple-minded patterns you 
 ever saw ; verdant as meadows in spring, and an admirable fond 
 for the white curtains, and the white- and- gold china, and the 
 maple wardrobe with looking-glass doors and china knobs to the 
 drawers. Mrs. P. said the house was a bijou, and that if the 
 two treasures she had recommended to ns as cook and house- 
 maid only kept it in order, as she would see that they did (I said, 
 " Thank you : " I made a mental resolve to have no interference 
 from her ; but I committed myself to nothing by saying " thank 
 you"), we should have the most perfect establishment at the 
 West-end. It was Haverstock-hill, but she called it the West- 
 end. Well, we were in the drawing-room; we had admired 
 everything — and Rosa Matilda would make me open all the 
 cabinet drawers and all the chiffonier doors ; they were stiff', and 
 T hurt myself; but we weren't married yret, so of course I 
 couldn't be rude enough to refuse — and we were just going 
 away, when all of a sudden Mrs. P. was struck by the hearthrug. 
 
 " It was so beautifully soft; and those lovely forget-me-nots!" 
 (The blue roses were forget-me-nots.) " Such an exquisite, 
 such a" — she might say — "poetical idea. It was really like 
 walking en tb' Idyls of the Kmg. It seeded the heaven," i/ 
 
I 
 
 Captain Tfiofnatr, 
 
 51 
 
 ghe might be 80 bold as to make such a paraphrase, * rrpbreak 
 ing through the dearth." 
 
 I said, " 0, ah ; yes, to be sure." I didn't quite hnow what 
 she was driving at, when Rosa Matilda said, in her most gush- 
 ing manner, — that was the worst of Rosa Matilda, she would 
 gush,— 
 
 " 0 mamma, mamma ! wouldn't Captain Thomas have been 
 happy here ? " 
 
 0, upon my word, I was close to a spring sofa, ind I sank 
 down on it aghast. I — I had furnished this house! I had 
 submitted to, perhaps, such extortion from the most respectable 
 of tradesmen as no man ever before endured. Mrs. P. paid the 
 bills for me ; and there was a new sofa, value 121. 12s. if a half- 
 penny, in her drawing-room in Mornington-place, that I never 
 quite made out. I had done all this, and now I was told how 
 happy Captain Thomas would have been in this house of my 
 providing. 0 ! I am not a man prone to use unconstitutional 
 language, but I said, " 0 !" But, bless you, this was nothing; 
 the Thunderer hadn't done with me yet. 
 
 "Yes; wouldn't he?" said that elderly serpent of a mother- 
 in-law, that was to have been, of mine. " This hearthrug, how 
 he would have loved it ! He would have appreciated it more 
 than you do, Mr. Strothers, I know." 
 
 " 0, would he ? " This, of course, was a hit at my want of 
 taste. Captain Thomas would have understood the aesthetics of 
 those blue anomalies ; they were as big as breakfast- cups. 
 
 "Yes, mamma; for I should have brought him here, you 
 know, poor darling, if we hadn't lost him," said Rosa Matilda. 
 " You shouldn't have kept him all to yourself, I can tell you." 
 
 0, now ! talk of — well, a rivalry between mother and daughter* 
 Why, in the Roman Empire at its very worst stage of corruption, 
 when Yitellius set the Tiber on fire, and played the violin while 
 it was blazing, when Julius Caesar lighted Athens with burning 
 Calvinists, could there have been anything worse than this ? 
 
 I said, "Ha, ha!" I was quite beyond words, so I saic^ 
 "Ha, ha!" 
 
 "The dear," she continued — my wife, that was to be, con* 
 tinued (why, Desdemona bothering Othello about that pocket* 
 handkerchief she wanted him to give to Cassio, was nothing to 
 this !), — " you would have grown so fond of him, Benjamin !" 
 
 Should I, Benjamin ? 0, I daresay. "No," I said, "no, 
 madam; I will have no Captain Thomases here. I — I — since 
 it's gone so far, and since the house is furnished, and my new 
 coat come home, we will say no more ; but no Thomases here ; 
 no, no ! " 
 
 " You don't like them ? " she said ; " how very odd ! " 
 
 0 ? odd was it ? Wftll i I had seen a book, with a yeilo*" 
 
52 
 
 Captain Thomas , 
 
 paper- cover, w Momington-place ; a book in a foreign language; 
 and I attributed the evident absence of moral region in the 
 cerebral development of the woman I adored to a gradual 
 eating away of that department of the brain, from the perusal 
 of books in a foreign language ; and I registered another vow, 
 that when married to me, Eosa Matilda should only read those 
 sterling English works of fiction which elevate the moral sense 
 while they develop the intellectual organs. She should have 
 her Pierian draught from the pure fountains of Fielding and 
 Smollett, the pious inculcations of Jonathan Sterne (connected 
 with the Church, I know, and I believe an Irish bishop). Not 
 for her lips those exciting and poisonous beverages whose spring 
 is in Soho-square and the Burlington Arcade, to say nothing of 
 obliging Mr. J effs at Brighton, and that handy little shop in 
 Holborn at which I myself deal. 
 
 Well, this was the second time of my hearing that hateful 
 name. Let me now describe the third. It was the night before 
 our wedding — I mean, it was to have been the night before our 
 wedding — I went to drink tea with my charmer ; the cup which 
 cheers, &c, and the lightest of suppers, were the only refresh- 
 ments I ever obtained from Mrs. Pocklinton, whose widowed 
 circumstances forbade dinner-giving. In the hall I trod into 
 a raised pie ; the confectioner's youth had left it on the door- 
 mat while he handed the maid other cates. They were for the 
 wedding-breakfast — I mean, they were to have been for the 
 wedding-breakfast. It is hard that the conventionalities of this 
 world condemn one to indigestion on the happiest day of one's 
 life. One's mother-in-law has to pay for the sacrificial feast, 
 that's one comfort. 
 
 It was rather a dismal evening than otherwise; the house 
 was suffering from an eruption of sharp-edged trunks and 
 bonnet-boxes, and the effect on one's shins was disagreeable. 
 Eosa Matilda was low-spirited, and burst out crying at the 
 sight of the Britannia-metal teapot, saying it was the last time 
 she should ever have tea out of that dear old teapot. But, as 
 I said before, that was the worst of Eosa Matilda ; there was 
 too much of the "gushing thing" about this Hampstead-road 
 child of nature. I directed the luggage-labels for her boxes. 
 We were going to Paris — and I couldn't spell Meurice's Hotel ; 
 it was aggravating, and Eosa Matilda's spirits improved so 
 much as to enable her to laugh at me. Altogether, I was not 
 sorry when the time arrived for my departure. Mrs. Pocklinton 
 squeezed my hand as we parted, and told me there was not 
 another man in England (how did she know ? she didn't know 
 all the other men in England) to whom she could have so 
 confidently trusted the happiness of her beloved child. She 
 would have said the same words to either Brown. -Tones, or 
 
daptain Thomas, 
 
 53 
 
 Eobinson, I knew \ but I did my best to look grateful, — and so 
 we parted. 
 
 The Thunderer was at it again ! 
 
 I hadn't gone three hundred yards before I suddenly remem- 
 bered that I didn't remember what time I was to meet them 
 at St. Pancras Church on the following day. It might be at 
 seven in the morning ; it might be at four in the afternoon. I 
 must go back and inquire. That housemaid of theirs was 
 usual, flirting with the policeman at the garden-gate, con- 
 sequently the hall-door was open. I passed her and went in ; 
 the parlour-door was ajar — and I heard — yes, I heard from 
 the lips of the woman I was going to marry — these passionate 
 exclamations : — 
 
 " My darling Tom, my own precious Thomas ! Urns Thomas ! * 
 In the whole course of our loves she had never called mp 
 Ums Benjamin. Ums was evidently a mysterious expression of 
 endearment, especially consecrate to this military or naval 
 deceiver, " Ums Thomas has come back to ums ; ums naughty 
 boy, then! There!" 
 
 After the " There !" there was that indescribable and unmis- 
 takable sound — something between the whistling of birds in 
 wet weather and the drawing of corks — which one is in the 
 habit of hearing under the mistletoe. She — my " future " — was 
 kissing Captain Thomas, or Captain Thomas was kissing her ! 
 What mattered it which ? Euin either way ! 
 
 There was an umbrella-stand in the hall. I retreated into 
 the shadow thereof as Eosa Matilda rushed out of the room. 
 
 "Mamma!" she called at the foot of the stairs; "mamma, 
 would you believe it? he's come back! The Captain! He 
 came in at the back-bedroom window." 
 
 Back-bedroom window ! Pretty goings-on ! I saw it in per- 
 spective in the Sunday papers, headed " Frightful Depravity in 
 the Hampstead-road!" 
 
 " He's so thin, mamma ! O, so thin; quite wasted away! I'm 
 sure he's been shut up somewhere." 
 
 The profligate ! In prison for debt, I daresay. The Bench, 
 or Whitecross-street. 
 
 "And his whiskers, mamma, his dear whiskers are grown 
 at least an inch longer ! " and then she bounded into the par- 
 lour again ; and the bird- whistling and the cork-drawing began 
 again. 
 
 " And urn darling Thomas will never, never, never leave his 
 Eosey Posey again — will he?" 
 
 And really now, what made the conduct of this young woman 
 seem more than ordinarily culpable was, that all the affection 
 appeared to be on her side ; for not one word had this apathetic 
 naval or military commander uttered during the whole time. 
 
54 
 
 Oaf tain Thomas. 
 
 Well, 1 think l a heard enough. Now, wouldn't any reason- 
 able person suppose I'd heard enough? So I went quietly 
 out of the house, and home to my chambers, where I packed 
 a carpet-bag, took a cab, and left London by the mail- train fov 
 Dover, thence to Paris, whence I was recalled by a letter from 
 Mrs. Poeklinton's solicitor. 
 
 I am not a raving maniac, or a jibbering idiot; and my hair 
 did not turn white m a single night, as it might have done, 
 
 There was an action for Breach of Promise of Marriage, and 
 I had to pay one thousand pounds damages. Captain Thomas 
 was a very handsome black cat, which Rosa Matilda had been 
 attached to from his kittenhood, and the temporary loss of 
 **ihich had lacerated her tender heart. 
 
 I offered — I offered ! — nay, I implored her to marrp- me, and 
 forget the past ; but she wouldn't ; and she has since married 
 Robinson ; and my thousand pounds no doubt has furnished 
 that elegant little house of theirs in the Regent's Park, at the 
 drawing-room window of which I saw, on passing the other 
 day, backing in the sun, my old and bitterest enesay. Captain 
 Thomas. 
 
THE COLD EMBRACE, 
 
 Hp was an artist — such things as happened to tim happen 
 sometimes to artists. 
 
 He was a German — such things as happened to him happen 
 sometimes to Germans. 
 
 He was young, handsome, studious, enthusiastic, meta- 
 physical, reckless, unbelieving, heartless. 
 
 And being young, handsome, and eloquent, he was beloved. 
 
 He was an orphan, under the guardianship of his dead 
 father's brother, his uncle Wilhelm, in whose house he had been 
 brought up from a little child ; and she who loved him was his 
 cousin — his cousin Gertrude, whom he swore he loved in return. 
 
 Did he love her ? Yes, when he first swore it. It soon wore 
 out, this passionate love ; how threadbare and wretched a senti- 
 ment it became at last in the selfish heart of the student ! But 
 in its first golden dawn, when he was only nineteen, and had 
 just returned from his apprenticeship to a great painter at 
 Antwerp, and they wandered together in the most romantic out- 
 skirts of the city at rosy sunset, by holy moonlight, or bright 
 and joyous morning, how beautiful a dream ! 
 
 They keep it a secret from Wilhelm, as he has the father's 
 ambition of a wealthy suitor for his only child — a cold and 
 dreary vision beside the lover's dream. 
 
 80 they are betrothed ; and standing side by side when the 
 dying sun and the pale rising moon divide the heavens, he puts 
 the betrothal ring upon her finger, the white and taper finger 
 whose slender shape he knows so well. This ring is a peculiar 
 one, a massive golden serpent, its tail in. its mouth, the symbol 
 of eternity; it had been his mother's, and he would know it 
 Imongst a thousand. If he were to become blind to-morrow, 
 2e could select it from amongst a thousand by the touch alone. 
 
 He places it on her finger, and they swear to be true to each 
 other for ever and ever — through trouble and danger — in sorrow 
 at*d change — in wealth or poverty. Her father must needs be 
 
TJie Cold JEmlrac^ 
 
 won to consent to their union by and by, for they were no^ 
 
 betrothed, and death alone conld part them. 
 
 But the young student, the scoffer at revelation, yet the 
 enthusiastic adorer of the mystical, asks : 
 
 "Can death part us ? I would return to you from the grave, 
 Gertrude. My soul would come back to be near my love. And 
 you — you, if you died before me — the cold earth would not 
 hold you from me; if you loved me, you would return, and 
 again these fair arms would be clasped round my neck as they 
 are now." 
 
 But she told him, with a holier light in her deep-blue eyes 
 than had ever shone in his — she told him that the dead who die 
 at peace with God are happy in heaven, and cannot return to 
 the troubled earth; and that it is only the suicide — the lost 
 wretch on whom sorrowful angels shut the door of Paradise — 
 whose unholy spirit haunts the footsteps of the living. 
 
 The first year of their betrothal is passed, and she is alone, 
 
 for he has gone to Italy, on a commission for some rich man, 
 k> copy Raphaels, Titians, Guidos, in a gallery at Florence. He 
 has gone to win fame, perhaps ; but it is not the less bitter — he 
 is gone ! 
 
 Of course her father misses his young nephew, who has been 
 as a son to him ; and he thinks his daughter's sadness no more 
 than a cousin should feel for a cousin's absence. 
 
 In the meantime, the weeks and months pass. The lover 
 writes — often at first, then seldom — at last, not at all. 
 
 How many excuses she invents for him ! How many times 
 she goes to the distant little post-office, to which he is to address 
 his letters! How many times she hopes, only to be disap- 
 pointed ! How many times she despairs, only to hope again ! 
 
 But real despair comes at last, and will not be put off any 
 more. The rich suitor appears on the scene, and her father is 
 determined. She is to marry at once. The wedding-day is 
 fixed — the fifteenth of June. 
 
 The date seems burnt into her brain. 
 
 The date, written in fire, dances for ever before her eyes. 
 
 Hie date, shrieked by the Furies, sounds continually in her 
 ears. 
 
 But there is time yet — it is the middle of May — there is time 
 for a letter to reach him at Florence ; there is time for him to 
 come to Brunswick, to take her away and marry her, in spite 
 of her father — in spite of the whole world. 
 
 But the days and weeks fly by, and he does not write— he does 
 not come. This is indeed despair which usurps her heart, and 
 will nob be put away. 
 
 It is thft fourteenth of June. For the last, ti^ae she goes to 
 
The Cold Horibrace. 
 
 57 
 
 the little post-office ; for the last time she asks the old question, 
 and they give her for the last time the dreary answer, " JSTo ; n<j 
 letter." 
 
 For the last time — for to-morrow is the day appointed for hei 
 bridal. Her father will hear no entreaties ; her rich suitor will 
 not listen to her prayers. They will not be put off a day — an 
 hour ; to-night alone is hers — this night, which she may employ 
 as she will. 
 
 She take's another path than that which leads home; she 
 hurries through some by- streets of the city, out on to a lonely 
 bridge, where he and she had stood so often in the sunset, 
 watching the rose-coloured light glow, fade, and die upon the 
 river. 
 
 He returns from Florence. He had received her letter. That 
 letter, blotted with tears, entreating, despairing — he had re- 
 ceived it, but he loved her no longer. A young Florentine, who 
 had sat to him for a model, had bewitched his fancy — that fancy 
 which with him stood in place of a heart — and Gertrude had 
 been half- forgotten. If she had a richer suitor, good; let her 
 marry him; better for her, better far for himself. He had no 
 wish to fetter himself with a wife. Had he not his art always ? 
 — his eternal bride, his unchanging mistress. 
 
 Thus he thought it wiser to delay his journey to Brunswick, 
 so that he should arrive when the wedding was over — arrive in 
 time to salute the bride. 
 
 And the vows — the mystical fancies — the belief in his return, 
 even after death, to the embrace of his beloved ? 0, gone out 
 of his life ; melted away for ever, those foolish dreams of his 
 boyhood. 
 
 So on the fifteenth of June he enters Brunswick, by that very 
 bridge on which she stood, the stars looking down on her, the 
 night before. He strolls across the bridge and down by the 
 water's edge, a great rough dog at his heels, and the smoke from 
 his short meerschaum-pipe curling in blue wreaths fantastically 
 in the pure morning air. He has his sketch-book under his 
 arm, and, attracted now and then by some object that catches 
 his artist's eye, stops to draw : a few weeds and pebbles on the 
 river's brink — a crag on the opposite shore — a group of pollard 
 willows in the distance. When he has done, he admires his 
 drawing, shuts his sketch-book, empties the ashes from his pipe, 
 refills from his tobacco-pouch, sings the refrain of a gay 
 drinking-song, calls to his dog, smokes again, and walks on. 
 Suddenly he opens his sketch-book again ; this time that whicb 
 attracts him is a group of figures : but what is it ? 
 
 Jt is p^h A ineral s for there are no mourners. 
 
58 
 
 The Cold Embrace. 
 
 It is not a funeral, but it is a corpse lying on a rude bier t 
 covered with an old sail, carried between two bearers. 
 
 It is not a funeral, for the bearers are fishermen — fishermen 
 in their every-day garb. 
 
 About a hundred yards from him they rest their burden on a 
 bank — one stands at the head of the bier, the other throws him- 
 self down at the foot of it. 
 
 And thus they form a perfect group ; he walks back two ot 
 three paces, selects his point of sight, and begins to sketch a 
 hurried outline. He has finished it before they move ; he hears 
 their voices, though he cannot hear their words, and wonders 
 what they can be talking of. Presently he walks on and joins 
 them. 
 
 " You have a corpse there, my friends ?" he says. 
 " Yes ; a corpse washed ashore an hour ago." 
 " Drowned ?" 
 
 " Yes, drowned. A young girl, very handsome." 
 
 " Suicides are always handsome," says the painter ; and then 
 he stands for a little while idly smoking and meditating, looking 
 at the sharp outline of the corpse and the stiff folds of the rough 
 canvas covering. 
 
 Life is such a golden holiday for him — young, ambitious, 
 clever — that it seems as though sorrow and death could have no 
 part in his destiny. 
 
 At last he says that, as this poor suicide is so handsome, he 
 should like to make a sketch of her. 
 
 He gives the fishermen some money, and they offer to remove 
 the sailcloth that covers her features. 
 
 No; he will do it himself. He lifts the rough, coarse, wet 
 canvas from her face. What face ? 
 
 The face that shone on the dreams of his foolish boyhood ; the 
 face which once was the light of his uncle's home. His cousin 
 G ertrude — his betrothed ! 
 
 He sees, as in one glance, while he draws one breath, the rigid 
 features — the marble arms — the hands crossed on the cold 
 bosom ; and, on the third finger of the left hand, the ring which 
 had been his mother's — the golden serpent; the ring which, if 
 he were to become blind, he could select from a thousand others 
 by the touch alone. 
 
 But he- is a genius and a metaphysician — grief, true grief, is 
 not for such as he. His first thought is flight — flight anywhere 
 out of that accursed city — anywhere far from the brink of that 
 hideous river — anywhere away from memory, away from remorse 
 — anywhere to forget. 
 
 # * * * # # * 
 
 He is miles on the road that leads away from Brunswick 
 before he knows that he has walked a step. 
 
The Gold Emhrace. 
 
 59 
 
 It is only when his dog lies down panting at his feet that he 
 feels how exhausted he is himself, and sits down upon a bank to 
 rest. How the landscape spins ronnd and round before hia 
 dazzled eyes, while his morning's sketch of the two fishermen 
 and the canvas- covered "bier glares redly at him out of the 
 twilight ! 
 
 At lasb, after sitting a long time by the roadside, idly playing 
 with his dog, idly smoking, idly lounging, looking as any idle, 
 light-hearted travelling student might look, yet all the while 
 acting over that morning's scene in his burning brain a hundred 
 fcimes a minute ; at last he grows a little more composed, and 
 tries presently to think of himself as he is, apart from his 
 cousin's suicide. Apart from that, he was no ^orse off than he 
 was yesterday. His genius was not gone ; the money he had 
 earned at Florence still lined his pocket-book ; he was his own 
 master, free to go whither he would. 
 
 And while he sits on the roadside, trying to separate himself 
 from the scene of that morning — trying to put away the image 
 of the corpse covered with the damp canvas sail — trying to think 
 of what he should do next, where he shoidd go, to be farthest 
 away from Brunswick and remorse, the old diligence comes rum- 
 bling and jingling along. He remembers it ; it goes from Bruns- 
 wick to Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 He whistles to his dog, shouts to the postillion to stop, and 
 springs into the coupe. 
 
 During the whole evening, through the long night, though he 
 does not once close his eyes, he never speaks a word ; but when 
 morning dawns, and the other passengers awake and begin to 
 talk to each other, he joins in the conversation. He tells them 
 that he is an artist, that he is going to Cologne and to Antwerp 
 to copy the Hubenses, and the great picture by Quentin Matsys, 
 in the museum. He remembered afterwards that he talked and 
 laughed boisterously, and that when he was talking and laugh- 
 ing loudest, a passenger, older and graver than the rest, opened 
 the window near him, and told him to put his head out. He 
 remembered the fresh air blowing in his face, the singing of the 
 birds in his ears, and the flat fields and roadside reeling before 
 hio eyes. He remembered this, and then falling in a lifeless heap 
 on the floor of the diligence. 
 
 It is a fever that keeps him for six long weeks laid on a bed at 
 a hotel in Aix-la-Chapelle. 
 
 He gets well, and, accompanied by his dog, starts on foot for 
 Cologne. By this time he is his former self once more. Again 
 the blue smoke from his short meerschaum curls upwards in the 
 morning air — again he sings some old university drinking-song 
 — again stops here and there, meditating and sketching. 
 
60 
 
 The Cold Embrace. 
 
 He is happy, and has forgotten his cousin-— and so on to 
 Oologne. 
 
 It is by the great cathedral he is standing, with his dog at his 
 aide. It is night, the bells have just chimed the hour, and the 
 clocks are striking eleven; the moonlight shines full upon the 
 magnificent pile, over which the artist's eye wanders, absorbed 
 in the beauty of form. 
 
 He is not thinking of his drowned cousin, for he has forgotten 
 her and is happy. 
 
 Suddenly some one, something from behind him, puts two cold 
 arms round his neck, and clasps its hands on his breast. 
 
 And yet there is no one behind him, for on the flags bathed in 
 the broad moonlight there are only two shadows, his own and 
 his dog's. He turns quickly round — there is no one — nothing 
 to be seen in the broad square but himself and his dog ; and 
 though he feels, he cannot see the cold arms clasped round his 
 neck. 
 
 It is not ghostly, this embrace, for it is palpable to the touch 
 — it cannot be real, for it is invisible. 
 
 He tries to throw off the cold caress. He clasps the hands in 
 his own to tear them asunder, and to cast them off his neck. 
 He can feel the long delicate fingers cold and wet beneath his 
 touch, and on the third finger of the left hand he can feel the 
 ring which was his mother's — the golden serpent — the ring 
 which he has always said he would know among a thousand by 
 the touch alone. He knows it now ! 
 
 His dead cousin's cold arms are round his neck— his dead 
 cousin's wet hands are clasped upon his breast. He asks him- 
 self if he is mad. " Up, Leo !" he shouts. " Up, up, boy !" and 
 the Newfoundland leaps to his shoulders — the dog's paws are 
 on the dead hands, and the animal utters a terrific howl, and 
 springs away from his master. 
 
 The student stands in the moonlight, the dead arms around 
 his neck, and the dog at a little distance moaning piteously. 
 
 Presently a watchman, alarmed by the howling of the dog, 
 comes into the square to see what is wrong. 
 
 In a breath the cold arms are gone. 
 
 He takes the watchman home to the hotel with him and gives 
 him money ; in his gratitude he could have given that man half 
 his little fortune. 
 
 Will it ever come to him again, this embrace of the dead ? 
 
 He tries never to be alone ; he makes a hundred acquaint- 
 ances, and shares the chamber of another student. He starts 
 up if he is left by himself in the public room at the inn where 
 he is staying, and runs into the street. People notice his strange 
 actions, and begin to think that he is mad. 
 
The Cold Embrace. 
 
 61 
 
 But, in spile of all, lie is alone once more; for one rviglit the 
 pnblic room being empty for a moment, when on some idle pre* 
 tence he strolls into the street, the street is empty too, and for 
 the second time he feels the cold arms round his neck, and foi 
 the second time, when he calls his dog, the animal slinks away 
 from him with a piteous howl. 
 
 -After this he leaves Cologne, still travelling on foot — of ne- 
 cessity now, for his money is getting low. He joins travelling 
 hawkers, he walks side by side with labourers, he talks to every 
 foot-passenger he falls in with, and tries from morning till night 
 to get company on the road. 
 
 At night he sleeps by the fire in the kitchen of the inn at 
 which he stops ; but do what he will, he is often alone, and 
 »t is now a common thing for him to feel the cold arms around 
 Jris neck. 
 
 Many months have passed since his cousin's death — autumn, 
 vinter, early spring. His money is nearly gone, his health is 
 utterly broken, he is the shadow of his former self, and he is 
 getting near Paris. He will reach that city at the time of the 
 Carnival. To this he looks forward. In Paris,, in Carnival 
 time, he need never, surely, be alone, never feel that deadly 
 caress ; he may even recover his lost gaiety, his lost health, once 
 more resume his profession, once more earn fame and money by 
 his art. 
 
 How hard he tries to get over the distance that divides him 
 from Paris, while day by day he grows weaker, and his step 
 slower and more heavy ! 
 
 But there is an end at last ; the long dreary roads are passed. 
 This is Paris, which he enters for the first time — Paris, of which 
 he has dreamed so much — Paris, whose million voices are to 
 exorcise his phantom. 
 
 To him to-night Paris seems one vast chaos of lights, musio, 
 and confusion — lights which dance before his eyes and will not 
 be still — music that rings in his ears and deafens him — confu- 
 sion which makes his head whirl round and round. 
 
 But, in spite of all, he finds the opera-house, where there is 
 a masked ball. He has enough money left to buy a ticket of 
 admission, and to hire a domino to throw over his shabby dress. 
 It seems only a moment after his entering the gates of Paris 
 that he is in the very midst of all the wild gaiety of the opera- 
 house ball. 
 
 No # more darkness, no more loneliness, but a mad crowd, 
 Bhouting and dancing, and a lovely Debardeuse hanging on his 
 arm. 
 
 The boisterous gaiety he feels surely is his old light-hearted- 
 ness come back. He hears the people round him talking of the 
 outrageous conduct of some drunken student, and it is to hisn 
 
02 
 
 The Cold Emir ace. 
 
 they point when they say this — to him, who has not moistened 
 his lips since yesterday at noon, for even now he will not 
 drink ; though his lips are parched, and his throat burning, he 
 cannot drink. His voice is thick and hoarse, and his utterance 
 indistinct ; but still this must be his old light-heartedness com© 
 back that makes him so wildly gay. 
 
 The little Debardeuse is wearied out — her arm rests on his 
 shoulder heavier than lead — the other dancers one by one drop 
 off. 
 
 The lights in the chandeliers one by one die out. 
 
 The decorations look pale and shadowy in that dim light 
 which is neither night nor day. 
 
 A faint glimmer from the dying lamps, a pale streak of cold 
 gray light from the new-born day, creeping in through half- 
 opened shutters. 
 
 And by this light the bright-eyed Debardeuse fades sadly. 
 He looks her in the face. How the brightness of her eyes dies 
 out ! Again he looks her in the face. How white that face has 
 grown ! Again — and now it is the shadow of a face alone that 
 looks in his. 
 
 Again — and they are gone — the bright eyes, the face, the 
 shadow of the face. He is alone ; alone in that vast saloon. 
 
 Alone, and, in the terrible silence, he hears the echoes of his 
 own footsteps in that dismal dance which has no music 
 
 No music but the beating of his heart against his Dreast. 
 For the cold arms are round his neck — they whirl him round, 
 they will not be flung off, or cast away; he can no more escape 
 from their icy grasp than he can escape from death. He looks 
 behind him — there is nothing but himself in the great empty 
 salle ; but he can feel — cold, deathlike, but 0, how palpable !— 
 the long slender fingers, and the ring which was his mother's. 
 
 He tries to shout, but he has no power in his burning throat. 
 The silence of the place is only broken by the echoes of his own 
 footsteps in the dance from which he cannot extricate himself 
 Wno says he has no partner ? The cold hands are clasped on 
 his breast, and now he does not shun their caress. No ! One 
 Snore polka, if he drops down dead. 
 
 The lights are all out, and, half an hour after, the gendarmes 
 come in with a lantern to see that the house is empty; they are 
 followed by a great dog that they have found seated howling 1 on 
 the steps of the theatre. Near the principal entrance they 
 stumble over — 
 
 The body of a student, who has died from want of food, oi' 
 haustion, and the breaking of a blood-vessel. 
 
MY DAUGHTERS 
 
 £ have git>rm-up daughters. Perhaps after havimg written 
 that sentence there is not, in reality, the least occasion for me 
 to write any more. To the initiated (i.e. parties having, grown- 
 up daughters themselves) I am sure there is not. They can 
 gueos what I have suffered ; for the very simple reason that they 
 havo most likely suffered the same themselves. But to the 
 uninitiated, this brief record of misery may prove a warning. 
 
 I repeat, I have grown-up daughters, and I suffer. Mind, I 
 lay a peculiar emphasis on the compound adjective " grown-up." 
 My daughters, while in the nursery, were merely associated 
 with such minor evils as measles, juvenile parties, dancing- 
 lessons, red sashes half-a-yard wide, and refractory governesses. 
 They came down to dessert, and made themselves ill with unripe 
 fruits, or smeared their infantine faces with preserved ginger, 
 and were sticky and unpleasant to the touch ; beyond this, they 
 were harmless ; and when I* saw them encircling the shining 
 mahogany after dinner, with round faces and white frocks, after 
 the manner of that Titan among the caricaturists, the late J ohn 
 Leech, I used to think it, on the whole, rather a nice thing to 
 have daughters. Ah, I little knew ! They are now grown up. 
 They are of a sentimental and poetical' temperament. I don't 
 find that fact to make any difference whatever in my butcher'? 
 bill. My baker's account is not to be sneezed at (indeed, I wisi 
 the bread purveyor would accept such a mode of remuneration) 
 If I am so weak-minded as to allow myself to be led by Juliana, 
 Aagustina, and Frederica (their mamma chose their names) into 
 a pastrycook's shop, I emerge therefrom a wiser and a poorer 
 tnan ; but, for all this, they are romantic — very romantic. They 
 would like to break blood-vessels ; or to go mad, and let their 
 back-hair down. They would deny this, but I know better. 
 Now I am a plain man, morally a very plain man ; there is 
 * fine oil-painting of me by Tomkrns over my dining-roaro 
 
 E 
 
64 
 
 My Daughters 
 
 mantelpiece ; — personally, perhaps, I am not plain ; there is a 
 double- chin in that picture that I never had, which I attribute 
 to personal enmity on the part of Tomkins. 
 
 I am not romantic ; I am not sentimental. If I saw a dead 
 ass I should not cry ; on the contrary, I should think it rather 
 a good job. Nobody will cry when I die, I daresay. Mrs. 
 Blankstars will get the £3,000 for which I am insured, and will 
 be glad. The girls have fair complexions, and will look well in 
 mourning. I do not expect to be regretted. 
 
 I am, I repeat, not sentimental; if I met a young person 
 with a goat, I should do my best to avoid her, lest she should 
 ask me for alms. I cannot see why a " primrose on a river's 
 brim" should be of any more value than a primrose anywhere 
 else — less valuable, I should think, if anything, as being in an 
 inconvenient position. I am a practical man, and I look at 
 things in a practical light; if I put half-a- sovereign on the 
 drawing-room table, or if I take the same coin to Italy and 
 place it on the banks of the Lake of Como, it would only be ten 
 shillings. Why, then, should a mere difference of position alter 
 the value of a primrose ? And what is the value of a primrose ? 
 You can buy them in Covent Garden for twopence a bunch, and 
 if you happen to live at Brompton, as I do, you will find them 
 apt to grow warm and collapse unpleasantly before you have 
 conveyed them to your abode. I was once persuaded to walk 
 half through one of the Ridings of Yorkshire with a great 
 bundle of hyacinths in my arms ; of course they were flabby 
 and faded when I got home. Hyacinths are very well in the 
 abstract, " the heavens upbreaking through the earth," and all 
 that sort of thing ; but in the concrete, especially if you have 
 to carry them, they are a decided nuisance. But my three girls, 
 Juliana, Augustina, and Frederica, are so many embodied 
 and perambulatory Sentimental Journeys. 0, what I suffer ! 
 There was Adam Bede. Talk of the cholera, or the measles, or 
 any of the prevailing epidemics a family man is subject to; 
 what are they to a new novel breaking out in his household, and 
 every member of that household taking it successively ! Then 
 there was the " Idyls of the King." I've not got over that yet. 
 I really think, if that respected individual the Laureate could 
 only form any conception of the terrors he inflicts on the re- 
 spectable fathers of families, he would'nt do it; I repeat, he 
 wonldn't do it. Good gracious me ! what I have suffered through 
 that man ever since my daughters entered their teens, or even 
 before, would draw tears from the eyes of a Board of Works. 
 O, the anguish I have endured! Let me only refuse those 
 horrid girls a new silk gown, or a box at the opera, or a flower- 
 show at Chiswick, and that moment I am assailed with the 
 information that their lives are "weary," and that, on the 
 
My Daughter*. 
 
 G5 
 
 Whole, they'd find it agreeable to be dead. That "he" (name 
 unknown) " does not come," ultimately " will not come," " she" 
 (name also unknown) "said." This is a nice thing to have 
 thrown in one's face. Anything to avoid this ! So I purchase 
 the dress, or the box, or the tickets for the horticultural fete, 
 and fondly hope for relief. Am I any better off? Not a bit of 
 it. They dance round me, call me the best of papas, and 
 immediately begin to request Mrs. Blankstars to "call" them 
 "early," for they're "to be Queen of the May, mother dear," 
 and " to-morrow" (Cmswick Fete) "is the happiest day in all 
 the livelong year. " Do I venture — as being the head of the 
 family, I have a right to do — to repel the attentions of my 
 junior clerk, with a salary of fifty pounds per annum, who has 
 presumed to fall in love with my youngest, I am informed 
 immediately that "high hearts are more than coronets," and 
 am insulted at my own table under cover of " Lady Clara Yere 
 de Yere," and have rude remarks made to me about the 
 "gardener Adam and his wife." It is foreign to the purpose of 
 this paper to state that I am pursued by the works of this 
 dreadful man even at my office, where my clerks write quota- 
 tions from "Locksley Hall" on my desk, thereby injuring those 
 articles of furniture ; where my articled clerk recites the " Charge 
 of the Six Hundred" while I am out of the room, and whittles 
 the office- stools with a penknife in his excitement ; or twists the 
 sealing-wax into hot lumps with indignant perspiration, on the 
 subject of "Lady Clara;" where my junior partner reads the 
 " Idyls " under cover of a lease which he pretends to be perusing ; 
 and where I am sometimes greeted by parchments indorsed "In 
 re Stubbs and Guinivere." 
 
 Well, we were scarcely out of Adam Bede, when the girls 
 sickened for the " Idyls." They had a great struggle, so 
 tremendous was the demand, to get it from Mudie's ; and 
 I'm sure, for a week, our man-servant Higgs, aged fourteen, 
 almost lived upon the road between Brompton and Bloom sbury. 
 At last, the modest green-covered volume arrived. 0, little did 
 I think what a viper that innocent- seeming book would prove ! 
 The girls had high words that very evening about the perusal 
 thereof; they all wanted it at once, and their mamma only 
 restored peace by persuading Egbert, my only son, to read the 
 poems aloud. He is not a good reader, my son Egbert ; at a 
 very early age, when his " name was JSTorval," I foresaw that 
 oratory would not be his strong point. Indeed, I took an 
 entirely erroneous idea of several Shakespearian characters from 
 that child's recitations, and can scarcely now dispossess myself 
 of the conviction that the cholera was raging in Denmark during 
 the reign of Hamlet's uncle, and that the afflicted prince was the 
 chief sufferer, There were great effects in " To be or not t® be/* 
 
66 
 
 My Daughters. 
 
 as rendered by my son, which no physiologist could attribute to 
 any cause but that exhausting complaint. It was my fbni 
 opinion, too, that Othello was a victim to aggravated tooth- 
 ache; Iago owns to having been troubled with it, and I'm sure 
 my son hit off that phase of the Macchiavellian Italian's 
 character to a nicety. There was a very interesting will- case 
 in the Times ^of that day, and I had made up mind for a 
 pleasant evening, and there was that awful boy droning out th€ 
 adventures of a young woman, who had, apparently, a very 
 unpleasant husband, whose conduct would have come under 
 3 Geo. IY. cap. 17, and 3 & 4 Vict. cap. 30. O, what I endured ! 
 I assure you that during the first week of the " Idyl" attack I 
 was positively afraid to bring home any gentleman of my 
 acquaintance to dinner, for I felt convinced that should ho 
 inadvertently, on his taking leave, have said, " By the bye, Miss 
 Blankstars, can I do anything for you in town to-morrow ? " my 
 daughter Frederica would have taken off her chenille net and 
 pulled the hair-pins and the frizzy things out of her hair, and 
 would have marched straight up to him, and said, " I have gone 
 mad, I love you, let me die !" — and there'd have been a situation 
 *br the father of a family ! I dined at the Crown and Sceptre, 
 Greenwich, during this awful period, with Bangstaff, late of the 
 late Ea/t India Company, and I had scarcely the courage to look 
 out of the window of that hostelry, for fear I should behold my 
 youngest floating down the river on a Chelsea coal-barge, steered 
 by a young man from the Deaf and Dumb Asylum. They were 
 always repeating passages from this fearful work. One in par- 
 ticular I remember, because I thought it was a conundrum ; it 
 ran thus : — 
 
 " His honour rooted in dishonour stood, 
 And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.* 
 
 I hazarded a guess, and said, " Because he was the Bishop ol 
 London." My unnatural children laughed at me. This is a 
 feeble description of my sufferings ; we have not got over the 
 " Idyls " yet, nor will anything eradicate the disease but a new 
 poem by the same author. 
 
 Then, again, Friedrich the Second; what have I not gone 
 through in the cause of that potentate, to say nothing of three 
 hundred and sixty-two pages of his ancestors ! What's-his- 
 name with the arrow, and Thingemabob the Bear, and spectre- 
 hunting Kaisers, with fathers in red stockings, fighting duels 
 with Termagants, and apparently getting the worst of it. O, 
 the abusive names I have been called, on venturing to remon- 
 strate on the subject of milliners 1 ' bills ! Dryasdusts, phos- 
 phorescent blockheads, putrefied specialities, and all sorts of 
 insulting epithets have rained down on this devoted head. 
 
My Daughters* 
 
 07 
 
 Talk of reihabilitation, too; wliat liave I not endured in that 
 way ! My opinions are positively not worth, a day's p" '"chase. 
 To-day they have been reading that dear Mr. Froude, and teH 
 me, when I come home to dinner, that Henry the Eighth was an 
 exemplary hnsband, and cnt off his wives' heads for the good of 
 the country. Yesterday they had been perusing that delightful 
 Monsieur Capefigue, and I was informed that Louis the Fifteenth 
 was an excellent family man, and Madame du Barry a most 
 respectable young person. I am quite prepared to hear, in the 
 course of next week, that Dr. Johnson was distinguished for b \s 
 polished and conciliating manners, and that Lord Chesterfield 
 was a warm-hearted bear. Let them come on ! 
 
 Then my daughters are perpetually taking up popular ideas. 
 A twelvemonth ago they took up the Italian question ; not that 
 they knew anything about it, but they associated it with the 
 opera, cheap ices, Mr. Turner's pictures, Jerusalem delivered, 
 Savoy biscuits, " I promessi sposi," and organ-boys ; and they 
 took it up, and for the period of three weeks were so many Misa 
 Whites. 
 
 Of course it is only natural that, being blest with three mar- 
 riageable daughters, their settlement in life is a question of some 
 importance to Mrs. Blankstars and myself. But, good gracious 
 me ! what are you to do with girls who form their idea of a 
 husband from the last book they read, and whose standard of 
 perfection alters every time John Thomas brings a fresh ^argo 
 from Mudie's? When the "Idyl" fever was at its maximum, 
 they would hear of nothing in the way of a husband but a stern, 
 cold, impassible, and dignified person, whose voice was " hollow 
 and monotonous like a ghost's;" and I set my wits to work \f K 
 find some one amongst my acquaintance answering to the de- 
 scription. I found the very thing — Stiggins, an Essex oyster- 
 merchant, with two thousand a-year, and a splendid place outside 
 Colchester ; a solemn, elderly fogy, but a warm man. I invited 
 him to dinner for the following Sunday. He would have been 
 an excellent match for my daughter Juliana ; Juliana is getting 
 on, and has taken lately to geology; I heard her make some 
 remarks the other day about the old red sandstone that made 
 me rather anxious to see her settled. It's a bad sign, old red 
 sandstone, and always sounds like the wrong side of thirty. So 
 I invited Stiggins to dinner. I might have saved myself the 
 trouble ; before Sunday came they were attacked by the Tale 
 of Two Cities, and wouldn't have anything but a dissipated 
 barrister, who tied wet towels round his head, and made him- 
 ■elf supremely wretched about nothing particular. Now I wafc 
 not going to indulge them in this, or else there is Montagu* 
 Bluffers, of Fig-tree- court, Temple, who never had a brief in 
 bis life, and whom I actually caught once, at ten o'clock in tha 
 
68 
 
 My Daughters* 
 
 morning, with his towel, dripping wet, rolled round his head 
 like a turban, sitting np in bed drinking soda-water and strong 
 green tea, and reading French novels. But this wasn't the sort 
 of thing for me, so I left them to get over Sidney Carton as best 
 they might, and the following week nothing would do for them 
 out John Halifax, Gentleman. I thought this sounded like the 
 manufacturing towns, and I brought them home a Manchester 
 man of my acquaintance ; but he hadn't read Tennyson, and he 
 ate fish with his knife, so he didn't meet their views. 
 
 One blessing, however, is tbat a very little satisfies them in 
 ; the fleshly representatives of their ideal heroes, and I am often 
 surprised by being told that young FitzGigfiz of the Blues, who 
 parts his hair down the middle, and *vh.o never had an idea in 
 his life, is the very image of Lancelot of the Lake, or thatHokus (of 
 Pokus, Hokus, and Sons, bankers, Lombard-street) is the living 
 representative of Augustine Caxton. Hokus buys black-letter 
 sooks and rare editions, and will give fifteen guineas for a single 
 volume, if it is only dirty enough. I am sure, during the Adam- 
 Bede fever, I was quite fidgety whilst our carpenter Humphries, 
 a most respectable person, and by no means bad-looking, was in 
 the house, putting down the stair-carpets, for I daily expected 
 that Augustina would express a desire to marry him, and turn 
 Methodist preacher. 
 
 There is another source of suffering too : my girls sing. The 
 Signor Caterwaulini is an expensive man ; but "I don't so much 
 mind that, for he teaches them Italian songs, and I don't object 
 to Italian songs. One doesn't understand the words ; one can 
 go to sleep. What does it matter to me if " Una voce poco fa" ? 
 I'm sure " Una voce" was quite at liberty to do anything of the 
 sort, if it was agreeable to him. But 0, the agony of those 
 English songs ! That dreadful Annie, who is left in sorrow ; 
 tfiat abominable phantasmal fantasticality (P. P. is a specimen 
 of the bad language those girls have taught me), that decom- 
 posed inanity, "Willie," the young person who is always 
 missed. I really was put to the blush the other day, on bring- 
 ing William Williams, of Lloyd's, home to dinner, to find 
 Juliana seated at the piano, singing, "0, Willie, we have 
 missed you ; welcome, welcome home !" Mrs. Blankstars told 
 quite another story, for there was only cold meat for dinner, and 
 she looked like thunder. As to that young woman who has 
 been requested to go into the garden without intermission for 
 these last four years and upwards, and who has apparently 
 never gone, I will refrain from stating my feelings with, regard 
 to her, for there is a degree of bitterness in those feelings 
 untranslateable in these pages. If I do not fully appreciate the 
 amount of hardship involved in the necessity of bestowing " the 
 band" where it is utterly impossible "the heart" can, either at 
 
My Daughters. 
 
 69 
 
 the present time or any remoter period, be its accompaniment, 
 it is not for want of having heard enough about it. In short, so 
 much have I suffered from Stephen Glover, Balfe, and the 
 Christy Minstrels, that on my daughters yesterday stating in 
 chorus that they were " off to Chaiiestown early in the morn- 
 ing, 99 I really felt inclined to take them at their word, and give 
 them a cheque for their outfit and travelling expenses. There 
 are no limits to the recitals I could give of my acute sufferings 
 of some eight years ; but as there are limits to the patience of 
 my readers, and, as wise Herbert has said, it is no more good 
 manners " to talk all than to eat all at a feast," I will say na 
 more; but with a solemn warning — warning not to be disre~ 
 garded, however short falling of dismal truth, or inarticulately 
 rendered, said warning may be — close my dreary record. 
 
 Let the fathers of families see that their daughters, from 
 a very early age, are taught that life has something better 
 to demand of them than novel-reading, or even worship of 
 sublime and unapproachable Alfred ; that these, good in them- 
 selves, are a means, not an end; and that if their books do not 
 teach, them better things than to lie on the sofa all day reading 
 them, and to spend all the rest of the day talking of them, they 
 do not read those books aright. What better — or what in a 
 hundredth degree so good — can I say than this? Let them be 
 taught to follow the precept of their own prophet : — 
 
 M If time be heavy on your hands, 
 
 Are there no beggars at your gatea, 
 Not. any poor about your lands ? 
 
 0, teach the orphan boy to readj 
 Or teach the orphan girl to sew." 
 
THE MYSTERY AT FERNWOOD. 
 
 H !No, Isabel, I do not consider that Lady Adela seconded hef 
 
 Bon's invitation at all warmly." 
 
 This was the third time within the last hour that my aunt 
 had made the above remark. We were seated opposite each 
 other in a first-class carriage of the York express, and the flat 
 fields of ripening wheat were flitting by ns like yellow shadows 
 under the afternoon sunshine. We were going on a visit to 
 Fernwood, a country mansion ten miles from York, in order that 
 I might become acquainted with the family of Mr. Lewis Wen- 
 dale, to whose only son Laurence I was engaged to be married. 
 
 Laurence Wendale and 1 had only been acquainted during the 
 brief May and June of my first London season, which I — orphan 
 heiress of a wealthy Calcutta merchant — had passed under the 
 roof of my aunt, Mrs. Maddison Trevor, the dashing widow of a 
 major in the Life Guards, and my father's only sister. Mrs. 
 Trevor had made many objections to this brief six weeks' engage- 
 ment between Laurence and me; but the impetuous young 
 Yorkshireman had overruled everything. What objection could 
 there be? he asked. He was to have two thousand a-year and 
 Fernwood at his father's death ; forty thousand pounds from a 
 maiden aunt the day he came of age — for he was not yet one- 
 und- twenty, my impetuous young lover. As for his family, let 
 Mrs. Trevor look into Burke's County Families for the Wendales 
 of Fernwood. His mother was Lady Adela, youngest daughter 
 of Lord Kingwood, of Castle King wood, county Kildare. What 
 objection could my aunt have, then ? His family did not know 
 me, and might not approve of the match, urged my aunt 
 Laurence laughed aloud; a long ringing peal of that merry, 
 musical laughter I loved so well to hear, 
 
 "Not approve !" he cried — "not love my little Bella ! _ That 
 is too good a joke !" On which immediately followed an invita- 
 tion to Fernwood, seconded "by a rote from Lady Adela Wendale 
 
The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 71 
 
 To this note my aunt was never tired of taking objection. It 
 was cold, it was constrained ; it had been only written to please * 
 Laurence. How little I thought of the letter ! and yet it was 
 the first faint and shadowy indication of that terrible rock ahead 
 upon which my life was to be wrecked; the first feeble link in 
 the chain of the one great mystery in which the fate of so many 
 was involved. 
 
 The letter was cold, certainly. Lady Adela started by declar- 
 ing she should be most happy to see us ; she was all anxiety to 
 be introduced to her charming daughter-in-law. And then my 
 lady ran off to tell us how dull Fern wood was, and how she feared 
 we should regret our long journey into the heart of Yorkshire 
 to a lonely country-house, where we should find no one but a 
 captious invalid, a couple of nervous women, and a young man 
 devoted to farming and field-sports. 
 
 But I was not afraid of being dull where my light-hearted 
 Laurence was ; and I overruled all my aunt's objections, ordered 
 half a dozen new dresses, and carried Mrs. Maddison Trevor off 
 to the Great Northern Station before she had time to remonstrate. 
 
 Laurence had gone on before to see that all was prepared for 
 ns ; and had promised to meet us at York, and drive us over to 
 Fern wood in his mail-phaeton. He was standing on the plat- 
 •form as the train entered the station, radiant with life and 
 happiness. * 
 
 Laurence Wendale was very handsome ; but perhaps his 
 greatest charm consisted in that wonderful vitality, that un 
 tiring energy and indomitable spirit, which made him so different 
 from all other young men whom I had met. So great was this 
 vitality, that, by some magnetic influence, it seemed to communi- 
 cate itself to others. I was never tired when Laurence was witls 
 me. I could waltz longer with him for my partner ; ride longer 
 in the Row with him for my cavalier ; sit out an opera or ex- 
 amine an exhibition of pictures with less fatigue when he was 
 near. His presence pervaded a whole house ; his joyous laugh 
 ran through every room. It seemed as if where he was sorrow 
 could not come. 
 
 I felt this more than ever as we drew nearer Fernwood. The 
 country was bleak and bare ; wide wastes of moorland stretched 
 away on either side of the by-road down which we drove. The 
 afternoon sunshine had faded out, leaving a cold gray sky, wit 2, 
 low masses of leaden cloud brooding close over the landscape 
 and shutting in the dim horizon. But no influence of scenery 
 or atmosphere could affect Laurence. His spirits were even 
 higher than usual this afternoon. 
 
 " They have fitted up the oak-rooms for you, ladies," he said. 
 *' Such solemn and stately chambers, with high-canopied beds 
 crowned with funeral olumes ; black-oak paneling ; portraits of 
 
72 
 
 The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 dead-and-gone Wendales : Mistress Aurora, with pannier-hoops 
 
 and a shepherdess's crook ; Mistress Lydia, with ringlets a la 
 Sevigne and a pearl necklace ; Mortimer Wendale, in a Bamilies 
 wig; Theodore, with love-locks, velvet donblet, and Spanish 
 leather boots. Such a collection of them ! Yon may expect to 
 Bee them all descend from their frames in the witching time of 
 night to warm their icy fingers at your sea-coal fires. Your 
 expected arrival has made quite a sensation in our dull old 
 abode. My mother has looked up from the last new novel half 
 a dozen times this day, I verily believe, to ask if an 1 due prepar- 
 ations were being made ; while my dear, active, patient, inde- 
 fatigable sister Lucy has been running about superintending 
 the arrangements ever since breakfast." 
 
 " Your sister Lucy ! " I said, catching at his last words ; " I 
 shall &o love her, Laurence." 
 
 " I hope you will, darling,," he answered, almost gravely, 
 " for she has been the best and dearest sister to me. And yet 
 I'm half afraid; Lucy is ten years older than you- — grave, re- 
 served, sometimes almost melancholy ; but if ever there was a 
 banished angel treading this earth in human form, my sister 
 Lucy surely is that guardian spirit." 
 
 " Is she like you, Laurence ?" 
 
 "Like me! 0, no, not in the least. She is only my half- 
 sister, you know. She resembles her mother, who died young." 
 
 We were at the gates of Fernwood when he said this, — high 
 wooden gates, with stone pillars moss-grown and dilapidated ; 
 a tumble-dcwn-looking lodge, kept by a slatternly woman, whose 
 children were at play in a square patch of ground planted with 
 cabbages and currant-bushes, fenced in with a rotten paling, 
 and ambitiously called a garden. From this lodge entrance a 
 long avenue stretched away for about half a mile, at the end of 
 which a great red-brick mansion, built in the Tudor style, 
 frowned at us, rather as if in defiance than in welcome. The 
 park was entirely uncultivated ; the trunks of the trees were 
 choked with ftie tangled underwood ; the fern grew deep in the 
 long vistas, broken here and there by solitary pools of black 
 water, on whose quiet borders we heard the flap of the heron's 
 wing, and the dull croaking of an army of frogs. 
 
 Lady Adela was right. Fernwood was a dull place. I could 
 scarcely repress a shudder as we drove along the dark avenue, 
 while my poor aunt's teeth chattered audibly. Accustomed to 
 spend three parts of the year in Onslow- square, and the autumn 
 months at Brighton or Hyde, this dreary Yorkshire mansion was 
 a terrible trial to her rather over- sensitive nerves. 
 
 Laurence seemed to divine the reason of our silence. " The 
 place is frightfully neglected, Mrs. Trevor," he said apologeti- 
 cally ; " but I do not mean this sort of thing to last, I assure you 
 
The Mystery at Fernwood 
 
 73 
 
 Before I bring my delicate little Bella to reign at Fernwood, I 
 shall have landscape-gardeners and upholsterers down by the 
 score, and do my best to convert this dreary wilderness into a 
 terrestrial paradise. I cannot tell you why the place has been 
 suffered to fall into decay ; certainly not for want of money, 
 still less for want of opportunity, for my father is an idle man, 
 to whom one would imagine ' restoring and rebuilding would 
 afford a delightful hobby. No, there is no reason why the place 
 should have been so neglected." 
 
 He said this more to himself than to us, as if the words were 
 spoken in answer to some long train of thought of his own. 1 
 watched his face earnestly, for I had seldom seen him look so 
 thoughtful. Presently he said, with more of his usual manner, — 
 
 " As you are close upon the threshold of Fernwood now, 
 ladies, I ought perhaps to tell you that you will find ours a 
 most low-spirited family. With everything in life to make us 
 happy, we seem for ever under a cloud. Ever since I can re* 
 member my poor father, he has been sinking slowly into decay, 
 almost in the same way as this neglected place, till now he is a 
 confirmed invalid, without any positive illness. My mother 
 reads novels all day, and seems to exist upon sal-volatile and 
 spirits of lavender. My sister, the only active person in the 
 house, is always thoughtful, and very often melancholy. Mind, 
 I merely tell you this to prepare you for anything you may see ; 
 not to depress you, for you may depend upon my exertions 
 towards reforming this dreary household, which has sunk 
 into habitual despondency from sheer easy fortune and want 
 of vexation." 
 
 The phaeton drew up before a broad flight of stone steps as 
 Laurence ceased speaking, and in five minutes more he had 
 assisted my aunt and myself to alight, and had ushered us into 
 the presence of Lady Adela and Miss Lucy Wendale. 
 
 We found Lady Adela, as her son's description had given us 
 reason to expect, absorbed in a novel. She threw down her 
 book as we entered, and advanced to meet us with considerable 
 cordiality ; rather, indeed, as if she really were grateful to us 
 for breaking in upon her solitary life. 
 
 " It is so good of you to come," she said, folding me in her 
 slender arms with an almost motherly embrace, " and so kind 
 of you, too, my dear Mrs. Trevor, to abandon all your town 
 pleasures for the sake of bringing this dear girl to me. Believe 
 me, we will do all in our power to make you comfortable, if you 
 can put up with very limited society ; for we have received no 
 company whatever since my son's childhood, and I 3o not think 
 my visiting list could muster half a dozen names." 
 
 Lady Adela was an elegant-looking woman, in the very 
 prime of life: but her handsome face was thin and careworn* 
 
74 
 
 The Mystery at Fernwood, 
 
 and premaUrre wrinkles gathered about her m£/ancholy hint 
 eyes and thoughtful month. While she was talking to my aunt, 
 Lncy Wendale and I drew nearer to each other. 
 
 Lanrence's half-sister was by no means handsome ; pale and 
 sallow, with dark hair and rather dull gray eyes, she looked a& 
 if some hidden sorrow had quenched out the light of her life 
 long ago, in her earliest youth ; some sorrow that had neither 
 been forgotten nor lessened by time, bnt that had rather grown 
 with her growth, and strengthened with her strength, until it 
 had become a part of her very self, — some disappointed attach- 
 ment, I thought, some cruel blow, that had shattered a girl's 
 first dream, and left a broken-hearted woman to mourn tha 
 fatal delusion. In my utter ignorance of life, I thought these 
 were the only griefs which ever left a woman's life desolate. 
 
 "You will try and be happy at Fernwood, Isabel," Miss 
 Wendale said gently, as she drew me into a seat by her side, 
 while Laurence bent fondly over us both. I do not believe, dear 
 as we were to each other, that my Laurence ever loved me as 
 he loved this pale-faced half-sister. " You will try and be happy, 
 will you not, dear Isabel? Laurence has been breaking-in the 
 prettiest chestnut mare in all Yorkshire, I think, that you may 
 explore the country with us. I have heard what a daring horse- 
 woman you are. The pianos have been put in tune for you, 
 and the billiard-table re-covered, that you may have exercise on 
 rainy days ; and if we cannot give you much society, we will do 
 all else to prevent your feeling dull." 
 
 "I shall be very happy here with you, dear Lucy," I said; 
 " but you tell me so much of the dulness of Fernwood, while, 
 I daresay, you yourself have a hundred associations that make 
 the old place very dear to you." 
 
 She looked down as I spoke, and a very faint flush broke 
 through the sallow paleness of her complexion. 
 
 " I am not very fond of Fernwood," she said gravely. 
 
 It was at Fernwood, then, that the great sorrow of her life 
 came upon her, I thought. 
 
 "No, Lucy," said Laurence, almost impatiently, "everybody 
 knows this dull place is killing you by inches, and yet nothing 
 on earth can induce you to quit it. When we all go to Scar- 
 borough or Burlington, when mamma goes to Harrogate, when 
 I run up to town to rub off my provincial rust, and see what 
 the world is made of outside these dreary gates, — you obsti- 
 nately persist in staying at home ; and the only reason you can 
 urge for doing so is, that you must remain here to take care of 
 that unfortunate invalid of yours, Mr. William." 
 
 I was holding Lucy's hand in mine, and I felt the poor wasted 
 little fingers tremble as her brother spoke. My curiosity wag 
 strongly aroused. 
 
The Mystery at Ifemmoa. 
 
 75 
 
 u Mr. William ! " I exclaimed half involuntarily. 
 
 " Ah, to be sure, Bel-la, I forgot to tell you of that member of 
 our household, but as I have never seen him, I may be forgiven 
 the omission. This Mr. William is a poor relative of my 
 father's; a hopeless invalid, bedridden, I believe — is he not, 
 Lucy? — who requires a strong man and an experienced nurse 
 to look after him, and who occupies the entire upper story ot 
 one wing of the house. Poor Mr. William, invalid as he is, 
 must certainly be a most fascinating person. My mother goes 
 tfo see him every day, but as stealthily as if she were paying a 
 secret visit to some condemned criminal. I have often met my 
 father coming away from his rooms, pale and melancholy ; and, as 
 for my sister Lucy, she is so attached to this sick dependent of ours, 
 that, as I have just said, nothing will induce her to leave the house 
 for fear his nurse or his valet should fail in their care of him." 
 
 I still held Lucy's hand, but it was perfectly steady now. 
 Could this poor relative, this invalid dependent, have any part 
 in the sorrowful mystery that had overshadowed her life ? And 
 yet, no ; I thought that could scarcely be, for she looked up with 
 such perfect self-possession as she answered her brother, — 
 
 "My whole life has gradually fallen into the duty of attend- 
 ance upon this poor young man, Laurence; and I will never 
 leave Fernwood while he lives." 
 
 A young man ! Mr. William was a young man, then. 
 
 Lucy herself led us to the handsome suite of apartments 
 prepared for my aunt and me. My aunt's room was separated 
 from rrjne by a corridor, out of which opened two dressing- 
 rooms and a pretty little boudoir, all looking on to the park. 
 My room was at the extreme angle of the building ; it had two 
 doors, one leading to the corridor communicating with my aunt's 
 apartments, the other opening into a gallery running the entire 
 length of the house. Looking out into this gallery, I saw that 
 the opposite wing was shut in by a baize door. I looked with 
 some curiosity at this heavy baize door. It was most likely the 
 barrier which closed the outer world upon Laurence Wendale's 
 invalid relation. 
 
 Lucy left us as soon as we were installed in our apartments. 
 While I was dressing for dinner, the housekeeper, a stout, elderly 
 woman, came to ask me if I found everything I required. 
 
 " As you haven't brought your own servant with you, miss," 
 ehe said, " Miss Lucy told me to place her maid Sarah entirely 
 at your service. Miss gives very little work to a maid herself, 
 so Sarah has plenty of leisure time on her hands, and you'll find 
 her a very respectable young woman." 
 
 I told her that I could do all I wanted for myself ; but before 
 ahe left me I could aofe resist asking her one question about the 
 mysterious invalid. 
 
The Mystery at Fernicodrf. 
 
 "Are Mr. William's rooms at this end of the house?" I 
 
 asked. 
 
 The woman looked at me with an almost scared expression, 
 
 and was silent for a moment. 
 
 " Has Mr. Lanrence been saying anything to yon about Mr. 
 William?" she said, rather anxiously as I thought. 
 
 : Mr. Lanrence and his sister Miss Lucy were both talking of 
 him just now." 
 
 " 0, indeed, miss/' answered the woman with an air of relief ; 
 " the poor gentleman's rooms are at the other end of the gallery, 
 miss." 
 
 " Has he lived here long?" I asked. 
 
 "Nigh npon twenty years, miss — above twenty years, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 " I suppose he is distantly related to the family." 
 " Yes, miss." 
 
 "And quite dependent on Mr. WendaleP" 
 " Yes, miss." 
 
 " It is very good of your master to have supported him for 
 
 so many years, and to keep him in such comfort." 
 " My master is a very good man, miss." 
 
 The woman seemed determined to give me as little informa- 
 tion as possible; but I could not resist one more question. 
 
 " How is it that in all these years Mr. Laurence has never seea 
 this invalid relation ? " I asked. 
 
 It seemed that this question^ of all others, was the most 
 embarrassing to the housekeeper. She turned hrst red and then 
 pale, and said, in a very confused manner, " The poor gentleman 
 never leaves his room, miss; and Mr. Laurence has such high 
 spirits, bless his dear heart, and has snch a noisy, rackety way 
 with him, that he is no fit company for an invalid." 
 
 It was evidently useless trying for further information, so I 
 abandoned the attempt, and bidding the housekeeper good after- 
 noon, began to dress my hair before the massive oak-framed 
 looking-glass. 
 
 " The truth of the matter is," I said to myself, " that after 
 all there is nothing more to be said about it. I have tried to 
 create a mystery out of the simplest possible family arrange- 
 ment. Mr. Wendale has a bedridden relative, too poor and too 
 helpless to support himself. What more natural than that he 
 should give him house-room in this dreary old mansion, where 
 there seems space enough to lodge a regiment ? " 
 
 I found the family assembled in the drawing-room. Mr. 
 Wendale was the wreck of a very handsome man. He must in 
 early life have resembled Laurence; but, as my lover had said, 
 it seemed indeed as if he and the house and grounds of Fern- 
 wood had fallen into decay together. But, notwithstanding his 
 
Tlie Mystery at Fernwood-. 
 
 ftcalc state of health, he gave ue a warm welcome, and did the 
 honours of his hospitable dinner-table with the easy grace of a 
 gentleman. 
 
 After dinner, my aunt and Lady Adela sat at one of the 
 windows talking; while Laurence, Lncy, and I loitered upon 
 a long stone terrace outside the drawing-room, watching the 
 last low crimsoii streak of the August sunset fade behind the 
 black trunks of the trees, and melt away into faint red splashes 
 *tpon the water-pools amongst the brushwood. We were very 
 happy together ; Laurence and I talking of a hundred different 
 subjects — telling Lucy our London adventures, describing oui 
 fashionable friends, our drives and rides, fetes, balls, and din- 
 ners ; she, with a grave smile upon her lips, listening to us with 
 with almost maternal patience. 
 
 "I must take you over the old house to-morrow, Isabel," 
 Laurence said in the course of the evening. I suppose Lucy 
 did not tell you that she had put you into the haunted room ? " 
 
 "No, indeed!" 
 
 " You must not listen to this silly boy, my dear Isabel," said 
 Miss Wendale. " Of course, like all other old houses, Fernwood 
 can boast its ghost- story ; but since no one in my father's life- 
 time has ever seen the phantom, you may imagine that it is not 
 a very formidable one." 
 
 "But you own there is a ghost!" I exclaimed eagerly, 
 " Pray tell me the story." 
 
 " I'll tell you, Bella," answered Laurence, " and then you'll 
 know what sort of a visitor to expect when the bells of Fern- 
 wood church, hidden away behind the elms yonder, tremble on 
 the stroke of midnight. A certain Sir Humphrey Wendale, 
 who lived in the time of Henry the Eighth, was wronged by his 
 wife, a very beautiful woman. Had he acted according to tho 
 ordinary fashion of the time, he would have murdered the lady 
 and his rival ; but our ancestor was of a more original turn of 
 mind, and he hit upon an original plan of vengeance. He 
 turned every servant out of Fernwood House ; and one morning, 
 when the unhappy lady was sleeping, he locked every door 
 of the mansion, secured every outlet and inlet, and rode away 
 merrily in the summer sunshine, leaving his wife to die 
 hunger. Fernwood is lonely enough even now, Heaven knows ! 
 but it was lonelier in those distant days. A passing traveller 
 may now and then have glanced upward at the smokeless 
 chimneys, dimly visible across the trees, as he rode under the 
 park palings ; but none ever dreamed that the deserted mansion 
 had one luckless tenant. Fifteen months afterwards, when 
 Sir Humphrey rode home from foreign travel, he had some 
 difficulty in forcing the door erf the chamber in which yo§ ^re 
 
78 
 
 The Mystery at Fern wood. 
 
 to sleep : the withered and* skeleton form of his dead w >fe had 
 fallen across the threshold." 
 
 "What a horrible story !" I exclaimed with a shiver. 
 
 "It is only a legend, dear Isabel," said Lucy; "like all 
 tradition, exaggerated and distorted into due proportions of 
 poetic horror. Pray do not suffer your mind to dwell upon such 
 a fable." 
 
 " Indeed I hope it is not true," I answered. * ■ How fond 
 people are of linking mysteries and horrors such as this with 
 the history of an old family ! And yet we never fall across any 
 such family mystery in our own days." 
 
 I slept soundly that night at Fern wood, undisturbed by the 
 attenuated shadow of Sibyl Wendale, Sir Humphrey's unhappy 
 wife. The bright sunshine was reflected in the oak panels of 
 my room, and the larks were singing aloft in a cloudless blue 
 sky, when I awoke. I found my aunt quite reconciled to her 
 visit. 
 
 " Lady Adela is a very agreeable woman," she said; " quiet, 
 perhaps, to a rault, but with that high-bred tone which is 
 always charming. Lucy Wendale seems a dear good girl, 
 though evidently a confirmed old maid. You will find her oi 
 inestimable use when you are married — that is to say, if you 
 ever have to manage this great rambling place, which will of 
 course fall to your lot in the event of poor Mr. Wendale's 
 death." 
 
 As for myself, I was as happy at Fernwood as the August 
 days were long. Lucy Wendale rode remarkably well. It was 
 the only amusement for which she cared; and she and her 
 horses were on terms of the most devoted attachment. Lau- 
 rence, his sister, and I were therefore constantly out together, 
 riding amongst the hills about Eernwood, and exploring the 
 country for twenty miles round. 
 
 Indoors, Lucy left us very much to ourselves. She was the 
 ruling spirit of the house, and but for her everything must 
 have fallen utterly to decay. Lady Adela read novels, or made 
 a feeble attempt at amusing my aunt with her conversation. 
 Mr. Wendale kept his room until dinner ; while Laurence and 
 I played, sang, sketched, and rattled the billiard-balls over the 
 green cloth whenever bad weather drove us to indoor amusements. 
 
 One day, while sketching the castellated facade of the old 
 mansion, I noticed a peculiar circumstance connected with the 
 suite of rooms occupied by the invalid, Mr. William. These 
 rooms were at the extreme left angle of the building, and were' 
 ^ghted by a range of six windows. I was surprised by observing: 
 that every one of these windows was of ground glass. I asked' 
 Laurence the reason of this. 
 
The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 79 
 
 " Why, I believe tlie glare of light was too much for Mr. 
 William," he answered ; " so my father, who is the kindest 
 creature in Christendom, had the windows made opaque, as you 
 see them now." 
 
 "Has the alteration been long made?" 
 
 " It was made when I was about six years old ; I have rather 
 a vague recollection of the event, and I should not perhaps 
 remember it but for one circumstance. I was riding about 
 down here one morning on my Shetland pony, when my atten- 
 tion was attracted by a child who was looking through one of 
 those windows. I was not near enough to see his face, but I 
 fancy he must have been about my own age. He beckoned to 
 me, and I was riding across the grass to respond to his invi- 
 tation, when my sister Lucy appeared at the window and 
 snatched the child away. I suppose he was some one belonging 
 to the female attendant upon Mr. William, and had strayed 
 unnoticed into the invalid's rooms. I never saw him again; 
 and the next day a glazier came over from York, and made the 
 alteration in the windows." 
 
 " But Mr. William must have air ; I suppose the windows are 
 sometimes opened," I said. 
 
 " Never ; they are each ventilated by a single pane, which, if 
 you observe, is open now." 
 
 " I cannot help pitying this poor man," I said, after a pause, 
 " shut out almost from the light of heaven by his infirmities, 
 and deprived of all society." 
 
 "Not entirely so," answered Laurence. ""No one knows 
 how many stolen hours my sister Lucy devotes to her poor 
 invalid." 
 
 " Perhaps he is a very studious man, and finds his consolation 
 in literary or scientific pursuits," I said ; " does he read very 
 much?^ 
 
 " I think not. I never heard of his having any books got for 
 him." 
 
 " But one thing has puzzled me, Laurence," I continued. 
 " Lucy spoke of him the other day as a young man, and yet 
 Mrs. Porson, your housekeeper, told me he had lived at Fern- 
 wood for upwards of twenty years." 
 
 " As for that," answered Laurence carelessly, " Lucy no doubt 
 remembers him as a young man upon his first arrival here, and 
 continues to call him so from mere force of habit. But, pray 
 my little inquisitive Bella, do not rack your brains about this 
 poor relation of ours. To tell the truth, I have become so used 
 to his unseen presence in the house, that I have ceased to think 
 of him at all. I meet a grim woman, dressed in black merino, 
 coming out of the green-baize door, and I know that she is 
 Mr. William's nurse ; or I see a solemn-faced man, and I am 
 
The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 equally assured that he is Mr. "William's servant, James Beck, 
 who has grown grey in his office ; I encounter the doctor riding 
 away from Fernwood on his brown cob, and I feel convinced 
 that he has just looked in to see how Mr. William is going on; 
 if I miss my sister for an hour in the twilight, I know that she 
 is iu the west wing talking to Mr. William ; but as nobody ever 
 calls upon me to do anything for the poor man, I think no more 
 of the matter." 
 
 I felt these words almost a reproof to what might have ap- 
 peared idle, or even impertinent, curiosity on my part. And yet 
 the careless indifference of Laurence's manner seemed to jar 
 upon my senses. Could it be that this glad and high-hearted 
 being, whom I so tenderly loved, was selfish — heedless of the 
 sufferings of others ? No, it was surely not this that prompted 
 his thoughtless words. It is a positive impossibility for one 
 whose whole nature is life and motion, animation and vigour, to 
 comprehend for one brief moment the horror of the invalid's 
 darkened rooms and solitary days. 
 
 I had been nearly a month at Fernwood, when, for the first 
 time during our visit, Laurence left us. One of his old school- 
 fellows, a lieutenant in the army, was quartered with his regi- 
 ment at York, and Laurence had promised to dine with the mess. 
 Though I had been most earnest in requesting him to accept 
 this invitation, I could not help feeling dull and dispirited as I 
 watched him drive away down the avenue, and felt that for the 
 first time we were to spend the long autumn evening without 
 him. Do what I would, the time hung heavily on my hands. 
 The September sunset was beautiful, and Lucy and I walked up 
 and down the terrace after dinner, while Mr. Wendale slept in 
 his easy- chair, and my Aunt and Lady Adela exchanged drowsy 
 monosyllabic sentences on a couch near the fire, which was 
 always lighted in the evening. 
 
 It was in vain that I tried to listen to Lucy's conversation. 
 My thoughts wandered in spite of myself, — sometimes to Lau- 
 rence in the brilliantly-lighted mess-room, enlivening a circle of 
 blase officers with his boisterous gaiety ; sometimes, as if in con- 
 trast to this, to the dark west rooms in which the invalid counted 
 the long hours ; sometimes to that dim future in whose shadowy 
 years death was to claim our wearv host, and Laurence and I 
 were to be master and mistress at tfernwopd. I had often tried 
 to picture the place as it would be when it fell into Laurence's 
 hands, and architects and landscape-gardeners came to work 
 their wondrous transformations ; but, do what I would, T could 
 never imagine it otherwise than as it was, — with straggling ivy 
 hanging forlornly about the moss- stained walls, and solitary pools 
 of stagnant water hiding amongst the tangled brushwood. 
 
 J*Q&*&nm and I were to be married in the following spring, 
 
The Mystery at Fern wood. 
 
 SI 
 
 He would come of age in February, and I should be twenty in 
 March, — only a year and a month between our ages, and both a 
 great deal too young to marry, my aunt said. After tea Lucy 
 and I sang and played. Dreary music it seemed to me that 
 Bight. I thought my voice and the piano were both out of tune, 
 and I left Lucy very rudely in the middle of our favourite duet. 
 7 took up twenty books from the crowded drawing-room table, 
 only to throw them wearily down again. Never had Lady Adela's 
 novels seemed so stupid as when I looked into them that night ; 
 never had my aunt's conversation sounded so tiresome. I looked 
 from my watch to the old-fashioned timepiece upon the chimney 
 half a dozen times, to find at las. that it was scarcely ten o'clock. 
 Laurence had promised to be home by eleven, and had begged 
 Lucy and me to sit up for him. 
 
 Eleven struck at last, but Laurence had not kept his promise. 
 My aunt and Lady Adela rose to light their candles. Mr. Wen- 
 dale always retired a little after nine. I pleaded for half an hour 
 longer, and Lucy was too kind not to comply readily. 
 
 " Isabel is right," she said ; " Laurence is a spoilt boy, you 
 know, mamma, and will feel himself very much ill-used if he 
 finds no one up to hear his description of the mess- dinner." 
 
 " Only half an hour, then, mind, young ladies," said my aunt. 
 " I cannot allow you to spoil your complexions on account of 
 dissipated people who drive ten miles to a military dinner. One 
 half-hour ; not a moment more, or I shall come down again to 
 scold you both." 
 
 We promised obedience, and my aunt left us. Lucy and I 
 seated ourselves on each side of the low fire, which had burned 
 dull and hollow. I was too much dispirited to talk, and I sat 
 listening to the ticking of the clock, and the occasional falling 
 ®f a cinder in the bright steel fender. Then that thought came 
 to me which comes to all watchers : ^What if anything had 
 happened to Laurence ? I went to one of the windows, and 
 pulled back the heavy shutters. It was a lovely night ; clear, 
 though not moonlight, and myriads of stars gleamed in the 
 cloudless sky. 1 stood at the window for some time, listening 
 lor the wheels and watching for the lamps of the phaeton. 
 
 I too was a spoilt child; life had for me been bright and 
 smooth, and the least thought of grief or danger to those I loved 
 filled me with a wild panic. I turned suddenly round to Lucy, 
 and cried out, " Lucy, Lucy, I am getting frightened ! Suppose 
 anything should have happened to Laurence ; those horses are 
 wild and unmanageable sometimes. If he had taken a few 
 glasses of wine — if he trusted the groom to drive — if " 
 
 She came over to me, and took me in her arms as if I had 
 been indeed a little child. 
 
 " My darling," she said, " my darling Isabel, you must not 
 
82 
 
 The Mystery at Fermvood. 
 
 distress yourself by such fancies as these. He is only half an 
 nour later than he said; and as for danger, dearest, he is beneath 
 the shelter of Providence, without whose safeguard those we lova 
 are never secure even for a moment." 
 
 Her quiet manner calmed my agitation. I left the window, 
 a-nd returned shivering to the expiring tire. 
 
 " It is nearly three-quarters of an hour now, Bella dear," shf 
 said presently ; "we must keep our promise ; and as for Lau- 
 rence, you will hear the phaeton drive in before you go to sleep 
 I daresay." 
 
 " I shall not go to sleep until I do hear it," I answered, as 1 
 took my candle and bade her good- night. 
 
 I could not help listening for the welcome sound of the car- 
 riage-wheels as I crossed the hall and went upstairs. I stopped 
 jn the corridor to look into my aunt's room ; but she was fast 
 asleep, and I closed the door as softly as I had opened it. It 
 was as I left this room that, glancing down the corridor, I was 
 surprised to see that there was a light in my own bed-chamber. 
 I was prepared to find a fire there, but the light shining through 
 the half- open door was something brighter than the red glow of 
 a fire. I had joined Laurence in laughing at the ghost-story; 
 but my first thought on seeing this light was of the shadow of 
 the wretched Lady Sibyl. What if I found her crouching ov«r 
 my hearth ! 
 
 I was half-inclined to go back to my aunt's room, awaken her, 
 and tell her my fears ; but one moment's reflection made me 
 ashamed of my cowardice. I went on, and pushed open the 
 door of my room : there was no pale phantom shivering over 
 the open health. There was an old-fashioned silver candlestick 
 upon the table, and Laurence, my lover, was seated by the 
 blazing fire ; not dressed in the evening costume he had worr 
 for the dinner-party, but wrapped in a loose gray woollen dress-* 
 ing-gown, and wearing a black-velvet smoking cap upon hi? 
 chestnut hair. 
 
 Without stopping to think of the strangeness of his appear- 
 ance in my room; without woudering at the fact of his having 
 entered the house unknown either to Lucy or myself; without 
 one thought but joy and relief of mind in seeing him once more, 
 — I ran forward to him, crying out, " Laurence, Laurence, I am 
 so glad you have come back ! " 
 
 He — Laurence, my lover, as I thought — the man, the horrible 
 shadow — rose from his chair, snatched up some papers that lay 
 loosely on the table by his side, crumpled them into a ball with 
 sue fierce gesture of his strong hand, and flung them at my feet ; 
 then, with a harsh dissonant laugh that seemed a mocking echo 
 of the joyous music I loved so well, he stalked out of the door 
 opening on the gallery. I triad to scream, but my dry lips and 
 
The Mystery at Jfcrnwodd. 
 
 throat could form no sound. The oak-panelling of the roon? 
 spun round, the walls and ceiling contracted, as if they had 
 been crushing in upon me to destroy me. I fell heavily to the 
 floor; but as I fell I heard the phaeton-wheels upon the car- 
 riage-drive below, and Laurence Wendale's voice calling to 
 servants. 
 
 I can remember little more that happened upon that horrible 
 mght. I have a vague recollection of opening my eyes upon a 
 million dazzling lights, which slowly resolved themselves into 
 the one candle held in Lucy Wendale's hand, as she stood beside l 
 the bed upon which I was lying. My aunt, wrapped in her 
 dressing-gown, sat by my pillow. My face and hair were drip- 
 ping with the vinegar-and- water they had thrown over me, and 
 I could hear Laurence, in the corridor outside my bedroom door, 
 asking again and again, "Is she better? Is she quite herself 
 again?" 
 
 But of all this I was only dimly conscious ; a load of iron 
 seemed pressing upon my forehead, and icy hands seemed 
 riveted upon the back of my head, holding it tightly to the 
 pillow on which it lay. I could no more have lifted it than I 
 could have lifted a ton weight. I could only lie staring with 
 stupid dull eyes at Lucy's pale face, silently wishing that she 
 and my aunt would go> and leave me to myself. 
 
 I suppose I was feverish and a little light-headed all that 
 night, acting over and over again the brief scene of my meeting 
 with the weird shadow of my lover. All the stories I had 
 laughed at might be true, then. I had seen the phantom of the 
 man I loved, the horrible duplicate image of that familiar figure, 
 shaped perhaps out of impalpable air, but as terribly distinct t<? 
 the eye as if it had been a form of flesh and blood. 
 
 Lucy was sitting by my bedside when I awoke from a shotf 
 sleep which had succeeded the long night of fever. How in- 
 tensely refreshing that brief but deep slumber was to me ! How 
 delicious the gradual fading-out of the sense of horror and 
 bewilderment, with all the hideous confusions of delirium, into 
 the blank tranquillity of dreamless sleep ! When I awoke my 
 head was still painful, and my frame as feeble as if I had lain 
 for a week on a sick bed ; but my brain was cleared, and I wa? 
 able to think quietly of what had happened. 
 
 "Lucy," I said, "you do not know what frightened o* 
 why I fainted." 
 
 "]STo, dearest, not exactly." 
 
 " But you can know nothing of it, Lucy. You were not with 
 me when I came into this room last night. You did not 
 B ee " 
 
 I paused, unable to finish my sentence. 
 
The Mystery at JF'ernivood. 
 
 "Did not see whom— or what, dear Isabel?" 
 
 "The shadow of your brother Laurence." 
 
 My whole frame trembled with the recollection of my teiTO? 
 of the night before, as I said this ; yet I was able to observe 
 Lucy's face, and I saw that its natural hue had faded to aa 
 ashen pallor. 
 
 " The shadow, Isabel ! " she faltered ; not as if in any surprise 
 at my words, but rather as if she merely spoke because she felt 
 obliged to make some reply to me. 
 
 " Yes, Lucy," I said, raising myself upon the pillow, and 
 grasping her wrist, "the shadow of your brother Laurence. The 
 living, breathing, moving image of your brother, with every 
 lineament and every shade of colouring reflected in the phantom 
 face as they would be reflected in a mirror. Not shadowy, 
 transparent, or vanishing, but as distinct as you are to me at 
 this very moment. Good heavens ! Lucy, I give you my solemn 
 word that I heard the phantom footsteps along that gallery as 
 distinctly as I have ever heard the steps of Laurence himself; 
 the firm heavy tread of a strong man." 
 
 Lucy Wendale sat for some time perfectly silent, looking 
 straight before her, — not at me, but out at the half-open 
 window, round which the ivy-leaves were fluttering, to the dim 
 moorland melting into purple distance above the tree-tops in 
 the park. Her profile was turned towards me; but I could see 
 by her firmly-compressed lips and fixed eyes that she wa& 
 thinking deeply. 
 
 Presently she said, slowly and deliberately, without once 
 looking at me as she spoke, "You must be fully aware, my 
 dearest Isabel, that these delusions are of common occurrence 
 with people of an extremely sensitive temperament. You may 
 be one of these delicately-organised persons ; you had thrown 
 y our self last night into a very nervous and hysterical state in 
 your morbid anxiety about Laurence. "With your whole mind 
 full of his image, and tormented by all kinds of shadowy terrors 
 about danger to him, what more likely than that you should 
 conjure up an object such as that which you fancy you saw last 
 night?" 
 
 " But so palpable, Lucy, so distinct !" 
 
 "It would be as easy for the brain to shape a distinct as 
 *n indistinct form. Grant the possibility of optical delusion, — 
 a fact established by a host of witnesses, — and you cannot limit 
 the character of the delusion. But I must get our doctor, Mr. 
 Arden, to talk to you about this. He is something of a meta- 
 physician as well as a medical man, and will be able to cure 
 your mental ills and regulate this feverish pulse of yours at 
 tiie same time. Laurence has ridden over to York to fetch 
 him, and I daresay they will both be here directly." 
 
The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 85 
 
 "Lucy, remember yon must never tell Laurence the cause o£ 
 my last night's fainting fit." 
 
 " I never shall, dear. I was about to make the very same 
 request to you. It is much better that he should not know it.'* 
 
 "*Much better; for O, Lucy 9 do you remember that in all 
 ghost- stories the appearance of the shadow, or double, of a 
 living person is a presage of death to that person? The 
 thought of this brings back all my terror. My Laurence, my 
 darling, if anything should happen to him! ,, 
 
 " Come, Bella, Mr. Arden must talk to you. In the mean- 
 time, here comes Mrs. Porson with your breakfast. While you 
 are taking it, I will go to the library, and look for Sir Walter 
 Scott's Demonology. You will find several instances in that 
 book of the optical delusions I have spoken of." 
 
 The housekeeper came bustling into the room with a break- 
 fast-tray, which she placed on a table by the bed. When she 
 had arranged everything for my comfort, and propped me up 
 with a luxurious pile of pillows, she turned round to speak to 
 Lucy. 
 
 " 0, Miss Lucy," she said, " poor Eeck is so awfully cut up. 
 If you'd only just see him, and tell him 99 
 
 Lucy silenced her with one look; a brief but all- expressive 
 glance of warning and reproval. I could not help wondering 
 what possible reason there could be for making a mystery of 
 some little trouble of James Beck's. 
 
 Mr. Arden, the York surgeon, was the most delightful of men. 
 He came with Lucy into my room, and laughed and chatted me 
 out of my low spirits before he had been with me a quarter of 
 an hour. He talked so much of hysteria, optical delusions, 
 false impressions of -outward objects, abnormal conditions of the 
 organ of sight, and other semi-mental, semi-physical infirmities, 
 that he fairly bewildered me into agreeing with and believing all 
 he said. 
 
 "I hear you are a most accomplished horsewoman, Miss 
 Morley," he said, as he rose to leave us ; " and as the day 
 promises to be fine I most strongly recommend a canter across 
 the moors, with Mr. Wendale as your cavalier. G-o to sleep 
 between this and luncheon ; rise in time to eat a mutton-chop 
 and drink a glass of bitter ale ; ride for two hours in the sunniest 
 part of the afternoon ; take a light dinner, and go to bed early ; 
 and I will answer for your seeing no more of the ghost. Yon 
 have no idea how much indigestion has to do with these things. 
 I daresay if I were to see your bill of fare for yesterday I 
 should discover that Lady Adela's cook is responsible for the 
 phantom, and that he made his first appearance among the 
 entrees. Who can wonder that the Germans are a ghost- seeing 
 
BO 
 
 The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 ^ople, when it is remembered that they eat raspberry-jam vriih 
 roast veil?" 
 
 I followed the doctor's advice to the letter; and at three 
 o'clock in the afternoon Laurence and I were galloping across 
 the moorland, tinged with a yellow hazy light in the September 
 sunshine. Like most impressionable people, I soon recovered 
 from my nervous shock ; and by the time I sprang from the 
 saddle before the wide stone portico at Fernwood I had almost 
 forgotten my terrors of the previous night. 
 
 A fortnight after this my aunt and I left Yorkshire for 
 Brighton, whither Laurence speedily followed us. Before 
 leaving I did all in my power to induce Lucy to acccompany 
 us, but in vain. She thanked my aunt for her cordial invitation, 
 but declared that she could not leave Fernwood. We departed, 
 therefore, without having won her, as I had hoped to have done, 
 from the monotony of her solitary life; and without having 
 seen Mr. Wendale's invalid dependent, the mysterious occupant 
 of the west wing. 
 
 Early in November Laurence was summoned from Brighton 
 by the arrival of a black-bordered letter, written by Lucy, and 
 telling him of his father's death. Mr. Wendale had been found 
 by his servant, seated in an easy- chair in his study, with his 
 head lying back upon the cushions, and an open book on the 
 carpet at his feet, dead. He had long suffered from disease 
 the heart. 
 
 My lover wrote me long letters from Yorkshire, telling me 
 how his mother and sister bore the blow which had fallen upon 
 them so suddenly. It was a quiet and subduect sorrow rather 
 than any tempestuous grief, which reigned in the narrow circle 
 at Fernwood. Mr. Wendale had been an invalid for many years, 
 giving very little of his society to his wife and daughter. His 
 death, therefore, though sudden, had not been unexpected, nor 
 did his loss leave any great blank in that quiet home. Laurence 
 spent Christmas at Fernwood, but returned to us for the new 
 year ; and it was then settled that we should go down to York- 
 shire early in February, in order to superintend the restoration 
 and alteration of the old place. 
 
 All was arranged for our journey, when, on the very day on 
 which we were to start, Laurence came to Onslow-square with a 
 letter from his mother, which he had only just received. Lady 
 Adela wrote a few hurried lines to beg us to delay our visit for 
 some days, as they had decided on removing Mr. William, before 
 the alterations were commenced, to a cottage which was being 
 prepared for him near York. His patron's death did not leave 
 the invalid dependent on the bounty of Laurence or Lady Adela. 
 Mr. Wendale had bequea thed a small estate, worth three hun- 
 
The Mystery at llernwood. 
 
 87 
 
 dred a year, in trust for the sole use and benefit of this Mr 
 "William Wendale. 
 
 Neither Laurence nor I understood why the money should 
 have been left in trust rather than unconditionally to the man 
 himself. But neither he nor I felt deeply interested in the sub- 
 ject; and Laurence was far too careless of business matters to 
 pry into the details of his succession. He knew himself to be 
 the owner of Fernwood and of a handsome income, and that waa 
 nil he cared to know. 
 
 44 I will not hear of this visit being delayed an hour," Laurence 
 said impatiently, as he thrust Lady Adela's crumpled letter intc 
 his pocket. " My poor foolish mother and sister are really too 
 absurd about this first or fifth cousin of ours, William Wendale. 
 Let him leave Fern wood, or let him stay at Fern wood, just as 
 he or his nurse or his medical man may please ; but I certainly 
 shall not allow his arrangements to interfere with ours. So, 
 ladies, I shall be perfectly ready to escort you by the eleven 
 o'clock express. 
 
 Mrs. Trevor remonstrated, declaring that she would rather 
 delay our visit according to Lady Adela's wish; but my im- 
 petuous Laurence would not hear a word, and under a black and 
 moonless February sky we drove up the avenue at Fernwood. 
 
 We met Mr. Arden in the hall as we entered. There seemed 
 something ominous in receiving our first greeting from the family 
 doctor ; and Laurence was for a moment alarmed by his presence. 
 
 "My mother — Lucy!" he said anxiously; "they are well, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " Perfectly well. I have not been attending them ; I have 
 just come from Mr. William." 
 * 4 Is he worse ? " 
 
 44 1 fear he is rather worse than usual." 
 
 Our welcome was scarcely a cordial one, for both Lucy and 
 Lady Adela were evidently embarrassed by our unexpected 
 arrival. Their black dresses half-covered with crape, the mourn- 
 ing liveries of the servants, the vacant seat of the master, the 
 dismal winter weather, and ceaseless beating of the rain upon 
 the window-panes, gave a more than usually dreary aspect to 
 the place, and seemed to chill us to the very soul. 
 
 Those who at any period of their lives have suffered some terrible 
 and crushing affliction, some never-to-be-forgotten trouble, for 
 which even the hand of Time has no lessening influence, which 
 increases rather than diminishes as the slow course of a hopeless 
 life carries us farther from it, so that as we look back we do not 
 ask ourselves why the trial seemed so bitter, but wonder rather 
 how we endured even as we did, — those only who have sunk under 
 such a grief as this can know how difficult it is to dissociate the 
 period preceding the anguish from the hour in which it came. I 
 
83 
 
 The Mystery at Fernwood, 
 
 say this lest I should be influenced by after-feelings when I 
 describe the dismal shadows that seemed to brood over the 
 hearth round which Lady Adela, my aunt, Laurence, and my- 
 self gathered upon the night of our return to Fernwood. 
 
 Lucy had left us, and when her brother inquired about her, 
 T jady Adela said she was with Mr. "William. 
 
 As usual, Laurence chafed at the answer. It was hard, he 
 said, that his sister should have to act as sick-nurse to this man. 
 
 " James Beck has gone to York to prepare for William," 
 answered Lady Adela, " and the poor boy has no one with him 
 but his nurse." 
 
 The poor boy ! I wondered why it was that Lady Adela and 
 her stepdaughter always alluded to Mr. William as a young 
 man. 
 
 Early the next morning, Laurence insisted upon our accom- 
 jDanying him on a circuit of the house, to discuss the intended 
 alterations. I have already described the gallery, running the 
 whole length of the building, at one end of which was situated 
 the suite of rooms occupied by Mr. William, and at the other 
 extremity those devoted to Aunt Trevor and myself. Lady 
 Adela' s apartments were nearest to those of the invalid, Lucy's 
 next, then the billiard-room, and opening out of that the bed- 
 and dressing-room occupied by Laurence. On the other side of 
 the gallery were servants' and visitors' rooms, and a pretty 
 boudoir sacred to Lady Adela. 
 
 Laurence was in very high spirits, planning alterations here 
 and renovations there — bay-windows to be thrown out in one 
 direction, and folding-doors knocked through in another — till we 
 laughed heartily at him on finding that the pencil-memorandum 
 he was preparing for the architect resolved itself into an order 
 for knocking down the old house and building a new one. We 
 had explored every nook and corner in the place, with the one 
 exception of those mysterious apartments in the left wing. 
 Laurence Wendale paused before the green-baize door, but after 
 a moment's hesitation tapped for admittance. 
 
 " I have never seen Mr. William, and it is rather awkward to 
 have to ask to look at his rooms while he is in them ; but the 
 necessity of the case will be my excuse for intruding on him. 
 The architect will be here to-morrow, and I want to have all my 
 plans ready to submit to him." 
 
 The baize door was opened by Lucy Wendale ; she started at 
 seeing us. 
 
 " What do you want, Laurence ? " she said. 
 
 " To see Mr. William's rooms. I shall not disturb him, if he 
 will kindly allow me to glance round the apartments." 
 
 I could see that there was an inner half-plass door behind 
 that at which Lucy was ptandirjg. 
 
The Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 89 
 
 "You cannot possibly see the rooms to-day, Laurence," 
 »he said, hurriedly. "Mr. William leaves early to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 She came out into the gallery, closing the "baize door behind 
 her ; but as the shutting of the door reverberated through the 
 gallery, I heard another sound that turned my blood to ice, and 
 made me cling convulsively to Laurence's arm. 
 
 The laugh, the same dissonant laugh, that I had heard from 
 the spectral Hps of my lover's shadow ! 
 
 " Lucy," I said, " did you hear that?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The laugh, the laugh I heard the night that ,; 
 
 Laurence had thrown his arm round me, alarmed by my 
 terror. His sister was standing a little way behind him ; she 
 put her finger to her lips, looking at me significantly. 
 
 " You must be mistaken, Isabel," she said quietly. 
 
 There was some mystery, then, connected with this Mr. 
 William — a mystery which for some especial reason was to be 
 concealed from Laurence. 
 
 Half an hour after this, Lucy Wendale came to me as I was 
 searching for a book in the library. 
 
 " Isabel," she said, "I wish to say a few words to you." 
 
 M Yes, dear Lucy." 
 
 " You are to be my sister, and I have perhaps clone wrong in 
 concealing from you the one unhappy secret which has clouded 
 the lives of my poor father, my stepmother, and myself. But 
 long ago, when Laurence was a child, it was deemed expedient 
 that the grief which was so heavy a load for us should, if pos- 
 sible, be spared to him.. My father was so passionately devoted 
 to his handsome, light-hearted boy, that he shrank day by day 
 from the thought of revealing to him the afflicting secret which 
 was such a source of grief to himself. We found that, by con- 
 stant care and watchfulness, it was possible to conceal all from 
 Laurence, and up to this hour we have done so. But it is 
 perhaps better that you should know all ; for you will be able 
 to aid us in keeping the knowledge from Laurence ; or, if abso- 
 lutely necessary, you may by and by break it to him gently, and 
 reconcile him to an irremediable affliction." 
 
 "But this secret — this affliction — it concerns your invalid 
 relation, Mr. William ? " 
 
 " It does, Isabel," 
 
 I know that the words which were to reveal all were trembling 
 upon her lips, that in one brief moment she would have spoken, 
 and I should have known all. I should have known — in time ; 
 but before she could utter a ayliable the door was opened by one 
 of the women- servants. 
 
90 
 
 The Mystery at I'ernwood. 
 
 " 0 miss, if you please," she said, " Mrs. Peters says would 
 you step upstairs this minute?" 
 
 Mrs. Peters was the nurse who attended on Mr. William. 
 
 Lucy pressed my hand. " To-morrow, dearest, to-morrow I 
 will tell you all." 
 
 She hurried from the room, and I sank into a chair by the 
 fire, with my book lying open in my lap, unable to read a line, 
 unable to think, except upon one subject — the secret which I was 
 so soon to learn. If she had but spoken then ! A few words 
 more, and what unutterable misery might have been averted ! 
 
 I was aroused from my reverie by Laurence, who came to 
 challenge me to a game at billiards. On my pleading fatigue as 
 an excuse for refusing, he seated himself on a stool at my feet, 
 offering to read aloud to me. 
 
 " What shall it be, Bella ? — Paradise Lost, De Quincey's 
 Essays, Byron, Shelley, Tennyson " 
 
 " Tennyson by all means ! The dreary rain-blotted sky out- 
 side those windows, and the bleak moorland in the distance, are 
 perfectly Tennysonian. Bead LocJcsley Hall." 
 
 His deep melodious voice rolled out the swelling verses ; but 
 I heard the sound without its meaning. I could only think of 
 the mystery which had been kept so long a secret from my lover. 
 When he had finished the poem he threw aside his book, and 
 sat looking earnestly at me. 
 
 " My solemn Bella," he said, " what on earth are you thinking 
 about?" 
 
 The broad glare of the blaze from an enormous sea-coal fire 
 was full upon his handsome face. I tried to rouse myself, and, 
 laying my hands upon his forehead, pushed back his curling 
 chestnut hair. As I did so I for the first time perceived a 
 cicatrice across his left temple — a deep gash, as if from the cut 
 of a knife, but a wound of remote date. 
 
 "Why, Laurence," I said, "you tell me you were never 
 thrown, and yet you have a scar here that looks like the evi- 
 dence of some desperate fall. Did you get it in hunting?" 
 
 "No, my inquisitive Bella! ~No horse is to blame for that 
 personal embellishment. I believe it was done when I was a 
 child of two or three years old ; but 1 have no positive recol- 
 leetfcn of the event, though I have a vague remembrance of 
 wearing a sticking-plaster bandage across my forehead, and 
 being unconscionably petted by Lucy and my mother." 
 
 " But it looks like a scar from a cut — from the cut of a knife." 
 
 " I must have fallen upon some sharp instrument, — the edge 
 of one of the stone steps, perhaps, or a metal scraper." 
 
 " My poor Laurence, the blow might have killed you !" 
 
 He looked grave. 
 
. The Mystery at Femwood. #1 
 
 •* Do yon kwow, Bella," lie said, " liow difficult it is to disso- 
 ciate the vague recollections of the actual events of our childhood 
 from childish dreams that are scarcely more vague P Sometimes 
 i have a strange fancy that I can remember getting this cut, and 
 that it was caused by a knife thrown at me by another child/* 
 
 " Another child ! what child ? " 
 
 " A boy of my own age and size." 
 
 " Was he your playfellow ? " 
 
 " I can't tell ; I can remember nothing but the circumstance 
 of his throwing the knife at me, and the sensation of the hot 
 blood streaming into my eyes and blinding me." 
 
 " Can you remember where it occurred ? " 
 
 "Yes, in the gallery upstairs." 
 
 "We lunched at two. After luncheon Laurence went to his 
 Dwn room to write some letters ; Lady Adela and my aunt read 
 and worked in the drawing-room, while I sat at the piano, 
 rambling through some sonatas of Beethoven. 
 
 We were occupied in this manner when Lucy came into the 
 room, dressed for walking. 
 
 "I have ordered the carriage, mamma," she said. "I am 
 going over to York to see that Beck has everything prepared. 
 I shall be back to dinner." 
 
 Lady Adela seemed to grow more helpless every day, — every 
 day to rely more and more on her stepdaughter. 
 
 " You are sure to do all for the best, Lucy," she said. " Take 
 plenty of wraps, for it is bitterly cold." 
 
 " Shall I go with you, Lucy ? " I asked. 
 
 "You! O, on no account, dear Isabb. What would Lau- 
 rence say to me if I carried you off for a whole afternoon ? " 
 
 She hurried from the room, and in two minutes the lumbering 
 close carriage drove away from the portico. My motive in ask- 
 ing to accompany her was a selfish one : I thought it possible 
 she might resume the morning's interrupted conversation 
 during our drive. 
 
 If I had but gone with her ! 
 
 It is so difficult to reconcile one's self to the irrevocable decrees 
 of Providence ; it is so difficult to bow the head in meek submis- 
 sion to the awful fiat ; so difficult not to look back to the care- 
 less hours which preceded the falling of the blow, and calculate 
 how it might have been averted. 
 
 The February twilight was closing in. My aunt and Lady 
 Adela had fallen asleep by the fire. I stole softly out of the 
 .voom to fetch a book which I had left upstairs. There was 
 more light in the hall and on the staircase than in the drawing- 
 foom ; but the long gallery was growing dark, the dusky shadows 
 gathering about the faded portraits of my lover's ancestry I 
 {stopped at the top of the staircase, and looked for a moment 
 
92 
 
 TJie Mystery at Fernwood. 
 
 towards the billiard-room. The door was open, and I could sea 
 a light streaming from Laurence's little study. I went to my 
 own room, contrived to find the book I wanted, and returned to 
 the gallery. As I left my room I saw that the green-baize door 
 at the extreme end of the gallery was wide open. 
 
 An irresistible curiosity attracted me towards those myste 
 rious apartments. As I drew nearer to the staircase I could 
 plainly perceive the figure of a man standing at the half-glass 
 door within. The light of a fire shining in the room behind 
 him threw the outline of his head and figure into sharp relief. 
 There was no possibility of mistaking that well-known form- 
 trie broad shoulders, the massive head, and clusters of curHng 
 hair. It was Laurence Wendale looking through the glass 
 door of the invalid's apartments. He had penetrated those for- 
 bidden chambers, then. I thought immediately of the mystery 
 connected with the invalid, and of Lucy's anxiety that it should 
 be kept from her brother, and I hurried forward towards the 
 baize door. As I advanced he saw me, and rattled impa- 
 tiently at the lock of the inner door. It was locked, bat the key 
 was on the outside. He did not speak, but rattled the lock 
 incessantly, signifying by a gesture of his head that I was to 
 open the door. I turned the key, the door opened outwards, and 
 I was nearly knocked down by the force with which he flung it 
 back and dashed past me. 
 
 " Laurence !" I said, " Laurence ! what have you been doing 
 here, and who locked you in ?" 
 
 He did not answer me, but strode along the gallery, looking 
 at each of the doors till he came to the only open one, that of 
 the billiard-room, which he entered. 
 
 I was wounded by this rude manner ; but I scarcely thought 
 of that, for I was on the threshold of the apartments occupied 
 by the mysterious invalid, and" I could not resist one hurried 
 peep into the room behind the half-glass door. 
 
 It was a roomv apartment, very plainly furnished : a large 
 fire burned in the grate, which was closely guarded by a very 
 high brass fender, the highest I had ever seen. There was an 
 pasy-chair close to this fender, and on the floor beside it a heap 
 of old childish books, with glaring coloured prints, some of them 
 torn to shreds. On the mantelpiece there was a painted wooden 
 figure, held together by strings, such as children play with. 
 Exactly opposite to where I stood there was another door, which 
 was half- open, and through which I saw a bedroom, furnished 
 with two iron bedsteads, placed side by side. There were no 
 hangings either to these bedsteads or to the windows in the 
 sitting-room, and the latter were protected by iron bars. A 
 horrible fear came over me. Mr. William was perhaps a mad- 
 man. The seclusion, the locked doors.- the guarded fireplace 
 
The Mystery at Femwooi. 
 
 03 
 
 and windows, the dreary curtainless beds, the watchfulness of 
 Lucy, James Beck, and the nurse, — all pointed to this conclusion, 
 
 Tenantless as the rooms looked, the maniac might be lurking 
 in the shadow. I turned to hurry back to the gallery, and found 
 mvself face to face with Mrs. Peters, the nurse, with a small 
 tea-tray in her hands. 
 
 " My word, miss," she said, " how you did startle me, to be 
 dure ! What are you doing here ? and why have you unlocked 
 this door?" 
 
 " To let out Mr. Laurence." 
 
 " Mr. Laurence !" she exclaimed, in a terrified voice. 
 
 " Yes ; he was inside this door. Some one had locked him in. 
 I suppose : and he told me to open it for him." 
 
 " 0 miss, what have you done ! what have you done ! To- 
 day, above all things, when we've had such an awful time with 
 him ! What have you done ! " 
 
 What had I done ? I thought the woman must herself be 
 half distraught, so unaccountable was the agitation of her 
 manner. 
 
 0 merciful Heaven, the laugh ! the harsh, mocking, exulting, 
 idiotic laugh ! This time it rang in loud and discordant peais 
 to the very rafters of the old house. 
 
 " 0, for pity's sake," I cried, clinging to the nurse, " what is 
 it, what is it*? " 
 
 She threw me off, and rushing to the balustrades at the head 
 of the staircase, called loudly, " Andrew, Henry, bring lights ! " 
 
 They came, the two men-servants, — old men, who had served 
 in that house for thirty or forty years, — they came with candles, 
 and followed the nurse to the billiard- room. 
 
 The door of communication between that and Laurence 
 Wendale's study was wide open, and on the threshold, witt 
 the light shining upon him irom within the room, stood the 
 double of my lover; the living, breathing image of my 
 Laurence, the creature I had seen at the half-glass door, and 
 had mistaken for Laurence himself. His face was distorted by 
 a ghastly grin, and he was uttering some strange unintelligible 
 sounds as we approached him, — guttural and unearthly mur- 
 murs horrible to hear. Even in that moment of bewilderment 
 and terror I could see that the cambric about his right wrist was 
 eplashed with blood. 
 
 The nurse looked at him severely; he slunk away like a 
 lightened child, and crept into a corner of the billiard-room, 
 vhere he stood grinning and mouthing at the blood- stains upon 
 us wrist. 
 
 We rushed into the little study. O horror of horrors I the 
 writing-table was overturned; ink, papers, pens, all scattered 
 and trampled on the floor; and in the midst of the confusion 
 
94* The "Mystery at Fcrnwhod> 
 
 lay Laurence Wendale, the blood slowly ebbing away, with 
 dull gurgling sound, from a hideons gash in his throat. 
 
 A penknife, widen belonged to Laurence's open desk, laj 
 imongst the trampled papers, crimsoned to the hilt. 
 
 Laurence Wendale had been murdered by his idiot twin* 
 brother. 
 
 # m # # * * 
 
 There was an inquest. I can recall at any hour, or at any 
 moment, the whole agony of the scene. The dreary room, 
 adjoining that in which the body lay; the dull February sky; 
 the monotonous voice of the coroner and the medical men ; and 
 myself, or some wretched, shuddering, white-lipped creature that* 
 T could scarcely believe to be myself, giving evidence. Lady 
 Adela was reproved for having kept her idiot son at Fern wood 
 without the knowledge of the murdered man ; but every effort 
 was made to hush up the terrible story. William Wendale was 
 tried at York, and transferred to the county lunatic asylum- 
 there to be detained during her Majesty's pleasure. Hi& 
 unhappy brother was quietly buried in the Wendale vault, the 
 chief mausoleum in a damp moss-grown church close to the 
 gates of Fernwood. 
 
 It is upwards of ten years since all this happened ; but the 
 horror of that February twilight is as fresh in my mind to-day 
 as it was when I lay stricken — not senseless, but stupefied with 
 anguish — on a sofa in the drawing-room at Fernwood, listening 
 to the wailing of the wretched mother and sister. 
 
 The misery of that time changed me at once from a young 
 woman to an old one ; not by any sudden blanching of my dark 
 hair, but by the blotting out of every girlish feeling and of every 
 womanly hope. This change in my own nature has drawn 
 Lucy Wendale and me together with a link far stronger than 
 any common sisterhood. Lady Adela died two years after the 
 murder of her son. The Fernwood property has passed into 
 the hands of the heir-at-law. 
 
 Lucy lives with me at the Isle of Wight. She is my pro- 
 tectress, my elder sister, without whom I should be lost ; for I 
 am but a poor helpless creature. 
 
 It was months after the quiet funeral in Fernwood church 
 before Lucy spoke to me of the wretched being who had been 
 the author of so 'much misery. 
 
 "The idiotcy of my unhappy brother," she said, "was caused 
 by a fall from his nurse's arms, which resulted in a fatal injury 
 to the brain. The two children were infants at the time of the 
 accident, and so much alike that we could only distinguish 
 Laurence from William by the different colour of the ribborg 
 with which the nurse tied the sleeves of the children's white 
 frocks. My poor father suffered bitterly from his son's affliction ; 
 
The Mystery at Fernwoqd. 
 
 95 
 
 •ometirnes cherishing hope even in the faca of the verdict which 
 medical science pronounced upon the poor child's case, some" 
 times succumbing to utter despair. It was the intense misery 
 which he himself endured that made him resolve on the coursa 
 which ultimately led to so fatal a catastrophe. He determined 
 on concealing William's affliction from his twin-brother. At 
 a very early age the idiot child was removed to the apartments 
 in which he lived until the day of his brother's murder. James 
 Beck and the nurse, both experienced in the treatment of mental 
 affliction, were engaged to attend him ; and indeed the strictest 
 precaution seemed necessary, as, on the only occasion of the two 
 children ^meeting, William evinced a determined animosity to 
 his brother, and inflicted a blow with a knife the traces of which 
 Laurence carried to his grave. The doctors attributed thi* 
 violent hatred to some morbid feeling respecting the likeness 
 between the two boys. William flew at his brother as some 
 wild animal springs upon its reflection in a glass. Wit/i me, 
 in his most violent fit, he was comparatively tractable ; but the 
 strictest surveillance was always necessaiy ; and the fatal deed 
 which the wretched, but irresponsible creature at last committed 
 might never have been done but for the imprudent absence of 
 James Beck and myself." 
 
SAMUEL LOWGOOD'S REVENGE 
 
 From the first to the last we were rivals and enemies. Perhaps 
 it was on my part that the hatred, which eventually became so 
 terrible a passion between us, first arose. Perhaps it was, per- 
 haps it was ! At any rate, he always said that it was so. I 
 am an old man, and many memories of the past have lost their 
 vivid colouring ; but that portion of my life which relates to 
 him is as fresh in my mind to-night as ever it was fifty years 
 »igo, when his gracious Majesty George the Second was king, 
 and Christopher Weldon and I were junior clerks together in 
 the great house of Tyndale and Tyndale, shipowners, Dockside, 
 Willborough. 
 
 He was very handsome. It was hard for a pale-faced, sallow- 
 complexioned, hollow-eyed, insignificant lad as I was to sit at 
 the same desk with Christopher Weldon, and guess the com- 
 parisons that every stranger entering the counting-house must 
 involuntarily make as he looked at us — if he looked at us, that 
 is to say ; and it was difficult not to look at Christopher. Good 
 heavens ! I can see him now, seated at the worn, old, battered, 
 ink-stained desk, with the July sunlight streaming down through 
 the dingy office- windows upon his pale golden curls ; his bright 
 blue eyes looking out through the smoky panes at the forests of 
 masts, dangling ropes, and grimy sails in the dock outside ; one 
 girlish white hand carelessly thrown upon the desk before him, 
 and the delicate fingers of the other twisted in his flowing curls. 
 He was scarcely one-and-twenty, the spoiled pet of a widowed 
 mother, the orphan son of a naval officer, and the idol of half 
 the women in the seaport of Willborough. It was not so much 
 to be wondered at, then, that he was a fop and a maccaroni, and 
 that the pale golden curls which he brushed off his white fore- 
 head were tied on his coat- collar with a fine purple ribbon on 
 Sundays and holidays. His cravat and ruffles were always of 
 delicate lace, worked by his loving mother's hands; his coata 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Revenge. 
 
 97 
 
 were made by a London tailor, who had once worked for Mr. 
 George Selwyn and Lord March, and he wore small diamond 
 shoe-buckles and a slender court-sword sometimes out of office- 
 hours. 
 
 I, too, was an orphan ; but I was doubly an orphan. My 
 father and mother had both died in my infancy. I had been 
 reared in a workhouse, had picked up chance waifs and strays of 
 education from the hardest masters, and had been drafted, at 
 the age of ten, into the offices of Tyndale and Tyndale. Errand 
 boy, light porter, office drudge, junior clerk — one by one I had 
 mounted the rounds in this troublesome ladder, which for me 
 could only be begun from the very bottom ; and at the age of 
 twenty-one I found myself — where ? In a business character, I 
 was on a level with Christopher Weldon, the son of a gentle- 
 man. How often I, the pauper orphan of a bankrupt corn- 
 chandler, had to hear this phrase, — the son of a gentleman ! In 
 a business character, I say, I, Samuel Lowgood, who had worked 
 and slaved and drudged, and been snubbed, throughout eleven 
 long weary years — and in spite of all had become a clever 
 accountant and a thorough arithmetician — was in the same 
 rank as Christopher Weldon, who had been in the office exactly 
 four weeks, just to see, as his mother said, whether it would 
 suit him. 
 
 He was about as much good in the counting-house as a wax 
 doll would have been, and, like a wax doll, he looked very 
 pretty ; but Messrs. Tyndale and Tyndale had known his father ; 
 and Tyndale senior knew his uncle, and Tyndale junior was 
 acquainted with his first cousin, who lived at the court- end of 
 London ; so he was taken at once into the office as junior clerk, 
 with every chance, as one of the seniors told me confidentially, 
 of rising much higher, if he took care of himself. 
 
 He knew about as much arithmetic as a baby ; but he was 
 very clever with his pen in sketching pretty gills with powdered 
 heads, flowing sacques, and pannier-hoops ; so he found plenty 
 of amusement in doing this and reading Mr. Henry Fielding's 
 novels behind the ledger ; and the head clerks left him to him- 
 self, and snubbed me for not doing his work as well as my 
 own. 
 
 I hated him. I hated his foppish ways and his haughty man- ' 
 ners ; I hated his handsome boyish face, with its frame of golden 
 hair, and its blue, beaming, hopeful eyes; I hated him for the 
 sword which swung across the stiff skirts of his brocaded coat, 
 tor the money which he jingled in his waistcoat-pockets, for the 
 two watches which he wore on high days and holidays, for his 
 merry laugh, for his melodious voice, for his graceful walk, for 
 his tall, slender figure, for his jovial, winning ways, which won 
 
98 Samuel Low good'' s Revenge. 
 
 everybody else's friendship, I hated him for all these j but, most 
 of all, I hated him for his influence over Lucy Maiden. 
 
 Lncy was a humble dependent upon the bounty of the house 
 of Tyndale and Tyndale, and she had the care of the town resi 
 dence belonging to the firm, a roomy old house which commu- 
 nicated with the offices. 
 
 People knew very little abont her, except that she was the 
 daughter of a superannuated old clerk, who had gone stone blind 
 over the ledgers of Tyndale and Tyndale, and that she lived with 
 her father in this dreary, old, deserted town house. Once or 
 twice in the year the brothers would take it into their heads to 
 give a dinner-party in this disused dwelling ; and then the great 
 oak furniture was polished, and clusters of wax-candles were 
 lighted in the twisted silver sconces, and the dim pictures of the 
 Tyndales dead and gone, shipowners and merchants in the days 
 of William and Mary, were uncovered : but at other times Lucy 
 Maiden and her blind old father had the great place, with its 
 long dark corridors and its lofty chambers, into which the light 
 rarely penetrated, all to themselves. The house joined the 
 offices, and the offices and the house formed three sides of a 
 square, the dock- side forming the fourth. The counting-house 
 in which Christopher Weldon and I sat was exactly opposite 
 the house. 
 
 I watched him upon the morning when he first saw her — 
 watched him without his being aware of it. It was a blazing 
 July day; and when she had arranged her father's room and her 
 own, and the little sitting-room which they shared together, 
 which formed part of a range of apartments on the second story, 
 she came to her window, and, opening it toi ts widest extent, sat 
 down to her needlework. She eked out the slender income 
 which the firm allowed her father by the sale of her needlework, 
 which was very beautiful. A screen of flowers in great stone jars 
 shaded the window, and behind these she placed herself. 
 
 He saw her in a moment, and his pen fell from his listless 
 hand. « 
 
 She was not beautiful ; I know that she was not beautiful. I 
 think that many would have scarcely called her even a pretty 
 girl ; but to me, from the first to the last, she was the fairest, 
 the dearest, and the loveliest of women, and it is so difficult to 
 me to dispossess myself of her image, as that image shone upon 
 me, that 7 doubt if I can describe her as she really was. 
 
 She w* % very pale. The dreary, joyless life she led in that 
 dark old house, in the heart of a dingy seaport town, had per- 
 haps bl? niched the rosea in her cheeks, and dimmed the sunlight 
 in her thoughtful brown eyes. She had very light hair — hair of 
 the palest flaxen, perfectly straight and smooth, which she wor* 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Sevenqe. 
 
 turned back over a roll, and fastened in one thick mass at the 
 back of her head. Her eyes, in utter contrast to this light hair, 
 were of the darkest brown, so dark and deep, that the strangei 
 always thought them black. Her features were small and deli- 
 cate, her lips thin, her figure slender, and below the average 
 height. Her dress, a dimity petticoat, with a gray stuff gown, 
 and a white apron. 
 
 Christopher's pen fell out of his hand, and he looked up at 
 her window, and began to hum the air of a favourite song in 
 the new opera about thieves and ragamuffins, which had got 
 Mr. Gay, the poet, and a beautiful duchess, into such disgrace 
 up in London. 
 
 He was such a conceited beau and lady-killer, that he could 
 not rest till she had looked at the office-window by which he sat. 
 
 The song attracted her, and she lifted her eyes from her work, 
 and looked down at him. 
 
 She started, and blushed — blushed a beautiful, rosy red, that 
 lighted up her pale face like the reflection of a fire; and then, 
 seeing me at my desk, nodded and smiled to me. She and I had 
 been friends for years, and I only waited till I should rise one 
 step higher in the office to tell her how much I loved her. 
 
 From that day, on some excuse or other, Christopher Weldon 
 was always dangling about the house. He scraped acquaintance 
 with her blind old father. He was a pretty musician, and he 
 would put his flute in his pocket, after office-hours, and stroll 
 over to the house, and sit there in the twilight playing to th<r 
 father and daughter for the hour together, while I hid myself in 
 the shadow of the counting-house doorway, and stood watching 
 them. 0, how I hated him, as I saw across the screen of plants 
 the two fair heads side by side, and the blind old father nodding 
 and smiling, and applauding the music ! How I hated that 
 melodious opera of Mr. Gay's! How I hated Christopher 
 Weldon, as he and Lucy stood on the step of the hall-door, 
 between the tall iron extinguishers under the disused oil-lamp, 
 wishing each other good-night ! I thought that I could see the 
 little white hand tremble when it fluttered a gentle farewell to 
 Uim, as he strode away through the dusky evening. 
 
 Should I dog his steps, and when he got to a lonely place 
 upon the narrow quay, dart suddenly upon him, and push him 
 into the water? — push him in where the barges lay thickly 
 clustered together, and where he must sink under their keels 
 down into the black stream? The God of sinners knows I 
 have asked myself this question ! 
 
 For months I watched them. O, what bitter j)ain, what 
 silent torture, what a long fever of anguish and despair ! 
 
 How could I do him some dire injury, which should redresa 
 
100 
 
 Sarhtedt LoicgoocFs Revenge. 
 
 one atom of this mighty sum of wrong that he had done me ?— - 
 fancied wrong, perhaps ; for if he had not won her love, I might 
 never have won it. But I prayed — I believe I was wicked and 
 
 deadly an injury as I thought he had done me. 
 
 He looked up at me oae day, in his gav, reckless fashion, 
 and said, suddenly pushing the ledger away from him, with a 
 weary sigh, — 
 
 " Samuel Lowgood, do you know what a tailor's bill is?" 
 
 I cursed him in my heart for his insolence in asking me 
 the question; but I looked down at my greasy white coat- 
 sleeve, and said, — 
 
 "I have worn this for five years, and I bought it second- 
 hand of a dealer on the quay." 
 
 " Happy devil ! " he said, with a laugh ; " if you want to see a 
 tailor's bill, then look at that." 
 
 He tossed me over a long slip, of paper, and I looked at the 
 sum-total. 
 
 It seemed to me something so prodigious, that I had to look 
 at it ever so many times before I could believe my eyes. 
 
 " Thirty-seven pounds thirteen and fourpence-halfpenny. 1 
 like the fourpence-halfpenny, " he said; "it looks honest. 
 Samuel Lowgood, my mother's heart would break if she saw 
 that bill. I must pay it in a fortnight from to-day, or it will 
 come to her ears." 
 
 " How much have you got towards paying it ?" I asked. 
 
 My heart beat faster at the thought of his trouble, and my 
 face flushed crimson ; but he sat with his forehead leaning on 
 his clasped hands, and he never looked at me. 
 
 " How much have I got towards it ? " he said, bitterly. 
 "Thib." He turned his ^istcoat-pockets inside out, one after 
 the other. " Never xnmd," he added, in his old reckless tone, " I 
 may be a rich man before the fortnight's out." 
 
 That evening he was dangling over at the house as usual, 
 and I heard " Cease your funning" on the flute, and saw the 
 two fair heads across the dark foliage of Lucy Maiden's little 
 flower-garden. 
 
 I was glad of his trouble — I was glad of his trouble ! It 
 was small, indeed, compared to the sorrow and despair which I 
 wished him; but it was trouble, and the bright, fair-haired, 
 blue-eyed boy knew what it was to suffer. 
 
 The days passed, and the fortnight was nearly gone, but 
 my fellow-clerk said no more about the tailor's bill. So one 
 day, as we sat as usual at the desk — I working hard at a diffi- 
 cult row of figures, he chewing the end of his pen, and looking 
 rather moodily across the courtyard, I asked him, — 
 
 mad enough even 
 
 some means of doing him as 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Revenge. 
 
 101 
 
 M Well, have you got rid of your difficulty ?" 
 " What difficulty?" he asked sharply. 
 
 u Your tailor's bill ; the thirty- seven thirteen and fonrpence- 
 halfpenny." 
 
 He looked at me very much as if he would have liked to have 
 knocked me off my high stool; but he said presently, " 0 yes; 
 that's been settled ever so long!" and he began to whistle one 
 of his favourite songs. 
 
 "Ever so long!" His trouble lasted a very short time, I 
 thought. 
 
 But in spite of this he was by no means himself. He sat at 
 his desk with his head buried in his hands ; he was sharp and 
 short in his answers when anybody spoke to him, and we heard 
 a great deal less of the Beggar's Opera and " Polly." 
 
 All of a sudden, too, he grew very industrious, and took to 
 writing a great deal ; but he contrived to sit in such a manner 
 that I could never find out what he was writing. 
 
 It was some private matter of his own, I felt sure. What 
 could it be ? 
 
 Love-letters, perhaps ; letters to her ! 
 
 A fiendish curiosity took possession of me, and I determined 
 to fathom his secret. 
 
 I left the counting-house on some pretence ; and after a short 
 absence returned so softly that he could not hear me; and 
 stealing behind him, lifted myself upon tiptoe, and looked over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 He was writing over and over again, across and across, upon 
 half a sheet of letter-paper, the signature of the firm " Tyndale 
 and Tyndale." 
 
 What could it mean ? Was it preoccupation ? mere absence 
 of mind ? idle trifling with his pen ? The fop had a little pocket 
 mirror hanging over his desk. I looked into it, and saw his 
 face. 
 
 I knew then what it meant. My hatred of him gave me such 
 a hideous joy in the thought of what I had discovered that I 
 laughed aloud. He turned round, and asked me savagely what 
 I was doing ; and as he turned he crumpled the paper in hia 
 hand, inking his pretty white fingers with the wet page. 
 
 " Spy, sneak, sycophant ! " he said ; " what are you crawling 
 about here for P" 
 
 " I was only trying to startle you, Mister Weldon," I answered. 
 "What are you writing, that you're so frightened of my seeing? 
 love-letters P " 
 
 " Mind your own business and look to your own work, you 
 pitiful spy," he roared out, "and leave me to do mine my own 
 way." 
 
102 
 
 Samuel Lowgood's Revenge. 
 
 "I would, if I were you. It seems such a nice way," I 
 
 answered meekly. 
 
 Two days after this, at half-past threa o'clock in the after- 
 noon, Christopher Weldon asked one of the senior clerks for a 
 quarter of an hour's leave of absence. He wanted to see a 
 fellow round in the High- street, he said, and he couldn't see 
 him after four o'clock. 
 
 I felt my sallow face flame up into a scarlet flush as my fellow- 
 ;lerk made this request. Could it be as I thought ? 
 
 He had been four months in the office, and it was the end of 
 November. The end of November, and almost dark at half-past 
 three o'clock. 
 
 They granted his request without the slightest hesitation. 
 He. left his desk, took his hat up, and walked slowly to the door ; 
 at the door he stopped, turned back to his desk, and throwing 
 his hat down, leaned moodily upon his folded arms. 
 
 " 1 don 't know that I care much about seeing the fellow now," 
 he said. 
 
 " Why, Chris.," cried one of the clerks, " what's the matter 
 with you, man ? Are you in love or in debt, that you're so un- 
 like yourself?" 
 
 " Neither," he said, with a short laugh. 
 
 "What, not in love, Chris.? How about the pretty little 
 fair-haired girl over the way ? " 
 
 " How about her ? " he said savagely. " She's a cold-hearted 
 little coquette, and she may go to " 
 
 I slapped the ledger on which I was at work violently on to 
 the desk, and looked up at him. 
 
 " Christopher Weldon ! " 
 
 u Your humble servant," he said mockingly. " There's a face ! 
 Have I been poaching upon your manor, Samuel?" 
 
 " If you want to see your friend before four o'clock you'd 
 better be off, Chris.," said the clerk. 
 
 He took his hat up once more, twirled it slowly round for a 
 few minutes, then put it on his head, and, without saying i 
 word to any one, hurried out of the office and across the courtyard 
 
 Lucy was standing at her window opposite, with her forehead 
 leaning against the dingy framework of the panes, and I watched 
 her start and tremble as she saw him. 
 
 " If I'm to take these accounts into the market-place I'd better 
 take them now, hadn't I, sir ?" I asked of the senior clerk. 
 
 " You may as well." 
 
 There was a back way through some narrow courts and squares 
 which led from the dock- side to the High Street, in which the 
 house Tyndale and Tyndale banked with was situated. I was 
 hurrying off this way when I stopped, amd changed my mmd. 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Revenge. 
 
 103 
 
 "He'll go the back way," I thought; "I'll cut across tha 
 market-place by the most public road." 
 
 In five minutes I was in the High-street. Opposite the bank 
 there was a tobacconist's shop, at which our clerks were accus- 
 tomed to buy their pennyworths of snuff. I strolled in, and 
 ^sked the girl to fill my box. I was quite an old man in mo? 
 A' my ways, and snuff-taking was a confirmed habit with me. 
 
 As she weighed the snuff, I stood looking through the low 
 window at the great doors of the bank opposite. 
 
 One of the doors swung back upon its hinges. An old man, a 
 stranger to me, came out. 
 
 Three minutes more. 
 
 " I am waiting for a friend," I said to the girl at the counter. 
 
 Two minutes more. The doors opened again. I was right, 
 and I was not surprised. Christopher Weldon came out of the 
 bank, and walked quickly down the street. 
 
 It was too dark for me to see his face ; but I knew the tall 
 slim figure and the dashing walk. 
 
 " I am not surprised, I am only glad," I said. 
 
 During my long service in the house of Tyndale and Tyndale, 
 I had lived so hard as to have been able to save money from my 
 scanty earnings. I had scraped together, from year to year, 
 the sum of forty-eight pounds fifteen shillings. 
 
 " I will save a hundred," I had said, " and then I will ask her 
 to marry me." 
 
 But the only dream of my life was broken, and my little hoard 
 was useless to me now. 
 
 Useless to purchase love, perhaps ; but it might yet bring me 
 revenge. 
 
 I put every farthing I possessed into my pocket the next 
 morning, and the first time I could find an excuse for going out 
 hurried down to the bank. 
 
 " One of our clerks presented a cheque here yesterday," I said. 
 
 The man looked up with an expression of surprise. 
 
 " Yes, certainly ; there was a cheque cashed yesterday. Your 
 handsome, fair-haired junior brought it." 
 
 " Will you let me look at it ? " 
 
 " Well, upon my word, it's rather a strange " 
 
 " Bequest. Perhaps. On the part of Messrs. Tyndale and 
 Tyndale I -" 
 
 " 0," he said, " if you are commissioned by the firm to " 
 
 *' Never mind," I said, " whether I am or not. As you think 
 my request a strange one, I'll put it in another way. Will you 
 be so good as to look at the cheque yourself? " 
 
 " Yes, certainly. Here it is," he added, selecting a paper 
 fiom a drawer ; M a cheque for forty. PajrabJe to bearer," 
 
104 
 
 Samuel Low good's Revenge. 
 
 " Look at the signature of the firm." 
 
 "Well, it's right enough, I think. I ought to know tha 
 signature pretty well." 
 
 " Look at the ' y ' in ' Tyndale.' " 
 
 He scrutinised the signature more closely, and lifted hi a 
 eyebrows with a strange, perplexed expression. 
 
 "It's rather stiff, isn't it?" I said. " JSTot quite old Tyn- 
 dale's flowing caligraphy. Yery near it, you know, and a very 
 creditable imitation; but not quite the real thing." 
 
 " It 's a forgery !" he said. 
 
 " It is." 
 
 " How did you come to know of it?" 
 
 " Never mind that," I answered. " Mr. Simmonds, have you 
 
 any sons ? " 
 « Three." 
 
 '* One about the age of Christopher Weldon, perhaps P" 
 £ * One pretty nearly his age." 
 
 "Then you'll help me to save this young man, won't you?" 
 
 " How is it to be done ? " 
 
 " Cancel the cheque, and replace the money." 
 
 " My good young man, who 's to find the money ? " 
 
 I drew a little canvas-bag out of my pocket, and turned out 
 a heap of one-pound notes and spade-guineas upon the clerk's 
 lesk. 
 
 " Here's the exact sum," I said; "forty pounds, ready money, 
 for the slip of paper Christopher Weldon presented here at ten 
 minutes to four yesterday evening." 
 
 "But who finds this money ?" 
 
 " I do. Christopher Weldon and I have been fellow-clerks for 
 four months and upwards. I have seen his mother. I know 
 how much she loves her only son. I know a girl who loves him. 
 I don't mind forty pounds out of my savings to keep this matter 
 a secret. Mr. Simmonds, for the sake of your own sons, let me 
 have that slip of paper, and cancel the cheque." 
 
 The old man caught my hand in his, and shook it heartily. 
 
 "Young Lowgood," he said, "there's not another lad in Will- 
 borough capable of such a generous action. If I were not a poor 
 .old fellow, with a hard fight of it to get a living, I 'd be twenty 
 pounds in this transaction ; but I respect and honour you. I 
 dare not give you back the cheque upon my own responsibility ; 
 but the senior partner is in his office ; I '11 go and talk to him. 
 Perhaps, when he hears the real state of the case, he '11 consent 
 to hush the matter up and do what you want." 
 
 The old man left me and remained away about a quarter of 
 an hour, during which I sat in the quiet counting-house, with 
 my heart beating loud and fast. I daresay thf» junior clerk* 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Revenge. 105 
 
 wondered what my business conld be as I sat waiting for their 
 senior's return. He came back at last. 
 
 "I've had a good deal of trouble," he said, ' * but I have 
 succeeded." 
 
 I burst out laughing as he gave me the forged cheque in 
 exchange for the forty pounds I counted out to him. 
 
 " Laugh away, laugh away," said the old man ; " you Ve need 
 to have a light heart, Samuel Lowgood, for you're a noble 
 fellow." 
 
 In our back office there was a great chest which had been 
 disused for some years. The clerks let me have it for my own 
 use, and inside it I had a smaller iron-clamped strong-box of my 
 own, which I bad bought of a broker on the quay. Into this 
 pttror.g-box I put the forged cheque. 
 
 Christopher Weldon's high spirits entirely deserted him. It 
 was such pleasure to me to watch him slyly as I sat beside him, 
 apparently occupied only by my work, that I was almost tempted 
 to neglect my business. 
 
 No more Beggar's Opera, no more " Polly," no more flute-play- 
 ing in the dusk of the evening over at the gloomy old house. 
 
 " That lad Weldon is leaving off his giddy ways and growing 
 industrious," said the clerks ; " he '11 get on in the world, depend 
 upon it." 
 
 " Let him — let him — let him," I thought ; " let him mount 
 the ladder; and when he reaches the highest round— then — 
 then " 
 
 In the following March there were some changes made in the 
 office. Tyndale and Tyndale had a branch house of business in 
 Thames-street, London; and into this house Christopher Weldon 
 was drafted, with a salary nearly double that which he had 
 received in Willborough. v 
 
 The change came about very suddenly. They wanted some 
 one of gentlemanly appearance and polished manners in the 
 London office, and Weldon, they said, was the very man. 
 
 I had not spoken to Lucy Maiden for upwards of two months; 
 but I thought I would go and tell her this piece of news. 
 
 "I shall find out whether she really loves him," I thought. 
 
 She sat at her old place at the window, in the cold spring 
 twilight, when I followed her father into the house and bade hei 
 good evening. 
 
 She was not paler than usual, for she had always been pale; 
 nor graver, for she was always grave ; but in spite of this, I sa\* 
 that she had suffered. 
 
 My presence had no more effect upon her than if I had bee - *, 
 
106 
 
 Samuel Lowgood's 'Revenge. 
 
 nothing more sentient than the clumsy high-backed oak-chak 
 upon which I leaned as I stood talking to her. 
 
 She looked at me when I spoke, answered me sweetly and 
 gently, and then looked down again at her tedious work. 
 
 I knew that I had come, coward as I was, to stab this ^endea 
 innocent heart ; but I could not resist the fiendish temptation. 
 
 " So our pretty fair-haired boy is going to leave us," I said, 
 by and by. 
 
 She knew whom I meant, and I saw the stiff embroidery 
 shiver in her hand. 
 
 " Christopher ?" she faltered. 
 
 "Young Mr. Weldon," I said. "Yes. the gentleman clerl 
 He's going away, never to come back here, I daresay. He 'ft 
 going into the London house to make his fortune." 
 
 She made me no answer, nor did she ask me a single ques- 
 tion. She sat very quietly, going on with her work, sorting the 
 gay- coloured silks, straining her eyes in the dusky light over 
 the difficult pattern ; but I saw — I saw how sharply I had 
 struck this poor, pitiful, broken heart, and I knew now how 
 much she had loved him. 
 
 Ten years from that day, I stood in the same room — she 
 working at the same window — and asked her to be my wife. 
 
 "I do not ask," I said, "for the love which you gave to 
 another ten years ago. I do not ask for the beauty which those 
 who speak to me of you say is faded out of your mournful face. 
 You will always be to me the most beautiful of women, and 
 your gentle tolerance will be dearer to me than the most 
 passionate love of another. Lucy Maiden, will you marry 
 me ?" 
 
 She started up, letting her work fall out of her lap, and turn- 
 ing her face towards the window, burst into a passion of tears. 
 I had never seen her cry before. 
 
 At last she turned to me, with her face drowned in tears, 
 and said, — 
 
 " Samuel Lowgood, ten years ago, day after day, and night 
 after night, I waited for another to say the words which have 
 just been said by you. I had every right to expect he should 
 say them. He never did — he never did. Forgive me, forgive 
 me, if it seems to break my heart afresh to hear them spoken by 
 another !" 
 
 " He is a prosperous man in London, " I said. " Lucy 
 Maiden, will you be my wife ?" 
 
 She dried her tears, and, coming slowly to me, put he* 
 little cold hand into mine. 
 
 " Does that mean yes ? " I asked. 
 
 She only bent her head in answer. 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Revenge. 107 
 
 " God bless you ! and good-night." \ 
 
 # # * # * * 
 
 A year and a half after our marriage, we heard great news in 
 the old Willborough house. Christopher Weldon had married a 
 nobleman's daughter, and was about to become a partner in the 
 house of Tyndale and Tyndale. 
 
 A night or two after we heard this news, there came a great 
 rattling knock at the grim dragon's -head knocker of the house- 
 door. My wife and I lived in her eld apartments, by permission 
 of the firm, and I had advanced to be head clerk in the Will- 
 borough office. 
 
 I was sitting, going over some accounts that I had not 
 been able to finish in the day ; so she looked up at the sound 
 of the knocking, and said, — 
 " I '11 answer the door, Samuel — you 're tired.' 3 
 She was a good and gentle wife to me, from the first to the 
 last. 
 
 Presently I started from my desk, and rushed down the stairs 
 I had heard a voice that I knew in the hall below. 
 
 My wife was lying on the cold stone flags, and Christopher 
 Weldon bending over her. 
 
 " Poor little thing ! " he said; " she has fainted.'' 
 
 " This decides me, this decides me ! " I thought ; " I '11 have 
 my forty pounds' worth before long." 
 
 Christopher Weldon had come down to the house to announce 
 to us, its custodians, that he was about to occupy it, with his 
 wife, the Lady Belinda Weldon. 
 
 He brought a regiment of London upholsterers the next day, 
 and set them to work tearing the gloomy old rooms to pieces. 
 My lady came too, in her gilded chair, and gave orders for a 
 chintz here and damask there, and could not find words to 
 express her contempt for the place and her despair of ever 
 making it habitable ; but declared that whatever taste and up- 
 holstery could do for such a gloomy dungeon of a place, was to 
 be done. After her ladyship's departure, a prim housekeepet 
 came to inform my wife that we must be prepared to leave the 
 house in a month. In a month the place was transformed, and 
 at the end of the month Christopher Weldon was to give 
 great dinner-party, at which Messrs. Tyndale and Tyndale were 
 to be present, to inaugurate his partnership. As senior clerk, I 
 was honoured by an invitation. 
 
 My enemy had mounted to the highest round of the ladder. 
 Rich, beloved, honoured, the husband of a lovely and haughty 
 lady, partner in the great and wealthy house which he had 
 entered as junior clerk — what more could fortune bestow upon 
 him? 
 
108 
 
 Samuel LowgocxTs Revenge. 
 
 My time had come — the time at which it was worth my while 
 to crush him. 
 
 " I will wait till the dinner is over, and the toasts have been 
 drunk, and all the fine speeches have been made ; and when 
 Tyndale senior has proposed the health of the new partner, in a 
 speech full of eulogy, I will hand him the forged cheque across 
 the dinner-table. 5 ' 
 
 The night before the dinner-party, I was in such a fever of 
 excitement, that I tried in vain to sleep. I heard every hour 
 strike on the little clock in our bedroom. Tyndale and Tyndale 
 had given us a couple of empty offices on our being turned out 
 of the great house, and enough of their old-fashioned furniture 
 to fit them up very comfortably. 
 
 One, two, three, four, five, the shrill strokes of the clock 
 seemed to beat upon my brain. The hoars seemed endless, and 
 I sometimes thought the clock in our room and all the church 
 clocks of Willborough had stopped simultaneously. 
 
 At last, towards six o'clock in the morning, I dropped off into 
 a feverish troubled sleep, in which I dreamed of the forged 
 cheque, which I still kept locked in the strong box inside the 
 great chest in the back office. 
 
 I dreamed that it was lost, that I went to the strong box and 
 found the cheque gone. The horror of the thought woke me 
 suddenly. The broad sunshine was streaming in at the window, 
 and the church clocks were striking nine. 
 
 I had slept much later than usual. My wife had risen, and 
 was seated in our little sitting-room at her accustomed em- 
 broidery. She was always very quiet and subdued, and sat at 
 her work several hours every day. 
 
 My first impulse, on waking, was to look under my pillow for 
 my watch, and a black ribbon, to which was attached the key of 
 the strong box. The key of the chest hung on a nail in the 
 office, as nothing of any consequence was kept in that. My 
 watch and the key were perfectly safe. 
 
 My mind was relieved, but I was in a fever of excitement all 
 day. 
 
 "I will not take the cheque out of its hiding-place till the 
 last moment," I said ; " not till the moment before I put on my 
 hat to go to the dinner-party." 
 
 My wife dressed me carefully in a grave snuff-coloured suE, 
 which I generally wore on Sundays; she plaited my ruffles, 
 and arranged my lawn cravat with its lace ends. I looked 
 an old man already, though I was little more than thirty- 
 three years of age ; and Christopher Weldon was handsome] 
 than ever. 
 
 At four o'clock in the afternoon the courtyard was all astij 
 
Samuel Lowgood's Revenge, 109 
 
 with sedan-chairs and powdered footmen. My wife stood in the 
 window, looking at the company alighting from their chairs at 
 the great door opposite. 
 
 "Yon had better go, I think, Samuel," she said; "the 
 Tyndales have jnst arrived. Ah ! there is my lady Belinda 
 at the window. How handsome she is ! How magnificent she 
 is, in powder and diamonds, and an amber-satin sacqne ! " 
 
 " You've a better right to wear amber satin and diamonds 
 than she," I said. 
 
 "I, Samnel!" 
 
 " Yes. Because you're the wife of an honest man. She is 
 not." 
 
 I thought for love of him she. would have fired up and con- 
 tradicted me ; but she only turned her face away and sighed. 
 " You will be late, Samuel," she said. 
 
 " I have something to fetch out of the back office, and then I 
 shall be ready," I answered. 
 
 The fiend himself must be in the work. It was gone — gone, 
 eyery trace of it. At first, in my blind, mad fury, I blasphemed 
 aloud. Afterwards, I fell on my knees over the open chest, and 
 wept — wept bitter tears of rage and anguish. It was gone ! 
 
 I had a brain fever after this, which confined me for nine 
 weeks to my bed. 
 
 Christopher Weldon lived and thrived, a prosperous and suc- 
 cessful merchant — honoured, courted, admired, and beloved. 
 
 My wife and I, childless and poor, used to sit at our windows 
 in the dusk, and watch his children at play in the court yard 
 beneath us, and hear the innocent voices echoing through the 
 great house opposite. 
 
 Thirteen years and five months after our wedding-day, Lucy 
 died in my arms ; her last words to me were these : — 
 
 " Samuel, I have done my best to do my duty, but life for me 
 has never been very happy. Once only since our marriage have 
 I deceived you. I saved you, by that action, from doing a 
 great wrong to a man who had never knowingly wronged yotL 
 One night, Samuel, you talked in your sleep, and I learned from 
 your disjointed sentences the story of Christopher Weldon's 
 crime. I learned, too, your purpose in possessing yourself of 
 the only evidence of the forgery. I learned the place in which 
 you kept that evidence ; and, while you slept, I took the key 
 from under your pillow, and opened the strong box. The cheque 
 is here." 
 
 She took it from a little *)lack-silk bag which hung by a ribbon 
 round her neck, and put it into my hand, — " Samuel, husband. 
 
110 Samuel LowgootVs Revenge. 
 
 we have read the Gospel together every Sunday evening through 
 thirteen years. Will you use it now?" 
 
 " No, Lucy, no — angel — darling — no. You have saved him 
 from disgrace — me from sin." 
 
 Every clerk in the house of Tyndale and Tyndale attended 
 my wife's funeral. Not only were the clerks present ; but, pale, 
 mournful, and handsome, in his long black cloak, Christopher 
 Wei don stood amidst the circle round the grave. 
 
 As we left the churchyard he came up to me, and shook hands. 
 
 "Let us be better friends for the future, Samuel," he said. 
 
 " My wife, when she died, bade me give you this," I answered^ 
 m I put the forged cheque into his hand. 
 
THE LAWYER'S SECEET. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IS a lawyer's officb. 
 
 "It is the most provoking clause that was ever invented to 
 annul the advantages of a testament," said the lady. 
 
 "It is a condition which must be fulfilled, or you lose the 
 fortune," replied the gentleman. 
 
 Whereupon the gentleman began to drum a martial air with 
 the tips of his fingers upon the morocco-covered office-table ; 
 while the lady beat time with the point of her foot. 
 
 The gentleman was out of temper, and the lady was out of 
 temper also. It is sad to have to state such a fact of the lady, 
 for she was very young and very handsome, and though the 
 angry light in her dark-gray eyes had a certain vixenish beauty, 
 it was a species of beauty rather alarming to a man of a nervoui 
 temperament. 
 
 She was very handsome. Her hair was of the darkest browi* 
 tier eyes gray — those large gray eyes, fringed with long black 
 lashes, which are more dangerous than all other eyes ever 
 invented for the perdition of honest men. They looked like 
 deep pools of shining water, bordered by shadowy rushes ; they 
 looked like stray stars in a black midnight sky ; but they were 
 so beautiful, that like the signal-lamp which announces the 
 advent of an express upon the heels of a slow train, they seemed 
 to say, "Danger!" Her nose was aquiline; her mouth small, 
 clearly cut, and very determined in expression ; her complexion 
 brunette, and rather pale. For the rest, she was tall, her head 
 set with a haughty grace upon her sloping shoulders, her hands 
 perfect-. 
 
 The gentleman was ten or fifteen years her senior. He, too, 
 WaL: eminently ha ndsome ; ^ut there was a languid indifference 
 
The Laivyer^s Secret. 
 
 about his manner, which communicated itself even to Ms fac& 
 and seemed to overshadow the very beauty of that face. 
 
 That any one so gifted by nature as he seemed gifted could 
 be as weary of life as he appeared, was, in itself, so much a 
 mystery, tha«t one learned to look at him as a man whose quiet 
 uutward bearing concealed some gloomy secret. 
 
 He was dark and pale, with massive features, and thoughtful 
 ferown eyes, which rarely looked fully at you from under the 
 heavy eyelids that half- shrouded them. The mouth was spiri- 
 tual in expression, the lips thin; but the face was wanting ir 
 one quality, lacking which it lacked the power which is th( 
 highest form of manly beauty ; and that quality was firmness. 
 
 He sat drumming with his slim fingers upon the table, and 
 looking down with a gloomy shade upon his forehead. 
 
 The scene was a lawyer's office in Gray's Inn. There was 
 a third person present, an elderly lady, rather a faded beauty in 
 appearance, and somewhat over-dressed. She took no part in 
 the conversation, but sat in an easy-chair by the fire, turning 
 over the crisp sheets of the Times newspaper, which, every time 
 she moved them, emitted a sharp, crackling sound, unpleasant 
 to the nervous temperaments of the younger lady and the gen- 
 tleman. 
 
 The gentleman was a solicitor, Horace Margrave, the guar- 
 dian of the young lady, and executor to her uncle's will. Her 
 name was Ellinor Arden ; she was sole heiress and residuary 
 legatee to her uncle, John Arden, of the park and village of 
 Arden, in Northamptonshire; and she had this very day come 
 of age. Mr. Margrave had been the trusted and valued friend 
 of her father, dead ten years before, and of her uncle, only 
 lately dead ; and Ellinor Arden had been brought up to think, 
 that if there were truth, honesty, or friendship upon earth, 
 those three attributes were centred in the person of Horace 
 Margrave, solicitor, of Gray's Inn. 
 
 He is to-day endeavouring to explain and to reconcile her to 
 the conditions of her uncle's will, which are rather peculiar. 
 
 " In the first place, my dear Ellinor," he says, still drumming 
 on the table, still looking at his desk, and not at her, " you had 
 no particular right to expect to be your uncle John Arden of 
 Arden' s heiress." 
 
 " I was his nearest relation," she said. 
 
 " Granted ; but that was no reason why you should be dear 
 to him. Your father and he, after the amiable fashion that 
 frequently ob Gains among brothers in this very Christian 
 country, were almost strangers to each other for the best part 
 of their lives. You your uncle never saw, since your father 
 lived on his wife's small property in the North of Scotland, and 
 you were brought up in that remote region until your said father' a 
 
In a Lawyer s Office, 
 
 118 
 
 ieath, which, took place ten year;: ago ; after your father's death 
 you were sent to Paris, to be there educated under the surveil- 
 lance of your aunt, and you therefore never made the acquaintance 
 of John Arden of Arden, your father's only brother." 
 
 " My father had such a horror of being misinterpreted ; had 
 he sought to make his daughter known to his rich brother, it 
 might have been thought " 
 
 " That he wanted to get that rich brother's money. It might 
 have been thought ? My dear girJf it would have been thought ! 
 Your father acted with the pride of the Northamptonshire 
 Ardens ; he acted like a high-minded English gentleman : and 
 he acted, in the eyes of the world, like a fool. You never, then, 
 expected to inherit your uncle's money?" 
 
 " Never. Nor did I ever wish it. My mother's little fortune 
 would have been enough for me." 
 
 " I wish to Heaven you had never had a penny beyond it ! 99 
 
 As Horace Margrave said these few words, the listless ex- 
 pression of his face was disturbed by a spasm of pain. 
 
 He so rarely spoke on any subject whatever in a tone of real 
 earnestness, that Ellinor Arden, startled by the change in his 
 manner, looked up at him suddenly and searchingly. But the 
 veil of weariness had fallen over his face once more, and he con- 
 tinued, with his old indifference, — 
 
 " To the surprise of every one, your uncle bequeathed to you, 
 and to you alone, his entire fortune, stranger as you were to him. 
 This was an act, not of love for you, but of duty to his dead 
 brother. The person nearest his heart was unconnected with 
 him by the ties of kindred, and he no doubt considered that it 
 would be an injustice to disinherit his only brother's only child 
 in favour of a stranger. This stranger, this protege of yoiu 
 uncle's, is the son of a lady who once was beloved by him, bull 
 who loved another, poorer and humbler than Squire Arden oi 
 Arden. She married this poorer suitor, George Dal ton, a young 
 surgeon, in a small country town. She married him, and three 
 rears after her marriage, she died, leaving an only child, a boy. 
 This boy, on the death of his father, which happened when he 
 was only four years old, was adopted by your uncle. He never 
 married, but devoted himself to the education of the son of the 
 woman who had rejected him. He did not, however, bring up 
 the boy to look upon himself as his heir. He educated him as a 
 man ought to be educated who has his own path to make in life 
 He gave young Dalton a university education, and sent him to 
 the bar, where he pleaded his first cause a year before youT 
 uncle's death. He did not leave the young barrister a shilling/* 
 
 "But " 
 
 " But he left his entire fortune to you, on condition that yo| 
 ehould marry Henry Dalton within a yea? of youir majority/' 
 
in 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 "And if I marry any one else, or refnse to marry this apothe- 
 cary's son, I lose the fortune ? " 
 " Every farthing of it." 
 
 A sweet smile brightened her face as she rose hurriedly from 
 her chair, and stood before the table at which the lawyer was 
 
 seated. 
 
 " So be it," she said resolutely. " I will forfeit the fortune. I 
 have a hundred a-year from my poor mother's estate — enough 
 
 for any woman. I will forfeit the fortune, and " she paused 
 
 for a moment, " and marry the man I love." 
 
 It has been said that Horace Margrave had a pale complexion ; 
 but as Ellinor Arden said these words, his face changed from 
 its ordinary dark pallor to a deadly ashen hue, and his strongly- 
 marked black eyebrows contracted painfully over his half-closed 
 eyes. 
 
 She stood with her small gloved hand resting lightly on the 
 table, and her dark lashes downcast upon the faint crimson of 
 her cheeks, so she did not see the change in Horace Margrave's 
 face. She waited a minute or two, to hear what he would say 
 to her determination ; and, on his not speaking, she turned from 
 him impatiently, and resumed her seat. 
 
 Nothing could have been more indifferent than Mr. Mar- 
 grave's manner, as he looked lazily up at her, and said, — 
 
 " My poor romantic child ! Throw away a fortune of three 
 thousand a-year, to say nothing of Arden Hall, and the broad 
 lands thereto appertaining, and marry the man you love ! My 
 sweet, poetical Ellinor, may I venture to ask who this fortu- 
 nate man may be for whom you are prepared to make such a 
 sacrifice ? 99 
 
 It seemed a very simple and straightforward question, emanat- 
 ing as it did from a man of business, many years her senior, 
 her dead father's old friend, and her own guardian and trustee; 
 but Ellinor Arden appeared painfully embarrassed by it. A 
 dark flush spread itself over her face; and her lips trembled 
 faintly as she tried to speak, and failed to utter a word. She 
 was silent for some minutes, during which Horace Margrave 
 played with a penknife, opening and shutting it absently, and 
 not once looking at his beautiful ward. The elderly lady by 
 the fireplace turned the crackling sheets of the Times more than 
 once during the short silence, which seemed so long. 
 
 Horace Margrave was the first to speak. 
 
 " My dear Ellinor, as your guardian, till this very day pos- 
 sessed of full power to control your actions — after to-day, I 
 trust, still possessed of the right to advise them — I have surely 
 some claim on your confidence. Tell me, then, candidly— as you 
 Eiay tell a middle-aged solicitor like myself — who is this most 
 
In a Lawyer's Office, 
 
 115 
 
 Aapp-f of mankind ? who is it whom you would rather marry 
 than Henry Dalton, your uncle's adopted son?" 
 
 For once he looked at her as he spoke, she looking full at him; 
 so it was that their eyes met. A long, earnest, reproachful, sad 
 look was in hers ; in his a darkness of gloomy sorrow, beyond all 
 power of description. 
 
 His eyelids were the firs 1 : to fall ; he went on playing with the 
 handle of the penknife, and said, — 
 
 " You are so long in giving me a candid and straightforward 
 answer, my dear girl, that 1 begin to think this hero is rather a 
 mythic individual, and that your heart is free. Tell me, Ellinoi\ 
 is it not so ? You have met so few people — have passed so 
 much of your life in the utter seclusion of a Parisian convent 
 — and when away from the convent you have been so protected 
 by the Argus-like guardianship of your respected aunt — that I 
 really cannot conceive how you can have lost that dear, generous 
 heart of yours. I suspect that you are only trying to mystify 
 me. Once for all, then, my dear ward, has any one been so for- 
 tunate as to win your affection ?" 
 
 He looked at her as he asked this decisive question with 
 a shrinking upward glance under his dark eyelashes — some- 
 thing like the glance of a man who looks up, expecting a blow, 
 and knows that he must shiver and close his eyes when that 
 blow falls. 
 
 The crimson flush passed away from her face and left her 
 deadly pale, as she said, with a firm voice, — 
 "No!" 
 "No one?" 
 "No one." 
 
 Horace Margrave sighed a deep sigh of relief, and proceeded 
 in his former tone — the tone of a thorough man of business, — 
 
 "Very well, then, my dear Ellinor, seeing that you have 
 formed no prior attachment, that it is your uncle's earnest re- 
 quest, nay, solemn prayer, that this marriage should take place ; 
 seeing, also, that Henry Dalton is a very good young man" 
 
 " I hate good young men ! " she said impatiently. " Dread- 
 fully perfect beings, with light hair and fresh- coloured cheeks. 
 Men who sing in church, and wear double- soled boots. I detest 
 them." 
 
 "My dear Ellinor! — my dear Ellinor! Life is neither a 
 stage-play nor a three- volume novel; and, rely upon it, the 
 happiness of a wife depends very little on the colour of her 
 husband's hair, or the cut of his coat. If he neglects you, will 
 you be happier, lonely and deserted at home, in remembering 
 the haughty grace of his head, at that very moment, perhaps, 
 bending over the green cloth of a club whist-table ? If he 
 wrings your heart with the torturer of jealousy, will it console 
 
116 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 you to recall the splendour of his hazel eyes, whose gaze no 
 
 longer meets your own ? JSTo, no, Ellinor ; dispossess yourself 
 of the schoolgirl's notion of Byronic heroes, with turn-down 
 collars, and deficient moral region. Marry Henry Dalton. He 
 is so good, honourable, and sensible, that you must ultimately 
 learn to esteem him. Out of that esteem will grow affection 
 and, believe me, paradoxical as it may sound, you will love 
 him better in the future from not loving him too much in the 
 present." 
 
 "As you please, my dear guardian," replied Miss Arden. 
 " Henry Dalton by all means, then, and the fortune. I should 
 be very sorry not to follow your excellent, sensible, and business- 
 like advice." 
 
 She said this with a simulation of his own indifference ; but, 
 in spite of herself, betrayed considerable agitation. 
 
 "If we are to dine at six " interposed the faded lady by the 
 
 fireplace, who had been looking over the top of the newspaper 
 every three minutes, hopelessly awaiting a break in the con- 
 versation. 
 
 "We must go home directly," replied Ellinor. "You are 
 Tight, my dear Mrs. Morrison. Pray forgive me. Remember 
 the happiness of a life," — she looked not at Mrs. Morrison, but 
 at Mr. Margrave, who had risen and stood leaning against the 
 mantelpiece in an attitude expressive of supreme listlessness, — 
 "the happiness of a life, perhaps, depended on the interview of 
 to-day. I have made my decision, at the advice of my guardian. 
 A decision which must, no doubt, result in the happiness 
 of every one concerned. I am quite at your service, Mrs. 
 Morrison." 
 
 Horace Margrave laid his hand on the bell by his side. 
 
 " Your carriage will be at the entrance to the Inn in three 
 minutes, Ellinor. I will see you to the gate. Believe me, you 
 have acted wisely ; how wisely, you may never know." 
 
 He himself conducted them down the broad panelled stair- 
 case, and, putting on his hat, led his ward through the quiet inn 
 to the carriage. She was grave and silent, and he did not speak 
 to her till she was seated with her elderly companion and 
 chaperone in her roomy landau, when he leaned his hand on the 
 carriage- door, and said, 
 
 " I shall bring Henry Dalton to Hertford- street this evening, 
 to introduce him to his future wife." 
 
 "Pray do so," she said. " Adieu !" 
 
 " Only till eight o'clock." 
 
 He lifted his hat, and stood watching the carriage as it drove 
 away, then walked slowly back to his chambers, flung himself 
 into a luxurious easy- chair, took a cigar from a small Venetian 
 lasket standing on a table at his side, lit it, wheeled his chaii 
 
In a Lawyer's Office. 
 
 11? 
 
 ilose to the fire, planted the heels of his boots against the 
 polished steel of the low grate, and prepared for a lazy half 
 lio ur before dinner. 
 
 As he lit the cigar, he looked gloomily into the blaze at his 
 feet, and said, 
 
 " Horace Margrave, if yon had only been an honest man I" 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 IN WHICH A SECRET IS REVEALED. 
 
 The hands of the ormolu clock, in the little drawing-room in 
 Hertford- street occupied by Ellinor Arden and her companion, 
 chaperone, and dependent, Mrs. Morrison, pointed to a quarter- 
 parst eight, as Mr. Margrave's quiet brougham rolled up to her 
 door. 
 
 Horace Margraves professional position was no inconsiderable 
 one. His practice was large and eminently respectable ; lying 
 principally amongst railway companies, and involving transac- 
 tions of a very extensive kind. He was a man of excellent 
 family, elegant, clever, and accomplished ; too good for a lawyer, 
 as everybody said ; but a very good lawyer for all that, as his 
 clients constantly repeated, At two-and-thirty he was still 
 unmarried ; why, no one could guess ; as more than one great 
 heiress, and many a pretty woman, would have been proud to 
 say " Yes " to a matrimonial proposition from Horace Margrave, 
 of Gray's Inn, and the Fir Grove, Stanleydale, Berkshire. But 
 the handsome lawyer evidently preferred his free bachelor life ; 
 for if his heart had been very susceptible to womanly graces, 
 he would most inevitably have lost it in the society of his lovely 
 ward, Ellinor Arden. 
 
 Ellinor had only been a few weeks resident in London ; she 
 had left the guardianship of a maternal aunt in Paris, to launch 
 herself upon the whirlpool of English society, sheltered only by 
 the ample wing of an elderly lacly, duly selected and chartered 
 by her aunt and Mr. Margrave. The world was new to her, and 
 she came from the narrow circle of the convent in which she had 
 been educated, and the quiet coteries of the Faubourg Saint 
 Germains, in which her aunt delighted, to take her position at 
 once in London, as the sole heiress of John Arden, of Arden. 
 
 It was then to Horace Margrave — to Horace Margrave, whom 
 she remembered in her happy youth among the Scottish moun- 
 tains, a young man on a shooting expedition, visiting at her 
 father's house — Horace Margrave, who had visited her aunt, 
 from time to time, in Paris, and who had exhibited towards 
 her all the tender friendship of an pldar brother— to him, and to 
 
118 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret 
 
 Lim alone, did she look for counsel and guidance; and she 
 submitted as entirely to his influence as if he had indeed been 
 that guardian and father he by law represented. 
 
 Her cheek flushed as the carriage- wheels stopped below the 
 window. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Morrison," she said, with a sneer ; "now for my 
 incomparable futur. Now for the light hair and the thick boots." 
 
 " It will be very ill-bred if he comes in thick boots," replied 
 her matter-of-fact chaperone. " Mr. Margrave says he is such 
 an excellent young person." 
 
 " Exactly, my dear Mrs. Morrison — a young person. He ia 
 described in one word — a ' person.' " 
 
 "Oh, my dream, my dream!" she murmured under her 
 breath. 
 
 She had but this day passed wisdom's Eubicon, and she was 
 new to the hither bank. She was still very romantic, and 
 perhaps very foolish. 
 
 The servant announced " Mr. Margrave and Mr. Dalton." 
 
 In spite of herself, Ellinor Arden looked up with some 
 curiosity to see this young man, for whom she entertained so 
 profound a contempt and so unmerited an aversion. He was 
 about three years her senior; of average height. His hair was, 
 as she had prophesied, light ; but it was by no means an ugly 
 colour, and it framed a broad and massive forehead. His 
 features were sufficiently regular; his eyes dark blue. The 
 expression of his face was grave, and it was only on rare occa- 
 sions that a quiet smile played round his firmly- moulded lips. 
 Standing side by side with Horace Margrave, he appeared 
 anything but a handsome man ; but to the physiognomist his 
 face was superior in the very qualities in which the countenance 
 of the lawyer was deficient — force, determination, self-reliance, 
 perseverance ; all those attributes, in short, which go to make a 
 great man. 
 
 "Mr. Dalton has been anxiously awaiting the hour that 
 should bring him to your side, Miss Arden," said Horace Mar- 
 grave. " He has been for a long time acquainted with those 
 articles in your uncle's will which you only learned to-day." 
 
 " I am sorry Miss Arden should have ever learned them, if 
 they have given her pain," said the young man, quietly. 
 
 Ellinor looked up in his face, and saw that the blue eyes, 
 looking down into hers, had a peculiar earnestness. 
 
 " He is not so bad, after all," she thought. " I have been 
 foolish in ridiculing him ; but I can never love him. " 
 
 " Miss Arden," he continued, dropping into a chair by the 
 eofa on which she was seated, while Horace Margrave leaned 
 against the opposite side of the fireplace — "Miss Arden, we 
 meet under such peculiar circumstances, that it is best for the 
 
A Secret is Revealed. 
 
 119 
 
 happiness of both that we should at once understand each 
 other. Yonr late uncle was the dearest friend I ever had : no 
 father could have been dearer to the most affectionate of sons 
 than he was to me. Any wish, then, of his must to me be 
 for ever sacred. But I have been brought up to relj upon 
 myself alone, and can truly say I have no better wish than to 
 viiake my own career, unaided by interest or fortune. The loss, 
 then, of this money will be no loss to me. If it be your will to 
 refuse my hand, and to retain the fortune to which you alone 
 have a claim, do so. You shall never be disturbed in the 
 possession of that to which you, of all others, have the best 
 right. Mr. Margrave, your solicitor, and executor to your 
 uncle's will, shall to-morrow execute a deed abnegating, on my 
 part, all claim to this fortune ; and I will, at one word from 
 you, bid you adieu this night, before," he added slowly, with an 
 earnest glance at her beautiful face, — "before my heart is too 
 far involved to allow of my being just to you." 
 
 " Mr. Dalton," said Horace Margrave, lazily watching the two 
 from under the shadows of his eyelashes, "you bring Roman 
 virtue into May Fair. You will purify the atmosphere." 
 
 " Shall I go or stay, Miss Arden ?" asked the young man. 
 
 " Stay, Mr. Dalton." She rose as she spoke, and laid hex 
 hand, as if for support, upon the back of a chair that was 
 standing near her. " Stay, Mr. Dalton. If your happiness 
 can be made by the union, which was my late uncle's wish, let 
 it be so. I cannot hold this fortune, which is not mine ; but I 
 may share it. I will confess to you, and I know your generous 
 nature will esteem me better for the confession, that I have 
 ventured to cherish a dream in which the image of another had 
 a part. I have been foolish, mistaken, absurd ; as schoolgirls 
 often are. The dream is over. If you can accept my uncle's 
 fortune and my own esteem ; one is yours by right, the other 
 has been won by your conduct of this evening." 
 
 She held out her hand to him. He pressed it gently, raised 
 it to his lips, led her back to the sofa, and reseated himself in 
 the chair by her side. 
 
 Horace Margrave closed his eyes, as if the long-expected blow 
 had fallen. 
 
 The rest of the evening passed slowly. Mr. Margrave talked, 
 and talked brilliantly ; but he had a very dull audience. Ellinor 
 was absent-minded, Henry Dalton thoughtful, and Mrs. Morrison 
 eminently stupid. The lawyer found it hard work to be bril- 
 liant in such dull company. When the clock, on which an 
 ormolu Pan reclined amidst a forest of bronze rushes, chimed 
 the half-hour after ten, he carried away Mr. Dalton; and 
 Ellinor was left to ponder upoi* the solemn engagement into 
 which she had entered on the impulse of the moment. 
 
120 
 
 The Lawyers Secret* 
 
 " I had better take a cab to the Temple/' said young Dal* 
 ton as they left the house. "I'll wish you good-night, Mr. 
 Margrave." 
 
 " STo, Mr. Dalton, I have something to .say to you that must 
 be said, and which I think I'd rather say by night than by day. 
 If you are not afraid of late hours, come home with me to my 
 chambers, and smoke a cigar. I must have an hour's conversa- 
 tion with you before you see EHinor Arden again. Shall it be 
 to-night ? I ask it as a favour ; let it be to-night." 
 
 Henry Dalton looked considerably astonished by the lawyer's 
 Words and manner ; but he merely bowed, and said, — 
 
 "With great pleasure. I am entirely at your service. If I 
 returned to my chambers I should read for two or three hours, 
 so pray do not be afraid of keeping me up." 
 
 Henry Dalton and Horace Margrave sat talking for nearly 
 three hours in the chambers of the latter ; but no cigars were 
 smoked by either of them, and though a bottle of Madeira stood 
 on the table, it was untouched. It was to be observed, how- 
 ever, that a cellaret had been opened, and a decanter of brandy 
 taken out ; the stopper lay beside it, and one glass which had 
 been drained to the dregs. 
 
 The clocks were striking two as Horace Margrave opened 
 the outer door for his late visitor. On the threshold he paused, 
 laid his hand, with a strong grasp, on Dalton's arm, and said in 
 a whisper. 
 
 " I am safe, then ! Your promise is sacred !" 
 
 Henry Dalton turned and looked him full in the face — looked 
 full at the pale face and downcast eyes. 
 
 " The Daltons of Lincolnshire are not an aristocratic race, 
 Mr. Margrave; but they keep their word. Good-night." 
 
 He did not hold out his hand at parting, but merely lifted his 
 hat and bowed gravely. 
 
 Horace Margrave sighed as he locked the doors, and returned 
 to his warm study. 
 
 "At least," he said, "I am safe. But then I might have 
 been happy. Have I been wise to-night ? I wonder whether 
 I have been wise," he muttered, as his eyes wandered to a space 
 over the mantelpiece, on which were arranged two pairs of mag- 
 nificently mounted pistols, and a small dagger in a chased silver 
 scabbard. " Perhaps, after all, it was scarcely worth the trouble 
 of this explanation ; perhaps, after all, so miserable a game is 
 scarcely worth the sandle that lights it. 5 ' 
 
After the Honeymoon* 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AFTER THE HONEYMOON. 
 
 Thsee months had elapsed since the midnight interview in 
 Horace Margrave's chambers — three months, and ^he Opera 
 House was opened for the season, and three new tenors, and two 
 sopranos, and a basso-baritono had appeared under the classic 
 proscenium of Her Majesty's Theatre ; the novel of the season was 
 in full circulation; Rotten Row was gay with Amazonian eques- 
 trians and blase lifeguardsmen ; moss-roses were selling on the 
 lusty pavements of the West-end streets; and Covent Garden 
 was all a-bloom with artistically- arranged bouquets, and all 
 a-glow with Algerian fruits ; London, in short, was in the full 
 Hood-tide of the season, when Mr. and Mrs. Henry Dalton re- 
 turned from their honeymoon visit to the Cumberland lake-dis- 
 trict, and took up their abode in the small house in Hertford- 
 street furnished by Ellinor before her marriage. 
 
 Hers has been a short courtship ; all the sweet uncertainties, 
 the doubts, the dreams, the fears, the hopes which make up the 
 poetical prologue to a love-match, have been wanting in this 
 marriage ordained by the will of her late uncle — this marriage, 
 which is founded on esteem and not on affection ; this marriage, 
 into which she has entered on the generous impulse of an im- 
 petuous nature, which has never submitted itself to the discipline 
 of reason. 
 
 Is she happy ? Can this cold esteem, this calm respect which 
 she feels for the man chosen for her by another, satisfy the ardent 
 heart of the romantic girl ? 
 
 She has been already married six weeks, and she has not seen 
 Horace Margrave, the only friend she has in England — except, 
 of course, her husband — since her wedding-day ; not since that 
 sunny morning on which he took her icy hand in his and gave 
 her, as her guardian and the representative of her dead father, 
 into her husband's arms. She remembered that on that day 
 when his hand touched hers it was as cold and nerveless as her 
 own, and that his listless face was even paler than usual under 
 the spring sunshine streaming in at the church- windows But 
 hi spite of this he did the honours of the breakfast-table, toasted 
 the bride and bridegroom, complimented the bridesmaids, and 
 pleased everybody, with the finished grace and marvellous ease 
 of the all-accomplished Horace Margrave. And if Ellinor had 
 ever thought that she had a right, for auld lang syne, for hei 
 dead father's sake, or for her own lovely face, to be anything 
 more or dearer to Mr. Margrave than the most indifferent of his 
 clients, that thought was dispelled by the gentlemanly mng< 
 
122 
 
 Tlie Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 froid of his adieu, as the four prancing steeds started ofT on tht 
 first stage to Windermere. 
 
 It was the end of June, and Mrs. Dalton was seated in the 
 small drawing-room, awaiting the advent of morning visitors. 
 Bridegroom and bride had been a week in town, rszd Horace 
 Margrave had not yet called upon them. She had a weary air 
 this morning, and sought in vain for something to occupy her. 
 "Now she strolled to the open piano, and played a few chords or 
 a brilliant run, or softly touched the notes of some pensive air, 
 and sang a few soft Italian syllables ; now she took up an uncut 
 ziovel from the table, and read a page or two here and there, 
 wherever the book opened. Anon she walked to an embroidery- 
 frame, and took a great deal of trouble in selecting wools and 
 threading needles ; but when this was accomplished she did not 
 work three stitches. After this she loitered listlessly about the 
 room, looking at the pictures and proof engravings which adorned 
 the pale silver-gray walls ; but at last she was so utterly weary, 
 that she sank into an easy- chair by the open window, and sat 
 idly looking down across a liliputian forest of heliotrope and 
 geranium into the hot sunny street. 
 
 She was looking very lovely, but she was not looking happy. 
 Her dark-brown hair was brushed away from her broad low 
 brow, and secured in a coil of superb plaits at the back of her 
 head; her white morning-dress was only ornamented by large 
 knots of violet ribbon, and she wore no jewelry whatever, except 
 a tiny, slender, gold chain, which she-twisted perpetually between 
 her slim white fingers. 
 
 She sat thus for about half an hour, always looking across 
 the plants in the balcony at the pavement opposite, when she 
 suddenly wrenched the thin chain off her fingers. 
 
 She had seen the person for whom she had been waifmg. A 
 gentleman, who lounged along the other side of the street, crossed 
 the road beneath the window, and knocked at the door. 
 
 " At last ! " she muttered to herself; " now, perhaps, this 
 mystery will be explained." 
 
 A servant announced Mr. Margrave. 
 
 " At last ! " she said again, rising a? he entered the room. 
 " 0, Mr. Margrave, I have been so anxioce to see you." 
 
 He looked about on the crowded uaSjie to find amongst its 
 fashionable litter a place for his hat ; failed in doing so, andp*:t it 
 -iownon a chair : and then, for the first time, looked at his late ward. 
 
 " Anyiota to see me, my dear Ellinor ; why anxious ? " 
 
 " Because there are two or three questions which I must ask, 
 which you must answer." 
 
 That peculiar expression in Horace Margrave's eyes, which 
 was as it were a shiver of ijie eyelids, passed over them now; 
 
After the Honeymoon, 
 
 128 
 
 bnt it was too brief to be perceived by Ellinor Dalton. He sank 
 into a chair ; near her own, but not opposite to it. He paused 
 to place this chair with its back to the iight, and then said, — 
 
 " My dear Ellinor — my dear Mrs. Dalton — what questions can 
 you have to ask me but questions of a purely business character ; 
 and even those I imagine your husband, who is quite as practical 
 * man as myself, could answer as well as I?" 
 
 " Mr. Dalton is the very last person to whom I can apply for 
 CjQ answer to the questions which I have to ask." 
 
 u And why the last person ? " 
 
 > Because those questions relate to himself." 
 
 " 0, I see ! My dear Mrs. Dalton, is not this rather a bad 
 beginning ? You appeal from your husband to your solicitor." 
 
 " No, Mr. Margrave ; I appeal to my guardian." 
 
 " Pardon me, my dear Ellinor, there is no such person, He 
 is defunct ; he is extinct. From the moment I placed your hand 
 in that of your husband before the altar of St. George's, Han- 
 over-square, my duties, my right to advise you, and your right 
 to consult me, expired. Henceforth you have but one guardian, 
 one adviser, one friend, and his name is Henry Dalton." 
 
 A dark shadow came over Ellinor Dalton' s ^ace, and her eyes 
 filled with tears as she said, — 
 
 "Mr. Margrave, Heaven forbid that I should say a word 
 which could be construed into a reproach to you. Your duties 
 of guardianship, undertaken, at the prayer of my dying father, 
 have been as truly and conscientiously discharged as such duties 
 should be discharged by a man of your high position and un- 
 blemished character. But I will own that sometimes, with a 
 woman's folly, I have wished that, for the memory of my dead 
 father, who loved and trusted you, for the memory of the old 
 days in which we were companions and friends, some feeling a 
 little warmer, a little kinder, a little more affectionate, some- 
 thing of the tenderness of an elder brother, might have mingled 
 with your punctilious fulfilment of the duties of guardian. I 
 would not for the world reproach you, still less reproach you 
 for an act for which I only am responsible ; yen I cannot but 
 remember that, if it had been so, this marriage might never 
 have taken place." 
 
 " It is not a happy marriage, then ? " 
 
 " It is a most unhappy one !" 
 
 Horace Margrave was silent for a few moments, and then 
 began, gravely, almost sadly, — 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Henry Dalton," — he seemed especially scrupu- 
 lous in calling her Mrs. Dalton, as if he had been anxious to 
 remind her every moment how much their relations had 
 change J, — " when you accuse me of a want of tenderness in 
 my conduct towards yourself, of an absence of regard for th<? 
 
124 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 memory of your father, my kind and excellent friend, yon acctis* 
 me of that for which I am no more responsible than for the 
 colour of my hair, or the outline of my face. Yon accuse me of 
 that which is perhaps the bane of my existence — a heart inca* 
 pable of cherishing a strong affection, or a sincere friendship, foi 
 any living being. Behold me, at five-and-thirty years of age, 
 unloved and unloving, without one tie which I cannot as easily 
 break as I can pay an hotel-bill or pack my portmanteau. My 
 life, at its brightest, is a dreary one — a dreary present, which can 
 neither look back to a fairer past, nor forward to a happier future f" 
 
 His deep musical voice fell into a sadder cadence with these 
 last words, and he looked down gloomily at the point of the cane 
 with which he absently traced vague hieroglyphics upon the 
 carpet. After a short silence, he looked up and said, — 
 
 "But you wished to make some inquiries of ms?" 
 
 " I did ; I do. When I married Mr. Dalton, what settlements 
 were made ? You told me nothing at the time, and I, so utterly 
 unused to business matters, asked you no questions. Besides, 
 I had then reason to think him the most honourable of men." 
 
 "What settlements were made?" asked the lawyer, repeating 
 Ellin or' s question, as if it were the last of all others which he 
 expected to hear. 
 
 " Yes ; what arrangements were made about my fortune ? 
 How much of it was settled on myself?" 
 
 "Not one penny." Mrs. Dalton gave a start of surprise, 
 which Mr. Margrave answered in his most nonchalant manner. 
 " Not one penny of it. There was no mention whatever of any 
 such legal formality in your uncle's will. He left his money to 
 you, but he left it to you only on condition that you shared it 
 with his adopted son, Henry Dalton. This implied not only a 
 strong affection for, but an implicit faith in, the young man. 
 To tie up your money, or to settle it on yourself, would be ta 
 stultify your uncle's will. The man that could be trusted by 
 him could be trusted by you. This is why I suggested no 
 settlement. It is just possible that I acted in rather an 
 anlawyer-like manner; but I believe that I acted in the only 
 manner consonant with your late uncle's affectionate provisions 
 for the two persons nearest and dearest to him." 
 
 "Then Henry Dalton is sole master of my — of the fortune?" 
 
 " As y nr husband, decidedly, yes." 
 
 " And he may, if he pleases, sell the Arden estate ? " 
 
 " The Arden estate is not entailed. Certainly he may sell it, 
 if he wishes." 
 
 " Then, Mr. Margrave, I must inform you that he does wisl 
 
 to sell it— that he does intend to sell it." 
 "To sell Arden Hall?" 
 "Yes." 
 
After the Honeymoon. 
 
 125 
 
 An angry flush, crimsoned her face as she looked eagerly into 
 the lawyer's eyes for one flash of surprise or indignation. She 
 looked in vain. 
 
 " Well, my dear Mrs. Dalton, in my opinion your husband 
 shows himself a very sensible fellow by determining on such 
 a proceeding. Arden is one of the dreariest, draughtiest, most 
 dilapidated old piles of building in all England. It possesses 
 all the leading features of a country mansion ; magnificent oak 
 panelling, contemptible servants' offices ; three secret staircases, 
 and not one register- stove ; six tapestried chambers, and no 
 bath-room ; a dozen Leonardo da Ymcis, and not one door that 
 does not let in assassination, in the shape of a north-east wind ; 
 a deer-park, and no deer; three gamekeepers' lodges, and not 
 game enough to tempt the most fatuitous of poachers ! Sell 
 Arden Hall ! Nothing could be more desirable. But, alas ! my 
 dear Ellinor, your husband is not the man I take him for, if he 
 calculates upon finding a purchaser. 
 
 Mrs. Dalton regarded the lawyer with, not a little contempt 
 as she said, — 
 
 "But the want of feeling, the outrage upon the memory of 
 my poor uncle !" 
 
 " Your poor uncle will not be remembered a day the longer 
 through your retaining possession of a draughty and uncom- 
 fortable house. When did Dalton tell you this intention of his ?" 
 
 " On our return from our tour. I suggested that we should 
 live there — that is, of course, out of the season. " 
 
 "And lie ?" 
 
 " Keplied that it was out of the question our ever residing 
 there, as the place must be sold." 
 " You asked him his reasons P" 
 
 "I did. He told me that he was unable to reveal those 
 reasons to me, and might never be able to reveal them. He 
 said, that if I loved him, I could trust him and believe in him, 
 and believe that the course he took, however strange it might- 
 appear to me, was in reality the best and wisest course he could 
 take." 
 
 "But, in spite of this, you doubt himP" asked Horace, 
 earnestly. 
 
 "How can I do otherwise? He refuses me the slightest 
 freedom in my use of the fortune which I have brought to him. 
 He, the husband of a rich woman, enjoins economy — economy 
 even in the smallest details. I dare not order a jewel, a picture, 
 an elegant piece of furniture, a stand of hothouse flowers; for, 
 if I do so, I am told that the expenditure is beyond his present 
 means, and that I must wait till we have more money at our 
 command. Then, again, his profession is a thousand times 
 dearer to him than I 'No briefless, penniless barrister, with a 
 
126 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 mother and sister to support, ever worked harder than he works, 
 ever devoted himself more religiously than he devotes himself 
 to the drudging routine of the bar." 
 
 " Ellinor Dalton, your husband is as high-minded and con- 
 scientious a man as ever lived upon this earth. I seldom take the 
 trouble of making a vehement assertion ; so believe me, if you 
 can, now that I do. Believe me, even if you cannot believe him." 
 
 "You, too, against me?" cried Ellinor, mournfully. " 0, 
 believe me, it is not the money I want ; it is not the possession 
 of the money which I grudge him ; it is only that my heart 
 sinks at the thought of being united to a man I cannot respect 
 or esteem. I did not ask to love him," she added, half to her- 
 self ; " but I did pray that I might be able to esteem him. " 
 
 " I can only say, Ellinor, that you are mistaken in him." 
 
 At this moment came the sound of a quick firm step on the 
 stairs, and Henry Dalton himself entered the room. His face 
 was bright and cheerful, and he advanced to his wife eagerly ; 
 but at the sight of Horace Margrave he fell back with a frown. 
 
 "Mr. Margrave, I thought it was part of our agreement 
 that " 
 
 The lawyer interrupted him. 
 
 " That I should never darken this threshold. Yes." 
 Ellinor looked from one to the other with a pale, frightened 
 face. 
 
 "Mr. Dalton!" she exclaimed, "what, in Heaven's name, 
 does this mean ? " 
 
 " Nothing that in the least can affect you, Ellinor. A business 
 disagreement between myself and Mr. Margrave ; nothing more." 
 
 His wife turned from him scornfully, and approaching Horace 
 Margrave, rested her hand on the scroll-work at the back of the 
 chair on which he sat. 
 
 It was so small an action in itself, but it said, as plainly as 
 words could speak, " This is the man I trust, in spite of you, in 
 spite of the world." 
 
 It was not lost on Henry Dalton, who looked at his wife with 
 a grave, reproachful glance, and said, — 
 
 "Under these circumstances, then, Mr. Margrave " 
 
 " I had no right to come here. Granted ; and I should not 
 have come, but " 
 
 He hesitated a moment, and Ellinor interrupted him. 
 
 " I wrote to my guardian, requesting him to call on me. Mr. 
 Dalton, what is the meaning of this ? What mystery does all 
 this conceal? Am I to see my best and oldest friend insulted 
 in my own house ? " 
 
 " A married woman has no friend but her husband : and I may 
 not choose to receive Mr. Margrave as a visitor in our house/ 1 
 Henry Dalton replied, coldly and gravely. 
 
After the Honeymoon. 
 
 V27 
 
 *You shall not be troubled any longer with Horace liar- 
 grave's society, Mr. Dalton," said the lawyer, rising, and walk- 
 ing slowly to the door. " Good-morning." His hand was upon 
 the lock, when he turned, and with a tone of suppressed emotion 
 addressed Mrs. Dalton: " Ellinor, shake hands with me,* "he said. 
 That was all. His sometime ward extended both her hands tc 
 him. He took them in his, bent his dark head over them for a 
 moment as he held them in his grasp, and murmured hoarsely, 
 *? Forgive me, Ellinor, and farewell I" 
 
 He was gone. She hurried out on to the landing-place, and 
 called after him, — 
 
 " Mr. Margrave, guardian, Horace, come back ! if only for 
 one moment, come back !" 
 
 Her husband followed her, and led her back to the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " Ellinor Dalton, choose between that man and me. Seek to 
 renew your acquaintance with him, or hold any communication 
 whatsoever with him that does not pass through my hands, and 
 we part for ever." 
 
 The young wife fell sobbing into her chair. 
 
 " My only friend ! " she cried ; " my only, only friend ! and to 
 be parted from him thus ! " 
 
 Her husband stood at a little distance from her, earnestly, 
 sadly watching her, as she gave full sway to her emotion. 
 
 "What wretchedness! what utter wretchedness!" he said 
 aloud ; " and no hope of a termination to it — no chance of an end 
 Vo our misery 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT BALDWIN COURT. 
 
 Henry Dalton prospered in his profession. Grey-headed old 
 \udges talked over their after-dinner port of the wonderful 
 acumen displayed by the rising junior in the most important 
 and difficult cases. One, two, three years passed away, and the 
 Dame of Dalton began to be one of mark upon the Northern 
 Circuit. The dawn often found him working in his chambers in 
 Paper-buildings, while his handsome wife was dancing at some 
 brilliant assembly, or listening to the vapid platitudes of one of 
 her numerous admirers and silent adorers. With Ellinor 
 Dalton, to be unhappy was to be reckless. Hers was that im- 
 pulsive and emotional nature which cannot brood upon its griefg 
 :i the quiet circle of a solitary home. She considered herself 
 wronged by her husband's parsimony, still more deeply wronged 
 by his cold reserve ; and she sought in the gayest circles of 
 
 i 
 
128 
 
 The Lawyer* 8 Secret, 
 
 fashionable London for the peace which had never dwelt at he! 
 cold and deserted hearth. 
 
 "His profession is all in all to him," she said; "but there i8 
 at least the world left for me ; and if I cannot be loved I wiE 
 prove to him that I can be admired." 
 
 At many of the honses in which she was a constant visitor 
 Horace Margrave was also a familiar guest. The wealthy 
 bachelor lawyer was snre of a welcome wherever mamma had 
 daughters to marry, and wherever papa had money to invest or 
 mortgages to effect. To her old guardian Ellinor's manner 
 never underwent the shadow of a change. 
 
 " You may refuse to admit him here, you may forbid my cor- 
 respondence with him. I acknowledge the right you exercisa 
 so harshly," she would say to her husband; "but you cannot 
 shake my faith in my dead father's friend ; you cannot control 
 my sentiments towards the guardian of my childhood." 
 
 But by degrees she found that Horace Margrave was to be 
 seen less frequently every da;*- at those houses in which she 
 visited. It was growing a rare thing now for her to see the 
 dark handsome head overtopping the crowd in which the lawyer 
 mingled ; and even when she did meet him, though his voice 
 had still its old gentleness, there was a tacit avoidance of her 
 in his manner, which effectually checked any confidence between 
 Vhem. This was for the first two years after her marriage. In 
 the third she heard accidentally that Horace Margrave was 
 travelling in Switzerland, and had left the entire management 
 of his very extensive business to a junior partner. 
 
 In the autumn of the third year, Ellin or was staying with her 
 husband at the country house of his friend, Sir Lionel Baldwin. 
 Since that day on which the scene with Horace Margrave had 
 taken place in the little drawing-room in Hertford- street, Ellinoi 
 Dalton and her husband had had no explanation whatever. On 
 that day, the young man had fallen on his knees at the feet of 
 his sobbing wife, and had most earnestly implored her to believe 
 in his faith and honour, and to believe that, in everything he 
 did, he had a motive so strong and so disinterested as to justify 
 his conduct. He begged her to believe also that the marriage, 
 on his part, had been wholly a love-match ; that he had been 
 actuated by no mercenary considerations whatever ; and that il 
 he now withheld the money to which, in all appearance, she had 
 so good a right, it was because it was not in his power to lavish 
 it upon her. But he implored in vain. Prejudiced against him 
 from the verj first, she had only trusted him for a brief period, 
 to doubt him more completely than ever at the first suspicion 
 that suggested itself. Wounded in her affection for another— 
 an affection whose strength, perhaps, she scarcely dared to con- 
 fess to herself— her feeling for Henry Dalton became one almost 
 
At Baldwin Court. 
 
 129 
 
 bordering on aversion. His simple, practical good sense ; his 
 plain, unpolished manners ; his persevering, energetic, and un* 
 tiring pursuit of a vocation with which she had no sympathy — 
 all these qualities jarred upon her enthusiastic temperament, and 
 blinded her to his actual merits. The world, which always con- 
 trives to know everything, very soon made itself completely ac- 
 quainted with the eccentric conditions of Mr. Arden's will, and 
 the circumstances of Henry Dalton's marriage. 
 
 It was known to be a marriage of convenience, and not of 
 affection. He was a very lucky fellow, and she was very much 
 to be pitied. This was the general opinion, which Ellinor's pal- * 
 pable indifference to her husband went strongly to confirm. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Dalton had been staying for a week at Baldwin 
 Court, when the young barrister was compelled, by his profes- 
 sional pursuits, to leave his wife for a few days under ths protec- 
 tion of his old friends, Sir Lionel and Lady Baldwin. 
 
 " You will be very happy here, my dear Ellinor," he said ; 
 " the house is full of pleasant people, and you know what a 
 favourite you are with the Baldwins. You will not miss me," 
 he added, with a sigh, as he looked at her indifferent face. 
 
 " Miss you ! 0, pray do not alarm yourself, Mr. Dalton ! I 
 am not so used to usurp your time or attention. I know, 
 when your professional duties are concerned, how small a con- 
 sideration I am to you." 
 
 "I should not work hard were I not compelled to do so, 
 Ellinor," he said, with a shade of reproach in his voice. 
 
 "My dear Mr. Dalton," she answered coldly, "I have no 
 taste for mysteries. You are perfectly free to pursue your own 
 course." 
 
 So they parted. She bade him adieu with as much well-bred 
 indifference as if he had been her jeweller or her haberdasher. 
 As the light little phaeton drove him off to the railway station, 
 he looked up to the chintz-curtained windows of his wife's apart- 
 ments, and said to himself, " How long is this to endure, I 
 wonder? — this anniented wretchedness, this cruel misconcep- 
 tion." 
 
 The morning after Henry Dalton's departure, as Sir Lionel 
 Baldwin, seated at breakfast, opened the letter-bag, he ex- 
 claimed, with a tone of mingled surprise and pleasure, "So the 
 wanderer has, returned ! At the very bottom of the bag I can 
 isee Horace Margrave's dashing superscription. He has returned 
 to England." 
 
 He handed his visitors their letters, and then opened his own, 
 reserving the lawyer's epistle to the last. 
 
 " This is delightful ! Horace will be down here to-night." 
 
 Ellinor Dalton's cheek grew pale at the announcement; iot 
 the mysterious feud between her guardian and her husband 
 
130 
 
 The Laieyer's Secret. 
 
 flashed upon lier inimd. She would meet him here. then., alone. 
 Now, or never, might she learn this secret — this secret which, no 
 doubt, involved some meanness on the part of Henry Dalton, 
 the apothecary's son. 
 
 " Margrave will be an immense acquisition to our party — will 
 he not. gentlemen ?" asked Sir Lionel. 
 
 " An acquisition ! Well, really now, I don't know about 
 that," drawled a young government clerk from "Whitehall. 
 u "Do you know, Sir Lionel, it's my opinion that Horace Mar- 
 grave is used up ? I met him at — at what-you-may-call it — 
 llousseau and Gibbon, Child e Harold and the XouveUe 11- : 
 you know the place," he said vaguely: " somewhere in Switzer- 
 land, in short, — last July, and I never saw a man so altered U 
 my life." 
 
 " Altered !" exclaimed the Baronet. 
 Ellinor D altars face grew paler still. 
 
 " Yes, 'pon my honour, very much altered indeed. You don't 
 think he ever committed a murder, or anything of that kind, 
 do you?" said the young man reflectively, as he drew over a 
 basin and deliberately dropped four or five lumps of sugar into 
 his coffee. " Because. up;n my honour, he looked like th; 
 of thing." 
 
 " My dear Fred, don't be a fool. Looked like what sort of 
 thine r" 
 
 "You know; a guilty conscience — Lara, Manfred. You 
 understand. Upon my word," added the youthful official, 
 looking round with a languid laugh, "he had such a "Wan- 
 dering- Jew-ish and ultra-Byronic apjDearance, when I met him 
 suddenly among some very uncomfortable kind of chromo- 
 lithographic mountain scenery, that I asked him if he had an 
 appointment with the Witch of the Alps, or any of that sort of 
 people?" 
 
 One or two country visitors laughed faintly, seeing the young 
 man meant to be jocose ; and the guests from town only stared, 
 as the government official looked round the table. Ellinor Dalton 
 never took her eyes from his face, but seemed to wait anxiously 
 for anything he might say next. 
 
 " Perhaps Margrave has been ill." said the Baronet ; "he told 
 me when he went to Switzerland, that he was leaving England 
 for change of air and scene." 
 
 "111!" said the government clerk. " Ah, to be sure; I never 
 thought of that. He might have been ill. It's difficult* some- 
 times, to draw the line between a guilty conscience and the liver 
 complaint. Perhaps it was only his liver, after all. But yon 
 don't think," he said appealingly, returning to his original idea 
 " you don't think that he has committed a murder, and buried 
 the body in Yerulam -burl dings — do you ? That would account 
 
At Baldwin Court. 
 
 131 
 
 "or his going to Switzerland, yon know; for he couldn't possibly 
 Atop with the body — conld he ? " 
 
 " You'd better ask him the question yourself, Fred," said Sir 
 Lionel, laughing ; "if everybody had as good a conscience as 
 Horace Margrave, the world would be better stocked than it is 
 with honest men. Horace is a noble-hearted fellow ; I've known 
 him from a boy. He's a glorious fellow." 
 
 "And a crack shot," said a young military man with his 
 mouth full of buttered toast and anchovy paste. 
 
 " And a first-rate billiard-player," added his next neighbour, 
 who was occupied in carving a ham. 
 
 " And one of the longest-headed fellows in the LcvW'List," 
 said a grave old gentleman sententiously. 
 
 Extremely handsome," faltered one young lady. 
 
 " And then, how accomplished ! " ventured another. 
 
 " Then you don't think, really now, that he has committed a 
 murder, and buried the body in his chambers ? " asked the White- 
 hall employe, putting the question to the company generally. 
 
 In the dusk of that autumnal evening, Ellinor Dalton sat 
 alone in a tiny drawing-room leading out of the great saloon, 
 which was a long room, with six windows and two fireplaces, and 
 with a great many indifferent pictures in handsome frames. 
 
 This tiny drawing-room was a favourite retreat of Ellinor's. 
 It was deliciously furnished, and it communicated, by a half- 
 glass door shrouded by cream-coloured damask curtains, with a 
 large conservatory, which opened on to the terrace-walk that ran 
 along one side of the house. Here she sat in the dusky light, 
 pensive and thoughtful, on the evening after her husband's 
 departure. The gentlemen were all in the billiard-room, hard 
 at work with balls and cues, trying to settle some disputed 
 wager before the half-hour bell rang to summon them to their 
 dressing-rooms. The ladies were already at their toilettes ; and 
 Ellinor, who had dressed earlier than usual, was quite alone. 
 It was too dark for her read or work, and she was too weary and 
 listless to ring for lamps ; so she sat with her hands lying idly 
 m her lap, pondering upon the morning's conversation about 
 Horace Margrave. 
 
 Suddenly a footstep behind her, falling softly on the thick 
 carpet^ roused her from her reverie, and she looked up with a 
 startled glance at the glass over the low chimneypiece. 
 
 In the dim firelight she saw, reflected in the shadowy depths 
 of the mirror, the haggard and altered face of her sometime 
 guardian, Horace Margrave. 
 
 He wore a loose overcoat, and had his hat in his hand. He 
 had evidently only just arrived. 
 
 He drew back on seeing Ellinor, but as she turned to speak 
 
132 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 to him, the firelight behind her left her face in the shadow, and 
 
 be did not recognise her. 
 
 " I beg yonr pardon," he said, " for disturbing you. I have 
 been looking everywhere for Sir Lionel." 
 
 " Mr. Margrave ! Don't you know me ? It is I — Ellinor !" 
 
 The hat fell from Horace Margrave's slender hand, and he 
 leaned against a high-backed easy-chair for support. 
 
 " Ellinor — Mrs. Dalton — you here ! I — I — heard you wera 
 in Paris, or I should never — that is to say — I " 
 
 For the first time in her life Ellinor Dalton saw Horace Mar- 
 I grave so agitated that the stony mask of gentlemanly sang- 
 froid, which he ordinarily wore, dropped away, and revealed — 
 himself. 
 
 "Mr. Margrave," she said anxiously, "you are annoyed at 
 seeing me here. 0, how altered you are ! They were right in 
 what they said this morning. You are indeed altered; you 
 must have been very ill!" 
 
 Horace Margrave was himself again. He picked up his hat, 
 and sinking lazily into the easy- chair upon which he had been 
 leaning, said, — 
 
 " Yes ; I have had rather a severe attack — fever — exhaustion 
 — the doctors, in fact, were so puzzled as to what they should 
 call my illness, that they actually tried to persuade me that I 
 had nerves — like a young lady who has been jilted by a life 
 guardsman, or forbidden by her parents to marry a count: y 
 curate with seventy pounds per annum, and three duties every 
 Sunday. A nervous lawyer ! My dear Mrs. Dalton, can you 
 imagine anything so absurd? Sir James Clarke, however, 
 insisted on my packing my portmanteau, and setting off for 
 Mont Blanc, or something of that kind ; and I being heartily 
 bired of the Courts of Probate and Chancery, and Yerulam- 
 buildings, Gray's-Inn, was only too glad to follow his advice, 
 and take my railway-ticket for Geneva." 
 
 " And Switzerland has restored you ? " 
 
 " In a measure ; but not entirely. You can see that I am 
 not yet very strong, when even the pleasing emotion of meeting 
 unexpectedly with my sometime ward is almost too much for 
 my nerves. But you were saying that they had been talking 
 of me here." 
 
 " Yes, at the breakfast-table this morning. When your visit 
 was announced, one of the gentlemen said he had met you in 
 Switzerland, and that you were looking ill — unhappy !" 
 
 "Unhappy! Ah, my dear Mrs. Dalton, what a misfortune 
 ft is for a man to have a constitutional pallor and a weak 
 digestion I The world will insist upon elevating him into ft 
 blighted being, with a chronic wolf hard at work under his 
 waistcoat, I knock myself up by working too hard ov$r e 
 
At Baldwin Court. 
 
 133 
 
 difficult will-case, in which some tiresome old man leaves his 
 youngest son forty thousand pounds upon half a sheet of note- 
 paper; and the world, meeting me in Switzerland, travelling 
 to recruit myself, comes home and writes me down — unhappy. 
 Now, isn't it too bad ? If I were blessed with a florid complexion 
 I might break: my heart once in three months without any of 
 my sympathetic friends troubling themselves about the fracture." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Margrave," said Ellinor — her voice, in spite 
 of herself, trembling a little — "I am really now quite an old 
 married woman ; and, presuming on that fact, may venture to 
 speak to you with entire candour — may I not ? " 
 
 " With entire candour, certainly." There was the old shiver 
 in the dark eyelashes, and the old droop of the eyelids, as Horace 
 Margrave said this. 
 
 " Then, my dear guardian, for I will — I will call you by that 
 old name, which I can remember speaking for the very first time 
 on the day of my poor father's funeral. 0!" she added, pas- 
 sionately, " how well I remember that dreary day ! lean see 
 you now, as I saw you then, standing in the deep bay-window 
 of the library, in the dear, dear Scottish home, looking down at 
 me so compassionately. I was such a child then. I can h^ar 
 yomr low, deep voice, as I heard it on that day, saying to me, — 
 ' Ellinor, your dead father has placed a solemn trust in my 
 hands. 1 am young. I may not be so good a man as, to his 
 confiding mind, I seemed to be; there may be something of 
 constitutional weakness and irresolution in my character which 
 he never suspected ; but so deeply do I feel the trust implied in 
 his dying words, that I swear, by my hope in Heaven, by my 
 memory of the dead, by my honour as a gentleman, to discharge 
 the responsibilities imposed upon me as an honest man should 
 discharge them !' " 
 
 "Ellinor, Ellinor, for pity's sake!" cried the lawyer, in a 
 broken voice, clasping one wasted hand convulsively over his 
 averted face. 
 
 " I do wrong," she said, " to recall that melancholy day ; but 
 I wanted to prove to you how your words were impressed upon 
 my mind. Ylou did, you did discharge every duty nobly, 
 honestly, honourably ; but now, now you abandon me entirely 
 t<§ the husband not of my choice, but imposed upon me by a 
 cruel necessity, and you do all in y Dur power to make us 
 strangers. Yet, guardian — Horace, you are not happy ! " 
 
 "Not happy!" he echoed, with a bitter laugh. "My dear 
 Mrs. Dalton, this is such childish talk, about happiness and 
 anhappiness — two words which are only used in a lady's novel, 
 in which the heroine is unhappy through two volumes and 
 three-quarters, and unutterably blest in the last chapter. In 
 the practical world we don't talk about b**t>pness and unhap- 
 
134 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 piness ; oar phrases are failure and success. A man gets the 
 woolsack, and he is successful ; or lie tries to earn bread-and- 
 cheese, and fails, and we shrug our shoulders and saj that he 
 is unfortunate. But a happy man, my dear Ellinor— did you 
 ever see one ?" 
 
 " You mystify me ; but you do not answer me. " 
 
 " Because to answer you I must first question myself; and, 
 believe me, a man must have considerable courage who can dare 
 to ask himself whether, in this troublesome journey of life, he 
 has taken the right or the wrong road. I confess myself a 
 coward, and implore you not to compel me to be brave." 
 
 He rose, looked down at his dress, and exclaimed in his usual 
 society tone, — 
 
 " The first dinner-bell rang a quarter of an hour ago, and 
 behold me still in travelling costume; the sin is yours, Mrs. 
 Dalton. Till dinner, adieu." 
 
 It was difficult to recognise the gloomy and bitter Horace 
 Margrave of the previous half-hour in the brilliant guest who 
 sat on Lady Baldwin's right hand, and whose incessant flow 
 of witty persiflage kept the crowded dinner- table in a roar of 
 laughter. Ellinor, charmed in spite of herself, beguiled out 
 of herself by the fascination of his animated conversation, 
 wondered at the extraordinary power possessed by this man. 
 " So brilliant, so accomplished !" she thought; "so admired and 
 successful, and yet so unhappy !" 
 
 That evening's post brought Ellinor a letter, which had 
 been sent to the house in Hertford- street, and forwarded thence 
 to Sir Lionel's. 
 
 She started on seeing the direction, and, taking her letter 
 into the little inner drawing-room, which was still untenanted, 
 she read it by the light of the wax-candles on the chimney- 
 piece. She returned to the long saloon after refolding the 
 letter, crossed over to a small table at which Horace Margrave 
 sat bending over a portfolio of engravings, seated herself near 
 him, and said, — 
 
 " Mr. Margrave, I have just received a letter from Scotland. 51 
 
 "From Scotland?" 
 
 "Yes. From the dear old clergyman, James Stewart; you 
 remember him ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a white-headed old man, with a family of daughters, 
 the shortest of whom was taller than I. Do you correspond 
 with him?" 
 
 " 0, no. It is so many years since I left Scotland, that my 
 old friends seem one by one to have dropped off. I should like 
 bo much to have given them a new church at Achindore ; but 
 Mr- Dalton of course objected to the outlay of money, and as 
 
At Baldwin Court. 
 
 135 
 
 that is a point I never dispute with him, I abandoned fche idea ; 
 but Mr. Stewart has written to me this time for a special 
 purpose." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " To tell me that my old nurse, Margaret Mackay, has become 
 blind and infirm, and has been obliged to leave her situation. 
 Poor dear old soul — she went into a service in Edinburgh, after 
 my poor father's death, and I entirely lost sight of her. I should 
 have provided for her long before this had I known where to find 
 her ; but now there is no question about this appeal, and I shall 
 immediately settle a hundred a-year upon her, in spite of Mr. 
 Dalton's rigid and praiseworthy economy." 
 
 " I fancy Dalton will think a hundred a-year too much. Fifty 
 pounds for an old woman in the north of Aberdeenshire would 
 be almost fabulous wealth. But you are so superb in your 
 notions, my dear Ellinor. Hard-headed business men, like 
 Dalton and myself, can scarcely stand against you." 
 
 " Pray do not compare yourself with Mr. Dalton," said Ellinor 
 coldly. 
 
 " I am afraid, indeed, I must not," he answered with gravity ; 
 " but you were saying " 
 
 " That in this matter I will take no refusal ; I will listen to 
 no excuses or prevarications. I shall write to my husband by 
 to-morrow's post. I cannot have an answer till the next day. 
 If that answer should be either a refusal or an excuse, I know 
 what course to take." 
 
 "And that course " 
 
 " I will tell you what it is when I receive Mr. Dalton's reply. 
 But I am unjust to him," she said ; " he cannot refuse to comply 
 with this request." 
 
 Three days after this conversation, just as the half-hour bell 
 had rung, and as Sir Lionel's visitors were hurrying off to their 
 dressing-rooms, Ellinor laid her hand lightly on Horace Mar- 
 grave's arm, aud said, — 
 
 " Pray let me speak to you for a few minutes. I have received 
 Mr. Dalton's answer to my letter." 
 
 " And that answer ? " he asked as he followed her into the 
 little room communicating with the conservatory. 
 
 "Is, as you suggested it might be, a refusal." 
 
 * A refusal !" Mr. Margrave elevated his eyebrows slightly, 
 but seemed by no means surprised at the intelligence. 
 
 " Yes ; a refusal. He dares not even attempt an excuse, or 
 invent a reason for his conduct. Forty pounds a-year, he says, 
 will be a competence for an old woman in the north of Scotland, 
 where yery few ministers of the Presbyterian church have a 
 larger income. That sum he will settle on her immediately, and 
 he sends me a cheque for the first half-year; but he will settle 
 
The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 no more, nor will lie endeavour to explain motives which ara 
 always misconstrued. What do you think of his conduct ?" 
 
 As she spoke, the glass door which separated the room from 
 the conservatory swung backwards and forwards in the autumn 
 breeze which blew in through the outer door of the conservatory. 
 The day had been unusually warm for the time of year, and this 
 outer door had been left open. 
 
 " My dear Ellinor," said Horace Margrave, u if any one should 
 come into the conservatory, they might hear us talking of your 
 husband." 
 
 " Every one is dressing," she answered carelessly. " Besides, 
 if any one were there, they would scarcely be surprised to hear 
 me declare my contempt for Henry Dalton. The world does not 
 give us credit for being a happy couple." 
 
 " As you will ; but I am sure I heard some one stirring in that 
 conservatory. But no matter. You ask me what I think of 
 your husband's conduct in refusing to allow a superannuated 
 nurse of yours more than forty pounds a-year ? Don't think 
 me a heartless ruffian, if I tell you that I think he is perfectly 
 right." 
 
 " But to withhold from me my own money ! to fetter my 
 almsgiving ! to control my very charities ! I might forgive him 
 if he refused me a diamond necklace or a pair of ponies ; but 
 in this matter, in which my affection is concerned, to let his 
 economy step in to frustrate my earnestly-expressed wishes — it 
 is 1 oo cruel." 
 
 "My dear Mrs. Dalton, like all very impetuous and warm- 
 hearted people, you are rather given to jump at conclusions. 
 Mr. Dalton, you say, withholds your own money from you. 
 Now, your own money — with the exception of the Arden estate, 
 which he sold within a year of your marriage — happens to have 
 been entirely invested in the Three per Cents. Now, sup- 
 pose — mind, I haven't the least reason to suppose that such a 
 thing has ever happened, but for the sake of putting a case 
 — suppose Henry Dalton, as a clever and enterprising man of 
 business, should have been tempted to speculate with some of 
 your money ? " 
 
 " Without consulting me P " 
 
 "Without consulting you. Decidedly. What do women 
 know of speculation? 
 
 "Mr. Margrave, if Henry Dalton has done this, he is no 
 longer a miser, but he is — a cheat. The money bequeathed to 
 me by my uncle was mine : to be shared with him, it is true, 
 but still mine. No Sophistry, no lawyer's quibble, could ever 
 have made it his. If, then, he has, without my consent or know- 
 ledge, speculated with that money, he is a dishonest man. Alu 
 Horace Margrave, you, who have noble blood in vour veins — » 
 
At Baldwin Court. 
 
 137 
 
 you, who are a gentleman, an honourable man — what would yon 
 think of Henry Dalton, if this were possible ? " 
 
 "Ellinor Dalton, have you ever heard of the madness men 
 have christened gambling ? Do you know what a gambler is ? 
 Do you know what the man feels who hazards his wife's fortune, 
 his widowed mother's slender pittance, his helpless children's 
 inheritance, the money that should pay for his son's education, 
 his daughter's dowry, the hundreds due to his trusting creditors 
 or the gold intrusted to him by a confiding employer, — on the 
 green cloth of a West-end gaming table ? Do you think that 
 at that mad moment, when the glaring lights above the table 
 dazzle his eyes, and the piles of gold heave up and down upon 
 the green baize, and the croupier's voice crying, s Make your 
 game ! ' is multiplied by a million, and deafens his bewildered 
 ear like the clamour of all the fiends; do you think at that 
 moment that he ever supposes he is going to lose the money ? 
 No ; he is going to double, to treble, to quadruple it ; to mul- 
 tiply every guinea by a hundred, and to take it back to the 
 starving wife or the anxious children, and cry, 8 Was I so much 
 to blame, after all ? ' Have you ever stood upon the Grand 
 Stand at Epsom, and seen the white fa-jes of the betting-men, 
 and heard the roar of the eager voices at the last rush for the 
 winning-post? Every man upon that crowded stand, every 
 creature upon that crowded course — from the great magnate of 
 the turf, who stands to win a quarter of a million, to the 
 wretched apprentice-lad, who has stolen half-a-crown from the 
 till to put it upon the favourite — believes that he has backed 
 a winning horse. That is the great madness of gaming; 
 that is the terrible witchcraft of the gambling-house and the 
 ring ; and that is the miserable hallucination of the man who 
 speculates with the fortune of another. Pity him, Ellinor. If 
 me weak and wicked are ever worthy of the pity of the good, 
 that man deserves your pity." 
 
 He had spoken with an energy unusual to him, and he sank 
 into a chair half-exhausted by his unwonted vehemence. 
 
 " I would rather think the man whom I am forced to call my 
 husband a miser than a cheat, Mr. Margrave," Ellinor said coldly ; 
 " and I am sorry to learn, that if he were indeed capable of such 
 dishonoiir, his crime would find an advocate in you." 
 
 "You are pitiless, Mrs. Dalton," said Horace Margrave, afte 
 a pause. " God help the man who dares to wrong you ! " 
 
 " Do not let us speak of Henry Dalton any longer, Mr. Mar- 
 grave. I told you that if he should refuse this favour, tliift-— 
 this right, I had decided on my course." 
 
 " You did ; and now, may I ask what tVat course is f n 
 
 * To leave him." 
 
 "Leave him!" he exclaimed anxiously, 
 
138 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret, 
 
 " Yes ; leave him in the possession of the money which is so 
 dear to him. He can never have cared for me. He has refused 
 my every request, frustrated my every wish, devoted every hour 
 of his life, not to me, but to his profession. My aunt will re- 
 ceive me. I shall leave this place to-night, and leave Londoo 
 for Paris to-morrow morning.' 
 
 " What will the world say of such a step, Ellinor ? V 
 
 " Let the world judge between us. What can the world say 
 of me ? I shall live with, my aunt, as I did before my luckless 
 inheritance came to me. Mr. Hargrave — guardian — you will 
 accompany me to Paris, will you not ? I am so inexperienced 
 in all these sort of things, so little used to help myself, that I 
 dare not make this journey with my maid alone. You will 
 accompany me ? " 
 
 "I, Ellinor?" 
 
 " Yes ; who so fit to protect me as you, to whom, with his 
 dying lips, my father committed my guardianship? For his 
 sake you will do me this service, will you not?" 
 
 " Is it a service, Ellinor ? Can I be doing you a service in 
 taking you away from your husband? " 
 
 " So be it, then," she said scornfully. M Yon refuse to help 
 me ; I will go alone." 
 
 "Alone?" 
 
 " Yes, alone ; I go to-night, and alone." 
 
 A crimson flush mounted to Horace Margrave's pale face, and 
 a vivid light shone in his handsome eyes. 
 
 " Alone, Ellinor? ~No, no," he said; "my poor child, my 
 ward, my helpless orphan girl, my little Scotch lassie of the good 
 time gone, I will protect you on this journey, place you safely 
 in the arms of your aunt, and answer to Henry Dalton for my 
 conduct. In this at least, Ellinor, I will be worthy of your deal 
 father's confidence. Make your arrangements for the journey 
 You have your maid with you?" 
 
 " Yes ; Ellis, a most excellent creature. Then to-night, bj 
 the mail-train." 
 
 " I shall be ready. You must make your excuses to Lady 
 Baldwin, and leave with as little explanation as possible. A* 
 revovr!" 
 
 As Ellinor Dalton and Horace Margrave left the little boudoir, 
 a gentleman in a greatcoat, with a railway rug flung over his 
 shoulder, strode out on to the terrace through the door of the 
 conservatory, and lighting a cigar, paced for about half an hour 
 up and down the shrubbery at the side of the house, wrapped 
 in thought. 
 
139 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 FEOM LONDON TO PAEIS. 
 
 While dressing, Ellinor gave her maid orders to set about pack* 
 ing, immediately. Ellis, a very solemn and matter-of-fact 
 person, expressed no surprise, but went quietly to work, empty- 
 ing the contents of wardrobes into capacious trunks, and fitting 
 silver-topped bottles into their velvet-lined cases, as if there were 
 no such thing as hurry or agitation in the world. 
 
 To Ellinor Dalton that evening seemed very long. Never had 
 the county fellows appeared so stupid, or the London visitors so 
 tiresome. The young man from the War Office took her into 
 dinner, and insisted on telling } er some funny story about a 
 young man in another governm jnt office, which brilliant anec- 
 dote lasted, exclusive of interruptions, from the soup to the 
 dessert, without drawing any nearer the point of the witticism. 
 After the dreary dinner, the eldest daughter of the oldest of 
 the county families fastened herself and a very difficult piece of 
 crochet upon her, and inflicted on her all the agonies of a 
 worsted-work rose, which, as the young lady perpetually de- 
 clared, would not come right. But however distraite Ellinor 
 might be, Horace Margrave was the Horace of the West-end 
 world. He talked politics with the heads of the county families ; 
 stock-exchange with the city men ; sporting-magazine and Tat- 
 tersall's with the county swells ; discussed the latest debuts at 
 Her Majesty's Theatre with the young Londoners ; spoke of Sir 
 John Herschel's last' discovery to a scientific country squire ; 
 and of the newest thing in farming-implements to an agricul- 
 tural ditto; talked compliments to the young country ladies, 
 and the freshest May-fair scandal to the young London ladies ; 
 had, in short, something to say on every subject to everybody, 
 and contrived to please all. And let any man who has tried to 
 do this in the crowded drawing-room of a country house, say 
 whether or not Horace Margrave was a clever fellow. 
 
 " By the bye, Horace," said Sir Lionel, as the lawyer lounged 
 against one corner of the mantelpiece, talking to a group of 
 young men and one rather fast young lady, who had edged 
 herself into the circle, under cover of a brother, much to the 
 indignation of more timid spirits, who sat modestly aloof, fur- 
 tively regarding Admirable Crichton Margrave, as his friends 
 called him, from distant sofas ; " by the bye, my boy, where did 
 you hide yourself all this morning ? We sadly wanted you to 
 decide a match at billiards, and I sent people all over the house 
 ^d grounds in search of you." 
 
140 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret 
 
 " I rode over to Horton after luncn," said Horace. u I wanted 
 a few hours there on electioneering business." 
 
 " You've been to Horton ? " asked Sir Lionel, with rather an 
 anxious expression. 
 
 " Yes, my dear Sir Lionel, to Horton. "But how alarmed you 
 look ! I trust I haven't been doing anything wrong. A client 
 of mine is going to stand for the place. But surely you're not 
 going to throw over the county electors, and stand for the little 
 borough of Horton yourself!" he said, laughing. 
 
 Sir Lionel looked a little confused, and the county families 
 grew suddenly very grave ; indeed, one young lady in pink, who 
 was known by about seven fair confidantes to have a slight 
 tendre for the handsome lawyer, clutched convulsively at the 
 wrist of a younger sister in blue, and listened, with an alarmed 
 face, to the conversation by the chimney piece. 
 
 " Why, how silent every one has grown !" said Horace, still 
 laughing. " It seems as if I had launched a thunderbolt upon 
 this hospitable hearth in announcing my visit to the little 
 manufacturing town of Horton. What is it — why is it — how is 
 it ? " he asked, looking round with a smile. 
 
 " Why," said Sir Lionel, hesitatingly, " the — the truth of the 
 matter — that is — not to mystify you — in short — you know — 
 they — they've a fever at Horton. The — the working classes and 
 factory people have got it very badly, and — and — the place is in 
 a manner tabooed. But of course," added the old man, trying 
 to look cheerful, " you didn't go into any of the back streets, 
 or amongst the lower classes. You only rode through the town, 
 I suppose ; so you're safe enough, my dear Horace." 
 
 The county families simultaneously drew a long breath, and 
 the young lady in pink released her sister's wrist. 
 
 " I went, my dear Sir Lionel," said Horace, with placid indif- 
 ference, "into about twenty narrow back streets m an hour- 
 and-a-half, and I talked to about forty different factory hands, 
 for I wanted to find which way the political current set in the 
 good town of Horton. They all appeared extremely dirty, and 
 now, I remember, a good many of them looked ill ; but I'm not 
 afraid of having caught the fever, for all that," he addfc& 
 looking round at the grave faces of his hearers ; " half-a-doze* 
 cigars, and a sharp ten miles' ride through a bleak, open country 
 must be a thorough disinfectant. If not," he continued bitterly, 
 " one must die sooner or later, and why not of a fever caught at 
 Horton?" 
 
 The young lady in pink had recourse to her sister's wrist 
 again at this speech. 
 
 Horace soon laughed off the idea of danger from his after* 
 noon's rambles, and, in a few minutes, he was singing a German- 
 fitudeat song, and accompanying himself at the piano. 
 
From London to Pari®. 
 
 141 
 
 At last, the long evening was over, and Ellinor, who had 
 heard nothing from her distant work-table of the conversation 
 about the fever, gladly welcomed the advent of a servant with a 
 tray of glistening candlesticks. As she lit her candle at the 
 side-table, Horace Margrave came over, and lit his own. 
 
 " I have spoken to Sir Lionel," he said ; " a carriage will be 
 ready for us in an hour. The London mail does not start till 
 one o'clock, and we shall reach town in time to catch the day 
 service for Paris. But, Ellinor, it is not yet too late. Are you 
 thoroughly determined on this step?" 
 
 " Thoroughly," she said. " I shall be ready in an hour." 
 
 Mrs. Dalton's apartments were at the end of a long corridor ; 
 the dressing-room opened out of the bedroom, and the door of 
 communication was ajar as Ellinor entered her room. Her 
 boxes stood ready packed. She looked at them hurriedly, exa- 
 mined the addresses which her maid had pasted upon them, and 
 was about to pass into the dressing-room, when she stopped on 
 the threshold with an exclamation of surprise. 
 
 Henry Dalton was seated at the table, with an open portfolio 
 spread before him, writing busily. On a chair by the fire lay 
 his greatcoat, railway-rug, and portmanteau. 
 
 He looked up for a moment, calmly and gravely, as Ellinor 
 entered ; and then continued writing. 
 
 "Mr. Dalton!'; 
 
 "Yes," he said, still writing; "I came down by the 5.30 
 train. I returned sooner than I expected." 
 
 " By the 5.30 train," she said anxiously ; " by the train which 
 leaves London at half-past five, I suppose?" 
 
 " By the train which arrives here at half-past five," answered 
 her husband, without looking up ; " or should reach here by that 
 time, rather ; for it's generally five minutes late." 
 
 " You have been here since six o'clock ? " 
 
 " Since ten minutes to six, my dear Ellinor. 1 gave my 
 valise to a porter, and walked over from the station in a quarter 
 of an hour." 
 
 " You have been here since six, and have neither told me ot 
 your arrival nor shown yourself in the house !" 
 
 "I have shown myself to Sir Lionel. I had some very 
 important business to arrange." 
 
 " Important business ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, to prepare for this journey to Paris, which you are sa 
 bent upon taking." 
 "Mr. Dalton!" 
 
 "Yes," lie said quietly, folding and sealing a letter as he 
 spoke, " it is very contemptible, is it not ? Coming unexpectedly 
 into the house by the conservatory entrance — which, as you 
 know, to any one arriving from the station, saves about two 
 
142 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 hundred yards — I heard involuntarily a part of a conversation* 
 which had so great an effect upon me as to induce me to remaii? 
 where I was, and voluntarily hear the remainder. ,, 
 " A listener ? " she said, with a sneer. 
 
 " Yes, it is on a par with all the rest, is it not ? An avaricious 
 man, a money-grubbing miser; or 9 perhaps, even worse, a dis- 
 honest speculator. 0, Ellinor Dalton, if ever the day should 
 come (God forbid that I should wish to hasten it by an hour !) 
 when I shall be free to speak one little sentence, how bitterly 
 you will regret your expressions of to-day ! But I do not wish 
 to reproach you ! it is our bad fortune — yours and mine — to be 
 involved in a very painful situation, from which, perhaps, 
 nothing but an open rupture could extricate us. You have 
 taken the initiative. You wish to leave me, and return to yout 
 aunt in Paris. So be it. Go !" 
 
 "Mr. Dalton I" 
 
 Something in his manner, spite of her long- cherished pre- 
 judices against him, impressed and affected her, and she 
 stretched out her hand deprecatingly. 
 
 " Go, Ellinor ! I, too, am weary of this long struggle ! this 
 long conflict with appearances which, in spite of myself, con- 
 demn me. I am sick to the very heart of these perpetual appeals 
 to your generosity and confidence — tired of trying to win the 
 love of a woman who despises me." 
 
 " But, Henry, if — if — I have misconstrued > 99 she said, with 
 a tenderness unusual to her in addressing her husband. 
 
 "If you have misconstrued " he exclaimed passionately. 
 
 " No, Ellinor, no ; it is too late now for explanations ; besides, I 
 could give you none better than those you have already heard — 
 too late for reconciliation ; the breach has been slowly widening 
 for three long years; and to-night I look at you across an 
 impassable abyss, and wonder that I could have ever dreamed, 
 as I have dreamed, of ultimately winning your love." 
 
 There was a break in his voice as he said these last words, and 
 the emotion, so strange to the ordinary manner of the young 
 barrister, melted Ellinor. 
 
 "Mr. Dalton! Henry!'' 
 
 " You wish to go to Paris, Ellinor. You shall go. But the 
 man who accompanies you thither must be Henry Dalton." 
 " You will take me there?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes; and will place you under your aunt's protection. 
 Prom that moment you are free of me for ever. You will 
 have about three hundred a-year to live upon. It is not much 
 out of the tnree thousand, is it?" he said, laughing bitterly; 
 "but I give you my honour it is all I can afford, as I shall 
 want the rest for myself." He looked at his watch. "A 
 quarter-past twelve." he said. " Dress yourself warmly, Ellinor* 
 
From London to Paris. 
 
 143 
 
 M it will be a cold journey. I will ring for the people to take 
 your trunks down to the carriage." 
 
 "But, Henry" — she took his hand in hers — "Henry, some- 
 thing in your manner to-night makes me think that I have 
 wronged you. I won't go to Paris. I will remain with you ; I 
 will trust you." 
 
 He pressed the little hand lying in his very gently, and 
 gaid, looking at her gravely and sadly, with thoughtful blue 
 eyes — 
 
 " You cannot, Ellinor ! No, no ; it is far better, believe me, 
 as it is. I have borne the struggle for three years. I do not 
 think that I could endure it for another day. — Ellis," he said* 
 as the maid entered the room in answer to his summons, " you 
 will see that this letter is taken to Mr. Margrave immediately, 
 and then see that those trunks are carried downstairs ? — Now, 
 Ellinor, if you are ready." 
 
 She had muffled herself hurriedly in a large velvet cloak, 
 while Ellis brought her bonnet and arranged the wraps, which 
 she was too agitated to arrange herself. 
 
 She stopped in the hall and said, — 
 
 " I must say good-bye to Mr. Margrave, and explain this 
 change in our plans." 
 
 "My letter has done that, Ellinor. You will not speak one 
 word to Horace Margrave while I am beneath this roof- " 
 
 "As you will," she answered, submissively. 
 
 She had suddenly learned to submit to, if not to respect, her 
 Susband. 
 
 Henry Dalton was very silent during the short drive to the 
 railway station, and when they alighted he said, — 
 
 " You would like to have Ellis with you, would you not?" 
 
 Ellinor assented, and her maid followed her into the carriage. 
 It seemed as if her husband had been anxious to avoid a 
 tete-a-tete. 
 
 Throughout the four hours' journey Ellinor found herself 
 involuntarily watching the calm, grave face of her husband 
 Under the dim carriage-lamp. It was impossible to read any 
 emotion on that smooth brow, or in those thoughtful eyes ; but 
 she remembered the agitation in his voice as he spoke to her in 
 her dressing-room. 
 
 "He is capable of some emotion," she thought. "What 
 if after all I should really have wronged him ? if there should 
 be some other key to this strange mystery than meanness and 
 avarice? If he really love me, and I have misconstrued him, 
 what a wretch he mast think me!" 
 
 The next evening, after dark, they arrived in Paris; and 
 Ellinor found herself, after an interval of nearly rbur years» 
 once more in her aunt's little drawing-room in the Hue Sain* 
 
 K 
 
14* 
 
 The Lawyers Secret. 
 
 Dominique. She was received with open arms. Henry D alt on 
 smoothed over the singularity of her arrival by saying that it 
 was a visit of his own suggestion. 
 
 " Everything will explain itself at a future time, Ellinor ; foi 
 the present, let ours be thought a temporary separation. I da 
 not wish to alarm your poor aunt." 
 
 - "You shall have your own old bedroom, Ellinor," said he? 
 aunt. "Nothing has been disturbed since you left us — look;" 
 and she opened the door of a little apartment leading out of 
 the drawing-room, in which ormolu clocks, looking-glasses, and 
 pink curtains very much preponderated over more substantial 
 furniture. 
 
 "But you are looking very ill, my dear child," she said, 
 anxiously, as Ellinor pushed away the untasted refreshment 
 which her aunt had ordered for her, — " you are really looking 
 very ill!" 
 
 "My journey has fatigued me a little. I think I'll go to 
 my room at once, if you will excuse me, aunt; it is nearly 
 eleven o'clock " 
 
 " Yes ; and rest will do you more good than anything. Good- 
 night, my darling child. Lisette is getting your room ready." 
 
 Wearied out with a night and day of incessant travelling, 
 Ellinor slept soundly, and, waking, the next morning, found her 
 aunt seated by her bedside. 
 
 " My dear girl, you look a great deal better after your night's 
 rest. Your husband would not disturb you to say good-bye, 
 but has left this letter for you." 
 
 "Is Mr. Dalton gone?" 
 
 " Yes ; he said he had most important business — something 
 about his circuit," said her aunt vaguely ; " but his letter will 
 no doubt explain all. He has made every arrangement for your 
 comfort during your stay with me, dear. He seems a most 
 devoted husband." 
 
 " He is very good," said Ellinor with a sigh. Her aunt left 
 her, and she opened the letter — opened it with an anxiety she 
 ^ould not repress. She hoped this letter might contain some 
 explanation, some offer of reconciliation. 
 
 "My dear Ellinor, — When you receive these few lines of 
 iarewell, I shall be on my way to London. In complying with 
 your wish, and restoring you to the home of your youth, I hope 
 and believe that I have acted for the best. How completely you 
 have misunderstood me, how entirely you have mistaken my 
 motives, you may never know. How much I have suffered 
 from this wretched misunderstanding it would be impossible for 
 me tc iell you. But let this bitter past be forgotten ; our roads 
 in life henceforth lie separate. Yet if at any future hour yovi 
 
From London to Paris. 
 
 145 
 
 should need an adviser or an earnest and disinterested frienqj 
 I entreat yon to appeal to no one but 
 
 " Henry Dalton." 
 
 The letter fell from her hand. " Now, now I am indeed alone," 
 she thought. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HORACE MAEGRAVE'S CONFESSION. 
 
 Life in the Faubourg St. Germ am seemed very dreary toEllinor 
 after the pleasant London society to which she had been accus- 
 tomed since her marriage. Her aunt's visiting-list was very 
 limited. Four or five ancient dowagers, who thought that the 
 glory of the world had departed with the Bourbons, and that 
 France, in the van of the great march of civilisation, was fore- 
 most in a demoniac species of dance, leading only to destruction 
 and the erection of a new guillotine upon the Place de la Eevo- 
 lution ; two or three elderly but creditably-preserved aristocrats 
 of the ancient regime, whose political principles had stood still 
 ever since the Restoration, and who resembled ormolu clocks of 
 that period, very much ornamented and embellished, but useless 
 as indicators of the flight of time ; three or four very young 
 ladies educated in convents, and uninterested in anything ex- 
 cept their pet priests and the manufacture of point-lace ; and 
 one terrifically bearded and moustachioed gentleman, who had 
 written a volume of poems entitled Clouds and Mists, but who 
 had not yet been so fortunate as to meet with a publisher, — ■ 
 this was about the extent of the visiting circle in the Hue St. 
 Dominique; and for this circle Ellinor's aunt set apart a par- 
 ticular day, on which she was visible in conjunction with earn 
 tucree, rather weak coffee, and wafer-biscuits. 
 
 The first day of Ellinor's visit happened to be the day of her 
 aunt's reception, and it seemed to her as if the tiresome hours 
 would never wear themselves out, or the equally tiresome guests 
 take their departure. She could not help remembering how 
 different everything would have been had Horace Margrave 
 been present. How he would have fought the battle of the tiers 
 etat with the white-headed old partisans of the departed noblesse ; 
 \iow he would have discussed and critically analysed Lamartine's 
 |des with the young ladies from the convent ; how he would 
 have flattered the vanity of the bearded poet, and regretted the 
 Bourbons with the faded old dowagers. But he was away-— 
 
146 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 gone out of her life, perhaps, entirely. " I shall never see 
 him again," she said ; " that kind guardian in whose care my 
 father left me." 
 
 The next day she went with her aunt to the Louvre to see the 
 improvements that had been made beneath the sway of that new 
 ruler who had already begun to change brick into marble, or at 
 least into stucco. The pictures only wearied her; the very 
 colouring of the Eubenses seemed to have lost half its glowing 
 beauty since she had last seen them ; and Marie De' Medici, 
 florid and resplendent, bored her terribly. Many of the recent 
 acquisitions she thought overrated, and she hurried her aunt 
 away from the splendid exhibition before they had been there an 
 hour. She made a few purchases in the Rue de la Paix ; and 
 loitered for a little time at a milliner's in the Rue de l'Echelle, 
 choosing a bonnet, and then declared herself thoroughly tired 
 out with the morning's exertions. 
 
 She threw herself back in the carriage, and was very silent as 
 they drove home ; but suddenly, as they turned from the Rue de 
 Rivoli into the quadrangle of the Louvre, they passed close to a 
 hackney-coach in which a gentleman was seated, and Eliinor, 
 starting up, cried out, " It was Mr. Margrave ! Did you not see 
 him, aunt? He has just this moment passed us in a hackney- 
 coach." She pulled the check- string violently as she spoke, and 
 her aunt's coachman stopped ; but Horace Margrave was out of 
 sight, and the vehicle in which he was seated lost among the 
 crowd of carriages of the same description rattling up and down 
 the bustling street. 
 
 "Never mind, dear," said Miss Beauchamp, as Eliinor let 
 down the carriage- window, and looked eagerly out ; "if you are 
 not mistaken in the face of the person who passed us, and it 
 really is Horace Margrave, he is sure to call upon us imme- 
 diately." - 
 
 " Mistaken in my guardian's face ! No, indeed. But of 
 course he will call, as you say, aunt." 
 
 " Yes ; he will call this evening, most likely. He knows how 
 seldom I go out." 
 
 All that evening and all the next morning Mrs. Dalton con- 
 stantly expected to hear the lawyer's name announced ; but he 
 did not come. " He had important business to transact yester- 
 day, perhaps," she thought ; " and he may be employed this 
 morning ; but in the evening he is sure to call." 
 
 After dinner she sat by the low wood fire in Miss Beauchamp's 
 drawing-room, turning over the leaves of a book which she had. 
 vainly endeavoured to read, and looking every moment at the 
 old buhl clock over the chimney ; but the evening slowly dragged 
 •tself through, and still no Horace Margrave. She expected him 
 
Horace Margrave** Confession. 
 
 on the following day, but again only to be disappointed ; and 
 in this manner the week passed, without bringing any tidings 
 of him. 
 
 "He must have left Paris!" she thought; "left Paris, with- 
 out once calling here to see me. Nothing could better testify 
 his indifference," she added bitterly. " It was no doubt onlv 
 for my father's sake that he ever pretended any interest in thi 
 friendless orphan girl." 
 
 The following week, Ellinor went with her aunt once or twLe 
 to the Opera, and to two or three reunions in the Faubourg, a* 
 which her handsome face and elegant manners made some 
 sensation ; but still there were no tidings of Horace Margrave. 
 " If he had been in Paris, we should most likely have seen him 
 at the Opera," thought Ellinor. 
 
 That week elapsed, and on the Sunday evening Mrs. Dalton 
 sat alone in her own room, writing letters to friends in 
 England, when she was interrupted by* a summons from 
 her aunt. Some one wanted her in the drawing-room 
 immediately. 
 
 Some one in the drawing-room who wanted to see her ! Could 
 it be her guardian at last ? 
 
 " A lady or a gentleman ? " she asked of the servant who 
 brought her aunt's message. 
 
 " A lady — a sister of charity." 
 
 She hurried into the drawing-room, and found a sister of 
 charity in conversation with Miss Beauchamp. 
 
 " My dear Ellinor, this lady wishes you to accompany her on 
 a visit to a sick person ; a person whom you know, but whose 
 name she is forbidden to reveal. What can this mystery 
 mean ? " 
 
 " A sick person who wishes to see me?" said Ellinor. " But 
 I know so few people in Paris; no one likely to «end for 
 me." 
 
 " If you can trust me, madame," said the nun, " and if yon 
 will accompany me on my visit to this person, I believe your 
 presence will be of great service. The mind of the invalid is, 
 I regret to say, in a very disturbed state, and you only, 1 
 imagine, will be able, un^sr Heaven and the Church, to give 
 relief to that." 
 
 " I will come," said Mrs. Dalton. 
 
 (t But, Ellinor " exclaimed her aunt anxiously. 
 
 " If I can be of any service, my dear aunt, it would be most 
 cruel, most cowardly, to refuse to go." 
 
 "But, my dear cbild, when you do not know the person to 
 vnom you are going." 
 
 * I will trust this lady," answered Ellinor, " and I will go.- - 
 
48 
 
 The Lawyer s Secret. 
 
 } will put on my bonnet and shawl, and join you, madame," sh% 
 added to the nun, as she hurried from the apartment. 
 
 " When these girls once get married, there's no managing 
 cnem," murmured Miss Beauchamp, as she folded her thin white 
 hands, bedecked with old-fashioned rings, resignedly. " Pray do 
 not let them detain her long," she continued aloud, to the sister 
 of charity, who sat looking gravely into the few embers in the 
 little English grate. "I shall suffer the most excruciating anxiety 
 till I see her safe home again." 
 
 " She will be perfectly safe with me, madame." 
 " Now, madame, I am quite at your service," said Ellinor, re- 
 entering the room. 
 
 In a few minutes they were seated in a hackney-coach, and 
 
 " Are we going far?" asked Ellinor of her companion. 
 " To Meurice's Hotel." 
 
 " To Meurice's ? Then the person I am going to see is not a 
 
 resident in Paris P" 
 " No, madame." 
 
 Who could it be P Not a resident in Paris, Some one from 
 England, no doubt. Her husband, or Horace Margrave ? These 
 were the only two persons who presented themselves to her mind ; 
 but, in either case, why this mystery P 
 
 They reached the hotel, and the sister of charity herself led 
 the way upstairs into an enclosed hall on the third story, where 
 she stopped suddenly at the door of a small sitting-room, which 
 she entered, followed by Ellinor. 
 
 Two gentlemen, evidently medical men, stood talking in 
 whispers, in the embrasure of the window. One of them looked 
 up as the two women entered, and to him the nun said, — 
 
 " Your patient, Monsieur Delville." 
 
 " He is quieter, Sister Louise. The delirium has subsided ; he 
 is now quite himself ; but very much exhausted," replied the 
 physician. " Is this the lady P" he asked, looking at Ellinor. 
 
 " Yes, monsieur." 
 
 " Madame," said the doctor, " will you favour me with a few 
 moments' conversation?" 
 
 "With pleasure, monsieur. But first, let me implore you, 
 one word. This sick person, for mercy's sake, tell me his 
 name !" 
 
 " That I cannot do, madame ; his name is unknown to me." 
 "But the people in the hotel ?" 
 
 " Are alsojgnorant of it. His portmanteau has no address. 
 He came most probably on a flying visit; but he has been 
 detained here by a very alarming illness." 
 
 "Then let me see him, monsieur. I cannot endure this 
 
Horcxe Margrave's Confession. 
 
 149 
 
 Suspense. I have reason to suppose that this gentleman is a 
 friend who is very dear to me. Let me see him, and then I shall 
 know the worst." 
 
 "You shall see him, madame, in ten minutes. — Monsieur 
 Vernot, will you prepare the patient for an interview with this 
 iady?" 
 
 The second doctor bowed gravely, and withdrew into an inner 
 apartment, closing the door carefully behind him. 
 
 " Madame," said Monsieur Delville, " I was called in, only three 
 days ago, to see the person lying in the next room. My colleague 
 had been for some time attending him through a very difficult 
 case of typhus fever. A few days ago the case became still more 
 complicated and difficult by an affection of the brain which 
 supervened, and Monsieur Yernot considered it his duty to call 
 in another physician. I was therefore summoned. I found the 
 case, as my colleague had found it, an exceptional one. There 
 was not only physical weakness to combat, but mental depres- 
 sion — mental depression of so marked a character that both 
 Monsieur Yernot and myself feared that, should we even suc- 
 ceed in preserving the life of the patient, we might fail in saving 
 his reason." 
 
 " How dreadful, how dreadful ! " murmured Ellinor. 
 
 " During the three days and nights in which I have at- 
 tended him," continued the doctor, "we have not succeeded 
 until this evening in obtaining an interval of consciousness ; 
 but throughout the delirium our patient has perpetually dwelt 
 upon two or three subjects, which, though of a different 
 character, may be by some chain of circumstances connected 
 into the one source of his great mental wretchedness. Through- 
 out his wanderings one name has been incessantly upon his 
 lips." 
 
 *' And that name is " 
 
 " Ellinor Dalton." 
 " My own name." 
 
 " Yes, madame, your name, coupled with perpetual entreaties 
 for pardon ; for forgiveness of a great wrong — a wrong done long- 
 since, and artfully concealed " 
 
 < '* A wrong done ! If this gentleman is the person I suspect 
 him to be, he never was anything but the truest friend to me. 
 But, for pity's sake, let me see him. This suspense is unbear* 
 able." 
 
 " One moment, madame. I had some difficulty in finding 
 on ; but mentioning everywhere the name of the lady of whom 
 was in search, I fortunately happened to make the inquiry oi 
 a friend of Miss Beauehamrj. This good, devoted Sister Louise, 
 here, was ready to set out immediately jxi her errand of mercy, 
 
150 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 and I thought that yon might feel, perhaps, more confidence in 
 her than in me." 
 
 At this moment the door of communication between the 
 two apartments was softly opened, and Monsieur Yernot 
 returned. 
 
 " I have prepared the patient for your visit, madame," he 
 said ; " but you must guard against a shock to your own feel- 
 ings in seeing him. He is very ill." 
 
 " In danger ? " asked Ellinor. 
 
 " Unhappily, yes — in imminent danger." 
 
 Throughout the brief interview with the physician Ellinor 
 Dalton had said to herself, — "Whatever it is that must be 
 endured by me, I will bear it bravely ; for his sake I will bear 
 it bravely." Her face was white as death — the firm, thin lips 
 rigidly locked over the closely- shut teeth — the mournful gray 
 eyes tearless and serene; but her heart beat so loudly, that 
 she seemed to hear its every pulsation in the stillness of the 
 room. 
 
 Her worst presentiments were realised. 
 
 Horace Margrave lay with his head thrown back upon the 
 piled-up pillows, and his attenuated hand stretched listlessly 
 upon the dark silk counterpane. His head was bound with wet 
 linen, over which his nurse had tied a handkerchief of scarlet, 
 whose vivid hue made his ashen face still more ghastly. His 
 dark eyes had lost the dreamy expression usual to them, 
 and had the feverish lustre of disease. They were fixed, with 
 a wild haggard gaze, upon the door through which Ellinor 
 entered. 
 
 " At last ! " he said, with an hysterical cry ; " at last ! " 
 
 Ellinor sank on her knees by his bedside, and said to him, 
 very quietly, — 
 
 " Horace, what is this r Why do I find you thus ? " 
 
 He fixed his haggard eyes upon her, as he answered, — 
 
 " What is it, Ellinor ! Shall I tell you ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; if you can tell me without unnerving yourself." 
 
 "Unnerving myself!" he cried, with a bitter laugh. "Un- 
 nerve myself — look at that ! " He stretched out one thin, semi- 
 transparent hand, which trembled like an aspen-leaf, until he 
 let it fall lifelessly upon the quilt. " For four years, Ellinor, I 
 have been slowly burning out my life in one long nervous fever. 
 And you tell me not to unnerve myself ! " 
 
 He gave a restless, impatient sigh, tossed his weary head back 
 npon the pillow, and turned his face to the wall. 
 
 Ellinor Dalton looked round the room in which this all- 
 accomplished, admired, and prosperous Horace Margrave had 
 lain for eleven dreary days, eleven painful nights. 
 
Horace Margrave's Confession* 
 
 151 
 
 It was a small apartment, comfortably furnished, and healed 
 by a stove. On the table by the bedside a Booh of Hours lay 
 open, with a rosary thrown across the page where the reader had 
 left off. Near this was an* English Testament, also lying open. 
 The nnn who had been nursing Horace Margrave had procured 
 this English Gospel, in hopes that he would be induced to read 
 it. But the sick man, when sensible, spoke to her in French ; 
 and when she implored him to see a priest, refused, with an 
 impatient gesture, which he repeated when she spoke to him of 
 a Protestant clergyman, whom she knew, and could summon to 
 him. 
 
 The dim lamp was shaded from the eyes of the invalid by a 
 white porcelain screen, which subdued the light, and cast great 
 shadows of the furniture upon the walls of the room. 
 
 He lay for some time quite still, with his face averted ; but by 
 the incessant nervous motion of the hand lying upon the coun- 
 terpane, Mrs. Dalton knew that he was not asleep. 
 
 The doctor opened the door softly, and looked in. 
 
 " If he says anything to you," he whispered to Ellinor, " hear 
 it quietly ; but do not ask him any questions ; and, above all, 
 betray no agitation." 
 
 She bowed her head in assent, and the physician closed the 
 door. 
 
 Suddenly Horace Margrave turned his face to her, and, looking 
 at her with earnest scrutinising eyes, said, — 
 
 " Ellinor Dalton, you ask me what this means. I will tell 
 you. The very day before you left England a strange chance 
 led me into the heart of a manufacturing town — a town which, 
 was being ravaged by typhus fever ; I was in a very weak state 
 of health, and, as might be expected, I caught this fever. I was 
 warned, when it was perhaps not yet too late to have taken pre- 
 cautions which might have saved me, but I would not take those 
 precautions. I was too great a coward to commit suicide. Some 
 people say a man is too brave to kill himself ; I was not, but I 
 was too much a coward. Life was hateful, but I was afraid to 
 die. Yet I would not avert a danger which had not been my 
 own seeking : let the fever kill me, if it would. Ellinor, my wish 
 is fast being accomplished. I am dying." 
 
 " Horace, Horace ! " She took his wasted hand in hers, and 
 pressed it to her lips. 
 
 He drew it away as if he had been stung. 
 
 " For God's sake, Ellinor, no tenderness ! That I cannot bear. 
 For four years you have never seen me without a mask. I am 
 going to let it fall. Henceforward you wi?l only think of me 
 with scorn and detestation." 
 
 " Scorn you, Horace — never !" 
 
152 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret, 
 
 He waved his hand impatiently, as if to wave away protesta* 
 
 tions that must soon be falsified. 
 
 " Wait," he said ; " yon do not know." Then, after a briei 
 pause, he continued, " Ellinor, I have not been the kindest or 
 the most tender of guardians, have I, to my beautiful young 
 ward ? You reproached me with my cold indifference one day 
 soon after your marriage, in the little drawing-room in Hertford- 
 street." 
 
 " You remember that ?" 
 
 " I remember that. Yes, Ellinor. There are few words spoken 
 by your lips which I do not remember, together with the tone in 
 which they were spoken, and the place where I heard them. I 
 say, I have not been a kind or affectionate guardian — havs I, 
 Ellinor?" 
 
 " You were so once, Horace," she said. 
 " I was so once ! When ? " 
 
 " Before my uncle left me that wretched fortune." 
 
 "That wretched fortune — yes, that divided us at once and 
 for ever. Ellinor, there were two reasons for this pitiful 
 comedy of coldness and indifference. Can you guess one of 
 them?" 
 
 " No," she answered. 
 
 " You cannot ? I affected an indifference I did not feel, or 
 pretended an apathy which was a lie from first to last, because 
 I loved you with the whole strength of my heart and soul, from 
 the first to the last." 
 
 " O, Horace, Horace, for pity's sake !" She stretched out her 
 hands imploringly, as if she would prevent the utterance of the 
 words which seemed to break her heart. 
 
 " Ellinor, when you were seventeen years of age, you had no 
 thought of succeeding to your uncle's property. It would have 
 been, upon the whole, a much more natural thing for him to 
 have left it to his adopted son, Henry Dalton. Your father 
 fully expected that he would do so. I expected the same. Your 
 father intrusted me with the custody of your little income, and 
 I discharged my trust honestly. I was a great speculator; I 
 dabbled with thousands, and cast down heavy sums every day 
 as a gambler throws down a card upon the gaming-table ; and 
 to me your mother's little fortune was so insignificant a trust 
 that its management never gave me a moment's thought or 
 concern. At this time I was going on in a fair way to become 
 a rich man — in fact, was a rich m.an ; and at this time I was an 
 honourable man. I loved you— loved you as I never believed 
 I could love — my beautiful, innc ;ent ward. How could it well 
 be otherwise ? I am not a coxor <nb, Ellinor, but I dared to say 
 to myself, 4 1 love, and am beloved again.' Those dark-gray 
 
Horace Margrave's Confession. 
 
 153 
 
 ey8S had told me the secret of a girl's confiding heart, and T 
 thought myself more than happy, only too deeply blest. 0, my 
 darling, my darling, if I had spoken then ! " 
 
 Mrs. Dalton' s face was buried in her hands as she knelt by 
 his pillow, and she was sobbing aloud. 
 
 " There was time enough, I said. This, Ellinor, was the 
 happiest period of my life. Do you remember our quiet evenings 
 in the Rue St. Dominique, when I left business and business 
 cares behind me in Yerulam-buildings, and ran over here to 
 spend a week in my young ward's society ? Do you remember 
 the books we read together? Good heavens, there is a page in 
 Lamartine's odes which I can see before me as I speak ! I can 
 see the lights and shadows which I taught you to put under 
 the cupola of a church in Munich which you once painted in 
 water-colours. I can recall every thought, every word, every 
 pleasure, and every emotion of that sweet and tranquil time 
 in which I hoped and believed that you, Ellinor, would be my 
 wife." 
 
 She lifted her face, blotted by her tears, looked at him for 
 one brief instant, and then let her head fall again upon her 
 clasped hands. 
 
 " Your uncle died, Ellinor, and this airy castle, which I had 
 reared with such confidence, was shattered to the ground. The 
 fortune was left to you on condition that you should marry 
 Henry Dalton. Women are ambitious. You would scarcely 
 resign such a fortune. You would marry young Dalton. This 
 was the lawyer's answer to the all-important question. But 
 those tender gray eyes, looking up shyly from under their dark 
 lashes, had told a sweet secret, and perhaps your generous 
 heart might count this fortune a small thing to cast away for 
 the sake of the man you loved. This was the lover's answer ; 
 and I hoped still to win my darling. You were not to be made 
 acquainted with the conditions of your uncle's will until you 
 attained your majority. You were, at the time of his death, 
 not quite twenty years of age ; there was therefore an entire 
 year in which you would remain ignorant of the penalties 
 attached to this unexpected wealth. In the meantime I, 
 as sole executor (your uncle, you see, trusted me most en* 
 tirely), had the custody of the funded property bequeathed 
 to you. 
 
 "I have told you, Ellinor, that I was a speculator. My pro- 
 fession threw me in the way of speculation. Confident in the 
 power of my own intellect, I staked my fortune on the wonder- 
 ful hazards of the year '46. I doubled that fortune, trebled, 
 quadrupled it, and, when it had grown to be four times its 
 original bulk, I staked it again. It was out of my hands, but 
 
154 
 
 the Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 it was invested in, as I thought, so safe a speculation, that it 
 was as secure as if it had never been withdrawn from consols. 
 The railway company of which I was a director was one of the 
 richest and most nourishing in England. My own fortune, as 
 I have told you, was entirely invested, and was doubling itsel/ 
 rapidly. As your uncle's trustee, as your devoted friend, your 
 interests were dearer to me than my own. Why should I not 
 speculate with your fortune, double it, and then say to you, 
 * See, Ellinor, here are two fortunes of which you are the 
 mistress ; one you owe to Henry Dalton, under the conditions 
 of your uncle's will ; the other is yours alone. You are rich. 
 You are free, without any sacrifice, to marry the man yon 
 love; and this is my work?' This was what I thought tc 
 have said to you at the close of the great year of speculation, 
 1846." 
 
 "0, Horace, Horace, I see it all. Spare yourself, spare me. 
 Do not tell me any more." 
 
 "Spare myself? No, Ellinor, not one pang; I deserve to 
 drain my bitter cup to the dregs. You were right in what you 
 said in the boudoir at Sir Lionel's. The money was not my 
 own ; no sophistry, no ingenious twisting of facts and forcing of 
 conclusions, could ever make it mine. How do I know even now 
 that your interest was really my only motive ? How do I know 
 that it was not, indeed, the gambler's guilty madness which 
 impelled me to my crime ? How do I know — how do I know ? 
 Enough, the crash came ; my fortune and yours were together 
 ingulfed in that vast whirlpool ; and I, the trusted friend of your 
 dead father, the conscientious lawyer, whose name had become 
 a synonym for honour and honesty — I, Horace Welmoden 
 Margrave, only lineal descendant of the Royalist Captain 
 Margrave, who perished at Worcester, fighting for his king and 
 the honour of his noble race — I knew myself to be a cheat and 
 a swindler." 
 
 " No, no, Horace. You were only mistaken." 
 
 " Mistaken, Ellinor ! Yes, that is one of the words invented 
 by dishonest men to slur over their dishonesty. The fraudulent 
 banker, whose ruin involves the ruin of thousands, is, after all, 
 his friends say, only mistaken. The clerk who robs his employer 
 in the insane hope of ultimately restoring what he abstracts is, 
 as his counsel pleads to soft-hearted jurymen with sons of their 
 own, only mistaken. The speculator, who plays the great game 
 of commercial hazard with another man's money, he, too, dares 
 to look at the world with a piteous face, and cry, ' Alas, I was 
 only mistaken !' No, Ellinor, I have never put in that plea. 
 From the moment of that dreadful crash, which changed hope 
 to despair, and prosperity to desolation, I have at least tried to 
 
Horace Margrave's Confession. 
 
 155 
 
 look my fate in the face. But I have not borne all rny own 
 burdens, Ellinor. The weight of my crime has fallen upon the 
 shoulders of Henry Dalton." 
 " Henry Dalton, my husband !" 
 
 " Yes, Ellinor, your husband, Henry Dalton, the truest and 
 most generous of men." 
 
 " You praise him so much," she said, rather bitterly. 
 
 "Yes, Ellinor, I am weak enough and wicked enough to feel 
 a cruel pain in being compelled to do so ; it is the one pooi 
 reparation I can make him. God knows I have done him 
 enough injury." 
 
 The exertion of talking for so long a time had completely 
 exhausted the dying man, and he fell back, half-fainting, upon 
 the pillows. The sister of charity, summoned from the next 
 apartment by Ellinor, gave him a restorative, and in low 
 tremulous accents he continued, — 
 
 " From the moment of my ruin, Ellinor, I felt and knew that 
 you were lost to me. I could bear this ; I did not think my 
 life would be a long one. Vogue la galere 1 Let it go on its 
 dark way to the end. I say I could bear this, but I could not 
 bear the thought of your contempt, your aversion ; that punish - 
 ment would have been too bitter. I could not come to you and 
 say, ' 1 love you, I have always loved you ; I love you as I never 
 before loved, as I never hoped to love again; but I am a 
 swindler and a cheat, and you can never be mine. JSTo, Ellinor, 
 I could not do this ; and the day of your majority was close at 
 hand. Some step must be taken, and the only thing that could 
 save me from your contempt was the generosity of Henry 
 Dalton. 
 
 " I had heard a great deal of your uncle's adopted son, and 1 
 had met him very often at Arden ; I knew him to be as true- 
 hearted a man as ever lived. I determined, therefore, to throw 
 myself upon his generosity, and to reveal all. He w r ill despise 
 me, but I can bear his contempt better than the scorn of the 
 woman I loved.' I said this to myself, and one night— the night 
 after Henry Dalton had first seen you, and had been already 
 won by your grace and beauty — T took him. to my chambers 
 in Yerulam-buildings, and after binding him to secrecy, told 
 him all. 
 
 " You now understand the cruel position in which this young 
 man was placed. The fortune, of which he was supposed to 
 become possessor on marrying you, was a thing of the past. 
 You were penniless, except, indeed, for the hundred a-year coming 
 to you from jour mother's property. His solemn oath for- 
 bade him to reveal this to you ; and for three years he endured 
 your contempt, and was silent, Judge now of the wrong I 
 
156 
 
 The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 have done him. Judge now the noble heart which yon hay« 
 
 tortured." 
 
 " 0 Horace, Horace, what misery this money has brought 
 upon ns ! 99 
 
 " Ko, Ellinor. "What misery one deviation from the straight 
 road of honour has brought upon us ! Ellinor, my dearest, my 
 only beloved, can you forgive the man who has so truly loved, 
 yet so deeply injured you? " 
 
 " Forgive you ! " 
 
 She rose from her knees, and smoothing the ruffled hair from 
 his forehead with tender, pitying hands, looked him full in the 
 face. 
 
 " Horace," she said, " when, long ago, you thought I loved 
 you, you read my heart aright ; but the depth and truth of 
 that love you could never read. Now, now that I am the 
 wife of another, another to whom I owe so very much affec- 
 tion in reparation of the wrong I have done him, I dare tell 
 you without wrong to him, how much I loved you. And 
 you ask me if I can forgive! As freely as I would have 
 resigned this money for your sake, can I forgive you for the 
 loss of it. This confession has set all right. I will be a 
 good wife to Henry Dalton, and you and he may be sincere 
 friends yet." 
 
 " What, Ellinor, do you think that, did I not know myself to 
 be dying, I could have made this confession ? No, you see me 
 now under the influence of stimulants which give me a false 
 strength; of excitement which is strong enough to master even 
 death. To-morrow night, Ellinor, the doctors tell me, there will 
 no longer be in this weary world a weak, vacillating, dishonour- 
 able wretch called Horace Margrave." 
 
 He stretched out his attenuated hands, drew her towards him, 
 and imprinted one kiss upon her forehead. 
 
 " The first and the last, Ellinor,' 5 he said. " Good-bye." 
 
 His face changed to a deadlier white, and he fell back, 
 fa inting. 
 
 The physician, peeping in at the half-open door, beckoned to 
 T llinor, — 
 
 " You must leave him at once, my dear madame," he said. 
 " Had I not seen the disturbed state of his mind, I should never 
 have permitted this interview." 
 
 " O, monsieur, tell me, can you save him ? " 
 
 " Only by a miracle, madame — a miracle far beyond medical 
 skill." 
 
 " You yourself, then, have no hope ? " 
 " Alas, no, madame ! " 
 
 She bowed her head. The physician took her hand in his and 
 
Horace Margrave's Confession 
 
 15? 
 
 pressed it with a fatherly tenderness, looking at her earnestly 
 md mournfully. 
 
 " Send for me to-morrow." she said imploringly. 
 
 " I will send you tidings of his state. Adieu ! " 
 
 She bent her head once more, and, without another word, 
 hurried from the room. 
 
 The following morning, as she was seated in her own apart- 
 ment, she was at on«e summoned to the drawing-room. 
 
 The sister, of charity was there, talking to her aunt. They 
 both looked grave and thoughtful, and glanced anxiously at 
 Ellinor as she entered the room. 
 
 " He is worse P " said Ellinor to the sister, before a word had 
 been spoken. 
 
 " Unhappily, yes. Madame, he is< 99 
 
 "0, do not tell me any more ! For pity's sake, for pity's 
 sake ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 She walked to the window, and stood there, absent and medi- 
 tative, looking with tearless eyes into the street below, and out 
 at the cheerless gray of the autumn sky. 
 
 She was thinking how strange the world looked to her now 
 that Horace Margrave was dead. 
 
 They buried Horace Margrave in the Cemetery of Pere la 
 Chaise. There had been some thoughts of conveying his ashes 
 to his native country, that they might rest in the parish church 
 of Margrave, a little village in Westmoreland, the chancel of 
 which church was decorated with a recumbent statue of Alger- 
 non Margrave, cavalier, who fell at Worcester fight ; but as the 
 deceased had no nearer, relations than a few second cousins in 
 the army and the church, and a superannuated admiral, his 
 great-uncle, and as it was furthermore discovered that the 
 accomplished solicitor of Yerulam-buildings, Gray's-Inn, had 
 )eft not a penny behind him, the idea was very quickly aban- 
 doned, and the last remains of the admired Horace were left to ^ 
 decay in a foreign grave. 
 
 It was never fully known who caused the simple monumeiit 
 which ultimately adorned his resting-place to be erected. It 
 was a plain block of marble ; no pompous Latin epitaph, no 
 long list of virtues, was thereon engraved; but a half-burned 
 torch, reversed, was sculptured at the bottom of the tablet, and 
 from the smoke of the expiring torch a butterfly mounted 
 upwards. Above this design were inscribed the name and age 
 of the deceased. 
 
 The night following the day of Horace Margrave's funeral, 
 Henry Dalton was seated, hard at work, at his chambers \n tfo* 
 Temple. 
 
The Lawyer's Secret. 
 
 The light of the office-lamp, falling upon his quiet face, 
 revealed a mournful and careworn expression, not usual to 
 him. 
 
 He looked ten years older since his marriage with Ellinor. 
 
 He had fought the battle of life and lost, — lost in that great 
 battle which some hold so lightly, but which to others is an 
 earnest fight, — lost in the endeavour to win the wife he had so 
 .enderly loved. 
 
 He had now nothing left to him but his profession, — no other 
 Ambition, no other hope. 
 
 "I will work hard," he thought, "that she, though separated 
 torn me for ever, may still derive every joy of those poor joys 
 which money can buy, from my labour." 
 
 He had heard nothing of Horace Margrave's journey to Paris, 
 bis illness, or his death. He had no hope of being released from 
 the oath which bound him to silence — to silence which he had 
 sworn to preserve so long as Horace Margrave lived. 
 
 Tired, but still persevering, and absorbed in a difficult case 
 which needed all his professional acumen, he read and wrote 
 on, until past eleven o'clock. 
 
 Just as the clocks were chiming the half-hour after eleven, 
 the bell of his outer door rang loudly, as if pulled by an 
 agitated hand. 
 
 His chambers were on the first floor ; on the floor below were 
 those of a gentleman who always left at six o'clock. 
 
 " I do not expect any one at such an hour ; but it may be for 
 me," he thought. 
 
 He heard his clerk open the door, and went on writing without 
 once lifting his head. 
 
 Three minutes afterwards, the door of his own office opened, 
 and a person entered unannounced. He looked up suddenly. 
 A lady dressed in mourning, with her face hidden by a thick 
 **eil, stood near the door. 
 
 " Madame," he said with some surprise, " may I ask " 
 
 The late visitor came hurriedly from the door by which she 
 stood, lifted her veil, and fell on her knees at his feet. 
 
 "Ellinor!" 
 
 "Yes. I am in mourning for Horace Margrave, my unhappy 
 guardian. He died a week ago in Paris. He told me alt 
 Henry, my friend, my husband, my benefactor, can you forgive 
 me?" 
 
 Henry Dalton passed his hand rapidly across his eyes, and 
 turned his face away from her. 
 
 Presen+ly he raised her b* his arms, and drew her to his 
 breast. 
 
 " EJfe-or," h% cried in a broken voice, H T have suffered so loug 
 
'Horace Margrave s Confession. 
 
 159 
 
 and so bitterly that I can scarcely bear this great emotion. My 
 dearest, my ever- beloved wife, are we indeed at last set free from 
 the miserable secret which has blighted onr lives? Horace 
 Margrave " 
 
 " Is dead, Henry. I once loved him very dearly. I freely 
 forgave him the injury he did me. Tell me that you forgivf 
 bim too." 
 
 * From my inmost heart, Ellinor." 
 
 L 
 
MY FIRST HAPPY CHRISTMAS. 
 
 All the other boys at Dr. Martinet s, Market Kagster, in the 
 county of York, had friends and relations ; all the other boys 
 went home for holidays ; all the other boys had mothers, who 
 came to see them, and who cried when they had the measles, 
 and brought them sponge-cakes and oranges, and sent them 
 great hampers, filled to bursting with plum-cakes, almonds and 
 raisins, pork-pies, hardbake, Stilton cheese, dry withered apples, 
 and lovely sleepy pears ; all the other boys wrote ceremonious 
 missives to their " honoured parents," on thick post-paper, docu- 
 ments which were called holiday letters, but which looked like 
 reprieves, or Chancery suits, or indictments for high treason, or 
 last wills and testaments, or something equally awful — all the 
 boys, except the two West-Indian pupils and myself. The two 
 West-Indian pupils never wrote to their parents, because their 
 parents were in Demerara, and I suppose the postage was too 
 
 expensive ; I never wrote to mine because they were 
 
 When I was a very, very little fellow , scarcely able to remember 
 anything, I remember being dressed in black. I remember being 
 \aken into a churchyard, in some great city (a churchyard so 
 choked with tombstones that it seemed almost a wonder that 
 they did not overflow the low walls, like a stony spring-tide, and 
 tumble into the street), by a lady, who was very young and, I 
 think, very pretty. I know I liked to look at her, because she 
 was bright and radiant, like some lovely picture, and always 
 seemed as if she would fade away. She, too, was dressed in 
 black. I remember how she sat down by one of the tombstones, 
 and took me in her arms, and told me in a very low voice, for she 
 was crying all the while, that I could never have such friends in 
 the world as were lying buried here ; that I could never know 
 such love btJieath heaven as was hidden under this little spot 0/ 
 
My First Happy Christmas. 
 
 161 
 
 earth ; and that if ever, when I grew to be a man, I had any 
 thonght of doing a mean or a wicked action, I was to come first 
 to this spot, and read that which was written on this stone, 
 which I could not read now. This lady, I have learned since, 
 was my aunt. Like all the brightest things I have ever known 
 in this world, she vanished from it very soon after this, and I 
 wore black clothes till I was seven years old ; and when I was 
 seven years old, I was sent to Dr. Martinet's at Market Kagster, 
 in the East Biding of Yorkshire. 
 
 Looking back across the waste of many chequered years, I 
 have no fault to find with Dr. Martinet. We were, on the whole, 
 very happy at Market Kagster. We had a great deal of roast 
 mutton, a great deal of boiled mutton ; a fair allowance of an 
 innocuous beverage, which was supposed to be milk-and-water ; 
 a great deal of 'propria, qum maribus, " Pinnock's Goldsmith," 
 "Enfield's Speaker," haircutting, and church. Twice every 
 Sunday did we march down the centre aisle of St. Mary's 
 Church, Market Kagster, and twice every Sunday did we take 
 notes of the vicar's or the curate's discourse, to be reproduced in 
 our own form, for our evening edification. It is my private 
 opinion, that both the vicar and the curate thoroughly detested 
 us. Imagine four- and- thirty boys glaring at you throughout 
 your discourse, and four- and- thirty pencils scribbling your words 
 on scratchy paper, almost before they left your mouth. That's 
 what the vicar and the curate had to endure every Sun4ay from 
 Dr. Martinet's pews. On the whole, I say, I was not unhappy. 
 During the half-year's lessons and the half-year's exercises, the 
 half-year's propria quce maribus and " Enfield's Speaker," bad 
 marks and good marks, stolen feasts in dimly-lighted dormi- 
 tories, prisoner's base and ny-the-garter in the great bare play- 
 ground, I was tolerably happy. But Christmas, that Christmas 
 to which thirty-one out of four- and- thirty boys looked forward 
 with such rapture — Christmas, which, for those thirty -one young 
 persons, meant home, and love, and roast turkey, and unlimited 
 wedges of rich plum-pudding smothered with brandy-sauce, and 
 inexhaustible brown-paper bags of chestnuts, and piles of golden 
 oranges, and bilious attacks, and kisses under the mistletoe from 
 pretty cousins, and blindman's buffs, and hunt the slippers, and 
 so many glorious things, which to myself and the two pupils ! 
 from Demerara were nothing but strange words — Christmas was 
 for me a sad and a bitter time. That genial and ancient alle- 
 gorical person with rubicund face, snow-white, holly-crowned 
 head, and brave, good-natured smile, was to me an evil-minded 
 demon, who whispered, " For you I am not what I am to other 
 people ; I never can be the same to you that I am to other 
 people ; I come to you only to remind you of the love that is for 
 ever lost to you ; of the home which you have never known ; of 
 
162* 
 
 My First Sappy Christmas. 
 
 the dear little sisters and jovial young brothers you have nevet 
 had ; of the bright fireside by which you have never sat ; the 
 kind words you have never heard ; the motherly kisses that have 
 never pressed your wretched lips ; the tender prayers that have 
 never been whispered above your pillow." Is it a wonder, then, 
 that I hated Christmas ? Is it a wonder that I hated the dismal 
 voices of the carol-singers, and the midnight music of the waits ? 
 Is it a wonder that, when, at our breaking-up party, I intoxicated 
 myself with sherry negus, made of eighteenpenny Cape, I did 
 not become joyous and good-humoured in my cups, as the other 
 boys, but was low-spirited and quarrelsome, and apt to give 
 offence to those young gentlemen who insisted upon telling me 
 of the jolly time they meant to have of it this Christmas. I 
 noticed that they were always going to have a jollier Christmas 
 this Christmas than at any previous Christmas ; and that, 
 when they returned to school, they used to have high words as 
 to which had most enjoyed himself during the vacation, and 
 would even come to blows on the subject of plum-pudding and 
 mince-pies. 
 
 But away they went, away they went. Those who lived in 
 the town were fetched by elder sisters, or aunts or uncles, or 
 fathers or mothers ; those who lived at a distance had the best 
 of it, perhaps, on this occasion, for they went off by the mail- 
 coach, Highflyer, that plied between London and Yorl* and 
 departed from the academy with a flourish of the guard's horn 
 that went to the inmost hearts of the Demerara pupils and 
 myself. Away they went, and we three little shivering boys 
 were left all alone in the long, bare schoolroom ; and we prowled 
 about, told each other ghost stories, till we dared not let go of 
 each other's jackets, in the snowy twilight ; and scribbled on 
 the other boys' books ; and played dismal games, in which our 
 footsteps echoed in the empty room ; and nibbled slate-pencil ; 
 and chewed the corners o: copy-books ; and, above all, talked in 
 whispers of what we would do when we grew to be men, and to 
 have wives and families of our own. We meant to keep a pretty 
 tight hand upon our wives and families, I assure you ; and one 
 of the pupils from Demerara went so far as to hint that, if he 
 found his future spouse at all contumacious, he should have 
 recourse to corporal punishment. But we didn't agree with him, 
 and he was obliged to withdraw his motion. 
 
 As a rule, our Christmas-days bore a dismal likeness to each 
 other, but there was one bright exception — one particular 
 Christmas- day I have a special reason for remembering. It 
 was a fine, clear, frosty day ; such a Christmas-day as I don't 
 remember of late years — a day which seems to have gone out 
 of fashion along with blue coats and brass buttons, stage- 
 coaches, watchmen, five-act comedies, and the agricultural in- 
 
My First Happy Clmstmas. 
 
 1G3 
 
 terest. A very cold day too, a not-to-be-trifled with, thorough- 
 going December day. The West-Indian pupils were as red 
 about the tips of their noses ae West-Indian pickles of the Chili 
 nature. We shivered all church-time in the long, bare, empty 
 pew, with the draught from the door cutting the figure of eight 
 between our poor little legs, and we alternately scratched and 
 blew upon the chilblains on our hands, except when the Doctor 
 looked at us, when, by a powerful effort of nature, we sat pre- 
 ternaturally still, and tried to look as if we defied the elements, 
 and had never shivered in our lives. Now, opposite to our pew 
 was situated the pew of a retired naval officer called Bowster. 
 I have reason to believe that he was a half-pay lieutenant ; but 
 I know we all of us thought, at Dr. Martinet's, that he was an 
 admiral at the very least, and we considered even that title an 
 insufficient reward for his distinguished services. Drake, Nelson, 
 and Bowster were all we knew of naval heroes ; and Bowster 
 was our favourite of the three. If anybody had told us that he 
 had not been present at Trafalgar, or that Nelson could have 
 won that victory without him, or that every man could have 
 done his duty and come up to the expectations of England 
 without him, I do not think that person's life would have been 
 worth much. We believed, I repeat, in Bowster ; he was red, and 
 stout, and jovial, and had a wooden leg, and, except in church, 
 never was seen without a telescope, and displayed the Union 
 Jack on a flagstaff at his country cottage, three miles out of 
 Market Kagster. He swore considerably, and talked in a very 
 loud, gruff voice ; and, moreover, had the reputation of being 
 able to drink any man, in the East Biding under the table, and 
 get up sober himself; so he entirely came up to our ideal of 
 the naval commander, and we worshipped him accordingly. 
 Now, I remarked that on this particular Christmas-day, Ad- 
 miral (I shall take the liberty of giving him the title which I 
 then thought belonged to him) — Admiral Bowster stared, during 
 the best part of the service, his very hardest — aud he was by 
 nature a hard starer — at myself and the West-Indian pupils ; 
 and once, when the church was coldest, and the wind was 
 cutting the figure of eight most ferociously in and out between 
 our legs, he (Bowster), in the very middle of the vicar's sermon, 
 winked deliberately at us three boys. Nobody but a man who 
 had fought hand-to-hand with six Frenchmen at a time, and 
 who had seconded Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar, could have 
 done such a thing. My admiring consternation put me into 
 quite a glow of heat, and my chilblains were easier for the rest 
 of the sermon. But this was nothing. Picture my astonish- 
 ment, and the astonishment of the two pupils from Demerara, 
 when, as we were leaving the churchyard, the great Bowster, 
 tiler exchanging the compliments of the season with 0112 
 
164 
 
 My Mrst Happy Christmas. 
 
 respected preceptor, suddenly exclaimed, in his most stentorian 
 voice, " Should you have any particular objection, Doctor, to my 
 taking those three young ones home with me?" We wera 
 three young ones, but he could not mean us ; it was something 
 too deliriously delightful to be believed at the first gasp. We 
 all three held our oreaths. "These boys?" said the Doctor, 
 interrogatively. " These boys, sir," replied Bowster affirma- 
 tively, giving me such a slap upon the shoulder that I can 
 recall the tingle of it at this moment. " These boys, Doctor. 
 My trap is waiting for me; I'll drive them over to my little 
 box, give them their Christmas dinner, and send Jack Long- 
 shore home with them before ten to-night. Say yes, if the 
 youngsters would like to go." If the youngsters would like to 
 go ? We were all three crimson with suppressed delight and 
 suspense. It couldn't be true, even now. Dine with Bowster ! 
 Spend Christmas-day with Bowster ! "No, no ; it was too wild 
 a dream. The Doctor said he had no objection. No objection, 
 indeed! no objection to save three plates of beef, and three 
 wedges of plum-pudding, and three half-pints of the most 
 diminutive beer, by the transaction ! I should rather think not. 
 
 " Jump in, then, boys," said the noble Bowster, " and I'll drive 
 you home at such a rate that you won't know whether the wind's, 
 not or cold. Jump in. w 
 
 We were at the gate of the churchyard, and everybody was 
 coming out of church ; but we set up such a shout of delight as 
 our feeble lungs would allow us, as that most glorious of naval 
 commanders hoisted us into his old rumbling four-wheeled 
 chaise, and with one smack of his whip, and one jerk of tho 
 reins, started his fat brown waddling pony into a rapid tro*. 
 Jt was as much as we could do to lift our caps to the Doctor, 
 standing at the churchyard gates, before we were far away on 
 the white country road, flying past the glittering, icicle- fringed 
 hedges, and nodding to the red-faced farmers and fat farmers' 
 wives driving past us in market-carts, crowded with rosy chil- 
 dren, going to spend Christmas-day in the town. Before we 
 were fully alive to the wild rapture of the ride, the ride was 
 over, and we were there. There, at the pretty cottage, with the 
 old-fashioned bow- windows and deep window-seats, the bright- 
 red curtains, and curious cabinets, crowded with South- Sea shells 
 and ocean wonders, stuffed tropical birds and curious seaweeds, 
 Indian china and Chinese ivory boxes, which nobody ever 
 opened, nor which anybody opening could ever shut. The dear 
 pretty cottage, with the stuffed crocodile in the hall, shot by the 
 gallant Bowster ever so far beyond the second cataract of the 
 Nile; the oil-painting of Bowster and Mrs. Bowster — dead and 
 gone, poor thing, for many a year, as the noble commander 
 
My First Happy Christmas. 
 
 1G5 
 
 told as; the pretty drawing- mom, and the snug dining-room, 
 the table glistening with diamond-cut glass and old-fashioned 
 silver; and, above all, Bowster himself, radiant and red, and 
 loud and hearty, stumping here and there with his. honoured 
 wooden leg, and telling his pretty niece how his heart had 
 been moved by our red noses and chilly looks in the parish 
 church, and how it had suddenly occurred to him in the middle 
 of the sermon to take us home with him to dinner; " And that 
 was when I winked at you, boys ; that was the reason I winked 
 at you," the jolly old seaman roared out, as he told his pretty 
 niece and housekeeper (she was very proud of being his house- 
 keeper) to take care of us while he went to see about the wine. 
 
 The last time I was in Market Kagster, I went to look 
 for this dear old cottage, but, alas ! it was no more ; they wen 
 building a great grim Elizabethan workhouse on the site oi 
 the old thatched- roofed, gabled, rambling, tumble-down hos- 
 pitable place ; and all I could learn of Admiral Bowster was 
 from a certain stone record in the parish church, set up by 
 his grateful, affectionate, and sorrowful niece. 
 
 But, as T tell you of these things, they come back to me, and 
 I am a boy in a jacket again ; and here is dear old Bowster 
 coming back to the dining-room, with a bottle in each hand, and 
 another bottle under each arm, and a cork-screw in his mouth. 
 He took the cork-screw out of his mouth, and set to work to use 
 that instrument with a will. " This," he said, as he drew cork 
 number one, " is Madeira, boys ; and Madeira's a very good 
 thing in its way, especially when it has made the distance 
 between England and 'Calcutta three times, as this Madeira has, 
 boys; and this, boys, is Port," he continued, drawing cork 
 number two ; " and Port is no such bad stuff, either, when it's 
 Comet Port of the year 18 — , and has been bought at the sale 
 of a marquis's cellar ; and this, boys," he added, going on to 
 number three, " is French brandy, as mild as milk, and as pale 
 as East-Indian ale ; and number four, boys, is Schiedam ; and 
 that's all, boys, and you shall taste them every one (to say 
 nothing of the rum-punch my little girl here shall help me to 
 brew by and by) before you go home to-night." 
 
 We drew our breath again ; we had heard of that wonderful 
 kingdom in which sucking-pigs run about ready roasted, with 
 knives and forks stuck into their cracklings, but we thought 
 that Admiral Bowster' s cottage rather surpassed it, if anything. 
 And 0, the dinner, such a dinner and auoh a long dinner! 
 Only the admiral and his pretty mece, -wren a very young lieu- 
 tenant who sat next to her, and had so much to say to her that 
 be didn't care a bit, foolish fellow, for all the good things smok- 
 ing before him ; only, I say, the admiral, his niece, the young 
 I'eutenant, an old navy surgeon, from Market Kagster. and 
 
160 
 
 My First Happy Christmas. 
 
 we three boys. Such a dinner ! Boast beef — so big a sirloin, 
 that I could not see the admiral sitting behind it, but only 
 ^ieard his voice across it, gruff and loud, making the very bunches 
 of horse-radish shiver with its manly thunder. Roast beef, and 
 boiled turkey with oyster-sauce, and tongue, and a monster plum- 
 pudding, all ablaze with burnt brandy, and a great dish of 
 mince-pies, ablaze with more brandy, so that the second course 
 looked like the opening scene in a pantomime, all blue fire and 
 forked flame. And there sat the dear old admiral piling up our 
 plates with first beef, and then turkey, plum-pudding on the top 
 of mince-pies, and mince-pies on a stratum of plum-pudding, 
 and never desisting till we cried out that we had been helped twice 
 to everything, and had unfastened thelast button of our waistcoats. 
 
 0, such a dinner ! We drank Madeira as quite a common 
 beverage before we had done, and every time we drank the 
 admiral's health, we cried, " Hip, hip, hurrah ! " till we made 
 the plates and dishes rattle again. I know the navy surgeon 
 once ventured to suggest that Madeira was rather a trying 
 beverage for schoolboys ; but dear old Bowster put him down 
 by asking him whether he disliked Madeira when he was a 
 schoolboy, which retort we thought the very highest order of 
 wit, and applauded till we shook the table, while the admiral 
 went to get another bottle. Good gracious me ! we were gene- 
 rally such shy boys, that to say good-day to us was to inflict 
 upon us the greatest moral torture, if you expected us to bid 
 you good-morning in return ; but under the influence of Bow- 
 ster, and Bowster' s Madeira, and Bowster's plum-pudding and 
 burnt brandy, we became three lions ; and we told the company 
 over dessert (as well as we could, with our mouths alternately 
 filled with chestnuts, figs, almonds and raisins, macaroons and 
 oranges) our opinion of Dr. Martinet, and the Latin grammar, 
 and the Martinet mutton, and the great quantity of fat we had 
 to eat, counterbalanced by a minimum of lean; and we ex- 
 pounded our views of life in general, and how we meant to be 
 sailors every one of us ; and I know I informed the admiral 
 kindly, that when I had a ship — which of course I should a 
 year or so after entering the navy — I should call it the Bowster, 
 or the Gallant Bowster. And this simple, honest hero-worship, 
 offered from a schoolboy's happy heart, so gratified the hearty 
 seaman, that he tapped a special bottle of the dead-and-gone 
 Marquis of Something's port, that we might christen his 
 majesty's ship, the Gallant Bowster, with all the honours. It 
 was at this stage of the entertainment I began to experience so 
 peculiar a sensation, that I find some little difficulty, at this 
 distance of time, in describing it correctly. In the first place, 
 my ideas of time and space were entirely overthrown, and I had 
 great difficulty in making myself quite clear as to whether to- 
 
My First Happy Christmas, 
 
 167 
 
 day was yesterday 01 to-morrow. Then Bowster — goodness mei 
 how wavy and fluctuating Bowster became in his personal ap- 
 pearance! One moment Bowster would recede from me and 
 from his own mahogany at so rapid a rate, that when I looked 
 at him, I saw him glaring dimly at me from the farthest end of 
 a lane of decanters and black bottles half a mile long. This 
 was rather bewildering ; but this was nothing to Bowster, when 
 instead of receding he advanced upon me with a frightful 
 velocity, like* a jovial red railway engine, bearing down upon me 
 at the rate of sixty miles an hour. And then the West-Indian 
 pupils ! If they would have appeared the same number for 
 two consecutive minutes I would have forgiven them ; but they 
 wouldn't. One minute there they were, serene and smiling, 
 rather pale, but very happy, and only their normal number, 
 two ; the next time I looked their way there were four of them 
 at the least ; and three minutes afterwards, these dreadful boys 
 swelled, dilated, and multiplied in such a manner, that I found 
 myself face to face with a closely-packed regiment of yellow- 
 faced and frizzy-haired natives of the island of Demerara, formed 
 in square. I think we went into the drawing-room ; and I know 
 that, in crossing the hall, somebody, whose name I forget, fell 
 into a scuttle of coals ; and, strange to say, my shins were sore 
 all the evening ; and then the admiral's niece sang us a song, 
 such a sweet pretty song, about love, and truth, and fidelity, 
 which the young lieutenant said was the sweetest song that was 
 ever written ; but as she sang, it all of a sudden changed into 
 the " Bay of Biscay," and there was the dear old admiral lead- 
 ing the chorus, and we singing at the top of our treble voices, 
 how " she lay, all the day, in the bay-ee o-of Bi-iscay, 0 ! " 0 
 dear, happy, never-to-be-forgotten Christmas ! How many 
 changes and chances have I experienced since that departed 
 time ! How many a sad December, how many a bitter grief, 
 
 sweetness out of the rich plum-pudding ; to make turkey an 
 abomination, and all the genial, festive sounds so many strokes 
 upon a funeral bell ! How many a cruel shock to change the 
 face of that joyous time into a pale and saddened mourning 
 visage, awful to look upon, and far too terrible to recall ! 
 But never, while I live, shall I forget that 25th of December, 
 and that glorious old Bowster roaring out the brave seafaring 
 ditty, in his great, honest bass voice, never more to be heard, 
 beneath the stars. 
 
 But before he had done singing the " Bay of Biscay," we were 
 far away on the dark, starless, snowy country road. How we 
 tame there I have never to this day discovered ; but there we 
 were, huddled close together, and wrapped in one of the admiral's 
 greatcoats, and driven in the four-wheel chaise by the admiral's 
 
 to take the brightness 
 
168 
 
 My First Happy Christmas. 
 
 confidential man, Jack Longshore. Mr. Longshore did not b*ay 
 a word tc us ; anc though I sadly wanted to talk to him, and 
 tell him all about his majesty's ship, the Gallant Bowster, some- 
 how the words dried up, as it were, and stuck to my lips, and 1 
 couldn't tell him anything : and after riding for a space of time, 
 which seemed to gie something between a century and a century 
 and a half, Longshore pulled up with a sudden jerk, and told 
 me to get out. 
 
 He told me to get out. He told me distinctly, this John 
 Longshore, to get out. But, as 1 remonstrated with him, this 
 was not Dr. Martinet's, and not only was it not Dr. Martinet's, 
 but it was the churchyard of St. Mary's, Market Kagster, and, 
 as I told Longshore, I did not live in the churchyard, and I did 
 not wish to live in the churchyard. Longshore only said again, 
 "Get out;" and though I did not mean to comply with so 
 absurd a request, somehow, in utter despite of myself, I did get 
 out, and stood shivering just inside the gate of the churchyard, 
 while Longshore and the two West-Indian pupils drove off' in a 
 flame of fire, and I for the first time noticed that instead of the 
 fat brown pony, Longshore was driving the stuffed crocodile out 
 of Bowster's hall. They were all gone, and I was alone — alone 
 among the oozy, wet, green, moss-grown, slimy tombstones ; 
 not a star in the sky above my head, not the twinkle of a light 
 from the distant High- street of Market Kagster, not the sound 
 of a human voice or the echo of a human footfall to be heard in 
 the still winter's night. I heard nothing but my own breathing, 
 and the crisp crunch of my own feet on the new-fallen snow. 1 
 was only thirteen years of age, I was of a nervous temperament, 
 and knew more ghost- stories than any other boy in the school, 
 so I was rather frightened. 
 
 " So you're come back at last," he said. 
 
 I turned round and looked at him. He was a goblin — rather 
 a good-tempered, easy- going-looking goblin, and he was sitting 
 on the top of a tombstone, with a spade in his hand, and his 
 legs crossed one over the other. I know I wondered how he 
 balanced himself. 
 
 "Come back, sir?" I said; for I didn't quite catch his 
 meaning. 
 
 " Come back. Yes, to be sure. Do you think we're going to 
 put up with this sort of thing?" 
 
 I knew he was a goblin, because he was not opaque like the 
 general run of people ; he was so transparent, in fact, that I read 
 " Sacred to the memory " through the calf of his leg as he 
 talked to me. 
 
 " Do you think," he said, " we can afford to have our boys" — 
 he said most distinctly our boys — "gadding about in this sort of 
 way, and over-eating themselves at old Crowsters's ? 99 
 
My First Happy Christmas. 
 
 169 
 
 u I beg your pardon, sir, Bowster's," I remonstrated* 
 
 11 0, very well/' he said, rather snappishly ; " Bowsters or 
 Crowsters is all one to me ; but what I say is this ; we can't have 
 our graves empty in this manner; and we can't have boys that 
 have been buried on our property gadding about like this." 
 
 "Buried on your property !" 1 ventured to exclaim. " I beg 
 your pardon, sir, but I've never been buried, because" — I 
 hesitated for a good reason — " because I'm not dead." 
 
 The goblin gravedigger burst into a goblin laugh, such a 
 tremendous laugh it was, though he was a little man, that all 
 the urns and funeral decorations in the churchyard danced and 
 rattled to its thunder. 
 
 " Not dead ! That is a good one. Not dead ! Why, don't 
 you remember dying of the measles in — let me see, what year 
 did you die — I think it was 1803 ? Yes, it was 1803. Don't 
 you remember dying of the measles, and coming here to be 
 buried P" 
 
 I told him that I couldn't say that I did. 
 
 " You've a very short memory," he said, " and so have many 
 of our tenants. Why, I assure you, we'd an old gentleman 
 buried here a month ago, who was always out, and we only 
 enticed him back by showing him his beautiful new tombstone 
 with a Latin epitaph. But my time is precious," this goblin 
 gravedigger added, " so tumble in." 
 
 And I looked down in the direction to which the goblin grave- 
 digger looked, and, looking so, looked straight into a deep grave, 
 so deep that I could no more see the bottom of it than I could 
 see through to the antipodes. 
 
 "Tumble in," he said; "that's your number, forty-seven." 
 
 I think I remonstrated ; at least, I know I wanted to remon- 
 strate — but I had a peculiar sensation, which I can only 
 compare to the Highflyer mail-coach, outside and inside pas- 
 sengers, coachman and guard, and four houses, to say nothing 
 of luggage — all lying on my chest, and the outside passengers 
 seemed to be rising in my throat, and I couldn't speak a word. 
 So I tumbled in, tumbled into forty-seven. Into forty-seven ! 
 Into forty-seven millions of square miles of nothing. Into 
 forfcy-seven trackless realms of space did I, boarder and pupil 
 at Dr. Martinet's, Market Kagster, fall, on falling into number 
 forty-seven. 
 
 " A little salts and senna, and he'll be all right," said a voice 
 at the bottom of number forty- seven. It was the voice of Martha 
 Morris, the young person who looked after our linen, mended 
 our socks, and washed our heads at Dr. Martinet's academy. 
 
 I was in bed, in the eight-bedded room, and it was to-morrow 
 morning; and I'd never been to St. Mary's churchyard at all; 
 
170 
 
 My First Happy Christmas. 
 
 and 1 had been brought home by John Longshore, fast asleep, 
 and safe and sound, but rather the worse for Madeira, Port, and 
 rum-punch. But a dose of salts and senna made me all right 
 again, and the Admiral promised the Doctor that he would be 
 more cautious another time. And as long as I stayed at Market 
 Kagster, which was for five more years, I spent my Christmaa- 
 day at the dear old hospitable cottage, and ate my Christmas 
 dinner off Admiral Bowster's groaning mahogany. 
 
LOST AND FOUND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PICTURE-DEALING. 
 
 It was a broiling day in August. The sun, blazing in his 
 full summer splendour from early morning until three o'clock 
 in the afternoon, had baked the flags of every street and alley, 
 every square and highway, of the great metropolis, until weary 
 foot-passengers well-nigh suffered the tortures of those martyrs 
 of old who walked over red-hot ploughshares, without any hope 
 of the same crown of m arty room. 
 
 Far away, along the English coast, white cliffs glistened 
 beneath the purple canopy of cloudless sky, and wavelets, bluer 
 than the heaven above them, broke into silver fringe upon the 
 yeilow sands. Behind that natural rampart of white cliffs, great 
 fields of waving corn grew riper in the sunshine, till every heavy 
 ear of feathery oats and bearded barley changed to gold. 
 
 Who would have stayed in London at such a time as this, 
 unless held prisoner by the iron hand of circumstance ? Who 
 would have stayed in this great prison-house of brick and stone, 
 while far away, in sheltered bays, pleasant cottages were waiting 
 to be let to any traveller who cared to live in them — and pay for 
 them ? Who would have been so mad as to linger in those stony 
 streets, in which stale wall-fruit, piled upon the stalls, and 
 flavoured with tobacco-smoke from the short clay pipes of 
 Hibernian purveyors, was the only evidence of summer ; when 
 the same fruit, in pleasant gardens far away, mingled its 
 luscious fragrance with the breath of myriad flowers, and waited 
 till some one should have time to gather it ? 
 
 Who would stop in London, where all the glorious expanse of 
 jpky was contracted to a narrow strip of blue, seen, by such 
 
172 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 passengers as looked high enough, between two rows of dingy 
 houses ? Who would stop in London, where the sweet air ol 
 summer-time, scented far awaj by a hundred perfumes, waa 
 tainted by the odours of stale fish and fading vegetables, hot 
 roasted meats exposed in cook-shop windows, bone-burning 
 factories, gas-works, soap-boiling, and asphalte — where in close 
 courts and alleys the demon Cholera was a palpable presence, 
 a hideous, vaporous shape, creeping to and f"** in the stifling 
 atmosphere? 
 
 Who would stop in London, when every ripple of the purple 
 sea seemed a new note of music echoing in the balmy air — 
 when the white sails of distant boats, transformed to silver 
 in the glory of the sun, invited roving spirits to explore the 
 trembling pathways traced by golden light upon the restless 
 bosom of the seaP Who would linger inland at a time like 
 this, when drowsy Londoners, released from toil, were dozing 
 behind the shelter of their newspapers upon the glistening 
 beach of every watering-place in England — when children were 
 wading knee- deep in the plashing water, and merry -hearted 
 girls, sporting like children with the capricious waves, only less 
 fickle and inconstant than their sweet coquettish selves ? Who 
 would stop in London when express trains were starting from 
 every terminus at every hour of the day, and rushing, like 
 winged demons, through the land, and making light of dis- 
 tances that to our grandfathers, cramped and stifled in the 
 interior of a blundering stage-coach, would have been the toil 
 of half a week? Who would stop in London in this sunny 
 August season, when the cholera is rife, and dismal stories of 
 sudden sickness and death are heard at every street-corner by 
 those who care to stop and listen to the ghastly tidings ; and 
 grim placards on the walls warn hapless citizens that the 
 dreaded small-pox is a guest among them, rubbing shoulders 
 with them in every street? Who would stop in London — 
 except the poor ? The poor who have no money to pay express 
 fares or expensive lodgings, luxuriously furnished, and let for 
 weekly rents that sound fabulous to those who find it hard work 
 to pay eighteenpence a- week for a garret in a blind alley. The 
 poor, who, having drawn blanks in the great lottery of life, must 
 be content to huddle together and hide themselves in narrow 
 courts and squalid places, where the hideous aspects of poverty 
 are not likely to offend the gaze of well-bred citizens. 
 
 Who but the poor would care to stop in this vast labyrinth of 
 brick, amid this seething mass of struggling humanity, made 
 almost inhuman by the fury of the perpetual struggle — the 
 eternal and unchanging struggle for that which decent people's 
 children hold it a punishment to be fed upon — eke ad ? 
 
 Amidst the many wrestlers for this pitiful prize, amidst th^ 
 
Picture- Deal in g. 
 
 173 
 
 many luckless wretches who fight for bread as richer men strive 
 for titles and lands, honour and renown, a king's favour or a 
 nation's admiration — amidst the numberless of earth's creatures 
 disputing with each other for the mere privilege of a joyless 
 life — a young man, carrying something wrapped in green baiza 
 under his arm, tramped through the streets of London upon this 
 sunny August afternoon. 
 
 He was handsome, nor could his shabby clothes — and they 
 were very shabby — entirely disguise the air of high blood and 
 good breeding which pervaded his appearance. 
 
 But there was something in that pale olive face, there was 
 something in the sombre depths of those dark-gray eyes, which 
 was not pleasant to see. 
 
 That something was despair. 
 
 Despair was stamped as plainly on the man's face as if the 
 letters that make up the word had been branded upon his fore- 
 head by a red-hot iron. 
 
 Defiance and despair had struggled for the mastery in this 
 man's breast. He had tried to defy the world, but the world 
 had been too much for him. It had denied him bread. It had 
 starved him, but it had not humiliated him. He held his head 
 high still. If he could have become a cheat, a thief, a scoandrel, 
 trading in some unholy merchandise for the sake of bread, the 
 world would have starved him into crime. But he had been 
 stronger than the world so far, and had not yet harkened to the 
 tempter ; though Heaven knows he never passed a jeweller's 
 shop, he never saw the flash and scintillation of precious gems 
 glittering in the sunlight, without hearing a diabolical voice, 
 louder than the loudest traffic in the crowded street, crying in 
 his ear, "These would buy bread." 
 
 It is not to be supposed that it was for himself alone this 
 strong man wanted to get bread. He was a great deal too reck- 
 less and indifferent to have tramped hither and thither on the 
 burning flagstones of the City for that I For himself, he was 
 well-nigh tired of existence, and he would have been content to 
 lie down in any corner of the world in which he had been so 
 badly treated, and die ; or he would have taken the Queen's 
 shilling and gone away, anywhere, to be killed in her Majesty's 
 service. 
 
 For himself he was utterly reckless ; but there was one at 
 home, waiting for him : a little child of three years old, who for 
 days and weeks past had been living face to face with the gaunt 
 shadow of want, the horrible spectre of swiftly-approaching 
 starvation. 
 
 The man's name, or the name by which he was known to those 
 amongst whom he had lived for the last few years, was Gervoise 
 Gilbert. He was an artist, and the something which he carried 
 
174 Lost and Found. 
 
 under his arm was a picture, painted so lately that the varnish 
 upon it was scarcely dry. 
 
 He had been wandering about since early morning, trying to 
 sell this picture, and he had walked more miles than he had 
 cared to count, going from shop to shop in hopes of finding a 
 customer. He had applied to furniture-brokers and picture- 
 dealers, to merchants, who dealt in all manner of old curiosities, 
 and who had dingy, smoky-looking paintings in their windows, 
 for which they demanded fabulous sums ; but nobody would have 
 anything to say to his picture, a simple careless sketch of a child 
 sitting amongst the long grass of a meadow, with its lap full of 
 daisies. 
 
 The young man called his picture the " Daisy-chain," and the 
 face of the child was a portrait of his own son ; the little boy who 
 was waiting for the food his father hoped to cany him — the child 
 who was suffering the agony of hunger while the father was toil- 
 ing backwards and forwards in those cruel streets. 
 
 At last, when the man had walked so far that he felt he must 
 soon yield to sheer fatigue and crawl back to his wretched home 
 empty-handed, succour came. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert had wandered into a quiet street, where the 
 shops were small, but tolerably prosperous-looking. He walked 
 slowly, looking right and left as he went, but he saw no shop at 
 which he could venture to offer his picture for sale. 
 
 "No, there were no brokers or picture-dealers in that quiet 
 street, and the young man was going to leave it, when the 
 sight of three golden balls, the sign by which poverty re- 
 cognises its last friend, the pawnbroker, attracted his weary 
 glance. 
 
 " That's the last hope," he muttered. " Some pawnbrokers 
 refuse to take pictures such as mine ; but this man may be 
 better than the rest. I'll try him." 
 
 The shop was dark and dingy-looking, and the name of 
 J. Moulem was painted above the door. 
 
 Mr. Moulem made some faint pretence of being a jeweller, 
 and exhibited half a dozen fat silver watches, a child's coral, 
 two or three pairs of earrings, a set of shirt-studs, and a plated 
 teapot in his window ; but the greater part of the same window 
 was devoted to the display of second-hand wearing apparel, 
 sundry remnants of silk and velvet, a violin and flageolet, a 
 rickety old guitar, innocent of any pretence to strings, and a 
 few pictures. 
 
 The young painter looked rather hopefully at these pictures ; 
 they were a great deal worse than that which he carried undei* 
 his arm; but then, on the other hand, they boasted gaudy, tar- 
 nished frames, and were otk that account more saleable. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert opened the door, and went into the she*?, 
 
'id are Deal in a. 
 
 175 
 
 whieli was a perfect grove of faded garments, hanging from the 
 eeiling. 
 
 Mr. Mouleru emerged from his little den, or parlour, behind 
 £he shop, with ids mouth full of bread-and-butter, and a shrimp 
 between his lingers. It was half-past five o'clock, and tho 
 pawnbroker had just seated himself at the family tea-table. 
 
 " Ig seems as if, take it when he may, or how he can, a man 
 never is to have his tea in peace," Mr. Moulem grumbled as he 
 came out of the parlour. " Now then, young man, what next ?" 
 
 He said this with as injured a tone as if Gervoise Gilbert had 
 been worrying him throughout that day ; whereas the artist had 
 never set eyes upon Mr. Moulem before. 
 
 " Now then ? " repeated the pawnbroker ; * ' what is it ? Is it 
 flat-irons ? It a'most always is when I'm fetched away from 
 my cup of tea." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert stated his Dusiness and uncovered his pic- 
 ture, but the pawnbroker shook his head before the artist could 
 remove the baize. 
 
 " It ain't a bit of good showin' it to me," he said decisively. 
 " Fve got too much of that sort of stuff a'ready, my winder's 
 cluttered up with pictur's ; you might have seen 'em if you'd 
 looked." 
 
 " I did see them," the young man answered faintly — he was 
 almost too much exhausted to speak above his breath. "I 
 did see them, and I thought, as you seem to sell pictures you 
 might " 
 
 " As I seem to sell 'em ? " cried the pawnbroker contemptu- 
 ously ; " as I seem to don't sell 'em, you might say. If I could 
 sell them pictur's should I have 'em in my winder, I should liko 
 to know ; and I have had 'em in my winder till they're that 
 spoiled by the flies as you wouldn't know the landscapes from 
 the figures ; and still nobody won't buy 'em." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert was too tired to remonstrate; he turned 
 despondently away, with his unlucky picture under his arm. 
 
 "If I could break stones upon the highway," he muttered, 
 " I might earn sixpence a-day. But I'm only an artist, and J 
 can't earn a halfpenny." I 
 
 He was on the threshold of the shop-door, when a cheerful* j 
 sounding, pleasant voice behind him said, — 
 
 " You might have a look at the picture, father. The poor 
 young man seems awfully tired." 
 
 The artist turned quickly at this welcome sound — it was the 
 sound of a woman's voice pleading for him, the first token of pity 
 which he had received that day from any living creature. 
 
 The speaker was Mr. Moulem's eldest daughter, a plump little 
 woman nursing a baby. 
 
 "That's iust like you women," said the pawnbroker; "yoa 
 
 M 
 
176 
 
 Zost and Found* 
 
 want me to take this here pictur' because a man looks tired, and 
 that there gownd because a woman looks hungry, and to make 
 a hunconscionable advance upon a flat-iron if a child looks as 
 if she'd been eryin' ! A nice way you'd carry on business if 
 you was left to yourself, I don't think.' ' 
 " Look at the picture, father." 
 
 Mr. Modem didn't say he would; but then, on the other 
 hand, he didn't say he wouldn't; and Gervoise Gilbert had 
 uncovered the picture once more while the pawnbroker was 
 hesitating. 
 
 The young woman with the baby was enraptured with the 
 simple sketch. 
 
 " It's beautiful ! " she exclaimed ; " not a bit like them nasty 
 dingy things in the window, father. I don't wonder, you can't 
 sell them; but I am sure you could sell this, and if you couldn't 
 I should like it for our parlour, that I should, father. What a 
 dear, sweet little fellow ! " she added ; " I never see such a 
 pretty child ; smihV, too, bless his little heart, just like life !" 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert sighed. 
 
 " He'd need to smile in the picture, poor child !" he said. 
 Something in his tone made the woman look up to him. 
 "Why?" she asked. 
 
 " Because he doesn't often smile out of it. He's starving !" 
 " Starving ! That sweet child ? " 
 
 " Yes. It isn't an uncommon fate. This is a great city, and 
 we are all too busy to think of our neighbours. So nobody 
 takes much notice of the women and children, ay, and the strong 
 men too, who die of starvation. I've been from one end of 
 London to the other to-day to try and get five shillings for that 
 picture." 
 
 u Father, father," cried the young woman, " you hear that ; 
 I'm sure you'd give ten shillings for the picture — you'll get 
 fifteen for it any day, or flve-and-twenty if you was to put it in 
 a frame." 
 
 Mr. Moulem shrugged his shoulders, and looked at his 
 daughter with an expression ox unmitigated contempt. 
 
 "Yes, you are a nice one for the business, Rachel," he said. — 
 •'Now, 111 tell you what I'll do with you, young man," he 
 added ; " I don't want the pictur', and I don't believe I shall 
 ©ell it — for as to my daughter here, she's a good-hearted young 
 tloman, but she knows no more about a pawnbroker's business, 
 &o, nor about his losses, neither, than the baby at her breast ; 
 tait I'll give you a crown for it — yes, or no?" 
 
 "Yes, then," cried Gervoise Gilbert; "the picture's worth 
 ^twenty times that money ; but if it was my life's blood I think 
 3 should sell it you." 
 
 ^Xe took up the crown which the pawnbroker had selected 
 
Pictm 'e-Dca ling. 
 
 177 
 
 from the till, and was hurrying from tha shop, when he stopped 
 suddenly, took off his hat, and bowed to Mr. Moulem's daughter. 
 
 " God bless you and reward you, ma'am," he said, " for the 
 first pitiful words I've heard this day." 
 
 In another moment he was gone, and the door had closed 
 upon him. 
 
 " Bless us and save us!" exclaimed the pawnbroker, "if that 
 gentleman isn't cracked, there ain't no lmmatics in Bedlam ! 
 He's mad as a March hare, I should think." 
 
 " No, father," the young woman answered gently ; "not mad 
 — he's only very miserable." 
 
 CHAPTER, II. 
 
 GIN. 
 
 The street in which Mr. Moulem the j^awnbroker lived was a 
 shabby street, but when compared with the sordid alley to which 
 Gervoise Gilbert bent his steps, it was splendid as one of the 
 noblest thoroughfares in Belgravia. 
 
 Here, in this dismal alley, poverty and crime, vice and inno- 
 cence, rubbed shoulders. The poor cannot choose their com- 
 panions, and destitution makes one common bond, which unites 
 creatures so dissimilar in every other respect that they might 
 almost be the inhabitants of different planets. The alley was 
 in the heart of St. Giles's, and it was called Purvis-court. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert had bought a couple of rolls and a quarter 
 of a pound of cooked meat, on his way to this wretched place. 
 He pushed open the door of one of the houses, passed by a group 
 of children huddled together on the step, and mounted the dark, 
 dilapidated staircase leading to the roof. 
 
 He opened the door of one of the garrets and went in. There 
 was very little furniture in the room, only a truckle bed, covered 
 with a patchwork counterpane, a couple of rush-bottomed 
 chairs, a deal table, and a great gaunt empty easel standing in 
 th© middle of the bare floor. 
 
 A woman was lying on the bed — a woman who was young 
 and who had once been pretty, but whose bloated face bore 
 upon it the most horrible evidence that a woman's face can 
 bear — the fatal stamp which brands the besotted countenance of 
 i drunkard. 
 
 She was sleeping now, a heavy, drunken slumber, and she 
 aever stirred at the sound of the opening door. This sleeping 
 woman was Gervoise Gilbert's wife, and it was she who had 
 dragged the young man down into that darV <ibyss of poverty 
 
178 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 and degradation from which he found it so impossible i& 
 rise. 
 
 He had met her four years before, when his future life seemed 
 to smile upon him, lightening the burdens of the present, and 
 ieckoning him onward along the road to greatness. 
 
 When he had married this woman he had been proud, am- 
 bitious, hopeful. Now, he was only defiant and despairing. 
 
 The pretty, graceful girl whom he had loved and wedded was 
 transformed into a drunken fury dangerous to approach, or a 
 besotted wretch sleeping off the fumes of gin. 
 
 Yes, the gin fiend, the comforter and tempter of the poor, 
 had laid his fatal grasp upon Agatha Gilbert. She had not 
 been able to bear poverty, she had not been blest with that 
 cheerful and contented spirit which is woman's noblest dower. 
 Tenrpted by the women about her, she had tried to drown hei 
 sorrows in gin. 
 
 Perhaps the painter himself may have been a little to blame 
 for his wife's degradation. He had grown impatient of her 
 complaints, her tears, her murmurs. If she could have borne 
 her fate bravely and nobly, his love for her would never have 
 diminished; but that love wore out under the perpetual 
 torments which a discontented woman can inflict upon her 
 husband. 
 
 He had long ceased to love her. Now he hated her. He 
 hated her, for she was the burden which weighed him down to 
 ruin and degradation. How could he hope to rise ? In what 
 sphere of life could he hope to hold up his head with this woman 
 by his side, the sharer of his name, the mother of his child — hia 
 wife ; only to be separated from him by death ? 
 
 He thought of this sometimes, as he sat looking at her in 
 gloomy silence. 
 
 " Will she die young ? " he thought ; " will she drink herself 
 to death, and leave me free ? 0, what a new life mine might be, 
 released from this horrible burden !" 
 
 But Gervoise Gilbert was not base enough to encourage the 
 fatal vice that threatened to kill the wife he hated. He tried all 
 in his power to rescue the wretched woman. He pleaded, he 
 expostulated, he threatened ; but it was all in vain. She would 
 not hear him ; she would not let him save her. 
 
 "Heaven help vljI" he muttered, as he glanced at the 
 prostrate figure on the bed; "she can get gin, even when I 
 can't get food!" 
 
 A little boy — a golden-haired, blue- eyed child of three yeara 
 old — was kneeling upon the ledge of the window, clinging to 
 the bars which guarded the casement, and looking down at the 
 children below; but he turned at the sound of his father's foot* 
 step, and slipped to the ground. 
 
179 
 
 " Papa," lie cried, " papa, I'm so glad you're como ! I've 
 been looking at the children playing in the street. But I 
 wouldn't go down because you said I mustn't." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert lifted the child in his arms and kissed him. 
 
 " Bless you, Geor gey !" he said; "you're papa's own treasure 
 « — his only treasure! What has your mother been doing, 
 Georgey?" 
 
 " She's been out; and then she came in, and she was cross, 
 and like — you know, papa — like she always is after she's been 
 out a long time; and she beat me because I spoke to her; and 
 then she lay down on the bed, and she's been asleep ever since. 
 I tried to wake her, but she wouldn't wake. "Why is she so 
 cross to me, papa, and so different from you ?" 
 
 The boy looked eagerly in his father's face as he asked the 
 question ; then, in a low, anxious voice, he said,— 
 
 " Papa, have you brought anything to eat ? I '~e been so 
 hungry all day." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert looked at the child for a few moments 
 before he replied. The despair which had been visible in his 
 countenance all day intensified as he gazed at the childish face. 
 
 " Papa," cried the boy, " why do you look at me like that? " 
 
 His father did not answer, but walked slowly to the empty 
 easel. 
 
 Upon a shelf near the easel there were some brushes and a 
 palette, with some leaden tubes that had once held colours. 
 
 "The picture-trade won't last any longer," muttered the 
 painter, as he looked at these empty tubes ; "I have used all 
 my colours, and have no money to buy more. My. Moulem's 
 prices won't pay for paint and canvas. Great God, what an 
 end ! And I once dreamed of being a great artist." 
 
 He groaned aloud, in the bitterness of his soul ; and then, 
 turning from the easel to the bed, looked darkly at the prostrate 
 Qgure. 
 
 " If you had been a better woman," he said below his breath, 
 *I might have been a different man. The blight of my life 
 aas been there." 
 
 He took the bread and meat from his pocket, and placed it 
 )efore the child. The little boy ate ravenously, and the father 
 vatched him with a smile, the first that had lighted his face 
 that day ; but he touched nothing himself. 
 
 " Papa," the child exclaimed, " ain't you hungry too?" 
 
 " No, my pet." 
 
 Gervoise flung himself into a chair opposite the low truckle 
 bed, and sat with his elbows on his knees, and his chin resting 
 on his hands, watching the sleeping woman. 
 
 She never stirred ; the weary eyelids were never lifted from 
 tjie dim eyes ; the heavy head lay as it had £%Llen on the pillow. 
 
180 
 
 Lost and Found- 
 
 She had been a pretty woman. The disordered hair, stream* 
 tng upon that wretched pillow, was dark and luxuriant ; the 
 features of the face were regular ; and long dark lashes fringed 
 the closed eyelids. 
 
 The artist sat in the same position, never speaking, never 
 looking away from the figure on the bed. The child finished 
 his supper, and then, creeping softly to his father's side, sat 
 down upon the ground at the young man's feet. 
 
 The sun went down in all his summer grandeur, glorifying 
 even the garret windows of a court like this with splashes of 
 crimson splendour, that turned the common glass to brighter 
 hues than were ever produced by mortal hands, even in the days 
 when the art of staining glass was in all its mediaeval glory. 
 The evening shadows deepened in the room and on the artist's 
 face; but before the light quite died away, Gervois'^ Gilbert 
 changed his attitude, and drew the deal table towards him. 
 There was a penny ink-bottle and an old quill-pen upon the 
 narrow ledge which served as an apology for a chimney-piece. 
 Gervoise took these and a sheet of crumpled note-paper, and 
 wrote, slowly and deliberately, the following lines : — 
 
 " Agatha Gilbert, — When I met you five years ago, I was 
 an ambitious man, with a bright future, as I thought, before 
 me. I married you, and from that hour to this a blight has 
 clung to me. 
 
 " Have you ever considered that a wife's duty is to be a help 
 and comfort, not a hindrance and a burden, to the man whose 
 name she bears ? Have you ever remembered this, and tried to 
 aid me in the battle of life ? JSTo ; as I live, not once ! 
 
 I am weary of the struggle, Agatha. I am weary of trying 
 to save you from the hateful vice which is doomed to be the 
 destruction of your body and soul. If the law could part us, I 
 would appeal to the law. But, unhappily, justice has no remedy 
 for wrongs such as mine. The law gives no redress to the hus- 
 band whose wife robs her child of bread in order that she may 
 have money to buy gm. 
 
 I depart, therefore, of my own will. Every link that ever 
 united us is broken — every hope of domestic happiness that I 
 ever cherished is shattered — every feeling of affection that ever 
 warmed my heart has died out, leaving only the bitter ashes of 
 regret behind. 
 
 " I go I know not where, and I take the boy with me. It is 
 ror his sake I endure a miserable and broken life. If it were 
 not for him, I would go to the nearest river and drown my 
 troubles in a deeper oblivion than that which gin gives to you. 
 
 "Good-bye. I try not to think bitterly of you; I try to 
 forgive you, as I pray you to forgive me for any wrong I may 
 
Gin. 
 
 181 
 
 have done you. 1 have been often impatient, harsh, violent; 
 but I have suffered, and suffered intensely. Once more, good* 
 bye. Do not attempt to follow me, or to seek me out. You 
 will never see me, you will never hear of me again, nor of your 
 \ child. 
 
 " You have chosen your road in life, and have been reckless 
 as to the misery it has brought upon me. I now choose my 
 pathway, and it leads me far away from you. 
 
 " Gervoise Gilbert." 
 
 The young man folded this letter, placed it on the mantel- 
 piece, where i& was sure to meet his wife's eye ; then he awoke 
 the boy, who had fallen asleep with his head upon his father's 
 knee. 
 
 " You have a warmer frock than that, haven't you, Georgey ? n 
 said Gervoise, pointing to the little ragged cotton garment which 
 covered his son's slender frame. 
 
 " No, papa." 
 
 " You had one ; a woollen frock — very shabby, but thick and 
 warm." 
 
 " Yes, but mamma took it, you know, papa, ever so many 
 days ago. She took it out with her, and never brought it 
 back." 
 
 The father muttered an execration. He had seen the com- 
 fort of a decent home melt away little by little until it had 
 come to this. He had striven hard against the grim invader, 
 poverty, but he had striven in vain. Of what use were his 
 struggles, when his wife spent every shilling she could wring 
 from him in gin ? 
 
 She had robbed her husband and child of every comfort, even 
 of common necessaries, and lastly she had taken her child's 
 clothes to the pawnbroker. 
 
 " Put on your cap, Georgey," said Gervoise Gilbert ; " you are 
 going for a long journey with papa. Shall you like that ? " 
 
 " O, yes, yes ; I '11 go anywhere with you, papa." 
 
 "Come, then, my darling. But remember, Georgey, we are 
 not going by the railroad ; we are not going to travel, as we 
 once travelled when you were a very little child ; we are poor 
 now, and we must go on foot. We must walk, Georgey; but 
 when you are tired, papa will carry you." 
 
 44 But I won't be tired, papa," the boy answered, proudly. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert looked down upon him with a loving smile. 
 
 "Brave spirit!" he exclaimed. "Noble spirit! The blood 
 of all the Palgraves of Palgrave Chase spoke there." 
 
 The artist had not many preparations to make before leaving 
 that wretched shelter ; he had only one clean shirt, so ragged 
 as to have escaped from the clutches of the pawnbroker. He 
 
182 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 had no extra coat, no carpet-bag, no railway-rug with which tc 
 burden himself. 
 
 He put the shirt in his pocket, put on his hat, took an old 
 ftilk handkerchief from his own throat, and tied it on the neck 
 of the child, then, leading the boy by the hand, he went out of 
 the room and down the stairs into the narrow court, where thf 
 ihildren were still brawling and quarrelling in their noisy play. 
 
 They had no inviting bedchambers to which to retire, thesa 
 j^oor children — no well-paid and experienced nurses, solicitous 
 about their health, to watch over "their movements. They 
 enjoyed liberty, at least, if they knew no other joy, and were 
 free to roll in the gutter till some drunken mother, coming 
 from the nearest public-house, swooped down upon them, and 
 bore them off to a stifling garret, crowded by a dozen tenants. 
 
 The shadows deepened in the narrow alley ; the ruby light 
 that made cracked panes of common glass more beautiful to 
 look upon than all the precious gems glitteriug in the jewellers' 
 •shops faded slowly away, leaving the windows dark. 
 
 It was quite dark when Agatha Gilbert awoke from her 
 drunken sleep, and staggered to the fireplace. She groped, with 
 her right hand, along the ledge of wood until she found a box 
 of lucifer-matches and a scrap of tallow- candle, that was stuck 
 in an old blacking-bottle. She lighted this candle, and then 
 looked slowly round her, winking and blinking stupidly in the 
 dim light. 
 
 "Not come home yet," she muttered discontentedly; "not 
 some home yet, though it's dark. But why should he come 
 home ? He hates me, and he doesn't take the pains to hide his 
 hatred. "Where's the child, though ? He was here when I came 
 &. Georgey ! " 
 
 She repeated the boy's name, in a louder key, two or three 
 times. 
 
 But she was not alarmed at finding there was no answer ; the 
 stupor of drunkenness had not yet passed away. She stood 
 for some moments motionless, with the light in her hand, staring 
 straight before her. 
 
 Suddenly she perceived the letter on the chimney-piece. 
 
 " Gilbert's hand ! " she cried ; "he has been home, then ! " 
 
 She set down her candle, opened the letter, and then taking 
 up the light again in her left hand, read Gervoise Gilbert's 
 farewell. 
 
 She read the letter twice — hurriedly first, and then slowly — 
 till at last the fumes of the spirit she had drunk slowly dis- 
 persed before the sense of a great calamity. 
 
 Then she uttered a loud cry— a long, ringing shriek, that 
 vibrated shrilly through the house — and fell prostrate upon the 
 ground. 
 
Gin. 
 
 183 
 
 There are strange contradictions, perplexing knots, wonderful 
 h tricacies, in that tangled web which we call the human mind. 
 
 Agatha Gilbert passionately loved the man whose life she 
 had blighted, the child whose clothes she had pledged in order 
 to buy gin. 
 
 CHAPTEB III. 
 
 THE MATtK UPON GEORGEf's ARM. 
 
 Tj:e moon which rose late upon this August night shone like an 
 orb of molten gold low in the sky, as the man who called him- 
 self Gervoise Gilbert emerged from a dnsty road upon the 
 pleasant expanse of Putney-heath. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock, lights were twinkling here and there 
 in the town through which the traveller had just passed, and 
 in a few scattered houses looking towards the open ground, and 
 on a waste patch of land skirting the common, a gipsy fire, 
 burning under an iron kettle, revealed the outline of a travelling- 
 van. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert stopped npon the edge of the road a few 
 yards from this van, and looked yearningly at a group of men 
 standing near the fire, and some women seated on the steps of 
 the vehicle. 
 
 The boy had grown tired after the first mile, and Gervoise 
 had carried him ever since. Slender as the child was, he was 
 tall for his age, and no inconsiderable weight to be carried for 
 a five-mile walk. He had fallen asleep now, with his head 
 upon his father's breast. 
 
 The artist had chosen this road with the intention of joining 
 any party of tramps he might fall in with, if they should prove 
 willing to accept him as one of their fraternity. He knew that 
 £ was worse than useless to remain in London. 
 
 There starvation and death stared him in the face. But 
 there might be some chance for him in tramping hither and 
 thither about the country. Surely now and then he would be 
 able to sell a picture, or to paint a portrait for some simple 
 country tradesman. If he could get nothing better than sign- 
 boards to paint, he was ready to paint them. He had done 
 with pride. He was willing to do anything to win bread for hia 
 child. 
 
 He had another motive too for wishing to join some party 
 of humble wanderers. He knew that his wife loved him, with a 
 passionate, jealous love, only known to violent natures. There 
 was little doubt that she would seek him, that she would use 
 every effort in her power to trace his footsteps. 
 
Lost and Found. 
 
 There >/as little chance of her finding him if he had no fixed 
 abode, but was perpetually shifting from place to place. 
 
 This second motive was more powerful than the first, aad 
 decided him. 
 
 The party encamped this night upon Putney-heath was a 
 larger one than he had expected to fall in with. The van was a 
 ponderous vehicle, and three powerful-looking horses cropped 
 the grass upon a patch of ground behind it. 
 
 One of the men sitting on the turf by the fire looked up at 
 Gervoise, after the artist had stood for some minutes gazing 
 thoughtfully at the group of wanderers. 
 
 " Perhaps when you pass this way next time," this man said, 
 taking a short clay-pipe from his mouth, " you'll know us again, 
 my friend. You've stared long enough, and if you're any think 
 in the pottery line, and wants a noo design for a fancy beer -jug, 
 I should think you'd got a c'rect pattern of our mugs by this 
 time." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert drew a little nearer to the gipsy fire — so near 
 that his handsome face and the child's golden hair were illu- 
 minated by the ruddy blaze. 
 
 " There was no offence in my stare, my good fellow," he said. 
 " I'm too low in the world to be insolent. I'm an artist, and 
 my sympathies all go with such a life as yours. What's more, 
 I'm a destitute man, and if I live at all, I must live something 
 as I presume you do — from hand to mouth, trusting to the 
 chances of each day for a meal and a shelter at night." 
 
 " That's candid, anyhow," said the man, emptying the ashea 
 of his pipe upon the ground by his side. 
 
 " It's the truth," Gervoise Gilbert answered moodily. 
 
 One of the women had risen from her seat upon the steps of 
 the van, and approached the painter. 
 
 " Is that your child ? " she asked, looking at the golden head 
 still nestling in the father's waistcoat. 
 
 $t He is," answered Gervoise ; <£ and but for him I might find 
 a sound sleep at the bottom of one of the pools on this heath 
 to-night." 
 
 "Poor little fellow!" the woman murmured tenderly. "Is 
 
 his mother dead?" 
 
 "Yes," Gilbert answered firmly. 
 
 She was dead to him, he thought. His best hope was that 
 she would be dead to all the world before long. 
 
 " That's bad," the woman said gently ; " it's very bad for such 
 a little chap as him to be without a mother. You seem fond of 
 him, though." 
 
 " Fond of him !" cried Gervoise ; " my heart's blood is not so 
 recious to me as this child. I only live for his sake. Low as 
 have sunk, the day may come when he will be rich and 
 
The Mark upon Georrjeifs Arm. 
 
 185 
 
 powerful. It is a far-away chance, perhaps, but it may come. 
 Wise men, who have never been made desperate by poverty, 
 might call me mad for even dreaming of it. But I do dream of 
 it, by day and by night too." 
 
 He said this rather to himself than the woman. 
 
 " Are you going far to-night ? " asked the man who had 
 spoken first. 
 
 " Not if I can help it. I want to get a shelter for this little 
 one if I can. I V- not afraid of sleeping under a hay- stack, or 
 on the bare ground amongst the furze-bushes yonder; but the 
 boy has never slept in the open air." 
 
 " And he sha'nt sleep in the open air to-night, master," said 
 the woman, 46 if you'll let him lie along with my two young- 
 sters, in the van yonder." 
 
 Would he let him ? Gervois Gilbert gratefully accepted the 
 offer. 
 
 " I thought there must be charity somewhere or other in this 
 wide world," he said, " and, thank Heaven, I 've come the right 
 way to find it." 
 
 The woman laughed good-naturedly. 
 
 " It ; s no such great charity to give a night's shelter to a 
 child," she said, taking the boy from Gilbert's arms. 
 
 Georgey was completely worn out. He neither opened his 
 eyes nor stirred his slender limbs as the woman carried him into 
 the van, and laid him in a homely little bed, beside two sleeping 
 lads of ten and twelve years old. 
 
 " Come," said the man with the clay-pipe, " if you are going 
 to sleep out o' doors, you 'd better sleep hereabouts, and I dessay 
 one of us can lend yer a rug ; besides which, you can peck a bit 
 o' supper along of us. Our French cook give us warning last 
 Toosday week, 'cos that gentleman there, who 's werry partic'lar 
 in his eatin' " — he pointed to a man whose hair was bound upon 
 his forehead after the manner common to street acrobats, and 
 whose sole outer garment seemed a long rough overcoat which 
 enveloped him from the chin to the heels — " 'cos Mr. William 
 Stokes, which his purfessional name is Mountmorency, com- 
 plained about the fricasseed frogs' legs bein' underdone. So 
 you must take pot-luck, which, I believe, is liver and 
 bacon." 
 
 Gervois accepted the invitation so cordially given. 
 
 "I shall be glad to stay with you to-night," he said, "and 
 glad to go on with you into the bargain, if it 's agreeable — that 's 
 to say, if I can turn my hand to anything that '11 enable me to 
 get a living." 
 
 The gentleman with the long hair and the rough greatcoat 
 chimed in at this point of the conversation. 
 " As to yer gettin' a livinY' be said, " that depends upon 
 
186 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 what yer able to do. Yon said you was a nartist jest now; yoxa 
 don't mean a hartist in the ground and lofty, do yer ?" 
 
 " The ground and lofty ? " asked Gervois, puzzled. 
 
 " He means to ask if yer a hacrobat," explained the man with 
 the pipe; " I never see such a cove as Bill; he 's that wrapped 
 up in his purfession that he seems to think as there ain't no 
 other purfession goin'. Lord bless you, sir, that chap 'ud have 
 his breakfast on the tight-rope if he could, and eat his dinner 
 etandin' on his 'ed, if the laws of gravitation and centrifugal 
 what's -his -name, which was discovered by Sir Walter Raleigh 
 all along of seeing a potato fall off a tree, didn't purvent his 
 swallerin' his food upside down. He 's got one of them limited 
 intellects, which never sees any farther than his own family 
 circle. No, Bill, I '11 lay all the money as I 've got invested in 
 the Three-per-cents., for the convenience of Queen Victoria 
 when she finds the washing-bills at Buckingham Palace too 
 heavy for the privy puss, and has to come upon the country 
 before she can pay the laundress — that this here gent ain't 
 anything in the acrobat line." 
 
 " No, Heaven help me, I 'm not," answered Gervois Gilbert. 
 " Perhaps if I could dance upon a tight-rope, I might be able to 
 earn bread for my boy ; but I can't—-! 'm only a painter." 
 
 " A portrait-painter ? " 
 
 " Yes, I can paint portraits." 
 
 The speaker, who was an important personage, being, in fact, 
 no other than the proprietor of the van, gave a long whistle. 
 
 " If you 're a good hand at portraits," he said, " I think as I 
 can give you a job. We 're a hequestrian company, you must 
 understand, and we travels through England in the summer 
 time, sometimes performin' at fairs, sometimes performin* 
 altogether on our own hook. Now, what, I should like you 
 to do for us is three or four fancy portraits of Mounseer Mount- 
 morency. there — which he ain't much to look at now — but 
 comes out wonderful strong in his purfessional togs; and of 
 Mademoiselle 1' Amour, which is my wife, Nancy Cadgers, and 
 of the two other ladies, as is Madame Zepherine and Signora 
 Floribella, and the two gents sittin' beside Mr. Mountmorency, 
 which one of 'em is the Desert Whirlwind, as rides three wild 
 Arab steeds barebacked — the Arab steeds is them animals as 
 you see a-grazin' yonder — and the other is Herr von Yolterchoker, 
 our German clown what was born in Bermondsey. Now, do 
 you think as you could kncok off two or three pictur's of 'em, 
 in different costooms and attitoodes — eh ? " 
 
 " Most decidedly," answered Gervoise; " the ladies and gentle- 
 men shall have their portraits taken in my very best style." 
 
 '* What we want, you see," continued Mr. Cadgers, " is some- 
 thing cheap and showy, warranted fast colours, as will stand. t\** 
 
The Marie upon Georgeifs Arm. 18? 
 
 open air and sunshine. We '11 send a boy along with 'ein the 
 day before we go into a town ourselves, and get 'em hung up in 
 the shop-winders. They'll be about the best adv^rtism-ient as 
 we can have. I don't su]3pose you and me '11 quarrel auout the 
 price, and you can live along of us, and rough it with us till 
 they're done." 
 
 " Agreed," exclaimed the painter ; " and the child ? " 
 
 " Never you bother yourself about him. Nancy '11 take cara 
 of him. It was her as took him into the van jest now." 
 
 •So Gervoise Gilbert slept that night more peacefully beneath 
 tA6 purple canopy of heaven than he had ever slumbered in the 
 fetid atmosphere of Purvis-court. He slept peacefully, for therk 
 was hope, at least, of bread for the morrow, and for many 
 morrows ; and the black shadow of despair vanished away before 
 the light of hope. 
 
 At sunrise next morning Mr. Cadgers 's troupe left Putney- 
 heath. The women travelled in the van, which was pretty 
 well loaded with the fittings of the circus, the dresses and pro- 
 perties of the performers, and the domestic requisites of the 
 company. Mr. Cadgers drove. The rest of the men tramped 
 upon the dusty high-road, a few yards ahead of the van. They 
 crossed to the Middlesex side of the water, skirted London, and 
 bore towards the midland districts of England. 
 
 The pedestrian travellers were Gervoise Gilbert ; Mr. William 
 Stokes, alias Mounseer Mountmorency ; the Desert Whirlwind, 
 whose real name was Samuel Bolter ; and Herr von Yolterchoker, 
 who declined to reveal his genuine patronymic, and who was 
 familiarly believed to have no name whatever, saving always 
 such cognomen as in the • night of fancy he might elect to be 
 known by for the time being. 
 
 He was an elderly man, grim and dark, with very black eyes 
 and grizzled hair ; and it was difficult to imagine that he could 
 ever be funny himself, or the cause of fun in others. He was 
 unlike his comrades, who were lively and communicative ; for he 
 was rarely known to open his lips except when compelled to do 
 so by the common business of life. He seemed like a man who, 
 at the very outset of his life, had taken upon him the heavy 
 burden of some gloomy secret, and had never been able to shake 
 off the load, or to recover from the sense of its responsibility. 
 
 Gervoise, Mr. Stokes, and Samuel Bolter walked abreast along 
 the dusty roads, talking cheerfully enough as they went. But 
 the clown stalked behind them, smoking perpetually, and as 
 silent as the grave. 
 
 "Is he clever?" Gervoise asked once of his companions, aftet 
 looking back for a moment at this man. 
 
 "Uncommon," Mr. Bolter answered. "He's uncommon 
 clever with conjurin' tricks, swallerin' fire and ^jvin'-knivea 
 
188 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 and chuckin' a dagger agen a mark on a wall, and all that sort 
 of think. But he ain't any great things at a joke, and it alius 
 gives me the cold shivers to look at him when he's tryin' to be 
 funny." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert stopped in one of the towns through which 
 they passed, and bought colours and canvas with some money 
 Mr. Cadgers advanced to him for that purpose. 
 * At two o'clock in the day they came upon a patch of common 
 land, upon the outskirts of a wood ; and here, under the shadow 
 of the trees, the horses were taken from the van, and the wan- 
 derers sat down to eat some bread and meat which Mr. Cadgers 
 distributed amongst them, together with a very liberal allowance 
 of beer, brought in a great stone jar from the last public-house 
 they had passed. 
 
 The horses were to rest here for some hours ; and after sharing 
 this simple meal, Gervoise took out his brushes and palette, 
 mixed his colours, prepared his canvas, and made everything 
 ready for his work, 
 
 " We'll begin with your portrait, Herr Yolterchoker, ,, he said ; 
 "if you've no objection ?" 
 
 The young man made this selection because he had been 
 drawn by a species of fascination towards the silent clown. 
 
 The other men were good-natured fellows, commonplace and 
 uninteresting enough. But about this man there was an air of 
 mystery which interested Gilbert in spite of himself. 
 
 The clown made no objection to having his picture taken 
 before any of his comrades. He slipped away to change his 
 dress, and returned in about ten minutes in his grotesque pro- 
 fessional costume. 
 
 This costume was loose about the body and sleeves, and left 
 his thin, muscular arms bare from the elbow. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert looked with surprise at these long bare arms. 
 They were covered from the wrist upwards with strange figures, 
 tattooed in indigo and vermilion — figures which no time could 
 erase. 
 
 The painter commenced his task, and worked industriously 
 till sunset. By that time Herr von Tolterchoker's portrait was 
 finished ; carelessly painted, but painted with an artistic dash 
 which reveals the force and vigour of genius. 
 
 The men and women crowded round to look at the por- 
 trait of their companion. Every one of them had half a dozen 
 remarks to make — remarks of surprise, approbation, delight. 
 But the clown said nothing. He stood apart with his arms 
 folded, looking moodily at the painter and the noisy group 
 around him. 
 
 Presently Gervoise Gilbert addressed him : " Do you think it's 
 like r " he asked, pointing to the portrait. 
 
The Mirk upon Georgey's Arm. 
 
 189 
 
 ''Like enough," the clown answered, glancing over the 
 painter's shoulder at the wet picture ; " like enough, I dare* 
 eay. It isn't the first time I've had my picture painted, but 
 I hope it may be the last. I'm not so very handsome that 
 people should want to be reminded of me when I'm dead and 
 gone." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert noticed that though this man spoke m 
 & sullen tone, his accent and manner of speaking were very 
 (Superior to the vulgar twang and cockney English of his com* 
 panions. 
 
 The moon had risen when the horses were put to, and the 
 van started once more upon its wandering way. This tima 
 Gervoise left Mr. Stokes and Mr. Bolter, and fell back by the 
 side of the clown. Herr von Yolter choker looked at him ratner 
 suspiciously. 
 
 "You'd better stick to your friends," he said quietly; 
 "you'll find them livelier tfian me, and I don't much care 
 about company." 
 
 "I won't trouble you long," answered Gervoise; "I'll go 
 back to them presently, but I want to ask you a question 
 first." 
 
 " Ask away, then," muttered the clown, without taking 
 the stem of his pipe from between his lips, "and be quick 
 about it." 
 
 " How long have you had those marks upon your arms P" 
 
 "Thirty years." 
 
 "Did you do them yourself?" 
 
 "I>Tot all of them. Some were done by a sailor on board 
 ship more than, a thousand miles from here. I did the rest 
 myself." 
 
 " Will you do me a favour?" 
 
 " That depends upon what it is. If it isn't much trouble I 
 don't suppose I shall refuse." 
 
 " The little boy travelling in yonder van is my only child, 
 dearer to me than anything else in the world. There is a person 
 who would be very glad to get him from me if she could, and all 
 last night I was haunted by the fear that he might be taken 
 from me. If he were taken from me now, in his early child- 
 hood, he might alter as he grew to manhood, and the chances 
 are that, after years of searching for him, I might meet him and 
 not recognise him. More than this, the day may come— I don't 
 say it ever will, but it may — in which that boy will be the heir to a 
 great fortune. If this should ever happen, it will be necessary 
 to prove his identity. I want you to set such a mark on him 
 as will never fade or alter, though he should change so much 
 that the most loving eyes would fail to recognise him. "Will 
 vou do this for me ? " 
 
190 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 "I will," answered Herr von Yolterchoker, readily; "1 don't 
 often do a good-natured thing, but I '11 do this. It '11 be like 
 most people's good-nature in this world — it won't cost me any- 
 thing." . 
 
 Early the next morning, while most of the party were still 
 fast asleep on the spot they had chosen at midnight for their 
 resting-place, Gervoise Gilbert peeped into the van and called 
 to his son. The children had been awake for some time, and 
 Georgey came out at the sound of his father's voice. The boy 
 was very happy with his new friends. " It is better than being 
 with mamma," he said; " I don't get beaten now." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker was up and stirring ready to fulfil his 
 promise. The two men seated themselves side by side upon the 
 grass at the back of the van. Here they were completely 
 secluded from the rest of the party. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert took the child on his knees, and bared the 
 fair little arm, pushing the sleeve of the boy's threadbare frock 
 high above his shoulder. 
 
 " What we're going to do will hurt you a little, Georgey," he 
 said, " but you '11 try to bear the pain, won't you — you '11 be a 
 brave little man, for papa's sake?" 
 
 " Yes, papa," the boy answered firmly, lifting his bright, inno- 
 cent eyes to his father's face. 
 
 " What marks do you want me to tattoo upon his arm ? n the 
 clown asked. 
 
 " An earl's coronet, and the initials ' G. P.' " 
 
 CHAPTER, IV. 
 
 THE FOSTER-BROTHERS. 
 
 Before the end of August, Mr. Cadgers's company had pene- 
 trated into the leafy depths of beautiful Warwickshire. There 
 was to be a fair held at Avondale, that pleasant, old-fashioned 
 market-town, in the heart of that picturesque region which is 
 sacred to the memory of William Shakespeare, and thither 
 Mr. Cadgers conducted his troupe, with a view to astonishing 
 the simple rustics with the combined efforts of the Desert 
 Whirlwind, Monsieur Montmorency, Herr von Yolterchoker, 
 and the ladies. 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert and little Georgey wandered happily to- 
 gether through the shady lanes and fair high-roada ol beautiful 
 England. 
 
 Mr. Cadgers knew all the short cuts and by -lanes in the land, 
 it seemed to Gervoise, for he led his band across hea'berjp 
 
Tuc Jfosrer-Brotliers. 
 
 m 
 
 patches of common, by purple moorland and wandering streamy 
 under the shadow of grassy hills, by wood and water, and 
 through long, sheltered lanes, where there were comfortable 
 nooks in which to rest at night- It was a pleasant journey 
 altogether, and Gervoise Gilbert was happier than he had been 
 for years past. He had put away ambition : that bright attri- 
 bute of manhood, without which man seems less than man, had 
 6een starved out of him. He had put away all thoughts of 
 future greatness, or even future wealth, and was resigned to 
 cast in his lot with these low-born associates, and to get his 
 living amongst them as best he might, for the sake of his child. 
 He smiled when first he heard from Mr. Cadgers that Avondale 
 was the destination of the troupe. 
 
 " You must know Avondale, eh ? " exclaimed the sagacious 
 proprietor. 
 
 44 1 knew it once," Gervoise answered, thoughtfully. 
 
 " Then if you knew it once, you know it always," cried Mr. 
 Cadgers, " for I'm blessed if you '11 find any alteration there. 
 Avondale is a town as stopped growin' when it was very young 
 — in the time of Queen Elizabeth, or therea\>outs — and it's 
 never growed any more since. It throw'd out a sort of hex- 
 crescience, in the shape of a terrace of red-brick houses, two year 
 ago ; but the owdacious builder as put 'em up went mad, and 
 hung hisself in one of the attics, d'reckly he see what he'd 
 done, and that cast a shade of melancholy over the houses, 
 which most of 'em have been to let ever since. And so you 
 know Avondale, do you?" exclaimed Mr. Cadgers, slapping 
 his knee with one hand, and shifting his pipe to the other 
 side of his mouth with the other ; " well, that 's queer now, 
 ain't it?" 
 
 " It is queer," Gervoise answered, with a strange shadow upon 
 his face ; " it is very queer that I should go into that town, as I 
 shall go into it with you, considering " 
 
 "Considerin' what, Mr. Jarvis?" 
 
 Gervoise had called himself Jarvis in his dealings with Mr. 
 Cadgers and that gentleman's gifted company. 
 
 " Never mind what. Every man has a corner of his mind 
 that he likes to keep dark. That's my dark corner," the young 
 man answered, stooping to light his pipe with the burning 
 tobacco in the bowl of Mr. Cadgers' s short, blackened meer- 
 schaum. 
 
 The faces of the two men were close together as Gervoise said 
 tkis. Mr. Cadgers looked at him scrutinisingly. 
 
 "You're very close, Mr. Jarvis," he sai&; "but as far as 
 that goes, you 're welcome to be close. You mind your busi- 
 ness, and I mind mine ; that's true Christianity, to my thinkin'. 
 But there 's some things people can't help guessin' at, if yon 
 
 K 
 
192 
 
 Lost and Found, 
 
 Keep 'em ne^er 30 close ; and, of course, I know well enough 
 you're not one of our sort. You 're a gentleman, you are; and 
 a gentleman as has it in him to hold his head pretty high, but 
 as has been put upon by the world somehow, I take it. Is 
 that it?" 
 
 "That's about it," Gervoise answered. 
 
 "Pre-cisely. Now, do you know, Mr. Jarvis, as you was 
 a-stoopin' over me to light your pipe just this minute, a hidea 
 came into my 'ed?" 
 
 "Indeed." 
 
 " Yes ; and that hidea was, that Fd seen you before the other 
 day. Whether it's some one like you as I've seen, or whether 
 it's you yourself, I can't tell." 
 
 " You must have seen some one like me," said Gervoise ; " I 
 don't think it's likely you ever saw me until that night upon 
 Putney-heath." 
 
 " I've got it," said Mr. Cadgers, slapping his knee so violently 
 that he nearly jerked himself off the five-barred gate upon which 
 he was sitting. It was Mr, Cadgers's habit to sit upon the shaft 
 of his van, the top-rail of a five-barred gate, the stump of c 
 tree, or anything of the like uncomfortable nature, in pre- 
 ference to those vulgar chairs and benches on which the 
 common run of mankind repose. " I've got it, and it's talking 
 of Avondale that's put it into my mind. You're the livin' 
 image of the old Earl of Haughton what died two year 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert started, and turned very pale. 
 
 " Is the old Earl of Haughton dead ? " he said. 
 
 "I flatter myself that he is," answered Mr. Cadgers, "and 
 died uncommon hard, too, I've heard say. Just as he'd lived, 
 the old rapscallion ; which I called upon him three years ago, 
 askin' him to give us his name for a bespeak, and lend us one 
 of his meadders to perform in, and he told me he'd see me all 
 manner of uncivil things fust, and offered to have me kicked 
 out of doors by his butler. Yes, the old varmint has hooked 
 it ; and don't my young lord go it, that's all ; huntin' and 
 steeplechasin', and the dooce knows what ! He's a regular wild 
 nn, is Lord Haughton. He'll give us a bespeak, I'll lay any- 
 thing, and, as you've got such a gentlemanly way with you, you 
 might do the good-natured thing by us, and go and ask for it 
 — mightn't you, now ? " 
 
 Gervoise looked at Mr. Cadgers with a strange smile. 
 
 "No, he said; "of all the things that are to be done upon 
 this earth, the last I'll do is to ask a favour of Lord Haughton." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I knew him once; when I was a lad." 
 
 "And uncommon like the Haughton family you are, too," 
 
The Foster-Brothers. 
 
 193 
 
 exclaimed Mr. Cadgers; uncommon like 'em. Yon ain't a 
 hillegit " 
 
 " What ?" cried Gervoise, turning so suddenly upon Mr. 
 Cadgers, that the latter gentleman nearly tumbled backwards 
 into the meadow behind him. " What ?" 
 
 M Why, of course you ain't ! " cried Mr. Cadgers very hastily ; 
 " who said you was ? I should like to know who said you was t 
 You needn't fly at a feller as if you was a-goin' to choke hint 
 with his own front teeth, just because he asks you a civil 
 question. But you are uncommon like the Haughton family, \ 
 for aU that!" 1 
 
 " Perhaps I am. There have been accidental likenesses before 
 to-day." 
 
 "So there has. I've seen a many sich; and very orkard 
 accidents they've been, too, some of 'em; so let's say no more 
 about it," answered Mr. Cadgers, with quiet dignity. 
 
 !No more was said, but this conversation had taken place in 
 the hearing of Herr von Yolterchoker, who lay at full length 
 upon the grass at Gervoise Gilbert's feet, smoking quietly, and 
 Hstening to everything that was said. 
 
 The silent clown had a retentive memory, and was a close 
 observer into the bargain. He knew how to read a man's looks, 
 as well as his words. He knew the value of the tone in which 
 a word was spoken, as well as of the word itself. 
 
 The troupe arrived at a hilly patch of common land outside 
 Avondale in the dusk of the evening ; and, while Mr. Cadgers 
 iind his associates were busy with their preparations for the 
 next day, Gervoise Gilbert, with his hat slouched over his fore- 
 head, and the collar of his coat turned up so as to conceal the 
 lower part of his face, went out into the quiet little town. 
 
 It was a quaint, old-fashioned place, and seemed, as Mr. 
 Cadgers had said, very much as if no change had come to it 
 since good Queen Bess rode with her favourite by her side along 
 the stony street, while loyal voices gave her clamorous welcome, 
 and loyal children strewed sweet English flowers under her 
 horse's feet. You went into the town by a grim stone archway, 
 and you went out of it by another archway, grimmer and 
 stonier, if possible, and half borne down by a lop-sided church- 
 tower, in which poor persecuted Charles I. once found a sorry 
 lodging. The traveller who should fall asleep in that old town, 
 and on awakening find Leicester's varlets carousing in the lo*' 
 tavern parlour, and William Shakespeare lounging in th* 
 market-place, would scarcely be surprised. Beyond the grin 
 stone gate, there was a winding river and a buttressed bridge 3 
 and above the bridge there towered tall, ivy-mantled castle- 
 walls, within whose ponderous shelter a new sleeping beauty 
 might have slumbered, with her retainers round her* waiting 
 
194 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 for the coming of the chosen prince foredoomed to awaken 
 her. 
 
 In the dusky summer twilight, Gervoise Gilbert strolled along 
 the narrow High- street, into the market-place, where the towns- 
 people, grouped here and there, talked of the fair that was to be 
 held upon the morrow. 
 
 They had something more than the fair to talk about. Avon- 
 dale races also were to take place the next day, and the great 
 evt:nt was to be a steeplechase with gentleman riders; and the 
 crack rider was the young Earl of Haughton. Gervoise came 
 upon a group of gossips who were discussing this event with 
 considerable animation. 
 
 " They do say as the young countess went down upon her 
 knees implorin' of my lord not to ride," an old woman said ; 
 " but he's that obstinate, there's no more turning him than you 
 could bend the iron battle-axes in the great hall at Palgrave 
 Chase." 
 
 " That's hard, too, upon the countess," said another woman ; 
 " for she's a sweet young creature, and my lord expects an heir 
 to the estate very soon, I've heard say." 
 
 " Yes, and then there'll be fine doin's in Avondale, I suppose; 
 for whatever Lord Haughton's faults may be, his worst enemies 
 can't say that he doesn't do things handsomely." 
 
 Gervoise Gilbert stopped to read the programme of the races, 
 in the window of a low, gable-roofed public-house, near the 
 corner where these gossips stood. Yes, there it was, sure 
 enough : — 
 
 " At 30 minutes after 3, a steeplechase : gentlemen riders, 
 Devilshoof b. c. ... The Earl of Haughton. 
 Meg Merrilies, br. f. . . Captain Clifford. 
 "Pepper-box, gr. f. ... Stephen Constable, Esq." 
 
 There were only three riders for this steeplechase ; and some 
 boys standing near Gervoise were talking of the double ditches 
 and double fences that had been constructed on the course. 
 
 The young man was turning away from the lighted tavern- 
 window, when a hand was suddenly laid upon his shoulder. 
 
 He turned quickly round, and found himself face to face with 
 a man of about his own age — a dare-devil-looking fellow, with a 
 dark, sunburnt face, and bright black eyes. He looked half- 
 g^y, half-brigand, and was dressed in a velveteen coat with 
 plated buttons, a gaudy cashmere waistcoat, a wideawake hat, 
 corduroy breeches, and leathern gaiters. 
 
 He was a reformed poacher who had turned gamekeeper, and 
 was Gervoise Gilbert's foster-brother. His name was 
 Humphrey Melwood. 
 
The Foster-Brothers. 
 
 195 
 
 " I couldn't be mistaken in yon, Mr. Gervoise," he said, hold- 
 ing ont his broad, muscular hand. 
 
 He was taller by half a foot than Gervoise Gilbert, and he 
 was big and broad-shouldered, a handsome young Hercules, 
 mth. a fierce sparkle in his black eyes that promised no good to 
 any one who provoked his resentment. 
 
 Gervoise shook hands with him. 
 
 " I thought you had gone abroad, Humphrey," he said. 
 
 " Well, I was going to Australia, Mr. Gervoise ; but mother 
 took on dreadful at the notion of my going ; and just about that 
 time the earl died, and the young lord said he'd give me one 
 more chance ; so now I'm under-gamekeeper at the Chase ; and 
 I'm pretty comfortable, sir, and so's mother, now that I've 
 turned steady. And there's only one thing as I wish for in this 
 blessed world, and that's for you to be my master, instead of 
 him that now is Earl of Haughton. Not but what he's kinu 
 and generous, sir; but there's that between you and me, Mr. 
 Gervoise, that's more than blood, I sometimes think." 
 
 The young man looked at him with a mournful smile. 
 
 "Yes, Humphrey," he said; "we slept upon the same breast 
 when we were children together. Perhaps it would have been 
 better for one of us if he had died then." 
 
 "Not for you, Mr. Gervoise; don't say that," the game- 
 keeper answered, entreatingly. " While there's life there's hope, 
 you know. I'm only a poor good-for-nothing scoundrel, that 
 never did a good turn for anybody in all my life ; but I think 
 you know, Mr. Gervoise, that I'd lay down my life for you, and 
 welcome, if the loss of such a useless life as mine could be any 
 gain to you." 
 
 The two men walked away from the market-place, and down 
 under the gloomy archway, and out upon the gray stone bridge. 
 They leaned upon the moss-grown parapet as they talked. The 
 rippling water shone silver-bright in the moonlight, except 
 where the great towers of the castle cast their broad black 
 shadows on the river. 
 
 In the good old times that are for ever gone, lonely prisoners, 
 Totting in damp cells level with the river-bed, had listened to the 
 plashing of that water, and the waging of the willows as they 
 dipped into the stream. 
 
 "I'd lay down my life for you, and think it naught, Mr. 
 Gervoise," said Humphrey Melwood; "and mother and me 
 have thought sometimes that it would have been but kind of 
 you if you'd written to tell us what you were doing in London. 
 I went up there once to look for you ; but I'm a rough, ignorant 
 country fellow, and the place seemed strange to me. I walked 
 about the streets till my feet ached, and I was always losin 1 
 myself, and it seemed like lookin' for a needle in a hay* 
 
196 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 stack, so I gave it up; but you might have wrote to us, 
 Mr. Gervoise. If neither mother nor I could have read 
 your letters, we would have found those as could have read it 
 for us." 
 
 "And it was for that very reason I didn't write to you, 
 Humphrey," answered Gervoise ; " I didn't want anybody about 
 the Chase to know how low I'd sunk." 
 
 " You've been unlucky, then, Mr. Gervoise ? " 
 
 " I've had all the ill-luck that could fall to a man, I think 
 After my father's death I dropped the name of Palgrave, and 
 called myself Gervoise Gilbert. Gilbert was my mother's name, 
 you know. From that time to this I've been trying to support 
 myself by painting. Heaven help me ! I have failed in that, 
 as I have failed in everything else. I am tramping through the 
 country now, Humphrey, with a troop of strollers. I am an 
 outcast and a reprobate, whom my cousin, Lord Haughton, 
 would turn from his doors." 
 
 "When did you hear of your uncle's death, Mr. Gervoise?" 
 
 " Not until the day before yesterday. How long has he been 
 dead?" 
 
 " Two years. The present earl married six months aftei his 
 father's death ; and there's an heir or an heiress expected at the 
 Chase. Have you married, Mr. Gervoise?" 
 
 " Yes," answered the young man, " I have been married, and 
 I have a son, a boy of three years old; but for him I might 
 have been lying at the bottom of a river before now." 
 Don't say that, Mr. Gervoise." 
 
 "What else should I say?" cried the painter fiercely; "what 
 hope is there for me in life, that I should wish to live ?" 
 
 Humphrey Melwood shook his head, 
 
 "It's rather a dark look-out, certainly, sir," he said; "but 
 you mustn't despair — you mustn't despair." 
 
 " How can I do otherwise than despair ?" answered Gervoise. 
 " My father reared me to look forward to the possession of my 
 uncle's title and fortune, though he must have known that 1 
 might be disappointed of it. He taught me no profession, he 
 gave me no useful knowledge. My own taste made me a painter ; 
 but he did nothing to foster that taste. * Your uncle's brat may 
 die, boy,' he said, * and then you will be master of Palgrave 
 Chase. After my father's death I went out into the world, and 
 faced it boldly ; but it has been too strong for me ; and sometimes, 
 when the day has been darkest, I have felt a strange wild hope 
 that my boy might live to inherit rank and fortune ; but I know 
 that hope is madness." 
 
 Ae stood with folded arms looking down at the moonlit watei: 
 Humphrey Melwood, watching hig profile, saw the settled melan- 
 choly of his countenance 
 
The Foster- Brothers. 
 
 197 
 
 "Do you mean to stay long at Avondale, Mr. Gervoise P" he 
 ftsked. 
 
 "To stay long? Heaven forbid! I shall only stay so long as 
 my companions remain here ; and I shall take care to hide my- 
 self from every one while I do stay. I came out to-night aftei 
 dark to see the old place, for it seemed as if something that waa 
 stronger than myself drew me into the familiar streets ; but 1 
 didn't think I should be recognised — I didn't wish to be recog- 
 nised." 
 
 " But don't say you're sorry that you met me, Mr. Gervoise !" 
 cried Humphrey Melwood eagerly. " It's hard that you should 
 be sorry to see one that was your foster-brother, and that loves 
 you as well as ever a brother was loved. The difference between 
 our rank can't alter the feelings of our hearts, you know, Mr. 
 Gervoise. I've been a bad fellow, a bad son, and a bad servant ; 
 btit I've been true to you ; I've been true to you." 
 
 in I believe you have, Humphrey." 
 
 " And you only believe the truth, Mr. Gervoise. My mother 
 has saved a little money, sir, and I know she'll give it me and 
 welcome I shall make bold to bring it to you to-morrow." 
 
 " JSTo, Humphrey, no." 
 
 "But, Mr. Gervoise " 
 
 "I have sunk very low; do not insult me, Humphrey," the 
 young man said proudly. " I am a man, and I can work. I 
 will never take a woman's savings. Good-night !" 
 
 He walked away as he spoke ; Humphrey hurried after him. 
 
 " You'll let me see you again before you leave Avondale, Mr. 
 Gervoise?" 
 
 " Yes, if you like. You'll find me with an equestrian com- 
 pany in the fair — Cadgers' s company. You must ask for Mr. 
 J arvis ; and remember, Humphrey, not a word to any one in 
 Avondale about my being in the town." 
 
 " Not a word, sir." 
 
 The two men parted. Gervoise went slowly back to the 
 canvas booth under whose shelter he was to sleep that night, 
 Humphrey Melwood went to a favourite public-house to finish 
 the evening with a couple of choice spirits, suspected of unholy 
 dealings with wire traps for innocent young hares, and cruel 
 nets for the snaring of winged fowl. 
 
 As Gervoise left the bridge a dark figure emerged from the 
 sombre shadow of the castle towers, and followed him, always 
 keeping at a respectful distance. 
 
 That dark figure was Herr von Volterchoker, the sibnt 
 4own. 
 
198 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TUB GENTLEMAN JOCKEY "WHO BODE DEVILSHOO*. 
 
 The Avandale racecourse described a circle round that very 
 patch of common land on which Avondale fair was always held. 
 Indeed, the [fair was only a part of the races. Mr. Cadgers 's 
 equestrian troupe were in the habit of remaining idle throughout 
 the day, while serious business was being done upon the stunted 
 turf of the magic circle ; but at night, when the races were over, 
 when the simple country-folk had stared wonderingly at the 
 flying thoroughbreds, and had lost their half-crowns and six- 
 pences in friendly sweepstakes ; when the carriages of the 
 county families had driven homewards in a cloud of dust ; whej 
 the betting-men had deserted that cowshed-like edifice wh\\^ 
 was dignified by the title of the grand- stand; when the glo^v 
 of the race was over — then the fair began in good earnest. The 
 gongs sounded, the drums beat, and opposition pandean-pipes 
 squeaked discordant clamour ; flaring cressets of naphtha shone 
 out upon the blackness of the night ; performing dogs yelped 
 in their professional ardour; learned pigs grunted hoarse im* 
 patience to distinguish themselves ; eager horses neighed and 
 curveted amidst the saw-dust of the ring ; and the members of 
 Mr. Cadgers's company appeared in all their splendour. 
 
 They were not quite idle in the daytime though ; for during 
 the intervals between the races, Herr von Yolterchoker swal- 
 lowed swords, spun washing-basins upon the tips of walking- 
 sticks, and mystified the bovine spectators by marvellous 
 juggling with pocket-handkerchiefs, white mice, raw eggs, and 
 live pigeons. Mr. Samuel Bolter performed wonderful feats 
 of strength with unnatural-looking wooden chairs, and flung 
 himself into attitudes utterly opposed to the harmonious laws 
 of nature, and made himself uncomfortable to look at, for the 
 gratification of an enraptured audience. Mrs. Cadgers, better 
 known as Mademoiselle 1'Amour, exhibited herself on these 
 occasions in a Highland costume, and took the money at the 
 doors with the dignity of Mrs. Rob Roy Macgregor herself. 
 
 This lady was in the habit of appearing in short petticoats 
 on these festive occasions, and always seemed to be upon the 
 point of executing some Terpsichorean achievement ; but never 
 of late years had been seen by mortal eye to carry out this 
 intention. 
 
 Mrs. Cadgers was very good at promenading arm-in-arm 
 with a Spanish nobleman with corked eyebrows and impossible 
 salves. She was good, too, at taking the money, and had a 
 
Tho Gentleman Joclcey who rode Devilslwof. 199 
 
 jjiarp eye for spurious copper coin; but beyond this her ao- 
 Somplishments were of a purely legendary character. 
 
 " When first I saw my girl Nance," Mr. Cadgers would say, 
 when the liver and bacon, or the sausages, or the pig's fry had 
 been done to a turn, and the Jupiter of the caravan was in a 
 good humour with his Juno, "when first I set eyes upon Mrs. 
 Cadgers, which it were at the Falcon Tavern, Whitechapel, she 
 were a dancin' the 'ighland fling in such quick time as it would 
 have made your 'air a'most stand on hend to look at her. But 
 what with the wear and tear of married life, and what with the 
 price of purvisions, I don't think as you could get that 'ighland 
 flung out of Mrs. Cadgers now, not if you was to lay down 
 golden sovereigns for her to dance upon." 
 
 Gervoise Dudley Palgrave, alias Gervoise Gilbert, alias Mr. 
 Jarvis, lay upon a truss of hay in a corner of the canvas booth, 
 which was curtained off from the circus, and which served as a 
 living room for Mr. Cadgers and his company. They were all 
 busy except the painter, and he was alone. He had allowed 
 little Georgey to be dressed in some fantastic costume, and to 
 show himself upon the platform and in the ring with Mr. 
 Cadgers's two olive branches, much to the boy's delight. Ger- 
 voise felt that he had worked well enough to earn the right to 
 be idle for once in a way, brooding over his dismal fate in the 
 dusky shelter of the curtained booth, while innocent country- 
 folks were laughing loud at hackneyed old jests upon the other 
 side of the curtain. 
 
 He lay stretched at full length upon the truss of hay, with 
 a short pipe in his mouth, thinking over his strange fortunes, 
 while Herr von Yolterchoker, in a voice which would have 
 scared mirthful thoughts away from the mind of a sensitive 
 person, demanded of his audience when it was that a door was 
 not a door, and entertained them with other conundrums of 
 equal freshness and originality. Gervoise Dudley Palgrave lay 
 and brooded over his lot in life. 
 
 He was the nephew of the late Lord Haughton ; he was the 
 cousin of the present earl; and he was dependent upon the 
 patronage of Mr. Cadgers for a meal for himself and his only 
 child. His father had been a thoughtless, reckless spendthrift, 
 who had quarrelled with the late earl, and had, in vulgar par- 
 lance, gone to the dogs, leaving his son penniless to fight the 
 hard battle of life, with nothing but contumely to expect from 
 his grand relations. 
 
 The earl and Ms brother, George Augustus Davenant 
 Palgrave, had hated each other, as brothers do sometimes' hate 
 each other, even in this enlightened age. George had married 
 a farmer's daughter secretly, and had been turned out of doors 
 by his indignant father Only one child was bom from this 
 
200 
 
 Lost and Found, 
 
 marriage, and that child was Gervoise Dudley Palgrave. The 
 mother died within a month of the boy's birth, and the reck- 
 less, dissipated yonng father intrusted the infant to the care of 
 Margery Melwood, the wife of one of the gamekeepers at Pal- 
 grave Chase. 
 
 All this was done secretly, and when the old earl, Gervoise 
 Palgrave's grandfather, saw two babies in Margery Melwood's 
 arms, as she stood in the sunshine at the lodge-door, he did not 
 know but that the gamekeeper's wife was the mother of twins. 
 He certainly never guessed that the dark-eyed baby was the 
 possible heir to Palgrave Chase. 
 
 The dissipated young father left his son in Margery Melwood's 
 ^re until the child was nearly ten years old. During all that 
 time the two boys, Humphrey Melwood and Gervoise Dudley 
 Palgrave, had lived together as brothers, sharing the same 
 rustic pleasures, rifling birds' nests in the bright spring 
 weather, blackberry-gathering in the sheltered country lanes, 
 hunting for hazel-nuts in the woods round the Chase, while my 
 lord the young Yiscount Castleford, the earl's only son, played 
 cricket with his aristocratic companions in the meadows at 
 Eton. 
 
 This boy, Yiscount Castleford, only stood between Humphrey 
 Melwood's foster-brother and a fortune. 
 
 By and by George Augustus Palgrave took his son to 
 London, and the boy grew up in the West-end lodging-house, 
 where his father lived a gay, bachelor life. The lad picked up 
 his education how he might; and that education was by no 
 means a good or a wise one, for George Augustus Davenant 
 Palgrave's friends were worthless, dissipated men, who had 
 wasted their fortunes and taken to living by their wits; and it 
 was from these men that Gervoise picked up his notions of right 
 and wrong. 
 
 It may be imagined, therefore, that those notions of good and 
 evil were by no means the clearest or the best. Gervoise was 
 clever, brave, proud, sometimes generous; but he had the 
 selfishness of the Palgrave race — that one dark stain which 
 had sullied the character of every Palgrave since Aldroband, 
 Baron of Haughton, had deserted the cause of Lancaster, and 
 attached himself to the usurping house of York for his own 
 advancement. Gervoise was selfish. His own happiness, his 
 own ease, were always most dear to him. He married an 
 ignorant, superficial girl for the love of her pretty face ; and 
 was angry with her when he found her a dull companion, a 
 fretful, complaining fellow-traveller upon the dreary road of 
 life. 
 
 It is possible that if Gervoise had been a better man, Agatha 
 might never have fallen to the depth of degradation to which 
 
The Gentleman Jockey who Bode Devilshoof. 201 
 
 she had sunk when her husband lost patience with the miseries 
 of his life, and deserted the woman who had become a horrible 
 and loathsome burden to him. He lay now upon the truss of 
 hay in Mr. Cadgers's canvas habitation, thinking of the past, 
 thinking of those early days in which he had wandered in 
 Palgrave woods with Humphrey Melwood, unconscious of his 
 aristocratic lineage, utterly ignorant that the young viscount, 
 who rode past the windows of the lodge upon his well-groomed 
 pony, was first cousin to the little ragamuffin who watched him 
 admiringly from behind the lattice. 
 
 " The world has been a pleasant place for Sydney Palgrave, 
 Earl of Haughton," the strolling painter muttered to himself 
 bitterly; "wealth and honour, a title, a noble estate, and a 
 high-born bride. The child who is to be born at Palgrave Chase 
 will have a different fate from my poor little one, whose best 
 friend is Nancy Cadgers, the showman's wife." 
 
 He heard the bell ringing for the great event of the day, the 
 steeplechase, in which Lord Haughton was to ride, and he went 
 out, with his face half-hidden under his slouched felt hat. 
 
 The racecourse described an irregular circle upon the hilly, 
 uneven ground of the heath. Gervoise Palgrave went down to 
 a spot where there was a sharp curve in the course. A dan- 
 gerous curve, people said, for many a horse, going at flying 
 speed, had locked his pastern joints in the sudden turn. 
 
 At this spot, naturally dangerous, a double six-foot fence had 
 been constructed, and beyond the second fence a ditch had been 
 sunk. This was the worst bit of ground the gentlemen riders 
 and their horses would have to encounter, and a group of the 
 knowing ones had clustered down here, in preference to posting 
 themselves upon the high ground near the stand, whence a 
 bird's-eye view of the course was to be had. 
 
 Here Gervoise stationed himself, with his folded arms rest- 
 ing upon the rough wooden barrier that bounded the race- 
 course. 
 
 He had been standing there about five minutes, listening to 
 the talk of the knowing ones gathered round him, but by no 
 means interested in their discussion of the dangers of this par- 
 ticular spot, when he heard a pair of horses reined up suddenly 
 upon the smooth turf behind him. 
 
 A woman's voice said gently, — 
 
 " This is the place, Bolton. This is the place which Lord 
 Haughton says is the most dangerous. I will stop here, if you 
 please." 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave looked round. A close carriage, with a 
 pair of splendid bays, had drawn up within a few paces of the 
 wooden barrier. The Haughton arms were emblazoned upon 
 tbe panels, the Haughton orest glistened upon the harness .; and 
 
202 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 a woman, with a beautiful aristocratic face, was looking ont of 
 the open window. 
 
 This woman was Eosalind Countess of Haughton. 
 
 A girl, a few years younger than the countess, simply dressed, 
 and looking like a humble companion, was seated opposite 
 Lady Haughton. 
 
 The countess looked with sad anxious eyes at the double fence, 
 the still water in the broad, yawning ditch. 
 
 " 0 Mary," she said in a low, tremulous voice, which was 
 audible to Gervoise, who stood close to the carnage, " O Mary, 
 what a dangerous place, what a horrible place ! I am convinced 
 that something will happen," 
 
 The girl smiled reassuringly. 
 
 "Pray do not think that, my lady," she said. "The earl 
 declared, again and again, that there was no real danger with 
 such a horse as Devilshoof. But, indeed, my lady, it was very, 
 very wrong of you to come. I don't know what my lord would 
 say if he knew that you were here." 
 
 " I could not stop away," the countess answered ; " I could 
 not endure the suspense, Mary. Think what agonies I must 
 have suffered had I stayed at the Chase hour after hour waiting 
 for Sydney's return." 
 
 " But if his lordship should see you?" remonstrated the com- 
 panion. 
 
 " He will not see me. He will not think of me in the excite- 
 ment of the race." 
 
 At this moment another bell rang, and a shout from the 
 crowd upon the grand stand announced that the horses had 
 started. 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave could not withdraw his eyes from the face 
 of the countess. The look of agony in that pale, anxious coun- 
 tenance had a strange fascination for him. 
 
 "They suffer, then, these prosperous people," he said to him- 
 self ; " these favourites of fortune suffer, as well as the outcasts 
 who envy them." 
 
 He heard the dull thud of the rushing hoofs upon the turf. 
 He turned, and the first two riders passed him almost abreast. 
 
 One of these foremost riders was Lord Haughton. 
 
 Pie was a handsome young man, not unlike Gervoise Pal- 
 grave. He sat his horse magnificently, and his white-satin 
 jacket, scarlet sleeves and cap flashed brightly in the sunshine 
 as he flew by. 
 
 The two riders flew triumphantly over the fences ; the horse' a 
 hoofs seemed scarcely to touch the ground in the space between 
 the first and second fence. The third rider was not quite so 
 fortunate; he cleared the two fences, but his horse plumped 
 down in the water with a loud splash, and the gentleman jockey 
 
The Gentleman Jockey wJio Socle Devihlwof. 203 
 
 was very nearly out of the saddle. He recovered himself very 
 cleverly, and flew after the foremost riders amid the cheers of 
 the bystanders. 
 
 The Countess of Haughton gave a faint, gasping cry as her 
 husband cleared the fences. 
 
 " Thank Heaven !" she murmured, " thank Heaven !" 
 
 But one of the lookers-on said to his companion, " They go 
 round again, don't they?" 
 
 " Yes, the}^re to ride twice round the course." 
 
 There was a pause. With straining eyes the eager watchers 
 of the race looked for the return of the riders. The interval 
 was brief enough, but it seemed long to many of those impa- 
 tient witnesses who had staked their money upon the issue of 
 the race. 
 
 The dare-devil earl's horse, Devilshoof, was the general 
 favourite. 
 
 " Lord Haughton 's safe to win," mattered one of the men 
 near Gervoise; "Devilshoof is a good name for his horse, for I 
 think he's got pluck enough to ride old Hick himself." 
 
 Again the rush of hoofs sounded upon the turf, and the three 
 riders came thundering down the hill. 
 
 This time Lord Haughton was half a quarter of a mile ahead 
 of his antagonists. 
 
 A great shout arose from all the lookers-on ; a hoaree, 
 triumphant cry ; the thunder of a thousand voices : — 
 
 "Devilshoof — Devilshoof wins! Ten to one on Devilshoof! 
 Twenty to one on Devilshoof!" 
 
 The earl rode his horse at the fence. He cleared the first ; 
 his horse flew like a cat at the second, caught his hind hoofs in 
 the light brushwood at the top of the fence, went plunging 
 down head foremost into the water, and shot his rider off half 
 a dozen yards ahead upon the turf. 
 
 The noble young rider in the white-satin jacket and scarlet 
 sleeves fell like a log, and lay like a log. 
 
 A long, hideous shriek rang through the summer air. There 
 was a moment's breathless pause; and then a sturdy farmer 
 broke from the crowd, jumped across the barrier, and dragged 
 the figure in the satin jacket off the course as the two horses 
 came tearing over the fences. 
 
 Devilshoof made a feeble effort to scramble up out of the 
 water, but fell again. The horse's head flew up as if he had 
 been stiffly reined-in — a sure symptom to the knowing ones that 
 his back was broken. 
 
 The man who dragged the earl off the course laid him down 
 on his back upon the grass ; and the terrified crowd gathered 
 round that prostrate figure, 
 
 A couple of medical men came hurrying down from the 
 
204 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 grand stand, whence tliey had seen the accident. One of them 
 knelt down and laid his hand upon the young man's breast. 
 He turned very pale as he did so. Then he hastily opened 
 the satin jacket, put his hand under the earl's shirt, and 
 listened. 
 
 He listened with his head lowered almost to the level of the 
 prostrate man's breast. It seemed as if every creature in that 
 dense crowd waited with suspended breath to know the issue of 
 the doctor's examination. 
 
 Presently the medical man looked up. 
 
 " Get the countess away," he said to the other doctor. " I 
 saw her carriage just now, on the other side of the course. 
 Get her away by any means. She must not know what has 
 happened." 
 
 " What is it — what is it ? Is he dead ? 99 gasped the foremost 
 people in the crowd simultaneously. 
 
 The medical man did not answer them. He was talking to 
 his colleague in a low voice. 
 
 " Death must have been instantaneous," he said. " Concus- 
 sion of the brain, no doubt. Get the countess away, my dear 
 Morgan, and directly. The news will spread like wild-fire, and 
 if you don't take care you'll be too late." 
 
 He was too late. A frantic woman with a ghastly face broke 
 through the crowd as the medical man spoke. That woman 
 was Eosalind Countess of Haughton. People recognised her, 
 and tried to stop her ; they might as well have endeavoured to 
 stop a whirlwind. 
 
 She rushed into the open space round the dead man, and flung 
 herself upon her knees by his side. 
 
 She looked at the livid face, the wide-open eyes, with such 
 anguish in her own gaze as must have moved the hardest heart 
 to pity. Then she clasped her hands and looked up at the two 
 medical men. One of them was the doctor who attended all 
 minor ailments in the household at Palgrave Chase. 
 
 "Is he dead?" she cried; "is he dead? It seems like death 
 to me ; but it can't be — it can't be ! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Morgan, 
 why do you stand there like that ? Why don't you do some- 
 thing for my husband ? Are you mad ? Why do you let him 
 lie here ? It's only a fainting-fit. 0, for pity's sake, do some- 
 thing for him ! I tell you he has only fainted ! Why don't 
 you help him ? Why " 
 
 She broke into a wild, hysterical laugh, and fell senseless upon 
 that lifeless body. The medical men lifted her up, and carried 
 her across the course to her carriage, which had never moved ; 
 one of them got into the carriage with the countess, and laid 
 her oh the seat. Mary Wood, the companion, supported the 
 unconscious woman in her arms. 
 
The Gentleman Jockey who Bode DeviLhoof. 205 
 
 " Home!" cried the doctor to the coacliman; "and as fast ?a 
 yon can go." 
 
 The windows were drawn np, the carriage drove away. 
 
 There was no one to witness its departure. Everybody on 
 that part of the course was crowded around the spot where tho 
 young lord lay. 
 
 Gervoise had been one of the first to rush to that spot. He 
 stood foremost among the circle gathered round the motionless 
 figure in the satin jacket, staring blankly down at the dead 
 man's face. His own face was almost as colourless as the livid 
 countenance of the dead. He was stupefied by the suddenness 
 of the catastrophe; and he could only stand there, silently 
 staring ; powerless to move, almost unable to think 
 
 Far away he heard the braying of brazen trumpets, harsh 
 and discordant, the clashing of cymbals, the beating of drums, 
 the hoarse voices of the showmen clamouring to the crowd. The 
 news of the accident had not yet circulated amongst the country 
 people in the fair. 
 
 The stewards of the races consulted together, and it was 
 arranged by general consent that there should be no more races 
 upoD that day ; so much respect, at least, should be paid to the 
 lord of Palgrave Chase. 
 
 Had it been a professional jockey who had been killed, it would 
 have been, of course, quite a different matter. The awkward 
 business would have been hushed up, and the day's sport would 
 have proceeded without interruption. 
 
 One of the doors belonging to the refreshment-rooms below 
 the grand stand was torn from its hinges, and upon this rough 
 litter the dead man was laid. They covered the lifeless figure 
 with a carriage.-rug, and carried their dismal burden away to- 
 wards a short cut that led through the meadows to Avondale. 
 The surgeon walked by the side of the litter. 
 
 The horse, Devilshoof, was shot through the head. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ^ING IS DEAD: LONG LIV2 THE KING? 
 
 Even after that gloomy procession had moved away, Gervoise 
 Palgrave stood near the spot upon which his dead kinsman had 
 been lying. Bewildered and terror-stricken, he had not yet been 
 able to shake off the utter stupefaction of mingled surprise and 
 horror, or to think calmly of the event that had just happened 
 His cousin was dead. The principal barrier that had stood 
 between himself and fortune was suddenly swept away; and 
 
306 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 what obstacle remained ? Only the unborn child,, the heir thai 
 was expected at Palgrave Chase. 
 
 If that child should be a girl, Gervoise Palgrave would be 
 Earl of Haughton. 
 
 The young man passed his hand across his hot forehead. 
 
 " Great God," he muttered to himself, " I think I must be 
 going mad ! A wretch tramping about the streets of London 
 in search of bread only a few weeks ago; and perhaps the 
 master of Palgrave Chase, and one of the first men in Warwick- 
 shire to-morrow. Bah!" he cried suddenly, shrugging his 
 shoulders with a contemptuous gesture, " am I a fool, that I 
 stand here dreaming of these things ? Is it like my luck that 
 this should happen ? No, the child will be a boy ; and the joy- 
 peal will ring for the birth of the new lord before the funeral 
 bell has tolled for his father's death." 
 
 The crowd had dispersed after the departure of the men who 
 carried the Earl of Haughton's body, and Gervoise was alone in 
 the little valley near the fatal double fence. He walked away 
 from the racecourse to the loneliest part of the common, scarcely 
 knowing whither he went; but he still heard the braying ot 
 brazen trumpets, the clashing of cymbals, the beating of 
 drums, and the hoarse voices of the showmen clamouring to 
 the crowd. 
 
 The tidings of the young lord's death had penetrated to the 
 remotest part of the common by this time ; but still the fair 
 went on. The country people had come a long way for their 
 day's pleasure, and were not to be cheated out of their enjoy- 
 ment. The interruption and postponement of the races was a 
 very good thing for the merchants and showmen, the circuses 
 and merry-go-rounds, and the fair was doing splendidly. 
 
 Little Georgey Palgrave, kinsman to the dead man, was 
 dancing gaily on the platform before Mr. Cadgers's booth, with 
 coloured ribbons round his boyish head. 
 
 It was twilight by the time Gervoise Palgrave returned to the 
 tent of his employer. The troupe had eaten their dinner, and 
 kind-hearted Nancy Cadgers had put aside a plate of cold ham 
 and sausages, with half a loaf of bread, and some beer in a 
 stone - bottle, for the scene-painter ; but Gervoise could eat 
 nothing. He took two or three mouth fuls of bread, drank a 
 brief draught of ale, and then lighted his pipe, and flung him- 
 self once more upon the truss of hay. 
 
 The show was still going on. He could hear the horses' hoofs 
 upon the sawdust, the slashing of whips, the tinkling of bells, 
 the merry laughter and loud applause of the audience, and the 
 " Houp la, loupe ! " of the ring-master. Then the horses rested, 
 and the gloomy clown, Herr von Yolterchoker, amused the 
 £*4alic. 
 
The King is Bead: Long Live tie King I 207 
 
 The noise seemed deafening and bewildering to the overheated 
 brain of Gervoise Palgrave. He clasped his hands upon hi? 
 forehead and tried to think ; but he could not collect his thoughts. 
 A confusion of light and colour danced before his dazzled eyes. 
 It seemed to him as if the horses in the ring were rushing round 
 and round in his own distempered brain. He had lain like this 
 for about an hour, smoking his short, blackened pipe, and trying 
 to think, when the canvas that separated this corner of tl a 
 booth from the ring was divided, and a man's face looked through 
 the division ; a dark, sinister-looking countenance, framed with 
 grizzled hair. It was the face of Herr von Yolterchoker, th^ 
 dismal clown. He watched Gervoise for some minutes before 
 he spoke ; but the young man was quite unconscious of the 
 watchful gaze of those black, fierce-looking eyes. 
 
 "You're uncommonly quiet in there, " the clown said at 
 last. 
 
 Gervoise looked up with a start. 
 
 " Yes," he said absently ; " I'm tired." 
 
 " You seem so. Have you heard the news ? 99 
 
 "What news?" 
 
 "Why, the news that's just come to the fair. There's a 
 new master at Palgrave Chase ; a master that isn't two hours 
 old yet." 
 
 " A boy !" gasped Gervoise. 
 
 "Yes, her ladyship's baby is a boy. The news of the young 
 vermin's birth is upon everybody's lips." 
 
 " Mr. Merriman, Mr. Merriman ! " cried a voice from the ring. 
 " Come here, Mr. Merriman, and tell these ladies and gentlemen 
 what is the difference between my wife's tin tea-kettle and the 
 Hemperor of Roosia ! " 
 
 The clown closed the canvas division and went back into the 
 ring. Gervoise Palgrave covered his face with his hands and 
 sobbed aloud. 
 
 Then he knew, for the first time, that he had hoped to succeed 
 to his kinsman's title and fortune. After his first horror ct the 
 earl's sudden death, hope had sprung up in his heart — a wild 
 desperate hope, that had almost maddened him. His manhood 
 gave way before this horrible disappointment. 
 
 He sat motionless, with his fa?e buried in his hands, for some 
 time. Then he was aroused by little soft fingers, which twined 
 themselves about his own, and tried to pull his hands away Syoi 
 his face. 
 
 " Papa, papa !" cried a childish voice. 
 
 Gervoise uncovered his head and looked up. The boy George 
 stood before him in his fantastical dress, smiling at his father. 
 
 " I want to go to sleep, papa," he said ; " I'm so tired, and my 
 sew mammy told me I was to come to you," 
 
208 
 
 Lost and 'Found. 
 
 The child called the friendly Nancy Cadgers his new mammy. 
 The showman's wife had been very good to George, who was not 
 accustomed to kindness — from a woman. 
 
 Gervoise took the boy up in his arms, wrapped him in a 
 shabby greatcoat, and laid him down upon the hay. 
 
 ''The new-born earl lies in a cradle sheltered with curtains of 
 sv^ and lace, I daresay,'* he muttered to himself, as he watched 
 the child's face, " but my boy is a beggar's brat, and is glad to 
 sleep on such a bed as a dog might lie upon." 
 
 He filled and lighted his pipe again, and sat down upon an 
 empty beer-cask. He watched the sleeping child with a gloomy 
 face. Dark, angry thoughts were busy in his breast. He hated 
 the young countess and her two-hours-old babe. 
 
 It was past ten o'clock, but the uproar of the fair was louder 
 than ever. The horses were still cantering round amidst tho 
 sawdust in the ring, the trumpets were braying, the drums 
 sounding. Gervoise Palgrave sat in the same attitude for 
 nearly half an hour, smoking slowly, and watching his sleeping 
 child. 
 
 Suddenly the canvas which divided the booth from the open 
 common was lifted, and a young man, hot, breathless, and pant- 
 ing, burst into the tent. 
 
 Gervoise sprang to his feet. The young man was Humphrey 
 Melwood, the under-gamekeeper of Palgrave Chase. His face 
 was flushed, his eyes were bright with excitement. He flung 
 himself upon his knees on the ground, and kissed Gervoise 
 Palgrave's hands. 
 
 "Master!" he cried, "brother! I've run here like a madman. 
 I can scarce get breath, to speak. My wish has come, Lotd 
 Haughton — Lord Haughton ! There's nobody but me knows 
 you're here, and I'm first to tell you — I'm first to cry huzza for 
 the new master of Palgrave Chase !" 
 
 Humphrey Melwood raised his voice as he said this. Once 
 more the canvas was divided and the face of the clown appeared 
 in the narrow opening. But the eager face of the spy was 
 nnperceived by the two men ; Gervoise and his foster-brother 
 stood with their backs towards Herr von Yolterchoker. For an 
 instant Gervoise stood staring vacantly at his foster-brother. 
 
 " You are mad, Humphrey," he cried half angrily ; " you are 
 mad!" 
 
 " No, not mad, Master Gervoise, but like to be," answered 
 the young man. " You are Earl of Haughton ! Last night 
 you were walking about Avondale afraid to show yourself in 
 your shabby clothes, wild and desperate, talking about ending 
 your days in the river; to-night you are the master of Palgrave 
 Chase. The poor countess is dying ; the child died within an 
 hour of its birth." 
 
The King is Bead: Long Live tlie King! 209 
 
 " Dead!" 
 
 " Yes, Master Crervoise. Ah, my lord — I mustn't call you 
 Master Gervoise any longer — the days are gone for ever when I 
 might call you brother." 
 
 " No, no, Humphrey — no, no," answered Gervoise. " If this 
 is all true— if it is not some distempered dream, as it seems to 
 me it must be — why then I will be more your brother than 
 ever. Adversity is a hard master, Humphrey ; and those who 
 suffer are apt to think very little of the sufferings of others. 
 But prosperity softens a man's heart. I'll be a true friend to 
 you, Humphrey." 
 
 He held out his hand as Be spoke, and grasped the horny 
 fingers of the gamekeeper. 
 
 " Bless you for those words, Master Gervoise ! The world 
 will be all at your feet now, and money 's very powerful ; but for 
 all it's so powerful, there are some things it can't do, and those 
 are just the very things that a faithful friend can do. You see 
 this arm, Master Gervoise," cried the gamekeeper, stretching 
 out his muscular right arm and clenching his powerful fist; 
 " there's many about Avondale as could tell you that it isn't a 
 weak one. If there's any one that wronged you, I'd as lief strike 
 him down with that arm as I'd crush a worm that came in my 
 pathway. It's not many people I care for, Master Gervoise, but 
 there's something more than common in the love I bear you ; I 
 must have sucked it in with my mother's milk, I suppose, for 
 it seems as if it was mixed with the blood that runs in my veins, 
 and I think every drop of that blood would turn to liquid fire 
 if I knew that any one had injured you. Heaven help them 
 
 pathway ! " 
 
 The young man's eyes flamed as he spoke, but Gervoise 
 Palgrave scarcely heeded him. He was standing quite still, 
 looking down at the child asleep upon the hay. 
 
 " For his sake," he muttered — " if I were not thankful for my 
 own sake, how glad I ought to be for him ! — I will try and be a 
 good man, and deserve the fortune that has come to me." 
 
 He said this to himself ; then he cried aloud, — 
 
 " Come out into the air, Humphrey ; I shall choke, I shall 
 faint, if I stay in this stifling place." 
 
 He lifted the canvas and went out, followed by the game- 
 keeper. The naphtha lamps were flaming against the purple of 
 the sky. The thousand voices of the clamorous crowd mingled 
 in one loud uproar. 
 
 As the two young men left the tent, Herr von Volterchoker 
 parted the canvas, and came through the opening into th© 
 place where little Georgey lay asleep. 
 
 Heaven keep 'em safe out of my 
 
210 
 
 Lost and Found, 
 
 CHAPTER YIL 
 
 LOST. 
 
 The new lord of Haughtou and his foster-brother waited away 
 from the crowded avenues where the country people were 
 clustered about the stalls. They left the noise and confusion of 
 the fair behind them, and went down into the hollow in which 
 Sydney Earl of Haughton met his untimely death. 
 
 " It seems to me as if it couldn't be true," Gervoise said ; 
 " it's too sadden, too strange." 
 
 "But it's true, Master Gervoise, for all that," answered 
 Humphrey. "Mother went up to the great house when she 
 heard that my lord was killed, and my lady brought home in a 
 dying state, as folks said. She went up to the house, and she 
 was in the servants'-hall when the news of the baby's birth was 
 brought from my lady's room, and she was there when the news 
 of his death came, less than an hour afterwards. Poor little 
 fellow, he was born before his time, the doctors say, and the 
 countess was said to be dying when I came away. I'm sorry 
 for her, poor lady. She was proud, but she was kind and 
 charitable, for all that, and she loved the very ground my lord 
 walked on. If he'd listened to her he wouldn't have ridden 
 Devilshoof to-day, for they say she went down upon her knees 
 to him to prevent him ; but he wouldn't listen to her. So it 
 was his selfishness that caused his death." 
 
 Selfishness, the one blemish upon the character of almost 
 every scion of the house of Palgrave; selfishness, which was 
 now paramount in the breast of Gervoise, now lord of Palgrave 
 Chase, for he could not think of the heart-broken wife's despair, 
 the young mother's bitter agony ; he could only think of him* 
 self, his own unparalleled good fortune. 
 
 "Nobody must know that I have been down here, Hum- 
 phrey," he said ; " nobody must ever know that I have fallen 
 bo low as to be the companion of a wandering showman and 
 his vulgar troupe. Messrs. Peck and Featherby, of Gray's Inn, 
 were the Earl of Haughton's lawyers. They knew my father 
 well, and they have known me from my boyhood. They have 
 the certificate of my father's marriage, my own birth, and all 
 documents necessary to my identification. I shall go up to 
 London by the first train to-morrow morning, and go straight 
 to them. But I cannot take Georgey with me. The child 
 would be a hindrance to me at such a time as this. Will you* 
 take him to your mother's cottage, Humphrey, and look afte?" 
 him until I come back to Warwickshire ? " 
 
Z®9& 213 
 
 "Will t, Master Gervoise?" cried the gamekeeper. "Ay, 
 that I will, and watch over him as I would over the crown- 
 jewels if I was trusted with the care of them." 
 
 " Thanks, Humphrey. I know I can trust you. You talked 
 about money last night, and I refused your offer ; to-night I'll 
 borrow a couple of sovereigns of you, if you have got so much 
 about you." 
 
 "I have* Master Gervoise," answered the young man; " I'm 
 a steady chap now, though I have been such a precious wild one* 
 and I've saved a pound or two out of my wages*" 
 
 The gamekeeper took a washleather purse from his pocket, 
 unrolled it, and produced three sovereigns. 
 
 "Three's better than two, Master Gervoise," he said; "you'd 
 better take the lot." 
 
 " I will, Humphrey," answered Gervoise Palgrave, " for I can 
 afford to pay you fifty-fold when I come back. This will take 
 me up to London; Peck and Peatherby will lend me plenty 
 of money when I get there. You'll take care of the boy, 
 Humphrey. He's very dear to me." 
 
 " Then he shall be dearer to me than if he was my own, 
 Master Gervoise," cried the gamekeeper. 
 
 " You may as well take him home to-night, then," said his 
 foster-brother ; " these people have been very good to him, and 
 I shall take care to reward them for their goodness, by and by. 
 But I don't want them to know who I am, or anything about 
 me ; so I should like to get the boy away quietly." 
 
 The earl and his foster-brother walked back towards Mr. 
 Cadgers's booth. 
 
 The glory of the fair was over now, for it was past mid- 
 night ; the fires were dying slowly out ; many of the lights had 
 been extinguished. The crowd had thinned; only drunkards 
 and dissipated men and women, the inveterate and insatiably 
 pleasure-seekers, still lingered in the alleys between the stalls, 
 and in the open spaces before the shows. 
 
 Mr. Cadgers had shut up his establishment for the night, and 
 the front of the circus was dark. 
 
 As Gervoise and Humphrey came within a few paces of the 
 canvas opening at the back of the booth, they saw a tall, gaunt 
 figure coming towards them, and the Earl of Haughton recog- 
 nised his late associate, Herr von Yolterchoker, the clown. 
 
 He came up them and looked at Gervoise with an expres* 
 Bion of surprise. 
 
 " Where's the boy ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 "What boy?" 
 What boy ! — why little Georgey, of course." 
 
 *' Where should he be," returned Gervoise, " except where 1 
 
Lost and Pound. 
 
 left him — on the truss of hay in there ? " He pointed to th« 
 
 booth as he spoke. 
 
 "Didn't you take him with you, then?" cried the clown. 
 
 "No," answered Gervoise, his face blanched with sudden 
 fear. " Why do you ask me ? " he cried ; " the boy is in there, 
 I tell you. I left him there a quarter of an hour ago, asleep 
 upon the hay." 
 
 " He's not there now, then," answered the clown. " Mra 
 Cadgers wants to put him to bed with the other lads, and has 
 been looking for him everywhere. I told her you were out, and 
 I thought, of course, you'd taken the child with you." 
 
 " No, no, no ! " exclaimed Gervoise ; "I left him there asleep, 
 lie must have got up and gone out into the fair to look at the 
 other shows. He can't be far away. You go one way, Yolter- 
 choker, there's a good chap, while I go the other ; we shall find 
 him in five minutes, I daresay." 
 
 " I daresay we shall," answered the clown. " O, by the bye, 
 there's been a woman here inquiring for you." 
 
 " A woman !" exclaimed Gervoise ; " a woman inquiring for 
 me ?" 
 
 " Yes ; and very anxious she seemed to see yon." 
 " Did she ask for Mr. Jarvis ?" 
 
 " No ; she asked for some such name as Gil — stay ! — Gilbert," 
 answered the clown, speaking slowly, and watching Gervoise'a 
 face as he spoke. 
 
 " Gervoise Gilbert?" 
 
 "Yes, Gervoise Gilbert." 
 
 " Was she a young woman with black eyes and hair ?" 
 
 " She was." 
 
 " Was it before you missed the child or after, that yon saw 
 this woman ?" 
 
 " About five minutes before. She said she'd wait to see you, 
 and I left her standing close to the opening in the canvas. I 
 went round to the front of the circus to help Cadgers put out 
 the lights. When I came back the woman was gone." 
 
 "And the child was gone, too?" cried Gervoise. 
 
 " Yes ; it was after that we missed the boy." 
 
 "Then I understand it all!" exclaimed Gervoise Palgrave 
 passionately. " The child has been stolen — my boy has been 
 stolen by * 
 
 He stopped abruptly. 
 
 "By whom, Master Gervoise?" asked Humphrey Melwood. 
 
 " By the person who is the worst enemy he has in the world. 
 Look you, Humphrey, and you, Yolterchoker," cried Gervoise 
 impetuously, " you can both help me in this business. That 
 woman has stolen the child; but she cannot have got far away 
 
Lost 
 
 2V4 
 
 yet. If we all tliree go different ways we may find her. You 
 will recognise her, Volterchoker. You may know her easily, 
 Humphrey — a dark woman with a fair-haired child. Run, run 
 good fellows. You shan't find me slow to reward you." 
 
 The tliree men separated. They went into the alleys between 
 the gingerbread stalls, they searched the open spaces before the 
 booths, they looked into every place where it was likely the 
 woman might have hidden, they made inquiries of every creature 
 they met ; but their efforts were useless — they could discover 
 no trace of the woman or the child. They wandered about, 
 meeting one another every now and then, and communicating 
 their bad fortune. They walked about until two o'clock in the 
 morning. Every light was extinguished ; it seemed as if every 
 creature except these three men slept peacefully under the 
 shelter of the canvas booths. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker was as indefatigable as either of his 
 companions. He made inquiries right and left of his comrades 
 in the fair. Nearly everybody knew him and answered him 
 civilly, and tried to give him what help they could ; and so, 
 indeed, did they show themselves willing to aid all three 
 searchers. There was only one man, a surly -looking Italian, 
 who was grinding away at a barrel-organ, and putting a tired 
 monkey through a series of grotesque performanses, who 
 answered at all uncivilly when Gervoise Palgrave questioned 
 him. 
 
 At last, when the Italian had left off grinding, and tfoe 
 monkey was at rest — when the silent tents were as quiet be- 
 neath the moonlight as the ghostly camp of some phantom 
 army, and the solemn sound of Avondale church clock striking 
 two floated up to the hilly common on the soft autumn air — 
 the three men abandoned all hope, and went back towards Mr. 
 Cadgers' s booth. 
 
 "I thank you both," Gervoise Palgrave said; "and before 
 a week is out, I will reward you both. I know the person 
 who has taken the child, and, by the heaven above us, she 
 shall be made to restore him to me ! Good-night, Humphrey/' 
 
 He held out his hand to the gamekeeper, who grasped it 
 warmly in both his own. 
 
 " Cheer up, Master Gervoise," he said ; the child will be 
 found, never doubt. But where will you sleep to-night ?" 
 
 "I don't suppose I shall sleep at all, Humphrey, for tlw 
 matter of that," Gervoise answered " I shall go down tc 
 Avondale at once, and put this business into the hands of the 
 police." 
 
 " Then I'll go with you, Mr. Gervoise," said the gamekeeper. 
 The two men went away together down the hill and through 
 the meadows, into the quiet little town. They went straight k? 
 
214 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 the police-station, and knocked up the officials. Gervoise .state/ 
 his case, described the woman and child, and told the police- 
 officer to issue a bill, offering a reward of a hundred pounds for 
 the finding of the boy. Gervoise told the man who he was, 
 under a pledge of secrecy ; and Humphrey Melwood, who was 
 well-known to the police-officer, corroborated his foster-brother. 
 The first glimmer of morning light was gray in the eastern sky J 
 6y the time Gervoise went back to the booth upon the com- 
 mon. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker lay fast asleep upon a heap of loose 
 /straw in a corner of the circus when Gervoise entered the tent ; 
 but he had not been asleep long. He had returned through the 
 silent alleys in the fair during the new earl's absence, and had 
 found a feeble light glimmering in the caravan of the Italian 
 organ-grinder. The clown had stopped at the door of this 
 tent, talking to the Italian itinerant for about a quarter of an 
 hour, and had then gone slowly back to Mr. Cadgers' s estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 When the sun rose next morning, and the traders and show- 
 men made their preparations for the second day's fair, there 
 was no trace of the organ-grinder and the monkey. He had 
 departed from Avondale common in the early morning, with the 
 organ and the monkey, in his gaudily-painted little caravan. 
 
 Early upon that second day of the fair, Gervoise travelled up 
 to London, and went straight to the offices of Messrs. Peck and 
 Featherby. They had not heard of the accident at Avondale, 
 and it was as much as they could do to believe Gervoise 
 Palgrave's account' of the steeplechase, and the death of the 
 new-born heir. But they did believe him at last, and congra- 
 tulated him most heartily upon his unexpected good fortune, 
 It mattered very little to Messrs. Peck and Featherby whether 
 their client was Sydney Earl of Haughton, or Gervoise Earl of 
 Haughton, so long as he gave them plenty of law-business to 
 do, and paid long bills of costs without any vulgar examination 
 or taxation of tho same. 
 
 So there had been a sudden turn in the wheel of Fortune, 
 and the penniless outcast was now the acknowledged master of 
 Palgrave Chase ; but a feeling of bitterness was mingled with 
 his triumph, a drop of poison in the wine of life. The child for 
 whose sake he had often prayed for fortune was lost to him, for 
 a time at least ; perhaps for ever. The boy had fallen into the 
 power of that cruel and drunken mother, and if the new Earl of 
 Haughton acknowledged his only son, he must also acknowledge 
 his drunken wife. 
 
 The selfishness of the Palgrave race triumphed evea over the 
 feelings of the father. 
 
 " Better that I should lose the son I love than that I should 
 
Lost. 
 
 215 
 
 burden myself with the wife I hate," thought Gervoise Palgrave, 
 as he drove away from Gray's Inn with a cheque for a hundred 
 pounds in his pocket, advanced by Messrs. Peck and Feather by, 
 for his immediate requirements. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A NEW LIFE AND A NEW LOVE. 
 
 The funeral of the Earl and Countess of Haughton was one of 
 the grandest ceremonials ever beheld by the wondering eyes of 
 Avondale within this present generation. Not since Elizabeth 
 of England and her attendant train of all the flower of English 
 nobility had ridden down the street, had there been a grander 
 scene than these solemn funeral pomps furnished for the curious 
 townsfolk, and the vast crowd of spectators who pressed into the 
 town from ail the country side. 
 
 The earl and his countess had been liked, and the regret felt 
 for their sudden and melancholy fate was sincere and profound; 
 but those who mourned for the king that was dead, were none 
 the less interested in the sovereign who reigned in his place, and 
 eager were the glances cast at Gervoise Palgrave, seventh Earl 
 of Haughton, the chief mourner in that solemn train of sable 
 chariots and horses, and plume- surmounted, silver-blazoned 
 hearse. 
 
 The crowd pronounced the new earl a true Palgrave, as indeed 
 he was, to the very core of his heart. Within a month of the 
 funeral he took possession of Palgrave ChaSe, quietly, and 
 without unnecessary demonstration of his new authority. The 
 old servants he retained without exception. Humphrey Mel- 
 wood's position he improved so far as that very self-willed 
 individual would allow it to be improved, and this was to no 
 very great extent. 
 
 " Let me serve you, sir ; that's the only favour I ask, and 
 that's the only favour I'll receive," said the young man reso- 
 lutely. 
 
 Gervoise improved the gothic lodge with some additional con- 
 veniences for the comfort of his old nurse, to whom he presented 
 a hundred-pound bank-note to buy her a new gown, as he said ; 
 and the dame, bewildered by the idea of such vast wealth, cried 
 over and kissed him, declaring that she had always prophesied 
 his greatness. 
 
 There are few nobler places in England than the mansion, 
 park, and woods known as Palgrave Chase. A great quadran- 
 
216 
 
 Lost and "Found. 
 
 gular edifice of gray stone, surmounted at every angle by a 
 massive gothic tower. On the southern and principal side, a 
 range of three terraces, with stone balustrades, and broad nights 
 cf shallow steps. Within the quadrangle, a noble court, stone 
 paved, with a sculptured fountain, Neptune and a group of 
 sea-horses, in the centre. On the northern side, a range of 
 gothic windows, terminating at each extremity with an oriel in 
 the tower, looking down upon a broad rushing stream which 
 crosses the park and woods of Palgrave Chase on its way to 
 join the Avon. 
 
 Of this grand old mansion, of park and woods, of farm-lands 
 and homesteads, the leasee whereof filled three large tin boxes, 
 in the iron safes of the Palgrave muniment-room, was Gervoise 
 master ; he who had found it a hard and difficult thing to pay 
 the weekly rent of a garret in St. Giles's. 
 
 The sense of pride and rapture which went with this sudden, 
 bewildering change of fortune, somewhat deadened the pain of 
 that one bitter grief which had come upon him in the very hour 
 of his triumph; but despite of this, the grief was poignant. 
 His son, the boy who had been so sweet a care, so dear a com- 
 panion in the day of his trouble, was lost to him in the day of 
 his joy. By that broad, stream glancing silvery bright beneath 
 the dark foliage of forest-trees, those two should have wandered 
 hand in hand; and the father paced the green turf alone, 
 despondent. How sweetly the dear familiar childish voice 
 would have echoed in those long stately corridors. But the 
 corridors were silent as the grave, and the father felt that in all 
 their splendour they were gloomy. 
 
 The earl omitted to take no step that could be taken to 
 recover the missing child; but all his efforts were fruitless. 
 Skilful detectives searched London for the little one, whom 
 they were taught to recognise by the initials tattooed upon his 
 wrist; but they sought in vain. In his intercourse with the 
 Avondale police-constable, Gervoise had taken care to conceal 
 his relationship to the child. In his intercourse with the metro- 
 politan police he was still more cautious, and concealed his own 
 identity, securing their confidence by liberal advances in the 
 present, and their hearty co-operation by munificent promises 
 for Jthe future. All was without avail. In the great labyrinth 
 of life the boy Georgey had vanished utterly from the ken of 
 skilled detectives. 
 
 For a time, Gervoise Palgrave mourned his child honestly. 
 He refused all invitations from those new county friends who 
 had been so " uncommonly fond of that thundering rascal, but 
 remarkably gentlemanly fellow, his father, you know," and 
 wanted " to do the civil thing for the fellow, you know ; and 
 introduce him to the big-wigs, and so on, you know." All 
 
A. New Life and a New Love* 
 
 217 
 
 these invitations from strangers eager to do him service, Lord 
 Haughton politely refused. He lived shut up in the luxurious 
 suite of apartments that had been fitted up for the last earl, 
 whose meerschaum-pipes he smoked, and whose horses he rode; 
 for the last master of the Chase had not been given to pious 
 meditation, or philosophical argument on the uncertainty of 
 ^ life, and had died intestate, whereby his personal, as well as 
 his real, property passed to the cousin of whom he knew bo 
 little. 
 
 For a time, Gervoise mourned honestly ; but with the thought 
 of his son's disappearance was ever mingled the dread of his 
 wife's reappearance. 
 
 " She knows nothing of my altered fortunes," he said to him- 
 self, " or she'd be here, soon enough, to drag me into the muC 
 And to think that she should have traced me to Avondale, 
 should have been there that very night, and should have turned 
 her back upon me, ignorant of my altered fortunes ! " 
 
 Time passed, and the poignancy of his grief lessened, and 
 this intense feeling was followed by an utter weariness, a sense 
 of the emptiness of his new life. The cup at first had seemed 
 all sweetness save for that one drop of poison. Now it seemed 
 vapid and tasteless, if not all poison. To live in that hand- 
 some house ; to dine off plate that had been in the Palgrave 
 plate-room since the Restoration, before which historic event 
 it had been pledged to Dutch money-lenders for the service 
 of the King; to ride a horse worth three hundred pounds; 
 to sleep in the shade of black-velvet curtains whose heraldic 
 embroideries in gold bullion and rose- silk had been worked in 
 the days of Queen Bess ; — all these things after a little while 
 ceased to delight the soul of Gervoise Palgrave. There was a 
 void somewhere. 
 
 Early in November he determined to try whether this void 
 in his soul could be filled by the pleasures of the chase. He 
 appeared in the hunting- field, where he followed the Palgrave 
 hounds, which he had pledged himself to maintain in all per- 
 fection, and showed himself a very fair horseman. 
 
 The county people were delighted. They declared that hia 
 seclusion during the period of mourning for the late earl and 
 countess did credit alike to his head and heart; for no one 
 supposed that the new earl could have any special grief of his 
 own to keep him in the solitude of his ancestral halls. 
 
 His appearance in the hunting-field was taken as a sign 
 that the period of his seclusion was ended. He was besieged 
 with invitations ; and one of these, in a most evil hour, he 
 accepted. 
 
 It was an invitation to a hunting-breakfast at Sir Langley 
 Hurst's, a man of some standing in the county, but a man who 
 
218 
 
 Lost and Mound. 
 
 owed his weaMi and title to commerce. Sir Langley was a 
 great man in the iron trade. His father, an<£ his grandfather 
 ' before him, had made fortunes out of iron, and his elder brother 
 had died three years before this date, leaving a million of 
 money — or an amount which Avondale and its neighbour- 
 hood were pleased to call a million — to an only child, a girl 
 of nineteen. 
 
 This youthful millionaire, Ethel Hurst, resided under her 
 uncle's roof, and was the darling of that wealthy baronet's 
 household. Sir Langley boasted a patriarchal family of sons 
 and daughters; amongst them there was one to whom Ethel 
 was something dearer than cousin. This was Stephen Hurst, 
 the baronet's second son, who had taken high honours at Oxford, 
 and for whom his father's political influence had secured the 
 living of Pendon, a pleasant settlement, something betwixt 
 an overgrown village and a newly-blossoming town, between 
 Avondale and Hyford Hall, the bran-new red-brick Elizabethan 
 mansion of the Hursts. 
 
 Ethel's wealth was partly derived from a very fine agricul- 
 tural estate in the county, certain frontages and odd lots 
 whereof were just beginning to ripen into building-land, and 
 partly from very considerable investments in Consols. A finer 
 fortune does not often fall to the lot of a light-hearted, unso- 
 phisticated damsel of nineteen, whose personal expenditure, 
 inclusive of bounteous charities, had never exceeded five hundred 
 a-year. 
 
 For Stephen Hurst's poor, Ethel was the sweetest of minister- 
 ing angels ; for Stephen himself she was but too sweet, too lovely, 
 too dear, since his clear perception had long ago enabled him to 
 make a bitter discovery in the fact that, however dear Ethel 
 might be to him, he was no more to Ethel than — a c ousin. Sir 
 Langley's fondest hope had been that Ethel and his eldest son, 
 Gordon Pa] grave, godson of the old Lord Haughton, and captain 
 in a crack Hussar regiment, would make a match of it, and thus 
 unite the two branches of the Hursts, and the fine properties of 
 Hyford and Culverly. 
 
 But the paternal scheme was not destined to prosper. Gordon 
 Palgrave, the handsome young captain of Hussars, whose name, 
 in the choice language of his comrades, " stunk of money," 
 had been spoiled by garrison belles of the fast and furious 
 order, and stigmatised his prestv cousin with the vile epithet 
 "muffish." 
 
 " Goes about with flannel and tea and tracts to queer old 
 parties in cottages," said the young Brummel; "teaches in 
 national schools, and pats the dirty little ruffians' heads, and 
 chat kind of thing. Couldn't stand that in a wife, you know. 
 Jourse, man who marries must prepare himself for a good 
 
A New Life and a New Love 
 
 219 
 
 deal; wife running away with the only fellow he likes, you 
 know, and that kind of thing, which really seems very hard 
 upon a fellow to lose the only fellow he can get on with, in that 
 disreputable manner; and 'pon my soul, a woman who can ro\ 
 a man of his best friend must be a regular out-and-outer, lost 
 to all sense of honour, and that kind of thing. But if a man's 
 wife begins with poking her nose into stuffy old cottages, where 
 the dooce is she to end?" 
 
 To Ethel, the brilliant captain appeared a strange compound 
 of idiotcy and impertinence. His eyeglass, his carefully- 
 waxed moustache, his all-prevailing odour of jockey-club, his 
 contempt for everything under the sun except some half-dozen 
 " fellows," his bosom friends, — all these attributes of the 
 modem young man were alike distasteful to her, and she 
 always fancied the atmosphere clearer when the captain's leave 
 expired, and he withdrew his august presence from the paternal 
 halls. 
 
 Fancy-free as the famed virgin sung by Shakespeare — who, 
 by the way, never seems to have been in that blissful condition 
 for one hour of her anxious life — is described to have been in 
 the poet's politic compliment, Ethel Hurst roamed the w r ell- 
 kept gardens of Hyford Hall, until that fateful day when Gervoise 
 Palgrave, who had refused invitations from men of much 
 higher standing, made his social debut at Sir Langley's hunting- 
 breakfast. 
 
 Whether it was love at first sight who shall say? First 
 sight showed Lord Haughton one of the fairest faces he had 
 ever looked upon — a face as innocently bright as Milton's Eve 
 in the first bloom of her purity — a face in which loveliness of 
 soul shone predominant over earthly beauty of tint and out- 
 line, though these were almost perfection. For some time 
 Gervoise Palgrave was unconscious of any peril to his own 
 peace of mind in the admiration which he felt for Ethel Hurst. 
 Had he not a right to admire this lovely image of girlish inno- 
 cence, just as freely as he admired the well-chosen pictures and 
 statues wherewith Sir Langley had decorated his spacious 
 rooms and broad Elizabethan corridors. He told himself that 
 he had a right so to admire this fair candid girl, who met him 
 always with the same sweet smile of welcome, and he told him- 
 self that the pleasure he felt in her society arose from no deeper 
 ft elmg. 
 
 " What can she, or any other woman upon this earth, ever 
 oe to me," he thought, " nearer or dearer than the beauty of a 
 picture or a statue — something to admire from a distance ? I 
 had my dream and my fancy, and have paid the bitter price 
 of that fool's paradise which I chose for my earthly heaven. 
 That's all past and done with And as £pr the folly men call 
 
220 
 
 Lost and Fotmd. 
 
 love — je m'en moque ! When the grim old suits of armour at 
 the Chase come down from their pedestals, and go cut to make 
 love, I may be caught a second time. But it shall not be until 
 then." 
 
 When a man beguiles his reason with such sophistries at? 
 these, it is a pretty sure sign that he has already gone past 
 redemption on the broad high-road which leads to the Temple 
 of Folly. Gervoise Palgrave deceived himself wilfully, obsti- 
 nately, madly shutting his eyes to the truth. He told himself 
 that if he liked to come to Hyford Hall, it was for Sir Langley's 
 genial society, for the captain's billiard-playing, for Stephen's 
 intellectual conversation, for the pleasant county folks he met 
 there, for the exciting sport of archery, in which the Misses 
 Adelina, Sophia, Bessie, and Gertrude Hurst excelled; for any- 
 thing and everything except the real magnetic nfluence which 
 drew him to the place. 
 
 " Why should I shut myself up in those dreary rooms at the 
 Chase when the Hursts are always glad to have me with 
 them?" he said to himself, quite ignoring the fact that his 
 predilection for the society of the Hursts was giving much 
 offence to his other friends amongst the county gentry. By and 
 by this fact was made known to him, and at Christmas he gave 
 a ball, a very grand affair, at which all the best people in the 
 county were present, and at which her most splendid majesty 
 the Marchioness of Stepletour kindly presided as hostess. 
 Ethel was the acknowledged belle, though perhaps the fact 
 would scarcely have been so readily admitted if the young lady 
 had not been an heiress, and a landowner of some importance. 
 On the night of this festival, did Gervoise for the first time dis- 
 cover the construction which had been put upon his devotion to 
 the Hurst household. 
 
 " He is going to marry one of those bold Hurst girls," said a 
 young lady of the genus fast, close to his elbow, as he was 
 struggling for an ice in the crowded refreshment-room. " I only 
 hope it is not the one with the big hook-nose, Adelina ; she's 
 the most stuck-up, purse-proud creature. That rich cousin of 
 ftheirs, Ethel, is engaged to Stephen Hurst, the rector of 
 Pendon ; awfully High Church, you know, he is ; and Goodness 
 knows what lengths he'll go when he gets Ethel's money. J 
 know he wants to introduce choral services at Pendon ; but the 
 Pendon people are disgustingly Low, and I don't believe they'd 
 ever stand it." 
 
 Engaged to Stephen Hurst ! The quick, angry throbbing of 
 his heart told Gervoise Palgrave in this moment, if he had never 
 known as much before, that Ethel was something more to him 
 than a picture or a statue. In this one moment he knew that 
 he loved her, and loved her passionately. 
 
A New Life and a New Love, 
 
 221 
 
 "I will know the truth at once," he muttered, half-beside 
 liimself with jealous rage; " she can never "be anything to nie; 
 no, God help me ! I know that. But I will not be duped and 
 fooled by her sweet looks, her downcast eyes ; I will ascertain 
 from her own lips whether she loves this man." 
 
 Yes, he loved her, and had allowed himself to think his 
 affection was returned. The remembrance of the looks and 
 tones that had nourished this sweet delusion came back to hin/ 
 sharply. Could that innocent- seeming girl be a consummafj 
 coquette after all ? 
 
 He remembered words and looks of Stephen's that had been 
 something more than cousinly — anxious, watchful looks that 
 followed Ethel's light steps ; earnest tones, expressive of more 
 than kindred's common affection. 
 
 The next dance was a waltz, which the master of Palgrave 
 Chase and Ethel Hurst were to dance together. After the 
 dance he led her into a picture-gallery under the pretext of 
 showing her the old family portraits, and there, with a 
 strange abruptness, asked her the portentous question, 
 whether she was or was not the promised wife of her cousin 
 Stephen. 
 
 The heiress blushed crimson, paused for a moment, utterly 
 embarrassed by the sudden question, and then replied in the 
 negative. 
 
 " Thank God!" exclaimed Lord Haughton with intense 
 feeling ; and then they both stood silent, motionless, the girl's 
 changing colour, downcast eyelids, and tremulous lips betraying 
 but too plainly her cherished secret. 
 
 The temptation of that moment was too much for Gervoise 
 Palgrave' s fortitude. He bent over the sweet face he loved, 
 clasped the shrinking form in his arms with a sudden, passionate 
 embrace, and imprinted one despairing kiss upon the pure brow. 
 Thus far, passion had its way with him ; then cold, stern, croel 
 reason came to the rescue. 
 
 " My own one, my darling, forgive me!" he said, releasing the 
 offended girl. " I was mad. For pity's sake, forgive me. I 
 have no right to speak of my love to you ; no right — I " 
 
 A sudden influx of waltzers in the gallery, as the last chords 
 of the waltz sounded from the orchestra, interrupted him, and 
 he was not unthankful for the interruption. He paced the 
 deserted ballroom that night when the last of the long lino 
 of carriages had driven away, and pondered on his folly — his 
 madness. 
 
 What could he do? Fly from this splendid home, go 
 abroad, to Central Africa, to the farthest mountain-range of 
 India, anywhere to escape his hopeless love, to hide his dis- 
 honour. 
 
222 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 "If I were free!" he said to himself again and again; a 0 
 Gocl, of what use to me are lands and wealth without my 
 liberty? The poorest hedger and ditcher upon my estate i« 
 free to claim the girl who loves him, but not I. I must stand 
 aloof, and let her think me the basest of men. I have said too 
 much — and too little." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A PKECAUTIONAKY STEP. 
 
 There was one who had discovered Gervoise Palgrave's secret 
 before the young man had owned it to himself, and that one 
 close observer was Stephen Hurst, rector of Pendon, and devoted 
 worshipper of his lovely cousin. He had pleaded his cause, and 
 received his answer — a sad sentence of condemnation ; but he 
 was too generous to resent the offence against his self-esteem, 
 too pure of mind and noble of heart to be angry with the girl 
 who had refused to make his life happy. 
 
 He stood aloof, earnestly anxious for her welfare. All that 
 a brother could do to demonstrate affection for a beloved sister 
 he did still. He was still her friend, her counsellor, her spiritual 
 adviser and faithful ally in all good works. He saw that the 
 earl loved her, and he resigned himself, after a sharp mental 
 contest, to the thought that he beheld his successful rival in 
 this patrician suitor — young, handsome, wealthy — in every 
 attribute and in all surroundings a brilliant alliance for the 
 orphan heiress. * 
 
 " Lord Haughton is just the sort of man whom women 
 admire," he said to himself, " and every woman is at heart a 
 Tory. Rank and ancient name always have the charm of 
 romance in the eyes of an inexperienced girl." 
 
 After a long period of patient watchfulness, the day came in 
 which Stephen saw but too clearly that his cousin Ethel loved 
 Gervoise Pal grave, Lord Haughton. Until that decisive hour 
 hope had lurked in the young man's breast, unsuspected by 
 himself. That hope had made life very sweet to him; now 
 existence must become most bitter. 
 
 But why did not the Earl of Haughton declare his love? 
 Stephen Hurst was utterly perplexed by a reticence that seemed 
 unaccountable. That Gervoise loved Ethel was obvious to 
 every eye that beheld them together. After the ball at the 
 Chase, where the earl and Ethel Hurst had appeared for the 
 first time in public together, there was no one in the county 
 Co blind as to attribute his vi«ts to Hyford to any attachineut 
 
A Precautionary Step, 
 
 for the hook-nosed Adelina. Sir Langley would have preferred 
 to see one of his daughters elevated to the peerage; but as 
 Providence had denied him this rapture, he was contented, and 
 indeed grateful, for the assurance that his niece would wear a 
 countess's coronet, and be in a position to launch her cousins in 
 the first circle of London society. 
 
 But, in the meantime, why this delay? The earl was in 
 love, the earl was beloved. Why did he not pronounce the 
 portentous words that would ally him for ever to the house of 
 Hurst ? His delay puzzled every one ; but most of all did it- 
 disturb Stephen Hurst, whose clear logical mind, ever anxious 
 where Ethel was concerned, began to be filled with suspicion ci 
 Gervoise Palgrave. 
 
 There must be a mystery somewhere, a secret reason fot? 
 the earl's reserve. There was something to find out. Stephen 
 had sworn to serve his cousin with more than a brother's devo- 
 tion. It was his duty, therefore, to watch this man whom she 
 loved — this man who loved her, and who yet hesitated to claim 
 her for his wife. 
 
 While his conduct was exciting this wonder, Gervoise Pal- 
 grave suddenly left Warwickshire, and went up to London, where 
 he took up his abode at a second-class hotel near Blackfriars- 
 bridge. He chose the house because it was a busy place in all 
 seasons, frequented by commercial men — a place where his 
 coming and gohtg would excite no attention, where no one would 
 take the trouble to inquire who or what he was. 
 
 He spent two hours on the first day of his stay in town at 
 the office of a pettifogging solicitor in Clement's Inn. Prom 
 Clement's Inn he went to Printing-house- square. 
 
 He put an advertisement in the Times newspaper. He 
 availed himself of the universal mediator, the only go-between 
 that never betrays, the only fetcher and carrier that can safely 
 be trusted. In the next morning's paper the following advertise- 
 ment appeared at the top of the second column in the first 
 page :— 
 
 " Agatha G., go to Mr. Bagswell, solicitor, Clement's Inn, and 
 you will hear of your husband, whose circumstances have under' 
 gone considerable improvement. — G. G." 
 
 This advertisement appeared in the Times, not one morning 
 only, but for twenty consecutive mornings. Throughout the 
 twenty days during which the advertisement appeared, Gervoise 
 remained in London. 
 
 There was no answer to the advertisement. The Earl of 
 ETaughton called two or three times in Clement's Inn. Mr, 
 
 v • 
 
224 
 
 Lost and Town if. 
 
 Bagswell, the lawyer, only knew his client by the name 
 of Gilbert. Gervoise had employed him in some money- 
 lending transaction two years before, and that was all the 
 intercourse there had ever existed between the two men. 
 Mr. Bagswell was a safe person, therefore, to employ upon this 
 occasion. 
 
 " My wife must be dead," Gervoise said to the solicitor, after 
 the advertisement had appeared for the twentieth time. " If 
 she were living, you would have seen her here before this." 
 
 Mr. Bagswell shook his head. 
 
 " I don't know about that," he swiid. " Mrs. Gilbert mayn" 
 have seen the Times. 9 ' 
 
 " Everybody sees the Times." 
 
 " Yes, every man of business, not every woman. What da 
 women care about the news of the day ? If an earthquake was 
 to swallow up the whole of America, the news of it wouldn't 
 interest a woman half as much as the price of her next-door 
 neighbour's last new bonnet." 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave sighed. He had begun to hope that his 
 wife was dead ; that he was a free man, free to marry Ethel 
 Hurst ; and here was this disagreeable solicitor trying to con- 
 vince him that he had no foundation for such a hope. But the 
 Palgraves were an obstinate race — impetuous, determined not 
 to be moved aside from any pathway that promised to lead to 
 glory or happiness. 
 
 " If my wife were alive, she would have seen that advertise- 
 ment," said Gervoise ; " or she would have heard of it. Some- 
 body or other would have pointed it out to her." 
 
 Mr. Bagswell shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Who should guess that the advertisement related to Mrs. 
 Gilbert?" he asked. "Agatha G.; mightn't it be Agatha 
 Green, Agatha Gregory, Agatha Grigson ? People have enough 
 to do to mind their own business, without running about telling 
 each other of advertisements in the Times. If you want to 
 find your wife, Mr. Gilbert," added the lawyer rather signifi- fc 
 cantly, "you needn't despair just yet." 
 
 "Then I'll have the advertisement repeated for a fortnight 
 longer. But I shan't stop in London all that time. If Mrs. 
 Gilbert comes here, you can let me know of her coming." 
 
 "To be sure, if you can give me your address." 
 
 "I can't do that," answered Gervoise, "for I don't exactly 
 know where I may be during the next fortnight. If you hear 
 anything of my wife, you can put an advertisement in the 
 Times : * Agatha has been heard of.' That will be enough. I'll 
 come up to town directly and see her. I am no hypocrite, Mr. 
 Bagswell. I don't want to find my wife because I love her, but 
 
A Precautionary Slep, 
 
 225 
 
 because I lel't li3k- in poverty ; and as 1 am better off now than 
 I ever hoped to be, I wish to come to an amicable arrangement 
 with her. She shall have plenty of money, if that can make 
 her happy. I only want a friendly understanding, and — a 
 separation." 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DIE IS CAST. 
 
 Loud Haughton went back to Warwickshire, and shut himself 
 up in his favourite rooms at Palgrave Chase. The oriel window 
 of his sitting-room overhung the steep crag beneath which the 
 stream rushed noisily downwards over smooth boulders and 
 sharp craggy masses of graint, half hidden by wet moss and 
 lichens. 
 
 In the deep oaken window-seat Gervoise sat for hours to- 
 gether, listening Ifi'Jilj to che rushing of the water, and waiting 
 for news from Mr. Bags well, the attorney. But the fortnight 
 expired without tidings of the lost. The advertisement appeal- 
 ing to Agatha was inserted for the last time, and there was no 
 sign from the attorney. 
 
 Upon the day after that on which the last advertisement 
 appeared, Lord Haughton rode to Hyford Hall. He had made 
 up his mind; whatever risk there might be, he had now resolved 
 to incur the danger. He told himself that his wife was dead. 
 His wicked hope that this might be so had grown day by day 
 into a firm conviction that it was so. His advertisement, pub- 
 lished so many times, had told of his improved fortunes. 
 Would she, who had clung to him persistently in his poverty, 
 be likely to hold herself aloof from his prosperity ? This was 
 the result of all his cogitations. But if he were deceived, and 
 the risk were ever so great, he was resolved to ircur it. At any 
 hazard, he was determined to become the husband of Ethel 1 
 Hurst. He never for a moment contemplated the possibility of t 
 a refusal. He knew that Ethel loved him ; he had known it 
 long ago, though no such confession had ever escaped from the i 
 girl's innocent lips. 
 
 Lord Haughton went to the abbey. The servant who ad- 
 mitted him conducted him at once to the drawing-room. It 
 was a dark misty day, early in February, and Ethel was sitting 
 near the fire, with a favourite dog at her feet. The girl sat in a 
 thoughtful attitude, with her elbow buried in the cushioned arm 
 of her low chair. The firelight ' gleamed redly upon her blight 
 hair, and lit up the folds of her Yiolet-silk dress. An open book 
 
226 
 
 Lest and Found. 
 
 had fallen to her feet, and her sketching apparatus lay in dis« 
 order upon a little table near her. 
 
 "Miss Hurst! Ethel!" said Gervoise, advancing through the 
 dusky room. 
 
 He had waited for the London papers of the day to reach him 
 at the Chase before starting for the abbey. It was four o'clock 
 n the afternoon now, and it was already nearly dark. But it 
 was not too dark for the young Earl of Haughton to see the 
 sudden radiance of jry that lit up Ethel's face as she recognised 
 him. The lover thought that one look more precious than 
 Palgrave Chase and the earldom of Haughton — that one glo- 
 rious smile, which melted away in a moment, and gave place to 
 maidenly blushes. 
 
 That one smile was enough. Gervoise forgot all the story of 
 the past. He forgot the bleak winter morning, the shivering 
 parson in a dirty surplice, the low-born father-in4aw with dingy 
 hands and doubtful grammar, and the baby-faced girl so soon to 
 be transformed into a tipsy virago. The Earl of Haughton for- 
 got everything except Ethel Hurst and his love for her ; and he 
 asked her to be his wife. 
 
 Why should she say him nay ? She loved him, and she knew 
 that he loved her, for the vital spirit of truth breathed in every 
 word he uttered. There could be no possible impedimnet to 
 their union. Gervoise was her superior in rank — she was at 
 least his equal in fortune. It is doubtful, though, whether 
 Ethel Hurst thought of these things; whether she thought 
 of anything, except that the man who was dearer to her than 
 any other creature upon this earth had asked her to be his 
 wife. 
 
 So Gervoise Palgrave was accepted. Early the next morning 
 he called upon Sir Langley, and received a prompt acceptance 
 of his proposal for Ethel's hand. Lord Haughton begged that 
 an early date might be chosen for the wedding, and the baronet 
 assented willingly enough to the proposition. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 "BEFORE THE WEDDING. 
 
 The I st of March was appointed for the wedding. The bridal 
 tour was arranged. The young couple were to make a brief 
 progress through Switzerland and Italy, and were to return to 
 Palgrave Chase in June. The marriage was to take place in 
 the church nearest to Palgrave Chase, a pretty village church, 
 with a dear old churchyard through which tlm Avon flower^ 
 
Before the Wedding. 
 
 22? 
 
 for ever murmuring softly past the resting-places of the quiet 
 dead. 
 
 Everybody had expected that the wedding would have been 
 a very grand ceremonial, and that half the country would have 
 been invited to be present. But to the general surprise it was 
 not so. Lord Haughton requested that the wedding should be 
 strictly private. There was to be no grandeur, no train of car- 
 riages, no footmen in silk stockings, carrying gigantic bouquets, 
 no fashionable bridesmaids, no glorification or extravagance 
 Frhatever. 
 
 The twelvemonth of mourning for the late earl and countess 
 bad not yet expired. This was the reason which Gervoise 
 alleged for preferring a quiet celebration of his marriage ; but 
 in very truth he was tormented by a vague dread of some 
 catastrophe which might hinder the peaceful performance of 
 that sacred service. The recollection of that other wedding 
 weighed upon him like a dismal buiden. It haunted him 
 waking and sleeping. He was always dreaming of the wedding 
 that had been, and the wedding that was to be, and con- 
 founding the two ceremonials one with the other in his dreams. 
 Sometimes he was standing at the chilly altar in the city 
 church, with Sir Langley Hurst giving him Agatha for his 
 wife; sometimes he stood in the chancel of the church near 
 the Chase, with the dirty landlord acting as father to Ethel 
 Hurst. 
 
 He generally awoke trom such dreams as these with his heart 
 beating violently, and his face bathed in a cold sweat. 
 
 But the wedding-day drew near, nevertheless, and as that 
 day came nearer and nearer, the burden grew heavier, until the 
 Earl of Haughton's resolution began to fail him, and he was 
 almost ready to confess the truth. 
 
 He had not the courage to do this. He set out for Hyford 
 Hall one day, with the intention of revealing that dismal secret ; 
 but half-way upon the road he turned his horse's head, and 
 went home again. He could not tell the woman he loved that 
 he was a liar and a traitor. He could not steel himself to be- 
 hold the white change that would creep over that lovely face, 
 the wild look of anguish in the deep blue eyes, No ; he had 
 sinned, and he was determined to hold to his sin. 
 
 " Let the consequence of my wrong-doing fall upon me, and 
 not upon her," he said. 
 
 Upon the last day of February the lovers rode out together 
 side by side, with a couple of grooms behind them. They had 
 often ridden gaily thus in the bitter wintry weather. The 
 winter had been severe and long, and the fields were still covered 
 with snow ; the icicles glittered upon the leafless hedges ; the 
 fronty ground rang under the hoofs of the horses. Ethel was 
 
223 
 
 Lost and %bund. 
 
 in very high spirits, for to-day Gervoise was gayer than he had 
 ever been yet. 
 
 He had gone too far to recede. The wedding was irrevocable 
 now, and he was glad that it was so. There was no longer time 
 for hesitation or uncertainty ; there was no longer chance of 
 escape. The die was cast. In less than four-and-twenty hours 
 Ethel Hurst would be his wife. 
 
 They cantered along the high-road, laughing and talking. 
 Ethel's cheeks glowed with rosy brightness through her veil. 
 The lovers rode under the low stone archway leading into 
 Avondale. The High- street of the quaint old town was gayer 
 than usual this afternoon, for it was market-day, and the 
 business of the market was scarcely over. The inns near the 
 market-place were crowded with customers, the ostlers were 
 busy running from one horse to another with handfuls of hay 
 and pails of water. At one corner of the narrow street the way 
 was blocked by a couple of smart farmers' chaise- carts, and 
 a ponderous covered vehicle belonging to the Avondale carrier ; 
 and at this spot Lord Haughton and Ethel were compelled to 
 pause for a few minutes, waiting until the carrier's cart should 
 move on. 
 
 In these few minutes the two equestrians became the object 
 of the universal gaze. The Prince and Princess of Wales driv- 
 ing through a country town could not have attracted more 
 attention than Lord Haughton and his plighted wife attracted 
 in the High-street of Avondale. 
 
 Burly farmers doffed their hats to the young earl; apple- 
 cheeked matrons dropped curtseys ; the younger portion of the 
 community stared in open-mouthed admiration. But they 
 could only enjoy this pleasure for about three minutes. The 
 carrier's cart moved off, and the way was cleared. Lord 
 Haughton shook the reins on his horse's neck, and the animal 
 was cantering off, when a woman broke through a crowd that 
 had gathered in the doorway of an inn, rushed forward into 
 the centre of the road, and caught at Gervoise PalgraWs 
 bridle. 
 
 She was a disreputable-looking woman, clad in rustic gar- 
 ments, that were little better than rags, with dishevelled hair 
 hanging loosely about her face, and a battered bonnet that had 
 fallen half off her head. 
 
 "You villain!" she cried, clinging desperately to the bridle; 
 " you false, heartless scoundrel ! how dared you desert your 99 
 
 She could say no more. The earl's horse reared and struck 
 sut with his fore-legs in the air. The woman fell upon the 
 frosty roadway. Gervoise reined-in his horse ; the woman was 
 picked up senseless; but the crowd hastened to assure Lord 
 Haughton + hat no harm had been done, v 
 
Before the Wedding 
 
 " I don't think the horb-e kicked her, my lord," one of the 
 lookers-on said ; " she was frightened, and fell. She was only 
 stunned. It's her own fault, for £ying at yonr lordship like 
 that. She must be mad, or drunk, I should think." 
 
 " Yes, I should fancy so," the earl answered coolly. " See 
 that the poor creature wants for nothing," he said to the land- 
 lord of the little inn, who was standing on the kerb-stone ; " I 
 will pay all expenses. — Come, Ethel." 
 
 The riders cantered away as the woman was being earned in 
 at the low doorway of the inn. Ethel Hurst was very pale, and 
 she did not speak till she and her lover had left the town of 
 Avondale behind them, and had slackened their pace upon the 
 road beyond the castle. 
 
 " 0 Gervoise," she said at last, " how frightened I was when 
 that woman stopped you ! Why did she attack you like that ? " 
 
 Lord Haughton laughed as he answered this question. 
 
 "My darling Ethel," he said, " I might just as well make the 
 same inquiry of you. The woman is mad, or drunk, I suppose, 
 as that man said just now. She could have no other reason for 
 acting as she did." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 GERVOISE PALGRAVE's CURSE. 
 
 Lord Haughton was to have dined at Hyford Hall upon the 
 eve of his wedding-day; but after his ride vvith Ethel he 
 excused himself upon the ground of unexpected and important 
 business, which ' would keep him a prisoner for that evening. 
 The settlements had been duly arranged already, all necessary 
 deeds executed, and his engagement for that evening had beep 
 an informal one. 
 
 1 He rode home to Palgrave Chase after leaving Ethel at the 
 hall ; he rode slowly homeward through the chill winter twilight, 
 
 . thinking of what he was to do. 
 
 He was to become the husband of Ethel Hurst at eleven 
 
 J o'clock upon the following morning ; and the woman who had 
 snatched at his horse's bridle in the Avondale High-street was 
 his wife. 
 
 This was the problem that Lord Haughton set himself to 
 solve ; and he did not find it by any means an easy one. It 
 was more especially difficult, inasmuch as he had not more than 
 eighteen hours in which to accomplish its solution. 
 
 " She shall not balk me," he thought to himcelf ; " come what 
 may, I will stand at the aftar to-morrow with Ethel Hurst." 
 
230 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 He pondered over the circumstances of that fatal marriage 
 in the city church. What evidence was there to prove it ? The 
 testimony of the clergyman who performed the ceremony, the 
 witnesses who were present during that performance, the record 
 in the parish register, and the certificate. 
 
 Lord Haughton knew that his wife had taken possession of 
 the certificate shortly after the marriage. Agatha's father had 
 been a witness of the ceremony. And there had been other 
 witnesses — the clerk and the registrar. Above all, there was 
 that indestructible testimony in the parish register. 
 
 How, then, was this hateful secret to be stifled ? It could only 
 />Q stifled by the consent of Agatha herself. There was no other 
 way. 
 
 "She shall go to Australia," thought he; "I will load her 
 with benefits if she will go away and release me from the ties of 
 
 the past." 
 
 Lord Haughton dined alone in the room overlooking the 
 waterfall. After dinner he sent for Humphrey Melwood. 
 
 Margery and her son had been considerably benefited by the 
 new master of Palgrave Chase. They lived a very easy life in 
 
 money, with full license to work or to be idle, just as it pleased 
 his humour. He was a great deal with his foster-brother; 
 hunting and shooting with him ; attending upon him, whenever 
 it pleased the earl to allow such attendance. 
 
 Humphrey went into the pretty lighted chamber to-night 
 while Gervoise was lounging over his wine. 
 
 " Come in, Humphrey, and shut the door behind you," said 
 the earl, looking up. "You may as well sit down and help 
 yourself to a glass of that Burgundy, for I want to have a 
 good long talk with you. You've often talked of serving me, 
 Humphrey; and I know you've always meant what you've 
 said. I think the time has come in which I want your service, 
 as sorely as ever an unlucky wretch needed the help of a 
 faithful friend. 
 
 " Then you shall have it, Master Gervoise; you shall have it, 
 my lord," cried the gamekeeper. " If it's my heart's blood 
 you're going to ask of me, you shall have it as freely as if it was 
 so much water." 
 
 " I don't want quite a3 much as that," answered Gervoise ; 
 " I only want your help in a matter that must be kept a secret. 
 I know you've plenty of the dare-devil in you, but that isn't 
 exactly what's wanted in this case. I want prudence and 
 secrecy. Can I depend upon you ? " 
 
 " You can." 
 
 Lord Haughton was silent for some minutes. He sat with 
 his chin resting upon his hand, thinking. There are some 
 
 the comfortably-furnished 
 
Gervoise Palgrave's Curse. 
 
 231 
 
 things that are very bitter to recall — very humiliating to th€ 
 man who has to confess them. 
 
 " I suppose it's almost every man's lot to be a fool at some 
 lime or other in his life," Gervoise said at last. " I had my 
 ding of folly about five years ago, and I paid dearly enough foi 
 it. When my father died he left me without a sixpence that 1 
 could call my own, and with an education that adapted me for 
 everything except a hand-to-hand struggle with the world. I 
 had a taste for art. I could paint ; and my father's fashionable 
 friends, lounging in his drawing-room after one of his snug 
 little bachelor dinners, had criticised my . boyish sketches, and 
 prophesied great things about me. When I found myself quite 
 alone in the world, I went to those amiable friends of my dead 
 /ather's and solicited their helping hands. I didn't ask for 
 money, Humphrey; I only asked for introductions — patronage. 
 I might as well have asked such help of the dreary stone pave- 
 ment over which I tramped backwards and forwards, seeking for 
 employment. But I was very young, very ignorant ; and the 
 world had not conquered me yet. I took a lodging in a 
 respectable tradesman's house, and set to work painting for 
 bread. For a time I contrived to live. My ambition was not 
 blighted — I hoped in a fair future, and worked conscientiously, 
 happily. But work as I would, I could not keep myself out of 
 debt. I owed money to my landlord. His daughter was a 
 pretty, innocent, baby-faced girl. She fell in love with me, or 
 fancied that she had fallen in love with me. Her father hinted 
 as much to me : I must either pay the money I owed him and 
 go; or I must marry the girl whose peace of mind was en- 
 dangered by my presence in that house. This, or something 
 to this effect, was what the father said. You will despise me, 
 I dare say, Humphrey ; but you have never fallen so low as I 
 have. You have never known the fear of starvation. I 
 married my landlord's daughter — and I was miserable with 
 her." 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave stopped, and covered his face with his 
 hands. Humphrey looked at him wonderingly. 
 
 " But you're free of all that now, Master Gervoise," said the 
 gamekeeper ; " your wife's dead, and- " \ 
 
 " No," answered Gervoise, without removing his hands from 
 before his face, " she is not dead." 
 
 "Not dead!" 
 
 ^ Humphrey Melwood sat motionless, with an empty glass in 
 his hand, staring at his foster-brother. 
 
 " Not dead, Master Gervoise ! And you a-goin' to — marry — 
 Miss Ethel Hurst?" 
 
 " Yes, Humphrey," returned Lord Haughton fiercely ; r< and 
 I will marry Ethel Hurst, come what may ! " 
 
232 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 " But, Master Gervoise, how can you marry her if — the othei 
 one, you know ? It's against the law, isn't it?" 
 "What's against the law ?" 
 " Two of 'em." 
 
 " Now listen to me, Humphrey," said Lord Haughton. " I 
 told you just now that I wanted your help. I want you to help 
 me to — get rid of this woman." 
 
 The red colour died out of Humphrey Melwood's sunburnt 
 face. 
 
 u Master Gervoise — you don't — mean 99 
 
 " I mean no possible injury against this wretched creature. 
 Any reunion between us is impossible. All I want is freedom — 
 freedom to marry the girl I love. This woman must be got out 
 of the way. I want you to take her to Birmingham by the 
 first train to-morrow morning — from Birmingham you can get 
 off to Liverpool. There you can put your charge on board the 
 first vessel that sails for Australia. I have been looking at the 
 papers; the Cydnus leaves Liverpool upon the 10th of next 
 month Will you do this business for me, Humphrey ? You 
 have talked a good of sentimental nonsense about giving me 
 your life, and so forth : will you take my wife to Liverpool, and 
 keep close guard over her till the Australian-bound vessel sails 
 out of the Mersey?" 
 
 "I'll do it, Master Gervoise," answered Humphrey; "there's 
 little I'd refuse to do for you. And it isn't much to get this 
 woman out of the way. But suppose she refuses to consent to 
 thifi plan ? " 
 
 <; She must consent to it," replied Gervoise. " I may be com- 
 
 Eelled to deceive her, perhaps ; and may have to promise to join 
 er by and by in Australia. She is a desperate woman when 
 her blood is up. But I used to have a good deal of influence 
 over her. I may be able to manage her now." 
 "But where is she, Master Gervoise P" 
 
 " At Avondale, at the King's Head. I want you to go off 
 at once, Humphrey; see her, tell her that Gervoise Gilbert 
 wants to see her, and bring her back here with you. Don't 
 tell her anything but that. She knows nothing of my pre- 
 sent rank; and she must remain ignorant. You can go and 
 return by the little door in the passage at the end of these 
 rooms. I'll let you in when you come back. I don't want 
 anybody to* see this woman, or to know that she has been 
 here." 
 
 There was some further conversation between the two men ; 
 and then Lord Haughton led his foster-brother along a narrow 
 passage to a half-glass door, opening into a flower-garden, where 
 shrubs and evergreens grew upon the margin of the broad 
 stream. The roar of the waterfall was loud in the stillness 
 
Gervoise Palgrave's Curse. 
 
 233 
 
 of the winter night. Neither moon nor stars were visible in the 
 Dlack sky. 
 
 " What a dark night !" said the earl, in a whisper. " You'll 
 go to Avondale by the high-road, Humphrey ; you won't attempt 
 to go by the side of the river ? " 
 
 "Why not, my lord?" 
 
 " Because of the danger. You might miss your footing in the 
 dark." 
 
 " Not I. The footpath by the river's half a mile nearer than 
 the high-road. There's no fear of my missing my way. I'l be 
 back in an hour." 
 
 The young man walked lightly across the little grassy lawn. 
 There were some steps cut in the perpendicular bank of the 
 river — a rustic staircase, guarded by a light iron balustrade. 
 The steps were very steep, and led down to the margin of 
 the waterfall. Humphrey Melwood descended the rustic stair- 
 case, and groped his way along the narrow pathway. Lord 
 Haughtou went slowly back to his own rooms. A study, lined 
 with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, opened out of the room 
 in which he had dined. He took the lamp in his hand and 
 went into tMs room, which was his chosen retreat. He sat 
 down by the fireplace, and took a book from the shelf nearest 
 his hand ; but although he opened the volume and turned over 
 the leaves, he made no attempt to read. He could only sit 
 there, waiting, and listening to the roar of the waterfall below 
 the deep bank, and the moaning of the wind in the wide 
 chimney. 
 
 It was a little after ten o'clock. At eleven he might ex- 
 pect Humphrey and — the woman. What if, when she came, 
 she should be violent and desperate! What if she should 
 refuse to assent to his smooth proposals ! What if she should 
 hold him to his marriage vow, and come between him and 
 Ethel Hurst! 
 
 He walked up and down the room, thinking of what he should 
 do if his wife refused to go to Australia. What other expedient 
 was there — what other ? 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave paced backwards and forwards, backwards 
 and forwards, only stopping now and then to look at the clock 
 upon the chimneypiece, until it was ten minutes past eleven, 
 and he heard a light tap upon the glass-door in the passage 
 outside his room. Then he went to the door, opened it, and 
 admitted two people — Humphrey Melwood and Agatha Pal- 
 grave. 
 
 The unhappy creature's Viead had been hurt by her fall under 
 the horse's hoofs, and hay forehead was bound by a linen rag, 
 that was flecked with blotf-d This and the pallor of her hag- 
 gard face, gave an aw^^i ghastliness to her appearance Sh3 
 
234 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 looked about her with a wondering stare as she came into the 
 room, and then turned fiercely upon Lord Haughton. 
 
 " So this has been your home while I have been begging iv 
 the streets of London," she said with an angry sneer. " 1 
 wish you joy of your fine house, Gervoise, and of the kind 
 heart that could make you turn your back upon a miserable 
 woman." 
 
 " Your own friends would have sheltered you, Agatha; yon 
 might have gone back to them." 
 
 "What! to tell them that my husband had deserted me?" 
 cried the woman. " No, Gervoise, I had too much pride for 
 that." 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave's wife was not quite sober yet. She had 
 been half-mad with drink when she had rushed out of the 
 doorway of the inn to throw herself in her husband's pathway ; 
 but her fall had sobered her a little. She was unnaturally 
 calm, and there was an angry light in her dark eyes. 
 
 Humphrey Melwood, standing upon the threshold of the door, 
 watched his foster-brother's wife with an anxious face. He 
 began to think that it would be no very easy matter to get this 
 pale, resolute-looking woman on board an Australia-bound 
 vessel, unless she should consent willingly to such an ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 " And that she'll never do," fci^mphrey Melwood thought 
 to himself. " She's one of those women that'll hold on like 
 death to anything they've set their hearts on. Master Gervoise 
 will have to give up his new wife, for he won't get rid of this one 
 in a hurry." 
 
 As for the right or wrong of the business, the gamekeeper 
 did not give himself any trouble about that. He was a kind ctf 
 rustic savage, and had all the untutored notions of a savge. 
 To be faithful to those he loved, and to revenge himself upon 
 those he hated, comprised his entire creed of morality. He 
 could neither read nor write, and had never been to church 
 sine* his early boyhood, when he had been conducted thither by 
 a village schoolmaster, who rapped the heads of his pupils with 
 a cane at intervals throughout the service, to keep their minds 
 from wandering. 
 
 " You can stop in the next room for a short time, Hum- 
 phrey," Gervoise said presently; "I must speak to my wifo 
 
The Sound of the Waterfall. 
 
 235 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE SOUND OP THE WATERFALL. 
 
 The gamekeeper closed the door between the two rooms, leav- 
 ing Gervoise and Agatha alone in the little study. Humphrey 
 sat down near the fireplace. There was no light except the red 
 glimmer of the low fire. The table was still littered with the 
 debris of the dessert. He drew one of the decanters towards 
 him, and filled his glass. He was restrained by no code ok 
 honour or politeness ; and he listened to the voices in the next 
 room, wondering whether his foster-brother would be able to 
 conquer the pale-faced, obstinate-looking woman who claimed 
 him for her husband. 
 
 At first the voices were very low ; then they ceased altogether, 
 and the gamekeeper only heard the woman's faint moaning 
 sobs, and Gervoise Palgrave's footsteps as he paced up and 
 down the room. But after this the voices grew louder. Hum- 
 phrey heard his foster-brother's tones raised in passionate 
 denunciation ; the woman's voice rose almost to a shriek ; and 
 then again there was a sudden lull. 
 
 It was a long interview. Humphrey Melwood, looking at 
 the clock every now and then, kept close count of the time. It 
 was tiresome work sitting by the low fire waiting and doing 
 nothing, while these two passionate creai ures upbraided each 
 other in the next room. The gamekeeper found the time hang 
 very heavily upon his hands ; and the on \y entertainment he 
 could find for himself was an occasional recourse to the decan- 
 ters upon the table before him. He drank a good deal in this 
 manner; and when the interview between the husband and 
 wife had lasted a little more than an hour, Humphrey Melwood 
 fell into a doze, with his arms lying upon the table, and his 
 <i iigers still resting upon the stem of his half-filled glass. 
 
 He was awakened suddenly by the opening of the door and 
 the hasty entrance of Lord Haughton, with the lamp in hia 
 hand. The young man closed the door behind him, placed the 
 lamp upon the table, and then walked to the low mantelpiece. 
 He stood there with his elbows resting upon the marble, and 
 his face covered with his hands. 
 
 "I cannot bear it," he said; "it is too cruel — it is too oitteT 
 a burden. I shall blow out my brains ! I shall do something to 
 pu + > an end to all this." 
 
 Humphrey Melwood rose, and went close to his foster* 
 brother. 
 
 'Won't she go, Master Gervoise?" he asked. 
 " No, she won't go ; she won't consent to anything except to 
 
236 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 fasten herself upon me for ever and ever. She will compel ine 
 to be false to every vow that I have made to the woman I love. 
 O, Humphrey, if yon knew how we love each other, Ethel and 
 I ! I am not a fool or a coxcomb ; but I know that my poor 
 girl's heart will break if she ever has to learn the truth. We 
 love each other so dearly : we love each other " 
 
 Gervoise broke down, and burst into a passion of tears. 
 Humphrey Melwood, half-stupefied with the wine he had been 
 drinking, stared hopelessly at his foster-brother. 
 
 ' ' Don't, Master Gervoise," he cried, "don't, now; don't, for 
 pity's sake ! You'll make me mad like, if you do that. It 
 hurts me to hear you ; it hurts me. I feel — I feel almost as if 
 I could " 
 
 The gamekeeper stopped, with his teeth set and his clenched 
 hand suddenly lifted, as if he would have struck down some 
 invisible foe ; but his arm dropped slowly by his side, and he 
 gave a long sigh. The fumes of the wine had mounted to his 
 brain by this time, and all the latent fierceness of his half- 
 savage character had been aroused by the strong drink and the 
 sight of his master's grief. 
 
 " I can't bear it, Master Gervoise," he said ; " I can't bear it. 
 I give you fair warning that I shall do something desperate if 
 you go on like that. It makes me mad, Master Gervoise — it 
 makes me mad." 
 
 " I can't help it, Humphry," answered Lord Haughton, 
 turning from the mantelpiece, and dropping into an arm-chair 
 by the fire ; "I can't help it. I know I must seem a fool and a 
 soward ; but it's no use righting against it. They showed me 
 Ethel in her wedding-dress last night, Humphrey. I can see 
 her blushing face now as she stood before me, half-hidden under 
 her pure white veil. My beautiful, innocent darling, are yol* to 
 be sacrificed because I have been a villain? I love her so 
 dearly, Humphrey, with the truest, tenderest, purest love that 
 man ever felt for woman ; and am I to give her up, and break 
 the noblest heart that ever beat in woman's breast, because 
 that creature in there trades upon the mistake of my youth — 
 the one mad folly of my wretched youth ?" 
 
 He sat staring at the dying embers in the low grate Hum- 
 phrey watched the young man's gloomy face with a strange 
 expression in his fierce black eyes. 
 
 "But won't she go, Master Gervoise?" the gamekeeper said, 
 presently ; " that woman in there, can't you get her to go away, 
 and let you alone ? You are rich, and can afford to give her 
 plenty of money. "Won't that keep her quiet?" 
 , " "No, Humphrey ; nothing will satisfy her — nothing but my 
 ruin. It's that she wants ; that, and nothing else. I begged 
 her to go to Australia, America — any where. I told her a lie. 
 
The Sound of the Waterfall. 
 
 207 
 
 for I iidd that I would join her there by and by ; but the she- 
 devil only laughed in my face, with a horrible, half-drunken 
 laugh. She'll stick to me, she says. Until this hour I have 
 believed that it was she who took my son away upon the night 
 of the races ; but she declares that she has never been in this 
 part of the country until to-day, and that she has never seen 
 the child since I took him away from London. Her manner 
 seems like truth, and the boy's disappearance remains a mystery. 
 She has been tramping all over the country, searching for mt 
 in almost every town in England. She only came into Avon- 
 dale by chance this afternoon, about a quarter of an hour before 
 she saw me in the market-place. She knows nothing. I have 
 told her that this house belongs to a nobleman, and that I am 
 only a dependent here. If she knew the truth, there'd be no 
 getting her away from the place. As it is, I'm bewildered how 
 to act. 0 Humphrey, when my wedding-day drew near, and 
 I heard no news of that woman, I thought that she was dead. 
 I did think that, so help me Heaven, or I would not have gone 
 on; I would hav;^ drawn back at the last, and told my dear 
 girl the truth. But now — what am I to do? — what am I 
 to doP" 
 
 The gamekeeper did not answer directly. He had kept his 
 eyes fixed upon the low red light in the fireplace while his 
 foster-brother had been talking, as if more absorbed by his own 
 thoughts than by Lord Haughton's passionate words. Now he 
 lifted his eyes and looked full in the earl's face. 
 
 "Are you bent upon keepmg your word to Miss Hurst, 
 Master Gervoise ? " he asked. 
 
 "Am I bent on keeping my word to her?" cried Gervoise. 
 " I tell you, Humphrey, I love her better than my life ; she is 
 all the world to me." 
 
 " And if this woman in yonder could be only got out of the 
 way, you'd risk all the rest ? " 
 
 " There would be nothing to fear if she were out of the way. 
 I would risk everything except the chance of her following me 
 to the altar and proclaiming the tie that binds us. I would 
 risk everything but that." 
 
 " Yon would, Master Gervoise P 99 
 
 "I would." 
 
 "But you think it's no good persuading her to emigrate 
 somewhere far away?" 
 
 " No good ; I've tried hard enough to induce her to that. I've 
 tried to persuade her, and I've tried to bribe her, but she only 
 laughed at me." 
 
 " She's quiet now," mnttered Humphrey, pointing to the 
 lioor. 
 
 jM Yes ; she has exhausted herself with her own violent ; but 
 
238 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 she won't be quiet long. She'll break in mpon us presently, 1 
 daresay. "What am I to do, Humphrey ? We must arrange 
 
 soire plan— --we must do something; or else " 
 
 " Or else what, Master Gervoise ? 
 
 " I must go to Ethel to-morrow morning and tell her all the 
 miserable truth." 
 
 "That would le hard for you to have to do, Master 
 Gervoise?" 
 
 " Hard for me !" cried Gervoise ; " it would be death to me ! 
 I tell you, Humphrey, unless I can keep my faith to Ethel at 
 mid-day to-morrow, I will shoot myself before midnight!" 
 
 Humphrey Melwood got up and walked to and fro, with his 
 hands in his pockets, looking at the floor. 
 
 The gamekeeper was a fine, handsome fellow, of the semi- 
 savage type, with a muscular frame and sunburnt face, and? 
 broad, brawny hands. There was gipsy blood in his veins, and 
 he had the glittering gipsy eyes, the blue-black hair, the 
 flashing white teeth, and the roving, restless nature. He had 
 the gipsy cunning, and the gipsy love of fine dress and gay 
 colours. To-night he wore a velveteen shooting-jacket, with 
 great shining mother-of-pearl buttons, and he had a rainbow- 
 hued woollen comforter twisted round his strong, full throat. 
 He walked up ana down the room for two or three minutes, as 
 if arguing some question in his mind. Then he stopped sud- 
 denly by the window. 
 
 " It's no use, Master Gervoise," said the gamekeeper. " I'm 
 a poor ignorant fellow ; I can't think of anything to help you, 
 except " 
 
 He dropped his voice, and did not attempt to finish the 
 sentence. The hoarse roar of the rushing waters under the 
 bank seemed to distract his attention ; for his black eyes kept 
 wandering restlessly towards the window, as if their glance 
 /mconsciously followed the direction of the sound to which he 
 listened. 
 
 " Do you think you can get her away quietly for to-night. 
 
 Master Gervoise ? " 
 
 " Only by going with her." 
 
 " Jiut you can't do that. You ve told her that you're only l 
 dependent in this house, and that the nobleman this plao<* 
 belongs to is a sort of master over you, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I told her that." 
 
 "Yery well, then, you can easy tell her that you must get 
 your master's leave before you go awav from the house. TeV 
 ner, if she'll go away back to Avondale with me — quietly — 
 you'll join her at the King's Head early to-morrow morning, 
 and go back to London with her- You could tell her thai, 
 wouldn't, you?" 
 
lite Sound of the Waterfall. 
 
 239 
 
 " Yes, I might tall her that, and persuade her to go away with 
 
 you to-night ; but 99 
 
 " But what?" 
 
 " When to-morrow morning comes, wlcai then ? Am I to keep 
 my promise ? Am I to tell Ethel " 
 
 " Never mind about to-morrow morning, Master Gervoise. 
 There's a long time between this and the hour for your wedding. 
 Something may happen — to — take this woman — out of your 
 way — between this and then." 
 
 The gamekeeper spoke in a voice little louder than a whisper, 
 and he kept his eyes fixed upon the ground all the time. 
 
 Gervoise started up out of his chair, and looked at Humphrey 
 Melwood with a strange expression — an expression in which 
 a wild and sudden horror was mingled with a wild and sudden 
 joy. 
 
 " What do you mean ?" he cried, in a half-broken voice. " You 
 don't mean — you don't mean that 99 
 
 He stopped, and stood still, with that strange look fixed upon 
 his face. 
 
 The gamekeeper never raised his eyes from the ground. He 
 pointed to the closed door without looking up, — 
 
 "Has she got any papers about her — her marriage-cer- 
 tificate " 
 
 " No, she tells me she has lost it." 
 
 "Lost it?" 
 
 " Yes ; but that won't help me. She knows the name of the 
 church where she was married. The parish register will tell 
 everything." , 
 
 "Ah, I forgot that. But she has no certificate about 
 her " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " No letters, or anything of that kind ? " 
 
 "No. She has been tramping here and th©« about tha 
 country. It isn't likely she'd have any letters about her. No 
 one has cared to write to her lately, poor wretch." 
 
 There was another silent pause; and still the dismal roar 
 jf the waterfall below the bank sounded hoarsely in the solemn 
 stillness of the winter night. 
 
 The two men stood opposite to each other upon the broad 
 hearthrug; the gamekeeper always looking downwards, Ger- 
 voise with his eyes fixed upon his foster-brother's face. The 
 hands of the little clock upon the mantelpiece printed to ten 
 minutes before one. 
 
 " Go and see if you can get her to go away quietly with me. 
 Master Gervoise," Humphrey Melwood said presently. 
 
 "But what are you going to do with her?" Gervoise asked, in 
 a hesitating, constrained manner. " How will you. get her away, 
 
 Q 
 
240 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 so that there may be no interruption of the wedding to-morrow? 
 How do you mean to get her away from this part of the country 
 without her finding out who I am ? " 
 
 "Never you mind that, Master Gervoise ! You've asked me 
 to serve you, and I'm ready to do it. What I said about shed- 
 ding every drop of my blood for you, if you wanted it, wasn't 
 quite such foolish sentimental talk as it seemed, perhaps. I'd 
 do it, Master G ervoise — I'd do it ! " cried the gamekeeper, with 
 fris eyes flaming. " You say that you'd go and kill yourself if 
 you had to break your faith with that young lady at Hyford 
 Hall. You shan't break your faith. Get this woman to go 
 away quietly with me. That's all I want. Get her to go away 
 quietly. You're sure that nothing will persuade her to go to 
 America or Australia ? " 
 
 " I'm quite sure." 
 
 " You've tried everything ? " 
 
 " Yes, I've tried everything." 
 
 " Yery well ; then get her to go away with me — quietly." 
 
 Lord Haughton made no answer. He stood for a moment 
 thinking ; then he went into the next room. 
 
 Humphrey Mel wood went to the oriel window, opened it, and 
 looked out upon the shadowy lawn. 
 
 The moon, which rose late, was rising now, and there was a 
 faint silvery glimmer in the wintry sky. 
 
 Humphrey Melwood could see the outline of the trees in the 
 park upon the other side of the river, black against the sky, and 
 the rippling waters of the cascade glimmering here and there in 
 the dim light. The air was bitter cold, and the wind was moan- 
 ing upon the river, with a slow, dismal sound that was like the 
 wail of a human voice. 
 
 Gervoise found his wife sitting where he had left her, asleep. 
 Her bonnet had slipped off, and her head had dropped upon the 
 cushioned arm of her chair, with all the loose dishevelled hair 
 falling about her haggard forehead. 
 
 If anything could have moved Lord Haughton's heart to pity 
 this woman, it might have been the sight of that wan, white 
 face, lying helplessly upon the velvet cushion. It had been a 
 pretty face once, and he had loved its fresh young prettnress 
 after his own fashion. But he had no pity for this woman now; 
 he looked upon her only as an impediment to the gratification of 
 his newest wish. He had no more merciful feeling towards this 
 miserable woman, who had been his wife, than he would ha?o 
 h jI for any inanimate obstacle that divided him from the new 
 objeet of his selfish passion. 
 ' liTe had no pity in his heart. He had only a vague fear — 
 a i^ffiWe dread. He felt as if he had been standing upon the 
 ,verge of a dismal abyss, whose depth he could not fathom. 
 
The Sound of the Waterfall. 
 
 241 
 
 " Agatha/' he said. 
 
 The woman started and looked up at him, half asleep, half 
 awake. 
 
 "Do you know how late it is? You can't stay here any 
 longer. It's past one o'clock." 
 
 Agatha Palgrave rubbed her eyes with her thin hands, and sat 
 blinking at her husband for some moments before she seemed to 
 understand him. 
 
 " You must go away, Agatha. The inn at Avondale will be 
 shut up for the night. If you stay here any later you mayn't 
 be able to get in." 
 
 "You'll go away with me?" 
 
 " Yes — at least, I'll come to you early to-morrow morning. I 
 can't leave without seeing the master of this house." 
 
 " Gervoise, you are trying to deceive me," cried the woman 
 starting up, and grasping at her husband's wrist; "you ar< 
 trying to deceive me. I know it by your face ; you are as whit* 
 as death." 
 
 "I'm tired to death," answered Gervoise; "you may believe 
 me, or not, as you please, Agatha ; but I tell you you must leave 
 this house to-night." 
 
 There was a firmness in his tone that seemed like truth. The 
 wretched woman was tired out. Her miserable wanderings hither 
 and thither had enfeebled her constitution, already impaired fay 
 intemperance. She was quite worn out now, and submitted to 
 her husband's will from sheer want ol strength. 
 
 " You will promise to come to me the first thing to-morrow 
 morning?" she said. 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 "At daybreak?" 
 
 "At daybreak." 
 
 " Very well. Eemember, if I don't see you then, I shall come 
 back here after you. I'm not to be put off easily, remember, 
 Gervoise. I've suffered enough to make me desperate. How 
 am I to get back to Avondale without you ? I don't know the 
 way." 
 
 "The person who brought you here will take you back 
 «gain." 
 
 "Who is that man?" 
 
 " One of the servants belonging to this place." 
 
 " He's a strange kind of person. I asked him ever so many 
 questions as we came along about you, and how it was you were 
 living here ; but he wouldn't answer one of them." 
 
 " He was very wise. Come, Agatha." 
 
 The woman gave a weary sigh, and then drew her ragged 
 shawl round her. 
 " Since you're so rich, you may as well give me something to 
 
242 
 
 Lost and Jbmmd, 
 
 buy decent clothes with," she said sneeringly ; " 1 want them 
 badly enough." 
 
 44 I'll give yon anything — everything — to-morrow. Come." 
 
 He went into the next room, slowly followed by his wife. 
 
 Humphrey was standing near an open window waiting for his 
 foster-brother. 
 
 " My wife will go back to Avondale with you, Humphrey," 
 Lord Haughton said. 
 
 He led the way out into the little passage, and opened the 
 half-glass door. Agatha went out first, and stood upon the 
 lawn waiting for Humphrey. 
 
 "You will want money," whispered Gervoise in the game- 
 keeper's ear; "here is my purse. I will send you more to- 
 morrow." 
 
 He pushed the purse into Humphrey Melwood's hand, but 
 the young man rejected it. 
 
 44 1 don't want your money," he answered, in an angry whis- 
 per ; 44 and you know that I dorCtP 
 
 He waited for no remonstrance, but stepped out upon the 
 lawn, and taking the woman by the wrist, told her to keep close 
 to him. 
 
 44 Are we going back the same way we cameP " she asked. 
 44 Yes." 
 
 " I don't like that way — it's dangerous. 
 " I'll take care of you. Come." 
 
 The young man led Agatha Palgrave to the rustic steps in 
 the cliff. Step by step they descended — he first, she behind 
 him — very slowly. The moaning wind that swept along the 
 stream blew coldly in their faces. The frost was beginning to 
 break, and a drizzling rain was falling. Lord Haughton stood 
 in the narrow doorway while those two went down to the path 
 by the river. He could hear their voices as they descended 
 the steep rustic stairs — the woman's feeble little cries of terror, 
 the man's gruff answers to those piteous exclamations. Then 
 he heard nothing more except the perpetual sound of the 
 waterfall, roaring with a dismal monotony in the stillness of the 
 night. 
 
 The Earl of Haughton went back to the room where he had 
 dined. He sat down by the hearth and replenished the fire, 
 then he went over to the open window and seated himself in the 
 deep oaken window- seat. He sat there with his folded arms 
 resting upon the broad sill, and looked out into the, garden, 
 dimly visible in the faint wintry moonlight. He was heedless 
 of the cold wet wind that blew upon his face ; he was indifferent 
 to the lateness of the night. 
 
 A quarter of an hour after Humphrey and Agatha descended 
 the steps in the Uiff a distant sound , mingled itself with the 
 
The Sound of the Waterfall. 
 
 243 
 
 mournful moaning of the wind. This time it was not the wind 
 only that sounded in the stillness. This time there was, indeed, 
 the long, dismal wail of a human voice. 
 
 But the mournful sound died away, and melted into the 
 swelling murmur of the wind, drowned in the perpetual noise 
 of the rushing water under the shadow of the steep bank. Then 
 the master of Palgrave Chase shut the window, took the lamp 
 from the table, and went through the firelit study into his 
 spacious bedchamber. 
 
 He set the lamp down upon the dressing-table, and by chance 
 saw his face in the glass. Of all the Palgraves who had been 
 tenants of that chamber, not one among them had ever seen a 
 ghastlier reflection of himself than the white haggard image 
 which looked at Gervoise Palgrave to-night. 
 
 He turned away from the table with a groan, and flung him- 
 self, dressed as he was, upon the bed, to take what rest he might 
 before the late winter morning. This was how the Earl of 
 Haughton passed the eve of his bridal. 
 
 And through the rest of that long night, mingling with his 
 dreams, and suddenly awakening him every now and then with 
 a choking agony in his dry throat, and a cold sweat upon his 
 /ace, the long, despairing cry of a human voice was blended 
 with the hoarse roar of the waterfall. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 AN UNINVITED GUEST. 
 
 Dull, dark, and drizzling was the morning which was to elevate 
 Ethel Hurst to the peerage, an elevation that was very dis- 
 tasteful to numeious matchmaking mothers within a visiting 
 distance of Palgrave Chase, who had hoped to see the young 
 earl subjugated by the charms and accomplishments of one of 
 their daughters, and who thought his preference a kind of insult 
 to those fair young damsels. 
 
 Sir Langley's six daughters were to officiate as their cousin. ^ 
 bridesmaids, and to these young ladies the cold wet morning 
 caused much disgust. They shivered in their diaphanous 
 draperies of virginal white ; and the broad scarlet sashes, which 
 gave warmth and colour to their costume, were scarcely redder 
 than the tips of their pretty noses. They bore their martyrdom 
 with tolerable patience, however, satisfied with the knowledge 
 that this day was to give them a countess for their cousin; a 
 countess who might get them invited to court balls and con- 
 certs, and who would introduce them to the creme de la ereme 
 
244 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 at her brilliant establishment in Park-lane or Grosvenoivsguare, 
 
 for of course Lord Haughton would secure a town house imme- 
 diately on his return from the honeymoon trip. 
 
 To Ethel the cold wet morning seemed of little importance, 
 though the maid who dressed her in her bridal robes loudly 
 lamented the ill augury. What could it matter whether she 
 went through sunlight or darkness to give her hand to Gervoise 
 Palgrave? She loved her chosen husband so dearly that she 
 needed no omen of sunshine to assure her of future happiness. 
 What sorrow could assail them so long as Heaven permitted 
 them to dwell together ? What but death could part them, by 
 so much as a thought ? 
 
 The wedding was to take place at Pendon Church, where 
 Stephen Hurst and the Yicar of Avondale were to officiate. It 
 seemed a hard and bitter thing for Stephen to utter the words 
 which were to bind his cousin Ethel to his rival, but he con- 
 sented to officiate in compliance with the loudly-expressed wishes 
 of his family, and Ethel's gentle appeal. 
 
 " You have promised to be all that a brother could be to me, 
 Stephen," she said, timidly ; " I shall think you are something 
 less than my brother, or that you do not approve of my mar- 
 riage, if you refuse to perform the ceremony. " 
 
 On this he consented. 
 
 " If ever you need a brother's devotion, or a brother's counsel, 
 you shall not find me slow to perform my promise/ ' he said, 
 with a gentle pressure of his cousin's hand. 
 
 When the carriages reached the little gate of Pendon church- 
 yard, Lord Haughton came out of the porch and along the 
 narrow pathway leading to the gate. 
 
 The drizzling rain came down upon him, though he was an 
 earl, and though he came bareheaded to receive his bride ; some- 
 what to the surprise of the gaping villagers, who were inclined 
 to wonder that the very elements themselves did not respect the 
 lord of Palgrave Chase. 
 
 Ethel Hurst went up the narrow pathway by her uncle's 
 side, with Gervoise walking on her left hand, and the crowd had 
 enough to do to stare at bride and bridegroom. 
 
 The Earl of Haughton' s pale, dark face might have been a 
 ttudy for a painter in its perfection of masculine beauty. But 
 she darkest tints upon the artist's palette would have been 
 needed for his work, and the picture would have been rather a 
 gloomy one. 
 
 Gervuise Palgrave did not at all satisfy the rustic ana 
 popular idea of a happy bridegroom. If this were the hap- 
 
 Eiest day of his life, he had a strange manner of wearing his 
 appiness. • 
 
 Every one had expected to see the young earl's countenance 
 
An Uninvited Que&v. 
 
 2 . i 
 
 radiant with the sunshine of triumphant smiles, Lhe brightness 
 whereof shonld have atoned in some wise for the want of light 
 m the heavens. 
 
 But it was not so. The earl had been standing in the church- 
 porch, waiting for his bride, for upwards of a quarter of an 
 hour, and though the rural populace had kept close watch upon 
 him all that time, not one amongst them had seen Gervoise 
 Palgrave smile. 
 
 It was natural to him to be pale, but to-day he was paler 
 than usual. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face had a 
 haggard look, like that of a man who has been deprived of his 
 customary rest. 
 
 As he came up the soddened pathway now, he was not 
 looking at his bride's fair face, though he was walking by her 
 side. His eyes turned uneasily from right to left, from left to 
 right again, as if looking for some one or something in the 
 crowd ; as if looking for something or some one that he half 
 expected and greatly feared to meet. 
 
 The churchyard was densely crowded in the neighbourhood of 
 the pathway along which the bride and bridegroom walked. In 
 spite of the miserable weather, in defiance of Lord Haughton's 
 desire that the wedding should be a quiet one, people had 
 come from a very long distance in order to see the young 
 heiress of Hyford Hall married to the master of Palgrave 
 Chase. 
 
 As Gervoise and his two companions drew near the porch, 
 the crowd about the gate opening from the meadows was sud- 
 denly pushed open, and something was brought into the church • 
 yard. 
 
 The crowd parted and fell away from it. Until this moment 
 there had been a buzzing noise of murmured remarks amongst 
 the eager spectators, every one of whom had found something 
 or other to say about the bride. But all at once there was an 
 awful silence. Every eye was turned away from the bride and 
 bridegroom; every eye was directed towards that something 
 which had been brought into the churchyard. 
 
 It was a burden carried by two labourers upon a roughly- 
 fashioned litter, made of a couple of planks hastily; tied together- 
 The burden was partially covered by a large freize coat tha-e 
 had been stripped from one of the bearers. It was covered, but 
 it was not hidden. 
 
 Everybody present knew that the burden carried by thosk 
 two men was a corpse. 
 
 The men went slowly through the ehurchyard with their 
 burden. They had a vague idea that their presence there was 
 somehow out of keeping with the great event of the day. But 
 
246 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 that was no fault of theirs. They had a certain business to do, 
 and they were bound to do it, though a royal princess had been 
 about to be married that day in Pendon Church. 
 
 Their business was to carry the body of a woman, lately 
 found floating in the Avon, a couple of miles off, to theprincipa] 
 inn at Pendon, there to await the coroner and his jury ; and 
 their nearest way to the inn lay through the churchyard. This 
 was the men's business, and they did it without reference to 
 Miss Ethel Hurst or the Earl of Haughton. 
 
 Ethel uttered a shriek as the ghastly burden was carried 
 slowly past her. 
 
 " What is it, Gervoise P" she cried. " 0, ^/hat is it? — who is 
 it ? Is it somebody who has been hurt ? — somebody who is" 
 
 She clasped her lover by the arm, and looked up imploringly 
 in his face, but he made no answer to her eager questions. He 
 jstood looking at the motionless figure on the litter, with every 
 feature in his face as rigid as if flesh and blood had been sud- 
 denly transformed to iron. 
 
 "Who is it? Is the person ill, or is — is — she dead?" cried 
 Ethel. "0, go and see, Gervoise; go and ask them what has 
 happened?" 
 
 The two men had reached the gate opening into the high- 
 road by this time, and the crowd had gathered round them and 
 their dismal burden. Everybody was anxious to see the dead 
 woman's face, more eager even than they had been to see the 
 bride herself in all the glory of her wedding-dress. Everybody 
 was eager to know who and what the dead woman was. Was 
 it a stranger ? Was it any one from Pendon ? 
 
 Gervoise obeyed his bride's behest. He walked slowly to the 
 gate, still bareheaded. The crowd made way for him as he 
 approached, and he went straight up to one of the two labourers, 
 and touched him upon the shoulder. 
 
 "Who is it?" Lord Haughton asked, pointing to the figure 
 upon the litter. 
 
 The corpse was a woman ; there was no doubt of that. 
 The water dripped slowly from the folds of her shabby gown, 
 and her t feet — not large or coarse i-* shape, but, 0, how 
 miserably clad — were visible below the tattered edge of her 
 ^kirt. 
 
 " Who is it ?" asked the Earl of Haughton. 
 
 " It's a pore woman, my lord, as was found floatin' on the 
 river out yonder, by me and my mate, betwixt here and Avon- 
 dale, little better nor two hour ago. She's drownded herself, 
 pore sould, I suppose. She's been one o' them ' fellers-de-see/ 
 I'm afeard, your honour ; but I dessay as the pore thing's young 
 and reyther good-lookin'* the coroner '11 bring it in * trum« 
 
An Uninvited Guest. 
 
 247 
 
 perary insanity.' Perhaps you'd like to see the pore creetur's 
 iace, my lord ? " 
 
 The crowd surged forward as the labourer's rough hand 
 moved towards the drapery that covered the face of the dead, 
 and there was a breathless pause of expectation. 
 
 But the man waited to receive the word of command from 
 Gervoise Palgrave himself. 
 
 " Would your lordship like to see the pore thing's face?" he 
 asked again. 
 
 " Yes," answered the Earl of Haughton, drawing a long 
 breath before he spoke. 
 
 The man lifted the coat from off the litter. 
 
 The dead woman's face was terrible to look upon ; for there 
 was all the horror of sudden death in the fixed features, and the 
 widely-opened eyes, with their blank, sightless stare. 
 
 But Gervoise Palgrave had no need to look long at that rigid 
 face. He knew it too well — he knew it only too well ! He 
 went back, very slowly this time, to the church-porch, where 
 Ethel was waiting for him. 
 
 " Who is it, Gervoise ? " she cried ; " is the person dead ?" 
 
 " Yes, Ethel." 
 
 " Dead ! 0, poor creature ! But who is she, Gervoise ?" 
 
 " How should I know, my dear ? " 
 
 " She is a stranger here, then ? " 
 
 " Yes, quite a stranger here." 
 
 "And she is drowned?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " She threw herself into the river, I suppose, poor unhappy 
 creature?" 
 
 "I suppose so, Ethel. The men who found her say as 
 much. But, my dear love, you must not be unhappy about 
 this." 
 
 " How can I help feeling unhappy ? " cried she. " We can 
 only be happy while we forget that there is such misery in the 
 world. And you look unhappy, Gervoise, as well as I." 
 
 "Do I, Ethel?" asked the young man. "Well, certainly, 
 dearest, such an event as this is scarcely very agreeable upon 
 one's wedding-day." 
 
 The beadle in attendance in the background murmured 
 something to the effect that such occurrences must be expected 
 in a country where Tories were in the minority. 
 
 But Stephen Hurst and the Yicar of Avondale were wait- 
 ing in the vestry, whither Gervoise Palgrave conducted his 
 bride; and by and by the bridal procession went slowly up 
 the aisle, and the wedding-party ranged themselves aboat the 
 altar- rails. 
 
248 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 The solemn service was read. There was no interruption-^ 
 no one to forbid that aristocratic union. 
 
 Gervoise was quite free to wed whom he pleased. His rirst 
 wife was carried to a village tavern by a couple of boors, with 
 an inquisitive crowd following at the heels of her bearers, 
 while her husband knelt before the altar to swear fidelity to a 
 fairer bride. 
 
 Short widowhoods have been the fashion ever since the Prince 
 of Denmark's flighty mother consented to make Claudius a 
 happy man ; and certainly Gervoise Palgrave's time of mourn- 
 ing was not a long one. 
 
 * # * # # # 
 
 Amongst the crowd that remained to fill the shadowy aisles 
 of the old church during the marriage ceremony was one man 
 who had kept himself completely hidden behind the rustic 
 spectators in the churchyard, and had yet contrived to keep a 
 watchful eye upon every detail of the strange scene enacted 
 there. This man was the wandering artist, the tramp and 
 tumbler, Yolterchoker, who had been lately perambulating in 
 solitary dignity, or " on his own hook," as he elegantly termed 
 it. Few market-days had passed on which the accomplished 
 Volterchoker had not appeared, early or late, in the busy mar- 
 ket-place of Avondale, to earn his modest reward by the spin- 
 ning of basins, or dextrous handling of gilded balls ; and he 
 had never appeared in Avondale market-place without managing 
 to obtain precise information as to the past, present, or pro- 
 bable future movements of Lord Haughton. He had thus 
 kept himself fully au courant as to the proceedings of his late 
 fellow-wanderer, while at the same time obtaining a decent living 
 between Birmingham, Avondale, and two or three other towns 
 within some twenty to thirty miles' distance. 
 
 Thus it was that on the morning of the earl's marriage Herr 
 von Yolterchoker — duly forewarned of the event — was able to 
 present himself at the church-gates modestly muffled in great 
 coat and woollen comforter, unnoted by the rustic crowd. ~Nor 
 in the church did he attract any more attention. He sat in a 
 darksome little pew under one of the galleries; and Lord 
 Haughton had no idea that this disreputable acquaintance 
 assisted at his nuptials, and took note of the ghastly pallor 
 which disfigured the bridegroom's countenance, and the husky 
 tones of the bridegroom's voice. 
 
Hidden in the Dead V/oman's Hand, 
 
 249 
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 HIDDEN IN THE DEAD WOMAN'S HAND. 
 
 After the wedding ceremonial was concluded, and the bridal 
 procession had departed for Hyford Hall, Herr von Yolterchoker 
 lost no time in getting to the small town, or overgrown village, 
 of Pendon, where he went straight to the Hose and Crown. The 
 coroner's jury were already assembled in a little parlour with a 
 <rery low ceiling, made lower in reality by a ponderous beam 
 that supported it, and made lower in appearance by reason of a 
 dingy -brownpaper that covered it. 
 
 Everybody about the Rose and Crown was full of the in- 
 quest, and the clown had no difficulty in obtaining all the infor- 
 mation that was to be had upon the subject. 
 
 In the first place, the woman had been identified as a poor 
 miserable tramp who had arrived at the King's Head at Avon- 
 dale upon the previous day. 
 
 The landlord of that hostelry was now in the parlour 
 giving an account of what he knew before the coroner and his 
 jury. The door of the parlour was open, though the assembly 
 within was supposed to be a closed court, and there was a 
 dense crowd in the low, narrow passage and on the threshold of 
 the chamber. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker had sharp elbows, and he was an 
 anscrupulous pusher. He made his way through the crowd, 
 and planted himself in the doorway, where he held his ground 
 firmly, while the populace around and about him buffeted them- 
 selves into a temporary scarlet-fever. 
 
 " She were a pore tramp of a creetur*," the landlord of the 
 King's Head was saying in reply to the coroner's last question ; 
 " and, bein' as it was market-day, Avondale was all of a stir 
 like, and our place was full, and we didn't take much notice of 
 her. She asked if she could have a bed, and I told her no, 
 we'd got no beds for such as her ; and then she sat in the tap- 
 room drinkin' gin and cold beer — dog's-no»e them low sort of 
 tramps call it : and then by and by she'd got no more money, 
 I suppose, and she goes and clutters-up the doorway with a 
 lot more, as very nigh drives me beside myself by not movin' 
 on; and then when Lord Haughton and Miss Hurst came 
 by on horseback, this rantipolin creetur', she flew out at the 
 horses' heads, and was close upon run over. And she calls out 
 something to my lord; and Miss Hurst she give a scream* 
 and " 
 
 "Stay. What did the woman say to Lord Haughton P " 
 asked the coroner. 
 
250 Lost and Found. 
 
 " I don't know, your worship ; I don't think anybody heerd 
 what the pore mad creetnr' said, but it must have been some- 
 think wild-like, for Lord Hanghton he savs presently as she was 
 mad, and everybody else says so iuo ; and he says, ' Take care of 
 the poor creetur', and let her have whatever she wants.' And 
 she was took np unconscious; but she soon come-to, with 
 vinegar and burnt paper, and such-like, held close to her nose ; 
 but she was stupid and sleepy like with drink, and we put her 
 in a room over the stables, away from the house — a comfortable 
 room enough, your worship, and as clean as the best room in 
 the house ; gentleman's servants sleeps in it sometimes when 
 the house is full. And the cook, she went to look after the 
 pore woman; but she didn't seem to want anythink, and she 
 flung herself down on the counterpane in her clothes, and 
 fell fast asleep. We didn't hear any more about her, your 
 worship — bein' busy all the evenin', and havin' no time to go 
 dancin' attendance upon tramps and such -like — until next 
 mornin', when I says to my wife, ' How about the pore woman 
 what slept over the stable? She's to have her breakfast, 
 and everythink comfortable, accordin' to Lord Haughton's 
 directions.' But my wife she makes answer, * Lor', James, 
 the woman's gone ; Bill ' — that's Bill the ostler — 4 told me so 
 this mornin'. She went away last night.' And if you'd 
 like to hear all about it from Bill's own lips, your worship," 
 added the landlord, "why you can, for he's in the passage; 
 and you may know him by his red hair, and he's a'most always 
 got a strawr in his mouth a-chewin' of it," added the landlord 
 in a confidential undertone to the official who made a move 
 towards the door, in the evident intention of going to seek 
 BilL 
 
 Bill the ostler was found by means of this description ; and 
 came lumbering into the room presently, with a grin upon 
 his face, as on some festive occasion. He was duly sworn, 
 and then was asked what he knew about the dead woman. 
 A great deal of questioning was necessary before Bill could be 
 got to state his case clearly; but after considerable beating 
 about the bush, the following information was extorted from 
 him : — 
 
 Between ten and eleven o'clock — a little after the chiming of 
 the half-hour by the bells of St. Gwendoline's Church — a man 
 had come up to him, as he was just about shutting the gates 
 of the stable-yard, and had asked him if there wasn't a strange 
 woman in the house — a woman who had spoken to Lord 
 Haughton that afternoon. He had replied to the effect that 
 there was such a woman, not in the house, but in a kind of loft 
 over the stable. The ostler had pointed at the same time to 
 the window of the loft, where there was a glimmer of light 
 
Hidden in the Dead Woman s Hand. 
 
 251 
 
 from a rushlight that the cook had left there. The man made 
 no more ado, but went straight to the stable below the loft 
 clambered up the ladder leading to the woman's sleeping-place, 
 and five minutes afterwards came down again with the woman. 
 T^iey left the yard together ; but before going away, the woman 
 told the ostler it was all right, she was going to her husband. 
 As to the man, the night was so dark that Bill didn't see 
 his face, — -not to know it, Bill said,— though he had a kind 
 of a fancy that the man's voice wasn't altogether ^i^range to 
 him, but he couldn't say when or where he'd heard it before. 
 The man was tall and broad-shouldered, and wore a velveteen 
 coat. This was all that Bill the ostler had to say for himself. 
 This was all that the coroner could extract from Bill, work him 
 as he might. 
 
 It wasn't very much. The woman had been seen to leave the 
 Btables of the King's Head at half-past ten o'clock, with a strange 
 man, and had never been seen again until the next morning, when 
 she was found by a farm-labourer, floating in among the rushes 
 that fringe the banks of the Avon, as it flows through the 
 meadows near Pendon. 
 
 The jury did not long deliberate upon their verdict. 
 
 The woman had been found drowned. 
 
 Nobody for a moment suspected foul play. There were no 
 traces of violence, and who could have had any motive foi 
 attempting to injure a wretched tramp, who had nothing to be 
 robbed of ? The woman had parted with the man, most likely, 
 people said, in discussing the inquest, and had lost her way in 
 the darkness, and wandered into the river, or else had wilfully 
 thrown herself into the water. 
 
 The coroner and the jurymen went home, and as it was long 
 past dinner-time in Pendon, the crowd dispersed from the public 
 chambers and passages' of the Bose and Crown. But Herr von 
 Yolterchoker remained. He contrived to scrape acquaintance 
 with the landlord, and as he produced a handful of gold and 
 silver when he paid for his refreshment, the landlord concluded 
 that he was a respectable bond-fide traveller, shabby and doubt- 
 ful of aspect though he was. After ordering and doing ample 
 justice to his dinner, he inquired if he could have a bed, and 
 anon announced his intention of remaining in the house ; where- 
 upon the landlord invited him to take his tea in the snug little 
 bar-parlour, where the fire burned as brightly as fires only bum 
 in bar-parlours, and where there was a bird-cage, with a bit of 
 green baize hanging over it, a net of lemons, a little grove of 
 clean clay-pipes bristling up out of a brown earthenware jug, an 
 eight-day clock in a corner, and a highly- varnished and rather 
 fly-blown coloured print of the Avondale and Pendon Highflyer 
 
252 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 mail-coach hanging above the crockery ware shepherdesses on the 
 mantelpiece. 
 
 Herr von Volterchoker was not particularly fond of tea in a 
 general way ; but on this occasion he drank as many cupfuls of 
 that beverage as his landlady would give him. Of course there 
 was a good deal of conversation during the social meal, and of 
 course that conversation was almost entirely upon the subject 
 of the drowned woman, still lying in an obscure back- chamber 
 of the snug little inn. 
 
 In the course of this discussion, Herr von Yolterchoker heara 
 how the chief surgeon in Pendon and the jurymen had been into 
 the dismal back-chamber to see the corpse, before the examina- 
 tion of the witnesses, and how the medical man had declared 
 that the woman had been alive when she fell into the water, and 
 that death had ensued from suffocation by drowning. 
 
 "Perhaps you'd like to see the poor creature, sir?" the land- 
 lady said to Herr von Yolterchoker. 
 
 The clown replied that he would like to see the dead woman ; 
 and by and by, when the teapot had been emptied, after the 
 third watering of the leaves, and the last pile of buttered toast 
 had been made away with, the landlady of the Rose and Crown 
 lighted a candle, and conducted her visitor to the chamber of 
 death. 
 
 The dead woman was lying on a table, with a sheet thrown 
 over her rigid face and figure. The landlady lifted the sheet, 
 and Herr von Yolterchoker took the candle from her hand, and 
 looked long and earnestly at the face. 
 
 " There's a look in the face that IVe seen before," he thought ; 
 " the boy has light hair and blue eyes ; but there's a look in this 
 woman's dead face that I've often seen in his, for all that. 
 Yours was a short widowhood, Mr. Jarvis, or Mr. Gervoise 
 Palgrave, or my Lord Haughton, or whatever you please to call 
 yourself," muttered the clown, as he stood with the candle in 
 his hand, looking down at the face of the dead. 
 
 He was startled by something falling at his feet, something 
 that fell with a jingling noise upon the stone flooring of the 
 room. 
 
 The landlady had dropped a bunch of keys out of a little 
 basket that she carried on her arm. 'She was a portly woman, 
 and did not relish the exertion of stooping ; she looked piteously 
 at the clown. 
 
 " Would you mind- " she began. 
 
 " Picking up the keys. Of course not," said Herr von Volter- 
 choker. 
 
 He knelt down and put the candle on the ground beside him. 
 He found the keys, and he found something else, too, which ha 
 
Hidden in the Dead Woman's Hand. 
 
 253 
 
 picked up and examined thought fully, still kneeling on the stone 
 floor. 
 
 It was only a few shreds of brightly- coloured worsted — red« 
 green, and blue ; but the clown scrutinised the scraps of woollen 
 stuff as earnestly as if he had been an entomologist, and had 
 just found some new insect. 
 
 He got up presently, and showed the shreds of worsted to the 
 landlady. 
 
 " Does this belong to anything of yours?" he asked. 
 
 " Not it," answered the landlady. " I can tell you where 
 those bits of worsted came from ; they were in the palm of that 
 poor drowned creature's right hand, and it was clenched upon 
 them as tight as if it had been made of iron. Mr. Manders, the 
 Burgeon, he forced the poor soul's lingers open, and the bits of 
 worsted dropped out." 
 
 " And he didn't take any special notice of them P 99 
 
 " Not he, sir." 
 
 " Nor any of the jurymen ? " 
 "No, sir." 
 
 "Humph!" muttered Herr von Yolterchoker. "What 
 sharp fellows these coroner's jurymen are, to be sure; and 
 what a blessing that we've got such clever people always 
 ready to investigate the circumstances of our deaths, and 
 bring foul play to light, when we don't come by our deaths 
 fairly!" 
 
 The clown took an old envelop© out of his pocket, and put the 
 scraps of worsted into it. 
 
 "I'll keep these, if you've no objection, ma'am?" he said. 
 
 " Objection! Lor', no, sir. If you've a fancy to keep them as 
 a kind of curiosity, like, pray do ; you're as welcome as can be 
 to them." 
 
 " There was nothing found about the woman — no letter of 
 paper — nothing to give a clue to her identity ? " 
 " Nothing, sir." 
 
 " Humph ! Well, I won't detain you in this cold room any 
 longer. I'll go out and take a stroll between this and supper- 
 time." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker put on his hat, and went out into the 
 village- street, there to deliberate at his leisure upon the dis- 
 coveries of the day. 
 
 "How did those scraps of wool come into the woman's 
 hand?" he asked himself: "the}' must belong to something 
 that she snatched at when she was drowning. They belong to 
 no garment of hers : they must have belonged to some other 
 person's clothes ; and that other person threw her into the river. 
 The bits of worsted look like part of the fringe of p woman's 
 shawl. It was a woman, then, that threw her into the water. 
 
254 
 
 Lest and Found 
 
 But how can that be? — she was last seen with a man. She left 
 the stable-yard of the King's Head in company with a man, at 
 half-past ten o'clock. She was found drowned this morning. 
 Who can doubt that the man drowned her ? But who was the 
 man? Could it be that man in disguise? And then, how 
 about these scraps of coloured worsted in my pocket ? They 
 must have belonged to a woman's garment; men don't wear 
 such bright colours. Yes," thought the clown suddenly, " they 
 do sometimes. The coloured worsted might have belonged to a 
 man's knitted comforter." 
 
 Herr von Volterchoker paused before one of the windows of 
 an emporium which was called by the Pendonians " the shop." 
 There were other shops in the village, but this was the shop par 
 excellence, by right of its superior standing. 
 
 It was a queer, low-ceilinged place, with a window upon 
 each side of the door, dingy, and dimly lit up by the tremu- 
 lous flare of oil-lamps. Stationery and haberdashery, grocery, 
 crockery, butter, cheese, pork, bacon, and confectionery, chil- 
 dren's toys, working men's smock-frocks, and wide-awake hats 
 of hard, coarse-grained felt, were all to be had at " the shop." 
 There was a post-office also attached to the establishment, and 
 a glimmering lamp, that was very little better than a lantern, 
 hung over the letter-box at an angle of the old-fashioned 
 house. 
 
 Herr von Volterchoker went into this shop. There were some 
 customers gathered together in a little knot near the counter, 
 talking, in solemn and mysterious tones, to the proprietor of the 
 establishment, about the wedding, or the inquest, no doubt; 
 but at the sight of a stranger, the proprietor left his friends and 
 patrons to shift for themselves. 
 
 " What can I do for you, sir ? " he asked blandly. 
 
 " I want something warm for my throat, that's all. Thit 
 kind of weather plays the deuce with a man if he's subject to 
 bronchitis. I want something to wrap round my throat — some- 
 thing soft and comfortable." 
 
 The proprietor looked rather doubtfully at his customer. 
 There was very little of Herr von Volterchoker visible, except 
 his nose, the end of which appeared above thick folds of woollen 
 stuff. 
 
 It, was scarcely within the range of possibility for the clown 
 to be more wrapped up than he was at that moment. But, of 
 course, it was the proprietor's business to sell his goods, and not 
 to wonder as to the requirements of his customers ; so ke retire* 
 to some mysterious corner of the shop, and reappeared presently 
 with a couple of wooden boxes containing knitted scarfs, lony 
 and fleecy, L&d .en^fortable-lookin g. 
 
Hidden in the Lead Woman's Hand. 255 
 
 "Here's a sweet thing, sir; quite new, which we can highly 
 recommend at " 
 
 But Herr von Yolterchoker did not stop to hear the usual 
 formula of recommendation. He turned the two wooden boxes 
 upside-down without ceremony, and emptied the contents upon 
 the counter. 
 
 The fleecy comforters were dark chocolate, dingy claret- colour 
 and black, dirty orange, and insipid lavender. There was no red, 
 green, or blue. There was nothing that matched the scraps of 
 worsted in the clown's waistcoat-pocket. 
 
 " Thank you," he said coolly ; " I don't see the sort of thing I 
 want. Are these all the comforters you've got ? " 
 
 "They are, sir." 
 
 " And you've had no others this year ? " 
 "No, sir, no others. These are generally approved, sir, 
 and " 
 
 "Humph! I wanted something brighter — livelier colours. 
 You had livelier colours last year, perhaps." 
 
 " No, sir, not livelier colours than these, sir." The proprietor 
 pointed to the dingy claret and the dirty orange. " These have 
 been very much approved, sir ; livelier colours ain't approved in 
 comforters." 
 
 " Ah, it's no matter. Good-night." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker walked out of the shop. The pro- 
 prietor looked after him with a flush of indignation mantling 
 upon his fat face. He was rather an important man in Pendon, 
 and was not accustomed to be treated so cavalierly. 
 
 " That's a queer customer," he said, as he returned to [the 
 group of gossips crowded about the counter, behind which the 
 proprietor's wife, and the proprietor's son and daughter, were 
 busy weighing ounces of tea and half-pounds of butter ; " that's 
 a queer customer, whoever he is ; and not much good either, I 
 should say." 
 
 On the following afternoon Herr von Yolterchoker walked 
 from Pendon to Avondale. He was a very good walker, and. 
 indeed, had become pretty well used to pedestrian exercise in the 
 course of long, weary trampings through the country with Mr. 
 Cadgers and his equestrian troupe. The frost had set in again* 
 so the roads were dry and hard once more, and the sound of 
 horses' hoofs and rolling wheels, the jingling of bells, the occa- 
 sional barking of a noisy sheep-dog, and sturdy labourers' voices 
 calling to each other on the high-road, travelled far in the thin 9 
 frosty air. 
 
 The town of Avondale was very quiet to-day ; for it was only 
 on market-days that there was much life or bustle in the queer 
 old streets, and Herr von Yolterchoker found no hindrance to 
 the business that had brought him thither. 
 
 B 
 
256 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 It did not appear to be very important ousiness after all; 
 for he employed himself in going from shop to shop, looking at 
 woollen comforters of all colours and descriptions. But he was 
 difficult to please ; and it was a very long time before he got the 
 cort of thing he wanted. 
 
 At last, however, after he had been walking about the little 
 town for upwards of two hours, and had sorely tried the 
 patience of every haberdasher in the place, by reason of giving 
 a great deal of trouble and not expending sixpence, he found 
 a dingy, low-roofed shop, in a back street, or rather lane, 
 close by the ponderous archway under St. Gwendoline's Church. 
 The shop was a miscellaneous sort of emporium, kept by a 
 widow-woman who had a day-school in the back-parlour, and 
 who sold sweet-stuff and gingerbread, and slate-pencil and 
 writing-paper, and pickled cabbage and onions, as well as 
 haberdashery. 
 
 But small as the good woman's stock-in-trade might be, 
 Herr von Yolterchoker found that amongst it which he 
 had not been able to discover elsewhere, namely, a knitted 
 woollen scarf with stripes of gaudy colours — blue and red 
 and green. 
 
 " This is the sort of thing I want," said the clown, selecting 
 the rainbow-hued muffler from half-a-dozen fabrics of a dingier 
 character; "this is the sort of thing for me. Something bright 
 and lively. Is it hand-knit, now, or wove ? " 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker went to the doorway of the little shop 
 with the scarf in his hand, in order to satisfy himself on this 
 point, by a close inspection of the fabric. 
 
 During this inspection he took from his waistcoat-pocket the 
 envelope containing those scraps of worsted which he had picked 
 up from the floor of the room in which the drowned woman lay, 
 and contrived to compare them with the material of the scarf in 
 his hand. They were exactly of the same colour and quality. 
 He went back to the little counter. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " it is hand-knit, and it's the nicest made 
 scarf I've seen in all Avondale. I should fancy now, that, firs^ 
 and last, you've sold a good many of these, eh ? " 
 
 The widow shook her head dolefully. 
 Business in Avondale ain't what it used to be in the old 
 coaching days, sir," she answered. "I had but two comforters 
 of that pattern ; they was knit by a poor woman in the alms- 
 houses, and the profit on 'em isn't more than threehalfpence, 
 and I've had one of 'em on my hands ever since last Christmas 
 was a twelvemonth." 
 
 44 And you had only two of thorn first ajid last, including this 
 one ? " 
 
 " No, sir, never more than two." 
 
Hidden in the Dead Woman's Hand. £57 
 
 * 4 And when did you say you sold the other one ? 99 asked Herr 
 von Volterchoker, carelessly enough, as he put his purchase in 
 his pocket. 
 
 " I sold it last Christmas twelvemonth, sir, to Lord Haugh- 
 ton's under-gamekeeper — not this Lord Haughton, sir, but the 
 poor lord as was killed in the steeplechase last August." 
 
 " To be sure. You sold it to the last Lord Haughton' s game- 
 keeper." 
 
 "Yes, sir, and a good-hearted, pleasant-spoken young man 
 he is, though very wild-like, and very much in favour with the 
 present earl, which they do say the present earl was wet-nursed | 
 by Mrs. Melwood, which is Humphrey Mel wood's mother." 
 
 " Humphrey Melwood ! I think I know the young man— a 
 dark, gipsy-looking fellow, with ear-rings in his ears." 
 
 " Yes, sir. He's got into disgrace many times with drinkin' 
 and other wild ways ; but he never was better off than he is at 
 present, for Lord Haughton treats him quite as a kind of friend 
 and companion Kke, and Mrs. Melwood she keeps the principal 
 lodge at Palgrave Chase she do, as pretty a little gorthic cottage 
 as you might wish to live in, sir." 
 
 The widow, having once broken the ice, would have been con- 
 tent to talk for half an hour together upon this or any other 
 topic. 
 
 Herr vcn Yolterchoker handed her a crown-piece, and she 
 was a very long time selecting the change for that coin out of 
 the little heap of silver and copper in a wooden bowl, which she 
 had taken out of a drawer under the counter. 
 
 But the clown had obtained all the information that was likely 
 to be of any value to him. He took his change, wished the 
 widow good -day, and left the shop. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE DETECTIVE SCIENCE* 
 
 The principal lodge at Palgrave Chase was on the high-road 
 between Pendon and Avondale ; so Herr von Yolterchoker was 
 able to pass it on his way back to the Hose and Crown without 
 going an inch out of his straight road. 
 
 But he did not pass tne little gothic cottage, pleasantly shel* 
 tered by the black foliage of a group of spreading yew-trees, 
 and a tall hedge of thick laurel. He paused at the great gates, 
 and peered in through the iron scrollwork. A woman was 
 standing at the open door, and a glow of red firelight streamed 
 
258 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 from the threshold out upon the hard, frosty ground, on whic* 
 ligbt flakes of snow were falling in the cold, gray twilight. 
 
 It was a very pretty picture, that of the gothic window? 
 reddened by the firelight, the crimson glow upon the frost, 
 bound path, the drifting snow, the background of dense wintry 
 foliage, the steel-gray sky with one low streak of yellow light 
 fading out in the west ; but Herr von Yolterchoker did not look 
 ^t it from an artistic point of view ; he only contemplated it 
 with an eye to business. 
 
 Decent rearing and education this man. had known in his 
 early years, but the sense of goodness or beauty had never 
 been given to him. He had a natural capacity for wickedness, 
 and had graduated on racecourses and in gaming-booths, and 
 taken high honours in the rogues' university. He was a liar 
 and a thief — a man in whom the greed of gain was a vile 
 disease so deeply implanted in his nature that it would per- 
 haps have broken out in him had he been born in a palace, 
 undisputed heir to a kingdom. He was a man who could 
 trade upon the vices of his fellow-men, and hold it no shame 
 to prosper by 'reason of the perdition of his fellow-creatures' 
 souls. His life had been for more than thirty years a long 
 career of crime and infamy, sometimes prosperous, sometimes 
 unlucky. He had been a traveller in almost every quarter of 
 the globe, and had perhaps never so long existed by honest 
 means as during those two years in which he had been content 
 to earn a scanty living in the employment of the worthy 
 Cadgers. 
 
 " Good afternoon, ma'am,", he said to the woman standing at 
 the lodge-door. " Is your son at home ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir," Margery Melwood answered, with a sigh. 
 u Humphrey's at home." 
 
 " Could 1 see him ?" 
 
 The woman hesitated a little. 
 
 " Did you want to see him very particular, sir P 99 she asked. 
 
 " Yes, I do want to see him particularly. He knows me ; I'm 
 an old friend of Lord Haughton's." 
 
 "You couldn't make it convenient to call to-morrow, oi 
 Monday, sir ? " 
 
 " No. I'm going up to town by the first train to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 The woman came to the gate, unlocked it, and admitted Herr 
 von Yolterchoker. The lodge was only divided from the man- 
 eion by a lawn and shrubbery. Beyond this lawn there rose a 
 steep terraced slope from which the towers of the old house 
 frowned on the wintry landscape. 
 
 Lord Haughton's mansion looked very black and gloomy 
 
The Detective Science. 
 
 now, for there were no lights in the mullioned windows, no siga 
 
 of habitation upon this the principal side of the house. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker followed Margery Melwood into the 
 lodge. The fire burned cheerily in the comfortable little cham- 
 ber, a green log of resinous wood hissed and sputtered and 
 flamed upon the top of the coals, like some clamorous young 
 pretender who creates a flare and blaze, but gives no honest 
 warmth. There was a tray, and some teacups and saucers set 
 out upon the round table; there were gaudy- coloured pictures i 
 on the walls, and a pert little Dutch clock in a corner, 
 ticking loud enough for the noblest eight- day that ever Trans- 
 atlantic poet heard upon the stairs of quaint, Puritan farm- 
 house. There was every sign of comfort in the simple rustic 
 chamber. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker's quick eye took notice of all this, 
 and then turned to Humphrey Melwood, who was sitting by the 
 fire, with his elbow resting upon the little tea-table, his legs 
 stretched out upon the hearth, his chin drooping on his breast, 
 and his eyes fixed in a vacant stare. 
 
 At the first glance, the intruder saw that the young man had 
 been drinking. His face was wan and haggard, his rumpled 
 hair was tossed in a mass upon his forehead, his dress was 
 loose and disorderly. 
 
 At the second glance, Herr von Yolterchoker saw, hanging 
 loosely round Humphrey Melwood' s neck, that very scarf which 
 the gamekeeper had bought a year before of the widow-woman 
 at Avondale. 
 
 Yes, there were the gaudy colours, the colours that matched 
 those scraps of worsted that had been found clenched by the 
 stiffened fingers of the dead woman's hand. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker put his hand almost involuntarily on 
 the waistcoat-pocket in which he carried the envelope contain- 
 ing the shreds of coloured worsted. 
 
 " I think I've got you pretty tight, Mr. Humphrey Melwood," 
 he thought ; " but it isn't you I want, it's your master. It'll 
 be rather a sell for me if the murdered woman turns out to be 
 soms simple-hearted beauty that you wanted to get rid of. But 
 I don"t think there's much chance of that. There was a look 
 in that drowned woman's face that I've seen in Gervoise Pal- 
 grave's son. And then, again, the woman flew out at my lord, 
 and caught hold* of his bridle as he rode through Avondale. 
 Why should she do that unless — unless she was his wife — his 
 miserable, abandoned wife ? I don't forget what he said on the 
 day when I tattooed the child's arm : * There is a person who 
 will try to get this boy into her power,' said Mr. Jarvis, alias 
 Gervoise Palgrave. Who should that person be except the 
 mother of the boy ?" 
 
260 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 These thoughts travelled through the clown's mind swift aa 
 lightning. He only stood for a minute or so looking round th6 
 firelit room, and yet he thought all this, and saw that Hum- 
 phrey Melwood wore a velveteen coat, and remembered how 
 Bill, the ostler from the King's Head, had said that the man 
 who fetched the woman away from the stable wore such a 
 coat. 
 
 " Good evening, Mr. Melwood," he said; "I suppose you've 
 forgotten me." 
 
 " 1 have, indeed," the young man answered, in a thick voice; 
 " wh- where V I see y' — b'fore ? " 
 
 rt On the night after the steeplechase at Avondale — the night 
 when Gervoise Palgrave's son was stolen." 
 
 Humphrey Melwood started up and struck his hand upon 
 the table. 
 
 "Holdy'r tongue!" he said. "Master Gervoise don't care 
 iibout people knowing he ever had a son — he don't care about 
 folks talking of his first marriage." 
 
 It seemed as if the very mention of his foster-brother's name 
 had sobered the young man. The stupid, vacant look of his 
 eyes gave place to a sudden brightness ; a dark crimson colour 
 dyed his olive skin. He was used to drinking, and the fumes 
 of the liquor he had taken speedily dispersed as his intellect 
 was aroused from its dull torpor. 
 
 "Mother," he said, "if this gentleman wants to talk to me 
 about private business, you'd better go np- stairs." 
 
 " But you won't drink any more, Humphrey," urged Margery 
 Melwood, in a pleading tone, glancing anxiously at a half-empty 
 brandy-bottle on the mantelpiece as she spoke. 
 
 " No, I shan't drink any more," the young man answered 
 moodily ; "I don't see that there's much good in drink. It 
 doesn't stop a man from thinking, or save him from horrid 
 dreams when he goes to sleep." 
 
 Margery Melwood sighed as she looked at her son, and then 
 went slowly up a little staircase leading out of the room, and 
 closed by a door that was like the door of a cupboard. 
 
 Humphrey turned his chair with an impatient gesture — the 
 action of a man whose mind was so disturbed as to create a 
 vague sense of bodily discomfort — and faced the fire. The 
 yellow flare of the resinous pine-wood shone full upon his hag- 
 gard cheeks, his black gipsy eyes, sombre-looking and bloodshot 
 to-night. 
 
 "Well," he said abruptly; "what is it you want with me, 
 Mr. I'm blest if I remember your name !'' 
 
 "My name is Yokes — William Yokes." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Yokes — Mr. William Yokes — what has brought 
 you to Palgrave Chase?" 
 
The Detective Science. 
 
 2G1 
 
 M A very important business, and a very strange business, 
 Mr. Melwood," answered the clown, dropping his voice almost 
 to a whisper. " I only reached Pendon in time to be a witness 
 of Lord Haughton's second marriage. I want to know how 
 his first wife came by her death." 
 
 The tawny hue of the gamekeeper's face changed to a dark 
 livid pallor. 
 
 " What's Lord Haughton's first wife to you that you should 
 bother your head about her ? " he asked in a defiant tone. 
 
 The clown was silent for a few moments, reflecting on this 
 question. Humphrey took the brandy-bottle from the mantel- 
 piece, poured some of the spirit into one of the teacups at his 
 elbow, and drained the cup as carelessly as if its contents had 
 been water. 
 
 " 0 ho, Mr. Humphrey Melwood," thought the clown, "if 
 that 9 8 a specimen of your habits, you're rather a dangerous 
 friend and ally for the Earl of Haughton." 
 
 " What was the woman to you that you should trouble your 
 head about her ? " repeated Humphrey. 
 
 "I'll tell you," the clown answered gravely; " Lord Haugh- 
 ton's wife was my niece." 
 
 "Your niece !" 
 
 " Yes, my own flesh and blood ; do you understand ? I'm an 
 old man, and I've knocked about the world a good deal ; but 
 my feelings mayn't be quite dead for all that. The wife of 
 Gervoise Palgrave was my niece, and I want to know how she 
 met with her death. She was seen at Avondale on the after- 
 noon of the day before yesterday. She was seen alive on that 
 day ; and she was seen to speak to Lord Haughton as he rode 
 through the town with Miss Hurst. Between ten and eleven 
 o'clock that night she was seen to leave the stables of the King's 
 Head with a man; a broad-shouldered, stalwart fellow in a 
 velveteen coat; and the next time she was seen she was carried 
 dead through Pendon churchyard. I want to know what hap- 
 pened in the interim." 
 
 Humphrey Melwood wiped the perspiration from his forehead 
 with the cuff of his coat. 
 
 "What should I know about her? "he muttered; "why do 
 you ask me about her ? " 
 
 " My dear fellow," the clown answered, with an entire change 
 of manner, " I only want information, but I must get it how 
 and where I can. You are a friend of Lord Haughton's. I 
 expected that you'd know all the particulars of his wife's death. 
 It was odd, wasn't it, that she should be drowned upon the eve 
 of the earl's second marriage ? It was still more strange that I 
 should happen to be at Pendon on the day of the inquest at the 
 Rose and Crown, and should see the poor dead creature, and 
 
262 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 recognise lier as my niece, whom I hadn't seen for many a year, 
 for I 've been a wanderer npon the face of the earth, and parted 
 from all my kith and kin. Well, well, it's a strange world, a 
 very strange world. Yon can't give me any information about 
 
 that poor creature's death ? " 
 "No." 
 
 " Did yon ever see her ?" 
 
 " Never," answered the young man, after a brief pause. 
 
 " Ah, well, it's an unlucky business altogether. I suppose 
 Miss Hurst, the present Countess of Haughton, has been told 
 nothing about this first wife of Gervoise Palgrave ? " 
 
 " 1 don't know," Humphrey Melwood answered sullenly. " It 
 you want to know the Earl of Haughton's business, you'd better 
 go and question him." 
 
 66 But, my dear fellow, be reasonable," exclaimed the clown. 
 " Lord Haughton has started for the Continent, with his lovely 
 young bride. You don't want me to follow him, and spoil all 
 the pleasure of the honeymoon by asking him awkward ques- 
 tions about his first wife P" 
 
 " God forbid!" muttered Humphrey, with a groan. 
 
 " Yery well, then, I must aek questions of you ; and if I were 
 you, I'd answer them civilly. You'll find it wise to do so. 
 However, I'll wish you good-night now, and look in again 
 another time. You don't seem in the humour for a pleasant 
 chat. I'll leave you to the young man's best companion — the 
 brandy-bottle — and your own thoughts. Ta-ta ! " 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker waved his hand gracefully, opened 
 the door, and went out. It was quite dark now, and the ground 
 was white with snow, against which the yews and cypress looked 
 blacker than ever. 
 
 The interior of the lodge was lighted by the red glow of the 
 fire. Herr von Yolterchoker paused for a few moments upon a 
 narrow slip of grass that bordered the broad gravelled carriage 
 road, and looked in at the latticed window, whence he beheld a 
 strange piece of dumb- show in the firelit chamber. 
 
 Humphrey Melwood suddenly sprang up from his moody 
 attitude by the fire, knocking over his chair as he rose, snatched 
 a gun from its place above the little chimneypiece, cocked it, 
 and rushed towards the door of the lodge. 
 
 But within a few paces of the door he stopped as suddenly as 
 he had risen from his chair. He let the stock of the gun fall 
 slowly to the ground, passed his hand across his forehead with a 
 convulsive shudder, like a man who awakes from some hideous 
 dream. Then he went back to the chimneypiece, replaced the 
 gun, and sat down once more before the fire, with his feet on the 
 tender, his elbows on his knees, and his face hidden in hia 
 hands. 
 
The Detective Science, 2(>3 
 
 Herr von Volterclioker watched him for a minute or bo as he 
 eat in this attitude before the fire, and then turned away with a 
 contemptuous shrug. 
 
 " It's no great credit to any fellow to reckon you up," he 
 muttered to himself. " My game here lies straight before me, 
 as smooth as a turnpike-road. I must work the master through 
 the man. You're in luck's way, Mr. Yokes. That uncle dodge 
 was rather ft good one, I flatter myself." 
 
 CHAPTER XYH. 
 
 HUNTING UP THE PAST. 
 
 Herr ycs Yolterchoker left Pendon the day after his 
 interview with Humphrey Melwood; but before departing he 
 informed the landlord of the Eose and Crown that he should 
 soon be again a guest at that cosy little hostelry. Arrived in 
 the great City, he took a cab at the railway- station, and ordered 
 the man to drive to one of the dingiest localities in Lambeth. 
 The cabman drove across Westminster-bridge, and turned aside 
 under a railway-arch in the Westminster-road. The clown 
 stopped the cab, and got out under the archway. He paid 
 and dismissed the driver, and then walked away at a pretty 
 brisk rate. He turned a corner presently, and penetrated into 
 a narrow little street, dingier and dirtier even than the one he 
 had left. 
 
 There were some children playing in a group upon the 
 door-step, before a miserable little chandler's shop, in which 
 the atmosphere was made horrible by the odour of red herrings, 
 strong yellow soap, cheese, and tobacco. Herr von Yolterchoker 
 thrust the juvenile population right and left of him as ruthlessly 
 as if they had been a litter of youthful pigs, and strode into the 
 shop. He took no notice of the proprietress of the establish- 
 ment, nor of the slip- shod matrons and old- faced children 
 crowding about the counter, but pushed his way through a 
 narrow pass between a pile of firewood and a treacle- tub, and 
 opened a little door. 
 
 Beyond this door there was a square yard of passage, and 
 a staircase so narrow that the two walls were black and greasy 
 with the friction of people's shoulders ; so close and low, that 
 the unaccustomed visitant suffered temporary asphyxia, and 
 was powerless to draw breath until he reached a better atmo- 
 sphere. 
 
 The better atmosphere was only good by comparison ; for 
 the room which Herr von Yolterchoker entered was dark with 
 
264 
 
 Lost ana Found. 
 
 a brown fog which crept in from out of doors, and misty wifh 
 the steam of a washing-tub on a bench near the window. A 
 couple of coloured shirts dangled, dripping wet, from a frayed 
 rope that was hung across the room. They looked something 
 like military trophies hanging from the roof of a chapel, and 
 were quite as ragged. A woman was standing before the 
 wash-tub, with her bare arms plunged in the dirty soapsuds. 
 A boy was standing near the dingy fireplace ; not standing in 
 the normal position of humanity, but supporting himself upon 
 the palms of his poor little hands, and with his feet in the air. 
 The woman looked round, and the boy turned a somersault, 
 and dropped into his natural position dextrously enough, as 
 Herr von Yolter choker's creaking footstep sounded upon the 
 carpetless floor. 
 
 The woman was a careworn, slovenly matron, of about 
 forty. The boy was pale and thin ; but he was very pretty, 
 and had something of the haught}' face of his father, Gervoise 
 Palgrave, Earl of Haughton. He ran forward eagerly to meet 
 the clown. 
 
 " We thought you were never coming back again, uncle," he 
 said. " O, do tell me about papa ! " 
 
 " What should I tell you about him," the clown answered s 
 sulkily enough, " except what I told you before ? He's gone to 
 America, and he'll never come back till he's made a large fortune ; 
 and that won't be for a long time — not till you're a man ; so 
 what you've got to do is to be a very good boy, and to obey 
 your uncle." 
 
 The boy looked wistfully at the clown's face. 
 
 " I don't think you are my uncle," he said; " papa never said 
 you were." 
 
 " Your papa was a little too high in his notions," Herr von 
 Volterchoker answered curtly, " and he looked down upon his 
 poor relations. However, let bygones be bygones; I'm willing 
 to forget and forgive. Are you happy with Mrs. Beppo, Master 
 Georgey ? " 
 
 "Happy!" repeated the boy; "no, I've never been happy 
 since papa went away. I can't be happy without him ; I loved 
 him so — I loved him so dearly ; and it was unkind of him to 
 aend me away that night — that cruel night, when you tied a 
 handkerchief over my mouth, and sent me away with Beppo an£ 
 the monkey." 
 
 "Stash that!" cried Herr von Yolterchoker fiercely. "Did 
 anybody ever hear such a young varmint to talk ! Now, you 
 look here, Georgey," added the clown, seating himself upon the 
 only available chair, and taking the boy between his knees, 
 * whatever was done that night was done for your good, and 
 whatever has been done all along has been done for your good; 
 
Hunting up the Past. 
 
 265 
 
 and if your friends didn't love you, they wouldn't have done it. 
 So cheer up, my little lad, and be a good boy, and mind what 
 your affectionate uncle says to you. Things have taken a turn 
 with me ; and instead of leaving you here with Beppo, to learn 
 posturing and go out by and by with the organ and the monkey, 
 I've half a mind to send you to a nice comfortable boarding- 
 school — twenty pounds a-year, everything found, and no holi- 
 days. How would you like that, Master Georgey ?" 
 
 The boy hesitated, and looked at the woman bending over the 
 wash-tub. 
 
 " Mrs. Beppo has been very good to me," he said gently. , 
 
 The woman turned round and smiled at the boy. 
 
 " Shure, now, I've done my best, Jargy darlint," she cried; 
 " but it's little enough the best is in a place where praytees is 
 fourteenpence a stone. But I never did see a more contented 
 little craytur. Shure, I often thinks it's a fairy changeling he 
 is, and not a boy at all at all." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker looked rather contemptuously at the 
 enthusiastic Irishwoman. 
 
 " Stick to your washing," he said ; u I want to talk to the 
 little one." 
 
 " Well, thin, if the luck's changed wid yer honour, ye'll maybe 
 give us a trifle to drink yer health wid," said the Irishwoman in 
 a very insinuating tone. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker took a sovereign from his pocket, and 
 flung it on the little table. 
 
 " I suppose that'll satisfy you, Biddy," he said. 
 
 " Hooroo !" cried the woman ; " sure yer honour's a prince this 
 mornin'. I haven't seen the loikes of that since I forgot meself 
 and me familee so much as to marry a low-lived organ-grindher 
 — not but what Beppo's better than some, and it isn't com- 
 plainin' I am. But you're not goin' to take the child away, are 
 ye now, asthore ? The bit o' money you pay us comes uncom- 
 mon handy ; and sure the craytur's such a blessed little darlint, 
 that the heart that didn't take to um would be hardher than 
 stone." / 
 ^ " Hold your tongue, Biddy," exclaimed the clown impa- 
 tiently ; " I'm not going to take the boy away just yet, but I'm 
 going to take him for a walk this afternoon. — Will you go, 
 Georgey?" 
 
 a ' Yes, uncle ; it's nice out of doors, and it's so dark and dull 
 in here. — But I love you, Mrs. Beppo," the boy added, smiling 
 at his Irish protectress ; " and I'm always happy with you, 
 because you're so much kinder than mamma was." 
 
 He put on a shabby little cloth cap, and declared himself ready 
 to accompany Herr von Yolterchoker ; but the Irishwoman left 
 ber wash-tub and tied a woollen handkerchief round the boy's 
 
286 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 neck. Then she kissed him tenderly, and handed him o?er ta 
 the clown. 
 
 " Ye'll bring urn back to-night?" she said to Herr von Volter- 
 choker. 
 
 " Yes, most likely," answered the clown ; " but yoti needn't be 
 frightened if I don V 
 
 He took the boy's hand, and was half-way down the narrow 
 itaircase before the Irishwoman could make any remonstrance. 
 
 " Now, Georgey," he said, as soon as they had left the 
 chandler's shop, " I want you to tell me where you lived before 
 you came to Putney-heath that night with your father." 
 
 "We lived in a very narrow place, crowded and dirty, like 
 this," the boy answered. 
 
 "You don't know the name of the place?" 
 
 " No, I don't know the name of it." 
 
 " And before that, where did you live?" 
 
 " Before that we lived with grandpapa." 
 
 "Ah, to be sure, you lived with grandpapa ; but where P M 
 
 " In a street that was dark and narrow, but not very dirty, 
 and where the children had shoes and stockings. In the last 
 place they ran about with bare feet, or had horrid boots that let 
 their toes come through. I remember grandpapa's house quite 
 well; it was near the river, and near a big dreadful-looking 
 place, that papa said was a prison for wicked men ; and there 
 was a big church near — 0, such a big church, bigger than any 
 other church in the world ! and another big place that wasn't 
 finished being built, and where there used to be lights burning 
 at night." 
 
 Herr von Yolter choker reflected for a few moments. 
 
 " A prison," he muttered, " and the river, and a big church. 
 Why, it must have been down Millbank way, I should think. 
 Do you remember if the place was called Westminster, 
 Georgey ? " 
 
 "Yes," the boy answered ; "I think I have heard that word 
 before." 
 
 " Do you think you could find your grandpapa's house, 
 Georgey, if you were taken close to it ? " 
 
 " I'd try. I should like to see grandpapa ; he was always 
 kind." 
 
 " Very well, then," answered the clown, " we'll try and find 
 
 grandpapa." 
 
 He took the boy across Westminster-bridge, past the Houseg 
 of Parliament, in the direction of Millbank. 
 
 " Now, Georgey; do you know where you are ?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, yes," the boy answered, looking about him; "there's 
 the water, and there's the big church ; it was this way grand* 
 papa lived, down heare," 
 
Hunting up the Past* 
 
 267 
 
 He pulled the clown towards a narrow street leading out of 
 the main thoroughfare; a quiet little street, where there were 
 humble shops and shabby-looking old-fashioned houses. The 
 boy dragged his companion half-way down this street, and thou 
 stopped suddenly before a carver and gilder's shop, above the 
 window of which was painted the name of William Pickshaw. 
 
 "Look!" he cried, pointing to the picture frames; "that's 
 grandpapa's shop; I remember the gold things in the win- 
 dow." , 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker opened the half-glass door, and a bell 
 rang loudly to announce the entrance of a customer. A little 
 old man, with a canvas apron round his waist, and his hands 
 smeared with gold leaf, came out of a back-room which was 
 evidently used as a workshop. Georgey ran forward to him, 
 and took hold of his hand. 
 
 "It's me, grandpapa," he cried; "it's me! You know me, 
 grandpapa, don't you ? You know Georgey ? " 
 
 The old man uttered an exclamation of surprise, and then 
 snatched the boy up in his arms. 
 
 "Georgey!" he cried; "why, Georgey, I never thought to 
 see you again. Where's Aggy? — where's your mother?" 
 
 The boy shook his head. 
 
 " I don't know, grandpapa," he said. 
 
 " You don't know where your mother is ? " 
 
 " No, we left her. Papa took me away from her ; 0, a long 
 time ago, in the summer." 
 
 "You left her? Why?" 
 
 "Because she was unkind; because she used to beat me, 
 grandpapa," the boy answered, in a half whisper; "and be- 
 cause she used to go out and take my clothes away, and papa's 
 clothes, and come home and seem almost as if she was mad. 
 I was afraid of her, grandpapa, and papa was very unhappy 
 with her, and so we ran away ; and we were very happy until 
 apa went away and left me with uncle ; and since then I've 
 een with Beppo and Mrs. Beppo and the monkey." 
 The old man stared at his grandson with a stupefied expres* 
 »ion. 
 
 "You don't understand him, do you, sir?" said Herr von 
 Yolterchoker. "I suppose it is some time since you last saw 
 him?" ... 
 
 " It is, indeed, sir," answered the old man ; " I haven't set 
 eyes upon the child, or my daughter, or my daughter's husband, 
 for the last twelve months. They left me last Christmas twelve- 
 month, sir ; because, to tell the truth, I was obliged to turn 
 them out, as you may say. Gervoise Gilbert hadn't a sixpence 
 to bless himself with, so he couldn't afford to pay me any rent 
 for my rooms, and I couldn't afford to go without the money, 
 
268 
 
 Lost and Found* 
 
 beiti' a poor man, sir, and working very hard to pay my way, 
 So they went, and where they went I never found out, for Gervoise 
 had a good deal of pride about him, and poverty seemed to sour 
 and turn him, somehow or other, and he was very close and 
 high in his ways. And as for my unfortunate daughter, I'm 
 sorry to say she'd taken to drinking before that time, and didn't 
 seem to care what became of her. Not that the blame's all 
 due to her, sir, for if she'd had a different kind of husband she 
 might have been a different woman. So I let 'em go, sir, and 
 I never heard any more of 'em, from that day to this. But I 
 suppose you know all about 'em, sir?" 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker shook his head. 
 
 " JSTo, indeed," he said, " I know very little of them." 
 
 " You know where my poor Agatha is ?" 
 
 " No ; I only know that your son-in-law, Gervoise Gilbert, 
 disappeared last summer, leaving this boy upon my hands." 
 
 " Disappeared! but how, and where?" 
 
 The clown paused and reflected before he answered this 
 question. 
 
 " Why, it was in the neighbourhood of Manchester," he said 
 presently. " Your son-in-law had been painting scenery for a 
 theatrical company, a wandering kind of company, of which I 
 was a member; and one night after the performances wertj 
 finished, he told me he was going away, and asked me to take 
 care of his boy for him till he came back, or sent to me for the 
 child. I'm rather a soft-hearted fellow about children ; and I 
 really couldn't find the heart to say no. So I took the boy, and 
 I've done the best I could for him ever since. — Haven't I, 
 Georgey?" 
 
 "Yes, uncle." 
 
 " The boy calls me uncle," said Herr von Yolterchoker ; " that's 
 his affection. However, I've done my best for the child, out of 
 friendship for the father; and as things have jusit taken a bit of 
 a turn with me, I shall be able to do a good deal better for him 
 henceforward, Mr. Pickshaw ; but what I want is a little bit of 
 a talk with you, so that I may understand what I'm doing be- 
 fore I go any farther." 
 
 "To be sure, to be sure," answered the old man; "nothing 
 could be fairer than that. Any information I can give you, sir, 
 you're free and welcome to. But I wish you had brought me 
 some news about my daughter. I wish you could tell me some- 
 thing about my poor girl." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker shook his head. 
 
 " I'm sorry I can't do that," he said. 
 
 He meant to keep the secret of Agatha Palgrave's death. It 
 was a secret that might prove a mine of gold to him, if he knew 
 how to play his cards properly. 
 
Hunting up the Fast. 
 
 "Will yoa walk upstairs, sir?" said Mr. Pickshaw; "we can 
 talk a great deal more comfortably in the room over this. .Not 
 that there's many customers to interrupt us, sir ; trade's verv 
 alack just now; very slack indeed. But the shop's cold; sa 
 perhaps you'd be kind enough to step upstairs?" 
 
 He opened the door, and led his visitor and the boy up a 
 narrow flight of stairs, and into a decent sitting-room, with old- 
 fashioned windows looking out upon the street. 
 
 There were deep oaken seats in these windows, and on one of 
 them a girl was sitting, with her back turned towards the door. 
 She turned round as she heard the footsteps of the men entering 
 the room. It was quite dusk ; but as the girl turned, the light 
 of the fire shone full upon her face, and the clown saw that it 
 was the living resemblance of that dead face which he had seen 
 in the tavern at Pendon. 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker had considerable difficulty in refraining 
 from some expression of surprise at the wonderful likeness 
 between the living and the dead ; but he recollected himself in 
 time. He had declared himself an entire stranger to Agatha 
 Palgrave, and he must therefore conceal his astonishment at 
 the likeness betwixt the two sisters. 
 
 " I suppose that young lady is your daughter, Mr. Pickshaw? " 
 he said carelessly. 
 
 "Yes," answered the old man; "that's Susan, my youngest 
 daughter. She's three years younger than Agatha." 
 
 Susan Pickshaw recognised her little nephew, and took him up 
 in her arms. She carried the boy to the window- seat, and placed 
 him in her lap. They talked to each other in low voices, while 
 Herr von Yolterchoker and the old man seated themselves at 
 the little table near the fireplace. The room was only lighted 
 oj the flickering glow of the fire, and the faint twilight fading 
 in the narrow street without. 
 
 " Now, to put the matter straight before you, Mr. Pickshaw," 
 said the clown, " I must tell you, in the first place, that my own 
 fortunes have undergone a change since Gervoise and I parted 
 company. I'm happy to say I'm now pretty well off ; and I'm 
 prepared to adopt your little grandson. That's number one. 
 You've no objection to that, I suppose ?" 
 
 "No, indeed, sir," answered the old man eagerly; "Pxn 
 only glad the poor child has found a friend. I'm a struggling 
 man myself, and I've more mouths about me than I can fill as 
 it is." 
 
 "Yery well, then, number one's a settled thing. Now for 
 number two. I shall send tlie boy to a good school, and have 
 him brought up as a gentleman, and I shall expect him to take 
 his stand in life as a gentleman by and by. But, in order to do 
 that, I must be able to prove his identity ; I must be able to 
 
270 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 satisfy the world when the world asks questions shout the bo J 
 Do you follow me ? " 
 
 " Not quite," murmured Mr. Pickshaw ; " I daresay I'm very 
 stupid, but I don't quite understand 99 
 
 " You don't quite understand what I mean. I'll make it 
 plainer to you, then, my dear sir. I want you to give me any 
 papers that you happen to have by you that may help to prove 
 the boy's identity by and by. The certificate of his mother's 
 marriage, for instance. I daresay now, as a prudent father, 
 you've kept that yourself, eh ?" 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker looked very anxiously at the old man, 
 but Mr. Pickshaw shook his head with a helpless expression of 
 countenance. 
 
 " ~No, I didn't," he said ; "I daresay it would have been wise 
 of me to have kept the certificate, but I didn't. I think Agatha 
 had it herself. But if so, it must be in this house, for she left a 
 desk with a lot of papers behind her. — Susan, do you know what 
 became of that old desk of Agatha's?" 
 
 " It is upstairs in my room, father," the girl answered. 
 
 " Bring it down then, Susan," said Mr. Pickshaw. — " If the 
 certificate's there, you shall have it. It's no use to me. That 
 marriage never brought me anything but unhappiness." 
 
 " You don't know anything of Gervoise Gilbert's history before 
 his marriage ?" 
 
 " I only know that he came to my house as a lodger, and got 
 deep in my debt ; and then my eldest girl must needs fall in love 
 with his handsome face. He was a gentleman by birth, he told 
 us, and went under a false name because he didn't want his 
 father's friends to know how low he'd fallen. Palgrave is his 
 right name, and under that name he was married ; but he was 
 never called by it. He hadn't a sixpence in the world except 
 what he worked for, and was never likely to have. That's all 
 that I ever Knew about his history." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker smiled as Mr. Pickshaw said this. 
 These people were utterly ignorant of Gervoise Palgrave' s rank. 
 They were poor struggling workers for daily bread, and were by 
 no means likely to look into the Peerage, where they might have 
 seen tshe names of the Palgraves, Earls of Haughton and Barons 
 Davenant. 
 
 Susan Pickshaw re-entered the room presently with a dilapi- 
 dated mahogany desk in her arms. She set this down on the 
 table, took a candle from the mantelpiece, lighted it, and placed 
 it before her father. 
 
 The old man opened the desk, the lock of which had long 
 ago been broken, and turned over a heap of tumbled letters 
 and papers, flung together in utter disregard of order. He was 
 rery long searching and fumbling amongst these; so long 
 
Hunting up the Past. 
 
 271 
 
 that the clown lost patience, and begged to be allowed to 
 assist him. Mr. Pickshaw made no objection to this, and in 
 less than five minntes Herr von Yolterchoker had succeeded 
 in finding the document he wanted — the certificate of Gervoise 
 Palgrave's marriage with Agatha Pickshaw. The clown folded 
 this, and put it in his pocket without waiting to ask per- 
 mission. 
 
 " Now,'* he said, "1 jyant the registration papers of the boy's 
 birth and baptism." 
 
 Mr. Pickshaw could not give his visitor either of these, but 
 he directed him to the ofiice where the child had been regis- 
 tered, and told him the name of the church where he had been 
 christened. 
 
 " That's about all I want," said Herr von Yolterchoker ; " so 
 now Georgey and I will be off. — Come, my lad." 
 " Ain't I to stay with grandpapa ? " 
 
 "No, Georgey; you're going back to Mrs. Beppo, and 
 then you're going to a school where you'll learn to be a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " But you'll let him come and see his poor old grandfather 
 some day, won't you, sir ?" asked the old man. 
 
 * 4 To be sure, Mr. Pickshaw, whenever you like to have him. 
 I'll drop you a line, by and by, and let you know what school I 
 fix upon for him." 
 
 " Thank you, sir; and if you should ever hear anything of my 
 poor girl " 
 
 " That's not likely," answered the clown. " Good-night. Is 
 your daughter here like her sister ? " he asked, as Susan Pick- 
 shaw took up the candle to light him downstairs. 
 
 " Yery like her, sir ; as like as two peas. Susan's face is a 
 little longer than Aggy's, and her hair isn't quite as dark ; that's 
 about all the difference between them." 
 
 Herr von Yolterchoker took the boy straight back to the 
 dingy little chandler's shop, and delivered him over to the 
 Irishwoman. Then he betook himself to a comfortable but not 
 too reputable tavern in the purlieus of the Borough, where he 
 ordered a rumpsteak and a pot of porter, and spent the rest of 
 the evening reading the paper, and thinking of the business of 
 the day. Early next morning he was up and stirring. He 
 went to the registrar's office in Westminster, as soon as it was 
 open, and got a certified copy of the register of George Pal- 
 grave's birth. He did the same with the register of the bap- 
 tism, and then he went back to his old haunts to pick up a 
 living in his old manner ^jmtil Lord Haughton should return 
 from his honeymoon tour, and Herr von Yolterchoker' s plant 
 should be ripe for execution g 
 
272 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 Paris was especially gay in the early spring, when the 
 newly-married couple took up their abode for a brief season 
 at the Hotel Bristol, and the Earl of Haughton found the 
 aristocratic salons of the Faubourg Saint Germains, and the 
 fairy mansions of the Champs Ely sees, open to himself and 
 his fair young bride. The earl and countess in short achieved 
 what their Gallic admirers called un succes eclatant ; yet often, 
 amid the glittering crowd that rilled some long suite of fairy 
 chambers, opening one into another in a vista of light and 
 beauty, Gervoise Palgrave's thoughts wandered back to that 
 dismal garret in a court near Seven Dials, that bare and cheer- 
 less den in which he had toiled for long hours before his easel 
 with no higher aim or hope than — bread, to keep off starvation. 
 
 He remembered that hard, bitter past, and he tried to be 
 happy. Surely, if ever a man had reason to rejoice, it would 
 seem to be this man, who had been lifted from the lowest abyss 
 of social misery to hold his place amongst the privileged crea- 
 tures of this earth ; and yet there were times when the Earl of 
 Haughton would have thanked God with wild passionate grati- 
 tude, if all this splendour and high fortune had proved only a 
 long feverish dream. 
 
 Yes, there were brief intervals of despair in which Gervoise 
 Palgrave cried aloud, "0 God, that it were only a dream! If 
 it were but a dream, how gladly would I awake to the old life, 
 with all its sordid misery ! " . 
 
 Such gloomy thoughts as these haunted Lord Haughton by 
 night and day ; strange honeymoon fancies to fill the mind of a 
 ni an who loved his wife — a man to whom all the glories of the 
 world were fresh and new, with the gilding yet untarnished by 
 
 What had he done that his life should be miserable to him ? 
 Gervoise Palgrave perpetually asked himself that question. 
 What had he done ? Was it his fault if Agatha's life had been 
 brought to a strange and sudden end? Was he to blame 
 because the details of that wretched woman's fate were shrouded 
 in mystery ? 
 
 Why, then, was he unhappy ? He never voluntarily answered 
 that question, even in his own secret thoughts. Yet it seemed 
 os if rn the dark recesses of his mind there was an answer to 
 that awful question. He was miserable because he had com- 
 mitted a great crime ; not a common crime, for which he might 
 ue called upon to make awful expiation on the scaffold ; but a 
 *rime that was all the more terrible because another was liable 
 to pay the penalty of this iniquity. He had suffered another 
 man — suffered I why, he had tempted him ! — to steep his sotfi in 
 sin so that the tempter might hav<* his selfish wish 
 
Hunting v/p the Past. 
 
 The memory of that night before the wedding at Pendon 
 Church was for ever present to Gervoise Palgrave's mind ; he 
 started from his sleep sometimes with a shrill hysterical cry, and 
 the cold drops of agony npon his forehead. He tried to live in 
 the present, but the past was more palpable to his mind than 
 the events of the hour ; and little by little he grew more and 
 more absent in manner and gloomy of countenance, until at 
 last the lively Parisians began to notice the young English- 
 man's moody manners and melancholy looks. Then the worst 
 horror of a guilty conscience began. Gervoise Palgrave 
 knew that he was watched ; he knew that curiosity was already 
 aroused, and that the scorpion slander would soon lift its 
 venomous head, rampant, unappeasable, to claim its wretched 
 victim. 
 
 Ethel's husband had to simulate a gaiety he did not feel. 
 The simulation was miserably hollow, as all spurious things 
 must be. But Ethel was too candid a creature to detect the 
 sham smiles, the false unmusical laugh. If her husband 
 smiled, she believed that he was happy; if he laughed, she 
 thought that he was amused. 
 
 They had been southward to Nice and Florence, and they had 
 returned to Paris to finish their honeymoon before going to settle 
 at Palgrave Chase. 
 
 Palgrave Chase! The Earl of Haughton thought of this 
 place as he might have thought of some black and gloomy 
 mansion in which he had dreamed of wandering in some hideous 
 nightmare vision. Palgrave Chase ! the noble old pile of build- 
 ing, with the noise of falling water forever echoing through the 
 oak-panelled chambers. 
 
 It was scarcely strange that these haunting thoughts, these 
 gloomy shadows, darkening all the joys of life, had a fatal 
 effect upon Lord Haughton's physical health. His strength 
 ebbed away, as the days dragged themselves out so slowly, as it 
 seemed to him, even in this gay French capital, whose citizens 
 appear to have nothing to do but to amuse themselves. The 
 'Dlive tint of his handsome face faded to a waxen hue, over which, 
 with every transient emotion, a vivid crimson flush glowed like 
 low clouds that catch their colour from the sinking sun. 
 These hectic flushes, and the strange brightness in the earl's 
 £ark eyes, were diagnostics that no physician could have failed 
 to interpret unfavourably. But Ethel mistook the crimson glow 
 in her husband's face for the warm hue of health, and the new 
 brightness in his eyes seemed to her the light of happiness. It 
 never entered into the young wife's mind that these signs were 
 nature's danger-signals, and gave warning of a fatally insidious 
 disease. 
 
 4-8 for Gervoise himself, he never complained. If, sometime^ 
 
274 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 after a canter in the Bois de Boulogne, he Mt law heart beating 
 at a feverish rate, and the hot perspiration breaking out upon 
 his face, he took little heed of these tokens of weakness. There 
 might be nothing ominous in this decline of strength; if ther* 
 were, it mattered little — it was perhaps the best thing that could 
 happen to him. 
 
 The earl kept the secret of his own feelings, on this point 
 and on every other, and he performed all the duties of his 
 position with as much assiduity as if he had been the happiest 
 and strongest men in Paris. He did everything that was re- 
 quired of him. He rode and drove with his wife in the Bois de 
 Boulogne, in all the pretty suburban regions ; he went shopping 
 in the Sue de la Paix, and on the Boulevard des Italiens ; he 
 escorted Ethel in all her visits ; he attended her at the Opera, 
 He loved her, and he had a kind of pleasure in her happiness, 
 though the burden on his mind was never less heavy to bear, 
 though the haunting shadow of his life was never to be driven 
 away. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVXII. 
 ethel's visitor. 
 
 It had been arranged that Lord Haughton and his wife should 
 
 remain abroad until the beginning of June, when the apart- 
 ments which were being newly decorated for the bride at the 
 Chase would be ready ; but before the end of May Ger- 
 voise's health gave way, very much to the alarm of his devoted 
 wife. 
 
 An English physician was sent for, in compliance with Ethel's 
 urgent request, and remained for nearly an hour alone with the 
 earl. He looked very grave when he came out of Lord Haugh- 
 ton's room, but could tell Ethel nothing, except that her hus- 
 band was suffering from extreme debility, and that he required 
 perfect repose, both of body and mind. 
 
 " His mind has been lately much disturbed, I should imagine,'* 
 the physician said. 
 
 Ethel shook her head incredulously. 
 
 "What should disturb my dear husband's mind?" she said. 
 " He has every reason to be happy ; unless, indeed, the shock ot 
 bis cousin's sudden death last year may have affected him." 
 
 "I should think it very possibb that Lord Haughton has 
 been so affected," the physician answered. " In any case,, 
 repose is most essential to him. His native air might be ot 
 service also in restoring his strength." ; * » 
 
Ethel's Visitor. 
 
 Ethel knew that Gervoise Palgrave's infancy had been spent 
 in the neighbourhood of the Chase ; she therefore did all in her 
 power to hasten the return to Warwickshire, even against her 
 husband's will ; for the earl had a nervous horror of that ivy- 
 covered gothic mansion, perched high above the rushing waters 
 that were for ever falling, falling, falling under the shadow of 
 the steep bank 
 
 The earl and countess arrived at the Chase upon a bright 
 May evening; but, mild as the weather was, Gervoise had 
 suffered considerably on the long journey from Paris to War- 
 wickshire, though he had travelled express for the best part of 
 the way. He was very silent and very pale when he handed his 
 wife into the carriage that was in waiting at the station, and 
 he sank back into a corner of the comfortable vehicle with a 
 long-drawn sigh of relief. 
 
 Little pleasure had either wealth or love brought this man. 
 He had been selfish all his life, and had sought his own hap- 
 piness, and yet had utterly failed to win even the negative 
 happiness called peace. He was fain to fall back now upon tho 
 physical selfishness of an invalid. The vitality of his mind 
 seemed to have ebbed away with his bodily strength. He only 
 wanted to lie down and rest, and to be let alone. 
 
 "Ethel," he said, as the carriage entered the shrubberied 
 drive leading to the great hall-door, " I think that the shadow 
 will never be lifted from the dwellers in yonder house. I have 
 heard it said that no Palgrave has ever known happiness since 
 Rupert Palgrave, the Hanoverian, betrayed his Jacobite brother 
 more than a hundred years ago." 
 
 Lights were burning in all the principal apartments of the 
 old mansion. Lord Haaghton and his wife dined in that very 
 room in which the earl had spent the eve of his wedding-day. 
 
 Little happiness awaited the young wife in her splendid 
 home. Gervoise grew rapidly worse after his return to the 
 Chase, and Ethel was tortured- by perpetual fears, which she 
 tried in vain to persuade herself were needless and unreason- 
 able. Upon the very morning after his return, the earl was too 
 ill to rise, and at his wife's earnest entreaty allowed her to send 
 a telegraphic summons to a distinguished physician at Birming- 
 ham. At noon this gentleman was with Lord Haughton, and 
 during the interview Ethel wandered about the house, looking 
 v r ery sadly at the old pictures, the faded tapestries, the quaint 
 carvings — looking at them in a strange absent way, and scarcely 
 seeing them. 
 
 " I , thought that Gervoise would have shown me all these 
 things " she said to herself mournfully; "my new homo seems 
 almost as desolate as if I had come back to it alone." 
 
 There were three drawing-rooms at tho Chase, opening one 
 
276 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 into the other. Ethel seated herself in the smallest ot the three, 
 the innermost chamber ; a pretty little room, with white panel? 
 and gold mouldings, and with an old-fashioned border of painted 
 flowers running all round the cornice. There was a bay-window 
 overlooking the gardens, and an old-fashioned high chimney- 
 piece, exquisitely carved, and painted white, like the rest of the 
 woodwork. 
 
 There was a fire in this room, for the day was dull, cold, and 
 unseasonable. Ethel seated herself in the bay-window, and 
 looked out at the sloping shrubberies and the stretching mea- 
 dow?, beyond the ivy-grown park-fence that shut in the gardens 
 of Palgrave Chase. She was in no humour for any of her 
 familiar occupations, though this room had been specially pre- 
 pared for her use, and though her piano and books and draw* 
 ing-materials had been brought from Hyford, and arranged in 
 this apartment by the careful hands of her own maid. 
 
 For more than half an hour the countess sat in the old- 
 fashioned window-seat looking listlessly out at the dull gray 
 sky and the dark fir-trees in the shrubbery, with the tears 
 rolling slowly down her cheeks. She was so occupied by her 
 own sad thoughts, that she did not hear the footsteps of one of 
 the servants coming through the adjoining room, and was only 
 roused from her reverie when the man was close to her. 
 
 Ethel started to her feet, and hastily brushed the tears from 
 her eyes. The man handed her a card upon a salver. 
 
 "The gentleman begs to see yonr ladyship upon most par- 
 ticular business," the servant said. 
 
 The gentleman was Mr. Yokes, otherwise Yolterchoker. 
 
 EQiel looked wonderingly at the card. 
 
 " I do not know any one of this name," she said. 
 
 "The gentleman said he was a stranger to your ladyship; 
 but he made sure your ladyship would see him, if you would be 
 so kind as to read what's written on the back of the card." 
 
 Ethel turned Mr. Yokes's card. On the back there wore a 
 few words scrawled in pencil : 
 
 " Will Lady Haughton be good enough to see Mr, V. on busi- 
 ness of vital importance to Lord H. ?" 
 
 "Important to my husband!" cried Ethel. "What can he 
 mean? — Let him come to me immediately." 
 
 The servant went in quest of Mr. Yokes. Ethel walked up 
 and down the room, impatiently awaiting the coming of her 
 strange visitor. 
 
 Mr. Yokes, alias Herr von Yolterchoker, had endeavoured to 
 adapt his appearance to the occasion, and was no longer the 
 disreputable-looking tramp and tumbler who had handed round 
 his greasy hat for halfpence in the market-place of Avondale. 
 He wore a suit of black, and had almcst a clerical look. His 
 
EtheVs Visitor. 
 
 277 
 
 manner was courteous and sympathetic, almost oily in its 
 extreme politeness and consideration. 
 
 Ethel motioned him to a chair with a gesture which had 
 some shade of hauteur in its careless grace. The Countess of 
 Haughton was an impulsive young lady, who had her likings 
 and dislikings, and she was not very favourably impressed by 
 the stranger. 
 
 "You have something to say that concerns my husbands- 
 she said. " I am ready to hear anything that interests him." 
 
 Mr. Yokes hesitated, and turned the brim of his hat slowlj > 
 round and round in his bony hands. 
 
 "The business upon which I come is not a very pleasant 
 one," he said ; " but I feel that I have a duty to perform— a 
 duty towards society and your ladyship." 
 
 " What do you mean, sir ? " Ethel asked haughtily. " I do 
 not understand this preface." 
 
 " You will understand the preface better when you know the 
 story, Lady Haughton," answered Mr. Yokes, with a sardonic 
 grin upon his face ; " but before I go any further, let me ask you 
 one question. When the Earl of Haughton asked you to be his 
 wife did he tell you that he was a widower ? " 
 
 " No," cried Ethel. " What do you mean by such a question P 
 Lord Haughton was not a widower." 
 
 "No, my lady," returned the clown, with insolent significance; 
 "you're right enough there. When Gervoise Palgrave asked 
 you to marry him he was not a widower, for his first wife was 
 alive." 
 
 Ethel started to her feet in sudden anger. 
 
 " What ! " she cried, " you would dare to insinuate that I 99 
 
 " ISTo, no ; I don't insinuate anything about you" the man 
 answered. "Don't be frightened, my lady. You are Gervoise 
 Palgrave's lawfully wedded wife ; for his first wife was treacher- 
 ously murdered upon the night before your wedding-day." 
 
 Some women would have fallen senseless and lifeless to the 
 ground, smitten bj these words as by a thunderbolt. But Ethel's 
 was no common schoolgirl nature. She stood erect, motionless 
 as a statue, with her eyes fixed upon the grinning wretch who 
 sat opposite to her. 
 
 "It is a lie ! " she cried; "an infamous and wicked lie ! A 
 base plot against my happiness and my husband's honour. I 
 will never believe it. 
 
278 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 L FRIEND IN NEED. 
 
 Ten minutes after Mr. Yokes had been admitted to the pre- 
 sence of the countess, another visitor arrived at Palgrave Chase. 
 This second visitor was Stephen Hurst, who had heard of the 
 arrival of the earl and countess, and had come immediately to 
 call upon his cousin — the cousin he had loved so truly and so 
 hopelessly. 
 
 Had loved ! — alas, he loved her still. Yainly had he 
 striven to banish her dear image from his heart. He still loved 
 Ethel, as truly and faithfully as he had loved her in those 
 happy, never-to-be-forgotten days when they had wandered 
 together in the woods about Hyford Hall in the long vacation. 
 Of course he indulged in the sophistries common to men in his 
 position ; for he was a conscientious man, who tried to do his 
 duty unflinchingly. He flattered himself that his present feel- 
 ings for Ethel were very different from those of the past. He 
 had ceased to love her : he thought he felt for her now only a 
 tender friendship, an eager desire to serve her, if ever she had 
 need of his aid. 
 
 Under these circumstances he considered himself justified in 
 making a very early call at Palgrave Chase. 
 
 The servant who admitted Mr. Hurst was the same man who 
 had, five or ten minutes previously, conducted Mr. Yokes to the 
 countess's apartment. He told Stephen that Lady Haughton 
 was at that moment engaged with a person who had called upon 
 particular business. 
 
 The young man would have gone away after hearing this, if 
 he had not happened to encounter Lucy Trotter — Ethel's maid — ■ 
 a young woman who had been seven years at the Hall, and 
 whom her kind young mistress treated rather as a humble friend 
 than as a servant. This young person was passing across an 
 inner hall — on her way from one part of the house to another — 
 and heard Stephen Hurst's voice as he spoke to the servant. 
 She made her appearance immediately, and seemed delighted to 
 see her old friend. 
 
 " Lor', Mr. Stephen," she said, " don't go away because our 
 young miss— I meanter say, her ladyship the countess — but 
 the old way of talking do come so natural like — don't you go 
 and run away because her ladyship's got some one with her in 
 the drawing-room. He's nobody. I sor him go upstairs ; and 
 he's one of those shabby black, respectable kind of persons 
 that looks something betwixt and between an hotel- waiter 
 and a methody minister. He's only come for a subscription 
 
A Friend in Need. 
 
 279 
 
 to a dancing- school for destitute chimley- sweeps, or some such 
 rubbish, I dessay. Never mind him, Mr. Stephen ; you go up 
 and see Miss Ethel — there I go again ! — but, sir, you know it 
 does — now, don't it ? You go up and see her : she'll be glad 
 enough to see you ; and that'll be an excuse for gettin' rid of the 
 minister." 
 
 " But, Lucy, I really can't intrude upon 99 
 
 " Intrude upon fiddlesticks ! " cried Lucy. " That's jus A i 
 like you, Mr. Stephen. As if you don't know my lady will be^ 
 glad to see you ! I am sure I shall be very glad for you to 
 see her, for she's in very low spirits, poor dear, because of the 
 earl's health being bad, which I never see any one lookin' 
 worse than he does, certainly, poor gentleman ; and Miss Ethel 
 don't see the change in him as I do, through not having seen 
 him since the weddin'-day. Now, you go upstairs, Mr. Stephen, 
 and don't be nonsensical. The idea of such ceremony between 
 first cousins ! " 
 
 Stephen went half unwillingly and unannounced to the 
 drawing-rooms which had been familiar to him in the last Lord 
 Haughton's lifetime. He went into the first room and shut the 
 door behind him, and went into the centre and larger apart- 
 ment. But here he was arrested suddenly by a sound that 
 came from the inner room — the sound of a woman's passionate 
 sobbing, while a man's hard voice went on, relentless as the voice 
 of fate. 
 
 " Upon the afternoon of the last day of February," said this 
 voice, " you and Gervoise Palgrave were riding together through 
 the town of Avondale. You were riding past a little tavern 
 where the market-people assemble, when a woman ran out, tried 
 to seize the bridle of your lover's horse, and called him a 
 villain and a scoundrel. The Earl of Haughton took this very 
 lightly: the wretched woman was mad or drunk, he said — it 
 was altogether a most absurd business. But yet I doubt if my 
 Lord Haughton was quite in his usual spirits for the rest of 
 that day." 
 
 The cruel voice paused, and Stephen Hurst heard the woman's 
 sobs grow louder. He listened — it was base and mean, per- 
 haps, to listen, but if it were so, Stephen was unconscious of 
 either baseness or meanness ; he only felt that the most vital 
 interests of the woman he loved were affected by the words to 
 which he listened, and that it was his business to protect and 
 defend her. 
 
 " The wretched woman was carried to some humble shelter in 
 the Avondale inn. They put her in a stable, I think, or a loft, 
 or some place of that description. It was good enough for her, 
 for she was only a miserable tramp, who, in her mad drunken- 
 ness, had been so audacious as to attack the master of Palgrave 
 
280 
 
 Zost and Found. 
 
 Chase. She was put in a loft over a stable, and when she was 
 sought for on the following morning she was nowhere to lee 
 iound. Pardon me — she was to be found, but not in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the inn. She was found drowned in the river 
 Avon, and her dead body was carried through Pendon church- 
 yard five minutes before your wedding with the man who had 
 been her husband. 0 yes, Lady Haughton, I told you only the 
 truth when I said that your marriage was in perfect accordance 
 with the law of the land. Your husband was a widower when 
 you married him ; his first wife had been dead half a dozen 
 hours." 
 
 " I do not believe it," cried Ethel's voice, broken by sobs. " I 
 do not know what motive you may have in bringing me this 
 story ; but nothing short of my husband's own confession would 
 make me believe that he had deceived me." 
 
 " You are very incredulous, Lady Haughton. Why not go to 
 Gervoise Palgrave, tell him what I have told you, and if my 
 assertions are false, let him disprove them ? " 
 
 Ethel was silent for a few moments, and again Stephen heard 
 her low hysterical sobs. 
 
 " My husband is ill," she said; "I cannot disturb him." 
 
 " You fear to go to him, Lady Haughton," answered Mr. 
 Yokes ; " you fear. You know I have told you the truth. J 
 will tell you even more : that wretched woman, your husband's 
 first wife, was lured away from Avondale, and |treacherously 
 murdered by Gervoise Palgrave, the man you love. I have 
 proof of your husband's guilt, and I shall know how to make 
 good use of it. Look back, Lady Haughton — look back, and 
 remember all that has passed between you and your husband, 
 and ask yourself if every circumstance in the past does not 
 
 foint to one conclusion. Your husband is ill, you say ? Shall 
 tell you why he is ill ? shall I tell you the nature of his 
 disease? He is sinking under the burden of a guilty con- 
 science. It is remorse which is sapping at the very roots of his 
 life. Judge for yourself whether it is any common disorder 
 which has stricken him down." 
 
 For some moments there was silence. Then, in a voice that 
 was subdued and yet resolute, Ethel asked, — 
 " Why do you come to me with this story ?" 
 " Because you are the person most interested in Lord Haugh- 
 ton's welfare, and it is with you I must come to an understand- 
 ing as to whether I am to keep this matter secret, or do my 
 duty, and see Gervoise Palgrave's dead wife avenged." 
 
 "No, sir," answered Stephen Hurst, crossing the threshold 
 of the inner room as he spoke, " it is not with Lady Haughton, 
 but with me, that you must come to an understanding." 
 
 At the sudden aspect of this young man, who entered the 
 
A Friend in Need. 
 
 281 
 
 room with his head erect, and his eyes flashing with indignant 
 fire, the valiant Herr von Yolterchoker faltered a little ; but he 
 recovered himself quickly enough, and it was in a tone of 
 supreme insolence that he said : 
 
 44 You have listeners, then, hanging about your rooms, it seems, 
 Lady Haughton?" 
 
 44 No, sir," answered Stephen; " but on this occasion Lady 
 Haughton happened to have her friend and kinsman near at 
 hand when she had most need of his service." 
 
 Herr von Volterchoker seemed rather discomposed by this > 
 speech. 
 
 Ethel tottered forward a few paces, and flung herself on the 
 ground at her cousin's feet. 
 
 44 This is not true," she cried, 44 this cannot be true. 0 Stephen, 
 speak to me, for pity's sake ; give me some comfort, for this man 
 has almost driven me mad — say that it is not true." 
 
 44 1 do not believe that he has spoken the whole truth, Ethel," 
 Stephen replied, raising the distracted girl from the ground. 
 44 He may have spoken some of the truth, perhaps ; and a little 
 truth eked out by a good deal of falsehood makes the terrible 
 machinery by which many a man has paid the penalty of crimes 
 he never committed. Sit down, Ethel; sit down, and calm your- 
 self. Let me talk to this man." 
 
 44 This man has a name as well as other men," observed Mr. 
 Yokes insolently, 44 and you may as well call him by it while 
 you 're about it. My name's Yokes, at your service — William 
 Yokes." 
 
 He flung himself upon a low couch near the window as he 
 spoke, and stretched out his long legs ; but he was by no means 
 as much at home as he had been before Stephen's appearance, 
 though he tried to carry off his lurking uneasiness by a little 
 extra swagger. 
 
 44 Why have you come here with this story about Lord 
 Haughton?" Stephen asked, in a calm business-like tone. 44 If 
 you're an honest man, and want to use your information in the 
 interests of society, why don't you go straight to the nearest 
 magistrate and tell him what you suspect?" 
 
 44 0 Stephen," cried Ethel, 44 is this the way you help me ?" 
 
 But the young rector took no notice of this interruption. He 
 never removed his eyes from Herr von Yolterchoker's face. 
 
 44 If you 're an honest man, take your suspicions to the proper 
 quarter," he said; 44 don't bring them here." 
 
 ' 4 But suppose I 'm not an honest man," returned Mr. Yokes, 
 folding his arms and confronting Stephen with an air of spurious 
 confidence, 44 Suppose I 'm not an honest man — at any rate, no 
 more honest than the generality of my species. Suppose I 
 want to turn my information to good account for my own 
 
2S2 Lost and Found* 
 
 benefit, and not for the advantage of society at large. How i£ 
 having found this secret, I 'm prepared to sell it in the best 
 market ? How then ?" 
 
 "Then you are a scoundrel," answered Stephen, "and wa 
 must deal with you as a scoundrel." 
 
 " Yery probably. But it sometimes happens that a scoundre! 
 picks up a big diamond, and the precious stone 's worth just as 
 much as if it had beer picked up by the Archbishop of Canter* 
 bury." 
 
 44 But how if the pretended diamond is only a bit of glass, Mr, 
 Yokes? How if your secret is no secret, but merely a con* 
 coction of your own lively brain ?" 
 
 "I can prove one part of it in half a second," answered 
 Mr. Yokes ; " I can prove that Gervoise Palgrave was married 
 before he married his present wife, for I have the certificate of 
 his first marriage in my pocket." 
 
 He took out his pocket-book as he spoke, selected the certi- 
 ficate from several other papers, walked to where Stephen Hurst 
 was seated, and held the document open before him while he 
 read it. 
 
 "This paper certifies the marriage of Gervoise Palgrave with 
 one Agatha Pickshaw," said Stephen very coolly; " but how do 
 I know that the Gervoise Palgrave here named was Gervoise 
 Palgrave, Lord Haughton?" 
 
 There was rather an awkward pause after this. Ethel watched 
 the two men breathlessly, with a terrible interest in every word 
 that was spoken. 
 
 " 0, as for that" exclaimed Herr von Yolterchoker, " that 's 
 easy enough to prove." 
 
 44 Possibly ; but it remains to be proved. People are not found 
 guilty of murder upon very slight evidence nowadays, and the 
 evidence you have to bring against Lord Haughton isn't strong 
 enough to hang a dog." 
 
 Mr. Yokes put the certificate in his pocket. He sat down 
 again, and amused himself by gnawing his finger-nails furiously, 
 like a savage cur mumbling a stolen bone. It had been easy 
 enough to frighten a loving woman, who was ready to take alarm 
 at the first whisper of danger to the man she loved; but it was 
 a very different matter to confront this self-possessed young 
 parson, who seemed to have all his wits about him. 
 
 " Perhaps I had better try to dispose of my information else- 
 where," the clown said presently. 
 
 He was white with suppressed rage, and he trembled as he 
 spoke. 
 
 14 1 really think you had," Stephen replied, with consummate 
 politeness ; 44 your information has had no effect here but to occa- 
 sion causeless alarm in Lady Haughton' s mind," 
 
A Friend in JSfced. 
 
 233 
 
 "Very well, sir,'' answered the clown, with a savage sneer; 
 w I make no doubt I shall find a market for my secret. I told 
 Lady Haughton that I possessed the proof of her husband's 
 guilt; she will know that I have spoken the truth — when it is 
 too late." 
 
 He put cn his hat and went towards the door. 
 
 " Stephen," cried Ethel passionately, u you will never siirei j 
 tet this man go ?" 
 
 " If his secret is worth buying, I will pay him for it," Stephe.i 
 gaid quietly. " I don't believe that it is ; but if I am hasty in > 
 coming to that conclusion, let Mr. Yokes meet me at my lawyer's 
 office to-morrow at two o'clock. I shall be ready to hear any- 
 thing he may have to say." 
 
 " I shall not condescend to enter into any negotiation with 
 yo^ sir," answered Mr. Vokes. " When next I discuss this 
 business it will be with the Earl of Haughton himself." 
 
 Upon this the clown stalked away, followed by Stephen, who 
 saw Mr. Yokes to the staircase, and committed him to the care 
 of one of the lounging footmen always to be found in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the hall. 
 
 The young man then went back to Ethel. She was standing 
 near the window, pale, but very calm. She had wiped the tears 
 from her swollen eyelids, but the expression of her face was more 
 piteous than if it had been drowned in tears. 
 
 " Stephen," she said imploringly, " since you have heard what 
 this man has said, I can only look to you for help. I know that 
 it is not true — it cannot be true ; but I look to you to protect 
 my husband from this man. There may be some secret — some 
 cloud upon his past life ; and if it is so, I am ready to bear my 
 part of the burden. I love him so dearly, that if there is 
 suffering to be endured, I would bear it willingly for his sake. 
 I would bear it gladly, if by so doing I could save him one 
 pang." 
 
 Stephen turned to the window and looked out at the sloping 
 shrubberies as Ethel said this. How vainly he had yearned for 
 this girl's love, and the supreme blessing had been withheld from 
 him to be given so freely to Gervoise Palgrave, the handsome 
 stranger, the chance acquaintance of a few weeks ! Even to his 
 Christian patience it seemed a hard thing ; but he had promised 
 to be her faithful and constant friend, and he was prepared tc 
 perform his promise unflinchingly. 
 
 "The man who has just gone away from this house is a scoun- 
 drel and a swindler, Ethel," he said presently. " I watched his 
 face just now, while I was talking to him. He has no fatal 
 secret to dispose of. I saw the coward under the mask of the 
 braggart: there is nothing to be feared from him. But there 
 
284 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 may be some half-truth in what he has said. f l'ne certificate of 
 maniage which he showed me may actually relate to some early 
 marriage of your husband." 
 
 k< But why should Gervoise conceal that marriage from me ?" 
 
 " The union may have been unhappy, or so humble a mar- 
 riage that Lord Haughton was too proud to speak of it." 
 
 " I cannot think that," Ethel said mournfully. " I cannot 
 think that Gervoise would disavow his wife." 
 
 Stephen was silent. He remembered the period before Ethel's 
 marriage, and he remembered how Lord Haughton had for a 
 considerable time refrained from any declaration of his love, 
 after that affection had become an obvious fact to every observer. 
 Did not this in some manner bear out the stranger's assertion 
 that Gervoise Palgrave's first wife had only died within a very 
 short time of his marriage with Ethel? Stephen was too 
 generous to reveal such thoughts as these to the unhappy wife, 
 who so early needed his consolation and support. 
 
 " Do not let this man's slanders disturb you, Ethel," he said. 
 " It will be for me to sift this business quietly, without prejudice 
 to Lord Haughton's interests. In the mean time I beg you to 
 banish the affair from your mind." 
 
 " I will try to do so, for my husband's sake." 
 
 "He is very ill, then?" 
 
 " Yes, very ill. He was ill when he left Paris, and he seems 
 much worse this morning. I never thought I should have so 
 sad a welcome to Palgrave Chase. I look to you for help, 
 Stephen. You promised to be my friend, and I bitterly need 
 your friendship. I must say good-bye now, for I must go and 
 see if Gervoise wants me. Will you stay and dine with us, 
 Stephen?" 
 
 Mr. Hurst declined this invitation. 
 
 *' I shall be of more use to you elsewhere, Ethel," he said, 
 " I want to think this matter over very quietly before I decide 
 how I shall act in your behalf." 
 
 He took Lady Haughton's cold hand in his own and pressed 
 it tenderly. 
 
 " God bless you, Ethel !" he said. " If unselfish wishes could 
 help you, you would not long be unhappy." 
 
 He went back to his pretty parsonage at Pendon, and shut 
 himself in the little room which he made his study. He made 
 a pencil memorandum of the particulars of the marriage certi- 
 ficate, and jotted down the name of the bride, Agatha Pick- 
 shaw, and the name of the church at which the marriage had 
 taken place. The church was Saint Margaret's, Westminster. 
 
 *' My first step must be to find out if the Gervoise Palgrave* 
 mentioned in this documsnt is Gervoise Palgrave, T/ord Haugh- 
 
A Friend in Need. 
 
 285 
 
 ton," thought the young man ; " and my next step shall be to 
 inquire into the character of Gervoise Palgrave's accuser." 
 
 Ethel went straight to her husband's room after Stephen Hurst > 
 had left her. Gervoise had risen now, and was sitting near the 
 fire in his study, pale and haggard-looking, wrapped in a long 
 dark velvet dressing-gown, and with his unkempt hair falling in 
 disorder upon his forehead. He looked up as his wife entered 
 the room, and held out his hand to her. 
 
 " I thought you were out, my darling," he said. 
 
 "No, Gervoise, I have been home a long time ; but " 
 
 " You have had visitors, I suppose ?" 
 
 "Yes," Ethel answered, hesitating a little; " Stephen Hurst 
 has been with me." 
 " That 's strange." 
 " Why strange, dear Gervoise ?" 
 
 " Because f have just sent one of the grooms to fetch his 
 father, and Mr. Warboys." 
 
 " To fetch Mr. "Warboys the lawyer !" cried Laura ; " what 
 do you want with him, Gervoise?" 
 
 " If I were to tell you, my pet, you would be unhappy," he 
 said. "You are too good for me, Ethel, too bright and beauti- 
 ful. Happiness has very rarely reigned at Palgrave Chase, my 
 darling, and when she enters her reign is never long. I think 
 the house is doomed, Ethel, aud all who dwell in it." 
 " Gervoise — Gervoise !" 
 
 The frightened girl fell on her knees by her husband's side. 
 Doubt and fear took possession of her. She saw some vague 
 confirmation of the stranger's fearful accusations in her hus- 
 band's manner, and she trembled from head to foot as she knelt 
 by his side. 
 
 " 0 Gervoise," she cried piteously, " it can't be true — it can't 
 be true ! Tell me that it is not true !" 
 
 Lord Haughton turned his haggard eyeo upon his wife's 
 face. 
 
 " What do you mean, Ethel ?" 
 
 She did not answer him at first, but she still knelt at his feet, 
 looking up at his white, careworn face. She looked at him and 
 saw something more thaji physical weakness or physical pain in 
 those wan and altered lineaments. She pitied him with all hei 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Humphrey's confession. 
 
238 
 
 Lost ana Found. 
 
 woman's heart, with all the force of her pure and noble soul} 
 and yet something within her, stronger than her own will, seemed 
 to urge her on to sound the depths of those secret thoughts that 
 had been so carefully hidden from her. 
 
 " Gervoise," she said in a low voice, and then she went on 
 speaking very slowly, and with her innocent eyes fixed upon her 
 husband's face as she spoke, " Gervoise, I had a dreadful dream 
 last night, and the remembrance of it haunts me to-day. I 
 dreamt that a man came to me, a man whose face I had never 
 seen before, and spoke to me of you. 0 Gervoise, he told me 
 that there was a blight upon our wedding morning, and that 
 the shadow of death came between us and divided us when we 
 should have been happiest and most united. He told me this, 
 and then he led me out from this house into the dark night, and 
 led me on until we came to a stream of black, troubled water, 
 and on the flat shore beside that troubled river there lay the 
 body of a woman, drowned, Gervoise — drowned, poor wretched 
 creature. The moon had been hidden by the clouds until that 
 moment, but in that moment the clouds swept away, and I saw 
 the woman's face. Shall I tell you whose face it was, Gervoise? 
 It was the face of the woman who stopped your horse in Avon- 
 dale market-place on the day before our wedding." 
 
 Gervoise Palgrave groaned aloud, and hid his face upon his 
 wife's breast. Her arms crept round him, and held him there; 
 not perhaps with their old impulsive love and confidence, but 
 with the sheltering tenderness of a mother who clings to the 
 child she loves — the child from whom no guilt, however black or 
 horrible, can alienate her unreasoning affection. 
 
 " It is all true, then," the wretched wife murmured to herself, 
 in a low, broken voice, while her husband's face was hidden upon 
 her shoulder, " it is all true; and there is nothing left for me 
 upon this earth except to comfort and pity him." 
 
 Her husband's head grew heavier and heavier as it lay upon 
 her shoulder. 
 
 She tried to lift it, and could not; and then, in a sudden 
 panic, screamed aloud for help. 
 
 Lord Haughton's valet came rushing in at the sound ot that 
 terrified voice. 
 
 " 0, look at him, help him !" Ethel cried; " his face is as white 
 as death. He is dying!" 
 
 But the servant reassured her. His lordship had only fainted, 
 the man said. He brought cold water and hartshorn. Gervoise 
 Palgrave's eyes opened presently, and he stared about him with 
 a faint convulsive shudder. The valet led his master into the 
 adjoining room and persuaded him to lie down. 
 
 Ethel stood near the fireplace in the study, staring blankly at 
 the burning coals. It seemed to her as if the powers of her 
 
Humphrey's Confession. 
 
 2S7 
 
 mind were paralyzed. She could not realize the fall horror of 
 her position. She knew that it was horrible, and that was all. 
 She knew that her husband was guilty, since he had tacitly 
 confessed his guilt. She knew that he was guilty, and that she 
 loved him in spite of his guilt. 
 
 She went into the adjoining room presently, and would have, 
 seated herself beside the bed upon which Gervoise was lying ; 
 but the valet whispered to her that Dr. Wilmington, the Bir- 
 mingham physician, had specially ordered rest and quiet for his 
 patient. He was to be kept alone, and was to sleep as much as 
 possible. The recovery of his physical strength entirely hinged 
 upon the perfect repose of his mind. 
 
 Ethel bowed her head submissively and went away to the 
 pretty dressing-room, in which modern elegance was blemded 
 exquisitely with the quaint grandeur of the past — the room 
 which had been prepared for a happy wife, and in which a 
 miserable woman flung herself upon her knees, and wept aloud 
 for her guilty husband. 
 
 She wept and prayed for him ; she tried to think of the nature 
 of his guilt, but she could not. Her love came between his 
 image and the crime which she believed him to have committed, 
 and she could not realize the extent of his wickedness. She 
 remained for hours half kneeling, half lying beside a prie-dieu 
 chair in her dressing-room. The tears poured in torrents at first, 
 and then dried and left her eyes bloodshot and haggard. Some- 
 times her hps moved in passionate prayer and supplication foi 
 the guilty creature to whom her heart so obstinately clung ; at 
 other times she sank into a kind of stupor, in which she had 
 only a vague sense of some overwhelming grief which had 
 suddenly darkened her life. 
 
 She remained thus until the low western sunlight glowed 
 redly upon her window, and flecked the oaken wainscot with 
 crimson brightness. Then she rose half mechanically, and 
 drew a shawl round her, for the fire had burnt itself out, and 
 she was cold and shivering. 
 
 The broad window of her dressing-room was ajar, and beyond 
 the window there was an iron balcony, and a light iron stair 
 leading down into the flower-garden, below which the waterfall 
 rushed over the mossy crags and boulders. With her shawl 
 wrapped closely round her, Ethel went slowly down the iron 
 steps, and across the smooth turf, winding in and out amongst 
 the beds of bright flowers, until she came to the steps in the 
 side of the river-bank — the rugged steps down which Gervoiss 
 Palgrave's first wife had gone to her death, on the bleak., 
 starless eve of Ethel's wedding-day. 
 
 The young countess little knew whose footsteps had tedskn * 
 the pathway she was now following. She went down the ragged 
 
2bS 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 mossy steps, and across a little rustic wooden bridge that 
 spanned the waterfall. She went mechanically, scarcely know- 
 ing whither she went, wandering anywhere in the agonized 
 restlessness of her grief. 
 
 The grey twilight was creeping over the sky, and the 1o\t 
 streaks of vivid crimson in the west grew lurid in the gathering 
 darkness, and glinted upon the black trunks of the trees like 
 splashes of wet blood ; so, at least, it seemed to Ethel, to whose 
 tortured mind all common things assumed strange distorted 
 images. 
 
 She wandered on under the fir-trees, whose dark foliage 
 loomed against the fading sunlight like the black plumes in a 
 iTtnemL procession. The wind had risen with the going down of 
 the sun, and the upper branches of the firs tossed to and fro 
 igainst the low yellow light. 
 
 Ethel shuddered at the image suggested by those waving 
 branches — she shuddered as she thought that perhaps the 
 greatest mercy pitying Heaven could grant to the sinful lord 
 of Palgrave Chase was an early death, which would release him 
 Seam the dread burden of his guilty shame. 
 
 Her mind was filled with these gloomy thoughts as she 
 wound her way, with a slow, mechanical step, amongst the pine* 
 irees, through an atmosphere that was odorous with their faint 
 incense-like perfume. She walked on, wrapped in her own 
 despair, like some sleepwalker who wanders blindly hither and 
 thither in a painful dream, until she found herself close to the 
 lighted casement of the lodge that was kept by Margery Mel- 
 wood and her son. 
 
 No mention of this man's name had dropped from the false 
 lips of Gervoise Pal grave's accuser. Herr von Yolterchoker 
 knew the secret oi the poor mam's guilt ; but that secret was 
 useless to him, save so far as he could use it against the rict 
 man . 
 
 Ethel knew nothing of Humphrey Melwood, except that 
 he was a handsome, gipsy-faced jowa.fr man, who was ready to 
 go through fire and water in the service of his foster brother 
 This was enough to render the loving young wife well disposed 
 to the reformed poacher. 
 
 There wa3 no garden before the lodge ; the casement window 
 looked out upon a narrow plot of grass that skirted the drive, 
 &nd widened into a little shrubbery on one side of the gates. 
 One half ox the diamond-paned casement was open this evening 
 &s Ethel approached the lodge, for the wind that tossed the fir- 
 trees was a. southern wind, and the evening was warm. 
 
 The light within the cottage was the light of a fire, and before 
 ihat fir* there were two figures — two figures that flung great 
 blark shadows upon the low ceiling and the whitewashed wa'j> 
 
Humphrey's Confession. 
 
 289 
 
 and seemed to fill the little room with, their presence. One of 
 these figures was an old woman, sitting in an arm-chair, close 
 to the fire ; the other was a man — a man with a brown face, 
 glittering black eyes, and tumbled raven hair — a man who was 
 half-lying, half-sitting on the ground, with his face turned 
 k>wards the fire, and his head resting on the woman's knee. 
 
 Some instinct, something stronger than her own weak will, 
 led Ethel to this open window. It may have been that a^ 
 shuddering horror of the loneliness around, the black fir-grove 
 and the darkening sky, had taken possession of her. She went 
 up to the window with slow, weary steps, that were noiseless 
 upon the soft turf; she went up to the window with the inten- 
 tion of speaking to Margery Mel wood and her son. 
 
 The young wife, the beautiful heiress of the great ironmasters 
 wealth, the happy child, whose girlhood had been one bright 
 holiday, yearned now for the sound of a human voice to break 
 the dreadful silence of her despair. 
 
 She was close beside the little window when she was startled 
 by the sound of her husband's name. She paused only in the 
 first impulse of surprise, but in that pause, brief though it was, 
 she heard that which rooted her to the spot, as if she had been 
 held there by a hand of iron. 
 
 Humphrey Mel wood was speaking. He was speaking to his 
 mother, but he was not looking at her. His gaze was fixed 
 upon the red coals before him, and Ethel saw the firelight 
 reflected in the black depths of his gleaming eyes. The young 
 man's head still leaned against his mother's knee: it leaned 
 Shere, but it did not rest, for every now and then, as Humphrey 
 »poke, he rolled his head from side to side like a wretched, 
 fever-stricken creature who tosses to and fro upon his sleepless 
 pillow. The old woman's face was bent over her son, and thus 
 completely hidden from Ethel ; but from the convulsive move- 
 ment of her shoulders the watcher knew that Humphrey's 
 mother was sobbing. 
 
 " Yes, mother," the young man said, "it was for his sake— 
 for my little foster-brother, Gervoise; for my first friend. 
 Master Gervoise ; for my master, the new Earl of Haughton, — 
 it was for him I did it." 
 
 These were the words that rooted Ethel to the spot on which 
 she stood. She was standing behind the window, close to the 
 wall of the house, and she could hear every word that was 
 epoken within. 
 
 "I've kept my secret, mother, and I must keep it to the end. 
 There's only one man who knows it, and he must have the 
 devil himself for a friend, or else he couldn't have found it out. 
 xhat man who came here one night directly after my lord's 
 wedding — he knows it; and if he speaks and tells what ho 
 
2D0 
 
 Lost and Found, 
 
 knows, they'll "hang me, I suppose. It would be almost a 
 charity to do it,, for at least that would put me cut of my 
 misery." 
 
 "Why did you do it, Humphrey?" cried the old woman in 
 a stifled voice. " 0, why, why did you do this dreadful deed?" 
 
 " Why, mother ? Because his happiness depended upon it ; 
 because I saw his misery, and the sight of it made me mad- 
 He sent me that ifight — the night before his marriage — he sen! 
 me to fetch the woman at the King's Head. She was in a loft 
 over the stables asleep, the ostler told me. He showed me to the 
 place, and I went up the steps and found her in the loft. She 
 was lying in a drunken sleep, dressed in her walking clothes, all 
 but her bonnet, which was lying on the ground near her. It 
 wasn't easy to wake her ; but I did wake her at last, and I told 
 her what Master Gervoise had ordered me to tell her. I told 
 her that her husband wanted her." 
 
 He stopped, and pushed his hair away from his forehead, and 
 stared at the fire in a gloomy silence. Then he went on again 
 in a slow, dreamy way, as if he had been talking to himself 
 rather than to the wretched mother who was listening to him 
 in an agony of grief. 
 
 " I suppose the gipsy blood that 's in me makes me different 
 from other folks. I come of a people that don't set much value 
 upon their own lives or the lives of their neighbours. This 
 woman stood in my master's way. That thought was in my 
 mind as I went alone to fetch her; that thought was more than 
 ever in my mind while I was walking back to the Chase, with 
 her by my side. She seemed a sulky kind of woman, and I 
 fanned she was stupefied by the drink she 'd taken. This wai 
 all I knew of her ; but I hated her, for she stood between my 
 master and his hopes of happiness. I took her to the house, 
 and Master Gervoise let us in at the little door close to his own 
 rooms. We went in with him, and he took his wife into the 
 little inner room that 's full of books and such-like, and he left 
 me in the other room where he had been dining, and where the 
 table was spread with wine and glasses. Master Gervoise had 
 told me to drink some wine, and I sat down by the fire and 
 filled a glass from the decanter that was nearest me. I don't 
 know what the wine was, but I know that it seemed very good, 
 I went on drinking it till the bottle was empty, and my brain 
 firas all on fire when Master Gervoise came in presently alone." 
 
 He stopped again, and moved his head again, and then want 
 *n as he had done before, without once looking up at his mother. 
 Vhe night-wind sweeping past the lodge fluttered Ethel's dress 
 and shawl, but those within the cottage were too much wrapped 
 m their owi>' thoughts to take heed of the sounds without. So 
 long as the gates remained locked, Margery Melwood fancied 
 
Humphrey's Confession, 
 
 291 
 
 herself safe from any eavesdropper. It was not likely that any 
 one from the house would be prowling about the grounds on that 
 dark cheerless night. 
 
 " Master Gervoise came in to me," said Humphrey, " and I 
 saw at once, from his face, that all was wrong. He told me that 
 his wife refused to go away ; and he told me with the same breath 
 that no power on earth should hinder him from keeping his 
 engagement with Miss Hurst. There was a good deal more 
 said ; but it all came to that, first and last. The woman refused 
 to leave England, and Gervoise swore that he would be the hus-^ 
 band of the girl he loved. It was then that the black thought 
 grew up in my mind; it was then that I resolved to save my 
 master from misery and disgrace." 
 
 " But he asked you ? " cried Margery Mel wood ; " he tempted 
 you to do it?" 
 
 " By no word, mother ; by neither word nor look. He did not 
 tempt me ; it was my own love for him that tempted me. But 
 he knew what I was going to do." 
 
 "He knew it?" 
 
 " Yes, mother, as well as I knew the thought that was in my 
 own mind. He knew what I meant to do, and he never bade 
 me hold my hand. Heaven help him, and Heaven pity me ! I 
 think we were both mad that night, mother. Do you know 
 what dreams are— those dreadful dreams in which one gropes 
 about in the dark upon the edge of a horrible precipice, pushed 
 on against one's own will by a man whose face is hidden ? 
 That night seemed to me like one of those dreams. I knew 
 what my master wanted : he wanted to get rid of that woman 
 somehow or other ; and I knew that he had only me to help 
 him l told him that I would get her away, safely out of the 
 way, and that all should be right. He knew what I meant, 
 mother. I saw it in his face ; I heard it in his voice when he 
 spoke to the woman." 
 
 There was a pause; and in the silence Ethel heard the 
 southern wind sighing amongst the fir-trees, the dropping of 
 the ashes on the hearth, and Margery Mel wood's voice moaning 
 faintly, 
 
 " O my son, my son — my wretched, guilty son!" 
 
 " I was to take the woman back to Avondale. That was what 
 my master said to her. He would send for her, or go himself 
 to fetch her — I forget which he said — the following morning. 
 To me that to-morrow morning seemed as far off as the end of 
 the world. Master Gervoise said something to me about money. 
 I should want money, he said, to get the woman out of the waj" 
 — making believe to think there 'd be the expenses of her journey, 
 and such-like ; but I knew by his shaking voice that he was 
 telling a lie. He let us out at the little door by which he had 
 
292 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 admitted us a couple of hours "before ; and we went across Vm 
 flower-garden, and down the steps in the cliff, the woman cling- 
 ing to me as she felt her way upon the slippery stairs. I held 
 her arm as we went along by the side of the water. She pleaded 
 very hard to go the other way, by the high-road ; she was afraid 
 of that narrow path by the water. She pleaded very hard. O 
 my God, I can near her voice in my ears at this moment ; 1 have 
 heard it always — ever since that night ! And yet I live, mother 
 —I live, I live!" 
 
 The young man stopped, and for the first time since Ethel 
 had begun to watch him he covered his face with his brawny 
 hands, and gave way to a paroxysm of grief. He went on at 
 last, but in a broken voice, and with a wild terror in his great 
 black eyes : 
 
 "I took her down by the lonely pathway, mother; but I 
 couldn't do it at first. I hadn't the heart to do it, though 1 
 fancied there were voices in the rushing of the water that kept 
 crying to me that I was a coward, and that it ought to be 
 done at once. I led her along the river-bank, not towards 
 Avondale, but the other way, across the meadows betwixt this 
 place and Pendon churchyard. Poor creature ! she was a 
 stranger, and she fancied I was leading her right until we got 
 very far towards Pendon, and then she cried out that I was 
 taking her the wrong way, that I was leading her into some 
 lonely place where she would lose herself. I turned back 
 when she said this, and we went towards the Chase again; 
 bat still I hadn't the heart to do what it was in my mind 
 to do. So presently I asked her if she would go abroad, 
 over the sea to America, or somewhere. I asked her if any 
 sum of money would tempt her to do this ; but she answered 
 rae in an obstinate, sulky way, and told me that nothing on 
 earth would tempt her to leave Avondale unless her husband 
 went with her. * He has deserted me once,' she said, in the 
 same determined way, * and he shall never abandon me again 
 while I live ! " I told her that she was a very foolish woman, 
 and that if she cared for her own safety for the safety of he? 
 life, she had best give way, and do what she was asked to do. 
 God help me, mother ! When I said this I wanted to give her 
 a chance ; I wanted to save her. I think I would have given 
 my own life if I could have served my foster-brother without 
 doing the wicked deed that was in my mind. If she had been 
 a man, and had provoked me, and we had fallen upon one 
 another, each of us with a knife in his hand, I would have 
 neld the sin of bloodshed light enough ; but she was a woman, 
 ixnd we were alone together in the darkness, she clinging to 
 me as we groped along the slippery path, and there was not a 
 creature near to help her. I gave her that one chance. I 
 
Humphrey's Confession. 
 
 293 
 
 told her if she cared for the safety of lier life slie would do 
 well to give way, and not provoke Gervoise Pal grave ; but she 
 told me that her life was of little value to her, for she was a 
 miserable wretch, and that her chief motive for living was the 
 hope of being revenged on the man who had deserted her. 
 Three times I gave her the same warning ; three times she 
 answered me in the same words and in the same tone ; till at 
 last she provoked me, and I put my hands upon her shoulders 
 and held her rooted to the slippery ground, close upon the 
 edge of the water. ' I am going to kill you ! ' I said ; ' yon 
 are as obstinate as death ; but you shall never stand in the 
 way of my master's happiness. She gave a long horrible* 
 scream, and clutched with her thin fingers at the scarf that 
 was tied round my neck. I feel her fingers dragging at ma 
 now, mother — it is very seldom that I do not feel them — and 
 their frozen touch creeps to my very heart, and seems to stop 
 its beating. I pushed her backwards, her feet slipped upon} 
 the mossy ground, and she fell with a great splash into the 
 water. I didn't stop to see how she fell, or when she sank, 
 I ran away, and ran with all my might ; but her scream rang 
 m my ears as I went, and the air seemed filled with the sound 
 of it. I ran for upwards of a mile, and then I stopped and 
 drew breath. I walked on again, and walked till morning, 
 following every twist and turn of the river, until about an 
 hour before daybreak, when I came in sight of a village called 
 Benthorpe. You know it, I dare say mother ; it 's full seventeen 
 miles from here. I found a little public-house — a humble little 
 place, called the Hen and Chickens — where I sat all day drink* 
 mg and smoking. You remember the 1st of March, Lord 
 Haughton's wedding-day ; and you remember my. coming home 
 • late at night, mother, with my boots and gaiters all stained 
 with clay and mud?" 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I remember, I remember," the old woman moaned. 
 u I remember that night — too well, too welh" 
 
 Humphrey Melwood staggered to his feet, and took his hat 
 from a peg behind the little door that closed upon the staircase. 
 
 " I 've told you all the story now, mother ; and now you know 
 the reason of the change in me. I 've been a wicked, guilty 
 wretch ; but what 's worst of all to me is, that my wretchedness 
 doesn't seem to have done any good to him I wanted to serve. 
 I was up at the house this morning, in the hope of seeing my 
 lord ; but though it was close upon midday he hadn't left his 
 room, and his valet told me that he didn't think his master 
 would live to see harvest-time. I'm going out now, mother; 
 ilon't sit up for me if I 'm late." 
 
 " Where are you going, Humphrey ?" the old woman asked 
 entreatingly. 
 
294 
 
 Lost and Found, 
 
 "You know, mother, as well as I do." 
 
 " O Humphrey, Humphrey, yon 're going to the pnblio house 
 
 again I" 
 
 " I 'm going to the only place where I can bny forgefcfnlness !" 
 the young man answered fiercely, jingling some money in the 
 loose pocket of his velveteen shooting-jacket. " Don't hinder 
 me, mother, unless you want to see me mad. You Ve questioned 
 and wa tched me, to find out what was the matter with me. 
 You know all about it now, and you know why I Ve turned sot 
 and idler, at the very time when folks were beginning to talk of 
 Humphrey Merwood's growing an honest industrious fellow 
 after all." 
 
 The young man opened the door, and went out upon the 
 gravel drive. Ethel drew herself against the wall, between the 
 door and window, and though Humphrey brushed against her 
 dress as he passed her, he was quite unconscious of her presence. 
 He unlocked the gates, opened one of them, and went out into 
 the road, banging the gate behind him as he went. 
 
 The wretched wife crept slowly away from the place where 
 she had heard the story of her husband's secret. To some 
 women it might have been a relief to know that the hand they 
 loved was free from actual guilt. But it was not so to Ethel. 
 To her it was no comfort to know that another had done the 
 fatal deed, since it had been done for his sake, and he had failed 
 tc intercede for the victim by so much as a word, by so much as 
 a look. 
 
 But was this so ? Was she to accept Humphrey Mel wood's 
 condemnation of the man she loved ? Alas, yes ; for Humphrey's 
 confession had only confirmed the mute revelation which Gervoise 
 had already made of his guilt. The fitful colour in his face, the 
 feverish sparkle in his eyes, the restless gaiety, the sudden fits o£ 
 gloom — to Ethel's innocent mind these signs had been all in- 
 comprehensible until to-day. But she had the clue to the secret 
 now ; and she looked back and saw that, from the hour of the 
 ir.itrriage in Pendon Church, her husband's mind had been 
 haunted by the shadow of his victim. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 IDENTIFIED. 
 
 Stephen Hurst went to work very quietly to investigate the 
 
 wild accusation made by Herr von Yolterchoker. It was a 
 strange position for him to occupy, since, in so doing, he was 
 acting as the friend of the man who, of all other men, he had 
 
Identified. 
 
 295 
 
 most reason to dislike. But it was a part of his compact with 
 Ethel, since to serve her husband was to do her double service. 
 
 " 0, how she loves him !" the young man thought. " How 
 tenderly she loves him !" 
 
 After sitting in his study for upwards of an hour, think- 
 ing over the business before him, and deliberating on the 
 course which he ought to pursue, the young man went to his 
 father's lawyer, Mr. Warboys, of Avondale — an elderly man, 
 who was the very personification of gravity and silence, and 
 who might safely have been trusted with the state secrets of 
 a nation. 
 
 To this gentleman Stephen Hurst delegated the task of 
 watching the man who called himself Yokes, and lodged at th* 
 Rose and Crown at Pendon. The lawyer set his confidential 
 clerk to watch Mr. Vokes's present movements, and, if possible, 
 he was to obtain some information about the stranger's past 
 history. 
 
 Having thus secured the help of a very powerful ally, Stephen 
 was able to leave Warwickshire. He went to London by an 
 evening train, which reached the Euston terminus at half-past 
 ten o'clock. He slept at an hotel close to the station, and early 
 the next morning took a preparatory step towards investigating 
 the details of Gervoise Palgrave's marriage, supposing the Ger- 
 voise Palgrave of the marriage certificate exhibited by Ethel's 
 visitor to be one and the same with Gervoise Palgrave, Earl of 
 Haughton. 
 
 The copy of the certificate which the young clergyman had 
 made from memory told him that the marriage had been 
 solemnized at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, and that 
 the bride's name was Pickshaw — Agatha Pickshaw, daughter oj 
 William Pickshaw, of 
 
 Here Stephen's memory had failed him. He had only bee\ 
 a?ble to read the certificate once, and though he had read i\ 
 very carefully, some of the details had escaped him. He re- 
 membered the name of the bride and the bride's father, but he 
 forgot the name of the street in which the bride and her fathet 
 lived. 
 
 But this omission might easily be remedied. He sent for a ' 
 Post-office Directory, and looked for the name of Pickshaw. 
 There wfc/e several Pickshaws altogether; but there was only 
 one Pickshaw in Westminster, and this Pickshaw was called 
 William, and pursued the trade of a carver and gilder, at No. 7 
 Little Tolmin-street. 
 
 Nothing could be clearer than this. Mr. Hurst took a hasty 
 breakfast, sent for a cab, and was driven off to Little Tolmin- 
 btreet. He found Mr. Pickshaw busily employed in the little 
 workshop behind the half-glass door. He came out at the 
 
296 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 sound of tne bell, and bowed deferentially to the young clergy 
 man. 
 
 Stephen introduced himself very briefly. He was a clergy 
 man, he said, and he came in the interests of one of his 
 parishioners. 
 
 The old man left his work, and took his visitor to the sitting- 
 room above the shop, the room in which his interview with Herr 
 von Yolterchoker had taken place. 
 
 "I believe yon are the father of Agatha Pickshaw," he 
 said, "who married a person named Gervoise Palgrave some 
 years ago ?" 
 
 " I am, sir," the old man answered ; " and if yon can give me 
 any information abont my poor daughter, you will be doing me 
 a great favour." 
 
 " You do not know, then, what has become of Mrs. Pal- 
 grave?" 
 
 " No, indeed, sir. And I would be very glad to know." 
 
 Little by little Mr. Pickshaw told Stephen the same story he 
 had told the clown. 
 
 "Then you can give me no news about my daughter, sir?" 
 the old man said, after he had told Stephen all that he had 
 to tell. 
 
 "No, Mr. Pickshaw, as yet I can tell you nothing," Mr. Hurst 
 answered gravely; "and I fear that there is little hope you will 
 ever have any good tidings of your daughter." 
 
 " 0 sir, you know that she is dead — you know that my poor 
 Agatha is dead — and yon won't tell me the truth." 
 
 Stephen Hurst shook his head. 
 
 " I know nothing," he said. " I am certain of nothing. I 
 am groping in the dark, and anything I say may mislead you, 
 since I am utterly ignorant of the truth. A woman was 
 drowned last March near Avon dale, in Warwickshire, and I 
 have been told that she was your daughter, Agatha Palgrave. 
 But I believe the man who told me this to be a scoundrel, 
 and I attach no credit to his assertions. I want, if possible, 
 to discover the identity of the man called Gervoise Palgrave, 
 the man who married your daughter. Can you help me to do 
 that?" 
 
 The old man reflected for some moments, scratching his head 
 with a nervous feeble hand. 
 
 " There 's a photograph upstairs, sir," he said at last. " There 'a 
 a photograph of my son-in-law, that was taken a twelvemonth 
 after his marriage, if you'd like to see that." 
 
 Stephen begged to be allowed to see the photograph. The 
 old man went outside the sitting-room door, and called to hia 
 daughter. The girl's voice answered him from the story above. 
 
 "There's a photograph of Gervoise still hanging in the 
 
Identified. 
 
 297 
 
 room your sister Agatha used to sleep in, isn't there?" asked 
 Mr. Pickshaw. 
 
 " Yes, father, there is." 
 
 " Bring it down, then." 
 
 The girl came down presently with the photograph in her 
 hand. It was a very poor likeness, framed in a tawdry gilt 
 border of Mr. Pickshaw's workmanship ; but the resemblance 
 was quite sufficient to identify Gervoise Palgrave, Lord Haugh- 
 ton, as the Gervoise Palgrave who had married Agatha Piek- 
 -shaw. 
 
 " Is my poor daughter's husband the person you are looking 
 for ?" asked the old man anxiously. 
 
 " Yes ; this is the portrait of the person I know." 
 
 " And will that help you to find out what has become of my 
 daughter?" 
 
 " I think the knowledge will help me to do so ; but your 
 daughter's fate is a mystery to me as yet. Our first and most 
 important duty is to find Gervoise Palgrave' s son. Can you 
 give me a minute description of the man who called here with 
 the boy?" . 
 
 Mr. Pickshaw did his best to describe the personal appear- 
 ance of Herr von Yolterchoker. Wherever he was at fault, his 
 daughter helped him out; and between them they gave a 
 description which enabled Stephen to recognize Mr. Pickshaw's 
 visitor as the man who had intruded upon Lady Haughton. 
 
 " I think I know the man," Stephen said, " and I have good 
 reason to think him a villain. But it strikes me that he is 
 one of those clever villains who are rather apt to overreach 
 themselves. I will do my nttermost to find the clue to your 
 daughter's fate, Mr. Pickshaw, and it shall go hard but that 
 your grandson shall have his rights, even if his mother is 
 
 "My grandson's rights!" murmured the old man; "little 
 Georgey's rights! Gervoise is better off, then, than he was 
 when he left me ? " 
 
 " He is," answered Stephen, " much better off." 
 The Pickshaws would fain have questioned him further, but 
 he would tell them nothing more. 
 
 "There must be some foundation of truth in that man's 
 accusation of Lord Hanghton," Stephen thought, as he walked 
 slowly away from Tolmin- street ; " and if the story of the mar- 
 riage was true, there may have been some truth in the darker 
 
 story of Heaven grant that the A earl's illness may be a 
 
 mortal one, and that his death may save Ethel from the sham« 
 and anguish of knowing that she has marriad a villain !" 
 
298 
 
 Host and Found. 
 
 CHAPTER XXn. 
 
 THE PARTING OF THE FOSTER-BROTHERS 
 
 Lord Haxjghton was dying. The doctors who attended on 
 him — the grave physicians from London and Birmingham, 
 who held daily consultations in one of the darksome old rooms 
 at the Chase — no longer made any pretence of hope. They 
 told Ethel that she mnst be prepared for the worst. Her hue- 
 band was doomed : he had been foredoomed for a long time, the 
 doctors told her. She received these sad tidings very quietly. 
 The doctors wondered at her still white face, her blank tearless 
 eyes. 
 
 It was better that it should be so, she thought. What was 
 there in life for this poor guilty creature, whose existence was 
 blighted by remorse for that foul crime in the doing of which 
 he had been a tacit accomplice ? 
 
 "0 my God," she cried, in her lonely hours of agony, "to 
 think that I, who love him so much, should confess that it is 
 "better for him to die !" 
 
 Night and day she kept watch beside the dying man's bed, 
 only lying down for a brief interval of broken slumber on a sofa 
 in the adjoining room. Gervoise would have had her^ leave higa, 
 but she laid a gentle hand upon his lips, and implored him nbt 
 to say that. 
 
 " Let me be with you, Gervoise," she said entreatingly ; " I 
 
 am happy with you, my dear." 
 
 They were quite alone when she said this ; they were alone, 
 and the earl seemed a little better than usual. .-Ethel was sitting 
 in a low chair by the bedside, and the bright June sunshine was 
 streaming into the room. 
 
 "You are happy with me P" exclaimed Gervoise in a faint, 
 tremulous voice, looking at his wife with an expression of sur- 
 prise ; " you are happy with me ; and yet " 
 
 "And yet I know all, Gervoise," Ethel answered, in a low 
 earnest voice ; " I know all. I did not believe what that man 
 told me ; and yet — and yet I thought he would scarcely dare to 
 make such an accusation unless there was some truth in his 
 words. But I heard something else; I overheard that most 
 miserable young man, Humphrey Mel wood, tell his mother the 
 dreadful story of that which happened on the night before my 
 wedding. I heard the story, Gervoise; I heard how you were 
 tempted by this man in his mistaken devotion to you — I heard 
 and understood how he himself, poor ignorant creature, was 
 tempted by his love for you. The crime was very dreadful — 
 
The Parting of the Foster-Brothers. 
 
 299 
 
 most horrible, most cruel ; but 0, my darling, there is forgive- 
 ness for all wrongdoings ; there is a God who has said that 
 although our sins are as scarlet, they shall be made white as 
 snow." 
 
 The girl's voice broke, and she burst into a torrent of sobs, 
 and buried her face in one of the pillows that supported the 
 wasted form of the invalid. Gervoise was silent, but great 
 teardrops rolled slowly down his hollow cheeks. For the first 
 time since the night of Agatha's appearance at Palgrave Chase, 
 the icy bonds that bound that stubborn soul gave way before » 
 the warm influence of holy words, and the guilty man wept. 
 For the first time, and in that moment his weary heart felt 
 something nearer peace than it had ever known since that fatal 
 night of crime. 
 
 " And you can love me still, Ethel ?" he said, after a long 
 pause — a long silence in which the two sorrowful hearts beat in 
 unison, strengthened by the might of affection in that supreme 
 Vour of anguish; " you can love me still, in spite of all?" 
 
 " Yes, dearest, better than I ever yet lo^ed you, for you have 
 more need of my love. A wife's affection would indeed be worth- 
 less if it grew less when it was most needed. I love you, Ger- 
 voise ; and I know now what an unquestioning, unreasoning 
 sentiment love is. In all my misery it has survived, unchanged 
 and changeless. Trust in it, Gervoise — trust in it almost as you 
 may trust in the mercy of God." 
 
 The young wife sat long by her husband's side, talking to him 
 and reading to him. She read blessed words out of that holy 
 gospel which brings sweet promises of mercy to the weary sinner; 
 which offers the bright hope of redemption to the penitent heart. 
 He fell asleep by and by, worn out by the emotions of that long 
 interview ; and Ethel slept too, in the easy-chair by the invalid's 
 bedside, until late in the evening, when she was awakened by 
 her faithful maid, Lucy Trotter, who brought her mistress a cup 
 of strong tea. 
 
 There was a shaded lamp burning on a table at some distance 
 from the bed when Ethel woke, and there was a bright wood fire, 
 which gave the invalid's chamber a comfortable and chearful 
 appearance. 
 
 " And two more desolate creeturs than you two looked when 
 I first came into the room, with the fire low, and no candles, and 
 your white dress looking quite ghostly in the twilight, as if you 
 was a warnin' sperit sittih' by poor Lord Haugh ton's bedside, I 
 never clapped eyes on. But I Ve tidied up and made things a 
 bit comfortable, without disturbing of you; and now do take a 
 cup of tea, Miss Ethoi, like a Christian." 
 
 Lucy had never left off calling her young mistress Miss Ethel 
 in familiar converse. She had been a great comfort to the coun- 
 
300 
 
 Lost ana> Found. 
 
 tess in this terrible hour of trial, although she had no suspicion 
 of that dark secret which added such a terrible sting to Ethel's 
 natural grief. 
 
 Late tha t night Gervoise rose suddenly from a long sleep thai 
 
 had seemed strangely peaceful. 
 
 " I want to see Humphrey," he said ; " I want to see my 
 foster-brother. I must see him." 
 
 It was past eleven, but one of the servants was sent imme- 
 diately to tell the gamekeeper ; and after an interval of little 
 more than a quarter of an hour the young man's heavy foot- 
 steps sounded in the room next to Lord Haugh ton's, and in 
 the next minute Humphrey came into the sick-chamber. His 
 hair was disordered, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had a 
 strange, scared look in his pale face. He had been drinking 
 that night, and almost every other night ever since the death 
 of Agatha Palgrave ; and he had only just staggered home from 
 an alehouse when the messenger arrived at Margery Melwood's 
 cottage. 
 
 But at the sight of his foster-brother Humphrey seemed 
 to grow suddenly sober. He went to the bedside, and fell 
 on his knees, with his brawny arms clasped upon the silken 
 coverlet. 
 
 " 0 master," he cried, " 0 master, I loved thee so, and yet 
 I have brought thee to this. Me and my wickedness have been 
 a blight upon thy life, Master Gervoise ; and yet God knows I 'd 
 have given my own life for thee, and held it no favour. But I 
 have been a wicked wretch, Master Gervoise, and have brought 
 him as I love to his death." 
 
 "No, no!" gasped the Earl of Haughton, lifting himself 
 into a sitting position, and laying his wasted fingers on 
 the gamekeeper's clasped hands. " My sin, Humphrey, my 
 own sin, has brought me to this. I sent for you to tell you 
 that it was my own sin, Humphrey. Let the full burden of 
 it rest upon me. I have repented, Humphrey: an angel — an 
 angel uj)on earth — has spoken holy words of consolation to 
 me. I have repented of my dreadful sin; I have prayed, 
 Humphrey, for you as well as for myself, and such peace has 
 come down upon my soul — such heavenly peace — that I dare 
 to think it an earnest of God's forgiveness for my sins. And 
 you, Humphrey — you, too, will repent. Promise me that, by 
 the fidelity which has been so fetal to us both; promise me 
 that you will repent, and pray, as I have prayed, for pardon. 
 Your life shall not be a hard one. My wife, who is an angel 
 of patient love and forgiveness, she will see that no common 
 troubles of want or poverty shall ever affect you, Humphrey. 
 And now good-bye, old friend — foster-brother I My prayer is 
 
Tfie Parting of fhe Foster-Brothers. 301 
 
 Unit we may meet again, purified from our sins, in a better 
 world. Good-bye ! " 
 
 The sick man's feeble fingers tightened on the rough hands of 
 nis foster-brother. A rain of burning tears fell upon those wan 
 lingers as Humphrey's face bent over them. The gamekeeper 
 wept aloud in passionate irrepressible grief. 
 
 Ethel heard his hoarse sobs, and came in to put an end to this 
 agonizing interview. She touched Humphrey on the shoulder 
 as he knelt beside her husband's bed, and motioned to him to 
 leave the room. 
 
 He obeyed her without an attempt at remonstrance. With 
 his hands clasped before his face, he moved with slow footsteps 
 to the door ; but at the door he turned and spoke to Ethel. 
 
 "It was for your sake, my lady," he said; "it was all for 
 your sake. You'd need love him well when you remember 
 that." 
 
 He turned away as he finished speaking, and closed the 
 door after him as softly as if he had been accustomed to a sick- 
 room. 
 
 That night, for the first time, Gervoise spoke to Ethel of his 
 child — the missing boy whom he had mourned sincerely and 
 truly enough, until his grief had melted away before the full 
 sunshine of his new-born love. 
 
 " 0 Ethel, I must see him," the sick man cried in eager, 
 passionate accents ; "I must see that boy before I die, or else — 
 who — who will identify him — who will give the young earl 
 his rights ? I know that you will protect and love him, Ethel ; 
 but I must identify him before I die. Some impostor might 
 be palmed off upon you if I die before I have identified my 
 son. I had a mark made upon his arm — the initials ' G. P.' 
 and an earl's coronet. But any wretch could simulate such 
 a> mark as that upon the arm of the base-born brat he might 
 choose to substitute for my son. And yet there is one means 
 by which you, Ethel, might recognize the boy. Last August, 
 when I was very poor — penniless, Ethel, starving; ah, you look 
 wonderingly at me, poor child ! You have need to wonder, for 
 mine is a strange history. Last August, when I was wander- 
 ing destitute upon the stones of London, I sold a picture-* 
 a portrait of my boy — to a pawnbroker in Caslope-street, St. 
 Giles's. Can you remember the name of the street? Yes, 
 yes, you will, I know ; and you will find my boy for me, EtheL 
 Warboys will help you. The child must be found ; remember 
 that, Ethel. I must see him, and acknowledge him as my heir, 
 before I die. Write, dearest ; write to Warboys at once. He 
 is a clever old man. I know that it is late to send to him ; 
 but time is so short, Ethel, so short. I rnust see my !>oy before 
 I die." 
 
802 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 Gervoise sank back upon his pillow. All the emotions c{ 
 
 that day had terribly exhausted him, both bodily and men* 
 tally. He grew delirious presently, and rambled strangely in 
 his talk, making a confused medley of all his past life ; on* 
 moment fancying himself penniless in the streets of London, 
 at another moment screaming the chorus of some convivial 
 song that had been familiar to him at his spendthrift father's 
 table; anon echoing the shouts of the lookers-on when his 
 cousin rode to his death. 
 
 The earl's valet came in to bathe his master's head with 
 some cooling lotion ; but Ethel would suffer no hired nurse to 
 tend that belored invalid. With her own hands she damped 
 his burning forehead ; with her own hands she administered the 
 fever draught to those parched lips. 
 
 Then, when the delirium subsided, and the sick man sank 
 at last into a peaceful sleep, Ethel opened a writing-portfolio 
 that lay under the light of the shaded lamp on the table near 
 the fire, and wrote to the Avondale solicitor, telling him all 
 that her husband had told her about the missing child, and 
 imploring him most piteously to employ every possible means 
 of finding the boy, since the earl's days and hours were num- 
 bered. It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when the 
 countess sealed this letter and gave it into the hands of her 
 husband's valet. 
 
 " It is a matter of life and death," she said. " You must 
 wake one of the grooms, and tell him to ride to Avondale 
 immediately with this letter." 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE LAST OF GEHVOISE PALGHAVE. 
 
 Stephen Hurst returned to Warwickshire the morning after 
 Mr. Warboys received Lady Haughton's letter, and the two men 
 consulted together as to what could be done. 
 
 " The child must be found at any price," said Stephen, after 
 he had read Ethel's letter ; " he must be found in time to be 
 recognized and acknowledged by his father. There is no hope, 
 I suppose, for Lord Haughton ? he is really dying ? " ' a 
 
 "Yes, he is dying. I saw Wilmington, of Birmingham, 
 yesterday, and he told me that even the countess is resigned 
 to the worst — to the inevitable." 
 
 "The child must be found, Warboys. I shall go to the 
 staison at once, and send a telegram to Prmting-house-sauare. 
 
Tlie Last of Gervuiae Palgrave. 
 
 303 
 
 There must be an advertisement for the missing boy it to- 
 morrow's Times." 
 
 Stephen Hurst seated himself at the table, took up a pen, 
 and wrote an advertisement offering a hundred pounds' reward 
 for the production of George Palgrave. He gave a minut^ 
 description of the child's appearance, and of the mark upon 
 his arm. 
 
 This advertisement he saw despatched to London by electric 
 telegraph. To the advertisement he added an entreaty that it 
 might be immediately inserted, as it related to a matter of life 
 and death. 
 
 Having done this, he hurried off to a printing-office in 
 Avondale market-plac , where he set the printers to work to 
 strike off a hundred handbills containing the same announce- 
 ment as that in the advertisement. 
 
 Before evening these handbills were ready, and without stop- 
 ping to rest or refresh himself Mr. Hurst drove back to the 
 railway station, with the bills in a brown-paper parcel, lie 
 took a ticket for London, and left Avondale by the evening 
 express. 
 
 He alighted at the Euston terminus at ten o'clock, and drove 
 at once to a police-station, whence he saw men sent right and 
 ieffc to distribute his hundred handbills, while a thousand fresh 
 ones were being printed in an office near at hand. 
 
 Then, and then only, did Mr. Hurst take breath; and at 
 breakfast next morning he had the pleasure of reading his own 
 advertisement at the top of the second column in the Times 
 supplement. 
 
 The doctors reigned supreme at Palgrave Chase. They came 
 backwards and forwards between Avondale and London, and 
 between Avondale and Birmingham, and contrived to keeji 
 Gervoise Palgrave alive by the exercise of their akill and 
 \ science. Between them, and with infinite care and trouble, 
 I they kept the feeble lamp of life faintly flickering, while the 
 Earl of Haughton waited, Heaven only knows how asmously, 
 for the coming of his son. 
 
 Sometimes be lay for hours together in a dull stupor that 
 was scarcely sleep ; at other times he was delirious, and rambled 
 wildly in his talk, as he had done upon the night of his farewell 
 interview with Humphrey. But everv now and then he started 
 up suddenly from his pillow, and asfced one question, the form 
 of which rarely varied, often as he repeated it : " Is there any 
 news of my boy?" 
 
 The slow days dragged themselves out, and as yet there were 
 no tidings of the missing chfld. The feeble flicker of the lamp 
 grew fainter and fainter, and Ethel trembled as she v o4 oheu 
 
 u 
 
L 0 :2 
 
 Lost and Found. 
 
 her husband's fitful slumbers, fearing that every awakening 
 would be the last. 
 
 One day the invalid seemed better, and even stronger: a 
 brighter light burned in his eyes, and a flush relieved the 
 ghastly whiteness of his careworn face. At first poor Ethel 
 was deceived by that seeming improvement ; but when she 
 spoke to Doctor Wilmington of her new-born hopes, he shook 
 his head sadly. 
 
 " Dear Lady Haughton," he said, " I only wish I dared give 
 you hope. But I must not deceive you. You have sometimes 
 watched a candle burn itself out, have you not ? If you have, 
 you must have seen how brightly the flame burns — at the 
 last." 
 
 Ethel bowed her head upon her hands, and wept bitterly. 
 All through that bright June day she sat by the dying man's 
 bedside, reading to him, and praying with him. 
 
 Stephen Hurst had paid several visits to the earl in his 
 capacity of priest and consoler. Gervoise had received him 
 cordially, and had listened to him with reverential attention; 
 but after these serious interviews, the sick man sometimes said 
 to his wife, — 
 
 " The good words do me more good when you read them to 
 me, Ethel; my prayers seem most earnest when you pray witL 
 me." 
 
 The low sunlight shone upon those two young heads. Ger- 
 voise lay very quietly, with his wasted hand clasped in that of 
 his wife, with his eyes fixed lovingly on her face. 
 
 "My own one!" he murmured; "my own one, how good 
 you have been to me ! My sin has been bitterly punished, 
 Ethel. It Reems very, very hard to leave you, my lovely and 
 loving one, dear redeeming angel of my life !" 
 
 He lay silent, exhausted by emotion. The golden light about 
 the two young heads changed to a deeper gold, and then meltec 1 
 into a faint crimson glow that trembled like the reflection of a 
 distant fire upon the dark oak walls. 
 
 "Ethel," said the earl suddenly, "I feel so much better 
 to-night ; I almost feel as if a change had come to me — a 
 change for the better. I shall live, perhaps ; I shall live, Ethel, 
 and we shall be happy in spite of all." 
 
 He looked in his wife's face; but something — something 
 indefinable in that pale earnest face — told him the falsehood of 
 his hopes. 
 
 " 0 Ethel, you know something," he said; "the doctors have 
 \old you there is no hope." 
 
 * No hope upon earth, Gervoise," the wife cried in a broken 
 foice, "but abetter hope than that, dear— the hope that we 
 ma.v be Kappy together in heaven," 
 
TJie Last of Gervoise Pafyrave. 
 
 305 
 
 She drew her arms round her husband's neck as she spoke, 
 and in the next moment his head rested on her shoulder. 
 
 " 0 my angel," he murmured, " my angel of mercy and con* 
 solation, it is not bitter to die thus." 
 
 But presently the earl's head was lifted suddenly ; his eyes 
 flashed with a new light. 
 
 " Listen ! " he cried, holding up his hand, and looking towards 
 the door of the apartment; " listen, Ethel!" 
 
 The sound which had startled the dying man was the sound 
 of a child's voice, an innocent childish voice, that cried, 
 
 " Papa, papa ! where are you, papa ? " 
 
 "My son is found!" cried the earl. "Ring the bell, Ethel; 
 ring, dearest, and let every creature in the house come to witness 
 my recognition of my boy." 
 
 Ethel obeyed, and as she pulled the handle of the bell, the 
 door was opened, and Georgey ran into the room, and sprang 
 into his father's arms. Close behind him came Stephen 
 Hurst. 
 
 " Papa, papa," he cried, " they told me you had gone away 
 from me, and this gentleman says you were looking for me all 
 the time. But 0, papa dear, how white your face is ! — how ill 
 you look ! " 
 
 The room was presently filled with eager witnesses. Two of 
 the medical men who attended upon the earl, and all the upper 
 servants of the household, were assembled there to witness Lord 
 Haughton's recognition of his son. And then, when this had 
 been done, the father clasped the boy in his arms in one fond 
 last embrace. 
 
 " Georgey," he said, in a low tender voice, " I am going away 
 on a long journey. I may never see you again upon this earth. 
 I want you to love this lady when I am gone. She will be a 
 mother to you, my pet ; for she knows the sad story of your 
 childhood, and she will pity you and love you for my sake, 
 Georgey ; and because it is her nature to be tender and pitiful 
 to everything that has need of her sweet tenderness and pity. 
 You will be very happy with her, Georgey ; much happier than 
 yon have ever been with me. And now send him away, Ethel," 
 said Lord Haughton to his wife ; " send the child away. There 
 is very little more time left for me on earth, and it belongs to 
 you, my darling wife ; to you and to God." 
 
 # * * # * # 
 
 When the clocks of Avondale chimed midnight little Georgey 
 Palgrave was Earl of Haughton. 
 
 Stephen Hurst's search had been rewarded at last. The bov 
 had been discovered by means of one of the bills, which the 
 good-natured Irish wife of the organ-grinder had spelt oat upon 
 ft dead wall in the back slums of Westminster. 
 
SCO 
 
 Lost and Found, 
 
 She hurried home to her husband, and told him of her Won- 
 derful discovery, and the two washed and dressed the boy in his 
 tidiest raiment, and carried him off to the police-onice to claim 
 the reward. 
 
 Gtjrvoise Pal grave was buried in a niche next that which held 
 the coffins of his luckless cousin and the fair young countess. 
 He was buried on a stormy day, under a sky that looked dark 
 against the windows of St. Gwendoline's Church; and mingled 
 with the howling of the wind that shook the doors and windows 
 of the edifice, and fluttered the clergyman's white robes as he 
 stood above the open vault, there was the sound of hoarse and 
 passionate sobs, the voice of a strong man's nngovernable 
 anguish. That mourner, whose violent grief would not be re- 
 pressed, was Humphrey Melwood. 
 
 After the funeral ceremony he wandered out into the 
 meadows through which the winding river took its course. He 
 wandered on, indifferent to the beating of the rain, the howl- 
 ing of the wind, that seemed to shriek as it swept across the 
 flat meadows and it was not until nightfall that he went into 
 a low tumble-down-looking village inn — the same place where 
 he had gone for a shelter upon the morning of Ethel's wedding- 
 day. 
 
 Here he sat, drinking deeply, but silently and moodily, 
 heedless of the rustic talk of a little group of villagers who 
 dropped one by one into the low-roofed tap-room, wrapped 
 in a gloomy silence, and with a dark and settled shadow on 
 his face. 
 
 The villagers left as they had come, one by one, and the last 
 who went away left Humphrey Melwood still ordering fresh 
 
 drink, 
 
 He did not leave the place till he was sent away by the 
 landlord, who wanted to shut up his house, and did not care to 
 stop up any longer, even for the sake of a customer who drank 
 a bottle of brandy at a sitting. 
 
 Humphrey flung the man a sovereign, and told him, in a 
 hoarse thick voice, not to trouble himself about the change. 
 Then, with slow, heavy footsteps, he staggered out of the house, 
 out into the dark, stormy night, never again to be seen alive by 
 any mortal eyes ; never again to be seen till, in the dismal early 
 light of momTng, his dead body was found washed on shore not 
 half a mile from the spot where the corpse of his victim had 
 been found on the bridal morning of Ethel Hurst. 
 
 Whether he had drowned himself, or whether he had lost 
 his way and stumbled into the water, under the inky darkness 
 of that stormy night, there was no one to say. The coroner's 
 *ury returned an open verdict, and Humphrey Melwood waa 
 varied in a little gloomy graveyard behind St. Gwendoline's 
 
'Flie Last of Gervoise Palgrave. 
 
 307 
 
 Church, and only half-a-dozen paces from the vault of tbo 
 Palgraves. 
 
 For nearly four years Lady Haughton remained a widow, lead- 
 ing a solitary life, whose chief occupation was the performance 
 of good works. To the poor around Palgrave Chase she was a 
 ministering angel, to her dead husband's son the most tender 
 and devoted of mothers. The boy was her comfort and happi- 
 ness; and she told herself that it was for his sake she consented^ 
 to a second marriage, when, after those quiet years of widow- 
 hood, she became the wife of his guardian, tutor, and friend, 
 and her own first cousin, Stephen Hurst, much to the delight of 
 Sir Langlej^ and with the hearty approval of that self-appointed 
 Areopagus of modern civilization, Society, as represented by 
 the county families. 
 
 And what of Herr von Yolterchoker ? The end of his career 
 it is not given this chronicler to record. Foiled of his hoped- 
 for prize, he fell back into the ranks of vagabondism, to sink 
 lower and lower in the social scale, until he descended to that 
 last depth to which none need care to follow him. Few among 
 the dangerous classes are better known or more closely watched 
 by the police, who hopefully await the hour when Herr von 
 Yolterchoker, alias Yokes, alias Slippery Yalker, and a few 
 other names of dubious import, shall become amenable to ptjn&l 
 servitude for life. 
 
EVELINE'S VISITANT : 
 
 A. GHOST STOEY. 
 
 It was at a masked ball at the Palais Royal tliat my fatal 
 quarrel with my first cousin Andre de Brissac began. The 
 quarrel was about a woman. The women who followed the 
 footsteps of Philip of Orleans were the causes of many such 
 disputes ; and there was scarcely one fair head in all that 
 glittering throng which, to a man versed in social histories and 
 mysteries, might not have seemed bedabbled with blood. 
 
 I shall not record the name of her for love of whom Andre 
 de Brissac and I crossed one of the bridges, in the dim August 
 dawn, on our way to the waste ground beyond the church of 
 Saint- Germain des Pres. 
 
 There were many beautiful vipers in those days, and she was 
 one of them. I can feel the chill breath of that August morning 
 blowing in my face, as I sit in my dismal chamber at my 
 chateau of Puy Verdun to-night, alone in the stillness, writing 
 the strange story of my life. I can see the white mist rising 
 kom the river, the grim outline of the Chatelet, and the square 
 towers of JNotre Dame black against the pale-gray sky. Even 
 more vividly can I recall Andre's fair young face, as he stood 
 opposite to me with his two friends — scoundrels both, and alike 
 eager for that unnatural fray. We were a strange group to be 
 seen in a summer sunrise, all of us fresh from the heat and 
 clamour of the Regent's saloons — Andre in a quaint hunting- 
 dress copied from a family portrait at Puy Yerdun, I costumed 
 as one of Law's Mississippi Indians ; the other men in like 
 garish frippery, adorned with broideries and jewels that looked 
 wan in the pale light of dawn. 
 
 Our quarrel had been a fierce one — a quarrel which could 
 have but one result, and that the direst. I had struck him; 
 and the welt raised by my open hand was crimson upon hia 
 fair womanish face as he stood opposite to me. The eastern 
 
Eveline's Visitant* 
 
 309 
 
 8ii n shone on the face presently, and dyed the cruel mark with 
 a deeper red ; but the sting of my own wrongs was fresh, ar£ 
 I had not yet learned to despise myself for that brutal outrage, 
 
 To Andre de Brissac such an insult was most terrible. He 
 was the favourite of Fortune, the favourite of women ; and I 
 was nothing, — a rough soldier who had done my country gooJ 
 service, but in the boudoir of a Parabere a mannerless boor. 
 
 We fought, and I wounded him mortally. Life had been 
 very sweet for him ; and I think that a frenzy of despair took 
 possession of him when he felt the life-blood ebbing away. He 
 beckoned me to him as he lay on the ground. I went, and 
 knelt at his side. 
 
 " Forgive me, Andre ! " I murmured. 
 
 He took no more heed of my words than if that piteous 
 entreaty had been the idle ripple of the river near at hand. 
 
 " Listen to me, Hector de Brissac," he said. " I am not one 
 who believes that a man has done with earth because his eyes 
 glaze and his jaw stiffens. They will bury me in the old vault 
 at Puy Yerdun ; and you will be master of the chateau. Ah, 
 I know how lightly they take things in these days, and how 
 Dubois will laugh when he hears that Ga has been killed in a 
 duel. They will bury me, and sing masses for my soul ; but 
 f ou and I have not finished our affair yet, my cousin. I will 
 be with you when you least look to see me, — I, with this ugly 
 scar upon the face that women have praised and loved. I will 
 come to you when your life seems brightest. I will come 
 between you and all that you hold fairest and dearest. My 
 ghostly hand shall drop a poison in your cup of joy. My 
 shadowy form shall shut the sunlight from your life. Men with 
 such iron will as mine can do what they please, Hector de 
 Brissac. It is my will to haunt you when I am dead." 
 
 All this in short broken sentences he whispered into my ear. 
 I had need to bend my ear close to his dying lips ; but the iron 
 will of Andre de Brissac was strong enough to do battle with 
 Death, and I believe he said all he wished to say before his 
 head fell back upon the velvet cloak they had spread beneath 
 him, never to be lifted again. 
 
 As he lay there, you would have fancied him a fragile strip- 
 ling, too fair and frail for the struggle called life ; but there 
 are those who remember the brief manhood of Andre de Brissac, 
 and who can bear witness to the terrible force of that proud 
 feature. 
 
 I stood looking down at the young face with that foul mark 
 upon it ; and God knows I was sorry for what I had done. 
 
 Of those blasphemous threats which he had whispered in my 
 ear I took no heed. I was a soldier, and a believer. There was 
 nothing nHolutely dreadful to me in the thought that X had 
 
310 
 
 Eveline s Visitant. 
 
 killed this mar . I had killed many men on the battle-field; and 
 this one had done me cruel wrong. 
 
 My friends would have had me cross the frontier to escape 
 the consequences of my act ; but I was ready to face those con- 
 sequences, and I remained in France. I kept aloof from the 
 court, and received a hint that I had best confine myself to my 
 own province. Many masses were chanted in the little chapel 
 of Puy Verdun for the soul of my dead cousin, and his coffin 
 *Uled a niche in the vault of our ancestors. 
 
 His death had made me a rich man ; and the thought that it 
 was so made my newly-acquired wealth very hateful to me. I 
 lived a 'lonely existence in the old chateau, where I rarely held 
 converse with any but the servants of the household, all of 
 whom had served my cousin, and none of whom liked me. 
 
 It was a hard and bitter life. It galled me, when I rode 
 through the village, to see the peasant-children shrink away from 
 me. I have seen old women cross themselves stealthily as I 
 passed them by. Strange reports had gone forth about me ; 
 and there were those who whispered that I had given my soul 
 to the Evil One as the price of my cousin's heritage. From my 
 boyhood I had been dark of visage and stern of manner ; and 
 hence, perhaps, no woman's love had ever been mine. I remem- 
 ber my mother's face in all its changes of expression ; but I can 
 remember no look of affection that ever shone on me. That 
 other woman, beneath whose feet I laid my heart, was pleased 
 to accept my homage, but she never loved me ; and the end was 
 treachery. 
 
 I had grown hateful to myself, and had well-nigh begun to 
 hate my fellow-creatures, when a feverish desire seized upon me, 
 and I pined to be back in the press and throng of the busy 
 world once again. I went back to Paris, where I kept myself 
 aloof from the court, and where an angel took compassion 
 upon me. 
 
 She was the daughter of an old comrade, a man whose merits 
 had been neglected, whose achievements had been ignored, and 
 who sulked in his shabby lodging like a rat in a hole, while all 
 Paris went mad with the Scotch Financier, and gentlemen and 
 lacqueys were trampling one another to death in the Rue 
 Quincampoix. The only child of this little cross-grained old 
 captain of dragoons was an incarnate sunbeam, whose mortal 
 name was Eveline Duchalet. 
 
 She loved me. The richest blessings of our lives are often 
 those which cost us least. I wasted the best years of my youth 
 iu the worship of a wicked woman, who jilted and cheated me 
 at last. I gave this meek angel but a few courteous words — a 
 little fraternal tenderness — and lo, she loved me. The life which 
 had been so dark and desolate grew bright beneath her influence : 
 
Ulvelin e*s Vis it an t. 
 
 311 
 
 and I went back to Puy Yerdun with a fair young bride for my 
 companion. 
 
 Ah, how sweet a change there was in my life and in my 
 home ! The village children no longer shrank appalled as the 
 dark horseman rode by, the village crones no longer crossed 
 themselves; for a woman rode by his side — a woman whose 
 charities had won the love of all those ignorant creatures, 
 and whose companionship had transformed the gloomy lord 
 of the chateau into a loving husband and a gentle master. 
 The old retainers forgot the untimely fate of my cousin, and 
 served me with cordial willingness, for love of their young 
 mistress. 
 
 There are no words which can tell the pure and perfect happi- 
 ness of that time. I felt like a traveller who had traversed the 
 frozen seas of an arctic region, remote from human love or human 
 companionship, to find himself on a sudden in the bosom of a 
 verdant valley, in the sweet atmosphere of home. The chauge 
 seemed too bright to be real ; and I strove in vain to put away 
 from my mind the vague suspicion that my new life was but 
 some fantastic dream. 
 
 So brief were those halcyon hours, that, looking back on them 
 now, it is scarcely strange if I am still half inclined to fancy the 
 first days of my married life could have been no more than a 
 dream. 
 
 Neither in my days of gloom nor in my days of happiness 
 had I been troubled by the recollection of Andre's blasphemous 
 oath. The words which with his last breath he had whispered 
 in my ear were vain and meaningless to me. He had vented his 
 rage in those idle threats, as he might have vented it in idle 
 execrations. That he will haunt the footsteps of his enemy after 
 death is the one revenge which a dying man can promise him- 
 self ; and if men had power thus to avenge themselves, the earth 
 would be peopled with phantoms. 
 
 I had lived for three years at Puy Yerdun ; sitting alone in 
 the solemn midnight by the hearth where he had sat, pacing the 
 corridors that had echoed his footfall ; and in all that time my 
 fancy had never so played me false as to shape the shadow of 
 the dead. Is it strange, then, if I had forgotten Andre's horrible 
 promise ? 
 
 There was no portrait of my cousin at Puy Yerdun. It was 
 fche age of boudoir art, and a miniature set in the lid of a gold 
 bonbonniere, or hidden artfully in a massive bracelet, was more 
 fashionable than a clumsy life-size image, fit only to hang on 
 the gloomy walls of a provincial chateau rarely visited by its 
 owner. My cousin's fair face had adorned more than one bon- 
 bonniere, and had been concealed in more than one bracelet; 
 
312 
 
 Eveline's Visitant. 
 
 but it was not among the faces that looked down from the 
 paneled walls of Puy Yerdun. 
 
 In the library I found a picture which awoke painful associa- 
 tions. It was the portrait of a De Brissac, who had nourished 
 in the time of Francis the First ; and it was from this picture 
 that my cousin Andre had copied the quaint hunting-dress he 
 wore at the Eegent's ball. The library was a room in which I 
 spent a good deal of my life ; and 1 ordered a curtain to be hung 
 before this picture. 
 
 We had been married three months, when Eveline one d^J 
 asked, " Who is the lord of the chateau nearest to this?" 
 I looked with her in astonishment. 
 
 " My dearest," I answered, " do you not know that there it 
 no other chateau within forty miles of Puy Yerdun?" 
 " Indeed!" she said; "that is strange." 
 
 I asked her why the fact seemed strange to her ; and after 
 much entreaty I obtained from her the reason of her surprise. 
 
 In her walks about the park and woods during the last month, 
 she had met a man who, by his dress and bearing, was obviously 
 of noble rank. She had imagined that he occupied some cha- 
 teau near at hand, and that his estate adjoined ours. I was at 
 a loss to imagine who this stranger could be; for my estate of 
 Puy Yerdun lay in the heart of a desolate region, and unless 
 when some traveller's coach went lumbering and jingling through 
 the village, one had little more chance of encountering a gentle- 
 man than of meeting a demigod. 
 
 " Have you seen this man often, Eveline ? " I asked. 
 
 She answered, in a tone which had a touch of sadness, " I see 
 him every day." 
 
 "Where, dearest?" 
 
 " Sometimes in the park, sometimes in the wood. You know 
 the little cascade, Hector, where there is some old neglected 
 rock-work that forms a kind of cavern. I have taken a fancy 
 to that spot, and have spent many mornings there reading. Of 
 late I have seen the stranger there every morning." 
 
 " He has never dared to address you ? " 
 
 "Never. I have looked up from my book, and have seen him 
 standing at a little distance, watching me silently. I have con- 
 tinued reading; and when I have raised my eyes again I have 
 found him gone. He must approach and depart with a stealthy 
 tread, for I never hear his footfall. Sometimes I have almost 
 wished that he would speak to me. It is so terrible to see him 
 standing silently there." 
 
 " He is some insolent peasant who seeks to frighten you." 
 
 My wife shook her head. 
 
 "He is no 'easant," she answered. "It is not by his dress 
 
Eveline's Visitant. 
 
 313 
 
 alone I judge, for that is strange to me. He has an air of no- 
 bility which it is impossible to mistake." 
 
 " Is he young or old P.." 
 
 " He is young and handsome." 
 
 I was much disturbed by the idea of this stranger's intrusion 
 on my wife's solitude; and I went straight to the village to 
 inquire if any stranger had been seen there. I could hear of 
 no one. I questioned the servants closely, but without result. 
 Then I determined to accompany my wife in her walks, and to 
 judge for myself of the rank of the stranger. 
 
 For a week I devoted all my mornings to rustic rambles with 
 Eveline in the park and woods ; and in all that week we saw no 
 one but an occasional peasant in sabots, or one of our own house- 
 hold returning from a neighbouring farm. 
 
 I was a man of studious habits, and those summer ramblea 
 disturbed the even current of my life. My wife perceived this, 
 and entreated me to trouble myself no further. 
 
 " I will spend my mornings in the pleasaunce, Hector," she 
 said; " the stranger cannot intrude upon me there." 
 
 " I begin to think the stranger is only a phantasm of your 
 own romantic brain," I replied, smiling at the earnest face lifted 
 to mine. "A chatelaine who is always reading romances may 
 well meet handsome cavaliers in the woodlands. I dare say I 
 have Mdlle. Scuderi to thank for this noble stranger, and that 
 he is only the great Cyrus in modern costume." 
 
 " Ah, that is the point which mystifies me, Hector," she said. 
 " The stranger's costume is not modern. He looks as an old 
 picture might look if it could descend from its frame." 
 
 Her words pained me, for they reminded me of that hidden 
 picture in the library, and the quaint hunting costume of orange 
 and purple which Andre de Brissac wore at the Regent's ball. 
 
 After this my wife confined her walks to the pleasaunce ; 
 and for many weeks I heard no more of the nameless stranger. 
 I dismissed all thought of him from my mind, for a graver and 
 heavier care had come upon me. My wife's health began 
 to droop. The change in her was so gradual as to be almost 
 imperceptible to those who watched her day by day. It was 
 only when she put on a rich gala dress which she had not worn 
 for months that I saw how wasted the form must be on which 
 the embroidered bodice hung so loosely, and how wan and dim 
 were the eyes which had once been brilliant as the jewels she 
 wore in her hair. 
 
 I sent a messenger to Paris to summon one of the court 
 physicians ; but I knew that many days must needs elapse be- 
 fore he could arrive at Pay Yerdun. 
 
 In the interval I watched my wife with unutterable fear. 
 
 Tt was not her health only that had declined. The change 
 
314 
 
 Eveline's Visitant. 
 
 was more painful to behold than any physical alteration. Tha 
 bright and sunny spirit had vanished, and in the plies of my 
 joyous young bride I beheld a woman weighed down by rooted 
 melancholy. In vain I sought to fathom the cause of my 
 darling's sadness. She assured me that she had no reason for 
 sorrow or discontent, and that if she seemed sad without a 
 motive, I must forgive her sadness, and consider it as a mia* 
 fortune rather than a fault. 
 
 I told her that the court physician would speedily find some 
 cure for her despondency, which must needs arise from physical 
 causes, since she had no real ground for sorrow. But although 
 she said nothing, I could see she had no hope or belief in the 
 healing powers of medicine. 
 
 One day, when I wished to beguile her from that pensive 
 silence in which she was wont to sit an hour at a time, I told 
 her, laughing, that she appeared to have forgotten her mys- 
 terious cavalier of the wood, and it seemed also as if he had 
 forgotten her. 
 
 To my wonderment, her pale face became of a sudden 
 crimson ; and from crimson changed to pale again in a breath. 
 
 " You have never seen him since you deserted your woodland 
 grotto?" I said. 
 
 She turned to me with a heart-rending look. 
 
 " Hector," she cried, "I see him everyday; and it is that 
 which is killing me." 
 
 She burst into a passion of tears when she had said this. 
 1 took her in my arms as if she had been a frightened child, and 
 tried to comfort her. 
 
 " My darling, this is madness," I said. " You know that no 
 stranger can come to you in the pleasaunce. The moat is ten 
 f eet wide and always full of water, and the gates are kept locked 
 clay and night by old Massou. The chatelaine of a mediaeval 
 fortress need fear no intruder in her antique garden." 
 
 My wife shook her head sadly. 
 
 " I see him every day," she said. 
 
 On this I believed that my wife was mad. I shrank from 
 
 questioning her more closely concerning her mysterious visitant. 
 It would be ill, I thought, to give a form and substance to the 
 shadow that tormented her by too close inquiry about its look 
 and manner, its coming and going. 
 
 I took care to assure myself that no stranger to the house- 
 hold could by any possibility penetrate to the pleasauncs 
 Having done this, I was fain to await the coming of the phy 
 sician. 
 
 ]=[e came at last. I revealed to him the conviction which wp 
 
Eveline's Yisilant. 
 
 815 
 
 my misery. I told him that I believed my wife to be mad. 
 He saw her— spent an hour alone with her, and then came to 
 me. To my unspeakable relief he assured me of her sanity. 
 
 " It is just possible that she may be affected by one delusion,* 
 he said ; " but she is so reasonable upon all other points, that 
 I can scarcely bring myself to believe her the subject of a mono- 
 mania. I am rather inclined to think that she really sees the 
 person of whom she speaks. She described him to me with a 
 perfect minuteness. The descriptions of scenes or individuals 
 given by patients afflicted with monomania are always more or 
 less disjointed ; but your wife spoke to me as clearly and calmly 
 as I am now speaking to you. Are you sure there is no one 
 who can approach her in that garden where she walks ? " 
 
 " I am quite sure." 
 
 " Is there any kinsman of your steward, or hanger-on of your 
 household, — a young man with a fair womanish face, very pale 
 and rendered remarkable by a crimson scar, which looks like the 
 mark of a blow ?" 
 
 "My God!" I cried, as the light broke in upon me all at 
 once. " And the dress — the strange old-fashioned dress ?" 
 
 " The man wears a hunting costume of purple and orange, ,, 
 answered the doctor. 
 
 I knew then that Andre de Brissac had kept his word, and 
 that in the hour when my life was brightest his shadow had 
 come between me and happiness. 
 
 I showed my wife the picture in the library, for I would fain 
 assure myself that there was some error in my fancy about my 
 cousin. She shook like a leaf when she beheld it, and clung 
 to me convulsively. 
 
 "This is witchcraft, Hector," she said. "The dress in that 
 oicture is the dress of the man I see in the pleasaunce ; but the 
 lace is not his." 
 
 Then she described tome the face of the stranger; and it was 
 my cousin's face line for line — Andre de Brissac, whom she had 
 never seen in the flesh. Most vividly of all did she describe the 
 cruel mark upon his face, the trace of a fierce blow from a:4 
 open hand. 
 
 After this I carried my wife away from Puy Verdun. We 
 wandered far — through the southern provinces, and into the 
 t-ery heart of Switzerland. I thought to distance the ghastly 
 phantom, and I fondly hoped that change of scene would bring 
 peace to my wife. 
 
 It was not so. Go where we would, the ghost of Andre' de 
 Brissac followed us. To my eyes that fatal shadow never 
 revealed itself. That would nave been too £?or a vengeance. 
 
316 
 
 Eveline's Visitant. 
 
 It was my wife's innocent heart which Andre made the instru- 
 ment of his revenge. The nnholy presence destroyed her life. 
 My constant companionship conld not shield her from tha 
 horrible intruder. In vain did I watch her; in vain did I 
 strive to comfort her. 
 
 " He will not let me be at peace," she said ; " he comes between 
 us, Hector. He is standing between us now. I can see his face 
 with the red mark upon it plainer than I see yours." 
 
 One fair moonlight night, when we were together in a moun- 
 tain village in the Tyrol, my wife cast herself at my feet, and 
 told me she was the worst and vilest of women. " I have con- 
 fessed all to my director," she said ; " from the first I have not 
 hidden my sin from Heaven. But I feel that death is near me ; 
 and before I die I would fain reveal my sin to you." 
 
 " What sin, my sweet one ?" 
 
 " When first the stranger came to me in the forest, his 
 presence bewildered and distressed me, and I shrank from him 
 as from something strange and terrible. He came again and 
 again; by and by I found myself thinking of him, and 
 watching for his coming. His image haunted me perpetually ; 
 I strove in vain to shut his face out of my mind. Then fol- 
 lowed an interval in which I did not see him ; and, to my 
 shame and anguish, I found that life seemed dreary and desolate 
 without him. After that came the time in which he haunted 
 the pleasaunce; and — 0, Hector, kill me if you will, for I 
 deserve no mercy at your ha^ds ! — I grew in those days to 
 count the hours that must elapse before his coming, to take no 
 pleasure save in the sight of that pale face with the red brand 
 upon it. He plucked all old familiar joys out of my heart, and 
 left in it but one weird unholy pleasure — the delight of his 
 presence. For a year I have lived but to see him. And now 
 curse me, Hector; fcyr this is my sin. Whether it comes of the 
 baseness of my own heart, or is the work of witchcraft, I know 
 not ; but I know that I have striven against this wickedness 
 in vain." 
 
 I took my wife to my breast, and forgave her. In sooth, 
 what had I to forgive ? Was the fatality that overshadowed us 
 any work of hers ? On the next night she died, with her hand 
 in mine; and at the very last she told me, sobbing and affrighted 
 that im was by her side. 
 
FOUND IN THE MUNIMENT CHEST. 
 
 1 "was three-and-twenty years of age, and I had not long been 
 articled to my father, an old-established family solicitor in th*i 
 eomfortable market-town of Orpingdean, Sussex, when I fell in 
 love with Barbara Ainsleigh at our race-ball. "We had a race- 
 meeting and a race-ball at Orpingdean, and we put on our gayest 
 aspect at that ripe meridian of the year, when the corn-fields 
 were growing tawny under the July sunshine. 
 
 Miss Ainsleigh was the representative heiress and beauty of 
 Orpingdean, just as my father was the representative family 
 solicitor of that prosperous settlement. She lived with her 
 father in a noble red-brick house of the Queen- Anne period, 
 shut in from the high-road by tall iron-gates of ponderous 
 scrollwork, and surrounded on three sides by a garden — a real 
 old-fashioned garden, in the Italian style, with stone terraces 
 and marble balustrades, on which the peacocks used to strut 
 and scream in the quiet summer evenings; and our summer 
 evenings were uncommonly quiet in the roads and lanes about 
 Orpingdean. 
 
 Mr. Ainsleigh was an elderly widower, and Barbara his onlj 
 child. It is scarcely necessary to add that he adored her, and 
 that her path from infancy to womanhood had been liberally 
 bestrewn with those metaphorical roses which the hand ot 
 affection, when aided by the purse of wealth, can scatter before 
 the footsteps of a household idol. We have no longer our 
 niche for the Penates ; but is there not in every home- circle a 
 god or goddess before whom the rest bow the knee in love, 
 or fear ? Miss Ainsleigh had the worship of love, and she 
 deserved it. 
 
 * I can scarcely trust myself to describe her. It is so difficult 
 to avoid hyperbole when one writes of one's first love. I will 
 only say that she was a noble English beauty — a dark-eyed, 
 dark-haired Juno, with the freshness of Hebe, and the instinctive 
 grace of Diana. 
 
318 
 
 Found in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 Mr. Ainsleigh had been for the last twenty years of his life a 
 bibliomaniac; and dearly as lie loved bis only child, there were 
 some who would have been at a loss to say whether his books 
 and the binding of his books did not usurp the larger share of 
 his dividid affections. Never till I knew Barbara's father did I 
 know how nmch there may be in the outside of a book. The 
 first day I ever spent in Mr. Ainsleigh's honse was a revelation 
 for me in the art of bookbinding. The bevelled edges — the 
 hand-pair ting sur tranche — the creamy vellum relieved by red 
 and gold lettering — the thick crinkly morocco, in all shades of 
 sober rnsset, and glowing crimson, and orange tawny — the 
 grolier, and gothic, and renaissance, — all that is rare and expen- 
 sive in the art that was in its prime while printing was yet in 
 its cradle. In the little world of Orpingdean it used to be said 
 that if Mr. Ainsleigh had not been a very rich man he would 
 have been ruined by his bibliomania. But, alas, Orpingdean 
 folks had the vaguest idea of what sums can be squandered on 
 rare old books and exquisite bindings, on Yirgils in Italic type, 
 printed at Venice by Aldus Manutius — on early in-folio copies 
 of Erasmus— on a Tresor de la langue latine or a Maison 
 Iiustique by Robert Estienne — on a Strawberry-Hill Lucan, or 
 diamond editions by Firmin Didot. We knew that Mr. 
 Ainsleigh's uncle had left him a handsome fortune, but we did 
 not know that it needs the millions of a Huth or a Van de 
 Weyer to support that expensive hobby-horse on which the 
 book- collector prances. Lord Lytton has most truly said that 
 one hobby is a wife, and that half-a-dozen hobbies are mis- 
 tresses. Mr. Ainsleigh was faithful to his hobby as ever 
 husband to the partner of his choice. But a man may find 
 his ruin even in a wife, if she happen to be expensive and 
 insatiable. 
 
 After the race-ball I saw a good deal of Miss Ainsleigh. My 
 father, and his father and grandfather before him, had been 
 received and liked by the best people in and about Orpingdean. 
 We lived in the town, much to the disgust of my two sisters, 
 who had been "finished" at an expensive Parisian school, and who 
 felt a sense of intense degradation in the near neighbourhood of 
 a coal-yard and a wine-merchant. But in this old house in the 
 High-street there were oaken wainscots and spacious rooms, a 
 square-paved hall, and a staircase with such ponderous carved 
 banisters as are rarely seen in modern dwellings ; and my fathei 
 refused to exchange the house in which he had been born for the* 
 finest and whitest of those new Italian villas, whose campanile 
 towers twinkled in the sunshine on the hills beyond Orpingdean. 
 My sisters protested that the old house smelt of pens and ink, 
 and marvelled that anybody should be so civil as to visit ua in 
 puch an odious locality. 
 
Found in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 311? 
 
 People did visit us, however, in spite of the coal-yard, which 
 Vas exactly opposite our drawing-room windows ; and in spite 
 *f the wine-merchant, our next-door neighbour, who seemed to 
 make his arrangements with a foreknowledge of the days on 
 which we were to have dinner-parties, so surely did he receive 
 wagon-loads of ponderous cases and bumping hogsheads on 
 that very day and at that very hour in which our guests 
 assembled. My sisters declared that this was his scheme of 
 vengeance against us for not visiting him. " I dare say he will 
 contrive to drop a case of Moet and Chandon some day just 
 as old Lady Hetherside is stepping out of that dilapidated 
 brougham of hers," said my sister Arabella; "and then she 
 will go about saying that she almost met her death upon our 
 door-step, and no one will ever dare to come and see us again." 
 
 Miss Ainsleigh came to us very often, undismayed by the 
 griminess of the coal-yard, or the bumping of casks and cham- 
 pagne cases on the pavement before our neighbour's storehouses. 
 She had been pleased to take a fancy, as it is called, to my 
 sisters, and they were delighted with her beauty and vivacity. 
 I counted for less than nothing in the affair; but I felt, never- 
 theless, that it was a very nice thing to have sisters ; and there 
 was no attraction in Orpingdean strong enough to tempt me 
 away from our spacious, shabby, comfortable old drawing-room, 
 when I knew that Barbara was coming to spend the evening 
 with our girls. 
 
 She came very often during the winter and early spring and 
 summer and autumn that succeeded the race-ball, where she 
 renewed hear acquaintance with my sisters after their return 
 from the Parisian seminary. Miss Ainsleigh had never been to 
 school. Was she not too precious a creature to be entrusted to 
 the care of strangers ? She had been educated under her father's 
 roof, by an expensive governess, and by masters innumerable, 
 and the process had made her a very accomplished young per- 
 son ; though rather superficial, according to the dictum of my 
 sisters, who had learned Latin, and moral philosophy, and 
 natural science, and a good many "ologies," which Miss 
 Ainsleigh had not been troubled with. 
 
 One of the chief bonds of union between this young lady 
 and my sisters was music. Barbara had a noble mezzo-soprano 
 voice. My sister Arabella had a decent soprano, my sister 
 Louisa an endurable contralto, while I had been endowed with 
 that deep abdominal growl which may be considered either a 
 fine bass or an insufferable nuisance, according to the taste of 
 the^ listener. It was the fashion at Orpingdean to accept me as 
 a kind of amateur Lablache, and of the execrations that may 
 have been heaped upon me in secret I would rather not think. 
 I was very grateful to Providence for my ability to growl when 
 
320 Found in the Muniment Ohcet. 
 
 Miss -Ainsleigli came to us; for I was thus enabled to partakd 
 in those exercises of the voice which constituted our musical 
 evenings. 0, what duets and trios and quartettes we sang in 
 the long winter evenings, while my father nodded behind his 
 newspaper, and my mother nodded over her knitting ! What 
 gentle gales we blew, what merry men we uproused, what 
 foxes we assisted in jumping over farmers' gates, what cool 
 grots we inhabited, with what happy laughter we greeted each 
 other's mistakes, and how like to the melody of the spheres 
 Barbara's fresh young voice sounded in the ears of one adoring 
 listener ! 
 
 Yes, my doomlwas sealed. From that love at first sight with 
 which I was stricken at the race-ball I might possibly have 
 i*ecovered. Is it not a faculty of youth to be stricken with such 
 sudden fevers, and to recover from them, to lay down its votive 
 wreath at the feet of one divinity to-day, and to pick up the 
 poor frail blossoms, not so very much the worse for wear, and 
 carry them to another shrine to-morrow ? This boyish fancy 
 for a beaming smile, and dark tresses crowned with flowers, 
 might have been fleeting as other fancies ; but from the love 
 that grew upon me in the quiet progress of our family inter- 
 course there was no such thing as recovery. We had a garden 
 behind the old house in the High-street, a long grass-plot, very 
 excellent for croquet, and a hazel-walk which seemed to have 
 been made for lovers. We heard the bumping of the casks and 
 cases in a long covered yard next door, and on warm summer 
 evenings a faint odour of port or sherry was wont to pervade 
 the atmosphere. But we played croquet indefatigably, never- 
 theless, in the summer afternoons and evenings, nor did Miss 
 Ainsleigh scorn to join us in that delightful sport, once, and some- 
 times twice a week all through the croquet season ; which, as I 
 take it, extends from the first tolerably fine day in March to 
 the last dry afternoon in October. We walked in the hazel- 
 walk sometimes, Barbara and I, while my sisters and Mr. 
 Dodderly, one of our curates, or Mr. Midvale, his brother in the 
 Church, prepared the croquet-ground, or collected the balls and 
 mallets when the sport was over. The faint stars used to 
 twinkle sometimes in the summer sky above the hazel-trees, 
 and it seemed to me altogether very sweet and very poetical, 
 despite the casks and cases bumping and rolling close at hand, 
 and the odour of fine crusted port that mingled with the per- 
 fume of our roses and clematis. 
 
 [Nothing could have been more trivial and commonplace than 
 our conversation on these occasions. It seemed as if we were 
 trivial and commonplace by choice, for whenever we touched 
 perchance upon any serious subject, — our hopes, our dreams, 
 the things we loved, the plans we had formed for the future,— 
 
Found in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 327. 
 
 we both shrank from the topic as if affrighted, and hastened 
 with nervous precipitancy to return to some frivolous discussion 
 about our last discovery in the science of croquet, the new glee 
 we were learning, the curate's sermon of the previous Sunday, 
 or the popular volume of travels or poems lately received from 
 the book-club. 
 
 We loved each other. Barbara must have been dullest among 
 women if she had failed to discover how fondly she was adored; 
 and, without being a coxcomb, I could not choose but assure 
 myself, with unutterable delight, that I was something more 
 than an ordinary acquaintance in the eyes of Miss Ainsleigh. 
 And so summer and autumn went by, and no week passed in 
 which Barbara and I did not meet — sometimes at my father's 
 house, sometimes at our quiet little Orpingdean dinner and tea 
 parties ; sometimes at the old Queen-Anne mansion outside the 
 town, where Mr. Ainsleigh received us whenever we liked to 
 visit him, and where there was a croquet-lawm that had once 
 been a Dutch bowling-green. Barbara's father was very well 
 pleased that his darling should have found pleasant friends in 
 the immediate neighbourhood, with whom she could beguile the 
 weariness of a country life. He paid us a ceremonial visit one 
 morning in company with his daughter, and expressed to my 
 mother and sisters his satisfaction upon the subject, in a gallant 
 and stately speech. After this he invited our household to a 
 ceremonial dinner, at which we met some of the county mag- 
 nates, such a dinner as Mr. Ainsleigh only gave about twice a 
 year He was a man who took very little pleasure in what is 
 called society. The books which lined the walls of every room 
 he lived in were his friends and companions. He existed for 
 them, and he loved them with a complete affection that left no 
 room in his mind for any frivolous attachments. He regarded 
 his daughter with extreme tenderness, and he indulged her every 
 wish with unquestioning alacrity; but whether this beautiful, 
 beaming creature, with the dark hair and blooming cheeks, was 
 quite as dear to him as his Boccaccio on large paper, or his 
 original edition of Urquhart's Rabelais, is a question I should 
 scarcely like to decide. He loved her, and he allowed her to do 
 exactly as she liked. I have sometimes thought that he might 
 have been a little less indulgent to this charming daughter if 
 his library had not held the first place in his esteem. 
 
 And in all these pleasant meetings, in our croquet-parties and 
 musical evenings, our blowing of gentle gales, and uprousing of 
 merry men, how did the future appear to me, Frederick Wilmot, 
 only son and heir to Andrew Wilmot, solicitor, of High- street, 
 Orpingdean ? Could I lor a moment consider myself a fitting 
 pretender to the hand of Barbara Ainsleigh, beauty and heiress, 
 future possessor of the grand old red-brick mansion, and of the 
 
322 
 
 J^oiind in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 wide- spreading lands appertaining thereto, to say nothing of 
 that funded estate which Mr. Ainsleigh was said to have 
 inherited from his uncle and adopted father, Lucas Ainsleigh ? 
 Alas, I was fain to confess that my hopes were of the faintest 
 arder. 
 
 1 knew that my father had begun life with an ample fortune, 
 and that he must have added considerably to that fortune 
 during the many years of a prosperous professional career. I 
 knew that he would admit me into partnership whenever I 
 proved myself worthy of that honour. But what of thatr 
 Was it to be supposed that Mr. Ainsleigh would submit to see 
 his daughter the wife of a solicitor in a country town ? Would 
 I submit to such a sacrifice, were I the father of such a 
 daughter? I asked myself that question, and replied boldly in 
 the negative. And then I ordered my young hopes — those fair 
 children of the mind — off to execution, and felt myself another 
 Brutus. 
 
 Yes ; in the future loomed the black shadow of despair. I 
 knew this, and yet was happy. It is so difficult to be unhappy 
 when one is four- and- twenty years of age, and in almost daily 
 companionship with the dear girl one loves. My Barbara's 
 image filled my mind by day and night; but I worked at my 
 dryasdust labours in the office with a plodding industry that 
 delighted my business-like father. Ah, those simple middle- 
 aged people, how little they know of the dramas that are being 
 enacted under their very noses ! 0, how Barbara's bright image 
 danced between the lines of leases and covenants, deeds of assign- 
 ment and bills of sale ! and how her sweet face peered out at 
 me from the elaborate curves and flourishes of initial letters, 
 like saint or siren in mediaeval manuscript ! 
 
 Well, it was a sweet dream while it lasted. I was awakened 
 by a crash; terrific as the cannonade that roared without the 
 wull a of Brescia when Gaston de Foix mounted barefoot to the 
 breach ; or as the simultaneous tumbling of fire-irons that some- 
 times startled my father from his after-dinner nap. 
 
 Christmas was close at hand, and I was looking forward to 
 several parties at which Barbara and I were to meet. The 
 shadow looming in the remote future seemed more than usually 
 remote at this period. My sisters made merry with me on the 
 subject of my devotion to Miss Ainsleigh; for it is the property 
 of sisters to be disagreeably acute upon these occasions. T 
 endured their badinage with good humour; for though they 
 asked me if it was likely that a country-town solicitor could 
 aspire to the hand of a beauty and heiress, their tone seemed to 
 toe to imply that they did not think my case utterly hopeless, 
 and I took comfort from their idle discourse. 
 
 Miss Ainsleigh made her appearance unexpectedly at our 
 
J>ound in the Munimenc Chest. 
 
 323 
 
 nine-o'clock tea one evening in December, when my father and 
 mother were engaged at an old-fashioned dinner and whist party. 
 My sisters were chattering by the fire, and I was sitting apart 
 pretending to read, and thinking of Barbara, when I heard a 
 carriage stop in the street below. I hurried to the window, 
 scarcely daring to hope that I shonld see Miss A in sleigh's smart 
 little brougham. 
 
 I did see that admired vehicle, and three minutes afterwards 
 Barbara was in the room, shawled and furred, and looking 
 unusually pale in the light of our wax-candles. My father 
 cherished an antipathy to gas, which I have since learned to 
 respect. * 
 
 " Why, Barbara, this is quite a delightful surprise !" cried my 
 sister Louisa. "Come to my room, dear, and take off your 
 things. Of course you have sent the brougham back?" 
 
 " Kb, dear," Miss Ainsleigh faltered, in tones very different 
 from those we had been used to hear from her lips. " I can't 
 stay long to-night. Papa has a friend with him. See, I have 
 come out in my dinner-dress. I made an excuse for leaving 
 papa and his friend to take coffee alone ; and no one but Emms 
 and Phillis Trotter know that I have come out. I — I only came 
 to say a few words to you, Louisa, about something that has 
 happened — at home." 
 
 She seemed on the point of bursting into tears, and her grief 
 smote me to the quick. I was hastening to console the object 
 of my adoration, when Louisa hustled her out of the room, and 
 Arabella followed, both girls pleased with the excitement of the 
 situation, and utterly indifferent to my agonies. For half an 
 hour I paced the drawing-room in anguish unspeakable ; but 
 at the end of that time the three girls returned ; and Louisa, 
 who was not such a very obnoxious creature as sisters go, told 
 me that she had obtained Miss Ainsleigh's permission to tell me 
 the trouble that oppressed her. 
 
 " You ought to know almost as much about the law as papa 
 by this time," said Louisa, " and you can most likely explain 
 poor Barbara's position." 
 
 " It is not myself I think of," exclaimed Barbara, half crving. 
 " Poverty would not seem so hard to me ; but papa — he is so 
 refined ; his tastes are so expensive, — a sudden reverse would 
 kill him. And he will lose all — even his books, perhaps — if that 
 dreadful paper i« what it seems to be." 
 
 " Sudden reverse! — dreadful paper!" I implored the young 
 lady to be more coherent. 
 
 "I — I have found a will, of my great-uncle Lucas Airs- 
 leigh's, that make's papa a pauper," she said; and thereupon 
 produced a yellow-looking document, on a couple of sheets oi 
 Bath post. 
 
324 
 
 'Found in tlie Muniment Chest. 
 
 I was well acquainted with the circumstances of Miss Ains* 
 leigh's family. "William Ainsleigh, her father, had inherited the 
 estate, which was not entailed, from his uncle, by virtue of a 
 will, dated some years before that gentleman's death, and imme- 
 diately after his quarrel with his only child, a daughter, who 
 had married a certain James Bashwood, a landscape-painter of 
 some talent, but of no position, against her father's wish. The 
 young lady and her husband disappeared almost immediately 
 after the marriage. It was supposed they had gone to America, 
 where the painter had friends. Lucas Ain sleigh felt the blow 
 keenly, but preserved an obstinate silence upon the subject of 
 his grief. He publicly announced his intention to leave all he 
 possessed to his eldest nephew, "William Ainsleigh, and he exe- 
 cuted a will to that effect, which document was drawn up by 
 my father, and remained in his possession till Lucas Ainsleigh'? 
 death. 
 
 The will Barbara showed me was dated a week before the 
 testator's death, the date of which event I perfectly remem- 
 bered. It was witnessed by a certain Eachel Coles and Andrew 
 Hard wick, both of which names were strange to me. The will 
 seemed a good one. The body and signature were in the same 
 hand. It left the bulk of the testator's fortune to Margaret 
 Dashwood, late Ainsleigh, — at that time supposed to be living 
 somewhere in the United States — most probably New York, — 
 and to Barbara's father only five hundred a year from funded 
 property. 
 
 The testator entreated his nephew to pardon this sudden 
 change of resolution. He felt the hour of death approaching ; 
 and as that hour drew nearer, his stubborn heart softened more 
 and more to this poor child, and he felt himself bound to make 
 her all possible reparation for his unkindness. 
 
 This was the tenor of the document. I read it hurriedly at 
 first, in my excitement, and then carefully, but I could see no 
 legal flaw. 
 
 " Where did you find this, Miss Ainsleigh?" 
 
 " In a chest of old manuscripts, in the room where my great- 
 uncle died," replied Barbara. " He w&a a collector of curious 
 books and manuscripts, like papa, you know; indeed, it was 
 from him papa learnt the taste for these things. It was only 
 this evening I found that dreadful paper. Mr. Lostenwick 
 dined with papa, and after dinner they began to talk about 
 curious manuscripts ; and papa said he had a muniment chest 
 filled with very rare papers that he had not even looked at, and 
 amongst them he believed there was a manuscript treatise by 
 Roger Bacon. Mr. Lostenwich said he would like, of all things, 
 to see such a manuscript. Papa was anxious to show it to 
 liim; but he has not been very well lately, and, as I knew th$ 
 
Found in the Muniment CJiest. 
 
 323 
 
 oearch would involve some fatigue, I begged him to let me hunt 
 for the treatise. He consented, after some little discussion, and 
 then gave me a minute description of the manuscript and the 
 chest it was to be found in. I took Phillis Trotter, my dear 
 good little maid, to the room with me, and between us we 
 dragged the muniment chest from the cupboard where it had 
 been kept for ages, as we could tell by the thickness of the 
 dust upon the lid. I found the key upon a bunch papa had given 
 me; and after some little trouble succeeded in opening the 
 chest, and began my search. Phillis held the candle for me 
 while I knelt down to examine the manuscripts." 
 
 " Does Phillis know of this ?" I asked, pointing to the wilV 
 which lay open before me, and from which I could not entirely 
 withdraw my consideration even while listening to Miss Ains- 
 leigh. 
 
 " Yes, Phillis knows. In my first surprise .and horror I 
 betrayed everything. But she is the best of good creatures, 
 and will not breathe a word of this business without my per- 
 mission. I looked over a great many papers, and threw 
 them back into the chest, but I could see no vestige of Koger 
 Bacon's treatise, with its long Latin name. I was just about 
 abandoning my search in despair, when I saw the indorsement 
 — I think you legal people call it indorsement — of that paper. 
 My uncle's name, and the words 'last will and testament,' 
 excited my curiosity. I opened the paper, and I was in the 
 act of reading it, when the door was opened, and an exclama- 
 tion from Phillis told me of my father's coming. He had been 
 alarmed by my long absence, and had left his friend to come 
 in search of me. I threw the will back into the chest, and 
 answered papa's questions as calmly as I could. I assured him 
 that there was no manuscript of Eoger Bacon's to be found in 
 the chest, and persuaded him to return to his friend and to 
 apologize for my non-appearance, I had recourse to the fa- 
 voarite feminine excuse, a head-ache ; and, after sending papa 
 back to the dining-room, I despatched Phillis to order the 
 brougham, for my first impulse was to come to you with this 
 Ireadful paper. And 0, Mr. Wilmot, does this will really mean 
 anything, and will it reduce papa to poverty, for I fear he has 
 squandered a great deal of money on his books, and has con*, 
 ciderably impoverished the estate ; and he will have to give all 
 back, will he not, if that paper is binding?" 
 
 How could I answer her when she looked at me with such a 
 terror-stricken face, alarmed not for herself — I doubt if she was 
 even conscious that her own interests were at stake— but for the 
 father she loved so fondly ! 
 
 I was obliged to tell her that to the best of my belief the will 
 was a good one. 
 
823 
 
 Jfound in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 " Then I must give it to papa," she answered sadly. *' It 
 would be wicked to keep it hidden for a single day, now that I 
 know the duty it imposes upon us. And papa must give up the 
 Hail, and begin life afresh — I am sure he will make the sacrifice 
 bravely, but 1 fear it will cost him a broken heart. He loves the 
 old Hall so dearly." 
 
 And then she began to think of the people interested in the 
 newly-discovered will. 
 
 " I wonder where my poor cousin is to be found," she said ; 
 " it is nearly twenty years since my uncle died, and it was years 
 before his death that she married Mr. Dashwood and went to 
 America. She never was known to write to any of her relations 
 after leaving England. I have heard papa say that he tried to 
 find her out, in order to help her, after the property became his ; 
 but he never succeeded in obtaining any tidings of her. And 
 now all belongs to her, and she will come back to turn my poor 
 lather out of his home, and will never know how kindly he 
 thought of her." 
 
 I asked Miss Ainsleigh if she would intrust the will to my 
 keeping until the following morning. She gave me the sweetest 
 and most confiding of smiles as she put the document into my 
 hands. 
 
 " Do exactly what seems best to yourself," she said; " I am 
 sure you will only do what is right and honourable. If you 
 find that the will is really valid, please t come to the Hall to- 
 morrow morning, and we will tell papa all about it — between 
 us." 
 
 And thus we parted; I conducted her to her pretty little 
 carriage, and held her dear hand in mine just a little longer 
 than usual as I bade her good-night. 
 
 " If you should ever come to be poor, Barbara," I said, "you 
 will at least know how dearly you are beloved." 
 
 This I could not resist saying. For the first time in my life 
 I had called her Barbara. I felt myself blushing in the dark 
 ness ; but she did not reprove me. 
 
 I lit the reading-lamp on my father's office-table, and lay in 
 wait for his return. He came at half-past ten, elated by a final 
 " double, treble, and the rub." I sent my mother up to the 
 drawing-room, where the girls were too full of Barbara's troubles 
 to care about hearing the menu of the friendly dinner, and I 
 marched my father into the office, where we sat down side^ by 
 side, and examined the last will and testament of Lucas Ains- 
 leigh. 
 
 My father thought as I did. He remembered the names of 
 the two witnesses — both had been old servants of the testator's, 
 and both were dead. 
 
 " If they had not been exceptionally stupid they would have 
 
Found in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 327 
 
 taken some mfcans to further the carrying-out of their old mas- 
 ter's wishes," said my father. " But it is just possible, by the 
 way, that Lucas Ainsleigh did not tell them the nature of the 
 document they attested. Some men are so fatally cautious." 
 
 The result of our conversation was my appearance at the 
 Hall early next morning, with the dreadful document in my 
 pocket. Barbara came out of her pretty morning-room as the 
 servant admitted me. We stopped on the threshold of Mr. 
 Ainsleigh' s study, whispering together for a few minutes before 
 we went in, and it happened somehow that Barbara's hand 
 remained in mine while we whispered. I loved her so dearly, 
 I was so sorry for her sorrow, I was so glad to think that her' 
 poverty would bring her nearer to me ; there was, in short, such 
 a conflict of emotion raging in my breast, that I may surely be 
 forgiven if, in this tremendous crisis, I forgot to release Miss 
 Ainsleigh' s hand. 
 
 We went into the study, where the perfume of Russia leather 
 was almost oppressive, and told our story between us, Barbara 
 kneeling by her father's chair, and caressing the thin white hand 
 that hung listless by his side while we broke the intelligence to 
 him. I never saw any one more weak and helpless than Mr. 
 Ainsleigh proved himself on this occasion. He seemed almost 
 stunned by the blow. 
 
 " I am afraid I have impoverished the estate, Frederick," he 
 said. " You see the fancies of a bookworm are expensive ; and, 
 thinking myself a rich man, I have been somewhat reckless. 
 I should scarcely like to tell yon the money I gave for my 
 Decameron. And it«was I who bought the Shakespeare— you 
 may remember, perhaps — that was sold at Willis and Sotheron's 
 three - years ago. It is true that at the worst I could sell my 
 books, but it would be hard to part with them. Marcus 
 Anrelius sold all his possessions for the benefit of the State, 
 during that period in which the Germanic war and the pestilence 
 at Borne combined to impoverish the treasury; but he got a 
 good deal of the property back again, nor do we hear of rare 
 manuscripts among the treasures he resigned. And I do not 
 pretend to the nobility of mind displayed by that generous 
 Antonine." 
 
 The bibliomaniac looked round at the grand old folios with a 
 dismal sigh. 
 
 " We need not talk about selling your library yet, sir," I said 
 cheerily. " My father and I are agreed that the will is a good 
 one, but we have yet to discover whether there is any one alive 
 to claim under it." 
 
 This was a new view of the subject, but it did not inspire 
 much hope in the minds of Barbara and her father. 
 
 "My cousin was my junior by some years," said Mr. Ains* 
 
328 
 
 Found in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 leigh; " slie married early, and is likely to have left a largy 
 family, — even supposing her to be no longer living." 
 
 " The law has only to deal with facts, you see, sir," I an- 
 swered, with unabated cheerfulness. It was, indeed, very easy 
 for me to assume this lively and consoling tone ; for my heart 
 was dancing with joy. I knew that Barbara loved me. A 
 very few hours of family trouble seemed to have made us more 
 intimate than a year and a half of croquet-parties and "gentle 
 gales." 
 
 After some little discussion, it was agreed that an advertise- 
 ment should be drawn up by my father, requesting Margaret 
 Dashwood or her heirs, executors, and assigns, to communicate 
 with him immediately, personally or by letter; and further 
 offering to reward any person who should produce evidence of 
 the lady's decease. 
 
 " I don't think that will be much use," Mr. Ainsleigh said. 
 
 "If Mrs. Dashwood had come back to England, she would 
 surely have come to this place, where she was born and brought 
 up." 
 
 " We cannot be quite sure of that," I replied. " The lady 
 may have returned under circumstances of extreme poverty, 
 and may have been too proud to exhibit her altered status iu 
 this place." 
 
 "True, true," sighed Mr. Ainsleigh. 
 If there should be no response to that advertisement after 
 lit has been inserted a dozen times, on alternate days, we may 
 fairly conclude that neither Mrs. Dashwood nor her heirs are to 
 be found in this country; and I will, with your permission, 
 start immediately for America, with a view to finding them, or 
 sufficient evidence of their decease." 
 
 "You will go to America P" cried Barbara and her father 
 simultaneously. 
 
 They both looked at me as the friends of Theseus may have 
 looked at him when he announced his intention of tackling the 
 Minotaur ; but I answered their looks of wonder with a smile, 
 
 j< Crossing the Atlantic is a very small business nowadays," I 
 said, "thanks to Ounard. I shall start before the end of 
 January ; and in the meantime all you have to do is to make 
 yourself comfortable and wait the issue of events. Things may 
 not be so bad as you think, sir." 
 
 I felt a courage that was almost desperation as I watched 
 Barbara kneeling by her father's side, and comforting him with 
 tender looks and sweet little half- whispered words and the light 
 pressing touch of her fair hands. Ah, what could not a man 
 achieve for such a woman as that ! I felt myself equal to sup- 
 port not only a wife but a father-in-law, Yes> and to find money 
 for Willis and Sotheron into the bargain. 
 
Found in the Muniment Chest 
 
 329 
 
 Before I left the Hall that day Barbara and I were solemnly 
 pledged to each other. A detestable man-servant came in with 
 a coal-scuttle just as my sweet girl was melted into tears by the 
 fervour of my devotion. And 0, in what a leisurely manner 
 the wretch renewed the fire, and how we stood, self-conscious a\ 
 unconvicted felons, while he trifled with the poker, and showed 
 himself neat to punctiliousness in his arrangement of the shovel 
 and tongs ! 
 
 " And do you really mean to say that you are not afraid 
 f)i my poverty?" asked Barbara, when the execrable creature 
 had gone. 
 
 " I mean to say that I was very much afraid of your wealth," 
 I replied. " I should never have dared to ask the heiress of 
 Ainsleigh Hall to be my wife. It is only the prospect of a 
 change in your circumstances that gives me courage." 
 
 I doubt if my life can give me a happier Christmas than that 
 which followed my interview with Barbara. My father's adver- 
 tisement appeared three times a week in the second column of 
 the Times 9 Supplement ; but there was no response worthy even 
 of investigation. Mr. Ainsleigh waited the result with sup- 
 pressed anxiety ; while Barbara and I did our best to support 
 nis spirits and to restrain our own. He received my offer for 
 his daughter's hand with resignation, — as if it had been the 
 last stroke inflicted by the Nemesis of his house. 
 
 " I will not deny that I had hoped a more brilliant destiny 
 for her," he murmured. " She is now but a pauper's daughter, 
 and cannot be too grateful for your disinterested affection." 
 
 I left Liverpool on the 17th of January, and my business 
 upon the other side occupied, the greater part of a year. With 
 infinite labour, I hunted out tne history of Margaret Dash- 
 wood and her husband, together with the history of the two 
 rhildren who had been born to them, both of whom had died 
 anmarried, — one an infant, the other a soldier in the late Civil 
 War. Death had settled all claims that might have been 
 asserted under the will found in the muniment chest. I went 
 back to England late in the autumn, carrying with me ample r 
 evidence of the decease of Mrs. Dashwood and her heirs. She 
 died without a will, and on her death the property would hava 
 lapsed naturally to her father's eldest nephew. 
 
 Barbara and I are to be married early in the spring. I nobly 
 offered to release her from her engagement ; she, in a spirit as 
 noble, refused to be released. Her father is resigned and even 
 happy. There is another Decameron to be sold at Willis and 
 Sotheron's in the coming spring, of an older and rarer edition 
 than the large-paper copy he has cherished so fondly hitherto ; 
 and whether he looks forward with most anxiety to the loss of 
 
330 
 
 Found in the Muniment Chest. 
 
 his daughter 01 the acquisition of the Decameron is an enigma 
 
 I shall not attempt to solve. 
 
 We are to live at the old Hall, whence I am to trudge to my 
 desk at the office daily. The little preliminary discussions of 
 affairs between my father and Mr. Ainsleigh have revealed the 
 fact that khe latter gentleman has contrived to muddle away a 
 great deal of money, and is by no means a rich man. If Mrs. 
 Dash wood or her heirs had been alive to claim the estate, his 
 position would have been a very miserable one. 
 
 The good people of Orpingdean, however, believe that I am 
 going to marry a rich heiress, and no doubt have a great dee! 
 to say among themselves on the subject of my good fortune. 
 
HOW I HEARD MY OWN WILL BEAD. 
 
 It was wrong to be led away by Scavenger. Scavenger was 
 the third favonrite for the St. Leger; and a sporting prophet 
 of some celebrity, Mr. Mooney Dooem, of Little Hocus- street, 
 London-road, Manchester, assured me, for the moderate con- 
 sideration of three shillings and sixpence in postage stamps, 
 that if I wanted to do a good thing for myself, the way to set 
 about it was to back Scavenger with all the loose cash I could 
 lay my hands on. 
 
 Now, I am not a sporting man, and I don't know much of 
 horseflesh. If I had met Scavenger drawing a parcels- delivery 
 van, my sense of the fitness of things would not have been 
 jarred by the circumstance ; nevertheless, I like a race. Yes, 
 I am passionately devoted to a race. I make a point of taking 
 Mrs. Pettifer to Epsom and Hampton races every spring. I like 
 champagne and lobster-salad. I like to wear a green veil, and 
 to talk to admiring servant-girls at open windows on the dusty 
 road. I used to like chaffing the toll-keeper — one feels so witty 
 in a barouche and pair. I like having my fortune told. I like 
 coming home in the evening with my mind in a pleasing state 
 of uncertainty as to whether it is the day before yesterday or 
 the day after to-morrow ; and I like finishing the evening with 
 iced punch, another lobster, and a " frienly rub-r-r-r." 
 
 So I backed Scavenger. On Saturday I gave six to five on 
 him, on Monday I gave five to four on him, and on Tuesday 
 my partner Peck (Peck and Pettifer, solicitors, Gray's-inn) 
 made me give him seven to three on that abominable brute. 
 Peck always backs the field. He is a cautious man, and nevei 
 means to marry. He makes unpleasant puns about not wanting 
 to be hen-Pecked. I have laughed at that doleful joke so long 
 from sheer habit, that if I heard it in a funeral sermon I believe 
 I should burst into a loud guffaw ; and I give you my honour 
 I never thought it funny in the whole course of my life. I am 
 rather afraid of Peck, if the truth must be told, for I think he 
 looks down upon me. I remember once, after a jovial night we 
 had together, going to the office next morning with a labyrinth 
 of streaky red marks all over my face ; and when I told him 
 that I had awoke and found the cat walking over my face, he 
 looked as if he didn't believe me. 
 
 I backed Scavenger ; and then it struck me that as Peck waa 
 .going down to Doncaster for the St* Jaeger week, I really ought 
 
332 Sow 1 Heard my Own Will Bead. 
 
 to go too. I could afford trie week's holiday quite as well &a 
 Peck, though I was not a single man. So I told Mrs. Pettifer 
 that 1 rnnst run down to Yorkshire to wait on one of our best 
 clients, who was going to marry his eldest daughter (to some- 
 body else of course), and who required my professional services 
 for the preparation of the settlements, Now I suppose York- 
 shire sounded rather vague, for Mrs. Pettifer asked immediately 
 what part of Yorkshire I was going to. I replied, as imme* 
 diately, Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey. Now I don't know of any 
 town answering to that name in Yorkshire; but that is no 
 reason there should not be such a place, and I thought the 
 address would be reassuring to Mrs. P. ; and so it was. Un- 
 fortunately, she wanted me to write it down. I could not have 
 spelt it if you had offered me a million of money ; so I told my 
 esteemed Julia Maria that I would write to her the minute I 
 reached Slitherem ; and so departed. 
 
 That brute Scavenger was nowhere, and my loose cash was 
 jingling in the pockets of the prudent Peck half an hour after 
 the great race. The cup was won by an outsider of obscure 
 lineage, a rawboned chestnut animal with one white fore-leg, 
 which made him look as if he had dressed himself in a hurry 
 and had forgotten to put on his other stocking. Peck had 
 backed him, and came away from the course with his leathern 
 pocket-book distended, as in a dropsy, with bank-notes. I hated 
 him with a deep and Undying hatred ; but as he asked me to 
 dine with him at the Reindeer, I went. 
 
 He is a brute (perhaps I have said that before), but he is, on 
 the whole, a generous brute, and he gave me a very good dinner. 
 They know what a bottle of champagne is at the Reindeer, I 
 can tell you ; they can send you up something very creditable in 
 the way of sparkling hock ; and if you 've a fancy for a bottle of 
 old madeira, such as might rival Captain Cook for sea-voyages, 
 don't be afraid to order it. We had some of that madeira with 
 ojur fish. We didn't go into " sparkling " till the next course 
 came in; and when we were tired of champagne, we went in 
 for burgundy. I think it was some time in the fourth course 
 that I was rather annoyed by the very peculiar conduct of 
 a partridge. It began by sliding about my plate, and per- 
 sistently eluding my fork ; he then dipped— yes, this malicious 
 bird absolutely dipped down, plate and all, as if he were 
 taking a sensation header, or going through a trap in the 
 table-cloth. Next he dodged me — yes, dodged me from side to 
 side; concealed himself behind the bread-sauce to avoid my 
 knife; till on my making a final effort to pinion him with my 
 fork, he took to himself wings and flew away — into Peck's shirt- 
 front. I believe this gave rise to high words between Peck and 
 me ; "but I know we afterwards shook hands ; and there wag 
 
Mow 1 Heard my Own Will Read, 333 
 
 eoniething so really touching in our reconciliation that I wept. 
 It was foolish of me to wipe my eyes upon my dinner-napkin, 
 oecause I thereby introduced foreign particles in the way of 
 crumbs and mustard into those optics, which injured my sight 
 for the rest of the evening ; but Peck said my conduct did equal 
 honour to my head and my heart. I think it was in the course 
 of a speech he said this ; and I believe he paid me some very 
 high compliments on my professional capacity and unblemished 
 integrity. I felt grateful to him, though he pronounced it 
 " feshnl epety" and " nblmshed tgrity" and I didn't quite catch 
 his meaning. This, of course, was after the cloth was removed, 
 and we were taking onr port and walnuts. 
 
 I don't know what brought Julia Maria (Mrs. Pettifer) 30 
 vividly to my recollection at this time, but the image of that 
 injured woman did recur to me, and my feelings got the better 
 of me. I had not acted well towards the wife of my bosom. I 
 had not kept my promise ; I had never written to her from 
 Slitherem-on-the-D win gey ; partly because I had not been there, 
 and partly because I did not believe there was any place of that 
 name in the map of England. 
 
 How we came to think about the theatre, I don't know; 
 perhaps it was because we had received a circular from the 
 manager of that place of entertainment, perhaps it was the 
 landlord who suggested the idea, perhaps it was the waiter ; at 
 any rate, there was Peck standing with his back to the fire- 
 place (0, what had he been doing to himself to make himself 
 so indistinct and undulating ?) — there was Peck, looking at his 
 watch, and saying that it was only half-past nine, and that we 
 might as well go and look in at the theatre. 
 
 I don't know whether earthquakes are indigenous to Don- 
 caster, but that town was certainly agita/ted by some convulsion 
 of nature on this particular evening ; and as the inhabitants 
 appeared quite undisturbed by the phenomenon, I conclude that 
 it was quite a common occurrence. 
 
 As to that man who told us the nearest way to the theatre, 
 I hope he may come to an untimely end. Nearest way 
 indeed ! " Bear to your left down the street opposite, and then 
 turn sharp round the first corner you come to, into a narrow 
 lane." I did bear to my left, whereby I bore right into a 
 horse's mouth, and received a torrent of abuse from a stable- 
 boy riding the quadruped. The lad had been drinking — they 
 will do it at these times ! — so I forgave him. Then, as to 
 turning sharp round the corner, did I not turn sharp round 
 the corner, and did I not do the bridge of my nose a serious 
 injury against the brickwork of the corner house? I have 
 never quite understood how we ultimately made our way into 
 the theatre but I think it was side ways, because I know some* 
 
834; How 1 Heard my Own Will Head. 
 
 thing seemed to be taking me into the Market-place, w hich, 
 everybody knows, is adjacent to that building. Peck took me 
 into a box near the stage. Peck is a play-going man, quotes 
 Shakspe&re and Maddison Morton in his conversation. I take 
 my family to see the pantomimes every Christmas ; beyond that 
 I am not a connoisseur. The play was Hildebrand the Avenger, 
 or the Spectre of the Mount. Peck said it was trash ; I thought 
 it interesting. Mrs. Hildebrand was a widow, Hildebrand hav- 
 ing been murdered at some remote period. She wore black- 
 cotton velvet, ornamented with spiky embellishments in crochet- 
 work. I knew it was cotton velvet, because it looked brown, 
 and clung around her queenly form as she walked. She also 
 wore pearls in her hair — the correct costume, I daresay, of widows 
 in the time of Hildebrand the A. She was rather a big woman, 
 and she might have been younger; but she was a model of 
 conjugal propriety; and 0, didn't she annihilate Hildebrand' s 
 bad brother in yellow boots, when he revealed a guilty passion 
 which he had chee-yerished — he pronounced it " chee-yerished" — 
 for a space of some ten or twenty years ! Now I should have 
 enjoyed this dramatic entertainment very much, — for I felt a 
 strong interest in the female Hildebrand, and I rather admired 
 Yellow-boots, though he was a consummate villain, and had 
 three supernumerary consummate villains, dressed in green baize 
 and bluchers, always ready to carry out any scheme of a criminal 
 description, — but there was a virtuous steward, who talked a 
 great deal more than an}^body else, and who seemed to obtain 
 all the applause. I don't know how he came to be connected with 
 the partridge that had so aggravated me at dinner ; but he — the 
 virtuous steward — was nearly related to that malignant bird, 
 and from the moment he spied me in the corner of the boxes, he 
 made a dead-set at me. Yes, at me! The abominable and 
 abusive language he used, I shall never forget. 0, ah ! he might 
 pretend he meant it for Yellow-boots (the noble-er Count-er, as he 
 called him); but when he said that "the man who didn't do so 
 and so deserved the most ignominious treatment," it was at me 
 he levelled his denunciations, and I felt myself the focus of a 
 whole houseful of indignant eyes. I told Peck of this fact, but 
 he said he had not observed it. Peck never observes an}^thing. 
 I asked my partner if there was anything in my appearance 
 calculated to attract the attention of that obnoxious steward ; 
 and P. said I did look rather pale. Suppose I did ; was that 
 the virtuous steward's business or mine, pray ? and was I to ask 
 his permission before I turned pale ? I felt pale, and I rather 
 fancied I looked interesting : that black ballet-girl with the eyes — 
 I mean that ballet-girl with the black eyes — thought so, to judge 
 by the way she stared at me. Well, now, who do you suppose 
 that virtuous steward was? The meat experienced playgoer 
 
How I Heard my Own Will Bead. 335 
 
 ^ould have failed to iatliom that secret. That virtuous stewam 
 was Hildebrand himself, who had been cleaning his own plate 
 in his own butler's pantr} T , and waiting on his own wife, and 
 depriving himself of all the comforts and privileges of his station 
 for ten years ; for the sake of keeping his eye on Yellow-boots, 
 who had intended to murder him, but had foolishly intrusted 
 the carrying oub of the business to one of the supernumerary 
 villains, who had evidently made a regular fiasco of it. Now, 
 was not that idea charmingly original ? I 'm sure, when the 
 virtuous steward threw off a white beard and a black cloak (how 
 ever did he clean his plate or draw his corks in that cloak ?), you 
 might have heard a pin drop. I did distinctly hear the wire 
 springs of the beard when it fell on the stage. And then there 
 was such a burst of applause ! And then poor Yellow-boots (he 
 was a handsome young man, and would have been graceful if he 
 had only been more settled in his ideas as to what he should do 
 with his arms) was led away by his own minions, with a view to 
 instantaneous execution. Perhaps he had been behindhand with 
 their wages, for they really seemed glad to do it. 
 
 How ever it came about, I don't know ; but all of a sudden 
 we were behind the scenes. It was very dark, and there were 
 a good many stairs, and somebody tumbled down, and I hurt 
 myself. Peck knew the manager ; and it was by some occult and 
 back- stairs influence on the part of Peck that we had gained 
 admittance to those sacred precincts. And there was Yellow- 
 boots dressed in the costume of private life, smoking a meer- 
 schaum-pipe, and playing dominoes with the virtuous steward. 
 My first impulse was to strangle the Y.S., on account of those 
 abusive remarks he had made about me ; but Peck said I had 
 better not ; and then I found that I actually had a strong feeling 
 of friendship for the Y.S., and that I should respect and admire 
 him to my dying day. 
 
 I think presently the manager wanted to turn me out, because 
 I was something that began with a d, and disorderly. I knew 
 that I was a model of gentlemanly propriety, and that the 
 remark was the emanation of an envious mind ; so I did not 
 resent it. But Peck told the manager I was a jolly good fellow, 
 and as quiet as a lamb when I was something that began with 
 an s ; and he invited the manager to come and sup with us at 
 the Keindeer, which the manager consented to do. 
 
 They gave us a spatch-cock and curried lobster for supper; 
 and this time we tried the sparkling moselle, quite a lady's wine, 
 and not the sort of stuff to get into your head, especially if you 
 laid a good foundation of old dry sherry and bitter beer, as I 
 did. "Wasn't that manager a glorious fellow too ? And couldn't 
 he sing a comic song too ? And did not Peck and I join in the 
 chorus ? O, it was such a song I There were seven murder? 
 
536 IIou I Heard my Own Will Heart. 
 
 and nine ghosts in it ; and really, though you were ready to 
 expire with laughing while you heard it sang, it was not" ths 
 sort of thing to think of afterwards when you found yourself 
 alone in the dark. 
 
 After supper I proposed the manager, with all the honours ; 
 and the manager proposed Peck and me, with all the honours ; 
 and we drank the theatrical profession, out of compliment to 
 the manager ; and the manager proposed the law, out of com- 
 pliment to Peck and me. Did he not make a witty speech about 
 landsharks and bilge-water ? I believe it was extracted from 
 the drama of Black-eyed Susan ; but the manager passed it oil 
 as original. And then Peck returned thanks in a speech that 
 was positively affecting ; and then we drank the ladies — not that 
 there were any present, but the fair sex in general ; Peck said, 
 the black-eyed ballet-girl in particular : but of course Peck is a 
 single man. And then we went to the station. 
 
 Yes, we went to the station, though I don't particularly re- 
 member how we went. We had been to bed, of course, because 
 it was six o'clock to-morrow morning, and there we were at the 
 station. We might have had a cab, or we m%ht have walked 
 down and carried our carpet-bags ourselves — I can't say which ; 
 but I am ready to make an affidavit that it was six o'clock a.m., 
 and there we were on the platform. How that clerk we took 
 our tickets from came to be my second cousin Mary Jane Thomas's 
 husband, who died when I was a little boy, I don't know ; but 
 Mary Jane T.'s husband he was ; and what 's more, I was not 
 in the least surprised to see him. Neither did I perceive any- 
 thing incongruous in the conduct of the manager, though, on 
 my turning round to wish him good-bye, he all at once grew 
 so like my great aunt Storkins — Aunt Storkins was in trade 
 once, and no Pettifer ever would notice anybody connected 
 with trade — that I could have taken him for that elderly 
 individual, if I had not known all the time that he was the 
 manager as well. 
 
 Talk of a long journey! I conclude wo went express, be- 
 cause we didn't stop anywhere ; but, upon my honour, it seemed 
 to me as if we began that journey in the period of the old red 
 sandstone, and didn't reach our destination till the reign of 
 Queen Yictoria. Eons and eons seemed to pass away, and still 
 that Wandering Jew of an express-train tore onward on its in- 
 terminable course; and there was Peck sitting opposite me 
 eating sandwiches the whole time. He wasn't always Peck, 
 by the bye; sometimes he was Earl Russell; once he was the 
 Emperor Nero, with a faint tinge of Mr. Alfred Tennyson; 
 Dut there was an under-current of himself perceptible all the 
 time. 
 
 How we came to pass Bagdad I don't know, unless it v/rw 
 
IIoiv I Heard m<j Own Will Bead. 33? 
 
 through the stupidity of the engine-driver; but I remember 
 somebody pointing to a city which seemed to be constructed of 
 brick-and- mortar pepper-boxes and fish-sauce bottles with tall 
 stoppers, and which Peck declared to be that ancient capital of the 
 Saracenic Caliphs. In spite of everything, we reached London 
 by half-past ten a.m.; and before I knew where I was, I found 
 myself opposite my own door, No. 4 Montefiasco-villas, Den- 
 mark-hill. 
 
 When I say my own door, I am bound to add that at first I 
 con Id hardly believe it to be my own door ; for of all the stylish 
 funerals I ever remembered seeing, the most stylish was just 
 starting from No. 4 Montefiasco-villas. Such ponderous mutes ! 
 I knew the grief depicted in their rubicund faces could not have 
 cost a trifle. Such feathers ! I clung convulsively to the 
 palings, for my thoughts reverted to J ulia Maria. I remembered 
 the guilty deception which had attended my departure from 
 home, and I felt a conscience-stricken man. 
 
 Our parlour-maid Mary was standing at the garden-gate, 
 gaping after the dismal cortege. I gasped out, — 
 
 " Whose funeral ? Not your mistress's ? " 
 
 "No, sir; master's." Yes; she said it quite distinctly; 
 "master's." 
 
 " Stop a minute," I said. " Collect yourself, Mary ; you may 
 have beeaa. availing yourself of a false key to the cellaret. Calm 
 yourself, my good girl, and try back. Whose funeral ? " 
 
 "Master's, sir. Fatal collision" (she said "klision") "on the 
 Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey Railroad. Poor Mr. Pettifer brought 
 home on a shutter !" 
 
 Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey ! The girl had the name of that 
 mysterious vicinity as pat as I have my A B C, — perhaps 
 patter. 
 
 I was a little thrown off my moral equilibrium, but I was not 
 going to give way ; so I said, — 
 " Don't you know me, Mary?" 
 
 The girl stared at me with that vacuous expression peculiar to 
 the lower classes. 
 
 " I never saw you before, sir, to my knowledge." 
 
 This was too much. I strode past the girl, and up the gravel- 
 walk ; but she stopped me, and said she didn't think her mis- 
 tress would see a stranger to-day. I used bad language ; I said 
 " Fiddlesticks' ends !" And I went into the house. 
 
 She told me, this pert menial, to wipe my shoes on my own 
 mat, that I might not injure my own carpet ; and she looked at 
 me, when she showed me into my own drawing-room, very^ much 
 as if she thought I might mean to purloin some of my own 
 nicknacks. 
 
 There was a newspaper on the table. I took it up mechan- 
 
338 Sow I Seard my Own Will Bead. 
 
 ically. It was the Slither em-on-the-Divingey Chronicle and 
 Monday Morning Advertiser, Good gracious me ! this Slitherem- 
 on-the-Dwingey — a place the very name of which I believed 
 to be an emanation of my own brain, devised to pacify Mrs. Pet- 
 tifer — seemed to have sprung into life by some mysterious 
 agency, and to have become a flourishing city. The paper 
 was full of advertisements, which plainly showed that Slitherem 
 was a populous place. One column was marked with a long 
 ^lack streak, evidently the work of a soft quill pen. I read 
 jiat column. It was a detailed account of the fatal accident 
 on the Dwingey- Junction line, between the stations of Slith- 
 erem and Slopeydregon, — I never invented Slopeydregon ; that 
 place was a frightful reality, — and of the subsequent death of 
 Mr. Augastus Pettifer, solicitor, of Gray's-inn, from injuries 
 received therein. 
 
 Yes; there were the full particulars. The engine had run 
 off the bank, and I, with several other passengers, had been 
 precipitated into a field at some distance from the railroad, 
 fearfully mutilated. Fearfully mutilated ! Yes ; that was the 
 expression. 
 
 The door opened, and admitted Julia Maria Pettifer, in tears 
 and a widow's cap. In mourning for me ! Things were really 
 growing unpleasant. " Julia Maria ! " I was about to exclaim ; 
 but I had scarcely enunciated the J before she interrupted me 
 by burying her face in her pocket-handkerchief with a sound as 
 of choking. 
 
 I felt very awkward ; here was I expected to console my own 
 wife for my own loss ! After an embarrassing pause of some 
 moment, Julia Maria emerged from behind the pocket-handker- 
 chief. I don't know what she had been doing, but her eyes 
 were not at all red. I took a note of that. 
 
 "Ah, sir," she said, "you perhaps were a friend of the dear 
 departed." 
 
 Well, I flattered myself I was. 
 
 "But," I ejaculated, " Ju— " 
 
 She stopped me short at the Ju. 
 
 " In that case," she said, " I am sorry you did not arrive in 
 time to attend the funeral. There was a vacant place in one of 
 the carriages. Mr. Spivins had the toothache, and couldn't 
 come. ' 
 
 0, Spivins had the toothache, had he ! and it was too much 
 trouble to attend my funeral ! I took another note of Spivins's 
 toothache — I had lent Spivins money. 
 
 "But as you were a friend of the dear departed, you may 
 like to hear the will read," continued my wife. "It will be 
 read in the dining-room at one o'clock. You would _ perhaps 
 wish to be present; you may be interested." Having said 
 
How I Heard my Own Will 'Read. £39 
 
 which, she went back into the pocket-handkerchief and out 
 of the room. 
 
 Now what did it all mean P That was the question I pnt 
 to myself. What did it all mean ? Could it be possible that 
 any impostor had had the impertinence to be killed on the 
 Dwingey- Junction in my name, brought home to my house 
 on a shutter, and had even carried his audacity so far as ta 
 go and be buried in my coffin in my family rauft in Norwood- 
 cemetery ? I had been induced to purchase a family vault by 
 Julia Maria, though really I had thought it a foolish invest- 
 ment, because of course, if I died, somebody must bury me, or 
 if they did not choose to go to that expense, it would be their* 
 look-out. 
 
 One thing may strike the reader as rather singular, — it 
 struck me in that light myself, — namely, that I didn't ex- 
 plain myself; that I didn't say to Julia Maria, "Take off 
 that widow's cap, and put that absurd handkerchief in your 
 pocket, and draw the blinds up. For this is me ; and I never 
 went to Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey in my life, and consequently 
 never came home on a shutter," and so on. The fact is, that 
 I was continually trying to say these very words, and I con- 
 tinually couldn't. This failure I attributed to two causes. 
 First, the pain at my chest — 0, such a pain — a weight, an 
 oppression ! I don't suppose anybody ever had an Atlas om- 
 nibus, full inside and out, settled on their lungs ; but only a 
 ■person who had laboured under such a disease could form a 
 just estimate of my sensations. Secondly, really, what with 
 the parlour-maid's asseverations, Julia Maria's mourning, and 
 the graphic account of the accident in the newspaper, I was 
 in a manner beginning to believe in Slitherem-on-the-Dwingey. 
 Suppose I had been killed? Suppose I had been brought home 
 on a shutter, and didn't know it P There was an awful situa- 
 tion ! 
 
 I pinched myself ; it was painful. There was a fire in the 
 grate ; I laid hold of the bars ; that was painful, very, and I 
 believe I swore ; but 0, it was such a comfort to feel that I 
 was mortal, that I could have blessed anybody for treading 
 upon my pet corn. 
 
 It was a nice thing to be asked into my own dining-room 
 to hear my own will read. There was Peck, in a suit of black 
 with ebony death's-heads for studs, — he always had a playful 
 fancy,— sitting in one of my morocco chairs at the top of my 
 patent telescopic dining-table. He seemed to have forgotten 
 all about Doncaster I tried to recall it to his recollection, but 
 a temporary paralysis of the vocal organs prevented me. 
 
 I suppose our dining-room must have been built on some 
 newly-invented szpanding principle, because it certainly was 
 
340 
 
 JJaaju I Heard my Own Will Mead. 
 
 not as large as Exeter-hall when I left home ; and in the matte? 
 of cubic feet it decidedly had the advantage of that edifice now. 
 
 It was really edifying to sit and hear how I had disposed 
 of my property. There was a picture I rather prided myself 
 upon — a Titian, a genuine Titian. The man I bought it from 
 said it was, and of course he ought to know. Now, I had 
 bequeathed this picture to Peck ; Peck was not a bad fellow on 
 the whole, and had stood my friend once or twice with Julia 
 Maria after our Masonic dinner in Great Queen- street ; and 
 what do you think was Peck's remark on reading the passage in 
 my will which made him possessor of this gem? "Poor fellow!" 
 he said; "I appreciate his kind feeling; but he wouldn't have 
 known a Keynolds from a Morland, and he always considered 
 Michael Angelo and Buonarotti two distinct artists. The 
 thing is the vilest daub that ever came out of Wardour- street." 
 I tried to express my indignation, but another touch of 
 paralysis was too much for me, and I took another note. Peck 
 — daub — Wardour- street. I had learnt Beniowski's system of 
 artificial memory, and I checked off those three heads on the 
 fire-irons. 
 
 After the will was read, we all gathered round the fire, and 
 we really became quite sociable. Mary the parlour-maid 
 brought in a tray of decanters. Didn't the wine go to work ! 
 — my '48 port in particular. I don't know who it was that 
 suggested smoking; but we all looked at each other; and 
 presently some one — I think it was Peck — said there was a 
 box of poor Pettifer's cheroots in the sideboard drawer, and as it 
 wasn't likely lie would ever smoke them, we might as well blow 
 a cloud. And so there was I, thanking Peck for one of my own 
 cigars. 
 
 Our conversation was very melancholy at first; but presently 
 we became a little more resigned; afterwards we grew quite 
 cheerful ; and at last, upon my word, we were almost uproar- 
 ious. Peck told one of his best stories. I knew it by heart, 
 and I laughed in the wrong place, and he scowled at me. I did 
 it on purpose. Ha, ha ! that vengeance at least was within my 
 power. 
 
 It was very pleasant, too, to be taken by the button and told 
 a good story about myself, the point of which was, that I had 
 made a consummate fool of myself; and I think if Peck told me 
 one such story, he told me six ; and what 's more, I laughed — 
 yes, I actually laughed. 
 
 I think it was Peck proposed that as we 'd had a very melan- 
 choly morning, we should run down to Greenwich and take a bit 
 of dinner at the Crown and Sceptre — of course in a quiet way. 
 *' We shall find plenty of hansoms at Oamberwell-green," said 
 Peck ; and off we went. 
 
How I lizard my Own Will Head. Z\i 
 
 Now, when I say ofF we went, I mean to say off they went, 
 for I did not go ; and yet I wanted to go, and yet I kept contin- 
 ually trying to go, and yet I continually seemed to be going; 
 but go I did not. Go I did not ; for the substantial macadam 
 of Denmark-hill transformed itself all in a moment into the 
 airy nothingness of the Goodwin-sands, and I felt myself 
 suddenly going down, down, down into a fathomless gulf, like 
 another Edgar Ravenswood. 
 
 Two broken wine-glasses, a plate of oyster and lobster shells, 
 a play-bill, a candlestick, and my boots ! When I opened 
 my eyes at the bottom of the fathomless gulf, these were 
 the articles which met my bewildered gaze. They were on* 
 ihe table above my head; my feet were in the boots, and I 
 was lying on the floor of that apartment in the Reindeer in 
 which Peck, the manager, and I had partaken of supper prior 
 to my hearing my own will read. I was lying on my back or» 
 the floor, with my feet on the table above me; and that is. not 
 a pleasant attitude in which to abandon oneself to slumber. 
 I had one corkscrew, two balance-handle knives, and the 
 neck of a champagne-bottle exactly under the small of my 
 back. Those trifles did not add to the comfort of my posi- 
 tion ; and when I tell you that my head was against a sharp 
 corner of the fender, and that I found the heel of the mana- 
 ger's varnished boot planted upon my chest, you will not per- 
 haps wonder that I had assisted at the reading of my own 
 will. 
 
 Yes, it had been only a hideous dream, after all; and there 
 was the manager, asleep in an easy-chair, with my chest for a 
 footstool, and looking quite aggravatingly comfortable. There 
 was. Peck, too in another easy-chair, with a pocket-handkerchief 
 over his face, looking still more aggravatingly comfortable. We 
 had a splendid breakfast, plenty of soda-water and green tea, 
 and started (it really was to-morrow) by the afternoon express- 
 train ; and at eight o'clock in the evening I was seated before 
 ihe social board, quaffing with Mrs. Pettifer the cup that cheers 
 and does not do the other thing, in the sacred shelter of my 
 own home. 
 
 I told her a good deal, if I did not tell her exactly all ; and 
 never again, Julia Maria, never again ! No more Slitherem-on- 
 the-Dwingeys, no more St. Leger stakes, no more Scavengers, 
 bo more Reindeers, and no more last wills and testaments. No; 
 we will go to Epsom in the spring-time of the coming year, and 
 hob and nob out of our modest bottle of moselle, as a steady 
 married couple should do. 
 
 But, dream or no dream, I mean to revenge myself upon 
 Peck for his impertinence about that picture. 
 
THE SCENE-PAINTER'S WIFE. 
 
 " You wouldn't think it, to look at her now, sir, w said tlie old 
 clown, as lie shook the ashes out of his blackened clay; "but 
 madam was once as handsome a woman as you 'd see for many 
 a long day. It was an accident that spoilt her beauty." 
 
 The speaker was attached to a little equestrian company with 
 which I had fallen in during a summer day's pedestrianism in 
 "Warwickshire. The troupe had halted at a roadside inn, where 
 I was dawdling over my simple mid-day meal ; and by the time 
 I had smoked my cigar in nis companionship, the clown and I 
 were upon a footing of perfect friendliness. 
 
 I had been not a little struck by the woman of whom he 
 spoke. She was tall and slim, and had something of a foreign 
 look, as I thought. Her face was chiefly remarkable for the 
 painful impression which it gave to a stranger. It was the face 
 of a woman who had undergone some great terror. The sickly 
 pallor of the skin was made conspicuous by the hectic brightness 
 of the large black eyes, and on one cheek there was a scar — the 
 mark of some deadly hurt inflicted long ago. 
 
 My new friend and I had strolled a little way from the inn, 
 where the rest of the company were still occupied with their 
 frugal dinner. A stretch of sunny common lay before us, and 
 seemed to invite a ramble. The clown filled his pipe, and 
 walked on meditatively. I took out another cigar. 
 
 "Was it a fall from horseback that gave her that scar?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " A fall from horseback ! Madame Delavanti ! "No, sir ; that 
 seam on her cheek was made by the claws of a tiger. It's 
 rather a curious sort of story, and I don't mind telling it, if 
 you 'd like to hear it ; but for the Lord's sake don't let her know 
 I've been talking of her, if you should happen to scrape 
 acquaintance with her when you go back to the inn." 
 
 "Has she such a dislike to being talked about? " 
 
 " I rather think she has. You see she 's not quite right in 
 the upper story, poor soul ; but she rides beautifully, and doesn't 
 know what fear means. You 'd scarcely believe how handsome 
 she looks at night when she 's dressed for the ring. Her face 
 lights up almost as well as it used to do ten years ago, before 
 she had the accident. Ah ! she was handsome in those days, 
 and used to be run after by all the gentlemen like mad. But 
 
Scene- Painter'* Wije. 
 
 343 
 
 phe never was a bad lot, never — wild and self-willed, but never a 
 wicked woman, as I '11 stake my life. I Ve been her friend 
 through thick and thin, when she needed a friend, and I've 
 understood her better than others. 
 
 She was only twelve years old when first she came to us with 
 her father, a noted lion-tamer. He was a man that drank hard 
 now and then, and was very severe with her at such times ; but 
 she always had a brave spirit, and I never knew her to quail 
 before him or before the beasts. She used to take her share in 
 all the old man's performances, and when he died, and the lions 
 were sold off, our proprietor kept a tiger for her to perform with. 
 He was the cleverest of all the animals, but a queer temper, and 
 it needed a spirit like Caroline Delavanti's to face him. She 
 rode in the circus as well as performing with the tiger, and she 
 was altogether the most valuable member of the company, and 
 was very well paid for her work. She was eighteen when her 
 father died, and within a year of his death she married Joseph 
 Waylie, our scene-painter. 
 
 I was rather surprised at this marriage, for I fancied Caroline 
 might have done better. Joe was thirty-five, if he was a day — 
 a pale sandy-haired fellow, not much to look at, and by no 
 means a genius. But he was awfully fond of Caroline. He 
 had followed her about like a dog ever since she came amongst 
 us, and I thought she married him more out of pity than love. 
 I told her so one day ; but she only laughed, and said, — 
 
 " He 's too good for me, Mr. Waters, that 's the truth. I don't 
 deserve to be loved as he loves me." 
 
 The newly-married couple did indeed seem to be very happy 
 together. It was a treat to see Joe stand at the wing and watch 
 Vis wife through her performances, ready to put a shawl over 
 her pretty white shoulders when she had done, or to throw him- 
 self between her and the tiger in case of mischief. She treated 
 him in a pretty, patronizing sort of way, as if he had been ever 
 so much younger than her, instead of twelve years her senior. 
 She used to stand upon tiptoe and kiss him before all the com- 
 pany sometimes at rehearsal, much to his delight. He worked 
 like a slave in the hope of improving his position as he improved 
 in his art, and he thought nothing too good for his beautiful 
 young wife. They had very comfortable lodgings about half a 
 mile from the manufacturing town where we were stationed for 
 the winter months, and lived as well as simple folks need live. 
 
 Our manager was proprietor of a second theatre, at a seaport 
 town fifty miles away from the place where we were stationed ; 
 and when pantomime time was coming on, poor Joseph Waylie 
 was ordered off to paint the scenery for this other theatre, much 
 to his grief, as his work was likely to keep him a month or six 
 weeks away from his wife. It was their first parting, and the 
 
844 
 
 T.ie Scene-Painter's Wife. 
 
 husband felt it deeply. He left Caroline to the care of an ol^ 
 woman who took the money, and who professed a very warm 
 attachment for Mrs. Waylie, or Madame Delavanti, as she wa3 
 called in the bills. 
 
 Joseph had not been gone much more than a week wdien I 
 began to take notice of a yonng officer who was in front every 
 evening, and who watched Caroline's performance with evident 
 id miration. I saw him one night in very close conversation 
 with Mrs. Muggleton, the money-taker, and was not over 
 pleased to hear Madame Delavanti's name mentioned in the 
 course of their conversation. On the next night I found him 
 loitering about at the stage door. He was a very handsome 
 man, and I could not avoid taking notice of him. On inquiry 
 I found that his name was Jocelyn, and that he was a captain 
 in the regiment then stationed in the town. He was the only 
 son of a wealthy manufacturer, I was told, and had plenty of 
 money to throw about. 
 
 I had finished my performance earlier than usual one night 
 soon after this, and was waiting for a friend at the stage-door, 
 when Captain Jocelyn came up the dark by-street, smoking his 
 cigar, and evidently waiting for some one. I fell back into the 
 shadow of the door, and waited, feeling pretty sure that he was 
 on the watch for Caroline. 1 was right. She came out presently 
 and joined him, putting her hand under his arm, as if it were 
 quite a usual thing for him to be her escort. I followed them 
 at a little distance as they walked off, and waited till I saw 
 Joe's wife safe within her own door. The captain detained her 
 on the doorstep talking for a few minutes, and would fain have 
 kept her there longer, but she dismissed him with that pretty 
 imperious way she had with all of us at times. 
 
 Xow, as a very old friend of Caroline's, I wasn't going '„o 
 /stand this sort of thing ; so I taxed her with it plainly next 
 day, and told her no good could come of any acquaintance 
 between her and Captain Jocelyn. 
 
 " And no harm need come of it either, you silly old fellow," 
 she said. " I 've been used to that sort of attention all my life. 
 There 's nothing but the most innocent flirtation between us." 
 
 " What would Joe think of such an innocent flirtation, 
 Caroline ? " I asked. 
 
 44 Joe must learn to put up with such things," she answered, 
 " as long as I do my duty to him. I can't live without excite- 
 ment, and admiration, and that sort of thing. Joe ought to 
 know that as well as I do." 
 
 " I should have thought the tiger and the horses would have 
 given you enough excitement, Caroline," I said, " without run- 
 ning into worse dangers than the risk of your life." 
 
 " But they don't Aive me half enough excitement," she 
 
Hie Scene- Painter 8 Wife. 
 
 315 
 
 answered ; and then she took out a little watch in a jewelled 
 ca.se, and looked at it, and then at me, in a half-boastful, half- 
 anxious way. 
 
 " "Why, what a pretty watch, Carry ! 99 said I. " Is that a 
 present from Joe ? " 
 
 " As if you didn't know better than that ! 99 she said. 
 
 Country scene-painters can't afford to buy diamond watches 
 for their wives, Mr. Waters." 
 
 I tried to lecture her,, but she laughed off my reproaches ; 
 and I saw her that night with a bracelet on her arm which I 
 knew mast be another gift from the captain. He was in a 
 stage-box, and threw her a bouquet of choice flowers after her 
 scene with the tiger. It was the prettiest sight in the world to 
 see her pick up the flowers and offer them to the grim-looking 
 animal to smell, and then snatch them away with a laugh, and 
 retire, curtseying to the audience, and glancing coquettishly 
 towards the box where her admirer sat applauding her. 
 
 Three weeks went by like this, the captain in front every 
 night. I kept a close watch upon the pair, for I thought that, 
 however she might carry on her flirtation, Joe's wife was true 
 at heart, and would not do him any deliberate wrong. She was 
 very young and very wilful, but I fancied my influence would 
 go a long way with her in any desperate emergency. So I kept 
 an eye upon her and her admirer, and there was rarely a night 
 that I did not see the eap tain's back turned upon the door of 
 Mrs. Way lie's lodgings before I went home to my own supper. 
 
 Joe was not expected home for another week, and the regiment 
 was to leave the town iri~a couple of days. Caroline told me 
 this one morning with evident jDleasure, and I was overjoyed to 
 find she did not really care for Captain Jocelyn. 
 
 " 'Not a bit, you silly old man," she said ; "I like his admira- 
 tion, and I like his preseuts, but I know there 's no one in the 
 world worth Joe. I 'm very glad the regiment will be gone when 
 Joe comes back. I shall have had my bit of fun, you know, 
 and I shall tell Joe all about it ; and as Captain Jocelyn will 
 have gone to the other end of the world, he can't object to the 
 presents — tributes offered to my genius, as the Captain says in 
 nis notes." 
 
 I felt by no means sure that Joseph Waylie would consent to 
 his wife's retaining these tributes, and I told her as much. 
 
 " 0, nonsense," she said ; " I can do what I like with Joe. 
 He '11 be quite satished when he sees Captain Jocelyn's respectful 
 letters. I couldn't part with my darling little watch for the world." 
 
 When I went to the theatre next night, I found the captain 
 standing talking to Caroline just inside the stage-door. He 
 seemed very earnest, and was begging her to do something 
 which she said was impossible. It was his last night in the 
 
346 
 
 TJie Scene-painter's Wife. 
 
 town, you see, and I have very little doubt that he was asking 
 her to run away with him — for I believe the man was over head 
 and ears in love with her — and that she was putting him off in 
 her laughing coquettish way. 
 
 " I won't take your answer now," he said very seriously. " I 
 shall wait for you at the door to-night. You can't mean to 
 break my heart, Caroline ; the answer must be yes." 
 
 She broke away from him hurriedly. " Hark," she said, 
 " there 's the overture ; and in half an hour I must be upon the 
 stage." 
 
 I passed the captain in the dark passage, and a few paces 
 farther on passed some one else whose face I could not see, but 
 whose short hurried breathing sounded like that of a person 
 who had been running. We brushed against one another as 
 we passed, but the man took no notice of me. 
 
 Half an hour afterwards I was lounging in a comer of the 
 ring while Caroline went through her performances with the 
 tiger. Captain Jocelyn was in his usual place, with a bouquet 
 in his hand. It was New- Year's night, and the house was very 
 full. I had been looking all round for some time, when I was 
 startled by the sight of a face in the pit. It was J oseph Way lie's 
 face, ashy pale and fixed as death — a face that meant mischief. 
 
 " He has heard something against his wife," I thought. 
 " I '11 run round to him directly I can get out of the ring, and 
 make matters square. Some confounded scandalmonger has 
 got hold of him, and has been poisoning his mind about 
 Caroline and the captain." I knew there had been a good 
 deal of talk in the theatre about the two — talk which I had 
 done my best to put down. 
 
 Captain Jocelyn threw his bouquet, which was received with a 
 coquettish smile and a bright upward glance that seemed to 
 express profound delight. I knew that this was mere stage- 
 play; but how must it have looked to the jealous man, glaring 
 with fixed eyes from his place at the back of the pit ! I turned 
 to look at him as the curtain fell upon the stage, but he was 
 gone. He was going round to speak to his wife, no doubt. I 
 left the ring immediately, and went to prepare her for the 
 interview, and, if needful, to stand between her and her hus- 
 band's anger. 
 
 I found her at the wing, trifling with her bouquet in an absent 
 
 way. 
 
 " Have you seen Joe?" I asked. 
 
 "No," she answered. "He hasn't come back, has he? I 
 didn't expect him for a week." 
 
 " I know, my dear ; but he was in front just now, looking as 
 pa T e as a ghost. I'm afraid some one has been talking to him 
 shout you." 
 
Tlie Scene-Painter's Wife. 
 
 847 
 
 She looked rather frightened when I said this. 
 
 " The j can't say any harm of me, if they speak the truth," 
 she said. " I wonder Joe didn't come straight to me though, 
 instead of going to the front of the house." 
 
 We were both wanted in the ring. I helped Caroline through 
 her equestrian performance, and saw that she was a little ner- 
 vous and anxious about Joe's return. She did not favour the 
 captain with many more smiles that evening, and she told me 
 to be ready for her at the stage- door ten minutes before the 
 performance was over. 
 
 "I want to give Captain Jocelyn the slip," she said; "but I 
 daresay Joe will come to me before I 'm ready." 
 
 Joe did not appear, however, and she went home with me. 1 
 met the captain on my way back, and he asked me if I had been 
 seeing Mrs. Waylie home. I told him yes, and that her husband 
 had come home. Joe had not arrived at the lodgings, however, 
 when Caroline went in, and I returned to the theatre to look for 
 him. The stage-door was shut when I went back ; so I sup- 
 posed that Joe had gone home by another way or was out 
 drinking. I went to bed that night very uneasy in my mind 
 about Caroline and her husband. 
 
 There was an early rehearsal of a new interlude next morn- 
 ing, and Caroline came into the theatre five minutes after I got 
 there. She looked pale and ill. Her husband had not been 
 home. 
 
 " I think it must have been a mistake of yours about Joe," 
 she said to me. " I don't think it could have been him you saw 
 in the pit last night." 
 
 " I saw him as surely as I see you at this moment, my dear," 
 I answered. " There 's no possibility of a mistake. Joe came 
 back last night, and Joe was in the pit while you were on with 
 the tiger." 
 
 This time she looked really frightened. She put her hand to 
 her heart suddenly, and began to tremble. 
 
 "Why didn't he come home to me?" she cried, "and where 
 did he hide himself last night?" 
 
 * I 'm afraid he must have gone out upon the drink, my dear." 
 
 "Joe never drinks," she answered. 
 
 While she stood looking at me with that pale scared face, one 
 of our young men came running towards us. 
 " You 're wanted, Waters," he said, shortly. 
 " Where 
 
 " Upstairs in the painting-room." 
 
 " J oe's room !" cried Caroline. " Then he has come back. I '13 
 go with yon." 
 
 Sk ) was following me as I crossed the stage, but the young 
 man tried to stop her. 
 
348 Tlie Scene- Painter 0 Wife. 
 
 " You 'd better not come just yet, Mrs. "VYaylie," lie said in a 
 harried way that was strange to him. "It's only Waters 
 that 's wanted on a matter of business." And then, as Caroline 
 followed close upon us, he took hold of my arm and whispered, 
 " Don't let her come." 
 
 I tried to keep her back, but it was no use. 
 
 "I know it's my husband who wants you," she said, 
 " They Ve been making mischief about me. You sha'n't keep 
 me away from him." 
 
 We were on the narrow stairs leading to the painting-roon? 
 by this time. I couldn't keep Caroline off. She pushed past 
 both of us, and ran into the room before we could stop her. 
 
 ' ' Serve her right," muttered my companion. "It's all her 
 doing." 
 
 I heard her scream as I came to the door. There was a little 
 crowd in the painting-room round a quiet figure lying on a 
 bench, and there was a ghastly pool of blood upon the floor. 
 Joseph W^aylie had cut his throat. 
 
 "He must have done it last night," said the manager. 
 " There 's a letter for his wife on the table yonder. — Is that you, 
 Mrs. Way lie ? A bad business, isn't it ? Poor J oseph ! " 
 
 Caroline knelt down by the side of the beneh, and stopped 
 there on her knees, as still as death, till the room was clear of 
 all but me. 
 
 " They think I deserve this, Waters," she said, lifting her 
 white face from the dead man's shoulder, where she had hidden 
 it ; " but I meant no harm. Give me the letter." 
 
 " You 'd better wait a bit, my dear," I said. 
 
 " !Nb, no ; give it me at once, please." 
 
 I gave her the letter. It was very short. The scene-painter 
 had come back to the theatre in time to hear some portion of 
 that interview between Captain Jocelyn and his wife. He 
 evidently had believed her much more guilty than she was. 
 
 " I think you must know how I loved you, Caroline," ho 
 wrote ; "I can't face life with the knowledge that you 've been 
 false to me. M 
 
 Of course there was an inquest. We ' orked it so that the 
 jury gave a verdict of temporary insanity, and poor Joe wap 
 buried decently in the cemetery outside the town. Caroline sola 
 the watch and the bracelet that Captain Jocelyn had given her, 
 in order to pay for her husband's funeral. She was very quiet, 
 and went on with the performances as usual a week after Joe's 
 death, but I could see a great change in her. The rest of the 
 company were very hard upon her, as I thought, blaming her 
 for her husband's death ; and she was under a cloud, as it were ; 
 but she looked as handsome as ever, and went through all lio.r 
 performances in her old daring way I 'm sure, though, that 
 
The Scene- Painters Wife. 
 
 cho srnerod sincerely for Joe's death, and that che had never 
 
 meant to do him wrong. 
 
 We travelled all through the next summer, and late in 
 November went back to Homersleigh. Caroline had seemed 
 happier while we were away, I thought, and when we were going 
 back, she confessed as much to me. 
 
 "I've got a kind of dread of seeing that place again," she 
 said ; " I 'm always dreaming of the painting-room as it looked 
 that January morning, with the cold light streaming in upon 
 that dreadful figure on the bench. The room 's scarcely been 
 out of my dreams one night since 've been away from Homers 
 leigh ; and now I dread going back as if — as if he was shut up 
 there." 
 
 The room was not a particularly convenient one, and had been 
 'Ased for lumber after Joe's death. The man who came after him 
 didn't care to paint there by himself all day long. On the first 
 morning of our return, Caroline went up and looked in at the 
 dusty heap of disused stage furniture and broken properties. I 
 met her coming away from the room. 
 
 " 0, Mr. Waters," she said to me with real feeling, "if he had 
 only waited to hear me speak for myself! They all think I 
 deserved what happened, and perhaps I did, as far as it was a 
 punishment for my frivolity ; but Joe didn't deserve such a 
 late. I know it was their malicious talk that did the mischief." 
 
 I fancied after this that her looks changed for the worse, and 
 that she had a kind of nervous way in going through her eques- 
 trian performances, as if there was a fever upon her. I couldn't 
 judge so well how she went through the tiger act, as I was never 
 on the stage with her, but the brute seemed as submissive as 
 ever. On the last day of the } r ear she asked our manager to let 
 her off for the next night. " It 's the anniversary of my hus- 
 band's death," she said. 
 
 " I didn't know you were so preciously fond of him," he 
 answered with a sneer. " No, Mrs. Waylie, we can't afford to 
 dispense with your services to-morrow night. The tiger act is 
 one of our strong features with the gallery, and I expect a full 
 house for New Year's night." 
 
 She begged him very hard to let her off, but it was no use. 
 There was no rehearsal on New- Year's morning, and she went 
 to the little cemetery where Joe was buried, a three miles' walk 
 in the cold and rain. In the evening, when she came to the 
 wing, her eyes were brighter than usual, and she shivered a good 
 deal, more than I liked to see. 
 
 " I think I must have caught cold in the cemetery to-day,* 5 
 she said to me when I noticed this. " I wish I could have kept 
 this night sacred — this one night — to my husband's memory 
 lie, has been in my mind so much to-day." 
 
850 - The Scene-Painter's Wife. 
 
 She went on, and I stood at the wing watching her. The 
 audience applauded vociferously, but she did not make her 
 accustomed curtsey ; and she went about her work in a listless 
 way that was very different from her usual spirited manner. 
 The animal seemed to know this, and when she had got about 
 half-way through her tricks with him, he began to respond to 
 her word of command in a sulky unwilling manner that I didn't 
 like. This made her angry, and she used her light whip more 
 freely than usual. 
 
 One of the tiger's concluding tricks was a leap through a 
 garland of flowers which Caroline held for him. She was 
 kneeling in the centre of the stage with this garland in her 
 hands, ready for the animal's spring, when her eyes wandered 
 to the front of the house, and she rose suddenly with a shrill 
 scream, and her arms outstretched wildly. Whether the sulky 
 brute thought that she was going to strike him or not, I don't 
 know ; but he sprang savagely at her as she rose, and in the 
 next moment she was lying on the ground helpless, and the 
 audience screaming with terror. I rushed upon the stage with 
 half-a-dozen others, and we had the brute muzzled and roped in 
 a few breathless moments; but not before he had torn Caroline's 
 cheek and shoulder with his claws. She was insensible when we 
 carried her off the stage, and she was confined to her bed three 
 months after the accident with brain-fever. "When she came 
 among us again, she had lost every vestige of colour, and her 
 face had that set look which you must have observed just now. 
 
 " The fright of her encounter with the tiger gave her that 
 look," I said; " I don't much wonder at it." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," answered the clown. " That's the curious 
 part of the story. She didn't think anything of her skirmish 
 with the tiger, though it quite spoilt her beauty. What 
 frightened her was the sight of her husband sitting in the pit, 
 as he had sat there a year before, on the night of his death. Of 
 course you '11 say it was a delusion, and so say L But she 
 declares she saw him sitting amongst the crowd — amongst them, 
 and yet not one of them, somehow, with a sort of ghastly light 
 upon his face that marked him out from the rest. It was the 
 sight of him that made her drop her garland and give that 
 scream and rush that frightened the tiger. You see she had 
 been brooding upon his death for a long time, and no doubt she 
 conjured up his image out of her own brain as it were. She 's 
 never been quite the same since that fever ; but she has plenty 
 of pluck, and there 's scarcely anything she can't do now with 
 Baber the tiger, and I think she 's fonder of him than of any 
 human creatuiefe jjiflpite of the scar on her cheek." 
 
I 
 
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 LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET. 
 HENRY DUNBAR. 
 ELEANOR'S VICTORY. 
 AURORA %-LOYD. 
 JOHN MARCHMONT'S LEGACY. 
 THE DOCTOR'S WIFE. 
 ONLY A CLOD. 
 SIR JASPER'S TENANT. 
 TRAIL OF THE SERPENT. 
 LADY'S MILE. 
 LADY LISLE. 
 
 CAPTAIN OF THE VULTURE. 
 
 BIRDS OF PREY. 
 
 CHARI OTTE'S INHERITANCE. 
 
 RUPERT GODWIN. 
 
 RUN TO EARTH. 
 
 DEAD SEA FRUIT. 
 
 RALPH THE BAILIFF. 
 
 FENTON'S QUEST. 
 
 T OVELS OF ARDEN. 
 
 ROBERT AINSLEIGH. 
 
 TO THE BITTER END. 
 
 MILLY DARRELL. 
 
 STRANGERS AND PILGRIMS. 
 
 LUCIUS DAVOREN. 
 
 TAKEN AT THE FLOOD. 
 
 LOST FOR LOVE. 
 
 A STRANGE WORLD. 
 
 HOSTAGFS TO FORTUNE. 
 
 DEAD MEN'S SHOES. 
 
 JOSHUA HAGGARD. 
 
 WEAVERS AND WEFT. 
 
 AN OPEN VERDICT. 
 
 VIXEN. 
 
 THE CLOVEN FOOT. 
 
 THE STORY OF BARBARA. 
 
 JUST AS I AM. 
 
 ASPHODEL, 
 
 MOUNT ROYAL. 
 
 THE GOLDEN CALF. 
 
 PHANTOM FORTUNE. 
 
 FLOWER AND WEED. 
 
 ISHMAEL. 
 
 WYLLARD'S *WEIRD. 
 UNDER THE RED FLAG. 
 
 44- 
 45- 
 
 Miss Braddoris other Novels will follow in due succession. 
 
 J, & E. Maxwell, Milton House, 13, 14 & 15, Shoe Lane, Fleet Stre* 
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