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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss or Mrs.?, by Wilkie Collins
+
+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: Miss or Mrs.?
+
+Author: Wilkie Collins
+
+Release Date: March 21, 2006 [EBook #1621]
+Last Updated: September 13, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISS OR MRS.? ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by James Rusk and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+MISS OR MRS.?
+
+by Wilkie Collins
+
+
+
+
+PERSONS OF THE STORY.
+
+     Sir Joseph Graybrooke. . . . . . . . . .(Knight)
+     Richard Turlington . . . . (Of the Levant Trade)
+     Launcelot Linzie . .(Of the College of Surgeons)
+     James Dicas. . . . . .(Of the Roll of Attorneys)
+     Thomas Wildfang. . . . . .(Superannuated Seaman)
+     Miss Graybrooke. . . . . . (Sir Joseph's Sister)
+     Natalie. . . . . . . . . (Sir Joseph's Daughter)
+     Lady Winwood . . . . . . . .(Sir Joseph's Niece)
+     Amelia} Sophia}. (Lady Winwood's Stepdaughter's)
+     and Dorothea}
+
+
+
+Period: THE PRESENT TIME. Place: ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST SCENE
+
+At Sea.
+
+The night had come to an end. The new-born day waited for its quickening
+light in the silence that is never known on land--the silence before
+sunrise, in a calm at sea.
+
+Not a breath came from the dead air. Not a ripple stirred on the
+motionless water. Nothing changed but the softly-growing light; nothing
+moved but the lazy mist, curling up to meet the sun, its master, on the
+eastward sea. By fine gradations, the airy veil of morning thinned in
+substance as it rose--thinned, till there dawned through it in the first
+rays of sunlight the tall white sails of a Schooner Yacht.
+
+From stem to stern silence possessed the vessel--as silence possessed
+the sea.
+
+But one living creature was on deck--the man at the helm, dozing
+peaceably with his arm over the useless tiller. Minute by minute the
+light grew, and the heat grew with it; and still the helmsman slumbered,
+the heavy sails hung noiseless, the quiet water lay sleeping against
+the vessel's sides. The whole orb of the sun was visible above the
+water-line, when the first sound pierced its way through the morning
+silence. From far off over the shining white ocean, the cry of a
+sea-bird reached the yacht on a sudden out of the last airy circles of
+the waning mist.
+
+The sleeper at the helm woke; looked up at the idle sails, and yawned
+in sympathy with them; looked out at the sea on either side of him, and
+shook his head obstinately at the superior obstinacy of the calm.
+
+"Blow, my little breeze!" said the man, whistling the sailor's
+invocation to the wind softly between his teeth. "Blow, my little
+breeze!"
+
+"How's her head?" cried a bold and brassy voice, hailing the deck from
+the cabin staircase.
+
+"Anywhere you like, master; all round the compass."
+
+The voice was followed by the man. The owner of the yacht appeared on
+deck.
+
+Behold Richard Turlington, Esq., of the great Levant firm of Pizzituti,
+Turlington & Branca! Aged eight-and-thirty; standing stiffly and
+sturdily at a height of not more than five feet six--Mr. Turlington
+presented to the view of his fellow-creatures a face of the
+perpendicular order of human architecture. His forehead was a straight
+line, his upper lip was another, his chin was the straightest and the
+longest line of all. As he turned his swarthy countenance eastward,
+and shaded his light gray eyes from the sun, his knotty hand plainly
+revealed that it had got him his living by its own labor at one time or
+another in his life. Taken on the whole, this was a man whom it might
+be easy to respect, but whom it would be hard to love. Better company at
+the official desk than at the social table. Morally and physically--if
+the expression may be permitted--a man without a bend in him.
+
+"A calm yesterday," grumbled Richard Turlington, looking with stubborn
+deliberation all round him. "And a calm to-day. Ha! next season I'll
+have the vessel fitted with engines. I hate this!"
+
+"Think of the filthy coals, and the infernal vibration, and leave your
+beautiful schooner as she is. We are out for a holiday. Let the wind and
+the sea take a holiday too."
+
+Pronouncing those words of remonstrance, a slim, nimble, curly-headed
+young gentleman joined Richard Turlington on deck, with his clothes
+under his arm, his towels in his hand, and nothing on him but the
+night-gown in which he had stepped out of his bed.
+
+"Launcelot Linzie, you have been received on board my vessel in the
+capacity of medical attendant on Miss Natalie Graybrooke, at her
+father's request. Keep your place, if you please. When I want your
+advice, I'll ask you for it." Answering in those terms, the elder man
+fixed his colorless gray eyes on the younger with an expression which
+added plainly, "There won't be room enough in this schooner much longer
+for me and for you."
+
+Launcelot Linzie had his reasons (apparently) for declining to let his
+host offend him on any terms whatever.
+
+"Thank you!" he rejoined, in a tone of satirical good humor. "It isn't
+easy to keep my place on board your vessel. I can't help presuming
+to enjoy myself as if I was the owner. The life is such a new one--to
+_me!_ It's so delightfully easy, for instance, to wash yourself here.
+On shore it's a complicated question of jugs and basins and tubs; one is
+always in danger of breaking something, or spoiling something. Here you
+have only to jump out of bed, to run up on deck, and to do this!"
+
+He turned, and scampered to the bows of the vessel. In one instant he
+was out of his night-gown, in another he was on the bulwark, in a third
+he was gamboling luxuriously in sixty fathoms of salt-water.
+
+Turlington's eyes followed him with a reluctant, uneasy attention as
+he swam round the vessel, the only moving object in view. Turlington's
+mind, steady and slow in all its operations, set him a problem to be
+solved, on given conditions, as follows:
+
+"Launcelot Linzie is fifteen years younger than I am. Add to that,
+Launcelot Linzie is Natalie Graybrooke's cousin. Given those two
+advantages--Query: Has he taken Natalie's fancy?"
+
+Turning that question slowly over and over in his mind, Richard
+Turlington seated himself in a corner at the stern of the vessel. He
+was still at work on the problem, when the young surgeon returned to his
+cabin to put the finishing touches to his toilet. He had not reached the
+solution when the steward appeared an hour later and said, "Breakfast is
+ready, sir!"
+
+They were a party of five round the cabin table.
+
+First, Sir Joseph Graybrooke. Inheritor of a handsome fortune made by
+his father and his grandfather in trade. Mayor, twice elected, of a
+thriving provincial town. Officially privileged, while holding that
+dignity, to hand a silver trowel to a royal personage condescending to
+lay a first stone of a charitable edifice. Knighted, accordingly, in
+honor of the occasion. Worthy of the honor and worthy of the occasion.
+A type of his eminently respectable class. Possessed of an amiable, rosy
+face, and soft, silky white hair. Sound in his principles; tidy in his
+dress; blessed with moderate politics and a good digestion--a harmless,
+healthy, spruce, speckless, weak-minded old man.
+
+Secondly, Miss Lavinia Graybrooke, Sir Joseph's maiden sister.
+Personally, Sir Joseph in petticoats. If you knew one you knew the
+other.
+
+Thirdly, Miss Natalie Graybrooke--Sir Joseph's only child.
+
+She had inherited the personal appearance and the temperament of her
+mother--dead many years since. There had been a mixture of Negro
+blood and French blood in the late Lady Graybrooke's family, settled
+originally in Martinique. Natalie had her mother's warm dusky color, her
+mother's superb black hair, and her mother's melting, lazy, lovely
+brown eyes. At fifteen years of age (dating from her last birthday) she
+possessed the development of the bosom and limbs which in England is
+rarely attained before twenty. Everything about the girl--except her
+little rosy ears--was on a grand Amazonian scale. Her shapely hand was
+long and large; her supple waist was the waist of a woman. The indolent
+grace of all her movements had its motive power in an almost masculine
+firmness of action and profusion of physical resource. This remarkable
+bodily development was far from being accompanied by any corresponding
+development of character. Natalie's manner was the gentle, innocent
+manner of a young girl. She had her father's sweet temper ingrafted on
+her mother's variable Southern nature. She moved like a goddess, and she
+laughed like a child. Signs of maturing too rapidly--of outgrowing her
+strength, as the phrase went--had made their appearance in Sir
+Joseph's daughter during the spring. The family doctor had suggested
+a sea-voyage, as a wise manner of employing the fine summer months.
+Richard Turlington's yacht was placed at her disposal, with Richard
+Turlington himself included as one of the fixtures of the vessel.
+With her father and her aunt to keep up round her the atmosphere of
+home--with Cousin Launcelot (more commonly known as "Launce") to
+carry out, if necessary, the medical treatment prescribed by superior
+authority on shore--the lovely invalid embarked on her summer cruise,
+and sprang up into a new existence in the life-giving breezes of
+the sea. After two happy months of lazy coasting round the shores of
+England, all that remained of Natalie's illness was represented by a
+delicious languor in her eyes, and an utter inability to devote herself
+to anything which took the shape of a serious occupation. As she sat
+at the cabin breakfast-table that morning, in her quaintly-made sailing
+dress of old-fashioned nankeen--her inbred childishness of manner
+contrasting delightfully with the blooming maturity of her form--the man
+must have been trebly armed indeed in the modern philosophy who could
+have denied that the first of a woman's rights is the right of being
+beautiful; and the foremost of a woman's merits, the merit of being
+young!
+
+The other two persons present at the table were the two gentlemen who
+have already appeared on the deck of the yacht.
+
+"Not a breath of wind stirring!" said Richard Turlington. "The weather
+has got a grudge against us. We have drifted about four or five miles in
+the last eight-and-forty hours. You will never take another cruise with
+me--you must be longing to get on shore."
+
+He addressed himself to Natalie; plainly eager to make himself agreeable
+to the young lady--and plainly unsuccessful in producing any impression
+on her. She made a civil answer; and looked at her tea-cup, instead of
+looking at Richard Turlington.
+
+"You might fancy yourself on shore at this moment," said Launce. "The
+vessel is as steady as a house, and the swing-table we are eating our
+breakfast on is as even as your dining-room table at home."
+
+He too addressed himself to Natalie, but without betraying the anxiety
+to please her which had been shown by the other. For all that, _he_
+diverted the girl's attention from her tea-cup; and _his_ idea instantly
+awakened a responsive idea in Natalie's mind.
+
+"It will be so strange on shore," she said, "to find myself in a room
+that never turns on one side, and to sit at a table that never tilts
+down to my knees at one time, or rises up to my chin at another. How I
+shall miss the wash of the water at my ear, and the ring of the bell
+on deck when I am awake at night on land! No interest there in how the
+wind blows, or how the sails are set. No asking your way of the sun,
+when you are lost, with a little brass instrument and a morsel of pencil
+and paper. No delightful wandering wherever the wind takes you, without
+the worry of planning beforehand where you are to go. Oh how I shall
+miss the dear, changeable, inconstant sea! And how sorry I am I'm not a
+man and a sailor!"
+
+This to the guest admitted on board on sufferance, and not one word of
+it addressed, even by chance, to the owner of the yacht!
+
+Richard Turlington's heavy eyebrows contracted with an unmistakable
+expression of pain.
+
+"If this calm weather holds," he went on, addressing himself to Sir
+Joseph, "I am afraid, Graybrooke, I shall not be able to bring you back
+to the port we sailed from by the end of the week."
+
+"Whenever you like, Richard," answered the old gentleman, resignedly.
+"Any time will do for me."
+
+"Any time within reasonable limits, Joseph," said Miss Lavinia,
+evidently feeling that her brother was conceding too much. She spoke
+with Sir Joseph's amiable smile and Sir Joseph's softly-pitched voice.
+Two twin babies could hardly have been more like one another.
+
+While these few words were being exchanged among the elders, a private
+communication was in course of progress between the two young people
+under the cabin table. Natalie's smartly-slippered foot felt its way
+cautiously inch by inch over the carpet till it touched Launce's boot.
+Launce, devouring his breakfast, instantly looked up from his plate,
+and then, at a second touch from Natalie, looked down again in a violent
+hurry. After pausing to make sure that she was not noticed, Natalie
+took up her knife. Under a perfectly-acted pretense of toying with it
+absently, in the character of a young lady absorbed in thought, she
+began dividing a morsel of ham left on the edge of her plate, into six
+tiny pieces. Launce's eye looked in sidelong expectation at the divided
+and subdivided ham. He was evidently waiting to see the collection of
+morsels put to some telegraphic use, previously determined on between
+his neighbor and himself.
+
+In the meanwhile the talk proceeded among the other persons at the
+breakfast-table. Miss Lavinia addressed herself to Launce.
+
+"Do you know, you careless boy, you gave me a fright this morning? I was
+sleeping with my cabin window open, and I was awoke by an awful splash
+in the water. I called for the stewardess. I declare I thought somebody
+had fallen overboard!"
+
+Sir Joseph looked up briskly; his sister had accidentally touched on an
+old association.
+
+"Talk of falling overboard," he began, "reminds me of an extraordinary
+adventure--"
+
+There Launce broke in, making his apologies.
+
+"It shan't occur again, Miss Lavinia," he said. "To-morrow morning I'll
+oil myself all over, and slip into the water as silently as a seal."
+
+"Of an extraordinary adventure," persisted Sir Joseph, "which happened
+to me many years ago, when I was a young man. Lavinia?"
+
+He stopped, and looked interrogatively at his sister. Miss Graybrooke
+nodded her head responsively, and settled herself in her chair, as if
+summoning her attention in anticipation of a coming demand on it. To
+persons well acquainted with the brother and sister these proceedings
+were ominous of an impending narrative, protracted to a formidable
+length. The two always told a story in couples, and always differed
+with each other about the facts, the sister politely contradicting
+the brother when it was Sir Joseph's story, and the brother politely
+contradicting the sister when it was Miss Lavinia's story. Separated one
+from the other, and thus relieved of their own habitual interchange
+of contradiction, neither of them had ever been known to attempt the
+relation of the simplest series of events without breaking down.
+
+"It was five years before I knew you, Richard," proceeded Sir Joseph.
+
+"Six years," said Miss Graybrooke.
+
+"Excuse me, Lavinia."
+
+"No, Joseph, I have it down in my diary."
+
+"Let us waive the point." (Sir Joseph invariably used this formula as a
+means of at once conciliating his sister, and getting a fresh start for
+his story.) "I was cruising off the Mersey in a Liverpool pilot-boat. I
+had hired the boat in company with a friend of mine, formerly notorious
+in London society, under the nickname (derived from the peculiar brown
+color of his whiskers) of 'Mahogany Dobbs.'"
+
+"The color of his liveries, Joseph, not the color of his whiskers."
+
+"My dear Lavinia, you are thinking of 'Sea-green Shaw,' so called from
+the extraordinary liveries he adopted for his servants in the year when
+he was sheriff."
+
+"I think not, Joseph."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Lavinia."
+
+Richard Turlington's knotty fingers drummed impatiently on the table. He
+looked toward Natalie. She was idly arranging her little morsels of
+ham in a pattern on her plate. Launcelot Linzie, still more idly, was
+looking at the pattern. Seeing what he saw now, Richard solved the
+problem which had puzzled him on deck. It was simply impossible that
+Natalie's fancy could be really taken by such an empty-headed fool as
+that!
+
+Sir Joseph went on with his story:
+
+"We were some ten or a dozen miles off the mouth of the Mersey--"
+
+"Nautical miles, Joseph."
+
+"It doesn't matter, Lavinia."
+
+"Excuse me, brother, the late great and good Doctor Johnson said
+accuracy ought always to be studied even in the most trifling things."
+
+"They were common miles, Lavinia."
+
+"They were nautical miles, Joseph."
+
+"Let us waive the point. Mahogany Dobbs and I happened to be below in
+the cabin, occupied--"
+
+Here Sir Joseph paused (with his amiable smile) to consult his
+memory. Miss Lavinia waited (with _her_ amiable smile) for the coming
+opportunity of setting her brother right. At the same moment Natalie
+laid down her knife and softly touched Launce under the table. When
+she thus claimed his attention the six pieces of ham were arranged as
+follows in her plate: Two pieces were placed opposite each other, and
+four pieces were ranged perpendicularly under them. Launce looked, and
+twice touched Natalie under the table. Interpreted by the Code agreed
+on between the two, the signal in the plate meant, "I must see you in
+private." And Launce's double touch answered, "After breakfast."
+
+Sir Joseph proceeded with his story. Natalie took up her knife again.
+Another signal coming!
+
+"We were both down in the cabin, occupied in finishing our dinner--"
+
+"Just sitting down to lunch, Joseph."
+
+"My dear! I ought to know."
+
+"I only repeat what I heard, brother. The last time you told the story,
+you and your friend were sitting down to lunch."
+
+"We won't particularize, Lavinia. Suppose we say occupied over a meal?"
+
+"If it is of no more importance than that, Joseph, it would be surely
+better to leave it out altogether."
+
+"Let us waive the point. Well, we were suddenly alarmed by a shout on
+deck, 'Man over-board!' We both rushed up the cabin stairs, naturally
+under the impression that one of our crew had fallen into the sea: an
+impression shared, I ought to add, by the man at the helm, who had given
+the alarm."
+
+Sir Joseph paused again. He was approaching one of the great dramatic
+points in his story, and was naturally anxious to present it as
+impressively as possible. He considered with himself, with his head a
+little on one side. Miss Lavinia considered with _herself_, with _her_
+head a little on one side. Natalie laid down her knife again, and again
+touched Launce under the table. This time there were five pieces of ham
+ranged longitudinally on the plate, with one piece immediately under
+them at the center of the line. Interpreted by the Code, this signal
+indicated two ominous words, "Bad news." Launce looked significantly
+at the owner of the yacht (meaning of the look, "Is he at the bottom of
+it?"). Natalie frowned in reply (meaning of the frown, "Yes, he is").
+Launce looked down again into the plate. Natalie instantly pushed all
+the pieces of ham together in a little heap (meaning of the heap, "No
+more to say").
+
+"Well?" said Richard Turlington, turning sharply on Sir Joseph. "Get on
+with your story. What next?"
+
+Thus far he had not troubled himself to show even a decent pretense of
+interest in his old friend's perpetually-interrupted narrative. It was
+only when Sir Joseph had reached his last sentence--intimating that the
+man overboard might turn out in course of time not to be a man of the
+pilot-boat's crew--it was only then that Turlington sat up in his chair,
+and showed signs of suddenly feeling a strong interest in the progress
+of the story.
+
+Sir Joseph went on:
+
+"As soon as we got on deck, we saw the man in the water, astern. Our
+vessel was hove up in the wind, and the boat was lowered. The master and
+one of the men took the oars. All told, our crew were seven in number.
+Two away in the boat, a third at the helm, and, to my amazement, when
+I looked round, the other four behind me making our number complete.
+At the same moment Mahogany Dobbs, who was looking through a telescope,
+called out, 'Who the devil can he be? The man is floating on a hen-coop,
+and we have got nothing of the sort on board this pilot-boat.'"
+
+The one person present who happened to notice Richard Turlington's
+face when those words were pronounced was Launcelot Linzie. He--and he
+alone--saw the Levant trader's swarthy complexion fade slowly to a
+livid ashen gray; his eyes the while fixing themselves on Sir Joseph
+Graybrooke with a furtive glare in them like the glare in the eyes of a
+wild beast. Apparently conscious that Launce was looking at him--though
+he never turned his head Launce's way--he laid his elbow on the table,
+lifted his arm, and so rested his face on his hand, while the story went
+on, as to screen it effectually from the young surgeon's view.
+
+"The man was brought on board," proceeded Sir Joseph, "sure enough, with
+a hen-coop--on which he had been found floating. The poor wretch was
+blue with terror and exposure in the water; he fainted when we lifted
+him on deck. When he came to himself he told us a horrible story. He was
+a sick and destitute foreign seaman, and he had hidden himself in the
+hold of an English vessel (bound to a port in his native country) which
+had sailed from Liverpool that morning. He had been discovered, and
+brought before the captain. The captain, a monster in human form, if
+ever there was one yet--"
+
+Before the next word of the sentence could pass Sir Joseph's lips,
+Turlington startled the little party in the cabin by springing suddenly
+to his feet.
+
+"The breeze!" he cried; "the breeze at last!"
+
+As he spoke, he wheeled round to the cabin door so as to turn his back
+on his guests, and hailed the deck.
+
+"Which way is the wind?"
+
+"There is not a breath of wind, sir."
+
+Not the slightest movement in the vessel had been perceptible in the
+cabin; not a sound had been audible indicating the rising of the breeze.
+The owner of the yacht--accustomed to the sea, capable, if necessary,
+of sailing his own vessel--had surely committed a strange mistake! He
+turned again to his friends, and made his apologies with an excess of
+polite regret far from characteristic of him at other times and under
+other circumstances.
+
+"Go on," he said to Sir Joseph, when he had got to the end of his
+excuses; "I never heard such an interesting story in my life. Pray go
+on!"
+
+The request was not an easy one to comply with. Sir Joseph's ideas
+had been thrown into confusion. Miss Lavinia's contradictions (held in
+reserve) had been scattered beyond recall. Both brother and sister were,
+moreover, additionally hindered in recovering the control of their own
+resources by the look and manner of their host. He alarmed, instead
+of encouraging the two harmless old people, by fronting them almost
+fiercely, with his elbows squared on the table, and his face expressive
+of a dogged resolution to sit there and listen, if need be, for the rest
+of his life. Launce was the person who set Sir Joseph going again. After
+first looking attentively at Richard, he took his uncle straight back to
+the story by means of a question, thus:
+
+"You don't mean to say that the captain of the ship threw the man
+overboard?"
+
+"That is just what he did, Launce. The poor wretch was too ill to work
+his passage. The captain declared he would have no idle foreign vagabond
+in his ship to eat up the provisions of Englishmen who worked. With his
+own hands he cast the hen-coop into the water, and (assisted by one of
+his sailors) he threw the man after it, and told him to float back to
+Liverpool with the evening tide."
+
+"A lie!" cried Turlington, addressing himself, not to Sir Joseph, but to
+Launce.
+
+"Are you acquainted with the circumstances?" asked Launce, quietly.
+
+"I know nothing about the circumstances. I say, from my own experience,
+that foreign sailors are even greater blackguards than English sailors.
+The man had met with an accident, no doubt. The rest of his story was a
+lie, and the object of it was to open Sir Joseph's purse."
+
+Sir Joseph mildly shook his head.
+
+"No lie, Richard. Witnesses proved that the man had spoken the truth."
+
+"Witnesses? Pooh! More liars, you mean."
+
+"I went to the owners of the vessel," pursued Sir Joseph. "I got from
+them the names of the officers and the crew, and I waited, leaving the
+case in the hands of the Liverpool police. The ship was wrecked at the
+mouth of the Amazon, but the crew and the cargo were saved. The men
+belonging to Liverpool came back. They were a bad set, I grant you. But
+they were examined separately about the treatment of the foreign sailor,
+and they all told the same story. They could give no account of their
+captain, nor of the sailor who had been his accomplice in the crime,
+except that they had not embarked in the ship which brought the rest of
+the crew to England. Whatever may have become of the captain since, he
+certainly never returned to Liverpool."
+
+"Did you find out his name?"
+
+The question was asked by Turlington. Even Sir Joseph, the least
+observant of men, noticed that it was put with a perfectly unaccountable
+irritability of manner.
+
+"Don't be angry, Richard." said the old gentleman. "What is there to be
+angry about?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean. I'm not angry--I'm only curious. _Did_ you
+find out who he was?"
+
+"I did. His name was Goward. He was well known at Liverpool as a very
+clever and a very dangerous man. Quite young at the time I am speaking
+of, and a first-rate sailor; famous for taking command of unseaworthy
+ships and vagabond crews. Report described him to me as having made
+considerable sums of money in that way, for a man in his position;
+serving firms, you know, with a bad name, and running all sorts of
+desperate risks. A sad ruffian, Richard! More than once in trouble, on
+both sides of the Atlantic, for acts of violence and cruelty. Dead, I
+dare say, long since."
+
+"Or possibly," said Launce, "alive, under another name, and thriving in
+a new way of life, with more desperate risks in it, of some other sort."
+
+"Are _you_ acquainted with the circumstances?" asked Turlington,
+retorting Launce's question on him, with a harsh ring of defiance in his
+brassy voice.
+
+"What became of the poor foreign sailor, papa?" said Natalie, purposely
+interrupting Launce before he could meet the question angrily asked of
+him, by an angry reply.
+
+"We made a subscription, and spoke to his consul, my dear. He went back
+to his country, poor fellow, comfortably enough."
+
+"And there is an end of Sir Joseph's story," said Turlington, rising
+noisily from his chair. "It's a pity we haven't got a literary man on
+board--he would make a novel of it." He looked up at the skylight as he
+got on his feet. "Here is the breeze, this time," he exclaimed, "and no
+mistake!"
+
+It was true. At last the breeze had come. The sails flapped, the main
+boom swung over with a thump, and the stagnant water, stirred at last,
+bubbled merrily past the vessel's sides.
+
+"Come on deck, Natalie, and get some fresh air," said Miss Lavinia,
+leading the way to the cabin door.
+
+Natalie held up the skirt of her nankeen dress, and exhibited the purple
+trimming torn away over an extent of some yards.
+
+"Give me half an hour first, aunt, in my cabin," she said, "to mend
+this."
+
+Miss Lavinia elevated her venerable eyebrows in amazement.
+
+"You have done nothing but tear your dresses, my dear, since you have
+been in Mr. Turlington's yacht. Most extraordinary! I have torn none of
+mine during the whole cruise."
+
+Natalie's dark color deepened a shade. She laughed, a little uneasily.
+"I am so awkward on board ship," she replied, and turned away and shut
+herself up in her cabin.
+
+Richard Turlington produced his case of cigars.
+
+"Now is the time," he said to Sir Joseph, "for the best cigar of the
+day--the cigar after breakfast. Come on deck."
+
+"You will join us, Launce?" said Sir Joseph.
+
+"Give me half an hour first over my books," Launce replied. "I mustn't
+let my medical knowledge get musty at sea, and I might not feel inclined
+to study later in the day."
+
+"Quite right, my dear boy, quite right."
+
+Sir Joseph patted his nephew approvingly on the shoulder. Launce turned
+away on _his_ side, and shut himself up in his cabin.
+
+The other three ascended together to the deck.
+
+
+
+
+SECOND SCENE.
+
+The Store-Room.
+
+Persons possessed of sluggish livers and tender hearts find two serious
+drawbacks to the enjoyment of a cruise at sea. It is exceedingly
+difficult to get enough walking exercise; and it is next to impossible
+(where secrecy is an object) to make love without being found out.
+Reverting for the moment to the latter difficulty only, life within the
+narrow and populous limits of a vessel may be defined as essentially
+life in public. From morning to night you are in your neighbor's way, or
+your neighbor is in your way. As a necessary result of these conditions,
+the rarest of existing men may be defined as the man who is capable
+of stealing a kiss at sea without discovery. An inbred capacity for
+stratagem of the finest sort; inexhaustible inventive resources;
+patience which can flourish under superhuman trials; presence of mind
+which can keep its balance victoriously under every possible stress of
+emergency--these are some of the qualifications which must accompany
+Love on a cruise, when Love embarks in the character of a contraband
+commodity not duly entered on the papers of the ship.
+
+Having established a Code of Signals which enabled them to communicate
+privately, while the eyes and ears of others were wide open on every
+side of them, Natalie and Launce were next confronted by the more
+serious difficulty of finding a means of meeting together at stolen
+interviews on board the yacht. Possessing none of those precious
+moral qualifications already enumerated as the qualifications of an
+accomplished lover at sea, Launce had proved unequal to grapple with the
+obstacles in his way. Left to her own inventive resources, Natalie
+had first suggested the young surgeon's medical studies as Launce's
+unanswerable excuse for shutting himself up at intervals in the lower
+regions, and had then hit on the happy idea of tearing her trimmings,
+and condemning herself to repair her own carelessness, as the
+all-sufficient reason for similar acts of self-seclusion on her side.
+In this way the lovers contrived, while the innocent ruling authorities
+were on deck, to meet privately below them, on the neutral ground of the
+main cabin; and there, by previous arrangement at the breakfast-table,
+they were about to meet privately now.
+
+Natalie's door was, as usual on these occasions, the first that opened;
+for this sound reason, that Natalie's quickness was the quickness to be
+depended on in case of accident.
+
+She looked up at the sky-light. There were the legs of the two gentlemen
+and the skirts of her aunt visible (and stationary) on the lee side of
+the deck. She advanced a few steps and listened. There was a pause in
+the murmur of the voices above. She looked up again. One pair of legs
+(not her father's) had disappeared. Without an instant's hesitation,
+Natalie darted back to her own door, just in time to escape Richard
+Turlington descending the cabin stairs. All he did was to go to one
+of the drawers under the main-cabin book-case and to take out a map,
+ascending again immediately to the deck. Natalie's guilty conscience
+rushed instantly, nevertheless, to the conclusion that Richard suspected
+her. When she showed herself for the second time, instead of venturing
+into the cabin, she called across it in a whisper,
+
+"Launce!"
+
+Launce appeared at his door. He was peremptorily checked before he could
+cross the threshold.
+
+"Don't stir a step! Richard has been down in the cabin! Richard suspects
+us!"
+
+"Nonsense! Come out."
+
+"Nothing will induce me, unless you can find some other place than the
+cabin."
+
+Some other place? How easy to find it on land! How apparently impossible
+at sea! There was the forecastle (full of men) at one end of the vessel.
+There was the sail room (full of sails) at the other. There was the
+ladies' cabin (used as the ladies' dressing-room; inaccessible, in that
+capacity, to every male human being on board). Was there any disposable
+inclosed space to be found amidships? On one side there were the
+sleeping berths of the sailing-master and his mate (impossible to
+borrow _them_). On the other side was the steward's store-room. Launce
+considered for a moment. The steward's store-room was just the thing!
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Natalie, as her lover made straight for a
+closed door at the lower extremity of the main cabin.
+
+"To speak to the steward, darling. Wait one moment, and you will see me
+again."
+
+Launce opened the store-room door, and discovered, not the steward, but
+his wife, who occupied the situation of stewardess on board the vessel.
+The accident was, in this case, a lucky one. Having stolen several
+kisses at sea, and having been discovered (in every case) either by the
+steward or his wife, Launce felt no difficulty in prefacing his request
+to be allowed the use of the room by the plainest allusion to
+his relations with Natalie. He could count on the silence of the
+sympathizing authorities in this region of the vessel, having wisely
+secured them as accomplices by the usual persuasion of the pecuniary
+sort. Of the two, however, the stewardess, as a woman, was the more
+likely to lend a ready ear to Launce's entreaties in his present
+emergency. After a faint show of resistance, she consented, not only to
+leave the room, but to keep her husband out of it, on the understanding
+that it was not to be occupied for more than ten minutes. Launce made
+the signal to Natalie at one door, while the stewardess went out by the
+other. In a moment more the lovers were united in a private room. Is it
+necessary to say in what language the proceedings were opened? Surely
+not! There is an inarticulate language of the lips in use on these
+occasions in which we are all proficient, though we sometimes forget it
+in later life. Natalie seated herself on a locker. The tea, sugar, and
+spices were at her back, a side of bacon swung over her head, and a net
+full of lemons dangled before her face. It might not be roomy, but it
+was snug and comfortable.
+
+"Suppose they call for the steward?" she suggested. ("Don't, Launce!")
+
+"Never mind. We shall be safe enough if they do. The steward has only to
+show himself on deck, and they will suspect nothing."
+
+"Do be quiet, Launce! I have got dreadful news to tell you. And,
+besides, my aunt will expect to see me with my braid sewn on again."
+
+She had brought her needle and thread with her. Whipping up the skirt
+of her dress on her knee, she bent forward over it, and set herself
+industriously to the repair of the torn trimming. In this position her
+lithe figure showed charmingly its firm yet easy line. The needle, in
+her dexterous brown fingers, flew through its work. The locker was a
+broad one; Launce was able to seat himself partially behind her. In this
+position who could have resisted the temptation to lift up her great
+knot of broadly-plaited black hair, and to let the warm, dusky nape
+of her neck disclose itself to view? Who, looking at it, could fail to
+revile the senseless modern fashion of dressing the hair, which hides
+the double beauty of form and color that nestles at the back of a
+woman's neck? From time to time, as the interview proceeded, Launce's
+lips emphasized the more important words occurring in his share of the
+conversation on the soft, fragrant skin which the lifted hair let him
+see at intervals. In Launce's place, sir, you would have done it too.
+
+"Now, Natalie, what is the news?"
+
+"He has spoken to papa, Launce."
+
+"Richard Turlington?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"D--n him!"
+
+Natalie started. A curse addressed to the back of your neck, instantly
+followed by a blessing in the shape of a kiss, is a little trying when
+you are not prepared for it.
+
+"Don't do that again, Launce! It was while you were on deck smoking,
+and when I was supposed to be fast asleep. I opened the ventilator in
+my cabin door, dear, and I heard every word they said. He waited till my
+aunt was out of the way, and he had got papa all to himself, and then he
+began it in that horrible, downright voice of his--'Graybrooke! how much
+longer am I to wait?'"
+
+"Did he say that?"
+
+"No more swearing, Launce! Those were the words. Papa didn't understand
+them. He only said (poor dear!)--'Bless my soul, Richard, what do you
+want?' Richard soon explained himself. 'Who could he be waiting for--but
+Me?' Papa said something about my being so young. Richard stopped his
+mouth directly. 'Girls were like fruit; some ripened soon, and some
+ripened late. Some were women at twenty, and some were women at sixteen.
+It was impossible to look at me, and not see that I was like a new being
+after my two months at sea,' and so on and so on. Papa behaved like an
+angel. He still tried to put it off. 'Plenty of time, Richard, plenty
+of time.' 'Plenty of time for _her_' (was the wretch's answer to that);
+'but not for _me_. Think of all I have to offer her' (as if I cared for
+his money!); 'think how long I have looked upon her as growing up to
+be my wife' (growing up for _him_--monstrous!), 'and don't keep me in
+a state of uncertainty, which it gets harder and harder for a man in my
+position to endure!' He was really quite eloquent. His voice trembled.
+There is no doubt, dear, that he is very, very fond of me."
+
+"And you feel flattered by it, of course?"
+
+"Don't talk nonsense. I feel a little frightened at it, I can tell you."
+
+"Frightened? Did _you_ notice him this morning?"
+
+"I? When?"
+
+"When your father was telling that story about the man overboard."
+
+"No. What did he do? Tell me, Launce."
+
+"I'll tell you directly. How did it all end last night? Did your father
+make any sort of promise?"
+
+"You know Richard's way; Richard left him no other choice. Papa had to
+promise before he was allowed to go to bed."
+
+"To let Turlington marry you?"
+
+"Yes; the week after my next birthday."
+
+"The week after next Christmas-day?"
+
+"Yes. Papa is to speak to me as soon as we are at home again, and my
+married life is to begin with the New Year."
+
+"Are you in earnest, Natalie? Do you really mean to say it has gone as
+far as that?"
+
+"They have settled everything. The splendid establishment we are to set
+up, the great income we are to have. I heard papa tell Richard that half
+his fortune should go to me on my wedding-day. It was sickening to hear
+how much they made of Money, and how little they thought of Love. What
+am I to do, Launce?"
+
+"That's easily answered, my darling. In the first place, you are to make
+up your mind not to marry Richard Turlington--"
+
+"Do talk reasonably. You know I have done all I could. I have told papa
+that I can think of Richard as a friend, but not as a husband. He only
+laughs at me, and says, 'Wait a little, and you will alter your opinion,
+my dear.' You see Richard is everything to him; Richard has always
+managed his affairs, and has saved him from losing by bad speculations;
+Richard has known me from the time when I was a child; Richard has a
+splendid business, and quantities of money. Papa can't even imagine that
+I can resist Richard. I have tried my aunt; I have told her he is too
+old for me. All she says is, 'Look at your father; he was much older
+than your mother, and what a happy marriage theirs was.' Even if I said
+in so many words, 'I won't marry Richard,' what good would it do to us?
+Papa is the best and dearest old man in the world; but oh, he is so fond
+of money! He believes in nothing else. He would be furious--yes, kind as
+he is, he would be furious--if I even hinted that I was fond of _you_.
+Any man who proposed to marry me--if he couldn't match the fortune that
+I should bring him by a fortune of his own--would be a lunatic in papa's
+eyes. He wouldn't think it necessary to answer him; he would ring the
+bell, and have him shown out of the house. I am exaggerating nothing,
+Launce; you know I am speaking the truth. There is no hope in the
+future--that I can see--for either of us.
+
+"Have you done, Natalie? I have something to say on my side if you
+have."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"If things go on as they are going on now, shall I tell you how it will
+end? It will end in your being Turlington's wife."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"So you say now; but you don't know what may happen between this and
+Christmas-day. Natalie, there is only one way of making sure that you
+will never marry Richard. Marry _me_."
+
+"Without papa's consent?"
+
+"Without saying a word to anybody till it's done."
+
+"Oh, Launce! Launce!"
+
+"My darling, every word you have said proves there is no other way.
+Think of it, Natalie, think of it."
+
+There was a pause. Natalie dropped her needle and thread, and hid her
+face in her hands. "If my poor mother was only alive," she said; "if I
+only had an elder sister to advise me, and to take my part."
+
+She was evidently hesitating. Launce took a man's advantage of her
+indecision. He pressed her without mercy.
+
+"Do you love me?" he whispered, with his lips close to her ear.
+
+"You know I do, dearly."
+
+"Put it out of Richard's power to part us, Natalie."
+
+"Part us? We are cousins: we have known each other since we were both
+children. Even if he proposed parting us, papa wouldn't allow it."
+
+"Mark my words, he _will_ propose it. As for your father, Richard
+has only to lift his finger and your father obeys him. My love, the
+happiness of both our lives is at stake." He wound his arm round her,
+and gently drew her head back on his bosom, "Other girls have done it,
+darling," he pleaded, "why shouldn't you?"
+
+The effort to answer him was too much for her. She gave it up. A low
+sigh fluttered through her lips. She nestled closer to him, and faintly
+closed her eyes. The next instant she started up, trembling from head
+to foot, and looked at the sky-light. Richard Turlington's voice was
+suddenly audible on deck exactly above them.
+
+"Graybrooke, I want to say a word to you about Launcelot Linzie."
+
+Natalie's first impulse was to fly to the door. Hearing Launce's name on
+Richard's lips, she checked herself. Something in Richard's tone roused
+in her the curiosity which suspends fear. She waited, with her hand in
+Launce's hand.
+
+"If you remember," the brassy voice went on, "I doubted the wisdom of
+taking him with us on this cruise. You didn't agree with me, and, at
+your express request, I gave way. I did wrong. Launcelot Linzie is a
+very presuming young man."
+
+Sir Joseph's answer was accompanied by Sir Joseph's mellow laugh.
+
+"My dear Richard! Surely you are a little hard on Launce?"
+
+"You are not an observant man, Graybrooke. I am. I see signs of his
+presuming with all of us, and especially with Natalie. I don't like
+the manner in which he speaks to her and looks at her. He is unduly
+familiar; he is insolently confidential. There must be a stop put to it.
+In my position, my feelings ought to be regarded. I request you to check
+the intimacy when we get on shore."
+
+Sir Joseph's next words were spoken more seriously. He expressed his
+surprise.
+
+"My dear Richard, they are cousins, they have been playmates from
+childhood. How _can_ you think of attaching the slightest importance to
+anything that is said or done by poor Launce?"
+
+There was a good-humored contempt in Sir Joseph's reference to "poor
+Launce" which jarred on his daughter. He might almost have been alluding
+to some harmless domestic animal. Natalie's color deepened. Her hand
+pressed Launce's hand gently.
+
+Turlington still persisted.
+
+"I must once more request--seriously request--that you will check this
+growing intimacy. I don't object to your asking him to the house when
+you ask other friends. I only wish you (and expect you) to stop his
+'dropping in,' as it is called, any hour of the day or evening when he
+may have nothing to do. Is that understood between us?"
+
+"If you make a point of it, Richard, of course it's understood between
+us."
+
+Launce looked at Natalie, as weak Sir Joseph consented in those words.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he whispered.
+
+Natalie hung her head in silence. There was a pause in the conversation
+on deck. The two gentlemen walked away slowly toward the forward part of
+the vessel.
+
+Launce pursued his advantage.
+
+"Your father leaves us no alternative," he said. "The door will be
+closed against me as soon as we get on shore. If I lose you, Natalie, I
+don't care what becomes of me. My profession may go to the devil. I have
+nothing left worth living for."
+
+"Hush! hush! don't talk in that way!"
+
+Launce tried the soothing influence of persuasion once more.
+
+"Hundreds and hundreds of people in our situation have married
+privately--and have been forgiven afterward," he went on. "I won't ask
+you to do anything in a hurry. I will be guided entirely by your wishes.
+All I want to quiet my mind is to know that you are mine. Do, do, do
+make me feel sure that Richard Turlington can't take you away from me."
+
+"Don't press me, Launce." She dropped on the locker. "See!" she said.
+"It makes me tremble only to think of it!"
+
+"Who are you afraid of, darling? Not your father, surely?"
+
+"Poor papa! I wonder whether he would be hard on me for the first time
+in his life?" She stopped; her moistening eyes looked up imploringly in
+Launce's face. "Don't press me!" she repeated faintly. "You know it's
+wrong. We should have to confess it--and then what would happen?" She
+paused again. Her eyes wandered nervously to the deck. Her voice dropped
+to its lowest tones. "Think of Richard!" she said, and shuddered at the
+terrors which that name conjured up. Before it was possible to say a
+quieting word to her, she was again on her feet. Richard's name had
+suddenly recalled to her memory Launce's mysterious allusion, at the
+outset of the interview, to the owner of the yacht. "What was that you
+said about Richard just now?" she asked. "You saw something (or heard
+something) strange while papa was telling his story. What was it?"
+
+"I noticed Richard's face, Natalie, when your father told us that the
+man overboard was not one of the pilot-boat's crew. He turned ghastly
+pale. He looked guilty--"
+
+"Guilty? Of what?"
+
+"He was present--I am certain of it--when the sailor was thrown into the
+sea. For all I know, he may have been the man who did it."
+
+Natalie started back in horror.
+
+"Oh, Launce! Launce! that is too bad. You may not like Richard--you may
+treat Richard as your enemy. But to say such a horrible thing of him as
+that--It's not generous. It's not like _you_."
+
+"If you had seen him, you would have said it too. I mean to make
+inquiries--in your father's interests as well as in ours. My brother
+knows one of the Commissioners of Police, and my brother can get it done
+for me. Turlington has not always been in the Levant trade--I know that
+already."
+
+"For shame, Launce! for shame!"
+
+The footsteps on deck were audible coming back. Natalie sprang to the
+door leading into the cabin. Launce stopped her, as she laid her hand on
+the lock. The footsteps went straight on toward the stern of the vessel.
+Launce clasped both arms round her. Natalie gave way.
+
+"Don't drive me to despair!" he said. "This is my last opportunity. I
+don't ask you to say at once that you will marry me, I only ask you to
+think of it. My darling! my angel! will you think of it?"
+
+As he put the question, they might have heard (if they had not been
+too completely engrossed in each other to listen) the footsteps
+returning--one pair of footsteps only this time. Natalie's prolonged
+absence had begun to surprise her aunt, and had roused a certain vague
+distrust in Richard's mind. He walked back again along the deck by
+himself. He looked absently in the main cabin as he passed it. The
+store-room skylight came next. In his present frame of mind, would he
+look absently into the store-room too?
+
+"Let me go!" said Natalie.
+
+Launce only answered, "Say yes," and held her as if he would never let
+her go again.
+
+At the same moment Miss Lavinia's voice rose shrill from the deck
+calling for Natalie. There was but one way of getting free from him. She
+said, "I'll think of it." Upon that, he kissed her and let her go.
+
+The door had barely closed on her when the lowering face of Richard
+Turlington appeared on a level with the side of the sky-light, looking
+down into the store-room at Launce.
+
+"Halloo!" he called out roughly. "What are you doing in the steward's
+room?"
+
+Launce took up a box of matches on the dresser. "I'm getting a light,"
+he answered readily.
+
+"I allow nobody below, forward of the main cabin, without my leave. The
+steward has permitted a breach of discipline on board my vessel. The
+steward will leave my service."
+
+"The steward is not to blame."
+
+"I am the judge of that. Not you."
+
+Launce opened his lips to reply. An outbreak between the two men
+appeared to be inevitable, when the sailing-master of the yacht joined
+his employer on deck, and directed Turlington's attention to a question
+which is never to be trifled with at sea, the question of wind and tide.
+
+The yacht was then in the Bristol Channel, at the entrance to Bideford
+Bay. The breeze, fast freshening, was also fast changing the direction
+from which it blew. The favorable tide had barely three hours more to
+run.
+
+"The wind's shifting, sir," said the sailing-master. "I'm afraid we
+shan't get round the point this tide, unless we lay her off on the other
+tack."
+
+Turlington shook his head.
+
+"There are letters waiting for me at Bideford," he said. "We have lost
+two days in the calm. I must send ashore to the post-office, whether we
+lose the tide or not."
+
+The vessel held on her course. Off the port of Bideford, the boat was
+sent ashore to the post-office, the yacht standing off and on, waiting
+the appearance of the letters. In the shortest time in which it was
+possible to bring them on board the letters were in Turlington's hands.
+
+The men were hauling the boat up to the davits, the yacht was already
+heading off from the land, when Turlington startled everybody by one
+peremptory word--"Stop!"
+
+He had thrust all his letters but one into the pocket of his sailing
+jacket, without reading them. The one letter which he had opened he held
+in his closed hand. Rage was in his staring eyes, consternation was on
+his pale lips.
+
+"Lower the boat!" he shouted; "I must get to London to-night." He
+stopped Sir Joseph, approaching him with opened mouth. "There's no time
+for questions and answers. I must get back." He swung himself over the
+side of the yacht, and addressed the sailing-master from the boat. "Save
+the tide if you can; if you can't, put them ashore to-morrow at Minehead
+or Watchet--wherever they like." He beckoned to Sir Joseph to lean over
+the bulwark, and hear something he had to say in private. "Remember what
+I told you about Launcelot Linzie!" he whispered fiercely. His parting
+look was for Natalie. He spoke to her with a strong constraint on
+himself, as gently as he could. "Don't be alarmed; I shall see you in
+London." He seated himself in the boat and took the tiller. The last
+words they heard him say were words urging the men at the oars to
+lose no time. He was invariably brutal with the men. "Pull, you lazy
+beggars!" he exclaimed, with an oath. "Pull for your lives!"
+
+
+
+
+THIRD SCENE.
+
+The Money Market.
+
+Let us be serious.--Business!
+
+The new scene plunges us head foremost into the affairs of the Levant
+trading-house of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca. What on earth do we
+know about the Levant Trade? Courage! If we have ever known what it is
+to want money we are perfectly familiar with the subject at starting.
+The Levant Trade does occasionally get into difficulties.--Turlington
+wanted money.
+
+The letter which had been handed to him on board the yacht was from his
+third partner, Mr. Branca, and was thus expressed:
+
+"A crisis in the trade. All right, so far--except our business with
+the small foreign firms. Bills to meet from those quarters, (say) forty
+thousand pounds--and, I fear, no remittances to cover them. Particulars
+stated in another letter addressed to you at Post-office, Ilfracombe. I
+am quite broken down with anxiety, and confined to my bed. Pizzituti is
+still detained at Smyrna. Come back at once."
+
+The same evening Turlington was at his office in Austin Friars,
+investigating the state of affairs, with his head clerk to help him.
+
+Stated briefly, the business of the firm was of the widely miscellaneous
+sort. They plied a brisk trade in a vast variety of commodities. Nothing
+came amiss to them, from Manchester cotton manufactures to Smyrna figs.
+They had branch houses at Alexandria and Odessa, and correspondents
+here, there, and everywhere, along the shores of the Mediterranean, and
+in the ports of the East. These correspondents were the persons alluded
+to in Mr. Branca's letter as "small foreign firms;" and they had
+produced the serious financial crisis in the affairs of the great house
+in Austin Friars, which had hurried Turlington up to London.
+
+Every one of these minor firms claimed and received the privilege of
+drawing bills on Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca for amounts varying
+from four to six thousand pounds--on no better security than a verbal
+understanding that the money to pay the bills should be forwarded before
+they fell due. Competition, it is needless to say, was at the bottom of
+this insanely reckless system of trading. The native firms laid it down
+as a rule that they would decline to transact business with any house
+in the trade which refused to grant them their privilege. In the ease of
+Turlington's house, the foreign merchants had drawn their bills on him
+for sums large in the aggregate, if not large in themselves; had long
+since turned those bills into cash in their own markets, for their own
+necessities; and had now left the money which their paper represented
+to be paid by their London correspondents as it fell due. In some
+instances, they had sent nothing but promises and excuses. In others,
+they had forwarded drafts on firms which had failed already, or which
+were about to fail, in the crisis. After first exhausting his
+resources in ready money, Mr. Branca had provided for the more pressing
+necessities by pledging the credit of the house, so far as he _could_
+pledge it without exciting suspicion of the truth. This done, there were
+actually left, between that time and Christmas, liabilities to be met to
+the extent of forty thousand pounds, without a farthing in hand to pay
+that formidable debt.
+
+After working through the night, this was the conclusion at which
+Richard Turlington arrived, when the rising sun looked in at him through
+the windows of his private room.
+
+The whole force of the blow had fallen on _him_. The share of his
+partners in the business was of the most trifling nature. The capital
+was his, the risk was his. Personally and privately, _he_ had to find
+the money, or to confront the one other alternative--ruin.
+
+How was the money to be found?
+
+With his position in the City, he had only to go to the famous
+money-lending and discounting house of Bulpit Brothers--reported to
+"turn over" millions in their business every year--and to supply himself
+at once with the necessary funds. Forty thousand pounds was a trifling
+transaction to Bulpit Brothers.
+
+Having got the money, how, in the present state of his trade, was the
+loan to be paid back?
+
+His thoughts reverted to his marriage with Natalie.
+
+"Curious!" he said to himself, recalling his conversation with Sir
+Joseph on board the yacht. "Graybrooke told me he would give his
+daughter half his fortune on her marriage. Half Graybrooke's fortune
+happens to be just forty thousand pounds!" He took a turn in the room.
+No! It was impossible to apply to Sir Joseph. Once shake Sir Joseph's
+conviction of his commercial solidity, and the marriage would be
+certainly deferred--if not absolutely broken off. Sir Joseph's fortune
+could be made available, in the present emergency, in but one way--he
+might use it to repay his debt. He had only to make the date at which
+the loan expired coincide with the date of his marriage, and there
+was his father-in-law's money at his disposal, or at his wife's
+disposal--which meant the same thing. "It's well I pressed Graybrooke
+about the marriage when I did!" he thought. "I can borrow the money at a
+short date. In three months from this Natalie will be my wife."
+
+He drove to his club to get breakfast, with his mind cleared, for the
+time being, of all its anxieties but one.
+
+Knowing where he could procure the loan, he was by no means equally sure
+of being able to find the security on which he could borrow the
+money. Living up to his income; having no expectations from any living
+creature; possessing in landed property only some thirty or forty
+acres in Somersetshire, with a quaint little dwelling, half farm house,
+half-cottage, attached--he was incapable of providing the needful
+security from his own personal resources. To appeal to wealthy friends
+in the City would be to let those friends into the secret of his
+embarrassments, and to put his credit in peril. He finished his
+breakfast, and went back to Austin Friars--failing entirely, so far, to
+see how he was to remove the last obstacle now left in his way.
+
+The doors were open to the public; business had begun. He had not been
+ten minutes in his room before the shipping-clerk knocked at the door
+and interrupted him, still absorbed in his own anxious thoughts.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, irritably.
+
+"Duplicate Bills of Lading, sir," answered the clerk, placing the
+documents on his ma ster's table.
+
+Found! There was the security on his writing-desk, staring him in the
+face! He dismissed the clerk and examined the papers.
+
+They contained an account of goods shipped to the London house on board
+vessels sailing from Smyrna and Odessa, and they were signed by the
+masters of the ships, who thereby acknowledged the receipt of the goods,
+and undertook to deliver them safely to the persons owning them, as
+directed. First copies of these papers had already been placed in the
+possession of the London house. The duplicates had now followed, in
+case of accident. Richard Turlington instantly determined to make the
+duplicates serve as his security, keeping the first copies privately
+under lock and key, to be used in obtaining possession of the goods
+at the customary time. The fraud was a fraud in appearance only. The
+security was a pure formality. His marriage would supply him with the
+funds needed for repaying the money, and the profits of his business
+would provide, in course of time, for restoring the dowry of his wife.
+It was simply a question of preserving his credit by means which were
+legitimately at his disposal. Within the lax limits of mercantile
+morality, Richard Turlington had a conscience. He put on his hat and
+took his false security to the money-lenders, without feeling at all
+lowered in his own estimation as an honest man.
+
+Bulpit Brothers, long desirous of having such a name as his on their
+books, received him with open arms. The security (covering the amount
+borrowed) was accepted as a matter of course. The money was lent, for
+three months, with a stroke of the pen. Turlington stepped out again
+into the street, and confronted the City of London in the character of
+the noblest work of mercantile creation--a solvent man.*
+
+The Fallen Angel, walking invisibly behind, in Richard's shadow, flapped
+his crippled wings in triumph. From that moment the Fallen Angel had got
+him.
+
+     * It may not be amiss to remind the incredulous reader that
+     a famous firm in the City accepted precisely the same
+     security as that here accepted by Bulpit Brothers, with the
+     same sublime indifference to troubling themselves by making
+     any inquiry about it.
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH SCENE.
+
+Muswell Hill.
+
+The next day Turlington drove to the suburbs, on the chance of finding
+the Graybrookes at home again. Sir Joseph disliked London, and could
+not prevail on himself to live any nearer to the metropolis than Muswell
+Hill. When Natalie wanted a change, and languished for balls, theaters,
+flower-shows, and the like, she had a room especially reserved for her
+in the house of Sir Joseph's married sister, Mrs. Sancroft, living in
+that central deep of the fashionable whirlpool known among mortals as
+Berkeley Square.
+
+On his way through the streets, Turlington encountered a plain proof
+that the Graybrookes must have returned. He was passed by Launce,
+driving, in company with a gentleman, in a cab. The gentleman was
+Launce's brother, and the two were on their way to the Commissioners
+of Police to make the necessary arrangements for instituting an inquiry
+into Turlington's early life.
+
+Arrived at the gate of the villa, the information received only
+partially fulfilled the visitor's expectations. The family had returned
+on the previous evening. Sir Joseph and his sister were at home, but
+Natalie was away again already. She had driven into town to lunch with
+her aunt. Turlington went into the house.
+
+"Have you lost any money?" Those were the first words uttered by Sir
+Joseph when he and Richard met again, after the parting on board the
+yacht.
+
+"Not a farthing. I might have lost seriously, if I had not got back in
+time to set things straight. Stupidity on the part of my people left in
+charge--nothing more. It's all right now."
+
+Sir Joseph lifted his eyes, with heartfelt devotion, to the ceiling.
+"Thank God, Richard!" he said, in tones of the deepest feeling. He rang
+the bell. "Tell Miss Graybrooke Mr. Turlington is here." He turned again
+to Richard. "Lavinia is like me--Lavinia has been so anxious about you.
+We have both of us passed a sleepless night." Miss Lavinia came in. Sir
+Joseph hurried to meet her, and took her affectionately by both hands.
+"My dear! the best of all good news, Richard has not lost a farthing."
+Miss Lavinia lifted _her_ eyes to the ceiling with heartfelt devotion,
+and said, "Thank God, Richard!"--like the echo of her brother's voice;
+a little late, perhaps, for its reputation as an echo, but accurate to
+half a note in its perfect repetition of sound.
+
+Turlington asked the question which it had been his one object to put in
+paying his visit to Muswell Hill.
+
+"Have you spoken to Natalie?"
+
+"This morning," replied Sir Joseph. "An opportunity offered itself after
+breakfast. I took advantage of it, Richard--you shall hear how."
+
+He settled himself in his chair for one of his interminable stories; he
+began his opening sentence--and stopped, struck dumb at the first
+word. There was an unexpected obstacle in the way--his sister was not
+attending to him; his sister had silenced him at starting. The story
+touching, this time, on the question of marriage, Miss Lavinia had her
+woman's interest in seeing full justice done to the subject. She seized
+on her brother's narrative as on property in her own right.
+
+"Joseph should have told you," she began, addressing herself to
+Turlington, "that our dear girl was unusually depressed in spirits this
+morning. Quite in the right frame of mind for a little serious talk
+about her future life. She ate nothing at breakfast, poor child, but a
+morsel of dry toast."
+
+"And marmalade," said Sir Joseph, striking in at the first opportunity.
+The story, on this occasion, being Miss Lavinia's story, the polite
+contradictions necessary to its successful progress were naturally
+transferred from the sister to the brother, and became contradictions on
+Sir Joseph's side.
+
+"No," said Miss Lavinia, gently, "if you _will_ have it, Joseph--jam."
+
+"I beg your pardon," persisted Sir Joseph; "marmalade."
+
+"What _does_ it matter, brother?"
+
+"Sister! the late great and good Doctor Johnson said accuracy ought
+always to be studied even in the most trifling things."
+
+"You _will_ have your way, Joseph--"(this was the formula--answering
+to Sir Joseph's 'Let us waive the point'--which Miss Lavinia used, as
+a means of conciliating her brother, and getting a fresh start for her
+story). "Well, we took dear Natalie out between us, after breakfast,
+for a little walk in the grounds. My brother opened the subject with
+infinite delicacy and tact. 'Circumstances,' he said, 'into which it was
+not then necessary to enter, made it very desirable, young as she was,
+to begin to think of her establishment in life.' And then he referred,
+Richard (so nicely), to your faithful and devoted attachment--"
+
+"Excuse me, Lavinia. I began with Richard's attachment, and then I got
+on to her establishment in life."
+
+"Excuse _me_, Joseph. You managed it much more delicately than you
+suppose. You didn't drag Richard in by the head and shoulders in that
+way."
+
+"Lavinia! I began with Richard."
+
+"Joseph! your memory deceives you."
+
+Turlington's impatience broke through all restraint.
+
+"How did it end?" he asked. "Did you propose to her that we should be
+married in the first week of the New Year?"
+
+"Yes!" said Miss Lavinia.
+
+"No!" said Sir Joseph.
+
+The sister looked at the brother with an expression of affectionate
+surprise. The brother looked at the sister with a fund of amiable
+contradiction, expressed in a low bow.
+
+"Do you really mean to deny, Joseph, that you told Natalie we had
+decided on the first week in the New Year?"
+
+"I deny the New Year, Lavinia. I said early in January."
+
+"You _will_ have your way, Joseph! We were walking in the shrubbery at
+the time. I had our dear girl's arm in mine, and I felt it tremble.
+She suddenly stopped. 'Oh,' she said, 'not so soon!' I said, 'My dear,
+consider Richard!' She turned to her father. She said, 'Don't, pray
+don't press it so soon, papa! I respect Richard; I like Richard as your
+true and faithful friend; but I don't love him as I ought to love him
+if I am to be his wife.' Imagine her talking in that way! What could she
+possibly know about it? Of course we both laughed--"
+
+"_you_ laughed, Lavinia."
+
+"_you_ laughed, Joseph."
+
+"Get on, for God's sake!" cried Turlington, striking his hand
+passionately on the table by which he was sitting. "Don't madden me by
+contradicting each other! Did she give way or not?"
+
+Miss Lavinia turned to her brother. "Contradicting each other, Joseph!"
+she exclaimed, lifting her hands in blank amazement.
+
+"Contradicting each other!" repeated Sir Joseph, equally astonished on
+his side. "My dear Richard, what can you be thinking of? I contradict my
+sister! We never disagreed in our lives."
+
+"I contradict my brother! We have never had a cross word between us from
+the time when we were children."
+
+Turlington internally cursed his own irritable temper.
+
+"I beg your pardon--both of you," he said. "I didn't know what I was
+saying. Make some allowance for me. All my hopes in life are centered in
+Natalie; and you have just told me (in her own words, Miss Lavinia) that
+she doesn't love. You don't mean any harm, I dare say; but you cut me to
+the heart."
+
+This confession, and the look that accompanied it, touched the ready
+sympathies of the two old people in the right place. The remainder of
+the story dropped between them by common consent. They vied with each
+other in saying the comforting words which would allay their dear
+Richard's anxiety. How little he knew of young girls. How could he be
+so foolish, poor fellow! as to attach any serious importance to what
+Natalie had said? As if a young creature in her teens knew the state of
+her own heart! Protestations and entreaties were matters of course, in
+such cases. Tears even might be confidently expected from a right-minded
+girl. It had all ended exactly as Richard would have wished it to end.
+Sir Joseph had said, "My child! this is a matter of experience; love
+will come when you are married." And Miss Lavinia had added, "Dear
+Natalie, if you remembered your poor mother as I remember her, you would
+know that your father's experience is to be relied on." In that way they
+had put it to her; and she had hung her head and had given--all that
+maiden modesty could be expected to give--a silent consent. "The
+wedding-day was fixed for the first week in the New Year." ("No, Joseph;
+not January--the New Year.") "And God bless you, Richard! and may your
+married life be a long and happy one."
+
+So the average ignorance of human nature, and the average belief in
+conventional sentiment, complacently contemplated the sacrifice of one
+more victim on the all-devouring altar of Marriage! So Sir Joseph and
+his sister provided Launcelot Linzie with the one argument which he
+wanted to convince Natalie: "Choose between making the misery of
+your life by marrying _him_, and making the happiness of your life by
+marrying _me._"
+
+"When shall I see her?" asked Turlington, with Miss Lavinia (in tears
+which did _her_ credit) in possession of one of his hands, and Sir
+Joseph (in tears which did _him_ credit) in possession of the other.
+
+"She will be back to dinner, dear Richard. Stay and dine."
+
+"Thank you. I must go into the City first. I will come back and dine."
+
+With that arrangement in prospect, he left them.
+
+An hour later a telegram arrived from Natalie. She had consented to
+dine, as well as lunch, in Berkeley Square--sleeping there that night,
+and returning the next morning. Her father instantly telegraphed back
+by the messenger, insisting on Natalie's return to Muswell Hill that
+evening, in time to meet Richard Turlington at dinner.
+
+"Quite right. Joseph," said Miss Lavinia, looking over her brother's
+shoulder, while he wrote the telegram.
+
+"She is showing a disposition to coquet with Richard," rejoined Sir
+Joseph, with the air of a man who knew female human nature in its
+remotest corners. "My telegram, Lavinia, will have its effect."
+
+Sir Joseph was quite right. His telegram _had_ its effect. It not only
+brought his daughter back to dinner--it produced another result which
+his prophetic faculty had altogether failed to foresee.
+
+The message reached Berkeley Square at five o'clock in the afternoon.
+Let us follow the message.
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH SCENE.
+
+The Square.
+
+Between four and five in the afternoon--when the women of the Western
+regions are in their carriages, and the men are at their clubs--London
+presents few places more conveniently adapted for purposes of private
+talk than the solitary garden inclosure of a square.
+
+On the day when Richard Turlington paid his visit to Muswell Hill, two
+ladies (with a secret between them) unlocked the gate of the railed
+garden in Berkeley Square. They shut the gate after entering the
+inclosure, but carefully forbore to lock it as well, and carefully
+restricted their walk to the westward side of the garden. One of them
+was Natalie Graybrooke. The other was Mrs. Sancroft's eldest daughter.
+A certain temporary interest attached, in the estimation of society,
+to this young lady. She had sold well in the marriage market. In other
+words, she had recently been raised to the position of Lord Winwood's
+second wife; his lordship conferring on the bride not only the honors of
+the peerage, but the additional distinction of being stepmother to his
+three single daughters, all older than herself. In person, Lady Winwood
+was little and fair. In character, she was dashing and resolute--a
+complete contrast to Natalie, and (on that very account) Natalie's bosom
+friend.
+
+"My dear, one ambitious marriage in the family is quite enough! I have
+made up my mind that _you_ shall marry the man you love. Don't tell me
+your courage is failing you--the excuse is contemptible; I decline to
+receive it. Natalie! the men have a phrase which exactly describes your
+character. You want back-bone!"
+
+The bonnet of the lady who expressed herself in these peremptory terms
+barely reached the height of Natalie's shoulder. Natalie might have
+blown the little airy, light-haired, unsubstantial creature over the
+railings of the garden if she had taken a good long breath and stooped
+low enough. But who ever met with a tall woman who had a will of her
+own? Natalie's languid brown eyes looked softly down in submissive
+attention from an elevation of five feet seven. Lady Winwood's brisk
+blue eyes looked brightly up in despotic command from an elevation of
+four feet eleven (in her shoes).
+
+"You are trifling with Mr. Linzie, my dear. Mr. Linzie is a nice fellow.
+I like him. I won't have that."
+
+"Louisa!"
+
+"Mr. Turlington has nothing to recommend him. He is not a well-bred old
+gentleman of exalted rank. He is only an odious brute who happens to
+have made money. You shall _not_ marry Mr. Turlington. And you _shall_
+marry Launcelot Linzie."
+
+"Will you let me speak, Louisa?"
+
+"I will let you answer--nothing more. Didn't you come crying to me this
+morning? Didn't you say, 'Louisa, they have pronounced sentence on me!
+I am to be married in the first week of the New Year. Help me out of it,
+for Heaven's sake!' You said all that, and more. And what did I do when
+I heard your story?"
+
+"Oh, you were so kind--"
+
+"Kind doesn't half express it. I have committed crimes on your account.
+I have deceived my husband and my mother. For your sake I got mamma to
+ask Mr. Linzie to lunch (as _my_ friend!). For your sake I have banished
+my unoffending husband, not an hour since, to his club. You wretched
+girl, who arranged a private conference in the library? Who sent Mr.
+Linzie off to consult his friend in the Temple on the law of clandestine
+marriage? Who suggested your telegraphing home, and stopping here for
+the night? Who made an appointment to meet your young man privately in
+this detestable place in ten minutes' time? I did! I did! I did! All in
+your interests. All to prevent you from doing what I have done--marrying
+to please your family instead of to please yourself. (I don't complain,
+mind, of Lord Winwood, or of his daughters. _He_ is charming; his
+daughters I shall tame in course of time. You are different. And Mr.
+Turlington, as I observed before, is a brute.) Very well. Now what do
+you owe me on your side? You owe it to me at least to know your own
+mind. You don't know it. You coolly inform me that you daren't run
+the risk after all, and that you can't face the consequences on second
+thoughts. I'll tell you what! You don't deserve that nice fellow, who
+worships the very ground you tread on. You are a bread-and-butter miss.
+I don't believe you are fond of him!"
+
+"Not fond of him!" Natalie stopped, and clasped her hands in despair of
+finding language strong enough for the occasion. At the same moment the
+sound of a closing gate caught her ear. She looked round. Launce had
+kept his appointment before his time. Launce was in the garden, rapidly
+approaching them.
+
+"Now for the Law of Clandestine Marriage!" said Lady Winwood. "Mr.
+Linzie, we will take it sitting." She led the way to one of the benches
+in the garden, and placed Launce between Natalie and herself. "Well,
+Chief Conspirator, have you got the License? No? Does it cost too much?
+Can I lend you the money?"
+
+"It costs perjury, Lady Winwood, in my case," said Launce. "Natalie is
+not of age. I can only get a License by taking my oath that I marry her
+with her father's consent." He turned piteously to Natalie. "I couldn't
+very well do that," he said, in the tone of a man who feels bound to
+make an apology, "could I?" Natalie shuddered; Lady Winwood shrugged her
+shoulders.
+
+"In your place a woman wouldn't have hesitated," her ladyship remarked.
+"But men are so selfish. Well! I suppose there is some other way?"
+
+"Yes, there is another way," said Launce. "But there is a horrid
+condition attached to it--"
+
+"Something worse than perjury, Mr. Linzie? Murder?"
+
+"I'll tell you directly, Lady Winwood. The marriage comes first. The
+condition follows. There is only one chance for us. We must be married
+by banns."
+
+"Banns!" cried Natalie. "Why, banns are publicly proclaimed in church!"
+
+"They needn't be proclaimed in _your_ church, you goose," said Lady
+Winwood. "And, even if they were, nobody would be the wiser. You may
+trust implicitly, my dear, in the elocution of an English clergyman!"
+
+"That's just what my friend said," cried Launce. "'Take a lodging near
+a large parish church, in a remote part of London'--(this is my friend's
+advice)--'go to the clerk, tell him you want to be married by banns, and
+say you belong to that parish. As for the lady, in your place I should
+simplify it. I should say she belonged to the parish too. Give an
+address, and have some one there to answer questions. How is the
+clerk to know? He isn't likely to be over-anxious about it--his fee is
+eighteen-pence. The clerk makes his profit out of you, after you are
+married. The same rule applies to the parson. He will have your names
+supplied to him on a strip of paper, with dozens of other names; and he
+will read them out all together in one inarticulate jumble in church.
+You will stand at the altar when your time comes, with Brown and Jones,
+Nokes and Styles, Jack and Gill. All that you will have to do is, to
+take care that your young lady doesn't fall to Jack, and you to Gill,
+by mistake--and there you are, married by banns.' My friend's opinion,
+stated in his own words."
+
+Natalie sighed, and wrung her hands in her lap. "We shall never get
+through it," she said, despondingly.
+
+Lady Winwood took a more cheerful view.
+
+"I see nothing very formidable as yet, my dear. But we have still to
+hear the end of it. You mentioned a condition just now, Mr. Linzie.
+
+"I am coming to the condition, Lady Winwood. You naturally suppose, as
+I did, that I put Natalie into a cab, and run away with her from the
+church door?"
+
+"Certainly. And I throw an old shoe after you for luck, and go home
+again."
+
+Launce shook his head ominously.
+
+"Natalie must go home again as well as you!"
+
+Lady Winwood started. "Is that the condition you mentioned just now?"
+she asked.
+
+"That is the condition. I may marry her without anything serious coming
+of it. But, if I run away with her afterward, and if you are there,
+aiding and abetting me, we are guilty of Abduction, and we may stand,
+side by side, at the bar of the Old Bailey to answer for it!"
+
+Natalie sprang to her feet in horror. Lady Winwood held up one finger
+warningly, signing to her to let Launce go on.
+
+"Natalie is not yet sixteen years old," Launce proceeded. "She must go
+straight back to her father's house from the church, and I must wait
+to run away with her till her next birthday. When she's turned sixteen,
+she's ripe for elopement--not an hour before. There is the law of
+Abduction! Despotism in a free country--that's what I call it!"
+
+Natalie sat down again, with an air of relief.
+
+"It's a very comforting law, I think," she said. "It doesn't force one
+to take the dreadful step of running away from home all at once. It
+gives one time to consider, and plan, and make up one's mind. I can tell
+you this, Launce, if I am to be persuaded into marrying you, the law of
+Abduction is the only thing that will induce me to do it. You ought to
+thank the law, instead of abusing it."
+
+Launce listened--without conviction.
+
+"It's a pleasant prospect," he said, "to part at the church door, and to
+treat my own wife on the footing of a young lady who is engaged to marry
+another gentleman."
+
+"Is it any pleasanter for _me_," retorted Natalie, "to have Richard
+Turlington courting me, when I am all the time your wife? I shall never
+be able to do it. I wish I was dead!"
+
+"Come! come!" interposed Lady Winwood. "It's time to be serious.
+Natalie's birthday, Mr. Linzie, is next Christmas-day. She will be
+sixteen--"
+
+"At seven in the morning," said Launce; "I got that out of Sir Joseph.
+At one minute past seven, Greenwich mean time, we may be off together. I
+got _that_ out of the lawyer."
+
+"And it isn't an eternity to wait from now till Christmas-day. You get
+that, by way of completing the list of your acquisitions, out of
+_me_. In the mean time, can you, or can you not, manage to meet the
+difficulties in the way of the marriage?"
+
+"I have settled everything," Launce answered, confidently. "There is not
+a single difficulty left."
+
+He turned to Natalie, listening to him in amazement, and explained
+himself. It had struck him that he might appeal--with his purse in
+his hand, of course--to the interest felt in his affairs by the late
+stewardess of the yacht. That excellent woman had volunteered to do all
+that she could to help him. Her husband had obtained situations for his
+wife and himself on board another yacht--and they were both eager
+to assist in any conspiracy in which their late merciless master was
+destined to play the part of victim. When on shore, they lived in
+a populous London parish, far away from the fashionable district of
+Berkeley Square, and further yet from the respectable suburb of Muswell
+Hill. A room in the house could be nominally engaged for Natalie, in the
+assumed character of the stewardess's niece--the stewardess undertaking
+to answer any purely formal questions which might be put by the church
+authorities, and to be present at the marriage ceremony. As for Launce,
+he would actually, as well as nominally, live in the district close by;
+and the steward, if needful, would answer for _him_. Natalie might call
+at her parochial residence occasionally, under the wing of Lady Winwood;
+gaining leave of absence from Muswell Hill, on the plea of paying one of
+her customary visits at her aunt's house. The conspiracy, in brief, was
+arranged in all its details. Nothing was now wanting but the consent of
+the young lady; obtaining which, Launce would go to the parish church
+and give the necessary notice of a marriage by banns on the next day.
+There was the plot. What did the ladies think of it?
+
+Lady Winwood thought it perfect.
+
+Natalie was not so easily satisfied.
+
+"My father has always been so kind to me!" she said. "The one thing
+I can't get over, Launce, is distressing papa. If he had been hard on
+me--as some fathers are--I shouldn't mind." She suddenly brightened, as
+if she saw her position in a new light. "Why should you hurry me?" she
+asked. "I am going to dine at my aunt's to-day, and you are coming in
+the evening. Give me time! Wait till to-night."
+
+Launce instantly entered his protest against wasting a moment longer.
+Lady Winwood opened her lips to support him. They were both silenced at
+the same moment by the appearance of one of Mrs. Sancroft's servants,
+opening the gate of the square.
+
+Lady Winwood went forward to meet the man. A suspicion crossed her mind
+that he might be bringing bad news.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked.
+
+"I beg your pardon, my lady--the housekeeper said you were walking here
+with Miss Graybrooke. A telegram for Miss Graybrooke."
+
+Lady Winwood took the telegram from the man's hand; dismissed him, and
+went back with it to Natalie. Natalie opened it nervously. She read
+the message--and instantly changed. Her cheeks flushed deep; her eyes
+flashed with indignation. "Even papa can be hard on me, it seems, when
+Richard asks him!" she exclaimed. She handed the telegram to Launce. Her
+eyes suddenly filled with tears. "_You_ love me," she said, gently--and
+stopped. "Marry me!" she added, with a sudden burst of resolution. "I'll
+risk it!"
+
+As she spoke those words, Lady Winwood read the telegram. It ran thus:
+
+"Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Muswell Hill. To Miss Natalie Graybrooke;
+Berkeley Square. Come back immediately. You are engaged to dine here
+with Richard Turlington."
+
+Lady Winwood folded up the telegram with a malicious smile. "Well
+done, Sir Joseph!" thought her ladyship. "We might never have persuaded
+Natalie--but for You!"
+
+
+
+
+SIXTH SCENE.
+
+The Church.
+
+The time is morning; the date is early in the month of November. The
+place is a church, in a poor and populous parish in the undiscovered
+regions of London, eastward of the Tower, and hard by the river-side.
+
+A marriage procession of five approaches the altar The bridegroom
+is pale, and the bride is frightened. The bride's friend (a
+resolute-looking little lady) encourages her in whispers. The two
+respectable persons, apparently man and wife, who complete the
+procession, seem to be not quite clear as to the position which they
+occupy at the ceremony. The beadle, as he marshals them before the
+altar, sees something under the surface in this wedding-party. Marriages
+in the lower ranks of life are the only marriages celebrated here. Is
+this a runaway match? The beadle anticipates something out of the common
+in the shape of a fee.
+
+The clergyman (the junior curate) appears from the vestry in his robes.
+The clerk takes his place. The clergyman's eye rests with a sudden
+interest and curiosity on the bride and bridegroom, and on the bride's
+friend; notices the absence of elderly relatives; remarks, in the
+two ladies especially, evidences of refinement and breeding entirely
+unparalleled in his professional experience of brides and brides'
+friends standing before the altar of that church; questions, silently
+and quickly, the eye of the clerk, occupied also in observing the
+strangers with interest "Jenkinson" (the clergyman's look asks), "is
+this all right?" "Sir" (the clerk's look answers), "a marriage by banns;
+all the formalities have been observed." The clergyman opens his book.
+The formalities have been observed; his duty lies plainly before him.
+Attention, Launcelot! Courage, Natalie! The service begins.
+
+Launce casts a last furtive look round the church. Will Sir Joseph
+Graybrooke start up and stop it from one of the empty pews? Is Richard
+Turlington lurking in the organ-loft, and only waiting till the words of
+the service appeal to him to prohibit the marriage, or "else hereafter
+forever to hold his peace?" No. The clergyman proceeds steadily,
+and nothing happens. Natalie's charming face grows paler and paler,
+Natalie's heart throbs faster and faster, as the time comes nearer for
+reading the words which unite them for life. Lady Winwood herself feels
+an unaccustomed fluttering in the region of the bosom. Her ladyship's
+thoughts revert, not altogether pleasantly, to her own marriage: "Ah
+me! what was I thinking of when I was in this position? Of the bride's
+beautiful dress, and of Lady Winwood's coming presentation at court!"
+
+The service advances to the words in which they plight their troth.
+Launce has put the ring on her finger. Launce has repeated the words
+after the clergyman. Launce has married her! Done! Come what may of it,
+done!
+
+The service ends. Bridegroom, bride, and witnesses go into the vestry
+to sign the book. The signing, like the service, is serious. No trifling
+with the truth is possible here. When it comes to Lady Winwood's turn,
+Lady Winwood must write her name. She does it, but without her usual
+grace and decision. She drops her handkerchief. The clerk picks it up
+for her, and notices that a coronet is embroidered in one corner.
+
+The fees are paid. They leave the vestry. Other couples, when it is
+over, are talkative and happy. These two are more silent and more
+embarrassed than ever. Stranger still, while other couples go off with
+relatives and friends, all socially united in honor of the occasion,
+these two and their friends part at the church door. The respectable man
+and his wife go their way on foot. The little lady with the coronet on
+her handkerchief puts the bride into a cab, gets in herself, and directs
+the driver to close the door, while the bridegroom is standing on the
+church steps! The bridegroom's face is clouded, as well it may be. He
+puts his head in at the window of the cab; he possesses himself of the
+bride's hand; he speaks in a whisper; he is apparently not to be shaken
+off. The little lady exerts her authority, separates the clasped hands,
+pushes the bridegroom away, and cries peremptorily to the driver to go
+on. The cab starts; the deserted husband drifts desolately anyhow down
+the street. The clerk, who has seen it all, goes back to the vestry and
+reports what has happened.
+
+The rector (with his wife on his arm) has just dropped into the vestry
+on business in passing. He and the curate are talking about the strange
+marriage. The rector, gravely bent on ascertaining that no blame rests
+with the church, interrogates, and is satisfied. The rector's wife is
+not so easy to deal with. She has looked at the signatures in the book.
+One of the names is familiar to her. She cross-examines the clerk as
+soon as her husband is done with him. When she hears of the coronet on
+the handkerchief she points to the signature of "Louisa Winwood," and
+says to the rector, "I know who it is! Lord Winwood's second wife. I
+went to school with his lordship's daughters by his first marriage. We
+occasionally meet at the Sacred Concerts (on the 'Ladies' Committee');
+I shall find an opportunity of speaking to them. One moment, Mr.
+Jenkinson, I will write down the names before you put away the book.
+'Launcelot Linzie,' 'Natalie Graybrooke.' Very pretty names; quite
+romantic. I do delight in a romance. Good-morning."
+
+She gives the curate a parting smile, and the clerk a parting nod, and
+sails out of the vestry. Natalie, silently returning in Lady Winwood's
+company to Muswell Hill; and Launce, cursing the law of Abduction as he
+roams the streets--little think that the ground is already mined under
+their feet. Richard Turlington may hear of it now, or may hear of
+it later. The discovery of the marriage depends entirely on a chance
+meeting between the lord's daughters and the rector's wife.
+
+
+
+
+SEVENTH SCENE.
+
+The Evening Party.
+
+
+---------------------------------------------------- MR. TURLINGTON,
+
+LADY WINWOOD At Home.
+
+Wednesday, December 15th.--Ten o'clock.
+----------------------------------------------------
+
+"Dearest Natalie--As the brute insists, the brute must have the
+invitation which I inclose. Never mind, my child. You and Launce are
+coming to dinner, and I will see that you have your little private
+opportunities of retirement afterward. All I expect of you in return is,
+_not_ to look (when you come back) as if your husband had been kissing
+you. You will certainly let out the secret of those stolen kisses, if
+you don't take care. At mamma's dinner yesterday, your color (when you
+came out of the conservatory) was a sight to see. Even your shoulders
+were red! They are charming shoulders, I know, and men take the
+strangest fancies sometimes. But, my dear, suppose you wear a chemisette
+next time, if you haven't authority enough over him to prevent his doing
+it again!
+
+"Your affectionate LOUISA."
+
+The private history of the days that had passed since the marriage was
+written in that letter. An additional chapter--of some importance in its
+bearing on the future--was contributed by the progress of events at Lady
+Winwood's party.
+
+By previous arrangement with Natalie, the Graybrookes (invited to
+dinner) arrived early. Leaving her husband and her stepdaughters to
+entertain Sir Joseph and Miss Lavinia, Lady Winwood took Natalie into
+her own boudoir, which communicated by a curtained opening with the
+drawing-room.
+
+"My dear, you are looking positively haggard this evening. Has anything
+happened?"
+
+"I am nearly worn out, Louisa. The life I am leading is so unendurable
+that, if Launce pressed me, I believe I should consent to run away with
+him when we leave your house tonight."
+
+"You will do nothing of the sort, if you please. Wait till you are
+sixteen. I delight in novelty, but the novelty of appearing at the Old
+Bailey is beyond my ambition. Is the brute coming to-night?"
+
+"Of course. He insists on following me wherever I go. He lunched at
+Muswell Hill today. More complaints of my incomprehensible coldness to
+him. Another scolding from papa. A furious letter from Launce. If I
+let Richard kiss my hand again in his presence, Launce warns me he will
+knock him down. Oh, the meanness and the guiltiness of the life I am
+leading now! I am in the falsest of all false positions, Louisa, and you
+encouraged me to do it. I believe Richard Turlington suspects us. The
+last two times Launce and I tried to get a minute together at my aunt's,
+he contrived to put himself in our way. There he was, my dear, with
+his scowling face, looking as if he longed to kill Launce. Can you do
+anything for us tonight? Not on my account. But Launce is so impatient.
+If he can't say two words to me alone this evening, he declares he will
+come to Muswell Hill, and catch me in the garden tomorrow."
+
+"Compose yourself, my dear; he shall say his two words to-night."
+
+"How?"
+
+Lady Winwood pointed through the curtained entrance of the boudoir to
+the door of the drawing-room. Beyond the door was the staircase landing.
+And beyond the landing was a second drawing-room, the smaller of the
+two.
+
+"There are only three or four people coming to dinner," her ladyship
+proceeded; "and a few more in the evening. Being a small party, the
+small drawing-room will do for us. This drawing-room will not be
+lighted, and there will be only my reading-lamp here in the boudoir. I
+shall give the signal for leaving the dining-room earlier than usual.
+Launce will join us before the evening party begins. The moment he
+appears, send him in here--boldly before your aunt and all of us."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"For your fan. Leave it there under the sofa-cushion before we go down
+to dinner. You will sit next to Launce, and you will give him private
+instructions not to find the fan. You will get impatient--you will go to
+find it yourself--and there you are. Take care of your shoulders, Mrs.
+Linzie! I have nothing more to say."
+
+The guests asked to dinner began to arrive. Lady Winwood was recalled to
+her duties as mistress of the house.
+
+It was a pleasant little dinner--with one drawback. It began too late.
+The ladies only reached the small drawing-room at ten minutes to ten.
+Launce was only able to join them as the clock struck.
+
+"Too late!" whispered Natalie. "He will be here directly."
+
+"Nobody comes punctually to an evening party," said Launce. "Don't let
+us lose a moment. Send me for your fan."
+
+Natalie opened her lips to say the necessary words. Before she could
+speak, the servant announced--"Mr. Turlington."
+
+He came in, with his stiffly-upright shirt collar and his
+loosely-fitting glossy black clothes. He made his sullen and clumsy
+bow to Lady Winwood. And then he did, what he had done dozens of times
+already--he caught Natalie, with her eyes still bright and her face
+still animated (after talking to Launce)--a striking contrast to the
+cold and unimpulsive young lady whom he was accustomed to see while
+Natalie was talking to _him_.
+
+Lord Winwood's daughters were persons of some celebrity in the world of
+amateur music. Noticing the look that Turlington cast at Launce, Lady
+Winwood whispered to Miss Lavinia--who instantly asked the young ladies
+to sing. Launce, in obedience to a sign from Natalie, volunteered to
+find the music-books. It is needless to add that he pitched on the wrong
+volume at starting. As he lifted it from the piano to take it back to
+the stand, there dropped out from between the leaves a printed letter,
+looking like a circular. One of the young ladies took it up, and ran her
+eye over it, with a start.
+
+"The Sacred Concerts!" she exclaimed.
+
+Her two sisters, standing by, looked at each other guiltily: "What will
+the Committee say to us? We entirely forgot the meeting last month."
+
+"Is there a meeting this month?"
+
+They all looked anxiously at the printed letter.
+
+"Yes! The twenty-third of December. Put it down in your book, Amelia."
+Amelia, then and there, put it down among the engagements for the latter
+end of the month. And Natalie's unacknowledged husband placidly looked
+on.
+
+So did the merciless irony of circumstances make Launce the innocent
+means of exposing his own secret to discovery. Thanks to his success
+in laying his hand on the wrong music-book, there would now be a
+meeting--two good days before the elopement could take place--between
+the lord's daughters and the rector's wife!
+
+The guests of the evening began to appear by twos and threes. The
+gentlemen below stairs left the dinner-table, and joined them.
+
+The small drawing-room was pleasantly filled, and no more. Sir Joseph
+Graybrooke, taking Turlington's hand, led him eagerly to their host.
+The talk in the dining-room had turned on finance. Lord Winwood was not
+quite satisfied with some of his foreign investments; and Sir Joseph's
+"dear Richard" was the very man to give him a little sound advice. The
+three laid their heads together in a corner. Launce (watching them)
+slyly pressed Natalie's hand. A renowned "virtuoso" had arrived, and
+was thundering on the piano. The attention of the guests generally was
+absorbed in the performance. A fairer chance of sending Launce for
+the fan could not possibly have offered itself. While the financial
+discussion was still proceeding, the married lovers were ensconced
+together alone in the boudoir.
+
+Lady Winwood (privately observant of their absence) kept her eye on the
+corner, watching Richard Turlington.
+
+He was talking earnestly--with his back toward the company. He neither
+moved nor looked round. It came to Lord Winwood's turn to speak.
+He preserved the same position, listening. Sir Joseph took up the
+conversation next. Then his attention wandered--he knew beforehand what
+Sir Joseph would say. His eyes turned anxiously toward the place in
+which he had left Natalie. Lord Winwood said a word. His head turned
+back again toward the corner. Sir Joseph put an objection. He glanced
+once more over his shoulder--this time at the place in which Launce had
+been standing. The next moment his host recalled his attention, and made
+it impossible for him to continue his scrutiny of the room. At the same
+times two among the evening guests, bound for another party, approached
+to take leave of the lady of the house. Lady Winwood was obliged to
+rise, and attend to them. They had something to say to her before they
+left, and they said it at terrible length, standing so as to intercept
+her view of the proceedings of the enemy. When she had got rid of them
+at last, she looked--and behold Lord Winwood and Sir Joseph were the
+only occupants of the corner!
+
+Delaying one moment, to set the "virtuoso" thundering once more, Lady
+Winwood slipped out of the room and crossed the landing. At the
+entrance to the empty drawing-room she heard Turlington's voice, low and
+threatening, in the boudoir. Jealousy has a Second Sight of its own.
+He had looked in the right place at starting--and, oh heavens! he had
+caught them.
+
+Her ladyship's courage was beyond dispute; but she turned pale as she
+approached the entrance to the boudoir.
+
+There stood Natalie--at once angry and afraid--between the man to
+whom she was ostensibly engaged, and the man to whom she was actually
+married. Turlington's rugged face expressed a martyrdom of suppressed
+fury. Launce--in the act of offering Natalie her fan--smiled, with the
+cool superiority of a man who knew that he had won his advantage, and
+who triumphed in knowing it.
+
+"I forbid you to take your fan from that man's hands," said Turlington,
+speaking to Natalie, and pointing to Launce.
+
+"Isn't it rather too soon to begin 'forbidding'?" asked Lady Winwood,
+good-humoredly.
+
+"Exactly what I say!" exclaimed Launce. "It seems necessary to remind
+Mr. Turlington that he is not married to Natalie yet!"
+
+Those last words were spoken in a tone which made both the women tremble
+inwardly for results. Lady Winwood took the fan from Launce with one
+hand, and took Natalie's arm with the other.
+
+"There is your fan, my dear," she said, in her easy off-hand manner.
+"Why do you allow these two barbarous men to keep you here while the
+great Bootmann is playing the Nightmare Sonata in the next room? Launce!
+Mr. Turlington! follow me, and learn to be musical directly! You have
+only to shut your eyes, and you will fancy you hear four modern German
+composers playing, instead of one, and not the ghost of a melody among
+all the four." She led the way out with Natalie, and whispered, "Did he
+catch you?" Natalie whispered back, "I heard him in time. He only caught
+us looking for the fan." The two men waited behind to have two words
+together alone in the boudoir.
+
+"This doesn't end here, Mr. Linzie!"
+
+Launce smiled satirically. "For once I agree with you," he answered. "It
+doesn't end here, as you say."
+
+Lady Winwood stopped, and looked back at them from the drawing-room
+door. They were keeping her waiting--they had no choice but to follow
+the mistress of the house.
+
+Arrived in the next room, both Turlington and Launce resumed their
+places among the guests with the same object in view. As a necessary
+result of the scene in the boudoir, each had his own special
+remonstrance to address to Sir Joseph. Even here, Launce was beforehand
+with Turlington. He was the first to get possession of Sir Joseph's
+private ear. His complaint took the form of a protest against
+Turlington's jealousy, and an appeal for a reconsideration of the
+sentence which excluded him from Muswell Hill. Watching them from
+a distance, Turlington's suspicious eye detected the appearance of
+something unduly confidential in the colloquy between the two. Under
+cover of the company, he stole behind them and listened.
+
+The great Bootmann had arrived at that part of the Nightmare Sonata in
+which musical sound, produced principally with the left hand, is made to
+describe, beyond all possibility of mistake, the rising of the moon in a
+country church-yard and a dance of Vampires round a maiden's grave. Sir
+Joseph, having no chance against the Vampires in a whisper, was obliged
+to raise his voice to make himself audible in answering and comforting
+Launce. "I sincerely sympathize with you," Turlington heard him say;
+"and Natalie feels about it as I do. But Richard is an obstacle in our
+way. We must look to the consequences, my dear boy, supposing Richard
+found us out." He nodded kindly to his nephew; and, declining to pursue
+the subject, moved away to another part of the room.
+
+Turlington's jealous distrust, wrought to the highest pitch of
+irritability for weeks past, instantly associated the words he had just
+heard with the words spoken by Launce in the boudoir, which had reminded
+him that he was not married to Natalie yet. Was there treachery at work
+under the surface? and was the object to persuade weak Sir Joseph to
+reconsider his daughter's contemplated marriage in a sense favorable
+to Launce? Turlington's blind suspicion overleaped at a bound all the
+manifest improbabilities which forbade such a conclusion as this. After
+an instant's consideration with himself, he decided on keeping his own
+counsel, and on putting Sir Joseph's good faith then and there to a test
+which he could rely on as certain to take Natalie's father by surprise.
+
+"Graybrooke!"
+
+Sir Joseph started at the sight of his future son-in-law's face.
+
+"My dear Richard, you are looking very strangely! Is the heat of the
+room too much for you?"
+
+"Never mind the heat! I have seen enough to-night to justify me in
+insisting that your daughter and Launcelot Linzie shall meet no more
+between this and the day of my marriage." Sir Joseph attempted to speak.
+Turlington declined to give him the opportunity. "Yes! yes! your opinion
+of Linzie isn't mine, I know. I saw you as thick as thieves together
+just now." Sir Joseph once more attempted to make himself heard. Wearied
+by Turlington's perpetual complaints of his daughter and his nephew, he
+was sufficiently irritated by this time to have reported what Launce had
+actually said to him if he had been allowed the chance. But Turlington
+persisted in going on. "I cannot prevent Linzie from being received in
+this house, and at your sister's," he said; "but I can keep him out of
+_my_ house in the country, and to the country let us go. I propose a
+change in the arrangements. Have you any engagement for the Christmas
+holidays?"
+
+He paused, and fixed his eyes attentively on Sir Joseph. Sir Joseph,
+looking a little surprised, replied briefly that he had no engagement.
+
+"In that case," resumed Turlington, "I invite you all to Somersetshire,
+and I propose that the marriage shall take place from my house, and not
+from yours. Do you refuse?"
+
+"It is contrary to the usual course of proceeding in such cases,
+Richard," Sir Joseph began.
+
+"Do you refuse?" reiterated Turlington. "I tell you plainly, I shall
+place a construction of my own upon your motive if you do."
+
+"No, Richard," said Sir Joseph, quietly, "I accept."
+
+Turlington drew back a step in silence. Sir Joseph had turned the tables
+on him, and had taken _him_ by surprise.
+
+"It will upset several plans, and be strongly objected to by the
+ladies," proceeded the old gentleman. "But if nothing less will satisfy
+you, I say, Yes! I shall have occasion, when we meet to-morrow at
+Muswell Hill, to appeal to your indulgence under circumstances which may
+greatly astonish you. The least I can do, in the meantime, is to set an
+example of friendly sympathy and forbearance on my side. No more now,
+Richard. Hush! the music!"
+
+It was impossible to make him explain himself further that night.
+Turlington was left to interpret Sir Joseph's mysterious communication
+with such doubtful aid to success as his own unassisted ingenuity might
+afford.
+
+The meeting of the next day at Muswell Hill had for its object--as
+Turlington had already been informed--the drawing of Natalie's
+marriage-settlement. Was the question of money at the bottom of Sir
+Joseph's contemplated appeal to his indulgence? He thought of his
+commercial position. The depression in the Levant trade still continued.
+Never had his business at any previous time required such constant
+attention, and repaid that attention with so little profit. The Bills
+of Lading had been already used by the firm, in the ordinary course of
+trade, to obtain possession of the goods. The duplicates in the hands
+of Bulpit Brothers were literally waste paper. Repayment of the loan
+of forty thousand pounds (with interest) was due in less than a
+month's time. There was his commercial position! Was it possible that
+money-loving Sir Joseph had any modification to propose in the matter
+of his daughter's dowry? The bare dread that it might be so struck him
+cold. He quitted the house--and forgot to wish Natalie goodnight.
+
+Meanwhile, Launce had left the evening party before him--and Launce
+also found matter for serious reflection presented to his mind before he
+slept that night. In other words, he found, on reaching his lodgings,
+a letter from his brother marked "private." Had the inquiry into the
+secrets of Turlington's early life--now prolonged over some weeks--led
+to positive results at last? Launce eagerly opened the letter. It
+contained a Report and a Summary. He passed at once to the Summary, and
+read these words:
+
+"If you only want moral evidence to satisfy your own mind, your end is
+gained. There is, morally, no doubt that Turlington and the sea-captain
+who cast the foreign sailor overboard to drown are on e and the same
+man. Legally, the matter is beset by difficulties, Turlington having
+destroyed all provable connection between his present self and his past
+life. There is only one chance for us. A sailor on board the ship (who
+was in his master's secrets) is supposed to be still living (under his
+master's protection). All the black deeds of Turlington's early life are
+known to this man. He can prove the facts, if we can find him, and make
+it worth his while to speak. Under what alias he is hidden we do not
+know. His own name is Thomas Wildfang. If we are to make the attempt to
+find him, not a moment is to be lost. The expenses may be serious. Let
+me know whether we are to go on, or whether enough has been done to
+attain the end you have in view."
+
+Enough had been done--not only to satisfy Launce, but to produce the
+right effect on Sir Joseph's mind if Sir Joseph proved obdurate when the
+secret of the marriage was revealed. Launce wrote a line directing the
+stoppage of the proceedings at the point which they had now reached.
+"Here is a reason for her not marrying Turlington," he said to himself,
+as he placed the papers under lock and key. "And if she doesn't marry
+Turlington," he added, with a lover's logic, "why shouldn't she marry
+Me?"
+
+
+
+
+EIGHTH SCENE.
+
+The Library.
+
+The next day Sir Joseph Graybrooke, Sir Joseph's lawyer, Mr. Dicas
+(highly respectable and immensely rich), and Richard Turlington were
+assembled in the library at Muswell Hill, to discuss the question of
+Natalie's marriage settlement.
+
+After the usual preliminary phrases had been exchanged, Sir Joseph
+showed some hesitation in openly approaching the question which the
+little party of three had met to debate. He avoided his lawyer's eye;
+and he looked at Turlington rather uneasily.
+
+"Richard," he began at last, "when I spoke to you about your marriage,
+on board the yacht, I said I would give my daughter--" Either his
+courage or his breath failed him at that point. He was obliged to wait a
+moment before he could go on.
+
+"I said I would give my daughter half my fortune on her marriage," he
+resumed. "Forgive me, Richard. I can't do it!"
+
+Mr. Dicas, waiting for his instructions, laid down his pen and looked at
+Sir Joseph's son-in-law elect. What would Mr. Turlington say?
+
+He said nothing. Sitting opposite the window, he rose when Sir Joseph
+spoke, and placed himself at the other side of the table, with his back
+to the light.
+
+"My eyes are weak this morning," he said, in an unnaturally low tone of
+voice. "The light hurts them."
+
+He could find no more plausible excuse than that for concealing his face
+in shadow from the scrutiny of the two men on either side of him. The
+continuous moral irritation of his unhappy courtship--a courtship which
+had never advanced beyond the frigid familiarity of kissing Natalie's
+hand in the presence of others--had physically deteriorated him. Even
+_his_ hardy nerves began to feel the long strain of suspicion that
+had been laid unremittingly on them for weeks past. His power of
+self-control--he knew it himself--was not to be relied on. He could hide
+his face: he could no longer command it.
+
+"Did you hear what I said, Richard?"
+
+"I heard. Go on."
+
+Sir Joseph proceeded, gathering confidence as he advanced.
+
+"Half my fortune!" he repeated. "It's parting with half my life; it's
+saying good-by forever to my dearest friend! My money has been such a
+comfort to me, Richard; such a pleasant occupation for my mind. I know
+no reading so interesting and so instructive as the reading of one's
+Banker's Book. To watch the outgoings on one side," said Sir Joseph,
+with a gentle and pathetic solemnity, "and the incomings on the
+other--the sad lessening of the balance at one time, and the cheering
+and delightful growth of it at another--what absorbing reading! The best
+novel that ever was written isn't to be mentioned in a breath with it.
+I can not, Richard, I really can _not_, see my nice round balance shrink
+up to half the figure that I have been used to for a lifetime. It may
+be weak of me," proceeded Sir Joseph, evidently feeling that it was not
+weak of him at all, "but we all have our tender place, and my Banker's
+Book is mine. Besides, it isn't as if you wanted it. If you wanted it,
+of course--but you don't want it. You are a rich man; you are
+marrying my dear Natalie for love, not for money. You and she and my
+grandchildren will have it all at my death. It _can_ make no difference
+to you to wait a few years till the old man's chair at the fireside
+is empty. Will you say the fourth part, Richard, instead of the half?
+Twenty thousand," pleaded Sir Joseph, piteously. "I can bear twenty
+thousand off. For God's sake don't ask me for more!"
+
+The lips of the lawyer twisted themselves sourly into an ironical smile.
+He was quite as fond of his money as Sir Joseph. He ought to have felt
+for his client; but rich men have no sympathy with one another. Mr.
+Dicas openly despised Sir Joseph.
+
+There was a pause. The robin-redbreasts in the shrubbery outside must
+have had prodigious balances at their bankers; they hopped up on the
+window-sill so fearlessly; they looked in with so little respect at the
+two rich men.
+
+"Don't keep me in suspense, Richard," proceeded Sir Joseph. "Speak out.
+Is it yes or no?"
+
+Turlington struck his hand excitedly on the table, and burst out on a
+sudden with the answer which had been so strangely delayed.
+
+"Twenty thousand with all my heart!" he said. "On this condition,
+Graybrooke, that every farthing of it is settled on Natalie, and on her
+children after her. Not a half-penny to me!" he cried magnanimously, in
+his brassiest tones. "Not a half-penny to me!"
+
+Let no man say the rich are heartless. Sir Joseph seized his
+son-in-law's hand in silence, and burst into tears.
+
+Mr. Dicas, habitually a silent man, uttered the first two words that had
+escaped him since the business began. "Highly creditable," he said, and
+took a note of his instructions on the spot.
+
+From that point the business of the settlement flowed smoothly on to its
+destined end. Sir Joseph explained his views at the fullest length, and
+the lawyer's pen kept pace with him. Turlington, remaining in his
+place at the table, restricted himself to a purely passive part in the
+proceedings. He answered briefly when it was absolutely necessary to
+speak, and he agreed with the two elders in everything. A man has no
+attention to place at the disposal of other people when he stands at
+a crisis in his life. Turlington stood at that crisis, at the trying
+moment when Sir Joseph's unexpected proposal pressed instantly for a
+reply. Two merciless alternatives confronted him. Either he must repay
+the borrowed forty thousand pounds on the day when repayment was due,
+or he must ask Bulpit Brothers to grant him an extension of time, and so
+inevitably provoke an examination into the fraudulent security deposited
+with the firm, which could end in but one way. His last, literally his
+last chance, after Sir Joseph had diminished the promised dowry by one
+half, was to adopt the high-minded tone which became his position, and
+to conceal the truth until he could reveal it to his father-in-law in
+the privileged character of Natalie's husband. "I owe forty thousand
+pounds, sir, in a fortnight's time, and I have not got a farthing of
+my own. Pay for me, or you will see your son-in-law's name in the
+Bankrupt's List." For his daughter's sake--who could doubt it?--Sir
+Joseph would produce the money. The one thing needful was to be married
+in time. If either by accident or treachery Sir Joseph was led into
+deferring the appointed day, by so much as a fortnight only, the fatal
+"call" would come, and the firm of Pizzituti, Turlington & Branca would
+appear in the Gazette.
+
+So he reasoned, standing on the brink of the terrible discovery which
+was soon to reveal to him that Natalie was the wife of another man.
+
+"Richard!"
+
+"Mr. Turlington!"
+
+He started, and roused his attention to present things. Sir Joseph on
+one side, and the lawyer on the other, were both appealing to him, and
+both regarding him with looks of amazement.
+
+"Have you done with the settlement?" he asked.
+
+"My dear Richard, we have done with it long since," replied Sir Joseph.
+"Have you really not heard what I have been saying for the last quarter
+of an hour to good Mr. Dicas here? What _can_ you have been thinking
+of?"
+
+Turlington did not attempt to answer the question. "Am I interested," he
+asked, "in what you have been saying to Mr. Dicas?"
+
+"You shall judge for yourself," answered Sir Joseph, mysteriously; "I
+have been giving Mr. Dicas his instructions for making my Will. I wish
+the Will and the Marriage-Settlement to be executed at the same time.
+Read the instructions, Mr. Dicas."
+
+Sir Joseph's contemplated Will proved to have two merits--it was simple
+and it was short. Excepting one or two trifling legacies to distant
+relatives, he had no one to think of (Miss Lavinia being already
+provided for) but his daughter and the children who might be born of her
+marriage. In its various provisions, made with these two main objects
+in view, the Will followed the precedents established in such cases.
+It differed in no important respect from the tens of thousands of other
+wills made under similar circumstances. Sir Joseph's motive in claiming
+special attention for it still remained unexplained, when Mr. Dicas
+reached the clause devoted to the appointment of executors and trustees;
+and announced that this portion of the document was left in blank.
+
+"Sir Joseph Graybrooke, are you prepared to name the persons whom you
+appoint?" asked the lawyer.
+
+Sir Joseph rose, apparently for the purpose of giving special importance
+to the terms in which he answered his lawyer's question.
+
+"I appoint," he said, "as sole executor and trustee--Richard
+Turlington."
+
+It was no easy matter to astonish Mr. Dicas. Sir Joseph's reply
+absolutely confounded him. He looked across the table at his client and
+delivered himself on this special occasion of as many as three words.
+
+"Are you mad?" he asked.
+
+Sir Joseph's healthy complexion slightly reddened. "I never was in more
+complete possession of myself, Mr. Dicas, than at this moment."
+
+Mr. Dicas was not to be silenced in that way.
+
+"Are you aware of what you do," persisted the lawyer, "if you appoint
+Mr. Turlington as sole executor and trustee? You put it in the power of
+your daughter's husband, sir, to make away with every farthing of your
+money after your death."
+
+Turlington had hitherto listened with an appearance of interest in the
+proceedings, which he assumed as an act of politeness. To his view, the
+future was limited to the date at which Bulpit Brothers had a right to
+claim the repayment of their loan. The Will was a matter of no earthly
+importance to him, by comparison with the infinitely superior interest
+of the Marriage. It was only when the lawyer's brutally plain language
+forced his attention to it that the question of his pecuniary interest
+in his father-in-law's death assumed its fit position in his mind.
+
+_His_ color rose; and _he_ too showed that he was offended by what Mr.
+Dicas had just said.
+
+"Not a word, Richard! Let me speak for you as well as for myself," said
+Sir Joseph. "For seven years past," he continued, turning to the lawyer,
+"I have been accustomed to place the most unlimited trust in Richard
+Turlington. His disinterested advice has enabled me largely to increase
+my income, without placing a farthing of the principal in jeopardy. On
+more than one occasion, I have entreated him to make use of my money
+in his business. He has invariably refused to do so. Even his bitterest
+enemies, sir, have been obliged to acknowledge that my interests were
+safe when committed to his care. Am I to begin distrusting him, now
+that I am about to give him my daughter in marriage? Am I to leave it on
+record that I doubt him for the first time--when my Will is opened after
+my death? No! I can confide the management of the fortune which my child
+will inherit after me to no more competent or more honorable hands than
+the hands of the man who is to marry her. I maintain my appointment, Mr.
+Dicas! I persist in placing the whole responsibility under my Will in my
+son-in-law's care."
+
+Turlington attempted to speak. The lawyer attempted to speak. Sir
+Joseph--with a certain simple dignity which had its effect on both of
+them--declined to hear a word on either side. "No, Richard! as long as
+I am alive this is my business, not yours. No, Mr. Dicas! I understand
+that it is your business to protest professionally. You have protested.
+Fill in the blank space as I have told you. Or leave the instructions on
+the table, and I will send for the nearest solicitor to complete them in
+your place."
+
+Those words placed the lawyer's position plainly before him. He had no
+choice but to do as he was bid, or to lose a good client. He did as he
+was bid, and grimly left the room.
+
+Sir Joseph, with old-fashioned politeness, followed him as far as
+the hall. Returning to the library to say a few friendly words before
+finally dismissing the subject of the Will, he found himself seized by
+the arm, and dragged without ceremony, in Turlington's powerful grasp,
+to the window.
+
+"Richard!" he exclaimed, "what does this mean?"
+
+"Look!" cried the other, pointing through the window to a grassy walk
+in the grounds, bounded on either side by shrubberies, and situated at a
+little distance from the house. "Who is that man?--quick! before we lose
+sight of him--the man crossing there from one shrubbery to the other?"
+Sir Joseph failed to recognize the figure before it disappeared.
+Turlington whispered fiercely, close to his ear--"Launcelot Linzie!"
+
+In perfect good faith Sir Joseph declared that the man could not
+possibly have been Launce. Turlington's frenzy of jealous suspicion was
+not to be so easily calmed. He asked significantly for Natalie. She was
+reported to be walking in the grounds. "I knew it!" he said, with
+an oath--and hurried out into the grounds to discover the truth for
+himself.
+
+Some little time elapsed before he came back to the house. He had
+discovered Natalie--alone. Not a sign of Launce had rewarded his search.
+For the hundredth time he had offended Natalie. For the hundredth time
+he was compelled to appeal to the indulgence of her father and her aunt.
+"It won't happen again," he said, sullenly penitent. "You will find me
+quite another man when I have got you all at my house in the country.
+Mind!" he burst out, with a furtive look, which expressed his inveterate
+distrust of Natalie and of every one about her. "Mind! it's settled
+that you all come to me in Somersetshire, on Monday next." Sir Joseph
+answered rather dryly that it was settled. Turlington turned to leave
+the room--and suddenly came back. "It's understood," he went on,
+addressing Miss Lavinia, "that the seventh of next month is the date
+fixed for the marriage. Not a day later!" Miss Lavinia replied, rather
+dryly on her side, "Of course, Richard; not a day later." He muttered,
+"All right" and hurriedly left them.
+
+Half an hour afterward Natalie came in, looking a little confused.
+
+"Has he gone?" she asked, whispering to her aunt.
+
+Relieved on this point, she made straight for the library--a room which
+she rarely entered at that or any other period of the day. Miss Lavinia
+followed her, curious to know what it meant. Natalie hurried to the
+window, and waved her handkerchief--evidently making a signal to some
+one outside. Miss Lavinia instantly joined her, and took her sharply by
+the hand.
+
+"Is it possible, Natalie?" she asked. "Has Launcelot Linzie really been
+here, unknown to your father or to me?"
+
+"Where is the harm if he has?" answered Natalie, with a sudden outbreak
+of temper. "Am I never to see my cousin again, because Mr. Turlington
+happens to be jealous of him?"
+
+She suddenly turned away her head. The rich color flowed over her face
+and neck. Miss Lavinia, proceeding sternly with the administration
+of the necessary reproof, was silenced midway by a new change in her
+niece's variable temper. Natalie burst into tears. Satisfied with this
+appearance of sincere contrition, the old lady consented to overlook
+what had happened; and, for this occasion only, to keep her niece's
+secret. They would all be in Somersetshire, she remarked, before any
+more breaches of discipline could be committed. Richard had fortunately
+made no discoveries; and the matter might safely be trusted, all things
+considered, to rest where it was.
+
+Miss Lavinia might possibly have taken a less hopeful view of the
+circumstances, if she had known that one of the men-servants at Muswell
+Hill was in Richard Turlington's pay, and that this servant had seen
+Launce leave the grounds by the back-garden gate.
+
+
+
+
+NINTH SCENE.
+
+The Drawing-Room.
+
+
+"Amelia!"
+
+"Say something."
+
+"Ask him to sit down."
+
+Thus addressing one another in whispers, the three stepdaughters of
+Lady Winwood stood bewildered in their own drawing-room, helplessly
+confronting an object which appeared before them on the threshold of the
+door.
+
+The date was the 23d of December. The time was between two and three in
+the afternoon. The occasion was the return of the three sisters from the
+Committee meeting of the Sacred Concerts' Society. And the object was
+Richard Turlington.
+
+He stood hat in hand at the door, amazed by his reception. "I have come
+up this morning from Somersetshire," he said. "Haven't you heard? A
+matter of business at the office has forced me to leave my guests at my
+house in the country. I return to them to-morrow. When I say my guests,
+I mean the Graybrookes. Don't you know they are staying with me? Sir
+Joseph and Miss Lavinia and Natalie?" On the utterance of Natalie's
+name, the sisters roused themselves. They turned about and regarded each
+other with looks of dismay. Turlington's patience began to fail him.
+"Will you be so good as to tell me what all this means?" he said, a
+little sharply. "Miss Lavinia asked me to call here when she heard I was
+coming to town. I was to take charge of a pattern for a dress, which she
+said you would give me. You ought to have received a telegram explaining
+it all, hours since. Has the message not reached you?"
+
+The leading spirit of the three sisters was Miss Amelia. She was the
+first who summoned presence of mind enough to give a plain answer to
+Turlington's plain question.
+
+"We received the telegram this morning," she said. "Something has
+happened since which has shocked and surprised us. We beg your pardon."
+She turned to one of her sisters. "Sophia, the pattern is ready in the
+drawer of that table behind you. Give it to Mr. Turlington."
+
+Sophia produced the packet. Before she handed it to the visitor, she
+looked at her sister. "Ought we to let Mr. Turlington go," she asked,
+"as if nothing had happened?"
+
+Amelia considered silently with herself. Dorothea, the third sister
+(who had not spoken yet), came forward with a suggestion. She proposed,
+before proceeding further, to inquire whether Lady Winwood was in the
+house. The idea was instantly adopted. Sophia rang the bell. Amelia put
+the questions when the servant appeared.
+
+Lady Winwood had left the house for a drive immediately after luncheon.
+Lord Winwood--inquired for next--had accompanied her ladyship. No
+message had been left indicating the hour of their return.
+
+The sisters looked at Turlington, uncertain what to say or do next. Miss
+Amelia addressed him as soon as the servant had left the room.
+
+"Is it possible for you to remain here until either my father or Lady
+Winwood return?" she asked.
+
+"It is quite impossible. Minutes are of importance to me to-day."
+
+"Will you give us one of your minutes? We want to consider something
+which we may have to say to you before you go."
+
+Turlington, wondering, took a chair. Miss Amelia put the case before her
+sisters from the sternly conscientious point of view, at the opposite
+end of the room.
+
+"We have not found out this abominable deception by any underhand
+means," she said. "The discovery has been forced upon us, and we stand
+pledged to nobody to keep the secret. Knowing as we do how cruelly this
+gentleman has been used, it seems to me that we are bound in honor to
+open his eyes to the truth. If we remain silent we make ourselves
+Lady Winwood's accomplices. I, for one--I don't care what may come of
+it--refuse to do that."
+
+Her sisters agreed with her. The first chance their clever stepmother
+had given them of asserting their importance against hers was now in
+their hands. Their jealous hatred of Lady Winwood assumed the mask of
+Duty--duty toward an outraged and deceived fellow-creature. Could any
+earthly motive be purer than that? "Tell him, Amelia!" cried the two
+young ladies, with the headlong recklessness of the sex which only stops
+to think when the time for reflection has gone by.
+
+A vague sense of something wrong began to stir uneasily in Turlington's
+mind.
+
+"Don't let me hurry you," he said, "but if you really have anything to
+tell me--"
+
+Miss Amelia summoned her courage, and began.
+
+"We have something very dreadful to tell you," she said, interrupting
+him. "You have been presented in this house, Mr. Turlington, as
+a gentleman engaged to marry Lady Winwood's cousin. Miss Natalie
+Graybrooke." She paused there--at the outset of the disclosure. A sudden
+change of expression passed over Turlington's face, which daunted her
+for the moment. "We have hitherto understood," she went on, "that you
+were to be married to that young lady early in next month."
+
+"Well?"
+
+He could say that one word. Looking at their pale faces, and their eager
+eyes, he could say no more.
+
+"Take care!" whispered Dorothea, in her sister's ear. "Look at him,
+Amelia! Not too soon."
+
+Amelia went on more carefully.
+
+"We have just returned from a musical meeting," she said. "One of the
+ladies there was an acquaintance, a former school-fellow of ours. She
+is the wife of the rector of St. Columb Major--a large church, far from
+this--at the East End of London."
+
+"I know nothing about the woman or the church," interposed Turlington,
+sternly.
+
+"I must beg you to wait a little. I can't tell you what I want to tell
+you unless I refer to the rector's wife. She knows Lady Winwood by
+name. And she heard of Lady Winwood recently under very strange
+circumstances--circumstances connected with a signature in one of the
+books of the church."
+
+Turlington lost his self-control. "You have got something against my
+Natalie," he burst out; "I know it by your whispering, I see it in your
+looks! Say it at once in plain words."
+
+There was no trifling with him now. In plain words Amelia said it.
+
+* * * * * * * * *
+
+There was silence in the room. They could hear the sound of passing
+footsteps in the street. He stood perfectly still on the spot where they
+had struck him dumb by the disclosure, supporting himself with his
+right hand laid on the head of a sofa near him. The sisters drew back
+horror-struck into the furthest corner of the room. His face turned them
+cold. Through the mute misery which it had expressed at first, there
+appeared, slowly forcing its way to view, a look of deadly vengeance
+which froze them to the soul. They whispered feverishly one to the
+other, without knowing what they were talking of, without hearing their
+own voices. One of them said, "Ring the bell!" Another said, "Offer him
+something, he will faint." The third shuddered, and repeated, over and
+over again, "Why did we do it? Why did we do it?"
+
+He silenced them on the instant by speaking on his side. He came on
+slowly, by a step at a time, with the big drops of agony falling slowly
+over his rugged face. He said, in a hoarse whisper, "Write me down the
+name of the church--there." He held out his open pocketbook to Amelia
+while he spoke. She steadied herself, and wrote the address. She tried
+to say a word to soften him. The word died on her lips. There was a
+light in his eyes as they looked at her which transfigured his face to
+something superhuman and devilish. She turned away from him, shuddering.
+
+He put the book back in his pocket, and passed his handkerchief over his
+face. After a moment of indecision, he suddenly and swiftly stole out of
+the room, as if he was afraid of their calling somebody in, and stopping
+him. At the door he turned round for a moment, and said, "You will hear
+how this ends. I wish you good-morning."
+
+The door closed on him. Left by themselves, they began to realize it.
+They thought of the consequences when his back was turned and it was too
+late.
+
+The Graybrookes! Now he knew it, what would become of the Graybrookes?
+What would he do when he got back? Even at ordinary times--when he was
+on his best behavior--he was a rough man. What would happen? Oh, good
+God! what would happen when he and Natalie next stood face to face? It
+was a lonely house--Natalie had told them about it--no neighbors near;
+nobody by to interfere but the weak old father and the maiden aunt.
+Something ought to be done. Some steps ought to be taken to warn them.
+Advice--who could give advice? Who was the first person who ought to
+be told of what had happened? Lady Winwood? No! even at that crisis the
+sisters still shrank from their stepmother--still hated her with the old
+hatred! Not a word to _her!_ They owed no duty to _her!_ Who else could
+they appeal to? To their father? Yes! There was the person to advise
+them. In the meanwhile, silence toward their stepmother--silence toward
+every one till their father came back!
+
+They waited and waited. One after another the precious hours, pregnant
+with the issues of life and death, followed each other on the dial. Lady
+Winwood returned alone. She had left her husband at the House of Lords.
+Dinner-time came, and brought with it a note from his lordship. There
+was a debate at the House. Lady Winwood and his daughters were not to
+wait dinner for him.
+
+
+
+
+TENTH SCENE.
+
+Green Anchor Lane.
+
+An hour later than the time at which he had been expected, Richard
+Turlington appeared at his office in the city.
+
+He met beforehand all the inquiries which the marked change in him
+must otherwise have provoked, by announcing that he was ill. Before he
+proceeded to business, he asked if anybody was waiting to see him. One
+of the servants from Muswell Hill was waiting with another parcel
+for Miss Lavinia, ordered by telegram from the country that morning.
+Turlington (after ascertaining the servant's name) received the man in
+his private room. He there heard, for the first time, that Launcelot
+Linzie had been lurking in the grounds (exactly as he had supposed) on
+the day when the lawyer took his instructions for the Settlement and the
+Will.
+
+In two hours more Turlington's work was completed. On leaving the
+office--as soon as he was out of sight of the door--he turned eastward,
+instead of taking the way that led to his own house in town. Pursuing
+his course, he entered the labyrinth of streets which led, in that
+quarter of East London, to the unsavory neighborhood of the river-side.
+
+By this time his mind was made up. The forecast shadow of meditated
+crime traveled before him already, as he threaded his way among his
+fellow-men.
+
+He had been to the vestry of St. Columb Major, and had satisfied himself
+that he was misled by no false report. There was the entry in the
+Marriage Register. The one unexplained mystery was the mystery of
+Launce's conduct in permitting his wife to return to her father's house.
+Utterly unable to account for this proceeding, Turlington could only
+accept facts as they were, and determine to make the most of his time,
+while the woman who had deceived him was still under his roof. A hideous
+expression crossed his face as he realized the idea that he had got her
+(unprotected by her husband) in his house. "When Launcelot Linzie _does_
+come to claim her," he said to himself, "he shall find I have been even
+with him." He looked at his watch. Was it possible to save the last
+train and get back that night? No--the last train had gone. Would she
+take advantage of his absence to escape? He had little fear of it. She
+would never have allowed her aunt to send him to Lord Winwood's house,
+if she had felt the slightest suspicion of his discovering the truth in
+that quarter. Returning by the first train the next morning, he might
+feel sure of getting back in time. Meanwhile he had the hours of the
+night before him. He could give his mind to the serious question that
+must be settled before he left London--the question of repaying the
+forty thousand pounds. There was but one way of getting the money now.
+Sir Joseph had executed his Will; Sir Joseph's death would leave his
+sole executor and trustee (the lawyer had said it!) master of his
+fortune. Turlington determined to be master of it in four-and-twenty
+hours--striking the blow, without risk to himself, by means of another
+hand. In the face of the probabilities, in the face of the facts, he had
+now firmly persuaded himself that Sir Joseph was privy to the fraud
+that had been practiced on him. The Marriage-Settlement, the Will, the
+presence of the family at his country house--all these he believed to be
+so many stratagems invented to keep him deceived until the last moment.
+The truth was in those words which he had overheard between Sir Joseph
+and Launce--and in Launce's presence (privately encouraged, no doubt) at
+Muswell Hill. "Her father shall pay me for it doubly: with his purse and
+with his life." With that thought in his heart, Richard Turlington wound
+his way through the streets by the river-side, and stopped at a blind
+alley called Green Anchor Lane, infamous to this day as the chosen
+resort of the most abandoned wretches whom London can produce.
+
+The policeman at the corner cautioned him as he turned into the alley.
+"They won't hurt _me!_" he answered, and walked on to a public-house at
+the bottom of the lane.
+
+The landlord at the door silently recognized him, and led the way
+in. They crossed a room filled with sailors of all nations drinking;
+ascended a staircase at the back of the house, and stopped at the door
+of the room on the second floor. There the landlord spoke for the first
+time. "He has outrun his allowance, sir, as usual. You will find him
+with hardly a rag on his back. I doubt if he will last much longer. He
+had another fit of the horrors last night, and the doctor thinks badly
+of him." With that introduction he opened the door, and Turlington
+entered the room.
+
+On the miserable bed lay a gray-headed old man of gigantic stature,
+with nothing on him but a ragged shirt and a pair of patched, filthy
+trousers. At the side of the bed, with a bottle of gin on the rickety
+table between them, sat two hideous leering, painted monsters, wearing
+the dress of women. The smell of opium was in the room, as well as the
+smell of spirits. At Turlington's appearance, the old man rose on the
+bed and welcomed him with greedy eyes and outstretched hand.
+
+"Money, master!" he called out hoarsely. "A crown piece in advance, for
+the sake of old times!"
+
+Turlington turned to the women without answering, purse in hand.
+
+"His clothes are at the pawnbroker's, of course. How much?"
+
+"Thirty shillings."
+
+"Bring them here, and be quick about it. You will find it worth your
+while when you come back."
+
+The women took the pawnbroker's tickets from the pockets of the man's
+trousers and hurried out.
+
+Turlington closed the door, and seated himself by the bedside. He laid
+his hand familiarly on the giant's mighty shoulder, looked him full in
+the face, and said, in a whisper,
+
+"Thomas Wildfang!"
+
+The man started, and drew his huge hairy hand across his eyes, as if in
+doubt whether he was waking or sleeping. "It's better than ten years,
+master, since you called me by my name. If I am Thomas Wildfang, what
+are you?"
+
+"Your captain, once more."
+
+Thomas Wildfang sat up on the side of the bed, and spoke his next words
+cautiously in Turlington's ear.
+
+"Another man in the way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The giant shook his bald, bestial head dolefully. "Too late. I'm past
+the job. Look here."
+
+He held up his hand, and showed it trembling incessantly. "I'm an old
+man," he said, and let his hand drop heavily again on the bed beside
+him.
+
+Turlington looked at the door, and whispered back,
+
+"The man is as old as you are. And the money is worth having."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A hundred pounds."
+
+The eyes of Thomas Wildfang fastened greedily on Turlington's face.
+"Let's hear," he said. "Softly, captain. Let's hear."
+
+* * * * * * * * *
+
+When the women came back with the clothes, Turlington had left the room.
+Their promised reward lay waiting for them on the table, and Thomas
+Wildfang was eager to dress himself and be gone. They could get but one
+answer from him to every question they put. He had business in hand,
+which was not to be delayed. They would see him again in a day or two,
+with money in his purse. With that assurance he took his cudgel from
+the corner of the room, and stalked out swiftly by the back door of the
+house into the night.
+
+
+
+
+ELEVENTH SCENE.
+
+Outside the House
+
+The evening was chilly, but not cold for the time of year. There was no
+moon. The stars were out, and the wind was quiet. Upon the whole, the
+inhabitants of the little Somersetshire village of Baxdale agreed that
+it was as fine a Christmas-eve as they could remember for some years
+past.
+
+Toward eight in the evening the one small street of the village was
+empty, except at that part of it which was occupied by the public-house.
+For the most part, people gathered round their firesides, with an eye to
+their suppers, and watched the process of cooking comfortably indoors.
+The old bare, gray church, situated at some little distance from the
+village, looked a lonelier object than usual in the dim starlight. The
+vicarage, nestling close under the shadow of the church-tower, threw
+no illumination of fire-light or candle-light on the dreary scene. The
+clergyman's shutters fitted well, and the clergyman's curtains were
+closely drawn. The one ray of light that cheered the wintry darkness
+streamed from the unguarded window of a lonely house, separated from
+the vicarage by the whole length of the church-yard. A man stood at the
+window, holding back the shutter, and looking out attentively over the
+dim void of the burial-ground. The man was Richard Turlington. The room
+in which he was watching was a room in his own house.
+
+A momentary spark of light flashed up, as from a kindled match, in the
+burial-ground. Turlington instantly left the empty room in which he had
+been watching. Passing down the back garden of the house, and crossing
+a narrow lane at the bottom of it, he opened a gate in a low stone wall
+beyond, and entered the church-yard. The shadowy figure of a man of
+great stature, lurking among the graves, advanced to meet him. Midway
+in the dark and lonely place the two stopped and consulted together in
+whispers. Turlington spoke first.
+
+"Have you taken up your quarters at the public-house in the village?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"Did you find your way, while the daylight lasted, to the deserted
+malt-house behind my orchard wall?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"Now listen--we have no time to lose. Hide there, behind that monument.
+Before nine o'clock to-night you will see me cross the churchyard, as
+far as this place, with the man you are to wait for. He is going to
+spend an hour with the vicar, at the house yonder. I shall stop short
+here, and say to him, 'You can't miss your way in the dark now--I will
+go back.' When I am far enough away from him, I shall blow a call on
+my whistle. The moment you hear the call, follow the man, and drop him
+before he gets out of the church-yard. Have you got your cudgel?"
+
+Thomas Wildfang held up his cudgel. Turlington took him by the arm, and
+felt it suspiciously.
+
+"You have had an attack of the horrors already," he said. "What does
+this trembling mean?"
+
+He took a spirit-flask from his pocket as he spoke. Thomas Wildfang
+snatched it out of his hand, and emptied it at a draught. "All right
+now, master," he said. Turlington felt his arm once more. It was
+steadier already. Wildfang brandished his cudgel, and struck a heavy
+blow with it on one of the turf mounds near them. "Will that drop him,
+captain?" he asked.
+
+Turlington went on with his instructions.
+
+"Rob him when you have dropped him. Take his money and his jewelry. I
+want to have the killing of him attributed to robbery as the motive.
+Make sure before you leave him that he is dead. Then go to the
+malt-house. There is no fear of your being seen; all the people will be
+indoors, keeping Christmas-eve. You will find a change of clothes hidden
+in the malt-house, and an old caldron full of quicklime. Destroy the
+clothes you have got on, and dress yourself in the other clothes
+that you find. Follow the cross-road, and when it brings you into the
+highroad, turn to the left; a four-mile walk will take you to the town
+of Harminster. Sleep there to-night, and travel to London by the train
+in the morning. The next day go to my office, see the head clerk, and
+say, 'I have come to sign my receipt.' Sign it in your own name, and you
+will receive your hundred pounds. There are your instructions. Do you
+understand them?"
+
+Wildfang nodded his head in silent token that he understood, and
+disappeared again among the graves. Turlington went back to the house.
+
+He had advanced midway across the garden, when he was startled by the
+sound of footsteps in the lane--at that part of it which skirted one of
+the corners of the house. Hastening forward, he placed himself behind a
+projection in the wall, so as to see the person pass across the stream
+of light from the uncovered window of the room that he had left. The
+stranger was walking rapidly. All Turlington could see as he crossed the
+field of light was, that his hat was pulled over his eyes, and that he
+had a thick beard and mustache. Describing the man to the servant on
+entering the house, he was informed that a stranger with a large beard
+had been seen about the neighborhood for some days past. The account he
+had given of himself stated that he was a surveyor, engaged in taking
+measurements for a new map of that part of the country, shortly to be
+published.
+
+The guilty mind of Turlington was far from feeling satisfied with
+the meager description of the stranger thus rendered. He could not be
+engaged in surveying in the dark. What could he want in the desolate
+neighborhood of the house and church-yard at that time of night?
+
+The man wanted--what the man found a little lower down the lane, hidden
+in a dismantled part of the church-yard wall--a letter from a young
+lady. Read by the light of the pocket-lantern which he carried with him,
+the letter first congratulated this person on the complete success of
+his disguise--and then promised that the writer would be ready at her
+bedroom window for flight the next morning, before the house was astir.
+The signature was "Natalie," and the person addressed was "Dearest
+Launce."
+
+In the meanwhile, Turlington barred the window shutters of the room, and
+looked at his watch. It wanted only a quarter to nine o'clock. He took
+his dog-whistle from the chimney-piece, and turned his steps at once in
+the direction of the drawing-room, in which his guests were passing the
+evening.
+
+
+
+
+TWELFTH SCENE.
+
+Inside the House.
+
+The scene in the drawing-room represented the ideal of domestic comfort.
+The fire of wood and coal mixed burned brightly; the lamps shed a soft
+glow of light; the solid shutters and the thick red curtains kept the
+cold night air on the outer side of two long windows, which opened on
+the back garden. Snug arm-chairs were placed in every part of the
+room. In one of them Sir Joseph reclined, fast asleep; in another, Miss
+Lavinia sat knitting; a third chair, apart from the rest, near a round
+table in one corner of the room, was occupied by Natalie. Her head was
+resting on her hand, an unread book lay open on her lap. She looked pale
+and harassed; anxiety and suspense had worn her down to the shadow of
+her former self. On entering the room, Turlington purposely closed the
+door with a bang. Natalie started. Miss Lavinia looked up reproachfully.
+The object was achieved--Sir Joseph was roused from his sleep.
+
+"If you are going to the vicar's to-night. Graybrooke," said Turlington,
+"it's time you were off, isn't it?"
+
+Sir Joseph rubbed his eyes, and looked at the clock on the mantel-piece.
+"Yes, yes, Richard," he answered, drowsily, "I suppose I must go. Where
+is my hat?"
+
+His sister and his daughter both joined in trying to persuade him to
+send an excuse instead of groping his way to the vicarage in the dark.
+Sir Joseph hesitated, as usual. He and the vicar had run up a sudden
+friendship, on the strength of their common enthusiasm for the
+old-fashioned game of backgammon. Victorious over his opponent on the
+previous evening at Turlington's house, Sir Joseph had promised to pass
+that evening at the vicarage, and give the vicar his revenge. Observing
+his indecision, Turlington cunningly irritated him by affecting to
+believe that he was really unwilling to venture out in the dark. "I'll
+see you safe across the churchyard," he said; "and the vicar's servant
+will see you safe back." The tone in which he spoke instantly roused
+Sir Joseph. "I am not in my second childhood yet, Richard," he replied,
+testily. "I can find my way by myself." He kissed his daughter on the
+forehead. "No fear, Natalie. I shall be back in time for the mulled
+claret. No, Richard, I won't trouble you." He kissed his hand to his
+sister and went out into the hall for his hat: Turlington following him
+with a rough apology, and asking as a favor to be permitted to accompany
+him part of the way only. The ladies, left behind in the drawing-room,
+heard the apology accepted by kind-hearted Sir Joseph. The two went out
+together.
+
+"Have you noticed Richard since his return?" asked Miss Lavinia. "I
+fancy he must have heard bad news in London. He looks as if he had
+something on his mind."
+
+"I haven't remarked it, aunt."
+
+For the time, no more was said. Miss Lavinia went monotonously on with
+her knitting. Natalie pursued her own anxious thoughts over the unread
+pages of the book in her lap. Suddenly the deep silence out of doors and
+in was broken by a shrill whistle, sounding from the direction of the
+church-yard. Natalie started with a faint cry of alarm. Miss Lavinia
+looked up from her knitting.
+
+"My dear child, your nerves must be sadly out of order. What is there to
+be frightened at?"
+
+"I am not very well, aunt. It is so still here at night, the slightest
+noises startle me."
+
+There was another interval of silence. It was past nine o'clock when
+they heard the back door opened and closed again. Turlington came
+hurriedly into the drawing-room, as if he had some reason for wishing to
+rejoin the ladies as soon as possible. To the surprise of both of them,
+he sat down abruptly in the corner, with his face to the wall, and took
+up the newspaper, without casting a look at them or uttering a word.
+
+"Is Joseph safe at the vicarage?" asked Miss Lavinia.
+
+"All right." He gave the answer in a short, surly tone, still without
+looking round.
+
+Miss Lavinia tried him again. "Did you hear a whistle while you were
+out? It quite startled Natalie in the stillness of this place."
+
+He turned half-way round. "My shepherd, I suppose," he said after
+a pause--"whistling for his dog." He turned back again and immersed
+himself in his newspaper.
+
+Miss Lavinia beckoned to her niece and pointed significantly to
+Turlington. After one reluctant look at him, Natalie laid her head
+wearily on her aunt's shoulder. "Sleepy, my dear?" whispered the old
+lady. "Uneasy, aunt--I don't know why," Natalie whispered back. "I would
+give the world to be in London, and to hear the carriages going by, and
+the people talking in the street."
+
+Turlington suddenly dropped his newspaper. "What's the secret between
+you two?" he called out roughly. "What are you whispering about?"
+
+"We wish not to disturb you over your reading, that is all," said Miss
+Lavinia, coldly. "Has anything happened to vex you, Richard?"
+
+"What the devil makes you think that?"
+
+The old lady was offended, and showed it by saying nothing more. Natalie
+nestled closer to her aunt. One after another the clock ticked off
+the minutes with painful distinctness in the stillness of the room.
+Turlington suddenly threw aside the newspaper and left his corner.
+"Let's be good friends!" he burst out, with a clumsy assumption of
+gayety. "This isn't keeping Christmas-eve. Let's talk and be sociable.
+Dearest Natalie!" He threw his arm roughly round Natalie, and drew her
+by main force away from her aunt. She turned deadly pale, and struggled
+to release herself. "I am suffering--I am ill--let me go!" He was deaf
+to her entreaties. "What! your husband that is to be, treated in this
+way? Mustn't I have a kiss?--I will!" He held her closer with one hand,
+and, seizing her head with the other, tried to turn her lips to him. She
+resisted with the inbred nervous strength which the weakest woman living
+has in reserve when she is outraged. Half indignant, half terrified, at
+Turlington's roughness, Miss Lavinia rose to interfere. In a moment more
+he would have had two women to overpower instead of one, when a noise
+outside the window suddenly suspended the ignoble struggle.
+
+There was a sound of footsteps on the gravel-walk which ran between the
+house wall and the garden lawn. It was followed by a tap--a single faint
+tap, no more--on one of the panes of glass.
+
+They all three stood still. For a moment more nothing was audible. Then
+there was a heavy shock, as of something falling outside. Then a groan,
+then another interval of silence--a long silence, interrupted no more.
+
+Turlington's arm dropped from Natalie. She drew back to her aunt.
+Looking at him instinctively, in the natural expectation that he would
+take the lead in penetrating the mystery of what had happened outside
+the window, the two women were thunderstruck to see that he was, to
+all appearance, even more startled and more helpless than they were.
+"Richard," said Miss Lavinia, pointing to the window, "there is
+something wrong out there. See what it is." He stood motionless, as if
+he had not heard her, his eyes fixed on the window, his face livid with
+terror.
+
+The silence outside was broken once more; this time by a call for help.
+
+A cry of horror burst from Natalie. The voice outside--rising wildly,
+then suddenly dying away again--was not entirely strange to _her_ ears.
+She tore aside the curtain. With voice and hand she roused her aunt to
+help her. The two lifted the heavy bar from its socket; they opened the
+shutters and the window. The cheerful light of the room flowed out over
+the body of a prostrate man, lying on his face. They turned the man
+over. Natalie lifted his head.
+
+Her father!
+
+His face was bedabbled with blood. A wound, a frightful wound, was
+visible on the side of his bare head, high above the ear. He looked at
+her, his eyes recognized her, before he fainted again in her arms.
+His hands and his clothes were covered with earth stains. He must
+have traversed some distance; in that dreadful condition he must have
+faltered and fallen more than once before he reached the house. His
+sister wiped the blood from his face. His daughter called on him
+frantically to forgive her before he died--the harmless, gentle,
+kind-hearted father, who had never said a hard word to her! The father
+whom she had deceived!
+
+The terrified servants hurried into the room. Their appearance roused
+their master from the extraordinary stupor that had seized him. He was
+at the window before the footman could get there. The two lifted Sir
+Joseph into the room, and laid him on the sofa. Natalie knelt by him,
+supporting his head. Miss Lavinia stanched the flowing blood with her
+handkerchief. The women-servants brought linen and cold water. The man
+hurried away for the doctor, who lived on the other side of the village.
+Left alone again with Turlington, Natalie noticed that his eyes were
+fixed in immovable scrutiny on her father's head. He never said a word.
+He looked, looked, looked at the wound.
+
+The doctor arrived. Before either the daughter or the sister of the
+injured man could put the question, Turlington put it--"Will he live or
+die?"
+
+The doctor's careful finger probed the wound.
+
+"Make your minds easy. A little lower down, or in front, the blow might
+have been serious. As it is, there is no harm done. Keep him quiet, and
+he will be all right again in two or three days."
+
+Hearing those welcome words, Natalie and her aunt sank on their knees in
+silent gratitude. After dressing the wound, the doctor looked round for
+the master of the house. Turlington, who had been so breathlessly eager
+but a few minutes since, seemed to have lost all interest in the case
+now. He stood apart, at the window, looking out toward the church-yard,
+thinking. The questions which it was the doctor's duty to ask were
+answered by the ladies. The servants assisted in examining the injured
+man's clothes: they discovered that his watch and purse were both
+missing. When it became necessary to carry him upstairs, it was the
+footman who assisted the doctor. The foot man's master, without a word
+of explanation, walked out bare headed into the back garden, on the
+search, as the doctor and the servants supposed, for some trace of the
+robber who had attempted Sir Joseph's life.
+
+His absence was hardly noticed at the time. The difficulty of conveying
+the wounded man to his room absorbed the attention of all the persons
+present.
+
+Sir Joseph partially recovered his senses while they were taking him up
+the steep and narrow stairs. Carefully as they carried the patient, the
+motion wrung a groan from him before they reached the top. The bedroom
+corridor, in the rambling, irregularly built house rose and fell on
+different levels. At the door of the first bedchamber the doctor asked a
+little anxiously if that was the room. No; there were three more stairs
+to go down, and a corner to turn, before they could reach it. The first
+room was Natalie's. She instantly offered it for her father's use. The
+doctor (seeing that it was the airiest as well as the nearest room)
+accepted the proposal. Sir Joseph had been laid comfortably in his
+daughter's bed; the doctor had just left them, with renewed assurances
+that they need feel no anxiety, when they heard a heavy step below
+stairs. Turlington had re-entered the house.
+
+(He had been looking, as they had supposed, for the ruffian who had
+attacked Sir Joseph; with a motive, however, for the search at which it
+was impossible for other persons to guess. His own safety was now bound
+up in the safety of Thomas Wildfang. As soon as he was out of sight in
+the darkness, he made straight for the malt-house. The change of clothes
+was there untouched; not a trace of his accomplice was to be seen.
+Where else to look for him it was impossible to tell. Turlington had no
+alternative but to go back to the house, and ascertain if suspicion had
+been aroused in his absence.)
+
+He had only to ascend the stairs, and to see, through the open door,
+that Sir Joseph had been placed in his daughter's room.
+
+"What does this mean?" he asked, roughly.
+
+Before it was possible to answer him the footman appeared with a
+message. The doctor had come back to the door to say that he would take
+on himself the necessary duty of informing the constable of what had
+happened, on his return to the village. Turlington started and changed
+color. If Wildfang was found by others, and questioned in his employer's
+absence, serious consequences might follow. "The constable is my
+business," said Turlington, hurriedly descending the stairs; "I'll go
+with the doctor." They heard him open the door below, then close it
+again (as if some sudden thought had struck him), and call to the
+footman. The house was badly provided with servants' bedrooms. The
+women-servants only slept indoors. The footman occupied a room over the
+stables. Natalie and her aunt heard Turlington dismiss the man for the
+night, an hour earlier than usual at least. His next proceeding was
+stranger still. Looking cautiously over the stairs, Natalie saw him lock
+all the doors on the ground-floor and take out the keys. When he went
+away, she heard him lock the front door behind him. Incredible as it
+seemed, there could be no doubt of the fact--the inmates of the house
+were imprisoned till he came back. What did it mean?
+
+(It meant that Turlington's vengeance still remained to be wreaked on
+the woman who had deceived him. It meant that Sir Joseph's life still
+stood between the man who had compassed his death and the money which
+the man was resolved to have. It meant that Richard Turlington was
+driven to bay, and that the horror and the peril of the night were not
+at an end yet.)
+
+Natalie and her aunt looked at each other across the bed on which Sir
+Joseph lay. He had fallen into a kind of doze; no enlightenment could
+come to them from _him_. They could only ask each other, with beating
+hearts and baffled minds, what Richard's conduct meant--they could only
+feel instinctively that some dreadful discovery was hanging over them.
+The aunt was the calmer of the two--there was no secret weighing heavily
+on _her_ conscience. _She_ could feel the consolations of religion. "Our
+dear one is spared to us, my love," said the old lady, gently. "God has
+been good to us. We are in his hands. If we know that, we know enough."
+
+As she spoke there was a loud ring at the doorbell. The women-servants
+crowded into the bedroom in alarm. Strong in numbers, and encouraged by
+Natalie--who roused herself and led the way--they confronted the risk
+of opening the window and of venturing out on the balcony which extended
+along that side of the house. A man was dimly visible below. He called
+to them in thick, unsteady accents. The servants recognized him: he was
+the telegraphic messenger from the railway. They went down to speak to
+him--and returned with a telegram which had been pushed in under the
+door. The distance from the station was considerable; the messenger had
+been "keeping Christmas" in more than one beer-shop on his way to the
+house; and the delivery of the telegram had been delayed for some
+hours. It was addressed to Natalie. She opened it--looked at it--dropped
+it--and stood speechless; her lips parted in horror, her eyes staring
+vacantly straight before her.
+
+Miss Lavinia took the telegram from the floor, and read these lines:
+
+"Lady Winwood, Hertford Street, London. To Natalie Graybrooke, Church
+Meadows, Baxdale, Somersetshire. Dreadful news. R. T. has discovered
+your marriage to Launce. The truth has been kept from me till to-day
+(24th). Instant flight with your husband is your only chance. I would
+have communicated with Launce, but I do not know his address. You
+will receive this, I hope and believe, before R. T. can return to
+Somersetshire. Telegraph back, I entreat you, to say that you are safe.
+I shall follow my message if I do not hear from you in reasonable time."
+
+Miss Lavinia lifted her gray head, and looked at her niece. "Is this
+true?" she said--and pointed to the venerable face laid back, white, on
+the white pillow of the bed. Natalie sank forward as her eyes met the
+eyes of her aunt. Miss Lavinia saved her from falling insensible on the
+floor.
+
+* * * * * * * * *
+
+The confession had been made. The words of penitence and the words of
+pardon had been spoken. The peaceful face of the father still lay hushed
+in rest. One by one the minutes succeeded each other uneventfully in the
+deep tranquillity of the night. It was almost a relief when the silence
+was disturbed once more by another sound outside the house. A pebble
+was thrown up at the window, and a voice called out cautiously, "Miss
+Lavinia!"
+
+They recognized the voice of the man-servant, and at once opened the
+window.
+
+He had something to say to the ladies in private. How could he say it?
+A domestic circumstance which had been marked by Launce, as favorable
+to the contemplated elopement, was now noticed by the servant as lending
+itself readily to effecting the necessary communication with the ladies.
+The lock of the gardener's tool-house (in the shrubbery close by) was
+under repair; and the gardener's ladder was accessible to any one who
+wanted it. At the short height of the balcony from the ground, the
+ladder was more than long enough for the purpose required. In a few
+minutes the servant had mounted to the balcony, and could speak to
+Natalie and her aunt at the window.
+
+"I can't rest quiet," said the man, "I'm off on the sly to see what's
+going on down in the village. It's hard on ladies like you to be locked
+in here. Is there anything I can do for either of you?"
+
+Natalie took up Lady Winwood's telegram. "Launce ought to see this,"
+she said to her aunt. "He will be here at daybreak," she added, in a
+whisper, "if I don't tell him what has happened."
+
+Miss Lavinia turned pale. "If he and Richard meet--" she began. "Tell
+him!" she added, hurriedly--"tell him before it is too late!"
+
+Natalie wrote a few lines (addressed to Launce in his assumed name at
+his lodgings in the village) inclosing Lady Winwood's telegram, and
+entreating him to do nothing rash. When the servant had disappeared with
+the letter, there was one hope in her mind and in her aunt's mind, which
+each was ashamed to acknowledge to the other--the hope that Launce would
+face the very danger that they dreaded for him, and come to the house.
+
+They had not been long alone again, when Sir Joseph drowsily opened his
+eyes and asked what they were doing in his room. They told him gently
+that he was ill. He put his hand up to his head, and said they were
+right, and so dropped off again into slumber. Worn out by the emotions
+through which they had passed, the two women silently waited for the
+march of events. The same stupor of resignation possessed them both.
+They had secured the door and the window. They had prayed together. They
+had kissed the quiet face on the pillow. They had said to each other,
+"We will live with him or die with him as God pleases." Miss Lavinia
+sat by the bedside. Natalie was on a stool at her feet--with her eyes
+closed, and her head on her aunt's knee.
+
+Time went on. The clock in the hall had struck--ten or eleven, they
+were not sure which--when they heard the signal which warned them of the
+servant's return from the village. He brought news, and more than news;
+he brought a letter from Launce.
+
+Natalie read these lines:
+
+"I shall be with you, dearest, almost as soon as you receive this. The
+bearer will tell you what has happened in the village--your note throws
+a new light on it all. I only remain behind to go to the vicar (who is
+also the magistrate here), and declare myself your husband. All disguise
+must be at an end now. My place is with you and yours. It is even worse
+than your worst fears. Turlington was at the bottom of the attack on
+your father. Judge if you have not need of your husband's protection
+after that!--L."
+
+Natalie handed the letter to her aunt, and pointed to the sentence which
+asserted Turlington's guilty knowledge of the attempt on Sir Joseph's
+life. In silent horror the two women looked at each other, recalling
+what had happened earlier in the evening, and understanding it now. The
+servant roused them to a sense of present things, by entering on the
+narrative of his discoveries in the village.
+
+The place was all astir when he reached it. An old man--a stranger in
+Baxdale--had been found lying in the road, close to the church, in a
+fit; and the person who had discovered him had been no other than Launce
+himself. He had, literally, stumbled over the body of Thomas Wildfang in
+the dark, on his way back to his lodgings in the village.
+
+"The gentleman gave the alarm, miss," said the servant, describing the
+event, as it had been related to him, "and the man--a huge, big old
+man--was carried to the inn. The landlord identified him; he had taken
+lodgings at the inn that day, and the constable found valuable property
+on him--a purse of money and a gold watch and chain. There was nothing
+to show who the money and the watch belonged to. It was only when my
+master and the doctor got to the inn that it was known whom he had
+robbed and tried to murder. All he let out in his wanderings before they
+came was that some person had set him on to do it. He called the person
+'Captain,' and sometimes 'Captain Goward.' It was thought--if you
+could trust the ravings of a madman--that the fit took him while he
+was putting his hand on Sir Joseph's heart to feel if it had stopped
+beating. A sort of vision (as I understand it) must have overpowered
+him at the moment. They tell me he raved about the sea bursting into the
+church yard, and a drowning sailor floating by on a hen-coop; a sailor
+who dragged him down to hell by the hair of his head, and such like
+horrible nonsense, miss. He was still screeching, at the worst of the
+fit, when my master and the doctor came into the room. At sight of one
+or other of them--it is thought of Mr. Turlington, seeing that he came
+first--he held his peace on a sudden, and then fell back in convulsions
+in the arms of the men who were holding him. The doctor gave it a
+learned name, signifying drink-madness, and said the case was hopeless.
+However, he ordered the room to be cleared of the crowd to see what he
+could do. My master was reported to be still with the doctor, waiting to
+see whether the man lived or died, when I left the village, miss, with
+the gentleman's answer to your note. I didn't dare stay to hear how it
+ended, for fear of Mr. Turlington's finding me out."
+
+Having reached the end of his narrative, the man looked round restlessly
+toward the window. It was impossible to say when his master might not
+return, and it might be as much as his life was worth to be caught in
+the house after he had been locked out of it. He begged permission to
+open the window, and make his escape back to the stables while there
+was still time. As he unbarred the shutter they were startled by a voice
+hailing them from below. It was Launce's voice calling to Natalie. The
+servant disappeared, and Natalie was in Launce's arms before she could
+breathe again.
+
+For one delicious moment she let her head lie on his breast; then she
+suddenly pushed him away from her. "Why do you come here? He will kill
+you if he finds you in the house. Where is he?"
+
+Launce knew even less of Turlington's movements than the servant.
+"Wherever he is, thank God, I am here before him!" That was all the
+answer he could give.
+
+Natalie and her aunt heard him in silent dismay. Sir Joseph woke, and
+recognized Launce before a word more could be said. "Ah, my dear boy!"
+he murmured, faintly. "It's pleasant to see you again. How do you come
+here?" He was quite satisfied with the first excuse that suggested
+itself. "We'll talk about it to-morrow," he said, and composed himself
+to rest again.
+
+Natalie made a second attempt to persuade Launce to leave the house.
+
+"We don't know what may have happened," she said. "He may have followed
+you on your way here. He may have purposely let you enter his house.
+Leave us while you have the chance."
+
+Miss Lavinia added her persuasions. They were useless. Launce quietly
+closed the heavy window-shutters, lined with iron, and put up the bar.
+Natalie wrung her hands in despair.
+
+"Have you been to the magistrate?" she asked. "Tell us, at least, are
+you here by his advice? Is he coming to help us?"
+
+Launce hesitated. If he had told the truth, he must have acknowledged
+that he was there in direct opposition to the magistrate's advice. He
+answered evasively, "If the vicar doesn't come, the doctor will. I have
+told him Sir Joseph must be moved. Cheer up, Natalie! The doctor will be
+here as soon as Turlington."
+
+As the name passed his lips--without a sound outside to prepare them
+for what was coming--the voice of Turlington himself suddenly penetrated
+into the room, speaking close behind the window, on the outer side.
+
+"You have broken into my house in the night," said the voice. "And you
+don't escape _this_ way."
+
+Miss Lavinia sank on her knees. Natalie flew to her father. His eyes
+were wide open in terror; he moaned, feebly recognizing the voice.
+The next sound that was heard was the sound made by the removal of the
+ladder from the balcony. Turlington, having descended by it, had taken
+it away. Natalie had but too accurately guessed what would happen. The
+death of the villain's accomplice had freed him from all apprehension
+in that quarter. He had deliberately dogged Launce's steps, and had
+deliberately allowed him to put himself in the wrong by effecting a
+secret entrance into the house.
+
+There was an interval--a horrible interval--and then they heard the
+front door opened. Without stopping (judging by the absence of sound)
+to close it again, Turlington rapidly ascended the stairs and tried the
+locked door.
+
+"Come out, and give yourself up!" he called through the door. "I have
+got my revolver with me, and I have a right to fire on a man who has
+broken into my house. If the door isn't opened before I count three,
+your blood be on your own head. One!"
+
+Launce was armed with nothing but his stick. He advanced, without an
+instant's hesitation, to give himself up. Natalie threw her arms round
+him and clasped him fast before he could reach the door.
+
+"Two!" cried the voice outside, as Launce struggled to force her from
+him. At the same moment his eye turned toward the bed. It was exactly
+opposite the door--it was straight in the line of fire! Sir Joseph' s
+life (as Turlington had deliberately calculated) was actually in greater
+danger than Launce's life. He tore himself free, rushed to the bed, and
+took the old man in his arms to lift him out.
+
+"Three!"
+
+The crash of the report sounded. The bullet came through the door,
+grazed Launce's left arm, and buried itself in the pillow, at the very
+place on which Sir Joseph's head had rested the moment before. Launce
+had saved his father-in-law's life. Turlington had fired his first shot
+for the money, and had not got it yet.
+
+They were safe in the corner of the room, on the same side as the
+door--Sir Joseph, helpless as a child, in Launce's arms; the women
+pale, but admirably calm. They were safe for the moment, when the second
+bullet (fired at an angle) tore its way through the wall on their right
+hand.
+
+"I hear you," cried the voice of the miscreant on the other side of the
+door. "I'll have you yet--through the wall."
+
+There was a pause. They heard his hand sounding the wall, to find out
+where there was solid wood in the material of which it was built, and
+where there was plaster only. At that dreadful moment Launce's composure
+never left him. He laid Sir Joseph softly on the floor, and signed to
+Natalie and her aunt to lie down by him in silence. Their lives depended
+now on neither their voices nor their movements telling the murderer
+where to fire. He chose his place. The barrel of the revolver grated
+as he laid it against the wall. He touched the hair trigger. A faint
+_click_ was the only sound that followed. The third barrel had missed
+fire.
+
+They heard him ask himself, with an oath, "What's wrong with it now?"
+
+There was a pause of silence.
+
+Was he examining the weapon?
+
+Before they could ask themselves the question, the report of the
+exploding charge burst on their ears. It was instantly followed by a
+heavy fall. They looked at the opposite wall of the room. No sign of a
+bullet there or anywhere.
+
+Launce signed to them not to move yet. They waited, and listened.
+Nothing stirred on the landing outside.
+
+Suddenly there was a disturbance of the silence in the lower regions--a
+clamor of many voices at the open house door. Had the firing of the
+revolver been heard at the vicarage? Yes! They recognized the vicar's
+voice among the others. A moment more, and they heard a general
+exclamation of horror on the stairs. Launce opened the door of the room.
+He instantly closed it again before Natalie could follow him.
+
+The dead body of Turlington lay on the landing outside. The charge in
+the fourth barrel of the revolver had exploded while he was looking at
+it. The bullet had entered his mouth and killed him on the spot.
+
+
+
+
+DOCUMENTARY HINTS, IN CONCLUSION.
+
+First Hint.
+
+(Derived from Lady Winwood's Card-Rack.)
+
+"Sir Joseph Graybrooke and Miss Graybrooke request the honor of Lord
+and Lady Winwood's company to dinner, on Wednesday, February 10, at
+half-past seven o'clock. To meet Mr. and Mrs. Launcelot Linzie on their
+return."
+
+
+Second Hint.
+
+(Derived from a recent Money Article in morning Newspaper.)
+
+"We are requested to give the fullest contradiction to unfavorable
+rumors lately in circulation respecting the firm of Pizzituti,
+Turlington, and Branca. Some temporary derangement in the machinery of
+the business was undoubtedly produced in consequence of the sudden death
+of the lamented managing partner, Mr. Turlington, by the accidental
+discharge of a revolver which he was examining. Whatever temporary
+obstacles may have existed are now overcome. We are informed, on good
+authority, that the well-known house of Messrs. Bulpit Brothers has an
+interest in the business, and will carry it on until further notice."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miss or Mrs.?, by Wilkie Collins
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