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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur."
+by G.J. Whyte-Melville
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur."
+
+Author: G.J. Whyte-Melville
+
+Release Date: February 14, 2004 [EBook #11085]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMILIA SIMILIBUS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Bradley Norton and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Two of the police had now arrived." (_Page_ 295)]
+
+
+
+
+M. or N.
+
+"_Similia similibus curantur_"
+
+
+By G.J. Whyte-Melville
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAP.
+
+
+I. "Small and Early"
+
+II. "Nightfall"
+
+III. Tom Ryfe
+
+IV. Gentleman Jim
+
+V. The Cracksman's Checkmate
+
+VI. A Reversionary Interest
+
+VII. Dick Stanmore
+
+VIII. Nina
+
+IX. The Usual Difficulty
+
+X. The Fairy Queen
+
+XI. In the Scales
+
+XII. "A Cruel Parting"
+
+XIII. Sixes and Sevens
+
+XIV. The Officers' Mess
+
+XV. Mrs. Stanmore at Home
+
+XVI. "Missing--A Gentleman"
+
+XVII. "Wanted--A Lady"
+
+XVIII. "The Coming Queen"
+
+XIX. An Incubus
+
+XX. "The Little Cloud"
+
+XXI. Furens Quid Faemina
+
+XXII. "Not for Joseph"
+
+XXIII. Anonymous
+
+XXIV. Parted
+
+XXV. Coaxing a Fight
+
+XXVI. Baffled
+
+XXVII. Blinded
+
+XXVIII. Beat
+
+XXIX. Night-Hawks
+
+XXX. Under the Acacias
+
+
+
+
+M. or N.
+
+"_Similia similibus curantur_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+"SMALL AND EARLY"
+
+
+A wild wet night in the Channel, the white waves leaping, lashing, and
+tumbling together in that confusion of troubled waters, which nautical
+men call a "cross-sea." A dreary, dismal night on Calais sands: faint
+moonshine struggling through a low driving scud, the harbour-lights
+quenched and blurred in mist. Such a night as bids the trim French
+sentry hug himself in his watch-coat, calmly cursing the weather,
+while he hums the chorus of a comic opera, driving his thoughts by
+force of contrast to the lustrous glow of the wine-shop, the sparkling
+eyes and gold ear-rings of Mademoiselle Therese, who presides over
+Love and Bacchus therein. Such a night as gives the travellers in the
+mail-packet some notion of those ups and downs in life which landsmen
+may bless themselves to ignore, as hints to the Queen's Messenger,
+seasoned though he be, that ten minutes more of that heaving,
+pitching, tremulous motion would lay him alongside those poor sick
+neophytes whom he pities and condemns; reminding him how even _he_ has
+cause to be thankful when he reflects that, save for an occasional
+Levanter, the Mediterranean is a mill-pond compared to La Manche. Such
+a night as makes the hardy fisherman running for Havre or St. Valerie
+growl his "Babord" and "Tribord" in harsher tones than usual to his
+mate, because he cannot keep his thoughts off Marie and the little
+ones ashore; his dark-eyed Marie, praying her heart out to the Virgin
+on her knees, feeling, as the fierce wind howls and blusters round
+their hut, that not on her wedding-morning, not on that summer eve
+when he won her down by the sea, did she love her Pierre so dearly,
+as now in this dark boisterous weather, that causes her very flesh to
+creep while she listens to its roar. Nobody who could help it would
+be abroad on Calais sands. "Pas meme un Anglais!" mutters the sentry,
+ordering his firelock with a ring, and wishing it was time for the
+Relief. But an Englishman _is_ out nevertheless, wandering aimlessly
+to and fro on the beach; turning his face to windward against the
+driving rain; trying to think the wet on his cheek is all from
+_without_; vainly hoping to stifle grief, remorse, anxiety, by
+exposure and active bodily exercise.
+
+"How could I stay in that cursed room?" he mutters, striding wildly
+among the sand-hills. "The very tick of the clock was enough to drive
+one mad in those long fearful pauses--solemn and silent as death!
+Can't the fools do anything for her? What is the use of nurses and
+doctors, and all the humbug of medicine and science? My darling! my
+darling! It was too cruel to hear you wailing and crying, and to know
+I could do you no good! What a coward I am to have fled into the
+wilderness like a murderer! I couldn't have stayed there, I feel I
+couldn't! I wish I hadn't listened at the door! Only yesterday you
+seemed so well and in such good spirits, with your dark eyes looking
+so patiently and fondly into mine! And now, if she should die!--if she
+should die!"
+
+Then he stands stock-still, turning instinctively from the wind like
+one of the brutes, while the past comes back in a waking dream so akin
+to reality, that even in his preoccupation he seems to live the last
+year of his life over again. Once more he is at the old place in
+Cheshire, whither he has gone like any other young dandy, an agreeable
+addition to a country shooting-party because of his chestnut locks,
+his blue eyes, his handsome person, and general recklessness of
+character; agreeable, he reflects, to elderly _roues_ and established
+married women, but a scarecrow to mothers, and a stumbling-block to
+daughters, as being utterly penniless and rather good-for-nothing.
+Once more he comes down late for dinner, to find a vacant place by
+that beautiful girl, with her delicate features, her wealth of raven
+hair, above all, with the soft, sad, dreamy eyes, that look so loving,
+so trustful, and so good. In such characters as theirs these things
+are soon accomplished. A walk or two, a waltz, a skein of silk to
+wind, a drive in a pony-carriage, an afternoon church, and behold them
+in the memorable summer-house, where he won her heart--completely and
+unreservedly, while flinging down his own! Then came all the sweet
+excitement, all the fascinating mystery of mutual understanding, of
+stolen glances, of hidden meanings in the common phrases and daily
+courtesies of social life. It was so delightful for each to feel that
+other existence bound up in its own, to look down from their enchanted
+mountain, with pity not devoid of contempt on the commonplace dwellers
+on the plain, undeterred by proofs more numerous perhaps on the hills
+of Paphos than in any other airy region, that
+
+"Great clymbers fall unsoft;"
+
+to know that come sorrow, suffering, disgrace, or misfortune, there
+was refuge and safety for the poor, broken-winged bird, though its
+plumage were torn by the fowler's cruelty, or even soiled in the storm
+of shame. Alas! that the latter should arrive too soon!
+
+Perhaps of this young couple, the girl, in her perfect faith and
+entire self-sacrifice, may have been less aghast than her lover at the
+imminence of discovery, reprobation, and scorn. When no other course
+was left open, she eloped willingly enough with the man she had
+trusted--shutting her eyes to consequences, in that recklessness
+of devotion which, lead though it may to much unhappiness in life,
+constitutes not the least lovable trait of the female character, so
+ready to burst into extremes of right and wrong.
+
+Besides, who cares for consequences at nineteen, with the sun glinting
+on the waves of the Channel, the sea-air freshening cheek and brow,
+the coast of Picardy rising bright and glistening, in smiles of
+welcome, and the dear, fond face looking down so proudly and wistfully
+on its treasure? Consequences indeed! They have been left with the
+heavy baggage at London Bridge, to reach their proper owner possibly
+hereafter in Paris; but meantime, with this fresh breeze blowing--on
+the blue sea--under the blue sky--they do not exist--there are no such
+things!
+
+These young people were very foolish, very wicked, but they loved each
+other very dearly. Mr. Bruce was none of those heartless, unscrupulous
+Lovelaces, oftener met with in fiction than in real life, who can
+forget they are _men_ as well as gentlemen; and when he crossed the
+Channel with Miss Algernon, it was from sheer want of forethought,
+from mismanagement, no doubt, but still more from misfortune, that she
+was Miss Algernon still.
+
+To marry, was to be disinherited--that he knew well enough; but
+neither he nor his Nina, as he called her, would have paused for this
+consideration. There were other difficulties, trivial in appearance,
+harassing, vexatious, insurmountable in reality, that yet seemed
+from day to day about to vanish; so they waited, and temporised, and
+hesitated, till the opportunity came of escaping together, and they
+availed themselves of it without delay.
+
+Now they had reached French ground, and were free, but it was too
+late! That was why Mr. Bruce roamed so wildly to-night over the Calais
+sands, tortured by a cruel fear that he might lose the treasure of his
+heart for ever; exaggerating, in that supreme moment of anxiety, her
+sufferings, her danger, perhaps even her priceless value to himself.
+
+To do him justice, he did not think for an instant of the many galling
+annoyances to which both must be subjected hereafter in the event of
+her coming safely through her trial. He found no time to reflect on a
+censorious world, an outraged circle of friends, an infuriated family;
+on the cold shoulder Mrs. Grundy would turn upon his darling, and the
+fair mark he would himself be bound to offer that grim old father, who
+had served under Wellington, or that soft-spoken dandy brother in
+the Guards, unerring at "rocketers," and deadly for all ground
+game, neither of whom would probably shoot the wider, under the
+circumstances that he, the offender, felt in honour he must stand at
+least one discharge without retaliation, an arrangement which makes
+twelve paces uncomfortably close quarters for the passive and
+immovable target. He scarcely dwelt a moment on the bitter scorn with
+which his own great-uncle, whose natural heir he was, would calmly and
+deliberately curse this piece of childish folly, while he disinherited
+its perpetrator without scruple or remorse. He never even considered
+the disadvantage under which a life that ought to be very dear to him
+was now opening on the world: a life that might be blighted through
+its whole course by his own folly, punished, a score of years hence,
+for unwittingly arriving a few weeks too soon. No! He could think
+of nothing but Nina's anguish and Nina's danger; could only wander
+helplessly backwards and forwards, stupefied by the continuous gusts
+of that boisterous sea-wind, stunned by the dull wash of the incoming
+tide, feeling for minutes at a time, a numbed, apathetic impotency;
+till, roused and stung by a rush of recurring apprehensions, he
+hastened back to his hotel, white, agitated, dripping wet, moving
+with wavering gestures and swift, irregular strides, like a man in a
+trance.
+
+At the foot of the staircase he ran into the arms of a dapper French
+doctor, young, yet experienced, a man of science, a man of pleasure,
+an anatomist, a dancer, a philosopher, and a dandy--who put both hands
+on his shoulders, and looked in his face with so comical an expression
+of congratulation, sympathy, pity, and amusement, that Mr. Bruce's
+fears vanished on the instant, and he found voice to ask, in husky
+accents, "if it was over?"
+
+"Over!" repeated the doctor. "Pardon, my good sir. For our interesting
+young friend it is only just begun. A young lady, monsieur, a
+veritable little aristocrat, with a delicate nose, and, my faith,
+sound and powerful lungs! I make you my compliment, monsieur. I am
+happy to be the first to advertise you of good news. It is late. Let
+madame be kept tranquil. You will permit me to wish you good-night. I
+will return again in the morning."
+
+"And she is safe?" exclaimed Bruce, crushing the doctor's hand in a
+grasp like a vice.
+
+"Safe!" answered the little man. "Parbleu--yes--for the present, safe
+as the mole in the harbour, and likely to remain so if you will only
+keep out of the room. Come, you shall see her for one quiet little
+moment. She desires it so much. And when I scratch at the door thus,
+you will come out. Agreed? Enter, then. You shall embrace your child."
+
+So the good-natured man turned into the hotel again, to conduct Mr.
+Bruce back to the door from which he had fled in anguish an hour or
+two ago, and was thus five minutes too late for another professional
+engagement, which could not be postponed, but went on indeed very well
+without him, the expectant lady being a person of experience, the wife
+of a Calais fisherman, and now employed for the thirteenth time in her
+yearly occupation. But this has nothing to do with Mr. Bruce.
+
+That gentleman stole on tiptoe through the darkened room, catching a
+glimpse, as he passed the tawdry mirror on the chimney-piece, of a
+very pale and anxious face strangely unlike his own, while from behind
+the half-drawn bed-curtains he heard a quiet placid breathing, and a
+weak, faint voice with its tender whisper, "Charlie, are you there?
+My darling, I begged so hard to see you for one minute, and--Charlie
+dear, to--to show you _this_."
+
+_This_ was a morsel of something swathed up in wrappings, round which
+the young mother's arm was folded with proud, protecting love; but I
+think he had been too anxious about the woman to feel a proper elation
+in his new position as father to the child. The tears came thick to
+his eyes once more, while he caught the pale, fragile hand that lay so
+weary and listless on the counterpane, to press it against his lips,
+his cheeks, his forehead, murmuring broken words of endearment, and
+gratitude, and joy.
+
+She would have kept him there all night: she would have talked to him
+for an hour, feeble as she was, of that little being, in so short a
+time promoted to its sovereignty of Baby (with a capital B), in which
+she had already discovered instincts, qualities, high reasoning
+powers, noble moral characteristics: but the doctor's tap was heard,
+"scratching," as he called it, at the door, and Bruce, too happy not
+to be docile, had the good sense to obey his summons without delay.
+
+"Let them sleep, monsieur," said the Frenchman, struggling into his
+great-coat, and hurrying down-stairs. "It will do them more good
+than all your prevision and all my experience. I will return in the
+morning, to inquire after madame and to renew my acquaintance with
+mademoiselle--I should say with 'your charming mees.' Monsieur, you
+are now father of a family--you should keep early hours. Good-night,
+then--till to-morrow."
+
+Bruce looked after him with a blessing on his lips, and a fervent
+thanksgiving in his heart to the Providence that had spared him
+his treasure. For the moment, I believe, he completely forgot that
+important personage with whom originated all their anxiety and
+discomfort. To men, indeed, there is so little individuality about
+a Baby, that, I fear, it has to be weaned and vaccinated, and to go
+through many other processes before it ceases to be a thing, and
+rather an inconvenient one. No; Bruce went to his own sitting-room,
+with his heart so full of his Nina, there was scarcely place for other
+considerations; therefore, instead of going to bed, he kicked off
+his wet boots, turned on a brilliant illumination of gas, and threw
+himself into an arm-chair--to smoke. After the excitement he had
+lately passed through, the first few whiffs of his cigar were soothing
+and consolatory in the extreme, but reflection comes with tobacco, not
+less surely than warmth comes with fire; and soon he began to see the
+crowd of fresh difficulties which the events of to-night would
+bring swarming round his devoted head. How he cursed his foolish
+calculations, his ill-judged caution, his cowardly scruples, thus to
+have postponed the ceremony of marriage till too late. How impossible
+it would be now, to throw dust in the eyes of society as to dates and
+circumstances! how fruitless the reparation which should certainly be
+put off no longer, no, not a day! It seemed so hard that he, of all
+the world, should have injured the woman who loved him, the woman whom
+he so devotedly loved in return. He almost hated the innocent baby for
+its inopportune arrival; but remembering how that poor little creature
+too must bear the punishment of his crime, he flung the end of his
+cigar against the stove with a curse, and for one moment--only one
+bitter, painful moment--found himself wishing he had never met, never
+loved, his darling; had left the lamb at peace in its fold, the rose
+ungathered on its stalk.
+
+The clock did not tick twice before there came a reaction. It seemed
+so impossible that they should be independent of each other. He would
+not be himself without Nina! and the flow of his affection, like
+the back-water of a mill-stream, returned only the stronger for its
+momentary interruption. After all, Nina was everything, Nina was the
+first consideration. Something must be done at once. As soon as she
+could bear it, that ceremony must be gone through which should have
+been performed long ago. He was young, he was impatient, he would fain
+be at work without delay; so he turned to his writing-table, and began
+opening certain letters that had already followed him into France, but
+that he had laid aside without examination, in the excitement of the
+last few hours.
+
+They were not calculated to afford him much distraction. A circular
+from a coal company, a couple of invitations to dinner, a tailor's
+bill, and a manifesto from the firm, calling attention to the powers
+of endurance with which their little account had "made running" for a
+considerable period, while promising a "lawyer's letter" to enforce
+payment of the same. Next this hostile protocol lay a business-like
+missive bearing a Lincoln's Inn look about it not to be mistaken, and
+which Bruce determined he would leave unopened till the morning, when,
+if Nina had slept, and was doing well, he felt nothing in the world
+could make him unhappy.
+
+"Serves me right, though," he yawned, "for deserting Poole. _He_
+wouldn't have bothered me for a miserable pony at such a time as
+this;" and flinging off his clothes, in less than five minutes he was
+as fast asleep as if he had never known an anxiety in the world, but
+was lulled by the soothing considerations of a well-spent past, an
+untroubled conscience, and a balance at his banker's!
+
+So he slept and dreamed not, as those sleep who are thoroughly
+out-wearied in body and mind, waking only when the sun had been up
+more than an hour, and the stormy night had given place to a clear,
+unclouded day.
+
+The Channel was all blue and white now; the rollers, as they subsided
+into a long heaving ground-swell, bringing in with them a freight
+of health and freshness to the shore. The gulls were soaring and
+screaming round the harbour, edging their wings with gold as they
+dipped and wheeled in the morning light. Everything spoke of hope and
+happiness and vitality. Bruce opened his window, drew in long breaths
+of the keen, reviving air, and stole to listen at Nina's door.
+
+How his heart went up in gratitude to heaven! Mother and child were
+sleeping--so peacefully, so soundly. Mother and child! At that early
+period the dearest, the sweetest, the holiest link of human love--the
+gold without the dross, the flower without the insect, the wine
+without the headache, the full fruition of the feelings without the
+wear and tear of the heart.
+
+He could have kissed the antiquated French chambermaid, dressed like
+a Sister of Mercy, who met him in the passage, and wishing "Monsieur"
+good-morning, congratulated him with tears of honest sympathy in her
+glittering, bold black eyes. He _did_ give a five-franc piece to the
+alert and well-dressed waiter, who looked as if he had never been in
+bed, and never required to go. It may be this impulse of generosity
+reminded him that five-franc pieces were likely to be scarce with him
+in future, and an unpleasant association of ideas brought the lawyer's
+letter to his mind. There it lay, square and uncompromising, between
+his watch and his cigar-case. He opened it, I am afraid, with a truly
+British oath.
+
+He turned quite white when he read it the first time, but the blood
+rushed to his temples on a second perusal, and he flung himself
+down on his knees at the windowsill, thanking Providence, somewhat
+inconsiderately, for the benefits that only came to him through
+another man's death.
+
+This letter, indeed, though the composition of a lawyer, had not been
+written at the instance of his long-suffering tailor, but was from the
+solicitor who conducted the business of his family. It advised him, in
+very concise language, of his great-uncle's sudden "demise," as it was
+worded, "intestate"; informing him that he thus became heir, as next
+of kin, to the whole personal and real property of the deceased, and
+concluded with sincere congratulations on his accession to a fine
+fortune, not without a hope that their firm might continue to manage
+his affairs, and afford him the same satisfaction that had always been
+expressed by his late lamented relative, etc. The surprise staggered
+him like a blow. From such blows, however, we soon "come to time,"
+willing to take any amount of similar punishment. He gave himself
+credit for self-denial in not waking Nina on the instant to tell
+her of their good fortune. Still more, he plumed himself on his
+forethought in resolving to ask her doctor's leave before he entered
+on so exciting a topic with the invalid. He longed to tell somebody.
+He was so happy, so elated, so thankful! and yet, amidst all his joy,
+there rankled an uncomfortable sensation of remorse and self-reproach
+when he thought of the little blighted life, the little injured
+helpless creature nestling to its young mother's side in the next
+room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"NIGHTFALL"
+
+
+It is more than twenty years ago, and yet how vividly it all comes
+back to him to-night!
+
+The sun has gone down in streaks of orange and crimson over the
+old oaks that crown the deer-park sloping upward to the rear of
+Ecclesfield Manor. Mr. Bruce walks across a darkened room to throw the
+window open for a gasp of fresh evening air, laden with the perfume of
+pinks, carnations, and moss-roses in the garden below. _Her_ garden!
+Is it possible? Something in the action reminds him of that bright,
+hopeful morning at Calais. Something in the scent of the flowers
+steals to his brain, half torpid and benumbed; his heart contracts
+with an agony of physical suffering. "My darling! my darling!" he
+murmurs, "shall I never see you tying those flowers again?" and
+turning from the window, he falls on his knees by the bedside with
+a passionate burst of weeping that, like blood-letting to the body,
+restores the unwelcome faculty of consciousness to his mind. When
+he raises his head again he knows well enough that the one great
+misfortune has arrived at last--that henceforth for _him_ there may
+come, in the lapse of long years, resignation, even repose, but hope
+and happiness no more.
+
+Even now, though he wonders at his own callousness, he can bear to
+look on the bed through a mist of tears; and, so looking, feels
+his intellect failing in its effort to grasp the calamity that has
+befallen him.
+
+There she lies, like a dead lily, his own, his treasure, his beloved;
+the sweet face, calm and placid, with its chiselled ivory features,
+its smooth and gentle brow, has already borrowed a higher, a more
+perfect beauty from the immortality on which it has entered. Not
+fairer, not lovelier did she look that well-remembered evening when he
+first knew her pure and priceless heart was his own, though she has
+borne him a daughter--nay, two daughters (and he winces with a fresh
+and different pain)--the younger as old as she was then. Her raven
+hair is parted soft and silky off those pale, delicate temples; her
+long black lashes rest upon the waxen cheek. No; she never looked as
+beautiful, not in the calm sleep he used to watch so lovingly; and now
+the deep, fond eyes must open on his own no more. She was so gentle,
+too, so patient, so sweet-tempered, and O, so true. He had been a man
+of the world, neither better nor worse than others: he knew women
+well; knew how rare are the good ones; knew the prize he had won, and
+valued it--yes, he was sure he always valued it as it deserved.
+What was the use? Had she not far better have been like the
+others--petulant, wilful, capricious, covetous of admiration, careless
+of affection, weak-headed, shallow-hearted, and desirous only of that
+which could not possibly be her own? Such were most of the women
+amongst whom he had been thrown in his youth; but O, how unlike her
+who was lying dead there before his eyes.
+
+  "For men at most differ as heaven and earth,
+  But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell."
+
+He felt so keenly now that she had been his better angel for more than
+twenty years; that but for her he might long ago have deteriorated to
+selfishness and cynicism, or sunk into that careless philosophy which
+believes only in the tangible, the material, and the present.
+
+A good woman's lot may be linked to that of a bad man; she may even
+love him very dearly, and yet retain much of her purer, better nature
+amidst all the mire in which she is steeped; but it is not so with us.
+To care for a bad woman is to be dragged down to her level, inch by
+inch, till the intellect itself becomes sapped in a daily degradation
+of the heart. From such slavery emancipation is cheap under any
+suffering, at any sacrifice. The lopping of a limb is a painful
+process, but above a gangrened wound experienced surgeons amputate
+without scruple or remorse.
+
+On the other hand, a true woman's affection is of all earthly
+influences the noblest and most elevating. It encourages the highest
+and gentlest qualities of man's nature--his enterprise, courage,
+patience, sympathy, above all, his trust. Happy the pilgrim on whose
+life such a beacon-star has shone out to guide him in the right way;
+thrice happy if it sets not until it has lured him so far that he will
+never again turn aside from the path.
+
+Such reflections as these, while they added to his sense of loss and
+loneliness, yet took so much of the sting out of Mr. Bruce's great
+sorrow, that he could realise it for minutes at a time without being
+goaded to madness or stunned to apathy by the pain.
+
+There had been no warning--no preparation. He had left her that
+morning as usual, after smoking a cigar in her society on the lawn,
+while she tied, and snipped, and gathered the flowers of her pretty
+garden. He had visited the stable, ordered the pony-carriage, seen the
+keeper, and been to look at an Alderney cow. It was one of his idle
+days, yet, after twenty years of marriage, such days he still liked to
+spend, if possible, in the company of his wife. So he strolled back to
+write his letters in her boudoir, and entered it at the garden door,
+expecting to find her, as usual, busied in some graceful feminine
+employment.
+
+Her work was heaped on the sofa; a book she had been reading lay open
+on the table; the very flowers she gathered an hour ago had the dew on
+them still. He could not finish his first letter without consulting
+her, for she kept his memory, his conscience, and his money, just
+as she kept his heart, so he ran up-stairs to her bedroom door and
+knocked.
+
+There was no answer, and he went in. At the first glance he thought
+she must have fainted, for she had fallen on her knees against a
+high-backed chair, her face buried in its cushions, and one hand
+touching the carpet. He had a quick eye, and the turn of that grey
+rigid hand warned him with a stab of something he refused persistently
+to believe. Then he lifted her on the bed where she lay now, and sent
+for every doctor within reach.
+
+He had no recollection of the interval that elapsed before the nearest
+could arrive, nor distinct notion of any part of that long sunny
+afternoon while he sat by his Nina in the death-chamber. Once he
+got up to stop the ticking of a clock on the chimney-piece, moving
+mechanically with stealthy footfall across the room lest she should
+be disturbed. The doctors came and went, agreeing, as they left the
+house, that he had answered their questions with wonderful precision
+and presence of mind; nay, that he was less prostrated by the blow
+than they should have expected. "Disease of the heart," said they--I
+believe they called it "the _pericardium_"; and after paying a tribute
+of admiration to the loveliness of the dead lady, discussed the
+leading article of that day's _Times_ with perfect equanimity. What
+would you have? There can be but one person in the world to whom
+another is more than all the world beside.
+
+This person was sitting by Nina's bed, except for a few brief minutes
+at a time, utterly stupefied and immovable. Even Maud--his cherished
+daughter Maud--whose smile had hitherto been welcome in his eyes as
+the light of morning, could not rouse his attention by the depth of
+her own uncontrolled grief. He sat like an idiot or an opium-eater,
+till something prompted him to open the window and gasp for a breath
+of fresh evening air. Then it all came back to him, and he awoke to
+the full consciousness of his misery.
+
+There are men, though not many, and these, perhaps, the least inclined
+to prate about it, who have one attachment in their lives to which
+every other sentiment is but an accessory and a satellite. Such
+natures are often very bold to dare, very strong to endure, very
+difficult to assail, save in their single vulnerable point. Force
+that, and the man's whole vitality seems to collapse. He does not even
+make a fight of it, but fails, gives in, and goes down without an
+effort. Such was the character of Mr. Bruce, and to-day he had gotten
+his death-blow.
+
+The stars twinkled out faintly one by one, the harvest-moon rose broad
+and ruddy behind the wooded hill, and still he sat stupefied at the
+bedside. The door opened gently to admit a beautiful girl, strangely,
+startlingly like her dead mother, who came in with a cup of tea and a
+candle. Setting these on the chimney-piece, she moved softly round
+to where he sat, and pressed his head, with both hands, against her
+breast.
+
+"Dearest father," said she, "I have brought you some tea. Try and
+rouse yourself, papa, dear papa, for _my_ sake. You love _me_ too."
+
+The appeal was well chosen; once more the tears came to his eyes, and
+he woke up as from a dream.
+
+"You are a good girl, Maud," he answered, with a vague, distracted
+air. "I have my children left--I have my children left! But all the
+world cannot make up to me for what I have lost!"
+
+She thought his mind was wandering, and tried to recall him to
+himself.
+
+"We must bear our sorrows as best we may, papa," she answered, very
+gently. "We must help each other. You and I are alone now in the
+world."
+
+A contraction, as of some fresh pain, came over his livid face. He
+raised his head to speak, but, stopping himself with an obvious
+effort, looked long and scrutinisingly in his daughter's face.
+
+Maud Bruce was a very beautiful girl even now, in the extremity of
+her sorrow. She had been crying heartily; no wonder, but her delicate
+features were not swollen, nor her dark eyes dimmed. The silky
+hair shone smooth and trim, the muslin dress was not rumpled nor
+disarranged, and the white hands, with which she still caressed her
+father's sorrow-laden head, neither shook nor wavered in their office.
+
+With her mother's beauty, Miss Bruce had inherited but little of her
+mother's character; on the contrary, her nature, like that of
+her father's ancestors rather than his own, was bold, firm, and
+self-reliant to an unusual degree. She was hard, and that is the only
+epithet properly to describe her--manner, voice, appearance, all
+were lady-like, feminine, and exceedingly attractive; but the
+self-possession she never seemed to lose, would have warned an
+experienced admirer, that beneath the white bosom beat a heart not to
+be reduced by stratagem, nor carried by assault; that he must not hope
+to see the beautiful dark eyes veil themselves in the dreamy softness
+which so confesses all it means to hide; that the raven tresses
+clinging coquettishly to that faultless head were most unlikely to be
+severed as a tribute of affection for any one whose conquest would not
+be a question of pride and profit to their owner. Tenderness was the
+one quality Maud lacked, the one quality which, like the zone of
+Venus, completed all her mother's attractions, with an indefinable and
+irresistible charm.
+
+There is a wild German legend which describes how a certain woodman, a
+widower, gave shelter to a strangely fascinating dame, and falling in
+love with her, incontinently made his guest lawful mistress of hearth
+and home; how, notwithstanding his infatuated passion, and intense
+admiration for her beauty, there was yet in it a fierceness which
+chilled and repelled him, while he worshiped; how his children could
+never be brought to look in the fair face of their stepmother without
+crying aloud for fear; and how at last he discovered, to his horror
+and dismay, that he had wedded a fearful creature, half wolf, half
+woman, combining the seductions of the syren with the cruel voracity
+of the brute. There was something about Maud Bruce to remind one of
+that horrible myth, even now, now at her gentlest and softest, while
+she clung round a sorrowing father, by the death-bed of one, whom, in
+their different ways, both had very dearly loved.
+
+It was well that the young lady preserved her presence of mind, for
+Bruce seemed incapable of connected thought or action. He roused
+himself, indeed, at his daughter's call, but gazed stupidly about him,
+stammered in his speech, and faltered in his step when he crossed
+the room. The shock of grief had evidently overmastered his
+faculties--something, too, besides affliction, seemed to worry and
+distress him--something of which he wished to unbosom himself,
+but that yet he could not make up his mind to reveal. Maud, whose
+quickness of perception was seldom at fault, did not fail to observe
+this, and reviewing the position with her accustomed coolness, drew
+her father gently to the writing-table, and sat down.
+
+"Papa," said she, "there is much to be done. We must exert ourselves.
+It will do us both good. Bargrave can be down by the middle of the
+day, to-morrow. Let me write for him at once."
+
+Bargrave and Co. were Mr. Bruce's solicitors, as they had been his
+great-uncle's: it was the same firm, indeed, that had apprised him of
+his inheritance at Calais twenty years ago. How he rejoiced in their
+intelligence then! What was the use of an inheritance now?
+
+A weary lassitude had come over him; he seemed incapable of exertion,
+and shook his head in answer to Maud's appeal; but again some
+hidden motive stung him into action, and taking his seat at the
+writing-table, he seized a pen, only to let it slip helplessly through
+his fingers, while he looked in his daughter's face with a vacant
+stare.
+
+Maud was equal to the occasion. Obviously something more than sorrow
+had reduced her father to this state. She sat down opposite, scribbled
+off a note hastily enough, but in the clear unwavering hand, affirmed
+by her correspondents to be so characteristic of the writer's
+disposition, and ringing the bell, desired it should be dispatched on
+the instant. "Let Thomas take the brougham with the ponies; the doctor
+is sure to be at home. He can bring him back at once."
+
+Then she looked at her father, and stopped the lady's-maid, who,
+tearful and hysterical, had answered the familiar summons, which but
+this morning was "missis's bell."
+
+"While they are putting to," said she calmly, "I will write a
+telegraphic message and a letter. Tell him to send word when he is
+ready. I shall give him exactly ten minutes."
+
+Once more she glanced uneasily at Mr. Bruce; what she saw decided her.
+In half-a-dozen words she penned a concise message to her father's
+solicitor, desiring him to come himself or send a confidential person
+to Ecclesfield Manor, by the very first train, on urgent business; and
+wrote a letter as well to the same address, explaining her need of
+immediate assistance, for Mr. Bargrave to receive the following
+morning, in case that gentleman should not obey her telegram in
+person, a contingency Miss Bruce considered highly probable.
+
+The ten minutes conceded to Thomas had stretched to twenty before he
+was ready; for so strong is the force of habit among stablemen, that
+even in a case of life and death, horses cannot be allowed to start
+till their manes are straightened and their hoofs blacked. In the
+interval, Miss Bruce became more and more concerned to observe no
+signs of attention on her father's part--no inquiries as to her
+motives--apparently no consciousness of what she was doing. When the
+brougham was heard to roll away at a gallop, she came round and
+put her arm about his neck, where he sat in his chair at the
+writing-table.
+
+"Papa, dear," she said, "I have told them to get your dressing-room
+ready. You are ill, very ill. I can see it. You must go to bed."
+
+He nodded, and smiled. Such a weary, silly smile, letting her lead him
+away like a little child. He would even have passed the bed where his
+wife lay without a look, but that his daughter stopped him at the
+door.
+
+"Papa," said she--and the girl deserved credit for the courage with
+which she kept her tears back--"won't you kiss her before you go?"
+
+It may be some instinct warned her that not in the body was he to look
+on the face he loved again--that those material lips were never more
+to touch the gentle brow which in a whole lifetime he had not seen
+to frown--that their next greeting, freed from earthly anxieties,
+released from earthly troubles, must be exchanged, at no distant
+period, in heaven.
+
+He obeyed unhesitatingly, imprinting a caress on his dead wife's
+forehead with no kind of emotion, and so left the room, muttering
+vaguely certain indistinct and incoherent syllables, in which the
+words "Nina" and "Bargrave" were alone intelligible.
+
+Maud saw her father to his room, and consigned him to the hands of
+his valet, to be put to bed without delay. Then she went to the
+dining-room, and forced herself to eat a crust of bread, to drink
+a single glass of sherry. "I shall need all my strength to-night,"
+thought the girl, "to take care of poor papa, and arrange about the
+funeral and such matters as he cannot attend to--the funeral! O,
+mother, dear, kind mother! I wasn't half good enough to you while you
+were with us, and now--but I won't cry--I won't cry. There'll be time
+enough for all that by and by. The first thing to think of is about
+papa. He hasn't borne it well. Men have very little courage when they
+come to trial, and I fear--I fear there is something sadly wrong with
+him. Let me see. Three-quarters of an hour to get to Bragford--five
+minutes' stoppage at the turn-pike, for that stupid man is sure to
+have gone to bed--five minutes more for Doctor Skilton to put on his
+greatcoat, forty minutes for coming back--those ponies always go
+faster towards home. No, he can't be here under another hour. Another
+hour! It's a long time in a case like this. Suppose papa should have
+a paralytic stroke! And I haven't a notion what to do--the proper
+remedies, the best treatment. Women ought to know everything, and be
+ready for everything."
+
+"Then there's the lawyer to-morrow. I don't suppose papa will be able
+to see him. I must think of all the business--all the arrangements. He
+can't be here till ten o'clock at the earliest, even if he starts by
+the first train. I shall write my directions for _him_ in the morning.
+Meantime, I'll go and sit with poor papa, and see if I can't hush him
+off to sleep."
+
+But when Miss Bruce reached her father's room, she found him lying in
+an alarming state of which she had no experience. Something between
+sleeping and waking, yet without the repose of the one, the
+consciousness of the other. So she took her place by his pillow, and
+watched, listening anxiously for the brougham that was to bring the
+doctor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+TOM RYFE
+
+
+At half-past eight in the morning Mr. Bargrave's office in Gray's Inn
+was still empty. It had been swept, indeed, and "straightened," as he
+called it, by a young gentleman, whose duty it was to be in attendance
+at all hours from sunrise to sunset, when nobody else was in the
+way, and who fulfilled that duty by slipping out on such available
+occasions to join the youth of the quarter in sports of clamour,
+strength, and skill. Just now he was half-a-mile off in Holborn,
+running at full speed, shouting at the top of his voice, with no
+apparent object but that of exercising his own physical powers and
+the patience of the general public in his exertions. It was not,
+therefore, the step of this trusty guardian which fell sharp and
+quick on the stone stair outside the office, nor was it his hand,
+nor pass-key, that opened the door to admit Mr. Bargrave's nephew,
+assistant, and possible successor in the business, Tom Ryfe.
+
+That gentleman entered with the air of a master, looked about him,
+detected the absence of his young subordinate as one who is disgusted
+rather than surprised, and lifted two envelopes lying unopened on the
+table with an oath. "As usual," he muttered, "telegram and letter,
+same date--same place. Arrive together, of course! Chances are, if
+there is any hurry you get the letter before the telegram. Halloa!
+here's a business. Bargrave's sure to be an hour late, and that young
+scamp not within a mile. If I had my way--Hang it! I _will_ have my
+way. At all events I must manage _this_ business my way, for it seems
+there's not a moment to spare, and nobody to help me. Dorothe-a!"
+
+The dirtiest woman to be found, probably, at that hour in the whole of
+London, appeared from a lower storey in answer to his summons. Pushing
+her hair off a grimy forehead with a grimier hand, she listened to
+his directions, staring vacantly, as is the manner of her kind, but
+understanding them, nevertheless, and not incapable of remembering
+their purport: they were short and intelligible enough.
+
+"Tell that young scamp he is to sleep in the office tonight. He
+mustn't leave it on any consideration while I'm away. I'm going into
+the country, and I'll break his head when I come back."
+
+Tom Ryfe then huddled the letter into his pocket for perusal at
+leisure, hailed a hansom, and in less than a quarter of an hour was in
+his uncle's breakfast-room, bolting ham, muffins, and green tea, while
+his clothes were packed.
+
+Mr. Bargrave, a bachelor, who liked his comforts, and took care to
+have them, was reading the newspaper in a silk dressing-gown, and a
+pair of gold spectacles. He had finished breakfast--such a copious
+and leisurely repast as is consumed by one who dines at six, drinks a
+bottle of port every day at dessert, and never smoked a cigar in his
+life. No earthly consideration would hurry him for the next half-hour.
+He looked over the top of his newspaper with the placid benignity of a
+man who, considering digestion one of the most important functions of
+nature, values and encourages it accordingly.
+
+"Sudden," observed Mr. Bargrave, in answer to his nephew's
+communication. "Something of a seizure, no doubt. Time is of
+importance; the young lady's telegram should have come to hand last
+night. Be so good as to make a note on the back. Three doctors, does
+she say? Bless me! They'll never let him get over it. Most unfortunate
+just now, on account of the child--of the young lady. You can take the
+necessary instructions. I will follow, if required. It's twenty-three
+minutes' drive to the station. Better be off at once, Tom."
+
+So Tom took the hint, and was off. While he drives to the station we
+may as well give an account of Tom's position in the firm of Bargrave
+and Co.
+
+Old Bargrave's sister had chosen to marry a certain Mr. Ryfe, of whom
+nobody knew more than that he could shoot pigeons, had been concerned
+in one or two doubtful turf transactions, and played a good hand at
+whist. _While_ he lived, though it was a mystery _how_ he lived, he
+kept Mrs. Ryfe "very comfortable," to use Bargrave's expression. When
+he died he left her nothing but the boy Tom, a precocious urchin,
+inheriting some of his father's sporting propensities, with a certain
+slang smartness of tone and manner, acquired in those circles where
+horseflesh is affected as an inducement to speculation.
+
+Mrs. Ryfe did not long survive her husband. She had married a scamp,
+and was, therefore, very fond of him: so before he had been dead a
+year, she was laid in the same grave. Then her brother took the boy
+Tom, and put him into his own business, making him begin by sweeping
+out the office, and so requiring him to rise grade by grade till he
+became confidential clerk and head manager of all matters connected
+with the firm.
+
+At twenty-six years of age, Tom Ryfe possessed as much experience
+as his principal, joined to a cunning and sharpness of intellect
+peculiarly his own. To take care of number one was doubtless the
+head clerk's ruling maxim; but while thus attending to his personal
+welfare, he never failed to affect a keen interest in the affairs
+of numbers two, three, four, and the rest. Tom Ryfe was a "friendly
+fellow," people declared; "a deuced friendly fellow, and knew what he
+was about, mind you, better than most people."
+
+"Every great man," said the Emperor Nicholas, "has a hook in his
+nose." In the firmest characters, no doubt, there is a weakness
+by which they are to be led or driven; and Tom Ryfe, like other
+notabilities, was not without this crevice in his armour, this breach
+in his embattled wall. He had shrewdness, knowledge of the world,
+common sense, and yet the one great object of his efforts was to be
+admitted into a class of society far above his own, and to find there
+an ideal lady with whom to pass the rest of his days.
+
+"I'll marry a top-sawyer," he used to say, whenever his uncle broached
+the question of his settlement in life. "Why, bless ye, it's the same
+tackle and the same fly that takes the big fish and the little one.
+It's no more trouble to make up to a duchess than a dairymaid. I'll
+pick a real white-handed one, you see if I don't. A wife that can
+_move_, uncle, cool, and calm, and lofty, like an air balloon; wearing
+her dresses as if she was made for them, and her jewels as if she
+didn't know she'd got them on; looking as much at home in the Queen's
+drawing-room as she does in her own. That's my sort, and that's the
+sort I'll choose! Why, there's scores of 'em to be seen any afternoon
+in the Park. Never tell me I can't go in and take my pick. 'Nothing
+venture, nothing have,' they say. I ain't going to venture much. I
+don't see occasion for it, but I'll _have_ what I want, you see if I
+won't, or I'll know the reason why."
+
+Whereon Bargrave, who considered womankind in general as an
+unnecessary evil, would reply--
+
+"Time enough, Tom, time enough. I haven't had much experience with the
+ladies myself, except as clients, you know. The less I see of 'em, I
+think, the more I like 'em. Better put it off a little, Tom. It can be
+done any day, my boy, when you've an hour to spare. I wouldn't be in
+a hurry if I was you. There's a fresh sample ticketed every year; and
+they're not like port wine, you must remember, they don't improve with
+keeping."
+
+Tom Ryfe had plenty of time to revolve his speculations, matrimonial
+and otherwise, during his journey to Ecclesfield Manor by one of those
+mid-day trains so irritating to through-passengers, which stop at
+intermediate stations, dropping brown-paper parcels, and taking up old
+women with baskets. He reviewed many little affairs of the heart in
+which he had lately been engaged, without, however, suffering his
+affections to involve themselves too deeply for speedy withdrawal. He
+reflected with great satisfaction on his own fastidious rejection of
+several "suitable parties," as he expressed it, who did not quite
+reach his standard of aristocratic perfection, remembering how Mrs.
+Blades, the well-to-do widow, with fine eyes and a house in Duke
+Street, had fairly landed him but for that unfortunate dinner at which
+he detected her eating fish with a knife; how certain grated-looking
+needle-marks on Miss Glance's left forefinger had checked him just in
+time while in the act of kissing her hand; and how, on the very eve of
+a proposal to beautiful Constance de Courcy, whose manner, bearing,
+and appearance, no less than her name, denoted the extreme of
+refinement and high birth, he had sustained a shock, galvanic but
+salutary, from her artless exclamation, "O my! whatever shall I do? If
+here isn't pa!"
+
+"No," thought Tom, as he rolled on into the fair expanse of down
+country that lay for miles round Ecclesfield, "I haven't found one yet
+quite up to the pattern I require. When I do I shall go in and
+win, that's all. I don't see why my chance shouldn't be as good as
+another's. I'm not such a bad-looking chap when I'm dressed and my
+hair's greased. I can do tricks with cards like winking. I can ride a
+bit, shoot a bit--'specially pigeons--dance a bit, and make love to
+'em no end. I've got the gift of the gab, I know, and I stick at
+nothing. That's what the girls like, and that's what will pull me
+through when I find the one I want. Another station, and not there
+yet! What a slow train this is!"
+
+It was a slow train, and Tom, arriving at Ecclesfield, saw on the face
+of the servant who admitted him that he was too late. In addition to
+the solemn and mysterious hush that pervades a house in which the dead
+lie yet unburied, a feeling of horror, the result of some unlooked-for
+and additional calamity, seemed to predominate; and Tom was hardly
+surprised, however much he might be shocked, when the old
+butler gasped, in broken sentences, "Seizure--last night--quite
+unconscious--all over this morning. Will you take some refreshment,
+sir, after your journey?"
+
+Mr. Bruce had been dead a few hours--dead without time to set his
+house in order, without consciousness even to wish his child good-bye.
+
+She came down to see Mr. Bargrave's clerk that afternoon, pale, calm,
+collected, beautiful, but stern and unbending under the sorrow against
+which her haughty nature rebelled. In a few words, referring to a
+memorandum the while, she gave him her directions for the funeral and
+its ceremonies; desired him to ascertain at once the state of her late
+father's affairs, the amount of a succession to which she believed
+herself entitled; begged he would return with full information that
+day fortnight; ordered luncheon for him in the dining-room; and so
+dismissed him as a bereaved queen might dismiss the humblest of her
+subjects.
+
+Tom Ryfe, returning to London by the next train, thought he had never
+felt so small; and yet, was not this proud, sorrowing, and beautiful
+young damsel the ideal he had been seeking hitherto in vain? It is
+not too much to say that for twenty miles he positively _hated_ her,
+striving fiercely against the influence, which yet he could not but
+acknowledge. In another twenty, his good opinion of his best friend
+Mr. Ryfe reasserted itself. He had seen something of the world, and
+possessed, moreover, a certain shallow acquaintance with human nature,
+not of the highest class, so he argued thus--
+
+"Women like what they are unaccustomed to. The Grand Duchess of
+Gerolstein makes love to a private soldier simply because she don't
+know what a private soldier is. This girl must have lived amongst a
+set of starched and stuck-up people who have not two ideas beyond
+themselves and their order. She has never so much as seen a smart,
+business-like, active fellow, ready to take all trouble off her hands,
+and make up her mind for her before she can turn round--young, too,
+and not so bad-looking, though I dare say she's used to good-looking
+chaps enough. The man's game who went in for Miss Bruce would be
+this: constant attention to her interests, supreme disregard for her
+feelings, and never to let her have her own way for a moment. She'd be
+so utterly taken aback she'd give in without a fight. Why shouldn't I
+try my chance? It's a good spec. It must be a good spec. And yet,
+hang it! such a high-handed girl as that would suit _me_ without a
+shilling. It dashed me a little at first; but I like that scornful way
+of hers, I own. What eyes, too! and what hair! I wonder if I'm a fool.
+No; nothing's impossible; it's only difficult. What! London already?
+Ah! there's no place like town."
+
+The familiar gas-lamps, the roll of the cabs, the bustle in the
+streets, dispelled whatever shadows of mistrust in his own merits
+remained from Tom's reflections in the railway carriage; and long
+before he reached his uncle's house, he had made up his mind to "go
+in," as he called it, for Miss Bruce, morally confident of winning,
+yet troubled with certain chilling misgivings, as fearing that _this_
+time he had really fallen in love.
+
+Many and long, during the ensuing week, were the consultations between
+old Bargrave and his nephew as to the future prospects of the lady in
+question. Her father had died without a will. That fact seemed pretty
+evident, as he had often expressed his intention of preparing such an
+instrument, but had hitherto moved no farther in the matter.
+
+"Depend upon it, Tom," said his uncle, that very evening over their
+port wine, "he wouldn't go to anybody else. He was never much of
+a business man, and he couldn't have disentangled his affairs
+sufficiently to make 'em clear, except to me. It's a sad pity for many
+reasons, but I'm just as sure there's no will as I am that my glass is
+empty. Help yourself, Tom, and pass the wine."
+
+"Then she takes as next of kin," said Tom, thinking of Maud's dark
+eyes, and filling his glass. "Here's her health!"
+
+"By all means," assented Bargrave. "Her very good health, poor girl!
+But as to the succession I have my doubts; grave doubts. There's a
+trust, Tom. I looked over the deed while you were down there to-day.
+It is so worded that a male heir might advance a prior claim. There
+_is_ a male heir, a parson in Dorsetshire, not a likely man to give in
+without a fight. We'll look at it again to-morrow. If it reads as I
+think, I wouldn't give a pinch of snuff for the young lady's chance."
+
+Tom's face fell. "Can't we fight it, uncle?" said he, stoutly,
+applying himself once more to the port; but Bargrave had drawn his
+silk handkerchief over his face, and was already fast asleep.
+
+So uncle and nephew went into the trust-deed, morning after morning,
+arriving in its perusal at a conclusion adverse to Miss Brace's
+interest; but then, as the younger man observed, "the beauty of our
+English law is, that you can always fight a thing even if you haven't
+a leg to stand on."
+
+It was almost time for Tom Ryfe's return journey to Ecclesfield, and
+a coat ordered for the express purpose of captivating Miss Bruce had
+actually come home, when the post brought him a little note from
+that lady, which afforded him, as such notes often do, an absurd and
+overweening joy. It was bordered with the deepest black, and ran as
+follows--
+
+
+DEAR SIR,
+
+('_Dear_ sir,' thought Tom, 'ah! that sounds much sweeter than plain
+sir')--I venture to trouble you with a commission in the nature of
+business. A packet, containing some diamond ornaments belonging to me,
+will be left by the jeweller at Mr. Bargrave's office to-morrow. Will
+you kindly bring it down with you to Ecclesfield?
+
+Yours, very obediently,
+
+"Maud Bruce."
+
+
+Tom kissed the signature. He was very far gone already, and took care
+to be at the office in time to receive the diamonds. That boy was
+out of the way, of course! So Tom summoned the grimy Dorothea to his
+presence.
+
+"I shall be busy for an hour," said he; "don't admit anybody unless he
+comes by appointment, except it's a man with a packet of jewelry. Take
+it in yourself, and bring it here at once. I've got to carry it down
+with me to-night by the train. Do you understand?"
+
+"Is it a long journey as you're a-goin', sir?" asked Dorothea. "I
+should like to clean up a bit while you was away."
+
+"Only to Bragford," answered Tom; "but I might not be back for a day
+or two. Mind about the parcel, though," he added, in the exuberance
+of his spirits. "The thing's valuable. It's for a young lady. It's
+jewels, Dorothea. It's diamonds."
+
+"Lor!" said Dorothea, going back to her scrubbing forthwith.
+
+The jeweller being dilatory, Tom had finished his letters before that
+artificer arrived, thus saving Dorothea all responsibility in the
+valuable packet confided to his charge, for Mr. Ryfe received it
+himself in the outer office, whither he had resorted in a fidget to
+compare a time-table with a railway-map of England. He fretted to set
+off at once. He had finished his business; he had nothing to do now
+but eat an early dinner at his uncle's, and so start by the afternoon
+train on the path of love, triumph, and success, leaving the boy,
+coerced by ghastly threats, to take charge of the office in his
+absence.
+
+We have all seen a bird moulting, draggled, dirty, woebegone, not to
+be recognised for the same bird, sleek and glossy in its holiday-suit
+of feathers, pruning its wing for a flight across the summer sky. Even
+so different was the Dorothea of the unkempt hair, the soapy arms, the
+dingy apron, and the grimy face, from a gaudy damsel who emerged in
+the afternoon sun out of Mr. Bargrave's chambers, bright with all the
+colours of the rainbow, and scrupulously dressed, according to the
+extreme style of the last prevailing fashion but two.
+
+She was a good-looking woman enough now that she had "cleaned
+herself," as she expressed it, but for a certain roughness of hair,
+coarseness of skin, and general redundancy of outline, despite of
+which drawbacks, however, she attracted many admiring glances from
+cab-drivers, omnibus-conductors, a precocious shoeblack, and the
+policeman on duty, as she tripped into Holborn and mingled with the
+living stream that flows unceasingly down that artery of London.
+
+Dorothea seemed to know where she was going well enough, and yet the
+coarse red cheek turned pale while she approached her goal, though it
+was but a flashy, dirty-looking gin-shop, standing at a corner where
+two streets met. Her colour rose though, higher than before, when a
+pot-boy, with a shock of red hair, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up to
+his shoulders, thus accosted her--
+
+"You're just in time, miss; he'd 'a been off in a minit, but old
+Batters, he come in just now, and your young man stopped to take his
+share of another half-quartern."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+GENTLEMAN JIM
+
+
+There is no reason, because a woman is coarse, hard-working, low-born,
+and badly dressed, she should be without that inconvenient feminine
+appendage--a heart. Dorothea trembled and turned pale when the door of
+the Holborn gin-shop swung open and the man she most wished to see in
+all the world stood at her side.
+
+He would have been a good-looking fellow enough in any rank of life,
+but to Dorothea, and others of her class, his clear, well-cut features
+and jetty ringlets rendered him an absolute Adonis, despite the air of
+half-drunken bravado and assumed recklessness which marred a naturally
+resolute expression of countenance. He wore a fur cap, a velveteen
+jacket, and a bright-red neckcloth, secured by an enormous ring; nor
+was this remarkable costume out of character with the perfume he
+exhaled, denoting he had consumed at least his share of that other
+half-quartern which postponed his departure.
+
+Dorothea slipped her arm in his, and clung to him with the fond
+tenacity of a woman who loves heart and soul, poor thing, to her cost.
+
+His manner was an admirable combination of low-class gallantry with
+pitying condescension.
+
+"Why, Doll," said he, "what's up now? You don't look hearty, my lass.
+Step in and take a dram; it'll do you good."
+
+She glanced admiringly in the comely dissipated face.
+
+"Ah! they may well call you Gentleman Jim," she answered; "you're fit
+to be a lord of the land, you are; and so you would, if I was queen.
+But I doesn't want you to treat me, Jim, leastways not this turn; I
+wants you to come for a walk, dear. I've a bit of news for you. It's
+business, Jim," she added, somewhat ruefully, "or I wouldn't go for to
+ask."
+
+His face, which had fallen a little, assuming that wearied expression
+a woman ought most to dread on the face she cares for, brightened
+considerably.
+
+"Come on, lass!" he exclaimed, "business first, and pleasure arter.
+Speak up, and let's hear all about it."
+
+They had turned from the main thoroughfare into a dark and quiet
+by-street. She crossed her work-worn hands on his arm, and proceeded
+nervously--
+
+"You say I never put you on a job, Jim. Well, I've a job to put you on
+now. I don't half like it, dear. It's for your sake I don't half like
+it. Promise me as you'll be careful, very careful, this turn."
+
+"Bother!" answered Jim. "Stow that, lass, and let's have it out."
+
+Thus elegantly adjured, Doll, as he called her, obeyed without delay,
+though her voice faltered and her colour faded more than once while
+she went on.
+
+"You told me as you wouldn't love me without I kep' my ears open, and
+my eyes too. Well, Jim, I've watched and watched old master and young,
+like a cat watches a mouse-hole, till I've been that sick and tired I
+could have set down and cried. Now, to-day I wanted to see you so bad,
+at any rate, and, thinks I, here's a bit of news as my Jim will like
+to learn. Look now: young master, he's a-goin' to a place they call
+Bragford by the five-o'clock train. O, I mind the name well enough.
+You know, Jim, you always bid me take notice of names. Well, it's
+Bragford. Bragford, says he, quite plain, an' as loud as I'm
+a-speakin' now."
+
+"Forty-five miles from London," answered Jim, "and not ten minutes'
+walk from the branch line. Well?"
+
+"He's a-takin' summut down for a young lady," continued Doll. "It is
+but a small package, what you might put in your coat-pocket, or your
+hat. O, Jim! Jim! if you should chance on a stroke of luck this turn,
+won't you give the trade up for good and all? If you and me had but a
+roof to cover us, I wouldn't ask better than only liberty to work for
+you till I dropped."
+
+Tears stood in her eyes, and for a moment the face that looked up
+into the ruffian's was almost beautiful in its expression of entire
+devotion and trust.
+
+He had taken a doubtful cigar from his coat-pocket, and was smoking
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Small," said he, "then it ought, by rights, to be valuable. Did ye
+get a feel of it, Doll, or was it only a smell?"
+
+"He took it hisself out of the jeweller's hands," answered Doll;
+"but I hadn't no call to be curious, for he told me what it was free
+enough. There ain't no smell about diamonds, Jim."
+
+"Nor you can't swear to them neither," replied Jim exultingly.
+"Diamonds, Doll! you're _sure_ he said diamonds? Come, you _have_
+done it, my lass. Give us a kiss, Doll, and let's turn in here at the
+Sunflower, and drink good luck to the job."
+
+The woman acceded to both proposals readily enough, but followed her
+companion into the ill-favoured little tavern with a weary step and a
+heavy heart. Some unerring instinct told her, no doubt, that she was
+giving all and taking nothing, offering gold for silver, truth for
+falsehood, love and devotion for a mere liking, rapidly waning to
+indifference and contempt.
+
+Tom Ryfe, all anxiety to find himself once more in the same county
+with Miss Bruce, was in good time, we may be sure, for the train that
+should carry him down to Ecclesfield. Bustling through the station to
+take his ticket, he was closely followed by a well-dressed person in
+a pair of blue spectacles, travelling apparently without luggage or
+impediments of any description. This individual seemed also bound
+for Bragford, and showed some little eagerness to travel in the
+same carriage with Tom, who attributed the compliment to his
+lately-constructed coat and general appearance as a swell of the first
+water. "He don't often get such a chance," thought Mr. Ryfe, accepting
+with extreme graciousness the other's civilities as to open windows
+and change of seats. He even went so far as to take a proffered cigar
+from the case of his fellow-traveller, which he would have smoked
+forth-with, but for the peremptory objections of a crusty old
+gentleman, who arrived at the last moment, encumbered with such a
+paraphernalia of railway-rugs, travelling-bags, books, newspapers and
+magazines as denoted the through-passenger, not to be got rid of at
+any intermediate station. The old gentleman glared defiance, but made
+himself comfortable nevertheless; and the presence of this common
+enemy was a bond of union to render the two chance acquaintances more
+than ordinarily cordial and communicative.
+
+Smoking being prohibited, they had not proceeded many miles into the
+country ere the gentleman in spectacles produced a box of lozenges
+from his pocket, and, selecting one for his own consumption, offered
+another, with much suavity, to Tom Ryfe, surveying meanwhile, with
+inquisitive glances, the bulge in that gentleman's breast-pocket,
+where he carried his valuable package; but here again both were
+startled, not to say irritated, by the dictatorial interference of the
+last arrival.
+
+"Excuse me, gentlemen," said this irrepressible old man, "I cannot
+permit it. Damn me, sir!" turning full round upon Tom Ryfe, "I _won't_
+permit it! I can detect the smell of chloroform in those lozenges.
+Smell, sir, I've the smell of a bloodhound. I could hunt a scamp all
+over England by nose--by nose, I tell you, sir, and worry him to death
+when I ran into him; and I _would_ too. Now, sir, if _you_ choose to
+be chloroformed, I don't. I'm not anxious to be taken out of this
+compartment as stupid as an owl, and as cold as a cabbage, with a
+pain in my eyes, a singing in my ears, and a scoundrel's hands in my
+waistcoat-pockets. Excuse me, sir, I'm warm--I wouldn't give much for
+a chap that wasn't--and I speak my mind!"
+
+It seemed a bad speculation to quarrel with him, this big, burly,
+resolute, and disagreeable old man. Tom Ryfe, for once, was at a
+nonplus. He murmured a few vague sentences of dissent, while the
+passenger in spectacles, consigning his lozenges to an inner pocket,
+buried himself in the broad sheet of the _Times_. But it was his turn
+now, and not even thus could he escape. Staring grimly at him, over
+the top of the paper, his tormentor fired a point-blank question, from
+which there was no refuge.
+
+"Pray, sir," said he, "are you a chemist?"
+
+The gentleman in spectacles signified, by a shake of the head, that
+was not his profession.
+
+"Then, sir," continued the other, "do you know anything about
+chemistry--volatile essences, noxious drugs, subtle poisons? I do."
+(Here Tom Ryfe observed his ally turn pale.) "Permit me to remark,
+sir, that if _you_ don't, you are like a school-boy carrying a
+pocketful of squibs and crackers on the fifth of November, unconscious
+that a single spark may blow him into the Christmas holidays before he
+can say 'knife!' Let me see those lozenges, sir--let me have them in
+my hand; I'll tell you in five seconds what they're made of, and how,
+and where, and why."
+
+Here the man in spectacles, with considerable presence of mind, threw
+the whole of his lozenges out of window, under cover of the _Times_.
+
+"You frighten me, sir," said he; "I wouldn't keep such dangerous
+articles about me on any consideration."
+
+The old gentleman executed an elaborate wink, denoting extreme
+satisfaction, at Tom Ryfe. "If you were going through," said he, "I
+could tell you some funny stories. Queer tricks upon travellers
+I've seen in my time. Why I was the first person to find out the
+sinking-floor dodge in West Street. My evidence transported three
+people for life, and a fourth for fifteen years. I once saw a man
+pulled down by the heels through a grating in one of the busiest
+streets in the City, and if I _hadn't_ seen him he would never have
+come up alive. Why the police apply to me for advice many a time when
+people are missing. 'Don't distress yourselves,' says I, 'they'll turn
+up, never fear.' And they _do_ turn up, sir, in nineteen cases out of
+twenty. In the twentieth, when there's foul play, we generally know
+something about it within eight-and-forty hours. Bragford? Is it? You
+get out here, do you? Good-morning, gentlemen; I hope you've enjoyed
+your jaunt."
+
+Then as Tom, collecting great-coats, newspapers, etc., followed his
+new acquaintance out of the carriage, this strange old gentleman
+detained him for an instant by the arm.
+
+"Friend of yours, sir?" said he, pointing to the man in spectacles on
+the platform. "Never saw him before? I thought so. Sharper, sir, I'll
+take my oath of it, or something worse. I know the sort; I've exposed
+hundreds of them. Take my advice, sir, and never see him again."
+
+With that the train glided on, leaving Mr. Ryfe and the gentleman
+in spectacles staring at each other over a basket of fish and a
+portmanteau.
+
+"Mad!" observed the latter, with an uneasy attempt at a laugh, and a
+readjustment of his glasses.
+
+"Mad, no doubt," answered Tom, but followed the lunatic's counsel,
+nevertheless, so far as to refrain from offering the other a lift
+in the well-appointed brougham, with its burly coachman, waiting to
+convey him to Ecclesfield Manor, though his late fellow-traveller was
+proceeding in that direction on foot.
+
+Tom had determined to sleep at the Railway Hotel, Bragford, ere he
+returned to London next day. This arrangement he considered more
+respectful than an intrusion on the hospitality of Ecclesfield, should
+it be offered him. Perhaps so scrupulous a regard for the proprieties
+mollified Miss Bruce in his favour, and called forth an invitation
+to tea in the drawing-room when he had concluded the solitary dinner
+prepared for him after his journey.
+
+Tom Ryfe was always a careful dresser. Up to forty most men are. It
+is only when we have nobody to please that we become negligent of
+pleasing. I believe, though, that never in his life did he tie his
+neckcloth or brush his whiskers with more care than on the present
+occasion in a large and dreary chamber known to the household as one
+of the "best bedrooms" of Ecclesfield Manor.
+
+Tom looked about him, with a proud consciousness that at last his foot
+was on the ladder he had wanted all his life to climb. Here he stood,
+actually dressing for dinner, a welcome guest in the house of an
+old-established county family, on terms of confidence, if not
+intimacy, with its proud and beautiful female representative, in whose
+cause he was about to do battle with all the force of his intellect,
+and (Tom began to think she could make him fool enough for anything)
+all the resources of his purse. The old family pictures--sad daubs, or
+they would never have been consigned to the bedrooms--simpered down on
+him with encouraging benignity. Prim women, wearing enormously long
+waists, and their heads a good deal on one side, pointed their fans
+at him, while he washed his hands, with a coquetry irresistible, had
+their colours only stood, combining entreaty and command; while
+a jolly old boy in flowing wig, steel breast-plate, and the most
+convivial of noses, smiled in his face, as who should say, "_Audaces
+Fortuna juvat_!--Go in, my hearty, and win if you can!"
+
+What was there in these surroundings, in the orderly decorum of the
+well-regulated mansion, in the chiming of the stable clock, nay, in
+the reflection of his own person shown by that full-length glass, to
+take the starch, as it were, out of Tom's self-confidence, turning his
+moral courage limp and helpless for the nonce, bringing insensibly to
+his mind the familiar refrain of "Not for Joseph"? What was there that
+bade him man himself against this discouragement, as true bravery mans
+itself against the sensation of fear? and why should he be less worthy
+of approbation than other spirits who venture on "enterprises of great
+pith and moment" with beating hearts indeed, but with unflinching
+courage and a dogged determination to succeed?
+
+Had Tom been a young knight arming for a tournament, in which the good
+fortune of his lance was to win him a king's daughter for his bride,
+he might have claimed to be an admirable and interesting hero. Was
+he, indeed, a less respectable adventurer, that for steel he had to
+substitute French polish, for surcoat and corselet, broadcloth and
+cambric--that the battle he was to wage must be fought out by tenacity
+of purpose and ingenuity of brain, rather than strength of arm and
+downright hardness of skull?
+
+He shook a little too much scent on his handkerchief as he finished
+dressing, and walked down-stairs in a state of greater agitation than
+he would have liked to admit.
+
+Dinner was soon done. Eaten in solitude with grave servants watching
+every mouthful, he was glad to get it over. In a glass of brown sherry
+he drank Miss Brace's health, and thus primed, followed the butler to
+the drawing-room, where that lady sat working by the light of a single
+lamp.
+
+The obscurity was in his favour. Tom made his bow and accepted the
+chair offered him, less awkwardly than was to be expected from the
+situation.
+
+Maud looked very beautiful with the light falling on her sculptured
+chin, her fair neck, and white hands, set off by the deep shadows of
+the mourning dress she wore.
+
+I believe he was going to begin by saying "it had been a fine day,"
+but she stopped him in her clear, cold voice, with its patrician
+accent, so difficult to define, yet so impossible to mistake.
+
+"I have to thank you, Mr. Ryfe, for taking such care of my jewels. I
+hope the man left them at your office as he promised, and that you had
+no farther trouble about them."
+
+He wanted to say that "no errand of hers could be a trouble to him,"
+but the words stuck in his throat, or she would hardly have proceeded
+so graciously.
+
+"We must go into a few matters of business this evening, if you have
+got the papers you mentioned. I leave here to-morrow, and there is
+little time to spare."
+
+He produced a neatly-folded packet, docketed and carefully tied with
+tape. The sight of it roused his energies, as the shaking of a guidon
+rouses an old trooper. Despite of the enchantress and all her glamour,
+Tom was himself again.
+
+"Business is my trade, Miss Bruce," said he briskly. "I must ask
+your earnest attention for a quarter of an hour, while I explain our
+position as regards the estate. At present it appears beset with
+difficulties. That's my look-out. Before we begin," added Tom, with a
+diffident faltering of voice, partly natural, partly assumed, "forgive
+my asking your future address. It is indispensable that we should
+frequently communicate, and--and--I cannot help hoping and expressing
+my hope for your happiness in the home you have chosen."
+
+Maud's smile was very taking. She smiled with her eyes, those dark,
+pleasing eyes that would have made a fool of a wiser man than Tom.
+
+"I am going to Aunt Agatha's," she said. "I am to live with her for
+good. I have no home of my own now."
+
+The words were simple enough--spoken, too, without sadness or
+bitterness as a mere abstract matter of fact, but they aroused all the
+pen-and-ink chivalry in Tom's nature, and he vowed in his heart to lay
+goose-quill in rest on her behalf, with the devotion of a Montmorency
+or a Bayard.
+
+"Miss Bruce," said he resolutely, "the battle is not yet lost. In our
+last, of the 15th, we advised you that the other side had already
+taken steps to oppose our claims. My uncle has great experience, and I
+will not conceal from you that my uncle is less sanguine than myself;
+but I begin to see my way, and if there is a possibility of winning,
+by hook or by crook, depend upon it, Miss Bruce, win we _will_, for
+our own sakes, and--and--for _yours_!"
+
+The last two words were spoken in a whisper, being indeed a
+spontaneous ebullition, but she heard them nevertheless. In her deep
+sorrow, in her friendless, homeless position there was something
+soothing and consolatory in the sympathy of this young man, lawyer's
+clerk though he were, as she insisted with unnecessary repetition
+to herself. He showed at his best, too, while explaining the legal
+complications involved in the whole business, and the steps by which
+he hoped eventually to succeed. Maud was too thoroughly a woman not to
+admire power, and Tom's intellect possessed obviously no small share
+of that quality, when directed on such matters as the present. In
+half-an-hour he had furnished her with a lucid statement of the whole
+case, and in half-an-hour he had inspired her with respect for
+his opinion, admiration of his sagacity, and confidence in his
+strength--not a bad thirty minutes' work. At its conclusion, she shook
+hands with him cordially when she wished him good-night. Tom was
+no fool, and knew when to venture as when to hold back. He bowed
+reverentially over the white hand, muttering only--"God bless you,
+Miss Bruce! If you think of anything else, at a moment's notice I will
+come from the end of the world to serve you,"--and so hurried away
+before she could reply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+THE CRACKSMAN'S CHECKMATE
+
+
+Puckers, or Miss Puckers, as she liked to be called below-stairs,
+was a little puzzled by her young mistress's abstraction, while she
+brushed out Maud's wealth of raven hair for the night. Stealing
+glances at herself in the glass opposite, she could not help observing
+the expression on Miss Bruce's face. The light was in it once more
+that had been so quenched by her father's death. Puckers, who, in the
+housekeeper's room, had discussed the affairs of the family almost
+hourly ever since that sorrowful event, considered that it must have
+left his daughter in the possession of untold wealth, and that "the
+young man from town," as she designated Tom Ryfe, was sent down
+expressly to afford the heiress an estimate of her possessions. A true
+lady's-maid, she determined to hazard the inquiry.
+
+"I suppose, miss," said she, brushing viciously, "we sha'n't be going
+to your aunt's now quite so soon. I'm sure I've been that hurried and
+put about, I don't scarce know which way to turn."
+
+"Why?" asked Maud quietly. "Not so hard, please."
+
+"Well, miss, a lady is not like a servant, you know; she can do as she
+chooses, of course. But if I was _you_, miss, I'd remain on the spot.
+There's the new furniture to get; there's the linen to see to; there's
+the bailiff given warning; and that there young man from town, I
+suppose _he_ wouldn't come if we could do without him, charging
+goodness knows what, as if his very words was gold. But I give you
+joy, miss, of your fortune, I do. I was a-sayin', only last night, was
+it? to Mrs. Plummer, says I, 'Whatever _my_ young lady will do,' says
+I, 'in a house where she isn't mistress, she that's been used to rule
+in her poor ma's time, and her pa's, ah! ever since she cut her teeth
+almost;' and Mrs. Plummer says, says she----"
+
+"That'll do, Puckers," observed Miss Bruce, "I shall not want you any
+more. Good-night."
+
+She took as little notice of her handmaid's volubility as if the
+latter had been a grey parrot, and dismissed her with a certain cold,
+imperial manner that none of the household ever dreamt it possible
+to dispute or disobey; but after Puckers, with a quantity of white
+draperies over her arm, had departed to return no more, she sat down
+at the dressing-table, and began to think with all her might.
+
+Her maid was a fool, no doubt: all maids were; but the shaft of folly,
+shot at random, went home to the quick. "A house where she wasn't
+mistress!" Had she ever considered the future shelter offered her by
+Aunt Agatha in that light? Here at the Manor, for as long as she could
+remember, had she not reigned supreme? All the little arrangements of
+dinner-parties, picnics, archery-meetings, and such gatherings as
+make up country society, had fallen into her hands. Mamma didn't
+care--mamma never cared how anything was settled so long as papa was
+pleased; and papa thought Maud could not possibly do wrong. So by
+degrees--and this at an age when young ladies are ordinarily in the
+schoolroom--Miss Bruce had grown, on all social questions, to be the
+virtual head of the family. It was a position of which, till the time
+came to abdicate, she had not sufficiently appreciated the value. It
+seemed so natural to order carriages and horses at her own hours, to
+return visits, to receive guests, to do the honours of a comfortable
+country-house with an adequate establishment, and now, could she bear
+to live with Aunt Agatha, on sufferance?--Aunt Agatha, whom she had
+never liked, and whom she only refrained from snubbing and setting
+down, because they so seldom met, but when the elder lady had been
+invited by the younger as a guest! "To be dependent," thought Maud,
+mentally addressing the beautiful face in the glass, "How should you
+like that? _you_ with your haughty head, and your scornful eyes, and
+your hard, unbending heart? I know you! Nobody knows you but me! And I
+know how _bad_ you are--how capricious, and how cruel! When you want
+anything, do you ever spare anybody to get it? Did you ever love any
+one on earth as well as your own way? Even mamma? O, mamma, dear, dear
+mamma, if you had lived I might have got better--I _was_ better, I
+know I was better while I was with _you_. But now--now I must be
+myself. I can't help it. After all, it is not my fault. What is it
+I most covet and desire in the world? It is power. Rank, wealth,
+luxury--these are all very well as accessories of life; but how should
+I loathe and hate them if they were conditional on my thinking as
+other people thought, or doing what I was told! I ought to have been
+a man. Women are such weak, vapid, idiotic characters, in general--at
+least, all I meet down here. Engrossed with their children, their
+parishes, their miserable household cares and perplexities. While in
+London, I believe there are women who actually lead a party and turn
+out a minister. But they are beautiful, of course. Well--and me? I
+don't think I am so much amiss. With my looks and the position I ought
+to have, surely I might hold my own with the best of them. But what
+good will my looks do me if I am to be a dependent on Aunt Agatha? No.
+Without the estate I am nothing. With it I might be _anything_. This
+lawyer thinks he can win it for me. I wonder if he knows. How clever
+he seems! and how thoughtful! Nothing escapes him, and nothing seems
+to take him by surprise. And yet what a fool I could make of him if I
+chose. I saw it before he had been five minutes in the room. I wonder
+now what he thinks of _me_!--whether he has the presumption to suppose
+I could ever allow him to betray what he cared for me. I believe I
+should rather admire his impudence! It is pleasant to be cared for,
+even by an inferior; and, after all, this Mr. Ryfe is not without his
+good points. He has plenty of talent and energy, and I should think
+audacity. By his own account he sticks at nothing, when he means
+winning, and he certainly means to win for me if he can. I never saw
+anybody so eager, so much in earnest. Perhaps he thinks that if he
+could come to me and say, 'There, Miss Bruce, I have saved your
+birthright for you, and I ask nothing but one kind word in return,' I
+might be disposed to give it, and something more. Well, I don't know.
+Perhaps it would be as good a way as any other of getting into favour.
+One thing is certain. The inheritance I must preserve at every
+sacrifice. Dear me, how late it is! I ought to have been in bed hours
+ago. Puckers, is that you?"
+
+Puckers did not answer, and a faint rustle in the adjoining room,
+which had called forth Miss Bruce's question, ceased the instant she
+spoke aloud.
+
+This young lady was not nervous; far from it; yet her watch seemed
+to tick with extraordinary vigour, and her heart to beat harder than
+common while she listened.
+
+The door of communication between the two rooms was closed. Another
+door in the smaller apartment opened to the passage, but this, she
+remembered, was habitually locked on the inside. It couldn't be
+Puckers, therefore, who thus disturbed her mistress's reflections,
+unless that handmaiden had come down the chimney, or in at the window.
+
+In this smaller room Miss Bruce kept her riding-habits, her
+ball-dresses, her draperies of different fabric, her transparencies of
+all kinds, and her jewels.
+
+The house was very silent--so silent, that in the distant corridors
+were distinctly audible those faint and ghostly footfalls, which
+traverse all large houses after midnight. There were candles burning
+on Maud's toilet-table, but they served rather to show how dismal were
+the shadowy corners of the large, lofty bedroom, than to afford light
+and confidence to its inmate.
+
+She listened intently. Yes; she was sure she heard somebody in the
+next room--a step that moved stealthily about; a noise as of woodwork
+skilfully and cautiously forced open.
+
+One moment she felt frightened. Then her courage came back the higher
+for its interruption. She could have escaped from her own room into
+the passage, easily enough, and so alarmed the house; but when she
+reflected that its fighting garrison consisted only of an infirm old
+butler--for the footman was absent on leave--there seemed little to
+be gained by such a proceeding, if violence or robbery were really
+intended. Besides, she rather scorned the idea of summoning assistance
+till she had ascertained the amount of danger.
+
+So she blew her candle out, crept to the door of the little room, and
+laid her hand noiselessly on its lock.
+
+Softly as she turned it, gently as she pushed the door back on its
+hinges inch by inch, she did not succeed in entering unobserved. The
+light of a shaded lantern flashed over her the instant she crossed the
+threshold, dazzling her eyes indeed, yet not so completely but
+that she made out the figure of a man standing over her shattered
+jewel-box, of which he seemed to have been rifling the contents. Quick
+as thought, she said to herself, "Come, there is only one! If I can
+frighten _him_ more than he frightens _me_, the game is mine."
+
+The man swore certain ghastly oaths in a whisper, and Maud was aware
+of the muzzle of a pistol covering her above the dark lantern.
+
+She wondered why she wasn't frightened, not the least frightened--only
+rather angry and intensely determined to save the jewels, and have it
+out.
+
+She could distinguish a dark figure behind the spot of intense light
+radiating round her own person, and perceived, besides, almost without
+looking, that an entrance had been made by the window, which stood
+wide open to disclose the topmost rounds of a garden-ladder, borrowed
+doubtless from the tool-house, propped against its sill.
+
+What the housebreaker saw was a vision of dazzling beauty in a flood
+of light. A pale, queenly woman, with haughty, delicate face, and
+loops of jet-black hair, falling over robes of white, erect and
+dauntless, fronting his levelled weapon without the slightest sign of
+fear.
+
+He had never set eyes on such a sight as this; no, neither in circus
+nor music-hall, nor gallery of metropolitan theatre at Christmas. For
+a moment he lost his head--for a moment he hesitated.
+
+In that moment Miss Bruce showed herself equal to the occasion.
+
+
+Quick as thought, she made one step to the window, pushed the ladder
+outwards with all her force, and shut down the sash. As it closed, the
+ladder, poising for an instant, fell with a crash on the gravel below.
+
+"Now," she said quietly, "you are trapped and taken. Better make no
+resistance, for the gamekeepers watching below are a rough sort of
+people, and I do not wish to see you ill-treated."
+
+The man was aghast! What could it all mean? Was he awake or dreaming?
+She must be well backed, he said to himself, to assume such a position
+as this; and she looked so beautiful--so beautiful!
+
+The latter consideration was not without its effect on him, even in
+the exercise of his profession. "Gentleman Jim," as his mates affirmed
+in their nervous English, became a fool of the deepest crimson dye
+whenever a woman was concerned, and this woman was in his eyes as an
+angel of light.
+
+Nevertheless, instinctively rather than of intention, he muttered
+hoarsely--
+
+"Drop it, miss, I warn you. One word out loud and I'll shoot, as sure
+as you stand there."
+
+"Shoot away!" she answered with perfect composure; "you will save me
+the trouble of giving an alarm. They expect it, and are waiting for it
+every moment below-stairs. Light those candles, and let us see what
+damage you have done before you return the plunder."
+
+A pair of wax-candles stood on the chimney-piece, and he obeyed
+mechanically, wondering at himself the while. His cunning, however,
+had not entirely deserted him, and he left his pistol lying on the
+table, ready to snatch it away if she tried to take possession. It was
+thus he gauged her confidence, and seeing she scarcely noticed the
+weapon, argued that powerful assistance must be near at hand to
+render this beautiful young lady so arbitrary and so unconcerned.
+His admiration burst out in spite of his discomfiture and critical
+position.
+
+"Well, you _are_ a cool one!" he exclaimed, in accents of mingled
+vexation and approval. "A cool one and a stunner, I'm blessed if you
+ain't! No offence, but I never see your likes yet, not since I was
+born. Come, miss, let's cry quits. You pass me out o' this on the
+quiet. I dessay as I can make shift to get down without the ladder;
+an' I'll leave all these here gimcracks just as I found 'em. Now I've
+seen ye once, I'm blessed if I'd take so much as an ear-drop,
+unless it was in the way of a keepsake. Pass me out, miss, and I'll
+promise--no, I'm blowed if I think as I _can_ promise--never to come
+here no more."
+
+Undisguised admiration--the admiration always acceptable to a woman
+when accompanied with respect--shone in Gentleman Jim's dark eyes. He
+seemed under a spell, and while he acknowledged its strength, had no
+power, nay, had no wish, to resist its influence. When on such jobs as
+these it was his habit to observe an unusual sobriety. He was glad now
+to think of his adherence to that rule. Had he been drunk, he might,
+peradventure, have insulted this divinity. What had come over him? He
+felt almost pleased to know he was in her power, and yet she treated
+him like the dirt beneath her feet.
+
+"No insolence, sir," she said in a commanding voice. "Let me see,
+first of all, that every one of my trinkets is in its place. There,
+that bracelet would have brought you money, those diamonds would have
+been valuable if you could have got them clear off. You must have
+learned your trade very badly to suppose that with such things in the
+house we keep no guard. Come, I am willing to believe that distress
+brought you to this. Listen. You are in my power, and I will show you
+mercy. If I give you five pounds now, on the spot, and let you go,
+will you promise to try and get your bread as an honest man?"
+
+The tears came in his eyes. This woman, then, that looked so like an
+angel, was angel all through. Yet, touched as he felt in his better
+nature, the proletary instinct bade him try once more if her effort to
+get rid of him originated in pity or fear, and he muttered, "Guineas!
+make it guineas, miss, and I'll say 'done.'"
+
+"Not a shilling more, not a farthing," she answered, moving her hand
+as if to put it on the bell-pull. "It cannot matter to me," she added,
+in a tone of the most complete indifference, "but while I am about
+it I think I would rather be the making of an honest man than the
+destruction of a rogue."
+
+Her acting was perfect. She seemed so cold, so impassive, so
+completely mistress of the position, and all the time her heart was
+beating as the gambler's beats, albeit in winning vein, ere he lifts
+the box from off the imprisoned dice--as the lion-tamer's beats when
+he spurns in its very den the monster that could crush him with a
+movement, and that yet he holds in check by an imaginary force,
+irresistible only so long as it is unresisted.
+
+Such situations have a horrible fascination of their own. I have even
+known them prolonged to gratify a morbid thirst for excitement; but
+I think Miss Bruce was chiefly anxious to be released from her
+precarious position, and to get rid of her visitor as soon as she
+could. Even her resolute nerves were beginning to give way, and she
+knew her own powers well enough to mistrust a protracted trial of
+endurance. Feminine fortitude is so apt to break down all at once, and
+Miss Bruce, though a courageous specimen of her sex, was but a woman
+who had wrought herself up for a gallant effort, after all.
+
+She was quite unprepared though for its results. Gentleman Jim
+snatched up his pistol, stowed it away in his breast-pocket, as if
+heartily ashamed of it, brought out from that receptacle a pearl
+necklace and a pair of coral ear-rings, dashed them down on the table
+with an imprecation, and looking ridiculously sheepish, thus delivered
+himself--
+
+"Five pounds, miss! Five devils! If ever I went for to ask five
+shillings of you, or five fardens, may the hands rot off at my wrists
+and the teeth drop out of my head. Strike me blind, now, this moment,
+in this here room, if I'd take so much as a pin's head that you
+valued, not if my life depended on it and there wasn't no other way of
+getting a morsel of bread! Look ye here, miss. No offence; I'm but
+a rough-and-ready chap, and you're a lady. I never come a-nigh one
+afore. Now I know what they mean when they talk of a real lady, and I
+see what it is puts such a spirit into them swells as lives with the
+likes of you. But a rough chap needn't be a blind chap. I come in here
+for to clean out your jewel-box. I tell ye fair, I don't think as I
+meant to have ill-treated you, and now I know as I _couldn't_ have
+done it, but I wanted them gimcracks just the same. If so be as you'd
+like to see me shopped and lagged, you take and ring that there bell,
+and look if I go for to move a foot from this blessed spot. There! If
+so be as you bid me walk out free from that there winder, take and
+count these here now at once, and see there's not one missing and not
+one broke. Say the word, miss--which is it to be?"
+
+The reaction was coming on fast. Maud dared not trust her voice, but
+she pointed to the window with a gesture in which she preserved an
+admirable imitation of confidence and command. Gentleman Jim threw
+up the sash, but paused ere he ventured his plunge into the darkness
+outside.
+
+"Look ye 'ere, miss," he muttered in a hoarse whisper, with one leg
+over the ledge, "if ever you wants a chap to do you a turn, don't ye
+forget there's one inside this waistcoat as will take a leap in a
+halter any day to please ye. You drop a line to 'Gentleman Jim,' at
+the Sunflower, High Holborn. O! I can read, bless ye, and write and
+cipher too. What I says I sticks to. No offence, miss. I wonder will I
+ever see you again?"
+
+He darted back for an instant, much to Maud's dismay, snatched a knot
+of ribbon which had fallen from her dress on the carpet, and was gone.
+
+She heard his leap on the gravel below, and his cautious footsteps
+receding towards the park. Then she passed her hands over her face,
+and looked about her as one who wakes from a dream.
+
+"It was an escape, I suppose," she said, "and I ought to have been
+horribly frightened; yet I never seemed to lose the upper hand with
+him for a moment. How odd that even a man like that should be such a
+fool. No wiser and no cooler than Mr. Ryfe. What is it, I wonder; what
+is it, and how long will it last?"
+
+[Illustration: He muttered in a hoarse whisper, with one leg over the
+ledge.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+A REVERSIONARY INTEREST
+
+
+Although Dorothea could assume on occasions so bright an exterior as I
+have in a previous chapter endeavoured to describe, her normal state
+was undoubtedly that which is best conveyed by the epithet "grimy."
+Old Mr. Bargrave, walking serenely into his office at eleven, and
+meeting this handmaiden on the stairs, used to wonder how so much
+dirt could accumulate on the human countenance, when irrigated, as
+Dorothea's red eyelids too surely testified, by daily tears. Yes, she
+had gone about her work of late with a heavy heart and a moody brow.
+Hers was at best a dull dreary life, but in it there grew a noxious
+weed which she was pleased to cherish for a flower. Well, it was
+withering every day before her eyes, and all the tears she could shed
+were not enough to keep it alive. Ah! when the ship is going down
+under our very feet I don't think it much matters what may be our rank
+and rating on board. The cook's mate in the galley is no less dismayed
+than the admiral in command. Dorothea's light, so to speak, was only
+a tallow-candle, yet to put it out was to leave the poor woman very
+desolate in the dark. So Mr. Bargrave ventured one morning to ask if
+she felt quite well; but the snappish manner in which his inquiries
+were met, as though they masked a load of hidden sarcasm and insult,
+caused the old gentleman to scuffle into his office with unusual
+activity, much disturbed and humiliated, while resolved never so to
+commit himself again.
+
+Into that office we must take the liberty of following him, tenanted
+as it is only by himself and Tom Ryfe.
+
+The latter, extremely well dressed, wears a posy of spring flowers at
+his buttonhole, and betrays in his whole bearing that he is under some
+extraneous influence of an unbusinesslike nature. Bargrave subsides
+into his leather chair with a grunt, shuffles his papers, dips a pen
+in the inkstand, and looks over his spectacles at his nephew.
+
+"Waste of time, waste of capital, Tom," says he, with some irritation.
+"Mind, I washed _my_ hands of it from the first. You've been at work
+now for some months; that's _your_ look-out and it's been kept apart
+and separate from the general business--that's _mine_."
+
+"I've got Tangle's opinion here," answered Tom; "I won't ask you to
+look at it, uncle. He's dead against us. Just what you said six months
+back. There's no getting over that trust-deed, nor through it,
+nor round it, nor any way to the other side of it. I've done _my_
+d----dest, and we're not a bit better off than when we began."
+
+He spoke in a cheerful, almost an exulting tone, quite unlike a man
+worsted in a hard and protracted struggle.
+
+"I'm sorry for the young lady," observed Bargrave; "but I never
+expected anything else. It's a fine estate, and it must go to the male
+heir. She has but a small settlement, Tom, very inadequate to her
+position, as I told poor Mr. Bruce many a time. He used to say
+everything would be set right by his will, and now one of these girls
+is left penniless, and the other with a pittance, a mere pittance,
+brought up, as I make no doubt she was, to believe herself an
+heiress."
+
+"One of them!" exclaimed Tom. "What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that poor thing who was born a few weeks too soon," answered
+Bargrave. "She's totally unprovided for. With regard to Miss Bruce,
+there is a settlement. Two hundred a year, Tom, for life; nothing
+more. I told you so when you undertook the job. And now who's to pay
+your costs?"
+
+"Not you, uncle," answered Tom flippantly, "so don't distress yourself
+on that score."
+
+"I don't, indeed," observed Bargrave, with emphasis.
+
+"You've had your own time to work this, on the understanding, as you
+know, that it was to be worked at your own risk. I haven't interfered;
+it was no affair of mine. But your costs will be heavy, Tom, I can't
+help seeing that. Tangle's opinion don't come so cheap, you see,
+though it's word for word the same as mine. I would have let _you_
+have it for nothing, and anybody else for six and eightpence."
+
+"The costs _will_ be heavy," answered Tom, still radiant. "I should
+say a thou. wouldn't cover the amount. Of course, if we can't get them
+from the estate, they must come out of my pocket."
+
+Bargrave's eyebrows were raised. How the new school went ahead, he
+thought. Here was this nephew of his talking of a thousand pounds with
+an indifference verging on contempt. Well, that was Tom's look-out;
+nevertheless, on such a road it would be wise to establish a
+halting-place, and his tone betrayed more interest than common while
+he asked--
+
+"You won't take it into Chancery, Tom, will you?"
+
+The younger man laid his forefinger to the side of his nose, winked
+thrice with considerable energy, lifted his hat from its peg, adjusted
+his collars in the glass, nodded to his uncle, muttering briefly,
+"Back in two hours," and vanished.
+
+Old Bargrave looked after him with a grim, approving smile. "Boy or
+man," said he aloud, "that chap always knew what he was about. Tom can
+be safely trusted to take care of Number One."
+
+He was wrong, though, on the present occasion. If Mr. Ryfe did indeed
+know what he was about, there could be no excuse for the enterprise on
+which he had embarked. He was selfish. He would not have denied his
+selfishness, and indeed rather prided himself on that quality; yet
+behold him now waging a contest in which a man wastes money, time,
+comfort, and self-respect, that he may wrest from real sorrow and
+discomfiture the shadow of a happiness which he cannot grasp when he
+has reached it. There is much wisdom in the opinion expressed by a
+certain fox concerning grapes hanging out of distance; but it is a
+wisdom seldom acquired till the limbs are too stiff to stretch for an
+effort--till there is scarce a tooth left in the mumbling jaws to be
+set on edge.
+
+Tom Ryfe had allowed his existence to merge itself in another's.
+For months, as devotedly as such natures can worship, he had been
+worshipping his ideal in the person of Miss Bruce. I do not say that
+he was capable of that highest form of adoration which seeks in the
+first place the unlimited sovereignty of its idol, and which, as being
+too good for them, women constantly undervalue; but I do say that he
+esteemed his fair client the most beautiful, the most attractive, and
+the most perfect of her sex, resolving that for him she was the only
+woman in the world, and that in defiance of everything, even her own
+inclinations, he would win her if he could.
+
+In Holborn there is always a hansom to be got at short notice.
+"Grosvenor Crescent," says Tom, shutting the half-doors with a bang,
+and shouting his orders through the little hole in the top. So to
+Grosvenor Crescent he is forwarded accordingly, at the utmost speed
+attainable by a pair of high wheels, a well-bred "screw," and a
+rough-looking driver with a flower in his mouth.
+
+There are several peculiarities, all unreasonable, many ridiculous,
+attending the demeanour of a man in love. Not the least eccentric
+of these are his predatory instincts, his tendency to prowl, his
+preference for walking over other modes of conveyance, and inclination
+to subterfuge of every kind as to his ultimate destination. Tom Ryfe
+was going to Belgrave Square; why should he direct his driver to set
+him down a quarter of a mile off? why overpay the man by a shilling?
+why wear down the soles of an exceedingly thin and elaborate pair of
+boots on the hot, hard pavement without compunction? Why? Because he
+was in love. This was also the reason, no doubt, that he turned red
+and white when he approached the Square railings; that his nose seemed
+to swell, his mouth got dry, his hat felt too tight, and the rest
+of his attire too loose for the occasion; also that he affected an
+unusual interest in the numbers of the doors, as though meditating a
+ceremonious morning call, while all the time his heart was under
+the laburnums in the centre of the Square gardens, at the feet of a
+haughty, handsome girl, dressed in half-mourning, with the prettiest
+black-laced parasol to be found on this side of the Rue Castiglione,
+for love--of which, indeed, as the gift of Mr. Ryfe, it was a type--or
+money, which, not having been yet paid for, it could hardly be said to
+represent.
+
+That heart of his gave a bound when he saw it in her hand as she
+sailed up the broad gravel-walk to let him in. He was almost happy,
+poor fellow, for almost a minute, not distressing himself to observe
+that the colour never deepened a shade on her proud, pale cheek; that
+the shapely hand, which fitted its pass-key to the lock, was firm as
+a dentist's, and the clear, cold voice that greeted him far steadier
+than his own. It is a choice of evils, after all, this favourite game
+of cross-purposes for two. To care more than the adversary entails
+worry and vexation; to care less makes a burden of it, and a bore.
+
+"Thank you so much for coming, Miss Bruce--Maud," said Tom
+passionately. "You never fail, and yet I always dread, somehow, that I
+shall be disappointed."
+
+"I keep my word, Mr. Ryfe," answered the young lady, with perfect
+self-possession; "and I am quite as anxious as you can be, I assure
+you. I want so to know how we are getting on."
+
+He showed less discouragement than might have been expected. Perhaps
+he was used to the _sang-froid_, perhaps he rather liked it, believing
+it, in his ignorance, a distinctive mark of class, not knowing--how
+should he?--that, once excited, these thoroughbred ones are, of all
+racers, the least amenable to restraint.
+
+"I have bad news," he said tenderly. "Miss Bruce, I hardly like to
+tell you that I fear we cannot make our case enough to come into
+court. I took the opinion of the first man we have. I am sorry to
+say he gives it against us. I am not selfish," he added, with real
+emotion, "and I am sorry indeed, for your sake, dearest Miss Bruce."
+
+He meant to have called her "Maud"; but the beautiful lips tightened,
+and the delicate eyebrows came down very straight and stern over the
+deep eyes in which he had learned to read his fate. He would wait for
+a better opportunity, he thought, of using the dear, familiar name.
+
+She took small notice of his trouble.
+
+
+"Has there been no mismanagement?" she asked, almost angrily; "no
+papers lost? no foul play? Have you done your best?"
+
+"I have, indeed," he answered meekly. "After all, is it not for my own
+interest as much as yours? Are they not henceforth to be in common?"
+
+She ignored the question altogether; she seemed to be thinking of
+something else. While they paced up and down a walk screened from the
+Square windows by trees and shrubs already clothed in the tender,
+quivering foliage of spring, she kept silence for several seconds,
+looking straight before her with a sterner expression than he could
+yet remember to have seen on the face he adored. Presently she spoke
+in a hard, determined voice--
+
+"I _am_ disappointed. Yes, Mr. Ryfe, I don't mind owning I am bitterly
+and grievously disappointed. There, I suppose it's not your fault, so
+you needn't look black about it; and I dare say you did the best
+you could afford at the price. Well, I don't want to hurt your
+feelings--your _very_ best, then. And yet it seems very odd--you were
+so confident at first. Of course if the thing's really gone, and
+there's no chance left, it's folly to think about it. But what a
+future to lose--what a future to lose! Mr. Ryfe, I can't stay with
+Aunt Agatha--I can't and I won't! How she could ever find anybody to
+marry her! Mr. Ryfe, speak to me. What had I better do?"
+
+Tom would have given a round sum of money at that moment to recall one
+of the many imaginary conversations held with Miss Bruce, in which
+he had exhausted poetry, sentiment, and forensic ardour for the
+successful pleading of his suit. Now he could find nothing better to
+say than that "he had hoped she was comfortable with Mrs. Stanmore;
+and anybody who didn't make Miss Bruce comfortable must be brutal
+and wicked. But--but--if it was really so--and she could be
+persuaded--why, Miss Bruce must long have known----" And here
+the voice of Tom, the plausible, the prudent, the self-reliant,
+degenerated to a husky whisper, because he felt that his very heart
+was mounting to his throat.
+
+Miss Bruce cut him exceedingly short.
+
+"You remember our bargain," she said bitterly. "If you don't, I can
+remind you of it. Listen, Mr. Ryfe; I am not going to cheat you out of
+your dues. You were to win back my fortune from the next of kin--this
+cousin who seems to have law on his side. You charged yourself with
+the trouble--that counts for nothing, it is in the way of your
+business--with the costs--the expenses--I don't know what you call
+them--these were to be paid out of the estate. It was all plain
+sailing, if we had conquered; and there was an alternative in the
+event of failure. I accepted it. But I tell you, not till every
+stratagem has been tried, every stone turned, every resource
+exhausted, do I acknowledge the defeat, nor--I speak plain English,
+Mr. Ryfe--do I pay the penalty."
+
+He turned very pale. "You did not use this tone when we walked
+together through the snow in the avenue at Ecclesfield. You promised
+of your own accord, you know you did," said poor Tom, trembling all
+over; "and I have got your promise in writing locked up in a tin box
+at home."
+
+She laughed a hard, shrill laugh, not without some real humour in it,
+at his obvious distress.
+
+"Keep it safe in your tin box," said she, "and don't be afraid, when
+the time comes, that I shall throw you over. Ah! what an odd thing
+money is; and how it seems able to do everything!" She was looking
+miles away now, totally unconscious of her companion's presence.
+"To me this five or six thousand a year represents hope, enjoyment,
+position--all that makes life worth having. More, to lose it is to
+lose my freedom, to lose all that makes life endurable!"
+
+"And you _have_ lost it," observed Tom doggedly. He was very brave,
+very high-minded, very chivalrous in any way; but he possessed the
+truly British quality of tenacity, and did not mean to be shaken off
+by any feminine vagaries where once he had taken hold.
+
+"Et je payerais de ma personne," replied Miss Bruce scornfully. "I
+don't suppose you know any French. You must go now, Mr. Ryfe; my
+maid's coming back for me from the bonnet-shop. I can't be trusted,
+you see, over fifty yards of pavement and a crossing by myself. The
+maid is walking with me now behind these lilac-bushes, you know. Her
+name is Ryfe. She is very cross and silent; she wears a well-made
+coat, shiny boots, rather a good hat, and carries a nosegay as big
+as a chimney-sweep's--you can give it me if you like--I dare say you
+bought it on purpose."
+
+How she could twist and turn him at will! three or four playful words
+like these, precious all the more that her general manner was so
+haughty and reserved, caused Tom to forget her pride, her whims, her
+various caprices, her too palpable indifference to himself. He offered
+the flowers with humble gratitude, ignoring resolutely the presumption
+that she would probably throw them away before she reached her own
+door.
+
+"Good-bye, Miss Bruce," said he, bowing reverently over the slim hand
+she vouchsafed him, and "Good-bye," echoed the young lady, adding,
+with another of those hard little laughs that jarred so on Tom's
+nerves, "Come with better news next time, and don't give in while
+there's a chance left; depend upon it the money's better worth having
+than the client. By the bye, I sent you a card for Lady Goldthred's
+this afternoon--only a stupid breakfast--did you forget it?"
+
+"Are you going?" returned Tom, with the clouds clearing from his brow.
+
+"Perhaps we shall, if it's fine," was the reply. "And now I can't wait
+any longer. Don't forget what I told you, and do the best you can."
+
+So Tom Ryfe departed from his garden of Eden with sundry misgivings
+not entirely new to him, that the fruit he took such pains to ripen
+for his own gathering might but be gaudy wax-work after all, or
+painted stone, perhaps, cold, smooth, and beautiful, against which he
+should rasp his teeth in vain.
+
+The well-tutored Puckers, dressed in faded splendour, and holding a
+brown-paper parcel in her hand, was waiting for her young lady at the
+corner of the Square.
+
+While thus engaged she witnessed a bargain, of an unusual nature, made
+apparently under extraordinary pressure of circumstances. A ragged
+boy, established at the crossing, who had indeed rendered himself
+conspicuous by his endeavours to ferry Puckers over dry-shod, was
+accosted by a shabby-genteel and remarkably good-looking man in the
+following vernacular--
+
+"On this minnit, off at six, Buster; two bob an' a bender, and a three
+of eye-water, in?"
+
+"Done for another joey," replied Buster, with the premature acuteness
+of youth foraging for itself in the streets of London.
+
+"Done," repeated the man, pulling a handful of silver from his pocket,
+and assuming the broom at once to enter on his professional labours,
+ere Puckers had recovered from her astonishment, or Buster could
+vanish round the corner in the direction of a neighbouring mews.
+
+Though plying his instrument diligently, the man kept a sharp eye on
+the Square gardens. When Tom Ryfe emerged through the heavy iron gate
+he whispered a deep and horrible curse, but his dark eyes shone and
+his whole face beamed into a ruffianly kind of beauty, when after a
+discreet pause, Miss Bruce followed the young lawyer through the same
+portal. Then the man went to work with his broom harder than ever. Not
+Sir Walter Raleigh spreading his cloak at the feet of his sovereign
+mistress lest they should take a speck of mud could have shown more
+loyalty, more devotion, than did Gentleman Jim sweeping for bare life,
+as Miss Bruce and her maid approached the crossing he had hired for
+the occasion.
+
+Maud recognised him at a glance. Not easily startled or surprised, she
+bade Puckers walk on, while she took a half-crown from her purse and
+put it in the sweeper's hand.
+
+"At least it is an honest trade," said she, looking him fixedly in the
+face.
+
+The man turned pale while he received her bounty.
+
+"It's not that, miss," he stammered. "It's not that--I only wanted to
+get a look of ye. I only wanted just to hear the turn of your voice
+again. No offence, miss, I'll go away now. O! can't ye give a chap a
+job? It's my heart's blood as I'd shed for you, free--and never ask no
+more nor a kind word in return!"
+
+She looked him over from head to foot once more and passed on. In that
+look there was neither surprise, nor indignation, nor scorn, only a
+quaint and somewhat amused curiosity, yet this thief and associate of
+thieves quivered, as if it had been a sun-stroke. When she passed out
+of sight he bit the half-crown till it bent, and hid it away in his
+breast. "I'll never part with ye," said he, "never;" unmindful of poor
+Dorothea, going about her work tearful and forlorn. Gentleman Jim,
+uneducated, besotted, half-brutalised as he was, had yet drunk from
+the cup that poisons equally the basest and noblest of our kind. A
+well-dressed, good-looking young man, walking on the other side of
+the Square, did not fail to witness Tom Ryfe's farewell and Maud's
+interview with the crossing-sweeper. He too looked strangely
+disturbed, pacing up and down an adjoining street, more than once,
+before he could make up his mind to ring a well-known bell. Verily
+Miss Bruce seemed to be one of those ladies whose destiny it is to
+puzzle, worry, and interest every man with whom they come in contact.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+DICK STANMORE
+
+
+She had certainly succeeded in puzzling Dick Stanmore and already
+began to interest him. The worry would surely follow in due time.
+Dick was a fine subject for the scalpel--good-humoured, generous,
+single-hearted, with faultless digestive powers, teeth, and colour to
+correspond, a strong tendency to active exercise, and such a faculty
+of enjoyment as, except in the highest order of intellects, seldom
+lasts a man over thirty.
+
+Like many of his kind, he _said_ he hated London, but lived there very
+contentedly from April to July, nevertheless. He was fresh, just at
+present, from a good scenting season in Leicestershire, followed by a
+sojourn on the Tweed, in which classical river he had improved many
+shining hours, wading waist-deep under a twenty-foot rod, any number
+of yards of line, and a fly of various hues, as gaudy, and but little
+smaller than a cock pheasant. Now he had been a week in town, during
+which period he met Miss Bruce at least once every day. This constant
+intercourse is to be explained in a few words.
+
+Mrs. Stanmore, the Aunt Agatha with whom Maud expressed herself so
+unwilling to reside, was a sister of the late Mr. Bruce. She had
+married a widower with one son, that widower being old Mr. Stanmore,
+defunct, that son being Dick. Mrs. Stanmore, in the enjoyment of
+a large jointure (which rather impoverished her step-son), though
+arbitrary and unpleasant, was a woman of generous instincts, so
+offered Maud a home the moment she learned her niece's double
+bereavement; which home, for many reasons, heiress or no heiress, Miss
+Bruce felt constrained to accept. Thus it came about that she found
+herself walking with Tom Ryfe _en cachette_ in the Square gardens;
+and, leaving them, recognised the gentleman whom she was to meet at
+luncheon in ten minutes, on whose intellect at least, if not his
+heart, she felt pretty sure she had already made an impression.
+
+"I won't show her up," said Dick to his neatest boots, while he
+scraped them at his mother's door, "but I _should_ like to know who
+that bumptious-looking chap is, and what the h----ll she could have to
+say to him in the Square gardens all the same."
+
+Mr. Stanmore's language at the luncheon-table, it is needless to
+say, was far less emphatic than that which relieved his feelings in
+soliloquy; nor was he to-day quite so talkative as usual. His mother
+thought him silent (he always called her "mother," and, to do her
+justice, she could not have loved her own son better, nor scolded
+him oftener, had she possessed one); Miss Bruce voted him stupid and
+sulky. She told him so.
+
+"A merrythought, if you please, and no bread-sauce," said the young
+lady, in her calm, imperious manner. "Don't forget I hate bread-sauce,
+if you mean to come here often to luncheon; and do _say_ something.
+Aunt Agatha can't, no more can I. Recollect we've got a heavy
+afternoon before us."
+
+Aunt Agatha always contradicted. "Not heavier than any other
+breakfast, Maud," said she severely. "You didn't think that tea at the
+Tower heavy last week, nor the ghosts in the mess-room of the Blues.
+Lady Goldthred's an old friend of mine, and it was very kind of her to
+ask us. Besides, Dick's coming down in the barouche."
+
+Maud's face brightened, and be sure, Dick saw it brighten.
+
+"That accounts for it," said she, with the rare smile in her eyes;
+"and he thinks we sha'n't let him smoke, so he sulks beforehand, grim,
+grave, and silent as a ghost. Mr. Stanmore, cheer up. You may smoke
+the whole way down. _I'll_ give you leave."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear," observed Aunt Agatha sternly. "He don't want
+to do anything of the kind. What have you been about, Maud, all
+the morning? I looked for you everywhere to help me with the
+visiting-list."
+
+"Puckers and I took a 'constitutional,'" answered Miss Bruce
+unblushingly. "We wanted to do some shopping." But her dark eyes stole
+towards Dick, and, although his never met them, she felt satisfied he
+had witnessed her interview with Tom Ryfe in the Square gardens.
+
+"I saw you both coming in, Miss Bruce," said Dick, breaking the
+awkward pause which succeeded Maud's mis-statement. "I think Puckers
+wears twice as smart a bonnet as yours. I hope you are not offended."
+
+Again that smile from the dark eyes. Dick felt, and perhaps she meant
+him to feel, that he had lost nothing in her good opinion by ignoring
+even to herself that which she wished to keep unknown.
+
+"I think you've very little taste in bonnets, whatever you may have in
+faces," answered the young lady; "and I think I shall go and put one
+on now that will make you eat your words humbly when I appear in it on
+the lawn at Lady Goldthred's."
+
+"I have no doubt there won't be a dry eye in the place," answered
+Dick, looking after her, as she left the room, with undisguised
+admiration in his honest face--with something warmer and sweeter than
+admiration creeping and gathering about his heart.
+
+So they all went down together in the barouche, Dick sitting with his
+back to the horses, and gazing his fill on the young beauty opposite,
+looking so cool and fair in her fresh summer draperies, so thoroughly
+in keeping with the light and sparkle of everything around--the
+brilliant sunshine, the spring foliage, the varying scenery, even to
+the varnish and glitter of the well-appointed carriage, and the plated
+harness on the horses.
+
+Aunt Agatha conversed but sparingly. She was occupied with the phantom
+pages of her banker's book; with the shortcomings of a new housemaid;
+not a little with the vague sketch of a dress, to be worn at certain
+approaching gaieties, which should embody the majesty of the chaperon
+without entirely resigning all pretensions to youth. But for one
+remark, "that the coachman was driving very badly," I think she
+travelled in stately silence as far as Kew. Not so the other
+occupants of the barouche. Maud, desirous of forgetting much that was
+distasteful to her in the events of the morning, and indeed, in the
+course of her daily life, resolved to accept the tangible advantages
+of the present, nor scrupled to show that she enjoyed fresh air, fine
+weather, and pleasant company. Dick, stimulated by her presence,
+and never disinclined to gaiety of spirit, exerted himself to be
+agreeable, pouring forth a continuous stream of that pleasant nonsense
+which is the only style of conversation endurable in the process of
+riding, driving, or other jerking means of locomotion.
+
+It is only when his suit has prospered that a man feels utterly
+idiotic and moonstruck in the presence of the woman he adores. Why,
+when life is scarce endurable but at her side, he should become a bore
+in her presence, is only another intricacy in the many puzzles that
+constitute the labyrinth of love. So long as he flutters unsinged
+about its flame, the moth is all the happier for the warmth of the
+candle, all the livelier for the inspiration of its rays. Dick
+Stanmore, turning into the Kensington Road, was the insect basking in
+those bright, alluring beams; but Dick Stanmore on the farther side of
+Kew felt more like the same insect when its wings have been already
+shrivelled and its powers of flight destroyed in the temerity of its
+adoration.
+
+Still it was pleasant, very pleasant. She looked so beautiful, she
+smiled so kindly, always with her eyes, sometimes with the perfect,
+high-bred mouth; she entered so gaily into his gossip, his fancies,
+his jokes, allowing him to hold her parasol and arrange her shawls
+with such sweetness and good-humour, that Dick felt quite sorry to
+reach the Portugal laurels and trim lawns of their destination, when
+the drive was over from which he had derived this new and unforeseen
+gratification. Something warned him that, in accordance with that rule
+of compensation which governs all terrestrial matters, these delights
+were too keen to last, and there must surely be annoyance and vexation
+in store to complete the afternoon.
+
+His first twinge originated in the marked admiration called forth by
+Miss Bruce's appearance at the very outset. She had scarcely made
+her salaam to Lady Goldthred, and passed on through billiard-room,
+library, and verandah, to the two dwarfed larches and half-acre of
+mown grass which constitute the wilderness of a suburban villa, ere
+Dick felt conscious that his could be no monopoly of adoration. Free
+trade was at once declared by glances, whispers and inquiries from a
+succession of well-dressed young gentlemen, wise doubtless in their
+own conceit, yet not wanting in that worldly temerity which impels
+fools to rush in where angels fear to tread, and gives the former
+class of beings, in their dealings with that sex which is compounded
+of both, an immeasurable advantage over the latter.
+
+Miss Bruce had not traversed the archery-ground twenty-five feet, from
+target to target, on her way to the refreshment-tent, ere half-a-dozen
+of the household troops, a bachelor baronet, and the richest young
+commoner of his year were presented by her host, at their own earnest
+request. Dick's high spirits went down like the froth in a glass of
+soda-water, and he fell back discouraged, to exchange civilities with
+Lady Goldthred.
+
+That excellent woman, dressed, painted, and wound-up for the occasion,
+was volubly delighted with everybody; and being by no means sure of
+Dick's identity, dashed the more cordiality into her manner, while
+careful not to commit herself by venturing on his name.
+
+"_So_ good of you to come," she fired it at him as she had fired it at
+fifty others, "all this distance from town, and such a hot day, to see
+my poor little place. But isn't it pretty now? And are we not lucky in
+the weather? And weren't you smothered in dust coming down? And you've
+brought _the_ beauty with you too. I declare Sir Moses is positively
+smitten. I'm getting quite jealous. Just look at him now. But he's not
+the only one, that's a comfort."
+
+Dick _did_ look, wondering vaguely why the sunshine should have faded
+all at once. Sir Moses, a little bald personage, in a good-humoured
+fuss, whom no amount of inexperience could have taken for anything but
+the "man of the house," was paying the utmost attention to Miss Bruce,
+bringing her tea, placing a camp-stool for her that she might see the
+archery, and rendering her generally those hospitable services which
+it had been his lot to waste on many less attractive objects during
+that long sunny afternoon.
+
+"Sir Moses is always so kind," answered Dick vaguely, "and nobody's
+breakfasts are so pleasant as yours, Lady Goldthred."
+
+"I'm _too_ glad you think so," answered his hostess, who, like
+a good-hearted woman as she was, took enormous pains with these
+festivities, congratulating herself, when she washed off her rouge,
+and doffed her robes of ceremony at night, that she had got through
+the great penance of her year. "You're always so good-natured. But I
+_do_ think men like to come here. The country air, you know, and
+the scenery, and plenty of pretty people. Now, there's Lord
+Bearwarden--look, he's talking to Miss Bruce, under the cedar--he's
+actually driven over from Windsor, and though he's a way of being
+so fine and _blase_ and all that, he don't look much bored at this
+moment, does he? Twenty thousand a year, they say, and been everywhere
+and done everything. Now, I fancy, he wants to marry, for he's much
+older, you know, than he looks. To hear him talk, you'd think he was
+a hundred, and broken-hearted into the bargain. For my part, I've no
+patience with a melancholy man; but then I'm not a young lady. You
+know him, though, of course?"
+
+Dick's reply, if he made one, was drowned in a burst of brass music
+that deafened people at intervals throughout the afternoon, and Lady
+Goldthred's attention wandered to fresh arrivals, for whom, with fresh
+smiles and untiring energy, she elaborated many more remarks of a
+similar tendency.
+
+Dick Stanmore _did_ know Lord Bearwarden, as every man about London
+knows every other man leading the same profitable life. There were
+many whom he would have preferred as rivals; but thinking he detected
+signs of weariness on Maud's face (it had already come to this, that
+he studied her countenance, and winced to see it smile on any one
+else), he crossed the lawn, that he might fill the place by her side,
+to which he considered himself as well entitled as another.
+
+His progress took some little time, what, with bowing to one lady,
+treading on the dress of another, and parrying the attack of a third
+who wanted him to give her daughter a cup of tea; so that by the time
+Dick reached her Lord Bearwarden had left Miss Bruce to the attentions
+of another guest, more smart than gentlemanlike, in whose appearance
+there was something indefinably out of keeping with the rest. Dick
+started. It was the man with whom he had seen Maud walking before
+luncheon in the Square.
+
+People were pairing for a dance on the lawn, and Mr. Stanmore, wedged
+in by blocks of beauty and mountains of muslin, could neither advance
+nor retreat. It was no fault of his that he overheard Miss Bruce's
+conversation with the stranger.
+
+"_Will_ you dance with me?" said the latter, in a whisper of
+suppressed anger, rather than the tone of loving entreaty with which
+it is customary to urge this pleasant request.
+
+"Impossible!" answered Maud energetically. "I'm engaged to Lord
+Bearwarden--it's the Lancers, and he's only gone to make up the set."
+
+The man ground his teeth and knit his brows.
+
+"You seem to forget," he muttered--"you carry it off with too high a
+hand. I have a right to bid you dance with me. I have a right, if I
+chose, to order you down to the river there and row you back to Putney
+with the tide; and I _will_, I swear, if you provoke me too far."
+
+She seemed to keep her temper with an effort.
+
+"_Do_ be patient," she whispered, glancing round at the bystanders.
+"Surely you can trust me. Hush! here comes Lord Bearwarden."
+
+And taking that nobleman's arm, she walked off with a mournful
+pleading look at her late companion, which poor Dick Stanmore would
+have given worlds to have seen directed to himself.
+
+There was no more pleasure for him now during the rest of the
+entertainment. He did indeed obtain a momentary distraction from his
+resolution to ascertain the name of the person who had so spoilt his
+afternoon. It helped him very little to be told the gentleman was "a
+Mr. Ryfe." Nobody seemed to know any more, and even this information
+he extracted with difficulty from Lady Goldthred, who added, in a tone
+of astonishment--
+
+"Why, you brought him, didn't you?"
+
+Dick was mystified--worse, he was unhappy. For a few minutes he
+wandered about behind the dancers, watching Maud and her partner as
+they threaded the intricacies of those exceedingly puzzling evolutions
+which constitute the Lancer quadrilles. Lord Bearwarden was obviously
+delighted with Maud, and that young lady seemed by no means
+unconscious or careless of her partner's approval. I do not myself
+consider the measure they were engaged in threading as particularly
+conducive to the interchange of sentiment. If my memory serves me
+right, this complicated dance demands as close an attention as whist,
+and affords almost as few opportunities of communicating with a
+partner. Nevertheless, there is a language of the eyes, as of the
+lips; and it was not Lord Bearwarden's fault if his looks were
+misunderstood by their object. All this Dick saw, and seeing, grew
+more and more disgusted with life in general, with Lady Goldthred's
+breakfast in particular. When the dance ended, and Dick
+Stanmore--hovering about his flame, like the poor moth to which I have
+compared him, once singed and eager to be singed again--was hesitating
+as to whether he, too, should not go boldly in and try his chance,
+behold Mr. Ryfe, with an offensive air of appropriation, walks off
+with Miss Bruce arm-in-arm, towards the sequestered path that leads
+to the garden-gate, that leads to the shady lane, that leads to the
+shining river!
+
+It was all labour and sorrow now. People who called this sort of thing
+amusement, thought Dick, would go to purgatory for pastime, and a
+stage farther for diversion. When he broke poor Redwing's back three
+fields from home in the Melton steeplechase he was grieved, annoyed,
+distressed. When he lost that eleven-pounder in the shallows below
+Melrose, because "Aundry," his Scottish henchman, was too drunk to
+keep his legs in a running stream, he was angry, vexed, disgusted; but
+never before, in his whole life of amusement and adventure, had he
+experienced anything like the combination of uncomfortable feelings
+that oppressed him now. He was ashamed of his own weakness, too, all
+the time, which only made matters worse.
+
+"Hang it!" thought Dick, "I don't see why I should punish myself by
+staying here any longer. I'll tell my mother I must be back in London
+to dinner, make my bow, jump into a boat, and scull down to Chelsea.
+So I will. The scull will do me good, and if--if she _has_ gone on the
+water with that snob, why I shall know the worst. What a strange, odd
+girl she is! And O, how I wish she wasn't!"
+
+But it takes time to find a lady, even of Mrs. Stanmore's presence,
+amongst five hundred of her kind jostled up in half-an-acre of ground;
+neither will the present code of good manners, liberal as it is,
+bear a guest out in walking up to his hostess _a bout portant_, to
+interrupt her in an interesting conversation, by bidding her a solemn
+good-bye hours before anybody else has begun to move. Twenty minutes
+at least must have elapsed ere Dick found himself in a dainty
+outrigger with a long pair of sculls, fairly launched on the bosom of
+the Thames--more than time for the corsair, if corsair he should be,
+to have sailed far out of sight with false, consenting Maud in the
+direction of London Bridge.
+
+Dick was no mean waterman. The exercise of a favourite art, combining
+skill with muscular effort, is conducive to peace of mind. A swim, a
+row, a gallop over a country, a fencing-bout or a rattling set-to with
+"the gloves" bring a man to his senses more effectually than whole
+hours of quiescent reflection. Ere the perspiration stood on Dick
+Stanmore's brow, he suspected he had been hasty and unjust; by the
+time he caught his second wind, and had got fairly into swing, he was
+in charity with all the world, reflecting, not without toleration and
+self-excuse, that he had been an ass.
+
+So he sculled on, like a jolly young waterman, making capital way with
+the tide, and calculating that if the fugitive pair should have done
+anything so improbable as to take the water in company, he must have
+overhauled, or at least sighted them, ere now.
+
+His spirits rose. He wondered why he should have been so desponding an
+hour ago. He had made excuses for himself--he began to make them for
+Maud, nay, he was fast returning to his allegiance, the allegiance of
+a day, thrown off in five minutes, when he sustained another damper,
+such as the total reversal of his outrigger and his own immersion,
+head uppermost, in the Thames, could not have surpassed.
+
+At a bend of the river near Putney he came suddenly on one of those
+lovely little retreats which fringe its banks--a red-brick house, a
+pretty flower-garden, a trim lawn, shaded by weeping-willows, kissing
+the water's edge. On that lawn, under those weeping-willows, he
+descried the graceful, pliant figure, the raven hair, the imperious
+gestures that had made such havoc with his heart, and muttering the
+dear name, never before coupled with a curse, he knew for the first
+time, by the pain, how fondly he already loved this wild, heedless,
+heartless girl, who had come to live in his mother's house. Swinging
+steadily along in mid-stream, he must have been too far off, he
+thought, for her to recognise his features; yet why should she have
+taken refuge in the house with such haste, at an open window, through
+which a pair of legs clad in trousers denoted the presence of some
+male companion? For a moment he turned sick and faint, as he resigned
+himself to the torturing truth. This Mr. Ryfe, then, had been as good
+as his word, and she, his own proud, refined, beautiful idol, had
+committed the enormity of accompanying that imperious admirer down
+here. What could be the secret of such a man's influence over such a
+girl? Whatever it was, she must be Dick's idol no longer. And he would
+have loved her so dearly!--so dearly!
+
+There were tears in the eyes of this jolly young waterman as he pulled
+on. These things hurt, you see, while the heart is fresh and honest,
+and has been hitherto untouched. Those should expect rubbers who play
+at bowls; if people pull their own chestnuts out of the fire they
+must compound for burnt fingers; and when you wager a living, loving,
+trustful heart against an organ of wax, gutta-percha, or Aberdeen
+granite, don't be surprised if you get the worst of the game all
+through.
+
+He had quite given her up by the time he arrived at Chelsea, and
+had settled in his own mind that henceforward there must be no more
+sentiment, no more sunshine, no more romance. He had dreamt his dream.
+Well for him it was so soon over. _Semel insanivimus omnes_. Fellows
+had all been fools once, but no woman should ever make a fool of him
+again! No woman ever _could_. He should never see another like _her_!
+
+Perhaps this was the reason he walked half-a-mile out of his homeward
+way, through Belgrave Square, to haunt the street in which she lived,
+looking wistfully into those gardens whence he had seen her emerge
+that very day with her mysterious companion--gazing with plaintive
+interest on the bell-handle and door-scraper of his mother's
+house--vaguely pondering how he could ever bear to enter that house
+again--and going through the whole series of those imaginary throes,
+which are indeed real sufferings with people who have been foolish
+enough to exchange the dignity and reality of existence for a dream.
+
+What he expected I am at a loss to explain; but although, while pacing
+up and down the street, he vowed every turn should be the last, he
+had completed his nineteenth, and was on the eve of commencing his
+twentieth, when Mrs. Stanmore's carriage rolled up to the door,
+stopping with a jerk, to discharge itself of that lady and Maud,
+looking cool, fresh, and unrumpled as when they started. The revulsion
+of feeling was almost too much for Dick. By instinct, rather than with
+intention, he came forward to help them out, so confused in his ideas
+that he failed to remark how entirely his rapid retreat from the
+breakfast had been overlooked. Mrs. Stanmore seemed never to have
+missed him. Maud greeted him with a merry laugh, denoting more of
+good-humour and satisfaction than should have been compatible with
+keen interest in his movements or justifiable pique at his desertion.
+
+"Why, here you are!" she exclaimed gaily. "Actually home before us,
+like a dog that one takes out walking to try and lose. Poor thing! did
+it run all the way under the carriage with its tongue out? and wasn't
+it choked with dust, and isn't it tired and thirsty? and won't it come
+in and have some tea?"
+
+What could Dick say or do? He followed her up-stairs to the back
+drawing-room, meek and submissive as the dog to which she had likened
+him, waiting for her there with a dry mouth and a beating heart while
+she went to "take off her things"; and when she reappeared smiling and
+beautiful, able only to propound the following ridiculous question
+with a gasp--
+
+"Didn't you go on the water then, after all?"
+
+"On the water!" she repeated. "Not I. Nothing half so pleasant,
+I assure you. I wish we had! for anything so slow as the whole
+performance on dry land, I never yet experienced. I danced five
+dances, none of them nice ones--I hate dancing on turf--and I had a
+warm-water ice and some jelly that tasted of bees'-wax. What became
+of you? We couldn't find you anywhere to get the carriage. However, I
+asked Aunt Agatha to come away directly somebody made a move, because
+I was cross and tired and bored with the whole business. I think
+she liked it much better than I did; but here she is to answer for
+herself."
+
+Dick had no dinner that day, yet what a pleasant cigar it was he
+smoked as he coasted Belgrave Square once more in the sweet spring
+evening under the gas-lamps! He had been very unhappy in the
+afternoon, but that was all over now. Anxiety, suspicion, jealousy,
+and the worst ingredient of the latter, a sense of humiliation, had
+made wild work with his spirits, his temper, and indeed his appetite;
+yet twenty minutes in a dusky back drawing-room, a cup of weak tea
+and a slice of inferior bread-and-butter, were enough to restore
+self-respect, peace of mind, and vigour of digestion. He could not
+recall one word that bore an unusually favourable meaning, one look
+that might not have been directed to a brother or an intimate friend,
+and still he felt buoyed up with hope, restored to happiness. The
+reaction had come on, and he was more in love with her than ever.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+NINA
+
+
+It might have spared Mr. Stanmore a deal of unnecessary discomfort had
+the owner of those legs which he saw through the open window at Putney
+thought fit to show the rest of his person to voyagers on the river.
+Dick would then have recognised an old college friend, would have
+landed to greet him with the old college heartiness, and in the
+natural course of events would have satisfied himself that his
+suspicions of Maud were unfounded and absurd.
+
+Simon Perkins is not a romantic name, nor did the exterior of Simon
+Perkins, as seen either within or without the Putney cottage,
+correspond with that which fiction assigns to a hero of romance. His
+frame was small and slight, his complexion pale, his hair weak and
+thin, his manner diffident, awkward, almost ungainly, but that its
+thorough courtesy and good-nature were so obvious and unaffected. In
+general society people passed him over as a shy, harmless, unmeaning
+little man; but those who really knew him affirmed that his courage
+was not to be damped, nor his nerve shaken, by extremity of
+danger--that he was always ready with succour for the needy, with
+sympathy for the sorrowful. In short, as they tersely put it, that
+"his heart was in the right place."
+
+For half-a-dozen terms at Oxford he and Dick had been inseparable.
+Their intimacy, none the less close for dissimilarity of tastes and
+pursuits, since Perkins was a reading man, and Dick a "fast" one, had
+been still more firmly soldered by a long vacation spent together in
+Norway, and a "thrilling tableau," as Dick called it, to which their
+expedition gave rise. Had Simon Perkins's heart been no stouter than
+his slender person, his companion must have died a damp death, and
+this story would never have been told.
+
+The young men were in one of the most picturesque parts of that wild
+and beautiful country, created, as it would seem, for the express
+gratification of the fisherman and the landscape painter; Simon
+Perkins, an artist in his very soul, wholly engrossed by the sketch of
+a mountain, Dick Stanmore equally absorbed in fishing a pool. Scarce
+twenty yards apart, neither was conscious, for the moment, of the
+other's existence; Simon, indeed, being in spirit some seven thousand
+feet above the level of the sea, putting more ochre into the virgin
+snow that crested his topmost peak, and Dick deftly dropping a fly,
+the size of a pen-wiper, over the nose of a fifteen-pounder that had
+already once risen to the gaudy lure.
+
+Poising himself, like a Mercury, on a rock in mid-stream, the angler
+had just thrown eighteen yards of line lightly as a silken thread
+to an inch, when his foot slipped, and a loud splash, bringing the
+painter, like Icarus, out of the clouds with a run, startled his
+attention to the place where his companion was not. In another second
+Simon had his grip on Dick's collar, and both men were struggling for
+dear life in the pool. Stanmore could swim, of course, but it takes
+a good swimmer to hold his own in fisherman's boots, encumbered,
+moreover, with sundry paraphernalia of his art. Simon was a very mild
+performer in the water, but he had coolness, presence of mind, and
+inflexible tenacity of purpose. To these qualities the friends owed it
+that they ever reached the shore alive. It was a very near thing,
+and when they found their legs and looked into each other's faces,
+gasping, dripping, spouting water from ears, nose, and mouth, Dick
+gathered breath to exclaim, "You trump! I should have been drowned,
+to a moral!" Whereat the other, choking, coughing, and sputtering,
+answered faintly, "You old muff! I believe we were never out of our
+depth the whole time!"
+
+Perkins did not go up for his degree, and the men lost sight of one
+another in a few years, cherishing, indeed, a kindly remembrance each
+of his friend, yet taking little pains to refresh that remembrance by
+renewed intercourse. How many intimacies, how many attachments outlast
+a twelvemonth's break? There are certain things people go on caring
+for, but I fear they are more intimately connected with self in daily
+life than either the romance of friendship or the intermittent fever
+of love. The enjoyment of luxury, the pursuit of money-making, seem to
+lose none of their zest with advancing years, and perhaps to these we
+may add the taste for art.
+
+Now to Simon Perkins art was as the very air he breathed. The greatest
+painter was, in his eyes, the greatest man that lived. When he left
+Oxford, he devoted himself to the profession of painting with
+such success as rendered him independent, besides enabling him to
+contribute largely to the comfort of two maiden aunts with whom he
+lived.
+
+Not without hard work; far from it. There is no pursuit, perhaps,
+which demands such constant and unremitting exertion from its
+votaries. The ideal to which he strains can never be reached, for his
+very successes keep building it yet higher, and a painter is so far
+like a baby his whole life through that he is always learning to
+_see_.
+
+Simon was still learning to see on the afternoon Dick Stanmore sculled
+by his cottage windows--studying the effect of a declining sun on the
+opposite elms, not entirely averting his looks from that graceful
+girl, who ran into the house to the oarsman's discomfiture, and
+missing her more than might have been expected when she vanished
+up-stairs. Was not the sun still shining bright on that graceful
+feathery foliage? He did not quite think it was.
+
+Presently there came to the door a rustle of draperies, and an elderly
+lady, not remarkable for beauty, entered the room. Taking no notice
+of Simon, she proceeded to arrange small articles of furniture with a
+restless manner that denoted anxiety of mind. At last, stopping short
+in the act of dusting a china tea-cup, with a very clean cambric
+handkerchief, she observed, in a faltering voice, "Simon, dear, I feel
+so nervous I know I shall never get through with it. Where's your Aunt
+Jemima?" Even while she spoke there appeared at the door another lady,
+somewhat more elderly, and even less remarkable for beauty, who seated
+herself bolt upright in an elbow-chair without delay, and, looking
+austerely round, observed in an impressive voice, "Susannah, fetch me
+my spectacles; Simon, shut the door."
+
+Of all governments there must be a head. It was obvious that in this
+deliberative assembly Miss Jemima Perkins assumed the lead. Both
+commands being promptly obeyed, she pulled her spectacles from their
+case and put them on, as symbols of authority, forthwith.
+
+"I want your advice, Simon," said this strong-minded old lady, in a
+hard, clear voice. "I dare say I sha'n't act upon it, but I want it
+all the same. I've no secrets from either of you; but as the head of
+the family I don't mean to shirk responsibility, and my opinion is,
+she must go. Susannah, no weakness. My dear, you ought to be ashamed
+of yourself. Nina, run up-stairs again, we don't want you just now."
+
+This to a pretty head with raven hair, that popped saucily in, and as
+saucily withdrew.
+
+Simon looked wistfully after the pretty head, and relapsed into a
+day-dream. Was he thinking what a picture it would make, or what a
+reality it was? His aunt's voice recalled him to facts.
+
+"Simon," she repeated, "my opinion is she must go."
+
+"Go!" said her nephew vacantly, "what do you mean,
+aunt?--Go?--where?--who?"
+
+"Why that girl we're all so fond of," replied Miss Jemima, growing
+every moment more severe. "Mr. Algernon used to come here twice every
+quarter, usedn't he? Never missed the day, did he? and paid his money
+as regular as clockwork. Susannah, how long is it since he's been to
+see us?"
+
+Susannah sobbed.
+
+"That's no answer," pursued the inflexible speaker. "Tomorrow week it
+will be ten months since we have seen him; and tomorrow week it will
+be ten months since we've had a scrap of his handwriting. Is that girl
+to remain here, dependent on the bounty of a struggling artist and two
+old maids? My opinion is that she ought to go out and gain her own
+livelihood; my feeling is that--that--I couldn't bear to think of the
+poor dear in any home but this."
+
+Here the old lady, whose assumption of extreme fortitude had
+been gradually leading to the inevitable catastrophe, broke down
+altogether, while Susannah, giving rein to her emotions, lifted up her
+voice and wept.
+
+"You knew who she was all along, Jemima," said the latter, gulping
+sadly at her syllables: "you know you did; and it's cruel to harrow up
+our feelings like this."
+
+Simon said nothing, but on his homely features gathered an expression
+of resolve, through which there gleamed the bright radiance of hope.
+
+Miss Perkins wiped her eyes and then her spectacles. Resuming her
+dignity, she proceeded in a calmer voice--
+
+"I will not conceal from you, Susannah, nor from you, Simon, that I
+have had my suspicions for several years. Those suspicions became a
+certainty some time ago. There can be no doubt now of the relationship
+existing between our Nina and the Mr. Algernon, as he called himself,
+who took such an interest in the child's welfare. When I saw Mr.
+Bruce's death in the paper, I knew that our pet had lost her father.
+What was I to do? When I consented to take charge of the child twenty
+years ago--and a sweet pretty babe she was--I perfectly understood
+there must be a mystery connected with her birth. As head of the
+family, I imparted my suspicions to neither of you, and I kept my
+conjectures and my disapproval to myself. This seemed only fair to
+my correspondent, only fair to the child. When I learned Mr. Bruce's
+death, it came upon me like a shot, that he was the Mr. Algernon who
+used to visit here, and who furnished such liberal means for the
+support and education of that girl up-stairs--Susannah, I cannot make
+myself understood if you will persist in blowing your nose!--Since Mr.
+Bruce's death no Mr. Algernon has darkened our doors, no remittances
+have come to hand with the usual signature. Simon, my impression is
+that no provision whatever has been made for the poor thing, and that
+our Nina is--is utterly destitute and friendless."
+
+Here Miss Susannah gave a little scream, whereat her sister glared
+austerely, and resumed the spectacles she had taken off to dry.
+
+"Not friendless, aunt," exclaimed Simon, in a great heat and fuss;
+"never friendless so long as we are all above ground. I am perfectly
+willing to--stay, Aunt Jemima, I beg your pardon, what do you think
+ought to be done?"
+
+The old lady smoothed her dress, looking round with placid dignity.
+
+"I will first hear what you two have to propose. Susannah, leave off
+crying this minute, and tell us what you think of this--this _very_
+embarrassing position."
+
+It is possible that but for the formidable adjective Susannah might
+have originated, and indeed expressed some idea of her own; but to
+confront a position described by her sister as "embarrassing" was
+quite beyond her powers, and she could only repeat feebly, "I'll give
+her half my money--I'll give her half my money. We can't drive her
+out into the cold." This with sobs and tears, and a hand pressed
+helplessly to her side.
+
+Miss Jemima turned from her with contempt, declaring, in an audible
+whisper, she had "more than half a mind to send the foolish thing to
+bed;" then looked severely at her nephew.
+
+"This girl," said he, "has become a member of our family, just as
+if she were a born relation. It seems to me there is no question of
+feeling or sentiment or prejudice in the matter. It is a mere affair
+of duty. We are bound to treat Nina Algernon exactly as if she were a
+Perkins."
+
+His aunt took his face in both her hands, squeezed it hard, and
+flattened his nose with a grim kiss. After this feat she looked more
+severe than ever.
+
+"I believe you are right," she said; "I believe this arrangement is a
+special duty sent on purpose for us to fulfil. I had made up my mind
+on the subject before I spoke to you, but it is satisfactory to
+know that you both think as I do. When we give way to our feelings,
+Susannah, we are sure to be injudicious, sometimes even unjust. But
+duty is a never-failing guide, and--O! my dears, to part with that
+darling would be to take the very heart out of my breast; and, Simon,
+I'm so glad you agree with me; and, Susannah, dear, if I spoke harshly
+just now, it was for your own good; and--and--I'll just step upstairs
+into the storeroom, and look out some of the house-linen that wants
+mending. I had rather you didn't disturb me. I shall be down again to
+tea."
+
+So the old lady marched out firmly enough, but sister and nephew both
+knew right well that kindly tears, long kept back from a sense of
+dignity, would drop on the half-worn house-linen, and that in the
+solitude of her storeroom she would give vent to those womanly
+feelings she deemed it incumbent on her, as head of the family, to
+restrain before the rest.
+
+Miss Susannah entertained no such scruples. Inflicting on her nephew a
+very tearful embrace, she sobbed out incoherent congratulations on the
+decision at which her eldest sister had arrived.
+
+"But we mustn't let the dear girl find it out," said this sensitive,
+weak-minded, but generous-hearted lady. "We should make no sort of
+difference in our treatment of her, of course, but we must take great
+care not to let anything betray us in our manner. I am not good at
+concealment, I know, but I will undertake that she never suspects
+anything from mine."
+
+The fallacy of this assertion was so transparent that Simon could not
+forbear a smile.
+
+"Better make a clean breast of it at once," said he. "Directly there's
+a mystery in a family, Aunt Susannah, you may be sure there can be
+no union. It need not be put in a way to hurt her feelings. On the
+contrary, Aunt Jemima might impress on her that we count on her
+assistance to keep the pot boiling. Why, she's saving us pounds and
+pounds at this moment. Where should I get such a model for my Fairy
+Queen, I should like to know? It ought to be a great picture--a great
+picture, Aunt Susannah, if I can only work it out. And where should I
+be if she left me in the lurch? No--no; we won't forget the bundle of
+sticks. I'll to the maul-stick, and you and Aunt Jemima shall be as
+cross as two sticks; and as for Nina, with her bright eyes, and her
+pleasant voice, and her merry ways, I don't know what sort of a stick
+we should make of her." "A fiddlestick, I should think," said that
+young lady, entering the room from the garden window, having heard, it
+is to be hoped, no more than Simon's closing sentence. "What are
+you two doing here in the dark? It's past eight--tea's ready--Aunt
+Jemima's down--and everything's getting cold."
+
+Candles were lit in the next room, and the tea-things laid. Following
+the ladies, and watching with a painter's eye the lights and shades as
+they fell on Nina's graceful beauty, Simon Perkins felt, not for the
+first time, that if she were to leave the cottage, she would carry
+away with her all that made it a dear and happy home, depriving him at
+once of past, present, and future, taking from him the very cunning of
+his handicraft, and, worse still, the inspiration of his art.
+
+It was no wonder she had wound herself round the hearts of that quiet
+little family in the retired Putney villa. As like Maud Bruce in form
+and feature, as though she had been her twin sister, Nina Algernon
+possessed the same pale, delicate features, the same graceful form,
+the same dark, pleading eyes and glossy raven hair; but Mr. Bruce's
+elder and unacknowledged daughter had this advantage over the younger,
+that about her there was a sweetness, a freshness, a quiet gaiety, and
+a _bonhomie_ such as spring only from kindliness of disposition and
+pure unselfishness of heart. Had she been an ugly girl, though she
+might have lacked admirers, she could not have long remained without a
+lover. Being as handsome as Maud, she seemed calculated to rivet more
+attachments, while she made almost as many conquests. Between the
+sisters there was a similitude and a difference. One was a costly
+artificial flower, the other a real garden rose.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE USUAL DIFFICULTY
+
+
+Maud's instincts, when, soon after her father's death, she felt a
+strong disinclination to live with Aunt Agatha, had not played her
+false. As inmates of the same house, the two ladies hit it off badly
+enough. Perhaps because in a certain imperiousness and hardness of
+character they were somewhat alike, their differences, though only on
+rare occasions culminating in a battle royal, smouldered perpetually,
+breaking out, more often than was seemly, in brisk skirmish and rapid
+passage of arms.
+
+Miss Bruce's education during the lifetime of her parents had been
+little calculated to fit her for the position of a dependent, and with
+all her misgivings, which, indeed, vexed her sadly, she could not yet
+quite divest herself of an idea that her inheritance had not wholly
+passed away. Under any circumstances she resolved before long to go at
+the head of an establishment of her own, so that she should assume her
+proper position, which she often told herself, with _her_ attractions
+and _her_ opportunities was a mere question of will.
+
+Then, like a band of iron tightening round her heart, would come the
+thought of her promise to Tom Ryfe, the bitter regret for her
+own weakness, her own overstrained notions of honour, as she now
+considered them, in committing that promise to writing. She felt
+as people feel in a dream, when, step which way they will, an
+insurmountable obstacle seems to arise, arresting their progress, and
+hemming them in by turns on every side.
+
+
+It was not in the best of humours that, a few days after Lady
+Goldthred's party, Maud descended to the luncheon-table fresh from an
+hour's consideration of her grievances, and of the false position
+in which she was placed. Mrs. Stanmore, too, had just sent back a
+misfitting costume to the dressmaker for the third time; so each lady
+being, as it were, primed and loaded, the lightest spark would suffice
+to produce explosion.
+
+While the servants remained it was necessary to keep the peace,
+but cutlets, mashed potatoes, and a ration of sherry having been
+distributed, the room was cleared, and a fair field remained for
+immediate action. Dick's train was late from Newmarket, and he was
+well out of it.
+
+To do her justice, Maud had meant to intrench herself in sullen
+silence. She saw the attack coming, and prepared to remain on the
+defensive. Aunt Agatha began quietly enough--to borrow a metaphor from
+the noble game of chess, she advanced a pawn.
+
+"I don't know how I'm to take you to Countess Monaco's to-night, Maud;
+that stupid woman has disappointed me again, and I've got literally
+nothing to go in. Besides, there will be such a crush we shall never
+get away in time for my cousin's ball. I promised her I'd be early if
+I could."
+
+Now Miss Bruce knew, I suppose because he had told her, that Lord
+Bearwarden would be at Countess Monaco's reception, but would not be
+at the said ball. It is possible Mrs. Stanmore may have been aware
+of this also, and that her pawn simply represented what ladies call
+"aggravation."
+
+Maud took it at once with her knight. "I don't the least care about
+Countess Monaco's, aunt," said she. "Dick's not going because he's not
+asked, and I'm engaged to dance the first dance with him at the other
+place. It's a family bear-fight, I conclude; but though I hate the
+kind of thing, Dick is sure to take care of _me_."
+
+Check for Aunt Agatha, whom this off-hand speech displeased for more
+reasons than one. It galled her to be reminded that her step-son had
+received no invitation from the smart foreign countess; while that
+Maud should thus appropriate him, calling him "Dick" twice in a
+breath, was more than she could endure. So she moved her king out of
+position.
+
+"Talking of balls," said she, in a cold, civil voice, "reminds me that
+you danced three times the night before last with Lord Bearwarden, and
+twice with Dick, besides going down with him to supper. I don't like
+finding fault, Maud, but I have a duty to perform, and I speak to you
+as if you were my own child."
+
+"How can you be sure of that?" retorted incorrigible Maud. "You never
+had one."
+
+This was a sore point, as Miss Bruce well knew. Aunt Agatha's line of
+battle was sadly broken through, and her pieces huddled together on
+the board. She began to lose her head, and her temper with it.
+
+"You speak in a very unbecoming tone, Miss Bruce," said she angrily.
+"You force me into saying things I would much rather keep to myself. I
+don't wish to remind you of your position in this house."
+
+It was now Maud's turn to advance her strongest pieces--castles,
+rooks, and all.
+
+"You remind me of it often enough," she replied, with her haughtiest
+air--an air which, notwithstanding its assumption of superiority,
+certainly made her look her best; "if not in words, at least in
+manner, twenty times a day. You think I don't see it, Mrs. Stanmore,
+or that I don't mind it, because I've too much pride to resent it as
+it deserves. I am indebted to you, certainly, for a great deal--the
+roof that shelters me, and the food I eat. I owe you as much as your
+carriage-horses, and a little less than your servants, for I do my
+work and get no wages. Never fear but I shall pay up everything some
+day; perhaps very soon. You had better get your bill made out, so as
+to send it in on the morning of my departure. I wish the time had come
+to settle it now."
+
+Mrs. Stanmore was aghast. Very angry, no doubt, but yet more
+surprised, and perhaps the least thing cowed. Her cap, her laces,
+the lockets round her neck, the very hair of her head, vibrated with
+excitement. Maud, cool, pale, impassable, was sure to win at last,
+waiting, like the superior chess-player, for that final mistake which
+gives an adversary checkmate.
+
+
+It came almost immediately. Mrs. Stanmore set down her sherry, because
+the hand that held her glass shook so she could not raise it to her
+lips. "You are rude and impertinent," said she; "and if you really
+think so wickedly, the sooner you leave this house the better, though
+you _are_ my brother's child; and--and--Maud, I don't mean it. But how
+can you say such things? I never expected to be spoken to like this."
+
+Then the elder lady began to cry, and the game was over. Before the
+second course came in a reconciliation took place. Maud presented a
+pale, cold cheek to be kissed by her aunt, and it was agreed that
+they should go to Countess Monaco's for the harmless purpose, as they
+expressed it, of "just walking through the rooms," leaving thereafter
+as soon as practicable for the ball; and Mrs. Stanmore, who was
+good-hearted if bad-tempered, trusted "dear Maud would think no more
+of what she had said in a moment of irritation, but that they would be
+better friends than ever after their little tiff."
+
+None the less, though, for this decisive victory did the young lady
+cherish her determination to settle in life without delay. Lord
+Bearwarden had paid her considerable attention on the few occasions
+they had met. True, he was not what the world calls a "marrying man";
+but the world, in arranging its romances, usually leaves out that very
+chapter--the chapter of accidents--on which the whole plot revolves.
+And why should there not be a Lady Bearwarden of the present as of the
+past? To land so heavy a fish would be a signal triumph. Well, it was
+at least possible, if not probable. This should be a matter for future
+consideration, and must depend greatly on circumstances.
+
+In the meantime, Dick Stanmore would marry her tomorrow. Of that she
+felt sure. Why? O, because she did! I believe women seldom deceive
+themselves in such matters. Dick had never told her he cared for her;
+after all, she had not known him many weeks, yet a certain deference
+and softness of tone, a diffidence and even awkwardness of manner,
+increasing painfully when they were alone, betrayed that he was her
+slave. And she liked Dick, too, very much, as a woman could hardly
+help liking that frank and kindly spirit. She even thought she could
+love him if it was necessary, or at any rate make him a good wife, as
+wives go. He would live in London, of course, give up hunting and all
+that. It really might do very well. Yes, she would think seriously
+about Dick Stanmore, and make up her mind without more delay.
+
+But how to get rid of Tom Ryfe? Ignore it as she might--strive as she
+would to forget it in excitement, dissipation, and schemes for the
+future, none the less was the chain always round her neck. Even while
+it ceased to gall her she was yet sensible of its weight. So long as
+she owed him money, so long as he held her written promise to repay
+that debt with her hand, so long was she debarred all chances for the
+future, so long was she tied down to a fate she could not contemplate
+without a shudder. To be a "Mrs. Ryfe" when on the cards lay such a
+prize as the Bearwarden coronet, when she need only put out her hand
+and take Dick Stanmore, with his brown locks, his broad shoulders, his
+genial, generous heart, for better or worse! It was unbearable. And
+then to think that she could ever have fancied she liked the man;
+that, even now, she had to give him clandestine meetings, to see him
+at unseasonable hours, as if she loved him dearly, and was prepared
+to make every sacrifice for his sake! Her pride revolted, her whole
+spirit rose in arms at the reflection. She knew he cared for her too;
+cared for her in his own way very dearly; and "c'est ce que c'est
+d'etre femme," I fear she hated him all the more! So long as a woman
+knows nothing about him, her suspicion that a man likes her is nine
+points out of ten in his favour; but directly she has fathomed his
+intellect and probed his heart; squeezed the orange, so to speak, and
+resolved to throw away the rind, in proportion to the constancy of his
+attachment will be her weariness of its duration; and from weariness
+in such matters there is but one short step to hatred and disgust.
+
+Tom Ryfe must be paid his money. To this conclusion, at least, Maud's
+reflections never failed to lead. Without such initiatory proceeding
+it was useless to think of demanding the return of that written
+promise. But how to raise the funds? After much wavering and
+hesitation, Miss Bruce resolved at last to pawn her diamonds. So
+dearly do women love their trinkets, that I believe, though he never
+knew it, Tom Ryfe was more than once within an ace of gaining the
+prize he longed for, simply from Maud's disinclination to part with
+her jewels. How little he dreamt that the very packet which had helped
+to cement into intimacy his first acquaintance with her should prove
+the means of dashing his cherished hopes to the ground, and raising
+yet another obstacle to shut him out from his lovely client!
+
+While Maud is meditating in the back drawing-room, and Aunt Agatha,
+having removed the traces of emotion from her eyes and nose, is trying
+on a bonnet up-stairs, Dick Stanmore has shaken off the dust of a
+railway journey, in his lodgings, dressed himself from top to toe,
+and is driving his phaeton merrily along Piccadilly, on his way to
+Belgrave Square. How his heart leaps as he turns the well-known
+corner! how it beats as he skips into his step-mother's house!--how
+it stops when he reaches the door of that back drawing-room, where,
+knowing the ways of the establishment, he hopes to find his treasure
+alone! The colour returns to his face. There she is in her usual
+place, her usual attitude, languid, graceful, indolent, yet glad to
+see him nevertheless.
+
+"I'm in luck," said Dick, blushing like a school-boy. "My train was
+late, and I was so afraid you'd be gone out before I could get here.
+It seems so long since I've seen you. And where have you been, and
+how's my mother, and what have you been doing?"
+
+"What have _you_ been doing, rather?" repeats the young lady, giving
+him a cool and beautiful hand that he keeps in his own as long as he
+dares. "Three days at Newmarket are long enough to make 'a man or
+a mouse,' as you call it, of a greater capitalist than you, Mr.
+Stanmore. Seriously, I hope you've had a good week."
+
+"Only lost a pony on the whole meeting," answered Dick triumphantly.
+"And even that was a 'fluke,' because Bearwarden's Bacchante filly was
+left at the post."
+
+"I congratulate you," said Maud, with laughter gleaming in her dark
+eyes. "I suppose you consider that tantamount to winning. Was Lord
+Bearwarden much disappointed, and did he swear horribly?"
+
+"Bearwarden never swears," replied Dick. "He only told the starter he
+wondered he could get them off at all; for it must have put him out
+sadly to see all the boys laughing at him. I've no doubt one or two
+were fined in the very next race, for the official didn't seem to like
+it."
+
+Maud pondered. "Is Lord Bearwarden very good-tempered?" said she.
+
+"Well, he never breaks out," answered Dick. "But why do you want to
+know?"
+
+"Because you and he are such friends," said this artful young lady.
+'"Because I can't make him out--because I don't care whether he is or
+not! And now, Mr. Stanmore, though you've not been to see your mamma
+yet, you've behaved like a good boy, considering; so I've got a little
+treat in store for you. Will you drive me out in your phaeton?"
+
+"Will a duck swim?" exclaimed Dick, delighted beyond measure, with but
+the one drawback to supreme happiness, of a wish that his off-horse
+had been more than twice in harness.
+
+"Now before I go to put my bonnet on," continued Miss Bruce,
+threatening him with her finger like a child, "you must promise to do
+exactly what you're told--to drive very slow and very carefully, and
+to set me down the instant I'm tired of you, because Aunt Agatha won't
+hear of our going for more than half-an-hour or so, and it will take
+some diplomacy to arrange even that."
+
+Then she tripped up-stairs, leaving the door open, so that Dick,
+looking at himself in the glass, wondering, honest fellow, what she
+could see in him to like, and thinking what a lucky dog he was,
+overheard the following conversation at the threshold of his
+step-mother's chamber on the floor above.
+
+A light tap--a smothered "Who's there?" and the silvery tones of the
+voice he loved--
+
+"Aunt Agatha--may Mr. Stanmore drive me to Rose and Brilliant's in his
+phaeton?"
+
+Something that sounded very like "Certainly not."
+
+"But please, Aunt Agatha," pleaded the voice, "I've got a headache,
+and an open carriage will do me so much good, and you can call for me
+afterwards, whenever you like, to do our shopping. I sha'n't be five
+minutes putting my bonnet on, and the wind's changed, and it's such a
+beautiful day!"
+
+Here a door opened, whispers were exchanged, it closed with a bang, a
+bell rang, an organ in the street struck up "The Marseillaise," and
+ere it had played eight bars, Maud was on the stairs again looking, to
+Dick's admiring eyes, like an angel in a bonnet coming straight down
+from heaven.
+
+In after-days he often thought of that happy drive--of the pale
+beautiful face, in its transparent little bonnet, turned confidingly
+upwards to his own, of the winning ways, the playfully imperious
+gestures, the sweet caressing voice--of the hope thrilling to his very
+heart that perhaps for him might be reserved the blissful lot of thus
+journeying with her by his side through life.
+
+As they passed into the Park at Albert Gate, two of his young
+companions nodded and took off their hats, elbowing each other, as who
+should say, "I suppose that's a case!" How proud Dick felt, and how
+happy! The quarter of a mile that brought him to Apsley House seemed
+a direct road to Paradise; the man who is always watering the
+rhododendrons shone like a glorified being, and the soft west wind
+fanned his temples like an air from heaven. How pleasant she was, how
+quaint, how satirical, how amusing! Not the least frightened when that
+off-horse shied in Piccadilly--not the least impatient (neither, be
+sure, was he) when a block of carriages kept them stationary for ten
+minutes in the narrow gorge of Bond Street. Long before they stopped
+at Rose and Brilliant's it was all over with Dick.
+
+"You're not to get out," said Maud, while they drew up to the door of
+that fashionable jeweller. "Yes, you may, just to keep my dress off
+the wheel, but you mustn't come in. I said I'd a treat for you; now
+tell me without prevarication--will you have sleeve-links with a
+cipher or a monogram? Speak up--in one word--quick!"
+
+Sleeve-links! and from _her_! A present to be valued and cherished
+more than life itself. He could hardly believe his senses. Far too
+bewildered to solve the knotty point of cipher _versus_ monogram, he
+muttered some incoherent syllables, and only began to recover when he
+had stared blankly for a good five minutes at the off-horse's ears,
+from the driving-seat of his phaeton.
+
+It took a long time apparently to pick out those sleeve-links. Perhaps
+the choicest assortment of such articles remained in the back shop,
+for thither Miss Bruce retired; and it is possible she may have
+appealed to the proprietor's taste in her selection, since she was
+closeted with that gentleman in earnest conference for three-quarters
+of an hour. Dick had almost got tired of waiting, when she emerged at
+last to thank him for her drive, and to present him, as she affirmed,
+with the results of her protracted shopping.
+
+"There is a design on them already," said she, slipping a little box
+of card into his hand with her pleasantest smile, "so I could not have
+your initials engraved, but I dare say you won't lose them all the
+same."
+
+Dick rather thought _not_, hiding the welcome keepsake away in his
+waistcoat-pocket, as near his heart as the construction of that
+garment would permit; but his day's happiness was over now, for Mrs.
+Stanmore had arrived in her brougham to take his companion away for
+the rest of the afternoon.
+
+That night, before he went to bed, I think he was fool enough to kiss
+the insensible sleeve-links more than once. They were indeed choice
+little articles of workmanship, bearing on their surface two quaint
+and fanciful designs, representing a brace of Cupids in difficulty,
+the one singed by his own torch, the other crying over a broken bow.
+
+At the same hour Maud was enclosing an order for a large sum of money
+in a letter which seemed to cost her much study and vexation. Even
+Miss Bruce found some difficulty in explaining to a lover that she
+valued truth, honour, and fidelity at so many hundred pounds, while
+she begged to forward him a cheque for the amount in lieu of the goods
+marked "damaged and returned."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE FAIRY QUEEN
+
+
+I have said that Simon Perkins was a painter to the tips of his
+fingers. Just as a carpenter cannot help looking at a piece of wood
+with a professional glance it is impossible to mistake--a glance that
+seems to embrace at once its length, depth, thickness, toughness,
+and general capabilities--so a painter views every object in nature,
+animate or inanimate, as a subject for imitation and study of his art.
+The heavens are not too high, the sea too deep, nor the desert too
+wide to afford him a lesson; and the human countenance, with its
+endless variety of feature and expression, is a book he never wearies
+of learning by heart. When his professional interest in beauty is
+enhanced by warmer feelings, it may be imagined that vanity could
+require no fuller tribute of admiration than the worship of one whose
+special gift it is to decide on the symmetry of outward form.
+
+As a painter, Simon Perkins approved of Nina Algernon--as a man he
+loved her. Lest his position should not prove sufficiently fatal, she
+had become of late practically identified with his art, almost as
+completely as she was mixed up with his every-day life. For many
+months, perhaps even for years, the germ of a great work had taken
+root in his imagination. Slowly, almost painfully, that germ developed
+itself, passing through several stages, sketch upon sketch, till it
+came to maturity at last in the composition of a large picture on
+which he was now employed.
+
+The subject afforded ample scope for liberty of fancy in form and
+grouping--for the indulgence of a gorgeous taste in colouring and
+costume. It represented Thomas the Rhymer in Fairyland, at the moment
+when its glamour is falling from his eyes, when its magic lustre is
+dying out on all that glittering pageantry and the elfin is fading to
+a gnome. The handsome wizard turns from a crowd of phantom shapes,
+half lovely, half grotesque--for their change is even now in
+progress--to look wistfully and appealingly on the queen.
+
+There is a pained expression in his comely features, of hurt
+affection, and trust betrayed, yet not without a ray of pride and
+triumph, that, come what might to the others, she is still unchanged.
+Around him the fairies are shedding their glory as trees in autumn
+shed their leaves. Here a sweet laughing face surmounts the hideous
+body of an imp, there the bright scales of an unearthly armour shrivel
+to rottenness and dust. The dazzling robes are turning blank and
+colourless, the emerald rays waning to a pale, sad light, the flashing
+diadem is dulled and dim. Yet on the fairy queen there lowers no
+shadow of change, there threaten no symptoms of decay.
+
+Bathed in the halo of a true though hapless love, she is still
+the same as when he first saw her all those seven long years ago,
+glistening in immortal charms, and knelt to her for the queen of
+heaven, where she rode--"under the linden tree."
+
+It is obvious that on her countenance, besides the stamp of exceeding
+beauty, there must appear sorrow, self-reproach, fortitude, majesty,
+and undying tenderness. All these the painter thought he read in Nina
+Algernon's girlish face.
+
+So she sat to him dutifully enough for a model of his fairy queen, and
+if she wearied at times, as I think she must, comforted herself with
+the remembrance that in this way she helped the family who gave her
+bread.
+
+For the convenience of sitters, Simon Perkins had his painting-room in
+Berners Street: thither it was his custom to resort in the morning,
+by penny steamer or threepenny omnibus, and there he spent many happy
+hours working hard with palette and brush. Not the least golden seemed
+those in which Nina accompanied him to sit patiently while he studied,
+and drew her, line by line, feature by feature. The expeditions to and
+fro were delightful, the labour was pleasure, the day was gone far too
+soon.
+
+A morning could not but be fine, when, emerging from an omnibus at
+Albert Gate, Simon walked by the side of his model through Hyde Park
+on their way to Berners Street; but about this period one morning
+seemed even finer than common, because that Nina, taking his arm as
+they crossed Rotten Row, thought fit to confide to him an interview of
+the day before with Aunt Jemima, in which she extorted from that dear
+old lady with some difficulty the fact of her own friendless position
+in the world.
+
+"And I don't mind it a bit," continued the girl, catching her voice
+like a child, as was her habit when excited, "for I'm sure you're all
+so kind to me that I'd much rather not have any other friends. And I
+don't want to be independent, and I'll never leave you, so long as
+you'll keep me. And O, Simon, isn't it good of your aunts, and you
+too, to have taken care of me ever since I was quite a little thing?
+For I'm no relation, you know--and how can I ever do enough for you? I
+can't. It's impossible. And you don't want me to, if I could!"
+
+Notwithstanding the playful manner which was part of Nina's self,
+there were tears of real feeling in her eyes, and I doubt if Simon's
+were quite dry while he answered--
+
+"You belong to us just as much as if you _were_ a relation, Nina. My
+aunts have said so ever since I can remember, and as for me, why you
+used to ride on my foot when you were in short frocks! What a little
+romp it was! Always troublesome, and always will be--and that's
+why we're so fond of you." He spoke lightly, but his voice shook
+nevertheless.
+
+"So you ought to be," she answered. "For you know how much I love you
+all."
+
+"What, even stern Aunt Jemima?" said this blundering young man,
+clumsily beating about the bush, and thus scaring the bird quite as
+much as if he had thrust his hand boldly into the nest.
+
+"Aunt Jemima best of all," replied Nina saucily, "because she's the
+eldest, and tries to keep me in order, but she can't."
+
+"And which of us next best, Nina?" continued he, turning away with
+extraordinary interest in a mowing-machine.
+
+"Aunt Susannah, of course." This very demurely, while tightening her
+pretty lips to keep back a laugh.
+
+"Then I come last," he observed gently; but there was something in the
+tone that made her glance sharply in his face.
+
+She pressed his arm. "You dear old simple Simon," said she kindly.
+"Surely you must know me by this time. I love you very dearly, just as
+if you were my brother. Brother, indeed! I don't think if I'd a father
+I could be much fonder of him than I am of you."
+
+What a bright morning it had been five minutes ago, and now the sky
+seemed clouded all at once. Simon even thought the statue of Achilles
+looked more grim and ghostly than usual, lowering there in his naked
+bronze.
+
+She had wounded him very deeply, that pretty unconscious archer. These
+random shafts for which no interposing shield makes ready are sure
+to find the joints in our harness. A tough hard nature such as
+constitutes the true fighter only presses more doggedly to the front,
+but gentler spirits are fain to turn aside out of the battle, and go
+home to die. There came a dimness before Simon's eyes, and a ringing
+in his ears. He scarcely heard his companion, while she asked--
+
+"Who are those men bowing? Do you know them? They must take me for
+somebody else."
+
+"Those men bowing" were two no less important characters than Lord
+Bearwarden and Tom Ryfe, the latter in the act of selling the former
+a horse. Such transactions, for some mysterious reason, always take
+place in the morning, and whatever arguments may be adduced against
+a too enthusiastic worship of the noble animal, at least it promotes
+early rising.
+
+Tom Ryfe was one of those men rarely seen in the saddle or on the box,
+but who, nevertheless, always seem to have a horse to dispose of,
+whatever be the kind required. Hack, hunter, pony, phaeton-horse, he
+was either possessor of the very animal you wanted, or could suit you
+with it at twenty-four hours' notice; yet if you met him by accident
+riding in the Park, he was sure to tell you he had been mounted by
+a friend; if you saw him driving a team--and few could handle four
+horses in a crowded thoroughfare with more neatness and precision--you
+might safely wager it was from the box of another man's coach.
+
+He was supposed to be a very fine rider over a country, and there were
+vague traditions of his having gone exceedingly well through great
+runs on special occasions; but these exploits had obviously lost
+nothing of their interest in the process of narration, and were indeed
+enhanced by that obscurity which increases the magnitude of most
+things, in the moral as in the material world.
+
+Mr. Ryfe knew all the sporting men about London, but not their wives.
+He was at home on the Downs and the Heath, in the pavilion at Lord's,
+and behind the traps of the Red House. He dined pretty frequently at
+the barracks of the household troops, welcome to the genial spirits
+of his entertainers, chiefly for those qualities with which they
+themselves credited him; and he called Bearwarden "My lord," wherefore
+that nobleman thought him a snob, and would perhaps have considered
+him a still greater if he had _not_. The horse in question showed
+good points and fine action. Mr. Ryfe walked, trotted, cantered,
+and finally reined him up at the rails on which Lord Bearwarden was
+leaning.
+
+"Rather a flat-catcher, Tom," said that nobleman, between the whiffs
+of a cigar. "Too much action for a hunter, and too little body. He
+wouldn't carry my weight if the ground was deep, though he's not a bad
+goer, I'll admit."
+
+"Exactly what I said at first, my lord," answered Tom, slipping the
+reins through his fingers, and letting the horse reach over the iron
+bar against his chest to crop the tufts of grass beneath, an attitude
+in which his fine shoulders and liberty of frame showed to great
+advantage. "I never thought he was a fourteen-stone horse, and I never
+told you so."
+
+"And I never told _you_ I rode fourteen stone, did I?" replied Lord
+Bearwarden, who was a little touchy on that score. "Thirteen five at
+the outside, and not so much as that after deer-stalking in Scotland.
+He's clean thoroughbred, isn't he?"
+
+The purchaser was biting, and Tom understood his business as if he had
+been brought up to it.
+
+"Clean," he answered, passing his leg over the horse's neck, and
+sliding to the ground, thus leaving his saddle empty for the other.
+"But he's thrown away on a heavy man. His place is carrying thirteen
+stone over high Leicestershire. Nothing could touch him there amongst
+the hills. Jumping's a vulgar accomplishment. Plenty of them can jump
+if one dare ride them, but he's really an extraordinary fencer. Such a
+mouth, too, and such a _gentleman_! Why he's the pleasantest hack in
+London. You like a nice hack, my lord. Get up and feel him. It's like
+riding a bird."
+
+So Lord Bearwarden jumped on, and altered the stirrups, and crammed
+his hat down, ere he rode the horse to and fro, trying him in all
+his paces, and probably falling in love with him forthwith, for he
+returned with a brightened eye and higher colour to Tom Ryfe on the
+footway.
+
+It was at this juncture both gentlemen started and took their hats off
+to the lady who walked some fifty paces off, arm-in-arm with Simon
+Perkins, the painter.
+
+Their salute was not returned. The lady, indeed, to whom it was
+addressed seemed to hurry on all the faster with her companion. It was
+remarkable, and both remarked it, that neither made any observation on
+this lack of courtesy, but finished their bargain without apparently
+half so much interest in sale or purchase as they felt five minutes
+ago.
+
+"You'll dine with us, Tom, on the 11th?" said Bearwarden, when they
+parted opposite Knightsbridge Barracks, but he was obviously thinking
+of something else.
+
+"On the 11th," repeated Tom--"delighted, my lord--at eight o'clock,
+I suppose," and turned his horse's head soberly towards Piccadilly,
+proceeding at a walk, as one who revolved certain reflections, not of
+the most agreeable, in his mind. A dinner at the barracks was usually
+rather an event with Mr. Ryfe, but on the present occasion he forgot
+all about it before he had gone a hundred yards.
+
+Lord Bearwarden, rejecting the temptation of luncheon in the
+mess-room, ran up-stairs to his own quarters to think--of course he
+smoked at the same time.
+
+This nobleman was one of the many of his kind who, to their credit be
+it said, are not spoiled by sailing down the stream with the wind in
+their favour. He had been "a good fellow" at Eton, he remained "a good
+fellow" in the regiment. With general society he was not perhaps quite
+so popular. People said he "required knowing"; and for those who
+didn't choose to take the trouble of knowing him he was a little
+reserved; with men, even a little rough. His manner was of the world,
+worldly, and gave the idea of complete heartlessness and _savoir
+faire_; yet under this seemingly impervious covering lurked a womanly
+romance of temperament, a womanly tenderness of heart, than which
+nothing would have made him so angry as to be accused of possessing.
+His habits were manly and simple, his chief ambition was to
+distinguish himself as a soldier, and so far as he could find
+opportunity he had seen service with credit on the staff. A keen
+sportsman, he could ride and shoot as well as his neighbours, and
+this is saying no little amongst the young officers of the Household
+Brigade.
+
+Anything but a "ladies' man," there was yet something about
+Bearwarden, irrespective of his income and his coronet, that seemed
+to interest women of all temperaments and characters. They would turn
+away from far handsomer, better dressed, and more amusing people to
+attract his notice when he entered a room, and the more enterprising
+would even make fierce love to him on further acquaintance,
+particularly after they discovered what up-hill work it was. Do they
+appreciate a difficulty the greater trouble it requires to surmount,
+or do they enjoy a scrape the more, that they have to squeeze
+themselves into it by main force? I wonder if the sea-nymphs love
+their Tritons because those zoophytes must necessarily be so cold! It
+is doubtless against the hard impenetrable rock that the sea-waves
+dash themselves again and again. Bearwarden responded but faintly to
+the boldest advances. There must be a reason for it, said the fair
+assailants. Curiosity grew into interest, and, flavoured with a dash
+of pique, formed one of those messes with which, in stimulating their
+vanity, women fancy they satisfy their hunger of the heart.
+
+Bearwarden was a man with a history; of this they were quite sure, and
+herein they were less mistaken than people generally find themselves
+who jump to conclusions. Yes, Bearwarden had a history, and a sad one,
+so far as the principal actor was concerned. Indeed he dared not
+think much about it even yet, and drove it--for he was no weak, silly
+sentimentalist--by sheer force of will out of his mind. Indeed, if it
+had not wholly changed his _real_ self, it had encrusted him with that
+hardness and roughness of exterior which he turned instinctively to
+the world. The same thing had happened to him that happens to most of
+us at one time or another. Just as the hunting man, sooner or later,
+is pretty sure to be laid up with a broken collar-bone, so in the
+career of life must be encountered that inevitable disaster which
+results in a wounded spirit and a sore heart. The collar-bone, we all
+know, is a six weeks' job; but injuries of a tenderer nature take
+far longer to heal. Nevertheless, the cure of these, too, is but a
+question of time, though, to carry on the metaphor, I think in
+either case the hapless rider loses some of the zest and dash which
+distinguished his earlier performances, previous to discomfiture.
+"Only a woman's hair," wrote Dean Swift on a certain packet hidden
+away in his desk. And thus a very dark page in Lord Bearwarden's
+history might have been headed "Only a woman's falsehood." Not much to
+make a fuss about, surely; but he was kind, generous, of a peculiarly
+trustful disposition, and it punished him very sharply, though he
+tried hard to bear his sorrow like a man. It was the usual business.
+He had attached himself to a lady of somewhat lower social standing
+than his own, of rather questionable antecedents, and whom the world
+accepted to a certain extent on sufferance, as it were, and under
+protest, yet welcomed her cordially enough, nevertheless. His
+relations abused her, his friends warned him against her; of course
+he loved her very dearly, all the more that he had to sacrifice many
+interests for her sake, and so resolved to make her his wife.
+
+For reasons of her own she stipulated that he should leave his
+regiment, and even in this, though he would rather have lost an arm,
+he yielded to her wish.
+
+The letter to his colonel, in which he requested permission to send in
+his papers, actually lay sealed on the table, when he received a note
+in a well-known hand that taught him the new lesson he had never
+expected to learn. The writer besought his forgiveness, deploring her
+own heartlessness the while, and proceeded to inform him that there
+was a Somebody else in the field to whom she was solemnly promised
+(just as she had been to him), and with whom she was about to unite
+her Lot--capital L. She never could be happy, of course, but it was
+her destiny: to fight against it was useless, and she trusted Lord B.
+would forget her, etc., etc. All this in well-chosen language, and
+written with an exceedingly good pen.
+
+It was lucky his letter to the colonel had not been sent. In such
+sorrows as these a soldier learns how his regiment is his real home,
+how his comrades are the staunchest, the least obtrusive, and the
+sincerest of friends.
+
+Patting his charger's neck at the very next field-day, Bearwarden
+told himself there was much to live for still; that it would be
+unsoldierlike, unmanly, childish, to neglect duty, to wince from
+pleasure, to turn his back on all the world had to offer, only because
+a woman followed her nature and changed her mind.
+
+So he bore it very well, and those who knew him best wondered he cared
+so little: and all the while he never heard a strain of music, nor
+felt a ray of sunshine, nor looked on beauty of any kind whatever,
+without that gnawing cruel pain at his heart. Thus the years passed
+on, and the women of his family declared that Bearwarden was a
+confirmed old bachelor.
+
+When he met Miss Bruce at Lady Goldthred's, no doubt he admired her
+beauty and approved of her manner, but it was neither beauty nor
+manner, nor could he have explained what it was, that caused the
+pulses within him to stir, as they stirred long ago--that brought back
+a certain flavour of the old draught he had quaffed so eagerly, to
+find it so bitter at the dregs. Another meeting with Maud, a dance
+or two, a whisper on a crowded staircase, and Lord Bearwarden told
+himself that the deep wound had healed at last; that the grass was
+growing fresh and fair over the grave of a dead love; that for him
+too, as for others, there might still be an interest in the chances of
+the great game.
+
+Surely the blind restored to sight is more grateful, more joyous, more
+triumphant, than he who, born in darkness, finds himself overwhelmed
+and dazzled with the glare of his new gift!
+
+Some men are so strangely constituted that they like a woman all the
+better for "snubbing" them. Lord Bearwarden had never felt so grave
+an interest in Miss Bruce as when he entered the barracks under the
+impression she had cut him dead, without the slightest pretext or
+excuse.
+
+Not so Tom Ryfe. In that gentleman's mind mingled the several
+disagreeable sensations of surprise, anger, jealousy, and disgust. Of
+these he chewed the bitter cud while he rode home, wondering with whom
+Miss Bruce could thus dare to parade herself in public, maddened at
+the open rebellion inferred by so ignoring his presence and his love,
+vowing to revenge himself without delay by tightening the curb and
+making her feel, to her cost, the hold he possessed over her person
+and her actions. By the time he reached his uncle's house, he had
+made up his mind to demand an explanation, to come to a final
+understanding, to assert his authority, and to avenge his pride. He
+turned pale to see Maud's monogram on the envelope of a letter that
+had arrived during his absence; paler still, when from this letter a
+thin slip of stamped paper fluttered to the floor--white to the very
+lips while he read the sharp, decisive, cruel lines that accounted for
+its presence in the missive, and that bade him relinquish at a word
+all the hope and happiness of his life. Without unbuttoning his coat,
+without removing the hat from his head, or the gloves from his hands,
+he sat fiercely down, and wrote his answer.
+
+"You think to get rid of me, Miss Bruce, as you would get rid of an
+unsuitable servant, by giving him his wages and bidding him to go
+about his business. You imagine that the debt between us is such as a
+sum of money can at once wipe out: that because you have been able to
+raise this money (and how you did so I think I have a right to ask)
+our business connection ceases, and the _lover_, inconvenient, no
+doubt, from his priority of claim, must go to the wall directly the
+_lawyer_ has been paid his bill. You never were more mistaken in your
+life. Have you forgotten a certain promise I hold of yours, written in
+your own hand, signed with your own signature, furnished, as itself
+attests, of your own free will? and do you think I am a likely man to
+forego such an advantage? You might have had me for a friend--how dear
+a friend I cannot bear to tell you now. If you persist in making me an
+enemy, you have but yourself to blame. I am not given to threaten; and
+you know that I can generally fulfil what I promise. I give you fair
+warning then: so surely as you try, in the faintest item, to elude
+your bargain, so surely will I cross your path, and spoil your game,
+and show you up before the world. Mine you are, and mine you shall be.
+If of free will, happily; if not, then to your misery and my own. But,
+mark me, always _mine_!"
+
+"The wisest clerks are not the wisest men." It is a bad plan ever to
+drive a woman into a corner; and with all his knowledge of law, I
+think Mr. Ryfe could hardly have written a more ill-advised and
+injudicious letter than the above to Miss Bruce.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+IN THE SCALES
+
+
+It was a declaration of war. Of all women in the world--and this is
+saying a great deal--Maud was perhaps the least disposed to accept
+anything like usurpation, or assumption of undue authority, especially
+on the part of one in whose character she had detected an element of
+weakness. Tom Ryfe, notwithstanding his capabilities, was a fool, like
+most others, where his feelings were touched, and proved it by the
+injudicious means he used to attain the end he so desired.
+
+Locked in her own room, she read his letter over and over again, with
+a bitter curl of her lip, that denoted hatred, scorn, even contempt.
+When a man has been unfortunate enough to excite the last of these
+amiable feelings, he should lose no time in decamping, for the game is
+wholly and irretrievably lost. Mr. Ryfe would have felt this, could
+he have seen the gestures of the woman he loved, while she tore his
+letter into shreds--could he have marked the carriage of her haughty
+head, the compression of her sweet, resolute lips, the fierce energy
+of her white, cruel hands. Maud paced the floor for some half-dozen
+turns, opened the window, arranged the bottles on her toilet-table,
+the flowers on her chimney-piece, even took a good long look at
+herself in the glass, and sat down to think.
+
+For weeks she had been revolving in her mind the necessity of breaking
+with Tom Ryfe, the policy of securing position and freedom by an early
+marriage. That odious letter decided her; and now it only remained to
+make her choice. There are women--and these, though sometimes the
+most fascinating, by no means the most trustworthy of their sex--who
+possess over mankind a mesmeric influence, almost akin to witchcraft.
+Without themselves feeling deeply, perhaps for the very reason that
+they do _not_, they are capable of exercising a magic sway over those
+with whom they come in contact; and while they attract more admirers
+than they know what to do with, are seldom very fortunate in their
+selection, or happy in their eventual lot. Miss Bruce was one of these
+witches, far more mischievous than the old conventional hags we used
+to burn under the sapient government of our first Stuart, and she knew
+a deal better than any old woman who ever mounted a broom-stick the
+credulity of her victims, the dangerous power of her spells. These she
+had lately been using freely. It was time to turn their exercise to
+good account.
+
+"Mr. Stanmore _would_, in a moment," thought Maud, "if I only gave him
+the slightest hint. And I like him. Yes, I like him very much indeed.
+Poor Dick! What a fool one can make a man look, to be sure, when he's
+in love, as people call it! Aunt Agatha wouldn't much fancy it, I
+suppose; not that I should care two pins about that. And Dick's very
+easy to manage--too easy, I think. He seems as if I couldn't make him
+angry. I made him _sorry_, though, the other day, poor fellow! but
+that's not half such fun. Now Lord Bearwarden _has_ got a temper, I'm
+sure. I wonder, if we were to quarrel, which would give in first. I
+don't think I should. I declare it would be rather nice to try. He's
+good-looking--that's to say, good-looking for a _man_. It's an ugly
+animal at best. And they tell me the Den is such a pretty place in the
+autumn! And twenty thousand a year! I don't care so much about the
+money part of it. Of course one must have money; but Selina St. Croix
+assured me that they called him The Impenetrable; and there wasn't a
+girl in London he ever danced with twice. _Wasn't_ there? He danced
+with me three times in two hours; but I didn't say so. I suppose
+people _would_ open their eyes. I've a great mind--a _very_ great
+mind. But then, there's Dick. He'd be horribly bored, poor fellow! And
+the worst of it is, he wouldn't _say_ anything; but I know exactly how
+he'd look, and I should feel I was a least! What a bother it all is!
+But something must be done. I can't go on with this sort of life; I
+can't stand Aunt Agatha much longer. There she goes, calling on the
+stairs again! Why can't she send my maid up, if she wants me?"
+
+But Miss Bruce ran down willingly enough when her aunt informed her,
+from the first floor, that she must make haste, and Dick was in the
+large drawing-room.
+
+She found mother and son, as they called themselves, buried in a
+litter of cards, envelopes, papers of every description referring to
+"Peerage," "Court Guide," visiting-list--all such aids to memory--the
+charts, as it were, of that voyage which begins in the middle of
+April, and ends with the last week in July. As usual on great
+undertakings, from the opening of a campaign to the issuing of
+invitations for a ball, too much had been left to the last moment;
+there was a great deal to do, and little time to do it.
+
+"We can't get on without _you_, Miss Bruce," said Dick, with rising
+colour and averted eyes, that denoted how much less efficient an
+auxiliary he would prove since she had come into the room. "My mother
+has mislaid the old visiting-list, and the new one only goes down to
+T: so that the U's, and the V's, and W's will be all left out. Think
+how we shall be hated in London next week! To be sure it's what my
+mother calls 'small and early' like young potatoes, and I hear there
+are three hundred cards sent out already."
+
+"You'll only hinder us, Mr. Stanmore," said Maud. "Hadn't you better
+go away again?" but observing Dick's face fall, the smiling eyes
+added, plainly as words could speak, "if you _can_!" She looked pale
+though, and unhappy, he thought. Of course he felt fonder of her than
+ever.
+
+"Hinder you!" he repeated. "Why, I'm the mainstay of the whole
+performance. Don't I bring you eight-and-twenty dancing men? all at
+once if you wish it, in a body, like soldiers."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear," interrupted Aunt Agatha. "The staircase will be
+crowded enough as it is."
+
+Maud laughed.
+
+"But are they _real_ dancing men?" she asked, "not 'dummies,'
+'duffers,'--what do you call them? people who only stand against the
+wall and look idiotic. They're no use unless they work regularly
+through, as if it was a match or a boat-race. I don't call it dancing
+to hover about, and be always wanting to go down to tea or supper, and
+to haunt one and look cross if one behaves with common propriety--like
+some people I know."
+
+Dick accepted the imputation.
+
+"_I'm_ not a dancing man," said he, "though my eight-and-twenty
+friends are. I cannot see the pleasure of being hustled about in a hot
+room with a girl I never saw before in my life, and never want to see
+again,--who is looking beyond me all the time, watching the door for
+another fellow who never comes."
+
+"Then why on earth do you go?" asked Miss Bruce simply.
+
+"_You_ know why," he answered in a low voice, without raising his eyes
+to her face.
+
+"O! I dare say," replied Maud; but though it was couched in a tone of
+banter, the smile that accompanied this pertinent remark seemed to
+afford Dick unbounded satisfaction.
+
+Mrs. Stanmore looked up from her writing-table.
+
+"I can't get on while you two are jabbering in that corner." (She had
+not heard a word either of them said.) "I'll take my visiting-list
+up-stairs. You can put these cards in envelopes and direct them. It
+will help me a little, but you're neither of you much use."
+
+She gathered her materials together, and was leaving the room. Dick's
+heart began beating to some purpose; but his step-mother stopped at
+the door and addressed her niece.
+
+"By the bye, Maud, I'd almost forgotten. I'm going to Rose and
+Brilliant's. Fetch me your diamonds, and I'll take them to be cleaned.
+I can see the people myself, you know, and make sure of your having
+them back in time for the ball."
+
+The girl turned white. Dick saw it, though his mother did not. He
+observed, too, that she gasped as if she was trying to form words
+which would not come.
+
+"I am not going to wear them." She got it out at last with difficulty.
+
+"Not wear them! nonsense!" was the reply. "Bring them down, my dear,
+at any rate, and let me look them over. If you don't want it, you
+might lend me the collar--it would go very well with my mauve satin."
+
+Maud's eyes turned here and there as if to look for help, and it was
+Dick's nature to throw himself in the gap.
+
+"I'll take them, mother," said he. "My phaeton's at the door now.
+You've plenty to do, and it will save you a long drive. Besides, I can
+blow the people up more effectually than a lady."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that," answered Mrs. Stanmore. "However, it's a
+sensible plan enough. Maud can fetch them down for you, and you may
+come back to dinner if you're disengaged."
+
+So speaking, Mrs. Stanmore sailed off, leaving the young people alone.
+
+Maud thanked him with such a look as would have repaid Dick for a far
+longer expedition than from Belgravia to Bond Street.
+
+"What should I do without you, Mr. Stanmore?" she said. "You always
+come to the rescue just when I want you most."
+
+He coloured with delight.
+
+"I like doing things for _you_," said he simply; "but I don't know
+that taking a parcel a mile and a half is such a favour after all. If
+you'll bring it, I'll start directly you give the word."
+
+Miss Bruce had been very pale hitherto, now a burning blush swept over
+her face to the temples.
+
+"I--I can't bring you my diamonds," said she, "for the first of those
+thirty reasons that prevented Napoleon's general from bringing up his
+guns--I haven't got them: they're at Rose and Brilliant's already."
+
+"Maud!" he exclaimed, unconsciously using her Christian name--a
+liberty with which she seemed in nowise offended.
+
+"You may well say 'Maud'!" she murmured in a soft, low voice. "If you
+knew all, you'd never call me Maud. I don't believe you'd ever speak
+to me again." "Then I'd rather not know all," he replied. "Though it
+would have to be something very bad indeed if it could make me think
+ill of you! Don't tell me anything, Miss Bruce, except that you would
+like your diamonds back again."
+
+"They _must_ be got back!" she exclaimed. "I _must_ have them back by
+fair means or foul. I can't face Aunt Agatha, now that she knows, and
+can't appear at her ball without them. O! Mr. Stanmore, what shall I
+do? Do you think Rose and Brilliant's would _lend_ them to me only for
+one night?"
+
+Dick began to suspect something, began to surmise that this young lady
+had been "raising the wind," as he called it, and to wonder for what
+mysterious purpose she could want so large a sum as had necessitated
+the sacrifice of her most valuable jewels; but she seemed in such
+distress that he felt this was no time for explanation.
+
+"Do!" he repeated cheerfully, and walking to the window that he might
+not seem to notice her trouble. "Why do as I wish you had done all
+through. Leave everything to _me_. I was going to say 'trust me,' but
+I don't want to be trusted. I only want to be made use of."
+
+Her better nature was conquering her fast.
+
+"But indeed I _will_ trust you," she murmured. "You deserve to be
+trusted. You are so kind, so good, so true. You will despise me, I
+know--very likely hate me, and never come to see me again; but I don't
+care--I can't help it. Sit down, and I will tell you everything."
+
+He did not blush nor stammer now, his voice was very firm, and he
+stood up like a man.
+
+"Miss Bruce," said he, "Maud--yes, I'm not afraid to call you Maud--I
+won't hear another word. I don't want to be told anything. Whatever
+you have done makes no difference to me. Some day, perhaps, you'll
+remember how I believed in you. In the meantime tell my mother that
+the diamonds will be back in time for her ball. How late it is! I must
+be off like a shot. Those horses will be perfectly wild with waiting.
+I'm coming to dinner. Good-bye!"
+
+He hurried away without another look, and Maud, burying her head in
+the sofa-cushions, burst out crying, as she had not cried since she
+was a child.
+
+"He's too good for me!--he's too good for me!" she repeated, between
+the sobs she tried hard to keep back. "How wicked and vile I should be
+to throw him over! He's too good for me!--too good for me by far!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+"A CRUEL PARTING"
+
+
+The phaeton-horses went off like wildfire, Dick driving as if he was
+drunk. Omnibus-cads looked after him with undisguised admiration,
+and hansom cabmen, catching the enthusiasm of pace, found themselves
+actually wishing they were gentlemen's servants, to have their beer
+found, and sit behind such steppers as those!
+
+The white foam stood on flank and shoulder when the pair were pulled
+up at Rose and Brilliant's door.
+
+Dick bustled in with so agitated an air that an experienced shopman
+instantly lifted the glass from a tray containing the usual assortment
+of wedding-rings.
+
+"I'm come about some diamonds," panted the customer, casting a wistful
+glance towards these implements of coercion the while. "A set of
+diamonds--very valuable--left here by a lady--a young lady--I want
+them back again."
+
+He looked about him helplessly; nevertheless, the shopman, himself a
+married man, became at once less commiserating, and more confidential.
+
+"Diamonds!" he repeated. "Let me see--yes, sir--quite so--I think I
+recollect. Perhaps you'll step in and speak to our principal. Mind
+your hat, if you please, sir--yes, sir--this way, sir."
+
+So saying, he ushered Mr. Stanmore through glass doors into a neat
+little room at the back, where sat a bald, smiling personage in sober
+attire, something between that of a provincial master of hounds and a
+low-church clergyman, whose cool composure, as it struck Dick at the
+time, afforded a ludicrous contrast to his own fuss and agitation.
+
+"_My_ name is Rose, sir," said the placid man. "Pray take a seat."
+
+Nobody can "take a seat" under feelings of strong excitement. Dick
+grasped the proffered chair by the back.
+
+"Mr. Rose," he began, "what I have to say to you goes no farther."
+
+"O dear, no!--certainly not--Mr. Stanmore, I believe? I hope I see you
+well, sir. This is my _private_ room, you understand, sir. Whatever
+affairs we transact here are _in_ private. How can I accommodate you,
+Mr. Stanmore?" Dick looked so eager, the placid man was persuaded he
+must want money.
+
+"There's a young lady," said Dick, plunging at his subject, "who left
+her diamonds here last week--quite a young lady--very handsome. Did
+she give you her name?"
+
+Mr. Rose smiled and shook his head benevolently. "If any jewels of
+value were left with _us_, you may be sure we satisfied ourselves of
+the party's name and address. Perhaps I can help you, Mr. Stanmore.
+Can you favour me with the date?"
+
+"Yes, I can," answered Dick, "and the name too. It's no use humbugging
+about it. Miss Bruce was the lady's name. There! Now she wants her
+jewels back again. She's changed her mind."
+
+Mr. Rose took a ledger off the table, and ran his finger down its
+columns. "Quite correct, sir," said he, stopping at a particular
+entry. "You are acquainted with the circumstances, of course."
+
+Dick nodded, esteeming it little breach of confidence to look as if he
+knew all about it.
+
+"There is no difficulty whatever," continued the bland Mr. Rose.
+"Happy to oblige Miss Bruce. Happy to oblige _you_. We shall charge a
+small sum for commission. Nothing more--O dear, no! Have them cleaned
+up? Certainly, sir; and you may depend on their being sent home in
+time. At your convenience, Mr. Stanmore. No hurry, sir. You can write
+me your cheque for the amount. Perhaps I'd better draw out a little
+memorandum. We shall make a mere nominal charge for cleaning."
+
+Dick glanced over the memorandum, including its nominal charge for
+cleaning, which, perhaps from ignorance, did not strike him as being
+extraordinarily low. He was somewhat startled at the sum total, but
+when this gentleman made up his mind, it was not easy to turn him from
+an object in view.
+
+The steppers, hardly cool, were hurried straight off to his bankers',
+to be driven, after their owner's interview with one of the partners,
+back again to the great emporium of their kind at Tattersall's.
+
+A woman who wants to make a sacrifice parts with her jewels, a man
+sells his horses. Honour to each, for each offers up what is nearest
+and dearest to the heart.
+
+Dick Stanmore lived no more within his income than other people. To
+get back these diamonds he would have to raise a considerable sum.
+There was nothing else to be done. The hunters must go: nay, the whole
+stud, phaeton-horses, hacks, and all. Yet Dick marched into the office
+to secure stalls for an early date, with a bright eye and a smiling
+face. He was proving, to _himself_, at least, how well he loved her.
+
+The first person he met in the yard was Lord Bearwarden. That
+nobleman, though knowing him but slightly, had rather a liking for
+Stanmore, cemented by a certain good run they once saw in company,
+when each approved of the other's straightforward riding and unusual
+forbearance towards hounds.
+
+"There's a nice horse in the boxes," said my lord; "looks very like
+your sort, Stanmore, and they say he'll go cheap, though he's quite
+sound."
+
+"Thanks," answered Dick. "But I'm all the other way. Been taking
+stalls. Going to sell."
+
+"Draft?" asked his lordship, who did not waste words.
+
+"All of them," replied the other. "Even the hacks, saddlery, clothing,
+in short, the whole plant, and without reserve--going to give it
+up--at any rate for a time."
+
+"Sorry for that," replied Bearwarden, adding, courteously, "Can I
+offer you a lift? I'm going your way. Indeed, I'm going to call at
+your mother's. Shall I find the ladies at home?"
+
+"A little later you will," said honest, unsuspecting Dick, who had not
+yet learned the lesson that teaches it is not worth while to trust or
+mistrust any of the sex. "They'll be charmed to give you some tea. I'm
+off to Croydon to look over my poor screws before they're sold, and
+break it to my groom."
+
+"That's a right good fellow," thought Lord Bearwarden, "and not a bad
+connection if I was fool enough to marry the dark girl, after all." So
+he called out to Dick, who had one foot on the step of his phaeton--
+
+"I say, Stanmore, come and dine with us on the 11th; we've got two or
+three hunting fellows, and we can go on together afterwards to your
+mother's ball."
+
+"All right," said Stanmore, and bowled away in the direction of
+Croydon at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. If the horses were
+to be sold, people might just as well be made aware of the class of
+animal he kept. Though the sacrifice involved was considerable, it
+would be wise to lessen it by all judicious means in his power.
+
+_How_ great a sacrifice he scarcely felt till he arrived at his
+country stables.
+
+Dick Stanmore had been fonder of hunting than any other pursuit in the
+world, ever since he went out for the first time on a Shetland pony,
+and came home with his nose bleeding, at five years old.
+
+The spin and "whizz" of his reel, the rush of a brown mountain stream
+with its fringe of silver birch and stunted alder, the white side of a
+leaping salmon, and the gasp of that noble fish towed deftly into the
+shallows at last, afforded him a natural and unmixed pleasure. He
+loved the heather dearly, the wild hillside, the keen pure air, the
+steady setters, the flap and cackle of the rising grouse, the ringing
+shot that laid him low, born in the purple, and fated there to die.
+Nor, when corn-fields were cleared, and partridges, almost as swift as
+bullets and as numerous as locusts, were driven to and fro across the
+open, was his aim to be foiled by a flight little less rapid than the
+shot that arrested it. With a rifle in his hand, a general knowledge
+of the surrounding forest, and a couple of gillies, give him the wind
+of a royal stag feeding amongst his hinds, and despite the feminine
+jealousy and instinctive vigilance of the latter, an hour's stalk
+would put the lord of the hills at the mercy of Dick Stanmore. In all
+these sports he was a proficient, from all of them he derived a keen
+gratification, but fox-hunting was his passion and his delight.
+
+A fine rider, he loved the pursuit so well, and was so interested in
+hounds, that he gave his horse every opportunity of carrying him in
+front, and as his natural qualities included a good eye, and that
+confidence in the immediate future which we call "nerve," he was
+seen in difficulties less often than might be expected from his
+predilection in favour of "the shortest way."
+
+His horses generally appeared to go pleasantly, and to reciprocate
+their rider's confidence, for he certainly seemed to get more work out
+of them than his neighbours.
+
+As Mr. Crop, his stud-groom, remarked in the peculiar style of English
+affected by that trustworthy but exceedingly impracticable servant--
+
+"Take and put him on a 'arf-bred' 'oss, an' he rides him like a
+hangel, nussin' of him, and coaxin' of him, and sendin' of him along,
+_beautiful_ for ground, an' uncommon liberal for fences. Take an' put
+him on a thoro'-bred 'un, like our Vampire 'oss, and--Lor!"
+
+One secret perhaps of that success in the hunting-field, which, when
+well mounted, even Mr. Crop's eloquence was powerless to express but
+by an interjection, lay in his master's affection for the animal.
+Dick Stanmore dearly loved a horse, as some men do love them, totally
+irrespective of any pleasure or advantage to be derived from their
+use.
+
+There is a fanciful oriental legend which teaches that when Allah was
+engaged in the work of creation, he tempered the lightning with the
+south wind, and thus created the horse. Whimsical as is this idea, it
+yet suggests the swiftness, the fire, the mettlesome, generous, but
+plastic temperament of our favourite quadruped--the only one of
+our dumb servants in whose spirit we can rouse at will the utmost
+emulation, the keenest desire for the approval of its lord. Even the
+countenance of this animal denotes most of the qualities we affect to
+esteem in the human race--courage, docility, good-temper, reflection
+(for few faces are so thoughtful as that of the horse), gratitude,
+benevolence, and, above all, trust. Yes, the full brown eye, large,
+and mild, and loving, expresses neither spite, nor suspicion, nor
+revenge. It turns on you with the mute unquestioning confidence
+of real affection, and you may depend on it under all pressure of
+circumstance, in the last extremity of danger or death. Will you say
+as much for the bluest eyes that ever sparkled in mirth, or swam in
+tears, or shone and deepened under the combined influence of triumph,
+belladonna, and war-paint?
+
+I once heard a man affirm that for him there was in every horse's face
+the beauty each of us sees in the one woman he adores. This outrageous
+position he assumed after a good run, and, indeed, after the dinner
+which succeeded it. I will not go quite so far as to agree with him,
+but I will say that in generosity, temper, and fidelity, there is
+many a woman, and man too, who might well take example from the noble
+qualities of the horse.
+
+And now Dick Stanmore was about to offer up half-a-dozen of these
+valued servants before the idol he had lately begun to worship, for
+whom, indeed, he esteemed no victim too precious, no sacrifice too
+dear.
+
+Driving into his stable-yard, he threw the reins to a couple of
+helpers, and made use of Mr. Crop's arm to assist his descent. That
+worthy's face shone with delight. Next to his horses he loved his
+master--chiefly, it is fair to say, as an important ingredient without
+which there would be no stud.
+
+"I was expectin' of ye, sir," said he, touching an exceedingly
+straight-brimmed hat. "Glad to see ye lookin' so well."
+
+To do him justice, Mr. Crop did his duty as if he always _was_
+expecting his master.
+
+"Horses all right?" asked Dick, moving towards the stable-door.
+
+"'Osses _is_ 'ealthy, I am thankful to say," replied the groom
+gravely, "and lookin', too, pretty nigh as I could wish, now they've
+done breakin' with their coats. There's Firetail got a queerish
+look--them Northamptonshire 'osses is mostly unsound ones--and the
+mare's off leg's filled; and the Vampire 'oss, he's got a bit of a
+splent a-comin', but I'll soon frighten that away; an' old Dandybrush,
+he's awful, but not wuss nor I counted; and the young un--"
+
+"I'll look 'em over," said Dick, interrupting what threatened to be
+a long catalogue. "I came down on purpose. The fact is (take those
+horses out and feed them)--the fact is, Crop, I'm going to sell them
+all. I'm going to send them up to Tattersall's."
+
+Every groom is more or less a sporting man, and it is the peculiarity
+of sporting men to betray astonishment at no eventuality, however
+startling; therefore Mr. Crop, doing violence to his feelings, moved
+not a muscle of his countenance.
+
+"I'm sorry to part with them, Crop," added Dick, a little put out by
+the silence of his retainer, and not knowing exactly what to say next.
+"They've carried me very well--I've seen a deal of fun on them--I
+don't suppose I shall ever have such good ones--I don't suppose I
+shall ever hunt much again."
+
+Mr. Crop began to thaw. "They're _good_ 'osses," he observed
+sententiously; "but that's not to say as there isn't good 'osses
+elsewheres. In regard of not huntin' there's a many seasons, askin'
+your pardon, atween you and me, and I should be sorry to think as I
+wasn't goin' huntin', ay, twenty years from now! When is 'em goin' up,
+sir?" added he, sinking sentiment and coming to business at once.
+
+"Monday fortnight," answered Dick, entering a loose box, in which
+stood a remarkably handsome mare, that neighed at him, and rubbed her
+head against his breast.
+
+"I should ha' liked another ten days," replied Crop, for it was an
+important part of his system never to accept his master's arrangements
+without a protest. "I could ha' got 'em to show as they ought to show
+by then. Is the stalls took?"
+
+Dick nodded. He was looking wistfully at the mare, thinking what a
+light mouth she had, and how boldly she faced water.
+
+"That leg'll be as clean as my face in a week," observed Mr. Crop
+confidently. "She'll fetch a good price, _she_ will. Sir Frederic's
+after _her_, I know. There's nothing but tares in there, sir; old
+Dandybrush is in the box on the right."
+
+Dick gave the mare a loving pat, and turned sadly into the residence
+of old Dandybrush.
+
+That experienced animal greeted him with laid-back ears and a grin, as
+though to say, "Here you are again! But I like you best in your red
+coat."
+
+They had seen many a good gallop together, and rolled over each other
+with the utmost good-humour, in every description of soil. To look at
+the old horse, even in his summer guise, was to recall the happiest
+moments of a sufficiently happy life.
+
+"I'd meant to guv it _him_ pretty sharp," said Crop; "but I'll let him
+alone now. He'd 'a carried you, maybe, another season or two, with a
+good strong dressin'; but them legs isn't what they _was_. Last
+time as I rode of him second horse, I found him different--gettin'
+inquisitive at his places--and when they gets inquisitive they soon
+begins to get slow. You'll look at the Vampire 'oss, sir, before you
+go back to town?"
+
+Now "the Vampire 'oss," as he called him, was an especial favourite
+with Mr. Crop. Dick Stanmore had bought him out of training at
+Newmarket by his groom's advice, and the highbred animal, being ridden
+by an exceedingly good horseman, had turned out a far better hunter
+than common--not invariably the case with horses that begin life
+on the Heath. Crop took great pride in this purchase, confidently
+asserting, and doubtless believing, that England could not produce its
+equal.
+
+He threw the box-door open with the air of a man who is going to
+exhibit a picture of his own painting.
+
+"It's a pity to let him go," said the groom, with a sigh. "Where'll
+you get another as can touch him when the ground's deep, like it was
+last March? I've had a many to look after, first and last; but such a
+kind 'oss to do for in the stable I never see. Why, if you was to
+give that 'oss ten feeds of corn a day he'd take an' eat 'em all out
+clean--wouldn't leave a hoat! And legs. Them's not legs! them's slips
+of gutta-percher an' steel! To be sure he'll fetch a hawful price at
+the 'ammer--four 'underd, five 'underd, I shouldn't wonder--why he's
+worth all the money to look at. Blessed if you mightn't ride a good
+'ack to death only tryin' to find such another!"
+
+Nevertheless, the Vampire horse was condemned to go up with the rest.
+Notwithstanding the truth of the groom's protestations, its money
+value was exactly the quality that decided the animal's fate.
+
+Driving back to London, Dick's heart bounded to think that in an
+hour's time he should meet Miss Bruce again at dinner. How delightful
+to be doing all this for her sake, yet to keep the precious secret
+safe locked in his own breast, until the moment should come when it
+would be judicious to divulge it, making, at the same time, another
+confession, of which he hoped the result might be happiness for life.
+
+"I'd do more than that for her," muttered this enthusiastic young
+gentleman, while he trotted over Vauxhall Bridge. "I liked my poor
+horses better than anything; and that's just the reason I like to part
+with them for her sake. My darling, I'd give you the heart out of my
+breast, even if I thought you'd tread it under foot and send it back
+again!"
+
+Had such an anatomical absurdity been reconcilable with the structure
+of the human frame, it is possible Miss Bruce might have treated this
+important organ in the contumelious manner suggested.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+SIXES AND SEVENS
+
+
+In the meantime, while Dick Stanmore is hugging himself in the warm
+atmosphere of hope, while Lord Bearwarden hovers on the brink of a
+stream in which he narrowly escaped drowning long ago, while Tom Ryfe
+is plunged in depths of anxiety, jealousy, and humiliation that scorch
+like liquid fire, Miss Bruce's dark eyes, and winning, wilful ways,
+have kindled the torch of mistrust and discord between two people of
+whom she has rarely seen the one and never heard of the other.
+
+Mr. Bargrave's chambers in Gray's Inn were at no time more remarkable
+for cleanliness than other like apartments in the same locality; but
+the dust lies inch-thick now in all places where dust _can_ lie,
+because that Dorothea, more moping and tearful than ever, has not the
+heart to clean up, no, nor even to wash her own hands and face in the
+afternoon as heretofore.
+
+She loves her "Jim," of course, all the more passionately that he
+makes her perfectly miserable, neglecting her for days together,
+and when they do meet, treating her with an indifference far more
+lacerating than any amount of cruelty or open scorn.
+
+Not that he is always good-humoured. On the contrary, "Gentleman Jim,"
+as they call him, has lost much of the rollicking, devil-may-care
+recklessness that earned his nickname, and is often morose
+now--sometimes even fierce and savage to brutality.
+
+The poor woman has had a quarrel with him, not two hours ago,
+originating, it is but fair to state, in her own extremely irritating
+conduct regarding beer, Jim being anxious to treat his ladye-love with
+that fluid for the purpose, as he said, of "drowning unkindness," and
+possibly with the further view of quenching an inconvenient curiosity
+she has lately indulged about his movements. No man likes to be
+watched; and the more reason the woman he is betraying has to doubt
+him, the less patience he shows for her anxiety, the less he tolerates
+her inquiries, her jealousy, or her reproaches.
+
+Now Dorothea's suspicions, sharpened by affection, have of late grown
+extremely wearisome, and Jim has been heard to threaten more than once
+that "if so be as she doesn't mend her manners, and live conformable,
+he'll take an' hook it, he will, blessed if he won't!"--a dark saying
+which sinks deeply and painfully into the forlorn one's heart. When,
+therefore, instead of drinking her share, as usual, of a foaming quart
+measure containing beer, dashed with something stronger, this
+poor thing set it down untasted, and forthwith began to cry, the
+cracksman's anger knew no bounds.
+
+"Drop it!" he exclaimed brutally. "You'd best, I tell ye! D'ye think I
+want my blessed drink watered with your blessed nonsense? What's come
+to ye, ye contrairy devil? I thought I'd larned ye better. I'll see if
+I can't larn ye still. Would ye now!"
+
+It was almost a blow,--such a push as is the next thing to actual
+violence, and it sent her staggering from the sloppy bar at which
+their altercation took place against a bench by the wall, where she
+sat down pale and gasping, to the indignation of a slatternly woman
+nursing her child, and the concern of an honest coalheaver, who had a
+virago of a wife at home.
+
+"Easy, mate!" expostulated that worthy, putting his broad frame
+between the happy pair. "Hold on a bit, an' give her a drop when she
+comes to. She'd 'a throwed her arms about your neck a while ago, an'
+now she'd as soon knife ye as look at ye."
+
+Wild-eyed and pale, Dorothea glared round, as Clytemnestra may have
+glared when her hand rested on the fatal axe; but this Holborn
+Agamemnon did not seem destined to fall by a woman's blow, inasmuch as
+the tide was effectually turned by another woman's interference.
+
+The slatternly lady, shouldering her child, as a soldier does his
+firelock, thrust herself eagerly forward.
+
+"Knife him!" she exclaimed, with a most unfeminine execration. "I'd
+knife him, precious soon, if it was me, the blessed willen! To take
+an' use a woman like that there--a nasty, cowardly, sneakin,' ugly,
+tallow-faced beast!"
+
+Had it not been for the imputation on his beauty, Dorothea might
+perhaps have blazed out in open rebellion, or remained passive
+in silent sulks; but to hear _her_ Jim, the flash man of a dozen
+gin-shops, the beloved of a score of rivals, called "ugly," was
+more than flesh and blood could endure. She turned fiercely on her
+auxiliary and gave battle at once.
+
+"And who arst _you_ to interfere, mem, if I may wenture to make the
+inquiry?" said she, with that polite but spasmodic intonation that
+denotes the approaching row. "Keep yerself _to_ yerself, if you
+please, mem. And I'll thank ye not to go for to come between me and my
+young man, not till you've got a young man of your own, mem; and if
+you'd like to walk out, there's the door, mem, and don't you try for
+to give _me_ none o' your sauce, for I'm not a-goin' to put up with
+it."
+
+The slatternly woman ran her guns out and returned the broadside with
+promptitude.
+
+"Door, indeed! you poor whey-faced drab, you dare to say the word door
+to _me_, a respectable woman, as Mister Tripes here knows me well, and
+have a score against me behind that there wery door as you disgraces,
+and as it's _you_ as ought to be t'other side, you ought; for it's out
+of the streets as _you_ come, well I knows, an' say another word, and
+I'll take that there bonnet off of your head, and chuck it into them
+streets and _you_ arter it. O dear! O dear! that ever I should be
+spoke to like this here, and my master out o' work a month come
+Toosday, and this here gentleman standing by! But I'll set my mark on
+ye, if I get six months for it--I will!"
+
+Thus speaking, or rather screaming, and brandishing her baby, as the
+gonfalonier waves his gonfalon, the slat-slatternly woman, swelling
+into a fury for the nonce, made a dive at Dorothea, which, but for the
+interposition of "this here gentleman," as she called the coalheaver,
+might have produced considerable mischief. That good man, however,
+took a deal of "weathering," as sailors say, and ere either of the
+combatants could get round his bulky person, the presence of a
+policeman at the door warned them that ordeal by battle had better
+be deferred till a more fitting opportunity. They burst into tears,
+therefore, simultaneously, and the dispute ended, as such disputes
+often do, in a general reconciliation, cemented by the consumption of
+much excisable fluid, some of it at the expense of the philanthropic
+coalheaver, whose simple faith involved a persuasion that the closest
+connection must always be preserved between good-fellowship and beer.
+
+After these potations, it is not surprising that the slatternly woman
+should have found herself, baby and all, under the care of the civil
+power at a police-station, or that Gentleman Jim and his ladye-love
+should have adjourned to sober themselves in the steaming gallery of a
+playhouse.
+
+Behold them, then, wedged into a front seat, Dorothea's bonnet hanging
+over the rail, Jim's gaudy handkerchief bulging with oranges, both
+spectators too absorbed in the action of the piece to realise its
+improbabilities, and the woman thoroughly identifying herself with the
+character and fortunes of its heroine.
+
+The theatre is small, but the audience if not select are enthusiastic;
+the stage is narrow, but affords room for a deal of strutting and
+striding about on the part of an overpowering actor in the inevitable
+belt and boots of the melodramatic highwayman. The play represents
+certain startling passages in the career of one Claude Duval,
+formerly a running footman, afterwards--strange anomaly!--a robber on
+horseback, distinguished for polite manners and bold riding.
+
+This remarkable person has a wife, devoted to him of course. In the
+English drama all wives are good; in the French all are bad, and
+people tell you that a play is the reflection of real life. Besides
+this dutiful spouse, he cherishes an attachment for a young lady
+of high birth and aristocratic (stage) manners. She returns his
+tenderness, as it is extremely natural a young person so educated and
+brought up would return that of a criminal, who has made an impression
+on her heart by shooting her servants, rifling her trunks, and forcing
+her to dance a minuet with him on a deserted heath under a harvest
+moon.
+
+This improbable incident affords a favourite scene, in which
+Dorothea's whole soul is absorbed, and to which Jim devotes an earnest
+attention, as of one who weighs the verisimilitude of an illustration,
+that he may accept the purport of the parable it conveys.
+
+Dead servants (in profusion), struggling horses, the coach upset, and
+the harvest moon, are depicted in the back scene, which represents
+besides an illimitable heath, and a gibbet in the middle distance: all
+this under a glare of light, as indeed it might well be, for the moon
+is quite as large as the hind wheel of the coach.
+
+In the foreground are grouped, the hero himself, a comic servant with
+a red nose and a fiddle, an open trunk, and a young lady in travelling
+costume, viz. white satin shoes, paste diamonds, ball-dress, and
+lace veil. The tips of her fingers rest in the gloved hand of her
+assailant, whose voice comes deep and mellow through the velvet mask
+he wears.
+
+"My preservier!" says the lady, a little inconsequentially, while
+her fingers are lifted to the mask and saluted with such a smack as
+elicits a "hooray!" from some disrespectful urchin at the back of the
+pit.
+
+"To presurrve beauty from the jeer of insult, the grasp of vie-olence
+is my duty and my prowfession. To adore it is my ree-ligion--and my
+fate!" replies the gallant highwayman, contriving with some address
+to retain his hold of the lady's hand, though encumbered by spurs, a
+sword, pistols, a mask, and an enormous three-cornered hat.
+
+"And this man is proscribed, hunted, in danger, in disgrace!" exclaims
+the lady, aside, and therefore loud enough to be heard in the street.
+Claude Duval starts. The start of such an actor makes Dorothea jump.
+"Perdition!" he shouts, "ye have reminded me of what were well buried
+fathom-deep--obliterated--forgotten. Tr'you, lady, 'tis ee-ven so! I
+have a compact with my followers--the ransom--"
+
+"Shall be paid right willingly," she answers; and forth-with the comic
+servant with the red nose wakes into spasmodic life, winks repeatedly,
+and performs a flourish on his "property" fiddle, a little out of tune
+with the real instrument in the orchestra at his feet.
+
+"What are they going to do?" asked Dorothea, in great anxiety.
+
+"Hold your noise!" answers Jim, and the action of the piece
+progresses.
+
+It is fortunate, perhaps, that minuets have gone out of fashion, if
+they involved such a test of endurance as that in which Claude Duval
+and his fair captive now disport themselves with an amount of bodily
+exertion it seems real cruelty to encore. His concluding caper shakes
+the mask from his partner's face, and the young lady falls, with a
+shriek, into his arms, leaving the audience in that happy state of
+perplexity, which so enhances the interest of a plot, as to whether
+her distress originates in excess of sentiment or deficiency of wind.
+
+"It's beautiful!" whispers Dorothea, refreshing herself with an
+orange. "It 'minds me of the first time you and me ever met at
+Highbury Barn."
+
+Jim grunts, but his grunt is not that of a contented sleeper, rather
+of one who is woke from a dream.
+
+After a tableau like the last, it is natural that Claude Duval should
+find a certain want of excitement in the next scene, where he appears
+as a respectable householder in the apartments of his lawful spouse.
+This lady, leaving a cradle in the background, and advancing to the
+footlights, proceeds to hover round her husband, after the manner of
+stage wives, with neck protruded and arms spread out, like a woman
+who is a little afraid of a wasp or earwig, but wants to catch the
+creature all the same. He sits with his back to her, as nobody ever
+does sit but a stage husband at home, and punches the floor with his
+spur. It is strictly natural that she should sing a faint song with a
+slow movement on the spot.
+
+It is perhaps yet more natural that this should provoke him
+exceedingly, so he jumps up, reaches a cupboard in two strides,
+and pulls out of it his whole paraphernalia, sword, pistols, mask,
+three-cornered hat, everything but his horse. Then the wife, from her
+knees, informs all whom it may concern, that for the first time in
+their happy married life she has learned her husband is a robber, as
+they both call it, by "prowfession."
+
+Dorothea's sympathies, womanlike, are with the wife. Jim, whose
+interest is centred in the young lady, finds this part of the
+performance rather wearisome, and thirsts, to use his own expression,
+for "a drain."
+
+Events now succeed each other with startling rapidity. Claude Duval is
+seen at Ranelagh, still in his boots, where he makes fierce love to
+his young lady, and exchanges snuff-boxes (literally) with a duke.
+Next, in a thicket beset by thief-takers, from whom he escapes after
+prodigies of valour, aided by the comic servant, and thereafter guided
+by that singular domestic to a place of safety, which turns out to
+be the young lady's bedroom. Here Jim becomes much excited, fancying
+himself for the moment a booted hero, rings, laced-coat, Steinkirk
+handkerchief, and all. His dress touches that of his companion, but
+instinctively he moves from her as far as the crowded seat will
+permit, while Dorothea, all unconscious, looks lovingly in his face.
+
+"She's a bold thing, and I can't abide her," is that lady's comment
+on the principal actress. "She ought to think shame of herself, she
+ought, acause of his wife at 'ome. But he's a good plucked 'un, isn't
+he, Jim? and lady or no lady, that goes a long way with a woman!"
+
+Jim turned his head aside. Brutalised, besotted, depraved, there was
+yet in him a spark of that fire which lights men to their doom, and
+his eyes filled with tears.
+
+But the thief-takers have Claude Duval by the throat at last; and
+there is a scene in court, where the young lady perjures herself
+unhesitatingly, and faints once more in the prisoner's arms. In vain.
+Claude Duval is sworn to, found guilty, condemned; and the stage is
+darkened for a grand finale.
+
+Still gay, still gallant, still impenitent, and still booted, though
+in fetters, the highwayman sits in his prison cell, to be visited by
+the young lady, who cannot bear to lose her partner, and the wife,
+who still clings to her husband. Unlike Macheath, he seems in no way
+embarrassed by the position. His wife forgives him, at this supreme
+moment, all the sorrow he has caused her, in consideration of some
+unexplained past, "gilded," as she expressed it, "by the sunny smiles
+of southern France," while the young lady, holding on with great
+tenacity to his hand, weeps frantically on her knees.
+
+A clock strikes. It is the hour of execution. Dorothea begins to sob,
+and Gentleman Jim clenches his hands. The back of the stage opens to
+disclose a street, a crowd, a hangman, and the fatal Tyburn tree.
+Faint cheers are heard from the wings. The sheriff enters, bearing
+in his hand a reprieve, written apparently on a window-blind. He is
+attended by the comic servant, through whose mysterious agency a
+pardon has been granted, and who sticks by his fiddle to the last.
+
+Grand tableau: Claude Duval penitent. His wife in his arms. The young
+lady conveying in dumb show how platonic has been her attachment,
+of which, nevertheless, she seems a little ashamed. The sheriff
+benignant; the turnkeys amused; the comic servant, obviously in
+liquor, brandishing his fiddlestick, and the orchestra playing "God
+save the Queen."
+
+Walking home through the wet streets, under the flashing gaslights,
+Dorothea and her companion preserve an ominous silence. Both identify
+themselves with the fiction they have lately witnessed: the woman
+pondering on Mrs. Duval's sufferings and the eventful reward of that
+good lady's constancy and truth; her companion reflecting, not on the
+charms of the actress he has lately been applauding, but on another
+face which haunts him now, as the wilis and water-sprites haunted
+their doomed votaries, and which must ever be as far out of reach as
+if it belonged indeed to some such being of another nature; thinking
+how a man might well risk imprisonment, transportation, hanging, for
+one kind glance of those bright eyes, one smile of those haughty,
+scornful lips; and comparing in bitter impatience that exotic beauty
+with the humble, homely creature at his side.
+
+She looks up in his face. "Jim," says she timidly, and cowering close
+to him the while, "if you was took, and shopped, like him in the long
+boots, I'd go to quod with you, if they'd give me leave--I'd go to
+death with you, Jim, I would. I'd never forsake you, I wouldn't. I
+couldn't, dear,--not if it was ever so!"
+
+He shudders and shrinks from her. "It might come sooner than you think
+for," says he, adding brutally enough, "now you _could_ do me a turn
+in the witness-box, though I shouldn't wonder but you'd cut out white
+like the others. Let's call in here, and take a drop o' gin afore they
+shuts up."
+
+
+The great picture of Thomas the Rhymer, and his Elfin Mistress, goes
+on apace. There is, I believe, but one representation in London of
+that celebrated prophet, and it is in the possession of his lineal
+descendant. Every feature, every shadow on that portrait has Simon
+Perkins studied with exceeding diligence and care, marvelling, it must
+be confessed, at the taste of the Fairy Queen. The accessories to his
+own composition are in rapid progress. Most of the fairies have been
+put in, and the gradual change from glamour to disillusion, cunningly
+conveyed by a stream of cold grey morning light entering the magic
+cavern from realms of upper earth, to deaden the glitter, pale the
+colouring, and strip, as it were, the tinsel where it strikes. On
+the Rhymer himself our artist has bestowed an infinity of pains,
+preserving (no easy task) some resemblance to the original portrait,
+while he dresses his conception in the manly form and comely features
+indispensable to the situation.
+
+But it is into the fairy queen herself that Simon loves to throw all
+the power of his genius, all the resources of his art. To this labour
+of love, day after day, he returns with unabated zest, altering,
+improving, painting out, adding, taking away, drinking in the while
+his model's beauty, as parched and thirsty gardens of Egypt drink
+in the overflowing Nile, to return a tenfold harvest of verdure,
+luxuriance, and wealth.
+
+She has been sitting to him for three consecutive hours. Truth to
+tell, she is tired to death of it--tired of the room, the palette,
+the easel, the queen, the rhymer, the little dusky imp in the corner,
+whose wings are changing into scales and a tail, almost tired of dear
+Simon Perkins himself; who is working contentedly on (how can he?) as
+if life contained nothing more than effect and colouring--as if the
+reality were not better than the representation after all.
+
+"A quarter of an inch more this way," says the preoccupied artist.
+"There is a touch wanting in that shadow under the eye--thanks, dear
+Nina. I shall get it at last," and he falls back a step to look at his
+work, with his head on one side, as nobody but a painter _can_ look,
+so strangely does the expression of face combine impartial criticism
+with a satisfaction almost maternal in its intensity.
+
+Before beginning again, his eye rested on his model, and he could not
+but mark the air of weariness and dejection she betrayed.
+
+"Why, Nina," said he, "you look quite pale and tired. What a brute I
+am! I go painting on and forget how stupid it must be for you, who
+mustn't even turn your head to look at my work."
+
+She gave a stretch, and such a yawn! Neither of them very graceful
+performances, had the lady been less fair and fascinating, but Nina
+looked exceedingly pretty in their perpetration nevertheless.
+
+"Work," she answered. "Do you call that work? Why you've undone
+everything you did yesterday, and put about half of it in again. If
+you're diligent, and keep on at this pace, you'll finish triumphantly
+with a blank canvas, like Penthesilea and her tapestry in my ancient
+history."
+
+"Penelope," corrected Simon gently.
+
+"Well, Penelope! It's all the same. I don't suppose any of it's true.
+Let's have a peep, Simon. It can't be. Is that really like me?"
+
+The colour had come back to her face, the light to her eye. She was
+pleased, flattered, half amused to find herself so beautiful. He
+looked from the picture to the original, and with all his enthusiasm
+for art awarded the palm to nature.
+
+"It _was_ like you a minute ago," said he, in his grave, gentle tones.
+"Or rather, I ought to say you were like _it_. But you change so, that
+I am often in despair of catching you, and, somehow, I always seem to
+love the last expression best."
+
+There was something in his voice so admiring, so reverential, and yet
+so tender, that she glanced quickly, with a kind of surprise, in his
+face; that face which to an older woman, who had known suffering and
+sorrow, might have been an index of the gentle heart, the noble,
+chivalrous character within, which, to this girl, was simply pale
+and worn, and not at all handsome, but very dear nevertheless, as
+belonging to her kind old Simon, the playmate of her childhood, the
+brother, and more than brother, of her youth.
+
+Those encounters are sadly unequal, and very poor fun for the muffled
+fighter, in which one keeps the gloves on, while the other's blows are
+delivered with the naked fist.
+
+Miss Algernon was at this time perhaps more attached to Simon Perkins
+than to any other creature in the world; that is to say, she did not
+happen to like anybody else better. How different from him, to whom
+she represented the very essence of that spiritual life which, in
+our several ways, we all try to live, which so few of us know how to
+attain by postponing its enjoyment for a few short troubled years.
+
+It is probable that, if the painter had thrown down his brush at this
+juncture, and asked simply, "Nina, will you be my wife?" she would
+have answered, "Thank you kindly, yes, I will!" but although his
+judgment told him he was likely to succeed, his finer instincts warned
+him that an affirmative would be the sacrifice of her youth, her
+illusions, her possible future. Such sacrifice it was far more in
+Simon's nature to make than to accept.
+
+"Will she ever know me thoroughly?" he used to think. "Will the time
+ever come when I can say to her, 'Nina, I am sure you care for me now,
+and therefore I am not afraid to tell you how dearly I loved you all
+through'? Such a time would be well worth waiting for, ay, though it
+never came for seven years, and seven more to the back of that. Then
+I should feel her happiness depended on mine. Now I often think the
+prince in the fairy tale will ride past our Putney villa some summer's
+day, like Launcelot through the barley sheaves (I'll paint Launcelot
+when I've time, with the ripe ears reddened in the sun, and the light
+flashing off his harness), ride by and take Nina's heart away with
+him, and what will be left for me then? I could bear it! Yes, I could
+bear it if I knew she was happy. My darling, my darling! so that you
+walk on in joy and triumph, it matters little what becomes of me!"
+
+The sentiment was perhaps overstrained. It is not thus that women are
+won. The fruit that drops into people's mouths is usually over-ripe,
+and the Sabine maiden would have thought less of her Roman lover,
+though doubtless she would have taken the initiative rather than miss
+him altogether, had it been necessary to pounce on him in the vineyard
+and desire him straightway to carry her home. But the bird of prey
+must have its natural victim, and such hearts as our poor generous
+painter possessed are destined for the talons and the beak. Ah! those
+who value them least win the great prizes in the lottery. Fortune
+smiles on the careless player--gold goes to the rich--streams run to
+the river, and if you have more mutton than you know what to do with,
+be sure that in your folds will be found the poor man's ewe-lamb. Put
+a ribbon round her neck, and be kind to her as _he_ was. It is the
+least you can do!
+
+"You've taken a deal of pains, Simon," says the sitter, after a long
+and well-pleased scrutiny. "Tell me, no flattery now, why should I
+be so difficult to paint?" Why, indeed, you saucy innocent coquette!
+Perhaps, because, all the while, you are turning the poor artist's
+head, and driving pins and needles into his heart.
+
+"I _ought_ to make a good likeness of you," answers Simon rather
+sadly. "I'm sure, Nina, I know your face by heart. But I'm determined
+to take enormous pains with this picture. It's to be my great work. I
+want them to admire it at the Academy. I want all London to come and
+look at it. I want the critics, who know nothing, to say it's well
+drawn; and the artists, who do know something, to say it's well
+treated; and the public to declare my fairy queen is the loveliest,
+and the sweetest, and the dearest face they ever beheld. You see I'm
+very--very--_ambitious_, Nina!"
+
+
+"Yes, I suppose all painters are," replies Miss Algernon, with a
+little gasp of relief, accompanied by a little chill of something not
+quite unlike disappointment. "But you ought to be tired of working,
+and I know I am tired of sitting. Hand me my bonnet, Simon--not upside
+down--why that's the top where the rose is, of course! And let's walk
+back through the Park. It will be nearly full by this time."
+
+So they walked back through the Park, and it _was_ full--full to
+overflowing; nevertheless, amongst all the riders, drivers, sitters,
+strollers, and idlers, there appeared neither of the smart-looking
+gentlemen who had roused Nina's indignation by bowing to her in the
+morning without having the honour of her acquaintance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+THE OFFICERS' MESS
+
+
+A gigantic sentry of her Majesty's Household Cavalry paces up and down
+in front of the officers' quarters at Knightsbridge Barracks some two
+hours before watch-setting. It is fortunate that constant use has
+rendered him insensible to admiration. Few persons of either sex pass
+under his nose without a glance of unqualified approval. They marvel
+at his stature, his spurs, his carbine, his overalls, his plumed
+helmet, towering high above their heads, and the stupendous
+moustaches, on which this gentleman-private prides himself more than
+on all the rest of his heroic attributes put together.
+
+Beyond a shade of disciplined weariness, there is no expression
+whatever on his handsome face, yet it is to be presumed that the man
+has his thoughts too, like another. Is he back in Cumberland amongst
+his dales, a stalwart stripling, fishing some lonely stream within the
+hills, watching a bout at "knurr-and-spell" across the heather, or
+wrestling a fall in friendly rivalry with his cousin, a son of Anak,
+tall as himself? Does that purple sunset over Kensington Gardens
+remind him of Glaramara and Saddleback? Does that distant roar of
+wheels in Piccadilly recall the rush and ripple of the Solway charging
+up its tawny sands with the white horses all abreast in a spring-tide?
+
+Perhaps he is wishing he was an officer with no kit to keep in order,
+no fatigue-duty to undergo, sitting merrily down to as good a dinner
+as luxury can provide, or a guest, of whom he has seen several pass
+his post in starched white neckcloths and trim evening clothes.
+Perhaps he would not change with any of these, after all, when he
+reflects on his own personal advantages, his social standing amongst
+his comrades, his keen appreciation and large consumption of beer and
+tobacco, with the innumerable conquests he makes amongst maids and
+matrons in the middle and lower ranks of life. Such considerations,
+however, impress themselves not the least upon his outward visage. A
+statue could not look more imperturbable, and he turns his head but
+very slightly, with supreme indifference, when peals of laughter,
+more joyous than common, are wafted through the open windows of the
+mess-room, where some of our friends have fairly embarked on that tide
+of good-humour and hilarity which sets in with the second glass of
+champagne.
+
+It is a full mess; the colonel himself sits at dinner, with two or
+three friends, old brothers-in-arms, whose soldier-like bearing and
+manly faces betray their antecedents, though they may not have worn
+a uniform for months. A lately-joined cornet looks at these with a
+reverence that I am afraid could be extorted from him by no other
+institution on earth. The adjutant and riding-master, making
+holiday, are both present--"to the front," as they call it, enjoying
+exceedingly the jests and waggeries of their younger comrades. The
+orderly-officer, conspicuous by his belt, sits at one end of the long
+table. Lord Bearwarden occupies the other, supported on either side by
+his two guests, Tom Ryfe and Dick Stanmore. It is the night of Mrs.
+Stanmore's ball, and these last-named gentlemen are going there, with
+feelings how different, yet with the same object. Dick is full of
+confidence, elated and supremely happy. His entertainer experiences a
+quiet comfort and _bien-etre_ stealing over him, to which he has long
+been a stranger, while Tom Ryfe with every mouthful swallows down some
+emotion of jealousy, humiliation, or mistrust. Nevertheless, he is in
+the highest spirits of the three.
+
+"I tell you nothing can touch him, my lord, when hounds run," says he,
+still harping on the merits of the horse he sold Lord Bearwarden in
+the Park. Of course half the party are talking of hunting, the other
+half of racing, soldiering, and women. "He'd have been thrown away on
+most of the fellows we know. He wants a good man on his back, for if
+you keep him fiddling behind, it breaks his heart. I always said you
+ought to have him--you or Mr. Stanmore. He's just the sort for both of
+you. I'm sorry to hear yours are all coming up at Tattersall's," adds
+Tom, with a courteous bow to the opposite guest. "Hope it's only to
+make room for some more."
+
+Dick disclaims. "No, indeed," says he, "it's a _bona fide_
+sale--without reserve, you know--I am going to give the thing up!"
+
+"Give up hunting!" expostulates a very young subaltern on Dick's left.
+"Why, you're not a soldier, are you? What shall you do with yourself?
+You have nothing to live for."
+
+Overcome by this reflection, he empties his glass and looks feelingly
+in his neighbour's face.
+
+"Are you so fond of it too?" asks Dick with a smile.
+
+"Fond of it! I believe you!" answers the boy. "What is there to be
+compared to it?--at least that I've tried, you know. I think the
+happiest fellow on earth is a master of fox-hounds, particularly if
+he hunts them himself: there's only one thing to beat it, and that's
+soldiering. I'd rather command such a regiment as this than be Emperor
+of China. Perhaps I shall, too, some day."
+
+The real colonel, sitting opposite, overhears this military sentiment,
+and smiles good-humouredly at his zealous junior. "When you _are_ in
+command," says he, "I hope you'll be down upon the cornets--they want
+a deal of looking up--I'm much too easy with them." The young soldier
+laughed and blushed. In his heart he thought the "chief," as he called
+him, the very greatest man in the world, offering him that respect
+combined with affection which goes so far to constitute the efficiency
+of a regiment, hoping hereafter to tread in his footsteps and carry
+out his system.
+
+For ten whole minutes he held his tongue--and this was no small effort
+of self-restraint--that he might listen to the commanding officer's
+conversation with his guests, savouring strongly of professional
+interests, as comprising Crimean, Indian, and continental experiences,
+all tending to prove that cavalry massed, kept under cover, held well
+in hand, and "offered" at the critical moment, was _the_ force to
+render success permanent and defeat irretrievable.
+
+When they got into a dissertation on shoeing, with the comparative
+merits of "threes" and "sections" at drill, the young man refreshed
+himself liberally with champagne, and turned to more congenial
+discourse.
+
+Of this there seemed no lack. The winner of the St. Leger was as
+confidently predicted as if the race were already in his owner's
+pocket. A match was made between two splendid dandies, called
+respectfully by their comrades "Nobby" and "The Dustman," to walk from
+Knightsbridge Barracks to Windsor Bridge that day week--the odds being
+slightly in favour of "The Dustman," who was a peer of the realm. A
+moderate dancer was freely criticised, an exquisite singer approved
+with reservation, and the style of fighting practised by our present
+champion of the prize-ring unequivocally condemned. Presently a deep
+voice made itself heard in more sustained tones than belong to general
+conversation, and during a lull it became clear that the adjutant was
+relating an anecdote of his own military experience. "It's a wonderful
+country," said he, in reply to some previous observation. "I'm not an
+Irishman myself, but I've observed that the most conspicuous men
+in all nations are pure Irish or of Irish extraction. Look at the
+service. Look at the ring--prize-fighters and book-makers. I believe
+the Slasher's mother was born in Connaught, and nothing will convince
+me but that Deerfoot came from Tipperary--east and west the world's
+full of them--they swarm, I'm told, in America, and I can answer for
+them in Europe. Did ye ever see a Turk in a vineyard? He's the very
+moral of Pat in a potato-garden: the same frieze coat--the same baggy
+breeches--the same occasional smoke, every five minutes or so--and the
+same rooted aversion to hard work. Go on into India--they're all over
+the place. Shall I tell you what happened to myself? We were engaged
+on the right of the army, getting it hot and heavy, all the horses
+with their heads up, but the men as steady as old Time. I was in the
+Lancers then, under Sir Hope. The Sikhs worked their guns beautifully,
+and presently we got the word to advance. It wasn't bad ground for
+manoeuvring, and we were soon into them. The enemy fought a good
+one--those Sikhs always do. There was one fine old white-bearded
+patriarch stuck to his gun to the last. His people were all speared
+and cut down, but he never gave back an inch. I can see him now,
+looking like the pictures of Abraham in my old Sunday-school book. I
+thought I'd save him if I could. Our chaps had got their blood up, and
+dashed in to finish him with their lances, but I kept them off with
+some difficulty, and offered him 'quarter.' I was afraid he wouldn't
+understand my language. 'Quarter,' says he, in the richest brogue
+you'll hear out of Cork--'quarter! you bloody thieves! will you stick
+a countryman, an' a comrade, ye murtherin' villains, like a _boneen_
+in a butcher's shop!' He'd have gone on, I dare say, for an hour, but
+the men had their lances through him before you could say 'knife.' As
+my right-of-threes, himself a Paddy, observed--he was discoorsin'
+the devil in less than five minutes. The man was a deserter and a
+renegade, so it served him right, but being an Irishman, you see, he
+distinguished himself--that's all I mean to infer."
+
+The young officer was exceedingly attentive to an anecdote which, thus
+told by its bronzed, war-worn, and soldier-like narrator, possessed
+the fascination of romance with the interest of reality.
+
+Lord Bearwarden and his guests had also broken off their conversation
+to listen--they returned to the previous subject.
+
+"There are so many people come to town now-a-days," said his lordship,
+"that the whole thing spoils itself. Society is broken up into sets,
+and even if you belong to the same set, you cannot insure meeting any
+particular person at any particular place. Just the same with clubs.
+I might hunt you two fellows about all night, from Arthur's to
+the Arlington--from the Arlington to White's--from White's to the
+Carlton--from the Carlton back to St. James's Street--and never run
+into you at all, unless I had the luck to find you drinking gin and
+soda at Pratt's." Tom Ryfe, belonging only to the last-named of these
+resorts, looked gratified. Dick Stanmore was thinking of something
+else.
+
+"Now, to-night," continued Lord Bearwarden, turning to the latter,
+"although the ball is in your own step-mother's house, I'll take odds
+you don't know three-fourths of the people you'll meet, and yet you've
+been as much about London as most of us. Where they come from I can't
+think, and they're like the swallows, or the storks, or the woodcocks,
+only they're not so welcome. Where they'll go to when the season's
+over I neither know nor care."
+
+Tom Ryfe would have given much to feel equally indifferent. Something
+like a pang shot through him as he reflected that for him the battle
+must be against wind and tide--a fierce struggle, more and more
+hopeless, to grasp at something drifting visibly out of reach. He
+was not a man, however, to be beat while it was possible to persist.
+Believing Dick Stanmore the great obstacle in his way, he watched that
+preoccupied gentleman as a cat watches a mouse.
+
+"I don't want to be introduced to any more people," said Dick rather
+absently. "In my opinion you can't have too few acquaintances and too
+many friends."
+
+"One ought to know lots of _women_," said Mr. Ryfe, assuming the air
+of a fine gentleman, which fitted him, thought Lord Bearwarden, as
+ill as his uniform generally fits a civilian. "I mean women of
+position--who _give_ things--whom you'd like to be seen talking to in
+the Park. As for girls, they're a bore--there's a fresh crop every
+season--they're exactly like each other, and you have to dance with
+'em all!"
+
+"Confound his impudence!" _thought_ Lord Bearwarden; "does he hope to
+impose on _me_ with his half-bred swagger and Brummagem assurance?"
+but he only _said_, "I suppose, Tom, you're in great request with
+them--all ranks, all sorts, all ages! You fellows have such a pull
+over us poor soldiers; you can be improving the time while we're on
+guard."
+
+Tom looked as if he rather believed he could. But he only _looked_
+it. Beneath that confident manner, his heart was sad and sinking. How
+bitter he felt against Miss Bruce, and yet he loved her, in his own
+way, too, all the while.
+
+"Champagne to Mr. Stanmore!" said his entertainer, beckoning to a
+servant. "You're below the mark, Stanmore, and we've a heavy night
+before us. You're thinking of your pets at Tattersall's next week.
+Cheer up. Their future masters won't be half so hard on them, I'll be
+bound. But I wouldn't assist at the sacrifice if I were you. Come
+down to the Den with me; we'll troll for pike, and give the clods
+a cricket-match. Then we'll dine early, set trimmers, and console
+ourselves with claret-cup under affliction."
+
+Dick laughed. Affliction, indeed, and he had never been so happy in
+his life! Perhaps that was the reason of his silence, his abstraction.
+At this very moment, he thought, Maud might be opening the packet he
+made such sacrifices to redeem. He had arranged for her to receive the
+diamonds all reset and glittering at the hour she would be dressing
+for the ball. He could almost fancy he saw the beautiful face flushed
+with delight, the dark eyes filled with tears. Would she press those
+jewels to her lips, and murmur broken words of endearment for _him_?
+Would she not love him _now_, if, indeed, she had not loved him
+before? Horses, forsooth! What were all the horses that ever galloped
+compared to one smile of hers? He would have given her his right arm,
+his life, if she wanted it. And now, perhaps, he was to obtain his
+reward. Who could tell what that very night might bring forth?
+
+Mr. Stanmore's glass remained untasted before him, and Lord Bearwarden
+observing that dinner was over, and his guests seemed disinclined to
+drink any more wine, proposed an adjournment to the little mess-room
+to smoke.
+
+In these days the long sittings that delighted our grandfathers have
+completely given way to an early break up, a quiet cigar, and a
+general retreat, if not to bed, at least to other scenes and other
+society. In ten minutes from the rising of the colonel, Lord
+Bearwarden, and half-a-dozen guests, the larger mess-room was cleared
+of its inmates, and the smaller one crowded with an exceedingly merry
+and rather noisy assemblage.
+
+"Just one cigar," said Lord Bearwarden, handing a huge case to
+his friends. "It will steady you nicely for waltzing, and some
+eau-de-cologne in my room will take off all the smell afterwards. I
+know you dancing swells are very particular."
+
+Both gentlemen laughed, and putting large cigars into their mouths,
+accommodated themselves with exceeding goodwill to the arrangement. It
+was not in the nature of things that silence should be preserved
+under such incentives to conversation as tobacco and soda-water with
+something in it, but presently, above other sounds, a young voice was
+heard to clamour for a song.
+
+"Let's have a chant!" protested this eager voice; "the night is still
+young. We're all musical, and we don't often get the two best pipes in
+the regiment to dine here the same day. Come, tune up, old boy. Give
+us 'Twisting Jane,' or the 'Gallant Young Hussar.'"
+
+The "old boy" addressed, a large, fine-looking man, holding the
+appointment of riding-master, smiled good-humouredly, and shook his
+head. "It's too early for the 'Hussar,'" said he, scanning the
+fresh beardless face with its clear mirthful eyes. "And it's not an
+improving song for young officers neither. I'll try 'Twisting Jane' if
+you gentlemen will support me with the chorus;" and in a deep mellow
+voice he embarked without more ado on the following barrack-room
+ditty:--
+
+  I loved a girl, down Windsor way,
+    When we was lying there,
+  As soft as silk, as mild as May,
+    As timid as a hare.
+  She blushed and smiled, looked down so shy,
+    And then--looked up again--
+  My comrades warned me: 'Mind your eye,
+    With Twisting Jane!'
+
+  I wooed her thus, not sure but slow,
+    To kiss she vowed a crime,--
+  For she was 'reining back,' you know,
+    While I was 'marking time.'
+
+  'Alas!' I thought, 'these dainty charms
+    Are not for me, 'tis plain;
+  Too long she keeps me under arms,
+    Does Twisting Jane.'
+
+  Our corporal-major says to me,
+    One day before parade,
+  'She's gammoning you, young chap,' says he,
+    'Is that there artful jade!
+  You'll not be long of finding out,
+    When nothing's left to gain,
+  How quick the word is "Threes about!"
+    With Twisting Jane!'
+
+  Our corporal-major knows what's what;
+    I peeped above her blind;
+  The tea was made--the toast was hot--
+    She looked so sweet and kind.
+  My captain in her parlour sat,
+    It gave me quite a pain,
+  With coloured clothes, and shining hat,
+    By Twisting Jane.
+
+  The major he came cantering past,
+    She bustled out to see,--
+  'O, major! is it you at last?
+    Step in and take your tea.'
+  The major halted--winked his eye--
+    Looked up and down the lane;
+  And in he went his luck to try
+    With Twisting Jane.
+
+  I waited at 'attention' there,
+    Thinks I, 'There'll soon be more.'
+  The colonel's phaeton and pair
+    Came grinding to the door.
+  She gave him such a sugary smile,
+    (Old men is very vain!)
+  'It's you I looked for all the while,'
+    Says Twisting Jane,
+
+  'I've done with you for good,' I cried,
+    'You're never on the square;
+  Fight which you please on either side,
+    But hang it, lass, fight fair!
+  I won't be last--I can't be first--
+    So look for me in vain
+  When next you're out "upon the burst,"
+    Miss Twisting Jane!--
+  When next you're out "upon the burst,"
+    Miss Twisting Jane!'
+
+"A jolly good song," cried the affable young gentleman who had
+instigated the effort, adding, with a quaint glance at the grizzled
+visage and towering proportions of the singer, "You're very much
+improved, old chap--not so shy, more power, more volume. If you mind
+your music, I'll get you a place as a chorister-boy in the Chapel
+Royal, after all. You're just the size, and your manner's the very
+thing!"
+
+"Wait till I get _you_ in the school with that new charger," answered
+the other, laughing. "I think, gentlemen, it's my call. I'll ask our
+adjutant here to give us 'Boots and Saddles,' you all like that game."
+
+Tumblers were arrested in mid-air, cigars taken from smooth or hairy
+lips, while all eyes were turned towards the adjutant, a soldier down
+to his spurs, who "tuned up," as universally requested, without delay.
+
+  BOOTS AND SADDLES.
+
+  The ring of a bridle, the stamp of a hoof,
+    Stars above, and a wind in the tree,--
+  A bush for a billet,--a rock for a roof,--
+    Outpost duty's the duty for me!
+  Listen. A stir in the valley below--
+    The valley below is with riflemen crammed,
+  Covering the column and watching the foe--
+    Trumpet-major!--Sound and be d----d!
+  Stand to your horses!--It's time to begin--
+    Boots and Saddles! The Pickets are in!
+
+  Though our bivouac-fire has smouldered away,
+    Yet a bit of good 'baccy shall comfort us well;
+  When you sleep in your cloak there's no lodging to pay,
+    And where we shall breakfast the devil can tell!
+  But the horses were fed, ere the daylight had gone,
+    There's a slice in the embers--a drop in the can--
+  Take a suck of it, comrade! and so pass it on,
+    For a ration of brandy puts heart in a man.
+  Good liquor is scarce, and to waste it a sin,--
+    Boots and Saddles! The Pickets are in!
+
+  Hark! there's a shot from the crest of the hill!
+    Look! there's a rocket leaps high in the air.
+  By the beat of his gallop, that's nearing us still,
+    That runaway horse has no rider, I'll swear!
+
+  There's a jolly light-infantry post on the right,
+    I hear their bugles--they sound the 'Advance.'
+  They will tip us a tune that shall wake up the night,
+    And we're hardly the lads to leave out of the dance.
+  They're at it already, I'm sure, by the din,--
+    Boots and Saddles! The Pickets are in!
+
+  They don't give us long our divisions to prove--
+    Short, sharp, and distinct, comes the word of command.
+  'Have your men in the saddle---Be ready to move--
+    Keep the squadron together--the horses in hand--'
+  While a whisper's caught up in the ranks as they form--
+    A whisper that fain would break out in a cheer--
+  How the foe is in force, how the work will be warm.
+    But, steady! the chief gallops up from the rear.
+  With old 'Death-or-Glory' to fight is to win,
+    And the Colonel means mischief, I see by his grin.--
+  Boots and Saddles! The Pickets are in!--
+    Boots and Saddles! The Pickets are in!
+
+"And it must be 'Boots and Saddles' with us," said Lord Bearwarden to
+his guests as the applause subsided and he made a move towards the
+door, "otherwise we shall be the 'lads to leave out of the dance'; and
+I fancy that would suit none of us to-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+MRS. STANMORE AT HOME.
+
+
+DANCING.
+
+Amongst all the magnificent toilettes composed to do honour to the
+lady whose card of invitation heads this chapter, none appeared more
+variegated in colour, more startling in effect, than that of Miss
+Puckers the maid.
+
+True, circumstances compelled her to wear a high dress, but even
+this modest style of costume in the hands of a real artist admits of
+marvellous combinations and extraordinary breadth of treatment. Miss
+Puckers had disposed about her person as much ribbon, tulle, and cheap
+jewelry as might have fitted out a fancy fair. Presiding in a little
+breakfast-room off the hall, pinning tickets on short red cloaks,
+shaking out skirts of wondrous fabrication, and otherwise assisting
+those beautiful guests who constituted the entertainment, she afforded
+a sight only equalled by her after-performances in the tea-room,
+where, assuming the leadership of a body of handmaidens almost as
+smart as herself, she formed, for several waggish and irreverent young
+gentlemen, a principal attraction in that favourite place of resort.
+
+A ball is so far like a run with fox-hounds that it is difficult to
+specify the precise moment at which the sport begins. Its votaries
+gather by twos and threes attired for pursuit; there is a certain
+amount of refitting practised, as regards dress and appointments,
+while some of the keenest in the chase are nevertheless the latest
+arrivals at the place of meeting. Presently are heard a note or two,
+a faint flourish, a suggestive prelude. Three or four couples get
+cautiously to work, the music swells, the pace increases, ere long the
+excitement extends to all within sight or hearing, and a performance
+of exceeding speed, spirit, and severity is the result.
+
+Puckers, with her mouth full of pins, is rearranging the dress of
+a young lady in her first season, to whom, as to the inexperienced
+hunter, that burst of music is simply maddening. She is a well-bred
+young lady, however, and keeps her raptures to herself, but is
+slightly indignant at the very small notice taken of her by Dick
+Stanmore, who rushes into the tiring-room, drops a flurried little
+bow, and hurries Puckers off into a corner, totally regardless of the
+displeasure with which a calm, cold-looking chaperon regards this
+unusual proceeding.
+
+"Did it come in time?" says Dick in a loud agitated whisper. "Did you
+run up with it directly? Was she pleased? Did she say anything? Has
+she got them on now?"
+
+"Lor, Mr. Stanmore!" exclaims Puckers; "whatever do you mean?"
+
+"Miss Bruce--the diamonds," explains Dick, in a voice that causes two
+dandies, recently arrived, to pause in astonishment on the staircase.
+
+"O, the diamonds!" answers Puckers. "Only think, now. Was it _you_,
+sir? Well, I never. Why, sir, when Miss Bruce opens the packet, not
+half-an-hour ago, the tears comes into her eyes, and she says, 'Well,
+this _is_ kind'--them was her very words--'this _is_ kind,' says
+she, and pops'em on that moment; for I'd done her hair and all. Go
+up-stairs, Mr. Stanmore, and see how she looks in them. I'll wager
+she's waiting for Somebody to dance with her this very minute!"
+
+Though it is too often of sadly short duration, every man _has_ his
+"good time" for a few blissful seconds during life. Let him not
+complain they are so brief. It is something to have at least tasted
+the cup, and perhaps it is better to turn with writhing lips from the
+bitter drop near the brim than, drinking it fairly out, to find its
+sweets pall on the palate, its essence cease to warm the heart and
+stimulate the brain.
+
+Dick, hurrying past his mother into the soft, mellow, yet brilliant
+radiance of her crowded ball-room, felt for that moment the happiest
+man in London.
+
+Miss Bruce was _not_ waiting to dance with him, according to her
+maid's prediction, but was performing a waltz in exceeding gravity,
+assisted, as Dick could not help observing, with a certain
+satisfaction, by the ugliest man in the room. The look she gave him
+when their eyes met at last sent this shortsighted young gentleman
+up to the seventh heaven. It seemed well worth all the hunters in
+Leicestershire, all the diamonds in Golconda! He did the honours of
+his step-mother's house, and thanked his own friends for coming, but
+all with the vague consciousness of a man in a dream. Presently the
+"round" dance came to an end, much to the relief of the ugly man, who
+cared, indeed, for ladies as little as ladies cared for him; and
+Dick hastened to secure Miss Bruce as a partner for the approaching
+"square." She was engaged, of course, six deep, but she put off all
+her claimants and took Mr. Stanmore's arm. "He's my cousin, you know,"
+said she, with her rare smile, "and cousins don't count; so you're
+all merely put back _one_. If you don't like it, you needn't come for
+it--_c'est tout simple_!"
+
+Then they took their places, and the dark eyes looked full into his
+own. Dick felt he was winning in a canter.
+
+Miss Bruce put her hand on the collar of diamonds round her neck. "I'm
+glad you're _not_ my cousin," she said; "I'm glad you're not _really_
+a relation. You're far dearer as it is. You're the best friend and
+truest gentleman I ever met in my life. Now I sha'n't thank you any
+more. Mind your dancing, and set to that gawky woman opposite. Isn't
+she badly dressed?"
+
+How could Dick tell? He didn't even know he had a _vis-a-vis_, and the
+"gawky woman," as Miss Bruce most unjustly called her, only wondered
+anybody could make such blunders in so simple a figure as the _Ete_.
+His head was in a whirl. A certain chivalrous instinct warned him that
+this was no time, while his idol lay under a heavy obligation, to
+press his suit. Yet he could not, for the life of him, help venturing
+a word.
+
+"I look at nobody but you," he answered, turning pale as men do when
+they are in sad earnest. "I should never wish to see any other face
+than yours for the rest of my life."
+
+"How tired you'd get of it," said she, with a bright smile; but she
+timed her reply so as to embark immediately afterwards on the _Chaine
+des Dames_, a measure exceedingly ill calculated for sustained
+conversation, and changed the subject directly she returned to his
+side.
+
+"Where did you dine?" she asked saucily. "With those wild young men at
+the barracks, I suppose. I knew you would: and you did all sorts of
+horrid things, drank and smoked--I'm _sure_ you smoked." She put her
+laced hand-kerchief laughingly to her nose.
+
+"I dined with Bearwarden," answered honest Dick, "and he's coming on
+here directly with a lot of them. My mother will be so pleased--it's
+going to be a capital ball."
+
+"I thought Lord Bearwarden never went to balls," replied the young
+lady carelessly; but her heart swelled with gratified vanity to think
+of the attraction that drew him now to every place where he could hear
+her voice and look upon her beauty.
+
+"There he is," was her partner's comment, as his lordship's
+head appeared in the doorway. "We'll have one more dance, Miss
+Bruce--Maud--before the night is over?"
+
+"As many as you please," was her answer, and still Dick felt he had
+the race in hand and was winning in a canter.
+
+People go to balls for pleasure, no doubt, but it must be admitted,
+nevertheless, that the pleasure they seek there is of a delusive kind
+and lasts but for a few minutes at a time.
+
+Mr. Stanmore's whole happiness was centred in Miss Bruce, yet it was
+impossible for him to neglect all his step-mother's guests because of
+his infatuation for one, nor would the usages of society's Draconic
+laws, that are not to be broken, permit him to haunt that one
+presence, which turned to magic a scene otherwise only ludicrous for
+an hour or so, and simply wearisome as it went on.
+
+So Dick plunged into the thick of it, and did his duty manfully,
+diving at partners right and left, yet, with a certain characteristic
+loyalty, selecting the least attractive amongst the ladies for his
+attentions. Thus it happened that as the rooms became crowded,
+and half the smartest people in London surged and swayed upon the
+staircase, he lost sight of the face he loved for a considerable
+period, and was able to devote much real energy to the success of his
+step-mother's ball, uninfluenced by the distraction of Miss Brace's
+presence.
+
+This young lady's movements, however, were not unobserved. Puckers,
+from her position behind the cups and saucers, enjoyed great
+reconnoitring opportunities, which she did not suffer to escape
+unimproved--the tea-room, she was aware, held an important place in
+the working machinery of society, as a sort of neutral territory,
+between the cold civilities of the ball-room and the warmer interests
+fostered by juxtaposition in the boudoir, not to mention a wicked
+little alcove beyond, with low red velvet seats, and a subdued light
+suggestive of whispers and provoking question rather than reply.
+
+Puckers was not easily surprised. In the housekeeper's room she often
+thanked her stars for this desirable immunity, and indeed on the
+present occasion had furnished a loving couple with tea, whose united
+ages would have come hard upon a century, without moving a muscle
+of her countenance, albeit there was something ludicrous to
+general society in the affectation of concealment with which this
+long-recognised attachment had to be carried on. The gentleman was
+bald and corpulent. The lady--well, the lady had been a beauty thirty
+years ago, and dressed the character still. There was nothing to
+prevent their seeing each other every day and all day long, if they
+chose, yet they preferred scheming for invitation to the same places,
+that they might meet _en evidence_ before the public; and dearly
+loved, as now, a retirement into the tea-room, where they could
+enact their _role_ of turtle-doves, uninterrupted, yet not entirely
+unobserved. Perhaps, after all, this imaginary restraint afforded the
+little spice of romance that preserved their attachment from decay.
+
+Puckers, I say, marvelled at these not at all, but she did marvel, and
+admitted it, when Miss Bruce, entering the tea-room, was seen to be
+attended, not by Mr. Stanmore, but by Lord Bearwarden.
+
+Her dark eyes glittered, and there was an exceedingly becoming flush
+on the girl's fair face, usually so pale. Her maid thought she had
+never seen Maud look so beautiful, and to judge by the expression of
+his countenance, it would appear Lord Bearwarden thought so too. They
+had been dancing together, and he seemed to be urging her to dance
+with him again. His lordship's manner was more eager than common, and
+in his eyes came an anxious expression that only one woman, the one
+woman it was so difficult to forget, had ever been able to call into
+them before.
+
+"Look odd!" he repeated, while he set down her cup and gave her back
+the fan he had been holding. "I thought you were above all that, Miss
+Bruce, and did what you liked, without respect to the fools who stare
+and can't understand."
+
+She drew up her head with a proud gesture peculiar to her. "How do you
+know I do like it?" said she haughtily.
+
+He looked hurt, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Forgive me," he
+said, "I have no right to suppose it. I have been presumptuous, and
+you are entitled to be unkind. I have monopolised you too much, and
+you're--you're bored with me. It's my own fault."
+
+"I never said so," she answered in the same tone; "who is unkind now?"
+Then the dark eyes were raised for one moment to look full in his, and
+it was all over with Lord Bearwarden.
+
+"You will dance with me again before I go," said he, recovering his
+former position with an alacrity that denoted some previous practice.
+"I shall ask nobody else--why should I? You know I only came here to
+see _you_. One waltz, Miss Bruce--promise?"
+
+"I promise," she answered, and again came into her eyes that smile
+which so fascinated her admirers to their cost. "I shall get into
+horrid disgrace for it, and so I shall for sitting here so long now.
+I'm always doing wrong. However, I'll risk it if you will."
+
+Her manner was playful, almost tender; and Puckers, adding another
+large infusion of tea, wondered to see her look so soft and kind.
+
+A crowded waltz was in course of performance, and the tea-room, but
+for this preoccupied couple, would have been empty. Two men looked in
+as they passed the door, the one hurried on in search of his partner,
+the other started, scowled, and turned back amongst the crowd.
+Puckers, the lynx-eyed, observing and recognising both, had sufficient
+skill in physiognomy to pity Mr. Stanmore and much mistrust Tom Ryfe.
+
+The former, indeed, felt a sharp, keen pang, when he saw the face that
+so haunted him in close proximity to another face belonging to one
+who, if he should enter for the prize, could not but prove a dangerous
+rival. Nevertheless, the man's generous instincts stifled and kept
+down so unworthy a suspicion, forcing himself to argue against his own
+conviction that, at this very moment, the happiness of his life was
+hanging by a thread. He resolved to ignore everything of the kind.
+Jealousy was a bad beginning for a lover, and after all, if he should
+allow himself to be jealous of every man who admired and danced with
+Maud, life would be unbearable. How despicable, besides, would she
+hold such a sentiment! With her disposition, how would she resent
+anything like _espionage or surveillance_! How unworthy it seemed both
+of herself and of him! In two minutes he was heartily ashamed of his
+momentary discomfiture, and plunged energetically once more into the
+duties of the ball-room. Nevertheless, from that moment, the whole
+happiness of the evening had faded out for Dick.
+
+There is a light irradiating all such gatherings which is totally
+irrespective of gas or wax-candles. It can shed a mellow lustre on
+dingy rooms, frayed carpets, and shabby furniture; nay, I have seen
+its tender rays impart a rare and spiritual beauty to an old, worn,
+long-loved face; but on the other hand, when this magic light is
+quenched, or even temporarily shaded, not all the illuminations of a
+royal birthday are brilliant enough to dispel the gloom its absence
+leaves about the heart.
+
+Mr. Stanmore, though whirling a very handsome young lady through a
+waltz, began to think it was not such a good ball after all.
+
+Tom Ryfe, on the other hand, congratulated himself on his tactics in
+having obtained an invitation, not without considerable pressure put
+upon Miss Bruce, for a gathering of which his social standing hardly
+entitled him to form a part. He was now, so to speak, on the very
+ground occupied by the enemy, and though he saw defeat imminent, could
+at least make his own effort to avert it. After all his misgivings as
+regarded Stanmore, it seemed that he had been mistaken, and that Lord
+Bearwarden was the rival he ought to dread. In any case but his own,
+Mr. Ryfe was a man of the world, quite shrewd enough to have reasoned
+that in this duality of admirers there was encouragement and hope. But
+Tom had lost his heart, such as it was; and his head, though of much
+better material, had naturally gone with it. Like other gamblers, he
+determined to follow his ill-luck to the utmost, bring matters to a
+crisis, and so know the worst. In all graver affairs of life, it is
+doubtless good sense to look a difficulty in the face; but in the
+amusements of love and play practised hands leave a considerable
+margin for that uncertainty which constitutes the very essence of both
+pastimes; and this is why, perhaps, the man in earnest has the worst
+chance of winning at either game.
+
+So Tom Ryfe turned back into the crowd, and waited his opportunity for
+a few minutes' conversation with Miss Bruce.
+
+It came at last. She had danced through several engagements, the night
+was waning, and a few carriages had already been called up. Maud
+occupied the extreme end of a bench, from which a party of ladies had
+just risen to go away: she had declined to dance, and for the moment
+was alone. Tom slipped into the vacant seat by her side, and thus
+cut her off from the whole surrounding world. A waltz requiring much
+terrific accompaniment of brass instruments pealed out its deafening
+strains within ten feet of them, and in no desert island could there
+have been less likelihood that their conversation would be overheard.
+
+Miss Bruce looked very happy, and in thorough good-humour. Tom Ryfe
+opened the trenches quietly enough.
+
+"You haven't danced with me the whole evening," said he, with only
+rather a bitter inflection of voice.
+
+"You never asked me," was the natural rejoinder.
+
+"And I'm not going to ask you, now," proceeded Mr. Ryfe; "you and I,
+Miss Bruce, have something more than a mere dancing acquaintance, I
+think."
+
+An impatient movement, a slight curl of the lip, was the only answer.
+
+"You may drop an acquaintance when you are tired of him, or a friend
+when he gets troublesome. It's done every day. It's very easy, Miss
+Bruce."
+
+He spoke in a tone of irony that roused her.
+
+"Not so easy," she answered, with tightening lips, "when people have
+no tact--when they are not _gentlemen_."
+
+The taunt went home. The beauty of Mr. Ryfe's face was at no time
+in its expression--certainly not now. Miss Bruce, too, seemed well
+disposed to fight it out. Obviously it must be war to the knife!
+
+"Did you get my letter?" said he, in low, distinct syllables. "Do you
+believe I mean what I say? Do you believe I mean what I _write_?"
+
+She smiled scornfully. A panting couple who stopped just in front of
+them imagined they were interrupting a flirtation, and, doing as they
+would be done by, twirled on.
+
+"I treat all begging-letters alike," answered Maud, "and make yours no
+exception, because they contain threats and abuse into the bargain.
+You have chosen the wrong person to try and frighten, Mr. Ryfe. It
+only shows how little you understand my character."
+
+He would have caught at a straw even then. "How little chance I have
+had of studying it!" he exclaimed. "It is not my fault. Heaven knows
+I have been kept in ignorance, uncertainty, suspense, till it almost
+drove me mad. Miss Bruce, you have known the worst of me; only the
+worst of me, indeed, as yet."
+
+The man was pleading for his life, you see. Was it pitiable, or only
+ludicrous, that his voice and manner had to be toned down to the staid
+pitch of general conversation, that a fat and happy German was puffing
+at a cornet-a-piston within arm's length of him? But for a quiver of
+his lip, any bystander might have supposed he was asking Miss Bruce if
+he should bring her an ice.
+
+"I have seen enough!" she replied, very resolutely, "and I am
+determined to see no more. Mr. Ryfe, if you have no pleasanter
+subjects of conversation than yourself and your arrangements, I
+will ask you to move for an instant that I may pass and find Mrs.
+Stanmore."
+
+Lord Bearwarden was at the other end of the room, looking about
+apparently for some object of unusual interest. Perhaps Miss Bruce saw
+him--as ladies do see people without turning their eyes--and the sight
+fortified her resolution.
+
+"Then you defy me!" whispered Tom, in the low suppressed notes that
+denote rage, concentrated and intensified for being kept down. "By
+heaven, Miss Bruce, you shall repent it! I'll show you up! I'll expose
+you! I'll have neither pity nor remorse! You think you've won a heavy
+stake, do you? Hooked a big fish, and need only pull him ashore? _He_
+sha'n't be deceived! _He_ shall know you for what you are! He shall,
+by----!"
+
+The adjuration with which Mr. Ryfe concluded this little ebullition
+was fortunately drowned to all ears but those for which it was
+intended by a startling flourish on the cornet-a-piston. Miss Bruce
+accepted the challenge readily. "Do your worst!" said she, rising
+with a scornful bow, and taking Lord Bearwarden's arm, much to that
+gentleman's delight, walked haughtily away.
+
+Perhaps this declaration of open war may have decided her subsequent
+conduct; perhaps it was only the result of those circumstances which
+form the meshes of a certain web we call Fate. Howbeit, Miss Bruce was
+too tired to dance. Miss Bruce would like to sit down in a cool place.
+Miss Bruce would not be bored with Lord Bearwarden's companionship,
+not for an hour, not for a week--no, not for a lifetime!
+
+Dick Stanmore, taking a lady down to her carriage, saw them sitting
+alone in the tea-room, now deserted by Puckers [Illustration: "'O,
+Dick!' she said, 'I couldn't help it!'"] and her assistants. His
+honest heart turned very sick and cold. Half-an-hour after, passing
+the same spot, they were there still; and then, I think, he knew that
+he was overtaken by the first misfortune of his life.
+
+Later, when the ball was over, and he had wished Mrs. Stanmore
+good-night, he went up to Maud with a grave, kind face.
+
+"We never had our waltz, Miss Bruce," said he; "and--and--there's _a
+reason_, isn't there?"
+
+He was white to his very lips. Through all her triumph, she felt a
+twinge, far keener than she expected, of compunction and remorse.
+
+"O, Dick!" she said, "I couldn't help it! Lord Bearwarden proposed to
+me in that room."
+
+"And you accepted him?" said Dick, trying to steady his voice,
+wondering why he felt half suffocated all the time.
+
+"And I accepted him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+"MISSING--A GENTLEMAN"
+
+
+"Age about thirty. Height five feet nine inches and a half--fair
+complexion--light-grey eyes--small reddish-brown whiskers,
+close-trimmed--short dark hair. Speaks fast, in a high key, and has a
+habit of drawing out his shirt-sleeves from beneath his cuffs. When
+last seen, was dressed in a dark surtout, fancy necktie, black-cloth
+waist-coat, Oxford-mixture trousers, and Balmoral boots. Wore a black
+hat with maker's name inside--Block and Co., 401 Regent Street.
+Whoever will give such information to the authorities as may lead to
+the discovery of the above, shall receive--A Reward!"
+
+Such was the placard that afforded a few minutes' speculation for the
+few people who had leisure to read it, one fine morning about a week
+after Mrs. Stanmore's eventful ball, and towards the close of the
+London season; eliciting at the same time criticism not altogether
+favourable on the style of composition affected by our excellent
+police. The man was missing no doubt, and had been missing for some
+days before anxiety, created by his absence, growing into alarm for
+his safety, had produced the foregoing advertisement, prompted by
+certain affectionate misgivings of Mr. Bargrave, since the lost sheep
+was none other than his nephew Tom Ryfe. The old man felt, indeed,
+seriously discomposed by the prolonged absence of this the only member
+of his family. It was unjustifiable, as he remarked twenty times a
+day, unfeeling, unheard-of, unaccountable. He rang for the servants at
+his private residence every quarter of an hour or so to learn if the
+truant had returned. He questioned the boy at the office sharply and
+repeatedly as to orders left with him by Mr. Ryfe before he went away,
+only to gather from the answers of this urchin, who would, indeed,
+have forgotten any number of such directions, that he looked on the
+present period of anxiety in the light of a holiday and festival,
+devoutly praying that his taskmaster might never come back again.
+Finally in despair poor Bargrave cast himself on the sympathy of
+Dorothea, who listened to his bewailings with stolid indifference when
+sober, and replied to them by surmises of the wildest improbability
+when drunk.
+
+Alas, in common with so many others of her class, the charwoman
+took refuge from care in constant inebriety. Her imagination thus
+stimulated, pointed, like that of some old Castilian adventurer,
+steadily to the west.
+
+"Lor, Mr. Bargrave," she would say, staring helplessly in his face,
+and yielding to the genial hiccough which refused to be kept down, "he
+be gone to 'Merriky, poor dear, to better hisself, I make no doubt.
+Don't ye take on so. It's a weary world, it is; and that's where he be
+gone, for sure!"
+
+Yet she knew quite well where he was hidden all the time; and,
+inasmuch as she had some regard for her kind old employer, the
+knowledge almost drove her mad. Therefore it was that Dorothea,
+harassed by conflicting feelings, drowned her sorrows perseveringly in
+the bowl.
+
+For a considerable period this poor woman had suffered a mental
+torture, the severest, perhaps, to which her sex can be subjected. She
+had seen the man she loved--and, though she was only a drudge, and not
+by any means a tidy one, she could love very dearly--she had seen, I
+say, the man she loved gradually learning to despise her affection,
+and to estrange himself from her society. She was a good deal afraid
+of "Gentleman Jim"--perhaps she liked him none the less for that--and
+dared neither tax him with falsehood nor try to worm out of him the
+assurance that she had or had not a rival. Nevertheless, she was
+determined to ascertain the cause of her lover's indifference to
+herself, and his changed conduct in other relations of life.
+
+Jim had always been somewhat given to the adornment of his person,
+affecting that flash and gaudy style of decoration so much in favour
+with dog-stealers and men of like dubious professions. Of late,
+however, he had adopted, with different tastes and habits, a totally
+different costume--when "off duty," as he called it--meaning thereby
+release from the fulfilment of some business engagement subject to
+penalties affixed by our criminal code. He now draped himself in white
+linen, dark-coloured clothes, a tall hat, and such outward marks of
+respectability, if not station, going even so far as to invest in kid
+gloves and an "umbrellier," as he called that instrument. At first
+sight, but for his boots, Jim might almost have been mistaken for a
+real gentleman. About this period, too, he left off vulgar liquors,
+and shamefully abandoned a short black pipe that had stuck by him
+through many ups and downs, substituting for these stimulants a great
+deal of brown sherry and certain sad-coloured cigars, demanding strong
+lungs and a strong stomach as well. These changes did the forlorn
+Dorothea note with increasing anxiety, and, because every woman
+becomes keen-sighted and quick-witted where her heart is concerned,
+drew from them an augury fatal to her future happiness. After a while,
+when the suspense grew intolerable, she resolved on putting a stop to
+it by personal inquiry, and with that view, as a preliminary,
+kept herself tolerably sober for twenty-four hours, during which
+probationary period she instituted a grand "clean up" of his premises;
+and so, as she mentally expressed it, "with a cool head and a clean
+house and a clear conscience," confronted her employer on the stairs.
+
+Old Bargrave had of late become very nervous and uneasy. The full
+meals, the daily bottle of port, the life of self-indulgence, though
+imparting an air of portliness and comfort while everything went well,
+had unfitted him sadly for a contest with difficulty or reverse.
+Like the fat troop-horse that looks so sightly on parade, a week's
+campaigning reduced him to a miserable object--flabby, shrunk,
+dispirited, and with a sinking heart at least, if not a sore back.
+
+Dorothea's person blocked up the staircase before him, or he would
+have slipped by and locked himself unnoticed in his chambers.
+
+"Can I speak with you, sir?" said the charwoman. "Now, sir, if you
+please--himmediate."
+
+Old Bargrave trembled.
+
+"Certainly, Dorothea, certainly. What is it, my good girl? You've
+heard something. They've traced him--they've found him. One minute, my
+good girl--one minute, if you please."
+
+He had preceded her through the office to his own inner room, and now,
+shaking all over, sat down in his easy-chair, pressing both hands hard
+on its arms to steady himself. Dorothea, staring helplessly at the
+wall over his head, made a muff of her apron, and curtsied; nothing
+more.
+
+"Speak!" gasped the old gentleman convulsively.
+
+"It's my haunt, if you please, sir," said Dorothea, with another
+curtsey.
+
+"D----n your aunt!" vociferated Bargrave. "It's my nephew! Have you
+heard nothing? I'm hasty, my good girl; I'm anxious. I--I haven't
+another relation in the world. Have they told you anything more?"
+
+Dorothea began to cry.
+
+"He be gone to 'Meriker, for sure," she whimpered, trying back on the
+old consolatory suggestion; "to better hisself, no doubt. It's me,
+sir; that's my haunt. She's wuss this turn. An' if so be as you could
+spare me for the day--I've been and cleaned up everythink, and I'd
+wipe over that there table and shake the dust out o' them curtains in
+five minutes, and----"
+
+"That will do--that will do!" exclaimed the old gentleman, aghast,
+as well he might be, at the proposal, since none of the furniture in
+question had been subjected to such a process for years, and immediate
+suffocation, with intolerable confusion of papers, must have been the
+result. "If you want to go and see your aunt, my girl, go, in heaven's
+name. I can spare you as long as you like. But you mustn't tidy up
+here. No; that would never do. And, Dorothea, if you should hear
+anything, come and tell me that instant. Never mind the expense. I'd
+give a great deal to know he was safe. Ah, I'd give all I have in the
+world to see him back again."
+
+She curtsied and hurried out, leaving Bargrave to immerse himself
+in law-papers and correspondence. From sheer force of habit he took
+refuge in his daily work at this hour of anxiety and sad distress. In
+such sorrows it is well for a man to have disciplined his mind till
+it obeys him instinctively, like a managed steed bearing its rider at
+will out of the crowd of assailants by whom he is beset.
+
+Dorothea, scrubbing her face with yellow soap till it shone again,
+proceeded to array herself in raiment of many colours, and, when got
+up to her own satisfaction, scuttled off to a distant part of London,
+making use of more than one omnibus in her journey; and so, returning
+almost upon her tracks, confronted Gentleman Jim as he emerged from
+his usual house of call in the narrow street out of Holborn.
+
+He started, and his face lengthened with obvious disgust.
+
+"What's up now, lass?" said he. "I've business tonight. D'ye mind?
+Blessed if my mouth isn't as dry as a cinder-heap. You go home, like
+a good gal, and I'll take ye to the theaytre, perhaps, to-morrow. I
+haven't a minnit to stop. I didn't ought to be here now."
+
+The promised treat, the hurried manner, above all the affected
+kindness of tone, roused her suspicions to the utmost; and Dorothea
+was woman enough to feel for the moment that she dared match her wits
+against those of her betrayer.
+
+"It's lucky," she answered coolly; "for I've got to be home afore
+dark, and they're lighting the lamps now. I've been down to see arter
+him, Jim, an' I thought I'd just step round and let you know. I footed
+it all the way back, that's why I'm so late now."
+
+She paused and looked steadily in his face.
+
+"Well?" said Jim, turning very pale, while his eyes glared in hers
+with a wild horrible meaning.
+
+She answered his look rather than his exclamation.
+
+"He's a trifle better since morning. He don't know nothing yet, nor he
+won't neither, not for a while to come. But he ain't a-goin' to die,
+Jim--not this turn."
+
+His colour came back, and he laughed brutally. "Blast him! d'ye think
+I care?" said he, with a wild flourish of his arm; but added in a
+quieter voice, "Perhaps it's as well, lass. Cold meat isn't very handy
+to hide, and he's worth more alive than dead. I couldn't hardly keep
+from laffin' this mornin' when I saw them bills. I'll stand ye a drop,
+lass, if you're dry, but I mustn't stop with ye to drink it."
+
+Dorothea declined this liberal offer.
+
+"Good-night, Jim," said she, and turned coldly away. She had no heart
+for a more affectionate farewell; and could their positions have been
+reversed he must have detected something strange in this unusual lack
+of cordiality. But men are seldom close observers in such matters,
+and Jim was full of his own interests, his own projects, his own wild
+senseless infatuation.
+
+He watched her round her homeward turn, and then started off at a
+quick pace in an opposite direction. With all his cunning he would
+never have suspected that Dorothea, whose intellect he considered
+little better than an idiot's, could presume to dog his footsteps; and
+the contempt he entertained for her--of which she was beginning to be
+uncomfortably conscious--no doubt facilitated this unhappy creature's
+operations.
+
+Overhead the sky was dark and lowering, the air thick as before
+thunder; and though the gaslights streamed on every street in London,
+it was an evening well suited to watch an unsuspecting person
+unobserved.
+
+Dorothea, returning on her footsteps, kept Jim carefully in sight,
+walking from twenty to fifty yards behind him, and as much as possible
+on the other side of the street. There was no danger of her losing
+him. She could have followed that figure--to her the type of
+comeliness and manhood--all over the world; but she dreaded, with a
+fear that was almost paralysing, the possibility of his turning back
+and detecting that he was tracked. "He'd murder me, for sure," thought
+Dorothea, trembling in every limb. Nevertheless, the love that is
+strong as death, the jealousy that is cruel as the grave, goaded her
+to persevere; and so she flitted in his wake with a noiseless step,
+wonderfully gliding and ghostlike considering the solidity of her
+proportions.
+
+Jim turned out of Oxford Street to stop at an ill-looking dirty little
+house, the door of which seemed to open to him of its own accord. She
+spied a small grocer's shop nearly opposite not yet shut up. To dodge
+rapidly in and sit down for a few minutes while she cheapened a couple
+of ounces of tea, afforded Dorothea an excellent chance of watching
+his further movements unseen.
+
+He emerged again almost immediately with a false beard and a pair of
+spectacles, carrying a large parcel carefully wrapped in oiled silk;
+then, after looking warily up and down the street, turned into the
+main thoroughfare for the chase to begin once more.
+
+"He must be dreadful hot, poor Jim!" thought Dorothea, pitying him in
+spite of herself for his false beard and heavy parcel, while she wiped
+away the drops already beginning to pour off her own forehead.
+
+The night was indeed close and sultry. A light warm air, reeking like
+the steam from a cook-shop, breathed in her face, while a low roll of
+thunder, nearly lost in the noise of wheels, growled and rumbled among
+the distant Surrey hills.
+
+She followed him perseveringly through the more fashionable streets
+and squares of London, tolerably silent and deserted now in the
+interval between dinner and concert, ball or drum. Here and there
+through open windows might be seen a few gentlemen at their wine, or
+a lady in evening dress coming out for a gasp of fresh air on the
+balcony overhead; but on the pavement below, a policeman under a lamp
+or a lady's-maid hurrying on an errand were the only occupants, and
+these took no heed of the bearded man with his parcel, nor of the
+dirty gaudily-dressed woman who followed like his shadow. So they
+turned down Grosvenor Place and through Belgrave Square into one of
+the adjoining streets. Here Jim, slackening pace, took his hat off
+and wiped his brow. Dorothea, with all her faculties on the stretch,
+slipped into a portico at the very moment when he glanced round on
+every side to make sure he was not watched. From this hiding-place she
+observed him, to her great astonishment, ring boldly at the door of
+a large handsome house. That astonishment was increased to see him
+admitted without demur by an irreproachable footman, powder, plush,
+and all complete. Large drops of rain began to fall, and outside
+London, beyond the limits of our several gas companies, it lightened
+all round the horizon.
+
+Dorothea crept nearer the house where Jim had disappeared. On the
+ground floor, in a dining-room of which the windows stood open for the
+heat, she saw his figure within a few yards of her. He was unpacking
+his bundle and arranging its contents on the table, where a servant
+had placed a lamp when he admitted this unusual visitor. The rain fell
+now in good earnest, and not a living creature remained in the street.
+Dorothea cowered down by the area railings and watched.
+
+Not for long. The dining-room door opened, and into the lamplight,
+like a vision from some world of which poor Dorothea could scarcely
+form the vaguest conception, came a pale haughty woman, beautiful
+exceedingly, before whom Jim, her own Jim, usually so defiant, seemed
+to cower and tremble like a dog. Even in that moment of bewilderment
+Dorothea's eye, woman-like, marked the mode in which Miss Bruce's long
+black hair was twisted, and missed neither the cut nor texture of her
+garments.
+
+Jim spread his goods out for inspection. It was obvious that he had
+gained admission to the house under the guise of a dealer in rare
+silks and Eastern brocades. We, who know everything, know that Mrs.
+Stanmore was dozing over her coffee up-stairs, and that this scheme,
+too, originated in the fertile brain and determined character of her
+niece.
+
+"I'll take that shawl, if you please," said Maud, in her cool
+authoritative way. "I dare say it's better than it looks. Put it aside
+for me. And--you were to ask your own price."
+
+Dorothea, drenched to the skin, felt nevertheless a fire burning
+within; for, raising her face to peer above the area railings, she
+marked a mute worship in Jim's adoring eyes; she marked the working
+of his features, pale, as it seemed, with some new and overpowering
+emotion. Could this be Gentleman Jim? She had seen him asleep and
+awake, pleased and angry, drunk and sober, but she had never seen that
+face before. Through all its agony there rose in her heart a feeling
+of anger at such transparent folly--almost of contempt for such
+weakness in a man.
+
+His voice came hoarse and thick while he answered--
+
+"Never name it, miss, never name it. I done as you desired, an' a
+precious awkward job it were! _He'll tell no tales now!_"
+
+She started. The hand in which she held a small embroidered note-case
+trembled visibly; but her voice, though low, was perfectly firm and
+clear.
+
+"If you exceeded my order," said she, "you have nothing to hope from
+my forbearance. I shall be the first to have you punished. I told you
+so."
+
+He could scarcely contain his admiration.
+
+"What a plucked 'un!" he muttered; "what a plucked 'un! No, miss," he
+added, "you needn't fear. Fear, says I! You never feared nothink in
+your life. You needn't think of that 'ere. Me and another party we
+worked it off as neat as wax, without noise and without violence.
+We've a-trapped him safe, miss, and you've got nothink to do but just
+you lift up your hand, and we'll put him back, not a ha'porth the
+wuss, on the very spot as we took him from."
+
+She drew a great breath of relief, but suffered not a muscle of her
+countenance to betray her feelings.
+
+"It is better so," she observed quietly. "Remember, once for all, when
+I give orders they must be obeyed to the letter. I am satisfied with
+you, Jim--I think your name is Jim?"
+
+There was just the least possible inflection of kindness in her voice,
+and this ruffian's heart leaped to meet it, while the tears came to
+his eyes. He dashed them savagely away, and took a letter from his
+breast-pocket.
+
+"That's all we found on him, miss," said he, "that an' a couple o'
+cigars. He hadn't no watch, no blunt, no latch-key, no nothink. I
+kep' this here careful to bring it you. Bless ye, I can read, I can,
+_well_, but I've not read that there. I couldn't even smoke of his
+cigars. No, I guv 'em to a pal. This here job warn't done for money,
+miss! It were done for--for--well--for _you_!"
+
+She took the letter with as little emotion as if it had been an
+ordinary tradesman's bill for a few shillings; yet had she once pawned
+a good many hundred pounds' worth of diamonds only on the chance of
+recovering its contents.
+
+"At least, I must pay you for the shawl," said she, pulling the notes
+out of their case.
+
+"For the shawl, miss? Yes," answered Jim. "Ten pounds will buy that,
+an' leave a fair profit for my pal as owns it. Not a shilling more,
+miss--no--no. D'ye mind the first time as ever I see you? D'ye mind
+what I said then? There's one chap, miss, in this world, as belongs of
+you, body and soul. He's a poor chap, he is, and a rough chap, but he
+asks no better than to sarve of you, be the job what it may--ay, if he
+swings for it! Now it's out!"
+
+Over her pale haughty face swept a flash of mingled triumph, malice,
+and even amusement, while she listened to this desperate man's
+avowal of fidelity and belief. But she only vouchsafed him a cold
+condescending smile, observing, as she selected a ten-pound note--
+
+"Is there nothing I can do to mark my satisfaction and approval?"
+
+He fidgeted, glanced at the note-case, and began packing up his goods.
+
+"If _you're_ pleased, miss, that's enough. But if so be as you _could_
+do without that there empty bit of silk, and spare it me for a
+keepsake--well, miss, I'd never part with it--no, not if the rope was
+rove, and the nightcap drawed over my blessed face!"
+
+She put the empty note-case in his hand.
+
+"You're a fool," she said, ringing the bell for a servant to show him
+out; "but you're a stanch one, and I wish there were more like you."
+
+"Blast me, I _am_!" he muttered; adding, as he turned into the wet
+street, and walked on through the rain like a man in a dream, "if
+there was more such gals as you, maybe there'd be more fools like me.
+It would be a rum world then, blessed if it wouldn't! And now it will
+be a whole week afore I shall see her again!"
+
+Dorothea, clinging to the area railings, even in the imminence of
+discovery had not the heart to leave them as he went out. Stupefied,
+bewildered, benumbed, she could scarcely believe in the reality of the
+scene she had witnessed. She felt it explained much that had lately
+puzzled her exceedingly; but at present she was unequal to the task
+of arranging her ideas so as to understand the mystery that enveloped
+her.
+
+Gradually the thunderstorm rolled away, the rain cleared off, the moon
+shone out, and Dorothea reached her squalid home, drenched, cold,
+weary, and sick at heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+"WANTED--A LADY"
+
+
+We must go back a few days to watch with Dick Stanmore through the sad
+sorrowing hours that succeeded his step-mother's ball. I trust I have
+not so described this gentleman as to leave an impression that he was
+what young ladies call a romantic person. Romance, like port
+wine, after-dinner slumbers, flannel next the skin, and such
+self-indulgences, should be reserved as a luxury for after-life; under
+no circumstances must it be permitted to impair the efficiency of
+manhood in its prime. Dick Stanmore took his punishment with true
+British pluck and pertinacity. It was a "facer." As it could not
+possibly be returned, his instincts prompted him to "grin and bear
+it." He had sustained a severe fall. His first impulse was to get up
+again. None the less did nerves thrill and brain spin with the force
+and agony of the blow. Perhaps the very nature that most resists,
+suffers also the most severely from such shocks, as a granite wall
+cracks and splinters to the round shot, while an earth-work accepts
+that rushing missile with a stolid harmless thud.
+
+Dick's composition was at least not earthy enough to let him go to bed
+after this recent downfall of his hopes. Restless, hurt, sorrowful,
+angry with himself, not _her_--for his nature could be gallantly
+loyal under defeat--sleep was as impossible as any other occupation
+requiring quietude and self-control. No. The only thing to be done was
+to smoke, of course! and then to pack up everything he could lay hands
+on, without delay, so as to leave London that very morning, for any
+part of England, Europe, or the habitable world. All places would be
+alike to him now, only the farther from Belgrave Square the better.
+Therefore it was, perhaps, that, after shamming to breakfast, and
+enduring considerable pain in a state of enforced inactivity, while
+his servant completed their travelling arrangements, he drove through
+this very Square, though it lay by no means in a direct line for the
+railway station to which he was bound. Those who believe in ghosts
+affirm that a disembodied spirit haunts the place it best loved on
+earth; and what are we but the ghosts of our former selves, when all
+that constituted the pith and colouring and vitality of our lives has
+passed away? Ah! Lady Macbeth's are not the only white hands from
+which that cruel stain can never be removed. There are soft eyes and
+sweet smiles and gentle whispers, enough in the world guilty of moral
+manslaughter (I believe the culprits themselves call it "justifiable
+homicide"), not entirely divested of that malice prepense which
+constitutes the crime of murder! Happy the victims in whom life is not
+completely extinguished, who recover their feet, bind up their wounds,
+and undeterred by a ghastly experience, hazard in more encounters a
+fresh assassination of the heart. Such fortitude would have afforded a
+remedy to Dick Stanmore. "Wanted--a lady!" should have been the motto
+emblazoned on his banner if ever he turned back into the battle once
+more. Homoeopathy, no doubt, is the treatment for a malady like
+that which prostrated this hapless sufferer,--homoeopathy, at first
+distrusted, ridiculed, accepted only under protest, and in accordance
+with the force of circumstances, the exigences of the position;
+gradually found to soothe, to revive, to ameliorate, till at last it
+effects a perfect and triumphant cure, nay, even shows itself powerful
+enough to produce a second attack of the same nature, fierce and
+virulent as the first. But, meanwhile, Dick Stanmore followed the
+ghost's example, and drove sadly through Belgrave Square, as he told
+himself, for the last--last time! Had he been an hour later, just one
+hour, he might have taken away with him a subject for considerable
+speculation, during his proposed travels in search of distraction.
+This is what he would have seen.
+
+A good-looking bad-looking man, with dark eyes and hair, sweeping a
+crossing very inefficiently, while he watched the adjacent street with
+an air of eager anxiety, foreign to an occupation which indeed seems
+to demand unusual philosophy and composure of mind. Presently, Maud
+Bruce, tripping daintily across the path he had swept clean, let
+herself into the Square gardens, dropping her glove in the muddy
+street as she took a pass-key from her pocket. The crossing-sweeper
+pounced at it like a hawk, stuck his broom against a lamp-post, and
+hurried round to the other side of the Square.
+
+Here Maud appeared at the gate, while "Gentleman Jim," for it was none
+other, returned her glove without a word through the iron bars.
+
+"I hardly expected you so soon," said Miss Bruce. "My letter could
+only have been posted at five this morning."
+
+"You might ha' made sure I'd come that instant, miss," answered Jim,
+his face brightening with excitement and delight. "I knowed who 'twas
+from, well enough, though 'twas but a line as a man might say. I ain't
+had it an hour, an' here I am, ready and willing for your job, be it
+what it may!"
+
+"You're a bold fellow, I know," said Maud, "but it's a desperate
+undertaking. If you don't like it, say so."
+
+Jim swore a horrible oath, and then drew his hand across his lips as
+though to wipe away its traces.
+
+"Look'ee here, miss," he muttered in a hoarse thick whisper. "If you
+says to me, Jim, says you, go and rob that there church--see, now, I'd
+have the wards of the big key in wax, ah! this weary arternoon. If you
+says to me, says you, Jim, go and cut that there parson's throat, I've
+got a old knife in my pocket as I wouldn't want to sharpen afore the
+job was done, and the parson too, for good an' all!"
+
+There was a peculiar grace in the setting on of Maud's head,
+especially in the firm lines of her mouth and chin. Though she looked
+even paler than usual, her rare beauty, always somewhat resolute and
+defiant in character, never showed to greater advantage than now.
+
+"I won't speak of reward to _you_," she said, very clearly and
+distinctly, "though you shall name your own price, and be paid at
+your own time. Listen--I have an enemy--a bitter enemy who threatened
+me--actually dared to threaten _me_ last night--who would hesitate at
+nothing to do me an injury."
+
+"Blast him!" muttered Jim ferociously. "Leave 'un to me, miss, leave
+'un to me!"
+
+She took no heed of his interruption.
+
+"That enemy," she continued, "must be got out of my way."
+
+The sweat stood on her listener's brow.
+
+"I understand you, miss," he gasped in a broken voice. "It shall be
+done."
+
+Over the face this ruffian thought too beautiful to be mortal came a
+stern proud smile.
+
+"I forbid _that_" she replied, "forbid it distinctly, and I _will_ be
+obeyed to the very letter. If you were to kill this man, I should be
+the first to hand you over to justice. Listen. He must be kept quiet
+and out of the way for something less than three weeks. After that, he
+can harm me no more. I bear him no grudge, I wish him no evil; but he
+must be taken away this very afternoon. Every hour might make it too
+late. Can you do this?"
+
+Jim pondered. He was an experienced criminal. A man with certain
+qualities which, in the honest paths of life, might have made him
+successful, even remarkable. In a few seconds he had run over his
+chances, his resources, his risk of detection, all the pros and cons
+of the undertaking. He looked cheerfully in her face.
+
+"I _can_, miss," said he confidently. "I don't go for to say as it's
+a job to be done right off, like easy shavin', or taking a dozen of
+hiseters. But it's to be worked. I'll engage for that, and I'm the
+chap as can work it. You couldn't give me no longer than to-day, could
+ye now?"
+
+"If it's not done at once, you must let it alone," was the answer.
+
+"Now that's business," replied Jim, growing cooler and more
+self-possessed as he reviewed the difficulties of his enterprise. "The
+party being in town, miss, o' course. You may depend on my makin' of
+him safe before nine o'clock to-night. Shall I trouble you for the
+name and address, or will you give me a description in full, that will
+do as well?"
+
+"You have seen him," she observed quietly. "On this very spot where I
+am standing now. I walked with him in these gardens the first morning
+you swept our crossing. A gentleman in a frock coat with a bunch of
+flowers at his buttonhole. Do you remember?"
+
+_Did he remember_? Why the man's figure, features, every detail of his
+dress was photographed on Jim's heart.
+
+"No need to tell me his name, miss," was the answer. "I knows him as
+well as I knows these here old shoes o' mine. I've had my eye on him
+ever since. I can tell you when he goes out, when he comes in, where
+he takes his meals. I could lay my hand on him in any part of this
+here town at two hours' notice. Make yourself easy, miss. Your job's
+as good as done, and some day you'll see me again, miss, won't you?
+And--and you'll thank me kindly, perhaps, when it's off your mind for
+good and all!"
+
+"You shall come and tell me the particulars," answered Miss Bruce,
+with a gracious smile that seemed to flood him in sunshine, "when the
+thing is finished. And now I ought to be at home again; but before I
+go, understand plainly, to-morrow will be too late!"
+
+Jim was deep in thought.
+
+"The bird might be shy, miss," said he after a pause. "Some on 'em's
+easy scared, and this doesn't seem like a green one, not a bit of it.
+Supposin' as he _won't_ be 'ticed, miss; there's only one way, then!"
+
+For a moment she felt a keen stab of compunction, but, remembering the
+stake she ventured, nerved herself to resist the pang. This was no
+time for child's play, for a morbid sensitiveness, for weak indulgence
+of the feelings.
+
+"Tell him you have a message from _me_, from Miss Bruce," she replied
+firmly. "It will lead him anywhere."
+
+Jim looked as if he would rather set about the business in any other
+way; nevertheless, he was keenly alive to the efficiency of so
+tempting a bait, reflecting at the same time with a kind of awe on Mr.
+Ryfe's temerity in affronting such a character as this.
+
+Another hurried sentence. A light in Jim's eyes like that with which a
+dog receives directions from its master, a gesture such as dismisses
+the same dog imperiously to its kennel, and Miss Bruce walked quietly
+home to her music and her embroidery, while the crossing-sweeper,
+recovering his broom, hurried off in another direction to commence
+operations against the unsuspecting Tom Ryfe.
+
+That gentleman's feelings, as he sat in his uncle's office the morning
+after Mrs. Stanmore's ball, were of no enviable nature. Malice,
+hatred, and all uncharitableness might indeed sufficiently describe
+the frame of mind in which he went about his daily business,
+unfortunately on the present occasion an affair of such mere routine
+as in no way to distract his attention from his sorrows and his
+wrongs.
+
+"She has dared me," thought he, poring over a deed he knew by heart,
+and of which his eye only took in the form and outward semblance,
+"challenged me to do my worst, and herself declared it is to be war
+to the knife. O Maud, Maud, how could you, how could you! Was it not
+enough to have wound yourself round my heart, to have identified
+yourself with my hopes, my ambition, my manhood, my very existence,
+and then with one turn of your hand to have destroyed them, each and
+all, but you must add insult to injury--must scorn and trample on me
+as well? Some men may stand this sort of treatment--I won't. I _have_
+a pull over you. Ah! I'm not such a fool, after all, perhaps, as you
+thought. I have it, and hang me, but I'll make use of it! You have
+blasted my life, and thought it good fun, no doubt. I'll see if I
+can't give tit-for-tat and spoil _your_ little game, my haughty lady,
+with your white face and your cursed high-handed airs. Yet, how I
+loved them--how I loved them! Must I never see a woman again without
+that queenly beauty coming between me and my share of happiness? What
+right had you to destroy my whole future? And I would have been so
+different if you had cared _for_ me; I might have made a better
+gentleman than any of them. As for that emptyheaded cousin (to be sure
+you've thrown him over, too, and I hope he feels it to his marrow),
+and that swaggering lord, can they care for you like I did? Would they
+have worked as hard to please you, and sat up night after night, as I
+have done, poring over papers to see you righted? and why am I to
+be sacrificed to such men as these? I won't be sacrificed; no, by
+heavens! I've done my best for you hitherto, Miss Bruce, and you've
+dared me now to do my _worst_. I shall rather astonish you, I think,
+when you learn what that worst is. Curse you; I'll have no mercy! If
+I _am_ to suffer, I'll take care not to suffer meekly and alone. It's
+_my_ turn now, my lady, as, before twelve hours are out, you shall
+know to your cost."
+
+Mr. Ryfe, you see, was sadly wanting in that first element of chivalry
+which establishes the maxim that "a woman can do no wrong." This
+principle, when acted up to in its fullest sense, is convenient,
+no doubt, and beneficial to us all. It involves free trade on the
+broadest basis, sweeping away much of the selfishness and morbid
+sentimentality that constitute the superstition we call Love. _She_
+has a perfect right to change her mind, bless her! why shouldn't she?
+And so, no doubt, have _you_! Ring for fresh cards, cut again for
+partners, and so sit merrily down to another rubber. Thus, too, you
+will learn to play the game cautiously and with counters, saving both
+your temper and your gold. It may be you will miss the excitement of
+real gambling, finding the pastime so wearisome that you are fain to
+leave off and go to bed. Whatever you do, retire with a good grace.
+It is but a choice of evils. Perhaps you had better be bored than
+miserable, and, if less exciting, it is surely less painful to stifle
+listless yawns, than to crush down the cry of a wilful wounded heart.
+
+Mr. Ryfe, however, I consider perfectly inexcusable in the course
+he chose to adopt. Self-sacrifice is, of all others, the quality by
+which, in questions of feeling, the true gold is to be distinguished
+from the false. But Tom had no idea of such generous immolation--not
+he.
+
+Hour after hour, poring over the deeds of which he never read a line,
+he raged and chafed and came to a determination at last.
+
+He had thought of writing to Lord Bearwarden, in his own name, warning
+him as a true friend of the lady's antecedents who was about to become
+his lordship's bride, enclosing at the same time a copy of her promise
+to himself; for, with professional caution, he reflected that the
+original had better not pass out of his hands. Then, he argued, if his
+lordship could only see with his own eyes the treasured lines in her
+well-known handwriting, by which Miss Bruce had bound herself in all
+honour to the lawyer's clerk, that nobleman must readily, and of
+necessity, hold himself absolved from any engagement he might have
+contracted with her, and perceive at once the folly and impropriety
+of making such a woman his wife. Yes, Lord Bearwarden should read the
+letter itself; he would obtain a personal interview that very evening,
+when the latter dressed for dinner. There would thus be no necessity
+for trusting the important document out of his own possession, while
+at the same time he could himself adopt a tone of candour and high
+feeling, calculated to make a strong impression on such a true
+gentleman as his friend.
+
+He took Miss Bruce's promise from the safe in which he kept it locked
+up, and hid it carefully in his breast-pocket. Then, looking at his
+watch, and finding it was time to leave his office for the West-End,
+heaped his papers together, bundled them into the safe, and prepared
+to depart.
+
+Walking moodily down-stairs he was waylaid by Dorothea, who, sluicing
+the steps with dirty water under pretence of cleaning them, thus held,
+as it were, the key of the position, and so had him at command. It
+surprised him not a little that she should desist from her occupation
+to request an interview.
+
+"Can I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Thomas?" said she. "It's
+private, and it's particular."
+
+The amount of pressure put on Dorothea ere she consented to the
+job now in hand it is not for me to estimate. Her Jim was a man of
+unscrupulous habits and desperate resources. It is probable that she
+had been subjected to the influences of affection, sentiment, and
+intimidation, perhaps even physical force. I cannot tell, my business
+is only with results.
+
+There was no escaping, even had Mr. Ryfe been so inclined, for
+Dorothea's person, pail, and scrubbing-brushes defended the whole
+width of the staircase.
+
+"It's strange, Mr. Thomas," she continued, pushing the hair off her
+face. "Lor! I was that frightened and that surprised, as you might
+have 'eard my 'eart beatin' like carpets. Who she may be, an' wot she
+may be, I know no more than the dead. But her words was these--I'm
+tellin' you her werry words--If you can make sure of seeing Mr. Ryfe,
+says she,--that's _you_, Mr. Thomas,--any time afore to-night, says
+she, tell him, as I must have a word with him in priwate atween him
+and me this werry evening, or it would have been better for both of
+us, poor things, says she, if we'd 'a never been born!"
+
+Tom Ryfe stared.
+
+"What do you mean?" he said. "Am I to understand that the--the
+lady who spoke to you was desirous of an interview with me here in
+chambers, or where?"
+
+"An' a born lady she is an' were!" answered Dorothea, incoherent, and
+therefore in the acute lawyer's opinion more likely to be telling
+the truth. "A beautiful lady, too--tall and pale, 'aughty and
+'andsome--(Tom started)--dressed in 'alf-mourning, with a
+black-and-white parasol in her 'and. It's to see you priwate, Mr.
+Thomas, as she bade me to warn of you. To-night at height in the
+Birdcage Walk, without fail, says she, for it's life and death as is
+the matter, or marriage, says she, which is sometimes wuss nor both."
+
+Dorothea then removed herself, her pail, and her scrubbing-brushes to
+one side, as though inviting him to follow out his assignation without
+delay.
+
+"I ask yer pardon," said she, "Mr. Thomas, if I done wrong. But the
+young lady she seemed so anxious and aggrawated-like. No offence, sir,
+I 'umbly 'ope, and she guv' me 'alf-a-sovereign."
+
+"And I'll give you another," exclaimed Tom, placing a coin of that
+value in Dorothea's damp hot hand. "The Birdcage Walk, at eight. And
+it's past six now. Thank you, Dorothea. I've no doubt it's all right.
+I'll start at once."
+
+Leaving Gray's Inn, the warm tears filled his eyes to think he had
+so misjudged her. Evidently she was in some difficulty, some
+complication; she had no opportunity of confiding to him, and hence
+her apparent heartlessness, the inconsistency of her conduct which he
+had been unable to understand. Obviously she loved him still, and the
+conviction filled him with rapture, all the more thrilling and intense
+for his late misgivings.
+
+He pulled her written promise from his pocket, and kissed it
+passionately, reading it over and over again in the fading light. A
+prayer rose from heart to lip for the woman he loved, while he looked
+up to the crimson glories of the western sky. Do such prayers fall
+back in the form of curses on the heads of those who betray, haunting
+them in their sorrows--at their need--worst of all in their supreme
+moments of happiness and joy? God forbid! Rather let us believe that,
+true to their heaven-born nature, they are blessings for those who
+give and those who receive.
+
+Some two hours later, Tom Ryfe found himself pacing to and fro under
+the trees in the Birdcage Walk, with a happier heart, though it beat
+so fast, than had been within his waistcoat for weeks.
+
+It was getting very dark, and even beneath the gas-lamps it was
+difficult to distinguish the figure of man or woman, flitting through
+the deep shadows cast by trees still thick with their summer foliage.
+Tom, peering anxiously into the obscure, could make out nothing but
+a policeman, a foot-guardsman with a clothes-basket, and a drunken
+slattern carrying her baby upside-down.
+
+He was growing anxious. Big Ben's booming tones had already warned him
+it was a quarter past eight, when, suddenly, so close to him he could
+almost touch it, loomed the figure of a woman.
+
+"Miss Bruce," he exclaimed--"Maud--is it you?"
+
+Turning his own body, so as to take advantage of a dim ray from the
+nearest gaslight, he was aware that the woman, shorter and stouter
+than Miss Bruce, had muffled herself in a cloak, and was closely
+veiled.
+
+"You have a letter--a message," he continued in a whisper. "It's all
+right. I'm the party you expected to meet--here--at eight--under the
+trees."
+
+"And wot the--are you at with my missus under the trees?" growled
+a brutal voice over his shoulder, while Tom felt he was helplessly
+pinioned by a pair of strong arms from behind, that crushed and
+bruised him like iron. Ere he could twist his hands free to show
+fight, which he meant to do pretty fiercely, he found himself baffled,
+blinded, suffocated, by a handkerchief thrust into his face, while a
+strong, pungent, yet not altogether unpleasant flavour of ether filled
+eyes, mouth, and nostrils, till it permeated to his very lungs. Then
+with every pulsation of the blood Big Ben seemed to be striking
+inside his brain till something gave way with a great whizz! like
+the mainspring of a watch, and Tom Ryfe was perfectly quiet and
+comfortable henceforth.
+
+Five minutes afterwards a belated bricklayer lounging home with his
+mate observed two persons, man and woman, supporting between them a
+limp helpless figure, obviously incapable of sense or motion. Said the
+bricklayer, "That's a stiff-'un, Bill, to all appearance."
+
+"Stiff-'un be d----d!" retorted Bill; "he's only jolly drunk. I wish I
+was too!"
+
+The bricklayer seemed a man of reflection; for half-a-mile or so he
+held his peace, then, with a backward nod of the head, to indicate his
+meaning, observed solemnly--
+
+"I wouldn't take that chap's head-ache when he comes to, no, not to be
+as jolly drunk as he is this minnit--I wouldn't!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+"THE COMING QUEEN"
+
+
+  "And whenever she comes she will find me waiting
+  To do her homage--my queen--my queen!"
+
+How many an aspiring heart has breathed the high chivalrous sentiment,
+never before so touchingly expressed, as in the words of this
+beautiful song! How many a gallant generous nature has desired with
+unspeakable longing to lay its wealth of loyalty and devotion at her
+feet who is to prove the coming queen of its affections, the ladye of
+its love! And for how many is the unwavering worship, the unfailing
+faith, the venture of wealth and honour, the risk of life and limb,
+right royally rewarded according to its merits and its claim! I am not
+sure that implicit belief, unquestioning obedience, are the qualities
+most esteemed by those illustrious personages on whom they are
+lavished; and I think that the rebel who sends in his adhesion on his
+own terms is sometimes treated with more courtesy and consideration
+than the stanch vassal whose fidelity remains unaffected by coldness,
+ingratitude, or neglect.
+
+Dick Stanmore, reading in the _Morning Post_ an eloquent account of
+Viscount Bearwarden's marriage to Miss Bruce, with the festivities
+consequent thereon, felt that he had sadly wasted his loyalty, if
+indeed this lady were the real sovereign to whom the homage of his
+heart was due. He began now to entertain certain misgivings on that
+score. What if he had over-estimated his own admiration and the force
+of her attractions? Perhaps his _real_ queen had not come to him after
+all. It might be she was advancing even now in her maiden majesty,
+as yet unseen, but shedding before her a soft and mellow radiance, a
+tender quiver of light and warmth, like that which flushes the horizon
+at the break of a summer's day.
+
+His dark hour had been cold and dismal enough. There is nothing to be
+ashamed of in the confession. Dick suffered severely, as every manly
+nature must suffer when deceived by a woman. He did not blame the
+woman--why should he?--but he felt that a calamity had befallen him,
+the heaviest of his young experience, and he bore it as best he might.
+
+"_Caelum non animum_" is a very old proverb: his first impulse, no
+doubt, was to change the scene, and seek under other skies an altered
+frame of mind, in defiance of Horace and his worldly wisdom, so rarely
+at fault. In these days a code of behaviour has been established by
+society to meet every eventuality of life. When your fortunes are
+impaired you winter at Rome; when your liver is affected you travel in
+Germany; when your heart is broke you start at once for India. There
+is something unspeakably soothing, I imagine, in the swing of an
+elephant as he crashes through jungle, beating it out for tigers;
+something consolatory to wounded feelings in the grin of a heavy old
+tusker, lumbering along, half sulky, half defiant, winking a little
+blood-red eye at the pig-sticker, pushing his Arab to speed with a
+loose rein ere he delivers the meditated thrust that shall win first
+spear. Snipe, too, killed by the despairing lover while standing in a
+paddy-field up to his knees in water, with a tropical sun beating on
+his head, to be eaten afterwards in military society, not undiluted by
+pale ale and brandy-pawnee, afford a relief to the finer feelings of
+his nature as delightful as it is unaccountable; while those more
+adventurous spirits who, penetrating far into the mountainous regions
+of the north-west frontier, persecute the wild sheep or the eland, and
+even make acquaintance with the lordly ibex "rocketing" down from crag
+to crag, breaking the force and impetus of his leap by alighting on
+horns and forehead, would seem to gain in their life of hardship and
+adventure an immunity from the "common evil" which lasts them well
+into middle age.
+
+Dick Stanmore's first impulse, therefore, was to secure a berth in the
+P. and O. steamer at once. Then he reflected that it would not be
+a bad plan to stop at Constantinople--one of the Egean islands,
+Messina--or, indeed, why go farther than Marseilles? If you come to
+that, Paris was the very place for a short visit. A man might spend
+a fortnight there pleasantly enough, even in the hot weather, and it
+would be a complete change, the eventual result of these deliberations
+being a resolve to go down and look after his landed property in the
+west of England. I believe that in this determination Mr. Stanmore
+showed more wisdom than his friends had hitherto given him credit for
+possessing. At his own place he had his own affairs to interest him, a
+good deal of business to attend to, above all, constant opportunities
+of doing good. This it is, I fancy, which constitutes the real pith
+and enjoyment of a country gentleman's life--which imparts zest and
+flavour to the marking of trees, the setting of trimmers, the shooting
+of partridges, nay, even to the joyous excitement of fox-hunting
+itself.
+
+This, too, is a wondrous salve for such wounds as those under which
+Dick Stanmore was now smarting. The very comparison of our own sorrows
+with those of others has a tendency to decrease their proportions
+and diminish their importance. How can I prate of my cut finger in
+presence of your broken leg? And how utterly ridiculous would have
+seemed Mr. Stanmore's sentimental sorrows to one of his own labourers
+keeping a wife and half-a-dozen children on eleven shillings a week?
+
+In the whole moral physic-shop there is no anodyne like duty,
+sweetened with a little charity towards your neighbours. Amusement
+and dissipation simply aggravate the evil. Personal danger, while
+its excitement braces nerve and intellect for the time, is an
+over-powerful stimulant for the imagination, and leaves a reaction
+sadly softening to the heart. Successful ambition, gratified vanity,
+what are these with none to share the triumph? But put the sufferer
+through a steady course of daily duties, engrossing in their nature,
+stupefying in the monotony of their routine, and insensibly, while his
+attention is distracted from self and selfish feelings, he gathers
+strength, day by day, till at last he is able to look his sorrow in
+the face, and fight it fairly, as he would any other honourable foe.
+The worst is over then, and victory a mere question of time.
+
+So Dick Stanmore, setting to work with a will, found sleep and
+appetite and bodily strength come back rapidly enough. He had moments
+of pain, no doubt, particularly when he woke in the morning. Also at
+intervals during the day, when the breeze sighed through his woods,
+or the sweetbrier's fragrance stole on his senses more heavily than
+usual. Once, when a gipsy-girl blessed his handsome face, adding, in
+the fervour of her gratitude, a thousand good wishes for "the lass he
+loved, as must love him dear, sure-lie!" but for very shame he could
+have cried like a child.
+
+Such relapses, however, were of rarer occurrence every week. It was
+not long before he told himself that he had been through the worst of
+his ordeal and could meet Lady Bearwarden now without looking like
+a fool. In this more rational frame of mind Mr. Stanmore arrived in
+London in business at that period of settled weather and comparative
+stagnation called by tradesmen the "dead time of year," and found his
+late-acquired philosophy put somewhat unexpectedly to the proof.
+
+He was staring at a shop-window in Oxford Street--studying, indeed,
+the print of a patent mowing-machine, but thinking, I fear, more of
+past scenes in certain well-lit rooms, on slippery floors, than of the
+velvet lawns at home--when a barouche drew up to the kerb-stone with
+such trampling of hoofs, such pulling about of horses' mouths, such a
+jerk and vibration of the whole concern, as denoted a smart carriage
+with considerable pretension, a body-coachman of no ordinary calibre.
+Dick turned sharply round, and there, not five yards off, was the pale
+face, proud, dreamy, and beautiful as of old. Had she seen him? He
+hardly knew, for he was sick at heart, growing white to his very
+lips--he, a strong healthy man, with as much courage as his
+neighbours. Horribly ashamed of himself he felt. And well he might be!
+But with more wisdom than he had hitherto shown, he made a snatch at
+his hat, and took refuge in immediate retreat. It was his only chance.
+How, indeed, could he have met her manfully and with dignity, while
+every nerve and fibre quivered at her presence? how endure the shame
+of betraying in his manner that he loved her very dearly still? It
+gave him, indeed, a sharp and cruel pang to think that it had come to
+this--that the face he had so worshipped he must now fly from like a
+culprit--that for his own sake, in sheer self-defence, he must
+avoid her presence, as if he had committed against her some deadly
+injury--against _her_, for whom, even now, he would willingly have
+laid down his life! Poor Dick! He little knew, but it was the last
+pang he was destined to feel from his untoward attachment, and it
+punished him far more severely than he deserved.
+
+Blundering hastily up a by-street, he ran into the very arms of a
+gentleman who had turned aside to apply a latch-key at the door of a
+rambling unfurnished-looking house, sadly in want of paint, whitewash,
+and general repair. The gentleman, with an exclamation of delight, put
+both hands on Mr. Stanmore's shoulders.
+
+"This _is_ a piece of luck!" exclaimed the latter. "Why, it's 'old Sir
+Simon the King'!"
+
+His mind reverted insensibly to the pleasant Oxford days, and he
+used a nickname universally bestowed on his friend by the men of his
+college.
+
+"And what can _you_ be doing here at this time of year?" asked Simon.
+"In the first place, how came you to be in London? In the second, how
+did you ever get so far along Oxford Street? In the third, being here,
+won't you come up to the painting-room? I'll show you my sketches;
+I'll give you some 'baccy--I haven't forgot Iffley Lock and your vile
+habit of stopping to drink. I can even supply you with beer! We'll
+have a smoke, and a talk over old times."
+
+"Willingly," answered Dick, declining the beer, however, on the plea
+that such potations only went well with boating or cricket, and
+followed the painter up-stairs into an exceedingly uncomfortable room,
+of which the principal object of furniture seemed to be an easel,
+bearing a sketch, apparently to be transferred hereafter into some
+unfinished picture.
+
+Dick was in no frame of mind to converse upon his own affairs;
+accepting the proffered cigar, and taking the only seat in the place,
+he preferred listening to his friend, who got to work at once, and
+talked disjointedly while he painted.
+
+"I can't complain," said Simon, in answer to the other's questions
+concerning his prosperity and success. "I was always a plodding sort
+of fellow, as you remember. Not a genius--I don't _think_ I've the
+divine gift. Sometimes I hope it may come. I've worked hard, I grant
+you--very hard; but I've had extraordinary luck--marvellous! What do
+you think of that imp's tail?--Isn't it a trifle too long?"
+
+"I'm no judge of imps," answered Dick. "He's horribly ugly. Go on
+about yourself."
+
+"Well, as I was saying," continued Simon, foreshortening his imp the
+while, "my luck has been wonderful. It all began with _you_. If you
+hadn't gone fishing there, I should never have seen Norway. If I
+hadn't seen it, I couldn't have painted it."
+
+"I'm not sure that follows," interrupted Dick.
+
+"Well, I _shouldn't_ have painted it, then," resumed the artist. "And
+the credit I got for those Norway sketches was perfectly absurd. I see
+their faults now. They're cold and crude, and one or two are quite
+contrary to the first principles of art. I should like to paint them
+all over again. But still, if I hadn't been to Norway, I shouldn't be
+here now."
+
+"No more should I," observed Dick, puffing out a volume of smoke. "I
+should have been 'marry-ed to a mermy-ed' by this time, if you had
+shown a proper devotion to your art, and the customary indifference to
+your friend."
+
+"O, that was nothing!" said the painter, blushing. "Any other fellow
+could have pulled you out just as well. I say, Stanmore, how jolly it
+was over there! Those were happy days. And yet I don't wish to have
+them back again--do you?"
+
+Dick sighed and held his peace. For him it seemed that the light heart
+and joyous carelessness of that bright youthful time was gone, never
+to come again.
+
+"I have learned so much since then," continued Simon, putting a little
+grey into his imp's muzzle, "and unlearned so much, too, which is better
+still. Mannerism, Stanmore--mannerism is the great enemy of art. Now,
+I'll explain what I mean in two words. In the first place, you observe
+the light from that chink streaming down on my imp's back; well, in the
+picture, you know--"
+
+"Where _is_ the picture?" exclaimed Dick, whose cigar was finished,
+and who had no scruples in thus unceremoniously interrupting a
+professional lecture which previous experience told him might be
+wearisome. "Let's see it. Let's see _all_ the pictures. Illustration's
+better than argument, and I can't understand anything unless it's set
+before me in bright colours, under my very nose."
+
+Good-natured Simon desisted from his occupation at once, and began
+lifting picture after picture, as they stood in layers against the
+wall, to place them in a favourable light for the inspection of
+his friend. Many and discursive were his criticisms on these, the
+progressive results of eye, and hand, and brain, improving every
+day. Here the drawing was faulty, there the tints were coarse. This
+betrayed mannerism, that lacked power, and in a very ambitious
+landscape, enriched with wood, water, and mountain, a patchy sky
+spoiled the effect of the whole.
+
+Nevertheless it seemed that he was himself not entirely dissatisfied
+with his work, and whenever his friend ventured on the diffident
+criticism of an amateur, Simon demonstrated at great length that each
+fault, as he pointed it out, was in truth a singular merit and beauty
+in the picture.
+
+Presently, with a face of increased importance, he moved a large
+oblong canvas from its hiding-place, to prop it artistically at such
+an angle as showed the lights and shades of its finished portion to
+the best advantage. Then he fell back a couple of paces, contemplating
+it in silence with his head on one side, and so waited for his
+friend's opinion.
+
+But Dick was mute. Something in this picture woke up the pain of a
+recent wound festering in his heart, and yet through all the smart and
+tingling came a strange sensation of relief, like that with which a
+styptic salves a sore.
+
+"What do you think of it?" asked the artist. "I want your candid
+opinion, Stanmore--impartial--unprejudiced, I tell you. I hope great
+things from it. I believe it far and away the best I've painted yet.
+Look into the work. O, it will stand inspection. You might examine it
+with a microscope. Then, the conception, eh? And the drawing's not
+amiss. A little more this way--you catch the outline of his eyebrow,
+with the turn of the Rhymer's head."
+
+"Hang the Rhymer's head!" replied Dick, "I don't care about it. I
+won't look at it. I _can't_ look at it, man, with such a woman as
+_that_ in the picture. Old boy, you've won immortality at last!"
+
+But Simon's face fell.
+
+"That's a great fault," he answered gravely. "The details, though
+kept down as accessories to the whole, should yet be worked out so
+carefully as to possess individual merit of their own. I see, though;
+I see how to remedy the defect you have suggested. I can easily bring
+him out by darkening the shadows of the background. Then, this fairy
+at his elbow is paltry, and too near him besides. I shall paint her
+out altogether. She takes the eye off my principal figures, and breaks
+that grand line of light pouring in from the morning sky. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+But Dick gave no answer. With feverish thirst and longing, he was
+drinking in the beauty of the Fairy Queen; and had not Simon Perkins
+been the dullest of observers, and the least conceited of painters, he
+must have felt intensely flattered by the effect of his work.
+
+"So you like her," said he, after a pause, during which, in truth, he
+had been considering whether he should not paint out the intrusive
+fairy that very afternoon.
+
+"Like her!" replied the other. "It's the image of the most beautiful
+face I ever saw in my life; only it's softer and even more beautiful.
+I'll tell you what, old fellow, put a price on that picture and I'll
+have it, cost what it may! Only you must give me a little time," added
+Dick somewhat ruefully, reflecting that he had spent a good deal of
+money lately, and rent-day was still a long way off.
+
+Simon smiled.
+
+"I wonder what you'd think of the original," said he, "the model who
+sits to me for my Fairy Queen! I can tell you that face on the canvas
+is no more to be compared to hers than I am to Velasquez. And yet
+Velasquez must have been a beginner once."
+
+"I don't believe there's such a woman--two such women--in London,"
+replied his friend, correcting himself. "I can hardly imagine such
+eyes, such an expression. It's what the fellows who write poetry call
+'the beauty of a dream,' and I'll never say poetry is nonsense again.
+No, that's neither more nor less than an imaginary angel, Simon.
+Simply an impossible duck!"
+
+"Would you like to see her?" asked the painter, laughing. "She'll be
+here in five minutes. I do believe that's her step on the stairs now."
+
+A strange wild hope thrilled through Dick Stanmore's heart. Could it
+be possible that Lady Bearwarden had employed his friend to paint her
+likeness in this fancy picture, perhaps under a feigned name, and was
+she coming to take her sitting now?
+
+All his stoicism, all his philosophy, vanished on the instant. He
+would remain where he was though he should die for it. O, to see her,
+to be in the same room with her, to look in her eyes, and hear her
+voice once more!
+
+A gown rustled, a light step was heard, the door opened, and a
+sweet laughing voice rung out its greeting to the painter from the
+threshold.
+
+"So late, Simon! Shameful, isn't it? But I've got all they wanted.
+Such bargains! I suppose nobody ever did so much shopping in so short
+a--"
+
+She caught sight of Dick, stopped, blushed, and made a very
+fascinating little curtsey, as they were formally introduced; but next
+time she spoke the merriment had gone out of her voice. It had become
+more staid, more formal, and its deeper, fuller tones reminded him
+painfully of Maud.
+
+[Illustration: "She caught sight of Dick."]
+
+Yes. Had he not known Lady Bearwarden so well, he thought it would
+have been quite possible for him to have mistaken this beautiful young
+lady for that faithless peeress. The likeness was extraordinary,
+ridiculous. Not that he felt the least inclined to laugh. The features
+were absolutely the same, and a certain backward gesture of the head,
+a certain trick of the mouth and chin were identical with the manner
+of Lady Bearwarden, in those merry days that seemed so long ago
+now, when she had been Maud Bruce. Only Miss Algernon's face had a
+softness, a kindly trustful expression he never remembered on the
+other, and her large pleading eyes seemed as if they could neither
+kindle with anger nor harden to freezing glances of scorn.
+
+As for the Fairy Queen, he looked from the picture to its original,
+and felt constrained to admit that, wondrously beautiful as he had
+thought its likeness on canvas, the face before him was infinitely
+superior to the painter's fairest and most cherished work.
+
+Dick went away of course almost immediately, though sorely against his
+will. Contrary to her wont, Miss Algernon, who was rather a mimic and
+full of fun, neither imitated the gestures nor ridiculed the bearing
+of this chance visitor. "She had not observed him much," she said,
+when taxed by Simon with this unusual forbearance. This was false. But
+"she might know him again, perhaps, if they met." This, I imagine, was
+true.
+
+And Dick, wending his way back to his hotel buried in thought, passed
+without recognising it the spot where he met Lady Bearwarden one short
+hour ago. He was pondering, no doubt, on the face he had just seen--on
+its truth, its purity, its fresh innocent mirth, its dazzling beauty,
+more, perhaps, than on its extraordinary likeness to hers who had
+brought him the one great misfortune of his life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+AN INCUBUS
+
+
+It is not to be supposed that any gentleman can see a lady in the
+streets of London and remain himself unseen. In the human as in meaner
+races the female organ of perception is quicker, keener, and more
+accurate than the male. Therefore it is that a man bowing in Pall Mall
+or Piccadilly to some divinity in an open carriage, and failing to
+receive any return for his salute, sinks at once into a false position
+of awkwardness and discomfiture, _il a manque son coup_, and his face
+assumes incontinently the expression of one who has missed a woodcock
+in the open, and has no second barrel with which to redeem his shot.
+As Dick saw Lady Bearwarden in Oxford Street, we may be sure that Lady
+Bearwarden also saw Dick. Nor was her ladyship best pleased with the
+activity he displayed in avoiding her carriage and escaping from her
+society. If Mr. Stanmore had been the most successful Lovelace who
+ever devoted himself to the least remunerative of pursuits, instead
+of a loyal, kindhearted, unassuming gentleman, he could hardly have
+chosen a line of conduct so calculated to keep alive some spark of
+interest in Maud's breast as that which he unconsciously adopted. It
+is one thing to dismiss a lover because suited with a superior article
+(as some ladies send away five-foot-ten of footman when six-foot comes
+to look after the place), and another to lose a vassal for good, like
+an unreclaimed hawk, heedless of the lure, clear of the jesses, and
+checking, perhaps, at every kind of prey in wilful wanton flight,
+down-wind towards the sea.
+
+There is but one chance for a man worsted in these duels _a
+l'outrance_, which are fought out with such merciless animosity. It is
+to bind up his wounds as best he may, and take himself off to die or
+get well in secret. Presently the conqueror finds that a battle only
+has been won, and not a territory gained. After the flush of combat
+comes a reaction. The triumph seems somewhat tame, ungraced by
+presence of the captive. Curiosity wakes up, pity puts in its pleading
+word, a certain jealous instinct of appropriation is aroused. Where is
+he? What has become of him? I wonder if he ever thinks of me _now_!
+Poor fellow! I shouldn't wish to be forgotten altogether, as if we had
+never met; and though I didn't want him to like _me_, I never meant
+that he was to care for anybody else. Such are the thoughts that chase
+each other through the female heart when deprived of sovereignty in
+the remotest particular; and it was very much in this way that Lady
+Bearwarden, sitting alone in her boudoir, speculated on the present
+doings and sentiments of the man who had loved her so well and had
+given her up so unwillingly, yet with never a word of reproach, never
+a look nor action that could add to her remorse or make her task more
+painful.
+
+Alas, she was not happy; even now, when she had gained all she most
+wished and schemed for in the world. She felt she was not happy, and
+she felt, too, that for Dick to know of her unhappiness would be the
+bitterest drop in the bitter cup he had been compelled to drain.
+
+As she looked round her beautiful boudoir, with its blue-satin
+hangings, its numerous mirrors, its redundancy of coronets surmounting
+her own cipher, twisted and twined into a far more graceful decoration
+than the grim heraldic bruin which formed her husband's cognisance,
+she said to herself that something was yet required to constitute
+a woman's happiness beyond the utmost efforts of the upholder's
+art--that even carriages, horses, tall footmen, quantities of flowers,
+unlimited credit, and whole packs of cards left on the hall table
+every day were mere accessories and superfluities, not the real pith
+and substance of that for which she pined.
+
+Lady Bearwarden, more than most women, had, since her marriage, found
+the worldly ball at her foot. She needed but to kick it where she
+would. As Miss Bruce, with nothing to depend on but her own good looks
+and conquering manners, she had wrested a large share of admiration
+from an unwilling public; now, as a peeress, and a rich one, the same
+public of both sexes courted, toadied, and flattered her, till she
+grew tired of hearing herself praised. The men--at least those of high
+position and great prospects--had no scruple in offering a married
+woman that homage which might have entailed their own domestic
+subjugation if laid at a spinster's feet; and the women--all except
+the very smartest ladies (who liked her for her utter fearlessness and
+_sang-froid_ as well as for her own sake)--thought it a fine thing to
+be on intimate terms with "Maud Bearwarden," as they loved to call
+her, and being much afraid of her, made up to her with the sweet
+facility and sincerity of their sex.
+
+Yet in defiance of ciphers, coronets, visiting-cards, blue hangings,
+the homage of lords, and the vassalage of ladies, there was something
+amiss. She caught herself continually looking back to the old days
+at Ecclesfield Manor, to the soft lawns and shady avenues, the fond
+father, who thought his darling the perfection of humanity, and whose
+face lit up so joyfully whenever she came into the room; the sweet
+delicate mother from whom she could never remember an unkind look nor
+an angry word; the hills, the river, the cottages, the tenants, the
+flower-garden, the ponies, and the old retriever that died licking her
+hand. She felt kindly towards Mrs. Stanmore, and wondered whether she
+had behaved quite as well to that lady as she ought, recalling many a
+little act of triumphant malice and overt resistance which afforded
+keen gratification to the rebel at the time. By an easy transition,
+she glided on to Dick Stanmore's honest and respectful admiration, his
+courtesy, his kindness, his unfailing forbearance and good humour.
+Bearwarden was not always good-humoured--she had found that out
+already. But as for Dick, she remembered how no mishap nor annoyance
+of his own ever irritated him in the slightest degree; how his first
+consideration always seemed to be _her_ comfort and _her_ happiness;
+how even in his deep sorrow, deceived, humiliated, cut to the heart,
+he had never so much as spoken one bitter word. How nobly had he
+trusted her about those diamonds! How well he had behaved to her
+throughout, and how fondly would he have loved and cherished her had
+she confided her future to his care! He must be strangely altered now,
+to avoid her like this. She was sure he recognised her, for she saw
+his face fall, saw him wince--that at least was a comfort--but never
+to shake hands, never even to stop and speak! Well, she had treated
+him cruelly, and perhaps he was right.
+
+But this was not the actual grievance, after all. She felt she would
+do precisely the same over again. It was less repentance that pained
+her, than retribution. Maud, for the first time in her life, was
+beginning to feel really in love, and with her own husband. Such an
+infatuation, rare as it is admirable, ought to have been satisfactory
+and prosperous enough. When ladies do so far condescend, it is usually
+a gratifying domestic arrangement for themselves and their lords;
+but in the present instance the wife's increasing affection afforded
+neither happiness to herself nor comfort to her husband. There was
+a "Something" always between them, a shadow, not of suspicion nor
+mistrust, for Bearwarden was frank and loyal by nature, but of
+coldness. She had a secret from him, and she was a bad dissembler; his
+finer instincts told him that he did not possess her full confidence,
+and he was too proud to ask it. So they lived together a few short
+weeks after marriage, on outward terms of courtesy and cordiality, but
+with this little rift of dissatisfaction gradually yet surely widening
+into a fissure that should rend each of these proud unbending hearts
+in twain.
+
+"What would I give to be like other wives," thought Maud, looking at
+a half-length of her husband in uniform, which occupied the place of
+honour in her boudoir. "What is it? Why is it? I would love him so, if
+he would let me. How I wish I could be good--_really_ good, like mamma
+was. I suppose it's impossible now. I wonder if it's too late to try."
+And with the laudable intention of beginning amendment at once, Lady
+Bearwarden rang sharply to tell her servants she was "not at home to
+anybody till Lord Bearwarden came in, except"--and here she turned
+away from her own footman, that he might not see the colour rising in
+her face--"except a man should call with some silks and brocades, in
+which case he was to be shown up-stairs at once."
+
+The door had scarcely closed ere the paper-cutter in Maud's fingers
+broke short off at the handle. Her grasp tightened on it insensibly,
+while she ground and gnashed her small white teeth, to think that she,
+with her proud nature, in her high position, should not be free
+to admit or deny what visitors she pleased. So dandies of various
+patterns, afoot, in tea-carts, and on hacks more or less deserving in
+shape and action, discharged themselves of their visiting-cards at
+Lady Bearwarden's door, and passed on in peace to fulfil the same rite
+elsewhere.
+
+Two only betrayed an unseemly emotion when informed "her ladyship was
+not at home": the one, a cheerful youth, bound for a water-party
+at Skindle's, and fearful of missing his train, thanked Providence
+audibly for what he called "an unexpected let off"; the other, an
+older, graver, and far handsomer man, suffered an expression of
+palpable discomfiture to overspread his comely face, and, regardless
+of observation, walked away from the door with the heavy step that
+denotes a heavy heart. Not that he had fallen in love with Lady
+Bearwarden--far from it. But there _was_ a Somebody--that Somebody an
+adverse fate had decreed he must neither meet to-day nor to-morrow,
+and the interval seemed to both of them wearisome, and even painful.
+But Maud was Somebody's dear friend. Maud either had seen her or would
+see her that very afternoon. Maud would let him talk about her, praise
+her, perhaps would even give her a message--nay, it was just possible
+she might arrive to pay a morning visit while he was there. No wonder
+he looked so sad to forego this series of chances; and all the while,
+if he had only known it, Fate, having veered round at luncheon-time,
+would have permitted him to call at Somebody's house, to find her at
+home, enchanted to see him, and to sit with her as long as he liked
+in the well-known room, with its flowers and sun-shades and globes
+of gold-fish, and the picture over the chimney-piece, and its dear
+original by his side. But it is a game at cross-purposes all through
+this dangerous pastime; and perhaps its very _contretemps_ are what
+make it so interesting to the players, so amusing to the lookers-on.
+
+Lady Bearwarden grew fidgety after a while. It is needless to say that
+"the man with some silks and brocades" to be admitted by her servants
+was none other than "Gentleman Jim," who, finding the disguise of a
+"travelling merchant" that in which he excited least suspicion in his
+interviews with her ladyship, had resolved to risk detection yet once
+more, and had given her notice of his intention.
+
+We all remember Sinbad's Old Man of the Sea, and the grip of that
+merciless rider tightening closer and closer the longer he was carried
+by his disgusted victim. There is more truth in the fable than most of
+us would like to allow. If you once permit yourself to set up an "Old
+Man of the Sea," farewell to free agency, happiness, even tolerable
+comfort, from that time forth! Sometimes your burden takes the shape
+of a renewed bill, sometimes of a fatal secret, sometimes of an unwise
+attachment, sometimes only of a bad habit; but whatever it be, the
+farther you carry it the heavier it seems to grow; and in this case
+custom does not in the least degree reconcile you to the infliction.
+Up with your heels, and kick it off at any price! Even should you rick
+your back in the process, it is better to be crippled for life than
+eternally oppressed by a ruthless rider and an intolerable weight.
+
+Gentleman Jim was becoming Lady Bearwarden's Old Man of the Sea. More
+than once of late he had forced himself on her presence when it was
+exceedingly inconvenient and even dangerous to meet him. The promised
+interview of to-day had been extorted from her most unwillingly, and
+by threats, implied if not expressed. She began to feel that she was
+no longer her own mistress--that she had lost her independence, and
+was virtually at the command of an inferior. To a proud nature like
+hers such a situation seemed simply intolerable.
+
+Lord Bearwarden seldom came in much before it was time to dress for
+dinner; but young men's habits are not usually very regular, the
+monotonous custom of doing everything by clockwork being a tedious
+concomitant of old age. Maud could not calculate on his absence at any
+particular hour of the day unless he were on duty, and the bare notion
+that she should _wish_ thus to calculate fretted and chafed her beyond
+measure. It was a relief to hear the door-bell once more, and prepare
+to confront the worst. A London servant never betrays astonishment,
+nor indeed any emotion whatever, beyond a shade of dignified and
+forbearing contempt. The first footman showed Lady Bearwarden's
+suspicious-looking visitor into her boudoir with sublime indifference,
+returning thereafter leisurely and loftily to his tea. Maud felt her
+courage departing, and her defeat, like that of brave troops seized
+by panic, seemed all the more imminent for habitual steadiness and
+valour. She took refuge in an attempt to bully.
+
+"Why are you here?" said Maud, standing bolt upright; while Gentleman
+Jim, with an awkward bow, began as usual to unroll his goods. "I have
+told you often enough this persecution must finish. I am determined
+not to endure it any longer. The next time you call I shall order my
+servants to drive you from the door. O, will you--_will_ you not come
+to terms?"
+
+His face had been growing darker and darker while she spoke, and she
+watched its expression as the Mediterranean fisherman watches a white
+squall gliding with fatal swiftness over the waters, to bring ruin and
+shipwreck and despair. It sometimes happens that the fisherman loses
+his head precisely at the wrong moment, so that foiled, helpless,
+and taken aback, he comes to fatal and irremediable grief. Thus Lady
+Bearwarden, too, found the nerve on which she prided herself failing
+when she most wanted it, and knew that the prestige and influence
+which formed her only safeguards were slipping from her grasp.
+
+She had cowed this ruffian at their first meeting by an assumption
+of calm courage and superiority in a crisis when most women, thus
+confronted at dead of night by a housebreaker, would have shrunk
+trembling and helpless before him. She had retained her superiority
+during their subsequent association by an utter indifference as to
+results, so long as they only affected character and fortune, which
+to his lower nature seemed simply incomprehensible; but now that her
+heart was touched she could no longer remain thus reckless, thus
+defiant. With womanly feelings came womanly misgivings and fear of
+consequences. The charm was lost, the spell broken, and the familiar
+spirit had grown to an exacting master from an obedient slave.
+
+"That's not the way as them speaks who's had the pith and marrow out
+of a chap's werry bones," growled Jim. "There wasn't no talkin of
+figure-footmen and drivin' of respectable tradesmen from folks' doors
+when a _man_ was wanted, like this here. A _man_, I says, wot wasn't
+afeard to swing, if so be as he could act honourable and fulfil his
+bargain."
+
+"I'll pay anything. Hush! _pray_. Don't speak so loud. What _must_ my
+servants think? Consider the frightful risks I run. Why should you
+wish to make me utterly miserable--to drive me out of my senses? I'll
+pay anything--anything to be free from this intolerable persecution."
+
+"Pay--pay anythink!" repeated Jim, slightly mollified by her distress,
+but still in a tone of deep disgust. "Pay. Ah! that's always the word
+with the likes of you. You think your blessed money can buy us poor
+chaps up, body and heart and soul Blast your money! says I. There,
+that's not over civil, my lady, but it's plain speaking."
+
+"What would you have me do?" she asked, in a low plaintive voice.
+
+She had sunk into an arm-chair, and was wringing her hands. How lovely
+she looked now in her sore distress! It imparted the one feminine
+charm generally wanting in her beauty.
+
+Gentleman Jim, standing over against her, could not but feel the old
+mysterious influence pervading him once more. "If you was to say to
+me, Jim, says you, I believe as you're a true chap!--I believe as
+you'd serve of me, body and bones. Well, not for money. Money be
+d----d! But for goodwill, we'll say. I believe as you thinks there's
+nobody on this 'arth as is to be compared of me, says you; and see
+now, you shall come here once a week, once a fortnit, once a month,
+even, and I'll never say no more about drivin' of you away; but you
+shall see me, and I'll speak of you kind and haffable; and whatever
+I wants done I'll tell you, do it: and it _will_ be done; see if it
+won't! Why--why I'd be proud, my lady--there--and happy too. Ay, there
+wouldn't walk a happier man, nor a prouder, maybe, in the streets of
+London!"
+
+It was a long speech for Jim. At its conclusion he drew his sleeve
+across his face and bent down to re-arrange the contents of his
+bundle.
+
+Tears were falling from her eyes at last. Noiselessly enough, and
+without that redness of nose, those contortions of face, which render
+them so unbecoming to most women.
+
+"Is there no way but this?" she murmured. "No way but this? It's
+impossible! It's absurd! It's infamous! Do you know who I am? Do you
+know what you ask? How dare you dictate terms to _me_? How dare you
+presume to say I shall do this, I shall not do _that?_ Leave my house
+this minute. I will not listen to another syllable!"
+
+She was blazing out again, and the fire of pride had dried her tears
+ere she concluded. Anger brought back her natural courage, but it was
+too late.
+
+Gentleman Jim's face, distorted with fury, looked hideous. Under his
+waistcoat lurked a long thin knife. Maud never knew how near, for one
+ghastly moment, that knife was to being buried in her round white
+throat.
+
+He was not quite madman enough, however, to indulge his passions so
+far, with the certainty of immediate destruction.
+
+"Have a care!" he hissed through his clenched teeth. "If you and me
+is to be enemies, look out! You know me--leastways you ought to; and
+_you_ know I stick at nothing!"
+
+She was still dreadfully frightened. Once more she went back to the
+old plea, and offered him fifty pounds--a hundred pounds. Anything!
+
+He was tying the knots of his bundle. Completing the last, he looked
+up, and the glare in his eyes haunted her through many a sleepless
+night.
+
+"You've done it now!" was all he muttered. "When next you see me
+you'll wish you hadn't."
+
+It speaks well for Jim's self-command that, as he went down, he could
+say, "Your servant, my lord," with perfect composure, to a gentleman
+whom he met on the stairs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+"THE LITTLE CLOUD"
+
+
+Lord Bearwarden, like other noblemen and gentlemen keeping house in
+London, was not invariably fortunate in the selection of his servants.
+The division of labour, that admirable system by which such great
+results are attained, had been brought to perfection in his as in many
+other establishments. A man who cleaned knives, it appeared, could
+not possibly do anything else, and for several days the domestic
+arrangements below-stairs had been disturbed by a knotty question as
+to _whose_ business it was to answer "my lord's bell". Now my lord
+was what his servants called rather "a arbitrary gentleman", seeming,
+indeed, to entertain the preposterous notion that these were paid
+their wages in consideration of doing as they were bid. It was
+not therefore surprising that figure-footmen, high of stature and
+faultless in general appearance, should have succeeded each other with
+startling rapidity, throwing up their appointments and doffing his
+lordship's livery, without regard to their own welfare or their
+employer's convenience, but in accordance with some Quixotic notions
+of respect for their office and loyalty to their order.
+
+Thus it came about that a subordinate in rank, holding the appointment
+of second footman, had been so lately enlisted as not yet to have made
+himself acquainted with the personal appearance of his master; and it
+speaks well for the amiable disposition of this recruit that, although
+his liveries were not made, he should, during the temporary absence of
+a fellow-servant, who was curling his whiskers below, have consented
+to answer the door.
+
+Lord Bearwarden had rung like any other arrival; but it must be
+allowed that his composure was somewhat ruffled when refused
+admittance by his own servant to his own house.
+
+"Her ladyship's not at home, I tell ye", said the man, apparently
+resenting the freedom with which this stranger proceeded into the
+hall, while he placed his own massive person in the way; "and if you
+want to see my lord, you just can't--_that_ I know!"
+
+"Why?" asked his master, beginning to suspect how the land lay, and
+considerably amused.
+
+"Because his lordship's particularly engaged. He's having his 'air
+cut just now, and the dentist's waiting to see him after he's
+done", returned this imaginative retainer, arguing indeed from his
+pertinacity that the visitor must be one of the swell mob, therefore
+to be kept out at any cost.
+
+"And who are _you_?" said his lordship, now laughing outright.
+
+"Who am I?" repeated the man. "I'm his lordship's footman. Now, then,
+who are _you_? That's more like it!"
+
+"I'm Lord Bearwarden himself", replied his master.
+
+"Lord Bearwarden! O! I dare say", was the unexpected rejoinder. "Well,
+that _is_ a good one. Come, young man, none of these games here:
+there's a policeman round the corner."
+
+At this juncture the fortunate arrival of the gentleman with
+lately-curled whiskers, in search of his _Bell's Life_, left on the
+hall-table, produced an _eclaircissement_ much to the unbeliever's
+confusion, and the master of the house was permitted to ascend his own
+staircase without further obstruction.
+
+Meeting "Gentleman Jim" coming down with a bundle, it did not strike
+him as the least extraordinary that his wife should have denied
+herself to other visitors. Slight as was his experience of women and
+their ways, he had yet learned to respect those various rites that
+constitute the mystery of shopping, appreciating the composure and
+undisturbed attention indispensable to a satisfactory performance of
+that ceremony.
+
+But it _did_ trouble him to observe on Lady Bearwarden's face traces
+of recent emotion, even, he thought, to tears. She turned quickly
+aside when he came into the room, busying herself with the blinds and
+muslin window-curtains; but he had a quick eye, and his perceptions
+were sharpened besides by an affection he was too proud to admit,
+while racked with cruel misgivings that it might not be returned.
+
+"Gentleman-like man _that_, I met just now on the stairs!" he began,
+good-humouredly enough, though in a certain cold, conventional tone,
+that Maud knew too well, and hated accordingly. "Dancing partner,
+swell mob, smuggler, respectable tradesman, what is he? Ought to sell
+cheap, I should say. Looks as if he stole the things ready made. Hope
+you've done good business with him, my lady? May I see the plunder?"
+He never called her Maud; it was always "my lady", as if they had
+been married for twenty years. How she longed for an endearing
+word, slipping out, as it were, by accident--for a covert smile, an
+occasional caress. Perhaps had these been lavished more freely she
+might have rated them at a lower value.
+
+Lady Bearwarden was not one of those women who can tell a lie without
+the slightest hesitation, calmly satisfied that "the end justifies
+the means"; neither did it form a part of her creed that a lie by
+implication is less dishonourable than a lie direct. On the contrary,
+her nature was exceedingly frank, even defiant, and from pride,
+perhaps, rather than principle, she scorned no baseness so heartily
+as duplicity. Therefore she hesitated now and changed colour, looking
+guilty and confused, but taking refuge, as usual, in self-assertion.
+
+"I had business with the man", she answered haughtily, "or you would
+not have found him here. I might have got rid of him sooner, perhaps,
+if I had known you were to be home so early. I'm sure I hate shopping,
+I hate tradespeople, I hate--"
+
+She was going to say "I hate everything", but stopped herself in time.
+Counting her married life as yet only by weeks, it would have sounded
+too ungracious, too ungrateful!
+
+"Why should you do anything you hate?" said her husband, very kindly,
+and to all appearance dismissing every suspicion from his mind, though
+deep in his heart rankled the cruel conviction that between them this
+strange, mysterious barrier increased day by day. "I want you to have as
+little of the rough and as much of the smooth in life as is possible.
+All the ups and none of the downs, my lady. If this fellow bores you,
+tell them not to let him in again. That second footman will keep him out
+like a dragon, I'll be bound." Then he proceeded laughingly to relate
+his own adventure with his new servant in the hall.
+
+He seemed cordial, kind, good-humoured enough, but his tone was that
+of man to man, brother officer to comrade, not of a lover to his
+mistress, a husband to his lately-married wife.
+
+She felt this keenly, though at the same time she could appreciate his
+tact, forbearance, and generosity in asking no more questions about
+her visitor. To have shown suspicion of Maud would have been at once
+to drive her to extremities, while implicit confidence put her on
+honour and rendered her both unable and unwilling to deceive. Never
+since their first acquaintance had she found occasion to test this
+quality of trust in her husband, and now it seemed that he possessed
+it largely, like a number of other manly characteristics. That he was
+brave, loyal, and generous she had discovered already; handsome and of
+high position she knew long ago, or she would never have resolved
+on his capture; and what was there wanting to complete her perfect
+happiness? Only one thing, she answered herself; but for it she would
+so willingly have bartered all the rest--that he should love her as
+Dick Stanmore did. Poor Dick Stanmore! how badly she had treated him,
+and perhaps this was to be her punishment.
+
+"Bearwarden," she said, crossing the room to lean on the arm of his
+chair, "we've got to dine at your aunt's to-night. I suppose they will
+be very late. I wish there were no such things as dinners, don't you?"
+
+"Not when I've missed luncheon, as I did to-day," answered his
+lordship, whose appetite was like that of any other healthy man under
+forty.
+
+"I hoped you wouldn't," she observed, in rather a low voice; "it was
+very dull without you. We see each other so seldom, somehow. I should
+like to go to the play to-morrow--you and I, Darby and Joan--I don't
+care which house, nor what the play is."
+
+"To-morrow", he answered, with a bright smile. "All right, my lady,
+I'll send for a box. I forgot, though, I can't go to-morrow, I'm on
+guard."
+
+Her face fell, but she turned away that he might not detect her
+disappointment, and began to feed her bullfinch in the window.
+
+"You're always on guard, I think", said she, after a pause. "I
+wonder you like it: surely it must be a dreadful tie. You lost your
+grouse-shooting this year and the Derby, didn't you? all to sit in
+plate armour and jack-boots at that gloomiest and stuffiest of Horse
+Guards. Bearwarden, I--I wish you'd give up the regiment, I do
+indeed."
+
+When Maud's countenance wore a pleading expression, as now, it was
+more than beautiful, it was lovely. Looking in her face it seemed to
+him that it was the face of an angel.
+
+"Do you honestly wish it?" he replied gently. "I would do a great deal
+to please you, my lady; but--no--I couldn't do _that_."
+
+"He can't really care for me; I knew it all along", thought poor Maud,
+but she only looked up at him rather wistfully and held her peace.
+
+He was gazing miles away, through the window, through the opposite
+houses, their offices, their washing-ground, and the mews at the back.
+She had never seen him look so grave; she had never seen that soft,
+sad look on his face before. She wondered now that she could ever have
+regarded that face as a mere encumbrance and accessory to be taken
+with a coronet and twenty thousand a year.
+
+"Would you like to know why I cannot make this sacrifice to please
+you?" he asked, in a low, serious voice. "I think you _ought_ to know,
+my lady, and I will tell you. I'm fond of soldiering, of course. I've
+been brought up to the trade--that's nothing. So I am of hunting,
+shooting, rackets, cricketing, London porter, and dry champagne; but
+I'd give them up, each and all, at a moment's notice, if it made you
+any happier for ten minutes. I _am_ a little ambitious, I grant, and
+the only fame I would care much for is a soldier's. Still, even if
+my chance of military distinction were ten times as good I shouldn't
+grudge losing it for your sake. No: what makes me stick to the
+regiment is what makes a fellow take a life-buoy on board ship--the
+instinct of self-preservation. When everything else goes down he's got
+that to cling to, and can have a fight for his life. Once, my lady,
+long before I had ever seen you, it was my bad luck to be very
+unhappy. I didn't howl about it at the time, I'm not going to howl
+about it now. Simply, all at once, in a day, an hour, everything in
+the world turned from a joy to a misery and a pain. If my mother
+hadn't taught me better, I should have taken the quickest remedy of
+all. If I hadn't had the regiment to fall back upon I must have gone
+mad. The kindness of my brother officers I never can forget; and to
+go down the ranks scanning the bold, honest faces of the men, feeling
+that we had cast our lot in together, and when the time came would all
+play the same stake, win or lose, reminded me that there were others
+to live for besides myself, and that I had not lost everything, while
+yet a share remained invested in our joint venture. When I lay awake
+in my barrack-room at night I could hear the stamp and snort of the
+old black troopers, and it did me good. I don't know the reason, but
+it did me good. You will think I was very unhappy--so I was."
+
+"But why?" asked Maud, shrewdly guessing, and at the same time
+dreading the answer.
+
+"Because I was a fool, my lady," replied her husband--"a fool of the
+very highest calibre. You have, no doubt, discovered that in this
+world folly is punished far more severely than villainy. Deceive
+others, and you prosper well enough; allow yourself to be deceived,
+and you're pitched into as if you were the greatest rogue unhung. It's
+not a subject for you and me to talk about, my lady. I only mentioned
+it to show you why I am so unwilling to leave the army. Why, I _dare_
+not do it, even to please you."
+
+"But"--she hesitated, and her voice came very soft and low--"you--you
+are not afraid--I mean you don't think it likely, do you, that you
+will ever be so unhappy again? It was about--about somebody that you
+cared for, I suppose."
+
+She got it out with difficulty, and already hated that unknown
+Somebody with an unreasoning hatred, such as women think justifiable
+and even meritorious in like cases.
+
+He laughed a harsh, forced laugh.
+
+"What a fool you must think me", said he: "I ought never to have told
+you. Yes, it was about a woman, of course. You did not fancy I could
+be so soft, did you? Don't let us talk about it. I'll tell you in
+three words, and then will never mention the subject again. I trusted
+and believed in her. She deceived me, and that sort of thing puts a
+fellow all wrong, you know, unless he's very good-tempered, and I
+suppose I'm not. It's never likely to happen again, but still, blows
+of all sorts fall upon people when they least expect them, and that's
+why I can't give up the old corps, but shall stick by it to the last."
+
+"Are you sure you haven't forgiven her?" asked Maud, inwardly
+trembling for an answer.
+
+"Forgiven her!" repeated his lordship; "well, I've forgiven her like
+a Christian, as they say--perhaps even more fully than that. I don't
+wish her any evil. I wouldn't do her a bad turn, but as for ever
+thinking of her or caring for her afterwards, that was impossible. No.
+While I confided in her freely and fully, while I gave up for her sake
+everything I prized and cared for in the world, while I was even on
+the verge of sending in my papers because it seemed to be her wish I
+should leave the regiment, she had her own secret hidden up from me
+all the time. That showed what she was. No; I don't think I could ever
+forgive _that_--except _as a Christian_, you know, my lady!"
+
+He ended in a light sarcastic tone, for like most men who have lived
+much in the world, he had acquired a habit of discussing the gravest
+and most painful subjects with conventional coolness, originating
+perhaps in our national dislike of anything sentimental or dramatic
+in situation. He could have written probably eloquently and seriously
+enough, but to "speak like a book" would have lowered him, in his own
+esteem, as being unmanly no less than ungentlemanlike.
+
+Maud's heart ached very painfully. A secret then, kept from him by the
+woman he trusted, was the one thing he could not pardon. Must this
+indeed be her punishment? Day by day to live with this honourable,
+generous nature, learning to love it so dearly, and yet so hopelessly,
+because of the great gulf fixed by her own desperate venture, risked,
+after all, that she might win _him_! For a moment, under the influence
+of that great tide of love which swelled up in her breast, she felt as
+if she must put her whole life's happiness on one desperate throw, and
+abide the result. Make a clean breast, implore his forgiveness, and
+tell him all.
+
+She had been wandering about while he spoke, straightening a
+table-cover here, snipping a dead leaf off a geranium there, and
+otherwise fidgeting to conceal her emotion. Now she walked across the
+room to her husband's side, and in another minute perhaps the whole
+truth would have been out, and these two might have driven off to
+dinner in their brougham, the happiest couple in London; but the door
+was thrown wide open, and the student of _Bell's Life_, on whose
+whiskers the time employed in curling them had obviously not been
+thrown away, announced to her ladyship, with much pomp, that her
+carriage was at the door.
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Maud, "and your aunt is always so punctual.
+You must dress in ten minutes, Bearwarden. I'm certain I can. Run down
+this moment, and don't stop to answer a single letter if it's a case
+of life and death."
+
+And Lady Bearwarden, casting all other thoughts to the winds in the
+present emergency, hurried up-stairs after the pretty little feet of
+her French maid, whose anxiety that her lady should not be late, and
+perhaps a certain curiosity to know the cause of delay, had tempted
+her down at least as far as the first landing, while my lord walked to
+his dressing-room on the ground-floor, with the comfortable conviction
+that he might spend a good half-hour at his toilet, and would then be
+ready a considerable time before his wife.
+
+The reflections that chased each other through the pretty head of the
+latter while subjected to Justine's skilful manipulations, I will not
+take upon me to detail. I may state, however, that the dress she chose
+to wear was trimmed with Bearwarden's favourite colour; that she
+carried a bunch of his favourite flowers on her breast and another in
+her hair.
+
+A brougham drawn by a pair of long, low, high-stepping horses, at
+the rate of twelve miles an hour, is an untoward vehicle for serious
+conversation when taking its occupants out to dinner, although well
+adapted for tender confidence or mutual recrimination on its return
+from a party at night. Lady Bearwarden could not even make sure that
+her husband observed she had consulted his taste in dress. Truth
+to tell, Lord Bearwarden was only conscious that his wife looked
+exceedingly handsome, and that he wished they were going to dine at
+home. Marriage had made him very slow, and this inconvenient wish
+lasted him all through dinner, notwithstanding that it was his
+enviable lot to sit by a fast young lady of the period, who rallied
+him with exceeding good taste on his wife, his house, his furniture,
+manners, dress, horses, and everything that was his. Once, in
+extremity of boredom, he caught sight of Maud's delicate profile
+five couples off, and fancied he could detect on the pale, pure face
+something of his own weariness and abstraction. After that the fast
+young lady "went at him", as she called it, in vain. Later, in the
+drawing-room, she told another damsel of her kind that "Bruin's
+marriage had utterly spoilt him. Simply ruination, my dear! So unlike
+men in general. What he could see in her I can't make out! She looks
+like death, and she's not _very_ well dressed, in my opinion. I wonder
+if she bullies him. He used to be such fun. So fast, so cheery, so
+delightfully satirical, and as wicked as Sin!"
+
+Maud went home in the brougham by herself. After a tedious dinner,
+lasting through a couple of hours, enlivened by the conversation of
+a man he can't understand, and the persecutions of a woman who bores
+him, it is natural for the male human subject to desire tobacco, and
+a walk home in order to smoke. Somehow, the male human subject never
+does walk straight home with its cigar.
+
+Bearwarden, like others of his class, went off to Pratt's, where, we
+will hope, he was amused, though he did not look it. A cigar on a
+close evening leads to soda-water, with a slice of lemon, and, I had
+almost forgotten to add, a small modicum of gin. This entails another
+cigar, and it is wonderful how soon one o'clock in the morning comes
+round again. When Lord Bearwarden turned out of St. James's Street it
+was too late to think of anything but immediate bed. Her ladyship's
+confessions, if she had any to make, must be put off till
+breakfast-time, and, alas! by _her_ breakfast-time, which was none of
+the earliest, my lord was well down in his sheepskin, riding out of
+the barrack-gate in command of his guard.
+
+  "Fronte capillata post est Oceasio calav"
+
+Bald-pated Father Time had succeeded in slipping his forelock out of
+Maud's hand the evening before, and, henceforth, behind his bare and
+mocking skull, those delicate, disappointed fingers must close on
+empty air in vain!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+FURENS QUID FOEMINA
+
+
+We left Tom Ryfe, helpless, unconscious, more dead than alive,
+supported between a man and woman up a back street in Westminster: we
+must return to him after a considerable interval, pale, languid, but
+convalescent, on a sofa in his own room under his uncle's roof. He is
+only now beginning to understand that he has been dangerously ill;
+that according to his doctor nothing but a "splendid constitution" and
+unprecedented medical skill have brought him back from the threshold
+of that grim portal known as death's door. This he does not quite
+believe, but is aware, nevertheless, that he is much enfeebled, and
+that his system has sustained what he himself calls "a deuced awkward
+shake." Even now he retains no very clear idea of what happened to
+him. He remembers vaguely, as in a dream, certain bare walls of a dim
+and gloomy chamber, tapestried with cobwebs, smelling of damp and
+mould like a vault, certain broken furniture, shabby and scarce, on
+a bare brick floor, with a grate in which no fire could have been
+kindled without falling into the middle of the room. He recalls that
+racking head-ache, that scorching thirst, and those pains in all the
+bones of a wan, wasted figure lying under a patchwork quilt on a
+squalid bed. A figure, independent of, and dissevered from himself,
+yet in some degree identified with his thoughts, his sufferings,
+and his memories. Somebody nursed the figure, too--he is sure of
+that--bringing it water, medicines, food, and leeches for its aching
+temples; smoothing its pillow and arranging its bed-clothes, in those
+endless nights, so much longer, yet scarce more dismal than the
+days,--somebody, whose voice he never heard, whose face he never saw,
+yet in whose slow, cautious tread there seemed a familiar sound. Once,
+in delirium, he insisted it was Miss Bruce, but even _through_ that
+delirium he knew he must be raving, and it was impossible. Could that
+be a part of his dream, too, in which he dragged himself out of bed,
+to dress in his own clothes, laid out on the chair that had hitherto
+carried a basin of gruel or a jug of cooling drink? No, it must have
+been reality surely, for even to-day he has so vivid a remembrance of
+the fresh air, the blinding sunshine, and the homely life-like look of
+that four-wheeled cab waiting in the narrow street, which he entered
+mechanically, which _as_ mechanically brought him home to his uncle's
+house, the man asking no questions, nor stopping to receive his fare.
+To be sure, he fainted from utter weakness at the door. Of that he
+is satisfied, for he remembers nothing between the jolting of those
+slippery cushions and another bed in which he found himself, with a
+grave doctor watching over him, and which he recognised, doubtfully,
+as his own.
+
+Gradually, with returning strength, Tom began to suspect the truth
+that he had been hocussed and robbed. His pockets, when he resumed
+his clothes, were empty. Their only contents, his cigar-case and Miss
+Bruce's letter, were gone. The motive for so desperate an attack he
+felt unable to fathom. His intellect was still affected by bodily
+weakness, and he inclined at first to think he had been mistaken for
+somebody else. The real truth only dawned on him by degrees. Its first
+ray originated with no less brilliant a luminary than old Bargrave.
+
+To do him justice, the uncle had shown far more natural affection than
+his household had hitherto believed him capable of feeling. During
+his nephew's absence, he had been like one distracted, and the large
+reward offered for discovery of the missing gentleman sufficiently
+testified his anxiety and alarm. When Tom did return, more dead than
+alive, Bargrave hurried off in person to procure the best medical
+advice, and postponing inquiry into his wrongs to the more immediate
+necessity of nursing the sufferer, spent six or seven hours out of the
+twenty-four at the sick man's bedside.
+
+The first day Tom could sit up his uncle thought well to enliven him
+with a little news, social, general, and professional. Having told
+him that he had outbid Mortlake for the last batch of poor Mr.
+Chalkstone's port, and stated, at some length, his reasons for
+doubting the stability of Government, he entered gleefully upon
+congenial topics, and proceeded to give the invalid a general sketch
+of business affairs during his retirement.
+
+"I've worked the coach, Tom," said he, walking up and down the
+room, waving his coat-tails, "as well as it _could_ be worked,
+single-handed. I don't think you'll find a screw loose anywhere. Ah,
+Tom! an old head, you know, is worth a many pair of hands. When you're
+well enough, in a week or so, my lad, I shall like to show you how
+I've kept everything going, though I was so anxious, terribly anxious,
+all the time. The only matter that's been left what you call _in statu
+quo_ is that business of Miss Bruce's, which I had nothing to do with.
+It will last you a good while yet, Tom, though it's of less importance
+to her now, poor thing!--don't you move, Tom--I'll hand you the
+barley-water--because she's Miss Bruce no longer."
+
+Tom gasped, and hid his pale, thin face in the jug of barley-water.
+He had some pluck about him, after all; for weak and ill as he was he
+managed to get out an indifferent question.
+
+"Not Miss Bruce, isn't she? Ah! I hadn't heard. Who is she then,
+uncle? I suppose you mean she's--she's married." He was so husky, no
+wonder he took another pull at the barley-water.
+
+"Yes, she's married," answered his uncle, in the indifferent tone with
+which threescore years and odd can discuss that fatality. "Made a good
+marriage, too--an excellent marriage. What do you think of a peerage,
+my boy? She's Viscountess Bearwarden now. Twenty thousand a year, if
+it's a penny. I am sure of it, for I was concerned in a lawsuit of the
+late lord's twenty years ago. I don't suppose you're acquainted with
+her husband, Tom. Not in our circle, you know; but a most respectable
+young man, I understand, and likely to be lord-lieutenant of his
+county before long. I'm sure I trust she'll be happy. And now, Tom, as
+you seem easy and comfortable, perhaps you'd like to go to sleep for a
+little. If you want anything you can reach the bell, and I'll come and
+see you again before I dress for dinner."
+
+Easy and comfortable! When the door shut behind his uncle, Tom bowed
+his head upon the table and gave way completely. He was unmanned by
+illness, and the shock had been too much for him. It was succeeded,
+however, and that pretty quickly, by feelings of bitter wrath and
+resentment, which did more to restore his strength than all the tonics
+in the world. An explanation, too, seemed now afforded to much that
+had so mystified him of late. What if, rendered desperate by his
+threats, Miss Bruce had been in some indirect manner the origin of his
+captivity and illness--Miss Bruce, the woman who of all others owed
+him the largest debt of gratitude (like most people, Tom argued
+from his own side of the question); for whom he had laboured so
+unremittingly, and was willing to sacrifice so much? Could it be so?
+And if it was, should he not be justified in going to any extremity
+for revenge? Revenge--yes, that was all he had to live for now; and
+the very thought seemed to put new vigour into his system, infuse
+fresh blood in his veins. So is it with all baser spirits; and perhaps
+in the indulgence of this cowardly craving they obtain a more speedy
+relief than nobler natures from the first agony of suffering; but
+their cure is not and never can be permanent; and to them must remain
+unknown that strange wild strain of some unearthly music which thrills
+through those sore hearts that can repay good for evil, kindly
+interest for cold indifference; that, true to themselves and their own
+honour, can continue to love a memory, though it be but the memory
+of a dream. Tom felt as if he could make an exceedingly high bid,
+involving probity, character, good faith, and the whole of his
+moral code, for an auxiliary who should help him in his vengeance.
+Assistance was at hand even now, in an unexpected moment and an
+unlooked-for shape.
+
+"A person wishes to see you, sir, if you're well enough," said a
+little housemaid who had volunteered to provide for the wants of the
+invalid, and took very good care of him indeed.
+
+"What sort of a person?" asked Tom languidly, feeling, nevertheless,
+that any distraction would be a relief.
+
+"Well, sir," replied the maid, "it seems a respectable person, I
+should say. Like a sick-nurse or what not."
+
+There is no surmise so wild but that a rejected lover will grasp at
+and connect it with the origin of his disappointment. "I'll see her,"
+said Tom stoutly, not yet despairing but that it might be a messenger
+from Maud.
+
+He certainly was surprised when Dorothea, whom he recognised at once,
+even in her Sunday clothes, entered the room, with a wandering eye and
+a vacillating step.
+
+"You'll never forgive me, Master Tom," was her startling salutation.
+"It's me as nursed you through it; but you'll never forgive me--never!
+And I don't deserve as you should."
+
+Dorothea was nervous, hysterical, but she steadied herself bravely,
+though her fingers worked and trembled under her faded shawl.
+
+Tom stared, and his visitor went on--
+
+"You'd 'a died for sure if I hadn't. Don't ye cast it up to me, Master
+Tom. I've been punished enough. Punished! If I was to bare my arm now
+I could show you weals that's more colours and brighter than your
+neckankercher there. I've been served worse nor that, though, since. I
+ain't a-goin' to put up with it no longer. Master Tom, do you know as
+you've Been put upon, and by who?"
+
+His senses were keenly on the alert. "Tell me the truth, my good
+girl," said he, "and I'll forgive you all your share. More, I'll stick
+by you through thick and thin."
+
+She whimpered a little, affected by the kindness of his tone, but
+tugging harder at her shawl, proceeded to further confessions.
+
+"You was hocussed, Master Tom; and I can point out to you the man as
+did it. You'd 'a been murdered amongst 'em if it hadn't been for me.
+Who was it, d'ye think, as nussed of you, and cared for you, all
+through, and laid out your clothes ready brushed and folded, and went
+and got you a cab the day as you come back here? Master Tom, I've been
+put upon too. Put upon and deceived, as never yet was born woman used
+so bad; and it's my turn now! Look ye here, Master Tom. It's that
+villain, Jim--Gentleman Jim, as we calls him--what's been at the
+bottom of this here. And yet there's worse than Jim in it too. There's
+others that set Jim on. O! to believe as a fine handsome chap like him
+could turn out to be so black-hearted, and such a soft too. She'll
+never think no more of him, for all his comely face, than the dirt
+beneath her feet."
+
+"_She_!" repeated Tom, intensely interested, and therefore
+preternaturally calm. "What d'ye mean by _she_? Don't fret, that's a
+good girl, and don't excite yourself. Tell your story your own way,
+you know, but keep as quiet as you can. You're safe enough here."
+
+"We'd been asked in church," replied Dorothea, somewhat
+inconsequently. "Ah! more than once, we had. And I'd ha' been as true
+to him, and was, as ever a needle to a stitch. Well, sir, when he
+slights of me, and leaves of me, why it's natural as I should run up
+and down the streets a-lookin' for him like wild. So one day, after
+I'd done my work, and put things straight, for I never was one of your
+sluttish ones, Master Tom--and your uncle, he's always been a kind
+gentleman to me, and a haffable, like yourself, Master Tom--according,
+I comes upon my Jim at the Sunflower, and I follows him unbeknown for
+miles and miles right away to the West-End. So he never looks behind
+him, nor he never stops, o' course, till he comes to Belgrave Square;
+and he turns down a street as I couldn't read its name, but should
+know it again as well as I know my own hand. And then, Master Tom, if
+you'll believe me, I thought as I must have dropped."
+
+"Well?" said Tom, not prepared to be satisfied with this climax,
+though his companion stopped, as if she had got to the end of her
+disclosures.
+
+"Well indeed!" resumed Dorothea, after a considerable interval, "when
+he come that far, I know'd as he must be up to some of his games, and
+I watched. They lets him into a three-storied house, and I sees him in
+the best parlour with a lady, speaking up to her, but not half so bold
+as usual. He a not often dashed, Jim isn't. I will say that for him."
+
+"What sort of a lady?" asked Tom, quivering with excitement. "You took
+a good look at her, I'll be bound!"
+
+"Well, a real lady in a muslin dress," answered Dorothea. "A tall
+young lady--not much to boast of for looks, but with hair as black as
+your hat and a face as white as cream. Very 'aughty too an' arbitrary,
+and seemed to have my Jim like quite at her command. So from where I
+stood I couldn't help hearing everything that passed. My Jim, he gives
+her the very letter as laid in your pocket that night, as you--as you
+was taken so poorly, you know. And from what she said and what he
+said, and putting this and that together, I'm sure as they got you out
+of the way between them, Master Tom, and gammoned me into the job too,
+when I'd rather have cut both my hands off, if I'd only known the
+truth."
+
+Tom sat back on his sofa, shutting his eyes that he might concentrate
+his powers of reflection. Yes, it was all clear enough at last. The
+nature and origin of the outrage to which he had been subjected were
+obvious, nor could he entertain any further doubt of Maud's motives,
+though marvelling exceedingly, as well he might, at her courage, her
+recklessness, and the social standing of her accomplice. It seemed
+to him as if he could forgive every one concerned but her. This poor
+woman who had fairly thrown herself on his mercy: the ruffian whose
+grip had been at his throat, but who might hereafter prove as
+efficient an ally as he had been a formidable enemy. Only let him have
+Maud in his power, that was all he asked, praying him to spare her,
+kneeling at his feet, and then without a shade of compunction to ruin,
+and crush, and humble her to the dust!
+
+He saw his way presently, but he must work warily, he told himself,
+and use all the tools that came to his hand.
+
+"If you can clear the matter up, Dorothea," said he, kindly, "I will
+not visit your share in it on your head, as I have already told you.
+Indeed I believe I owe you my life. But this man you mention, this
+Gentleman Jim as you call him, can you find him? Do you know where he
+is? My poor girl! I think I understand. Surely you deserved better
+treatment at his hands."
+
+The kind words produced this time no softening effect, and Tom knew
+enough of human nature to feel sure that she was bent on revenge as
+earnestly as himself, while he also knew that he must take advantage
+of her present humour at once, for it might change in an hour.
+
+"If I could lay my hand on him," answered Dorothea fiercely, "it's
+likely I'd leave my mark! I've looked for him now, high and low, every
+evening and many arternoons, better nor a week. I ain't come on him
+yet, the false-hearted thief! but I seen _her_ only the day before
+yesterday, seen her walk into a house in Berners Street as bold as you
+please. I watched and waited better nor two hours, for, thinks I,
+he won't be long follerin'; and I seen her come out agin with a
+gentleman, a comely young gentleman; I'd know him anywheres, but he
+warn't like my Jim."
+
+"Are you sure it was the same lady?" asked Tom eagerly, but ashamed
+of putting so unnecessary a question when he saw the expression of
+Dorothea's face.
+
+"Am I _sure_?" said she, with a short gasping laugh. "Do you suppose
+as a woman can be mistook as has been put upon like me? Lawyers is
+clever men, askin' your pardon, Mr. Ryfe, but there's not much sense
+in such a question as yours: I seen the lady, sir, and I seen the
+house; that's enough for _me_!"
+
+"And you observed the gentleman narrowly?" continued Tom, stifling
+down a little pang of jealousy that was surely unreasonable now.
+
+"Well, I didn't take much notice of the gentleman," answered Dorothea
+wearily, for the reaction was coming on apace. "It warn't my Jim, I
+know. You and me has both been used bad, Master Tom, and it's a shame,
+it is. But the weather's uncommon close, and it's a long walk here,
+and I'm a'most fit to drop, askin' your pardon, sir. I wrote down the
+number of the house, Master Tom, to make sure--there it is. If you
+please, I'll go down-stairs, and ask the servants for a cup o' tea,
+and I wish you a good arternoon, sir, and am glad to see you lookin' a
+trifle better at last."
+
+So Dorothea departed to enjoy the luxury of strong tea and unlimited
+gossip with Mr. Bargrave's household, drawing largely on her invention
+in explanation of her recent interview, but affording them no clue to
+the real object of her visit.
+
+Tom Ryfe was still puzzled. That Maud (he could not endure to think of
+her as Lady Bearwarden)--that Maud should, so soon after her marriage,
+be seen going about London by herself under such questionable
+circumstances was strange, to say the least of it, even making
+allowances for her recklessness and wilful disposition, of which no
+one could be better aware than himself. What could be her object?
+though he loved her so fiercely in his own way, he had no great
+opinion of her discretion; and now, in the bitterness of his anger,
+was prepared to put the very worst construction upon everything she
+did. He recalled, painfully enough, a previous occasion on which he
+had met her, as he believed, walking with a stranger in the Park, and
+did not forget her displeasure while cutting short his inquiries on
+the subject. After all, it occurred to him almost immediately, that
+the person with whom she had been lately seen was probably her own
+husband. He would not himself have described Lord Bearwarden exactly
+as a "comely young gentleman," but on the subject of manly beauty
+Dorothea's taste was probably more reliable than his own. If so,
+however, what could they be doing in Berners Street? Pshaw! How this
+illness had weakened his intellect! Having her picture painted, of
+course! what else could bring a doting couple, married only a few
+weeks, to that part of the town? He cursed Dorothea bitterly for her
+ridiculous surmises and speculations--cursed the fond pair--cursed his
+own wild unconquerable folly--cursed the day he first set eyes on that
+fatal beauty, so maddening to his senses, so destructive to his heart;
+and thus cursing staggered across the room to take his strengthening
+draught, looked at his pale, worn face in the glass, and sat down
+again to think.
+
+The doctor had visited him at noon, and stated with proper caution
+that in a day or two, if amendment still progressed satisfactorily,
+"carriage exercise," as he called it, might be taken with undoubted
+benefit to the invalid. We all know, none better than medical men
+themselves, that if your doctor says you may get up to-morrow, you
+jump out of bed the moment his back is turned. Tom Ryfe, worried,
+agitated, unable to rest where he was, resolved that he would take his
+carriage exercise without delay, and to the housemaid's astonishment,
+indeed much against her protest, ordered a hansom cab to the door at
+once.
+
+Though so weak he could not dress without assistance, he no sooner
+found himself on the move, and out of doors, than he began to feel
+stronger and better; he had no object in driving beyond change of
+scene, air, and exercise; but it will not surprise those who have
+suffered from the cruel thirst and longing which accompanies such
+mental maladies as his, that he should have directed the cabman to
+proceed to Berners Street.
+
+It sometimes happens that when we thus "draw a bow at a venture" our
+random shaft hits the mark we might have aimed at for an hour in
+vain. Tom Ryfe esteemed it an unlooked-for piece of good fortune that
+turning out of Oxford Street he should meet another hansom going at
+speed in an opposite direction, and containing--yes, he could have
+sworn to them before any jury in England--the faces, very near each
+other, of Lady Bearwarden and Dick Stanmore.
+
+It was enough. Dorothea's statement seemed sufficiently corroborated,
+and after proceeding to the number she indicated, as if to satisfy
+himself that the house had not walked bodily away, Mr. Ryfe returned
+home very much benefited in his own opinion by the drive, though the
+doctor, visiting his patient next day, was disappointed to find him
+still low and feverish, altogether not so much better as he expected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+"NOT FOR JOSEPH"
+
+
+But Dick Stanmore was _not_ in a hansom with Lady Bearwarden. Shall
+I confess, to the utter destruction of his character for undying
+constancy, that he did not wish to be?
+
+Dick had been cured at last--cured of the painful disease he once
+believed mortal--cured by a course of sanitary treatment, delightful
+in its process, unerring in its results; and he walked about now with
+the buoyant step, the cheerful air of one who has been lightened of a
+load lying next his heart.
+
+Medical discoveries have of late years brought into vogue a science of
+which I have borrowed the motto for these volumes. _Similia similibus
+curantur_ is the maxim of homoeopathy; and whatever success this
+healing principle may obtain with bodily ailments, I have little doubt
+of its efficacy in affections of the heart. I do not mean to say
+its precepts will render us invulnerable or immortal. There are
+constitutions that, once shaken, can never be restored; there are
+characters that, once outraged, become saddened for evermore. The
+fairest flowers and the sweetest, are those which, if trampled down,
+never hold up their heads again. But I do mean, that should man or
+woman be capable of cure under sufferings originating in misplaced
+confidence, such cure is most readily effected by a modified attack of
+the same nature, at the risk of misplacing it again.
+
+After Dick Stanmore's first visit to the painting-room in Berners
+Street, it was astonishing how enthusiastic a taste he contracted for
+art. He was never tired of contemplating his friend's great picture,
+and Simon used laughingly to declare the amateur knew every line and
+shade of colour in his Fairy Queen as accurately as the painter.
+He remained in London at a season which could have afforded few
+attractions for a young man of his previous habits, and came every day
+to the painting-room as regularly as the model herself. Thus it fell
+out that Dick, religiously superintending the progress of this Fairy
+Queen, found his eyes wandering perpetually from the representation on
+canvas to its original on Miss Algernon's shoulders, and gratified his
+sense of sight with less scruple, that from the very nature of her
+occupation she was compelled to keep her head always turned one way.
+
+It must have been agreeable for Nina, no doubt, if not improving, to
+listen to Dick's light and rather trivial conversation which relieved
+the monotony of her task, and formed a cheerful addition to the short,
+jerking, preoccupied sentences of the artist, enunciated obviously
+at random, and very often with a brush in his mouth. Nor was it
+displeasing, I imagine, to be aware of Mr. Stanmore's admiration,
+forsaking day by day its loudly-declared allegiance to the Fairy
+Queen in favour of her living prototype, deepening gradually to long
+intervals of silence, sweeter, more embarrassing, while far more
+eloquent than words.
+
+And all the time, Simon, the chivalrous, painted on. I cannot believe
+but that, with the jealous instinct of true affection, he must have
+perceived the ground slipping away, hour by hour, from beneath his
+feet--must have seen the ship that carried all his cargo sailing
+farther and farther into a golden distance to leave him desolate on
+the darkening shore. How his brain may have reeled, and his heart
+ached, it is not for me to speculate. There is a decency of courage,
+as there is an extravagance of bravado, and that is the true spirit of
+chivalry which bleeds to death unmoved, beneath its armour, keeping
+the pale knightly face turned calm and constant towards the foe.
+
+It was a strange trio, that, in the painting-room. The garden of
+Eden seems to have been originally intended for two. The third was
+doubtless an intruder, and from that day to this how many a paradise
+has been lost by admittance of the visitor who completes this uneven
+number, unaccountably supposed to be so productive of good fortune.
+
+Curious cross purposes were at work in the three heads grouped so near
+each other opposite the painter's glowing canvas. Dick perhaps was the
+least perceptive and therefore the happiest of the party. His sense of
+well-being, indeed, seemed enhanced by his previous troubles: like a
+man who comes out of the cold into the glow of a comforting fire, he
+abandoned himself without much reflection to the positive enjoyment of
+pleasure and the negative solace of relief from pain.
+
+Simon, always painting, fought hard to keep down that little leavening
+of self which constitutes our very identity. Under the cold impassive
+vigour he was so determined to preserve, he registered many a noble
+vow of fortitude and abnegation on behalf of the friend he valued, of
+the woman he loved. Sometimes a pang would shoot through him painfully
+enough while he marked a change of Nina's colour, a little flutter of
+manner, a little trembling of her hands, and felt that she was already
+more affected by the presence of this comparative stranger than she
+had ever shown herself by his, who had cared for her so tenderly,
+worshipped her so long. Then he bent all his faculties on the picture,
+and like a child running to seize its mother's gown, took refuge with
+his art.
+
+That mistress did not fail him. She never does fail the true
+worshipper, who kneels consistently at her shrine. It is not for her
+to scorn the homage offered to-day because it has been offered in
+faith and loyalty during many a long-past year. It is not for her to
+shed on the new votary her sweetest smiles only because he _is_ new.
+Woo her frankly, love her dearly, and serve her faithfully, she will
+insure you from being cozened out of your reward. Had she not taken
+care of Simon at this period, I scarcely know what would have become
+of him.
+
+Nina, too, lived in a golden dream, from which it was her only fear
+that she must soon awake. Ere long, she sometimes thought, she must
+ask herself who was this stranger that brought with him a flood
+of sunshine into the homely painting-room? that steeped for her,
+unconsciously and without effort, every day in happiness, every
+morning in hope? She put off asking the question, having perhaps a
+wholesome recollection of him who, going to count his treasure of
+fairy gold, found it only withered leaves, and let herself float with
+the stream, in that enjoyment of the present which is enhanced rather
+than modified by misgivings for the future. Nina was very happy, that
+is the honest truth, and even her beauty seemed to brighten like the
+bloom on a flower, opening to the smile of spring.
+
+Simon marked the change. How could he help it? And still he
+painted--painted on.
+
+"There!" exclaimed the artist, with a sigh of relief, as he stepped
+back from his picture, stretching both weary arms above his head. "At
+last--at last! If I only like it to-morrow as well as I do now, not
+another touch shall go into it anywhere above the chin. It's the
+expression I've been trying to catch for months. There it is! Doubt,
+sorrow, remorse, and, through it all, the real undying love of
+the--Well, that's all can't! I mean--Can't you see that she likes him
+awfully even now? Nina, you've been the making of me, you're the best
+sitter in the world, and while I look at my picture I begin to think
+you're the handsomest. I mustn't touch it again. Stanmore, what do you
+think?"
+
+Absorbed in contemplation of his work, he paid little attention to the
+answer, which was so far fortunate, that Dick, in his preoccupation,
+faltered out a string of contradictory criticisms, flattering neither
+to the original nor the copy. Nina indeed suggested, with some truth,
+that he had made the eyebrows too dark, but this remark appeared to
+originate only in a necessity for something to say. These two young
+people seemed unusually shy and ill at ease. Perhaps in each of the
+three hearts beating there before the picture lurked some vague
+suspicion that its wistful expression, so lately caught, may have been
+owing to corresponding feelings lately awakened in the model; and, if
+so, why should not two of them have thrilled with happiness, though
+the third might ache in loneliness and despair?
+
+"Not another stroke of work will I do to-day," said the artist,
+affecting a cheerfulness which perhaps he did not feel. "Nina, you've
+got to be back early. I'll have a half-holiday for once and take you
+home. Put your bonnet on: I shall be ready in five minutes when I've
+washed my hands."
+
+Dick's face fell. He had counted on a couple more hours at least.
+Women, when they are really disappointed, rarely show it, and perhaps
+he felt a little hurt to observe how readily, and with what apparent
+goodwill, Miss Algernon resumed her out-of-doors attire. He felt
+hardly sure of his ground yet, or he might have begun to sulk in
+earnest. No bad plan either, for such little misunderstandings
+bring on explanations, reconciliations, declarations, all sorts of
+vexations, every day!
+
+Ladies are stanch believers in luck, and leave much to chance with a
+devout faith that it will serve them at their need. I imagine Nina
+thought it quite in the natural course of events that a dirty boy
+should enter the room at this juncture and deliver a note to Simon,
+which called forth all his energies and sympathies in a moment. The
+note, folded in a hurry, written with a pencil, was from a brother
+artist, and ran thus--
+
+Dear Simon, "Come and see me if you _can_. On my back! Two doctors.
+Not going to be rubbed out, but beastly seedy all the same."
+
+"When was he taken ill? Who's attending him? Anybody taking care of
+him? What o'clock is it now? Tell him I'll be there in five minutes."
+Simon delivered himself of these sentences in a breath, and then
+glanced from Nina to Dick Stanmore.
+
+"I dare say you wouldn't mind," said he. "I _must_ go to this poor
+fellow, and if I find him very ill I may be detained till evening. If
+you've time, Stanmore, could you see Miss Algernon as far as the boat?
+She'll do very well then, but we don't like her to be wandering about
+London by herself."
+
+It is possible this idea may have suggested itself to the persons most
+concerned, for all that they seemed so supremely unconscious, and as
+if the arrangement, though a sensible one and convenient, no doubt,
+were a matter of perfect indifference to themselves.
+
+Dick "would be delighted," of course; though he tried not to look so;
+and Nina "couldn't think of giving Mr. Stanmore so much trouble."
+Nevertheless, within ten minutes the two were turning into Oxford
+Street in a hansom cab; and although they said very little, being
+indeed in a vehicle which jolted, swung, and rattled inordinately, I
+have not the least doubt they enjoyed their drive.
+
+They enjoyed the river steamer too, which seems equally strange,
+with its narrow deck, its tangible smoke, its jerks and snorts, and
+throbbing vibrations, as it worked its way against the tide. They
+had never before been alone together, and the situation, though
+delightful, was at first somewhat embarrassing, because they were in
+earnest. The restraint, however, soon wore off, and with tongues
+once loosened there was no lack of matter for their employment. How
+beautiful, how interesting, how picturesque everything seemed to have
+grown all at once: the Houses of Parliament--the bridges--the dull,
+broad surface of the river, grey, with a muddy tinge--the low,
+level banks--the blunt-nosed barges--their fellow-passengers--the
+engineer--the boy with the mop--and the dingy funnel of the steamer
+itself.
+
+How mysterious the charm that lurks in association of ideas! What
+magic it imparts to the commonest actions, the most vulgar objects of
+life! What a heart-ache on occasions has it not caused you or me! One
+of us cannot see a woman fitting on her gloves without a pang. To
+another there is a memory and a sorrow in the flirt of a fan, the
+rustle of a dress, the grinding of a barrel-organ, or the slang of a
+street song. The stinging-nettle crops up in every bed of flowers we
+raise; the bitter tonic flavours all we eat and drink. I dare say
+Werther could not munch his bread-and-butter for years in common
+comfort because of Charlotte. Would it not be wiser for us to ignore
+the Charlottes of life altogether, and stick to the bread-and-butter?
+
+Too soon that dingy steamer reached its place of disembarkation--too
+soon, at least, for certain of its passengers; and yet in their short
+voyage up the river each of these two had passed the portal of
+a paradise, through which, amongst all its gaudy and luxuriant
+vegetation, you may search for the tree of knowledge in vain. Not a
+word was spoken by either that could bear the direct interpretation of
+love-making, yet each felt that the Rubicon had been passed which must
+never be recrossed dryshod again.
+
+Dick paid his respects, as seemed but right and proper, to the Misses
+Perkins, who voted him an exceedingly agreeable young man; and this
+was the more tolerant on their part that he found very little to say,
+and had the good taste to be a very short time in saying it. They
+asked him, indeed, to remain for dinner, and, notwithstanding their
+hospitable inclinations, were no doubt relieved when he declined. He
+had gained some experience, you see, from his previous worship of Miss
+Bruce, which now stood him in good stead, for in affairs of love,
+as of honour, a man conducts his second with more skill and _savoir
+faire_ than his first.
+
+The world seemed to have changed by magic while he went back to
+London. It felt like the breaking up of a frost, when all is warmth
+and softness and vitality once more. He could have talked to himself,
+and laughed aloud for very joy.
+
+But Nina went to her room, and cried as she had not cried since she
+was a little child, shedding tears of mingled sweetness and sorrow,
+rapture and remorse. Her eyes were opened now in her new-found
+happiness, and she foresaw the crushing blow that happiness must
+inflict on the oldest, kindest, dearest of friends.
+
+For the first time in her life she took herself to task and examined
+her own heart. What a joyous heart it was! And yet how could she be
+so inhuman as to admit a pleasure which must be cruelly productive of
+another's pain? Here was a person whom she had known, as it were, but
+yesterday, and his lightest word or glance had already become dearer
+to her than the wealth of care and affection which tended her from
+childhood, which would be about her to her grave. It was infamous! she
+told herself, and yet it was surpassingly sweet! Yes, she loved this
+man--this brown-haired, broad-shouldered Mr. Stanmore, of whose
+existence a fortnight ago she had been perfectly unconscious, and
+in that love she learned to appreciate and understand the affection
+loyal, true-hearted Simon lavished on herself. Was he to be sacrificed
+to this mere stranger? Never! Rather she would sacrifice herself. But
+the tears flowed faster to think that it would indeed be a sacrifice,
+an offering up of youth, beauty, hope, happiness for life. Then she
+dried her eyes, and went down on her knees to pray at her bedside; and
+so rose up, making certain stern resolutions, which it is only fair to
+state she afterwards kept--like a woman!
+
+With the view, doubtless, of putting these in practice, she induced
+Simon to walk with her on the lawn after tea, while the stars were
+twinkling dimly through a soft, misty sky, and the lazy river lapped
+and gurgled against the garden banks. He accompanied her, nothing
+loth, for he too had spent the last hour in hard painful conflict,
+making, also, stern resolutions, which he kept--like a man! "You found
+him better," she said, alluding to the cause of his delay in returning
+home. "I'm so glad. If he hadn't been, you'd have stayed with him all
+night, I know. Simon, I think you're the best and the kindest person
+in the world."
+
+Here was an opening. Was she disappointed, or not, that he took so
+little advantage of it? "We must all help each other, Nina," said he;
+"that's the way to make life easy and to stifle sorrows, if we have
+them, of our own."
+
+"_You_ ought never to have a sorrow," she broke in. "_You_, who always
+think of others before yourself--you deserve to be so happy. And,
+Simon, sometimes I think you're not, and it makes me wretched; and I'd
+do anything in the world to please you; anything, if--if it wasn't
+_too_ hard a task, you know."
+
+She had been so eager to make her sacrifice and get it over that she
+hurried inconsiderately to the brink,--then, like a timid bather,
+stopped short, hesitating--the water looked so cold and dark and deep.
+
+The lightest touch from his hand would have plunged her in, overhead.
+He would have held it in the fire rather, like the Roman hero, till it
+shrivelled into ashes.
+
+"My happiness can never be apart from yours," he said, tenderly and
+sadly. "Yet I think I know now that yours is not entirely bound up in
+mine. Am I right, Nina?"
+
+"I would do anything in the world for you--anything," she murmured,
+taking refuge, as we all do at such times, in vain repetition.
+
+They had reached the drawing-room window, and she turned aside, as if
+she meant to go in. He took her hand lightly in his own, and led her
+back towards the river. It was very dark, and neither could read the
+expression of the other's face.
+
+"I have but one earnest desire in the world," said he, speaking
+distinctly, but very low. "It is to see you happily settled in life.
+I never had a sister nor a daughter, Nina. You have stood me in the
+stead of both; and--and I shall never have a wife."
+
+She knew what he meant. The quiet, sad, yet uncomplaining tone cut
+her to the heart. "It's a shame! it's a shame!" she murmured. "Simon,
+Simon. Tell me; don't you think me the worst, the most ungrateful, the
+most horrible girl in the world?"
+
+He spoke cheerfully now, and even laughed. "Very ungrateful," he
+repeated, pressing her hand kindly; "and very detestable, unless
+you tell me the truth. Nina, dear Nina, confide in me as if I was
+your--well--your grandmother! Will that do? I think there's a somebody
+we saw to-day who likes you very much. He's a good fellow, and to be
+trusted, I can swear. Don't you think, dear, though you haven't
+known him long, that _you_ like _him_ a little--more than a little,
+already?"
+
+"O, Simon, what a brute I am, and what a fool!" answered the girl,
+bursting into tears. And then the painter knew that his ship had gone
+down, and the waters had closed over it for evermore. That evening his
+aunts thought Simon in better spirits than usual. Nina, though
+she went to bed before the rest, had never found him kinder, more
+cheerful, more considerate. He spoke playfully, good-humouredly, on
+various subjects, and kissed the girl's forehead gravely, almost
+reverently, when she wished him good-night. It was such a caress as a
+man lays on the dead face that shall never look in his own again. The
+painter slept but little--perhaps not at all. And who shall tell how
+hard he wrestled with his great sorrow during those long hours of
+darkness, "even to the breaking of the day"? No angel sat by his bed
+to comfort him, nor spirit-voices whispered solace in his ear, nor
+spirit-sympathy poured balm into the cold, aching, empty heart; but
+I have my own opinion on such matters, and I would fain believe that
+struggles and sufferings like these are neither wasted nor forgotten,
+but are treasured and recorded by kindred beings of a higher nature,
+as the training that alone fits poor humanity, then noblest, when most
+sorrowful, to enter the everlasting gates and join the radiant legions
+of heaven.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+ANONYMOUS
+
+
+Lord Bearwarden finds himself very constantly on guard just at
+present. Her ladyship is of opinion that he earns his pay more
+thoroughly than any day-labourer his wages. I do not myself consider
+that helmet, cuirass, and leather breeches form the appropriate
+appliances of a hero, when terminating in a pair of red morocco
+slippers. Nevertheless, in all representations purporting to be
+life-like, effect must be subservient to correctness of detail; and
+such was the costume in which his lordship, on duty at the Horse
+Guards, received a dispatch that seemed to cause him considerable
+surprise and vexation.
+
+The guard coming off was mustering below. The relief coming on was
+already moving gallantly down Regent Street, to the admiration of all
+beholders. Armed was his lordship to the teeth, though not to
+the toes, for his batman waited respectfully with a pair of high
+jack-boots in his hand, and still his officer read, and frowned, and
+pulled his moustache, and swore, as the saying is, like a trooper,
+which, if he had only drawn on his boots, would not have been so much
+out of character at the time.
+
+Once again he read it from end to end ere he crumpled the note in
+under his cuirass for future consideration. It ran as follows--
+
+My Lord,
+
+"Your lordship's manly and generous character has obtained for you
+many well-wishers. Of these the writer is one of the most sincere. It
+grieves and angers him to see your lordship's honest nature deceived,
+your domestic happiness destroyed, your noble confidence abused. The
+writer, my lord, is your true friend. Though too late for rescue, it
+is not too late for redress; and he has no power of communicating to
+your lordship suspicions which now amount to certainty but by the
+means at present employed. Anonymous letters are usually the resource
+of a liar and slanderer; but there is no rule without exception; and
+the writer can bring _proof_ of every syllable he asserts. If your
+lordship will use your own eyes, watch and wait. She has deceived
+others; why not _you_? Berners Street, Oxford Street, is no crowded
+thoroughfare. Why should your lordship abstain from walking there any
+afternoon between four and five? Be wary. Watch and wait."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Blast his impudence!" muttered Lord Bearwarden, now booted to the
+thigh, and clattering down-stairs to take command of his guard.
+
+With zealous subalterns, an experienced corporal-major, well-drilled
+men, and horses that knew their way home, it required little military
+skill to move his handful of cavalry back to barracks, so Lord
+Bearwarden came off duty without creating scandal or ridicule in the
+regiment; but I doubt if he knew exactly what he was doing, till he
+arrived in plain clothes within a few paces of his own door. Here he
+paused for a few minutes' reflection before entering his house, and
+was surprised to see at the street corner a lady extremely like his
+wife in earnest conversation with a man in rags who had the appearance
+of a professional beggar. The lady, as far as he could judge at that
+distance, seemed to be offering money, which the man by his actions
+obviously refused. Lord Bearwarden walked briskly towards them, a good
+deal puzzled, and glad to have his attention distracted from his own
+affairs.
+
+It was a long street, and the couple separated before he reached
+them, the man disappearing round the corner, while the lady advanced
+steadily towards himself. When within a few paces she lifted a thick
+double veil, and he found he had not been mistaken.
+
+Maud was pale and calm as usual, but to those who knew her well recent
+agitation would have been betrayed by the lowering of her eyebrows,
+and an unusual compression of the lines about her mouth.
+
+He knew her better than she thought, and did not fail to remark these
+signs of a recent storm, but, as usual, refrained from asking for the
+confidence it was his right to receive.
+
+"You're out early, my lady," said he, in a careless tone. "Been for an
+appetite against luncheon-time, eh? That beggar just now didn't seem
+hungry, at any rate. It looked to me as if you were offering him
+money, and he wouldn't take it. That's quite a new trick in the
+trade."
+
+She glanced quickly in his face with something almost of reproach.
+It was a hateful life this, and even now, she thought, if he would
+question her kindly, she could find it in her heart perhaps to tell
+him all. All! How she had deceived him, and promised herself to
+another, and to get rid of that other, only for a time, had rendered
+herself amenable to the law--had been guilty of actual crime--had sunk
+to feel the very slave of a felon, the lowest refuse of society. How
+she, Lady Bearwarden, had within the last ten minutes been threatened
+by this ruffian, been compelled to submit to his insolence, to make
+terms with his authority, and to promise him another interview that
+very afternoon. How every hour of her life was darkened by terror of
+his presence and dread of his revenge. It was unheard-of! unbearable!
+She would make a clean breast of it on the first opportunity.
+
+"Let's go in, dear," she said, with more of softness and affection
+than was her habit when addressing her husband. "Luncheon is almost
+ready. I'm so glad you got away early from barracks. I see so little
+of you now. Never mind. It will be all right next week. We shall have
+two more captains back from leave to help us. You see I'm beginning to
+know the roster almost as well as the Adjutant himself."
+
+It pleased him that she should show an interest in these professional
+details. He liked to hear such military terms of the orderly room from
+those pretty lips, and he would have replied with something unusually
+affectionate, and therefore exceedingly precious, but that, as husband
+and wife reached their own door, they found standing there to greet
+them the pale wasted face and attenuated figure of Tom Ryfe.
+
+He saluted Lady Bearwarden gravely, but with perfect confidence, and
+she was obliged to give him her hand, though she felt as if she could
+have strangled him with pleasure, then and there, by the scraper. Her
+husband clapped him heartily on the back. "Glad to see you, Tom," said
+he; "I heard you were ill and called to inquire, but they wouldn't let
+me disturb you. Been devilish seedy, haven't you? Don't look _quite_
+in form yet. Come in and have some luncheon. Doctors all tell one to
+keep up the system now-a-days."
+
+Poor Lady Bearwarden! Here was another of her avengers, risen, as
+it seemed, from the dead, and she must speak kind words, find false
+smiles, bid him to her table, and treat him as an honoured guest.
+Whatever happened, too, she could not endure to leave him alone with
+Bearwarden. Who could tell what disclosures might come out? She was
+walking on a mine, so she backed her husband's invitation, and herself
+led the way into the dining-room where luncheon was ready, not daring
+even to go up-stairs and take her bonnet off before she sat down.
+
+Mr. Ryfe was less communicative than usual about himself, and spoke as
+little to her ladyship as seemed compatible with the ordinary forms of
+politeness. His object was to lull her suspicions and put her off her
+guard. Nevertheless, with painful attention she watched every glance
+of his eye, every turn of his features, hanging eagerly, nervously, on
+every word he said.
+
+Tom had laid his plan of attack, and now called on the lately-married
+couple, that he might reconnoitre his ground before bringing up his
+forces. It is not to be supposed that a man of Mr. Ryfe's resources
+would long remain in ignorance of the real truth, after detecting, as
+he believed at the time, Lady Bearwarden and Dick Stanmore side by
+side in a hansom cab.
+
+Ere twenty-four hours had elapsed he had learned the exact state of
+the case, and had satisfied himself of the extraordinary resemblance
+between Miss Algernon and the woman he had resolved to persecute
+without remorse. In this resemblance he saw an engine with which he
+hoped to work her ladyship's utter destruction, and then (Tom's heart
+leapt within him even now at the thought), ruined, lonely, desolate,
+when the whole world turned from her, she might learn to appreciate
+his devotion, might take shelter at last with the only heart open to
+receive her in her shame.
+
+It is hard to say whether Tom's feelings for the woman he so admired
+were of love or hate.
+
+He saw through Lord Bearwarden's nature thoroughly, for of him, too,
+he had made it his business to inquire into all the tendencies, all
+the antecedents. A high fastidious spirit, jealous, because sensitive,
+yet far too proud to admit, much less indulge that jealousy, seemed of
+all others the easiest to deceive. The hide of the rhinoceros is no
+contemptible gift, and a certain bluntness, I might say coarseness
+of character, enables a man to go through the world comfortably and
+happily, unvexed by those petty stings and bites and irritations that
+worry thinner skins to death. With Lord Bearwarden to suspect was to
+fret and ponder and conceal, hating and despising himself the while.
+He had other points, besides his taste for soldiering, in common with
+Othello.
+
+On such a man an anonymous letter acted like a blister, clinging,
+drawing, inflaming all round the affected part. Nobody in theory so
+utterly despised these productions. For nobody in practice did they
+produce so disastrous an effect. And then he had been deceived once
+before. He had lost his trust, not so much in the other sex (for
+all men think every woman false but one) as in himself. He had been
+outraged, hurt, humbled, and the bold confidence, the _dash_ with
+which such games should be played were gone. There is a buoyancy
+gradually lost as we cross the country of life, which is perhaps worth
+more than all the gains of experience. And in the real pursuit, as
+in the mimic hurry of the chase, it is wise to avoid too hazardous a
+venture. The hunter that has once been overhead in a brook never faces
+water very heartily again.
+
+Tom could see that his charm was working, that the letter he had
+written produced all the effect he desired. His host was obviously
+preoccupied, absent in manner, and even flurried, at least for _him_.
+Moreover, he drank brown sherry out of a claret-glass, which looked
+like being uncomfortable somewhere inside. Lady Bearwarden, grave and
+unusually silent, watched her husband with a sad, wistful air, that
+goaded Tom to madness. How he had loved that pale, proud face, and it
+was paler and prouder and lovelier than ever to-day!
+
+"I've seen some furniture you'd like to look at, my lord," said Tom,
+in his old, underbred manner. "There's a chair I'd buy directly if I'd
+a house to put it in, or a lady to sit on it; and a carved ebony frame
+it's worth going all the distance to see. If you'd nothing to do this
+afternoon, I'll be proud to show them you. Twenty minutes' drive from
+here in a hansom."
+
+"Will you come?" asked Lord Bearwarden, kindly, of his wife. "You
+might take us in the barouche."
+
+She seemed strangely agitated by so natural a proposal, and neither
+gentleman failed to remark her disorder.
+
+"I shall like it very much," she stammered. "At least I should. But I
+can't this afternoon. I--I've got an engagement at the other end of
+the town."
+
+"Which _is_ the other end of the town?" said Lord Bearwarden,
+laughing. "You've not told us _your_ end yet, Tom;" but seeing his
+wife's colour fade more and more, he purposely filled Tom's glass to
+distract his attention.
+
+Her engagement was indeed of no pleasant nature. It was to hold
+another interview with "Gentleman Jim," in which she hoped to prevail
+on him to leave the country by offering the largest sum of money
+she could raise from all her resources. Once released from his
+persecutions, she thought she could breathe a little, and face Tom
+Ryfe well enough single-handed, should he try to poison her husband's
+mind against her--an attempt she thought him likely enough to make. It
+was Jim she feared--Jim, whom drink and crime, and an infatuation of
+which she was herself the cause, had driven almost mad--she could see
+it in his eye--who was reckless of her character as of his own--who
+insisted on her giving him these meetings two or three times a week,
+and was capable of any folly, any outrage, if she disappointed
+him. Well, to-day should end it! On that she was determined. If he
+persisted in refusing her bribe, she would throw herself on Lord
+Bearwarden's mercy and tell him the whole truth.
+
+Maud had more self-command than most women, and could hold her own
+even in so false a position as this.
+
+"I must get another gown," she said, after a moment's pause, ignoring
+Tom's presence altogether as she addressed her husband across the
+table. "I've nothing to wear at the Den, if it's cold when we go down
+next week, so I _must_ call at Stripe and Rainbow's to-day, and I
+won't keep you waiting in the carriage all the time I'm shopping."
+
+He seemed quite satisfied. "Then I'll take Ryfe to my sulking-room,"
+said he, "and wish you good-bye till dinner-time. Tom, you shall have
+the best cigar in England--I've kept them five years, and they're
+strong enough to blow your head off now."
+
+So Tom, with a formal bow to Lady Bearwarden, followed his host into a
+snug but dark apartment at the back, devoted, as was at once detected
+by its smell, to the consumption of tobacco.
+
+While he lit a cigar, he could not help thinking of the days, not so
+long ago, when Maud would have followed him, at least with her eyes,
+out of the room, but consoled himself by the reflection that his
+turn was coming now, and so smoked quietly on with a firm, cruel
+determination to do his worst.
+
+Thus it came to pass that, before they had finished their cigars,
+these gentlemen heard the roll of her ladyship's carriage as it took
+her away; also that a few minutes later, passing Stripe and Rainbow's
+in a hansom cab, they saw the same carriage, standing empty at the
+door of that gorgeous and magnificent emporium.
+
+"Don't get out, Tom," said his, lordship, stopping the hansom, "I only
+want to ask a question--I sha'n't be a minute;" and in two strides he
+was across the pavement and within the folding-doors of the shop.
+
+Perhaps the question he meant to ask was of his own common-sense, and
+its answer seemed hard to accept philosophically. Perhaps he never
+expected to find what he meant to look for, yet was weak enough to
+feel disappointed all the same--for he had turned very pale when he
+re-entered the cab, and he lit another cigar without speaking.
+
+Though her carriage stood at the door, he had searched the whole of
+Stripe and Rainbow's shop for Lady Bearwarden in vain.
+
+Tom Ryfe was not without a certain mother-wit, sharpened by his
+professional education. He suspected the truth, recalling the
+'agitated manner of his hostess at luncheon, when her afternoon's
+employment came under notice. Will it be believed that he experienced
+an actual pang, to think she should have some assignation, some secret
+of which his lordship must be kept in ignorance--that he should have
+felt more jealous of this unknown, this possible rival, than of her
+lawful husband now sitting by his side! He was no bad engineer,
+however, and having laid his train, waited patiently for the mine to
+explode at its proper time.
+
+"What an outlandish part of the town we are getting to," observed Lord
+Bearwarden, after several minutes' silence; "your furniture-man seems
+to live at the other end of the world."
+
+"If you want to buy things at first hand you must go into Oxford
+Street," answered Tom. "Let's get out and walk, my lord; it's so
+crowded here, we shall make better way."
+
+So they paid their hansom, and threading the swarms of passengers on
+the footway, turned into Berners Street arm-in-arm.
+
+Tom walked very slowly for reasons of his own, but made himself
+pleasant enough, talking on a variety of subjects, and boasting his
+own good taste in matters of curiosity, especially old furniture.
+
+"I wish you could have induced the viscountess to come with us," said
+Tom, "we should have been all the better for her help. But ladies have
+so many engagements in the afternoon we know nothing about, that it's
+impossible to secure their company without several days' notice. I'll
+be bound her ladyship is in Stripe and Rainbow's still."
+
+There was something in the casual remark that jarred on Lord
+Bearwarden, more than Tom's absurd habit of thus bestowing her full
+title on his wife in common conversation, though even that provoked
+him a little too; something to set him thinking, to rouse all the
+pride and all the suspicion of his nature. "The viscountess," as Tom
+called her, was _not_ in Stripe and Rainbow's, of that he had made
+himself perfectly certain less than half-an-hour ago; then where
+_could_ she be? Why this secrecy, this mystery, this reserve, that had
+been growing up between them day by day ever since their marriage?
+What conclusion was a man likely to arrive at who had lived in the
+world of London from boyhood, and been already once so cruelly
+deceived? His blood boiled; and Tom, whose hand rested on his arm,
+felt the muscles swell and quiver beneath his touch.
+
+Mr. Ryfe had timed his observation well; the two gentlemen were now
+proceeding slowly up Berners Street, and had arrived nearly opposite
+the house that contained Simon's painting-room, its hard-working
+artist, its frequent visitor, its beautiful sitter, and its Fairy
+Queen. Since his first visit there Tom Ryfe, in person or through
+his emissaries, had watched the place strictly enough to have become
+familiar with the habits of its inmates.
+
+Mr. Stanmore's trial trip with Miss Algernon proved so satisfactory,
+that the journey had been repeated on the same terms every day: this
+arrangement, very gratifying to the persons involved, originated
+indeed with Simon, who now went regularly after work to pass a few
+hours with his sick friend. Thus, to see these two young people
+bowling down Berners Street in a hansom cab, about five o'clock,
+looking supremely happy the while, was as good a certainty as to meet
+the local pot-boy, or the postman.
+
+Tom Ryfe manoeuvred skilfully enough to bring his man on the ground
+precisely at the right moment.
+
+Still harping on old furniture, he was in the act of remarking that
+"he should know the shop again, though he had forgotten the number,
+and that it must be a few doors higher up," when his companion
+started, uttered a tremendous execration, and struggling to free
+himself from Tom's arm, holloaed at an unconscious cab-driver to stop.
+
+"What's the matter? are you ill, my lord?" exclaimed his companion,
+holding on to him with all his weight, while affecting great anxiety
+and alarm.
+
+"D--n you! let me go!" exclaimed Lord Bearwarden, nearly flinging Tom
+to the pavement as he shook himself free and tore wildly down the
+street in vain pursuit.
+
+He returned in a minute or two, white, scared, and breathless. Pulling
+his moustache fiercely, he made a gallant effort to compose himself;
+but when he spoke, his voice was so changed, Tom looked with surprise
+in his face.
+
+"You saw it too, Tom!" he said at last, in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Saw it!--saw what?" repeated Tom, with an admirable assumption of
+ignorance, innocence, and dismay.
+
+"Saw Lady Bearwarden in that cab with Dick Stanmore!" answered his
+lordship, steadying himself bravely like a good ship in a breeze, and
+growing cooler and cooler, as was his nature in an emergency.
+
+"Are you sure of it?--did you see her face? I fancied so myself, but
+thought I must be mistaken. It was Mr. Stanmore, no doubt, but it
+cannot possibly have been the viscountess."
+
+Tom spoke with an air of gravity, reflection, and profound concern.
+
+"I may settle with _him_, at any rate!" said Lord Bearwarden. "Tom,
+you're a true friend; I can trust you like myself. It's a comfort to
+have a friend, Tom, when a fellow's smashed up like this. I shall bear
+it well enough presently; but it's an awful facer, old boy. I'd have
+done anything for that woman--I tell you, anything! I'd have cut off
+my right hand to please her. And now!--It's not because she doesn't
+care for me--I've known that all along; but to think that she's
+like--like those poor painted devils we met just now. Like
+them!--she's a million times worse! O, it's hard to bear! Damnation! I
+_won't_ bear it! Somebody will have to give an account for this!"
+
+"You have my sympathy," said Tom, in a low respectful voice, for he
+knew his man thoroughly; "these things won't stand talking about; but
+you shall have my assistance too, in any and every way you require.
+I'm not a swell, my lord, but I'll stick by you through thick and
+thin."
+
+The other pressed his arm. "We must do something at once," said he.
+"I will go up to barracks now: call for me there in an hour's time; I
+shall have decided on everything by then."
+
+So Lord Bearwarden carried a sore heart back once more to the old
+familiar scenes--through the well-known gate, past the stalwart
+sentry, amongst all the sights and sounds of the profession by which
+he set such store. What a mockery it seemed!--how hard, how cruel, and
+how unjust!
+
+But this time at least, he felt, he should not be obliged to sit down
+and brood over his injuries without reprisals or redress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+PARTED
+
+
+Lady Bearwarden's carriage had, without doubt, set her down at Stripe
+and Rainbow's, to take her up again at the same place after waiting
+there for so long a period as must have impressed on her servants the
+importance of their lady's toilet, and the careful study she bestowed
+on its selection. The tall bay horses had been flicked at least a
+hundred times to make them stand out and show themselves, in the form
+London coachmen think so imposing to passers-by. The footman had
+yawned as often, expressing with each contortion an excessive longing
+for beer. Many street boys had lavished their criticisms, favourable
+and otherwise, on the wheels, the panels, the varnish, the driver's
+wig, and that dignitary's legs, whom they had the presumption to
+address as "John." Diverse connoisseurs on the pavement had appraised
+the bay horses at every conceivable price--some men never can pass a
+horse or a woman without thinking whether they would like to bargain
+for the one or make love to the other; and the animals themselves
+seemed to have interchanged many confidential whispers, on the
+subject, probably, of beans,--when Lady Bearwarden re-appeared, to
+seat herself in the carriage and give the welcome order, "Home!"
+
+She had passed what the French call a very "bad little quarter of an
+hour," and the storm had left its trace on her pale brow and delicate
+features. They bore, nevertheless, that firm, resolute expression
+which Maud must have inherited from some iron-hearted ancestor. There
+was the same stem clash of the jaw, the same hard, determined frown
+in this, their lovely descendant, that confronted Plantagenet and his
+mailed legions on the plains by Stirling, that stiffened under the wan
+moonlight on Culloden Moor amongst broken claymores and riven targets,
+and tartans all stained to the deep-red hues of the Stuart with his
+clansmen's blood.
+
+Softened, weakened by a tender, doubting affection, she had yielded
+to an ignoble, unworthy coercion; but it had been put on too hard of
+late, and her natural character asserted itself under the pressure.
+She was in that mood which makes the martyr and the heroine, sometimes
+even the criminal, but on which, deaf to reason and insensible to
+fear, threats and arguments are equally thrown away.
+
+She had met "Gentleman Jim," according to promise, extorted from her
+by menaces of everything that could most outrage her womanly feelings
+and tarnish her fair fame before the world--had met him with as much
+secrecy, duplicity, and caution as though he were really the favoured
+lover for whom she was prepared to sacrifice home, husband, honour,
+and all. The housebreaker had mounted a fresh disguise for the
+occasion, and flattered himself, to use his own expression, that he
+looked "quite the gentleman from top to toe." Could he have known how
+this high-bred woman loathed his tawdry ornaments, his flash attire,
+his silks and velvets, and flushed face, and dirty, ringed hands and
+greasy hair!
+
+Could he have known! He _did_ know, and it maddened him till he forgot
+reason, prudence, experience, commonsense--forgot everything but the
+present torture, the cruel longing for the impossible, the accursed
+conviction (worse than all the stings of drink and sin and remorse)
+that this one wild, hopeless desire of his existence could never be
+attained.
+
+Therefore, in the lonely street to which a cab had brought her from
+the shop where her carriage waited, and which they paced to and fro,
+this strangely-assorted pair, he gave vent to his feelings, and broke
+out in a paroxysm that roused all his listener's feelings of anger,
+resistance, and disgust. She had just offered him so large a sum
+of money to quit England for ever, as even Jim, for whom, you must
+remember, every sovereign represented twenty shillings' worth of
+beer, could not refuse without a qualm. He hesitated, and Maud's face
+brightened with a ray of hope that quivered in her eyes like sunlight.
+"To sail next week," said he slowly; "to take my last look of ye
+to-day. Them's the articles. My last look. Standing there in the
+daylight--a _real_ lady! And never to come back no more!"
+
+She clasped her hands--the delicate gloved hands, with their heavy
+bracelets at the wrists--and her voice shook while she spoke. "You'll
+go; won't you? It will make your fortune; and--and--I'll always think
+of you kindly--and--gratefully. I _will_ indeed; so long as you keep
+away."
+
+He sprang like a horse to the lash. "It's h----ll!" he exclaimed. "Put
+back your cursed money. I won't do it!"
+
+"You won't do it?"
+
+There was such quiet despair in her accents as drove him to fury.
+
+"I won't do it!" he repeated in a low voice that frightened her. "I'll
+rot in a gaol first!--I'll swing on a gallows!--I'll die in a ditch!
+Take care as _you_ don't give me something to swing for! Yes, _you_,
+with your pale face, and your high-handed ways, and your cold, cruel
+heart that can send a poor devil to the other end o' the earth with
+a 'pleasant trip, and here's your health, my lad,' like as if I was
+goin' across to Lambeth. And yet you stand there as beautiful as a
+hangel; and I--I'm a fool, I am! And--and I don't know what keeps me
+from slippin' my knife into that white throat o' yourn, except it is
+as you don't look not a morsel dashed, nor skeared, you don't; no more
+than you was that first night as ever I see your face. And I wish my
+eyes had been lime-blinded first, and I'd been dead and rotting in my
+grave."
+
+With anything like a contest, as usual, Maud's courage came back.
+
+"I am not in your power yet," said she, raising her haughty head.
+"There stands the cab. When we reach it I get in, and you shall never
+have a chance of speaking to me after to-day. Once for all. Will you
+take this money, or leave it? I shall not make the offer again."
+
+He took the notes from her hand, with a horrible oath, and dashed them
+on the ground; then growing so pale she thought he must have fallen,
+seemed to recover his temper and his presence of mind, picked them up,
+returned them very quietly, and stood aside on the narrow pavement to
+let her pass.
+
+"You are right," said he, in a voice so changed, she looked anxiously
+in his white face, working like that of a man in a fit. "I was a fool
+a while ago. I know better now. But I won't take the notes, my lady.
+Thank ye kindly just the same. I'll wish ye good-mornin' now. O, no!
+Make yourself easy. I'll never ask to see ye again."
+
+He staggered while he walked away, and laid hold of an area railing as
+he turned the street corner; but Maud was too glad to get rid of her
+tormentor at any price to speculate on his meaning, his movements, or
+the storm that raged within his breast.
+
+And now, sitting back in her carriage, bowling home-ward, with the
+fresh evening breeze in her face, the few men left to take their hats
+off looked in that face, and while making up their minds that after
+all it was the handsomest in London, felt instinctively they had never
+coveted the ownership of its haughty beauty so little as to-day. Her
+husband's cornet, walking with a brother subaltern, and saluting Lady
+Bearwarden, or, rather, the carriage and horses, for her ladyship's
+eyes and thoughts were miles away, expressed the popular feeling
+perhaps with sufficient clearness when he thus delivered himself, in
+reply to his companion's loudly-expressed admiration--
+
+"The best-looking woman in London, no doubt, and the best turned out.
+But I think Bruin's got a handful, you know. Tell ye what, my boy, I'm
+generally right about women. She looks like the sort that, if they
+once _begin_ to kick, never leave off till they've knocked the
+splinter-bar into toothpicks and carried away the whole of the front
+boot."
+
+Maud, all unconscious of the light in which she appeared to this young
+philosopher, was meanwhile hardening her heart with considerable
+misgivings for the task she had in view, resolved that nothing should
+now deter her from the confession she had delayed too long. She
+reflected how foolish it was not to have taken advantage of the first
+confidences of married life by throwing herself on her husband's
+mercy, telling him all the folly, imprudence, crime of which she had
+been guilty, and imploring to be forgiven. Every day that passed made
+it more difficult, particularly since this coolness had arisen between
+them, which, although she felt it did not originate with herself, she
+also felt a little pliancy on her part, a little warmth of manner, a
+little expressed affection, would have done much to counteract and put
+away. She had delayed it too long; but "Better late than never." It
+should be done to-day; before she dressed for dinner; the instant she
+got home. She would put her arms round his neck, and tell him that the
+worst of her iniquities, the most unpardonable, had been committed for
+love of _him_! She could not bear to lose him (Maud forgot that in
+those days it was the coronet she wanted to capture). She dreaded
+falling in his esteem. She dared all, risked all, because without
+him life must have been to her, as it is to so many, a blank and a
+mistake. But supposing he put on the cold, grave face, assumed the
+conventional tone she knew so well, told her he could not pardon such
+unladylike, such unwomanly proceedings, or that he did not desire to
+intrude on confidences so long withheld; or, worse than all, that
+they did very well as they were, got on--he had hinted as much once
+before--better than half the married couples in London, why, she must
+bear it. This would be part of the punishment; and at least she could
+have the satisfaction of assuring him how she loved him, and of loving
+him heartily, humbly, even without return.
+
+Lady Bearwarden had never done anything humbly before. Perhaps she
+thought this new sensation might be for her good--might make her a
+changed woman, and in such change happier henceforth.
+
+Tears sprang to her eyes. How slow that man drove; but, thank heaven!
+here she was, home at last.
+
+On the hall-table lay a letter in her husband's hand-writing,
+addressed to herself. "How provoking!" she muttered, "to say he dines
+out, of course. And now I must wait till to-morrow. Never mind."
+
+Passing up-stairs to her boudoir, she opened it as she entered the
+room, and sank into a chair, with a faint passionate cry, like that of
+a hare, or other weak animal, struck to the death. She had courage,
+nevertheless, to read it over twice, so as thoroughly to master the
+contents. During their engagement they used to meet every day. They
+had not been parted since their marriage. It was the first, literally
+the very first, letter she had ever received from him.
+
+  "I have no reproaches to make," it said, "nor reasons
+  to offer for my own decision. I leave both to your sense
+  of right, if indeed yours can be the same as that usually
+  accepted amongst honourable people. I have long felt
+  some mysterious barrier existed between you and me. I
+  have only an hour ago discovered its disgraceful nature,
+  and the impossibility that it can ever be removed. You
+  cannot wonder at my not returning home. Stay there as
+  long as you please, and be assured I shall not enter that
+  house again. You will not probably wish to see or hold
+  any communication with me in future, but should you be
+  so ill-advised as to attempt it, remember I have taken care
+  to render it impossible. I know not how I have forfeited
+  the right to be treated fairly and on the square, nor why
+  you, of all the world, should have felt entitled to make me
+  your dupe, but this is a question on which I do not mean
+  to enter, now nor hereafter. My man of business will
+  attend to any directions you think proper to give, and has
+  my express injunctions to further your convenience in
+  every way, but to withhold my address and all information
+  respecting my movements. With a sincere wish for your
+  welfare, I remain,"
+
+  Yours, etc.,
+
+  "Bearwarden."
+
+She was stunned, stupefied, bewildered. What had he found out? What
+could it mean? She had known of late she loved him very dearly; she
+never knew till now the pain such love might bring. She rocked herself
+to and fro in her agony, but soon started up into action. She must do
+something. She could not sit there under his very picture looking down
+on her, manly, and kind, and soldierlike. She ran down-stairs to his
+room. It was all disordered just as he had left it, and an odour of
+tobacco clung heavily round the curtains and furniture. She wondered
+now she should ever have disliked the fumes of that unsavoury plant.
+She could not bear to stay there long, but hurried up-stairs again
+to ring for a servant, and bid him get a cab at once, to see if Lord
+Bearwarden was at the barracks. She felt hopelessly convinced it was
+no use; even if he were, nothing would be gained by the assurance, but
+it seemed a relief to obtain an interval of waiting and uncertainty
+and delay. When the man returned to report that "his lordship had been
+there and gone away again," she wished she had let it alone. It formed
+no light portion of her burden that she must preserve an appearance
+of composure before her servants. It seemed such a mockery while her
+heart was breaking, yes, breaking, in the desolation of her sorrow,
+the blank of a future without _him_.
+
+Then in extremity of need she bethought her of Dick Stanmore, and in
+this I think Lady Bearwarden betrayed, under all her energy and force
+of character, the softer elements of woman's nature. A man, I suppose,
+under any pressure of affliction would hardly go for consolation
+to the woman he had deceived. He partakes more of the wild beast's
+sulkiness, which, sick or wounded, retires to mope in a corner by
+itself; whereas a woman, as indeed seems only becoming to her less
+firmly-moulded character, shows in a struggle all the qualities of
+valour except that one additional atom of final endurance which wins
+the fight at last. In real bitter distress they must have some one to
+lean on. Is it selfishness that bids them carry their sorrows for help
+to the very hearts they have crushed and trampled? Is it not rather a
+noble instinct of forgiveness and generosity which tells them that if
+their mutual cases were reversed they would themselves be capable of
+affording the sympathy they expect?
+
+Maud knew that, to use the conventional language of the world in which
+they moved, "she had treated Dick ill." We think very lightly of these
+little social outrages in the battle of life, and yet I doubt if one
+human being can inflict a much deeper injury on another than that
+which deprives the victim of all power of enjoyment, all belief in
+good, all hope for the future, all tender memories of the past. Man
+or woman, we ought to have some humane compunction, some little
+hesitation in sitting down to play at that game from which the winner
+rises only wearied with unmerited good fortune, the loser, haggard,
+miserable, stripped and beggared for life.
+
+It was owing to no forbearance of Lady Bearwarden's that Dick had so
+far recovered his losses as to sit down once more and tempt fortune at
+another table; but she turned to him nevertheless in this her hour
+of perplexity, and wrote to ask his aid, advice, and sympathy in her
+great distress.
+
+I give her letter, though it never reached its destination, because I
+think it illustrates certain feminine ideas of honour, justice, and
+plain dealing which must originate in some code of reasoning totally
+unintelligible to ourselves.
+
+  Dear Mr. Stanmore,
+
+  You are a true friend, I feel sure. I have always
+  considered you, since we have been acquainted, the truest
+  and most tried amongst the few I possess. You told me
+  once, some time ago, when we used to meet oftener than
+  we have of late, that if ever I was in sorrow or difficulty
+  I was to be sure and let you know. I am in sorrow and
+  difficulty now--great sorrow, overwhelming difficulty. I
+  have nobody that cares for me enough to give advice or
+  help, and I am so very, _very_ sad and desolate. I think I
+  have some claim upon you. We used to be so much
+  together and were always such good friends. Besides, we
+  are almost relations, are we not? and once I thought we
+  should have been something more. But that is all over
+  now.
+
+  Will you help me? Come to me at once, or write.
+  Lord Bearwarden has left me without a word of explanation
+  except a cruel, cutting, formal letter that I cannot
+  understand. I don't know what I have said or done, but
+  it seems so hard, so inhuman. And I loved him very
+  dearly, very. Indeed, though you have every right to say
+  you don't believe me, I would have made him a good wife
+  if he had let me. My heart seems quite crushed and
+  broken. It is too hard. Again I ask you to help me, and
+  remain always
+
+  Yours sincerely,
+
+  "M. Bearwarden."
+
+There is little doubt that had Dick Stanmore ever received this
+touching production he would have lost not one moment in complying
+with the urgency of its appeal. But Dick did not receive it, for the
+simple reason that, although stamped by her ladyship and placed in the
+letter-box, it was never sent to the post.
+
+Lord Bearwarden, though absenting himself from home under such
+unpleasant circumstances, could not therefore shake off the thousand
+imperceptible meshes that bind a man like chains of iron to his own
+domestic establishment. Amongst other petty details his correspondence
+had to be provided for, and he sent directions accordingly to his
+groom of the chambers, that all his letters should be forwarded to a
+certain address. The groom of the chambers, who had served in one or
+two families before, of which the heads had separated under rather
+discreditable circumstances, misunderstanding his master's orders, or
+determined to err on the safe side, forwarded all the letters he could
+lay hands on to my lord. Therefore the hurt and angry husband was
+greeted, ere he had left home a day, by the sight of an envelope in
+his wife's handwriting addressed to the man with whom he believed
+she was in love. Even under such provocation Lord Bearwarden was too
+high-minded to open the enclosure, but sent it back forthwith in a
+slip of paper, on which he calmly "presented his compliments and
+begged to forward a letter he could see was Lady Bearwarden's that had
+fallen into his hands by mistake."
+
+Maud, weeping in her desolate home, tore it into a thousand shreds.
+There was something characteristic of her husband in these little
+honourable scruples that cut her to the heart. "Why didn't he read
+it?" she repeated, wringing her hands and walking up and down the
+room. "He knows Mr. Stanmore quite well. Why didn't he read it? and
+then he would have seen what I shall never, never be able to tell him
+now!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+COAXING A FIGHT
+
+
+Mr. Ryfe could now congratulate himself that his puppets were fairly
+on the stage prepared for their several parts; and it remained but to
+bring them into play, and with that view, he summoned all the craft of
+his experience to assist the cunning of his nature.
+
+Lord Bearwarden, amongst other old-fashioned prejudices, clung to an
+obsolete notion that there are certain injuries, and those of the
+deepest and most abiding, for which neither the opinion of society,
+nor the laws of the land, afford redress, and which can only be wiped
+out by personal encounter of man to man. It seemed to him that he
+could more easily forget his sorrow, and turn with a firmer tread into
+the beaten track of life, after a snap shot at Mr. Stanmore across a
+dozen yards of turf. Do not blame him--remember his education and
+the opinions of those amongst whom he lived. Remember, too, that his
+crowning sorrow had not yet taught him resignation, an opiate which
+works only with lapse of time. There is a manlier and a truer courage
+than that which seeks a momentary oblivion of its wrongs in the
+excitement of personal danger--there is a heroism of defence, far
+above the easier valour of attack--and those are distinguished as the
+bravest troops that under severe loss preserve their discipline and
+formation, without returning the fire of an enemy.
+
+Lord Bearwarden, however, as became the arm of the service to which he
+belonged, was impatient of inaction, and had not yet learned to look
+on hostilities in this light.
+
+"We'll parade him, Tom," said he, affecting a cheerfulness which did
+not the least deceive his companion. "I don't want to make a row about
+it, of course. I'll spare _her_, though she hardly deserves it, but
+I'll have a slap at _him_, and I'll shoot him, too, if I can! You
+needn't put us up much farther than the width of this room!"
+
+They were closeted together at the back of a certain unassuming hotel,
+where their addresses, if required, would be consistently denied. The
+room in question was small, gloomy, and uncomfortable, but so shaded
+and sequestered, that, lulled by its drowsy glimmer, for its inmates,
+as for the lotus-eaters, "it was always afternoon."
+
+"Suppose he won't fight," observed Tom, shaking his head.
+
+"Won't fight!" repeated his lordship, in high disdain. "Curse him--he
+_must_ fight. I'll horsewhip him in the Park! That's all nonsense,
+Tom. The fellow's a gentleman. I'll say that for him. He'll see the
+propriety of keeping the whole thing quiet, if it was only out of
+regard for _her_. You must settle it, Tom. It's a great deal to ask. I
+know I ought to have gone to a brother-officer, but this is a peculiar
+case, you see, and the fewer fellows in the hunt the better!"
+
+Mr. Ryfe mused. He didn't much like his job, but reflected that, under
+the management of any one else, an explanation would assuredly put
+everything in its true light, and his web would all be brushed away.
+What he required was a scandal; a slander so well sustained, that Lady
+Bearwarden's character should never recover it, and for such a purpose
+nothing seemed so efficacious as a duel, of which she should be the
+cause. He imagined also, in his inexperience, like the immortal Mr.
+Winkle, that these encounters were usually bloodless, and mere,
+matters of form.
+
+"You're resolved, I suppose," said Tom. "I needn't point out to you, my
+lord, that such a course shuts every door to reconciliation--precludes
+every possibility of things coming right in future. It's a strong
+measure--a very strong measure--and you really mean to carry it
+through?"
+
+"I've made up my mind to shoot him," answered the other doggedly.
+"What's the use of jawing about it? These things should be done at
+once, my good fellow. If we have to go abroad, we'll start to-morrow
+night."
+
+"I'd better try and hunt him up without delay," said Tom. "It's easier
+to find a fellow now than in the middle of the season, but I might not
+hit upon him to-night, nevertheless."
+
+Lord Bearwarden looked at his watch. "Try his club," said he. "If he
+dines there, it's about the time. They'll know his address at any
+rate, and if you look sharp you might catch him at home dressing for
+dinner. I'll wait here and we'll have a mutton-chop when you come in.
+Stick to him, Tom. Don't let him back out. It would have saved a deal
+of trouble," added his lordship, while the other hurried off, "if I
+could have caught that cab to-day. She'd have been frightened, though,
+and upset. Better as it is, perhaps, after all."
+
+Mr. Ryfe did not suffer the wheels of his chariot to tarry, nor the
+grass to grow beneath his feet. Very few minutes elapsed before he
+found himself waiting in the strangers' room of a club much affected
+by Dick Stanmore, comforted with a hall-porter's assurance that the
+gentleman he sought had ordered dinner, and could not fail to arrive
+almost immediately. He had scarcely taken up the evening paper when
+Mr. Stanmore came in.
+
+Anything less like a conscience-stricken Lothario, burdened with the
+guilt of another man's wife, can scarcely be imagined. Dick's eye
+was bright, his cheek blooming, his countenance radiant with health,
+happiness, and the light from within that is kindled by a good
+conscience and a loving heart. He came up to Ryfe with a merry
+greeting on his lips, but stopped short, marking the gravity of that
+gentleman's face and the unusual formality of his bow.
+
+"My errand is a very painful one," said Tom. "I regret to say, Mr.
+Stanmore, that I have come to you on a most unpleasant business."
+
+"I thought you'd come to dinner," answered Dick, no whit disconcerted.
+"Never mind. Let's have it out. I dare say it's not half so bad as it
+seems."
+
+"It could not possibly be worse," was the solemn rejoinder. "It
+involves life and honour for two gentlemen, both of whom I respect and
+esteem. For the sake of one, a very dear friend, I have consented
+to be here now. Mr. Stanmore, I come to you on behalf of Lord
+Bearwarden."
+
+Dick started. The old wound was healed, and, indeed, perfectly cured
+now, but the skin had not yet grown quite callous over that injured
+part.
+
+"Go on," said he. "Why didn't Lord Bearwarden come himself?"
+
+"Impossible!" answered Tom, with great dignity. "Contrary to all
+precedent. I could not have permitted such a thing. Should not have
+listened to it for a moment. Quite inadmissible. Would have placed
+every one in a false position. His lordship has lost no time in
+selecting an experienced friend. May I hope Mr. Stanmore will be
+equally prompt? You understand me, of course."
+
+"I'm hanged if I _do_!" replied Dick, opening his eyes very wide. "You
+must speak plainer. What is it all about?"
+
+"Simply," said the other, "that my principal assures me he feels
+confident your own sense of honour will not permit you to refuse him a
+meeting. Lord Bearwarden, as you must be aware, Mr. Stanmore, is a
+man of very high spirit and peculiarly sensitive feelings. You have
+inflicted on him some injury of so delicate a nature that even from
+me, his intimate friend, he withholds his confidence on the real facts
+of the case. He leads me to believe that I shall not find my task very
+difficult, and my own knowledge of Mr. Stanmore's high character and
+jealous sense of honour points to the same conclusion. You will, of
+course, meet me half-way, without any further negotiation or delay."
+
+("If he's ever spoken three words of endearment to 'the viscountess,'"
+reflected Tom, "he'll understand at once. If he hasn't, he'll think
+I'm mad!")
+
+"But I can't fight without I'm told what it's for," urged Dick, in
+considerable bewilderment. "I don't know Lord Bearwarden well. I've
+nothing to do with him. We've never had a quarrel in our lives."
+
+"Mr. Stanmore!" replied the other. "You surprise me. I thought you
+quite a different sort of person. I thought a _gentleman_"--here a
+flash in Dick's eye warned him not to go too far--"a gentleman of your
+intelligence would have anticipated my meaning without trying to force
+from me an explanation, which indeed it is out of my power to make.
+There _are_ injuries, Mr. Stanmore, on which outraged friendship
+cannot bear to enlarge; for which a man of honour feels bound to offer
+the only reparation in his power. Must we _force_ you, Mr. Stanmore,
+into the position we require, by overt measures, as disgraceful to you
+as they would be unbecoming in my friend?"
+
+"Stop a moment, Mr. Ryfe," said Dick. "Do you speak now for yourself
+or Lord Bearwarden?"
+
+There was a slight contraction of the lip accompanying this remark
+that Tom by no means fancied. He hastened to shelter himself behind
+his principal.
+
+"For Lord Bearwarden, decidedly," said he, "and without intention of
+the slightest discourtesy. My only object is indeed to avoid, for both
+parties, anything so revolting as a personal collision. Have I said
+enough?"
+
+"No, you haven't!" answered Dick, who was getting warm while his
+dinner was getting cold. "If you won't tell me what the offence is,
+how can I offer either redress or apology?"
+
+"No apology would be accepted," replied Mr. Ryfe loftily. "Nor,
+indeed, does his lordship consider that his injuries admit of
+extenuation. Shall I tell you his very words, Mr. Stanmore, addressed
+to me less than an hour ago?"
+
+"Drive on," said Dick.
+
+"His lordship's words, not my own, you will bear in mind," continued
+Tom, rather uncomfortable, but resolved to play out his trump card.
+"And I only repeat them as it were in confidence, and at your own
+request. 'Tom,' said he, 'nothing on earth shall prevent our meeting.
+No, not if I have to horsewhip Mr. Stanmore in the Park to bring it
+about.'"
+
+"If that don't fetch him," thought Tom, "he's not the man I take him
+for."
+
+It _did_ fetch him. Dick started, and turned fiercely on the speaker.
+
+"The devil!" he exclaimed. "Two can play at that game, and perhaps he
+might come off the worst! Mr. Ryfe, you're a bold man to bring such
+a message to _me_. I'm not sure how far your character of ambassador
+should bear you harmless; but, in the meantime, tell your principal
+I'll accommodate him with pleasure, and the sooner the better."
+
+Dick's blood was up, as indeed seemed natural enough under so gross
+an insult, and he was all for fighting now, right or wrong. Tom Ryfe
+congratulated himself on the success of this, his first step in a
+diplomacy leading to war, devoutly hoping that the friend to whom Mr.
+Stanmore should refer him might prove equally fierce and hot-headed.
+He bowed with the studied courtesy assumed by every man concerned,
+either as principal or second, in an act of premeditated homicide, and
+smoothed his hat preparatory to taking leave.
+
+"If you will kindly favour me with your friend's name," said he in a
+tone of excessive suavity, "I will wish you good-evening. I fear I
+have already kept you too long from dinner."
+
+Dick considered for a few seconds, while he ran over in his mind the
+sum-total of intimates on whom he could rely in an emergency like the
+present. It is wonderful how short such lists are. Mr. Stanmore could
+not recall more than half-a-dozen, and of these four were out of town,
+and one lay ill in bed. The only available man of the six was Simon
+Perkins. Dick Stanmore knew that he could trust him to act as a stanch
+friend through thick and thin, but he had considerable scruples
+in availing himself of the painter's assistance under existing
+circumstances.
+
+Time pressed, however, and there was nothing for it but to furnish Mr.
+Ryfe with Simon's name and address in Berners Street.
+
+"Can I see him at once?" asked Tom, strangely anxious to hasten
+matters, as it seemed to Dick Stanmore, who could not help wondering
+whether, had the visitor been a combatant, he would have proved
+equally eager for the fray.
+
+"I am afraid not till to-morrow," was the reply. "He has left his
+painting-room by this time and gone out of town. I cannot ask you to
+take another journey to-night. Allow me to offer you a glass of sherry
+before you go."
+
+Tom declined the proffered hospitality, bowing himself out, as
+befitted the occasion, with much ceremonious politeness, and leaving
+the other to proceed to his club-dinner in a frame of mind that
+considerably modified the healthy appetite he had brought with him
+half-an-hour ago.
+
+He congratulated himself, however, before his soup was done, that he
+had not sent Mr. Ryfe down to the cottage at Putney. He could not bear
+to think of that peaceful, happy retreat, the nest of his dove, the
+home of his heart, as desecrated by such a presence on such an errand.
+"Come what might," he thought, "Nina must be kept from all terrors and
+anxieties of this kind--all knowledge of such wild, wicked doings as
+these."
+
+So thinking, and reflecting, also, that it was very possible with
+an encounter of so deadly a nature before him they might never meet
+again, he knew too well by the heaviness at his heart how dear this
+girl had become in so short a time--how completely she had filled up
+that gaping wound in his affections from which he once thought he must
+have bled hopelessly to death; how entirely he was bound up in her
+happiness, and how, even in an hour of trouble, danger, and vexation
+like this, his chief anxiety was lest it should bring sorrow and
+suffering to _her_.
+
+He drank but little wine at his solitary dinner, smoked one cigar
+after it, and wrote a long letter to Nina before he went to bed--a
+letter in which he told her all his love, all the comfort she had been
+to him, all his past sorrows, all his future hopes, and then tore this
+affectionate production into shreds and flung it in the fire-place. It
+had only been meant to reach her hands if he should be killed. And
+was it not calculated, then, to render her more unhappy, more
+inconsolable? He asked himself the question several times before he
+found resolution to answer it in the practical manner described. I
+think he must have been very fond of Nina Algernon indeed, although he
+did not the least know she was at that moment looking out of window,
+with her hair down, listening to the night breeze in the poplars, the
+lap and wash of the ebb-tide against the river-banks, thinking how
+nice it was to have met him that morning, by the merest accident,
+how nice it would be to see him in the painting-room, by the merest
+accident again, of course, to-morrow afternoon.
+
+The clock at St. George's, Hanover Square, struck nine as Mr. Ryfe
+returned to his hotel. He found Lord Bearwarden waiting for him, and
+dinner ready to be placed on the table.
+
+"Have you settled it?" asked his lordship, in a fierce whisper that
+betrayed no little eagerness for action--something very like a
+thirst for blood. "When is it for, Tom? To-morrow morning? I've got
+everything ready. I don't know that we need cross the water, after
+all."
+
+"Easy, my lord," answered Tom. "I can't get on quite so quick as you
+wish. I've seen our man, and learned his friend's name and address.
+That's pretty well, I think, for one day's work."
+
+"You'll meet the friend to-night, Tom!" exclaimed the other. "Who is
+he? Do we know him? He's a soldier, I hope?"
+
+"He's a painter, and he lives out of town; so I _can't_ see him till
+to-morrow. In the meantime, I would venture to suggest, my lord,
+that I'm recovering from a severe illness, and I've been eight hours
+without food."
+
+Tom spoke cheerily enough, but in good truth he looked haggard and
+out-worn. Lord Bearwarden rang the bell.
+
+"I'm ashamed of myself," said he. "Let's have dinner directly; and as
+for this cursed business, don't let us think any more about it till
+to-morrow morning."
+
+They sat down accordingly to, good food, well cooked, good wine, well
+decanted: in good society, too, well chosen from a select fraternity
+usually to be found in this secluded resort. So they feasted, and were
+merry, talking of hounds, horses, hunting, racing, weight for age,
+wine, women, and what not. The keenest observer, the acutest judge
+of his kind, could never have detected that one of these men was
+meditating bloodshed, the other prompting him to something very like
+murder as an accessory before the fact.
+
+I will never believe that Damocles ate his supper with less appetite,
+drank his wine with less zest, for the threatening sword suspended
+overhead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+BAFFLED
+
+
+Mr. Ryfe, we may be sure, did not fail to make his appearance in
+Berners Street at an early hour on the following day, as soon indeed
+as, according to Mr. Stanmore's information, there was any chance of
+finding the painter at home. He felt, and he told himself so more than
+once, that he was enacting the part of Mephistopheles, without the
+supernatural power of that fatal auxiliary, without even a fair
+allowance of time to lure his Faust to perdition. He had undertaken a
+task that never would have occurred but to a desperate man, and Tom
+was desperate, inasmuch as the one hope on which he set his heart
+had crumbled to atoms. He had resolved to bring together in active
+hostility two men of the world, versed in the usages of society,
+themselves perfectly familiar with the code of social honour, that
+they might attempt each other's lives beguiled by a delusion gross and
+palpable as the common tricks of any fire-eating conjurer at a fair.
+
+The very audacity of the scheme, however, seemed to afford its best
+chance of success, and when that success should have been attained,
+Tom's fancy, overleaping all intermediate difficulties, revelled in
+the wild possibilities of the future. Of bloodshed he took very little
+thought. What cared he, with his sad, sore heart, for the lives of
+those prosperous men, gifted with social advantages that had been
+denied to himself, and that he felt a proud consciousness he could
+have put to a far richer profit? Whether either or both were killed,
+whether either or both came home untouched, his object would equally
+be gained. Lady Bearwarden's fair fame would equally be dishonoured
+before the world. He knew that world well, knew its tyrannical code,
+its puzzling verdicts, its unaccountable clemency to the wolf, its
+inflexible severity for the lamb, above all, its holy horror of a blot
+that has been scored, of a sin, then only unpardonable, that has been
+"found out."
+
+Men love the women on whom they set their affections so differently.
+For some--and these are great favourites with the sex--attachment
+means the desire of a tiger for its prey. With others it is the
+gratification a child finds in a toy. A small minority entertain the
+superstition of a savage for his idol; a smaller yet offer the holy
+homage of a true worshipper to his saint. A woman's heart pines for
+unrivalled sovereignty--a woman's nature requires the strong hand of a
+master to retain it in bondage. For this, as for every other earthly
+state, there is no unalloyed happiness, no perfect enjoyment, no
+complete repose. The gourd has its worm, the diamond its flaw, the
+rose its earwigs, and
+
+  "The trail of the serpent is over them all."
+
+So Tom Ryfe, taking time by the forelock, breakfasted at ten, wrote
+several letters with considerable coolness and forethought, all
+bearing on the event in contemplation, some providing for a week's
+absence abroad, at least, smoked a cigar in Lord Bearwarden's bedroom,
+who was not yet up, and towards noon turned out of Oxford Street to
+fulfil his mission with Simon Perkins the painter.
+
+His step was lighter, his whole appearance more elate, than usual. The
+traces of recent illness and over-night's fatigue had disappeared.
+He was above all foolish fancies of luck, presentiments, and such
+superstitions--a man not easily acted on by extraneous circumstances
+of good or evil, trusting chiefly in his own resources, and believing
+very firmly in nothing but the multiplication table; yet to-day he
+told himself he "felt like a winner"; to-day victory seemed in his
+grasp, and he trod the pavement with the confident port of that pride
+which the proverb warns us "goeth before a fall."
+
+He rang the door-bell and was vaguely directed to proceed up-stairs by
+the nondescript maid-servant who admitted him. The place was dark, the
+day sultry, the steps numerous. Tom climbed them leisurely, hat in
+hand, wondering why people couldn't live on the ground-floor, and not
+a little absorbed in preparation of such a plausible tale as should
+bring the contemplated interview to a warlike termination.
+
+Turning imaginary periods with certain grandiloquent phrases
+concerning delicacy of feeling and high sense of honour, he arrived at
+the second landing, where he paused to take breath. Tom's illness had
+no doubt weakened his condition, but the gasp with which he now opened
+his mouth denoted excess of astonishment rather than deficiency of
+wind.
+
+Spinning deftly into its place, as if dropped from heaven with a
+plumb-line, a wreath of artificial flowers landed lightly on his
+temples, while a woman's laugh, soft and silvery, accompanied with its
+pleasant music this unexpected coronation.
+
+Tom looked up aghast, but he was not quick enough to catch sight of
+more than the hem of a garment, the turn of an ankle. There was a
+smothered exclamation, a "my gracious!" denoting extremity of dismay,
+a rustle of skirts, the loud bang of a door, and all became still.
+"Deuced odd," thought Tom, removing the wreath and wondering where
+he should put it, before he made his entrance. "Queer sort of
+people these! Painter a regular Don Giovanni, no doubt. So much the
+better--all the more likely to go in for the fuss and _eclat_ of a
+duel."
+
+So Tom flung his garland aside and prepared to assume a lofty presence
+with his hand on the painting-room door, while Nina, blushing to
+the roots of her hair, barricaded herself carefully into a small
+dressing-closet opening on the studio, in which retreat it was Simon's
+habit to wash his hands and smarten himself up when he had done work
+for the day.
+
+Poor Nina! To use her own expression, she was "horrified." She expected
+Dick Stanmore, and with a girlish playfulness sufficiently denoting the
+terms on which they stood, had been lying in wait at the top of the
+stairs, preparing to take a good shot, and drop the wreath, one of
+Simon's faded properties, on that head which she now loved better than
+all the world besides.
+
+The staircase, I have said, was gloomy. Young gentlemen all brush
+their hair the same way. The missile was out of her fingers ere a
+horrid suspicion crossed her that she had made a mistake; and when Tom
+looked up there was nothing for it but _sauve qui peut!_ After all,
+one head, perhaps, also, one heart, is very like another; but Nina had
+not yet mastered this, the first element of a rational philosophy, and
+would have fled, if she could, to the ends of the earth.
+
+In the meantime she took refuge in the little room off the studio,
+blushing, palpitating, very much ashamed, though more than half
+amused, but firmly resolved not to leave her hiding-place nor face the
+visitor, devoutly hoping, at the same time, that he might not stay
+long.
+
+Simon was in the act of lifting his Fairy Queen into her usual
+position. She had been dethroned the day before, while he worked at a
+less congenial task. On his visitor's entrance he put her back with
+her face to the wall.
+
+Tom made an exceedingly stiff bow. "Mr. Perkins, I believe?"
+
+"Mr. Ryfe?" replied Simon, in the same half-interrogative tone, with a
+very stiff bow too.
+
+"I am here on the part of Lord Bearwarden," said Tom. "And I have been
+referred to you by Mr. Stanmore. You expected me, no doubt."
+
+"I had a communication from Mr. Stanmore an hour ago to that effect,"
+answered Simon, with a gravity the more profound that he had some
+difficulty in repressing a smile. The painter was not without a sense
+of humour, and this "communication," as he called it, lay crumpled up
+in his waistcoat-pocket while he spoke. It ran thus--
+
+"Dear Simon,--I have had a visit from a man named Ryfe that puzzles me
+exceedingly. He comes from Lord Bearwarden, and they want to fasten
+some sort of quarrel on me, but why, I cannot imagine. I was obliged
+to refer him to you. Of course we'll fight if we must; but try and
+make out what they are driving at, and which is the biggest fool of
+the two. I think they're both mad! I shall be with you rather later
+than usual. In the meantime I leave the whole thing in your hands.
+I don't know Bearwarden well, but used to think him rather a good
+fellow. The others an _awful_ snob!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now I feel that it would be unbecoming on my part to tax a young lady
+with so mean an act as that of listening; nevertheless, each of the
+gentlemen in the studio thought proper to speak in so loud and indeed
+so pompous a voice that Miss Algernon could not avoid overhearing
+them. It was surely natural, then, that when Mr. Stanmore's name was
+brought into the colloquy she should have drawn nearer the door of
+the partition, and--well--not _tried_ to avoid overhearing as much as
+possible of their dialogue.
+
+The action of the farce amused her at first. It was soon to become
+interesting, exciting, terrible, even to the verge of tragedy.
+
+"That makes my task easier," continued Mr. Ryfe. "He has explained, of
+course, the tendency of my instructions, the object of my visit. It
+only remains for us to fix time and place."
+
+"He has explained _nothing_," answered the painter. "What is it you
+complain of, and of what nature is the dispute between Lord Bearwarden
+and my friend?"
+
+Tom assumed an air of extreme candour, and opened his case artfully
+enough; but, forgetting that every painter is necessarily a
+physiognomist, omitted the precaution of turning his back to the
+light.
+
+"You are on intimate terms with Mr. Stanmore, I believe," said he.
+"Yet in matters of so delicate a nature men of honour keep their own
+counsel very closely. It is possible you may not be aware of much
+in his daily life that you would disapprove--much that, under the
+circumstances, though I am no rigid moralist, appears inexcusable even
+to me."
+
+How white that delicate face turned in the next room! How eagerly
+those dark eyes seemed trying to pierce the blank panels of the door!
+
+"I have known Mr. Stanmore several years," answered the painter. "I
+have seen him almost every day of late. I can only say you must be
+more explicit, Mr. Ryfe. I do not understand you yet."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me you are ignorant of an entanglement, a
+_liaison_, a most untoward and unfortunate attachment, existing
+between Mr. Stanmore and a lady whose name I fear it will be
+impossible to keep out of the discussion?"
+
+A wild misgiving, not altogether painful, shot through the painter
+while he thought of Nina; but, watching the speaker's face, as was his
+wont, and detecting a disparity of expression between eyes and
+mouth, he gathered that the man was trying to deceive him in some
+particular--not speaking the whole truth.
+
+Miss Algernon, who could only listen, trembled and turned sick at
+heart.
+
+"I think you must be misinformed, Mr. Ryfe," was Simon's reply.
+
+The other smiled, as pitying such ignorance of social gossip and
+worldly scandal.
+
+"Misinformed!" he repeated. "A man is not usually misinformed
+who trusts his own eyes. A husband cannot be called unreasonably
+dissatisfied whose wife tells him distinctly she is going to one
+place, and who sees her an hour after in company with the man he
+suspects at another. It is no use beating about the bush. You
+cannot ignore such outrages as these. I wish to spare everybody's
+feelings--yours, mine, even the lady's, and, above all, my poor
+friend's; but I must tell you, point-blank, that the intimacy which
+I have reason to believe existed between Mr. Stanmore and Lady
+Bearwarden has not been discontinued since her marriage; and I come
+to you, as that gentleman's friend, on Lord. Bearwarden's behalf, to
+demand the only reparation that can be made for such injuries from man
+to man."
+
+The painter opened his eyes, and Tom told himself he had made a good
+speech, very much to the point. Neither gentleman heard a faint moan
+in the next room, the cry of a gentle heart wounded to the quick.
+
+"You mean they ought to fight," said Simon, still scrutinising the
+expression of the other's face.
+
+"Precisely," answered Tom. "We must go abroad, I fancy, for all our
+sakes. Can you be ready to start tonight? Tidal train, you know--nice
+weather for crossing--breakfast the other side--_demi-poulet_ and
+bottle of moderate St. Julien--needn't stop long for that--Belgian
+frontier by the middle of the day--no sort of difficulty when once
+you're across the water. Shall I say to-morrow afternoon, somewhere
+in the neighbourhood of Mouscron? We can all go together, for that
+matter, and arrange the exact spot in ten minutes."
+
+Tom spoke as if they were planning a picnic, with nothing whatever to
+dread but the chance of rain.
+
+"Stop a moment," said the painter. "Not quite so fast, if you please.
+This is a matter of life and death. We can't settle it in five
+minutes, and as many words. You call yourself a man of the world, Mr.
+Ryfe, and, doubtless, have some familiarity with affairs of this kind,
+either from experience or hearsay. Do you seriously believe I am going
+to put my friend up as a target for yours to shoot at without some
+more definite information, some fuller explanation than you seem
+inclined to give? Lady Bearwarden has not left her home. My friend
+has been here every day of late with the utmost regularity. It seems
+impossible that Lord Bearwarden's suspicions can be well grounded.
+There must be some mistake; some misconception. Over-haste in a matter
+like this would be irrevocable, and ruinous to everybody concerned."
+
+Nina was listening with all her might. Every word of Tom's answer sunk
+into her heart.
+
+"My friend has left _his_ home," said he, in a voice of assumed
+feeling. "I was at luncheon with them just before the disclosure
+took place. A happier couple you never saw. Lately married--new
+furniture--wedding-presents all over the place--delightful house,
+overlooking the Park. This paradise is now completely broken up.
+I confess I feel strongly on the subject. I know his lordship
+intimately. I can appreciate his good qualities. I have also the
+honour of Lady Bearwarden's acquaintance. The whole affair is
+extremely painful even to me, but I have a duty to perform, and I must
+go through with it. Mr. Perkins, we are wasting time, let us come to
+the main point at once."
+
+Simon pondered for a minute, during which he made another narrow
+scrutiny of Tom Ryfe's face. Then he said, in the tone of a man who
+comes to a final decision, "I suppose you are right. I fear there is
+but one way out of it."
+
+It did not escape the painter that, notwithstanding his obvious
+self-command, the other's countenance brightened far more than was
+natural at this admission. A duel in these days is a very serious
+matter to every one concerned, and why should this man seem so truly
+rejoiced at the progress of an affair that might put his own neck in
+danger of a halter?
+
+Simon's natural shrewdness, of which, in common with many other
+simple-minded persons, he possessed a considerable share, warned him
+there was something more here than appeared at first sight--some
+mystery of which time alone was likely to afford the elucidation. Time
+he resolved accordingly to gain, and that without putting the other on
+his guard.
+
+"But one way out of it," he repeated gravely. "I wish indeed it could
+be arranged otherwise. Still this is a serious matter--quite out of my
+usual line--I cannot undertake anything decided without advice, nor
+entirely on my own responsibility. My intention is to consult with a
+friend, an old military man. You shall have my definite answer in a
+day or two at farthest."
+
+Again watching Mr. Ryfe's face, Simon observed it cloud with
+dissatisfaction, and his suspicions were confirmed. This fire-eater
+was evidently only anxious to hurry on the duel with unseemly haste,
+and make the principals fight at all risks.
+
+"We object to delay," he exclaimed, "we object to publicity. The thing
+is plain enough as it stands. You will only complicate it by bringing
+others into council, and in such a case, surely, the fewer people
+aware of our intentions the better."
+
+"I cannot help that," answered the painter, in a tone of decision. "My
+mind is made up, and I see my way clearly enough. You shall have our
+answer within forty-eight hours at farthest. I repeat, this is a
+matter in which I will not move an inch without the utmost certainty."
+
+Tom began to lose his temper. "Your scruples will bring about a
+flagrant scandal," he exclaimed. "Lord Bearwarden is determined not to
+be cheated out of his redress. I know his intentions, and I know his
+character. There will be a personal collision, to the disgrace of
+every one concerned!"
+
+"Then I shall recommend Stanmore to walk about With a thick stick,"
+answered Simon coolly. "I often carry one myself, Mr. Ryfe," he added
+in a tone of marked significance, "and should not scruple to use it on
+occasion to the best of my abilities."
+
+The painter, though a small, slight man, was utterly fearless.
+Looking Tom Ryfe straight in the eyes while he made this suggestive
+observation, the latter felt that nothing was to be gained by
+bullying, and the game was lost.
+
+"I am surprised," he replied loftily, but with a ceremonious bow, as
+reminding the other that his character of ambassador was sacred. "I am
+disappointed. I wash my hands of the disagreeable results likely
+to arise from this unfortunate delay. I wish you good-morning, Mr.
+Perkins. I leave you my address, and I trust you will lose no time in
+making me acquainted with the result of your deliberations."
+
+So Tom walked down-stairs with great dignity, though he smothered more
+than one bitter curse the while, passing without so much as a glance
+the rejected garland, lying where he had thrown it aside before he
+entered on his unsuccessful mission.
+
+Had he been a little less stately in manner, a little more rapid of
+movement, he might have overtaken the very lady of whom he obtained a
+glimpse during his ascent. Nina Algernon was but a few paces ahead of
+him, scouring along at a speed only accomplished by those who feel
+that goad in the heart which stimulates exertion, far more effectually
+than the "spur in the head," proverbially supposed to be worth "two in
+the heels.'" Nina had overheard enough from her hiding-place to make
+her angry, unhappy, and anxious in the highest degree. Angry, first
+of all, with herself and him, to think that she could have set her
+affections on one who was untrue; unhappy, to feel she still cared for
+him so much; anxious to gather from the cold-blooded courtesies of the
+odious Mr. Ryfe that a life so dear to her was in danger, that
+perhaps she might never see Dick Stanmore again. With this ghastly
+consideration, surged up fuller than ever the tide of love that had
+been momentarily obstructed, forcing her into action, and compelling
+her to take immediate steps for ascertaining his perfidy, while, at
+the same time, she warded off from him the penalties it entailed.
+
+"He'll know I love him then," thought poor Nina. "But I'll never see
+him, nor speak to him, again--never--never! How _could_ he? I wonder
+why men are so bad!"
+
+To this end, acting on an impulse as unreasonable as it was
+essentially feminine, she resolved to seek Lady Bearwarden without
+delay, and throwing herself on the mercy of that formidable rival,
+implore advice and assistance for the safety of the man they both
+loved.
+
+So she fled down-stairs, and was out of the house like a lapwing, just
+as Tom Ryfe's warlike colloquy with the painter came to a close.
+
+Simon, missing her, after he had taken leave of his visitor, was not
+therefore disturbed nor alarmed by her absence. He accounted for it
+on the very natural supposition that she had met Dick Stanmore at
+the door, and pressed him into her service to act as convoy in some
+shopping expedition, before she sat down to her daily duty as a model
+for the Fairy Queen, now completed, all but a few folds of drapery,
+and a turn of the white hand.
+
+Till she came back, however, the great work must remain at a
+standstill, and Simon had leisure to reflect on his late conversation
+with Mr. Ryfe, which astonished and perplexed him exceedingly.
+
+Neither his astonishment, nor his perplexity, were decreased, to
+learn, on Dick's arrival, that he had no knowledge of Miss Algernon's
+movements--had not met her--had not seen her since yesterday,
+certainly expected to find her here, and was to the full as anxious
+and uncomfortable as the painter himself.
+
+"This other business will keep cold," said Dick, in a great heat and
+fuss. "I don't care whether it will or not. It _must_! But we can't
+have Miss Algernon wandering about London by herself. We can't, at
+least _I_ can't, be easy a moment till I know what has become of her.
+You stay here, Simon, in case she should come back. After all, she may
+be shopping in the next street. I'll rush down to Putney at once, and
+find out if she's gone home. Don't be afraid. I won't alarm the old
+ladies. If she's not there I'll be back immediately. If she comes in
+while I'm gone, wait for me, or leave a line. Old man, if anything
+goes wrong with that darling, I--I've nothing left to live for in the
+world!"
+
+Even while he spoke, he was on the stairs, and Simon, left in the
+painting-room, shook his head, and pondered.
+
+"They'll never make me believe that cock-and-bull story about Lady
+Bearwarden. Ah, Nina! I begin to think this man loves you almost as
+well as I could have done!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+BLINDED
+
+
+Tom Ryfe, walking down Berners Street in the worst of humours, saw the
+whole game he had been playing slipping out of his hands. If there
+were to be no duel, all the trouble he had taken went for nothing;
+and even should there be an unseemly _fracas_, and should a meeting
+afterwards take place between Lord Bearwarden and Dick Stanmore, what
+good would it do him, if her ladyship's name were kept out of the
+quarrel? How he cursed this cockney painter's resolution and good
+sense! How he longed for some fierce encounter, some desperate
+measure, something, no matter what, that should bring affairs to a
+crisis! It seemed so silly, so childlike, to be baffled now. Yes, he
+had set his heart on Lady Bearwarden. The great master-passion of
+his life had gone on gathering and growing till it became, as such
+master-passions will, when there is neither honour nor religion to
+check them, a fury, over which he had lost all control. And he felt
+that, having gone so far, there was no crime, no outrage, he would
+shrink from committing, to obtain what he desired now.
+
+When a man is thus ripe for evil he seldom wants opportunity. It must
+be admitted the devil never throws a chance away. Open your hand, and
+ere you can close it again, he slips a tool in, expressly adapted for
+the purpose you design--a tool that, before you have done with it, you
+may be sure, will cut your own fingers to the bone.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir, can I speak to you for a minute?" said a
+gaudily-dressed, vulgar-looking personage, crossing the street to
+accost Tom Ryfe as he emerged from the painter's house. "It's about
+a lady. About her ladyship, askin' your pardon. Lady Bearwarden, you
+know."
+
+That name was a talisman to arrest Tom's attention. He looked his man
+over from head to foot, and thought he had never seen a more ruffianly
+bearing, a wilder, sadder face.
+
+"Come up this by-street," said he. "Speak out--I'll keep your counsel,
+and I'll pay you well. That's what you mean, I suppose. That's
+business. What about Lady Bearwarden?"
+
+The man cursed her deeply, bitterly, ere he replied--"I know _you_,
+sir, an' so I ought to, though you don't know _me_. Mr. Ryfe, I seen
+you in Belgrave Square, along of _her_. You was a-courtin' of her
+then. You owes her more than one good turn now, or I'm mistaken!"
+
+"Who the devil are you?" asked Tom, startled, and with reason; yet
+conscious, in his dark, dreary despair, of a vague glimmer, bearing
+the same relation to hope that a will-o'-the-wisp does to the light on
+our hearth at home.
+
+The man looked about him. That narrow street was deserted but for
+themselves.
+
+He stared in Tom's face with a certain desperate frankness. "I'll tell
+ye who I am," said he; "if you an' me is to go in for this job, as
+true pals, let's have no secrets between us, an' bear no malice. They
+call me 'Gentleman Jim,' Mr. Ryfe, that's what they call me. I'm the
+man as hocussed you that there arternoon, down Westminster way. I was
+set on to that job, I was. Set on by _her_. I squeezed hard, I know.
+All in the way o' business. But I might have squeezed _harder_, Mr.
+Ryfe. You should think o' that!"
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!" exclaimed Tom, yet in a tone neither so
+astonished nor so indignant as his informant expected. "If you had,
+you'd have been hanged for murder. Well, it's not _you_ I ought to
+blame. What have you got to say? You can help me--I see it in your
+face. Out with it. You speak to a man as desperate as yourself."
+
+"I knowed it!" exclaimed the other. "When you come out o' that there
+house, I seen it in the way as you slammed to that there door. Says I,
+there's the man as I wants, an' the man as wants me! I follered you
+this mornin' from your hotel, an' a precious job I had keepin' up with
+your hansom, though the driver, as works by times with a pal o' mine,
+he kep' on easy when he could. I watched of the house, ah! an hour an'
+more, an' I never turned my head away but to get a drop o' beer from a
+lad as I sent round to the Grapes for a quart. Bless ye! I hadn't but
+just emptied the pot, when I see a lady--the very moral of her as we
+knows on--pops round the corner into Oxford Street. I was in two minds
+whether to foller, but thinks I, it's Mr. Ryfe as I'm a-lookin' for,
+an' if it _was_ she, we couldn't trap her now, not in a crowded place
+like that. Besides, I see a servant-gal takin' home the beer drop her
+a curtsey as she went by. No, it couldn't be my lady; but if so be as
+you an' me is of the same mind, Mr. Ryfe, my lady shall be safe in a
+cage afore this time to-morrow, and never a man to keep the key but
+yourself, Mr. Ryfe, if you'll only be guided by a true friend."
+
+"Who set you on to this?" asked Tom, coolly enough, considering that
+his blood was boiling with all the worst and fiercest passions of his
+nature. "What do you expect to gain from injury inflicted on" (he
+could not get the name out)--"on the lady you mention?"
+
+Jim laughed--a harsh, grating laugh. "You're a deep 'un, Mr. Ryfe!" he
+answered. "I won't deceive you. I put this here in your way because
+there's two things as I must have to work the job as I ain't got.
+One's money, and t'other's gumption. I ain't rich enough, and I ain't
+hartful enough. I owe my lady a turn, too, never you mind what for,
+and strike me dead but I'll pay it up! I ain't a-going to say as I
+wouldn't ha' worked this here off, clear, single-handed, if I'd had
+the chance. I'm not telling you a lie, Mr. Ryfe; you and me can do it
+together, an' I'll only charge you fair and reasonable. Ah! not half
+what you'd take an' offer this minute if I was to stand out for a
+price."
+
+Tom Ryfe turned round, put both hands on the other's shoulders, and
+laughed too.
+
+"We understand each other," said he. "Never mind the price. If the
+work's done to please me, I'm not likely to grudge the money. You've
+some plan in your head by which you think we can both gain what we
+most desire. I know you're a resolute fellow. Hang it! my throat's
+still sore where you got that cursed grip of yours inside my collar.
+You can believe I'm not easily thwarted, or I should hardly be here
+now. Explain yourself. Let me know your plan. If it is anything like
+practicable, you and I ought to be able to carry it out."
+
+Then Jim, not without circumlocution and many hideous oaths, detailed
+in his hearer's willing ears the scheme he had in view. He proposed,
+with Mr. Ryfe's assistance, to accomplish no less flagrant an outrage
+than the forcible abduction of Lady Bearwarden from her home.
+He suggested that his listener, of whose skill in penmanship he
+entertained a high opinion, should write such a letter as might lure
+her ladyship into a lonely, ill-lighted locality, not far from her own
+door; and Tom, appreciating the anxiety she must now feel about her
+husband's movements, saw no difficulty in the accomplishment of such
+a stratagem. This desperate couple were then to be ready with a
+four-wheeled cab, a shawl, and a cleverly-constructed gag, in which
+screaming was impossible. Tom should enact the part of driver, while
+Jim, being the stronger man of the two, should seize and pinion her
+ladyship in his grasp. Mute and muffled, she was to be forced into
+the cab, which could then be driven off to that very lodging in the
+purlieus of Westminster which Tom knew, by his own experiences, was
+far removed from assistance or inquiry. Once in Mr. Ryfe's hands,
+Jim observed, the captive would only be too glad to make terms, and
+arrangements for taking her out of London down the river, or in any
+other direction, could be entered into at leisure. Mr. Ryfe surely
+would not require more than twelve hours to come to an understanding
+with a lady irrevocably in his power. And all the while, deep in this
+bold villain's breast lurked a dark, fierce, terrible reflection
+that one more crime, only one more--almost, indeed, an act of wild
+retributive justice on his confederate--and that proud, tameless woman
+would be crouching in the dust, praying for mercy at the feet of the
+desperate man she had reviled and despised.
+
+Gentleman Jim, maddened by a course of dram-drinking, blinded by
+an infatuation that itself constituted insanity, was hardly to be
+considered an accountable being. It may be that under the mass of
+guilt and impurity with which his whole being was loaded, there
+glimmered some faint spark of manlier and worthier feeling; it may
+be, that he entertained some vague notion of appearing before the
+high-born lady in the light of a preserver, with the blood of the
+smoother and more polished scoundrel on his hands, and of setting her
+free, while he declared his hopeless, his unalterable devotion, sealed
+by the sacrifice of two lives, for, as he often expressed it in
+imaginary conversations with his idol, "he asked no better than to
+swing for her sake!"
+
+Who knows? Fanaticism has its martyrs, like religion. It is not only
+the savage heathen who run under Juggernaut every day. Diseased
+brains, corrupt hearts, and impossible desires go far to constitute
+aberration of intellect. Unreasoning love, and unlimited liquor, will
+make a man fool enough for anything.
+
+Tom Ryfe listened, well pleased. For him there was neither the excuse
+of drink nor despair, yet he, too, entertained some notion of home and
+happiness hereafter, when she found nobody in the world to turn to but
+himself, and had forgiven him her wrongs because of the tenacity with
+which he clung to her in spite of all.
+
+Of his friend, and the position he must leave him in, he made no
+account.
+
+Something very disagreeable came across him, indeed, when he thought
+of Lord Bearwarden's resolute character--his practical notions
+concerning the redress of injury or insult; but all such apprehensions
+were for the future. The present must be a time of action. If only
+to-night's _coup de main_ should come off successfully, he might cross
+the Atlantic with his prey, and remain in safe seclusion till the
+outrage had been so far forgotten by the public that those at home
+whom it most affected would be unwilling to rekindle the embers of a
+scandal half-smothered and dying out. Tom Ryfe was not without ready
+money. He calculated he could live for at least a year in some foreign
+clime, far beyond the western wave, luxuriously enough. A year!
+With _her_! Why it seemed an eternity; and even in that moment his
+companion was wondering, half-stupidly, how Mr. Ryfe would look with
+his throat cut, or his head laid open, weltering in blood; and when
+and where it would be advisable to put this finishing stroke of murder
+and perfidy to the crimes he meditated to-night.
+
+Ere these confederates parted, however, two letters had to be written
+in a stationer's shop. They were directed by the same pen, though
+apparently in different handwritings, to Lord and Lady Bearwarden at
+their respective addresses.
+
+The first was as follows--
+
+  DEAR LORD BEARWARDEN,
+
+  "They won't fight! All sorts of difficulties have
+  been made, and even if we can obtain a meeting at last, it
+  must be after considerable delay. In the meantime I have
+  business of my own which forces me to leave town for
+  four-and-twenty hours at least. If possible, I will look
+  you up before I start. If not, send a line to the office.
+  I shall find it on my return: these matters complicate
+  themselves as they go on, but I still venture to hope you
+  may leave the conduct of the present affair with perfect
+  safety in my hands, and I remain, with much sympathy,"
+
+  Your lordship's obedient servant,
+
+  THOMAS RYFE.
+
+The second, though a very short production, took longer time, both in
+composition and penmanship. It was written purposely on a scrap of
+paper from which the stationer's name and the water-mark had been
+carefully torn off. It consisted but of these lines--
+
+  "A cruel mystery has deprived you of your husband.
+  You have courage. Walk out to-night at eight, fifty yards
+  from your own door. Turn to the right--I will meet you
+  and explain all."
+
+  "My reputation is at stake. I trust you as one woman
+  trusts another. Seek to learn no more."
+
+"That will bring her," thought Tom, "for she fears nothing!" and he
+sealed the letter with a dab of black wax flattened by the impression
+of the woman's thimble, who kept the shop.
+
+There was a Court Guide on the counter. Tom Ryfe knew Lady
+Bearwarden's address as well as his own, yet from a methodical and
+lawyer-like habit of accuracy, seeing that it lay open at the letter
+B, he glanced his eye, and ran his finger down the page to stop at the
+very bottom, and thus verify, as it were, his own recollection of his
+lordship's number, ere he paid for the paper and walked away to post
+his letters in company with Jim, who waited outside.
+
+The stationer, fitting shelves in his back shop, was a man of
+observation and some eccentricity.
+
+"Poll," said he to his wife, "it's an uncertain business, is the
+book-trade. A Court Guide hasn't been asked for over that counter, no,
+not for six months, and here's two parties come in and look at it in
+a morning. There's nothing goes off, to depend on, but hymns. Both
+of 'em wanted the same address, I do believe, for I took notice each
+stopped in the same column at the very foot. Nothing escapes me, lass!
+However, that isn't no business of yours nor mine."
+
+The wife, a woman of few words and abrupt demeanour, made a pounce at
+the Court Guide to put it back in its place, but her "master," as she
+somewhat inconsequently called him, interposed.
+
+"Let it be, lass!" said he. "There's luck in odd numbers, they say.
+Who knows but we mayn't have a third party come in on the same errand?
+Let it be, and go make the toast. It's getting on for tea-time, and
+the fire in the back parlour's nearly out."
+
+When these letters were posted, the confederates, feeling themselves
+fairly embarked on their joint scheme, separated to advance each his
+own share of the contemplated enormity. Tom Ryfe jumped into a cab,
+and was off on a multiplicity of errands, while Jim, pondering deeply
+with his head down, and his hands thrust into his coat-pockets, slunk
+towards Holborn, revolving in his mind the least he could offer some
+dissipated cabman, whose licence was in danger at any rate, for the
+hire of horse and vehicle during the ensuing night.
+
+Feeling his sleeve plucked feebly from behind, he broke off these
+meditations, to turn round with a savage oath.
+
+What a dreary face was that which met his arm! Pale and gaunt, with
+the hollow eyes that denote bodily suffering, and the deep cruel lines
+that speak of mental care. What a thin wasted hand was laid on his
+burly arm, in its velveteen sleeve; and what a weak faint voice in
+trembling accents, urged its sad, wistful prayer.
+
+"Speak to me, Jim--won't you speak to me, dear? I've looked for you
+day and night, and followed you mile after mile till I'm ready to lie
+down and die here on the cold stones."
+
+"Bother!" replied Jim, shaking himself free. "I'm busy, I tell ye.
+What call had you, I should like to know, to be tracking, and hunting
+of me about, as if I was a--well--a fancy dog we'll say, as had
+strayed out of a parlour? Go home, I tell ye, or it'll be the worse
+for ye!"
+
+"You don't love me no more, Jim!" said the woman. There was a calm
+sadness in her voice speaking of that resignation which is but the
+apathy of despair.
+
+"Well--I don't. There!" replied Jim, acceding to this proposition with
+great promptitude.
+
+"But you can't keep me off of loving _you_, Jim," she replied, with a
+wild stare; "nobody can't keep me off of that. Won't ye think better
+of it, old man? Give us one chance more, that's a good chap. It's for
+dear life I'm askin'!"
+
+She had wound both hands round his arm, and was hanging to it with all
+her weight. How light a burden it seemed, to which those limp rags
+clung so shabbily, compared with the substantial frame he remembered
+in former days, when Dorothea was honest, hard-working, and happy.
+
+"It ain't o' no use tryin' on of these here games," said he,
+unclasping the poor weak hands with brutal force. "Come! I can't stop
+all day. Shut up, I tell ye! you'll wish you had by and by."
+
+"O! Jim," she pleaded. "Is it come to this? Never say it, dear. If you
+and me is to part in anger now we'll not meet again. Leastways, not
+on this earth. And if it's true, as I was taught at Sunday-school,
+heaven's too good a place for us!"
+
+"Go to h----ll!" exclaimed the ruffian furiously; and he flung her from
+him with a force that would have brought her to the ground had she not
+caught at the street railings for support.
+
+She moaned and sat down on a doorstep a few paces off, without looking
+up.
+
+For a moment Jim's heart smote him, and he thought to turn back, but
+in his maddened brain there rose a vision of the pale, haughty face,
+the queenly bearing, the commanding gestures that bade him kneel to
+worship, and with another oath--remorseless, pitiless, untouched, and
+unrepentant--he passed on to his iniquity.
+
+Dorothea sat with head bent down, and hands clasped about her knees,
+unconscious, as it seemed, of all the world outside. The heart knoweth
+its own bitterness, and who shall say what expiation she may not
+have made for sin in that dull trance of pain which took no note of
+circumstance, kept no count of time?
+
+Ere long, a policeman, good-humoured but imperative, touched her on
+the shoulder, and bade her "move on."
+
+The face that looked up to him puzzled this functionary extremely. The
+woman was sober enough, he could see, and yet there seemed something
+queer about her, uncommon queer: he was blessed if he knew what to
+make of her, and he had been a goodish time in the force, too!
+
+She thanked him very quietly. She had been taking a rest, she said,
+thinking no harm, for she was tired, and now she would go home. Yes,
+she was dead-tired, she had better go home!
+
+Wrapping her faded shawl about her, she glided on, instinctively
+avoiding the jostling of foot-passengers and the trampling of
+horses, proceeding at an even, leisurely pace, with something of the
+sleep-walker's wandering step and gestures. The roll of wheels came
+dull and muffled on her ear: those were phantoms surely, those
+meaningless faces that met her in the street, not living men and
+women, and yet she had a distinct perception of an apple-woman's
+stall, of some sham jewelry she saw in a shop-window. She was near
+turning back then, but it didn't seem worth while, and it was less
+trouble to plod stupidly on, always westward, always towards the
+setting sun!
+
+Without knowing how she got there, presently she felt tufts of grass
+beneath her feet dank with dew, growing greener and coarser under
+large towering elms. O! she knew an elm-tree well enough! She was
+country bred, she was, and could milk a cow long ago.
+
+It wasn't Kensington Gardens, was it? She didn't remember whether
+she'd ever been here before or not. She'd heard of the place, of
+course, indeed Jim had promised to take her there some Sunday. Then
+she shivered from head to foot, and wrapped her shawl tight round her
+as she walked on.
+
+What was that shining far-off between the trees, cool, and quiet, and
+bright, like heaven? Could it be the water? That was what had brought
+her, to be sure. She remembered all about it now and hurried forward
+with quick, irregular steps, causing her breath to come thick, and her
+heart to beat with sudden choking throbs.
+
+She pulled at her collar, and undid its fastenings. She took her
+bonnet off and swung it in her hand. The soiled tawdry ribbon had been
+given her by Jim, long ago. Was it long ago? She couldn't tell, and
+what did it matter? She wouldn't have looked twice at it a while back.
+She might kiss and cuddle it now, if she'd a mind.
+
+What a long way off that water seemed! Not there yet, and she had been
+walking--walking like the wayfarer she remembered to have read of in
+the _Pilgrim's Progress_. All in a moment, with a flash, as it were,
+of its own light, there it lay glistening at her feet. Another step
+and she would have been in head-foremost! There was time enough. How
+cool and quiet it looked! She sat down on the brink and wondered why
+she was born!
+
+Would Jim feel it very much? Ah! they'd none of them care for him like
+she used. He'd find that out at last. How could he? How _could_ he?
+She'd given him fair warning!
+
+She'd do it now. This moment, while she'd a mind to it. Afraid! Why
+should she be afraid? Better than the gin-palace! Better than the
+workhouse! Better than the cold cruel streets! She couldn't be worse
+off anywhere than here! Once! Twice!
+
+Her head swam. She was rising to her feet, when a light touch rested
+on her shoulder, and the sweetest voice that had ever sounded in poor
+Dorothea's ears, whispered softly, "You are ill, my good woman. Don't
+sit here on the damp grass. Come home with me."
+
+What did it mean? Was it over? Could this be one of the angels, and
+had she got to heaven after all? No; there were the trees, the grass,
+the distant roar of the city, and the peaceful water--fair, smooth,
+serene, like the face of a friend.
+
+She burst into a fit of hysterical weeping, cowering under that kindly
+touch as if it had been a mountain to crush her, rocking herself to
+and fro, sobbing out wildly, "I wish I was dead! I wish I was dead!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+BEAT
+
+
+Like a disturbed spirit Lady Bearwarden wandered about in the fever
+of a sorrow, so keen that her whole soul would sometimes rise in
+rebellion against the unaccustomed pain. There was something stifling
+to her senses in the fact of remaining between the four walls of a
+house. She panted for air, motion, freedom, and betook herself to
+Kensington Gardens, partly because that beautiful retreat lay within
+an easy walk of her house, partly perhaps, that for her, as for many
+of us, it had been brightened by a certain transient and delusive
+light which turns everything to gold while it lasts, leaves everything
+but a dull dim copper when it has passed away.
+
+It was a benevolent and merciful restriction, no doubt, that debarred
+our first parents from re-entering the paradise they had forfeited.
+Better far to carry away unsullied and unfaded the sweet sad memories
+of the Happy Land, than revisit it to find weeds grown rank, fountains
+dry, the skies darkened, the song of birds hushed, its bloom faded off
+the flower, and its glory departed from the day.
+
+She used to sit here in the shade with _him_. There was the very tree.
+Even the broken chair they had laughed at was not mended, and yet for
+her a century ago could not have seemed a more hopeless past. Other
+springs would bloom with coming years, other summers glow, and she
+could not doubt that many another worshipper would kneel humbly and
+gratefully at her shrine, but their votive garlands could never more
+glisten with the fresh dew of morning, the fumes from their lower
+altars, though they might lull the senses and intoxicate the brain,
+could never thrill like that earlier incense, with subtle sudden
+poison to her heart.
+
+To be sure, on more than one occasion she had walked here with Dick
+Stanmore too. It was but human nature, I suppose, that she should have
+looked on that gentleman's grievances from a totally different point
+of view. It couldn't be half so bad in his case, she argued, men had
+so many resources, so many distractions. She was sorry for him, of
+course, but he couldn't be expected to feel a disappointment of this
+nature like a woman, and, after all, theirs was more a flirtation
+than an attachment. He need not have minded it so very much, and had
+probably fancied he cared a great deal more than he really did.
+
+It is thus we are all prone to reason, gauging the tide of each
+other's feelings by the ebb and flow of our own.
+
+Love, diffused amongst the species, is the best and purest of
+earthly motives, concentrated on the individual it seems but a dual
+selfishness after all.
+
+There were few occupants of the Gardens; here two or three
+nursery-maids and children, there a foreign gentleman reading a
+newspaper. Occasionally, in some rare sequestered nook, an umbrella,
+springing up unnecessarily and defiantly like a toadstool, above
+two male legs and a muslin skirt. Lady Bearwarden passed on, with a
+haughty step, and a bitter smile.
+
+There is something of freemasonry in sorrow. Dorothea's vague
+abstracted gait arrested Maud's attention even from a distance, and
+involuntarily the delicate lady followed on the track of that limp
+shabby figure with which she had but this one unconscious link, of a
+common sorrow, an aching heart.
+
+Approaching nearer, she watched the poor sufferer with a curiosity
+that soon grew to interest and even alarm.
+
+While Dorothea sat herself down by the water's edge, her ladyship
+looked round in vain for a policeman or a park-keeper, holding herself
+in readiness to prevent the horror she already anticipated, and
+which drove clear off her mind every thought of her own regrets and
+despondency.
+
+
+There was no time to lose; when the despairing woman half rose to her
+feet, Lady Bearwarden interposed, calm, collected, and commanding in
+the courage which had hitherto never failed her in an emergency.
+
+That burst of hysterical tears, that despairing cry, "I wish I was
+dead!" told her for the present Dorothea was saved. She sat down on
+the grass by her side. She took the poor coarse hands in her own. She
+laid the drooping head on her lap, and with gentle, loving phrases,
+such as soothe a suffering child, encouraged the helpless wretch to
+weep and sob her fill.
+
+She could have wept too for company, because of the load that seemed
+lifted in an instant from her own breast; but this was a time for
+action, and at such a season it was no part of Maud's nature to sit
+down and cry.
+
+It was long ere the numbed heart and surcharged brain had relieved
+themselves sufficiently for apprehension and intelligible speech.
+Dorothea's first impulse, on coming to herself, was to smooth her
+unkempt hair and apologise for the disorder of her costume.
+
+"If ever mind your dress," said Lady Bearwarden, resuming, now the
+crisis was past, her habitual air of authority, conscious that it
+would be most efficacious under the circumstances. "You are tired and
+exhausted. You must have food and rest. I ask no questions, and I
+listen to no explanations, at least till to-morrow. Can you walk to
+the gate? You must come home with me."
+
+"O, miss! O, my lady!" stammered poor Dorothea, quite overcome by such
+unlikely sympathy, such unexpected succour. "It's too much! It's too
+much! I'm not fit for it! If you only knowed what I am!" then, lifting
+her eyes to the other's face, a pang, keener than all previous
+sufferings, went through her woman's heart like the thrust of a knife.
+It all came on her at once. This beautiful being, clad in shining
+raiment, who had saved and soothed her like an angel from heaven, was
+the pale girl Jim had gone to visit in her stately, luxurious home,
+when she followed him so far through those weary streets on the night
+of the thunderstorm.
+
+She could bear no more. Her physical system gave way, just as a tree
+that has sustained crash after crash falls with the last well-directed
+blow. She rolled her eyes, lifted both bare arms above her head, and
+with a faint despairing cry, went down at Lady Bearwarden's feet,
+motionless and helpless as the dead.
+
+But assistance was at hand at last. A park-keeper helped to raise the
+prostrate figure. An elderly gentleman volunteered to fetch a cab.
+Amongst them they supported Dorothea to the gate and placed her in the
+vehicle. The park-keeper touched his hat, the elderly gentleman made
+a profusion of bows, and as many offers of assistance which were
+declined, while Maud, soothing and supporting her charge, told the
+driver where to stop. As they jingled and rattled away from the gate,
+a pardonable curiosity prompted the elderly gentleman to inquire the
+name of this beautiful Samaritan, clad in silks and satins, so
+ready to succour the fallen and give shelter to the homeless. The
+park-keeper took his hat off, looked in the crown, and put it on
+again.
+
+"I see her once afore under them trees," he said, "with a gentleman. I
+see a many and I don't often take notice. But she's a rare sort, she
+is! and as good as she's good-looking. I wish you a good-evening,
+sir."
+
+Then he retired into his cabin and ruminated on this "precious start,"
+as he called it, during his tea.
+
+Meantime, Maud took her charge home, and would fain have put her to
+bed. For this sanatory measure, however, Dorothea, who had recovered
+consciousness, seemed to entertain an unaccountable repugnance. She
+consented, indeed, to lie down for an hour or two, but could not
+conceal a wild, restless anxiety to depart as soon as possible.
+Something more than the obvious astonishment of the servants,
+something more than the incongruity of the situation, seemed prompting
+her to leave Lady Bearwarden's house without delay and fly from the
+presence of almost the first friend she had ever known in her life.
+
+When the bustle and excitement consequent on this little adventure had
+subsided, her ladyship found herself once more face to face with her
+own sorrow, and the despondency she had shaken off during a time of
+action gathered again all the blacker and heavier round her heart. She
+was glad to find distraction in the arrival of a nameless visitor,
+announced by the most pompous of footmen as "a young person desirous
+of waiting on her ladyship."
+
+"Show her up," said Lady Bearwarden; and for the first time in their
+lives the two sisters stood face to face.
+
+Each started, as if she had come suddenly on her own reflection in a
+mirror. During a few seconds both looked stupefied, bewildered. Lady
+Bearwarden spoke first.
+
+"You wish to see me, I believe. A sick person has just been brought
+into the house, and we are rather in confusion. I fear you have been
+kept waiting."
+
+"I called while your ladyship was out," answered Nina. "So I walked
+about till I thought you must have come home again. You've never seen
+me before--I didn't even know where you lived--I found your address
+in the Court Guide--O! I can't say it properly, but I did so want to
+speak to you. I hope I haven't done anything rude or wrong."
+
+There was no mistaking the refinement of Nina's voice and manner.
+
+Lady Bearwarden recognised one of her own station at a glance. And
+this girl so like herself--how beautiful she was! How beautiful they
+both were!
+
+"What can I do for you?" said her ladyship, very kindly. "Sit down; I
+am sure you must be tired."
+
+But Nina had too much of her sister's character to feel tired when
+there was a purpose to carry out. The girl stood erect and looked full
+in her ladyship's face. All unconscious of their relationship,
+the likeness between them was at this moment so striking as to be
+ludicrous.
+
+"I have come on a strange errand, Lady Bearwarden," said Nina,
+hardening her heart for the impending effort--"I have come to tell a
+truth and to put a question. I suppose, even now, you have some regard
+for your husband?"
+
+Lady Bearwarden started. "What do you know about my husband?" she
+asked, turning very pale.
+
+"That he is in danger," was the answer, in a voice of such
+preternatural fortitude as promised a speedy break-down. "That he is
+going to fight a duel--and it's about _you_--with--with Mr. Stanmore!
+O! Lady Bearwarden, how _could_ you? You'd everything in the world,
+everything to make a woman good and happy, and now, see what you've
+done!"
+
+Tears and choking sobs were coming thick, but she kept them back.
+
+"What do you mean?" exclaimed Maud, trembling in every limb, for
+through the dark midnight of her misery she began to see gleams of a
+coming dawn.
+
+"I mean _this_," answered Nina, steadying herself bravely. "Lord
+Bearwarden has found everything out. He has sent a challenge to Mr.
+Stanmore. I--I--care for Mr. Stanmore, Lady Bearwarden--at least, I
+_did_. I was engaged to him." (Here, notwithstanding the tumult of her
+feelings, a little twinge crossed Lady Bearwarden to learn how quickly
+Dick had consoled himself.) "I'm only a girl, but I know these things
+_can_ be prevented, and that's why I'm here now. You've done the
+mischief; you are bound to repair it; and I have a right to come to
+you for help."
+
+"But I haven't done anything!" pleaded Maud, in for humbler tones than
+she habitually used. "I love my husband very dearly, and I've not
+set eyes on Mr. Stanmore but once since I married, in Oxford Street,
+looking into a shop-window, and directly he caught sight of me, he got
+out of the way as if I had the plague! There's some mistake. Not a
+minute should be lost in setting it right. I wonder what we ought to
+do!"
+
+"And--and you're not in love with Mr. Stanmore? and he isn't going to
+run away with you? Lady Bearwarden, are you quite sure? And I don't
+deserve to be so happy. I judged him so harshly, so unkindly. What
+will he think of me when he knows it? He'll never speak to me again."
+
+Then the tears came in good earnest, and presently Miss Algernon
+grew more composed, giving her hostess an account of herself, her
+prospects, her Putney home, and the person she most depended on in the
+world to get them all out of their present difficulty, Simon Perkins,
+the painter. "I know he can stop it," pursued Nina eagerly, "and be
+will, too. He told the other man nothing should be done in a hurry.
+I heard him say so, for I listened, Lady Bearwarden, I _did_. And I
+would again if I had the same reason. Wouldn't _you_? I hope the other
+man will be hanged. He seemed to want them so to kill each other.
+Don't you think he can be punished? For it's murder, you know,
+_really_, after all."
+
+Without entering into the vexed question of duelling--a practice for
+which each lady in her heart entertained a secret respect--the sisters
+consulted long and earnestly on the best method of preventing a
+conflict that should endanger the two lives now dearer to them than
+ever.
+
+They drank tea over it, we may be sure, and in the course of that
+refreshment could not fail to observe how the gloves they laid aside
+were the same number (six and three-quarters, if you would like to
+know), how their hands were precisely similar in shape, how the turn
+of their arms and wrists corresponded as closely as the tone of their
+voices. Each thought she liked the other better than any one she had
+ever met of her own sex.
+
+After a long debate it was decided that Nina should return at once to
+her Putney home, doubtless ere now much disturbed at her prolonged
+absence; that she should have full powers to inform Simon of all the
+confidences regarding her husband Lady Bearwarden had poured in her
+ear; should authorise him to seek his lordship out and tell him the
+whole truth on his wife's behalf; also, finally, for women rarely
+neglect the worship of Nemesis, that after a general reconciliation
+had been effected, measures should be taken for bringing to condign
+punishment the false friend who had been at such pains to foment
+hostilities between the men they both loved.
+
+Lady Bearwarden had her hand on the bell to order the carriage for her
+visitor, but the latter would not hear of it.
+
+"I can get a cab every twenty yards in this part of the town," said
+Nina. "I shall be home in three-quarters of an hour. It's hardly dark
+yet, and I'm quite used to going about by myself. I am not at all a
+coward, Lady Bearwarden, but my aunts would be horribly alarmed if one
+of your smart carriages drove up to the gate. Besides, I don't believe
+it could turn round in the lane. No; I won't even have a servant,
+thanks. I'll put my bonnet on and start at once, please. You've been
+very kind to me, and I'm so much obliged. Good-night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+NIGHT-HAWKS
+
+
+Lord Bearwarden's groom of the chambers, a person by no means
+deficient in self-confidence, owned that he was mystified. Amongst
+all the domestic dissensions with which his situation had made him
+familiar, he could recall nothing like his present experience. This
+bringing home of a shabby woman out of the street and ordering the
+best bedroom for her reception; this visit of a beautiful young person
+so exactly resembling his mistress that, but for the evidence of his
+own senses, when he brought in tea and found them together, he could
+have sworn it was her ladyship; this general confusion of household
+arrangements, and culpable indifference to the important ceremony of
+dinner, forced him to admit that he was in a position of which he
+had no preconceived idea, and from which he doubted whether he could
+extricate himself with the dignity essential to his office.
+
+Returning to his own department, and glancing at the letter-box in the
+hall, he reflected with satisfaction how his professional duties
+had been scrupulously fulfilled, and how in accordance with his
+misconception of Lord Bearwarden's orders, every packet that reached
+the house had been forwarded to its master without delay.
+
+Hence it came to pass, that the vexed and angry husband received in
+due course of post a letter which puzzled him exceedingly.
+
+He had only just digested Tom Ryfe's unwelcome missive, announcing
+somewhat vaguely that the revenge for which he panted must be delayed
+two or three days at least, and had cursed, energetically enough,
+his own friend's mismanagement of the affair, with the scruples
+entertained by the other side, when a fresh budget was placed in his
+hands, and he opened the envelopes as people often do, without looking
+at their addresses: thus it fell out, that he read the anonymous
+letter directed to his wife, asking for a meeting that same night, in
+the vicinity of his own house.
+
+"A cruel mystery has deprived you of your husband." What could
+it mean? He studied the brief communication very attentively,
+particularly that first line. And a vague hope rose in his loving,
+generous heart, that he might have judged her too harshly after all.
+It was but the faintest spark, yet he tried hard to kindle it into
+flame. The wariest rogue is never armed on all sides. He is sure to
+forget some trifling precaution, that, left unguarded, is like the
+chink in a shutter to let in the light of day. Lord Bearwarden
+recognised the same hand that had penned the anonymous letter he
+received on guard--this argued a plot of some sort. He resolved to
+sift the matter thoroughly, and instead of forwarding so mysterious a
+request to his wife, repair to the indicated spot in person, and there
+by threats, bribery, compulsion, any or all means in his power, arrive
+at a true solution of the mystery.
+
+It was a welcome distraction, too, this new idea, with which to while
+away the weary interminable day. It seemed well perhaps, after all,
+that the duel had been postponed. He might learn something to-night
+that would change the whole current of his actions, if not, let Mr.
+Stanmore look to himself!
+
+That gentleman, in the meantime, had completely forgotten Lord
+Bearwarden's existence--had forgotten Mr. Ryfe's visit the night
+before at his club, the unintelligible quarrel, the proposed meeting,
+everything but that Nina was lost. Lost! a stray lamb, helpless in the
+streets of London! His blood ran cold to think of it. He hastened down
+to Putney, and indeed only knew that he had made so sure of finding
+her there, by his disappointment to learn she had not returned home.
+It made his task no easier that Aunt Susannah was in the garden when
+he reached the house, and he had to dissemble his alarm in presence of
+that weak-minded and affectionate spinster. "He was passing by," he
+said, "on his way to town, and only looked in (he couldn't stay a
+moment) to know if they had any message to--to their nephew. He was
+going straight from here to the painting-room."
+
+"How considerate!" said Aunt Susannah; not without reason, for it was
+but this morning they parted with Simon, and they expected him back to
+dinner. "We have a few autumn flowers left. I'll just run in, and
+get the scissors to make up a nosegay. It won't take ten minutes. O!
+nothing like ten minutes! You can give it to poor Simon with our dear
+love. He's so fond of flowers! and Nina too. But perhaps you know
+Nina's tastes as well as we do, and indeed I think they're very
+creditable to her, and she's not at all a bad judge!"
+
+Then the good lady, shaking her grey curls, smiled and looked knowing,
+while Dick cursed her below his breath, for a grinning old idiot, and
+glared wildly about him, like a beast in a trap seeking some way of
+escape. It was provoking, no doubt, to be kept talking platitudes to a
+silly old woman in the garden, while every moment drifted his heart's
+treasure farther and farther into the uncertainty he scarcely dared to
+contemplate.
+
+Some women are totally deficient in the essentially feminine quality
+of tact. Aunt Susannah, with a pocket-handkerchief tied round her
+head, might have stood drivelling nonsense to her visitor for an hour,
+and never found out he wanted to get away. Fortunately, she went
+indoors for her scissors, and Dick, regardless of the proprieties,
+made his escape forthwith, thus avoiding also the ignominy of carrying
+back to London a nosegay as big as a chimney-sweep's on May-day.
+
+Hastening to the painting-room, his worst fears were realised. Nina
+had not returned. Simon, too, began to share his alarm, and not
+without considerable misgivings did the two men hold counsel on their
+future movements.
+
+It occurred to them at this juncture, that the maid-of-all-work
+below-stairs might possibly impart some information as to the exact
+time when the young lady left the house. They rang for that domestic
+accordingly, and bewildered her with a variety of questions in vain.
+
+Had she seen Miss Algernon during the morning? She was to think, and
+take time, and answer without being frightened.
+
+"Miss Algernon! Lor! that was her as come here most days, along o'
+him," with a backward nod at Dick. "No--she hadn't a-seen her to-day,
+she was sure. Not _particler_, that was. Not more nor any other day."
+
+"Had she seen her at all?"
+
+"O, yes! she'd seen her at all. In course, you know, she couldn't be
+off of seeing her at all!"
+
+"When did she see her?"
+
+"When? O! last week, every day a'most. And the week afore that too!
+She wasn't a-goin' to tell a lie!"
+
+"Then she hadn't seen her this morning?"
+
+"Yes, she'd seen her this morning. When she come in, you know, along
+o' the other gentleman." Here a dive of the shock head at Simon, and
+symptoms of approaching emotion.
+
+"Why you said you hadn't at first!" exclaimed Dick, perplexed and
+provoked.
+
+Forthwith a burst of sobs and tears.
+
+"Compose yourself, my good girl," said the painter kindly. "We don't
+want to hurry nor confuse you. We are in great distress ourselves.
+Miss Algernon went out, we believe, to take a walk. She has not
+returned here, nor gone home. It would help us very much if we knew
+the exact time at which she left the house, or could find anybody who
+saw her after she went away."
+
+If you want a woman to help you, even a maid-of-all-work, tell her
+your whole story, and make no half-confidences: the drudge brightened
+up through her tears, and assumed a look of intelligence at once.
+
+"Lor!" said she, "why didn't ye say so? In course I see the young
+lady, as I was a-fetchin' in the dinner beer. She'd a-got her bonnet
+on, I took notice, and was maybe goin' for a walk, or to get a few
+odds and ends, or such like."
+
+Here a full stop with a curtsey. The men looked at each other and
+waited.
+
+
+"She went into a shop round the corner, for I seen her myself. A
+stationer's shop it were. An' I come home then, with the beer, an'
+shut to the door, an' I couldn't tell you no more; no, not if you was
+to take and kill me dead this very minute!"
+
+Stronger symptoms of agitation now appearing, Simon thought well
+to dismiss this incoherent witness, and proceed at once to the
+stationer's shop in quest of further intelligence. Its proprietor was
+ready to furnish all the information in his power.
+
+"Had a lady answering their description been in his shop?" "Well, a
+great many ladies come backwards and forwards, you know. Trade wasn't
+very brisk just now, but there was always something doing in the fancy
+stationery line. It was a light business, and most of his customers
+were females. His 'missis' didn't take much notice, but he happened to
+be something of a physiognomist himself, and a face never escaped him.
+A very beautiful young lady, was it? Tall, pale, with dark eyes and
+hair. Certainly, no doubt, that must be the party. Stepped in about
+dinner-time; seemed anxious and in a hurry, as you might say; didn't
+take any order from her,--the young lady only asked as a favour to
+look into their Court Guide. There it lay, just as she left it.
+Singular enough, another party had come in afterwards to write a
+letter, and took the same address, he believed, right at the foot of
+the column; these were trifles, but it was his way to notice trifles.
+He was a scientific man, to a certain extent, and in science, as they
+probably knew, there were no such things as trifles. He remembered a
+curious story of Sir Isaac Newton. But perhaps the gentlemen were in a
+hurry."
+
+The gentlemen _were_ in a hurry. Dick Stanmore with characteristic
+impetuosity had plunged at the Court Guide, to scan the page at which
+it lay open with eager eyes. At the foot of the column, said this man
+of science. To be sure, there it was, Barsac, Barwise, Barzillai,
+Bearwarden--the very last name in the page. And yet what could Nina
+want at Lord Bearwarden's house? Of all places in London why should
+she go there? Nevertheless, in such a hopeless search, the vaguest
+hint was welcome, the faintest clue must be followed out. So the two
+men, standing in earnest colloquy, under the gas-lamps, resolved to
+hunt their trail as far as Lord Bearwarden's residence without further
+delay.
+
+The more precious are the moments, the faster they seem to pass. An
+autumn day had long given place to night, ere they verified this
+last piece of intelligence, and acquired some definite aim for their
+exertions; but neither liked to compare notes with the other, nor
+express his own disheartening reflection that Nina might be wandering
+so late, bewildered, lonely, and unprotected, through the labyrinths
+of the great city.
+
+In the meantime, Gentleman Jim and his confederate were fully
+occupied with the details necessary to carry their infamous plot into
+execution. The lawyer had drawn out from the bank all the ready money
+he could lay hands on, amounting to several hundred pounds. He
+had furnished Jim with ample funds to facilitate his share of the
+preparations, and he had still an hour or two on hand before the
+important moment arrived. That interval he devoted to his private
+affairs, and those of the office, so that his uncle should be
+inconvenienced as little as possible by an absence which he now hoped
+might be prolonged for a considerable time.
+
+It had been dark for more than an hour ere the accomplices met again,
+equipped and ready for the work they had pledged themselves to
+undertake.
+
+Jim, indeed, contrary to his wont, when "business," as he called it,
+was on hand, seemed scarcely sober; but to obtain the use of the
+vehicle he required without the company of its driver, he had found
+it necessary to ply the latter with liquor till he became insensible,
+although the drunken man's instincts of good-fellowship bade him
+insist that his generous entertainer should partake largely of the
+fluids consumed at his expense. To drink down a London cabman, on
+anything like fair terms, is an arduous task, even for a housebreaker,
+and Jim's passions were roused to their worst by alcohol long before
+he arrived with his four-wheeled cab at the appointed spot where he
+was to wait for Tom Ryfe.
+
+How he laughed to himself while he felt the pliant life-preserver
+coiled in his great-coat pocket--the long, keen, murderous knife
+resting against his heart. A fiend had taken possession of the man.
+Already overleaping the intervening time, ignoring everything but the
+crime he meditated, his chief difficulty seemed how he should dispose
+of Tom's mutilated body ere he flew to reap the harvest of his guilt.
+
+He chuckled and grinned with a fierce, savage sense of humour, while
+he recalled the imperious manner in which Mr. Ryfe had taken the
+initiative in their joint proceedings; as if they originated in his
+own invention, were ordered solely for his own convenience; and the
+tone of authority in which that gentleman had warned him not to be
+late.
+
+"It's good! That is!" said Jim, sitting on the box of the cab, and
+peering into the darkness, through which a gas-lamp glimmered with
+dull, uncertain rays, blurred by the autumn fog. "You'd like to be
+master, you would, I dare say, all through the job, and for me to be
+man! You'd best look sharp about it. I'll have that blessed life of
+yours afore the sun's up to-morrow, and see who'll be master then. Ay,
+and missis too! Hooray! for the cruel eyes, and the touch-me-not airs.
+The proud, pale-faced devil! as thought Jim wasn't quite the equals of
+the dirt beneath her feet. Steady! Here he comes."
+
+And looming through the fog, Mr. Ryfe approached with cautious,
+resolute step; carrying a revolver in his pocket, prepared to use it,
+too, on occasion, with the fearless energy of a desperate man.
+
+"Is it all ready, Jim?" said he in a whisper. "You haven't forgot the
+gag? Nor the shawl to throw round her head? The least mistake upsets a
+job like this."
+
+For answer, Jim descended heavily from his seat, and holding the
+cab-door open, pointed to the above-named articles lying folded on the
+front seat.
+
+"You'll drive, master," said he, with a hoarse chuckle. "You knows
+the way. First turn to the left. I'll ride inside, like a lord, or a
+fashionable doctor, and keep my eye on the tackle."
+
+"It's very dark," continued Tom uneasily. "But that's all in our
+favour, of course. You know her figure as well as I do. Don't forget,
+now. I'll drive close to the pavement, and the instant we stop, you
+must throw the shawl over her head, muffle her up, and whip her in.
+This beggar can gallop, I suppose."
+
+"He's a thoroughbred 'un," answered Jim, with a sounding pat on the
+horse's bony ribs. "Leastways, so the chap as I borrowed him off swore
+solemn. He was so precious drunk, I'm blessed if I think he knowed
+what he meant. But howsoever, I make no doubt the critter can go when
+it's pushed."
+
+Thus speaking, Jim helped the other to mount the box, and placed
+himself inside with the door open, ready to spring like a tiger when
+he should catch sight of his prey.
+
+The streets of the great city are never so deserted as an hour or
+two after nightfall, and an hour or two before dawn. Not a single
+passenger did they meet, and only one policeman; while the cab with
+its desperate inmates rattled and jolted along on this nefarious
+enterprise.
+
+It was stopped at last, close to the footway in a dimly-lighted
+street, within a hundred yards of Lord Bearwarden's house, which stood
+a few doors off round the corner.
+
+A distant clock struck the hour. That heavy clang seemed to dwell on
+the gloomy stillness of the atmosphere, and both men felt their nerves
+strangely jarred by the dull, familiar sound.
+
+Their hearts beat fast. Tom began to wish he had adopted some less
+unconventional means of attaining his object, and tried in vain to
+drive from his mind the punishments awarded to such offences as he
+meditated, by the severity of our criminal code.
+
+Jim had but one feeling, with which heart and brain were saturated.
+In a few minutes he would see her again! In a new character,
+possibly--tearful, humbled, supplicating. No; his instincts told him
+that not even the last extremity of danger would force a tear from
+those proud eyes, nor bow that haughty head an inch. How this wild,
+fierce worship maddened him! So longing, yet so slavish--so reckless,
+so debased, yet all the while cursed with a certain leavening of the
+true faith, that drove him to despair. But come what might, in a
+few minutes he would see her again. Even at such a time, there was
+something of repose and happiness in the thought.
+
+So the quasi-thoroughbred horse went to sleep and the men waited;
+waited, wondering how the lagging minutes could pass so slow.
+
+Listen! a light footstep round the corner. The gentle rustle of
+a woman's dress. A tall, slight figure gliding yonder under the
+gas-lamp, coming down the street, even now, with head erect, and easy,
+undulating gait.
+
+The blood rose to Jim's brain till it beat like strokes from a
+sledge-hammer. Tom shortened the reins, and tightened his grasp round
+the whip.
+
+Nearer, nearer, she came on. The pure, calm face held high aloft, the
+pliant figure moving ever with the same smooth, graceful gestures.
+Fortune favoured them; she stopped when she reached the cab, and
+seemed about to engage it for her journey.
+
+The men were quick to see their advantage. Jim, coiled for a spring,
+shrank into the darkest corner of the vehicle. Tom, enacting driver,
+jumped down, and held the door to help her in.
+
+Catching sight of the dark figure on the front seat, she started back.
+The next moment, there rose a faint stifled shriek, the shawl was over
+her head. Jim's powerful arms wound themselves tight round her body,
+and Tom clambered in haste to the box.
+
+But quick feet had already rained along that fifty yards of pavement.
+A powerful grasp was at the driver's throat, pulling him back between
+the wheels of the cab; and he found himself struggling for life with a
+strong, angry man, who swore desperately, while two more figures ran
+at speed up the street.
+
+Tom's eyes were starting, his tongue was out.
+
+"Jim, help me!" he managed to articulate. "I'm choking."
+
+"You infernal scoundrel!" exclaimed his antagonist, whose fury seemed
+redoubled by the sound of that familiar voice: the grasp, closing
+round Tom's neck like iron, threatened death unless he could get free.
+
+An instinct of self-preservation bade him pluck at his revolver. He
+got it out at the moment when Jim, setting his back to the door to
+secure his captive, dealt with the heavy life-preserver a blow at the
+assailant's head, which fortunately only reached his shoulder. The
+latter released Tom's throat to get possession of the pistol. In the
+struggle it went off. There was a hideous blasphemy, a groan, and a
+heavy fall between the wheels of the cab.
+
+Ere the smoke cleared away two more auxiliaries appeared on the scene.
+With Simon Perkins's assistance, Lord Bearwarden had little difficulty
+in pinioning his late antagonist, while Dick Stanmore, having lifted
+the imprisoned lady out of the cab, over the housebreaker's prostrate
+body, held her tightly embraced, in a transport of affection
+intensified by alarm.
+
+Lord Bearwarden, usually so collected, was now utterly stupefied and
+amazed. He looked from Tom Ryfe's white face, staring over the badge
+and great-coat of a London cabman, to the sinking form of his wife--as
+he believed--in the arms of her lover, clinging to him for protection,
+responding in utter shamelessness to his caresses and endearments.
+
+"Mr. Stanmore!" he exclaimed, in a voice breathless from exertion, and
+choking with anger. "You and I have an account to settle that cannot
+be put off. Lady Bearwarden, I will see you home. Come with me this
+instant."
+
+Dick seemed as if he thought his lordship had gone mad. Nina stared
+helplessly at the group. Another gasp and a fainter groan came from
+the body lying underneath the cab.
+
+"We must look to this man; he is dying," said Simon Perkins, on his
+knees by the prostrate form, now motionless and insensible.
+
+"My house is round the corner," answered Lord Bearwarden, stooping
+over the fallen ruffian. "Let us take him in. All the doctors in
+the world won't save him," he added, in a tone of grave pity. "He's
+bleeding to death inside."
+
+Nina had been a good deal frightened, but recovered wonderfully in
+the reassuring presence of her lover. "_His_ house?" she asked, in a
+sufficiently audible voice, considering her late agitation. "Who is
+he, Dick, and where does he live?"
+
+Two of the police had now arrived, and were turning their lanterns on
+the party. The strong white light glared full on Miss Algernon's
+face and figure, so like Lady Bearwarden's but yet to the husband's
+bewildered senses so surely not his wife's.
+
+He shook all over. His face, though flushed a moment ago, turned
+deadly pale. He clutched Dick's shoulder, and his voice came dry and
+husky, while he gasped--
+
+"What is it, Stanmore? Speak, man, for the love of heaven. What does
+it all mean?"
+
+Then came question and answer; clearer, fuller, more fluent with every
+sentence. And so the explanation went on: how some enemy had
+roused his worst suspicions; how Lord Bearwarden, deceived by the
+extraordinary likeness which he could not but acknowledge even now,
+had been satisfied he saw Dick Stanmore with Maud in a hansom cab; how
+he had left his home in consequence, and sent that hostile message to
+Dick, which had so puzzled that gallant, open-hearted gentleman; how
+a certain letter from Lady Bearwarden, addressed to Mr. Stanmore, and
+forwarded to her husband, had but confirmed his suspicions; and
+how, at last, an anonymous communication to the same lady, falling
+accidentally into his hands, had mystified him completely, and
+made him resolve to watch and follow her at the hour named, with a
+desperate hope that something might be revealed to alleviate his
+sufferings, to give him more certainty of action and future guidance.
+
+"I was horribly cut up, I don't mind confessing it," said Lord
+Bearwarden, with his kindly grasp still on Dick's shoulder. "And I
+waited there, outside my own house, like some d----d poaching thief.
+It seemed so hard I couldn't go in and see her just once more!
+Presently, out she came, as I thought, and I followed, very craftily,
+and not too near for fear she should look round. She didn't, though,
+but walked straight on; and when I saw the cab waiting, and she
+stopped as if she meant to get in, I couldn't tell what to make of it
+at all."
+
+"I was only just in time. I came that last few yards with a rush, I
+give you my word! And I made a grab at the driver, thinking the best
+chance was to stop the conveyance at once, or if I couldn't do that,
+take a free passage with the rest of them. She wasn't going of her own
+accord, I felt sure. That villain of a lawyer struggled hard. I didn't
+think he'd been so good a man. I wasn't at all sorry to see you
+fellows coming up. It was two to one, you know, and I do believe, if
+it hadn't been for the pistol, they might have got clear off. It shot
+the worst customer of the two, that poor fellow behind us, right
+through the body. Under my arm, I should think, for I got a very nasty
+one on the shoulder just as the smoke flew in my face. It has squared
+_his_ accounts, I fancy. But here we are at my house. Let's get him
+in, and then you must introduce me properly to this young lady, whose
+acquaintance I have made in such an unusual manner."
+
+The strange procession had, indeed, arrived at Lord Bearwarden's
+residence. It consisted of the proprietor himself, whose right arm was
+now completely disabled, but who gesticulated forcibly with his left;
+of Dick Stanmore and Nina, listening to his lordship with the utmost
+deference and attention; of Jim's senseless body, carried by Simon
+Perkins and one policeman, while Tom Ryfe, in close custody of the
+other, brought up the rear.
+
+As they entered the hall, Lady Bearwarden's pale, astonished face was
+seen looking over the banisters. Dorothea, too, creeping down-stairs,
+with some vague idea of escaping from this friendly refuge, and
+finding her way back, perhaps, to the cool shining Serpentine, came
+full upon the group at the moment when Jim was laid tenderly down by
+his bearers, and the policeman whispered audibly to his comrade that,
+even if the doctor were in the next street now, he would come too
+late!
+
+She ran forward with a wild, despairing cry. She flung herself down by
+the long, limp, helpless figure. She raised the drooping head with
+its matted locks, its fixed, white, rigid face, and pressed it hard
+against her bosom--hard to her wayward, ignorant, warped, but loving
+heart.
+
+"Speak to me, Jim!" she moaned once more, rocking backwards and
+forwards in her fierce agony. "Speak to me, deary! You'll never speak
+again. O! why did they stop _me_ to-day? It's cruel--cruel! Why did
+they stop me? We'd have been together before now!"
+
+And the groom of the chambers, an unwilling witness of all these
+indecorous proceedings, resolved, for that one night, to do his duty
+stanchly by his employer, but give up his place with inflexible
+dignity on the morrow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+UNDER THE ACACIAS
+
+
+"Out of drawing; flesh tints infamous; chiaroscuro grossly muddled; no
+breadth; not much story in it; badly composed; badly treated; badly
+painted altogether."
+
+So said the reviews, laying down the infallible law of the writer,
+concerning Simon Perkins's great picture. The public followed the
+reviews, of course, in accordance with a generous instinct, urging
+it to believe that he who can write his own language, not, indeed,
+accurately, but with a certain force and rapidity, must therefore
+be conversant with all the subjects on which he chooses to declaim.
+Statesman, chemist, engineer, shipbuilder, soldier, above all,
+navigator, painter, plasterer, and statuary; like the hungry Greek
+adventurer of Juvenal, _omnia novit_: like Horace's wise man amongst
+the Stoics; be the subject boots, beauty, bullocks, or the beer-trade,
+he is universal instructor and referee.
+
+  "Et sutor bonus, et solus formosus, et est rex."
+
+So reviewers abused the picture persistently, and Lord Bearwarden was
+furious, brandishing a weekly newspaper above his head, and striding
+about the little Putney lawn with an energy that threatened to immerse
+him in the river, forgetful of those narrow limits, suggesting the
+proverbial extent of a fisherman's walk on deck, "two steps and
+overboard."
+
+His audience, though, were partial and indulgent. The old ladies
+in the drawing-room, overhearing an occasional sentence, devoutly
+believed their nephew was the first painter of his time, Lord
+Bearwarden the wisest critic that ever lived, the greatest nobleman,
+the bravest soldier, the kindest husband, always excepting, perhaps,
+that other husband smoking there under the acacia, interchanging with
+his lordship many a pleasant jest and smile, that argued the good
+understanding existing between them.
+
+Dick Stanmore and Lord Bearwarden were now inseparable. Their alliance
+furnished a standing joke for their wives. "They have the same
+perverted tastes, my dear, and like the same sort of people,"
+lighthearted Nina would observe to the sister whom she had not found
+till the close of her girlish life. "It's always fast friends, or, at
+least, men with a strong tendency to friendship, who are in love with
+the same woman, and I don't believe they hate each other half as much
+as we should, even for _that_!"
+
+To which Maud would make no reply, gazing with her dark eyes out upon
+the river, and wondering whether Dick had ever told the wife he loved
+how fondly he once worshipped another face so like her own.
+
+For my part, I don't think he had. I don't think he could realise the
+force of those past feelings, nor comprehend that he could ever have
+cared much for any one but the darling who now made the joy of his
+whole life. When first he fell in love with Nina, it was for her
+likeness to her sister. Now, though in his eyes the likeness was
+fading every day, that sister's face was chiefly dear to him because
+of its resemblance to his wife's.
+
+Never was there a happier family party than these persons constituted.
+Lord and Lady Bearwarden, Mr. and Mrs. Stanmore, drove down from
+London many days in the week to the pretty Putney villa. Simon was
+truly rejoiced to see them, while the old ladies vibrated all over,
+caps, fronts, ribbons, lockets, and laces, with excitement and
+delight. The very flowers had a sweeter perfume, the laburnums a
+richer gold, the river a softer ripple, than in the experience of all
+previous springs.
+
+"They may say what they like," continued Lord Bearwarden, still with
+the weekly paper in his hand. "I maintain the criterion of merit
+is success. I maintain that the Rhymer and the Fairy Queen is an
+extraordinary picture, and the general public the best judge. Why
+there was no getting near it at the Academy. The people crowded round
+as they do about a Cheap Jack at a fair. I'm not a little fellow, but
+I couldn't catch a glimpse of any part except the Fairy Queen's head.
+I think it's _the_ most beautiful face I ever saw in my life!"
+
+"Thank you, Lord Bearwarden," said Nina, laughing. "He'd such a
+subject, you know; it's no wonder he made a good picture of it."
+
+No wonder, indeed! Did she ever think his brush was dipped in colours
+ground on the poor artist's heart?
+
+"It's very like _you_ and it's very like Maud," answered Lord
+Bearwarden. "Somehow you don't seem to me so like each other as you
+used to be. And yet how puzzled I was the second time I ever set eyes
+on you!"
+
+"How cross you were! and how you scolded!" answered saucy Mrs.
+Stanmore. "I wouldn't have stood it from Dick. Do you ever speak to
+Maud like that?"
+
+The look that passed between Lord and Lady Bearwarden was a sufficient
+reply. The crowning beauty had come to those dark eyes of hers, now
+that their pride was centred in another, their lustre deepened and
+softened with the light of love.
+
+"It was lucky for you, dear, that he _was_ angry," said her ladyship.
+"If he had hesitated a moment, it's frightful to think what would have
+become of you, at the mercy of those reckless, desperate men!"
+
+"They were punished, at any rate," observed Nina gravely. "I shall
+never forget that dead fixed face in the hall. Nor the other man's
+look, the cowardly one, while he prayed to be forgiven. Forgiven,
+indeed! One ought to forgive a great deal, but not such an enormity as
+that!"
+
+"I think he got off very cheap," interposed Dick Stanmore. "He
+deserved to be hanged, in my opinion, and they only transported
+him--not even for life!"
+
+"Think of the temptation, Dick," replied Nina, with another saucy
+smile. "How would you like it yourself?"
+
+"And you were in pursuit of the same object. You can't deny that, only
+he hit upon me first."
+
+"I was more sorry for the other villain," said Lord Bearwarden, who
+had heard long ago the history of Gentleman Jim's persecution of her
+ladyship. "He was a daring, reckless scoundrel, and I should like to
+have killed him myself, but _it_ did seem hard lines to be shot by his
+own confederate in the row!"
+
+"I pity that poor woman most of all," observed Lady Bearwarden, with a
+sigh. "It is quite a mercy that she should have lost her senses. She
+suffered so dreadfully till her mind failed."
+
+"How is she?" "Have you seen her?" came from the others in a breath.
+
+"I was with her this morning," answered Maud. "She didn't know me.
+I don't think she knows anybody. They can't get her to read, nor do
+needlework, nor even walk out into the garden. She's never still, poor
+thing! but paces up and down the room mumbling over a bent halfcrown
+and a knot of ribbon," added Lady Bearwarden, with a meaning glance
+at her husband, "that they found on the dead man's body, and keeps
+pressing it against her breast while she mutters something about their
+wanting to take it away. It's a sad, sad sight! I can't get that wild
+vacant stare out of my head. It's the same expression that frightened
+me so on her face that day by the Serpentine. It has haunted me
+ever since. She seemed to be looking miles away across the water at
+something I couldn't see. I wonder what it was. I wonder what she
+looks at now!"
+
+"She's never been in her right senses, has she, since that dreadful
+night?" asked Nina. "If she were a lady, and well dressed, and
+respectable, one would say it's quite a romance. Don't you think
+perhaps, after all, it's more touching as it is?" and Nina, who liked
+to make little heartless speeches she did not mean, looked lovingly
+on Dick, with her dark eyes full of tears, as she wondered what would
+become of her if anything happened to _him_!
+
+"I can scarcely bear to think of it," answered Maud, laying her
+hand on her husband's shoulder. "Through all the happiness of that
+night--far, far the happiest of my whole life--this poor thing's utter
+misery comes back to me like a warning and a reproach. If I live to a
+hundred I shall never forget her when she looked up to heaven from the
+long rigid figure with its fixed white face, and tried to pray, and
+couldn't, and didn't know how! O! my darling!"--and here Maud's voice
+sank to a whisper, while the haughty head drooped lovingly and humbly
+towards her husband's arm,--"what have I done that I should be so
+blessed, while there is all this misery and disappointment and despair
+in the world?"
+
+He made no attempt at explanation. The philosophy of our Household
+Cavalry, like the religion of Napoleon's "Old Guard," is adapted for
+action rather than casuistry. He did not tell her that in the journey
+of life for some the path is made smooth and easy, for others paved
+with flint and choked with thorns; but that a wise Director knows best
+the capabilities of the wayfarer, and the amount of toil required to
+fit him for his rest. So up and down, through rough and smooth, in
+storm and sunshine--all these devious tracks lead home at last. If
+Lord Bearwarden thought this, he could not put it into words, but his
+arm stole lovingly round the slender waist, and over his brave, manly
+face came a gentle look that seemed to say he asked no better than
+to lighten every load for that dear one through life, and bear her
+tenderly with him on the road to heaven.
+
+"_C'est l'amour_!" laughed Nina, "that makes all the bother and
+complications of our artificial state of existence!"
+
+"And all its sorrows!" said Lord Bearwarden.
+
+"And all its sin!" said her ladyship.
+
+"And all its beauty!" said Dick.
+
+"And all its happiness!" added the painter, who had not yet spoken,
+from his seat under the acacia that grew by the water's edge.
+
+"Well put!" exclaimed the others, "and you need not go out of this
+dear little garden in search of the proof."
+
+But Simon made no answer. Once more he was looking wistfully on the
+river, thinking how it freshened and fertilised all about it as it
+passed by. Fulfilling its noble task--bearing riches, comforts,
+health, happiness, yet taking to deck its own bosom, not one of
+the humblest wildflowers that must droop and die but for its love.
+Consoler, sympathiser, benefactor, night and day. Gently, noiselessly,
+imperceptibly speeding its good work, making no pause, knowing no
+rest, till far away beyond that dim horizon, under the golden heaven,
+it merged into the sea.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur."
+by G.J. Whyte-Melville
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIMILIA SIMILIBUS ***
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